Windows are open and I have a fire started. Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Friday, October 16, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Medifast meals
One of the most difficult things about a diet is the self discipline involved in making it a success. Yesterday was day one on the 5 and 1 Medifast program and I have to say that I was not that successful. I did good up until about 9 pm last night when I gave in and had a portion of chicken pot pie that my wife had made for the rest of the family. I also had a bowl of honey nut cheerios around 11 pm. The good news is that I did not gorge myself even though I was pretty hungry when I got home. I understand that a lot of people have lost a lot of weight on this program and that in and of itself is testimonial itself to the success you can have. The problem that I am struggling with is that I am going to have to be willing to starve myself in order to do it. I understand that the "plan" calls for 5 meals during the day every three hours and then a lean and green meal at the end of the day or whenever you would like to eat it. The problem I am having with this plan is two fold. Problem one is the meal is barely a snack. The portions are VERY tiny and they leave you with the desire to have three times the amount of the suggested serving. The second problem with the plan is that the meals suck. If you listen to the marketing hype about the program you are left with the belief that you are going to enjoy the tasty meals every day and not even notice that you are eating prepackaged food that comes in little silver pouches. I think that I have missed out on the brainwashing session where they were supposed to convince me of this. This is day two and I am going to go forward and do the best I can. Today I am going to try the chicken and rice soup for lunch and hopefully it will be better than the chicken noodle soup yesterday. All in all I think that this plan will help me to get away from fried foods and sweets and breads. Even if I do not follow the plan 100% I think that it is going to help me begin to moderate what I eat and how much and hopefully that in and of itself will help me to start lose weight.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
This is the day the Lord has made rejoice and be glad in it
Good morning Posterous friends. :) I have some new subscribers to my Posterous blog and for that I am thankful. My hope is that the thoughts that I share on my blog will bless you and encourage you in some small way. I sometimes wonder why anyone would subscribe to my blogs. In the blogosphere I am one of many voices that are out there and I always figure that there are folks out there that are much more entertaining or informative than me. The important thing is that I do blog and you like to read it. That fact alone helps me to keep writing I suppose.
I noticed this morning that I could add a theme to my blog and do some advanced customization. I hope you like the new look and feel of my Posterous blog. I am not familiar enough with CSS to do any advanced customizations so I will just stick with simple. I think that simple is better sometime. The nice thing about Posterous is that your blog is not all gummed up with advertisements from who knows where trying to sell you some thing or service that you have no need for or the money to spend on.
I am sitting here in my recliner drinking my first cup of coffee and watching Willie chew on his bone. Willie is our new 9 month old Lab puppy who is so full of energy. Willie thinks that the cats and Frodo are his wind up toys. Frodo who is our miniature weiner dog gives it all he has and plays with Willie who towers over him like a giant. Angel who is our 9 year old female lab is not that impressed with Willie and she is not shy about letting him know about it either. I think that in time everyone will get used to one another and be just fine.
My last three days off from work have been nice and I have needed the time off for a rest. I did not do anything extraordinary but I did enjoy hanging out with Katy and running errands and such. I am sure that Katy will be happy when I go back to work on Monday so she can get back to her normal routine. Katy is more of a home body than I am and when I am around the house I like to go do things. You could call me Mr Spontaneous while Katy likes to plan things out and know what she is going to be doing at least one day in advance. What is the fun in that?
Take Shape for Life starts tomorrow and I have mixed emotions about it. The good thing is that I will try to stick with the program because I do want to lose weight. I really need to get the 100 lb gorilla off of my back. I think that is a good word picture for me to think about when I think about losing weight. That gorilla has been on my back for way too long and has been causing more problems than he is worth. I am not sure if it is a male gorilla or a female gorilla at this point but it probably does not matter. What matters is I am tired of carrying this thing around with me everywhere I go. Instead of being fearful about change I will try to have a positive mental attitude and realize that change has to happen for me to get rid of the gorilla. If I can stick with this the changes will be lowered blood pressure and not having to take BP meds every day. Increased mobility and flexibility will be back in my life. I will have more energy to play with my kids and Willie. Hopefully I will be extending my longevity here on this earth.
Katy and I went to N Charleston last night to attend an awards ceremony for one of my friends son who was recieving the Boy Scounts Acheivement award. My friend introduced me to her husband for the first time and we had a good time chatting. Brian and I have several things in common. One of those things we have in common is the need to lose weight. I told Brian that as time marches on I am getting older. I told Brian that I had noticed that I have not ever seen any older people who were obese. If you ask me that is a wake up call for someone like me who is knocking on the door of 50. It is only going to get harder and harder to do what needs to be done. Brian told me that he can lose weight when he puts his mind to it and has done so on several occasions. He also told me that he will be very interested in hearing about my progress. My hope and dream is that I can lose weight and keep it off. I also hope that my doing so can encourage others just like me who need to do the same. The motivation is to be healthier and to feel better physically and emotionally.
Now it is time for me to get off my rear end and get ready for my trip over to Grace Fellowship Church in Duck Ditch. I know it is silly that I can not seem to disassociate myself with Grace Fellowship but after 9 years of going there I have grown fond of the people there. There is a bond there that will not just go away. We may not be able to make it over there every single Sunday but I want to continue to go there as often as I can. I hope you have a beautiful and peaceful stress free day.
God bless
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Four day weekend starts NOW
I am so happy that I have a couple of four day weekends ahead of me for the month of October. I was planning on going out of town to visit a friend of mine in Denver for 4 days but that plan fell through. So, instead of taking 9 days off I am going to hold off on the out of town visit and just take some extended weekends instead. Hopefully in January I can make the trip to Denver.
My experience with going back to school has been pretty good thus far. The hardest part was just making the decision and going through the hassles of getting registered and providing the school with all of the paperwork involved. Six weeks later and I am finding myself getting into a rhythm and figuring out when I need to do what. I work during the day and then I take a break and then hit the books. It makes for some long days during the week but if I get most of my stuff done during the week then I can have most of my weekends to myself.
For several months now I have watched a friend of mine at work lose weight using Take Shape for Life program. From what I can tell she took the weight off and has kept it off. Granted, she does not have to lose anywhere near what I need to lose but it works. Last week I made the decision to give it a 30 day trial. I bought my first months worth of pre packaged meals , snacks etc and starting on Monday I am going to give it a whirl. I have been reading on the support website of the men who have had a lot of success with this program as well. The key to the success is to stick with the program as it is designed and not cheat. During the day while I am at the office I should not have too much problem with this program. At night and during the weekends that is when this will be the most difficult. I may have to buy Katy a tranquilizer gun or a taser to keep me in check. I am thinking that once I see the pounds coming off that will be all the motivation I will need to stay on the program.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Dallas who ?
