Happy Birthday Hayley Dawn Collins (next year it will be Ash)

I would like to take this opportunity to wish this lovely young lady a very Happy Birthday today.
I am proud to call this young lady my Daughter, she is a hard worker who is not afraid to work, tackle any task and just take on the world. I've watched her grow up from a rebellious young teen to an inspirational woman.

We are now less than a year away from her and Tyler's Wedding day, so there will be a lot of planning that will be going on in the next 365 days.

Not sure what her plans are for the Day, she does work a lot and has to make for Tyler and Luke, but if you happen to see or talk to her today, make sure you wish her the happiest of Birthdays today.

Happy Birthday Hayley.

Saturday

Here I sit on a quiet Saturday Morning, actually twister is playing on the boob tube so that is not completely true. My Co-author who was up earlier is now sequestered somewhere and back to sleep for a while.

Yesterday was a pretty eventful day to say the least. I worked for RTI and got my first of four segments listed. I'll take the weekend off and tackle the largest segment on Monday, one that is actually in the middle of the state.

We had some guests yesterday, Ashley, Christopher, Lilly and the unforgetable Rock Star Rocky stopped by for a  visit. They moved to I think South Carolina a couple of years ago and they stopped yesterday afternoon as they are back in the area for a few days. I however was out running an errand and missed them.

Afterwards Hayley stopped by as she was in town. I don't think I have seen here since we were looking at wedding venues together. This Corona Virus has taken a big toll on visitations.

Today, Michelle and I will be running to Rural king to get some food for our wild aviary friends who always stop by for a visit at one of our many feeders in the back yard. Still haven't seen any hummingbirds yet, but they'll start showing up sometime. Other than that the day is ours.

Have a great day, make it memorable.

Big Ole Hairy Friday

Yes it is once again that time of the week that we all look foreword to, when we can take time to cease the labors for the week and take a little bit of needed time out to enjoy the fruits of those labors. It is once again the dawn of another weekend and a Big Ole Hairy Friday....or something like that

Well today I actually get to go out and make some kind of a difference in the world, I'll be heading out to the field to do some listing work for RTI. We have gotten the go-ahead to do listing and I have a few segments to do, and that is what I am going to go out and do today. I'll be in the car all day, so it's not like I will be interacting with anyone.

Michelle will be at home working today, she went to Clarksburg yesterday morning to work,but was home by the afternoon. They are still remodeling the Goff building in Clarksburg and she'll move into her new office when it's completed.

Have yourselves a great day today.

HI HO HI HO!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Gary Hall

I would like to take this opportunity to wish the best brother any man could ever hope for a very Happy Birthday today.

It's Gary Allen Hall's birthday today, I've lost count as to how many years he is old, but I'm 21 so that should make him about....49

Gary is currently living in the Moundsville area and getting his business back up and running. He's really got the right mindset this time and he is more than capable of making it all happen and cornering the construction market in the area. He is an amazing Carpenter and all around carpenter.

Not sure what he has planned for today, I wouldn't be afraid to wager that he is probably working today, but that is just my guess.

If you happen to see or talk to Gary today, make sure that you take a minute or two to wish him a very Happy Birthday today.

Happy Birthday Gary.

Photo Flashback Thursday

Once a week I like to take a little bit of time out, time to look at some of the 30,000+ images that I have either captured with a Camera, Scanned or just simply stolen off the internet. Little lost moments in time that I post up and relive tight here for everyone while I try to recall the moments around that image. Sometimes it's pretty easy to find that image and sometimes it's a challenge, although one thing it always is is a whole lot of fun for me.

I wish this picture was a little more in focus, but we'll take it as it is very significant. This image was taken at one of the Friends and Family Picnics that we used to have. It's a picture of my sister Kim, niece Brittany, Michelle and myself at Krepps Park.

