blog.scottlowe.org

So, I finally have an update to my previous need for prayer.

First, I’d like to thank everyone for their support. Your prayers, kind thoughts, and encouraging words from all over the world have been invaluable. I can’t thank everyone enough. I had so many people e-mail me to tell me that they were thinking of me, wishing me well, or lifting my family in prayer. Again, thank you.

The situation was basically this: my second-oldest son, now 15, decided he wanted to cook up a plot with his mother—my ex-wife—and run away to her house. So, last Thursday, the day before I posted my request for prayer, she picked him up from school and took him away to her house. She refused to return him, even to the police, despite the fact that our court papers clearly gave me custody. She then didn’t take him to school on Friday or today (Monday). Keep in mind that most schools are in the midst of conducting end-of-grade (EOG) testing, including my son’s school.

<aside>It turns out that in North Carolina, where I live, unless your court papers specifically give the police the ability to enforce the court order, it can’t actually be enforced. The best you can hope for is filing for the court to find the other party in contempt. Isn’t the legal system grand?</aside>

Needless to say, I wanted to be sure he got back into school. After numerous attempts with the legal system on Friday, I was no better off. An emergency motion had been denied, and it appeared there was nothing I could do. This is where I was when I posted my article, “Need Prayer.”

After praying and working on the matter this weekend, today I finally got the court to grant me an emergency custody order that empowered law enforcement officials to get my son back. Hallelujah! Upon tracking down my ex-wife and my son and getting the law enforcement officials to actually show up, I got back my son tonight. I can have him back in school tomorrow for his EOG testing! Thank the Lord!

I wish I could say that I was glad that’s behind me, but I can’t. First, I’m not glad; I wish it hadn’t happened at all. Second, I don’t know that it’s completely behind me; I suspect that my ex-wife will be filing all sorts of nasty court documents in the next few days in an effort to retaliate.

Actually, that first statement’s not entirely true. I am a bit glad this happened. Through this test, as with so many other tests in a Christian’s life, I’ve learned new things about God and about serving God. I’ve learned new things about faith, and my ability to believe. So in that respect I’m thankful to have been given the opportunity. (I still wish God would use easier ways to get this information to us!)

Once again, thanks to everyone for everything! I appreciate it all. God bless!

Something major is going on with my family right now. For any reader who is a believer, I am begging for your prayers. Please, please, please pray for me and for my family, and ask others that you know to pray as well.

For those readers that aren’t believers, any well-wishing, good thoughts, etc., you want to send my way will be fine also.

Thanks in advance to everyone.

Today is my ninth wedding anniversary. Let me tell you, I have a great wife. How many of you guys out there can say that your wife hates shopping and loves football? I can! I won’t say my wife is perfect, because she’s not—neither am I, of course, we’re all human—but I will say that she’s perfect for me.

So, to my wife on our anniversary:

Honey, the last nine years have been great. Sure, we’ve had our ups and our downs. We’ve experienced happiness and joy that we could not contain—the birth of Cameron, or Summer’s wedding, for example. We’ve also suffered heartbreak and sadness; I won’t go into any details because there’s no need—we remember. We’ve faced challenges that we never dreamed we’d face. Together, we’ve made life-changing decisions. And every step of the way, you’ve been there to support me and to support our family. Your loyalty and your dedication have been steadfast and complete. Your love and your compassion have been unwavering. You have strengthened me when my faith was weak, and you have allowed me to minister to you when yours was weak.

As a token of appreciation for your love, your loyalty, and your support, I want to publicly tell you: Thank You. Thank you for being who you are, and thank you for sharing these last nine years with me. Thank you for your tireless efforts on my behalf and on the behalf of our children, even when they don’t recognize or don’t want your support (we do have teenagers, after all). Thank you for being a godly woman. Thank you for loving God and, most especially, for loving me. After the last nine years, I can’t wait for the next ninety years, or however long God blesses me to be with you.

Happy anniversary, sweetheart!

How many readers out there have ever found themselves at a dinner with some professional colleagues? Probably quite a few of you. I had dinner with some SEs from various other resellers and some vendor representatives tonight. It’s a fairly common occurrence, right?

Well, in how many of those situations did you feel you had to mask or withhold your beliefs or your opinions? This could be on any level; perhaps you couldn’t speak your mind about a particular product because you were having dinner with the vendor that makes that product. (No, this doesn’t have anything to do with any recent events.) More to my interest, for those readers who are also Christians, how many of you felt like you couldn’t fully express your Christian values or beliefs at one of these functions?

