Thanksgiving Past

We hosted the Thanksgiving dinner again this year.  Everything ran smoothly until the cutting of the turkey.   Lee and I first drained the fluids from the cooking bag and then proceeded to cut up the turkey.  Of course, that went like clockwork, with the precision honed by years of cutting turkey.  Then came the ham – same procedure.  The we were ready.

Next came the prayer and we dove into the food as it was near 1300 hrs.  The preparation of the food was very good and we want to thank SAM and anyone else that was up and at it about 0600 hrs.  After the feast came the dishes and we put those in the new dishwasher. Lee took a nap, the young ladies talked and so did the mothers.  All too soon everyone started departing.  We had 12 souls in attendance this year from all sides of the family.

WalMart tonight

We went to WalMart to night and I was somewhat surprised to see a woman in full Burka.  The accompanying man looked to be Middle Eastern and sort of rough.  I think I heard that some Iraqi refuges were brought into the community. None of the college students or wives wear these.

It was cold out tonight – in the lower 20’s.  Expect teens tonight.

http://www.change.gov/page/s/economy

My thoughts. 

 Jobs:  If GM is allowed to go under , pulling Ford and of course Chrysler, the Indiana, Michigan and Ohio should be declared disaster areas.  The President-elect’s 2.5 million jobs will all come from this one arena.  Think deflation as the loss of this many jobs will devastate the whole USA with the Great Lake area as the spear point.  Please legislate a bridge loan to protect these icons of the United States of America.

National Health Plan:  Everyone talks about the bad aspects but I think a NHP can succeed and be viable.  Move the autoworkers from GM to the NHP to make the automotive industry more competitive.  Move Medicare and Medicade in also.  Sure it will mean higher taxes in the long run but it will be worth the peace of mind knowing that a run of bad luck will not wipe a person out of a life savings.  I would rather pay a little at a time over a lifetime than have it all go at once:  Think of it as a Saving Plan.

Saving:  Reward people saving money for old age via a 401K or 401K like saving plan that is tax free.  I was in the start of the 401K era.  I saved every year since then and have a reasonable nest egg.  Terminate the 70.5 years age forced drawout.  Why force it since people are living longer and may need the money when they are real old.

Israel:  Support

NAFTA:  Support, with some changes, Mexico and Latin America.  They are our best trading partners.  We will need them to help stoke the fire and bring the USA back to burning.  Canada.  same.

May God bless your Presidency!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m17pz0R_qZo

Lots to post

Man, has it really been a week since I wrote anything for this blog?  I have been fairly active and been put through some trials – you try to ditch a nagging, bad habit!  Anyway, it appears to have been done with the help of Jesus.  Allergies persist.

Today I went to Caruso’s for a luncheon for a South African missionary who is working in Mozambique up by Maupula.  He has translated the New Testament into the local dialect of the Makhua Xirima peoples (about a million souls).  He was an interesting guy who can read early Greek and Hebrew fluently plus Portuguese, Afrikaans and English (and others).  His stories were realistic and full of interest.

Today we also received our new dishwasher – a Kitchen Aid – and it was installed by the time I returned.  It is black and under-the -counter type.  Interestingly it takes much longer for a full cycle than the 30 year old one that broke.  The new is certainly not of equivalent value and I doubt it will last 30 years  without repair.

Earlier in the week I did about 6 Geocaches and would like to continue on that path for a while.  I have been staying inside too much and I feel cabin fever very strongly.  I do get out on Wednesday where I am outside security for the church children (about 100 on any given Wednesday) but need some daylight time outside to get the vitamin D from the sun.  I need it! Here are some Geocaching photos in Steuben County, Indiana. [slideshow=4]

Flying Inflatable Boat

I was going to add this last night but I became too tired to write.  This is from YouTube and is real.  You can purchase one from a guy up by Detroit for between $26K – $35K.  Thse are really cool toys for the people who like their things to fly.  Since I have been a pilot for over 40 years I would love to have this toy.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1OZz_HQL_Q&NR=1

Facebook

I spent the morning updating the Facebook personal information and inviting a few people to be friends.  The use of Facebook looks a little convoluted and it will take a little time to learn the terms,e.g. My Wall.  I tried to upload a .jpg twice but could not find where it was located – it could be a corrupted file and was discarded as I saved it from a .psp (Paint Shop Pro) to a .jpg – so I gave up on that.

