Technology Corner April 23, 2005

The week in the life of an A+ Certified Computer Professional. Oh my, that sounds nice huh? Well, trust me when I tell you this, it may sound nice but it does not pay as much as I would like or have been used to. So much for that thought lest I digress.

Monday morning comes along and I am greeted in e-mail by a distress call by a customer who tells me their Dell Poweredge server had been rebooted on Saturday but never came back online properly. So, off to the races I went. I already had several service calls scheduled but this bumped this customer to the top of the list. No file, print or e-mail services means critical business down priority. That means drop your sausage egg and cheese biscuit back in the bag, grab your orange juice, laptop bag and tools, hop in the car and drive to the customer site as fast as you can get there.
So, I arrive at the customer site around 8 am on Monday morning and luckily for me one call to Dell Server Support and two hours later we managed to remount the two drives that had dismounted and the server was back online rebuilding its RAID 5 configuration. Here is a picture of the sick server for those of you that would like a visual reference.

This particular customer bought the server but never really gave much thought as to where they would put it so it wound up in a break room near a sink with running water (gasp). LOL.. Well the server is about 4 feet away from the sink and the server is sitting on the counter with the monitor sitting very close to the edge of the counter. Anyway, its very obvious that the server was an after thought when they bought it. LOL...
Oh yeah, back to the service call on Monday. The admin person that was on site Saturday afternoon was eye balling the backup log for Veritas BackupExec when they noticed that Windows Update had downloaded and installed an update and wanted to reboot the server. Being as no one else was there the admin person rebooted the server and very shortly regretted doing it. They wound up having to email me about the problem from their home email address and because I rarely check my work email during the weekend I did not get it until the following Monday morning.
What happened is when the server rebooted there were a couple of dos based selections that the user needed to respond to AND one of the network cards was set in the BIOS to boot to LAN therefore was sitting at a DHCP dos screen looking for a network boot device and the user needed to just hit esc to blast past that screen. Drives 4 and 8 were dismounted therefore causing the RAID 5 Array to not mount.

In a RAID (Random Array of Independent Disks) you have five hard drives. One drive is used for parity (error checking) therefore its drive space is used up for that and then you have four drives that are used to stripe the information to. In a RAID 5 configuration you can lose one drive completely and the virtual disk will stay in tact but if you lose two of the drives your ship is sunk. Well, anyway I was able to remount both drives, force them back online and let the RAID Array manager within the OS rebuild them. So, around 10:30 am I verified users were back online, logged on to the network, surfing the NET and getting their data and email. Once that was done I was out of there.
The rest of my Monday was spent driving all over the Low Country taking care of this and that printer calls. Monday was one of those hurry up and rush around until your hair catches on fire days.
Tuesday was a relatively easy day that allowed me to putter around in the shop fixing a couple of pc's that I had been waiting on parts for. Tuesday evening even allowed me the time to sit down and study in my MCSE Windows Server 2003 Environment book. I guess I spent from around 5pm until around 8:30 pm studying before I finally went home.
Wednesday arrived with a bang and I found myself running around all over the lowcountry again doing this and that. I started my day out on Sullivan's island at a customers house installing a Linksys wireless print server.

I could not get this thing to talk on the existing wireless network to save my life. I was smart though and instead of spending countless hours beating my head on the coffee table I called Linksys tech support sooner vs later. The problem I was having turned out to be that the user was using XP Professional on their IBM Stinkpad (snicker) and had their Network Connection firewall protected via the Service Pack 2 built in Internet firewall. I had already deduced earlier that this was a problem because I had turned off the Norton Anti Virus Internet Security Firewall on the laptop to no avail. I just forgot to check the Internet Connection to see if it TOO had a firewall turned on. Sigh.... Protection is great to keep the goolies away but if you have too much protection you might as well use the device for a boat anchor. LOL...
I left Sullivans Island around 11 pm, headed out to a customer in the Cainhoy/Huger area , got down diagnosing a pc there and then headed over to the next customer in Summerville SC. This call was for an ancient HP Color Laser Jet printer 5m.

The error message on the screen was 11.4 Load paper in tray 1. The first thing I did was to remove the paper tray, turn on the flashlight bend over and look into the paper path where the tray is. There to my wandering eyes was a piece of mangled paper sitting there in the paper path at the end of the printer. I removed this piece of paper and replaced the paper tray and the printer was happy again. The office manager was not too happy that her staff was not observant enough to catch this problem. I bet they check this out the next time BEFORE they call us out. LOL.....
I was finished with my service calls on Wed around 2:30 pm and I was close to my customer that had server problems on Monday so I figured I would get a burger from McDonalds and then go over there to their break room, eat lunch, check email and check on their backups. When I got there I was greeted by drive four which had dropped offline again and was blinking an orange light. The orange light means a caution condition on the server vs a blue light on the display or a green light on the drive. Orange lights on the server makes network admins like me see RED which causes us to jump into action. So, as you can imagine my leisurely lunch turned into another support call to Dell Tech Support (they rock by the way) and I spent from 3 pm until 8:30 pm with them on the phone diagnosing this and that. We came to the conclusion that the backplane, SCSI drive ID 4, daughter card and scsi adapter cable were faulty. Dell set up the service call for Friday and shipped the parts to a Dell service tech who met me at the client site on Friday.
Thursday was pretty quiet at the office so it allowed me some downtime to study and take care of some office chores that normally dont get done when I am running around with my hair on fire.
Friday morning consisted of one service call to a customer who had moved and the movers (never let a furniture mover move your server or printers folks) had dropped the HP 4550 color laser jet and broke off the plastic back cover.

This printer new costs almost 2500.00 so you can imagine the horror of finding out that the movers (clutz) had damaged the printer. Luckily for the customer the damage was very superficial and they are only going to be out 177 bucks to replace the back cover which of course will be forwarded on to the moving compay for reimbursement.
Well, that pretty much concludes my Monday through Friday I.T. job and what I encountered day to day.

Battle Plan Ministries Freedom Banquet being held May 19-20. 

Battle Plan Ministries Anniversary Banquet May 19th and 20th

I am excited to announce that Battle Plan Ministries will be hosting its 5 year reunion at a banquet at the fellowship hall at Central Church in Collierville Tenn. The Director, Dr. Bill Berry has been heading up this ministry both online and in his church for the last 9 years. BPM is celebrating its 5 years of being an official ministry outreach at Central Church. I am planning on attending and am hopeful to meet some dear friends and aquaintances from online over the years. I have been blessed to have met Bill and Elly Berry when we were called to go to Bonnyville Alberta Canada back in 1995 when we went to speak to 6 different church groups about sexual purity and the impacts of pornography on the church today. If you are not aware of this pornography is a billion dollar industry and it has a very devestating impact on the lives of people who get hooked and it impacts marriages and families and communities in a very negative way. The goal of Battle Plan Ministries is to bring healing and restoration to the men and women and family members that get caught up in this addiction. You can read more about the "Battle Plan" at http://www.battleplanministries.org where you can read and print out the step by step battle plan that Dr. Bill Berry formulated and used in his own battle against pornography. If you know of anyone who is helplessly addicted to pornography or has some sort of sexual addiction of any type this is a very good resource for them to have. Not only is there a battle plan that can be printed out but you will also find online warriors who are involved in online accountablity through the BPM message bases and one on one e-mail for those who need it and ask for it. As you take the time to view the many web pages you will see personal testimonies of men and women who have experienced a touch from the masters hand as their lives have been changed as they have learned how to walk out of the darkness of habitual sin and into God's glorious redemptive light of healing and restoration. You will see my testimony that I wrote all most 8 years ago as I was working with Dr. Bill Berry when his online ministry first began and took on life of its own.

