At the title states, Yes I am still alive and kicking :)

Haven't had must chance to get much writing done, only a few paragraphs here and there. Work seems to be an endless catastrophe or reaction rather than prevention. I also made the mistake of saying something about looking forward to retirement and that opened another can of worms as the higher-ups fear that my knowledge will be lost and now among everything else that it seems only I can do, I must train two others in all the crap that I do.

Of course management thinks the best way is to schedule the training, instead of what I suggested of grabbing the ones they wish trained when one of those interesting problems occur that no one else seems to have the ability to take care of and have them tag along so I can explain the thought process used to diagnose and correct the problem to two people that don't even have a basic understanding of networking, DHCP and static IP configuration and subnetting!

On a better note, the little one (OK she isn't so little anymore at 12 years old) has far surpassed the old guy that got her started on the Violin in the couple of years that she has been playing now. Okay I was never that good on one as I only fiddled around with them (yes that pun was intended) She has taken up the Flute in the Jr. high band and I have to say is pretty impressive on that for the time she has been playing. She has gotten as good as I am on the Mandolin (tuned the same as a violin for those that didn't know)

She has also taken an interest into having me teach her the guitar and the 5 string banjo. Both she wished to learn but only fiddled with (there's that pun again) with until the past couple of weeks. She seems to be more inclined to start really learning the guitar as her next instrument. biggest pitfall I'm having to overcome is she really wants to use my 12 string guitar instead of one of the 6 strings.

Her interest in these reared its head when I took her to a little traditional music jamboree a couple of weeks ago where the group playing old time country got to talking with us during one of their breaks found out she played the violin and invited her on stage with them loaning her a violin to play. (She is insisting we play with them more often and I bring my mountain dulcimer since they don't have one in their band. Yes she got information on where they played weekly)

So today, an average day at home. Spent a hour with a flute playing 3 feet away from my ear (you know how loud those things are?) while I was trying to write. Then another hour of violin practice, which she did take requests that I enjoyed listening to :) After which I had to become more involved in as she picked up the guitar and insisted I begin teaching her the flat picking of wildwood flower since sometime in the past I had told her it was the first song I learned on the guitar. Sometime before my fingers actually began to bleed she decided I could use a break and switched to the banjo, which I had to sit and go over the finger picking patterns with her slowly over and over as she tried to replicate what I was doing. Okay it wasn't much of a break but at least I got to put on my finger picks and ave the right hand, which she finds completely hilarious that my finger picks are three time older as she is LOL.