Is more better?

Have you ever heard the old saying “more the merrier”?  If you are talking about cash, rubies, gold, diamonds, stocks, bonds or Internet access then more is good.  When you are talking about weight however more is only good if you are trying to anchor a boat or provide traction to your tires so you can get your vehicle out of a mud hole.  When it comes to personal body weight more is never good.  That is right, the heavier you are there is an increased chance that you are going to experience more health problems.  My day started out with chest pains that were brought on by not taking my blood pressure medicine and of course my carrying around more weight than my body can withstand.  The doctor told me today that extra weight on a body causes undue stress which can lead to all sorts of problems such as chest pains joint problems etc.  So, once again I am faced with the need to make a life changing decision.  It is pretty simple.  If you want to lose weight keep your ASS out of the refrigerator. I got this saying from a cute cartoon that someone sent me the other day.  I forwarded it to several of my friends but the picture was not sent out by gmail.  The picture showed a, you guessed it, a donkey with his head stuck in the refrigerator.  Life is short and we only have so many days on this earth.  Do we really want to shorten our days here just to have one more plate full of munchies?

So, how do we get here?  It seems that one day we are fit as a fiddle and then we wake up and it feels like someone has inserted an air hose and we look like the Michelin Man.    The problem is two fold.  How I look at the problem and how I choose to deal with it.  The weight did not happen over night nor will it come off over night.  I need to take it off the same way I put it on one pound at a time, one day at a time.  In other words I did not eat the whole elephant all at once and I am not going to remove the elephant all at once.  As one of my friends fondly quotes I need to take baby steps.  One moment at a time I need to make the right decision to eat less and when I do eat I need to eat the right things.

One of the problems that I have is that I like to sit in front of the TV late at night and there is nothing better than to watch the idiot box and stuff goodies into my mouth.  I do not know why I like to do that other than maybe I just like to eat.  One of the things that I try to do is when I get the munchies while watching TV late at night I reach for the sun flower seeds in a hope to minimize the calorie intake damage.  The extra bowl of cereal right before bed and the “seconds” plate of food during the meal only add to the problem.  One of my friends tells me that she turns to food when she is going through an emotional crisis.  She gets blue or depressed for whatever reason and then self medicates with a bag of Doritos.  I had never thought about this before so maybe I need to examine that aspect of over eating too.  I told another friend of mine the other day that one of the reasons that I have a tendency to throw up my hands and quit is because I just get so overwhelmed with the problem.  The problem looks so much bigger than I can handle and my defense mechanism is to just give up and look the other way hoping it will go away.  Luckily for me I have not taken that approach in every area of my life.  Somehow I need to believe that I can DO IT.  I need to look at this as a challenge and not run from it but meet this thing head on.  Instead of thinking negative and being ashamed of how I look I need to embrace my faith in who God is in every area of my life and believe that “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength”.  

This morning my body reminded me of the consequences of not taking my blood pressure medicine.  I thought I was going to have to call an ambulance and not go to some scheduled events.  However, after about 30 minutes the pains subsided and my blood pressure dropped enough for me to get on with my day.  This afternoon I went by Health First on Rivers Avenue and had them draw some blood, do an EKG and prescribe some blood pressure medicine.  Our health insurance will pay everything except for the 35.00 co pay.  I also found out that they have a diet plan that they can put me on to help me lose weight quickly and safely while being under their supervision and helping me to be accountable.  Can you believe that the insurance company will not cover a penny of this weight loss program?  They will pay for all of my exams and blood pressure medicine but not for something that is considered preventive that will cause all of the other costs to either be minimized or go away altogether.  This is simply amazing if you ask me.  

March Madness Car Wash

Like most churches we have a youth program that is designed to share the love of Christ and provide encouragement and guidance to our growing youth group. We do that through our Youth program which provides hands on training through bible studies and different types of programs. In order to help fund these youth programs we find community businesses like Auto Zone who are willing to host a car wash for us in their parking lot. Thanks Auto Zone!!

March Madness Car Wash at Autozone

Winter is almost gone and Spring is near

Gosh, I am a quart low on blogging folks. Life certainly has been keeping us busier than I would like to admit. You know the drill, we all do it. We sleep, eat, interact with our families, go to work and spend way too much time with people we barely know. Heck, sometimes we spend more time with those folks than we do our own family members. Then we have two activities or more at church and extracurricular activities with the children and before you know it Monday turns into Sunday and you find yourself doing it all over again. Between life’s activities and the many distractions that we have pulling us here and there we fail to stop and appreciate life and it zooms right past us. It seems that the older you get the faster time flies. Is it because when we were younger we spent too much time having fun and smelling the coffee and other things and now as we have come into a fuller realization of what the meaning of life is we are working over time trying to make up for lost time?

My six month contract is almost half over and I think that my supervisor is going to have me hold over for a couple of extra months and provide them extra cover for some projects that are coming up during the summer. That will be nice because I like working there and I love the pay checks. One of the nice things about working there is that I am learning some new technology. Then again that is the nice thing about contracting vs. being an in house employee. When you are a contractor you find yourself working in all sorts of environments with different technology implemented in different ways. You are always on a learning curve with what you are doing. In the last three months I have learned something about GroupWise administration, Tivoli Storage Manager, Dell Open manage, VMWARE and Citrix. I am working in a very large data center environment with over 200 servers and network support equipment. That is an awesome environment to learn in each day.

Katy spent the weekend with her Happy Days ladies on the Isle of Palms and had a good time cropping and going on a boat ride to see some dolphins. I can not wait to see the pictures she is going to share with us. I am hopeful that sometime in the near future that the Renaissance men of Happy Days will be able to put something together for them to do. Why do the ladies always have all the fun anyway?

Katy has a couple of months to go and her first official year as a teacher will have been completed in Charleston County. They like her so much they asked her to come back next year. GO KATY GO!!!! I am so proud of how hard Katy has worked towards getting her certification last year and this year and applied herself and did a good job. Just this week Katy got some new eye glasses for the first time in several years. Now that we have medical insurance we were able to get Katy some badly needed glasses. Katy said that she can see better far off but still needs them to make some adjustments to the bifocal part of the glasses which allows her to see close up. Speaking of glasses I finally went and put mine on so I could see what I am babbling about. One of the things I HATE about wearing glasses is the constant cleaning you have to do. Oh well, that is the price you have to pay when you are growing older.

Friday afternoon just before I got off of work I got an emergency phone call from a friend of mine who wound up in the ER with an ugly stomach virus. Poor dear was so SICK… I helped my friend by doing whatever they needed done. That is what friends are for, right? My friend told me that they called another friend of theirs before they called me because they knew this other person was off from work and they told them that they could not come pick them up because what they had was very contagious and they did not want to expose themselves to it. OH MY GOSH…. I could NOT believe THAT. Common sense would tell you that you just need to take some simple precautions to make sure you don’t catch whatever it is that they have. Some of those precautions are as follows. Do not touch the person that is sick any more than you absolutely have to. If the sick person needs to sneeze or otherwise expel fluids of some sort they need to be mindful of the others that are trying to help them. Make sure that after you touch anything that the sick person has used that you wash that object with hot water and soap and then wash your hands thoroughly with hot water and soap also. If you follow some common sense guidelines you don’t have to worry about catching a virus from someone.
I believe that my friend will be much better come Monday morning and I am thankful for that. I had my church members pray for this person this morning as I had promised I would.

