Outfoxed by a spud!!

Yes, that is right, I was outfoxed or out smarted by a spud... LOL...

I came home last night tired as can be. I had promised to take the family out for dinner so I came home, changed clothes and announced that if Katy wanted to go out to dinner she would have to drive. In my new position at Advantec Global Services I spend a good portion of my days driving around in Charleston traffic. So, when I get home the last thing I want to do is hop back in the car and do it again. The general rule is if I make it home and take off my shoes we are going to be eating from mommas kitchen. I think that Katy regrets that and she does everything that she can to sweet talk me into staying out in the car and meeting me out in the driveway. LOL...

When I got home Katy told me that she had rescued two puppies from certain doom. That is my Dr. Doolittle for you. Katy was on her way home off of Old Backriver Rd when she came to a stop sign and saw two puppies wandering around in the ditch close to the road. True to her nature her animal protection instincts kicked in and she brought home to HUGE puppies. So, on our way out to go to dinner Katy notices that there is a car behind the fence where she found the dogs. We made a pit stop and sure enough the owner was missing his babies. So, off to the house we go to get the puppies and Katy's wallet and cell phone that she had forgotten earlier. This time we pick up the kids, two puppies and headed back out to deliver the puppies to their rightful owner and finally go to dinner.

When we departed Old Back River enroute to Redbank to head over to Los Arcos Mexican restaurant in Goose Creek Katy advised me that she had again forgotten her wallet and her cell phone but that she did have a potatoe in her purse. A huge potatoe that was left overs from a science project in school that day. No wallet, no drivers license, no cell phone but she has a potatoe. You know what that means, after dinner you know who was driving down the road AGAIN despite my best laid plans to STAY out of the drivers seat. Sigh.... That is how I was outfoxed by a spud... LOL...

Lug nuts anyone?

I have been told that when someone has a good experience they tell one or two people but when you have a bad experience you tell everyone you know. So, with that in mind I am going to "shout my bad experience from my Blog". LOL

Sams Wholesale club moved out of their old Rivers Avenue location in North Charleston to a new and improved site near the Charleston Convention Center and the Charleston International airport. I always get tickled at the name of the airport especially since the only international thing about it might be a coffee shop that has more than two flavors of coffee. I think that our airport has a sum total of 6 gates if that many. Come on people, International Airport?? Giggle....

Oh yeah, I need to stop chasing rabbitts and get back to "Lug nuts anyone"?
Last Saturday we decided to go to the new Sams Wholesale to get two new tires for the Caddy. I had replaced the other two tires several months ago and the tires on the back were starting to have the familiar "steel belt separation" problem and causing the car to vibrate when you get to a certain speed. So, I finally quit procrastinating and took the car over to have the tires replaced and rotated. Once we checked in we started doging the thousands of other holiday shoppers that had arrived before us. OH MY GOSH, I was astounded by how many folks were in there stocking up on this and that and then some.
I know this is going to fall under the TMI category but I am in the mens room taking care of business and I hear my name being called to come to the Tire Center. So, I think GREAT here I am all tied up STILL talking to mother nature and I cant get there. Katy hears the page and goes over to investigate. I finally get out of my conference with mother nature and go over to the tire center. Katy tells me that they are refusing to work on my car because lug nuts are missing off of the tires. I am thinking. You have got to be kidding me people. Sure enough, here comes the mechanic who advises me that ONE lug nut is missing off of the back right rear tire and therefore it is deemed an unsafe vehicle that they can not touch. I asked them to find me a manager who came and insisted that their policy states that if you are missing one lug nut your vehicle is deemed unsafe and therefore we wont work on it. Well, to say the least I am steamed at this point. Of course we had already paid for the two new tires. So, off we go back to where the OLD Sams Wholesale used to be to go across the street to buy a package of lugnuts that cost a whopping 2.99.

The whole point here folks is that I was inconvenienced by having to drive my UNSAFE vehicle back to North Charleston to buy something that cost next to nothing to drive back to the store to have tires put on and ONE NEW LUG NUT so my car would have its new tires, tires rotated and make it SAFE according to Sams Wholesale. Good grief Grady, is there something wrong with this picture? I understand that Sams Wholesale is not in the business of providing the general public with Auto parts. However, if you are going to have a policy that states that ONE missing lugnut is going to make your car unsafe in their minds and their policy states they wont work on it WHY can't they have a kiosk with lugnuts for different makes and models of cars? Does Sams Wholesale NOT sell anything else for cars other than tires? While I am ranting and raving over the sheer stupidity of this ridiculous policy let me share one other thing with you. When you buy the new tires and go to drive it down the street you will notice that the BLUE junk that is on the white walls is still there. Sams Wholesale does not provide you with the simple service of washing the blue stuff off. That is an extra service that is no longer provided. If you want the blue junk off the white walls you can go wash it off yourself. How special is that folks? How long would it take to slosh a rag or brush around in a bucket of water and wash off the blue stuff? All of 45 seconds MAYBE? The bottom line is this customer service is a thing of the past. Do you remember the gas stations where you would pull in, sit in your car and the attendant would fill the gas tank, look under the hood and check your fluid levels and the air pressure in your tires? Well, you guessed it, you had to dig back in those dusty brain cells quite a ways back huh? Now , we are lucky if the gas station has a restroom sized floor space where the attendant sits on the inside and has one of those automated drawers that you put your money in while you look at each other through 5 inch think bullet proof glass. Now they have gas stations that are fully automated and there are NO employees around whatsoever. If you need help for whatever reason you can pick up your cell phone , walk over to the street away from the pump and dial a 800 number that is probably not toll free anymore and leave your message requesting help into a voice mail box that is probably never checked. Now, that is customer service folks. LOL....

Sams Wholesale and other merchants need to get a clue. Customers want to buy their goods and products but we do not care to be made angry over stupid policies nor do we care to be totally inconvenienced and have to drive all over Gods creation trying to purchase a 2.99 package of lugnuts just to appease their policy and make them feel safe that I am not goint to sue them when one of my tires falls off the car because of ONE missing lug nut. LOL... One missing lugnut does not make a vehicle unsafe people....

Well, I think I feel better now. I see that it is time for me to quit blogging and go do the shower and shave routine and throw myself into my caddy and drive those two new tires with matching lugnuts down to Ashley Phosphate road to my office so I can provide world class customer service to my customers today.

Have a great day ya hear !!!

The Recovery Console in XP is different than using a "Recovery CD"......

Just this week I am sitting at my desk and the receptionist sends me this call. It goes something like this. "Ring Ring" Hello, this is James, how may I help you? Yes sir, my computer says it has a Trojan Horse. Yes Maam, apparently your anti virus software has detected a virus on your system. Ok, what is a Trojan Horse Virus and why do I have it on my computer? This question was followed with several other questions along the lines of "this is a new computer that I just bought and is under warranty and now it is broken because of this stupid virus that I had NOTHING to do with happening." line of thought.

I allowed the customer to ramble for a few more moments and then I interjected with the following ideas. You can get rid of the virus on your computer by updating your virus definitions on Norton Anti Virus and then allow the program to rid your computer of this pesky virus. I made the mistake of using the term "auto update" for Norton Anti Virus and got lost for another 5 minutes trying to explain to the customer how she could use this feature manually to update her virus definition files. My efforts were quite futile and I finally just gave up on that train of thought. My irate and frustrated customer still had it stuck in her mind that her computer was under warranty so therefore the computer manufacturer was at fault and she wanted ME to come to her home and fix it for her for FREE. When I explained to her that the computer manufacturer would not warranty the Operating System (XP) nor any other software on her hard drive she commenced to ask me what an operating system was and what is software. At this point my attempts to help were going no where. In hopes that this customer would just go away I tried to use the "scare" tactic and told her that if I came out to her house (schedule permitting this week) that I would have to charge her an additional 35.00 trip charge vs if she brought the machine to me. When I told her that I could not drop everything I was doing to give her immediate assistance she was put out and told me she would go elsewhere. Picture me having a deep sigh of relief at this point. Ok , I am sorry maam, good luck with your virus problem, I hope you get it resolved. Click, the line goes dead and I dont give it another thought.

