40th Birthday/ 20th Anniversary!

This is a few days late but better late than never.

In the recent past, namely April 25, we celebrated my wife's 40th birthday. April 26th was also our 20th wedding anniversary. Can't believe 20 years can go by that fast! If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't think twice of asking her to be my wife. She has been such a great companion and mother to our children and I thank the Lord for bringing her into my life. Here are a few pics of the b-day party that took place at TGI Fridays:

Wow this cake was good. It was loaded with some sort of creme filling!


Lori did a great job setting things up for this event. Many thanks!


Can she do it in one breath?


She sure did! We have witnesses.


It was special to have these two around for such an event.













Dave, of course spoiling, his first grandchild Blake...


She joined me over the hill. I went over last June.


Opening the "loot".

A Robview. Cell Phone Upgrade Part 1.

Its time for another exciting Robview!

I have been with Verizon Wireless for at least 4 years now. Verizon offers a deal to upgrade your phone after 2 years called the "new every two" offer. A lot of the phones offered are free with a new 2 year contract. Well, the time had come to upgrade. I previously had the Samsung model SCH-A650 which performed very well. I liked its compact size, good battery life, and reception. The phone still works great. I actually have 3 more of these all sharing minutes on my family share plan.
Here is a picture of my old phone.....


And now, to the upgrade:
In considering the upgrade, I spent quite a bit of time trying to decide on which phone would be the best possible replacement. After all, it would be with me for the next 2 years! I did my usual research online to get user and professional reviews on the various phones offered by verizon. After much contemplation and comparing, I decided on the Motorola E815. Check this review out on > PCMag.com <...and this link> SPECS to see all the features.

As you can see, unlike my old phone, this is a camera phone. I often said I wasn't interested in a camera on my cell phone mainly because the little so called "cameras" are often cheesy and produce lousy images. I must admit that its been fun to play with it and create wallpaper/backround for my phone's display. I usually put a picture of one of the children or my wife's face as a display backround. The pics actually turn out pretty decent.
Some features that really interested me in this phone that my old one didn't have are these:
1. Its has a speaker phone function.
2. Bluetooth enabled. (This looked really useful to me. More on this function below.)
3. A larger display.
4. More room for contacts. (up to 1000)
5. MP3 Player.

I recently ordered a bluetooth headset for it at Compusa's website. Here is a link to check out the Philips Vox 120 > Headset

In summary, I am well pleased with the phone after 1 week. I will post again soon after some time to try out the phone with the coming headset. Until next time.....

Stay tuned for "Cell Phone Upgrade Part 2" on the next "Roblog Review"

Taxes and Trees.

I always dread this time of year. Mainly because of April 15 which is the day taxes are to be mailed for the previous year. I have really gotten nailed a few times. Most folks don't think much about it because their taxes are taken out of their pay checks every week. They even get happy when they get a refund. That is really silly because it simply means that they took too much out of them during the year! And guess what, they don't get paid any interest for being out of their own money (the refund amount) through the year. Imagine the interest you would have to pay on a credit card balance of $2000.00 over a year! At least once in their lives everyone should have the experience of paying taxes like us self-employed folks do. It would sure open some eyes on how much money gets jerked away from you!
This tax time turned out to be much easier than I expected. A pleasant change indeed!

On a different subject, my favorite shade tree is the "Norway Maple". It provides the most dense shade that a tree can produce. In fact, its often hard to grow grass under them. I planted several around our place in the late 80's and the picture below shows the little brand new leaves coming out on one of them. The leaves will get very large and dark green soon but don't they look cute right now?

I can almost understand how a "tree hugger" might feel. LOL. I hope Rush doesn't see this. He often says "The most beautiful thing about a tree is what you do with it after you cut it down. Such as build a piano, nice cabinetry, baseball bats, houses, etc." He has a great point!

Miss Update 2.

We went on a trip to New Orleans today after lunch to do some looking around and also hand out cd's to folks. It was quite the trip. We got to tour some of the area devastated when the levee broke. Some pics can be seen below. The final 2 pics show the area near the French market. We plan to leave for home early tomorrow afternoon.

From Mississippi!

Well, here is the first official update from Mississippi. We got here around 6:15 on Sat night. Had a pretty good trip except the A/C in the bus was not working. They hope to get someone out to look at it tomorrow. It will be a rough trip home unless they get it fixed. We have had temps in the mid 80's about every day. It got real chilly last night because it was around 50 this morning. Work has been good. We have split into about 3 or 4 groups doing anything from roofing, electrical, drywall, and insulation. There is always plenty of ribbing and teasing about which crew works the hardest etc. The destruction is still incredible even after several months. It will be years until all the restoration is complete. Curfew is 10:00 in the sleeping house with lights out at 10:30. I am really rushing this post. I might have time for a picture or two but the connection is way slow compared to my high speed at home. The first picture shows a little damage. The second pic is of Elizabeth. She is a super nice lady that is so appreciative of what we are doing. She would love to have us come down and visit sometime. Well gotta go. Perhaps more tomorrow night. Your continued prayers are much appreciated!