Back to the drawing board

I found out today that the job that I had applied for was not mine. They gave the job to someone else. Can you imagine that? Well, I am disappointed in some ways but I am not surprised. I am going to have to go back to the drawing board and see what I can do to find something else. The hard part about not being a permanent employee somewhere is that it is so easy to get rid of you. We have enjoyed working with you and we wish you well in your new endeavours. We really do not have anything else for you to do. Thanks. I can not tell you how familiar I am with those words. Corporate America loves out sourcing and hiring temps for temporary assignments because they do not have to pay any benefits. Once your usefullness to them is gone they can throw you out like a piece of trash.

So, with that in mind, time to start digging through the newspaper again on Sunday. I can not wait to do that. I love taking my magnifying glass and reading glasses and gaze through all the tiny micro print reading all of the many jobs that are listed. The million dollar question is this. Are the jobs that are listed really an actual job or are they just trolling for available candidates to keep their resume database full? I know for certain that recruiters love to do that on the Internet on the supposed job boards. That means that all you can do is throw a million and one resumes into the Cyberwind and hope that one of them is an actual job and someone contacts you.

I remember job hunting in the old days when you drove to the business, filled out the application and could speak to someone about the hiring process. You could call back later and talk to someone in HR to find a status. In those days there were very few businesses that would accept a resume online via the web and most of the time they wanted a fax. With the advent of the Internet the hiring managers can put a form out on a website and you can fill out all your information there and then if they like you they call you for a phone interview. If they do not like you then you wont hear a thing. Sometimes there is not even a phone number to call or a contact to check status with. It is faster and easier for the employer and also much more impersonal to boot.

I think I need to win the lottery soon so I dont have to go through finding another job all over again.



James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
http://moffittjc.blogharbor.com/blog
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Bad technology

Some days are better than others and yesterday was not one of my better ones. I went to work feeling fine and then around 9 am my blood pressure went through the roof. Go figure... I was feeling dizzy and that is because the blood pressure was 181/110 and climbing. I had some slight chest pain and a small tightness in my chest but that only lasted for a couple of seconds. Co workers called Public Safety and they in turn called EMS. I can not tell you how embarrasing it was to be carted out of the building on a stretcher. Anyway, we get into the ambulance and that is when things get interesting. The EMS personnel were very courteous and professional however they ran into some technical glitches. Imagine lying on a stretcher feeling dizzy and listening to the paramedics talk about nothing is working right.

The first thing they did was to try and transfer the oxgyen from the bottle on the stretcher that they took into the building to the oxygen source in the ambulance. That did not work so they had to stick me back on the bottle. The next thing they had to do was try to figure out how to attach the leads to me for the EKG machine on the ambulance. I think that they knew how to attach the leads in the correct order but the EKG machine was not cooperating. I heard the paramedic say that he could not tranmit the telemetry correctly because it looked all messed up and was not right. At this point I am thanking Jesus that I was only a little dizzy and not really having a massive coronary event. The next thing that happened was that the person sitting behind me nearest the driver said that he could not contact the hospital ER because the radio did not work properly. I was starting to wonder if they would be able to get me to the hospital without the engine falling out of it.

Within an hour my BP went down to semi normal and after two hours I was starving and wanting to walk out of the ER and to Hardees for a thick burger. Just writing this makes me hungry enough to do that right now. LOL... Anyway, I was there about 2 hours and then they cut me loose. Katy drove me back to work so I could scoop up my laptop bag and truck keys. I stayed at work about 90 minutes to help out a co worker and then I went home and tried to get some rest before bowling.

I hope that the ambulance staff are able to work out the technical kinks that they were having so that if they really do have a heart attack victim or someone that is really ill that they will be able to provide a better service to them. Luckily for me I was only 5 minutes away from the hospital and did not have to depend on the technology at hand.



