Men

Men

Metrosexual? Gosh, I thought I had heard it all until I read this little story about men who are learning how to pamper themselves. LOL. OK then, I was certainly enlightened by this story. Just when I thought that I was limited to using DIAL soap or DOVE I now learn it is ok to pamper myself with skin moisturizers and no one will think that I am weird or overtly feminine. Honey, you are off the hook for Christmas. I did want a Jaguar for Christmas but now I realize that I have been missing the boat. I want to pamper myself now. OK, yes, we need an extra bathroom now because once you buy me all those cool pampering items you will never get me out of the powder room. LOL.... hahahahahahaha

Jesus is the reason for the Christmas season

Hello folks! Christmas 2003 is upon us already. Are you ready? How wrapped up and consumed are we with regards to those events that take place during this time of the year? Someone reminded me AGAIN of the need to remember the REASON we celebrate this Christmas season. Its not Xmas as the world would have us to think but rather CHRISTmas. Christ IS the central theme for this holiday whether we embrace it or not. A friend of mine posted a message on a board that I help to moderate and asked what our gift to God was going to be? What birthday present will WE bring Jesus this year? This was my answer.
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I can not believe it is already Christmas.....Where in the world has time flown to? They say (who is they anyway?) that when you get older time flies faster and faster. Gosh, whoever they is, they are wise. Maybe THEY are older than I am? I turned 42 years on Thanksgiving (gulp) and I can attest to the fact that the years are picking up speed.

I think that the best gift that I can give Jesus for his birthday is as much of ME as possible. :)
I was talking to someone at the bowling alley on Monday night about my walking through the trials and tribulations that my family has experienced in the last couple of years. Here are some of those thoughts as I related them.

We all go through some sort of trial or tribulation in our lives. No one is exempt from pain, suffering or trials. No one is sinless and everyone needs grace, forgiveness, mercy and healing in some area of their lives. Maybe some more than others nonetheless we are all in the same humanity row boat. :)

One of the things that I have struggled with is the ongoing battle. I keep asking when is it going to end? Perhaps the answer to that is that it will never end until Jesus takes me out of this world and graduates me to where my Jessica is. Part of my battle has been to accept the battle which is full of struggles, pain and strife. My perception has had to change to accept my circumstances and realize that the battle does not belong to James. I have had to learn (still learning) how to accept the position of weakness and to throw off the never ending struggle for control over those things I have no control over. In my weakness HE is strong. Not in my ability to control my circumstances God provides. :)

So, with that in mind, my gift to the Lord is to learn how to give up the controls in those areas that I feel I am weak in so that HE can do what HE is going to do anyway. I also need to ACCEPT my position within the battle. I so do NOT want to be in the midst of all of this. I so much would rather have a job, be able to pay all my bills on time and NOT depend on anyone for anything. That is so far from reality at this point. Reality states that I am here and I need to have a clearer understanding of the battle and atleast do my part to be thankful and appreciative that things are not any worse than they are. Sometimes being thankful in the midst of adversity is a gift all by itself. So, that is another gift that I will try to bring the Lord. Being thankful in the midst of the adversity.

The other gift that I am going to try to bring to the Lord is the gift of service when I am able to serve. I have precious few dollars to donate but I do have lots of talent and time that I can bring to the table. So, with that in mind, instead of stressing out and being depressed about being stressed out and depressed I will try to channel that energy into areas of service in my local church. I have always served in church and played a role of service to my fellow brothers and sisters. Sometimes that service has given my the ability to forget the battle that rages on within and gives me some much needed respite.

I also want to bring another gift to the Lord for his birthday. That gift is to be a better and less selfish husband to my wife. My wife is a gift to me and even though I try to show her love and appreciation through my lips and sometimes my actions I know that I need to show her more action and less lip service. I need to be more proactive in doing those things that will bring her joy and happiness in our relationship. I need to serve my family more and myself less.

Help me Jesus to see where I have failed and give me the strength and perserverance and faith to embrace your power and love so that I can bring these gifts to your table.

