Spring Break in Seattle

Craving seafood......

FINALLY, a picture of the 'birds' :)

Serenity.....

Cameron and his 'other' best friend, Danny, at the Boeing plant

Fantasizing about their dream jobs......

Start Up Weekend...

Pretty amazing....about 1/2 dozen folks in Austin's group when they arrived Friday night armed only with enthusiasm and a ton of brain cells. Forty-eight hours later, they have their idea conceptualized and website up and running! It is called Hitsurance . The concept was born out of the idea of what happens to a website that has just been swamped with traffic because they were just mentioned on Oprah, CNN, etc. and their server cannot handle the activity. Folks would tend to lose confidence in the web application and any attempt to impress the 1st time visitor is lost.

With their product, visitors are redirected to a freely available caching service (memory storage center) at peak times where the application can recontact those attempting to visit and let them know when their site has been restored. As a result of this service, communication is maintained with those interested in visiting your site!

Our Easter Honey...

Empty Nesters

Austin, other than sleeping at our crib, is pretty much gone all weekend which started Friday night. He is particpating in StartUp Weekend in Boulder, a unique idea for eager entrepreneurs. He got home very excited last night and you can see him in action in this clip.

Cameron is heading to Seattle tomorrow to meet his new love interest's parents. While he and another teen pilot were originally planning on the long Cessna 172 trek, for a variety of reasons, they chose to go commercial route. His friend's dad is a United Airlines pilot and he is spotting all 3 of them buddy passes at $80 1st class, round trip---now that is a nice gig! AND yes, we have asked Cam to email us a picture of new new cutie, but it has yet to hit his To Do list. He plans on visiting the Sky Needle and, of course, the Boeing plant. The usual Seattle forecast awaits him.

Teri and I were discussing at dinner last night our 2 social creatures. We have absolutely no idea what gene pool they derived it from, certainly not their parents. Perhpas their late Aunt KK is my only guess.

Teri and I are doing Easter Service tonite as I have an overtime slot tomorrow morning. Royalty (Princess Brynn) is due at our house a little after lunch time for some ham and other delish morsels.

Everyone but dad is on Spring break--send e-sympathy cards to me.

Later,

D

Headlines you dont want to see....

on a quiet Sunday morning...and my father-in-law had the audacity to brag that it was 94 degrees in Texas this past Friday...

5 to 10 inches of snow expected in metro area

As another storm system approaches, a significant amount of snow is expected to accumulate in the metro area by Monday morning. 9NEWS Meteorologist says the next winter storm is set to hit Colorado Sunday evening and it could be a big one.

A WINTER STORM WATCH goes into effect for the metro area at midnight and the storm could bring as much as 5 to 10 inches of snow to the metro area, while the foothills are expected to get 6 to 14 inches.

Take a live look at Denver weather here.


oh well, another opportunity to fullfil 2008 goals in helping the neighbors shovel their sidewalks :)

True Texans....

My heart still beats as one..........

Been a long....

time since only myself and the boys went out together...as a matter of fact, probably years. I know we have done things as a family and then me with each of them, but not as a threesome. So, where do three 6+footers go--an NBA basketball game, of course. Actually, Austin's business club at high school had some discount tickets they were selling as a fund raiser. We figured we would buy 3 knowing Cam wouldn't go due to his hectic schedule. But, surprisingly, he joined us and Teri MORE THAN WILLINGLY gave up her slot to him. The Nuggets dominated the game
so much that we departed at the end of the 3rd quarter!

Marketing Man

Austin was one of about 100 folks who attended Tech Stars for a Day in Boulder last week. He is vying for one of the Top 10 'hot ideas and companies' spots that is up to be awarded in April. An expected 500-800 competitors worldwide are expected to submit their ideas. He had some inside scoop the execs liked ping pong so he branded his company logo Blogonize onto some ping pongs balls and purchased an eye-catching container and quietly left them behind. From a post today on their website, it looks like they found them!

Ring....ring...ring....

Lionel Richie called, he wants his Afro back !

Just another day at my babysitting job....

Why do wives have to go through the old photos--is there anything good that really comes of it...she probably needs a few more household chores to keep her busier....

Ladies and Gentlemen....

Lamb vs Lion

Well, day 1 of March--record high heat for the date in Denver--74 degrees! This morning--Blizzard Warning. The lion has triumphed!

Oh My....

Where are these months going--oh yeah, February, short month. I love February cause the financial budget actually works well for 28-29 days. Don't know why God didn't make them all this short, probably didn't know what He was doing--yeah right. So another month gone by and time to check 2008 goal progress---really not for you to be bored with, but just to keep me motivated.