The following excerpt comes from the e-mail announcement I received from Dr. Bill Berry

Men, ... as you know, here in the USA it is very rare for any church to have a declared, open warfare ministry to combat the evils of our hypersexual world and the damage the enemy does to spiritual warriors, especially Christians. But Battle Plan Ministry is one of those ministries; and on May 19th, Central Church will celebrate 5 years of God using BPM to reach out to help Christian soldiers on the battle fields of this world.
On that date, my church family will have a VICTORY BANQUET where we will hear some of the testimonies from those whom God has helped through BPM. Oh, how wed love to have some of you online soldiers to be there. Two of our number, Pastor Dave Morgret and Brother Rahsaan Brayboy, currently two of our BPM forum Moderators, will be here to give testimony/witness to the power of God through our online ministry. There will also be testimonies from our local men who have been, or are being, helped by BPM here in the live world. And there will be exciting expositions of our newest outreach programs: #1, for women, the silent victims of the sexual sin in the lives of the beloved men in their lives [called Faithful Warriors]... and #2 an informational and resource program for parents of adolescents and teens to help them arm their homes for battle against the enemy trying to get in and tear families apart with the bombardment from their TVs and PCs. And finally, as you can read below, we will have an appearance by Clay Crosse, a well-armed supporter of BPM. Clay is a triple, Dove-award Christian singer, who has a powerful testimony of deliverance from habitual sexual sin. He will be there to lead our worship, sing, and give his testimony.
So, as you can read, this is going to be an EXCITING EVENT to shine a light on BPM at Central Church. Other church leaders from here in Memphis will invited to attend and see what a ministry like BPM could mean for their churches. So, you can see why wed like for any of you to be here to share in this event. If you are so led and can make it to Collierville, TN, on May 19-20, we will also have a more intimate dinner on May 20th at the Condo clubhouse where I live for our BPM warriors. As I said, wed love to see any or all of you come; but I know the limitations of schedule, family, career, and other priority conflicts. So, no guilt or pressure is being applied here.
If you can come, please let me know. Ill need to help you either find a hotel accommodation; of, if $$$ is a factor, Id be glad to help you find a bed with one of our church family. But Ill need to know by MAY 1st to be able to do that. And also please let me know whether youd be able to be here for both nights. You dont have to reply with regrets; but if you cant make it, Id appreciate any prayer warfare that you could commit to on a daily basis; and let me know if youll do that! Also anyone who has the resources and feels so led, a donation for BPM to support this effort would be appreciated. Events like this do cost money! Duh !!! Go to THIS LINK for a reminder of how to give to BPM.
Well, ... Heres our flyer for your edification ... And blessings from Willie B. Warrior .... Bill

Kristina Lynn Moffitt April 2005 school pictures 

Tuesday April 11, 2005

There is nothing more awesome than family. Do you know what I mean? It feels good to be at home surrounded with my family and watching them go about their daily lives. It is good to be at home this evening sitting here at the computer listening to praise and worship music on the computer and writing in one of my blogs.
I can listen to the praise and worship cd because Katy and I fixed the computer recently. Katy diagnosed it and I fixed it. LOL... How do you like them apples? The sound magically quit working several weeks ago without warning. We are running Windows 2000 Professional on the pc here at home because the BIOS does not fully support XP Professional for some reason. Anyway, one day the sound just quit working and when I went into the device manager I noticed that the audio controller had a red x on it and was not working. So, I tried to uninstall the driver and reinstall it to no avail. So, I figured that the audio controller on the motherboard was toast and just gave up. I NEVER thought to check the sound card and give consideration that it was bad. After all, I have had this computer for 5+ years.
Yesterday Katy told me that she ran the Windows troubleshooting wizzard and it told her that the sound card was bad. So, on a hunch I went to Wallyworld and purchased the new sound card and installed it. Well, since I am listening to music on the PC you can figure out the rest. Sometimes it pays to go back to the basics and not assume that the problem is more complicated than it really is. It sure is good to have sound on the computer again. Thanks Katy!!
Katy went to an interview today at MUSC in hopes that they will hire her which would be just in time for summer break. So, if you would, say a prayer that the interviewer and powers to be at MUSC will find favor in Katy and she will get an offer soon. I too am trolling the waters for a BETTER paying job. I am thankful for the job I have but I am still way under employed with regards to the salary that I am used to making and NEED to make in order to get the finances back on track. So, I suppose that is also a prayer request for me.
Gosh will American Idol ever end? LOL It seems as if this has been going ON and ON and ON. Justin and Kristina (and Katy) just LOVE American Idol..
Well that is it for now. Chow !!

Wireless Networking and mobile computing

I am finding that wireless access points are really becoming more common place than they were a year ago. Last year when I first got hooked on wireless networking I had to search pretty hard to find a business that had wireless access and then of course you had to pay for it by signing up with Thinkspot or whomever to get access while you sipped on yoru favorite latte. That is not the case anymore as it seems that you can drive down most busy business park and find FREE wireless access points broadcasting a signal. More often than not the business WAP will be locked down and you will find that most home owners take their Linksys WAP out of the box and plug it in and just use the default settings for their wireless networking setup. In an effort to make Wireless more appealing and accessible to the masses Linksys, Dlink, Motorola and other manufacturers have set their hardware up so that it is pretty idiot proof. No, I am not saying YOU are an idiot when it comes to technology but what I am saying is that most if not all end users WANT and NEED to USE the technology and could really care less about reading the manual or God Forbid get caught up in some sort of Voice Mail Hell or spend hours on the phone with someone from India that can barely speak our language (English) and has a hard time understanding our questions IF it is outside of the script that he or she has been given to follow. Why is it most, if not all , support people assume that everyone is an idiot? LOL...

Last night a friend of mine and I zoomed down to Myrtle Beach to find the nearest Fudruckers Hamburger joint and during our trip we used the GPS receiver and Microsoft Streets and Trips to see where we were going and we fired up Net Stumbler version 4 so that we could browse all the Wireless Access Points that popped up all around us. All in all we had a very enjoyable trip and had a blast eating good food and playng around and talking about technology in general.

One of the things that I am learning is that I would whole lot rather access WAP's and surf the web and get my e-mail on my laptop vs trying to do this on my Pocket PC. What a major pain in the keister that is. Tap tap tap tap until you have carpal tunnel syndrome if you ask me. LOL... It just takes me longer to do things vs having a full sized keyboard and a mouse to use which makes things oh so much faster in my mind.

Well, lets see, what would be heaven on earth to this propellerhead? Constant supply of all the foods I like, a card game with my friends and wireless access so I can chat with my Internet friends and family. What else could a guy want?

God forbid, the ACLU is upset again

A relative of mine who is a long time Marine sent me a picture of many marines with their heads bowed and eyes closed as they prayed during some sort of government led ceremony. Supposedly the ACLU is up in arms about this and hollering about the separation of church and state. Well, let me say this for the record. I do not know IF this is a true story or not. What I do know is that the ACLU certainly is VERY active in doing what they can to destroy faith based ACTIONS of believers in Christ. How long will it be before our government outlaws our basic fundamental rights to own a bible and attend our local churches or hold bible studies in our own homes? Think about it folks... Our faith is not the most popular thing going.... I am talking about christians who believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that he died on the cross for the sins of the world past present and future. Is Jesus Christ the saviour of the world and Lord or not? Everyone has to answer that question for him and herself. Anyway, here is my response to the relative who sent me this e-mail this morning.
Actually I find that the ACLU is the puppet of the devil aka the prince of darkness or god of this world as we know it. The world as we know it is hell bent on destroying itself and it is largely due to the influences of our master deceiver himself. The ACLU wants us to ignore our creator and focus entirely on the things of this world and for us to be our own gods. After all, in their mind, our right wing fundamentalist conservative bible based faith is based on nothing but fairy tales. Do you know why the ACLU has so much influence on the things of faith today? It has this much influence because the church as we know it is fat, lazy , lethargic and sleepy. We are too comfortable in our churches, pews and programs to do what it takes to be heard. We dont want to upset the apple cart and we certainly do not want to sacrifice our creature comforts to stand on what we believe. How important is our faith anyway? How much are we willing to invest? Time, talents, money, faith are all necessary tools that we must be willing to invest. Sin is so rampant in our world and no longer in the closet because the church is no longer affecting the world around it. Our church's have ministers/pastors that spend too much time preaching a watered down feel good theology that tells people that it is ok, God loves you and there is no such thing as a literal hell and we certainly don't want to scare you into heaven or for you to leave because we want and need your tithe money.

Windows Server 2003 install sucessful

This is my 2nd Windows Server 2003 install and I was sucessful this time around.
I installed the Network Operating System on a 1 GHZ system that has a Celeron chip and 256 mb of ram. The system has four USB ports, one integrated NIC, one pci NIC ,integrated sound, DVD player, cd rom and two hard disks. One hard disk, the primary hd is a 30gb drive with one partition formatted FAT32 and the second drive is a 40 gb hard disk with two partitions. One partition where Windows 2003 server is located is on a 21 gb partition. I have one partion which is 19 gb in size and is not formatted currently.
Not only is the server up and running on a seperate Domain on our LAN but I am able to log on to that domain from one of my laptops. I was not able to do that before which really bummed me out. Well, you know what they say, try, try and try again. If you do not suceed just keep on a trying.
Now I am able to go through each chapter of my FIRST core four MCSE/MCSA exam book 70-290 and do the practice labs like I am supposed to. Cool stuff if you ask me. Theory is good and we all need to understand theory but we also need to understand how to apply the theory in practical application. I like this feature of this self paced training kit in that it gives you plenty of opportunity to TRY IT OUT by doing the task first hand.

