Here is a new piece of software that allows you to make free calls. All you need is a set of speakers and a microphone, and this software will enable you to make free calls over the internet. Check out Skype for more details.
I didn't know that I had my own town? And it is even big enough to have it's own newspaper! Check out the The Beebe News.
Check out this essay on a look at a ghost town after a nuclear catastrophe (and give her a break, English is her second language).
excerpt: "In Ukrainian language Chernobyl is a name for a grass, wormwood (absinth) This word scares holly beseeches out of people here. If I tell someone that I am heading in a "dead zone"... You know, what I hear.. In best case- "are you nuts?" My dad used to say that people afraid of a thing which they can not see, can not feel, can not smell and that kills. Dad is nuclear physicist and he also says that of all dangerous things in my life, he can only think about one, which is riding my bike on fifth or sixth gear. In any way, dad and their team work in "dead zone" for last 18 years. They doing researches from the day when nuclear disaster happened. The rest of guys in a team are microbiologists, doctors, botanists.. etc. I was 7 years old back in 1986 and in a few hours after accident happened dad sent us with sister off with the train to Grandmother. Granny lives 800 kms from here and dad wasn't sure if it was far enough for us to stay away of troubles. Communists kept silence about this accident. In Kiev, they forced people to take part in their stupid labor day parade and then people start learning about accident from foreign radio, from relatives of those who died and real panic began in 7-10 days after accident. Dad says, that in those first 10 days exposure to radiation was the most powerful and can not even be compared with what we have now."
Found this nice little write up on our neighborhood, Talbot Park.
By beating Kansas 79-71, Georgia Tech is going to the final four for the first time since 1990!!
To add a little drama to the game, our leading scorer for the season, BJ Elder, hurt his ankle two nights ago. So Jarrett Jack, who Sherry has a crush on, stepped up BIG TIME, scoring 29 points. For more on his dedication to the game, check out how he spent his summers.
So now, GT will face a very strong Oklahoma State team, in San Antonio on Saturday, for the chance to play in the NCAA championship game! Hopefully BJ Elder's ankle sprain will be a thing of the past by then.
GO JACKETS!
We painted the front shutters (from red to black) and got most of the upstairs bathroom done, which included stripping the wallpaper (thank you Sherry), painting it, and putting up new light fixtures. I took some pictures on Saturday (before the bathroom was finished) and posted them in my Yahoo photos. Check out the folder called "2004-03-29."
I will take some more pictures tonight to post of the semi-complete bathroom.
Found this picture of my friend Rebekah from the UF OBGYN residents page.
A great advantage to a blog is that it decreases the amount of useless joke forward emails that get sent around the internet. Don't get me wrong, joke forward emails are an important part in the internet user's maturation process, but they are similar to zits in my mind. They are just an ugly phase that some individuals go through while experiencing "cyber adolescence." This phase usually lasts until someone chastises you for getting out of hand and calls you annoying and you start to realize you are sending out jokes that everyone else has already received or could go find on their own if they were really interested. And similar to facial hair, as the one receiving the joke forwards, at first it is fascinating, but once you have to deal with it daily it quickly gets old.
Past "cyber adolescence" comes the jingoistic period of trying to warn your fellow "cyberites" that there are things to be weary off in that crazy World Wide Web! And the new found feeling of camaraderie with your cyber pals, since you have weather cyber adolescence together, requires you to move past forwarding jokes to more important matters such as every request to mail your friends because Bill Gates will give money to
What I have seen is that all forwards have about a 2 year life cycle... they will go away for a while and then the same jokes, legends, and hoaxes will show back up, to provide the unenlightening some room to get chastised by their now cyber savvy friends.
Ok, that was quite a tangent, my point when I started to post this entry, was to share a funny quote that my big brother at Lambda Chi Alpha sent me yesterday (he seems to be regressing back to adolescence). The beautiful thing is, I am weeding out all the UNfunny quotes to just provide you with this one, that made me LOL ("laugh out loud" for those down with the "cyber lingo"):
"See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough
blood to run one at a time."
- Robin Williams
So I just checked to see if this quote was actually from Robin Williams and I found the exact text of the email that was sent to me in not 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 places... but the first 20 result from google. Just more proof to think twice before forwarding.
By the way... I think adding "cyber" to anything adds about 5 funny points to it. Try it sometime.
