Simple America

The week flew by. I am almost breathless.

For most Americans the big deal is Halloween. But for my family we always have my daughter’s birthday on the 29th to override Hallow’s Eve. Hard to believe the girl is 17 already. My friends with babies and toddlers. Enjoy them as they grow much too quickly. We celebrated by having an early dinner at Buca di Bepo. Love their Italian food and we ate until we exploded. Had a bit of a rush so we had to get the tira misu to go. Why the hurry? Well they had a recruiter from Colorado University at Boulder in town and we wanted to hear about this school. One of many engineering programs she is applying to.

For Halloween the girl dressed up as a zombie. I caught a glimpse of her and she commented that she looked like a Harry Potter zombie because of her striped pullover sweater. She really did a good job with the make up but was stressing as she had no fake blood for her gouges. Oh well I left her on that note as I had to take the boy to school. Did not see her again as she had a Halloween party in the evening, followed by a sleep over.

My wife and I had a lovely evening with the Houston Pops on Halloween. They were playing the music of Rogers and Hammerstein. It was quite nice, though the string section looked a lot smaller than usual. They had to make room for a huge screen, which displayed video clips of the movies as they performed the music. Even better you could hear the vocal track from these flicks. They performed pieces from Oklahoma, Caroussel, South Pacific, The King and I, State Fair, and The Sound of Music. It was so beautifully performed and I could not help but sit there with a huge smile on my face. The music’s euphoria simply overwhelmed me. My only disappointment is that they stopped playing. I so wanted to hear Edelweiss too.

Tonight number 4 sister-in-law is coming by to plan for a camping trip in a couple of weeks. We intend to go fishing and camp one and possible two nights at Lake Somerville. Number 5 sister-in-law may join us too and I intend to ask Ed too. He lives so close, I hope he can at least fish with us if he cannot camp with us.

12 to Midnight has been keeping me mad busy. Which is good. I enjoy working on budgets and forecasts. We have to be really careful with our cash in this economy and we now prepare to publish some of our works in print and not just digitally. There are the secret projects; still very hush, the hush. Both are progressing well and I hope that we can release the one in the next couple of weeks as I hope this work shall be available for Christmas shoppers. Just know that both of these items should prove to be scarey. Very scarey! Muahahaha!

Slowly but surely I try to get back in the swing of things. Last week I existed in a funk that prohibitted much in the way of production. Outside of this blog, which has seen mcuh more activity over  the last couple of weeks, I did not accomplish much. I did drive to the gym this morning, only to discover that it remains closed. Man I’m going to bloat up bad if I cannot get back to exercising.

This morning my daughter returned to school. Power became restored at her school Saturday much to the girl’s disappointment. I cheered inside as she needs to enjoy her senior year of high school and not lay in bed all day goofing off. My son, however,  snoozes after 11:00 in the morning, as the power is off at his school. Wonder when he went to bed. I instructed him to go to sleep at midnight because he cannot be a bum forever. School could open Tuesday and he needs to be on a regular schedule. Kids are so disobedient now adays. Never listen to instructions. *Sigh*

Last night I saw something that cheered me up a great deal. As I walked downstairs for dinner I spotted a Jay bird flying by the window. This pleased me to no end as I had not seen one since before hurricane Ike. Must get them some bird seed. Watching them flutter about my yard in the morning eating bugs and gathering twigs always cheers me up.

Readers may recall that I recorded problems with my desk top in my last post. It kept hot booting every few minutes. This computer has gone through a complete reformat and reinstall of Windows XP to include Service Pack 3 and all the other updates. I did everything except create new partitions on the hardrive. What a pain in the ass. And when I loaded Bioshock on my PC the damn game crashed (just the game session, not the PC). Aiyah! So I googled this and googled that trying to find the patch that would cure my ills.

While searching I found the BioShock TweakGuide and that gave me a few ideas. However, the problem did not sort out. Then I noticed Khoroush Ghazi (the author of the BioShock Tweak Guide) had some other guides. He provides help for some other popular games and provides Tweak Guides for gamers and the two main video cards (ATI Catalyst and Nvidia Forceware). But most importantly I discovered he has written TweakGuides Tweaking Companion (TGTC) to help out Windows XP and Windows Vista users. From this page you can dowload the TGTC document as I did for XP.

