Buck From 2004.

I shot this buck during the shotgun season of 04. I wasn't planning to get this one mounted but my dad wanted it to decorate his wall!
The mount was done by Sapp's Taxidermy. As you can see, he did a great job on it.

A Robview. (Review)

I have wanted to do a post like this for quite a while now. I think I will incorporate a new type of post on here called "Robviews". The purpose of these posts will be to inform loyal Roblog constituents of PC or internet related products that I deem to be highly useful. The first "Robview" will be dedicated to the product "Firefox".
Firefox falls into the category of "internet related products". Namely, its a web-browser. A VERY good one too. It blows "internet explorer" clean out of the water in my humble opinion! Any thing that gives a Microsoft product a run for its money MUST be good. I have used Firefox for at least a year now. I will list the things I like most about this great browser.
1. Its very clean. Doesn't have a lot of useless cluttery toolbars etc. like IE. This, of course, gives you optimal viewing space on web-pages.
2. When you go to launch or "start" Firefox, it loads up quickly.
3. Tabbed browsing. You can open new web-pages in tabs instead of whole new windows.
4. Bookmarks (favorites) are easily customized. The "bookmarks toolbar" is especially useful for your most frequently visited sites.
5. Has a powerful built-in popup blocker.
6. Is not targeted by security threats near as heavily as IE.
7. Google search is built right into the top right corner of the browser.
8. Very few websites fail to function properly under Firefox.
9. Yes. Its FREE.

One small detail to make you aware of is this:
About the only thing you can't do with Firefox is get those, all important, "Windows Updates". You MUST use Internet Explorer to get those unless you have your PC set to receive the updates automatically.
In summary, you would do yourself a favor by downloading and using Firefox if you don't already use it. You will not regret it.
Click here to get Firefox > Rediscover The Web!
Has this edition of Robview been helpful or informative to you? If so, leave a comment below.

Coming up on the next Robview: A look at Plaxo! It could be the last address book/contact solution you will EVER NEED!

Cheers! Rob

Web Page Design. Any Advice?

Looking for some good comment activity on this post. The topic of discussion is "web page design". As you all know by now, blogging has become quite the revolution across the internet. The thing I have noticed is how easy it is to create and update a blog. A blog is so much like a web page that I got to thinking "there has to be something online by now to create and update web pages as easy as a blog". I have used a few programs in the past like Namo and Front Page but was always frustrated at how time consuming and tedious it was to navigate and work with those programs. File uploading was also a pain at times. If anyone knows of a reputable online service that lets you create, edit, and host a website at a decent price please leave recommendations or suggestions below. Keep in mind that you don't need to have a user ID and password to leave comments on here.
Thanks

Where is Winter?

I must be different from most folks. When its winter, I expect the weather to be winter like. The weather around here lately has been more like the beginning of April than the middle of January! Its supposed to hit 60 again today! Someone said the Almanac predicted warm weather for the first part of this month but said the end of January will turn drastically colder and snow like mad. I will believe it when I see it with my own eyes! LOL Oh well, we all know that the weather is controlled by God and its up to Him what we get. The picture above (taken from last winter out of our patio door) will hold me through till winter does show up, if it shows up.

Val Yoder and Family.

Click picture for larger view.

Many of you would remember, from an earlier post, that Conrad was at SMBI during the 2nd term. This was the November/December term. Kendra was able to go back for the 3rd term and is there now. Conrad, Katrina, Ashley, Stephanie Keller, went this weekend to visit Kendra over her birthday. All of SMBI was shocked with the news that came today. Japheth Stauffer posted the following on his blog today:

Today God Saw fit to take another of His gems home. We received word this afternoon that Krystal Yoder, wife of Val Yoder, was ushered into the presence of her beloved Savior.

She has had a long battle with her heart and today it gave out on her while attending a wedding in Lancaster Pennsylvania. Her brother who is a medical doctor was there with her and said that she could not have been revived even if she had been at the best hospital. It was her time to go.

Please pray for their family! Their oldest son is in Thailand doing prep work for the whole family to move there next year. This also happened at the same time that Val was attending a meeting to plan the development of a Bible school for Asians in Thailand. Pray for the family’s strength in all of this!!

