BLT with Potatoe Salad anyone?

Last night my wife picked me up from work and we drove straight over to Sandpiper Lanes so that I could pre bowl yesterday for the league games that I normally would bowl tonight. I cant attend league bowling tonight because our Praise Team at church has practice from 7 pm to 9:30 pm for an upcoming engagement at a church on the Isle of Palms this Saturday at 2 pm.
We got to the bowling alley and I bowled one practice game on lane 30 and rolled a 147. Since I have a whopping 126 average on this particular league I was pretty happy about that. AFter the practice game I moved over to lanes 31 and 32 for my three games which will count for score tonight. My first game was a 127 , second game a dismal 113 and my third game a 145. I hit my average two games out of three and my total average was around 128. That would be better than bowling me blind at 10 pins below average or getting a substitute bowler that bowled worse than my scores. Now that I think about it they probably would have been better off with a substitute bowler. Oh well, hind sight is always 20/20.
After bowling we went from N Charleston to Goose Creek (aka Duck Ditch USA) where we live and decided to go to Ye Old Fashioned for dinner. This establishment is pretty nice and sort of reminds you of a Dairy Queen or whatever. Most of the folks that work there are usually teenagers who are earning money after school hours and they do a pretty good job mostly. Last night I ordered a Dagwood sandwich with two meats and two cheeses of my choice and a bowl of chicken noodle soup. I am not much of a fan of chicken noodle soup but they told me that it was very good. I stepped out in faith and decided to try it. We paid the bill and sat down to eat in a restaurant tha was pretty empty. I guess there were two other couples in there other than us and the employees.
We had 40 minutes to eat our food and then pick up our kids and then go home by 9 pm so I could see the show Bionic Woman. I am sort of fond of the new show and I decided that we would need to get the show on the road so I could make this happen. We got our drinks very quickly and my soup. I have to say that this was the BEST chicken noodle soup that I have ever tasted. It was very good and was served steaming hot with saltine crackers. As I sat there eating my soup and crackers and sipping my tea I thought about how I would blog this experience to let the folks in Goose Creek (and beyond) what a nice experience we had. This is where the experience went from nice to slightly silly.
It was approximately 8:40 pm and all we had gotten was our drinks and soup and the other food was no where in sight. When I realized that we would be running late I decided that we should grab the main dish as a to go item and just eat it at home in front of the idiot box. My wife agreed and off to the counter we went to advise the kids of our decision. The kids (employees) said ok, not a problem and began to move the food from the paper plates to a to go bag. The Dagwood went in first and then we watched one of the teenage boys making my wife's BLT sandwich. There were three pieces of toast, lettuce, bacon etc. Then the boy begins to pile on a big helping of what I thought was tuna fish on the sandwich. I was in a hurry and thought this is strange for a BLT but ok, lets just do this and go. Since this was my wife's sandwhich she was paying more attention to the details and saw that it was not tuna fish but instead it was potatoe salad being put on her sandwich. My wife turned to me and said, honey why is he putting potatoe salad on my BLT. I said, honey, I have no clue why he is doing that. LOL
I got the attention of the boy by that time who had turned around and asked him what kind of sandwich he was making. He just sort of looked at us and then looked at the order and said you ordered a BLT and potatoe salad. At this point the adult supervisor comes over and says " lets do this sandwich over". By this time my wife and I were sitting at the counter just giggling like a couple of school girls at the fact that this kid put a heaping helping of potatoe salad on her BLT.
All in all we still had a good experience and the food was good once we got it seperated out into the appropriate individual servings. LOL...