I am so glad my wife is back home tonight. Katy brings a semblance of sanity to our household. Katy is the glue that holds this family together. Katy is dependable and the loving connection between us parents and our children. If it were up to me I might wind up in prison because I would give in to the urge to hurt or maim my children at least once or twice per week. Yes, I am kidding about actually harming my children physically however I have to be honest and say that they do drive me to the edge of the precipice and give me the opportunity to fantasize about how fun it would be to go after them. Remember that I said Katy was here so that means that when I start getting a crazy look in my eyes she is there to stop me and remind me that it is still unlawful to hurt your offspring.

Oh yeah, back to the “basketball coach” analogy. Parents are the coach, the kids are the players and the game is LIFE. Our job as parents is to keep the kids playing the game as safely as possible by watching them and making sure they are playing by the rules and staying within bounds. The kid’s job is to try and break the boundaries as often as possible and to be rebellious about the rules. Why should they play the game of life (ball) our way when it is obvious we are out of touch with life altogether. How many of us thought that about our parents when we were their age? I remember thinking my parents were clueless about life. Once I got into my early twenties and I had had enough of being my own man and getting smacked around by the game of life I realized my parents were not idiots after all.

I think I am way overdue on my Prozac prescription folks. I think that I have decided that instead of trying to be a basketball coach with my teenager (soon to be teenagers) that it would be easier to just medicate myself and just do everything myself. You know, clean your room, do your chores, don’t sass us, be nice to your mother, be sure to feed the birds or they will die etc Like I said, it is just easier to get up and do it myself. Whatever that it is IT surely requires a lot of work. I guess that the laziness gene runs very strong in my children because I think that they must have gotten it from dear ole dad. I will be the first one to tell you that it is much easier to sit on my proverbial rear end and order the kids to do this and that. My parents did it and therefore I should do it too and it is right. Is that right or wrong? When does normal chores and being a gofer (go fer this and fer that) go from being chores to slave labor? I think that I tend to teeter on the child labor law abuser more often than I care to admit. I guess that every generation makes its fair share of mistakes with regards to raising the children. All we can hope is that we do a better job and that we break the chains of bondage with regards to the bad stuff and we relearn and change the bad things into good things. That of course requires a heart change and a desire to do something a different way which requires a lot of thought and a change of direction.

One other thing that change requires is a heart attitude of looking to our God for the help we need when we reach the end of our rope. God knows that I need HIM all the day long. I need more of Jesus now than ever before. You see, the older you get the more you realize just how much about life you just don’t know. It is equally hard on you if you did not have a godly mom or dad that was there to be an example or they are no longer there to go to for advice. Hey mom or dad this is what I am going through and this is how I am responding or how I am thinking about responding. When you do not have that safety valve you have to depend on one another as parents and look to your connection with God and your local church to find the right answers.

One of the things I have to overcome with my children is what most parents have to overcome. We tend to raise our children and react to our children like our parents did. That is our instant frame of reference for us. It is hardwired into us because of 18 years of experience. The kids to this and we immediately want to do whatever it is our parents did. In my case it was either a slap across the face or whatever body part was within range and/or a lecture that lasted for hours. Luckily for me and my children I have only raised my hand to them on a couple of instances in the last 20 years. I have been able to collect my wits about me and send them to their room, when I found myself wanting to react to them in anger. That is a GOD thing and nothing that I have done within myself by myself. I have spent some time listening to godly parents and teachers like James Dobson who became a new role model for me in parenting skills. Lots of prayer and watching other godly parents has helped as well.

My next door neighbor keeps reminding me those kids are supposed to be kids and it is our job and responsibility to be the parents that they need. Kids are going to act and behave like children and that is how they learn, by making mistakes and receiving correction and love to help guide them and mold them. Children are not an interruption of our day but rather should be the focus of our day. No, I am not saying that we should worship our children above and before God or our mates. However, when I am getting irritated with having to be the basketball coach of life I hear my neighbors words that one of my roles as a father is to do just that. I also have to say that while my neighbor is certainly not the perfect parent (what is that anyway??) in my eyes I have to say that they both love their kids a lot and do an admirable job with raising them. Ok, now that I said that their ears will be burning or they just fell out of their chair. LOL… I have been accused of being super critical with regards to my opinions and so they might think that I am super critical of their parenting skills. See, that is what you get for assuming folks. LOL…. All parents have their weaknesses and their strengths and all you can do is to look for your mate, church and help from God with regards to your weaknesses and do the absolute best that you can do. Before we know it our kids will be all grown up and gone making a life and families for themselves and then it will be too late.

Good morning

I have to say that it is very NICE to have weekends off again for a change. For the last several years I have been working my second job on Saturday and Sunday which makes for a very long week indeed. Thanks to my new contract position with Systemtec I am able to give the security job a rest for the next five months. This Saturday Katy went to an all day seminar which left me to running chores all day. Laundry, getting tires for the car and paying bills. LOL.. When I went to church on Sunday I was surprised when the praise team leader and pastor invited me to sing. They told me that I had a good voice and they needed a male vocalist to be added to the mix. We also have gone from having 7 singers to 2 singers in the last couple of weeks which has not helped things. So, for now, I will fill in and sing. I actually had a lot of fun doing it even if I am not comfortable with being in front of everyone like that. I am more comfortable back in the sound booth running sound and doing recordings and such. I am taking my car to the shop this morning so that they can fix the ding in the right rear door. I was sitting in my car last Saturday while Katy and the kids were in Barnes and Noble book store in N Charleston when someone opened their car door into mine and left a dent and scratched my car door. They told the insurance company that there was no real damage and that a gust of wind blew their car door into mine trying to say it was an act of god and get away with having to pay for it. The insurance company spoke to all people invovlved and agreed with me that they were liable for the damages. So, this will be the second time in two months that my car has been in the body shop. I think that from now on I am going to start parking my car away from the other cars so this does not happen again. It is very cold this morning but after noon today it is supposed to warm up into the 70's. That will be very nice indeed. I am starting to get tired of the cold weather and all of the rain. Last night, thanks to our living on a dirt road I was forced to put cardboard down next to my car so I wont have to step in the mud again. Well, I guess that is all for now, time to get ready for my busy day. I hope you have a good week folks.

Command Line Hell

Today is Friday and instead of cruising around in low gear I am burning brain cells on my latest TASK. How is it that tasks always turn in to mind bending, brain cell burning projects before it is all said and done?
Currently I am trying to figure out how to backup our eDirectory database on our Windoze servers. More specifically I was tasked with figuring out how to utilize emtools and the ebox/java client to backup the open files that are being cached to memory while eDirectory is running. Open File Services in Tivoli Storage Management probably will not get a copy of the files open in memory. So, embox is supposed to be able to take a snapshot of the eDirectory database files that are cached to memory and create a hot backup image that TSM can then backup to the SAN and then to tape. Well, I have until Tuesday to have this accomplished so wish me luck...



James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
http://moffittjc.myblogsite.com/blog
moffittj@bellsouth.net

Eight Long Days

It has been entirely too long since I have posted a blog.  I have been very busy at my new job in Moncks Corner working at Santee Cooper Power.  I have been there a month now and I am hopeful that I will be there for another 5 months or longer.  Only time can tell when it comes to I.T. contracts so I will take it one day at a time.  So far so good so I am happy about that.

