Always a Dull Moment

Third Week of my New Role at Work

2011-07-26T09:37:00.002-05:00

Three weeks ago several members of the account I work on were asked to switch roles with each other. I was one of 6 or 7 asked to move to a different role, a move I welcomed. Several of us have questioned why management decided to do this switch but after talking to a few of the team I think I know why.

One of the people who switched had expressed an interest in project management. The role he was doing is very process oriented and they asked me to fill it.

I was not happy in my current role and to be honest, it was not a good fit for me. It required a degree of network knowledge that I did not possess and that made things awkward on a team that was already very short staffed.

They backfilled the role I was performing with someone who had done the role many years ago and had the skill set to fit in better with the team. He seemed indifferent about the switch, but he does not seem disappointed about it.

His role is being back filled with a guy who used to assist the person whom I am replacing. Like many people on the account, we do a hodge podge of functions and handing them all over to one person usually is a little chaotic. So what has happened is that some of the functions are being moved to the logical person. The problem with that is that the logical person is me and now I am doing a new role plus parts of other people's roles as well. It makes for a hectic day. They work is not hard (I still ask a lot of "Where do I find ..." questions) but the volume over the past 2 weeks has been insane. I am getting about 150 e-mails a day, most all of which need research. Delegating any of it is difficult because the person who did this before me liked to be involved with everything. I guess he wanted to make sure that everything was done correctly, but it had a price. He got very little sleep and his health is somewhat frail. He did manage to do a super job of documenting things and that has been a big help.

As for the other people, I am not sure how they all fit into the puzzle, although one of them has been asking me do things for him that he can do on his own (following up with on site people regarding asset management) but after talking to him he is okay with doing those talks himself now.

The funny thing is that what my boss wants me to do, what I do, and what others think I do are three different things. I actually could use an assistant (Yes I am that busy) but I am not sure how that would all work. We have one I could leverage, I am sure since she is not overly busy but I am not sure how my boss would like that.

Something to think about.

Animal Issues

2011-05-27T07:37:00.003-05:00

First up, "The Wabbits".

My wife decided that having them in the yard was just too much of a temptation for our curious senior dogs (who love to chase bunnies) so she scooped the half dozen babies and took them to animal control. My wife then proceeded to fill the hole with fresh dirt. The mother came by that night and looked for them. We knew this because the hole had been emptied. Momma misses her babies, I guess.

Next up, our newest Golden mix (the Irish Setter / Golden Retriever that I call my Golden Irish) has melanoma (Skin Cancer). We rescued her from a shelter and do not know her exact age. She is at least eight but I think she is closer to 10 due to the amount of grey she is getting around her face. We took her to the vet who removed one of the masses (she has a couple that w have found) and had the pathology done. While he did not think it was cancer when he saw it, the report shows otherwise. The mass was on her left front paw and was causing great pain when she tried to walk on it. The wound is healing now (we had to take her back to get staples put on the incision because the glue/stitches did not hold) but if the mass comes back, the vet has to be more aggressive, meaning My Golden Irish will lose a big part of one of her paw pads.

The Golden Irish is relatively new to our family...about a year or so and I have grown really attached to her due to her sweet disposition. She does not have the stamina to hang with me on geocaching hikes (she can go about 2 miles before tuckering out and I tend to go 5+ when I am out), so I am not sure how much fun she would be on those. That was one thing I wanted to be able to do with our next dog, geocache.

I am hoping the surgery will take care of the melanoma on her (both grows are on her paw pads, the second one has not grown any). God can do anything but I also know that he uses every situation to teach us something that we need to learn.

The pic is of The Golden Irish wearing my boonie hat while we vacationed at the beach. Her paw was really beginning to bother her so we had to walk her on the softer sand when possible.

Wabbits!

2011-05-19T20:19:00.002-05:00

My wife and I discovered a small nest of six rabbits in the back yard. The dogs were at first afraid of them but now that they know what they are, they won't leave them alone. We have only seen the momma once and that was at night. Not sure what to do about them. Call me a wuss but I just don't want to kill them outright but they will become a nuisance later on.

Back from Vacation

2011-05-17T09:40:00.003-05:00

My wife and I, along with our two Golden mixes got back from our yearly vacation in Florida last night. It is about a 15 hour drive (not counting stops) so we broke it up over two days to make it a little less painless. We had a great time and we both were able to relax a bit.

The realization that I had to go back to work hit me on the way back and I was dreading what I would see when I got back. I had only 253 new e-mails from work...not bad really since that is only about 40 mails a day. I am not looking forward to playing catch-up but I am not going to stress about it.

The beach house we rented was pretty nice overall. It was older and the beds were not very comfortable at all but it had wireless internet, new appliances, a washer/dryer and was closer to the beach than the place we normally rented. Our newest dog had trouble with the stairs and she also has a problem with her foot that is keeping her from walking properly (some weird growth is on her paw...the vet will look at it this week)

I have my work cut out for me this week since I have three lawns to cut before it rains again. I need to start them tonight. Hopefully I can knock out two of the three lawns this evening. The grass is not overly high, but it is very thick which can be harder to cut than tall grass.

Attached is a sand castle that someone built. It is small but interesting.

Wiki articles on where we stayed:

St. George Island
St. George Island Bridge
St. George Island Home Page

Why?

2011-05-05T20:22:00.002-05:00

Why is it that when you are trying to wrap things up so you can take some time off that more and more things get thrown at you? In the past four days I have had more project managers come to me literally demanding that I my team work on things for them, even though the team is stretched very thin. Most of these are projects that are due in less than 30 days (the PM's have known about them for months) and just the standard process to complete these projects (with all the checks and balances) will take longer than 30 days.

Crazy.

Work

2011-05-05T20:15:00.003-05:00

I had an interesting thing happen at work a few days ago.

My boss and I went up to the visitors area to greet two visiting employees from Sweden (on male, one female). When we spotted each other, we said hello ("Hej" in Swedish) and exchanged pleasantries. Then the during out greeting, the female comes over and hugs me. That threw me for a loop. She never hugged my boss, she just said hello to him. Oddly enough he never really paid attention that this woman whom we just me for the first time, gave me a hug but not him. Not sure if I am the hug-able type or I reminder her of he grandfather. I have been dealing with the Swedes for over 15 years and have never had one hug me, male or female.

Anyway, I just had to tell my wife so she could get a laugh out of it.

The Downside to Lifetime Warranties

2011-04-26T07:52:00.002-05:00

I replaced the kitchen sink and faucet in our home 7.5 years ago at the request of my wife who was tired at looking at the stock "contractor grade" faucet and sink that was in the house when we bought it. The house was only 3 years old when we bought it but the previous owners did not take many (if any) upgrades when they had it built. But I digress.

When I replaced the sink and faucet (a real challenge for me) my wife had chosen a decent mid grade El-Kay sink and Delta faucet. Unbeknown to me at the time, it had a lifetime warranty.

Fast forward to last week. I am working from home and my comes rushing into my office and tells me she needs me to come into the kitchen, ASAP. I get there and she shows me a leaking faucet. Now the model that she picked out and I installed is one of those where the sprayer hose is built in to the neck of the faucet. The sprayer is the neck and the hose is inside the rest of the neck. If you get a leak there, you really cannot use the faucet until you get it replaced.

I drove over to Lowes to see about getting the replacement hose and when I got there the guy in plumbing told me about the lifetime warranty. "All you have to do is call them up and they will get you another one, free of charge.", he said. Armed with that information, I headed home to order the part.

I got home and went to Delta's web site and found the contact number for support and after a few keypunches later, I had a live person. I related my story to her and after confirming the part number I needed, she told me all she needed was proof of purchase. Hmmm...I had no idea the thing had a lifetime warranty until an hour ago but a good geek always saves the manuals until the item is in the trash. I wondered if that would do. My phone rep told me that if I took a pictured of the faucet with the manual beside it and e-mailed it to her, she could get my part ordered. She gave me the e-mail address and I got busy.

Two business days later I got a confirmation e-mail that my information had been received and that the part had been ordered. It was expected within 10-12 days. Argh.

So that is the downside to lifetime warranties. The part is free but there is a lot of time wasted.

BTW, had the part not been free, it was $85 from Delta...specialty part.

"It's Too Expensive"

2011-02-14T07:24:00.002-06:00

I was out with a friend of mine on Saturday after a successful morning of geocaching (yeah, I still do that on Saturdays) when we stopped at Steak and Shake for a quick bite. He owed me lunch so I let him pick the place. We sat down and we gave our drink orders to the server. I ordered sweet tea and my buddy ordered a water. "Why water? Are you on a special diet?", I asked.

"No," he replied "Tea is just too expensive to order when we eat out."

"DW, didn't you just spend $300 on a new iPhone 4 from AT&T?"

"Yes I did."

"And didn't you spend $200 a couple of years earlier on an iPhone 3GS?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Your wife has an iPhone, right?"

"Yes, she does, an iPhone 3GS we bought last year."

"And she also wants an iPad, right?"

"Yes."

"And SWEET TEA is too expensive?"

How High Can We Go?

2011-02-05T07:12:00.002-06:00

Every day since our Texas Ice Age started, I have been desiring warmer temps. Every day we get a predicted high and a predicted low presented to us and every day the weather geeks have been wrong. I find that amusing.

It was predicted (as late as yesterday evening) that today's high would be in the low 40's. Well, it looks like this morning view into the crystal ball known as weather forecasting states it will be in the upper 30's. So it looks like the emergence from our frozen shell will not be as soon as hoped. Oh yes, it will be above freezing, but it would be nice to see the main roads clear of ice before summer hits.

The next 10 days or so show slowly warming until midweek when another cold snap comes through. My guess? This mess will be around a while.

LISTEN to me, please!

2011-02-03T19:11:00.002-06:00

Time Warner Cable called the other day, offering us a "special" deal on their bundle. We are TWC customers, primarily for the internet service. It ain't cheap, but it is fast and mostly dependable. We also have the absolute minimum analogue cable television service we could get to carry the internet service that we have. We are not big TV people and what we watch we can usually get free or low cost from the web.

Anyhoo, when TWC calls they offered me a "great deal" on their bundle which includes TV, internet and digital phone service for $99.99 a month for a year. While I can appreciate bundles to save money, we have no need for landline phone service...my wife and I both carry mobile phones, plus I have a company provided mobile phone on a separate carrier. We are covered for telecoms without paying $40-50 a month for a dedicated landline.

I tell the kind woman on the phone that while I appreciate her offer, I have no need for landline and she goes through a litany of reasons why I need their service. Each reason I politely but firmly shoot down. I tell her that to be honest, if I could find fast, dependable, cheaper internet service, I would drop TWC in a heartbeat. This scares her and asks me how long I have been a TWC customer. I then have to go into the story of how we signed up for AT&T cable services until Comcast bought them out, then TWC bought out Comcast's interest in this area. So in all we have been cable customers for 10 years. She then offers to get me to a supervisor to cut me a deal to stay with them. I am not really amused, but I give them a shot. A few minutes later, the rep comes back on the line to make me a counter offer, which includes...you guessed it, home phone service.

Was she not listening to me? Does my hillbilly accent confuse her?

Politely, but firmly I explain again that even if the service was offered free, I would not accept it...we have no need for it with three mobile phones in the house.

I ask her if she can make me a deal on internet and TV for a good price, since I am such a loyal customer and all but alas, she is unable. Only bundles with phone service are offered. Gee, I wonder why?

I am not up with current landline pricing but I bet 33.33 is not all that much of a bargain. I know that 4+ years ago, we paid a base of $30 a month for landline service and that included caller ID and 50 minutes of long distance.

I am happy with mobile only service in our home. While it did bother my wife (for a couple of weeks) not having a landline, she does not miss it now at all. I personally cannot see why anyone who does not have kids living at home even bothers with landline service.

Just a wee bit cold

2011-02-03T09:10:00.002-06:00

North Central Texas normally has rather mild winters. While we have been known to get some snow in the winter, it normally melts the same day or the day after it arrives. Every now and then we get snow or cold weather that lasts for more than a couple of days, but it is pretty rare.

On Monday evening we started getting some rain. Early Tuesday morning, a frigid cold front moved in and turned the DFW are into an icy wonderland. Anywhere from .5 to 2 inches of ice covered the streets, alleys, sidewalks and cars in the area. The temps got down to about 10 degrees or so and have not gotten above 20 since. It is currently 16 degrees (we are talking Farenheit here, not Celsius) but it is supposed to get up to 26. Still below freezing and the roads are still covered in ice.

Why are the roads still covered in ice? With the lack of severe weather in this area, the county/city does not have the equipment to to treat the roads and since salt is corrosive, they will not put that down to aid in the melting of the ice.

Needless to say I have been working from home all week long and don't plan making it into the office until at least Monday.

Oh, the added twist to all this is that since the grid has been pushed to the limits, we had "rolling bloackouts" yesterday, all day long in this area. We lost power for 15-20 minutes at a time every 60-90 minutes. It made work a tad difficult, especially conference calls that were using "virtual meeting rooms" hosted online. So far we have stayed stable in regards to power. I hope it stays that way.

Outsourced Funnies

2011-01-28T11:22:00.002-06:00

No secret...my company outsources/offshores a lot of the support that we use/supply. Because I am in a situation to work with some of these resources, I get to read some pretty funny notes in e-mails and tickets. Two that I saw the other day were (edited and paraphrased):

"...engineers are still investigating the issue and are working to determine what is borken..." ("borken" is a term some geeks use around other geeks when things are really screwed up. Here it was just some fat fingering on the keyboard)

"...during the meeting the engineers stated that they needed to get clean cash before the situation will be resolved..." (I have never heard anyone admitting to money laundering before...especially an engineer!)

I am not picking on anyone who speaks English as a second language when I post these. I admire anyone who is bi, tri, or multi-lingual...because I am not!

Me and my Pre

2011-01-27T10:42:00.002-06:00

I stated a while back that I would give an update on the Palm Pre Plus that my wife and I upgrade to a few months ago. After using the device for over three months, I can safely say that I think the OS (operating system) on the phone (HP WebOS) is rock solid. While the hardware is a little weak, it still is a fine little phone.

I hope HP will continue producing phones with HP WebOS on them. I have always been a fan of Palm and since HP purchased Palm some time back I have been dying to see what the two of them can do together.

As I type this, it is rumored that HP will release two "pad" computing devices akin to the iPad. I doubt that HP will be able to unseat Apple but I am looking forward to the rivalry when HP releases there mobile computing device.

Amusing

2011-01-27T10:31:00.002-06:00

The past few weeks I have been catching up on past episodes of "Top Chef". While it is a reality show, I like it not for the drama, but for the crazy challenges the chefs have to compete in.

I also like it because I get to learn about various cooking techniques and being someone who likes to eat, I figured I should enjoy the process of cooking as well.

In one earlier episode (not sure which season), the chefs had to cook for some fancy party and one of male chefs created an "amuse bouche". One of the female guests tasted it and when asked her opinion, she replied with a bit of a sly grin, "My bouche was amused."

Well, I thought it was amusing.

8 hours of sleep does wonders

2010-11-09T10:03:00.002-06:00

I confess, I do not get enough sleep. Five or six hours is usually all I get on any given night. However, the past two or three nights have been different. I have gotten at least eight hours of peaceful, uninterrupted sleep each night. The difference is amazing.

First off, I when I got up this morning, I felt great. I was full of energy and had no desire for my morning cup of coffee (okay, I missed the taste and smell but not the caffeine). To top that off, after being up for over five hours I am still going strong.

At my last physical (almost a year ago) my doctor told me that I would seriously benefit from at least eight hours sleep but somehow I keep avoiding that magic number. However, after this morning, I am seriously considering making that a priority.

An Upgrade

2010-08-17T16:21:00.003-05:00

After upgrading our mobile phones to something a little more current (Palm Pre Plus) we figured that was all the upgrades that we were entitled to. How wrong we were. After finding out that the 11 year old Dodge Dakota needed close to $2000 in repairs (and a couple of hundred in scheduled maintenance, my wife and I decided to put the faithful truck out to pasture. In it's place, we bought this:

A Silver 2010 Toyota Tacoma Double Cab. V6, towing package, 6 disc CD changer. We got a pretty good deal on it, considering the 2011's have not made it to the lot as of Saturday.

Joining the 21st Century.

2010-07-08T08:22:00.002-05:00

Well, my wife and I are finally smartphone and wireless internet users. After getting by for the longest time with PDA's, my wife and I now have "modern" smartphones. No we did not get iPhones, nor did we get Windows based phones. Instead, I have decided to go the Palm Pre route.

I can just hear you now: "Are you nuts?" Palm got bought out by HP...they are dead!"

Yes, Palm did just get purchased by HP, but Palm is far from dead. While I cannot say with any certainty what the future holds for the technology that HP now owns, I can be relatively sure the WebOS which powers the Palm Pre will live on. I also believe it would be in the best interest of HP to keep the Palm brand name alive. There are a diehard group of Palm fans who love the products and have stuck by Palm through the good times and the bad. I am one of them.

My love affair with Palm started with my first Palm, a Palm V. That device was a work of art and one of the most dependable tools I have ever used. I used it until I upgraded and got a IBM Workpad C3, which was just a rebranded Palm Vx, the upgrade to the Palm V. I used that for some time until my coworker sold me his Handspring Treo 90. This was my first color device and was competing with the new Windows Mobile/Windows CE devices.

Now that I had tried a color Palm device, I could not go back. After the Treo 90 started to fail (screen/pixel damage...the first failure I had suffered with a Palm device), I started looking at color devices. I settled on a Tungsten E which I liked quite a bit with the exception the battery life, which was pretty bad. The other thing that disappointed me was that Palm released the E2 just a few months after I bought the E. Wanted to upgrade but Palm would not give in. I could see their point. The E2 had bluetooth and a better battery though.

I used the Tungsten for a few years until I got tired of carrying a phone and a PDA. I managed to secure a Palm Centro from AT&T (before the mandatory data plan on smartphones) and used it until my contract expired...just about the time HP bought out Palm.

Up until this time, my wife had gotten my hand me downs. She got my IBM C3 and used it until the infamous digitizer issue got too bad to deal with. Then when I got my Centro, I gave her my Tungsten E. She used that one until the battery had to be charged at the end of each day, signaling the end of that device. She wanted another PDA but the prices on what few were so high, I just could not justify the cost. So last year I got her a Treo 680 smartphone and she really liked it. We were happy. Well, we were until AT&T mandated (like other carriers) a data fee for all smartphones. Arrggh. Well, now she was back to using her flip phone for calls and her Treo as a PDA...she was not overly happy . She wanted to use her Treo 680 full time but I could not justify the cost of data on a phone that had very limited data ability.

Well, my Centro was beginning to act pretty bad in humid environments. The screen would blank out and it was locking up at weird times. Of course this all started after I had accidentally dropped it in the dogs water bowl. While it appears to dry, it was not the same afterwards.

Now with our contract up with AT&T I was investigating other carriers. Sprint was looking good for the price, but the hardware they sold was pretty weak and expensive. AT&T had better hardware, but the prices for smartphones were still rather high (to me), and besides, the data prices are high as well.

Well, all this happens just about the time HP buys Palm and starts selling the Pre and the Pixi at really great prices. With the exception of shipping, they were free.

We just got the phones yesterday and I did not get a chance to start working with them until late last night. I was able to get all my wife's data moved over to the new phone and now all I need to do is to get her wallpaper and ringtones set. I hope to do that tonight.

What do I think of my Palm Pre Plus and the WebOS? I like it so far. It does not have as many apps as the iPhone or Android, but it is rather nice. I do hope to see more apps soon.

I plan on giving a full update after I have played with it for a while. One thing I can say...it is hard on batteries.

How's The Weather?

2010-07-08T08:11:00.002-05:00

I tell you, this year the weather has been bizarre. We had a a cool, wet spring and during the last 2-3 weeks of it, it turned HOT and very dry. Well, it did for a while. While it is still hot (90's) it is not as bad as it could be. No, the oddity is the amount of rain we have gotten off and on. It seems like we have been forecast for thunderstorms every day for the past month or so. Mind you it has not rained every day, but it has rained quite a bit over the past 2-3 weeks.

Of course, all that rain makes it hard to keep the grass in check. I normally cut the grass on Tuesday so they bagged clippings can be picked up on Wednesday. We have the trash, recyclable materials, and yard waste picked up in that day. Well, I was unable to cut it on Tuesday last week so the yard waste had to sit until this week. I did not cut the grass on Tuesday this week due to some scheduling issues with my wife. I was able to get it cut yesterday, right before the storms rolled in. The good news is that all the yard waste should be picked up today since we are on a one day delay due to most people being off on Monday for Independence Day.

Yesterday made the second time in a row that I was able to just finish cutting grass before the storms hit. God was watching out for me.

Considering how much rain we have gotten so far this past few weeks, I wonder how the rest of the summer will be. We started off hot and dry and now are moving into a period of heavy precipitation. I wonder if we will end the year wet like last year or dry like we normally do.

The northeast has been hot and dry. I am scheduled to go visit family and friends in near the end of August, traditionally the hottest and driest time of the year there. I wonder what the weather will be like then?

Weekend Adventure

2010-06-16T12:48:00.007-05:00

I am an avid (although not fanatical) Geocacher living in North Central Texas. One thing that Geocaching has done for me is get me out of the house and allowed me to explore my surroundings. It might be as simple as a city park that I was not aware of, a memorial hidden off the beaten path, or full blown weekend (or week long) adventure but nonetheless I get out of the house.

I have a partner in crime named Allen who invites me to go along on the more adventurous geocache outings. We have take several 8-10 mile hikes, camped in the cold, and as of last weekend, took a weekend to go canoeing and camping.

A few weeks ago Allen e-mailed me about the Brazos River Cache, Canoe, and Camping Event that was being held on June 11th. I have never really been canoeing before, but I figured it would be a great getaway. I like to camp and geocache so adding canoeing to the mix sounded pretty good to me. We worked the logistics out (who was preparing what, times, locations, etc) and before you know it, June 11th rolled around.

Our plan was to leave late on Friday morning and drive to Possum Kingdom Lake, grabbing some geocaches along the way. Allen had mentioned to me that there was a challenge cache that we both could fulfill (The Lonestar Busy Day Challenge) if we planned our route correctly. The challenge required us to grab six different types of geocaches plus a benchmark, all in a 24 hour period. Now getting four of these would not be hard, but getting the other two of the remaining ones would be more difficult. Virtuals are scarce and earthcaches, letterbox hybrids, and whereIgo caches are practically extinct. Earthcaches are making a comeback but still are scattered far and wide. Yes, I know I also did not mention Cache In Trash Out caches, Event caches, Mega Event caches, Project A.P.E. or GPS Adventure Mazes Exhibit caches. These were excluded from the challenge and are many of these are rare.

The good news for us was that we were heading west and many of the caches we needed were right along the route (give or take a few miles). To make a long story short, we grabbed all the caches needed for the challenge and all we need to do is go get the challenge cache and log our find.

