Christmas time is here (and now its gone)

So some musings and ramblings on the past year, Chritmas time, and other things of note.

We had Christmas in Starkville, with Kate and all the brothers and sisters except betsy and jereme. But before we left we had Kate's first Christmas and it was really fun. She had a fun time watching her gifts get opened.

I got several cool things, I'll name some of them here so you can know what not to get me.

• John Grisham Books
• Palm Treo (from Big River)
• Journal
• Socks (lots of them)
• Stationary (with my name on them)
• Polo Shirt
• MSU Polo Shirt
• Makers Mark
• Lots of stuff that I already owned from mom (she's cleaning out some space)
  

The list goes on, but you get the idea, not too shabby. Kate had the most presents of anyone I've ever seen.


The Starkville festivities were pretty interesting. Everyone was much more tolerable after a couple of drinks. I guess thats the way it goes with families.

We (me and charlie) went back to belzoni for another Duck Hunt. This time we didn't do jack. The weather was not cooperating. We were there and heard some thunder off in the distance, it was crazy, the ducks never even came over our decoys much, then we moved off to another spot, and a huge group flew down in to our decoys.
Right when we were leaving it started pouring. Add another week to my cold duration from that. My jacket is "water absorbent" which means that it soaked up about 40 lbs of water and was soo heavy.


I'll get back in the swing of things on here better soon. Had an unsuccessful deer hunt with robert today.

Killin' Mallards

Out of all the duck hunts i've been on, I've never qute had a day quite like friday. Went with delta pheasants.com down in Belzoni MS. We had quite a hunt. I hadn't shot that well at ducks in a long time. I also killed 2 with one shot, which I hadn't done in a duck hunt before. Done it with turkeys and doves but never ducks.
Below is Charlie and me with a limit of mallards.

 

What a morning.

When I'm no so tired, I'll tell the whole story. This is worth reading about.

This was a tough one

Tonight at youth we hit our second of 3 talks about relationships. Last week was on parents / children. Pretty simple, obey them in the Lord. Do what they say with a good attitude. (unless its something that is against the Lords will). And part B, fathers don't exasperate your children (did my parents ever get that memo????) .
Well tonight we jumped off the deep end. We talked about "boy-girl" relationships, which I entitled the "marriage talk" because the bible doesn't ever really talk about dating. People were pretty much having sex, either married or not married in the bible. Not a whole lot of dating referenced. You like one, you pick her out and get married. In SOS they wooing is actually done after they are married it seems.

So anyhow, I had the distinct priveledge of telling 20 kids that they needed to not commit adultery, or fornication, and explain what that was. I've always heard all these RUF folks talk about what's acceptable during dating, and they've never really said a whole lot, that would convict someone making out a good bit.... The thing is, I don't think that MT 5:28 leaves much room there:

"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

I've never kissed a girl with out looking at her lustfully in my heart. So I'm pretty sure that folks that aren't married have no business doing that. Is that being legalistic? I dunno, is not shooting someone being legalistic about the commandment "thou shalt not kill"? I know it's got to be pretty un-popular with all the cool kids, and I know I'm guilty of doing that very thing... but I'm pretty sure that we take things way to lightly these days. "oh God didn't really mean you can't (______________) fill in your own blank he just wants you to know to be careful about that.

I'm pretty sure I regurgitated a good bit of what Jeffrey Lancaster (former Ole Miss Ruf and church planter in Memphis now) said at either an RYM or RUF summer conference. I'm glad I learned something in college. I just feel like such a hypocrite teaching about being pure. I'm such a liar... But the fact that I'm not perfect doesn't make the truth not the truth.
Thankfully...

I got a palm treo, and wrote a post from the deer stand. I'll put it up tomorrow if i get a chance. The problem that I'm having is that now I have a good way of tracking my to do list better, and it's really overwhelming. But at least i know what all i need to do and what i need to get done in a day. If I can get monday behind me, i'm planning on hunting tuesday. It's supposed to be 24 deg tuesday am. Good day to kill some ducks, or maybe just a deer, i wouldn't mind killing either.

Wow this is incredible

If you need a great stocking stuffer idea, I'm telling you, this web site has you coverd. www.wileyoutdoorproducts.com

Don't you think amanda did a good job on this?

It's finally here

We've been working with Wiley Outdoor Products, LLC for a good 6 months on this project. Now they have a great web site, that is fully e-commerce ready.
Wiley Outdoor Site

Be sure and make your purchases online... And Please get one of these "flexblind systems". They are only 400 bucks. You'll love it.

Catching up

I know I've been lax posting on here. The important stuff in my life has seemed less important recently actually. We are still very much here. Chugging along... Kate is beautiful, and such a little treat of humanity, she has stolen her dad's heart. Why was I wishing for a boy? I have no idea... Well, actually there are stilll things that I'd like to have a boy for, and hopefully that will happen some day in the near -- but not right away -- future.

BRS has been an amazing learning challenge, I've had tons of great ideas, we have new sites to do all the time, and yet I feel very much broke. I think it has to do with the money that I'm owed by people that we are working for. Typically this group is called "AR". This brings me to my next fin thing. I've started a new company called "Big River Consulting Group (PLLC)." We will be doing book keeping, managing AR, financial reporting, and basically taking companies that are not on a computer based accounting system, and getting them in the computer, so that people can run reports and print invoices instead of hand writing them. Yes, get ready Louisville, you are about get get in to the 21st century. I'm working with a former auditor, and a CPA from starkville who is on my board of advisors. I have a feeling that this is REALLY going to help folks around here get up to speed and help them collect outstanding AR and keep that number low. I'm excited about getting my number lowered as well.

We did some work in the office, and re-arranged some thigns in there. Now it looks much more like an office and less like a war zone. We have gotten TONS of stuff listing on eBay (no the tractors didn't work our but i'm not finished yet).

One of the great things about this town is the people here. I had a friend of mine come over the other day and he took the old honda (all 217K of it) and took it to his house and did some work on it. New plugs, new muffler etc... thing runs like a top now. He did it for a very good price and considering that he picked it up from my house etc... that was pretty good.

Christmas is coming, it finally felt cold here the other day. Now it's just rainy and warmish, not enough to catch us up after the drought we have had since the hurricanes, but definately much needed rainfall. The dogs really seemed to like it.

Back on!

Well, we got things straightened out with eBay. Those folks.... We had our phone number (the same number as is listed in our account info) on one listing and they pulled the listing because they apparently thought that we were going to try and sell the tractor off of ebay (costing them 200+ bucks in fees).

Well we aren't that dumb... anyhow we are back in business. I've got a great photo of the tractor that i'm going to post as soon as I find that dadgum cable that links the camera to the computer.

Stupid Newscasters

I've just been doing my morning bottle feed, and like almost always I cut on the TV and change it to fox news.

It amazes me how these guys will sit there with sheet metal blowing by, and they act like they HAVE to be out there or we wouldn't get good news.

I can't wait till one gets hit with a stop sign. Maybe that would stop the ridiculous stuff.

Theiving B#%#@ (thats the "B" in eBay)

So all the excitement of selling something BIG on eBay ended today. But the listing was supposed to end on monday you say? How did this happen? Well eBay screwed up. They send me a message saying that they were worried that a third party had accessed my account and done something to it.
I ask you, -- why would someone break in to my account and SELL something. That makes about as much sense as tits on a boar hog. I couldn't believe that happend. They couldn't just re-activate the listing. I have to re-list the thing again. From scratch. All over again.

I even had a closing party lined up for Monday night. Thanks eBay. You guys rock... Oh yeah, and I probably lost over a thousand bucks in commissions from this. Way to go guys. I don't want to pay my bills anyhow.

I'm so mad right now I could spit. I've heard that expression before, never used it. But I really could. I can't fathom that they just pulled them, and couldn't tell me what made them pull the listings to begin with. They didn't pull ANY other listings that we had. (and we have 15 or so other things going). Just pulled the ones that I gave a crud about.

Well I hope Steve understands that we didn't do anything bad. I can't understand it... It's not my fault.


Well in other great news we made it up to Stk to see the Dawgs play. Except for we had no intention of going "to" the game. We just took the Tater and tail-gated. Mister Mark, and his Maker were kind to me, as were all the kind folks who gave me ice and coke. Oh yeah, there was a football game and we could trip and fall and be 2 and 8 for the season if we don't watch it.
How does someone run for 257 yards and we have ONE stinking touchdown. Something is messed up.
We can't beat our little sissy homecoming team. Good job guys.

In good news, we got to see Brooke and Katie from back in the day. It's been 2 years since we've seen Katie. We miss her... She's got her a new man, seems like a pretty cool guy. Saw Cleatus and Harvey's had us up there for supper. Harvey can really cook. Love their honey mustard on that club salad. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Ok. I'm tired and grumpy. I'm about to wrap it up for the night. The Tater did have a good day. More on her blog later. (http://katetaylor.blogspot.com)

Reminds me of an old Pearl Jam song

hey - Iiiiiiiiiii ohooo I'm still alive yeah Iiiiiiii ohooo I'm still alive.

