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2002 2001 2000 1999 |
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12/31/99
Well, here we are at the start of a new year,
a new decade, a new century - and only a
year away from a new millennium. I know we'll
call the new year "2000", and the
new century "the 21st century",
but what will we call the new decade - "the
zeros?"
Before I resume my rambling, please let me
take a moment to thank everyone who has been
in my life. You are the reason that I live
rather than merely exist. My wish for each
one of you is that the new year bring you
peace and joy, for surely if you have these,
you will have everything you hope for.
Last weekend was wonderful. On Friday, we
went to Burnie's for a Christmas Eve open
house. As usual, Burnie once again put Martha
Stewart to shame. Maybe some day she (Burnie,
not Martha) will share her slaw recipe.
On Saturday, it was off to Virginia to visit
our friends the Murphys and the Burnettes.
We had a blast at the Burnette's playing
Outburst and the Millennium Edition Trivial
Pursuit.
On Sunday, Jeanie and I went to see "Anna and the King." It was a lovely movie, with great
acting and beautiful scenery. Jeanie and
I both really enjoyed it. It was the first
time we had gone to the new 20 screen theater
at Crossroads. Nice theater - high back reclining
seats, stadium seating, ...
Last night, I watched the TV movie "Tuesdays
with Morrie." which I had taped some
time ago. Very moving - I think I'll buy
the book. Maybe I can learn a few lessons ...
page: new Witsdom
12/13/99
Oh, what a great week it has been. Jeanie
left for San Francisco on Wednesday, and
while I've missed her terribly, she's been
having so much fun with Jamie, that I can't
help but be happy. I haven't sat around bored
while Jeanie has been gone either.
Last Thursday, Burnie had a CT TSE party
and reunion. We had a great time, Burnie
served up another stellar meal, and it was
great to spend some time with the old gang.
Friday was the Quintiles' holiday party.
Food and beverage were plentiful, and I really
enjoyed getting to spend some social time
with many of the folks I work with.
Saturday, I completed the bulk of my Christmas
shopping. I bought Jeanie a ... oops, better
not say, she sometimes reads this. Anyway,
I also broke down and bought Quicken 2000.
The main motivation was that one of my online
accounts switched to the FCX format, which
Quicken 98 did not support. I was very impressed
with the additions to the package - especially
the new home and car account types, as well
as the redisigned user interface. I really
questioned whether I'd like the new user
interface when I read about it, but I was
surprised how quickly I adjusted, and how
much I like it.
Tonight, I went to a reception hosted by
Compaq Computer at Raleigh Memorial Auditorium,
then attended the Theatre In the Park's production of "A Christmas Carol". I had a great seat - Section G, Row
A, seat 2. This was not your "been there,
seen it" retread of Dickens' classic.
It was a very funny, well produced and acted
musical which was fresh, while managing to
retain the spirit (pun unashamedly intended)
of the original work. If you have never seen
this production, you should. It was absolutely
marvelous. It plays for two more days, but
it is most likely sold out. Tickets go on
sale in late October for the general public,
and early October for season ticket holders,
so mark your calendars for next year! This
was the 25th anniversary; I hope Ira David
Wood continues to perform this wonderful
adaption for years to come.
The only bummer of the week was my (former)
new dentist, Dr. Guanga at Nathan Bell, DDS,
PA. I was ten minutes late for my appointment
Tuesday evening, and she would not see me.
The receptionist rescheduled me for noon
the following day. I arrived a few minutes
early, and was promptly placed in a chair.
After waiting for half an hour without even
a word from Dr. Guanga, I left. The hubris
that some medical professionals have amazes
me.
12/05/99
Jeanie and I spent another quiet weekend.
Last night we watched "Dead Again" on video. It was a good movie with
an interesting twist. About three quarters
of the way through the movie, I realized
that I had seen it before, but hadn't remembered
it, or had I...?
Today, Jeanie is going up to Oxford to watch
the Christmas parade, while I go to work
for a few hours.
