Sent from my HTC on the Now Network from Sprint!

Sent from my HTC on the Now Network from Sprint!

Sent from my HTC on the Now Network from Sprint!

The Sunday before Thanksgiving (2012) was the day when Mary Ann and family could celebrate the Holiday together. My apartment warming was Saturday, the day before, so I couldn’t come down until Sunday morning. I thought I would be able to get away before 10 am, but things just seemed to drag on. Still, I arrived about 45 minutes late (12 noon), but still found myself about 30 minutes early for dinner.

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I stayed over and left Mary Ann’s after noon on Monday. Danny and I went out on Monday morning shopping for his special shoe polish (to take back to his department) at Saigon Sams different locations in Jacksonville, NC.

I ate at the Mai Tai Restaurant in Jacksonville and finished shortly before 3pm, when they close for about a hour or so. I know this because I was sitting out in their parking lot using my Chromebook when someone drove up and then left almost immediately.

I decided to drive up to New Bern to buy some cheap cigars. There is a cheap (2 for $7) cigar, called “Ram Rod”, that I buy at a little “foreign” tobacco shop just over the river from New Bern, on Hwy. 70 heading toward Havelock. The sky had become grey and overcast and seemed much like just a week or so before Christmas (of many years growing up near Swansboro & Hubert).

It was growing dark when I got to the tobacco shop, and the clerk had posted a sign, “Back in 10 minutes,” on the locked door. I got back in my car and shortly he returned. I went inside and bought a pack of Ram Rods. *The cigar is a long hand twisted, flavored cigar. It has a mild smoke, and I have now started to cut them in half and have four $1.50 smokes.

I headed back toward New Bern on Hwy. 70 and then headed across the new bridge toward “Little Washington” on Hwy. 17. I turned around at the Hardees in Bridgeton, after making the short detour down the old Hwy. 17 that used to cross the river. There is a little “round” house there that I like.

I crossed the river again and turned into downtown New Bern. I made the first left after the drawbridge and went down a block or two and turned right. I was on the street where the “Original Pepsi” (soda) was made. I decided to park and walk up and down the street. This is unusual for me. Rare that I’ve had someone to walk with, and not the kind of thing you usually do, just for yourself. But, it was a wonderful night, cold, but not windy, and as I had said, it looked alot like “just before Christmas.”

I walked up past the Pepsi drugstore (not one now, but I think that is the history), crossed the street and down past a church and perhaps some apartments. Then crossed the street to walk back down the same street, but on the side where the Maola Ice Cream Shop is now located. There were some people in eating ice cream, and I looked briefly at the list of possible ice cream choices and saw one that was “sugar free.” A young woman came up to help from behind the counter. I asked if there were other sugar free choices besides the Vanilla. She said, “No.” I ordered one scoop of Sugar Free Vanilla… on a regular cone. I found the napkins and headed out the door.

I walked down the street past my car, on the other side of the street, and looked at the lighted shops (most of them closed already, before 6 pm). There was a little alcove with several shops and a restaurant at the end. The restaurant appeared to be simple, but elegant and there was a well-dressed couple, standing near the entrance, being attended to. I turned around sharply and headed back out to the street. I paused briefly to let a man, following a woman, cross in front of me.

I finished eating the ice cream before I reached the end of the street and threw away the napkin in a garbage can near the street corner. There was a restaurant, and a wine shop, a toy store, and an antiques shop… Santa’s House about the middle of the block. I walked on, and stopped to take pictures of the antiques shop and happened to capture Santa riding a 3 wheel bicycle down the sidewalk.

I got back to my car and sat there for a while on my Chromebook, playing a game, while several people, and couples passed by, or crossed the street.

I smoked half of a Ram Rod as I headed toward Kinston on Hwy. 70. I passed by Lenoir Community College, and a little further down the road, stopped in Kinston along 70 to see if there was an Andy’s (Hwy. 55) Restuarant, but the only one listed was back in New Bern. I headed on to Goldsboro. As I started to enter Goldsboro,  (just past Wilbur’s Barbecue), I checked to see if there was an Andy’s Restaurant in Goldsboro. My navigation program on my phone said there was an Andy’s just about a mile back from where I was. I turned around, passing Wilbur’s again, and turned right. A short distance, and Andy’s was on my left.

Hwy. 55 was well lit. There were 3 staff (a manager/cook, a young black man, and a tall, young, white waitress in shorts. There was an older gentleman by himself near one door, and two women (maybe 3, but one may have left) talking in a booth in front of me. The young waitress was polite and professional and took my order, bringing back my water shortly. I usually order the Andy’s Cheeseburger Special but order onion rings instead of the fries. I also order my burger with “everything” which normally includes slaw & chili. *I totally treat Andy’s as if I were home. I found myself putting catchup on each individual onion ring, instead of dipping the onion rings into a mound of catchup. I also usually peel off half of the batter before I put the catchup on. I got into this habit for two reasons. The first was that I had found that (and this was at another Andy’s) when I eat the onion rings, often the onion will slide out from the batter and leave a hollow tube of fried batter. I began to pile these up in the tray, eating some of them if I was still hungry. But, later doing this on purpose to cut the calories that I was eating.

I finished my meal, paid and left. I had a vague impression that some young people still had a good work ethic.

