Let it snow

Monday we had our first snow. Now, don't get too excited, it was a very light snow. And when I say light, I mean a couple very light snow flurries. Probably shouldn't even classify it as snow, except I like snow and would like to see more of it.

Redneck Christmas

If you have Nascar's pulling Santa's sleigh instead of reindeer, you might be a redneck...

(Sorry the picture isn't better, but I pulled over along side the highway, with lots of cars speeding by and strong north winds. Click for a larger picture.)

You can find this light display at 126th street North and Highway 169. It is on the west side of the road.

Christmas Tree

I posted earlier about putting up the Christmas Tree, but forgot to post any pictures.

So, here you go.

Reindeer pretzels

My wife is so creative!!!
As many of you know, my wife created my son's halloween costume.

This evening, she made reindeer pretzels.

I helped a bit, but my wife and son did most of the work.

Shopping update

I had planned on making this post on Friday, but the day got away from me.

Anyway, I can give you the detailed version or the short version, and while I was shopping I had planned on the long version, but now that I'm typing I think I'll go short.

I left the house Friday at 7:15 and headed to Tulsa. Hit 2 stores and headed back to Owasso to finish up my shopping.

I ended up getting presents for 8 people on my list (only didn't get 1 person that I really went for), and bought a few presents for the kids as well.

I got my Christmas cards mailed out and I was home by 1:15.

I got the house cleaned up and we decorated our Christmas tree Friday evening.

I'll have to finish up my Christmas shopping in a couple weeks when I have more money.

Shopping

Well, I'm off to see the wizard...

Ok, not really, but I am off to do some Christmas shopping.

(Indiana Jones Theme song playing in background.) Ok, that will also probably be Christmas music, but you get my point. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I wanted to take just a moment and wish everyone a wonderfully Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you have a very good day today and can hopefully spend time with some friends and family.

I'll get to spend the day at my parents house eating too much WONDERFUL food. It should be nice day. My sister and her family will be up too. I'm sure I'll help my parents put up their Christmas lights.

Anyway, I guess I need to get around.

Have a good day all, please be careful as you go about.

Interactive Voice Response Systems

I hate them! Absolutly hate IVR's. Occationally, they are ok and they help me out, but that is about once every 100 times.

Well, Thanks to some handy recording of some interesting short-cuts, it may be possible to skip some of the "push 1 to return to the main menu, push 2 to scratch your butt", and actualy talk to a real person.

Anyway, here is a list of commands to by-pass the IVR's and get to a real person.

Christmas Lights

I finished getting my Christmas lights up tonight.

I was given some lights from my grandmother, and I wanted to get them up before going to my parents on Thursday because I'm taking everything I didn't use to them, plus some stuff my grandmother wanted them to have.

Anyway, here are the pictures.

Joke of the Day

Well, This is just too funny not to share, and you are the lucky ones I get to share with.

Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.

System requirements

I almost forgot how hard PC games were on your computer. And what I mean by that is the minimum and recommended requiremetns are that your PC needs to be.

Seems like it gets higher and higher. Now, I realize that as machines get faster, it is only natural that games use what they are given.

It also amazes me how far back my PC is. On a day to day basis, my home machine is fine, but it couldn't even begin to push these newer games.

Here is an example.
I ran across a game called Earth 2160 today. It really looked interesting to me. So I decided to check out the system requirements. Was I surprised.

Minimum:
Operating System: North American version of 2000/XP with latest service Packs
CPU: Pentium 4 1.5 GHz or equivalent
Memory: 512MB Ram
Hard Drive Space: 1.5GB
Multiplayer: 56kbps

Recommended:
CPU: Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or equivalent
Memory: 1 GB Ram
Hard Drive Space: 2.0 GB
Multiplayer: LAN or Broadband

Anyway, guess I'll not be getting a new PC game anytime soon.

Ouch!

Ouch, I hurt.

I hung Christmas lights on the house yesterday and I'm sore. Moving and climbing the ladder, up down, up down, up down... I started around 1:30 or so, and finished around 7:30 or so. Thought the house is starting to look really good.

Hopefully I'll get the outside decorated before thanksgiving, so that will be one less thing I need to do on the weekend.