Thus far I have been learning Tivoli Storage Management and how that system backs up data in the enterprise.  Basically there is a Tivoli Server that sits on the network and schedules backup jobs for the nodes, which are the other servers running a TSM client.  The TSM client nodes sit on the network and listen for the TSM Server (Host) to call upon them to run a scheduled backup job.  When the server (client) hears its name being called across the network the TSM Scheduler service kicks off and starts the backup of data from the server across the network to the TSM Host.  As I understand the process data is hot copied from the volume of one drive on the client server to the SAN volume for the HOST TSM server which is a very fast process since the network backbone is at gigabit speeds.  Once that data is moved to the SAN then it is moved over to tape.  This is a very broad overview of how all of this happens but trust me when I tell you there are a lot of other systems and subsystems that are involved in this process.

I have also been spending a lot of time with Pro IT which is like HP Openview which monitors all of our network nodes which are scattered all over the state of South Carolina.  The nodes are listed on the map and if they are green then all is well.  If there is a blue dot on the map that means that there is an informational alarm to look at but is not critical.  If there is a yellow or red dot on the map that means there is a critical alert that needs to be acted upon.  We support UNIX, Linux, HP UNIX, Novell Netware and Windows Server operating systems.  There is a staff of 83 folks who watch and maintain these systems and trust me when I say this is a full time job since there are 200+ servers to monitor.  This does not include all the WAN devices such as Routers, Switches and communications lines that our WAN folks monitor.  I have spent a LOT of time reading and researching Windows Server specific alerts.  Have I ever told you how vague some of these alerts can be?  Microsoft did not spend a lot of time on explaining what some of these vague error messages mean.  That means if there is a new one that I am not familiar with that means I have to go to the Microsoft Knowledge Base or places like TechRepublic.com or Expert Exchange which I am a member of both.  
Once the research is done I use that information to make changes to the system affected so it does not come back as an alarm.  If the alert is something that is part of the normal behavior of the Operating System then I shoot off an e-mail to my manager and request that the alert be either downgraded to a non critical alert or have specific alert thresholds raised so that we are only alerted when specific danger levels are reached.  

I have also been having a lot of fun with Dell Openmanage which is the hardware specific monitoring software that Dell installs or lets us install on all of the servers that we have.  Dell Openmanage is the server equivalent of sysinfo for Microsoft desktop OS or programs like Everest etc.  Dell Openmanage monitors the drivers, bios levels, firmware levels, hardware temperatures etc and if there is a problem it can alert the staff in numerous ways such as paging us or sending us an e-mail.  

The other thing that I have been doing which frees me up from my cubicle/cage during the day is to go into the data center and help put together new server racks and server chassis for ongoing growth.  Since I have been there I have helped to install four different blade server chassis in a new Dell Server rack.  Each one of these chassis has 4 power supplies which provide plenty of electricity and redundant power sources in case one of them fails.  Each chassis can hold up to twenty blades or servers.  Each blade server is as powerful if not more powerful than most of the stand alone Dell servers that we have currently.  What is nice about blade servers is that it has a much smaller footprint in the data center which means you can have four times as many servers in half the space.  Each chassis also has what is called a DRAC or Dell Remote Access Card.  This card when configured on the network has its own IP address and you can connect to it via telnet or http.  The access to this DRAC is independent of the servers themselves or the OS that is installed on each server.  The DRAC acts somewhat like Dell Openmanage on the server because it monitors core temperatures on the server as well as the backplanes that the blade servers plug into.  Should anything happen to one of these subsystems the DRAC can be configured to send out an alert via e-mail or pager.  One of my jobs has been to connect a laptop to the serial port on the new DRAC’s and configure them for the network.  I used HyperTerminal in the XP desktop OS on the laptop to connect to the DRAC and make the configuration changes that were needed.  Then I plugged in an Ethernet cable to each network port on all four chassis and now we have access to them from across the network.  Well, anyway, that is a small part of what I get to do every day at my job so now on to more personal family and church life events that are going on.  

As you remember the other day I had a rant in which I blathered on and on about how I felt I was treated at the Walmart in Moncks Corner.  Guess what folks, I have only been there one time since then and it was one of those in and out raids where I knew what I wanted , found it and ran like heck to get out of there.   In the last 8 days I have spent some time on the telephone trying to convince the doctor at the health clinic downtown where I got my blood pressure medicine prescribed to renew that prescription.    One of my mistakes was that I waited until I was OUT of medicine completely before I tried to reorder it online then I found out there were NO MORE REFILLS.  If you take medicine all the time and are dependent upon it for quality of life issues or just to stay alive then you know how panicked you can get when you discover you are completely out.  So, last Thursday when I discovered that I had not had the prescription renewed I made a phone call to the Walmart pharmacy and asked them to call the doctor and have them renew it over the phone.  I had already requested a refill online so all they had to do was do some phone calling and that would be that.  NOT so quick Charlie Brown.  The Walmart pharmacy decided to call the clinic in Summerville instead of the one downtown.  I guess they made an honest mistake and assumed that I had gone to the Summerville location vs. the downtown location.  Many moons ago when I had been working downtown anyway it was more convenient to go there instead of in Summerville.  The clinic in Summerville did not ever call Walmart back and say “ we are sorry but Doctor so and so does not work here but they are stationed in the downtown clinic and here is their number”.  Instead they just threw the message away and ignored it.  That means that I did not discover this until Tuesday of this week.  Once I got the Walmart pharmacy clued in they started calling the clinic downtown.  On Thursday of this week I started making a phone call in the morning and the afternoon so I could make this happen in my life time.  I found out that it can take upwards of 48 hours for the doctor to return the phone call and renew the prescription over the phone.  I finally told the pharmacy tech at the clinic downtown that I had finally run out of patience in this matter.  I told her that I knew it was not her fault personally and that the system had basically fallen apart and sucked as far as I was concerned.  I told her it was time for me to take this matter up the latter to the next level to see if we could get some blood pressure medicine before I stroke out or have a heart attack.  When I put it to the tech that way she asked me to hold off and she promised to go back to the area where the doctor was and personally has them address this issue within 15 minutes and to call her back.  When I called back in 20 minutes the tech assured me she would call my renewal in after she hung up with me.  This evening, 8 days later I have my prescription renewed and a brand new supply of meds sitting on my desk. Of course , for unknown reasons , the doctor decided to NOT allow any refills and the doctor has to authorize each and every refill.  That means that I will be calling three days in advance BEFORE I run out of meds to have them renew my prescription.  This time I will know who to call and what to ask for.  LOL…  

As you already know Katy received her educator’s certificate in the mail last week.  Katy was led to believe by her employer that she would be receiving a sign on bonus AND receive all her back pay from September of last year until February of this year.  Katy received her back pay and it was ONLY for January of this year.  Supposedly she was only going to get back pay for the time she worked AFTER she got her certificate.  That means that the HR department of the school district promised my wife she would make X amount of dollars per year but only paid her for a beginning teacher with NO experience until she got her certificate.  I asked Katy if she has been given a hire letter verifying her position and pay rate and of course HR covered their bases by not putting anything in writing which means it is her word against theirs.  Katy told me she is going to write an e-mail to someone in HR about this.  I told her that if it was me I would write a formal letter and send it certified mail to someone way above the pay grade of an HR employee to see if they are aware of their deceptive hiring practices.  

