ernie scofield
journal 2004 Q4
2004.12.30
As I was checking StatCounter just awhile ago, I found that now there are quite a few hits coming from search engines. To think the search engines bother with all these personal blogs out here is beyond imagination.
Today I got my first spam in Gmail. It's quite amazing it hasn't happened before but I don't really publicize that address.
Well got our white Christmas a day late but that might have been because this was a leap year.
2004.12.25
After a nice visit from John Pritchett yesterday, I'm taking a minute this morning before Terry gets up to wish all a Merry Christmas. As I awoke I had half hoped for snow last night, but not this year.
2004.12.22
I said awhile back I ordered DSL, and tonight is working. What a difference.
2004.12.21
Yesterday was my first day back at work after a weeks vacation. haven't fully recovered from whatever I had, the bitterly cold temperatures were no help. I can't remember the last time it snowed around here before Christmas.
2004.12.14
Once Again I have ordered DSL from Verizon. This time it all started with a piece of junk mail. It said congratulations I'm now approved for DSL. If you,ve been keeping up, I went thorough this six months ago.
This time I called just to make sure. The fellow said they had made quite a few changes in my area recently and indeed this time it will work. We'll see as it is supposed to be operational next Tuesday.
2004.12.13
Just thinking about moving makes my mind hurt. I've lived here all my life and now it's, most likely, time to move on. There is one whole lot of stuff I've collected that there will be no room for. I hope I don't forget anything important.
Today I'm to make an appointment for my old dog Roxie at the Vet. We are going to have to talk about the inevitable. Every time a pet of mine dies I must face my own mortality. It wasn't so bad when I was younger, but now I am closer to the end than the beginning.
I went to the library yesterday and "borrowed a couple of CDs of Janis Ian music. Im sitting here with headphones on and have been transported back in time to the early seventies. It was both good and bad times. I have to stop now.
2004.12.07
A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt......If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.
-- Thomas Jefferson, from a letter he sent in 1798 after the passage of the Sedition Act
2004.12.05
Back safe and sound from New York. I hear all this foolishness from urban planners about how a city is supposed to be "pedestrian friendly". Bull! There was not one place to even sit down just about any where we went and I never saw one public bathroom.
Other than that it was a terrific trip. The trip was mainly for Terry to see the place and she said it was everything she imagined and would like nothing less than to live there.
2004.12.03
New York, New York
It's on the chartered bus in the middle of the night tonight. We're off to shop in New York. Terry was born in New York City and moved away when she was two. She's never been back, so it should be quite an adventure for her. I haven't been there since the mid seventies.
2004.12.02
Back home safe and sound after an excellent Fire Protection Seminar hosted by the Harrisonburg Virginia Emergency Services folks. The topic was Chapter 9 of the International Building Code. Picked up a few things that I plan to implement immediately.
2004.11.30
It's off to Harrisonburg today for a Fire Protection Seminar tomorrow.
2004.11.29
Up 'till the wee hours of the morning again, tagging and organizing thousands of mp3's for Terry. They all must be properly tagged then imported into iTunes before syncing her new iPod. At least she'll have a bunch of music to listen to on the way to New York this weekend. More about that trip later.
2004.11.28
Reflection
At work last Friday I heard some disturbing news. One of the Plumbing Inspector's sister died last Thursday at 42. Seems she had gone to the hospital for what some of that "routine surgery" to have her tonsils out and DIED in the hospital that evening. I went and had my shoulder cut wide open last December and was sent home immediately afterward. I really didn't think of the possible outcomes from that action. I lost my sister a couple of years ago from a sudden heart attack, she was 53. As the years go by I hear about more and more people I have outlived and each time calls for reflection.
Memories
Just got back from Rudee Inlet helping my friend John Forrest move a few nets around. Memories flooded in. I did quite a bit of commercial fishing years ago, but quit shortly after I went to work for the City in 1987. I always thought I'd go back to it when I retired, but I'm not sure the body could take that kind of punishment anymore. Just moving nets around was work enough. It would probably take quite some time, if ever, to get in shape for it.
2004.11.22
Hooky
It's a hooky day today. I've got a ton of use or loose time to take at work. Eat your heart out. Today it's lunch and a movie. I think we'll see The Incredibles. 52 years old and watching cartoons you ask? I liked Finding Nemo so much, I'm hooked.
2004.11.21
Fall Colors
Well this week looks to me like peak fall color for the foliage around these parts. Those of you in the frozen north eat your heart out. Fall and Spring are hands down my favorite seasons. At my age I begin to wonder just how many more season changes I have left. Today we are supposed to visit a dear friend and fellow beekeeper Col Stan Nicolay. Hospice has come into his home and it's probably best we not wait to visit.
2004.11.18
Trading Again
I took time to stop by Scottrade today, open an account and buy 100 shares of Merk. I swore off stock trading but this was too good to pass up.
Stocks are one of the things people never buy on sale!
2004.11.15
Peanut's First Show
Yesterday was my niece's daughter Peanut's first horse show.
I thought she did well indeed. No major mishaps like falling off the blessed animal or the fool thing running away. I grew up with horses on the farm, both sister's had them. One would think I would naturally ride horses. NOT!
I raised beef steers in 4H when I was a kid. How a bunch of so called adults could play politics with a bunch of kids in the ring is no joke to the kids. It took me three or four years to win Reserve Champion and that is as far as I ever went. Funny how the kids who won Grand Champion always seemed to come from just a few families.