My good friend Andrew, seen here dressed like Don Johnson, although I don't remember Don wearing an earring) has decided that he is good enough at golf (a game that I taught him how to play!!!) to go on tour. Not quite PGA, but the Edwin Watts tour. He played his first tournament last weekend and you can see his results on the Orlando, FL Edwin Watts Tour page. Maybe I should start playing more??!?
I'm very proud of you Andrew, and jealous that you can play FIFA Soccer 2004 and watch the NCAA tournament at the same time, on the SAME TV!
You down with Palindromes?
I have added comments (again) to this blog and would really enjoy if you guys started commenting on my posts. I have also added a list of books that I am currently reading so you can read along with me :)
Also, in case you didn't know, if you enter your email address in the bloglet box to the right, you can set it up so you receive emails on days that I post to the blog. Although it sounds pretty dorky you could save yourself from wonder what you missed :)
For those of you with your own blogs, we should also figure out how to use the trackback feature better... here is a beginner's guide.
So I basically rock as a husband, and proved it again yesterday with honoring the birth of my wife... I know, how can I be so wonderful, yet modest at the same time?? The world may never know. Anyways, here is how the day went down...
As mentioned earlier we started off the morning with a little breakfast at Sherry's favorites breakfast spot (Mickey D's), and then went our separate ways to our jobby jobs.
I got a phone call from Mrs. Birthday Girl (she is married, ya know), at around 11 am to thank me for the flowers and balloon that I had delivered. I am not normally a balloon kinda guy, but they asked me while I was ordering (online of course) if I wanted to include a mylar balloon for a little extra and I thought, hmmm... that might be a little embarrassing for her, which is part of the fun of having stuff delivered. So I got it. They were some tulips that looked something like this, since tulips are her favorite flower:
Nothing else was really planned until our dinner that evening. She did get a cake at work and everyone gave her a card, which was nice.
We went to dinner at 7 pm. As usual I didn't tell her where we were going, which is just something we like to do. So I drove around until I found the place, which was called The Painted Lady (I picked it based on "The Best of Hampton Roads" list). The food was very good. I had the 8 oz filet and she had the lump crabcakes (which Regina had recommended)... both of which were really, really good. Sherry had a glass of White Zinfandel and I had a glass of Greg Norman's Cabernet Merlot. I had asked for preferred seating if they had any when I made the reservation, so they put is in the "romantic wine celler" which was pretty cool.
As for a present, she had asked for a keychain, by dropping hints that she liked how she gave Alison and I a Tiffany keychain, but used a free souvenir from the BCC golf tournament for herself. Needless to say, the message was pretty easy to decipher. So I got her a keyring for herself. 
We ended the dinner with some coffee (which was also very yummy) and Sherry had to have her favorite dessert... carrot cake. Although I didn't try any (stupid Atkins restrictions), she said that it too was worth giving praise to. I did try the whip cream and even that was cream cheese flavored which impressed me.
GasBuddy is a website that tells you the current cheapest places to find gas in your area.
I am going to put a link to the right.
I wanted to clear one thing up after my "another reason south florida sucks" comment...Sherry and I miss our friends down there, just not our non-friends (like the blue haired left lane drivers), the high prices and being hot all the time.
So, Gatoreena, don't be a hater just cause Virginia is better ;)
Since they are individual people I figured they needed individual blog entries. HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my mom. Out of respect I will not post her age here :) Sherry and I celebrated her birthday in DC this weekend and exchange present at a very crowded Starbucks, as Georgia Tech won it's second round game.
I hope Don takes you out to a fancy dinner tonight, Mom and that you have a wonderful day.
I love you!!
Today is Sherry's 26th Birthday and we are having a party on Friday to celebrate it. If any of you can make it, please let me know. I have invited the in town people that I hope can make it already, but any out of town people would be great to have also.
We went to Sherry's favorite for breakfast, McDonald's (maybe that is why she married me?!!?)
And we are going to dinner tonight.
Send her an email and wish her a happy birthday.
Ever wonder how cool you really are? Take the The Geek Test and find out.
I am 23% Geek. I imagine most of you will not even understand most of the questions.
Who are these people??!
Here is a fun little game where You get to be a giant and destroy a town with a giant magnifying glass.
