And the winning streak continues

Tonight we played against my old team and managed to extend our current winning streak to seven games and run our current record to 8-1 on the season. It was nice to see quite a few former team mates that no longer play but have an association to both teams show up for the contest. We were a little of our pace in run production only scoring 14, but we still played a solid game all around and manged to pull out the win.

After the game, most of the team went out and ate dinner on the deck at Prime Thyme, our sponser. It was a great time to be had by all and as usual it was nice to be around this group of guys.

A little heads up for anyone who is interested. Mon Valley paintball is running a special for the 4th of July weekend if anyone is interested in the thrill of paintball. Either day Saturday or Sunday, play all day for $4.00 and this includes your rental equipment and free air. You will have to buy your own paintballs on site, but if you get enough people to pitch in and buy cases it lowers the cost significantly. A few team mates went out a few weeks ago and between four people went through two cases of paintballs (that's 4,000) throughout the entire day. I've played a lot of sports in my life, but I have never played anythign this intense.

When it rains it pours

Talk about a strange year. Earlier this year I decided to remarket myself just to see what my marketability would be on the open market. To make a long story short, I turned down an offer from a Company in Pittsburgh last week. I've been contacted this year about jobs in Tyson's Corner Virginia, New Hampshire, Charlotte NC, Pittsburgh and now add Raleigh, North Carolina to the list.

I just got off the phone with a company in Raleigh, NC about an Analysts job down their. To end any and all speculation I told them thank you but no thank you. I'm quite happy with the company I am working for now and the quality of life that I am now enjoying being able to work from home.

It's nice to know that I have very good marketability now. Something I did not have either time I was working in a Steel Mill that was shutting down or relocating.

I think it's another Rails to Trails day for me.

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.--John Lennon

Some technical stuff

Every once in a while, I guess I should do a little bit of a geeky post to help keep informed on what's new in the world of computers and maybe a few suggestions for everyone to try.

I think my first piece of advice that I could give to anyone is choosing a browser that it the most trouble free and least likely to get tou into any trouble. For any of you who I have not set up your internet account and you are still using Internet Explorer as your browser, I would suggest possibly getting away from browsing using IE and start using Firefox to surf the net with.

Firefox is an open source browser and you can pretty much customize it any way you want with different themes and extensions to fit your surfing needs. I personally use a couple extensions, one is forcastfox and that is a customizable weather station built into your browser.

Another extension that I tried today and actually like is Customize Google. As many of you already know, Google is arguably the best search engine out there on the net. They are at the forefront of internet technology with many of their innovations.

I was talking to Kim, the Queen of the Podcasts yesterday and she told me about a site that I bookmarked and really liked. It's a real estate search engine that ties in with google maps called Zillow that is pretty nice. It is something kind of similar to some things I have seen with some Assessors offices using ArcIMS (Web based GIS), but not to that extreme.

Some more technical stuff for some of you if you either don't have Microsoft Office, don't want to shell out $500 for a full copy of it or don't know anyone who has hacked it (looking away innocently) but would like a software that is just as, if not more powerful. I would suggest Open Office. Like Firefox and most non-microsift related products, it's an open source program (means they publically publish the source code unlike Microsoft) and is free to download and use. Of course if you need a full blown copy of office, I know a guy who has a Website that may help hook you up with a copy.



Let me leave this post with a little humor:


The Procrastinator's Creed:

1. I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.

2. I shall never move quickly, except to avoid more work or find excuses.

3. I will never rush into a job without a lifetime of consideration.

4. I shall meet all of my deadlines directly in proportion to the amount of bodily injury I could expect to receive from missing them.

5. I firmly believe that tomorrow holds the possibility for new technologies, astounding discoveries, and a reprieve from my obligations.

6. I truly believe that all deadlines are unreasonable regardless of the amount of time given.

7. I shall never forget that the probability of a miracle, though infinitesmally small, is not exactly zero.

8. If at first I don't succeed, there is always next year.

9. I shall always decide not to decide, unless of course I decide to change my mind.

10. I shall always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when I get around to it.

11. I obey the law of inverse excuses which demands that the greater the task to be done, the more insignificant the work that must be done prior to beginning the greater task.

12. I know that the work cycle is not plan/start/finish, but is wait/plan/plan.

13. I will never put off until tomorrow, what I can forget about forever.

14. I will become a member of the ancient Order of Two-Headed Turtles (the Procrastinator's Society) if they ever get it organized. --Author Unknown

Softball team does it again.

I'm going to have to get some more team pictures, these ones are getting old. Anyways, we entered tonights game with a 6-1 record and a five game winning streak in Boparc softball. We have managed to mercy rule a few teams in a row and have a bit of confidence going for us right now. Tonight's game started slow in the first few innings, but we caught fire late in the game and won 20-7. This extends our winning streak to six games and runs us to 7-1 on the season. I have missed one game this year and it is the one game we lost.

Thursday is going to be interesting because we are playing against not only mine, but three other team members former team. We play the Kountry Kreme Hillillies thursday night at 7:00. That is the old remaning remnance of the Walnut Lane-Recourse-Judies Lounge-Sports Page softball teams that I used to play for for years, so it will be interesting for me to finally get a chance to hit against a pitcher I worked with for about 15 years. Thursday Night at 7:00 if anyone is interested.

I played pretty decent tonight going 2 for 2 and making a hustling catch on a popup. As a team we are playing pretty decent and aren't making too many if any mental errors.

After the game a group of us went up to Prime Thyme, our sponser, for dinner and a few drinks. I love this time of the year and I am on a team that everyone gets along with one another. It's almost as if it were an extended family.

It was also nice to see Mark Devault's mom and dad make the game, they have always been very supportive of our team and it is a pleasure when they, and actually all of our dedicated fans come out and support this team.

