Jesus Connect.net Domain is down for now

Once again it has happened to us. Katy called me yesterday stating she went to our website to make a change and found that the DOMAIN Jesus Connect.net has expired. SIGH... This is not the first time this has happened. So, our family website which was part of that domain and has been for years is once again VANISHED. Katy and I think that it is time for us to register our own domain and then we can have our own website with our own domain name again. Most domain names give you website space, email and FTP access and it is getting cheaper by the year. So, stay tuned for our announcement in the very near future.

This week continues to be a good week with regards to our health. I am eating under 2000 calories per day and Katy and I both walked 1.6 miles on Monday and Wed. We are walking one day, resting the next. Four days on and three days off. I will be working in the County Office Building which means I will be making rounds in the parking garage which will count towards my exercise count. I can not wait until this Saturday. I get to work a double shift from 7 am until 11 pm. Wooooohoooooo sounds like fun filled excitement. hahahahahahah NOT....

We are having a heat wave today since it is up to 31 F. I think that I will go outside and get a tan today. LOL

Hammer and nail anyone?

Have you ever used a hammer and nail to fix a computer? LOL. Well, I came pretty close today. Actually I wound up going to the VA Hospital in downtown Charleston this afternoon to fix one of their many MED carts. There is a manual locking mechanism which is installed to lock the cart just in case the electrical/computerized system were to fail. Somehow the thumb lever and the metal plate it rides on vibrated loose and fell off. I wound up spending two hours this afternoon figuring out how to disassemble the cart , fix the problem and then reassemble it to make sure it works. I had to use the hammer and nail to drive out the plastic gromets that were holding the four corners of the top of the med cart to the rest of the cart. I was standing in the storage room beating on the nail wondering if a doctor or nurse would walk in and ask me what in the world I was making all the racket for. LOL. Luckily that never happened.

I spent 3 hours today upgrading Timberline software at one of my client sites. I had to upgrade the server first and then I had to reinstall the updates to all the workstations.

Thus far , as of 7 pm I am at 810 calories. That will give me approximately 750 calories for me to consume for dinner and that will keep me well under 2000 calories for the day. Yeah me!!! I am going to rest tonight and walk tomorrow before church. Katy looked at me and said, there is NO WAY I am walking again in this cold. LOL.... Poor dear. I do hope that she gives in to my incessant whining and goes with me anyway. It is starting to look like we are both going to have a whine session tomorrow night to see if one or both of us is going for a walk. LOL

Caring Bridge Website

This is our Caring Bridge Website that I put up yesterday evening. I am not finished with it yet so please come back often to see what we have changed. The url is

http://www.caringbridge.org/sc/jessicamoffitt

Please visit this website and share it with your friends and family. Pray about helping Happy Days and Special Times as they are in need for funding for 2005 for all of the special events that they do for children with cancer and events that the siblings and parents can attend throughout the year. You can donate online at http://www.happydaysnspecialtimes.org in memory of our Jessica. I know that I know that she would appreciate your support. Thanks!!

A new day to make the right decisions

Good morning folks! It is a nice crisp 22 F here in the deep south. LOL... I am so happy that I purchased a car cover for our new chariot so I dont have to worrry about scraping ice off the windshield. I am also glad that the heater does not take 30 minutes to finally kick in. Speaking of that I wonder if I should go out and crank the engine so that when I do get in it will be nice and toasty when I get inside.

I decided this weekend that FAT BOY is going to DO SOMETHING about the weight problem. Sigh.... I gained 9 pounds over the Christmas holidays and I can really tell a difference. I am also wondering if my not taking my blood pressure medicine which was a diuretic has caused me to put on some extra weight. That is a question that a doctor is going to have to answer I suppose.

Well, anyway, not only did I gain 9 lbs but I also have not done any regular exercise either. Having the new job working 8 to 5 sitting in front of a computer most of the time did not help that. What walking that I was doing in the parking garage has been diminised down to two days on the weekend. So with that in mind I am going to do my best to walk atleast 3 or 4 times per week. I got home last night after work and my right ankle was sore since I stood up most of the day. I almost used that as an excuse not to go but I managed to bundle up and go outside to walk. I also managed to talk Katy into walking with me. Boy oh boy girlfriend did NOT want to walk in the cold. Can you say cheese with that whine honey? LOL... Thank you Katy for coming with me so that you could motivate me to do what I need to do. We both know that we both really need to try and do this together so we can support one another when one or both of us want to get lazy and stay at home and be couch potatoes. LOL....

