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Blogging will resume shortly

The Montreat Youth Conference was simply amazing.  I have LOTS to blog about.

As soon as I get all the pieces together I'll start posting.  Please stand by.

On the road

I'll be on the road with the church youth group trip to Montreat from Saturday the 26th through Saturday the 2nd.  Blogging will likely be non-existent during this time.

See you next month!

A short break

Blogging will be light this week.

I really do intend to post something about the all-church retreat this past weekend, but I'm still catching up on sleep and I have several meetings in the evenings this week.  The short version of the story about the retreat:  it was HOT, it was fun, and I connected with different people than last year.

Also, I'm wondering if anything unusual will happen next Sunday.

I got invited to the Deacon end-of-year picnic tonight along with the other newbies, but I have to miss it because of a meeting scheduled months ago that will take up 3 hours of my time tonight.  Sorry, but for those of you who don't know me I'll meet you later sometime.

Sorry about the spam

Yesterday, I followed a link and signed up for reunion.com.

The site asked to look at my Contacts in my e-mail account so that it could tell me which people were related to me.  What I didn't know was that it was going to send a spam e-mail to EVERY account that I'd ever sent or received e-mail from.

Please accept my apologies.

Blogging will be very sparse this week

I'm going to a training class in Philadelphia this week.  That means getting up early to take the train in and getting home late.  There is no computer access at the class (too cheap to provide wireless), so I won't have any access except in the shortened evenings.

Blogging should resume next week.

Vacation Warning

Attention readers!

Starting later today, I am on vacation.  Blogging may slow dramatically or stop completely for a week.

Carolyn's plane from Germany just landed at Newark (we pilots know where to look on the web to follow these things).  I hope she was on it. :-)

Tonight we rest.  Tomorrow it's off to NYC.  We're staying at Intercontinental The Barclay New York for 2 nights.  Sunday we go to the matinee of Spamalot.  (Our first date was 20 years ago Monday to see Monty Python & the Holy Grail at Rutgers.)  We'll probably go Catholic for church - St. Patrick's Cathedral is a few blocks from the hotel.

Monday we head home.  No plans at all for the rest of the week.  I might fly one day.  Mostly both of us need the downtime so there might be lots of snoozing with cats.

See you in a week!

Vacation and topics

I will be on vacation next week.

This is not a "go somewhere and see the sights" vacation.  My wife and I (and my entire family for that matter) tend to plan to do too much on a "go someplace" vacation.  What I NEED right now is to relax - to plan one activity at day at most and sleep until my body says it's had enough sleep.

But who are we kidding - I'll be doing some stuff.

Monday I plan to go to Camp Johnsonburg and help out replacing light ballasts and fixtures to complete their conversion to lower energy lighting.  They have to have it done by the end of the month to get the grant from the local utility and they still have a ways to go.

Later in the week I plan to go flying again, since my blood pressure is under control again and I can.

My wife needs to replace her 1996 Chrysler Concorde, and we'll go car shopping next week.  We'll combine one trip with my need to get the oil changed in my Highlander Hybrid.

On Sunday, my church is holding a choir concert featuring works inspired by the Song of Solomon.  THAT should be interesting.

I know that I owe you a few posts.  One on Youth Sunday - if you can't wait until I get that written you can go here to see pictures, or here to listen to the sermons (April 22, 2007).  I also owe you a post on the opera Rigoletto by the Boheme Opera company in Trenton - that'll get done soon.

I also want to write something about the loss of church members when they graduate from high school and drop out of church during or after college.  It hasn't gelled yet, so I'll be writing that when the spirit strikes.

I'll be back at work on the 14th.

OK, that's out of my system

Please excuse the negative posts from the last few days.  One of my hot buttons got pushed, and I lashed out a bit.

If I've upset or offended you, I'm sorry and please let me know.

I intend to start blogging happier things now.

My Schedule

Blogging may be light for a week or two.

I work tomorrow and Friday.  Tomorrow my boss is taking us out to lunch.  Friday is the company lunch.  I hope to be allowed to leave early one or both days.

After that I'm on vacation until January 2.  I hope to fly one more time with my instructor sometime between Saturday (not likely - bad weather) and January 1.  There's a TINY chance that I could get my instrument checkride in during that time.

While I'm not going anywhere for more than a day, I probably won't be online as much.

Comments

E-mail from my last post seems to indicate that TypeKey is hindering folks from commenting.  Today begins a new experience to see if not requiring TypeKey will work.

If spam gets too bad, I'll have to turn TypeKey back on again.

Is anybody reading this?

I sometimes wonder whether or not anybody is reading this.  Or if they are, if they're getting anything out of it.

I know - the counter on the left hand side shows that some are reading.  However, nobody is leaving comments.  Or sending me e-mail.  I'm just talking to myself.

Please consider this an opportunity to de-lurk.  And if the comment process is too difficult, just click my e-mail address on the left and send me a note and I'll work on that.

Comments

A user e-mailed me and let me know that comments were not working.  I believe that I have fixed them now.

Sorry about that.

TypeKey now required for comments

Due to massive comment spam, I have turned on the requirement for TypeKey authentication for comments.

If you have a comment that you want to send anonymously (as best as you can), I suggest e-mailing it to me directly.  If it's appropriate I will publish it.

A Few Updates

It's been a little quiet here. There are a few reasons.

1. My boss has assigned me a hot project, that is going to require a lot of thinking and take up my daytime.
2. I've been burning the candle at both ends a bit. Every weekend for the past few weeks I've had either work (data conversion on Sunday - a career hazard) or family on one of the two days. The other day, I've been doing my flying lessons and trying to get the chores (cut the lawn, pay the bills, etc) done. No rest time.

A few updates on milestones:

1. I've done my first 2 cross-country trips for my flight training - both to Cape May. I have a longer one to do, then the dual long cross country, plus my solo cross countries. This is going well.
2. The solar panels on the roof are complete and fully in use! See my other blog at Smith Electric Company for more info.

I'll post more when I have something important to say, or I'm not in such a time-crunch.

Solar Energy; Out of Office

All but one of the solar panels have been installed on our house. The remaining work on the outside will be completed on Monday - we expect the electrical work to be completed May 18 or some day that week. See the project site at Smith Electric Company.

I will be attending a training class in Philadelphia next week, so postings here will be few and far between.

Amazon and Books

Over on the right-hand side of the page, you will now see a list of books and an Amazon.com link.

Typepad allows it's users to automatically link to Amazon.com when posting a list of books. They also allow us to use an Amazon.com Associates program ID to get credit when one of you clicks on the link and buys something.

As of yesterday, I am a participant in the Amazon.com Associates Program. I get a little commission when you click one of the links on this page and buy something from them (or in a few other circumstances).

So, if you were planning to buy a book (or anything else) from Amazon.com and you want to help me pay for this site, please consider coming here first and then clicking the link on the right. No pressure, and I probably won't mention the program again. Thank you if you choose to do so.

All Set Up for Now

Ok, I've got this site all set up for now. All kinds of stuff should start flowing now.

Refugee from Blog-City

I'm a refugee from Blog-City. You can read about it at my other blog: Smith Electric Company

This site will be cleaned up to look better shortly. Please pardon the inconvenience.

First Post

This is my first post on TypePad. I'm still testing layout and things.