:)

Woods-N-Water
We went camping Friday night, and Saturday night, took off Sunday.

Friday night, we were walking around the lake, and the water gave off little points of light. I went to find out what kind of bug did that, and, wouldn't you know, it was mud 3 foot deep and now I have a sore throat. Rod caught a couple of fish, and we played Corn Hole.
Columbus, IN

Cute little town with some strange art. We went through it twice
Indianapolis, IN
The round-a-bout was closed, but we toured around it all.

Chicago, IL - I LOVE CHICAGO!!!

When you come into town, you notice how HUGE everything is. Nothing is small. The city looks dynamic! We ate Chicago dogs, walked downtown, saw the Navy Pier, the Great Lakes, and an evil ghetto. We stopped by Portillos, and a local pub.

The people were very friendly, and I learned a lot.
The sunset over Lake Michigan

First thing, before entering the park, we got some smoked ribs from a preacher man. Good ribs. The Sand Dunes beach along the south shore was GREAT! We didn't even think people would be there.

The dunes were awsome, people were all over them. They were over 300 feet tall. The beach was equally incredible. Lake Michigan is not like the ocean at all. It seems to be missing the kelp, waves, and the smell. We didn't get to go in the water though. We got there just in time to watch the sunset. Awesome.
Kalamazoo, MI
What...I blinked.
Lansing, MI

Its the Capitol of Michigan, and its where BOA has a sister site. We checked out several parks and gardens. Becky saw her elementary, middle and high school. We Motel 6'd it there.
Battle Creek, MI
Neat! We saw Kellogs City. Its a great looking small town.
During the whole 800 mile trip, we only saw one wreck.
We even saw an ultralight flying over the road!!!
I'll put pictures up after I catch my breath.

Kewl. Thats great! I actually helped out with a Tandem system's problem today.
It felt good.
Of course, I'm the only one here today, because everybody's out.
And the two people I worked with, I'll never meet. But now at least someone knows a little about what I can do.
It felt good to help a systems person with Tandem commands.
It felt good to do something productive.
We probably won't watch any movies anyway.
We've got a great weekend planned.
I can't wait to get started!
It'll be just another, chalk them up, experience we'll never forget.

Got the air couch in the the camper and we're all packed up.
The maps are loaded and we're ready to truck.
Friday Night
Its Woods-n-Water Kampground, Columbus, Indiana (I65x54,1 hr)
We're hooking up with Rod, Resee and Jessica for a fun filled night of Corn Holing.
Saturday morning
We're headed to Indianapolis (I65,1 hr)
We'll check out their downtown area.
Saturday afternoon
Lansing, Michigan (I70,4 hrs).
While there, we'll reminisce. Becky used to live there. 
I'm going to hear a lot of, "OOOH, Look, thats where I got my lunch box". So cute, haha.
Lansing has a sister processing center for where I work, so most people at work think I'm crazy.
We'll either find a motel, a campground or sleep at a truck stop.
Sunday morning
Grand Rapids (I96, 1 hr)
I'm not sure what we'll see there.
Sunday afternoon
Chicago (I196/I94, 3 hrs)
The route will take us along the shores of Lake Michigan.
I want to hang out at the Chicago navy pier on Lake Shore drive (SR41) .
Monday Morning
Back to Woods-n-Water Kampground, Columbus, Indiana (I90,I65x54,4 hrs)
Back with Rod and his folks.
Monday Afternoon
Back to Louisville (I65, 1 hr).

Its almost as good as mine. So far, in Louisville its the BEST!

Thats a Micosoft IE thing. Firefox, Safari, and Netscape all use it now.
You have to enter SHIFT ENTER for a carriage return.
This interface is a javascript call that causes a text box to handle as if it were like a word document.
I stole the code.
There's a lot of odd things about it too.
Sometimes, if the focus gets confused, entering a space in the text box causes it to toggle from text to display mode.
Oddly enough, MySpace and some other sites use the exact same code.
I think its annoying to have to enter SHIFT ENTER for a carraige return!
I have to do that in some Word documents too. hmmm.
Its kind of like having to enter ALT ENTER in an Excel's spreadsheet text box to get your heading in to be two lines.
And it seems like, at work, if I enter SHIFT ENTER in outlook, it will just send my email before I'm done..youch.

