Beach art at Pampano beach
Thursday, November 03, 2005
God things
We arrived back here at 5 am on Wed morning. I slept from 6 am until 1pm yesterday, ran some errands and crashed again at 9:30pm and got up again at 4am. My body just can not seem to stay in a horizontal position for longer than 6 hours at a time. I woke up at 4 am and wound up having a chest cold and sore throat. JOY!!!!! I stayed up until about 10:30 am, went to breakfast with my friend Chuck and then crashed and burned until around 1:30 pm when I got up , checked my e-mail and then took Justin and two of his buddies over to Fran's house to rake leaves. The boys did such a good job the lady gave them an extra five bucks on top of the ten that I gave them. We ran out of daylight so tomorrow we will go back and finish the job. Good job boys!!
While I was out and about I had something neat happen to me. So neat in fact I want to write about it. I had two of my male friends call me to find out how I was doing. The first thing that goes through my mind when someone calls is to wonder what they want from me. You know the type, the friend that calls you friend especially when they want something from you. Well, my friends Rick and Jorge helped me to renew my faith in my friends because they both called me just to chat and see how I am doing. I can not tell you what a blessing that is to me. I know that neither one of them will read this blog but I want to go on record and say THANK YOU my friends for checking on me. It means so much to me.
I forgot that I have a praise report to give you. You might be saying to yourself, what the heck is a praise report. Well, simply put a praise report is a positive situation where I feel that God intervened in my life and I want to give God the praise, honor and glory. Anyway, we left Ft Lauderdale Florida last night around 4:45 pm and arrived in Charleston around 5 am. We stopped in Daytona Beach at exit 261 around 9pm and ate at Cracker Barrell and waited for the other van in our caravan to catch up with us so we could use their gas card to fuel up both vans. I drove the first leg of the journey from Ft Lauderdale to Daytona Beach which was about 400 miles in four hours. Mr Morris took the wheel from there and we hit the road again around 10:30pm. On I-95 North on our way to Georgia around 1:30 am I was asleep in the front passenger seat when I was awakened by Mr. Morris saying OH SH** and swerving the van around the left side in traffic. I woke up in time to see this white mini van sitting in the middle lane with no lights and just sitting still. We probably missed it by inches. There was another car that did not manage to miss the car without losing control and spinning into the ditch. All in all I dont think anyone got hurt badly out of this incident. The God Thing in all of this is that we were able to get around this car without hitting it and staying on the road.
The scary thing is that this happened so quickly that none of us had any time to do anything other than just react to what we were seeing. It reminds me of our mortality and that we are all appointed a time to die. None of us know when this moment will happen but rest assured, it will. The question is, are we ready or do we think that just because we are young (in our minds) that we have plenty of time to get our lives in order? Where will we spend etermity? When we step out of this life into eternity will God say "well done my faithful servant" or will God say " go away from me you wicked person, I know you not". If you have not given this thought please think about it and be sure that you know that you know without a shadow of a doubt that you will enter into heaven and not hell. God loves you so much and his desire is that you will spend eternity in heaven with Him for eternity.
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his ONLY begotten son that whomsoever belives on Him will not perish but have everlasting life".
That is all you need to know. God loves you and HE has made arrangements for you to spend eternity in heaven. All you have to do is to repent of yoru sins (Romans says we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God) and accept the gift of Grace (Christ hanging on the cross for the sins of man past present and future) and ask God to come into your life and be your Lord and Savour.
My prayer is that you will chose to accept Christ into your life, repent of your sins and receive the grace of God, forgiveness of sins and a new purpose for your life for now and eternity.
God bless
While I was out and about I had something neat happen to me. So neat in fact I want to write about it. I had two of my male friends call me to find out how I was doing. The first thing that goes through my mind when someone calls is to wonder what they want from me. You know the type, the friend that calls you friend especially when they want something from you. Well, my friends Rick and Jorge helped me to renew my faith in my friends because they both called me just to chat and see how I am doing. I can not tell you what a blessing that is to me. I know that neither one of them will read this blog but I want to go on record and say THANK YOU my friends for checking on me. It means so much to me.
