Daryl Hunter - Network Cowboy

My Three Words 2012 - Discipline, Invest, Act

So, for the third year in a row - I'm going to attempt to focus my year on three words.  I got this idea from many of my friends who got it from @chrisbrogan.

In 2010 I focused on "Read, Play, & Share"

In 2011 I focused on "Mastery, Replication & Inheritance"

This year, 2012, I'm going to focus on "Discipline, Invest & Act"

Discipline - I have fallen way out of discpline in recent years.  When I really want to do something, or really want to be discplined (and put my mind to it), God can do some really cool things inside me. However, I am also pretty stubborn, and lazy, and like to do whatever I want whenever I want. Frankly, I've gotten sloppy.

This #muffintop picture; for example, is proof that discipline has not been part of 2011.

I am trying to get back into my routine of reading, and some exercise I hope, and want to drop about 25 pounds.  I think I have some friends that are going to join me in some Muffintop Eradication!  I am starting this year re-reading Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. I have some God stuff i need to get fixed but also some general "discipline" things to address this year and I figured this book would be a good place to start. Again.

Invest - I would like to think my friends see me as generous. I try to be generous with my finances, and time, and energy - but in many ways I'm selfish.  I want to nap.  I want to just hang out at home.  And many times (confession time here), I just want to be left alone.  I like to put in my headphones and listen to music and get lost in my own thoughts trying to solve the unsolvable problems.  I have a weird brain thing that many of my friends see and know about - and it's easy to get lost inside this head of mine.

This year I want to continue to invest finances in our local church, to various friends and family who need/ask, and support some worthy causes that God places in front of us.  That gets easier every year.  I want to invest time in my Life Group at Springdale because my friends are important to me and I need to actually start - you know - doing more life with them.  I want to meet new friends, and invest in them.  And I hope to re-invest in some other friendships that I've neglected the last year or so.

Act - I've often been accused of talking alot.  I know that's surprising to many of you that really know me. I **DO** like to talk.  What's interesting though is that the time comes when you need to Act. I've talked about this before. Do what you need to do. Say what you need to say. Make the call, say the words, do the tough things. In me, personally and specifically, it means I need to go bed. I need to play with my kids. I need to ACT on many things that I know need to be done. In 2012, I want to be more intentional to not just KNOW what needs to be done and not just TALK about what I am going/wanting to do... but I want 2012 to be the year I ACT on it.

So, how about you? What's 2012 going to be like for you? How is it going to be different?

Review: My Three Words 2011

I can't believe 2011 is almost over. It's been SO fast!

I thought I'd take a moment to quickly review My Three Words for 2011.

Just like in 2010, I chose three words on which I wanted to "focus" this past year.  I chose Mastery, Replication & Inheritance.

Mastery - This year was a heavy cert year for me.  I believe I passed 6-8 tests and achieved my Microsoft Certifiied IT Professional: Enterprise Administrator (MCITP: EA) cert.  I achieve several "specialist" certs along the way.  The MCITP: EA is the highest "professional" cert Microsoft offers.  They have some "Master" and "Architect" certs as well, but those aren't even on my radar. This is an area I did well this year and that's cool.

Replication - I started the year in a couple "iron sharpening" relationships.  I ended the year in zero. This is totally my fault. I got "busy" and neglected some friendships and that totally sucks. Ugh. I hate it. I was able to continue a bit in some "tribal leadership" type roles at work and at play.  I gotta step it up here in 2012.

Inheritance - this year I really wanted to work with my kids to help them understand their roles in our family.  We're Team Hunter.  We started as a Team of 5 and ended the year as a Team of 6. I think Nathan (our 6 1/2 year old / 2nd grader) is really starting to get it.  Although he is sitll just a wiggly, bouncy boy.  I worked hard on him this year to understand he's the oldest, and his brothers (and now sister) are always going to look at him for leadership. I had to swallow my pride a lot, and apologize to him several times when I messed up, and I think he took that to heart and realizes that Daddy isn't perfect, and messes up, but understands it's important to say "I'm sorry" and and such.  That's family and leadership and that's fun.

I lost focus several times this year.  We had a few bumps in the road, and things weren't awesome all the time, but we made it. We grew closer to our friends, enjoyed growing closer to our Life Group as well, and made lots of new friends along the way.

I'm looking forward to what 2012 has in store.

How was your 2011? Did you have any specific goals/focuses? Did your reach them?

Yes, I'm alive...

Wow, it's been 2 months.  I am so sorry.  I have been incredibly busy with several projects and just haven't had the time to sit down and write.

I'm finishing up the Lync install at Mirazon (to be blogged/finished later)

I'm currently deep in the middle of my Microsoft MCITP: EA certification.  I've passed Windows 7 and Server 2008 AD so far.  I'm taking the Server 2008 Network Infrastructure test this Wednesday.

