Calcis

Where the Lilli Grows…: my name is M.F., what’s yours?
Sunday, March 23, 2008
my name is M.F., what’s yours?

* lesson 1: Never pray for patience
* lesson 2: Never pray for an Easter egg drop

You know what is funny? For the last two months I have prayed daily for God to send people to the Revolution egg hunt so we could spark something in them to want to get to know more about this “Jesus thing”. I prayed that He would send a couple of thousand people so I could brag around town about what we had accomplished. But you know what I forgot? We serve a BIG God and when you ask for Him to bless something… well, let’s just say Boling Park literally runneth over this past Saturday.

The day started innocently enough as I was blowing up balloons at 5:30am Saturday, daydreaming about possibly serving 4000 people that morning. 4000 & I would have had a bonkers of a time. But you know what I forgot? God having His way with our cute, organized little egg hunt. And kids, did He ever. God truly did His thing. 4000 people did come. And they each brought a friend. And their friend invited their baby mama’s cousin’s sister’s uncle’s twice removed brothers and their kids. I knew we were busting at the seams when I went from greeting people at the registration area to being inadvertently pushed into the road, then the grass, then the parking lot & before I knew it, I was practically greeting people from my car 2 blocks away because the masses kept coming & the lines grew longer. Canton P.D. reports an estimated 12,000 people came into the egg hunt – but slow down Sally – that was all we could hold. We had the population of a small Caribbean island (5000) still waiting in their cars on the road trying to get in. Do the math: we only expected 3 to 4000 people. What we received was a strong slap of the Heavenly pimp hand.

Group Takes Statements About UFO Sightings
DUBLIN, Texas (AP) — Interviewers with the Mutual UFO Network met with about 200 people who said they saw something mysterious in the night skies over Stephenville within the past couple of weeks.

“We believe there is some sort of phenomenon in action here,” said Kenneth Cherry, director of the network’s Texas chapter. “We see a pattern. But it will take months to investigate.”

The network is dedicated to “scientific study of UFOs for the benefit of humanity,” according to its Web site.

While members of the organization met Saturday with the witnesses, at least a couple hundred onlookers gathered as well, some wearing aluminum-foil hats.

Several dozen people — including a pilot, county constable and business owners — insist they have seen a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast. Some reported seeing fighter jets chasing it.

Maj. Karl Lewis, a spokesman for the 301st Fighter Wing at the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station in Fort Worth, has said no F-16s or other aircraft from his base were in the area the night of Jan. 8, when many sightings were reported.

James Huse, a retired electronics technician, said what he saw on Jan. 8 was neither a helicopter nor a plane.

Steve Allen of Glen Rose, who said he was a pilot, said the lights he saw while sitting around a campfire were brighter than the glare from welding.

“The first time we saw it, the duration was three minutes; then it started slowing down and passed us, and the lights in the back reformed into an arc shape, and they would flash on and off with no particular pattern,” he said. “Then those changed into two vertical lines. It was totally silent.”

Network investigators asked the witnesses to sketch what they saw and to answer questions about the direction, distance and flight of the object they saw.

Cherry said the organization will study the material and release its findings on whether what happened in Stephenville can be explained.

“We do not promote the existence of alien ships,” Cherry said. “All we are trying to do is figure out if we can explain it or not, and then we’ll let the chips fall where they may.”

GadsdenTimesTwo.com | Times 2 | Gadsden, AL
Q: I bought a DVD drive. My question is, what is the difference between DVD-R, and DVD R? Also, do I need DVD-RW so the disks can be used over and over?

- Lyn Waters

A: DVD-R and DVD R can only be recorded one time. R is a newer, more reliable technology. Both work fine. As you guessed, RW means read/ write. So these are the discs you need if you want to record something, be able to erase it, and record again. They can be reused many times – the industry says 1,000, but that may be generous.

So if you want to record something and keep it, use -R or R. Either of these has a better chance of a long life than RW. If you want to record and erase, RW is the way to go.

GadsdenTimesTwo.com | Times 2 | Gadsden, AL
Country music group BlackHawk will headline a celebration May 10 in Altoona as the town celebrates its centennial.