Has the billion dollar fish bowl gone to the cowgirls heads or what? I just sat through one half of a football game to watch the Dallas field goal kicker miss a 40 yard field goal and the Dallas offense is sputtering worse than a two bit lawnmower with bad gas. The offensive line is going to get Tony Romo hurt if they dont do a better job of protecting him. I am also thinking that the coaches need to teach the players in the Dallas secondary how to tackle someone. You can not tackle someone that is the same size as yourself or bigger by slapping them with one hand on the waist line. This is not touch football girls this is the NFL. If you can not tackle someone please go sit on the bench and let someone else that can tackle get on the field. If Dallas can not beat the Panthers tonight then the season is absolutely over for them. How in the world will they be able to compete with some of the more high powered teams in the NFL? The answer is they can not.hope to compete playing like this. If Dallas plays like they did in the first half then they will lose the game. I wonder how it felt to the Cowboys when they got booed at the end of the first half?
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Out of money?
How often do you go to the bank to cash a check and they turn you down because they are out of money? I got off of work early today to go to NBSC on Folly Rd and when I showed them my student loan refund check they told me "we are sorry but we are out of money until tomorrow afternoon when the Brinks truck arrives". I thought that certainly there must be some mistake for a bank to be out of money. Make no mistake sir the teller said, Trident Technical College gave out all the refund checks at once and gave us no warning whatsoever. That means that it was a first come first serve situation at the bank today. All of the brances for NBSC were out of cash , not just the one on Folly Road. I was told to come back to the bank tomorrow afternoon and they might have enough money to cash my check. I am thankful that I just got paid and I can be patient while the bank replenishes its supply. No, I do not want to depost the check in my account so my bank can put a 10 day hold on it. I would rather just cash it and put the cash in my account.
I am surprised to see that I have 7 people subscribed to my posterous blog. I can understand why my wife and close friends might want to hear my driveling but what about the rest of you folks? In order to reward you for your subscription to my blog I have in turn subscribed to your posterous blog as well. Thank you for tuning it to my occasional drivel about this and that.
So far my adventure back into the halls of academia has not been overtly painful. The experience of getting registered was more than irritating but with tons of patience and keeping the phone lines hot I managed to come through that process ok. Financial aid came through to pay for school for this semester and next semester so I now join the ranks of students out there that now owe a student loan once we get out of school. Yeah me!!!
The first three weeks of school were busy but I adjusted my free time schedule to where I spend most of it studying but still have time to do a couple of things I like to do. It basically works out this way. I study for 3.5 hours four days a week and then I use the weekend to finish up any papers that are to be written or project assignments that must be done. When I read a chapter I go over the chapter summary notes and then I go straight to the quiz and take it while the material is still stuck in short term memory. That seems to work better than reading the chapters on Monday and Tuesday and then having to wait until the weekend to study the notes all over again to refresh my short term memory and then take the test. I guess everyone has their system and as long as it works for you that is all that matters.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Windows 7 and XP dual boot
In the last couple of weeks I have been using Windows 7. Thanks to being a student and an associating between MSDN and our school we have access to download the OS and take it for a spin. I installed Windows 7 on a Dell Latitude E6500 with an 80 gb hard drive and 2 gb of ram. I downloaded the ISO file and burned it to a DVDRAM disk with iamgeburn which is a free image burning utility. The install process took about the same amount of time as any other OS. During the disk partition selection process I carved up my hard disk into two separate partitions so that I can dual boot Windows 7 and XP professional or Linux depending on what strikes my fancy later on.
I was very impressed with the install process which gave me no problems to mention. All of the drivers for my E6500 were found and I have been running Windows 7 without any incidents. I was highly impressed that the Cisco VPN client for Vista installed and worked with no problems. I installed Office 2007 , MIRC and several other programs that ran just fine. Windows 7 has the same look and feel of Vista but I have to admit that it runs much better. One of the features that I like on the start button is the ability to type the name of the program and it will give you a selection of applications you can click on. Another program that I love is the Snippet Tool which is similar to SnagIT 8. The Snippet Tool allows you to take a screen shot of any portion of your sreeen that you want. This is a very useful tool if you are doing any kind of documentation and you need to show people screen shots of what you are talking about.
Today I had a break in the action so I made the mistake of installing Windows XP Professional SP3 on the second partition of my hard drive. Everything went just fine and then the laptop rebooted. Windows XP came up just fine but access to Windows 7 was gone. POOF!! Luckily for me I had not mistakenly overwritten the wrong partition during the install phase. I installed XP to the second partition but I guess that XP overwrote the boot.ini file and replaced it with one for itself. Needless to say I was a bit panicked after all the hours I spent installing software and configuring Windows 7 to be my primary OS. I did what I always do when I have a technical problem and I started surfing the Net on the different techie forums looking for the answer. I found a lot of information however I did not find the answer I was looking for. I fixed the problem by booting the laptop to the Windows 7 install media and it gave me the option to repair Windows. Repair windows had five or six options and one of them was to fix the boot up process. BINGO!! I selected that option and a dos prompt popped up in the bottom left portion of the screen and it magically fixed the issue. I rebooted the laptop and now Windows 7 is once again available to me.
I still want to dual boot another OS with Windows 7 so I will have to do some research on HOW to do this and then I will let you know what I find out.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
The Cowboys made me proud today
Living in the Lowcountry means that Dallas Cowboys fans are very hard to find. I had to go to King Street Grill this afternoon to watch the Dalls vs Tampa game and I was surprised to find four other Dallas fans that wandered in to watch the game. At first I was a little bit concerned about the Dallas defense as I sat there and watched Caddillac from Tampa run through Dallas like they were swiss cheese. The field goal kicker for Tampa missed two field goals which did not help their cause. I was very suprised to see the Dallas passing game burn the Tampa secondary for three touchdowns. Dallas wins 34 to 21 which made this Cowboy fan right proud.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Picture Perfect
At Seacoast west campus they wrapped up the mini series on Picture Perfect. The series spoke about our lives and our families and how they are not always picture perfect. No matter how good the portraits might be on the surface there is always some brokeness that is brought about by either a family member or members or external circumstances. Every family experiences some sort of brokeness and how we handle that brokeness will determine how quickly restoration and healing takes place. The pastor this morning gave some very simple guidelines for breaking the crazy cycle.