The document requires Adobe Reader and is almost 200 pages of how to make your windows more efficient. I wish I found this before I reinstalled Windows, but that is water under the bridge. He provides a lot of instruction here in language the common man can understand. This is a must read for those folks like me that are not tech savvy. Already I have improved my BIOS settings, an area I was quite fearful to dig into before. The main thing that happened here was I turned off the Audio system on my motherboard, since I use a Sound Blaster card for audio. Bingo! The audio had been conflicting and that is why I could not run BioShock.

In the TGTC he lists a lot of free software tools that you can use to look into you PC’s performance and do various benchmark testing and help make the tweaking easier. I have not finished (still only on page 45) because there were Slicers and Big Daddies to shoot in BioShock. I intend to go through the entire guide as I am convinced this book shall improve my system’s performance. He describess how to turn off things you don’t use and make sure old files get removed instead of residing in place taking up space and maybe hogging resources.

Want to get TCTC for Vista as well for my laptop. Had a blue screen of death on Saturday and that *sarcasm alert* cheered me up to no end after spending the day before rebuilding the desk top. So I ran Norton Antivirus on the lappie in safe mode, which took all day. No viruses found and I am typing this blog post on her now.

So how shall the rest of my day go. Must deposit some checks (my first payment for services from a business client) and pay some bills. 12 to Midnight financials need to be completed and I must pay the imprints. That should be completed today. Then I need to figure out where some deliverables are on a project that 12 to Midnight has going. I hope these answers are satisfactory. Otherwise I may just write them all myself. Honestly I suck as a project leader because, I don’t like to create conflict by asking where is such and such. But the deadline is passed two weeks and I want this secret project to be available for Christmas shoppers. Why do I have to so wimpy at this kinda stuff?

Things still are not back to normal totally after Hurricane Ike. The kids are both out of school for the entire week. My daughter’s school threw in the towel on Monday, while the boy’s finally realized before noon Tuesday they could not open this week. Cleaning up campus has been quite a chore from what they have written. And getting power and gas in some areas makes it difficult for kids in certain areas to reach school.

Birds are starting to show up again. Though I still have not see any Jays. Mostly sparrows, crows, ravens and mockng birds. Glad they are showing up again as someone needs to eat these damn mosquitos. Wish those little pests would have been blown away. First couple of days after Ike I did not see any birds except for a few that lay dead on the ground. Poor things must have been blown about and smashed into this and that.

We finally had a Tuesday and Wednesday paper delivered on Wednesday. The headlines tell how many people are still without power, water and cable access. Some shops are letting people come in to recharge lap tops and use wi-fi. Tuesday the Houston curfew was changed to Midnight to six. Galveston remains closed off. The area needs a lot of work before the residents can safely return. There are problems with fallen power lines and toxic water.

The missus went out for a facial and haircut on Tuesday. Seems strange with all that is going on, but life has to go back to normalcy sometime. She stopped at the store on the way home as she wanted to get some meat, but there was none available. She ended up just getting some staple goods and that was all. The missus told me she won’t buy meat from the Chinese grocery stores until a month or so passes. She cannot imagine them throwing out potentially bad products as the other grocery stores have.

Wednesday evening my son had a driving class. This took us to Highway 6 which runs through Sugar Land. Twilight was imminent. While driving we saw that a lot of work had been done. So many branches and leaves had been neatly piled up on both sides of the road and in the median. The number of trees knocked down is unreal. I dropped my son off and had to drive a circuitous route to leave as one of the huge lamp posts had been knocked down and no one had the equipment to remove it yet. I drove through a subdivision from there on my way to the First Colony Mall. More trees and walls knocked down along the way. Most of the remaining trees had branches ripped off and you could imagine the pain a tree might feel. The poor things just looked violated. I even saw a piece of concrete that had been lifted on its side. There were some trees laying near, so I don’t know if the wind picked up the sidewalk slab or a tree was knocked down with such force that it cracked the sidewalk. It looked like a war zone.

