January 12, 2005

It has been five days since I have written in my blog. My how time flies when you are having fun. Are we having fun yet?
LOL... Well, let me see, what is going on..... The reports are still coming in and the number of Tsunami victims keeps growing and growing and growing. I think they are up to 155,000 dead or missing. How depressing is that folks? The experts are predicting that the numbers could raise to as high as 300,000 IF the survivors of this natural disaster do not receive drinking water and food in the very near future. Not only is there a lack of food and water but there are also problems with the survivors having to deal with diseases that have set in since this disaster struck. Like I said, it is just too overwhelming to fathom. What can we do on the other side of the globe? We can do two things. We can donate money towards the relief effort and we can pray. I can only imagine that this event has folks thinking about their mortality especially with the death and destruction all around them. Just the other day someone at church had mentioned that they watched some sort of show on TV that stated that we are not immune to this sort of event happening off the East Coast of the U.S. Apparently there is some sort of fault line near us out in the ocean or an underwater volcano that erupts every several hundred years. If that event were to take place the wave that would hit the East Coast would be far worse than what hit Asia. Now, there is a thought that catches your breath huh?

It all boils down to this one thing. We are not in control. No matter how much money, technology and elbow grease we throw at mother nature when nature does what it does all we can do is sit back and wait for it to finish, whatever IT happens to be. No matter what I believe that God is in control. God knows all, we do not. All we can do is to be living our lives as if today is the last day of our lives and be ready to meet our maker. None of us are garunteed a tomorrow and just because we were not victimized by the Tsunami does not mean that the next time we get into our cars that we wont be in some sort of accident that might take our lives. Actually, if you think about it the chances of being in a car wreck far outweighs our chances of being hit by a huge tidal wave.

The year 2005 marks the year of out with the old and in with the new. Katy upgraded her car from a 1983 Chevy Station Wagon to a 1993 Ford Escort station wagon. The Ford Escort is 10 years newer and gets wonderful gas mileage compared to the gas guzzling tank that we have been driving around for the last 4 years. My 1994 Caddilac was eating us out of house and home with all of the maintenance repairs that were absolutely wrecking our budget. So, with much prayer and with help from a dear friend we were blessed with getting a 2003 Pontiac Grand Prix SE. I can not tell you how nice it is to have a car that has less than 50,000 miles and has an AC and Heater that actually works. Everything was falling apart on the Caddy and it had over 221000 miles on it so it was time for it to retire. I think that the last time I drove a car this new was back in 1981. That has been a LONG time folks. I will share pictures here via Hello in a moment.

As of Friday this week I will be scheduling my A+ exam. Hopefully I can get a slot early next week and get this test completed and passed. If I can pull this off it will be the first step towards getting some much needed computer certifications. Lets see, I have read two different A+ books and studied over 1500 different test questions. If I am not ready for this test then I dont think I ever will be. LOL... Once that is completed then I will be off to the races to study for the MCSE exams. There are 8 of those so if I can do one per month I have 8 months before I get my MCSE. Of course, one per month for taking a test is a really agressive schedule so I will be content if I can pass half of those exams between now and December of this year. If I can do that my income will go up and I can start doing more computer engineering work vs being a hardware technician. Speaking of being a hardware monkey I have been getting a crash course on fixing printers. OH MY GOSH. You thought your computer was persnikity. Good grief Grady. Printers are a major pain in the keister.

Our church sanctuary is finally being dismantled and the carpet and sheetrock and other fixtures are being ripped out and replaced. The schedule is to have the sanctuary completely renovated by the end of January. We will have all new pews, carpeting, sound equipment with the addition of a computer and digital projector. Say bye bye to transparencies and hello to 21st century technology. Wahoooooo. Of course with all of the changes with how we are going to use technology on Sunday morning brings me the added responsibility of evaluating worship software to determine what we will eventually pick to display text, song lyrics, bible scripture , video etc.

This weekend we will be taking our annual jaunt out to Myrtle Beach SC as Happy Days and Special Times sponsors another Renissance Weekend for parents who have lost children to cancer. For the last couple of weeks the weather has been very nice with temperatures in the middle 70's. Now that the Myrtle Beach weekend is coming up the weather is turning colder and raining. It happens like that every year. LOL...