a theme lost to the retailers

christmas is not what i remember it being as a kid. i am not so old that didnt get excited about getting presents, but i am old enough to remember that my parents did instill into me more than just the thought of giving and receiving at this time of the year. christmas to my family was and still is about family. even tho we live rather close to one another, we still use the holiday time to gather around the dinner table. we still give presents, but only to the kids.

i have always enjoyed this time of year because of the good food and conversation with family members i dont normally see. also it is my dad's birthday.

the retailer have made it very difficult for my wife and i to teach them about the true meaning of christmas, the christian aspect as well as the family aspect. the wal-marts, k-marts, best buy and so forth all want you to focus on spending money and buying presents. they even want to remove the word christmas from the season! what? why is it that today we feel such pressure to please every single living sole on the planet? why can't we just let christmas be what is was supposed to be. a christian holiday marking the birth of jesus.

bah-humbug to the retailers
tms

remember when?

i remember when i was a teenager i would get indignant and mad at my parents when they would try to coach me or show me the right way to do things. funny how i am now experiencing the same thing in reverse!

getting my due
tms

a stroll trough the woods

ever just take a walk into the woods and actually look around? i mean really look around and see whats out there? lately the family and i have gone hiking. actually the past three weekends we have. i really enjoy the outdoor walks through the woods and the fresh air. the only thing i am regretting is that i am not taking the time to really see whats out there. most of the time i am walking with my head down looking a few feet in front of me. before you ask why, let me explain. one, it's difficult to navigate the trails we have taken without some forward glancing at the path ahead or you will trip and fall a few hundred feet off the side of the trail. second, i tend to walk fast and there for i stay behind the slower people to make sure i dont leave the pack. if i keep my head up, i tend to get close and kick their heals and such. this habit of mine tends to inhibit my being able to really see whats out there. dont get me wrong, i still very much enjoy my hiking with my family. just that maybe one day i will go by myself and take my time to see whats out there.

looking ahead at the trail before me
tms

um, glad I dont have a jeep

jeep recovery

ashley this is for you

pedro

been a long time

work has finally slowed down enough for me to post a few comments here and there.

one of the most talked about items today is the south carolina win over florida in football. i am a carolina fan, tho i never attended the university. but by growing up in the capital city of south carolina and the university residing in the same town, it's hard to not be a fan. with that win the ap pols ranked us 19. that's a pretty generous ranking from bing unranked prior to that game. that's the kiss of death for all previous sc football teams. once ranked, we never lived up to that potential. hopefully this year will be different. new coach, new attitude, new style of players and playing. time will tale.

this is great!

banjo's

cute

here is a neat little video that i am sure took some time to create, but is was done well. for those of you on dialup....sorry, it's big

spasmodic

and the moral to the story is?

forgotten little girl

doggone

it seems that our dog delima is no more. it appears our neighbor has tied the guy up as we have not see him in two days. just as things seemed to get bad, they didn't. hmmm.....

doggiedoo
tms

back!

well i was never really gone, but.....work is happening right now and i just don't have the time to post much info.

it seems that we have a bit of a dilemma in the hood. our neighbors have decided to keep a stray lab like dog. that in itself is not a bad thing, but the dog is aggressive towards them, us and our pets as well. they also feel they can't afford to neuter or get shots for the dog. now it's a problem. yesterday he attacked my little lhasa and almost bit my step daughter as she was trying to pull him off the little guy. My wife talked to our neighbor and he just blew it of like the dog was playing. sounds like we have an issue now. need to try and resolve this without creating an enemy across the way. since our neighbor is not intelligent enough to realize his "new" pet is a problem to others, then maybe i need to deal with the pet. try to deterr the dog from coming over to our house and peeing on our porches and attacking our dogs and growling at us. i do the dog is not all there. maybe that is why our neighbor likes him. two of a kind.

school around the corner

every year school starts sooner and then they get out around the same time they have always gotten out. with all these extra days of school, what are they learning above and beyond what they were learning a few years ago? test scores continue to be low, so one can assume more school days is not the answer. tho who am i? just your average every day dad with three kids in school. i know nothing.

shopping this weekend for school supplies was horrendous! schools want them to bring so much to class every year and they use maybe half if that much. this year we are playing it a little safer. only buying what we think they will need and then wing it for the rest. save a little money and not waste a bunch of paper and odd things supposedly required.

todd and i were going to go kayaking this weekend up clouds creek and back, but it rained all day sunday. needless to say we couldn't go. have to try again next time we have a free weekend. i was really looking forward to paddling a little as i have only been once in the lake.

