The last few months I have been posting about selling the house. Today, July 30, 2010 we closed on the sale of our house. This photo was taken at 9:00 AM this morning, just two hours before turning the keys over to the new owner. This was our first real home and a bit sad to move but also allows for a greater opportunity of a better home. This was the house that we moved into when we came back from the Air Force in 1999. We now live in an apartment in Midwest City for the next year while our house is being built. For those of you that know us personally, our phone numbers are the same and this web site will remain. Our kids spent most of their childhood years in this house. We have been so busy trying to get the house in sellable order. Also we have been just as busy at work preparing for some very important meetings. With all this going on, I have not had a lot of time to post on this blog.
I can say that my wife and I have been over our heads in work with a new project every day. If anyone has ever needed a vacation, it is us. If you are considering selling a house, be prepared for a lot of work and patience. Looking back, it went relatively smooth though a lot of stress. Now that the sale is complete, we can finally catch our breath.
I will continue to post on this page in the future despite my lack of activity in the last few months. Now we have a lot of things to put away. What a mess! I hope to be back into a normal pattern again soon. Thanks for continuing to check the page even though I have not been online much.
There is a pretty cool new tool out there to keep all of your Internet passwords. I don’t know about you but I get tired of trying to keep track of every password that I have especially since many of them have different requirements. Well I have been hearing a lot on the Internet about a company called LastPass where they store all of your online passwords on your PC and they encrypt them. By encrypting them, no one can hack into your computer to gain access to this information. This way you only need to remember the LastPass password and it will do all of the rest. It also allows you to have pre-filled out forms that will auto fill online requests for information. This way you do not have to fill out your email, address, phone number and all that personal information every time you sign up for something. It does allow you to pick and choose which sites it stores information for.
LastPass also lets you synchronize your browsers so you can have access to your information anywhere and at anytime. LastPass also allows you to encrypt your information in other files on your computer. This way, even if someone did gain access to the sensitive information, they could not read it without your LastPass password. The amazing thing is that it is free to download to your computer. They even have versions for PC, Mac, and cell phones. They allow you to put secure notes in your vault so that you will always have a place to store private information without revealing it to others. Even if someone stole your computer, they could not get your information. You can store bank account or Social Security information without worrying about others being able to gain access to it. I have been reading about what a great product this is from many sites around the Internet.
Another cool feature is that since the information is stored on your computer, then it cannot be subpoenaed from a court. The reason is that LastPass does not have the information to release. It is your information and is encrypted so you do not have to worry about others gaining access to your things. Try it out.
I took this video at the city park in Mustang, Oklahoma last night. This is not a professional fireworks show but rather just a park where people go to set off their own fireworks. Most of the Oklahoma City metro area has laws against setting off fireworks. This is unfortunate because our kids do not get to experience the fun that we had as kids on the fourth of July. Our kids are left with driving 20 miles to the other side of the metro and fighting crowds of thousands of people. This environment is sort of like going to the state fair with fireworks. Although there are many police and fire personnel on duty around Mustang, it is a wild and anarchy environment. Don’t get me wrong… I am not trying to say it is bad because it is not. We always have fun when going to this park because this wild chaotic fireworks show goes on all day and all night.
This park looked like a land fill with all the debris laying out in the street and grass. I am sure they have crews that pick it up afterwards. I know Mustang must make hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax money every year off the sale of fireworks. I even stopped a a pizza restaurant and the entire parking lot was filled with people setting off fireworks. This would be a dream for most kids. I often tell people what it is like but they act like they do not believe me. You can watch fireworks for hours and not spend a penny. If you want to set off your own, then there are probably 30 or 40 fireworks stands all around Mustang. This video does not give true justice to how wild it really is. The whole city is a cloud of smoke and you can see it coming down Mustang road from I-40.
The down side to this is that it is a bit dangerous. I was hit twice last night and several times found debris hitting me in the face. The trick to avoiding this is to stand up wind from the fireworks. A couple years ago we had a close call. One of the women that was in our group lit one of the mortar shells and the wind blew over the tube that it was placed. It pointed right at us and fired under my wife’s chair and then under my car and out the other side before exploding. As dangerous as it was, it was funny to see the silhouette of bodies diving to get out of the way. This sort of thing is common place so you need to make sure you roll the windows up on your car. Three years ago I saw a Camaro on fire in this park. We hear ambulance and fire sirens also while out in the park. I know it sounds crazy to put yourself in this type of environment but you just have to experience it. Pure anarchy and pure excitement. This year was not quite as rowdy as previous years simply because of the rain but it was still pretty fun.