Once we made it to Possum Kingdom (PK), we set up our tent in the wind (with the help of some other geocaches), helped a few people set up their tents, and had dinner. Once it got dark we headed off into the woods to search for the night cache hidden by the host of the event (Doug). After searching for (and finding) the night cache, we headed off deeper into the woods to grab yet another cache hidden by Doug. We enjoyed he three mile hike from the trail head to the caches and back. Hanging out and talking with new people is always fun.

After the hike I grabbed a shower (which consisted of cool lake water pumped from the lake...no hot water) and it felt great. It was one of the most refreshing showers I have ever taken.

Most of the people were still kind of wound up so they stayed up, despite the fact we needed to get up early and break camp so we could make launch at 9 AM. We still needed a few miles to the canoe rental shop, then they would shuttle us to the launch point.

Allen and I were both tired so we did our best to get some sleep but sleep did not come for some time. It was still rather hot and humid, not to mention noisy as people continued to have a good time.

6:00 AM came and both Allen and I struggled to wake up. I unloaded my single burner and put on water for coffee and oatmeal (my normal camp breakfast) and started to pack up what we would need for the canoe trip. I no sooner than finished my breakfast when Doug shouted for everyone to hurry up. I was a little bewildered by this since it was only 7:00 AM and we did not need to leave for at least an hour. Allen and I quickly packed up the gear and loaded it into my truck. We then rushed off to Rochelle's Canoe Rentals several miles up the road on Route 4. After getting to Rochelle's we learned it was first come, first launch. We got our people in line and filled out the paperwork so we could launch as soon as possible. Finally around 10:00 AM, we launched the canoes on our 20 mile trip down the Brazos River.

As I said earlier, I have never really taken a canoe trip before. I have floated on inner tubes on rivers in WV and even used rafts to cross rivers, but I have never taken an extended canoe trip before. I was in unfamiliar territory the minute the canoe slid into the water. Nonetheless I was excited and anxious to get this trip underway.

Now if you could not tell by the name of the event, this was a canoeing, camping, and CACHING event. Along this 20 mile section of river were 32 geocaches to be found. A few of these had just recently been placed and had not been found yet so we were in for a special treat.

The view along the Brazos is pretty amazing. While the water is shallow enough int spots to cause your canoe to drag, you can avoid walking the canoe if you watch the current closely. Being green at canoeing, I did not watch the river closely enough and we had to walk the canoe several times the first day.

After canoeing and caching 13 miles, the team decided to beach the canoes on one of the islands dotting the river so we could spend the night. After investigating a couple of spots, we made our decision and began to set up camp. Allen and I quickly unloaded the canoe and within a short time had our tent pitched on soft, sandy soil. The wind was a little strong but the tent held even in the soft soil. One of the more interesting things we noticed on several of the islands was the abundance of cow patties dotting the ground. Local farmers let the cattle roam and they cross the river at the shallows and eat the bright green grass on the islands.

After we set up camp, the event coordinator Doug began preparations to get dinner together. He had smoked some brisket earlier in the week (a Texas thing...) and packed it up in his canoe for dinner that night. Other people pitched in to provide sides and drinks. At first I had not plans to eat (I brought MRE's) but they had plenty and insisted we join them. Allen pitched in some money to cover the cost of food since we did not bring anything to share. I kinda felt bad for not bringing something, but I did not want to try to keep food cool while canoeing.

After dinner most of us were pretty tired. We had paddled 13 miles as well as climbed in and out the canoes dozens of times looking for caches or dragging the boats through the shallow water. Since people were so tired, the camp was quiet by 10 PM. It was an odd thing compared to the previous night when everyone was up until way past midnight.

Before bed, Allen and I discussed the plan of attack for the next day. We planned on getting up early and hitting the water by 8 AM. We hoped to get out and finish first, then move on down the road to get home early. However, even though we were the first to wake up, we were almost last team to leave the island. One of the reasons was that I brought a big tent (Allen did not have one) and it took a while to set up/breakdown. Next I let someone use my single burner stove and he did not get it back to me until right before we launched. In the long run it did not matter. We may have been almost last leaving the island but we were right in the middle of the back when we arrived at the pickup point.

I was pretty proud of Allen and myself as we got within three miles of the pickup point. We had not tipped over the canoe once (considering all the gear and water we brought) although we had come close a few times. However our good fortune did not last. Just about 2.5 to 3 miles from the pickup point we hit an area of fast moving water and we lost control of the canoe. We drifted straight into a fallen tree and got turned sideways. The force of the water against the side of the canoe tipped the canoe over on its side. I managed to pop out and right the canoe just before it tipped over completely. After the canoe was upright, I noticed it was almost completely full of water. My gear, which was water resistant but not water proof, was soaked. We pulled the canoe out of the swift current (no easy feat) and started to bail the water out. Once most of the water was out, we went on our way towards the pickup point. We were wet, but safe.

After arriving at the pickup point, we posed for a group picture and grabbed a few more caches in the area before heading home. We managed to get all but five of the 32 caches in the area. Of those five we thing all of them are missing. Several good people looked for them without any luck. The owners have been notified and I hope they will be replaced.

Allen and I took the more direct path home but we still stopped a few times for caches and to try to dry out some of our sloppy wet gear.

I had a great time canoeing on the Brazos River. I will remember that weekend for a very long time.

Technical Support - A Sad State Of Affairs

2010-05-06T09:32:00.002-05:00

I woke up yesterday to find that our broadband internet service, provided by Time Warner Cable was not working. I performed my normal troubleshooting (Working in IT tends to give me an edge in this department) and after several minutes, I decided to call TWC customer service to see if there was any service outages. After navigating the voice prompts I finally was connected to "Daniel", a seemingly nice guy with a slight Latino accent. He "tested" my cable modem and verified it was working and also confirmed there were no service outages in my area. Having a customer service background, I tend to go through life trying to have some sympathy for those doing customer service based jobs so I let "Daniel" ask me all the mundane questions and I did everything he asked.

After a few minutes, I was cold transferred to a Latina (with a much thicker accent...I never understood her name) in L2 support. Again, I allowed her to ask me all the questions "Daniel" did, including verifying my name, service address, home phone number, and account number. After a while she informed me that my cable modem was "quarantined". I asked her why and she said that she did not know, but most of the time it is because of viruses and spam. Knowing this was not the case, I informed her that I was working from home and needed my broadband connection to do my job. She then gave me the toll free number to the security department. Why she could not do this, I don't know. I thought that customer service was about a single point of contact?

Nonetheless I called the number as was greeted with a very long and unprofessionally recorded message asking me to leave my contact info and a brief description of the issue and they would call me back. I left the required info and hung up. In the mean time I pulled out my Sprint Aircard so I could at least log on to work and check mail.

A few hours later I received a call from an Anglo female who told me that I had been mailed several notices to come in and have my cable modem swapped out. I told her that my modem was mine...I bought it 8 years ago and there was nothing to swap out. I also told her I was only sent one notice (about a week ago) and we already called TWC customer service to see if needed an upgraded modem and we were told beyond the shadow of a doubt that we were fine. The lady from security told me there was a breakdown in communication at the CS level and my modem (a DOCSIS 1.0 compliant Linksys) was not going to work on the new network they were rolling out and I needed and upgrade. I was informed that TWC does not charge for the cable modems like Comcast does (or did) so I could just drop by any TWC office and get one. I informed the woman at security that I was working from home and needed my internet service up and running to do my job. She agreed to release my modem for two weeks until I could get another. My wife picked one up that afternoon and I hooked it up a few hours later. No problems getting it to authenticate. As a matter of fact, my speeds are much greater than they were with my old modem.

I was pretty torqued when all this started, but am over it now. I guess what occurred to me is just a reflection of what most American's deal with when needing customer service or technical support.

A Gem

2010-04-29T16:15:00.003-05:00

I have been bored as of late and decided to just start watching movies. I was not overly picky but Sci-Fi flicks are always my first choice and doomsday apocalyptic types are always interesting...sometimes in a bad way.

I started watching "20 Years After" (not a very good movie in the least) and was just about ready to turn it off when I heard an Appalachian style tune playing in the background. I could not make out many of the lyrics but I did hear the words, "...stars fell on Alabama last night..." so I began searching on the web until I found this:

Of course that led me to some reviews, a Myspace page, and several other goodies that gave me some background info on this wonderful song. It seems that this is an old Jazz standard but it just seems to translate so well into mountain music. I just wished it was a bit longer.

Back when I was a kid, I would have hated that song, but now as an adult I feel drawn to it and I am not sure why. I mean, I am an 80's metalhead who still loves turning up the Iron Maiden, Metallica, Poison, Kix, and Hanoi Rocks whenever I get the chance...why do I feel so much emotion when I hear mountain music?

I guess my Hillbilly spirit is getting restless. It happens every year. I feel drawn back to my home state and music becomes the catalyst. Heck, I even start listening to John Denver.

By the way, the song (Stars fell on Alabama) is performed by Tara Nevin and actually is the best thing I have heard from her. She was asked to arrange and perform this especially for "20 Years After".

Update - Here is an extended version, live (w/with Charlie Howell and the Believers):

Job Changes?

2010-03-11T05:56:00.002-06:00

Not changing companies, but my job role will change...at least I think it will if I have a job after the changes kick in.

To make a long story short, within the next 3-6 months the work I do will be transitioned to an eastern European team to handle 24x7. It is a phased in approach with stage one having the team (which is not fully hired or trained yet, but things are progressing very quickly) take all the inbound high priority requests from the help desk (which we do now) and filter them (like the team lead at the help desk used to do) and assign them accordingly. We would still manage the issue once it is assigned to us.

The next phase would be for the eastern European team to take the calls as well as taking back anything that is still open after our business hours. We would then only take calls from the new team if they needed questions answered.

The last phase would be for the team to handle 100% of the calls and never to call us again for input. I know that last one is a pipe dream but after we handover our work to them, we are no longer on call.

Sounds scary...like I am about to lose my job, but I believe we will be okay, at least in the short term. The account I work with has more work than workers and my boss and his boss both told me so at different times. They both stated to the European team that he could not wait to get us 100% so he could get us working on things that need attention. I am excited and scared at the same time.

I have been supporting this customer, both as an employee of that company and as their supplier for 14 years. I have been blessed to avoid the layoffs that started 3 years after I started working for them and continues today. I have counted at least six times I have missed the axe that cuts people from their livelihood, aka "their job". I guess I will see if I make it past round seven! God has been good so far and he will remain to be good no matter what happens.

All this talk of job changes has caused me to think back to all the job roles I have had in the past 14 years supporting this customer:

1996 - hired as a L3 Equipment Tech
1997 - transferred to IT as a Help Desk agent
1998 - promoted to HD Team Lead
2000 - promoted to Customer Support Coordinator
2001 - promoted to Customer Support Supervisor
2003 - transferred to current my employer to support my former employer
2003 - title change to Technical Support Supervisor, began working in the NOC
2004 - "loaned out" to a Project Manager to assist with a huge project
2004 - transferred back to support as a Disk Encryption Specialist
2005 - transferred to the Unix team as a Sysadmin
2006 - transferred to Escalation Management
2007 - transferred to Incident Management

That is a lot of jumping, I will admit but many of those was to keep from getting laid off, especially the last 10 years. I was working in the NOC when I was loaned out to the PM for a year or so. When my time was up with him, the NOC had been migrated to Asia. The encryption tech was leaving so I jumped in his spot.

After the encryption team was migrated and the basic support automated, I was given an option of being laid off, taking a Windows admin position or a Unix admin position...neither of which I was qualified. Since I am run Linux as a hobby at home, I decided to take that route. When all the Unix support was migrated to Asia, I was officially on the layoff list until I agreed to take any job that was available. That lead to the Escalation Management role that was by far one of the worst jobs for me.

I lasted seven months in that role before I told my boss that I needed out. I am not a quitter but the stress was killing me. As tough as the economy was, I was ready to quit rather than stay in that job role. Oddly enough, I was not fired, laid off, nor did I have to quit. About 2 weeks later, I was told that an opening was available on the Incident Management team. And while I has not been a bed of roses, I have been there since. Now, it looks like that my job role is about to change again.

I Think This Is Rather Stupid

2010-01-26T07:33:00.002-06:00

But that is just my opinion.

C|Net is reporting that wireless operators are accelerating their plans to beef up the wireless networks. More capacity is needed to accommodate the growing numbers of wireless data users, a trend first started with the iPhone. While I see a need to upgrade the networks, part of the "problem" was created by the carriers themselves and they continue to grow it with the new rules regarding rate plans. I am referring to the mandatory data plans for mid level and greater smart phones.

At least two operators, AT&T (my carrier) and Verizon are making data plans mandatory for many of their smart phones. Now if a data plan is mandatory then that means people are going to be more prone to use it, hence putting a greater strain on the network. With the greater strain comes more expense to the operators and greater customer service issues and costs.

I take this kinda personally because I own two smart phones (one was issued by my work and one is my personal line) and while one has data (work) I do not use it all that much. If I am forced to have data on my personal line, then I will have data on two phones (a huge waste of money) and I will be tempted (heck, I will want to) use the data for trivial things, causing more of a load on an already stressed system. I think that is stupid.

To be honest I have a smart phone for the PDA functionality of it. I like having a contact/memo list as well as a few apps (world clock, TZ tool, converter, PW safe, Geocaching aid, calendar, e-book reader, dictionary, thesaurus, and some simple games) in my phone, but data is not really needed (although it has been helpful at times). Why does the mobile industry think that just because I have a smart phone I want/need data?

The telecoms industry is not stupid. They have been losing money on the rapidly declining land line market and are seeking to recoup some of that revenue. A lot of people I know have ditched land lines and are mobile only, saving $30-50 a month. Well, the telco's believe they should not lose that money, so they offer you wireless web for approximately the same amount. That increases the strain on the network, causing issues for the customer and the telco. Endless cycle of needing revenue to upgrade the network so you sign on more customers increasing the strain on the network so you cans spend that money to update the now horribly outdated and overstressed system.

I cut the land line to save money. Right now we pay a tad less for two mobile phones with plenty of minutes than we did for a land line, long distance, and one cell phone with half the minutes we have now (thanx to an employee discount). Adding data only would increase my monthly bill.

Rollnig out network upgrades is not cheap and we are the ones who pay for it. The telco's get a good deal from the companies who provide the equipment (I know, I worked for one of the largest for seven years and have been supporting them for almost seven more) and we get to pay for that network with increases in our mobile phone bills and more features we may not need.

I received notice that I would be charged for a data plan if I did not pick one for my Palm Centro on AT&T's network. The Centro is not even a 3G phone and I will get charged smart phone rates when the best data I can get is EDGE. Stupid.

Worth It?

2010-01-20T15:36:00.002-06:00

I read an article on C|Net about PG&E financing rooftop solar panels for people's homes. The more I read, the more I liked the idea and wondered, could this work nationwide? I have read in a few places that without any changes to current power usage, rooftop solar panels could provide between 50-80% of all electrical power needed the average consumer.

Think of it. Every home equipped with rooftop solar panels generating power for that home to use, financed by the power company. You would be charged only for the power you use plus the cost of the solar panels. Or, the utility company could rent them to you. Most people would see a huge drop in their electric bills, even with the cost of the solar panels added.

Would this not solve one of the many problems we have with getting a kickstart on renewable energy?

Let's go one further. If you live out of the city in an area with a lot larger than one acre, have the utility company put up wind turbines in addition to solar to allow extra energy to be created for the grid. The land owners would not have to pay for the turbines and get free power (up to a limit, of course) for allowing the wind turbine to be on their property.

The more solar panels and wind turbines that are installed would drastically reduce the need on using coal to power the grid. It would also give the added integrity to allow more electric vehicles to be added and charged on the grid, reducing the need for foreign oil.

Would it work?

Urban Survival

2010-01-14T07:57:00.002-06:00

A biological weapon is released into the public water supply causing 10's of millions of Americans to get sick and die. Public services as we know them cease to exist because the strain on the system is so great. Widespread power failures keeps you from going to the store, bank, or work. You are now on your own with what you have in your house and car. What do you do? How do you survive?

If you lived in the city and this were to happen, things would get ugly very quickly. Mob mentality would quickly set in and people would begin looting and destroying. Your safety would be threatened. Survival would be difficult. But not impossible.

In my previous post I mentioned "The Rules of Three" in survival. Most people think these apply when you are out in the elements, but the same rules apply in urban survival as well. Let's review the rules:

Three hours - this is how long the human body can survive exposed to the elements without shelter in extreme conditions without permanent damage.
Three days - this is how long the human body can survive without water under normal to moderately extreme (hot/cold) conditions without permanent damage.
Three weeks - this is how long the human body can go without food without permanent damage.

In an urban survival situation, if you are at or near home, your chances of surviving are much better. Your shelter is already there, but if it is winter and you just lost your heat, what next?

As you can see, the rule of three applies to urban survival as well. You need to get shelter first. Once that is secure, you need to assess your water supply and then your food. This is where it gets hard for the urban and suburban dweller.

Life in the city and suburbs is all about convenience. Microwave this, instant that, the internet...everything is geared for making life easier. There is nothing wrong with that. That is what you pay for. But if things got bad and you were without all these trappings, what would you do?

Living in the 'burbs, think about these things...especially when I hear about survivors of natural disasters. While these people suffer, the good news is that unaffected nations come to aid them. But what if it happened to you and no one came to your aid? You follow the rules of three.

1) Make sure you have shelter and are warm/cool. You can be exposed for up to three hours in extreme conditions before you suffer damage.
2) Make sure you have water for the next few days. The human body can only go without water for three days before it begins to show signs of damage.
3) Make sure you have food. This is last because you can go up to three weeks without food before you suffer any real damage.

Back in the days of The Great Depression (late 20's and early 30's) many poorer people took on a "packrat" mentality. They would tend to collect things and never throw anything away. While this is not normally a healthy lifestyle, in a survival situation this attitude becomes a necessity. When SHTF, nothing is garbage. Everything can be used beyond what it is designed for.

Survival Of The Fittest

2010-01-14T07:08:00.003-06:00

Last weekend I was scheduled to go camping with PapaKilo at ESP but that just did not work out. While I was all game for it, the weather forecast was calling for temps near ZERO degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill below zero. While I am far from a coward, temps that low can be dangerous so we skipped it.

Sad that we did since that was the last weekend in January we both had off. However, this weekend (if the rain stays away) is shaping up nicely and next weekend is looking the same. While I will not be heading out with my BiC (Brother in Christ) PapaKilo (PK as we call him) I will be able to try my hand at solo camping. I am looking forward to it.

All this desire to get back to camping has moved me to read more on survival tactics. One rule that has stuck in my mind since ever I heard it a few weeks ago is "The Rule of Threes":

Three hours - this is how long the human body can survive exposed to the elements without shelter in extreme conditions without permanent damage.
Three days - this is how long the human body can survive without water under normal to moderately extreme (hot/cold) conditions without permanent damage
Three weeks - this is how long the human body can go without food without permanent damage.

So, with this in mind, when you set up camp, you know what you need to do first. You need to get shelter and build a small fire, if possible...shelter first. Once this is done, you work on acquiring water and lastly, food.

While camping is enjoyable for me, I do have an ulterior motive. I am hoping to get to a point where I can hike into a secluded parcel of land with just a pack and survive a few days with just what I bring with me. Ultimately I would like this to include trapping small game (rabbit) or using a slingshot (wrist rocket) to bring down a squirrel to use as food. Of course I am no where near this stage yet. My current level allows me tent camp without a lot of the trappings of home life. I have not tried to build a shelter or get a good night's sleep without a blanket or sleeping bag. Right now I am in the process of gathering all I need to tent camp comfortably solo. Once I reach that point, I will work on "lightening the load" to allow me to backpack camp (carrying everything you need to your camp site on your back in one trip). Once I get to that point, then I can work on "survival camping" where instead of backing in with a full hikers pack (50 + lbs.) you pack in with a smaller hunters pack (25 lbs or less). Obviously survivalist camping requires you to pack less and what you do pack should be multipurpose. Pack as little and as light as you can.

Camping Christmas

2009-12-30T09:36:00.002-06:00

My wife was kind enough to get me a gift card at Academy Sorts and I decided to use it to get me some camping gear. I did not get a lot, but I think I did okay for the amount I spent.

First thing on my list was a tent that I could set up by myself. While my Cabin tent would be nice, it is just too big to manhandle alone. With that, I decided to get a hikers technical tent. I chose the No Limits Kings Peak tent. While it states it is as two man tent, I figure it is more like a "one man plus his gear" tent.

The next thing on my list was a way to cook if a fire was not possible or practical. I saw the Timber Creek stove for $20 so I picked it up. I also picked up a bottle of propane for it as well.

I thought about getting a mess kit but I thought that I would wait on that (PapaKilo plans on cleaning out his gear and he told me that he would give me some of his older stuff he does not want) and get a cheap cookware set instead. I got a Timber Creek branded one similar to this sans the bowls and a little lower quality. Oh, mine is black instead of blue.

Before I left the store, I realized that I did not have the "footprint" (ground cloth/tarp) for my tent. Usually manufacturers sell the footprint separately, but I could not find one for this model so I picked up a 6x8 poly tarp instead. It would have been nice to find a construction site with so leftover Tyvex (I have read that Tyvex makes great footprint material) but that was not an option, although I will try to keep that option open in the future.

So after looking at what I have already, I think I am ready for a solo trip out.

Camping in January, anyone?

Camping Crazy

2009-12-30T08:52:00.002-06:00

When I was a child, my parents took us camping frequently during the summer. Being poor, camping was our vacation and I knew no other until I moved to NC when I turned 24. I stopped camping when I became an adult with the exception of one time with my then girlfriend (who now just happens to be my wife) back in 1994.

Last spring the guys at church decided to camp out on some land owned by one of the guys in-laws. "The Farm" as it is know, is used mostly for weekend getaways (it has a nice cabin on several acres of land) and is far enough out that you do not hear any traffic and there is no glare from city lights.

I enjoyed the time spent with the guys and it gave me the itch to go out again. I really enjoy the outdoors but my wife is not so fond of the idea. That first time while we were dating was enough for her. My friend PapaKilo had e-mailed me a few times about trying to get together for a weekend of camping but we could never get our schedules to mesh. However, in mid October we both had a free weekend so we planned a trip out. PK has a lot of gear so he told me only to concern myself with a sleeping bag and my personal food/toiletries and that he could provide the rest. So with that in mind, he packed up his truck with a good but of gear and we headed out to Eisenhower State Park, on the Texas-Oklahoma border on Lake Texhoma. I had a great time. The tent he brought was a little breezy for my tastes (I later learned that PK, and experienced camper, did not like it much either) but I managed nonetheless. My cheap Wal-Mart sleeping bag that I had owned for several years was warm enough for the 45 degree nights while sleeping in just my underwear and a tee-shirt. I had a couple of changes of clothing (long sleeves, spare socks, underwear, and jeans) as well as a jacket but not much of that was really needed.

