Daniel Voyles

Katie told me to change the sign at work. Now, for those of you who are not aware, I’m working at the gas station/convenience store between my IT job, full time school, and sleeping. The money isn’t great, but I really appreciate the position as the extra income helps out.

About a week ago, Katie (my manager) told me to change the sign at work. I have been trying to come up with something clever and/or unique to put up and entertain/draw in customers. Before the holidays, I had told Katie she had to see Clerks and Clerks II as she said she had not after I made some references that should be plain to anyone who has seen the films.

Katie works at the video store up the street part-time as well, so she rented them. Then, she took them back. She said she couldn’t handle the black and white. I informed her that she had to watch them, and the content is well worth it. She declined.

Once you add together me being put in charge of changing the sign, and Katie refusing to give Clerks the respect it deserves, the result is this:

Hope someone finds it as entertaining as I do before it gets taken down. There are a couple of other shots in my Flickr stream, but it’s the same view.

Last night, way to late, I finally got some photos moved from the camera to Flickr. There weren’t as many as I thought, but if you haven’t noticed, scroll down a bit and they are ready to see.

These will mostly be appreciated by friends and family as they are photos of the kids and family. We have a lot more, but these are the better ones and ones that I feel like letting out into the general public.

I can’t believe we only have one photo of the kids from Halloween. That’s what you get when dad is off running the Jaycees’ House of Horror instead of being dad. Things will definitely be different this year. Time to put the right things first.

As you all know (or should by now) I have 2.5 jobs, attend school full time, play a major part in the local Jaycees chapter, and still maintain some semblance of a family. I have to say that everything together was just becoming too much. While I am still very busy, I have cut way down on my level of involvement in the Jaycees.

Over the past 3 years I have loved and hated my time with the Jaycees and everyone involved. Unfortunately at this time in my life something had to go, and as much as they have helped me grow and make community contacts, they are a volunteer organization. I enjoy giving of myself, but sometimes you have to realize your limits and step back as I have done.

Working at Ecodigital is still awesome and teaches me how to better support IS every day, not to mention it pays. The gas station isn’t bad. My co-workers are all great, and the customers are usually regulars and quite nice themselves. Fixing PCs helps me learn more, and gain some extra cash too (albeit very little). School is soooooo very close to being done for now, I can taste the parchment.

I think that with the slight stress reduction I can continue working 2 jobs, finish school, and still enjoy time with my great family. Those of you who have been emailing support, thank you very much. It means more than you know to hear that people other than family and super close friends care about me and how things are going.

Tonight will be the opening of the 2008 Mount Vernon Jaycees’ House of Horror at 7PM. We’re going to be open every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for the rest of the month. The last week we’ll be open the 29th – 31st.

In addition, Erich’s team will be playing for the flag-football championship this Saturday at 10AM. That will only last an hour or so. As soon as the game is over, I will have to head to the Granada for the Southern Illinois Harvest Festival‘s Guitar Hero Tournament. That will last for a couple of hours and then maybe a short breather before heading back to the HoH.

Sunday should be pretty calm with just the House of Horror at night.

Tonight we will have the WDML Rockin’ Rhino broadcasting live from the House of Horror. That is always a good time with Dave Lister coming out to hang with us.

Hopefully Emily can handle the stress with me being gone, and hopefully I don’t have to be there too much on Sundays.

The Jaycees hosted a night of trivia at our local Elk’s building Saturday night. Em put it together with some help from Kevin, myself, and Hooch. Our goal for the evening was to gather some funds to donate to our inaugural Southern Illinois Harvest Festival.

i have to say that everyone seemed to have a good time, and everything went off without any problems. Even Marcia from the Illinois Jaycees came down and hung out with us for the night.

Not as many teams showed to the event as had committed to being there, but that was their loss. Everyone liked the door prizes we had, enjoyed some food and drinks, and left with a smile on their faces.

I have to call the night a success for everyone who came out. Next time, we hope more can make it to participate.

School has started the fall semester. Strangely enough this fall will see our whole household going to class. Em is doing dental school, I’m in the 3rd semester of my IT Specialist, and the kids are in grade school.

Needless to say, we are running around like crazy people. Erich’s birthday is soon, Emily is getting the shots for her clinicals, I’m running 14 hour Monday’s, Erich has football, there are various Jaycee projects, and then homework for everyone. Wow, that was hard to summarize. I can’t imagine having to say it all.

I have come to the realization that 14 hour Monday’s are going to wipe me out. Wednesdays aren’t bad with 7 hours, I can recover from those. I have to go straight to bed Monday night though. I’m paying for not realizing that sooner today.

Some good news: Emily is wallpapering Erich’s room and it looks great so far. She’s almost done and ready to paint. Trivia night is creeping along. We’re still working on table sponsors and teams, but people are showing interest and giving us a positive response.

Thankfully my evening Linux class is going to be pretty easy. I was one of two with a passing score (if they were graded) on the pre-test. Windows Server shouldn’t be too difficult either since I deal with it every day. SQL has me scared since I know very little about databases, but our Prof seems like a guy who will help us get it and help however he can.

Sorry I haven’t been posting anything but Twitter updates, but as you can tell we’ve been busy. I’ll try to get more up here as time allows. Thanks for the emails!

You should definitely go check out the site of a local guy I met last night – Pimp My Table. I know this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but the man makes some impressive designs with quality materials.

Pace (the owner) came by our Jaycee meeting last night with some ideas. We all chatted for awhile, and then went outside to look at the samples he has in his trailer. I have to say the man makes some impressive products.

Any of the tables he had in the back would more than suit my quality requirements. I don’t know what else to say other than Pace has done a few felts for famous people, and you should go check out his work at the site above.

Did I mention that he’s local and you could have a table of the same quality the professional players and gamers use?

Just a little reminder that the Jaycees will be hosting a Guitar Hero tournament Saturday, July 26th, 2008 at the Granada Center in Mount Vernon, Illinois.

Last time (our first attempt), we had over 70 participants at final count and many observers. We are limiting the tournament to 128 contestants across the 4 categories (Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert)

If you like rock music, the Granada, or Guitar Hero you should come out and see the fun. Heck, maybe you’ll even decide that you need to participate!

Come out and have a good time while supporting your community.

Jaycees Website