First I wanted to tell everyone that I’ve updated the website which will mean a substantial change to the back-end design.  This is a good change, it should be simpler…but as will all changes sometimes simpler doesn’t seem that way because we are comfortable with the old way.  I would recommend everyone clearing their cache before logging into the administration panel.

For a while now, Kimberly and I have talked about identity theft protection.  Kimberly has been with a service for a while, due to when she got in it has been pretty cheap to keep up.  For myself though, I’ve been researching off and on about the protection services and wondering what will provide the most bang for my buck.  Most sites offer some level of protection or some level of monitoring, but I could push myself to paying  $180/year just to have someone keep an eye on it.

Some statistics.  8.3 million Americans were effected by some type of fraud in 2005.  The primary role was in misuse of existing credit card accounts, meaning someone got a hold of your card number and used it.  The card companies do not hold you liable for this type of fraud, nor will any monitoring service protect you from this.  New accounts affected 1.8 million adults, or .8% of the population.  And I calculated that the average out-of-pocket cost is about $60 per person, with the report indicating an average of 4 hours of your time spent resolving the issue.  Assuming your time is worth $100/hour, an unscientific calculation will show that a protection service over ~$3.75/year is not worth it. Read the rest of this entry »

As most of you may know I have been given back responsibilities of the Helpdesk department due to the Helpdesk Manager (hired January - quit April) leaving AIG.  This is another full-time job and it is very frustrating to have to now go back and only accomplish only half of what you need to for each area.  I believe with all my heart that this job was provided to me by God and he has kept me and held me up in this position, time after time.  Yet I still seem to find myself over and over under this weight of trying to make all the pieces fit and insure that the spilt milk does not run off of the table.   Yes, I hear each of you saying, “Well maybe it is time for the milk to splatter on the floor”.  I want to say that I agree with you, but my make-up fights me tooth and nail to do everything I can to keep the milk on the table.  The times I have let the milk spill over, I tended to work even harder to clean up the mess and this all seems to create this whirlwind of juggling one too many balls.  I have found in my many years of management that the system is upside down and I do not know how to change it, the people that are your worst achievers are just maintained, they do only xx amount of work and that is all they do.  These people still progress, still get raises (although smaller ones), etc.  Then you come to the best achievers — due to their ability to accomplish a significant amount of work, management continues to request that these people take on more and more work, thus burning them out and guess what — they leave due to the workload being so heavy that they are being crushed.  Why do we (myself included) continue to do this, why do we continue to keep the moderate to low achievers and not push them to do more and if they do not respond, why keep them - release them and find a good employee.  Why — Why — Why!!
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After hearing what happened on the 9th and hearing that it was a day bittersweet, I got to thinking.  The sadness of loved ones lost, the joy of birth and the way human kind takes each of these.  I was really thinking about it and trying to understand what was going in all our heads, and all I could ever get is the trite phrase saying we should celebrate death.  Yet I was never given a reason.  I was never given a logical, scriptural, much less comforting reason why people should celebrate in death.  Then this Sunday it all came together…

Most common phrase given is "Be happy, they have gone to a better place."  What joy does that give me?  What comfort to my heart does this provide?  If I were to know that Kimberly had to go to Tahiti and I had to stay here, where do I find the joy in that?  I am suppose to rejoice in her being in a better place, no I agonize over her separation.  When someone close to us dies, the separation doesn't allow for rejoicing.  We are then placed in a state of pain, and we have to fight with pain not only of loss but of people telling us that we should infact be happy.

In Ecclesiastes, Solomon being given more than any man could dream of, spends much of the first part of the book explaining why he's better than you.  Solomon in all his wisdom was still a seeker, he was wise enough to understand he still had much to learn.  He had the means and the will to try to discover what brings true happiness in life.  So Solomon had more money than anyone, more wisdom than anyone, more wives than anyone, more land than anyone.  He used his money on things for him, built houses for each of his 400 wives, litterally planted national forests, built a temple for the Lord.  Solomon did all he could do and he talks over and over again that all of that is meaningless.  No matter what he did, no matter how much he spent, in the end…it was all meaningless.  Yet in chapter seven Solomon stopps to tell us everything he's learned.

Ecc. 7:1 A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth.
2. It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.
3. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.
4. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

Finally, a scriptural and logical look at death and how to look at it. I'll try to break these down as best as possible now.

