The day that Julius Caesar was assassinated, March 15, is forever noted in history as the Ides of March. Interestingly, the name Ides was part of the Roman calendar used as a benchmark for counting the days of the month. Just as the Roman numerals count forward and backward from numeric benchmarks, the calendar system used three benchmarks for counting the days of the month. Loosely explained here and depending upon which month, the first day of the month was Kalends, the end of the first week was Nones and the end of the second week was Ides. The Romans would take each benchmark and add or take away days to determine the remaining dates of each month.
Two Good Quotes to Ponder Today
“When Nature has work to be done she creates a genius to do it.”
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
&
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
By Nelson Mandela
Life Insurance, a Necessity
After dealing with my parents deaths last year and seeing first hand the importance of having a decent life insurance policy, I have decided to start shopping around online for life insurance quotes. I’m not married, nor do I have children to worry about leaving behind, but I do want a decent burial service and my final expenses taken care of with no burdens placed on anyone in the family.
The Internet makes the task of getting these necessary quotes so much easier, less stressful and hassle free, so it comes into play once again in daily life on the farm.
The Cowboy
The Cowboy!
A successful rancher died and left everything to his devoted
wife.
She was a very good-looking woman and determined to keep the ranch,
but knew very little about ranching, so she decided to place an ad
in the newspaper for a ranch hand.
Two cowboys applied for the job. One was gay and the other a drunk.
She thought long and hard about it, and when no one else applied she
decided to hire the gay guy, figuring it would be safer to have him
around the house than the drunk.
He proved to be a hard worker who put in long hours every day and
knew a lot about ranching. For weeks, the two of them worked, and
the ranch was doing very well.
Then one day, the rancher’s widow said to the hired hand, ‘You have
done a really good job, and the ranch looks great .. you should go into
town and kick up your heels.’
The hired hand readily agreed and went into town one Saturday night.
One o’clock came, however, and he didn’t return.
Two o’clock and no hired hand. Finally he returned around
two-thirty, and upon entering the room, he found the rancher’s widow
sitting by the fireplace with a glass of wine, waiting for him.
She quietly called him over to her.
‘Unbutton my blouse and take it off,’ she said. Trembling, he did
as she directed.
‘Now take off my boots.’ He did as she asked, ever so slowly.
Now take off my stockings.’ He removed each gently and placed them
neatly by her boots.
‘Now take off my skirt.’ He slowly unbuttoned it, constantly
watching her eyes in the fire light.
‘Now take off my bra.’ Again, with trembling hands, he did as he was
told and dropped it to the floor.
Then she looked at him and said, ‘If you ever wear my clothes into
town again, you’re fired.’
(I didn’t see it coming, either!)
Good Neighbor’s are a Blessing
I hope you are blessed with good neighbors like I am. On the south side of my house lives a single woman who owns her own business and is there almost 7 days a week. And the guy she is dating lives in Indiana, so when she’s not at her business she goes up to Indiana to see him.On the north side of my house lives a single woman who is retired from a government job. Most of her family lives in Kentucky, so she is only home about half the time and the other half she is in Kentucky.
Both neighbors mind their own business but do wave at me if we happen to pass in the road.
Perhaps they take some comfort in the fact that there is almost always at least one person at my house, 24/7, so if there were a disturbance or emergency at any of the three houses, I would be here to get a start on dealing with it and getting in touch with the right people.
Power Issues
The past few days the winds have been tremendous and have been playing havoc on many people and businesses alike. Last night we lost power for several hours, which was a real drag considering that I rely so heavily on electricity for so many things around the house and the farm. After waiting for over 20 minutes to see if the power would come back on, which it didn’t, I used my Bic lighter and I found the flashlight that is kept by the kitchen door and managed to find my way to one of the many out buildings, only to find the generator that my dad had on hand for such occasions as this. Much to my dismay I could not get the darn thing started and got very frustrated with the whole thing and stomped back into the house to start a fire in the fireplace, to help with heat and to provide some much needed light as well.
Power Generators are a good thing to have for emergencies such as this and I am now looking online at the Diesel Generators that are recommended for their longevity and lower operating costs. I am finding that I have much to learn about the different types of these useful power generating pieces of electrical equipment, I had no idea that there were so many to choose from, such as the gaseous generators, portable & mobile generators, Electric Generators, agricultural generators, switchable voltage generators, switchable voltage generators, and the list goes on from there. I’m just grateful that I know that the diesel types are the best and I’m sticking to that story.
Internet Access Issues
At the moment I have Comcast cable and Comcast broadband Internet service at the house. It works well most of the time, but it does seem that about once or twice every quarter the service goes off for no apparent reason and stays off for several hours. A call to tech support only gets a standardized response that there are temporary outages in our area.Now, if I can’t get online and do my Internet stuff from home on my schedule, I want to know that there is a big problem somewhere – I want blood and guts kind of issues. A small plane crashed into the relay station or whatever they have (of course, the pilot walks away unhurt b the damage to the equipment is a terrible thing for them to have to rush around and replace). Just a mealy mouthed “temporary outage” is not satisfying.
The Best Seafood with Atmosphere
My youngest sister just sent me a post card from Orlando Florida, where she has been for the last week visiting with her in-laws and having fun with the kids with all that Orlando has to offer for family fun. They have been planning this trip for such a long time, saving up what little cash they could stick away for the past few years and are now in the land of sun shine having the time of their lives.
Her in-laws took the whole family out to dinner at one of the best restaurants Orlando has to offer in the private dinning sector, which is modeled as a sleek 1930’s ocean liner and is the perfect setting to enjoy fresh seafood, which they have flown in daily from around the world for their guests.
I’ve myself dinned at this popular restaurant while in Texas and I’m glad that she and the kids are experiencing this wonderful culinary delight, much as I did when I was in Houston Texas. They have the best seafood, with the perfect atmosphere to go along with the food. As far as I’m concerned it was and hopefully still is the best of Houston restaurants that specialized in seafood and was glad to hear that there is more than just the one that I had the pleasure of dinning at so many years ago.
Code Red Soda
About 5 years ago I had the opportunity to visit St. Louis and meet up with a bunch of fellow internet fanatics for the weekend. We all had rooms at a hotel near the airport, and next door to the hotel was a convenient Appleby’s Restaurant. We rented out their small ballroom and set up a bunch of tables and played cards from Friday night until Sunday night. We played cards so long that our hands hurt from shuffling the cards. It was great fun and I’d love to do it again sometimes.Besides meeting a bunch of fun people, the one new thing that I took away from that weekend was a bottle of Mountain Dew’s new Code Red. Everyone was drinking it. I had never heard of it, so I had the chance to try one, thanks to those fine folks. It was pretty darn good and I’ve picked up one at gas stations every once in a while when I have a taste for something different.
The Making of IT Professionals
The right training can make or break a person’s career. And there will always be a need for people who are certified in the computer fields, since 99% of businesses are relying on computers on a daily basis.
My one nephew is currently interested in becoming certified in MCITP and has started looking in to the MCITP Training that is being offered, along with numerous other IT training courses at Quickcert.com that has the certification materials that it takes for the self-study training that he is seeking.
The one particular nephew has always been a whiz on the computer, he was fully computer literate by the age of two, and I think that he would do well in this field and wish him luck.