One day goes by and after a service call I come back to the shop to find ..... You guessed it, my pet trojan horse was waiting on me. We get a LOT of boogered up computers in our shop that have spyware, spybots, adware, malware, trojans, viruses of all types. All of these programs do one of two things. They always eat up all your system resources. That means that they start up when the operating system starts and they populate the area in your system tray with cute little icons. Some of them are so clever that they dont even put an icon in your system tray and you dont even know they are there unless you go looking for them. The other thing that these programs love to do is to track your activities online and send information back to webservers who are logging this information for their owners. Another thing that these programs do is to use your smtp server of choice to e-mail copies of themselves to all of your friends and family in your Windows address book. If you are lucky you will have a virus program that will have its very own smtp server built in and it will start mailing itself out automatically without even using your e-mail client.
Then there are those pesky boot sector viruses that destroys your boot sector and the next time you log on your computer comes up with the dreaded "Invalid system disk " Insert disk and hit enter error. I will get back to how this happens later in the story...

Two hours later I have installed Spybot Search and Destroy and discovered and deleted over 110 nasties on her computer. Norton Anti Virus is so messed up all it can do is pop up errors saying that the subscription is expired and that it can not find specific executable files and therefore it can not run anyway. Two clicks of the mouse and Norton is fast asleep not to bother anyone again. I install AVG anti virus which is free and find over 202 viruses on the hard drive including our friendly trojan horse virus. The ugly thing about programmers is that they write most of their nasties with Windows Operating Systems in mind. Do you ever wonder why support people say "you gotta love Mickeysoft software". LOL.... One of the things that you have to do when you get rid of trojans is that you have to turn off "system restore" on all your hard drives, then logon as administrator and delete all of the files in the \\system information volume\_restore directory to get rid of all the A000876c112ax*.exe files which automagically run themselves every time you start your computer OR have to use a system restore point from the past. To say the least doing these last steps can be kind of tricky at best.

Remember that this computer came in to have the "trojan horse virus" removed. That is all that was requested and even though I did remove the trojan horse virus I also did several other things in an effort to further protect the client such as installing a free anti virus application and installing numerous Windows Updates from Microsoft for the Operating System. I call the customer and tell her that even though I worked on her computer for longer than 1.5 hours that is all I was going to charge her for. When I told her how much that would be she launched back off into the thoughts of her computer being under warranty. You get the picture. I am sorry but HP does not warranty the software on your hard drive maam.

Yesterday afternoon here comes my customer with her teenager daughter in tow. (Sorry this story is so long... LOL) I happened to be standing by the receptionist when the customer came to pick up the computer and the customer made sure to have me tell her daughter what NOT to do to KEEP this from happening ever again. The poor dear was embarrased out of her socks. I gave the daughter the basic run down of how to traverse the Internet safely and to be sure to stay away from P2P networks like Kazaa etc. I told her to be very careful of trading files via IM programs like ICQ, Yahoo IM, AOL IM etc. I told her to stay away from IRC channels and the like if at all possible. Run auto update regularly and schedule regular virus scans and backups of your data. The whole time the mom is "are you getting all of this", " are you getting all of this". LOL. Yes MOM I get it ok....

At this point the bill is paid and they are off to cyberspace with their newly cleaned machine. Mind you, I only did those things mentioned above. I did NOT fix every software glitch that was on this machine. The expectation from the customer however was clearly different as I wound up on the phone with her again this afternoon. Ring ring, call coming from the receptionist. I answer it and say , "hello this is James, how may I help you". Hello this is your customer (name not mentioned to protect the not so innocent) calling you back. My trojan is still on my computer. Why do I have a trojan on my computer after I paid you to remove it. The customer launches into her new found information after calling HP. I called HP and they told me that I did not need to bring the computer to you after all because all I would have had to do is to reboot the system and fully recover the computer from there. I do not need a recovery cd to do this. All I have to do is hit the F10 Key. I said, Maam , did you try that? Customer says, no , I did not try it because HP told me I need to make sure I have an anti virus software installed before I do because if I do not then I could be back in the same boat within hours. At this point I am thinking, no really ?? LOL....

I tried to explain to the customer that there is a difference between the "recovery console" in XP which you get to when you hit the F10 key upon OS boot up vs the "recovery CD" that the hardware manufacturer gives you to "fully restore" your computer to factory default configuration when you first buy it. I tried to explain this to the customer but she had the thought pattern of "I should have never brought my computer to you because I still have all these problems that you did not fix and you did not tell me that I could do a full system restore by simply hitting the F10 key so therefore you really ripped me off and need to give me a full refund". The customer tried to get me to make an assertion or affirmation that her perception was correct but I firmly but gently told her that her computer did not have a trojan horse or virus of any type when it left the shop. I also told her that AVG was a free anti virus software and that while it was FREE it certainly was not the BEST software product out there and that we could have sold her Trend Micro Anti Virus for 49.95 which would have been a more costly solution. I also advised her that just because you have Anti Virus software running on your computer does not mean that your computer will NEVER EVER be bothered again by a virus infection. What it does mean is that the software is in place to stop a MAJORITY of KNOWN virus infections in their tracks. Again, this was an totally unacceptable concept to this customer.

At this point, when the customer was unable to convince me that her computer problems were still my fault she advises me that she just wanted to call me and tell me what HP just told her so I would be "in the know" for future reference. Yes maam, thank you for the phone call, good luck with your "full recovery" of your system. Have a nice day. Click. The line goes dead and away goes our clueless customer thinking that hitting the F10 key will get rid of the viruses on her hard drive and RESTORE the computer back to its default factory configuration. Can you imagine what the phone call will be like tomorrow when she calls HP Tech Support to find out that she misunderstood what they were trying to tell her about the "System Recovery Console" vs the Recovery CD that I told her to order. LOL....

I think that tomorrow I am going to forward my phone extension at work to Microsoft Tech Support just for the fun of it. LOL

The leaves are falling

As chicken little would say "the sky is falling, the sky is falling". Except in this case it is "the leaves are falling, the leaves are falling". The leaves on the trees are turning golden brown and are slowly coming off their branches. The temperature right now is 46 F with clear skys and a slight wind. I am SO HAPPY that the dog days of summer are turning into Fall days instead.

The new job has certainly kept me busier than anyone expected. I was told that when my predeccesor was there for the last 4 or 5 weeks that things were DEAD. That certainly is not the case with me. I have been busier than a one armed man in a windmill having a paper hanging contest. I have been doing everything from PC repair to helping customers with Network connectivity and services problems. The challenge has been to go from being out of Information Technology for a year and a half to wading back into it with both feet hitting the ground running. The other day I had to go to a customer site with an Exchange 2000 server down. The company had been without e-mail most of the day and they were depending on Advantec Global Services to help them get it back online. My boss , who is the senior engineer here in Charleston, was out of town so I hopped in the car and ran over there to help the client. Between myself, two engineers at the client site and a Microsoft engineer on the phone we were able to resolve the problem. It appears that the Exchange Information store that holds all the e-mail for the company had exceeded its 16 GB limit and therefore crashed. We wound up doing a change in the registry on that server to give Exchange an extra GB of space for the database so that the company could temporarily get the e-mail server back online and empty out some folders to reduce the size of the database. All in all it was a sucess and the customer was back in business with e-mail services and it was a learning experience for all that were involved. When the call originated earlier that morning I had guessed correctly what the problem was but was unable to give them the answer they needed to fix the problem. Now, I know how to fix it. :)

I am happy to report that the Ford Escort Station wagon that Katy is driving is holding together nicely (knock on wood) and that my Cadillac has not developed any mechanical failures in the last two week. PRAISE GOD for that folks!! With us working 4 jobs between the two of us we have NO time to be messing with car repairs. I am still searching for a better car for me because I know that I know that my high mileage car is eventually going to need some more maintenance to keep it running. Hopefully I can find something before the Caddy breaks again. It appears that when I can put together between 1000 and 1500.00 that I will be able to get into a much newer car. Until then we will just have to manage.

I am SO HAPPY that the political advertisements have FINALLY stopped. Whew, how ugly is that? How could any of us believe or understand who was the best candidate with all of that negative propaganda being thrown at us from every imaginable advertising source.
As for me, it was a bit overwhelming to say the least. I am just glad it is over for the next four years. :)

Well, enough of this drivel, it is time to get ready for church and back to the work grind for the week. Hope all goes well with you and yours and that you folks have a wonderful week. Remember that God loves you and so do we!!

Efnet, IRC Networks, Bots etc...

I spent most of the night helping to configure an Eggdrop bot (one of four) to run on our #jesusconnect channel on Efnet IRC network. What is IRC? Internet Relay Chat. There are more IRC Networks than I would care to begin to tell you about. Not only that but each IRC Network such as Efnet, Dalnet, Undernet, etc have thousands and thousands of chat channels on each SERVER. I am talking about a GLOBAL chat network called Internet Relay Chat. I know, it sort of blows the mind but it is true. All you need to access IRC is an IRC client such as Mirc or Pirch. Do a google search and sooner than later you will be installing the client software and getting ready to start out on your first IRC journey.

