2.) my family/home life has stepped up. With Shannon working and the kids at daycare/preschool, my mornings are busy getting kids dressed and ready and sometimes driving them to school. Once Shannon and the kids get home, we do dinner, baths and bed and then our my bedtime. Free time gets gobbled up quickly. This has been especially true in our first few months of this new lifestyle.

But probably the biggest reason I have not written is 3.) I have not had much I wanted to write about. Lots of cool things have happened, and I am loving our new life in Nashville. But I did not feel like writing about the “ordinary” aspects of life. Nothing wrong with ordinary, but it felt a bit trite and commonplace describing the inns and outs of my life. I needed something else to motivate me.

I think I have found my tonic for post-lessness. On Sunday nights at our church, I am facilitating a small group study on the prayer of Jesus. It is based on the book The Prayer of Jesus by Dr. Ken Hemphill. Prayer has been a major driver of my spiritual growth these last 12 years or so since my rededication so I am excited to be in this study. We have 14 of us in the class. We met last Sunday and will meet another 5 Sunday nights.

I will be writing some about prayer, the book and the group study here on my blog. Maybe be short posts or long, but thoughts on prayer. I expect it will help me in the discussion aspect of the study to think through some thoughts here. I am sure I will then mix in more the ordinary topics of life which I have eschewed, but now that I have something else to motivate me. Not that I can post every day, but more often than every 6 weeks which is the current pace.

Now I have said. Now I have to do it. Pray for me.

First, nothing about gambling entices me. Many people go there thinking they will just spend X dollars, are prepared to lost that (but only that) and consider the process of doing so entertainment. Not me. I can’t get past the obviousness that slots and the other games are designed to win more than you do. The best that can happen is you get “lucky”, and you quit while you are ahead. Not for me.

Still, I thought I might be able to appreciate the Vegas experience just as an observer. Not happening. Slot machine after slot machine, but everyone looked so unhappy playing them. I heard two or three people yell out in joy during the time I was there, I presume because of their winning something, but the rest looked frankly pathetic.

I also had high hopes for the famed Vegas strip, but it disappointed as well. The buildings were huge, but it had an over-built feel. I did not notice the lights as much as the enormous buildings overwhelming the scenery.

And then it was the small things. Because their profit lies primarily in the gambling, they do everything to discourage from doing anything else but gamble. I stayed in the Rio which is a huge hotel/casino. The only work out room they had in this entire place was was in their spa center, but to use it you had to pay $22/day. Internet service in the room costs $8/hour. The Comfort Inn is better than that.

I know there are other things to do in Vegas like the shows which I did not have the opportunity to see, but those are not big draws to me. I am glad to see it once on business, but I can’t see going back on pleasure.

Yet, I have to admit I have done OK with career. Many 34 year olds have done better, but as I looked back at my job and tried to summerize it in 250 words or less, I confess to having some good pride at what I have done. I have been working now for 12 years since college, the last 7 with DGI.  It has been good, and I hope the rest of my work career is as enjoyable as these first years have been.

Kyle Meadors is a Principal at Drummond Group Inc (www.drummondgroup.com) with expertise in their test service processes. He is responsible for overseeing and administering interoperability testing involving the identity management standard SAML and the global data item synchronization program of GS1 GDSN. Meadors has performed dozens of interoperability and conformance test events for Drummond Group as well as projects on various US Smart Grid initiatives. He is the author of several Internet-Drafts within IETF and has been published in IEEE Internet Computing magazine. Meadors has a BS in electrical engineering from Mississippi State University.

Conference went good and my presentation was well received, but what was most memorable was the trip home. On the plane, I sat across 3 old Amish gentlemen. I did not ask them if they were Amish, but they looked the part with their long beards and very basic clothes, and they were greeted at the baggage claim by others who looked like Amish or similar faith group.

But it gets odder. The airline lost my luggage and I was in the Delta baggage claim center. Guess who walks in looking for their luggage? One of the Amish men. Even ultra conservative fundamentalists can’t get good airline service! Turns out, he was coming from Costa Rica. Even stranger. I would have liked to talk with him, but I was busy trying to find out where my luggage, which by the way arrived this morning in good shape.

But here is something that will make you jealous. Shannon and Jacob are picking me up on Friday, and we are heading to Panama City for a vacation. We will be staying at the Sun Spree Resort right off the beach. They also have an incredible kiddie pool which Jacob will love. We will be back Tuesday night late.