How to respond to brokeness from 1 Peter 3:8-12
A. Treat others better than myself
1. When we are hurt we tend to respond with a victim mentality. I am hurt therefore I will hurt back.
B. Break the cycle of craziness
1. Serve unconditionally, be nice to those who are mean or harmful towards you.
2. Do not repay evil with evil even if it is in our nature.
C. Seek and pursue peace
1. We need to do whatever it takes to reconcile the relationship and pursue a peaceful restoration.
2. We need to learn how to forgive others and release the bitterness, anger and hurt within us
3. Unforgiveness only hurts us, not the person we are angry with
4. If the other person is not willing to do the right thing then we can chose to be the one to do right
5. If God is bigger than my problems and can forgive me then I can forgive others as well.
I think that this message speaks to all of us. We all have been hurt and we have all been the victim at one time or the other. Today is the day to release that pain and anger and bitterness to the one who is able to handle it for us. God is bigger than all of our burdens and if we will only trust him with those problems he will help us to handle them.
Does this mean that we are supposed to be door mats and allow people to run all over us? No, of course not. People need to own their junk and take responsibility for it. If we approach people with the spirit of love, humility and kindness and work with them we can help them to see how they have contributed to the pain and hopefully restore that relationship. If they refuse to own their junk and do not want to do the right thing then you have done your part and that is all God is concerned with. Sometime healing and restoration is not instananeous and it may take some time, prayer and work. There are resources out there to help folks with these types of issues and most of the time you can find it at your local church or community counseling centers.
Our families may not ever be "picture perfect" but with some help from God working through each of us we can learn how to love and enjoy one another and do better with how we treat one another.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Charleston Police Department and Community service
How many times do we call the police or have a need for their service? I would submit that our dealings with the police are relatively infrequent and most of the time when we call them it is because we need their protection or a crime has been committed against ourselves, our families, neighbor or property. No matter what the situation there is usually a need to call for the men and women of our local police department. The same goes for the fire fighters and so on and so forth.
This morning at approximately 2:30 am my son and I stopped at the Shell station at Maybank Highway and Main road to stop and use the restroom and get a drink before we headed out to my office so I could take care of some backup tasks. On the weekends we have stopped at this Shell gas station on several occasions and it is usually in the late night hours or early morning hours. Since this is one of the few establishments open on Johns Island at this time of night there is usually a patrol car there from the Charleston Police Dept. Personally I like the police presence because I feel their being there deters some wanna be knuckle heads from being stupid or causing problems. I spent 10 years in law enforcement back in Texas and I know for a fact that the business owners and store employees appreciate the "men and women of law enforcement" to hang around when they can.
When we entered the store so my son could use the restroom I noticed the officer was leaning up against the counter reading a newspaper and keeping a watchful eye on the patrons which was cool by me. For whatever reasons I did not engage the officer and maybe it was because I was tired and just wanted to get my stuff and get out of there so we could hit the road. When we left the store and got into the vehicle my son looked at me and said , " that guy was a jerk". I looked at my son and said " why do you say that son". My son said, when I walked up to the front counter to ask about using the restroom I looked at the officer and said hello. My son said his response was to ignore his effort at being courteous and to continue reading his paper. My son said that the officer also made a point to watch his every move which made him feel a little bit creeped out. My son thought that the officer just did not like teenagers and was overtly suspicious of him period. I took the time to explain to my son that the officer might be having a bad day and that typically he is probably not used to citizens being overtly nice to him.
My only concern is that the experience my son had was negative and now he may be a little bit leary of being nice to a law enforcement officer the next time. I can not tell you how many times I have been in uniform in public and have had a parent admonish their child in front of me and tell them that if they do not behave they will " tell the big bad police man standing over there " come get you. When I would see this happen I would make it a point to try and defuse the situation by saying something nice to the parent and to assure the child that people in uniform are their friends. We should want our children and young adults to seek out the services of law enforcement or any other public servant when they are in trouble. We do not want them to be running away from them or to be afraid to say them because we have instilled in them some preconceived notion that people in uniform are there to do bad things to us.
I am thinking that the officer in question would have just said howdy and acknowledged my sons attempt at being courteus and friendly that it would have gone a long way with his experience with law enforcement. Now my son thinks the guy was a jerk and he may lump everyone into the same category when he should not. As a parent who has been on both sides of the badge I will do my part to mold and shape that view point but hopefully the men and women in uniform will realize that even the smallest things they say and do can and will affect those that they serve and protect.
IMG00482.jpg
Jasper sitting on my study table next to chair
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Testing my pictures on Posterous
| While getting gas at Walmart several weeks ago I saw this dog sitting in a side compartment of a bike. He was so cute with his own goggles. | |||
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I want to illustrate my thoughts here with words and pictures
Friday was a very typical Friday for me at work. I am not sure why but Friday's are sort of like Monday's and they are both busier than I would like for them to be. Support requests seem to ebb and flow and I some times wonder if the moon cycles have anything to do with how feverish the requests become.
This last couple of months has been brutal thanks to an ongoing project to redesign and optimize our network services in such a way to provide optimal performance for all our users. So I get to juggle regular support requests along with the demands of the many redesign tasks and keeping those changes as invisible as possible to the folks that use it. Oh, and lest I forget I am also juggling 12 credits worth of studying this semester at Trident Technical College via online courses. There is no way I could work all day and then drive for an hour to get to the campus in North Charleston. That means I can study and participate online via the Internet. I am a virtual student who is fortunate enough to have 20 years of experience in the same technology I am studying about. This semester is going to be easier than the next one because most of the classes are a review of things I have already been exposed to or have studied about before on my own through self help study materials over the years.
One of the things that I love to do to unwind is to write or play Texas Holdem. I play Texas Holdem online via Facebook and I also go play at a real game with real people. I have been going to this particular place with the same group of people for the last year or so. I take my son with me because it is something that we can do together and we both enjoy it. I spend 20.00 and we both get about 5 to 6 hours of enjoyment and frustration. Justin has become quite the poker star prodigy. Justin has more free time on his hands being 14 so he plays Texas Holdem online at different websites and gets lots and lots of practice at it. He has become a student of the game while I just dabble in it to have fun. Justin says that he wants to be one of the players in the World Poker Tour or whatever it is called. I told him he needs to get a good education so he can get into a good career path where he can make lots of money so he can come up with the 10,000.00 buy in that it will take to get him into that level of play.
Yes, I know, playing a game with dice or playing cards is illegal in South Carolina. My pastor told me that he would not come bail me out of jail if I get busted because I have not shared any of my poker winnings with him. My pastor knows that I play Texas Holdem because he follows my posts on Facebook so I guess you could say that he is keeping a watchful eye on my activities. The role of the pastor keeping a watchful eye on the sheep has become a little bit easier now that the sheep do not mind blathering about their life activities on Facebook. How convenient is that pastors of America ? If you want to know what your congregations are doing in their spare time just sign up on their Facebook pages, MySpace pages or follow them in Twitter. You will know more about your church members than you really want to know and then some. Oh, and if you have members in your congregation who are not as forthcoming with their daily lives online then that should throw up a red flag for you and those people are the ones that you really need to be concerned about. They are probably the ones who are involved in all manner or shady and illegal activities. LOL.... Ok, I know that my editors from days gone by are going to wag their finger at me for using Internet Chat acronyms in my writing but guess what. This is MY BLOG and I am really not concerned about every single rule of grammar. This is my literary playground where I can blather and have fun and not worry about the 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration rule of writing. I can just write and write and write and let the words leak out of my fingers at any ole format that I want them to and just have fun doing it.
