Speaking My Mind

Last entry for this blog

This will be my last entry for Speaking My Mind. I have created a new blog called MyLife using the latest version of MovableType. The newer version of software will allow me to better manage and update my blog. It will still be the same old me but a different, and I hope better, look for the blog. Anyway, update your bookmark to here.

It's been a long time

Have not posted an entry here for a month. Not that there has not been a lot to write about but I have been very busy. I travelled to Nevada and California for the 2007 LDRS and my visit to the Mojave National Preserve. It was a great trip and I have a lot of video and photos that I have been processing and putting up. I have also been very busy with my Church, including being the chair of the church interim team that is tasked with finding a way forward for our church. Coming up in August is a trip to Ft. Lauderdale for a LandWarNet conference which the Army is sending me to. After that in October I will be travelling to Gulfport, Mississippi with some members of my church to help with the reconstruction efforts down there in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Throw in some volunteer web work for the local chapter of the American Red Cross and my schedule is pretty much full.
]]>

And the Living's Easy

Been busy with a lot of things lately, especially my Wordpress blog. We have been enjoying the pool and the gas grill and summer in general. It is going to be a busy summer for me. Besides all the yard work we have planned there are a number of trips coming up. This weekend I will be going to the Well, which is past Smithfield. The Well is a retreat and I am going as a part of my church to meditate and discuss the future of our church. I have never been to a religious retreat and it sounds like a relaxing, meditative time, something I really need. Last Saturday I finally took my long delayed hike to Lake Drummond in the Great Dismal Swamp. I shouldered my new pack with most of my hiking gear in it just to see how it would work on a long hike. The trek to Lake Drummond is 9 miles round trip. I managed to hike the 9 miles along with a few stops and some time to enjoy Lake Drummond in about 4 hours. I was sore the next day but I suprised myself with how well I handled the 9 miles with a pack. Coming up in July is the much anticipated vacation to Nevada and California for the LDRS. I will also be exploring the Mojave National Preserve.
]]> I have also been selected to attend the 2007 LandWarNet Conference which is being held in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida the second week of August. I will arrive Sunday night and probably leave either Thursday night or Friday morning. I am looking forward to that also. I really love Florida and I have never been to Ft. Lauderdale except the airport on my way to Key West. Teresa and I also hope to find some time for a weekend getaway to Ocracoke Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It has been a long time since I was last there and it should be very relaxing and lots of fun too. So I should have a lot to write about this summer and I hope I can find the time to write about it.

Summertime

Summer is here to stay, at least for a couple of months. The new pool is wonderful. The sand filter has done a great job cleaning the water. Right now the water is crystal clear. The pool came with a pool vacuum that works great cleaning up the bottom of the pool. The pool is so big I can actually swim a few strokes and I have been swimming on the bottom with my speedo goggles. The gas grill is also working well. We have been grilling and eating on the deck almost every evening. I took off Friday from work so we could go see the Virginia Parade of Sail that starts Harborfest this year. We got a great view from Point Comfort on Fort Monroe. There were over 50 ships in the parade with many of them sailing ships. I shot some great video which I posted to my other blog. We also had a free lunch with some ex NFL players that was hosted by Fort Monroe. After all that we went shopping in Phoebus, which is just outside the gates of Fort Monroe.
]]>

Memorial Day Weekend

It has been a great Memorial Day weekend. First, the weather has been spectacular. Three perfect summer days in a row. For this area that is a rare thing and to be treasured. Additionally we now have a new three burner gas grill. The grill is the best one I have ever owned. In addition to three burners there is a side burner for heating something in a pan. I almost forgot that it also has a hanging basket inside for toasting buns, etc. We also have a brand new above ground pool. This pool is much better than our old one. It is 24 ft in diameter and 52 in. deep. It has a seriously big pump so it should be able to handle cleaning our funky well water which we had to fill it with. So now I expect to spend most of my summer on the back deck grilling and chilling. We also have a new neighbor in the area. We have been spotting a fox in the evenings and sometimes during the day. I think there may be more than one. They are red and about the size of a small dog. They are not very shy and will stop and look you in the eye. The main game for them must be the many rabbits we have around.
]]>

Long time no write

About time I wrote something here. After all I have had a lot going on lately. I have been in a gadget buying frenzy the last week or so. I have bought a new DVD-RW drive, a 320 GB Sata drive, and 2 GB of memory for Teresa's (and my) new Dell. I was just not satisfied with the computer as it was, I needed MORE power. Well everything is installed except for the memory which I hope will be delivered today. I have also received my new Panasonic camcorder which I have been using to madly record everything around me. I reall love the new camcorder, it is even better that I expected it to be.

I have made all the arrangements for my trip to Primm, Nevada in July. I have the airplane tickets and reservations made at Wiskey Petes in Primm and the Hotel Nipton in Nipton, CA. I plan on spending my last two day staying in Nipton so that I can explore the Mohave Desert. It seems just watching large, dangerous rockets is not enough for me. We have had more gloomy weather which has prevented me from hiking to Lake Drummond in the Great Dismal Swamp as planned last week but the weather forecast for this weekend looks promising. I will be taking my new camcorder with me so expect to see some video and pictures of my mini vacation. Than't all folks.

