Jeanie decided to do the Thanksgiving thing at our house this year, and Jeanie's parents and my mom were nice enough to join us.

Jeanie has been busy as a beaver working in the house. She has painted the foyer a sand color, and the dining room a rosy sand (almost the same color as the foyer, but just a hint of pink) color. It took quite a bit of effort to get the dining room covered because Jeanie first had to prime the top foot or so of the wall to rid it of the purple border which she hated. After getting the dining room painted, she was finally able to get the hutch and china cabinet moved to where she wants them, and to get her china and crystal unboxed, washed, and arranged.

Jeanie had prepared the deserts (a lemon cloud and Plum Nutty Sour Cream Cake) and baked the sweet potatoes on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, Jeanie finished the sweet potato casserole and mixed vegetable casserole finished before we worked together to get the turkey and dressing in the oven.

Timing worked out just right. We had just finished getting the turkey in the oven and getting our showers when Jeanie's parents arrived around 2:00 PM. We visited with them for about an hour and then I went to pick mom up and bring her to the house.

Mom was on best behavior, and we had a very pleasant visit.

Dinner was absolutely delicious. In years past, we have sometimes ended up taking the turkey out of the oven before it is fully cooked, and/or with dressing that was too soggy or too dry. This year, the turkey was actually done - we used a cooking bag and cooked the turkey for 3 1/2 hours and then let it rest for a half hour before carving it.

After dinner we went back to the living room to visit a while longer, then had desert and coffee.

By 8:00 PM we were all starting to yawn, so I took Mom back, and we called it an early night.

Definitely a day to be thankful for.

I should have just stayed in bed.

The day started with things not going too well, and deteriorated from there...

When I got out of bed at 5:15 am, Cali also got up and wanted to go out. No problem so far, I let her out, left the door from the bedroom to the patio open, and when Cali was done, she came back in. After I left the bedroom and was walking through the living room, I heard Cali scratching on the bedroom door to get out. I didn't want Cali to wake Jeanie, so I let her out, figuring she wanted a treat. Cali made a bee-line to the guest bedroom where Jeanie's parents were sleeping. I didn't realize that they would have slept with their bedroom door open. Cali jumped on their bed and awakened them both. Oh well, I can't put the spilled milk back in the bottle, so to avoid further embarrassment, I just slipped out of the house and got in the car.

The drive to the local Staples was fine, but I was surprised when I pulled in the parking lot to see how many cars were in the lot and how many people were already in line. I mean, come on, this is a sleepy little backwater town - I'm supposed to be the only geek for miles! Oh well, the line wasn't too long, so I figured things would be fine. About ten minutes before six, a store employee appeared at the store doors and came out. At first we thought that they were going to open a little early. We then realized that he was rolling a cart outside. It turned out that he had pick slips for all of the items on the front page of the sale flyer, and was going through the line asking people what they wanted and giving them the appropriate pick slips. "How nice," I thought - that should make the process of actually getting the items much easier. Yeah, right... The guy only made it about 1/2 way through the line before the doors to the store were opened at 6:00. At first, the people who hadn't gotten to the guy stayed in line, but after a few minutes, there was a mass movement of the entire line to the store. So, I figured that it was now normal "every man for himself." I went into the store and headed for where I figured my number one priority - a 200 GB hard drive for $29 would be. I was still hunting in vain for the particular item when an announcement came over the store loudspeaker that all of the items on the front page of the sale flyer were not on the sales floor, but instead were "at the double door at the back of the store behind isle 5." So, I headed for the back of the store, where I saw the double door and the line of people waiting to get their items. So, I got in line. And waited. And noticed that many of the people in the line had those pick slips that had been handed out before the store opened. No problem, I figured, those people just have a guarantee that they will get their desired items. Then the guy behind me, who also didn't have any pick slips, asked if we had to have the pick slips in order to get stuff. "I hope not," I said. The guy behind him offered to save our place in line if one of us wanted to check. I volunteered, and went to the front of the store to ask. As I was walking, I noticed that the guy who had been outside the store was now standing in isle 5 with his cart and slips. I asked another store employee who was standing next to him if we had to have the slips in order to get stuff, and she told me "yes." Well, the line to get the slips was by now quite long, and I was at least a bit perturbed, so I just decided to leave. As I was walking out, one of the clerks wished me a good day, and I decided to offer the suggestion that they might want to do a slightly better job of letting their customers know what the process was. She called a manager, who said that I didn't need a slip, so I followed him to the back, where the guy with the cart informed that manager that yes indeed, no slip, no stuff. The manager gave me a sheepish look and apologized. Well now, I was really pissed, but I decided to not take it out on any of the employees, and just walked out.

