Aloha!

Various Teeters and a Baker were graciously hosted by the Calicas in Oahu, HI. Spread out over a few weeks of sunny 80-degree days there was shark diving, motorcycling, an anniversary, a birthday and a Christmas. This year there were no* emergency hospital visits!



*during our stay

Everyone is fine. The car is not.

After merging onto 92 westbound from 101 southbound, the driver in front of me was cut off by another merging driver, and he had to slam on his brakes. I was unable to stop in time, and hit him. When I hit him, his spare tire fell off the back of his car. The spare tire rolled into traffic and struck another car. Airbags didn't deploy, and the other cars could drive away.

Maps link. I was in the middle of three lanes, going with the flow.


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Pictures of my car

CarAccident

A Teeter's Return

He's finally home!

A Teeter is Set to Return

As previously mentioned, SSgt KC Teeter deployed to Iraq last year, and he's finally coming back!

KC left Kuwait at 5:00 a.m. Sunday morning PDT. KC's unit was stranded for a week until an elite squad of airline ticketing agents could extract him from Kuwait. Unfortunately, due to the tremendous energy it took to buy plane tickets, there will be no welcome home ceremony at Ft. Lewis. But we'll make up for it when he'll most likely arrive home this Saturday. We are planning a welcome home potluck. It will be at 1:00 pm Sunday, Aug. 15. Bring beer and ponies.

Anyone with a .mil email address: sign up for Google Voice!

If you've got a .mil email address, sign up for Google Voice. They're offering free accounts for service members, putting you at the head of the line for the free accounts:

For servicemen and women who are constantly on the move, having a single number and an easy way to retrieve messages from loved ones can be invaluable. To help our service members communicate with their loved ones and show our support to those serving our country, Google is launching a new program. Starting today, any active U.S. service member with a .mil email address can sign up for a Google Voice account atwww.google.com/militaryinvite and start using the free service within a day.

Google Voice gives you one new phone number that can forward to your work phone, home phone, cell phone, etc. simultaneously. If you're unavailable, it records a voice mail, automatically transcribes the spoken voicemail to text, sends you an SMS of the message emails you and an MP3 of the voice mail. You can set up call groups so certain people always go to voice mail, certain people can ring your cell phone, etc. And it's free.


It also has spam filtering, which is good, because Aly and I don't have landlines to give the telemarketers so I just give random companies my GV number and let Google block them.


Definitely useful for anyone active duty!

Retirement

I have one more week as a transportation screener then I am off to the beach.  Bernie is introducing me to the "do nothing club" and everyday is Saturday.

Does anyone want some furniture and general stuff?  I am doing a major downsizing, rolltop desk, bedroom furniture, Great-Grandpa Baker furniture?  

Moved to freebie hosting

It seems like a lifetime ago that we lived on the east coast, thousands of miles and a few timezones away from family. It was a time when staying in touch with family required real effort; the tools to keep in touch were primitive and slow. By dim candlelight I would play sysadmin at home and dutifully pay for and maintain a humble private server that hosted teetering.org's mail, photos, and blog posts, endlessly configuring and upgrading countless settings and options while seated at my crude wooden computer and chalkboard monitor.

But now we're back on the west coast, and technology has moved well beyond the venerable smoke-billowing computing machines of yore. Today I play sysadmin for far more time consuming projects, and the free image, mail, and blog hosting from The Google do a far better job keeping their systems up to date and secure than I could ever do in my spare time, responding to vulnerabilities faster than you can type "apt-get upgrade".

Moreover, social networks like Orkut (yeah! Orkut rocks!) and facebook (which is trash) do a better job of informing family about important events like how many cavities Aly's dentist found last week than long rambling blog entries, that -- despite their banality -- require a considerable amount of effort to keep up to date.

What a year for the 129th!

If you know me, you were aware that I was pretty busy with my job this year. (I'm the public affairs officer for the 129th Rescue Wing, California Air National Guard.) This video montage showcases 129th Rescue Wing missions from 2008, which include water bucket drops over the Northern California wildfires, long-range over water rescues, and rescue support during Hurricane Ike. The video is synced with the U.S. Air Force Airman's Creed too. Enjoy!

Day of Service: Jan 19

Did you know that MLK Day is a national day of service? This was mandated by Congress in 1994, but since then it hasn't been publicized much. I was truly inspired when I watched Colin Powell's speech last week about the renewed focus on MLK Day being a national day of service. I promptly went to the Web site, usaservice.org, to look for volunteer events in my area. This line from the Web site gives me the warm fuzzy:

Every time our nation faces crisis, our national experience has shown Americans rise to the challenge. While government has an important role to play in helping rekindle our economy and addressing the problems of a distressed nation, President-elect Obama believes each of us, as Americans, have a responsibility to do what we can for our communities and fellow citizens. We are one nation.

That's right - be responsible and do what's best for our collective needs, not just what's best for ourselves. It'll be great if this day will help jumpstart a spirit of sacrifice and service. It's just what our country needs!