I began looking for a place to buy some gas. My “Gas Buddy” app said that there should be several stations around with a descent price, but all the stations I saw, including the one that I bought part of a tank, was all higher by about 4 or 6 cents than the app said they should be. As I pulled out of the convenience store, I was behind a chicken truck. These are large “18 wheelers” with basically a large cage for the trailer in which smaller bird cages can be stacked. Feathers usually fly from these as it rolls down the road. It seems that I was behind this truck until I made it to Newton Grove. Newton Grove is a cross roads (actually a circle) where several highways cross. You can go to Goldsboro, Fayetteville, Clinton, Raleigh (and some others) depending upon which exit you take from the circle. It is also where you can get off to get on I40. My navigation program says it is shorter/quicker to go to Newton Grove on Hwy 13 (from Fayetteville) and then get on I40 down to either Hwy. 24 or Magnolia to Hwy. 24 when I am going to/from Jacksonville/Hubert/Swansboro, NC.

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If I were young and in love, or even old and in love, I think I would enjoy walking down the New Bern streets before Christmas, stopping in to get ice cream and look in the various shops. It truly gave me “the mood” for the Holiday.
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Blackboard Learning System Release 9.1xxx

Student

• User is being returned to login screen after entering login credentials (incorrect credentials)
• Student not able to see courses in Blackboard
• Student kicked out of quiz/test, wants a reset (only faculty can reset… record time of problem so that instructor can reference it)
• Left navigation bar missing (show/hide menu)
• Cannot click on Assignment Link (not obvious where it is located… click on assignment/test name to go to assignment/test menu
• Student not able to send Powerpoint in email
• Needs help using discussion board
• Student submitted wrong assignment
• Mobile access to Blackboard
• Login credentials for SMARTHINKING (are none, SSO, but user account needs to be in the SMARTHINKING site)
• Missing course materials or links (need to see if links are set to be available)
• Not getting emails that are sent from within Blackboard
• Last night I was unable to submit my exam (direct to notify instructor, but students should be encouraged to contact either the instructor or Helpdesk at the time the problem occurs.)
• Unable to use Turnitin
• Unable to attach a file in Blackboard (get to Upload menu)

Faculty

• Cannot add student to course (faculty)
• Wants to copy a test to another course
• New course shells (send to Bb Admin — all official course sites are created by an automated process that runs 6 times a day at 1 am/pm, 5 am/pm and 9 am/pm
• Grade Center weighting not adding up correctly ( make sure hyphen "-" is not used instead of a zero "0"
• Unable to import test pools into Blackboard course (determine what tool is being used to create test pools [zip] … more than one program might have been used, and by the same instructor)
• Some emails are returned when send emails from within Bb.
• Problems with Turnitin (plaigarism ([sp] tool) … Turnitin won’t allow instructor to access Create Turnitin Assignment… says something about email already in use by another instructor)
• Problems with Respondus

Sent from my HTC on the Now Network from Sprint!

I am at Whitehall Landing on the Cape Fear River near White Lake & Elizabethtown, NC. I am on the White Lake side of the river. It’s just a beautiful fall, late morning, in November, 2012. The sun is coming in and out of clouds, and it is already up to 71 degrees F.

I talked with Ricky Smith a State of North Carolina Park Ranger at Singletary State Park and found out how to get down to Whitehall landing. Wasn’t sure if it was going to be possible in my Honda Civic, but had no problem getting here. The winding narrow wood’s road had grass growing in the median and gravel on the two tire tracks, so no sand or mud (today) to hinder my travel. There were just a couple of places where the elevation of the road dropped quickly and I thought maybe the car might “bottom out”, but that didn’t happen. You could hear the brush beating against the bottom of the vehicle, but that was almost comforting.

As I neared the end of the road, the banks of the Cape Fear, I could tell that I was at the river the way it dropped off and I could see across the river to the other side. The trees on the other side were rust, yellow and green with some greys & browns thrown in.

So, this was Whitehall Landing, where Capt. Stedman and the Steamer Magnolia had met their fate about 170 years ago. Has it really been that long? The characters seem so alive to me. Couldn’t it just have been 70 years ago? No.

Well, I’ve taken several pictures along the river bank. No sign of a rotting carcass of a boat, or anything that remotely resembles a landing or dock, etc. If parts of the boiler really were blown many yards from the river, then maybe there might still be a shard of reminder here, even today.

If you are travelling down Hwy. 87 and come to Mt. Horeb Church, you are very close to Whitehall Landing from the opposite side of the Cape Fear River.  The photo in the upper left is as if you are looking diagonally from the church, across Hwy. 87, and there is a gated dirt road which will take you close to Whitehall Landing.

Well, the day is turning grey, but still unseasonably warm for this time of year. It is supposed to turn colder with some rain tomorrow, but then I will be in Chapel Hill with some of the other ITTS staff talking with the UNC Helpdesk Staff.

ADDENDUM:  (05/30/18)

As I recall it did rain the next day when we were up in Chapel Hill.

Sent from my HTC on the Now Network from Sprint!

After I composed the last posting via email, thinking I was offline at the time, I then noticed that I was actually online and that the posting had already been sent successfully. So, I am looking and I am not connected at this time, and am going to send this… am using GO to compose it.

I’ve ran a test post using Gmail Offline from my Dell Laptop running Chrome OS Lime earlier, but today is the real test. I am sitting in my car outside of Lowe’s and I am disconnected from any WIFI connection. I am using the Gmail Offline app to type up this email posting and then plan to connect to Lowe’s WIFI and have it post to my WordPress site. I found that although I had installed Gmail Offline on the old laptop (probably writes to the USB stick), and the icon for GO appeared on my new Chromebook, because I hadn’t actually opened GO on the new system, it hadn’t written any files or emails to the local system. I had to establish a connection first, and have GO download a first set of Gmail emails locally before I could use it while offline on the new Chromebook.

Okay, I also just took a picture of myself with the Chromebook camera (while offline) and have attached it to this email. It should appear in the WordPress posting along with this text.