A day and a life in Fort Wayne

Happy 72nd Birthday Dad!

2012-02-06T11:00:00.000-05:00

I want to wish my dad a happy 72nd Birthday today!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Jeff Dunham / Walter - Marriage is like drinking a slurpee

2012-02-05T21:21:00.000-05:00

According to Walter marriage is like drinking a slurpee. The first couple of sips and you are thinking this is really great. Then you get that head ache and you are going "Owe Owe OWE". After that you are dumb enough to take another drink. Some how this sounds just about right to me. LOL!

The difference a week makes

2012-01-28T11:03:00.001-05:00

Cosse Luthern Church Near Columbia City Indiana

What a difference a week makes!

Photo of Cosse Lutheran Curch at Highway 30 and 500 East East of Columbia City Indiana. Park 30 is accross the street from this church. No I am not Lutheran, but I thought this church was neat so thought I would stop and take this photo.

WOW, what a difference a week made. Last week It was snowing to beat the band and everything was white. Yesterday the Sun was shinning just right for this photo. Took this photo on the way to pick up my kids who live just East of Columbia City Indiana.

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T16:06:00.000-05:00

Wishing you and your family a safe and happy new year!

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T10:01:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T11:18:00.000-05:00

Is "I DO" the longest sentance in the English language?

2011-10-19T19:00:00.000-04:00

Saw this sign after I dropped my car off for service and it made me chuckle. Why yes it is. Once you say "I do" and have kids then it becomes the longest "Sentence". Life with out parole. Even if you get divorced the tie to your ex is there the rest of your life. My joke I tell is there is more crying at a wedding than at funeral. At a wedding the sentence is just beggining at a funeral it is over.

Happy birthday Ashley!

2011-10-18T16:51:00.001-04:00

I want to wish my daughter Ashley a happy 8th birthday!

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Fall Photos from Sunday October 09, 2011

2011-10-09T19:06:00.000-04:00

Went out train chasing today and here are some of the photographs I took with fall colors.

Who's to say you can't have some fun with a point and shoot camera.

2011-09-30T23:24:00.001-04:00

IMG_4659
Originally uploaded by Ritchie's Photostream

I took this photo with my Canon Power shot SX100 camera just to test out the zoom on the camera one night while the kids were playing in the park. The Canon Power Shot SX100 is a point and shoot camera. I own a digital rebel which is a low end professional camera and I can't with the lenses I have get this photograph.

Wind Power in Western Ohio

2011-09-25T08:28:00.000-04:00

Just a short drive East of Fort Wayne there as a seen that looks like something you might have seen out West a few years ago. Along highway 30 East of New Haven there is a wind farm in place. There are hundreds of these giant windmills silently turning to generate power. I took these photographs one afternoon on my way home from Decatur. My kids and I noticed them on our family vacation back in June to Deshler Ohio. I had seen the giant blades on flat bed trucks going down 469, but didn't know exactly what it was I was looking at. It is possible on a clear day to see these from the intersection of Highway 30 and 469 as you drive on 469. The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette had an article on these that can be seen by clicking here. I personally don't like these giant machines because the block out the natural beauty of the land. One of my favorite parts of going out rail fanning is being out in the country where I can enjoy nature.

Making it all worth while.

2011-09-09T15:55:00.000-04:00

Eariler in the summer I decided that I would build a platform for my cats to sit on behind my couch so they could look out the Window when they wanted. I have three indoor cats and they had never had a place to look out. My son Dakota and I one Sunday afternoon decided it was time to build it. It was one of those father son type things that we could do together. From time to time when I come home from work I see one to three cats sitting on it at any given time. Today I am home on Vacation and Fuzzy (AKA Momma Kitty) was laying all streched out in front of the window. Needless to say the things we do for our kids and for our pets.

A relic from the past.

2011-08-25T20:09:00.001-04:00

I saw this rather large praying mantis the other day on the side walk. I normally don't see any during the summer, but this was the second one I saw on this day and the third one I saw this year. Buy looking at it you might mistake it for a twig. It also looks like it could be anchient. It is casting quite a large shadow.

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Happy 44th Birthday to my sister Sheila

2011-06-27T06:00:00.000-04:00

I want to wish my sister Sheila a very happy 44th birthday. I hope it is a great day for you and the start of a great year!

A Father's day cook out

2011-06-19T21:02:00.005-04:00

Happy Fathers Day to all the dad's out there!

Today was a good fathers day for me. A couple of weeks ago I decided to buy a grill so that we could grill out from time to time. So this morning when my ten year old son got up he went out side for a while and when he came back in he announced that he had cleaned the grill. I guess that was his way of saying "I want to grill out this afternoon". So I made the trip to the grocery store and bought some hamburger meat and hot dogs.

Around 4:3opm today I started the fire in the charcoal grill. First off up until two weeks ago I had never grilled using a charcoal grill. The only grill I had ever used was electric. This being my third attempt at grilling on a charcoal grill I hoped I got it right this time. The food so far was just okay. After waiting about a 1/2 hour or a little more I finally put the food on to grill. As soon as I put on the hamburgers I knew it was going to turn out better this time. The food was good and I even melted some cheese on the hamburgers when they were done so we actually had bacon cheese burgers and hotdogs. My seven year old daughter doesn't seem to like food from the grill, but we had a good day and it was a GREAT fathers day.

Summer Time Projects

2011-06-05T18:22:00.000-04:00

For the past several years I have had Summer Time projects that I wanted to accomplish, but for one reason or another I have failed to get some of them done. This year I have lined out the list of projects I would like to accomplish before the winter winds and snow come back this year. One of those projects was to install my new railroad scanner antenna. About two months ago I bought a new commercial antenna for listening to railroad audio and I had not installed it as of yet, so today was the day. I really didn't feel like getting this put up today, but it sure gives one a sense of accomplishment when a project is finished. The amazing things is how much more I can hear with the new antenna. Not only is it about 6 feet higher off the ground, but it also has about 5 db of gain (signal amplification). As of a few minutes ago I was hearing not only the local trains, but trains calling signals about twenty miles away. WOO HOO!

A summer time tradition - First trip to the Zoo

2011-05-31T06:00:00.000-04:00

This year like no other year I have sprung for a Fort Wayne Childrens Zoo membership. This years prices was $92 for a year. They have completely redesigned the entry way and have a whole brand new system for allowing for entry. I even got a permanent card to use. When they swipe your card it tells you how much time it is until you have to renew your membership. Now the regular price to get into the zoo is $13 for an adult and $8.50 for children. So, using the membership yesterday resulted in getting $30 back on the $92 I paid. I figure the 4th use will be free. The kids seem to enjoy going and seeing the animals and it gives me a way to keep them entertained for now. In this blog I am including some pictures I took from yesterdays visit. These photos can also be seen at www.flickr.com/railfandad

Memorial Day the Start of Summer

2011-05-29T21:07:00.000-04:00

First off I would like to remember all those men and women who have given their lives to protect and keep our country free.

For me this is the offical start of summer. The end of summer to me is labor day. My kids wanted to go to what they call "Cannon Ball Park" on Friday when I picked them up. What it is is a park maintained in Decatur called the "American Legion" park. I assume the American Legion either donates to the park or runs and maintains it. The kids indicated there was some new play ground equipment there they wanted to try out. Normally when we go to this park there are usually no other kids around to play. This time the play ground was packed.

Happy Mothers day!

2011-05-08T20:07:00.001-04:00

Wanted to wish my mom and all the mothers a happy mothers day!

DIY Project - Mounting a coat rack

2011-05-06T21:27:00.001-04:00

This afternoon I finally got my new coat rack installed near my front door. It will give me a place to hang my coats that I use the most and a place for my kids to hang theirs. The first thing I did was mark the location of the studs in the wall using a stud finder. I had noticed that the screw holes for the coat rack didn't match up so I went down to Lowes and bought a piece of 1/4 inch oak board to mount to the wall so that I could attach the coat rack to it. I could have used an anchoring system, but I thought this would be more secure. I traced around the coat rack then used a jig saw to cut out the pattern on the piece of oak. Next I mounted the oak piece to the wall then mounted the coat rack to the piece of oak. Finally I installed the screw covers and the project was complete. I hung my coat for tomorrow on it. One do-it-yourself project complete.

Has Spring Finally Arrived?

2011-05-02T19:27:00.001-04:00

Has spring finally arrived? Took this picture of a tree in bloom in front of the Subway on Lima Rd.

Love according to the bible

2011-04-30T21:35:00.009-04:00

I get a daily blurb on Facebook from a person who posts bible verses and this one caught my eye a while back. I thought I would re-post it here. It deals with love and how the bible views it. It is from 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.

The New King James Version says

¹ Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. ² And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³ And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,^[a] but have not love, it profits me nothing.
⁴ Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; ⁵ does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; ⁶ does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; ⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
⁸ Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part. ¹⁰ But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. ¹² For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
¹³ And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Now, When I got this I had ventured back out into the dating world, but this verse is not only taking in that sense, but how we deal with people every day. I don't believe I have seen here where it says the person with the most toy's or the biggest fanciest house, car, boat, etc wins. I think love is not greedy would be added to this list if the person who wrote this were writing it today.

The Travel of life

2011-03-27T18:05:00.000-04:00

Had a friend send me this prayer the other day. He said it kind of fit his life from time to time. I think it fits mine most of the time.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Thomas Merton
--Thoughts in Solitude

Emachies E725 Update

2011-03-24T11:08:00.000-04:00

About one year ago this month I decided to buy an Emachines E725 laptop computer. I swore I would never buy an Emachines because of the fact I have heard they are of low quality. Well, I had my first failure around the first of this year. The hard drive went out. I replaced the hard drive with a new 500gb segate drive. The laptop had a 250 gig Western digital drive and I had another Western Digital drive go bad so I thought I would try a Segate drive instead. For the last couple of months the laptop has worked well. Today I believe this laptop has suffered a mother board failure for no apparent reason. The last time I used it (yesterday) it was working fine and there were no indications that the new hard drive was having problems. Today when I tried to start this up I get the following set of messages:

1) Check Cable Connection...!

2) PXE-E63: Error while initializing the NIC

3) PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.

No bootable device --- insert boot disk and press any key.

I am at this point going to remove the 500gb hard drive and sell the computer for parts unless someone has a suggestion on how to fix this. I will research this error on line, but I believe this computer has suffered a mother board failure at about one year of age. My recommendation is to stay away from the Emachine brand computers. I am going to get a Dell as soon as I can afford one.

Happy 71st Birthday Dad!

2011-02-06T18:00:00.000-05:00

I want to wish my dad a very happy 71st birthday.

The Dawn of a new year.

2011-02-03T14:13:00.006-05:00

For those who have followed my blog it has been a while since I last wrote anything. Been way too busy and way just too down on life to even think about it. It had been a long time since I had received any good news in my life. Good news did come my way. As most of you have read I have had one issue after another with my son. I have written many times about the issues I have had with my ex-wife and the problems I have had with that. I guess I just felt it was time to take a rest. I also wanted to work on me and the man I would like to be.

The good news, for those who have followed this blog, is my son came to live with me on Christmas Eve on a trial basis. Even though this is just a trial basis I am extremely thrilled to have him here. I just wish it was both of my kids and not just the one. He is currently going to school and attending daycare here in town were I live. Things are going well at this point. I am looking forward to spending more time with him in the coming weeks.

A fork in the Road

2010-09-27T19:33:00.004-04:00

Sometimes in life we come to a point were we have to make decisions about how we are going to proceed with our lives. I will call it a fork in the road. Do we take the right path or do we take the left path. Over the past couple of years I have been examining my life and asking the question "What kind of man do I want to be?". The answer to the question is "I want to be the man God would have me be.". I not only want to be a good example to my kids, but I want to be a great example to my kids. Espscailly my son. I want him to have the example of what "real men" are about. I have made this my number one priority in my life and finding and eliminating anything that would stand between me and God is most important. For the last little while I have been away from blogging and the internet. I am asking my self the tough questions and praying for guideance along the way. Those questions would include, What else do I need to work on? What kinds of things can I watch on TV? Am I taking way from this effort though spending time with my computer via my blog, twitter, facebook, or just plain crusing the web? Does my many hobbies that I enjoy take away and preocuppy my mind in ways the might prevent me getting closer to God? So, I will continue to post to this blog from time to time, but it may be one or two posts a month. In the mean time I will continue to examine my life and make the changes I feel are necessary. I apreciate all those who read my blog and hope you continue to stop by. May God bless you!

