Middle America's Worldview

Each New Year brings on new beginnings, new promises and new resolutions. Like a broken record we make promises to ourselves or others, this year will be different, better.

Well, I truly hope whatever you strive for, comes true. Unless it's a bad thing to others. heh heh

I wanted to change my blog look as well. I searched and searched to find the one template that I wanated. For those that read my blog, hope you enjoy the new look.

Tonight, we have friends over to play games. Yes, its the same couple that we watch their kids. I hope the kids can play good and allow the adults a good game with adult conversation. Kelli picked up Trivia Pursuit 90's. The hope is we actually know some answers. On the way home, Kelli asked some questions out of it (to see what were up against). Needless to say, she knew the answers and I didn't know squat. Oh well, perhaps I will win in a spade game.

Just finished cleaning up the house and finished off the new blog template. I will make the kids lay down for a nap. Kelli is already ahead of them. : )
Hope everyone have a good safe New Year'.

Not to diminish the Tsunomi in anyway nor the massive, massive lost of lives, I need to bring up two arguments.

1) With the world's attention focused on the earthquake/tsunami that has claimed tens of thousands of lives in at least 10 countries that surround the Indian Ocean, media organizations like Reuters are pinning part of the blame for the catastrophe on "global warming."... Like something out of ‘The Day after Tomorrow’ movie, over 62 thousand death toll, from the devastating earthquake and tsunami rocks Asia. It seems unbelievable that such devastation could occur so quickly and seemingly from nowhere. According to the news the undercurrent crashed through 500 miles an hour. No way anyone could had escaped that rift. I recall when the Day after Tomorrow movie premiered and the global warming tree huggers had been screaming it is a truthful movie and without America changing its ways it would occur and of course it would be our fault. Now it appears regardless of the lost of lives and devastation, some media organizations and the global warming tree huggers are using this to further push their ideology.

2) Jan Egeland calls Rich Countries are being ‘stingy’. Hmm, I wonder who this U.N. voice was referring to? Considering U.N. is still reeling from the Oil and food scandal that stole billions from the Iraqi population this seems to me to be a stupid remark. Surely they are not referring to the United States who alone provided 40 % of all world relief alone. Our Nation has provided more relief, support, funds, peace than any other Nation. That says a lot considering this Nation is considered to be the youngest.

Just google to find more info on the above.
I wonder if this occurred to the United States if the other parts of the world would be so willing to assist us?

I haven’t blogged for some time due to the holidays. Looking at my blogs of interest, I see most others are the same.

We celebrate each Christmas pretty much the same way. My parents and immediate family comes over to our house Christmas Eve morning. Kelli’s parents and immediate family comes over to our house Christmas Eve afternoon. Christmas Eve night Kelli and I swap our gifts while the kids are in bed waiting on Santa Clause. Christmas day we stay home and the day is pretty much for the kids, asking anyone to come over for lunch.

The morning went as expected. My brother and crazy wife was late as usual. My dad called before coming over to ask if anyone was there, who was going to be there, ect. As if I hadn’t told him 3 times already. It went smoothly without a fight, but the crazy sister in law kept telling Kelli how proud she was by not having to spend any money on my parent’s gifts. Yes, while they sat in the next room. Sigh. I will say they stayed longer than expected. Normally my family is in and out within 1.5 hours. So that was a nice surprise.

That afternoon we actually went to Kelli’s parents rather than them coming to us. It was nice and as usual, I snacked and tried all appetizers, ect. While we were leaving the palms of my hands began to itch like crazy. I asked what it meant when your palms itch. I had always heard it was dependant on which one. One would be your getting money, the other you’re going to lose money. I never could recall which one. One the way home, my stomach boiled and my bottom lip started to become numb.

When we arrived home, it was pretty obvious I was having some kind of allergic reaction. I popped 2 benadryls, (my wife had me too immediately). Probably due to the fact I was getting red all over. Both my lips were now swelling. I itched all over. It wasn’t pretty. Since, I had popped the benadryls; I really didn’t stay up later than I wanted to. We did get a chance to prepare Santa’s arrival with the gifts from Santa and Kelli and I swapped gifts. But that was about it. I crashed. Benadryl and Tylenol P.M. are two things that just kick my butt. By morning I was doing ok. No red rash as before and no swelling. It was weird.

Christmas morning was very nice. This year it wasn’t a free for all. We had our son and daughter open one at a time and actually enjoyed the time in it. It was also nice the fact they said thank you after each one. I wasn’t really looking for that one. Normally it the Tasmania devil times too blitzing through the packages.
The day went nice. Kelli’s immediate family came over for lunch. They ate and basically everyone but the kids and I took a nap. Sure went by fast though.

We hit a couple of stores for the day after Christmas sells the next morning. We came home and played with our new toys. We then went back to town and checked the remaining stores that were now open. Hastings had a sale on their used PS2 games. You buy 2 and the 3rd one is one penny. I grabbed ‘Hitman Contracts’, ‘Max Payne 2’, and ‘Simpsons Road Rage’. I also grabbed a Digimon game for the kids in another store. That was the hit game.

Sunday afternoon I watched the kids play the new Digimon game for nearly 2 hours. I finally had to get in on the action. It was a blast. We all had a really good weekend.

Monday was back to work. No-one was hardly at Corp. so we expected a slow day. I put away as much of the Christmas decorations and tree ornaments as possible throughout the day. I had already removed the outside lights, ect Sunday. I managed to finish most of it by the time Kelli got in from work. I then was able to get everything up in the attic before I took my kiddos to the therapist.

Two things are the absolutes during the Christmas for me. 1) I always manage to break a teapot either putting up or bringing down during decorating. 2) There is always a HMF (heavy mother f**ker) of a Christmas box. No matter if you break the stuff out to 20 boxes to put up, there is one that fills like its lead plated.

The HMF tricked me this time. I had about 12 boxes in total to put up in the attic. Now picture this. I have a 7 foot ladder and a 3x3 hole in the garage ceiling to work with. These boxes are your standard 30 gallon or 60 gallon Tupperware. Of course you have to fill these bad boys up. We purchased a couple more to help the load. I pushed a heavy one up there and thought that was the HMF. But the 3rd to the last was the true HMF. I had already done some amazing things to get these boxes up there without falling back down with a box on top of me. But when I hit this one, man it was tough. I got it half way up the ladder and it came right back down. ‘OK, you’re going up there.’ I made it but it was a job.
I have just come to accept the absolutes. Like the fact there is a creator, the fact you always can find 5 Philips sitting in your tool chest when you’re looking for a standard screwdriver.

Tonight, we have 4 girls and 2 boys at hour house. Our girl is having a sleepover with 4 girls and one of their brother.

Yep, the fun never stops around here.

Ever seen those pics of Hiroshima, the mushroom cloud?

I received an early Christmas present the other day. It was a small air compressor. Pretty cool. Today I officially used it. Since the day was a bit slow at work, I took the opportunity to clean my office. Looking over at our home P.C. it desperately needed a cleaning. My thought was ‘ahh yeah, the compressor’. So I grabbed it and plugged it in.
I aimed and fired the glorious stream of air at the dusty P.C. A cloud of dust spewed out as if St. Helens itself belched. “Great Scott, this is dirty.” It’s a wonder it worked. I then proceeded to the back of the P.C. and proceeded in my duty. The fan belched more of the filth. “How the heck did this thing breathe?” I called my wife to see how filthy this thing was. She looked from the hallway and informed me she could tell from the dust in the air. I turned up and around and seen the air was indeed dusty. I then turned on the ceiling fan. It was unbelievable. We vacuum every other day, but I wouldn’t think so much dust could be in a 3 yr old machine. I will definitely have to put this on my list of to-dos.

Tonight we opened the ‘family present’. It’s a PS2 for the kids. I was thinking I would be able to play it after the kids and wife goes to sleep, but I think they will have a sleep over in the living room. Oh well. It will keep till I can get to it. : )

I got the chance to watch Farenhype911. Even though the election is over and the 3 million margin winner already declared, I wanted to see it. I found it in a Blockbuster bin for 6.99, if you can believe it. I couldn't find it anywhere less than 15 bucks or online and now about 20 of them can be acquired for 7 bucks a piece.

The show was about 80 minutes in length. Basically it seemed to be nothing more than allowing those on farenheit911 to speak freely. This consisted of statements such as, "I didn't even talk to this Michael Moore, I was talking to and then I find out later they took the footage and used it for their film." Either that or showing the false statments and claims in the farenheit movie by rebutting it with facts or clarification. What I would had liked to see in the movie is some continued education on the topic of Soros, Democratic party, Republican party and the Saudis. All in all, it was an interesting documentary and pretty much puts farenheight in a disdainfull view.


Tonight the family and I went to the park and viewed all the lights. Each year Creekmore puts up many lights. Among them can be found the nativity, santa in an airplane, gingerman doing a cartwheel, ect. We drove back through some residential areas and viewed other light wars going on. Some were impressive. I looked at them, thinking first wow check that one out. Then I thought, someone had some time to kill with the setup.