All I can say is if you crave excitement, Mustang is the place to go. I have never seen a professional fireworks show that is this much fun. The fact that it is going on for hours all around you is just too much fun. You can turn a 360 degree circle and you will be surrounded by large and small fireworks. No one will ever try it when I tell them because I don’t think they believe just how crazy it really is. After going out here six years ago, I have never gone to see another professional show again. There is usually at least one television station out there just because how crazy it is. Just prior to leaving to go the the park, I saw some neighbors setting off some shells and someone called the police. In our neighborhood they are illegal though most people ignore the law.
My dad has a video made in 1978 in this neighborhood that shows what it was like before they were illegal. People were setting off fireworks all over the neighborhood. Now it is more sporadic. I still see them around the neighborhood but not was widespread as before. There are other suburbs around that also allow fireworks but none of them compare to Mustang. Next year just go West on I-40 to Mustang Road and then go South until you reach SW 59th Street. At this point you will not only see the cloud of smoke, you will see the shells flying over the trees. Just stop at one of the local businesses and sit outside your car. You will be in awe of the fire power all around you. I strongly recommend it.
I am so tired of not being able to use my cell phone 40% of time. I do not get a signal in my office and since I am there 10 hours a day, this is unacceptable. Of the remaining 14 hours a day, I am in bed from six to eight hours a day. I am paying for a 24 hour a day plan for four phones. I have a second problem and that is my phone. I have a Blackberry 8900 that goes to SOS mode when it does not get a signal. Once the signal returns, it stays in SOS mode and does not search for a signal again. This angers me because I cannot even depend on getting a signal once I get out of my office. The SOS mode is when it does not get a signal on our provider but does get a signal on another company’s tower. It will not allow phone calls off the other company’s antennas but will allow emergency calls to 911. This is why it says SOS for “Save our Souls”. I am a T-Mobile customer and have been since 2000. At that time T-Mobile was really Voicestream Wireless.
One of my character traits is that I am very loyal to someone until they do me wrong. I am not saying that T-Mobile has done me wrong. I am saying that despite the fact that I have not had a signal at work for 11 years I have stayed with them. I would love to stay with them even now but I am reaching the end of my patience. At the beginning I just had phone service. Now I have phone service as well as data on my phone. I am paying a premium price for the data and voice though I do not have a signal most of the day. I am under a two year contract that expires in May 2011. I have been entertaining the idea of changing service providers. Since having no signal in my office is the main problem, I thought I should try other providers to see if any of them work. I have found that most of the people that receive calls in my office are using AT&T. I found one person that uses Verizon and gets one bar in my office. Another person that uses Sprint that gets two bars. When I ask them to follow me down to my wife’s office downstairs, the only one that still gets a signal is AT&T.
I often tell people outside of work that I may have no option but to switch to AT&T and they tell me NO! They tell me what a huge mistake it would be to switch to AT&T. I hear this from so many people. They tell me how I will be having dropped calls. My answer to that is currently I am not able to get calls at all. What is worse? No calls or dropped calls. The reason that AT&T gets a signal when no one else does is because their antenna is on the water tower directly in front of the building I work in. The closest T-Mobile tower is nearly two miles away. You may know how I know this. I have done extensive research through the FCC search and reading antenna registration numbers on towers. I have searched and found tower sites for every cell phone antenna for 10 miles and have posted them on Google Earth. As a ham radio operator, I have some experience in this area. The point is that if T-Mobile would just put an antenna on that water tower, it would fix everything. I have suggested this information to them but so far no response. I spoke to a T-Mobile employee on Twitter, @TMobileUSA who gave me a contact email that I could submit my presentation to the company. If it is not fixed by next May, I will have no choice but to choose another carrier. I am very doubtful that they will fix it so that is why I am doing research with other providers.
My other problem with this sorry Blackberry 8900, there is no fix for it. Once it goes into SOS mode, it stops searching for a signal. Every time I leave my office, I have to turn the phone off and then turn it back on so that it will search for a signal. Over the years I have paid thousands of dollars for service that I have not received. A monthly service fee for service that I could not receive. It is so frustrating to not even be able to receive a text message when I am at work.
"Meaning no disrespect to the religious convictions of others, I still can’t help wondering how we can explain away what to me is the greatest miracle of all and which is recorded in history. No one denies there was such a man, that he lived and that he was put to death by crucifixion. Where…is the miracle I spoke of? Well consider this and let your imagination translate the story into our own time — possibly to your own hometown. A young man whose father is a carpenter grows up working in his father’s shop. One day he puts down his tools and walks out of his father’s shop. He starts preaching on street corners and in the nearby countryside, walking from place to place, preaching all the while, even though he is not an ordained minister. He never gets farther than an area perhaps 100 miles wide at the most. He does this for three years. Then he is arrested, tried and convicted. There is no court of appeal, so he is executed at age 33 along with two common thieves. Those in charge of his execution roll dice to see who gets his clothing — the only possessions he has. His family cannot afford a burial place for him so he is interred in a borrowed tomb. End of story? No, this uneducated, propertyless young man who…left no written word has, for 2,000 years, had a greater effect on the world than all the rulers, kings, emperors; all the conquerors, generals and admirals; all the scholars, scientists and philosophers who have ever lived — all of them put together. How do we explain that? …Unless he really was what he said he was." –Ronald Reagan.