At Jesus Connect we feel that our calling is to introduce the church (as a whole) to the new (and not so new) technology that is already in place to be used to reach the world for Christ. You can go to our website at Jesus Connectand see what we are doing thus far. We have spent the last year completely rebuilding Jesus Connect from the ground up. There you can read our mission statement, statement of faith and other articles. Our IRC channel is just one of our ministry outreach efforts to the globe. We not only want to tell people that God listens and cares about them but we also want to equip the saints (you) to use the technology that we have at our fingertips to reach the lost and hurting people of our world for Christ.

So, if you want to visit with us on our #jesusconnect channel you can just log on to any Efnet IRC server and then you can just type /join #jesusconnect and that will put you into our channel. When you arrive you will find our bots. Hal, Tal, Mallet. These three personas or nicks are our bots. A bot is a program that is programmed (go figure huh) to perform specific tasks within our channel. All three bots are known as Eggdrop bots. They main function in cyberlife is to keep our channel open on the Efnet server and to provide us with the ability to keep control of our channel. If we did not leave the channel open 24x7 then someone else could open up our channel name and take control. That is something that we do not want to happen. If someone else takes control of our channel name then they can start perverting or twisting our original intent for being there. We want the #jesusconnect channel to be a Christ and family oriented place where folks from all walks of life can enter and find refuge. We want folks to find the grace of God, forgiveness of God and the truth of Gods word. In order to do this we need to find a place to park our channel (Efnet) and put bots in place that wont get tired, sleepy or hungry (like I am now...) and keep our channel open and protected.

For now, I am going to encourage you to drop by for a visit. If you have questions about IRC or how to find the MIRC or Pirch client or how to configure them write me an e-mail at moffittjc@jesus-connect.net and I will respond to you in private email. For now, I am going to take care of the tired, sleepy, hungry me and leave the IRC world to our bots.

Nite nite

A time for celebration and thanks!!

I am HAPPY to announce that I just accepted a position with the following company here in Charleston. You can read more about them at the following Link. Advantec

I will be filling the role of PC/Printer Technician for now and as I begin passing my certification exams they have promised to increase my salary accordingly. That gives me the motivation I need to study study study!! I will continue to work my security job several days per week on the 3 pm to 11pm shift for the extra income. That means between Katy and I we will have 4 jobs. I think that we are going to be at our max with regards to how many jobs we can hold down. LOL... Hey, you have got to do what you have got to do in order to survive these days. We owe, we owe, off to work we go is our motto. Actually, it will be nice to increase the budget income so that we can start to dig ourselves out of debt and back into the light. If you have more bills than income then you will understand what I am talking about. If you can not relate to that statement take a moment to thank God for your blessed situation. :)

So, with all of that said, I am thanking Jesus for this new opportunity. :) I give him the praise , honor and glory for what HE is doing in our lives. Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith and He is our Jehovah Rapha, Jehovah Jira.


I also give thanks to those of you who read this blog who are believers in Christ and are prayer warriors for our family. Thank you for your intercession. To those of you that love us enough to speak truth into our lives and show us tough love when we need it I am especially indebted to you. From time to time we all need a gentle (or not so gentle) nudge to get us back on the right path, the straight and narrow. We all also need to know that someone understands where we are at and that even though things are tough that God never leaves us or forsakes us and that Romans 8:28 is true.


May God's blessing be upon you and your family!!

Happy Halloween everyone!! LOL... I thought this was so cute I would share it with you. My friend Dawn sent it to me in e-mail this morning.  

How about them Cowgirls?? Whew, maybe I should call them the Cowboys because most women folks I know would be insulted with my comparing them to the wimps that were present in the Dallas uniform today at Green Bay. I can not tell you how badly they sucked. Sigh... They lost 41 to what?? I quit watching in the fourth quarter because I just could not bear to watch any more of the slaughter. Bill Parcells is probably one heck of a coach but when you dont have any talent to work with what do you expect? I could not tell what was worse with Dallas today, their offense or defense. I think that it was a pretty even shot on both sides of the ball.

Touch of the Earth Tour at Wannamaker Park Goose Creek SC.  

Touch of the Earth Tour ceremony at Wannamaker Park in Goose Creek SC 

Another shot of some happy kids at Wannamaker Park in Goose Creek 

Katy took this group of toddlers to Wannamaker Park in Goose Creek for Touch of the Earth tour... 

Justin Moffitt to left of teacher going through the paces of moving around on stage with the Dolphin Company. 

Justin Moffitt performing with the Dolphin Company singing group at Sedgefield Intermediate School 

Usenet Newsgroup Readers

Ok, I told you ABOUT Usenet Newsgroups and how to get to them through Google. We have applied to have our newsgroup server feeds listed on all the other newsgroup servers. That will take some time but once it does happen things will get busy quick. You can also access our newsgroups TODAY by plugging in news.seventhsector.com into one of two newsgroup readers.

Outlook Express or Forte Free Reader

Outlook Express comes installed on most computers that have Internet Explorer version 5 or higher and you can go to the following link to download Forte Free Newsreader.

Forte Free Reader

news.seventhsector.com

Are you familiar with Usenet Newsgroups? Go to www.google.com and check out the groups. You can use the Google interface to search, read and respond to Usenet newsgroups. I could bore you to tears with the history of Usenet but lets just suffice it to say that Usenet Newsgroups are global message bases run on servers that allow folks from all walks of life and diversified interests to post messages. Is that simple enough? LOL

Anyway, news.seventsector.com is the newsgroup server that Reynold has set up. I have gone in and posted as many messages as I can as introductory messages. Our server will be moderated which means that even though folks can post a message to the group it wont be actually sent to the server until I read and approve each message. That means that there will not be any flame wars, trolling or foul language. If that happens the person that posts the message will have their message deleted. Hopefully I will be able to keep this Usenet Newsgroup a clean and fun place for Christ and family centered communications.

God bless

Oh my aching muscles.....

This grey mare ain't what he used to be, ain't what he used to be , ain't what he used to be.... Oh, hello. I did not realize anyone was watching , er , listening to me. LOL...

Well, since I am a man, not a female, thank goodness, I am not a mare. I guess that makes me a STUD.... Hahahahahahahah Well, anyway, onto the thoughts for today.

Our youth group had a lock in last night at church. I went up to the church around 9 Pm and we loaded up 10 teenagers into several vehicles and made our trek down Hwy 78 in Summerville to Ladson road (in Ladson of course) and ended up at the end of Ladson Road near Dorchester Road where Oakbrook Lanes is located. I am not sure if the owners of this establishment cares about residual income. In other words, you cant find the place unless you know exactly where they are located. At night time there are NO lights or lighted signs telling you that this is in fact Oakbrook Lanes Bowling Alley. Maybe if they put up a sign or two they would get some extra customers not to mention assist those customers that are trying to find them. Ok, enough of that rant for now.

We bowled until we hurt. Of course, seeing as this STUD is not what he used to be, I was worn out on the third game and we stopped. The OLDER adults bowled three games and I think that the youngsters all bowled about 10 to 15 games. Oh well. We loaded up and went back to church where we began to consume the rest of the pizza, chips and Dr Pepper and chocolate cake that we left since we had all worked up a good appetite. I miss being a teenager. When you are that age you stay hungry , can eat all the time and never gain a pound. I guess it has something to do with being in perpetual motion all the time. This also goes to show you that children do not burn calories through the use of their brains since it is painfully obvious to me that children rarely engage cognitive thinking skills during a normal day. LOL... Why did you do that , we ask. They say, I dont know. Did you think about what you were doing before you did it? uhmmm no, I guess not. What were you thinking ABOUT? Nothing... Who did this? I dont know? Did you do it? NO. LOL.... I am starting to feel like a rerun of a Bill Cosby episode so I will stop for now.

Once the food was consumed the children escaped to the game room which has recently been equipped with some high tech play stations and other games such as foozeball etc.
Several of the children tried to turn the hallways from the back of the church near the Sunday School room up to the foyer into a race track but I quickly stopped that nonsense. I know, party pooper is me. LOL...

