Things Have Changed

I was reading some articles this morning on money saving tips and I was surprised to see how many of them I was familiar with. Many I have used in the past and some I still use today. The article(s) clearly showed how a few cutbacks can save you enough to have a cash only Christmas or vacation, something we strive for every year since that is where a lot of American's get into trouble with debt.

The article got me to thinking about my "poor" days...back when a home, a new car, or gourmet ice cream and coffee were not even on the radar. The days when I would put $5.00 of gas in my tank at a time, $25 was all I was budgeted for groceries, and my rent was the biggest bill of the month. In those days, I religiously practiced "money saving" tips because it was the only way I could survive.

While I am not "living on Easy Street", I take home a nice salary every 15 days. By comparison, I make about 4 times what I did during my last "blue collar" corporate job 17 years ago. Back then, I had apartment rent of $400 a month, a car payment of $225 a month, and about $1500 worth of credit card debt (with a $3,000 limit). The rest of my money went to utilities, food, insurance, and gasoline. I ate off of the Taco Bell ".59/.79/.99" menu (mostly .59 bean burritos, but .99 chilitos were not uncommon) when I ate out and my home diet consisted of a lot rice, beans, and cheap frozen dinners.

Money was tight. I did however make a little extra money every now and then by doing "short notice jobs" for the national audio/video retailer I worked for. This particular store had a policy of making every customer a happy customer and if they needed something done that the store could not "officially" do, I (a general warehouse worker) was asked to do it. Generally it was just a same day TV or stereo delivery, but once in a while I would do a refrigerator door reversal, ice maker install or build a TV/stereo stand for someone who couldn't/didn't want to do it themselves. Sometimes I cold not do the delivery (I had a car and not everything would fit in it) unless I found someone with a truck and then we split the money 60/40, with 60 going to the person supplying the vehicle. Most of the time I was getting at least 1 of these a week. This helped out my bottom end by giving me some extra money to keep in my wallet, which was normally empty which was normally devoid of such a luxury.

I look back at those days and think how scary it was. I was living paycheck to paycheck, but just barely. I remember my checking account having $10 in it and being 2 days from payday and not having anything to eat in the house. It was times like that you learned to be creative. For example, when the sales staff would have a breakfast meeting at the store, I made sure that I was nearby when it broke up so I could grab some donuts, fruit, and juice from the leftovers. I checked the seat cushions (home and car) for change, worked the loading dock (sometimes people gave tips...but not often), and offered to work through lunch during the busy season if mgmt would spring for hamburgers from the steak house down the street...just to name a few.

Life has changed.

Bit of an Update and ... OK, I Lied About Ubuntu

I stated in a previous post that I had nothing but problems with installing Ubuntu 6.10 "Edgy Eft" but I was mistaken. Saturday I rerolled my laptop (HP Omnibook, 633 mhz, 256 RAM) and it went well. While I have not played with it much, it appears that it is running just fine without any major hitches. Even the touch pad appears to operate more smoothly than in the past.

I got up late this morning but was still able to get to work on time. I did have to cut a lot of corners (no coffee/wake up time, no bible reading, and I did not wash the few dishes from last night) but I made it. I am sure I will be able to get caught up by days end. I drank a sugar free "Full Throttle" energy drink in lieu of coffee and am using my slower morning at work to catch up on mail and blogging. I will do my bible reading in a few...once I am awake.

Mickey comes over tonight for lesson 6 of our 1 to 1 Discipling. We had to skip a couple of weeks but we will be back in full swing and hopefully will conclude by Thanksgiving. He has worked hard at doing this although I fear he is doing it with the wrong motives. he made a comment at church Sunday about wanting to complete this so he could "free up more time". I am not sure what that means but I have the feeling (and I hope I am wrong) that he plans to work out at the gym even more.

Not that working out is bad. Lord knows I need to do something. My "spare tire" is beginning to be more of a full size than a donut. I am up to 190 and at 5' 11" (even with my thicker upper body) I have too much of a gut. At least I am eating better...now to increase my cardio a notch or two. My wife has helped by dragging me out of the house to walk a brisk paced 2 miles with the dogs the past 2 evenings. I really need to join the Rec Center across the street and I need to get motivated to use it. Last time I joined it...I lost interest quickly.

Yesterday "Stefan" asked me to help him with a few tasks once he gets them all sorted out. I think it is just a few calls to some Acct Mgrs regarding some old open issues...you know, time consuming but not hard. I guess it is practice for when I have to talk to them more frequently.

The whole time change thing, "Spring forward, Fall back" has been messed up this go around. Not only have I been sleeping MORE (Read: over sleeping), some of the clocks in our home have been acting wonky. First, our cell phones (which are set to "auto update") did not change back and then MS Windows XP on my home machine did not auto change, even though it is set. As a matter of fact, it changed back 2 hours instead of 1. No, my time zone is not set wrong. When I did the atomic clock update, it became accurate.

Then comes my PDA. While it did change back one hour like it should, the alarm will periodically refuse to go off when it should...like today. I do not think it is a Palm issue, since the alarm is a third party app called "Watch Maker". I really like the program a lot, except for that bug. It happens once-twice a month...usually on a Monday or Tuesday.

Walking with my wife last night made me realize how much I dislike living in the suburbs. No, I am not jonesing to move to the city...no I want to get out of the city but I am not sure Texas is where I want to be living the "country life". My wife is just the opposite. She likes short visits to the country, but she is Miss Suburbia, or if she had the chance, Beach Chick. The beach is OK, but it is always crowded with tourists. When I go to the beach, I do not want to be a tourist. I want to blend in, relax, and enjoy myself. I much prefer the mountains over the beach. I guess when you are born in the mountains, it is always in your blood. Give me a small town (less than 20K), a house on 1+ acre of land, a broadband connection and my truck. I would be happy.

I voted yesterday which is something that I have been taking very seriously the past 6 years. I never used to even consider it, but right before we moved from NC, something happened and now I desire to keep informed.

Talk about a change for me. El Gee into politics.

Road Runner, Edgy Eft, Jericho, And A Slow Start At Work

Sunday Time-Warner started the cut over from our Comcast service to Roadrunner. Needless to say the service was down when I wanted to use it. Big surprise. Well, I am making this blog entry from home on my Windows machine and all is well. I tested it on my Linux box (Ubuntu 6.06) this morning and all was well. The speeds have been what I expected they would be so I have no complaints...yet. Give me (actually Time-Warner) time and I will have some complaints :) .

My wife and I spent all of Saturday evening watching the first six episodes of "Jericho". I am very impressed so far. Good story line, the acting is s0-s0, but the overt sexual themes are minimal. If you have not seen it...well you have a chance to IF you have a broadband connection. CBS has the episodes streaming from their website to view at your leisure. You better hurry, no one knows how long CBS will keep the up.

I had a slow day at work so I thought I would role my underpowered (500 mhz HP Vectra) to Ubuntu 6.10, code named "Edgy Eft". What should have been a very simple process turned out to be a nightmare. I scrapped that install (Matrox video issues, Firefox that would not install properly, etc) and decided to put it on a Dell Optiplex (733 mhz, 256 RAM) and had pretty good results until I tried to configure it to apt-get through the proxy server at work. That little effort took 2 hours to figure out. I am not stupid, really. I know I needed to modify the /etc/apt/apt.conf file to reflect the firewall, but it seems that UBUNTU suffers from the same problem SuSE Linux has. The GUI overrides what ever is manually entered in the config file (at least in Edgy Eft). Since I could not remember he *exact* syntax for modifying the apf.conf file, I Googled until I found out how. The blog said that I could either make the change via GUI or I could command line it. I tried the GUI first and it did not work, so I decided to do the command line and it did not work. I kept thinking that I was making a typo so I copied a known good apt.conf file from the rogue Ubuntu server we have running (testing it first!) to my newly christened Linux box and ... it failed. I was getting frustrated. I launched the GUI and cleared out the settings, saved the config and then did a sudo apt-get update... viola! It worked! w00t! I was glad I had a slow day at work or I may have never figured this problem out.


Now, will I install Edgy at home? NOPE. Too many little quirks. It has some issues with my KVM switch at work and screen position. I one box (my XP laptop, for example) centered and when I switch over to my Edgy box, it is off center. Center the Edgy box and when I switch over to my XP box, it is off center.

Also, at any given moment a window will just close without any warning at all. This can be a real bummer when browsing web pages. While I use NVidia at home and the fpitiful MGA drivers would not affect me, I am still not happy with this version. If you run Dapper, stick with it if you have older hardware. Trust me.

I have to say that it is shinier than previous releases and boots a bit quicker, but it is not worth putting on old hardware. Maybe I will run it in a VM on my Windows box at work. Maybe not. Now to be fair, I did manage to get it to run (rather well at that) on an old Compaq Presario 500 mhz AMD. It is quite a bit faster and runs IceMW very well.

