Kristina is not too happy I am capturing her picture AGAIN....I can not help myself, I be a proud papa
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Monday, May 09, 2005
Saturday, April 23, 2005
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.
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 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
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
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 !!
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 !!
Sunday, April 10, 2005
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?
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
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.
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.
Friday, March 25, 2005
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
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
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
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 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!!
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.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
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.
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.
Monday, March 21, 2005
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
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
Sunday, March 20, 2005
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.
Friday, March 18, 2005
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.
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.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
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?
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?
Sunday, March 13, 2005
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.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
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.
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.
Saturday, March 05, 2005
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.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
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.
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
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.
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.
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