| November 2005 log |
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Thursday, December 1, 2005 Suprise today - the new laptop came in. Friday, December 2, 2005 Spent most of the day working on getting my laptop configured- installing sofware and configuring that to match my old computer. It's like this: Find a copy of a program in the archives, install it - opps, you need to have a previous version isntalled. Go find that and put that in, but you need to get an access code over the internet it to run on your machine-- well that doesn't work because it's an old piece of software and the company was bought out by Sony. Call for tech support - they are closed until Monday. Ok, I'll do this on Monday then. Saturday, December 3, 2005 The morning went well, started out working on getting the JetSki up the hill and in the shed. It was interesting to say the least. What ended up was that we took the 'boat' off the trailer, then slid it up the snow bank to the shed. The last part, where it was rather steep, we had a rope through a pulley on top, and used that to drag it up. The trailer we just carried. By 9:30, I ran down to the office to add some software to this here computer, and picked up Tom at Home Despot. He needed to get some sheetrock home, and needed the space in the truck. Once home, I continued working on balancing the books, while the kids sled outside. Sadie and Madilyn came over for the afternoon. About 3:30 we packed and went to find a Christmas tree. Finished working the VISA section of the books, which was good to get done. I'm using MS Money 2005, as it came with the computer and better than Quicken 2000. Later on, I ran the Iott kids home, dropped Lina off, stopped at Office Max to get some UPS's for the office. And after supper, Tom and I and Titus put a couple sheets of rock up in the garage ceiling. Sunday, December 4, 2005 Again I went to church with Barney and family. We did Daniel 12, and again, it was very good. Jessica's car was giving her some trouble, so Barney and I took
a look. It wouldn't start--not even click with the turn of the
key. After fixing a bad ground wire, we didn't fix the problem.
So I towed him to the nearest mechanic. Sitting in the parking
lot, I needed to move the care because of other people coming in,
and it started right up. So we drove it around for a while. Once that was all done, I went home and chilled. Did some work on the computer and watched a movie. Monday, December 5, 2005 I was on phones today. Spent the best part of the day taking and entering orders. Interesting day - trying to field all the calls. Started to clean up around the desk - straightening wires and the like. I think the electronic stuff is where it's going to go for the next while, so I can nail some things down. Wednesday, December 7, 2005 Another phone day - wasn't as crazy as Monday, but good to be able to get more familiar with the process. Mailed out an update today. Funny thing - no returns from the list - which is about 170 people. Friday, December 9, 2005 It was a bear-bones day - just Rachel, Lloyd, Tom and I in today. Faith and Ken were homesick. I spent a big part of the day trying to get a good photo of an award we received earlier this week (well, Wednesday evening it was.) I will post some of that later on here sometime. Saturday, December 10, 2005 Today was a good day - there was an odd job needing done in the office, and it was a perfect time to utilize the man's motto: "A job's worth doing when it adds to your tool box." It wasn't a big job, but without the right tools it would have been rather difficult. With Home Despot right next door (a block away, really), but in this case convenience is not always the best. $51.38 later I was good to go. Nothing like have the right tool for the job. About 5 minutes later, that faucet was replaced and working like a charm. Now, had I not taken this opportunity to expand on my tool assets, this job would have taken me much longer - it's hard to say how long really. Also spent some time shooting photos to be used at PlanetIcthus.com - a store that some friends of mine run. Spent about 3 hours today shooting product photography as well as cutting the photos out and building the different photos needed to display an image. Typically, there are 4 pictures needed for every item - thumbnail, detail page, zoomed image and a thumbnail for the zoom page. Not feeling the best this afternoon, I cleaned up a little and headed home. Lina and Noby made pizza. Sunday, December 11, 2005 Thankful that I was feeling better this morning. I had thoughts that the flue was on, as many people at work / home here had it this past week. I thought it was McDonalds I had for lunch (which, in all reality, probably was.) Barney was gone this weekend, so I drove to church instead of catching a ride with them. North Country Chapel is where I've been going lately. The pastor finished up Daniel, and not wanting to start another book before the new year - he was in 2 Kings 13 today. He contrasted Elijah and Elisha, where Elijah didn't die, but Elisha - who had a double portion of Elijah's spirit and who's ministry lasted twice as long, did die. Different plan God had for the 2 people. The other thing was that the King of Israel (Joash) was asked by Elisha to do some different things, but his heart didn't seem to be into it. An appeal for us to do what ever we do with all our hearts. There is no room to say "one day I'll get around to praying more, or serving God more" because it seems that day never comes. What we have is today. It was a nice time this afternoon for a nap and some time off. Monday, December 12, 2005 Phones today! My diploma came in today - from New Tribes Institute - Associate
