Category: Illinois

Trivia Night was fun

September 22nd, 2008 · · Entertainment, Illinois, Jaycees, Mount Vernon 2 comments - Tags: , , , , , , ,

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.

Hurricanes suck

September 14th, 2008 · · Illinois, Mount Vernon One comment - Tags: , , , , , , ,

I know that we have nothing on the coastlines, but we are in the middle of the country. Today the systems spawned from Ike made it to our area with plenty of rain and wind.

After getting the kids to Sunday school and coming home to take the dog out, I was watching some TV and surfing the interwebs. Then I heard some cracking and popping, but didn’t think anything of it. The wind was pretty strong so I just thought I was hearing things.

When mom and dad dropped the kids back home, Erich asked me how the limb hit our house. I was freaked-out, and went to check the situation.

Sure enough, a 3-4 inch, 3-foot limb had fallen from the tree next to our house. Apparently it fell on the roof and then the wind blew it the rest of the way off.

I can’t see any damage, but I took pictures just in case and because the wind made me mad. Stupid hurricanes.

If you’re curious, see my Flickr photostream below.

SQL is annoying

September 8th, 2008 · · Illinois, School, Technology No comments - Tags: , , , , ,

Walk into class today with Windows Server 2003 setup and ready to go. Now I just install SQL Server 2005 right? (buzzer)

No, now I have to update my server before SQL will work. Unfortunately, the school throttles down their connection speed so badly that SP2 is not even showing progress at the time I write this entry.

How on earth are we supposed to install/learn on our VMs when M$ doesn’t even ship products that are ready to use in class? It would make sense in my opinion for them to ship prepared products.

But what do I know? I’m just a student.

Here we go againnnnnn

August 26th, 2008 · · Family, Illinois, Jaycees, Mount Vernon, Twitter 3 comments - Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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!

Need custom felt for poker or pool?

August 21st, 2008 · · Entertainment, Illinois, Jaycees, Mount Vernon No comments - Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

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?