The most important thing though is I get to watch as Peanut grows into a fine young woman. Her tree is about to spread it's branches and the cycle goes on.
2004.11.11
Vetrans Day
Off today for Veteran's Day. This is the first chance to sit and do a little research on what I am going to do with the proceeds from the sale. I think I've settled in on a thing called a private trust. It let's me defer the sizable capital gains taxes until I draw on the proceeds for some reason. There's one BIG hitch. Once I transfer the proceeds to the trust I'm bound by the contract I sign with the Trust Officer. There are some really big decisions to be made before hand, and I have less than sixty days to make them. The heat is on.
2004.11.09
Lawyers
After a few days of lawyer wrangling, last night I signed the sales contract on the homestead. I have very mixed emotions. I hate to leave but had I not "sold out" I would have to watch as the 'dozers tore down the house I grew up in and in it's place would have grown suburbia.
2004.11.06
Hyper Mode
There are some weeks where the world goes into hyper mode for me. This week has been one of those times ten. To start it all off a real estate agent contacted me Monday evening letting me know that my niece was selling the two parcels to the east of me and he would like to add my parcel to "the package". One of the "two Parcels" he was talking about is the home I grew up in, the other my late sister's home. He seemed in a hurry and drove out to the house Monday night with the listing papers.
Tuesday I got the papers to my lawyer. Wednesday I got the papers back to the agent. The agent called Thursday morning and said HE HAD AN OFFER! I asked what price and he said FULL PRICE!I got the papers to my lawyer on Thursday and he is negotiating with the seller's lawyers. That's how quickly my world has turned upside down.
And on top of that, the city's Fire Protection Engineer retired last Friday and I was expected to "take up the slack". I had to do two jobs last week in the midst of all the real estate wrangling. When I left the office on Friday I told the big boss I was sure this week had about thirteen days in it and she agreed.
2004.10.29
Court News
Got out of court earlier and the results were favorable to Terry and her Dad. And oh yea, a guy called this evening and wanted to buy the farm. We'll see how it goes.
2004.10.24
OS/2 Gopher
It's a rainy Sunday afternoon and I'm in front of the computer and have been for quite some time. It started last night in a marathon session installing OS/2 on an old computer and ending up today exploring literally gobs of documents still left out there on Gopher servers. Amazing stuff just there for the reading. My friends are always after me to get cable Internet access but I spend most of my time reading while connected. I have also found Internet Explorer no longer supports Gopher, what a shame. If you want to explore now a days you'll have to get something like Lynx, the text browser, or the program I'm using now WSGopher. Google will lead you there. Prepare to be amazed.
2004.10.22
Register Rant
Exactly why in the heck would "The Register", the UK open source =good / Microsoft= bad want to continue to infect my windows computer with AvenueA? Hell even Slashdot links to all sorts of pages that want to install all sorts of funky things. If you don't have Spybot or something like it you don't know what you're missing.
2004.10.21
Not that I want to make this site one of those sites that just links to other sites, but when I spend a couple of hours at one I've got to share. Textfiles.com is all about the heyday of the Internet's precursor, bulletin boards. This guy saved and catalogued thousands of board messages. If you don't like plain text files, this site is not for you. I was and am fascinated.
2004.10.17
Introduction To Financial Manager
"Is there a reason for the nonsense, or are we being led to a zeppelin of destruction echoed by the painful yet flaming picture of the Hindenburg landing on foreign soil? Will hamburgers and hotdogs taste better if the .jpg image of Britney Spear's naked body is downloaded at three hundred thousand bits per second rather than thirty-four? Though childish in nature, we should thus consider the response of society to its new "tool." But here, my friends of small type, is where the birds have eaten our trail of bread. As necessity has become the mother of invention, will it always follow that invention destroys a society that so needed her in a fleeting memory? The leverage produced with most computer functions will propel us no longer towards a goal of triumph in a futile culture, but lend favor and acceptance with other less attainable disciplines. In this case, the tool labeling associated with our new "appliance" might in turn cause a fool to its announcer!"
2004.10.14
Court news.
Things went well for Terry and her father today in court. Afterward we all went to dinner at a fabulous place, The Lynnhaven Fish House, where I had my favorite, broiled scallops. Perfect as usual.
2004.10.12
Eat your heart out!
So I get back to the office this afternoon and a notice is on my desk. "You have 86 hours of annual leave you must take before December 1st" . Well here it is the middle of October so I guess I best get cracking. I intend to take this Thursday and Friday for a doctor's appointment and a court date. No I'm not in any trouble, it's some business Terry has about her Father and I'm along for moral support. That leaves two weeks give or take so I guess I'll have time to do a rework on this site and see if I can get Blosxom working the way I want. I also have a bit of work to do around the place.
2004.10.09
VDACS
I'm writing this in the morning, before I go out to help the local beekeeping club at their booth at the Harvest Fair. The Fair is held once a year in the fall, and it's about the only function I help out with every year. This year I'm going with hopes to talk with some other beekeepers about this draconian new bunch of rules handed down from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. I'm sure before it's over, I'll have an entire rant up here about them.
2004.10.06
Now this is kewl.
http://www.intel.com/labs/features/rs08031.htm
2004.10.04
I was home today and did quite a bit of work on a database I moved to M$ SqlServer helping out on another developer's project at work (Tom Sawyer?). I guess now I own it as the users are coming to me for "enhancements".
This afternoon I became entwined with this. Don't even think about it unless you've got several hours to poke around and are the kind of person who doesn't mind plain looking pages chock full of excellent information.