Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Asbury Trails



Last weekend a group us of had the pleasure of hiking Asbury Trails. For the longest time I had not clue what fascinating land was just a few miles south of Asbury College. We arrived at the trails on a cool, windy and partly cloudy late fall day. The trees were just past their peak. We took the Old Stage Road down to the river 3/4 of a mile and a 370 foot decent. This small trail follows a creek which has water fall after cascading water fall. Once we arrived at the Kentucky River we took a left a short distance down the Great Wall Trail and discovered a raging waterfall coming right of the Cliff. It was amazing. We crossed to creek and took the much wider Pump Station Road back up the hill, to the parking lot. This area is an amazing geological area, one of the best in the county and in my humble opinion a must more fascinating area than Raven Run. This a a must visit location if your in the Lexington or Nicholasville area.

Location

KY-29 South of out Wilmore to Shanty Hill Lane. There is a sharp corner 3/4 mile down the lane, the farm gate is one the right at the corner. Park in the area inside the gate.

First Baby Gift


Thanks for Rachel for giving us our first gift for our new baby!

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

a blessing of marriage


We are having a baby!!!!!!!!

We are so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The due date is in mid June :-)

Pastor Search Committee

I was asked to be a member for the Pastor Search Committee for Cornerstone Baptist Church, Nicholasville. I decided I would join and our team was voted in. I am one of two guys on the team of seven. I do look forward to the challenge and the great learning experience, but most of all serving my church. I pray the God will lead us to make wise Biblical choices. I also pray that God will help me discern what to say and what not to say.

The Gospel According to Peanuts


The Gospel According to Peanuts
One of the guys at work found this book at the library overstock sale. It was a fun read while on vacation. The book was not written by the Peanuts author Schultz but by Robert Short. Each page has a commit and some type of theological link with scripture verses to the comic. While at times the theological explanation was wordy and obscure, it was clear that there was at time a spiritual message behind the comics. I did enjoy the book mostly for the comics. It is refreshing to know that in certain popular culture spiritual truth can be found.

Chapters include:

The wages of sin is Aaaaaugh!
Good Grief
The Hound of Heaven

Red River Gorge

Danielle's sister Alicia visited us over her fall break. We were able to visit Rock Bridge trail #207 at Red River Gorge. The day was a perfect cool, cloudless fall day. The trees were in full color. This natural bridge is a bit different than most since it actually bridges a creek. We also found a few other geocaches along the way.

Florida Pictures

Danielle and I had a great time in Florida we stayed at the Wycliffe apartments. Danielle's Cousin Nate is a missionary for Wycliffe. He was able to show us around Florida and give us a quick tour of Wycliffe. It was neat to see how God is working with Wycliffe and learn about vision 2025 to see Bible translation in progress in every language group that needs it. While in Florida we where able to visit the beach twice. Once is the early morning to see the sun rise and collect shells and once with Nate and his friend after the sun set. I was able to get some geocaching in, which included dodging popping buzzards near alligator path. With new road layouts Florida seams to be very generous with design. It is was very typical to see 4 lane boulevard roads with palm trees the the grassy medians. There were bike lanes in addition to very wide side walks. We were able to take advantage of the wide sidewalks and go rollerblading one evening. It was nice to have smooth wide *flat* sidewalks. Rollerblading has been a huge challenge in Kentucky do to all the hills. We had a very relaxing and un-stressful time.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Congratulations Dan and Sara!



My cousin and my best man, Dan with his wife, Sara had their first baby, a son , Peter Daniel on Friday October 20th. Congratulations Dan and Sara! You can view pictures from Janelle's blog or you can view Dan and Sara's blog

Friday, October 20, 2006

Where I have Been



create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide
Utah hardly counts since the Salt Lake City Air Port was the only place I visited. I've been told I've been to Colorado, but I was just a baby and remember nothing about it.