Now, this may not have been due to any person in particular, or because anyone said anything out loud. But in today’s society, where people are encouraged to be “politically correct” so as not to offend someone, it’s become increasingly rare to see people willing to show their beliefs, their values, their faith in public. It’s increasingly rare to see people willing to “nail their colours to the mast.”

That saying dates from English maritime history (more information here), basically meaning to openly display one’s beliefs. It can also mean a refusal to surrender or submit. My interest lies primarily with the first meaning, although both meanings can be helpful.

I think its time that we put political correctness aside and started taking a stand for our beliefs. And I say that not just from a Christian perspective, but from a professional perspective as well because these two perspectives are connected. They are linked. How? Being honest about who we are and what we believe—again, in a way that is courteous and professional—builds integrity. Integrity creates respect. Your colleagues won’t respect you if you aren’t honest, and if you aren’t being honest about who you are or what you believe then you aren’t being honest at all, IMHO.

Some might say that “transparency” is a good word to use here—we should be transparent and allow our character to be seen by others. Continuing the maritime flag theme, your true colors will come out sooner or later anyway.

If we don’t like a particular product because we don’t agree with the way it works, let’s just say so. We should be honest, because honesty is a Christian trait. Of course, we can do so in a way that is not offensive or rude, but we can and should be honest.

When we’re out at dinner with vendors or colleagues, we shouldn’t be afraid to say a prayer over our meal before eating. Again, we’re allowing the truth of who we are to be seen, and that honesty will generate respect. I believe people will respect you for not being afraid to be who you are.

Personally, I would rather see someone take a stand for something, even if it’s something I don’t agree with, then be wishy-washy and variable. Wouldn’t you? Maybe it’s time we nail our colours to the mast.

As part of transitioning into my new role at ePlus, I’ve been having to change some of the ways that I track my responsibilities and outstanding tasks.  For many, many years I’ve been driven by customer-facing projects, and I centered my organization—document filing strategies, keywords, e-mail folders, tasks, etc.—around these projects.  It was pretty easy to know what needed to be done when you’re implementing a farm of ESX Servers, or installing a new storage area network.

Now, however, my role is not customer-facing, and my responsibilities and deliverables are—at first glance—not quite so clear cut.  In addition, the sphere of individuals with whom I am working has broadened.  So I find that my old way of doing things just isn’t effective any longer.

So I began casting about for a “new way” of doing things, something that might help me be more efficient (doing things right) and effective (doing the right things).  Of course, the whole “Getting Things Done,” or GTD, mantra popped up as I began looking for applications designed to help track tasks and responsibilities.  Not being a GTD expert, I decided to give it a semi-whirl and experiment with some of the applications based upon the GTD principles.  So far, it hasn’t gone so well.

<aside>It will probably be stated by more than a few readers who are GTD experts that giving it a “semi-whirl” is the root of the problems that I go on to describe below.  Many of the instructional articles I’ve read so far indicate that you have to use a trusted system that you can trust to capture all the things you need to do, or else you’ll worry about what you might have missed.  That’s all well and good, but what if you can’t find the trusted system that you need?</aside>

I started with OmniFocus.  Actually, that’s not true; I actually experimented with iGTD a while back and just couldn’t stand the UI quirks.  OmniFocus (hereafter just OF) is a great application, but I was having a really hard time reshaping my mind around how I was supposed to get data into OF.  I liked the Clippings support, especially from Mail (and MailTags), as most of my tasks are generated from an e-mail.  Something still didn’t feel quite right, though, so after a few days I removed the trial copy and decided to try Things.

Things is still in beta, and while I like some of the features about Things there are parts that don’t make any sense.  For example, what’s the point behind the “People” section of Things if it doesn’t do anything?  Why should I add team mates?  Sure, I can create actions that are linked/assigned to a team mate, but for what purpose?  I’m trying to organize myself, not my co-workers!  The interface is a bit odd, too, and lacks contextual menus.  Things also lacks one feature that OF had, which was Quicksilver integration.  Believe it or not, the Quicksilver integration makes it so much easier to get actions into the application without disrupting what you’re currently doing, and isn’t that all part of GTD and contexts?

Anyway, I’m still using Things but haven’t yet decided whether I’ll stick with it or try something new.  What is everyone else out there using?  Are there others in similar roles and what applications, processes, procedures, etc., do you use to help keep track of your various responsibilities, actions, and deliverables?  I’d love to hear everyone’s feedback.

The past couple of weeks have been very eventful, but things have finally sorted themselves out and I wanted to share the events with readers here.  A few weeks ago, I was approached by a well-respected individual in the storage industry about joining a major storage vendor.  I guess it’s OK to mention who it was: Network Appliance.

