Man, have I been busy as of late! Let me roll it down to you blog style!

First up, since about January, I’ve been helping out my buddy Denny over at Polecat Aeroplane Works to build the prototype of his new sailplane, the EZ Bubble Dancer. You may remember that I built something similar last winter, called the Allegro-Lite. The EZ Bubble Dancer is the “big brother” to what I built, with a 117″ wingspan. Denny saw my Allegro-Lite Building Gallery and offered to let me build the first EZ Bubble Dancer. I was elated! It took me a little longer than I had expected, but it was the first kit to be built, so I guess that is expected. I also volunteered to write the instruction manual, which ended up as a 59-page tome with full color photos. A lot of work, but well worth it! Oh, and I also help maintain the Polecat Aero website and have been helping out with Denny’s ginormous handlaunch contest as well.

Even deeper into hobby news, I’ve been helping to organize and plan the 2006 MidSouth Soaring Championships which will be held here in Louisville in late June/early July. I wrote the flyer for the contest, and am pretty close to finalizing a t-shirt design.

At work we’ve been pretty busy! The Interactive Department where I work has seen some changes over the past few months – and for the good! Last fall we added Matt Rasnake, a friend of mine and a fellow ex-Corvus Digital Systems employee. In the interim between the fall of Corvus and Power, he worked for GE on web stuff. He’s done right well at Power, and we’ve certainly had enough to keep him busy. This spring, we added Jackson Cooper, another friend of mine and chum from my University of Louisville College of Business / Computer Information System days who actually interviewed at Corvus a few times. He’s had better luck here at Power and like Matt, is doing very well and staying busy.

Me? Well, apparently last summer I was promoted, and didn’t know it! Now, I’m heading up a team of folks in the Interactive Department and moving into more of a Analyst role while still “keeping my hands dirty” in development of websites and such. I also got to pick my title, which I finally decided was “Senior Interactive Analyst / Developer”. We had a bit of a “Programmer” vs. “Developer” debate up here, and I’ve never been a big fan of title “Programmer”. That insinuates that all I do is write line after line of code all day long, which I’ll tell you is so remote from the truth that it boggles the mind. (Insert your witty puns here, friends).

On the fun and fitness end of things, I ran two miles in a row last night and did not collapse. It actually felt pretty good! Now, I probably won’t be trail-running or doing miniMarathons with Kelly any time soon, but it was nice to know that I could run from thugs or bears for a while and at least give them a decent go for it.

Finally, on the games front, I’ve been playing in a poker tournament hosted by colleague and interactive marketing consultant Jay Lane for the past 6 months, one night a month. I’ve been fair-to-middling placing as high as 4th out of the 21 people that play each month. Chuck Pearsall, Hunter Dixon and Chris Gerstle have faired much better (in that order) with Chris being in first place at the moment! The final tourney is this weekend. While I don’t think I have a chance at the money, I hope to ruin someone’s day!

Softball season is also upon us! Power Softball is in a rebuilding year after a fun year of 1-and-13 ball last year. The same Jay Lane of poker fame is heading up the team this year after Coach Johnny Kitson has stepped aside to go and get married. Yes, I know it’s softball, but dammit I do love anything close to baseball. Also, I’m not 28 yet, so I can’t join up with the Louisville Men’s Senior Baseball League 28 and Over.