Nice work done by DR Horton

George Marshall  January 4 2009 07:41:15 PM

 I had to relocate a switch in the garage which you could hardly reach from the door.  After removing the sheetrock this is what it exposed.  Nice work.

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Where are we going?

George Marshall  November 5 2008 10:41:23 AM

Last night as Allison and I watched the election results I thought what it must be like for my brother and his wife (who recently moved to New Zealand) to be experiencing a new life in a new country.  Their lives have changed dramatically from their former Iowa lifestyles.  My brother's timing has been immpecable.  They sold their place before the housing market went into a full-tilt crapfest.  His latest declaration of his uncanning ability to dodge adverse times is his move out of this country.  
They have been in New Zealand for just over a week and already use terms like "You Americans".  They are sounding less like an expatriate and more like New Zealanders already.  I am sure there is a sense of relief knowing that they have left behind them a country which is about to face it's toughest times under new radical leadership.  They have given themselves 2 years abroad to get the full effect.  That should give them a good indication on how the new president is doing.
It will be an interesting time for this country and now that I have my brother abroad to give me feedback it will give a me a barometer of what the rest of the world thinks.  What must others think of the US, with a disrepected President, a clueless Congress and an inexperienced President-Elect.  The worst is yet to come and with this lurch to the left and their misguided agenda it will certainly take this county in a new direction of cowardice and stifling our freedoms.
I hope I am wrong about this new part of our history that we are about to make.    I hope I am wrong about the surge of classless people and their putrid disrespect for the office of the President.  I hope I am wrong about the Congress and their display of ignorance on how our economy and financial markets work.  I hope I am wrong about the President-Elect's inexperience and socialist agenda.  
That's certainly a lot riding on "hope".    "Have hope brother, dispair is for the defeated." (I don't recall who said that).

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Things to do/Places to See

George Marshall  November 5 2008 10:36:15 AM

Trinity Heights, Sioux City, IA.  My sister spoke about her time when she visted this place.  www.sctrinityheights.org

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Will you go to hell if you don’t believe in Jesus?

George Marshall  September 17 2008 12:36:06 PM

I got word from my sister that my neice was stuggling with one of her Catholic high school teachers on the topic of hell.  In particular he made the comment that "If you don't believe in Jesus you will go to hell."  That's certainly something to wrap your head around.  And as you can imagine it touched off a heated discussion. 

Catholics understand hell as "To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by our own free choice.   This state of self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed." (The Catechism of the Catholic Church 1033) I found a couple of verses that go down that path of believing in Jesus:

"He that believeth on him is not judged: he that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God." 
John 3:18

"because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved:" Romans 10:9

God created such wonderful beings and He also gave us free will to decide on how we want to live out eternity.  I don't believe that God has set the destiny of anyone to go to hell.  However, if there is a willful intent to abondon God without repent than God honors that choice by allowing that soul to remain seperated from him. 

Hell is a choice and we do not have to choose it. 

Ultimately the answer of the question "Do you have to belief in Jesus to get into heaven" rests on the understanding of the blessed trinity. 

Jesus said: "I and the Father are one." John 10:30. 

So if you have someone who does not believe in Jesus but they believe in God will they go to heaven?  Jesus and God are one and therein lies the answer in my mind.  Despite the fact that I believe in the trinity I don't think we have a complete understanding of the complexity of it and the structure of his kingdom.  Does a nonbeliever get to the gates of heaven and then have an epiphanic experience and believe in the Holy Trinity at that moment?  Hence upon belief of the Holy Trinity they believe in Jesus.  I would like to think that's the way it will happen.

 

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Sending e-mail from the Elk Security System to your Blackberry

George Marshall  September 3 2008 11:03:35 PM

I have recently installed an Elk M1 security system in our home.  It is a very advanced and powerful platform.  One feature of it is the ability to send e-mails from the ethernet component (M1XEP).   The M1XEP is a slick device that is a ethernet device server with a RS-232 serial port interface.  With it I can access my system via the web and also send e-mail messages.  
Here are some tips and hints for setting it up and refining the delivery of the e-mail specifically to a blackberry device.

My goal as I set out on this was to alert me and my wife of any alarm (Burglar, Fire, Medical etc) from the Elk system in separate inbox on our blackberry with a distinct notification in the quickest and most reliable manner regardless of where we may be.  This is how I met that goal:

1.  Get the alert as quick as possible.  Since the only time we need to be notified of an alarm is when we are away I decided to use our blackberry devices which we have on us when we leave the house.  With that in mind, all email from the Elk security system is to be routed to our blackberrys.  I started by just sending the e-mail to my regular e-mail account which in turn forwarded it to my blackberry.  The response time on this The method of delivery I chose was the BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) e-mail service. Using BIS rather than just POP or e-mail forwarding satisfies my goal that it had to be sent quickly!  With BIS, on average I am seeing the message on my blackberry within 14 seconds, some as quick as 4 seconds.    That satisfies the quick response goal I had.  Here is a document which outlines the different methods of getting e-mail on your blackberry.  Again, This type of notification (BIS) is the quickest per this document:
http://www.blackberryforums.com/rim-software/680-faq-what-methods-receiving-email-blackberry.html

2.  Set up the e-mail.  Now that I have determined which method to use (BIS) to send alerts to the blackberry I had to set up my blackberry to receive them.  In my situation my provider is AT&T.   Check with your provider to see what the URL is for setting up BIS on your blackberry.  For AT&T it is https://webclient.blackberry.net/WebMail/Window.jsp?WT.svl=calltoaction&site=mycingular.   I had to put in my PIN and IMEI number (which you can find on your Blackberry's status screen) to set up with e-mail client.  Generally if you already have an e-mail account associated with your blackberry account you will already see an entry on the website for this.

