June 2004 Archives

I need to get some work done, but I’m having some trouble concentrating, so I’ll flog about for a few minutes and hopefully it will give me some focus.

I’ve been feeling kind of anxious the last week or so. And I’ve little more snappy, irritable, and it’s been harder for me to settle down and get to sleep.

Last night, I tried to go to bed around 2 a.m. but I couldn’t calm down. So, at 2:45, I got some clothes on and took Kermit The Dog for a brisk walk a mile up the hill south of us. It was a good walk. We didn’t see a single car the whole time and the moon was just going down behind the Oquirrhs when I went out.

I got back home around 3:20 and, once again, tried to get to sleep... and couldn’t. I don’t know if it was that I was physically tired or what, but I started getting pretty upset. I was being pretty down on myself— I don’t have any friends here. We don’t do anything fun. We don’t have anything planned for the 4th of July. Fathers Day was kinda lame. Memorial Day was lame. My birthday was super-lame, but that was because I was sick as a dog.

Some of the lameness was by choice, I realize. And I think I was upset about that too- that I was choosing lameness.

Getting Iodynamics into "runaway success mode" has been harder than anyone anticipated and that’s frustrating. It’s been hard for me to remain focused. Yet, I need to or else we risk absolute failure. It’s like scaling up a cliff without any safety lines. I can climb back down (get a job) and be safe and accept that I’m a coward or I’m just not cut out for scaling cliffs. Or I can continue climbing up, not falling, and make it to the top and collect my reward... whatever it is. What is it? A twinkie?

Christine and I need a break... bad. We need a weekend away from home without kids, computers, phones, etc. It’s been five years since we did anything like that.

So, by 4:30 or so, I was sitting on the couch in the living room just beating myself up over how lame my life is.

Christine came out and talked with me. That made me a lot less lonely.

Eli’s been sick the last couple of weeks. He had a stuffy nose and stuff a couple weeks ago, but he woke up the morning of Sunday, 20 June, with a fever. So, I took him to the IHC KidsCare that’s open on Sunday at noon. They diagnosed an infection in his left ear and prescribed 10 days of amoxycillin.

Eli hates being forced to take oral medications, so this last week has been trying. In addition to making administration of medicine difficult, he has stopped eating solid food except for crackers and cereal he can feed to himself.

So, as of today, it’s been seven days of medication. This morning,
he’s still got a fever. We’ve been treating the fever with the
typical ibuprofen-acetominophen cocktails to keep them in check. Because he
was still running a fever, Christine decided to take him back to the doctor
today. They checked him out and declared the ear infection taken care of,
but said he’s got a viral thing in his throat now and his throat is
probably real sore.

The doctor said to finish the remaining three days of the antibiotic and keep the fever in check and he should recover fine.

Far too many things have happened the last few days for me to go without "flogging" a bit.

The "Qwest" for a reliable broadband service provider

About ten days ago, around 3 in the afternoon, my DSL modem stopped working. This happened after a brief power outage which affected my gateway system so it took me a few minutes to bring everything back up before I realized there was a problem.

First, I called XMission--my ISP-- and they walked me through some standard troubleshooting procedures before declaring there didn't appear to be any problem with their side or my side of the DSL connection. The problem ultimately lay with Qwest.

So, I called Qwest technical support (800-247-7285). After being on hold for around 10 minutes, my call was taken by a technical support representative who did a lookup on my number and informed me there was, indeed, a problem with the Qwest DSL network in my area, but Qwest had no information on the extent of the problem or now long it would take to fix.

The representative told me he thought the same power outage that affected my home probably took down some of Qwest's equipment at the same time.

I waited until 11:00 that evening and called again. After a long wait on hold, I explained my story again. The representative told me the same thing: Yes, they were aware of the problem but they had no information on when it would be resolved.

Finally, around noon the following day, the DSL modem worked again.

I was able to live with this incident despite it having cost me several hours of potential time to work. Then, it happened again.

Thursday, 24 June at 3:21 p.m. there was a very brief brownout. The lights flickered once and the TV turned itself off. The brownout was so brief, the digital clocks on our microwave oven and stove didn't reset and retained the current time. Both of these clocks are fairly tempermental when it comes to power outages, so I was surprised when they didn't reset to a state of blinking and ignorance like they usually do when there's any kind of disturbance in the (electrical) force.

Lo and behold, our DSL was down. The symptoms were exactly the same as the incident a week before so I didn't bother calling XMission. I called Qwest and waited... and waited. Once again, I was told they were aware of a problem and that a technician had been dispatched. They could not tell me when the problem would be resolved. Big surprise.

I called three more times over the next few hours to be told the same story. My brother wanted me to order an airplane ticket online for him and I couldn't. I couldn't even use a dialup modem because I have "naked DSL" and Christine and I use our cell phones exclusively.

I asked one of the technicians I talked to if Qwest would furnish me with temporary dialtone service on my circuit for the duration of the DSL outage so I could continue to get work done. He said I would incur a hefty cost to do that. That's ridiculous! They should just give it to me if I ask!