In the calorie department I ate around 2400 calories. I guess I sort of blew it in that area. I need to get that down to under 2000 calories today. The formula is simple. Less calories and more exercise. The key is aerobic exercise I might add. Exercise that gets your heart to pumping at a specific rate which is designed to burn those FAT calories. Just thinking about how much work is necessary to lose ONE POUND or 2000 calories is almost depressing.

Baby steps. Tiny little baby steps. I have to keep reminding myself that I did not get this way over night and that it is going to take determined dedication to attack this problem one moment at a time and one day at a time. Tomorrow is gone and now I have today to make the right decisions and do the right things. Personal planning means that I need to DO SOMETHING and be proactive and NOT just let life happen to me and wind up being REACTIVE and doing damage control.

Maybe my new motto needs to be "Embrace The Tiger". Maybe that will help me to understand that my weight problem is the tiger in my life and that I need to face this monster (tiger) head on and not let it overwhelm me to the point that I feel helpless and hopeless. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I need to also remember that. I am not alone and I have the power of God within me to dig down deep and do what I need to do. I just need to decide to tap into that power and put it to work every single day.

Today is God's gift to me and what I chose to do with this day will be my gift to God. Pray that I will make the right decisions today with regards to how much food I stick in my mouth and that I will continue to exercise atleast 30 min every day. Also remember to pray for the Tsunami victims in Asia and for our troops who are over seas fighting in a horrible war. Pray that our troops will come home safe and sound to their families. Pray for peace. Also pray for Happy Days and Special Times that they will continue to find the funds that they need through donations and other events through the year so that they can continue to bless children with cancer with all of their FREE activities to them and their families

Renissance Weekend Myrtle Beach South Carolina

Katy and I spent the weekend at Myrtle Beach at the Ocean Reef Hotel. When we arrived Friday evening around 6:30 pm the temperature was around 45 F. Before it was all over the temperature dipped down to around 34 F with a wind chill factor making it around 28 F. Now, I know for you snow birds up in Michigan or Iowa or wherever you might be building snow men this is a regular hot flash for you. However us beach bunnies are freezing our tails off with this weather.

Happy Days and Special Times sponsors the Renissance Weekend for parents who have lost children to cancer. I can not tell you how wonderful this organization really is. Not only do they minister to the needs of kids with cancer but they do not forget the siblings and parents AFTER the child is either recovered OR passes on. During the yearly weekend we come together as a support group and we comfort one another and we have the unfortunate opportunity of welcoming newcomers to our group.

This year we had three or four new couples that just recently lost children to one form of cancer or the other. As one person said we are all unwilling members of a horrible club. Friday evening we all gathered around and did introductions and got settled in to the hotel and ate Pizza around 9 pm. Saturday morning we had breakfast, two grief counseling break out sessions, lunch , free time between 1:30 pm and 4 pm and then we all gathered at Chuck Steak House for steak dinner compliments of Happy Days. After dinner we all piled in to our respective chariots and headed down to the Alabama Theater and enjoyed a Tribute to Patsy Cline radio show. I am not much of a Patsy Cline fan but I have to say that the entertainment and talent was absolutely amazing. After the show ended around 10:30 pm we all came back to the hotel and piled into one of the conference halls for more desert, coffee, soda pop and more informal conversation.

Sunday morning consisted of a breakfast, more informal conversation within the group of parents and then John Evans spoke to us. You can visit John Evans on the Web at http://www.johnevansspeaker.com/. John is a motivational speaker that just blesses our socks off every time we hear him speak. As a matter of fact I wish that we were able to spend more time with him than we do. John handed out a motivational brochure that was entitled Embrace The Tiger with a picture of John kneeling next to a huge Siberian Tiger. John Evans also told us all about a website called Caring Bridge at http://www.caringbridge.org. On this site you can register a web page and set up a memorial page for your loved one and let people know how they are doing etc. Check the site out for yourself. I plan on setting up a site there to let folks know about our Jessica and the impact that Camp Happy Days and Happy Days and Special Times had on Jessica and continues to bless our family today. My hope is that folks will be touched by the incredible genioristy and spirit of giving and volunteerism and will be moved to help support Happy Days and Special Times. Once all the events were over we all went outside on to the beach and proceeded to stand around like a bunch of frozen popsicles while we waited for everyone to show up for our balloon releasing ceremony. We take the white balloons and we put our hopes, fears, dreams and wishes and we then release those balloons up to God so that He can minister to those things within each of us. We also release them in honor of our children who have gone on before us. Our hope is that one day we will see Jessica again.