As you probably know, NetApp is a great place to work—voted #6 on the “Best Places to Work” list last year, if I recall correctly.  NetApp has a great environment, great people, an awesome benefits package…it’s a great opportunity all the way around.  I initially accepted the offer, but my current employer—ePlus Technology—then put forth a counter-offer and I was faced with choosing between two great organizations.  It was a difficult position to be in because I have a great deal of respect for both Network Appliance as well as ePlus.

In the end, I selected to remain with ePlus, but to move into a new role within the organization.  I won’t be spending as much time in the field with customers, although I will still be involved with some projects.  I’ll be focusing almost exclusively on and serving as a technical lead for virtualization technologies and related products.  This is very similar to what I would have been doing at Network Appliance, but by staying with ePlus I’ll get to include other technologies such as HP VirtualConnect, Ardence (oops, Citrix Provisioning Server), and eventually other virtualization platforms like Virtual Iron, Citrix/Xen, and Microsoft Hyper-V.  For a technology geek like me, it’s a great opportunity to get my hands on all kinds of different products and get to know them really well.  I also enjoy teaching—I was a Microsoft Certified Trainer in a past life—and there will be some of that involved as well.

All in all, I’m excited about the opportunity before me.  I strongly suspect that this new role will mean even more technical content here than in the past.

One final note to those at Network Appliance with whom I spoke during this process: You guys are a great group of people building a fantastic team.  If there is anything I can do for any of you, please don’t hesitate to let me know.  You know how to get in touch with me!

For those of you that celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, I hope that your holiday is a pleasant one.  I hope that you take the time to reflect upon all the blessings that God has poured out upon you, and to be thankful for everything good in your life.  I know that I am.  God bless you, and happy Thanksgiving!

I’m extremely excited about a new opportunity that has just recently opened up for me.  I’ve been offered the opportunity to do some writing for a VMware-focused web site that will be launching shortly.  I can’t disclose the name of the site or anything like that (at least, not as far as I know), but I’ll be sure to let everyone know when the site goes live.

I will say that this site is being launched by a fairly well-known organization that already operates a number of very popular sites, so it’s not like this is some fly-by-night operation.  I’m very honored to have been offered this opportunity, and writing is something that I truly enjoy.  In fact, getting the opportunity to write—even if only for my own benefit—was one of the reasons I started this site almost two and a half years ago.  As it turns out, some of the information I’ve been able to share has been helpful to others as well, and that makes it even better.

I do not anticipate that writing for the new site will negatively impact this weblog.  I plan to continue to do my best to provide content and information centered around virtualization, servers, storage, and life as a systems engineer.  I’m sure that the occasional personal post will show up now and then as well.

So stay tuned, and when the new site goes live I’ll hopefully be able to provide some links to some of my work.

How many of us would like to be indestructible?  To know that no matter what happens, no matter what comes against us, we cannot be destroyed or killed?  It would be pretty cool, right?

Well, here’s a newsflash, given to me courtesy of Pastor Greg Laurie on the radio yesterday on my way to Charlotte, NC for a meeting:  for Christian believers, we are indestructible.

That’s right, we’re indestructible.  To paraphrase what Pastor Greg had to say:  Until God is ready for us to come home to Heaven, we are indestructible.  No plots schemed against us, no attacks targeted at us, no lies told about us—nothing—can destroy us.  Why?  Because it’s not God’s will!  When God is ready for us to leave here and go to Heaven (i.e., when our time is up), we’ll go.  Until that time, we won’t.  It’s as simple as that.  Until God is ready for us to be with Him in Heaven, we are indestructible.

Of course, that doesn’t mean we should test God, and Pastor Greg pointed that out.  But what it does mean is that we don’t have to live in constant fear.  Should we take reasonable steps to protect ourselves, our families, and our friends?  Of course.  God gave us a brain so that we would use it.  But after taking reasonable steps, we don’t have to live in fear.  Why?  You’ve got it—because we’re indestructible!

So, if you’re facing a challenge, facing a mountain ahead of you, if your opponents are lining up against you (and believe me, I’ve been there before), take heart and be encouraged.  You, my Christian friend and believer, are indestructible.

A week ago, I posted a call for prayer for my family.  I appreciate the many responses that I received, and I am happy to report that the Lord has answered our prayers.  Although the answer did not come in the form that I had hoped, I am still thanking God for deliverance and I am praising God for his wondrous works.

Things could have gone much, much worse in this situation, but God’s power carried my family and I through this trial and I believe that our faith and our belief is stronger for it.  Again, thanks to everyone who responded, and thanks to all those who lifted their voices in prayer for my family.  I hope that God richly blesses each and every one of you for your compassion and concern.