Animals are such agreeable friends--they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
- George Eliot
I got to spend time with Blue from Texas.. and his faithful companion... (I think his name is Samuel). I'll find out at lunchtime tomorrow.
More photos at My Flickr Photos
I'm giving thanks with a grateful heart A to Z this thanksgiving season - this is a repost (slightly updated) from the last two years, so I'm glad things are stable. 2007 has been full of extreme challenges, but on the upside, with my son Gary getting married to Nora and giving away my daughter Megan to Chris, I am a blessed man. The kids are gone, but I have my health and my precious bride of 28 years, Becky. Pretty amazing that over half of my life has been with the same woman. I hear that the second twenty five years are awesome!
A - Ally my lab dog and faithful companion for over 10 years - she has a vocabulary of 20 sign language words and just sweet as she can be!
B - For my wife Becky of 28 years - I love her so much for her friendship, insight and faithfulness to truth and for loving me always.
C - Christmas, when Christ was born in a manger.
D - Diggy, my grand dog... smart and loves to play.
E - Ears to hear and eyes to see.
F - Frank, my next door neighbor who been like a father to me for 22 years. Frank taught me to garden, fix cars and generally is always there as a good neighbor.
G - Gary - my son - I am so proud of him and seeing him grow up and embrace his destiny into Christlikeness. He's serving in the Air Force now and married to Nora!
H - Home. Great to be home after commuting for 14 months. Its been 14 months now that I've been back. Never again will I be separated from my family for work. Updated: I'm done with startup companies - they are fun while they last; problem is they don't last! I'm wary of companies whose sole business plan is to raise money. I am amazed of how quickly money can be mishandled and burned quickly.
I - Insight and inventive thoughts.
J - Jesus Christ, my rock and salvation who models excellence and agape love.
K - Kerry, grateful that I have a name and was not aborted.
L - Love covers a multitude of sins.
M - Megan, my precious daughter. She is sweet with a big heart. Married to Chris Corley, I'm confident that she will be honored and cherished for life.
N - Nashville. I love this city so much - the people, community and wealth of treasures around every corner.
O - Opportunity in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
P - My parents who sacrifice greatly to raise a big family, always making sure we had food and education.
Q - Quiet moments alone with God and away from the rush of the world. I can't get enough time lately and it shows.
R - Relationships... we were not meant to be alone.
S - Stability; worth pursuing, nice to have.
T - Time to do all the things I want to do.
U - Understanding; how sad to hear and not understand.
V - Volunteering; what a joy it is to serve others.
W - The extended Woo family; 3 brothers and 3 sisters scattered around the country. Trivia: I'm Kerry; there's Jerry, Terry and Harry (my son is Gary) and sisters Emily, Lily and Sally (daughter is Megan - it's a Thornsbird thing.)
X - X marks the spot; to be in center of God's will for my life.
Y - Today's youth, who are passionate for life.
Z - Zest and Z's
Today, I was moved to tears of gratitude as I watched the Veteran's Day parade here in downtown Nashville. 
The thundering drums from the marching band echoed patriotic songs off the buildings, stirring emotions deep down inside me of those I know, including my son Gary in the Air Force. I don't pretend to fully comprehend the fullness of the sacrifice and hardships they endure so that I can be free.
I celebrated with those around me as applause and salutes were lavishly being given to our brave men and women of service who fought for our freedom. 
These veterans were enthustically chanting, "USA! USA!"
Everyday, I'm giving honor and thanksgiving to those who have served - and who are currently serving - our country’s armed forces. I can't wait to have you all home soon.
More Nashville Veterans Day Parade Photos at the WonderDawg Flickr.
Other than working a lot on weekends, combing for keywords for Google Ads in the daytime, thinking about my kids a lot, fretting about not spending enough time with my wife and having not enough 'mo money, I've not been blogging, twittering, facebooking, texting, smartphoning, woodworking, yardworking, mowing, relating or churching much to none. TIVOing, yes. Couch potatoing, yes. Love my dogs, yes and yes. Stressing, yes - but less and less.
I did see a Titans game live last week. Most relaxing thing I done with Mrs. WonderDawg since April of 2007. Didn't have the energy to hoop and holler, as I simply enjoyed the sun in my face.