PK and I spent a large part of that trip thinking about camping with less and possibly even backpacking in someplace to spend a few nights. The thought was appealing. While I like to camp, I am not one to take more than I really need, although I do like to be prepared. The thought of spending a couple of nights in a small, light tent in a sleeping bag with just a mess kit to cook/eat out of, a multi-tool, an axe, MRE's or dehy food really sounded like a lot of fun. It was then I began to start looking at "minimalist" camping and what I found was pretty incredible. I know that one can survive with very few supplies in the bush but the lengths minimalist campers go to is really amazing. I read of one guy who got his pack down to about 15 lbs, that included shelter and water. I had no plans to go that far, but it did give me ideas on how I could camp and take less.

The week before Christmas, PK and I, along with his 10 year old grandson decided to head back to ESP (Eisenhower State Park) for the weekend. The weather forecast was for clear skies (no rain) with highs in the mid 40's and lows in the low 30's. PK asked me to bring my tent this time (a cheap "5-6 man" tent from Target...which really sleeps three people comfortably) and he would provide the rest. PK packed a bit lighter this time to allow for his grandson's gear and a little more wood since the weather would be cold, but he still packed quite a bit of stuff.

Knowing my sleeping bag was not really rated for those cold temps, I went to Wal-mart and bought a fleece sleeping bag to use as a liner for mine. I was glad I did. That along with a foam pad and a self inflating (very thin) pad kept me mostly comfortable.

PK liked my tent with one exception. The zippers tend to get stuck in the weather guard over it. It caused a few issues getting in and out of the tent but all ended well.

We arrived after the sun was down so we had to set up camp in the dark. PK and I set up the tent while his grandson looked for tinder and kindling. Once the tent was set up, I started working on a fire while PK and his son unloaded the truck. It was not too long until we were able to enjoy a cup of hot cocoa by a roaring fire.

That trip went very well. We had MRE's for lunch one day and brats for lunch the next. For dinner we had steaks and campfire potatoes. Breakfast is almost always instant oatmeal and dried fruit with coffee. While camping, I like to keep my meals pretty simple, but if you are out with a group, having a large meal at night is very nice.

The only real issue that came up during that trip was at approx 3 AM the last morning we were there, an SUV pulled into the park (we were the only ones in this section) and started making a lot of noise. It was also at this time I had to go take a leak (I am not sure what it is with me and needing to take a leak at 3 AM every morning) and realized it was really cold. I had slept in thermal underwear bottoms and a long sleeve tee-shirt and was comfortable the first night, but at that moment I was cold! There were still embers in the fire pit so I got close to get warmer and then jumped back in the sleeping bag. When I finally got out of bed at 7:00 AM, I noticed that the entire camp was covered in a thick layer of frost. One of the water bottles we had left out had about .5 inches of ice on top. It obviously got below freezing. Later on I found out that it was 25 degrees at ESP that night.

Of Texas And Snow

2009-12-30T08:44:00.003-06:00

As the year 2009 is coming to an end, we have had (to my knowledge) three snowfalls this year in the North Central Texas area. None have been significant. All have come over the past three months.

The first was just snow spittle and did not accumulate at all. The second came on Christmas Eve and totaled about one inch. It stayed until the next day when it began to melt some. It was completely gone by the 27th.

The third came yesterday and was the most beautiful on of all. It started as rain and slowly changed into medium sized flakes. It had accumulated to about an inch or so before I went to bed that night. I was hoping to get a picture but decided to wait until the next morning. Bad decision. This is all that is left of our snow:

Yessirree folk, the snow melted overnight as temps stayed in the upper 30's. It is forecast for a high of 50 degrees today and in the mid 40's the rest of the week. with lows in the mid 30's.

This is how North Central Texas gets snow. My wife, not liking cold weather, loves it. Me? I miss the WV snows of my youth of which, by the way, revisited as my mom reports the last snowfall was 15 inches. Nice.

Busy Weekend

2009-11-02T07:09:00.002-06:00

I start this missive off after a long and busy weekend, with a long week ahead of me (I am on call and we are starting a new pilot at work that should increase work three fold). It has been a rewarding weekend in many aspects, disappointing in others, but above all...GOD IS GOOD.

I got up as I normally do on Saturday and went out to place a few fliers in the neighborhood bordering the last known sighting of New Dog. I also did some geocache maintenance on two of my caches while I was out. It was a long time coming...one was missing and the other had a nasty log book that needed replacing.

As I was I did not spot New Dog, but to be honest, I did not expect to. I hope she is okay. I am sure she is hungry and prolly a little scared but I do have faith that we shall see her again. I sent e-mails out to friends, posted a note on the geocaching web forums, and even posted a note on Craigslist. We are trying. The only thing w are not doing is staying up and constantly driving the area looking for her. This is a big area with a lot large greenbelt that borders private property and the chances of finding her on our own (especially since we don't know where she is) is slim. But I know all things work towards the Glory of God, so I am going to keep praying.

While I was out I snagged one new geocache placed by my geobuddy Wayne. It was his first attempt and a geocache and he did a pretty good job. I suspect it will get muggled when the weather gets nicer but you never know...I have been fooled before.

After an hour or so of being out I came back to the house to get ready to go over to the church to help set up for our "Friends Day" celebration on Sunday. I helped set up some tables and chairs and actually fixed a couple of broken ones (with some help from a couple of other brothers) so we would have enough seating. I ended up leaving about 11:00 AM and came home to vacuum the house. I pulled a lot of New Dog's fur out of the carpet and that made me a little misty eyed, but it is all good. I pulled myself together and finished my task.

After vacuuming I washed a sink full of dishes and ate lunch. I had a little time left so I went to Home Depot and bought some winterized for the lawn. I got back and applied it to both ours and our neighbor's yard before going inside and getting another shower. We had a visitation/viewing at a funeral home in Dallas (on of all nights, Halloween) for a newer member of our church who succumbed to pancreatic cancer. He was younger than me, with a wife and two kids. I hurt for them.

After the viewing my wife and I went out to have a cup of coffee and chatted. We cam home, changed clothes and walked the dog before heading to bed.

The next morning we were going through our normal routine getting ready for church, with the addition of getting things for the "Friends Day" celebration and my wife getting ready early to go pick up a couple of single moms who have been attending church. Between the two of them, they have 10 kids and a van that seats seven or eight, so my wife goes to pick them up for church and Sunday School. The women are sisters and they both have said that the love our church has shown them has touched them deeply. Praise God!

Church went well. We had a lot of visitors and we were please at the way the day turned out. We stuck around long enough to eat, chat, minister and help clean up some before we left. We still had care group that night (I told you I was busy) and we still needed to walk the dog again. And of course I still needed to make my weekly call to mom.

After all was said and done, we were in bed by 11:00 PM and asleep shortly after. I woke up before the alarm (due to the time change) and waited until it went off before I started getting ready. I am not looking forward to this week at all but I know that I can manage because God never gives us more than we can handle. I sometimes wonder about that because I don't feel very strong sometimes, especially when things are mounting. Sometimes it seems we have so much to do and so little time to do it in, but then again I have to wonder how important some of the things we do really are.

Thanx for all the prayers for us and our New Dog. It means a lot. Keep praying and when I get some news I will make sure to post it.

Still Heartbroken

2009-10-30T14:50:00.002-05:00

New dog is still missing. I went to the park this morning before I got ready for work to see if I could find her. I pulled into the parking lot and got out. It was still very dark at 5 AM so I had a flashlight with me. I spotted something reflecting 100 feet away. It was a pair of dog eyes. I called out to the dog as if it was New Dog but this dog barked. A lot. I was not so sure this was our dog but I kept calling. I called my wife (who had been up since 2 AM...she is so upset over this) and she ran over and immediately told me it was not our dog. I have pretty bad night vision so I was not sure.

After that I walked the park calling out for New Dog but I did not spot her anywhere. Some of the dog food we set out was eaten but we are not sure if it was New Dog or some other critter. It was mostly gone but some was left, which is a New Dog thing to do.

Right about lunch time my wife called me and told be that the rescue organization who had New Dog before we did sometimes has to tranq dogs when the are hard/impossible to catch. I gave my blessing on that and my wife agreed but she said she has a bad feeling we are not going to see New Dog ever again. I don't really think that is the case. What I think will happen is that we will never be able to catch her but see her all the time. One thing for sure is that if someone ever catches her, she will try to escape and since she has been spayed, she is not good for making puppies any more.

We have run into a lot of people who have spotted her but none who have been able to catch her. One man said his daughter, who is sort of a Doctor Doolittle with dogs, was unable get her to come very close. He said that has never happened before.

I am still pretty emotionally drained, which is making me tired and a touch depressed. I am on call next week so I will be on pins and needles for that...a nice addition to this issue.

And what really is amazing is that we have all kinds of other issues going on as well. Some with family, some with work...a lot with church. I feel so overwhelmed I am not sure I can take any more. I know that God never gives us more than we can handle so I am secure that I will make it but the pressure seems so intense.

I also need to go to the park after work and put up a few flyers there. Hopefully some one will see her.

Well, I plan on going over to the park tomorrow morning when it gets light to see if New Dog is there. I doubt that she will be...I think she has moved on to another neighborhood and finding her on our own will be pretty difficult. I still plan on putting up some flyers in nearby neighborhoods but the best chance is for the animal control to find her and hopefully they will call. My wife has dropped off a flyer to them both.

We are still praying for New Dog to come home. We miss her so much.

Owner of a Broken Heart

2009-10-29T21:42:00.002-05:00

That statement describes both me and my wife...New Dog escaped and has been missing for 48 hours.

Tuesday night after prayer, my wife and I went our separate ways. She had errands to run and I came home to take care of the dogs. My wife called and asked me to walk both dogs since she would not be home until late, so I agreed. Knowing that New Dog was not an easy dog to walk, I decided to walk The Golden first. I got the leash and poop bag and hooked up The Golden, I unlatched the door and opened it just a bit and New Dog ran out. She stopped in the yard for just a second then ran down the block. She stopped again and did her business and I almost got to her when she took off again. I saw her go down the street so I took The Golden back in side and ran after New Dog. I spotted her at the end of the block so I cut over to cut her off. She ducked into a yard and through an open gate. I circled around but lost sight of her. I called but I did not see her. I talked to a lady who lived near where New Dog cut through the open fence and she said she would be on the lookout for her. Later on I found out that lady actually went out on foot to help.

I went back to the house and got The Golden, hoping she would attract New Dog back to me. We went down the alley and cut through some trees into the pocket park and spotted New Dog. New dog spotted me and ran. That was the last that I saw her. My wife and I drove up and down the alleys of our neighborhood but never spotted her.

The next morning (Wednesda) I got up and went to the park to see if I could spot her. As I was heading towards the trees, something bigger than a Raccoon took off before I could get a look. It was still dark and I did not have my flashlight pointed in the direction of the noise. All I saw was a branch moving, but I heard whatever it was. You don't hear rabbits and most other small game is rather quiet. New Dog is lightning quick so I think it was her, but I cannot be sure.

I made up some fliers and put them up in the neighborhood. My wife called just about every agency she could think of as well as put the story on one of the missing pet web sites. Later that night we went out again but did not see her at all. We were beginning to lose hope.

On Thurdsay, I had to go into the office to work so my wife stayed home and manned the phones. About 1:30 or 2 PM, she got a call from the animal shelter saying that they spotted our dog on their grounds but were unable to catch her. The animal shelter is just a few blocks from our house and just across the street from the park where I spotted her. According to the shelter, New Dog had crossed the street from other park which is just across the street from the pocket park. Think of a large "+". This is the cross street area near our house. The upper left is the animal shelter, the upper right is the large park, and the lower right is the pocket park. (we would be just to the right of that). The lower left is a gas station that is pretty busy.

My wife arrives and animal control says the dog is in the field just north of the animal shelter. That is private property but the owner has been alerted so he is cool with my wife being there. My wife calls out to New Dog and she sees her! We know New Dog is alive and appears to be unharmed. The bad news is she still is avoiding my wife. My wife said it was not a run away of fear, but almost like a game of chase. New Dog crossed the field and ran behind a wooded area. My wife lost sight of her but animal control told her that New Dog follows the road and found the bridge to cross a creek that separated the field from a small subdivision. It was here that both animal control and my wife lost sight of the dog. After work I met my wife there and we looked as well as put up some signs. We were both hungry so we went to a local BBQ joint and "pigged" out, trying to regain some energy. We went to the big park across the street from the animal shelter with some of her food to try to see if we could get her attention. When we could not spot her, we left the food in areas where people might see her.

The animal shelter thinks that New Dog spent the night in the big park. I think that maybe she spent the night in the pocket park. I hope she finds the food we left her.

This will be the third night that she has been out. We know she was okay when my wife spotted her and that is a big relief. I hope we can get her back home soon. I miss the hairy beast.

Please pray that New Dog will stay safe even if we cannot catch her right away.

Headlines

2009-10-16T11:35:00.001-05:00

This one had me snickering. So Firefox can detect gay computers now?

What Have We Gotten Ourselves Into

2009-10-16T09:10:00.002-05:00

If you know us, you know we love dogs. We had Little Man (one of his many nicknames) for five years or so before we got The Golden. The two lived with us for 10 years before we had to let Little Man go. While we took great care of him, he had advanced renal failure. That, plus his severe allergies made him miserable.

We then were down to just one dog, The Golden for nine months or so until yesterday. While we had been talking about it for a few weeks, yesterday my wife adopted a dog from the humane society. It is a three year old Golden that was used in a puppy mill. She is adorable but she is very skittish. She tries to hide every time she gets the chance but she does not tremble nor does she cower when we pet her. So far we all like her, including our other dog, whom I simply call "The Golden". The Golden tolerates the new dog, mostly because New Dog does not challenge The Golden for Alpha-hood. But also she senses that New Dog is broken. Her spirit is just not there.

She needs a lot of work to get her to a point where she can function normally in a household. She reminds me of a character I read about in a fantasy novel, "The Guardians of the Flame". In that series of books, a warrior takes it upon himself to liberate every slave he finds. One, a dwarf whom was a slave to a very cruel man and has had his spirit completely broken, takes years to return to a "normal" life but even then he still slips into "broken mode" around those who freed him.

New Dog is like this dwarf in that she is broken and it will take a long time (if ever) to get her acting like a dog again. How people can treat animals this way is just something I do not understand.

Anyhooo, pray for us. I have a short fuse and it takes daily prayer just to keep it at the level it is now. Adding this to the mix is only going to test my mettle even more. God can do anything and I need him to help me be loving around this poor broken critter.

Just one thing to add. Even though my wife adopted this dog and she is more of a dog lover than I am, New Dog licked my hand and not my wife's. Maybe I am not such a bad guy after all.

Keep us in prayer. Pictures to follow. Sometime.

End Of Summer Adventures

2009-09-30T09:37:00.002-05:00

My wife and I returned last Sunday from a week in sunny Florida. This was the trip that we had to postpone due to my wife's surgery in April. It had been a while since we were in Florida that late in the year but overall I think it was a pretty good time to go. It was far from crowded and most of the restaurants were still open to tourists like ourselves.

We started off our trip on Friday. We drove to Meridian, MS to spend the night in a newly opened Drury Inn. If you have not stayed in one, don't laugh at the name. They are a mid tier franchise that is pet friendly. That is one of the primary reasons we keep going back.

When we arrived, it was raining. Texas had been soggy for a couple of weeks and we were hoping to move out of the rainy area for a while. Well, I guess we brought some of the rain with us so we did not go out that night. I had hoped to do a little geocaching then but that was not in the cards. I had to wait until the next morning (not really having enough time do do any "serious" caching since we had to check out at 11:00 AM and it was not light out until 7:30 AM, and we still needed to eat, get cleaned up and pack up the van) to do my caching and while it was not an expedition like I am used to, I did manage to get several before we left.

We hit the road around 10:30 or so and made pretty good time to the beach house in Cape San Blas. We had used this house last year and mostly liked it. A couple of downers were no Internet or mobile phone service and some maintenance issues (broken patio door and the overall cleanliness of the place) but those were mostly fixed this year. The owner now has wireless broadband and he fixed the broken patio door handle. The house in places was still not as clean as we would like, but overall it was better than last time.

One of the first things we noticed when we pulled in was a lot of standing water by the main road (SR-30E) and at the end of the cul de sac on which the house resides. The boardwalk was cut off from the homes by a large (make that huge) and deep pool of standing water. There were two sump pumps running 24x7 to pump the water out of the low spots but they had been running for over a week and the water never seemed to go down. We later learned that the last named storm that came through the area dumped a ton of water and it had yet to dissipate.

We got out of the van and were immediately attacked by swarms of mosquitoes. We were not pleased and wondered if our vacation was going to be ruined. Flooding, mosquitoes, and a long drive to pretty much any food, store or attraction did not sit well with us. My wife was visibly upset.

We were both tired and after we unpacked and made a well meaning, but futile attempt at getting to the beach, we turned in for hopefully a good night's sleep.

We awoke the next morning and I took our dog out to do her thing (after I slathered all natural bug juice on me). I walked over to the next cul de sac via the secondary boardwalk and noticed that it was flooded as well. I also noticed that the empty lot next to that cul de sac had not been improved upon since we were here 18 months ago. A local informed me that the developers went bankrupt and the bank has been looking for buyers for a long time. Not only did they go bankrupt, but the developers also had most of the tress cut down (some were not even theirs, but other property owners) removing a natural wind break that contributed to the damage from the last storm. The boardwalk that the developers were supposed to build that allowed access to the beach was never built so with this new flooding, everyone suffered with no quick way to the beach.

After speaking to a couple of locals and getting the low down on things (including the location of public access that was not flooded just about a mile away) I went back in the house to grab some breakfast. I filled my wife in on my findings and after breakfast we headed down to the public access.

We we arrived (with our dog), we noticed the park area was flooded as well...actually pretty bad. I have some pics I can post when I get more time. We were beginning to think that the locals were wrong about the access here but then I spotted a path leading to another part of the park and some additional parking and that area was 90% clear. We headed over and found that we could get to the beach from this location. Problem solved. While not ideal, it would work for a week.

Now that we had a way to the beach, we used that every morning and every evening to take 2-3 mile walks each time. Our dog (an older Golden Retriever mix) joined us about half the time. We would have taken her more but the walks were hard on her and the sand burrs were plentiful.

Each day my wife and I would pick a direction and drive to some small town to eat lunch and see the sights. The old coast has a lot of them to chose from and we decided to go to the closest ones on this trip. Things did not always go as planned but we did have a pretty good time and I was able to do some geocaching on our outings.

Our outings included trips to Apalachicola (known as Apalach to the locals), Port St. Joe, Wewahitchka (known as Wewa to the locals), St. George Island (known as SGI to the locals), and Carrabelle. Out of the six trips to little towns, we ended up eating in Apalach four times. The food there is really good. Wewa did not have much and neither did Carrabelle. SGI may have had some places that were okay but on that day we had decided to eat in Apalach so we did not look. Overall we had seafood for lunch each day and we cooked dinner that evening at home. It helped on the budget to do that.

By the time we left the beach to return home to Texas, the water had gone down enough that we could walk to the boardwalk from the rental but the water on the other side of the dunes was still forming a swamp so we could not take that route in concern for snakes.

Our trip back to Texas was uneventful. The rain followed us to MS again so that evening was a soggy mess. I did manage to get out the next morning to geocache a little, but I only got three. Once we hit the road it was smooth sailing all the way back to Dallas.

I took some pics, many which are on my Facebook page and a few I may post here. We enjoyed the stay despite the fact that the ground was soggy and flooded in places. It was not the best vacation, but it was not bad. Like all vacations, it went by too quickly but at least when I went back to work I was not on call. That pleasure comes next week.

Sadly, I Have Slacked Off, Yet Again.

2009-09-15T06:55:00.002-05:00

I am not sure why I have so much trouble updating this blog on a regular basis. I normally have enough time to read news, browse Facebook, read my mail, work, be a decent husband, and keep my commitments to our church but sadly I let this blog go untouched for weeks at a time. No excuses. I am slacking off.

Time does not stand still just because my blog goes idle for extended lengths of time. My life rolls on and things continue to change all around me. I am not sure where to begin but I guess I can start with an update on the hobby I am passionate about, Geocaching. If you have been here before you know all about what Geocaching is so I will not bore you with the details. For those who are new, skip on over to www.geocaching.com and read a bit. You may find yourself a new hobby!

About a month or so ago I received an e-mail from a new geocacher having trouble with one of my harder caches. Being new, I was trying to be helpful but not give anything away. Long story short, he eventually found the 2 stage multi I own and we became friends. He and I have been out caching a couple of times and once more with one of his friends from church who was interested. Wayne (my new geocaching friend) is a Christian and has good values. His wife and mine share the same first name and we both are in the same basic age group (although he is a tad older than I am). But oddly enough, if we did not share the bond of Christ, I doubt that I would have befriended him (I can tell you right now this blog is going to rabbit trail quite a bit...I can see it coming! If you cannot stand blogs that do that, I am sorry but I have to tell this as I remember it).

You see, I have another friend, Allen, who is a geocacher and also a fellow Christian and we are much more alike when it comes to geocaching. Both Allen and I like the harder, more challenging caches. Long, strenuous hikes, river crossings, dangerous tree climbs...we live for those things. The one area where Allen and I majorly differ in our geocaching style is that he loves puzzle caches and for the most part, puzzle caches annoy the crap out of me. But I digress.

Wayne is just the opposite. Wayne is more into urban caching where the only real exercise you get is walking from your car to GZ of the cache. While he and I have gone and walked a few times (3 miles or less), he made it clear that he is not partial to those kinds of geocacaches. Nonetheless, we still have gone out and cached together (once his style and twice mine although the one of his turned out to have a 1 mile hike involved). Why? Do I love the sport so much that I overlook mine and Wayne's differences? Maybe but I want to cover that a bit later.

Our first time out together, we went to Oak Point Nature Preserve in Plano to hike the new section they just recently opened up. One of the newer cachers (NatureNed) hid several that I was just itching to try to find. The trek would cover about 3 miles on a warm August day. Wayne did not have any of the waypoints loaded in his GPSr, so he tried using his iPhone to cache. He was not overly successful but he did manage to spot the caches shortly after I did. However he made it clear that he was tired and hot and needed to get something to drink. I understood. Wayne, while close to my age, is 50 and not in the best of shape. What he lacks in stamina, he does however make up with a lot of heart.

The next time that we went out, I told Wayne that we would do some easier stuff. So since there were several new caches along a paved hiking/biking trail in our little city, I suggested that we get those. The total walk was about two miles but Wayne was not really into the actual hike. He suggested we go back a drive to the caches but I convinced him to trek on. He made it and we again stopped for cold drinks before parting ways.

I was beginning to think he and I were not really going to click but the following week Wayne called me up and invited me to his church's men's breakfast. I thought it would be a great thing to meet more Christian men so I agreed. After breakfast, Wayne stated that one of the guys who was at the breakfast was interested in Geocaching and wanted to tag along with us if we went out. I told Wayne I was game and we decided to cache in West Richardson since that was one area I had not been in yet. Scott joined Wayne and I on a short two hour caching run that netted him five geocaches. By the time we found his last one, he was getting good at spotting them. It turns out that he and the rest of his family have been bitten by the geocaching bug and are now hooked. Welcome to the insanity, Scott!