I stopped at Macy’s in the mall. The missus required some Estee Lauder products and they had some gift sets for making certain purchases. Got the goods and left. Not much sun in the sky left. I decided to browse software at a Gamestop. Drove there and the place was closed. Oh well. Next stop Circuit City, except there was no stopping. Circuit City was also closed. In fact the only stores opened in this mall were Lowe’s Hardware, Halloween Outlet, and PetSmart, less than half the shops. I decided to try Best Buy.

Good news is Best Buy was open. I browsed the software aisle to see what prices are like, since I am selling software now. Then I browsed DVDs for a bit. I was hoping to catch Angel Season 3 on sale, but no dice and I’m not paying $35 for it. I know they shall put it on sale and I just have to be patient. Then I made the worst move of the day. I left Best Buy and walked out into the night. First stop was the library. No lights and as I drove by I entered a subdivision that remained without power. Next stop was Half Price Books, but once again I see this strip mall has no power on and even the Highway Six streetlights are out. Then I figure I can kill time at First Colony Mall at Barnes and Noble. Unfortunately the book store is closed.

Now I am more interested in what is open and I drive down I-59 towards the Fountains. I pass the darkened 24 Hour Fitness and my hopes of working out on Thursday diminish. Cruising on in my truck I make a u-turn at Kirkwood and enter the Fountains mall parking lot. I am hoping that Borders is open, but no they are not. At least the lights are on and some people sit outside on the chairs that are placed outside the store.

Giving up hope for finding a place to hang out while my son finished his driving class, I return. Funny thing is I arrive just as his class lets out. And we head home. I wonder how long before life returns to normal for my neighbors here in Sugar Land?

The wind died off and rain let up for a bit late Saturday. I ventured outside the backdoor with my camera and took this shot.

I spoke a bit too quickly in my last post about this tree making it without a problem. You can also see the wood that fell off my house laying in the bushes. The black patches in the grass are shingles.

Looking here you can see the poor thing almost became totally up rooted. Going to get some dirt to cover thsee roots and stakes to support her. She was flattened by Hurricane Rita so I am confident she can recover from this too. You cannot see here, but there are lots of green leaves in the grass too, courtesy of Hurricane Ike’s pruning winds.

Over by the garage the neighbor’s fences was pushed in. This is the only fence damage around my home’s perimeter. But my poor bush got all beat up and mangled. Going to have to stake this one for sure and trim off some branches too.

This is a pre-Ike photo of this tree. The pic I took of it did not come out and I am too lazy to go take a quick snapshot. This one is knocked over a bit too. Going to have to restake her too.

On this shot you can see where the wind sheared paint off the wood. Pretty powderful blowing there, huh? That corner is my upstairs office from where I am typing these words now.

My little truck made it just fine. But a joint from someone’s gutter is laying in my frontyard. The paint covering it is the wrong color for my house. I placed it on my door step for now. Hopefully they neighbor can find it and reuse this piece.

Not sure if you can tell but there is loose board on my roof. You can see it where the roof juts up to the lower right of the chimney. Now I know the board in the bushes came from my home. Both boards were blown off the chimney. They are just ornamental really. They serve the purpose of making the chimney’ edges look better. The chimney that extends outside the house is metal pipe hidden by this wooden facade. So no leaking should come of it. I also don’t see any bald spots on the ground, so the shingles in the yard may not belong to me. Going to have to climb up there to verify. Damn I hate heights too. 

Down the street on the opposite corner (I’m the ninth house from the corner) a large tree lays on its side. This was a beautiful oak, taller than the two-story home’s yard that it lay in now. The street signs are also uprooted and one is twisted like a pretzel. I did not take pictures of these. In my gut it did not feel right to do so.

Watched more TV and there are curfews in certain areas even though it is day time. We finally got phone calls from my missus’ siblings and they are okay. That was good news indeed. The evening was spent watching more Angel Season 2.

I woke up Sunday morning and outside the rain poured . Looking outside the world seemed spookily devoid of other life. Of course no one wants to go out in the rain. Right? No newspaper had been delivered and it was not really expected either. Felt kind of lazy so I went to my office and played Neverwinter Nights. Find it hard to focus on any thing. Strange.