HEAT!

We have heat again!

Actually, we had it last night. One of our friends is a Heat & Air guy. I called him yesterday and asked him to come out and look at it. He confirmed my theory. The exhaust fan died. Actually, a fan blade rusted off... That isn't good. New motor would cost about 30% of a new unit.

The old unit was an 80% efficiency unit. We ended up getting a 93% efficiency. Hopefully we'll see some savings there!

We got it mostly set up yesterday. We had heat last night, but there was more to do today. My friend came over today and finished up.

Ahhh, a warm house.

Thanks Dave!

brrr

I bet you are going to guess I'm going to talk about the fact it is 6:47 am and it is 31 degrees according to my digital thermometer. Well, other than bringing that up, you would be WRONG!

I woke up early this morning, so I got up and around. While sitting in the living room reading my Bible, the heater, which has been making some noises (not as bad as they were), came to a crunching halt. It sounded like someone literally threw a wrench in the fan motor.

So, I turned it off until we can get it looked at. It was 64 degrees in the house we I did that. It is currently 61.2 and dropping.

Bunny Rocky Horror

A friend sent me this link today, and I was amused.

I use to be a huge fan of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I loved it in college.

Well, if you haven't seen it, here is the 30 second Cliff Notes version... with Bunnies.

Yes, the actors are bunnies. hehe

25 - 34

I just took a survey tonight, and I am still amused that I can answer that I am in the 25-34 age bracket.

I only have this year and next to answer that question, then I become middle aged.

Almost Time!

Well, it is almost that time. Thanksgiving!

This is one of my 2 favorite holidays!!!

Turkey, Ham, mashed potatoes, cranberry sause (the kind in the can that comes out looking like said can), homemade rolls, sweet potatoes with marshmallows. Then you can't forget about the pie a couple hours after dinner... (like there room for the pie right after dinner)

Then there is going through the sales cataloges and figuring out the shoping schedule for early Friday morning. Usually, when I come home on Friday, I've got most of my Christmas presents bought.

We already have 6 Christmas presents bought.
We still have about 9 presents to buy, plus finish up my wife, son, daughter, and my wife may have more shopping for me.

A cold front is to come through, to that should help the weather get back down where it should be and really help get me into the mood.

December 13th Vote

Well, it appears that residents of Tulsa County will be voting on December 13th.

Ted Wright had a sample ballot on his cvilleok.com web site. You can view the sample ballot here.

There will be 5 items on the ballot.

1) Juvenile Center & Courthouse Renovations
2) Tulsa County Parks
3) Phase 3 Expo Square
4) Improving Selected Tulsa County Roads S-Curve
5) Cell Phone Location For 911 Dispatchers

So, you can expect to start seeing more about all of this on the TV and Radio soon.

Successful Party

The party was a great success.

She didn't have the 50 people she first said, or the 20 she figured would show up, so other than having more food than we needed, things were about perfect.

There were a few people that were not able to make it, so that was sad, but there were several people here. I think overall, maybe 15 people showed up, but only about 9 for dinner.

My wifes ice cream cake was a hit! It was good, but too sweet for me. Course I'm not a huge sweet eater.

About 10 till midnight, the last 2 boys left. My daughter and her 2 friends that spent the night went upstairs to watch amnityville horror.

I think eveyone had a good time. Most importantly though was my daughter did.

Birthday Party Prep

We are having my daughters birthday party tonight. She's almost an adult even if she thinks she already is.

I'm hoping we wont have more than 20 or so people show up.

We are having a huge Mexican Extravaganza.

Homemade corn tortillas, chicken fajitas, homemade salsa, homemade guac.
She is having a ice cream cake. For those who don't know has an oreo cookie crust, ice cream, brownies, cool whip, hot fudge.

Well, still some cleaning to do, so I better get to it.

Say a prayer for me, after the party, a few girls will be spending the night.

This should be fun.... I hope.

Lost

Well, last nights Lost was good.

I'm not going to say much since my cousin wont see it till this coming week.

All I will say is from the commercial that says one of these will be lost forever, I see 3 possibilities on who that might be.