Speaking of writing , I am taking English composition 100 this semester. Most of this stuff is review because I took this same class about 29 years ago back at Henderson Junior College in Terrell Texas. It has been intersting to me to read the many responses of my much younger fellow classmates as they are reading the same articles I am and having to provide substantive repsonses for the teacher to read and critique. At first I was appalled at the fact that many of my fellow classmates struggle with basic spelling and grammar. My wife who is taking graduate courses tells me that a lot of her classmates online that participate in online discussions have no clue how to use spell check nor do they know how to formulate simple sentences or how to write susbstative responses that flow or make sense. I have always told my children that they must get the basics mastered. The basics are reading, writing and math. If you do not get the basics down at a very early age then you are missing some very critical building blocks for the rest of your education and you will struggle from there on out. Despite the fact that some of my classmates struggle with spelling and simple sentences it has been interesting to see how different people who read the same articles come up with different and varying ideas and responses to the article. It is also interesting to watch all of us writing and responding to one another in the online discussion forums. I guess it is all part of the learning experience.
On a final note this morning before I jump outta here is this. How in the world do you insert an image , picture or clip art into an article on Posterous. If there is a way or you know how to do it please reply via comments or write to me at jcmoffittatgmaildotcom (have at that you spiders) and let me in on the secret. I would like to have the ability to insert some graphics so I can illustrate my ideas and thoughts along with the words.
Have a restful, peaceful and blessed Labor Day weekend folks.
Friday, September 04, 2009
Happy Friday
Thank God it is Friday and the Labor Day weekend is here. I try to thank God every day for life and for all of the wonderful things he has put in my life and around me for my pleasure. I thank God for my health, for my family, for my job, for the things that I have. I pray for my friends who I know that struggle with depression in hopes that God will allow them to enjoy some rays of sunshine in their lives. I sometimes struggle with situational depression in which I go through moments of time where external circumstances or stupidity on my part causes me to get depressed or upset. Luckily for me I have the ability to pull myself out of the slump and try to focus on the future instead of the past. I thank God that he is in control of the bigger picture and I am not. If you think life or the world around you is messed up now, you have no clue how messed up it would be if I had the controls. I am reminded of the young lady that won American Idle not too long ago who wrote the song Jesus take the wheel. Like most of us we do not cry out to God until our lives are like the young woman in the car who is spinning out of control. That is when we are more likely to call out to God and ask him to make everything right.
I am looking forward to three days off away from work. I am very thankful that I am employed full time and I have medical benefits for my family and we live in a very nice place. One of the things that I am not to fond of about my job is the symbiotic relationship that I have with it. In other words most of you when you leave your job do not have to think about it again until you arrive again for work on Tuesday morning. I on the other hand am on call 24x7 and I can get an sms text message or an e-mail or phone call that will snap me out of my personal time back to the computer network that I manage. Luckily for me our business is not 24x7 and our locations shut down sometime between 6 pm and 8 pm for the night. That means that once I go to sleep around midnight or 1 am that I probably wont be disturbed until 7:30 am or later. This also motivates me to make sure that all of the systems I am responsible for stay well maintained and that I have monitoring in place that will notify me at the first hint of trouble so I can log in from remote and fix things quickly before anyone else is even aware of it.
Later on in September or early October we are planning to take an extended weekend and fly out to Denver Colorado to visit friends of ours. I have known these particular friends since the early 90's and I speak to them online almost every day or several times per week. My friend James has worked his way through the process of getting his private pilots license and is now able to do solo flights which means that he will be coming to visit us here in the Charleston area some time soon by flying here. How awesome is that people?
I need to pull my head out of the blogosphere and stick it back into the computer network that I am supposed to be managing and get back to work. It has been nice to drivel in here for a little bit. I love to write and to share this and that with the rest of you. I hope that you have a restful, safe and blessed weekend over the Labor Day weekend.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Tick Tock
I have four minutes, go!! Hiding in lunch room eating food and surfing Facebook and my many other social networking sites. Today has been very busy but not more so than most. I have a 1 hour project conference call at 2 pm and I am hoping that some technical wizzards that are brighter than myself can help me solve a couple of very irritating issues I am having with network latency and an application server. I am getting ready to pull out the OSI layer chart and my magnifying chart. I am looking forward to the three day weekend. I am hoping to spend some time in the great out doors and away from technology. Is that even possible for me? I can stay away from the Internet for all of 2 or 3 hours but then I start to twitching because of my desire to connect to the Net and see what all of my netcitizen friends are up to. Ok, that is my four mintues, need to close this laptop up and get back to work. See you later aligator!!
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
This and that
How fast is your propeller turning today? Mine is at about 50% today. I am staying busy but nothing I am doing is really forcing me to put my brain into afterburner. Yesterday was a difficult day for me mentally in that I found it hard to focus. Last week was the first week back to school and it was pretty brutal. I already have a job where I have to go to work all day and solve problems. When I have to go sit down and focus and think about things that I dont necessarily want to focus on it makes it harder. No matter how hard it is to focus my secondary job is to increase my knowledge and become more educated. Yes, they will teach me things that I probably will never ever use for the rest of my natural life however they will teach me things that will make me a more rounded person. Considering my physique I am not sure that I need to be more rounded but you get my drift.
I think that old age is creeping up on me because I am having the hardest time remembering "Posterous". I keep remembering it as "Proteus". I think that must be because of the movie Matrix. One of their ships was named that wasn't it ? Anyway, good thing there are bookmarks or I would never find my way back in here. I was speaking to my wife the other day and she told me that 60 is not considered old by her anymore. I looked at her and laughed and said that is because you are in your fifties yourself. Of course 60 does not appear to be old from that stand point. I guess age is relative and you are only as old as you feel. With my joints acting up like they have in the last couple of weeks I have felt like I was 70. Thanks to the marvel of modern medicine I am walking again without a lot of pain.