of Arts in Intercultural Ministries. It lookls like I will be working in the SEO world to help Barney in this. It will give us some redundancy in this as well - but there's more than enough work for the both of us for sure. This will help us win key phrases that people are searching for - to help get the messge out to people who are looking. Tuesday, December 13, 2004 Today was another day. And - forgot what all happened. Sorry. I think I was on phones. No, that wasn't me. I did install PHP / MYSQL / IIS on my computer to be able to play around with it all. Unfortunatley, I didn't get things running the way I needed. MYSQL is giving me fits, and I'm not sure what to do about it. Wednesday, December 14, 2005 Barney and I spent the day down at ABCINET.NET working on configuring the servers there. We wanted to get more done, but Marc was busy all that time, so we took off at around 3:30. On the way home, we decided for Barney to go to his dad's the next day, because Marc was still busy. Then I figured I should go too, as he was thinking of driving at night - an 8 hour drive. Thursday, December 15, 2004 Well, I guess this day started at about 11:30 Wednesday night. Woke up, took a shower, stopped in the office, then picked Barney up and we drove to west of Salem, Oregon. Yeah, that's what I said. I did all the driving, while Barney did all the sleeping. It was ok - because then he was awake for spending time with his father - which is were and why we went. We arrived at about 9:00 am, and hung out for a bit. I went to take a nap and didn't last but till 11:30a. I imagine I'll go to sleep early tonight. Barney and his dad went shopping, and I stayed home working on
MYSQL (...to no avail!) But I did take a walk and took some photos
from around the house. Ok, just so you know, MYSQL is now configured and working. The magic word is "root". 3 days of thinking about and research to find that out! Friday, December 16, 2005 After breakfast, Barney and I put a new computer desk together. The projected hour-long project took us about 1.5 - 2. Not too bad for a quick vacation break job! We drove down to the ocean today. Saturday, December 17, 2005 We drove into Dallas, met Emily and Jarrod. Emily is Barney's sister. Here we had breakfast and hooked up to the internet for a bit. Then Barney and I went to town - the other town - Salem to look at iPods. And look we did. In fact, we looked so much, that we came home with 2 of them - one each! Very interesting piece of equipment. You'll hear more about this later. We got home later, had supper then Barney and I went to see his mother. We spent about an hour there, and headed back home to play harts with Frank and Randy - Barney's cousin. We only played 3 games, and it took us to 12:20 am. I didn't win any, but that's ok. I think I learned a couple bits of info, though, to help in my next hearts adventure. Sunday, December 18, 2005 Woke up at 8:00 so we could leave by 9:00. After packing and
breakfast and all that needs to transpire before hitting the road,
we left by the crack of 11:15. I managed to get some shots of inside
the house before leaving. On the way back home, the weather started to get rater blustery.
The wind was west, and we were heading east. Wasn't the most fun,
but we managed. We did, however, have time and energy to stop at
Multnoma Falls. We wanted to climb to the top, but it was closed
for that part. Freezing rain and strong winds were the next hour's endeavor. Thanks to the Lord's grace, we made it through just fine. I think we passed about 12 wrecks - nothing serious that I could tell - just fender-benders from getting out of control on the ice. It was 65 mph, but I slowed to 55 or 60. (It's not bad if no one's around you and it's a straight shot!) On the corners I did slow a little more. Only slipped once. Monday, December 19, 2005 Phones day! It wasn't too bad, really. I was expecting lots of last minute orders, but none came, save 1. There was the unusual customer service call that had to be dealt with, and that eats up time like you wouldn't believe. Most of the rest of GoodSeed was packing DVD's! I think they filled
630 sets. Total to date packed I believe is over 2,000. After supper, started workin on developing video for the iPod. Some good ideas and tried a couple different things with that. It does seem that this will have a lot of potential - but they are still rather expensive. But - what we develop here will be able to be used in other parts of the web too. Tuesday, December 20, 2005 Finished sending the Stranger DVD for an Angel Award. We'll find out several months from now if they deem it worth. I also applied for memebership to ICVM. We were memebers many years ago - when we finished the Taliabo Story and Delivered from the Power of Darkness. Wednesday, December 21, 2005 Was working today on gettting familliar with the audiobook feature of the iPod. It's interesting, but yet a little frustrating, because it doens't operate as I think it should. But hopefully it'll evolve into something a little more friendly. But it is handy as it is to be sure. The idea today is to make The Stranger available as an audiobook for the iPod as well as video. Another neat thing today - learning to mouse with my left hand and not rely on the right all the time. While the right still works, it does get sore if I use it consistantly all day. So - it's neat how it works, but I have 2 mice on my desk now - one for each hand. One right-clicks, and the other is reversed, which, I think, is pretty cool. Thursday, December 22, 2005 The Legers left today to go to NM for the holidays, so I now had the house to myself. Today was a day in the office - and went to Lloyd and Faith's for supper. Salmon was the main course, and very good. Friday, December 23, 2005 Today was a day off - and I took advantage of that at home - reading, went to Walmart, and watched a movie. Saturday, December 24, 2005 I went with Barney and his family to church, but when we got there we couldn't find a parking spot! People were leaving already, and we were early (well, by Barney's standards -- 5 min :) So, we came home, and brought in Barney's Christmas present to his family - a love seat made of pine logs. Once everyone got home, we pulled the website and watched the service live on the net. It was pretty neat to be able to do that. Sunday, December 25, 2005 Russ woke me up at 8:30 - making sure I knew what time and all
to come over :) So, after a shower and whatnot, I made it over
in time to watch them open presents while I ate my cinnamon buns.
