Tick Tock Tick Tock

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

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

How about them Cowboys?

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



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

Left front view of Studebaker 

Back view of Studebaker 

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

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

Ring that bell one more time...

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

Right and Wrong choices

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




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

UPS is Lost

That is right folks, UPS is LOST. From 4:30 pm until 7:23 pm UPS wandered around in Goose Creek wondering where in the world Mapleridge Drive is located. I can not tell you how insanely funny that has to be. How many times do we see commercials where UPS brags about how they are able to deliver packages all around the globe no matter where we may be. I saw where the package arrived in Summerville and was out for delivery around 7:30 am this morning. I kept checking the tracking page while at work and saw that they had not delivered around 3:30 pm. I called Justin and told him to to make sure he or Kristina stay close to the house in case they showed up. At 8:15 pm it occurred to me that they were not going to show up. I checked the UPS website and put the tracking number in. Guess what folks, UPS needs directions to my house. I called UPS and spoke to someone who answered the phone. I asked them how it was possible that UPS could be lost. When I laughed he laughed and said, oh I get your point Mr Moffitt. To add insult to injury after I gave them turn by turn instructions on how to get to my front door the guy said this. I just sent the message and it was accepted. Someone will be calling you on Monday to verify how to get your package to you. I thought he was sending a message to the driver or something. You know they have those bar code scanners that they use to track when they pick up and deliver packages. Perhaps this guy sent an e-mail to someone ? Maybe he sent a smoke signal up into the sky in hopes that the driver would see it and respond. I guess I will get my package sometime next week. I did recommend to the person on the telephone that UPS might consider GPS devices for their drivers so they wont get LOST. hahahahahahahahah

Missing Things

I am still in shock that Dallas Cowboys beat the Tennessee Titans 45-14 yesterday. I expected that they should have been able to beat them but you know the old addage. Any given team can beat any given team on any given day. Did Vince Lambardi come up with that saying or who? Just because your team has the talent to win does not mean that the talent will actually manifest itself on that day. I know that to be true especially when it comes to bowling. I know that I am capable of bowling a 200 or higher score however that very rarely occurs. I know this because I have done this on several occasions on other bowling leagues. Dallas Cowboys rode into town and forced three turnovers that cost the Titans 21 points on the board. The running game was the best that I have seen in a very long time and Terrell Owens actually managed to make a touch down and a few other catches as well. I titled this blog "missing things" because we have had some missing things in the last week or two. I am not talking about the black hole that continually sucks all of my socks and other underwear into them never to be seen again. I am talking about other stuff that normally does not disappear. The case of the missing gerbils still has not been satisfactorily solved. The jury is still out on the fact that both rodents disappeared without a trace. It is almost as if they had been raptured out of their cage. Then there was the problem with the missing cell phone and car keys. One day last week Katy went to leave for work and could not find her keys. Justin was the last one known to have had them since he unlocked the door after their trip to Walmart the night before. Justin swore he put the keys on the kitchen table where they should have been the next morning. Lucily Katy has a spare set of keys and went to work. We did not find out until much later that Angel, our labrador retriever had somehow retrieved the key ring and was sitting on it on Kristina's bed. Who would have known the dog was hiding them? On Sunday Kristina left her cell phone at home when I took her to church early for praise team practice. I also left my cell phone home and called home and asked Justin to get his mom to bring them both to us. Katy and Justin both found my cell phone but not Kristina's. So, they searched high and low and could not find it. Katy calls the number and then heard it ring. As the ringing continued Katy could hear Ginger, our terrier growling at something in Kristina's room. Katy goes back to Kristina's room and finds Angel with the phone in her mouth and Ginger growling at Angel. Why in the world would Angel have her cell phone?