AIDA32 - Worldwide Sysinfo Tool

AIDA32 - Worldwide Sysinfo Tool

I have not had much time this weekend to read the 14 blogs I am subscribed to. During some down time this afternoon I managed to catch up on my Blog reading and ran into a VERY cool System Information Tool called Aida. Whether you are an I.T. professional such as myself or a curious end user you will find this FREE utility something to be amazed about. I just downloaded and installed the PERSONAL EDITION on my XP Professional computer here at home and it is absolutely astounding. I have looked at more software packages than most humans and I can tell you that this is a Winner in my book. So, with that in mind, click on the link above and enjoy.

Black Friday brings rain to Lowcountry SC

Have you recovered from gorging yourself full of Turkey and all the trimmings yet? Maybe you are still slumbering and have not awakened yet after collapsing into your recliner or favorite couch yesterday afternoon.

Our family went to the Meritage Restaurant in downtown Charleston SC yesterday and were blessed by the owner and his staff who volunteered their time, talents, food and facility so that our group from Happy Days and Special Times could enjoy a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner and fellowship. There were approximately 45 people who attended and the family that traveled the farthest was from Pensacola Florida.

We came home after filling ourselves with some wonderful food and settled down in front of the television to watch the Miami Dolphins feed the Dallas Cowgirls to the sharks. Can you say OH MY GOSH. What about those Cowgirls? The Dallas defense who is ranked number one (not any more) in the NFC East acted as if they could not stop the run or the pass. The score (cough) was 40 to 21 in the Dolphins favor. Now the Cowboys are 8 wins and 4 losses which I believe takes them out of first place in the NFC East (2nd place perhaps) and Miami is now 8 wins and 3 losses which puts them in a good standing for a wildcard position in the AFC.

This weekend will find us at the Happy Days and Special Times reunion that is held the weekend after Thanksgiving every year in Charleston. This year, since we moved back we wont need to stay in the hotel so we can show up for the festivities and then come home and sleep in our own beds which will be nice.

If you were like most Americans you were out shopping at Wallyworld or one of the malls in your location at the wonderful hour of 5 or 6 am as you went toe to toe with all of the other shoppers trying to cash in on the early bird deals. As for me and my house we were fast asleep with the visions of James finding a job some day soon. Our Christmas will be so wonderful if we can just manage to pay the bills and not have anything cut off or canceled due to non payment. As a matter of fact I just got off the phone with a recruiter who is searching for a Network Administrator in the SC area. They want a 4 year degree and certifications but perhaps if I pass their online screening and telephone interviews they might waive the educational prerequisite and trade out for years of experience and knowledge. We shall see how I do on the online screen test first.

In lieu of fighting with holiday shoppers for this or that we stayed home and managed to get our Christmas tree up along with most of the other holiday trappings. I have SEVERAL pictures to show you but for the complete list of pictures you can go to Thanksgiving Pictures for your enjoyment and there you will see the entire list of 30 + pictures that I took in the last day or two. If you click on each picture from that web page you will view the picture in your web browser of choice.



Christmas Tree View 1


Christmas Tree with Lights


Justin & Kristina putting together the tree


Moonbright stood still enough for me to get this picture. Stray cat that has adopted us!


Sammy on right (light brown) Angel on left (black) romping in living room


Sammy trying to sleep on living room floor!


Sammy is wondering if I am close enough to his nose for this picture!


The annual Christmas village goes up along with the tree!


Close Up of Christmas Village


Another shot of the Christmas Village

Score: Brick Stairs 1, James ZERO

I fought the law and the law won.... No, that does not match. I ran out to my car and lost my footing and tumbled down three brick stairs at church. The bricks did not even give for a second. I now can honestly say that I have invested, blood , sweat, tears and money into our local church. I could have skipped the blood portion of this experience but atleast I can say I have a well rounded experience. :)

The Dallas Cowboys are still number ONE in the NFC East division with a record of 8 wins and 3 losses. They lost to the Patriots last week and won against the Carolina Panthers this week. Wahooooo ! Go Cowboys!