We stopped over to my dad's house and visited a little while. Well, my wife visited while my son mauled me on the chair. He let me borrow Grand Theft Auto III and Max Payne PS2 games. I will have to blog my thoughts on them when I can check them out. I played GTA III on the PC before and seen my dad play the Max Payne. I look forward to both.

I figured I better give an update on my exciting life.

First off, Monday was a true blue Monday. It doesn't sound like I was alone either. During the day two individuals in separate facilities had bad days as well. I had also called my dad yesterday evening during my son's therapy and he 'informed' me nearly 15 minutes of his suck a%% day. Oh well.

Regardless, my Monday ended with a bang. I had the opportunity to go shopping for stocking stuffers for the wife. After giving the kids showers I took a lone trip. I hit about 3 stores and it was nice to get out and about. One part I enjoyed was the ability to look at the new games and consoles. Readers know we are giving our kids a playstation 2 this Christmas. Yeah, it's true I am psyched for it too. I am an old gamer at heart, but just don't have the time to play. Well, I plan to put this gift to use when the kids and wife are in bed at night. Anyway, looking at the consoles I was asking this guy about cheat codes used in PS2. I wondered how they differ than the old Nintendo game genie. I found out not only does the PS2 contain USB's, the newer cheats come in USB and memory cards. Seems you can jack the cheat in, play the game and then switch to your saving memory card. So now I know. I am curious if you can download cheats off the net onto a regular USB storage and then use that in the PS2. I will have to test that. It may be a specific format on the cheating device.

The old gamer was reignited in me; looking at the cool games and actually speaking game. The guy asked 'where have I been' and my only reply was trying to catch up. I must had sounded like I bunked with Bin Laden in a cave for the past 2 years. sigh.

Today at work wasnt nearly as bad, Thank God. I had time to run an errand during lunch which is not usual anymore. I actually was also able to campain for School Board a bit.

I also started watching the second season of 24. Man, it's a good show. I am not going full blown, staying up in ungodly hours. I don't think I will be watching season 4 when it starts in January. I I just can't seem to be able to keep up with an actual show. Usually something comes up not allowing me to see it or time gets away from me and I miss the shows.

We are having to watch the friends kids tomorrow. Today is the kids last day in school before Christmas vacation. Lucky dogs. Anyway, seems we are watching them tomorrow all day. I am sure I will be locked in my office. Guess I can't go pee with the bathroom door open tomorrow.

I can't help but notice the kids doing comparisons on each other. Take for instance my daughters friend. She came in yesterday for a little bit (the girls are in the same class together). My wife does a newsletter and she has a card exchange within it. This along with friends and family, we acquired a few cards on our wall. She likes to display them, giving us that much more a Christmas cheer. Anyway, the other girl comes in and immediately says, wow you have alot of cards. We have alot too, we have 23 already. Then proceeds in counting ours. sigh. Just one example. I guess it's in all of us to do some type of comparison or evaluation. I heard everyone does it. Regardless what you think, in the first 2 minutes of initial contact with someone, you subconsciencly do it.

Yesterday afternoon, I finally figured out what was wrong with the stupid VPN. The PCLan dude had given me the wrong group. Basically it allowed me to Corp but not as the interface team, hence no access to my desirable stuff. Crimey. I acquired the proper group and password and boom, asterburners on. I kicked in overdrive and worked that night as well, trying to catch up.

Friday I was on support and it was busy. Seems everyone only finds charging issues on Friday afternoon. I won't go into detail but by 1 p.m. Friday everyone seems to slow down and do not return your email nor voicemails.

Looking at the other blogs of interest I tried to give Jack instruction on creating a link within his blog. But the blasted thing kept screwing up. So I figured I would try to spell it out in today's blog.

Basically it is done like this.

(a href="http://middle_americaworldview.blogspot.com/") Your description here(/a)

Lets break this out.

First off, you do not use the parentheses. Rather they are lesser than and greater than symbols.
I had to use them simply to show the whole descriptive link.

Hence, "(" would be the less than sign the one above the comma and replace the symbol ")" with the greater than sign the one above the period.

Ok hope that's not too confusing.

A href= this is the equivalent of the link itself. Also called an attribute.

" gotta have the quotes

http://middle_americaworldview.blogspot.com/ This is the website the link will be using

" gotta end it with the quotes.

/a This ends the link.

Note the Your description here would be the only value showing up in the webpage.

Example:

(a href="http://middle_americaworldview.blogspot.com/") Your description here(/a)

is viewed as Your description here.

Hope this helps and it doesn't sound too confusing.

Finally received the VPN software I need to get back online with Corporate using my cable internet access. Still trying to get it properly installed. Suppose to be a simple uninstall/install function. Yeah, ok. Currently cannot get into Lotus Notes. Doesn't seem to be my week to get anything done right.

I am figuring it's the VPN not being configured. Bummer man.

I heard on the news today in Florida, an individual won in the supreme court the ability to display a nativity scene in public, by other religious displays. What's the deal with America around Christmas anyway? We are suppose to be tolerent with the exception of Christ's celebrated birthday, that also happens to be a federal holiday? Talk about bias. A friend sent me an interesting email I will post below.

Take Your Christmas and Stuff It

"Christmas with the Kranks" is not only the name of a holiday movie this
year, it is also a national trend. Once again, Christmas is under siege by
the growing forces of secularism in America. Put these facts in your
stocking:

* Federated Department Stores, which includes Macy's, has suggested that
managers avoid displaying "Merry Christmas" banners and have ordered
employees not to talk about it.
* In Denver, a church was banned from the "Festival of Lights" parade
because it wanted a religious theme to its float.
* The Maplewood, New Jersey school board has banned all religious music
from "holiday" concerts. (Would somebody please tell me exactly what holiday
this is?)
* And New York City Mayor Bloomberg insists that the lighted tree outside
City Hall is not a Christmas tree, it's a "holiday tree." (What holiday,
Mr.
Mayor?)
Surveys show that more than 90% of Americans celebrate the Federal holiday
of Christmas, signed into law by President Grant in 1870. Despite that
overwhelming number, the tradition of Christmas in America continues to get
hammered.

The anti-Christmas forces say it's all about diversity, protecting the
sensitivities of those Americans who get offended by the mere mention of the
birth of Jesus. Somehow, I haven't been able to locate any of these
people--folks who find a baby in a manger so off-putting, it ruins their
day.

So the diversity excuse is a bunch of bull. What's really going on here is a
well-organized movement to wipe out any display of organized religion from
the public arena.

The secular-progressive movement understands very well that it is organized
religion, most specifically Christianity and Judaism, that stands in the way
of gay marriage, partial birth abortion, legalized narcotics, euthanasia,
and many other secular causes. If religion can be de-emphasized in the USA,
a brave new progressive society can be achieved.

It has happened in Canada. Once a traditional religious country, Canada has
become like Holland in its embrace of the secular movement. Some facts: In
1980, 79% of Canadians said that religion was important to the country. That
number has now fallen to 61%, according to an Environics Focus Canada poll.

In 1971, less than one percent of the Canadian population reported having no
religion whatsoever; now that number has risen to 16%.

The fall of religion in Canada has corresponded to a change in public
policy. Unlike Americans, Canadians have legalized gay marriage and any kind
of abortion. Also, the age of consent for sex up north is just 14 years old.
Can you imagine American adults being allowed to fool around with children
that age? I can't.

Even drug legalization is close to being a reality, as the city of Vancouver
is developing a heroin give-away policy, and pot has been largely
decriminalized across the country.

The Canadian model is what progressive Americans are shooting for, and so
religion must be dealt with. Since Christmas is the most demonstrative
display of organized religion, the strategy of minimizing the birth of Jesus
makes perfect sense.

I know this sounds kind of conspiratorial, but it really isn't. Most of
those marginalizing Christmas have no idea about the big picture I've just
presented. They simply think they're looking out for the minority of
Americans who don't celebrate the birth of Christ.

But committed secularists in the media, in the courts, and in the education
system know exactly what's going on. And now so do you. Merry Christmas!

Although I have not seen it much in the news, new information has been produced regarding the Matthew Shepard case. If you recall Matthew Shepard was murdered in 1998 brutally. It brought big news due to Matthew happened to also be a homosexual. The gay activity groups used Matthew Shepard as an icon for the hate crime bill. With the activity group pushing to add homosexuality on the hate crime bill, the news of Matthew Shepard murder helped facilitate it.

I seen a snippet on 20/20 with new knowledge proving the Matthew Shepard case was not a hate crime. Although this is significant, I do not believe enough news has been given to it.

I recall a book I once read where a character had setup a church to look like a terrorist organization. The character understood once the FBI had done an investigation, it would show to be a setup. However, the character also knew by the time the truth was unfolded, no-one would really care or recall the truth, rather the big lie__the church was a terrorist organization.