In addition to a music stage, the celebration will include a children’s area with clowns, inflatable rides and face painting, said Tony Nash, the event coordinator. Nash and Tom Quinn, president of The Chamber, the chamber of commerce for Gadsden and Etowah County, discussed the celebration during a press conference March 5.

“(Planning) has just started and we currently have just the one act, but we’ll be filling in the entertainment,” Quinn said.

“We want everyone to enjoy themselves,” Nash said. “It’s not just for adults and we also want to include all different types of music for different types of people.”

Nash plans to announce other entertainment this week. He said genres will include gospel, rock and bluegrass.

GadsdenTimesTwo.com | Times 2 | Gadsden, AL
Two major retailers, Books-A-Million and JCPenney, are coming to the Gadsden Mall this year, according to the mall’s owner, Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust.

JCPenney, which left the mall in 2001, will be opening a store in October, a JCPenney company official said Thursday.

Mike Fenchak, vice president for assets management for PREIT, said Books-A-Million will open later this year. He also confirmed JCPenney’s opening.

Books-A-Million will replace Bookland, which is owned by Books-A-Million. It will displace the Shoe Department, which will move to another location in the mall, and take over the space where KB Toys is now. KB Toys will close March 22.

Riverfest tickets go on sale today | GadsdenTimes.com | Gadsden Times | Gadsden, AL
Tickets for Riverfest go on sale today at The Chamber and should be available at ticket outlets by mid-week.

An adult weekend pass is $30 and a child’s weekend pass is $7 for ages 6 through 11. All kids 5 and under are free.

Tickets should be available in a few days at Alabama Power offices across the region, WQSB and WKXX radio stations, said Kerri Griffith of The Chamber of Gadsden and Etowah County and one of the coordinators for Riverfest.

The 23rd annual Riverfest will be set along the banks of the Coosa River on June 13 and 14. Albert Rains Boulevard will close for four days for the festival.

The lineup for the festival has changed after REO Speedwagon canceled about half their dates for 2008, including Riverfest.

Little River Band has been added to the Saturday night lineup and will perform prior to Grammy winner Clint Black, who headlines the event.

Billy Ocean, added to the lineup last week, will open the show on June 13. Other performers that night include The Last Goodnight and Sister Hazel.

The Winners of Airwaves Auction Revealed
The Federal Communications Commission made public the results of the 700-megahertz spectrum auction. The auction raised $19.6 billion, more than the Commission ever hoped and the prime chunks went to the big internet carriers.

Verizon Wireless bought C Block, the largest, with $9.6 billion, while AT&T bid a total of $6.6 billion to pick up the B Block. EchoStar Corp.’s Frontier Wireless LLC made a $712 million bid and Qualcomm totaled $558 million.

Google Inc. didn’t win any license, but there were some new entrants. EchoStar Corp.-owned Frontier Wireless LLC bid $712 million and will sure make its mark with the licenses it won.

The federal government’s 700-MHz auction has drawn mixed reactions. Some were unhappy with the fact that the auction was won by the large incumbent carriers, other showed their contempt with the initiative which is a first step toward giving consumers access to a truly open wireless network.

“A bidder other than a nationwide incumbent won a license in every market,” FCC chairman Kevin Martin said hinting that it’s possible for a “wireless third-pipe” competitor to emerge in every market across the U.S. This would increase the competition and the first one to benefit from it will be the consumer.

The fact that big carriers such as Verizon and AT&T won the big prizes on the “C” and “B” blocks of spectrum wasn’t such a surprise for research director for the New America Foundation’s Wireless Future Program, Sascha Meinrath.

The Associated Press: Signs of Possible Deal on New ID Rules
WASHINGTON (AP) — There are signs of a potential compromise to end the Bush administration’s standoff with states resisting new standards for driver’s licenses. For people who live in those holdout states, the dispute raises the specter of hassles at airports and federal buildings.

At issue is a law known as Real ID that would require new security measures for state-issued driver’s licenses. The Bush administration says the law, passed after the Sept. 11 attacks, will hinder terrorists, con artists and illegal immigrants. Opponents say it will cost too much and weaken privacy protections.