Ten Commandments tablets in Lagrange Indiana

2010-09-06T09:09:00.007-04:00

On Tuesday this past week I was out and about enjoying one of my vacation days. It was a sunny day so I decided I would go out and train chase (take train photo's). Around 11am I decided since I was half way to Shipshewana that I would go the rest of the way and walk around for a while and see if maybe I could pick up a Christmas gift or two. On my way up to Shipshewana I was traveling on highway 20 through Lagrange Indiana. On the corner of highway 20 and highway 9 is this Ten Commandments plaque. You hear all the time how God is being taken out of everything. I was completely stunned to come aross this. I felt it was worthy of a few photographs and a quick blog post as it is on public land. God hasn't quite been taken out of everything. As can be seen in these photographs the concreate below the tablets is fresh so it hasn't been there very long.

Note: Click on the photo's to enlarge them to full size.

One Year Later....

2010-08-03T18:42:00.009-04:00

A little over a year ago I started a journey. That journey was to be the man I would like to be. I wanted to be a good example to my children of how to conduct their lives and how to treat people. One year ago today I decided to stop cussing/swearing and using any form of profane words. Not just in front of my kids, but at all. At first it was a real struggle. I had gotten to the point were swearing was almost automatic and had become part of my language.

The scary part to me was that I took the Lord God's name in vain on a consistent basis. Not a good thing if you are a church going person. To say the least it is one of the Ten Commandments. Now, some people might disagree with me, but I believe God will test a person to see how serious they are about things. Or better yet, allow the tests to be conducted if you will have that. I have never stubbed my toes more than I did in the first three weeks of trying to quit. Seemed like every piece of furniture in the house moved out in the way. I also believe God has a sense of humor as well. I am glad to say that I recently got hurt on the job and it never occurred to me to sware or cuss. I will say I did slip once about February and my son was present. I have pretty much eliminated that from my language. This is a good thing as my son was beginning to pick it up and had started using the language at school.

I guess the only thing I am disappointed with is that I haven't yet finished reading the bible. I made it my goal to finish it by the end of the year back in May of 2009. Unfortunately I have read a little bit here and there, but I am no where near finishing it. I started with the Old Testament and I am up to the first book of Kings. Long way to go. My son is reading it as I told him it is the early history of the world. I have a lot more work to do to be the man I want to be or better yet the man I believe God would have me be. I just hope God is pleased with the progress over the past year. I don't miss using that language at all and I am glad I stared this journey.

Thanks for the memories?

2010-07-18T18:43:00.009-04:00

No this is not a tribute to Bob Hope! He was a great guy and a funny comedian who entertained troops for the USO all over the world. Nineteen years ago today I met the kid’s mom. This post is not to upset her or start something. On Friday she was talking with me thanking me for continuing to do my part in supporting our son and daughter. As I told her it is my responsibility to continue to make sure they get taken care of. I also told her I was grateful for the kids. As we talked she said she never wanted the kids to have to experience a divorced home. She said “We had some good times didn’t we?” She was taking the kids to Disney World in Florida starting today and they won’t be back for a week and she said it was always her dream to do that as a family. I then told her that I cared for her as a person because it is the good Christian thing to do. I didn’t care for her as a Husband would a Wife.

It was never my intent to divorce. I had hoped I would never have to say “my ex-wife” in a sentence. The problem I had with the marriage was really simple. I didn’t feel important to her. It didn’t matter how bad I felt or how tired I was if she wanted to do something it was more important than my health. It didn’t matter what time I had to get up if she wanted to talk I had to talk until she was done. I could have settled for second to the kids, but I was somewhere at the bottom of the pile of things that was important to her. The things that bothered me I discussed with her many times and she would agree at times to work on things, but it always seemed to remain the same or change for a little bit and go back to the way it was. And the very next time we discussed these things yet again she didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. After not being heard and not having my feelings and health respected for a number years I became angry, irritable, and picked up cussing. At the end of the marriage I would cuss to the point a sailor would blush with shame. It wasn’t like warnings that the marriage was going to end weren’t there either. I had told her many times that if certain things didn’t stop I was leaving. It also amazes me that after fifteen years of being married to me she still doesn’t know me. I continue to surprise her. Today I am working on being a better man than when she met me. I don’t believe in divorce and in Malachi 2:16 it says God Hates divorce. In this instance I believe it was necessary and I hope God forgives me for doing what I felt was necessary. I feel bad for my children, but there is no way on God’s green earth I would take her back ever.

Now, after the divorce has happened, my ex-wife has decided she wants to be a totally different person. Nothing like the person she pretended to be when I married her. She has multiple Tattoos’ and has taken up drinking, and an alternative life style. Forgive me again, but she should know I don’t like Tattoo’s, I don’t drink, and wow is all I will say on the last one. If I had met her with all the Tattoo’s when we first met she wouldn’t have gotten a second look. I would not have dated her with tattoos. I also don’t understand why she can’t see how I might feel lied to and used. Yes, we did a lot of cool things when we were together and we should have a lot of fond memories, but since the whole relationship feels like it was a lie how can I look back on any of it with fond memories. The only fond memories I have is of the birth of my children. If I am way off base on this then please someone call me down on it.

You know I could go find another person to be with (another wife). The rumor has already started that I am gay since I don’t actively date. No offence to anyone, but I am not gay. I just don’t know if I want all the headaches that go with a relationship. There is another whole set of headaches with finding a new person. I would have to go through and remove all the pictures in my digital images that contain my ex-wife. Most people might not feel good about their spouse having pictures of the ex around. As of now life is improving and I don’t know if I want to risk messing it up again. Can I really say "Thanks for the memories"?

Happy 43rd Birthday Sheila

2010-06-27T09:56:00.002-04:00

I want to wish my sister Sheila a Happy 43rd birthday. Oh, I guess it is the 22nd anniversary of your 21st birthday. Have a great birthday!

Relationships - To date or not to date that is the question

2010-06-20T08:08:00.003-04:00

To date or not to date that is the question. After fifteen years fo marriage and three years of being single I am back to this question. I believe if someone finds the right person the relationship could be great. I understand that it will have its challenging moments, but all in all each party will be thankful that they have found each other. The problem is most people have a fairy tale idea of what their life should be like in a relationship or they are looking for perfection. People are not perfect by no means and we all have our faults. No man or woman will ever be perfect. You also have those people who base the relationship on things that maybe they matter, but they shouldn't be the most imporant part of the relationship.

For me a good relationship has trust. Without trusting each other there is no relationship at all. People we are firends with we trust. Ultimately you need to trust this person more than you do your other friends. You need to trust this person expicitly and need to be able to talk with them about anything. You should know your partner better than anyone. And yes, commuication with your partner is very important. The relationship is a partnership with neither party controlling the other. I think each party needs to put their partner first. No one should be selfish or self centered. There needs to be complete honesty in the relationship with no lies. There needs to be mutual respect for each other opinion, feelings, and health both mental and physical. Both parties need to be faithful to each other. And ladies being paranoid about us finding someone else will just drives us crazy. I used to say I was married not blind. However, blind and not married might have been preferable. I was faithful to the person I was with and my marriage vow. I saw things thing and still see things now. I saw it and that was just it. Real men chose their women for reasons and we chose to be with you for reasons. Both parties need to be caring and show how they feel about each other with out saying it. And no, I am not talking about sex here. What I am talking about goes back to the respect issue. If your partner is tired, sleepy, or not feeling well. For Gods sake let them rest and get well. Be willing to take care of them if need. At that moment put their needs first. I personally don't want to argue a lot and want to be comfortable when I am home. I don't want to have to dread coming home because this other person is there. Good relationships are full of give and take. For me I would love it if the person would go out and train chase with me from time to time just because they enjoy being with me. Mabye it isn't their thing, but because they respect my interests they are just happy being there with me. I know when I was married I did a lot of things because my partner wanted to. I could have cared less about doing them or being there or watching what ever it was that was on TV. Maybe I am just delusional. Hopefully all of this just means I have figured out what I want out of life and a relationship if I ever choose to go for it again.

Now, I haven't mentioned what I think this person would look like. I have no preconceived notion of what they would look like. I think people put too much stock in what someone looks like and to much value on that. I do believe we need to keep ourselves well groomed and look as good as we can. However, I don't have a lot to work with and if a person is looking what they can see and saying he isn't the man for me then they are way to shallow for me. I don't want to know them anyway. For me I am looking for a type of person. Someone who matches up with me on a fundamental level. If we don't match on a fundamental level then I don't believe either of us will be happy. The end result will be stress and conflict and untimately the end of the relationship will come. I also haven't mentioned sex. Maybe I am just getting old, but this doesn't seem to be as important to me as it might have been when I was young. Sex from what I have read was inteneded to be a bond between a man and a woman. Between husband and wife. I base this on what I have seen in my bible studies. If the relationship is what it should be then I believe sex would be great. Now, if the only reason for me to have a woman in my life is sex then I am good with being single the rest of my life.

For now, I have convinced myself that dating is the world's biggest waste of time. I am single and no longer miserable. I was completely miserable married. I under no circumstances want to go back to being miserable. My sisister is currently dating and some of the things she has told me is downright appling. Some of the things I have read and equally apppling. For those out there in the dating world. I wish you the best of luck!

The Gardener and his Assistant

2010-05-30T14:14:00.010-04:00

For the third year in a row my son the Gardner has wanted to plant flowers. This year I decided unless something wa said about it I was going to let this go. I just didn't feel like having to remember to water them and have enough stuff on my plate to do already, but yesterday it was brought up.

Now in the past two years, we have planted flowers from seeds. This year it is too late to plant seeds so today I went out and bought flowers at Wal-Mart. As soon as we got home my son started in on planting them and my daughter was chomping at the bit to help so all I did was stand around and supervise the work. Both my son and daughter did a great job with this and I am sure I will enjoy seeing them as they will remind me all summer of today and how they went about working together to get this done. The only complaint I heard was about how hot it was.

Close enough to "Feel the breeze"

2010-05-23T18:05:00.008-04:00

As some may know I am a Railfan. I go out and enjoy some sun when the weather permits and take pictures and video of trains. I have loved trains since I was a kid. Yesterday I didn't know if I was going out today or not. I just didn't feel like going. I set my alarm just in case. This morning I decided it had been a month since I had left the house to do something fun so it was time to get out of the house before I go sturr crazy. Enough just going to work and coming home.

I headed up to Butler Indiana and much to my amazement Norfolk Southern put on a show like I have never seen. None stop trains from 6:30am to around 11am. More were coming as I had to leave. At 10am I stopped just off highway 6 at County Road 79 East of Butler. Train 24M was heading East. I setup the camcorder on the tripod and started rolling.

I took some pictures as you can here in the video. I have told friends and family that I have been close enough to the tracks to feel the breeze when the train rolls by. In recent months I have taken the stance that I will leave the camcorder roll and move to a safer location. Retrieve the camcorder when the train has passed. What happend in this video is the breeze from Norfolk Southern train 24M which was screeming by my location at around 50 miles an hour blows the tripod over. For one heart sickening moment I though my new camcorder was toaste. I bought my sisters camcorder to replace my old one. Much to my delight it was ok and still rolling. It did get a few minor scuffs, but all in all I was very lucky. Have a look at the video you can see the vibrations of the breeze on the camcorder before it falls.

