Saturday, December 26, 2009
Why I'm Freezing.....
If you get away from the frenzied dialogue of Global Warming, you probably know that the earth has been warming and cooling it's entire life. From the founder of The Weather Channel, an explanation.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
A CHRISTMAS for CAROL
This will be the fourth Christmas I've spent with my Mom since my Dad passed away in November of 2006. Last year my Mom moved into the retirement community...to a nice little house just about right for her, but it's not the old family home on Douglas we're she had lived for the last 50 years. Those who have lost a close family member know how their absence changes the holidays. So, I've tried to think of ways to make our Christmas alone a little more special but, frankly, it's been a little hard and it hasn't felt much like Christmas to me.
My Mom has always been a hard person for me to find the appropriate gift to present to her. Being a child of the depression her answer to "what do you need, or want for Christmas?" has always been, "Oh nothing really, I don't need a thing". And now, later in her life being in good financial shape, this is all the more true.
So last year I was amazed when she volunteered that she had a present in mind for me to give to her. The present she wanted, and she brought it up several times, was ...........Stamps. Postage stamps. We both laughed, but she said she was serious. So, making me feel a tad ashamed, that's what she got for her present....and some festive flowers. But for several week I thought to myself, "great son....you give your Mom stamps for Christmas". But all through the year she brought up how wonderful it was to have these stamps. She is still a letter writer so she does use them.
And so this year she asked me with a gleam in her eye, if she was going to get more stamps. I said if that's what her heart desired, then stamps it is. But she added, "...and a Timex watch, I just need an ordinary watch". Today I went to buy the stamps, double the amount this year, and I bought her the most expensive Timex watch I could find. Total tab.....under $50. But you know, I'm going to see her smile broadly at these gifts which will bring a little more joy to me this Christmas.
My Mom has always been a hard person for me to find the appropriate gift to present to her. Being a child of the depression her answer to "what do you need, or want for Christmas?" has always been, "Oh nothing really, I don't need a thing". And now, later in her life being in good financial shape, this is all the more true.
So last year I was amazed when she volunteered that she had a present in mind for me to give to her. The present she wanted, and she brought it up several times, was ...........Stamps. Postage stamps. We both laughed, but she said she was serious. So, making me feel a tad ashamed, that's what she got for her present....and some festive flowers. But for several week I thought to myself, "great son....you give your Mom stamps for Christmas". But all through the year she brought up how wonderful it was to have these stamps. She is still a letter writer so she does use them.
And so this year she asked me with a gleam in her eye, if she was going to get more stamps. I said if that's what her heart desired, then stamps it is. But she added, "...and a Timex watch, I just need an ordinary watch". Today I went to buy the stamps, double the amount this year, and I bought her the most expensive Timex watch I could find. Total tab.....under $50. But you know, I'm going to see her smile broadly at these gifts which will bring a little more joy to me this Christmas.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Potholes.....kill or cost money
The story of potholes in Midland takes a costly turn.....
Mean Street Kick Ass
Mean Street Kick Ass
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
1 Billionth served....
Project "Honey Pot" is an anti-spam organization that I signed up with last year. People like me who have websites contribute to the "Honey Pot" by placing useless email addresses on our websites. These allow criminals to "harvest" these addresses with their computer "Bots" and so become part of a spammers hit list. What the bad guys don't know is that the future spam replies to these addresses go to the "Honey Pot" folks who then track and keep track of them.
I received an email this morning from them saying they had received their one billionth spam reply. They offer up the interesting spam stats below and you can see the entire stat sheet at: Honey Pot Stats Take a look, some very interesting findings.
- Monday is the busiest day of the week for email spam, Saturday is the
quietest
- 12:00 (GMT) is the busiest hour of the day for spam, 23:00 (GMT) is the
quietest
- Malicious bots have increased at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 378% since Project Honey Pot started
- Over the last five years, you'd have been 9 times more likely to get a
phishing message for Chase Bank than Bank of America, however Facebook is rapidly becoming the most phished organization online
- Finland has some of the best computer security in the world, China some of the worst
- It takes the average spammer 2 and a half weeks from when they first
harvest your email address to when they send you your first spam message,
but that's twice as fast as they were five years ago
- Every time your email address is harvested from a website, you can expect
to receive more than 850 spam messages
- Spammers take holidays too: spam volumes drop nearly 21% on Christmas Day and 32% on New Year's Day
I received an email this morning from them saying they had received their one billionth spam reply. They offer up the interesting spam stats below and you can see the entire stat sheet at: Honey Pot Stats Take a look, some very interesting findings.
- Monday is the busiest day of the week for email spam, Saturday is the
quietest
- 12:00 (GMT) is the busiest hour of the day for spam, 23:00 (GMT) is the
quietest
- Malicious bots have increased at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 378% since Project Honey Pot started
- Over the last five years, you'd have been 9 times more likely to get a
phishing message for Chase Bank than Bank of America, however Facebook is rapidly becoming the most phished organization online
- Finland has some of the best computer security in the world, China some of the worst
- It takes the average spammer 2 and a half weeks from when they first
harvest your email address to when they send you your first spam message,
but that's twice as fast as they were five years ago
- Every time your email address is harvested from a website, you can expect
to receive more than 850 spam messages
- Spammers take holidays too: spam volumes drop nearly 21% on Christmas Day and 32% on New Year's Day
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