Back view of Pontiac 

2003 Pontiac Grand Prix SE 

January 12, 2005

It has been five days since I have written in my blog. My how time flies when you are having fun. Are we having fun yet?
LOL... Well, let me see, what is going on..... The reports are still coming in and the number of Tsunami victims keeps growing and growing and growing. I think they are up to 155,000 dead or missing. How depressing is that folks? The experts are predicting that the numbers could raise to as high as 300,000 IF the survivors of this natural disaster do not receive drinking water and food in the very near future. Not only is there a lack of food and water but there are also problems with the survivors having to deal with diseases that have set in since this disaster struck. Like I said, it is just too overwhelming to fathom. What can we do on the other side of the globe? We can do two things. We can donate money towards the relief effort and we can pray. I can only imagine that this event has folks thinking about their mortality especially with the death and destruction all around them. Just the other day someone at church had mentioned that they watched some sort of show on TV that stated that we are not immune to this sort of event happening off the East Coast of the U.S. Apparently there is some sort of fault line near us out in the ocean or an underwater volcano that erupts every several hundred years. If that event were to take place the wave that would hit the East Coast would be far worse than what hit Asia. Now, there is a thought that catches your breath huh?

It all boils down to this one thing. We are not in control. No matter how much money, technology and elbow grease we throw at mother nature when nature does what it does all we can do is sit back and wait for it to finish, whatever IT happens to be. No matter what I believe that God is in control. God knows all, we do not. All we can do is to be living our lives as if today is the last day of our lives and be ready to meet our maker. None of us are garunteed a tomorrow and just because we were not victimized by the Tsunami does not mean that the next time we get into our cars that we wont be in some sort of accident that might take our lives. Actually, if you think about it the chances of being in a car wreck far outweighs our chances of being hit by a huge tidal wave.

The year 2005 marks the year of out with the old and in with the new. Katy upgraded her car from a 1983 Chevy Station Wagon to a 1993 Ford Escort station wagon. The Ford Escort is 10 years newer and gets wonderful gas mileage compared to the gas guzzling tank that we have been driving around for the last 4 years. My 1994 Caddilac was eating us out of house and home with all of the maintenance repairs that were absolutely wrecking our budget. So, with much prayer and with help from a dear friend we were blessed with getting a 2003 Pontiac Grand Prix SE. I can not tell you how nice it is to have a car that has less than 50,000 miles and has an AC and Heater that actually works. Everything was falling apart on the Caddy and it had over 221000 miles on it so it was time for it to retire. I think that the last time I drove a car this new was back in 1981. That has been a LONG time folks. I will share pictures here via Hello in a moment.

As of Friday this week I will be scheduling my A+ exam. Hopefully I can get a slot early next week and get this test completed and passed. If I can pull this off it will be the first step towards getting some much needed computer certifications. Lets see, I have read two different A+ books and studied over 1500 different test questions. If I am not ready for this test then I dont think I ever will be. LOL... Once that is completed then I will be off to the races to study for the MCSE exams. There are 8 of those so if I can do one per month I have 8 months before I get my MCSE. Of course, one per month for taking a test is a really agressive schedule so I will be content if I can pass half of those exams between now and December of this year. If I can do that my income will go up and I can start doing more computer engineering work vs being a hardware technician. Speaking of being a hardware monkey I have been getting a crash course on fixing printers. OH MY GOSH. You thought your computer was persnikity. Good grief Grady. Printers are a major pain in the keister.

Our church sanctuary is finally being dismantled and the carpet and sheetrock and other fixtures are being ripped out and replaced. The schedule is to have the sanctuary completely renovated by the end of January. We will have all new pews, carpeting, sound equipment with the addition of a computer and digital projector. Say bye bye to transparencies and hello to 21st century technology. Wahoooooo. Of course with all of the changes with how we are going to use technology on Sunday morning brings me the added responsibility of evaluating worship software to determine what we will eventually pick to display text, song lyrics, bible scripture , video etc.

This weekend we will be taking our annual jaunt out to Myrtle Beach SC as Happy Days and Special Times sponsors another Renissance Weekend for parents who have lost children to cancer. For the last couple of weeks the weather has been very nice with temperatures in the middle 70's. Now that the Myrtle Beach weekend is coming up the weather is turning colder and raining. It happens like that every year. LOL...