Kicking off the Summer

2010-05-16T20:08:00.014-04:00

I know the calendar still says it is spring, but for me the summer season offically kicks off in May and ends in late September. This year the weather in April was increadibly nice. Upper seventies many days and even hit the eighties a couple of times. Today my kids and I made our first trip to the Fort Wayne Childrens Zoo. I, as I have in the past several years, bought the pass for the year. This year the cost of the zoo pass is $89. However, I know my kids will want to go several times over the course of the summer. If I had just paid the admission today it would have been $26, but after the third time we go the rest of the time will be free. I figure the cost of the pass will be covered at that point. I bought the wagon shown last year and we recovered the cost of it buy saving money not renting one last year. At first today I didn't think I would take my camera with me, but finally put new batteries in it and off we went. This blog post contains only a few of the photos from today. We only spent a couple of hours at the Fort Wayne Childrens Zoo, but I believe a good time was had by all.

Verizon Wireless USB 760 Broadband Modem Review

2010-03-21T06:56:00.018-04:00

I guess I must be back into a technology kick. A few months ago I discovered that Verizon Wirelees had several options available for mobile Broadband internet service with no contract. Basically you take a USB modem like the one shown on the right (Verizon Wireless USB 760 Moble Broadband modem) you plug it into your computer and pay for a day, week, or month with out signing a contract. My modem came in on Monday so Tuesday I decided I would try it out. I had been looking at these for several months, but didn't want to spend the money for it. This one happened to be on Ebay for about half the price of a new one so I put a bid in on it and won the auction. Paid for it and wala I have moble broadband internet.

On Tuesday I plugged my modem into the computer and started the process of activating the modem. I decided I would pay the $15 for the Verizon Wireless Day pass. I figured I wouldn't use it more than once in the next little while as I have another project that I am working on that will keep me busy. My use for this will be while I am out railfanning I will have internet access to send email, view the web, and I can also see the ATCS servers that are available. What happens when the the activation process finishes is the modem is assigned a temporary cell phone number. Then I had access to the web where ever Verizon's 3G service is availble. Which is pretty much every where. Bascially it is a constantly connected cellphone connection through Verizons mobile internet service.

I took my laptop and plopped it on the front seat of my car, plugged in the modem, and away I went. I was impressed with how well this worked. The speed of the internet via this modem was very comparable to my DSL connection that I have here at home. I went places out in the country where I didn't think it would be possible for this modem to work (out in the sticks) and I still had an internet connection. The only problem I saw was I lost the connection a few times, but this is typical of cell phones as there seems to be dead zones here and there. All in all I liked Verizon's cell phone service as there were very few dead zones (went to a prepaid cell phone service as I wasn't using mine that much). The 75MB of data allounce that Verizon gave me for the day was more than enough as I think I might have used 6MB all total . If you are looking for a mobile broadband solution for your laptop computer I highly recommend the Verizon Wireless USB 760 modem.

My railfan blog

2010-03-19T22:52:00.005-04:00

I finally launched my Railfan blog. I went out Tuesday railfanning and took pictures. The other blog will be to highlight the photographs that I take on my outings. If you are interested in seeing those photos or reading about my rail outings the other blog can be found in my blog roll. Or you can click this link http://northeastindianrailfan.blogspot.com

When did it get to be "OK"

2010-03-16T20:08:00.003-04:00

I have spent the better part of this afternoon feeling like crap, so I stopped at Walmart and bought some cookies and got a movie from Redbox. I brought the movie home and watched it. I decided I would return it to the Walgreens around the corner and just got back from doing that. While I was standing in line, yes there was a line, I saw a woman who had this written on her shirt. Now, I am sensoring the saying as I don't believe in profanity. The saying read "F you you F'n F". My kids call it the F word. She had it at least three times on her shirt and she had two little kids with her. I know this country believes in free speach, but this is just ridiculous. My son gets in trouble at school if he says "Freekin" and we allow people to walk around with sayings like this on their tee shirts. No wonder this country is going in the crapper.

Streaming Video via the internet and the Emachines E725-4520

2010-03-14T16:10:00.006-04:00

First off this is my 100th post. I started this blog a little over a year ago and finally reached 100 posts.

Over the past week or so I have continued to test and try out my new Emachines E725-4520 laptop and I am happy to say I am very well pleased with my purchase. Last Sunday I decided to try some streaming video from the internet via the new laptop. I had it sitting on my kitchen table and was able to get cartoons for the kids from different sources via the internet. Other than the band width problems I have because I have a low end DSL the performance was outstanding. Today I decided to take my new laptop with me to breakfast at Mc Donalds and was able to connect to the internet no problems. I ran the computer the whole time on batery power and everything went well. I believe what I have read that the battery would last about 2.5 hours as I have about 2 hours of time left via the meter when I started it just a few minutes ago. One of the other things I wanted to try was an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I just removed the old laptop and plugged the new one in and all worked fine. If you are looking for an inexpensive laptop I would highly recommend this one. So far I have really enjoyed having it over the past couple of weeks.

Emachines E725-4520 Notebook Review

2010-03-07T07:30:00.016-05:00

I guess sometimes it doesn't pay to shop. I as a rule of thumb don't shop when I go into a store. Or did it? I usually go down get what I need and leave the store because I usually end up spending money I don't want to spend. This was the case on Monday of this past week. I found my self with a day off and had stop at Walmart for some groceries. I had been wishing that I could get a new laptop comptuer for my self so I thought I might get one after I accomplished my financial goals for this year. Kind of a reward for doing what I need to do.

Now, I like Dell computers. I have owned about 3 or 4 of these Dell machines and they all have worked well. Matter of fact my old Dell D400 laptop still works, it is just starting to fall apart. It is six years old and the battery in it doesn't hold a charge any more. It is missing the backspace keep and it runs really slow. I have a hard time getting the computer to connect to the internet anymore. My son with his new laptop doesn't seem to have any problems. I bought this Dell Used over three years ago. At this point and I really didn't want to spend any money, but I was looking at laptops at Walmart just trying to figure out if I would buy from a store or order one from Dell when the time came. The nice thing about ordering from Dell is I could customize the machine anyway I wanted it. The down to that is it ends up in one spending more money on it because I would add a faster CPU (Processor), more memory, and more hard drive. I probrably wouldn't add much else in the way of frills.

I was at Walmart looking at the laptops when I came across this laptop the Emachines E725-4520. Walmart had this for $298 plus tax. There was a lady in front of me who was telling me she was going to buy two of them. One for her son who was going way to college and one to upgrade her old one. Hers was about six years old. I stood there staring at this machine trying to decide if I should buy one or not. The fact that it was an Emacines computer bothered me, but the price was a great deal. The macine is built by Acer corporation. I have had a two Acer computers over the years and both were good machines. So when I discovered that it was build buy Acer I was a little more statified with my purchase. They two I owned still worked when I sold them. This laptop has a Intel Pentium T4400 2,2GHz dual core processor. The sign said it has 3GB of DDR2 memory, but everything I have read about it says it actually has 3GB of DDR3 memory (even better). It has a 250GB HD and DVD Super Milti 8X drive, 802.11b/g WLAN, Windows 7 home, 15.6 inch 720p HD screen, and a built in memory card reader. Walmart sold two of these to the lady I was talking with, sold one to me, and sold another one just as I was leaving. So they sold four of the forteen they had in about five minutes. By thursday of last week they had sold them all. Even the display model was gone.

The only thing I am slightly disappointed with this new laptop is the sound from the speakers leaves a little to be desired. I, however, am not a big play movie clips or audio clips via my laptop. I basically want this for portaible computing power. In the event I get laid off at somepoint I will need a decent laptop to connect to the interent at say Mc Donalds, Wendy's, or Taco Bell to search for work. I do have a buch of exteral speakrs that I can plug directly into it if needed. Plus it would be rude to be jamming at one of those places when someone is trying to eat. It might have been nice had they added an HDMI port on the computer so I could connect it directly to my 720P HD big screen TV. I am a big syfy fan and there are shows available that at places like Hulu I could stream from the internet to my big screen TV from the laptop. All in all I am happy with my purchase. The good news is I didn't spend a thousand dollars for it. Heck, I spent just a little more than you can get one of those small Netbooks for.

Look Ma no monitor, no keyboard, no mouse? FREENAS

2010-02-21T06:38:00.012-05:00

So what can you do with a computer with no monitor, no mouse, or a keyboard?

Here is the thing, I wanted a centralized location to store my files so that if I want to access a spreadsheet from my laptop I could open it up work on it then save it and have it available to my desktop computer. My son also has his laptop here from time to time it might be nice if he wanted to look at photos I have taken if he could do that. I looked into getting a "Network Attached Storage (NAS)" that I could just plug into the router. Basically this networked attached storage is just a hard drive with a network card so that you can attach it to your DSL/Cable/Fios router as another device that all your computers on your home network can see.

My problem was that I have two different versions of windows. I have XP and Vista. The vista machine can see the Xp machine (The laptop), but the laptop could not see the desktop. If I wanted to work on something on the laptop I had to copy it down to the laptop, work on it, then copy it back. Sometimes after work I am just too tired to want to go through all the hoops. I also didn't want to spend any money at this time so what is the solution.

So I did what I always do I search the internet for a free solution to my problem. I had an old HP computer sitting here collecting dust. It had long since stopped working as a desktop computer and I was about to just throw it out. The nice thing is this computer has 260 gigabytes of hard drive space. Not a lot, but enough to get me started. And as you see by the little box sitting next to the computer you can attach USB drives to the system and make them available. The one I own is a 250 gigabyte western digital drive. I stumbled on this operating system call "FREENAS". IE: Free Network Attached Storage.

Now, it took me jumping through some hoops to get this setup. First you have to create a CD from an ISO file which I had never done. The first one didn't work. Second you have to be able to boot from the CD on the intended install computer. Low and behold the primary CD device on this machine had died and the secondary one the software didn't recognize. I had an addtional computer siting around that was way older than this one, but it still had a good CD drive in it so I replaced the CD rom and finally got the software installed. Once installed you can access the machine like a file server and it can be administered from a webgui. For those of you who are mac users it supports apple file formats and itunes. It also allows me to have my own personal website setup on that computer. It will replace the current personal webserver that I had since it was on a older slower machine. Since I have dynamic ip I have to have a service like http://www.dyndns.org/. I am still learning about FreeNas, but at this time I am highly impressed and over the past week has served the purpose I have for it well. The speed of access from that machine is increadable even over my wireless connection. The operating system its self only takes 64 megabytes to run so it is really small. For now I have plenty of harddrive space and if I need more I will buy a USB drive to add to the system. Today I am taking my laptop with me to Mc Donalds for breakfast and will see how the personal website looks via their free wifi. For more information about FreeNas click here. To download a copy click here.

Redbox DVD Rentals

2010-02-07T21:28:00.007-05:00

Say good bye to your video rental store and say goodbye to the online video rentals and say hello to Redbox. Redbox allows one to rent current release DVD videos for a total of $1 plus tax for a 24 hour rental. New releases come out on Tuesday of each week. I had co-worker who was raving about his one day and suggested I try it. I thought I will give this a try at somepoint. Well, last Thursday was that day.

I went on line to http://www.redbox.com/ and signed up online. I then went around the corner Walgreens and proceeded up to the box. I selected a movie to rent, entered the information to verify my identity, and swiped my credit card. The movie was then vended out of the slot in the side of the machine.

When I got home I checked my email and there was an email indicating that my total was $1.07 if I return the movie by 9pm the next night. I had rented this around 12pm on Thursday. I watched my movie and took it back around the corner to return it. I selected that I wanted to return a movie was prompted to put the DVD in with instruction on the dvd how to do it. I placed the DVD in the machine and the screen indicated that it was returned. When I got home checked my email and a confirmation was there indicating that it had been returned. I did get an email for signing up and giving them an email for a free rental which I will use this week. I have also read because I gave them permission to send me text messages via my phone I will get one free rental a week. I will wait and see what happens this week.

All in all this is a very slick idea. Very convenient as I have one less than a mile from my house and worked really well. I will be trying this again this week with my free rental code in hand.

Happy 70th birthday Dad!

2010-02-06T05:34:00.003-05:00

I want to wish my dad a happy 70th birthday.

