Friday, December 03, 2010

December Update and Preparing for 2011

Another Thanksgiving goes by and we make a step closer to the end of
2010. It is hard to believe that we will soon be into 2011. I recall
as a kid thinking that when I would see movies and they would talk about
2015 or 2020 that it seemed so far off it was not real. Well, those
years are fast approaching and they will be here before we know it. Crazy!

Kansas Football has ended, but we still have Washburn football to
attend. In fact, Washburn football made it to a bowl game and it is
tomorrow here in Topeka. We can hardly wait, but it is going to be nice
and cold. Hopefully the Ichabods are ready and it is a fun game to watch.

Kansas basketball is well underway. They played a too close for comfort
game last night against UCLA. It was close the entire way with KU down
a few times by two or three buckets. They fought back and ended up
winning by one point which was caused by a intentional miss at the foul
line by KU to keep UCLA from going back down the court to score. Good game!

Carrie and I are planning to have pizza night at our house on December
19. We told anyone who can make it to arrive shortly after 1 and we
would play games all afternoon until it was pizza time. Then, after
pizza, we would again play games. Yes, we both realize this was a week
before Christmas, but it seemed like a good time to do it at our house
and hopefully everyone will be able to do it. I am not sure what games
we will play, but I would imagine Trivial Pursuit or some other similar
game will be played.

Sidney has been interesting the past few weeks with sleeping what seems
like a lot more than usual. He sleeps in my leather chair in the living
room and does not hardly move the whole day. He gets up to eat, drink
water, and possibly poop, but not much more than that. He is so funny
and I love going home at lunch to see him. I always feel bad if I have
to miss going home and I do not get to see him.... especially if I did
not fill up his bowl before leaving in the morning. He lets us know
about it when we get home in the evening if he did not have enough food
to eat. Crazy cat, but we love him!

I heard through the grapevine that Jennifer and Tim had to put down
their dog, Lilly. That is so sad! Lilly had been having problems for a
few years and was completely blind. When I heard about it, I remembered
all of the feelings I had when my dog, Captain, was put down back in
1991. Wow, that was difficult! I still think back to Captain some days
and it makes me sad to think that he is no longer here. I remembered
being in grade school and sitting outside playing and Captain was part
of my "play". He was my friend and listened to everything I had to
say. Sad day when he left us! I know Lilly was a huge part of the T.S.
Haverty family too and so I wonder other than being sad of Lillys'
passing, what they miss. She was always a good dog and loved to be
petted. Farewell my friend, Lilly!

Christmas plans are still up in the air. I know Carrie and I are
planning on spending Christmas day at my parents as of today. It sounds
like we will spend the day after Christmas with the Shirrons'. Waiting
for confirmation on both counts hopefully later this weekend.

Well, that is a good update for now. I had not updated since October or
something. Crazy how times flies by, but I already went over that
earlier in this update.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!! If I do not talk to you before
then....

Monday, November 01, 2010

November Update...

It is hard to believe that yet another year is about to come to a end.
Here is already November 1. Thanksgiving is only weeks away and the end
of the year is right on the coat tails. Wow!

I managed to play a lot of golf this past Summer. I got in about
seventeen rounds and that does not include the other golf played in
scrambles. My elbow (or wrist) did not hurt as bad this year when
playing, but I still did have problems with my right wrist. It did not
cause me to not play this year, but it did hurt enough where it caused
soreness between holes. Oh well, I still had fun and hopefully improved
my game some from the year before.

Kansas football has not been fun to watch at all this year! Bad loses
on a number of instances, but probably the worst one so far was at home
against K-State. Ouch! That was painful to watch and we watched the
whole thing from the comfort of a friends house... I wish we would have
turned away and watched something else, but I just could not look away
from the message. It will be interesting to see if Turner Gil is around
next season or if he will be forced off of the campus. People are
already calling for his head and granted it is his first season and it
has been bad, but can you really force him out after only his first
season? Hmmmm....