Prayer request

PLease pray for my friend Kimberly who is going through a very difficult time right now. Her husband has some sort of cancer and they are experiencing some severe financial difficulties because he is not able to work. Kimberly's relatives are not offering her much support at this point which is really upsetting to her. Thanks in advance for the prayers for healing for her husband as well as financial needs that they have.


God bless

The New Year first day

Our day started out around 7:30 am today when the phone rang next to the bed. US Security called and said "Arent you supposed to be at the County Office Building this morning James?" Groggily I said " not that I know about". The voice on the other end of the line says " He (as in Capt Bassett) wrote your name in the schedule this week" . I responded by saying that Capt Basset usually calls me and asks me if I want to work Saturdays since my only scheduled day is the 3 to 11 shift on Sundays. If they had called me and asked me if I wanted to work New Years Day I would have probably said no anyway. Thanks to the way the holidays fell this year with most of them falling on a weekend I really did not get any time off during the holidays. So, with that in mind I had already determined that I was not working New Years day.

I spent most of the morning installing software back on the home computer and configuring the computer some more. I installed Adobe Photo Shop 7, Mozilla Firefox, Pluck and Metacafe. I spent some time online chatting with friends via Yahoo and AOL IM. Katy and I ate breakfast out on the porch this morning while we waited on Kristina to come back from the youth getaway in Greer SC last night. At about 10:30 am Heather rolled up and dropped off Kristina so we spent time talking to Heather and her mom for about 30 min out in the driveway. They are doing such a wonderful job with the youth at our church. We have approximately 35 members in regular attendance and about 10 to 12 of those 35 are youth who are from the ages of 9 to 15. Heather is working on teaching the youth how to do drama and recently spent about 6 weeks getting ready to do a drama presentation for the church just before Christmas. Kristina was involved in the activities and I must say that she not only puts her heart and soul into what she is doing but she seems to be very talented in this area.

I had to stop what I was typing there for a second thanks to one of the C17 Transport carriers from the airport flying directly overhead. It seemed as if the darn monster plane was right on top of the treeline. Whew, that was TOO close for comfort and for some reason it seemed WAY TOO LOW for my comfort. I was puckered up waiting to hear the sounds of ripping metal as it tore our double wide trailer apart and carried us over into Chucks yard or whatever. Luckily for me and for the pilots they managed to clear the tress and now I can relax and continue with my thoughts. Where was I?

Oh yes, what we did today. Once the Glisson duo left the end of the hill down here in slumlord haven Katy and I headed over the Regal Cinema 18 theatre and watched Meet the Fockers. OMG that was TOO FUNNY. hahahahahaha I told Katy when we left the movie that I wonder how many families are somewhat like that one in a lot of ways. If you want to see a good movie that will make you laugh go see it. You wont be sorry.

We have landed back at the house and plan on snuggling up next to the TV to watch Law and Order Criminal Intent for the next two or three hours and then hopefully get a full nights rest where Katy nor I will wake up every two hours because of either the darn dogs or my cough that I can not seem to kick.

I hope you had a relaxing day today and that your new year started out peacefully.

God bless

The Christian Working Woman - Today's Broadcast

The Christian Working Woman - Today's Broadcast

For you working ladies out there that love Jesus...

Pluck: Search, Retrieve, Organize & Share the Web

Pluck: Search, Retrieve, Organize & Share the Web

This is a VERY cool tool that I found the other day. Check it out!!

My Daddy My Hero - Flash Presentation

Homeward Bound

A friend of mine sent this to me. I was told to have a box of Kleenex standing by and I have to say it will probably get to you.

AGB North America - Qtek 9090 (known as the Imate PDA2K)

AGB North America - Qtek 9090 (known as the Imate PDA2K)

Gosh, its ONLY 899.00 OMG... You can buy a laptop for less people... LOL..
Maybe by Christmas 2005 this baby will be more reasonable.

New Years Eve 2004

Well, this is the LAST day of 2004! Time flies when you are having fun and guess what folks? Out with the old and in with the new year. We can put our failures from this year behind us and look forward to using our lessons learned to practical use in 2005. This year was not one of our best financially speaking but as of October things started to get better. Hopefully things will stabilize nicely in 2005 and we can spend this new year playing catch up.

Our home computer is up and running without any problems. We still have some software to install but other than that it is very fast and running nicely. One of the things that XP does that W2k does not is that you can switch from one user profile to another without having to log off the first user. I sort of miss that but oh well.

