« December 2004 | Main | February 2005 »
January 29, 2005
Freezing Rain is not fun!
We had some freezing rain last night. It didn't cause problems here in the city, but down to the site in more rural areas, they had some major icing on trees and power lines. I had some people who work at my Wal-Mart in Oxford that live down that way and they still do not have power from last night. I feel bad for them...I am glad it didn't get too bad here. I also learned what freezing rain "really" is....I always thought it was frozen rain (ice) that fell to the ground. But acutally freezing rain is liquid rain that falls to the ground when surface temperatures are below freezing and it freezes when it hits the ground... That would explain the sheet of ice all over my car this morning.
Posted by Chris at 05:36 PM | Comments (0)
January 27, 2005
Been a while
I think I have used the subject "Been a while" for so many posts it is not even funny. I used to be really good about posting here on my blog but lately, I just seem to not find the time. Today I was thinking about re-designing the blog. Don't have a clue what I will do to it but I guess I am just throwing the idea around. Anyways, we'll see how it goes.
Posted by Chris at 08:03 PM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2005
This is just terrible..
Body of abducted Wal-Mart clerk found on Texas roadside
By Jamie Stengle
Associated Press Writer
01-22-2005
Bouquets of flowers adorn a bench in front of Wal-Mart in Tyler, Texas, the site of the abduction of Megan Leann Holden, 19, who worked at the store and was later found dead in West Texas. Photo: Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press
TYLER, Texas — A college student whose abduction was captured on a surveillance videotape as she was leaving her clerk’s job at a Wal-Mart was found shot to death Friday, and a suspect was arrested, authorities said.
The body of Megan Leann Holden, 19, was discovered on the side of a highway in western Texas.
Police said the suspect, Johnny Lee Williams, turned up Friday at an Arizona hospital with a gunshot wound unrelated to the abduction. Authorities said he was driving the woman’s pickup truck, which was parked outside the hospital.
The abduction was captured in chilling detail Wednesday after the woman clocked out from the Wal-Mart in Tyler just before midnight.
The apparent abductor - a man in a long, dark coat - was seen loitering around the front entrance of the store “for a good period of time,” Tyler police spokesman Don Martin said. The man was also seen on tape about 90 minutes before the abduction, emerging from a bathroom and walking around inside the store.
The tape later shows Holden getting into her truck and the man “running up behind her and either hitting her or pushing her,” Martin said.
Two days later, her body was found near Stanton, about 380 miles west of Tyler.
Megan Leann Holden, left, was found shot to death along a Texas roadside Friday. The suspect, Johnny Lee Williams, right, was arrested after he turned up at an Arizona hospital with a gunshot wound unrelated to the abduction. AP Photos
Authorities said the suspect kept heading west as he continued his crime spree, attempting a robbery at an Arizona RV park. It was during the robbery attempt that a store worker fired the shot that landed Williams in the hospital, authorities said.
“He said, ‘This is robbery, I want all the money in the cash register,”’ store worker Richie Chapman said. “And as he said that, he drew a weapon from underneath his shirt, and I drew and fired.”
Williams was being held for investigation in the case in Willcox, Ariz., said Carol Capas, a spokeswoman for the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department. He was turned over to FBI custody Friday afternoon.
“At this point in time, there’s no doubt this was a total stranger abduction,” Tyler Police Chief Gary Swindle said.
Martin said Williams, who was honorably discharged last year after four years as a Marine, had been arrested in Tyler before on drug charges.
Posted by Chris at 01:24 PM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2005
Movin' on Up...Kinda
Went to look at an apartment in Oxford today and I liked it...I should be able to move in on Wednesday. It is a two bedroom, 1 1/2 bath, 2 level apartment (the bedrooms are upstairs).... Can't wait to move in!
Posted by Chris at 09:56 PM | Comments (0)
January 07, 2005
Moving on...
I have not talked about this on my blog any, but I guess I need to. I have known for over a month that I would be transfering to another Wal-Mart store. In fact, I am going back to the store it all started in for me...Oxford. I start next week. I am looking forward to it. For one thing I will get to work with people that I have worked with in the past and I will also be coming off the night shift (for now at least). Now the next major thing it to move all my stuff out of my apartment in Roanoke back to Oxford...fun indeed!