We have an Air Couch now!!! Its a bed too.
I think that sounds GREAT!!!
I'll talk to Becky about it tommorrow. I think she'd love to go camping.
It looks like its at:
8855 S 300 W Columbus, Indiana 47201 , (812) 342-1619 , WoodsnWater

The best parking place is determined by shade instead of distance.
Hot water now comes out of both taps.
You can make instant sun tea.
You learn that a seat belt buckle makes a pretty good branding iron.
The temperature drops below 95 F and you feel a little chilly.
You discover it only takes 2 fingers to steer your car.
You discover that you can get sunburned through your car window.
You actually burn your hand opening the car door.
You break into a sweat at 7:30 a.m.
Your biggest bicycle wreck fear is, 'What if I get knocked out and end up lying on the pavement and cook to death?'
You realize that asphalt has a liquid state.
Potatoes cook underground. All you have to do is pull one out and add butter.
Chickens are laying boiled eggs.
The cows are giving evaporated milk.
The Baptists have started sprinkling.
The Methodists are using a wet wash cloth.
The Presbyterians are giving rain checks.
The Catholics are trying to turn wine back into water.
The Mormons going door to door wearing tank tops
The Muslims are wearing towels around their waist.
STAY COOL!

My Mustang engine bombed, the car had a flat, and so did my truck.
My Vegas air conditioner's a toaster, and my throat feels like yuck.
I'm feelin really down cause my implementations blew.
I'm all broke agin, and just don't know what to do.
Then I bought some expresso and now I don't care.
Cause I'm bouncing off the walls of this apartment everywhere!
Chorus:
Expresso, Expresso, or how I love Expresso.
Just had a few cups, gotta go!
Expresso, Expresso, now I gotta have Expresso.
Don't care bout things, gotta go!

I tossed Becky on the inflatable couch to tickle her, and we were all flopping around, legs and arms flying.
Some where in the mix, I got kneed in the throat.
Oh man does that smart!
That was Saturday.
I got up Monday feeling crabby. Becky asked if I'd pick her up some coffee creamer, and I told her to hop a bus.
Anyway, I called her Monday afternoon. She was half lost, looking for a bus to take her to Krogers.
I heard a quiver in her voice, and asked her if everything was ok.
She said "no".
I said "whats wrong baby?", and she started crying.
She said, "I don't want you to be mad at me. I want to make you happy".
I told her "I've never loved somebody as much as I love you".
I think, if we were opposite sides of the world, and if we had all the time in the world,
I think, we would find each other, and be together forever.

Imagine the benefits of being able to breath fluids.
Deep sea diving, being able to tolerate extreme G forces.
You did it when you were a baby. A mouse actually did it in the movie "The Abyss" (great movie btw).
Another useful application for breathing liquid is to cleanse the lungs.
Once inside the lungs, perflubron enables collapsed alveoli (air sacs) to open and permits a more efficient transport of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Test have been done on sheep, where their lungs were damaged, and pumped back to life.
So, maybe someday, you'll be able to spend a few days at the spa, getting Rolfed, mud facials, coffee enemas, and getting a nice warm lung bath.
LOL.

Maybe some year, you'll sleep.
Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) has been found to slow the breathing rates of mice from 120 to 10 breaths a minute.
In other words, it seems to safely induce hibernation. Seems too. hmmm.
More studies are being done.
What if you could spend a two week vacation hibernating, then wake up unaddicted to tobacco.
Or to maybe wake up to a new, slender you?
Or how about waking up in a time where cars actually flew?
Or where artificial eyeballs existed,
Or where comunication appearal was required.
Hibernation would make it possible for us to travel into the future.
Wonder what the record is for human hibernation?
Although it is 20 years since Nasa abandoned work on induced hibernation as a way of helping astronauts to survive long space missions, research began again at the European Space Agency in 2004. Funding has flowed in the United States since October, when Mitsutaka Uchikoshi, 35, strayed from a Japanese office barbecue, fell down a snowy mountain and broke his hip.
He lapsed into a frozen coma, which lasted 24 days until his apparently lifeless body was found and revived in a Kobe hospital. He is now known in Japanese newspapers as the "Bear Man".
"We don't know how he survived so long, but his body was preserved in ice for nearly a month and now he is back to normal," a Kobe doctor said. "If we can understand why, we can save many lives in the future."

Most of us know more about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie than we know about our own relatives.
Do you believe what you read?
From what I've read:
- A lot of the world still thinks the German death camps were fiction.
- A lot of people associate Bush with Hitler
- Many think the Twin Towers catastrophy was caused by our government.
What is truth? Is it my perspective? Yours? Or a strangers?
I think the only way I can really decide for myself what is real, or not real,
is by actually seeing something, or knowing somebody whose actually seen something.
This is where the internet, telephones and mail become so important to spreading the truth.
The internet is full of junk.
But you can sift through a hay stack and find a needle...if you have a strong enough magnet.
That metaphorical magnet is communication between people that you know are reasonable.
When I hear from people that I know, that others are being brutalized, or I find people are dissappearing in the middle of the night; then, and only then, will I rebel against the government.
But the way I see it, most of us are so spoiled by modern comforts, that we need to create enemies and heroes.
Because, our lives too boring to talk about.
Are Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie really that interesting?