This same scenario was done with the Matthew Shepard case. The gay activist took this unfortunate activity and wields it to their own use. Now we have the truth, the case was not a hate crime. However, he was used for another purpose and agenda. Recently Focus on the Family has requested Katie Couric to retract her anti-Christian statements after the Matthew Shepard story. NBC had refused to do so. I will post the full article below.

I condemn the act against Matthew Shepard; I also condemn the gay activist to take his murder and use it for their own personal agenda.

NBC Stands Behind Couric's Anti-Christian Comments
By Jimmy Moore
Talon News
December 14, 2004

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO (Talon News) -- A network executive with NBC News sent a letter to conservative Christian group Focus on the Family last week refusing to comply with their request that "The Today Show" host Katie Couric apologize for her anti-Christian comments during a broadcast just days after a so-called "hate crime" was committed against Matthew Shepard.

Copyright © 2004 Talon News -- All rights reserved.

Felt like crap all morning. I called in the 8:30 weekly team call for work like normal. However, only 2 of us decided to show up in it. Throughout the morning, it was apparent he and I was the only ones online. Around noon, I picked up our friends son again. The preschool teachers informed me they been trying to get ahold of his parents because he has over 100 temp. sigh. "Come on bud." I took him home and gave him some motrin. Poor kid looked like I felt. I sat him in the living room with a soda and a cartoon on the boobtube. The parents were finally contacted by my wife and came to get him. He will not be attending preschool tomorrow.

Around 1 p.m. today I lost my internet connection. Totally failed on me. I called Cox, worked with tech support (after 45 minutes on hold waiting for them to answer). Tech support and I worked on it for quite some time, but to no avail. Frustrated I made a decision and took the modem to the local Cox in Fort Smith. I told them to take it. I went to buy a new one at Best Buy. Came home and recalled Cox support to give them the inner details of the new modem. It took an addtional 2 hours ( not kidding ). I was on hold initially for support for another 40 minutes. Once I acquired someone (must been the first techs brother), he started to setup his side for the new modem and then had to transfer me over to the conversion department, since they have now a faster net than what I had. I waited around 25 minutes for her. Once the lady in there answered, she set me up. She then had to resend me back over to tech support to finish setting up the modem. Yes, another 30 minutes waiting till I get another guy. He set me up and we were underway. Whew.

Supposedly the faster speed is called 4 meg. I can actually tell a difference.

Bottom line....must been 4 people working in tech support at Cox today, Cox had upgraded to a faster net but didn't inform those on the slower one, and now I have a Cox bill 10 dollars less per month due to owning my modem as opposed to renting theirs.

I started to get my voice back a bit this afternoon. Feel better than I did this morning, but still not 100 percent.

I also finished the buttermilk. Retched stuff. I had to hold my nose to chuck it and then continue to hold it eating or drinking something else before I could let go.

Saturday morning, Kelli decided to run to town and grab some items. She ended up coming back and we had lunch at Olive Garden. It was nice to just sit with the immediate family.

The remaining afternoon consisted us taking showers and relaxing. I managed to wrestle in the floor with the kids for over 2 hours. Then between commercials. They wore me out. At one point I started to get up from my knees and my right knee wouldnt bend. It was a bizarre feeling. So this is what old age feels like? Crimey.

Sunday morning we went to church. It was a full house today. Some kid had hit my son right in the spot of the procedure. This caused our son to seize for 70 seconds. We took him home early. Yes, I wanted to beat the hell out the snot. But on the other hand, the kid doesn't have any parental guidance at all. I recently heard he and his sibling had already been kicked out of all the other local churches. So with respect of understanding the situation, I just wish someone had a better handle of him.

Our son took a nap and felt much better afterward, fortunately. sigh.

Other than that, my wife seems to be getting sick and I am losing my voice. Just need more mending, I guess.

Thursday, we basically drove all day to home. We arrived home around 4:30 p.m. and man I am glad of it. Fortunately we cleaned house prior of leaving. It is always nice to come home to a clean house. Unfortuantely it didnt last long due to unpacking and the beginnings of 5 loads of laundry. We did our ritual of returning from a trip by grabbing a pizza for the night. The kids wanted a sleepover in the living room, so we laid out the pallet for them.

I crashed early, having to get up early and head into Little Rock.

Friday, getting up around 5 a.m. I shower and head off. I had already prepared myself by laying out the chlothes, lunch ect. the night before. By 5:40 I was already well on my way with a full tank of gas.

It took about 3 hours to get to my destination. I was in early enough for my registration and twiddling my fingers to get this going. It was a Fred Pryor Seminar on presentation and clarity. I found it interesting and useful. The day went along fast enough. The only thing was the hour long lunch. I never get an hour lunch, so within 20 minutes, I am ready to get back in there to go. Kelli had purchased me the second Tim Lahaye book on cd. It was "The Secret of Ararat". It wasn't a bad book. I was appreciative of her getting it.

The seminar ended at 3:30 p.m 30 minutes less time than expected. I quickly gave my respect to the instructor and was well on my way. As I drove home, I was thinking I put in 20 hours on the road this week. I don't see how those driving for a living actually do it. I was exhausted and quite frankly sick of it. I drove 7 hours Monday to Amarillo, 7 hours back home Thursday and now 3 up and 3 down Friday for Little Rock.

I stopped into Fort Smith and chatted with my Dad on the way. He had to show off his new bird, computer, ect. It was nice to just sit and relax. For one afternoon I only received one call for work (still on-call ). It was only a FYI for the weekend. So no interruptions.

I arrived home nearly 7 p.m. already stopping for gas as well filling the tank. I ate my hotdogs, chips, watching Digimon with the kids.

I guess the little sleep and all the driving has worn down my system. I feel a cold coming on. I had a pimple Sunday. I told Kelli, I cant believe I am breaking out, must be the stress. You would think at 33 you wouldn't have to deal with that crap anymore. But it broke out to a cold sore. Great. The one week of seeing everybody in a facility (some not in 7 years ) and a seminar, I have a cold sore that feels like mount olympus on my lip. sigh. Oh well, what are you going to do. I been treating it since Thursday with medicine. I will take the plunge and drink buttermilk tomorrow. I have heard it will get rid of them quickly. My dad also swears by it. I will have to hold the nose and drink quickly.

The reason I am blogging at nearly 3 freaking a.m.? I call from work of course. I was called at 1 a.m. paged the vendor to recycle their side. I waited an hour and then called again. Finally resolved it. Yes, now I am awake and figured I should blog.

Going to bed now and try to sleep in till at least 8 a.m. Wish me luck..

Is it really Wedndesday? Well, I came into the command center it was pretty obvious they had not did a maintence on the circuit last night. The morning update meeting informed us not only did not bring down the circuit but they did not know when they would. So you had over 26 facilities prepare for downtime around midnight for no reason what-so-ever. Not good.

I had only a couple of request during the day. They were easy revisions. I was able to work on a couple other projects and resolved a Medquist issue at another facility.

I finally was able to leave due to everything cool fro interfaces. I was able to rest for a bit once back in the hotel. The family and I went out to 'On the Border' meeting with Kell's aunt and uncle again. I had two calls during the dinner. So much for 30 freaking minutes. The kids and I came back to the hotel while Kelli went to the stores with her aunt. After resolution of issues, the kids and I hit the pool. I enjoyed playing with them in the pool. We had the whole pool to ourselves.

Now it's night and the kids are already in bed watching Teen Titans. We plan to leave early in the morning heading home. My son doesn't have to see the doctor in Little Rock. It looks like I will be taking that trip alone Friday.

My son's procedure took literally 12 minutes. I was so glad to hear this. It went well and other than a slight fever yesterday eve, he was none the wear. Kelli and the kids went to see the Incredibles. She said it seemed a bit long, but all enjoyed it. They plan to go to Mr. Gattis today.

Yesterday was more of twiddling fingers than actual working on the live. I ended up catching up on all my other tickets and projects. OPUS OM was down till around 3 p.m. due to printer issues. Since they could not resolve the printer issues, everyone remained on downtime. Another issue that was occuring; with only around 40 people on the system, it dragged it down to lag. This was a big concern ( and the reason we were suppose to be moving over from 03 to 06 server). I never did hear why they had not done that. With the obvious issue of processor speed (affecting 3 other facilties too) they decided to move it around 4:30 p.m. This was accomplished shortly after 6 p.m.

I was able to leave around 4:45 p.m. since there was literally nothing I could do until the system was back up. I had already changed the IP's over to the 06 server. I was able to eat with the family and Kell's aunt and uncle at Logans Steakhouse. I recieved 3 calls during my meal, buy that's just the way it was.

I expected to recycle all facility interfaces last night around 2 a.m due to Corp taking down a circuit for maintenance. However, I never received the call. I woke up 4:30 a.m. and checked the interfaces, all remained up. The email was explicit of the time, perhaps a miscommunication?

I was up and around by 6:20 a.m. and went out to get some Krispy Kreme's. mmmmm

Well, here is hopeing for a good day.

The Monday rush wasn't as bad as I feared it would be.