In the afternoon I decided to go out. The missus had a grocery list prepared. I drove to the grocer in New Territories. There were numerous fences and trees knocked down along the way. But no major home damage that I could see, which is comforting. There is a gas station near the grocery store and a long line of cars waits to fuel up. Later I heard that some folks were waiting hours to get gas across the city. Sometimes they watched as the gas prices rose while they waited in the que.

My first stop at the store was the DVD rental machine or Red Box. Wanted to get The Other Boleyn Woman for my missus but the machine is not operating. Then I went into shop. The fruits and vegetables were slim pickings at best. I have never seen so many empty spaces in this department. There was no fresh meat or seafood to be found. Empty shelves smelled of bleach and the chillers were on but without any items to chill. I went to the bread aisle and not a single loaf to be found. I laughed to myself when I passed the beer coolers. Fully stocked and chilling. At least something cold could be had. I passed. The frozen food section was blocked off with palleted goods. This also blocked acess to dairy products as well as frozen vegetables, ice cream and frozen processed foods. I suspect they had to dump whatever had been stocked prior to Ike.

I returned home still in a bit of fog. The things you take for granted. Felt bad that I could not get my family much of what I went shopping for. I misplaced a bag on the kitchen floor and thought I left it at the store. So back to the grocer I drove. Looked at the cart I left and it was empty. Parked and called home before going inside to curse at the sack boy. My wife found my missing bag on the floor, which saved me from a potentially embarassing scene.

On the way home I decided to visit the grocer that is closer to my house. They have a Blue Box for DVDs and it too did not work. I am betting the took them down so that they would not clog up the phone lines that they use for charging to customer credit and debit cards. Save the lines for emergency use. Since I was here I decided to see what they had in stock. Here too the frozen food aisles were blocked off, but staff were on the other side. These folks were yanking all of the frozen products off of the shelves and tossing them on the ground. Others were taking those items and stacking them onto palleted crates. I wonder where they would haul those products off to? But I guess they could not take a chance on selling contaminated products. There was so much food strewn across the floor too..

The good news at this store is I found three loaves of Whole Wheat Bread. I grabbed one. They also had the store brand’s white bread and enriched bread too. Lots of those loaves were on the shelf, but I do not eat enriched flour. Not healthy. They also had fresh eggs and the milk section was stocked like nothing happened. So I grabbed a dozen eggs and two gallons of milk and checked out. While in the line I heard some of the folks discuss how they were still without power. I feel so fortunate.

Got home and the missus was worried as she did not know I went to the other store. Talked to some friends on the phone and was happy to hear they are well. One waited for an hour to get gas and could not find any dairy available near him. He has small grandchildren at his home. I told him to come to my place and we can get ‘er done.

There are a lot of cars parked at neighboring houses. People looking for a/c and the bonding of families and friends. I have invited my missus family and some friends to come by. But so far no takers. It can be rough to get around. Some roads remain flooded. And Houston has a curfew from nine in the evening until six in the morning for the rest of the week.

The kids were excited as Houston Independent School District announced the earliest that schools and offices would open is Thursday. Since then we have learned my daughter’s school is closed all week and my son’s school remains without power. His school said it cannot open until power is restored, but fortunately did not have major damage. So the rug rats are on “holiday.” My missus is working away in her office as any other day. After I post this blog I am going to pay some bills and try to hustle to make some buckaroos. Wonder how much money is the cost for painting my house?

We are presently on the back side of Ike. He passed over last night as my family lay in our beds.

The evening was typical of most Fridays. Though we tried to clear some of the food in th fridge. My missus made a lovely congee with pork bones and duck eggs. She also made some curry chicken for us to eat on Saturday so the house smelled yummy. She has one of those Asian cookers where you heat up the pot on the stove and then you put it in another container that holds the heat for quite some time. Don’t know what you call it. Looks like a rice cooker without the power cord. But it assured us one hot meal on Saturday.

We watched a couple of episodes of Angel Season Two, Darla and Shroud of Rahmon. While watching we took numerous electrical spikes, so we had to start the shows over several times. Towards the end we had a spike every five minutes. We shut down the TV after we finally finished watching Shroud of Rahmon. I noticed the wind had pushed open the pedestrian door to my garage. I opened the vehicle door of the garage and wedged the garbage can so the pedestrian door would not open. Then I closed the garage door and noticed I left the light on. I could not open the pedestrian doot or reach the outlet. So back in the house to hit the remote opener. Back out in the wind which is blowing 40 mph (65 kpm) to switch off the bloody light.