DNS Issues?

We have Time-Warner Cable/Internet (although is still is using the Comcast infrastructure. Comcast traded areas with TWC when Adelphia was bought out/went Tango Uniform) and we have been having periodic issues with internet connectivity. Most recently last night and this morning. I am pretty sure it was DNS because downloads via IP were working great but no web pages or nslookups worked. It is a shame to pay premium dollar for substandard performance. I know that normally the service is acceptable, but we needed (wanted?) to check e-mail. get some directions, and do some other things but that was not possible. At first I thought it was my FTP downloads hogging the pipe, but I paused them and the problem persisted. Reboots of the cable modem, router, and PC's did not fix it. Not that I expected it to. The Linux server was doing just fine via IP...

Figures.

I read this morning that the full blown version of Windows Vista will cost more than $500. While they will offer a less expensive version, it has so fwe features even Grandma will frown on it. Why must MS try to hurt us so badly? Don't they realize they already have a very tight grip on the PC market? Don't they realize that this only makes people more willing to use Linux or go to Apple for their computing needs?

Rain, Then Wind. I Love Texas Weather

I could have lived in Tejas for 20 years and still complain the weather. Really. Wednesday is rained like crazy all day (after a very dry summer) and today it is cool and windy. The weather applet on my says it is 55 degrees (12.7 C) but the wind is gusty, making it feel like you are standing in a walk-in cooler.

Driving to work I saw a young man walking, wearing a PARKA. He has no idea. Now to be fair, when the wind blows HARD and the temp drops 20 degrees, it feels cold, but you do not need a parka. I was wearing my unlined UNC windbreaker while I was out walking the dogs much earlier, so unless this guy just walked from Colorado, I think he was over dressed.

I felt sorry for my wife who had to have an outpatient surgical procedure this morning at 7 AM. When she woke up from the procedure in the very cool recovery room, she was freezing. She is cold natured and likes to bundle up. Not much bundling up going on when you are wearing a surgical gown.

Really, I Don't Watch *THAT* Much TV...

Well, I didn't, but I find myself watching (actually catching up) on certain seasons of shows I missed sometime in the past 1-5 years. There have been some bombs (Twin Peaks, Rome, Sleeper Cell) but some good ones (Firefly, The 4400, Brimstone) and I found another one that I am beginning to like..."Eureka". It is a little campy at times, but so far I am liking it. I saw an online ad for "Jericho" and thought I would give it a try. Not sure but it may be pretty good. I think it is a geeky enough show for me and my wife to watch.

I am still a sucker for all three "Law and Order" series and for "24". "24 replaced "The X Files" when it went off the air. I was genuinely hurt when the "X Files" spin-off "The Lone Gunmen" was canceled. TV watching is certainly cyclical with me.

Those 4 shows (all three "Law and Order" series and "24") are the only ones my wife and I watch together. I watch "Eureka" and "Battle Star Galactica" by myself and my wife watches AFV once in a while. We also will randomly watch Discovery if the shows we normally watch are re-runs. I normally average less than 1 hour a night, which is better than a lot of people I know. I will however admit that I am a net junkie...spending hours reading news and info about tech. I am such a geek.

Office Update and News From Our Son

I got to work and decided that I needed to get as much done in the new office as possible. I managed to get a lot done yesterday and was hoping to get 9%% of it done today. Well I managed to get all the junk out and my stuff in AND in place where I wanted it. The only exception to this is the desk and vacuuming. I would vacuum today but I do not want to do that until I take the broken part (it connects the desk to the credenza in a wrap-around fashion) off. It is not stable and I need my tools to do it right and I do not have them here. Once I remove that piece and vacuum, I will be all done. Not bad for a hillbilly.

My wife called me to let me know our son had his knee surgery. He has to keep it under minimal weight for 2 weeks then he starts physical therapy. I know how much PT can be. I did some for my back and it hurt worse than recovery from surgery. With our son's surgery, everyone in our family (even one of our two dogs) have had some sort of surgery in the past 12 months. What a year!

I finally got an e-mail from my dotted line manager in Sweden. She stated we can start the new job function Monday. She said I will need quite a bit of coaching and follow-up, but I do not mind. Not having a lot to do except study is a bit unnerving.

Positive

I will try to put a positive spin on my work. I have been put in a new role that is all about micromanaging processes and being available 24x7. I have read all the documentation and would be ready to handle a regional Escalation, but none have been raised. The Global Esc Team will not give me one to handle until I have handled a regional one. Regional ones are not very common, so this is a slow start. Needless to say that work has been a bit uneventful. You can only read so much documentation before you go crackers.

Since I have taken on a new role and our building has 1/3 fewer people, I changed offices. I took over the old Esc Mgr's office and began moving yesterday after lunch. Not only moving, but cleaning as well. While I liked the old Esc Mgr, he was (is?) a packrat and the office had about 100lbs of e-mails and notes that needed to be securely disposed of (read shredded). I got all my stuff moved in (I had very little outside the 2 PC's currently I am using) and began to move out his junk and also dust. While the office is in a good location it has a few bad points. Let me start with the good:

Good:
* It has a window and the mobile coverage is great here.
* I am not sharing it with anyone.
* I will be busy cleaning and setting up for a couple of days.
* Further from my boss :-)

Bad:
* I am right next (2 doors down) to the Account Mgr who can be "demanding".
* The room is very dusty and has a ton of things to move out.
* The desk (while visually appealing) is not overly stable. Getting a new one will take an act of Congress.

While cleaning yesterday (I still have a lot to go), I found several (personal) things that looked like they belonged to the the former EM, so I boxed them up and called him. He wants to pick them up so I will arrange security to handle the transaction.

I was able to get a large trash can so I could put all the junk in it and not have to make multiple trips. I do have a lot to clean!

I am not the only one moving. Many of my colleagues are moving to offices that have better mobile reception. Lars and Pete are both moving up front and the Windows guys are considering the same.

This Bothers Me

Listening to an interview today reminded me of a couple of things that bother me about public speaking/interviews:

1) When making comments publicly either in person or via electronic media, have your facts straight. It is highly annoying (not to mention embarrassing) to present inaccurate material, especially when criticisms are being made of the subject in question. I heard a recording of a well known Christian speaker addressing a church in TN recently and his mistakes detracted from his overall message. While he later publicly corrected one of his mistakes, he left the other untouched. Sad.

2) When interviewing someone, let THEM talk once in a while. This morning I listened to the same Christian speaker was interviewing a conservative author and all the author was able to say (most of the time) was, "yes". The interviewer was so busy giving his spin on the interview topics, the interviewee was limited to single syllable responses a large percentage of the time. If that is all they will be allowed to say, then why on earth bother to interview them?

Being a Christian, I tend to stand up for a majority of my fellow believers, that is unless they are acting self-righteous, distorting the facts, or completely ignorant in what they are saying. I realize we all fall short of the Glory of God, but you have to take ownership when you do wrong.

What about you? When someone associated with a group that you are affiliated with presents inaccurate information, do you say anything or do you just let it go?

Exhausted

Saturday was a pretty exhausting day for me...I guess it is the type of day I used to have in the beginning of the summer. In the beginning of the summer we had plenty of rain (well for Texas) and I was mowing the grass on Saturday as well as my regular chores. I have not had to do that for a while...a long while until yesterday.

Got up (after sleeping in bit until 7:00 AM) had my coffee and some muffins baked by my wife (box mix, but still good). I then called little man and took him for a long-ish walk. The meds he is on makes him want to lag behind but I kept him motivated enough to keep pace with me.

I got back and my wife was just about ready to go to her defensive driver class (Yes, she got a speeding ticket and this keeps it off her record and keeps our insurance from going up) so I gave her a kiss and wished her the best. Just as she was going out the door, our son called from Fort McCoy. Just as he started to give us an update, he said he had to go and that he would call us right back. Well, instead of starting the vacuuming and taking a chance on missing his call, I waited for him to call back. He finally called back about an 1/2 hour later and we chatted for a while. After we had said our goodbyes, I figured I better get started.

I got the house completely vacuumed the way my wife likes it (moving things, corners, vents), stripped (and much later made) the bed. I was done by 11:30 AM and stopped to have lunch and check e-mail. I took the dogs outside to use the bathroom and checked the mail (only one piece...junk mail for my wife...shredded it) before starting part two (the hardest part) of my day, cutting and trimming the jungle.