Been a while

Wow, I just realized it has been nearly an entire week since I last did a BLOG post. To my standards that is not really acceptable and I need to get my butt in gear and make a worthwhile post for everyone to read.

Let's see where to start. We ended up not going to the Jimmy Buffett concert this week, Mark couldn't make it and it just wouldn't have been much of a tailgate if I were the only one there. It would have also been very hard to unload tickets for a Tuesday Night Concert on Monday. I heard it was a heck of a concert, but we'll try to do it again next year, maybe with a little more success.

We had another good week of playing softball, I ended the game with a walkoff double to secure a very good hard fought victory. The bat felt light to me that night, but then again I always seem to come up with a big stick when it's cold and raining for some strange but odd reason. I can't complain as we are currently 6-1 and have two games coming up this week including one Thursday against my old team. I'm looking foreword to that one. Hopefully the weather will be a little more cooperative with us than it has been in the past couple weeks, but then again I play well in bad weather for some reason.

As everyone can tell, I spent a few hours on the Rails to trails in the past few weeks. Ever since I started working at home I have had more time to actually spend on the trails and enjoying myself. I can't think of anything more relaxing than real nice weather and having my iPod loaded with my music and enjoying the fresh air on rails to trails. It is by far one of the most aesthetically relaxing things that is part of my schedule. It's because of the inability to do these types of activities that I hate the snow so much and enjoy the warm weather seasons. It helps you clear your mind out, get healthy and put some good clean oxygen into your system.

Ok, what is coming up for the following week:


* Saturday June 17th, The Hillbilly Gypsies, a band that is part of the band that plays at Nick and Terri's every Thursday Night, is playing at Chestnut Ridge Park. A small sample of their Music

Start looking at about 9-5-05 and beyond

* Sunday June 18th is Father's Day

* Monday June 19th is Erica Jean Nicholson's second birthday.

***UPDATE***

Erica's Birthday party will be next Sunday the 18th at 2:00 at Val and Bobby's house. (Thanks for the update Val)


Advice is one of those things it is far more blessed to give than to receive.--Carolyn Wells

Happy Birthday Gary

A very happy birthday with to my younger brother Gary. everyone needs to make sure that they give him a call today, his cell phone number is 276-0236, and wish him a very Happy Birthday today. I do have to say that I could not ask for a better brother than what Gary is and he is definately a one of a kind brother.

Happy Birthday Nute



The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.--Thomas Jefferson

Tidbits and whats coming up.

* First off, tomorrow is Gary's birthday. Gary was born June 5th and this will be a little reminder to everyone that tomorrow is his birthday.

* Tuesday, June 6th it will be off to my second Jimmy Buffet concert. I went last year and had a great time at PNC Park. This year the concert is back in Burgettstown and at the Post-Gazette pavilion. If it is half as much fun as last year, it will be well worth it. We are planning on going up early and tailgating most of the afternoon. I should be able to provide a picture or two from the days festivities.

* This coming Thursday I will be in my office in Frostburg. We're trying to iron out the process of a rather large project. We are trying to deliver it in the quickest, most efficient and uniform manner without corrupting any of the data during the process.

* Our softball team is off to another great start this season. We have managed to pull out victories in our last four games and have ran our current record to 5-1. There are two teams in our league that are still undefeated. One of which is our one loss and the other is a team we were scheduled to play and we had a rainout. We scrimmaged them earlier in the year and handled them quite easily that day, but we'll see how it goes when it actually counts.

* I was planning on working part of today and take off part of Tuesday for the concert, but the IT guys have the network all tied up right now. Probably the main reason why I am blogging rather than testing a few scripts.

* School is now officially out for the summer for all of the kids. If you know a kid that just completed the year, give them a pat on the back and encourage them.


* The weather isn't very good today, it's not really that warm and it's not really that cold. If the IT guys don't hurry up it's going to be a good day to visit rails to trails. They have been doing some construction this summer on one of the main parts of the trail as you can see by this picture. The detours not that bad and walks you through the streets of the Wharf District.

* For those of you not being able to make it to the Jimmy Buffett Concert this Tuesday, there will be a Jimmy Buffett tribute band playing later this week.

* For you bread lovers, and unfortunately I am one of them, Daily Kneads has their website back up and running.


Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others.--Buddha

A night at the ballpark

A fun little night at the softball field tonight. I went out a little early, we were scheduled to start at 10:00, but I went out a couple hours early. I saw my old team and decided to stop in and say hello. Seems like one of our old teamm ates, Josh Judy who started playing outfield for us is being looked at heavily by the Seattle Mariners in this June's draft. I blogged about Josh a couple years ago when he signed with Indiana Tech. I guess if this happens I will have to become a Mariners fan.

Our softball team hit the field at 10:00, there were a few mild sprinkles, but by the time the game was over, it was a full thunderstorm. We managed to win 16-4 in the swamp and ran our current record to 5-1 on the season.

I did get a chance to run into an old NRAC co-worker at the game. Kelly Street was there and keeping the books for our opponent DP Dough. It was nice to catch up with her, we will eb adding each other to our instant messengers tomorrow.

Uh Oh again

That magical word has presented itself at work. They must really want to see me in Hyderabad, because I was asked again today of I would like to visit India.

I said maybe in January when it's snowing here and it's cooled down to 80 degrees there. Have I ever mentioned that I hate snow? It would be a nice little cultural vacation for me if this ever happens. I've got a friend or two over there that will make sure I wont get bored if I go.

I have a funny feeling that before I retire or leave Infotech, I will be making the 26 hour journey to the other side of this rock. I'll have to get a bigger memory stick for my camera.

A day back in Frostburg

For the first time since I started working remotely two weeks ago, I returned to my Frostburg Office today to work. I had to be there to go over the specs of a new phase of a project we have been working on.

