The spammers are at it again. I  just got hit with about 300 pieces of spam and they all say the same thing.  And, each spam has about 1,000 URLs in them, all porn related.  It would take me hours to sort through them so I just did a batch delete.  My apologies to anyone who sent a meaningful response to my blog.

The Network Operations Center (NOC) recently purchased 5 large screen flat panel TVs. They then hung them high on the walls so they can easily be seen in the office.

Each of the TVs monitor a different aspect of the network. And, in theory, the NOC folks should be able to easily check the network for problems. However, there is no audible alarm for network problems. Instead, the NOC folks wait for someone to call and complain. And if someone does complain, the NOC folks can run over to the screens and verify that the network is down.

Some how, it doesn’t seem very practical.

Kathy’s niece, Betsy Armstrong, just won a silver medal at the Olympics. She was the goal keeper for the womens water polo team. Her hard work and dedication paid off. We are all so very proud of her! Way to go Betsy!!!!

We have started watching a new program on Friday nights on the Sci Fi channel. It is called “Joan of Arcadia”. It is about a teenage girl who’s family moves to a new city. Joan keeps encountering God who takes the shape of various people. God then tells her what to do.

It is a humorous program with a very moral undertone. We really like it.

I picked up a Korean newspaper the other day when I was in Detroit. Now, I had never pictured Detroit as having a large Korean population, but apparently they do. At least it is large enough to support a Korean newspaper.

Now, everything in this news paper was in Korean. Go figure! The exception to the Korean was an article in English from the first Mr., the husband of the Governor. In this article, he claims that people are always more critical of others than they are of themselves and that is why we are so critical of Kwame Kilpatrick and Jonathon Edwards.

Well, since the article was in a Korean newspaper, I doubt that very many people read it. After all, most of the people who read the Korean newspaper do so because they don’t read English. But, I am sure that that fact eluded the First Mr.s press secretary.

The hotel that I recently stayed in advertised a pool and an exercise room. And while I was not particularly interested in the pool, I was interested in the exercise facilities.

I suspected that the exercise facilities would only be aerobic, meaning that they would only have tread mills and exercise bikes. But, I decided to check it out anyway. Just maybe they would have a weight machine of some sort.

After following the signs through the maze of hallways, I found the pool but the exercise room eluded me. After retracing my path several times, I concluded that the exercise room must be in with the pool. So, I entered the pool area.

The pool area was a bit strange. While there were the usual lounge chairs in the area, the pool itself was surrounded by a white picket fence. Very strange.

I didn’t know if the fence was there to keep people from falling in the pool or to keep them in the pool. Regardless, I found the exercise room and it was as I had suspected; several tread mills and exercise bikes.

As I disappointedly started to leave the pool area, I noticed a sign on the wall. “Bathing suits must be worn at all times.”

This got me to thinking. Were they requiring bathing suits for swimming as apposed to shorts or were they saying that skinny dipping was not allowed.

Since the rooms adjacent to the pool had pool access, I suspected that couples were slipping in there after hours and quietly enjoying a dip.

Maybe that is why the place is so popular.

I recently had a business trip which required me to spend the night. And even though I had a confirmed room reservation, I always like to check in early just to be sure that there are no surprises.

After I had completed all of the paper work, I was told that my room wasn’t ready yet. I seems that they had to replace the ironing board. What ever. After a half hour wait, the desk clerk announced that my room was ready so I proceeded to the elevator.

When I got off of the elevator, I was greeted by a hotel staffer with an ironing board in her hand. She asked me if I was the occupant of room 256 and I said that I was. She then proceeded to follow me down the hall with the ironing board in hand.

When we entered the room, she asked me if I wanted her to unwrap the ironing board.  I told her that I didn’t care.  Then she asked if I wanted to use the ironing board right away or if she should put it away. I thanked her for asking and told her that she could put it away.

Maybe she thought that I needed to iron my clothes. Granted, I had been on the road for several hours but I didn’t think that I looked that bad.

Maybe I’ll invite my co-workers up to my room and we can have an ironing board warming party.

Well, Ellen Degenerate got married this last weekend. I think that is so special. I hoped that Ellen had enough on the ball to have a prenuptial agreement set up. Other wise, if her wife decides to change sides, like Anne did, she will loose half of everything that she has. And given the general instability of celebrity marriages in the first place, I don’t see this one lasting very long. But who knows.

Well, Kwame Kilpatrick, Detroits most famous Irshman, is back in the news yet again. It seems that the Democratic governor of the State of Michigan, has the power to remove any elected city official from office even if the official has not been convicted. So, on Sept 3, the governor is going to have a hearing to determine if he should be removed from office.

Unfortunately, Kwame said that he is not going to attend the hearing unless he has been granted a pardon. Well, the governor can not pardon him until he has been convicted of something. And whats more, while the governor can remove him from office, she can not make him attend the hearing.

Now, given the fact that the governor is a Democrat and that the citizens of the city of Detroit love their Democratic mayor, the hearing should be a three ring circus. Besides the media with their camera trucks, I am sure that there will be demonstrators both pro and con.

Of course, the city police are not going to be there unless there is a problem. However, the state police will have there mobile command post near by in case there are issues. It should be interesting.

I wonder if there will be carnival vendors selling elephant ears and foot long hot dogs?

Well, today is the day of the Dream Cruise. For those of you who are not familiar with the Dream Cruise, it is a yearly event where thousands of people bring their hot rods, race cars and classic cars to Detroit to cruise up and down Woodward Avenue.

Why would they do this you ask? Well, back in the 50s and 60s Woodward avenue was the place for young people to hang out on Friday and Saturday nights. They would drive up and down the avenue looking for members of the opposite sex as well as showing off their cool hot cars.

Well, as a rite of passage, the baby boomers, as well as others, come back to Woodward Avenue once a year to show off their classic cars and hot rods by doing the Dream Cruise. Unfortunately, given the price of gasoline, there are a lot of cars for sale.