Lyle's Birthday

Last Wednesday, June 25th was my brother, Lyle's 68th birthday.

Now for ten days he will be only two years younger than I instead of three. (smile)


We drove into Traverse City and joined him for a cookout.

Lyle's wife, Kathy cooked up some ribs and we pigged out on ribs, beans, brats, potato salad & slaw.

I even gave him a card, albeit the same card that he gave me last year, so it didn't cost me anything.
(I just love recycling).

Besides Lyle & Kathy, their two daughters, Laurie & Julie were in attendance and their three grandsons (Laurie's sons) Jonah, Ben, & Adam.
Laurie's husband, Eric was out of town on business.
Oh well...too bad Eric, more ribs for the rest of us.
;-)

Here Lyle enjoys some time with 2 1/2 year old Adam.

Wireless Cellular Internet revisited

Well my brief foray into wireless cellular Internet was just that, "BRIEF". It seemed to be working well until Tuesday evening when the Starcom modem went "TU" and would not access the cell network. No signal strength. Nothing! Nada! Not on Teddy's laptop nor mine. So taking advantage of their fifteen day full refund warranty, we took it back. They offered a replacement but I decided to put my "early adopter" bone on hold and wait until next summer for the next generation models. Sooooo...Teddy and I are back on dial-up for the balance of this summer. When in Arizona we have a cable modem so no problem there. Oh well, in the words of Monty Python, "nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition".

Wireless Cellular Hi-Speed Internet

All of the cellular companys are now offering hi-speed internet through their cellular circuits. You get a small modem that plugs into a USB slot on your laptop. They then add an additional line to your existing cell account which is exclusively used to dial into their internet interface.
The principal advantage is that you have hi-speed internet anywhere that your cellular plan covers.
Teddy & I decided to go with Alltel’s UTStarcom UM150 and so far it is working well.
This pict shows the modem/card plugged into my MacBook.
It is the ideal solution for fulltime Rvers like us, as when we are traveling we do not have to search for Wi-Fi hot spots to access the web. Also many RV parks do not offer Wi-Fi and in those that do coverage is often spotty. Our plan costs $59.00 per month for unlimited nationwide coverage.and the wireless modem/card is free with a two year contract. That cost is offset by canceling my $25.00/month Earthlink dial-up account and my $40.00/month cable modem while in Arizona. My mail servers for larryandteddy.com are hosted by Network Solutions so the only thing we lose is our Earthlink addresses which we do not use very much anyway.
Time will tell if this is a good move or not…but nothing ventured….yadda yadda yadda.

Update on Larry's weight

I just received an email from my old college & Interlochen chum, John Dickinson inquiring as to my continued success on my self imposed diet. I had blogged on it last Nov. 27 but no update since. Well I am proud to say that I am still seriously adhering to the diet but as I lose weight the rate of loss is not as great. When I weigh less it takes less calories to maintain my body weight. Suprise suprise! ;-)Anyway, here is an updated graph of my progress so far with my weight calculated according to Sir Issac Newton's universal gravitational constant. (when Fg=Gm1m2/r2 when Fg is the gravitionl force, m1 & m2 are the masses of the two objects, r is the seperation between the objects, and G is the universal gravitational constant.
At any rate I aim to reach a weight of 200 lbs and to maintain that weight. HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY!