INTERNATIONAL POLICE AUTHORITY UNITED STATES SECTION (IPA)
Region No. 2 New York City
P.O. Box 804 Knickerbocker Station
New York City, New York 10002-0804 USA

We, office of the international police authority (IPA) hereby write to inform you that we caught a diplomatic lady called Mrs. Vernon Wallace at (John F Kennedy International Airport) here in New York with a consignment box filed with United State Dollars.

Meanwhile, base on our interview to the diplomat she said that the consignment box belongs to you, that she was sent by one Williams I. Luis to deliver the consignment box to your doorstep not knowing that the content of the box is money. The diplomat also said that her first transit in the state was at Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport Ohio.

Now, the diplomat is under detention in the office of (IPA) security, and we cannot release her until we carry out our proper investigation on how this huge amount of money managed to be yours before we will release her with the box.. So, in this regards you are to reassure and prove to us that the money you are about to receive is legal by sending us the Award Ownership Certificate showing that the money is not illegal.

Note, that the Award Ownership Certificate must to be secured from the office of the senate president in Nigeria, because that is the only office that will issue you the original Award Ownership Certificate of this funds, this is because the fund originated from Nigeria

You are advised to forward immediately the Award Ownership Certificate if you have it with you, but if you did not have it we will urge you to contact back the sender of the diplomat to help you secure the Award Ownership Certificate if at all you did not have it.

Below is the contact information of the person that sent the diplomat:

Name: Williams I. Luis

Email: williamluis60@yahoo.com

Phone: +23480-88-926-727

Furthermore, we are giving you only but 3 working business days to forward the requested Award Ownership Certificate. Please note that we shall get back to you after the 3 working business days, that if you didn’t come up with the certificate we shall confiscate the funds into World Bank account then charge you for money laundering, but if you forward the Award Ownership Certificate then we will release diplomat with your consignment box also gives you every back up on the money.

Thanks for your understanding and co-operation

Yours Truly,
I.P.A REGION NO:2

DCP. DOUGLAS H. KING

Cc: FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI).

Cc: CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA).

Little Stevie Jobs

Yeah, we may need to get out more.

My intrepid helper is all the help I can stand:

And my other assistant isn’t terribly helpful, either:

]]> http://truetech.org/2009/11/black-friday/feed/ 1 http://truetech.org/2009/11/blue-streak/ http://truetech.org/2009/11/blue-streak/#comments Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:43:34 +0000 brad http://truetech.org/?p=1886 So it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here, but I’ve been busy. The biggest news, of course, is my new job. I started at Manheim Township School District on October 1 after almost twelve years at Etown. Honestly, it was tough to make a change after so many years at Etown, but it’s been good for me and I’m really enjoying Township.

Tim, the guy who hired me at Township, is someone I’ve known for a long time. He was my cooperating teacher when I did my student teaching back in 1995. I should have ben able to tell where my career trajectory was going to take me, because even back, on my first day of student teaching in Manor Middle School, I was helping him run LocalTalk wires for the school office.

After student teaching and graduating, I went to find lots of work as an English teacher. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to secure any of that work for myself. I decided to change paths temporarily, and I took a job as a computer lab facilitator for Lampeter-Strasburg School District. That was an awesome job, the kind of job where I woke up on weekdays and thought, “Cool! I get to go to work today!”

But it wasn’t meant to last. Within a few months, I had been contacted both by Etown and by Eastern Lancaster County School District about tech jobs. Still not the teaching job I had trained for, but it sure paid a lot more than being an aide. My preference at the time was to go to Etown, since my good friend Joe worked there. His boss Dave had recently left Etown to moved over to Manheim Township. But Etown moved more slowly and Eastern Lancaster Country offered me a job, which I took.

For five weeks.

Because five weeks was how long it took Etown to hire me. I started working alongside Joe in February of 1998, and we had a blast.

For about a year and a half.

Because that’s how long it took for Joe to move over to Exeter Area School District. Interestingly, at that point, Dave came back from Township to work at Etown again, where he stayed until the fall of 2008.

In 2000, Dave and I managed to hire Mike, a talented computer tech and network admin. Mike had previously been working for Dave at Township. Are you getting a sense of how cyclical things are?

Mike moved onto IU13 in 2007, but Dave I kept working together until his departure from Etown last year.

Then, about two months ago, Tim called me. This wasn’t terribly surprising since we had kept in touch over the years. He had moved out of the classroom and into technology. He had also moved from Penn Manor over to Township shortly after Dave left Township to go back to Etown. Confused yet?

Tim said he was looking for a new webmaster/database administrator and asked if I’d be interested in applying. I said yes and got my paperwork together. The funny part is that I wasn’t looking to leave Etown. Etown had been far from a perfect workplace over the years, between administrative scandals, leadership upheavals, and various technology-related situations that I’ll never be allowed to talk about but took quite a toll on us personally and professionally. But in reality, in 2009, things were better for me at Etown than they had been in a long time. Still, I felt like it was the right time to move on when I got Tim’s call.

And move on I did. I’ve been at Township just over a month now and I’m really enjoying the work and the people.

Truth be told, though, I do miss my friends at Etown. I’m blessed to have been part of a great team at Etown and to have worked with some amazing people. Some great tech people I’ve worked with over the years at Etown: Dave and Mike (of course, mentioned previously), Tom, Dan, Ted, Christine, Kathleen, Brian, Gayle, Amy… and the list goes on.

