Grandma Witch

History of Phones

We have had a lot of trouble with our phone lately. As we have talked to people, they suddenly couldn't hear us but we could hear them. It started me thinking about the history of phones during my lifetime.

In the old days, when I was a child and our phone lines were shared with several families, we used a phone much like the one pictured above. The phones always worked and you could evesdrop on any other person on the same party line. You had to be careful what you said on the phone, but at least it worked.

After the party phone lines, phone techology made great progress and became more private. You actually had your own phone line and the phone became much smaller and had a rotary dial. That was progress! Even if it took forever to dial a number.

Then came the pushbutton phones which made dialing much faster. Then came cell phones, which were very portable, but did not always have the same voice quality as home phones.

Then, some genius, decided that speech over the phone could be converted to data. The speech was converted into multiple packets of information. Those packets could be sent over data lines and reassembled at the other end into speech. This was called VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocal). So the same technology that is used by email can now be used for voice. In fact, this is used by most phone companies to transmit large amounts of voice packets around their networks.

You can get VOIP phone service that services your home from several companies now. Vonage was one of the first providers of this service. Comcast began offering the service along with their internet connection and cable tv service a couple of years ago. All you need is a broadband connection and you could have VOIP. It is actually quite a bit cheaper than the old technology to use.

However, there are some problems with it, as we found out. We used Vonage for a time and it worked pretty well. We decided to go with Comcast cable tv and so we decided to get Comcast Internet connection and their VOIP phone service. After awhile, we noticed that when we spoke with people on the phone, they couldn't hear us, but we could hear them. This happened enough that it became very irritating. So we decided to go back to the old fashioned phone service.

Our phone number remains the same, but our internet access and our email is now different. We decided to use a more generic email address so we didn't have to email our new address everytime we changed internet providers.

Our new email address is the same as the old one, but instead of comcast.net, it is now gmail.com. If this confuses you and we haven't sent an email telling you what it now is, give us a call and we will give you the whole address. We don't want to publish it on our blog.

Beeville - What a Place!!

We arrived in Beeville on Monday and found Chris and Falene's new place. They rented a small home (much bigger than their apartment in Davenport) that is very comfortable. This is a picture of the front of their home. We were quite puzzled by the fact that the lawns were not mowed anywhere, not even at the county building.

We looked up the church's location tonight, and it turns out to be about 3-4 blocks away from Chris' house. Those of you who have been to Beeville will know about where Chris lives.

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Falene's new kitchen. It has cupboards, pantry, new stove, dishwasher, all the luxuries needed.
Picture of their living room and the all vital air conditioner.
Chris, Falene and Aidan in front of the Dental Hygiene building at Coastal Bend college. Falene and Chris went over there this afternoon and met a couple of her teachers. They dropped Alisyn (sp?) and Brad's names and they are well remembered. They must have made a great impression.
Picture of the college entry. Should bring back memories for a few members of Sharon's family.
I am rather surprised that people from Magrath would make fun of Beeville. Beeville has all the luxuries of life, a Super Walmart, 2 Dairy Queens, a pizza hut, Church's Chicken, 2 Subway's and a Chili's. You don't see that in Magrath! Maybe it is the people that they are making fun of.

Another advantage that Beeville has over Magrath, is the gas price. You don't see gas at $3.35 much anymore anywhere in the USA let alone Canada.
The one thing that I have noticed is that people talk to you while you are waiting in lines. Everywhere I went, total strangers would start talking to me. We were at the dollar store last night and some guy was talking to the clerk while paying for his stuff. He suddenly turned around and asked me if it was going to stop raining. I told him that I didn't know since I had never been to Beeville until that morning. So I asked him if it had been raining a lot. Turns out that they have had lots of rain and so have not been able to mow the lawns.

We were at Wal Mart last night and Chris and I were commenting on some foot stuff that is supposed to detox your body. I, like normal, told Chris that it was a scam because they had done scientific study on it and it turns out not to do anything. They guy in front of us turned around and assured us that it did do stuff, but didn't really make you feel better. His ex-wife did it and it worked great. You really have to be careful about what you say in lines around here.

Miscellaneous Pictures from the Big Weekend

I thought that I would post some pictures that were interesting to me from the weekend. It has taken Janice and I a few days to recover.

What a Weekend!!

