Wild, Wonderful, West Virginia

So Close Yet So Far...White Christmas West Virginia

2008-12-18T18:55:00.004-05:00

We have been getting lots of rain here in West Virginia over the past few weeks. The interesting thing about the last couple of rain storms that we have been having here is that if we were just a couple of degrees cooler, then we would be in the midst of one of the worst winters ever. With each rainstorm, we have been hovering around the 33 F mark. Just enough for rain. Yet Las Vegas, NV is

Back from Taiwan

2008-12-03T18:14:00.002-05:00

Just a short note to let everyone know that Ann and Lynne made it back from Taiwan. Both Lynne and Ann had a fun time overseas. Their plane got in at around 10 PM last night. Lynne did very well on the plane, and slept a good portion of the way. They both got to see a lot of their relatives, etc, and Lynne got a trip to the top of Taipei 101. They made it back just in time for Turkey soup, as

October So Busy...

2008-11-08T23:59:00.002-05:00

October was such a busy month for us that it is almost Thanksgiving! School is now in full swing, and not we have settled into a daily routine of school, and after school activities for the kids.Jade continues with her piano lessons, and now Lynne is even getting into the act. She is taking a lesson once a week too! She really seems to like it as she gets to be like a "big" kid. Lynne also

Our Recipe Website Gets a Revision

2008-10-12T20:32:00.004-04:00

I have been doing a lot of work on my little side project, which is kickthefridge.com. This is a website that I started more or less as a little hobby about a year ago. I let it go for a little while, but recently revisited the site and working harder to keep it updated.KTF has slowly progressed to take a pretty good chunk of my time. Ann and I spend quite a bit of time in the kitchen, cooking

Lynne Drives the Bus at Hillbilly Hot Dogs

2008-10-02T10:48:00.002-04:00

We finally made a pilgrimage that all West Virginians must take at least once in their lifetime. We went to Hillbilly Hot Dogs. this past summer and I am finally writing about it. We went to the one that is in Lesage, WV along the Ohio River. This is the original. The place is sort of like a regular roadside hot dog Stand with a definite slant towards red neck and Hillbilly culture thrown in.

WVU Marshall Game Eve

2008-09-26T23:50:00.002-04:00

It is the night before the WVU Marhall game. I was a little down on the Marshall team in an early post, inferring that they would get slaughtered in tomorrow's game. I am not so sure now. The Mountaineers have looked pretty lackluster this year, and now amount of spin the local sportswriters and sportscasters put on their reporting will change that fact.The Mountaineers have a real chance of

Re-design of Kickthefridge.com

2008-09-26T23:43:00.004-04:00

My other website is at kickthefridge.com. I have had this site for about a year now, posting various stories about cooking, grilling, and making BBQ. It got a little neglected over the summer, just like this blog. But, over the past couple of evenings, I re-designed the layout and added a few little widgets to help expand the capability of the site. There is still a little work that needs to

WV Power Baseball Switches to the Pirates

2008-09-17T17:56:00.003-04:00

I just got a newsletter announcing the the minor baseball team here in West Virginia is switching affiliations from the Brewers to the Pirates. This will make watching the Power a little more interesting next year, since we are in the Pittsburgh market. There were not many Brewer fans here, and I certainly am not one either. I went to a couple of minor league games this year, and they were OK.

The Best Rides at Hershey Park

2008-09-13T10:33:00.006-04:00

Over the summer we went to Hershey Park again. We have gone there once or twice during each the past couple of years. We have gone to Disney but it was a little bit crowded and expensive when compared to Hershey Park. Hershey is a lot closer to where we live. There are several other amusement parks that we can go to like Kings Island, and Cedar Point, but we have not made it to those locations

WVU - Marshall Game

2008-09-03T21:14:00.002-04:00

The silly season has arrived now that college football is in full swing. The day that West Virginia virtually comes to a standstill is when West Virginia University takes on Marshall on the gridiron. Last year, I had to run an errand during the game and the streets were empty, and so was Wal-Mart. Its either a nuclear bomb or the WVU - Marshall game that would ever have a chance of emptying out

International Space Station Passes over Charleston

2008-08-28T21:38:00.002-04:00

I have started running in the mornings, and noted that the International Space Station will pass over during the same time I am out on the road. Usually, if the skies are clear you are able to see the space station as a bright object crossing overhead. Sometimes it can be as bright as Jupiter or Venus. Here is a table I grabbed from the Heavens Above website that show the times and where to

Just dropping by...

2008-08-24T21:42:00.003-04:00

It has been quite a busy summer for us, so I obviously have not been keeping up the blog. I will try to get some pictures up soon, but for now they are still sitting on our camera. I thought I drop a quick note just to let every one know that we are still getting along OK.We went up to to Vermont again this summer to participate in the Race for the Cure. I did not run it this year. I walked

Hillbilly Hotdog on Food Network

2008-04-29T17:26:00.002-04:00

If you missed the airing of the profile on Hillbilly Hot Dogs on "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" you have another chance to see it on May 9th at Noon on the Food Network. Be sure to set your recording to catch it.I saw it the other night and it was pretty hysterical. Hillbilly Hot Dog's has a couple of Hot Dog Stands around West Virginia, but the one to visit is in Lesage, which was the location

Ubuntu 8.04 Upgrade a Success

2008-04-25T17:17:00.003-04:00

Late last night I decided on a whim to use the "Upgrade Manager" to upgrade my little Dell 666 Mhz machine to Ubuntu 8.04. The upgrade seemed to have worked quite well. Usually, I upgrade using a fresh CD install, but since I did not change anything on this machine other than running a "profile" at boot time, I did not expect there to be any problems. I have not had any problems of note.

