Yet another new year…..
Welcome to 2009!! Yes, here we go once again into a new venture in a new year. A new semester of studies with my 4th semester of Cisco classes at Heartland Community College. This semester we will be studying out of the book Accessing the Wan by Vachon, this semester covers “WAN services, LAPB, frame relay terms and features, integrated services digital network, router commands to monitor and configure frame relay LMIs, maps, and subinterfaces, Novell IPX protocol configuration on routers, Fast Ethernet, LAN switching methods, LAN segmentation with bridges, routers, and switches.” I will also be taking DMED 150 online courses which according to the 2009 catalog details as “An introduction to creating interactive interfaces to be distributed through a variety of methods, including the Internet and CD-ROM. Emphasis is placed on creating easy-to-navigate and professional-level interfaces for a variety of applications and on successfully deploying those applications across the chosen distribution method. Authoring tools, including Macromedia Director and Flash will be used as well as image editing programs Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Freehand.” Looks to me as if I will be busy this semester as well.
Work is also going quite well considering the state of our economy at the moment. Where there are many construction workers out of work around the area, our local union in Peoria seems to be still going strong. We are not currently putting out travelers but almost all of the local hands are working (or at least those which wish to work are doing so) and my current project is still going strong. I will most likely be moved to the second building that my employer has received the contract on at Heartland as soon as it starts up sometime late winter or early spring. Of course this is construction and as such it is definitely up to last minute changes or schedule conflicts. It currently looks as if we probably have at least a month left on this project.
So, a new year, new semester, current job, a new President and quite possibly a new Governor soon (at least as soon as an impeachment can be organized and placed through). The Blago fiasco is in full swing and his lawyers are hot on the topic of denying any wrong-doing by our illustrious Governor. It is my fervent hope and desire that they get to the bottom of this and do so quickly. Hopefully this will allow the Lt. Gov. to take over the reins in Springfield and undo some of the injustices that we, the citizens of Illinois, have had to endure under Blago’s incompetence. If the Lt. Gov. does in fact get the ok to take over, hopefully one of the first actions he performs will be to open back up our State Parks and Historical sites that were closed recently. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to close these sites as the potential revenue clearly outweighs the costs of keeping them open. A much better plan would have been to place a “usage fee” onto the parks to help offset the running costs. No person I have spoken to would have had problem one with paying such a fee. Only time will tell if Lt. Gov Quinn will in fact back up his earlier promises of returning out natural resources to us or not. I can only hope that he will in fact make a much better Governor than our current Blago has been.
2008 has not been the easiest for me and my family. As most of you know I lost my father this last year and this has been continually difficult for both me and my family. My mother-in-law has also had some health difficulties which has made it necessary to have her move in as well. Both my son and I have had some vehicle difficulties but we have been able to work these out so far. Even though there has been strife in our life the Lord has blessed us as well. My wife continues to enjoy good health for the most part as well as the rest of the family (with the noted exceptions above). That’s about it for now. Will try to update you further later on.