Well you guessed it. The server migration didn't kill me. Although I did BREAK a stress toy the day after the actual migration working with a client. They called on the phone and were bugging me about something and BLAM it broke.
Lots of new stuff going on. Our eBay stuff is starting to get kicked in to high gear. We have two tractors listed and more going on this weekend. It's been lots of fun learning about John Deer Tractors. If you need one, check these out. One has a loader and it's been WELL taken care of. I can't wait to see how they turn out. It's a 20K tractor and it's at 15,850 right now.

I got some signs made like election signs with the flimsy metal stakes. It will help the folks that are driving by to see that these things are going on there, and we can get some good press by this as well.
Above is what the signs look like. Not exactly trademark infringement, but way cheaper than the 4 color...

Kate is looking so different.
She's a sweetie, her mom has been taking lots of photos for the family and her blog is off to a great start. She loves her swing.

I have a new business project that I'm working on, more details later. But it is REALLY exciting and will be a fun new endeavor. (I do have time to do more... Honestly)

another funny note, Google (blogger) noticed that I used the word "blog" in the spell check and said it was mis-spelled... what the crud?

All in all, i'm alive, i'm tired, i'm cranky, i'm ready for the weekend.

It's going to be one or the other

Big River Systems servers have been updated and are on a more stable and secure platform now where we can serve you better. Thank you for your continued support and patience while we seek to better serve you with your hosting needs!

Configuration Changes to Note:
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OR.

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Thank you for choosing Big River Systems, LLC.

Server Migration is a ^%$#@@$$

I'm moving all my clients accounts to a faster better more secure server. I've never been as up tight as I have been the last couple of nights. It's just a crazy feeling, knowing that somewhere, there are two servers, that are copying 1's and 0's and if they all work, I'll be ok, but that if something happens, i'll be on the phone all day tomorrow talking to clients, working out problems and explaining that this is going to be ok.

I am using www.RackSpace.com for my managed server. They are an INCREDIBLE company, support that really is good. I like to think that I'm like their support, when people call and need something, I really do take care of them and WANT to help them.

So how much faster is it you ask? Well it's like i went from a KIA sophia, to a FORD F250 superduty powerstroke, (quad cab of course).
It's a pretty big difference. I hope to have good things to report. Otherwise, I might just run off to the Bahamas, and hide from all the angry customers.

Ok, well I'm going to yawn a couple more times, and call it a night (meaning that I'll be back awake in about 2 hours when Kate wakes up).

Did I mention how cute my little girl is??

In the face of one of the most stressfull days I have had since starting my company (dang hackers and poor tech support combined to bring on some good stress), I got to play with Kate today. She's such a joy, and a blessing we are so amazed by her each day. They say you never know what it's like until you have one. They are soo right.

did i mention how lucky i am

Having a cute, sweet, adorable little girl, is such a miracle. It's really unbelievable. What a blessing she is. How incredibly hard it is to fathom, wanting to get up at 12:51 am to change a diaper, or settle her down. It raises a million mental questions about my childhood. How did I act? who changed my diapers most? Who got up with me? Did you sing to me?.....
and oh so many more. It also raises questions about my parents divorce. How does something this great but seven times over, come to an end?

It makes me even more committed to raise this little girl, as best as I can. Admitting my imperfections, trying to be patient with her mother, and doing everything I can to give her a good home.

She's crying again so I've got to go.

Fatherhood...is like programming

I'm up, fully awake -- trying to do some problem solving. It's just like college a logic problem, only with more serious consequenses.
IF crying then check diaper {
If diaper = stinky {
diaper1 = dirty
fresh diaper = diaper
}
else
If tummy = not_full {
take to mommy
if mommy is too tired then give formula
}
else tummy = ok
check other comfort levels

Ok. Thats a rough draft, I need to check my syntax but you get the idea. Pardon me for spelling or syntax errors, this was typed with one hand while administering a bottle with the other hand. I'm glad I had those progamming classes.

This is my first post

This is my first post from word. I’ve tried the blogger tool for word. We’ll see if this works. We are doing well. But still need some more sleep, and probably more business now too. It’s been tough trying to keep up with everything with a new baby, and plenty of stuff to do with work as well. I have so much to do, but I’m learning that I might need to find a very small web niche, that is highly profitable and just seek and deal with those clients. I’m spending a lot of time changing gears.  I guess it’s like a manufacturer where you make money as long as the line is up, but when it goes down, or you have to make repairs, you start to lose money. That’s a lot like programming and web design. I’ve started doing some programming again. Doing some coding reminded me what I like about it, it’s similar to cutting a pasture for hay, you can see what you’ve done when it works. It’s always nice. Sometimes you can’t see what you’ve accomplished in this business. Maybe sometimes it’s because I didn’t accomplish enough.

I'm thinking of a five letter word

SLEEP

Yep, you guessed it. I have gotten some, but not enough. I've put a couple of self imposed deadlines on myself for some projects that I've been meaning to get done. It's much easier to blog than to put together a huge proposal for a data management system. It's more fun to hold Kate than to write code. But I know I have to do those things so that I can do what I'm doing.

It's been great to have the flexibility to work at home and get stuff done and still be here for Cam and Kate. I'm so lucky to have a job like this. I know the phone rings off the hook sometimes and I can't keep up. But who wouldn't want to be able to be a the house and do some stuff on the computer at a time like this.
Well I need to get after it. No more deep thoughts for the day. Just need to get after it! Ya'll can pray that the next 3 days of work goes well. They could have a HUGE financial impact on our little company.
    

The things you miss, that you don't miss

I've often wondered what I'd do if I had to miss the opening day of Dove season like my buddy Ed did when get not only got married then but had / has his anniversary on opening weekend every year for ever. (Ed, I'm not mad about that -- If you recall I did get to hunt over in La. before your wedding.)

In the past 2 weeks I've missed a couple of things, and not even noticed. First of all, Mississippi State played a football game and -- whoa, they actually won the game. (no, not the Auburn one the other one). There was a hurricane, and there was work that had to be done and I was stopping at nothing to get it done. Didn't hear a play of the game. Not one, couldn't tell you anything about it except that the dogs did win.

Secondly, there is the issue of dove hunting. Traditionally, I try to sniff out a good dove hunt with some friends (even if I have to invite my self) and I look forward to it as the inaugral weekend to football season and more importantly hunting season. Some of my best college memories are of me, ed chandler and lucas cooking up some of the doves that we killed.

Oh, and some of them weren't cooked all the way, but thats another story. So anyhow, I'm realizing now, that I didn't even notice the start of dove season. It never crossed my mind. This summer I've shot skeet no less than 6 times. I've got my timing down, I've got half a case of shells, I have a shotgun ready to rock and roll... But no hunts.... I don't miss it yet. I haven't written it off yet. Maybe I'll take Kate with me. Maybe when she's five she can go pick up birds with her daddy. I can't explain how different it feels to have someone so little be so dependant on you. So needy and so happy when they get cuddled up.

Do I miss dove season? A little, but I wouldn't miss these past 6 days for the world.

(Don't talk about duck season, thats a whole 'nother issue! Just kidding honey!)

This was a new one on me.

Changing the 100th diaper of the last couple of days, I suddenly realized that she wasn't finished with her very dirty business. She grunted and then -- I heard a poot, the kind made by a 4-day-old. Next thing I know, there is poop flying through the air in small pieces headed toward me. I screamed out of suprise. C. Didn't think it was funny but I was laughing for 5 minutes. Then I took off every thing I had on and put it straight in the wash.
Kate 1 - Dad 0.

We made it home from the hospital today. I can't tell you how glad I am to be back in my king sized bed. That little tiny broke down thing they call a "pull out" bed is NOT comfortable. I've been more comfortable sleeping on the lawn.

The other thing that I learned from the hosptital was that I don't matter. They had a team of Docs and Nurses checking on C and a team for Kate. But me, I don't matter. I don't count. I'm not important.

Please pray for Cam's blood pressure to settle down. She's still having trouble with it getting up a bit. It doesn't help when I yell when I'm being pooped opon. But please pray that we can get good rest. That I can get caught up on work. And that Kate is healthy and strong.

Ok. I'm going to bed, (and going to watch LSU).

I'm this excited.

Kate Is Here

Left: Sophie loves a good hurricane. (notice all the broken limbs from the storm)

She's finally here

Today was unlike any other. Normal untill about 1:30 pm. I have been working on databases and having meetings and running around doing a million things. My phone I had put on silent while I had an particularly important meeting around 12:00pm. I noticed a couple of calls from C. who was at her regular weekly Dr's visit in Jackson. I was checking my voice mail and finally got down to hers. It was a "call me now" urgent message. I did as I was beckoned. It turns out that a bit of high blood pressure and the baby being plenty large made for a nice day for a C section.

I finally talked to C. around 2:50 pm. She was giving me instructions on what to grab, what to pack and telling me to get down here and that the C section was planned for 4 pm. We live 90 miles from the hospital, and our car was in the shop. I didn't even realize what time it was. I finally got the car from the repair place, and threw all our luggage in the car, it was 3:45. They said that we would be pushed back till 5 pm. At 4:45 I made it to Jackson. Where as usual, we had to hurry up and wait. We waited till about 7:00 to actually have the section done. It was a bit bloody and way too much like cleaning a deer for my liking. Before long they had her out and were cleaning her up and letting me touch her and hold her.