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

People in San Diego California would love to have some of our rain showers and I would like to figure out a way to move those showers their way. In the last several days we have received several inches of rain in the Charleston SC area.
Yes, we have been having the type of weather that the ducks can appreciate. I know this because I am fully qualified red neck and the neighbors ducks are as happy as they can be. For those of you that are from the south you know Jeff Foxworthy and his famous "You know you are a red neck if". One of my favorites is "You know you are a redneck if instructions to your house include turn off the paved road". Instructions to our house (double wide trailer) includes go past the End of State maintenance sign, go around the Oak tree in the middle of the road, drop off the pavement and go to the bottom of the hill.
I woke up at 3:10 am this morning after dreaming that someone was knocking on our door. I was in bed wondering if it was something from a dream or if I really did hear someone knocking on the door. I wound up making a trip to the restroom thanks to my incredible shrinking bladder and then wound up in my recliner for some further slumber. I had my alarm set on my cell phone for 4:25 am because I needed to catch the Carta Express bus downtown so I could be at work by 6 am to do some emergency server maintenance. Typically I go to bed around 12 midnight and get up around 6 am so today has been a very long day.
I had my wife pick me up downtown around 2 pm and I spent part of the afternoon changing the oil on our SUV and giving it a bath. Thanks to being as flush as a church mouse I went to Autozone and bought an oil change kit for 13.99 and a friend of mine from up the street changed it for me since he had ramps and the tools necessary to make it happen. I normally change the oil in our SUV every 3000 miles but I was about 2500 miles over due. OOOOPS....
One of the small pleasures in life for me is the sport of bowling. I bowl on Monday and Thursday nights. I have a 126 average give or take a few pins on both leagues. You would think I am a beginning bowler however I have been bowling for years. For whatever reasons this last couple of years I have just gone downhill with my average. I guess you could say that I suck at it. hahahahahahah Our team played a team tonight that just destroyed us. All of their team members bowled over 200 every single game. Oh well, we had fun and that is the whole purpose behind doing it. Oh, and by the way, I am happy to say that while I may have a 126 average I wound up bowling a 142 average tonight which means I did pretty good.
This weekend the Coastal Carolina Fair comes to the fairgrounds in Ladson SC which is just outside of North Charleston and Goose Creek. I am hoping that the rain will hold off not only for the fair but because we will be at the Flea Market bright and early with as much junk as we can fit in our SUV and my wife's Ford Escort Station wagon. We are even putting a for sale sign on my wife's station wagon hoping to sell it as well.








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

Rolling with the punches

Some days you just have to roll with the punches that life deals to you. Have you ever had the type of day where you felt you were the captain of a ship that was out on the high seas and the waves were crashing all around you and even though you are at the wheel you are really not making much headway? That has been how my week has gone so far. I figured this week would go ok since I had four days off last week. I was off due to illness but I was not as sick as I possibly could have been so the time off was much needed, appreciated and thoroughly enjoyed.

Tuesday evening as I got off the bus I walked toward my car in the gentle mist that was falling here in Charleston. As I drew near to my SUV I noticed that it was listing to one side more than normal. As I drew closer my worst fears were imagined. I had a flat tire to change in the rain. The alpha male in me immediately drew up a contingency plan, made a mental check list of what I would have to do and endure and then engaged in the task at hand. I thought to myself, HA, I can do this, easy as falling off a truck.

The first thing I had to do was find all the tools necessary to do the job. I searched for the jack for about five minutes and after not finding it I called the dealership and one of the service advisors told me where to find it. They hid the thing under the second row seating on the passenger side. The scissor jack was not big enough to jack up the back end of a sea turtle much less an SUV that I am driving. I thought about that as I attempted to turn the tiny wing nut that secured this device to the floor board of my SUV. I attempted to turn this wing nut however it resisted to the point that I just gave up. I figured I would tackle the easier tasks first and headed over to the spare tire which is underneath the vehicle. I crawled under the back of the truck to remove the spare tire. As I looked up I noticed a metal flange extending past both ends of the middle of the tire onto the rim holding the tire securely in place. I thought I needed to turn this flange and it would just rotate off of the middle bolt holding it on. As I tried this feat I once again was defeated. I crawled back out from under the truck and as I was standing there feeling useless another bus rolls up and everyone onboard scatters through the parking lot. As I was standing there observing this activity and hoping that someone would be able to help a young lady named Tamara stopped and asked if I needed help. I must have looked like a mess with my dress shirt off and my hands dirty with a look of frustration on my face. I just looked at the ground and then back at her and said yeah apparently I can't change a flat tire anymore.

Luckily for me Tamara had a father who taught his daughter how to work on vehicles right along with her brothers. Tamara was all about trying to help me change this flat tire and I was glad for the enthusiasm and extra help at this point. The first thing my young female friend did was to guide me to the owners manual so we could figure out how to get the spare tire out. Tamara told me that the tire was held in place by a cable and that somehow we had to find the hidden crank mechanism and release the cable low enough for the tire to come off. Sure enough it was just as she said and the spare tire was in our hands. Tamara tried to grab the tire and move it to the front of the truck but my male ego kicked in and did not allow that to happen as I told my guardian angel that I could handle that task just fine.

I had already loosened the lug nuts on the flat tire so as to loosen the lug nuts and to give my bruised ego a tiny lift knowing that I could accomplish something even if it was not much. The next thing that we needed to focus on was the scissor jack. We finally managed to yank the toy jack out of the truck and get it onto the ground. What we did not realize is that the jack would not expand. After what seemed to be about ten minutes of doing this and that we finally gave up on the jack. I whipped out the cell phone and called my wife Katy because I knew she had a floor jack in the back of her station wagon and was only about 7 minutes away from us. Katy arrived, I grabbed the jack and thought. We will get this flat tire off of here in a jiffy now that I have a real jack. As my luck went from bad to worse the floor jack would only go up so high and then it would stop. It did not matter what we did or how we did it the darn thing would not work either. We even tried the scissor jack that was in Katy's Ford Escort Station wagon but it would not raise up high enough to even reach the frame of the truck.