Unless holdout states send a letter by the end of March seeking an extension, their residents no longer can use a driver’s licenses as valid identification to board airplanes or enter federal buildings beginning in May, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has warned. They would have to present a passport or be subjected to secondary screening.

Only three states — Maine, Montana and South Carolina — have not sought extensions or already started moving toward compliance. New Hampshire has asked to be exempted, but Homeland Security Department officials have not found the state’s letter to be legally acceptable.

But on Friday, the agency granted Montana an extension even though state officials did not ask for one and insist they will not follow the law. Gov. Brian Schweitzer, D-Mont., told The Associated Press that administration officials “painted themselves in a corner.”

Chertoff has offered to phase in requirements over about 10 years. But with President Bush leaving office in January, a decision to move ahead with Chertoff’s plan will rest with the next administration.

By 2014, according to the plan, anyone seeking to board an airplane or enter a federal building would have to present a Real ID-compliant card, except people older than 50, officials said. That exception would give states more time to get everyone new licenses, and officials say the threat from someone in that age is much less. By 2017, even people over 50 must have a Real ID-compliant card to board a plane.

Jacksonville News – Contract granted for new wing, gym
At Kitty Stone Elementary, the air-conditioned mini-gym will give the school the ability to hold PE classes while special events are going on in the older building.

The board also met earlier last week, on March 11, for their regularly scheduled meeting. During that meeting, the board approved the cessation of a contract with the Calhoun County Career Technical Center.

Each year, the Jacksonville school system pays $59,761 each year to the Calhoun County School System to send students from JHS to the center. In recent years, the number of students choosing the career technical school option has dwindled and only 10 students currently attend.

“Under the old agreement, we are required to pay them $59,761 a year whether anyone comes or not,” said Mackey. “They’re going for an hour and a half a day. There are some good teachers over there and some good programs, but we have a student that is going to Gadsden State through the ECEP program now and she’s there full time, all day long, getting all her coursework provided by Gadsden State and she’s getting dual high school and college credit and they offer that in 12 different technical fields. And that only costs us $2,000 a year.”

Mackey outlined options to the board for those students still wishing to pursue a technical education including the Gadsden State Community College Early College Education Program and a possible addition of faculty members in JHS’ own career tech program.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Sci-fi writer Clarke laid to rest
British science-fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has been buried in his adopted country of Sri Lanka.

Music from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey was played at the funeral and members of the family which had adopted him cried as his coffin was lowered.

“Here lies Arthur C Clarke. He never grew up and did not stop growing,” his gravestone in Colombo is to read, in accordance with the author’s wishes.

Sir Arthur died from heart failure and breathing problems at the age of 90.

A nationwide minute’s silence was ordered by the Sri Lankan government to coincide with the ceremony.

Sir Arthur’s brother, Fred Clarke, attended the funeral along with members of the Ekanayake family, with whom the writer had lived in recent years.

Growing Pains – USGenWeb & RootsWeb
As has been discussed on this and many other blogs and message boards around the Internet, many of the state and county coordinators who host their USGenWeb sites at RootsWeb have chosen to move on to new ISPs over the past week or so. Quite a few say they’ve been disgruntled for a while, however, so what exactly is it that triggered the exodus this week and why the obvious mistrust of Ancestry.com and their parent company, The Generations Network (TGN)?

From everyone I’ve spoken to or corresponded with, there have obviously been issues and differences of opinion between USGenWeb coordinators and TGN for quite some time. The biggest long-term issue appears to be the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), which governs use by The Generations Network and Ancestry.com of content submitted to RootsWeb.com. The fact that Ancestry.com took over control of the message boards and mailing lists upon its assimilation of RootsWeb made some people unhappy. There are also some unhappy with the older servers and lack of “toys” that are available through other ISPs. Still others have had issues with slow staff response. Everyone’s story is a little bit different.