My part time assignment through RHI in Charleston lasted all of 14 hours this last week. They needed for me to set up a new computer system in their office and get the data transferred from the old computer to the new one. Once all of that was done they had someone who could step in and do the photography and auctions online.

Katy is now registered to work as a substitute teacher in both Charleston and Berkeley Counties. Katy has worked now for almost two weeks substituting for Charleston County. Atleast that means one of us will start bringing in some sort of income in the very near future. Katy also has an interview in the morning at a local school in Goose Creek for a teachers assistant position which would be full time employment with benefits. That would be very nice if she gets it.

Out of desperation I went to a security company and filled out their paperwork to see if I can get a security commission in SC to do security work. That is the LAST thing I want to do at the moment but since I can not seem to find any type of employment I suppose that I might be able to fall back on my 10 years of experience in Security. Now I get to wait on the criminal background check from SLED to see if they will authorize me. I already got clearance to be registered as an alarm installer so I dont see why I cant get authorized to get my Security Officer commission as well. We shall see.

That means working nights and weekends and probably holidays. I figure I can work nights , come home and sleep six hours in the morning and then hopefully find some part time computer gigs to do in the afternoon hours while looking for employment. Hopefully it wont last for too long since I have not worked night shift in almost 15 years.

The lady in the boot. Do you remember her? She is married to Mr. Bunyon. The REAL man who lives next door with his family. The family in the new boot. :) They had their house warming party this weekend and 60+ people showed up. My son Justin was running around looking for a flashlight so he could help park cars. It was funny to watch him all excited about doing that. I think he thought he was going to get dad's nice flashlight to do this with. NOT....

My son Jeremy just had his senior picture taken but thanks to our FTP site being down I can not show it to you here. As soon as it is up again I will upload it and show it to you. I am so proud of him and I can not believe he is almost 18 years old. April of 2004 he will be a young adult ready to wander out into this world to make his mark.

Robert Half International

Robert Half International

On Tuesday I registered with the "Office Team" division of Robert Half International. I left the house at 8 am and arrived downtown Charleston at approximately 10:15pm. My appointment was for 9 am. I tried going down N. Rhett to 526 but ran into a parking lot. At 8:45 am I finally turned around and took the Rivers Avenue route to I-26 towards Charleston and ran into another parking lot. Gosh, it was almost as if I should have just stayed in bed. I perservered and made it to Meeting Street downtown. I took several exams. Data Processing, Word, Excel and last but not least typing. I did 85k keystrokes for Data Entry, scored basic skills for Word and Excel and 70 wpm with 97% accuracy for typing. That all means that I qualify for a clerical position through Office Team. Oh yeah, I am so excited about that. LOL....

I received a call from RHI on Thursday stating that a company is looking for part time help two days a week to handle a company's Ebay business. I can do that in my sleep so it looks like I atleat have a part time position on Monday's and Tuesday's. The position is supposed to go permanent within 2 months so we shall see.

Robert Half Technology which is RHI's Technology division is located in Greenville SC in the Upstate. Jennifer called me from the Greenville branch and told me that the client that has the asset inventory position wants to see what my qualifications are before they make a decision to let me take the 1 or 2 week contract. I told Jennifer that I was probably WAY OVER qualified for an inventory job.

This is an employers market. Too many people out of work and not enough jobs to go around. That means employers can pick and choose the cream of the crop and they dont have to pay people what they are worth not to mention UNDER what the market could bear.

News

News

Just when I thought I had a bad day. I read this article about a golfer getting bitten on his head after trying to retrieve his golf ball. OUCH and double OUCH... Luckily for the golfer he lived through the experience. Whew!!!

