The Latest News 10/22/05

Hello from Texas!

I am typing this from our car as we drive between Oklahoma City and the Northern Texas border. There are a few things that I mentioned in previous posts that I would like to take this time to post about. The first thing I was going to post about is the beautiful laptop that I am temporarily in possession of. I found it for sale on www.Craigslist.org for such an extremely low price that I couldn't help but buy it. Now of course I am wanting to sell it (that's the whole reason I bought it), so if anyone wants a really nice laptop at a fairly decent price let me know.

It is a Dell Latitude D810, and the specs are:

Intel Pentium M CPU at 1.73GHz,
128MB ATI Radeon X600 video card,
512 MB DDR Ram,
CD-RW/DVD Combo drive,
40GB 7200 RPM HDD,
Beautiful 15.4" Widescreen SXGA Display,
Windows XP Pro. SP-2
I have been getting about three to three and a half hours of standard use off of each battery charge.

It also comes with the original box, and all the original software etc...

When I got the laptop, I was told that it was brand new, and had only been turned on once. Well, I'm pretty sure that this is true because the power supply, and power cord was still in it's original sealed packaging. Here's a picture so you can see it for yourself.



So anyway, if you're interested let me know and I'll give you a price. You can email me at my email address in "My Profile".

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Now on to my new camera. There are many good sides to this story, and a few bad sides, so I'll start with the bad so that the good will be last.

Starting with the bad... The reason that I had to get a new camera is because my Olympus c4040z was stolen by the banquet wait staff at the Radisson Hotel in Valley Forge while we were on the Faith and Freedom Tour with Vision Forum. More bad news is that they stole it with a 128MB SmartMedia card, and my best set of AA Rechargeable batteries. These are quite minor inconveniences compared to loosing the camera, but none the less they are an inconvenience.

Now for the good news, my searching for a new camera brought me to the Konica Minolta Z10. An awesome camera at the price I paid for it. It is a 3MP camera with an 8x optical zoom. On top of that it has a start-up time of .5 seconds, a flash range of 16' (which is very good for a built in flash on a point and shoot camera), a nice lens, and an incredible battery life. So after deciding that this was the camera that I wanted, I headed to eBay to try the one for me. To my great surprise I found a refurbished one for only $99! I also bought a service plan that includes a three year warranty with a "free" annual cleaning. Even after adding this plus shipping, my total still came out to only $150! I really didn't like that my camera was stolen, but now I must admit that I'm glad that I have a new camera. Here are a few pictures of the camera. I must say that I don't care for the looks of it, but it doesn't look nearly as bad in real life.






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Lately much of my time has been spent with Jeremy on an edition that he is putting on a house. It is a one room edition on the back of the house, so it has been nice not to need to work with plumbing. The people that we are doing the edition for are very nice warm hearted Italians. They have been wonderful to work with, and consequently the edition has been a breeze, and has gone up very fast. Oops, I take that back. Although the people have been great to work with, we have the greatly feared, overpowering, tyrannical, and socialist CITY OF LINDENHURST. Yes the city is about as scary as the name sounds. From the start they have been difficult to work with. They didn't even approve the building plans for a long time, thus delaying the start of the edition three long months (by which time, I might ad, the edition should have been complete).

Just a couple days ago we had the structural and mechanical inspection. Which we didn't pass for a couple reasons. One reason was that they said that we had to have OSB patches between the studs at every seam in the sheeting. We're still not sure why this is (the inspector didn't even know) but those had to be in place. And, for every reason that I can see, that is actually detrimental to the whole edition. Next they said that there needed to be caulking between the base plate on the walls, and the sub flooring! This was said to be needed to stop air flow from entering through the crack. Well, I'm not going to get into how stupid this is, just because. But anybody who is in construction will tell you that air doesn't flow there if it is caulked or not. Well, I could go on with the craziness that the city has sent us through, but I think I'll stop because I don't want this to ruin my day, and I can tell already that my temperature is rising.

Here is a picture of the edition as it was a couple weeks back. From the outside, the main difference now is that the edition is sided, and there is lateral bracing that goes across the rear posts to stabilize the addition.