Microsoft... BAH!

At work, I have been beta testing Mircosofts Visual Studio 2005.

I go to upgrade to the offical realease version, and this is what I am met with.

For best results, install on a computer that has not had pre-release versions of SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005, or the .NET Framework 2.0 installed on it.

If your computer has any of the pre-release versions on it, they must be removed in the correct order BEFORE you begin installing the release version. This process is not officially supported.

Um, hello, I've been beta testing your stuff and you aren't going to make it easy for me to upgrade?

*sigh*
Doesn't make me want to beta test anything else of theirs.

Visual Studio 2005 - FREE

That's right, you can now get a free version of Visual Studio 2005 from Microsoft.

From the way I read their FAQ, you have 1 year to download them at no cost. After that year, you will not have to pay a license fee, so they stay free.

You can read all about it here.

Here is a quote from their page about these "Express Editions".

Lightweight, easy-to-use, and easy-to-learn tools for the hobbyist, novice, and student developer.

You can get Express Editions for:

Visual Basic 2005
Visual C# 2005
Visual C++ 2005
Visual J++ 2005
SQL Server 2005
Visual Web Developer 2005

If you are interested in programming and want to upgrade your software library, now is the time.

Lords Army

Last night we had a Sunday Night Sing. Basically, anyone in the church that wants to sing can. We also had a woman from another church sing last night too. It was awesome.

However, in my own personal highly biased opinion, the best song sung all night was from my boy.

Listen! - Sorry, I'm having technical difficulties. The link I posted earlier isn't working.

I was so impressed. He stood up on stage while I held the mic for him, and he just went to town. Especially on the second verse. He didn't do the motions, but that was ok.

I was so proud of him! The people in the audience didn't phase him a bit. He even looked around at the people while he was singing and didn't just stare at me the whole time.

:)

The week to come.

This is going to be such a busy week!

Today, I woke up early and once I get to work I have about 10+ things I HAVE to get done, and it will be hard getting them all done before the end of the day.
Tomorrow, we are going to my parents place. My sister and her kids are up. This will be the first time I've seen it since I helped move them in, and definitely the first since they've unpacked.
Wednesday is Church.
Thursday, finish getting ready for my daughters 17th birthday party.
Friday, my daughters 17th birthday party! We are having a Mexican extravaganza as I put it. Home make corn tortillas, cheese dip, home made guacamole and who knows what else. She's planning on inviting a lot of her friends over.
Saturday, my sons last soccer game this season.

Anyway, this should be a very busy, and hopefully good week... If we can get to the end of it.

Pirates!

Wow, now this was an interesting article! Imagine, being on a cruise with your sweet heart, and while on the cruise, pirates attack your ship, and try to board. They didn't use cannons and swords though, they used rocket propelled grenades and machine guns.

Well, that is what happened it Seabourn Cruise Lines' "Spirit" Saturday morning as they travelled off the shore of Somalia.

Now those people will have stories to tell!

You can read about it in this CNN story.

Windows XP Firewall Grayed Out and black screen

As I discussed yesterday, I'm working on another computer ravaged by viruses and spyware.

Well, after finally getting the machine cleaned up, I installed Windows XP SP2.
After the install, the screen went black after it got past the windows screen.
I finally went in through Safe Mode (F8) and the only thing I noticed was there were 2 video adapters installed. I disabled the on board video card, and all was good.

Well, with that part.

I went in to make sure that the firewall settings were turned on. Not only were they off, but they were grayed out. What I found was a program (probably a spyware program) put in the following 2 registry keys, both under the WindowsFirewall folder. With these keys disabled, even if you put Windows Firewall on your machine, it will not work, and it isn't easy to figure out. (I've spent hours.)

Under normal circumstances, the keys do not exist, so just delete the keys, reboot, and all is good. Well for me they were anyway.

As always, if you don't know what you are doing, don't mess with this, you screw up your registry, and you'll have a very bad day.

Anyway, here is what you need to delete

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Polices\WindowsFirewall

Here we go again!

You've heard me complain before about viruses and spyware and how to fix it. Well, I'm working on someone else's computer from my church. They had close to 350 viruses and about 113 spyware entries.