I forgot that I have a praise report to give you. You might be saying to yourself, what the heck is a praise report. Well, simply put a praise report is a positive situation where I feel that God intervened in my life and I want to give God the praise, honor and glory. Anyway, we left Ft Lauderdale Florida last night around 4:45 pm and arrived in Charleston around 5 am. We stopped in Daytona Beach at exit 261 around 9pm and ate at Cracker Barrell and waited for the other van in our caravan to catch up with us so we could use their gas card to fuel up both vans. I drove the first leg of the journey from Ft Lauderdale to Daytona Beach which was about 400 miles in four hours. Mr Morris took the wheel from there and we hit the road again around 10:30pm. On I-95 North on our way to Georgia around 1:30 am I was asleep in the front passenger seat when I was awakened by Mr. Morris saying OH SH** and swerving the van around the left side in traffic. I woke up in time to see this white mini van sitting in the middle lane with no lights and just sitting still. We probably missed it by inches. There was another car that did not manage to miss the car without losing control and spinning into the ditch. All in all I dont think anyone got hurt badly out of this incident. The God Thing in all of this is that we were able to get around this car without hitting it and staying on the road.
The scary thing is that this happened so quickly that none of us had any time to do anything other than just react to what we were seeing. It reminds me of our mortality and that we are all appointed a time to die. None of us know when this moment will happen but rest assured, it will. The question is, are we ready or do we think that just because we are young (in our minds) that we have plenty of time to get our lives in order? Where will we spend etermity? When we step out of this life into eternity will God say "well done my faithful servant" or will God say " go away from me you wicked person, I know you not". If you have not given this thought please think about it and be sure that you know that you know without a shadow of a doubt that you will enter into heaven and not hell. God loves you so much and his desire is that you will spend eternity in heaven with Him for eternity.
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his ONLY begotten son that whomsoever belives on Him will not perish but have everlasting life".
That is all you need to know. God loves you and HE has made arrangements for you to spend eternity in heaven. All you have to do is to repent of yoru sins (Romans says we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God) and accept the gift of Grace (Christ hanging on the cross for the sins of man past present and future) and ask God to come into your life and be your Lord and Savour.
My prayer is that you will chose to accept Christ into your life, repent of your sins and receive the grace of God, forgiveness of sins and a new purpose for your life for now and eternity.
God bless
9 days for Hurricane Wilma relief
I expected to stay longer but it turns out that I only had to stay 9 days in Ft. Lauderdale Florida. Our clients, CVS Pharmacy, Eckards, Home Depot and Bell South used us for that period of time and as of Monday afternoon they decided that they no longer needed us. As of Monday evening when we left to come home Bellsouth was the only client still needing us on their property. Mostly we watched the portable power generators to make sure no one walked off with them. CVS Pharmacy had several ice trucks that were giving out free ice that we had to monitor. Home Depot had a need for five officers during the day and two at night.
Home Depot was nice enough to obtain several gas trucks and allowed US Security vehicles and several vendors to bring their vehicles in to be refueled.
Ft Lauderdale has 30 counties that are still without power. Most of the businesses in Broward County where we were staying had power and you had a nice selection of restaurants to visit between 8 am and 10pm. There was still a curfew from 11pm to 6 am when we left in that county. We stayed at Inverrary Suites in Lauderhill Florida which is one of many municipalities withink Ft Lauderdale Florida.
My primary task turned out to be a driver since I was the only one with a laptop with GPS attachment. Even with the technology sometimes it was hard to find the right address since each street seems to be duplicated in every single town within Ft Lauderdale Fl. Towards the end of the week one of the operations managers, Jack, went out to Office Depot and bought Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 with GPS and he loved it. Jack used this to print out maps for the other drives so they could find their locations easier.
I took lots and lots of pictures that I will be uploading to my blog here and to my main photoalbum website. There was not as much apparent damage in Ft Lauderdale as there was in Mississippi and Louisiana however the residents in Ft Lauderdale and beyond did feel the effects of Hurricane Wilma. The water in several counties had to be boiled before consumption. Gas stations were all closed and the ones that were open were rationing gas and there were very long lines lasting for hours just to get 20.00 worth. Traffic in and around Ft lauderdale was a nightmare (daymare) because there were no traffic lights. Everyone's patience was almost non exisstant and I have not heard as many car horns in all my life. All left hand turns were blocked by police baracades which meant I had to take "Mother Goose" on a million U Turns which was so much fun. Mother Goose is the name for the 15 passenger Chevy Van that I wound up driving on many trips. Ice, dairy products and lunch meat or meat of any kind were not available since all the grocery stores lost everything when the electricity went out. CVS Pharmacy was nice enough to truck in several trucks of ice bags that were given out to anyone that wanted to come and pick it up.