Other than that, writing a ton of reviews over at GearDiary. Loving me some gadgets and gear.
Sleep is good too. Much harder to go to bed at 2 am and wake up at 6 am. No can do no more.
What the heck is happening with Halloween?
Store brought wigs and masks don't do it for me.
Yeah, yeah, devil's holiday and all, but I'm talking about having the time to design a homemade costume. After seeing this on CNN, I am inspired to duplicate this. 
I've got tons of foamcore and laminate in my garage... I so miss working with my power tools!
I think I missed my calling twenty - thirty years ago to be a mascot.
After eating lunch, I love to stroll around downtown for some exercise and visual stimulation. After photographing all of the usual tourist scenes, I've been noticing the detail on walls, sidewalks and fixed objects. 
I'm glad the wall art is still in place from the Irish bar (closed) on Lower Broadway... 
I'm a sucker for really good pop music - and Leslie Fieist's 1234 fits the bill nicely:
It's been featured as an Apple ipod Nano commercial - but what is ironic (for me anyway) is that I just brought the DRM free version at Amazon's new Digital Service's Store for .89 - 10 cents less than the iTunes Store.
And from Wikipedia:
Feist's single "1 2 3 4" has been featured in many advertising campaigns:
HBO's promos for its summer 2007 schedule.
Apple's advertising campaign for its third generation iPod nano, which premiered on September 5, 2007.
Urban Outfitters clothing promotion video in the Summer 2007 season.
eBay advertising aired in Australia beginning August 2007.
Lifetime Television used it to promote their new show Side Order of Life throughout the summer of 2007.
BBCs Match of the Day on Saturday 29th September 2007.
Bigpond Music download service commercial in Australia.
When I first heard this song "When The Rain Came Down", I thought for sure it was Annie Lennox and Kate Bush, two female singers that I really like.
Thanks to Google, I searched for "When The Rain Came Down - Lennox" and found this YouTube video.
and the studio version:
The next Nashville Palm Users Group meeting is Saturday, October 13th at 10:00am.
Please note that we will be meeting at:
Vineyard Christian Fellowship
1400 Donelson Pike # A3
Nashville, TN 37217
(615) 360-8463
Google Map
Our F I N A L Meeting
This is it — the final meeting of the Nashville Palm Users group. After 8 years, we’ve had over 80 monthly meetings and spent approximately 240 hours talking about Palm OS face-to- face; posted over 2,300 online discussions, served up terabytes of bandwidth and exchanged countless e-mails and it all comes to an end this Saturday.
But we’re going out with a bang!
This Saturday is a celebration, a celebration of our love of Palm OS and all the many years that we’ve shared maximizing our use of our beloved PDAs and Smartphones. We will take our usual look at the current state of the Palm OS landscape and a peek at what we think will be coming down the pike in the future, but for the first time, we’ll take look back.
Yes, it’s been 8 years since we started NPUG and along the way, we’ve collected a lot of photos, audio clips, presentations and even video clips. So we’ll take a few minutes to look back and talk about some of the highlights we’ve had along the way. We’re gonna party like it’s 1999 all over again.
And speaking of party, it wouldn’t be one if there weren’t presents! Our resident “Prize Pimp;, Randy Jones, has done an outstanding job of obtaining over $2000 worth of door prizes for the meeting. You may have heard me say this before, but it’s never been more true - if ever there way an NPUG meeting you didn’t want to miss, this is it. We have over 100 door prizes to give away, including a Treo 680, so rest assured, if you come to the meeting this Saturday, you’re going to go home with plenty of loot.
So why not join us in a fond farewell as we celebrate the past 8 years and passion that we’ve shared with Palm OS? You definitely won’t leave empty handed — even if it is sticky from all the Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
D E T A I L S
Date: Saturday, July 13th, 2007
Time: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Location: Vineyard Christian Fellowship
1400 Donelson Pike # A3
Nashville, TN 37217
(615) 360-8463
For all the details for the meeting, including maps and directions, please visit our web site
Google Map
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A G E N D A
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1. Welcome & Announcements
After welcoming everyone to the meeting, we give a quick update on what's new with the user group. This include membership, web site updates, where our geocache bug tracker is, etc.
