Category Archives: personal

Thankful #23: My Church Small Group

Today I am thankful for my church small group.

Our small group meets every other Friday night and is led by Gary and Phyllis, two wonderful people who attend our church. Their house is just past the church when coming from our house.

Lately, there’s been a “Road Closed” sign just beyond the church entrance. Jonathan saw it the other night and started to panic. “How will we get to church?” he shouted.

“It’s okay,” I said. “The road is closed past the church.”

He was silent for a moment. “BUT WHAT ABOUT FRIDAY NIGHT?” he yelled, assuming that it would be impossible to get to Gary’s house.

“There’s another way to get to Gary’s,” I told him. “It’ll be okay.”

That says a lot about Gary and Phyllis, I think. So many kids would be bored and put off by a church small group. After all, while we do have some time to hang out and goof off, we also spend a lot of time praying and doing Bible study. But that doesn’t bother Jonathan, because he adores Gary and Phyllis.

In fact, a few months ago, when Jen and Grace were at the state Technology Students’ Association conference, and Jonathan and I were alone for a few days, Gary came over and picked up Jonathan to take him out for some gluten free pizza, followed by a viewing of Star Wars at Gary’s house. Which gave me a free evening in my own home, something that doesn’t happen very much at all.

But that’s the kind of guy Gary is. And that’s just one reason I enjoy my church small group so much: because it’s full of people who love each other and help other and go the extra mile for each other.

I thankful for my church small group.

Thankful #22: Tuckahoe Acres

Today I am thankful for Tuckahoe Acres.

I wrote about Ocean City, but another place we like to visit is my parents’ trailer in Tuckahoe Acres, a campground in Dagsboro, Delaware.

They got the trailer in 2009, and we’ve been down a half dozen or so times since then. It’s just a few steps from the trailer to the bay, so my kids love it. After a few minutes in the car, we’re at the Bethany Beach Boardwalk, which, while not as grandiose as its name implies, is still a fun place to spend a few hours. It’s also close to Fenwick Island, so we can get to the beach in just a few minutes, and with a but more driving we can get to Ocean City, Maryland, or the outlet stores in Rehoboth.

Not to mention, it’s near a Grotto Pizza, and they have really good gluten-free pizza for my family.

The campground itself is great, too: there’s a general store, and a pool, and a playground, and a tremendous sense of community.

I love to go down and watch my dad helping out his seasonal neighbors. Everybody there gets along and seems to love sharing with and helping each other.

But he best part is getting to spend time with my parents. After all, since they bought the trailer, I don’t get to see them during the warm months very often anymore!

I am thankful for Tuckahoe Acres.

Thankful #21: Ocean City, New Jersey

Today I am thankful for Ocean City, New Jersey.

This might seem like something odd for someone from central Pennsylvania to be thankful for, but Ocean City, New Jersey, is one of my favorite places on earth.

Jen’s aunt and uncle have a rental property there, on third street, just a few doors down from the boardwalk. They graciously allow us to stay there for a long weekend each year after the rental season ends.

And that is a great time to be there. There are no crowds, but almost everything is still open. We can walk the boardwalk and hang out on the sand without fighting throngs of people, or we can rent a surrey and not worry about plowing over people. In fact, Grace and I decided that the whole town should be car-less, and just use surreys. That would be really cool.

Anyway, over the past few years I’ve fallen more in love with the island, as I’ve discovered the pleasures of running on the boardwalk. My runs at home are hilly and windy and pretty tough, so running a nice long flat stretch with a full view of the Atlantic Ocean is fantastic.

But each year, it gets harder leave. I’m convinced that I want to move there, but I guess I need to figure out how to afford it first. Until then, I thoroughly enjoy our annual visits. They recharge me when I need it the most.

I am thankful for Ocean City, New Jersey.

Thankful #20: Real Studio

Today I am thankful for Real Studio.

Every now and then, I come across a product or technology that not only makes my life better, but it changes the direction of my career.

Real Studio, for those who don’t know, is a cross-platform development environment. I started using it when it was still called REALbasic, back around 2002 or so. I had been trying to get into computer programming for years before that, but it never really “took” with me. One day my friend (and boss at the time) Dave came into my office and said, “Have you thought about REALbasic?”

Dave and I were trying to come up with ideas for our own business, and one of those ideas was custom software. We began with FileMaker Pro, but we quickly hit the limits of what we could do with it. So I tried REALbasic, and it was like the heavens opened. Suddenly I could write my own software, and it was easy.

At that point, my career started to change. I had been doing mostly tech support, along with a bit of database work and some web design, up to that point. After diving into REALbasic, I started spending more and more time building custom applications, at work and at home.

I became very involved in the REALbasic community, which is a friendly and supportive bunch. I attended Real World, the developer conference for REALbasic programmers, five times. I even presented at the conference for three years in a row. Somehow I ended up as original board member of the Association of REALbasic Professionals (although I had to step before their public launch because of family issues).

At work, I developed Kodiak, a student information system that I built from the ground up to do attendance, discipline, grades, transcripts, report cards, assessment tracking, progress monitoring, and state reporting. Kodiak was retired in 2009, but I learned an amazing amount building it. I even built a parent portal using a different programming language: PHP, which is what I use every day in my job now.

At home, I wrote some shareware programs that mostly revolved around blogging. I never made much money from them, but I learned a lot, and I earned enough to buy a new computer (granted, it was a piece of junk white box from Tiger Direct, but still).

Learning REALbasic, later renamed Real Studio, gave me the confidence I needed to learn other programming languages. It literally changed the course of my career and my life.

Maybe I should write a book about it….

I am thankful for Real Studio.