At least when I got home, I found the house was quiet and dark - everyone had gone back to bed.

Since I was already dressed, I decided to just stay up and come compute. For whatever reason, I decided to go online to Staples. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the drive was also available online for the same $29 price! I went ahead and ordered one, and while I was at it, picked up a "free" laminator and power strip. Since I have learned from past experience that sometimes between the time that you add an item to the cart and you actually get done with the checkout, the item could have gone out of stock, I hurried through the checkout process, and was pleased to see when I hit than final button to place the order that the order was accepted.

Okay, not quite as smooth as I had hoped, but, I did end up getting the drive at the price I wanted, and everyone is still asleep. All's well that ends well.

Um, not quite...

Since I had raced through the ordering process, I decided it would be prudent to review the order for accuracy. After reviewing the order, I realized that the price I paid for the hard drive, less the rebate was more than the $29 I had expected. After doing some more digging, I discovered that I was supposed to have entered a coupon code to get a $40 instant savings at checkout. After doing a little more digging, I found the telephone number for customer service and called the Customer Service Center, and after a fairly lengthly wait, was connected to Jennifer, a very nice CSR, who applied the appropriate $40 coupon code to the existing order.

Okay, now, all's well that ends well, right?

Not quite.

Right after I hung up, it occurred to me that there might have been coupon codes for the other two items I had ordered. So, I checked the rest of the order. Sure enough, the power strip was not a "free after rebate," but a "free after instant savings." Guess what? Yes, that's right - another coupon code that I should have entered at checkout.

Well, at least this time I didn't have to look up the phone number - it was right there on redial.

After another lengthly hold, I was connected to Nikki or Micki, another nice CSR, who applied the $5 coupon for the power strip.

So, now, all's well that ends well, right?

Well, we'll see; when I went to check the status of my order, the status page indicated that "We're sorry, but problems with your order may prevent us from delivering it on time." Often, when there is a really good deal, the online ordering systems can't keep up with the volume, and will accept an order even after stock has been depleted. A few days later, you get a nice little email regretfully informing you that there was a problem with your order and it was automatically cancelled for your convenience.

So, what's the morale to this little saga? Next year - I am boycotting Black Friday!

I really enjoyed the book.

The quality of the version I downloaded from Audible.com was excellent. I had been tempted to get it as part of my free trial at JiggerBug but I haven't gotten around to signing up for it yet, so I used one of my two monthly book credits at Audible for the download.

The narration by Scott Brick was excellent. There was just the right balance of performance and subtle voice/accent changes to enhance the written word without overpowering it.

The story was written all in first person, which at first, given the last few books which were a mixture of first and third person, felt a little strange. Once I adjusted to the construct though, it worked quite well.

Unlike a murder mystery, where you pretty much know what the end point is, with this book, both the final destination as well as the journey were ripe for surprises. And the surprises kept coming from the first few pages, right up until the end. Along the way there was a great blend of high tech, spy stuff, romance and intrigue (or are those last two redundant?) The relationship between the main character, Adam, and his father, added texture to the story and depth to Adam's character.

This was one of those books that really did motivate me to get out and walk a few days when I really didn't want to, just because I was so eager to see what would happen next.

One last thought... not that the plot was the same, but if you liked the book Disclosure by Michael Crichton, you'd probably like Paranoia as well.

All of a sudden, I am getting flooded with email bounces...

After doing some digging, I discovered that some lowlife has started sending out spam with bogus blogdom.org return addresses.

Everything I can find on the net seems to indicate that there is nothing I can do to combat this, and I am basically just screwed. It appears that at some point, blogdom.org will become blacklisted by enough mail servers that I will not be able to send any legitimate e-mail from my domain. And the interim, I'll now not only have to waste time removing spam from the blog, but I'll have to deal with the flood of unwanted / unwarranted e-mail bounces.