Currently I am scanning the network computers and servers for missing Microsoft Security patches and critical updates. I am migrating users off of one Terminal Services server onto another server that has been configured for Terminal Services. I am gearing up for an application vendor to arrive here tomorrow so we can all three put our heads together and find out why the HECK their application is running like a locomotive that fell off the tracks. I have spent considerable time over the last 2 months agonizing over this and that trying to figure out why this application runs so slowly. I have been up and down the "Please dont take my pizza away" OSI network layer trying to figure out why it is so slow. The Pizza saying is the word picture that I memorized so that I can remember each of the OSI layers. Physical, Data, Transport, Media, application. I think I have Media wrong. Oh well, it is something close to that. When data leaves one computer and travels across the network media it stars at the bottom of the layer and works its way to the top and then when it arrives at the receiving computer it works its way from top to bottom. One huge cycle that goes around and around all day long millions of times per day as data packets are thrown around on the network. Pretty amazing stuff when you think about the complexities of it all.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Happy Tuesday
It is now 12:19 am and I am still awake. I am sitting here watching Conan Obrian and wrapping up school work. I just checked one of the discussion boards and one of our students in one of our computer classes has been waiting for the book store to get some more text books. I went online and searched Ebay, Textbooks.com and Amazon and could only find the older versions of this book. How crazy is that? I tried to help this chap find the book he needs but maybe he will have more luck. Hopefully the book store will have some on back order. I am glad that I went to the bookstore when I did and got all my books. I had something weird happen tonight while doing school work. Somehow I managed to get a week ahead in two out of four classes. How the heck did I do that? I also found out that I need to pay 197.00 to register Smartdraw which is an application for drawing network designs. That price is 30 percent off of the regular price of 300.00. Oh well, I guess I know where that much will be coming out of student loan money. I better get to bed and get some sleep since I have another full day ahead of me in about 7 hours. Nite Nite
Sunday, August 30, 2009
SoundClick artist: Bob Doyle - Bob Doyle creates ambient, new age, orchestral, soundtrack, and other electronic music.
via soundclick.com
Most of the time I listen to gospel and contemporary christian music. During my exploration of Posterous I found this artist who has some awesome instrumental music.
Technology, Theology, and Anything In Between
Here are some ideas as a technology business that I’ve used in order to keep my fixed costs and expenses low. Maybe some of these will be helpful to those that read this blog.
1. If you use a dedicated server, consider a VPS or shared hosting. I was using a dedicated server, but soon found out that a VPS would work just as well for the number and kinds of customers that I have. The virtual private server allows me the same control as a dedicated server, but at a much lower cost. Some VPS packages also can be faster than a low-end dedicated server, simply because the VPS has to use much better hardware if it is split up between 4-10 users. One thing to watch out for: Make sure that page load times and database stuff doesn’t bog down.
2. VOIP. One of my recent posts covered this. The specifics here was buying a decent VOIP phone (Aastra 480i to be exact), and then using a SIP-to-Skype bridge (SIPtheeSkype). This combination allows me to use my Skype subscription for unlimited US calling, plus a inbound telephone number, for $54/year. This is much better than paying the phone company $40+/month, and with some companies, a contract is involved. DISADVANTAGE: You won’t be listed in the phone book. Considering the kinds of people that contact my business, this isn’t a problem. Who looks for a software developer in the phone book? Other VOIP providers worth looking at are Gizmo5 and RingCentral.
3. Business finance. I know the debt-averse attitudes many Christians have, but I can’t say I completely agree with them. Certainly, this economic climate which we are in is causing us to rethink our ideas about debt and savings, but debt still remains a tool for businesses to use, especially to float through hard times. My suggestion here is to find a local bank that has money to lend, and use a line of credit. Currently, my bank offered me a line of credit at 4% + prime rate, which last I checked made my interest rate 7.25%. Contrast this with Chase Manahattan, a business credit card that hiked my rates up to 14.24%. Most of my views on debt and credit are based on things I read from Gary Moore. He runs this website, Financial Seminary. My best advice with this point is look to get away from credit cards, and use bank loans and lines of credit. The APR is much better, and usually, the bank line of credit forces more payment of principal every month, so you won’t be in a debt for years.
4. Credit cards. I’m going to be accepting credit cards this year, to hopefully bring in more customers that will make small purchases. I’m going to use PayPal, which will give me better control over my costs. While the transaction and discount rates won’t be as good as a merchant account, there are no monthly minimums to worry about. Also, they have a money market account that earns 0.5% now, which isn’t great, but better than 0% in my bank checking account.
Hopefully some of these ideas will be helpful to you. We will get through this year and turn a profit!
This is an excellent article from a friend of mine that I speak with on IRC. He said it was ok to share it here.
The difference between the North and the South
A friend of mine at work shared this with me. This is one of those things that is being passed around from one mail server to the next. I thought it was good enough to share here. Enjoy!!
The difference between the North and the South - at last, clearly explained.....
The North has Bloomingdale's , the South has Dollar General . The North has coffee houses, the South has Waffle Houses . The North has dating services, the South has family reunions. The North has switchblade knives; the South has .45's The North has double last names; the South has double first names. The North has Indy car races; The South has stock car races . North has Cream of Wheat , the South has grits. The North has green salads, the South has collard greens . The North has lobsters, the South has crawfish . The North has the rust belt; the South has the Bible Belt . FOR NORTHERNERS MOVING SOUTH . . .... In the South : --If you run your car into a ditch, don't panic. Four men in a four-wheel drive pickup truck with a tow chain will be along shortly. Don't try to help them, just stay out of their way. This is what they live for. Don't be surprised to find movie rentals and bait in the same store.... Do not buy food at this store. Remember, 'Yall' is singular, 'all yall' is plural, and 'all yall's' is plural possessive. (NO apostrophies ( ' ) either) Get used to hearing 'You ain't from round here, are ya?' Save all manner of bacon grease. You will be instructed later on how to use it. Don't be worried at not understanding what people are saying. They can't understand you either. The first Southern statement to creep into a transplanted Northerner's vocabulary is the adjective 'big'ol,' truck or 'big'ol' boy. Most Northerners begin their Sou thern-influenced dialect this way. All of them are in denial about it. The proper pronunciation you learned in school is no longer proper . Be advised that 'He needed killin..' is a valid defense here. If you hear a Southerner exclaim, 'Hey, yall watch this,' you should stay out of the way. These are likely to be the last words he'll ever say. If there is the prediction of the slightest chance of even the smallest accumulation of snow, your presence is required at the local grocery store. It doesn't matter whether you need anything or not. You just have to go there. Do not be surprised to find that 10-year olds own their own shotguns, they are proficient marksmen, and their mammas taught them how to aim. In the South, we have found that the best way to grow a lush green lawn is to pour gravel on it and call it a driveway. AND REMEMBER: If you do settle in the South and bear children, don't think we will accept them as Southerners. After all, if the cat had kittens in the oven, we ain't gonna call 'em biscuits. Send this to four people that ain't related to you, and I reckon your life will turn into a country music song 'fore you know it. Your kin would get a kick out of it too!