Jacksonville News – Tree decision
Tree decision

03-19-2008

Tuesday morning, a permanent injunction was granted to Barbara Wilson and Rufus Kinney, preventing Alabama Power Company from cutting down their trees. The News will have a full story and reactions from the participants in next week’s edition.

The Anniston Star Police Blog: Jack’s in Alexandria robbed on Thursday
Calhoun County Sheriff’s investigators Friday were looking for a man who robbed the Jack’s restaurant in Alexandria on Thursday.

A masked man reportedly robbed the restaurant minutes before closing time.

A night manager had been outside the business for a few moments just before 9 p.m. As she came back through the door, a man in a ski mask, wearing all black and holding a handgun, followed her in, reported Calhoun County Sheriff Larry Amerson.

The man put a gun to the manager’s head, forced her into a back office and demanded money, Amerson said.

The manager reportedly handed over an undisclosed amount of money, and the armed man fled the restaurant, running south.

No arrests had been made as of Friday afternoon.

Amerson said anyone in the area at the time who saw anything suspicious — including cars speeding away — is asked to contact the Sheriff’s Office at 236-6600 or Crime Stoppers at 238-1414.

SPACE.com — Space Station’s Robotic Repairman Moves In
HOUSTON – The International Space Station’s (ISS) new mechanical maintenance man officially moved in Tuesday when astronauts attached it to the exterior of the orbiting laboratory’s U.S. Destiny module.

Until today, the Canadian-built robot Dextre remained fixed on the platform that ferried it to the ISS inside the cargo bay of NASA’s shuttle Endeavour. But after three separate spacewalks to add hands, arms, camera eyes and a tool belt of sorts to the massive robot, Dextre is settled onto its new orbital residence.

“Dextre is now grappled the lab’s grapple facility,” said ISS flight director Kwatsi Alibahuro in an evening briefing here at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

Built by the Canadian Space Agency, Dextre is a 3,440-pound (1,560-kilogram) robot designed to fill in for astronauts to replace batteries and perform other routine repair jobs that would otherwise expose a flesh-and-blood spaceflyer to the added risk of a spacewalk. Its two 11-foot (3.4-meter) long arms are tipped with hand-like grippers sensitive to light touches, can lift up to 1,323 pounds (600 kg) and position hardware with an accuracy of about 1/12 of an inch (2 mm).

“He looks like a gunfighter with his sidearm raised,” shuttle commander Dominic Gorie said earlier today as he described the two-armed Dextre to Mission Control.

The $209-million robot is Canada’s latest addition to the ISS, where it joined its simpler Canadarm2 cousin and a railcar-mounted work platform known as the Mobile Base System.

PC World – Tech Visionary Arthur C. Clarke Dies at 90
Science fiction writer, inventor, scuba diver, and visionary Sir Arthur C. Clarke died Tuesday at his home on the island nation of Sri Lanka at the age of 90.

Clarke was best known in popular culture as the author of the story that inspired Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey,” but his greatest contribution to technology is creating the conceptual framework for geostationary satellites — machines that would remain in the same spot above the earth and act as relay stations for signals from the ground, covering a wide area. He published a paper about the concept in 1945, which was ultimately realized two decades later. The orbit into which geostationary satellites are placed is now known as the Clarke Orbit.

The Arthur C. Clarke Foundation confirmed Clarke’s death on its Web site Tuesday. He died of respiratory problems, according to media reports.

Born in England in 1917, Clarke served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, working on radar defense systems. He ultimately achieved the rank of flight lieutenant. He then went on to earn degrees in mathematics and physics from King’s College.

Having been interested in astronomy as a young boy, he served as the chairman of the British Interplanetary Society. In 1948 he wrote the story “The Sentinel,” which would eventually form the basis for the “2001″ film. He moved to Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) in 1956, in part to pursue his interests in underwater exploration. He founded his own scuba diving school there.

Clarke suffered from post-polio syndrome in later life, and was confined to a wheelchair.

Celebrating his 90th birthday in December, 2007, Clarke wished for peace in Sri Lanka, for mankind to break its fossil fuel habit, and for the discovery of extraterrestrial beings.

Clarke married in the 1950s and later divorced. He had no children