High Speed Cable???

We have been fighting with the cable company here for a while (Insight Cable). In the evenings often at about 7:30pm-9:30pm I get dropped constantly. It can start as early as 6 and go as late as 10 but its normally within those 2 hours. We have bought a new router, we have tried without the router, we have made them change the modem and still it does it.

Ken called them and the phone kept cutting off his outgoing voice which is what happens to me on the computer. They are going to send people out to check out the line on Tuesday but the stupid thing is they send them out during the day.

There is no problem during the day and the techs will go 'your line looks great'. The only thing I can think of is that someone is running something in the evening that interferes with the cable signal. But that is just a guess on my part.

Valintines Eve/Day

Ken took me on a dinner cruise yesterday (February 13th) on the Spirit of Jefferson. He had thought it was going to be the Belle of Louisville which is a steam boat but even with that aside it was a nice evening. They had a buffet style dinner and music/dancing after and everyone got their photos taken as part of the evening. It would have been nicer as a day time cruise so you could see the scenery but I did enjoy myself.

On Valentines day we went to Sweet Surrender which is a bakery/vegetarian cafe. They have some of the best deserts I have seen. We had chocolate dipped strawberries for our desert after a nice lunch. I will defiantly be going back there.

Wysong Battle

I found a couple more things on the battle this morning. Here is a link to the pantant mentioned. http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5968569.html. Wysong also has a forum for people wishing to discuss this.

I posted the press release on the Everything Ferret forum as well as sent it to MSNBC. We will see if the big news agency contacts Wysong about this. It would be kewl to get it into the more public eye.

I just got this in my mail

I am rather annoyed to read this. I use this food for my ferrets. I have been trying to find out more information on this but have as yet found none.


==========================
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wysong Corporation
989.631.0009
989.631.9280
Wysong@Wysong.net
www.Wysong.net

NESTLE/PURINA VS THE NATURAL PET FOOD INDUSTRY
Midland, Michigan – Nestec S.A. (better known as Nestle), parent company of Purina, a pet food manufacturer based in St. Louis, Missouri, and Wysong Corporation, a health education and nutritional development company in Midland, Michigan, have filed suits against one another in the Eastern District Federal Court in Missouri.

The suits are related to a technology invented by Dr. Wysong in the early 1980’s to enrobe pet and human foods with probiotics – health giving organisms such as found in yogurt. Although Wysong did not seek a patent, it has used the technology in both animal and human foods since the early 1980s. Due in large part to Wysong’s educational efforts and product development, probiotics have become a part of the collective health consciousness of the public and food industry. Of late, many natural pet food companies have begun using Dr. Wysong’s technology as well.
Nestle/Purina obtained a patent granted in 1999 for the same technology. To this date, however, Purina has not incorporated probiotics in its own products. Instead, it is attempting to prevent Wysong and other companies from enrobing dry extruded pet foods with probiotics unless a licensing fee is paid to Purina.
A patent is not valid if the invention (prior art) exists in the public domain prior to the patent. The evidence of Wysong’s prior art for over fifteen years before the 1999 Nestle patent was granted is, according to Wysong, incontrovertible and ample. In fact, within the last few years just a portion of Wysong’s prior art evidence swayed a European patent review board to deny Nestle/Purina a like European patent. The decision was upheld upon appeal.

These facts have been repeatedly made known to, but ignored by Nestle/Purina in their suit filed against Wysong. Purina’s ultimatum is that Wysong either pay sales-based licensing fees (essentially, royalties) going back six years and forward into the future, or pay for expensive patent litigation.

Wysong, a small family owned company, is unwilling to pay licensing fees to the multibillion dollar Nestle/Purina for what amounts to Wysong’s own invention, and consequently now finds itself being sued by a company literally hundreds of times its size. Purina takes the position that since they were granted a patent they have a right to enforce it.