Eve after the blessing with her brothers

I don't have any pictures of Aidan with his blessing outfit. But this one is a pretty cute picture of him having a rest.

At dinner after the blessings on Sunday, August 3. For those of you who were there, you will remember how hot the house was. It turns out the air conditioner was failing and finally failed a week later on Sunday. A new air conditioner is on order to be installed tomorrow.
Janice preparing the food
Visiting in the family room
Sisters per Don's mother!!

The Wedding:

Adam and Jazmin's Wedding: Adam and Jazmin's first dance
Cutting the cake.
This is their wedding cake made by Jazmin's aunt from Calgary, Alberta
Adam and Jazmin taking their wedding vows. Lynford (Janice's Uncle) is officiating and married them.

Brenden and Miles were the ring bearers and did a very good job. They both really liked their tuxedo's and ties. They were very cute. They are moving up the aisle with the rings on the pillow.

Busy Weekend Schedule

I thought that maybe I should put the weekend schedule on the blog in case someone doesn't know what is going on. This is a big weekend for our family and we are looking forward to it.

Schedule of Events:
Friday - August 1, 2008

• Greg & Melinda Family Arrive (early PM)
• Chris & Falene Family arrive(?)
• Grandma & Grandpa Hough arrive (early evening)
• Dinner - hamburgers, corn on the cob, chips

Saturday, August 2:

• 8:30am - be at Jordan River Temple for Cassidy sealing (Adam and Jazmin will watch the grandkids.
• 9:00am - Sealing
• 11:00 am - Cody's baptism
• Pickup Tuxedo's (Bryan)
• Shopping for Sunday's dinner (Bryan & Janice)
• Dinner: Salmon, Corn on the Cob

Sunday, August 3:

• 2:20pm - Blessing of Aidan and Eve in Sacrament Meeting
• 4:00pm - dinner at our house (barbecue pork, salads, potato salads, etc)

Monday, August 4 at Millcreek Reception Center

• 4:00pm - wedding rehearsal (approximate time)
• 5:00pm - Wedding for Adam and Jazmin
• 6:00pm - Reception/dinner (salad and pasta buffet)
• Greg and Melinda have to leave to get back to go to school on Tuesday AM

Wednesday, August 6

• Grandma & Grandpa & Sharon leave for Canada

Friday, August 8

• Falene & Aidan fly to California
• Chris drives back to Iowa?

Saturday, August 9

• Janice & Bryan collapse & try to recover from all the activities and excitement of a wonderful weekend!!!!

Our Yard Before and Now

This was a view of our yard just before we moved in June, 2000.

This is the same view, eight years later. Can you believe that it is the same tree? It is. A little water and fertilizer can make a big difference.

Our Yard

When I was out taking pictures of the lawnmower, I looked at our back yard and throught it looked really nice. Janice has done such a fantastic job of the yard since we first moved in, 8 years ago.

We have peas, tomatoes, and green beans (my favorite!) growing in our garden.

Giving up the ghost

A few weeks ago, I was mowing the lawn with my riding lawnmower. I stopped to empty the grass. When I went to go, it wouldn't move. I thought that my 22 year old lawnmower had finally given up the ghost and the transmission had broken. We weren't quite sure what to do. We were busy for several weeks, (Canada trip & Boise trip) and didn't do anything about it.
The first time we cut the grass with our old push lawnmower that Janice's boss had given us, was when we got home from Canada. Adam was supposed to have cut it while we were gone, but he hurt his knee playing softball (I think he also forgot). It was really long. Janice cut most of it the first time.

The next time, I started cutting it and made it 3/4 of the way through and Janice finished it. I decided that it would definitely be worth taking the lawnmower in to the repair shop to see if it could be fixed.

The last time we cut it, it was really hot, but I did the whole thing, wondering the whole time if I was going to survive the summer cutting it by hand.

Anyway, on Thursday, we received a call from the repair shop saying that the belt had slipped off the pulley because the belt was damaged. They replaced the belt for $65 and I picked it up on Saturday.

I am one happy grass cutterer!!

This is what we spent all day Saturday working on. The backsplash for our new countertops turned out well. We still have to grout them and put a sealer on which will brighten the tiles.

The desk area by the refrigerator still has to be done.

We really have really gotten to like natural stone products.