Kansas basketball starts up tomorrow night in exhibition against
Washburn. It will be fun to be watching Kansas basketball again and
they are pre-season number seven. Kansas State basketball is pre-season
3. It is going to be a fun battle against all the Big 12 schools.

Other than those few things, there is not a lot happening. I am looking
forward to eating turkey and spending time with family.

Have a great November until next time!

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Geez.... I am No Good!

Well, I am no good at keeping a blog. I try to make reminders for myself. I set it as my home page, but I always end up finding other things to do rather than post on my blog. For that, I am sorry!

Geez, the last time I posted anything was the last faculty/staff golf tourney for Washburn. Well, the Fall faculty/staff golf tourney is just around the corner and here I am posting again. I got a lot of rounds of golf in this Summer (16 recorded). I had some good rounds and the best score of my golf life with a 99 back in June. Obviously, still very inconsistent in that after that 99 in June, I went right back up to scoring right around 100 - 112. Pitiful!

While I am not very good at golf, I do have a lot of fun playing!

I was nominated for the Washburn Alumni Association Board of Directors earlier this year. I went to my first board meeting back in late July. The meeting was in Newton, KS and I even got some golf in that weekend too there in Newton. I think this is going to be a fun experience and definitely something to add to the old resume.

Football season is of course in full swing. The Washburn Ichabods are not doing very well this year after it was predicted pre season they would be contending at the top. They are struggling with a record of 1 - 3. Carrie and I went to the first game of the season out in Colorado where the Ichabods barely escaped (see story and blog from Carrie). We had a great time in Colorado, but the Ichabods did not look very good! Lots of interceptions and stupid mistakes. I said then that it was going to be a long season. Woh!

With it being so long, I have not mentioned or discussed so many things that happened over the Summer. What a fast Summer it was! Wow! If it is like this now at 38, what is it going to be like when I am 70? The Summer months flew! Well, read about our other trip in Carries' blog.

Well, that is all for now. KU just lost badly to Baylor (55 - 7) in their opening Big 12 play. I think I am going to watch some television and see if I can get the television in our bedroom to work correctly after a new cable was pulled outside for it.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Faculty/Staff Golf Tourney Followup...

Well, the faculty/staff golf tourney finished up some two weeks ago or so. We had a great time! This time, however, we did not have any pictures or video. We had a lot of fun and I am already looking forward to next year (Fall). Of course, we drank a lot and then went to Henry T's afterwards to meet up. None of us won anything. I think we might have come in last (or close to it). We had a great time though.

I played really well for this tournament. Probably the best I have played ever in any of the faculty/staff tournaments. I hit one of my best shots on hole number four (par 3). However, horrible putting kept us out of any chance to win anything. We constantly two putted the entire day.

I am now in the midst of playing as much golf as I can get in each week. Currently, that is not a lot, but I do get out at least twice a week. I play Wednesday nights, for men's league, and then either Tuesday or Thursdays. I am also going to start playing either Saturday or Sundays trying to get in at least 18 holes on the weekends. I love the game and I am having a blast at it! I can see improvement in my game from just last years play. I consistently get to the green with a chance of a birdie or a par. However, putting needs to improve as it keeps me at bogey or double bogey. I recall hole three at Shawnee Country Club where it is a par 5. I made it to the green in three and had a chance for birdie. Instead, I ended up with bogey after a two putt. Crazy!

Well, it had been a while since my last post, so I figured I better throw something out here. Sorry there are not any pictures from the faculty/staff tournament. Maybe next time!

Friday, April 30, 2010

Faculty/Staff Golf Tourney

Today is the day for the faculty/staff golf tourney. The weather will hopefully hold up and I can hardly wait to get on the course! It rained most of the night, but now it appears it might clear off. We will have to wait and see what happens. We are to play rain or shine, so as long as the lightening stays away, it will be a good time.

I have only managed to play a few times so far this season. I am hoping to pick that up by a lot in the upcoming weeks. Get in some full rounds instead of just nine holes here and there. Hey, I take what I can get.

Anyway, everyone have a great weekend and I will post a update about the faculty/staff golf tourney hopefully next week... maybe some pictures and video too!

