In true Morty fashion, the smack talk has already begun!  He quickly emailed the “Reedster” and said that we were in and that he would have an opportunity to take my Downhill Speed Record (DHSR)…. ( I hit 48 mph last year as I pulled around Reedster to take the title!)….

Morty to Reedster
“Randy is going to give you a second chance at the down hill speed record.”

Reedster to Morty
“Now that I know Randy’s sand bagging tricks I will be prepared to wrestle the DHSR from his cheating hands!”

Me back to the both of them…
“Sand bagging?  It was total tactical mastery at its finest.   I need to finally hit that elusive 50 mark this year!”

So as they say… oh its on!  I think I found that little motivation I needed to get serious about health… and wellness… and most importantly my fitness again.

RAGBRAI 2010 here we come!

Generally it has worked very well without issue until recently when a weekly meeting suddenly appeared daily in my iPhone calendar.  Every day at 11:00AM or Weekly IT Coordination meeting!

I compared the meeting entry against what showed up in my Lotus Notes calendar on my laptop and viola… no such daily meeting was displayed. Only the correct once a week meeting.   I knew at that moment I had an orphaned calendar entry the Lotus Notes was ignoring but CompanionLink saw the entry in whatever Notes view it was using to sync the data up to Google. 

I discovered that in the Notes 8.5 client I could see the calendar entry causing the issue in the Views By Chairperson view but I could not delete the document no matter what I tried to do.  I would get a couple of different error message and Notes would try to repair the calendar entry and then error out again.

At this point I decided I needed a heavier handed approach.  I backed up my mail/calendar file locally and the right clicked on the calendar entry in question and displayed the document properties to be able to note the document ID.

Next I asked my friendly Notes Developer to whip me up a Notes Agent that would programatically delete the document by referencing the DocID.

The Notes Agent was created as a Private Agent in my mail (calendar) file and set to run from the actions menu with a target of None.

The Lotus Script looked like this (the long Alpha number is the document ID of the rogue calendar entry I am deleting) :

Sub Initialize
Dim doc As Notesdocument
Dim db As Notesdatabase
Dim session As New notesSession
Set db = session.currentdatabase
Set doc = db.GetDocumentByUNID(”C278821541C999D785257685006E8DAF”)
If Not doc Is Nothing Then
Msgbox(”Document found!! ” + doc.Subject(0))
Call Doc.Remove(True)
End If

End Sub

I the agent and then ran CompanionLink and re-sync’d my calendar and the problem was nearly instantly corrected!

She is extremely witty and quirky in great ways.  Always makes me smile or laugh…. because Nice guys finish last! or do they?

Another couple of my all time favorites…are her Build a breakup and Maybe you seem creepy videos.

Check her out above and at www.brigittedale.com

I haven’t gone out with John in a few weeks and we thought we would mark the occasion by doing a little mid week pub crawl…  Decided to visit our 3 favorite local area Beer establishments…

Founders, Hop Cat, and our home base… New Holland Brewery.

At Founders, I had one of my favorites, their Dirty Bastard, a Scotch Ale with a ABV of 8.5.  We thought about grabbing food there but the lack of service or attention by our tender quickly pushed us to hold on food until Hop Cat.

A short walk from Founders had us over to Hop Cat.  Hop Cat has quickly become one my favorite stops.  I love the decor and the beer selection and now that they also brew their own… well they have arrived.  At Hop Cat I enjoyed their own Hop Cat Hopapotamus.  I love IPA!  We also ate dinner and I had Fish tacos, which are another recent fav of mine.  Our bartender was funny and entertaining.

After Hop Cat, we made the drive back to Holland and finished the night at the home base brewery… NHB.  Had my home stay, Mad Hatter in my mug and got a small reward for renewing my mug club membership a couple of weeks back.

A very enjoyable night hanging out with John and enjoying “good” beer.

John and I saw CrueFest in July 2008 at DTE Energy Center (aka Pine Knob) when they toured with Trapt, Papa Roach, and Buckcherry.  

This time around the opening acts were The Last Vegas, Theory of a Deadman, and Hinder.   A great show and a great time!

My 2003 Jetta was repaired this week.  I bought the car on December 1st 2007 and bumped into a car ahead of me exactly 1 week later. The first incident cracked the center grill assembly to the point that the VW emblem fell out.  Then early in the morning on February 14th, I slid on ice while coming to a stop at a stop sign and nailed the pickup truck ahead.  Little damage to the pickup… pretty good damage to the Jetta.   So this past Wednesday the Jetta went into the body shop and received a new hood, new center grill assembly and the front bumper cover was repaired.

Thanks Uncle Wayne the car looks great!

Linkin Park – Pushing me Away  (link to YouTube video of performance)

I’ve lied to you
The same way that I always do
This is the last smile
That I’ll fake for the sake of being with you

The sacrifice of hiding in a lie
The sacrifice is never knowing
Why I never walked away
Why I played myself this way
Now I see your testing me pushes me away
Why I never walked away
Why I played myself this way
Now I see your testing me pushes me away

I’ve tried like you
To do everything you wanted too
This is the last time
I’ll take the blame for the sake of being with you

The sacrifice of hiding in a lie
The sacrifice is never knowing

Why I never walked away
Why I played myself this way
Now I see your testing me pushes me away
Why I never walked away
Why I played myself this way
Now I see your testing me pushes me away

Pushes me away

Life has taken a complete 180 degree turn since October 23rd, 2007.  I never saw it coming but through it all God has been good to me.  His promise has never been broken.  This isn’t something I would have chosen or would choose for anyone.  It definitely has been the most humbling experience of my life.  It has forced me to take a long hard personal look at myself, my life, my being.  Who I am and what I stand for.  I believe I’ve gained an understanding into my personal responsibility into the breakdown of our marriage and perhaps one day I’ll get a chance to share those thoughts with my former spouse.

To my wonderful children.  I love you and I am so thankful to have you in my life.   As Tom Cruise once said [Warning: cheesy movie line coming] – “You complete me”.

Single?  Wow is that a scary concept.  Much healing to do and I am actively working to heal and forgive.

Many thanks to so many people that have directly and indirectly supported me over the last 8 months.  In many regards I’m not sure I would be here in the relatively good shape I’m in if it weren’t for your love and support. 

God bless you!
-Randy

.

A great sampling of Pop Evil music can be easily heard from their MySpace page.

Life is good!

Tonight I am heading out with the Macatawa Cycling Club on the first Monday Night ride of the year.

Birthday Haul – This years focus is clothes that fit -  :)
Dockers Classic Front Khakis – Dark Grey
Urban Up – Cargo Pants – Beige
Urban Up Colored Tees – (3) Med. Brown, Dark Blue, Off Red
Vans Casual Jeans – (2 pair) – Oiled and acid washed
Union Bay Jeans – Faded and acid washed