Kathy’s work schedule is going to allow her to spend some time with me on Sunday.  I’m not scheduled out until Monday morning.  I’ll be taking a tanker to Devens, MA (just west of Boston). 

So, we are going to have Mom (and James) come over for lunch and then we’re going over to visit with my Aunt Helen.  She is here in Sherman at a nursing home.  That makes it easy for me to go see.  Anyway, it will be a good time!  My Aunt Helen just turned 90 about a week ago and I haven’t seen her in too long.  She was always one of my favorite Aunt’s to visit.  Anyway, a good time is coming tomorrow!

At the start of the week, I took a load (small load) to Omaha, NE.  From there, I picked up a load of Pork Ham Skins going to Laredo, TX.  I’m here in Laredo where nothing happens fast.  When you go to other places, you expect them to happen a specific way.  You can’t think the same when you come to Laredo.  Oh well, just another day on the job.  I really wish I could say that I love doing this job, but I can’t.  It is a job and I have to have one, so it’s OK.

Once I’m done, I’ll call my boss and see if he has a load for me to pick up and come back to Dallas with.  We’ll see what happens shortly.

I was listening to a podcast the other day (surprise, surprise!) and it got me to thinking seriously about setting up a Windows Home Server.  One of THE MOST IMPORTANT things to know about having a home network OR just a single computer is that you HAVE TO HAVE BACKUPS!  I have copies of most of my “most important” data, however, it is so unorganized that I would have a terrible time trying to find something that I lost or deleted accidentally.

I believe that Windows Home Server (WHS) is the answer to getting my backups organized.  I need a single place at home that I and my family can store our photos, videos, music and documents that we create.  WHS would backup that data or we could simply save it to the WHS.  With WHS being a dedicated machine, you don’t take the chance of someone coming in and using it and accidentally deleting or causing a problem with it.  You can also have it automatically have it backup your workstations that are on the network at specified times.  I want to be able to do that, then I want to setup a cloud backup service to backup the WHS.  I believe that you DO NOT HAVE A BACKUP UNLESS THE BACKUP IS OFF-SITE.  If you create a backup at home and that is the only place your data is, then you have a COPY, not a backup.

I’m going to try to solve my backup problem as soon as I can afford the cloud backup subscription.  Until then, I’ll sync an external hard drive and take my data with me on the road.

2009-1028 [Wednesday - d301 w44] 7:14:20 AM

Well, just called Tony Foster (my dispatcher) and asked if there would be another load from Cairo for me, he said that it wasn’t happening.  Oh well, as I said before, I could have used the money from the second load, but I really wanted to go home and have some time off.

Leaving today, I should get home by Friday morning or around noon.  I won’t have to go back to work until around noon on Monday.  That will give me just about 3 days off!  I could really use that.  I have some things that I want to do at home.

The pushpin in the photo above represents the unloading area at Micron – Manassas, VA.  This is where I am right now.

In just a short time, I will be leaving Cairo, OH to go to Manassas, VA.  I’ve got to be in Manassas to unload tomorrow morning.  After that, I’m not sure if I’ll be coming back to Cairo or heading to Dallas.  Under normal circumstances with this run, we usually come back to Cairo to pick up a second load for Manassas.  I was told that there would only be one load this week (unless things change).  Most of the time they do.  We’ll see what happens today.  Time to go.

University of Houston (45) verses Oklahoma State University (35).  Chuck and Mom got here to pick Matt and I up at 7am.  We got to Stillwater, OK around 11am.  As we walked by some of the OSU fans, they said, “Welcome to Stillwater”.  That was said to us a bunch.  Stillwater… what a classy town.  I’m glad we won our game, but I sure hope things go well with OSU.  I’m a fan now.

The game was good, however, I have one complaint.  We were setting in the place designated for the visiting team.  It was small and the Coog fans wanted to stand for the entire game.  Since I can’t stand that long, I missed a lot of the game.  I have to say that the game would have been a lot worse if the Coog fans weren’t as much fun.  I enjoyed them.

The score was a little lop-sided at the half.  I thought the game was over.  The score was Houston 24 and OSU 7.  But the second half as exciting.  Chase did a good job, except one of his punts was returned for a touchdown.  We told him that there’s no “I” in team, but that wasn’t what he wanted to here.  He said that there was 3 or 4 scouts there.  One of them was a Dallas Cowboys scout.  I can understand why he wasn’t satisfied with the “I” and team thing.

Anyway, we had a good time.  Go Coogs!

I just got a phone call from my oldest son (Mike).  When I answered the phone, to my surprise it was my 2 year old grandson.  He just wanted to call his Papa!  What a great way to start the day!  I loved it.  They are coming over today for lunch.  I really do enjoy having them around and little Charlie is so much fun.

First, I have to say that, like everyone else, I’ve heard a lot of “blonde jokes”.  This one is the best!  Here it is:

The Pregnant Blonde

The other day my neighbor, who is blonde, came running up to me in the driveway jumping for joy! I didn’t know why she was jumping so excitedly but I thought, ‘what the heck’, and I started jumping up and down along with her. She said, ‘I have some really great news!’ I said, ‘Great. Tell me why you’re so happy.’ She stopped jumping and breathing heavily from all the jumping up and down, told me that she was pregnant. I knew she’d been trying for a while so I told her, ‘That’s great I couldn’t be happier for you!’ Then she said, ‘There’s more’ I asked, What do you mean there’s more. She said, ‘Well, we are not having just one baby.. We are going to have TWINS! ‘ Amazed at how she could know so soon after getting pregnant, I asked her how she knew. She said….

(You’re going to love this!) *

‘Well, that was the easy part. I went to Sam’s Club and they actually had a home pregnancy kit in a TWIN-pack. Both tests came out positive  !!!!

AutoStitch.  An iPhone camera application that allows you to take photos and stitching them together to create a panorama photo.  This is my first AutoStitch photo.  Three photos were taken from across the street from my home.  I have to say that the quality is very good for the original iPhone.  I highly recommend AutoStitch.  The program can be downloaded for a $1.99.  I call this a bargain!

Looks like Dean and are going to Los Angeles and Portland. It’s got some miles to it. At least going to Portland now is so much better than being there in winter!