Well, I have lots more to say but I have a three day weekend where I will have plenty of time to write about this and that.  So, for now, I will blog some more later.  

Teaching certificate arrived today

Katy received her South Caroina educators certificate in the mail today. She was not expecting to see it until after February 15th. Katy has been working hard since September of 2005 to study and pass all of the PACE program prerequisites so that she can become an official teacher in the state of SC. I know this is a dream come true and I am so proud of all the hard work that Katy has put forth to make this a reality. That means that she can keep her teaching job and her salary will be reflective of her certificate which will be nice. We are so proud of you Katy. Hugs...

Kama Sutra

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/kamasutra.asp

This is a real virus threat with real damage if you do not back up your data and update your anti virus software immediately.

Customer Service at Walmart

I remember a time when getting the oil changed in your car was a simple and cost effective experience.  Well, if the truth is known it still can be as long as you are willing to go buy the oil, filter, oil pan, car ramps and oil filter wrench.  The car ramps and oil filter wrench will cost you the most initially and then all you have to do is buy the oil and filter for approximately 10.00.  Then there is the ecological nightmare of disposing your old oil in a safe and lawful manner which is not going to be free.  I guess that is why most of us just go to Walmart or wherever we trust our automobile to have the oil changed.  

I like Walmart because they usually always have exactly what I need and at a bargain price.  You can shop for clothes, eye glasses, get our hair cut, stop by McDonalds for heart attack food, and get your oil changed and much more.  Why would I want to go anywhere else?  My family and I should own stock in Walmart and I guess if I would buy some stock we would be owners.  LOL.  There should be some sort of dollar amount that states after you spend 10,000.00 at Walmart that you are automatically enrolled to own a couple of shares of stock.  

Yesterday while in Moncks Corner on my lunch break I decided to go to Wallyworld and purchase some items for my office that I needed such as a fan, power bar etc.  While I was waddling around in Wallyworld I happened by the auto center and asked someone when they would be able to get to my car for an oil change.  They were eager and told me right that minute but that they would have to have my car to start the process.  I was thinking to myself, why can’t you just take my information while I am standing there and then I will be checked in and then can just go get my vehicle.  I always get into trouble thinking with the logic chip engaged.  So, being slightly irritated I agreed to walk all the way across the store out into the parking lot to get my car.  Hey, it had to happen at some point, why not now??  

I pulled my car around back and drove up to one of the lube bays and got out.  One of the men came out of the lube bay and advised me to pull my car next to the customer service entrance so the customer service rep could get my information and then they would in turn drive my car back to the lube bay.  I was like, ok, this is really getting to be a pain but I will comply since I have already invested about 10 minutes into this madness.  So, back into the car, and 45 feet later I land in front of the customer service door.  I made sure to just drive it up at an angle and hop out.  I did not even care about parking it in a parking spot at this point.  I walked inside and notified the ladies behind the counter that I was back with my car and wondered how long the process was going to take.  One lady looked at me and just pointed at the other lady who was coming out from around the counter to go outside to my car.  I looked from one to the other wondering if someone was actually going to answer my original question.  That question was “how long is it going to take to get my oil done?”  Guess what, you are right, I never got the answer.  The lady from behind the counter had this hand scanner in her hand and she was too focused on trying to figure out how to use the device to answer a simple question.  So, being irritated even more I hold my tongue in check and follow the customer service rep outside to my car.  

The customer service rep walks over to the driver’s side of my car and asked permission to scan my VIN number with her hand scanner.  I told her that she could do whatever she wanted to do as long as that process included getting my vehicle back into the lube express bay and having the oil changed.  Lube Express they say?  How about “Lube nightmare”?   How about” Lube isn’t going to happen until the ridiculous time consuming process is finally going to happen before the customer screams and drives off into the sunset never to return”

Of course the hand scanner did not work with regards to scanning the bar code under my windshield which meant that the customer service rep spent another 2 min trying to get the scanner to do what it is programmed to do.  Finally the customer service rep gave up and started madly tapping on the little hand scanner screen as she inputted my vin number.  At this point my irritation level was borderline  “I can not believe this is happening to me” disbelief.   Once the vin number was inputted she walked around the car doing an inspection for damage verified that the license plate number was correct and then had me sign a waiver in case something was damaged or stolen while my car was in the Walmart “this is taking for ever to get your car in here bay” for the oil change.  I asked the customer service rep what I was signing and she just grunted and looked into the general direction of the hand scanner and told me that I just needed to sign it in order to get the car serviced.  At this point I was 15 or 20 minutes into the “lets take forever to get your car in the non express bay so we can finally change your oil”.    I signed the waiver and advised her that if something got damaged or stolen while my car is in the oil lube bay that Walmart would certainly be held liable.  I really don’t think the lady cared about that at all.  At this point I give the keys to the customer service rep, go into the store to collect my shopping cart and collected the loot I had come to purchase to begin with.  Once I got back to the car center to pay for my loot I was greeted by another customer service rep that had several forms for me to sign.  There was a form stating that my front tire tread depth was at the point to where it needed to be replaced.  I just wanted to swipe my debit card , sign the receipt and get the heck out of this black hole that had swallowed me up.  But no, it would not be the simple Mr Moffitt.  We need for you to sign TWO forms stating the same thing with one copy for me and one for Walmart.  Not only do they need to record your license plate and VIN number but they also want you to acknowledge in writing that they want me to buy a new set of tires for my car.   I could understand if one of the tires had dangerous visible damage to it or had a bubble in the sidewall and it was a danger for me to drive.  At that point I can understand why they would want me to sign a waiver telling me of the danger and giving me the option to either replace the tire or not.  So, I would up signing the tire document for Walmart records, my oil change document and my receipt.  

Here are a couple of thoughts that I had after reflecting on my experience at Walmart.  
You do not need my VIN number to change the oil in my car.  Why does Walmart need my VIN number in the first place?  Heck, for that matter you really do not need to keep my license plate information either.  That information is not necessary to remove the old oil from my car and replace it with new oil and a filter.  Customers are not an interruption to your day and they certainly are the reason for your being there.  If Walmart does not have customers your goods and services will no longer be needed and you will find yourself in the unemployment line asking for government assistance to feed your family and pay your bills.  Customers want to feel as if you are happy that they chose Walmart to do their shopping.  Walmart is not the only place in down that sells widgets, gadgets, food etc.  You can get your oil changed in a million places and buy tires elsewhere.  As a customer I want you to make me feel that you are happy that I am there and that your desire is to make me feel comfortable about what is happening to me.  As a customer I want to feel as if I am more important than the need to follow procedure and policy.  As a customer I do not want to be inconvenienced or ignored just because you are not adept at using the technology that has been given for a task.  As a customer I expect that you will be able to use the technology of today give to you by your employer to make my experience as painless and expedient as possible   As a customer I want you to answer my questions when I ask you one and I don’t want to be redirected to someone who is more concerned with the hand held scanner that has captured their attention.  

Will I ever get my oil changed at the Walmart in Moncks Corner ever again?  Not if I can help it and I will certainly never be able to do it on my lunch break thanks to the time consuming and painful inquiry you have to go through even though they might already have all of your information to begin with.  