Gloomy Weather

The weather for the first week of May has been pretty gloomy here. Today has been cool and overcast and Sunday is supposed to be very windy with winds averaging 35 mph with gusts to 50. I was going to put a truckload of mulch down but I don't know if I should with the winds so high. Most of it might end up in the neighbors yard. Teresa has been working very hard in the yard planting shrubs and flowers and I have been very busy mowing and weeding. Teresa has decided she wants the gumball trees in the backyard gone so today a crew came over and cut them down. We plan on landscaping back there and planting many bushes, ground cover and planting some trees. So I hope in the end it will much prettier than it is now. My only concern is that I know that area of the yard was home to a lot of rabbits and some red fox and I hope that they will only be out of a home for a short while. It is going to take a lot of time and a lot of money to make it look like we want but since Teresa is retired now, at least she will have the time to do the work.
]]> Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. That means that I will be doing his job for those two weeks. Did I mention that I am also the backup Information Security Officer and the backup Information Management Officer for our command? So I expect the next two weeks to be pretty busy. When I am not working I have been staying busy with my blogs and reading. I have about 7 books in my backlog so I am never seen without a book in my hand. My next book is going to be a graphic novel titled: "Alice in Sunderland" I am looking forward to reading the book as it had very favorable reviews. That is it for now. Stayed tuned for the next exciting posting.

Eventful Week

It has certainly been an eventful week. At the top of the list is Teresa retiring from civil service after 30 years. She is only 53 years old so I would say she is doing quite well to retire so early. I still have a little less than two years before I will be joining her in retirement. I don't think it has sunk into her yet that she is retired. I don't think that will happen until she wakes up Monday morning and realizes that she doesn't actually have to go to work that day or any other day after that. I can only imagine what it will be like to not have to work after having worked all my adult life. To say I am a little jealous would be an understatement. The biggest thing will be when I retire and we can move to our new home in either Texas or New Mexico. Now that will be a momentous event.
]]> I have been spending money like I had a lot of it also. In the last couple of days I received my copy of Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise Edition. What is great about that is that it cost me only $20. Don't worry, it is a perfectly legal copy. The U.S. Army has an Enterprise License Agreement with Microsoft that allows me to buy it for that price. I also received my new Panasonic PV-GS320 camcorder. I really wanted a camcorder for filming the LDRS competition I will be attending in July. I don't think a still picture alone will do justice to the launching and flight of these big rockest. The Panasonic was a CNET best buy and it really was a great deal. The camcorder has a 3 CCD element, 10X zoom, mini DV and SD media (the SD is for taking 3.1 mpixel photos) support, and a host of other features. I am really impressed with all its capabilities and features. I took a couple of short clips yesterday and they really look good.

I still have three books on order and a t-shirt that I ordered from Michelle Malkin's web site. I should have those next week. So the camcorder cost about $400 but I ordered a 4 GB SD media card online from Best Buy. That one set me back about $26.00 with shipping. I have to cut this one short because I have to go to church. Yardwork is in the cards when I return but I think I am done shopping for a while.

The Tefft Family Picnic

We had an abbreviated version of the annual Tefft Family picnic Saturday at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens. We have a family picnic every year about this time and traditionally we have it at the Botanical Gardens. We have had our picnic in a couple different places like Sandy Bottom and Red Wing Park but we always come back to the Botanical Gardens because they are so spectacularly beautiful. When I say this years picnic was abbreviated I mean that it was on short notice due to the poor weather we have been having lately. So not everyone who usually shows up came this year but that did not diminish the fun that everone had. And it certainly did not diminish the amount of food that everyone consumed. So I will leave it at that except for a few photos of the gardens that I took this year. I hope you enjoy them.

Beautiful Saturday

Today was a beautiful Spring Day. I got up fairly early and finished cleaning up the front yard. I had mowed the yard yesterday but I had to rake and weed to finish up. The weather was so nice that I just laid in the yard for a while after finishing. Max was outside with me and he was enjoying the weather as much as I was. Later Max and I went for a walk at Sleepy Hole Park. On the way home I stopped and bought some fish dinners from the Drive Volunteer Fire Department who was having a fish dinner fund raiser. The dinners were the best fish dinners I ever had. They had three pieces of delicious fish with baked beans, cole slaw and FOUR hush puppies. I love hush puppies. Later Teresa and I went nursery shopping and bought some flowers to add to the garden. I finished up the day by mowing the back yard. So most of the yard work is done for now. Tomorrow is the Tefft Family picnic at the Botanical Gardens and the weather promises to be beautiful again. So the weekend is turning out to be a great one. It is just too bad what happened at Virginia Tech earlier this week. What a terrible tragedy for Virginia and our country. I just don't understand how things like that can happen. What kind of insanity could lead someone to do something so horrific? I am almost sorry that the killer committed suicide. I wish he had survived so he could be tried and executed. He got off way to easy. I just hope he is burning in hell as I write this. I will probably make another entry in my blog tomorrow after the picnic and I hope to post some photographs from the picnic. The botanical gardens should be beautiful this time of the year.