James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
http://moffittjc.blogharbor.com/blog
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Free flowing water

Today is like Christmas come early. Paul Bunyon and one of us doubles came over today and did a extreme makeover on the plumbing in our tub. It appears that the four way valve that runs water into the tub and shower head was gummed up really bad. No wonder no water was coming out of the spigot. Several hours later , lots of elbow grease and some new parts and we have a shower with water pressure to be envious of. My princess was the first one to enjoy the new water pressure and I think that she used up all the hot water that was there. LOL... I hope that we make it to church in the morning. We will have to set a timer for how long we are all allowed to be in the shower since none of us will want to come out.


James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
http://moffittjc.blogharbor.com/blog
james.moffitt@comcast.net

free flowing water.  

Restaurant at Bonneau Beach to open soon. Internet Cafe 

Bonneau Beach 

Pier at Bonneau Beach 

Place of Refuge

What a beautiful day this has been. The day was a typical Charleston SC day with the skies clear blue and the temperatures in the upper 70's and lower 80's. I spent this morning with a dear friend eating breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Once that was over I took my frend to work and then drove up to Bonneau Beach to meet with a new client. The new client has a restaurant that they are trying to open in the very near future. They want to offer WiFi Internet access to their customers. I will be helping them to set up a wireless network in the next 2 or 3 weeks. The restaurant is sitting right off of the water on Lake Moultrie. I will upload a couple of pictures that I took with my Motrola Razor phone this afternoon but they do not show how beautiful this place is. I wish I had taken my digital DVD camcorder with me so I could take better pictures. The water was so calm it was like looking at a mirror. When I got there the fog was still present and slowly burning off giving it a surreal look. I could have sat on the pier all day reading a book or feeling the wind blowing through my hair. What a wonderful thing, to be able to get out into nature and leave behind the hustle and bustle of our busy lives and just enjoy the beauty that surrounds us.




James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
http://moffittjc.blogharbor.com/blog
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Ho Hum