Newly Engaged!

Congratulations to 2 fine young couples! They announced their engagements this weekend. May the Lord richly bless you all in this new venture!

Chad and Kendra


Justin and Ladonna.

Carry-in or Fellowship Meals.

An interesting discussion developed after church last Sunday morning among a few folks. It was regarding the benefit vs. hassle of having carry-in meals. I was heartbroken just as much as Marty and Kenny that it got canceled for this Sunday! Lets look and the pro's and con's of this subject.
Some of the argument in favor of the carry-ins seems to be along this line:

1. Lunch is often prepared before leaving for church on Sunday mornings so why not just bring it along to church.
2. In most cases, you will find that you actually eat sooner on Sunday afternoon at a carry-in than you do if you go home to eat.

Arguments against:

1. It might be more difficult for those who live a distance from church.
2. It creates too much work for the hospitality committee.

I invite any of you to contribute more arguments in favor of or against carry-in meals on Sunday.

An Interesting Phone Call.

I wonder how many of you heard the young high school guy that called into Rush Limbaugh's show today? He was trying to get advice from Rush on how to respond to his liberal democrat father. Click here > RIGHTONTHERIGHT to find out how to replay the phone call. I actually got to talk to Justin online through Instant Messenger. Here is how the conversation went....

Rm6565: Hey man. Great call on Rush's show today. I bet you can't keep up with all the IM's coming to you!
RightOnTheRight: Hehe, couldn't be more right
RightOnTheRight: And emails
Rm6565: You are suddenly famous! :-)
RightOnTheRight: Ya
RightOnTheRight: Went from 120 hits on my site a day to a couple hundred per hour
Rm6565: Who is hosting your website? Did you have to upgrade or switch hosts?
RightOnTheRight: Hehe, my admin hosts a forum online
RightOnTheRight: He said his server crashed within seconds of my plug
RightOnTheRight: So he called his host company up and got it fixed
Rm6565: After you gave out your web address on Rush's show I figured it would crash! Anyway, I know you are a busy guy. Good chatting with you, keep on doing what you are doing. We need more young skulls full of the RIGHT mush! Merry CHRISTmas!
RightOnTheRight: Merry Christmas, and keep in touch
Rm6565: Sure thing.

Caroling At The Mall.

Our Church was at the mall last night caroling. My father-in-law wrote an email regarding this effort. I thought it was well said and I have pasted it below the picture.

"We ARE the reason for the season!" That is what the preacher said. I heard him say that yesterday. He was not being smart--his point was:

"If it had not been for humanity (you and me) there would not have been Christmas". I have a Christmas cup that says: "Jesus is the reason for the season" I don't think I will be able to look at that statement again in the same way.

Last night, close to 100 Central people stood in the center of Dover Mall and sang our hearts out for nearly and hour!! Usually, we end with: "We wish you a Merry Christmas!!" and when we were finished, someone in the picture taking booth with Santa in it said: Happy Hanukah!" Perhaps he was attempting to be "politically correct"or he may have heard too much about Jesus!! We have been doing this sort of ministry for close to 40 years and as we were singing, I thought: "how special it is to be able to do this!!" My next thought was: "How long will it be 'til we are told--

"sorry--we can't let you do it no more!!" I'm sure you heard where parents were upset, because the teacher told her students: "there is no Santa Claus!" She needed to go back and tell a lie in order to take care of telling the truth!!!

As I watched the 'stream' of humanity moving back and forth while we sang, one could see the 'emptiness' of hearts without the Saviour of the world. no wonder I find myself often sad---

Our Beloved Mnissle

Anybody recognize this fella? He is sure in his element wouldn't you agree?!

Sleeping Late.

This entry will be in the form of a poll. Its 10:15 Saturday morning here and my dear wife is making the typical breakfast/brunch for this day of the week. Pancakes and eggs! During this process, she asked the following question: "I wonder if I'm the only woman who stays in bed until 9:00am on a Saturday morning?" She asked this question with a bit of remorse. I tried to reassure her that there are probably a lot of women who sleep that late or even later! I have to admit that we are not a morning family. We all tend to be night owls around here, including me. So the poll question will be in two parts:
1. Do you often sleep until 9:00 or later on a Saturday morning?
2. What tends to be your typical breakfast/brunch on this morning?

