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Chuck's Blog

  • Sometimes it is time

    Building a business is hard work.  In high school my dad came home from a business trip, sat the family down at the dinner table and said he was starting his own business.  Over the next 10 plus years I watched my dad build 2 businesses (they were both franchises of Jersey Mikes) and I feel blessed to have worked as one of his employees.  There were many late nights, long hours, and coming home smelling like banana peppers, onions and bleach.  I wouldn't trade it for the world.  It made me who I am.  I can't speak for him, but I'm sure my dad would say the same thing now that he is retired.

    About 10 years ago my friend Brad Hill asked me to volunteer and help build a system to manage our church’s website.  Several years later and a shared experience at a dot com bomb, Brad again asked me to help take the platform and turn it into a business.  Most of you know that business now as SiteOrganic

     

    Sometimes it is time.

     

    There has been a lot of change in the circle of people I follow online.  Some I know personally, some I would like to meet some day.  Phil Haack has moved from Microsoft to GitHubJeff Atwood moved on from StackExchange, Curtis Simmons moved from Fellowship Technologies to StuckInCustoms, and Nick Floyd (also from Fellowship Tech) recently moved on to NewRelic.  Is it the spring, the cycle of the years or the phase of the moon?

     

    Sometimes it is time. 

     

    I'm moving on.  That is very hard to say.  I'm moving on.  It is hard to say to yourself, hard to say to your boss, hard to say to your friends and coworkers, hard to make the decision with your family.  I couldn't imagine what my father was thinking and feeling when he told us he was switching jobs, until now.  I’m sure he had those same swirling thoughts of fear, change, and uncertainty. 

     

    On April 7, 2012 I had that conversation with my family.  My daughter who is 8 (going on 18 by the way) and my son who is 6 have known nothing else.  Brad is like an uncle to them, my other coworkers like cousins.  When my kids come to the office, it is like a big play date.  At the dinner table Jeannie and I told our kids, sometimes it is time. 

    Many tears, many questions, lots of fear, much heartbreak. 

     

    Sometimes it is time. 

     

    Sometimes it is time to grow.  Sometimes it is time to grow as a Christian, person, a father, a technologist.  Sometimes it is time to stretch and grow in a different direction.  I've worked for Brad and SiteOrganic longer than any other company, even my father.  Sometimes it is time to do something new. 

     

    My last day at SiteOrganic will be May 4, 2012.  I leave SiteOrganic in very capable hands and I'm extremely proud of the business and the platform I helped to build.  If you are a customer of SiteOrganic reading this, you should be proud of the team you have chosen to walk with you in web based ministry.  You have chosen the BEST team to support you in your ministry.  Their heart for what you do is enormous and they truly care that you receive the best service and support.  Most of you won't get to see how the sausage is made, often it is messy, but it always for you, your ministry and most importantly the Kingdom. 

     

    Sometimes it is time.

     

  • Response from Jim Webb

    Once again, I'm amazed at how shortsighted our leaders are when it comes to fiscal responsibility for our nation.  Here is a response I received from my Senator, The Honorable Jim Webb after sending him a note several months ago.

    Dear Mr. Boyer:

     

    Thank you for contacting my office regarding federal spending and the budget.

    The fiscal year 2010 budget was passed against the backdrop of one of the worst recessions in this nation's history and, while imperfect, it reflects that harsh reality. The budget is an important step in reversing the failed economic policies of the past, restoring jobs and a vibrant economy in this nation.

    No one is happy with the projected growth of the public debt. But I accept this additional spending and recognize that it is a necessary, short-term evil in the midst of such a severe recession. Put simply, at a time of soaring unemployment, a severe housing crisis, stagnant wages, and business contraction, we cannot restrict critical investments in national defense, education, and other critical areas that will help vulnerable Americans weather this storm.

    The deficits called for in this resolution, while necessary in the short-term to combat the recession, are unacceptable over the long-term. As this economy recovers, we should strictly hold the administration to its promise to achieve significant deficit reduction and to move us back toward the surpluses that were achieved during the late 1990s. I believe that over the long run, fiscal discipline and balanced budgets form the best foundation for a strong economic future.

    As the U.S. Senate continues to address budget issues, please be assured that your views will be very helpful to me and my staff. I hope that you will continue to share your views with us in the years ahead.

    I would also invite you to visit my website at www.webb.senate.gov for regular updates about my activities and positions on matters that are important to Virginia and our nation.

