Goodbye, Summer

Tricks, Treats, & Trips

I think that Spam sucks. But in the last 48 hours, I’ve found something even worse.

For the past 48 hours, someone idiot out in Internet-land has been using various open relays scattered around the Internet to spam pretty much the entire world. And the aggravating part?

He’s using an old @mindspring.com email address in the from field. My old address.

And it started out nicely, as telemarketing spam. But now I’m apparently sending porn spam too. And not the “nice” type of porn either, if you get my drift.

Let me also take this opportunity to tell you how useless Earthlink is in this entire situation. I’ve told them what the problem is, and asked them to contact the appropriate people on the open-relay ISPs. But all I keep getting are canned responses. Guess I’ll be filing all of those reports myself. Trust me, you little customer support mouth-breather: I’ve worked on this type stuff for a little while now. I know what I’m talking about. I loved Mindspring to death, but their merger with Earthlink has absolutely killed them. It may be time to can that account soon.

But, on the day before Thanksgiving, I would remiss to leave out the fact that at least 1 good thing did come out of this - an old friend that I used to work with in Atlanta recognized my email address and contacted me. Nice to hear from you, Chuck!

Have a good Thanksgiving, everyone. Give thanks, with a grateful heart.

I consider myself a “Christmas purist”. By that, I mean that I do not want to think about anything Christmas-y until the day after Thanksgiving. It aggravates me to no end to see Halloween candy replaced on November 1 with Christmas candy. I can’t stand seeing all of the Christmas tree displays while I’m going to buy a turkey for Thanksgiving. And the cardinal sin to me - other than plastering the phrase X-Mas everywhere - playing Christmas music before Thanksgiving - is absolutely verboten.

So why is it that this year that I’ve already watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and started listening to Christmas music? It’s killing me, but I think I must already be in the Christmas Spirit.

So much, in fact, that I’m working on a list to post here of my favorite Christmas carols, and why they are. Ho-Ho-Ho.

- It is now 1 month until Christmas. I think I need to start shopping.

- Auburn whipped Alabama’s butt on Saturday. No other way of looking at it. Even though I was disappointed, I know that Jim and Honey are smiling. And that makes me smile, too.

- Note to my Dad: Thanks again, for climbing up on the roof. Let’s hope everything stays dry this time.

- Note to my Mom: The brownies are gone. Brandon & Caleb devoured them.

- Note to my fellow Stuntas: Just call me Mac Daddy. Yo. : )

Live Aquarium Camera - Live camera inside the New England Aquarium in Boston, MA.

Wow, is already Sunday night? What a busy weekend it was.

On Friday night, Amanda’s mom and grandmother came back from the beach. Instead of driving the additional hour to Tuscaloosa and trying to unload everything, they decided to stop here and spend the night. It was fun visiting with them.

They left Saturday morning to try and beat traffic to Tuscaloosa (where, supposedly, Alabama was playing Auburn - I don’t know. I’m still waiting to see a game.) My folks then came up, and Dad and I (well, mostly Dad) tried once again to fix my leaking roof. This time we actually got out a hose and tried a lot of different places. I think we got it this time, but I thought that two other times. It’s supposed to rain on Tuesday. We’ll see.

And today, of course, was Sunday. I drove shuttle carts for a portion of the morning. The highlight of church this morning was our choir, standing in the balcony, singing acapella. The last time I heard that song, I remember thinking that I wanted to be a part of that. So I joined the choir. Two years later, I’ve had to drop out (rehearsals are on Wed. night @ 8, which is usually when we put the boys in bed) and missed doing the very song that I loved so much.

Of course, this is Thanksgiving week. It’ll be a short work week, but a long week in a lot of other regards. I’m looking forward to relaxing with a few books I’ve picked up. Lately I’ve had a horrible habit of starting a book and never finishing it. We’ll see how I do with these.

Paul Finebaum Live! - For better or worse, you can now listen to Paul Finebaum live on the Internet. A sign of the apocalypse? You decide.

It’s been great having everyone back home. I did manage to get a lot of things done around the house while Amanda and the boys were gone, but I missed out on a lot of things while they were gone.

Since they’ve been home:

- I have built about 4 different wooden train layouts.
- We’ve made “Brandon-Daddy-cornbread” for dinner.
- There have been at least 2 “shows” in their room with everyone singing and playing instruments.
- Brandon’s decided that he has outgrown his booster seat.
- Caleb’s finally given up his bed-time bottle.
- Peter Pan & Captain Hook have fought endless sword fights. Peter’s friend Michael decided to join in a few times, too.

And I could go on and on.

Andrew Lipson’s LEGO page - Too much time on your hands? Try making the Dilbert characters out of Lego.