Posted by Chris at 10:18 AM | Comments (0)
January 01, 2005
Apple to drop sub-$500 Mac bomb at Expo
This is something interesting:
------------------------------
Apple to drop sub-$500 Mac bomb at Expo
December 28, 2004 - With iPod-savvy Windows users clearly in its sights, Apple is expected to announce a bare bones, G4-based iMac without a display at Macworld Expo on January 11 that will retail for $499, highly reliable sources have confirmed to Think Secret.
The new Mac, code-named Q88, will be part of the iMac family and is expected to sport a PowerPC G4 processor at a speed around 1.25GHz. The new Mac is said to be incredibly small and will be housed in a flat enclosure with a height similar to the 1.73 inches of Apple's Xserve. Its size benefits will include the ability to stand the Mac on its side or put it below a display or monitor.
Along with lowering costs by forgoing a display (Apple's entry-level eMac sells for $799 with a built-in 17-inch CRT display), the so-called "headless" iMac will allow Apple's target audience -- Windows users looking for a cheap, second PC -- to keep their current peripherals or decide on their own what to pair with the system, be it a high-priced LCD display or an inexpensive display. Sources expect the device to feature both DVI and VGA connectivity, although whether this will be provided through dual ports or through a single DVI port with a VGA adapter remains to be seen.
The new Mac is expected to have a Combo drive only, but will possibly have an upgrade path to a SuperDrive at a higher price. It is unclear how big the hard drive capacity will be, although sources indicate it will be between 40GB and 80GB.
Other expected features of the iMac include:
* 256MB of RAM
* USB 2.0
* FireWire 400
* 10/100 BASE-T Ethernet
* 56K V.92 modem
* AirPort Extreme support
In terms of software, Apple will include a special iLife suite (minus iDVD) as well as AppleWorks, sources believe.
The new Mac is expected to be introduced by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at his keynote address on Tuesday, January 11, but is not expected to be available until later in the first quarter. Sources indicate "issues" have arisen in production of the new Mac, but that Apple never planned on shipping the new device immediately upon introduction. The plan is to air freight the new model from its manufacturing plants in Asia for at least the first three months of shipments, sources report.
The announcement of the new, inexpensive Mac will be a dream come true for Mac aficionados who have begged and pleaded for years to see just such a PC. Until now, the company has downplayed speculation that it would get into the low-end PC market. "In terms of our pricing, I feel very good about where each of our product lines are priced," Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO, said in October. "To date, we have chosen not to compete in the sub-$800 desktop market and have put that R&D investment in expanding our products in the music area, in software, and in hardware."
So what has changed to motivate Apple in producing a low-cost Mac? In a word, iPod.
"Think of your traditional iPod owner," said a source. "This new product will be for a Windows user who has experienced the iPod, the ease of use of the iTunes software, and has played around with a Mac at an Apple retail store just long enough to know he'd buy one if it were a little cheaper."
Apple executives announced on October 13 that 45% to 50% of its retail store customers bought a Mac as their first PC or were new to the platform in the fiscal fourth-quarter. The company has refused to divulge more exacting figures on iPod buyers who also buy a Mac, for competitive reasons.
According to sources, internal Apple surveys of its retail store customers and those buying iPods showed a large number of PC users would be willing to buy a Mac if it were cheap enough, less of a virus carrier than PCs (which all Macs already are), and offered easier to use software solutions not available on Windows-based PCs. Now, Apple feels it has the answer.
Apple has been working on the low-end Mac for almost a year, sources report. Indications are Apple has been working mostly on finding the right mix of price, performance and features that would motivate Windows users to consider a Mac, and less on the actual engineering of the product. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to design a bare-bones PC," said one source familiar with the project. "What it takes is a team of marketing and software experts to find the right mix to convince Windows users to buy a Mac at a price that is not much more than the cost of an iPod."
Sources familiar with the product cautioned that the low-end Mac will be marketed towards a totally different audience than those who traditionally buy even a $799 eMac. "This product is not going to be about performance," said a source close to Apple. "This is going to be the basics, but with just as much of a focus on software as any Mac could ever be."
Posted by Chris at 07:56 PM | Comments (0)