Then I told everyone to take a shower. If we lose power at the water facilities we might not be able to take one for some time. After taking showers we filled each bathtub with water. This would provide water for flushing the toilets if worse came to worse. Then I went to bed and read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I read about six pages and the power went out for good. The time was just before midnight. I walked the house to make sure all light swtiches were off so they would not create a load when power is restored.

Then I checked the door locks, the blinds, and turned on the alarm. Kissed the missus good night and felt the sweat as the air conditioner is off. Just a note, the hurricane winds I felt outside were warm and the rain had not hit our home yet. It did shorly after I lay down and that might have made the night more bearable.

The missus woke up around three and told me the alarm is sounding off. I turned it off and walked the house. The wind was really blowing at that time. The air screamed all around me constantly sounding as a ghostly moan. This provided a background for the higher screeches of wind. Last night was life in a wind tunnel. The heat and wind tones made it difficult to go back to sleep but I finally managed to drift off.

Around six I awoke as the missus went to the loo. The wind blew but not at the same intensity. I rolled over until eight. When I got our of bed I tested the water spigot and still had flow. My daughter, bless her heart, put all of the perishable food in a cooler with frozen vegetables and ice to keep things cold. Something I should have done myself. I think she is glad she stayed home with us now. The storm is currently pummeling the area of the hurricane party as I write. I think I would rather sleep through the hurricane than endure the constant air barrage while awake.

I peeked outside and saw no trees knocked down at my house or the neighbors. When Hurricane Rita passed by I had a small tree laid over. This tree is still there today and Ike did not nudge it over this time. The power had not been restored and I figured it would be down for a while. I went up in the attic to look for leaks and could not see any under flashlight power. My missus wanted to hear the radio, but I had not been able to get batteries for the boom box. She said we might have batteries in the camping box. I went out to the garage but I could not open the pedestrian door. My jamming of the door was quite effective. The car door would not open from outside without power. At that moment I noticed that a piece of wood siding lay in the backyard. I could not determine if it fell from my house or a neighbors. From my bedroom window I could see it was not that big of a piece, just some trim. There were also a lot roof shingles laying in the grass. I could not tell where they originated.

No batteries meant no boom box. But then I recalled my cell phone can pick up radio broadcasts. So I turned that on and found a station with news. A few stations actually played music, but I wanted information. The first thing I heard was 90% of the area has lost power. I went to shave and brush my teeth. Yesterday I charged my electric razer so it can last for two weeks. My electric toothbrush can only be expected to last a couple of days without power.

My son yelled from upstairs that the electricity is on. The time was just before nine. My missus was in her office trying to call her family. I walked in her office and switched on the light. Her smile and joy was precious. And then the a/c kicked on and a lot of worry rolled off our backs. I went to finish my toilet duties. Then I ate breakfast as we watched television news. God has truly blessed my family by giving us power, while so many others have none.

We watched TV a bit more. The wind had been very destructive in some areas. Trees blown down. There was even a billboard knocked down its posters blowing like a banner across the road. Around ten the power went down for a bit. I suspect the power company took us down so they could safely restore power to others. No complaints from me. I wish I could help them some how. The news asks everyone to stay home. Many roads are flooded so it is a risk to leave shelter. Rescue services are jammed enough without others adding to the problem. The news had pictures of more than a few vehicles abandoned in high water.

We turned off the television and read a bit. Then I decided to see if the phones worked (we use internet). Had dial tones, so I decided to try the internet. You can see that is up and running. Praise the Lord. I posted a message on the 12 to Midnight site to let my partners and anyone else that goes to our forums know that I am okay. Also hoped they would post or contact me so I could update the site with information on them. Ed called as I typed this. They are well. Praise the Lord some more. As a Christian I must give thanks in all things good and bad. This is a day to put that command in practice.

When the rain stops I shall go outside and take photographs. Shall post them if they are interesting. Thank all of you that have kept my family in your thoughts. God has heard you and blessed us.

