The dust has settled and we have been in our metal shoe box for three weeks. As far as shoe boxes go this one is nice compared to the one we lived in when we lived in Acworth Georgia. We lived in Red Barn Mobile Park and boy that was a dump and a half. We were one of the few folks that had two cars with shiny paint and a telephone line with Internet connectivity. You could here the people now. Hey mister, what is that funny looking box in yer living room??

I wonder if the street names or towns that you live on have any reflection on your past or future? When we lived in Simpsonville we lived on "Broken Past" street. Now we live in Travelers Rest. I have to say that WE certainly could use some REST and we fully qualify as TRAVELERS since we have moved over 20 times in the last 14 years. Katy keeps saying that we are gypsies for Jesus. I told someone the other day that we moved to Travelers Rest and they told me that we are in the dead center of "rednecksville". Oh well, what else is new in the deep south?

Our lives seem to have stabilized somewhat. We managed to get our utility bills paid up so that we could transfer our power and cable utilities to our new home. We even managed to pay off MaBell and get our home phone turned back on. Our rent is cheap enough now that we can manage it with my unemployment benefits. We live in a very quiet and secluded neighborhood with one house and three trailers. I hardly hear a peep out of any of the surrounding folks so that suits me just fine. Peace and quiet is just what the doctor ordered for us.

July of 2003 finds me in a business partnership with a local business owner who has agreed to finance a new computer business venture. Primarily we are focusing on the sale and repair/upgrades of used and refurbished systems. We are opening a cellular and computer store in the Fiesta Mexicana by the Civic Center on Cedar Lane in Greenville. I will be at the new store in the afternoon and evenings and still selling computers at the flea market on White Horse Road on Sat and Sunday. Katy may be learning how to sell cellular phones and accessories so we may be partners at the three tables at Whitehorse soon.

I am still looking for an IT job but thus far nothing has surfaced. Katy is taking a small break but I am sure that sometime in July or August after the kids go back to school (public) that she will renew her job search. Katy is fighting a staff infection and had a cyst that needed to be removed.

Our Angel (black lab) who got run over by a truck seems to have stabilized some. Angel will never be the dog she once was. She can barely walk because her right rear leg is messed up. I miss being able to rough house with her and play. Now it seems that all she can do is just lay around and watch everything going on around her. In some ways this incident has sent us through flash backs of how Jessica changed as a child when she was diagnosed with cancer. One day Jessica was a normal 8 year old girl and then before you know it she has blinding headaches and dizzy spells and winds up being diagnosed with a brain tumor. Over 14 months we watched her change from being a healthy vibrant girl to being so sick she could not even hold up her head to eat. Sigh.....

Sammy , our new resident puppy is quite the character. Sammy is approximately 4 inches long, 3 inches high and weighs in at about half a pound. You can not believe the energy this puppy has and how much noise he can generate. Sammy is the gift that keeps on giving now that I think about it since we are trying to teach him how to go outside to do his business. We should have named Sammy "Kujo" since he thinks he is a big dog and wants to attack anything that slightly resembles something bigger than himself. A puppy with an attitude.

I am hoping that I can find someone that knows computers well enough that can work for me at the flea market on Sundays so that we can find a church to attend here in Travelers Rest. It has been almost 3 months since we attended a church service or had regular fellowship with other believers. We have our friends and extended family on the Internet but that just does not replace face to face contact with brothers and sisters in real life. Katy and I have struggled on and off with the idea of trying to maintain some sort of relationship with other couples in real life but it seems that we keep failing miserably in that department. I think that the biggest factor for this is that most folks are just not inclined to be outgoing people persons. Most folks tend to want to stay to themselves and do not encourage much more than a superficial relationship at best. People are willing to socialize for 10 or 15 minutes at church and maybe go out to eat afterwards but anything past that seems to be a huge struggle. Maybe everyone is just too busy to develop relationships outside of their immediate families. Sometimes Katy and I wonder if we are just so messed up that no one wants to have anything to do with us outside of the church atmosphere. My doctor said I would be fine, he just did not say when. :) For those of you that DO know me you know what I just said and how I mean it.

This week will be spent putting together our new space that will be used as a computer warehouse for parts and a staging area where they will be worked on. We have to move some steel shelving from one storage area to another and then I have to set up four computers in our new store front so we can begin to try and sell them there. I will be there from 4pm until 9 pm Tuesday Wed and Thursday. Katy will probably be there on Monday and Friday while my bowling leagues are going on. The interesting and challenging thing about where we are going to sell the computers is that the area is predominantly Hispanic. That means that I will be learning some Spanish so that I can communicate more effectively with the customers. That ought to be fun....