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Time to drag out the ol' presentations and spiif them up.
There's been a little reorganization at our office at Cliff Pennell, the man who assumed the leadership of Sports Marketing at RJR after T. Wayne Robertson's tragic boat accident nearly two years ago is accepting a new position within the RJR organization. Our new man will report to Cliff. Therefore we'll all begin presentations to our new man Rick Sanders very soon I am sure. Gotta bring the new boss up to speed.
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My friends Bob and Barbara Thompson gave me a couple of books back in June for my birthday. I may have mentioned this. They know I like Clancy, Grisham and books involving the CIA, FBI and mafia, so one of the books they selected was Bound by Honor - A Mafioso's Story, an autobiography by Bill Bonanno, whose father led the New York Underworld. Luckily, I was far enough into the book that watching the Showtime miniseries did not screw up my reading of the book. I thought it was quite the coincidence that I was reading this book when the miniseries aired. The series used this very book as background for the film. Small world.
It's also interesting that I was reading this book when the media hoopla around JFK Jr.'s death hit. There are some very interesting theories in this book surrounding the assanation of JFK and makes you wonder just who might have been involved. When you read these parts you want to ask yourself if this is a novel or an autobiography.
I don't know if this actually works. Supposedly, Bug Trapper traps the errant line of code that causes your program or system to crash. Mutek says it's akin to an airliner's black box in that it traps bugs by recording the exact execution path that caused the problematic behavior. Then scan the log can post mortem by stepping backward as well as forward through the executed code. Bug Trapper can be downloaded from Mutek
Some may say I am a gadget freak, so I couldn't pass up C|Net's page on 10 of the best gadgets.
And speaking of gadgets, I had one of the original Palm Pilot's, but put it down because I didn't use it that much. However, recently, one of the managers in our Information Resources department strongly suggested that I give the Palm Pilot another try, so I am once again playing with the Palm Pilot, this time it's the Palm Pilot V.
I am sitting at my mother's kitchen table as I write this. The Tucker family is starting part of a whirlwind week. We came up to Farmville, VA on Thursday evening after eating at an Applebee's restaurant in Winston-Salem. I mention this because I swore I would not eat at another Applebee's in Winston-Salem, but this was their most recent opening, out near the Wal-Mart on University Parkway and we had to eat somewhere on our trip to Farmville. It was a couple of years ago when the chain first opened in Winston-Salem that we gave them a try. I remember there was hardly anyone in the restaurant (I think it was a Sunday afternoon) and we sat there for seemed an eternity and were paid no attention. Suzy seems to remeber we were server drinks, but our order was not taken for what seemed even longer that the eternity I just mentioned. So, I grabbed the family and we walked out. This has been a couple of years and I must tell you they haven't improved much. The experience out on University Parkway was different, but bad enough that Applebee's won't be top of mind when we plan to go out to eat. We were seated right away and the waitresses were very attentive, never letting our water, ice tea or Shirley Temple glasses go empty very long. We ordered some cheese sticks as a appatizer which arrived promply, but it seemed like it was forever for the kitchen to deliver a salad topped with a chicken breast, a cheeseburger and two cheese and bacon quesidia's. I even asked the waitress if she had lost our order when she noticed that I was getting perturbed and volunteered that "you order should be right up." It was still another 10 minutes or better before there was food. So long Applebee's.
There may not be here the next week as after we return to Winston-Salem on Saturday we plan to head to Holden Beach (NC) for a week on Sunday. Some members of my family find it amazing that we have rented a house for a week at the beach. This is our first trip to the coast and comes after just three days in Ocean City, MD last year when I proclaimed that we would never go back to the beach. I guess it's one more try. Of course you'll hear how our trip is progressing. Wish the Tucker's luck!
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I am sure you expect me to have something to say about the masacre in Atlanta. I am not going into any gun control thing here, because I feel that controlling guns would not have stopped what happened there. I am sure the politicians are scrambling to their soap boxes as I write this and even the NRA is rushing to their agency to prepare another mailing.
I guess it was just the case of another American going bezerk. I play around with the stock market some and have had my share of stocks that didn't exactly perform the way I wanted the to (read that heading straight north), but it was never the fault of my broker. He may make suggestions, but you have to give the ok before he or she can place an order...else they're in big trouble. This was a case of a guy getting greedy and then blaming the system in y opinion. He was a sick man.