That big ole flag was a present that Michelle and I had given to Brittany to honor her graduating from West Virginia University.  I had worked with my congressman to purchase the flag and the significance of it is that this is a flag that was flown over the US Capital Building in Washington DC on the day that Brittany received her Degree from WVU. She brought it to the picnic to show me that she had received it.

If you ever know of an event you would like to do this for for someone, you just need to contact your congressman. In North Central WV you can order one here.

Have a great day today, make it memorable as this one was.

Middle of the Week Kind of Day

A couple of days gone (I think) now you just have a few more ahead of you (I think), now all you have to do is get up and over this noon time hum (I think) and it will be all downhill working towards another weekend (I think).

It's not hard to lose track as to what day of the week it is, that's kind of obvious, especially when you really don't have a set target point you're really aiming towards (like a weekend or a day off). I'm pretty sure it is Wednesday and I think we are in the month of June (I think).

Well my segment materials that were supposed to be here on Friday or Monday didn't arrive, I was given a notification that they would be here Tuesday. As of yesterday morning they still have not been even picked up yet. As of the time of me writing this, it has still not been picked up from the shipper, only a label has been created. So I'll be doing some work for RTI, when it ever arrives (I think).

There were some peaceful protests in the city of Morgantown yesterday. It all started on the court house square and then paraded around down and then they all laid down on the street for a few minutes for the BlackLivesMatter movement which is to protest the death of George Floyd in Minnesota who died while under a police officers knee for 8 minutes crying that he could not breath.

Have yourselves a great day

Tuesday's Tidbits

* Monday is over with, I can't think of a better reason to do a tidbits.

* It has been 20,635 days since I first entered this world as we know it. I've love every day of being here and I hope I have made a few of you happy with knowing me.

* It has been 5,861 days since I graduated from WVU with a Degree in Geography, specifically GIS.

* 4,462 days ago Michelle and I had our first date together, 10,000 BC a horrible movie, but we're still together.

* 3,686 days ago I proposed to Michelle, 4:00 in the morning in the back yard.

* It was 4,128 days ago in front of our closest friends and family, Michelle and I tied the knot with the help of a co-worker of hers.

* I have now lived 849 days longer than my Dad did and I'm still going.

* I have 4,214 days to go until I retire, give or take a few hundred days here or there.

* The next Backyard Brawl where we beat Pitt's ass in Football is only 821 days away.

* 245 more days until Phil steps to center stage again for Groundhogs Day. He must be back from his vacation as I have seen him in the back yard this weekend.

* 230 more days to go until my Goodbye 2020 Blog is posted, this should be an interesting one.

* There are 205 more shopping days left until Christmas 2020.

* My next Anniversary of my 21st Birthday will be in 180 more days.

* There are 103 days to go until Michelle and I set sail once again to the Caribbean. Hopefully this can still happen as it is already paid for.

* There are 56 more days to go until Michelle and I celebrate our Ninth Wedding Anniversary together.

* There are 44 days until Michelle and I head to Pittsburgh to see Reba in concert.

* There are only 19 days until the start Summer 2020!!!!!

* I have written 6,039 blogs in the now 15 1/2 years since I started blogging.

* No drone flights this weekend, but that has pretty much been my recurring theme this year with that. I do have a plan to fly Hayley's wedding venue sometime this spring for her.

* Michelle is working from home still, it may be a while as things are progressing slowly.

* My listing materials for RTI should be arriving sometime today

* Michelle will be continuing training today for her work

* Speaking of Michelle, I think she will be in the Clarksburg Office tomorrow.

* Corona Virus, you can still track it here.

* They STILL have not found Mountie Python, the 15' snake that escaped in Sabraton this summer.. He even has his own twitter account. Although my guess is that snake is deceased.



* I'm STILL converting some old VHS tapes to Digital Format for Trish. I really need to get back on this as I am such a procrastinator.

Monday

All good things must unfortunately come to an end, and that does include those fun filled things we refer to as weekends. Now it is time to take our collective noses and stick them back onto the grindstone for another fun filled week of doing what it is we do for a living. 