I hope that Walmart will take notice of this experience because I can assure you that everyone that reads my blog will remember this experience and that alone will cause them to be cautious about choosing Walmart in Moncks Corner for their automotive needs.  

I am hoping that Walmart will review their processes and procedures that they have put into place there and will fix those areas that need to be fixed such as training on the hand held devices, education about why customers need to sign waivers that do not make sense and customer service skills.  

Blogger for Windows and other stuff

Today while surfing the Internet I found Blogger interface for MS Word.  Wow, I am totally impressed.  Now I can do all of my blogging right from MS Word where I am at home.  I have enjoyed using the bloggar interface to do most of my writing over the last couple of years and while it is a nice interface that is more powerful than the web interface MS Word is still a much more useful word processor.  It goes to say that if you want to do something you are always better off using the right tool for the job the first time.  This way I can format the text any way I want to and it is supposed to insert the document into a blog entry by my pushing a publish button. You can not insert pictures or tables at this time however.  I guess you will be able to tell how well it works by the blog you are reading.  Let me know what you think if you have a moment.  

Well, Katy is headed to Columbia SC for the last weekend for the month of January and I know the poor dear is just worn out.  I am so proud of her dedication to both her career and family.  Once Katy passes her PACE course the state will receive her certificate around February 15th and then hopefully she will get all of her back pay and sign on bonus in March of this year.  Our budget and our creditors will be pleased.  As usual I am down at the County office building in downtown Charleston making life safe for the employees who comes in on the weekend.  

I spoke with Katy this morning and she advised me that she had a “discovery zone” moment in her Ford Escort Station wagon that she has been driving for a year and a half now.  She told me that she wondered IF she had water in her water reservoir for her windshield wipers.  Apparently she has been wondering about this for quite some time and had just not gotten around to asking me about it.  This morning when she needed to clean off her windshield she spied a button on the dash and decided to be adventuresome and push it to see what happened.  Katy said she was amazed and surprised to see water shooting onto the windshield.  LOL…  Yes honey, your car is equipped with Air Conditioning and windshield wipers with water.  Next week you might discover something else.  Katy told me that she was worried about the prospect of getting a newer vehicle because it would probably take her years to figure out all the gizmos and gadgets.

Today marks week number two at Santee Cooper and thus far they seem to be happy with my performance.  That is a good thing which means that the power lords at the power company are not going to vote me off the island just yet.  As a matter of fact I have a list of 15 projects that seems to be growing every day and I have been set free to divide and conquer these projects.  I am working with a 24 year old co worker named Johnathan who has been very helpful with regards to acclimating me to the network environment at Santee Cooper.  Johnathan used to work in the desktop support side of IT and when a Network Services position came available he transferred over there.  From what they told me he used to be a contractor as well.  I am hoping that I can make these folks very happy and that at the end of my 6 months that they will have enough work to keep me gainfully employed either as a contractor or a full time employee.  I have been spending the last couple of weeks getting intimate with Tivoli Storage Manager and Dell Openmanage software.  Tivoli Storage Manager is their data backup and recovery software of choice and Dell Openmanage and server assistant software is the software that resides on the Dell blade servers that are installed in the data center.  I am like a child in a toy store.  I can not tell you how wonderful it is to be paid to play with technology all day.  That does not mean that I am not challenged technically because I certainly am.  One of the things that I learned a long time ago in I.T. is that no matter how good you think you are or how knowledgeable you seem to be there is always a peer sitting right around the corner from you that is better.  What is nice about that is that you can put yourself in a position to learn from them and them from you.  I always get tickled with folks who fancy themselves as the one who feels they are a gift from God when it comes to technology.  You have met the types I am sure.  You ask them a question and they always have the answer and are overwhelmed with the urge to impress you with lots and lots of techno drivel and acronyms from hell.  LOL…  I know so much about this problem because familiarity breeds contempt.  It is one thing to be confident in your skills but when your pride and ego start to get out of control that confidence can very quickly turn into arrogance.  One of the things that I appreciate about most IT folks that I rub shoulders with every day in corporate America is that most of them hold this arrogance in check and realize that they are just like me in that they are swimming in a pond with other fish bigger than themselves and are willing to be helpful to the rest of us that are on a learning curve.  

Lightourworld.com is ALIVE

I am happy to report that Lightourworld.com is back online thanks to Fortune City doing whatever it is that they did to revive it. Thanks Fortune City. I appreciate your responsiveness to my phone call, e-mails and blog. :)


James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
http://moffittjc.myblogsite.com/blog
moffittj@bellsouth.net

Voice Hell

I love it when I call the customer service number for any company and get thrown into voice hell. You know what I am talking about. You are presented with an endless list of extensions for this department and that department by someone on the other line that has recorded this message for you and who probably could care less if you actually get your problem addressed. The message is intended to let you know that your phone call is being acknowledged and you can play around within the system but there is no promise that you are get any satisfaction from calling in.

Several days before my lightourworld.com domain was to expire I received e-mails from the domain registrar who hosts my domain saying " you need to renew before Jan 25th OR we will cut your domain off. I have not had the time to call between 8 am and 5pm Monday through Friday because I am too busy earning money to PAY the monthly hosting fees and yearly domain renewal fees. So, I tried my best to use the website control panel to renew my domain. I clicked on the appropriate Domain Renewal Link and saw instructions that stated " With three easy steps you can renew your domain". Guess what folks, someone at Fortunecity needs to take a look at their online documentation and compare it to what the control panel actually shows the customer. Does anyone edit or proofread what is being published at this website? Anyway, after much frustration I decided to write an email to fcbilling@fortunecity.net and asked them to PLEASE charge the domain renewal to my credit card that is already on file that they already charge my hosting fees to. How hard is that anyway? Guess what folks, they took out the 9.95 for the website hosting fee and then promptly canceled my domain. How special is that? LOL... I called Tech support for Fortune City and spoke to a very nice gentleman named Bill who advised me that because I failed to call in that his hands were tied and my domain had been canceled. He did tell me to write an email to the DNS folks to see if they could do something for me but due to their policies there was nothing he could do. Special......
If my domain is canceled and they do not help me to renew it post haste then I will be forced to spend my money elsewhere. If Fortune City is going to provide their customers with the ability to communicate with them via e-mail then they should have enough staff on hand to handle the e-mail in a timely fashion.

Which way did it go?

I would have sworn that the month of January has just escaped me. Which way DID it go? It seems as if we just said by to 2005 and hello to 2006. How can it be almost Feburary? I guess time flies when you are as busy as we are. There are a lot of "bloggable" moments where I say to myself or Katy " I feel a blog coming on" and then I never make it to the blogging interface where I can write down my thoughts. I hate that, dont you? Well, if you love to write then you will love to blog and you know what I am telling you. Many moons ago I heard a self improvement guru who said that in order to never forget specific thoughts or moments of creative juices that we should always carry a notepad and pen to write those things. If you do not then some of them will be lost forever. I guess that makes sense, I mean how much stuff do we already have to keep crammed in our noggins with the rushed life that is full of detials already? There is no way I can remember everything, I guess that is why I carry a pocket pc, have several computes at home , have a laptop and several computers at work. As they say, the devil is in the details and if you forget something important you will be saying something that makes you sound like you need to have the devil exorcised out of you. LOL...