It was great to see everyone again, however it was like 96 degrees today and I think it was a little warmer in the office. Even our personel from India thought it was a little too warm for comfort.

I'll be working remotely from home the rest of the week. It was nice however to visit the people in the office for a day.

Some Highlights of Mokes graduation

His official walk.

Graduation Day for Moke

This morning at 10:00 at the WVU Coliseum George Ellis McClain will officially finish his pre-college education and graduate from Clay Battelle High School.

The last few years he has became very focused and motivated and has really started to excell academically and has a solid gameplan for the completion of his education. he will be entering Fairmont State University this fall where he has already been admitted. He is wanting to study engineering, but my advice would be to go find out all the possibilities of a major before you commit.

He's also come up with a solid gameplan to have his education paid for. He will also be joining the National Guard and they will be payign for his education, he will just need to make a commmitment to them for a few years post college graduation.

I, as well as everyone else is very proud of him. He has a dream, a gameplan to accomplish that dream and the willpower and motivation to accept any challenge that is placed in front of him to achieve his dream.

With his focus, dedication and the morals that Pam and George have bestowed upon him, he's got all the ingrediants for success.

Congrats Moke, we are all very proud of you


The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think - rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men.--Bill Beattie

Family Night Under the Stars

For those of you looking for cheap or free entertainment tonight in Morgantown, BOPARC offers something every Friday Night at the Ruby McQuain Ampitheatre called Family Night Under the Stars.

Tonight is the first night of a summer long series of movies that includes the following schedule:


May 26- Chicken Little
June 2- The Legend of Zorro
June 16-Madagascar
June 23-Zathura
July 7- March of the Penguins
July 21-Harry Potter
August 11- Dreamer


The movies are free and open to the public, might even give you that old time family drive in movie feel.

Showtime is 8:30

A few pics from tonight

M-Tech Graduation tonight.

Tonight at 7:00 at the Coliseum M-tech will have their graduation ceremonies. In the past a few family members have graduated from M-Tech. Nick graduated with his certification in HVAC, Abdul graduated with his CISCO certification and Amy has graduated twice previously with two certifications in Child care.

Next year Renee and Angela will enter the Surgical Technician program.

This year we have three people graduating from M-Tech. Amy will be graduating from M-Tech with her third Child care certification, Mary Mascioli will be graduating from the Surgical Technician program and Angela will also be graduating from M-Tech this year also.

A hearty congratulations goes out to all three of this years graduates and a good luck to next years two students that will be entering the program.

Happy (belated) Birthday Pam

A Happy (belated) Birthday to my Sister Pam. You want to know the ironic part of all of this, I was even there yesterday to look at her and forgot to tell her Happy Birthday. You want to know the sad part, I blogged about it not once, but Twice recently in my blogs. Talk about being completely absent minded.

Anyways, a very Happy Birthday wish to my sister Pam for yesterday.

Now while I'm on this, tomorrow is her Husband George's Birthday. So Happy early Birthday George.

Weekend so far

* I had a nice little surprise when I logged on to my website tonight, someone had attacked the server and set up a redirect from my photos to a page that said the account was suspended. Being Coppermine, the software I use, is a piece of software installed on the server rather than a static web page it took me a few minutes to figure out what they had done.

It was an easy fix once I knew what file was infected, and everything else is back up and running before the site was attacked. I don't know when it went down, but it only took about five minutes to trace down the problem and eradicate it. Problem solved and everything is back to normal.

Tonight was a softball night, we played at 7:00 this evening and everyone went to Prime Thyme after the game, however I stuck around the ballpark and started to talking to people and on e thing led to another and I never made it to Prime Thyme. This picture is from last year, and not from tonight. maybe I will have another chance tomorrow.

The game went well, but I found out I did something for the second time in three years on our last game but didn't realize it until tonight. I forgot to put my glove in my bag and ended up losing it. I did this a couple years ago also, so that is two gloves I have lost doing that. Something tells me I will be investing in a new one tomorrow like it or not.

The game went well though, we ended up winning like 28-20. My timing is finally back even after a three week layoff. With not much spring training I never felt like I had my timing on my swing just right, tonight I found it again a few times and hit the ball really well.

Tomorrow is looking like it's going to be a busy day, with my normal Sunday things, moving my old computer, and having to find a new glove and play ball again. Did I ever mention to anyone I really hate snow?

* I noiced Kim has decided to return to Blogger. Welcome back.

TGIF

It is Friday and that means that it is the end of the work week. My week has been pretty good though, I am finishing up my first week of working remotely from home. Believe it or not you can get more things done more efficiently with less distractions. Honestly I think I'm even more productive working from home provided I have the data that I need.

It has also opened up a good deal of free time for me, but I haven't really taken advantage of it as of yet. The weather has been kind of bad this week and with the arrival of my new computer, I've been busy getting it up and running. I was able to retain all my data from my other computer and transfer it to my new system. Things such as my pictures, software, family movies etc were stored on a slave drive on my old system. I managed to get everything transferred though and preserve all my files.

Let's see what's coming up in the next week or so:

Sunday is Pam's Birthday
Tuesday is George's Birthday.
Wed at 7:00 at the coliseum is the Mtech graduation.
Next Saturday is Moke's graduation and a pic nic at Krepps Park.

I have three softball games over the next three days, Saturday at 7:00, Sunday at 3:00 and Monday at 10:00. Our last two games have been rain outs and I missed the second game of the season, so I haven't been able to play in almost three week. I'm looking forward to getting back on the field and seeing my team mates.

It's nice to see that Val has restarted her Blog and Amy has been posting quite reguarly. This really helps keep people interested and involved when so many people update their Blogs. Kim
and Brittany have also been doing great jobs in keeping their blogs active. Readers want to see new material, so with so many of us Blogging, hopefully we can provide our readers with a reason to keep returning.


Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.--Arthur Schopenhauer

And we have another returning blogger

We have another blogger on the internet, mt neice valarie has returned to the wonderful world of blogging. She has named her Blog Hello Again, and I have added it to my sidebar with links to all the other family members who are bloggers.

It'll be nice to be able to keep up with Val, Bobby and Erica jean now that Val is back on the net at home.

A Nice Little Find

I was walking through Wal-Mart yesterday and saw something that got my attention. I was walking around the computer accessories section and noticed a USB phone called Skype. In the last few weeks I have been doing a little research about Vonage and was considering purchasing the service as a phone service for home.

I was walking around yesterday and saw a few phones that were skype compatible. Let's just say curiosity killed the cat and I decided to research it a little. Thinking it was just a way to call another computer, I was wrong. It's a telephone service that runs through your computer and get this. It's free until the end of the year. They are trying to build the service up and you can even buy an incoming number if you want, but I don't really need one.

I downloaded and installed the software and made a few calls from my computer (no phone, just straight computer) and I found it to work. The people I talked to said there was a little bit of an echo, but that was because they were getting feedback from my speakers for lack of a USB phone.

All domestic calls made from the skpye service will be free until the end of the year. That's a good seven months of being able to call people long distance anywhere in the US for free.

Picks from Moke and Angela's Prom

A few pictures from Moke and Angela's prom last night. We met them prior to the prom and got a few pictures and after Moke took her to "Taco Bell" for dinner we got a few more pics. He had her beliving he was taking her to Taco Bell and even pulled into the drive thru. It was a joke and he took her to the Hibatchi Steak House.

A few pics

New computer ordered.

I ordered a new computer yesterday, It was time to upgrade to a more modern system for my needs. My current system is fine and runs great, but the work I do just has some ridiculous demands on a computer's system resources.

I have traditionally purchesed Hewlett Packards, the last two I bought were both HP's and I have never had a bit of trouble with them. However this time I purchased a more commercial friendly system, plus a few added perks for personal enjoyment.

Some of it's specs:

* Pentium® D Processor 820 with Dual Core Technology (2.80GHz, 800FSB)
* 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz (2x1GB) Yes, two GB of RAM. It will be 2 1GB to optimize the opportunites. Stiil leaves me with 2 open slots with this option and no smaller chips that I would just end up discarding if I upgraded.
* 19 inch Ultrasharp™ 1907FP Digital Flat Panel
* 256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon X600 SE HyperMemory
* 160GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/ 8MB cache (I also have a 160GB slave drive on my computer that I will transfer over to the new system.
* Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/dbl layer write capability
* Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 (My computer can be a TV with all the DVR and Digital cable perks for no charge or no subscription)

It should ship this Friday and arrive the following week.

Last day in Frostburg

Today is my last day working in Frostburg on a physical day to day basis. Starting Monday morning I will be workign remotely from the comforts of my own humble little abode.

This should clear up three to four hours of my day that was committed into drivinng to and from work, time that I would either just get there too early or stayed around to BS or just idle time sitting around waiting to leave.

I'm pretty excited about this, at current gas prices It's going to save me more than $60.00 a week in gas alone. No more early morning drives on a daily basis over mountains, past ski resorts and through more fog than I've ever seen in my life for one region.

I will still make it up here on occasion, but don't need to be here five to six days a week anymore. I put 40,000+ miles on my car in the last year, I'm sure it's ready to relax a little bit too. Maybe I can finally find the time to clean my apartment. LOL


You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there.--Yogi Berra

What's in store

As you may have read last week, I made a trip out of town last week to interview with a very large defense contractor to do GIS work. Unknowingly and ironically simultaneously InfoTech/VARGIS presented me with a unique offer, and then later a decent financial package for the next year.

My interview I think went very well, however infotech has presented me with the offer of being able to ...get this...work from home. In my field most of the operations are very computer intensive and you need a super computer to run the majority of them. In Frostburg, I have such a computer.

My initial plan was to purchase a new computer at home that would have been able to perform these tasks. I had one priced from Dell, but learned yesterday I won't have to do that. I was initially thinking that I would need to have the license for my software on my computer, thus needing a high end commercial computer.

Yesterday, I learned the details and I won't need a high end computer, as a matter of fact my computer is up to standards to perform these tasks. I'll be working remotely through a process called VPN. I will be running my Frostburg computer from home on a Virtual Private Network. VPN is kinda new to me, but Kim's been doing it for a while and Robert knows it inside and out.

I already have it installed and set up my accounts on my computer, so I could actually start working from home anytime with complete access to our network at work However I have a meeting tomorrow and I need to get a few things set up and organized in Frostburg before I start working remotely. I will probably continue to commute to Frostburg for the rest of this week and then start working from home next week.

Quality of life had a lot to do with my renewed commitment to my current company. I realize we are still going through some growing pains, but I would also rather be a part of the team that builds something special than be someone who comes in after it's built.

This is going to be a perfect situation for me because I'll be able to work my own schedule. Meaning I don't have to wake up two hours before I start work to fix breakfast, shower, get woke up and drive 68 miles before I start work. Not to mention the drive home. This should open up another 3-4 hours a day for me in dead time, that's time committed to doing work things (driving to, getting ready for, returning from.. etc.) that you are not getting paid for.

I'll still have to make an occasional trip to Frostburg, but not on an every day basis. This will also remove a lot of stress of driving 68 miles in the early morning hours during inclimate weather. There were actually four or five days this past winter that I couldn't make it in because of the weather (two last October). This will no longer be a factor, because I can run the computer from here.


Have a good week.


Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.--Anais Nin

What's coming up

I've done tidbits posts numerous times, how about a what to expect coming up post.

* We have two softball games this week, Monday (tonight) and Thursday nights.