Now that I have my trimmer back (yea!) I was able to trim our yard and edge it. Since I did not want to push the machine too hard, I cut our yard and our neighbors before I used the trimmer on it. It took 3 hours but I got completely done. The only bad thing was two fold. First the wind kept me from cleaning up the clippings properly and the second was I needed to change the edge blade to make the job look professional (which I did not do this time), but it still look light years better than it did. I wrote up the bill and after my shower, dropped it off in my neighbors mailbox.

I called my wife and we decided to meet for dinner at Jason's Deli...I was in the mood for a Texas Spud. She got their a couple of minutes before I did (She was closer and I was in the middle of feeding the dogs) but we did not have to wait long to get some very good food.

We got home and I finished watching Battlestar Galactica, episode 4...this season looks very good if they can keep up the pace they have started. After it was over I walked the dogs and when we returned my wife and I settled down to watch a show we had never seen before..."Twin Peaks". I did not ever see it when it was on regular programming, but I had acquired a couple of episodes to try out and we did not like it at all. It was one of the worst shows I had ever seen. The acting and the music were just horrible.

I guess am batting about .500 now with my choices in shows that my wife and I watch together. "Sleeper Cell" had way too much language in it and "Rome" was pretty much like soft core porn. My wife and I (together) have enjoyed "Firefly", "The 4400", and "Brimstone". I have seen a lot more that I have enjoyed, but the last three that I thought that my wife and I would like have been completely ruled out. I guess we are just prudes.

After a wasted 1.5 hours watching the Twin Peaks pilot, we went to sleep, tired and worn out...not to mention disappointed.

Ahh, Living In Texas

Living in Texas offers some entertaining moments, as seen below:

A home-made "hot tub".

A local spin on a classic game.

* I did not take these nor did I attend these events. I am just in a playful mood this afternoon.

Emotional

...that is the word for today. This is the last day for 21 employees who worked the $Major_Swedish_Mobile_Network_Equipment Provider account. I has been tough saying goodbye to some of these people. While many I did not know, many more I have worked with since I made my way to Texas 5+ years ago.

A few of the gang left out of office messages on their e-mail accounts...some were funny, some were just a "I no longer work for $Company, please direct all inquiries to the Help Desk" type. There was a degree of reminiscing as well as some stories of things that were done after the announcement was made to lay off 30% of the staff (we now have 24 people in the building on the account. There *may* be a total 30 people in the building all together).

The building is unusually empty this afternoon since all the laid off people decided to have a brew or two at a local watering hole with the staff that has been retained. At present there are 5 people in the building, not counting security and 3 are from my old team, UNIX (I am not sure what that says about us...). I may join them in an hour or so, maybe not.

The crew that got laid off said that they are the lucky ones, because they will not have to go through the issues we will in the upcoming weeks. I am not sure how bad it will be, but I know that we will have some cleaning up to do. We handed over a mess and it will eventually come back to bite us on the posterior.

I am amazed on how unmotivated I have been the past week or so. I came back from vacation and managed to get caught up pretty quickly and I have been through all the tutorials for my new role (as well as some one on one training with the guy who was laid off), but I feel disconnected. I know part of it is the loss of the staff but I think a bigger part is the feeling that this is just part one of a 2-3 stage shut down of our site. It is no secret that my company wants to consolidate all the remote trade data centers into more centralized data centers. I really do not have to be on site to do my job, but since it has a land line and I do not, it makes things easier to be here, although I could be at any $Company site and get my job done. I will not need access to the client's site at all.

I start my new role officially on Monday. I am hoping to move to a new office since this one is 1/2 lab area and 1/2 mine, but the lab tends to bleed over into my work area more and more. I like my space and when I do not get it, I tend to get a bit territorial.

14:30 hours and it feels like it should be 16:30. Bored out of my skull.

Updates

I got home yesterday after not so eventful day at work, looking forward to Care Group at Jimmy and Collette's house. My wife had just gotten home and we brought each other up to date on our days while she started making the salad for the even meal/bible study. Both of the dogs had to go to the vet (little man has to stay on the steroids for a while and the golden has an ear infection) and the bill was $177.00 . I was not counting on that but we should be ok. As our dogs get older, they are more susceptible to illness and allergies.

There was no mail to speak of, with the exception of the property tax notice. They went down $105, while the taxable value when up $3,000 . Now instead of $3615 per year we pay $3510. Our home is (tax) valued at the same price we bought it for 5 years ago, which is not great but at least we are not losing ground.

I entered in the (debit) receipts into AceMoney and check the bank balances to see how we were doing. As expected, we are close but still in the black for the month. All that will change if my wife quits her job as I plan she will. It is not much but it pays the van payment each month and fills up our tanks with gas (give or take).

I found a new series I want to watch called "Sleeper Cell". I hear it is pretty good. I also want to look into "Twin Peaks" when we get the time. Some series I never got to see when they ran and I now am getting the chance to watch them. My wife and I just finished "Brimstone" and we both liked it a lot.

Care Group was very good with an awesome meal (home made lasagna, mixed green salad and cider) including dessert (Banana nut creme cake) and coffee. The discussion was very deep and somewhat heated, but no one walked away hurt. We were short a few people and they were missed but we managed to make it on our own.

We got home about 10 PM and I walked little man around the block. I was too tired to stay up so I went to bed. My wife stayed up until 1 AM watching taped Law and Order episodes that she missed a couple of weeks ago while I was out of town.

I woke up before the alarm went off (yes it went off today...not sure why it did not yesterday) and grabbed little man for his morning walk. It was very cool (48 degrees) so sweat pants and jacket were the clothing of choice. I got back and fed the lovable mutt and brewed a small cup of coffee for me. After it finished I checked my e-mail and read my bible. My wife got up just I as I was getting into the shower. She had plans to walk the golden before she started her day. I had to leave before she got back so I made sure to give her a kiss and tell her how much I loved her before she left.

The drive to work was uneventful. They have activated the traffic signals on Parker at Springhill Estates. Those lights were badly needed...that is a very dangerous intersection. The lights have been in flashing mode for a couple of weeks now and it was good to see them finally active.

I got to work and fired up my laptop. While it was booting and running the log on script I put my lunch in the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. When the PC had booted I started our internal ticketing system and noticed 260 account requests/deletions had been put in our queue by accident. I felt sorry for the folks in Malaysia when I transferred the cases to them...they are gonna be busy for a while. There is no easy way to delete accounts for this particular customer. Everything has to be done manually.

It has been slow most of the day. I have answered a few questions and gone over more of the documentation for my new role. It seems that there are features that the documentation says are working that in fact, do not. Glad I found out now.

I am supposed to work out with Jeff tonight but I have some paperwork I need to go over for church and that may take some time. I think I am going to have to cancel unless I can make a big dent in the forms before I go.

Tomorrow is the last day for the people who have been laid off on the account I work on. Monday is gonna seem awfully quiet without them. They are going to be missed.

Well, back to the grind.

Be Thankful You Live In A FREE Country

* Iran limits internet speed.
* China says keep your opinions OFF line.
* Hungry in North Korea.

Give thanx for what you *do* have.

Maybe I Should Have Complained...

I just read this article and I must say I am disappointed with Rose Rock, mother of comedian Chris Rock. Why must everything be "racial"?

The article states that she was "ignored" for 30 minutes while in a Cracker Barrel in Murells Inlet, SC (which is a great little town to eat in by the way). She also states that the manager offered her a free meal but she did not want to eat it (why?). Rock said the manager did not inquire (in her presence, I assume) with the waitresses why she was ignored, that he only offered a free meal.

I eat at Cracker Barrel every quite often when I travel. Since it is a chain, I know what to expect in regards to food quality and price, so usually there are no surprises. I have, in the 12+ years of eating there, only one bad experience. I did not consider race but since Rose Rock thinks it is an issue, maybe I should as well.

My wife and I were traveling (I think we were in Virginia, either Williamsburg or Richmond) and stopped at a Cracker Barrel for a substantial meal. We were both starved and were seated rather quickly. Right after we were seated, a family of 6 or so were seated next to us. Our waiter got our drink order and brought out the bread basket, but did not come back to get our order for 20+ minutes. He spent a large part of his time with the family that was seated near us.

The restaurant was not overly busy, so being ignored for 20+ minutes was pretty odd. We eventually got the attention of our waiter who took our order and offered to bring out more drinks. By the time we got our order, part of mine was cold and they drowned my wife's pot roast and mashed potatoes in gravy (she takes her gravy on the side). When the waiter was confronted about it, he had an attitude and it bothered me, but our meals were comped by the manager and HE DID NOT confront the waiter in a negative way in front of us.

Since Rose Rock thinks her issue is racial, then maybe ours was as well. The waiter and the family he favored over us (they got their meals much faster than we did and we were there first) were black. We are white. I do not think it was racially motivated, but I *could* if I wanted to play the race card.

The article also states Rev. Al Sharpton is getting involved. Sigh.

