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Slate Padgett
2002 - 2008   

 Slate Padgett died today, at Bowman Animal Hostpital, here in Raleigh, NC. About a month and a half ago, Slate was diagnosed with inoperable bone cancer. Over the course of these last few weeks, the tumor on his front left ankle had increased greatly in size, causing Slate more and more discomfort, proportionally. I made the decision to end Slate's suffering, and have spent the past week saying goodbye to my dear, dear friend.

Slate will be missed by the whole family, particularly our son, Liam, who now wants to go live on the farm with Slate, the goats, birds, sheep, frogs, and Bert and Ernie. Slate has been a wonderful member of our family, a cuddly 130 pound lap dog, who had no idea how big he was, and didn't have an agressive bone in his body. 

Slate is survived by elder doggy brother, Hunter, brothers Liam and Aedan (human (mostly)), feline sister Murray, and his parents, Will and Danielle. Slate will be fondly remembered for chewing through an entire couch, eating a coffee table, and singing (loudly) with any sirens within a 2 mile distance. He was a loving, cuddly protector - always concerned for his little brothers, Liam and Aedan, and ready to protect them from any threat - real, or perceived. Slate will also be remembered for producing enough fur that a 5 minute brushing shed enough fur to cover the neighborhood. 

 Slate's last day was well spent; I took the afternoon off of work, brushed, cuddled, and otherwise loved on him. All the dog biscuits he could eat, rawhide bones, etc... The kids both spent time with him as well, forcing him to "speak" to get a piece of bacon, of which I made a whole package.  

We're going to miss you, Slate.
I hope it's always snowing where you are now.

Ok. I searched for a long time before I found what I was looking for, and an obscure post on an obscure blog helped me out. For the longest time, I thought that there were no arm bands (arm straps?) out there for the Tilt, and then I found this post (which I can't find anymore) which mentioned the TuneBelt. The coorect part number from TuneBelt is the AB8, and here's a link to the product on Amazon: LINK

On Amazon it's only $14.95 - it's about $20 on TuneBelt's site.


Now - I can exercise, mow the lawn, rake leaves, and go deep sea diving with my Tilt! (just kidding about the deep sea diving...


I use my Tilt with the Jaybird JB-200 bluetooth stereo headset, because the Motorola MOTOROKR S9 sucks.... let me rephrase that... it suuuuuucccckkkkksssss!!!!!!


My first time out with the S9, I sweated, and it fried itself. It came back to life for a while - just long enough that I couldn't take it back to the store, in fact - I'd send it in for the warranty replacement from Motorola, but I'm almost not even sure that I care to get the damn thing back... now, if you have no sweat glands, the S9 is probably a great deal. It's quite a bit cheaper than the Jaybird (you can find it for less than half the cost), and I found the bass response and volume to be a bit better than the Jaybird. BUT.... I sweat, and the Jaybird has held up very well against my salt water excretions.



Keywords: AT&T Tilt, HTC TyTN II, 8925, armband, arm band, arm strap, exercise, TuneBelt, Jaybird

Well, I've finally moved on. After working at RTI for around 6 years (my longest stint at any employer), I've finally decided that it's time to move on. On August 25th, I started a new job at a little company called Cisco. You might have heard of them. I'll be doing engineering and ICM and IVR scripting for their internal call centers. The task is daunting. Cisco's IPCC infrastructure is immense. With multiple Call Manager/IPCC cluster worldwide (RTP, San Jose, Syndney, Bangalor, China, and more... ) it's easily 10 times bigger and 100 times more complicated than anything that I'm used to. In fact, I think that I just peed my pants a little... It will be a challenge (one that I feel that I can rise to), but it should also be fun - the working environment here is outstanding, and the team that I'm working with is fun.


Well, enough about me. I'll do my best to update the kids blogs later on today...


Almost forgot -

Obama '08, bitches!

On Saturday, August the 9th, Virginia Knecht of Waynesboro, VA passed away. Also known as "Mamie", she was Liam and Aedan's Great Grandmother (Danielle's Grandmother).

Due to declining health in recent years, it's an unfortunate fact that Liam was only able to meet her twice, and Aedan was never able to meet her in person.

Danielle is currently in VA for the viewing and funeral, while I have the dubious pleasure of staying home with the kids - we are, you see, all in various stages of recovering from the "ick". I am also currently missing two days of the last week of my employment at RTI, and I'm supposed to be training my replacement (Kip S.) this week. I'm debating offering to extend my employment there by a few days. I'm also debating not.

~Peice.

@[=g3,8d]\&fbb=-q]/hk%fg

How could I have lived my life in such ignorance? How could I have not seen the truth in it?? The Flying Spaghetti Monster is all powerful, all knowing, and all Carbing!

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has been around since 2005 (of course the FSM himself is eternal, and has always existed - since right before your God, interestingly enough). Somehow, I've just managed to miss it, which is odd, because it seems like the sort of thing that I wouldn't just know about - it seems like the sort of thing that I would have started, given the time. Anyhow - uber-kudos to these folks: http://www.venganza.org/ 

Anyhow, go forth to their Site and be Consumers, for without your $$$ the great and powerful FSM cannot fully assimilate into the ECOS. Or, like me, you can just buy their shit cuz it's cool and I like the statement.

~Piece!

So.... Germ factory #2 brings something home from daycare, gives it to germ factory #1, who refines it, and then passes it along to me. I have been sick 5 days out of the past week now, and we just jeep refining it and spinning it back through the family. Danielle tells me that Liam has it now. I, of course, feel fine. For now.

Hey! Just flipped 100,000 on my 2000 Ford Explorer. I'm taking bets as to whether it lasts another 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 thousand miles. Lesse... I need to change the oil, fix the drivers' side door latch, the rear drivers' side door lock and the rear windsheild wiper. Also, it could use a cleaning; it smells like a sock. A sock with an old, dead turtle in it.

With luck, I'll get to resume working out sometime in the near future. I've been too sick to excersice, but on the plus side, I've been throwing up so much that I've lost tons of weight!! Woohoo! Bleah.

--Out.

No, I am not referring to myself, my marriage, or any of my children.

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Do you have any idea how many 18,934 is? The answer, whether you choose to beleive it or not, is a resounding "NO". You don't have any clue, until you've realized that you have that many pictures, and they all need to be organized, catagorized, captioned, named, etc...

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