Say What?

For the past two weeks, I've been trying to politely work with my web-host provider but all of my niceness has gotten me nowhere. The support tickets I've submitted to move the transfer along have been ignored. They've got me over a barrel in that the 'who is' contact information is listed as them rather than me. I never noticed this until now and it may seem like a small detail but when transferring a domain it's vital that the information is that of the domain owner for the process to go through. They're the only ones who can correct it. The web-host service is Myacen located in Perth, Australia and they're a reseller for a larger company called Enom located in the US. My frustration led me to contact Enom to see if there was any pressure they could bring to bear on Myacen to get them to work with me. It may be working. I'm not out of the woods yet but it appears the prairie grass is coming into view. Enom has the ability to make the necessary ch...

This is a continuation of a series of posts I've been adding to about my early years, post-high school and entering the Navy. The first of those entries can be found here . The most recent is here . Shipboard life in port in San Diego was probably as good a duty as I could've hoped for. I was the junior sailor in our division for my first several months on board which meant that I was the go-to guy for whatever working parties there may have been. A working party is where each division sends one man (the junior guy) to help out with whatever grunt work needs to be done. It's typically an hour or two detail but sometimes it can be one which lasts for days. One of the first times I was assign ed to a detail, I was part of a painting crew. We spraypainted several compartments throughout the ship and I'm quite certain we took very few precautions to protect ourselves from paint fumes. They gave us surgical masks which were pretty much useless. It was miserable duty that...

This is a continuation of a series of posts written about my time spent in the Navy in the mid to late 1970s. The most recent of those writings can be found here while the initial entry in this series is here . We got back from our WestPac (Western Pacific) cruise in the Fall of 1976. It had been a busy year for me, especially considering that one year earlier, joining the Navy was not on my radar while working dead-end jobs was. For the most part, we'd spend the next 21 months in port in San Diego and in that time I'd fall in love with my home away from home; not the ship but the city. I didn't own a car or even a bike so I walked almost everywhere and would catch buses along the way. I did my share of hitchhiking as well but eventually, I'd stop thumbing for rides after having had too many encounters that left me questioning that cheap form of transportation. To quote a line from a favorite TV show from years ago; "No thanks, Chuck, I'll remain on my own...

If you notice during the next few days that links within my blog appear to be dead there's a reason for that. I'm in the process of terminating my affiliation with Myacen, my web hosting service and bringing it back to life with Go Daddy . I hope to have it all back to normal in a week or less. I've been with Myacen for six years but over the last couple of years, they've become a shell of what they once were to the point where I needed to make this change. My site was down for most of yesterday. The five-year deal I've signed with Go Daddy will give me 10gb of storage and more bandwidth than I could ever use, all for significantly less than I've been paying. Our garage project is on hold as we wait for Keith to finish work on cabinets for it. I'm actually not sure if he's even had a chance to start them yet as he's been busy traveling the Midwest following the NHRA race scene which he participates in . He's a busy guy and I'm sure he...

Happy Labor Day. When I used to listen to talk radio I'd often hear Rush or Hannity talk about how it's the wealthy in this country who provide jobs for the masses. Without the generousness of the wealthy, we would have nothing. Fair enough; or is it? My thinking has changed in recent years and I'm now more inclined to say that without labor, all the money in the world would do the wealthy no good whatsoever. Who would assemble their products, deliver them and for that matter, buy them if it weren't for us common folk? Is one side in this equation more important than the other or this as pure a symbiotic relationship as can be? I don't have the answer but I do know that we're all in this together. Speaking from experience working as an air traffic controller in the FAA, when one side ignores the other and forces its will on them no good can come from that. Real leaders lead by example and encourage rather than force others to follow. Rachel had some friends ov...

We left the pool and got into the elevator with a big fellow in his 60s. Tammy asked him how he was doing and he replied that he'd been down more than $8000 at one point but won $6000 of it back. He was quite happy having lost $2000. I guess it has everything to do with one's perspective. We had one more night on the town before catching an early flight the next morning. On our way out of the hotel, we stopped by the front desk to settle up and to make sure there weren't any added charges we weren't aware of, and there were. We knew we'd be charged for anything we used from the cooler as it stated clearly on the front of its door. What was a surprise to us was that there was also a hefty charge for any of the items on top of the dresser that we used and we used quite a few...to the tune of $150.28! Page 1 and page 2 of our bill of extras. The love box doesn't come cheap at $32.33. We explained to the woman behind the counter that we had no idea there w...

We took to the city on foot Wednesday night and had no idea how much ground we'd cover by the time the night was done. We walked from our hotel (Mandalay Bay) to a point about a block south of the Stratosphere over 4 miles away. Our route was a zigzag one which added to the overall total. What better way to see Las Vegas? The peddlers of porn along the sidewalks grew tiring but I found myself feeling sympathetic toward them. These were people who probably occupy the lower rungs of the economic ladder doing whatever they can to make a living. They line the sidewalks holding what looks like stacks of baseball cards in their hands. They'd hold out one or two of the cards and flick them with their fingers making a noise to get your attention. Often people would grab the cards thinking they were coupons but once they looked at them and saw what they were they would usually toss them on the sidewalk if there wasn't a trash can nearby. The sidewalks were littered with them in ...

It's been five years since Tammy and I have taken a vacation. Not that we haven't had time off work; we just haven't gone anywhere. We figured that as long as Rachel has been able to get away on mission trips with her church groups we were fine with us staying put. Our five-year streak is over. The three of us took a quick vacation to Las Vegas last week. I'd never been there. Our choices were New York City, Lake Superior's North Shore in northern Minnesota or Las Vegas. I let Tammy and Rachel choose. We left Tuesday morning. I was celebrating my 52nd birthday as we flew out. Rachel turned 18 the day before. 18 gets you into casinos in Minnesota and that's where her friends took her for her birthday the night before but you've got to be 21 to gamble in Las Vegas. She said she didn't care much for slot machines but had fun playing Blackjack. She joined the ranks of the losers to the tune of $7. We stayed at Mandalay Bay on the south end of the ...