Our plans for New Years eve is very simple. We are going to stay home with the family and just enjoy the fact that we have a place to live and that everyone is healthy. We have a LOT to be thankful for. Everytime I get on the Internet or listen to the news I am reminded of how much tragedy rages all around us. Most of us know about the tragedy that is happening half way around the world in India where 125000+ folks are missing or dead. The number just keeps rising. I can not even begin to fathom the depth of their grief and despair. It is nice to see that there has been a global response to the needs though. Hopefully life will be a little bit easier for the victims because of it. Life certainly will never be the same for them.

Our goals for 2005 are simple but they are not resolutions. You know how long new year resolutions last right? They last about as long as it takes you to break them. LOL...

Our goals to work towards are simple. Managing our finances better. That means to actually live within our budget and paying off some debt. Maintaining full time employment for both of us and getting stable. Katy is waiting on her emergency teaching certificate so she can pursue full time teaching positions in SC and I am working on my certifications so I can ultimately make more money in the long run. One of my goals personally is to lose some blubber through better eating habits and more exercise. Another one of my goals is to work on getting our mens ministry at church off the ground (out of the basement LOL) and doing something other than nothing.

Well, that is all for now. I pray that you have a safe new years eve and that you will have a prosperous and blessed new year in 2005.

Bring our Men and Women home from Iraq!!

How many men and women must die in this war? We (Americans) have sons, daughters, wives, husbands, fathers and mothers who have been committed to fight a war. Not only do Americans have a stake in this war but there are other countries that are involved. How many countries are unknown to me but I know that there are several allies that are there investing blood, sweat, tears and lots of money into this effort. My question to you is this. Is this turning into another Vietnam? I am starting to feel as if YES this is starting to turn into another political fiasco. No, I am not the type of person that is going to blame our men and women who are serving their country. However, I do feel that our government has made its statement, whatever that is and now it is time for us to come home and let the Iraqi's figure it out. I am not sure what IT is other than perhaps how to get along with one another and not be a host to teorrorist organizations who need a place of refuge or a place to train killers who will go all across the globe to slaughter innocents.

September 11, 2001 was a tragic and horrible event in the history of the world. Over 3000 men and women lost their lives in the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. I understand that the US of A needed to respond in such a way to exact a penalty upon that person or people who committed this attrocity againgst humanity on our own soil. I think that we have given the terrorists of the world something to think about. If you kill our people on our own soil we will hunt you down like a rabid dog and we will kill you. Should we be killing innocent men, women and children at the same time we are hunting down those that are responsible? I guess that some folks would say that innocent lives being taken during war is just a casulty of war. I do not necessarily buy that mentality folks. How is it we have the technology that we have at our disposal yet we can not find one man? Why is it we have not found this Bin Laden character? I wonder if there are CNN reporters out there that could not find him? LOL Of course we can find him if we really want to. We have satellite technology that can take pictures of your dogs nose hair but we can not find one man who is known all over the world. Hogwash people, how stupid do they think we are anyway?

Lets surgically erase the problems we have in the middle east and then lets bring our troops and hardware home so that they can get back to the business of defending our soil and get back to their families where they belong. Amen ??

Good morning Sunshine

Ok, here we are all snug in our office chairs strapping ourselves in getting ready for another wonderful Monday morning at the office. NOT.... If you are like me you noticed that the roads were pretty empty this morning which means a LOT of folks are still on Christmas vacation. I for one am like the rest of the minority who have to make a showing at the shop/office/cubicle etc. Things are pretty dead here so I have time to completely start over on my home computer fiasco. Sigh.... Ready SET GO!!!! Deep breath...


Step 1, hook up PC and turn it on -Pray
Step 2, hook up 160 GB USB external Hard drive
Step 3, back up D drive data to external drive - should take several hours
Step 4, back up data on C drive to external drive - not as much as D drive
Step 5, insert Win98 System disk and reboot system
Step 6, blow away partitons on both C and D drives
Step 7, create new partitions on C and D drives
Step 8, format C and D drives with Fat32
Step 9, Insert Windows ME CD into cd drive and reboot
Step 10, install Windows ME on C drive with Fat32 partition - Pray
Step 11, verify all hardware is recognized and working
Step 12, use Microsoft Security CD and install all security updates since Feb 2004- Pray
Step 13, using Windows Update install any newer security updates- Pray
Step 14, install Anti Virus software and scan drive C - Pray
Step 15, begin installing necessary software - pray extra hard here
Step 16 restore data from external hard drive back to D drive
Step 17 configure MS Outlook with proper PST file for Katy - Pray
Step 18 configure MS Money with correct data file - Pray again
Step 19 if steps 1 through 19 blow up in my face despite prayer take PC CPU out to Ashley Phosphate rd and let multiple cars and trucks destory it beyond repair
Step 20 If I had to resort to step 19 figure out where I will live after Katy kicks me out of the house because of no Internet access