    Sincerely,
    Jim Webb
    United States Senator

    With respect sir, why don't you cut some spending instead going along blindly with your party and our President and TRIPLING the deficits in less than 3 months!  You are obviously not listening to your constituents by burdening their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren with a debt that equals the debt of the previous 42 administrations.  Sir, spending in the short term does nothing but increase our debt load.  The only thing that will decrease the debt load is to cut spending.  Based on this response, I will do my part to vote you out of office come the next election.

    Quoting Dave Ramsey, "Live like no one else, so you can live like no one else."  It is time to cut up the governments credit cards and put an end to the madness.

     

  • An open letter to America on Fiscal Responsibility

    With all that has been going on these last couple of years with our economic times, I feel the call to write about the problem in a clear and concise manner.  You won't hear any thing about derivative securities or sub prime mortgages or [insert industry here -- banking, auto, etc] bail out.  Let me be as clear as possible and bring it back to 5th grade math. 

    Do not spend more than you make.
    What you do not spend, save.

    My kindergartener had a hard lesson yesterday at the the elementary school book fair.  Her mom and I gave her $5 to spend and she could add however much she wanted from her spending money.  The total was $7.76.  Now most books at the fair were about $4 and she had her eye on 2 particular books. (Here is your 5th grade math lesson - 2 books at $4 each is $8 total.  $8 is more than $7.76.)  During the deliberations mom and I discussed whether or not to give her some extra change to cover both.  The decision was to let her make the hard choice. Now before you say that we are cruel to not give her what she wanted, think about what she learned yesterday.

    You can't spend more than you have.

    A hard lesson, but one we should all relearn.

  • Apple releases a new product

  • America's (lack of) defense under Obama

    Obama's plan for your national defense:
  • Save a Life

  • 3 Ways to Lower Gas Prices - From Americansolutions.com

  • Resize MS VPC Virtual Hard Disk

    Well, I ran out of disk space today on my VPC image that I do a lot of my software development on specifically for SiteOrganic.  A quick Google search lead me to vmtoolkit.com.  After running the VHD Resizer and following the steps in this post everything is hunky dory. My host OS is Vista Ultimate and my Virtual OS is Windows 2003 Server

     

    Here were the steps I used:

    • Ran VHD Resizer to go from a 10 GB volume to a 20 GB volume
    • In the VPC settings, set the new vhd file as a secondary drive
    • Boot using the ORIGINAL Virtual image
    • open a command prompt
    • type c:\diskpart
    • type list volume
    • determine which volume is the should be the new one.  In my case it was volume 0 (Drive E)
    • type select volume 0 (your # might be different)
    • type extend
    • Shut down VPC
    • In the VPC settings, remove the second drive, select the NEW vhd as your hard drive 1
    • Start the instance

    You should now be running under the new vhd with the extended drive space.

     

    As always, your millage may vary so make a backup of your vhd before you loose anything.

  • Fishing at the lake

    We had a bit of an impromptu trip out to Lake Frederick to see the Boyer grandparents today.  The kids had a fun time and as you can see, Sammie caught her first 2 fishies! Smile

     

     

     

     

  • Building - Week 11

    Here we are, week 11.  Wow how time flies, just 10 days until we do our final walk through.  Batteries were running a bit low on the camera this weekend so we didn't have quite as many pictures to choose from to share with you.  The ones we do have are pretty good though.  You can check them out here.  Most of the light fixtures are in, still waiting on some kitchen appliances, and the flooring to go in.  I would guess that flooring will be this week some time.

     

  • Building - Week 10

    Wow!  Has it been that long since I wrote an update on the house?  We've been quite busy as a family with a trip to the beach, illnesses, and a trip to Pittsburgh to visit family.  The crew has been busy on the house in our absence though and they've made wonderful progress.  It is official, we do our final walkthrough on May 15 and settlement is on May 22.  That's right, in about a month we'll be moving in!  Anyway feel free to check out some new pictures.

     

     

     

  • Virginia Tech...one year later.

    Hard to believe it has been a year.

     http://www.remembrance.vt.edu/

  • Building - Week 6

    Well, this post is a bit late (acutally in week 7 now) but we went on vacation this weekend to Kure Beach, NC to get a break from everything.  Here are some pictures for this week.  Most of the ones we took were for the pre drywall inspection for wiring and plumbing.  The big change you'll probably notice is the brick front! Smile.

     

  • Bible proving Science

    It is amazing to me that the more we discover using Scientific techniques how much more clear the Bible becomes.  Here is an article on Foxnews.com about an eye witness account of the distruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

  • Hulu

    Now we know why NBC was so zealous last year about having Saturday Night Live clips taken off of YouTube.  They released Hulu last week to the public and I have to say they've done a wonderful job.  The site is easy to use and the video quality is excellent.  Check it out at www.hulu.com
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