What a feeling. I've never held anything so precious. Kate, we love you and we are glad you are finally here. At 7:54 PM. Kate Taylor was born, 7 lbs, 13 oz. 20 inches long.

Am I proud? You betcha. She's a special part of this family. I know Rosie and Sophie are going to be jealous (my two labs) because they can't hold a candle to my new "girl".

I'm about to get ready to try and sleep on this excuse for a bed. C. is fine, she's tired. I've got a world of things on my mind. And oh so much to think about.

More later. And of course photos as soon as they are ready to go.
Proud Poppa -- signing off!

Sleep is for sissies

Over the past 5 days I've stayed up pretty late working on projects trying to get databases built for people on the ground who are deploying disaster response teams for those who have been affected by the storm. See the results here

Our city is working on housing some refugees and trying to figure out what the needs are. We are a community of about 8000 and having even a 300 new people in town is a pretty big change for us. At any given time we only have 3... yes I said 3 Police officers on duty. (That isn't counting Sherriff / County / MHP officers)

We have already heard reports of people coming here and buying houses. This could be the economic boom we've been hoping for. Winston County has several buildings ready to be occupied by manufacturers that may have been shut down by the storm. Ya'll come up here and we'll show you what we can do. We also have some downtown property that is vacant. We need a good restraunt that can cook and has atmosphere down town for lunch. I've got a building in mind for that one too. It's not officially on the market but could be bought.

In other news, ya'll be sure an check out Batch's blog. He's got some good stuff... Oh and a link to him on the news.

Sleep is for sissies

Over the past 5 days I've stayed up pretty late working on projects trying to get databases built for people on the ground who are deploying disaster response teams for those who have been affected by the storm. See the results here

Our city is working on housing some refugees and trying to figure out what the needs are. We are a community of about 8000 and having even a 300 new people in town is a pretty big change for us. At any given time we only have 3... yes I said 3 Police officers on duty. (That isn't counting Sherriff / County / MHP officers)

We have already heard reports of people coming here and buying houses. This could be the economic boom we've been hoping for. Winston County has several buildings ready to be occupied by manufacturers that may have been shut down by the storm. Ya'll come up here and we'll show you what we can do. We also have some downtown property that is vacant. We need a good restraunt that can cook and has atmosphere down town for lunch. I've got a building in mind for that one too. It's not officially on the market but could be bought.

In other news, ya'll be sure an check out Batch's blog. He's got some good stuff... Oh and a link to him on the news.

Did we forget something?

Did anyone mention to the newscasters that there are a couple of people (maybe one or two) that aren't in New Orleans that are in dire need of help too...

See letter below from Ginger (Blacklidge) Hyatt:

For those of you who don't know, my family is in Gulfport, MS where the hurricane hit. Mom my somehow made it home yesterday and even though I haven't talked to her directly, she left a message on Wade's cell (calling from someone's cell that worked) saying.... if you know ANYONE coming down there, please bring extra Water AND Gas - enough to last 6
weeks! It is their biggest need right now. I'm sure generators would
help also.

Please forward this to anyone you know who may be able to help.

Also, if you have family down there, please let me know their updates.
We don't have a lot of info since communications are down. I know my
family is safe. My grandmother's home is flattened (she lived on the
beach), and my dad and brother had 9 ft. of water in each of their
homes. That's as much as we know for now. Please pray for everyone down
there. Tough weeks ahead!!

Thanks!
Ginger

Date: Sep 1, 2005 6:44 PM
Subject: Re: GNO help


Yes, this is all so sad. I just can't believe it and almost can't watch
TV. I just talked to my brother in Gpt. and he said there is no sign
of FEMA, and The Red Cross got there yesterday but noone knows where
they are. He is so mad. There is NO HELP. And, I feel so helpless. If
you know of ANY churches delivering supplies, PLEASE encourage them to
go to Gpt.


Wow... We need to be getting down there with some help. New Orleans isn't the only place that has MAJOR needs and issues.

What in the world...

I can't believe it. This is the most incredible thing I've ever seen. I feel sick looking at the photos and the news. We are working on getting a team together to take some stuff down there. No one has heard much at all from Gulfport. Looking at Batch's blog I see that he might need a new house down there. I can't imagine what you do to start over like that. Where do you go?

I would invite anyone to come up to louisville. We have an extra room. We also have a church with lots of folks with extra rooms and even a cabin on the lake that isn't being used.

I would love to see folks come up here and just start to do something in Louisville. We have plenty of warehouse space, near the coal mine, and great quality of life.
If we could get 30 or 40 new folks to move up here it would really impact our town.
We need some good new blood here. We had lots of folks coming by the office today checking for some news online. I hated to see that people had no idea if their brothers and sisters were still alive.

C. and I went to Jackson today and went to the doctor for a visit. I have never seen lines like that for gasoline. People waiting 4 hours to get gas. They have now limited the gas consumption to 10 bucks in clinton, and 40 bucks in Jackson.

I won't even talk about the damage here in louisville, it's a joke compared to the rest of these places.

From The Front Lines of Life

I've noticed some new blogs out there recently that you state folks will probably like.
I'll be posting them shortly.

Musings and rambles

I've gotten in to a couple of more on-line partnerships this past week. I've got a couple of online gigs that basically make me a commission only sales person for them, my territory being the web and my products vary from t-shirts, to duck & deer calls to corporate gifts.

I sometimes worry about the future of the internet (web desing / hosting) as a business. Software could take the place of web design, but commerce and information dispensing is the driving force behind many web sites. I've even got a sports related venture on the table. I have to be careful, there are some people that think they can get a web site and that automatically the world is going to show up and need what they have and they will do hundreds of dollars in sales every day. That's just not the case, people don't just show up at web sites. It takes "buzz" that marketing excitement to get people talking about and using the products and then, guess what -- you really have to have a good product, and more than that -- you have to have a better product in order to really succeed.
I hope some of my new ventures are this way, I'm sure some will do well, some will flounder, but I know some of these ideas are bound to make their way to the winners circle. I just want to get about 5 G's in recurring monthly income (profit) so that I can do some of the other things that I'd really like to do. I'm not terribly far from that, and I've wondered what will be the thing to push me over the top.

Another fun thing that we've been doing is eBay. Big River Sells is our eBay branch of the Big River Companies. We have had pretty good success selling things on eBay. We are doing school fundraisers, church fundraisers, selling cars, travel-trailers, baseball cards, books, fishing lures (old ones) and a bunch of other stuff. I'm trying to keep 400 bucks a day on there of inventory, and I think we can do that. It has a real potential, but most of the sales we've gotten have been through networking with existing customers and friends. Those of you who know me know that that's about all I'm good at. Ideas, networking and sales, those are my strengths.

We have some other news about Big River coming soon. Probably Tuesday we will have an official announcement on our latest endeavor. We'll make a big announcement.

Speaking of announcements, Kate had us thinking for a while that she might be coming last week. She was having contractions and we were wondering what was going on. It turned out to be Braxton Hicks or something like that but anyhow, not real contractions, but it was exciting none the less. I felt her move soo much last night. I could feel her hard foot poked against C's tummy. I poked back and she'd move, and then put her foot up, and I'd poke back... Unbelievable stuff really. I can't believe she's in there... I can't wait for her to come. We have to go to the Dr's office every week now. That car ride to Jackson and back is REALLY fun for C. She's so miserable in the car... It's hot as fire here... but not inside, inside it's a frigid 55 degrees. Well more like 65. Our AC bill is going to be more than our house note this month. I'm hoping we can sell some good web sites!

Ok... Remember what J. Lake says. "Reading a blog and not commenting is like going to someones home -- and not speaking to them!"

Crackin' heads

Did ya'll see those guy's almost kill each other last night??? There were two outfielders diving for the same ball, that apparently hit each other in the head, and knocked each other out.

I can't tell you how awful that looked on TV. I wanted to see it slow motion, but somehow, they didn't play it. I think I only saw the clip during the Packers game. Wow. Pain like you would never imagine.


So, C. hasn't been making purses, but she's still got her design flare, look at this beauty that she dreamed up. She took it to a lady to make it with her design in mind and viola! It's a baby bag. (How many baby bags do you have?) We have a Kate Spade, this one, another cloth one, a polkadot plasticy one (which is cute), a black and white one with flowers on it and I think that is it. But I could be wrong. Sometimes they appear later on without warning.

How much would you pay for a bag like this one? Wide straps for comfort, hand made, comes with BABYswanky label on it... They'd have to sell for at least $60 to make it worth our while, but I'm slowly learning from owning my own business, that it's good to make a good profit on things. That's what people do. It's a healthy activity. People don't need to price gouge, but a healthy profit is a good thing for the economy.

Speaking of the economy, who wants a flat tax? A sales tax, get rid of income tax... I've talked to some people who say it would kill our economy, I've talked to others who say that it would kill charitable organizations. I've talked to some who say taxing isn't about anything other than a social agenda, of making people equal. I think that if you don't pay taxes you shouldn't get to vote. Man, I'm radical. Doesn't that make more sense, if you are on the dole, (sp?) you shouldn't be able to vote your self more money? If you are paying taxes, shouldn't you have a pretty good say in how your money is spent?