Some of you may be wondering what happened to Kodiak, the student information system I had developed for Etown. Honestly, Kodiak kept me at Etown for a long time, through several job offers, one of which was particularly tempting. But Kodiak was retired in July, 2009. It had a good run, but Etown understandably decided it wanted a commercial product. With Kodiak put to rest, I felt more comfortable moving to Township, since Etown’s SIS no longer depended solely on the knowledge in my head and my head alone.

So, long story short: Yeah, I actually left Etown. And yeah, I’m happy.

She’s a Gretsch Electromatic G5120.

I’ve been wanting one of these for a long time, and yesterday I found one at a price too good to pass up. I haven’t much time to play it yet, with school just starting up and all, but so far I really love it. And it sounds great through my Peavey Classic 30 or my FloorPod. Or both, for that matter.

My Coke Rewards

Somebody took this picture of my wife Jen playing bass:

Jen at Art & Soul Cafe

I’m a lucky man.

Similarities Between Man And Giraffe

From The Onion.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think corporate (and private) America should be doing far more than the status quo to help people in need. But making someone download IE8? Weird.

Happy birthday to my beautiful daughter, who turns 10 years old today!

Friday

I took a vacation day on Friday to help chaperone my daughter’s gifted class’s trip to the Smithsonian Insitute in Washington, DC. After some pre-trip jitters from my daughter, we made our way to the museum and had a great day. The only downside was that the return trip, which should only take about two hours took five hours. That’s a long time to ride in a yellow school bus.

Drinks at Turkey Hill: $4.50
Smithsonian Entrance Fee: $0
Souvenirs from the Air & Space Gift Shop: $17.49
Lunch at the McDonald’s inside the Air & Space Museum: $21
Afternoon snack at the Dino Cafe inside the Natural History Museum: $19.80
Dinner at a random McDonald’s in Maryland: $10.76
Spending the day with my daughter and watching her get excited about science: Priceless

Saturday

Saturday morning started with a trip to church to troubleshoot some issues we’ve been having with the sound system. After fooling around with it for a while, I finally got it working, at least to a usable state for Sunday morning.

In the afternoon, we headed to Tom’s house for a Memorial Day cookout, where we hung out with most of my department and watched dogs and children get soaked from head to toe in bubble juice. We followed that up with a trip to Lowe’s, a visit to the Art & Soul Cafe to listen to my friend Jeff Lease play guitar, and finally a brief soak in the hot tub.

Sunday

We almost made it through the whole service without the sound system acting stupid, but not quite. Time to upgrade, I suppose.

After church, we went to Toys R Us so my daughter could pick out her birthday present (she chose Wii Music, which I’m looking forward to trying). Then we stopped at Rita’s to buy four quarts of Italian ice  to take over to my friend Tim’s house for our second Memorial Day cookout of the weekend. At Tim’s, we swam a bit but mostly just sat around chatting.

Monday

Obviously, it’s only Sunday, so I don’t have all the details yet, but Monday will be my daughter’s 10th birthday party. Well, tomorrow is the family party; her friend party is in a couple weeks (as soon as school gets out). So we’ll be having our extended family here for the afternoon and evening, which would be our third cookout of the weekend for those keeping score at home.

I also wouldn’t bet against a trip to Guitar Center in the morning. I’m just saying.

Here are my grandparents with my mom.

This one is my mom, my grandparents, my sister, and I. 

And the great grandchildren (the two on the ends are mine):

Happy Anniversary, Grandma and Pop-Pop! You are an inspiration to all of us!

I arrived home from work to find my mother-in-law visiting my wife and kids. This in itself is nothing out of the ordinary; she visits quite often and is always welcome, especially when helping my wife with yardwork as she was this evening.

My wife informed that we were grabbing some pizza for dinner, which was fine by me. I informed my mother-in-law that she and my father-in-law were staying for dinner. My treat. She argued, but I insisted.

My father-in-law arrived shortly thereafter, and I soon went to the local pizza shop, taking my daughter along. When we got home, we found the house empty. This was odd. Very odd. They knew I was coming back with dinner.

I looked out the back window to see my wife and neighbors lined up at the fence that separates our backyard from the pasture behind our house. But I didn’t see my in-laws standing there. I went outside for a closer look, and that’s when I noticed that my father-in-law was out in the field. And my mother-in-law was lying on her back next to him, right on the ground.

I have to admit, this piqued my interest.

My wife looked at me and said, “She broke her ankle.”

This seemed like a hasty diagnosis for whatever had transpired, but whatever. I climbed over the fence and started running out to my in-laws, with the intention of helping my father-in-law carry her inside. No such luck. My wife stopped me and said they had tried. And when they did, my mother-in-law passed out from the pain.

The ambulance had already been called, so I went out to wait with them. When the ambulance arrived, I opened the gate so that it could get out into the field. At this point, I should mention the three horses and one pony that graze in the field.

At any rate, the horses and pony were distracted by carrots offered by my kids and neighbors, and my mother-in-law was safely loaded into the ambulance and taken away to the local hospital, where she was told that her left ankle was broken in three places. And to add insult to injury, her right ankle was sprained.

My daughter was upset for two reasons. First, she didn’t like seeing her Nana hurt. Second, she was supposed to sleep over at her house that night and was disappointed at the change in plans.

My son was upset for one reason only: he was jealous that he didn’t get to ride in the ambulance.