Williamsburg, VA in February

imageAmy and I spent last weekend in Williamsburg. It was actually pretty cool because I found out a lot of things about how Virginia played into the revolution. Here’s a couple of interesting things about the area:

  • The Virgina Declaration of Rights preceded the Bill of Rights after the signing of the Constitution.
  • imageThe Virginia colonies were the first to declared independence from Britain at the Fifth Virginia convention and told the Virginia delegates to propose total colonial independence before the Continental Congress in Boston.
  • Thomas Jefferson attended the College of William and Mary here which still has the oldest building of higher education in North America standing at it’s entrance.
  • imageBasically Virginia always revolted first from the Williamsburg Capital. Therefore they had a large armory where the powder kegs to the right were stored.

    Amy wasn’t happy that I didn’t take her on a ride in a horse drawn carriage. image

    Instead I took her on a tour of North America’s first insane asylum now called the DeWitt Wallace Public Hospital. Nice accomodations.image

    That’s when she had me put in the stock for the rest of the day.

    So I was right in the middle of Duke of Gloucester St. ready for everyone to throw rotten cabbage at me.

    Turns out that one week ago I was right where the revolution really started and tomorrow I’m leaving for Charleston where it all ended.image

    2001 F150 Supercab

    imageHere’s the insurance settlement for the Mustang. I’m starting out with 34,545 miles on the ODO (I don’t buy new cars – I despise the immediate depreciation). I found this and several trucks on autotrader.com. Then I started calling around and emailing the dealers. I finally bought this one at University Ford in Durham. They were extremely easy to work with. From the time I got to the dealership until the time I left with the truck was less than 2 hours.

    imageI’m pretty happy with the deal I got including an extended 3 year 36K mile warrenty and gap insurance for an extra $495.00. I never have to worry about the possibility of being upside down in an insurance settlement again. Only bad thing is that it already needs an oil change and I just drove it off the lot a week ago. Oh well, that’s nothing compared to how I’ve been screwed on ebay deals recently.

    The Coolscan scanner is proving to be bear to install under XP because of the SCSI drivers. And I won a used Minolta X370 from some guy for $27.00 and he shipped me an old Maxxum 3000i with a broken lens instead. I’m trying to stay civil to get it resolved because I think it’s pointless to argue with people via email.

    Sony-Ericson T237

    Sony-Ericson T237Update 02-20-05: I cancelled this order with Cingular. I’ll be staying with Alltel and my cell number will remain the same.

    I just ordered (yet another) new cell phone and I haven’t even told my wife yet. The good thing is that it was only $29.95 and no shipping or sales tax. It’s not the worlds greatest phone but it should work for my purposes and I’ve heard that Cingular has decent coverage in North Raleigh. We’ll see. It has an optional camera phone that goes with it for $44.00 if I feel like I need it later.

    Look for pics of my new truck tomorrow. It’s sad but I haven’t been feeling well enough lately to even go to the driveway to take the photos. I’m also going to hook up the Nikon Coolscan that finally arrived a few days ago so I can start scanning slides. I know stomach flu wreaks havoc on most people but try it with Crohn’s. It will probably take until this time next month before I completely recover. I feel pretty slack about my entries. Obviously I’ve had a lot to blog about lately, I just haven’t made the time to do it.

    What a #*@%!! week.

    Two new employees started in the IT Dept. at Dillon Supply – 1 permanent, 1 contractor. That was enough to keep me slammed at work with everything else going on: Telecommunications carrier meetings (MPLS or Frame?), server builds, incompatible KVM switches, what else?…too much to mention.

    imageAmy didn’t get her car back until Friday. Good news: it looks and drives better than before she crashed it. Bad news: Last Monday she got rear-ended in my Mustang by a Ford F-250. No competition, the Mustang’s totaled. I got enough in the insurance settlement to take care of the loan. Now I’ve got to find something to drive. Probably a truck.image

    For now I’m driving a 2005 F-150 until Wednesday courtesy of Travelers Insurance and Enterprise. It’s a beast on the road but surprisingly it’s grown on me and the Santa Fe feels really small now. I may have to stick with a full size pickup. I just don’t know what flavor: F-150, Silverado, Dodge RAM?

    Tax Time. e-file!

