Tidbits

* Every once in a while, I feel the need to do a tidbits post, considering tomorrow is survivor night I'll do one today.

* First off, Randy has went back to Mountaineer Challenge acadamy a week ago and I've already sent him my first e-mail Sunday. His address is:

wvchallenge@wvchallenge.org
Subject: Cadet Hamrick

* We were supposed to get hammered in snow this week, but we have managed to get just a small portion of what was initially predicted to get. OK, I'm ready for spring.

* Mom had to re-start her BLOG. Seems like she was having some password trouble and just restarted everything.

* My sister Kim changed around the formatting at her BLOG. It changed around all the sidebar information. I guess I was wrong last October when I thought I was Hacked, when in fact it was me who accidentily re-set the account simply by changing the formatting. oops.

* I did manage to get a few older pictures scanned this past weekend, no big surprises but I did manage to get 46 pictures scanned, uploaded and hosted.









* Gary contacted me and asked if there was anything I could do to help his computer. It seems to have become infested with massive amounts of spyware. I gave him three pieces of advice.

1. Go to his administrative tools and turn off his Messenger Service. It's a network feature that can be used to send "Netsend" messages through an internal network. Easily exploitable by hackers.
   
2. I then advised him to go and download Ad-Aware and immunize his system from any spyware that may already exist on his computer.
   
3. I then asked him if he was running IE as his browser, (I already knew the answer) and advised him to go and download Mozilla's Firefox. These three things should easily fix his spyware problem.

* Depending on how tired I feel when I get off of work today, I may stop over at Mom's and try to get some more older pictures scanned.

* Lat week, Kim brought me some items that she had canned. I finally broke one of them open trying the salsa, I will honestly say that this is the best Salsa I have ever eaten. Remember I used to be a Potato Chip vendor at one time also.

* I finally got my copy of Morgantown Mahem and was actually won the Autographed Adam "Pac Man" Jones copy of the DVD. Scroll down to the bottom to see that I am the first winner!! Woo Hoo. I guess that makes me forget about the snow for a while. This gives me a regular copy and an unopened autographed copy of a guy predicted to go High first round this spring in the NFL draft. Great little reminder of my time spent at West Virginia University.

* It is over the hump day, we are half-way to the weekend!!!

* I'm getting ready to head to work, did I ever mention to anyone I Hate Snow.

* One post note, I have decided to play another year of softball if I am still in Morgantown all summer. I have thought about it all winter and have decided to leave Heiskell and King/Judies Lounge/Sports Page/Judies/Recourse/Walnut Lane and play with a new team this season. The old team has just had too many faces change and too much inconsistancy for me. I just want to have fun again. I'll be playing for Prime Thyme this summer and returning to playing with a group of guys who have slowly left our core of players we have had for years.

Google is the king of the Internet

A couple of years ago while I was in college, I learned of the best search engine that one could ever imagine. Google was a great search engine, but once I learned how to use Boolean operators and their functions, it really made my web research experience much more enjoyable.



Later on, Google started to expand their services. One of the first things they did that affected me was to introduce GMAIL. They revolutionized internet based e-mail. I used to use Hotmail and they gave you 2 free MB's. Google offered 1,000 MB's of space. Services like Yahoo and Hotmail were then forced to increase the amount of their storage space they made available in fear of losing everything to gmail. Gmail is invitation only still because it is still in the Beta, but if anyone wants a Gmail account let me know, I have 50 to give away.



Next, they introduced Google Scholar this past November. The ultimate search engine for doing academic research. It actually returns your query and it also returns a query on who has cited this source and how many times it has been cited.



Then about a month ago they introduced Google Video. It too is in it's Beta and hasn't been fully published yet. It allows you to search video of TV shows broadcast in your area. I haven't really played with it yet.



The new Beta however is the one that I am really impressed with. As you all know I'm a Geographer and a bit of a mapping nerd. When it came to internet mapping I have always said that Mapquest was the best one to use. Yahoo's was nice, but mapquest just seemed to be the best.....until now. Google has teamed with NAVTEQ to create the most user friendly mapping system I have seen on the internet. It is still in it's Beta and was just recently put online, they are still working the bugs out, but Google Maps has just blown any other internet mapping software out of the water. Give it a try, I'm sure you will find it user friendly and enjoyable to play with.



If you want to see what Google is working on next or what they have in the Beta, just go to Google Labs and you can see what's going to be introduced to the unternet first with the rest of us internet geeks.

If you want to see everything Google can do, just go to Google help.



P.S. I STILL hate snow.

Today's modern technology

OK, maybe this post is a few days late, but I still want to address it before too much time passes by. Last Friday I had a very unique opportunity to meet my cousin Trena over the internet.

My Aunt Bonita in Alaska had asked me if I would send a few of the recent pictures that I had uploaded of my grandmother and grandfather to her daughter Trena.



Recently I had scanned some old rare pictures that had been stuffed in a box somewhere before we added more life to them by scanning them and uploading them to the internet.





After e-mailing her a few of the pictures, I initiated an AOL Instant messenger conversation with her and then told my sister Kim that she was on AOL. Kim quickly installed AIM at home and before you know it the three of us were conversing over the internet.

It was nice to meet a family member that I have never met who lives some 4,000 miles away.

Note to family members in Alaska, I need more pictures.





P.S. I STILL Hate snow.

Chasm

Yesterday I said that I would post the solution for Chasm. It's a neat little game that is a little addictive. I'll do a walkthrough of it because it was one that took me a while to complete. WARNING: It is addictive.




1. Click on the steps so Joe keeps walking.
2. You will come to a open (broken) concrete pipe.

3. Get on the side of the pipe without water.
4. Walk down the pipe.
5. You will come to a door and rungs
6. Climb up the rungs
7. You will see a crank thing
8. Walk over to the crank thing and turn it

9. Leave the room in the upper right hand corner
10. You will end up in a tunnel, with a tunnel ahead and a pipe to your right
11. Go in the pipe
12. You will come out in a stream of water (open pipe again)
13. Go to the right/up
14. You will come to a pipe with more pouring out, a ladder, then steps
15. Go up the ladder
16. You will come to a pipe with more rungs
17. Go up the rungs
18. You will end up above the unbroken concrete pipe; there will be three cranks and a rope
19 .Turn all three cranks you come to by clicking them repeatedly
20. Click on the rope to knock it in the pipe