Last weekend was spent largely getting over
our turkey hangover. Jamie and Robby and
his family came to dinner on Thursday. We
had a great time. While the carnivors enjoyed
the bird, Jamie savored the tofurkey that
Jeanie created just for her. I can't remember
the last time I saw Jeanie so happy.
I guess because of our trip to Philadelphia,
I found myself wondering about family relationships,
and how you figure out if someone is your
first cousin, or second cousin, or whatever.
Two sites that seemed to clarify it best
for me were the "Cousins" page of Hugh and Marian Zorger, and
the "relationship chart" on David Faithfull's site.
11/21/99
Without doubt, I can say that "programming"
can be very frustrating. I just spent the
last two hours trying to get music to work
on the Hawaii section. I wanted to be able
to randomly play a selection of tunes, and
wanted to ensure that this would work with
either Netscape or Internet Explorer. Try
as I might, I just could not get any sound
from the web site. But, I would get it fine
when I loaded the pages off of my local hard
drive. What was the culprit? The directory
on the server had the first letter capitalized,
but in the HTML source, I had it in lower
case. Yikes!
In hunting for Hawaiian midi files, I found
this piece that I found quite entertaining.
I didn't know quite where to put it, but
if you click here, you can listen.
11/14/99
Whew! What a weekend.
Jeanie and I flew out of Greensboro Friday
afternoon to visit my Mother near Philadelphia,
PA. In addition to the obvious opportunity
to visit with Mom, we chose this weekend
so we could attend a talk given by my cousin
Henry, author and world champion poker player, to commemorate the anniversary of Kristallnacht. The highlight of the visit was having dinner
with my mother, both of my uncles, my cousin
Cathy and her husband, and cousin Henry and
his lovely wife.
On Sunday, we caught an early flight back
to Greensboro. The reason we had chosen to
fly out of Greensboro rather than RDU was
that our good friends Andrew and Laura were
getting married in Charlotte on Sunday afternoon.
The ceremony was absolutely lovely, and we
had a great time at the reception and after-party.
We saw a lot of friends we hadn't seen for
a while, and even though it was quite late
when we finally got home, it was a great
weekend.
11/07/99
I was catching up on some personal e-mail
(as opposed to work e-mail) and finally got
around to reading this message from my friend
and former co-working Angie Jeffries. I know
that I have been even more sentimental than
usual lately, but this story touched me, so I thought I might pass it
along since so many of you who are reading
these words have made a difference to me.
Yesterday, Jeanie and I went to Duke Gardens. On the way, we stopped for lunch at George's Garage, which used to be a regular lunch haunt
when I worked at DataFlow on Ninth Street.
It was beautiful outside, so we ate alfresco.
The food was as good as I remembered, and
I still think they bake the best bread in
the area. I'm sad to say, the Gardens were
not up to their usual high standards. It
was more than the fact that it was early
November, and there had been a recent freeze.
Things just didn't seem as well tended as
I had come to expect. Part of the issue is
that there had been a move to naturalize
more of the landscaping, and thus there were
fewer blooming plants. But part of the issue
truly appeared to be a general lack of attention.
I hope that in the spring, things perk back
up.
Many of you probably have trouble thinking
of me without envisioning me whipping out
my ... HP 100/LX. For those of you who can
see this image vividly, you'd better sit
down. During our tip to Hawaii, the 'ol HP
got sick. I nursed it for a few weeks, but
it finally succumbed to age and the relentless
advances of technology. When I reach into
my pocket now, I find ... a Compaq Aero 1530. The Aero is smaller and lighter than the
HP, and has a built-in backlight and lithium-ion
battery which the HP did not. It uses WindowsCE
as the OS, and the Jot handwriting recognition
engine which I find easier to use than the
Palm Pilot's Graffiti. 3rd party application
software availability is much more limited
than for the Pilot, and I am uncertain about
the long term future of WinCE, but I tried
the Pilot a couple of different time, and
just could not get good at entering information
using graffiti. In addition, I think that
the built-in applications for WinCE are stronger
than the built-in applications for PalmOS.