Good Friday

I hope that you enjoy your day off IF you are one of the fortunate ones that get a day off on Good Friday. Our employer MIGHT let us go home early today if we are extremely LUCKY..... Then again, the motto around here is if you do not work you do not get paid so I suppose that I would rather just stay all day so I can get paid. I remember the days of working for a company that actually had benefits that included so many sick days per year or personal days just in case your life demanded that you get something done during normal business hours. I remember the days of getting paid /medical/vision/life insurance. Well, for me and for now those days are a thing of the past. I am thankful that I have a full time job and I get a pay check every two weeks. Thank you Jesus for my jobs. It takes a full time job and part time job for me and Katy works a full time job for us to make ends meet.
I just paid $2.01 per gallon to fill up my Pontiac Grand Prix SE. The total for that bill was 28.00 which is not anywhere near as bad as the lady that was filling up the Yukon which requires 80.00 worth of gasoline. OMG people, can you imagine filling up your vehicle and putting 80.00 worth of gas in it. Whew....... Can we say highway robbery folks?
Lets NOT forget that today is Good Friday. We will be showing the Passion of the Christ movie tonight at church at 7pm so that we can be "In Rememberance of Him". I am sure that there will be a lot of kleenex being passed around the sanctuary as we watch the portrayal of our Lord and Savior being stripped, beaten, mocked and then hung on a cruel Roman Cross for all the world to see. I can not even imagine the Love that is required to take upon the sins of the world past , present and future. For God so loved the world that He gave his ONLY begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him will have eternal life. A very familiar verse to most of us but unfortunately we seem to lose sight of it on a daily basis.
Sunday is the day that we will celebrate Easter and folks , let me remind you, it has nothing to do with the Easter bunny nor does it have to do with wearing your newest clothes to church. Easter has to do with the resurrection of Jesus Christ where the prophecies of old are proven to be correct and Christ defeats sin and death once and for all.
I hope and pray that your mind and heart and spirit is focused on what is important this weekend as we walk down the road of life in the next three days. How significant and important these days are is all up to us.
God bless

Propellerhead Spinoff

Gosh, I just LOVE to blog. Do you know what I mean? I suppose some folks go to a psychiatrist for therapy , I just peck away at my keyboard and let the thoughts flow. I hope that whatever you do provides you with just as much theraputic release as blogging does for me. KWIM??
My day started out at 6:30 am just as it always does. I packed my bag, hopped in my Pontiac Grand Prix SE and headed off for Ashley Frustrate road. At 9 am I headed to a client site where I spent 4 hours playing around with Backupexec and Microsoft Exchange. The backups are working however BE (backupexec) is showing the backups as failed. The backup is backing up all the SHARES on the server (C,D,E drives) as well as Microsoft Exchange Information Store and mailboxes as well as the NT Server downstairs. Backupexec from Veritas provides you with a server edition of their software and then you install agents for backing up application services like Microsoft Exchange and allows you to connect to other servers and backup its resources. The only problem with BE is that if it runs into one tiny problem with the backup it shows it as failed. The only successful backup is one that has 100% success with no errors. So, there you have it, the customer would like to see their backup STATUS show as successful. I can hardly blame them for that.
I finally got Veritas Tech support online and I worked with one of their engineers back and forth via e-mail and a webex remote control session so they could see what I was looking at. I wound up having to install BE service pack 2 and one hotfix that is supposed to fix the problem. Come to find out my customer has some corrupt e-mail in some of the mailboxes that is causing BE to have a hissy fit and fail the status of the backup.
In the morning I will check the backup again and HOPEFULLY the service pack and hotfix will have worked miracles. I am not holding my breath though. We need to get into several of the mailboxes on the server and delete all the junk email that is causing problems. KWIM ?? Until that happens the backup is probably going to show failed. The good thing is that while the corrupt email is not being backed up all of their other data is being backed up without a problem. So, if there is a problem and they need something restored I feel confident that I can restore it from the backup.
I headed back to the office on Ahley Frustrate around 2:30 pm where I indulged in a LATE lunch consisting of a ham and cheese sandwich on rye bread with chips and chili con queso sauce and cranberry apple juice. Of course right when I am making my sandwich and hoping to sink my teeth into it in walks a customer that has a problem with his PC and wants to stand at the customer service area and chat about it for about 20 minutes. I am glad that something did not drag my sandwich off the counter and eat it before I could get back. LOL... I guess that means that we dont have anything crawling around in the kitchen huh??
My perspective customer has a Compaq computer that is under warranty. He bought it and it came with a trial version of Mickeysoft Office. Try it for 90 days and then register it online (pay for it). If you do not then you can not access any of the data that you just created. Neat trick huh?? Mr. customer got smart and said "to heck with that folks" not me, not gonna play that game. I will just pull this sucker out of here by the tail and continue to use Mickeysoft Works instead. Lo and behold when he ripped Office out by the roots Works went belly up. Actually Works worked just had problems with the word processor working properly. I wound up telling the customer that the hardware warranty does not cover software and that if he wanted a custom configuration with regards to OS and only the apps he wants that he would have to go buy XP , install it and then install the apps he wants with nothing else. I told him if he did that and ran into driver problems then he could bring it to me to finish it up. The computer is only 2 months old and so I would imagine that XP will find almost all of the drivers needed.
Gosh, I can not tell you how happy I was to reaquaint myself with my sandwich which was lying right where I left it. I finished off lunch, checked e-mail and then grabbed some parts that had come in for another client who has a HP 4550 color laserjet printer. It took me approximately 30 min to replace the ETB (electronic transfer belt), Image Drum (also known as toner cartridge that has a built in display drum) , Fuser Assembly, two filters and assorted paper pick up rollers. I got everything put back together in short order and went to plug in the printer. As soon as I put the power cord into the power receptacle guess what. The power receptacle for the printer pushed right back into the body of the printer. Oh well, so much for a simple maintenance kit job. LOL...
I spent the next 30 EXTRA minutes for the customer trying to make a path into the area where the power receptacle is so I could fix the problem right. I pulled about 25 screws out of this beast and I was no closer to getting inside the printer than a man on the moon would have been to getting cheese off the surface. I was able to put my finger up into an access hold at the bottom and push the power receptacle towards the back so I could plug in the power cord. I told the customer that they have two options. Pay me 85.00 per hour (hourly rate) to gut the machine and fix it right OR they could put the printer in place and just not unplug it EVER. The customer opted for the cheaper mode of handling this so they signed my invoice and off the the races I went. That is right, back to Ashley Frustrate again. I get to the office and find out that at 1 minute after 5pm everyone has left and guess what? My office key right along with my car keys were locked in the office with the alarm on. DOH....
I dialed up my friend Erica who was kind enough to drive all the way back to the office and let me in so I could end my day. Whew, thanks Erica...
The only other exciting thing that I did today was to lay in my recliner and snore until it was time to go to church for potluck dinner. Yummy yummy for the tummy!!

My pastor sent me this knowing how I feel about the Easter Bunny and the true meaning of Easter. LOL... 

The new Cooper River Bridge nears completion

If you go to http://www.cooperriverbridge.org/ you will see more information and pictures about this bridge. I can not wait for it to be completed. I do not feel safe driving across either of the older bridges that are currently in place. The new bridge is supposed to handle 8 lanes of traffic which will be very nice.

The New Cooper River Bridge nears completion here in Charleston SC.  

What an interesting day!!

It is 7:31 pm and I am holed up at church with my family. The church is a refuge in many ways for us. One way that it is a refuge is that we come here during bad weather events. Currently we have a string of thunderstorms heading up the East Coast so we are playing it safe and hanging out at the church. We are under a tornado watch and there could be hail and high wind. The reason we are hanging out at church is because I refuse to be in the double wide trailer that we call home when bad weather hits. How many videos have you seen where tornados have touched down and there were no trailers that got hit during the storm? I rest my case, there is almost always a trailer park that gets nailed. Call me chicken little or whatever, I am going to error on the side of caution. LOL....