At this point I just gave up and rummaged through my wallet to see if I had some sort of road side assistance through my dealership and I found just the thing I needed. I called the number verified my contract number on the card and within 40 minutes a panel truck showed up with all of the right tools and my tire was changed and the flat put in the back of my vehicle within about 10 minutes.

The first thing I learned is that no matter how new your vehicle is you can still get a flat tire. I have not had this vehicle for very long and because it is new I have never had a problem with it. Imagine my surprise at finding a flat tire when I never would have expected that to happen.

The second thing I learned was that it is very important to be prepared for emergencies. I was no more prepared to change this flat tire than I was to perform brain surgery. You not only need to know what tools you need but you must be able to put your hands on them and then use them to perform the task at hand.

The third thing that I was reminded of is that I am not as young and invincible as I used to be. It is much harder to get on the ground, roll around and then bounce back up off the ground. My angel Tamara demonstrated this for me and my wife as we watched her gracefully moving about on the ground and hopping back up as if this were normal.

The last thing that I was reminded of is that there are good people still living on planet earth and the old adage that says what goes around comes around. I cannot tell you how many people that I have stopped to help over the years. I do not say that to give myself a pat on the back but I say it because I feel that we owe it to one another to stop and help someone in distress. We should use common sense and keep our personal safety in mind but there are always opportunities available to help others. Our guardian angel Tamara stayed with us through most of the event until I finally convinced her that help was on the way and thanked her for her assistance. Tamara was ready to go to her Aunt's house around the corner to get a better floor jack.

My heartfelt thanks goes out to our good Samaritan friend who is a nurse at Roper Hospital. Thanks for taking time out of your busy day to help a stranger with a flat tire. I also appreciate my wife coming to my rescue and bringing me the floor jack even if it does not work.

 

 

Dallas shuts down Chicago Bears

Dallas rolled into Chicago tonight and I thought that the game would be much closer and I also thought that the Chicgo defense would stop the Dallas offense. All eyes were on Tony Romo and the offensive machine of the Cowboys tonight as they rolled over Chicago 34-10.

You either love Dallas or you hate them. All the naysayers were saying that the first two games really were not that challenging and that tonight they would face the NFC champions of 2006 and they would not be good enough to win this match. I feel that the first half was a wash for both teams as both offensive units struggled to move the ball down the field. Both quarterbacks were plaqued by interceptions and recievers dropping the ball.

At half time the score was 3 to 3 when it should have been Dallas 10 and Chicago 3. The ballgame was tied and I thought to myself that if Dallas were going to win this game they had better rethink their offensive strategy against the Bears. Jason Garrett did just that as Tony Romo ran, ducked, bobbed and side stepped numerous attempts to bury him in the dirt and still managed to keep his compsure well enough to complete some key passes to move the chains down the field.

In the early third quarter Tony Romo took to the air and passed for 300+ yards. In the third and fourth quarter the Dallas Defense picked up that pace and began to read the Grossman pass calls and intercepted him several times. In the end the large Dallas front offensive line began to wear down the Bears and that allowed Dallas to maitain control of the ball and open up their running game more.

I know the season is nowhere near over but I can not remembe the last time Dallas was at 3-0 in the beginning of the season. I am proud to still be a Dallas Cowboys fan. Go Dallas Go!!!!!!





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

'Suspicious package' defused on C of C campus - News

'Suspicious package' defused on C of C campus - News

This is on the same block where I work every day. I work in the Bellsouth Building that they are talking about. Just the other day we received an e-mail about how people are now sending in e-mail bomb threats.

Happy Birthday Jessica

Our angel , Jessica Ann Moffitt would have been 17 years old today. We love you Jessica, never forget that. Hugs



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

Join me at Gather.com

Join me over at gather.com when you get a chance. :)