Maybe I should also complain about the name of the place, too. Think about it.

So Much Documentation

The new role I will be assuming Monday is not a hard role. In the simplest terms, I will be involved with scheduling, organizing, and managing the communication and documentation for issues that have been escalated by our customer. While this is not a technical job, so background would make it easier. My job will be to "connect the dots" and make sure that all parties are working on and providing updates on the issue(s) at hand.

The amount of documentation on this is massive. I have been trying to read and absorb this so far this week as well as trying to clean up a lot of what I will be handing off. Not sure how it will go in the long run (the handed over part, that is) but that is not overly my concern. I will have enough to do understanding this new role and all the nuances it has.

Pray for me!

They Are All Taco Bell (Or Pizza Hut)

If you have ever seen the movie "Demolition Man" with Sly Stallone and Wesley Snipes, there is a comment abut having dinner at Taco Bell (or Pizza Hut, depending on which version you watched). John Spartan, played by Stallone, asks why anyone would dress up to go to Taco Bell/Pizza Hut. IIRC Lt. Huxley, played by Sandra Bullock, announces that all restaurants are Taco Bell/Pizza Hut. A monopoly has been created in the food industry.

I get the feeling that Google is becoming the same way. While they have not monopolized the search engine industry, the name Google has become synonymous with web searches. Heck, Google is fast becoming the Wal-Mart of the intarweb! You can practically do anything on Google. You can keep a calendar, read mail and news, chat, edit and create spreadsheets and documents, do basic math, define words, view maps, plan trips, manage photos, create and update a blog...the list goes on and on.

How much do you use Google or one of its products? I bet you use them more than you think.

How Do You Define Love?

I know my wife loves me. It is evident in the way she does things for me without me ever asking...

My wife woke up at about 3:30 and could not get back to sleep. I was still recuperating from my road trip and was sleeping pretty soundly so she turned off the alarm clock and walked/fed the dogs while I got an extra half hour of sleep. Since it had been raining all night and it tapered off a good deal, she figured it would be a good time to do this rather than later when it may be raining hard again. When I got up I was pretty disoriented and wondered why the alarm did not go off. My wife (who was just coming back to bed) filled me in and told me to "go make my coffee and wake up". That is love.

I try to show my love for my wife to her as often as I can. I have some things you can do to show your wife how much you care for her. While we have had our ups and downs, when we both focus on each other instead of ourselves, our relationship thrives.

Here are some things you can do to make most women fell appreciated and loved:

1) Touch her in non-sexual ways as often as possible. Most women crave touch and the only time many receive it is during sexual activity. Surprise her with non-sexual touching as often as you can.
2) Praise her. Often. Publicly. Without an agenda. Most women desire respect from their mates and getting this means a lot. She will respect you for praising her.
3) If you are in debt, make a plan to get out of debt and share it with her. Most women when they get married want to feel secure. Debt puts a shadow of doubt on your future.
4) Date your wife. Spend time with just her at least 2 times a month. It could be dinner, a movie, a long walk, window shopping, day trips to the beach or mountains, or just about anything where you are all hers for that time period. She needs to know that she is worth your time.
5) Be a leader. While many women will claim they do not want a man "leading" them at home, the simple truth is that many times they are conditioned to feel that way by the media. Most women respect men who are confident and assertive (but not domineering) and would welcome their husbands being the leader of the house.
6) Pray daily with your wife. I know it can be awkward the first 30 or so times you do it, but praying with your wife allows you to open up to her and appeal to her sensitive side. I know a lot of couples who pray silently, by themselves every evening, but never pray with their spouses. A few of them have given prayer together a try and they all stated that their relationships were strengthened by it.

I am not a therapist, nor do play one on TV, but I do know that the above steps, when done with sincerity, work.

Back To Work

Coming in to the office today was a mixture of joy and sorrow. I put my laptop in the docking station and turned it on. While it was booting up I put my lunch in the breakroom fridge and grabbed a bottle of water to nurse during the morning. I logged on to the PC and let the scripts run while I checked my Sun station and my Linux box. On my Sun workstation, I stay logged into the NIS master since we do all our administration from there, but I noticed that I had been disconnected from that server. I checked the uptime on the NIS server and my workstation and saw that both had been up near 100 days, so I guessed that we lost network connectivity.

My Linux box only had an uptime of two days, so we must have had a power outage. It is not plugged in to a UPS, so if it can die if the building loses power. I had at first thought someone turned it off, but if that was the case they would have turned off the Sun box as well. I knew that someone had been in my office because an envelope was sitting on my desk with a hard copy of the Business Ethics guide in it. Ironic since it is the board of directors that seem to have that problem.

Work was busy, as I expected and it took me all morning to get caught up with e-mail and a few various things that needed my attention. Once that was all done, I had lunch and began training for my new job. This new role is going to be very interesting. I have never seen so much documenting of issues and micro-managing in my life. While the function is important, the attention to detail in overwhelming.

I got home and had dinner while watching episode 3 of Battlestar Galactica. I started watching "Escape from New York, but got sleepy and went to bed. I had planned on working out but my workout partner's wife was not feeling well so we had to cancel.

Tomorrow I have One to One Discipling and Wednesday I have church care groups. I hope to work on the yard Thursday. It needs trimming badly!

Such Irony / Observations

Our summer in North Central Texas has been dry. Dry to the point of being arid. Sunday it started raining and it hasn't stopped. It is a cold rain, similar to those I have seen when I lived in NC. I wonder if this is a sign of things to come this winter?

It is supposed to clear up tomorrow, warm up to the mid 80's (can you say humidity boys and girls?) for a couple of days and then cool down to the mid 70's.

Gotta love Autumn. Especially in Tejas.

When I was visiting my friends Knightmare and Holmes, I noticed Holmes wearing his hair just a tad shorter than he used to. I also noticed that he has the same balding spot on the crown of his head that I do. Holmes, you can thank your grandfather for that. That sort of thing usually skips a generation. I am going to give up and shave it all off eventually. I know that I will look very different, but you can only fight nature so long.

Knightmare has gained a pound or two (but must of us have) but he seems happy. He seems content and that is a good thing. I know he has battled weight for a while and I know it can be a challenge. I got up to about 205 at my heaviest, although I am down to 185 now. I would like to lose more, but being over 40 can make losing weight difficult. I also noticed he looks more and more like his dad every time I see him.

I should have told Holmes that he "done good" with his choice of girlfriends. She was polite and professional and dressed the part. She is not the type I pictured Holmes pursuing, but then again maybe his tastes have matured a bit. I know my tastes are much different now than they were 15 years ago. Yes Holmes, you "done good". I wish you and your gf much happiness.

Knightmare's wife "Tiffany" is a very sweet person who has always been very polite to me when I come to visit. Knightmare, looks like she is a keeper :-) .

A Picture Is Worth...

"The Creek" near my mother's house.

Mom's dog.

Lake at Natchez Trace State Park.

These were not taken during my last trip, but are of things along the same route. Hopefully more later.

Tool Time

A couple of things from my trip I failed to mention that are related to tools. The first is that my mom insisted that I take my dad's old (circa 1989) power scroll saw back to Texas with me. I really do not need it nor do I have the space to use it, but "honor thy mother and father".

My wife called me on day 3 of my trip to inform me my string trimmer had been repaired. I would love to try it out but a couple of things are stopping me. It is raining like crazy (and has been for 2 days) and I will be busy the next 3 evenings. There is always the weekend.

My mom also gave me a couple of whetstones so I could sharpen my knives. I have several inexpensive pocket knives that are not sharp enough to cut butter. Thanx to mom, I can fix that.

While I was visiting my mom, I gave her a small stack of magazines that my wife had finished reading. These were given to my wife by a family friend who does not recycle. My wife reads them, we send them to my mom when she is finished, she gives them to one of her friends. That is recycling.

It Is Good To Be Back

I hope to get back to regular posting ASAP. Not sure if my new role at work will allow it, but I am gonna try.

Home

I woke up on Saturday COLD (I later found out it was 40 degrees where I was). I had not been this cold waking up in years. It reminded me of the times I used to sleep in the cabin we had in the woods when I was growing up. We would sleep in it year round (mostly when we were partying and needed someplace private) and it was never very well insulated. It was 40 degrees when I woke up and still dark at 6 AM. I needed to urinate very badly, so I walked down to the bath house to brush my teeth and answer natures call. After taking care of business I walked back and packed up my things. No sense in staying here any longer than I had to. I skipped breakfast and hit the road.

I was on the road by 6:30 AM and drove until I needed gas. I filled up just north of Little Rock, AR and kept driving until I made it to Arkadelphia. One thing I noticed on Saturday was the plethora of truckers on the road. I would guess 50% + of the traffic was 18 wheelers. It made driving tight at times and I was afraid I was going to get behind my schedule, but in the long run I did ok.