That left us adults to our own devices. For the longest time I sat in a metal folding chair listening to the sounds of my bed , blanket and Katy calling me home where I belonged. This was approximately 1:30 am. I found that I had brought my two favorite pillows but I was very ill equipped to spend the night per sae. Not only that but I did not have a blanket, sheets or mattress of any kind. My pastors wife, Earlene, was kind enough to loan me one of her air mattresses. Sadly enough the mattress that she loaned me did not hold very much air so when I did finally try to lay down at 2:30 am I felt like I was laying on a sick joke for a new circus ride. When one end of me would settle the other end would pop off the ground as all the air rushed to one end or the other. Of course this scene brought howls of laughter from Earlene and Heather as they took this spectacle in.

Did I tell you about how NICE the air mattresses were for Earlene and Heather? Oh my gosh, can you see Neimen Marcus color coordinated air mattresses that held TONS of air and looked oh so comfortable? I had to giggle at Earlene because she had a hard time judging how long her body is and how long the mattress is as she wound up on the very end of the air mattress with part of her body on and part of it off. hahahahahah

I gave up at 2:30 am and came to the house where I managed to get some shut eye. Katy had gone to bed around 11 Pm so she was able to get up when the alarm went off and scooped up Kristina who had recently gone to bed. I hear that the children finally crashed and burned around 6:30 am and at 7 am Earlene and Heather found the loudest noise making bell they could find and gleefully brought the children back to consiousness. LOL... Its too bad I wimped out and was not around to tape that episode of bringing the dead back to life. LOL

This morning after Kristina arrived home and passed out in her own bed we lounged around and were totally worthless for a few hours. I had to almost trick Katy into getting out of the recliner so that we could get on with our day. We picked up the station wagon and brought it home to rest for a spell and then we had a spot of breakfast and then launched ourselves in the direction of some car dealerships. We chose to go to Ashley Preferred where someone told us that they had recently been able to obtain a car loan even though they did not have great credit. I figured, hey, if they can get a newer car with their credit then maybe there is hope for us. Basically, we found out that no matter what our credit is if we have the right amount of cash to put down for a down payment anyone will finance us. To make a long story short we filled out the credit application and it will be submitted to the finance companies via fax tonight and then by Monday afternoon I should be getting a call telling me who accepted us and how much moola they want to put us into a car.

Now, at 6:07 Pm I am once again sitting in my comfy computer chair banging on the keyboard eating a fruit pie and some coffee. Yummy yummy for the tummy. I am glad that I went out earlier this afternoon when we got back and rode my bike for about 3 miles. My leg muscles are telling me all about it. Whew.... That is NOT the only thing hurting but that is a story for another time... :)

Time to retire

I got the Cadillac out of the shop today for the second time this month. The car required a tune up. Apparently the spark plugs got wet and that is why it would not start. I was told by the mechanics that the car is OLD, OLD, OLD and that there are too many things wrong with it at this point to keep pumping money into it. Sigh.... Well, it does have over 218000 miles so I guess it is getting close to the time for me to sell it and move on. NO more repair bills. Repeat after me, NO MORE repair bills. LOL...

It appears that there are 4 or 5 motor mounts that need replacing and because it is a Cadillac they are liquid filled motor mounts therefore the cost of those are around 85.00 apiece plus the labor to put them in. Once that is fixed then they will be willing to replace all the hoses and fix all the oil leaks. What happens is that the engine is moving around more than it normally would with the proper motor mounts and this movement is causing tension on all the hoses etc and causing them to have holes and leak or just come loose all together.

Katy's car is still on blocks waiting for the funds to fix it. Where the heck is that money tree that I used to have behind the house anyway? Honey, someone stole the money tree. We need to put out an all points bulletin on that sucker and get it back ASAP....

My pastor was kind enough to loan us his 93 Ford Escort Station Wagon which happens to be for sale. :) I think that Katy has her heart set on it. Poor dear, Katy needs a car that wont break down nor cost us an arm and a leg for gasoline. We will either fix her 83 Chevy Station wagon or I will sell it and put that money towards a different vehicle. Stay tuned for further updates to this car maintenance nightmare we have been sucked into. LOL..

Car repairs are us

Here I sit waiting once again for Spivey's wrecker service. The Cadillac is dead and Katy's Chevy needs the brakes repaired. The pads are probably worn down to nothing and the rotors are probably deeply grooved. That means new rotors and pads. So much for having a few extra dollars to last us until next payday. How am I going to pay for two car repairs? LOL... God knows we need a miracle. Maybe he will bless us with the fact that the car repairs are not going to be as much as I am afraid that they will be. It looks like I might even have to miss a day at work over this whole mess which is not a good thing. We can not afford to miss one single day from work. One thing at a time though, got to get the cars to the shop and find out what is what. No sense in pushing the panic button until they tell me the repair is more than I have to spend. LOL... Like I ever have money for car repairs.... It is like the old saying, you either pay for the vehicle in payments or in repairs to keep them running. Go figure.....

Working for a pittance

Sadly enough I can relate to this story. Can you??



Working for a Pittance

October 8, 2004
By BOB HERBERT


Reality keeps rearing its ugly head. The Bush
administration's case for the war in Iraq has completely
fallen apart, as evidenced by the report this week from the
president's handpicked inspector that Iraq had destroyed
its illicit weapons stockpiles in the early 1990's.

Coming next week are the results of a new study that shows
- here at home - how tough a time American families are
having in their never-ending struggle to put food on the
table and keep a roof over their heads. The White House, as
deep in denial about the economy as it is about Iraq,
insists that things are fine - despite the embarrassing
fact that President Bush is on track to become the first
president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net loss
of jobs during his four years in office.

The study, jointly sponsored by the Annie E. Casey, Ford
and Rockefeller Foundations, will show that 9.2 million
working families in the United States - one out of every
four - earn wages that are so low they are barely able to
survive financially.

"Our data is very solid and shows that this is a much
bigger problem than most people imagine," said Brandon
Roberts, one of the authors of the report, which is to be
formally released on Tuesday. The report found that there
are 20 million children in these low-income working
families.

For the purposes of the study, any family in which at least
one person was employed was considered a working family.
Very wealthy families were included.

The median income for a family of four in the U.S. is
$62,732. According to the study, a family of four earning
less than $36,784 is considered low-income. A family of
four earning less than $18,392 is considered poor. The 9.2
million struggling families cited by the report fell into
one of the latter two categories. And those families have
one-third of all the children in American working families.


Not surprisingly, the problem for millions of families is
that they have jobs that pay very low wages and provide no
benefits. "Consider the motel housekeeper, the retail clerk
at the hardware store or the coffee shop cook," the report
said. "If they have children, chances are good that their
families are living on an income too low to provide for
their basic needs."

Neither politicians nor the media put much of a spotlight
on families that are struggling economically. According to
the study, one in five workers are in occupations where the
median wage is less than $8.84 an hour, which is a
poverty-level wage for a family of four. A full-time job at
the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour is not even
sufficient to keep a family of three out of poverty.

Families with that kind of income are teetering on the edge
of an economic abyss. Any misfortune might push them over
the edge - an illness, an automobile breakdown, even
something as seemingly minor as a flooded basement.

For the families in these lower-income brackets, life is
often a harrowing day-to-day struggle to pay for the bare
necessities. According to federal government statistics,
the median annual rent for a two-bedroom apartment in major
metropolitan markets is more than $8,000. The annual cost
of food for a low-income family of four is nearly $4,000.
Utility bills are nearly $2,000. Transportation costs are
about $1,500. And then there are costs for child care,
health care and clothing.

You do the math. How are these millions of poor and
low-income families making it?

(A lot of those families are going to get a shock this
winter as price increases for crude oil get translated into
big jumps in home heating bills.)

The economy relies heavily on the services provided by
low-wage workers but, as the report notes, "our society has
not taken adequate steps to ensure that these workers can
make ends meet and build a future for their families, no
matter how determined they are to be self-sufficient."

Mr. Roberts said he hoped the study, titled "Working Hard,
Falling Short," would help initiate a national discussion
of the plight of families who are doing the right thing but
not earning enough to get ahead. "Seventy-one percent of
low-income families work," he said. More than half are
headed by married couples. But economic self-sufficiency
remains maddeningly out of reach.

Even in a presidential election year, these matters have
not been explored in any sustained way. We're quick to give
lip service to the need to work hard, but very slow to
properly reward hard work.

