12Sep05 - Oops another relaxing weekend and Katrina

The picture of the dogs is on our back deck waiting for a "treat". I must admit it is great having a backyard for the dogs but the only way we can get them back in the house is to ply them with assorted doggie delicacies (freeze dried chicken breast or carrots mostly).

Well we did it again, another relaxing weekend at home. We did go out to a staff picnic for Rayne's company and attend a concert in the park in Old Wethersfield with some neighbours. The band (at the concert) was from the Air Force called "Afterburner" and played a nice assortment of 70's tunes. There were kids everywhere, it seems people here still have 3 kids on average (or they were just moving so fast I was seeing triple).

I recently decided to try a new telephone system. It's called VOIP (or voice over IP) and uses the internet to make phone calls to other people with POTS (plain old telephone service....really) phones. The company here is called Vonage and for 14.99 + taxes (about 16.00 total) they will give us 500 minutes of calling anywhere in the US or Canada. They have a plan for unlimited calling too, it's 24.99.

In order to use VOIP you must have high speed internet. They send you a little box that hooks up to the cable modem called a router (which also allows you to hook up multiple PCs) that has a telephone jack. You simply plug in your phone and away you go. The only problem with this is that you only have one phone jack. I fixed that by buying a new phone system that only needs one jack (the other phones just need a power outlet) and is expandable. Voila we have 3 phones with only one phone jack!

I haven't made too many calls with it yet as we still have the old phone line until Vonage transfers over the phone number to their service (they conveniently give you a temporary number in the meantime) which means we keep our old number. I'll keep you posted on how it goes because Vonage is also available in Canada.

Well the news down here has been non-stop Katrina on many of the news channels. Strangely, the night the storm hit there was a serious air of relief on the news shows that the storm was not a direct hit. Unfortunately the next day when the levees gave way the real impact of the storm was felt. Since then there have been full days of devastation and finger pointing (which really isn't doing anyone any good). I don't think the problems they have had getting aid to the area have as much to do with race as with ill preparedness and impossible logistics. Fact is, it doesn't matter if you are black, white or green when your city has been swallowed by the ocean there is no infrastructure left to provide help. I just hope they can save as many as possible and try to rebuild a safer place for those people to live.

ciao for now!