learning disabled
tms

cycling

as everyone already knows, i used to be an avid cyclist. the years have caught up to me since i quit ridding, but i have been getting a little cycling fever lately. an old riding buddy and co-worker of mine has my very first "real" italian bike frame. it has a little age on it, but i used to ride that frame when i was very good. he is going to give it to me along with some parts. hopefully i will be able to get it back in running condition and start riding again.

anyway, here is a link to some cool bikes. cool bikes

riding off into the sunset
tms

boo!

scared ya didn't i!?!?!

we have a new member of our culdesac. he is a rather large yellow lab that has decided to wander into our quite little neighborly area and create a little tention/excitement. he is definitely a stray as he is emaciated. it looks as if he has been shot with a pellet rifle. our dogs are very curious and are not sure how to react. be friendly or be aggressive. thankfully they tend to lean towards the friendly side, and so is the new lab. our next door neighbors, neighbor has decided to keep the big guy and (hopefully) get him his shots and neuter him. if they do, then he will be a good guy to have in our little circle world. :-)

summer is almost over and i don't remember it starting. time goes by way too fast when you get older. i attribute it to always having something to do. unlike when we were kids. time seemed to go on forever.

school start in two weeks. the kids have been staying up til midnight or later every night, so they are going to have to start going to bed at 9:00 from now on to get back into the groove of things. they are hating it.

staying up late is something that i never really found to be "all that". why is it such a draw to them to stay up late? all it does is make you lose more of your day the next day. i would much rather go to bed earlier and have more daylight to work and play in. just my opinion. of course this whole website is just my opinion!

opinionated
tms

this is classic!

how the computer works

remind me when I get old to not do this

old men

um..hello? anyone there?

sorry guys, work has been a little hectic lately and i have not had time to post much of anything. to be honest, there really has not been too much to talk about!

my step daughters birthday is this weekend. she will be 14 going on 25. already begging to drive the cars. that would be a big no way!

after a little over a year, i have finally gotten the two dump truck loads of sand moved from out in front of the house to various areas of the would be yard. i know, i should have done it in a weekend. I just tend to be slightly slow in that arena. next up would be the deck on the back of the house.

sweating it out with a shovel
tms

and people wonder why i don't watch the news

click here to read what i mean.

big foot

i have always enjoyed things supernatural. there's just something about it that makes me want to believe. big foot is something of a phenomena and i consider it in the realm of the supernatural. the below site is dedicated to finding the bigfoot or yetti or sasquatch.

waiting for bigfoot

cool video

according to the person who submitted this video, the performers are hearing impared.

click here for video

why anyone would do this is beyond me.

hey! look! it's my place!

tommy tutone - 8675903

anyone remember that song? i do. here is a guy with way too much time on his hands. he actually dialed that number using every area code that has the 867 prefix. kinda interesting

jenny, are you there?

for the kid in all of us

bigwheel

hiking in the mountains

hopefully if the weather holds and the planets align (which they truly are right now)we will go hiking this friday. it's been awhile since we have gone. last time was a trip to table rock. a must for anyone who can exert the energy to see a wondrous view from the top of a granite mountain.

this weekend we will go a different route. same area, but different trail. we will not see the wonderful view from the top of the mountain, but will see a beautiful stream for most of the hike and huge trees that must be over 100 years old, some small caves and maybe a few wild creatures.

hiding in the caves
tms

4th of july

is quickly approaching. two things happen this weekend. first and foremost is my wife's birthday! happy birthday sweetie! i love you very much!

second if the celebration of our nations independence. this deems pretty important in our times today. it was the beginning of what we call freedom. freedom is special to us, as it's the foundation of our society. with our soldiers fighting over seas to help protect our way of life, we should truly be thankful for what we have and what they are doing to help preserve it.

this guy needs to be slapped!

yoga

in case you were wondering

shelf life

a house is a house, right?

home for sale

rant again?

i know i have covered some of this before, but today just seems like a day to express.

music....music should be an journey. traveling along the musical plane. carrying you into a world of sensory overload. drifting along the waves of beats and rhythms.

lotus notes....i am not sure if anyone reading this even knows what lotus notes is, but i have to express a little. this week has been notes week. corporate is changed from a server based lotus domino environment to a mainframe domino environment. this has caused us to have to migrate the server on people's notes client. it should be as simple as changed a server name, but NOT! it's been hell week for sure. along with the server migrations we also have a client upgrade. this is the upgrade from the 5.x client to the 6.5.2 client. again, you would think that all you need to do is upgrade the software and be done with it. NOT!

i guess i shouldn't complain. i have a job and i definitely have work to do!