I had to turn in my chance to run for school board Monday morning. It opened at 8 a.m. Fortunately, they gave me the papers prior to. That allowed me to fill them out and have it already notarized by 8 a.m. I was in and out in 10 minutes and we then could get on our way to Amarillo.

I made contact with my supervisor around 10 a.m while on the road. I told her I wasn't very comfortable on a number of things, no-one seems to have this project in control one of them. She basically agreed and acted like she was also disturbed there seems to be no clear direction. So much for guidance.

We drove pretty much straight to Amarillo, stopping only on 3 occasions. We arrived around 5 p.m. It rained in Oklahoma City and in Amarillo. While we loaded in the hotel in Amarillo it started hailing like crazy. Fortunately it passed over quickly and we didnt have to drive in it.

I made my calls after we unpacked and then we went to eat at Joes Crab shack. When we came back in the hotel I started support. I had to basically go through every facility and check for any connections to be recycled. I had no less than one and no more than 6 in every stinking one. It took over an hour to get them all recycled. Note this was for support not the live NWTH was going through.

Fortunately I was needed for the order system live going on. I will be going to the hospital soon and be point of contact for the interface team. So my fear of being there for 36 hours straight wasnt a reality. My supervisor isn't here in Amarillo either. I will be acting as the interface team alone. Oh well. I was hoping my wife and she would meet in person but it's not going to happen on this trip.

This morning my son has his procedure. It sounds like it will be done within 30 minutes upon startup. Praying all goes well and this is indeed the last one.

The weekend was one of activity and rest. Friday evening we went out to a Seafood buffet. It was my wife's mother and aunts birthday celebration. For you nothern readers, the buffet consisted of salmon, catfish, crawfish, shrimp, ect. It was pretty good. I filled my self too much though, but heh it was all you can eat. : )

The kids wanted to stay over night with their nana and papa (wifes parents). So after everyone ate the kids went to their house. This allowed my wife and I some time alone to do some running. We hit the Office Depot (supplies), Kholes (wife had 20 dollars in coupons), Walmart, Books A million and Hastings. Kelli was able to find some books for our long drive to Texas, Monday. We came home around 10:30 p.m. drinking a hot chocolate for her and a Mocha for me. That night while still awake on mocha I watched 24 till around 3:15 a.m. Yeah, I know crazy.

Our kids had basketball games pretty much all day Saturday. The games were strung out, 30 minutes each and we had some time in between. We left for home around 12:30 p.m. Took a nap and Saturday night went out to look at Christmas lights around town. I was impressed with on particular drive. There were about 10 houses; in each yard a part of the 'Night before Christmas' story was told. Definitely some group effort there.

I was able to finish the remaining season one for 24. Whew, I wanted to finish it before I left Monday and was able to accomplish it. Man, it was really good. I would suggest this one to any and all. My wife didn't watch it with me, but I told her the plot each morning as I viewed them.

Today, Sunday, we are going to Church and then dropping the dogs over to Kelli's aunt. She is watching them for us as we are away. We also had planned on cooking hotdogs over a fire at her parents house. Currently, that does not look to happen considering its been raining all morning.

A: According to evolutionists, the oldest fossils ever found are a blue-green algae that lived along the coast of Australia and South Africa. These fossils have been dated by them to be 3.5 billion years old. But when they examined these fossils under the microscope, they found that they were identical to the blue-green algae that are still living today.

Dr. William Schopf, a leading evolutionist, says that this presents a tremendous problem for evolution. You see, evolution is based upon change, and yet these algae don’t appear to have changed at all in their supposed 3.5 billion years.

If evolution is based on everything changing, why do we find these oldest fossils to be identical to the living algae today? And it’s not just the blue-green algae—scientists continue to find many living animals that appear to have hardly changed at all compared to their fossils that are allegedly millions of years old.

The answer is in Genesis. God made all living things—including blue-green algae—only thousands of years ago. They’ve always reproduced after their own kind, as commanded by the Creator.

I th0ught I would post a quick blog before I started work today. I had a chance to read other blogs on my list and add a new one. I still find it rather fascinating some blogs are dedicated to ones life, while others are purely for information.

I didn't mention this yesterday but my daughter ( now 7 going onto 21 ) brought a note home today to show me and my wife. It was a love note from Daniel. Some boy in her class. It basically read 'I love to Brittney'. She was all excited stating he took his snack time to write this for her, but didnt have time to write from Daniel. sigh. These kids are in 1st grade for crying out loud. Hell, looking back in my old photos and notes, I think I had a crush for my 1st grade teacher, but love notes to other classmates? I don't think so. I can only see trouble for my ulcer and more grey hair for my future.

The kids had a basketball game last night at school. It was one of those class A against class B types to help raise money for a field trip. I caught this guy sitting behind me on my right hollering 'Go Daniel' as my daughters class played. I asked the dude if his kid was Daniel. He replied 'yes' somewhat enthusiastically. I mentioned his son gave my daughter a note today waiting to see if he gave a shit. He really didn't raise an eyebrow. Oh well, discussion closed. Watching the boy on the court I couldn't help the feeling this will be one of those preppy kids in school. I mentioned the guys reaction to my wife when we where home last night after the games indicating he seemed to be non-sociable. Kelli informed me the mom's snotty. Great. These are the types I detested while growing up in my small school. Yeah, it's only 1st grade and I really shouldn't be thinking of this crap right now. However, I look around and realization keeps reminding me its' a different world then when I grew up.

Where are those tums.

Yesterday at work I pretty much dedicated the whole day to finish a grid. Basically data entry on routes and route assignments. Talk about a time killer, but it was necessary. I been putting it off for far too long. At least it was completed.

Today I was on support. Pleasantly it wasn't that bad. I had only about 5 tickets from support today. I will be on it again tomorrow but heh its Friday.

The auditors finish scavenging our company and put out what they expect. In a nutshell, more documentation. Open a ticket on every project, task, request and be darn sure to include any update, change, discussion, email, documentation, fart in that ticket to cover all areas. sigh. Yes, we live in a world where in court, if its not documented, it didnt happen. We keep hearing about trying to go to a paperless society, but do we really have to replace the paper with a thousand lines of data? I am all for CYA but now it's coming down from the top.

Next week will be very busy for us. The family will be driving into Amarillo, Texas Monday. I will be working at a facility site doing an Order system update. Our son will have a procedure Tuesday in Amarillo. We will remain there till we drive back home Thursday. Then on Friday we have to drive into Little Rock, Arkansas. I have a work seminar to attend, while my family takes our son to another Doctor visit there.

Well, we actually survived the black Friday. We found some pretty good deals in chlothes and some movies. We also snagged a couple of games for the kids. It has become a tradition of the family at this point. Each Thanksgiving we stroll out the 'day after sales' and plan the assault. I have tagged with my mother-in-law for the past 3 years, this year marking our 4th. We are assigned Walmart with all the sales and admatch's. We made record time this year. We grabbed all availble, in and out within 2 hours. That was waiting 30 -45 minutes in checkout lines. Yes, a record for us. We are improving as the years pass on. Fortunately for us we do not have to wait outside in lines and weather.

My wife hits 7 stores to our one stop shopping. She constructs a grid and marks out the trail. This year her family came in from Texas. They tagged with her. I like she feared they would slow her down. They actually helped her and kept up with her. This surprised us all. They said they had a good time in doing it.

Saturday we just stayed home in our pajamas all day. Literally we showered and got back in clean ones. LOL

Sunday we hit church and then ended up staying home that evening.

Monday's work was busier than I thought it would be. I was expecting a quite day due to most on vacation. But I was sadly mistaken. It was 6 p.m. before I knew it.

The one cool thing was, Kelli's cousin grabbed first season of "24" at best buy. He said I would love it. I never have watched this show at all. I completed the second of around 6 dvds in the set. I am now officially hooked on this show. The only description I can say is intense. It has not only the main but many subplots that keep it moving like crazy. Any 24 fans out there?

I find this unbelievable and irratating. What's next, no Thanksgiving due to it deemed a religious holiday?

"Among the materials she has rejected, according to Williams, are excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, George Washington's journal, John Adams' diary, Samuel Adams' "The Rights of the Colonists" and William Penn's "The Frame of Government of Pennsylvania."

"He hands out a lot of material and perhaps 5 to 10 percent refers to God and Christianity because that's what the founders wrote," said Thompson, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, which advocates for religious freedom. "The principal seems to be systematically censoring material that refers to Christianity and it is pure discrimination."

So we have a principle that is erasing any form of Christianity from a Public School regardless if its our Nations history and roots. This is getting to the point of ridiculous. I am tired of liberals (on either side) that continues to neglect or rewrite history. I wonder if this is what the bible makes reference, regarding in the last days people will search the truth and shall not find it. Unbelievable.

Below are some links for this issue in California.

School bans history materials referring to God

Declaration of Independence Banned at California School or Red-baiting Liberals on Thanksgiving Day

Q: How could Neandertal man be too advanced for evolution?