I had to visit clients on Friday, so I wasn't able to pester Qwest much Friday. Christine called me around 4:00 in the afternoon to let me know the DSL had started working again. That makes the outage about 24.5 hours.

The interesting thing about the outage is that my Cisco 678 DSL modem registered a WAN link to the Lucent Stinger remote terminal the whole time I was "down." That tells me the Qwest equipment I was connected to was at least partially working. My guess is the equipment that connects the Stinger to the ATM cloud needed a manual power reset after the power fluctuation. I wonder why they don't have a UPS in there. They should consider installing one now!

Lucy's 3½ Birthday

Because Lucy was born on 20 December--close to Christmas-- we started celebrating her half-birthday in June last year in an effort to put some distance between Christmas and her birthday. It was a great success, so we did it again this year.

Christine organized a party at our house and invited a handful of Lucy's friends over for a dress-up party. They donned dress-up dresses and were given small bags with some play makeup. Christine and one of the kids' mom helped apply the makeup. When they were made up, I took their pictures with the digital camera and then printed up some 5x7 prints for each girl to take home.

The pictures came out great and the kids seemed to have a lot of fun.

Abby	Abby	Lauren
Lucy	Lucy is such a doll	Kamree

Nelson family reunion in Juniper, Idaho

Late June is the time for the annual Nelson family reunion at the Leroy Nelson farm in Juniper, Idaho. Christine's mother is the daughter of the late Leroy and the not-late Lillian Nelson, so that's why we get to go.

We didn't go to the Nelson reunion last year because Christine was pregnant with Eli and didn't feel up to the two hour drive.

This year, we went up on Saturday morning and stayed until after lunch and then came home.

While there, we were able to get a family picture with Lillian. That was fun.

The Barton family with Lillian Nelson

It was hot and windy, but not overly so. We had a decent time. We got to see Jennie there too and she got to see our kids. It was great talking to her and she seemed to enjoy catching up with the girls and Eli.

I wish I had something interesting to write about.

But, really, things have been pretty low-key. The money started flowing a little again in Io, so I was able to get paid last Friday. That was like lancing a festering blister — a lot of stress went away.

We got some green lights and semi-green lights on some other projects this week. We also finished up a couple big web development projects as well. So, things are good on that front.

Lucy and Eli has been a little sick. Lucy’s had a bad cough and getting her to take cough medicine — especially the “yucky stuff” has been a tough ordeal. But, she’s been a real trooper.

I’m getting close to being done with the sprinkling system in the front yard. I need a few 3/4-inch PVC couplers and then I can finish the rest of the system and fill the trenches back in. I think I need a couple lengths of 1-inch pipe as well. Then I can worry about heads. I need 9 rotor-driven heads and four sprays.

So, maybe by the end of July I can get everything done out there.

The downstairs office is slowly progressing as well. I got four recessed lighting cans to put up in there. Once I’ve got those wired in, we’ll be ready to “sheetrock.”

Oh, man! My body’s hurting.

Anybody who has spent any amount of time talking to Jayce knows he’s a paintball addict. A couple weeks ago, I mentioned to him that I would like to go play sometime so he invited me to come along this last Saturday to play in a “ghost town” near Tooele.

Jayce’s wife wasn’t coming so I could use her gun, he said.

James and I met at the Valley Fair Mall parking lot in West Valley around ten minutes before 7 in the morning on Saturday. I don’t know how long it’d been since I ever got up that early... ever.

Now that I think about it, I probably got up that early when I was teaching in Atlanta or Iowa a few months ago... but that’s partly because I was either one or two time zones ahead of Utah.

Anyway, I hopped in James’s truck and we drove out to Tooele where we met up with everyone else at the Carls Jr. near the WalMart. I ran into WalMart and got some Gatorade, Powerbars, some cheap sunglasses (I left mine in my car), and some Diet Dew.

We then followed everyone to the spot where we played.

Jayce took some time to familiarize me with the gun I was going to use. I paid him for the paint and the air and fired a few practice shots off into the distance to get a feel for what I was going to be dealing with.

To make a long story short, I had a blast. I was also reminded several times that I’m really out of shape. While I have lost a lot of weight this last year, I still haven’t been exercising and getting in shape. I lose my breath pretty easily still even though I’m not lugging around an extra 20-30 pounds like I used to.

I don’t know if I’m ready to lay out the couple hundred dollars I’d need to spend to get my own gun, mask, hopper, and other gear, but I do know I enjoyed the experience. If I get to go again, I’ll probably either rent stuff or see if I can borrow again.

If the money flows well in the next few months, it may not be such a big deal to buy the gear.

Jayce has got some digital photos of the compound and surrounding field area where we played. I had my digital camera with me and went up to take some action pictures during the last game but discovered my camera was missing its memory card. I have a spare 8MB card I used to carry around with me for instances like that, but I didn’t have it with me either!

