Month: July 2010

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Deadly Month

The American presence in Afghanistan is still ongoing. Soldiers are fighting the Taliban in an effort to win the peoples hearts and minds in an ideological battle. The war has raged on for nearly nine years and shows little sign of being over soon. Americans are getting tired of spending money and lives on a losing battle.

This month, 66 U.S. soldiers were killed in action. This number is even higher than last months 60 killed. Commanders say the higher numbers of dead are a result of increased fighting. I hope this war is going somewhere and we will see some tangible results soon.

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For the Boys

It seems to me that one of the best things you can do in life is help others. I always enjoy the opportunity to do so and I recently did. It seems the boys club in my local area was getting a new clubhouse. The building is an existing one and needed some repair, but that was mostly cosmetic. What was decided was that they wanted to install Gym Lockers so that the boys could have a place to store their stuff.

Since I was put in charge of finding and buying them, I went to the internet to find out more about them. I went through all the places I could find that had Lockers for sale. I was surprised that there were so many shapes and sizes. The prices also seemed to vary widely. I saw that I might need some expert advice in picking out the right ones.

I found a site called morelockers.com. They were just what I was looking for. They had a huge selection and great prices. I also took advantage of their knowledge of the subject to find the best fit for us. Now every boy will have his own Locker. I was glad to help the boys out and I got a good feeling for doing so.

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Who runs BP?

Ever since the giant oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico, many have wondered whether or not the chief executive of BP would be able to keep his job. While the verdict is not in yet, the common consensus is that he will soon be in the unemployment line. Those in the know say that he will be replaced in the coming months.

BP really needs to change its image. I think it would be good for them to replace their leadership and move toward a new direction. I hope the company will choose a new leader wisely and begin to repair their battered image.

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Servers

One thing that is for certain when you work in a large office like I do is that there is always a possibility that your computers will fail. This happened to us recently and I can tell you it was no picnic. The server that runs our website went down and we couldn’t get it back online. It was a nightmare to deal with and we are still suffering the after effects. My boss decided that we needed to change the way we operated and ordered me to take steps to improve the situation.

My first thought was that we needed a professional to ensure our website stayed up and running. Since we own a server, I thought that colocation may be the answer to our problem. This is a process where the server is sent somewhere else to be maintained. I decided to check out some other options as well. Another option would be to have a dedicated server for our site.

The importance of keeping our site running has led me to making a major decision. After checking out all of our options, I thought that managed hosting may be the answer. Not having to deal with all the headaches of updating and creating backups would free me up to do other things. I plan to run all three options past my boss in the near future. I am sure that we will decide which plan is best for us. I’ll be glad when I know I can count on our computers to run!

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Conan

Frazetta Conan

Anyone who knows anything about fantasy art knows that Frank Frazetta was a leader in the field. The illustrator did hundreds of illustrations that were printed on album covers, comic books, and posters. Sadly, the artist died two months ago in Pennsylvania. This picture of “Conan the Destroyer” recently sold for $1.5 million dollars.

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Good Ideas for the home

One of the beautiful things about the street we live on is that every house is different. Each home has its own unique style that reflects the people who live there. We wanted to find ways to enhance our own house since we are doing some remodeling anyway. One way we decided to do this was to order an address plaque. We thought it would look nice out in the little garden by the street.

The surprising thing is that the idea came from an unsuspected source. My daughter came up with the idea on her way home from school. She saw that many of our neighbors down the road had address plaques in front of their homes and she wondered why we didn’t have one ourselves. I am glad that she brought the matter to our attention as the addition of the address sign has worked out nicely.

Now we feel that our house has as much character as any of the others on our block. We have had several visitors make a positive comment on the plaque. They say that the sign makes it easy to see our address and find the right house. The sign has also enhanced the way our home looks from the street. I hope we can find more good ideas like this in the future.

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Clean up the bay

One item that is in the news around our neck of the woods is health and safety of our Chesapeake Bay waters. It seems as though two groups of people have different ideas as to how to keep it clean. One group that includes the environmental protection agency wants to enforce an even stricter ban on pollution by setting a so-called “pollution diet” standard.

Another group wants to keep things how they are. They say the bay is cleaner than ever and that new regulations will cost too many jobs. For now, the two sides are expressing their points and a resolution should soon be found. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

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Experience

The TV in our living room always seems to draw everyone together. Nearly every night, my family ends up watching some show or another. We enjoy spending this time with each other doing something that interests us all. That’s why it’s so important that our TV service is the best it can be. We used to rely on our cable service, but that’s all in the past since we discovered Dish Network. Things are so much better now.

Now we are so much happier that nearly all of our channels come in HD. The kids like to watch all the newest movies in HD as well as other shows. Our old cable service simply couldn’t provide this option. Ever since we switched over, we have all been satisfied. One thing I particularly like is the fact that there are so many sports channels to choose from. I can watch nearly every game in any sport I want. I can also take advantage of one of the many packages such as NFL Sunday Ticket or Sports Pack.

Another thing that is important to us is having the ability to watch all of our favorite local channels. My wife enjoys the large selection of local channels that are available. The story of how this option came to be is interesting and can be found in the TV service guide. I would check it out if you have the time, it’s really interesting. All in all, our TV watching experience has vastly improved since we found a new provider. It would be nice if everyone could enjoy their TV as much as we do ours.

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The deficit

While the economy has been struggling to recover, one thing threatens it more than anything else. The rising deficits of the U.S. government will curtail any gains made in the economy and create problems for taxpayers. So far this year as of June, the deficit has risen to over one trillion dollars. That is the second highest deficit to date and really hurts as June is usually a month when there are surpluses.

I hope that every politician will take note of this problem and work to find ways to reduce their spending. The country can no longer afford to fool around and we need to get our finances under control.

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Years down the road

Even though the economy is still a little slow, our company is looking ahead and expanding where we can. This decision has led us to build new offices in a few select cities. The company has selected me to help plan out the cabling installation in the new buildings. I have been working with the architects and others to ensure the new space will have adequate telephone and data lines.

The task has been a challenge to say the least. Some of the buildings are very large and have multiple floors. Trying to figure out how the spaces will be used has been the key problem. I have been working with the data cabling installers to find ways to ensure that our future needs will be met with ease. We are adding extra space to the system so that we can add or subtract new lines to provide for changes in how the building is used.

Our company is completely dependant on the use of telephones. Without phones, we are dead in the water. This has led us to deal with the issue of redundancy. That is, ensuring that our system has backup capabilities in case something goes wrong. I have worked with the cable contractor on this issue and am satisfied that our system is sound. The project has been hectic at times, but all in all has been fun. I hope to see the results of my labors in the near future and for years down the road.