BigCat's Blog of AWESOME

Wow, it has been a long time since I blogged.

I don’t have anything right not terribly compelling to post about philosophy or technical stuff, but I figured at the very least it might be nice to post about what I’ve been up to the last couple years.

Work
I switched jobs in 2012 to be a software developer (yay!), and I’m mostly loving it. The technical aspects and workflow fit me better then my controls/EE work did I think.

We released an app I helped finish up, it is in the play store and app store – it is for Trane Commercial building and automation systems, and is called BAS Suite.

Then I got to help architect and build, and for the last few years improve and add on to, another sorta-mobile product called Tracer Concierge.

Family
It has been a crazy and rough few years for me on the family front. Having a kid opened up and exposed existing holes in my relationship with my wife. The good news is that with the help of some really really great friends and a decent counselor we both feel like we’re over a lot of those hurdles, and filled in a lot of the relational holes that had been discovered.

If you follow me on social media you know that none of that stuff with my wife was helped by my Dad almost dying in 2014. He went through a pretty rough surgery where he was basically looking like he wouldn’t make it – but the hard work of the surgeon and staff, and I believe the will of God, pulled him through. You can read more about that on his Caring Bridge site

The Kid is 3 1/2, and a full blow threenager, and she is hilarious most of the time. We feel pretty lucky to have her.

Church
I’ve been laying a little low at church in a lot of respects. Trying to just navigate life partially, and partially because I picked up one pretty big leadership role – I am on the lay-leader preaching team. And it is awesome!

The nuts-and-bolts of it is that we meet once a month, discuss how we are improving our craft of public speaking, and then someone from the lay team preaches about once a month. That means I preach 2 or 3 times a year.

So far, I’ve gotten to speak twice, and I’ll be jumping into the pulpit for my 3rd time on November 8th. If you want to listen or check it out, click on over to the podcast, or here are links to the specific talks I did:
– August 17, 2014 – HEROES OF THE FAITH – WEEK 11: JESUS, BATMAN, AND BILL GATES
– June 14, 2015: VISION & APOCALYPSE: ZOMBIES AND REVELATION

And that is a broad overview of what’s new.

Well, I went an entire year without writing a post. But believe you me, I made up some great ones in my head.

The year has been an interesting one. Challenging in a great many ways, particularly at home. But really great and exciting in some other ways, particularly at work.

I did work some on the next version of my Modbus app that I talked about late last year. Never got super far into it – one part analysis-paralysis, two parts raising a toddler while trying to make sure my wife still knows I exist.

Other miscellaneous 2013 trivia and happenings from the Catlin home:

• Pearl Turned 1, and started talking. She now says entire sentences – mostly “Daddy I need this.” when she wants something from me that I have, or that she can’t reach.
• My first major project at work officially released to the Android and iOS stores. My second big one is I think internally released, and will roll out to our national account sales teams shortly.
• I learned how to cross-compile the linux kernel for our hardware, and get it to boot.
• I met my niece (my sister-in-laws daughter) for the first time.
• Went to Cleveland for my aunts wedding – saw a bunch of family that I haven’t seen in a long time.
• I built a new workstation/server PC, after a decade of faithful service, I felt like it was getting irresponsible to rely solely on that machine to keep my families photos and videos safe (and yes, I have cloud backup too, but still).
• Also at the same time I was building that new server my HTPC’s motherboard died, so I had to replace it somehow. On a very tight budget I squeezed both together, and managed to accomplish a new HTPC by buying a Raspberry Pi and installing OpenElec on it (which is a linux distro tuned to boot straight into XBMC).
• My best friend moved back to the US from Germany – Iowa to be exact. And my Sister-in-law moved to Iowa too. So instead of having no place to stay on the way to my parents house, I now have to pick between two really great options. And my best friend isn’t 7 hours offset from me, and in another country.
• Went to the boundary waters for the first time in 20 years with my dad. (Photos are on Google+). Found out I wasn’t as young as I used to be, and neither is my dad (though to be fair – when he was 32 he could have probably kicked my current selfs ass). But we came back in one piece, and had a really amazing time together.
• Braincell reunion at Rob’s wedding – which was a classy affair. Especially for the smelly kid. We drank, ate, drank, sang some songs, drank, danced a jig or 5, drank, and had wonderfulness well into the wee hours of the morning. And then paid the parents price when we had to get up to drive to the burbs to pick up our kid (from the always lovely Greg and Julie who graciously sat for us) in the morning.
• Ate a lot of great food, drank a lot of great drinks, and had general merriment with the greatest friends a guy could ask for. There are too many of you to list everyone, hopefully this blanket statement will suffice. Thank you every one of my dear friends, neighbors, and relatives, for another great year in which I didn’t die.

And now I’m raising a glass (no really – just picture it in your head if you have to) to another great year in 2014 – may it be even more awesomer than last year.