I deal with issues that most people deal with and that is having family members making messes and not cleaning up after themselves. I have been fighting with this for years. Since we have been trying to sell our house, we have to make sure the house is in showing condition at all times. This has been a real struggle for my kids but they are getting better. I still have to remind them to pick up their shoes and put them up from time to time but they are actually trying. I really do not like a dirty house anyway so this adjustment has been very welcome for me. I have always been the type that likes to have a place for everything and to make sure that it is in its place when I am not using it. It just seems natural for me. On the other hand, my kids are just the opposite. When they walk in the door, they like to kick off the shoes right in the middle of the floor for everyone else to trip over. I have been fighting this battle since they were little kids. I have to give them credit though.
Lately they seem to be trying their best. I have been trying my best not to yell at them when the do forget something. The house must be ready for someone to come and view at a moment’s notice. It is difficult for me to deal with a single piece of paper on the floor but I recognize the efforts of the family for doing their part. If it were up to me, the house would always shine and the beds would be made as soon as people stepped out of them. Selling a house is an adjustment for everyone and in my opinion, it is for the best. With the moist weather we have been having, I have been mowing the lawn about every three to five days. It helps the lawn to look good but also makes tracking grass into the house a big challenge. This results in vacuuming the floor multiple times a day. Again, this helps in shaping new habits because it just does not feel right to miss a vacuum.
As strange of a post as this is, I know we are not the only ones that deal with this. When you are forced to clean up after yourself for an extended period of time, it creates a habit…a good habit.
Last week there was an air show at Tinker AFB. The days prior to the show had the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds practicing in the area. I took this photo from my front yard as the Thunderbirds were practicing overhead. As enjoyable as it was to watch, it was very humid making it very uncomfortable to sit out for a long time. I took many photos like this one on my Flickr page. If you click on the image, you can see the whole group.
UPDATE – I had to take the picture off of this post because it was linked to OKCTalk.com. This page has been infected with some malware and since my page linked back to it, my page was showing an infection. I apologize for the problem. I do remember visiting OKCTalk.com yesterday and seeing a note on the top that said their site was infected.
The new 50 floor Devon tower in Oklahoma City is now high enough that it can be seen above the trees on I-40. I was driving through downtown last night at 11:30 PM and was able to see it clearly from the freeway. Soon it will be towering high enough to be able to see it from 20 miles away on a clear day. This photo was taken from the live camera on OKCTalk.com web site.
You may have seen where I have written several posts about how the technology journalist community are all from the same place and have the same thoughts. This has happened again about how they are all saying that Facebook will take over Google,Bing, Yahoo as the source for search. I have to laugh when I read these types of stories because it will never happen. The interesting part of these types of stories are how wide spread this sort of talk becomes in the tech community despite there being no evidence whatsoever. The premise is that people think that social networking is going to become so wide spread that people will get their information through Facebook rather than to go search for it on a search engine.
This may be likely if you are one of those celebrity worshipers that have nothing better to do than to sit around and watch awards shows and discuss gossip. A social network may be a source for creating buzz about a topic to make someone go to a search engine to find out the truth. If I want to know about a historical event, I certainly would not go to the local beauty shop where a bunch of “old bitties” are sitting around gossiping about it. That is the type of environment you get in a social network. There may be tidbits of truth in the gossip but certainly not correct factual information in a timely manner.
For the rest of us, we want facts not gossip. If I want to know something, I will search for it. Most people have learned the skill of searching on a search engine and weeding through the mess. It becomes second nature to search specific, then broad, and then get a little more specific with each successive search. Going into a social networking site to find relevant facts would be similar to going into the hen house with Miss Prissy in the old Looney Tunes cartoons. In the cartoon it shows many hens sitting on their eggs gossiping about everything. It is possible that I am wrong and just do not get it but I doubt that.
I think that search engines are safe in their positions as being the central point for finding things online. Social networks will continue to be the place where people share pictures, gossip, and discuss politics. I do not see it being a source for a person on a fact finding mission. Of course you have those that do not think with their heads and are more into feel good information. These people may be perfectly content going to the beauty shop to study for a test. Anyone that has been to college knows that places like Wikipedia are off limits as being sources in a paper. It is not that Wikipedia is not accurate but that since many of their sources are not peer reviewed, they could be seen as not credible. Of course in some cases they are not accurate. This same idea could be said about social networking sites. They are fun to talk about things but not where a person would go to find out credible information on a serious subject. Again, this is my opinion but I feel very secure in this opinion. I do not think that technology has reached the point of being able to cipher fact from fiction in gossip. Maybe one day but not anytime soon.