Wysong argues that the patent should have never been granted, is invalid and unenforceable, and that any attempt by Purina to use the threat of litigation costs to force licensing fees is unethical and illegal. Since Wysong publicized and used the technology in products distributed nationally for more than 15 years prior to the patent, Wysong claims that the patent holders copied Wysong art and did not reveal this to the patent office when filing. Thus, Wysong has either filed or is exploring the filing of claims against Purina for Sherman Act violations/patent misuse, misleading the United States Patent Office, failing to comply with the U.S. Patent Laws, including 35 USC §101-103, 111-113 and 133, improper attempts to monopolize the market, unfair competition, antitrust violations, false advertising under the Lanham Act, state claims for deceptive trade practices, RICO violations, and punitive damages under the Clayton Act.
Wysong Corporation

Purple George (Tobias named the blog today)

While playing World of Warcraft Tobias tried to kill me. I was laughing so hard I had an asthma attack. I have heard of epilepsy with lights from games but not ashma from laughing at games. I think I should sue Blizzard! With my luck they will just tell me to delete my WTF folder and that the problem is on my end.

For dinner we went to the word famous Genny's Diner. Why its world famous I don't know. I guess a movie was shot there. It was pretty good but I would not classify it as spectacular.

Its your typical diner, minimalist decor with a bit of dust and grime where the cleaners don't normally look. The bathroom floor was filthy, it felt like someone spilt a coke on it and didn't clean it up. A large fish tank is prominent as you enter the diner which was kind of nice at first but watching mondo sized gold fish trailing fish poop behind them kind of kills the appetite

The hamburgers were much too big. In fact all the food was too big and there was no options of smaller sizes. Oddly when we went in there, they had no sugar or honey. I don't use it but I did find that an odd thing to run out of. There is a Kroger's down the way if you cant get your supplier to deliver some go to the grocery store dude you are a restaurant.

Interestingly the coffee cups look like they were taken off the shelf at someones home. Cups with pictures of someones kids on them saying 'I love mommy'. Mine had a huge crack in it which was not to nice but I did chuckle at the down home feel of the cups gave.

They had one interesting food there, fried pickles. I know it sounds gross and I was expecting it to be so. But in reality it was very good. I really enjoyed them. the food was lacking in spices, maybe they ran out of those as well as the sugar. So my take on it is clean the bathroom floor, add some spice to the meals and make a smaller size. The staff were really nice. I did enjoy that. And the unrushed relaxed atmosphere was pleasant. So I think out of 5 stars I would likely give it a 3.

After dinner we went to restock the groceries that we had to throw out due to the power outage. We tossed out much of the food with the exception of the meats which we are feeding to the dogs. With the exception of Sirus, they will eat anything. Sirus will eat it if it meets his expectations which if 'prepared by a 5 star chef who is trained in the art of cooking for the Canis lupus familiaris.

We were down to eatting pop tarts, canned soup and dog food so I (read Ken) decided it was time to get more food in the house. I got a new cookbook during the power outage I am sure I could have made the dog food taste good given half a chance.

Shopping was an experience in itself as I had to walk around while in pain. I must of turned funny at the diner and hurt my back. It was not a pleasant time shopping. Mind you I rank grocery shopping just above getting a root canal and below scooping dog poop off the lawn.

I also have been hearing from my kids a little more which is nice. Sometimes I feel like they have fallen off the face of the earth. They all seem to be doing well which is nice to hear.

Rob, a fellow from Kens work taped the sounds of the ice storm. I put them to some photos from the storm. Many I took, others I found on the net. Enjoy.

A full day of power

I know this is the third post today but I just have to say its nice to have power again. I moved the animals back to their normal sleeping spots. It will be nice to be warm all night long. And there wont be any getting up in the morning to stand outside freezing while I pour gas in the generator.  That really was the worse part I think. Having to stand in the cold filling that thing up. The new gas cans all have safety protection on them and it is almost impossible to use them to fill the tank. You have to press this or pull/push that its stupid.

I had to throw out almost all of our food. It had all gone bad. We wont go shopping again until we know for sure we are not losing power again. But I will sure be happy when I can make dinner at home instead of having to live on fast food. I figure we lost about $150 - $200 worth of food.