Katy spent the weekend in Columbia SC again and has one more to go until summer time. So, with that in mind I am working this weekend too. I figure if she is going to work then I will work myself and atleast make back some of the money that it costs to send her there. In the long run, while I miss the her like the dickens, it will be worth it once she gets her teacher certification and the state rewards here with her back pay they owe her. I hope it does not take them until 2007 to give it to her. Teachers just do not get paid what they are worth. I believe that they ALL deserve a 10% raise, what do you think? If you are married to a teacher you know how much work it takes to get the degree, certification, keep up with all of the requirements during the year and still teach a class 8 hours per day and then take care of a household at night time. Whew.....

I made the mistake of watching part of the Carolina and Seahawks game and thought I was watching the Dallas Cowgirls trying to figure out what to do with the pigskin. The game was a horrible nightmare so I just quit watching it. I have an urge to look at www.nfl.com to see how badly they got beat. Ok, I gave in to the need for information and Carolina got beat 34 to 14. Now that the Cowgirls and Panthers are dead for the season I am officially done for football this year.

Last week was my first week at my new IT Contract. Boy oh boy, out of the frying pan into the fire. Well, actually it was more like out of the health spa into the coal mines. Mr Maytag, which is who I was at my last contract has been boxed up with the washer and dryer and been sent off to some undisclosed location. When I showed up I was greeted, shown my cubicle and given a list of 15 projects to do. The 16th line item listed was "other tasks". Gosh, I will not be able to get the first 15 done in the six months that I will be there as a contractor. LOL... My first order of business was to help my 24 year old sidekick in putting together a Dell server rack. The shell was sitting there already but we had to put in the rails, fans, power supplies, chassis, fake blades etc. That took us a day and a half and then I was allowed to sit in my cubicle between meetings and I found myself in discovery zone once again. The ugly part of being an IT contractor is that you find yourself in foreign waters and you have to figure things out as quickly as possible so that you can become as productive as you can as fast as you can.

Well, my relief is here so I am going to continue this later on tonight.

Review- The Family Stone

Katy and I went to see the movie The Family Stone. I thought it was going to be a comedy however I found that I spent more time crying than I did laughing. Nevertheless the movie was a very good movie to go watch. I recommend it highly.
The movie plot revolves around a man bringing home his bride to be to meet his parents and family during Christmas vacation. The family is suspicious of her right off the bat and wastes no time sinking their fangs into her and making her feel really out of place. The movie shows how the family tries to reconcile their differences with the visitor and how the mother is refusing to grant her eldest son his wish that she give him his grandmothers wedding ring to give his fiance. Mom is not too happy with his choices and initially refuses to give up the Family Stone. However, as time goes on and the parents mull over their motivations for not approving of the eldest son's choices mom gives in and hands over the stone.
What happens next will both surprise you and make you appreciate the fact you stayed for the entire movie. So, yes, even though it is a huge chick flick this guy enjoyed watching it.

Doing the Happy Dance

Well, it is true, we only have so much time that is allotted to us. What we do with it all depends upon us. We can put it to good use or we can waste it and then regret it later in life. I am spending my time this weekend working to make some extra cash to pay bills (we owe we owe off to work we go) and Katy is investing time in her teacher in service in Columbia this weekend. Katy has to make it through this weekend and two more weekends in Columbia so she can get her offical certificate and then she will be rewarded by being able to keep her job and she will get all of her back pay from Sept of 05 and a pay raise to where she is supposed to be for a teacher with four years of experience. Not only that but she will get a very nice sign on bonus. Wahooooo! Go Katy go!
In December of 2005 I had a recruiter advise me to redo my resume. I was not all the excited about giving the resume a face lift but I figured what the heck, what do I have to lose anyway? I figured at that point I was not getting much response with the one I have. So, I spent a couple of hours converting the format I was using and sent it to this guy to submit me to a company in Columbia SC. I have not heard back from this recruiter but on Tuesday of this week when everyone was going back to work I received e-mail from four different recruiters trying to place me in contract positions in both Charleston and Columbia SC. Wahoooooo!
I went out to Santee Cooper yesterday and inteviewed for a six month contract in their data center. Man oh man talk about TOYS. They have a LOT of cool high tech toys. I could just get lost in toyland and get paid for it to boot. I should hear something on Monday if they picked me. I am sort of hopeful that they will because it will be a SERIOUS boost in income which we desperatly need. I have been working 36 hours a week doing my part time security job and then 25 hours per week doing my part time computer job during the day. That gives me a grand total of 61 hours of work per week and we are still struggling. So, with that in mind my prayer has been that I could trade in the part time jobs for one good paying full time contract or permanent position.
I spent some time yesterday upgrading http://gracefellowshipchurchgoosecreek.com and put the information online about the revival starting on next Wed Jan 11th. The revival will run from Wed through Saturday and then the regular Sunday service and the dedication service at 3pm on Sunday afternoon. I will be helping to manage the audio/video portion of the revival and then Friday night after the service Katy and I will head out to Myrtle Beach for our annual Rennisance weekend getaway. We are looking forward to some R&R. Katy and I both need some for sure.
If you are a web design guru and would like to help me with making our website look NICE and can donate some time and talents to this goal then please email me at moffittj"at"bellsouth.net and I can give you the particulars. We do not need anything complicated, just need better backgrounds, graphics and maybe some animated gifs etc.
I am sitting here being reminded of how I took a bunch of pictures when I tore apart my Toshiba Satellite laptop when it was having major problems last week but I never shared them online with you. I will try to upload those soon. Luckily for me the laptop is behaving itself for the most part.
In December of 2005 my car was run into from behind and I had to put my Pontiac in the body shop and my Gateway 2ghz machine had a hard drive go bad. Recently I got the car back in perfect shape and my computer was shipped back with a new hard drive and power supply. Can you say zoom zoom zoom??
WOW, as I was typing this I got the confirmation that I DID get the job at Santee Cooper. WAHOOOO , I am doing the HAPPY DANCE.

Who will save me?

New years resolutions. How many did you make and how many will WE break before the end of January 2006? I have long since given up making New Years Resolutions because I have found that I lack the self discipline that is needed to do them. How sad is that folks? Some things are easy to do especially when it only takes minor adjustments and does not require a lifestyle change. However, things such as loosing weight or stopping an addictive behaviour requires just that. A lifestyle change. A change that starts in the heart and works up into the mind and is then acted upon by the body. If you do not believe it then you will not visualize it and then you wont DO IT. Make sense?? One of the things I NEED to do is to read God's word more. Sure, I read devotionals from time to time but those are only SNACKS. How long will I be able to continue on snacks? I need MEAT and lots of it. Perhaps if I was taking in more MEAT in Gods word perhaps I might not struggle so much with self discipline in some of the areas of my life such as losing weight or being a better husband and father. I get devotional material from someone called Dwight Clough. His ministry is called Discoveries. Whenever a light comes on in my head I normally say either "today in discovery zone" or " I had a brain fart". I have a friend who HATES it when I use the word "FART" either in the written word or verbally speaking it. I have been told that is a MAN thing and that I need to refrain from doing it. LOL... So, I will try to not use the WORD **** here. I will say that I am going to enter in to a "discovery zone" with regards to the things that God shows me in His word and then I will possibly be able to share those thoughts with you. I do not expect you to agree with what Dwight Clough says nor what my reflections might say. What I am hoping though is that our thoughts will inspire you to enter into your own discovery zone and that as you work out your salvation with trembling and fear through the study of Gods word that we will all become closer to Him and therefore become more complete in Him as well. Once that starts to happen then true healing can happen in the hurtful places of our hearts.