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

Healing relationships

This weekend was spent taking care of typical weekend chores and tasks. I went to Cracker Barrel with a dear friend and had a nice conversation. One of the things that we spoke about was relationships and how people can perceive us and then judge us for our actions. My friend has told me in the past that I should be careful about what I say when I am around other people. That is because those people may not understand everything that I am saying or from what context I am speaking from. Then that person may unwittingly take what you say and then later on pass it along to others to whom it may not be any of their business. You have had it happen to you I am sure. You make a statement and then before you know it that statement or a facimile of that statement comes back full circle through someone else. Then you are wondering how in the world the real meaning of what you said originally got so messed up. The truth of the matter is this. Gossip is BAD no matter whom is involved. I think that the bible speaks about how we should not gossip about our neighbors or brothers and sisters. As a matter of fact the bible spends a LOT of time talking about how we should treat one another. It says that THEY (the world) will know us by our LOVE one for another. The sad fact of the matter is that Christians in general have forgotten how to love one another. We go to church and we sing songs of praise and adoration to Jesus and we learn about the character and nature of God and then when we are living our lives Monday through Saturday we seem to forget how to apply these truths.

I am no different than most folks in that I too struggle with moving head knowledge into my heart and abiding in it. In other words most of us have enough head knowledge about who God IS but we fail to translate that to whom God IS in US. God is God and we are who we are and sometimes there is a huge chasm between the two. Our intentions are noble and humble at times but we get tripped up into the things of this world and our attitudes and preconceived notions of whom we are or whom our brother and sister is that we forget to filter that junk through whom God is in us.

No man is an island and I do not care how secluded a life you live you will eventually rub elbows with a neighbor or two. You will find out that not everyone is going to like you much less love you. That is the same for christians despite the fact that we are to express phileo type love for one another. I found out this weekend that someone that I have very little contact with who attends my church has disliked me for almost 5 or 6 years. When I found out why this person disliked me it was because of things that I have said and done in my life. That person has decided to not only dislike me because of these things but now that I know that and I want to speak to them about those things that have decided to share those things with others and when I approached them about it they refused to talk to me. Like most people , when they are accused of "running their mouth" about someone they would like an opportunity to face their accuser and set the record straight. Remember what I said about gossip earlier? Well, the truth of the matter is that I did share something with someone in confidence. I spoke to a friend about another friend in general terms not intending to hurt anyone. Those comments came back to me full circle through the friend that I was talking about to begin with. Then I was accused of running my mouth to the whole church. Sigh...

I think that it is necessary for all of us to take inventory from time to time and make whatever adjustments that we need to make to line up our vertical relationship with Christ and when we do that we are better equipped to manage our horizontal relationships with our family, friends, church members and neighbors. When the vertical relationship is messed up then the rest of them will be messed up as well. As for the past, that is difficult to deal with at times. We are all by products of our past whether we like it or not. We all have sin in our past which includes things said and done that both dishonor God and our friends and family. All we can do when that happens is to confess that sin or deed and do whatever we can to make it right. We are not supposed to let things fester in our hearts and allow a root of bitterness to creep in and destroy us from the inside out. We are to go to our bretheren in a spirit of love and humility examining our own eye (life) for faults and make sure of our motivation for going to them to begin with.

Some of you that will read this blog post will be able to identify with what I am saying. You know that I struggle with my humanity and my relationship with Christ just like the next person. I have said things and done things that are immature, irresponsible and incomprehensible to most folks. As much as I would like to do it I can not change the past. The deeds are done and I am a miserable dirty sinful wretch because of them. I am ashamed and embarrased because of them. I have tried to right whatever wrongs that I can with those that I have offended. If those folks are not ready to deal with me where I am at because of where they are at then all I can do is turn all of this over to the Lord. All of this stuff is bigger than me and even I do not have the wisdom to understand it all. All I can do is focus on my vertical relationship with my redeemer and ask Him to do a supernatural work in the lives of those folks that I have offended and hurt and bring healing to their hearts despite of what I have done. I also can and have asked HIM to help me to be a better brother , father, husband, leader , worker to those that are around me.