One of the things that I have learned about these types of trips is that there is a lot of negativity and living conditions are less than optimal. As someone said these types of situations (natural disasters) will bring out the best of the best and the worse of the worse. Due to the living conditions being less than optimal and having to work long hours with very little food or breaks that led to folks being less than patient and perhaps more verbal about their complaints that they might have been normally. I kept finding myself wishing that the folks would just suck it up and quit the whining. LOL...
Having to deliver 40+ security officers to multiple sites in a strange city with no power turned into a logistical nightmare to say the least. For some reason the law enforcement officials in Ft Lauderdale were NOT receptive to our arrival and/or attempts of assistance to our clients. On more han one occasion we had the city police and county police to harrass our security personell who were on site at night doing their jobs. That did not make our jobs any easier.
One of the things that added to the confusion logistically speaking is that our company had way too many chiefs and not enough indians. Lack of communications and the inability to provide the security officers with much needed perdiem money caused a huge moral problem within the ranks.
Home Depot was nice enough to obtain several gas trucks and allowed US Security vehicles and several vendors to bring their vehicles in to be refueled.
Ft Lauderdale has 30 counties that are still without power. Most of the businesses in Broward County where we were staying had power and you had a nice selection of restaurants to visit between 8 am and 10pm. There was still a curfew from 11pm to 6 am when we left in that county. We stayed at Inverrary Suites in Lauderhill Florida which is one of many municipalities withink Ft Lauderdale Florida.
My primary task turned out to be a driver since I was the only one with a laptop with GPS attachment. Even with the technology sometimes it was hard to find the right address since each street seems to be duplicated in every single town within Ft Lauderdale Fl. Towards the end of the week one of the operations managers, Jack, went out to Office Depot and bought Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 with GPS and he loved it. Jack used this to print out maps for the other drives so they could find their locations easier.
I took lots and lots of pictures that I will be uploading to my blog here and to my main photoalbum website. There was not as much apparent damage in Ft Lauderdale as there was in Mississippi and Louisiana however the residents in Ft Lauderdale and beyond did feel the effects of Hurricane Wilma. The water in several counties had to be boiled before consumption. Gas stations were all closed and the ones that were open were rationing gas and there were very long lines lasting for hours just to get 20.00 worth. Traffic in and around Ft lauderdale was a nightmare (daymare) because there were no traffic lights. Everyone's patience was almost non exisstant and I have not heard as many car horns in all my life. All left hand turns were blocked by police baracades which meant I had to take "Mother Goose" on a million U Turns which was so much fun. Mother Goose is the name for the 15 passenger Chevy Van that I wound up driving on many trips. Ice, dairy products and lunch meat or meat of any kind were not available since all the grocery stores lost everything when the electricity went out. CVS Pharmacy was nice enough to truck in several trucks of ice bags that were given out to anyone that wanted to come and pick it up.
One of the things that I have learned about these types of trips is that there is a lot of negativity and living conditions are less than optimal. As someone said these types of situations (natural disasters) will bring out the best of the best and the worse of the worse. Due to the living conditions being less than optimal and having to work long hours with very little food or breaks that led to folks being less than patient and perhaps more verbal about their complaints that they might have been normally. I kept finding myself wishing that the folks would just suck it up and quit the whining. LOL...
Having to deliver 40+ security officers to multiple sites in a strange city with no power turned into a logistical nightmare to say the least. For some reason the law enforcement officials in Ft Lauderdale were NOT receptive to our arrival and/or attempts of assistance to our clients. On more han one occasion we had the city police and county police to harrass our security personell who were on site at night doing their jobs. That did not make our jobs any easier.