* This Saturday (May 13) is Moke and Angela's prom. I'm hoping to get a few pics of them in this once in a lifetime day for them (even though I went through three of them). I was hoping that I could meet them prior to them going to the prom at a location such as Rails to Trails and we could get a few pictures of the lovely couple.

* Sunday (May 14) is Mother's Day. Mother's day was founded in Grafton, West Virgina by Anna Jarvis for all you history buffs.

* The following weekend both Pam and george celebrate their Birthdays. Pam's is on Sunday the 21st and I can't specifically remember George's date. I'll make an update as soon as I know.

* Saturday May 27th is Moke's graduation. It will be at 10:00 at the Colseum and pam is going to have a little cookout afterwards.

* Amy will be graduating soon also, but I'm not sure of her date.

* Speaking of Graduations, This Sunday in addition to Mother's day is also WVU's commencement. Featured speaker has been announced to be the NBA Logo himself, Jerry West.


The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.-- Frank Lloyd Wright

Whats uppinings

Let me start off by saying I was out of town Thursday evening. I stayed overnight in the northside of Pittsburgh, and near my hotel was a name of a restaurant that I have always heard about, but never been to. Any of you who watch the Pittsburgh Steelers have had to see footage of these big sandwiches that are made in the stadium or around Pittsburgh. Primanti Brothers Restaurant is by far the best sandwich I have ever had in my life.

I can't even start to tell everyone how totally unhealthy this sandwich is, so that should tell you how good it is. If you EVER are in Pittsburgh and you see a Primanti Bros sign, stop in, the extra pounds will be well worth it.

* The reason why I was in Pittsburgh had to do with a Decision I made this January. I pretty much know what I am going to decide, I just am waiting to get all the cards on the table before I make my decision. I couldn't have asked for a better situation than what is happening right now. I've been shown both my marketable value and my worth value from my employer. In baseball terms, Infotech stepped up and hit a big home run with perfect timing. Even though they didn't know. I'll talk more about it at a later date.

I went out to the softball fields last night and watched Cool Ride (Mike Toth's team) kick the dogsnot out of the team they were playing 18-4. The looked really good last night and they looked real sharp. Good thing we don't have to beat their pants off again this year. They may be a real good team, but no one is Prime Thyme Softball good.

* I stopped down at Nick and Terri's Bar yesterday afternoon and visited with Terri for a little while. The bar is really starting to look good and they had a nice little crowd during the time that I was there. They should be getting their sandwich machine wired up and running this week.

* I have spoke with Kim a couple of times today. Her and Robert are off to Corpus Christie, Texas. They have met with a couple travel delays so far. Initially she called me from Dallas when they had to land because of a storm. They didn't know if they would be able to catch a their next flight to Houston in time for the final leg to Corpus Christie. She called me from Houston and they didn't know if they could get a flight out today. It's 212 miles and a four hour drive away, so they are considering driving the final leg. I'll let everyone know how they made it there, even if they have to rent a camel.

* I was up early this morning and went for a good brisk walk on Rails to Trails at 6:00 this morning. For any of you potential Job seekers, Civic Development Group was hiring Full Time and Part Time jobs for $9.00 an hour here in Morgantown. The jobs were also advertising medical and dental benefits. If you know anyone looking for a decent paying job, pass this on to them.


Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.--Demosthenes

Softball team starts on a good note

The season has finally began. We played Suncrest Gym tonight in our season opener and came out with a hard fought victory in the bottom of the seventh inning.

The game started out with us losing 1-9 after three innings. But we quckly rallied to take a 11-10 lead. They came back with 4 in the 5th inning and we countered to tie the game up 14-14 going into the 7th inning.

Suncrest Gym scored 2 in the top of the 7th, we counter with 3 runs and no one for the 17-16 Opening game victory. That's 1-0 on the season.

Sunday Morning

It's a perfect time for a early Sunday morning BLOG. I haven't started my day yet, ie my grocery shopping trip to Super Wal-Mart or doing my Laundry yet, but I thought I would do a BLOG this morning.

After reading my Sister Kim's Geeky News blog yesterday it opened my eyes up to a few things. The one thing that really stood out to me was something that Google is doing with Google Base. They continue to push the bar higher and higher for everyone else. Kim pointed out Recipees on her BLOG, I may be using it to find an apartment before long. But that's possibly a later story.

I noticed yesterday that Mon Valley Paintball has updated their website. Yours truly is on the front page of the site with a group of guys that played. I'm on the right side of the picture with the WVAQ guys, my softball team is on the left side of the picture. I will say I have played football, wrestled, bowled, baseball, ran track, played basketball, softball, I've played volleyball, racketball, and probably another half dozen sports that I have forgotten about. I will say that paintball is probably the most intense sport that I have ever taken part in. If I had the time and money (not to mention youth) to play it, I think I would get addicted to this game rather easily. Maybe someday I'll pick up golf instead.

Pam corrected me on a previous post, Moke's day of graduation will be on May 27th, not the 28th as I stated in a previous BLOG. I guess what they say about you losing pieces of your mind when you get older must have some credibility. I don't know what I was thinking when I typed the 28th, I swear I looked at the calendar right before I typed that in the post. Must be some kind of a conspiracy.

I see Amy has made a recent post on her BLOG. I wonder if any of the stale blogs that I have linked on the right will follow her lead and give us a little something to read about.

I'm thinking about taking a nice walk on rails to trails this evening, anyone up to joining me? Let me know, it's very relaxing and could be a good time.

Have a good day



The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.-- Abraham Lincoln

Randal McCloy Jr's letter to Sago victims' families

I found this and felt it shoudl be reposted.



The Associated Press
Updated: 1:02 p.m. ET April 27, 2006

Below is the letter sent to victims’ families this week by Randal McCloy Jr., the sole survivor of the Sago Mine disaster. The letter mentions several mining terms: a “man-trip” is a vehicle that transports miners, a “rescuer” is an emergency air pack, and a “coal rib” is a mine wall.


