How Rare Is The Warm Welcome

It has got to be one of the rarest experiences to be so warmly welcomed at a place you used to work. I was given that gift yesterday by my friends at Continental Data Graphics, where I worked for the last two years of my Boeing career.

I had no idea that what we are doing out there on the land would strike a sympathetic chord in the hearts of so many. Thank you.

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Some good news: The original contractor that came out to the ranch to bid on the concrete pad and raising the metal building is back in the picture with some new and money saving ideas. Possibly the potential for him to do the house foundation and the ETS chamber as well as the building piqued his interest.
He promised a new proposal with several options today by email.
I'm not getting my hopes up too high yet, but I am encouraged.
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It may interest some of you geeks out there to know that I am transitioning to the Linux operating system, and alternating between the Ubuntu 8.04, and the PCLinuxOS 2007 distros. So far both work equally well and I haven't found anything that I can't do as well as XP Pro. I'm using Ubuntu to write this blog.
Both distros detected and configured my networks (multiple) without hesitation, provided me with free applications for browsers and word processors, and let me use Windows NTFS files where needed.
The Linux world is full of free software for just about any application you could want.

I started trying Linux after I bought a refurbished HP that had Vista Home Premium installed. It would not run TurboTax 2007 and I almost lost my last four years tax records because of it. I thought it would be a simple thing to install XP on it and start over, but HP deliberately does not provide XP drivers for their Pavilion Slimline computers just so you can not go back to a decent operating system. Not only that but it would not accept another version of VISTA either.

Rather than have the new computer become a doorstop, I booted from a CD of PCLinuxOS 2007, and I was on the internet in less than three minutes. I was pretty amazed at that, so I went ahead and did a complete installation from the CD, set up my email with Firefox, and began restoring my file system, using software provided by various Linux archives on the internet. It works for me.
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