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Easter Sunday and Other Ramblings

It has been a great weekend! Javier and I worked in the yard most of Saturday afternoon.... finally! I mowed and he did the leaves. He would move the leaves out to the middle of the lawn and while I mowed, I picked them up. It worked out great! We worked for about 4 or 5 hours through the afternoon. Meanwhile, Carrie was a bake'n fool!

She made all kinds of goodies. Cakes, two different types of cookies, and marshmallows. You heard me right, she made marshmallows. Woh! They are really good! All in preparation of Easter Sunday.

Before we get to Easter Sunday, I have to take a moment to talk about the Final Four games from Saturday. The first game, Butler vs Michigan State, well, as I have stated previously, I have not really given a thought to who the champion should win since Kansas got knocked out, but now that Butler beat MSU, I am pulling for Butler. The second game had Duke playing Western Virginia. A game I really did not care about, but if I had a choice of the winner, I would have taken West Virginia. Nope, Duke ended up winning, so it will be Butler vs. Duke. I went into the Final Four not caring who would win, but now it is Butler all the way! I do not want Duke to win a national championship. I am hoping for a huge Butler win and knock out the Duke Blue Devils. Go Butler!

Sunday has been great! We met Carries' parents at the club for brunch. Kerrice and Greg did not make it as Kerrice was not feeling well (food poisoning), but we all had a nice time. We missed seeing Kerrice and Greg. The food was really good! I called and I spoke to my parents who I thought was having everyone up for Easter. They ended up not hearing from anyone, so decided to simply do Easter "pizza night". If I would have known, I would have invited them to Topeka for brunch. Darn!

After brunch, Carrie, Javier, and I all went driving around Topeka. We drove out to see Javier's house that he is currently renting and then we drove all over. Javier is looking for a new house, so we drove through various neighborhoods looking at what was for sale. We drove around for about an hour before heading home. Very relaxing... Now I am sitting outside on the front porch reading blogs and posting on my own blog. We are cooking out later and Brenda is coming over. What a great Easter Sunday!

I hope everyone had a fun and safe Easter! The NCAA title game is on tomorrow night and of course today marks the start of baseball season! Hopefully the Royals show up this year and kick some butt!

Until next time, have a great day!

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Who Cares?

Well, Michigan State just beat Tennessee to advance to the Final Four. Do you care? I sure do not care! I really did not care which team won this game. If pressed on making a decision, I would have preferred Tennessee won. But really, it makes no difference to me. That side of the bracket has lost my interest.

Baylor gets set to play and all I can say is let's go Baylor Bears! Go Green! Step it up and knock off Duke. Duke is another team I do not care about in this tourney.

As for me, I had a lazy afternoon. Slept a little, watched basketball, read, and cleaned the bathroom. So, it was not a total waste of a Sunday. Getting ready to head to Lawrence for pizza night. Yum!

Go Bears!

What a Great Start to a Sunday Morning

The sun is shinning and we slept in late. What a great start to a Sunday! I am drinking coffee, flipping channels, and Carrie is making breakfast. Again, what a great start to a Sunday morning. I am looking for a fairly relaxing Sunday. I should be outside working on the yard, but I think it might be a little too wet after the rain we had this past week. I still have leaves to pick up from last Fall ... well, actually, the leaves stayed on one tree through the Fall and into the winter months. Then after we had a few snow falls, the leaves decided to fall on top of the snow. Making leave pick up messy! Great!

More basketball on today and I am hoping that Baylor pulls out a win for the Big 12. The other games on today, I really do not care about.

I just read the blog update from our friends in Texas (Galloway Miracles: A quick note on Beau). I definitely recommend following their blog regarding their two new twins born about a month ago. The Galloway additions to the family were born premature. They are fighters! My thoughts and prayers go out to the Galloway family as their little boys fight. The most recent note, discusses Beau's urinary tract infection. He is a fighter, so he will get through it. You just have to feel for him right now while he is going through the pain.

Well, we are watching a movie on HBO now, so I am going to sign off for now. Have a great Sunday!

