KingKnot

Sunsets of a lifetime - From Key West

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:57:00 +0000

The Engagement Tour

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:43:00 +0000

Pat and I are engaged !!!!

What an awesome week Pat and I had. We went to Miami on Wednesday and Thursday, I asked Pat as soon as we got to the hotel in Miami.

Friday we drove down to Key West for the weekend. What an incredible weekend the people in Key West are so nice, we talked to people from all over, everyone had a story to tell, it was fabulous. We met this sweet lady just out doing yard work.

World's first open-source car hits Geneva Motor Show | The Open Road - CNET News

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:31:00 +0000

I saw this on CNET and thought this was really cool. The auto industry is going to have to adapt, I wonder if this will be part of the future?

World's first open-source car hits Geneva Motor Show | The Open Road - CNET News

The Secret to Happiness: Stop Caring | Illuminated Mind

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:19:00 +0000

The Secret to Happiness: Stop Caring | Illuminated Mind

Check out this wonderful post about our illusive search for happiness.

Balance, Is it possible?

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:00:00 +0000

For years I have waded through hundreds of emails a day, tyring to keep my finger on the pulse of the company. Managing all of computer support for a large call center company meant that I needed to be aware of what was going throughout the company. You never new when the CTO or even CEO was going to call asking "What is going on ?". My inbox typically had over 5,000 messages with at least 40 or 50 needing to be read.

As a result of this type of management, everything got a quick scan, I made quick judgements as to what needed further review and followup. Always with good intentions things got put on the back burner, important things, while I sifted through the pile. I worked on the urgent not the important.

I preached to my staff not to work this way, that we needed to stay focused, work on the core issues, but I was the biggest offender. Eventually I grew to hate my job, not because of what I did, but because of how I had to do it. Email was just symptom of how I was working. For me this is really about priorities, if I don't know what is important, I fall back to the busy work, the emails, the easy stuff.

For me, I needed to examine how I determine what is important, in every part of my life. Putting this down on paper was really important for me. I needed to write down what my career goals were, what was on my bucket list, what personal growth did I want to achieve. In a large sense I discovered I didn't know as much about myself as I thought. Saying you want something and being willing to do what it takes to make it happen are two different things. I decided to make some lists of stuff that I really wanted and I found that what really got in my way wasn't money, or time, it was me. For me getting what I wanted out of life is about priorities. Find out what is really important in your life, focus your energies there, and get rid of everything else.

Get rid of everything else isn't easy, but it can be if we do a little bit each day. Stop doing those useless tasks, throw out that useless stuff. Replace busy time with productive time. As I have gotten rid of the junk in my life, I have come to find a balance between work and family. Take the time to know what you want.

Going from A to Z without all of the other letters

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:00:00 +0000

As I read more blogs I keep coming across more and more lists of stuff. 7 Steps to this, and the 5 Best Tips for That. These are all catchy titles designed to lure us in. We have a tendency to look for the quick fix, the instant success. In my experience most worthwhile things take time and there are no shortcuts.

I started this blog because my life was going through some major challenges. I was working a job I hated, my wife had died, and I just couldn't do things the same way any more. I needed to change. This however was a gradual process, knowledge doesn't change people, action does.

Pain is a great motivator, at least for me. Facing my job day after day eventually led me to determine I would rather be broke and homeless than to do it another day, so I quit. My job hadn't really changed much over the 6 years I was there, but I had. The things that were important to me, and where I derived my self esteem, the things in life that got me excited, those had all changed. I needed more, money wasn't a motivator, I needed time.

Thankfully, I have found consulting work, and money has not been a problem, but what does one do with your time. I set out to force myself to really evaluate what I wanted out of life. I read Tim Ferriss's book " The Four Hour Work Week" and found some real similarity's to my life. Tim talks about Dreamlines, well I did my "Dreamline", "Bucket List", whatever you want to call it, and it expanded it to layout my goals and aspirations in life. Some interesting things emerged, as I went through the exercise I wasn't nearly as clear about what was important in my life as I thought. I had some vague ideas of what I wanted, many of these ideas I really had no intention of doing, they were just those far off dreams that we SAY we have. Per Tim's book your attitude changes when you start putting budgets together and actually planning how to accomplish these things.

I really started to look at some categorization also. Tim talks about Having, Being, and Doing. Looking at the things that were important in my life I found that "Having" stuff wasn't very important any more, "Doing" things was very important, and "Being" was the most important. I have come to see that the stuff I "Have" really gets in my way, my stuff owns me. So I have started to declutter, less is more, less is freedom. For me I have found that there are no quick fixes, but I can and do change when it comes from the inside out.

The Many Paths to Simplicity

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:18:00 +0000

There isn’t one way to simplicity — there are as many ways as there are people who seek a simple life.

read more | digg story

6 Questions to Ask Yourself to Get the Most Out of Life

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:38:00 +0000

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” - Abraham Lincoln

read more | digg story

21 Easy Hacks to Simplify Your Life

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:49:00 +0000

I use these “hacks” myself (in this case, “hacks” refers to workarounds or tricks to reach your goal), and I’ve found them to be effective in many cases. Please note that you might have read some of these once or twice (or thrice) on this blog before, but I thought it would be a useful resource to gather them all into one post.

read more | digg story

Really I'm different

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

After 20 years in IT I have reached the place that the normal approach to things doesn't excite, and motivate me anymore. Do you ever find yourself wondering if you career is making a difference, what is the motivation for doing all of this?