By the way, I also stayed in bed until 9:00 this morning! I had a good excuse though, I have a pretty bad cold right now. Don't ask me what my excuse is on other Saturday mornins! LOL

Firewood.

Today was firewood accumulation day. Many thanks to Kent for providing a nice oak to cut up and split. He even helped out with cutting it up. The fairly large tree was damaged during a storm and was threatening to come down on the road and power lines. A local tree removal service felled it under contract with the power company. That left a nice log for us to go to work on. I recently picked up a "like new" Husqvarna from Lowes that was marked down to almost 1/2 new price. It was sitting outside along with some other returned power equipment. It was returned for some sort of repair etc but still had 1 year factory warranty on it. Today offered a great opporunity to put it to a good test. It performed flawlessly! Below you will see the saw etc....


The Husky Model 359 with 20" bar.
Original new price at Lowes was around 490.00
I picked it up at the reduced price of 250.00!



A gas wood-splitter would have been nice...


Go Kent!


It was a rather chilly day so I, of course, consumed large amounts of coffee!

For Those "Techno-geeks" Out There.

In a previous post titled "The Struggle for Broadband" I mentioned some of the hassle it has been for Bro. Bill to get hooked up with a high speed internet connection. Some of the hassle I didn't mention was the 2 or 3 attempts he made to get DSL at his place. His line showed "DSL available" each time he tried to proceed with the Verizon DSL order. Each attempt was met with Verizon telling him "We are sorry sir, but our DSL service is not available for you after all". What a disappointment to be sure. So we talked it over and decided to try a "plan B". This "plan B" meant teaming up with Comcast to get their cable based broadband service going at his place. This option started out looking rather expensive (in the 1200.00 to 2000.00 range) for the initial underground cable installation. The installation cost was because of how far they had to run the cable back his lengthy driveway. The distance of over 500 feet would require the use of the pricey large "hard line" type cable. After much discussion with a manager from Comcast, he agreed to work with me on getting bro. Bill connected at a much lower price of 120.00 for their install fee! They would run the more standard cable up to 320 feet at which point I would install an enclosure to house the cable modem. From the enclosure we ran a cat5, in conduit, the rest of the 290 feet to the Netgear wireless router that we installed in his garage. We also had to run a 110v. line (to power the modem) to the enclosure.
Before we actually got started on this "plan B" one of the things the manager at Comcast said was "The 320 feet length on their cable will not allow enough signal to support any TV service but should still be fine for the cable modem to work at full capacity". His other words were something like "We have never really tried this sort of installation before but we are willing to give this a try". Wow, it almost felt like we were into some kind of experiment and even had me wondering if it would work! I felt all along that it would work because of some similar things I had done at my own place. The distance of the cat5 had me a little concerned, I must admit, since the maximum distance on a cat5 is supposedly 320 feet. We were at around 290 feet from the modem to the router!
To sum all this up, IT WORKED! He now has 2 computers networked and both online with broadband. The speed test results showed near 4300 KBPS. Folks, that is cruising! Now he is ready to send/recieve Autocad files at blistering speeds.

As you can see, quite a distance from the road!


The trench for the cat5 and 110v modem line is shown here....


We took the guts out of an old meter pan and turned it into "The Enclosure"
Don't laugh. It works!


Hey Willis, are you ready to get hooked up?

Wedding in VA.

Sorry its been so long since the last post! What better excuse to get something new on here than a wedding? Days like this are so refreshing. Weddings have a way of bringing family and friends together on such a positive note. Both Jerrel and Karen are blessed with great families and up-bringings. The foundation has been laid for a new, strong, Christian home to be a shining light in a world full of broken homes! We wish them God's best in the days and years to come.

SMBI

Made the trip to SMBI on Sunday afternoon to take Conrad and his cousin Kendra up for a 6 week term. This is their first time at Bible School. We pray it turns out to be a growing and grounding experience for both of them.