The wind has really picked up. I can hear the gusts blast by now and again. Reminds me of the winter wind only this time the source originates from the south.

Went to the grocery store near my house at 11:00am. Sun was out, but there are plenty of clouds up above. The wind blew steadily through the trees. Hope my trees roots are strong and secure. The parking lot in front of the store looked just like Christmas day. Not a car present and barricades protected the entrance. The liquor store next door was open. Thats what I want to do. Get drunk and climb on the roof and sing when Ike blows over. The parking lot by the drug store was packed. They did not have anything I wanted so I drove across the Brazos River and visited another grocery store. On the way I saw a line of cars queing out on to the Grand Parkway for gas. This is the same station that ran out the day before. When I arrived at the other store, it was the same story. Empty parking lot, while the drug store across the street was jam packed.

Went home and walked my lawn. Took pictures of my hose which I am posting here now.

Hope my home looks like this when Ike is done with us. I took this time to move my cars out of the garage. Here is where I park them usually.

Seen too many pictures of lovely cars buried in the rubble of their garage to leave mine inside for the storm. Of course with the winds that Ike is generating, tornadoes are a possibility. One of those can easily pick up a car or truck and throw it God knows where.

These are the family rides. You can see where my daughter (eh hmmm) customized our Impala (the sedan).

After I took the pictures I moved some planters and a bird bath into the garage. Don’t want them blown into the house. Debating about whether I should move the basketball goal inside, but that thing is so heavy. Even with my son I am not sure I could budge it. Hopefully it won’t be blown into my bedroom. Thats one slam dunk I do not wish to see.

At the moment I am concerned about food. But if we lose electricity I don’t care what the missus says, we are leaving. We don’t have the tools to stay here without power. At least not for a long while. We have hardly any paper plates, which are needed when you cannot wash dishes. I don’t have any tape to cover the windows with. That was bit stupid of me. And I do not think we have enough water to last more than three days if we lose water.

Nevertheless I am not that worried. What happens will happen. C’est la vie.

Hurricane Ike looks like it shall come calling soon. We are bracing for the storm. Not going to run like we did for Hurricane Rita three years ago. This time the missus is here with us too. For Rita I sent the missus to her family in Toronto since she had been working in Detroit that week.

They have mandatory evacuation for the low lying areas. Folks beyond that area like my family have been asked to stay put. At least wait so those that have to leave can get out of the way first. I won’t move unless we lose power. If the power is lost it could be down as long as two months. The earliest that could happen to us is Saturday. The winds are supposed be reach up to 130 mph (200 kph), and this storm is huge extending 600 miles (1,000 km) from side to side. Really I am not too worried as I have faith in God. Nothing shall happen to me and mine unless it is his will.

The kids schools are closed tomorrow. They are both excited and treated this event like a vacation. My daughter wanted to go join her friends for a hurricane party. Much to her disappointment I won’t allow her to attend. If I decide to evacuate I am not going to have to worry about going to pick her up before leaving the area. A family should not separate at time of potential disaster. Enough worries if she is with us, I could not imagine the anxiety if we allowed her to go out in these conditions. She is not happy about it, but I don’t care. I’m not here to make her happy. My job is to be a father.

They suggest we keep our vehicle gas tanks full. I topped off my little truck’s gas tank this morning and when I picked up my son I stopped at the same station this evening and they were out of gas. Not a drop for sale. Went looking for D size batteries as they were completely sold out. Oh well. That is what I get for waiting until the last minute. We have lots of water and my daughter has her camp stove. Hope she has enough fuel.

If we evacuate I imagine we are going to Austin this time. Find a hotel or stay with the missus sister. No matter what we are going to be all right.

The hardest part of marketing is pushing myself out on to the world. I am naturally shy and happy to hide behind numbers all day. Problem is when you are self-employed, you have to find someone else’s numbers to hide behind. If you limit yourself to your own numbers, your grocery shopping shall be limited to peanut butter crackers.

I now have to consider marketing to be a part of everything I do. Finding prospects. Introducing them to my services. Convincing the client  that I can improve their business. Making these folks aware that I have helped them as promised and hopefully more. I must constantly find new ways to help them. And get them to share me with others. Everyone I meet could be my next hot lead. I can ill afford to be caught off guard or act a fool in public.