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

How about them Cowboys

I have been a Dallas Cowboys fan since 1969 thanks to my father getting me hooked at the age of 7. I remember living in Leesville Louisiana and watching the Cowboys on a 13 inch black an white television set in my parents living room. I remember my dad and I getting out the checker board every time Dallas would start to fall behind and somehow that checkerboard held some sort of magic because when we began to play checkers they would come from behind and win.
My dad is no longer around to play checkers and my kids could care less about the Dallas Cowboys. Nevertheless I still claim the BOYS as my favorite team and I watch them faithfully. The CARDIAC cowboys is one label that has been affixed to my favorite team because they can give you a heart attack when you watch them play. My 15 year old daughter tried to go to bed tonight and get some sleep but was unable to. I asked her if the stereo speakers were keeping he awake and she said no it was your screaming.
My wife came in and tried to get me to pipe down but she quickly realized that the only way that she was going to accomplish that during a Dallas Cowboys game was to give me a gunshot wound to the back of my head. Thankfully we dont own a gun and she just gave up on me and went back to the bedroom to watch one of her shows.
Dallas won the game by ten points tonight and what a spectacular game it was. Both teams came out fo the chute and the shoot out was on. At one point I thought Dallas was going to give the game away when they allowed Elly Manning to pull the Giants within one point 17-16 at the half time. During the first half Terrell Owens did not get to catch the ball but during the second half he was a shining star for the Dallas offense. Both teams turned over the ball serveral times during this game and it appeared that Giant Defense was out of shape and getting really tired and the Dallas corner back was unable to defend against the Giants passing game.
The Philladelphia Eagles were beaten by the Green Bay Packers by a field goal and I am not sure how the Redskins did against the Dolphins this afternoon. The NYG team suffered a lot of injuries tonight in Texas stadium which included a bruised shoulder for Elly Manning. The Giants are going to have a very tough year of it if they cant get the injuries under control.
Go Cowboys





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

Severe Weather scares the Bajeezers outta me

I am not sure bajeezers is a real word however it sort of cleans up the original word that i dont want to put on my blog. LOL....

Saturday night I had to run downtown to fix a backup server and I noticed that between Georgetown and Myrtle Beach there were some ugly red cells haning out on radar. Since that is not anywhere near my immediate vicinity I did not give it further thought. As I drove home though I noticed that the storm was headed our way. I got home and fired up Accuweather radar on the laptop and then the weather radio issued that shrill irritating warning sound as it was gearing up for a severe weather alert in Berkeley county. Sure enough the storm I had seen earlier was headed right for us. The thing that fooled me was that the red cell was now just yellow which means it is not as severe and the chances of a tornado is almost nill. What I failed to think about was lightning. The electrical current that starts in the sky AND the earth and meets in the middle. If you are anywhere near it you are instant toast. That in and of itself is what scares the bajeezers out of me.

I gathered my family into the most central location in our doublewide trailer and settled down to pray that we would not get hit. I unplugged all the AC power cords from the computers and unplugged the Comcast cable modem and my motorola wireless switch. What I failed to do was to unplug the coaxial cable from the cable modem. Several bolts of lightning hit between our houses and scared the YOU KNOW WHAT out of Katy who screamed who in turn made me holler and say a couple of choice words. Luckily for us the children thought all of the electrical activity was COOL. Katy and I and the dogs were not too thrilled.

After the storm I plugged everything back in and my Internet access was gone. All the lights were on but the ethernet port on the back was not feeding a signal to anything. Luckily for us we are renting the modem from our cable company and Katy can get it replaced today. I also need to purchased surge protection for my cable modem coaxial port as well. In the meantime I know to unplug that cable as well.



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

Bats in the office?

I am on call for the college this weekend in case there are any problems with any of the servers. At 3:49 pm I got an sms message on my phone that one of the backup servers was not responding to the network management software. I got to the campus around 6 pm and this was an e-mail I wrote to my co workers after I brought the server back online.
_______________________________________________________________________________


I responded to the JC Long building due to Hampton2 not responding at 3:49 pm today. I was unable to ping the server nor use ILO to connect to it. I wound up having to drive over to the JC Long building to reboot the server to get it back up and operational. Once the backups were up and running I came over to the office on the 5th floor of the Bell building. It sort of looks like a scene from a scary Halloween movie when you are walking down the hallway with only the little plug in lights glowing at you. I managed to get into room 527 without anything jumping out at me.

I am sitting in my chair waiting for my computer to boot up when something catches my eye off to the left towards the door. When I looked there was nothing there. Wait , there it was again…. At first I thought it was a large moth or one of those loud flying bugs that they have in the trees near my house. I thought wrong because it turns out the would be moth was a bat and it was dive bombing me or my monitors which caused me to duck. I lost count how many times this silly bat dove into the wall while only inches from my head without ever falling onto the desk. I considered trying to capture the bat but did not have any type of box to put it in not to mention that I did not have gloves or a net to catch the little fella with. I figured we might be able to put it out in the museum box by the back elevator as a souvenir of sorts. The entertainment only lasted for a couple of minutes and I guess the bat got tired of banging its head against the wall and it made one more round of the office and flew out the door.

Can you imagine walking down the hallway late at night being guided by the tiny little lights in the hallway to have a bat fly into your unsuspecting body? Imagine the surprise for the both of you. LOL….

Other than that it is nice and quiet up here.