Taking the HD (High Definition) Plunge

2010-02-02T20:12:00.006-05:00

A month or two back my sister suggested that I take my family room and set it up as a family room. Looks like that has worked out to be a great suggestion. When I started work on this room there was a model railroad layout in the one corner with stuff piled around it. I have been working to get rid of , sell off, or throw away stuff to clean out the area. I also moved some of the stuff to a storage area in my utility room. It has been a pain staking process.

The one thing I added to the idea was a 42" plasma TV that I mounted in the one corner of the room. I finnally on Friday managed to get the TVmounted and all the cables run for the antenna connection. This is my first High Definition TV and I am amazed at the picture clarity on the channels that are broadcasting in HD. Sunday my son and I went shopping for the TV stand were the DVD recorder is sitting and the kids Playstation two is located. The old Playstation stand is now a home for my laptop. I purchased an additional recliner from the kids mom so there are three seats in the room. I am using the old convert box as a tuner for the DVD burner which will allow me to record one show and watch a show. The kids seem really pleased with the idea. My son was more than willing to give me input on how to set it up.

This afternoon I got off work early and finished the work. The work I did today involved moving the stuff in the shevles to the opposite side of where they were. The video's behind the TV and the pictures to the other side. I hope the kids are supprised when they get here on Friday.

The Netbook

2010-01-27T21:23:00.007-05:00

Back in October 2009 my son got a Acer Aspire Netbook. At that time I personally couldn't see what the appeal would be to get one of these, but for him it was the perfect first computer. It basically has the same amout of computing power as my Dell D400. My D400 is one of the smaller laptop computers with a full keyboard. My concern with this smaller computer would be could I type on it if I was using it or would my hands be to big for the keyboard and would this make the computer useless to me.

The first opportunity for me to use his computer came one night at Mc Donalds. He wanted to take it in and try it out as he had never had it connected to the internet. At that time Mc Donalds charged $2.99 for two hours of access (as of January 15th unlimited access is now free) to the internet. I spring for the $2.99 and in a few minutes we were connected.

While he and his sister played in the play area I tried this smaller and lighter computer out and low and behold I could type on the keyboard and use it just like my D400. My son recently wanted me to connect it up and take it on one of our railfan outings and I was highly impressed by how it performed. After we figured out how to make the screen brighter it worked out great.

The Acer Aspire uses a Atom N270 processor running at 1.6 ghz. My Dell D400 is about 1.4 ghz. The Aspire has 1 gb of memory and 512kb cach memory. It also has a 160 GB hard drive. The whole thing only weights 2.44 pounds. The down is no CD or floppy drive as that must be purchased seperately. His mom managed to get this computer for him for a mear $249 plus tax. I happened to have a spare external CD burner that I let him have to use with this that I bought back in 2002. All in all I am quite impressed with how well this computer operates and how light it is. When I decided to replace my current laptop I may just get one of these plus an external cd burner. I am a Dell man my self and I will be looking to see what they have.

Blogger M.I.A

2010-01-25T22:07:00.009-05:00

Missing in action. This blogger has been missing in action over the past several months. Too much life at the current time. We had a major issue with my son back in December that saw him in the hospital from December 18th until December 30th. He is now on medication. The good news is he is doing a lot better now and is in his third week with no problems at school. I thank God for whatever it was that changed and for the great improvement that we have seen. I also want to thank all of you that prayed for him.

For the past few months I have been working fifty plus hours a week and what little time I have had left I have been devoting to cleaning up the family room area of my house. I am almost there with the family room. After working for a while each evening on that it seems like all I can do then is colapse on the couch and watch TV. The family room I am cleaning out the stuff that was in there. Selling it or getting rid of it if I don't think I will use it. The idea is that it will be a recreation room for the kids when they are here. Yesterday the kids and I went shopping for a 42" Plasma TV for that room. Today I spent some time mounting the bracket ont he wall on which I will mount the new TV on. All in all life is going pretty good at the moment. I am looking forward to getting back to blogging and working on my website. The website hasn't been updated in a year (YIKES!). I am in the process of redesigning the site to make it much easier to update. It currently takes about four hours to process just a little bit of stuff to the site. I am also looking forward to getting back out track side for some rail fanning.

Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T23:46:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T22:55:00.001-05:00

This month has been very trying for me and my family. I have had many things I could have blogged about, but just haven't had the heart to sit down and write. I did want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Old man winter finally arrives

2009-12-09T19:51:00.001-05:00

Monday we saw the first offical snow fall of the year that stuck to the ground. I personally could have gone all winter with out any snow, but I guess it had to happen sooner or later. At least it "looks a lot more like Christmas".

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The Anchor Room book store

2009-11-27T06:00:00.001-05:00

On Tuesday I made my final trip to the Anchor Room Christian bookstore. The owner of the store is battling cancer and the store will be closing soon. It saddens me to see this store go, as it is the only one of its kind that I know of in this area. There are no other Christian bookstores in Fort Wayne. Up until August 3, 2009 I had only made one or two trips to the store, but I had been in there at least four times in the last four months. I did manage to get a couple of photo’s of my kids playing in the pay area of the store during their time they stayed with me this summer.

Happy 9th Birthday Dakota / Happy Thanksgving all!

2009-11-26T00:01:00.003-05:00

I want to wish my son Dakota a happy 9th birtday. Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers!!!

Nine years ago today at 2:35pm in the afternoon my first child was born a son. Boy has he changed and has the time flown!

God works in wonderful and mysterious ways

2009-11-24T22:26:00.005-05:00

I would like to start this post by asking that everyone keep my friend Gary and his wife Kathy in their prayers. They were leaving this morning because Kathy’s mom who has cancer had taken a turn for the worse.

On Saturday Gary had sent me an email to find out how things were going. In that email he had said that he hadn’t seen any email from me in a long time. As I told him I have been down in the dumps for about a month. I haven’t done much of anything except go to work and come home and flop on the couch and watch TV. I do what I have to do to keep things going and that was it. Most of my hobbies I have put aside and I haven’t contacted my friends. I even put off writing my blog post. I usually do about ten posts a month. Yes, I have had topics that I could have blogged about, but I just wasn’t up to it. Things at work are going pretty bad, the situation with my son didn’t help. The other problem is that as most of you know I am trying really hard to change my life and live they way God would have me live. Unfortunately I have had one issue that I just no matter what I have done I can’t seem to shake. So as I put it I feel on my face along the journey and now I am picking my self up and dusting my self off and trying to move forward again. I to some respect wondered if God would turn his back to me because of this old man just plain being weak.

I know we are not supposed to stress over our lives, but it is sometimes hard not to do. It is truly amazing though the ways that God can find to lift our spirits. Today at work the manager came around and asked if I wanted a raffle ticket. The raffle proceeds were to go to a Christmas family. My office does this raffle every year and donates the money raised to a family in need. I said I would buy a ticket, I put my name on the back of the ticket and dropped it in the jar with hundreds of others. I only bought that one ticket and really gave no thought to winning anything. I had not thought about buying a ticked or had I really paid any attention to the prizes that were being offered.

We had our weekly meeting that we normally have and at the end of that meeting they had a drawing for a prize out of the jar. We were down to two items left and I gave not real thought to winning anything and really wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on when my name was called. There was a water globe and a set of bath soap. I really didn’t look at the water globe real close I just saw it was a Christmas water globe and I thought the kids would like it. I took it and went back to my seat to sit down. The manager told me it was musical and that it lighted up. I really hadn’t looked at what it was until that moment. It was a nativity water globe. It wasn’t the fact that I won this in the raffle that made my day, but it was what it was that I received and how I came by it that did. As for my issue that I have I have been praying that God helps me with it and I believe he has. God truly does work in wonderful and mysterious ways.

There is joy in mudville tonight!

2009-11-01T22:54:00.002-05:00

For the last several days I have been scowering the internet looking at Indiana law related to parental rights. I am glad to report that I have "Joint Custody" of my children. Under "Joint Custody" I have as much leagal say in what happens with them as their mother. We must be in agreement on how to proceed in treating their educational, health, and wealfair needs. I hope my joy is a win for my children. Especially for my son. Thank God he pointed me in the right direction!!!

What to do with the old memories

2009-10-22T20:09:00.002-04:00

After my divorce I was given all the old home movie video cassettes. My thought was I would convert these to DVD which is a fairly simple process. Just plug in the camcorder to the DVD recorder, rewind each tape, put them in order and start filling DVD's. I probably have forty hours of home movies shot between April 18, 1992 and December 16, 2006. When you shoot these video's you figure at some point in your life you will sit down and relive the old memories. See what was happening in your life at that time. It should give you sort of a warm fuzzy feeling. At this point I am not sure who would want these. Do the kids want to see them? I certainly don't want to watch old memories being replayed of me and the kids mom. Does their mom want them or even care? Basically I think I would just be wasting DVD's at this point. They have been in a drawer here at my home for over two years. Nothing has been said about them at all. Maybe I just can rewind, re-label, and reuse? I guess I will, at some point, review each one to see what is on it before reuse.

The injustice of life.

2009-10-19T20:37:00.007-04:00

Tonight I sit with a broken heart. I just came back from a counseling session for my son. I have fought to keep him off medication, because I believe in my heart that he doesn't need it. He is a great little boy. When he is with me he is a normal little boy. God knows I have fought for him and his sister too. I was told they are putting him on medications for anxiety and something else. I don't believe that he needs medications at all.

When I met mom mom claimed to be a Christian woman. She was a member of the Later Day Saints church. Before we got divorced she had left the Later Day Saints church and joined a United Brethren church claiming to be a good Christian woman. Now, most have read that I am working on rebuilding my life and getting closer to God. My hope is he will forgive me for all the things I have done at some point. One of the commandments is to "Love thy neighbor as thy self". I think this means to have a general concern for all humans and their spiritual well being. So in that light it breaks my heart to see her destroying her life. I just don't understand why she would want to destroy her children's life too.

After the divorce mom did a complete 180 degree turn and started doing things that she didn't do before. She stopped going to church, started drinking, going to bars, and etc. She was taught better than this at both the churches she attended. I have went to both even though I am Old Regular Baptist. Yes, I would have anxiety too if one of my parents went completely off the deep end. I might have anxiety too if when I got home I didn't know what we might be doing for the evening. Unplanned events are ok sometimes, but all the time is a little much in my opinion. The sad fact here is no one seems to care that this is part of his problems. He remembers how she was and doesn't trust , respect, or admire her. He may quite possibly harbor some anger toward her as well.

Eighteen months ago I asked myself this question "If I were my children would I like my life? How would I look at my dad and what might I think of him?" Eighteen months ago I didn't like the answer. Today, I am a much different person. Today when the kids come to visit things go a lot smoother, but it took a lot of hard work. It didn't happen overnight. I want to be the best example I can be for those kids. As most of you know on August 3, 2009 I gave up cussing. Cussing had almost become part of my everyday language it was so automatic for me. I just think it is sad that mom is taking the easy way out. I believe that a good parent would walk across hot coals for the children. I believe that a good parent would give their life to save their children. I don't think good parents are selfish and self centered. They give to their children and put their children first. In my sons case, he needs full time parenting from his mom and she may have to give up some of her life style. That might be tough. Is she will to do so to keep her son off medication? Trust me this might not be easy, I had to give up things I felt were wrong for the Lord God above. At least one has been a on and off struggle. The tempation is great and constant, but I just pray to the Lord for strength. And a good parent would never stop fighting for their children ever. I will continue to fight, but my hope at this point looks dim.

The bad part of this is I will be required to give him medication that I don't believe in. If I felt it was necessary I would be the first to give it to him, but I truly believe mom could do some things that would help if she wanted to. I hope mom still fears God to some degree. She needs to remember this passage from Mark. Mark 8:36 says: " For what shall it profit a man..., if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" I know I put this on my blog recently, but it was worth repeating.