We went to see Tara Spuhler get married this weekend in Washington, DC. I have posted pictures here (direct link for yahoo account holders). Got to see Clare Aranow, and all the old RPC crew, which was nice. The wedding was wonderful and the reception was a blast.
Best Wishes to the new couple!!!
Here is a nice article about Symantec from Forbes.com
For those of you that don't know, Sherry has been looking to get a full time job, and with Virginia Wesleyan finally getting things in order after the Vice President shake up. Her new boss has made her a very nice offer that we are pleased with. In addition to that she has also interviewed for a prospect research position with EVMS and received a verbal offer last night.
Both salaries are about the same but VWC has some amazing benefits... three of which I would like to point out:
1) 30 days paid time off (including sick and personal time)! (plus 17.5 holidays)
2) They contribute 8.5% of her salary to a retirement program (with her only having to contribute 5%)
3) Tuition reimbursement for dependent children to ANY school up to the cost of admission to VWC!!!! Plus tuition reimbursement for herself and her spouse (me!!) to any VWC course.
So I am thinking about going and getting another degree.
To answer the question before you ask... here is the link to other positions they are trying to fill.
She is going to continue with EVMS until she gets more details, but for now she is leaning toward staying with VWC. It is the less risky option, since she already knows what it is like to work with the people she will be working with. Plus, given the benefits, the VWC offer is superior.
Happy March 17th everyone! Hope you are wearing some green.
We went to see Taylor's (Shelley's son) playoff basketball game last night. Despite Taylor's 10 points they still lost to a very big team. We then went to Dairy Queen where I was a good boy, and sat patiently while everyone else gobbled down some frozen treats. But don't worry, I was rewarded this morning with hitting the 210 mark. I have now lost 24 pounds.
The NCAA tournament is going nicely, and we still have room for more teams. The pot is currently around $120.
I went to go get the oil changed in the Honda on Saturday (before the bowlathon), but the place was slammed and they wouldn't have been able to do it in time, for me to drive up to Yorktown by 1pm. That's when I remembered that I had a brother named Prince, who use to work at Fallen Camper Sales, while he was taking "a break" from Georgia Tech (the Prince joke was a reference to a Christmas Story that eldest sister wrote when she was 9 or so). So I swung by KMart and picked up some Rhino Ramps (I only paid $30 for mine), a case of 10W-30 Pennzoil motor oil ($20 for 12 quarts, which should do 3+ oil changes for the Honda), a Fram Oil Filter ($5), and an Air Filter ($10). So it was an expensive first purchase ($55 for the oil change parts), but I will make my money back on the third oil change, considering an oil change goes for around $20 a pop. Another nice suprise was that the previous owners had left a 10 quart oil drain pan, so I was able to use that. Of corse, they didn't leave it empty so after I used it I had to take it to Advanced Auto Parts to recycle it (where I needed to go anyway since the Civic's air filter was unexpectadly difficult to find).
We celebrated Sherry, Charlie and Papa's birthdays yesterday at Pearl's house. We grilled out some hamburgers and hotdogs, with the sisters (Verna, Annis, and Martha) and Nanny contributing cakes, potato salads, coleslaws, and baked beans. Needless to say I only had the meet. But it is easy to do when the weight keeps coming off. I am down to 211 pounds and hope to be down to 210 by Tara's wedding this weekend.
Sherry's birthday is actually on March 24th... same as my Mom's.
Thank you for the donations, I was able to raise $410 (after company matching) to donate to Junior Achievement. I am sorry to say that I was the worst bowler on my team and got beat in two of the games by a girl... but she is in a bowling league along with everyone else on my team, plus my game fell apart after Georgia Tech's lost to Duke. But the good news is I raise the second most on my team and Georgia Tech is seeded 3rd in their bracket (St. Louis)... the entire bracket can be found here in PDF form.
My company is having it's participating in the Junior Achievement 18th Annual Bowlathon. And I said I would join in as well. But didn't realize how little time I had to raise money. So the event is this weekend and I have raised somewhere close to $0. So if any of you could help me out I would greatly appreciate it. You don't have to get the money to me by this weekend I will just write a check to cover any pledges I get and you can mail a check whenever.
Or for those more technically savvy, you can use my paypal account, my email address for that is ben_mcdonald@symantec.com.
Any amount would be greatly appreciated, and any amount over $25 gets matched by my company!