To the families and loved ones of my co-workers, victims of the Sago Mine disaster:

The explosion happened soon after the day shift arrived at the mine face on January 2, right after we got out of the man-trip. I do not recall whether I had started work, nor do I have any memory of the blast. I do remember that the mine filled quickly with fumes and thick smoke, and that breathing conditions were nearly unbearable.

The first thing we did was activate our rescuers, as we had been trained. At least four of the rescuers did not function. I shared my rescuer with Jerry Groves, while Junior Toler, Jesse Jones and Tom Anderson sought help from others. There were not enough rescuers to go around.

We then tried to return to the man-trip, yelling to communicate through the thick smoke. The air was so bad that we had to abandon our escape attempt and return to the coal rib, where we hung a curtain to try to protect ourselves. The curtain created an enclosed area of about 35 feet.

We attempted to signal our location to the surface by beating on the mine bolts and plates. We found a sledgehammer, and for a long time, we took turns pounding away. We had to take off the rescuers in order to hammer as hard as we could. This effort caused us to breathe much harder. We never heard a responsive blast or shot from the surface.

We eventually gave out and quit our attempts at signaling, sitting down behind the curtain on the mine floor, or on buckets or cans that some of us found. The air behind the curtain grew worse, so I tried to lie as low as possible and take shallow breaths. While methane does not have an odor like propane and is considered undetectable, I could tell that it was gassy. We all stayed together behind the curtain from that point on, except for one attempt by Junior Toler and Tom Anderson to find a way out. The heavy smoke and fumes caused them to quickly return. There was just so much gas.

We were worried and afraid, but we began to accept our fate. Junior Toler led us all in the Sinners Prayer. We prayed a little longer, then someone suggested that we each write letters to our loved ones. I wrote a letter to Anna and my children. When I finished writing, I put the letter in Jackie Weaver’s lunch box, where I hoped it would be found.

As time went on, I became very dizzy and lightheaded. Some drifted off into what appeared to be a deep sleep, and one person sitting near me collapsed and fell off his bucket, not moving. It was clear that there was nothing I could do to help him. The last person I remember speaking to was Jackie Weaver, who reassured me that if it was our time to go, then God’s will would be fulfilled. As my trapped co-workers lost consciousness one by one, the room grew still and I continued to sit and wait, unable to do much else. I have no idea how much time went by before I also passed out from the gas and smoke, awaiting rescue.

I cannot begin to express my sorrow for my lost friends and my sympathy for those they left behind. I cannot explain why I was spared while the others perished. I hope that my words will offer some solace to the miners’ families and friends who have endured what no one should ever have to endure.

April 26, 2006

Randal McCloy Jr.

TGIF

Woo Hoo, we have made it to the end of another week, and it's Friday!!!! I have a few minutes at work waiting on some data, so I thought I would take a few minutes out to BLOG. I hope everyone has had a good week.

* I may have a big decision to make here in the next few weeks. I plan on being out of town next Thursday night and Friday day. I'm not going to say anything over the internet as to any specifics, but I am shall we say testing my marketability.

* Speaking of Marketability. Rumors had it this week that WVU head basketball coach John Beilein was leaving WVU and heading to NC State. He never addresses any rumors, but he did manage to officially address this one stating that the rumors were erroneous. We still have the nations best basketball coach in Morgantown for all of those concerned.

* Our softball team finally has its schedule. :

Mon May 1 - 9pm - Whiston vs Suncrest Gym ( Formerly Shockers)
Mon May 8 - 9pm - Liberatore at Webworks ( formerly Kingdom Ent.)
Thu May 11 - 6pm - Ogden at Finish Line Motors
Mon May 15 - 6pm - Ogden vs March Westin
Sat May 20 - 7pm - Whiston at John Howard
Sun May 21 - 3pm - Whiston vs Panrell Construction (formerly WUPA)
Mon May 22 - 10pm - Liberatore at Sunnyside Superette
Thu Jun 1 - 10pm - Whiston vs DP Dough
Mon Jun 5 - 9pm - Whiston vs Advantage
Mon Jun 12 - 7pm - Liberatore at Progressive Industries
Thu Jun 15 - 7pm - Ogden at Kuntry Kreme Hillbillies ( Brian Judy's
team aka my OLD team)
Mon Jun 19 - 7pm - Whiston vs Nutty Cs
Mon Jun 26 - 8pm - Liberatore at Town Hill
Thu Jul 6 - 7pm - Ogden vs Frank's
Mon Jul 10 - 8pm - Liberatore vs Summers
Mon Jul 17 - 10pm - Whiston at Wendy's
Mon Jul 24 - 7pm - Whiston vs Chestnut Ridge Blue
Mon Jul 31 - 6pm - Ogden at Chippy's
Mon Aug 7 - 9pm - Whiston vs Colasante's
Thu Aug 10 - 9pm - Whiston at The Backdoor

Should be a very interesting year.

* The NFL Draft is this weekend. I may be able to ignore it most of the first day, being my team is the defending Super Bowl Champions and will pick last.

* Off the top of my head, I'm not sure what I have planned for this weekend. I think something is planned, but not real sure. I guess that comes with age or hair loss, one of the two.

* Moke will graduate May 27th of this year from Clay Battelle. Make a note on you calender to be there. Maybe I should have told Moke that Frank Skubis was my next door neighbor for years and he was actually my Gym teacher at Suncrest when he left to go to Clay Battelle.

* Amy will also be graduating from MTECH this year also. I believe this will be her third certification from MTECH that she will have completed.