The problem with being transparent is that you have to be painfully real to everyone around you. That means that those that know you, see you and live with you do not experience a facade or fake persona but they see you for who you really are. I do not share these things with you to bring glory or attention to my faults or how I have failed my fellow man. I say these things in the hopes that I can illuminate the fact that with God there is HOPE and that relationships can experience healing and redemption if people are willing to do their part.

I hope you have a good week.




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

Myrtle Beach

Watch the video

I kidnapped my wife and took her to Mrytle Beach this weekend.? We did some site seeing, went to Starbucks, walked on the beach and then went to the Casting Crowns Concert Sat evening.

Tags: myrtle, beach

I thought I saw a putty tat, I did I did....

Katy and I landed at Myrtle Beach safe and sound. The new land yacht made the trip nicely. I have a friend of mine that has an older Chevy Suburban and I used to give him grief about his HUGE land yacht. I can not tell you how many negative whiny comments I have made while driving behind one of those irritating land yachts. Not only can you not see what is going on in front of those monster machines but during wet weather they are almost as bad as a big rig going down the roads and throwing water all over the place. I can not do anything about throwing water all over the place during rain storms but I will be mindful of how it felt to be trapped behind one of those things. LOL. I love how high you sit off the ground and I like how quiet and smooth the ride is. You can not even hear the engine when it is running. Yes, if you have not guessed the obvious I am in love with the big blue beast.

On our way down to Myrtle Beach I looked over at Katy and she had this puzzled look on her face. I asked her what she was thinking about and she told me that she was thinking about the whole "Bailey must have eaten the hamsters" yarn that Bam Bam has been spinning for the last couple of days. If you think about it when the resident feline manages to catch anything there is nothing clean about it. Part of the thrill when you are hunting is when you capture the prey. It has been our experience from watching past forays into the wilderness that the kitty cat will proudly bring home its bounty and prance around in front of us or at least run past us to get under a piece of furniture so that it can play with its new found toy. Even if we are not privy to watch the feline gloating over its new found bounty you at least wind up finding the left overs when the cat gets bored with it later on. Bam bam was the only person who saw the supposed fur ball that Bailey coughed up on Thursday afternoon. The house cat is of the domesticated tame version that has not seen the grass outside of our front door. That means there is no place for the kitty cat to take its bounty except for right there where we live. Did Bailey swallow one hamster one day and then the other hamster the next day? Maybe Ginger the wannabe Billy goat is the culprit and Bailey is totally innocent.

Then there is the issue about the cage. Why would the cat suddenly grow interested in the two hamsters that have been there for over a year. If he knocked the cage off of Justin's dresser wouldn't the cage be slightly bent somewhere? If that did happen why would one hamster stay in the cage while the other one was gobbled up by the kitty cat? Did Sniffy or Huggy calmly sit by and watch the big bad putty tat eat their friend and not move a muscle. If it were me I would have died of a heart attack or made a run for my life. When we got home we would not have found either one of them. Hummmmmm

We think that Justin probably found one of the hamsters in a stiff position not breathing and freaked out about it. We have always had to remind him of how important it is to be a responsible pet owner and to be sure and feed and care for the rats in a timely fashion. He probably was worried that he would meet the wrath of mom or dad and be accused of rat abuse which ultimately lead to the demise of said rodent(s).

I am having flash backs of the yarn about the invisible burglar that crawled through the front window of our porch, broke Katy's antique table and then left out the back door without touching a thing. Nothing was broken other than the table and nothing was out of place. All sorts of stuff could have been picked up and hauled off and that did not happen. We found out several days later that the invisible burglar was bam bam himself. He did not want to admit he broke his mother's antique table that has been in her family for generations.