I hit Texarkana about 12:30 PM and was pleased to know I would be home near 4. Armed with that knowledge, I stopped a few times to use the toilet, get a drink and read my bible. Those last 3 hours were very tough. The last 2 hours I spent on I-30 were the toughest.

I pulled off onto 380 and breathed a sigh of relief knowing I had about 30 minutes left on my journey. I had given some thought to stopping and pickup up some flowers for my wife since I was unable to be here on her birthday and the closer to home I got, the more I knew it was the right thing to do. So when I got into town, that is the first thing I did. I am very happy that I did because my wife was very excited to get them.

I spent the next few hours unloading, unpacking, putting away, and eating. I checked my e-mail (300+) but did not really digest it. My wife kept me up to date with the important stuff.

Oddly enough I was not very sleepy, so my wife and I caught up on all the Law and Order episodes I missed. We finally made it to bed by 11:00 PM. I slept very well.

The Road Home

I decided I needed to get up at 6:00 AM so I would have time to get ready, packed, etc before I left for Texas. Mom got up right after I did and she started Mr Coffee so I could have some joe before I left. I skipped breakfast, hoping to get something along the way, if I had time. After I packed the van, had my coffee and said my good byes, I hit the road. It was 7 AM.

I had to let the van warm a bit since it was 33 degrees (1-2 Celsius) and there was as layer of frost on the windshield. I only let it run for a few minutes before I hit the road. I checked the gas gauge and noticed I had about 1/2 a tank so I decided to get $15.00 worth in Sutton, WV. Gas in WV was high ($2.21 to $2.29 a gallon), so I bought as little as possible while there.

The route home was the more traditional, more direct route I had taken before. It runs from Clarksburg to Charleston, west on I-64 to Kentucky, follows the Blue Ridge Parkway and picks up I-65 south. I stopped a few times for gas and a toilet break while in Kentucky. I was getting hungry so I started munching on the home made pepperoni rolls mom packed for me and nursing a water. My cash was tight (I had $20 left and still needed to pay for my camping) so I avoided as many of the extras as I could.

The drive in the cold mountain air was very enjoyable. There was no rain and the traffic was pretty light overall. I made good time and arrived at the campground with a fair amount of daylight left. I found a great place to park the van (flat and secluded) and ate my dinner (a Subway sandwich that I had purchased 8 miles up the road). When I was done eating, I took a short walk to the lake and up to the cabins. I was surprised to see how many campers there were at the park, considering how cool the weather was. The lower campground was almost full.

When I returned from my walk, I updated my travel journal and then got the BRILLIANT idea of typing up my blog entries in MS Word on my laptop (the first time I used it the entire trip) to save time later on. I typed until it was too dark to see and then I changed for bed. I know it was early, but I planned on hitting the road as soon as I could on Saturday.

Dinner With Friends

Today will be the last full day I have in WV before I start my trek back to Texas. The week has flown by and I am saddened some by this. It has been an odd trip for me. I have been in bed by 11 PM every night but one and home every evening by 10 PM. I have only seen my good friends Heath, Bobby, and Linda only once each and have not seen my sister or her husband at all. Very strange trip. Good, but strange.

Mr Coffee woke me up as usual and I had a Pop Tart, a cereal bar and yogurt breakfast to go with my 2 cups of coffee. I tried calling my wife but the cellular service was very sporadic and I was not able to get in touch with her for a couple hours. I eventually did, but my wife said the service was acting weird with her as well. Stupid Cingular :-) .

I needed to wash a load of clothes since 90% of mine were dirty/smelly and I wanted fresh clothes for my drive back. Mom has her washer and dryer in the basement and the doorway at the bottom of the stairs is shorter than normal so I banged my head VERY hard on it when I came back upstairs. It drew blood, but not much. It hurt like crazy and was tender all day.

My mom's close friend Betty and her husband came by to return some of my mom's books and to borrow some more. We all chatted for a while (they are very nice people) and then they went on their way. I watched some TV, did a puzzle and talked with mom while my clothes washed. I tossed them in the dryer around lunch time and then went back up stairs to eat some leftover pizza. I missed the buzzer when the clothes finished so I had to fluff them some so they would not wrinkle too badly. Once I let them tumble for 10 minutes or so, they were ready to be put away.

It was very cool (40 or so) most of the day but at least it was not raining. I knew that in abut 24 hours I would be at a camp site in TN, sleeping in my wife's van. While it was not the most comfortable place to sleep, $11.00 a night was cheaper than $40-50 for a hotel.

Holmes called to inform me that Knightmare and his wife "Tiffany" as well as Holmes' girlfriend would be joining us for dinner. That sounded like a great idea so I asked where and when we would be meeting. He said that he and Knightmare decided on El Rincon Mexican Restaurant and to meet them at 6 PM. El Rincon was right next to where the old "Electronic Playground" gameroom used to be. We were regulars there "back in the day". I sure do miss the air hockey.

5:30 rolled around and I hopped in the wife's van (I really would have liked to have driven my truck but I could not sleep in it) and headed up Bridgeport Hill to El Rincon. I was early so I walked around a bit. The wind and air temperature reminded me of a Texas Winter. Not cold but uncomfortable. About 6:05 or so, Knightmare sees me and calls out, "Holmes here yet?" I turn to greet him and his wife and tell him that I have not seen him.

We make small talk for a couple of minutes and we see Holmes walk up the other sidewalk. He no sooner gets up and we begin talking when a well dressed woman comes up from the other side. Funny that I am meeting 4 people and they all come from different directions. Ok, maybe not "funny", but interesting to a rube like me.

The introductions are made and we go in to the Mexican eatery. They do not have a table quite ready for the 5 of us so we wait near the door until they call us. The wait is not long but it is uncomfortable due to the fact there is no real area to wait in. The door is in the middle of a hallway and you are in someone's way no matter where you go or which way you turn.

After a brief wait, we are shown to our table. Our waiter gets our drink order and we chit chat until he returned with drinks (mostly tea, diet Pepsi, and water). Most everyone orders traditional fare, but I am not traditional, so I go for shrimp quesadilla's. I am glad I did for a couple of reasons that I will explain later.

Our food arrived and we began to eat and tell stories. I am sure that Holmes' girlfriend had heard all of them before, we did not mind sharing them again. "Tiffany" asked where my wife was and I explained that my wife was not a huge fan of my mother and if she came, then the dogs came and that meant a pet friendly hotel. My little $300 trip would have ballooned into a $1000 and we just could not afford it. She said she understood and we moved on to other topics.

Knightmare had a plate that had something edible (I hope) covered with a lake of queso. Had he eaten all that cheese, he would have been locked up tight for a week. Holmes devoured 2 bowls of chips but no salsa (wuss) and it looked like he and his girlfriend enjoyed the food. My shrimp was great. Very tasty and fresh. I was glad that I ordered it, even though it was one of the most expensive things on the menu. Not that I minded...Knightmare paid for my dinner. I thanked him for his kindness. He seemed so humble about it. I hope I can reciprocate sometime. Maybe if he makes it to Dallas, I can treat him to dinner.

We took about 2 hours to eat dinner and then another 40 minutes or so outside chatting. Holmes and his girlfriend had to go, so I wished them well and told them good bye. I explained to Knightmare and his wife that I had to leave the next day and they looked a bit disappointed that they would not get to see me again on this trip. Either that or the Mexican food was doing a number on them...I am not sure.

It was a great mini reunion with a couple of guys I have known for a long time. Holmes and I met when he was about 16 or so and I have known Knightmare since about third grade. Both work for the county and have done well for themselves. I admire them for getting as far in life as they have.

As we (Knightmare, Tiffany and I) were saying good bye, Knightmare told me he had been reading my blog on a semi-regular basis. I told him that I saw two sets of IP addresses and asked Holmes if he had been reading it. Holmes told me that he has read it once or twice, so I just figured it was Knightmare and maybe someone else we knew hitting my blog page. When I told Knightmare this, he just laughed and said "Don't let Holmes fool you. Your blog is like crack to him. He cannot wait until you update it. I know he reads it more than I do because he told me he knew you were coming in because it was in your blog." I just laughed.

Knightmare also said that reading my blog helped him feel like we have kept in touch, when in reality we have not chatted all that much over the years. I told him he needed a blog and his wife chimed in to tell me that he would not stay committed to it. She may be right...it can be time consuming.

I left my friends and drove back to my mom's house. I was not tired, so we chatted until 11:00 PM and then I went to bed. Tomorrow I would be heading home to Texas.

Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head...