The weekend started with a Blue Grass Festival. We caught the last hour of it.

We heard bombs going off.
That led us too Fort Knox. The GPS system took us through a one laned road, that wound through tall corn fields. It was pretty wild!!!

Fort Knox about confiscated my camera for taking pictures of a tank. So I don't have pictures of that. We went to the Science Museum, on Saturday. The movies were great, but I lost my pix of Main Street.
Here, we're at the Triathlon.
2,100 Ironmen (and women) participated in 2 miles of swimming, 2 miles biking, and 2 miles running.

I'd guess there were probably 2,000 people downtown.

The race lasted to midnight.
I over heard from J Gumbo's at closing, their shift pulled in $2,200. Wow.

This is a building is at the Coronado's military base near San Diego, California.
See http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/09/346333.shtml to read more.
Decide for yourself, if you believe what they are saying.
Why would someone be proud to call themselves part of any of the Reichs? hmmm.

First off, the word Reich refers to the ancient Germanic lands.
The 1st Reich - The Holy Roman Empire. It started in Germany and spread during a period from the 9th to 19th century.
The 2nd Reich - The German Empire, ruled by the Hohenzollern dynasty in Prussia from 1871 to 1919. It set the roots for Germany at the beginning of WWI. It fell at the end of WWI.
The 3rd Reich - Nazi Germany, ruled by Hitler from 1933 to 1945. His desire was to reunity the Holy Roman Empire and restore Germany back to its glory days. It ended with WWII.
The 4th Reich - A term used by Neo Nazis, used to describe the establishment of the Western Imperium and promote the Aryan Race. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Reich.
Why do I mention this now?
Some groups of people think the US is heading the Fourth Reich, using the same tactics of propaganda that Hitler used. See http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/reich.html as an example.
It scares me to think any of this is true.
So much of what we read is garbage.

We saw the IMax at the Louisville Science Museum earlier ($4 x 2).
Anyway, we were just wanting to do something, so we thought we'd head out to the Taylorsville Lake.
Somewhere along the way, we realize we missed a turn, and ran into the last hour of a Blue Grass Festival.
So, it was free!
While there, we heard explosions. A fellow told us it was coming from Fort Knox.
After the festival, we went to Fort Knox. The trip took us through a one lane road with corn stalks everywhere.
That GPS takes us down some wild roads, I gotta tell ya.
We ended going through the Knobs, and finally arrived at Fort Knox.
I took a picture of a tank that said Fort Knox on it, and started to turn around.
WOW. The military guys were all over us, and I wasn't even near the visitor information area out side of the base.
Obviously, I shouldn't have even taken the exit off of Dixie Highway.
They had me delete the picture. What got me is, when they were coming after the truck, they all put their gloves on.
Its kind of interesting that I can see the base through Maps.Google and not through Maps.Live.
Maps.Live has it blocked out. Good old censorship!

Yea, they were flexible, rubber gloves. Thats what I don't get.
And according to Maps.Google.Com, there's a golf course right next to that entrance.
Maybe they thought my camera's flash was some kind of evil death ray haha.
I'd bet their thinking was base on an anti-terrorist activity strategy.
Maybe they were afraid of their identities being revealed.

The Pub downtown is a very, Cheers like bar.
They had a two player band, and the guitar dude was great. Becky and I were kissing during one of their Eric Clapton songs and they mentioned how every time they played, people kissed. So, when they started their next song, Becky and I really played it up. The crowd was roaring. It hilarious.

Down at J Gumbos.
They had the Two Cajuns playing their fanatical songs. One of them gave me some drums sticks, and hey, I got up there and played. No one has ever accused me of being shy! I did good. But on the next set, I played the washboard, and I really stunk. Some guy recorded it, and all I could think of was how I blew a concert in Murray, KY, because my clarinet's reed was shot and I had solos to play.
The Rock Bar
This place is a little hard to find. I think its at 401 S 4th, anyway, we just breezed on threw last night. We were told, on the weekends, the crowd gets heavy. It had a 60's theme to it, with swings hanging from the ceiling where Go Go girls do their thing. With their disco lights, and big dance floor, they've revived the ambiance.

