Catching up, part 2

After my family left, Jason & I cleaned up around the house and prepared for the next weekend. I met with my friend Stacy on Thursday to help her complete some details for her sister's baby shower on Saturday, the 7th. We were making her sister a mum for her to wear when Stacy's husband Javi text messaged her. He is active National Guard right now (after serving many years in the army) and was at training. He told us about the Fort Hood shooting...this was probably just 20 minutes after it happened.

After hearing about this, my heart sank. Not only did I feel horrible for the people who might have been injured, but I also knew that my brother had gone to Fort Hood a few days prior to visit some injured soldiers in his unit. He's stationed out of Fort Hood. I immediately called my dad and asked him if Houston had come home yet.

He didn't know. I told him to turn on the news and he said to call my mom's cell phone (my brother had it) but not to call mom until we knew something. I called the phone and he had been home for just a few hours. He had left Fort Hood just before 7am that morning and hadn't heard the news yet. After calling Dad back to tell him Houston was okay, I finished up with Stacy and then went home.

I came home, read the news more in-depth, and cried. This one was just too close to home for me. Soldiers aren't supposed to die in their own house where they should be safe. They never even see it as a possibility. Knowing that that could have been Houston in their place scared the hell out of me. I'm so grateful for the blessings in my life. I have prayed so much for those families that have lost their loved ones. I truly hope that they will get the justice they deserve.

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Catching up, part 1

So.........it's been a while since my last blog post. Raise your hand if anyone is surprised.

Anyone? Anyone?

I'll admit it; my hand was down, too. Here's what's been going on. My brother came home for a two week leave from Afghanistan two weeks ago. He had been overseas for 6 months and will return afterward for at least another 6 months. He flew in the day before Halloween into San Antonio. It had been a several day wait for him because no one knew when he was in the air. He called to let us know he would be flying to Kuwait first and would give us a call to give us more details. Unfortunately, his cell phone that he bought overseas doesn't work anywhere except Afghanistan. So, when I got a phone call at 2 am from an unknown number, I didn't answer, I went back to sleep. I felt horrible! He had called to say he was in Kuwait and that he would be leaving soon. Long story short, he called me again from Ireland to let me know he would be arriving in Dallas the next day and from there, he hoped to catch an earlier flight into San Antonio.

Because he was able to catch a last-minute standby flight to San Antonio (rather than have his original 7 hour layover), my parents weren't able to get here fast enough to meet him at the airport. My aunt, Grandma and I decided to meet him instead. My cousin had made him a welcome home sign even though she couldn't come! Poor Houston....he was so embarrassed when he saw us waiting there with a sign! He hates flying in his military gear because of the attention it attracts and we made it worse by singling him out! He was happy to see us and ready to get out of airports. There are pictures, but they're on my aunt's camera. I'll post them if I get a copy.

I took him back to my house, let him change and then we went to eat at Chuy's. I know he was deprived of Mexican food and beer, so I made it my mission to alleviate that! He had his first Shiner Bock and just stared at it for a while and then took about a 5 second chug. We probably should've ordered two to start.

We got our food and he chowed down. He couldn't remember when he had eaten last because he'd been in an airplane so long. Afterward, we headed to Sam's so that I could stock up on some essentials in our house.....namely toilet paper. As I headed towards the bread, I felt the basket take a sharp right. My brother left me in the dust quickly as he discovered we were passing the beer section! Ha ha! He picked up a case of the Shiner Family Reunion before we could move on.

Later that afternoon and a few beers later, my parents arrived and another hugfest commenced. We made dinner, talked and drank more beer. By Halloween morning, we were in dire need of more beer. I didn't want to disappoint my beer-starved brother, so we headed to the grocery store to get some food supplies for dinner and beer.

We spent Halloween night cooking shrimp on the grill and also made some type of shrimp diablo indoors. Too bad I didn't bother to take pictures. Blame it on the Kosmos! I handed out candy to a ton of trick-or-treaters and tried to keep Cassius from escaping outside. I was not successful at least two of the times.

We had an excellent weekend spent catching up. My parents and brother left that Sunday to go back to the hometown and Jason & I planned to catch up with everyone again the following weekend.

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Halloween recap in one picture

Theme was the '50s. We were "Scream Girls" rather than Dream Girls. I'm in the purple wig. Pure awesomeness in a photo.