Here I sit all bummed out. I have been fighting the feelings of being depressed all morning. I was driving to work this morning and I normally pick up the cell phone and call a friend but I opted to turn on the radio. The music was good and it helped my mood which at that time was not that bad since I had just gotten up and started my day. I have to hit the road around 7 am so that I dont get stuck in a traffic jam on North Rhett on my way to work. It normally takes me about 35 minutes to get downtown IF I get on the road early enough.
As I was getting off of I-26 the radio announcer was talking about prayer time that they have at 9 am every day with three ministers that are the MC for the event. They spoke about how a lady called in yesterday and asked for prayer for her and her family since they recently lost a child. I am not sure how old the child was or what the circumstances were. Then the announcer went on to say how that caused several other callers to call in and talk about their losses etc. Well, after about 4 minutes of that it caused the feelings I have for our loss of our daughter to cancer to well up. Most of the time those feelings are right under the surface and most days I am able to manage them pretty well and I dont allow them to dictate how I feel. For those of you who are familiar with grief you know what I am talking about.
Today has been a relatively quiet day at work thus far. In some ways that is a good thing but in other ways it is not. When I am busy I dont have time to think about other stuff. I find that when I have too much idle time with my brain that I tend to focus too much on negative stuff. I guess that I am my own worse critic. I am way too hard on myself but sadly enough because of my past and some stupid mistakes I have made we are now suffering the consequences and living through them.
I found myself praying that I would land a permanent job here where I work. I HATE being a temporary employee because there is absolutely no stability in it. Sure, it is nice to come to work each day and if you last for two weeks you will get a pay check. However, it is VERY easy for the employer to drop you like a hot potatoe and they do not have to do anything out of the ordinary other than to say goodbye, been nice knowing you. Then you are out of a job and have to go through the circus of finding a new one all over again while the bills continue to stack up all around you. When I think about this too much it makes me just want to panic. I have faith that God is in control of all of this but I feel that because I have not been smart enough in the past to get my four year degree and all of my certifications that I have put myself and my family in a lose lose situation. That just makes me stupid and lazy folks. How can I be happy about that? I do not like being stupid and lazy but there I am.
Starting this week I decided to start counting calories again and I am using calorie-count.com website to do it. I also started a journal and added some folks as accountability partners to my list of friends so that they can give me pointers and suggestions as well as to encourage me or kick me in the pants when I need it. Thus far this week I have kept my calories around 1700 except for Tuesday when I had 2007 calories. My exercise has consisted of bowling on Monday and Tuesday for 4.5 hours and whatever walking that I do on campus when I make deliveries or go out to find food. I lost one whole pound this week thus far. LOL... I have a 20 lb window that I keep bouncing around in. I will do real good for about a month and lose 20 lbs and then something happens and I find myself putting it right back on. I need to figure out what that something is so I can STOP doing whatever it is.
If it is not thinking about Jessica and how that has screwed up our family in more ways that I can imagine or want to admit then I find myself either thinking about being a fat whale and hating the way I look OR I wind up thinking about how our credit rating is so bad that we can not afford our own home. Let me rephrase that. WE can afford to make some payments on a home but our credit rating sucks so badly that no one will give us a loan without coming up with a minimum of 10k down payment. Most lenders want 10 to 30 percent down AND they want to charge us a super high interest rate on the loan so they can punish us further for our lack of financial integrity. Over and over again I am reminded of how badly we have damaged our credit over the last 16 years and how my having a bad attitude about it and getting depressed to the point of not wanting to do something about it has done even more damage.
Yes, over the last two years we have made some tremendous strides at cleaning it up. Our FICO score is slowly and painfully coming out of the basement but we have a couple of more years to deal with it and get things paid off. We are almost 50 and have not owned our first home yet. I know that we are probably not alone but I am not very happy about it. Then I think that I am planning and working on getting out of debt and raise our FICO score so that we can go back into debt. How messed up is that? LOL...
I know, I know, I have a lot of things to be thankful for and I certainly thank God for those things. I try to focus on those things more than I do the negative things. Unfortunatly only focusing on happy thoughts does not make the negative and sad thoughts or feelings just go away. All I can do is try to manage them on a daily basis and hope that they do not keep me from doing what I need to do in order to survive.



James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
http://moffittjc.blogharbor.com/blog
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Are the elections over with yet?

Please forgive me for not being politically correct with this next thought but I am SICK of all the TV, Newspaper and Radio ADS about the elections. I am also sick of the ongoing political analysis of all the so called experts. I know that this is all part of the political process and that it is a very important part of our democracy. All right all ready do we have to hear and see about it every single time we open our eyes? Not only are there TV Shows and News Commentaries about it but we also have commercials that regurgitate the same old thing. Do not vote for candidate A because he or she has this stance or blemish in their past. Vote for candidate B because they do not drink, chew or hang out with those that do. LOL.. Give me a break people. It all boils down to who is the best LIAR of the bunch and usually the best liar is the one that has the MOST money to spend to get the lies in front of us. How in the world can we KNOW for sure that this or that story is the real one? I know that there are those of you out there that are very adept at studying the issues and figuring out the issues and for that I commend you. As for me, I am hoping that the right people wind up in the right places and that the rich people do not continue to get rich and that the poor and middle income families are not continually milked for every single dime that they own so that can continue to happen.

When is our country going to stop paying people six figure incomes just because of the office that they hold? I once heard that after a congressman or woman leaves office that they still get some very nice salaries and benefits. Is that true? To me there is something horribly screwed up with the system. All in all it is the best system out there and for that I am thankful.