I have set up a NCAA tournament on Yahoo
the link is here
and the password is 'beebe'. Sign up now and have a add a little fun in your life.
If you that link doesn't work here is the important information:
Group Number : 9950
Group Password : beebe
Well I finished the book last night. It was pretty good, a little predictable (I guess the 2nd word pretty quickly) but it was still a very interesting fiction story. And the meat of the book (which spurred the earlier conversation) was worth the read. I have gotten some emails regarding my previous post and they suggested some other books that would "rock my Casbah".
I will update you guys when I start reading them. But I think I will start working on the house again since I need to get some things done, like finish the trim work on the stairs.
The other day Sherry and I were talking and I mentioned that John Crapper was the reason the phrases "use the John" and "take a crap" where common american phrases. Well it turns out that was educated on some false information. Here is the Straight Dope on the situation.
Mcgraw's visit was great, I have yet to hear if he made it back into town... I will be calling him shortly. I got a text message from him at 11 pm saying it had at least made it to Cincy.
And the shower went well also.
We have finally decided to keep the entertainment center that Mom and Don gave us since it goes nicely with our living room furniture. But in order to not make it look so massive we have rearrange the living room a little bit, which I think makes the room look bigger. I still need to get some pictures up but things have been hectic.
I know I am a little slow on this one... but I literally found myself crying today in my office. The clip with Ellen Degeneres (1 and 2) is freaking hilarious. So without further ado, may I introduce to you... William Hung.
Check out this concept car from Toyota, the Sportivo is taking a step toward big brother? Just what we need a nagging sports car.... what's the fun in that?
I have been engrossed in the book The Da Vinci Code (buy it from amazon, or check out a teaser for it from the publisher if you have already read the book) for the last three days and have to say that my mom was correct, I do find it quite interesting. Although I have to admit, for a cryptologist, Sophie sucks at her job. Not being able to see that the Fibonacci sequence could be used to decode the anagram was really piss poor.
One thing that I am wondering, is why my mother (a devout Christian) would want me to read this book. I am thinking that it is either due to a twist that validates Christianity in the end, or she believes it to be a complete work of fiction.
I have always had trouble with my faith once I came to the realization that the Bible was simple a work of literature, based on reality, put together by man. I have not yet done the research that Dan Brown claims, regarding the history of the Bible, but it makes since to me. And if you I believe the Bible, and therefore the basis of Christianity, to be a product of man and not something divine, full of man-made stories, how could I call myself a Christian.
One of the answers I have found, one that defines my personal faith, is that I believe much of the Bible's stories to be analogies and fables. But I do believe in two essential, basic entities. That of good and evil. Whatever you choose to call those entities, matters not to me. Christians call them God and the Devil. I do find it interesting that by removing one letter from "good", you get "god". And of course, either out of respect, or to further personify this entity with grammatical emphasis (since proper names, or words that are used to refer to an individual, are capitalized), we would capitalize the first letter, giving us "God". It is also interesting to note that be removing the first letter of "Devil" we get "evil".
Now, I do believe that there was a man named Jesus and that he was a very impressive and influential man (call me Captain Obvious) but I have a very hard time believing that he was conceived by the holy spirit, and that his mother Mary could have given birth without help from the only type of impregnation available at the time, intercourse. The problem is, this contradicts an oath I took at my confirmation when I was 15, which looking back on, makes me realize that my mental capacity was not in place to have come to a definitive decision. To be honest, I have yet to finish my struggle on much of these issues. It also contradicts a creed that I take any Sunday I go to church, the Apostles Creed. Those contradictions have yet to be justified in my own mind and I my hypocrisies don't bother me too much, most likely because I enjoy the feeling of tradition and stability, and I enjoy feeling like a member of the good doers of the congregation, and that I am doing my part to help good overcome evil, but know that I have spent some thought on it, maybe I will stop saying the words that I do not believe.
I enjoy going to church, and learning about the stories in the bible, but the real reason for being a Christian to me is to instill good in my own life, and so doing spreading it to others, because life is not a solitary journey. Using fables and analogies to encourage other people to do good and forsaking evil is a noble cause, and that is how I can call myself a Christian. Religion is a deeply personal decision, and for most of us, our parents decide what our religion will be for the first decade and a half of our lives. But laziness, apathy, and lack of peer pressure (a.k.a college, unless you are a theology major) usually causes us to stop questioning where our morals come from and what we believe, that is until something like a child or another person comes into your life, bringing with them a realization that sharing the same morals and life lessons, would go a long way in helping you understand each other, bringing you closer, and combine your efforts on a noble cause. To simply tell them why your morals are just, and that they should consider adopting them, would be condescending and questionably effective, therefore we leave it up to religion and its teachers / preachers to help us in this endeavor.