Mississippi got $2.51 Billion dollars in this highway (pork) bill... Does anyone think that those contracts for doing those roads could be done cheaper and faster if they were done with private contractors? I think the state has moved somewhat to that, but there is plenty of MDOT pork barrel money getting filtered out, out of the pockets of citizens.

the idea...

As a child, I was always encouraged to journal. I did a pretty good job of it really, I have one journal that covers from the time that I was 13 or so, until I was a freshman in college. I then started emailing more, and writing less.

I've since gotten another journal, written some in there, but started blogging. It's easier to blog than it is to journal. (I don't know why other than the fact that I can type much faster than I can write.)

Anyone who has a blog on a blog service knows that they are ultimately at the mercy of the hosting provider. Whomever that might be. So here's the idea. Take blogs, using a software programm, and archive them on to a single document that can be printed and bound nicely. Charge by the page, and simply format and have the books printed (I already have that part figured out).

I'd pay 100 bucks to have my journal published if only for my kids and grandkids. If I had years of them on there like some folks, I think it would be well worth it to get it done, and maybe even get a couple of copies, for mom and dad or something... Would comments show up? Maybe? I guess so... Also, another version would put it on a CD that would come with something like an etch-a-sketch device that would play the CD and be an intereactive device like an Ipod, but that would basically play CD's that were documents and photos, replacing the traditional photo album.

Ok, i said it. I'm sure one of you punks will rip off my idea, and i'll be broke... But who thinks thats a good idea? Who would want to insure that their great grand kids knew what we were dealing with?

Did I mention how much fun traffic is?

I can't believe the weekend is already over and it's Monday AM. Time to get back to work.
I've been in Atlanta, and I'm actually still here. It's not fun thinking about leaving because of the traffic... and the rain.

I have really gotten used to the 7000 people in my town, and I'm not really fond of the millions over here.

Time to go.

9:10 CST UPDATE

Back in MS... We made nice time. We had a couple of hairy rain storm events that were a major slowing factor, but we didn't get down below 20 MPH the whole time. (except for meal stops)

We had a great time over there, there were the typical family dynamics involved. The estranged spouse, the dueling grandmothers, siblings, and some grown-ups pouting... We had a pleasant time. Got some good loot for Kate, I can't believe how well we racked up. We are sooo blessed to have so many people that had to come because they were related.


Anyhow, I also had an idea, for making some extra money. I'll elaborate more later... Let me know what you think about it.

Man I hate to see this

They say that Raffy Palmeiro tested positive for the juice. You hate to see that happen to anyone, esp a guy who went to state and has done so well. Has he been cheating this whole time??? I hope not. Some say that it might have been an accidental ingestion. As my friend Adam says "you don't trip and fall and get pregnant!" I think that same logic must hold true here. You can't really accidentally put something bad in your body like that can you? Can you accidentally fail a drug test? Maybe some poppy seed chicken....
Not trying to rail on Raffy.... But how does that happen? Hey buddy, you are headed to the Hall of Fame... Don't screw it up!!!
ok got that off my chest.
I know I haven't been here in a while... I've been recovering for 2 weeks from a day with Batch on the golf course. His liver emailed me and thanked me for the beer. I didn't get to go to the fair. It really wasn't fair... But that stuff happens... Maybe next year we can take Kate to the fair... Speaking of we have three showers for her this week. We really racked up sunday down in jackson... over 30 presents... I can't believe that many people like us. (maybe they feel sorry for K.T. having parents like this.)

Relief

We are done with the weddings for the year. I'm so glad to know that C. can start to take it easy now. We had a wild one... Almost rained on the reception. I must have sweated out about 4 gallons of water. But it's all over now. I just got a text from the groom:

We are laying on the nassau beach right now behind the hilton, drinking bahama mamas and soaking up the sun...

I wanted to smack him... I called her parents... to let them know, poor dad of the bride...Said he was sweating like a dog. It sure is hot out there... That means only one thing. The NCF is almost here. The NESHOBA COUNTY FAIR IS COMING!!!!!!!!!!
I'm excited about that. My liver just sent me an email asking if I was going to go. I guess it's making preperations as well. I know I'm going, but I'm not sure when or for how long.

March....Wait.... July Madness!!!!

My wife is a wedding planner. That's really just another way to say that, several weekends out of the year I have to march my chubby A$$ down to a wedding and do all the menial tasks that no one else is doing. I'm a good delegator. I'm pretty good at getting in there and getting things done if I have people who have the right skills.

This weekend is a big wedding here. 350 guests, outdoor band, reception with a bar, band and oh... since my wife is pregnant, I have a DD... Wonderful. Could I have planned it better? Maybe, but I don't think so. (she might argue that being pregnant and living here in July is about as close to hell as she's ever been) We are working, (even now she's out with the family managing the flowers and the workers... making everything fly right....) all day on this stuff. I just try to keep my feet moving and my mouth shut. Lest you (or others) think I'm complaining... Let me be clear.
I'm not complaining. I'm just a reporter for the "Wacky Times."

So what are you kids doing this summer? I have an anniversary in oh... about 5 days... A golfing outing that I've been approved to go to, and oh yeah, that, a baby coming in 9 weeks. Can you believe it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nine stinking weeks. That's hardly time to get anything done. What kind of idiot am I? That's dove season.

I don't know if I mentioned this or not...

But I'm now working with Wiley Outdoor Products. We are running their internet sales division and we need your help. In order to help the search engines to find and rank their site at the top... We need more people linking to them. Yes, I'm talking about you... I need your help! You see, I don't make a dime off this site unless it starts selling duck calls. Yep, I'm a salesman on straight commission on this one. I know it's crazy, but I think that these things are gonna do really well and I think that with some help from you kind folks out there, we can do it. I've got a couple of other sites that need some help. I've added them to the footer of this page. If you would like to help... Link these sites up with me.... Let's join together and help these sites do well.... I've got a baby on the way for pete's sake... I need all the help I can get!

Great Sites to Visit! We reccomend these:

Choctaw County MS (the official site)
Duck and Deer Calls (wiley outdoor) They have boat blinds for you duck hunters out there!
Fine Jewelry & Diamonds Don't forget about engagement rings...
Jumbo Envelopes Made In Misssissippi
Honey Jelly Corporate Gifts

I've been slacking

But it's been for some very good reasons. We have been working like crazy to get some sites finished up and get some sales closed. We are really close on a couple and closed one yesterday.
I can't wait to see what is in store for the rest of this week.


I'm behind on my posting.. But I did want to share with you that www.thefacebook.com is one of the most interesting things i've ever seen online.

complete with photos like this one... I'm in a "group" called "i'm way too old for this $%##".... I think the picture makes it all worthwhile dont you?

I did it all in a night.

We just redesigned the Big River web site. I never really liked the one that we had up there, but as they say "the cobblers children have no shoes..." I don't get paid to work on my own stuff, so I just bit the bullet and did it.
If you are a cat lover, don't go to the site... If you are a dog lover, you might buy a web site just because it looks sooooooooo good. www.bigriversystems.com

Help me check it for typos. I'm sure there are some problems with it somewhere. We have an ad that will be on the WTVA traveller in about 6 hours, I don't know if i'll be awake to watch it or not. But I wanted to have a better looking site when we did the capitol campaign, and this was as good of a time as any.

No those aren't my dogs. But they are good looking dogs. I need to get some good ones of my girls and put on the BRS site. They'd be offended.

The Cannons Still Rumble

I was reading about the "killing / killin" trial today and found this story about some cannons that still are used just outside of Jackson to stop hail from damaging cars. I'm sure they will figure out another reason to stop capitalism from working.

So what did you think about the Killin trial? I like the way court TV had to call it the "KKK Trial..." What an interesting spin. The Klan wasn't on trial, but some 80 year old man. Don't think I'm trying to be sympathetic to him, I'm not. But I'm sick of the liberal media taunting this as something other than it is. It is something that should have happened a while back. But I get sick when I see Jesse Jackson get on TV and ranting and raving that society has created a industry of incarcerating black men. Saying that we (the white conservatives) have started a multi-billion dollar industry keeping blacks in jail. So let me get this straight. I get them to rob, and pillage, and shoot people and rape people so that I can make 9 bucks a day per head off of them in prison??? You have got to be kidding. Good call Jesse, you nailed it... (What an idiot!) Jesse, the village called, they need their idiot back!
How that has anything to do with the "Killen Trial" I have no idea... But Jesse had to link it somehow.

I'm not a Klan sympathizer, I don't believe in that type of thing. I get mad when a new (black owned) business is starting on main street and the old men down town start saying there is a "negra woman" opening up a .......
I get mad when elders in some churches don't think there is any thing wrong with the Klan, and they testify to such on national TV. (That's right, you saw a Presbyterian elder on national TV saying stuff to that effect.)