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

Mobil Blogging

If you are subscribed to my VOX blog you can tell I have thoroughly enjoyed having the ability to do some mobile blogging or moblogging in the last several weeks with my Blackberry Pearl.  I love the ability to take pictures while I am running around doing this and that and  I can share them with you on the fly by just sending them via e-mail to my Vox blog at http://chiefpropellerhead.vox.com. 

I guess that you can tell that I  am sort of fond of VW Beetles and that I take a LOT of pictures of that particular brand of car.  That mostly has to do with the fact that my friend "zoom zoom" owns one and every time I see one it reminds me of hers.  When Katy and I are out together we play punchbug when we see a VW Beetle going down the road or parked somewhere. 

I also like to take pictures of pretty stuff in nature like flowers and wildlife.   I have been able to take some pictures of flowers at the College of Charleston where I work and I even got some pictures of a hawk that found a squirrel for lunch.  The only problem with taking pictures of wildlife is that you have to get close enough to get a good picture with the telephone on my blackberry.  The telephone camera does have a 4x digital zoom but that only does good for relatively close shots.  I have a DVR that has a very nice digital camera however it is much bulkier than my telephone to carry around and so that means most of the time when I see something I want to snap a picture of I wind up using the phone. 

The summer is drawing to a close and before we know it the kids will be going back to school.  Kristina will be starting high school in the 9th grade and Justin in the 6th grade in middle school.  As much as I love the dear children and I am sure as much as  they love me I think Katy and I are ready for some separation during the day.  Katy has been bonding with the children this summer since she is in between teaching jobs and  I think they are driving her batty.

I am into my 6th week of exercise and trying to lose some weight.  I lost 7 lbs immediately and then put 2 of them back on.  I have been going to the gym every other day and spending 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer and getting a good solid aerobic workout.  I then go downstairs to the weight machines and do repetitions with light weights.   I want to tone what muscle I have but I do not want to bulk up since muscle weighs more than fat.  At least that is what I have been told. I am hoping that part of this plateu with the weight is my converting fat cells to muscle cells.  I have been attempting to keep my calories down to below 2000 every day.  When I am at work I can stay busy and do real well with my calorie intake during breakfast and lunch.  At night time I find myself struggling a bit with wanting to snack.  I have a bowl of sun flower seeds next to my recliner and when I get the urge to stick something in my head I start eating those.  

The other day someone told me that they have not seen any really fat old people.  That got my attention and I decided that I have between the ages of 45 and 50 to get this excess blubber off of me and keep it off.  I have been looking around for some overweight OLD people and I have not seen anyone that fits that description.  I guess that means that that category of people do not exist thanks to either heart attacks for strokes.  That is what is in my immediate future if I do not get serious about this weight problem folks.  I can no longer use the excuse that I am not working out because I can not find anyone that will motivate me.  If I can not motivate myself to take better care of myself then who in the world would be more motivated than I ?  I told my doctor the other day that I was going to either lose weight or die trying.  I laughed when I said it to him but I am dead serious.  

Thus far  the benefits of gettng more exercise have been good.  I can sleep better at night when I go to bed.  I have more energy during the day and I can handle stress better at work.    Even though I have not lost a lot of weight yet I still feel better about myself knowing that I am taking posession of the problem and taking action on my own.  My self confidence is a little bit  higher knowing that I am not giving in to be slothful and lethargic.  I know that I did not get this weight on over night and so it wont come off overnight as well. My goal is to be faithful to going to the gym and walking in my neighborhood and I believe that in the long run my metabolism will start to burn the extra calories and allow the weight to start dropping off.  My goal is to lose one or two pounds per week if possible. 

A walk through the neighborhood

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

Through the fear onward to battle and victory.

I gained an EXTRA five pounds on vacation. I am here to tell you that I cannot afford an extra OUNCE. In some ways this was a good thing in that it pushed me over the edge of complacency and lethargy into purposeful motion. I looked at the scales for several moments and said enough is enough. It is time for fat boy to get off the scales and determine in his heart to do something about this other than be depressed and feeling sorry for himself. If you are not overweight or struggle with over eating then you probably don't have a clue about the struggles folks can have.

If you will, go with me for a moment. One of the problems with being overweight is that your "self image" goes down the tubes. Not only do you not like how you look to yourself but you feel as if other people also do not like the way you look. I realize that this is probably not the case and that I am projecting my poor self image off onto others and assuming more than I should. Along with the poor self image comes the problem with clothing. I am constantly looking for clothes that will HIDE the fact that I am horribly overweight. One of the best ways for me to do that is to wear larger shirts on the outside of my pants. That way when I sit down the Good Year Blimp that hangs around my waist won't come popping out at someone.