work'n it
tms

here's a cool little link for ya

mud jake

braves win

well they actually win three games in a row. they have not done that in a long time. it was good to see them hit the ball and scrore runs.

anyone have a few hundred thousand dollars they want to donate to a good cause? you can donate to me! i am in need! :-) i really dont need that much money, but hey, while i am asking!?!?!?


money hungry
tms

um hello? hello? anybody in there?

my bad. have not posted in a couple. not much going on right now in the world of the sun. just trying to muddle my way through the mundane repetative duldrums of work.

braves win! braves win! they are not doing too well at the moment. hopefully that will change. they are starting many rookies and i am sure that has contributed to their no quitting attitude. they are fighting every day and that is exciting to watch.

summer seems to have showed it's lovely head. sun, sun and more sun! i love it!

shinning brightly
tms

p.s.
if anyone is interested in a little darker side, then you can visit my other blog. aimless posts. beware, all kind of things lurk in the shadows of my mind and they come out on the pages of that blog. those easily offended should not visit.

starwars disappointment

i am a huge sci-fi fan. as if you hadn't noticed and after this weekends movie marathon, of watching star wars 1, 2, 3, and 4, i must say that i am finding the acting and character's to be a little under par. now that i have had time to actually watch them and really look at them, i am disappointed. i feel episode 4, 5 and 6 are actually better with the story line and acting, then 1, 2 and 3 have been. episode 1 was the best of the first three. the acting was decent and the story line decent. after episode one, it went downhill. the worst acting job would have to be actor who played anakin skywalker. in episode 2, he was almost an automaton. very re-hersed sounding lines and no emotions unless he was angry. the other actors did a better job of creating the appropriate emotion for the scene.

on a better note, it is really neat to watch episode 4 right after episode 3. i now understand it better and see things in it that I didn't see before. it's rather enjoyable. i assume we will watch 5 and 6 this week to complete the series.

the ultimate critic
tms

starwars - episode 3

going to see starwars episode 3!! since the wife has not seen episode 1 or 2, we started watching those last night to get prepared for episode 3 this weekend.

avoiding the clone
tms

conversation from the office

at work yesterday we started a conversation about marriage. it is uncanny how many of us have married people that remind us of our parents. i feel that i have done that. maybe that is why i get along so well with my wife. we fit very well. i see many thing in her that i also see in my mother, personality traits, mannerisms, ideals, and others.
we talked about people marrying too young and/or too quick. my parents are an exception to that rule, but many are not. i married my first wife when i was 27. i was an immature 27, which i would say alot of men are in their 20's. i did not really know who i was and what i wanted. i married because i felt that is what i was supposed to do. my coworkers that have been married more than once stated the same ideas.
we also talked about how people do not seem to want to work towards a relationship. they feel like they are the only one right in the relationship. but it takes two to make it work, and it takes two to make it go awry.
something the minister told me and my wife when we were about to get married is to not leave your partner in anger. always give your partner a kiss and hug bye. never go to bed angry. these ideals are good practice.

trying to practicing what i preach
tms

weather-r-us

after one of the prettiest weekends this year, rain is again upon us. what i find interesting is that with all this rain, we are still below normal. huh?

i was reading yesterday and today about apple computers switching to intel processors. i find this move a good one. risc processors are wonderful processors and perform great, but they do not lend themselves to desktop computing as well in cisc processors do. by this i mean that the home computing world is dominated by intel and amd. both are cisc processors. most of the home computing software including the majority of games, are designed around the cisc processors. with this being said, apple is now opening the doors for game developers to port their games to the unix/linux os. i truely hope this happens. i have been a proponent of the *nix os's since the early days of redhat. my only complaint has been the gaming industry's reluctance to port their games to that os. with apple now using the cisc processor, it will be much easier for the gaming industry to do just that, port away!

prayer: may the braves win a game. amen

hoping for a win
tms

among the stars

as you may already know, space fascinates me. if you look at the links on the right you can see a link for apod. apod stands for astronomy picture of the day. it is a great tool to get educated on the current happenings in space technology and also what space is all about. they post a picture every day that relates to space in some fashion. they then give a great explanation of the picture and create many links within the description of other sites that my have similar information about the picture. have a look if you are even remotely a space buff.