The synchronization with Microsoft Outlook
2000 is fast and seamless. The one feature
that was sorely lacking for me was a database-like
note application that synchronized with the
PC. HPC Notes from Phatware solved this omission. I have
made the switch from doing most of the entry
on the palmtop to doing most of the entry
on my PC since I can type much faster than
I can handwrite. I still think that the HP
had the best applications ever written for
a palmtop, but HP announced that they were
finally abandoning the HP LX platform, so
I figured that it was time to move on. Thadeus Computing still offers the HP LX, but their price
is much higher than what I was able to get
the Aero for. As with most things in the
universe, each option has advantages and
disadvantages, and change in and of itself
is neither bad, nor good, just different.
10/31/99
Aren't laptop computers wonderful? Here we
sit on a Delta Airlines 757 on our way back
from a long weekend in Milan Georgia. Don't
know where Milan Georgia is? Well, it's in
the middle-of-nowhere south-central Georgia,
about an two and a half hours from any place
in Georgia you've heard of. In case you're wondering, no, Delta does
not fly to Milan, nor does any other airline
for that matter. We flew into Atlanta, and
drove - you guessed it - two and a half hours
to Milan.
Why, you might ask, did we spend a long weekend
in Milan Georgia? To celebrate the fiftieth
wedding anniversary of Jeanie's parents,
Barney and Sadie.
It was a great weekend. We left RDU at 7:00am
on Friday and arrived at Atlanta at 8:30am,
where our daughter, Jamie, was waiting for
us at the gate. Jamie had taken a "red
eye" from San Francisco the night before,
and the timing worked out just right. We
hadn't seen Jamie since Mother's Day, so
this was an extra treat for us.
Friday night we had dinner in Milan's one
restaurant, which is open Thursday, Friday,
and Saturday nights. There were eighteen
of us all told - friends and relatives of
Barney and Sadie from near and far.
The party started at 2:00pm on Saturday,
and was wonderful. Over a hundred and ten
people attended, and Barney and Sadie had
a great time. The highlight of the party
was the showing of a video montage of family
pictures spanning Barney and Sadie's life
together. By the end of the fifteen minute
video, not many dry eyes remained.
In other news, Jeanie officially switches
from managing the Tivoli account for IBM
staffing to managing the NCSD (Network Computing
Software Division) and PSG (Personal Systems
Group) accounts. Jeanie also has a new manager who she really
likes, so things are looking bright for Jeanie
work-wise.
One pearl of wisdom from one of Jeanie's
uncles:
Golf is like sex - even if you aren't very
good at it, it's still fun.
10/27/99
We just got back from the funeral of Jeanie's
Uncle Roger. It was a beautiful day in the
foothills of the North Carolina mountains.
I'm sure that Uncle Roger would have appreciated
the clean, crisp air, and the clear blue
sky which was framed by his beloved mountains
near his final resting place in Collettsville.
A blue grass gospel trio bid Roger a fond
farewell as a crowd of family and friends
paid their final respects. It was a lovely
way to say goodbye to Roger, knowing that
he was resting in the place he loved so much.
I was once again reminded of the civility
that still exists in this part of the world
as we followed the hearse to the cemetery,
and cars travelling in the other direction
pulled over and stopped - to pay their respects
to the dearly departed and to those left
behind.
I was also once again reminded of the fleeting
nature of our time on earth, and the importance
of making every second count, and of savoring
every moment.
10/25/99
Yikes! I didn't realize it had been so long.
Not like there's been loads of people barking
at me for updates ;-)
Life at the Sanders house is the same 'ol
same 'ol. The last few weekends have been
varied.
Three weekends ago, Jeanie and I went to
visit her Uncle Roger who has been battling
colon cancer for the last couple of years.
While it was sad from one perspective - to
see a once robust man with a lust for life
ravaged by such a cruel disease, it was nice
to get to be with him one more time. Sadly
(or maybe blessedly) Roger passed away this
past Sunday. We will miss him.