I usually don't post things like this out here, but is one of my therapeutic tools I use to get stuff off my mind as much as I can. Tonight, before I lay down to sleep, I will again pray for my children. I will again pray that my ex-wife sees the light and changes her ways before it is too late. She was taught the way, and had a bible to read when we were together. I will pray that she loves her son enough to ask herself the same tough questions I asked. Find out if she were the child living with her would she be happy. Especially if she were somewhat of a homebody. I am not saying be home all the time. I am saying find the right mix. I would like to know what she will say to God Almighty on judgment day. What excuse would she like to try to make.

Happy 6th Birthday Ashley!

2009-10-18T06:00:00.002-04:00

Today is my daughter Ashley's 6th birtyday. I wanted to take a moment to celebrate her birthday here.

HAPPY 6th BIRTHDAY ASHLEY!

To help pour out the rain

2009-10-12T19:54:00.008-04:00

Today as I was going through stuff in my house I discovered some things that I had forgot I had. It was like discovering gold. I found a couple of CD's that had music on them. Back when they were made I referred to them as a music mix. One of the ones I found had country music on it. I put the cd's in one by one today and listened to them. I also discovered picture cd's and as I am deciding what I would keep and what I will get rid of I was reviewing each things as I went. Kind of a pain staking process.

One of the songs on the country mix was Buddy Jewell's "Help Pour Out The Rain (Lacey's Song)". I had forgotten how good this song was. I know it has been out for a long time, but I really enjoyed hearing it again. I wanted to share this hear so that others might enjoy it as well. I have also put some old photographs here of my children. I know someone who comes by to see me from time to time who wants the "perfect photograph", but I think sometimes we shoot the photograph just for the priceless memories.

I will echo Buddy Jewell's sentient "Lord I wanna thank you for my children. 'Cause your innocence that fills them often takes me by surprise." . I can't say their innocence takes me by surprise. It more makes me long for those days when I too was innocent and naive. I miss those times. I wish my children didn't have to grow up so fast. I wish they could have had my childhood. It is too bad that it won't be possible for them.

Click the link below and enjoy the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lif5fdC8C1w

Just my luck!

2009-10-08T11:29:00.005-04:00

This morning I got up like any other morning. Got ready for work and headed off. I arrived at work and stood around and talked with some of my co-workers like every other morning when I was called aside and told I wasn't on the schedule. I had been on the schedule for all six days when I looked last, but I had been taken off. So I asked if I needed to stay and they said no so I headed home.

On my way home I decided I would stop at Mc Donald's on Washington Center road for some breakfast. I would get it to go and take it home and eat it before resuming the work I am doing at home. I had just pulled out of Mc Donald's when I ran over something in the road. Next there was a wobble that I couldn't explain. I found that the tire had been punctured and air was escaping so I decided I would try to drive it to the service station to get it repaired. No go on that as I went about a block and the tire was flat. Luckily I was still near the Mc Donald's so I walked over and got something to drink and ate my breakfast.

In times past I would have been really angry at this moment and quite possibly swearing and cussing. I have to admit, I wasn't really happy at that moment changing the tire. I was in a church parking lot at the time I changed the tire. Swearing and cussing never really entered my mind. I changed the tire and took off for the service station. I was surprised to find my car has a full sized spare tire. Most of the time you get these little donut tires that you can't use for more than fifty miles an hour or so.

As they were working on my tire I had to think "Just my luck". Then it occurred to me, maybe something really bad was going to happen and this was God's way of taking care of me. Maybe had I made it to the next corner I would have been involved in an accident and killed. Maybe others may have been injured and killed. We don't always know why things like this happen. There is a reason for it.

Yes, it was a new tire. The bad news was they had to replace the tire. The metal object you see had punctured the side of the tire. I had bought the road hazard warranty on the tire so the total cost was $11.07.

Mark 8:36 For what shall it profit a man...

2009-10-05T19:47:00.001-04:00

As I wrote this blog post I couldn't really decide on what the title should be. Last Thursday someone I was talking with said something really hurtful to me. Normally I would let this kind of thing eat at me, and possibly be angry about it, but I just told myself that it didn't matter what they thought or anyone else thought about the comment it was a worldly concern and I shouldn't let it bother me. This event happened at work and as much as I tried I couldn't shake it. Thank God my sister invited me to dinner and this seemed to help some, but I just, no matter what I did, could not shake this. It weighed heavy on my mind well into the evening.

I finally decided that I would work on programming some radio equipment that I have that I used for talking Ham Radio and listening to the railroad. I sat down to program the equipment, but the thought came into my mind to read my Bible. I thought, I will read my Bible tomorrow because I want to programming these radios, but I just couldn't get into programming the radios and the thought of reading my Bible didn't go away. So I put down my Radio stuff and picked up the Bible and read for the rest of the evening. I found the help I needed to shake off what happend in the reading material. I think it was Gods way of helping me with it.

Now instead of being angry with the person who said the hurtful thing, I have treated the person the same way I have always treated them. Greeted them with a smile and asked them how they are doing like I always did. I haven't treated them any differently than I did before. My only motivation here is that I don't believe we are supposed to hold a grudge. We are to forgive and forget. I can tell this person is a little uncomfortable, but there is no hard feelings here.

My focus in life at this point in time is with God's help changing my ways to be the person he wants me to be. In the long run God is the only one who's opinion matters. I think things like this will come up from time to time just as obstacles in path. For me, I don't think anything is more important than where my soul will spend eternity. There is nothing I can do, nothing I can have, or no one that is worth spending eternality hell. Mark 8:36 says: " For what shall it profit a man..., if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

All I know is I had the best Saturday I have had in forever. I felt a piece I haven't known since I was a kid. For a short space time I had no worries. I actually felt good no aches and pains. I had the most energy I have had in forever. I have stopped worrying about losing my job, house, car, etc. These things just don't seem important. I am still planning incase I do lose my job, but the worry of losing it is gone. For some reason I felt like I was supposed to share this here and I have done so. For what is happening with me I give God all the credit and glory. Without him, I wouldn't make it through this.

Another First

2009-10-04T19:50:00.003-04:00

Today as we went into Walmart my daughter asked me again if she could play the crane game to win a prize. Now she asks me this question every time we go into Walmart and I have told her no every time. I said no and we went about our shopping. On the way out of Walmart my son wanted a can of pop. We stopped to get a pop and I asked my daughter what kind she wanted. She said she wanted to play the game. I thought about it for a couple of seconds then gave her a choice, a can of pop, or play the game for a prize. She chose to play for a prize. I gave her fifty cents and one chance to win a prize. Low and behold she won a prize with that fifty cents. Now, she won a stuffed horse and she loves horses. She was absolutely thrilled with this. You would have thought I bought her something really expensive. It is too bad we as adults can't seem to be happy with simple things like this in life. It made her day and mine too just watching her reaction.

My Day out with Ashley

2009-09-30T21:31:00.010-04:00

On August 14, 2009 I had my annual day out with my daughter Ashley. Every year I take one personal day and spend it with each of my children. This was my daughters day. I gave each one their choice of what we did. My daughter has chosen the zoo every year and this year was no exception.

We started our day by having breakfast with Grandpa as we did with my son back in July. After this we went home for a while and my daughter took a nap as we met grandpa before he went to work at 6:00am. Around 8:30 she woke up and was ready to go. Now, I had a head cold and needed some medication so we stopped at Walgreens and I bought my medication and we were on our way.

We arrived at the zoo a few minutes before it was to open and Ashley asked if I brought any bread to feed the ducks with. I had not so we went down to the local grocery store and bought a loaf of bread so she could feed the ducks. We went back to the zoo pond which is outside the zoo and fed the ducks before the zoo opened. We then walked around the pond and back to the car about the time the zoo opened.

Now, it was a great day to be at the zoo. The sun was shining and it was in the temperature was in the upper sixties. Even though I felt like crap from my cold and I was sweating like it was in the upper nineties I did my best have a good time with my daughter. Later in the day my daughter asked if she could have her face painted. I first said "no", but then reconsidered. This was something I had never let her do before. She proceeded to look through all the designs in the book and finally decided on a butterfly design. The artist painted her face and we continued our journey through the zoo. Finally around lunch time the temperature warmed up to the point where my daughter indicated she was hot so we went home. Their she continued to play even played with the next door neighbors daughter for a while. All-in-all a great day. Looking forward to doing it again next year.

Johnny Appleseed Festivile

2009-09-23T21:08:00.010-04:00

My kids wanted to go to the Johnny Appleseed festivile on Sunday. I tried to get my son to go on Saturday as rain was forcast for Sunday. Fortunately the rain held off and a good time was had by all. Here are some photo's from that event enjoy. At the festivile you can see Musicians, demonstrators, and vendors dress in early 19th century dress, and offer food and beverages which would have been available then. An outdoor drama is also an annual event in Mansfield, Ohio.
The festivile is held in September every year.

For more information about Johnny Appleseed see:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Appleseed

Small Wonders

2009-09-22T22:04:00.005-04:00

As I was walking along today I came across this little thing as I nearly stepped on it. As a slug goes I guess this isn't a little one. But this is one of God's small wonders. I don't remember slugs being quite this big when I was a kid. I am glad I noticed it and was able to hold the camera still enough to take this photo. It is amazing the things we walk through life and miss because we are just too busy to notice them. It had been a very long time since I had seen one of these, quite possibly back in my child hood somewhere. P.S. I haven't been a kid for quite some time.

Neighbors

2009-09-20T21:18:00.007-04:00

Neighbors! We all have them. Do you like them? Do you hate them? If you don’t know them then you are lucky! Do you wish they would move? According to the bible we are supposed to love our neighbors as we love our selves, but at times our neighbors make that difficult. I have a couple that I might pay good money to help them move.
Last night I was watching the kids play and I noticed how spectacular the sunset was. I thought I should run in the house and get the camera and take a couple of photographs of it. I took my photographs and had my camera pointed above the neighbor to the West’s house. I saw my neighbor to the South out in his yard so I spoke to him and said high. Walked over to talk for a second and showed him my camera and pictures. I then took my camera back in and put it away.
About two minutes passed and there was a knock on my door. Now, I couldn’t figure out why the kids would be knocking on my door. My neighbor to my West was at the door saying his daughter came in and said I was taking pictures of his house. Does anyone viewing this see a house in those pictures? Maybe the top of the roof line in one or two. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be and that viewfinder is really small. I told him I had not taken pictures of his house that I was taking pictures of the sunset and then went and got the camera to show him. My understanding is that he and the neighbor to the South have a feud going on. They have had trouble before. As I told my neighbor to the West as a rule of thumb I don’t photograph people or their property with out their permission. My photographs will be of trains, animals, my family, or nature. I showed him all the pictures I had on the camera even the ones from the day before. I also told him that I didn’t want to cause any trouble for any one. He said "You don’t want to be involved in any one else drama". I said, "I have enough drama of my own". I am friendly with everyone and try to leave people alone. I won’t say I hate my neighbors, because I don’t believe we are supposed to hate, but I don’t want to be involved in the war. I just wish they would move, but I guess I could get worse neighbors yet. Ah well…. Enjoy the pictures.

One Year Blogger Anniversary

2009-09-19T04:16:00.000-04:00

One year ago today I started the journey of blogging. It has been a lot of fun and as my sister said when I first started "There is something therapeutic about it". I have at times written about issues on my mind and also about some fun stuff as well.

Railroad Crossing Safety

2009-09-13T21:15:00.005-04:00

On Saturday I decided I would do a little train watching before I came home from work. I stopped at one of my old favorite places near the crossing at Nutman Avenue and stopped to wait. I hear on my scanner that L90 was coming in from the West from Roanoke. L90 works the GM plant south of Roanoke and makes a run both East and West each day.
I heard him call clear at Hugo which is the rail junction just West of the location were I am at so I thought here it comes. Next I know the lights are flashing and the bell is ring and a car screeches to a halt. They then put the car in reverse, but they don’t pull far enough back so the arm on the gate is coming down on top of their car. They then pull forward into the position shown in the photograph.

