Titanic
Today, we went to the N.C. Natural Sciences Museum in downtown Raleigh. The "Titanic - The Artifact Exhibit" is there through mid April. Originally, the exhibit was scheduled through January 4th, but it was recently held over.

A good friend of mine, Dave Tuttle, is the local Titanic expert. He gives lectures on the Titanic in school systems, libraries, and civic groups. He has also been recognized as an expert and recommended to tour groups at the museum. Dave invited us to go with a group of alumni from N.C. Wesleyan college or something like that.

We got to the museum before the doors opened. It was cold and windy at 11:30 AM, so we ended up sitting in the car and waiting for the doors to open. We had an excellent parking space right on the street in front of the museum. When the doors opened, we went in, but there was a herd of people that had gotten there as well. No big deal. The tour group wasn't going through until later, anyway. BUT, it sure was crowded in the exhibit. There weren't as many display items as I thought there would be.

Dave did a good job, as he does at just about anything he does. Dave is a good brother in the Lord, and I have known him for years. We have some common interests, but some really divergent ones, as well.

I find it ironic that Dave and Joan had issues with organized religion and "churchianity" some time back while we were attending a regular "institutional" church. Now, it is 180 degrees the opposite. There are different reasons for each, but some common territory, as well.

Dead Puppies
It's not just a song that Dr. Demento played a lot. "Dead puppies aren't much fun". Today, Teresa got an email from her aunt informing her that one of her parents' dogs just died. Their patriarch Pekingese, "Biscuit" was fourteen years old. Not bad for a small dog. He was the father of three of their pups. The mother died several years back, as have two of the pups (who were all adults). Only one of the pups remains and is at least ten or twelve years old.

I feel for my in-laws, knowing that it is never fun to lose a beloved pet. Teresa is pretty broken up over it, even though it was not her dog and she was not raised with this one out of the five they had. It was also his time, being an old dog. I hope this will be VERY temporary.

I will probably shed tears over my cats when they go. My oldest is fifteen years old now. The next oldest is fourteen. They may not be around much longer...you never know. To put it in perspective, my oldest cat was born when Ronald Reagan was still president. I know people who have children in high school the same age as my cats.

On another note, I was able to pick up some more books today, as well as do grocery shopping. One blessing was that I found a lawn edger at the salvage dealer's yard sale. I have been wanting a power edger for a while now. However, he had a manual one that he sold me for just fifty cents. Wow. Come spring, my front lawn will look a lot better around the curbing and walkways.

Last night, Teresa and I went to a free dinner and fire safety lecture by a representative from "Master Guard". The speaker has a degree in Fire Science in some form. He was also in the fire service for many years. I only went to hear the lecture, considering that I had a background in fire protection.

People were packed like sardines in this barbeque restaurant. It was fairly disorganized and almost boring, but I was interested to see what they were hocking.

It turned out that Master Guard manufactures and distributes quality fire detection equipment. I had never heard of this company before or its products.

It amazes me how much I forgot or rather never use in fire knowledge. The speaker covered a lot of topics and things I used to teach. I taught fire safety classes years ago. I haven't done that in soooo long.

One thing that was offered was that anyone who is interested in doing these same type demonstrations could write on the guest registration card that they were interested. So, I did, just to see what may come of it. This guy's hook to be able to speak with "authority" was that he has a degree in fire safety and was in the fire service for years. Well, I have that, too. It would be one way of using my degree, which I haven't done in a long time. I could also use my communications skills. The BIG drawback would be my present job. Because of the sort of job I have, I never know when I will be working, and it would be hard to commit to doing classes, lectures, in home inspections, etc.

The company makes their money by collecting names and numbers, offering free home inspections, and then pitching the products. There must be decent money in it to afford to put on full dinners for 50 to 100 people at a time.

This evening, A&E is showing "Live By Request" with Barry Manilow. They take some phone calls and emails requesting your favorite songs. They only took one email/web request, so I figured that I would submit one. I wrote something like "One of my favorite Christmas memories is listening to a recording of Bing Crosby's "White Christmas". I would love to hear that song. Two other things: 1. How does a nice Jewish boy come to host a Christmas music show? 2. Did you know that Principal Vernon from the movie "The Breakfast Club" raided your wardrobe?" I never expected it to make the show. At the end of the program, he said something like, "I know you're wondering why a nice Jewish boy is hosting a Christmas show. Well, know that Christmas song "O Tennenbaum"? Well, my doctor's name is Tennenbaum." He used the exact verbage in my email.

I don't know if it was because of my email or not, but Teresa and I got a good chuckle out of it.