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Last Big 12 Team Left... Baylor

Kansas State lost leaving one last Big 12 team to make it to the Final Four. Baylor plays Sunday and it should be a good game. K-State lost to Butler today and it was a tough loss. Once again, there were Kansas fans cheering for Kansas State which still seems just right to me.

Kansas State started off sluggish in the game today against Butler. They were not hitting the jumpers or even the free throws to start the game. The picked things back up after the half, but then found themselves down again mid-way through the second half. The last minute and half of the game it appeared as though Kansas State did not want to play basketball. Throwing the ball away and not focusing on what needed to be accomplished. Tough loss for the Wild Cats and I was hoping for two Big 12 teams in the Final Four.

Having two teams in the Final Four would have noted the Big 12 as a force to be reckoned. A team from the North (Kansas State) and a team from the South (Baylor). The number overall seed of the tournament (Kansas)... granted, they loss to a higher seed in the second round... but there were a number of Big 12 teams in the tournament and two advanced far. I would have loved to have seen two teams in the Final Four from the Big 12 to show those commentators what we are all about. Basketball!

Well, now that Baylor is the only team left from the Big 12 left, if they lose, I will not really care what happens for the other remaining teams. I am not f a fan of Kentucky... I am not a fan of Western Virginia... Butler, well, good job on beating K-State, but I really do not care if they win the whole thing at this point.

It has been a fun and wild NCAA Tournament. Wow! Major upsets (i.e. Kansas Jayhawks), multiple over-time games with a few double OT games thrown in for good measure. I would not even think of changing the layout of the tourney because this is what makes this time of year great!

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Upgrading a Ticket Tracking System

About two weeks ago we upgraded our production ticket tracking system to Numara FootPrints 9.0.3. We had tested for weeks and thought we had the process down. Well, I have spent the past two weeks trying to fix problems with the upgrades. Luckily our tickets to/from our customers are working fine and it is only with "other" projects. It has caused some interesting problems with projects not working, but I am gradually getting the projects restored.

I have one on going ticket with Numara on the upgrade... it started with the initial ticket about projects not showing up. It has evolved to a whole list of other problems that keep coming up. We are gradually getting through the problems, but it is taking some time. A lot more time than I was anticipating on the whole upgrade process. It is fine, but it is taking focus away from other tasks and projects that I need to complete.

Overall, it has not been a bad process. I think we caused the problems partially ourselves. We waited for years to upgrade to the current FootPrints version which caused migration issues with the database and the data. We will get through the steps and resolve the issues... it will simply take some time.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Forums Update....

I decided I better try and fix the dead link for the forums. At this time, the forums are not working. I am not sure when I will get them working again because as of right now, they are not a high priority. Basically, I am focusing my time on other non-web matters. However, I do intend to bring the forums back in the future... or if I think of something else to use there, I will put some other item in place.

For now, please refer to my blog located at http://blogger.haverty.net for current happenings in my life. Well, I try to keep them current. Hey, if I slack off, drop me a message and prompt me along to post updates.

Thank you!

John

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Tough Saturday Night for Jayhawk Fans

A difficult Saturday night for Kansas Jayhawk basketball fans yesterday. We watched the Jayhawks struggle the entire game against North Iowa. We started off sluggish and never caught up with what they were doing. When we had the chance to tie, we let them take a three point shot that they nailed. They UNI played their game and did not get intimated by the University of Kansas. Good job University of Northern Iowa!

Last night following the game I continued to follow Twitter comments while I watched the Kansas State game. It still surprises me how KState fans seem to rejoice when Kansas fails. What causes them to feel this way? Shouldn't we rejoice when Kansas schools do well unless they are playing one another? Shouldn't we pull for one another or if nothing else pull for other Big 12 schools? Well, apparently not if you are a Kansas State fan! You cannot understand why there should be a need to cheer for Kansas.... I guess it is a jealous behavior from KSU fans.

