Woman, Wife, Mother, Working, Friend...and all that that implies.

You Got 10 Minutes?

by JustBeachy on August 27, 2008

Monday night I received a phone call from an acquaintance at church.

She had called about a month ago and wanted to let my and my husband in on a program she and her husband were involved in and thought we might be interested in. Of course, being me, the first thing I thought about was wife swapping, but, ha, no thanks, ew and yuck. They are not the most attractive couple,. kidding. She just needed 10 minutes of my time sometime. I told her that I was really busy with my new business and that we were in the process of a kitchen remodel and that I really didn’t have time to start something/anything new. She gave me her phone number and asked me to call when I became less busy…(as if).

Of course I never called back because, hello,

Not interested in anything that you couldn’t just have told me about while you had me on the phone. Well she called on Monday night. Ugh, I had just been enjoying a nice dinner and a few glasses of wine with the husband, but I knew that the best way to get rid of her was to listen to her 10 minute speech. I told her I had 10 minutes right now, she then told me that she would be right back, she just had a 6 minute taped recording she wanted me to listen too. Okay, maybe it was the wine, but don’t you think that if you wanted to sell your “friend” on something that was “so good” that you would do it yourself? Anyway, I let the tape play..half listening to it and half listening to Zack and Cody and whatever escapade they were up to, when she came back on the line. (Wow! That 6 minutes went by really fast.) Just one minute longer okay, there is someone I would like to talk to you… By this time I’m thinking WTF.. But, before I can say anything another lady gets on the phone. She starts in with some small talk, she use to go to my church, it was an awesome church but didn’t work for her and her family, blah blah blah. Then she start in on the hard sell for this program.

She ended her speal by asking me if I would be interested in watching the 30 minute video?

Of course, it took me a minute to realize that she was actually now speaking to me, “Um, no, not really.” was my reply. “To be honest……” “Priorities….” “Wouldn’t want to intrude on my friends…..”

I am guessing it was another tiered marketing program? Lord, like I have time to intrude on people I know to try and sell them on something. I thought it was funny that the acquaintance from church actually told the lady that she was introducing me to that she had known me for years? Hum? Had she known anything about me she would have known that she would have had a better chance with the wife swapping thing. ha. kidding, again. Maybe. No, seriously, had she known me at all she would have known she was going to become blog fodder.

Have you ever been hit up by an *Am *Way* associate, or other tiered marketing scheme?

This is the second time I have been approached. Why does it always seem to come out of the blue? It’s weird, “Hey, how about dinner… Bam. Hard sell.” The last guy actually brought an easel and markers and after dinner went to his car and pulled them out and set them up in my living room, “Oh boy, games, I thought,” rolling my eyes. Games would have been good.

So, anyway, the next time you have 10 minutes, shoot me an email, I have something to share with you.

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Preparedness

by JustBeachy on August 20, 2008

Life here at the beach is a little hairy today as we wait to see what T.S. Fay is going to do. Reports last night were that it was going to become a hurricane, but this morning it is less threatening. The kids are off school for today and tomorrow and most businesses are closed. I get to stay home as well.

Luckily, it doesn’t seem as though we are going to get it as bad as they thought we were going to, thankfully, because I didn’t do much to prepare. I mean, I have scented candles, but no emergency candles, which means if our power does go out I will be ultra *itchy from the headache I’ll have from all the different scents going on. I also have batteries, but they are double and triple “A’s”, which means, if the power does go out I can use the little pen light flashlight I have to find the scented candles.

I was going to go to the grocery store last night, but decided against it. I mean, I have lots of “Cream of…whatever” soup and a pool should we need additional water. I just didn’t think it was worth going and fighting over the last of the bottled water and bread. Seriously, I don’t know what major weather patterns you have in your area, but here people get really *touchy* about food and water and gas whenever there is a threat of severe weather. I mean, if you look at it, it really is a good way to clean the pantry and the freezer.

I think last night people were getting a little “nervous” because the weather maps were predicting a good hit at hurricane status right in our area. The last time that happened was 44 years ago - oh, and I was born during that hurricane, the same day it came ashore, ‘cept I was born on the west coast and it hit the east coast. My mom blamed credited my personality to Dora, ha. funny.

So anyway, we are excitedly cautious about having a change in our everyday lives here. If it were a real threat, I would take the kids and leave, but judging the weather reports - it’s hurricane party weather here.