* I officially no longer work for VARGIS, they have merged with our parent company Infotech. Thisn is the official statement:

VARGIS is now Infotech Enterprises America

Sterling, VA 04/21/2006: VARGIS LLC announced today that it is merging its operations with its corporate parent, Infotech Enterprises America, Inc. and will be known by that name beginning April 24th 2006. The complete VARGIS leadership and expert technical staff remain intact, and are now backed by the resources of 4,000 associates, including more than 2,200 geospatial professionals worldwide with expertise in data management, software development, conversion, migration and photogrammetry. Infotech is a recognized leader in geospatial and engineering solutions in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific markets.

Infotech’s geospatial business in North America has witnessed exceptional growth this past year based on major contracts with LA County, the State of New York, Public Service Electric & Gas (PSEG), McGraw Hill, GE Energy, Rand McNally and other clients. The company continued its strong penetration within the utilities, government and transportation markets resulting in a 200% increase in new contracts for the fiscal year ended 3/31/06 and a year-on-year revenue growth of 76% for the same period.

Commenting on the company’s new identity and synergy with its parent organization, Greg Tilley, President – Geospatial Solutions Division, said, “The business, technical and execution strengths of the global Infotech Enterprises organization give us greater leverage to deliver expert geospatial solutions in North American markets. Our clients will benefit from the domain and technical expertise, sophisticated processes and global delivery model that have underpinned Infotech’s success with businesses and governments worldwide.”

* I hope everyone has had a good week and they have memorable plans for the weekend.

Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.-- Demosthenes

Mountain Valley Paintball

As I have mentioned before, Prime Thyme Softball and WVAQ were scheduled to have a day of paintball battle. Today was that day, and thanks to the very generous hospitality of Mountain Valley Paintball, today was the day of the big showdown. First of all I would like to thank Sean Arthurs and his partners at Mountain Valley Paintball for being very generous hosts and allowing us to partake in their trail run of their park before it officially opens.

The day started out great, we met at Rich's Farms, and MVP bused us to the site of the Piantball fields. They walked us through the basics of Paintball and instructed us on paintball safety and how to play the game. They also informed us that they are now officially the home field for the West Virginia University Paintball team, which ironically is currently ranked #18 in the country out of 250 teams. We were given an exhibition by them and the owners of MVP later on in the day. See Video footage.

Once we were all informed on how the play and play safely, it was on to the battlefield for the Prime Thyme Softball team. We fought valiantly the first match and won, although I was the first one out. I ran behind a bunker and my hopper on my paintball gun opened up and I lost all my paintballs. Scrambling around trying to reload, and not paying attention the where my body was positioned, I got popped. And for good nature when I was walking off the field of play, I got popped a couple more times to ensure I was killed.

We battles heroically for six rounds, and at the end of six rounds the score was knotted at three a piece. The seventh match would be the all deciding rubber match and who could claim the title of paintball supremacy.

We fought hard and I took a couple WVAQ players out quick and early, but I fired about 6-700 rounds during that final battle and ran out of paintballs. I was a sitting duck. WVAQ managed to defeat us in the rubber match and were allowed to lay the claim of Paintball victors.

The Weeks Wrapup

Let's see, there has been a good bit of things happening this week that I need to talk about. As you can see by the picture, Terri has a new addition to her family. Last week someone gave her a Pot Bellied pig and she is keeping him as a pet. She wants to call him Billy, I suggested a more pig type name, one that can identify him like Bacon. She likes Billy though and I guess Bacons name is going to be Billy.

As you can see Bacon, er I mean Billy has taken a liking to Terri. We were talking that the way he follows her around that Bacon, I mean Billy, is really Tucker reincarnated. Bacon, I mean Billy does have a very demanding personality. Terri said Nick is really attached to him already and Terri feels like a new mother.

Let's see, what else is new. Terri and I went out to dinner again this evening, we went to Wings Ole. This is two Saturdays in a row she has had off, although I have a feeling this may be her last for a while, the bar was swamped this afternoon.

On my own personal side, a few new things. First of all the Company I work for is now Officially Merging with Infotech (our parent company) and as of monday we are adopting their name and laying to rest the VARGIS name.

I did get some good news this past week, I guess I'm going to be able to start working remotely in about another month or two. Instead of me driving to Frostburg every day, it was discussed and presented to me about the opportunity to work from home the majority of the time. It may be another month before all that is set up, I may need to get a new Computer and the ESRI licenses need to be renewed and convertd to a stand alone for me to do this.

I also hear from a couple other companies this past week. One had contacted me before and it's just a followup. Nothing serious, the other appears to be quite interested and I may have an interview set up in a couple weeks in Monroeville Pa.

I don't know how anything is going to turn out, but it's nice to be able to re-explore my options from time to time.

Let's see what other news I have come across. Moke graduates in May, and is also starting or did start to work at Taco Bell. Randy is workign for Kentucky Fried Chicken. Renee and Angela (Moke's girlfirend) have both been accepted into the surgical technician school.

I did get a brief chance to talk with Mom tonight and catch up on what's new with her. Would you believe she accused me of not Blogging? I can't let me readers down.

Tomorrow I am scheduled to do a Prime Thyme Softball vs WVAQ paintball warriors thing at Rich's farms. If I go I'll be sure to get some pics and fill everyone in on how it went.

A little Easter Fun

Easter Weekend

I hope that everyone has had a pretty decent Easter Weekend. Mine has been to say the lease relaxing and fun filled. Yesterday was WVU's annual gold blue game, this is the spring scrimmage for the football team, it's also the last time the football team will assemble until this fall.

My old room mate Greg used to play, and I know what the life of a college football player is like. These guys don't get a break from the time they get on campus a few weeks before everyone else until the spring game. Even after the last game is played, they are still expected to report for winter conditioning and that leads into spring football. After the spring game, the team no longer needs to officially report until the fall again.