I know that this is a long post but the last thing I want to ramble about is the fact that this case, and others like it has been touted as a possible stepping stone for "reparations." I don't know what to think about that. If I took someone's money, and stole it. I should give it back with interest. If my great-great-grandfather owned slaves should I somehow be liable for that?(by the way he DIDN'T) How do you decide who is? Every white person? Southerners? I don't claim to know much about all of this, but I do know that I sure don't think that money is the answer to these problems.

So no one commeted on the $125 hair cut...

I'm very dissapointed. I happen to know for a fact that some of you read about this... and thought..."My wife will never do that!" and didn't even back me up... Pathetic. Really poor guys... Really poor.

I've had a crick in my neck that has bothered me since the moment I woke up on friday. It was so bad then, that I couldn't turn my head... I wish I could report that it's better... but its not.

Is it already Friday?

I can't belive that we are 1 hour away from being friday... This week has flown by. I can't remember another week going as fast as this one seemed to go. RYM didn't seem to go by this fast and that was REALLY fun. I don't know what makes it go by so fast, but I'm sure that being really busy has something to do with it. Business has been wild, cash flow has been more like cash po' this week. I think it has to do with taking a week off a month ago -- the things that take a month to pay, aren't paying right now. Anyhow, it's all coming back to me now. I'm working my cans off trying to get things going with the sales of some of our products. We've been working on a way to refine our message. I heard a brilliant man, Leland Speed talk today about "Knowing what you are selling." Or "Knowing what Business you are in."

I thought about that for a long time... Selling a new car isn't really about selling transportation (that could be a bike or scooter). It's more about selling the experience and the status of driving that brand new (terrible investment) that smells so nice and that is SOOOOO comfortable, and -- so much better than last years model that would have saved you 10 grand. So what do we sell I asked my self... We sell web sites. But we are in the "customer service" business.
I'm not scared to tell people that our hosting starts, rock bottom at $240 for a year. But I'm always quick to tell them that we also give them the owners cell phone number. Try getting the owners cell phone number for 4.95 a month. You can't even get a phone number for that. It doesn't matter if you are 50 times more expensive if you can be counted on to get done what the client needs, when they need it. C gives me a hard time when I carry my cell phone around all the time. I try to gently remind her that the cell phone has paid the bills for the past couple years when it rings. (It's also been a pretty big pain in the @$$ sometimes)

So back to what business am I in. I'd have to say we are in a couple of them. But the MAIN one. Is the customer service business. We take care of our customers. Even if it means taking a loss sometimes on a site. We have to take care of them first and foremost.

Speaking of customers.... I had the great priveldage of being at "Tokros" in starkville when my wife was getting her hair du did. (yes i called it a "hair du") We walked to the counter after it was all over and she said oh so sweetly -- "That will be $125." I almost had a heart attack. I couldn't belive it cost that much. That's a fourth of our mortgage payment to get some hair colored and cut. I must be in the wrong profession. C swore she had no idea it was that much. I swore that she needed to check the freaking prices before ordering. Dang.
Dang.... It still stings... I mean this isn't NYC. It's starkville. Give me a break.

Ok well, I'm about talked out for the night. I'm worn out for shore.... Basketball was fun, I'm not near as sore as I was at first, I guess I need to step up my game some.... If I could just afford new shoes... oh well, her hair looks really good, I'll wear the old shoes some more.

Finding the right man.......

For the pulpit.... We had a "consultant" for lack of a better word come to church the other night and give us a pep talk about finding a new pastor. He gave us some stuff to give us guidelines on how a pulpit committee is supposed to run. One interesting thing was that he said that we shouldn't have people from each group or faction of the church, but that we should have people who are good at the tasks needed to find a new pastor.

We took a survey to help identify the traits and characteristics of our church. It was something that I've never seen happen before. We are going about this in a "scientific" way. We haven't even got a pulpit committee made up yet, but maybe this will happen soon. I can't wait to see where we go. It's like you get to pick a mate or something -- getting to pick your new pastor.

We don't know when the PC will get created, or if I'll even be on it, but I'm really excited about this.
I'll have to post more later. C is watching TV and it's really distracting.

I can't believe that it's already thursday

Wow things have been happening fast. I get so sick of people talking about how busy they are. I know my faithful (HA) readers all are just as busy as I am, so don't think that I'm trying to say that I'm more busy, I just am really running wide open right now.

Things are exciting... They really are, H. my sales guy has been on the ground for a week, nothing closed yet, but it ususally takes two meetings to get to the right person (they call that the decision maker). We are going to see someone tomorrow who might have a BIG website that they need and also are very interested in bridal buddy.
I'm interested in paying all the bills this month :) as I am every month. It's really exciting to see things going, our new girl K. has been great. She's 30, working here in town, has been a cellular rep too. She didn't know much about what we were doing a week ago, but now has bought into the BRS plan. She's working hard and she's been great to work with. I'm lucky to have them both working here.
We just finished up a site www.thegrovejams.com that is really cool. I didn't know we could do stuff like that. We did, it looks great. I'm amazed at our little team. We have the over-excited guy with the vision and the excitment (and hopefully some management skills). The designer who is creative, but doesn't have more than a high school education. Another one of those, who's broken english happens to be better than my broken spanish. The new girl who is sharp... really sharp. The sales guy who used to be with a big time cell phone company... but was sick of it. And we really are like the Adam's Family -- odd but every one has a job and they are doing well at it.

God has really blessed us. I can't wait to see what we can do with it. Bridal Buddy might be the best thing since sliced bread for us. We have a marketing avenue that is cost effective that is getting 11 million wedding related visits (not hits) per month. It does cost some to get on it, but if we can get 500 of those to buy bridal buddy each month, at 50 bucks a pop... thats 25G's a month. I'm gonna bet we can sell at least 100 a month. We need something to hit.

so here I sit..... because I can't stand

I played basketball Tuesday night for almost 2 hours. Played 4 games of 5 on 5.
I'm soo sore, I played again tonight... I couldn't hit ANYTHING... I think it might be because my arms and legs feel like jello. I have muscles that I didn't even know I had that are crying out in pain. But I'm on my way to losing 20 lbs this summer.

New girl in the office is working great. She's a quick learner... motivated...teachable. What more can you want?

My new sales guy has spent the day training working on getting some presentations ready and I think he's about to take off on this thing. He's had some good ideas... I think the "staff" are starting to get what might be about to happen. We had a "staff meeting" if you can call it that. I have two people older than me working for me. One girl who doesn't have a college education... another that is great at flash design... and me... What a staff.
We talked about the future of the company... and about what our goals are for it. I think that they all buy in to "the dream"..... and see at least some of the potential from the products that we are launching. I can't wait to see this happen...

Ok I have to go take a hot bath and let my legs relax..... I'm gonna die.

My back...

Is killing me. I just moved some new purchases from "woodland" to the house and office. I got a new desk, I'm handing down my other one to Katie who will start on tuesday.

I still haven't gotten the signs up outside the building, but the inside is much cooler today after our new A/C was installed. I cranked it up today and got it nice and chilly for a while. It is much quieter than the other one, which does hurt the privacy part of things, but helps the background noise when you are on the phone etc.

The Red Hills Festival is tomorrow. I need to remember to take some photos and post them on the www.winstoncounty.com site. (just to do some good PR for them)

I'll be really glad when I'm asleep tonight.

Big Bro is smarter than we all thought

Jereme told me today about this. Makes good sense really.
"peope are emotional, and they make their decisions based on emotions and use logic to justify them"

This is the crux of selling. You have to first appeal to their emotions and subconscious.

ProClean & Much much cooler!

Well, last night we had a small renovation party. Prisock was up here working with me on getting our new A/C unit installed. It (the installation) lasted longer than I had hoped but its really nice to have a remote control for how cool you want to be. Now I just need to get a little paint touched up and a big recliner in here... oh and maybe a desk or two.

B2

I don't know if y'all read the mag called "Business 2.0" but it is such a great read for people like me. I stumbled across it at my tech-savy older brothers house 2 years ago. Since then I've received a gift of subscription for my first anniversary and I added 2 years to it for 19 bucks or so. It came in today...

I just got back from spending some time in my "library" as C. calls it. What a great read that thing is, with good ideas for business and product reviews and insight in to internet companies and just cutting edge product marketing.

Busy day for Big River, two new web sites, couple of product interested in buying... and other really cool stuff.

I love this job!

Did I mention I've been busy

Since we've last met. I've been trying to catch up from being gone, and moving in more fully in to the new office. I've been trying to not get too far behind on work, we had a staff meeting today and got our game plan ready on 15 web sites that we are working on.
BRS hired Heath to come work for us. He was with Cellular South and he's joined the Big River team. I can't wait to get him going on some sales calls. We are going to Oxford tomorrow to meet with some property management firms. We've got a game plan to sell about 10 of these systems a month to start with.

Speaking of game plans. I was at someone's house the other night for a party. His first name is Bernard, and well he's most famous for what he didn't know about 11 Billion dollars that disappeared in Clinton. Anyhow if you don't know who in the "world" I'm talking about you probably don't keep up with the news. He was really nice to me and I asked him how he got his start breaking in to the long distance market. He said that they had sales reps that called on businesses and they took it one day at a time gaining market share. I'm trying to do the same. Instead of mass marketing (no offense to you Catholics out there), we are going to hit the pavement first around here, then Jackson, Hattiesburg, Memphis and then move on to Atlanta and college towns across the south.