Scott had an appointment that he could not miss so we drove him back to his car and Wayne and I took off to grab a few more caches. I was getting dangerously close to a milestone of 1500 finds and I wanted it to be memorable. I had picked out one and we drove around picking up caches until we grabbed 1499, then we headed off to get number 1500.

Number 1500 turned out to be a bit of hike for Wayne (.5 mile up and .5 back...1 mile round trip) in warm weather, but he made it okay. Actually if not for him I may not have been able to get this cache as he had one very important tool that made retrieval much easier. After getting number 1500 (a 4.5/4.5 out of 5/5 hide) I dropped him off and went on my way. Now to hop on that rabbit trail.

While I like geocaching (okay, I LOVE geocaching), I doubt I would spend my timing doing it with someone I did not like UNLESS there was a greater bond. In this case Wayne and I are very different. While he is not a fan of puzzle caches (like me) he has no desire to hike or take longer walks to grab caches...something I like to do. Instead, we pair up because the bible commands us to love each other. If I were not a Christian, I would not want to be around Wayne because we are very different. However scripture tends to command us to do things that are against our nature: Love our enemies, for meant to love their wives and for wives to respect their husbands, turn away from the lure of the flesh, etc. So with that in mind, I put aside my desires and focus more on others. When Wayne wants to geocache, I ask him where he wants to go and what he is looking for in a cache. And the same goes for Wayne. While he is far from in shape, he pushed on because he was respecting me.

That is what Christianity is all about...relationships. God commands us to have peaceful relationships with others just as we have one with him.

By the way, number 1500 cache "Mollydawg's Retrieval Nightmare" was a collaborative effort. I had some things Wayne needed, he had a few things I needed, and we both worked to retrieve the cache which is well worth the difficulty level (but I feel the terrain is over rated...it really should be no more than a 3 in my opinion). He felt a degree of satisfaction knowing he was part of the process to get a 4.5/4/5 cache he (nor I) would have ever gotten alone.

Okay, I Just Need To Vent

2009-08-21T15:45:00.002-05:00

Or "went" as one of my Swedish co-workers would say.

Sometimes IT can be fun, like when we get new technology to play with, but much of the time it can be a real downer. It is often a thankless job trying to make an often fickle OS play nice with the network. But we do it because thanks to Bill Gates, we have steady (well, as steady as it can be nowadays...) employment.

Sometimes we get an IT request that is so absurd, you are tempted to think it is a joke. Today, that happened. This is a true story. But before I can tell it, I have to give you a little background info, first.

The company I work for has many customers. The group I work with supports just one customer, one of the largest in their industry. This company has made a habit of buying up smaller companies that has technology it wants. Once purchased, the employees are absorbed or laid off. The assimilated employees usually go through culture shock as they try to grasp the way the parent company does business. You see, since they were smaller companies, they had their own IT department, local and on site, that did everything that was requested of them. As a matter of fact out of the three companies my customer has acquired in the past three years, two of them had IT departments two to five times larger than the industry standard. Needless to say, the mgmt of those companies were used to a little more "personal" support than what is normally offered. In other words, they are spoiled.

Now that they are part of the parent company, their local IT is mostly gone. The mgmt of these smaller companies now have to call the help desk like all the other employees. This is where my story begins.

A mid level manager from one of the acquired companies calls one of his local people for help. The local guy, not having any permissions to support IT like he used to can't really do much for the manager and tells him he will have to call the help desk. The manager goes ballistic. He wants to speak to a support person *NOW* and not the help desk. The local IT guy calls the account manager and tells him he needs help. Trying to make a good impression, the account manager passes the info on to my team (the wrong group to send it to since we only deal major high severity issues) and my colleague, being the good natured guy he is, calls the mid level manager. No answer. It turns out that he is traveling and is not in the office. Now worries, my colleague calls his mobile phone. Voice mail. He tries two more times and leaves messages. A couple of hours go by and my colleague gets a call from the local IT guy. My colleague and the local IT guy chat for a while and come to find out that the mid level manager has not called the help desk at all and does not have a ticket for his request. My colleague informs the local IT (remember, the local IT guy does not work for us...he works for our customer and does not have any admin permissions to their network) he needs to open a ticket to the laptop support team and they will contact the mid level manager directly. So instead of the actual customer opening the ticket, the local IT guy opens it for him with absolutely NO usable information in the ticket. No error message, nothing. There is not even a good description of the problem. Then we get the bombshell when we read the worklog of the ticket:

Ticket says, "Do not call him directly. You will have to have tech support call me (local IT guy) and give me the number they will be calling from. I will then forward this info to the customer so he can screen the calls.". It is also noted in the ticket that the mid-level manager is not to be contacted by anyone who is not the tech who can solve the case...he does not want his time wasted.

Our customer has purchased what is known as "VIP support". It is very special, dedicated support for the CEO, VP, and high level executives. Basically it gives them a local IT guy on call 24x7. At one time, local sites would submit people to be on the VIP list and since the pricing is per VIP, a large list became rather expensive, so our customer trimmed that list back to just a little over a hundred names (mind you they have well over 50,000 employees). Most upper management is excluded from that list so there is no chance a mid-level manager would be on it. But that is what this guy is expecting.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't want to see anyone go without support, but our customer has purchased a certain level of support and processes to match and that does not include anyone who thinks they are too good to talk to a help desk person the right to demand their own personal IT staff. Heck, I work in IT and I have to call the help desk when I have issues I cannot solve or do not have permissions to solve. Would I be happier with calling a Unix or Windows admin or the network guys directly? Sure I would, but I know I have to follow the rules. So does Mister mid-level manager.

I told my boss he is darn lucky my good natured colleague got the call and not me. I would have just told the guy (as politely as possible) that we had a help desk and he should learn to use it.

Okay, I feel better. On to the next bit of insanity that is called "my job".

Slacking Off Again

2009-08-14T13:22:00.003-05:00

Has it really been over two weeks since I last made a blog entry? Wow, time sure flies when you are busy. Between church events, work, on-call, and family, I seem to be short of time lately.

This week I am on call and I must say that it has been the busiest week I have had since I have been in this role. It has even been busier than the time I was on-call during month end report closing when my TL/colleague was on vacation. THAT says a lot.

Not only has each day been busy but each night has brought on special challenges and long hours. Monday I did not get to bed until midnight. I had a church meeting to go to so my TL covered for me for a couple of hours but I took over at 9 PM and did not get to a stopping point until midnight.

I did not get to bed until midnight on Tuesday as well. On Wednesday my wife had an outpatient procedure on her leg and I was away from the office for three hours but when I came back I was incredibly busy. I was so busy that I did not get to bed until 4:30 the next morning. I was able to sleep for three hours and was up again at 7:30 AM with an emergency call. I worked it until 8:30 AM and handed it over to my TL. I asked him if I could grab a couple hours sleep and he graciously obliged. The entire time I was asleep he was busy and when I came back online at noon, I was busy all day until 9:30 PM. I was able to go to bed early and got about seven hours sleep before I got up and started my day.

Today has been calm so far...only one new issue. While it has not been resolved yet, it should be. Mind you we still have two other open issues from previous days (including the mail issue from hell that is almost a week old and counting) but the total workload and stress level has been much lower.

My only complaint that I have today is that customers tend not to follow basic instructions very well. Example - we have a customer who somehow corrupted an Excel spreadsheet and needs one pulled from backup. The restore team pulls the file and puts it on a temporary share that the customer can access. The restore team e-mails the customer and informs them that the file has been restored and where to find the copy. The customer for whatever reason does not respond to the e-mail for several hours. I step in and e-mail the customer and tell them the issue has been resolved and the details can be found in an e-mail sent to them from the backup team. All I ask is that the customer test the solution and respond to the e-mail sent to them by the backup team, CC'ing me in the process.

What does the customer do? E-mail's me directly asking me if this is the newest copy of the file and if not, can I get them the newest one. They completely disregarded the e-mail and did not follow simple instructions. I politely responded back and told them again what I needed them to do. They are doing that now. I hope.

This week has also been plagued with vast amounts of mis (or poor) communication. We (my group) has to communicate and coordinate "high severity" issues across many teams and sometimes to other IT providers (even to our competition since our customer has outsourced their IT support to multiple companies) and it amazes me that I have been getting better cooperation from a certain competitor (whose three letter acronym I will not divulge 8^) ) than I get from my own company. I have been routinely told that "it is not my group's problem" when I assign a case or request a certain team to assist or troubleshoot. I am not trying to air dirty laundry here but it always seems to be harder to do business with your own company than it is with others.

It reminds me of the time I worked for GTE Mobilnet (a cellular provider under the umbrella of GTE Communications) and had a problem with my home service (aslo with GTE). I called up the local support (back before everything went to India) and told them my problem and just happened to mention I was a GTE employee. When asked which office I worked in, I told them the Morrisville, NC off and the woman said there wasn't any office in Morrisville office. I laughed and told her that there was and I indeed worked there and had been for over a year. She asked me where in Morrisville and I told her and after I mentioned I was with the cellular group, she became very cold and said, "Oh, one of those people who are trying to put her and her people out of work." Needless to say my home phone service took days to get fixed, all because some 19 year employee of a dying company and industry was offended that I worked for a more cutting edge goup within the same company.

I didn't get good serviced that day from someone in my own company and that type of thing happens today all the time. I can call up my contact at our competition and present an issue to him and he (as well as his colleagues) will work it and report back to me most of the time. Take a similar issue that my company is resposible for and call up my contact to hand it over to him (or one of his colleagues) and I will get poor customer service and people who will not follow established processes because they either don't care or are two busy to help. The only difference in today and back in my GTE days is that the person helping me is not in danger of losing his job to my group. It is I who is in danger of losing my job to them.

Dinner Is Served

2009-07-29T22:08:00.003-05:00

It was not in the budget, but my wife deserved something a little special...just because.

Tonight I grilled up Rock lobster tail and beef tenderloin filets. I crisped up some French garlic bread and put together a quick salad. It was the first time I grilled lobster (and only the second time I have ever had it) and it was pretty tasty. The only seasoning used on it was EVOO.

The steaks were dry rubbed with Cavender's Greek seasoning and nothing else. The turned out almost perfect. The were medium-well instead of medium but they still tasted great.

If the sounds of joy emitted from my wife's mouth are any indication, I think I did good.

Playing Catch Up

2009-06-24T06:27:00.002-05:00

I do not seem to have the drive to blog as much as I once did, which in some cases may be a good thing. It keeps my out of state (but not out of mind) friends from growing bored with my posts. Nonetheless I do need to make a concerted effort to keep this as current as I can. So, with that in mind I bring you up to date.

My last real entries were shortly after returning from WV to visit family and friends. Some of it was venting (or "wenting" as Svenne would say) and some of it was just my normal jabbering on and on regardin my experiences. Not much more, if anything, to add there.

My wife contracted a local group to clean and stain our cedar fence. I could do it but I would not get it done as quickly as this team but truth be told, I have my concerns on what to expect. This company did the initial staining and I was not impressed with the results. When they came out this time to prep the fence (using a bleach mixture), they did not really clean it. There are still spots of bird poo on the posts and they failed to replace the caps they knocked off during the "cleaning" process. They even left a greasy stain in the driveway that I was able to remove. Nonetheless they are to arrive within the hour to stain our 4-5 year old cedar fence. Pray for me!

One item that has occured within the past few weeks is that my wife's boss sent me a rather substantial check for the computer work I have done for him off and on over the past three years. I have never charged him since my wife gets more hours given to her than she works, not to mention a more than fair bonus each year. I figured that we were even so I never pressed the issue. The receipt of a check for my services was more than I expected. I thanked him in person at church and he just smiled and thanked ME for being available to help him. I guess I saved him the house call that The Geek Squad would charge (if the links do not work, be assured at the time of this entry, TGS was charging $150-$300 for a housecall...the $150 was for first time PC set up which does not include installing/configuring antivirus or spyware. That is going to run you $100-$200 more). I am still amazed that people balk at my discounted rates (I charge A LOT less than TGS does and even less for my church family. I guess I need to just let them call the TGS and be done with it...but I digress.

I went geocaching on Father's Day since my son is not local and my pop has passed away. My wife was not overly happy, but she understood that I needed the time alone. I did a "creek crawl" a few miles south of our house that was fun, albeit a bit more strenuous than I expected. I did not finish it (I have five left to get, including a tree climb) but I did manage to get a serious tree climb and six others along the creek. I only saw one snake and kept my feet dry the first half of the hike until a misstep changed all that. But since I was already wet I continued on until I was too tired to continue. The trip back up the creek was easier and I only saw one water snake and it was small. I hope to finish this one next week sometime. It should be easier because I can park at the other end and hike a shorter distance to complete the series.

That beings me up to this week in which I am working from home all week due to the fact my office mate is on a much needed vacation. The bad thing is that I am also on call so it is all El Gee all day, for the next seven days. The good news is that the past couple of days have not been bad. I could offer more comments about my job but I won't...I am thankful to God that I am employed.

Well, the staining crew is here and they have asked me to have my neighbor move his SUV out of the way of the spray, but he did not answer the door (small wonder...it is 7:00 AM). I hope his vehicle will be okay.

I Love Her, But Darn, She Is Cheap

2009-06-11T12:22:00.002-05:00

I blogged recently about my trip to visit WV to visit family and friends. The trip itself is pleasant and memorable and usually enjoyable but there is one part of the trip that is hard to overlook: My mom and her frugality.

Now calling my mom frugal is a complement because in actuality she is not. She is not frugal or thrifty at all...she is cheap.

Frugal people make the most of what they have. I respect frugal. Using coupons to get higher quality items for the same price as the lower quality ones, watching for sales, reusing things that are safe to reuse, etc are all things I can understand but my mom takes frugality to a whole new level. She is cheap.

You have purchased cold cuts from the deli and had it presented to you in a a lightweight zipper sealed bag. My mom saves these to reuse. More than once. She also saves the wire ties that come on bread bags or come with some brands of garbage bags. When she moved out of the old house to the one she lives in how, she had BOXES of them. She even reuses paper plates if the are "not too dirty". Ewww.

Many years ago when my wife and I were dating we noticed while visiting my mom and dad that mom had some wooden utensils on the stove. There were several wooden spoons and spatulas and one pitiful looking wooden fork. Two of the three tines were broken off and it looked like it was flipping us off. My wife and I knew exactly what what one of their Christmas gifts were going to be. So that Christmas, my wife and I got mom a new set of nice wooden utensils. When we came to visit we noticed mom still had her nasty old set on the stove. I asked her what happened to the set we got her and she told me that they were too nice to use every day so she put them up. Mom has done this with many gifts we have purchased for her. Towels, cookware, dishes...she even does that with the gourmet coffee we get her. She only drinks it once a week. She used to mix it with her cheap stuff until I told her she was wasting it.

My mom shops at Goodwill, Big Lots, and Gabriel Brothers (if Big Lots carries irregulars, then Gabe's carries abnormals) and thinks Target is where rich people shop. She refuses to go to the doctor or dentist and only goes to the eye doctor because my sister works for one. She is a price only shopper and will buy the cheapest thing in the store when she needs to get something.

Now here is the ironic part. My mom is a QVC (home shopping channel) addict. She buys all kinds of stuff from them each and every week. She has a QVC credit card (why, I have no idea) and is always bragging about the latest gizmo she got from them. Candles, lights, cheap jewelry, knives, and cleaning supplies (which is ironic since her house is rather dirty most of the time). I find it amazing that someone as cheap as my mom will spend so much money on junk and none on health care. Go figure.

I have a motto: By the best you can afford and you will not be disappointed. That normally means that if something has a price range of $50 to $100, I usually spend $75 on it. Most of our electronics have been mid level unless we had no need for anything that nice. My mom usually buys on price alone. This year she really through me a loop and bought herself a HONDA lawn mower. Lawn equipment is the one area I always buy lower priced because I am very hard on it. It rarely lasts five years for me. Hearing that my mother spent over $300 for a lawn mower was a shock.

My mom has a small dog, a Shitzhu that is cute as a button. Mom has not owned a dog in a long, long time so my wife and I offered to give her some info to help her with the task of dog ownership. Not only has my mom ignored the advice we have given her, but she has decided that her non-pet owning friends are better suited to offer advice than we were. Needless to say the dog has been sick several times and it has take her vet to convince her that the things she is feeding the dog are not good for it. All this because she refuses to let her vet advise her on matters pertaining her dog.

At one point my mom was a pack rat in the worst way...a trait that she shared with my dad. After he died, I was able to get her to throw away a lot of what he had accumulated, but she was not so eager to get rid of the boxed of bags, ties, butter containers, plastic milk jugs, jars, and plastic ware. It took her basement being flooded last year for her to finally realize that she had too much junk. Thank to Elk Creek overflowing its banks and making a mess in her basement, she got rid of a ton of junk.

The horrible thing about my mom and her being cheap is that when she finally decided to spend money on something that she really needs (a new bathroom or her front deck for example), she gets over charged. Since she never shops around she takes the first offer that is made from the first available contractor. Thanks to this behavior, she has spent 3x as much on her deck and 2x as much on her bathroom as she should and to top that off, the quality was well below par.

All this leads me and my sister to try to convince my mom to move in with one of us. My mom has been very resistant so far to either idea. The thought of coming to Texas scares her enough she won't even visit. I have been out of WV for over 20 years and she has only visited once, 10 years ago. My sis is working on a plan but so far mom is not cooperating. I hope sis can convince her that moving is the best thing for her.

Sigh.

Always Bittersweet

2009-06-11T10:31:00.003-05:00

I recently returned from my yearly pilgrimage to WV to visit family and friends. I always have stated that the trip has become bittersweet over the past few years. While I enjoy hitting the road and visiting family and friends, the feeling is short lived and I long to get back home to my wife and dog.

My trip has become rather routine and predictable over the past 5 years or so. Once a year, usually in late August/early September, I pack up the minivan with my cloths and more electronics than one person needs (camera, laptop, cell phone, PDA, cables, and power cords) along with some basic camping supplies and hit the road. My trip takes me from the city we live in through several miles of Texas FM (Farm to Market) roads until I get to I-30. From there I drive on I-30 through Texarkana until I get to Little Rock, Arkansas. In LR, I pick up I-40 and stay on it until I hit a little state park in TN. There, I find the flattest camp site I can find (I have gotten the same one the past 3 years) and park the van. Depending on my mood and the weather, I will pitch a tent or sleep in the van. The van has gotten the most use the past 4 years or so since the weather has been mostly wet but I have pitched the tent a couple of times. I will also build a fire if the mood strikes me but the past two trips I have not. Instead I have opted to go hiking/geocaching in the park until it gets dark. At some point I will grab a bite to eat, either in the park or at a fast food joint before I arrive.

After a good nights sleep (or fitful, depending on the weather and level of noise from other campers) I wake up, shower, eat, and get back on the road. I-40 runs all the way to the NC coast, but I jump off of I-40 in Nashville and pick up I-65. I take I-65 up past Bowling Green, KY until I get to Elizabethtown and then I pick up The Blue Ridge Parkway. The BRP is a wonderful and scenic highway that runs from E-town (as the locals call it) to Lexington, KY. If you plan the route properly you can see Martin's Castle, a real castle built by a man as a wedding present for his wife. I think it is now a pricey bed and breakfast, but at one time it was a private residence.

After that I pick up I-64 into WV, up to Charleston. At that point I make the last major turn off to I-79 to my home town just south of Fairmont. I really enjoy that drive. KY and TN can be beautiful. I am not forgetting that WV is one fantastic state, but KY comes in a close second.

Once I get into town, I stop and unload my gear at mom's house. We chat for several hours until we are both very tired then we retire to our respective rooms. Sleep comes quickly and sometimes the night is just not long enough.

The next morning (Sunday...I always start my trip on Friday) mom and I go to church at her very small country church. I think they have a normal attendance of about 15-20 people. It makes or church of 100 seem large.

After church we grab a bite to each, usually fast food (mom is not much for a nice sit down meal, much to my chagrin) and then we head back home. We chat and catch up on things and usually one or both of us will want a nap...most likely me.

The rest of the week is divided up visiting family and friends and helping mom with things she cannot do on her own. I have weeded her flower beds, cut down and trimmed bushes, removed tree stumps, put up ceiling fans, clean out her basement, removed storm debris, and countless other small tasks during my visits.

A couple of years ago my closest friends took me geocaching and ever since I have made that past time a focal point of my leisure time in WV. My first year we only went out once, the second year we went out at least three times, and this year we only made it out once due to weather (this has been the stormiest/wettest Spring I remember).

I have rather fond memories of my trips back home but as I stated earlier, it is a bittersweet trip. Along about the third day or so, mom kinda shuts down. She does not speak much (maybe she has run out of things to say) and she does not want to do much. She seems disappointed that I will not sit for hours and hours watching TV or reading. Being an active guy, I like to do things and WV is a great state to do things in. I have tried countless times to get my mom out of the house but she firmly, but politely refuses to leave. So what I have tried to do is to spend the morning with her each day if possible and the late afternoon/early evening with friends. While not the perfect solution, it is better than going stir crazy in her house each day.

I guess one of the reasons why this trip is bittersweet is that while I know she loves me, mom does not many things to make me feel welcomed. Example. Most people keep staples (normal food items) around the house: Milk, bread, fruit, cold cuts, cereal, and junk food. Mom really doesn't. She does not drink milk and what she keeps is her own mixture of powdered milk and cheap fresh milk. She keeps only a quart at a time in her fridge. She does not normally keep cereal around (she does not eat it) so I bring breakfast bars in with me so I can at least have something for breakfast. The bread she keeps is the cheapest white bread (usually day old) you can get. She does keep cold cuts but most of the time it is ham. I am not a big fan of ham ever since my food poisoning incident 20 years ago. She rarely if ever buys turkey or roast beef. If she has anything other than ham, it is usually a very cheap brand of bologna. I like bologna as long as it is of good quality. Mom buys on price only. The only fruit I eve see her have are apples and sometimes bananas. I like them both but she rarely keeps them around.

On top of this, she rarely cooks. Her idea of cooking is throwing something in the microwave. Now I fully understand that since she lives by herself, cooking a big meal is not always the best choice, but most of what she eats can be frozen and she has a freezer to put it in (albeit it is full of her favorite frozen food...cheap frozen dinners). Is it any wonder I eat out a fair amount of the time I am in?

Most of the time when a person visits, the host will make sure the guest has things they like. Mom rarely does that. Now, when dad was alive, my trips in were great. Food was plentiful and in great variety. Now that he has passed on, mom fends for herself.

The general theme with my mom is cheap. Not frugal, not thrifty, but cheap. She used to buy these large cans of grapefruit juice (off-brand of course) to keep for breakfast. While not the best stuff in the world, at least it was juice. When I visited her the last time, I asked if she had any juice and she told me, "I stopped buying juice. Do you know they went up on price 17 cents? That is just ridiculous!" Mom has stopped eating and drinking her favorite foods just because they increased in price a few cents.

Knowing mom is tight with her money, I try to help her out. I buy our meals when we go out, even though my wife and I are on a tight budget. I want to do this if she would just get out of the house.

