I got an unexpected and pleasant surprise yesterday at work.  The company announced a new vacation policy.  Now, previously this was about the only thing about my company that I could gripe about.  And to be honest, we get so many other benefits that it’s hard to complain too much.

However, when I left my previous employer I had 25 days of vacation and my company had a hard a fast rule that new employees got 10 days and that was it.  No negotiating.  It didn’t matter if you were right out of college or already had 10 years of expereience.  So, whenever someone asked me if there was anything I didn’t like about my job, that’s what I’d tell them.

My family is scattered all over these wonderful United States and so it was very difficult to visit them when you get so little vacation.  That has now changed.  The company’s new policy now gives you credit for previous experience as well as adding 1 more day each year you’ve been there.  They’ll only credit you up to a 5 year max on previous experience, but you can now carry over up to half of your unused vacation as well.

The net of the whole thing is that I now have almost twice as many days of vacation this year.  The downside is that this year’s project work is more work than the last 5 years combined.  So, I might be taking advantage of the new carryover policy.  But, these extra days are going to make long weekends to Iowa, Minnesota, Tennessee and even D.C. more possible.  Additionally, I may now have enough time for my wife and I to get away by ourselves for our anniversary for a long weekend or take the kids to a water park over some of the school breaks.

On top of that, yesterday was a payday and I fixed some other people’s apps as well as completing some of my own projects.  It was a big day indeed.

For those of you keeping track at home — and you know who you are — I’m waaaay behind on my pedge of 365 posts in 2008.  What’s the current tally?  Well this post puts me 1 short for the month of March.  Ha!  Take that Kurt!

February was not a good month and it’s a leap year to boot which didn’t help by throwing another day to post in there!  I fell short 19 posts in February and January was only slightly better being short 10 posts.  So, I’m basically 1 month behind in my post totals.

No worries.  Draft time is coming up in April.  There will be plenty of time to analyze, guess, and whine about what Ted Thompson did or did not do and then not be held to those statements come training camp!  I had hoped to write about the Bucks and a run for the playoffs, but they don’t want to play ball in every sense of the word.  So, I guess the Brewers will need to go on another early season tear to give me blog fodder.  Although, I’d rather see them get hot in August and September for a change and charge into the playoffs.

I’ll take another checkpoint in 3 months to find out if this is a hopeless goal or not.  Til then, keep counting…

My friend Scott seems to have worse plumbing problems than me, but it doesn’t mean I’m not going to tell you about mine.

The pressure valve on my water heater appeared to be leaking, so I got another pressure valve and planned on installing it on Friday evening.  Don’t know why because if something went wrong I would have been looking for a plumber on Saturday, but I was confident.  So, to change the pressure valve you want to relieve the pressure in the tank — or so I’m told.  So, I shut off the main water.  At that time it occurred to me that perhaps something was just caught in the valve and not allowing it to close completely.

So, I opened the valve up in hopes that it would flush out anything stuck in there.  And lo and behold, it did.  I was done with my repairs in no time.  I had time to spend with the kids.  My wife and I stayed up late watching a movie.  What a great night.

As I’m climbing into bed, my wife asks me why the rug in the bathroom is soaking wet.  WHA?!?!?

Turns out, when I turned the main water back on in the house and opened up the faucets to get the air out of the line, the first faucet I used was the one in the bathroom.  Apparently the pressure was not kind to the hot water shut off valve under the sink.  When I opened the vanity doors I was presented with a leaking valve and a bunch of soaking wet hair products.  Fortunately, when I turned the shut off vavle closed, it held and stopped leaking.

So, on Saturday I got up, went to the hardware store and picked up a new shut off valve and some thread tape.  Turns out, I was all out and would have had a hard time replacing that pressure valve anyway.  An hour later the water was back on without any leaks.  Man I hate plumbing.

1,000 hits!  I’m not always sure I’m writing useful stuff for other people, but I started this near the end of May and we are now 104 posts (105 with this one) and 1,016 views.  I guess it was at least useful enough to warrant a click to my blog. 

So, thank you all.  I promise to keep posting and we’ll see if it getting to 2,000 is faster or slower.  I guess that will tell me how useful I’m being

Terribly sorry about the interruption.  My family and I went on our annual trek to the Northwoods where we take in the spledor of nature and try to avoid the constant barrage of information we live with on a daily basis these days.  It’s very relaxing and is a good way to recharge the old batteries.

And, My God, the world turned upside down while I was gone.  Michael Vick was indicted, the Cubs are on fire, the NBA is in a world of hurt, and Cheney was actually in charge of the free world for a short time while Bush had a colonoscopy (they didn’t find his head up there did they?).

Although, the Packers are still looking for a new CEO, Mike McCarthy is still trying to figure out how he’s going to make the team better with the same set of guys, the Brewers continue to invent new ways to lose, the Bucks still haven’t signed Yi while Bogut continues to put his foot in his mouth.  Hmm, maybe the world didn’t turn upside down after all.

As a computer guy, I can’t possibly change the default title of my first blog entry.  I’d be thrown out of geekdom.  Would that be so bad?  I dunno.

I’ve debated starting a blog for a while and at the encouragement of a friend of mine, here it is.  I’ll spend most of my time talking about sports which is the thing I like to talk about the most.  I’m not a typical computer guy.  I write software for a living, but I hate talking computers.  That’s what I do for a living, but it doesn’t define how I live.  I’ll also get into some general life experiences and I might even throw in a little environment and politics talk to spice things up.  So, feel free to stop on by and post your comments.

Now, let’s have some fun.