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Hello from the major blog slacker. My obvious lack of entries was certainly not because nothing has been going on…perhaps the opposite. We’ve been incredibly busy and, to be honest, when I get home I have no desire to sit in front of a computer. But things have calmed down a bit and hopefully I’ll actually be able to post some updates soon.
Let’s see, what could I have written about in the last 3 months that I DIDN’T write about? Lisa and I got all dressed up around her birthday and went to the symphony, my family came out for Christmas (including Em and 13 mo old Kai), Indy now is 10 months old and weighs in at around 75 lbs (last we checked a month ago…probably bigger now), we’ve been to the zoo, we’ve been to the Arizona Science Center (several times)…so again, it’s not for lack of content. I’ll see if I can get something up this weekend…I had to write this entry just to get over my writer’s block. Stand by for something that’s actually interesting.

I recently read a book called “Marley and Me – Life and love with the world’s worst dog”, a NY Times best seller about the companionship offered by a couple’s 99 pound madcap yellow lab. It’s full of entertaining tales of this high-energy dog as his owners attempted to tame him into the perfect family dog. However, despite their most noble attempts, the book continued to cite incidents that would make almost any other dog look like a dream dog. That is, unless you catch an uncanny resemblance to your own nutty yellow lab. This being our mis-fortune, we’ve come to regularly experience similar stories, one of which occurred last night in true “Marley” fashion.

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I finally got it…my Craftsman Radial Arm Saw! One of two key tools that should be found in every woodworker’s shop. With this tool I can rip, cut, mitre, chop, angle cut, angle mitre, angle rip, mitre rip…ok, now I’m just combining words. But you get the point.
Of course, I also got a great deal on it too…found a woman in the area who was cleaning out late husband’s workshop. Went to see it last night, paid the cash, and will be picking it up this weekend! After all, can a man really have too many tools?
Now, what to build?

For those of you who care, our site now has its own RSS feed. If you don’t know what this means, then you probably aren’t interested in it. However, basically it means that if you have an RSS reader, you can put the link to our RSS feed (http://www.drewlisa.com/index.rdf) into your reader and it will show you the latest entries to our site, keeping it updated whenever we update the site.
Cool, eh? Yeah, I know, most of you really don’t care. Post a comment if you want more info on how to use this.

It’s been a while since I last posted, and the reason is because I haven’t had any definite things to say! However, now that it’s official I can make the important announcement: I quit my job! Of course, I had a new one lined up. However, deciding between my options was quite a task and I don’t think Lisa was too happy that I spent half our week long family vacation on the phone negotiating job offers.
Nevertheless, I can now officially tell you that I left Accenture on October 6th, 2006 after 5+ years to become a semi-independant IT contractor for Charles Schwab in the position of Senior Systems Analyst. I started my position yesterday and so far I love it! I’ll be working with the stock traders to design, program, and repair various reports that give them the information they need to do their job. So far I’ve just done a lot of reading (privacy laws, corporate policy, SEC regulations, etc) but I really enjoy the people I work with and am excited to get going on the programming side of it. So thank you for all your prayers as they sure seem to have paid off!

In playing around, I decided to test my digital photo skills with some new software I downloaded. The result is this picture above…a mosaic of all the pictures (or at least the ones on my laptop) from when Lisa and I were dating as well as our wedding, arranged to represent one of our wedding pictures. Just kind of a fun thing I wanted to share.
Click the image for the full size picture. Then stand back to see the full image, or look close for the small pictures that make up the large picture. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Five years ago today I walked into the Accenture office at 180 N. LaSalle in downtown Chicago with wide eyes and a nervous excitement about what was about to begin: my first full-time job after college. I sat down in a room filled with about 20 other recent college graduates to begin learning about health insurance, retirement, and company culture. They taught us about the “consultant lifestyle”, handed us our own laptops, and started us on a whirlwind course about how to program an online shopping cart system. It was just 3 weeks before our country would be rocked by the events of September 11th, 2001.
Now, 5 years later, I sit in my desk at our client, the Arizona Department of Revenue, designing a computer based financial system that will account for upwards of one billion dollars a month in tax revenue, leading a team of programmers and meeting with our client daily to discuss how we will get our computer system to automatically reconcile with the state accounting system. I have two computers and three screens on my desk flashing things that need my attention, and my cup of tea next to a bowl of dark chocolate candy to help me through.
Also during this time, I’ve purchased 4 cars, lived in 3 houses, moved across the country, restored a classic car, survived a flooded house, and twice remodeled the same house. I am married with a 6 year old, founder and chairman of a non-profit corporation, and elite status on US Airways and United Airlines. Thanks to my best friend John, I have sipped coffee in a Parisian cafe, camped and sea kayaked in Alaska, savored a nine course meal in San Francisco, dined on amazing steak in Portland, hit the slopes in Colorado, smelled the ocean in Seattle, driven from Colorado to North Caroline in a Ryder truck, and felt the sand between my toes on the beach in Mexico.
Hm. It’s amazing what five years can do.

As you can see from the picture the Honda was broken into last night right in our driveway. Apparently the aftermarket car alarm went off, as the indicator light is blinking in a way that says it did, but we never heard it. And the little pager key chain that’s supposed to tell us it’s going off? Never went off. Last time I go to a discount car audio store (NEVER USE AUDIO EXPRESS!!!!) The thief didn’t get the navigation system, so perhaps the alarm caused them to be quick and not have a chance to dig deeper. I can’t check the armrest for the garage opener until the police get here but I sure hope they didn’t get that.
So I spent the morning waiting for the police to come dust for fingerprints and take pictures. How fun! Ugh.

Yesterday I took Indy down to my friend Ryan’s house to have some doggy time with Cabo, Ryan’s 4 year old Golden Retriever. They’d met before at our house, but Indy was a lot younger…and smaller… and was still afraid of water. Not anymore! The pictures show that he’s pretty much conquered that fear!
We went to his neighborhood park where there’s a lake to let the dogs play. Upon opening the back gate of the car, Cabo was off with Indy in hot pursuit. They made a beeline for the water, each of them leaping off the edge into the water before the ball was even thrown! Indy continued to follow Cabo wherever he went, which made him very easy to watch. Click “Continue Reading” to see more pictures and, like usual, click any of the pictures to be taken to the album with ALL the pictures!
Oh, he lost his first puppy tooth today too! Maybe that means he’ll soon stop chewing EVERYTHING!

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This past weekend Lisa, Justin and I joined Rose and Russ (“Nana and Papa”) and Jason on the annual Highlands camping trip up in Flagstaff. Even though Lisa wasn’t feeling well, we still managed to make the trip and had a wonderful time up in the cool air! The weekend included various “summer camp” type games, lots and lots of food, campfires and s’mores, and a 1.5 mile hike through a lava tube…and Justin made it the whole way! We finished off the weekend with a Sunday morning church service and lunch at Lisa’s mom’s on the way home. It was a much needed weekend for relaxation and I THINK Lisa even felt better by the end of it! Keep reading to see some of the key pictures from the trip (click any picture to be taken to our album with ALL the pictures!).

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