Family Update

I don't have too much news family wise. Zach called yesterday and said he got his promotion to PFC. It'll be 9 months for lCpl. Unless you have two people who will enlist and go through boot camp for the Marines...let me know. Then he would get lance Cpl when those two have completed boot camp. He is still waiting for class to start and is spending some good character building time cleaning mostly. I think he is working out too.

Ike in a typical winter activity
Kt and Ike are just sorta moseying through the winter. Kt starts track next week. That will get her occupied. Ike is waiting for track to begin but I think he has another 5-6 weeks to wait. They both work 1-2 days a week now. Kt doesn't work as much as before because JCP as most retailers, are cutting back and making do with less. Ike starts a 5 day winter break tomorrow and Kt gets a 4 day winter break starting Thursday. Ike will most likely have his peeps over in that time period. They are pretty much a standard Friday night crowd now.

Katie has been receiving introductory mailings from every college in the world. They pour in day after day. I'd be happier if they were just scholarships right off the bat. We'll see. If Kt can nail an ROTC scholarship or similar deals she just might try to get into a few schools she is currently interested in. At the moment Norwich University is near her top pick. It is a university with a military emphasis similar to VMI or the Citadel yet not quite so nutty. It is in Vermont so that would put her back in the land of her youth and only a little ways away from spending quality time with the Johnson's. I can just see Terry and Cheryl hunkering down in their house and turning the lights off..."If we don't move..maybe she'll go away". If there are no scholarships and aid and what not Kt still seems interested in plan B which is to enlist in the Marines, get some education while she's in the marines and then finish up college afterwardswith the GI bill.

Karen is gearing up for two more classes as well. Hopefully they will be more fun than her English class. Although Mrs. Smarty pants aced her classes and maintains her 4.0 it was not without an undo amount of angst and whining and complaining. That probably has a lot to do with the academic world's view of writing compared to the more practical world of business writing. Having a chance to read the drivel and commentary of the professor and its no wonder our youth come out of college so screwed up. Karen and I share an equal distaste for the conventions of academic writing. Thankfully that was her last college English class.

I spent two hours talking with ATT Uverse last night trying to resolve a problem where when I use Remote Desktop Connection/ FTP/ and MS Frontpage all at the same time, the connection will crash and then the IP address to my webserver becomes unavailable at my home router. I can reach it from work or anywhere else. Just not from any computer in my house. I know whats wrong. Clearly something is bumping my IP address from the DNS machine. Then days later when they update the DNS machine it will come back. HOWEVER. finding a person at ATT who understands this level of technological sophistication is impossible. I had to take them through all the diagnostic procedures and commands just to prove to them that there is nothing in my personal router or network causing this problem. So after all that time I had to end the call with no resolution. I believe I will be designing a hack that forces a refresh on stale DNS machines within the ATT domain. grrrrrr.