E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com

In memory of Carol Holland

My friend Carol Holland from work passed away this morning at around 6:15 am. This truly makes me sad. Carol will be missed by her family and her co workers at US Security. I only knew Carol for a short time but during that time I grew fond of her and we were able to chat atleast twice a week at work. During that time I got to know her not only as a professional in her field but also as an individual. Carol was a very sweet person who was laid back and very easy to get along with and confide in. Carol had some type of cancer and fought with the symptoms of this cancer up until a couple of months ago where she had to give in and go get treatments. From what I could tell the treatments caused the cancer to react in a negative way and sped up the downhill slide that Carol took physically. Several co workers have assured me that Carol will be with Jesus and that she did have a knowledge of the gospel of Christ and was a believer so I am relieved to know that Carol will be there to greet all of us on the other side. You will always be on our hearts and minds Carol. Please join me as I pray for the family and friends as they walk through this transition and the upcoming grief process in the days and years to come.

Update on Social Security benefits and our government officials receiving them

My friend Pat shared this with me in e-mail so in turn I wanted to share it with you. I have yet to review it but I plan to.


Here's what the Urbanlegends Guide has to say about it:


It's true that members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives enjoy a generous government pension plan ­ some say too generous ­ but this email rant offers very little else in the way of accuracy.

Under a law enacted in 1983, all members of Congress participate in the Social Security system, both contributing and receiving benefits. Upon retirement, members receive either a combination of federal pension and Social Security benefits or Social Security alone, depending on when their term of service started and how they configured their individual plan.

More here:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blcongress.htm

The fleecing of America , is this possible ??

I received this in e-mail this morning and it made my blood boil. Here are some questions

A. Is this true and if so WHY have we (The American People) allowed this to continue
B. What are WE (You and I) going to do to stop it?
C. What can we do to stop it?
D. Do you care enough to do something about it?





IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU ARE REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT!

KEEP IT GOING!!!!


2004 Election Issue!!

GET A BILL STARTED TO PLACE ALL POLITICIANS ON SOC. SEC.

This must be an issue in "2004". Please! Keep it going.



----------------------------------

SOCIAL SECURITY:

(This is worth reading. It is short and to the point.)

Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years. !

Our Senators and Congresswomen do not pay into Social Security and, of course, they do not collect from it.

You see, Social Security benefits were not suitable forpersons of their rare elevation in society.They felt they should have a special plan for themselves. So, many years ago they voted in their own
benefit plan.

In more recent years, no congressperson has felt the need to change it. After all, it is a great plan.

For all practical purposes their plan works like this:

When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die.

Except it may increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments..

For example, former Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000.00 (that's Seven Million, Eight-Hundred Thousand Dollars), with their wives drawing $275,000.00 during the last years of their lives.

This is calculated on an average life span for each of those two Dignitaries.

Younger Dignitaries who retire at an early age, will receive much more during the rest of their lives.

Their cost for this excellent plan is $0.00. NADA....ZILCH....

This little perk they voted for themselves is free to them. You and I pick up the tab for this plan. The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Funds;

"OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK"!

From our own Social Security Plan, which you and I pay (or have paid) into,-every payday until we retire (which amount is matched by our employer)-we can expect to get an average of $1,000 per month after retirement.

Or, in other words, we would have to collect our average of $1,000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one (1) month to equal Senator! Bill Bradley's benefits!



Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made.

That change would be to:

Jerk the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under the Senators and Congressmen. Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us ......


then sit back.....

and watch how fast they would fix it.

If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe good changes will evolve.


How many people can YOU send this to?

Better yet.....

How many people WILL you send this to??

This is Shadow!! One of the five puppies that we just gave away to loving homes. :) 

Reeses 

What ABOUT them Dallas Cowboys??

I should have known that any time the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins get together it is going to be an action packed game with both teams giving it their all. Both of these teams have been bitter rivals for a LONG time.
If you missed the game you missed a good one. Dallas won 21 to 18 but thanks to some stupid mistakes in the fourth quarter they could have easily lost it. The Redskins were picking up some momentum and moving the ball through the air against the Dallas secondary team and that coupled with a personal foul against a Dallas tackle could have lost them the game. I guess it is a good thing the game ran out of time with Dallas still in the lead huh? LOL... Like someone said last night, it was another UGLY Dallas victory. That is ok, atleast the W for win shows up in the Dallas stats this time no matter how ugly it was. GO COWBOYS!!!!

September 22, 2004 Health update

I have been utilizing both my Lifeclinic diaries to measure my blood pressure and calorie intake and exercise since August 29th of 2004. I have also begun to utilize a program called Diet Organizer on my Pocket PC which also allows me to input everything I eat when I am away from the house and it automatically calculates all of my calories and nutrition information.

According to Lifeclinic.com my profile states that in order to STAY or MAINTAIN my current weight I need to eat a minimum of 2771 calories. Well, I certainly DO NOT want to maintain this girth but rather I want to REDUCE it slowly but surely.

So, since August 29th I have begun the process of micro managing my calories and trying to get into the HABIT of walking or riding my elliptical trainer. I have managed to lose 6 whole pounds in the last thirty days by doing this so it IS giving me some encouragement to KEEP DOING IT!!

Baby steps. Tiny baby steps. Making the right choices every day doing what I CAN do and not worrying about the past or what the future holds. If I keep doing that then hopefully I will continue to lose weight.

Am I on a diet per sae? No, not really on a diet. What I am doing is reducing the amount of calories I eat and I am trying to switch high calorie foods to lower calorie foods when I can. An example of this is Coca Cola. My wife and I BOTH love this drink. However, one 12 oz can is 230 calories. Coca Cola just came out with a low carb low calorie substitute called Coke C2. That is ONLY 70 calories and it does not taste bad at all. So, as I rack up those calories every day I am learning what is fattening and loaded down in calories and trying to stay away from those things.

The other day I was at the snack machine at work (horrible idea I know) looking at something to eat. I had plenty of calories left to eat for that day in my calorie bank (always present in my mind now) and I saw an apple fritter that I had to have. I put my money in and off to my desk I went. AFTER I ate this thing I saw that it had a WHOPPING 400 calories. GASP!!!! I will NOT do that again. LOL..

Anyway, I hope that my being transparent here and sharing my struggles in this area will help someone who is reading this and needs a friend who understands how hard it is to shed those unwanted pounds.

Hurricanes, puppies needing new homes and health updates

Ivan missed us and IF the high pressure ridge stays in place over South Carolina so will Hurricane Jeanne. If that does happen that means that FLORIDA or Georgia could get creamed. Once Jeanne does what she is going to do then we have Hurricane Carl who is going to probably be a hurricane as well. Sigh.... All I know is I will be HAPPY when Hurricane Season is OVER.


After driving around in circles the other night we found St Paul Episcopal church in Summerville and got in line with about 30 other folks to be seen by the physician who was on duty for that evening. Apparently they have three physicians and support staff that offer their services free of charge to the community every Thursday. What a blessing that is for folks like us that have no health insurance. Katy got the prescription she needed for her Rostacia medicine and I get the prescription I needed for hypertension medicine and cholesterol. I wont start taking Lipitor until after the free blood screening at Walmart today.

I am happy to report that my blood pressure is going down after being on this medicine for only one day. Wahoooooo! I actually even feel better because of that. I dont feel like I am taking speed anymore. What a nice feeling that is for a change. My last reading was 136/87 with a pulse of 79. We are not there YET but it is certainly much better than the average 151/95 (or higher) that I have been having over the last month or two. Well, shoot, probably longer than that since I have just begun to monitor it closely.

I got my A+ Examcram book in the mail the other day so while I was at work yesterday scanning folks for weapons I managed to study 6 chapters. I have 5 chapters to go and then chapter 12 is the practice test. I also have software that came with it that has more practice questions. Once I get to the point where I can pass all the practice tests with a 90% sucess rate then I will feel ready for the test. I am glad that most of this material is mostly an overview of what I already know and a refresher on those mundane detailed technical mumbo jumbo that I have long since forgotten.

I tried to upload pictures of these FIVE puppies to my blog via Hello but "HELLO PEOPLE" it did not work. Sigh.... I just hate it when things just dont work when you NEED for it to or expect it to. Oh well, you will just have to take my word for it, these boogers are just downright cute. LOL... These puppies are hopefully going to find a new home very soon!!
Ya KNOW you just WANT one, dont you?? LOL....

Hurricane Ivan and sick friends

Hurricane season is alive and well. Hurricane Ivan is hurricane number 6 that is pounding Alabama , Florida and getting ready to head for Georgia and South Carolina where we live. As I write this several people have died due to hurricane strength winds and tornados that have been spawned by this storm. I can not wait for hurricane season to end. As I write this we have Hurricane Jeanne that is taking aim directly at the East Coast of the US where I live. We will probably have to contend with that storm sometime early next week.