That Monday we went in for our first pregnancy visit with the doctor. We did the ultrasound in his office, and we could barely see little Meadors. Dr. Matt is our doctor and our friend, and he did not take this as a problem that we could not see our baby yet but thought using the hospital’s vaginal ultrasound would give us a much clearer picture. Shannon and I dislike using the hospital’s vaginal ultrasound because it is so invasive, cold and we have bad memories due to past miscarriages. I suggested we take blood work to check her hCG numbers. Matt had schedule two sets of blood works a couple days apart back when we first found out we were pregnant to make sure the numbers were going up. Since we had those numbers, another check at this stage could give us confidence in the state of the pregnancy. Of course, if the numbers came back, the pregnancy may be lost.

We had blood work done on Tuesday, and it takes a day to get the results back. Matt called me on Wednesday and the first thing he said was “I am glad I got hold of you instead of Shannon” which led me to the conclusion the numbers were not good. He said her hCG numbers were 10,000 which is higher than the 5,000 from the last blood work a few weeks ago, but not what you would expect at this stage. Then as he was talking he paused and said “Wait, that is 100,000 and not 10,000. Those are numbers consistent with a 7 week pregnancy which is typically too early to see on my ultrasound.” The shift in my emotions were tremendous, and I breathed a sigh of relief. We go back in 2 weeks to his office for another ultrasound which should show us our baby. Shannon continues to have heavy morning sickness, including the morning times in Tennesssee, California, Japan, Beijing, Athens, Germany and London.

We then get word that my father may have a blockage in his heart. He has already been suffering from atrial flutter of the heart, but the idea of a blockage was very scary given his triple by-pass 12 years ago. I went up on Friday to be with Dad and Mom as they looked for the blockage. Thankfully it was a false positive. However, just a couple of days ago he passed out because of atrial flutter and had to go back to the hospital. Yesterday they shocked his heart back into rhythm to remove the flutter, and he was released today.

To add to the mix, my work last week was extremely frustrating and difficult. It would take too long to explain all the issues. Let’s just say it was illustrative of the saying that when it rains it pours.

This week has been better, but I need to just catch up on little things after the craziness of last week. I have missed writing on this site, and I hope to get back to a more regular writing next week. I will talk about Jacob’s preschool finishing up, our experience with Lexi, our friend’s dog who we have been taking care of, and get to that survey of the 3rd chapter of Acts.

Let me leave you with some fun Friday reading on two company newsletter articles I wrote on industry profiles. Besides my Mom, Dad, sister, Greg and Tori who read this site, I have it on good authority that Lee Scott, CEO of Wal-Mart, Frank Blake, CEO of Home Depot and many other leaders in supply chain retail visit my site for inspiration in living life to the fullest, serving God with a cheerful heart and maximizing the efficiency of their B2B communication with their trading partners. Industry leaders, these articles are for you!

Need for Industry Profiles

XML Encryption Profile

Here is the newsletter featuring my article on SAML. You probably don’t know what SAML is, but this is written to explain it to a novice. In re-reading it, I found a couple of places which could use some additional clarity, but it is not bad. I always try to come up with analogies to tie commonly understood concepts to the lesser known technical points I am trying to explain. I pulled from my 11th Grade US History class for this article. Enjoy.

 Well, it was…barely. The big problem was that the Communications School had a common grading system for speeches on a 1-8 scale. Why they use 1-8 is why Communications degrees are a joke. However, most of the teachers would give half points so you could get a 7.5 in delivery or 6.5 in content. But my teacher decided to stick with even numbers. So if you were less than perfect, like Rev. King was, you got a 7. That 7 out of 8 is 87.5% which means the best you could really get was a B. More likely, you were a 6/8 or even 5/8 which put you in the C or D range. I believe my final average for the semester was a 72 which barely got me to a C. I only made one other C in college. It was in a summer class of Electromagnetics II taught by Dr. Donohoe, a very tough but fair teacher, and that was high C. Yep, my 2 toughest classes as an Electrical Engineer was an abbreviated Electromagnetics II course and a 101 public speaking class.

I wonder how my crazy teacher would have graded me this week. I spoke at a Hardlines Technology Forum conference. HTF is the standards body for the Hardlines vertical. In English, they represent the Home Depots, Black and Decker and other building related companies on the world in helping them use technical standards and software to communicate electronically, like sending a purchase order electronically and what software they need to interpret it. And that is related to what I do with the testing of this software.

Here is the Powerpoint of my HTF Presentation. It is about undestanding AS2 and how it compares to other B2B transports. Again in English translation, it is the most popular way to send electronic messages between your business partners and here is how it compares to other ways of communicating with your partners. The end user customer is oblivious to it, but Lowes and most of these Hardline companies use AS2 in their business interactions.

About 25 people showed up, and I feel I did a good job. I read the evaluation forms that were turned in by the session participants, and most indicated I had a good grasp of the concept and did a good job presenting it. I would guess my grade to be B+ to a B. Much higher than the C- I got from my out of touch grad student teacher.