Two weekends ago, I played golf at Knights Play, a fun par 3 not too far from the house.
I played with three folks that I work with,
and had a blast. Since it was only a par
3, we walked, which was a nice change of
pace. The day met one of my definitions of
a good round of golf - I ended with more
balls than I started with <big grin>
Last weekend, Jeanie and I went to the North
Carolina State Fair with the Murphy's Saturday
afternoon, and then went to see The Story of Us. It was very different than what I had expected.
Overall though, I enjoyed it, and felt that
it was worth the time and money, although
I don't think it would lose much if you waited
to rent it and watch it on the small screen.
My eagle eyed friend Burnie caught another
typo - this one on the "Think" page. Thanks
for pointing it out, I fixed it today.
09/26/99
Yesterday, we went to see Double Jeopardy then had dinner at the new T.G.I. Friday's
at the Crescent Corners Shopping Center with
our friends Bob and Wendy. It was really
nice seeing them, as it had been much too
long since we had been able to spend any
time with them. The movie was pretty good,
although I think it would have been much
better if so much of the plot had not been
given away in the previews. I realize that
Hollywood needs to make their movies enticing
as part of their marketing, but it seems
like they have been going too far in revealing
major plot points lately. In this particular
case, it wasn't so much that they spoiled
the movie by what the marketing reveals,
as that it could have been even better if
there were more unknowns at the outset.
You may have noticed the new guest book entry
form. John Walker gave me a nudge by sending me an e-mail providing
me with a link to the MindSpring mailto CGI
script tutorial and a sample template.txt
file. You may have also noticed that there
is no option to view the guest book. I figure
I'll wait to see if I get any entries before
I spend the time creating the view page.
09/19/99
This was a very quiet weekend. Jeanie and
I were both dog tired, so we decided to just
chill in. Today, we stayed home and read
the paper. Jeanie rented Hillary and Jackie. After reading the Blockbuster blurb on
the back of the cassette case, I declared
to Jeanie that not only was she going to
subject me to a "chick flick,"
but to an "art film" no less. You
know my basic yardstick for movies - I want
to be entertained for a couple of hours,
and walk out feeling happy. Well, I may have
to expand my yardstick. This movie was absolutely
wonderful. Great acting, engaging story,
fantastic music, blah, blah, blah. In my
humble opinion, well worth a couple of hours
and a couple of bucks.
We slept late Saturday, and our major activity
was to go to see The Sixth Sense. We both enjoyed the movie. It had an intriguing
story line, and good acting, especially by
Haley Joel Osment. If this kind of movie
interests you, go see it before you hear
too much detail.
We're glad to report the we weathered hurricane
Floyd just fine. No damage. Scariest part
was having to climb on the roof to take the
pig down before the storm - maybe by next
week I'll muster up the courage to put him
back!
On a serious note, our hearts go out to all
of the people who were not as fortunate.
Work is still work, but I'm really going
to try to live by the "Serenity Prayer." last week was especially challenging given
a few frustrations (accept what I can not
change...), and the stress of the hurricane.
I had been investing fairly significantly
in the employee stock purchase plan, so the
$17 stock price drop didn't help my attitude
any either.
09/12/99
Yesterday was spent mostly working (work
work, not house work). Jeanie at home, me
at the office.. Jeanie and I went to dinner
at Burnie and Dave's. Burnie did another
great "Martha Stewart" night, and
we had a blast playing Balderdash (which apparently has been updated to Beyond Balderdash since I could not find a source for Balderdash
on the web) with Burnie, Dave, Mike, and
Roxanne. The highlight of the game revolved
around the definition for "ewer"
but I can't relate it as I am trying to keep
this site family oriented. Suffice it to
say that we laughed so hard, we could hardly
talk.
Today, I finally mowed the grass, which I'm
sure our neighbors greatly appreciate. I
also (finally) finished the Hawaii trip section
(well, almost, we still have one roll of
film to get developed).
