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Archive: September, 2010

----- 2010.09.19 --------
Moving at the speed of a blur.... Celebrating 10 years!!
Hello everyone, hope you're all doing as great as I am :) The last few days/weeks/months/years of my life have been a blur and things only seem to be accelerating. That's OK... I like were this ride is headed :) The more that's going on in my life, the more things seem to rush by. So, it's been about a month and a half since my last update, but that's OK. I've spent less time documenting my life, and more time living it! However, it's still important to me to leave behind a log every so often along the way. No you sickos, not that kind of log! A journal entry type of log! I've been very good about posting an update atleast every month since I started this blog over 10 years ago. In fact, I think that there has only been 1 month in the last 10+ years that I actually missed altogether, and that was August of 2009. Sure, I've made many a New Years' resolutions and commitments to try and update "more often" (such a relative term!). And maybe even got precise and said I'd update weekly... but to have something posted monthly for 10 years is pretty impressive to me :)

OK... like I said, I missed "that month". Fair enough... got I married... (out of province at that)in August last year and its fair to say it was a super busy month! So, the busier things get, the more I have to blog about, and the less I actually blog because I don't take the time. I chose my words carefully: I don't always "take" the time. Do I "have" the time? Yes. Can I "make" time? No. I simply don't "take" the time. It's there for us to use, you must take it and apply it to whatever you feel passionate about at that time. OK... ramble-o-rama again... par for the course on this site!

Now what do I have to update all of you about this time 'round? Well, after writing "10+ years" in the sentences above, I got to thinking... what is the + and exactly how long have I had this site up? Just checked my archives to find my first post: August 24th, 2000. Wow, just hit a 10 year anniversary less than a month ago and never even realized it! And with 120 months with postings out of the past 121... that's a 99.17% post rate... I'm very happy about that! :) And most months I post more than one posting...but in the past year or so, that has slipped and I'm just getting one or two in. But I am happy to still be getting them posted. OK, so I'm really dropping the ball around posting media (pics/vids/etc), but think site really isn't the easiest way to get stuff out there. To be totally honest, even updating it feels like such a legacy chore! With sites like facebook, I find myself giving a much more timely and intimate update of what's going on in my life more moment to moment. But this site still has a ton of value to me and is worth the effort. I can look back through my archives and reflect. I can't really do that the same way with Facebook... I don't think. But then again, I've only been using it for about 3.5 years. Give it another 6.5 years, and maybe it'll serve me as well as my archive here :)

Wow, babble-o-clock or what tonight?!!? It's getting late and clearing I just feel like blabbing about anyway! OK. Stop. The. Babble.... Get. To. The. Point. .... Point?

OK, summing up the life of Rob Girard since that last post, about 1.5 months ago? Work's going great. Kim & Alice are doing awesome. Sally's officially ours and is doing awesome, regardless of some vet visits and some e-coli in her bladder (gone now... she's healthy again!). The nutshell's doing great... we had an awesome time up there Labour day. Our apartment? No-so-great!!!! In true Rob & Kim fashion... time to turn "good" to Great!. OK... maybe "good" is an overstate for our current apartment! So we found a new house to rent and are in the process of moving. Again. The new place is in the Dufferin/Eglinton area, way across town from where we're living now: The Beach(es). But the new place is closer to my work, and closer to the Nutshell!

Best of all, our new place will be all ours! With Alice growing up, it's important she can yell and scream and be a kid, without disturbing anyone but her parents. But hey, that's what we signed up for! So, next weekend (Sunday), we're moving! This weekend, Laura came up from Windsor to help us paint and we (Kim, Laura & I) painted 5 rooms. They look great! Kim & I were feeling like pretty cool parents. We let Alice choose the colour of her room herself. Yes, that's right. We put a bunch of colours (5 -7 swatches of 6-7 colours each) in front of Alice in Home Depot on Friday and let her pic. She reached out and grabbed one that had a number of shades of greens and teals on it. Then, we had her point to 1 of the colours on it and she chose "Maria" green. Very interestingly, Maria is her middle name. And even spookier, the colour next to Maria was Grace. So what's spooky about that? Maria was Kim's Oma's name (her Father's mother - the inspiration for Alice's middle name); and Grace was my Nana's name (my Dad's mother). Both are deceased now, but I can't help thinking they aren't far from us, giving a very watchful, loving eye over us. Whoa, totaly goose bumps... one or both of them are in the room with me right now!!!! :)

OK, so there's a move lined up. What else? I am registered for the VCAP - DCA exam... VMware's newest certification: VMware Certified Advanced Professional. The DCA stands for Datacenter Administrator and it's a 4 hour, 100% hands on lab. I will be performing the test on October 15th. Because its so new (only out for a week or two, after premiering at VMworld in the beginning of Sept), I don't know what to expect and have no study guides to follow. The suggest learning are 4 courses, each between $2000 and $3500.... EACH. Fortunately, I have lots of hands-on experience, but depending on what they have me focus on, who knows if that will be enough. So, I'll do it and if unsuccessful, I'll have a better idea of what's required so I can return to be successful. If successful, I'll be one of the first VCAP's in Canada... and the world for that matter! In fact, on VMware's site, there's finally a blueprint of the lab, which is extremely broad... but the "Practice Exam" link isn't there yet and says "coming soon". I've read from some of the vExpert bloggers that it was taking people 6 - 6.5 hours at VMworld to do it, and it was only intended to take 4 hours! Anyway, very excited... fingers crossed!

OK, It's getting late, so let me just leave you with a couple images. The first was taken about a week ago... it's Alice, jumping in her jolly jumper in our new place.... with my boots on! :) Kim took it with her iPhone. The 2nd is in response to our friend Greg's comment on facebook: "oh my goodness.. you totally have to photoshop out the blue straps and put a shotgun in her hand... and of course the Elmer Fud hat... lol". Well Greg... here you go! :) Hope you all enjoy... take care and talk to you soon! If I haven't heard from you recently, reach out to me and say Hi! Cheers


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