The Life and Times of Jay - Filling in the Gaps

If rain drops were blog posts, the clouds over Virginia would be out-writing me. And that my friend is sad. We’re in day thirty-something of a drought in the Commonwealth. Apparently there’s now a state-wide ban on open flames due to the risk of fiery badness. What will the smokers do? The poor folks never catch a break.

You may have heard this from me before, but that doesn’t make the statement any less true: it’s been a crazy month. I’ve come to accept that “crazy” may actually be the norm and that months that don’t fit this description are fewer and further between than I would really like. In times like these I’m thankful that I, Jay, dubbed my blog “silent” (with a little help from my one of my kabillions of readers). Otherwise I might feel compelled to apologize for my silence. Whew, dodged a bullet there.

Zachary’s soccer team is now 3 and 2 for the season. He plays again this coming Saturday morning. He usually plays forward or goalie, but I have to admit the I really don’t like him playing goalie. It’s way too much pressure. As the Jaguar’s little opponents go on an offensive blitz, I find myself yelling “Pay attention Zach! Pay attention!” only because I know the boy all too well. For the most part all of the players seem to only have a casual interest in the ball, and that is potentially very dangerous when it comes to goalies.

Alyssa had her first school choir practice this afternoon. It sounds like she’s going to be auditioning for the kid’s Praise & Worship Team at church too. She loves to sing. And tomorrow night is her first school dance. D’oh! Double-d’oh! Although this isn’t a formal dance with a date, etc. it is a sign of things to come. And truth be told, that freaks dad out a little (a lot).

Joshua and Matthew are both “energetic” and “spirited”. I’ll let you read into that what you will. They’re both very excited about Halloween. Joshua, at his request, is going to be Spiderman again. Matthew is going to be Mr. Incredible.

Thanks to the generosity of the Kramer family, the entire Benfield tribe was able to go to the Redskins/Lions game the Sunday before last. Had the Lions not played like mere house cats, I would’ve said the “Lions/Redskins” game. But alas, the team representing my home state (the one shaped like a mitten), let me down. We actually watched the game from a suite. It was sweet! (Please note my crafty play on words.) While 90,000 people were sweating it out in the stands, we were in an air-conditioned suite with catered food and drink, cushy seating, flat screen TV’s, and a private rest room. Did I mention that a few of the Redskins cheerleaders stopped by during the game?

As for me… I leave for M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i for work this weekend. While we’ll inevitably be keeping a work schedule that would have Hans and Franz crying like girly-men, I hope to have an opportunity to check out New Orleans. I don’t really know what to expect, apart from all of the stories my colleagues have shared about their adventures. But I am looking forward to it.

I played guitar with the Praise & Worship Team at church on Sunday and this Wednesday. It was fantastic. It’s been three long years since I’ve had an opportunity to play with a full band. Did I mention it was fantastic? Doing music at church was such a big part of my life for so long and when we moved to Virginia, well, it wasn’t. After playing last night, it felt like a giant missing piece was put in place in the jigsaw puzzle that is me.

In spite of my sincere (at the time) abandonment of freelance development work in January, I’ve been getting things in order with my company. I’ve got a project or two on the burner in addition to working on my own corporate Web presence. As far as the latter, I’ll share it with you once complete - which at this rate will be sometime next year. It’s amazing how difficult it is for me to do Web stuff of my own versus Web stuff for clients. I sweat blood for weeks over eleventy-three nitpicky revisions of my website, but in an afternoon I’ll whip something up for a client that they absolutely love. If you knew the amount of time I invested to arrive at this simple blog design, you would have me committed.

This is getting lengthy so I’m going to wrap this up. There. Wrapped.

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