Something to be Thankful For

There are many things to be grateful for. For us, it's our family, friends, business, and so much more.

This last weekend we were reminded in a not so subtle way just how fragile life can be.

The other driver, two of my kids, and myself were all very fortunate to walk away with no bones broken or blood spilled. We had a big grug later in the day when we are all finally back together at home.

Dealing with the soreness and migraines since the accident are a small price to pay for the fact that we are all okay.

And fortunately, the other driver took full responsibility for the critical error in judgement that caused the accident so no insurance scrambles will be dealt with.

We are truly thankful to be alive today.

Have a great Thanksgiving to our US neighbours. And for everyone, give those special folks in life a hug I sure have been! ;)

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
Our Cloud Service

The last few weeks . . .

. . . have been very stressful.

We have had a lot of new business as well as ongoing client needs creating a real crunch on our time.

So, with the need to stick around and wait for the Xplornet installer at home I've managed to get some long awaited To Do tasks taken care of and now take a bit of a mental health break. :)

That picture was taken from a parking lot yesterday afternoon in downtown Edmonton.

Keep in mind we had a very cold December with –20C temperatures being very common (and our just landed heating bill showing for it).

So, it was really neat to see a rainbow in January. :)

Oh, and the other day it was +6C here in the Greater Edmonton Area while it was –5C in Las Vegas Nevada! W00t!

All of this hard work has lead to some very intense play sessions with the kids! A local hobby store had boxes of UberARC 3200 kits on sale so we picked up a few. The four of us jumped right into putting some projects together. The first was via the building plans that came with the boxes. The second was a free-flight construction project.

Using the first box we built the UberARC 3200 tower:

We had to trim the top a bit to fit under our 8' ceiling. :)

We then moved on to the following tower project:

The above is the base for the tower incorporating four pillars with the internal walls supported by the cathedral style columns shown.

This is the finished product:

And:

The tower stands pretty close to 7.5' tall and is roughly 22" long by 18" wide. It took two and a half UberARC 3200 boxes to build.

And, some Father/Son time:

My eldest son is right into anything mechanical with LEGO Technic being his real draw right now. He has three kits he built on his own with the above being my first kit. Together we have done some neat things for setups. We are starting to build a Technic collection of spare parts via eBay for some self-built projects we are talking about.

We have a newly purchased Technic 8070 Super Car waiting to be built too.

As tough as it is to make time, it is ultra important to keep in my mind that they come first and that sometimes, especially when things are as nuts as they are now, I need to hammer down and allocate time to spend with my family.

That work/family/life balance can be so hard to keep at times!

Thanks for reading and your support over the years. It is muchly appreciated.

Speaking of life . . . Monique and the kids are in town ... so maybe it's time for some Jet Li window rattling! :D

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Windows Live Writer

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays & Happy New Year! :)

So far, our Christmas has been an adventure to say the least!

From our family to yours we wish all y’all a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year!

Here’s to a great new year with much adventure to be had on land and in the clouds!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Windows Live Writer

We Are Thankful For . . .

Our family. Monique and I are very thankful for our four kids (one in heaven), the many blessings we share, and our extended family and the blessing they are for us.

Our business. We have been very fortunate to have great people to work with and for!

The little things. All of those little moments that we celebrate with our kids and on our own. The squirrels playing the trees, the sound of the fresh snow crunching under foot for the first time, doing 4x4 doughnuts and Rockfords in the 6” (15cm) of fresh snow in a big parking lot with Anne-Marie’s squeals of delight, our first snowman, and our first snowball fight!

Thank you all for reading and for your contributions! :)

Have a great Thanksgiving Weekend!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy thanksgiving all!

Enjoy the long weekend. :)

Thanks for reading.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

A Little Road Trip – The Canadian Rockies Jasper to Banff AB Canada via the Icefields Parkway

We are very fortunate to live close to some of the most beautiful mountains in the world.

Since we have been working so much lately we decided to take a little break during a short lull in business and drive the Jasper to Banff Icefields Parkway with stops and stays along the way. We were gone from Friday until late yesterday.

We spent time at Athabasca Falls, around Nordegg, and in many places along the way. We hiked the Valley of The Five Lakes short loop while we were in Jasper.

The short loop starts at P15 then we took 9a to the right and cut back via 9b. The hike was beautiful with the kids and us really enjoying themselves.

