Mike Tyson fight this weekend

Man, I've really been slacking on my blog entries. Just been busy I guess. Working crazy hours, involved in afterwork athletic teams (softball, volleyball), and I also picked up a new PS2 game, NCAA College Football.

I'm looking forward to heading down to Louisville, KY this weekend. It should be cool. We got the big Tyson fight on Friday night. Hopefully he can start to make a small comeback and get his life back together. I'll be cheering for him. Actually I just found out that Leila Ali is going to be the undercard for the fight. That should be cool too. I also want to pick up an original Lousville Slugger, the official baseball bat of the Major Leagues.

I'll be sure to take lots of photos and post them up on the site.

Hot new Motorola phone

Well I've been looking around for a new phone to replace my old P270 on
the Sprint PCS network for a while now. One reason is that I am
not too satisfied with the service and also they refuse to sell
Motorola phones for multiple reasons. So I was forced to use a
rigged up P270 without any roaming capabilities and those charges have
been rediculous when I travel. So in order to stay brand loyal
I've decided to switch phones and also services. I know I'm going
to miss the PCS-to-PCS unlimited minutes, but I'll feel better when my
wallet is fatter.



One prerequisite of my new phone is that it had to be on a network with
a reasonable data plan. Another is that it had to have bluetooth
(I'm addicted to that feature now). I think that I have
finally found my match. The new Motorola A630 meets
all of these demands plus some. It has a QWERTY keyboard, digital
camera, speakerphone, and email capabilities. It's supposed to be
due out on the Cingular (home town San Antonio based company) network
next month, but I won't be holding my breath. I'll expect to pick
up this phone up around Christmas time 2004. :-)

SMS messaging

Believe it or not, after having a Sprint PCS phone for nearly 6 years I just figured out how to send SMS messages to it. The whole time I was convinced that my account @sprintpcs.com was the correct address, but that is just a webmail account setup. I was sure that the webmail account and SMS/text messaging were connected and that it was simply broken. It turns out that I was wrong and the correct address is @messaging.sprintpcs.com. The funny thing is that I found this out while on Southwest Airlines website while setting up flight status notifications. They have the address of all major providers on this site. And I couldn't find this same info on the Sprint PCS website anywhere. Go figure!!!

Well nothing much for me, just putting the finishing touches on my travel plans to Kentucky to see the Mike Tyson fight at the end of the month. It should be tight. I'll be sure to bring back plenty of photos and post them on the site.

Later.

Carnival in Rio de Janeiro

Man, well my boy Jemerson put me onto the idea of going down to Brazil in early February. Sounds cool. I've really been feenin' to go on a real vacation, since I have been working I really haven't been on one. So I'm looking forward to it. I'm just now starting to get my feelers out and try to find out more about the trip. I actually have found about 3 people that I work with that have already made the trip. They put me onto a website to help me out:

Rio de Janeiro website

This site has everything from brazilian history, hotel packages, photos, and nightlife guides. I'm excited already.

A Tribute to my Cousin Once Removed

Well I know for sure that it is my mother's 1st cousin, so I think that means cousin once removed to me. Anyways I took time off of work on Friday to attend the funeral of my mom's cousin. This is a person that unfortunately I did not have the pleasure of spending alot of time with while I was growing up, but I feel that I saw a snapshot of her life at her funeral this past weekend.

The funeral had to be one of the nicest that I had ever been too. Just the amount of people that were there to give love and support to the surviving family members was unbelievable. Everyone had positive things to say and some had tributes that lasted almost an hour. My mom's cousin was a person that was very active in her community because a number of organizations gathered to pay tribute. In addition to the organizations and swarms of family, there was also a number of people that she worked with in attendence.

I learned that my mom's cousin's employer was the Illinois Department of Human Rights which is located in the Illinois state capital Springfield. So my cousin basically commuted from the southside of Chicago and basically lived in a hotel for much of the week.

In addition to her active career and community involvement, my cousin still seemed to always find time for family and friends. There were numbers of people that stood up and recalled stories of them having a good time with cousin Tonne.

I am glad that I had a chance to attend the funeral because I learned a great number of details about her life. Unfortunately I didn't learn these things until her passing, but I think this will inspire me to make a better effert to get to know my mother's side of the family a little better than I have in the past. Getting to know my father's side has never been a problem since we get together at least a couple times a year to celebrate graduations and holidays. But I need to make a conscious effort to get to know the other side. I really don't have an excuse for not doing it especially since there is a great number of them that live in Chicago. Hopefully the next time I get a chance to know a family member on my mother's side it won't be from another funeral.