Winter weather travel

Today and tomorrow are a whirl-wind trip to Tulsa, Dallas and back home to Houston. Right now, it's the end of a long day and I find myself sitting in a fairly comfortable hotel in Dallas, where it's snowing.

I got up this morning at 4:20 and was on a plane by the time the boys woke up for school. Tulsa was the first stop for the day. I spent some time at a client updating part of their document management system (MOSS) and waiting for my colleague to join me so that we could do a production install of the system, and then migrate the development environment to the new prod instance. Not to be, however. He was scheduled for a later flight and fell victim to the line of storms - snow, ice and rain - extending from Chicago all the way to Houston.

When I arrived in Tulsa, it was snowing a little bit, I grabbed a cab to the client's office and got to work. By mid afternoon, I was done, so headed to the airport for the flight to Dallas. Flight was slightly delayed, but nothing like what I expected, given the weather. I made it to Dallas by 4:45 and headed to the hotel to check in.

Once here in Dallas, I got settled into the hotel and changed for a trip to Stoneworks Rock Gym in Carrollton - about 5 miles from the hotel. I bouldered around there for about an hour, then headed to Pei Wei for dinner. The rain picked up pretty strong while I drove from the gym to dinner; during dinner, it changed to snow.

This evening, I think I'll finish a magazine I started reading at dinner and then dig back into a book I started last week (Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer). Tomorrow finds me booked with conference calls starting at 8:30, a meeting with Microsoft on our eDiscovery services, and lunch with a potential client. Then it's back to Houston in the late afternoon, early enough so that I can go vote.

Spring Camp Out

We had a fantastic Cub Scout camp out this weekend at Jack Webb's ranch in Chapel Hill. The weather was beautiful - not too hot, not too cold, no rain, and decent sunshine.

We camped in the rolling hills of a pasture surrounded by clumps of overbrush, live oaks, some pines, and perhaps some maples. There was a nice little creek running through the pasture with a few log crossings and a small footbridge. The boys didn't feel obligated to cross on those, though - several ended up soaked.

Jackson and Porter were both presented their Scout ranks at the camp fire - Wolf for Jackson and Tiger for Porter. Also at the camp fire, we retired the school's old American flag - a truly beautiful ceremony, full of pride and patriotism. To close the evening, several of us gathered around the dying fire to say the rosary, for which we'll earn a patch from the National Council on Catholic Scouting.

The boys and I slept well Saturday night and woke early Sunday for breakfast with our friends. Jaime Brito and I made a breakfast of bacon, eggs and sausage - with fruit, cereal and anything left over from dinner that anyone wanted warmed up. Pat Swanson led a Scout's Own service at 8:30 and shared with us the poem "IF" by Rudyard Kipling. I was moved to tears - the poem was just what I needed. I believe God sends us messages in so many ways, and today he did so as I stood with my boys among friends at a camp out.

The boys are understandably wiped out. It was a good weekend.

Quick Turn Trip

Today was a quick trip up and back to Tulsa for some time with one of my staff and time on-site at a client. Day trips are good, since they keep me home in my own bed at night, but they mean extra long hours for the day. Today, I got up at 4:30 and didn't get back home until near 9. That's typical of a day trip.

One for the kids

So the boys asked this evening, "Dad, do we have a website?" Actually, yes we do - but I haven't had the time or inclination to keep it up the past year or so with all the changes in life. That said, I'm going to give it another go and see if Jackson and Porter eventually get interested in what goes on in their family site.

We'll see! Over the next few days I'll bring the journal to current from the past year - hitting the highlights of family, work and personal fun in 2007.