I have to give her credit though. When I came in this last time, she had all the staples and she even went out to eat twice with me. Now both times were fast food, but it is a start. At least one of those meals was good (T&L Hot Dogs...yummy. The other was LJS...greasy).

This little battle goes on each time I visit and progressively gets worse until the day I pack up and head back home. My wish is that she has some of my favorite WV comfort food (Pepperoni Rolls, WV hot dogs, Giovanni steak sandwiches) handy when I come in but each and every year (with a few exceptions) she just goes on with her life as usual.

Back when dad was alive and my wife and I were living in NC, mom and dad came down to NC from WV to NC to visit us and see the house we bought. It was not much to look at...1850 sq ft brick home (the only brick home in the neighborhood) that was nearly a perfect cube...I called it the Borg home. I only had a small front stoop up front (no roof) and a large concrete patio in back (again, no roof). It was not well designed but it had charm. Anyway, mom and dad came down one Thanksgiving shortly after we bought the house. My wife and I did everything we could to make mom and dad comfortable. We made sure they had coffee to drink (we were not big coffee drinkers at that time) and any food they needed we had on hand. Dad was not a turkey person so my wife and I made sure he had his favorite meat, ham to eat. We bought a small Smithfield ham and fixed it for him and made sure he took the leftovers home. He was thrilled.

Mom doesn't do that. The only reason she had things this time was because my sister made her buy them. Mom almost refused stating that, "He brings his own food in to eat". My sister just laughed because the only things I ever bring are yogurt and cereal bars...stuff I can eat on the road during my two day drive. I just bring enough to last me the week while I am in since mom doesn't keep cereal around.

When my last full day visiting arrives, mom and I both feel it. She does not want to let go of her oldest son who lives 1200 miles away and I hate leaving her, despite all her quirks. However, we both know I need to go. When dad was alive, every year he would try to get me to stay "just one more day" but staying one more day meant driving all day and night to get back home and we all know that is dangerous.

The day I leave to go back to Texas, I am usually up before mom, packing the van and making sure I don't leave anything I need behind. Now that I travel with a small army of electronics, this step is critical. More than once I have left shoes, clothes, hats, or books that mom had to mail back to me.

The trip back is the same as the trip to WV, albeit with one small change. The past two years my friends Block has invited me to spend the night at his and his sister's house instead of the campground. They live in Memphis and this adds about two hours to my trip but the offer of a dry place to sleep is too good to pass up. Block is a good friend who has stuck by me since high school.

Upon arriving back to Texas, I am tired but happy to be home. I kiss my wife, pet the dog, unload the van and begin to tell stories of my trip. My wife says I went on vacation, but I know that what I have been through is not a vacation. It is work and the enjoyment during that 9 days (four days of driving - two up and two back) is minimal. I eat food that I do not like, sleep in a home that is not comfortable (dust, mold, etc), and drive for 10 hours a day for four days. Yes, the visiting with friends and the geocaching is great, but far from a vacation. Vacation comes when my wife, my dog and I go to Florida. That is a vacation.

Not Quite Living Up To The Blog Name

2009-06-10T14:49:00.002-05:00

"Always A Dull Moment" is not how I really describe my life, but I thought it was really cool title for a blog. Cool because I don't normally have exciting things happen in my life. Well during my last trip to WV to visit family and friends (and to geocache!) that all changed.

It started with a story I heard on the local news about a new lead on a cold murder case. My home town, while small has more than its fair share of murders and any lead on a cold case would really put minds at ease. I heard this story either Sunday night or Monday morning before my geocaching buddies picked me up for our long day of geocaching at Mingo Park in PA. On the way back, one of the geocaching crew received a phone call and while I was not paying attention to it, I did notice he spent a lot more time on the call than he normally would. He told me it had to do with cold case but that was all he was able to say at that time.

The next morning, I received a call from my friend telling me to stay tuned to the local TV station for a press conference. He gave me the gist of the story but no details. I missed the press conference but was able to catch the 6 PM news and got the shock of my life. A man whom I knew from my teenage years had been implicated in severak arsons and murders. They were linking the murders, calling the man a "serial" killer.

At first I was not sure it was the same person. No photo was used at the time and no other info other than DOB was offered. It sure sounded like the guy I knew, but I was not sure. Not sure, that is until they mentioned the location where they were looking for more bodies. The name of the road was the same as the e-mail address of someone I knew...the killer's brother. Well that was enough evidence for me.

Still reeling from this news I checked my Facebook page and noticed a couple of posts from friends and family of the killer. I wanted to say something but what do you say in a situation like this?

From the best that I can tell, the series of events is as follows:

Jimbo (the killer) recorded an audio cassette and delivered it to the local police station. On the cassette, he confessed to taking part in four arsons and five murders. To prove he was telling the truth, he gave the location of two of the bodies. When police heard the tape, they tracked him to a nearby motel (one that I had stayed in once in my wild days) under an assumed name. Before police could storm the motel room, Jimbo killed himself with a single gunshot to the head.

Since the suspect killed himself, getting to the bottom of the murders is going to be difficult. They have released very little info at this point but what has been made public is that two of the five bodies have been recovered and both have been women. No motive has been released at this time.

Here is a link to the story. If you care to follow up on this, just use your favorite search engine and search for the words "James Childers Murder West Virginia" and you will get a boatload of hits. Take your pick.

To the family and friends of James "Jimbo" Childers, my thoughts and prayers are with you.

For the record, I was pretty good friends with a couple of Jimbo's siblings...one boy and one girl. I only met Jimbo a couple of times.

I Have Installed OS's Faster Than That!

2009-05-14T13:59:00.002-05:00

Wow. I just got finished upgrading my work laptop (HP nc-6510 / 2 gig RAM / Vista) to SP1 a little while ago and all I can say is. "wow...that took forever".

I started the download from our company intranet and then began the install. It took about two hours total to install the Service Pack. I am pretty sure I have installed Ubuntu quicker than that. Why did it take so long to install? I am pretty sure that none of the XP Service Packs took two hours. Maybe it is just the way that Vista handles SP installation compared to other OS's. I am just glad that I had the time to do it at work and that it was my work machine, not my home PC. Ubuntu Linux on the primary partition with a Win XP install for guests.

Successful Endeavor

2009-05-06T13:24:00.002-05:00

As previously posted, I have upgraded my main PC (geekbox) from Ubuntu 8.10 to 9.4 and have been very pleased with the results. As with any OS, there are issues but 9.4, aka "Jaunty Jackalope" is a bug step in the right direction.

In the past, a few things have kept me tied to a Windows box (sites that require Internet Explorer, transferring files to/from my GPS unit, installing programs on my Palm PDA, and my personal finance program, AceMoney) but I still managed to do 95% of my personal computing on my Linux box. With the latest upgrade, I am happy to say that I now am able to do all those things via Linux, with the exception of using Internet Explorer. While I know I could install IE4Linux via WINE, it seems so...sacreligious to install IE on a Linus box. Maybe someday I will do that but for the time being, I am going to say no to installing it.

The other day I was able to successfully transfer 350 waypoints to my Garmin GPSMAP 60 Cx via GPSBabel, use CMConvert to convert the waypoints to a Palm pdb file, and use GPilot to install the pdb file on my Palm Centro. I may have been able to use GPSBabel to make the conversion but since I was more familiar with CMConvert, I just used that.

I also am now able to run AceMoney in WINE without any errors. By default it would run but not sort the entries but after using a Microsoft library (instead of an open source one) it worked just fine. Of course I still had to configure the WINE settings for that particular app but it was not too hard.

Video has been hit or miss in the past but now that I have install VLC, I can watch any video in my collection (mov, avi, mpg, wmv, mp4, rm, flv, and dvd). I have even grown fond of Rhythmbox (along with Last.fm gives me a rather large library of music to list to).

Scanning (with my cheap Mustek 1200 UB scanner) was a nightmare with Windows but is a breeze with Linux. My webcam (an old Logitech) has started giving me issues but I am sure that is easy enough to fix.

Yep, this upgrade has allowed me to use my Linux box for more and more daily items. Even the eye candy works with my Nvidia 5600 video card.

One Small Victory

2009-05-05T07:28:00.001-05:00

In California, no less!

Jaunty Is A Winner

2009-04-27T14:39:00.002-05:00

After playing with Jaunty Jackalope (Ubuntu Linux 9.04) for a few days I have come to the conclusion that I like it. A lot. As a matter of fact, I have only found one thing that I did not like and that was Brasero. Burning an CD .iso image took more than 15 minutes...much longer than I would have expected. For some strange reason, it thinks the DVD-ROM/CD burner in my nc6000 laptop is only 10x...

I have upgraded both my laptop and my desktop to 9.04 and both boot very quickly (the laptop boots in about 30 seconds). As a matter of fact, almost everything in 9.04 seems quicker: Open Office, Firefox, Nautilus...everything but Brasero. Maybe I can tweak it and make it faster some how.

I also appreciate having the eye candy actually work. I can now demo the full abilities of Compiz on a P4 machine with a Nvidia 5600 video card. Yes, I have 1.5 gigs of RAM but that was more for the Windows partition that the Linux one.

I have been singing the praises of Ubuntu for years and I think that with every release, it gets better and better. While Breezy Badger (one of the earlier releases) was pretty good, Jaunty is just awesome.

I have been using Ubuntu since late 2004, shortly after Warty Warthog (Ubuntu 4.10) was released. I had my share of ups and downs but continued to work with it until I installed Windows and Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) as a dual boot. The Linux partition was for me and the Windows side was for my wife who did not care to learn a new OS. At this point I was about 90% Linux and only used Windows on the odd occaision that I could not do something in Linux without a lot of heartache. That was over 3 years ago. Now I have slipped back to using Windows more (I still have some issues with my Garmin GPS and Linux playing nice together 100% of the time) but I still do most of my computing in Linux. I like the freedom it offers.

Well, anyhoo...if you are the experimental type and you have a spare PC lying around or are comfortable with dual boots, give Ubuntu Linux a try. I think you will like it.

Jaunty!

2009-04-24T08:17:00.002-05:00

I took the time to upgrade my Linux install on the borrowed laptop (HP nc6000) the day before the official release (you know, beat the crowd). The upgrade went very smoothly and other than not having a complete set of repositories (I had the required but not the optional ones enabled) the upgrade went very well. It went well enough that I went ahead an upgraded the dual boot Pentium 4 desktop that I use (and Ubuntu runs great on it...even the eye candy) he next day.

The first thing that jumped out at me was the newer graphics on usplash. While eye candy is not normally a big deal, this looks a lot better than its predecessor, which looked much better than the one before it. All in all, usplash gets exponentially better each time Ubuntu releases an upgrade for the stellar OS.

The next thing I noticed was a default install booted from grub to login in less than 45 seconds. Once I tweaked it some, it came down to about 40 seconds. Not too shabby. Other than that there was not much to really notice. There are newer versions of tools and Open Office is at version 3.0 (a nice enhancement) and even a new tool or two (there is a clean up tool that I cannot place the name of at the moment...a crap cleaner-ish program for Linux).

When I took the time to upgrade my desktop install the next day, the first thing I noticed on it was all the eye candy worked much better than it did on the previous release. I am not sure if it was an Nvidia thing or not, but the banners of the windows left artifacts on the screen when Compiz was turned on with the last version of Ubuntu (Intrepid Ibex). Now with Jaunty, the animations are super smooth with the same video hardware (FX5600). Again, while eye candy is not a big deal normally, I got to giggling when I saw what I could do in Linux that you cannot do with Vista using the same hardware.

I managed to get a good, complete repository list and copied it over to both machines. Considerfing the sheer number of people updating their Ubuntu installs, it took a while but it was worth the wait. My machines are fully up to date with Ubuntu code. My laptop and dekstop both work well. The only thing that I could not get to work (so far) was a couple of .mov files from "The Animatrix" that were free downloads. Everything else played. To be honest I did not try them in VLC...I suspect it would play them.

As I continue testing I will keep you up to date.

How Is This News?

2009-04-23T07:38:00.002-05:00

I need to begin by saying that I never watch Larry King. I only saw this link and thought maybe there was a real story but as I skimmed it, I began to realize that this is just crap. Does Mr. King really think this young man is going to air dirty laundry on national TV and second, do we really need to read/see this? What kind of perv is King?

**Update** I am not the only one taking notice. And another.

What About Octumom?

2009-04-16T11:43:00.001-05:00

I just read this on The Smoking Gun. Pretty darn funny!

Health Update

2009-04-12T09:28:00.001-05:00

My wife had her surgery on Wednesday and a lot of people from church showed up, not to mention my son and his fiancé. Lots of praise to God for the outpouring of love and support. We have had several visitors at home, many cards and e-mails, and a few meals delivered (all which have been great).

Overall the surgery went well. Technically it was out patient surgery (just like my back a few years ago) but since she was fully under (just like I was a few years ago) she had to come out from the anesthesia and use the bathroom before she could go home. That was a longer process than I had hoped, but she did get to go home that night. Of course we had to stop at Wal-Mart to get her prescriptions filled first. The lines were long and she had to wait in the van longer than I would have liked, but we finally made it home safe and sound. Once there, I got my wife into the house only after I let The Golden out since The Golden had not been out all day (we left at 10:30 AM and got home at 7:30-ish PM).

Once home, she pretty much headed straight to bed.

She is doing well so far. We ventured out on Friday to take Solder Boy and his fiancé to the airport so they could get back to their life. We grabbed dinner at Razzoo’s before and ran a couple of errands after the airport run but after that we just stayed home. I did not do much on Saturday (except clean) and catch on several episodes of various shows on Hulu.

Today is Easter and I am getting ready to go to church with my wife. I skipped Sunday School today and to be honest my bible reading has dropped off considerably. I am going through one of those “disconnected” phases again where I just don’t find a lot of joy in things. I guess it is mostly my fault for letting work get to me.

We are still not sure on the status of our vacation package. We have paid for it in full but since we had to cancel at the last minute, we are not sure if we will get any of it back, or if the owner will allow us to use another off season week to use the house. Anyway you look at it, I need a vacation. Badly.

Not My Standard Weekend

2009-04-06T14:08:00.002-05:00

It has been a while since I have given the world, "an update" so I figured before I get any busier I had better do so...here she goes.

Work has been...well...work until last week when it was rather...boring. I was working 8-5 last week but thanx to my office mate being on call I could go home early almost every day. That was nice.

We received our first paycheck with the 5% pay cut last week and it was just about the amount I had expected it to be. President BHO's tax cut helped some but not enough. If I did not have to be on call I would get a second job.

Grass cutting season has arrived so I have started maintaining both ours and our neighbor's yard. I think this is the 7th year for me to do it and I have just now gone up on my rates which is kinda funny since other lawn care providers have cut their rate a tad. I always swim against the current.

The Golden has had a minor surgery to fix a spot on her muzzle she keeps messing with. Of course now she will not stop messing with the sutures but at least the will eventually heal.

I have not gone geocaching (well, any serious geocaching) in three weeks. I have picked up a few here and there but nothing like I used to. Work, the weather, and other events have kept me from going. Not that it is a bad thing, just that I am jonesing to get out and tromp around the woods again soon.

Last weekend the men at church met at "The Farm" (a big plot of land that is owned by one of the church member's fathers) for a weekend camping trip. While I did not pack to go camping, I did bring everything I needed. I also brought my geocaching stuff but due to a scheduling conflict, I ended up giving one of the church elders a ride home. We stopped off at one cache in a cemetery, just to give him an idea of what the past time was like, but it was the only one we grabbed. He was on a tight time table and I needed to get him home. I would have went out caching on Sunday but it was super windy and I just was not in the mood to fight it. Heck, it is even windy today...and cold! It has been that way (with the exception of Saturday) for a week or so.

While I will not go into detail, my wife has to have surgery on Wednesday. She had some tests ran on her Friday and the doc was a tad concerned with the results, hence the short notice for surgery. That in and of itself is not all that reassuring but when you take into consideration that we have already paid $900 towards a beach house for vacation that starts this coming Friday (a vacation that we can no longer take, I might add) it makes things even worse. I am not trivializing my wife's surgery by any means but we both were looking forward to next week. We have a call and an e-mail in to the owner of the beach house asking for some consideration but I have a very bad feeling the money is forfeit. God willing, he will allow us to go in the off season (this fall would be okay with me) with the money we have already paid him. If not, I am pretty sure we will not ever use his properties ever again.

Back to my wife...the short notice of the surgery and what it involves has her a bit concerned (me as well) but she is handling it better today than she was Sunday. She has a mild degree of discomfort which hopefully abate after the surgery heals. The good news is that our son should be coming to see us (he is flying in from PA) this week. He has asked to borrow my truck (since he is too young to rent a car) while he is here so in preparation I replaced the two read (and balding) tires on it. I still need to get shocks but that is going to have to wait until I see how much the surgery is going to be.

Other than all that, things are pretty normal. We are adjusting to having only one dog and The Golden appears to be finally adjusting as well, although she now follows my wife around the house all day long, never letting her out of sight.

Giving Live Writer A Spin

2009-04-01T10:06:00.001-05:00

I thought I would update Windoze and install the “Live” suite of tools to give them a shot. I am not a huge fan of MS, but some of the tools are okay.

I will try to keep y’all up to date on my findings.

This One Is Gonna Hurt!

2009-03-20T05:29:00.002-05:00

From the Jay Leno appearance: (Thank you ABC news)

Towards the end of his approximately 40-minute appearance, the president talked about how he's gotten better at bowling and has been practicing in the White House bowling alley.

He bowled a 129, the president said."That's very good, Mr. President," Leno said sarcastically. It's "like the Special Olympics or something," the president said.

Way to go. Insult the disabled. I don't care if you meant it or not, if anyone else makes a comment like that we are being cruel. When the White House makes it, it is just an "off hand remark".

Give me a break.

Just A Little Angry - Rant

2009-03-16T10:29:00.004-05:00

It seems that when my company has bad news to deliver, it is sent out on Friday even, after half the US has gone home for the week. Well, last Friday was no different. I am not sure why, but something told me to check my work e-mail Friday evening before we sat down to dinner. What I found out was that my business unit is getting a "temporary" 10% pay cut. This is not great news, but it is made worse by the fact that just a couple of weeks ago, our CEO announced a COMPANY WIDE pay cut of 2.5 to 20% (I was in the 5% bracket, as most of the employees are). So now I get a nice fat %15 pay cut...5% is permanent and the other 10% is temporary. Just add this on to the list of things that we have had taken from us.

The first few things they took away from us were mostly annoying and most did not directly affect us unless we were to get laid off. Those reductions were the cutting in half of severance benefits...not once, but twice (effectively giving us 25% of our old benefits). They did cut our pension out but held on to the money. It sits collecting interest until I retire since there is no more money being added to it.

The next thing that went was the matching contributions to our 401k. Again, not a huge deal...it just simply means my 401k will not grow quite as fast as it did unless I dump more money into it. Oh, I forgot to mention that the business unit I am in does not qualify for on call pay, so we work on call and get NOTHING extra for it. No comp time, no extra pay. That one bugs me quite a bit.

Then we get notice of not one but TWO pay cuts (one company wide and one for just our business unit...it seems that my business unit, the only one that makes money, it the hardest hit)., of which one is permanent and the other "temporary" one has been loosely defined.

I have gotten a few e-mails telling me I need to be thankful that I have a job...and I am. However I can be disappointed that I am making LESS money today than I was when I started this company 5+ years ago. Yes, that is how much they have taken.

"Okay El Gee, just take a part time job." I would love to but I am on call (and did I mention I don't get paid for it??) and it is going to be pretty hard to hold a second job if I am on call with my primary one.

"Okay El Gee, just find a new job." Easier said than done. Have you seen the job market out there?

I am thankful that God sees fit to have me employed right now. I am frustrated that I cannot seem to get any traction on finances. Just a month or two ago, my wife and I paid off all of our debt except the mortgage. Now oddly enough, the extra debt we had is almost the exact amount I will lose each month under the stimulus package my employer is about to release. We were hoping to start saving more (outside of the 401k) and give a little more to church (we tithe but we were wanting to give some extra to some pet projects) but it appears that will not be happening.

Grand Time

2009-03-09T10:19:00.002-05:00

I know I normally post my geocaching adventures on my "Geobloggin'" blog but I am not 100% sure I that I want to continue running that site. There are a lot of reasons that I could go in to, but I won't at this time.

Sunday after church and lunch, I decided to do a little geocaching since I did not do any on Saturday. I actually had a plan (and stuck to it, too!) and did a minimum of driving, instead I hiked several miles around Breckenridge Park and Allen Station Park.

I started off the day grabbing a few park and grabs just a mile or two from home. One was right along Bethany Drive (Heritage Park and Grab) and the other was in a cemetary (Allen Cemetary). Neither took very long so I was able to get to the hardest geocache (4/4) of the day rather quickly. "Focus" was a team effort by a couple of local hardcore cachers, 9key and Team TechieGirl. I will not go into too much detail but I will say that it is very possible to find the cache without going to all the stages. As a matter of fact, I discovered the final on my way to stage one, but since I wanted the full effect of the hide, I followed it as intended. It was a very enjoyable find, although I cut my legs (I was wearing shorts) to ribbons.

After finding "Focus" I moved on to the two in Northwest Allen that I DNF'ed on a couple of weeks ago. It turns out the hider had made a rather large error on the coordinates so almost everyone struck out the first time. Armed with new coords, I found both hides (W.T.D. #1 and #2) in due time. Five down, and four to go.

The last four were new as well. Two of them ("Knot Low and Inside" and "Concrete Graveyard") were near enough to each other that I could walk from one to the other. "Concrete Graveyard" was the first one I went to. It was a large deposit of concrete slabs and rebar in the middle of a large wooded area. How long it has been there is anybody's guess, but finding the cache was not hard. I was surprised that so many people struck out on it previously.

After grabbing that one I hiked over to "Knot Low and Inside". That one was fun because it had a decoy and finding the actual hide took some time. It was a micro in the woods (that is getting to be old...) but a find is a find. On to the last two.

"Just a Frog on a Log" and "Old Tree" were in part of the nature preserve that I did not know was open to the public. After a short hike (1 mile round trip) I snagged two nice hides. "Frog on a Log" is a reincarnation of "Ribbitting", which was just a mile away. I always liked that cache and at the time I found it, thought it was pretty darn cute.

With nine geocaches down, I turned my attention to two terracaches in Richardson and some cache maintenance. The first one I looked for was, "What Did You Expect", a multipart terracache in Breckenridge Park. Stage one was a real bear because the coords were off my 50+ feet. The only way I was able to find it was with a hint but I am not too upset since this was the way a lot of people found it. After stage one was grabbed (reminded me of two geocaches I have grabbed, one in Plano and the other in Garland) I drove over to the official parking area and hoofed it to the final. I was on the wrong side of the creek (you always are on the wrong side of the creek in Breckenridge) so I had to find a safe place to cross to get to the final. After letting my GPSr setting down, I was able to find the metal marker on the ground. I left it uncovered since it was hard enough to get to.