    Our Federal returns have been accepted and are being processed, the State takes 5-7 days to “accept” the electronic return. State an Fed combined we’ll get just enough back to cover Amy’s fall tuition and books. I used Turbo Tax for the web. I highly recommend it. It was easy and fast.

    what…WEATHERBUG!?

    imageI apologize for my lack of updates lately. I’ve been slammed at work and at home. More work, more birthdays (my dads this time) and then more work again. Today Amy loaded AOL Instant Messenger on my primary PC at home so that she could chat with Katie. Innocent enough. But then to my shock, horror and embarrassment I found Weatherbug on my Start Menu tonight. I’m not sure what saved me from the stroke. Devinne intervention?

    Ad-Aware to the rescue – save me now. Sure ‘nuf, 13 data miners were found, quarantined and deleted. Whoa. I still feel violated. The machine seems healthy. Amy didn’t know any better. And like most people she doesn’t understand my concern. So for those who can’t see the “big deal” – Weatherbug is spyware. It loads cookies (files) on your PC to track where you go o the Internet. And AOL is happy to load it for you with Instant Messenger unless you specifically say no. To explain how robust and efficient it is I’ll let the fact that it made 76 connections to 13 sites for traffic reporting in the 9 hours it was on my PC stand as testament. And now I’ve done my “end user support” duties for the evening.

    In my world AOL stands for All Outta Luck. Stay away from it at all costs. If you must use IM software, please use Yahoo Messenger. Your PC will thank you. Just for the record, I let Amy keep AOL IM installed. I cleaned off the rest of the garbage it came with.

    At work all night.

    Tonight I am stuck at Dillon Supply – blog at the ready. We got hit by a morning snow shower that lasted until 3 p.m. The two inches of accumulation wasn’ t really the problem but the freezing roads caused five and six hour traffic delays. Obviously I didn’t want Amy coming to try to get me in the Mustang so I waited… and waited… and waited… FOR WHAT? I ain’t going anywhere.

    So a little while ago I’m roaming the halls in the dark and what do ya know, Larry Thomas the Raleigh branch manager is still here. Said he’s here for the duration. Next thing I know Ed Todd, the Accounts Receivables manager, shows up in the bathroom to brush his teeth. Said he made it two blocks in one hour so he turned around.

    It doesn’t suck here. I have a 3MB Internet connection to myself, a vending machine and a toothbrush. Roll on…

    But I’m missin’ my buddy Connor tonight. I love him more than I can squeez him. Amy too. A picture of Connor playing in the snow was on wral.com today in the January 19th snow photos.

    How to get a free Mac Mini – for real.

    Here’s how to really get a Mini Mac for absolutely nothing. Follow these instructions exactly and you will get zero spam and no charges on any credit card. It’s done by referring friends.

    1. Go to the link below fill out some info (use a spam trap email account like hotmail etc. if it makes you more comfortable).

    2. Next click “No” to all of the optional offers presented (unless you’re interested in the garbage).

    3. Then when you come to the place where you must select one “required” offer choose the eFax.com offer which is free for 30 days. It is one of those deals where you have to cancel in 30 days or you’re charged.

    If you cancel the eFax account within the 30 day trial period and you get 10 people to do the exact same thing I’ve detailed here you will get a Mini Mac for free. The $600 80GB one.

    Get your free Mac Mini right here!

    It’s snowing!

    imageConnor was urging me to open the front door this morning so he could look outside. What do ya know? It’s snowing. And just three days ago it was 70 degrees here. Amy was dressed first so she got Connor together and took him outside for his first walk in the snowflakes. She couldn’t find our digital camera so she got his pic with the camera on her phone. I’m pretty impressed with the quality of the images we can download off the Audiovox 8910‘s.

    Camera phones are a must have with kids. It makes it so easy to collect pics that our parents missed (or never got developed). Later this afternoon I’m going to burn our entire photo directory to CD and back up the mySQL database running this blog to an excel file or something I can import later if necessary.

    Who’s cruzin?

    imageToday Connor entered the world of full blown walkin! He made it from my office all the way down the hall to the living room where his toys are. That’s where I caught this pic just ten minutes ago. We don’t have a baby anymore. We have a toddler!

    Now his plan is starting to become obvious…. mommy and daddy will never rest again.