Back to reality again

I know that it is time to get back to reality because I am at my part time job working security here at the County Office Building in DT Charleston. It is REALLY cold here but atleast it has stopped raining. Last night we were under a winter storm advisory because a cold front was coming through and there was a trough of moisture coming from the gulf of Mexico and racing up the eastern seaboard.
Luckily for us the roads did not ice over here in the lowcountry but I am sure in the upstate of SC near the mountains or north of I-95 that folks saw some sleet, ice and some snow. When that happens here in the deep south the entire state just shuts down. People rarely know how to drive safely in good conditions much less when the roads become hazardous. I think that last week atleast two days of the week I 26 was shut down for several hours due to multiple car wrecks where folks turned their cars or trucks upside down on the freeway.

I have not heard back from either Bloglines or Blogger about the lapdance.com posts that Patty found. I am hopeful that someone can delete that garbage from my blog. Imagine the horror when Patty told me last night that I was advertising porn in my blog and I did not even know it. LOL... How scary is that folks? Its one thing when someone wants to advertise that sort of thing or talk about it but its quite something else when you are promoting christian/family values. Speaking of that I hope that you are not in the dark with regards to Internet porn. Just the other day at the shop a lady had brought in her laptop computer to be worked on. The laptop wound up getting spyware and other malware installed and was eating up all the system resources. When the customer came by to pick up her computer it was late in the afternoon and I was the only one in the office. We were standing at the front counter where I was checking the machine out and the customer was paying the bill when she asked me if she could ask me something but that it might make me mad. I told her to go ahead and ask the question because I doubt that I would be angry about it. The customer tells me that her daughters husband is involved in surfing porn on the Internet and that her daughter knows something is up because every time she walks past the computer he switches the screen to something else on the computer. In other words he is hiding what he is doing from her. The daughter has approached the husband and asked him to talk about it and of course he is in denial. Over the last 10+ years I have worked with several Intenret based ministries that work with men and women who are either addicted to porn or have become victims of this addiction through their relationships with someone that is.

Internet porn is a billion dollar industry and you no longer need to go searching for it , it will find you in the form of either spam mail OR an innocent web search via Google, Yahoo or whatever search engine you are on. There are porn sites out there that use meta tags that have the word Bible, God, Jesus and church. So, if you or your children are searching for something innocent and non adult in nature you might be surprised to know that the wrong result could pop up on your computer screen. So the question is not IF you run across porn on your Internet connected computer but WHAT you will do WHEN it happens. One of the problems with Internet porn OR gambling is that you can do these activities from the privacy of your own home behind locked doors and no one will be the wiser as to what you are doing. These types of activity become secret sins. Even for those husbands, wives, sons or daughters that are extremely alert they wont recognize credit card charges for porn or gambling because those companies disguise the charge to a company name that is very ambigous. That credit card charge could be something bad or it could be something innocent.

The problem with Internet porn and gambling is that it becomes an addiction. When the problem starts it could be very innocent and compeletly coincidental. In other words the son or daughter goes through the house and finds videos or magazines that they should not find and before you know it they have been introduced into a world that they should never have been invited into. We lock up our guns and unload them from our kids right? Why would you leave something laying around that our kids could get into that will cause them to start down the road with an ugly addiction. I dont care what it is folks. It can be Playboy magazines, cigarrettes, gambling , snuff, whatever. If you have it in your life and you are not careful before you know it your loved ones could get sucked into a very tangled web that can lead to major problems down the road. Like I said earlier, people become curious through different channels and for different reasons and they do not intend to become addicted but it happens. Web sites will offer you a TASTE of what they have to offer for as little as 1.00 to get you sucked in and before you know it you are paying a monthly service fee to get MORE and MORE and MORE of whatever it is that you are addicted to. If you are reading this and you are thinking OH MY perhaps there is a problem somewhere within your family there is HOPE and there are solutions available to you. The first thing you have to do is find out what is going on. Drag the behaviour and activities lovingly out into the light. You might have to exercise some tough love to get to the truth but nevertheless I encourage you to do it. There are online resources and offline resources that you can tap into that will educate you on what you need to know about whatever you are going through. So, do not feel alone or as if you are in a helpless or hopeless situation because you are not. If you have questions or need direction in these areas feel free to send me e-mail at moffittj@bellsouth.net and I will do everything that I can to point you in the right direction.