Well, I woke this morning thinking that it all had been a dream. It was not a dream! Whenever Kansas fails early in the NCAA tourney, it always brings back a flood of memories from when I was a kid. Going back to the Larry Brown era when we would lose early and I would get upset and go out and shoot baskets for hours on end. Going through what could have been or where we should have been.

Today I was left with not shooting baskets, but instead lounging around the house. I read some, watched television, and played on the Internet. I did not do much at all. I am watching the NCAA games from today.... currently watching Texas A&M have a battle with Purdue.

I know that I will continue to cheer for Kansas State and any other Big 12 team in the next rounds. I love this time of year and having MY team knocked out early will not change that love. Having my team knocked out early will not make me angry at the other Big 12 teams just because they are still in the tournament. I am proud of the season that the Kansas Jayhawks had this year and I look forward to next year. Another run at the title and another Bill Self basketball team!

Rock Chalk Jayhawk!

Saturday, March 20, 2010

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March Madness and Other Discussions....

I love this time of year! It is one of my favorite times of year since probably grade school. I remember writing papers during Spring Break in junior high and high school with basketball games playing. What a start to the NCAA tourney! K-State and Kansas both play tonight and it should be a lot of fun!

This year I took off Thursday and Friday to watch basketball. It was worth it! My sister, Dina, takes off two whole weeks during this time of year. I would love to do so, but I can probably only afford to be off work for the two or so days; I will probably plan on doing the same thing next year because this was great!

I was able to watch three games at once and then follow the score of the forth game in real-time via ESPN Insider. It was awesome! There is a lot more work to do for the Kansas Jayhawks! They started out flat in the game Thursday night and then woke up in the second half. They cannot afford to do that again if they want to win the national championship.

Well, it has once again been a while since I posted anything. Geez, I was going to try and do so much better. This is not one of the things that jumps in my head each time I sit down on the computer. Well, a post every two to three months will work for me.

I know I need to redo the forums here on Haverty.NET as they stopped working after my hosting company made some changes. Again, not a priority, so I have not gotten back to correcting the problem or adding a new forum.

If you have not tried Google Reader, do so now! It is available at http://reader.google.com and it is awesome! It is a RSS (or feed) reader, but it can also track standard web pages for changes. It definitely makes checking my feeds a lot easier and I can also access the feeds via my Blackberry. Check it out!

Well, we are getting ready to go do some grocery shopping, so I better sign off. It is a winter wonder land outside today after we got a blanket of snow. More is on the way.... This is the first day of Spring and we got about six inches of snow. More is on the way, but hopefully not a lot.

Have a great weekend and I will to you the next time!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Another Long Time...

Ok, I must say it has been a long time since my last post. Once again! Where does the time go? Well, I know, but I think it is primarily just me not wanting to post anything event though I think about it from time-to-time. I keep saying I am going to get back into the swing of posting on a regular basis and then I keep letting weeks slip by without posting anything.

Ah well, that is the life of a blog..... The holidays were great! I always love the time between Christmas and New Years as I get that whole week off. It was almost ten days this year. No, I did not do a lot during that time except for watch movies, stay up late, and have a few beers.

The Spring semester started with not a lot of problems. For the most part, it was one of the better starts to a Spring semester. We are coming up on a month away from Spring Break which is hard to believe.

Lately, I have taken up reading. Carrie won a Kindle at her work and I have been using it a lot. I love it! I finished "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown and now I am reading Michael J Fox's book which I am almost done with... after which I have a list of books on my save list at the library on-line section. Too cool! I have also downloaded a on-line book from the Topeka Public Library connection and I listen to it on my Blackberry over the weekends.

Well, tonight I find myself watching the Duke vs North Carolina game. It is a lot closer than what I was expecting from UNC from their last few games. However, I guess you could see it coming with them playing tonight at UNC. Good game!

The Kansas Jayhawks are going strong once again this year! They are undefeated in the Big Twelve and they are fun to watch. They play again on Saturday and then again on Monday. There are only four more home games which is crazy... again, we are almost to March Madness.

Well, I am going to finish watching the end of the game and hopefully I will be posting again soon. Until then, happy trails...