Ok so there's that. It was pretty interesting to talk to Bernie, but I'd hate to be in his shoes right now. I'm really tired from a long weekend of wedding stuff. C. has been doing that wedding directing stuff and it's about to wear me out. I was a DJ / sound man / official cooler temperature checker at the wedding that she had this weekend. I do have good news, the average temp of the beer in the cooler I checked was "just right" and that was about 14 out of 14 times. (Ok I'm kidding but it was nice and cold). Good for a hot afternoon in Btown.

Well I've been summoned to bed. Ya'll have a good one!

Back on the chain gang.... and some big news.

Well, I'm officially back in town. I've had a full day of work under my belt and it has been great.... Ok I lied, I'm not really that excited about it but the stack of checks today was 300 bucks higher than the stack of bills... Not bad when you've been out of town for a week. The beach was...well the beach... Sand, sun, and of course some suds. I didn't quite get in to a suitcase of beer, but I did have a couple and relaxed a little.

I had a great time using this Seimans wireless PDA with a GPRS / GSM modem in it. It was great for checking email on the go and helped me tons keep up with clients while I was away. I had a massage at the grand hotel, various dinners and on the way home... I got some new clothes. I hate spending tons of money on clothes... It's a frigging waste... C. always seems to be able to help me shop, and she likes spending money so it works out well that if I do need to buy something she can encourage me to spring for the purchase. I did get a pretty good deal, two pairs of jeans, two shorts, three long sleeved dress shirts, one polo shirt.... all for $115 bucks. Oh, the jeans by the way... they were LEVIS. Yep you guessed it I was in a thrift shop... No actually I was in Target. I couldn't belive the good deals they had. I've spent 40 bucks on a pair of jeans before...

Another fun development, C and I have an ongoing "discussion" about purses. She says that she "LOVES" that purse and it would be great with this outfit....yada.....yada.... (no disrespect just trying to be factual). Well we had a purse a month limit set up for a while... but somehow the limit didn't work... we were at one a week for a while... finally on this trip she had a fresh purse, couldn't have been 5 or 6 days old... Anyhow she wants this one that she just things is great.... Well we struck a deal, and she bought that purse, and will not buy ANY purses until September. I need all eyes and ears out there helping me keep up with this. Leave me a comment if you see her at the purse outlet.

In other news....
We had a OB appointment yesterday.... The wait is finally over. We now know the gender of the baby. (as far as they can tell anyhow) It's a girl. We are calling her Kate Taylor for now... And later too. It really makes her feel more real knowing that we have a real little girl in there in the fish tank swimming around. She's a person, with a soul, and fingernails and toes and eyes and all of that. I guess the thing that really made this kind of hit me in the last 45 minutes is that we got our first "real" baby gift. A little PINK outfit. Wow, I can't belive I'm going to have a little girl who will wear this stuff.... It doesn't feel like I should be that lucky. I guess I'm a little sappy right now, but it's an amazing thing that I had no idea I could even care this much about. The thing that has caused so much sickness and discomfort to my wife... Is a little girl called Kate. Kate, we can't wait, get here soon.

Oh, yeah, I want to thank the jerk who reminded me yesterday... "That's great, you just got nominated to pay for a wedding!" Man, I think I need to go back to the office for a while. Maybe get a couple more billable hours in.

Not home yet...

I've been enjoying the beach. With the exception of a couple of spots that got missed in the sun screen routine I'm doing pretty well. I have a couple of third degree burns on my body from the sun... But nothing too bad. We had yet another service nightmare last night at the bay side grill... I tried to email a post in with my PDA that i'm testing. I think the post was so long that my web mail connection timed out. I'll get that on here before too long. You really do need to read this. I'm not looking forward to getting back to work at all. I've done a little work here and there... But I'm mostly letting the office handle stuff while I'm out. My employees have been great while I'm gone. For all I know anyway. I haven't gotten any calls about them... at least thats good. I've got 3 new sites to work on... All sold while I was on the beach... Maybe I need to move down here. I might get more done.

Can't wait.

We are leaving in the morning to go here!
They have great rates and I can't wait. It sleeps 10, and at 780 for four days its only 19.50 a person / day.

It comes with a Pack 'N Play and some other stuff that I don't need, but the coolest thing I think is a Golf Cart. How cool is it to have your own Golf Cart. Granted I'm not a real golfer, but I love being able to tool around in one and not have to walk every where.

I'm missing my sisters graduation to go on this trip. I'll be gone till next week but we have a house sitter taking care of the dogs etc. We haven't been on a trip in a long time (C. loves to remind me.) The only problem is that she's got a cold coming on. I hope she can beat it with some good R & R... Too bad she can't drink. Robert is meeting us down there later, so he'll help pick up the slack I'm sure.

BEACH -- HERE WE COME!

So you can see what I've been working on. Yes we are making progress... On and get this, DSL turned on today. I'm hoping to be working out of there tomorrow. We'll start moving after the election returns tonight. Robert's uncle is running for Alderman...
*UPDATE* Dickie won the primary. Congrats!

After the party he'll be helping me get some stuff moved over so Mandy can start her day over there. I can't WAIT!

Fundraisers

Earlier tonight, a girl from our church called me wanting to know if I wanted to buy some stuff for a fundraiser for the cheerleaders. How do you tell a 16 year old that you don't want to donate AGAIN to their school project???
Well after donating to the silent auction, the BETA club, the math club, the general fundraisers and teaching out there for 2 years making half of what I'm "worth" an hour.... I finally said "no."
I wish there was a way for them to raise money doing something that is really valuable to people. I don't want cheesecake or cookie dough, I don't want wrapping paper and pop corn, I'm not done drinking the 4 cases of cokes that my wife caved in and bought last semester.
I've thought about a web fundraiser. Something where they could sell ads, on a web site that they updated, that had local news that was well written, and that they got some free advertising with the paper and radio from... They could get a lot of local traffic, and would get a chance to learn some cool stuff... But they would have a valuable thing to offer to people. I'd pay 20 bucks a month to get more business. If they did 10 --- simply 10 businesses, and had a real site that people would go to and that they updated... They would be able to raise $2400 bucks pretty quickly. Well if they had another ten, that had a smaller ad for 100 bucks, that would bring them up to $3400... I'd donate the site for the price of having the most prominent ad.

But the question is... What would you want to see on a site like that? Links to good MS and national news? Sort-of a "local-Drudge" site? Local scoop on stuff? I bet they could find some really good stuff. Maybe write some opinon articles, stuff about the local mayoral races etc... There is some liability in this of course. But you could monitor it via the board and make sure that everything was cool on the site.
If this works here, who's to say that we couldn't do it in really big towns like Atlanta, and sell ads for $75 a month, and get 100 people on there. Splitting that 50 / 50 would make it worth my while. Having the traffic make the site work... What do you think would be news worthy that would generate traffic?

Getting Closer

I've been amazed at how much a good straightening up today made the building look much better.
C. was up there and she helped get things straightend up and they are looking ready to go. I need to get bellsouth to get my router up there so I can get on the interenet.
It's killing me.
We really could move in monday. There are more things that need to be done but it's looking pretty good for the home team.

Another dilema that I'm facing. What color to paint the front to the building. Right now its a bright blue color. The top (on the other side of the awning) is red (brickish color). I have a red building on my left and a white building on my right. What colors do you like?
Not pink. No lavender.... but what else...

I've been hanging fabric on the walls on one side like wall paper, using a staple gun and fabric glue it's actually looking better than I thought it was going to look. C. has been a good encourager on that front. I also have a display window that I can put something in. What do you put in a display window when your product is a service? (Web design...hosting...custom apps etc....)
Maybe plants? If I had the big bucks, I could put a plasma screen in there with a power point about our company -- but lets face it -- the average joe walking down main street can't even spell the word "web." We don't live in New York or anything.

Give me some feedback. I need some help here!

Isn't there a song about this?

I've been "working on a building" now for the past couple of days. I keep thinking that there's an old Gillian Welch or Allison Krauss song about that. I had my buddies Adam and Robert come help me finish the nailing and hanging the wall fabric last night. We finished off the rest of the beer from Saturday. (Not bragging but reporting....) It certianly helped the morale of the work crew. We ended up having to make a Wal-Mart run -- or as I call it "hell-mart" trip to get some more supplies. While we were there we saw out local vet who has taken a shine to a single mom friend our ours. While he wasn't looking we took a bunch of flowers and put them in his cart. He didn't notice for a minute, but then he started looking around trying to figure out who had pranked him.
It was funny. He was befuddled. I love that word.

I've talked about this before but I had a meeting with Cingular last week. We are going to be testing one of their wireless devices that uses WAP to browse the web. I can't wait. I used it while I was down there with them eating lunch and checked my email and told employees what to do using it. Anything that isn't extremely expensive that helps keep us getting more done each day is worth it in my book. If its 400 bucks, but can help me bill an extra 5 hours a month, for the next year.... you better believe I'll be doing that!

