clanMcGraw.com

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” - Philo of Alexandria

Hmmm.

Whoops… I’ve been meaning to post a message for about the last 3 weeks stating that clanMcGraw.com would be down this past weekend. My hosting provider was moving locations this weekend and, despite all of the technological advances, there’s not much you can do when your server’s in the back of a U-Haul.

But everything’s squared away now. I went down to Tuscaloosa on Friday night, after taking Zyrtec and sleeping most of the day away. My folks were nice enough to watch the boys this weekend while Amanda and I went over to her Mom’s house to help her move some boxes. She’s having some remodeling done next week, and there was a good bit of stuff to move out.

One neat moment… Amanda’s Dad had bought a digital camera about 2 years ago, but had never really used it. Or so I thought. I was trying to hook it up to Diane’s laptop, and found out that he’d taken about 30 pictures, including some of Amanda’s grandmother, Honey. I’m hoping to be able to download them this week.

And now, it’s time to take more Zyrtec (God bless the souls who make this stuff!) and go to bed.

…why Spring is so great. All it brings is pollen. I went out tonight and got the lawnmower fired up. I proceeded to make one pass of my back yard.

5 minutes later, my eyes are itching so badly I’m practically clawing at them to make them stop. I now have an icebag on my face to try and relieve some of the pain. I’m also sneezing non-stop. It’s not a pleasant feeling.

Time to take some Zyrtec and go to bed.

Digital Needle - A Virtual Gramophone. Got some time to kill? Most people would just go and buy a record player, not write a program to convert a digital scanned image of an album into digital sound.

Now you can answer the burning question: Who’s your inner VeggieTales character?

Take the test, by Emily.

Dang. I was hoping to be Larry or Mr. Lunt.

Yahoo! News - National Do Not Call Sign Up Starts in July

Tired of telemarketers? The sign-up period begins on July 1st. The government has already announced that it expects the web-site and 1-800 number to be completely overwhelmed for the first few months.

I know it’s big business, but don’t you think telemarketers would get the message that 99.9% of Americans hate their calls? I actually made some voting decisions based on which candidates did telemarketing. And on Monday, while we were leaving the house, I got a call that went something like this:

Me: Hello.
TM: Roooooooooooooooooooooooooooooll Tide! This is University of Alabama head football coach Mike Price…
Me: Click.

I’m becoming more of a UT fan every day.

Last Christmas, my Mom & Dad gave Brandon a pair of skates. Unfortunately, they didn’t fit and we had to return them. However, last week, Amanda found a pair at a consignment sale, and they fit just perfectly. I am absolutely no good on roller skates, so we’ve decided to let Amanda handle all of the roller instructions.

Ready to Roll!

All went well, for a little while. But what goes up must come down:

Thank goodness for those safety pads

Brandon had the one fall, but overall did really well. But after a little while, he got tired and decided to fall back on an old form of transportation:

John Deere never had these kind of accessories.

PromoGuy’sMonday Mission:

This week, the 5 questions revolve around the final send-off:

1. When you do die, would you like to be able to watch your funeral? Hmmm… I’ve never thought about that. Probably not, because I’ll have bigger and better things to do.

2. What type of funeral would you plan for yourself? Hopefully it will be a celebration of my life here on earth, and a rejoicing that I’ve finally gotten to go and meet my Lord.

3. When did you first realize that life was so fragile? I think that I’ve really always known that, but it didn’t hit home until the past 2 years. In my first 29 years of life, the only close family member that I lost was my Grandfather on my Dad’s side. In the last 2 years, however, I’ve lost my other Grandfather, my Father-In-Law, and my Father-In-Law’s Mother.

4. Of the people you’ve known personally who have passed away, what sort of legacy, impact, mark or achievement did they leave behind? That’s tough to say, because people are impacted in different ways. I would probably saw my GrandFather on my Mom’s side (Pa-Pa).

He was a minister for umpteen years. The one neat thing about his funeral was that so many people just kept coming up with stories like…’Bro. Jack was my favorite preacher’… ‘Bro. Jack was my fishin’ buddy’… ‘Bro. Jack led me to the Lord.’ I remember at the final service one of the ministers presiding asked how many in the audience had become believers in a service Pa-Pa had led. There were a lot of people standing. He also asked how many people had gone into the Ministry. Several people stood up.

I’d call that a lasting impact.

5. Do you think there is an “appropriate” way to dress for attending a funeral? Or is it even important? I’m the kind that thinks you should be dressed in a suit not only at the funeral, but at visitation as well. I haven’t always done that, because I was told I’d be the only one dressed like that. But deep down, I think the deceased deserve that type of respect.

6. What are some of the more memorable songs you’ve heard played at funerals? “It is well with my Soul” and anything on bagpipes. When I die, please pipe me out.

7. Do you have any favorite foods that only one relative made, and the recipe died with them?Not really.

So today I get a scam email from Paypal, asking me to identify my security information. Because I’d already heard of the scam, I immediately notified PayPal about the problem, including the fake URI that I was being redirected to.

Then I did a little investigation on the IP address: 62.73.1.164

And where did it resolve to?

The official website of The Manager of the Grid System of Electricity for France.

Like I needed another reason to hate the French…

…to the Mondragon clan! John and Joanna welcomed Nicholas David into the world last Wednesday. Brothers Joel & Matthew seem to be very excited over their new addition.

And John has even put up a webpage: Dragons At Home.