Here is part of what Dwight wrote today in his devotional.You see, there really aren't any superstars when it comes to the church. No matter whom you admire ... Billy Graham, Mother Theresa, James Dobson, Bill Hybels, the Pope ... we are all made of clay. The only difference among us is this: some of us are smart enough to realize how needy we are, how helpless we are, how hopeless we are without a moment by moment infusion of God's grace.Every so often, God allows us to feel the need. It a gentle reminder that we aren't God's gift to mankind. Jesus is.Be encouraged!Dwight http://www.dwightclough.com


Rom 7:23 However, I see a different standard at work throughout my body. It is at war with the standards my mind sets and tries to take me captive to sin's standards which still exist throughout my body.
Rom 7:24 What a miserable person I am! Who will rescue me from my dying body?
Rom 7:25 I thank God that our Lord Jesus Christ rescues me! So I am obedient to God's standards with my mind, but I am obedient to sin's standards with my corrupt nature.


My mind recognizes the need for righteousness which comes from living what Gods word says. However my mind also realizes that it is at war with my body (flesh) because my body (flesh) does not want to submit to the mind or the will of God. My flesh is like a ravenous beast who is out of control that I must crucify daily. My mind is only able to control my body to the extent that I immerse my mind in the life changing word of God which is the only thing that is able to overcome the sinfulness that resides in my flesh. I am constantly battling double standards. I want to be obedient to God however I also want to please my flesh and make it happy. God's grace is sufficient to save me despite my wretched delima that I am. God knows that without his grace I am lost and headed for hell. I need Gods grace moment by moment to overcome these sinful urges of the flesh. Is this why the bible says to work out your salvation with trembling and fear? --Posted by James Moffitt to

Who will save me from my wretched condition?

New years resolutions. How many did you make and how many will WE break before the end of January 2006? I have long since given up making New Years Resolutions because I have found that I lack the self discipline that is needed to do them. How sad is that folks? Some things are easy to do especially when it only takes minor adjustments and does not require a lifestyle change. However, things such as loosing weight or stopping an addictive behaviour requires just that. A lifestyle change. A change that starts in the heart and works up into the mind and is then acted upon by the body.
If you do not believe it then you will not visualize it and then you wont DO IT. Make sense??

One of the things I NEED to do is to read God's word more. Sure, I read devotionals from time to time but those are only SNACKS. How long will I be able to continue on snacks? I need MEAT and lots of it. Perhaps if I was taking in more MEAT in Gods word perhaps I might not struggle so much with self discipline in some of the areas of my life such as losing weight or being a better husband and father.
I get devotional material from someone called Dwight Clough. His ministry is called Discoveries. Whenever a light comes on in my head I normally say either "today in discovery zone" or " I had a brain fart". I have a friend who HATES it when I use the word "FART" either in the written word or verbally speaking it. I have been told that is a MAN thing and that I need to refrain from doing it. LOL... So, I will try to not use the WORD **** here. I will say that I am going to enter in to a "discovery zone" with regards to the things that God shows me in His word and then I will possibly be able to share those thoughts with you. I do not expect you to agree with what Dwight Clough says nor what my reflections might say. What I am hoping though is that our thoughts will inspire you to enter into your own discovery zone and that as you work out your salvation with trembling and fear through the study of Gods word that we will all become closer to Him and therefore become more complete in Him as well. Once that starts to happen then true healing can happen in the hurtful places of our hearts.

Here is part of what Dwight wrote today in his devotional.

You see, there really aren't any superstars when it comes to the church. No matter whom you admire ... Billy Graham, Mother Theresa, James Dobson, Bill Hybels, the Pope ... we are all made of clay. The only difference among us is this: some of us are smart enough to realize how needy we are, how helpless we are, how hopeless we are without a moment by moment infusion of God's grace.Every so often, God allows us to feel the need. It a gentle reminder that we aren't God's gift to mankind. Jesus is.Be encouraged!Dwight http://www.dwightclough.com


Romans 7:23-25

Rom 7:23 However, I see a different standard at work throughout my body. It is at war with the standards my mind sets and tries to take me captive to sin's standards which still exist throughout my body.
Rom 7:24 What a miserable person I am! Who will rescue me from my dying body?
Rom 7:25 I thank God that our Lord Jesus Christ rescues me! So I am obedient to God's standards with my mind, but I am obedient to sin's standards with my corrupt nature.


My mind recognizes the need for righteousness which comes from living what Gods word says. However my mind also realizes that it is at war with my body (flesh) because my body (flesh) does not want to submit to the mind or the will of God. My flesh is like a ravenous beast who is out of control that I must crucify daily. My mind is only able to control my body to the extent that I immerse my mind in the life changing word of God which is the only thing that is able to overcome the sinfulness that resides in my flesh. I am constantly battling double standards. I want to be obedient to God however I also want to please my flesh and make it happy. God's grace is sufficient to save me despite my wretched delima that I am. God knows that without his grace I am lost and headed for hell. I need Gods grace moment by moment to overcome these sinful urges of the flesh. Is this why the bible says to work out your salvation with trembling and fear?

Happy New Year !!

Out with the old and in with the new! 2005 is gone forever and now all we can do is look back , reminisce and file those memories. Some of us look back and find reasons to be regretful, mourn or grieve because of silly mistakes or a loss of some sort in our lives. Some of us back and are happy about what we see and are excited about what the future can hold for us in the year 2006. I find that I have to balance my emotions and perception of 2005 when I look back. Here are some of the highlights as I remember them. Some of these are positive and some are negative nevertheless that is what happened and has forever shaped our family.

One of our major accomplishments was that my student loan that has been haunting us for so many years was finally paid off and taken off of our credit report. YES!! That is a good thing. Katy dug in her heels and determined to get her emergency teacher certificate to teach in SC. Not only has Katy done that but she is working diligently towards getting her in service classes completed in the month of January so that she will have EARNED her PACE program certificate. Katy can fill you in on all the gory details if she wants but all I can say is WAY TO GO KATY!!! Katy has dedicated a lot of time, effort, money, blood ,sweat and tears into reaching this goal and our family is SO proud of what she is doing. Not only is Katy passionate about her CAREER but she knows that she has been called of God to be a teacher. Everyone knows that teachers do not get paid the salary that the deserve. However, if you were to talk to my sweet wife she would tell you that teaching is not about money but it is about shaping the lives of our future leaders, moms, dads etc. What the teachers in this generation do today will determine what kind of world we will live in tomorrow. As baby boomers that is very important to us not only to strive to raise our own children to be God loving productive members of society but Katy wants to use her skills and talents as a teacher to help other children outside of our home. Katy also landed a job as an ED teacher in Charleston County and she loves her job immensely.