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Job Scam

Has anyone ever heard of Career Network? I had applied for a couple jobs earlier this year that were routed through this company. I had a suspicious email from them afterward that prompted me to do some research. I found out through a consumer advocacy group called the Ripoff Report that I wasn't the only one who'd been scammed. It seems that Career Network was just a marketing scam to get addresses, but no one knows what they planned to do with them. There was absolutely nothing I or anyone else could do except write the legal board in Florida. You can bet your sweet hot cheeks I did. Here's my letter, written last January, that tells the story:

Dear Mr. McCollum,

My name is Stephanie M and I reside in San Antonio, TX. I am writing in reference to a fake job placement agency, Career Network, which lists itself as residing in Orlando, Florida. However, upon a Google search, I can only find an office in Jacksonville with a non-working number.

This so-called job placement agency is putting fake job ads on many websites including, but not limited to HotJobs, Craig's List and Myspace. The user is asked to continue their application on their company website at www.careernetwork.us.com. I admit, I should have realized that this was a scam right away when they asked for my cell phone carrier and whether or not I would like to further my education. But, like many others, I was looking for employment in an economy where unemployment is rising. I applied for an Event Planning position specifically, but I have only realized my mistake after applying to a few others. I am happy to provide you with log in information if you need it so that you can see the specific jobs I applied to.

After applying, I received an email requesting that I visit their website, log in with the provided information, and fill out some additional information. The email had a person's name on the bottom, but no phone number and only a P.O. Box address was given. I have a copy of the latest email should you need it. Again, it asked about furthering my education (which I am not interested in) and asked me to provide up to 5 personal or professional references. I referred 3 of my past friends/coworkers and each of them received an email almost immediately. I also received a phone call a few days later asking about my education. The caller informed me that I requested this information (which I didn't as I just graduated with my MBA in May) and wanted to tell me about opportunities. I replied that I didn't request this information and asked if he could tell me about my job application. He had no idea what I was talking about so I hung up frustrated.

Now, after seeing other reports on www.ripoffreport.com, I realize that this is truly a scam and that I have been duped. But, I am swallowing my pride in hopes that you can address this situation. Please help in shutting down this company. I am concerned that my personal information is being misused and I would like it to be removed from their list. Thank you so much for your support. I truly appreciate it and I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Stephanie M


Although I never heard back from Mr. McCollum, within a few months, the job postings disappeared. So, why am I telling you this now? Because I was about to apply for a job for a company called Buzzgrub. It routed me to the same page as Career Network and asked the same questions. Of course I simply closed the page rather than go through this mess again. I did some more research and found this blog telling more of the story behind these companies. It's pretty bad. Please follow the link to learn more.

Lesson of the day/year? Be EXTRA careful when giving out information. I haven't had any problems that I know of, but you just never know. Be safe!

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I'm on top of technology

Yup, you read that one right. For once, I got something the day it came out. Jealous? You probably shouldn't be. Jason & I got a new HP computer complete with Windows 7 on it. I would like to say it's because we're hip and cool and totally into all the hot new technological stuff.

But alas, I'd be lying.

The fact is, we HAD to buy a new computer. You see, I bought my old Dell laptop in February of 2005, my first semester of graduate school. It was a really good computer when I bought it and I even invested in the 4 year warranty plan because I knew my brand-spanking-new laptop would have to get me through school while I was poor. Nearly a year and a half after graduating, Jason & I were still using the slow beast, cursing it's molasses-like page loads and start-ups. But it worked so that meant we didn't have to spend money.

And then on Tuesday, the old Dell tried to commit suicide. We think the fan stopped working and in essence, the motherboard was frying itself like my eggs over easy. After calling some computer techies and finding out that they were nearly cursing me for calling about a dinosaur of a laptop, I informed Jason that we were going to have to buy a new computer.

I had no idea how much laptops cost these days. I spent about $2,200 on a great laptop almost 5 years ago. We were not looking forward to investing that kind of money again. We just wanted something that could get us through the tough times we're having. So, after researching a few places, we trekked to Best Buy and found this computer for $499. Not too shabby! It wasn't the most expensive computer, but we knew the brand name and it had a gajillion times more memory than my suicidal Dell.

The problem was that we had to wait until Thursday until we could take it home. Microsoft had their "hard release" of Windows 7 that day and there was no way in hell I was taking home Vista. I'm an XP lovah for life, yo. The day and a half that we were without the Internet was horrible. We didn't realize how much we depended on it and how many of our important files were stored where we couldn't access them if the computer were down.

Now we've had the computer for a few days and as Mickey D's says "I'm lovin' it!" This thing is fast and fun! I'm still figuring out the differences between XP and Windows 7, but I'm making progress. I just used the SD card reader on the laptop and it was so much easier than hooking up the camera and reinstalling its software. The only problem so far is that I've found my old printer circa 1998 isn't compatible anymore. I guess that shouldn't come as a surprise. Oh well, we can't be on top of everything these days can we. I guess that only leaves one question to be answered now.

Is it dumb that our laptop has HD but our TV doesn't?