I know it has been a bit since I made my last entry. I have been really busy with a bunch of stuff. We have been working on the book business. Also, I have been putting in a lot of hours at work. Hey, it's overtime. I can deal with that. I am looking forward to seeing the O.T. on my paycheck...something new at Time Warner for me.

I still have a lot of chores to do around the house. At least the wind is breezy and it is somewhat warm outside. We are expecting rain, so I have been holding off doing the outdoor stuff.

I actually put up a Christmas decoration today. We bought a big wreath for the front door. It is the first time we have had any sort of Christmas decoration up on years.

I actually have four days off in a row. Yesterday was Thanksgiving. We had dinner with Lora, a friend of ours. We went to a local buffet restaurant together. They put on a decent spread, as usual. Then, Teresa went to her house while I went to work for a few hours to troubleshoot a problem.

I almost had to go out again today to troubleshoot a different problem, but I was spared the need. I would still have wanted the O.T., but at least the problem is fixed. It was done remotely by somebody at our office. I do wish people would try to troubleshoot before calling me, if at all possible. But, then again, it's job security in some form.

Not much going on around here. Life has been fairly quiet lately, but busy with work.

Teresa and I had a good time together last night after having dinner. I love my wife, and want to grow closer as time goes by. She made some strides last night in being my lover as well as my friend.

Today we had some nasty weather. Strong winds, heavy rain, and even a tornado watch.

I spent a lot of time troubleshooting some odd problems and learning little details about the equipment I service. I spent the afternoon working in Fayetteville on some problems.

Today we also got the camcorder back from Sony repair. We didn't get to use it much before it broke. We had to pay $154 for repair, but they overcharged me by $53. I am still waiting for a refund check. They claimed that it was mailed some time ago. I'll believe it when I see it. I doubt I will buy any Sony camcorders in the future. I had a lot of problems with their customer service and shoddy product.

My mother remembered our anniversary! The mail delivered a card from her today. It was a day late, but we got it.

Today was our 9th wedding anniversary. I had purchased Teresa a white gold and ruby set of ear rings, necklace, and ring. They were put in a glass music box . She likes rubies and likes music boxes. I told her about Pro 31:10 "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies" and how she is much more valuable than the jewelry I just gave her.

We went out to dinner to The Steak Barn in Goldsboro. We debated about where to go...someplace more modern like Chili's, where we knew we liked the food and the prices; or someplace different and take a chance. We pondered a new bistro in Clayton, The Melting Pot in Raleigh (it would have cost us a minimum of $90 there just for dinner, so we passed on that one), or some other restaurants we are familiar with.

I wish we had tried someplace else. The food was not real great. The bread was dry, the soda flat and wattery, the kabobs didn't have much meat, the pilaf was dry, and the steak was cooked way overdone. At least we got out for $39 including tip. The waitress, though nice, was straight out of the area's best trailer park. That is not to slight people who live in them (we did for five years), but to contrast the attempted atmosphere of the restaurant with the appearance and demeanor of the waitress. Cul-de-sac neighborhood restaurant with trailer park wait staff. Like I said, she was nice, but better cut out for Hardee's than The Steak Barn.

We also found a stash of "Coffee and Cream" Oreo cookies. We have been looking for them for months. Apparently, they were discontinued. We found shopping carts full of them on clearance at Big Lots.

It is getting late here, so I will head to bed with my bride. We had some quality time together today.

Sort of sad, though...nobody remembered it was our anniversary except us.

We went out today and did the flea market thing. We went to "Little Baltimore", near LaGrange. I was told that the flea market there (I have driven by it many times) is great. We found out differently. It was fairly small. We did find an Avon distributor there to buy some body powder and deodorant from. They are at most flea markets, anyway.

We went to Kinston to see what could be found there. We saw a billboard for the "Global Flea Market". It is just a nearly empty old tobacco warehouse. We saw some books on a bench for a decent individual price. We asked the owners if they wanted to sell them all. They were readily accepting of the idea. They had about thrity to forty boxes total.

Since we only had seventy dollars in cash and they didn't want to take a check, we only took seventeen boxes. We may go back and get more. They wanted more per box than I am accustomed to paying sight unseen, but I figure that it isn't the worst deal I have ever seen AND we have a new contact for future supplies of books. Apparently, vendors who quit doing the flea market have left many cases of used books. The flea market owners were wondering what to do with them. They sell very few at the flea market. It is found money to them.

Now, our house is overflowing with boxes of books. We need to open a book store soon or get a storage warehouse or something...soon!

