Happy Days Boat Trip

Happy Days Boat Trip

Watch the video

SCSSA and Happy Days and Special Times sponsored the 2006 Boat trip from the Charleston Harbor. This clip shows an interview with SCSSA members, a boat captain and the children playing in a pool that was also donated by SCSSA. Five boats were used by SCSSA to transport the kids with cancer, their siblings and parents.

Tags: scssa, special, happy, times, days

High-tech jobs recovery? Don't believe the hype

High-tech jobs recovery? Don't believe the hype

I read this article this morning and have to say that I agree whole heartedly. Information Technology for a career path is not the best move for anyone these days. Once upon a time, before September 11th 2001 , I could write my own check. Today I am struggling to find a contract doing desktop support and I am making way below what I was used to making. Because of this I am considering furthering my education and getting back into the medical field doing something other than computer support.

Starting over July 23rd 2006

Starting Over July 23rd 2006

Sun, Jul 16 2006
Total Calories Consumed 1,790
Mon, Jul 17 2006
Total Calories Consumed 2,182
Tue, Jul 18 2006
Total Calories Consumed 1,373
Wed, Jul 19 2006
Total Calories Consumed 2,031
Thu, Jul 20 2006
Total Calories Consumed 1,414
Fri, Jul 21 2006
Total Calories Consumed 1,814
Sat, Jul 22 2006
Total Calories Consumed 1,748
Sun, Jul 23 2006
Breakfast and Lunch thus far
Total Calories Consumed 1,360

Exercise Accountability

Mon, Jul 17 2006 Elliptical Trainer - Moderate Effort 35 949
Weight Lifting - (Free Weight Nautilus or Universal-type), Light or Moderate Effort, Light Workout, General 30 244
Total Calories Burned 1192.7

Tue, Jul 18 2006 Swimming - Breaststroke, General 20 542
Total Calories Burned 542.1

Wed, Jul 19 2006
Elliptical Trainer - Moderate Effort 30 813
Weight Lifting - (Free Weight Nautilus or Universal-type), Light or Moderate Effort, Light Workout, General 30 244
Total Calories Burned 1057.1

Fri, Jul 21 2006
Elliptical Trainer - Moderate Effort 30 813
Weight Lifting - (Free Weight Nautilus or Universal-type), Light or Moderate Effort, Light Workout, General 35 285
Total Calories Burned 1097.8

Sat, Jul 22 2006
Non-food Shopping - Standing or Walking 300 1,871
Total Calories Burned 1870.5

Sun, Jul 23 2006
Non-food Shopping - Standing or Walking 300 1,871
Total Calories Burned 1,871


Well, as you can see, I am committed to starting over. I feel great and have lots of energy and feel much much stronger than ever before. As for weight loss, that is not happening for now. Hopefully that will begint o happen very soon. I am counting every single calorie that I stick in my mouth and I am increasing the intensity of my workouts every time I go. I find that the Hydroxycut is giving me more energy and curbing my hunger pangs some. This next week I intend to increase the dosage of Hydroxycut to 2 pills per day, one early in the morning and one around 2 pm. Hopefully that will cause me to eat less food altogether. On a positive note my blood pressure is down to around 116/68. My exercising on a regular basis has really had a dramatic affect on my blood pressure. I am also not having as much swelling in my ankles as I once did which is a good thing.

So, I consider this last week a good week. I am still starting over...

zoomed in image of one of the boats in our entourage today 

zoomed in image of Arthur Ravenel Bridge  

Picture of Arthur Ravenel Bridge from Charleston Harbor July 20th 2006 

You can see the coast guard emblem on the side of the hull in this picture 

another view of CG Sailboat  

Coast Guard Sailboat in Charleston Harbor 

entourage of boats that were part of our party today. We took out about 50 kids for Happy days and Special times 

smaller boat zooming past us 

River shot in front of the boat 

control tower that raises the bridge for boats to go under it 

draw bridge on river we were on today 

captain of the boat I was on today 

Kristina Lynn "Princess" Moffitt during the boat ride today. She looks like a gangsta... 

Justin Matthew Moffitt on boat ride today sponsored by SSCA and Happy Days and Special Times 