It makes me so mad!

I do not believe myself to be a vindictive person normally, but if there was a way to turn the tables on these people, I believe I would relish the opportunity.

For dinner, we had a chili mac and cheese casserole.

I thought I tasted a hint of ketchup in the casserole, and mentioned that I used to eat spaghetti with just ketchup on it. Jeanie had never heard of this, and gave me one of those "um, okay, whatever (you very weird man)" kind of looks.

After dinner we got around to watching a recorded episode of "My Name is Earl" and, guess what - there it was, right in the episode - Earl's ex-wife squirting a bunch of ketchup onto a bowl of pasta for the kids!

Kharma! What a hoot!

Even though the wonderful MT Blacklist makes the process of deleting the spam so much easier, it is still a real pain.

The problem is that up to this point, I have chosen to leave the comments and pings open, even for old entries.

Well, tonight, I decided enough was enough.

After doing a little Googling, I found the wonderful MT-Close2. It allowed me to set all of the comments and trackback pings to closed in one fell swoop.

I'll still have to do a little despamming from time to time, as there are a few entries which I will leave open, but hopefully, with most of the entries closed, the %$#@$!! spammers will find some other blog to pick on...

When we moved into the house, we noticed that there was a keypad on the outside of the garage door to allow us to open the garage door even if we didn't have the remote. The owner only had one remote, but was kind enough to purchase a brand new second remote, which was still in the package when he gave it to us. We asked him what the code was for the keypad, but he told us that he didn't know.

Being the paranoid type that I am, one would have figured that I would have immediately changed the code on the keypad and reset the opener so it wouldn't work with any other remotes still floating around.

But, hey, we did move to "Mayberry by the Sea," so I never did get around to all that resetting and reprogramming.

Well, this weekend, I got inspired to get the "other" remote working, and replace the burned out light bulbs in the opener, and get the keypad reprogrammed.

Of course, the former owner didn't have the manual to the opener, but once again, the World Wide Web came to rescue and provided guidance at the Genie Company web site in their Support Center section.

I did end up having to do a little interpolation, as even though we have an Intellicode opener, the link to the Intellicode Wireless Keypad Support Page left out a few key details. Fortunately, the Non-Intellicode Wireless Keypad Support Page provided the missing information - namely how to replace the battery, and how to remove the transmitter from the door frame.

When I first went to follow the instructions, the keypad did not light as the instructions indicated. I figured the battery must be dead, but the Intellicode instructions made no mention of a battery, much less how to replace it. This is where the Non-Intellicode instructions first filled in a gap.

After replacing the battery, the keypad still did not function as expected. After doing a little more inspection, which included removing the top cover, I deduced that the switch which let the transmitter know when the cover was fully open was not functioning properly. After removing the unit from the door frame, I was able to gently pry open the two halves of the transmitter housing by pressing gently in the small crack between the two halves with a putty knife, and remove the keypad. I discovered that the rubber switch boot/button was stuck, and was able to unstick it and then reassemble the unit and remount it.

After removing the light cover from the opener unit, I was able to get to the programming button, clear all of the codes (by holding the button in for 10 seconds), then follow the instructions to reprogram the two remotes and the keypad. Now we have two functioning remotes, and a keypad, and light when the door opens - yipee!

On Saturday, we headed up to Saint Mary's to visit the airport there. On the way, we stopped off at Rich's Real Pit Bar-B-Q in Yulee which had a surprisingly good sliced pork BBQ. The meat was tender, moist, and smokey. Three sauces were provided on the table - a mustard based sauce, a tangy sauce, and a sweet barbeque sauce. I ended up mixing the tangy and sweet which made for a nice compliment to the meat. Jeanie ordered the BBQ baked beans as one of her sides and found that she really liked chopping up the meat and mixing it into her beans.

The airport at Saint Mary's was much smaller than I had expected. There were just a handful of planes tied down on the ramp and one large maintenance hanger. We didn't see any T hangers near the FBO building. My guess is that the standing TFR for the submarine base which starts about a mile off runway 4 has scared off a lot of traffic. I figure I'll still end up flying there at some point as Jeff Stanford provides tailwheel instruction there and that's an endorsement I'd like to pick up at some point.