Looking at my week ahead, my segment materials for RTI should be being sent out today and I should receive them tomorrow. I have two segments that I have to list and that'll mean a couple of days of working for me this coming week. 

Michelle is also going to have a busy week, she'll be in Clarksburg one day this week and she has three days worth of training that she needs to continue this week for some complex software that her company has purchased. We were actually talking last night about her job, this is the job that I think she loves the most in her career. MEPCO was great and offered all kinds of benefits, but she has come in on the ground floor of this company and it's just starting to expand in multiple directions and everything has been meeting or exceeding expectations. She loves where she is at career wise. Last year BFS tried to lure her back with an offer that she turned down, it turns out it was the correct career decision. 

Have yourselves a great week and a great Monday. 

Sunday

Here I sit for the second weekend day in a row flying solo writing my blog, Peanut is no where near to be found and I'm out here with the TV on and playing who knows what. I think I keep it on for a little background noise more than anything.

I am now getting a message from Blogger that the back end that I did not care for is going to be their default back end by the end of June. I've been using this current back end interface for 16 years and am comfortable with it, why they feel the need to change it and not give me the option of choosing the controls I want is beyond me. I don't really care for the new back end and I've stated it here previously.

On to other things, yesterday was a nice and relaxing day. We didn't get into anything and stayed around the house and watched the NASA Launch and played on the internet most of the day. I was keeping up with all the protests that have been going on around the country and had a feeling last night was going to be the last night of it. We Americans have short attention spans and it's about time everyone picks the next thing to concentrate on. The events of the past week have been horrific in this country and now maybe it's time to heal. I would be surprised if events didn't pretty much subside by this evening, but I've been wrong before.

Today we'll be doing our shopping and meal planning for the week. We took Kiwi (our bird) outside yesterday and allowed her to enjoy the day with her cage in the fresh air, today is probably for the most part going to be a repeat of yesterday around here once our morning chores and shopping are completed. Peanut is loving this outside weather.

Make it special and memorable.

Saturday Morning Ramblings

Here I sit yet once again on a quiet Saturday Morning, I'm up watching I have no idea what and my co-author is once again slacking this morning and is no where to be found.

It looks to be a nice weather kind of a Saturday. I never got my materials from RTI and they wont be here until Tuesday so there is really nothing on my agenda for the day. Michelle is also off after having a busy week and a busy week coming up for her with some training on some new Software that they purchased.

It might just be a day of relaxation and watching movies and maybe catch up on what has been happening in this country this week with the aftermath of the George Floyd Murder, the Minneapolis Man who kept telling an officer he could not breath and the Officer would not remove his knee from his neck. The Officer has been charged with third degree murder but judging by the mass rioting that has been going on the last three nights, people are not happy with what is happening with that case. Can't say I have seen this country in so much turmoil over one domestic incident in some time. It's sad what is happening.

On a happy note, Peanut needs to get her lazy butt up, it's sunny out at 6:40 AM and she is missing chasing butterflys. Speaking of I wish I had a camera on her yesterday, she jumped about 3 foot straight up to try to grab a butterfly and Michelle and I were both watching her and busted out laughing. Oh the things we are easily entertained by these days. 

Make it a good memorable one today and have a great day.

Big Ole Hairy Friday

Yes it is once again that time of the week that we all look foreword to, when we can take time to cease the labors for the week and take a little bit of needed time out to enjoy the fruits of those labors. It is once again the dawn of another weekend and a Big Ole Hairy Friday....or something like that

Today I get some segment materials for RTI, I will be going out a couple of days next week to list segments. Field interviewing still has not been approved as of yet, but we in West Virginia can start listing as of Monday. My materials should be here today and I'll start organizing them over the weekend. 