First off I wonder if the railroad has detection circuits in those railroad crossing arms that if it hits something it goes back up. If not and they had stayed where they were then there would have been a big dent in the top of the car. Quite possibly a big dent anyway. The second problem I had was the question "AM I SAFE HERE?". The problem I had with where the car was setting was that I wasn’t sure that the locomotive would clear the front end of the car. The car had to be a few inches from the tracks from where it is sitting. With the train traveling in my direction that car could be pushed off the tracks and into or on top of my car. Yes, I was concerned for the other motorist as well. One or both of us could have been killed had that locomotive caught the front end of the car or worse if the thing derails.

Keep in mind here when you are crossing the tracks when the lights first go off and the bell starts to ring before the arm comes down you still have time to cross the tracks. In the case of this motorist it would have been better for everyone involved if they had just kept going. The circuits in these crossings are controlled by the speed of the oncoming train. If the train is going 60 mph then they activate much more quickly and the arm comes down much more quickly. If the train is going 20 mph then just the opposite occurs. In this case the train was doing maybe 35 or 40 mph. I believe this area is rated for about 40 mph.

Temptation

2009-09-12T20:59:00.005-04:00

As some of you may have read before back on August 3, 2009 started making a major effort to change my life for the better. I want to be a better man and live closer to the way God wants me to live. I want to be a good example to my kids. I have found it amazing the lengths that Satin will go to temp to do things that you shouldn’t do.

Tonight I had the opportunity to have my son come spend some time with me. The problem was I am planning to go to church in the morning and my church is over near Warsaw Indiana. It was insisted that I have him stay overnight and return him tomorrow around 11am. If not then my ex-wife and kids were going home. I even offered to have him come over for just a little while and I would drive him home afterwards. That didn’t work as well. Now, church would not be over until 12:00pm or so and there is no way I can drive back from near Warsaw and have him back in time.

Now, I was raised Southern Baptist (Old Regular Baptist). I have two churches that I go to on a regular basis. One is up near Kendalville Indiana and the other is in Peircton. It is a little different in that it meets at each location only once a month. Google "Old Regular Baptist" if you want more information. So I only go to church twice a month at this point and this would be the second of those times that I go. I have been looking around for other places that I might go for the third and fourth Sunday’s.

At this point I am feeling really tempted by Satin. I love my son very much and it makes me sad that I didn’t get to spend time with him, but my relationship with God has to come first. I am not saying my son tempted me in any way, there were other factors at work here. I can’t go into those at this time, but even though I am sad about not seeing my son I feel I made the right decision. God knows I would spend as much time with him as I could.

At this point in my life I am really feeling good about the way things are going. I am feeling the best I have felt in years. It has been well over a month since I said my last swear word (colorful metaphor as they called them in Star Trek IV the Voyage Home). I have had my struggles, but overall I am doing ok. As I said above it is amazing the lengths that Satin will go to temp you. I heard this said and I agree with this "If it feels right it is ok. If it doesn’t feel right then don’t do it".

Remembering September 11, 2001

2009-09-11T20:25:00.003-04:00

At work today we had a moment of silence to remember those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001. I remember that morning well. Exactly eight years ago today I was at my desk working when I heard a group talking about it. I got up from my desk and asked questions in disbelief. I went to the Internet for news of what was happening and finally a TV was placed at an open location where we could check the news live. One of the people I work with made some remarks before our moment of silence. He said "This was an event that changed our nation forever". How true this is. Again, I would like to take a moment to remember the friends and family of those who lost someone in this attack on your great country. I would also like to remember those who lost their lives.

Additions to the blog roll

2009-09-07T20:41:00.010-04:00

Recently I started reveiwing stuff on the net. Other blogs, peoples photo graphs and ect. Looking for ways to update areas of my blog and for ideas. I am adding to my blog roll a blog that I read quite often. That blog is:

Every Life Has a Soundtrack

http://ataylormadelife.com/blog1/

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Other Blogs of Note:

During my search I found the flowing blogs that I would also like to mention. The "Nikon Sniper" I believe has given me another reason to take out my my Cannon Digital Rebel on a regular basis. The other two blogs have sayings or prayers of interest. Feel free to check out their blogs and enjoy! To return to these blogs later you may bookmark then or click on them in my blog roll.

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NIKON SNIPER
Digital Photography is sorta like sniping with a machine gun. If you get up every day, turn on your camera and put your life on continuous fire, ... sooner or later, you're bound to hit something.

http://nikonsniper.blogspot.com/

MR. Dickie's Blog
The purpose of Mr. Dickies Blog is to provied a place where I can post quotations
I like and write about things that are on my mind.

http://mrdickiesblog.blogspot.com/

Arrow Prayers
Arrow prayers are short prayers that one sends up to heaven at any time and any place.

http://arrowprayers.blogspot.com/

Cool Sunset Photo on Flickr

2009-09-06T20:53:00.001-04:00

IMG_0500
Originally uploaded by OCSP

I have been checking out other peoples photo's that they have submitted to flickr. I found this really cool sunset photo out there. Enjoy!

FLICKR

2009-08-30T20:42:00.002-04:00

Approximately one year ago I setup my Flickr account. Flicker allows you to upload as many photo’s as you want. I went one step further and signed up for the professional version of Flickr. For $25 for one year I can create as many sets of photos as I want and I can upload my videos. Flickr allows me to decide who can see what. I can decide if the pictures are public and open to anyone, viewable by friends and family, viewable by family only, or private. I use flickr to populate my slide show at the top right of the blog with different public photos that I have taken. The blog picks up the last 25 or 30 pictures that I have uploaded to Flickr that are marked public. If you are looking for a way to share photos and video with friends and family I highly recommend their service. You will first have to sign up for a free Yahoo account (www.yahoo.com) then you can setup your Flickr account. After this download the upload tool from the Flickr website (http://www.flickr.com)/. Uploading is fast and easy to do. You can also update your Flickr account on the go from your digital phone. A set of special email addresses are setup with your account so that photos and video can be sent directly from the phone to your Flickr account using the email address with the privacy setting that I want (public, family & friends, family, or private).

Here is a link to the last group of photo’s that I uploaded to Flickr with the public setting. Happy viewing! http://www.flickr.com/photos/railfandad/sets/72157622064330705/

The Depression/Recession comes home

2009-08-27T22:58:00.001-04:00

Tonight I went to a special union meeting to find out what is going on at work. I left feeling really depressed. I found out that I am guaranteed only four hours per paycheck (every two weeks). Tomorrow may quite possibly be my last day of work for one week. Then I may only get two days work then off who knows how long. This will be a way of life for me for the next while. As I still have a job I most likely can’t claim unemployment. I have two kids to support and how can I possibly do this on eight hours a month. I can’t even pay my bills. The bad news for me is I have no savings. I left my marriage (divorce) of fifteen years two years ago with nothing. Not that I took nothing into the marriage, but the savings I had was squandered during the marriage. Assuming I am off next week I will be Ebaying anything I can put my hands on (if I own it and it isn’t nailed down it will go). I will also be working on disposing of items that I don't think I need and don't think I can sell. I will be cleaning up in preperation to move. I am hoping this is not as bad as it looks, but it looks really bad at this point

Old Habits die-hard

2009-08-23T22:22:00.008-04:00

Back on April 3, 2009 I had been to my Aunt’s funeral and thought I should work on changing my life. For a while (about two months) I worked hard on being a better person. That entry for my blog can be viewed here: http://adayandalifeinfortwayne.blogspot.com/2009/04/things-we-discover-and-shame-we-bear.html e.blogspot.com/2009/04/things-we-discover-and-shame-we-bear.html . Sometimes old habits die-hard so I fell back into doing those things that I knew in my heart were wrong. Now, I haven’t written to my blog much lately. I have been feeling a little down and with the issues surrounding my children I just haven’t felt like posting to my blog. For about two months I did really well at being a better person, then I fell back into my old habits. I guess that too was a little depressing.

On August 3, 2009 I came to a turning point in my life. I am just plan tired of feeling guilty about doing things I know are wrong. I am tired of feeling that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I vowed to do everything in my power to do the right things and not do the things that I knew were wrong. It has been a struggle, but I feel like God knows I am doing my best now and that feeling of being sick in the pit of my stomach is gone. The church I go to believes that you must repent of your sins and begin a-new (be born again). Am I a born again Christian? The answer to that is "NO". I, however; refuse to do the things that I have been doing. It, for me, is a constant struggle on a daily basis and I remind my self-every second of the day of what not to do. Trust me there has been a lot of temptation by Satan.

One of the things I started doing after high school was cussing. Unfortunately, the truth is, at times I could make a sailor blush with shame. There wasn’t any cuss word I wouldn’t say. Today, I am doing really well with this. It had been two and a half weeks since my last occurrence of cussing. The few times it has happened when I am really frustrated and forget my self. Today it happened after I put the kids in the car and closed the doors at the zoo. I was really frustrated and one of the phrases I would say started to come out. I stopped mid-sentence. I know I shouldn’t have said what I did, but I think God knows I am working hard of this. I am hopping eventually this will too be a thing of the past. The other items on my list I think God that I have been able to have not repeated them since August 2, 2009. August 3, 2009 may quite possibly have been a great turning point in my life.

On August 10, 2009 my two kids and I went to the Anchor Room book store. The local Christian book store. Unfortunately these tired old eyes of mine needed a little bigger print than the bible I had would afford me to read. I did purchase a giant print bible to remove the eyestrain from the picture. I have placed my sister’s bible that she gave me on the bookshelf in my room. It is there if some night I want to read and don’t want to go out to the living room for the bible I bought it is there for me to read. I have read the first book of the bible (Genesis) and I am three forths of the way through the second (Exodus). My goal is to read the whole thing.

My son was there and wanted a bible of his own. Now, he is only eight years old and was willing to buy this with his own money. He had thirty dollars and the bible was thirty dollars plus tax. I told him he didn’t have to buy this with his money that I would buy it for him. I bought him the version of the bible my church believes in (King James). I thought he might just look at it and put it aside, but he has actually been reading it. He took it out and started reading it that day.

I know that for me the struggles will get more difficult not to pick up the old habits. I vow not to ever do those things again. And I hope that at some point the issue that I have with cussing when frustrated I am at least able to stop before the words get out of my mouth. One thing I have found interesting is that some of the TV shows I really liked before don’t seem to appeal to me now. My sister loaned me some old TV shows on DVD from the 70’s and 80’s, which seems to agree with me more. I am hoping in this case that old habits don’t die hard they just fade away.

A day out with Dakota

2009-08-18T21:15:00.012-04:00

You have heard about "A day out with Thomas", well I had a day out with my son Dakota. On July 23, 2009 I did my annual one-on-one (special time) with my son. Every year I take one personal day and spend it with each of my children. This year we resumed an annual event that he enjoys and looks forward to very much. Last year we didn’t get to go. He wanted to Deshler Ohio the crossroads of the B&O railroad. It is CSX railroad today, but in the old days the Baltimore and Ohio railroad went through these parts. It was a fun time that we both enjoyed. The picture at the top of this blog was taken on that day out. Below are some of the photographs I took on that day so enjoy.

Happy 47th Anniversary Mom & Dad

2009-08-11T00:01:00.004-04:00

I want to wish my Mom and Dad a happy 47th wedding anniversary. May they have many more!

Equal rights

2009-08-02T22:22:00.003-04:00

A man’s wife takes his children on a walk on a rainy day in 39-degree weather for seven hours. By the time she gets back their fingers are blue, their lips are blue, their ears are blue. She and the children are soaked from head to toe. They argued about this for an hour then they got the kids into the bathtub to warm them up. She goes to the kitchen and starts chopping up vegetables for dinner using a seven-inch kitchen knife. The wife then tries to stab her husband with the knife. He tries to block it, but the knife goes through his collar and slices his neck. She tries to stab him again and this time he tries to block it but he pops her in the mouth. She drops the knife and calls 911 telling the dispatcher that she is being hit and her husband is trying to kill her. He doesn’t allow her to hide the knife, but when the police arrive they don’t want to listen to him. Before they hand cuff him they even go as far as to draw their weapons on him.