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OH god……I just got notice about my 20 year class reunion….I can remember my mom taking about going to their class reunion….Im gettin OLD!!!!!! well I guess we will be in AMARILLO for the first time in a LONG time….June 23-25…,Yeppeeepppeeee OK now it time to get on that tred mill and loose my butt…..heheee Oh well I’ll have a bigger butt and also Bigger BOOBS heheheeee will they notice? ? ? ? ? hehhheeee Have not talked to anyone in a while….The cruise with Cody was GREAT!!! mom got to come along too, we had a ball, we need to all go on one next year as a family deal that would be fun….let talk and work something out for next summer a Family Cruise what do you think??????Luv Gia

As we travel down through life and especially the longer the road gets, it seems that the bumps seem to level out, but the flat tires are more plentiful. As you begin your life’s journey you are bumped into existence by self expulsion or by being yanked into the world through a cut in the uterus. Either way, life begins with a major bump.

Then you continue to move thorough your formative years and the stings, stains, and stigmas of life bump you from side to side. Your parents bump you to instill correct attitudes and actions. Then elementary and high school comes and more bumps, then college and more bumps, then love and MAN what a BUMP. Then a career enters like a pinball game and you wander through all the bumpers only to reach the bottom and then are slapped and slammed back up into the the world with extreme force, only to start the journey again to make it back to the bottom.

But just outside of the pinball arena, you have a small life that enters (just as you did, with a bump and a bang) into your life and you are now the one doing the bumping. You Are the one that watches as you attempt to correct those attitudes and actions with bumping action of your own, yet still derived from the bumps that you experienced as a child, and then elementary and high school comes with more bumps……………. and the circle continues.

HOWEVER, you say, What about the flat tires? Well, as the original journey that you are on continues, the bumps begin to soften and the bashing you experienced all begin to diminish, but truly only in your mind. The world has not changed and you are still battling the career pinball wizard for dominance and you are still bumping and banging around, but then a flat tire comes along.

This flat tire causes you to stop, pull over, and get out of the vehicle you are traveling in on this journey. You have to assess what has happened, how much damage, and what you need to do to fix it. As you look and gather information about your “predicament”, you realize that you are very close to the edge of the cliff and had the flat tire occurred just a few minutes later, you might have plunged off the side of the mountain. You then begin to look around and find that you have stopped on a flat even surface, you open the trunk and you have a jack and a fully aired up spare tire. You take the tire out, the lugs loosen with little effort, and you are able to quickly change the flat and you are back on the road.

Now as your life’s journey continues, you are not as tense, you are not as stressed. The flowers and grass on the roadside are much more colorful. The air surrounding you is much sweeter than you had noticed before and all seems “all right” once again.

OK you say, I still do not understand the flat tire business. Well for me, my flat tire is time with my family, especially four wonderful children and two beautiful grandkids. They make me stop and pull over, get out of my vehicle, assess my life and then return. Each time I spend the time looking at them, I find that my life is not full of bumps and banging around, but it is full of the memories of the times I had to stop and fix a “flat tire”.

If you have not found your “flat tire” yet, I encourage you to do so quickly. Life is too short to not have found it and guess what — you enjoy every nail that your tires find, because you look forward to your next “flat tire”.

I hope this makes sense, I know what I wanted to say when I started this, but not sure it is coming through. I love all of you and just slow down and assess the glory around you, you do not have to look far.

Kent

So I started my new job with Raytheon on Monday (well I was in orientation all day on Monday so you might say I actually started it on Tuesday), and things seem to be going well thus far. The first day there (on site) I went through another hour and a half orientation and then proceeded to get a quick tour of the place and to show me where my desk is. When we came to my cube, I was missing a chair, telephone, and my computer was there but the port was not active so the computer was useless. So within the first couple hours of working I have 3 “Technical Support Tickets” out for my situation. I get shown around meet some people then find out that I have a meeting that afternoon. I show up to the meeting and it’s the kick-off meeting to the program that I’m under’s next phase of design. And low and behold there’s my name under the list of people and responsibilities with two responsibilities attached to my name. I haven’t even worked 15 hours there yet. So I get the rundown of everything and get a bit overwhelmed, but then I’m told just to spend the week getting used to the company and speak with these certain people about what I’m supposed to be doing. After the meeting…still no chair, phone, or computer.
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