I spent a week in Atlanta last week for the Microsoft TechEd conference - and learned a CRAPton of information.  I spent most of my time in Labs / Sessions related to Exchange and Lync 2010.  I also took a couple Wireshark sessions which were invaluable to me.

My wife and I are planning a fun week-long trip this summer for our 10th Wedding Anniversary.  That's gonna be fun!

Baby Hunter 4.0 is progressing... we're 20 weeks along this week and aren't finding out whether it's a boy or girl - again.  We didn't find out for our first three (all boys) so why spoil the trend now!

Anyway, that's about that.

What's been going on in YOUR world?

My Three Words 2011 - Mastery, Replication, Inheritance

So, this year I'm again employing the @chrisbrogan "My Three Words" process to my yearly goals.  Actually, not so much goals as much as "focus points" for what I hope  to accomplish in 2011.  I did this last year - focusing on Read Play & Share - and as I reviewed last year, I think I did "okay."

In the continued effort of public accountability - here are my 2011 focus words - Mastery, Replication, Inheritance.

Mastery - This one is more "career" focused.  2011 is a heavy technical certification year for me.  This is the first year since 2002 where I have not started the year in vocational ministry of somesort.  Through Seminary, LifeChurch.tv, Fielder, Southeast, and then LifeChurch.tv again, I've been heavily focused on doing "Church IT" for much of the last decade. Now that I've moved to Mirazon, I need to spin up on many Industry certifications from Microsoft, VMware and maybe add some to my Cisco toolbelt as well.  I'm not after certifications just to add letters to my email signature though.  Part of our various partnerships require certain number of certified engineers.  I am one of about 20 engineers and we have plenty of "letters" here.  I'm looking to specifically focus on adding the most value to my employer here.

Replication - This one is more "community" focused.  I am currently active in two "iron sharpening" relationships with some cool guys.  We talk about life and leadership and read a few books, and generally try to build each other up as husbands, dads, employees and leaders.  This is good, and I really enjoy those times.  However, I am looking to further this and "replicate myself" at work as well.  This is not an assignment by our partnership team - this is something I really want to do.  I do not believe I am a perfect/target employee; however, I do think I possess many leadership & administrivia abilities that would be helpful.  There are some engineers here where I can help grow them technically.  There are other engineers much more experience and proficient than I am technically but could use some other leadership/administrivia growth.  I simply want to make sure my eyes are open for opportunities here.

Inheritance - This one is more "family" focused.  I am becoming more acutely aware at how much my children pay attention to what I say.  They pick up not only on my words, but also my attitude and stress levels.  I tried hard to learn more about "play" last year with my kids, but this year I HOPE - hope hope hope - to focus more on teaching them how to be young men.  Nathan is our oldest, and very tenderhearted.  I want him to to really embrace his role as "family leader" and "example" for his younger brothers.  Jacob is a pest.  I'll just say it.  He's the middle child and stuck in the middle of Nathan and Andrew.  His "whining" and "picking" is starting to affect Andrew (the youngest).  I am wanting to teach Jacob how special his role his - having BOTH an older brother to learn from and a younger brother to help teach.  Andrew is our youngest and he's really starting to come into his own.  This year he's going to expand his vocabulary, understanding, and enter his terrible twos.  I'm not going to handle that well, but I hope I can focus my "frustrations" into more teaching moments and less yelling moments.

There ya go - Three simple words.  Let's see how 2011 goes!

What about you?  What are YOU going to focus on this year?

My Three Words 2010 - Year In Review

Welcome back.  If you recall, this year (2010) I employed the @chrisbrogan "My Three Words" philosophy.  Well, I tried at least :)

In January, I posted that My Three Words for 2010 were Read, Play & Share.  You can read that post and get an idea of my goals and how I was going to get there.  I also value public accountability :)

Let's take some time to review...