A new day and a new direction

This is a new day and I have a new focus and direction. The commission only sales position at ADT lasted 7 weeks. I believe that this would have been a possibility after building the business for 6 months to a year. The only problem with my remaining active in this role is that my finances just wont allow me to do it. I need income now and not six months from now. Economics forced my hand and now I am back to the drawing board looking for a job with a paycheck attached to it.

Wish me luck!

What are you doing right now? I am in front of the television watching the South Carolina Panther and Texas Texans NFL football game. Thus far this looks like a pretty close game. The score now is 7 to zero with Carolina leading the game. I am not what you would call a football fanatic but I do like to follow the Dallas Cowboys when they manage to to win a few games. This year Dallas is 5 wins with 2 losses so that means that they are doing much better than their performance over the last four or five years. Today Dallas and the Redskins will go head to head. Dallas usually wins the match when they are playing at home so we shall see if they can come off their loss to the Bucaneers last week and play some football.

The weather outside is 80 degrees with no clouds in the sky. Katy announced it is Happy Nappy time (2pm) after feeding her brood a yummy lunch. The weather is nice, the doors and windows are open and the children are outside enjoying the wonderful weather.

Did I tell you that we live close to the Charleston International airport? The airport shares runways with the Air Force Base and the LARGE transport planes (C17's?)that fly out of there sometimes fly so low they rattle my eye teeth. I have heard of eye teeth before but is there such a thing?

Ok, it is half time and I think that it IS Happy Nappy time. I need to recharge my batteries in time for the Cowboys Redskins game.

Displaced Make Do in Calif. Shelters (washingtonpost.com)

Displaced Make Do in Calif. Shelters (washingtonpost.com)

Just when I thought that I endured a week this side of hell I read an article like this one. Thanks to information over load most people find themselves deluged with more news stories than we have time to read them. More often than not a lot of folks are probably paying attention to what is going on in Iraq instead of paying attention to what is going on right here in our own Nation.

When I read this article it reminded me of how blessed I truly am. By some standards where I live and what we live in probably does not measure up to what some may be comfortable with. Nevertheless my family and I have a safe place to live which provides us with the necessities of life and then some. I was reminded of this again as I read of the displacement and loss of thousands of Califronia residents who have lost everything due to the raging fires. I would encourage you to take the time to read this article and then to pray for those folks. Most of us reading this probably do not have the time or means to make a trip to California to help those that are less fortunate than ourselves. However we can pray and we can make small donations to the American Red Cross via their website so that we can do "our" part to help. When everyone does a small part all of a sudden there is a LOT of help being given to those that need it.

Life is God's gift to us, what we do with it is our gift back to God and those around us. Pay it forward!

God bless

Pictures and more pictures....

The other day I told ya about Justin and his silly hat. I just downloaded some pictures off my digital camera so here are some pictures to share with you. If you run your mouse pointer over the picture itself you will see the caption for each one. Enjoy!

Solar Storm Warning

Solar Storm Warning

Have you ever had anything unusual happen to you ? Have you ever done anything out of character and found the need to say "the devil made me do it?" If that happened to you yesterday you have a valid excuse. You can now say, " I am sorry, that is really out of character for me but I probably did thus and so because of how I was affected by the solor storm that hit us". I am positive that your response to any inquiries about unusual behaviour patterns or bad decisions will be met with much empathy once you give this reason.

If you are in sales or are tethered down by any electronic leashes such as pagers or cell phones then you can always tell your boss that " the incoming solar storm probably kept the signal from reaching me". LOL....

I read through most of the article that this blogette is referring to and it was interesting reading. I was reminded of how LARGE and IMMENSE our universe really is. I was also reminded of how awesome and humbling it is to realize that we are only but a small part of the cosmos that we inhabit. I think that we get so tied up in the daily events of our lives that we fail to see anything higher than the roof of our cars or houses and we forget about those things that we are shielded from in outer space. Some of our friends and family might accuse us of being "lost in space" when we walk around in a daze or do something silly.

This concludes this Solar Storm summary for today. :)

Yeah! Friday is HERE!