I do not know if I will find value with Facebook or just use my blog at http://charleswmoore.org/wordpress/index.php .  With the new plugins I can generate albums / galleries and add links to YouTube easily.  I digress.  I generated a Facebook account only because I wanted someplace to put the “Class of 63” pictures I took this summer and wanted it to be available to classmates without using Classmates.com

My son says to Lighten Up.  So I will start by adding some tags to my  blog(s).  This little article will be Facebook & Charles W Moore.

Continual Rain

I spent some of the day working on a page of the ITSMichigan website.  There is a new committee – Outreach – that will govern the website.  While needed, I liked doing my own thing when and how I felt like it.  All that is about to change.  My code is mostly hand done and I got better as I went along.  Much later I added CSS to generate 1, 2 and 3 column.  I continue to do most of my theme and formatting with CSS and “style”.  What needs to be done is to take the present level of knowledge and generate a new site.  Somehow I do not have the heart to start completely over from scratch.  However, I feel compelled to continue since I breathed life into the site more that 5 years ago.

I just surfed the net for the rest of the day.  I called my son in Texas but forgot about the time difference and got him at work.  Later I called but he did not answer.  I finally got a call through but he couldn’t talk because he had a friend over and was working out.

I pieced my way through dinner and finally went to McDonalds for a Cheeseburger & a cup of coffee.  I got both but forgot to tell them I wanted decaf so I ended up pouring it down the sink.  I made some decaf at home.

So much for the ramblings of an old man with a low key site.  I must admit I enjoy developing the site and adding plugins to WordPress more than the writing.  It keeps my mind occupied.

A good afternoon at last

Since the last post we have had bad weather but this afternoon there was some sunshine!  It was a great afternoon (1) Updated the ITS Michigan Membership page, (2) My westerly neighbor mulched his and the westerly neighbors leaves, and (3) the sun shown all afternoon with no rain.  Thus far this year there has been no strong west wind to blow the westerly neighbors leaves over to us and to make things better it has been wet so the leaves are heavy.  Only 20 or so loads of leaves thus far and the trees are almost totally bare. Yea!

Last night I spen from 1900 to 2100 hrs outside in the rain directing kids and traffic.  I had on my lime green vest with the reflective tape.  Why you ask?  Well, the Pastor wanted a couple of volunteers to reduce the number of children darting between cars at the Wednesday night studies.  There are a lot of children from 3 to 19 years old running around – I would estimate about 75.  It was a good night to start this new safety program as it was dark and rainy.  I worked out pretty good except the children did not listen to an old man too well.

I did not sleep well at all last night.  I am not too sure why.  Hope I get some sleep tonight.

Quicken: Does Intuit have a back door?

A Moscow-based password-recovery vendor today accused Intuit Inc. of hiding a backdoor in its popular Quicken personal finance program that gives it — and perhaps government agencies — access to users’ data files.

In a statement released today, Elcomsoft Co. Ltd., a Russian maker of password-recovery tools, said Quicken versions since 2003 have used strong encryption designed to foil hackers. But those editions also have a backdoor that unlocks the encryption with the 512-bit RSA key that Intuit controls.

AT&T and Verizon -head to head

AT&T just scooped up Centennial Wireless and that gives them a big roaming advantage in Indiana and Ohio plus some parts of Michigan.  Verizon is buying Alltel and that will help them in SW Michigan plus a bunch of other areas.  It is the epoch of the big boys and they are buying all the smaller players to get spectrum and coverage in areas that they are not well represented.  It is going to take something like this to get 3G and 4G nationwide.  However, will prices go down?  I doubt it.

My brother has an iPhone and it is all we can do to avoid becoming involved with that phone.  Here is a guy that just started using email a couple of years ago and is semi -computer literate.  Now he has the toy everyone wants but doesn’t not want to pay the recurrring monthly 3G fees.  That is where I am.  I would like to have Internet on the road and email too but I will not pay $99 per month to have that.  If I was not retired then I might spring for the $ but as it is I need the $ for other things.