One of the things that added to the confusion logistically speaking is that our company had way too many chiefs and not enough indians. Lack of communications and the inability to provide the security officers with much needed perdiem money caused a huge moral problem within the ranks.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Monday, October 24, 2005
Arrived in Orlando safe and sound
We arrived in Orlando Florida around 7pm tonight. We are in a very nice hotel called Quality Suites on US 192 if you know where that is. Anyway, we were very surprised that they were able to hook us up with a quality place to stay vs the RV nightmare when we went down to Louisiana and Mississippi the beginning of September. There are four of us in a split level suite with two master bedrooms a connecting kitchen and living room area. Of course there is high speed wireless Internet which is enabling me to write you this update. LOL... We are watching CNN and from what I can tell SW Florida got hit pretty hard. There is lots of flooding and property damage. Apparently there was loss of life thanks to people not heeding the warnings to evacuate. There is NO excuse for people to try and ride out a Cat 2 or 3 hurricane in a trailer park. What is wrong with these folks anyway? Orlando has beautiful weather and there are no signs of any affect from the weather. I would imagine that tomorrow morning we will get our duty assignments and I would imagine that it will be much further south of here. The state of Florida did not allow us to cross over the border with weapons so we will have to be unarmed which none of us are thrilled about. So pray for safety for those of us that might be faced with looters in the middle of the night. Hopefully not too much of that will happen here in Florida.
James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
http://moffittjc.myblogsite.com/blog
moffittj@bellsouth.net
James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
http://moffittjc.myblogsite.com/blog
moffittj@bellsouth.net
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Hurricane Wilma
As you can see Hurricane Wilma is bearing down on Florida and is projected to hit sometime early Monday morning and be on the other side of the state around 2pm Monday afternoon. I will be leaving with approximately 30 other security officers for Orlando Florida at 9 am in the morning and should get there around 4 or 5pm. Once the storm has come and gone then the damage assessment will begin and our customers will tell us where they need us the most. So, I wont really know what I will be doing until after we get there and find out where the most damage has been done.
The Dallas Cowgirls managed to lose the game to Seattle tonight with only 25 seconds left on the clock. Several times during the game Dallas got the ball in good field position and just could not put any points on the board. Cortes, the worthless kicker missed a 28 yard field goal. How pathetic is that. If it were up to me he would be fired tomorrow. Heck, I would fire him tonight and let him find his own way home. LOL... Dallas is now 4 wins and 3 losses in the NFC east. The Dallas defense played an awesome game today so kudos to them.
The Dallas Cowgirls managed to lose the game to Seattle tonight with only 25 seconds left on the clock. Several times during the game Dallas got the ball in good field position and just could not put any points on the board. Cortes, the worthless kicker missed a 28 yard field goal. How pathetic is that. If it were up to me he would be fired tomorrow. Heck, I would fire him tonight and let him find his own way home. LOL... Dallas is now 4 wins and 3 losses in the NFC east. The Dallas defense played an awesome game today so kudos to them.
Hopping mad
I was on the way out of my home a few moments ago to go find something to do to pass time until a meeting at 4pm. I decided that I wanted to use one of my light jackets because the weather has turned delightfully cool here in Goose Creek. The temperature inside is 75 F without the air or heater running which means it is aroun 65 F outside. Anyway, I asked Katy where my light jackets are located since I have not been able to find them. Katy was napping on the couch but she told me she would help me go into the kids rooms to find them. What a mistake that was folks. Good grief, talk about a nuclear melt down. Katy found her good leather coat in Justin's closet underneath a pile of junk. Well, anyway, lets just say I had to open up a can of whup A$$ on both of the kids today. We have told them a THOUSAND times that we EXPECT them to keep their rooms clean and in order. What does it take for them to get it through their thick skulls that we mean business when we talk to them. I HATE to use the belt on my children but today they have pushed us both to the limits.
It was just last night that I had a sit down conversation with the children. We had one of those "lets get to know one another" type of conversations. I gave the children the opportunity to tell me those things about dear ole Dad that bothered them and might be hindering their ability to have a relationship with me and/or keep them from doing what is expected of them. Believe it or not, after about 45 minutes of my coaxing them to share they sat down and gave me a list of "issues" that I can address to make things easier for them. Ok, fair enough, I wrote down the list of infractions, apologized to them for them and promised I would work on these issues. I asked them if my doing that would help them with regards to them allowing me to get close and/or their willingness to do what is expected of them. Oh yes, sir. That will help us alot. So, kewl, I figured that we had a successful discourse on stuff. Now this. I guess we can just talk ourselves until we are blue in the face and they are going to just do whatever it is they think they can get away with.
