It was one year ago tonight that I decided to enter into the world of blogging. It’s been fun. I wouldn’t say that I’m a better writer now than I was at this time last year, but I have had a good time with this.
Also, I must admit that I have enjoyed looking back on the past year and seeing/remembering what happened in my life these past 12 months.
Then there’s Google, who I have loved watching this past year. I’ve learned a lot about the Googlebot. Some top search terms for me for the year:
I’m sure there’ll be lots more coming this next year. Some serious, some helpful, and some just pretty much worthless. All of it will be worth reading. Really…stay tuned. 
This morning I spent time with my son not once fearing that anyone would force their way into our home. I worked in a yard that, for the past 3 years, I have called my own. Never in the 3 years I’ve been here have I been concerned that someone would try to forcibly take my house. I bought supplies at a Home Depot and didn’t have to wonder if the guy next to me in line was wearing a bomb. I bought groceries in a store where I wasn’t ridiculed and singled out because of my race or religion. I spent time with friends over cheeseburgers, hot dogs, and baked beans. We never feared an air raid from US enemies.
A lot of “Monday” holidays are (I’m convinced) just an excuse for government offices and banks to have a 3-day weekend. Memorial Day, however, is a good one.
Today when I was moving rocks around my back yard, I thought about what Memorial Day has always meant to me. I’m sad to say that it always hasn’t been more than a brief showing of appreciation to a few living veterans followed by a day of not working. All the veterans I had ever known were old and couldn’t fit into their military uniform if their lives depended on it (Hi, Reed), so I never had experienced first-hand the sacrifice these soldiers (and their families/friends) make.
All of that changed in August when our friend Joshua Dingler was killed in Iraq. Now the face of that 19 year-old kid has become, in my mind, the face of the good people who gave their lives for all that freedom I enjoyed today. May we never take that freedom for granted.
Randall Goodgame wrote (speaking of a pair of camo pants he bought at a thrift store):
I said they’ll never fit me, and I guess they never will.
I ain’t never cleaned a gun; I’ll never take any hill.
Sometimes soldiers die setting people free.
That’s more like Jesus than I’ll ever be.
To all of you folks who might be reading this that ever served our great country, I thank you. And to all the families who weep a little harder on Memorial Day as they remember their family members, know that this free citizen has learned to truly be grateful for your family’s committment to this country. I will gladly remember the men and women who died to make and keep this land free, whether it be just another day of working in the yard or the last Monday in May.
The AJC (usually not worth the paper it’s printed on) has a nice memorial for some of Georgia’s fallen soldiers, including family friend Spc. Joshua Dingler.
The tribute is here. You’ll have to register to get the content. (sorry…I couldn’t find a way around the registration, but if you put in bogus info, it will work).
I’ve been lobbying for 4 years to get my employer to dump Sprint and their PCS network. I’ve decided that PCS stands for “pretty crappy service” because for the past 4 years, I’ve had to deal with missed calls, dropped calls, bad signals, low signals, and poor customer service.
But the purpose of this post isn’t to bash Sprint…that’d be too easy anyway. We made the switch to Verizon this week. Verizon may not be wonderful in all areas of the country, but here on the NW side of Atlanta, it works great.
With Sprint, I had a good Samsung phone, but in this migration to Verizon, I did a migration to a PDA phone. I compared a few models, and the XV6700 is the one I chose.
The XV6700 is a great PDA. It’s got a full querty keyboard that even my big fat thumbs can use. Screen resolution on it is nice. It’s a little bulky, but it’s a PDA phone…but considering it’s a PDA, it’s not really that huge.
The reviews I saw said the XV6700 is a great PDA and a mediocre phone. The “features” complained about most were low speaker volume, no voice dialing, no modem support, and you can’t have the wireless NIC and the phone enabled at the same time. There are fixes to those issues.
- The volume isn’t terrible, but it is kind of low. A headset fixes that problem.
- There is voice dial software for Windows Mobile. I got it working with zero problems…and it does more than just dialing phone numbers.
- There’s a registry hack for the modem support (for using the phone as a modem for a laptop).
- There’s a registry hack for enabling the wifi and phone at the same time.
Out of the box, I’d agree that it’s a great PDA and a mediocre phone. With the tweaks, I’d say it’s great for phone or PDA usage.
I was on my way home from work recently and saw this. I know there’s no point in proving the obvious, but there’s probably a doubter out there somewhere. (click image for the bigger version)
I’m excited about a CD that’s coming soon to my mailbox. Andrew Osenga has finished his new CD “The Morning” and will be sending it my way in the very near future. I don’t doubt the excellence in any Osenga project, but I’m especially excited about this project.
Many months ago, Andy ran into a small problem in the CD recording process: he was out of money. With no major record label funding his projects, Andy is faced with the task of raising his own funding. In a very open and honest blog post, Andy asked for input on how to raise funds to complete the record.
Then, in a way that still gives me chills to think about, there was an outpouring of love and support from the community at andrewosenga.com. We sent in pre-orders; we sent in cash gifts; we literally got ourselves into the recording process.
The result is something special. The support from the web site was a tremendous encouragement for Andrew. When I saw him in concert shortly after all of this happened, he was so excited that he could barely stand still while talking about it.
That excitement has flowed into this CD, and when I listen, I can hear that excitement in his voice. “The Morning” is more than just a “well, I suppose it’s time to record something” type of record. It’s the song of a musician excited about producing his art and about the loving community that’s willing to support an artist.
Get “The Morning” as soon as you can. Come join the community over at andrewosenga.com. And learn to get personally involved with the art (and the artists) you love.
I got back from lunch today to find that I had 48 new comments on the blog. Wow. I must be popular…nope. Well, I’m popular, but that’s not why I had 48 new comments. It was all spam. Stupid spammers.
About 3 minutes after I deleted all the spam, I got hit again with more spam. I asked the almighty Google, and he suggested that I try Spam Karma. It’s a spam-eating plugin for Wordpress that actually works pretty well. Setup was as easy as copying files into a directory and activating the plugin.
I’m no veteran user of it, but from what I’ve seen in the last 7 minutes, I like it.
My boss came back from lunch on Friday and said “We’re going to eat ribs next Thursday.” I asked where, and he gave me his speech about not asking too many questions. I’m usually not one to go blindly into a restaurant referral, but I’ve known Floyd for more than 4 years now, and he’s not let me down once with a dining suggestion.
Today he told me we couldn’t wait until Thursday, so we drove over to Shombe’s for lunch. They used to do only desserts and sandwiches, but recently the guy started doing ribs and chicken. I’ve got to give the man credit - he knows how to cook ribs. The meat flavor was amazing. The BBQ sauce on them was spectacular. And I’m not usually the type of person who enjoys ribs.
Then we got some chicken to sample. Wow. I got part of a thigh (and I’m not a huge fan of dark meat chicken), and it was full of flavor like no BBQ chicken I’ve ever had. I put some of that sweet, spicy sauce on it. Wow.
Then Floyd and I split a slice of pecan pie. Oh, man. And I hear the banana pudding and the peach cobbler is even better.
So throw the diet out the window for a day and head on over to Shombe’s. He usually has the ribs Thursday through Saturday. I might have to go back on Thursday. Yeah, it was that good.
Happiness is Barry Bonds without a home run in 8 games.
If you were in the Cracker Barrel in Ringgold, Georgia last night about 9:30, those kids were mine.
I’m sorry.