21. Climb down the rope (by clicking) you will end up above a trap door
22. Go through the trapdoor
23. Cross the rope bridge you come to
24. Go up through the next trapdoor on the other side of the bridge
25. Click on the bottom of the screen under Joe's feet
26. Climb the rungs on your left
27. Click until you get Joe to be on the opposite side of the rungs
28. The view should change so you see two water wheels and two cranks
29. Turn the second crank
30. Go back down the rungs, through the trapdoor, across the bridge, and up the other trap door
31. Climb the rope
32. Turn the cranks on the left/bottom
33. You should see water on the other side of the chasm
34. Cross the chasm (trapdoor, bridge,....)
35. Repeat steps 25-28
36. Close the first crank (right) and open the second (left)
37. You will see a little piece of anime of where the water is flowing. IF THIS DOESNT HAPPEN! Something is wrong
38. The big water wheel should start turning
39. Go back around basin (past the rungs)
40. Grab the moving pink belt (click repeatedly)
41. Start running down the steps till you get to a bag on a string
42. Cross the chasm in the bag by clicking into it and clicking on the open air
43. Jump out of the bag
44. Walk up/left on your screen
45. You will come to five flights of steps
46. Go down them
47. You will end up at the bottom of the dam with pipes and water
48. Wait till the water starts and go in pipe D as soon as it stops
49. Then go up to D4 left once (u will come up in an air hole) ASAP start going left go up to C5 keep going left until you cant anymore u will see a door (A5)
50. Go out the door
51. Climb the rungs on your left (keep your mouse above Joe)
52. You will come up on another door
53. Watch through the little window and u will see the water start
54. Go through the door as soon as it stops
55. Go up to B10
56. Go left once
57. Go 2 the top of the dam
58. Walk along the top till you come to a crank and a board
59. Turn the crank and Joe will surf down on the board
60. You now have both wheels turning!
61. Walk along the outside of the trough till u get to the 2 belts
62. Click on the 2nd 1 till Joe jumps up and grabs it
63. Walk along the steps
64. Another bag slide
65. When u get out of the bag slide it will go 2 the other side of the chasm that’s OK
66. Walk along the steps
67. You come to the broken concrete pipe
68. You should see water flowing through the tunnel behind it (if there isn’t, something is wrong)
69. Go down the pipe
68. Climb the rungs
69. Turn the crank
70. Enjoy the movie, you just beat it.


Ejoy yourself, it is a fun, yet addictive puzzle and even with the solution is kind of tricky. If you play the game all the way through, I know of one place where you will have a little bit of trouble (water pipes), when you screw up you get washed back to the bottom and hear this annoying bird laugh at you. After a few times you feel like choking him.

Finish the game and justice will be served.

Have fun.

Hapland, a neat little puzzle

What a time consuming puzzle and it took me a while to actually beat this. Hapland is a very challenging puzzle. I'll try to break down the solution for you to complete the puzzle.

1. Start by opening both windows and and turning the hanging arrow around.
2. Open the hatch and bring out the first stick guy by clicking the arrow pointing up.
3. Fire rock number one at the 'bridge', it wiil fall into place.
4. Fire the next rock at the bell. this will open the door on the left.
5. Next fire the 2 grenades at the bridge, you have to click on the bridge as the grenade reaches it to bat it into the air where it will explode.
6. Next, fire the blue card/key at the bridge, it will fall into the hole where stick guy 2 can use it.
7. After guy 2 opens the door click guy one back at the 'cannon', he will be loaded into the cannon.
8. Bring out stick guy 3 by pushing the UP arrow once more.
9. Click guy 3 at the cannon to fire guy 1 up at the bell, as he reaches the spear, click the spear to bend it slightly so the guy can land under the bell.
10. Once guy 1 is on the 'tower' click him to move the tower to the right. Click a few times to make it fall on the spear, launching the rock onto the landmine.
11. Next, click the door on the left and guy 4 makes his way to the door past where the landmine just blew up.
12. This is the tricky part: Right before guy 4 gets to the door, you need to click on guy 2 (below) to trigger him to begin walking.

This can be a little tricky and may not be as easy as it appears to be. There are three real tricky parts, the first one is #5. You have to time the grenades just right to pop them into the air. The second tricky part is firing the guy at the spear and having to bend the spear just in time. The final tricky part is #12, you want to get your timing right because there will be a chainsaw guy drop out of the box and attempts to kill guy 2.


I really liked this puzzle, but mu favorite internet puzzle has to be Chasm. This one kept me going for days before I got it figured out, but maybe I'll post the solution to this one another day.

Survivor Night

Well, once again it is Thursday night which means it is Survivor Night. This is week two of Survivor Palau.

This week both tribes managed to get a hold of their flints and managed to make fire. As everyone knows fire is an essential part of the game and it is a key element to their survival.

For the rewards challenge, surprisingly Angie Jakusz dominated the challenge despite being the last survivor picked last week and managed to win fishing gear for the Ulong tribe.

In the immunity challenge, teams were earlier in the day given in a tree mail the secret to Morse Code. Both teams had to have all their member swim out to a pontoon and start diving for objects. Eventually they had to dive down and retrieve a trunk and had to bring the trunk into shore and open it up and solve a Morse code puzzle to win immunity. The Koror tribe managed to win their second straight immunity sending the Ulong tribe to tribal council for the second consecutive week.

At Ulong's second tribal council it appeared to come down to a vote between Kimberly Mullen and Ashlee Ashby as to which member of Ulong would be going home this week. Going into tribal council it appeared it was going to be a 4-4 vote for Kim and Ashlee. After the voting, Ashlee was the second member of the Ulong tribe and fourth player of the game sent home.

AHHHHHHHH

What a bunch of suprises my eyes awoke to this morning. First of all, I fell asleep early last night and missed the WVU v Pitt basketball game. I figured we slipped by the 17th ranked Panthers not too long ago when we played them at home, now we had to travel to the Petersen Events Center and playthem on their home court and play them in front of their rowdy home fans. I thought we didn't stand much of a chance because truth be told Pittsburgh has a very talented basketball team. Much to my surprise we beat them 70-66 last night on their home floor. Way to go guys.Oh, check out the look on the face of the girl in the middle of the picture, this picture is truley worth a million words.



My second surprise was an unpleasant one this morning. I don't know if I have ever mentioned to anyone before, but I have this displeasure for this white stuff that tends to fall on the ground occasionally. Just in case I have never mentioned it I hate snow with a passion.

I blame this recent blanketing on a failure to travel to Punxsutawney and not poking a certain rats eyes out so he could not see his shadow. Someone simply tapping himon his shoulder and getting his attention on an objest towards the sun would have been sufficient, but no the rhodent had to turn around and cause this crap all over the ground this morning. Arrrrggghhhh.


Oh, one more pic thats a little "Blast from the Past"

Most Amazing Geography Software I've seen.

Thats a pretty strong statement when you consider a few things:

1. I am a Geographer
2. I work in the Field of GIS
3. I have already seen some pretty amazing things in the terms of GIS

For a mapping software to come out and completly blow my mind it would have to be something extremely special.

Tday, I have been given a chance to see that software and it comes from NASA of all places. It's called World Wind 1.2 and it has just totally captivated me today. Please be forewarned, it is a free software, but it also is about 170 MB in size to download. If you have a cable or DSL connection and at least 256 MB of RAM at a bare minimum and a 3D Graffics card. This software is VERY computer intensive, but well worth it if you have the minimum system requirements.

Tidbits

* Once again it's time for tidbits this morning.

* I was driving through town this morning and noticed that Mode Roman is STILL having a going out of buisness sale. Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't his going out of Buisness sale been going on for over a year that I can think of.

* On my way to work this morning I was flipping through channels. First I was listening to Aaron Scott and listening to him deliver news about a massive earth quake in Iran.

* Then I kicked over and started listening to Eric McGuire and started listening to people making up their own facts. One guy was talking about what Miss WV was Miss America in 1980. He tried to say it was Jaon Benoit Ramsey's mother. If you look at the History of Miss West Virginia you will notice we have NEVER had a winner. In 1977 however Pat Brown, who was Joan Benoit's mother was miss West Virginia.