They say that time flies when you are having fun. This week ZOOMED past me and I am still trying to figure out IF I really had fun. I had fun last Monday night when I bowled a 141, 156 and 167. That is way over my average for this league which is a 120. I am finally getting used to the synthetic lanes I guess.

On Tuesday of this week I went out to Cottagville and made a sale , BA and Cell backup which equals to two units. I have 8 more units to meet quota for the month and I have 3 more weeks to make that. I spent most of my day at the Convention Center in Charleston and working with a Dental Office on a proposal. At 8 am I was to meet the Dentist at his new location and wound up speaking to him on the phone. Get me a proposal, I am already an ADT customer and this needs to be done yesterday so I can get the sheet rock people to finish their part in this construction. So, with that information in hand I spend some time doing just that. At the end of the day the customer says, wow, I need to think about this and get back with you. I think that the monthly charge was giving him heart burn. I have an 11 am appointment this morning through Telmar which means that someone saw an ADT commercial or heard ABOUT ADT and called in to our call center requesting to speak to a sales rep.

I had to put my Thursday night small group attendance on hold. I am not too happy about that since I had made a committment to do it. I wrote an e-mail to the small group leader and I know he was/is disappointed that I can not make it. Sometimes priorities really stink. I am 9 months past due on all of my financial responsibilities which means that my number one priority for now is to get my business off the ground and profitable. That means some 12 and 16 hour days for a while until I get established. That means working 6 days per week.

I hope you have a great weekend folks!

Check out the Ryze Network

The Ryze Network

I got sucked into the Ryze Network today. I started out this weekend by searching for sales leads and business networking groups on Google. If you dont know what Google is then you need to know that it is one of the best search engines on the Internet. No, it is not the ONLY search engine but I choose to use it because of how simple it is to use and I seem to get the most hits off of it.

The link above will take YOU to MY Ryze home page. I am using this home page to advertise my Information Technology and Business Risk Assesment and Asset Protection services that I offer. They offer a GOLD subscription which is 9.95 per month but I think that I will check this out a bit longer before I make the plunge. I am very interested in all of the different NETWORKS that have been started already and I subscribed to quite a few of them today.

My primary purpose for joining Ryze is to network with other sales and I.T. Professionals here in the lowcountry of SC. My secondary purpose for joining is the network with other christians and folks who have the same interests as me. So, with that in mind, you probably received an e-mail from me today asking you to join. The cost to you is FREE and all it will take is a few moments of your time to fill out the form. I think it took me all of 5 minutes to join this morning before I headed off to church.

Justin and Kristina went to Awana's tonight and apparently they had a contest to see who had the goofiest hat. Gizmo got creative in the last minute and I will be sure to upload the pictures so you can see them soon.

God bless

Dallas Cowboys are BACK!!!

Miracles NEVER cease to happen folks! The Dallas Cowgirls have morphed back into the Dallas Cowboys in my mind. I have been watching this team play (or attempt to play) NFL football since the late 1960's. Yes, I was born in 1961 so that means I have been watching them for most of my life. I am not much of a sports enthusiast but thanks to my dads interest in the team he got me hooked at a tender age.

It appears that Bill Purcell is whipping this franchise into a formidable opponent to reckon with. We shall see how they do when they face Tampa Bay next week down in Tampa Bay Florida.

Go DALLAS !! 5 wins and 1 loss which means that they are NUMBER ONE in the NFC East for the first time in how many years?

RSS Reader Review

You have heard me talk about RSS and RSS readers in the past. So, with that in mind here is a review that I read today on one of the RSS feeds from Lockergnome Technology RSS feed. So, please understand that this is NOT my review but that of Marc Erickson.