3.  Limit the inbox to just Elk alerts.  Now if you wanted to set up a new BIS account for just the Elk e-mails you could filter it accordingly.  In my situation I wanted a separate inbox on my blackberry which was exclusively for Elk alerts and since I never intend on using this new e-mail address (myname@att.blackberry.com.) for anything else I filtered everything else out.  Here is a screenshot from AT&T's BIS setup website.  




I gave it the name of "Elk Security Alerts" and applied the filter based on the subject (since all my e-mails have the same subject "Email alert from ElkSecurity"  (the name ElkSecruity is derived from the device name in the TCP/IP settings on the M1XEP). The other part of this is that I checked "Level 1 notification".  This allows me to differentiate the Elk alerts without even seeing the message (see my note on "Setting up a distinct notification".  

Once I have the filter set up on all e-mails with the subject "Email Alert from ElkSecurity" the next step is to exclude all other e-mails.  This was accomplished by selecting the radio button "Do not forward messages to device" when no filters apply.


4.  Setting up a distinct notification.  The next step I took was to set up a distinct notification on my blackberry so regardless of what profile I had my phone in (Loud, vibrate, quiet, normal etc)  I wanted to get the alert.  I don't appreciate a cell phone ringing in the middle of dinner or church so I typically set it to quiet.  That was I can still tell if I got a message via it vibrating, but still be discreet about it.  However, in a situation where my house is being burglarized or burning down I want to get the alert regardless.   To satisfy that, from the blackberry’s I selected Profiles - Advanced – Menu – Edit.  Select Level 1 messages.   Since I set a filter to treat all Elk alerts as level 1 messages I can differentiate the notification method on them.   I applied the settings in the table below to EVERY profile (Loud, vibrate, quiet, normal etc) on my blackberry.  Note - if you get a lot of SMS messages, this solution may not be optimal for you since SMS text messages are level 1 messages.  

Out of Holster	Vibrate+Tone
Tune	Alarm_HighAlert
Volume	High (set to Escalating for Quiet and Vibrate Profiles)
Number of Beeps	3
Repeat Notification	LED Flashing
Number of Vibrations	3
In Holster	Vibrate+Tone
Tune	Alarm_HighAlert
Volume	High (set to Escalating for Quiet and Vibrate Profiles)
Number of Beeps	3
Repeat Notification	LED Flashing
Number of Vibrations	3

5.  Set up the alert on the Elk.  I then configured the e-mail address on the M1XEP.  Important TIP:  Include the phone number of the dispatcher serving your area.  I put this in the e-mail message that gets sent to my blackberry.  The reason is if I am out of state and I get an alert dialing 911 will send me to dispatch in the local area where I am currently at.  I would rather put the direct number of the dispatcher in my message so I can them direct without having to look up a number and to also keep the response time on my end as quick as possible.  I know this may seem unnecessary to have the system set up to send an alarm when you already have it hooked up to a central station.  However, I am of the opinion that I would rather use all means necessary to notify the authorities.
I know this may seem unnecessary to have the system set up to send an alarm when you already have it hooked up to a central station.  However, I am of the opinion that I would rather use all means necessary to notify the authorities.   The end result is that you get a level 1 message in red bold text sent to your blackberry with a distinct tone.

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Got the shaft from Cherry Creek Tree Farm

George Marshall  May 22 2008 12:32:57 PM

I went into Cherry Creek Tree Farms to redeem the balance of my landscaping gift card and I was told that they wouldn't honor it since they are in the process of going bankrupt.  Here is the letter that they gave me which provided the details(see image1.pdf).  They didn't even have the decency to let me know until after I spent over a half-hour shopping.  If you talk to the people at Cherry Creek they make it sound like DR Horton is not paying them.  However, when I spoke to Bellann Raile (the author of the attached letter) she stated that Cherry Creek got paid when we redeemed our certificate for a gift card (which doesn't expire).    

So, for those of us holding gift cards to Cherry Creek we are considered an unsecured creditor - bottom line, we got screwed.  Bellann Raile is suppose to send me the court docs  for this case.   When I get it I'll post it here.

I was able to get a very small fraction of the $1,300 they still owe us... and I am talking small.  Apparently they consider any returns you made and applied back to your gift card as money you can still get to - at least that was my case.

If anyone has any luck getting money out of Cherry Creek or DR Horton, please share.  Thank you.  You can call the number on the letter and talk to Bellann and she'll put your name on a "list" of other pissed off folks that Cherry Creek owes money to.

I have added the full court order for Cherry Creek Tree Farm (see the second attachment).  Thanks to Ryan Incorvaia!

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The Tiger Moth makes the front page

George Marshall  April 30 2008 05:19:38 PM

 The front page of the EAA Sport Aviation magazine (May 2008) shows a beautiful Tiger Moth.  I thought to myself "that interesting, that looks like that Tiger Moth based at Vinton, IA (KVTI)." I quickly turned to the article and sure enough it was that very airplane that Leon Whelchel in Vinton owns! 

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It’s about time Erie!

George Marshall  April 30 2008 04:53:17 PM

The town of Erie has finally wised up and determined that the Erie airport (KEIK) is a indeed a benefit. The front page of the Erie Review ran an article today entitled Runway Two Please. They are having an engineering firm study what it's going to take to "open" the crosswind runway. They say that the crosswind is closed - hey guys you might want to notify the FAA, according to them it's open. The latest airport facility directory clearly shows the runway. If you fly over you would have a very hard time finding any "X's" on the runway.
Having this crosswind is a HUGE benefit to this airport and the surrounding area.

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