Check back soon, when I get my digital camera working again I'll post some photos of the building in action. We need a good name for it. Maybe "Big River Headquarters".

Also, my buddy Robert is starting a carpet / floor cleaning business. He's looking for a name. Any ideas? We thought about "Prisock Indoor Management Pro's" he could go by the acronym "PIMP." Maybe it's not as good as I thought, but I got a kick out of it.

I'm leaving on a jet plane

Well, I'm not leaving as much as I'm moving offices around the corner from where I am. I have about a 15 X 15 office right now. We are renovating and moving in to a 12 x 50 building now. It was a building used for storage for the owner who also happens to own two other businesses right down the sidewalk on the same block as me. They are good clients of mine and when he said he had some space, I was excited. I ended up making a deal on the building (renting) and would be moving in on the "first." My friend and I talked every day or so to see how the cleaning out of the old building was going. Finally at a standstill, I took my employees down there and cleaned it out and started getting ready to move in.

We took down some old painted plaster / wallpaper that was cracking and gross. We ended up deciding that we would hang fabric on the wall that was in bad shape (not structurally) but to the eye.
Well, the night before I started working on this project with the office. I had a rough night of sleep. My neck had a crick in it that was awful. I felt like that robot on Star Wars, when I looked left I twisted at the hip. I was painting, scraping, lifting, cleaning etc... for the last two days. Finally, it seemed to have lightened up some. I hope its gone for good. I wish I had a massage therapist in my family. Oh, wait, I do have one, she just freaking moved to NYC.... Good call Gertrude, we could have used you here you know!
So back to the cleaning, I had my boy Robert helping me doing some painting. Robert is a SR at MSU and will be finished in a couple of weeks. He's going to start his own business too, he's got a pretty mean work ethic when there's beer involved so I did the logical thing. Got 2 bags of ice and a case of beer. Then I was struck with this question: "Do you want to be known as the guy who is down town throwing back the cold ones??"

Well I didn't want to be known like that so we had to sneak the cooler in. It helped with the morale of the work crew. But I don't know about the quality of the work. I was hoping to be moved in on Monday. I can tell you that is NOT going to happen. Maybe Tuesday. If I can get some more helpers!

Anwar no more

Anwar just got kicked off... I'm crushed, I can't believe it. What will I ever do?
I'm just kidding, I never liked him. I'm sure he'll be like Clay Aiken and sell more records than Bo who will probably win.

What a day, I've never had a week where I've been more broke, but so busy. I've got three proposals to get out ASAP and I've got a meeting about a new product collaboration with Cingular to offer one of our web-based products with one of their PDA devices.

I did have a bright spot in my life the other night talking to liddy. She's got a blog and it's funny. Keep up the good work.

Thank Goodness It's Friday

Had a great day at work. Well that is except for class out at the school. I just don't like the talk-back I get from some of the kids out there. They didn't ruin my day. I got a chance to talk to one of my clients for a while today. We are finishing up their site and it was great getting to chat with them for a while. I really appreciate them a lot.

We had a great time tonight eating at Harvey's in Starkville. About halfway through the meal we heard some sirens. Our waitress came and told us "You should be glad you ate here, Barnhills Buffet is on fire!!!"
I was glad. Didn't seen any flames when we got done with dinner. I was going to go get some marshmellows and a coat hanger but didn't have enough open flame to cook on. Maybe next time.

Well it's that time again...

Batch's birthday is here yet again. Happy Birthday buddy. I hope you aren't as old as I think you are. Let's just leave it at that.
We have been stinkin busy around here. I've had quite a time with Big River rolling along. Lot's of stuff to do, but seemingly no income this past week. I invoiced out another 4 or 5G's this week, so maybe we'll get paid soon. I did pay my taxes. It did hurt, but I survived. Somone please remind me to estimate those things this year so I don't get killed. We also hired a new girl this week. Her name is the same as my youngest sister, but spelled completely different. She's been learning. We hope to have her up to speed by the end of this month. She'll be full time after she graduates in May. She'll then get married, take another week off... and then come in full time after that.

We also had the privelidge of seeing Louisville newest resident. Her name is Haley Virginia.
She's the daugter of L. and T. some good friends of ours. We went to Jackson to visit them in the hospital. Our car broke down.... but it was just some corrosion on the battery terminal that I was able to fix with the help of the rent-a-cop in the target / olive garden parking lot.
I also had the distinct honor of eating my supper about 10 feet from Ligon Duncan. I spoke to him and he was very helpful with suggestions about the car getting fixed. He also drives a Nissan (so he said) and reccomended a couple of places for me to take care of us if we needed it.
Thanks Lig... we got it done!

So, i'm going to see if this post to the blog via email thing works.

So if you are reading this, you can see that this is posted up there. C has been sharing the joys of being in JA... Junior Aux.... that's one of those womens groups that does civic stuff. I won't say anything bad, not that I think people from town even read this. I'll have to post more later.

Thanks for the props

I recently updated my template links. I had a broken link to Joseph's blog.
C. is telling me some stuff...
I'll have to write more in a little while

Wind

I've never seen it this bad... But wind is so bad right now that it's blowing down our side street and blowing our door open... I had to lock it.
That is pretty bad. I've recovering from this past weekend. Lots of things going on. Last week was the busiest one that I've had in a long time -- maybe ever. I felt like the week of final exams when I had a F in CAL I that I had to bring up to a D to graduate. Not a good feeling. Now I feel like midterms are over, but I really need to buckle down.

UPDATE: Vonage
I used my Vonage phone today. It works great. I just wish I could sync it with my cell phone and put all those numbers in there. I have some 240 numbers in my cell phone, I'd love to be able to dial them from my land-line phone... It sure would help. This vonage thing is really just a router that handles VoIP. You can plug any phone in to it that you want and call nation wide for about 26 bucks a month. Now thats great. Why hasn't Bell South given us that option yet? Probably because their revenue would go way down. It is just WAAAAAAAY cheaper than anything else that we could have done.

Trying to get one in real quick like

Well, I'm at work (when am I not at work?).... I have tons to do. But I just wanted to update my life very quickly..

• I have 12 people to call back
• I have 2 people to talk to about joining the company here
• I just paid my property taxes that Regions Mortgage screwed up
• I paid an extra month on my principle of my loan for the house
• I have a pretty fair amount of taxes that I need to pay
  
• I sold 2 websites yesterday
• I'm now the president of BNI in Starkville
• Chandler and Ragan are coming to town this weekend
• The Winston County Relay for Life is this weekend
• The RUF Crawfish Boil is this weekend
• We are terminating the relationship with our pastor this weekend and starting the search process
• I'm getting ready to move in to our new building on Main Street
  

So anyhow... now you are all up-to-date. I'm doing the best I can. But I feel like I'm not quite getting everything done that I need to do.

I'm back to work!!!!

The AARP

Is the biggest group of punks that I've ever seen. They think that what GWB is doing is trying to "dismantle" social security. Well you can't do whatever you want to with it. I'm pretty dang sure that I'm not getting any of that SS money anyhow. I'm just planning on makeing enough to never need the 20 bucks a month that uncle sam will let me have when i'm 72 (That will be the retirement age by the time I'm there).

Ok, now that I'm over that... I'l go back to my day and update you on my life as I know it. Well I haven't killed any turkeys recently. I've been working on trying to find that special person in my life... (no not to marry) for sales. I think the difference that will change things for the company to put us on the map, will be getting the right person in there to help with sales. I'm doing so much other stuff, that I can't get as much done on the sales side.
I actually was sick today. So I spend some time using a soundboard from ebaumsworld.com. I didn't get the greatest responses, but I did have some fun with it. I hope I feel well enough to get lots of work done tomorrow.

This is going in the paper, but you heard it here first, un-edited

Web : Small Word, Big Opportunity
By Andy Chapman

In the lives of many Louisville residents, the word “web” is becoming common. The use of the internet and email is growing nationally and is growing locally as well. In the past two years, at least 20 local businesses have ventured online. Speedy Calvert, owner of Winston Furniture Company, didn’t have a computer a year ago. Now his daily routine includes adding items from his popular radio spot, Switch N Swap, to the online version of Switch ‘N Swap.

Local usage of internet access has grown with the advancement of technology. The Mud Jug now boasts of WIFI internet access. Visitors stopping in for a cup of coffee can bring their laptop, check their email, and browse the web for free.

So what does the internet do? How does it help?

John Taylor Paschal of Temtco Steel, Inc has had visitors from over 37 countries at his company’s web site in the past month. “The internet has opened up many new opportunities for us at Temtco. We keep updating our site constantly and have eliminated many of the brochures that we used to use. With 99% of our customers having internet access, we can easily communicate with them, letting them look at the site for information that doesn’t have to be faxed or mailed any more,” says Paschal.

The ultimate test for a business website is increased business. Paschal went on to say that they recently received a quarter of million dollar order from India from the recent modifications that they had implemented to their web site.