My son Jeremy has been out of high school now since May of 2004 and is planning on attending a local college in Michigan. It is hard to believe I have a son in college but it is a reality. Not only is Jeremy in Michigan and in college but the child support payments that I have been making towards his future have now come to an end. The fact that child support payments being over is not necessarily a positive or negative thing. One of the things that I am happy about is that I finally did get caught up with the past due payments. That in and of itself is an accomplishment on our part and my not saying something about it would be remiss. Does that mean that my responsibility to Jeremy as a parent is over? Of course not, I am still his dad and I am still praying for his future and as I am able I will be contributing what I can towards that future financially. For the time being we are going to redirecting those funds that have been going towards child support towards becoming more stable in our household here in SC. Once that happens (hopefully in 2006) I will be able to make some better plans for how I can help out in a lot of areas.

In 2005 we have seen a lot of changes in our church home, Grace Fellowship Church in Goose Creek. Not only did the church renovation become complete but there have been some additions to our family. Our church family has an upgraded facility with a new sanctuary and new audio/video equipment which can be used to present the gospel of Christ utilizing the technology that is available to us today. We have been attending this church now for approximately 5 years and we have seen a lot of changes in that five years. I have been praying for several things for our church and I am happy to say that in 2005 some of those things came to pass. One of the things that came to pass is the renovation and the ability to upgrade our updated audio/video equipment. We added to digital projectors, one church pc and song show plus software so that we can project song lyrics and sermon scripture to the big screen at the front of the church. The praise team singers and musicians are also able to see the lyrics on the back wall. We also got a brand new baby grand piano for Earlene to play as well. The other addition to our Praise Team and church was the Teasley family who have jumped on board and are helping us with taking our "Praise" to the next level. Chris plays the keyboard and his son Wesley plays the drums. Pastor Tom has been teaching himself how to play the bass guitar and Chris has been teaching us proper stage craft and how to praise God in song and music. We have five praise singers who have been working very hard at learning new songs and being there on time for each practice. These things are a huge answer to prayer for me.

The year 2005 started out with a 2003 Pontiac which was purchased in December of 2004. That happened at the end of 2004 and I have been able to make all of my payments to the finance company on time. That means that I have some POSITIVE additions to our credit report. Student loan is gone, Child Support is gone and the car loan has been added. Not only that we finished paying off the loan on the Ford Escort so that car is ours free and clear. You never know, we might even manage to add a mortgage payment to that credit report in the next year or two.

I believe that sometime in November of 2005 we lost another member of our family. Sammy Moffitt, our beloved Terrier, had to be put to sleep. For some reason he lost control of his rear drive train (legs) and could not move around very well. We took him to several vets and had xrays taken but that said that even after LOTS of dollars that they could not garuntee he would ever walk again. That would have meant a doggie wheel chair and intensive care for going out side to do his business etc etc. We had to make a tough decision and decided that our best decision was to just put him to sleep. I will never forget the receptionist telling me that the procedure is irreversible. LOL... What in the world are they thinking about when they tell you this anyway?? Sammy Moffitt will always be a part of our family and we have lots of pictures and fond memories of him. Just before Sammy left us he and Angel had one last litter of pups and we kept one of his daughters, Ginger. Ginger is just like her father in that she is a wild child. Ginger is a loud mouthed rambunctious puppy who has been a bundle of joy to say the least. She is the gift that keeps on giving if you know what I mean. LOL...

Last but not least Justin and Kristina both excelled both scholastically and in extracurricular events such as singing and playing in the band. We are so proud of them to say the least.

Someone please pinch me

I think that I walked into a time warp here at work yesterday. I saw something that I have NEVER seen in the entire time that I have spent in the corporate world. I was told by middle management that they were moving out of their offices into cubicles. Not only that but they were doing the moving themselves. I could not believe my eyes or ears. LOL... Usually what happens in the corporate world is that management has an office and everyone else that is considered a working bee or non management gets a cubicle, IF you are lucky enough to get one of those. There was a point in time when an IT professional was considered a professional white collar worker that also got an office of their own. Granted, it was not always a corner office and it was never as nice as what management had but you at least got an office with four walls and a door if you needed to close it so you could concentrate and get your job done or eat lunch in privacy. Those days are gone forever. Today, I sit in a server room with noisy servers and networking gear. So, all in all I still have an office even if it is noisy and cold in here. I can close my door if I want and bang away at the keyboard and problem solve to my hearts content. The only complaint that I have here is that the 6 month contract I am on is for only 20 hours per week. I have been able to justify 20-27 hours a week when I am really busy. I am hopeful that in March that they will love me enough that when the contract is up they will just hire me full time. This would be an awesome place to work. As a contractor you are typically treated like dirt and you usually get all the crap jobs that no one else wants to do. Not all employers treat contractors badly but there are quite a few out there that treat you as sub human. I would love to tell you who my employer is but all I can say is that I contract through TekSystems in Columbia. I will have to keep where I work a secret here on my blog. Did you know that employers read blogs and they can and have used the contents of a persons blog to fire them? So, just as an FYI, if you get an urge to publish your rant about your employer and it is all negative they probably will see it and you could be fired over it.
Heck, as far as that goes, in a "right to work" state like SC they can fire you for parting your hair on the wrong side, wearing the wrong perfume/cologne or picking your nose in the parking lot. So , just imagine what a negative comment on a blog would do for your reputation at the office. Can you say CRASH and BURN?? Oh yeah, while I am thinking about employees and privacy at the office did you know that you do not have any? That is right, especially when it comes to using company owned computer systems and networks. They have the ability to track every single thing that you do on the network. They can and will read your e-mail and find out where you have been surfing on the world wide web. I know because I help to support the systems to make it possible. So, be sure to abide by the computer use policy or whatever it is they call it at your office because they can and will discipline you for breaking the rules. Some things like surfing porn at the office, booking vacations and gambling can get you fired on the spot. Some employers such as the one I support now just block objectionable websites at the proxy server which keeps folks honest.

The house Santa Claus forgot

This morning, Christmas morning, is a sad morning for the munchkins. For years the kids would always be up awaiting my arrival in the living room so that they can begin to open their presents. This year, since there is nothing under the tree from Santa Claus they are both asleep in their beds. The kids do not believe in Santa Claus however we do have a tree and lights and we always pretend that the gifts are from Santa even if they know it is not real. I guess that there is something magical about getting up on Christmas morning and being greeted by all of the pretty presents under the tree. It is sort of like going to church, you expect for the singers to be singing and the preacher to be preaching. Without those things the experience just would not be the same. On Friday night I got together with a friend of mine and shared pizza and Dr Pepper. I told my friend that usually what we do the payday before Christmas is that we say to heck with the bills and we just go to Walmart and buy the childrens Christmas presents and then just suffer the consequences of not having paid specific bills after the holidays. This year the bills were much more plentiful than the funds we had to pay them. Nevertheless we were out of character this year and spent our money on bills and not on Christmas presents. I guess what makes this even worse is that for the last five years our kids have been sponsored by Happy Days and Special Times and Food Lion for Christmas. Therefore our kids really had a nice Christmas each year after Jessica died. This is the first year since Jessica has died that we were supposed to provide Christmas presents for the kids. Luckily for me my 13 year old daughter is taking things in stride while my 10 year old son is not real thrilled about this. I spoke to him about the reality of things and why this year presnets are real sparse. He understands the why but he is still bummed out and I guess I can understand. While I was writing this Katy and the kids got ready to go to Walmart. Apparently Walmart is open today and the kids want to go spend the Christmas money they found in their stockings so they were pretty excited about that. Maybe Christmas wont be a total disaster for the kids after all..