Once that was
over (yes, it did take some time...) some of us went down to watch
an Alfred Hitchcock movie, while the ladies put the spread together.
Ham, potatoes, salad, etc, etc was the treat for the day. After dinner, we went down to watch the game - Packers vs Bears. I left before the end, and went home. I was going to stop at Barney's, but noticed he had other company so I just went home. Monday, December 26, 2005 Today started with a flat tire. Not a big deal, but just took some time to get fixed. It was a 3/8" self tapper stuck in the tread. So, after filling up at the Legers (Tom has an air compressor), I dropped it off at a tire place that was just down the street from the GS office. Since I was delayed a little, I was able to get a haircut from Mike - the next door barber. This was good, because I wanted to get that done before leaving. Well, after getting the truck back, packed, I was on the road
at 10 to 10 (am, that is.) After this, went to the office, off-loaded the 13 cases of Spanish Lambs, and scanned in the paperwork for the Indian trip. This took longer than I thought it would - but still made it to Wetaskiwin by 12:00 PM. Spent some time catching up with John before hitting the hay. Tuesday, December 27, 2005 John and I went to town to buy a car-top carrier, and stopped at Allied to buy some ball joints for my truck. While there John got a call that his dad wanted to start on his truck - to repaint. So, once we got home, we put the carrier together and then started getting the truck ready. This included taking out the tool box, taking off the headache rack, and removing the fifth wheel mounting brackets. Once done, we dropped his truck off in town and then I changed the oil in my truck, which was getting overdue. Sure am thankful to be able to do this. I guess we'll replace the front end parts when we get back. Supper was roast beef, mashed potatoes, and salad. We packed the van to be ready to leave in the morning - hopefully at 6:00 -- but we'll see... Wednesday, December 28, 2005 ...ok, well, we didn't exactly make 6:00, but 6:30 wasn't too far off. I drove for a couple hours, but John did the brunt of it. Actually, I was quite surprised that I got to drive at all. John just couldn't stay awake - and I don't blame him cause I slept quite a bit before I got to drive. It did turn into a long trip - Thursday, December 29, 2005 After breakfast, I rode with Jake to check the ice, but first
we had to stop and help take care of some horses that got loose
and were bothering Dan and Sandra's horses. So we drove down to the river to check the ice - to find that
it wasn't there! The rest of the day wasn't too eventful. John and I were home alone, so it required a nap and just hang out. Spent some time working on PHP and MySQL and the book I have is in depth to the point where I have to learn everything to learn anything. Verenike with schmaunt fat and forma vursht. That's Mennonite cottage cheese perogies with cream fat sauce and farmer sausage for those of you who might have some trouble with that. We lost power this evening a bit - couple hours - because of all the ice and frost on the lines / trees. Friday, December 30, 2005 Just a relaxed day - didn't do much this morning but read and
catch up on some long lost projects. All the girls slept over last
night, so they were up and about and around as well. Lunch was left over verenike (this time fried) and was very good the second time around as well. John, Jake and I went to town for something to do this afternoon Then, this evening we went to Dan and Sandra's for some Chinese
for dinner. Saturday, December 31, 2005 This morning was a quick shot to John and Suzan's for a quick
breakfast (well, it was actually to discuss plans for the evening,
where we were having a 40 wedding anniversary for Jake and Helen.) While there, we went out and I got a picture of a black wolf! Once that was done, we all went to town for lunch, which was very good. All the sons / daughters and in-laws were there, but no kids. I was priviledged enough to attend. The afternoon was spent partly reading, partly on a chesterfield, half getting ready for the evening events. After a bit, Jake, John and I went to look at a 'power plant' to see if it was big enough to run the welder. We decided to let this one go and we came home in time to get ready. The evening was filled with the 40th anniversary celebration,
and my job was to shoot photos. I came home with 150 - after deleting
about 50. I'm happy with what was shot and how it turned out. New years came and went before I made it to sleep. ttyl.
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| January 2006 log |