They had a virus scanner, but from what I could tell, they never updated the software, or hadn't in a very long time. Task manager would not even open, everytime you tried, the spyware/viruses would kill it.

Luckily, I had Spybot and AVG burned onto a disk with the latest updates. So cleaning this up has been better than when I worked on my grandfathers machine a few months ago.

I'm working on installing Service Pack 2 for XP right now. Once I turn on the firewall, that should help a lot. Still have a lot of work to do, but the machine is working so much better now. Will be even nicer once I'm finished.

There's a mouse in my engine!

You know what's so funny about that title? For me, today, it was true.

I just dropped my boy off at daycare, and was headed to work. Just as I was getting on the highway, I noticed a leaf and what appeared to be some kind of worm between the hood and the front left quarter pannel.

As I glanced at it, the worm started to come out, then back in, then out again, then back in, and finally completely in.

"That's a mouse!" I thought to myself.
Well, I couldn't take the suspense, so I got off the highway and pulled into Walmart, popped the hood, and there, in the engine, was a cute little grey mouse!

"Get out of there!" I screamed at him, and to my horror, he crawled down into the wires, hoses, etc. never to be seen again.

I hope he doesn't chew through any of the wires or hoses.

So, anyone know how to get a mouse out of your engine?

Can you get some Cadavers at the store?

There are some days, what you read isn't what is written.

We have a white board on our fridge that we put items on when we are out so we will remember to get them at the store. Well, yesterday, I glanced on there to see what was there and I read

Butter
Dish Soap
Dish Washer soap
Cadavers

Needless to say, I did a double take. What was actually written was

Butter
Dish Soap
Dish Washer soap
Cavenders

See cadavers are dead bodies, cavenders is a type of seasoning.

Don't want to get those confused.

Halloween weekend

We had a good Halloween weekend.

My wife and son went to a spook hay ride Saturday night and got home about midnight. After church Sunday morning, my wife wanted a nap, so my son and I stayed up and played, and tried to let her have her nap. By the time she woke up, I realized we didn't have any pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns. So I grabbed the kids, and we ran off to Walmart to get 2. When we got to Walmart, no pumpkins outside... that's ok, inside we go. None there either unless you count the bitty ones, and they don't make good jack-o-lanterns. So, we run to Home Depot since they were suppose to have some... none there either. Ok, I will not be deterred, but we are running out of time. Off to Reasors we go, but on our way, we passed an Albertson. Let give them a try. We pull, in and find some.... YEA! The kids pick out theirs, we pay and head home. Because we are in a hurry, I take a turn just a bit to fast, and my daughters pumpkin rolled across the floor of the car, and the stem broke off... I was in trouble. She has spend a lot of time looking for the perfect pumpkin. We get home, and while they are getting ready for the Harvest festival, I hot glued the stem back on the pumpkin.
Sunday night, our church had a Harvest Festival at the Skiatook Community Center. It was a lot of fun. We had a good turn out. Everyone was impressed with my boys costume.

As we were leaving, I told my wife that all his costume needed was a few lights on it, since astronauts usually have some sort of lights on their space suites. So off to Walmart we go.

She bought several of the rings you wear that when you press, they flash. We put 3 on his costume. It was cute.

Monday... Halloween... I left work later than I wanted. It was a busy day. When I get home, we start working on the kids jack-o-lanterns before the costume parade downtown. Just as we start I get paged. When I was done, so where the kids. :(

We got to the parade, and it was a lot of fun. We had so many complements on his costume it was really cool. My wife did such a wonderful job on it. She is so talented that way. :)

After walking down main street and seeing all sorts of costumes and getting some candy, we went to the fair barns for free hot dogs and hot chocolate. Then they had the costume contest. My boy was so excited about entering the contest. There were so many good costumes in the 4 & 5 year old age bracket. He won his bracket!!! He got $15 cash for his win! Which, as he has told several people, he plans on spending on a new video game. :)

Afterward, we hit more of the businesses in town and the church next to our house, then we went off the my in-laws to go trick-or-treating in their neighbor hood. My son got several pounds of candy when it was all said and done.

It was a lot of fun.