With one terracache down, I decided to check on one of my caches in the area that had been reported missing. "Dead Men Tell No Tales" was a collaborative effort between me and 9key and it really ticked me off that it was missing. It looks like the cache thief is working overtime. I decided not to replace it and archived it on the web site.

On my way over to the last terracache, I stopped by to see if I could find "eeman's First Cache"...one that had stumped me before. This time I was able to find it and was able to score a smilie. This was an odd cache since the camo is more urban than the environment would require, but it seems to work well enough here. Who am i to judge?

I had just enough time to head over to the other nature preserve in Richardson to grab one more terracache (Routh Cemetary). Once I navigated to it, all I needed was a pic of the plaque to give me the info I needed to get another find on the terracaching web page. I think I have five total terracache finds...not actually a huge number but it puts me at number 43 in the state for finds.

So in my mind, the day was a success and I followed my plan. I only deviated once and that was to get a previous DNF (eeman's First Cache) so all is good.

After I got home I got cleaned up, called mom, and had a little dinner. I was tired and very scratched up but I was very happy. I wish more days could be like this.

Yeah, What She Said!

2009-03-03T05:55:00.001-06:00

“Why kill yourself working if you’re going to give it all away to people who aren’t working as hard?” - an anonymous 63-year-old attorney based in Lafayette, La in regards to the new proposed tax laws under the President Obama (as quoted by ABC news).

Now, under the plan he supports, I won't have this happen to me per se, but I support her 100%.

I Still Have No Sympathy

2009-02-26T07:22:00.002-06:00

The more I read about the bailout and all those begging for their share of it, the less sympathetic I become towards those people. I am speaking mostly of the people who are at risk of having a home foreclosed upon.

I hear and read stories all the time about people who are "upside down" on their mortgages...owing more than the home is worth. Do these people realize that when they buy a new car, they are upside down on the loan the minute they drive off the lot? Of course not.

Owing more on the home loan than the home is worth only really comes into play if you are trying to see. If you bought a $500,000 home and it is now worth $375,000 and you have no plans on selling, how are you losing any money? Did your monthly payment go up because the house value went down? No, it did not.

The biggest problem with people getting homes repossessed is that the family bought more home than they could afford. While I will admit that banks a Realtors make it easy to get a big home, the consumer must be held accountable for their actions.

Let me relate a story to you. This is my story. I was a homeowner in NC. I had a modest 2000 sq ft home in the county (out of the city) that was valued at $140,000. I was relocated to Texas just three years after we purchased the house (the house had appreciated about 10% or so) and since I was a homeowner, I was looking to buy a home in Texas. The homes in the areas that I was looking at were a tad more expensive per square foot than they were in NC, so my wife and I decided to drop the square footage down to about 1700 to keep the mortgage in the price range we thought we could afford. Now during this time the Realtor and the bank both told me I qualified for a much bigger mortgage than I wanted (they told me I could increase the sq footage to 2500 or so with little increase in mortgage payment) but my wife and I stood firm. We would buy what we KNEW we could afford, which was 1700 sq ft in a solid middle class neighborhood.

After a couple of years the interest rates dropped and we refinanced. our mortgage dropped about $100 a month and we were in even better shape than we were when we started the process. As a matter of fact, taking into consideration the tax differences, we are paying about the same was we were in NC, for a slightly smaller, but much newer home. We are mostly happy.

I did not give in and buy a big house. While I will admit that it was a little crowded in our three bedroom/2 bath 1700 sq ft home with two adults, one teen, and two dogs for the first couple of years, now that the teen is an adult and we are down to one dog (rest in peace, Maxx), the house is perfect for us. Could I have afforded a bigger place? Sure, but to be honest with the debt that my wife and I were carrying at the time (we are minus that debt now, praise God) it would have been tight. Knowning that we tithe (give 10 percent of our income to the church), we did not feel that we would be good stewards if we wasted money on more of a home than we needed. I feel that we did the right thing.

I know a lot of people who own big homes. Many of them need them due to the fact they have several children. A few of them enterain and the larger home allowed them the ability to invite large numbers of the church body over to fellowship. There are a few people I know who own big homes and really have no need for them, but that number is few by comparison. Most buy what they need.

The woman in Arlington, VA that CNN did an article on recently is one person who does not deserve a bailout in my opinion. While it is not mentioned what her husband does for a living, she has gone on the record to state that she is a bus driver and she and her husband and kids live in a $800,000/3500 sq ft home in a nice subdivision that is now worth $675,000. She has been given notice that her home is at risk of foreclosure. Unless her hubby makes a very good living, it is easy to see why she is in financial troubles. I know family of three (three that live in the home...the family is somewhat larger) that lives on the equivalent of two bus driver's salaries (on of them actually is a bus driver) in a home slightly larger than ours. I cannot see them affording an $800,000 home.

Why does a bus driver need such a extravagant home? Not that I am trying to judge but an $800,000 home seems a little out of reach on a bus driver's salary.

No, I am sorry...I have no sympathy here. If she bought a more modest home, lost her job, and was on the verge of being homeless, I could understand but not the situation that CNN has presented to us.

Where is El Gee?

2009-02-20T13:06:00.002-06:00

I am still waiting for "change". Anyone else seen it yet?

I thought this was sadly amusing. This is what you all get for electing an inexperienced man to the White House. At least the people running on the other ticket did not promise what they could not deliver.

Where are all the Obamaniacs? I wonder if they are ready to crucify their "savior" yet.

On a more serious note, I really have not felt like blogging much, but I have been keeping Facebook current. Oh, my Vox page is also very out of date.

Sigh.

Old Patterns Returning

2009-02-05T07:33:00.003-06:00

I find myself getting back into my normal routine two weeks after we had to put Little Man down. I am walking The Golden most every morning now (much to her chagrin) and the walking is doing me good. I do not mourn heavily for my little buddy any more. I may get a little sad, but not heartbroken. This is a goof thing.

Work has been interesting. I got off call Monday morning at 7 AM only to have my TL call me and tell me his son was sick and he would be taking the day off. Then on Wednesday, my TL was sick, so I worked by myself again. To keep the risk of me catching whatever my TL has to a minimum (we share an office), we are working from home today (which I did on Mon and Wed instead of my normal Tues and Wed)...I am sure my boss is confused.

Also on the work front we have been informally informed that we will be moving in a few months to one of the major buildings of the company we acquired last year. I will be going back to a cube something I have not had in five years or so and in "hostile" territory. The folks we acquired still are not happy with us but they will come around eventually.

I also find myself beginning to like (perish the thought) my work smartphone, a Palm Treo 800w (which runs Windows Mobile 6.1)...but not as a phone, as a PDA. Yes it is Windows and yes it has to be soft restarted every week or so, but I like the rest of the software. As a phone it is inferior (in my opinion) to the Palm OS based phone. The ringtones are not as loud and the speaker phone not as clear or loud as my Palm OS based one. That will take some getting used to. I prefer a louder phone since I am in noisy environments and I am not one to turn on vibrate mode unless I am in church or someplace else where silence is the rule.

I received a surprise phone call last night from our son, Soldier Boy. He is still in PA with his biomom but he is thinking about moving back to Texas. He is training to be a recruiter and it is a job he enjoys and if what he is telling me is true, the Army will pick up the tab on the move.

We had not heard from him in about six months or so. He had not cashed his Christmas check, nor had he returned e-mails. I was beginning to think that he had gotten into some sort of trouble. From what I understood that is not the case. He did confide in me that he is beginning to see a side of his biomom that he did not know existed...a side I warned him about before he went to live with her. While it is too personal to divulge on the web in a blog, let us just say that he is seeing a lot of what I saw 20+ years ago when I was married to his biomom. At that time, it was not pretty. And while I am a new man and continually pray for her salvation, I cannot forget what happened. I can (and have) forgiven her, but I doubt I will forget.

It was a good conversation and I am glad he finally called. I am sorry he had to see some of his biomom's erratic behavior (and even more sorry that she has not changed) but we all have to grow at our own pace.

Soldier Boy stated he had an e-mail problem that still has not been corrected and now he is forced to use a Yahoo account instead of his military one but that does not explain why he has not contacted us. I am sure when he calls back to talk to my wife this evening.

Well, work calls. I need to see what trouble I can get myself into :)

New Arrival

2009-01-30T13:14:00.002-06:00

No, Mrs El Gee is not pregnant, nor is the Golden having pups...my new work phone (actually a "smartphone") arrived at work yesterday. If I failed to mention it before, work decided not to reimburse us for our personal mobile phones (that we used for work) any longer and decided it was better to issue us company phones (I never see the bill) instead. We were given the option to port our personal phones over to the Work account but I had a couple of problems with that.

First, we just signed a new two year contract with AT&T on our home service (and Work would not eat the contract) and second, we had a family plan and unlike most people with family plans, it works for us. I only use the phone with any regularity when I am on call and having a plan with minimal minutes (that still gives me unlimited weekends) for just me was wasteful. Also, all my family and friends have my mobile number and since it is for "Work", I did not want to have them calling me and Work having a hissy fit over the minutes used, so I jsut decided to keep the phones and plan we have and let Work issue me a new phone.

Work preferred us to use Sprint unless we traveled outside the US (which I don't) so that is what I did...I ordered Sprint service.

The only question was, which phone do I chose? I had a few to chose from:

Motorola Q9C
Samsung i325 Ace
Palm Treo 800w
Samsung m320
Samsung m540 Rant
Samsung m620 Upstage
Sanyo 2500 s1
Sanyo 3800 tx

Had I traveled (thus using AT&T service, which we have at home) I would have had my choice of:

LG CU405
Motorola Razr v3
Nokia 6650
Samsung Blackjack II
Samsung a737
Sony-Ericsson w580i

Now I already have a "smartphone" for personal use (that Work was reimbursing me for), a Palm Centro, which runs the ever stable Palm OS 5.xx) so I really did not need a smartphone for work, BUT since the option was there and it did not cost anymore to get, I thought, what the heck. I decided on the Palm Treo 800w, which runs the Windows Mobile 6.1 OS. I have had the thing for about 24 hours and I can honestly say that I like the older, but more stable (and far easier to navigate) Palm OS.

To be fair to my new Work phone, let me start with the positives:

* The hardware is nicer than my Centro (it is bigger, has a better feel to it and the buttons are easier to use)
* WiFi is nice (I do not have that on my Centro)
* The OS is "prettier", just like XP and Vista are pretty.

The negatives can be summed up as:

* It is a Microsoft operating system, hence it needs to be rebooted. Frequently.

I have had it 24 hours and have done a soft reset more times on it than I have the past few months I have had my Centro. Syncing has been a nightmare and it will lose the ability to be recognised by my Vista Work laptop (maybe that is the problem) at the drop of a hat.

My wife asked me last night what I thought of my new phone and I told her the same thing I am posting today. Having Work issue me a phone with Windows on it was a great way to solidify me into the Palm OS camp. While I admit that WMOS 6.1 is shiny, it suffers from a lot of the same issues I hate Microsoft for. Reboots. Instability. Bloat.

Mamy people laugh when they see the Palm OS because is a bit antiquated in the looks department. It does not have any fancy animations or a "slick" interface, but gosh darn it, it is STABLE.

Let me put it this way. Would you rather drive a plain, unassuming car to work 50 miles raound trip each day or a flashy, troublesome luxury car that breaks down every other day? I will take dependabilty over flash any day. Maybe that is why I like my Linus box at home. But I digress, this is about phones.

It regards to the software that operates the phone, you get the impression with Windows Mobile that the phone was a complete afterthought. I do not get that impression with the Palm OS, but then again, I am a Palm snob.

One more thing that is most likely a positive that I cannot compare is wireless web access. Browsing the web has been pretty smooth on the Windows device. I have no idea what it would be like on the Centro, but my guess is that it would not be as smooth.

Oh well, I am sure I will get used to it...now when will the Palm Pre be available?

The First Of Many

2009-01-28T05:12:00.002-06:00

When the Obama/Biden election machine was rolling back pre-November, we were warned that Joe Biden was a gaffe machine. I also stated that I feared that he would stick his foot in his mouth (politically) and embarass us all.

It has started. Yes, it is small, but doe we really need a smart alec like this SECOND IN COMMAND?

Surprises

2009-01-26T12:23:00.002-06:00

The past few days (AKA, "The Weekend") were peaceful and the amount of work that I accomplished was impressive. I may have to try that particular schedule again sometime.

I started out Saturday by working on my Sunday School lesson. It only took a couple of hours and I gathered a lot of good data. It was on Collosians 2:11-23, which is on legalism. It was interesting work.

After I was finished with that, I did a thorough vacuuming of the house (we had three dogs for half the week, then one for the remainder) and got up a fair amount of dog hair (we had three dogs for half the week, then one for the remainder) in the process. After spending about two hours doing that, my wife asked me if I would mop the kitchen since we have had a lot of dogs in there lately. How could I refuse that pretty smile?

After the house was clean, I had a quick lunch with my wife and then I started working on migrating my wife from her old IBM C3 workpad (a Palm Vx clone) to my old Palm Tungsten E (T|E, as it is known). The process took longer than in normally would because of a few issues beyond my control. The first was that her laptop does not have a serial port and all attempts to get her C3 to sync via the serial/USB converter failed, so I could not immediately synch her PDA with her PC.

The second thing was that my PC Palm Desktop software is not compatible with her PDA, so I had to uninstall my new version and install her older version of Palm Desktop to my machine. Then once I did that, I synched my old T|E with the older Palm Dekstop and then installed that same version of Palm Desktop on her laptop. Once all that was done, all I had to do was sync the T|E with her laptop and she was running solo. During the entire process I was scared to death that one of the PC's would overwrite her PDA and I would everything, but God was on my side and now she has a new, old T|E to use.

The only downside to using the T|E is that it goes through the non-replaceable battery very quickly and has to be charged every couple of days. While it will be a pain for her to some degree, at least she has a backup of her data that is more compatible with the newer Palms, providing she goes that route. I still have hopes of getting her a T|E2 if I can find one reasonably priced.

After that it was time for dinner and a walk with The Golden. When we got back I worked on my Care Group lesson for this Wednesday and in no time it was completed. My day was drawing to a close and my chores were done.

"Hey, wait a minute El Gee, how come you did not go Geocaching?"

It was pretty cold and windy on Saturday and GPSr coverage sucks when it is windy, so I held off going geocaching until Sunday afternoon. And to be honest it turned out pretty well. While my total number of caches for the day was lower (10), I managed to get four that I DNF'd several times in the past, so all in all it was a good day. I even made it home in time for dinner.

Afer coming home I took a walk with my wife and The Golden (I have been walking The Golden in the morning and we walk her at night) and then I fixed myself a huge spinach salad and called mom. Since my mom talks more than I do (those who know me but not her are shaking their heads in disbelief) I munched on my salad while mom filled me in on things both interesting and mundain. About the only thing I told her was about having to put Little Man down. She said she knew in her heart we had done it. We are so in tune with each other.

Early on in the conversation she informed me my sister has diabetes. I do not know how severe it is but it appears that it is still in the early or minor stages since all they are doing is working on her diet first. Now that she has been diagnosed, the rest of the family is being tested. I will pray for her. It is yet another hurdle that we must clear.

After that conversation I went in to watch Law and Order: Criminal Intent on Bravo. I had forgotten about the MMA bouts on Versus TV and missed some great WEC action. Uriah Faber kicked Jens Pulver's but again and Jamie Varner defended his belt, yet again. Whoo-hoo!

I guess we went to bed early and I slept most of the way threw with the exception of gettig up at midnight, hungry and thirsty. I grabbed a pack of 100 calorie Wheat Thins and a glass of water and consumed them before heading back to bed. I slept like a baby.

Feeling Better

2009-01-24T16:30:00.002-06:00

Time is helping to mend my broken heart. I have been rather down ever since we put Maxx down the other day but each day that goes by I get a little stronger. I was even able to watch one of the puppy videos we have of him last night without tearing up.

It is frigid cold today (mid 30's) and geocaching was not on my agenda. While there is little I like better than tromping around in the woods looking for Tupperware, when the wind is blowing hard and the air is cold, I would rather stay indoors. So I did. Maybe I will do some tomorrow.

I started my day with coffee and a quick walk with The Golden. I had a light breakfast before I settled down and prepared a Sunday School lesson that I need to teach tomorrow at church. It only took a couple of hours and I think it will go well. It is hard to teach adults, especially when most of the ones in my class are better bible students than I am, but I manage.

After that I started working on the house, vacuuming everything and then mopping the kitchen. The house smells better now and my wife is happy.

My wife and I ate some leftovers for lunch and after we cleaned up that mess we did some laundry and made the bed, putting on fresh sheets. My wife picked up some very nice 425 thread count sheets at Sam's that are the nicest we have had yet. She got a very good deal on them.

While I still have a lesson to do for Wednesday, I decided I would watch some MMA videos online, catching some matches I missed afew weeks ago. Nothing really memorable, but they were pretty good.

I am getting hungry and my wife and I are thinking pizza might be nice. While not the healthiest thing we could eat, it is what we both are craving right now.

Oh, I had almost forgot. I took the time to switch my wife from her old IBM Workpad (a C3 which is a Palm Vx clone) to my old Palm Tungsten E. While the E is not a fantastic PDA and is hard on batteries, it is better than what my wife was dealing with on the C3. The touch screen was beginning to fail in a serious manner and it was becoming almost unusable.

The switch was not the smoothest process I have dealt with but it went well...no hitches. Since I have a Palm Centro my wife and I cannot share the same version of Palm Desktop. And since her laptop does not have a serial port, she really was not able to synch her PDA up for a backup until I uninstalled the Palm Desktop on my PC and installed the version that she could use. Then I did a synch to load her data on the PC then synched my old E to her profile. Once that was done I installed Palm Desktop her her laptop and synched the Palm T|E with it and now she can have her own, newer PDA on her own PC, fully synched. If hse updates to a newer PDA (which is the plan) the switch should be painless.

The only other thing I have done this weekend was work on a PC for a guy who used to be a security guard at our building. He just bought a laptop (a rather nice one at that) and wanted some help installing, configuring, and tweaking it. He is rather computer illiterate so I agreed to help him out. I gave him my church member rate even though he is not a church member. I kinda feel sorry for him so I try to help him out.

He gave me his old PC which is a Gateway P4 3.2 ghz machine. It has a mobo problem so I am only going to use it for parts. I may keep the case because I like the looks of it but I doubt I will keep anything other than the RAM. He wanted the HD and the rest of the goodies are matched to the case. Nonetheless, it did have a gig of PC3200 DRAM which is the same type I have in my my Linux box. The additional gig of RAM boots me to 1.5 gigs so the machine runs pretty good now. I would have loved to snag the processor but it is not the same socket style as mine so I can't. Maybe I can get a deal on a motherboard for it...

God Speed, Little Man

2009-01-21T15:50:00.003-06:00

Well today, Jan 21, 2008 @ 2:20 PM Maxx went on to be with Father God. It was a sad event with both my wife and I shedding a boat load of tears but in the end we are at peace.

My wife and I took Little Man and his sister (well not by blood but they lived and played together for nine years) to the nature preserve closest to our house and walked about a half a mile of trails. I realize it was not a lot but it was about all Maxx could handle. He fell twice and was pretty much out of steam by the time we got back to the car. After our little jaunt in the nature preserve, we drove over to Einstein Brothers Bagels in Plano and picked up a few to snack on in the park. Maxx was exhausted and slept while his sister bounced around looking at everyone and everything. After munching on bagels and cracking jokes about our tax dollars hard at work (state/city/county employees were fixing a broken sidewalk and not moving very fast) we headed back to the house. Maxx had already moved more in one day than he had in all of last week combined.

After he slept for a while we prayed over him and ourselves. This was especially hard on me since I had never put an animal down before. After some time praying (and weeping), we headed off to the vet to send little man on his way.

We arrived and had to wait a little but Maxx was calm. Most dogs freak out because they can smell the death. Not Maxx. He let me put him on the table and did not try to nip the vet at all. The vet gave him the first injection (to put him to sleep) and in a matter of minutes, Maxx was completely relaxed and slumbering. Our vet gave us some time as we said our good-byes and then he administered the final drug to stop his heart. Maxx started breathing very heavily for a few seconds and then he drifted off. I felt for a heart beat but could not find one and the vet confirmed that he was gone. Fighting back the tears, we thanked the vet and left.

After we had drive a few hundred yards, we decided to pull over to the park across the street from our house. We started walking down an old trail and performed some cache maintenance on one of mine that had gone missing. Sure enough it was gone so I replaced it with one I had ready. After that we headed towards the shelter and thought back to happier times with our loveable mutt. We were no longer weepy and we decided to head home.

When we came in the house felt empty, even with our other dog and the one we are pet sitting there. The spirit of Maxx filled the house even when he slept. He will be missed.

Well, I have updated Facebook and now I need to update my caching page. Once that is done we need to get ready for small group tonight.

For those who are praying, thank you. Your prayers are really appreciated.

Call Me A Wimp If You Want...

2009-01-21T07:01:00.003-06:00

Since Maxx has been vomiting and pooping all over the house the past couple of days, we decided to let him stay in the kitchen last night, which we blocked off from the rest of the house. I dug out my sleeping bag and laid on the other side of the pet gate until we both fell asleep. I spent the night there, what little there was of it. I got to bed at midnight and was up at 4:30 AM. My back is a little stiff and sore but that is a small price to pay.

Oddly enough Maxx has eaten twice since I posted yesterday's entry. He ate a small handful of turkey jerky treats and two small fistfulls of kibble. This morning he ate 1/2 a cup of kibble and a few turkey jerky treats. My wife told me that her heart is pleading not to put Maxx down, but the reality is that Maxx would only live s short while longer and his discomfort would only increase. While this decision to put him down is killing me right now (I have never had to put a pet down before, but my wife has) I do not want his quality of life to deteriorate any further.

Yesterday I had to take Maxx out every two hours. Normally he can go much longer than that but yesterday he came and got me when it was time for him to go out and he did not waste any time once he was out in the yard...he did his business and came right back to the patio door.

Last night he did not make a mess although he was ready to go when I got up at 4:30 AM. I loved on him for a while then I made some coffee to help me shake the cobwebs away. He is laying in his box with the door open right now. He looks sleepy.

We are planning on going to one of the nature preserves near by to let him roam a bit before we take him to be put down. I had originally planned to get this done in the morning but my wife wants to spend a bit more time with him so I agreed to do this in the afternoon.

Maxx was sitting beside me this morning licking my hand while I was contemplating the task at hand today. It is just like "man's best friend" to comfort us when he is the one who is really having problems.

I have teared up several times the past couple of days. Maxx has been a very good friend. He will be missed.

Saying Good Bye To An Old Friend

2009-01-20T15:59:00.003-06:00

Saying good bye is never easy. When I go visit family and friends out of stage, I never linger over the good byes. This behavior used to bother my mom (and dad when he was living) until recently. Now she understands. Good bye is forever.

Tomorrow my wife and I will most likely say good bye to someone we have had a relationship with for almost 15 years. That someone most likely saved my life and also helped my wife heal from a broken heart. That someone has walked with me in the rain when I have been blue and on sunny days when I have not had a worry in the world. He has been on long trips with me an my wife, visiting several southern states. That someone is one of the oldest friends I have. That someone is Maxx, our lovable mutt with more nicknames than he needs.