1) Change template on my Blog---Accomplished!

2) "Rubber" exercise goal of 1,000 miles--129 miles in January, 151 miles in February. When you have yummies popping out like these out of our stove both in the same day, Lord knows you have got to keep the aerobic activity full steam ahead. Forget losing weight, maintaining weight is so hard to do. I haven't stepped on the scale in a month, I think someone told me it broke or something like that. Sometimes don't you wish you were sugar intolerant-- exercising less sounds so appealing.So, my road map now has me just leaving Clayton, NM on my way to the Texas hill country by the end of the year!

3) Do something big for God--something I haven't done before and devoted to glorify. Marking this off as we are debt free. For Valentine's Day, Teri got a blank check to pay off her credit card balance--a bit over 4 digits. So, yes, we still have a mortgage, but I feel confident the Lord sees that as an obligation, not Biblical debt, simply due to the amount of equity that we have. Free at last, free of bondage, hallelujah!

4) Take a family airplane vacation. Pending, money for trip available, destination unknown. Explored this a bit in February--took a peek at Hilton Head, SC---$600 per night for a hotel--HOLY COW, I just wanted to rent a room, NOT BUY IT! You kidding me--and we weren't even going to play golf--just to hang out and tan on the beach. I can go to the 'fake and bake' tan shop here for $6 a visit.

5) Keep the Ebay biz going and shooting for 5 digit gross income. Monthly goal $833.00, January gross income:$1,282 February, $1198-even with taking Super Bowl Sunday off--accomplished!

6) Home improvements---master bath flooring and living room entry way--upgrade-We did agree in February that Pres GW's tax stimulus rebate will go towards getting this goal accomplished.Pending.

7) Be a good neighbor. For the Winter time at least, I have put this into play by snow shoveling our entire cul-de-sac sidewalk andshovel the driveways of my widow neighbor and the most elder couple at the end of the block. - Once, wasn't a very snowy month. Only one significant snow event in February and did do it then. A lil help from my neighbor with a gas powered blower was some nice help-accomplished!

8) Help support Cameron's flying efforts and goals--Accomplished-provided some fuel money for his Austin, TX New Year's trip. Our efforts in February were to meet with him to work on improving his budget so he would have more money to fly--he has done swell and showing some real discipline in this area!

9) Help support Austin's biz adventure with ideas, solutions, financing, etc. Accomplished- 'content editor' for Austin's video and some guidance with his next contest submission. Also, new effort in embryotic state-FLIGHTBULBS--remember the name! In February, we cheered Austin on as he has been swamped staying abreast of his application and consideration by Tech Crunch for his Blogonize website in an upcoming competition.

10)Buy Teri some tennis shoes -Accomplished in January.

A New Chef is Born...

but a chicken is not :) ......

Aunt Sissy and Brynn enjoying a teaching moment as they whip up a batch of cupcakes for the household....otherwise, quiet day as we enjoy her monthly overnite visit--she is a blast!

Where's George....

Sorting through my wallet and up popped a $1 with blue print on it stating "Track where I have been. Go to www.wheresgeorge.com so I did. Interesting enough, a site where you can enter the serial number on the bill and see where all it has been tracked. Checking it out, there is a logical explanation that outlines why my George ended up in Denver. Check it out here .

Sorry, on slow days, I like to educate my readers :).

Rendevouz TV

Like our car situation, we have recently had to play rotating TVs. Our family room TV went on the fritz back last Summer. It would take many minutes to warm up and one had to tap it on the side several times to get the picture to appear. Well, it never failed we would miss some big Rockies moment while it was warming up. So, we donated it to a needy family after learning of a co-worker who was willing to sell me a decent Hitachi TV, so he claimed.

He was thinning out house inventory in hopes of selling his home so I handed him $25 for our "new" HDTV (Horrible Definition). On the lower channels, the volume had so much interference it was hard to comprehend and the picture quality on most channels was below average. So, we donated it to a local homeless organization just in time for Austin's XBOX game system to develop a problem, which meant we would borrow his 13" color TV from the basement while the XBOX was shipped to McAllen, TX for 3 weeks for repair.

Well, the XBOX made the round trip back to Denver yesterday, so last night we were TV-less for the first time in our bedroom in 21 years of marriage. Absolutely not wanting to risk our marital union, I went out and bought my wife her Valentine's gift today so she could keep on doing her exercise DVD and have something to watch while ironing. (Oh, yeah, I might watch it a tad:). So, a new, SHARP 20" flat screen TV now sits atop our dresser ready to keep our marriage just perfect!