Cable tells me they had us ‘booked’ to rerun the wires for our phone and internet tomorrow. This is not what they told me when I called earlier in the day but the fellow this evening assured me that it had been ‘booked’ so we will see if I get any internet tomorrow.  I have to go fax some stuff for the insurance so I hope that they get done early.

Downloaded Windows Live Writer

Well I downloaded Windows live blog. We will see if maybe I can write the blogs while offline then upload them when I get a link.

One thing I hate about windows Live is when you want to download something from them, like this blog writer, it forces you to update the other stuff on your system. There is no “would you like to” it just does it.

I hate the new windows Live messenger with a passion. The sounds don’t work or if/when they work they are so soft you can not hear them anyways, I end up miss most of the messages I get. Even with Vista’s ability to turn up sounds on individual programs it does not work. I really don't know how the rest of the program works as I never got past that bad bit of coding.  I went on a search to find an older version of MSN to install. Again They don't make this easy to do. They force you to use the Newest and Worst version. Thankfully there are some helpful people out there with the older versions

If you DO manage to find an older version of messenger to install good luck trying to uninstall the newest one. You wont find it in the add/remove programs and you wont find a nice polite link in your  start menu. After searching my computer i found:

C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Installer\wlarp.exe

Which will let you uninstall parts of windows live like the messenger. Way to make it easy to do Windows Live Team!

Ok I am done cranking for the now. I am sure  I will continue later :)

Wired now for the power

Well the electrition came by and re-wired the stuff that was broken. He told us we had a burned out breaker box so that is new and the box outside on the wall of the house where the power comes in is new. Now we just wait till the power company comes by and hooks us up. We are hoping it will be today. I found an unsecured network when I turned on the computer today (via a surger protector and the power bar) so I got online to do what I can while I have the line.

The house has been so nice and warm the last 2 nights that I have actually been too warm in the evenings. its awesome. Of course the generator gets turned off over night so its chilly when you get up but not anything like when we were just running heaters. I can not thank Dave and Betty enough for coming over to get us hooked up like that. I never thought I would be warm again.

The animals are doing ok. Sirus is going stir crazy but he is holding up pretty well. I moved the ferrets back upstairs. its warm enough for them up there and they have both halves of the cage now that strabo is gone so they can get some playing in, even if its in a small area till we get power. Corky is happy where ever there is heat and just loves the fireplace. When we had the space heaters I kept having to get him off them. He does not underestand that a space heater is not a heating pad and you dont lay on them. The fireplace is up a little step so at least he does not crawl into there. He does get as close to it as he possibly can. And Aiden is Aiden he takes it all in his stride.

The Frigid South

Well it’s been an interesting week here in the “Frigid Zone” When we moved to the south we were all happy we were leaving the severe storms behind. No more wind storms and weeks without power etc. It might be a tad warm in the summer but it would be better weather. Yeah Right!

Well I blogged how we drive into Ike when we first arrived here. Now we have the joy of being in the middle of an ice storm. It started out as the worst storm in 13 years and has now been upgraded to the worst storm ever. Are we luck, we get to make history. So here is a rundown on how the week has gone. Forgive me if I get some things out of order I have not been writing them down as I should have been.

Tuesday we had a ton of snow fall Ken had been out by the bus stop and it was freaky out there. When I opened the door I could hear nothing but cracking ice. He came back in the house and said to heck with it, he called in and decided to work from home. APH sent everyone home at noon anyways so it was just as well he didn’t go in. The roads were a mess. I ventured out after noon to get some stuff from the grocery store and that was about it for us. We stayed snuggled up in the house thankful we had power. When I went to bed I shut my computer down in case we had an outage. It turns out it was a good thing to do.