After walking around the airport for a bit, we took a driving tour of downtown Saint Mary's (such as it is), stopped at the Murphy USA for some cheap (relative to Florida) gas, and then headed home. On the way, we stopped off at BlockBuster and picked up Bewitched which was better than sitting around bored.

On Sunday, we headed in to Jacksonville for the 2005 Jacksonville Sea & Sky Spectacular.

Talk about an air show on steroids! The action was non-stop from 11:00 AM until 4:00 PM.

Jeanie and I headed off to Jacksonville around 9:30 AM. Mapquest had informed us that the drive would take about an hour and I knew that we would have to wait a little for the shuttle from the off-site parking, so I figured the timing would be just about right. I ended up figuring wrong, so we didn't arrive until around 11:30, but the only act that we missed that we had really wanted to see were the Misty Blues All Women Skydiving Team. We ended up finding a spot on the beach at 1st Avenue South, which was about four blocks from showline center. Being on the beach, we had a great view of the performances. Fortunately, we were well prepared, having brought binoculars (one pair for each of us), ear plugs (one pair for each of us), a nifty beach blanket that is fleecy on one side and nylon on the other and rolls up like a sleeping bag, complete with handle and carrying strap, and a cool little beach chair that has straps like a backpack. The seating devices and binoculars were "nice to haves;" the ear plugs were mandatory. The piston airplanes were loud, but the jets were (or at least would have been) deafening.

About 1/2 way through the show, we decided to wander to the Street Festival area to get something to eat and drink.

Afterward, we walked up to 4th Avenue North, which was closer to show center, and within earshot of the public address system. It was a little more crowded, and the view to the west was partially obscured by some buildings, but the show line was still fully visible, and being able to hear the announcer was a plus.

We were amazed at how low some of the performers flew. Some seemed to be only feet above the waves.

My favorite performers included Michael Goulian in his Castrol CAP 232, and Michael Mancuso flying his in the Klein Tools Extra 300L and Matt Chapman flying his CAP 231EX, performing their Formation Aerobatic Show.

Some of their maneuvers left bruises on my chest where my jaw hit it. I especially liked the tricks where the plane seemed to hang vertically and slowly pirouette.

Jeanie got a real kick out of the three ACU-4 LCAC hovercraft and three SH-60B helicopters which staged an simulated assault on the beach. Jeanie took a tour of the ACU-4 and said it was absolutely amazing.

One of the reasons we chose to go on Sunday rather than Saturday was because there were some aircraft that only participated on Sunday, including the A-10 Thunderbolt (Warthog), F-15 Strike Eagle, and B-2 Bomber (Spirit). The B2 was especially impressive. I was amazed at how quiet it is and even though I saw it with my own eyes - twice - it is hard to believe that it actually flies!

The show ended with a performance by the Blue Angels which was absolutely amazing. Jeanie had seen the Blue Angels perform in San Francisco each year for the last two years, but I had never seen them. Seeing them in person is an awe inspiring experience. I really can't imagine flying with the precision that these amazing aviators display.

After the show we had hoped to visit some of the exhibits in the street festival area, but we were disappointed to find that everyone starting breaking down their displays as soon as the Blue Angels finished their performance. We decided to stay on the beach and watch the hovercraft depart - which was really cool - and to avoid the initial surge of the masses toward the exits. By the time we got to the festival area, the majority of the exhibitors were driving away. I guess next year we will have to plan on arriving around 9:30 so we have time to visit the exhibits prior to the show.

We were pleasantly surprised that the line for the shuttle buses back to the parking area, although over three blocks long, moved fairly quickly. Within thirty minutes, we were back on an air-conditioned school bus, and within fifteen minutes after that, we were back at the car. The organizers really thought through the parking/shuttle process - many of the streets around the beach were blocked off to general traffic and only open to the shuttle buses. This made it smooth sailing out of the staging area and onto A1A. We thought we were going to end up getting stuck for hours trying to get out of the TPC parking area, but we got lucky and about ten minutes after we got in the car, they opened an alternate exit out of the parking area which was fortunately very close to where were were in the back of the lot.

The traffic was light heading home which made for a really nice end to a really nice day.