Let's start with Read and see how my 2010 Reading List turned out

• The Servant by James Hunter
• Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey
• First Break all the Rules by Marcus Buckingham
• Good to Great by Jim Collins
• Tribes by Seth Godin
• Choosing to Cheat by Andy Stanley
• Confessions of a Pastor by Craig Groeschel
• Next Generation Leader by Andy Stanley
• Outliers by Malcom Gladwell
• Purple Cow by Seth Godin
• The Big Moo - 33 authors, edited by Seth Godin
• The Christian Atheist by Craig Groeschel
• Switch by Chip & Dan Heath
• Basic Christianity by John Stott
• Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Bradberry & Greaves
• Fearless by Max Lucado (a quick re-read)
• The Me I want To Be by John Ortberg
• Silos, Politics and Turf Wars by Patrick Lencioni
• Vital Friends by Tom Rath
• What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
• The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
• A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 by W. Phillip Keller
• The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn
• The Shark and the Goldfish by Jon Gordon
• The Go-Giver by Burg & Mann
• Holy Discontent by Bill Hybels
• Leading on Empty by Wayne Cordeiro
• Axiom by Bill Hybels
• The Christian Atheist by Craig Groeschel
• Plan B by Pete Wilson
• How Full Is Your Bucket by Tom Rath & Donald Clifton
• Habitudes #1 by Tim Elmore
• Habitudes #2 by Tim Elmore
• Habitudes #3 by Tim Elmore
• Habitudes #4 by Tim Elmore
• The Land Between by Jeff Manion
• Rework by Jason Fried & David Hansson
• Business / IT Fusion by Peter Hinssen
• Radical by David Platt (part of a LifeGroup study @springdalecc)
• Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh (Zappos.com CEO)

My goal was to read 40 Inspirational / Leadership books this year and I reached my goal.  I'll tell you what, I love to read and I learnd a crap-ton this year.  I learned that reading 40 books in a year takes focus and determination and a itty-bit of insanity.  I don't think I can keep up with that pace!

Moving on to Share - I don't have much new to add to my 3rd Quarter checkup. This has been a neat year for me.  I've had the honor and opportunity to consult with some local organizations and also share a little bit about how I "do work" and "do life" with groups of IT Pros & Ministry people as well.  Each week I get together with both a local pastor, and another friend, and "sharpen iron" together.  With my new gig, our meeting schedules have changed (hello 7am!) but I'm valuing the time together for sure.  I'm actively thinking about how I want to blog something I learn, or something I see, or just when I want to encourage others to "think differently" about something.  I can say I'm focused well on "share" this year.

Finally, Let's Talk About Play - I think I ended the year about a B- here.  I've had a lot of fun with my boys, and really enjoyed doing the Lowes Build & Grow things. I hope to continue that (and be more diligent in taking time to schedule them) in 2011.  I'm finding regular "Dude Time" with both  of the older boys.  I've found that Jacob really enjoys movies, and I've taken him to the theatre twice so far.  For Christmas this year, Santa Mother-in-Law gave Jacob a neat movie gift with free passes and McD's giftcertificates so we can have dinner and a movie together. Nathan is becoming quite the bowler - we have gone 6-8 times so far.  It's one of his favorite things, so, I'm sure we'll continue that in 2011.  And, Andrew is getting older.  He's 19 months old now, so I'm sure Dude Time will start for him in 2011.  My stress level is still pretty high.  I only have a couple hours with the boys at night now - just like the majority of dad's in the world.  I get home from work, we eat, I try to play, and then it's time to get ready for bed.  As I said in my 3rd Quarter checkup, I can say we're doing more things together, but my goal for 2010 was to be more intentional with "playing" with my kids.  I'm not there yet.  I'm still somewhere north of tolerating, but yet somewhere south of "anticipating a great time together."  I hope to get there more in 2011.

So, there ya go - My 2010 Review in all of it's glory.

I'm currently working through my process to do a similar My Three Words post in 2011.

How was your 2010 & How do you measure that?

Opposite Day 2010

Today is 12/21 - that's Opposite Day in the Hunter house...

You know, opposites - 12... 21... I guess we could call it Palindrome Day, but that would confuse our kids.

On Opposite Day, we do the same stuff - just backwards

1. We Woke Up
2. We took off PJs and put on clothes
3. We did our hugs and prayers
4. We did the Advent Box
5. We ate supper
6. (stuff happened)
7. We ate lunch
8. (stuff happened)
9. We ate breakfast

Then opposite Day was over - and we (parents) had datenight while the kids had datenight (playtime) with Mamaw & Papaw L.

This is the 2nd or 3rd Annual Opposite Day at our House and it's pretty fun.

What kinds of fun/goofy traditions did/do you have at YOUR House?

The New Gig

The last couple weeks have flown by.  I started my new gig as a Systems Engineer with Mirazon on October 1st.  I've had the chance to work on several of our customers network so far.  Some highlights:

• Network performance testing (iperf) between MetroE locatios
• SSLVPN troubleshooting
• IPSec VPN provisioning
• Wireless point-to-point (Ruckus FTW) between-building design
• New firewall provisioning
• Core network re-design and cutover

I've also had the opportunity to attend some partner-training and product-training:

• A new Dedupe/backup storage partner (backup target)
• Veeam Backup & Replication v5 (vPower) training
• Datacore SAN Melody DCIE training

One of the hardest things I'm dealing with right now is going back to Windows.  I miss my Mac!  For the last few years I've primarily sat in my office with a nice large external monitor.  The "local screen size" wasn't a big deal.  Now that I'm more mobile, I've discovered the need for more pixels.  I need the screen real estate!  So, I bit the bullet and went back to a nice PC to get pixel density.  With a 20% Dell Outlet coupon, I ended up with a sweet Dell Inspiron i7 Quad Core, 8gigs of RAM, 320gig hybrid spin/ssd drive, 1920x1080 display, etc.  So far so good.