My son Jeremy has a blog and you can find that at the following URL. http://germe.blogspot.com/ I really enjoyed reading what Jeremy had to say so give him a visit and say something if you want. I am so proud that he is in Junior College and doing so well. I am also proud that he is taking steps to taking off some extra pounds. Jeremy and I have that in common. I too need to watch what I eat, eat less of it and get more exercise. In the last couple of months I have really struggled in that area. I just have not had the mental energy or will power to get on the elliptical trainer. I am happy to say that I have been able to maintain the same weight within about 10 lbs. One week it comes off and I will leave it off and then two weeks later if I am not careful about what I stick in my head it is back. Grrrrrr
Anyway, lets see, what did I do today. This morning was pretty routine at the office. Our admin lady was out having outpatient surgery so the guys were pretty much on their own. Dave (sales dude) got to the office around 8 am this morning. We ate breakfast, chatted and generally had a pretty easy morning. For the last several months I have been working in the shop area since we had our senior engineer on site. However, Jerry has moved to the Greenville area and his office is now vacant. For the last couple of days I have been using his old office so that I could be closer to the other folks that work there. I get tired of having to walk from the front of the office to the back of the office multiple times per day especially when I am the only person there and the front door opens. Anyway, I decided that I did not like sitting in Jerry's old office so I went into the other side office near the front, cleaned it out, moved the desk and brought my stuff out of Jerry's office into it making it my own. I still have some things to do in order to get it where I want it but it is much cosier than sitting in the shop area where the desk is so darn small.
I went to lunch with a dear friend in Mt Pleasant and then went back to the Town of Summerville to check on a back up and talk to the town administrator about up coming tasks on their network. The weather started to get bad this afternoon around 4pm so when I got off of work around 4:30 pm I headed back to Mt Pleasant and had an early supper with my friend. I made it back to Duck Ditch USA around 7pm and the weather was about the same as it was in Mt Pleasant. Lots and lots of rain. So, here we are sitting at church waiting for the weather to settle down so we can go home.

On HOLD again....

I am sitting here on HOLD waiting for someone at Laptop Parts to help me with the price for a DVD writer for an IBM Thinkpad 2652. I have been on the phone for the last hour with both IBM and Laptop Parts and I am not getting anywhere. I want to pick up the phone and throw it out into Ashley Phosphate Rd and watch the traffic destroy the phone. Do I have PHONE RAGE or what? LOL... Then there is the MUZAK you get to listen to and the female voice that originates from phone hell that tells you that they appreciate your patience and to please continue to GROW OLD while you wait for a human to show up on the line. My question is this. When the human does show up will they give me the information I NEED or will they just send me on another worthless wild goose chase again.
Lets see, what have I done today thus far. I had someone bring in a Compaq Presario computer with video problems which I fixed by going into SAFE MODE and then System Tools and the restore function. I restored the pc to last Wednesday , rebooted and walaa the video was fixed. Imagine how easy that was... The customer picked up the machine and said that he tried that and it did not work for him. Hummmmm Maybe he was not holding his mouth just right?
Oh goodie Laptopparts sales is now on the line, maybe I will get lucky this time. hahahahahaha

The Jury is still out

if you go to http://moffittjc.myblogsite.com/blog you will see that i am playing around with the following new blogsite.

I am currently deliberating IF I want to really use this web site for my blogging needs. There are pro's and con's I suppose. One of the things that I like about this website interface is that it gives you a LOT of bells and whistles which in turn allows you to have a more interactive experience with your readers. That could be good or bad depending on how much WORK you want to put into your site. The nice thing about Blogger is that you use your bloggar application to post a simple message to your Blogspot.com website and you are done. No fuss , no muss. One application does it all. If you want to post pictures however you have to use an application by Piscea called Hello. You use that app to upload your pictures to your blog and it takes care of all the formatting etc. Presto, it is done in a snap which is pretty nice.
The downside to all the bells , whistles and options is that you find yourself doing way more WORK than you wanted to in the first place JUST to have the ability to notify people that you have posted a message to your blog. The flip side to this problem is for me to BEG people to embrace RSS and the appropriate RSS feed reader applications and just have them plug in my RSS syndicated feed and then they could get notice of new posts that way. The problem with the RSS reader app is that you need to use an RSS service or application that will put an app in your system tray that will notify you of new posts. Bloglines.com does just that.
This interface does allow you to import all of your past blogs into your new one here. However, it will take me about 30 minutes to completely reconfigure my blogger blog to make this happen and then I have to change everything back the way it was when I am done. I have over 400 messages so that would take me forever. NOT....
Well, there ya have it in a tiny cracked little nut shell. Bells and whistles and lots of work just for the ability of someone getting notified that I have driveled one more time in my blog. As I said in the article title here, the jury is still out on this....

ok, so here is the deal pickle. Yes, i am talking to YOU. You are the one that reads what I babble about so I am going to want to hear your input or feedback. Please look at the new blogsite and let me know what ou think. Do you like it better than Blogger because of the photo album, ability to subscribe and be notified via email etc. if only one person gives me feedback about this then I will not really know what you think so PLEASE take the time to reveiw both my main blogger here and the new blogsite at the url above and then leave me a comment either here or at the new site. Thanks so much for your assistance in this matter.

Handling Life's disappointments

URL: Managing your Disappointments

Yes indeed, life is full of disappointments isn't it? I am 43 years old and even though I try not to compare myself to others around me I can not help but feel like somewhat of a failure. How said is that? I am my own largest disappointment. I know that other people have disappointed me on occasion. However, I have no control over what other people do other than the occasional opportunity to sway folks one way or the other with regards to decisions that affect your life. What I do have control over is decisions that I make and how I react to those things that happen to me. Life happens and not all of it is pretty you can rest assured of that. How we respond to what life throws at us defines who we are and how successful we are in being victorious in our endeavours. I guess that you could sum this up by saying that as I reflect on the past and where I am now I am disappointed in the fact that I am not in a better place or a better person. I wish that I could have applied 10% of the knowledge that I did have to my life and I would have been in a better place or a better person.
I suppose that all of us can find fault if we look hard enough. There is always someone smarter, cuter, healthier ,stronger, more popular than us. So, what do I do? I try to learn from my mistakes and look to the future to other opportunities to do the right thing and make the right choices. I have to give my disappointments over to God and ask him to forgive me for being such an oaf and to help me to overcome the consequences of my bad decisions in years gone by. I have to learn how to be content in HIM in the mean time. When I compare myself to you or the rest of the world it is easy to see what a miserable failure I am. However when I understand that God is not finished working on me I understand the true meaning of mercy and grace. In God's eyes I am not a failure. I am a workmanship that is in progress. God is my creator, molder and strength. I will chose to leave all of this in his capable hands.

Frustrated parents are us

I have two children who live with me and my wife. One daughter who is 12 turning 13 soon and one son who is 9 working on 10. I seriously doubt that either one of them are going to make it to the next year. LOL... KWIM??
No matter what I do or say my children have decided that they are going to do what they want. When they are confronted about this or that they lie about it. For instance, last night my wife and I come home from date night and I know that someone was sitting at my desk because the keyboard to the computer and the phone are all out of place. I asked them why they could not keep things in their place when sitting at my desk and they both begin to lie about not having been anywhere near my desk. I wanted to kill them both. Why are they lying about such a simple thing. I told them that I did not care about them using the computer because they both have been using it with our permission. However I do expect them to leave my area the way they found it and not messed up. I dont think that is an unreasonable expectation.
The other day Katy, my wife goes outside and calls the children. They are no where to be found. We start calling the neighbors and find out they are across the street in her house. We get the children back home and we tell them for the one millionth time that they are NOT supposed to go into someone's home without asking our permission and letting us know where they are going to be at all times. Our expectation is that we will know where they are at so that we can be aware of what is going on at all times. For whatever reasons our kids just do not seem to care what we say.
I have tried everything that I know to try to communicate to the children that obedience is expected. They know that they know that if they insist on lying to me or their mother that they will be punished. I know that I am not alone in these struggles. How do you deal with lying and outright disobedience? I told my wife the other day that I need to get a prescription for Prozac or something that will just keep me happy all the time and not care about what is going on anymore. It would be so much easier for me to be like a lot of parents that I see that just ignore what the kids are doing and let them just have a free reign in the home. However, I just can not tolerate their decision to just do what they want despite our having set up simple rules and expectations here in our home.
Our desire is that our children will grow up to be responsible, God fearing (respectful), obedient, productive members of society. I think that every parent desires this and that we are not alone. We ask our children to do chores around the home like most parents. One reason is so that they can learn responsibility and another is so that they can contribute some help to our family unit since we both work three jobs between the two of us. Why do we constantly have to stay on them to get them to do the simplest of tasks?