A: In southern France, they recently found evidence of human habitation hundreds of feet deep within a cave. What makes this find so important is that it’s been dated as the earliest signs of humans in Europe. Only the Neandertals were thought to be the inhabitants of Europe at that time.
What they found in the cave was astonishing for such so-called “primitive” people. They found a “complex quadrilateral artificial structure consisting of specially arranged pieces of stalactite and stalagmite.” Also found was a piece of burned bear bone.

Now for the problem. The items were so deep in the cave, that the people would have had to have some kind of artificial light, such as a fire, torch or lamp. Also, the structure they found was so complex, it would have required the builders to be able to communicate with each other.

Such language skill and technological know-how easily fits the creationist understanding of Neandertals. They were a line of early humans living after the Flood and descended from Noah—but evolutionists have long held that Neandertals could not possibly have done these things.

Neandertals may be a problem for the evolutionists, but not for those who believe in Genesis.
Full article found here.
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Part of the above news can be seen at the bottom of this site.I have pasted it here.
NEWS: Fifty stone tools made and used by Neandertals in Ukraine have been found to have microscopic residues of wood, starch, and other organic substances. The residues on the bases of teardrop-shaped scrapers and combination spear-point/knives indicate that they were hafted on wood handles. Residues on the working edges and sharp tips of these tools show that they were used to process both plants and animals, including waterfowl. These artifacts came from two sites that date 37,000-32,000 and 80,000-40,000 years ago respectively. This evidence is important because it shows that Neandertals were more capable and flexible in tool making and food acquisition than had generally been thought. (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences September 11, 2001)

I had a friend forward me an interesting article relating biochips. At my company we work with Siemens using their product as a intergration server. I recall last year when Siemens brought out their biomouse. Ever seen or heard of it? It is actually a good idea. Basically all employees in a facility requiring access would have their fingers scan. Then you can have a pc or dumb terminal in the hallway with a biomouse as a point of access. Now the scenario would be a Doctor goes to the PC and touches the mouse. The thumb would be scanned and he would have access to his security level. He then would leave and a nurse would come by. The nurse would touch the mouse and she could immediately attain her required level of security within the system. Now a non-working civilian comes by and touches the mouse to see if anyone might had not logged off. He would only be presented with a blank screen. Technology like this has been availible for sometime. Pretty cool, eh?
As I read this article below, I just wanted to point out the technology is arlready here. Please note the last paragraph, which I will emphasize. Also note a chip in you today, doesn't mean you have been marked by the antichrist. Reading the bible carefully, the rapture must occur first. I suspect when the rapture occurs and millions of people vanish, chaos will follow. A chip would be an excellent means to help identify those that remain. You will probably hear more about BIOChips and embeddeed microprocessors within our items and even ourselves to desensitize our youth. It will help get the fear and stigma away from our generation and prepare for what is to come.
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GETTING CHIPPED

Well, after a day off-line I finally heard word of my laptop. I still do not know what the deal was.

I received a call around 9:30 a.m. (10:30 est) from my buddy in PCLAN. "You want the good news or the bad news." Crap I thought, my harddrive is toast. "Give me the bad news." No sense in drama. "Well, brother, your laptop is not here." " OK " I said hesitantly. I was puzzled as too why but listen for the rest of the story. " But the good news is it's in King of Prussia." Seems Fedex had dropped it off at the wrong address. How the hell can that happen, I don't really know. Especially since their dropoff was across town, 30 minutes away at a totally differenent address given. Needless to say, I called the guy who had the laptop. Fortunately it was a pimpled kid with time on his hands and needed a shell of a laptop for his 250 gig harddrive. I then called Fedex explaining to them the issue and requesting they promptly repick it up and delivery it to the correct address.
Of course they will, with an apology of the inconvience. Yeah, right.

So without a laptop nor access to my precious enviroment, I returned voicemails, spoke in my scheduled meetings and attempted to act like I was working. I received word around 3:20 p.m. my time by PCLAN that he fixed the issue. When I prompted him, what was the deal. He stated he really didn't know. He had to fix/repair the boot sector. Stated it looked intact and he will be fedexing it back to me overnight. So I should receive it sometime tommorow. I will note my buddy also stated it should arrive in the morning, as he requested it to be. Unless, it lands up 3 blocks away. ha ha Very funny man.

So I don't know what the issue was, other than a failed boot sector. Thank the God in heaven I didn't lose everything. I made myself another mental note to back up my files every week. To hell with the CD's. I will just have to break them before tossing them in the trash.

I agree Mark (mental_note). We are not very fond of Citrix either. It is a bit flakey at times. But what are you going to do? If you have to use it; you have to use it.

I see Dan Rather is stepping down. As if there was a choice in that ordeal. But of course the discussion on the news__is this the end of network news? Yeah, about 5 years ago.

I think I will add the websites I have created or had part of creating on my blog. They are not fancy. Having them there will prompt me in keeping better up in them.

Well, yesterday didn't go according to plan. My work computer crapped out on me, again. I had it on all weekend. I rarely turn it off. I had to be somewhere yesterday afternoon and took 1/2 day off. Since everyone is not on the bandwith I knew I had to deal with a phone dialing into work. I checked if I could still dialin RAS ( Remote Access System ) and get to my work. Yep, the old dialing into with a copper phone line. After being on cable for so long now, I had to ask the guys at Corporate to pull the string harder. After 2 failed attempts I was in. Once in I found I could get to my Lotus Notes easy enough, but nothing else. VPN nor internet access wouldn't work. Hence I could not really get into my work. I had my Monday morning work call. Each Monday morning the interface team has a meeting to hash out their projects, any issues, what will I be working on this week, any rollouts of new interfaces, ect. I mentioned the fact I couldn't get into Citrix with RAS and they responded, I can. Oh well maybe I just need to reboot my laptop. I was thinking it would refresh the memory blah blah blah.

After the call and I made re-arrangments of my evening meetings; I took the plunge and rebooted my PC. I was greeted with an unpleasant blue screen. The white information was giving me the message of a software or hardware upgrade is causing problems and my startup didn't startup due to possible damage that could be done(or something to that effect). Ahh crap. So I did what every intellegent I.S. person does in this experience. I rebooted my PC again___and again___and again. Shit. It still doesn't come up. I tried F8, F10. Looked at my BIOS. Attempted startup on safemode, safemode with networking, safemode with command prompt. I tried startup with last known working configs (didn't know that was an option till now ). Still the same blue screen with white lettering. Sigh.

OK, time to call in the pros. I called a PCLan group buddy of mine. Basically, told him what is occuring and what I had done. I received the one question I hate. "Did you recently install anything new"? Like what am I going to say? Yeah, that cracked warez I received online. The dude told me it was clean. Yeah right.__ The last thing I put on the stupid thing was the graphic driver, he helped me with. So the end result is me fedexing it overnight, hoping like hell they can fix it and resend it to me by Wednesday. Until then, I am a duck out of water. I literally cannot do anything without my laptop. I live online. I am going to have them send me the Citrix and VPN software on cd when they return my laptop to me. I can put it on my home PC for a backup. But still this sucks. I am suppose to be oncall this week, but I will lose at least tonight. I already lost last night oncall.

Well, here's hoping I get the thing back and not a call saying, dude I need to order a new harddrive, with the holiday coming up, it will be like next week.

Site update: I hadded a couple of links and I will be removing the John Kerry links soon.

It is currently a little after 7 a.m. Sunday morning today. I have already taken a shower and the coffee is nearly done. Kelli and the kids are still lying in bed. The kids had another sleepover in the living room. On non-school nights they love sleeping in the living room while watching TV. They call it a sleepover in the living room. : )

Yesterday morning the fog was really thick here. It remained this way till after 8 a.m.

We started to put Christmas decorations out yesterday. I arose 6 a.m. and pulled down all the boxes from the attic. (Pause, I had to go get me a cup of coffee, the pot was ready)
Man, some of them felt like they were lined with lead. We have nearly 15, at the time felt like 30, boxes including a box of wrapping paper. Fortunately for me this is only once a year. My favorite part of this annual event is pulling out the old pictures of the kids. You know the ones I am referring too. They look so young and innocent in those pictures. As they gain on the number of Christmas’s they really have changed. For some reason I am really looking forward to this Christmas. The toys we have for the kids this year are for the bit older. This year the kids actually bought gifts for others on their own with their own allowance. They are making gifts for those they couldn’t. The difference is it was their idea this time. They are just growing up and its times like these that really make me realize it.

We as everyone else are so busy we usually don’t have time to scratch our butts much less hold someone’s hand. But on mornings like today as I sit alone in my home office while everyone else remains asleep, I stop and think upon these things.

OK. I finally have a chance to blog some more in peace. Yes, it’s Thursday, Yes, I am glad tomorrow is Friday.

I have the yard done! I had to acquire the 10 extra bags of rock Tuesday night. I wouldn’t have believed it would take so much if I hadn’t experienced it first hand. However, the yard is done. If must say it looks pretty good. It will take me some time to get use to it. We had been buying mulch for the past 3 years and now we don’t have to anymore. The rocks will pay for themselves over time. So that is 60 bags put out, 50 pounds a piece.