New blog, retirement, etc.

I have not had a chance to make any entries in this blog as I have been busy with my new WordPress blog. I have tried to produce an entry a day in the new blog but that has proven hard to do. I have had several comments on my new blog including one from Doc Searls and one from Scott Sigler. It is very exciting to know that famous people have actually read my blog and taken the time to leave a comment. That has inspired me to put even more effort into it, unfortunately at the expense of this blog. It has been a busy week since my last entry. Kirk spent most of the week with his Grandparents in North Carolina. Teresa is only two weeks away from retiring and still very nervous about it. Myself, I finally joined the pool here at work and have started swimming again. I really need to get back in shape because I plan on doing a lot of backpacking this year. The trip to Nevada to attend the LDRS (Large Dangerous Rocket Ship) competition is still on for July and I am really looking forward to that. While I am in Nevada I also plan on doing some exploration of the area including jaunts to California and Arizona to see some of the desert towns in the area. I also hope to be able to drive to the Colorado River and take a look at it. That’s it for this entry. I hope I will be able to update this blog more often.

The Last Supper

Tonight I participated in the re-creation of The Last Supper at my church. I have been a member of Park View Christian Church for over two years now and it has made a profound difference in my life. I was baptised by the first minister and we now have a new interim minister. I have contributed as much of my time as possible to the church and its members. It is a small church with a small membership but the members are all great people. I am not on the board or a member of any committee yet but I do participate in outreach programs like the Oasis food kitchen where we serve meals to the homeless and I participate in fund raising events also. Tonight I had to don costume and submit to having makeup applied. I played the part of James the young. He is second from the left in the famous Da Vinci painting.But it was all worth it and it was a special moment for me that will stay in my heart and mind for always. I even got to participate in communion by holding the bread for the parishoners. This coming Sunday is Easter Sunday and I expect it will be the best Easter Sunday of my life.

Birthday Girl

Today was Teresa's 53rd birthday. To celebrate we went to Capt. Chuck-a-Muck's in Rescue, Va. We used to go there years ago but it burned down 2 years ago when a boat moored at the pier next to the restaurant caught on fire and the fire spread to the restaurant. Now Capt. Chuck-a-Muck's has been rebuilt in all its glory. The food was as good as it used to be and the ambiance is as wonderful as I remember. The only thing that has really changed is that the old swing bridge that used to be next to the restaurant has been replaced with one of those high-rise concrete monsters. I guess you can't stop progress although in my mind it is not progress but a step away from the good old days.

100th Entry

This entry marks the 100th entry in my blog. It is hard to believe I found enough to talk about to make 100 entries. Things have been going pretty well except for my dental problems. I hope to have those resolved before the end of the year. It is a long process to have implants and I am anxious to have it over. I am really looking forward to camping out this spring and then my trip to Primm, Nevada for the amatuer rocket competition. I have been thinking about doing something else which I have wanted to do for a long time. As much as I hate driving I want to rent an SUV and drive to Texas with Teresa to take a look at some houses to buy for when we retire. I have not made a cross country trip by car since I was a child. I think it will be a great adventure to drive the back roads and see some of the small towns of America on our way to Texas. We will take our time and stay in small hotels along the way. If I plan the trip well I hope to see some historic and interesting sites along the way. I hope to see if there is any of the country and lifestyle of my childhood still remaining in the USA. I still plan on the great Alaska adventure but that is on hold until next year but I plan to stay busy this year traveling. Maybe the trips will provide me with enough material to write the next 100 entries in this blog. Stay tuned...

Spring Approaching

As the vernal equinox approaches my mind turns to outdoor activities. One of the first things I plan to do is camp at Medoc Mountain State Park in North Carolina. If the weather is good I plan on going this coming weekend. Checking the NWS web site it looks like the coming weekend down there will have highs in the low 70's and nightime low's in the low 50's. I only plan on camping one night as my new camping equipment has only been used a couple of times and I am still familiarizing myself with it. I have never been to Medoc Mountain but from the description on its web site there should be a lot to see a do. I am eagerly awaiting the weekend and the trip. I really need to spend some time by myself and the ride down and back and the overnight stay should be just what I need. I plan to hike a lot and try my hand at outdoor cooking as well as take a lot of photographs. I will write up my adventures on my return.

]]> Biltmore Estate and I have heard from some friends of ours that Asheville is a really beautiful town with lots to see and do. The grand finale of the summer will be my trip to Primm, Nevada to see the LDRS competition that will be held on a salt flat nearby. I am really excited about that as I have always loved model rocketry and the land around the area is beautiful with lots of places to explore.