With names like Google, EBay and Yahoo becoming common place, people are starting to realize that they can find just about anything they want on the internet. Jobs are listed and searched; economic development activity is channeled. Gerald Mills, the head of Economic Development for Winston County, noted “Having an attractive, up-to-date web site has helped us as we recruit new companies to come here to Louisville. We use the internet to market available buildings, which is a critical part of economic development. Mills noted that every prospect has looked at the WinstonCounty.com web site before making initial contact. “If we aren’t in that mainstream technology, we are left out. If they can’t visit us via the internet, we miss opportunities,” said Mills.

Web sites can do many things for a company, including communicate information, display a listing (like a home for sale) or actually provide an outlet for commerce where items can be purchased and shipped from an online source. Al Porter of Porter Funeral Home is one of the most recent businesses in Winston County to venture on to the web. “I have been using email and internet access for a while, but having our arrangement information on the web has helped get the word out to people and has increased communication,” said Porter. Porter also noted that it’s fun to get photos of various hunting expeditions via email.

So what is the big deal about the internet? It can help people keep in touch with friends and relatives, it can help businesses communicate with one another, it can be a source of revenue, and it can be fun. So, the next time you hear someone talking about getting on the internet, maybe you should pay a little more attention to what they are doing. They just might be saving themselves time, or money, or even having some fun keeping up with friends. If you have any questions or would like to get your business online, please contact Andy Chapman at Big River Systems at 662-803-3282.

Andy Chapman is owner of Big River Systems, LLC a web development firm located in Downtown Louisville.

Samuel Lee Chapman

What a handsome Uncle I turned out to be.
Little Sam is 3 days old now. We are so excited to be able to visit the little one. Last time they had one it was in Germany. They did "steal" our name... But we'll have to think of something else to call ours....

Finally!!!! Charlie and I went out to hunt this morning. Yesterday was the warmest day that we've had here in a while. I told him when we got out of the truck that I had a good feeling. By 6:15 that good feeling was a great feeling. We doubled up on a couple of 2 year-old birds. They came right down an old logging road to us. Charlie took the one on the right, I the left... As they say, the proof is in the pudding. This was one of the best turkey hunts I think I've ever been on. Don't tell Charlie, he wants me to build him a website for free.
If you want to hear charlie tell the story and see a video look here click on the AVI file. (until I get the HTML page ready).

My boy has nice feet. Look at those things, He's gonna be a track star.

I just figured out how to get pictures on here. So this should make it less boring to read about the front lines of life. I thought I'd put the best looking women in town on here.... So here's three of them with their primary care provider.

Turks...and lots of them.

Edward saw these Rio's and Easterns out in Cali. I wish I could get on 4 gobblers tomorrow. I'm dying for a kill. I'm 2 years overdue.

The legacy ends.

Hello all,

I know all the Mississippi State alumni would be interested in the fact
that The Landing has burned down. I don't know when. Such a tragedy.

To the non MSU alumni, the burnt pile of bricks was the only place you
could drink without fear as a freshman. It was also open 7 days a week.

Turkey Bloggin

I was awakened this morning at around 4:30 with the sound of my phone ringing. I only have a cell phone, I believe in keeping my overhead low. I've figured that I've saved about 700 bucks so far by not having a "real" telephone. Not to mention the annoying telephone calls from solicitors. Well my phone is set on a ring that I feel like is very polite. "BEEP BEEP" silence "BEEP BEEP"...
you get the point. Well, it rings and scares the daylights out of me which happens to be pretty easy because at 4 am, there ain't much day light. So I jump out of bed grab the phone and manage a "hello?". It was Charlie, my turkey hunting buddy who I remembered later that I had told to call me about going hunting. He said he'd be there in 15 minutes so I got ready and waited. Our last few attempts had been miserable.
We actually managed hear one within about 15 minutes of getting to the woods. We heard one about 2 ridges over, and we lit out trying to be quiet but hurry. It's hard for a fat boy to be quiet. It's harder for a fat boy to walk half a mile carrying a gun, wearing boots, and blazing a trail through thick brush. I think I did a pretty good job. We heard him gobble a couple of more times and were getting all set up. Charlie hit the crow call again but we didn't hear a peep. Something spooked him. (could it be the heavy breathing????) We waited and called and waited. Nothing happend. We ended up leaving by 7:15, but we were encouraged. We also saw one as we were leaving the woods. If I didn't have BNI tomorrow, I'd probably go again.
I talked to Al and Wendall, neither of them had any luck either. It was a good thing we left the woods when we did. By 8:20 we had a terrible storm coming in.
I will have posted on this blog, pictures of a turkey that I harvested...if I have to go to Sunflower to get one...

Back to blogdom

Bass, my closest programming / business minded, genius friend has opened up davidbass.com again. I'm not sure if it will be a full fledged blog or not but I'm hoping so.

Funny thing just happend. I hit the spellcheck button. "blog" and "blogdom" both were flagged as misspelled. Kind of an odd couple of words until the last few years I suppose. But for those of you who are new out there -- THIS IS A BLOG!!!!
Blogdom is by my definition: "Entering into, or pertianing to the art of having a web log or what is commonly know as a blog. Blogdom is the realm of people who don't know each other (or some that do) but they read and comment on each others lives."

I'll wait to hear from MW.
The need me for some techspeek.

Easy Like Sunday Mawning

I've had a long Sunday AM. I teach Sunday school, then go to church, then a nap, then back for evening, then to youth group at 7.
Fortunately, today I got a small break. We had a farewell dinner after church today for our pastor of 11 years. He'll be looking for something else, we'll be looking for a new pastor. It was a emotional day at the church. We aren't having evening services, (I can't say that I'm too upset about that.) We cancelled youth group too. Even I need a break sometimes. We also have another meeting up at 4:00 PM. I helped pick the time, never dreaming that my Bulldogs would be playing basketball at the exact same time. I just hope there are no double teams at our meeting.

So, in about 2 hours, I'll be able to watch the MSU game, and spend time with the wife for the evening. I can't wait. Rest for me is very welcome.

Any State fans out there?

I should write a book

You wouldn't believe it if I told you, but I guess I'll tell ya anyhow. I'm here in a Borders bookstore (they have a t-mobile hotspot) where you can get on and use the internet. I use it a good bit here. Anyhow, I sit here in the corner and all of the stereotypes that one would imagine are here... Time to go.... I'll have to make some quick mental notes and report back to you.

Trust me, you'll enjoy this one.

Update: I tried to update this last night and blogger.com went south on me.
C tells me that I should write a short story about this thing and call it "Too much money, not enough sense."
I think that sums up lots of the folks I saw in the coffee shop yesterday there were some really interesting people. The first one I noticed as I walked up was "Annoying-Overconfident-Hyper-Loud-Talker" gut (henceforth AOHLT). He was on his cell phone outside the cafe, talking loud enough for me to hear him about 40 feet away. He was the guy that you'd expect with somewhat low self-esteem, that compensates by creating as much ruccous as possible so that everyone else has to take notice of him. (more on him later) On my left was the "Lady-Who-Thinks-She's-Seventeen-Not-47." (hencforth LWTSSN4). She had a $4.27 Latte and a bran muffin, her conversation was with her friend Susan about the teacher that had sent her daughter home early from Prep. She had a cronic case of talking with her hands, (something I've been accused of but I'm not this good). I couldn't help but get the impression (possibly from the amount of diamonds on her fingers, neck and ears) that she could have owned a diamond mind in another life. While she jabbered on her phone, the "Annoyed-Girl" who was listening to Mp3's on her laptop while flipping through the latest copy of Cosmo and InStyle, was tossing her hair and tossing annoyed glances her way. When I caught her eye, she rolled her eyes as if her study of whatever the heck was in the magazines was of utmost importance. I'm sure she was trying to memorize "16 ways to drive him crazy" so that she wouldn't have to actually buy the magazine.
Meanwhile, AOHLT has come in side, and is on his laptop, which starts to make noises. His 12 year old son is with him, and he says loud enough for everyone to hear. "Well, I think we have plenty of time before our flight goes, lets get a ham sandwhich or something." I was trying to get some work done (believe it or not). I wasn't interested in what he was ordering. I thought he'd walk over to the counter but then his cell phone rang. What ringtone did he have???? No it wasn't the little polite ring... no, it wasn't at rap song... it was William Tell.... I have no idea why he felt the need to take 6 cycles of the ring before picking it up, but he did. AG shot a look in his direction, as he started talking really loud and looking at a spreadsheet. I don't know what was in cell b-14, but it was pretty important and he kept talking about sales numbers in b-14 and b-18. I almost got up to sell him a web site, but I really like 99% of my customers a lot, and don't really like doing business with people that drive me up the stinking wall. He finally shut the phone off, and when to get the food for his son.
I figured that maybe I'd get something done, but LWTSSN4's daughter came in wearing half of a mini-skirt (must have been at that half-off sale or something). She looked like a Britney Spears Wannabe. Apparently she didn't have her bank account, because she walked in and got some money from mommy for shopping... With the money in hand, she was off... I wondered if that might work with Annoying-Guy... But I only had 5 bucks on me. So I spent it on 20 ounces of frozen coffee. (I had to have some energy to write my latest rant about gas prices)...

Ok so you get the picture...Bunch folks, lots of attitude. It was very entertaining. I really should write a book. I'll work on my story telling and get back to ya.