We have the shelves put up in the garage as well. I can actually see the garage floor again.

The work this week has been basically the same. Busy as usual and time flew. But I rather it be busy than crazy.

We are going to get a futon. Kelli’s dad is giving us a futon for my office. So I moved the used couch out today and her dad is bringing the futon in the morning. Kelli and I will sleep on it while her family is visiting next week. It is hard to believe Thanksgiving is next week. Where has this year gone anyway? Her brother came later today and we moved it to the garage. It seems he is unable to take it yet due to something about his yard being worked on. Oh well. At least it’s out of the house, regardless if it’s in the garage. Once I have that out and the unused shelves, I will be able to see the garage floor again. : )

We were able to make it to church Wednesday night. This is a good thing. The bad thing is the service being so late. They do not start till 7 p.m. We had the kids take showers before we even left for church. This allowed us to get them into pajamas with a snack as soon as we returned home. I received another tape from by buddy. This one is called The Panorama view of prophecy throughout the Bible by Ed Hindson. When I finish the Isaiah tape, I will watch it. Being Wednesday night also shows the weekly show Lost. I had to tape it while I was away. Now I have the luxury of fast forwarding through the commercials, but I haven’t had the chance to watch it yet. I enjoy that show, and I am trying to watch it when I can.

Kelli has a friend over tonight giving everyone haircuts. My son hates haircuts so this should be good. At least Braden knows her and enjoys playing with her kids. 10 bucks a haircut is not bad and the friend needs the money too. It’s a win – win situation.

You might note these last two weeks I have been blogging only every other day or so. the reason is our home projects. Fortunately Kelli seems be to better each day. She had a CT of the sinus yesterday morning. We are waiting for the results. I told Kelli I am having a hard time to recognize the house. With 10 more bags of rock (60 total), I have the yard done. We also purchased a couple more storage cabinets to complete the garage. I must say it is amazing how much crap one accumulates over time. The trash people will love us today. I have a bunch to be picked up for them. But alas, it will be oh so nice to have everything organized.

Kelli's family will be coming in from Texas for the Thanksgiving weekend. Another reason to get everything in order now. We are also already looking to bring down the Christmas boxes from the attic to begin putting up lights this weekend. Never a freaking dull moment.

I will write in more detail later today. I am currently having to update my monitor drivers due to some bug in my laptop.

I am already dreading work tomorrow. I know the vise will be back on the neck in the morning. I will not bore you with work. I will move on.

Yesterday I was excited. I received my DVD movie in the mail. I bought The Seven Samurai from EBay on 10.26.04 and received it Saturday. It was shipped in from Hong Kong. I was able to acquire it for 8 bucks! I won the EBay bid for .01 and the shipping was 7.99. It was an unbelievable price. The DVD was a 2 DVD set, brand new in the package. Yes, it has the English subtitles. I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, but I look forward to the opportunity when I do.

Kelli woke up feeling a little better than the day before. She has already met most of her sleep than she has ever had. Rather than the pain Saturday, she was just drained.
Her parents wanted to take us all out for lunch with her brother. It was for her brother’s birthday. She rested most of the morning. However, while she was online she checked into Home Depot. Can we say free credit? On a whim she saw if we could acquire any credit. Amazingly, we qualified for it. So we thought we would see if they had some storage appliances for outside and inside the garage. A little before the dedicated time to meet her parents at the restaurant we strolled into Home Depot to check it out. The store has been in Fort Smith for a little time, but we never been in it. We mainly shop at Lowes when we need anything for the house and yard. The prices weren’t as bad as we thought. Actually we spotted what we were wanting before we hit the store doors. Thanks to the outside display we identified the vinyl Rubbermaid tool house begging to come home with us. We went in and strolled around and noticed a couple more items of interest. During lunch with the parents and her brother, we mentioned our findings to her parents. They also were going to Home Depot after lunch. Her brother split for a hot date as soon as his food was ate. The rest of us met at Home Depot. I inquired her Dad would haul our items in his truck if I purchased them. He didn’t care to take them to our house. However, the kid (looked younger than me) asked exactly what kind of truck we had to haul the shed. I told him Dodge Ram, pointing out the red one in the lot. He looked at me and said he wouldn’t do it and asked if we had a trailer. Crap. I thought. How big is this box?
It was decided to go ahead and purchase it and Kelli’s Dad would come by in the morning with the trailer to haul it home. So the deal was done and I was on my way with another credit card payment. Ahh America the beautiful.

We also bought a couple of storage cabinets for our much needed garage. My daughter helped me put those together Saturday afternoon. Kelli pushed too hard being up and running so was knocked down 2 notches below where she started that morning. It was sad to have her want to clean and organize but couldn’t. Believe me, she would if she could, organization is her thing. I partied with the kids that evening and they fell out before 9 p.m. Since they had another sleepover in the living room, I watched the ‘Daniel, by Ed Hindson’, a walkthrough the book of Daniel by the prophecy scholar Dr. Ed Hindson. Telling everyone right now, if you never checked out his books or tapes, you really need to. I hold John Hagee pretty high on my ladder of good teachers in prophecy. Ed Hindson now is there, if not a little above. If you knew my collection of Hagee material, you would know that is saying a lot. Fortunately for me I have a friend in church loaning me copies of his Ed Hindson tapes.
Tired yet again, I went to bed. I looked at the clock in our bedroom, wondering the time and seen it was 9:30 p.m. What a wuss.

Kelli was up at 2:30 sick and with a splitting headache. She now had a rash from the meds and other issues. As she became as comfortable as possible, I was now awake. I went back to my daughter’s room and finished watching the Daniel tape. I went back to bed on to keep looking at the clock from 5 a.m. on to 6 when I finally got up.

Kelli’s dad came a little before 8 a.m. I had drinks and breakfast ready for the kids, who were up watching cartoons. I left to grab our new projects at Home Depot. Since we arrived a little early, we ran over to Walgreens to pick up Kelli’s new prescription. (We had called the on-call doctor to get a new script since the one she was on was causing the rash, ECT around 6:40 a.m.) Of course the pharmacies (open 24 hours) didn’t have it ready (now just before 8 a.m.). Seems their voicemail box doesn’t light up when a call-in was made, as it use to. Getting the script, we ran over to Home Depot where they gathered the shed and some rock I had bought as well for our flower beds in the front. Yes, give me money/credit I just spend it. Well when they brought the box out, I can see why they looked funny yesterday. This bad boy was huge. It was probably a good 10 by 8 foot, approximately 3 feet deep. Needless to say the trailer was full. We brought it home and just couldn’t get ready to get started. Sigh, where’s my coffee.

Well, I didn’t make it to Church as desired. It took all day putting up the outside sheds. We also moved our garage ‘junk’ into the sheds. This made quite a lot of room in the garage, as we hoped. I haven’t put all the cabinets together yet and didn’t even touch the rocks. But I felt we cut into it today. Not just a dent, but a good cut. For an old boy in front of the computer at work everyday, that was a lot of manual labor done. I am already sore and will probably really feel it tomorrow. I must say my daughter really helped out on these projects and I was especially proud of her. She is 7 but I seen these other kids around here, and I was proud of her this weekend.

Now its 8:30 p.m. and the kids are in bed. Kelli also is in bed, but probably awake. I have the option of another good night sleep by going to bed now or watching my Seven Samurai in the living room. Hmm, if I go to bed now, my work day will get her that much faster.

I really enjoyed the seminar I had Thursday. The seminar provided more information than I had expected. I had to send a thank you to the company to allow me to attend it. It was a Grammar free – Proofreading, Fred Pryor seminar. So I am in hopes my blog writing will also be of some improvements as well. : )

Thursday evening and night my poor wife was still having a serious headache. She went to bed early in hopes to get rid of it. I was thinking she was starting a migraine. She doesn’t have many of them, but when she does have one it is normally a doozy.

Early Friday morning the kids and I took her to a Promed (Doc in a box ). She was nearly in tears at one point. No. It’s not a hemorrhage. However, the Doc did say she had a serious throat infection and found it a wonder she could swallow. Kelli responded to the Doc as saying her throat wasn’t bothering her at all, compared to the headache. According to the Doc the headache was due to the infection. So she got two shots in the butt and 2 prescriptions for good measure. Once we finally were able to get the meds we headed home. I was unable to get a movie for tonight but the kids found 2 movies at Wal-Mart as we waited for the scripts to be filled. Our son grabbed a Pokemon cartoon and our daughter grabbed a Hello Kitty.

Kelli went to bed when we came back home and stayed there all day with the exception of eating a little. Other than that I hadn’t seen much of her. I played with the kids all day. I also managed to keep the laundry and dishes clean. I must say I enjoyed my day with the kids. It was a treat for the three of us to play all day.

It’s nearly 10 p.m. already and I am beat. I can’t believe I am already tired, but I have to say I am.

One good note is both kids seem to be getting over their bugs. Only a cough here and there for our son, and our daughter seems to be all well now. Go figure.