Good morning Lowcountry
I am happy to announce that my sleep cycle seems to have magically repaired itself. I stayed up until 2 am this morning watching Sons of Anarchy and talking with my IRC friends. I was able to go to sleep and get some sleep for about 7 hours. It feels nice to be awake and not all dopey feeling. It is important that I recharge my batteries with work and school putting a huge demand on my ability to think correctly.
Week one of school is over and for that I am thankful. I am also thankful that I was able to find some semblance of organization and I did not get stuck studying for 7 days straight. Everything seems to be due on Sundays and this last week most of my assignments were done by Friday morning. That means that on the weekend I will have a little bit of free time to do something fun.
This week will be another busy week at work as I work with our software vendor to fix the network latency our users are experiencing when using their software. I am in the midst of slowly and methodically making changes to optimize how well the network runs. When I say network I mean that we making changes at different layers. At the physical layer we moved one of the servers over to a 1 GB pipe when it was at 10/100. We offloaded DNS services off of the application server and we completely disabled WINS on the network since we do not have any Win9x boxes that require it. We off loaded Terminal Services off of the application server and moved that over to a different server. We have Net Observer running on the application server trying to determine where the bottleneck is. The application in question uses a flat file database and does not require SQL or Oracle to run which is sort of maddening since there are no transactional issues to look at.
Moving back to the home front my wife and I must be over the hill if we are sitting here drinking coffee and comparing the size of our horse pills that we have to take to manage certain health related issues such as blood pressure or mental equillibrium. Better living through chemicals is better than not living at all I guess.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Desire to learn again
Becoming a student of being a good student. Been way too long since I have done this. Need to slow down and read and understand what is being expected of me. Must leverage time more efficiently and allow myself to make a few mistakes along the way.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Hello Friday where have you been?
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| This is my first post to Posterous. My friend at work (Queen PITA) tweeted about this and I made the mistake of paying attention. I am losing count on how many blogs I actually have. The cool thing about Posterous is that I can post from any of the registered e-mail addresses and my crackberry and my drivel will be automatically updated on all of my social media sites. I think that is very cool but of course, this is not out of the ordinary since other social media sites do it to. Perhaps I am doing this because YOU are doing it and I don't want to be left behind wondering where everyone else went. LOL... Ok, here goes nothing, let me see if Posterous screws up my Incredimail formatting. | |||
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jcmoffitt.blogspot.com
843-323-1275
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Go Dallas Cowboys
I am happy to report that Dallas Cowbosy won their game against the Tennesse Titans on Friday night 30 to 10. Being that this is pre season that does not hold a lot of weight in the final season however it was good that they could win the first game in their innaugaral game in their brand new Texas Stadium in Arlington.
The stadium is probably one of the nicest stadiums and most high tech stadiums around for the whopping price of 1.4 billion dollars. The HUGE scoreboard in the stadium itself runs around 400,000 dollars or some astronomical figure. If you go to the game at the stadium and you are up high where you find it difficult to see the action you can just watch the jumbo screen right in front of you and not miss a thing. I am hoping to go visit this stadium this year or next. During pre game warm ups the punters had fun punting the ball into the bottom of the big screen.
I must say that while I can be very critical of how Dallas performs during the past several years I was fairly impressed by what I saw on the field Friday night. The team did make some sloppy mistakes with regards to the unsportsmanship penalties they got for no good reason. Why are we pushing people while they are already out of bounds and on the way to the ground under their own steam? Maybe the coaches will explain the rules of the game to the BOYS and let them know they can't beat up the opponents when they are out of bounds already.
Terrell Owens is gone and so is Tank Johnson which is good news to me. Tony Romo appeared to have his head in the game and did well moving the ball down the field. John Kitna with number 3 on his jersey played quarter back in the second half seemed to be very mobile in the pocket and managed to keep from being sacked and was able to make some difficult completions. There were several recievers that I have never heard of that appeared to do a good job as well. Then there is the work horse full back in Marion Barber who showed that he could pound the ball through the offensive line.
I have no doubt that Dallas will be a team to be watched and hopefully will be able to live up to the talent and depth that they have. I am hopeful that the strict training camp from Wade Phillips instilled some much needed discipline in the troops and they are ready to play some serious smash mouth football. I would love to see the Dallas Cowboys exhibit some class and integrity both on the field and off the field. In the last several years I have seen some very poor decisions with regards to hiring football players who were supposedly awesome on the field playing the game but horrible role models to our youth off the field. Do we really need people like Michael Vick (now on the Eagles roster) who has been convicted of animal abuse and spent time in prison being a role model to our youth? How many people on the Dallas Cowboy roster are known ex cons?
Should we sacrifice the integrity of the game and the over all team class by hiring thugs just because their being there can sell tickets on Sunday? If you have a player that is awesome on the field but can not get along with his fellow team mates and is being traded over and over again to other teams to get rid of them could that be a sign? In professional sports just as in real life it is not always about the one individual but it is about the team. What one person succeeds in or fails in can have immediate and lasting consequences for the team for days and years to come.
Dallas, make me proud to call you America's team even though most of America can not stand you because of your failure to live up to the team reputation of the 1980's and 1990's. Be all that you can be and quit trying to take shortcuts.
A fan of yours through good and bad since 1969!!!
James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net
The stadium is probably one of the nicest stadiums and most high tech stadiums around for the whopping price of 1.4 billion dollars. The HUGE scoreboard in the stadium itself runs around 400,000 dollars or some astronomical figure. If you go to the game at the stadium and you are up high where you find it difficult to see the action you can just watch the jumbo screen right in front of you and not miss a thing. I am hoping to go visit this stadium this year or next. During pre game warm ups the punters had fun punting the ball into the bottom of the big screen.
I must say that while I can be very critical of how Dallas performs during the past several years I was fairly impressed by what I saw on the field Friday night. The team did make some sloppy mistakes with regards to the unsportsmanship penalties they got for no good reason. Why are we pushing people while they are already out of bounds and on the way to the ground under their own steam? Maybe the coaches will explain the rules of the game to the BOYS and let them know they can't beat up the opponents when they are out of bounds already.
Terrell Owens is gone and so is Tank Johnson which is good news to me. Tony Romo appeared to have his head in the game and did well moving the ball down the field. John Kitna with number 3 on his jersey played quarter back in the second half seemed to be very mobile in the pocket and managed to keep from being sacked and was able to make some difficult completions. There were several recievers that I have never heard of that appeared to do a good job as well. Then there is the work horse full back in Marion Barber who showed that he could pound the ball through the offensive line.