Michelle has traveled to Canonsburg the last couple of days to work, she woke up yesterday and saw the weather forecast where it called for rain so she went to that office. She'll be in Clarksburg a couple of days next week and maybe a day in Canonsburg as they are preparing to open up another portion of their business and start dealing with Professional Services. They are still in the planning stages, but they have a name and Michelle ordered a bunch of swag for the new business. They have came a long way since she first started working for them and they have just used their model and taken off to a great deal of success. 

My excitement for the day will be taking the Laundry to Millers Laundromat and drying it. I've got my weeks planned as of late where Mondays has been all my job searching and resume day. I figure once a week is all I really need to put resumes in as I've already got a number in and am only playing attention to the newer listings as of late. So what does that mean? Friday is Laundromat Day for me!!!

Have yourselves a great day, Hi ho hi ho a Drying I will go.  

Photo Flashback Thursday

Once a week I like to take a little bit of time out, time to look at some of the 30,000+ images that I have either captured with a Camera, Scanned or just simply stolen off the internet. Little lost moments in time that I post up and relive tight here for everyone while I try to recall the moments around that image. Sometimes it's pretty easy to find that image and sometimes it's a challenge, although one thing it always is is a whole lot of fun for me.

This is basically where it all began for me, even though it would go into hiatus for about a decade, but Dad and Jean bought us a Computer one Christmas, I'm thinking it was Christmas 1982. That little white thing with the keyboard, that was the computer. I think it came with 2 kilobytes of memory and there was an expansion pack of another 15 kilobytes (not Megabytes, kilobytes). So we had about 17,000 bytes to play with on that thing. As a point of reference, the above picture is 262,144 bytes, or basically 15 1/2 times the capacity of that little Tandy Computer. I'm thinking it was a Tandy TDP-100 or a TRS-80, it was one of their low end computers.

There was no where to store any coding you did and everything was written in BASIC and get this, you actually had to program every single keystroke. I used to buy books that had the programs already written, you just had to input everything into the computer to get it to run. Some real complex programs that is actually pretty comical and very archaic to even look at today. Sad thing was, once you turned the computer off, the program was wiped from the memory. If you wanted to run it again, you were reprogramming it.

We had it hooked up to a little 13" TV Gary and I had in the bedroom and it might have even been black and white.

>We would type in our games we wanted to play (simple ones at that) and execute them. I actually hears a friend of mines parents ask their son why he only programs games and not other things. He handed the book to his Dad who was pretty electronically savvy and told him to program any game he wanted. He quickly learned that one bad keystroke and the entire program would either crash or not run. You quickly taught yourself BASIC and how to construct a program.

We have came along way since those days. There I was however, looking at the both the worlds and my own future.


I leave you with a little bit of a tidbit of information, hopefully this will enlighten your day a little. The following picture is a historical picture, it was sent in an e-mail in 1992. What is the significance of it? It was the first picture ever transmitted over the internet.

Now take that little tidbit of enlightening information and have yourselves a great day. Make a difference in this world, like I just did by enlightening you.

Wednesday

Alright you working stiffs, you have made it to the point of the week when you can start thinking about the weekend. All downhill from here as you are in the home stretch already so to speak.

Michelle is heading north to Canonsburg today, meeting up with the rest of the people from her company and having their weekly in person get together. They have been meeting three times a day on the internet, but now they are starting to work their ways back into the office life. They still don't have the Clarksburg office up and running as of yet, it's a big remodel job.

I spent yesterday putting in a few resumes around the net. As new jobs in my field open up I like to have a resume out there quickly, that way when the Corona virus thing is over with hopefully I can pick and choose what job I want to accept.

I will start doing some listing work next week with RTI. West Virginia has gotten the approval to start listing June 1st and there are a couple segments that she wants me to get listed for this coming January. No biggie, that's an easy one where I am just riding around in the car writing down addressed or descriptions of locations. That way when we get to the field interviewing portion of the job in possibly July, the field interviewers can have have the materials that they need.

I talked to Mom this past weekend and she bought herself a new computer and has asked if I could set it up for her. I figure with Michelle in Canonsburg, it'll be a good day for me to head up there.