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
and the bus is interrupted  at a very last resort,
and the access of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.   
If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
and the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,
and your data is corrupted cause the index doesn't hash,
then your situation's hopeless and your system's gonna crash!
If the label on the cable on the table at your house,
says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
but your packets want to tunnel to another protocol,
that's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall.   
And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss,
so your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse;
then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,
'cuz sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang.   
When the copy on your floppy's getting sloppy in the disk,
and the macro code instructions is causing unnecessary risk,
then you'll have to flash the  memory
and you'll want to RAM your ROM,
and then quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your Mom! 

Just felt yucky, so I stayed in and slept most the day.
There was a fire alarm around noon which was pretty cool.
Loud sucker. Everybody was down in the lobby.
Fire Trucks were outside. Firemen were running in and out.
It turns out, some painters were spraying a hallway, and sprayed a smoke detector on the 4th floor.

We have an inflatable bed, an inflatable couch, a roll up campground table, and two fold up popason chairs. The rest are plastic Walmart drawers.
If there was an incredible flood here, we'd be set!!! All we'd need is a rope to tie everything together with.
(Thats a dangling preposition btw).
The weather this morning was awesome.
It rained hard, with thunder and lightning all around. I love how most people come in late at the bank when it rains. I think they're worried about an incredible flood.
I love it though. I went outside, and a bolt of lightning hit the ground 1,500 feet away.
And there I was, under a tree, without a kite!

haha. If you click on the menu items above, a screen will show you the links for the menu listing, and it will show you a list of logs. I think its cool.
I made the change because I may get an IPhone.
The IPhone uses a Safari internet browser, and it admittedly has a few bugs.
Probably the first one most of us will notice is its menu listing for "Safari Home Pae". They didn't key in "Page" right. Well, my site looks great on the IPhone, except you can't log on, and the drop down menu goes UNDER the first frame. Thats just weird, but its easy to handle, coding wise.
Actually, I like the menu much better now. I like the Sign In screen better too!

Becky and I want to express our deepest sympathies to you Resee.

Becky's mom is still loving us.
We talk to her almost daily.

My Mom, on the other hand,
passed away December 12, 1994.
Not a single day goes by that I don't remember all the love she shared with me.
There will never be anyone else like my mom. As long as I keep her in my heart, she will never die. I'd like to think I was her greatest accomplishment.

We have their smiles.
We share their memories.

And if our life is equal to the sum of our memories, then we can make them live on, just by remembering how beautiful they would be, if they were here, with us.

Love
Jim and Becky

I've got decent health insurance now for $320 a month, and its not group insurance.
I think thats really incredible.
Its Blue Cross / Blue Shield.
I was paying $620 a month in Nevada, for worse coverage.
I think it was something like $20,000 out of pocket. It stunk. I had to drop it.
If I remember right, in Nevada, the State Health/Insurance Commission says they don't have to have a general group for independant coverage. I'd have to have two people on my payroll to qualify for my own group health plan.
I got declined by them in Nevada as an independant.
Here, they have a group for independants.

Click here to see more of these HOT BABES!!!

I just assumed, the volts were added up for each leg that came in. EG: 240v = 0v, 120v, 120v.
I'd think if you measured one leg of the 240v with the other, it could come up a wiggly 0 volts.
But thats just what I'd think. I'd never know until I tested it, and I've never tested it.
But just one question, do AC meters measure 3 phase voltages correctly across two hot legs.
You're my AC guru!!!  Wouldn't you just love to have an oscilloscope these days.
I thought you might know all about those HOT LEGS!!! har har!

I was looking at a tree while on a break.
There's really not much to do outside, but study the trees.
I got to wondering, how did this tree come to have thorns?
Naturally, the tree wants to protect its fruit from animals, but how did it come up with the thorn idea?
I asked this question, because, after all, I'm Jim.
I got to thinking about how the tree, over millions of years, must have developed all kinds of things to protect itself better.
Ears, hands, and legs are out because plants don't tend to grow animal parts well (eg: muscles). The image is funny, though.
So, that leaves things that the plant can build, like shapes and chemicals.
That could result in lots of leaves, thorns, poisons, razor sharp bark, and smell.
I can't think of any other way for the tree to protect itself, other than just having nothing animals want.
I also noticed these trees had swarms of tiny white bugs
They come come out every now and then, and they cover the tree, making the shady side white!
Most people suggested that the bugs were nasty. I'd heard reactions like: Ewwee! Someone should spray them.
But there were probably over 10,000 of these little life forms, crawling around on the tree.
Each of them probably regard their life as important as we do ours. I thought they were beautiful.
I kind of thought these bugs were necessary for the tree somehow.
What I saw was, these bugs coming out of the roots, cleaning up the bark, and dying.
I couldn't help but wonder how long that friendship, between the insects and the trees, took to foster.
In the end, it made me wonder what function we serve in nature.
What do we clean up or protect?
Was our species designed to escape this planet and spread life throughout the universe?
Or are we here just to devour all of the tasty animals, decreasing their populations?
All this from a thorny tree with bugs on it.
Guess I was bored. lol.

