Sorry for the interruption but I was out of town for most of the holiday (we left the 26th for Chicago, but thats a whole post on its own!). I did however, want to brag about some of the Christmas Gifts that blessed our house this season though.

Amy’s big gift this year is to have the Master Bath and Bedroom repainted. When we bought the house from her parents, we inherited the DEEP red color of the bath and bed room. Its a dark red (think maroon) that is hard to match colors with. Now we’re going for a lighter, beachier look and are painting them Beachnut (its a lowes color). The master bath is done (Amy found some Votive candle holders at a store in Nashville), next on to the bedroom!

Grace had a very Hannah Montanna Christmas. She got a Hannah Montanna Guitar Game (like Guitar Hero) that plugs in to the tv, a Hannah Costume, and doll. Its pretty cool and she likes pretending to be a rockstar. Maybe someday. I like playing her game (since I haven’t bought Guitar HEro World Tour yet) and she’s getting better at it.

Mose got a Trampoline. One of her favorite things to do is jump. We’d wake on Saturday mornings to the heavy thud of emma jumping up and down in our door way. Now she can do it all she wants and it doesn’t make the house shake. Its pretty cool and Grace and Emma take turns on it. Amy wanted to try it out, but its for people under 80 pounds (and neither of us meet that requirement!

The girls also got some tinkertoys, and some other little odds and ends that they like to play with, but the coolest by far is my Ultimate Wall-E Robot.

We saw the movie in the theaters and we’re big fans (mose loves him). We had seen the Ultimate Wall-e at the Disney Store but we weren’t going to get him because of the price tag. Needless to say, Santa found him on Sale and he was wrapped and under the tree for me on Christmas morning. He has fun dancing, chasing the dogs around and just exploring on his own. If you haven’t seen one yet, I’ll work on some video and see if I can get anything posted. Its pretty cool though and the way he can respond to voice commands or find his own way around the room is fairly smooth.

Was there one gift that you prized more than the others??

Amy and I have decided that Denver, well Colorado in general is an awesome place to visit. Another place out that way that we’d love to visit is Branson, MO (yes, we LOVE to travel!). I don’t know that we’d move to Missouri but it is fun to check out whats available in the Branson Missouri real estate market (one of our favorite thing is picking up those little homes for sale books where ever we go). The land out that way is absolutely gorgeous. Large blue skies as far as you can see and in the warmer months some pretty good golfing too from the looks of it. Whats better than golfing during the day and relaxing back at your own cabin at night?

A barmaid in Oz (Thats Australia for those in the know…) is being charged with being criminally stupid and mean after she knowingly gave a patron a shot of cleaning solution. This of course, came after feeding him shots of water (yea, water) in the hopes of landing him in bed. Apparently she’s been known to be a prankster (she covered a bar with sticky tape…) but this one has gone a little too far.

The guy in question received ulcers on his skin (and probably elsewhere) and she has lost her job and could land in jail.

This was a misguided joke at an ungodly hour

I don’t know if that defense would stand up in court…

Original Story

Amy heard on the radio the other day that there’s something like 95 shopping days left until Christmas. 95!! Where the heck has 2007 gone?!?!? I don’t have the foggiest but I wanted to share something with you that’s going to make your holidays brighter, coupons!! Thats right! CouponChief has coupons for EVERYTHING and EVERYWHERE you could possibly need to go shopping this season. Maybe you need to swing by Kohls to pick up something for your wife or niece. Perhaps you thought your nephews (or even a friend *ahem*) would like the new Halo3 that just came out and you ran in to BestBuy to pick it up (you shouldn’t have, really ).

Either way, CouponChief has the coupons you need to make Christmas a success (and you might be able to pick up something for yourself while you’re at it as well…)

Ever felt like you had too many plates spinning on poles over your head that if you lost your concentration for one moment they’d all come crashing down around you? It some times feels like that between work, home and everything else. I work full time. We have two kids, three dogs and some cats. I work part time (fireworks). Amy works full time, plays bells at church and is trying to start her own business as well. Too. Many. Plates.