Missing things

As much as I try to resist it I find myself turning to my laptop and blogging for much needed therapy. I have a saying. Everything has its place. Well, it is true. If you want to find something again give it a permanent home where it resides and always put it back there when you are done using it. In the last week three things have seemingly wandered off despite our best efforts and keeping them in their respective homes. The first two items that are missing are Justin's hamsters Huggy and Sniffy. Trust me when I tell you that I was not involved in the name creation but I was involved in the adoption process. I not only paid good money for the rodents but Justin and I both signed papers at Pets Mart swearing before God and country that we would be responsible rodent owners. We got Huggy and Sniffy sometime last year. Every since then they both have been stinking up Justin's room as well as keeping the ferris wheel moving between the hours of 12 midnight and 6 am.

Several weeks ago Justin twisted Katy's arm and they bought a new and improved HOME for the rodents. I am not so sure what was so cool about the new cage but I do know that the rodents figured out how to break out of it OR our cat Bailey figured out how to break in and free them from captivity. Just the other day Justin told us that the cat was seen coughing up a fur ball and not too long after that one of the rodents, Sniffy, was pronounced missing. Sniffy was gone without a trace. Well, without a trace plus a fur ball the cat coughed up. I called the FBI to report a missing family member but when I had to give a physical description and one of the prime suspects was the family cat they told me they do not get involved in rodent/cat disputes. So much for that idea. As of this morning the other rodent, Huggy was pronounced missing by Justin. He thinks the RAT errrrr rodent is hiding somewhere in his room. If I were a rodent I can promise you that the last room I would hide in is Justin's room. That place is a natural disaster if I have ever seen one. Not only that but there is that god awful smell that we continually have to fight. I think that has to do with the animals constantly using his carpeting to tinkle on. Sigh.....

Now that I have the feline/hamster mystery fully disclosed here I can move on to the toothbrush fetish that one of the animals must have. I am thinking that the only way for me to figure out who was the culprit would be to do a breath freshness test with all the animals. You know the drill, stand up on your hind legs, open your mouth and say AAAHHHHHHH. LOL... I have lost two tooth brushes in the last several weeks. They are always located later all chewed up. The weird thing is it is not ever the handle that is chewed on but rather the bristles. Do the animals all of a sudden have an irresistible urge to practice good oral habits? I wonder if Bailey is snacking on hamsters in the middle of the night and then needs to go brush his teeth? Is that even possible?

The other thing that is missing is my love and appreciation for insurance companies. Insurance companies have never been on my top ten list with regards to favorite things to talk about. They rank right up there with politicians. Katy informed me last night that our health insurance is going up another 164.00 per month which means that they will be taking almost 600.00 per month out of her paycheck for insurance. They were already taking 432.00 out of her check for the last year for insurance. Open enrollment is coming up and I told Katy that she needs to see about dropping some options or whatever to see if we can lower that amount. I would LOVE to DROP that coverage however that is just not an option seeing that Katy and I are both baby boomer's in our middle 40's and we have teenage kids. I also found out that along with a bigger truck payment we are also the winners of a larger car insurance payment. I think that I need a substantial raise folks. LOL... The cost of living is going through the roof and our salaries are not going up to keep pace. The economists wonder why our economy is not booming. Could it be because no one can afford to go out and just spend money? We don't have any extra money to spend after we take care of the necessities.

OK, I think I feel much better now, thanks for listening. LOL...

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Blogging is better than a rerun on TV