It looks like Tripod has reclaimed the blogs. Mine was wiped out for a while, along with everyone else's for a while.

Last night, we went to see "Matrix Revolutions". I loved the first Matrix. I saw a lot of cool parallels in that movie. The second movie was a lot of eye candy as far as SFX and action. The third was a downer in that area, I think. The plot was a little bit of a let down, too.

I was thinking the other day about how "The Matrix" could have been better in its plot. First, I think that if Neo was someone like Steven Hawking rather than Keanu Reeves, it would have been more appealing to me. BUT, it would not have been to others and would have been a failure in that regard. The irony of an intelligent man who only has his mind becoming free of physical limitations inside the matrix would have been awesome. Either that, or he loves it so much, he turns evil.

Another thing would have been that since six others had come before Neo, the machines built the matrix inside another matrix. Thus, the statement by "The Architect" about having destroyed Zion six times already would have been true AND they would have still had people enslaved in pods. The truth could have really been that everyone was actually still in their pods, just inside one matrix inside another, and they only thought they were free from the system to begin with. Everyone in Zion was actually still in their pods.

Anyway, Teresa and I will probably be heading out to a flea market or something today. We discussed going to the Outer Banks this weekend, but decided it was best no to. Our anniversary is coming up on Tuesday. Every year, we get away to the Outer Banks for a long weekend. This year, the timing is off and we have other obligations to take care of. Since I have the weekend off, we will just go out for a while to a flea market we have never been to and have breakfast together or something. We also need to go to Sam's Club and pick up some supplies, which is along the way.

Thank God I am on hourly pay now. Last night, I worked until 11PM. That gives me 52 hours for this past week. Overtime has been a foreign concept for nine years of employment with Time Warner so far.

I have to go to the coast again today. Ads for one network are not running on two different systems that are conjoined. I think I know what the problem is. It shouldn't be a hard fix.

I am in communications with a man named Art, that I met a few years back. His church is wanting to work to support a missionary effort to produce radio broadcast programs in native language in Nigeria. Apparently, that country has regulations that demand diversity of broadcasting content, and there is little Christian programming available in native language. Art knew that I do professional recording for radio and TV from our previous meeting and still had my business card.

The group Art is working with seeks to get support to build a full recording studio in Nigeria to produce programming, while at the same time acting in business to appear more secularly "legitimate" and financially support the operation.

I can see several options for them. The cheapest of which can be done in someone's home with a few hundred dollars of equipment rather than the multiplied tens of thousands they wish to spend. BUT, if the reality of the matter is that they need a business cover in order to be accepted for broadcast, I can see why they are looking in the direction they are.

Personally, I would LOVE to travel to Nigeria to help install the studio.

I got home from a trip to the coast today. I ended up going towards Jacksonville, NC only to be told that the problem I was going to troubleshoot was a Road Runner cable modem problem in the whole region. So, I went to Wilmington, NC, instead. There was a problem with TV Guide network in Wilmington. The technician there fixed the problem before I got there, as I found out after getting there. It took some prompting on my part last night as a reminder, but it was done. Then, I went to the Wilmington office for Time Warner Cable AdCast. They are having a problem with one phone line on their phone system. I know NOTHING about office phone systems. That has always been a troubling thing to me. I am expected to troubleshoot things I have never had training for. I am expected to take the time to learn systems in minutes. Then, I am belittled if I didn't take the hours necessary to comprehend the systems.
It would be one thing if this system was in my local office and I wasn't traveling over two hours one way to look at it then travel home. That's a half day just in travel time, not to mention all my other duties for the day. But, that is the company philosophy. Don't bother getting some expert in to fix stuff...try to do it yourself, hose it up, then call in an expert. If I had a whole day to play and experiment, then maybe I wouldn't feel so adverse to the concept. I can figure a good many things out, but it usually takes a little time, trial, and error.

I talked to a good friend of mine today. Tony Conti is another northern transplant here in NC. He is from Rhode Island (where the state motto is "We're Not Really An Island"). Tony is a tall, slender, bald Italian. He's in his fifties, and a Christian brother. I have a soft spot in my heart for Tony. I understand all the trials he has been going through with his family lately. I am perhaps the only person he knows who may be able to relate from first hand experience.
Tony and I have been through a lot together, or at least seen a lot together. We were both abused by the same "spiritual leader", but have both come out the wiser.
We always make plans to do stuff together, but they seldom work out. I do enjoy his company when we can get together, though.
If you are reading this, I encourage you to pray for Tony, since he is going through a lot of struggles with family right now.