* To top that off, the Movie trivia guys wife invented her own answers when she said that Jack Nicholson's first movie role was in Little Shop of Horrors, but according to IMDB.com his first screen appearance came two years prior in The Cry Baby Killer. Sheesh, I thought everyone knew this stuff.

* I did manage to order something that will always help me remember my time at WVU. I guess a guy who started and finished WVU the same time I did has done a DVD called Morgantown Mahem that I ordered. I know a couple guys who have seen it and love it. It was just a guy who video taped events from his time in college here.

* My sister Kim was telling me Sunday about a report on CNN where here in West Virginia on the Potomac River that they were finding fish eggs inside of male fish. So, being that I work at the Natural Resources Analysis Center I started to ask around to to the wildlife and fisheries guys, and their thoughts were similar to mine. The region has a high population of Poultry Houses. This is where they breed a lot of chickens. Our theory is that they have been ingested with a growth hormone that could potentially leave the chicken in their bile. With so many chickens in the area, watershed contamination from the excess of chicken manure is something that I myself have wondered about for years. My friend Ginger did a report on the number of poultry houses in the area. We had actually discussed me following up on her reseacrh the next year, but I got on a different project. Now I kind of wish I had followed up on it. Anyways, I did a quick little map of the area and its watersheds. The Potomac runs along the northern Bortder of West Virginia and the green areas are poultry houses in either the Northy Branch Potomac, South Branch Potomac or Cacapon watersheds that all drain into the potomac.



* I just took a look at this novel that I have written and thought maybe I should have made a story out of a few items rather than doing a tidbits section.

* Kim brought me a few nice presents yesterday, she's into canning and brought me a canned Deer Meat, a Canned stuffed Peppers, a Canned Home msde Salsa and a Canned zucchini cake. I haven't eaten any of them yet, but it is very tempting.

* I guess you can call this long tidbits post as a Mission Impossible completed.



* P.S. I Still Hate Snow

Nice Long Weekend

Rarely do I ever take time off of work, this past Friday I went to see Randy graduate and was able to enjoy a rare extended weekend for myself.

Friday after Randy's graduation we all went to the Country Inn to get a chance to sit and talk to Randy for a while and enjoy some of Nick's fantastic Cheeseburgers. (Eat one of these and there will be no wonder why they are selling so much food.)

Saturday, on a little advice from a message board, I went and purchased the DVD SAW. It was a kind of Freddie Kruger Meets Jason meets Hannibal Lecter type of movie. I'm not really into the horror flicks, but this is one you have to watch all the way through before you can appreciate the movie. It has a surprise ending that I never expected, so in respect for anyone who should happen to want to watch it I wont ruin it for them.

Sunday was a typical Sunday, went grocery shopping at Super Wal-Mart, did Laundry and started to take a Sunday afternoon nap until Nick called me and wanted me to go to the bar and sit there while Amy bartended. Nick and Terri went to a special promo kickoff put on by Budweiser to introduce bar owners to their two knew Budweiser brands of beers that they are stating to market.

It's currently 48 Degrees here in Morgantown and there is no snow!!!! Have I ever mentioned before I hate snow?

Talk about a long process

Wow, this past September I went to a career day at WVU. I was walking around looking for a specific table that I had been told had a GIS position open. Of course walking around the WVU Coliseum there were many tables set up and I dropped off an occasional Resume or two.

One of the places that I actually stopped to talk to was an Engineering firm called Dewberry out of Fairfax Virginia. I stopped and talked to them and asked if they did GIS. Probably one of the wisest questions I've ever asked.

After a brief conversation I walked away and never gave it a second thought. Pan ahead three months and November and they call me requesting to set up an interview sometime around Thanksgiving. I did a little research on the company and was finding some very strong positives about the company. They definitely had my interest.

Didn't hear from them again until just before Christmas, we talked about going down after the first of the year for an interview and that time came and passed. No more contact.

This morning, I get an e-mail from them wanting me to pick one of four dates in Late March or Early April to go down to tour the facility and conduct an interview.

Keep your fingers crossed, this is a long slow process, but it looks positive.

Congratulations Randy

My nephew Randy graduated from his first phase of training today at the Mountaineer Challenge Acadamy. Just a few short weeks so far and he seems much more mature and in control. Thye really put him to the physical test in the first few weeks. He proudly demonstrated today that he does sixty-five one-finger pushups on a daily basis.

He seemed very happy to be able to come home today and really wanted to see his neice. I think those two have one heck of a bond so far.

Survivor Palau Premiere

Yep, it's that time again, that time when Jeff Probst takes a number potential Millionaires and drops them off at some exotic location. This starts the game of survivor. Tonight, twenty cast aways were dropped off of the Island of Palau for the start of the game.

They were dropped off onto the island and the first male and first female who made it to shore were given immunity. It seemed to be a different game to start, then Jeff appears and has the two players who won immunity pick their teams. A man had to select a woman and a woman had to select a man and alternated throughout the picks. Eighteen of the twenty were picked. Wanda was the most annoying survivor on the boat with her singing and was one of the two not picked. I think it was Jonathan was the other.

Once teams were set, they learned that they will be two teams that all lived on the same beach as one group....or so we thought.

Right afterwards they had an immunity challenge. The winning team had a choice, they could remain on the beach that they had helped build, or they could start over completely new on another beach with the map Jeff gave them. They chose to go and find the new beach and abandon the camp they had set up.

It wasn't a smart move, they left everything they had behind and managed to get lost on a large series of islands that to be honest with you had some breath taking views.

At Tribal council Jolanda was the third person sent home today.


Looks like it could shape up to be an interesting game.

Tidbits

* I was going to do a normal post today, but some of the things I have running through my mind are so unrelated that I feel it's probably best to just do a simple tidbits.

* Survivor Palau starts tomorrow night. If you have ever read this BLOG you can easily come to two conclusions about me.

1. I Hate Snow
2. I Love Survivor

* Randy is graduating his first Phase of Mountaineer Challenge academy this Friday and will be able to come home for the first time since he started the program. I'll be going to show support and get a few pictures.

* Jean fought a traffic ticket that she got this fall this week. A state Cop issued her a "Failure to Obey" ticket this past fall when she made a left onto the mileground after a WVU football game. The State Trooper wasn't from Morgantown and I suggested she fight it and she decided to have her day in court. This past Monday was her court date and surprisingly the State Cop was there and had council with him. She called me Monday night feeling the prosecutor got the best of her and she would lose and be found guilty and have to pay the ticket. Let's just say Jean was a very good people person and caring Nurse prior to her stroke. Patients seem to remember that, magistrates too. She won her case.

* On a side note, I was over at my mothers house scanning pictures Monday and I ran across the last album my Aunt Lottie had recorded prior to her death. My mom talked about one song that she did that have everyone in the studio in tears by the time she had finished. I ripped the song and converted it to mp3 and have hosted it. It Is No Secret is the name of the song. During Lottie's life she and her husband Junior with their children as a gospel group known as The Gospel Singing Koon Family.