I got hit around 10 times in the three or four games I played. The worst was in the first game where, as Jayce points out, the other team’s guns were running a little hot, I got hit in the tops of both shoulders at pretty close range when I was caught trying to sneak up on the other team by bellycrawling under a trailer. The spot on my left shoulder is a lot like Jayce’s arm: a nice round bleeding welt.

After that first game, the hits were still painful, but tolerable.

The fourth game, I think, was the most fun. We lengthened the playing around into the fields north and south of the compound and put each team’s flags at the far end of each field. Our team divided up into units to manage the center, left, and right. It became pretty obvious they weren’t coming up the middle (I was in the center unit) and we advanced up into their territory pretty quickly. Meanwhile, the left and right units were popping off just about every attempt to advance our direction. There was one guy I swear I hit a dozen times. Either he was wearing really soft clothing (to minimize the chance of breakage of the paintballs) or he was just lying about not getting hit.

Eventually, we got their flag. Whew.

Sunday morning. Ouch. I feel like I’ve got osteo-arthritis and I’m walking on pins. I’ve been a lot more sore than this, sure. It’s not that bad. Just a subtle indication that I need to get back into jogging, bicycling or something.

This week has been nerve grating.

At Iodynamics, we still haven’t been able to do a distribution to partners that was scheduled for May 25. It’s frustrating, confusing, infuriating, etc.

We’ve got a couple of clients that have turned from great clients into problem clients. One is refusing to pay. Another is just being real quiet. Another is telling us they mailed the check... which never arrives in our mailbox.

Our receivables are looking real good—higher than ever—so it’s not like we’re not working. It’s just frustrating.

Chadd tried to tell me tonight that I need to chill out— we need to operate the business the same way regardless of our financial situation. I blew up at him over that. It was stupid, but it seemed really offensive to me that he’d think I hadn’t considered that. I have turned over all collection responsibilities to Mike (and Chadd, to some extent). Right now, I feel powerless, helpless and helpless. So, I took out my frustrations on Chadd.

Mike has talked to our bank about extending us a substantial line of credit so we can get through this and any future in-the-red episodes we might be faced with. Meanwhile, I just don’t understand why these people we worked hard to provide services for won’t just pay.

I’ve been liquidating things in storage in our basement on EBay. It’s earned us a couple hundred dollars. Just enough to keep our account in the black.

When it had been a week or so and we weren’t able to get the funds to cut checks, I was just mad. I was mad at the circumstances that converged at once to land us in this financial lull. Now that it’s been another week and then some, I realize the lull could have been completely handled if we had prepared for it with a cash buffer in the bank. The credit line will help, but credit is never as nice as liquid cash for a shock absorber.

So, we’ll deal. It looks as if we’ll be able to distribute something by the end of this week give or take. Live and learn. “Adversity builds character,” my dad always said. “Be responsible,” he also said.

“Dogs love to chew on sandpaper... Nobody knows why.” Thanks Dad.

Nobody said running a business was easy. Lots of people have said it’s worth the effort, though. It’d better be worth the effort! It sure would be a lot easier for me right now to collect a paycheck from someone else for worrying about far fewer things.

I’m not saying that Iodynamics is not doing well. In fact, this unfortunate situation is a side effect of how well we’re doing. We’ve had a lot of business lately and we have invoiced a lot, but there’s virtually nothing in the bank.

We haven’t paid our partners since the middle of May. That has been tough on me. I had to dig into tax reserves so that I could make our mortgage payment at the first of June. Sure, Christine and I should have a pile of money set aside for times like this, but this last year has depleted all such funds. In a sense, we are going to need to start over.

Come on, clients... cough it up!

Ronald Reagan, 40th president of the United States, died today. He was a man I admired growing up, and admire moreso now having devoted myself to two books about his life, his service and his faith.

While he died today, the world lost Reagan almost ten years ago when he secluded himself from the public eye after announcing he had Alzheimers Disease.

George W. Bush is the most Reaganesque president we’ve had (aside from the man himself) in the last century but he still doesn’t hold a candle to Reagan.

America will miss him but his legacy will continue.

The Sons Of Nothing show on Saturday went very well. It would have been better if more people had shown up, but I think everyone was happy with the number of people who did show up on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend for the show.

I was very happy with how Club Ego’s is laid out. So often, it seems, the venues the band plays at end up doing some funky stuff- like having musical performances was an afterthought. Club Bricks/Sound is a good example of that as was M.C.’s in Green River.

Thom and Tim told me they were real happy with my “performance” on Saturday — that the sound effects and visuals were on-cue and tight.

The really good news to come out of this is that the club has expressed an interest in making Sons Of Nothing a regular event. We have a tentative June date (pending a possible cancellation), a definite August date, and a committment to monthly dates after that. There’s even some talk about a New Years Eve show!

So, thanks to Damon, Jennie, Bobbi, Laura, Dave, and others who came out to the show to show your support (and witness a great show).

I took a few pictures with my SLR, but we’ll have to wait until they get developed.

There’s a lot to talk about. I haven’t decided whether to try to do it all as one entry or as separate entries...

I think I’ll do it as separate entries... that way I can file them under different topics.