I have no doubt that Dallas will be a team to be watched and hopefully will be able to live up to the talent and depth that they have. I am hopeful that the strict training camp from Wade Phillips instilled some much needed discipline in the troops and they are ready to play some serious smash mouth football. I would love to see the Dallas Cowboys exhibit some class and integrity both on the field and off the field. In the last several years I have seen some very poor decisions with regards to hiring football players who were supposedly awesome on the field playing the game but horrible role models to our youth off the field. Do we really need people like Michael Vick (now on the Eagles roster) who has been convicted of animal abuse and spent time in prison being a role model to our youth? How many people on the Dallas Cowboy roster are known ex cons?
Should we sacrifice the integrity of the game and the over all team class by hiring thugs just because their being there can sell tickets on Sunday? If you have a player that is awesome on the field but can not get along with his fellow team mates and is being traded over and over again to other teams to get rid of them could that be a sign? In professional sports just as in real life it is not always about the one individual but it is about the team. What one person succeeds in or fails in can have immediate and lasting consequences for the team for days and years to come.
Dallas, make me proud to call you America's team even though most of America can not stand you because of your failure to live up to the team reputation of the 1980's and 1990's. Be all that you can be and quit trying to take shortcuts.
A fan of yours through good and bad since 1969!!!
James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net
Seacoast West Ashley Campus and Picture Perfect
Today also marked the first day in 2 weeks in which all of my joints are not hurting me. I spent some time at Healthfirst in N Charleston talking to the doctor and having my meds switched up to give me some optimal relief. It appears that the blood pressure meds I was on was contradicting the other anti inflammatory drugs that were being prescribed and I did not know it until I plugged those drugs in on Drugs.com. I am so thankful for the power of information available to me on the Internet.
Today marked our first visit at Seacoast West Ashley Campus church. We moved to Johns Island back in May of this year and we have been going back and forth to Grace Fellowship Church in Goose Creek. Actually, I have been struggling with letting go of my old church home because I love and care for the people I just spent 9 years of my life with on every Wed night and Sunday morning and all of the special events in between. Grace Fellowship was and still is a small family oriented group of folks who seek to serve God in any way that they can. They have been such a huge blessing to me and my family.
My family has been slowly and methodically encouraging me to let go and get on with our lives on Johns Island which includes finding a church home closer to home that we can attend and serve. Change is always scary especially since it means meeting new people and becoming known. I love to sing on the praise team and I love helping to manage technology so at any new church you have to become known and then you have to become qualified to be allowed to do most things. The important thing is that if you are part of a family or an organization there are rules and standards that are set in place for a reason. If you are going to be a part of the system then you have to be willing to follow those standards even if you may not totally agree with them. Ministry takes a team effort and most of that effort is getting along with others and playing well in the sand box. No one likes a “know it “all or someone who insists on doing it there way.
The service today was a little bit different than what we are used to but not in such a way that we were uncomfortable. I could tell from the stage and the sound booth that we would need to sit about halfway back even though I wanted to sit on the second row so I could really see what was going on. The music was loud but it was not over bearing. The music was contemporary and maybe even some of the songs were very new to me since I had never heard of them. I noticed that there were no screens in the back for the singers to see the words but I think that they had little pedestals in front of them where they could refer to the songs if they needed to which is good.
I was surprised to see that the message “Picture Perfect” was delivered via telecast to the big screen by the main pastor in another location. At first it was sort of weird but I have seen this before so I warmed right up and listened intently to what he had to say. The focus of the message was families and family pictures. The message was about how family pictures are more than just the photos but what goes on behind the scenes and almost never reflects any of the problems or issues that the family members may be facing or have faced in the past.
The pastor went on to expound on how the choices we have made in the past cause us to live through consequences now and can have consequences for generations to come. He spoke about the importance of making good choices and to think about long term consequences and not just the here and now. It was a very good message and service and I would encourage you to download their podcast if you have time to listen to it.
All in all today has been a very good day since I feel much better physically and that has helped me to feel better mentally, spiritually and emotionally. I am looking forward to the new week and what it has to offer. I will be spending a lot of my evening hours studying all four of my class materials which will be pretty new to me after being out of school for 29 years. I can do it!!!
James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net
Today marked our first visit at Seacoast West Ashley Campus church. We moved to Johns Island back in May of this year and we have been going back and forth to Grace Fellowship Church in Goose Creek. Actually, I have been struggling with letting go of my old church home because I love and care for the people I just spent 9 years of my life with on every Wed night and Sunday morning and all of the special events in between. Grace Fellowship was and still is a small family oriented group of folks who seek to serve God in any way that they can. They have been such a huge blessing to me and my family.
My family has been slowly and methodically encouraging me to let go and get on with our lives on Johns Island which includes finding a church home closer to home that we can attend and serve. Change is always scary especially since it means meeting new people and becoming known. I love to sing on the praise team and I love helping to manage technology so at any new church you have to become known and then you have to become qualified to be allowed to do most things. The important thing is that if you are part of a family or an organization there are rules and standards that are set in place for a reason. If you are going to be a part of the system then you have to be willing to follow those standards even if you may not totally agree with them. Ministry takes a team effort and most of that effort is getting along with others and playing well in the sand box. No one likes a “know it “all or someone who insists on doing it there way.
The service today was a little bit different than what we are used to but not in such a way that we were uncomfortable. I could tell from the stage and the sound booth that we would need to sit about halfway back even though I wanted to sit on the second row so I could really see what was going on. The music was loud but it was not over bearing. The music was contemporary and maybe even some of the songs were very new to me since I had never heard of them. I noticed that there were no screens in the back for the singers to see the words but I think that they had little pedestals in front of them where they could refer to the songs if they needed to which is good.
I was surprised to see that the message “Picture Perfect” was delivered via telecast to the big screen by the main pastor in another location. At first it was sort of weird but I have seen this before so I warmed right up and listened intently to what he had to say. The focus of the message was families and family pictures. The message was about how family pictures are more than just the photos but what goes on behind the scenes and almost never reflects any of the problems or issues that the family members may be facing or have faced in the past.
The pastor went on to expound on how the choices we have made in the past cause us to live through consequences now and can have consequences for generations to come. He spoke about the importance of making good choices and to think about long term consequences and not just the here and now. It was a very good message and service and I would encourage you to download their podcast if you have time to listen to it.
All in all today has been a very good day since I feel much better physically and that has helped me to feel better mentally, spiritually and emotionally. I am looking forward to the new week and what it has to offer. I will be spending a lot of my evening hours studying all four of my class materials which will be pretty new to me after being out of school for 29 years. I can do it!!!
