WRAL 5 TV has a weekly tribute to a high school athlete. This person is normally also a scholar and invested in their community. I’ve seen a bunch of these athletes over the years, but I just heard someone provide a powerful compliment regarding this female athlete, “The schools a better place because she walked the halls.”
I’ve heard similar compliments, but this was simple and powerful.
Danny normally works on the actual holiday, so we celebrate most holidays a week or two early. Thanksgiving 2015 was celebrated on Sunday, November 22nd.
The highlights:
myself, “Well, at least I don’t have to pay the taxes on it any more…”
I look to see no house, and a yellow CAT backhoe standing in what “used to be” the front yard. I got out and took pictures. A muddy pit exists where the house stood.
via the beach road, and stopped at Fort Macon to use the bathroom. I took a picture of the North Carolina flag flying just outside of the new FM Visitor’s Center because I realized it was one-sided and that the lettering, etc. appears backwards from one side of the flag. *This is just like the picture of the Steamer CITY OF WILMINGTON that had a picture taken with the name WILMINGTON reversed… which makes some think the image should be reversed… unless they actually look at the name of the vessel on the bow of the boat and above the pilot house, where both are in the correct order. A quick look in the gift shop and then back in the car to ride over to the Beaufort waterfront.ADDENDUM: I just noticed from one of the pictures that the Gardenia bushes that were at the NWern end of the house are gone. A shame! They came from the neighbor, next door from where the old two-story Morton home was, on the corner of Hwy. 24 and Bear Creek Road. And I noticed my previous visit down, that that old house was also gone.
NOTE [ 11/20/23 ]: I thought the Gardenia bushes were gone, but just last year I was riding by the old house location and looked over and saw that the Gardenia bush had flowers on it. I turned into the yard and went back to the Gardenia bush and picked about 3 wonderful smelling, white Gardenias and took them home with me. *I know they are no longer “my” Gardenias, but I hope Ray will never deny me the pleasure… and if he does, that will be okay too.
Another plant that apparently “you just can’t kill” is Wisteria. This is an invasive, winding vine plant that has wonderful smelling purplish flowers in season. 204 Johnson Boulevard had a Wisteria plant growing beside the light/phone pole in the front yard for many years. The plant eventually grew up a good ways on the light pole, and eventually grew over to a nearby tree and began to kill the tree off. The light company (or phone company) maintenance guy(s) came by and cut the Wisteria plant to the ground. It grew back. Another year they sprayed plant killer on the Wisteria and the Wisteria disappeared, finally killed, and not showing up for several years… and then Boom, there she was again. It did stay underground for maybe at least 5 years before coming back above the surface.
Well, that was easy enough. I did a Google Image Search on the white & red flower above and found that it was a Spectacular Flowering “White Red Eye Hibiscus.” Mom had planted it along the dividing line between our property and the Presbyterian Church’s property. There was also a tall Silver Maple tree on the line also, although after a while, if something that grows well is planted on the line, it spills over the line.
Less than a mile from returning to my apartment yesterday (after going to Raleigh) my white 2011 Honda Civic rolled from 99,999 to 100,000 miles. I now have three payments before my last scheduled payment in February 2016.
Panera Bread is about mid-way on my trek, to and from work each day. Until yesterday, the last Panera Restaurant that I had visited was in Petersburg, VA when I was coming back from a short vacation which included Wilmington, DE & Philadelphia, PA. My gripe, other than “too much salt” in their food, has been that their flavored drinks (e.g. Akai Berry… sp?) are so watered down as to be like drinking the day old remains of a fountain Coke with ice. You drank all the drink the day before, leaving some ice in the bottom of the cup, and today you have a watery Cokified drink that is almost flavorless and definitely not pleasant. Wal*Mart has several powdered flavor packets for sale (10 packets for about $1.74) which I have come to enjoy and use quite frequently. I sometimes think that I could order water at a restaurant and slip in a flavor packet to have a decent flavored drink… and Panera would definitely be a prime candidate. However, I see they have assorted soft-drink products at the location I just visited.
So I ordered a 1/2 sandwich and a cup of soup special, with water to drink. During my meal, I look down at the half-sandwich and think it unusually small, but flavorful (turkey, avocado, bacon) but the soup was enough (Broccoli Cheddar). And, I say to myself, “I could make this for about $5.”
I don’t want to stay at work during my lunch time.
ADDENDUM [11/17/15]: It is probably closer to $7 than $5;-)
Is that $11.85 for just the ingredients? Makes 2.5 small bowls.
You’ve got to figure in the cost of heating the ingredients & cleaning the pot, plate, bowl, and utensils.
If I buy the family size can of specialty soup, for $1.50 +tax then it is probably over $7, but if I try to make the Broccoli-Cheddar Soup, it is probably closer to $8.50 for me to do it myself.
I LIKE IT!
It was the plate on the right that I first saw the yellow duck, but I see the angry, yellow duck in the one on the left.
My first day of work at Fayetteville State University was on August 7, 1995. Today is Friday, August 7, 2015. Twenty years working at FSU. I was hired by Mr. Leo Taylor, then Director of MIS (later became ITTS) Management Information Systems.
Leo and I became good friends. His direction, in my writing a job description, was instrumental in my receiving a significant pay increase several years into my employment. He retired from FSU and then worked several years for Sprint. Leo was originally from Washington, NC (“Little Washington”), and his mother, “Silver,” still lived in Washington until her death at the end of 2013. Leo had a “love-hate” relationship with Silver. He loved to hate her;-) Leo died in April of 2014. I miss him.
I had breakfast at the Rainbow Restaurant before work this morning.
The morning was the usual blend of various technical feats. I walked across campus and installed a couple of updates of software in an office. I did the last push to get some FIU technicians their account info so that they could login to our Canvas LMS. They will be assisting some of our Accounting Department faculty with getting the curriculum fully online.