This is me hiding behind the new sound booth at the back of the church while the Pastors wife tells me something. We will be putting a covering over the outside of the booth this week so it will look better.  

Grace Fellowship Church Goose Creek SC, a picture of our new sanctuary.  

Those BLASTED FLYING TEETH 

Flying TEETH are BACK

It is apparent to me and several places on my hands and arms that the blasted "Flying TEETH" are back. Well, that is what I call the dreadful insects that are as tiny as a flea. Flying teeth that look as small as a flea but can fly. The following URL will give you a look at the "noseeums" that I am talking about here.
www.marsci.uga.edu/gsg/Noseeums.html


The blasted Flying Teeth are BACK. I discovered this FACT when I stood outside talking to my partner tonight and felt that irritating sting that accompanies the arrival of the BLASTED FLYING TEETH. I managed to make it back indoors where I am safe for the time being.

My friends, the FLYING TEETH are alive and well because the weather is no longer FREEZING and things are warming up a bit. I was just commenting to someone about how NICE it would be for things to warm up around here. Well, that is what I get for thinking folks. Bite marks and lots of em.

Today has been absolutely gorgeous outside today. It was around 70 degrees with very little humidity and the winds were not ripping through the state either. This would have been a PERFECT day to walk the dogs , take the family to the beach or just about anything you can think about. Of course, if you do think about doing this you NEED to remember the BLASTED FLYING TEETH. LOL... Just remember that Skin So Soft by Avon works wonders. Those little monsters HATE the smell of that stuff. I tell you what, you put that stuff on and you stink for a coons age but atleast the BLASTED FLYING TEETH leave you the heck alone. LOL My next door neighbor , Troy, aka: Paul Bunyon LOVES it when he and I are outside together. No, this has nothing to do with the fact that I might be excellent company or that I might be able to be of any help to him in his many "real man" adventures. He likes the fact that I am a walking insect attraction. I walk outside and the entire insect world thinks that a FREE chinese buffet on stilts has just entered their sector and they all converge on me at once. I can not tell you how many times I have FORGOTTEN about the BLASTED FLYING TEETH and the blood sucking mosquitos that SURROND my house and I will be talking to Troy (Paul Bunyon) and look down at my legs to see that they have turned into a vertical runway for the BLASTED flying teeth.

Today at church I found out that I had FORGOTTEN to ADD about 8 scriptures to the Song Show Plus program that I had built for projection. The pastor was reading off of the back screen and things were going along just fine when he says "Ok, I see that we just ran out of scriptures, let me go to my hand written notes while they work out the technical problems in the back." OOOPSIE... Imagine my surprise when I compare the SSP program scripture list with the MS Word document and found out that indeed there were several scripture left out. If you go to www.songshowplus.com This software allows me to project multimedia content to two digital screens on both ends of the sanctuary. One screen is for the viewing pleasure of our congregation and one is for the viewing pleasure of the pastor and praise team so that they can see information on the back wall of the church. Yes, you could say that I am in technogeek heaven back in the sound booth. Toys toys and lots of toys to play with. Wahooooo, my propeller is starting to rotate faster just thinking about this. LOL.

Song Show Plus allows you to create Slide Shows for announcements and you can also project songs, scripture, video and more. You can also import and use other application data such as MS Powerpoint etc. During our first service in which we used this new software I just created several different MS Powerpoint slides to project on the "Big Screen". As time has gone on I am getting more comfortable with the software and now I know how to use the slideshow creator to create the announcement slide shows etc. We are using Online Bible at www.onlinebible.org and the NRSV translation which our pastor likes to use when he is preaching.

Are you reading this ? LOL. Sitemeter delivers to me via email a status report of how many hits I get on my blog , when folks are reading, how many times per hour and how long they stay. The report in and of itself is pretty nifty because I know that I know that someone is peering at what I am babbling about. However I am noticing that folks are only reading for about a minutue or less and then they are moving on. That tells me that I am not keeping your interest. Hummmmm What to do and what to say now. What can I say other than I am who I am and what you see is what you get. I will try to be as interesting as possible, well as interesting as someone can be who lives in Duck Ditch USA and has FLYING TEETH to contend with.

Liquid Gold

There is something to be said to supply and demand folks. Good grief, how high ARE the gasoline prices going to go? Just the other day I WAS paying 1.72 for a gallon of gas and now it is ALMOST 2.00 per gallon for REGULAR unleaded. If you use medium octane or high octane you are paying OVER 2.00 per gallon for gasoline. Are we motivated to car share yet? What about taking the bus to work instead? Can we say telecommute? Our friends at OPEC are sitting in a very nice place. They hold their finger on the pulse of how much oil leaves the middle east and depending on how tightly they are holding on to the spigot depends on how fast our collective wallets empty out. I put 10.00 worth of gasoline in my car this morning and got a half of tank of gas. I paid 1.91 per gallon for unleaded gasoline. How sad is that people?

How about those HYBRID cars that are coming out now folks? Gasoline engines with electric power plants that suppliment the type of energy source that is available to the engine. Can we say 29+ miles to the gallon for a mid sized passenger vehicle? How many years did that take to happen? If you ask me it took way too long. When will planet earth run out of OIL? What will we do then? I think that it is high time that we spend some of our hard earned CASH on figuring out how to solve some of our social problems here in America and quit throwing it away on worthless endeavors. Yes, I think that it is cool that we can explore the galaxies and spend billions of dollars on computerized telescopes that can view planets that we have never dreamed existed but at what cost to humanity here on earth? Would those billions of dollars be better spent on figuring out how to feed, clothe and house the homeless people here in America or perhaps taking care of veterans of foreign wars perhaps?

Well, that is my rant for the day. If you feel the same way I do feel free to leave a comment. Heck , even if you disagree with me feel free to comment about that too. I certainly do not have all the answers but I do feel that WE collectively should do SOMETHING about this and that. If enough people make enough noise and vote with our resources (cash) then perhaps changes can be affected for the good of humanity.

Check out browster

Check out browster I installed it today and I love it. Instead of having to click on a link you run your mouse over the lightning bolt and it pops up a cached version of the web site so you can preview it. it keeps you from having to hit the back button on your web browser or having to close multiple windows all the time.

Go away old man winter

Dang, it is freaking cold here in the deep south. i am getting tired of this 32 degree weather. Someone needs to find that ground hog and ship him to Michigan or Alaska or somewhere that is stays cold. That way the silly ground hog can see his shadow all the time... LOL...

Ok, now that I have that out of my system i can continue. I have been busier than a one armed man in a paper hanging contest in a wind tunnel. Would someone PLEASE turn off that fan? LOL.... I am sitting here on the couch realizing that in 4 minutes CSI is coming on and it happens to be one of my favorite shows. At 10 pm ER comes on and Katy and I like to watch that as well. I hope that they are not reruns. LOL...

My oh my Katy's kitchen smells awfully good tonight. I can not wait to wrap my gums around the delicious goodies that are going to be coming out of there shortly. Yum Yum....

Ok, that is a wrap for now, i will blather in here more later.

American Family Assocation Online

American Family Assocation Onlinehttp://www.afa.net/hbobillmaher.asp

The above link will take you to the original article that was posted by Donald E Wildman who is the Chairman of the American Family Association. If you subscribe to their newsletter alerts they will make you aware of things that are happening all around us that have an impact on the family and the christ centered beliefs that we hold.

When I read Bill Maher's comments they REALLY got my blood to boiling. Does Bill REALLY think that just because we have FAITH in a higher power (Jesus Christ) that we are all a bunch of blithering idiots? LOL.... You have to love freedom of speech folks. Actually, the freedom of speech is a double edged sword in that it cuts both ways. I have to say that I watch Jay Leno late at night for the pure entertainment value. Some of you are probably raising an eye brow at that because as you know Jay Leno certainly says things and promotes things of the world that certainly do not support Christ centered family values. As a matter of fact Jay Leno thinks that sexual jokes and pornography are an important part of the American lifestyle.