2. What's Happening In Palm OS?
Each month we cover everything that's happened over the past month with Palm OS. We discuss the handhelds, new cool software and what to look for in the future.
3. What's On Your Palm?
Our very own Fred Heumann asks the question, "What's On Your Palm?" and shares what are some of the latest, best and sometimes unusual programs for your Palm.
— BREAK —
4. A Look Back
We’ve taken a lot of photos, audio and video along the way. In our final meeting, we take a look back and reflect on what a fun ride it’s been.
5. Giveaways
In looking over the list, we may need to use the entire meeting to do nothing but giveaways. There’s just so MUCH to hand out!
Special thank you to every sponsor listed on this page — it’s because of your willingness to support your fanatical customers that we were able to last as long as we did. Thank you.
Courtesy of Palm, Inc.
- 1 Palm Treo 680 (AT&T)
- 1 Palm Keyboard
- Plenty of Palm T-Shirts
Courtesy of Astraware
- 25 copies of Astraware Solitaire
Courtesy of SplashData
- 25 copies of Snap
Courtesy of Pimlico Software
- 10 copies of DbFixIt
Courtesy of CrazySoft
- 4 copies of The Final Battle
Courtesy of Creative Algorithms
- 2 copies of Trip Boss
- 2 copies of Date Wheel
Courtesy of Northglide
- 3 copies of Cloner
- 1 copy of Uninstall Manager
- 1 copy of OnGuard Backup
Courtesy of LDW
- 3 copies of Village Sim
- 3 copies of Fish Tycoon
Courtesy of PalmPowerups
- 2 copies of Winners Choice
Courtesy of HobbyistSoftware
- 1 copy of Initiate Pro
Courtesy of Resco
- 2 copies of Winners Choice
Courtesy of Blue Nomad
- 1 copy of BackupBuddy for Windows/Mac
- 1 copy of BackupBuddy VFS Pro
- 1 copy of Nomad Security Suite Plus
Courtesy of Megasoft2000
- 4 copies of Winners Choice
Courtesy of DataViz
- 1 copy of Documents To Go-Premium Edition
Courtesy of 79bmedia
- 2 copies of Skinner (Treo Users Only)
For Treo users ONLY
Courtesy of Natara Software
- 2 copies of DayNotez
- 3 copies of Comet with Desktop Edition (Treo Users Only)
--
Palm-fully yours,
Michael T. Ashby
Director
Nashville Palm Users Group
http://www.npug.org
I've been a diehard Dallas Cowboys fan since the Ice Bowl, enjoyed some great wins, tough losses, a 1-15 season... but I still keep the faith for my 'Boys. More satisfying than twenty Washington Redskins victories was tonight's Monday Night Football improbable win against all odds.
Un-freaking-real!
Tony Romo had a rough night with five interceptions, a fumble... and no love from the graphics guy... This screen flashed up for 2 seconds:
Nonetheless, the team was resilient, defense was awesome, the players never panicked or choked, played to the very end with 00:01 on the clock and delivered a victory worthy of NFL folklore for the ages against all odds.
From the NFL Wire:
It was over when ...
Nick Folk kicked a 53-yard field goal (twice ... after Dick Jauron called a timeout just prior to the first attempt) as time expired to give the Cowboys the improbable win. The Bills appeared to win the game when Jabari Greer ripped the ball out of Terrell Owens' hands on the Cowboys two-point conversion attempt with 20 seconds left. But Dallas tight end Tony Curtis recovered the onside kick to set up the Cowboys' game-winning drive. Of course, the Cowboys were able to stay in the game after Trent Edwards threw an interception near the end zone with six minutes left. The Bills could have held on for the win if they had simply rushed the ball and settled for a reasonable field goal attempt.
Folk not only made the game-winning kick, but also executed the perfect onsides kick.
A game for the ages... The Buffalo Bills' fans had the Music City Miracle back in 1999 - tonite, a double kick to the teeth: Nick Folk's two 53-yard field goals. Let's call it the Dallas Double Dagger: a 106 yard field goal long enough and deep enough to cut deep any football fan's heart.