create your own personalized map of Canada
or check out ourVancouver travel guide



create your personalized map of europe
or check out our Barcelona travel guide



create your own visited country map
or check our Venice travel guide

Thursday, October 19, 2006

One Year of Geocaching


Last Friday marked one year of geocaching for me. In that year I found 378 Caches in 7 states, Hid 60 Caches, and adopted 13 more. What I enjoy most about geocaching is finding out of the way places that other people have found interesting. I very much enjoy the multi and puzzle caches. Recently geocaching has become less about the numbers and more about the people I cache with and the places it takes me. I'm a bit sadden everytime a search for a micro where there could easily been a larger cache. Larger caches even the smalls offer so much more, include the ability to exchange items and stash travel bugs. This next year I'll be hiding much less, 73 is a bit much to handle and I'll be caching mostly with friends, much less solo runs, I also hope to make it to a few more events. My goal for next year is to reach 500. I have found all but one it Jessamine County and I'm tired of hunting for Micro in urban Fayette County. Thanks to all the other cachers I have come to know while on the trail.

Boggie Boarding.

During our trip to Florida I was able to go boggie bording for the first time since Danielle and I did it in Hawaii. I much enjoyed the trill of the waves taking me towards shore. It was even more fun when I was ridding the big wave in and it would over take in the smaller waves. It was well worth the $7 I spent to rent to board.

10/19/2006 Gas Price Update

During our trip to Florida I was gas prices ranging between $1.939 to $2.399. I was please to be able to buy gas as low as $1.939, Our Saturn got between 31-36 MPG.

I-75


In my life time, I have now been on about 2/3s of Interstate I-75. I consider I-75 the Main Street of Michigan, and the North/South Main street of Kentucky and Georgia. During our trip to Florida I was able to drive through southern Kentucky and Northern Tennessee during the dawn hours. It was absolutely beautiful, the trees where at their peak, there was fog in the valleys near Jellico mountain and the sky a cool pink, yellow, blue and black. I-75 has treated me well for the most part. The highlights of the road that I have travel are it northern terminus in Sault Ste. Marie, the Mackinac Bridge, and the Kentucky Tennessee state line area. I was impressed with Georgia where most of the way it was 3 lanes in each direction where the far left lane was open only to vehicles with 6 or less wheels.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

To recode or not to recode that is the question

I've been learning python at work, the programming language not the snake :-) I've been using python to keep our Informix database synced with our new mysql database. I have learned a lot through the process and I do have it working. However, if I had it all to do again, I would have written my code differently. The question now is, should I take the time to rewrite something that is working great, to write it *correctly*. I sure programmers in *ages to come* would appreciate it written correctly.

10/10/2006 Gas Price Update

The lowest price I saw this weekend was at Walmart in Nicholasville for 1.949 after the 3 cent gift card discount. Gaspricewatch.com lowest price is $1.79. For some reason I saw a bunch of statation jump prices today to $2.29 not sure why.

Fall in Indiana

This last weekend Danielle and I drove up the Central Indiana, the land of *oceans* of corn to meet my parents and Jim & Marisa. We found 5 of 6 Geocaches along the back roads and did a good deal of hiking at the Shades State Park. Danielle, Jim, Dad and I played 9 holes of disk golf in Crawfordsville, IN. We decided that we would play again and keep score making this a Mackiewicz tradition. For the record on the second round Jim won with 2 under par and I had 3 over par and Dad didn't keep score. I was able to redeem myself by winning Rummikub. I went out first twice. Which *never* happens to me. Danielle who normally cleans up in this game, lost big time. It was a great weekend, we even got to see the Tigers win their playoff series and Michigan beat Michigan St.

Here are some pictures I took, I hope to add more later.

Fall Trip with Family
Oct 2, 2006 - 15 Photos

Monday, October 09, 2006

Who is paying your check?