Have a great day today, go make a difference in this world we live in.

Tuesday's Tidbits

* The three day Memorial Day weekend is over with, my grass did get cut yesterday and I can't think of a better reason to do a tidbits.

* It has been 20,628 days since I first entered this world as we know it. I've love every day of being here and I hope I have made a few of you happy with knowing me.

* It has been 5,854 days since I graduated from WVU with a Degree in Geography, specifically GIS.

* 4,455 days ago Michelle and I had our first date together, 10,000 BC a horrible movie, but we're still together.

* 3,679 days ago I proposed to Michelle, 4:00 in the morning in the back yard.

* It was 4,121 days ago in front of our closest friends and family, Michelle and I tied the knot with the help of a co-worker of hers.

* I have now lived 842 days longer than my Dad did and I'm still going.

* I have 4,221 days to go until I retire, give or take a few hundred days here or there.

* The next Backyard Brawl where we beat Pitt's ass in Football is only 828 days away.

* 252 more days until Phil steps to center stage again for Groundhogs Day. He must be back from his vacation as I have seen him in the back yard this weekend.

* 237 more days to go until my Goodbye 2020 Blog is posted, this should be an interesting one.

* There are 212 more shopping days left until Christmas 2020.

* My next Anniversary of my 21st Birthday will be in 187 more days.

* There are 110 days to go until Michelle and I set sail once again to the Caribbean. Hopefully this can still happen as it is already paid for.

* There are 63 more days to go until Michelle and I celebrate our Ninth Wedding Anniversary together.

* There are 51 days until Michelle and I head to Pittsburgh to see Reba in concert.

* There are only 26 days until the start Summer 2020!!!!!

* I have written 6,032 blogs in the now 15 1/2 years since I started blogging.

* No drone flights this weekend, but that has pretty much been my recurring theme this year with that. I do have a plan to fly Hayley's wedding venue sometime this spring for her.

* Michelle is working from home still, it may be a while as things are progressing slowly.

* I see Val went to Dad and Jean's Grave-site and put some flowers down in the planters. We pulled the Christmas Trees out this past weekend but didn't have anything to replace them.

* Michelle has been wanting a Hummingbird Feeder, I swear she is the bird whisperer, so I went to Lowe's yesterday and picked one up for her.

* Michelle is going to the Southpoint Office again tomorrow. They are going to all be in that facility once a week.

* Corona Virus, you can still  track it here.

* They STILL have not found Mountie Python, the 15' snake that escaped in Sabraton this summer.. He even has his own twitter account. Although my guess is that snake is deceased.

* I'm STILL converting some old VHS tapes to Digital Format for Trish. I really need to get back on this as I am such a procrastinator.

* Have yourselves a great day.

* Hi ho hi ho

Memorial Day

OK you working stiffs that have nice benefits and Holidays, it's Monday but you don't have to go to work today as it is a Holiday.

Memorial Day is the unofficial start to Summer, celebrated with BBQ's and family get togethers, spending time with friends and just enjoying the start of a nice warm spell.

One thing that everyone really needs to take a little time to remember, is the reason we have this day. It is a day that we take to honor those of us who were not only in the Military, but fought and paid the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms that we enjoy today. It's a time to honor the fallen. On every Memorial Day weekend I visit my Grandfathers and Father, all of which who served in the Military and both Grandfathers fought in wars, but we were fortunate that when the war was over they got a chance to return home to their families. I go to the graveyards and put American flags on all of their graves, but that is usually done by the American Legion or the VFW.

Have a great day.

Sunday

Here I sit once again on a quiet Sunday Morning, Peanut the Chipmonk chaser is no where to be found so I am once again flying solo this morning. The TV is one, but like usual it's just for noise and I have no idea what is playing.