* I realized this morning on my walk to work, that it has been years since I have flown a kite. It's something simple in life that you always seem to remember. I've come up with a few of lifes simple things I would like to do this year.

1. Fly a Kite.
   
2. Take lots of pictures (like thats a surprise)
3. Reunite family members and go see some other family members that I haven't seen in literaly decades.
   
4. Get a group of people together and rent some bikes and bike rails to trails as a group for a few hours. What would really be nice is if we could start in Masontown, WV and bike to Morgantown. (It's all downhill)

It's not inconceivable that these things can happen.

* I would also like to find some addtional resources for old family pictures that I can scan and host. I know they are out there, it's just a matter of rounding them up and scanning them. Moving this family into the 21st century is a lot of work, but it's enjoyable.

I got a few old pictures scanned.

The past few weeks I have wanted to go through my sister Terri's big tub of pictures so I could pick a few out to scan for my website. Mom went out to Terri's yesterday and said she had Terri's pictures and would have them at her home and to stop by after work.

We managed to go through literally thousands of pictures, and although I would have loved to have scanned each and every one of them, I have to be realistic and know this is a near impossible task.

We did managed to sort through a few of them, I think there was about seventy that I had set aside that I definately wanted to scan. I managed to get a start on scanning last night and actually managed to get fifty pictures, scanned and uploaded to my sitem under the Old Family album. Mom is going back through today and I'm sure she will be adding more pictures to the scan list, so there are many more that will be scanned and added over the next few days.

Here's a small sample of a few of the first ones we have scanned.

Short weekend

Wow, talk about a short one day weekend, sheesh. After I got off of work Saturday I went over to my mothers house and helped her get her new Photo Album up and running. She's off to a good start learning how to upload files to the server. However yesterday she did make a mistake by deleting her album rather than just one picture. She's back up and running and will be continuing to add photos to the album.

My sister Kim changed her thinking on how to do a website and is actually doing her main page in PHP as opposed to a static HTML. The PHP Site is off to it's second good start. She seemed to have accidentally wiped out her site yesterday, but not to fear she's been busting her behind getting everything back up and running. Once she has her site done, I think I'll back up a copy of everything on my computer for her in case this accidentally happens again. I should also back my own site up here pretty soon.

I'm trying not to overwhelm Kim with new information, maybe once she gets everything how she likes it I'll show her how to edit the PHP on her page so she can customize it a little more.

I have to get her a copy of Studio MX. It has a whole mess of new we design tools that she would love, and it contains Dreamweaver which will open many new doors to her in the way of HTML design.

On a side note, I guess Mom is going to get Terri's big box of pictures off of her today so we can look through them for new pictures to scan. I'm sure there will be many new pictures that will be coming to our sites soon. I know Kim said she had thousands of pictures, so there may be a lot of new pictures added to the albums pretty soon.

Stay tuned, it could be interesting.

Working Saturdays

What in the heck was I thinking about when I decided to come in and work this morning. Granted I'm the only one within 300 miloes of the building and can actually get some uninterupted work done, but why am I here?!?!?!?!?

Actually I'm working today and I'm going to take off this coming Friday so I can manage to go to Randy's Phase I Graduation from the Mountaineer Challenge Acadamy. I'm planning on going and taking a few pictures of him at his graduation. Maybe even get a picture or two of him in his uniform for everyone to enjoy.

I'm going to try to get with my sister Terri this Monday and go through her assortment of old family pictures so I can scan them. My sister Kim has managed to catch up to me and pass me with the total number of pictures that she is hosting and I can't let some rookie beat me. I need to get as many pictures scanned as I can because I'm sure she's goin got be adding additional pictures real soon. I want to try to keep my site as unique as possible for the pictures and hold down on the redundancy of pictures between our two sites. I want the unique ones she doesn't have.

A different operating system

Thanks to a co-worker named Jesse, I got a little bit of a computer education yesterday. I learned how to extract an .iso file and how to be able to burn it to a bootable CD. I had always used the burning software that came with my Iomega CD burner. I quickly learned that it is nothing short of some bare minimum burning software. I now have NERO and have seen that my capabilities have been extremely limited first hand. Talk about some powerful burning software, I give Nero a double thumbs up for software to have on your computer if you have a CD burner.

Anyways, my OS experience has been limited to Windows Operating systems and Unix for about a year at work. Jesse is one yet another programmer that I know that just doesn't like Microsoft products. At work and at home he has his computer set up to dual boot either Windows or Linux.

I kind of had a curiosity of learning about Linux, and he proceeded to tell me that it can be booted from a CD using Knoppix. I actually made a bootable knoppix CD yesterday and came home and ran Linux on my computer for the evening. I had a lot of fun playing with it and seen some great advantages that it offers. For example if your windows system would crash, you could put in knoppix and retrieve any important files before you would be forced to do a system recovery.

I'm exploring the possiblity of purchasing a third hard drive and exclusively running Linux as my OS for that drive to give me the full capabilities of the system. Until then, I think I'm going to enjoy playing with knoppix.

Randy's Graduation

I talked to Val and Terri yesterday and I guess Randy's 1st Phase graduation from the Mountaineer ChalleNGe acadamy will be Friday, February 18, 2005 @ 1:00. After graduation he will be able to take his first cadet leave and return home for a few days.

I'm sure the first month has been very challenging to him both physically and mentally. I can say that I for one am very proud of him and what he has accomplished. When he makes it through this 22 week program he will be able to look back at it and say that he accomplished it.

Reminder on Randy

This is his contact information, hopefully if I keep it pretty active he'll be getting a few e-mails. I'm sure he would love an encouraging word from everyone every now and then. I sent him one this morning.


wvchallenge@wvchallenge.org
Subject: Cadet Hamrick

Has to be mailed by 3:00 for him to receive it that day. Remember he can't respond, so I'm sure encouraging words from everryone will be very appreciated.

Tidbits

* I went to the Country Inn Sunday Night to watch the Super Bowl. I had a great time, as usual Terri and Nick know how to entertain people.

* Nick DID NOT have a TV set up in the restroom. If anyone knows Nick, you gotta know that when he hosted a Super Bowl Party at home, he always had a TV in the bathroom.



* Amazingly I took my camera with me to the Country Inn, but didn't take a single picture.

* Learned how to hack passwords on most secure documents yesterday. A friend of mine put a password on a word document and forgot her password. I guess I too got a little education. We hacked it and found her password that she forgot.

* I didn't realize that I had my private album set to display publically. Nott hat it really had anything in there, but it's where I store stuff like the above picture that really has no use to be in an album, but I may want to refer to it.

* I've been up sice 2:00 A.M. I woke up and was wide awake and couldn't manage to get back to sleep.

* Amy was working as the bartender Sunday night, I do have to say she was doing a great job.

* Nick told me that one of his customers told him he has sold more food in two months than the previous owner sold in an entire year. He said he goes through 80 pounds of Wings a week alone.

* I saw Tyler Sunday night for the first time since her accident. She's looking good but they just realized she beoke her shoulder blade also. I broke mine a few years ago and I will say it was one of the most painful things I've went through.

* Terri also seems to have healed up quite nicely from her little accident. Jeanette Perry styled her hair and you can't even notice she lost a good bit of it.