Down on Taylorsville Road near the airport. They don't seem to show up on any maps, but the restaurant was supposed to have been founded in the 1880's.
The menu's have a picture of every manager thats worked there since the beginning.
I had their oyster roll, clam chowder, crab rangoon and fried green tomatoes.
Becky had their spaghetti (which was GREAT).
Their fried green tomatoes were only okay. So far, I haven't found fried green tomatoes here that are as good as what I have eaten before. That seems kind of kookie! The tomatoes just aren't tart like they should be.
So I'm on a quest for the WORLDS BEST FRIED TOMATOES!
Talked to Ida, Allen and Sonny last night.
Allen said we should check out Wiley's park in the Appalachians.
Becky was chatting with Renee, and Gma most of the same time.
I think she sent Becky a bunch of pictures on her cell phone.

On Friday, I lit the candle on one end.
On Saturday, I lit the candle on the other end.
I woke up at 5 am with a terrible leg cramp.
Oooo....I hate those.
Today, we were planning on going to Rod's church, then we were going to head off to Mammoth Cave for hiking.
I'm all burned out.
So, I guess its going to a day of limping around the area.
Maybe I can get Becky to nurse me back to health...lol

Somewhere along the way, I decided to stick with 120vac/240vac, because its more symmetrical.
I've been confused on the 220/240 voltages for decades.
I've heard people say they have 220v coming into the house, and 120v at the outlets.
To me, that never made any sense. It has to be 240v coming into the house or 110v at the outlets.
Because at our house, 2 legs of 120 volts (phase shifted) come into the house. One leg goes to the lights, the other leg goes to the outlets. The 240 volts for the Air Conditioner and the clothes dryer is bridged in between the two 120 volt lines.
Logically, the power coming into the house has to be called 240 volts, because it comes from 2 x 120 volt lines.
BTW - It would be insane to wire a wall outlet with the leg thats used for the lights. It would be phase shifted from the other wall outlets, and that could be very bad. The house has basically two, parallel circuits that are out of phase.
I just learned that the 420v, 440v and 480v are different.
I wasn't aware of that. I think now, I'm more confused than ever about the whole thing.
I suppose it might not have made much difference to me when I was working with Air Conditioning. I always trusted the installer to get that part right. We always changed out bad parts.

This girl modelled for us.
The lines were very quick.
When its hot like it has been, the people leave when the water park closes.
The water park closes at 8 PM, but Six Flags stays open until 10 PM.
Waiting in the lines took 10 minutes...tops!

View of Louisville From the top of the Ferris Wheel. Becky hung out below, and I was alone. It was like riding on a couch!	Becky rode this ride with me! Just kidding. Becky rode the Break Dance, Road Runner, Roller Skate Coaster and Merry Go Round.	TheThunder Run. Its really rough too. I could feel every plank bounce underneath me. Its a back and neck killer. Really jerky.

 

We went to St Rita's Catholic Church dinner/festival.
It was very different from any other church dinner I'd ever gone too.
We walked into the gym, where the food was being served, and the girl asked us for our tickets. So we walked back outside the door, to buy tickets. Then we walked back in, and go two plates, each with two pieces of chicken. We sat down, and our waitress (a cute 12 year old girl) asked us "What we'd y'all like to drink'. We asked, "What to you have? She said, "Tea and water". lol. But the food was really delicious. Coleslaw, cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes and corn were all waiting for us in bowls, where we sat. I tipped a waiter my ice cream ticket and the girl a dollar. I guess that was okay to do...hmmm.
The highway was all backed up coming in.
Police were motioning the traffic from the highway into the Church's parking lot.
However, the policeman at the lot told us it was full.
There were quite a few of us in the lot, trying desperately to turn around. It was packed.
I thought that was funny!
We ended up parking at a nearby shopping center.
One of the things I'll never understand about the south is Sweet Tea
Its tea with sugar in it. Thats it. Its nothing special. Almost everyplace I've seen here sells it separate from tea.
And if a place only serves tea, and not sweet tea, customers always gripe!
Whats that all about?