James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
http://moffittjc.blogharbor.com/blog
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Coastal Carolina Fair

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Watch'>http://blip.tv/file/get/Chiefpropellerhead-CoastalCarolinaFair112.wmv?source=3">Watch the Video


James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
http://moffittjc.blogharbor.com/blog
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Dallas Cowgirls lose again

I can NOT believe this. OH, hold on folks, sure I can believe it. The Dallas Cowgirls lose to the Redskins by one field in the last second of the game. The Redskins field goal kicker kicked a 47 yard field goal that bounced off the right upright and then went through for the winning score. What is sad about this is that Dallas had an opportunity to do the same thing on the play before that and the Dallas front line could not keep the defenders from blocking the Dallas field goal. The Dallas field goal was going to be a 30 yard field goal that would have won the game for Dallas. On top of the field goal being blocked Dallas manages to commit a face mask penalty that gave the Redskins 15 EXTRA yards in which to kick their field goal.

Several things cost Dallas this game. The first thing that cost them the game is when they got greedy in the second quarter and tried to make a 2 point conversion instead of just kicking the extra point. Had they done that they would have one the game by one point. The second thing that cost Dallas the game was their apparent inability to stop Burnell from throwing into the Dallas secondary at will. Burnell with the Redskins have more than enough time to throw the ball to his receivers. I am not sure why but the Dallas secondary was playing zone offense the entire game and most of the time the Redskin passing game went forward without much problem. The next thing that cost Dallas the game was when Terrel Owens , the 25 million dollar joke, dropped a ball that Romo put in his hands in the second half which would have resulted in a Dallas Touch down. Speaking of T.O. who in the world does this guy think he is. Dallas is ahead by 6 points after the touch down and this clown lies down in the end zone and uses the football as a pillow as if he is asleep. How arrogant can you get T.O?? I am glad that the referee threw a flag on him for doing that. Can we say poor sportsmanship? This is the same person who has written a childrens book? What kind of role model do we see on the field in Terrell Owens? The funny part of all of this is that the Cowboys organazation is barely hanging on to the second place position in the NFC East. Does a record of 4 wins and 4 losses give us the room to be arrogant and cocky? I do not think so.

How many games can Dallas afford to lose this season? What will it take before Dallas learns how to play consistant football? We never know what to expect from one game to the next. I predict that Dallas will win against Philadelphia and then lose against Arizona the following week. Dallas and Philadelphia are tied at 4 wins and 4 losses and Dallas is still in 2nd place in the NFC East. If they keep losing they will drop to 3rd place and then we will have a repeat of last season where Dallas just fell apart at the end of the season.

On a positive note I have to say that Tony Romo played a very excellent game. Romo only got sacked once and he was not intercepted which is a good thing. It was good to see that Romo is able to move out of the pocket and when there is nothing available he pulls it down and eats the loss. During the NYG game he was pressured into throwing the ball and trying to force a pass completion. That shows me that he is maturing some in the game which is good.

Well, there is always the next game. Lets see if my predictions are correct.

Tick Tock Tick Tock

I have one hour and 51 minutes before I can bag another week at work. YES!! I have no clue where this week went but I am happy it is almost the weekend. Whew!! I wonder how many folks out there feel like I do? I am sure I am not alone. I have not killed myself at work today, no surprises there since I am writing in my blog. LOL... I did do some work this morning and since around lunch time I have been waiting for some requests to show up in the queue and since it has not happened I have been able to piddle online with this and that. I downloaded some photos from MyPhotoAlbum account that I have and will share some of them here on this blog. I plan on taking the kids to the fair on Ladson road tomorrow. I made the mistake of asking them if they wanted to go and guess what the answer was? Yup, a resounding YES!!! It will be fun to watch them have fun and I will take the video camera along with me to give me something fun to do. Personally, I could care less about the rides etc. Give me a comfortable place to sit and a cup of java and a wireless access point and I am good to go. I would rather watch others getting sick on the rides and turning blue in the face than to be the one doing it. Then again, that is me. I never really got to enjoy doing that as a kid so I guess now at the mature age of almost 45 who cares?? The important thing is that my children need to be able to enjoy this and I plan on taking them so they can. GOOD DAD!!! I should win a few brownie points with the kids for doing that.

James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
http://moffittjc.blogharbor.com/blog
james.moffitt@comcast.net

How about them Cowboys?