* Speaking of Jeanette, she's getting married this May. Her and her Fiancee came to the Super Bowl party. It was nice to see her and talk to her a little. She said Terri and Nick are going to cater the wedding, and I told her she knew where to find the cooks.



* I can't believe I didn't take any pictures at the Super Bowl party.

* It was actually 60 Degrees here in Morgantown yesterday. Did I ever mention I hate snow?

* I think everyone enjoyed seeing Kim's picture album, I was going to tell Terri about it but I guess I'm slow on news because she had already seen it.

* I wonder what new and remarkable things I can learn today?

* I just realized it's Fat Tuesday!!!!!! Mardi Gras!!!!!! Women running around flashing their boobs for beads. Woo Hoo!! I need flashed today.

Hall Family Store

A couple years ago I found a site on the internet that let you set up a store and sell items. They had 10 or 12 customizable items that you could add pictures to and market a product to sell.

I started the Hall Family Store just screwing around with one or two products. Today I see they offer 68 products so I took away all the other stuff that I was playing around with and uploaded an image or two and started custmizing products.

As you can see I generically took the latest picture of all my siblings and generically added it to everything. This gives the viewer a chance to look at all the products with just a picture on them.

I'm opening the store up, but I have set all prices to the minimum price (cost) that I am allowed. This means I'm making $0.00 on any item if you decide to purchase anything.

If anyone has a picture that they want merchandise on thats hosted by me or my sister Kim I will gladly upload the picture to the site and add it to any product or products that you may want to purchase.

Between the two of us we have over 1,000 pics to choose from and more to come with every passing event. I thought it was just a nice opportunity in case anyone would like to buy a nice little customizable keepsake. I may actually purchase something myself.

If anyone wants a customized product, just let me know and I will gladly oblige you and switch the site around for you.

Added a new sidebar item

Recently reading Daniel's, Kamey's and Kim's BLOG they had all tied in video files to their sidebar of their BLOG's. I wanted to add something there, and was actually thinking about embedding one of my own Windows Media files to the sidebar.

With Kim moving her site and adding a photoalbum I decided to tie our picture sites into the sidebar. Between her and I there are currently over 1,000 various pictures being hosted at one site or the other. I'm sure that number will always continue to grow and it's something I hope everyone enjoys stopping by and seeing what has been recently added. I also love the feature where you can leave comments, but a word to the wise, we both have complete administrative control over both of our site and it's content. In other words, place nice so everyone can enjoy their visits. Doing these sites are tricky, a financial obligation and time consuming. They are done so everyone can share in our memories and reflect back on days gone by.

Maybe it's just me, but I feel that sites like this give a new meaning and a new life to once old and static pictures shoved in a box in a closet and forgotten about. They are all in digital format which means you can easily transfer the median and save them to a disk and go somewhere and have prints made quite easily.

I also added Mark Devault's, who is running a different program to display his pictures. Mark is a guy I've known for year and we just found out last summer with Lottie's passing that we were actually cousins. He is also the king of the MySQL database.

Hopefully as time passes I'll be able to add additional albums from other family members and friends.

I thought it was a nice subtle, but yet a very useful sidebar item to add.

Mission Not Accomplished

Thats damn rat saw his shadow. Six more weeks of winter.

Did I ever mention I hate snow.

Smashing the ice

The past couple of days I was talking to my sister Kim through MSN and we started talking about websites and such. What our server offered and pricing plans. She was with Yahoo and from a developers standpoint, I thought it was very user unfriendly, complicated and over priced. She really liked the picture program that I run on my site and I tried to install it on Yahoo's server and it turned out to be more of a headache than it was worth.

I gave her a chance to see the internal part of my website and she installed Coppermine and got it up and running rather easily. I think she really likes what my image viewing software offers. Yesterday she switched servers and will soon begin the process of pointing the DNS server to the new host (Technical mumbo jumbo).

Anyways, last night I actually went up to their house to assist her in setting up her Front Page software to FTP her site up to the new server (more mumbo jumbo).

It was nice to visit and see everyone, especially Brittany. She was proud as heck that she made the honor roll again and I think she's going to manage to do somethign I never could and that's obtain a 4.0. I came close 3 times and one was REALLY close, but I never did accomplish it. I have a feeling she will.

Anyways, she's using a new host and I'm sure her site will be going through some very noticable changes soon. She has her Picture Viewer all set up and ready to go. She's already done the hard part and now just needs to start uploading pictures and creating albums. She's the creative one, so I'm sure hers will be more organized than mine.

Early Planning

I don't know if any of you know this, bedause I don't think that I have ever mentioned it. I HATE SNOW!!!! Snow is usually associated with winter and so on.

I have a plan. Tomorrow is Ground Hog's day. If the pesky little rat sees his shadow we are going to have six more weeks of this horrible season they call winter and possibly even more snow. Arrrgghhh. (Side note to self, start looking for Jobs in Aruba) However if this lovable adorable creature does not see his shadow, then spring is right around the corner.

Here is the plan being this is February 1st. I need a brave volunteer to do "Operation Kill the Rat".



There has been a plan devised in which there are 8 Choice ways to eliminate the pesky little rhodent.

If all goes according to plan and someone can get to Punxsutawney PA before tomorrow and kill the rat, we may be able to avoid getting any more snow. Just start looking for a Rat named Phil when you get there.



Either terminate Phil with extreme prejudice or just simply poke his eyes out. Either way, just make sure that tomorrow when he has his day in the sun, there is no possible way that this rat can see his shadow.

If we get to him early enough, we can prevent anymore of this ugly snow fall and start getting to the season where girls run around wearing a lot less clothing.



Did I ever mention I hate snow?

I may have been wrong, Part Deux

OK, earlier today I posted what I thought was the third and only picture of me and all my brothers and sisters. I thought I had made an earth shattering discovery in figuring out that I was even the one hosting the third picture. It only took me six months to realize that we were all in that picture.

Move foreward a few hours and my sister Kim sends me an e-mail telling me she had a better pic than the one that I had. One where you could actually see Terri and Pam's face.

Thanks to Kim for sending me this pic and proving me wrong a second time in one day.

I may have been wrong

A few months ago I made a post saying that I finally got the only two pictures of all five of us siblings together. I even wrote about it in a October 16, 2004 BLOG entry that I had made. One of the pictures was from 1978 and one was from 1999.

HOWEVER, I may have actually made an error in that assessment. I was looking through my photo album this morning and noticed another picture that all five of us were in.



This was from 1988 when Pam and George got married. You can see me on the far left in a time long ago when I actually had hair. My sister Kim is standing beside, then you see a picture of My sister Pam and George in the front and my brother Gary standing in a blue suit in the middle.

The only one apparantly missing from this picture is Terri, but if you look behind Pam and on the other side of Kim, you will see that Terri was in the picture but was hidden from the view because of where Pam was standing.

So, I guess I was wrong and there is another picture that contained all five of us in one picture. I'm sure if I look at all the video tape of the pic nics in the past I could find frames where we are all together, but no still photograghs that I am aware of.