My thoughts and prayers this morning go out to my friends and associates who are all battling some type of cancer. Please join me in praying for Charlie, Carol and my friend Kimberly's husband who has cancer. Actually, all three of these folks are very sick. I am going to go visit Carol this morning for the first time since she has gotten sick. I have been very selfish in not going to see her because I am afraid of seeing her in her weakening condition. I have called her several times over the last several months knowing that I need to go see her. Carol warned me that she has lost her hair and a lot of weight which I am sure has affected her alot. I guess that one reason I have not gone to see her is because it will bring back memories of watching our Jessica decline as the affects of chemo and radiation treatments along with the cancer took its toll on her body.
I also have two friends who constantly battle with depression. My thoughts and prayers go out to them as well.

Today, Katy and I will be going to a local clinic to try and get some much needed medical help. What we face is no where near as life threatening as my friends listed above but they are needing attention nevertheless. Katy is trying to get her Rostacia medicine renewed and I have hypertension issues that if left unattended could have ugly consequences. Hopefully I can get a prescription for blood pressure medicine tonight to help me with lowering my blood pressure. In the last two weeks I have been counting calories and watching what I eat very closely. Thanks to Life Clinic Website I have been able to track blood pressure readings and diet intake. I have been learning a LOT about hypertension and what is required to lower it. Life changes must happen for me and now. Thanks to my poor diet and lack of exercise I am now in a position where I have to take some drastic measures. Longevity of life is requiring that I make those life changes. I have to eat less and better and I have to exercise moderately until I can get some medication to lower my blood pressure. Left untreated hypertension can kill. That is why it is called the silent killer folks. Average blood pressure for an adult is 120/80 and mine is running anywhere from 138/87 to sometimes 155/100. That means that I am at risk for those two types of events in my life. I have REALLY been paying attention to this fact and I am trying to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING to reduce my risk. unfortunately when you can not afford medical care or insurance you are behind the eight ball with regards to getting needed treatment.

Last week I had two interviews with two local IT providers. Both of them told me emphatically that in todays current market that I MUST get my computer certifications and maybe even a degree in computer science to hope to gain a job in the IT industry. There are IT jobs available unfortunately there are more IT professionals to go around than there are jobs to fill. That means that employers are picking the cream of the crop (degreed and certified professionals over people like me) and they are able to pay minimal wages and get away with it. The supply and demand is way out of whack folks. As I look back into my past I continue to kick myself for NOT finishing RN school back when I was in my early 20's. Financially speaking I would be sitting in a much better situation. However who knows what could of or should of happened? If I had done that I might not have moved to Houston Texas and met Robbyn or Katy and my children today would not be a part of my life. Hindsight is 20/20 and even though I have regrets for not finishing my schooling and dropping out I have experienced some things in life that have enriched me greatly that I would not have experienced otherwise. I am constantly reminded that despite my plans or failures to execute and follow through successfully with some of the plans God is still in control. I have hope in that knowledge.

One employer has already hired someone (not me) and the other employer is apparently still interviewing folks. I should know something by the end of next week IF I am going to be picked. I am not holding my breath, that is for sure. LOL... On a brighter note my A+ ExamCram book has arrived and I can now begin to study for that certification. The WIA program here in SC is trying to obtain MCSE training materials for me through Specialized Solutions in Florida. I can get all the course work and study materials for MUCH less than trying to pay for it at Trident Tech. Its just a matter of me disciplining myself to sit down every day for 2 to 4 hours and study and apply myself. So, every day I will do just that. When I am working 3pm to 11 Pm 3 days per week down at the County Office building it will be easy for me to do that because I have tons of spare time in between rounds. The rest of the week will mean I have to find opportunities and places to go study. My goal is to be A+, Network + and MCSE certified by this time next year. That means I have a lot of studying to do and lots of tests to take. Once I accomplish this milestone I will be in a much better place to obtain gainful employment in a technology position.

My son Jeremy has settled into Wharton Junior College just outside of Sugarland Texas and will be there for the next year. In the mean time his step father and mother are soon to be snow birds. It is hard for me to imagine that Robbyn is going to move from her life time residence of Houston Texas area to move up north where it REALLY gets cold. We just think it gets cold during the winter here in the deep south but it is NOTHING like what it will be in Michigan during winter time. This will be a tough transition for Jeremy and his mom and step father. My thoughts and prayers go out to them as they make this huge life change.

I guess that is about it for now folks. I am going to try and stay dry and get ready to go visit my friend Carol this morning. Please pray for my sick friends that they will be at peace and receive spiritual, physical and emotional healing from our Father God who loves all of us.

God bless

Hurricane Ivan as of 8 am 9/15/04. Several deaths have been reported and lots of damage. Georgia and South Carolina should feel the affects sometime today and tomorrow as well. Tropical storm Jeanne appears to be taking aim at the East Coast sometime early next week as well.  

Here comes Hurricane Ivan. Lets remember to pray for the folks in the path of this Cat 4 Hurricane as it begins landfall. I have several freinds who are in the path of this storm. We should get a lot of rain out of this storm as well.  

Life Clinc Website is BACK!!!

Ok, Life Clinic is back online and I am SO HAPPY!! :)

Web blues

Well , I am NOT too happy about the fact that Lifeclinic.com is DEAD.... The website has been down since yesterday afternoon. SHOOT..... That is really not the word that I was thinking about BUT you get the point. Imagine me hopping up and down for a few moments... LOL... Anyway, I had not realized it until NOW but I had become VERY comfortable with keeping track of my Blood Pressure and Calories on this website every day. I sometimes will visit multiple times per day to track what I am eating etc. I did a traceroute on the domain today and my results were UNKNOWN HOST. That means that not only the server is DOWN but the DNS servers don't even recognize the domain name which is NOT good. Sigh.... Hopefully it will come back to life in the next 24 to 48 hours. If not I will be forced to purchase tracking software that is not dependent upon Internet connectivity. I have been researching some products this morning and have found some pretty good ones. Of course, none of them are FREE. There are some WEB based sites that give you a FREE basic tracking functionality but NOTHING like what Lifeclinic.com gave me. SHOOTSKIE.....

The weather here has been overcast and drizzling on and off all day. What a dreary looking mess we live in here in Duck Ditch USA. Actually, the weather is so ugly looking I think the ducks have migrated to Hawaii or some other location South that is NOT in the direct line of Hurricane Ivan who has killed 50+ people thus far as it has tracked across the Carribean. Sigh... The forecast thus far is that Ivan is going to turn North around Monday and plow into the Florida Pan Handle and track up through Georgia , Upstate SC and then up into the Eastern Coast by Wed or Thursday which means at very least we will get a LOT of rain. Can you say FLOODING in Charleston SC? All we need is a thunderstorm to dump 2 inches of water and downtown Charleston is in knee deep water. JOY....

Well, time to go to church so I need to yank myself off this keyboard and get ready.

Peace be with you!!

Visit Jesus Connect on the Web

Once upon a time Jesus Connect Ministries had a vibrant and dynamic ministry website.
What happened you say? The server that it ran on was taken away from us due to the ISP we were co locating it at went into sudden financial problems and the management company where the ISP was located took possession of everything without any warning to us. POOF. Server was confiscated and we found out too late that we did not have good backups of all our data and configurations. That was 10 years worth of work down the tubes. So, in the background Jesus Connect ministry has been reborn and a new administration program that fully automates how it is administered and recreates what users see on the front end is finally done. There are still some bugs that need to be worked out but all in all it is ready to be taken out for a serious test drive.

That is where YOU come in. Go to Jesus Connect Ministries and poke around. Prod here and there and see what you can get into. If you see something that you would like to be added just let us know. :) Add links to our Linkbase and within 24 hours I will approve them. Check out the Jesus Connect Message bases and see if there is anything there of interest.

Well, that is about it for my Jesus Connect Service Announcement. :)

Here comes Ivan the terrible

Can we say it did but then it did not? Can we pretend Ivan is just not out there and that the storm will not kill anymore people than it already has. Sigh... I guess that works only if you are a scientologist. Did I spell that right?? Did you know that Tom Cruise is a scientologist?? I did not know until just recently... I know, more worthless trivia to forget...

My son Jeremy wrote friends and family an e-mail telling us his new phone number , e-mail and blog. I am so proud of Jeremy! Go Jeremy GO!! You have a LOT of people praying and pulling for you so you go get em son!!