Woke up right on time with Mr Coffee perking away at 7 AM. I had not had to use my alarm (PDA) yet and for that I was thankful. My PDA was acting a bit weird and it seems it will only hold a charge for a couple of days and was a bit worried about losing data...

Breakfast was very light this morning: coffee and Pop Tarts. Not exactly the breakfast of champions, but it would do until lunch. I was hoping mom would let me take her out to lunch, but I was not sure she would. She is funny about things like that sometimes...

Today is mom and my lovely wife's birthday. After talking to my wife and wishing her a happy birthday I took mom out for lunch (yes she let me bless her). I told her to pick some place and she decided on Chinese. The best place (quality/price) is a rather large buffet that is very popular with the locals. While it is far from "nice", it is what she wanted. "Honor thy mother and father..."

Lunch was OK and while I got my fill, I did not eat nearly as much as I normally would. The hot and sour soup was much hotter and a lot less sour than I am used to, but I managed to choked it down. The selection of food was pretty good and had I been smart, I would have investigated the sushi bar and the Mongolian grill. However I stuck to the normal fare. It was adequate.

After lunch we walked the mall to burn off a few calories before we went to pick up Sparky. It was raining very lightly (like it had been all day), but it was not cold at all. I asked mom if she wanted to drive down to pick up my nephew but she said she preferred the walk, even in a light rain, so we did. It was a nice walk.

We got home and Heath called. He asked me what I wanted to do and I told him that I was not really sure, so he suggested that we go to the mall. He needed some tennis shoes and a DVD/CD lens cleaner and I knew we could get both there. As I was getting ready to leave, mom informed me that she was ordering pizza for dinner. I told her after the huge lunch, I was not really even thinking about food, BUT I would be hungry when I got home. I told her just to leave out 3-4 slices and I would eat them when I got back. She smiled and agreed and then I went to pick up Heath.

Heath lives in a house that is owned by his parents, but they do not live there. It is a bit run down and unkempt but at least he does not have to pay rent. Heath works at a local TV station running the camera and doing general support duties for the night shift. I pray for him because he has so many things backwards. He does not care about his appearance, nor does he try to succeed, but he will spend tremendous amounts of time trying to meet women online. If he would just try to get his life in order before he tried to meet someone, things would work out better. I have tried to mentor him on this but it is wasted on him. He is happy being miserable.

I parked around back as agreed and knocked on his back door. He did not immediately answer, so I knocked again. Still no answer. After a few minutes, I try the door knob and it is locked. I finally call his cell phone. He asks me were I am and I tell him, "the back door". He then asks me why I was at the back when he had unlocked the front. I asked him why he unlocked the front when he wanted me to park in back. And with that, he let me in.

I let him get organized and we then drove to the mall to get his stuff. We find his shoes after 2 failed attempts (Target and The Shoe Store). He is a big guy who wears a size 13 shoe and finding those is not always easy. We eventually find him a pair at Sears and they are even on sale. Score!

Next on the list is a DVD/CD cleaner. We go into a video game store and he finds what he is looking for. After this purchase and 2 more laps around the mall, we head home. Heath asked me to stop at the Quickie Mart (snicker) top get some 'pop' and some snacks. After a brief stop and some haggling with Apu (just kidding) we head back to his house.

Once we go there he asked if I wanted to watch a movie and I noticed he had S.W.A.T and since I had not seen it, I thought it a good choice. While it was OK, the series was better. Next we pop in Bruce Lee's "Fist of Fury". While the acting and the story is very poor, I love the action.

The second movie was over at around 10 PM so I headed back home. When I got there, my pizza was in a Zip Lock bag in the fridge along with a cold grape "pop". I chatted with mom for about an hour and then decided to go to sleep.

I managed to finish book three of the Left Behind prequel earlier in the day. 2 books in less than a week is a new record. I even managed to keep up my bible reading on top of that as well as work a crossword puzzle or two.

The "Flower Bed"

The day started pretty much the same as the previous 2 had with Mr Coffee brewing a slightly less than desired, but tolerable, pot of joe and mom and I sharing a light breakfast. This morning it was oatmeal and it really hit the spot.

After breakfast, mom expressed her desire to weed the "flower beds" in the front of the house. I used quotes around flower beds because there are few, if any flowers in them. Mom likes odd flowers and plants that at best are wild flowers, at worst are weeds. While I love my mother, she has no desire to work on her flower beds until the end of the year. All summer long they are full of weeds, wild grasses and other undesirable growths. I told her that she really needs to put down weed blocking cloth and mulch, and even showed her what a flower bed looked like when done properly. She just told me that it took too much work to keep up and most likely would not do it. I find this amusing because that is the same thing I said when my mom and dad tried to get me to pick up the apples that fell from our tree every day. The tables have finally turned.

After several hours of doing this, we stopped, cleaned up some, and ate lunch. Since there were very few leftovers, I decided to grab a couple of corn dogs out of the freezer (the only frozen food I ate the entire trip!), drink a grape soda (not diet...bummer), and eat a yogurt. I have a habit of taking my vitamins at lunch time and was very good about doing it every day but once. Today I augmented my vitamins with a couple of Aleve to help counteract the stress I put on my back weeding the beds.

After lunch I grabbed a shower and the steam from my "hotter than most people like it" shower set off the smoke detector in the hall, causing Rascal, my moms Shih Tzu, to howl in pain. She has had that smoke detector for years and it will go off if you fart near it. My mom thinks that being overly sensitive is a good thing. I personally do not, but "honor thy mother and father".

Since I had spent all of Sunday and Monday (and most of Tuesday) with mom, I decided to call Holmes and Heath to see what they were up to. Neither was home, so I left messages for both.

Soon it was time to pick up Sparky so mom and I walked down to the elementary school and waited on him to be released. Walking with mom was about the extent of my exercise the entire trip.

Holmes called me back and we agreed to meet Thursday for dinner. I told him he could make the arrangements and he could call me later to confirm. Heath called about an hour later and apologized for not calling me sooner. I told him not to worry about it that I was pretty busy the past few days. We agreed to do something on Wednesday.

Mom had not cooked anything so we just had hotdogs. WV hotdogs hit the spot with a soda (known as 'pop' in WV) and some chips. Too bad we did not have any chips!

After dinner I went over to Bobby and Linda's house. Normally when I come in, their home is a buzz of activity and I am there many nights (usually late) talking. I got the feeling they were not interested in staying up too late so I left by 10 PM. Both my mom and my wife were shocked. I watched a little TV with mom and then hit the sack.

Blue Monday

After getting to bed at 1 AM I figured getting up at 7-ish would be difficult...not so. Mr Coffee did not fail to wake me and I got up rather refreshed. After a couple of cups of slightly too weak joe and a light breakfast of granola, fruit, and yogurt, I was ready to help mom with some weather stripping and some fall planting.

I started the weather stripping project after mom gathered all the items I needed. What she wanted to do is not something I would do on my own house, but the bible says to honor your parents, so I did just that. I stapled the vinyl weatherstripping along the edge of her door and checked the seal. It was not 100%, but much better that it was. Next on the list were plants.

Mom has a lot of plants on her front porch and most all of them needed to be trimmed up and brought in. She had something she called a "snake plant" and it was in a huge 5-7 gallon pot. The soil was saturated (it had been raining a few days before I arrived) and the root ball was huge. I bet the thing weighed 100+ lbs. I was not going to try to pick it up, so we tore it down into several smaller plants and then took the main plant inside. The ones she cut off the main she gave to a neighbor.

After that was done we had lunch (for me it was leftovers...not bad really), split a Green Tea and chatted a bit. I read for a while until it was time for my mom to go to the school and pick up "Sparky", my nephew. I gave him that nickname when he stuck a pair of nickel plated scissors in an electric outlet. It did not hurt him, but it scared him. My back was to him when he did it and all I saw was the flash on the wall. The first thing I thought of was my digital camera. Sparky had a bad habit of getting into my things and I think he is the one to damage the display on my old PDA.

We walked to the school (about .5 to .75 of a mile) and waited for him to be released. Once he came out the door, we walked back home. I was warm (I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and it was in the mid 70's) so I went into my room to read. I finished book two of the left behind prequel and started book three.

After dinner (spaghetti, with a Tex-Mex-ish style sauce) I began to show my other nephew, AJ some martial arts punches. He did not catch on at all and he also did not take it very seriously. I wanted him to since he is a little kid and gets picked on a lot. I moved to kicks and he did do better, but he got bored and began to scream. I really dislike when he does that.

I watched a little TV with mom, read some more, then went to bed. It seemed very weird not to call Heath, Bobby, or Linda, but I was determined to spend time with mom for a couple of days.

I also talked to my wife for about 30 minutes. Thank you Cingular.