Wouldn't it be nice some day soon if all of everyone's differences could be put aside for a little while and a group picture could be taken of everyone. Not only my bother and sisters, but their spouses and thier kids and their kid's kids and everyone. If Danile and Kamey get married this fall and if you include her one daughter I recall, maybe it's two, can't tell off the top of my head. If this is correct, then adding in Mom and Jean and Gerald, I count 22 or 23 people that need to assemble in one place at one time for this event to happen.

It seems like an impossibility, but you never know it may happen some day.

Weekend Wrapup

Wow, I swear weekends seem to be getting shorter and shorter. I even got off work a little early Friday because I stayed so late on Thursday Night to try and get our 36" scanner working properly.

Worked a little on the Football Database, but not too much. I need to get hopping on that. My knee was sore this weekend and I just relaxed Saturday, then Sunday I was busy writing a little script so that Mom will be able to keep better track of the books at Country Inn. It was just a simple but time consuming spreadsheet in excel that I ended up writing it in. I was going to build an Access Database, but I was reminded to KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) and chose not to do so. Maybe in the long run I'll design them one customized to their needs.

I see my mom finally did another BLOG entry. I was happy to see it, hopefully she can write a little more often for people outside of Morgantown. I like the fact that all the BLOGS are now tied in together, makes it a little easier to keep track of what's going on around the family.

My niece did manage to kick a little more ass and make the Honor Roll again. She's making me very proud, I can't emphasize how important education is. It's what prepares you for life and beyond, Brittany has been doing a lot of studying and has really excelled in the classroom.




I managed to get an e-mail off to my nephew Randy at the Mountaineer Challenge Acadamy. He's probably still in the phase where they are starting to build his confidence back up after breaking him down. If you are reading this, do him a favor and drop him an encouraging e-mail, it'll be a definate lift to him on this challenging journey.

wvchallenge@wvchallenge.org
Subject: Cadet Hamrick

Has to be mailed by 3:00 for him to receive it that day. Remember he can't respond, so I'm sure encouraging words from everryone will be very appreciated.

New Jib Jab Cartoon

Even though I didn;t vote for him, the guys over at Jib Jab have finally done a followup to This Land that got so much attention prior to the election.

They have follwed it up with Second Term. It's pretty good, but I like the first one much better.

Tuesdays Tidbits

* Every once in a while it's nice to run a tidbits post addressing little things rather than to overextend something that I really don't have a whole lot to say about. On with the tidbits.

* As most of you may already know, my sister Terri was injured at work last week. I guess the gas oven wasn't lit and it ignited when she checked it. She received first and second degree burns on her face and neck and lost about what she estimated as a third of her hair. She's OK and already back to work.

* My Nephew Daniel called me last Saturday night from Kentucky concerned about Terri's welfare. It was nice to hear from him. Although the recent winter storm we were supposed to get this past weekend didn't hit us, he said that they had received a couple inches of snow.

* I didn't want to Jinx the Pittsburgh Steelers, that's why I wasn't saying anything about the AFC Championship game. The Steelers have a tendency to lose it when they play it in Pittsburgh, this loss makes the fourth loss in the last five attempts to make the Superbowl from home. Good luck to the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.

* Speaking of the Super Bowl. Country Inn is the place to be to watch the game.

* I sent out a few e-mails last night to a few classmates from the Morgantown High Class of 1982 to see if they could update their information and pass the link on to others from the class so we can get an up to date list of information on everyone. After twenty plus years, you have to fish a little bit for information on classmates to find their e-mail addresses. For any and all of you Morgantown High Alumni, keep checking back on your classes information or have someone contact Mark Devault at Mark@devault.org to get your class hosted.

* Speaking of Databases, I'm helping Mark construct the WVU Football Database. Right now I'm going through and adding some complete rosters from all the years that we can obtain the information for. WVU's Sports Communication Department has been very helpful in allowing Mark access to their records. Stay tuned, Mark is the King of MySQL and it's going to be a good learning experiance.

* The WVU Men's Basketbal team hosts the defending NCAA Champion UCONN Huskies tonight. We have been a very cold shooting team the last few games, if something doesn't change and a few players don't get hot shooting the ball from three point land, it's going to be a long night for Coach Beilein. Although, if we get hot, which we are due, it could be interesting.

* Bought the DVD Friday Night Lights this past Friday. It had a alot of criticalaclaim and hype and for once I actually agreed with the critics. I thought it was a good movie. Not the greatest sports movie, but well worth the proice of admission.

* I finally got around to burning the CD's that everyone had requested. I have the software Nick requested and Val's Wedding pictures burnt and ready to be used.

* I got mny first chance to use Office 2003 at work. It was the first time that I actually used this version of Office and I was impressed. I use Office XP at home and I sometimes even use Open Office.

* I am still boycotting the Dominishing Post after they went to a pay site last week. I don't even bother picking up the paper edition anymore.

* Did I ever mention that I hate snow?

Goodbye and good luck

Yesterday was kind of a sad day for me. It was the last day of work for a friend and the man who basically taught me 95% of what I know about GIS. I've worked with JB Churchill for over 3 1/2 years. He was the one who initially hired me for the Hollowfill project in the summer of 2001 and we worked together ever since.

It was from the valuable time that I worked with him that put I feel put me head and shoulders above any of my peers in the Geography department in GIS. While people were learning to use the interface and what buttons to push, I learned to do it the hard way with arc info and a command line. Once I got the hang of this it made understanding the interface almost a joke while 75% of my fellow students were dropping out of the discipline.

I owe him a very big thank you for the knowledge and the hand up on how to use GIS to it's fullest extent of it's possibilities.

JB commuted an hour and a half every day from Maryland to Morgantown, he recently found a much higher paying job 3.2 miles from his house. I don't think it's hard to understand why he's leaving. He will definately be missed.

The entire NRAC went to lunch yesterday at Blackbear and surprised him with a new Ipod Shuffle . I loves music and I hope this entertains him when he's runnig around the country looking for and identifying unique birds.

Thanks again oh master bird expert, you taught me well. Good luck and I hope we stay in touch.

Some people have too much time on their hands

I was surfing around the net this morning and found the debut of RoboDump 1.0.There is a nice little story that goes with it, be sure to read it.

What would inspire someone to create something like this is beyond me, but I would definitely give him a A+ for creativity.

Of course there is also this little flash file of a movie and trivia game of Eric Cartman from South Park. Respect My Authority

The Man Code

A cute one I saw and thought I would post.


The universal compensation for buddies who help you move is beer.

Bitching about the brand of free beer in a buddy's refrigerator is forbidden. You may gripe if the temperature is unsuitable.

Women who claim they "love to watch sports" must be treated as spies until they demonstrate knowledge of the game, and the ability to pick a buffalo wing clean.

The minimum amount of time you have to wait for another guy who's running late is 5 minutes. For a woman, you are required to wait 10 minutes for every point of hotness she scores on the classic 1-10 scale.

No man is ever required to buy a birthday present for another man. In fact, even remembering a friend's birthday is strictly optional and slightly gay.

Agreeing to distract the ugly friend of a hot babe your buddy is trying to hook up with is your legal duty. Should you get carried away with your good deed and end up having sex with the beast, your pal is forbidden to speak of it, even at your bachelor party.