word of the day - paragon - a model of excellence or perfection

try to use the word in your everyday conversation. u would be surprised how many of them stick with you after you do that. expanding your vocabulary is a good thing! :-)

happy monday
tms

word of the day

troglodyte - 1. a member of any of various people who lived or reputed to live in caves 2. a person characterized by reclusive habits or outmodded or reactionary attitudes

i can name a few people that i have felt were troglodytes. i even work with a few of them. :-)

fridays are days of waiting

i would assume that i am like most. fridays are a day of waiting for the work day to end so the weekend can begin. if not, still, that is me today. hopefully it wont be a long day as even tho it has been a short week by day count, it has been a long week by the way it feels. :-(

i normally do not write about my personal life in my blog. today i am making an exception. i truly want to go hiking and kayaking soon. the problem? rain and cool weather. it has rained for two weeks. we had a record low/high on sunday last weekend. what is that you say? it means that the high temps for the day were the lowest ever for may. we have yet to see many day above 80. normally this time of year we have 90's. the water in the lake and rivers is still a little too chilly to kayak without any wet wear. i don't own any as it's always so nice in the summer. i have videos of may dad and i kayaking in april. no suck luck this year.

weather report for friday.......overcast with rain. wonderfull

soggy in sc
tms

after the holiday

i guess by now you can tell that i do not write in my blog over the weekends and on holidays. i find that i am too busy to try and put much thought into it when the weekends are here. the holidays are even more booked.

in my previous post i ranted a little about a package i sent via fed-ex. well tomorrow i will be able to file a claim on that package. i also found out that i did not put enough insurance on the package. not sure how this will turn out yet, but will try to let you know.

rain, cold rain at that. one day summer will actually arrive and the family and i can go out on the boat and potentially get sunburnt.

wet on a wednesday
tms

hmm...... what do you think?

i was reading another blog today and they are posting a picture of the day. i like that concept, except i want to do a word of the day.

todays word: gadabout - a person who flits about in social activity

know anyone like that?

happy friday

i have often wondered how packages get lost when shipping ups and fedex. they scan the packages at every checkpoint and that information is uploaded into the system. then how does the package just disappear?

this very thing happened to a package i sent to orlando fl. is was shipped out on may 19 and arrived in orlando on may 20. it was scanned again on may 21. it has never been seen again. where did it go?

good thing insurance was put on the item. now it's just a matter of time before they tell me they cannot find it in the lost and found and they pay for the cost of the package.

on a different note. woohoo! long weekend! we have monday off in observence of memorial day. then i have taken tuesday off as a vacation day. nice 4 day weekend.

as i mentioned in my previous post, i am going to the braves game sunday. can you tell i am excited?

waiting the day out
tms

braves vs. phillies

sunday, may 29. the braves will beat the phillies and i will be there to see it all!

this is my second game this year. i have already doubled my game total from last year. 1 :-) next year we plan on taking the kids. have to mortgage the house to make that trip.

catching the chipper home run
tms

what? the week's not over yet?

long day.

oh, yeah, it's been a long day.

dragging around the sundial
tms

if anyone was interested in what i look like, here is a pictrure of me

music, mind candy

i attribute my love for music to my teenager days. i did my share of experimenting, that is my story and I am sticking to it. during those times of experimentation, i used to get lost in music. back in those days, my music of choice was black sabbath and rush. i had most of their albums on 8 track (telling my age now) and if i didn't have an 8 track, i had the vinyl album. today my music choice is of the mellow genre. i still like to hear the dark hard metal of yesteryear from time to time, but i truly enjoy a good beat and catchy rhythm's. with my 1 hour drive to work and 1+ hour drive home, i can really get lost in the music during those travel times.

some of the artist i enjoy today are ohmega tribe, sounds from the ground, theivery corporation, electric skychurch, and many others. i listen to internet radio at work. the best internet radio that is commercial free and has a great music library is www.somafm.com they have several station to choose from, and the groove salad station is by far the best if you are into mellow trip hop and jazzy grooves.

fading away into a song
tms

the joy of monday

i didn't want to get up this morning. it was one of those days that i could have slept for a few more hours.

still waking up
tms

did anyone order rain?

your order of rain is served!

sloshing into the weekend
tms

what? another weekend?

it is upon us, another weekend that is. we have rain today but that is not supposed to ruin the weekend, at least the weather people are touting that statement.

i wonder how much money the movie industry is going to make on the new star wars. it's is amazing to me at the people who wait in lines weeks ahead of time to just get a ticket to see a movie. hello! the movie will be shown more than once! after that it will be on video and you and buy it and watch it as many times as you like! it baffles me.

spyware anyone? if you are a reading this, then you know about all the nasties on the net. spyware is, in my opinion, one of the worst. it clogs and bogs the system down to almost an unusable state. to rid you system of these little critters, you should use a combination of remedies. ad-aware se, microsoft antivirus beta and spybot s&d. the 3 punch combination is sure to produce a knockout.