The nice thing is that we have sturdy poles supporting the plates we’re trying to spin. Family, friends and each other. We pick up the slack in our lives where we can and we help shoulder the burden of everything (have you noticed how much work it is owning your own home?). We both share the responsibility of the kids and the chores and the animals. When we can’t we can lean on our family or friends. Our support poles help keep the plates spinning. Remove a pole, the plate comes crashing down (or the child doesn’t get picked up from school!).

Help like that is essential in life and I’ve come to realize over the years that no matter what you think, everyone needs a little support every once in a while. After all, as I think it was the Beatles who said it “I get by with a little help from my friends”.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a Microsoft Technet event where I was introduced to some of the new technology MS is unleashing on the world. One of the products I was most impressed with was the fleeting glances we got of the Microsoft VoIP offerings that would allow small to medium businesses to install a VoIP solution on existing hardware (no need to replace current phones!). From an IT standpoint, its a pretty good deal, though I’m still a little leery of putting a full VoIP solution in the office (we’ve been running it at home for two years now and its been great), I am getting a little closer to liking the idea. This offer from MS and from 3CX Small Business PBX is a step in the right direction.

3CX Small Business Phone System provides Economical Enterprise Telephony on Windows

3CX today released version 3.1 of its Small Business Phone System. 3CX Phone System is a Windows-based IP PBX that completely replaces a proprietary PABX. Its based on the open SIP standard and interoperates with a wide range of popular SIP phones, VOIP Gateways and SIP-based providers. Although it includes enterprise telephony features such as Call Queuing, Voice Mail and Auto attendant, its targeted at the SMB market - 3CX Phone System is easy to install, manage and its low cost.

“The release of 3CX Phone System is set to accelerate the massive change occurring in the Telephony market space. With 3CX Phone System, advanced features such as Call Queuing can now be obtained for a fraction of the price of traditional Enterprise PBXs. What’s more, advanced features such as integration with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 unified messaging are not even available on today’s proprietary PBXs,” said Nick Galea, 3CX CEO.

Key features of 3CX Small Business Phone System:

Complete phone system - provides call switching, routing & queuing

Eliminates phone wiring & patching of extensions to a particular network point

Makes teleworking easy because employees can answer extension from home

Purchase cost dramatically lower than a traditional hardware PBX

Scalable - Unlimited extensions and phone lines. No proprietary expansion modules needed!

Web-based configuration & status indication - Easy phone system management!

Unified messaging - Receive voice mail via e-mail

Auto attendant (e.g. 1 for sales, 2 for support etc.)

Reduces long distance and inter office call costs using VOIP providers.

Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging integration

Call Queues

Certified for Windows 2003

Four available editions: Small Business, Pro, Enterprise and Free
3CX Phone System for Windows is available in 4 editions: The Small Business Edition supports up to 25 extensions, the Pro edition supports an unlimited number of extensions. The Enterprise edition includes advanced features such as Exchange 2007 integration and Call Queuing. Pricing is competitive: Small Business costs $350, the Pro runs at $895 and Enterprise costs $1250.

3CX Phone System Free edition
A free edition, supporting an unlimited number of extensions, is also available. The main difference with Pro and Small Business is that it’s not possible to buy a support package for the free edition, nor does it include the advanced features of 3CX Call Assistant. Not withstanding, the Free Edition does more than most commercial PBXs do; including an auto attendant, voice mail and even user-to-user support via the 3CX moderated product forums at http://www.3cx.com/forums/. The free edition can be downloaded from http://www.3cx.com/ip-pbx/index.html.

About 3CX
3CX is a privately held company with a management team backed by years of experience in developing and selling network infrastructure software. It maintains a global presence with offices in 6 countries and localized information available in German (www.3cx.de), Spanish (www.3cx.es), French (www.3cx.fr), Portuguese (www.3cx.com.br), Japanese (www.3cx.jp), Traditional Chinese (www.3cx.hk), Simplified Chinese (www.3cx.cn), Vietnamese (www.3cx.vn) and Korean (www.3cx.co.kr).

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