"There are many different RSS readers out there, and the choices are growing every day. For this roundup we picked some of the top new choices and even found one for the Pocket PC. FeedDemon - Full featured RSS reader with lots of bells and whistles. The Cadillac of RSS readers right now. Aggreg8 - Mozilla add-on that provides a simple interface and basic RSS functionality. NewsGator - Unique RSS reader that functions as an add-on to Microsoft Outlook. Blends in nicely with the Outlook interface. Feedreader - Basic RSS reader that gets the job done without a lot of bells and whistles. PocketFeed - Basic reader for Pocket PCs. Still at an early stage of development but we found it usable and quite cool. SharpReader - SharpReader requires Microsoft's .NET framework. It provides basic reader functionality and features. Nothing to rave about but quite functional." (Marc Erickson)

Through the pain onward to battle and victory

Today is a new day and the anger of yesterday has abated somewhat. Because of that and other thought processes I will continue with my endeavours at ADT on Monday. I figure that I am working for myself. So, what I have started in the last several weeks is something that I can build on. I know that the business is out there and that all I need to do is find it and cultivate it. I have come to some conclusions that I am not necessarily happy about but then again we all face things in our lives both professionally and personally that we have no control over. If I have no control over something then it would be silly for me to allow that thing to anger me to the point of controlling me. People are going to be who they are and there is nothing that I can do to change them. All I can do is accept others despite their short comings and try to forgive them and get on with life.

Through the pain onward to battle and victory is a statement that I heard many years ago. I believe that the pastor of Abundant Life Church in Houston Texas used that as a sermon title one Sunday. That title is a powerful statement that I can identify with. As humans we all experience pain and discomfort whether it be physical, emotional, spiritual or mental. Sometimes we experience it in all of the areas or just a combination of one or two. Pain stinks. There is no other way to put it. No matter what we try to do to mask it or hide it the pain is there , it hurts and there is nothing we can do to run from it. How long do we hide from pain or mask it? Sure, there are times when we can deaden the pain by retreating to using alcohol , drugs or other things in life. The problem with doing this is the pain never goes away until we deal with it directly. Through the pain onward to battle and victory. Some of us deal with pain by lashing out at others and trying to transfer the pain onto them and make them responsible. Somehow we find solace in inflicting pain on others thinking that since we hurt others should hurt too. Sometimes we deal with pain by allowing it to drive us into deep despair and depression. Perhaps there at times that this is a normal response and then sometimes we may not be willing to get beyond that despair and depression because we find comfort there.

Katy and I are both working through the pain of loosing our daughter to cancer two years ago. I said that pain stinks. The pain caused by grief is in the same category. People love to tell you that time heals all wounds. I am not sure where those people got that statement because I am not sure that is a realistic assesment of recovery. Maybe it would be better stated to say that over time the pain is not as intense. Over time you learn how to live with the pain. I dont think that the pain will ever be totally healed and forgotten. For those of you that have never lost a child to cancer you can not even come close to understanding the depth of despair and anguish that a parent goes through. The best thing that you can do for those of us that have lived through this type of pain is not to talk to us but rather just listen. That may be harsh to swallow but somehow words and intentions sometimes do more damage than they do good.

How much pain can one withstand you ask? I asked that question after I moved my family to Simpsonville SC and then one month later the one year contract was prematurely ended. We were 3 hours away from Charleston and knew absolutely no one. No church home to attend, very little reserve capital to fall back on and 278.00 per week from unemployment benefits. Some of you might be saying OH just suck it up and deal with it and quit being a whiney baby about it. I understand that in the grand scheme of things that there are OTHER folks out there that are suffering MORE than we have. Somehow when you are dealing with the pain of YOUR issues it is hard to find solace in the fact that there are others suffering more than you. You have two choices to make ultimately. Face the pain and deal with it or allow it do drive you under and defeat you.

That takes us to the battle. Sometimes the battle affects others that are around you. As we are fighting our personal pain sometimes others become victims of our warfare. No, it is not fair but it happens. Gosh, could that be WHY I have very few friends? LOL.... Maybe I am so deep into the warfare of fighting the pain that I just dont have time to invest in being a friend to others. Could that be? Part of the battle comes in the shape of keeping the marriage and family in one piece. Luckily for me I have the most awesome wife in the world. Katy has always been there for me through thick and thin. The other aspect of battling with the pain is that it sometimes crosses over into our professional lives.

