My last Grandmother passed away

My Grandmother from my mothers side passed away. She outlived all of her daughters. All three daughters died the same year (2000) from the same condition....heart attacks. She was 83 years old.Winnell Cavaitt Smith
MRS. WINNELL CAVAITT SMITH expired on May 7, 2008. Visitation is Tues., May 13, 2008, 7:00-9:00 p.m. Funeral service is Wed., May 14, 2008 at 11:00 a.m. Both services are to be held at McCoy & Harrison Funeral Home Chapel. The Reverend John Binford, officiating. Interment: Paradise South.

Our Wedding Video

I have had our wedding video digitized for a while...dunno why I never posted it. While watching it on my Mac I had a brain fart...so here it is. If this looks funny....USE INTERNET EXPLORER! Firefox mucks this page up something evil. This page looks fine in Internet Explorer 7.0 or Safari! Direct link to the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljzSkw48KGM

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljzSkw48KGM

edit: Thanks to This Plugin....it should display correctly on all browsers....now could I have the last HOUR of my life back? URF!

Getting the Richmonds to Texas

So I...along with Kelli...have a plan to get as many of her siblings to Texas as possible. Every time I am around either Kevin or Jami I repeatedly tell them how cheap and great it is to live in Texas. Part of this is genuine that they are fun to be around and it would be nice to see them more often. Additionally it truly is cheaper as Kevin and his wife Jenny live in New York while Jami and her wife Priscilla live in California. Not cheap places. I think Kevin and Jenny are at least considering moving here after Jenny completes nursing school next year. I don't know about Jami and Priscilla. They just bought a house in Sacramento. Of course a year from now the real estate market will have rebounded and their $200,000 small house will be worth $290,000. They can then sell it and put down almost half the cost of a house twice the size and many times newer here in the DFW area. Jami is going to be a nurse so she can work anywhere. There are a ton of very highly rated and understaffed hospitals all around including one less than 5 miles away! Priscilla will have been at her job for a little more than a year and a half so she should be able to slide into a similar position here. They could easily live like queens (pardon the pun) on Jami's salary alone!

Now for Kevin and Jenny. Kevin graduates from the NYPD police academy in June. Jenny finishes her own nursing program next year. A nurse and a cop! They are both in high demand. Jenny can get the same high paying nursing job as Jami. Kevin can slide into a high paying, cushy, police job at any one of the nice suburbs around the mid-cities. Heck we live next to the Euless police station as is! They are currently paying 2X what our mortgage is in rent! They can easily afford a very nice house anywhere in the mid-cities area.

Once this is all done the greatest mother in law in the world can make just one trip to see three of her kids!

Of course this is all one big scheme so that when Kelli and I do have a kid....we have free baby sitters!

Hmm think I will sign Kevin and Jami up for the Texas, Dallas, Fort Worth and Euless tourism and relocation newsletters.

Hmmm so yeah....you want to browse the network?

Honeymoon with the Mac is over.  When I first got it home I easily browsed my Windows workgroup. After I installed all the updates....no more workgroup. Odd. I searched online and found its a common issue. This sucks! I was trying to add my printer that's controlled by my Windows Home Server. I am sure I can still add it as it's still a network printer....but it's not as easy as I think it should be.I am however enjoying the 4-5 hour battery life and the lighted keyboard. Having the keyboard backlit helps quite a bit as I am still getting used to the layout. Also when I overnight in a hotel I have the computer in the bed so I can listen to The Russ Martin Show while I sleep. Using the keyboard at night is sooo easy with this keyboard.While in California I brought my previous laptop out to sell to my sister in law. It's still a very capable laptop that I was going to part out and sell for more than it's worth whole. She needs a good laptop as her previous desktop died. I re-imaged the laptop, installed Office, Norton Anti-Virus and all the Windows updates. Hopefully it will last a few weeks before she gets it full of spyware and adaware.  Below is a thumbnail of the lighted keyboard. 

Loving the Mac

So a few days in and I am loving my new Mac. Things are just easy. I brought it with me to my second job in Jacksonville, Florida. This thing travels very well. Wireless networking is easier, faster and more reliable than it was on Windows XP or Vista. The battery is a good 4 hours and is small versus my jumbo battery on my HP that was 6 hours...7 on a good day. Turning this thing on is easy and it boots up to a useable Operating System in less than 30 seconds. Playing a DVD? Pop it in....and it plays. No 3rd party software to load or mess media player...it just plays. Using Windows inside of the Mac OS is also very easy. I am so happy that I would comfortably encourage my mother in law to get one when she is ready for her next computer....which should be soon as it's been a good 4 years or so. I also think the case of the laptop is sexy....all aluminum.

Mac + WinXP + Win Vista

So I had an issue installing Parallels last night. Something bad happened. I didn't want to think to much about it so I used my restore disk and reimaged my new powerbook. Then I read the directions on Parallels (funny how reading directions most of the time helps stuff) and reinstalled Parallels and the installed Windows XP. I used the license from one of the dead laptops. I then used Bootcamp to install Windows XP (same license since it's technically the same computer) and then upgraded it to Windows Vista. So now I can dual boot EITHER Mac OS or Vista and if I choose Mac OS I can go back and forth between Mac OS and Windows XP. Nice. This computer runs Windows very well. Mac OS X has all the drivers needed on the Mac OS restore DVD. How nice is that!Still happy. I am now in the process of backing up my old laptop, transferring the data to the new Windows Vista and verifying everything. I will then wipe the old one clean.

Writing this on a MAC

So my MacBook Pro came today. I was worried that I would miss the UPS man. I had a flight to Huntsville, Alabama and back that arrived at 1:40PM. The UPS man normally brings stuff around 2PM or 6PM. I rushed home and was here about 10 minutes before he came. So far I see a nice big learning curve ahead. I gotta figure if its possible to click using just the touchpad and not the mouse button. The keyboard is also different. I used the home, end, pgup and pgdown keys alot. All are gone. This will be fun...and I am sure frustrating.