raining in cola town
tms

space the final frontier

i have always been a space buff. i find it very facinating and amazing. especially the distance. einstien determined that nothing could travel faster then the speed of light. this has yet to be disproved. so the distance of objects in space are measured in light years. think about that. something that is 1 light year away, would take an object 1 year to reach it traveling the speed of light.

here is something to ponder. the closest galaxy to our milkyway is canis major dwarf. it is a mere 42000 light years away from our galactic center! the closest star? proxima centauri. it's a mere 4.22 light years away, obviously it resides in the milkyway.

to put it in perspective, it took the voyager space craft 3 years and 2 months to reach saturn, if that space craft wanted to go to proxima centauri, it would take 75000 years! obviously we have not mastered space travel yet. at least not in a manner that allows us to travel beyond our solar system.

food for thought
tms

another monday bites the dust

as the work day draws to an end, the weather is threatening to rain.

i threw out grass seed this weekend in hopes of actually having a yard this summer. the rain has eluded us for about two weeks and it could not hurt to get some today. maybe, just maybe my grass will start to grow and some semblance of a yard forms in front of my house.

may the evening greet you with a filing dinner and a tall glass of beer
tms

america's past time

baseball that is, and if you live in the south, it is braves baseball! i am a huge fan. i can remember watching the braves with my dad as a kid. we didn't watch it much, but i do remember watching. in the 90's, i started watching consistently. i watched the worst to first seasons and from then on it's pretty much history. that is if you follow baseball.

i find that each and every year, i get frustrated at how they can win one or two, but not be able to put together much of a run until later in the season. it's not much of a complaint of mine as its just frustrating for me to watch. win two lose one, win one lose one, and so on.

they are in first place today, and will probably be there all year, barring something bad happening. i just wish they could make a good run early in the season. to make it less frustrating for me. will someone call the braves organization and tell them? :-)

posting just for the act of posting

i monitor several forums on a daily basis just to see what is interesting in the world of microsoft and hardware. I am not one to have much to say in the forums as i am just wandering around listening to what others have to say, catching a tidbit of useful information here and there. in my forum adventures, i am finding that people just want to be heard. it's not that they have anything useful to say, more in that they just want to have their typing voices heard. for someone like me, who is listening in, it is difficult to get to the meat of the subject for all the chattering going on off subject. this leads to my point. posting just for the act of posting, sucks. it cloggs the avenues of real discussion and makes it difficult to find the destination. if you must comment, then make it relevant.

ranting
tms

mondays thought for the day

if you didn't already know, it's Monday. if you didn't, then wake up!

technology is something that i am a part of daily. new and old. i am old enough to remember seeing one of the first personal computers available. i was young and have no idea what model, but it was a tandy. i never knew that one day personal computers would be how i make my living. Todays kids have never known life without one. i personally have 5 running in my house now. one for each family member. i wonder what will be available when my grandchildren are born? what technology will they have on a daily basis that we today have either never seen or think of as being far fetched? an interesting ponder.

happy computing!
tms

it's the weekend baby!

woohoo!

time to leave the dulldrums of work and move towards the western setting sun. driving blindly. subconcious taking me home, driving me through the line of smog emitting metal boxes.

tms is outa here!

Friday!

do you ever find yourself waiting on the weekend? i try to not do that, as i feel that i am wasting my life away. those days that i am wanting to just get through are days that i should be enjoying. i feel the same way about sleeping late too. i hate it. first i just feel bad when i sleep past 8 or 9 am. second i can get alot done in the morning while others are sleeping. a sense of accomplishment is achieved!

another full weekend ahead.
see ya on the other side.
tms

kids

i am not sure kids were put on this lovely planet to bring us joy as in a bundle of joy. i truely feel they are here to remind us how we were when we were kids. to be disobedient and spiteful at times and friendly and funny and loving at others. the kicker is that the time between the moods is about 2 seconds.

i can only take pleasure in knowing that one day they will have kids of their own and payback is hell!

tms out.

One day I will figure out how to post a picture......One day

The newest of new!

Hello, obviously this is the first post. Hopefully the first of many. Time will be the teller of that story.

To get started, this is a first for me. A site that provides feedback that is. I do have an original site that I have had for years. I post there all to infrequently. If I ever had any followers reading the site, they have lost interest by now. It was designed to look like a news paper front page, or that was my intentions. :-) I may just use it to post family things instead. Things like creating webpage christmas cards and email the link to family and friends instead of wasting money on postage. Who knows. There are many creative ways to use a web page, if only to find the time and Just Do It.

I hope to use this site as an avenue to express and reveal insights into the world of TheMiddaySun.

l8r!