I left the corporate environment back in April, and it has been one of the most liberating things I have ever done. Now doing consulting work, I have the chance to do things that matter, and to spend time with the people that matter most in my life.

It is amazing that we often spend more time with our work family than we do with our spouses and children. I often used to feel that I was like one of these penguins, just going along with the flow, indiscernible from any other employees.

More and more as I talk to friends I hear the same story, too much work, too much stress, and a desire to do something else. The idea behind this blog is to follow my search for a more meaningful way to support myself, and lifestyle that is more interesting, rewarding, and enriching.

Crackberry addiction

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:27:00 +0000

Well, it has been almost 5 months since I dropped out of the corporate rat race, here are some observations.

I was in worse shape emotionally, physically, and spiritually than I had imagined. I had replaced my welfare in these areas with work tasks that filled my time, but didn't contribute anything but a paycheck to my life.
Unplugging from the Matrix is harder than you think. Without a Blackberry, I still felt for my phone repeatedly throughout the day, and I felt the phantom vibration of emails that weren't there. This cannot be healthy.
Success is not a destination it is a way of life. I am successful today!
The iQor world has survived without me, and I have survived without them!
I know I am on the right track when my friends say I am always smiling these days!!!!

Christy's Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:38:00 +0000

For Christy's Birthday we went to Ichiban the Japanese Steakhouse and had a real good time.

New Wheels for Josh

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:42:00 +0000

Josh and I went car shopping this afternoon. We were able to get Josh a 2000 Chevy Malibu. We had fun haggling over the deal. Josh can sure use the wheels, and this should provide some dependable transportation.

Ok, so it was my idea to take the obligatory, "Stand by your new car" picture.

Dads Rule! :)

School Bus Racing at CMS

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 14:46:00 +0000

It was a good time last night at Columbus Motor Speedway. Patrick, James and I all got together for the first time this summer for a night of racing. There was a suprising lack of yellow flags last night that led to an early start for the school bus figure eight. The new pavement in the infield helped alot, the buses were faster, and there wasn't the usual dust cloud obscuring the visibility. The buses went at it very hard with several tipping over. The crowd however was upset when there was no demo derby for the surviving buses. Overall it was a great night.

More Balloons

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:10:00 +0000

Balloons a flyin in Maysville

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:22:00 +0000

Wow,

I had a great weekend in Maysville, Ky. Christie, and I went down to celebrate Mom's 88th birthday. Maysville had there annual balloon festival, and my brother Bob had a ticket to fly Saturday morning. Lorrie, Bob's wife bought the ticket as a Christmas present.

We had to be at the launch site at 6:00am for registration and briefing. It was a beautiful morning and Bob had a wonderful pilot for the trip. Lorrie and I rode in the chase vehicle and had a terrific time.

Indy Qualifying at Mid-Ohio

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:14:00 +0000

I just love the sound of these cars!

Mid-Ohio Summer

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:07:00 +0000

A rainy day at the Rolex race in June. James, Josh and I got drowned like rats but had a great time!

Stripers in Oklahoma

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:38:00 +0000

Well, has been 4 months since I left iQor, what the hell took so long? Leaving there has been the best decision I ever made. I starting to become the person I want to be again, not ruled by the damnable BlackBerry.

Has been a fun summer, just got back from Texas and Oklahoma. My brother Michael is sick with cancer and things don't look well, his attitude however is great and this trip was not depressing at all. We all had a great time!

Michael took us fishing for Stripers, and we hit them hard. I am going to try and make it down again at Thanksgiving, when I go to visit Rachel and Cowen in Austin.

Open source for the Small Business

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:14:00 +0000

I have entered the IT consulting arena. As I am reaching out to many young firms I continue to see the same things. Even well seasoned professionals that should know better continue to fall into the firefighting mode, and put in solutions that are half baked and not scalable.

It is possible to put in robust solutions that are inexpensive, but you have to build in that capability up front. I have seen examples of this recently in the open source world. Many small business look to open source to provide low cost alternatives to commercial packages. The trade off with open source is usually in the support it takes to configure and maintain .

Often times a poorly configured open source tool becomes a nightmare for support and the tech(s) spend all of there time keeping these low cost tools afloat. I am a large advocate of open source and thing that it provides great alternatives for the small business, but with the total cost of ownership, it is not always the cheapest option.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 04:25:00 +0000

It's almost 12:30am, and I have to be up at 6:00 for a 7:15 con call for a dialer migration from Canada to the US. I should be going to bed , but ... here I set. I have worked on my website www.itsd4smb.com tonight and my other blog, and just had to type in some kind of post on this daily rant before I closed up shop for the day.

My question is why do we do this to ourselves. I am obsessed with getting the website going and finding a way out of all of this 24 hour work, but it seems like I am working harder now than before.

At any rate I got a jre problem fixed with Mandriva and Firefox this evening, and got the rss feed working on the blog. Traffic seems to be slowly trickling in, tomorrow we work on content.

IT isn't for everyone

noreply@blogger.com (rayster57) — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 21:00:00 +0000

Well, I am starting this blog to basically vent on the frustrations of working in the IT world. Too many years of 24X7 on call, everything a crisis etc....