09/11/99
My faith in humanity got a major boost -
we have our camera back!. Apparently, a man
and his son had used the golf cart after
us, and after they finished playing, they
just stuffed everything in the cart into
a bag. When they got home and were putting
things away, they realized that what they
had thought was their son's sunglasses case
(we bought an extra-large sunglasses case
to use as a camera case - it works great
for our little Olympus) was in fact someone's
camera. They called the course and reported
the find and left their phone number, the
course called Jeanie's brother who had left
his number just in case, and Jeanie's brother
called us. We called the man, who sent the
camera to us. We had asked him to include
his address in the box so we could repay
him for the postage, but this person was
so selfless that he didn't even ask for that. Wow!
Work was hectic this week. My boss (Doug),
by boss's boss (Gary), the User Support manager
(Paige) and the Network Manager (Terry) were
all out ... you can imagine ...
I had dinner with my friend (and old boss)
David on Thursday. We went to a delightful
South American restaurant in North Raleigh
called "Mi Tierra." It is on the corner of Millbrook
and Atlantic. The food was wonderful, as
was the company.
Usually I just add a little page: line when
I update the site, but I thought some of
the changes I made today needed a little
more description. I changed all of the previews
and pictures in Hawaii section. I realized
that even though the previews appeared small
on the page, the entire full size image was
being downloaded, just displayed "small."
I added true preview files for each picture
which should speed the initial display of
the previews frame. I also "enhanced"
most of the pictures by adjusting color balance,
brightness, and sharpness. Since the default
browser settings for page caching are such
that the pictures will be displayed from
cache, you will need to click on the refresh
button (or hit F5 if using IE) to get the
browser to reload the file from the web server
after you have clicked on the preview of
each picture.
page: Removed guest book - it was too frustrating
for visitors since it rarely worked. Added
more Wisdom and Witsdom. Modified Hawaii
previews and pictures.
09/06/99
Just got back from a weekend in South Carolina
with Jeanie's brother and his wife. They
have a weekend place on Lake Marion. We drove
down Saturday morning - about a four hour
drive. We had a great time jet skiing, golfing,
and just enjoying each other's company. We
took lots of pictures, but unfortunately
we forgot the camera in the golf cart, and
whoever found it was slug snot and kept it
rather than turning it in. So, no pictures,
no camera; sometimes I think the world would
be a much better place if there were no people.
page: added more Hawaii vacation description
09/02/99
Check out the new Hawaii button and find
out about our wonderful vacation!
09/01/99
We're back! Pictures are being developed.
They will be back on Thursday evening. We'll
have some posted by Friday night as well
as a complete day by day account of our trip.
page: added Witsdoms from Hawaii to Witsdom
page
08/20/99
Thinking of changing ISPs? If you are, now
may be the time. I've been pleased with MindSpring,
and right now they are offering a killer
deal, for you and for me! Mindspring gives
you a $10 credit each month, for 6 months,
and gives me $60 all at once. The particulars:
* To get the $60 credits, the person you
refer must call 1-888-MSPRING
between now and September 30, 1999 and sign-up
for a new MindSpring
account. To get the special deal they need
to say "I'd be happier
using MindSpring" to the sales representative.
They *will* be happier!
We promise.
* The person you refer must prepay the first
month's service with a
credit card.
* Your $60 credit will appear on your invoice
the following month.
* The $60 credit for the person you refer
will appear on his or her
invoice as a $10 credit each month for the
next six months (starting
with month two).
page: added more wisdom
08/14/99
Work has definitely been work this week.
Too many hours working, not enough hours
playing, or even sleeping for that matter.
I'm really bummed that I missed the Red Hat
IPO, but such is life in the slow lane.
One highlight of my week was the receipt
of a new knife for my collection. Most of
my collection has been small folding pocket
knives, all less than four inches when closed,
so they would fit unobtrusively in dress
pants. I had always wanted a larger folding
tactical knife. I finally broke down last
weekend and ordered a Camillus Cuda with
a half-serrated tanto blade and a unique
one hand opening mechanism. Very nice! As
with many of my knives, I ordered it from
A.G. Russell. They have a good selection of high quality
knives and good customer service.