Awareness is the key to my future. I must make others aware of my offerings. I need to know how I am doing this as well as where and when. I must continually maintain this effort. Marketing is a constant and can fail in the instant you slacken from the task. I must believe in the importance of marketing me, therefore I must believe in me. Beliefs become behavior and I must behave well.

Now I should reflect upon my hospitality background. The professors taught service is paramount. Service means the guest is satisfied. Well now I deal with clients and they too must be satisfied. Every effort must be geared toward their satisfaction. Anything less is failure. I must know the client’s needs, anticipate them, and fulfill them. No matter how tired I may become in these pursuits I must find the energy to carry on and persevere.

Ultimately, the toughest client is me. I too must be satisfied. There is no room for failure. Losing the marketing war is not even a consideration.

My goal is not to be rich or live a Fatt Hao life. The goal is to satisfy each and every client and know I have done the best I can do when I lay my head down to sleep each night.

Changing subjects. Shifting gears.

A little proud of my daughter. She has become a volunteer at the Lighthouse of the Blind in Houston. Last night she went to the orientation and is preparing to help with an Outreach camp this summer. This camp helps High School graduates make the transition from school to University or the job market. Girl can still make me proud between bouts of scaring the hell out of me. 

I am having to rewrite this post as the original was lost. This means I lost the entire month of February to blogging. Thought I had been saved by the leaping day, ut no, that was not so. At the time I wrote I had only one contac in my left eye, while my right eye was extremely irritated. That is where one eye blind line originated.

February was so busy. Trying to get the marketing plan moving. I have a website up at “W” cubed dot geraldblakemorecpapc dot com if you wanna take a peek. It is not looking the way I want either. For some reason the site does not fill the browser. Working on that issue. I am hoping to create a niche by installing and supporting QuickBooks, an accounting software package. I would accept tax work too, and consider that a cash boost when I get those opportunities. But the majority of my marketing shall be aimed at local businesses. If things go well I may have to hire bookkeepers to help me keep pace. A couple of Indian companies have contacted me offering these kinds of service support, but I am thinking why not see if there is not the same company in Malaysia or Singapore. I like this area more and then I would have a valid business reason to visit Makan Makan land. Sounds good, ya?

Kids are keeping me busy too. My son is really challenging his school. Not doing his work, or completing it and not turning the work in when done. Problem is he is a perfectionist and he refuses to turn in the work that makes him feel uncomfortable. He also refuses to speak in speech, which is not good. Spent a few hundred dollars on high school admissions tests and application fees and fear that he may not even pass the eighth grade. I hope he opens his eyes. When I mention that he better like the seventh graders a lot as he will join them next year, he thinks I am just teasing him. I wish that was the case.

My daughter is doing well in school. She sat for the SAT last Saturday and we are isolating the schools she shall apply for. She intends to apply for all of the major Texas universities and she also likes a couple of schools in Colorado and Cornel in New York. Currently, she has expressed an interest in studying architectural engineering.

She and I went library hunting on Saturday. First we went and got a Houston Public Library card. That took an hour as they were very busy. Then we went to the University of Houston Downtown campus and they would not accept that library card. My daughter looked at the info wrong online. And I needed an alumni card to get any access to that library branch. So we drove over to the main campus and parked in the visitor’s parking garage. Very nice for a parking lot and there is a Welcome Center (which is closed on Saturday) and we found the Information Booth was also closed. From there we walked across the street to the University Center which had an open information center. I asked for directions to the new Alumni Center, which is located on the other side of campus. A little over a mile (couple of kilmoters) from the UC. When asked if that location was opened, the young man assured me it was. So the girl and I walked over passing the begging squirrels, dodging student joggers and inhaling second hand smoke from brainiacs that understand science, but not health. A beautiful day, a slight breeze and lots of sunshine to cheer our merry jaunt. And when we arrived at the Alumni Center it was open, allowing us to enter, but closed in regards to getting an alumni card.