Maxx was diagnosed with renal failure yesterday. We knew something was wrong when he almost completely stopped eating (as I write this he has had four small meals in eight days (he normally eats two small meals each day) but dogs will sometimes skip a day or two when they are not feeing up to par, so I did not worry until day four.

Maxx has had severe allergies for the past three years or so. He started getting huge infections on his skin in the spring and fall during ragweed season that made him miserable. A couple of years ago we learned of his arthritis so his walking started to slack down. Shortly after that we learned he had thyroid issues and early last year we thought he had Cushing's Disease, but we found out that it was just his throid acting up.

Poor Maxx has been slowing down for a couple of years now and it has been hard for me. I like to hike and walk and Maxx has been my hiking buddy for years. A couuple of years ago he stopped going on hikes with me and was limited to just a short walks in the neighborhood.

When we found out that he had renal failure, the vet offered to give him steroids to prolong his life but my wife and I have played that game before with one of her cats and we will not do that again. Rather than pump him full of drugs to mask the pain and problems to give me a few more months to enjoy his company, I think it is better to let him go peacefully. While I am horribly saddened by this (Maxx is like a child to me), I cannot stand to see him lose the rest of his dignity. I was really hoping he would pass in his sleep some night but that looks like it will not happen soon and I just cannot stand to see him like this.

So for those who are serious pet owners, I think you can relate to this. For those of you who are not, the closest thing I can imagine is losing a child. If you are a praying person, please pray that my wife and I will not grieve heavily and that a peace will fall on us. We have one more dog in the house (who is nine) that we are clinging to and loving on because we don't want to miss a moment with her.

Maxx, I am going to miss you.

Historic Month (For Me)

2009-01-16T07:40:00.002-06:00

January. The beginning of a new year. Time for change.

January has now at least two memorable days for me (there may be more but I am excited and can only think of two right now)...two days that will change my life forever.

First, January 7, 1991 was the day I left my ex-wife to get on with my life. After years of her cheating on me as well as the mental abuse, I finally had enough and I left. My life has never been better and from what I understand, her life is better as well. I am happy for her and wish her all the best. I am not bitter because that chapter of my life is over with.

Next is Jan 16, 2008. For the first time in my life, I am debt free with the exception of a mortgage. I have always had either a car payment, credit card payment, or both over my head since I have been 18 years old. As soon as the debt would get paid down to a near manageable amount, something would come up and we would be in debt again. Yesterday we paid Bank of America off and today Baylor Hospital gets their final payment on my wife's last surgery.

It has not been easy. I drive a 10 year old truck (in pretty good condition), we don't have nice furniture (cheap furniture from Rooms to Go that is about 10 years old), my computer is five years old (so is my wife's van), the house needs new flooring (the carpet is 10+ years old and looks it), we eat out once or twice a week (usually one fast food and one Jason's Deli type place), and I bag my lunch every day, eating lunch out on rare occasions.

During the time we have been trying to get out of debt The Golden has had two knee surgeries ($6,000 total), we had to have a new fence, sprinkler system, and concrete patio (total - $10,000), countless vet visits for dog issues, and three human operations (one for me, two for my wife).

Now let me add to the good news by saying that for the most part, auto repairs have been minor and inexpensive. There was one repair to my truck that set me back $1200 (which should have been covered under a recall but my truck missed it by a few months) but for the most part our auto repairs have been typical routine maintenance.

Now for the part that usually surprises most people. During the entire time we worked towards getting out of debt, my wife and I tithed to our church. If you are not familiar with tithing, it is the practice of setting aside 10% of you income to the church. So if you make (which I don't) $100,000 a year, you would tithe $10,000 (tithe means "tenth") each year. Most people do this each time they get paid to keep things simple and that is what we did. I get paid twice a month so the church received a check after my paycheck hit the bank. It was the first thing that I paid each pay period. And oddly enough, we never lacked anything. Oh, things were tight, but we always had the money. God was, and is, GOOD.

There were several times that we wanted or needed to do something but we just did not have the money, so just as we prepared to do without, God came through. Let me tell you a few examples:

Last summer, I was making my plans to go visit my mom out of state. It is a long drive (I prefer to drive) and the cost of gas (remember $4 a gallon?) was seriously making me nervous. I did the math and realized that we did not have the money for me to go. Mind you we had not charged anything for leisure in years and I was not about to start now...I was going to pay in cash or not go at all. Well, one week before I was supposed to leave, I was ready to call my mom and tell her that we just did not have the money when received a check from our mortgage company...it seems they made an error on the escrow and overcharged us. The check was a refund. The amount was just about enough to cover my gas costs. Thank you God!

Next was Christmas, 2008. My wife and I had not charged Christmas or vacation in years but this year things were kinda tight. After buying photo cards and a few gifts for others, we were at the bottom of the barrel. I did not have anything left to get my wife anything. Well, my wife's boss gave her a rather generous bonus (about 10% of her part time salary), not to mention a small assortment of other gifts, allowing us to finish our shopping. My wife was able to pamper herself with things from Bath and Body Works as well as Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Me, I finally got a nice new Columbia Bugaboo Parka/Storm jacket after years of wearing thin blue collar work jackets.

The final one happened at Christmas as well. Our 7 year old digital camera was finally showing its age. While new snapshooters are not expensive, a new one as not in the budget. Well, my mom (who is by no means wealthy) gave us money for Christmas and my wife and I both agreed to get the camera with the money. As a matter of fact, I was able to get the camera, high capacity rechargeable batteries, a case, and a gig card for just about the same amount that mom sent. I love it when a plan comes together.

During the time that we had challenges, we were faithful to pay God his tithe. We tithed on bonuses and Christmas money and God was faithful to us. Now I don't tell you this to sound pious or to brag on myself. No, I tell you this to brag on my God who is faithful. He always provides if you just trust him and have faith. We did and He did.

I have told this story to many at our church (think I have to give a testimony about it sometime) and everyone seems to be genuinely happy for us. After the congrats to us, the next question is "what are you going to do with the money you were spending on debt?" Well that is easy. We hope (God willing) to put more towards our mortgage. We hope to be out of debt completely in 10 years. It will be difficult, but with God, anything is possible.

Happy January!

Little Man Update

2009-01-15T07:03:00.000-06:00

My wife made some brown rice and Little Man ate some of it Wednesday morning but he has not had anything else since. I tried to get him to eat some last night but he balked at it. I even put some treats in with it and he still turned his nose up at it.

Overall he look a bit better but he still has tremors and falls down. He will not walk further than the end of our cul-de-sac but at least he will use the bathroom by himself. He spends a very large portion of the day (15-20 hours) sleeping.

We keep praying that if it is his time to go that God is merciful and takes him in his sleep without any undue suffering.

Concern

2009-01-14T05:40:00.002-06:00

I write this post from the kitchen on my "sandbox" (an older test laptop borrowed from work running Ubuntu Linux) because I broke the ceiling fan light in my office. I pulled the chain as I normally do to kill the light and the chain broke off at the base of the light. Lot's of fun to repair.

My concern is with our nearly 15 year old mixed breed dog, Little Man. Little Man has had a variety of issues over the past year (many which appeared to be allergies) that we treated with diet and drugs. He appeared to be getting better now that winter is here and in full force. However last week his right side was bulging out unusually and my wife took him back to the vet (after being there three weeks ago to clear up a skin infection). We had suspected that Little Man had Cushing's Disease (he had most of the symptoms) so he was being tested for that. After those expensive tests came back negative, it was discovered he had an inflamed bowel. He was prescribed more drugs and a "bland" diet. After getting him home and giving him the first half of a can of his new food, he has yet to finish the can. After the food appeared to sit in his stomach for over a day, he threw up twice in one day. He has not eaten in two or three days and appears completely uninterested in food. He spends the bigger part of the day sleeping and when he is not sleeping, he drinks and goes out to pee. That is pretty much his life right now...he refuses to walk more than 100 yards from the house. I am afraid he is slipping away. This thought saddens me greatly. We have had him since he was a puppy and he has been one of my best friends. I have trouble imagining life without him.

If you are a praying person, please lift us up. Pray that if it is Little Man's time to go, it will be peacefully in his sleep. Also pray that we will not fall completely apart when he goes. He has been like a family member to us. We have treated him better than some people treat their kids (not spoiled, just well treated) so losing him is like losing a son or daughter. If you don't have pets you may not understand.

I Think He May Be Missing The Point

2009-01-13T08:07:00.002-06:00

The Palm Pre is not supposed to be an iPhone killer. From what I have been told, as a phone, the iphone is only so-so. The primary reason you have a smart phone is the phone and PDA ability. The abilty to search, store, and play music is secondary. I mean I can play music on my Palm Centro, but I don't. I refer to use it as a smartphone.

To quote the author "...without the iPhone, there's no consumer smartphone audience", well that is bunk. We had smart phones long before the iPhone. Now if you want an iPod that makes phone calls, then get an iPhone. People who buy Palms are looking for a unit that is more business oriented. I am sorry, but an iPhone looks a little less professional than almost any other smart phone I know. Besides, I did not hear Palm say they were looking into having you replace your mp3 player with a Palm Pre. I would not want to go running with my iPod/Palm Pre and take a chance of it falling and breaking. Great, now I am out a PDA, phone, and mp3 player.

Do you workout with your iPhone?

I am sorry, but the article is a waste. The writer is obviously an Apple/iPhone disciple and has no love for the way the majority of the world works.

And Now, It Is Friday

2009-01-09T16:17:00.002-06:00

It amazes me how fast this week has gone by. Now it means I only have two weeks left before I gio back on call. I am glad I have a couple of Geocaching trips planned (weather and God permitting).

I had commented on another blog that I am rather pleased with Facebook and have no qualms about opening up an account there. If I can get a few more people I chat with (AHEM, Rycherox and Knightmare_Duck) then I would be able to get all my contacts and updates in one place, well mostly. I would still update this blog, my geocaching blog, and my Vox page but I would probably tune each one to a specific area. To be honest I am thinking of dropping mistergeek.com...not for the expense, but because I am not going to update that web page ever again as far as I know. The blog is hosted there (Geobloggin') but I could turn my Vox page into a geocaching blog, use this one for my normal ranting and Facebook to stay in touch. I could do that...

Have a safe and pleasant weekend!

Giving In To Peer Pressure

2009-01-08T08:09:00.000-06:00

I have resisted for a long time. The temptation was always there, those who called themselves friends pressuring me to do it. "Everyone does it, El Gee. Go ahead...try it." I hate peer pressure. I hate being "just like everyone else". How much temptation can one man take? The e-mails won't stop...they just litter my inbox. I delete them and try to forget about them, but more keep coming. The enticement, the mystery, the allure. STOP IT!

Weeks go by and I feel I am under control. No more e-mails from "them". Then, I get a phone call. A friend from high school calls me up and tells me that he tried it a while back and he likes it. "Heck El Gee, some of our friends from school are doing it." I know he is right...I have gotten the e-mails. Heck, even a woman who went to our church back in NC is doing it. It seems this obsession has captivated quite a few people.

I think about it, but not too long...the pressure is too great. If I don't do something, I will explode. I cannot take it any more.

I signed up for a Facebook account.

I was surprised how nice it is compared to Myspace. Myspace is for kids/teens. It is loud and in your face. Facebook is more mature. It was not long before I found 30+ people I knew on Facebook. I like it.

So if this page doesn't get updated as frequently as it used to, just come over to the dark side known as Facebook...we have cookies!

Surviving Unscathed

2009-01-05T10:24:00.003-06:00

Well, my on rotation is over and I escaped unscathed. As a matter of fact from New Year's Day on, I was not called at all. While I still was confined to the very immediate area, it still allowed for me and my wife to go to church (twice), run to the store, grab a quick lunch, and even have a coffee date at Escapé, a local trendy coffee shop. Think of it as a Stabucks sans attitude. While my wife and I enjoyed it, she is beginning to see that spending $4 for a cup of joe is not very fiscally responsible. Not that I mind doing it for her, but she is just as happy with a cup from QT for $3 less.

I am very thankful that my on call was as slow as it was...end of year usually is not so. When I came in and asked my TL how his week of solo work was he replied, "Slow". I am glad we both had it easier than expected.

Nonetheless I was thrilled to get out of the house today. After a couple of weeks I was getting a bit stir crazy. Too bad the weather is not cooperating...it is too mess to geocache on the way home and I have a few (I think three) that I could get as long as it is not raining...four if I am in jeans and have my boots with me).

During the Christmas break I noticed my request for a company issued cell phone was rejected but only because the manager above mine failed to approve it in time. I am not sure what has to happen next to make sure I got one but he approves of my idea of getting a smartphone with data. I thought he would balk at it but when I explained that it could be used as a wireless broadband modem as well and the data/voice/text plan is unlimited and cheaper than two separate devices each with its own plan, he said it made sense and THANKED me for trying to save money. Well, I did have a bit of an ulterior motive in that I wanted to try wireless broadband and see if it was worth getting on my personal line but I did not want to get locked into a contract to find out. We are all winners.

Starting With The Usual Bang

2008-12-30T06:25:00.003-06:00

I am flying solo AND on call this week. My colleague is on vacation after working last week solo (but he was not on call) and I hope he is enjoying it. It did not appear that he had too terribly hard of a week, but any week solo is not fun.

I can only hope that Monday is not any indicator of what the rest of the week will be like. It started with the call forwarding system we use to route calls to the on call person going crazy and routing calls to Latin America (sorry Fabio and Armando) instead of me. I fixed that issue and then I was told of an issue with SAP that seemed to take our partner way too long to fix. The issue was finally resolved but the customer was not available to verify so I had to let that issue simmer until the customer gets in the office.

A little later we had an issue in Canada with a few of the RnD servers. I called the Unix guy on call and he looked into it, thinking it was a LAN issue since he could not connect to any of the servers on a particular switch. He called one of the on site people to check the switch but they could not find anything wrong. Finally he asked them to check the console that he connects to the other servers from and it was down. Once that was rebooted he could get in and check the other servers. He had them back up pretty quickly.

At close to 5:00 PM, I got another call stating that one of the oldest Windows servers we have (it is running NT 4.0) was having issues and no one could connect. The Wintel team (who is in Malaysia) could not remotely reboot it so an on site person was called in to do it but once he did it would not come back up. He tried calling me but the forwarding had messed up again and the calls were again going to Latin America. I did not find this out until this morning at 5:00 AM. I had finally gone to bed at midnight after being up 18 hours (working most of it). I yet again removed the bogus forwarding (wiping out the schedule completely, using a direct forward to my line) and now await the calls. As I sit here I still have two open cases, one most likely solved and the other one no closer to being solved than it was wen it was opened 14 hours ago. I guessed we missed the deadline on that one!

Pray for me!

Where In The World?

2008-12-29T05:47:00.003-06:00

Merry Christmas!

I realize that it has been over two weeks since my last post and I am sorry. I want to say that I have been too busy but that would be a lie...I just really have not had much to blog about. But now that I am back to work (I had last week off) and the Christmas season is over, the shopping is done, and my life is almost back to normal, I hope to get back into the groove of blogging several times a week.

So, what is new with me? I guess to make it easier, I will go by categories:

Work - I have had the last week off, but I did log in a few times to see how my colleague who had to work solo over Christmas was doing. It looks like for the first few days of the holiday he was steady but it appears it slacked off the last few days and for that I am thankful since I am working solo this week AND on call. Did I mention that our customer is running end of year reports in SAP and those servers will be hammered hard the next week or two?

I am not sure if I mentioned it before but work has decided to go back to the policy of supplying mobile phones to us instead of reimbursing us for usage on our personal ones. Now most of the guys at work are pleased with this but I am not. My wife and I have two phones on a family plan (1400 min, unlimited nights and weekends) and those numbers are well known for friends and family and I do not want to port my number over for work. So that leaves me carrying two phones and my personal one probably will not get used as much. I would like to drop our Family plan down but the next lowest is 700 minutes and that is not quite enough plus it does not have unlimited nights and weekends (it has 5000 minutes which is more than enough but I really want the "unlimited" tag).

I received my yearly review and was given a favorable rating. We were given bonuses and mine is supposed to be 4.51%. There will be no raises this year so we get to live on the same pay (minus the increase in benefit costs) as last year but my wife is now working two part time jobs (each one day a week) and that will make up for what I lost and then some.

Health - I am pleased to report that I have now broken new ground and weighed in yesterday at 178 lbs, down from 192 on Nov 11th, 2008. I only have three more pounds to lose and I will be where I want to be at 175...I may go as low as 170, but that is negotiable with my wife. All I can say is I feel better (no headaches) and my clothing fits better. I owe it all to a lot of prayer and a web site that kept me honest as long as I tracked my food consistently. I started off with 2300 calories a day and worked my way down to less than 2000, with many of those days clocking in at 1500 or less. I kept my walking up, started doing some push ups and sit ups several times a week and I have also hiked a few times since I started this endeavor.

I have been eating a bit better with more fresh vegetables, fiber, and water and less fast food. My wife has noticed a difference in me.

Family - This one is mixed. I have called my mom several times over the past few weeks and the news from her is positive. My sister and her husband have bought a plot of land out of the city limits and plan on selling all three homes (their's, mom's, and my brother in law's mother's home - she is deceased). My sis and her hubby plan on building a home for themselves and my mom wants a medium sized mobile home to live in on the property. It gives her independence but still allows sis to keep tabs on her. Hopefully that will all take place this year.

The only other real family is our son, Soldier Boy and we have not heard from him since August. I saw him when I was back in WV visiting (he drove down from PA to attend a family function with his bio-mom) and we got to chat for about an hour. It is sad that we have not heard from his since...not his birthday, Thanksgiving, or Christmas. We sent him a check but it has not been cashed yet. Lately I have been having disturbing dreams that involve him and I am not sure if that is God warning me or just my parental concern. Well, nonetheless I am not tryin to let it bother me too much. Kids will do what they want and parents cannot stop them.

Pets - The Golden is doing very well and has been a lot more playful with me than normal. She actually whines when I don't take her out Geocaching with me! My wife told me that once the dog gets "dirty" again and needs a bath that I can take her out on a caching run...OH BOY!

Little Man is a completely different story. My wife and I believe he may have Cushing's Syndrome. While is is almost 15 years old, he has really slowed down the past six months. He really is not the same dog. We are mentally preparing for him to pass on in 2009. I am going to be one sad man on that day. Little Man and I have been pals for almost as long as me and my wife have been married (we got him after we had been married six months as a 4-6 month old puppy).

Life in General - I have been offering some PC help to a couple of people at our church (pro bono) as well as some paid work as well. I have not been actively looking for extra work since my normal job keeps me busy most of the time.

Faith - I finished my goal of reading the bible in a year a whole month early. While I still read the bible every day, I am not trying to read it in one year. I have done that for the last three years (reading the bible chronologically) but this year I am going to study it more. It will mean more work, but I think I can handle it.

I have noticed a problem lately when praying outloud. My wife and I try to pray together each night and lately I cannot seem to articulate what is on my heart. I am not sure why, I have not had that problem in the past, once I got over my initial fear of praying in public. I guess I need to pray about that more...maybe God will open my eyes to what I need to see.

Well, I am sure there is more and if I can think of anything else, I will post about it.

El Gee, signing off.

Oh, one more thing, hop on over to my geocaching blog to see how I ended the geocaching year.

Good Weekend / Bad Food Day

2008-12-15T09:21:00.002-06:00

I will start off on a positive note...I had a pretty good weekend. While I will not go into details (you can get that on my other blog), I did manage to go geocaching, not once but twice this weekend. I went out solo on Saturday and out with 9key (the guy I have cached the most with) on Sunday. A grand time was had both days.

Sunday was a bad food day, but in retrospect I still did not do too badly. I skipped breakfast (I only had coffee with flavored creamer) and by lunch time I was hungry (not starving, just hungry) and had a hankering for Taco Bell...to be precise, a Volcano Box from Taco Bell. If you have not had a Volcano Box, you are missing a tasty and affordable treat. You get:

* A Crunch Wrap Supreme
* A Burrito Supreme
* A Volcano Taco
* Cinnamon Twists
* Large drink

...all for $5. Mind you it is well over 1200 calories and more than the recommended daily allowance for fat and sodium, but it was soooooooo good. All in all I still finished out the day eating less than 2000 calories thanks to fruit, cereal, and milk for dinner. I guess you need to treat yourself once in a while.

And to all of those people who were kind enough to respond to my blue/gray post...Thank You for your thoughts. It was nice to get supportive e-mails instead of pity. Me haaatesssssss pity.

Muhahahaha

2008-12-12T16:16:00.000-06:00

I found this little ditty absolutely hilarious.

Blue? Gray.

2008-12-10T08:24:00.003-06:00

The last time I made a blog entry I was feeling a bit blue. I don't feel quite as isolated as I did earlier on but I still have a lot on my mind. Work and all that it encompasses is the primary but also is the fact I am not much into the commercial / festive side of Christmas. We don't decorate and attend very few holiday gatherings. I guess the biggest part of that is my fault. As the head of the house hold I am supposed to be the leader but I just have not been able to get in "the holiday mood" the past few years. I guess it would help if we were not empty nesters or if we traveled to see family during the holiday, but some things just cannot be changed.

I have no problems with the spiritual side of the season. My faith is strong and I do a lot of reflecting during the seasons of Christ's birth and death. I guess I just see the rampant commercialism of Christmas and feel betrayed. Everything is geared for the secular side and it robs me of some of the joy this season offers. I guess if I could separate the two and scale the holiday back some I would fare better but I seem to have trouble doing that.

My weight has been slowly dropping each week. I have been dieting for almost a month and have lost eight pounds. I recently cut my caloric intake from 2200 to less than 1600 per day in an effort to loss some fat. My goal is to be at 175 pounds by end of February.

I have not really increased my exercise level much since the weather has not been cooperative and that has kept me from doing any hiking in the local WMA (wildlife management areas) or even taking extended local walks. That has really put a crimp in my geocaching time. I have about three more weekends of geocaching left to do this year and I still hope to reach 1000 by years end.

A new wrinkle has surfaced at work. It seems that my employer has decided to start providing and paying for cell phone and usage. For the past 4 years, we have provided our own phones and service and the company reimbursed us. Now the switch is interesting because back when we were hired, we were issued cell phones to use, paid for by the company. The issued the phones and they paid the service...we never saw a bill. Then one year after hire, that policy stopped and we were told to fend for ourselves but the company would reimburse us for any work iusage. Since I was getting on call pay (5%) I never bothered with getting reimbursement for my mobile phone usage. However, they stopped paying on call back in April and I have started submitting an expense report for part of it. But that is going to change, yet again. Sigh.

Now to add to THAT, I am on a call now and the guy whom I am speaking to is telling me that on call is going away all together. That would make my personal life a lot more livable but that throws a whole new set of issues that I need to chew on before I blog about them. Double sigh.