It appears that the Dallas Cowboys rode into town in Charolette NC with the intentions of playing some football. The team that played Carolina Panthers was not the same team that showed up to play NY Giants in Irving Stadium last Monday night. Dallas front four actually did some blocking and only allowed one sack of Tony Romo. For the most part Romo played a smart game and only threw one interception which was actually not a reception. The defender juggled the ball all the way out of bounds and the officials gave it to him anyway. The Dallas secondary managed to keep Carolina Panthers Smith on a short leash and did not allow him to roam the field at will. Then again so did Carolina do the same for Terrell Owens. As much as I am a devout Dallas fan I have to say that Terrell Owens is just too full of himself. Did you see the rediculous wink he gave to the skycam during the game? Oh good grief. I know that I have heard that he is supposed to be a very good athelete and so much so that he has managed to sign a contract for millions of dollars. I am hoping to see a little more action and a little less talk from the shining star that is costing the Dallas franchise a LOT of bucks. Thanks to the loss to the Giants Dallas is still in third place with four wins and three losses. Next Sunday they will play the Washington Redskins and hopefully will be able to play well enough to win that game. We shall see...



James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
http://moffittjc.blogharbor.com/blog
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Left front view of Studebaker 

Back view of Studebaker 

Left side of Studebaker and you can see our Dodge Durango on the other side.  

I saw this Studebaker at the Cracker Barrell in North Charleston on October 21st.  

Ring that bell one more time...

Do you ever have a bad day at work? I am having one of those NO BELL days. LOL... I work in a computer room which is a secure environment which requires you have a KEY to enter OR you ring a bell. How irritating is that? I feel like Pavlov's dog all of a sudden. Most of the time I put up with the irritation however we have been short one employee this week and I have been pulling double duty doing my job and hers. The bad thing is that I am still learning how to do her job much less mine since I have been here a sum total of 2.5 months.
This morning I am focusing on editing paramater files on VMS which requires my utmost attention to detail. RING RING RING goes the bell constantly. I keep having to get out of my chair and go answer the door. Ok, that is a given, folks need in to get help or do their jobs etc. However, when someone that has a key rings the bell and then just walks away as if they did not ring it that is the final straw. It is even worse when it is your BOSS. So, the bell rings for the umpteenth time, I get up and salivate as I walk towards the door. (Remember the trained response right?) I get to the door as two ladies are slowly walking away. I open the door and stand half way into the hallway and watch my boss walk away. I wait until my boss walks back to the door and when she does not offer any explanation as to why they rang the bell I told her that the next time the bell rings while I am trying to concentrate I will remove the door from its hinges. Of course this was not my direct supervisor nor does my supervisor even answer to this person but she is a director type level person. Can you imagine the look on her face when I advised her that I was going to take the door off the hinges? LOL... Luckily for me she did not take me serious and just told me that maybe they need to hand out more keys for folks to get in that needed them. I was thinking, what a novel idea that would be.
Now , I know, to some that may seem like a tiny thing to be irritated about. The problem with our being interrupted multiple times per day when we are trying to focus on minute detail is that it causes us to make mistakes when our concentration is broken constantly. Here is an example of what I am talking about. In order to delete files on VMS you have to type in a command like this. del hrcc$data:cpy080d*.dat;* Yesterday evening I typed del hrcc$data:cpy080*.dat;* which in turn deleted 28 files. At most it should have deleted 8 files. I thought about that being a larger number than normal but did not think much more about it. So, I finished the task at hand and went to run the manual job on vms and it failed. That is when it occured to me to look back at the del command I did. It took me several comparisons to realize that the D was not there which means I deleted 24 extra control files that were needed by other programs that would be run either manually or in enterprise scheduler. When you delete a file on VMS it is GONE. POOF. No recycle bin to retrieve it from. So, luckily for me the VMS systems admin was in her office and we used this as a training experience for James to do a restore from remote tapes to the disk. That mistake took us 60 minutes to fix. THAT is why it is important that we pay attention to every single keystroke when we are on the system. Does the payroll have any significance to you as you think about these processes? Those mistakes can be very costly to everyone in involved. Whew....
So, with all of that in mind there has to be a better solution to ringing the bell millions of times per day. I will be trying to figure out a way to talk the boss into having a business hours OPEN policy as long as someone is in the computer room. If we are not in the computer room then we will lock the door on our way out and then they will have to go to the receptionist and have us paged. Anything has to be better than what we are currently doing. Amen??
Peace OUT....

