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I Wrote a Book!

So after 3 years to write it,  2 years to edit it, 1 year of ignoring it off and on, and now 2 months of learning the publishing side of Amazon, I can finally say it’s here!

I Wrote a Book!

It’s called:  TwentySomething: Surviving the Ten Most Important Years of Your Life. You can get it on kindle or paperback at Amazon. Here’s the highlights from the back cover.

How do I navigate the ups and downs of college? What kind of career do I want? How do I know if I should marry this person? What kind of faith or morals should I have in my twenties? Should I be investing or have a budget? What about the military? How do I deal with death and other negative emotions? Should I already have life and career goals? What kind of mindset and work ethic do I need to be successful? How do I figure all this out on my own?

Workflow & Productivity

Confession: I enjoy reading those articles people post about hacking/optimizing their workflow or daily routines.

I haven’t blogged in forever and it seems like as good a topic to write about as any. Or at least better than politics. :) I sit at a computer for most of the day. I have kids. I have projects, ideas, to-do lists, accounts, passwords, kids’ devices, tablets, more logons, and calendar events than I know what to do with.  How do I keep it all organized? Well here is my current system and what works for me. It’s always up for optimization and sometimes I try out new things and either keep them or remove them. I’ll break it down into sections.

Long Overdue Update

So it’s been a while since I updated anything on here. Life gets busy. Here are the highlights of 2018.

  • I sold my house in January and moved to Georgia for a 9 month Army school. (WOBC)
  • I learned to track my eating and lifted weights for 7 months which resulted in me losing 20 lbs and getting stronger.
  • I can bench 225lbs, squat 170lbs, and deadlift 325lbs on my best of best days.
  • I graduated Honor grad (2nd in the class) from my WOBC course at the end of August.  I’m a fully qualified 255A and up for CW2 next May.
  • I received a promotion at my civilian job to Information Security Manager.  Yes I’m that IT security nerd. But it’s fun stuff!
  • We moved back to Overland Park, Kansas over Labor Day weekend.
  • The kids are back in school and I’m back at work this week. We are getting settled into our new house and new routines quite nicely after a busy, busy 3 weeks.
  • Amy and I joined the crossfit gym across the street from our house. It’s fun and challenging.
  • I learned that property tax is done differently in KS vs MO.
  • Moving is expensive, even when you save and plan for it. So many small things you have to buy.
  • More updates to come later.  Follow me on twitter @derekcreason for semi more frequent updates and Amy’s instagram stories are probably the most up to date of our random day to day lives.  We are having a blast living life and embracing this new chapter of our lives including new job, new school, new church, new neighbors, new community, new gym, new friends, new drivers licenses, new car tags, and some of our favorites to include same friends, same chiefs fans, same awesome KC metro, same KC BBQ, and more! Be sure to say hi or come over and see the new place!

Until next time, Stay positive and embrace challenges. Or some other motivational quip….  :) Later, Derek

I have a Podcast!

That’s right. I have launched a podcast.

One more place to share my thoughts on whatever. From movies, TV, and music, to news, politics, faith, IT nerdery, and more. Listen in for fun and try to decipher my attempts to be creative, witty, funny, and engaging in an audio format.

Below are the links for iphones and androids or pc!

Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/derek-creason/id1362333204

Pocketcasts: http://pca.st/nw95

Anchor.fm /derekcreason for computer browsers. https://anchor.fm/derekcreason

So go listen and subscribe and send me your feedback! I hope you enjoy it. Later, Derek

Project Sunken Treasure

You probably didn’t notice or care. But this site has been down since August 22nd. That’s 8 weeks to the day.  That was a rough day as I woke up to 8 inches of water in my basement.

I learned a few lessons that day. Here are a few of them.

  1. Don’t store your computer tower on the floor.
  2. Don’t put your hard drive in the lowest bay in your computer tower.
  3. Your backups of your computer files should not be on the computer next to your tower.  (I wasn’t quite at the 3 - 2 - 1 backup rule.)
  4. You’d be surprised how much junk you store in your basement that you don’t need.
  5. Throwing away your stuff is emotional. (It was my junk!)
  6. Thank God for insurance.

So despite that major setback in life, things have been crazy busy and the world drives on.

Changes

So today was my last day at my current job. I start my new job on Monday. It was really weird to walk out of the office for the last time. It was a great 3 1/2 years and I will miss my codero buddies. But hey, that’s what facebook and IM are for. Now it’s on to the next step in my journey as a computer nerd. I am now a linux system administrator for Analysts International Corporation. It is a great career opportunity and I look forward to the chance to further my knowledge and nerdery of all things linux. My next goal is to get my RHCSA cert. That may take a few months but it will be worth it. In other news, Jackson turns 3 in a week! Thats all for now. later. Derek

Site Updates

Updated my email for my server to google apps. No point running a mail server on a dynamic IP that can change and that I can’t set reverse dns up for. So I switched to google apps. It was super easy to set up. Took only 20 minutes. Dns propagated within 30 minutes. My email for my domain now runs through the Gold standard of email service: Gmail. The high availability of google, amazing spam control, the excellent Gmail interface, and pop/imap access are just a few of the features. There are alot of other useful apps available in the free version of google apps as well. I highly recommend taking a look at google apps for your email needs. They have a nice free version and a nicer paid version. So, after the above paragraphs of nerdery, feel free to email me at [email protected].

Update

Hello again. I have updated my blog. I switched it off of blogger onto wordpress on my hosting plan. I will be tweaking it as I go. But I like the wordpress platform much better. I am working on possibly redesigning my web site. It depends on if I can find a good enough template to start with. I’m slowly learning css and hopefully soon Flash. Both require free time. ha! what is that?