I had my second interview today in two days. I think that sets some sort of job search record for yours truly. I wonder if the newly recreated resume that my friend Kimberly did for me has anything to do with it? I am sure that it had some bearing on the initial interest anyway. I interviewed for about 60 minutes and I think that the conversation went pretty nicely. This particular company is a family owned computer consulting firm and they are looking to fill one position to help out the owner with his client needs. We shall see if they pick me or not pretty soon.

Jay Leno has the worlds oldest chicken on his show tonight. What is up with THAT? How do you tell the age of a chicken anyway? Who CARES how old the silly chicken is.... Please no show of hands here ok ? LOL...

I slept until 11:30 am yesterday morning so I got a late start on my day. That means that since I am used to staying awake from 6:30 am until 1 am the next day that I am wide eyed and bushy tailed at 12:22 am.... Go figure. I have to be at work at 7:30 am which is ONLY 6 hours away. Sigh.... Anyone have some extra tooth picks? I am going to need them. LOL

Hey, I know what I could wake up all the puppies and take digital pictures of them for the blog.... What an AWESOME idea... NOT. I do NOT want to hear them yammering for the rest of the night because I was desperate for something else to do at 12:30 am. LOL... I will take the pictures later. Hey Jeremy, speaking of taking pictures dude, how about a webcam for my favorite son? That would be cool, if you had a webcam in your dorm room.
Be sure to throw all the junk in the closet before your mom views the webcam though. LOL

The OLDEST chicken in the world is 14 years old and has a birth certificate. The average age of a chicken is supposed to be 7 to 8 years. The owners were looking for a chicken for their magic show in Alabama. I am going to spare you with the rest of this mindless drivel... LOL

I have to say this , the chicken, Matilda, is put in a parrot cage and has toys. Sound familiar Patty? This is a Bantee chicken?? Oh my goodness.

My mood matched the weather this morning. When I got up I suppose it was cloudy but I really dont know because I was still in CHUD mode trying to wake up. I did the usual routine as I always do and settled down in front of the 21" NEC CRT to warm up to my E-mail inbox. Before I know it the rain starts to come down. Luckily for me there was no thunderstorm just more liquid falling out of the sky. When the rain came down this morning I found myself feeling depressed. How irritating is that I asked myself as I stared into the monitor reading this and that. Why in the world do I feel depressed after getting out of bed? Well anyway, who knows, I don't have any magical answers other than I was just down in the dumps. I picked up the phone to call a friend of mine but the answering machine greeted me instead of my friend so I just hung up the phone. I really wanted to talk to a human being in the flesh. Do not get me wrong, I am an Internet junkie and cyber citizen from way back but there are times when talking to someone in IM when you need to really talk and make a connection verbally that is when cyberspace just does not cut it. Justin got up around 3:30 am with a hacking cough, sniffles, runny nose and sore throat so Katy wound up staying awake for most of the night and was asleep at this time. There was no way I was going to wake her up over this especially when I knew that this would pass eventually. I suppose depression is not something that most folks want to talk about or even admit to experiencing it. I guess it is sort of like admitting that we have a weight problem or some sort of addiction. We don't want to say those things to our families or friends because we are admitting that we have a weakness or character flaw or problem. Well, anyway, depression sucks anyway you cut it. Oh yeah, before I get away from this thought one of the reasons I knew I was depressed this morning is because my motivation level was at subterranean levels. I was barely motivated to breathe much less do anything else like get out of my chair and take a shower and get ready for my day.

When I could not think of anyone to talk to in real life (on the telephone) I reverted back to the computer monitor and noticed that one of my friends in Oklahoma was online in Yahoo IM. I wound up talking to my friend for about 15 minutes or so until he had to log off and tend to his wife this morning. One of the things that I did other than talk to my friend and admit that I was down in the dumps was to fire up Launchcast on Yahoo IM and listen to my favorite Christian Contemporary Music channel. Talking about things (banging thoughts into words on the keyboard) and listening to some upbeat music helped to quench the feelings of despair, gloominess and depression.
I finally got to the point where I needed to change my environment in hopes that doing so would help me to get a new perspective on things and shake off the dumps. After running myself through the upright water sprinkler device in the bathroom I felt better and decided that my hair DOO needed some improvement. It is amazing to me how Katy could use the clippers to snatch me almost bald you would think that the hair would grow back evenly. That is not my luck however so off to Wallyworld for a hair cut. After the hair cut I went to lunch with a friend of mine and we got caught up on life and ate some wonderful home style cooking. After lunch was over I received a phone call from an employer who wants to interview me. Actually, this is the second employer in the last two days that has responded to my sending them a resume. I am thinking that the resume that my case worker at WIA did for me is really getting me some serious results. Way to go Kimberly!!!!

The next step of the process is to sell yourself to the employer in person. That is the hardest part of the whole process in my mind. You are always faced with the questions like "why would we hire you over the other five million applicants who also responded to this job ad??" or " tell us one quality that you poses that would make you different and more suited for this position than the five million OTHER applicants for this job". Well anyway, hopefully I can make a decent impression on an employer in the VERY near future so that our deflated budget can find new LIFE. LOL....

For the first time in about 5 days the sun peeked out from amongst the clouds and began the process of turning our soggy mosquito filled tundra into a large greenhouse. Speaking of mosquito's I find that I miss this one thing about Texas. The mosquitos in Texas are so large that when they fly you can hear their wings. It sounds like a helicopter coming in and atleast you have time to move out of the way or grab a base ball bat and take a swing. The mosquitos we have here are as bad as the flying teeth (noseebums). They are all flying around in stealth mode. The only way you know you have a bug sucking you dry is the tiny prick you feel when they first bite you. If you don't feel that you are in trouble. I walked outside the other day to put Angel (our lab) on her chain and 20 of the bothersome blood sucking pests decending upon me. I could not get back inside fast enough.

Speaking of Angel that reminds me of PUPPIES. I am off tomorrow and one of my tasks will be to utilize the technology at hand to MARKET my puppies to you and everyone I know locally that has an E-mail address. These puppies are loveable, cute and are BEGGING for a NEW home. Could you imagine having to wake up and have to see the likes of me every day? Please, find it within your heart to either SAVE THE PUPPIES by giving them a new home or help me spread the word to your friends and families to see if THEY might NEED, WANT a new puppy. LOL....
That means that I will post some new PUPPY pictures for all to see sometime tomorrow so stay tuned.

I am currently in a holding pattern with regards to what method of study that I am going to undertake with regards to going back to school Twenty years ago the only method of going back to school was to do just that, go back to school and sit in a classroom with a teacher and take notes , do homework and take tests. Now that is not the case. I can either attend class at Trident Tech OR I can obtain CBT materials and do what is called SELF STUDY. There is a company out of Florida (I wonder if they are still around after this storm) who is attempting to become a verified school source for the state of SC so that they can provide me with all the curriculum on CBT and books for my MCSE certs. If I go to Trident Tech I will have to pay almost 7.000.00 for all 7 courses and exams. If we go the CBT route I can get the entire taco (minus the cost of the 7 exams) for less than 2500.00. I am also entertaining the idea of getting an associates degree in Information Technology and I am sure that within those two years that I will also gain some Microsoft Certifications also which will be nice. That of course requires grants and student loans and attending class on campus. No matter what I will eventually do I am ready to get the show on the road while I have the motivation to do something.

Well, it is time for me to get off of my behind, get out of this chair and wander out into the sauna and race the mosquitos up into the parking garage so I can make sure that all is safe and secure for our customers. OH JOY!! Talk about motivation to GET OUT of this dead end job folks. LOL...

What a mess we have on the East Coast. Frances is headed into the Gulf and we have showers and tornado watch in affect until 8pm EST today. JOY 

Hurricane Frances as of 9/2/04. At this point in time Charleston SC will not take a direct hit but we will still get some ugly weather out of Frances. Just what we need, more water... 

Hurricane Party anyone?? Well actually Gaston was only a Tropical Storm but the only thing that seperated this storm from being a full fledged hurricane was 4 MPH worth of sustained winds. Luckily for us here in the Lowcountry this baby did not develop into a beast. We managed to weather this storm without any major problems. The wind howled and blew tree limbs off but the only thing that those damaged was Justin's bycycle and it needed help anyway so no big loss. One limb that took out Justin's bike would have taken out most of the porch had it been another foot to the right. I am glad it missed.

Power went out around 11 am and stayed out until approximately 5:30 Pm. Yeah, we get to keep our food in the fridge and sleep with some cool air on us tonight. What a treat that will be!! DSL died before the lights did so hopefully that will be back online soon. I know that I know that it is possible to live without high speed Internet but I would rather not.