Anyway, back to Bill Maher. I have seen Bill on Jay Leno's show on many occasions. I actually like Bill Maher's style in that he shoots straight from the hip and he does not mince words. He calls the shots as he sees them. There are several guests on the Jay Leno show that are the same way. Dr. Phil is one of those other guests that I like to listen to. Just because I like to listen to what these folks have to say does not mean that I agree or endorse everything. It is like the old saying that goes like this. Pick off the meat and throw the bones away. It is sort of like when you are reading books that are written by authors who have written books on religion. In other words you can go into your local Christian Bookstore and find books on subjects and by authors that do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of the main stream religions or denominations. If they are deemed or categorized as "religious" then you will probably find them in the bookstore. Does that mean that these books do not have anything of value just because they do not happen to reflect your specific theological viewpoint? Of course not, every author has something of value to say , you just may not agree with it at that time. I think that it is important to state here that our theological viewpoints may change from year to year as we are growing in maturity and understanding.

My hope is that millions of Christians will repsond to the comments Bill Maher stated and my hope and prayer is that they will respond with tact and grace. I hope and pray that we do not collectively come across like a pack of rabid dogs that have just had their tails stepped on. But rather I hope that we can share our faith without all of the religious dogma and christianese blather that we are guilty of babbling at people. I hope that people respect the person of Bill Maher while they are disagreeing with his viewpoints of who we are and why we believe in Jesus Christ. I also hope that Christians take the time to pray for Bill Maher , for his spiritual life, for his mind , for his soul. My prayer is that God would use the comments that are made through these e-mails to illuminate WHO Jesus Christ is and that God loves Bill Maher too. Gods word says that THEY will know us by our LOVE one for another. I hope that as we speak our words of truth to Bill Maher that it will be done with a spirit of humility and love.

Gayle and Anthony Keech, friends of ours in Easley SC. This is a nice picture of them that Gayle shared with me recently. 

Singing a country and western song on stage at recent talent show 

Kristina Moffitt at talent show at Sedgefield Middle School. This is a wonderful "real" smile that I just had to share... 

Kristina having more fun blowing on prop... Cheap entertainment. LOL 

My friend Patty gave me a hat that says "Chief Propellerhead" and has a computer on top with a prop that spins. Kristina is having fun trying to blow on the prop here in this picture 

animal wildlife expo

I am sitting here at work watching all the people drive by rushing into the parking garage so they can attend the wildlife expo here in charleston today. here I sit and there they go. lol oh well some folks get to have all the fun I suppose. I wonder how much text the treo will allow me to type before it runs out.... so far so good. I hope the weather is as beautiful where you are because it is gorgeous here. time to make a round so I will sign off for now

happily connected

I am posting to my blog from my treo 600 pcs enabled cell phone. I wonder if this will work right

Out with the old and in with the new

A friend of mine introduced me to Incredimail last year. Last night while using it I ran across a stationary called Celtic Myst which is brown parchment paper and the default font is "Black Chancery". Well, I immediately fell in love with the font. I think that it looks VERY classy to say the least. LOL.... You may be asking yourself the question "how does one fall in LOVE with a font". Well, I dont have the answer to that but all I do know is that I LIKE it so very much. So, Verdana, it has been fun and we have had a long and fruitful relationship but you are out and your replacement is Black Chancery. My friend Patty also told me that when she created a MS Word document using this font that she was unable to use "apostrophes" while using this font in MS Word but here in blogger it seems to work. I also noticed that this font is not listed in the list of fonts but when I type it in under font choice manually it shows up.

I have not written anything in my blog since I passed the A+ exam.... Maybe I have been experiencing some brain fry and have not felt creative enough to babble in here. I told my friend Jorge at work yesterday about Blogs and he said " what in the world is a blog". LOL... I told him that a blog is a web log or sort of like an "online diary". Jorge sort of cocked his head to one side, raised his eyebrow and gave me a "what in the world are you talking about dude" look. He asked me why would someone want to do something like that for the whole world to read? I told him that not everyone has their blog wide open for the general public and that you can lock them down to where only certain folks have access to it. Well, anyway, I guess that was where we left it.

Speaking of blogs, I am still waiting for a certain "someone" to start their blog..... I am not mentioning names here but YOU know who you are dont you???? LOL.... Get to creating that blog and write in it atleast once per week. PLEASE..... Speaking of writing in your blog KATY dear, you have not written much lately either have you?

I guess there is not much more to report here from Duck Ditch USA. Life goes on as usual in that we are doing the daily routine of eating , sleeping, fighting with the kids, going to work and starting the routine over and over again each day. I have not had a day off since we came back from the Happy Days camp on the 15th of last month so that it getting kind of old. We owe we owe off to work we go is our song that we sing each day. We are slaves to debt I guess. As Suze Orman would say there are two types of debt, personal debt and institutional debt. Some debt is good and most debt is very bad. I am like most of us in that I have some of both. My only regret is that I wished I would have read books like hers 20 years ago so that I could have kept from making some pretty stupid financial decisions in the past. Well, you know the old saying and how true it is. Knowledge is power. When you gain knowledge you can move out of the darkness of ignorance into the light and begin to do something, anything to correct past mistakes and stop making the same old errors and having to live through the consequences of those errors. There are nine small books in the series that Suze Orman wrote about finances and I am on the first book that talks about debt. Most of it has to do with Credit card debt etc.. which does not really apply to me but it is GOOD information for those of you out there that do have lots of credit card debt that you are trying to manage.

I am working on my Network + curriculum which I am hoping to accomplish between now and the end of February. I read through four chapters yesterday and I am hoping to go through another four chapters today at work between 3 Pm and 11pm. My goal for 2005 is to have all three of my Comptia exams passed and atleast 3 or 4 Microsoft exams passed. That will give me the A+, Network +, Security + and MCSA. At that point I will have increased my marketability in the IT industry 10 fold. Recruiters and employers apparently love to see certifications taken and passed. It tells them that you know what you are doing. What it really means is that you know how to study and take tests. LOL.... It does not necessarily mean that you will know how to take that knowledge and use it successfully in a real world environment.

Have a great day and a good week....

A+ Certification Complete!!!

I am HAPPY to report that I passed BOTH exams. Whew, I am so glad that is finally over. Now, with that certification and 25 cents I might be able to get a cup of coffee. LOL. Actually, entry level service technicians in the IT field are EXPECTED to have this minimal certification. Anyway, onward and upward. Now I will work on my Network + and Microsoft Windows 2003 server tests. Hopefully I can sit for one of those exams in the next four weeks. The whole idea here of course is not only to increase my knowledgebase and marketablity but also to command a larger paycheck. Can I hear an AMEN ?? LOL

I took the hardware exam first and thought that I did very well on it. I was surprised to find that out of a 515 passing score I make a 560. On the OS exam where I needed to have a passing score of 515 I made a 737. I thought I did much better on the hardware exam and much worse on the OS exam. The important thing is that I did pass. Thank you JESUS!!!!

It has been a LONG time since I took that kind of a test so this will give me the self confidence that I need to KNOW that I can study for the coming up exams and pass them. It sort of takes the FEAR out of studying and passing the exams. KWIM? I guess some folks are just better at taking exams than others.

Have a GREAT weekend!!

A+ exam in one hour....

Ok folks the time has arrived for me to see if I can remember enough of this stuff to pass the REAL tests this morning. I have been cramming for this thing for the last 6 weeks. Yesterday I took several test exams for both the hardware and OS and passed all of them so hopefully that is a good indicator that I will do well today. Each test is 85 questions long and I think that they give you 90 minutes to take the exam. I am taking the hardware exam first and then the OS exam second. I am scheduled to take both exams at two different times this morning. I hope that when I get finished with the hardware exam that they will just let me continue straight into the OS exam without having to wait. Once I am done with this and have my A+ certification I will need to dive into the Network + materials and Microsoft Windows 2003 Server test. That should keep me busy for the next 6 weeks.

The weather here for the last couple of days has been cold and rainy. I guess you could say that this is a typical Charleston SC winter. Thus far we have dodged any ice or snow storms which is nice. People barely know how to drive around here in good weather much less inclimant weather.