Another highlight was lunch at Bullock's. It has been a while since I savored their
sliced barbecue, and I really enjoyed it.
For my tastes there's no better sliced, although
I still favor Bob's barbecue in Creedmore
for eastern NC style chopped. For western
style chopped, there is a wonderful little
restaurant just down the road from the Bob Timberlake gallery in Lexington. If you haven't been
to the gallery, and you're in the area, it's
worth a visit.
Page: added more wisdom
08/08/99
I left out one example of great customer
service on 7/31 - Ames Lawn & Garden Tools. I had purchased a spading fork a number
of years ago, and the plastic "D"
handle broke. I wasn't even sure if the fork
had been made by Ames, but it was the only
place I could find that even offered a replacement
plastic "D" handle. I called the
customer service number and was helped by
a very nice person. A few days later I received
a neat little cloth bag from Ames, but inside
were two rubber "O" rings rather
than the handle. I called back to notify
them of the error. The person on the phone
was very apologetic, and a few days later
another neat little cloth bag appeared, this
time not only with the correct handle, but
with a lovely pair of flower shears as an
apology for "mistake." And to top
it all off ... the price for the handle ...
free - a warranty replacement even though
I had offered no proof of purchase and wasn't even sure that it was an Ames fork! Check out their site, they have interesting
sections on general gardening and other stuff.
The fruit trees may have a chance now that
the june bugs have settled down - there is
very little foliage left on the sweet cherry,
but it is starting to show some new leaf
growth. The others seem okay, in spite of
the heat.
Page:Added Window messages for rollovers
on navigation buttons
08/07/99
Jeanie was really tired today and spent most
of the day resting. I had a relatively quiet
day myself. Some reading, and a few changes
to the site were about the most constructive
things accomplished - giving some idea of
how relaxing the day was.
Page:Added new navigation buttons.
Page:Added new "Thinking outside the box" page
07/31/99
This was a week in which I was heartened
to find that great customer service still
exists.
A few months ago when I went to install the
weathervane that Jeanie had purchased two years before
from Restoration Hardware I found that a few parts were missing from
the box. Jeanie called the store in Portland
Oregon from which she had purchased the weathervane
and explained the situation. The store said
that they would rectify the situation. Within
a week, we received an entire new weathervane
from a different store location (because
the Portland store did not have the item
in stock). The Portland store told Jeanie
just to send back the old stuff when we had
a chance. Wow!
Thursday evening, we noticed that our upstairs
air conditioner was not working. Yesterday
morning I called the company that installed
it, Air-Glide, and told them the said news.
The service dispatcher asked if I had a few
moments to check a few things, since it often
happened that all that was wrong was a flipped
breaker. The dispatcher was very patient
with me as I checked the breaker box, and
as she walked me through checking the fuse
on the unit itself. Even though the fuse
was ok, and the breaker had not been tripped,
after checking and then turning on the A/C
- it started working - thus saving me a service
call. Wow!
Yesterday afternoon, I was working to finish
our plans for our upcoming vacation and wanted
to see if I could make a change to our American Airlines frequent flier tickets, so I called the
Gold AAdvantage desk. The agent worked with
me for over an hour looking at various options,
and was always pleasant and eager to look
for creative ways to meet my desires. Wow!
Like they used to say at my old job: "it
takes twelve good references to get a sale,
but only one bad reference to lose one."
07/27/99
My car is well. Amazing what a few days and
a few hundred dollars can do. I guess that
I will eventually have to buy a new car,
but maybe I can hold out a while longer.
07/26/99
My car is sick. The servo seal doesn't, so
all of the automatic transmission fluid shoots
out in a lovely red fountain. At least I
got alot done around the house this weekend.
Jeanie and I saw "Eyes Wide Shut"
on Friday. Yuck!
Last weekend, we saw "Notting Hill" which we thoroughly enjoyed. Just my speed
- light, romantic, happy.