Anyways, it was a great day, my guess was there was 15,000 plus fans in attendance. All of the proceeds from this game is donated to the West Virginia Childrens Hospital. Probably the best $5.00 you can spend a year. We look very good and this may be our best team ever once it's all said and done, that is until next year when we basically return everyone again.

After the game I decided to go and visit Terri. It had been some time since I had the opportunity to see her, so I was going to go to the bar, but she had taken the day off and was at home.

I stopped and visited for a while, and took her to Ryan's Steakhouse for her birthday which was last weekend. Jean introduced me to Ryan's last fall and I fell in love with the place, so I took Terri for a nice enjoyable dinner. It was a Steak and Shrimp night, so it was well worth the trip.

Today is Easter Sunday and my schedule has been altered a little because everyone is basically closed. I was smart enough to go grocery shopping last night though, so I was ahead of the game.

I hope everyone has a very Happy Easter.




For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

A cool interactive Desktop

A neat little interactive desktop that someone showed me today. Desktop Earth is pretty neat, it lights up according to what part of the world the sun is shining in and you can even get it to update a cloud cover for the world.

I'm such a geography geek.

Deal or No Deal

Deal or No Deal (online game) is probably the hottest new game on Television. Howie Mandel hosts the show that starts out with 26 suitcases, goes through a process of elimination, deals to quit and finally a final dollar amount.

This is a prime time NBC show that is starting to get a whole lot of attention lately, kinda like when Who wants to be a Millionaire first came out.

The Show's Official site.

Happy Birthday Terri

Today is my middle sister Terri's birthday. I do believe it's her 21st plus birthday, kind of like the ones that I like to have.

I am very fortunate to have a sister like Terri. She's a very special person in my and everyone elses life. She's always been a person with an open door and one to help someone in need without hesitation.

Happy Birthday Terri, I hope that all your dreams coem true on this day.

Car problems at the right time I guess

The last couple of days, I have been having some car problems. I took yesterday off and did some minor maintenance to the car, but to no avail. I then took the car the Cool Ride, Michael Toth's shop, to have it diagnosed. Turns out I have a bad Digital EGR valve. You could out your hand on it and it would cook an egg.

They are rather pricely, so we experimented with the idea of simply unplugging it and then running the car. The car ran much better, but the true test was this mornign when I had to top the mountainous regions at 5:00 in the morning.

My car didn't perform that well and I didn't feel safe on driving 70 miles in the early wee hours of the morning. I'm going to have to replace the valve today, and that's bottom line.

However, when I called into work at about the time I would have got there, I was informed that they were in a White Out. The picture is a picture of my office as I'm sure a few of you have seen previously.

Good time to have car problems, almost killed two birds with one stone.

Welcome back Amy

Wow, do you believe it. I have managed to add two Blogs in two days now. My niece Amy who previously published a Blog a couple years ago has decided to re-enter the world of Cyber Blogging and has started Amy's Blog.

She started one a couple years ago but quickly lost interest on Blogging. Hopefully she will keep it active and up to date. When you are a blogger, it's easy to forget that there are actually people out in the cyber world who manage to read your blog from time to time.

It's a great way as I'm sure all of you reading this knows to keep up with what is going on in the lives of some very special people. When we make that commitment to start a blog, we have to go in knowing that your Blog is only as good as you make it. If you're not active, people won't keep visiting to read the same post day after day and month after month.

You you keep an active Blog, you are taking a days thoughts, dreams or observations and capturing it in time for all to share. Every post doesn't have to be dramatic, it could be something simple like I spoke with .... today or I think I want to do this in the near future or simply I'm mad as hell because...

When you do this enough and make it a habit, you build a story, a small piece of history about your life of moments that could very well have been lost in time had it not been for a blog entry.

I've been blogging about a year and a half now. There are archives and stories of my thoughts. I've shared the joys in life, the hardships, the dreams or just the good times over the past eighteen or so months. Look back through my archives to a certain time period and see what was going on a year ago from today. (It was the day I started at VARGIS) or what happened on someone's birthday.

Blog's are a magical gift, they give you the ability to write a very important story. Maybe there most important story in your life because it's about your life. With a small amount of effort once a week or so, you can create a magical story about the time you spent on this earth for you or anyone else to read in the future.

Have a good day.



How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.-- Annie Dillard

New BLOG Added

I was chatting with my mentor in the world of GIS this morning and he told me he has been starting to do some web design and he is also doing an "ACTIVE" Blog. So, I decided to add it to my Sidebar and linked JB's BLOG to mine.

For those of you who don't know, JB is the man who took me under his wing and taught me a good bit of what I know about GIS. I consider myself very lucky to have learned it the way I did, and JB was one of the main reasons I am as good as I am at it today.

Ironically JB lives in Frostburg and used to commute to Morgantown everyday, a few months later the tables were turned and he left the NRAC to work here in Frostburg and I started driving to Frostburg on a daily basis.

Small world, we used to work a couple office down the hall, now we work about a half-mile down the road from each other.

Welcome to the world of Blogging JB.

Poker Night at the SanJulians's Part II

Last night Kim and Robert once again hosted Poker Night at The SanJulians. A group of eight players got together and played a game of Texas Hold'em. For the second time in a row, I finished in 3rd place. There is no money for third place, so there is no honor and there is no glory.

It was an enjoyable game, but even though there wee more players this time, the game seemed to go a little quicker and was pretty interesting. Kim showed me she is a seasoned Texas Hold Em player once again, but she finished in fourth place.

I started to get ready for the night by practicing on my favorite Texas Hold em site, PartyPoker.net. They had an upgrade to the system recently, so I upgraded the software and played a few tournaments to get ready for the nights festivities. I did win the last one that I played in, so I thought I was ready to win this tournament.

This is the final hand when the whole tournament was culminating and a winner was declared.



Thank you Kim and Robert for hosting a great night of entertainment, I'm already anticipating the next game, that I intend of winning.