Someone said something the other day that caught my attention. They told me that they had never remembered seeing old fat people. When I thought about it the thought rang true. I have not seen any older fat people either. That leads me to believe that most if not all fat people (me) don't live to a ripe old age. My self preservation kicked in and started to bug me enough for me to think about it. Luckily for me I have some very good friends that are really my friends. They are true friends because they take the time to look beyond the blubber and see me for who I really am. They do not judge me because I am overweight. My true friends also encourage me to do something about my problem and give me some tips on how to do it.

Through the fear onward to battle and victory is my battle cry! The fear is the thought of not being able to get beyond the 20 lb range that I seem to be able to lose and not get beyond. I am tired of not being able to get beyond that limit. I am reminded by a good friend that you cannot eat an elephant in one sitting. You have to eat the elephant one bite at a time. You also can not eat that same elephant in one day either. You have to take one day at a time and just do what you can. Before you know it the elephant will get smaller and smaller. Before you know it this elephant will start to look like a donkey instead of an elephant. I think you get the point. All I can do is what I can do today and I cannot worry about what people think about me or what might happen tomorrow.

Last week I went back to the local recreation center and I renewed my yearly membership and reacquainted myself with the aerobics equipment upstairs. My determination and drive to do something to help myself has rewarded me with the loss of seven unwanted pounds. That means that I have had to keep monitoring my calorie intake and try to keep it under 2000 calories. That also means that I have had to go to the gym several days in a row even when I did not feel like it. My ultimate goal is to get into the habit of going to the gym every other day. I want my life to be something different. I want my lifestyle to change to the point that I can truly enjoy it and do some of the things that I can no longer do but used to.

The positive side to weight loss is energy gain. I do not feel like bouncing up the steps at work just yet but I feel like I have more than enough energy to get where I need to go on campus. Thanks to the sweltering heat here in Charleston I have a new problem and it is called heat and humidity. Luckily for me I have an air conditioned cage (office) on the fifth floor of the Bell South building so I can work in comfort. My short term goal is to lose atleast one or two pound per week and I think that I should be able to meet that goal. My next goal will be to fit into some of the pants that have been hanging in my closet for way too long gathering dust.

Fourth of July Fireworks

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

Camp Happy Days Pictures 2007

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

Know what to do before you go offshore fishing

What was supposed to be a relaxing day on the ocean turned out to be the day from hell. This day started out at 5:30 am when my alarm clock went off and I sprang into life. Anyone will tell you that I never "spring into life" before 9 am in the morning. Yes, I may be physically at work at this time but that does not mean there are signs of life nor is there a spring in my step. I arrived at Shem Creek to meet an friend who invited me to go out for an off shore fishing expedition.

The act of actually meeting with my friend was the only nice thing that happened during this 12 hour fiasco. The tickets were purchased and the boat captain gave out his instructions which included directing our attention to a white piece of paper with some instructions on it. The first sentence thanked us for booking our seat on the Thunderstar for a "relaxing day on the ocean". I keep coming back to that statement because something went horribly wrong which means that relaxing day on the ocean which lasted 12 hours wound up being the most miserable day I have had in a very long time. I must state for the record that neither the captain of the Thunderstar nor the crew or company is directly responsible for how my day turned out.

I have always heard that 20/20 vision always happens after the fact and true to form I now have some 20/20 advice for those of you that might consider a relaxing day on the ocean. The first thing you should do before you agree to going on the boat trip is to inform the inviter that you would love to enjoy a relaxing day on the ocean but that you can not commit to attending this function until you review the weather reports the evening before and on the morning of the event. Last night I thought of the possibility of getting sick and wanted to chicken out of the event but to save face and not to offend my friend I accepted the offer. The only thing I forgot to do was to review the weather reports.

The second thing that I would like to share about this fishing expedition is that it is important to wear the proper clothing to fit the weather at the time of your departure. Today was humid and raining slightly. I showed up at the marina in shorts a t-shirt and tennis shoes. The problem is that I assumed (remember I forgot to watch the weather report earlier) that the rain was only going to be onshore and that after we arrived at our destination the sun would come out to greet us and the rain would stop. Not only did the rain not stop it got worse as the day progressed and the winds kicked up making the temperature cooler and the waves higher. I think my friend made the same assumption because when I asked him if I should bring my rain coat he told me that he thought it would be unnecessary.

The third thing I would like to share about my lack of being informed about this event is that it is very important to link the current weather conditions at the departure site and the destination with how the boat ride could be affected. Because I misjudged the weather I found myself sitting on the boat in the passenger cabin having my teeth rattling in my head. Not only was the boat ride very rough but the cabin was freezing cold. So, I was able to enjoy the cold, the boat smashing through high waves dislocating my stomach every time it hit bottom and my teeth rattling around in my head. I think that we saw several 8 and 12 foot waves both on our way to our fishing hole but also coming back. Imagine yourself sitting in a tin can and projecting yourself at 25 miles per hour over the top of one of those waves and crashing into the trough at the bottom over and over again for the 3 hour boat ride.