Well, today is the day after Christmas and before we know it we will be back to reality. The 9 to 5 grind will start up and we will find ourselves in bumper to bumper traffic with the rest of humanity.
We spend so much time getting ready for Christmas ( well some of us do I suppose) and then when it is all over we almost find outselves feeling a bit depressed that it is gone. Why cant Christmas last 11 months out of 12 anyway? Our pastor preached on this very topic today and he spoke about the Christmas story of the Grinch that stole Christmas. He compared Herod in the old testament with the Grinch. Both of them were not happy about others having fun and being festive. Both of them decided to do whatever it takes to KEEP people from experiencing joy and happiness because they were either threatened (Herod and the Christ child at birth) or did not want people to have fun (the Grinch). The moral of the story is that we can keep our focus on the reason for the season 356 days a year and we can have Christmas every day of the year. We can open up our hearts and let Jesus in and allow Him to be the Lord of all or we can be our own lord and become all wrapped up in the world around us and pursue the things of this world that are only temporal. How much money will make us happy? How many parties does it take to make us merry? How many or much of this or that will it take for us to find true peace, joy and happiness? I can assure you that there is a temporary attraction and fun with regards to the things of this world but once the newness has worn off and the consequences of engaging in these activities hits home the fun will end. I hope that there was a Christ in your Christmas season and that you spent some quality time with loved ones and remembered how awesome it was that Emanuel was born and placed in a manager with swaddling clothes.

Here is another thought for you while I am banging away at the keyboard. Are you going to live forever? We all assume that we will go to bed tonight in our own beds and that we will wake up when the alarm clock goes off in the morning. Tonight at work I was rudely awakened AGAIN to the fact that life is very precious and it is very temporary for us. I found out that a young lady that works for our company was involved in a motorcycle accident last week and died. I worked with this lady one shift and have only seen her one other time in passing in the parking garage during shift change.
This young lady was either 20 or 22 years of age. Her life was ended just last week, the week of Christmas 2004. She is gone, never to return to us in the life that we know now. I do not even know what her religious affiliation was or if she even attended church. So, of course, I find myself sitting here wondering about her eternal resting place hoping that Christ was her Lord and Savior.
Just this year I lost a friend of mine to cancer who worked over at the Historic Court Building. Carol Holland was younger than I am and she is gone. This morning at 7 am people in Asia were surprised by a 8.9 earthquake which produced a Tsunami tital wave that was 20 feet high. They are still counting the bodies but we are up to 11000 now. How many folks lose a loved one in the many wars that are going on over our entire globe? Gone , never to return. How tragic is that? Well, the point of all this is that none of us know when our time is up and when we will exit out of the life that we know now. I am not bringing all of this back to your attention because I am trying to be morose or morbid but I want to make sure that YOU and your loved ones are ready for that eventuality. Yes, I know, you are in good health and you do not engage in any behaviours or activities that will endanger you. Do you drive to work? Do you fly from one city to another? That list can go on but there are many ways in which our life can end and there is no way that any of us can figure out a way to keep the inevitable from happening. No matter what get smart and be ready. Be ready to face your creator every single day of your life and thank HIM that He has seen fit to give you that life to live. What is the saying? Life is Gods gift to us but what we do with that life is our gift back to God.

Happy Holidays

Windows XP SP1 Nightmares

Santa Claus has delivered the toys under the Christmas tree and is on his way back to the North Pole. The kids have just opened all their presents from under the tree and I am glad it is over. LOL... They were about to drive mom and dad crazy as they bounced all over the house yesterday in anticipation. I guess I have forgotten what a big deal it is for kids on Christmas. HoHoHo Merry Christmas to one and all. Now, lets talk about MY Christmas gift that the Grinch left for me last night.

Remember I told you that I was going to wipe the hard drive on the family computer and start all over from scratch? I started the process at 1 pm and it should have ENDED around 6pm. From the time I used FDISK to kill the original partition to installing all of the software. Well thanks to the Grinch (who else can I blame ?) he stole my Christmas JOY by causing me to have to work on the blasted computer up until around midnight. How special.... LOL

Lets see, the last time I babbled about this I had formatted the drive with NTFS version 5 and was installing XP Professional Service Pack 1. I managed to get the OS installed with no problems and ran all of the MS Security Updates from the Windows Update website including Service Pack 2. I installed the Anti Virus software and then noticed that I did not have any sound. We cant have that so I dove in with both feet and elbows and remembered that I need to install the correct driver to make the speakers work. That is when the hardware nightmare began.