When I worked at Menards, on the back of every paycheck was written is elegant script "From our Guests" as a reminder that with out the customers there would be no paycheck. Now, that I work for a private college I wonder who *really* pays my check. The most obviously answer is the students, and those who give the the college. However things are not all that simple. Students by and large in one way or another are subsidized. Many receive aid from parents, grandparents, outside scholarships, and federal & state government grants & loans. Where does *the government* get it's money? Well, there are the tax payers. But since our lawmaker's think it is wise to fund 1/4 of billion dollor bridges in Alaska to island with 50 people living on them, in addition to a whole host of other *expensive* *projects*, *the government* spends more than it takes in. This of course would be a big problem for any household, or business, but since this is *the government* they can come up with funds creatively, which include, borrowing for foreign countries including, Japan and China, borrowing through savings bonds, and borrowing from the central bank (aka borrowing from itself aka creating money out of thin air aka inflation). So who should I thank for my paycheck? Students, finical supporters of the college, parents, grandparents, private scholarships contributors, tax payers, China, Japan, us savings bond holders, and myself 3 times since I am a taxpayer, savings bond holder, and since I have to *deal* with inflation.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

120K Miles

Our Saturn happily rolled past 120,000 miles this weekend. This is statistically significant since it now has twice as many miles on it that when we bought it. The original owners paid about $14,000 for it and sold it to us for $2,900 or about 18 cents a mile not counting taxes, insurance, repairs, or gas. Our cost per mile so far is 5 cents (not counting all the *other* expenses.) So far we have only had to replace the tires and one part for $140. Seeing as it can get over 38MPG, this by far will be the most economical car we will ever own. We did own a '92 sunchicken I mean sun bird that we bought for $500 put at least $600 in repairs at and drove for from 111K to 144K and sold for $175 which translated into 2.8 cents a mile, but the car was a rust bucket, with no ac, or cruise control and took an water every time it rained. So if the Saturn makes it to 169K it's cost per mile will be lower than the sunbird.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

So long Whirlpool

Much to my amazement I was treated really poorly, by the Whirlpool Corporation. I bought one of their over the range microwaves and it stopped heating only 16 months after I bought it. The micro have only had a 1 year warranty on it even though they advises it to last for years, and they would not budge from the warranty one little bit. I had to pay someone guy $75 to come out and fix a lose wire. I was really disappointed Whirlpool would not stand behind their products and own up to their faulting appliance. I guess they don't value me as a customer at all, since I will never be buying a single thing from them again. I just get the feeling that most of their products must be faulty since they can't *afford* to reimburse the repair cost. In my mind $75 is peanuts compared to advertising costs and the value of customer loyalty. Think about how much better thing blog would have been had they gone above an beyond what warranty offered. I would have bought many more appliances from them in the future. I think I might mail them all the receipts of other appliances a buy in the future. Nay-- that is just silly.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Ohio Linux Fest 2006

This weekend I had the privilege of attending *the* Ohio Linux Fest. I was able to attend with 4 other people from work. The presentations were excellent, I learned some, but I also learned where I need to learn more, especially with MySQL performance tuning. It was fantastic to be around people who use, patch, create and *evangelize* open source software. Being a database programmer and interacting with both closed source and open source systems I know that advantages of working with open source. Working with a closed system is like going to an glass art store where you can't touch anything, they don't explain anything, and there are sales people telling you how great everything is, and signs all around saying you break it you leases it every year for more and more money; whereas working with an open system is going to a museum, where you can touch everything, everything is explained, and you can build and modify the exhibits, and copy them and take them home for free. I hope in the near future I'll be able to contribute code in the open source community.




The Columbus zoo also treated us to a Penguin Show. Which was fantastic since the Penguin in the mascot of Linux.

Yes open source is
free as in beer,
free as in speech
and yes and times free as in puppies.

$1.999 Weekly Gas Price Update 10/01/2006

The lowest price I saw gas for this weekend was $1.999 at many gas stations along
I-75 near Georgetown,Ky. It was a good feeling to see gas *under*
$2.00. I also did a little non-scientific experiment this weekend on
fuel efficiency and driving speeds. This test was conducted on the way to and back from *The* Ohio LinuxFest. On the way there I drove mostly 65MPH and on the way back I drove mostly 70 MPH. The trip was about 210 miles each way. On the way up at 65 MPH
I got 38.4mpg and on the way back at 70 MPH I got 34.3mpg. That translates into
an extra cost of $1.38 at 2.099 a gallon to drive faster and get home about 15 minutes
quicker. Or about $5.50 an hour.

The lowest price at gaspricewatch.com is $1.83 in Mississippi.