And, as a side note, a neat new website discovered today that notifies you if your purchase price drops in the next 30 days! You sign up for free an email will be sent if the price drops so you can go back to the 'big box' store and get a credit for the difference!

Time to help motivate Teri upstairs to go exercise...

Til next time....

Resolution Progress Report

I might stay more inspired and accountable if I give periodic updates to my 2008 goals, so in a nutshell we will review...

1) Change template on my Blog---Accomplished!

2) "Rubber" exercise goal of 1,000 miles-- on my road to Austin, Texas, I logged 129 miles in January--goal was 83.3 mile---Accomplished! Arriving in Pueblo, Colorado..

3) Do something big for God--something I haven't done before and devoted to glorify--couple ideas, so pending!

4) Take a family airplane vacation. Pending, money for trip available, destination unknown.

5) Keep the Ebay biz going and shooting for 5 digit gross income. Monthly goal $833.00, January gross income:$1,282--accomplished!

6) Home improvements---master bath flooring and living room entry way--upgrade-Pending.

7) Be a good neighbor. For the Winter time at least, I have put this into play by snow shoveling our entire cul-de-sac sidewalk andshovel the driveways of my widow neighbor and the most elder couple at the end of the block. - Once, wasn't a very snowy month-accomplished!

8) Help support Cameron's flying efforts and goals--Accomplished-provided some fuel money for his Austin, TX New Year's trip.

9) Help support Austin's biz adventure with ideas, solutions, financing, etc. Accomplished- 'content editor' for Austin's video and some guidance with his next contest submission. Also, new effort in embryotic state-FLIGHTBULBS--rememeber the name!

10)Buy Teri some tennis shoes -Accomplished--see photo evidence!

Checking In...

Wow, almost the end of January. But, this month I can understand why time flew...

• What was a 4 car family just 8 months ago, is a 1 car family this Tuesday morning. Ole reliable--the 1993 Chevrolet pickup with 142,000 miles rests by himself in the garage. Teri's VW Piece-of-Saat is back at my mechanics after VW refused to help, seems IF we would have been the original owner, they would have considered assisting us (I am sure that is with a wink-wink). So, we are trying to sell it on Craigslist "as is". If not sold in 7 days, we will fix it and then sell again. Austin's Honda meanwhile is at a different shop getting an idle problem addressed.
• Cameron has been battling the 'fraud epidemic'--seems like someone got a hold of his info in Kissimee, FL. and went on a spree at Walmart and the movie theatres and sucked $300 from his account, also known for a teen as "life savings".
• After 16 consecutive weeks of Ebay selling, we are taking a one week vacation as we did not want our items to end on Super Bowl Sunday. MUCH NEEDED break as business has been great!
  
• After Austin's 90 seconds of fame with his recent contest win, his membership increased by over 10% in one week. He is now focused on this contest which is international in scope, but held in our own backyard in Boulder, CO. So, he is trying to mix in high school track training, gym-ratting, school work and his business. Of course, we have told him to focus on his gym workouts :).
• As we have shared before, Cam in his jet refuel job, at times gets to meet some celebrities. Tom Brokaw and Gordon Lightfoot have stopped in before. On Friday, Ted Turner stopped in for a visit. Seems as if his keys got locked in a friend's car who was returning him back to the airport and Cam's company had to arrange for a locksmith. Cam's conversation with Ted--Ted: Is a locksmith on the way. Cam: Yes sir. So professional is our teen son!
• "Save Blogonize" campaign, sort of like Save the Whales. Although the IRS does not see it as a "non-profit" company, we see it as "not making profit" company. Send check or money order to:. Seems like the lad will have to find a 'real job' in about 3 months if he cannot get it monetized as his savings are dwindling quick with his $200 per month server lease.
  
• Tis tax season, so off to buy my software today. I am guessing this may be my last year of helping a dozen or so other families, mostly because I want them to find someone else in anticipation of us moving back to Taxes, I mean Texas...
• Cam has returned back to college with a "GPA builder" set of courses: 1) Intro to Music 2) Intro to Spanish 3)Micro-economics 4) Business speech. I do recall the strategy myself which ferociously backfired when I was a Soph and got a "C" in Badminton---in south Texas, 'birdies' were meant to be killed by shotgun, not rackets!
  
