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.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Always Bittersweet
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Not Quite Living Up To The Blog Name
"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.
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.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
I Have Installed OS's Faster Than That!
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.
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.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Successful Endeavor
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Jaunty Is A Winner
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.
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.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Jaunty!
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.
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.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
How Is This News?
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.
**Update** I am not the only one taking notice. And another.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Health Update
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.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Not My Standard Weekend
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Giving Live Writer A Spin
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.
Friday, March 20, 2009
This One Is Gonna Hurt!
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.
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.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Just A Little Angry - Rant
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.
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.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Grand Time
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Yeah, What She Said!
“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%.
Now, under the plan he supports, I won't have this happen to me per se, but I support her 100%.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
I Still Have No Sympathy
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.
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.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Where is El Gee?
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.
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.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Old Patterns Returning
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 :)
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 :)
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