Here are some shots taken via my HTC HD7 while on the road and in no particular order:

There is absolutely no cell coverage anywhere in there except Jasper and Banff. So it was nice to be disconnected for a while. ;)

We are now gearing up for a number of standalone and clustered virtualization deployment projects that will be keeping us quite busy!

Thanks for reading. :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays!

Our family will be celebrating Christmas over the next 12 days or so.

And, our schedule will be fairly relaxed as projects we had lined up have been moved into January. It will be nice to actually not have to run around working a number of projects this year! :)

Have a safe and wonderful Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

We have a lot to be thankful for this year!

Our family is growing by one, everyone is healthy, and our business has had a banner year.

Thanks to all of you too for your ongoing support!

Thanks for reading and enjoy those turkey sandwiches! :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

An IMS Is Born And Happy New Year!

Time to head home to celebrate the New Years!

This is one of the things put together today for a multi virtualized server setup on Hyper-V Server 2008 R2:

The Intel Modular Server (IMS) has three compute modules sporting dual Intel Xeon Processor 5500 series CPUs, 48GB RAM each, the add-in LAN mezzanine card, and 13 146GB 15K 2.5” Seagate SAS drives.

More to come!

Have a Happy New Year all! :)

Thanks for reading.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays!

Have a safe and wonderful Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays!

We start a large client physical to virtual migration on Saturday. The virtual environment will be running Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 clustered on an Intel Modular Server.  It will be running for the next couple of weeks, so posting may be a bit sporadic.

Enjoy and hug the ones you love! :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Happy Thanksgiving Eh!

For us Canucks, this weekend is our Thanksgiving.

We have lots to be thankful for in the last year and lots to look forward to in the new year. :)

Thanks to you for reading!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Happy Labour Day!

We took advantage of the down time to get caught up on some things that have been on the To Do list for a while!

Here’s hoping you had a restful long weekend with lots of good things waiting on the plate for this week and beyond!

Thanks for reading. :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

Happy Canada Day and Independence Day!

We took a bit of a break yesterday, and will be doing so again starting later tomorrow until Monday.

We hope that our fellow Canadians enjoyed the birthday celebrations yesterday!

And, we hope that all of you in the United States have a great Independence Day weekend!

Oh, and one more thing: Please make a point to thank a veteran or security service man or woman too (military, police, fire, ambulance, etc)!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

Happy New Year!

We hope that you find 2009 to be a very happy, healthy, and prosperous year!

From our family to yours: Happy New Year! :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, & Happy Holidays!

Have a safe and wonderful Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays!

We take the Christmas break as an opportunity to implement larger projects at our client's locations while they are down.

So, we generally take Christmas day and New Years day off, but work the rest of the week days.

Our break will come sometime later in January.

Thank you all for the great support, contributions via comments and email, and for encouraging us to continue blogging by your readership.

We hope that 2009 will be a prosperous one for all of you!

Please note that posting may be a bit sporadic during the next couple of weeks! :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

We Remember and We Salute You!

Patriotism is alive and well in Canada: Highway of Heroes.

Our message to all of you who serve or have served in your nation's military: Thank You!

We stand with you 110% and we support you 110%!

In our family my Grandfather served, and my Father served. Thanks Gramps! Thanks Dad!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

Happy Labour Day

For those who have the day off, enjoy your families, friends, and just plain relaxation.

For us, it is a time to catch up on internal projects that have been sitting by the wayside while we have been focused on our client needs. Later today it will be time with the kids hauling them around in the bike trailor to burn off the seat building calories! ;)

So, while waiting for our new Server Core data storage server to reboot after joining our internal domain, have a happy Labour Day!

And to those facing down Gustav, all the best to you as you ride out the storm. Our thoughts are with you.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, & Happy Holidays!

Hello folks!

Have a safe and wonderful Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays!

We take the Christmas break as an opportunity to implement larger projects at our client's locations while they are down.

So, we generally take Christmas day and New Years day off, but work the rest of the week days.

Our break will come sometime later in January.

Thank you all for the great support, contributions via comments and email, and for encouraging us to continue blogging by your readership.

We hope that 2008 will be a prosperous one for all of you!

Please note that posting may be a bit sporadic during the next couple of weeks! :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.