Sabrina and I wanted to give everyone a place to check out our
honeymoon pics and stories before we get back. You can check them out
at: http://chadandsabrina.blogspot.com/

There might not be much up for the first couple days, since we will be
in transit until Tuesday New Zealand Time, but check back for updates
almost everyday.

It is official now, Sabrina and I are married.
Here are the pictures to prove it.

http://leannescherp.blogspot.com/2007/05/chad-sabrina-may-26-2006.html

This is our photographers blog and she put the first couple pictures up.
There will be many more pictures to come.

I started Truck Driving school one year ago today.

Wow, how things have changed, but stayed the same.

To all the guys out there on the road... Keep on Truckin'!!

A. Drifter 1 Meet the new member of our house. Her name is A. Drifter. She is a German Shepard Mix (with what, we have no idea). She is 9 months old and very calm. Sabrina says she is also very Sweet.

A. Drifter 2 Her name is a reference to Adam Carolla's radio show. Adam always says that when he needs some dirty work done, he will hire a drifter. So I wanted to have a drifter around the house to take care of my enemies, but I don't want a smelly hobo hanging about the house.

Check out the house that Sabrina and I bought Friday.
This is the listing.

We have only been looking a couple days, but after the first day, I was thinking we were going to be living in the Styx in a shed.
The place is a real find.  The house is only a couple years old and the couple who live there now has kept it super clean.  There is actually a yard, so we can have a dog soon.  There is also room for kids, 2 bedrooms worth.
Best of all, the living room and dining room is perfect for entertaining. (And my big screen)

Other than that, things have been really good.  I will try to update some more soon.
The new job is great, but keeping me really busy.

Cheers!

After much back and forth with the airlines and each other, we have finally booked our tickets for our honeymoon.
We started out planning on going to England and Scotland, then trying to get to Paris and Amsterdam, we ended up on the other side of the planet, in Australia and New Zealand.  We are flying to Sydney then Auckland, stay in Auckland for a week.  Then back to Sydney for another week.
I have always wanted to go to Australia and NZ, so this should be a trip for the ages.  With only a week in Oz and NZ, we can't see everything, but we will be able to see all the important stuff.
The land mass of Australia is about that of the US, but they only have about a tenth of the people.  Most of them live in the Southeast corner of the island, so you can see most of the cultural stuff in one shot.  We probably won't get to the outback much, but since they have most of the poisonous spiders and snakes in the world there, I wasn't really looking to camp much.
Ayers Rock would be cool to see, but that is a day or more on the train just to get there, to see a large rock.

Sabrina will make sure we get lots of culture and art on the trip.  I am going to make sure we have fun and enjoy the party side of Sydney and Auckland.  I might even drag her to some sporting events.  I only wish it was Cricket Season, cause that would make the trip perfect.

Since we booked the flights, we have been buying books, getting Visa's and investigating all the possibilities that Oz and NZ have to offer.
So check back in 6 months and you will find photos and stories of our time downunder!

This morning Sabrina and I went to our weight watchers meeting.  Last night we ended up going to the T-Birds game with my Sister, Brother In Law and Nephew, so we missed our regular meeting.  I weighed in at 342.6, so I lost 4 pounds since last week.
After Christmas cookies and lots of other yummy stuff the last week, I am not sure just how that happened, but I will take it.
I still have a couple pounds to go till I hit my 10% goal, but I am closer.  Hopefully I will get it in the next week or two.

Later, I went to the doctor and had them remove a mole and a couple skin tags.  They were always rubbing on shirt collars and I wanted to clean it up before the wedding.  It was amazingly easy so far hasn't hurt to much.
Maybe when I can take the Band-Aids off, I will post a pic of the new me.

For the last eight plus years I have been building a list in my head.  A list of the things that I wanted to do when I got a "normal" job.
Things that would be impossible while flying off to a different city every week, but seem simple to those that work and live in the same area code.

Here is a sample of the list.  Now that it is time to work the list and make some good things happen.

1. Coach Little League (Football or Baseball)
2. Run for local political office (Possibly city council in Bothell or start out on some kind of board)
3. Get a dog (This is going to have to wait till we get a house)
4. Join a sports team (Could be softball, but I have a number of things I would love to play.  Maybe Cricket if I am lucky)
5. Take college classes in an actual classroom
6. Get my pilots license

When trying to write down all the things that I have wanted to do, I realize it has been so long, I can't remember them all.
If anyone remembers me saying anything, please remind me.  If you just have a suggestion, those will be welcome too.

These 6 are the top of the que though, so I will work on them for now.

In the last couple of weeks I have been on the receiving end of so many job offers and actual work, I thought I was going to get swept away.
While finishing up with my last project, I put my resume out on the internet again, just to see what would come my way.  I really planned on taking a couple weeks off for the holidays.  First I got a call from my buddy Scott, who needed me to work in Dallas.  I was excited to work with him again and especially to work in Dallas.  I could have seen some friends and had some BBQ.  While I was getting ready to start that project, I got a call about a local project.  I interviewed and got offered the position.  While waiting to start this project I got an interview with another local company, this time for a real full time permanent job.  It was just up Bothell Everett Highway from my apartment.  This job was to good to be true, so of course I assumed I wouldn't get it.

After interviewing for jobs at just about every company in the Seattle area that used SAP, I figured I would be on the road training forever.  This position was so different from my past work, I also thought I would get passed over for someone with my support experience.  Well after the interview, the CEO said he liked me a lot for the position and that I was at the top of his list, so that made me feel good.  Tonight the recruiter called me back and said they extended an offer to me.

The company is called Winshuttle and they make two products that business users can use to upload and download information from SAP to Excel or Access.  For anyone who does long journal entries or needs to do reports on a warehouse full of materials, this software saves time and money.
My position is called Senior Technical Support Engineer and has many facets.  First I will do second level support over the phone and internet for both products.  This should be interesting since I have never used the software, but I pick things up pretty fast.  Second I will do Pre-Sales Technical demos.  When the sales people go out on calls, they want to be able to show the clients what the product does, so I would set that up and run it for the sales staff.  Third is kind of a mixed bag of other tasks, like working on the training materials and providing some web classes.

The company is small, but growing super fast.  I can see a lot of possibilities and can see really moving up there.
After working all over the place and working for huge companies, this feels like my chance to really make an impact.

So now I feel like a real person again.  No more crazy schedules, no more living out of a suitcase, just a lot more time with my girl, my friends and my family.