I was thinking about what might be a special treat for lunch and then decided to go to the “Hibachi Grill & Supreme Buffet” on Ramsey Street. This restaurant is in the remodeled, former Golden Corral. I used to go to the Golden Corral at least a couple of times a week. Although the restaurant looks little like it did for many years, I still feel comfortable there and enjoy the Oriental Cuisine. However, I do like the shrimp and normally get a “mess” of them, peeling, dipping them in Cocktail Sauce, and eating them as my first plate. I’ll get a slice of watermelon, and/or a slice of cantaloupe and add sweetner to the melon and salt the cantaloupe. I may get a cup of egg drop soup, to which I may add some steamed won tons, and some chopped onion tops. I’ve finally reached the age of a “Senior.” They only charge $7.12 (tax included) for the Buffet and water. I think the normal cost is $8.43, or there abouts.
If they want to charge more for the Senior meal, that’s okay with me. If they don’t want to give a Senior Discount, that would be okay also… but, if they are offering a discount, then I am going to take advantage of it. I have spent many years, not being a “Senior,” and paying full price. I don’t want them to go out of business either.
After a late lunch, the afternoon became progressively more stormy. And then, there was a crack and the office went black. There was an unusual grinding sound as if something was attacking a large mechanical unit and then the sound of several battery backups beeping. My monitors were black screened and no hum came from my PC. I did note that the power light was still on for my laptop, which is running Ubuntu OS, but that is because some time ago I replaced its dead battery with one from one of the old laptops that was being retired. I had also doubled the RAM in similar fashion.
The offices and halls were dark except for the degraded light filtering through the large exterior windows. A year or so ago, a film was applied to the glass panes to reduce the heat & light to the interior. This was a mixed blessing because the office environment was made more pleasant, but the exterior always seems to be either early morning or twilight. I have a yard light that is solar powered sitting on my window ledge. It used to gain enough power during the day that the light bulb would shine when you covered the top of the unit. It doesn’t charge enough now with the film on the window.
The offices were quickly abandoned as staff found their way outside for various reasons. I decided to go home.
At home, I notified several people of the power outage and which apps were affected. The battery backups kept some apps running for a while, but then I think most or all of the apps were shut down until power was restored. Blackboard, Canvas and WordPress became unavailable. Although Blackboard and Canvas are both hosted off-site at different locations, authentication (ADFS, LDAP) is handled from our server(s) on-campus and these were unavailable to authenticate users for several hours.
So, that was my day… twenty years at FSU and counting.
In early 2011 I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. Note that I had a rapid weight loss. It is amazing how disciplined I can be when necessary. However, there does seem to be a plateau at about the 230 lbs. range that I mentally cannot get beyond. I hit this area, and then flounder and pretty quickly regain most of the weight. Look like I’ve managed to reduce by about 20 lbs. during this time.
I had bought a cheap Dell Inspirion touch-screen PC for home, somewhere in the last year. I got it from Best Buy, and it was a “return” unit. It had Windows 8.1 on it, which I was not enamored by. I did note that the unit would often go to the “Blue Screen of Death” and I had thought that the unit probably had some bad memory which was causing this. So, I had left the unit off for months, just sitting there collecting dust.
Then over the weekend, I decided to start it up again, and then it came to me to see if I could get the free Windows 10 upgrade. I found the upgrade request site and put my email address in. At some point the little Window icon appeared on my Task Bar, and when I opened up the window from it, it said that Windows 10 was downloading in the background and it would notify me when I could start the Upgrade process.
Last night, I finally saw that the files had finished downloading and I started the Upgrade to Windows 10 process. I think it took less than an hour, and when it was through I started using Windows 10.
Windows 10 seems to start up quicker, and I have been pleasantly surprised by the interface. Enough like Windows 7, which I still use at work, and yet combining the Windows 8 interface.
ADDENDUM [8/15/15]: I have continued to be happy with Windows 10. I haven’t had a “blue screen of death” since I installed W10. I installed Snagit successfully yesterday. I’ve modified the background screens.
Michael Diamond’s TWC marketing letter came to me while I was waiting for my “rescheduled” appointment with the TWC Installer. The letter encourages to come back to TWC and there are no hassle, 1 hour scheduled wait times for services installation.
Well, the TWC installer showed up sometime before 5:32 pm on the originally scheduled afternoon, and left a notice about “Sorry we missed you,” when the schduled time was to be between 6 pm – 7 pm, and they never came back that afternoon/night. So, I rescheduled for a “first hour of the day” installation time, even though I had to come into work a little later, and the installer showed up and everything went fine. The installation was 11 days from the originally scheduled time.
I’ve been in this apartment for about 3 years. About 3 years ago, the TWC installer was supposed to show up between 6 pm – 7 pm… They didn’t show up then either. No one came to the door. No one tried to call, because I had my cell phone with me all during that time. The next day when I called to reschedule, I was told that I hadn’t been at home. I corrected that bit of misinformation immediately. That rescheduled appointment was for first thing Saturday morning. The TWC installer came and everything went fine.
Okay, so if I ever need a TWC installer to come, I’m damned sure not going to schedule a time after 5 pm. You can’t rely on those tasked during that time to show up, or call. I’m not saying all evening installers are untrustworthy, but I’m batting 100% so far, to the negative.
So, that is why I say that Michael Diamond with TWC doesn’t have a clue about 1 hour scheduled times for installation. If he did, what could he do? Probably not a thing… except quit promising something that HE couldn’t deliver in his marketing letters & TV commercials.
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Yale School of Drama Board of Advisors, MFA
Paines Plough Theatre Company
Bill Gibson, II 