Right and Wrong choices

We have to make choices every day. Most of the time the choices are not life altering but they certainly can either make our life more pleasant or more miserable. I am thinking about choices because I have made some that might not have been popular with family or friends. As a matter of fact some of my choices have been met with open disdain by some. One of the choices that I have made recently has been to switch from pudding to yogurt. Yogurt is around 140 calories if you pick Dannon Berry in the 5 oz container. If you select the pudding parfait at the Hungry Cougar across the street from where I work you probably consume about 800 or 900 calories. I chose to switch from pudding to yogurt because it is non fat and lower calories. In order to lose weight you have to burn more calories than you take in. I have been counting calories for several months now and I am getting pretty good at guessing how many calories are probably being ingested by yours truly. I am still struggling with getting the calorie count down to 1500 but have been hovering between about 1700 to 2200 depending on the given day and whatever emotional stress I may have been experiencing. If you are an emotional eater the more stress you experience the more you try to medicate yourself with yummy stuff from the fridge. I think that I might be self medicating late at night in front of the idiot box. With regards to choices I have had to reprioritize my expectations for whom a friend is and a friend is not. This has caused me more emotional trauma than i would care to admit. You think that you know who your friends are until all of a sudden they quit acting like a friend. After much soul searching I have realized that friendships are a two way street. God gives us unconditional love which is called AGAPE love. God loves us despite our sin and failures. I am not saying that God ignores the sin or is blind to it but if we will come to him with our failures and ask for forgiveness the word of God says that our sin is forgotten and is as far as the east is from the west. God can and will forgive us for our faults and shortcomings however it has become painfully obvious to me that some of my so called friends do not know how to do that. That is why human love is called phileo or brotherly love and it is not unconditional as much as we would like to think it is. Just the other day I had to come to the realization that my expectation for a friendship that I thought was there has long since been destroyed. I was hanging on to the hope that the friendship could be restored over a period of time but I think that I was fooling myself with that expectation. How many times have we done things in a relationship that has caused a tear in the very fabric? Depending on the size of the hole time might allow it to mend and heal. I guess in this instance I must have driven a full sized sherman tank through this relationship and now there are nothing but large treadmarks and oil spills all over the place. I need to understand that I did do and say some things that caused this damage and there is apparently nothing I can do to repair it. As the old saying goes "It is finished". For those of you that know me and love me (or not) you know that while I am not a social butterfly I do enjoy human contact. I am not a loner but rather I love interaction with my fellow man. My pastor told me not long ago that he noticed that trait in me and that it was neither good nor bad but when I am dealing with others I need to realize not everyone needs as much fellowship as I do. That was an eye opener for me when he said that and gave me a whole new perspective on things. So, as I have had to close the book on this friendship that I am thinking about it saddens me. It saddens me that I did so much damage that it could not be repaired. It saddens me that I have to think of this person differently when I see them. It saddens me to think that I really would rather not see them because of the emotional distress that the memories cause. I am saddened to think that I did not cherish this friendship deeply enough to do whatever I could to keep it healthy. I am saddened to think that neither me nor my friend were able to communicate effectively enough to mend whatever fences needed mending. I am saddened by the thought that I did so much damage to the relationship that the other person could no longer forgive me and give me a chance. How about them COWBOYS!!!!




James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
http://moffittjc.blogharbor.com/blog
james.moffitt@comcast.net