Well my work week is officially over. I will be in a seminar all day tomorrow and probably check the email tomorrow evening. I talked to the boss lady and gave her my updates. Hopefully nothing will break in the next two days with my name on it. : )

Well, I sent my kids to school this morning. Since my son seems to be bouncing off the walls again and my daughter had no fever nor temp. But as you would know, I ended up going to pick her up around 10 a.m. So I was a bad Dad by telling my daughter to toughen up and suck it in. (Not really but it seemed like it afterwards). She was looking pretty pale and just laid down all day. Later tonight she got sick again and was praying to the porcelein god again.

At least my son is feeling much better. My wife still isn't her full self. But she continues to do it all. Amazing. She's my hero. : )

Drinking the rest of the wine myself tonight. We had a bottle in the bottom of the fridge for nearly 3 months and broke it open a couple of nights ago. So since my wife still has a belly ache, I took the job of finishing it off. yeah me.

As I write this, Kelli is reading about lipstick having lead in it causing cancer, providing a list of known brands using lead. Hmm, let's think about this. Lead poisening is known. Let's put it in lipsticks. Want to know if your lipstick contains lead? Apply some on your hand, use a gold ring to rub in it and if the lipstick turns black, you have lead in your lipstick.

Concerning the Election. I am glad it's over. Kerry did a good job in conceding defeat, but the Liberals seem to have a hard time accepting defeat. Listening to Rush and Hannity, when some liberals call in it gets down right scary to hear them. They bring up all kinds of conspiracy theories, still believing in the concept of Bush stealing the 2000 election. sigh. One guy actually was looking at the possibility of a judge ruling Bush in for another 4 years. The liberals are so out of touch in reality they cannot take this in. Unreal. Sad really if you think about it.
Oh well. What can you do. It's over people, Daschel is out, the exit polls was flat out wrong, the county map shows nearly all red.

2:30 a.m. and my daughter is up coughing so bad, she threw up. My wife is up with a high temp and fever as well. Guess I did jinx it, but with their health.

We gave our daughter some cough medicine and now she and my wife are lying in the same bed. sigh.

I can't believe it. Two days in a row for work to go well. I actually am gaining ground on my projects without feeling too overwhelmed. I know, I know, I just jinxed myself. But without call and my support day over with, I am only left with tomorrow. I have an all day seminar Thursday in Fort Smith, and I am scheduled off Friday. So a short week for me.

Initially we were planning to go to Texas this Friday visiting Kell's family. Her cousin will be going to Kuwait. But with everything going on and the fact her Uncle's family coming in as well we figured we wouldn't be able to get much of a chance to visit anyway. It would had been a fast trip to see him. 9 hour drive and 3 days doesnt give one much time anyway.

I couldn't believe the lady that never gave me feedback actually did on ebay. So my points rise again. Great!

Seems the bugs has hit our house. My son been coughing his head off the past 3-4 days. It seems to be better as of tonight. He is already asleep and not coughing his head off. My daughter has a rash we been working on. The doc called it viral and my wife has fever as of today. She says she feels achy all over and not good at all. Her blood pressure was down today. So all but myself have succombed to some bug or other. I been lysoling like crazy, pumping vitamens down them in the morning while drugs at night.

I went to Walmart during lunch today to acquire some dvd/vhs combos for the school. PTA approved to buy a dvd/vhs combo for the teachers in school. Seems the school really do not have the funds and all have only vhs players in the rooms. Well, welcome to the 20th century folks. Nearly everything is coming out in DVD's. So Kelli acquired about 5 last week and I acquired 5 more today. Talk about looks from everyone. Want attention? Buy 5 dvd/vhs combos and cart them to your van. I was able to use our PTA tax exempt number and they were on rollback for 79.86 a piece. What a bargain.

It's only 8 p.m. and all my family are already in bed. I put them all in bed early tonight with drugs. A benadryl here, a cough syrup here, ect. You know the drill. Since all are in bed early tonight and I am not on-call, I took some as well. I figured I could also use the sleep. So I think I will go hit the bed and watch the CMA awards with the wife.

The weekend flew as it normally does. Friday is just a distant memory now.

Saturday, we stayed home to clean house and try to winterize it. After our 30 degree mornings, it was up in the high 70's all weekend. I managed to mow the yard and Kelli winterized the windows.

Sunday morning we went to church and then off to a skating party for one of our daughters friends. I hadn't skated in years. I was surprised I managed to stay up on them throughout the 2 hours. I feared I would be alot sorer this morning than I am. It was the first time the kids actually went skating. Our son took to it great. He kept going down but didn't stay down. He was a trooper and really liked it. Our daughter on the other hand, bawled and whined up to nearly 15 minutes before we left and then only enjoyed it. Everytime she went down she wanted to quite. sigh. But in the end they both wanted skates for Christmas. Go figure.

I will have a short week this week for work. I have a seminar to go to Thursday and I am off this Friday. Initially we were thinking to go to Texas for a visit of Kelli's cousin but we nixed it due to funds. Hopefully they will not require a weeks worth in 3 days. I know they will want it but we will see.

Ancy this morning and I don't know why. Could be the after-stress of the election and our last Lab upgrade on one of our facilties combined with the fact it seems like we are constantly working.

I want to try to leave the house today, and get out for a bit during lunch. I need to get some supplies. Yeah, Kelli could do it but I told her I wanted to get away for a bit.

We had our daughter home yesterday, feeling a bit sick. She didn't look like she felt good and Kelli seen a little bit of a temp. So we kept her inhouse yesterday.

We also went over to her parents house last night and helped them move in a huge entertainment center. I admit it was pretty. But of course it was pouring cats and dogs while we were doing it. I had a chance to see their new porch and what they had accomplished inside. The porch looks good. Only some finishing touches on it and it will be totally done. As far as their inner abode, it looks remarkable different. They pulled the remaining carpet out and floored it. They only require some crown molding and a few minor touches and it also will be done before Thanksgiving. It really is coming together. They are trying to get it all done before Thanksgiving due to their family coming in from Texas this year. And let me tell you, it's a huge family. Easily 30 coming this way.

Son Update: We are looking to acquire a second opinion on our son's findings. Just seems to coincidental it showed on this test as opposed to the later 3. That and other misgivings has us looking to make sure. No, not denial, rather assurance.

Ebay Update: The later person has paid for the 2nd sold pc game. So I will ship it out today. I haven't received one item yet, and there is one individual that gave me a positive response email but haven't posted a feedback. Go figure.

News Updates: I see this morning that they will now begin prosecuting Movies File sharers. Seems they have their cross-hairs on 200 unlucky souls.

I also read this morning the main reason of such a turnout for the polls was due to Morality. Seems most chose on moral reasons, higher than the war and security. Can I say again, I am glad it's done.

Well it was a long night for everyone. I had a facilty Lab and OPENLINK upgrade last night in addtion to watching the election on TV. I admit I had two tums initially when they kept referring to the exit polls showing Kerry to win by a large margin. But as the night progressed on, it became more evident those exit polls were incorrect. They should fire those people, because this is what occurred in 2000. Fortunately most were very hesitant as the night goes to call the states for either candidate. So it looks like Bush will be in 4 more years to the liberal demise. I find it fascinating that not only will he win by electoral but has the largest popular vote in history. Yes, it seems everyone came out to vote.

Another landslide was the state ammendments for 'one man to one woman' in marriage. No surprise there. They have always said the majority disagrees with the gay marriage, but now we can easily show that and the people did on yesterday's vote.

Looks like Oklahoma will have a lottery now. It passed easily. I was surprised the Oklahoma cigerate tax passed. The tax is per cigarette tobacco so the tax will be astronomical.

My man Coburn won the Senate. I know the Democrats was thinking Carson would win and it appeared to be close at first then Coburn pulled in the lead and remained.

Also interesting this morning was the Dow and Stocks are booming. So again, investors are more comfortable with Bush.

I was also pleased with Daschel losing office. This was icing on the cake for me.

All the way around, I am high in spirits this morning.

Monday actually wasn't as bad as I thought would occur. I was on support but it wasn't that crazy. Which in itself is a wonder. Perhaps I have just become a little pessimistic with it.

I did manage to move the remaining 13 interfaces over to BeyondFTP server today. I was pulled into 2 unscheduled confernece calls today as well. So it was busy but not chaotic.

Son update: We had the results called in finally from last weeks testing. We were informed he had 'underlying seizure disorder'. Basically it just means he showed signs of seizure activity or sharp like activity that could cause seizures. Not much to go on but we plan to make a call and get more specific. However, this also informs us it is nuerological so we really do not need to adhd test scheduled this Thursday.

I am having to visit our superintendet in the morning due to having to put some policies in place for PTA. In addition, our famous grade school principle was in a mood this morning. Seems when Kelli requested the secretary to ask Kohler (special education personel) if she could speak with him in regards to the adhd visit, iep ect. The principle stormed out of her office blasting Kelli stating she was not a docter and there was nothing to discuss, blah blah. Unreal man, it's a good thing I wasn't there. Kelli said it took her some will to composer herself and not jack slap her.