Not Fishing / Health Update

2008-12-05T07:33:00.004-06:00

I am not sure what is wrong but I am just not myself this past week. I was to attend a care group Christmas party on Wednesday and I did not go. Tonight I am supposed to be at a Christmas party for the leadership of the church (I am on the board of trustees) but I have no desire to attend. I wonder if I have S.A.D.

I am on an island right now...an emotional one. I feel disconnected from just about everything and everyone...even my wife. I only come to work to get out of the house...I hate being here. I am also on call this week which means when I am not at work I am at home...shivers.

At work we just signed a new contract with our customer and the conditions of that contract are different than before. Many of the ways we used to work will be changing and they don't make a lot of sense to me. That is a big deal...I have trouble adjusting to things that don't make sense to me. Maybe that is why I never joined the military...I cannot just "do things" because I am told to...they have to make sense.

I have asked the powers that be what benefit the changes have to either party and those same powers cannot answer the questions. They are just doing what they are told...being "sheeple". I sometimes wonder how long I can take being here. Will I lose it and walk out, quitting on the spot, risking our home and standard of living?

Not only am I on an emotional island, but I am irritable...nothing seems to bring me joy. I feel about a million miles away from God and prayer is not coming easily. My thoughts wander, my words hollow and meaningless. I feel like a hypocrite.

The Christmas season seems to bring out the worst in me. I have no desire to buy gifts for those I love nor do I have the desire to receive them. About the only thing that is appealing is the evening walks. Those who put up lights have them lit and it really brightens my mood...until I get back home. I would stay out longer but it is generally cold and my poor 15 year old dog cannot handled being out long.

I am not sure why I am even posting this...I am not fishing for sympathy...just the opposite. When people notice (I tend to cover it up pretty well most of the time) and offer sympathy, it irritates me. I don't want the sympathy.

On to a cheerier subject, I am down to 185 lbs and most of the time I have been able to keep my appetite under control. I fasted for 24 hours the other day and when I woke up this morning I was only mildly hungry so I had a small breakfast and no lunch. I am still drinking 62 ounces of water at a minimum each and every day and I think that is helping a lot.

I have been reading a lot lately on dietary concepts...not diets per se, but concepts on how our bodies react to food. One that I read that was interesting (although a little weird) stated that our bodies have a weight point that is determined on how "tasty" our food is. It said that if we eat mostly tasty food our bodies associate the taste with appetite. If we eat food that is more bland, we convince our bodies that the food is only fuel and it will only crave what it needs.

There was more to this but that was the main concept. It was part of a diet called "Shangri La" and it advocated consuming a small amount of light olive oil or sucrose water a couple of hours between meals and then eating meals that are bland or unfamiliar. The idea is kinda kookie but it got me to thinking about how much processed food we as Americans eat each day. I figure the more processing that is done with food the less our bodies need to do to digest it and digesting food actually does burn calories. Not to mention that unprocessed foods will fill you up and will not be completely digested so they will be eliminated by the body naturally.

It is amazing how obsessed I have become with what I eat. I keep a log on "The Daily Plate" and it has been helpful in showing me what foods I need to cut down on or avoid all together.

Why Should He Care?

2008-11-28T18:19:00.001-06:00

This quote bothered me:

"We have to make sure that produced oil is used for consumption and not for storing." - Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani

Now, let me see if I understand this. It is okay for us to buy it as long as we are not saving it for a rainy day. You want us to only buy what we are using. I guess that makes sense since you are OPEC and if we need it and you want to jack the price around we have to pay it because we need it.

Folks, this should be another reason why we have to ween ourselves off of foreign oil. OPEC wants to dictate what we do with the oil as well as how much we pay. What ever happened to supply and demand?

Think about it. If we need 1 million barrels of oil a day they will sell it to us, but if we are saving any of it, they want to charge us more. I cry, "BULL!"

Happy Turkey Day

2008-11-27T20:12:00.002-06:00

I want to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. My wife and I had a non-traditional day having lunch at Furr's Family Restaurant and the doing a bit of geocaching. We had thought about cooking a big spread like we normally do but we both decided that eating dinner out and not having to cook and clean was appealing.

We had never been to Furr's before, but I thought it was a lot like K&W cafeteria back in NC...a place I sorely miss. Anyhow, the food was good and it was all you could eat for $9.09 + drink and tax. I think it was just under $12 person so my wife and I only spent $24 (not including tip) for the two of us. Sweet deal and good food. A little too much salt, but overall it was very good. We will be back, for sure.

After a great meal we headed out to Breckenridge Park to see how many caches we could get before either we ran out of life or my wife ran out of energy. Ever since she had her thyroid removed she has no been the same spunky wife I know and love. We ended up walking for about 2.5 hours and she asked to call it quits. We managed to find seven caches and a bonus cache.

We came home and took care of unloading the van as well as watering and feeding the dogs. We had taken The Golden with us (but not Little Man) so she did not need walked. After their food digested I took little man out to let him get some exercise and so he could use the bathroom.

After I got back I was a little hungry, so I ate a few leftovers from last night (meatballs, peas, and mashed potatoes). There is not much to watch on TV (my wife is watching Moonstruck) and I am pretty much caught up on all my TV watching this week. I guess I should go read.

Non-Christians, Please Read

2008-11-24T15:59:00.002-06:00

Robert Spencer has a great piece on his web site, "Jihad Watch". It really hits the nail on the head on how Islam is getting away with things no other religion could.

No Christmas?

2008-11-24T05:57:00.000-06:00

Another celebration drops "Christmas" from its title. Folks it is only going to get worse.

Interesting

2008-11-24T05:52:00.002-06:00

Personal Health Or Spiritual Health?

I am not sure the message that President elect BHO is sending. Skipping church to go work out but still smoking?

OK, let him smoke, but at least go to church like the past two presidents did.

CNN Has No Clue

2008-11-21T13:32:00.002-06:00

I was browsing CNN's (Communist News Network) web site and found this little ditty. While I the headline grabbed me, the real gem is the sheer ignorance of the interviewer. It is obvious that he does not have a clue about the Christian faith.

Just for the record, I admire the pastor's responses. I think he did a pretty good job defending the faith.

And to clear things up for you, if you are truly a Christian, then you believe in your heart the only way to heaven is to know Jesus Christ on a personal level. There is only one path, and Jesus is it. If you think there are "many ways to salvation", you are mistaken.

10 Days

2008-11-20T07:02:00.002-06:00

I have been tracking my diet (food journal) at livestrong.com on a section called "The Daily Plate". While far from perfect, the tool does list quite a few foods by name brand and also many restaurant items as well. It makes keeping track of my food intake a lot easier.

After tracking my diet for 10 days, I have notices this. Per the FDA guidelines:

* I have only been above calories one day (14th)
* I have been above the suggested fat intake two days (14th and 19th)
* I have been above the suggested cholesterol levels on two days (15th and 17th)
* I have been above the suggested sodium levels on five days (11th, 12th, 14th, 17th, and 19th)
* I have been above my suggested carb intake only once (14th)
* I have only consumed the suggested fiber amounts once (19th)
* I have exceeded the protein quota every day but one (19th)

After studying 10 days worth of data I have determined I really need to increase my fiber intake (fruits and veggies) and cut back on the boxed/frozen foods that are high in sodium. I also need to cut my protein intake some. The days I exceed my quota I am doing so by 50% or more. One day (14th) I was at 200%. Yeah, the 1th was a bad day. Fat, calories, sodium, carbs...I really took the prize then. If I remember correctly, I had pizza for dinner that day and a huge bowl of granola for breakfast. Lunch included one pint of chocolate milk and some Parmesan cheese pasta...lots of fat and sodium.

This exercise in monitoring my food intake has been very helpful and I plan on continuing for as long as I can.

Pray for me. I need help in eating more fresh fruit and veggies and less protein, fat, and salt.

One other part of this is to track how much exercise I get. Normally it is only walking th dog and my geocaching but I did go jogging once last week and did some push ups and sit ups. I did more than I was used to so I was a bit sore the next day...

Nothing New

2008-11-19T06:55:00.002-06:00

I am sure most of you have read about the Somali pirates who have boarded a Saudi oil tanker. This might be shocking to some, but this really nothing new...it has been going on for years.

This really is not surprising at all. Somalia is a Muslim country and the Muslims have been pirates of the high seas for hundreds of years. Every hear of the Barbary Pirates? The wiki is a good read and very educational. Many people forget that the US was at war with these pirates in the late 1700's and even wrote up a treaty to end the hostilities.

This is just more proof that we fight a war with radical Islam and it needs to be taken seriously.

Draft Notice

2008-11-14T18:55:00.003-06:00

Well all the liberals who hate war and voted for B.H. Obama are going to hate this. It is a draft, pure and simple. You can put all the tax credits for young adults you want on it but it is still mandatory service...just like many other socialist countries.

Again (and I will keep saying this) for all y'all that voted for BHO, I hope you will stand by him when he starts implementing his policies. I know who some of you are and I will keep tabs on you just to make sure that you are true to your candidate. God knows I stood by GWB during his two terms. I may not have liked everything he did but I stand by him.

Don't be a hypocrite!

The Report

2008-11-14T10:55:00.003-06:00

Well, the doctors office just called and all my blood work was normal. No thyroid or prostate issues and no cancers that they know of.

I then asked about my cholesterol and I was told my total was 199, which is good because it is below 200. The break down was:

Triglycerides (good cholesterol) - 135, which is in the good range
LDL (bad cholesterol) - 119, which is borderline.

They want to wait a year and take it again to see if my LDL goes up, stays the same, or goes down. My diet is already pretty low in cholesterol and I have a feeling that it is mostly hereditary. If it goes up any, they will consider putting me on drugs to lower it. My doc knows I am no a big fan of taking drugs so anything I have to take long term will be new for me. However I am not going to fret...I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

Omnivore

2008-11-13T13:39:00.004-06:00

You know the routine...post this list and bold what you've eaten. I am borrowing this from Spork who shamelessly lifted it from Ellie Mae...

If I counted correctly I got a 51.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn or head cheese - I bought some once, but couldn't make myself taste it!
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat's milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald's Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips - but I don't see the point
61. S'mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs' legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Har
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Es'plain This To Me

2008-11-12T10:03:00.002-06:00

I read on Foxnews that there is a ad campaign that has me a bit miffed. It is from Why Believe In A God Dot Org and the reason I am miffed may not be what you think.

Here is a link to the ad. I am not upset that they are telling people they don't have to believe in "a god" (personally I believe in THE GOD, but I understand that I am biased...) but the tag line, "just be good for goodness sake" as me bothered. How should a person define "good"? Wordnet has a great listing for good, but is that really what the ad is asking us to do?

I am not smart enough nor do I have the time to postulate on all the details so I will just leave it at that. Before anything can be defined, you have to have a benchmark. Also if you can do good, then you have the ability to do evil and again, how is that defined?

The web site is pretty clear that we should not have ethics or values set in stone but we must remember that morals and ethics are not the same. Look them up.

Tub Of Lard

2008-11-12T06:02:00.002-06:00

Part of the signing up for benefits at work is getting a "health coach" from WebMD (this whole process saves me $300 a year on my medical bennies...whoo hoo!). While I am in pretty good shape (not Sig9 good, but not bad for a 43 y/o who has had some minor back surgery) I knew exercise and diet were some things I needed to work on. So I signed up, got my $300 benefit bonus bucks, and let the "Health Coach" (who I was told by the CS rep, had a "Mastorate"...I am not a smart man and I had not heard of that term before....Mastors, yes, Doctorate, yes, Mastorate, no) call me. We discussed my eating and exercise habits and found out...surprise - I am "fat", or overweight by about 15 pounds.

Most people who see me full clothed (read: EVERYONE but my wife and doc) had no idea that my 5'10" frame carried around about 190 pounds. While I am no Adonis, I am somewhat muscled in the upper body and legs. However when the shirt comes of, the first thing you notice is my "ice cream gut"...which is where those 15 pounds are hiding.

The health coach told me to keep a food and and exercise diary to help me get a handle on my eating habits and since I had a physical yesterday, I figured yesterday was a good day to start. So, I started filling in the health journal WebMD mailed me and was off.

Later that day while searching for the number of calories in a 3 ounce portion of Perch, I found The Daily Plate at livestrong.com . Not only does it have lists of foods by their name brand, but it also has many restaurant menus listed. Being rather curious, I signed up for a free account and started logging my food from yesterday. After entering in some info on my height, weight, and weight loss goals, I was informed I could eat about 2200 calories a day if I wanted to lose one pound a week. Since I am a slow and steady kinda guy, that is the plan I selected.

Yesterday I clocked in just at the total number of calories allowed and still lose my pound this week. I was about 50% higher than recommended in levels of sodium and 8% too high in fat. Everything else was good. This looks like a nice tool to help track my weight lose.

I won't know the results of my physical until the blood work comes back but my guess is that my cholesterol will be a bit high...everyone in my family seems to battle that although my blood pressure was in the "normal" range.

Do They Really Deserve It?

2008-11-08T07:03:00.002-06:00

Reports are streaming out of the news agencies that a top priority for the Obama camp is "to work on policies to help the stricken US auto industry adjust to the economic crisis." (quote taken from breitbart.com). Why?

Why must the American taxpayers give money to those who ventured into capitalism and are failing? Why reward good behavior? Also on the list is helping those with upside down mortgages. Again, why? An upside down mortgage only hurts if the person is trying to sell. Why does this person need help? Owning a home used to be "the American dream", but now it is viewed as a right. If you bought beyond your means, then I think you need to reflect on what you are doing. This country has become too entrenched in credit. Now I understand mortgages to buy homes and I can even see loans to by cars but America is addicted to credit cards.

"Come on El Gee, you have credit cards." Yes I do. I have one that I use for online purchases which is paid off each month and I am also paying off one that we got carried away on but other than the $2000 I owe on that one card and our mortgage, we have no debt (except for a hospital bill for my wife's thyroidectomy a few months ago).

"AHA! See, you have debt and part of it is medical. If we had a socialized medical system then you would not owe on it at all."

Wrong. Had we been on socialized medicine, my wife would not have been given the surgery and while the details are personal, lets say that had it not been for her PAC (Physicians Assistant, Certified) being very curious then the surgery would not have happened at all.

I have a real problem with the stimulus packages and bailouts that have been granted and that are proposed. It just seems to me that we are rewarding bad behavior and bad business choices. Using the logic that our federal government is using I should go out and start a business and when it fails, expect the fed to bail me out. How ludicrous!

I am not going to jump on the anti-Obama train because after re-reading my history I learned a lot about the great depression and how we are mirroring it to some degree right now. FDR did some radical things that were viewed as "socialist" at the time and this country survived, even flourished. Obama and the democrats are looking to head down the FDR road and I cannot say that I blame them, but I can say that I really do not like where that road leads.

This country is in a bit of a mess. We have allowed greed to overwhelm us and cloud our thinking. We have become excessively greedy and I am afraid that it has really hurt us this time.

America, pray for our leaders. Pray for our country. Pray for Jesus to come quickly. And if you do not know Jesus as your personal savior, then please search your heart and accept him. He knocks, will you answer?

It Is Getting Ugly

2008-11-07T07:20:00.002-06:00

I will be quite honest and admit that I am not happy about the results of the elections but I refuse to disrespect the president elect Obama. I may not respect him, but I will respect the office.

I am really disappointed in many comments left on the conservative blogs this morning. I am also disappointed in the proliferation of "My President Is Black" mementos that are for sale online. Had I wore a shirt that says "My President Is White", then someone would have called me a racist.

People, this is not the time to fight with each other. This is EXACTLY what the Enemy wants us to do. All the Devil can do is lie and that is what he is doing right now. White or Black, we need to stand together and get over our differences.

Barack Obama, I implore you to bring this nation together. We are becoming more polarized each and every day.

Conservative bloggers, stop feeding the fire. Show the world who is "the bigger man".

OMG, Now What?

2008-11-05T06:50:00.002-06:00

I have been reading a lot of news sites/blogs this morning, trying to get a spin on what they are feeling and I am proud to see that while they are disappointed, they are not sore losers.

Many people are asking, "What now?" My answer, which is the same as the other conservatives, is "keep fighting the good fight". Fight for what you believe in, support the officials you elected, keep writing your congressmen and representatives, and mostly, RESPECT the OFFICE of the president.

We cannot afford to lick our wounds, pout, cry, or withdraw. This is the time America needs to stand together. If things "go to hell in a handbasket", we dare not shout to all the liberals, "WE TOLD YOU SO!!!!" As much as it would be liberating, it would be the wrong thing to do.

As I have mentioned, I voted Baldwin/Castle (and I still need to see how they did) so I was going to be disappointed either way, but I am happy to see that it looks like record numbers of voters turned out this year. That is a POSITIVE THING. More people need to vote.

The reality that we have proven that a man of color can run and be elected to the highest post in the USA is reassuring. This truly is a great nation and can remain that way if we all work together. Black or white, we are all Americans.

There is one thing that puzzles me. Why is the world so interested in our elections? They don't want to live here and they have no direct connection with our government. Americans don't fret over who the next king or queen of Europialand is (although we do take a mild interest when a communist government becomes a democratic or socialist one) and we shouldn't. Alas, I digres.

America, your change is coming. You have a mostly democratic government now and your ideas will have an easier time to be passed into laws. Make the most of this time. Prove all the Independents and Republicans wrong...show them that BHO is the man and the liberal Congress is right. I will be glad to admit that I am wrong, but I have a funny feeling that I won't have to.

One other thing. When things don't turn out the way you wanted them to, don't start blaming the Bush Administration. We were not allowed to do that with Clinton and Carter, so you don't get a free pass, either.

The democratic process has been used and we have seen a changing of the guard. I am glad the race is overwith and patiently wait until January when BHO takes office. I am interested in seeing who he appoints and what his first actions are.

Busy Week

2008-11-04T08:10:00.002-06:00

Last week was rather busy for me. Not only was work busy but home/church life was rather busy as well. I had a meeting on Monday night, two meetings and corporate prayer on Tuesday, Care Group on Wednesday, fix a friend's computer on Thursday, Church Work Day on Saturday, Teach Sunday School on Sunday and I still had to prepare the lesson at some point...WOW!

While I was tired, I did manage (with God's help) to get it all done. I still managed to go out on Sunday and do a little geocaching, although it was not overly memorable. I am just trying to get to my goal of 1000 caches by the the end of 2008. I have 138 to go and not a lot of free weekends to do it in. Wish me luck.

This week does not look quite as bad, but I am on call. I was supposed to be at two meetings last night at church but I had to cancel because I was working on a call. To my knowledge there is nothing planned for tonight and we have care group on Wednesday.

Most of the meetings at church are geared around our financial situation. We have a lot of things that we have to consider and the decisions are not ones to be made lightly. Pray for us as we try to do God's will.

A Tale Of Two Installs

2008-11-04T07:45:00.003-06:00

Ubuntu Linux released version 8.10, aka "Intrepid Ibex" last week. I have been a faithful Ubuntu user since lat 2004 when I installed it on an older 400 mhz sandbox I had. It did not take too long for me to duel boot that and WinXp on my main PC, a P4, 3 ghz, Nvidia 5600 video card home built unit with Ubuntu being the OS of choice.

I have only done a complete reinstall a couple of times and those were mostly due to upgrade failures...I am not sure which version but one of them failed horribly on most of my upgrades (both home and work). I have been very pleased with the free OS from Canonical. It has been stable and performed very well in the Windows-centric world we live in.

I have faithfully upgraded to each new version with only a couple of failures along the way...not bad for seven to eight upgrades. On Saturday I upgraded my loaner laptop from work, an HP NC-6000 with an ATI Mobile Radeon 9600 graphics card, 1 gig of RAM, and a 1.5 ghz processor. It was formally my work laptop until the handware refresh a few months ago and it served me well for 3+ years.

The install went smoothly, albeit slowly (the download speeds were bouncing up and down a lot) so it took about 3 hours to download, install, and configure the laptop before I considered it finished. Outside of the length of time it took to get the upgrade complete, my only complaint was the video. I kept getting an error telling me that it was going to default to generic video settings. I fought with it for a while before I managed to find this link that explained and helped me out. A few minutes later and I was back in business with the open source drivers and the laptop was "good to go". Well, there was one small issue. Since I was wireless when I did the upgrade, I was knocked offline and forced to enter the WEP info again. I was glad I had it memorized.

On Sunday, I decided to upgrade my dual boot "main" PC to 8.10. After my experiences with th laptop, I was a little nervous, but I knew that there was little I could not fix if I set my mind to it.

As before, the download took a long time but the installing and configuring went much faster since the P4 was faster than the mobile centrino processor in the laptop. Once the configuring was done, I rebooted and BINGO, the machine was back up and running.

So, what do I think? Not much difference so far. No problems or crashes to report. I will have more to report later.

BTW, 8.04 will not prompt you to upgrade to 8.10 unless you tell it to (System | Administration | Software Sources | Updates | Normal Releases).

New Shiny

2008-10-29T10:24:00.002-05:00

I am a geek, but I am a cheap geek. I cannot afford to spend large amounts of money on toys. Even if I could, I am not sure I would spend $200+ on a smart phone/PDA phone.

My Palm Tungsten E (I am a Palm snob) is three plus years old and is under powered. My freebie cell phone from Cingular (now At&T) was acting up (dropping it on concrete a few times will do that) and the menus were a bit garbled. It was evident that I needed a new phone and a new PDA, so after careful examination of my available funds and my current needs, I decided on the Palm Centro (Electric Blue). It is a lot smaller than I thought. The CNET employee who reported on this must have tiny hands.

To be honest, it has a lot of things I will never use because I don't have a data account. What I really needed was a replacement for my failing Palm T|E and a phone in one unit so I would have less to keep up with. Oddly enough it was my wife who suggested it.

I got a refurbed Centro for $49. While not a stellar deal, I like what I see so far. I do not know how well the battery will last, but it is rated pretty well and according to CNET it exceeded expectations. Go Palm!

First impressions:

The Good - It is a tad faster than my T|E. Simple Palm navigation helps a lot. Being able to dial from my contacts list is nice. It appears to run all my old apps (paid and freeware). It feels solid. It is "pocket friendly". It is much louder than my T|E or my Samsung phone.

The Bad - The stylus is pretty flimsy...I much prefer the metal one on ny T|E. The screen and the keyboard are both small. It will take some getting used to.

I will post a review of it a little later when I have had time to play with it more. Hey, it has been less than 24 hours...cut me some slack!

Throwing My Vote Away

2008-10-27T11:38:00.002-05:00

Well, that is what my dad would have called it. My wife and I voted early (Tuesday last week) and while my wife voted straight republican, I did not.

I just could not bring myself to vote for either Sen Obama or Sen McCain so I voted third party for Baldwin/Castle. My dad would have thrown a fit.

My father (who is deceased) always thought that if you did not vote Dem or Rep, you were wasting your vote. I always disagreed with him and it caused some very interesting arguments. I know that the popular vote does not elect the president and no matter who I vote for, the Electoral College has the last say. So with that in mind, I voted to let the college know not everyone voted for "the lesser of two evils". The lesser of two evils is still evil.

Baldwin is not perfect but he closely resembles what I want to see in a president.

I voted my conscience.