At this point I did not realize that my motherboard chip set and plug in cards were not going to work with XP SP1. After fighting with the sound card drivers for 2 + hours and multiple reboots and BSOD with the sysaudio.sys error I finally decided to blow the partition away and start all over again. That was around 7 pm that I decided that. I figured that would be the fastest way to fix the problem. When I tried to install XP with SP1 on a fresh partition I was greeted by multiple BSOD's AGAIN. At this point I gave up and took the sound card out and tried the install on a fresh partition which resulted in a BSOD so I tried to disable all sound on the MB which caused another BSOD. I finally went to the Internet and searched on the sysaudio.sys error with XP SP1 and was greeted with numerous nightmare stories of how XP SP1 just does not play well with some hardware. Well folks, guess what? Such is the case in my computer. I finally installed Microsoft ME on the computer with NO problems. I have Internet access, sound and the whole works. I also was able to install Microsoft XP Home and have it in a dual boot configuration. Everything BUT sound works on XP Home. Go figure... I think that it is time to buy a new home pc that will enable me to use XP Pro and Service pack 2.

I guess it was about 12:04 am when I looked at the laptop and noticed that I had lost wireless connectivity. Sigh... I thought, what the heck is wrong now folks? LOL... Sure enough I did not have Internet connectivity and then I found out that our entire phone service was down, no dial tone no nothing. I called Bellsouth and of course they determined that I REALLY did have a problem on the line and that it would be Monday before someone could come look at it. At this point I just turned everything off and went to bed. What else could I destroy anyway? This morning when we awakened the dial tone magically had come back on the phone. I guess the Grinch left the building and took all the gremlins with him. Thank God for that. LOL...

Now that the christmas gifts are opened and the children have calmed down some I can focus on reconfiguring our home PC with all of the software I need to install and I need to put together a bicycle together for Justin. I just hope I dont destroy that as well. LOL

So, anyway what is the moral of this story you ask? If it is NOT broken, dont fix it. LOL

Merry Christmas....

The unthinkable

Yes, I just did the unthinkable or is the word unthunkable? LOL... I am spending my FREE time wisely this weekend since I have several days off and not much else to do. I blew away the partition on my hard drive , formatted C and reinstall XP Professional. Two years ago I did an upgrade on my system in which I went from a 866 mhz Gateway Motherboard/cpu and put in a 1.1 GHZ Celeron CPU and motherboard. I found out that when service pack 1 for XP came out that I could not install it because Microsoft found that my product key was not legitimate. That is right, the software running on my PC was considered pirated by Mickeysoft. Sigh.... So, obviously when service pack 2 came out I could not install it nor could I install some applications like PERCH which demands you be running a minimum of Service Pack 1 for XP. Service Packs are pushed out to the public by Microsoft so that WE can update their buggy software and hopefully be safe from the latest and greatest security holes that are being found each and every day.
Now that some of you have Service Pack 2 there are folks out there that are finding more and more security holes in Mickeysoft OS XP. Go figure.

So, thus far I have used FDISK to blow away the non dos partition and recreated a primary dos partition. I booted to the XP OS cd and let it format the primary partition NTFS5. NTFS version 5 allows you to encrypt your files and compress them which are the two extra attributes that NTFS version 4 did not allow you to do. NTFS5 formatted fine and the OS is up and running. I entered in the correct VALID OS Product Key and registered online with Mickeysoft without a problem. Now I will spend the next 6 hours installing ALL the other Mickeysoft Security Updates including Service Pack 2. Luckily for me I have the wireless laptop fired up so I can drivel what I am doing in my blog to keep me from falling asleep and give you something to do other than to eat that other cookie or potatoe chip that is in your hand. JUST PUT IT DOWN OK?? You dont need it. hahahahahaha

Once all the security updates are done I can do a fresh install of Microsoft Office XP and the other LIST of software that I can not live without like Microsoft Activesynch for my Pocket PC and Anti Virus software which is a must have for anyone running broadband which is ALWAYS ON.... Heck, even if you are not on the Internet you should have Anti Virus software and Spybot Search and Destroy installed on your computer.

Happy Holidays!!!