• Tis been 3 years since Shelly went for her vaccination shots. I remember after that ugly battle driving home staring at an 8 year old canine doing the math thinking "ahhh, she will be dead before her next shots are due"---W R O N G! So, on my notes to do is contact Petco and ask 1) Do you have a female vet 2) Do you have a muzzle I can borrow? 3) Will her foam come out of my clothes? 4) Do you know both human and canine CPR? 5) Can we avoid the rectal thermometer experience?

Til next time..

15 seconds of fame...

Well Andy Warhol coined it, but I think Austin's time frame is more like 90 seconds. As many of you know, he started developing internet businesses when he was 13 years old. He sold three of them to work on his biggest project, Blogonize. Simply put, he owns a site where you can host your own blog, or for the non-techno savvy, your own internet diary. Many folks like us simply use it as a platform to keep others apprised of our family happenings while others use it to talk about niches (ie, finances, travel, sports, etc). But with the likes of Blogger and Wordpress as his competition, he is simply a David in this Goliath world.

When in a crowded market, you have to keep on striving to be unique and cutting edge always looking for a break where you can compete. He may have gotten his Monday night. Over the weekend, TechCrunch.com invited folks with new ideas and sites to do a self-promoting video for their review and they would select the top three. Austin did and was selected! It is the best free advertising he could have received as their readership is 615,000 strong!

For the most part of the last six months his feelings were others knowing he was 16 year old would hinder his site's reputation, but now he has learned otherwise. The video he produced which was 90 seconds long can be seen at Tech Crunch

Oh, and why do I use his completion (Blogger.com)? Well, I do but I also 'dual post' over at Blogonize each time I author an entry.

I did ask him if CNN was dropping by the house today...

Congrats!

Arghhh....

Yup, absolutely BREAKING news, as in our cars keep BREAKING! Two weeks ago as she was driving her Maria Andretti speed of 30mph, Teri had her 2001 VW Passat Turbo go kerplunk on her which included the ever dreaded "I heard something rattle in the engine kind of noise". So, she called her two sons, both who were oblivious to the ringing of their phones and both who had cars and could of come and rescued her. To no avail. I then had to leave my work for a one hour round trip and get her home and then arrange for a tow to take it to the shop. Simple diagnosis--a broken timing belt at 71,000 miles. Yes, a car that required it inspected (which we did) at 60K and no replacement until 105K, snapped!

My mechanic then told me to call both VW Corp and the VW dealership since it seems this is a well known problem that VW has failed to issue a recall for. Lo and behold, Audi (the exact same car with different decals) lost a class action suit for the very same problem. The VW dealership mechanic stated it 'broke', meaning it was defective vs. wear and tear. I have never heard such a soothing, calm voice tell someone (that someone would be me) "sir, the damage estimate is $6,412.00" --you got it, a $50 rubber belt snapping resulted in some broken valves and who know what else.

VW Corp told me they would contact the local dealership by last Monday to see if they could be of assistance. As of today, they have yet to contact them. I guess they know they have a problem. Based upon my Google research, I have mixed feelings whether they will come to an acceptable resolution or not.

So, in the interim, we know only one thing-- our VW is history as we are going to sell it once it gets repaired and NO WAY (unless VW pays for it all) is the dealership repairing it. It seems their labor shop rate is $150 per hour. Are the flipping mechanics living in the same subdivisions as the brain surgeons??

If you go here , you will see what many other owners think of this car. The only satisfaction of this whole ordeal is I have renamed the Passat to a Piece of Saat...

We will keep you posted...

In memory....

Our Heavenly father welcomed home his most recent angel this morning. For those who knew her well, she was the salt of the earth and the epitome of simplicity and generosity. She was a gentle and kindred spirit who loved the Lord and will dearly be missed. Her heart cared for others. Praises to my 'care warrior' twin sister who was with her when she passed.

My darling wife, caretaker of all of our Hallock archives, has found these few photos all taken of my Aunt Ruth over the past 6 months. While there are many who scorn the Internet as a 'bad thing', it has proven once again to be able to connect generations of families who had been separated. It was somewhere around 5 years ago we began to get reconnected with her recounting our Summer visits to upstate New York via email and blogging. And through the Internet, she sent us an 'e-card' wishing us a great Christmas just three weeks ago and only days before her diagnosis.

We enjoyed our monthly email from her and she always was inquisitive of our happenings around our Denver family, especially our two boys. Our boys will always remember her as the Aunt who did the 'genealogy thing'. Ruth was our family heirloom and our treasure chest and we look forward to cherishing her research and relics.

Until we meet again...

AUNT Ruth and UNCLE Sam :)

Halloween at 'the home'

'Wild child' at 92 years YOUNG....