We have tried talking until we are blue in the face and we have tried taking away priveleges. I was HOPING upon hope that this would solve the problem. Take away priveleges they like and then they will straighten up and fly right. Instead it appears that what they do is just only do those things that are immediately obvious to us and then behind our backs get away with anything and everything they can. I know that teenagers like to push the limits but when it comes down to downright disobedience and being disrespctful I am going to have to draw the line.
Well, that is about it for now. Hopefully this experience will show them that we mean business and that they can expect us to enforce discipline on them if they choose to be disobedient.
It was just last night that I had a sit down conversation with the children. We had one of those "lets get to know one another" type of conversations. I gave the children the opportunity to tell me those things about dear ole Dad that bothered them and might be hindering their ability to have a relationship with me and/or keep them from doing what is expected of them. Believe it or not, after about 45 minutes of my coaxing them to share they sat down and gave me a list of "issues" that I can address to make things easier for them. Ok, fair enough, I wrote down the list of infractions, apologized to them for them and promised I would work on these issues. I asked them if my doing that would help them with regards to them allowing me to get close and/or their willingness to do what is expected of them. Oh yes, sir. That will help us alot. So, kewl, I figured that we had a successful discourse on stuff. Now this. I guess we can just talk ourselves until we are blue in the face and they are going to just do whatever it is they think they can get away with.
We have tried talking until we are blue in the face and we have tried taking away priveleges. I was HOPING upon hope that this would solve the problem. Take away priveleges they like and then they will straighten up and fly right. Instead it appears that what they do is just only do those things that are immediately obvious to us and then behind our backs get away with anything and everything they can. I know that teenagers like to push the limits but when it comes down to downright disobedience and being disrespctful I am going to have to draw the line.
Well, that is about it for now. Hopefully this experience will show them that we mean business and that they can expect us to enforce discipline on them if they choose to be disobedient.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Dallas Cowboys NFC East First Place as of this Sunday
The following story from the www.nfl.com website tells the tale of how Dallas Cowboys advanced to first place in the NFC East. Go Cowboys. The head coach is right however, the offense was very sloppy and by all rights if the Giants offense had not been equally sloppy they would have lost this one. It just goes to show you that any given team can beat any given team on any given day. Who said that anyway??
Despite four early turnovers, two missed field goals and giving up a game-tying touchdown in the final minute of regulation, the Cowboys kept plugging away and defeated the Giants in overtime 16-13. The Giants turned two Cowboys fumbles into field goals, but Jason Witten's 2-yard touchdown catch gave Dallas a 7-6 halftime lead. Jose Cortez, who missed his first two tries, kicked field goals of 29 and 28 yards to push the lead to 13-6. The Cowboys forced four turnovers in the second half -- three deep in their own territory -- but the Giants tied the game with :19 remaining in regulation. But the Cowboys (4-2) won the coin toss, and Drew Bledsoe completed passes on the first three plays to set up Cortez's 45-yard field goal. "I feel pretty fortunate to win that," Dallas coach Bill Parcells said. "Our defense played well for pretty much the whole game. ... But offensively, we were just sloppy."
Despite four early turnovers, two missed field goals and giving up a game-tying touchdown in the final minute of regulation, the Cowboys kept plugging away and defeated the Giants in overtime 16-13. The Giants turned two Cowboys fumbles into field goals, but Jason Witten's 2-yard touchdown catch gave Dallas a 7-6 halftime lead. Jose Cortez, who missed his first two tries, kicked field goals of 29 and 28 yards to push the lead to 13-6. The Cowboys forced four turnovers in the second half -- three deep in their own territory -- but the Giants tied the game with :19 remaining in regulation. But the Cowboys (4-2) won the coin toss, and Drew Bledsoe completed passes on the first three plays to set up Cortez's 45-yard field goal. "I feel pretty fortunate to win that," Dallas coach Bill Parcells said. "Our defense played well for pretty much the whole game. ... But offensively, we were just sloppy."
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