So we walked back. We chose a different return route and I showed my daughter the Underground, also closed, and told how some jerk made her mom cry there once. A rude fellow that did not want to do a survey and was more than blunt in refusing. Surprised my daughter, as she has never seen her mother tear up. We stopped by the library so I could get the policy for checking out books. They said alumni card or Texshare card would do the trick.

So that is my task today. Go to my local Fort Bend library and get a Texshare card. Then I will get an alumni card and go visit some of the faculty at the Hilton College. Drop off a few business cards and offer to give some accounting chats for the students if they like. And make myself known a bit to any restaurants that might need my services. Also want to see if there are any new books on managing that I should get add to my library.

The missus is doing well. Saturday with my daughter took a lot longer than I planned, so I had to stand her up for “Hello Dolly” that evening. She went with her friend and they had a nice time. The kids and I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Five. Really was a sad season with Buffy’s mom and all. *snif snif* Sunday her brother invited us to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant and we had a nice time. Honestly, I thought they were going to pull a surprise party for me, but no go. She still has until tomorrow to pull a rabbit out of the hat. But then the hat may not exist either.

And I am so glad the primary is tomorrow. After the voting is finished, I can get a break from all the political commercials for a few months. Please!!!

I better find some clients soon or I am going to have to get a real job.

So sorry to have gone on hiatus without letting everyone know. It was not planned, this thing called life just kind of made it happen.

The vacation was nice. We stopped over in New Orleans and I got ill once again. This time it was a head flu that turned into a nasty cough and all the time burning like a candle. My head was too numb to blog for the week I was ill. My daughter was official vacation photographer and I am waiting to get a disc from her so I can share more of Disney with you all.

Once the vacation finished I looked at my finances closely and realized I needed to bring in some cash. Fortunately, some ebay auctions ended and that brought in a nice sum just in the nick of time. I am going to post some more auctions this weekend to see about capturing a few more dollarinoes.

My business needs to get the marketing going. But my marketing hinges around being able to consult for a popular accounting software package. So I focused on certification for this product and that took me ten days to get done. But I am now certified and I putting that information on my biz cards and web site. The web site is still a work in process as I refine my message. Better refine it damn quick or I am gonna miss the tax season and that is where a large amount of my income has to come from this year. At least that is the way things shall go until I develop the bookkeeping side of my firm. Today I created a pair of press releases, but I want to confirm my message before I deliver them. Again I must get this message refined and quick or the missus is going to mail out my resume’.

The kids are keeping me busy too. Girl scouts is taking up a fair amount of the girl’s time. She goes for a leadership event this weekend. SAT prep is under way next month and then she sits for the test. Busy girl. We are in the middle of High School admissions for the lad. We visited one campus last night and by this time next week we shall attend four more open houses. Another reason to get some ebay auctions opened. Registration and testing fees are due and most do not take credit cards. The boy is also on the prep bowl team, where he is a substitute. They had meets last Saturday and another this coming Saturday.

I hope to get some time to peek at your blogs. So many of you sent me lovely Christmas cards. And there was so much love sent via Facebook too. Big hugs and thanks to all of you. Dawn really surprised me with a huge box of Malaysia. I’m serious. Snacks, spices, coffee, and a cute refrigerator magnet from Malaysia. Honestly, she gave me everything but tropical weather. Thank you so much Dawn.

Hope to blog more soon. There shall be less blog ads in the future. I looked at the cost of posting ads versus my fees and I lose money with blog ads from that point of view. There are some I have to do because of products recieved. But any other blog ads I do shall be because I like the product a lot or want to see the movie. I intend to write a lot more articles off blog, though I may link them here or on my firm’s site. Hoping to make some money that way, and there is a potential for better payouts. Plus writing for hobby or professionally is going to keep me sharp on those kinds of topics. After tax season is done I plan on making a third blog for the Writer’s Journey. This blog is going to be limited in readership. I have to know you before I let you in there, as I shall be working on saleable works. Hope they sale. We shall see, what we shall see, ya?

Look for Hug Hug updates too. I have added a table addon so hopefully I can produce the numbers easier. Really hated that I could not paste Excel onto the page. We’ll see if this table thingie is the fix or not.

Missed you all. Sorry for leaving without a word. Will try to be the annoying old me again.  Happy, uh, New Year.