The fourth thing that I would like to share with you is that the ingredients listed above will make for a very difficult and uncomfortable boat ride. I also would remind you that there are two different types of folks that will be with you on this expedition. There were the regulars who were not affected whatsoever by the weather or the boat ride and there were people like me who were green around the gills thanks to the sea sickness that set in immediately. To their credit the boat mates walked around and gave those of us that were sick some advice on how to overcome sea sickness and they did it in such a way that we did not feel like children or idiots. Some of the regulars on the other hand felt it necessary to sit around and mimic the sound affects of those folks who were having a hard time keeping anything in their stomachs.

This is my third trip on an offshore fishing expedition in the last six years. The last two were very enjoyable but that is because the weather was much nicer. Since I was a newbie at this sort of thing my stomach was still queasy but I managed to keep it under control. To me the lesson that needs to be learned here is that just because you can pay for the boat ride does not mean that you should not do your homework. There are lots of things that need to be considered before you engage in this type of activity.

In summary do the following things in preparation

1. Check the weather forecast for onshore and offshore before you go to sleep
   
2. Check the weather in the morning for onshore and offshore before you leave for the marina
   
3. Take rain gear , warm ups, shorts and a change of clothes if you don't want to stay wet and miserable on the ride back in to shore
   
4. Take Dramamine before you get on the boat
   
5. Try to get outside and put your eyes on the horizon when at all possible to help with the queasiness
   
6. Verify for yourself where the life rafts and life jackets are located and ask a boat mate if need be. Don't just assume that someone else has loaded them on the boat. The last surprise anyone needs is when there is an emergency and there is not enough gear on board.
   

   
    

 

 

Empty nest for a week

Katy and I put the kids on the bus for Camp Happy Days this morning around 10:30 am. We are now free for the week until next Saturday morning when they return with more junk than they took. Katy and I went out for brunch around 11 am and then decided to go catch a movie. We went to see the new Bruce Willis movie called Live Free or Die Hard. Oh my gosh, if you have a pace maker you might not go see this film. This film is just like the rest of his movies with TONS of non stop action. I won't ruin it for those of you that have not seen it yet but if you are a geek and you love action flicks then this is the movie for you to see. On a scale of one to ten I give it a resounding TEN.

After the movie we went over to Sandpiper Lanes so I could bowl a practice game and see if my thumb is up to more bowling. I managed to pick up the ball four times and throw it down the alley. My thumb sent messages to my brain promising me lots of pain if I were to continue down that path. I got the message loud and clear and put my bowling gear away for the summer. I am not too happy about this turn of events. There are very few sports that I can participate in and bowling is one of them. There are only four or five weeks left for the summer leagues so I guess I am out with this thumb for the duration. Someone did tell me that it would take 5 to 7 weeks for this thing to finally heal.

It looks like we will spend part of my vacation time painting the house and replacing some carpeting that got ruined thanks to the darn mutts. I told Katy that if the dogs decided to do their business on the new carpeting that I would go borrow the neighbors gun and put them out of their misery. As you can imagine that went over like a lead balloon. I was threatening harm against her hairy loved ones and placing myself in danger of her wrath. Katy was telling me of one of our church friends who lives in a smaller house than what we are in and she has 21 animals. Can you imagine having 21 animals to tend to every single day? Don't get me wrong, I love my Angel, KC and Ginger but even they are a bit much when it comes to upkeep and feeding etc.

We came home this afternoon and got comfortable in our recliners with the intent of catching a few winks. The rain was coming down and the temperature was dropping a bit so It was a wonderful time to take a nap. I started to hear what I thought was a tapping noise like we had a leak in the house. Upon further investigation we discovered that the UPS was clicking and making strange noises. The next thing I know I hear voices outside and someone was calling out for our next door neighbor. I went outside to find several of my neighbors telling me that my next door neighbor's air compressor to the AC unit was arcing like it had some sort of short. We managed to get the AC turned off and left our neighbor a message about the problem and called the landlord. By this time I am having flash backs to the recent Memorial Day weekend fire that we had across the street.

Crack of Dawn in Duck Ditch

Once again I am up at the crack of dawn. I went to bed around 12:30 am and my bladder woke me up around 5:45 am. I swear to you that my bladder must be the size of a pea now. I am officially on vacation for the next 9 days. What in the world am I going to do with all of that free time? It has been a very long time since I took a real vacation. The last time was in 1999 when our family went to Branson Missouri to visit Hersholt Ford and his wife. Hersholt was a bi vocational pastor at a Baptist church and he sold time shares during the week to help make ends meet. Hersholt and his wife are such nice folks and I met them on the Internet back during the Jesus Connect days.