Yesterday was pretty easy at work, had one computer to finish up in which I had to add a new modem and configure a Dial up Networking icon for the desktop so that the customer could dial up bellsouth and get on the Internet. I spent most of the day yesterday studying and studying and studying some more. I went to lunch with my favorite bride at Cracker Barrell and then I had an appointment to work on a HP Color Laserjet 4550. Boy was I in for a surprise. The address was in a neighborhood off of Ashley Phosphate rd and Dorchester road. The customer was a couple who are real estate agents that work out of their home. When I got there and was showed into the living room or work area the HUGE HP 4550 was under this tiny computer desk with NO room whatsoever to work. I already knew in advance that it would have to have a good cleaning since I had learned that the Magenta toner cartridge had been dumped all inside this printer. I guess they got ahold of a defectice toner cartridge somehow. When I opened the printer up I was greeted by solid blue toner all over the inside of the printer. The customers house was very beautiful and there was NO WAY I was going to attempt to clean this printer on their living room floor. I could just see the blue toner getting all over everything. When I mentioned this to the wife who had initiated the service call she started to holler and shriek at a loud tone of voice about how they had just spent 400.00 to have this thing fixed and how the last person who worked on it was a bumbling idiot and apparently did not know what he was doing and on and on she went. Then the husband and wife started to fight about the fact that they did not have a place for me to work on the printer and why in the world would I even expect them to have such a place in their home when all they had was nice furniture. Imagine my surprise as I stood there waiting for the high pitched argument and whining to stop so we could figure out how we were going to get the printer moved to a safe place as to save their carpet. We finally managed to scoot the printer on a piece of cardboard through the living room and the kitchen out the door to the garage where it was about 40 degrees. I have to tell you this. I love working on technology and solving problems all day long BUT when you run into customers like these that is when my job becomes a job. Whew.....

Such is the life of someone who serves the general public and provides hardware and software and networking support on a daily basis. :)

Cactus Car Wash online

I am waiting on my car to get cleaned after this NASTY weather weekend I just endured. Cactus Car Wash just happens to have two Broadband connected computers in the lobby. So, guess what, here I am whacking away at the keyboard once again. I am headed out to St Stephen from here which is about one hour from N. Charleston where I will deliver and install a PC that I picked up about 2 weeks ago. Once I am done out there I will probably be done for the day since it will take me an hour to get back home.

I was shocked, amazed and thankful that our long time website appeared again this morning. Whew..... I need to download that website and burn it to CD ROM immediately in case it decides to go away for another extended visit. LOL.... We will develop something unique for lightourworld.com but not sure what at this point. Probably have something to do with regards to Jessica Ann and our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ. Our family and our relationship with Christ are the top two things that do "Light our world" which is the reason for the domain name to begin with.

The weather here is GORGEOUS. Did I tell you that earlier? There are no clouds in sight and it is about 45 degrees outside. A wonderful day for a drive out in the country. LOL...

I am doing very good with regards to my calorie intake today. I am up to 950 calories for the day. My total is 2756 so I am trying my best to severly limit how much junk I cram into my face. I need to get out and walk my 1.6 mile trail this evening when I get home. I will let you know if I keep my promise to myself to do it. Hey honey, you in the mood to walk the dogs tonight when I get home? LOL....



James Moffitt
http://www.jesus-connect.net/jcmoffitt
moffittj@bellsouth.net

Lightourworld domain is born

time flies when you are having fun aye? It has been 8 days since I have blogged a thing. Goodness gracious folks it is not like me to be this quiet. LOL... We have been living in a winter wonderland here in the deep south. our temps have been hovering near freezing for the last week. We are paying dearly for the tropical weather we had a couple of weeks ago. Luckily for us though we have dodged the "ice storm" bullet that our upstate neighbors were not able to dodge. The upstate of SC, NC and Georgia all got nailed with some pretty harsh winter weather.

We owe we owe off to work we go has been our song as of late. i am working 7 days per week as usual and Katy has been busy doing long term sub assignments which has really been a big boost to the budget. We have been waiting for the state of SC to send Katy her temporary teaching certificate to find out that her fingerprint cards were rejected by the FBI so that means we need to get her finger prints done all over again. We also found out that she needs to get an official transcript from the University of Texas. Katy thought that part of the 75.00 fee was to pay for the offical transcript but now we find out that it is not. You have to pay for that seperately. Katy did get a call from MUSC just this last week and they are interested in her for the Activities Coordinator position in the STAR program at MUSC. Katy is hopeful of landing this position since it would be full time with benefits working with children which is what she loves to do. Hopefully she will be interviewed again for a second interview some time this next week.

Lightourworld.com has been launched but for now it is still in the infancy stages. Our long time family website is offline for now thanks to the lack of DNS registration issues. Katy is going to be working on the process of uploading our files to the new server in the next week or two so please be patient while we rebuild. I will be FINALLY taking the dreaded A+ exam on next Friday at Trident Technical college. So, if you think about it on next Friday around 9 am say a prayer that I will have a clear mind and that pre test jitters dont cause me to have brain freeze. LOL... I have been studying for this exam now for several months so I am either ready to ace this thing or I am not. Once I pass this i will be working on my Windows 2003 server exam. My hope is to have my MCSA status by no later than the end of this year. i can do it, I CAN DO IT.... LOL... I feel like the little train that said " I think I CAN, I think I CAN...."

Well, enough drivel for now, time to hit the shower and make myself presentable for church this morning and then it is off to the county office building for my 8 hour tour as usual. Have a NICE day no matter what you find yourself doing today.

Jesus Connect.net Domain is down for now

Once again it has happened to us. Katy called me yesterday stating she went to our website to make a change and found that the DOMAIN Jesus Connect.net has expired. SIGH... This is not the first time this has happened. So, our family website which was part of that domain and has been for years is once again VANISHED. Katy and I think that it is time for us to register our own domain and then we can have our own website with our own domain name again. Most domain names give you website space, email and FTP access and it is getting cheaper by the year. So, stay tuned for our announcement in the very near future.

This week continues to be a good week with regards to our health. I am eating under 2000 calories per day and Katy and I both walked 1.6 miles on Monday and Wed. We are walking one day, resting the next. Four days on and three days off. I will be working in the County Office Building which means I will be making rounds in the parking garage which will count towards my exercise count. I can not wait until this Saturday. I get to work a double shift from 7 am until 11 pm. Wooooohoooooo sounds like fun filled excitement. hahahahahahah NOT....

We are having a heat wave today since it is up to 31 F. I think that I will go outside and get a tan today. LOL

Hammer and nail anyone?

Have you ever used a hammer and nail to fix a computer? LOL. Well, I came pretty close today. Actually I wound up going to the VA Hospital in downtown Charleston this afternoon to fix one of their many MED carts. There is a manual locking mechanism which is installed to lock the cart just in case the electrical/computerized system were to fail. Somehow the thumb lever and the metal plate it rides on vibrated loose and fell off. I wound up spending two hours this afternoon figuring out how to disassemble the cart , fix the problem and then reassemble it to make sure it works. I had to use the hammer and nail to drive out the plastic gromets that were holding the four corners of the top of the med cart to the rest of the cart. I was standing in the storage room beating on the nail wondering if a doctor or nurse would walk in and ask me what in the world I was making all the racket for. LOL. Luckily that never happened.

I spent 3 hours today upgrading Timberline software at one of my client sites. I had to upgrade the server first and then I had to reinstall the updates to all the workstations.

Thus far , as of 7 pm I am at 810 calories. That will give me approximately 750 calories for me to consume for dinner and that will keep me well under 2000 calories for the day. Yeah me!!! I am going to rest tonight and walk tomorrow before church. Katy looked at me and said, there is NO WAY I am walking again in this cold. LOL.... Poor dear. I do hope that she gives in to my incessant whining and goes with me anyway. It is starting to look like we are both going to have a whine session tomorrow night to see if one or both of us is going for a walk. LOL

Caring Bridge Website

This is our Caring Bridge Website that I put up yesterday evening. I am not finished with it yet so please come back often to see what we have changed. The url is

http://www.caringbridge.org/sc/jessicamoffitt

Please visit this website and share it with your friends and family. Pray about helping Happy Days and Special Times as they are in need for funding for 2005 for all of the special events that they do for children with cancer and events that the siblings and parents can attend throughout the year. You can donate online at http://www.happydaysnspecialtimes.org in memory of our Jessica. I know that I know that she would appreciate your support. Thanks!!

A new day to make the right decisions

Good morning folks! It is a nice crisp 22 F here in the deep south. LOL... I am so happy that I purchased a car cover for our new chariot so I dont have to worrry about scraping ice off the windshield. I am also glad that the heater does not take 30 minutes to finally kick in. Speaking of that I wonder if I should go out and crank the engine so that when I do get in it will be nice and toasty when I get inside.

I decided this weekend that FAT BOY is going to DO SOMETHING about the weight problem. Sigh.... I gained 9 pounds over the Christmas holidays and I can really tell a difference. I am also wondering if my not taking my blood pressure medicine which was a diuretic has caused me to put on some extra weight. That is a question that a doctor is going to have to answer I suppose.