Can I hear an AMEN or Oh ME? Blogging is much better than sitting in front of the boob tube aka Idiot box watching TV shows I have already seen before. We flipped channels tonight until I almost fell out of the chair with boredom. Actually, I got out of the chair and shut down the laptop and figured I would do something different tonight. I gave up my time in front of the TV for a trip to the restroom and then got comfortable in front of my main computer and scanned in some OLD pictures that Katy found the other morning when I was looking for the title to the Pontiac Grand Prix that I used to own. I remember when the Pontiac was NEW to us at least. The Pontiac had 50,000 miles on the odometer and that was GREAT compared to the 238K that was on the 93 Cadillac. The poor Caddy was just about done for. The red pimpmobile had been rode hard and put up wet on more than one occasion. In 2004 we got the Pontiac even when we did not think it was possible. Looking back now Katy and I had not really started working on our credit report in earnest. At that point in time I was in a defeatest attitude and had just given up. Anyway, Ashley Preferred took care of us and gave me a HUGE down payment on the Caddy even though the car was probably only worth about half of what he gave me. I also had a friend of mine loan me a down payment on the car as well. So, when you have a good down payment on a car sometimes it really does not matter how bad your credit is. Lets not forget the OUTRAGEOUS interest rate that you will get stuck with too. LOL...
Fast forward through 2.5 years of driving the silver bullet with little to no maintenance nightmares. The car certainly did not leave me stranded on I-26 at midnight like the Caddy did after getting off at 11 pm while working security downtown. I can not tell you how much fun that was. There is nothing like being stuck in a broke down car on the side of the freeway watching all the motorists fly by you and no one other than the police to stop by and check on you. One of the main reasons we got the SUV was we needed more room for passengers and cargo. There was nothing wrong with the Pontiac other than the kids were out growing it and we needed more room to be able to cart their friends around to church and youth group activities. So, now we are in a 2006 Dodge Durango. Did I tell you that I absolutely LOVE this vehicle? Did I tell you that I am praying that the gas prices will go DOWN even further since it costs more to fill it up than the pontiac. I figure that my gasoline expense went up about 80.00 per month with this new vehicle. Oh yeah, I need a name for the "Blue Goose" which I guess is the name for it until someone can come up with something clever.
There is not much new on the employment front these days. I go in at 8:30 am and get off around 5 or 6pm depending on how soon I can get out the door. I figure that there is no sense in my getting off at 5pm because the sooner to 5 that I enter into the drive home madness the more I will sit in a traffic jam. I told someone the other day that the reason we moved out of the BIG CITY in August of 1997 is because we HATED the big city living and the big city traffic nightmares. Atlanta Georgia is not much better in comparison and Charleston SC and Goose Creek SC are half as bad as that. Yet still the traffic around here is starting to remind me of big city congestion.
Despite the fact that I spend 90+ minutes of my life in traffic I am still riding in style these days. That reminds me of something. I have several friends who have been jumping my case about Katy not driving the new vehicle and getting stuck in the OLDER vehicles all the time. LOL... I had a LONG talk with Katy last night and told her that any time she wants to drive the SUV , she has a key, all she has to do is jump in and go. Does that mean that I will be over joyed at driving her 93 Ford Escort Station wagon? Of course not, anyone in their right mind would pick the Durango in a heart beat. Katy told me that if she wanted to drive the SUV she would but she would rather that I use the newer vehicle to make the longer trip to downtown Charleston. The Ford Escort has a LOT of miles on it and we are trying to baby it for as long as we can. We certainly can not afford a 2nd car payment. Well, anyway, that is the story on Katy and her driving the Durango. Katy has full access to it anytime she wants to drive it. In the very near future I will see about getitng her AC fixed in her car as well. I actually did go buy a hose and several cans of freon and tried to get the system to take it but it did not work. That probably means that something is wrong with it that will need to get fixed. Other than that the Ford is running ok for now.
I hear my bed calling me so I am going to wrap this up for now. Have a good day tomorrow and a good weekend.

Family photo with ALL my children. Cool picture aye? Wait a minute, where am I?? Some folks would say this is the BEST photo since I am not in it. LOL... You know who YOU are too. hahahahahha 

Jessica Ann and Katy in the parking lot of 7400 Bissonnet st in Houston Texas 

Georgia (Eads) Moffitt at age 11.  

James Sr with Jeremy in his lap MANY MOONS ago... Talk about a trip down memory lane folks...  

Dad trying to teach Jeremy how to ride a bike in Houston Texas.