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The Curse Is Over!!!

After going on two fishing trips with Jason and my father-in-law and catching nothing, I was labeled "The Jinx." This year I was out there to prove them all wrong!

Friday night, Jason & I stayed at his parent's house so we could leave from there first thing in the morning (they live 30 minutes from us....we enjoyed the extra sleep). I put on my trusty seasickness patch before going to bed in preparation for the waves to come. Saturday morning, our friend Greg meets us at the house. We load everything up and get on the road.

What we didn't know was that it was cold that morning. Saturday and Sunday were projected to be clear and sunny. Sunday was supposed to have scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon. We didn't care about that since we were only going to fish in the morning before heading home. The weathermen were so freaking wrong. It was cloudy and cool.

Saturday, after a 4 hour drive, we arrived in Port O'Conner and got ready to head out with our guide, Steve. Since it stayed cool, we all had on jeans and sweatshirts with short-sleeve shirts on underneath in case it got hot. It didn't, but the weather was perfect. Not hot at all, and a nice cool breeze to keep me from chumming for fish (see definition number 10) again. We anchored the boat and dropped our lines with cut bait. The Redfish were hitting us hard! We hit our limit within one hour! We were having to throw back keepers because we had already limited out. I got the second largest Red and it was 42 inches! Check out that bad boy!

I didn't keep him with my oversize tag because Reds above 30 inches aren't good for eating. We let him go after I made him pose for a picture. It was hard to wrangle that sucker in...it took a lot of muscle and fight. I loved it! Here's my 41 incher with our guide Steve.


I ended up catching another 41 inch Red later on. Our friend Greg caught a 43 inch Red, beating me by an inch! Doh!

Jason had a great catch too, but the picture is on Greg's camera. I still beat him though. Ha! Overall, on Saturday we caught around 50 Reds and a couple Black Drums. Oh, and a lot of Hardheads and Gafftops.

After such a successful Saturday, we were ready to go for Sunday morning. We went to bed fairly early to get some shut-eye, but none of us slept well. We wake up around 6:15 AM and can hear the wind. I look outside and see the trees blowing pretty hard. What happened to the sunny weather? We decided to go and try out the waters anyway.

Everyone put on rain slickers to keep from getting soaked. We find one other boat in the entire are and we park near them, just inside the jetties. The swells were huge! The water current was extremely strong and it kept pulling our weights up. We pressed on and when we didn't catch anything but a single Black Drum, we moved to the other side of the bay. The water seemed to calm a bit, but we couldn't catch anything at all. I spent a lot of time watching the porpoises play while I waited for a bite. They're hard to see in this picture, because they move so fast! This was a family that came to check us out several times.


After a while, we moved back close to the original spot, but the anchor wouldn't hold. We moved a little farther in the jetties, and found a spot where the current was slower. Then, it rained.

Ever been outside on purpose in 60-degree, rainy weather for fun? No? It's just us crazy people? Probably.

The rain let up after about 10 minutes and we started catching more Hardheads and Gafftops and I believe there was also a Dogfish mixed in. In other words, trash fish. Finally, Jason caught two more Black Drums, I caught an undersized Redfish and my father-in-law, Don, caught a slot-sized Redfish. We pressed on for a little longer, but it was getting miserable out there. We called it a day soon after. I thought I was already plenty wet until we road the boat back in. Holy smokes we got wet! I was sitting in a puddle of water. There weren't many dry places left on me! You know it's bad when the water is warmer than the air. We got back to the house and literally peeled off our clothes to take a shower. Uh, I mean, we took turns in the shower. You known what I mean.

We loaded all our stuff up and headed back home. Even though Sunday wasn't that great, I had so much fun! I actually caught a ton of fish proving the curse false! I can't wait to go next year! :)

P.S. Don't forget about my blogiversary request! I would love to hear from each of you!

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Here fishy, fishy, fishy!

Anybody remember that skit from Sesame Street? That was one of my favorite skits as a kid. Ranks right up there with the Egypt pyramid one. Yeah, I'm a Bert & Ernie lover. I refuse to believe all the rumors. They're just friends people!

Anyway, tomorrow I'll be going on our annual fishing trip to Port O'Conner. You may remember one of my first posts about last year's trip in which we didn't catch a darn thing. There aren't even any pictures to see because there was absolutely nothing going on. I hope that this year will be different. We were originally supposed to leave this morning, but a cold front (read: upper 60s) blew in and our guide said the water would be very rough. We decided to fish Saturday and Sunday instead. I think my stomach will thank me later. Please wish me luck!

Also, please don't forget my blogiversary request! I'd love to see more positive things come from my list! Have a great weekend everyone!

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