I have much more to say on this topic, and am glad that I have broken the ice on this, but for now I must get to work.
I would love feedback on this topic.
Looks like that 19 in front of GT will be getting much smaller!! My Jackets not only beat the #3 team in the country (a.k.a. Duke) but did it on their own home court, something that hadn't been done by any team in 41 consecutive games (since 2001). Check out the story to learn how No. 19 Georgia Tech upset No. 3 Duke 76-68.
Sherry is having a baby shower for our friend Aimee on Saturday. So I being very uninterested in such things, will be finding things to do outside of the house, while 30 women ohh and awww over such things as baby monitors and diaper genies. Lucky for me, my friend McGraw has a sister that works for Delta (read: free travel at the drop of a hat). So McGraw is coming into town on Saturday to help me do my husbandly duties of picking up balloons and helping clean up and stuff so that the 30 women can add one more ohh for how nice the house looks, and then will help me spend my time hopefully doing some fun things around Norfolk... I got a funny joke for you guys.
"The other day I was walking around the mall and these two Norfolk State cheerleaders (I could tell by their uniforms) were walking the other direction. I overheard them (not to hard... they are cheerleaders) doing one of their cheers. It went like this:
Say it out loud if you don't get it.
Anyways, as I was saying we are going to play golf on Sunday with Shawn and a player to be named later (maybe Shelley's new husband, Mike Hunter). Both Shawn and McGraw played in high school, so I hope I can hold my own. We are playing at Bow Creek.
Sherry has posted the pictures of our trip to see Sarah and Heidi. If this link is troublesome for you, simple go to the Yahoo photos link located on the right of this page.
After a semi-successful first round, ending in Sherry's scarlet fever, the fearless McDonald's got tricked into a decisive final battle with the neglected (read: overgrown) Ivy in the front yard, that had already claimed one crape myrtle and was threatening the dog wood and azalea bushes.
Our heroine started by simple pulling off the ivy from the dog wood tree, but her addiction got the best of her and before she knew it, she was returning to the site of the previous battle... the flower beds. Her trusty sidekick was soon called into duty (after successfully hanging two window flower boxes). Team McDonald was now at full power against the mighty foe, and easily took out the weaker flower bed... the Right One. The native Azaleans were very grateful to their rescuers and promised to bloom mightily next season.
With one enemy down, the McDonald's turned their diminishing strengths toward the stronger of the two flower beds, the mighty Left One, where the carcass of the crape myrtle stood as an icon of the Ivy's power for all to see.
At this point, the team was spilt when our brave hero suddenly remembered that he needed to return inside to tend to the stairs and apply the wood fill in order to allow it time to cure before the final sanding in preparation for the nightly painting. So our heroine was left alone to brave the terror of the Left One!
Fear not, she had a tricky secret up her sleeve. By being stricken with the scarlet fever in her last battle, she had grown immune to the dreadful scarlet fever attack of the Left One, and it's power sucking scarlet fever had no effect on her this time. With it's main weapon useless against Sherry, she was able to summon all her strength and eradicate most of the sprawl all by her lonesome.
Just when she didn't think that she could hold it off my longer, mighty Ben came back to wipe out the main vine, which had wrapped around the light post and had in fact crushed the metal of the lamp post. Mighty Ben, sensing victory, took an axe to the root clusters that would not release it's hold on the dirt surrounding the lifeless body of Mr. Myrtle, and the battle was won... but not over.
It turns out that the life of a super hero is not always so glamorous... And the end of the day, someone still has to pick up the mess that is made saving the world from overgrown ivy. But this in itself is no easy task, since ivy doesn't give up, even when unrated. It will stay stiff and cling to anything present to prevent it's lifeless body from being stuck into a plastic bag for disposal. But with persistence, blood, and sweat the ivy was vanquished forever, and now waits on the side of the road for it's transportation to it's final resting place... the dump.