Well, anyway, not only did I gain 9 lbs but I also have not done any regular exercise either. Having the new job working 8 to 5 sitting in front of a computer most of the time did not help that. What walking that I was doing in the parking garage has been diminised down to two days on the weekend. So with that in mind I am going to do my best to walk atleast 3 or 4 times per week. I got home last night after work and my right ankle was sore since I stood up most of the day. I almost used that as an excuse not to go but I managed to bundle up and go outside to walk. I also managed to talk Katy into walking with me. Boy oh boy girlfriend did NOT want to walk in the cold. Can you say cheese with that whine honey? LOL... Thank you Katy for coming with me so that you could motivate me to do what I need to do. We both know that we both really need to try and do this together so we can support one another when one or both of us want to get lazy and stay at home and be couch potatoes. LOL....

In the calorie department I ate around 2400 calories. I guess I sort of blew it in that area. I need to get that down to under 2000 calories today. The formula is simple. Less calories and more exercise. The key is aerobic exercise I might add. Exercise that gets your heart to pumping at a specific rate which is designed to burn those FAT calories. Just thinking about how much work is necessary to lose ONE POUND or 2000 calories is almost depressing.

Baby steps. Tiny little baby steps. I have to keep reminding myself that I did not get this way over night and that it is going to take determined dedication to attack this problem one moment at a time and one day at a time. Tomorrow is gone and now I have today to make the right decisions and do the right things. Personal planning means that I need to DO SOMETHING and be proactive and NOT just let life happen to me and wind up being REACTIVE and doing damage control.

Maybe my new motto needs to be "Embrace The Tiger". Maybe that will help me to understand that my weight problem is the tiger in my life and that I need to face this monster (tiger) head on and not let it overwhelm me to the point that I feel helpless and hopeless. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I need to also remember that. I am not alone and I have the power of God within me to dig down deep and do what I need to do. I just need to decide to tap into that power and put it to work every single day.

Today is God's gift to me and what I chose to do with this day will be my gift to God. Pray that I will make the right decisions today with regards to how much food I stick in my mouth and that I will continue to exercise atleast 30 min every day. Also remember to pray for the Tsunami victims in Asia and for our troops who are over seas fighting in a horrible war. Pray that our troops will come home safe and sound to their families. Pray for peace. Also pray for Happy Days and Special Times that they will continue to find the funds that they need through donations and other events through the year so that they can continue to bless children with cancer with all of their FREE activities to them and their families

Renissance Weekend Myrtle Beach South Carolina

Katy and I spent the weekend at Myrtle Beach at the Ocean Reef Hotel. When we arrived Friday evening around 6:30 pm the temperature was around 45 F. Before it was all over the temperature dipped down to around 34 F with a wind chill factor making it around 28 F. Now, I know for you snow birds up in Michigan or Iowa or wherever you might be building snow men this is a regular hot flash for you. However us beach bunnies are freezing our tails off with this weather.

Happy Days and Special Times sponsors the Renissance Weekend for parents who have lost children to cancer. I can not tell you how wonderful this organization really is. Not only do they minister to the needs of kids with cancer but they do not forget the siblings and parents AFTER the child is either recovered OR passes on. During the yearly weekend we come together as a support group and we comfort one another and we have the unfortunate opportunity of welcoming newcomers to our group.

This year we had three or four new couples that just recently lost children to one form of cancer or the other. As one person said we are all unwilling members of a horrible club. Friday evening we all gathered around and did introductions and got settled in to the hotel and ate Pizza around 9 pm. Saturday morning we had breakfast, two grief counseling break out sessions, lunch , free time between 1:30 pm and 4 pm and then we all gathered at Chuck Steak House for steak dinner compliments of Happy Days. After dinner we all piled in to our respective chariots and headed down to the Alabama Theater and enjoyed a Tribute to Patsy Cline radio show. I am not much of a Patsy Cline fan but I have to say that the entertainment and talent was absolutely amazing. After the show ended around 10:30 pm we all came back to the hotel and piled into one of the conference halls for more desert, coffee, soda pop and more informal conversation.

Sunday morning consisted of a breakfast, more informal conversation within the group of parents and then John Evans spoke to us. You can visit John Evans on the Web at http://www.johnevansspeaker.com/. John is a motivational speaker that just blesses our socks off every time we hear him speak. As a matter of fact I wish that we were able to spend more time with him than we do. John handed out a motivational brochure that was entitled Embrace The Tiger with a picture of John kneeling next to a huge Siberian Tiger. John Evans also told us all about a website called Caring Bridge at http://www.caringbridge.org. On this site you can register a web page and set up a memorial page for your loved one and let people know how they are doing etc. Check the site out for yourself. I plan on setting up a site there to let folks know about our Jessica and the impact that Camp Happy Days and Happy Days and Special Times had on Jessica and continues to bless our family today. My hope is that folks will be touched by the incredible genioristy and spirit of giving and volunteerism and will be moved to help support Happy Days and Special Times. Once all the events were over we all went outside on to the beach and proceeded to stand around like a bunch of frozen popsicles while we waited for everyone to show up for our balloon releasing ceremony. We take the white balloons and we put our hopes, fears, dreams and wishes and we then release those balloons up to God so that He can minister to those things within each of us. We also release them in honor of our children who have gone on before us. Our hope is that one day we will see Jessica again.

Back view of Pontiac 

2003 Pontiac Grand Prix SE 

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...

Prayer request

PLease pray for my friend Kimberly who is going through a very difficult time right now. Her husband has some sort of cancer and they are experiencing some severe financial difficulties because he is not able to work. Kimberly's relatives are not offering her much support at this point which is really upsetting to her. Thanks in advance for the prayers for healing for her husband as well as financial needs that they have.


God bless

The New Year first day

Our day started out around 7:30 am today when the phone rang next to the bed. US Security called and said "Arent you supposed to be at the County Office Building this morning James?" Groggily I said " not that I know about". The voice on the other end of the line says " He (as in Capt Bassett) wrote your name in the schedule this week" . I responded by saying that Capt Basset usually calls me and asks me if I want to work Saturdays since my only scheduled day is the 3 to 11 shift on Sundays. If they had called me and asked me if I wanted to work New Years Day I would have probably said no anyway. Thanks to the way the holidays fell this year with most of them falling on a weekend I really did not get any time off during the holidays. So, with that in mind I had already determined that I was not working New Years day.

I spent most of the morning installing software back on the home computer and configuring the computer some more. I installed Adobe Photo Shop 7, Mozilla Firefox, Pluck and Metacafe. I spent some time online chatting with friends via Yahoo and AOL IM. Katy and I ate breakfast out on the porch this morning while we waited on Kristina to come back from the youth getaway in Greer SC last night. At about 10:30 am Heather rolled up and dropped off Kristina so we spent time talking to Heather and her mom for about 30 min out in the driveway. They are doing such a wonderful job with the youth at our church. We have approximately 35 members in regular attendance and about 10 to 12 of those 35 are youth who are from the ages of 9 to 15. Heather is working on teaching the youth how to do drama and recently spent about 6 weeks getting ready to do a drama presentation for the church just before Christmas. Kristina was involved in the activities and I must say that she not only puts her heart and soul into what she is doing but she seems to be very talented in this area.

I had to stop what I was typing there for a second thanks to one of the C17 Transport carriers from the airport flying directly overhead. It seemed as if the darn monster plane was right on top of the treeline. Whew, that was TOO close for comfort and for some reason it seemed WAY TOO LOW for my comfort. I was puckered up waiting to hear the sounds of ripping metal as it tore our double wide trailer apart and carried us over into Chucks yard or whatever. Luckily for me and for the pilots they managed to clear the tress and now I can relax and continue with my thoughts. Where was I?

Oh yes, what we did today. Once the Glisson duo left the end of the hill down here in slumlord haven Katy and I headed over the Regal Cinema 18 theatre and watched Meet the Fockers. OMG that was TOO FUNNY. hahahahahaha I told Katy when we left the movie that I wonder how many families are somewhat like that one in a lot of ways. If you want to see a good movie that will make you laugh go see it. You wont be sorry.

We have landed back at the house and plan on snuggling up next to the TV to watch Law and Order Criminal Intent for the next two or three hours and then hopefully get a full nights rest where Katy nor I will wake up every two hours because of either the darn dogs or my cough that I can not seem to kick.

I hope you had a relaxing day today and that your new year started out peacefully.

God bless