Before dating a buddy's ex, you are required to ask his permission and he, in return is required to grant it.

If a man's zipper is down, that's his problem ---you didn't see nothin'.

When stumbling upon other guys watching a sports event, you may always ask the score of the game in progress, but you may never ask who's playing.

It is permissible to consume a fruity chick drink only when you're sunning on a tropical beach and it's delivered by a topless super model and it's free.

Unless you're in prison, never fight naked.

A man in the company of a hot, suggestively dressed woman must remain sober enough to fight.

If you compliment a guy on his six-pack, you better be referring to his beer.

Never talk to a man in the bathroom unless you're on equal footing: either both urinating or both waiting in line. In all other situations, a nod is all the conversation you need.

If a buddy is already singing along to a song in the car, you may not join him.-"far too gay."

"Thou shall not rent the movie "Chocolat"

Update on Randy

As I've stated here before, my Nephew Randy is off to the Mountaineer Challenge acadamy. He can receive e-mails from all of us, but he can't send them. For him to be able to read it that day, they have to be sent by 3:00 and remember he can't respond. Send him a word of encouragement. His e-mail address is as follows:

wvchallenge@wvchallenge.org
Subject: Cadet Hamrick


I'm sure he would love a word of encouragement from everyone.

Monday's Tidbits

* Even though the rest of the University has today as a holiday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, it's back to work for me. (yuck)

* Had a few car problems over the weekend, I was coming to work Friday morning and my alternator went out. I was stuck in a blind turn at 6:30 in the morning and had to literally walk to Wal-Mart and carry a battery back to my car. It was cheaper than a tow truck and probably quicker.

* I changed the alternator and worked on my brakes Saturday, thanks again to my brother in law George for telling me how to get that belt back on. LOL

* Watched the Steelers win Saturday in a 20-17 nailbiter win over the New York Jets. It had to be one of the worst games I have seen them play this year, but fate must be on their side this year as they won the game and advanced to the AFC Championship Game next weekend against the New England Patriots at home. Two to go boys!!!!!

* I went to the WVU v Boston College Basketball game yesterday at the WVU Coliseum. It was tied 29-29 at halftime, but Boston College beat us in the second half and pulled out a 73-53 win for themselves. The loss ran WVU's record to 11-3 on the season.

* My nephew Randy was off to the Mountaineer Challenge Acadamy yesterday. Terri and Val were going to drive him up.

* Did I ever mention I hate snow? I woke up this morning and saw a couple inches of headache covering the ground. Note to the GIS companies in Hawaii, please give me a job. (LOL)

* I managed to add my own BLOG in an experiment of my .RSS reader in Thunderbird. I'm probably going to add a few of the Active BLOGS on my list to the reader.

* I talked a little to Jane over the weekend, I think she's planning on coming into town for the Superbowl.

* Speaking of the Superbowl, Nick and Terri are running a board for this years game. $10.00 a square to get on and plenty of opportunity to get your name on the board and donate to my winning.

* Did I mention I REALLY hate snow?

New Search Engine

Yahoo has introduced a new search engine that allows you to search for videos. It's in its Beta right now but it is accessible.

Yahoo Video Search

WOW, what a great game

Just got done watching the Steelers 20-17 overtime win against the New York Jets. I can't believe we won that game.

Early on I thought the Steelers would blow out the Jets, but from the last half of the first quarter until late in the 4th quarter, I felt the Jets dominated the game. Pittsburgh let up a Touchdown ona punt return and a touchdown on an interception return and I thought they were done when they went down 10-17 after leading 10-0.

They managed to tie it up in the 4th quarter and the Jets had not one, but two chances to win the game but missed the field goals. They also got the ball in the overtime period. They could not win it.

The Steelers won after a 14 play 72 yard drive on a 33 yard field goal by Jeff Reed.

All we need is two more wins.

Poet's suites extoll life in Morgantown

A very nice article in the Daily Athenaeum today. It's about a very well published poet, and listed among Famous West Virginians.

He also has a website at Cityoflegends.com where you can sample some of his writings. If you are interested in purchasing anything by him Amazon has a nice selection of his work.


By Brian Barnett


His name is William F. DeVault. He is a mere poet to some in Morgantown, but to his readers, his ability to capture intimate emotions through writing is what makes him an artist.
A 1973 graduate of Morgantown High raised along Meadowbrook Road, DeVault pursued his passion for writing while briefly attending West Virginia University as a journalism student, before finally pursuing a full-time career as a poet.
Now at the age of 49, DeVault has published five books about love, romance, loss, death and everything in between. He has accumulated a list of awards that include Yahoo's Romantic Poet of the Internet, Preditors & Editors Readers Poll Poet of the Year and the first American poet named to the Edinburgh International Internet Festival of Arts.
Furthermore, he has a global following that includes Ireland and Los Angeles, where they use his works to teach in high school and where he is a popular commodity for poetry reading nights, tours and lectures.
But in his own hometown he seems to go unnoticed and unrecognized. At his high school, Morgantown High, his first name is incorrect in the alumni database and he is not included among its accomplished alumni.
Meanwhile, West Virginia Wesleyan College's Web site displays a page about his accomplishments, while his own university, WVU, he said has not responded to his willingness to be a speaker or helper in any area of the arts department.
With such prestige already given to De Vault, how does he respond to being relatively unknown in his own community?
His response is much like that of his poetry, metaphorical.
"Have you ever liked a girl to the point where you told her you loved her?" DeVault asks.
"And at the same moment she never gives you love in return," DeVault continues. "But you continue to love her anyway."
This story is also true of DeVault's relationship with his hometown. While the bizarre nature of the ignorance of his notoriety persists, DeVault continues to be very passionate about the area.
Considered one of the great romantic poets of the new Digital Renaissance, he has also written hundreds of poems about Morgantown.
Many of his major life decisions and events occurred while he lived in Morgantown - from the time he was 11 years old until he was 26.
"This town is where my mom and dad were born and raised, where I met my first love, where I first got beat up, where I had my first kiss, where my brother's fiancé was killed, where I lost my virginity and where my daughter was born," DeVault said.
Not only is his passion for Morgantown evident in his writings, but also in his short term goals for himself. On Dec. 16, 2004, DeVault, also a former youth counselor, addressed the West Virginia State Board of Education in Charleston about the importance of the study of arts for all students.
Currently the board is proposing a plan in which high school students on a vocational and technical plan will not be required to take any arts class. While there was no one in attendance to speak from WVU or the Monongalia County Board of Education, DeVault was very adamant about this new proposal.
"I feel like we would be short-changing students," DeVault said. "I believe there needs to be a full spectrum of education because it opens more paths for students."
DeVault's passion for the study of the arts in Morgantown is also notable in the plans for his new book. The book will be a collection of poems about Morgantown, entitled "The Morgantown Suite." All the royalties and proceeds from the book will go to Arts Monongahela, a local arts advocacy group.
There will be approximately 85 poems in all; some written a very long time ago, some written two and half years ago during a visit and even a few written since his recent decision to move back to Morgantown.
He believes this is his way of saying "thank you" to Morgantown, and also a step toward his dream of making Morgantown more of an art town - not just a bar town.
And while he is still uncertain about why he continues to be ignored here, he will continue to write emotional poetry about his hometown and about his life.
"I will never quit writing. Retirement is the time between when I die and when I hit the floor. Death comes when I stop writing, reasoning, learning and falling in love," DeVault said.