We were going to jet off to Denver Colorado to hang out with the Carrberry clan. Thanks to budgeting constraints and our desire to not be foolish we decided to save that 1000.00 plane fare and pay bills with it instead. What in the world has gotten into me as of lately? Pay bills instead of going to have fun with friends? Instead of going to Denver to visit our snow bunny friends we will find other things to do here close to home. We may even go to Myrtle Beach and see some of the shows at Carolina Opry and Dixie Stampede. We are taking the kids to the Camp Happy Days bus around 10:30 am Sunday morning and then we are empty nesters until the following Saturday morning. We spent most of the day yesterday running from one Goodwill to another finding some clothes that would fit the kids. They are growing faster than Jack can climb the beanstalk. You would think we are feeding them some sort of growth pills or something. We found a ton of clothes for both kids for around 114.00 and those same clothes purchased new at retail would have cost us over 500.00.

Kristina is like her dad in several respects. Kristina loves the Internet access she has here at home and she is a shutterbug just like me. We had gotten Kristina a cheap digital camera for Christmas but it was so cheap it was pretty much worthless. Kristina has been pleading for us to get her a new digital camera that she could take to camp this year. We went to Wal-Mart and I looked at all the cameras on display and wound up with the Sony DSC series camera. I have an old Sony digital camera that I have had for YEARS that still works. The only problem with it is that you cannot take the pictures off of it because the serial cable interface no longer works. Kristina loves her new digital camera and she darn near wore out the flash last night taking pictures on the porch and in the yard. I just hope she takes some decent photos while at Camp Happy Days that we can share with you.

Since I am blogging again you can imagine that my busted up right thumb is feeling much better after two weeks of some misery. The first four days was much worse than the others. I had to take pain killers at night so I could sleep. This week has been much better. I guess that I am waiting for the thumb nail to finally fall off which will be totally weird. When I think about this event my brain is saying to me, "You are going to just let one of your body parts just fall off and do nothing about it?" Yes , thanks to being an air head and closing the truck door on my thumb I will probably lose the nail. At least I did not break the thumb which is what I thought had happened at first. I am not happy that my bowling for the summer has been greatly impacted. I am hoping to return to bowling next Thursday. I think I should be able to hold on to the bowling ball by then.

Old man winter has long since packed his bags and headed north for the summer as the temperatures and my light bills have been steadily on the rise. I have the thermostat set on 76 degrees and it runs non stop most days. When it is 99 degrees or hotter outside 76 feels pretty darn good. We tried the "lets just be miserable and leave it off routine" but that did not last very long. I figure if we are going to work and pay bills we might as well live in comfort and just pay the light bill.

I am finally getting sleepy enough to take a nap so I am going to close this out for now. Have a wonderful weekend and stay safe.

Ouchie

I think that the earth has stopped rotating on its axis. I say this because Katy has been out blogging me for the last week. Is that even possible? Katy went from being silent on her blog for months and now I can not tear her away from the keyboard.

Last Monday was sad for several reasons. One reason is because we said our final goodbyes to a dear church member and because of the nine firefighters that died while fighting a blaze at a furniture store in West Ashley. To make matters worse I closed the truck door on my right thumb. For the last four days I have been crippled with regards to my typing ability and not being able to go bowling. That does not mean that I stayed away from the Internet alltogether though. I would have to have both hands in a cast and be completely bedridden for that to happen. I am not used to hitting the space bar with my left hand so that has been sort of weird. We need to leave and go get the kids from the bus since they have been on a two day outting to Carowinds in NC. There will be no peace and quiet in the house for us tonight. hahahahahahah








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

In loving memory of Chris Teasley

On Monday June 18th we said our final good bye to Chris Teasley. Chris was survived by his wife Sherry and son Wesley and his mother. Chris was the praise and worship leader at Grace Fellowship Church for the last several years and it was during this time that I got to know him. I was not super close to Chris but I know that he loved Jesus and his family. I also saw that Chris loved music and was quite talented when it came to playing the keyboard. Chris brought a new level of experience and expertise to our praise and worship team. Chris was a fun person to be around and he passed on his love for music to his son Wesley. Chris struggled with his health and had a chronic heart condition that made life difficult at times. Even when Chris did not feel good he would come to church and play the keyboard anyway. Because Chris was a believer in Christ we know now that his suffering is over. Chris is in a better place and we will see him again soon. The bible says to be absent in the body is to be present with Christ and so we know that is where our friend and brother is at today. We love you and miss you Chris!!

Please say a prayer for Sherry, Wesley, mom and friends during this time of sorrow. Thanks


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