Wednesday we woke up to a power outage. Ken called work and they said there was no work that day. We spent the day covering doors with blankets and moving the animals to the dining room area. We left the ferrets upstairs and just covered the cage as it was not that cold. We snuggled under the blankets and stayed warm.
Thursday ken got up for work and went to the bus stop. The bus company assured him the buses were on time and he waited and waited out there. Finally frozen he came back into the house and woke me. I got up and drove him to work. After dropping Ken off I went to Lowes to see if they had any generators. There was none there but the fellow I asked told me that he heard Home depot had some. I jumped in the car and headed off. I was lucky enough to get a Generator but of course there were no heaters around. If I had not had to drop ken off at work we would have missed out. Someone was watching over us. I also could not find anything bigger than a 2 gallon gas can. So I got 6 of them. When I got home with the generator, Susan the lady from the next door asked if I wanted help to unload it. She had the idea we would slip it out of the car and then slide it on some cardboard. While she was getting cardboard Bob the other neighbor came over and between the three of us we got to the house. While we were doing that a couple more came over and we got it up the stairs. I set it up inside cause it was cold outside and then took it out later in the day after I had gotten some gas and could lock it up. I had a small heater from Canada I used to use under my desk to keep my feet warm. It was old and didn’t put off near enough heat to heat the room but it took the chill off and for that we were thankful. Ken Called Jan the previous owner of the house and asked about the fireplace. It had not been cleaned in about 15 years so we did not dare to use it. Ken spent the day calling around for space heaters but no one had any.
Kens parents decided to drive down here to bring us a care package. They would leave their house on Friday, stop about 100 miles away for the night at a hotel then come in on Saturday, stay the day then leave Saturday evening and stop at the same hotel and finish driving home on Sunday. Insane people but boy do we appreciate them. I could not find heaters, winter boots for ken, blankets or even presto logs in case we did get the fireplace going.

Friday I put in a call to the vet as I was worried about Strabo. The vet upped his medication a while back because his stomach had started to swell again from the backed up fluid from his heart. It was not only ‘not working’ but it was looking worse. I made some phone calls and I got a hold of a chimney mane to check to see if we can burn logs in the fireplace. He agreed to come out on Saturday. I went out before picking ken up from work and wandered around the stores to help stave off insanity of sitting around the house. While I was out I found some space heaters at Walgreens of all places. We got the last 2 there. It would be warm in the house that night. When I picked up ken we got more gas for the generator and headed home. Pulling into the drive way we found the neighbor’s tree had dropped another branch and this time it tore out our power and cable lines. This is annoying more because they know the tree is dying and they refuse to take it down. We could not close the gate because the power line was on the tree that was against the gate so we walked the dogs to potty that night. The vet called back before supper and started talking about putting needles in Strabo’s stomach ton draw off the liquid and it ‘might help’ for a while. I said no at that point it would be keeping him alive for me, not for him. There would be no quality of life for him. So we decided to put him to sleep. I could not wait to do it or I would find some reason to talk myself out of it. I am not strong like some people who can take a weekend to say goodbye. So we made the long drive to the vets. And we held him as he drifted off. There were a lot of tears and it was very hard to say good bye to my little baby.

Saturday Ken’s parents showed up and they helped up to get the furnace hooked to the generator so we get a little heat in the house. The blowers don’t work as good as if it was on electricity but they work and we are warm again. The chimney guy found a critter living in the chimney. Much as I regretted evicting the poor raccoon we did need our fireplace so off he went to find a new home. I hope he could find a new rental. Ken’s parents bought us 4 cases of presto logs to burn in the fireplace which helps even with the furnace going. Ken’s parents got us both winter boots. I had been using my hiking boots, Ken got a winter jacket and we got more blankets then we can shake a stick at. We also got a small electric burner for cooking. We had been using a Colman stove in the house (yeah I know bad bad) we got another heater from them and just tons of stuff that I can’t remember. The vet’s office sent us a bouquet of flowers for Strabo. That was sweet of them and I will have to call and thank them. Of course today we go out with the parents and we see everything we could not find previously LOL make us look like we didn’t even try to look around. The rest of the block got power today. Thanks to the neighbors tree we did not get any. I am still trying to get a hold of the insurance company. It might be Monday before I can do that.

Sunday The electrician called today. He has our parts so I can hope that we can get power by Wednesday or so. Internet by Friday. I am posting this from a local restraunt so I could check my mail. I will make updates as I can.