What almost made me sick to my stomach was when I read the letter he left behind at his apartment explaining how he had killed his family. I love my children more than I can explain here and can not imagine ever doing anything to hurt them, much less a dispicable act as has been described in the Atlanta tragedy. If you think you have the stomach, here's a link the to the letter this moron left behind.
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Microsoft and America OnLine are really going after each other. This time it's over instant messaging services, where I've seen reports in the media they claim to block users who are using the other's service. Our daughter, Katie, has used AOL's Instant Messenger to chat with her family and friends. We don't use or want AOL, but she has very successfully chatted with AOL users using the Instant Messenger software. Microsoft calls their's the MSN Messenger Service and has whipped up a sweepstakes where you can win five grand by downloading and using their service, which means, I am sure, that you will get a mailbox and screens full of advertisements. They also claim to fully compatiable with AOL's IM. Here's a link to the MSN Messenger and the sweepstakes.
I thought Windows 2000 was the next version of Windows, but it seems MS is also working on another consumer version at the same time. I guess a Windowns NT shell might be a little complicated for the average home user, although it does seem to be quite a bit more stable. I am currenlty running NT 4.0, Windows 95 and Windows 98 on our home network.
If you're into games and 3-D (Star Wars Pod Racers forced us there) then you use DirectX. The lastest DirectX version is 6.1 and available at Microsoft's download site.
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I am sure that some Winston Cup fans will have their heart warmed to know that Indiana is renaming a two mile stretch of a COUNTY road in Jeff Gordon's honor. Maybe they only have county road's there in Pittsboro. Guess I sound a little (lot) sarcastic here don't I?
Saturday, July 31, 1999
I see today that Darrell Waltrip has made a pre-announcement to his planned announcement...that he plans to retire at the end of the 2000 season. You mean he's not already retired. There's something about Winston Cup drivers that makes them hang around too long after they have become uncompetitive. The same thing happened with Richard Petty. I can remember one of our fireside chats when I mentioned to Richard that he was one athlete that had the opportunity to go out on top of his sport. We both agreed at the time...this was back in 1982 or 1983 when Richard was still running fairly strong and while the competition was intensifying it hadn't reached the magnitude of today. Then Richard won the 1984 Pepsi 400 in Daytona and the very next race it was like cutting off the water spigot. The STP team was never competitive after that 200th win. It was like a sign, "You should quit Richard." In fact many had thought that Richard would waltz into the press box after winning No. 200 and "that's it boys." Of course he didn't choose that course, but unfortunately he was never competitive again. Hey, if he had called it quits immediately after No. 200 we would have had The Richard Petty farewell tour and all those souvenirs. And I guess you could say he did quit after No. 200, but it was about 10 (eight actually) from the time that President Reagan appeared in Daytona to greet another republican in victory lane. As for Waltrip, he should have also hung it up a few years back and concentrated on owning a Winston Cup team and bringing some youngster along. Maybe that's still in his plans. Darrell's 25th year tour would have been a very good time for this, but that too passed.
I see where Charlotte is going to add another first among the Winston Cup tracks. Lowes Motor Speedway plans to triple deck part of the front stretch with premium grndstand seats. Charlotte was the first to redo their front stretch and add a major number of VIP luxury suites. The folks in Charlotte have always been a trend setter and have pushed most of the Winston Cup facilities to upgrade their physcial plants, including Daytona, home of the sport's crown jewel event, The Daytona 500.
Charlotte is also considering pulling the plug on its IRL event. Some will say this is because of the tragic accident there in May. While this may contribute to the decision, you can't walk away from the fact that attendance at these events has been pretty dismal. The first one three years ago was pretty decent, but has declined since. Atlanta, a sister track to Lowes Motor Speedway, hasn't had very much success at staging anything other than a Winston Cup or Busch Grand National race. Maybe the southerners are telling the powers they prefer Winston Cup races and leave the open wheel jobbies to the areas north of the Mason Dixon line.
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We made our obligtory trip to Wal-Mart while here in Farmville and noticed the temperature on the bank sign was 104 degrees. Yikes. Throw in the Virginia summer time humidity and it spells H-O-T. I think I'll stay inside.
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