Happy Birthday to Tony Nuzzi and his son Josh who share the same birthday. I remember sitting in Josh’s room one morning in Austin while Tony and Erin slept while Josh was just a baby… but he’s not any more! And Tony, I remember being in the same room as him while at a youth retreat (believe it or not we were trusted as chaparones) and thinking, “Dude, somebody in this room needs Beano!”
Category Archives: News
Abby, What Do You Want For Lunch?
Jessica asked Abby, “What do you want for lunch?”
“Cheese, Pretzels, and Marshmallows,” Abby replied naturally. As if we all have that for lunch every day. The humor for me in this lies in the fact she didn’t say ‘hot dogs’ or ‘fries and chicken’ which are her usual responses. We feed her healthier food than those listed usually, but she sure does know what she likes!
Of course the plan for dinner tonight involved shoving a beer can up a fowl’s nether-regions and grilling it, so I can’t say that as adults we’re too much more sophisticated than her cheese and marshmallows.
Weekend Report
This last weekend for our 6th anniversary (yes, it is a wee early given that the actual date is October 3rd) we drove down to Colorado Springs. We stayed at a bed and breakfast there and really enjoyed ourselves. I’ll attempt to give a general replay of most of the events as they happened.
Sunset Friday
This was from Friday night in Colorado springs. I made a wrong turn and then we saw this and pulled over. It was a ‘right’ turn after seeing this.
Happy Birthday Vincent
Happy Birthday Vincent! I hope you’re having a blessed birthday, enjoy 19! Or at least savor being a teenager 😉
It’s My Birthday
Today is my birthday, but I’m out of town, so please leave a message on my machine, or wait to call me on Sunday night 🙂 I’m on an anniversary weekend with Jessica! (October 3rd will be 6 years of marriage!)
Why I Ordered Over Night Shipping
I ordered a camera, and with that camera I asked for two-day air. Right now you’re thinking, “Randy, there’s something in your teeth.” and, “Randy, you said ‘over-night.'” I did. But on Monday when I ordered the camera I ordered it two-day so it would be here on Thursday so I could have it charged and ready to go today when I leave for my romantic Anniversay/Birthday weekend. Well, Tuesday rolled around and I hadn’t gotten a tracking number in an email so I called and they told me that there was a billing issue (they recorded my credit card number wrong) so they would send it out next day air the following day (shipments had already gone out). Thursday rolled around and I anxiously awated the arrival of my package, Jessica was slightly irritated by my super happy anxiety. Noon reared its ugly head and I still had no package (morning delivery is what DHL had on their site for the shipping method). Well, to make a short story longer I called DHL and after going through the labrynth of automated customer service I actually talked to a human being. She told me that my package had apparently not made it onto the truck, but would be out the next day. OK, Friday will be the day I get my camera.
It’s Friday and DHL’s site has no new information about the whereabouts of my package and I’m leaving later this afternoon to go to Colorado Springs. I sent an email to customer service this time hoping that email might be a good method since I didn’t want to be pressing more phone buttons if at all possible. I got an auto-responder message warning me that it may be up to two business days before I get an answer to my email asking for information regarding my package which was guaranteed over-night. Since when did over-night equate to a week’s waiting?
Last night I heard a commercial on TV (it was on in the other room) proclaiming the wonders of the new DHL delivery service. That just might be an overstatement. I just wonder where my camera is. In the end I will be patient, this camera is not critical to my existence, it would have been nice to have for a weekend full of digital memories, but I’ll just use the one we’ve got, it’s just like driving a Yugo in a Viper race.
Can Spam Day, October 2nd
I was getting comment spam, with some of the ‘filter blocking’ text being rather offensive. I was tired of this one IP hitting me with garbage (it wasn’t posted live on my site due to WordPress‘ excellent filtering of comments) so I did something about it. I looked up his ISP from within the warning email, found out what email address they used to get reports of abuse and emailed them. About 2 hours later I got an email saying that they’d temporarily blocked the IP address until further investigation. Woo-Hoo! The comment spam stopped. Thanks for the great tools Matt and Kitty!
The heart of the issue is that we often, as web site owners, don’t take time to let ISP‘s know that they’re hosting these spammers. If we let them know they might do something, thus either forcing spammers to greater lengths to achieve their goals or to stop them in their tracks. Spammers are not good clients for ISPs because usually they smudge their name. I officially dub October 2nd “Can Spam Day” [somebody buy that domain :)]! On that day, take 5 minutes to find a comment spammer’s IP address and then email the ISP to warn them of abuse.
The Real Issues
This morning, in a disappointing episode of potty training slippage Abby peed on the floor. Jessica was scolding her and said, “Those are your pee-pees and you need to tell us when you need to go to the bathroom.”
Abby replies, “You tell John Kerry.”
Priceless! I want to know John Kerry’s stance on a two year old’s urine.
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