Arrived around 8:30 Sunday night.


Getting unpacked into his dorm room.

The Struggle for Broadband!

Had kind of a busy day today. Working on a Saturday is not one of my favorites. Phineas seems to really get a bang out of it but I sure don't! Went to brother Bill's place to get the cat5 cable in place that will carry the high speed internet connection on back to his office. He is really wanting to get CAD going in his drafting business and broadband is almost a necessity to be able to do it right. Since DSL is not available for him, he had to go with the local cable company. This option started out on a bad note. Originally, Comcast wanted over 1000.00 to get the cable (large "hardline" feeder cable) back his rather lenghty 600 foot lane. I managed to talk a Comcast engineer into running the more standard cable halfway back his lane. I offered to take it from there. It will mean putting the cable modem, and 110v. receptacle, in an enclosure about halfway down his lane. From there we plan to run a cat5 cable, in conduit, the rest of the 300 feet. This will allow us to make it into his garage where we will install the router and connect the 4 PC's located in the office above the garage. All this may seem like a lot of hassle but I feel it will be worth it in the end. The thing that really makes me frustrated is the whole DSL issue or lack thereof! I have to pay 58.00/month for my broadband through Comcast simply because there are no other cheaper options. If Verizon would just get their act together and get DSL more available around here it would save a lot of trouble and money etc. Everytime I see an advertisement for Verizon DSL it makes me want to scream! That Ad seems to be everywhere loudly proclaiming their DSL service for only 15.00/month. That is an incredibly cheap price for broadband to be sure but what good is it if hardly anyone can get it? I just can't believe its almost the year 2006 and DSL service is so sparce. I will keep you posted on how things work out at bro. Bill's place.

Another Deer Pic.

Congratulations to Chad (Kendra's boyfriend) on this nice one! I didn't know they got this big in South Carolina! I wonder if Wesley's is any better than this one? We may never know since nobody gets me a picture! LOL

More of Baby Blake.

We finally got over to see baby Blake for ourselves tonight. He seems to be adjusting really well as do the new parents! It seems just a few short years ago that we had our first child. He is now 18.5 years old and planning to leave for Bible School this coming Sunday! It hardly seems possible. Where did all the years go so quickly? Its too bad there was no capability of blogging back in those days. It would have been fun to post pictures for friends and family to see almost right after they are taken. There are certain things about technology you just gotta love!

Baby Blake...

The picture of contentment....


But it was short-lived!


Even I got to hold him....

School Benefit Auction in VA.

Here it is a cool rainy Saturday morning here in DE. Been wondering how its going at the school benefit sale in VA. I hope the rain is not messing things up too badly. I sure wish we could have made it this year because we really enjoyed being there last year. A couple factors influenced our decision not to go. One is the fact that our 1996 Chevy Astro minivan is still not running very good. I am thinking its a bad valve because the motor has a noticable "miss" when at idle. We already tried changing what seemed like a bad spark plug/wire etc. but it didn't solve the problem. The van only has 112K miles on it and it really disappoints me that this sort of problem has showed up already. I may try ebay about getting another Astro because I like the ability of this type of minivan to pull a trailer. Also the fuel mileage is pretty good with these at around 18-20 mpg.
The 2nd reason of not making it to the sale would be the wedding we will be going to in Stuarts Draft VA. for Naomi's nephew Jerrel. Hopefully we can have the van issue solved by then.

Talk Radio

This post is mainly for those living in, or near, Delaware but feel free to post comments on the subject if it interests you.
I have to admit being a big fan of talk radio. One station we have in our area WDOV AM1410
is pretty much all news/talk. Dr. Laura's show has been part of the daily programming for many years on this station. That seems to have come to an end. I guess station management has decided to replace her show with Sean Hannity. I guess I have mixed feelings about it. I enjoyed listening to Dr. Laura but have found myself really enjoying the Hannity show. I am wondering how you all (those living around here) are taking this change? Are you glad? Sad? Mad? Or simply could care less.
For those from our church please sign your comments with your first name and last initial.
Thanks.