Motorola Razr phone and Motorola Phone Tools issues

The other day I tried to use my cell phone to make phone calls. I was able to receive phone calls but not able to send them. The first thought that ran through my mind was, did I pay the bill or did they cut me off even if I did pay the bill? Stranger things have happened in the past. So, anyway, I call my friends over at Suncom Customer support later in the morning and I found out that two things needed to happen. The first thing that happened is that the Suncom System had been upgraded between 12 midnight and 6 am. In order for my phone to work properly I needed to turn my phone off for a few moments and then power it up again. The other thing that I needed to do was to go by Suncom retail outlet and have them swap out my version 2.5 SIM card for version 3.0. Apparently that version of SIM card has the updated software needed to interface my telephone with their towers. Ok, fair enough. So, off I go to the land of Suncom to sit in line (on the floor) waiting for someone to chat with me about this. I signed the list and sat down to wait with the other 25 people that were there for other issues. One of the sales reps happened to hear my conversation with another customer about my just being there to swap out sim cards so he tosses one on the counter for me to complete the transaction on my own. I managed to get the SIM card swapped out and connected to the service. Thus far, no problems sending and receiving phone calls with my Motorola VC3 Razr phone.
That event happened approximately 10 days ago and just today I decided to try and download some images that I have taken and stored on my phone. One of the features that I love about the Motorola Razr is that it has a very nice digital camera with a 4x digital zoom. I have taken quite a few photos with this phone since it is easier to do that then always have to lug around my other digital camera which is much bigger.
I installed the Motorola Phone Tools to my laptop computer the other day after I wiped the hard drive after testing Microsoft Vista. At that time I had not tried to configure the telephone with the software and just figured I would do that later. I knew that I already had the Motorola Phone Tools configured and functional on my main system. Today when I tried to run the Phone Tools software I was advised of an update so I allowed Live Update run and updated the software. To my surprise when I connected the phone to the laptop USB port the Motorola Razr was not recognized. Two hours later I finally gave up and figured that it would be more fun to download and blog pictures off the main system vs fighting with software on the laptop.
When I came over to the main system I was surprised to see that the already configured Motorola Phone Tools with the profile for the Motorola Razr no longer worked. I tried upgrading the software on the main system as well and that did not work. I uninstalled all of the Motorola Phone Tools and then just reinstalled the original software hoping to make that work. Guess what folks? No cigar.... No connection between the computer and the Motorola Razr phone either. All I can figure is that before I swapped out the SIM cards the interface between the software and hardware worked and after I upgraded the SIM card the interface does not work any longer. That means that interoperability between the hardware and the SIM card and software went out the window at some point. How special is that folks?
It just occurs to me that maybe one way around this will be to e-mail the pictures to myself from the phone to my suncom MMS e-mail address. Once that happens I can download those to my hard drive. Wait, no, that wont work either. The MMS e-mail address is what is used for someone from a PC to e-mail a picture TO my telephone. Sigh.... This can be sort of confusing at times aye? Back to square one. I have pictures that I need to download off of the phone. I wonder if I can take the SIM card out of the phone and plug it into a SD card reader and download the pictures that way. I think that is what the SIM card is , is a SD card with code on it. I will try that and get back to you if that worked.

Stick a fork in me I am done with Vista Beta on the laptop

As of July 14th my thoughts about Vista could be summarized by saying " Stick a fork in me, I am done". I decided that I wanted a fully functional laptop back under my control and having Vista installed at this point was not going to allow that to happen. For whatever reasons Microsoft has decided to over complicate the user interface to the point of frustration. Just because I uninstalled it on the laptop does not mean that there is no hope for the OS. I just decided that I need to install this under VMWARE or on a spare PC.
Originally I had intended to install Vista under Vmware and when I did not do this a friend of mine asked me what my thought process was making this decision. I guess that my first thought was " what the heck, go for it" because the laptop is considered a secondary computing device next to our main home pc and I feel as if I am a disaster recovery expert (has been drip under pressure) and I knew I had two critical pieces in place in case a disaster did happen. The first thing I had was a good , current backup of all my data. The second most important tool at my disposal was the Toshiba recovery cd which would allow me to recover the laptop back to factory specifications with all the drivers needed. So, with those thought drifting through the fog banks of my mind I went forward to where no man (in this houshold) has gone before and installed Vista. The following list are points of interest as I look back on my Vista BETA install experience.

A. the install (upgrade) took almost four hours

B. Wireless does not support wireless security (wep)

C. Networking configuration options are a nightmare

D. The user interface is just different enough to make you stumble around looking for the usual things we are used to in XP

E. I could not find Start RUN anywhere

F. Since I could not find START RUN I could not run MSCONFIG to edit the start up applications and get rid of the ones I did not want starting at boot

G. Vista BETA does not provide you with Anti Virus software even though CA does provide Ez Anti Virus for free for one year to Vista Beta users.

H. Windows Defender is not supported in Vista

I. Internet Explorer 7 SUCKS.... The application refused to shut down properly when it was running in "protected" mode.

J. Even though the upgrade recognized my Administrator status on XP Professional it does not give you FULL administrative rights to Vista Beta. Several times I was greeted with a nag screen that said something to the affect that "you are not a system adminstrator and therefore dont have the ability to do this function at this time. Please notify your system administrator"

K. Several of my applications just did not work after the upgrade which required my reinstalling them.

To see all the gory details on the install process and my thoughts AFTER the install go to http://jcmoffitt.googlepages.com and view my technology pages and read the Vista Beta review.
Thanks

Vista Beta 2 installation

Vista Beta 2 Software Review