Now, we can look forward to Hurricane Frances who is predicted to get close to us by the end of next week. Yipes, I hope it just misses us altogether and goes somewhere else. How about going back out into the Atlantic and just spinning itself out?? That might not be a realistic wish but I will wish it for all of us. I spent most of the morning online with my friend Patty who was also online in Mt Pleasant where she weathered the worse of tropical storm Gaston. Patty told me that the wind was blowing water through the door knob where the screws hold it onto the door. The wind must have been blowing pretty hard to do that Patty. I asked Patty if she had put floaties on her three birds just in case the water starting to rise and she laughed. Now that this mess is over and to the north of us we can begin the clean up efforts and watch the waters begin to recede.

Reporting to you live from downtown Charleston South Carolina.

Unwanted wet visitor - Tropical Storm Gaston

Well, whether we like it or not our wet and windy tropical storm Gaton is almost upon us.
As you can see I have been able to post some radar and satellite images for you compliments of Intellicast.com and Counton2.com. It is currently raining on and off and the winds are gusting at 15 to 20 MPH as of 6 am this morning. The good thing is thus far we have not had any bad thunderstorms or lightning or tornados spawning off of the rain bands thus far. Hopefully this is the worst that it will get but I am sure as the storm advances onto the coast that the action will pick up some. I am supposed to work down at the Charleston County Office building today at 3 Pm until 11 Pm but I doubt that it will be open. The last time we were threatened by a hurricane the County Management boarded up things and sent everyone home. I called down to the security desk at 5:30 am and no one answered the telephone so hopefully that means they were sent home. Dowtown Charleston floods at the drop of a few inches of rain and we are going to get more than that before the day is out. I will take some digital pictures as the day progresses so you can see whatever happens.

Katy's long term substitute teaching position lasted all of two weeks and one day. I cant tell you how badly that went for Katy. Katy was so excited to be in her own classroom and poured her heart and soul into what she was doing. Just as she was getting ramped up to do some real teaching when the books FINALLY arrived the principal pulled her into his office and told her that a permanent teacher had been found. Needless to say this upset Katy and apparently took the staff by surprise that the school district was able to find someone so quickly. Nevertheless no matter what the school principal thought or did not think about how quickly a teacher would be found he had to find someone immediately to fill the role of a teacher for that classroom because school was opening for the 2004/2005 school year.

The puppies are getting larger and LARGER as the days go by. My goodness how they have grown in just a couple of days. Well , I guess it has been more like a week or so since they were born. Their eyes are now open and each one has a name thanks to Kristina and Justin overlooking their care.

Last week I found out that I did qualify and was registered for the Workforce Initiative Assistance program. My WIA case worker is very familiar to me in that Kim and her husband used to come visit me on Saturday at Goodwill when I used to work in the service center. Apparently they have been shopping around for a bargain computer and wound up talking to me on several occasions. My oh my, it is a small world after all. :)

I had a meeting with one of the program leaders at Trident Technical College and learned several things. The program leader told me that he is willing to start a class for me and one other person who works at Deyten Shipyard on Monday and Thursday evenings from 6 Pm to 9:30 Pm. The MCP courses would be the modules on installing and implementing Windows 2003 desktop operating system and server. I am not sure WHY they are not offering Windows 2000 though since 2003 gold code has not even been released to the public yet.
From what I can tell they are not even offering 2000 classes. Anyway, the state is picking up the tab for the first two courses and exams to the tune of 999.00 per course so I am going to try and knock these two courses out and then worry about what I will do for the other 5 courses and exams to get my MCSE. Once I pass 4 exams I will have my MCP and MCSA certs which will look nice on my resume. That will hopefully be a good thing as it will make me much more marketable in this very tough IT industry. I also found out that professional certifications are considered continuing education and you can not get student loans or grants to pay for it. That really bites. How can they consider an MCSE certification continuing education when I dont have a college degree yet? Go figure....

Kim at WIA has me set up to take another Keypress basic english and math skills test on this coming up Wed at 8:20 am. I took prep exams two weeks ago that proved I can pass the exams and now they want me to take three modules that last approximately 45 min.. apiece to prove further that I am no dummy. LOL... I suppose if the state is going to pay for my "continuing education" the least I can do is jump through all of the ridiculously tedious process and take their exams. Atleast I have a goal and I am working towards it.
Hopefully I will be able to start taking the first course in September. I believe it is 2 days per week for 5 weeks or something like that. A friend of mine in Atlanta told me that I need to get the TestKing modules for the track that I am on and that this will help me to pass the Microsoft tests since their tests are almost word for word of the actual exams. So, I guess I will do that as well. Anything I can do to get an edge to pass the exams is what I need to do.

On the school front Justin auditioned and got accepted into the Dolphin group at school at Sedgefield Intermediate. Last year when Kristina was there it was called Super Stars but I guess since that music teacher left to pursue her Masters degree that there is a new teacher and they decided to rename the program. Okie dokie smokey, whatever floats yer boat is fine with me. How much is it going to COST me is the million dollar question. LOL Whoever said that public education is FREE was smoking MAJOR drugs and ought to get years of therapy because they are WRONG. School has only begun this year and the kids are already bringing home pieces of paper with notices about this program and that program and how much it will cost us for our children to participate.

Kristina joined the band and is practicing learning how to play the clarinet AND has signed up for Chorus. Kristina found out the other day that even though she signed up for both she is only showing up on the Band List. Kristina loves to sing and I must say she does have a LOT of potential if she will only develop what natural talent she has in that area. So, hopefully the 35.00 monthly clarinet rental will magically disappear and she will devote her energies into voice lessons and chorus. :) Speaking of the clarinet have you EVER tried to push wind through one of those things? Good grief grady how hard can it be? Trust me when I tell you that I almost busted a lung trying to get some air to go through this thing. It was like putting your lips to the tail pipe of your car and huffing and puffing and nothing happening other than your almost having a myocardial infarction. Of course I stopped short of that after managing to get one tiny squeal through that thing.

On the health front here on the home front I have been a bit concerned about my blood pressure spiking on me from time to time. It feels as if I am on speed when this happens and I just hate how that feels. If you ever took no doze to stay awake when you were younger so you could go to school and work two jobs then you remember that feeling. Hopefully none of us took speed for the kick of it..... LOL.... Experiment with drugs?? NOT US.... Why we would NEVER do that would we... hahahahahahah Eh hemmmmmm...
Anyway back at the ranch and my blood pressure and weight problem. My friend Patty was gracious enough to help me purchase a blood pressure machine since ours seems to have started to malfunction and keeps coming up with error codes instead of working. We bought the thing 3 years ago and now it no longer works. Go figure. Anyway I got the blood pressure machine last night at Wallyworld and I have been taking readings about once every two or three hours. I am using Life Clinic Website as a place to record all sorts of health related information. You can record your exercise schedule, blood pressure, glucose, blood sugar levels and much much more. This website is a plethora of information for those of us that are having health problems due to OBESITY. Being over weight is just not good any way you cut it. My doctor friend sent me several documents last night that basically told me that if I want to live long enough to see my kids graduate college that I had better get REAL serious about losing some of this blubber. Sigh and double sigh... This is no surprise to me folks, I know that I know that I need to cut back on the grub intake and get some exercise. In the last year or so I have gotten much better at eating less and exercising more. However that has only enabled me to NOT gain anymore and just maintain my current weight. That means that I need to cut back even more on my calorie intake and exercise more so I can start to burn those unwanted pounds of cellulite. That my friend is easier said than done. KWIM??

IR shot of Gaston at 6:23 am 8/29/04 compliments of Counton2.com. Winds are up to about 15 to 20 mph gusting here in Goose Creek with some rain on and off. Nothing major yet 

Radar image compliments of Counton2.com, as you can see we are in the soup now... This was taken around 5:30 am 

Radar and Satellite image compliments of Intellicast. I woke up at 5:23 am with debris hitting the roof of our trailer. Winds have picked up substantially over night.  

Local Doppler radar at 11:30 pm as we watch the outer bands of TS Gaston coming inland.  

August 28, 2004 11:30pm EST. Tropical Storm Gaston bearing down on the barrier islands of South Carolina between Charleston and Georgetown.  

IR picture compliments of Intellicast of Depression 7 for 2004 sitting off the coast of SC.  

I am veweeey vewwwwy sweeepppiiieeeeee... 

Group sleep over and under and on top and well, you get the picture huh? 

Our new puppies thanks to Angel and Sammy!!