Back Home Again

Actually I did not sleep straight through the night...I did wake up at midnight and again at 2 AM. At 2 I could not get back to sleep so I played solitaire on my PDA until I fell asleep, which was at 4 AM. My eyes were beginning to itch and I was not sure why. I thought it funny that my allergies would be acting up but I later realized that it was my mom mistakenly put down pillows in my bedroom. I am allergic to down.

I actually woke up at 7:30 to the sound of Mr Coffee brewing in the kitchen. Being a small house noise travels well, not to mention smells. The coffee, though weaker than I normally drink it, smelled great. I got up and shared the 8 cups with mom (I had 3) and then I had a light breakfast of fruit and granola. Since this was Sunday, I needed to get ready for church, but I also needed to spend time reading my bible. On Friday I read before I left but on Saturday, I read at a rest stop. I try to take this seriously. I know some of you may not understand, but I expect that. I am not offended.

I got to church with mom about 9:30 and she reintroduced me to everyone...funny I knew all their faces (including the preacher who looked like a cross between Danny DeVito and Elvis) but could not remember their names. Many of them swore they never had met me before. Ah, the curse of old age. Maybe I will die before I get too old.

The Sunday School lesson was on Deborah and Barak which is a cool story with a violent ending. The sermon only touched on this, but was pretty good nonetheless. I am not a fan of my mom's church, but at least it keeps her grounded in her faith. My mom is very close with one older couple and spends a great deal of time with them when I am not around. They seem to be good people.

We got home and mom started to get lunch ready. She had some chicken breasts handy so she fried them up and prepared some chicken flavored rice and some green beans to go along with it. We split one of my Arizona Blueberry Green Teas and had a slice of coconut cream pie for dessert. It was a box mix, but not bad. The crust was a tad soggy, but it was edible.

I had planned to spend all of Sunday and most of Monday with mom so I could help her as much as possible. She is not one to work on Sunday (yeah!) so we relaxed and talked. She told me she had the rest of the Left Behind prequel trilogy in her office so I grabbed book two and tore into it. I got about 3/4 of the way through it before I stopped for the day.

I watched a little TV, but soon grew bored. Mom did not look like she was interested in doing much, so I walked to the park to watch a soccer game. I watched for a while then headed back to see what was for dinner. Sunday evening is "fend for yourself" so I raided the fridge. I found some left over corn fritters (I have not had those in a long time) and decided that was as good a meal as any for a Sunday evening.

Chatted with mom for a while and then she went to bed. Since she had satellite TV, I flipped over to Sci-Fi and watched the premier of the season 3 opener until 1 AM. I was very tired at that point so I went to bed.

I chatted with my wife for about 30 minutes. She was happy Cingular was a local service provider.

Alarm, What Alarm?

I got up much later than I wanted to (6:30 AM) due to the fact I forgot to set my alarm to get me up. Not that it mattered; I really did not need the extra time. It was far too cold to shower at the bath house. A church group has reserved many of the sites but they are being very respectful about noise.

After I ate my granola bar, banana, yogurt and drank my energy drink, I went to the bath house to use the toilet and brush my teeth. When I walked it, a very large (read fat) black man was dancing around….NAKED. I may never get that image out of my mind. I am afraid that it is etched in my gray matter for all eternity. I really was not expecting to see anyone there since it was pretty cold at that hour, but I guess he figured no one else would be up yet. He guessed wrong.

I hit the road just at 7 AM, driving east as a blinding sun was rising to greet me. I was glad I remembered my sunglasses because I am not sure I would have been able to handle the drive without them.

The route I had planned for today was new to me. I wanted to see the eastern part of TN and then cruise through western VA on my way north to WV. I had not been in the southern part of WV in about 5 years and was yearning to see it. I knew the route would take about 1.5 to 2 hours longer but I was sure I could deal with it. I was wrong. I was about to die before I finally arrived.

The drive across TN along I-40 was long and I had to stop for bathroom breaks 3-4 times during the day. I only stopped once for food and that was at a Wendy’s in Bulls Gap, TN. The food was OK but the service was lame.

Gas was purchased twice, once in Kingston, TN ($2.09 a gallon) and once in Mt. Nebo, WV ($2.29). Gasoline was expensive everywhere I went in WV. I guess I should thank God that I got such good pricing on gas in all the other places.

I saw the results of two accidents during the day. Both were on Route 19 North in WV. The first was a flipped over car and the other involved an 18 wheeler crushing (read running over) the front of a small car. Neither slowed me down and I am not sure if there were any injuries.

The foliage in TN and WV was very pretty. The amount of color was very interesting. Since I do not get to see much of that in Dallas, driving in October has been a real treat. I was glad (at this point) to be travelling in the fall.

I arrived at my mother’s home about 7 PM eastern time. When I got there I had a massive sinus headache so I took some meds but failed to eat anything which of course made me sick to my stomach. Since I did not feel too well, I went to lay down. I did not get up until the next morning, about 7 AM or so. I was able to call my wife once I arrived (yeah…Cingular covers north central WV as local now) but I did not talk long.

And So It Begins

I was not able to update my blog in real time, so these entries are being published after my little road trip.

I am the type of person I would not want to travel with. I am far too AR (anal retentive) for my own good and I am sure I would kill myself if I was forced to travel with me. Makes lots of sense, eh?

Friday morning, Oct 6^th I began my annual journey to the state of my birth, West “By God!” Virginia. This yearly trek can occur in any month and sometimes occurs twice in any given year. It is a time when I pack up a few meager supplies into the van/truck/car that I am driving and hit the road for a fun filled 20 hour drive to visit my family and friends.

Yes, the drive from Dallas, TX to Clarksburg WV takes about 20 hours, give or take. I prefer to drive it alone, but I have on occasion taken my wife and son (OK, they only went once) along even though it is not their cup of tea.

On this trip I traveled a bit heavier than normal. The weather was cooler and most of the clothes I took were jeans and tee shirts. I took a cooler stocked with drinks and yogurt so I would not have to stop for them along the way. I took my sleeping bag and pillow since I would be spending the night at a camp ground near the half way point to break up the 20 hour drive. Call me a wimp, but I just cannot hang for more than 10-12 hours driving.

Also packed were my digital camera (which I never used on this trip), my laptop, PDA, cell phone and chargers for all the electronics I lugged along. I guess I could have lived without the PDA, but all my phone numbers are in it and I a too lazy to put them in my phone. While I planned to use my laptop more, it only got used to type up the drafts of my blog entries. Maybe I am just getting old…

My wife gassed up the van and got me some cash the day before I departed and her thoughtfulness touched me. She really takes very good care of me. She even reminded me to pack certain things she thought I would forget. What a woman!

I made sure I grabbed bible and my journal as well as my crossword puzzle book to keep me occupied if things got boring. I doubted that I would need it, but you never know.

With everything packed, I was all set to hit the road. I loaded up the van with all my supplies and even remembered to grab my toolbox “just in case”. Not that I am very mechanically inclined, but having that tool box has helped more than once. It is worth the space it takes up in the van.

I stopped off at Kroger to get some ice and a 4 pack of Rockstar Juiced energy drinks and I set off for WV. Woo-hoo! It was 7:15 and I was almost on schedule. Traffic leaving my neighborhood was a bit heavy and just before I got to the highway, I realized I forgot my maps. I had directions but with all the construction in TN and WV, I wanted to make sure I had a back-up plan. So with that in mind I turned around and headed back to the house to get my maps.

By 7:30, I was officially on the road, only 30 minutes behind schedule. I knew that over the course of the day I could make it up without a problem, but since I am so darned AR, I knew it was going to drive me crazy until I made up the time.

Keeping that in mind, I did not stop at all until I was in Little Rock, AR and that was for gasoline (2.09 a gallon). About an hour or so later I stopped to eat a banana and drink some tea for lunch. Anything to make up time and by this point I had just about done it.

I stopped off again in Jackson, TN since I was getting hungry (go figure…) and noticed gas was $2.05 a gallon so I topped off (about ½ a tank). I was not sure what gas prices would be link and IIRC, this gas station was the cheapest in the area. I realized as I was heading further east on I-40 that I was right.

I was only about 30 miles from the park, but I had to use the bathroom (I am not sure why I didn’t use it at the Hardee’s where I ate…) so I stopped for a much needed bathroom break. Five minutes later I was back on the road and 30 minutes after that, I was in the camp grounds. I made back my time and getting to the park by 5 PM was a right in my plans.

When I got to the park, I noticed it was quite full but I still managed to get one of my favorite spots. I have to find a very level site since I sleep in the van. I did not realize that the first time I slept in it and spent the night rolling towards the back of the van. It reminded me of something out of a sitcom. The air was cool and I soon needed my sweatshirt to keep warm.

