HooliBlog

  My kids flew in last Thurs for a visit. What a great weekend! Started off sucky. Their flight was delayed almost 5 hours due to FAA computer issues the day before their flight and bad weather the afternoon of. But they finally made it. It was so much fun having them here. We went to NYC for the day on Sat. We walked almost 10 miles! Even though I am still sore I really enjoyed it. We mostly vegged the other days they were here. Daughter and her BF had to fly back yesterday since they have school/work today but son is staying for another 12 days or so. Sun night we went to Dave & Buster's for dinner and had a great time. I think they really enjoyed playing video games all night and acting like kids again. I'm excited my son is staying a little longer. He joined the Navy and will ship to basic training in May so this might be the last time we have a visit for a while. I will see him when I go to his boot camp graduation but that will only be for maybe a day or 2 and we will...

  It's already 2023?!?!?!? Where did the last month go??? Today is my first day back from winter break. It was so nice and relaxing. I didn't do a thing except a few quick errands when we needed food. I stayed in my PJ's most of the time!  I was able to read 3-4 Star Wars books, plus a business true crime type of book. I binge watched a lot of tv and just enjoyed being away from the office. So what am I going to do in 2023? I have no idea. In March I have to make a presentation at a higher education conference. Should be interesting. I will get continuing education credits to use towards my CISSP cert so that's good. I actually need to start putting my part of the slides together. I found out over the break I have to have another root canal done. Ugh! I go in for the first appt in a few weeks. Yay me. The office is quiet since my boss is working from home today. I like being able to slowly ease back into work tasks after time away from the office. My kids are coming to ...

  Thanksgiving has come and gone and we are officially into the 2022 holiday season. My weekend was nice and relaxing. Unfortunately I had to be on call but the good news is there weren't a lot of alerts to deal with and the ones that came through were easy to resolve. I'm off call for the next 2 weeks so that is great! Then I am on call for 2 weeks, including Christmas week, but off again for New Year's week (which I always prefer). Thanksgiving was low key this year. Wife's parents came up for a few days and stayed with us. MIL had knee surgery a few months ago and is still recovering from it. She was moving around pretty well all things considered. No plans for Christmas this year. For the past 4-5 years we've travelled but this year will be a rest year. We are actually planning on putting up a tree. We are looking at buying a nice fake tree. We don't have a lot of free space in our house so we have to make sure we always have something that will fit. I am ex...

It's Halloween. I'm more shocked that tomorrow is 1 Nov. The year is almost over! Weather has been nice lately. Definite jeans/sweatshirt temps although we do have a surprisingly warm day thrown in here and there. My son got approved to join the Navy. There were some medical issues that initially held him back but his waiver was approved. Today he picks his job and swears in. He says his goal is to finish college and then ship to boot camp next summer sometime. I hope he follows through with it. He's very close to graduation and I don't want him to find himself in my shoes. I completed 3.5 years of college before I enlisted and didn't really get back to it until late in my career. I basically realized one day that I was only a few years from hitting 20 years of service and becoming retirement-eligible and I still didn't have my degree completed. So I busted my butt and finished my undergrad and then my master's degrees. It made for some very long days of wor...

  It's Friday again and the best part is I am not on call for the weekend! It's been a fun few days. I got my formal approval of CISSP certification. And yesterday spent the day in NYC attending a security event for the first time since 2019. It was much better than spending the day in the office. I've decided my next certification will be Linux+ because it looks like I can get a 2nd cert for free. Once I pass the Linux+ exam I can have those scores sent to another organization and get a 2nd Linux certification approved for free. No plans this weekend so it should be nice and relaxing. Might even get a little reading done. Fall is here but of course we get the occasional great day. Tomorrow is supposed to be low 70s and very nice! We are grilling out for dinner since I don't know how many more days we have to do it. All in all things are quiet at work. Hopefully that continues. Until next time!

Fall is officially upon us. I just went for a walk around campus and it was nice and cool. And quiet too since students are off today for their fall break. Classes resume tomorrow so the lively atmosphere will be back shortly. I am thoroughly enjoying the cooling weather. Jeans/Sweatshirt weather is my absolute favorite. Unfortunately it never stays for too long as it always seems to get winter cold much faster every year. Everything is about the same. Work is work. Golf season is over. My wife's niece that has been staying with us for a while is moving out tomorrow morning. She is  heading back to FL to live with an ex boyfriend and 2 other friends. She is leaving first thing in the morning and should get to FL sometime Thurs afternoon. This means we get our basement area back and with it our 2nd bathroom!!! I had no problems with her staying with us and she knows she could stay for as long as she wants but it will be nice to get our entire house back. I plan on moving...