They cuffed him and a female deputy takes the kids to the bedroom as they continue to discuss what happened. About fifteen minutes later the female deputy comes back and tells them he is telling the truth. The two daughters verified that their mom tried to kill him instead. They took the cuffs off and said "Your wife obviously needs help". The deputy added that she had coverage for mental health issues. Now, get this: What he did was a felony, what she did she wasn’t even arrested for it. When he called for help he was referred to a line for the perpetrators of violence. If you are interested in reading this full story read "NO ONE BELIEVED ME".

I have read about the equal rights amendment which would be the 28th amendment to the constitution of the United States of America. Based on the above story who is it that needs equal rights? Seems to me that men may need to fight for equal rights. The laws that we currently have are geared toward protecting women. But, yes Virgina there are those women who do bad things too. It isn’t a men’s only club. Do men have equal rights? This is just my opinion.

Happy Birthday FUZZY!

2009-07-30T21:58:00.014-04:00

Tonight we had our second birthday party for the cats this year. My son wanted to celebrate his cat Fuzzy's birthday. Fuzzy is shown above. We had cake, ice cream, and the cats had a feast like they did back in May when we celebrated the kittens birthday. Fuzzy will now be two years old. It was an opportunity for me to pick up the kids and spend time with them. A good time was had by all.

Happy 2nd Birthday Fuzzy!

Happy Birthday Aunt 'E'

2009-06-27T11:58:00.001-04:00

I want to wish my sister a happy 21st (wink, wink, lol) birthday today. Aunt "E" you ask? My son when he was really small could not say her name (Sheila) so he just called her "E". Now both kids call her "E". Happy Birthday Aunt "E".

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Singing the praises of EBAY

2009-06-08T17:29:00.007-04:00

On Thursday last week my power adaptor for my laptop decided to die. The one shown here on the left is the original Dell equipment the one on the right is the replacement I bought. The problem with the old one is that it had a short in the part that plugs into the wall. I will most likely save the rest incase I come across a replacement somewhere for that part. I am currently using one of the replacements to write this blog entry. This one powers up the laptop just fine. Since my laptop is my main source of computing power in my house I thought I might stop at a local store and purchase a replacement. Surely someone in town had one that I could purchase and it shouldn't be that much.

WRONG! I stopped at a local store and much to my suprise the total cost was $109.99 + taxes. I was shocked! I thought surely I can beat this price. This is 1/2 of what I can spend to get a new laptop, so off to ebay I went. I first tried to search for the part in Ebay and it wasn't found so off to Google I went and Google found it in Ebay. The total cost was $18.98 shipping included. I bought two of these for $38.56. I use the laptop in my car with a power inverter so I can plug the second one in in the car and just leave it under the seat. Needless to say I got two for less than I could buy one at the local store. The seller had this to me in two days priority mail via the United States Postal Service. Needless to say in all my time on Ebay I have had only one bad auction and that was before EBAY canged the way sellers are rated. Sellers are rated on how fast they ship, how well the item is described, how reasonable the shipping is, and ect. They are rated postive, netrual, or negative.

Installing a 12 Volt DC power drop in my 1997 Camry

2009-05-25T18:58:00.006-04:00

On of my hobbies is railfanning. I go out an watch and photograph trains. At times I take certain pieces of electronic equipment with me to add to my experience. I recently decided to make setup and operation of the equipment easier. One of the problems I have is the cigarette lighter plugs in this 1997 Camry don’t work when the keys are not in the car and the switch is not in the accessory setting. Therefore there are times when I leave the keys in the ignition with the window down on the car so that my equipment still operates. There is also the problem when I go to start the car it shuts down some of the equipment anyway. I also can’t operate my ham radio equipment at the high power setting. The solution to the problem was a direct power feed off the battery to the cockpit of the car.

Today I had all the parts to install the direct power feed. I ran the wire to the battery, I wired in a toggle switch to turn off everything beyond that point, wired in a test item that if I lost it wouldn’t be a big deal, then attempted to wire up to the battery and this is where things got ugly. I have a car alarm in the car that I don’t know how to operate. So when I reconnected the battery cable the car alarm goes off. I was doing everything to turn it off and nothing seemed to work. I finally figured it out and got it turned off. I finally got to throw the toggle switch and yea it works! I turned the power off at the toggle switch wired in my ham radio and wired in a power inverter (converts 12 volt DC to 120 volt AC) this gives me household outlets under the passenger seat. I double checked all my wiring and threw the switch again and everything worked without the keys in the ignition. My problem is now solved and I didn’t electrocute my self. I also installed a bigger wattage power inverter that I had on hand since the one I was using barely ran the equipment I wanted it to run. Sometime this week I will have to take it out on a test run to see how it works out. Sounds like fun.

There should be a law against whining

2009-05-24T18:12:00.006-04:00

On my way back from my daughter's graduation I stopped to take this photo. I couldn't agree more. Please "Stop Global Whining". Please stop whining in general. I think we need to outlaw whining. I am not sure who plastered this sticker on the stop sign, but I agree. I, however, don't agree with defacing public property. I at the moment can't stand it when I hear someone whining about life. People seem to whine about everything any more. People let's just get on with life. Whining about it won't help. I unfortunately used to be one of the whiners, but I found it didn't help at all and sometimes just made things worse. Oh well, I guess the people who are whining need something to do because they are board or something or they are hoping to get their way.

Congratulations Ashley!

2009-05-22T21:01:00.004-04:00

Went down to Decatur tonight for my daughter Ashley's pre-school granduation. My daughter is the one on the far right. They had a little show with singing by the children, presented certificates to each child for graduation, and gave each child a gift. This was followed up by a meal. It was fun to see her at this event. Up Next: Kindergarden

You got to love wrong numbers

2009-05-20T19:17:00.003-04:00

I was out in my yard mowing the lawn and decided to come in for a rest and a drink. Sat at my computer while I was drinking some pop and my phone started making noise to remind me that I had an appointment that I wasn't going to. I went to the phone to shut off the reminder and noticed that I had a missed call. The call came from an Ohio number that I didn't reconize. I did recognize the area code so I thought it might be something related to the kids (from my ex-wifes families area code) so I decided to dial the number back.

A young lady answers the phone and I asked who it is. She ask who I was and I told her there was a missed call and I was wondering who it was. She said her girl friend had given her a phone number and she thought she had it memorized, but had dialed me by mistake. I told her she had a wrong number and hung up. Well about 10 seconds later my phone rings again and it was the same person. I asked who it was she gave me her first name then asked me mine. I gave only my first name. I told her again she had the wrong number. What happend next made me chuckel and brought a big smile to my face. I said by and started to hang up and before the phone was hung up I heard her say "G#d Da#n he sounds hot!". LOL! If she only knew. Needless to say I still have this grin on my face. I don't know if it was a prank call or a wrong number, but I got a good laugh.

Yes Virgina there are still phone booths

2009-05-20T15:40:00.000-04:00

Just like a blast from the past there it is. Yes, I have spotted two of these babbies in town recently. I thought all the phone booths were gone or just a thing from the past. This one, sadly enough, was missing the door. The only thing I didn't see was Clark Kent rushing into it to change.

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Happy Birthday Fluffy and Buttercup

2009-05-19T21:23:00.013-04:00

Ok, I am officially nuts. This afternoon I threw a birthday party for two cats. The things we do for our kids. My son expressed an interest at being here for the kittens (Fluffy and Buttercup) birthday. He wanted to stay overnight, but due to the distance and the fact I would have to get him up way early I didn't think it a good idea on a school night. So, I picked up the kids after work, transported them to Fort Wayne, and we had a birthday party for the kids (ok, the two human ones, and the three four legged ones).

My sons cat Fuzzy the tiger cat shown here came to live with me last March 30th (2008). Approximately two months later she had a litter of five kittens. Fluffy and Buttercup stayed on and the other two kittens that survived I found homes for. One year ago today was when the litter of five kittens were born.

Well, the party was a hit. I got to spend some time with my kids which is always good and the kids seemed to enjoy it as well. My son made sure all three cats had a feast like they had never seen before. When I left to take my son and daughter home the cats were all looking full and sleeping. Usually when I come back from somewhere the cats greet me at the door looking somewhat hungry (even though I keep dry food out for them). Today it was like "oh he's home. Oh well, back to the namp". I have another birthday party to plan for July 30th as that is the day my son chose for his cats birthday (Fuzzy).

Summer time traditions

2009-05-17T14:47:00.000-04:00

Today I have my kids and we are enjoying on of our summer time spots. The kids like to go to Psi Ote park behind Indian Village Elementary school. This is good with me as I can see trains roll by and they can go out In the park and go nuts. Its a good time for all. The park has upgraded the play ground equipment since I went to school here. We are again starting up the Summer time traditions that we have started. I guess this will work to keep them happy until they are older.

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A man's best friend is his cat?

2009-05-13T20:45:00.002-04:00

Normally at this time of the evening I am on my couch and I usually have cats sleeping around me. Today no cats to be seen. I am not sure were they are in the house at the moment. The two younger cats have a birthday next Tuesday so I will be letting my son plan something for their birthday. He wants to be here at my home on that day. Its a big thing for him. My cats do at times provide company and entertainment. They also end up frustrating me at times by detroying things in the house.

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17 Again

2009-04-29T19:30:00.002-04:00

Yesterday went out to the movie and saw "17 Again". This is a movie about a guy that gets a chance to be 17 again. The twist is he doesn’t go back in time, but is about the same age as his teenage kids. This movie stars Mathew Perry (as Mike O’donell) and Leslie Mann (as Scarlett O’donell). The movie opens with a young Mike O’donell having his big day as a high school basketball star. In the crowd is a college basketball scout. If he does well then he will get a scholarship to college. Before the game we see young Mike O’donell talking with his girlfriend. She has something that she wants to tell him, but is reluctant to tell him before his big game. Finally we see them taking then it is game time. The game starts and Mike gets the opening tip. His girlfriend is leaving the Gym and he drops the ball and trots off the court. They talk and she has informed him that she is pregnant. He says the baby is the only thing that matters.

Fast forward about 17 years in the future and we have adult Mike and Scarlett who are getting a divorce. Mike is offered a chance to go back and do things over and be 17 again. Mike says he wants to do it and zap he is 17 again only he and his teenage daughter and son are all the same age and his soon to be ex-wife is still in her mid thirties. He gets the chance to interact with his children in the high school environment and fix the situation with his wife. He has to make the choice again to get the college basketball scholarship or go after the woman he loves.

I liked this movie and highly recommend it for your viewing pleasure. It does beg the questions "Would you do your life over if you had the opportunity?". I have asked my self-this question many times. If I had to be 17 again in today’s day and time I don’t think I would. Sometimes I feel like I would if I could go back in time with the knowledge I have now, but then I look at my son and daughter and if I changed anything I wouldn’t have them. At this point I feel like what I have been through is worth it for my kids. How would you feel about doing things over again?

Click here for a video trailer.

The simple things in life are FREE!

2009-04-25T20:33:00.006-04:00

Today was like any other day. I got up and got ready for work. As I started to get into my car I noticed the morning sky and the colors in it. I felt compelled to take out my camera phone and take this photo of the sky. Yes, it was a little dark. I don't know what it is with me a the current time, but simple things in life seem to be the thing I am noticing now. Am I just getting old? I guess as one of the country music songs says "The simple things in life are free". And Yes, it was a great day. The weather was warm and sunny. A great way to start off my week of vacation.

Sometimes we have to answer the tough questions!

2009-04-21T20:49:00.009-04:00

Sometimes in life you have to answer the tough questions. First off I had a really good weekend this past weekend with the kids. I had the best Friday I had ever had with them. My ex-wife did something right the past week as they were both really happy. My son is doing better in school. I too am working to make their time with me the best that it can be.

Now, Sunday I was taking the kids over to Burger King to meet a friend. This friend has three boys and my kids play really well with those kids. On the way to Burger King we were passing buy some houses and my daughter says, "I wish we could have a house like that for me, Dakota, you Daddy, and mommy. Daddy why were you and mommy fighting in the truck". Now the day I left my ex-wife we had a big argument on the way home in the pickup truck that we owned at the time. I figured my daughter was to young to remember that, but I was wrong. She would have only been about three years old.

