Charging into the storm

I have no idea where to start. What a whirlwind today, and it is only a few hours old. The mental image that comes to my mind is one out of a Civil War movie. The boys line up shoulder to shoulder and move out. As they approach the enemy's lines and the camera cuts to the perspective of the defenders. The Red Legs are moving frantically and loading double cannister, and just as they boys get in reach of the lines you hear - FIRE! I made a consious decision to get up an extra hour earlier and actually get my butt out to run. I've been wanting to do this for as long as I can remember right now. I want to get out and run to get myself in shape, and to lose some weight. But I also wanted to use the time as a way to get away from the daily routine and spend some quiet time with my Lord. When that alarm rang out this morning I couldn't help but groan. I just am not used to it. But I stumbled into my closet and pulled on my PT's. My running shoes were so stiff from lack of use that I thought I was going to bust a seam! I push myself out the front door into the subfreezing weather (25 degrees F.) and with a little warm up exercise to get the blood flowing once more and off I went. I set my expectations pretty low. 30 minutes total time. Walk if I need to catch my breath. The goal i smore to get out and do something than any sort of result. I made it two laps around my neighborhood - why, oh why did I want the house at the top of the hill! I did indeed walk some but the hill really helped me to keep up some 'resistance' and I did make it the full time. I got washed up and ready for work. Enroute I decided to stop and get a Ham/Egg/&Cheese bagel for breakfast. Then right in the middle of town this poor woman's car had broken down smack dab in the middle of the intersection. Remember my thoughts earlier in the week on helping those that God had brought to me... well I I stopped to help her. She was kind of scarred and was shaking. Me and another man got her car pushed into a parking lot where I let her use my phone to call AAA, and her work (she was subbing at a local elementery school). Well to shorten up a long story, she got her car to work and made arrangements to get it towed to the shop. Well this put me 30 minutes late for work on a day that the "bossman" is out. Not only that but there are several fires currently burning in the network that everyone is looking to me to make decisions on... *sigh* The QoS rollout has hit its third snag. There is not enough memory in the core routers to support both the old IOS image and the new one. It looks like I am going to have to work with some odd ball contortions to get it all to work since the customer does not want to spend the money to upgrade. The equipment in place is usable, and it can be made to work, it's just not a standard configuration and set up. In addition to this there are several application issues that have been escalated up to the CIO - all of which were designed on a LAN to work, and they do not seem to play well with the other children across a WAN. *sigh* Oh, and of course a high profile division of this customer seems to have lost a LAN card facing the portion of the network that I am a apart of. And of course it is not their fault. It MUST be a WAN problem. Remind me to put a whoppy cushion under "bossman's" chair next week. ;~) I joke about getting upset, but it definetly put's one back on one's heels when a day gets started like that. My legs are like spagetti, my throat feels like I am trying to breath through wool, my stomach feels like it is getting an ulcer, and my mind feels like mush. All this before lunch. I am just feeling like the boys approaching the guns at the angle, I am seeing the gunner pulling the lanyard taught, and feeling the roar of the howitzer and concusion washing over me. Hopefully I will be able to check for damage shortly after lunch... (Sorry if this is disjointed. It was written in between phone calls, questions, etc.) My verse for the day: Mark 4:35-41 esv On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?”