Country Inn night

It's thursday and I went down to visit my sister and see this new band she was telling me about. I went and saw firat hand The Chicken Pickers, they were a country band with a lot of talent. I was actually quite impressed and happy to see a parking lot full of cars.

I got a chance to talk to Ty, their fiddle player briefly. He said they play a few bars around Morgantown at a few establishments. I would tell you where, but you can either come and see them at the Country Inn or you can do your own homework.

Not many bands around town have a talented fiddle player like this band has. They played a Devil went down to Georgia and kicked some serious butt.

One thing I did notice tonight was that the acoustics for that bar are quite awesome. They didn't set up where the traditional band sets up, so I think Nick could better accomodate bands if he moved the stage.

Tid Bits

* The local country Music Group the Chicken Pickers will be playing this Thursday night at the Country Inn. Terri called me yesterday and said they start around 7:00.

Come early, stay late and bring lots of money to spend.

* I got a chance to talk to mom briefly yesterday on MSN and she told me Tyler is recovering nicely from her car wreck.

* My nephew Randy, aka Bub ,is about to enter the Mountaineer Challenge Acadamy pretty soon. It's going to give him a chance to learn how to take on new challenges and graduate High School a little early. Kick ass Randy, we're all behind you.

A GIS Data Issue

Recently I decided to get into the world of .RSS newsfeeds and configured it to my Thunderbird Mail Client. I'm glad I did that, it's allowed me to catch major issues of concern to me.

I subscribe to a few >rss feeds, one of which is Slashdot which covers all kinds of topics from computer related issues, to gaming to politics to world events. I recently ran across a GIS Data Issue. What it says is that the Supreme Court in Connecticut is allowing the Greenwich Department of Information Technology to withhold data that was financed by the taxpayers and should by all rights be public domain.

The creation of data can be an expensive process, and a lot of GIS data is still in it's creation phase. To prevent redundant acts, we first look to see if a dataset has been previously created by someone else. If it has it's usually shared or made available at a low cost by private industry to try and recover some of the production costs.

One of the first places that you instinctively look is to see what kind of data has been created by some form of government. They can't charge for the data because it has been financed with public taxpayer money and must be made public domain.

I have no idea what information that they feel they have to hide from the public that in one form or another is not already out there. If it is funded by the taxpayers, it needs to be and remain public domain.

I've seen what the science can do, and I know what we are capable of. I do have to say that sometimes I have to step back and question if some datasets should be public domain, but this goes back to how they were funded. I'm all for private industry creating the datasets for the ability to sell for profit, but not if it was financed by the taxpayers.

It's an issue that I'm going to have to stay on top of if I want to continue to remain in the industry.

Very disturbing and sad news.

Every once in a while you watch or read the news and hear or see a tragedy. On December 21, 2004 there was a news story where a man shot his estranged wife about a mile from where I live, then drove off and committed suicide on Interstate 79. Of course I glanced at the article and thought it was very tragic.

The Next day the Dominion Post ran a followup to this tragic story. I saw the name, I saw the picture, but on the surface it appeared to be just a tragic incident. The Following Day they ran a piece about the crime, but it was Christmas Eve and I didn't really notice anything that set of any bells or buzzers in my head. They also ran an article about Jonathan Hyland, the estranged husband that actually shot Valerie. The Day after Christmas the Dominion Post ran another Followup on the victoms condition.

Pan ahead to this past Tuesday night and I was chatting online with Jane and she asked me if I had heard about the girl up by my dad's house that had been shot. Obviously this didn't ring a bell so she told me her name. Valerie. As soon as she said her name I had a sinking feeling.

The name Valerie Reed didn't ring a bell, but I started to look back through the articles I saw some very disturbing similarities to a someone I knew named Valerie O'Dell. Valerie O'Dell was maried to Jason O'Dell, and when she grew up they lived in her mom's house across the street from my dad's. Jason was always over at our house and my dad thought the world of him. It was at this time that I actually got to know Valerie.

They moved away over to Van Voorhis Rd where we continued to stay in contact. They would stop in the store to talk to me just to pass time. I would see her all over campus and we would always spend a good bit of time catching up on what was happening in each others life. We both attended WVU together, she started about a year after me and was a Buisness major, who quite impressively was a 4.0 student. I was really impressed with her because she managed to do this while managing a family and holding down a full time job as well as being a 4.0 full time student.

The last time I talked to her in any great detail was a year ago. We spent an hour and a half BSing in between classes early in the Semester. I don't recall her telling me that her and Jason were divorcing or were divorced. I saw her a coupe times throughout the semester, we had a similar class but different sections, so we discussed that back and forth in passing.

Scan back ahead to this week and talking to Jane made me wonder if this shooting victom and the Valerie that I knew were the same person. I called Jean and asked her if she had heard anything.

In the Meantime the Dominion Post had run yet another Followup to the stories, and I start to once again see numerous similarities, but nothing was confirmed. I had her e-mail written down somewhere and was going to send a "Hi, How you doing" e-mail just to hope I would get a return e-mail and everything saying everything was fine.

This morning I got a phone call from Jean. Apparantly Valerie and Jason have gotten a divorce in the past 12 months and Valerie remarried. The shooting victom was the Valerie that I know.

Her and Jason had attended my dad's last Christmas and my Dad's last cookout before he passed away. I read the last article about how she was shot in the temple and is blind in the right eye and can barely see out of the left. My stomach dropped. Here's a girl that could be an inspiration to many over how to successfully managing a career, Family and excelling in college.

My Reed family is in my thoughts as well as the O'Dells. I'm hoping that she pulls through this, because I know what she is capable of.

There is a benefit dance for Valerie Reed Hyland Fund will be held from 7 p.m.-midnight Feb. 26 at the Cheat Lake Fire Hall. Music will be by Higherground. Cost is $10 per person. Call 292-4644 for information.

Hurry back Val, I'm sure what you do from here on out will be very inspriational.

It's Friday

Woo Hoo, the weekend is finally nearing us again and it'll soon be time to relax again. Not too much planned for the weekend in general. Got a call from Trish last night and she invited me to Arron's birthday party tonight. That'll be fun, I really haven't seen them in a few months and am looking foreward to sitting down and visiting. Oh yeah, Happy Birthday Arron.




I would also like to take this time to wish Tyler a speedy recovery from her car wreck last week. She is one of my sisters oldest and dearest friends and we all hope she has a speedy recovery. We. kind of like having her around.

It's Tuesday

Boy, how insignificant does that sound? Not very much going on, but I didn't want my BLOG to go stale from inactivity. What can I do to make this post at least worth reading?

Hmmm, how about a link to a 1980's video game like Galaga. Yeah, I pumped a few quarters in this game growing up.

I think the game that I most enjoyed playing back in the 80's was QIX.

Of course there is always the game that started the video game boom of the early 80's. Pac Man

Oh well, so much for todays post. Maybe I'll be a little more creative tomorrow.




P.S.

Space Invaders
Donkey Kong

I aim to please.