Anyway, that's that.  I hope to finish the DCIE process in the next few weeks and then I need to start focusing on my MCITP: Enterprise Admin process.  Never a dull moment.

What's been going on in YOUR world?

Finishing Strong

This week is my last week as a full-time employee at LifeChurch.tv.

I love this place.  I distinctly remember sending my first "inquiry" email to BobbyG about an open job 7+ years ago.  "Dear Bobby--  My name is Daryl Hunter..."  From the time of that email, to interviews, to job offer, to a move to Oklahoma - just a few short weeks passed.  I have many fond memories of really awesome technical victories, church growth and campus additions (I started just as #4 was getting off the ground - we're at #14 now and a couple have come and gone in between).  I have been mentored and invested in and developed as a man of God and a leader.  Much of my core DNA has been forever changed here.  Even during a 2 1/2 year "haitus" inbetween my full-time employment status, I remained connected to LC as a volunteer, groupie/fan, friend, and as a paid contractor.  Even though I'm a "trained" Seminary graduate, I learned more "on the job" than I would ever learn as a student. I can clearly state that I have been brought in, built up, trained, and sent out by LifeChurch.tv.

Some say that It's easy to "coast" in your last few weeks of employment.  From the time I resigned a few weeks ago, I have not found the "coast" button to even exist.  This has been a very busy time wrapping up projects, handing off projects that won't complete until after I'm gone, and (of course) turning on the fire hose of information in various emails, Wikis and on-site training.  I'm tired - both physically and mentally - and am having a hard time pushing through and finishing strong this last week.

But, I'm reminded again just this morning that life (and work) is a marathon and not a sprint.  My local church pastor - Jason - blogged this morning (reblogged really) about just that.  In fact, his Lessons Learned post resonates down to my core.

I hope I'm learning the right lessons, and I hope I finish strong in my current race.

And I hope I continue to learn, and start my new race off right at my new opportunity with Mirazon in just a few short days.

Church + Technology + You = NAB (For Free)

Hey gang.  This is a different type of post.

I was contacted a few days ago and given a FREE access code for the NAB Show - http://nabshow.com happening April 10-15 2010 in Las Vegas.

Free.

The Technologies for Worship Pavilion offers comprehensive training for house of worship staff and technical volunteers and is the focal point for all things related to worship technology at the NAB Show. In addition, you may be interested in Destination Broadband - the newest broadband-centric exhibit at the 2010 NAB Show. It will be featuring technologies like online video platforms, streaming video, mobile video distribution, and much more.

Here are a couple specific items that may be interesting to you...

Technologies for Worship Schedule
Destination Broadband

As mentioned, this FREE access code includes:

• Opening Keynote
• State of the Industry Address
• Info Sessions
• Content Theater
• Destination Broadband Theater
• Exhibits

What's the catch?  Nothing.

All you need to do is click here or visit http://nabshow.com/register and register with the code A913.

So - there ya go - enjoy!

Green Day 2010 & Bones

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day.  Did you wear green?  We all did.  Jenny had a fun idea and we had a St. Patrick's Day Family Party.  It was really cool.

 

We had Green everywhere on the the table for dinner.  Tablecloth. Placemats.  Plates, forks, and spoons.  Using food coloring, we had green milk, green applesauce, and even green macaroni & cheese!

If you look closely at our "center pieces" I think we had every green toy imaginable from our house gracing the table.  How fun!

 

Andrew wore green stripes.  I don't know how that Cheerio escaped him - I'm sure it got eaten shortly after this picture was taken.

Anyway, after dinner we watched part of a Veggie Tales movie - the one that has a fun story about St. Patrick.  Did you know he was kidnapped by pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland?  He fed pigs for 6 years, then escaped, ended up back home, got his church / theological training, and ended up going back to Ireland to teach the entire country about God's love - back to the same place where he was a slave years before.  I never knew the story, sadly, until I watched he video a few years ago.  It's amazing how a fun little kids video can teach you about things.

Anyway, after our video we took a hike.  We live near a park, so all five of us went and wandered through the woods.  During our hike, we found this...

 

We don't know what it is.  We asked around and got lots of different thoughts including cat, raccoon, chipmunk & even mutant dinosaur skull.

What do you think this is?  What did YOU do on St. Patrick's day?