James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net
Friday, August 21, 2009
Pizza and Dallas Cowboys
This has been a very busy week and I am glad that it is over for now. I am sitting in my recliner waiitng on Pizza Hut to deliver a meat lovers pizza and a 2 liter of Pepsi just in time for the Dallas vs Titans game on Fox. I have been watching the Cowboys since 1969 and depsite their pathetic performance over the last couple of decades I am still a true blue fan. I am happy they got rid of Terrell Owens to the Buffaloe Bills and Tank Johnson is gone as well. I will be interested to see if my team can actually put together a game plan worth watching. I know this is only a pre season game but it will be nice to see if the Boys can show case some of their talent. For a team that has a lot of talent I do not understand why they can not seem to keep the drive alive all through the season and make it through the play offs. In the last couple of years they have come out like a house on fire for the first 7 or 8 games and then they fall apart at the end.
Starting next week I will be working two jobs. I will be doing my I.T. job during the day and studying my new classes in the evening hours. The text books suggest that for each class I will need to study between 4 to 6 hours per week so that means Monday through Friday will be booked solid. All I can do is take one day at a time and one subject at a time and just do the best I can. It will be good to be beyond the paperwork and preparation stage of going back to school and actually doing something productive like learning.
I am looking forward to the challenge and it will be nice to learn some new things and review some things that I already do know. I am hoping that my I.T. experience will help me to get through some of the computer courses without too much trouble. Only time will tell and I am sure that I will be bloggin about my experiences on the weekends. Now for some pizza and Dallas Cowboys.
James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net
Starting next week I will be working two jobs. I will be doing my I.T. job during the day and studying my new classes in the evening hours. The text books suggest that for each class I will need to study between 4 to 6 hours per week so that means Monday through Friday will be booked solid. All I can do is take one day at a time and one subject at a time and just do the best I can. It will be good to be beyond the paperwork and preparation stage of going back to school and actually doing something productive like learning.
I am looking forward to the challenge and it will be nice to learn some new things and review some things that I already do know. I am hoping that my I.T. experience will help me to get through some of the computer courses without too much trouble. Only time will tell and I am sure that I will be bloggin about my experiences on the weekends. Now for some pizza and Dallas Cowboys.
James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net
Monday, August 10, 2009
life and remediation
I have managed to provide Trident Technical College with all of the verification paperwork that they wanted. Now I can just wait for the admissions process to do its thing and hopefully start school on the 24th of August. I can no longer snicker at my children and their having to go back to school. I will be right there with them studying and taking tests. I even told them that they can hold me accountable for my grades and look at my report cards. I am not sure that college students get a report card in the same sense as grade school kids but they know that they will be able to see my grades. I will have to do good so that they wont think their dad is stupid or something. I would hate for them to ground me for making bad grades.
James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net
Today started out by dropping off my wife at work and then going to work myself. I had not been at work for 30 minutes when I got a phone call from the wife telling me that she had just gotten fired and to come get her. As you can imagine she was upset about this turn of events especially since she just started this job three weeks ago. The reason that they fired her was because she was not getting it. They also said that she did not finish her work on Saturday and left without doing it. As you probably already know in the state of SC the employer does not even need a reason to fire you. You are employed at will and the employer and yourself can terminate that employment at will as well. Neither one of you have to have a reason however the employer requires that you give them 2 weeks notice while at the same time they don't have to give you 5 seconds notice.
The problem with this picture is that my wife is a very intelligent and hard working individual who has always been a long term employee. I will indulge the fact that she prefers to be in a classroom setting and probably excels at teaching children more than she does in a restaurant or shop setting where she has to do things she is not too familiar with. When they said she did not do her job on Saturday they did not care that she did not finish all of the tasks given to her because she was stuck at the cash register the entire 7 hours. She also was told that she could not work beyond her shift. How in the world was she supposed to finish her side tasks if she was told to run the cash register?
I know, what is done is done and it does not matter that I think that her supervisor is full of malarkey. They decided that they did not like my wife for whatever reasons and dumped her back out on the street from where she came. I know and Katy knows that life is not fair and you just have to suck it up and go on. The good news is that school starts in about two weeks and Katy can always be a substitute teacher at one of the Charleston County schools in the immediate area.
This month we are hoping to get our daughter tested for her official drivers license. I have been getting her to cart me here and there in the Durango in an effort for her to get some more experience. Princess does pretty good with regards to handling the vehicle on a two lane road as well as freeway driving. She still needs to work on her turning from one lane and keeping the vehicle in the same lane she is turning into. In her defense the love boat is not exactly the easiest vehicle to learn how to drive. All in all she is doing pretty well. The next step for her will be to learn how to parallel park and do a three point turn. I am not sure I even know what that is but now that Katy is off of work for the next two weeks she can figure out a way to do this. Monitoring my daughters driving habits has been interesting and a test of my patience. One of the things that I have had to do is to remind my princess that part of driving from point A to point B is to know where you are at and where you are going. I guess I had forgotten that when you are just riding in a vehicle all the time you really dont pay attention to how you get somewhere.
I have learned the hard way that working for a publicly traded company means that you get to participate in lots of audits through the year. My goal once I am done with my degree program and have my new certifications is to find employment somewhere that is NOT a publicly traded company so I can alleviate a lot of stress and headaches from my work day. Thanks to people and organizations who have defrauded others of their hard earned cash the rest of us have to suffer through the painful audit process. Here is how it works.
The organization creates and publishes its I.T. Policies which include how you are to perform you daily, weekly and monthly tasks. The company then hires an outside consulting firm who then analyzes your tasks and makes you create data controls to match those tasks. Then the organization deems it necessary for you to perform all the tasks outlined in each data control so that you can pass an audit. Then the auditing firm comes through and puts all of your actions under a microscope to make sure you have performed all of the data controls to the letter and requires that you give them evidence of doing it.
It all boils down to checks and balances and all of the data controls are just a fancy way of encapsulating everything that you already should be doing in order to safeguard and protect the financial information that you are entrusted to take care of. If mistakes are found, and there usually are some human errors that pop up then you get to go through what is known as remediation. Remediation means that you sit down with your boss and the bosses boss and that bosses boss with the auditor and you get to explain why you screwed up. Once you have announced to the world that you are an idiot and promise not to ever not do that task the wrong way again you get to help redefine the data control that contains all of the tasks or task in question.
In an audit you only did a task if you can provide evidence that you did it. That evidence needs to be something that is generated by the system or systems that you are managing. Not only that but there has to be multiple people involved in each check and balance to confirm that you did in fact do the task that you said that you did.
We have decided that by the end of September or the beginning of October we are going to take a week off and go back to Texas. All of our friends and family are there and we have not been back home in about 6 years. We are hoping that we can fly vs driving so we can spend more of our time enjoying our time with everyone vs eating up the time driving between states. I am ready for some much needed time away from work.
James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net
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