Every Memorial Day weekend I take a road trip to visit the Graveyards of my Grandfathers and Father to place flags upon their graves. All three men served and my Grandfathers served in four different conflicts. Grandpa Hall in WWI or the Great War as it was known at the time and Grandpa Newbraugh in WWII, Korea and Vietnam according to his grave marker. It's something that I have done for a number of years, this year was no exception to that and we did it yesterday to get it over with.

Today we are firing up the smoker for the first time in 2020, we have a nice rack of ribs that we are going to place a nice rub on and then throw it in our smoker for about 6 hours or so. It's our favorite way to cook, although we don't do it nearly enough. It adds a flavor to nice woodsy flavor and everything is always just so tender. We'll throw that on after we get back from doing our grocery shopping this morning.

Have yourselves a great day, make it special.

Saturday Morning Rambling

Here I sit once again on a quiet Saturday Morning, my co-author is somewhere sleeping and I am once again flying solo this morning. Not sure what is on the boob tube, but something is playing in the background.

I'm hoping the weather plays nice today and we can fire up the mower and mow grass. With all of this rain we have gotten in the past week or so it has grown pretty quickly and needs attacked and chopped down once again. We are up to the task of the weather cooperates and it drys up a little bit.

Make sure that you wish George McClain a Happy Birthday today. His and Pam's are so close they usually celebrate together, but I'm not sure they are going to go out and do anything for a while with the Corona Virus still hanging around.

Speaking of the Virus, things are starting to open up around here after two months of being closed, but I have a feeling many are still going to be hesitant after being quarantined for two months. The good news is my face masks that I ordered in March, should be arriving by Wednesday, two months after I ordered them.

Have a great day, enjoy your Holiday weekend.

Big Ole Hairy Friday

Yes it is once again that time of the week that we all look foreword to, when we can take time to cease the labors for the week and take a little bit of needed time out to enjoy the fruits of those labors. It is once again the dawn of another weekend and a Big Ole Hairy Friday....or something like that.

And just like that it is Memorial Day Weekend, the unofficial start to the Summer Season. A time of the year when it is usually pretty warm and dry and everyone is having picnics or cookouts.

It's traditionally a big sporting weekend and one where families gather to celebrate. This year because of the Corona Virus, everything is different.

I know Michelle and I are planning on breaking out the smoker one day this weekend, I got a nice rack of ribs yesterday that we are going to smoke. Other than that that is probably going to be the highlight of our holiday weekend.

Have a great day and make it a memorable weekend.

Happy Birthday's Pam and George McClain

I would like to take this opportunity to wish my Sister Pam and an early Birthday to my Brother in Law George and wish them both a very Happy Birthday today.

Pam is a sister than any brother would be very proud to have. She is the most genuine of the genuine and it is an honor to call her my Baby Sister. She would do anything for anyone and is one of the most innocent souls anyone would ever want to meet.

George is the Brother in Law who was always there to help when I needed help, especially when it came to the piece of junk cars I used to drive...lol

I'm not sure what Pam and  George have planned for their Birthday's  but rest assured it will be celebrated at home due to the Corona Virus.

If you happen to see or talk to Pam today or George Thursday, take a little bit of time out of your busy day and wish this special lady or this fine young gentleman a very Happy Birthday today.

Happy Birthday Pam and George a little early.

Photo Flashback Thursday

Once a week I like to take a little bit of time out, time to look at some of the 30,000+ images that I have either captured with a Camera, Scanned or just simply stolen off the internet. Little lost moments in time that I post up and relive tight here for everyone while I try to recall the moments around that image. Sometimes it's pretty easy to find that image and sometimes it's a challenge, although one thing it always is is a whole lot of fun for me.

This weeks pic was a pretty east one for me, since I am contractually obligated to either give my weekend co-author a little bit of love, or she is going to want to renegotiate her compensation and want more Catnip flavored Cat Treats. She is very picky about what kind of treats she gets and her contract is very specific.

Michelle grabbed this pic a couple of days ago and put it up on Facebook in 3D and I just had to make it my flashback picture for the day.

Have yourselves a great day, make someone around you smile.