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Grade 2, Day 1

by JustBeachy on August 18, 2008

School started back today.

I walked brother in and stood with him for a few minutes. I asked him if he wanted me to wait with him or go, and of course he said, “go.” He has always been so independent when it comes to things like this. He is not afraid of new or change. I guess he figures he has been there before and there will be someone he knows or he will make a new friend.

I know it is a good thing, but the first day of school still leaves me with tears in my eyes as I walk alone to the car, knowing that my children are growing up. I know I could jokingly say they are tears of joy, but in honesty, it is sorrow. Another year. Another year older.

Sister started 10th grade today. No words can discribe my feelings about that.

I took today off, as I usually do on the first day of school. To me it has always been a day of reflection, a day alone in the house filled with quiet and solitude. The school year has started - this usually is the only day of rest and solitude I can claim for the next school year.

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How Well I Remember The Dinosaurs

by JustBeachy on August 15, 2008

This morning brother and I were on our way to work, when he asked, “Mom, what would happen if it con… contained?” To which I must magically know what and or who he is talking about. Sorta like him asking me, “Has it been an hour?” to which I must know, an hour since??? Course I don’t know and he usually gets frustrated before he even starts his conversations.

So this morning his contained, was actually a deployed, and he was talking about the airbag. I don’t like him to sit in the front seat because of the airbag, so I have scared him to either a life of fear or back seatdom, for fear it will deploy on him. Anyway, the conversation went on and came around to him asking me if I’ve ever been in an accident or deployed by the airbag. I told him of the worst accident I had been in as a teen and that we didn’t have airbags back then. Of course, he asked about a hundred questions, taking us to what happened, where we hurt, was anyone else hurt, did we go to jail, why is a judge so mean, making good choices, and tickets that have to be paid.

Yes, my sister and I hit a guy on a motorcycle on our way Christmas shopping, he was flying down a hill in the dark with no light, we turned left. He hit us, we hit a telephone pole, we were bumped and bruised pretty bad. He had a broken leg. We went to court, no one went to jail, judges aren’t mean they just uphold the law. If you make bad choices, you have to be willing to pay the consequences… My sister got a ticket.

His next question was, “how much was the ticket?”

“Gosh, I don’t know son that was like 25, um 28 years ago.”

“Whoa, good thing there weren’t dinosaurs back then!”

Good thing son.

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Iframe Malware in Wordpress

by JustBeachy on August 14, 2008

So, apparently, those comments and emails I received actually were a real issue? I was playing with my site today when I should have been working, and I upgraded to Firefox 3.0. When I did this, the next time I viewed my site I got a great big black screen with a Big Red Warning that my site might be infected. This was after I upgraded to 2.6 and imported my posts back in. The script was actually in my posts.

I guess google is doing this big campaign, and at the same time, wordpress was having a security issue with some of its versions, and I guess if someone knew what they were doing they could register on your blog then infect your posts with a hidden iframe script? I remember a few months back some jibberish registering as a user .. I was nice enough to even send them an email to tell them there was no need to register (and that I had deleted it), and if anything were private only, only friends and family would be allowed to view it. bastards. I don’t know if wordpress fixed the deal, but I guess if you turn off anyone can subscribe than you are secure? (hopefully)

Anyway, I found two iframe scripts in two different posts and deleted them. I then found a site where you could check do a check for parasites and it kept bringing up a hidden iframe almost the same as the deleted items? I ended up exporting my post into a text document and then searching for the “traffic statistics.” It brought up both the deleted script and also two other auto saved / revision posts that had the hidden script in it.

I deleted both posts and my site tested clean. What a big pain in the ass this has been today.

Here I am wanting to make my new template all pretty pretty, and I have to spend the whole day figuring out how to find crap I have no idea how to find. Google is great at telling you you have a problem and then they get all technical and dont really tell you what or how to get rid of it. Also..It would have been really nice as a subscribed google account holder, if they would have notified me that my site may be infected instead of just slapping a big ole Risk sticker on my site. Google’s taking over the internet and wow, we have no recourse.

Bottom line for me is to keep my wordpress software current with each revision and subscribe to the rss the feeds.

I really just wanted to post this here in case someone else like me is flagged and is searching “mostly to no avail” about what it is and how to fix it.

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