It is now 1:37pm, and we have finally reached the Texas border. So I am now going to sign off, and settle in for a one hour episode of Roy Rogers. Happy Trails!

Heading to Texas!

I was planning on making a post about my new camera, my new laptop (which I bought to sell), and about the construction project that I am doing with Jeremy. However in preparation for the trip that our family is about to take to Texas, all the time for my blog was lost. Hopefully I'll be able to post about these things from my laptop on the way down, but don't get your hope up.

Until next time, this is Jonathan Erber signing off for...

for...

for myself of-course!

Faith & Freedom Tour Links.

WOW, WOW, WOW, and WOW! Jessica Erber and Tim Horn have both done extremely good jobs at reporting the 2005 Faith & Freedom Tour. I dare not attempt to try to show them up. But, if you all want to take a look at them, you can visit the Erber family blog by clicking HERE, or you can check out Tim Horn's 70+ pictures from the Faith & Freedom Tour by clicking HERE.

Oh and while I'm at it, please check out my Faith & Freedom Tour post (the first one on the web I might ad :-).

PLEASE NOTE: Half way through my post you will see some bold text. I have been corrected on some of my content, and the bold text is the new text correcting what was in error.

Happy Blogging!

Faith and Freedom Tour / Alliance Conf' / HSLDA Conf'

Well, here I am blogging from the Radisson Hotel in King of Prussia, PA. We have just finished up a wonderful week with state homeschool leaders from all across the continent (as well as Hawaii, New Zealand, and Germany), and are now in the middle of Vision Forum's Faith and Freedom Tour. The first conference we attended was the Alliance Conference near Baltimore MD, this conference lasted Sunday night through Wednesday around noon. The next conference was the Home School Legal Defense Conference (HSLDA) in Cherry Hill NJ, this conference lasted Wednesday night, through Saturday night (or as some might correct me, extremely early Sunday morning :-). We stayed up until around 2:00am the last night of the HSLDA conference and sang hymns around the piano in the lobby. One interesting thing is that the piano that they had there is the same exact model as my new Kawai Piano (I must interject that mine is in much better shape mechanically, and acoustically).

Now, on to the Faith and Freedom Tour. There is so much to be said, and so little time (I've got to run and start helping with the making of the meals...) BTW: Did I ever tell you how we got to come on this tour each year? Well, it's a long story, but basically the deal is that if we provide the lunches for all 160 people each day, we get to attend (of course we would have to attend in order to be there to give them lunches).

Oops! I got off on a rabit trail, anyway I will not be able to give you the full story due to lack of time, but instead I'll put up a few pictures with captions No promises on this, but maybe I'll be able to get a longer story up later on.


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Here I am at a park with the Back family durring the HSLDA Conference attempting to walk the whole length of the swing support bar.



With the help of Vision Forum's intern class of 2005, and Tim Horn, the making of the lunches has been a breeze. THANKS SO MUCH INTERNS, AND TIM HORN!



Monday night we were treated to an excellent meal at the City Tavern in Phillidelphia.



While eating at the tavern, we were treated to some great entertainment by Charlie Zahm.



Here pictured on the steps of the Second National Bank is our whole tour group.



In this picture Mr. Phillips gives the tour a lecture as we relax on a lawn after eating lunch.



This week Joshua has been recording, and amplifying the lectures that are being given by Mr. Phillips, and Mr. Potter.



Here is Mr. Phillips talking at the place where George Washington crossed the Delaware.


BTW: I'm still not sure why he didn't use the bridge. :-)



More entertainment by Charlie Zahm at the Battlefield of Brandywine.



One of the greatest things about the Faith and Freedom Tours, is all the great people that we meet. Here is a picture of Justice Parker, with Nathan, Jeanine, and Corrine.



Yesterday I saw this, and I couldn't help but take a picture. I think that just about everyone on the tour is feeling this way, but only some are actually showing it. :-)

Well, now I've really got to run, so I'll have to write more later.

New Post Coming Soon!

Hey Everybody,

I have been trying to get Hello (the program for uploading pictures) to work on Josh's new laptop. Once I get it to work, I'll have some pictures up from our trip.

Stay Tuned!

Jonathan