My last thoughts will be written regarding to the vote next week. Yes, I am tired of the voting and if you listen to the news its polls polls polls. Depends on which party is speaking they spin it positive their way. The fact is, they don't know. No-one knows what exactly will happen till tomorrow night. Whether it will be a win on either side or so close the lawyers come into play. So with that, I can only say I pray Bush does win. I hope each person able, will vote and they states can keep it fair.

Looking back on Friday, it wasn't so bad. There was one incident where at 5 p.m. est an email was sent out basically requesting to run a script for 3 files ( one file alone took me all weekend long before) before Monday. I was livid. I immediately called then paged one of the 3 in the email to see what the hell. I finally got him on the phone and he told me it woulndn't be touched till Wednesday and the requesting individual knew this. Well, the email had not hint of this at all and I said such. So he eased my mind. I just grow tired of these bombs dropping 5 o'clock on a Friday when a project like this has been on-going for nearly a year.

Since I was on-call over the weekend we just had planned to rent movies and stay close to home. We rented, Pokeman 3, The Day after tomorrow, Van Helsing, Dawn of the Dead,Raising Helen and Kelli found The lizzie Mcguire movie and Ella Enchanged for 5 bucks a piece. So we all had movies to watch over the weekend. That was a good treat. Each movie I watched was good. The kids watched that Pokemon 3 literally 4 times. Fortunately we also managed to do a couple of things as well as watch the boob-toob. We painted the front of the front door, pulled all the remaing flowers, cutting back the rose bushes and put new tires on the car. It was a relaxing weekend. Thank God call slacked off in being a PIA. ( pain in a## ).

Saturday night was Halejuah Night, in Pocola. We took the kids to 4 neighbor houses we knew here and then over to Halejuah Night. They had a blast and alot of candy.
We were hit hard this year with Trick or Treaters. Kelli had to start pulling down the kids chip bags we give them for lunch. We turned the lights off at 9 p.m.

Sunday morning we went to church and the pastor preached a very good sermon on the duty of a christian to vote for your leaders. He preached out of Joel, 'Multitudes Multitudes in the valley of decision. For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision'. It was a reflection of when your in the valley you have no-where but to look up. Do you look up to the enemy about to come down on you or up to God to help you. Also comparing it to the mulitudes coming out to vote in this all important decisions.

We plan to go to church again tonight. We need to start attending regularly and not just on Sunday morning.

Ebay update I heard back from one of my buyers. She recieved her pc game and was satisfied. But she hasn't given me a feedback in the Ebay yet. Bummer.

Son update: We have yet to hear from the docs on our son's result. Kelli called 4 times to get an update (we were told to receive it thursday) but haven't yet. We hope to get it Monday. We also are in a quandry for Thursday. They have scheduled an ADHD test for him in Little Rock. Every doctor, speech therapist, teacher have already told us the kid doesn't have ADHD. However, you know as well as I, until it's on paper they will continue to say "parent refused test, possible adhd". It sucks, because we are looking to do a 3 hundred dollar(out of our pockets) test to prove something we already know. Such is life.

Tomorrow morning, no more call. Sigh.

This has to be like the longest week for quite some time. I know alot has to do with me being tired. I been called every night this week on-call and when I get woke up, I find it hard to get back to sleep. This in addition to us not having any rest since I returned last Thursday, adds up to being tired, short and non-emotional.

My wife is feeling better. At least her antibiotics is kicking in and clearing her sinus's up. Now if I can get our kids cleared up then we will be good.

Its already after 11 a.m. and one hour-long meeting done this morning. I have to again pick up our friends kid and bring him here. They then pick him up around 1 p.m. Sorry but this is getting old.

Work is just not letting up. I know I know. whine whine whine.

Waiting for the mail today, curious if my ebay will be in. LOL. I also am hoping those 2 I sent out was delivered today so I can get a good feedback. Guess we will see.

Some related articles of an unfolding story showing the facts of John Kerry in link with Communists.

Here

Here.

Here

Here

The Bullpen is a blog catching this story as well as Wizbang.

And let's not forget, Jayne Fonda had apologized for her actions but John Kerry still refuses to do so.

Mid-day Tuesday and had time to blog for a minute. I didnt have to pick up our friends kid during lunch. But I went to mail out those ebay packages.

I heard from Kelli and it seems they already been able to catch 5 small seizures in their testing. This is opposed to the last 3 times we had this same test. She may be able to leave around 2 p.m. as opposed 5 p.m. I will see. I hope so but I also would like to know where we go from here.

I am catching up with my other projects and primarily some tickets that I needed to catch up on as well. I have Lysol'd the house today again as yesterday. Kelli has a bad sinus infection, thus as of yesterday on some antibiotics on crack. They look like horse pills. The kids have not coughed as bad as when I first came home last Thursday, but I hope to kill the remaining crap around here.

I have supper set out for tonight as well. I will not have to pick up my daughter from school. She has N-gate right afterwards and a friend will bring her home when they are done. So I plan on cooking supper tonight. Hopefully we can all eat together, but I don't know when Kelli and our son will be back home.

A not so busy day, it started out. I was on support today for work and I also start on-call tonight. yeah.

It wasn't bad till around noon then it got busy. But I only have support for today this week, so that's over with.

I actually sold 2 things on E-bay! I was excited. I have it ready to be shipped out to them tomorrow. Cool.

I managed to cook tonight for a change. My wife was having a really bad day, so it was the least I could do. She and my son will be in Little Rock tomorrow for a Doctor's appointnment for my son. I pray it goes well. I will stay here home, with my daughter, taking her to school, ect.

Other than that, a pretty unenventfull day, fortunately.

OK, obviously alot has gone on considering the fact I havent been blogging. Let's see, I finally got to sleep that night and up and atem Thursday morning for my plane trip. I actually arrived a bit early so I was able to get an early flight out of Philadelphia to Dallas. But I wasn't able to travel early from Dallas to home. It gave me a chance to eat lunch. While eating a Air Force guy and I chatted at the bar. It was an interesting conversation in regards to politics, ect.

I finally made it home around 4:30 p.m ( 5:30 p.m. est ). Back in my own time zone and family, I was glad. Even though I was home, I couldn't really stop and rest. My kids had a party to go to at 6 p.m. ( Yeah, 1.5 hours ). So I arrived home, put my clothes in the washer, gave my kiddo's and wife their 'surprises' from the trip and headed over to a Halloween Birthday party. We were there till nearly 8 p.m. My daughter was having a sleep-over there. But after 3 calls to us and 10 p.m. I went to go get her and brought her home. So by that time, I was half way awake again. Didn't get to sleep till late Thursday night.

Friday at work was freaking crazy. It was as if I never left there. I was on support all day and I never was able to stop. I was busy all day. I finally left around 4:30 p.m. to run 3 errands with the kids to be at a rented room in the park for my daughters Birthday party. She turned 7. We had rented a room, magician and had about 30 kids plus parents there. Thank God we had the rented room because we would never had pulled it off at our house. It went good and the kids really enjoyed it. The magician had at one point our daughter and then our son up on the stage. It was cool and I got it on tape. The magician, from Poteau, had a couple of pretty cool tricks, I have yet to figure out.

We got home nearly 9 p.m. on Friday night. Hauled the gifts in and crashed shortly after that.

Saturday morning, I ended up mowing our neighbors yard, and went to grab ( and hauled ) 6 bags of Arkansas white pebble for her front flower bed. They were 50 pound bags, so I got my excercise early in the morning. Since I mowed her yard, I went ahead and mowed our front as well. Why not right? Around noon, we went to my wifes parents house, because they were excited for us to see their kitchen. They had made a lot of work redoing it and it looked nice. They repainted the walls, finished the floor, and sandblasted, painted their cabinets. They also had a guy putting up a front porch for them that was about 26 foot long. Yeah, big porch. We stayed over there about 2 hours and then went to yet another party. This one was for 4-H. We left straight from her parents house in Shady Point to Cameron. I actually enjoyed this one, due to us cooking our weiners over a fire. I hadn't done that in years and enjoyed the conversation with another guy there. I managed to eat 4 hotdogs. LOL We also had a hay ride that night as well. It was fun. We arrived home around 8 p.m. and yes, was tired. Crashing nearly an hour later, as well as showers ect. sleep took us.

Sunday morning we hit the Church and enjoyed being back. With the exception of my poor wife. During all this she still is sick with a bad cold and can't breathe. We agreed not to do any running after Church and we stuck to it. Irregardless, her parents called more than once to have us over to eat out on their new porch. By this time it was completed. Nay, we said. By 2 p.m. we had already showered the kids and everyone was in there pajamas. We tried to relax this afternoon. Now, nearly 10 p.m. at night. I finally been able to just sit and talk with my wife on everything going on. Sigh. So now you know why I haven't blogged in a while. Tomorrow we get to start a new week over. great.