Upgrade to Ubuntu 8.04

2008-04-24T23:40:00.003-04:00

Ubuntu 8.04 has been released, and I decided to do an upgrade from 7.10 using the update manager. The update manager is accessed in Ubuntu through the following menu options:System -> Administration -> Update ManagerWhen I brought this program up, I was presented with an option to upgrade the distribution from 7.10 to 8.04. Well, I decided, "What the heck, let's see what happens is I upgrade."

Sweet Sixteen

2008-03-24T17:48:00.003-04:00

The other day West Virginia University Mountaineers upset Duke to make it to the "sweet sixteen" in the NCAA College Basketball Tournament. I can't wait until college basketball season is OVER! We are in the midst of "March Madness" which is the most boring sports month of the year and Dick Vitale is way more annoying than Howard Cossell ever was.No football. Baseball has not started yet(the

Superstorm of '93

2008-03-13T21:03:00.002-04:00

Although I spent most of my life in the Mid-Atlantic states, there was a period of time that I lived out west. I happened to miss living through the Winter storm of 1993 that brought a tremendous amount of snow to the Appalachian states. Charleston had a one day record of 17 inches. There is a nice write up about the storm here by our local weather guy.I was living in South Dakota at the time,

Spring Fever

2008-03-03T20:19:00.001-05:00

Today's afternoon temperatures topped out in the mid 7o's and I think we caught a case of spring fever. We went out for a little stroll around the neighborhood, and the little queen got a ride in her chariot. She spent half the time pushing it around and running out ahead of us. Jade played outside over at her friends house, and got a little wet as it was warm enough for them to play with a

Marshall University Football Schedule

2008-02-29T06:32:00.004-05:00

Marshall University announced their football schedule for the upcoming2008 season. Here it is: Saturday, Aug. 30 ILLINOIS STATESaturday, Sept. 6 at WisconsinSaturday, Sept. 13 MEMPHIS*Saturday, Sept. 20 at Southern Miss*Saturday, Sept. 27 at West VirginiaFriday, Oct. 3 CINCINNATI (ESPN)Saturday, Oct. 18 at UABTuesday, Oct. 28 HOUSTON* (ESPN

Winter Fat

2008-02-23T21:10:00.002-05:00

Every winter I put on a few pounds. It gets cold out, and I stop going for my daily run, so weight gain is inevitable. I stepped on the scale this morning, and let's just say that I tipped it a tad over 200lbs. This puts me about 20 lbs. over my optimum weight. I will go on a spring diet and lose the excess pounds before the summer running season. It has nearly become an annual ritual now for

Lunar eclipse

2008-02-20T21:59:00.002-05:00

Jade and I went out last night to catch a little bit of the lunar eclipse. There were a lot of clouds left over from the "Charleston Clipper" that went through earlier in the day, which dropped a skiff of snow. Every once in a while we were able to see the moon peak out from behind the clouds to get a view of the eclipse. We saw it through to about a three quarters of its totality, and then a

More on KDE4

2008-02-15T22:34:00.000-05:00

I sat down this evening to give KDE4 another chance. After using it some more I have become a little more comfortable, and I think I would have now problems using this as a desktop of choice in the near future, given a faster machine. For example, I found out that I could replace the KDE4 application launcher with the traditional KDE3 version. I am still having a hard time getting used to the

KDE4 - Did My Computer Just Smoke Crack?

2008-02-12T20:30:00.000-05:00

Today I downloaded and installed KDE4 on an Ubuntu Laptop. All I can say is WHOA! There is way to much going on with this desktop environment. There is lots of eye candy and little nuances that you will need to learn if you are a regular KDE3 user. The changes introduced in KDE4 may be to the detriment of KDE.It is obvious that there has been a lot of work that went into this desktop

Kai-Lan on Nick Jr, a Review

2008-02-09T18:20:00.000-05:00

There is a new TV show on Nick Jr called Ni Hao, Kai-Lan that I got a chance to watch with Lynn the other day. It is very similar to "Dora the Explorer" except there is instruction in Chinese rather than Spanish. We were interested in catching a few episodes since we are in the midst of trying to teach Lynn and Jade Chinese. Overall the show was pretty good, for 4 to 6 year old viewers. It

Chinese New Year in West Virginia

2008-02-04T19:58:00.000-05:00

My wife Ann is from Taiwan, and the biggest holiday of the year for Chinese is the Lunar New Year which will take place February 6th and 7th, and last for 15 days. You may have seen some of the news out of China about the millions of stranded travelers trying to get home to their families for the holidays. They are having a tough time of it this year because it is the worst winter for the