As I said before, sometimes you have to answer the tough questions. My answer was that mommy and daddy didn’t get along. This had nothing to do with you guys did it? The answer from them was "no". I then went on to explain that it had nothing to do with them. Daddy and mommy would never be together again. Maybe someday mommy would have someone new in her life and daddy might have someone new in his life. Daddy figured it would be just him that he didn’t think he would go for it again. We would have to just make the best of things as they are. I am sure they didn’t understand all of what I was telling them. As my uncle Orbin’s wife said once the damage is done it can not be undone. There would be no point for my ex-wife and I to get back together.

I wish my kids could have had the childhood that I had. It wasn't perfect nothing is, but I have fond memories of it. Unfortunately that isn’t possible. What is important now is that we make them as happy as possible. Get them used to the idea that mommy and daddy won’t be in the same house and that they have two homes. We have to be as fair with each other and civil as possible for their sake. Hopefully she understands that now and we can work together to make sure they grow up to be good people. I wasn’t sure I should post this, but it was just something on my mind. Things seem to be going in a good direction at the moment so I hope that continues.

How dumb is this?

2009-04-19T14:30:00.000-04:00

The above photo was in the Saturday April 18, 2009 Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. It reminded me of something I saw the other day. I was behind (thank God) this person driving across the parking lot. They had an ice cream cone in one hand and their cell phone in the other. They were actively clicking keys in an attempt to send a text message (why it couldn't wait or why they couldn't stop is unknown to me). I wondered as I followed them across the parking lot if someone walked out in front of them or if say I fell in the street in front of them would they see that. I also wondered if when we got to the main street they would stop or continue to travel out into the line of traffic. As luck would have it they stopped at the main street and put the cell phone down when they pulled out. But I guess I have to ask "How dumb is this?". I don't think we need stricter cell phone laws, just a little common sense. This is just my opinion.

The guard dog

2009-04-12T19:20:00.002-04:00

Went to the Dollar store and Walmart with my sister this afternoon. As we were leaving Walmart I looked across Washington Center road into a business complex and I noticed this cat waliking infront of one of the businesses. I also saw this statue of the dog you see in the picture. The cat was making it's way down infront of one of the business when he spotted this dog. Well, the cat immediately retreats and looks back to see if the dog is following him. When he noticed the dog wasn't following he sneaks back down that way, pokes his head up to take a look and retreats again. He did this several times until he was satisfied that it wasn't a real dog. He then made his way infront of the dog and on his way. Needless to say, I had the best laugh I have had in a while watching this cat run from the would-be german sheppard.

The tale of two rooms

2009-04-07T19:31:00.009-04:00

This afternoon I got a call from Satan (My ex-wife). Sorry, but I think the Satan reference fits at this point. I had just got home and was preparing to list some of my model railroad stuff on Ebay. I have $369 in state taxes due on April 15, 2009 and no money to pay this with. My ex-wife would go crying to her family or anyone she could find to get the money. I choose to not involve my family any more than I have to in my problems.

The call was that my son got in trouble again at school. My ex was letting me know that she was canceling letting him ride the four wheeler with ICY (the Komet Hockey Mascot) on Wednesday April 8, 2009. She said that they (the school) want help handling him and that they are talking counseling for him. They also said that they felt that my daughter might have the same issues. I informed my ex-wife that she already has those issues. Satan’s response was "It isn’t that bad yet". My response was "It will be". Then I went into the problem doesn’t appear to be at this end that my ex should examine what is happening there. She (Satan) got up set, got somewhat verbally abusive, accused me of not helping, and hung up the phone. I asked to talk with my son and my request has been ignored at this point. These are my kids too and I should be allowed to talk with him or them at anytime. Now, "I am not a perfect person. Nor am I the perfect parent, but I am attempting to do the best that I can. I want to be the best Dad I can be".

The main thing I would have you look at is his room. When we first started the divorce process, my ex-wife said "All you need is a one bedroom apartment". I said "No, the kids need their own space at my place". I have way more space here than I need, but I have a home for my kids and me. my son not only keeps his room clean and neat he did all the decorating in the room. I was invited into my ex-wife’s home and his room was a total wreck. I couldn’t even see the floor. His room at his mom’s said, "I am unhappy here". His room here says he is happy. My goal in life is not to cause my ex-wife problems with him, my goal is to be a better father to both my kids. I don’t know what I can do to help at this point.

The things we discover and the shame we bear!

2009-04-03T23:36:00.012-04:00

Today, I went to my Aunt Sandy’s funeral. Part of the funeral was a sermon delivered by the minister (preacher we call them). The message was that things you can buy in this lifetime are not important. Part of the message was if you feel like your life is messed up then clean up your act and turn it all over to God. Now, this minister must have been reading my mind, because I was sitting there feeling like I need to get my act together to be a good example to my kids and to be a better father for them. I need to get my kids into church. I was sitting there feeling like my life is a total mess. I have been for sometime feeling like things you can get in this life are not important. Maybe this is just my age showing, or maybe I am just now figuring out what life is about. Now sure at this point if I am figuring it out or not. Some things just don’t seem to be that important to me any more.

I came home today thinking I needed to go out and buy a large print bible. Reading the bible has been one of those things I said I would do someday. Feeling like if I wait to many more days that I might run out someday I thought now might be a good time to start. Now, these tired old eyes can’t see very well anymore, but I knew I had a bible on the counter in the family room. So since cash is not readily available I thought I would open the one I had up to see if I could read the print in it with my glasses on. Now, when you reveal something about your self-my sister calls it "outing yourself". So, I am "outing myself" here in front of God and everyone. I had asked for this bible for Christmas and my sister had bought it for me and given it to me one Christmas Eve. Much to my surprise and dismay it was given to me on December 24, 1990. Yes, almost 19 years ago, and I have opened it only maybe three or four times. This bible is brand new in the box. In most cases having something this old in this good of condition is a good thing. In this case it is shameful. It should show sings of use and wear, not look brand new. Shame on me!

Now, I can’t remember if I read any out of this or not, but there is a bookmark in it with the lion and lamb on it with a verse from Mathew 5:8,9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God". I have read some of the New Testament in a NIV bible a few years back. The bible she gave me is the King James Version, which at times is a little harder to read (it is the version that my church believes in).
I remember seeing my grandmother’s (Lula) bible and she had births, deaths, and her marriage information written in the bible. I had intended to write the information into the appropriate pages of the bible when I got married back in 1992. The page that lists the marriage information is blank. I will most likely leave it that way even though I was married for fifteen years. I will most likely leave the family tree page blank as well. The problem I had with the marriage was, I was married, the other person, I feel, was just playing around. I don’t feel that we had a real marriage. I will most likely write my son’s and daughters birth information on the birth page. Maybe I am just a sentimental old softy, but this seems like one of the lost traditions that need to be honored. For the last little while I feel like I have floundered around not sure of what I want to do with the rest of my life. I think it may be time to let God take the lead and figure out where I should end up. Who knows how things will end up for me. Hopefully, I have another twenty or so years to go. I would like to be around to see what kind of people my children end up to be. Hopefully I can help get them turned around and the will grow up to be good people. Maybe I will even be around to see my grandkids.

Had to do a double take

2009-03-27T21:38:00.004-04:00

Sometimes I go out to CNN.COM to read up on world news. As I was looking through the headlines one read: "KOCO: Blizzard warning posted in Oklahoma". Yes, that is correct a blizzard warning. Now, I had to check this out on Weather.com and it is real. They are calling for quarter inch of ice, blowing and drifting snow, and near white out conditions. I believe I saw one place where places in Oklahoma are expecting up to a foot of snow. It was a nice balmy sixty degrees here today. I checked our forcast to see if we would be cooling off and NOPE we are not expected to. It was just really strange that we were sixty degrees and where you think it would be warmer it was icy and cold. I am hoping we don't get any of this as I am sick of winter weather.

Happy St. Patricks Day

2009-03-17T00:01:00.002-04:00

Happy St. Patricks Day. If you are not wearing green consider yourself pinched!

Amateur or Professional

2009-03-13T22:23:00.005-04:00

As part of my Ham Radio hobby I get a monthly magazine called "QST". The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) which I am a member of puts out this magazine. I saw this quote in the magazine and thought it was worth noting. Ham Radio operators are referred to as amateur radio operators.

The quote was: "Professionals built the Titanic, the ark was built by amateurs."

Makes you think doesn't it?

Twitter jitter fritter bitter

2009-03-08T15:19:00.004-04:00

I thought I would share this. It is from page 6d of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette Saturday March 7th, 2009. Click the photo to see it full sized.

Daylight Savings Time Begins

2009-03-06T19:12:00.003-05:00

On Sunday March 8, 2009 at 2am daylight Savings time begins. Time to SPRING forward one hour. So basically in the spring we spring forward (move one hour ahead) and in the fall we fall back (move back one hour). If the current time is now 5:30pm under daylight savings time starting Sunday the time would be 6:30pm. The good news here is that we all get to sleep in an extra hour on Monday. That is assuming my body doest have me up at the normal time. The internal clock thing you know. The bad news is that in the fall we all loose that hour of sleep. You just knew I was going to drop the other shoe didn't you.

I personally am not a fan of daylight Savings time. I think it is down right stupid to have us mess with our clocks twice a year. I am sure it is hard to get kids to bed in the summertime when the sun is just going down at 10pm. The cry is that it is still daylight out. The other bad thing here is that the kids will now be waiting at the bus stop again in the dark until and those of us who have to go to work say around 7ish will be driving in in the dark.

I am not sure what propogated this change to daylight savings time. All I know is that Indiana for the first forty one years of my life didn't mess with the clocks. I was very glad to live in Indiana when we didn't. It did create problems for me as I knew people in other states that were on a different time. They are for the most part all on the same time now. Now, changing the clock is a minor incovenience, but why do it at all. I heard it has something to do with milking the cows and their schedule. This just sounds like a lot of bull to me. Indiana can thank its changing of the time to "My Man Mitch -- IE: Mitch Daniels". Well, he isn't my man Mitch. I didn't vote for him. I will let you decide if you like daylight savings time or not. Just remember to set your clocks ahead one hour before you go to sleep on Saturday night or on Sunday morning when you get up. Your choice.

Found on Ebay

2009-03-02T09:47:00.012-05:00

Ebay is a wonderful thing. Ebay is an on-line (internet based) auction site. If you are looking for something most likely you will find it. With a little practice and digging around for prices of stuff, you should come up with an item at a discounted price. However, I have seen auctions on Ebay go for well more than the item could be bought for new. Items can be purchased from anywhere in the world from Ebay. I bought my son a watch that was shipped here from Hong Kong China. As a seller I am restricting bidding on my items to just the United States only. You can put items on a watch list and check back later to see what price that item might be selling for. Ebay also provides you with email reminders that the item is selling soon so that you can go out there an check on the item. There are hundreds of items for sale on Ebay.

I currently have five auctions on ebay ending sometime in the next week. I will be putting more out there in the weeks to come. I have been rounding up stuff that I am not actively using and attempting to sell it off on Ebay. The hope is that I can turn that money around and pay a bill with it.

Here is one of my current auctions click the link to be taken to the auction to see what this looks like:

Radio Shack Pro 2054 Mobile/Base Scanner

There are fee's involved in the sale of the items. Ebay charges an insertion fee and this fee depends on the number of photo's of the item you have and how much the starting asking price is. Then they charge a fee based on how much it sells for. Buyers can use a service called Paypal to pay for purchases. Paypal is basically a shield between the buyer and seller to hide bank account details. With paypal you can setup checking accounts and/or credit cards to use to pay for your auctions. Paypal also offers a credit account (someting similar to a credit card) to pay for purchases a well. As a seller I am accepting Paypal payments allowing people to pay with the methods listed above. There is, of course, a small fee for this. You can also print shipping lables, pay and print postage, and have the item picked up for delivery. I haven't sold anything on Ebay in a number of years so we will see how this goes. I will post an update later.

To begin shopping on ebay you can go to this website: http://www.ebay.com/