Notes:

* Traffic was mostly light except all the 18 wheelers. I did not see many police cars at all.
* There were no accidents that I saw although a broken down 18 wheeler caused some onlooker delays.
* Cingular covers the entire area so far so I was able to talk with my wife a bit before I went to bed.

Countdown T Minus 22 hours

I hit the road in 22 hours and I have still not packed anything. I have been very busy most every night (Monday I worked out, Tuesday was One to One Discipling, and last night was care group) and very tired by the time I got done with that evenings activity. I need to go work out tonight, stop by the store, go to the bank, gas up the vehicle and pack everything up. At least work is mostly squared away in regards to my vacation. I only have a few small things to take care of before I leave today.

My beautiful wife slipped in the bathtub yesterday. She tried calling me but I was in meetings a big part of the day. She went to the doctor to because she thought she broke her foot, but the x-rays did not show any problems...THANK YOU JESUS! She was sore the rest of the evening and I had to wait on her hand and foot (no pun intended) but she can at least walk on it today. She will be sore for some time.

Work has been chaotic to put it mildly. I have been trying to keep up with my regular job (which I am supposed to be transitioning to KL) and project work as well as trying to get some training for my new role that I will start in mid October. Normally this would not be bad, but my TL was under the impression that I would be working part time for him and part time for my new TL. When I told him that I did not think that would be possible because of so many loose ends, he said that our manager thought I could handle it. Well, that prompted an improptu meeting with me and my manager. I was polite, but firm regarding my current and future duties. There were a few items that were going to cause problems regarding the work force reductions. The biggest part of those problems were job functions that were left after the people have been let go. The person I am replacing was doing a hodge podge of jobs, much of which were not documented and should not be done anyone left in the US. The group I am going to is strictly and issue management group (escalations, problems, and incidents) and will not be a tech group. I do several "small" tasks that tend to eat up my day and the new group I will be working in is very focused on the tasks they do and cannot add more distractions to their day. My boss has agreed to keep me and my new group from performing these functions.

When I got into work this morning, I had quite a surprise when I opened up the ticketing system. We had 378 new tickets come in overnight...none of which were ours. They were all account adds/removes/changes and this account maintenance is now performed by our colleagues in Malaysia. Bon appetit!

I hope to make some updates to my blog while I am gone, but I cannot guarantee that I will be able to. If I can, I will bring you some items of interest as well as some photos. If not, you will just have to wait until I return.

A Little Excitement

I forgot to add this to the previous post.

I was walking little man last night when we both heard sirens from a police car coming closer. I just assumed the police car was traveling down the main street, so I paid it no mind. But then I started hearing squealing tires and seeing the lights bounce off of houses...it was a high speed chase in my neighborhood! The fleeing car went up and down several streets before getting back on the main road. I was very thankful that I had made it to my house when I did. Had I been 2-3 minutes slower, I would have been in the thick of things. Scary.

Today at lunch I went over to my normal spot to nap and realized something. A good breeze really makes the difference. It is the same temperature today as it was yesterday, but today I remained very cool in my truck with the windows down and parked under a tree. Yesterday I was rather uncomfortable. Difference? A nice 5-10 mph breeze was blowing today and yesterday it was not. That little bit of moving air really made a difference. I was able to get a 20 min nap in with minimal nap "hangover".

The Workouts Have Begun

At least for now. I went over to Jeff's house last night and we began our first workout on his used Bowflex. It is the base model, with very little in the way of frills, but it does not do a bad job. We agreed to do the "Body Building" workout, but we are going to have to modify it some. I can only work out 2 days a week with him, so we need to condense it some as well as add the cardio (biking) at the end. If last night can be the measuring stick we use, then we are going to do pretty well.

We began with chest and shoulders (my strong point) and went from that to a 2 mile bike ride down a country road near his home. It was a bit of a dangerous ride...neither of us had headlights and the road was dark...only moonlight to guide us. He had been down that road dozens of times so he lead the way. It had a couple of small hills, but since they were small, I left my gearing in place to give me a harder workout.

After I got home I found out that one of the Elders, who had been sick for some time and had brain tumors, had died. I liked the guy a lot. Smart, talented, and had a passion for the word of God. He was one of the founders of the Christian school my church founded and was a former professional caliber cyclist. He will be missed.

I grabbed a shower (I really needed it!) and then watched an episode of "Brimstone" before hitting the sack. I slept like a baby and was mostly pain free when I woke up. If I can feel like that after every work out, I will do well. My goal is to get my metabolism up, weight and body fat down, and begin to eat better. I do not do a bad job now, but there is plenty of room to improve.

Issues Pending:

* Still no word on my lawn trimmer. Both mine and my neighbors yard are looking bad. Very bad.
* 70 hour until I start my road trip. I still have a lot to do.
* Tires for the van. The wife said she could handle this.
* One to One Discipling with Mickey tonight. We skipped last week since he had to work an we will skip next week due to my vacation.
* I need to call mom...I did not get to Sunday or Monday.

Road Trip Count Down / Weekend Update

T minus 94 hours before I begin my annual road trip to WV. While I have not done massive planning yet, I have started to collect things that I do not want to forget. The question I have right now is do I want to take my older Linux laptop or do I want to take my work laptop. Both will play movies (which I have a few things I want to watch IF I get bored). The pros and cons include losing/damaging the work laptop on the road versus the fact I would have to transfer all the movies to my old laptops hard drive (no DVD player). I most likely will do the transfer. The work laptop is safer at home or better yet, the office.

I have collected the little things I wanted to give my mom (books and magazines), I have my camera/batteries handy and packing will take less than 2 hours. I will not need much in the way of camping supplies since I am just stopping over at the camp to sleep. I will arrive late and leave early. It is cheaper than any hotel ($10 a night ... electricity and water included) and has showers (public but usable).

I will need to get my travel atlas and tool box. I will need to call mom and see if I need to bring power tools ... she may have a project for me! We have most of the travel food I will need (snacks, water, SoBe drinks, yogurt, etc) but I will need to get some other things to make sandwiches so I do not have to spend too much money on food while driving for 2 days.

The van will be getting new tires this week from Sam's club. It just had a fluid change and is cleaned out enough to travel in. I will have my wife get me some cash when she deposits her paycheck this week. My clothes will be clean by then and I will make sure all the bills are caught up so my lovely wife does not have to worry about them while I am gone.

One thing I need to look into getting is the cassette adapter for the CD/MP3 player. I travel charger for my phone would be nice, but it is not necessary at this point I do not think.

Friday evening was laid back with some TV time and bed. Saturday was a lot more productive. I was hoping to have my weed eater back so I could do my lawn as well as my neighbors, but no dice. Warranty work takes too long and the repair shop does not seem to care.

I managed to help my wife grill a London Broil and we ate on that for a couple of days. I did the normal Saturday chore list (laundry, vacuuming, strip/make bed as well as spraying for weeds, ants, cleaning up after my wife when she trimmed some shrubs. There is a lot more to do around the outside, but lo and behold, it was in the mid 90's here and not great weather to work outside.

Sunday was a great day filled with church and brunch at Jimmy and Collette's house. My wife and I actually got to help which made her happy. She feels she never does enough. We scrambled eggs, made bacon, fried up some apples, and sliced up fruit while Jimmy worked on crepes. The whole presentation was fantastic. Couple that with the gourmet juices (banana strawberry and mango lemonade), gourmet coffee and cream, and we had a great afternoon.

We had actually stayed until 6 PM or so and I felt pretty bad about imposing that long, but true to form, Jimmy, Collette, and Collette's parents (they showed up later) told us that we were always welcome and enjoyed our company. Awwwww shucks!

Before we made it out the door, Jimmy handed me a gift. It was a small collection of letter opener sized swords in a castle themed display holder. It had been on his shelf for several weeks and he told me that he bought it the same time that he bought me the katana. He said the box was pretty damaged but he wanted me to have the swords nonetheless. WOW, I was blown away. I have not many people who are some generous and want nothing but brotherly love in return. Jimmy is away cool guy.

After we left my wife asked me if we could run a couple of errands before we went home and fed the dogs. We just had to make a quick trip to Target to return a few things and to Tom Thumb to get a refund on some mispriced groceries my wife bought a few days ago. Once that was done, we headed home to feed the dogs and watch some tube.

We decided to watch an episode of "Brimstone" but before it was over, we both realized we were a bit hungry. In keeping up with our mostly healthy day, we decided just to have cereal, cold for my wife and oatmeal for me.

We got rather caught up in the "Brimstone" watching and ended up watching 3 episodes before we called it a night. We got plenty of sleep and I felt pretty good once I got rolling. I was trying to remain focused on this week as much as possible. I am sure that I will be tested in many ways before I make it to WV.

Keep me in prayer.