I will probably continue this thought process but not now. I sat down at the computer wondering what I was going to say and how and you see what happened. I have more to say than time allows at the moment. I need to go get Kristina and Justin from the Awana car wash in Goose Creek. I hope you have a good day and a restful weekend.

God bless

Pictures from St. Louis Missouri

Ok gang, here are some pictures from St. Louis Missouri.

Ya got to love it folks!

I spent all week in St. Louis Missouri learning how to be a BETTER sales person. I learned the 7 step sales process. I actually learned a lot from this course. I have stayed at better hotels and eaten better food but all in all the experience was positive.

Today I got my first commission check. When I looked at it I thought that there was something wrong with the amount. So, I pulled out my commission sheet to find out that in fact I should have gotten much more than the amount on my check. After investigating further and talking to my manager I was told that instead of my getting training pay that what I was really getting was a draw on my potential sales. That is NOT what I was told verbally by my manager. I was told that I would receive training pay and that as soon as I started to make sales that the training pay would stop and I would receive the commissions I earned. So, I am in a lose lose scenario with the manager. I guess that when I signed the paperwork at the beginning I should have double checked all the fine print with regards to the so called "garuntee" that he spoke about today. That also means that the next two months if I do not make enough sales that they will deduct my "garuntee" from those commission checks as well.

As you can imagine I was NOT a happy camper. My motiation to go out and sell went to ZERO..... As it stands right now I am looking for somewhere else to donate my time and talents. On a positive note it appears that Katy might be doing some substitute teaching in about a week for both Berkeley County and Charleston County.

Gosh, all of that training , for what??

Good morning folks! Rise and shine and give God the glory! Today is God's gift to us, what we do with it will depend on what gift we give back to Him.

My trip to St. Louis yesterday was rather uneventful. The weather was wonderful and very little turbulence. I especially enjoyed the slim design of the coach seats on both aircraft. I believe that when Boeing designed the seats they were assuming that only tiny people fly. Why is that anyway?

When I got to St. Louis I spent approximately 30 minutes running around like a chicken with his head cut off trying to find the "supposed limo" that would meet me there to pick me up and take me to Holiday Inn. The first thing that should have clued me in was the name HOLIDAY INN. After much investigation I finally figured out which (cough) Limo was supposed to pick me up. The Limo turned out to be a Chevy Van. The important thing is that I met up with my party and rode for about 40 minutes to the other side of St. Louis to the Holiday Inn that I am now trapped in.

For some weird reason I did not get ALL the information with regards to the itinerary here because when I got on the van some of the other sales folks told me that I would have a room mate. I said "No way!" and they said "Yeah WAY!". When I arrived at the hotel, sure enough I received a package at the front door with my room mate's name on it. My "roomie" did not arrive until around midnight when I was just getting ready to dose off. How special was that? I grunted something at him and went back to sleep. When I woke up this morning he had his head buried under his pillow which means that I must have removed the pain on the wall by his bed with my snoring. Poor poor roomie huh? Maybe I will get lucky and he will go get his own private room so he wont have to deal with my snoring.

Here in ST Louis it is 6:15 am, but to my biological clock it is 7:15 am. So, I am up and reading e-mail and scribbling in my blog. Wahoooooo. I love my Internet connection while away from home. It sort of makes me feel like I have not left yet. I can see it now. I am gone and my side of the bed at home has been taken over by the two mutts, Sammy and Angel. Well, atleast the dogs dont snore so maybe Gizmo will get caught up on her sleep huh? When I left yesterday the kids were happily doing their thing and did not seem to mind the fact that daddy was leaving for a week. Gizmo was also smiling when I told her good bye at the airport as well. I guess that 8 months of bonding will do that to ya...

Well, I have been up for over an hour already and have not had my first cup of coffee. So, I suppose that I will leave my cyber seat for now and go find java. Have a wonderful day!!

God bless