Although Thanksgiving is traditionally the time of year when we give thanks, I try to be thankful all year long. Easter always brings thankfulness to mind for me, maybe because the family always gets together just as we do in November. Plus there is all the food for Sunday dinner on Easter—turkey, ham, all the fixings. I was worried we wouldn’t be able to go to my sister’s this year to celebrate. For years the family has always gotten together to celebrate but I’m in the middle of a big project at work with meetings every day so I figured there was no way I could manage being away from the office. Fortunately, my sister just upgraded her internet service to a T1 Chicago line so there’s no reason I can’t be at my meetings even though I’m not in the office. Her husband works from home and uses it daily. He says it’s always worked for him. My team is on board with me attending the meetings via teleconference so it looks like the family tradition will continue this year!

Since my wife likes to take pictures and delves into photography from time-to-time, I decided to purchase an external hard drive and connect it to my Asus wireless router to create my own private Cloud storage. After reviewing external hard drives and going off my own personal preference, I decided to go with a 1TB Western Digital external hard drive. I have had better results with Western Digital than most of the other hard drive manufactures, thus my personal preference.

Once I connected the drive to my Asus router and accessed the user interface on the router, I was “good-to-go”. The Asus recognized the Western Digital hard drive and the size of the drive. I can even set permissions on the hard drive for the purposes of reading and writing files. The Cloud is accessed via ftp, which was no issue once I download FileZilla. This provided a fast connection to move files to my new private Cloud storage.

After moving more than three thousand saved photos, I believe I have enough room for about 197,000 more pictures

I enjoy blogging as it enables me to learn from others in the blogging community and share what I have learned.  My wife and I have made many new friends across the globe, since we started blogging. I appreciate all the visitors to mygamedayblog, as if it were not for you, then this site would not be possible.

Please check back often, as I will keep the content as fresh as possible.

Thankfully I’ve been able to make some extra money on the side via our satellite internet service because my husband got laid off in October and he still hasn’t been able to find fulltime work. I love the man to death but sometimes he just has the most defeatist attitude and of course you’re not going to find a job if you just sit around the house all day feeling sorry for yourself! I tried to teach him how to sew like I know how because that’s how I’ve made extra money, online on sites like Etsy. He wasn’t really interested, though, because he said it was ‘woman’s work’ and I told him nothing was woman’s work if it was paying the bills! I don’t think he’s lazy but I just think he needs to reevaluate his opinion of what he thinks is going to make a difference in this household. We’ve got to feed ourselves somehow and I need to get through to him that he needs to help!

About a month ago, I ordered a D-link wireless router.  I ordered this router before I performed my research, as I was tired of the above scenario.  This turned out to be a bad decision.  The D-link router worked fine until I enabled WPA2.  Once I went to WPA2, the router started dropping packets like crazy.  I scoured the internet and as it turns out, numerous people had problems with this router.  If I just ran WEP then it worked fine, but as soon as I changed the settings to WPA2, the router would drag.  It was as if the router could not handle the workload for WPA2.  Needless to say, I sent the D-link wireless router back the very next day.

I started researching wireless routers, reading CNet, PC World, and PC Mag reviews.  I also read other users reviews of wireless routers.  From all of this, I narrowed my selection down to two routers, the Cisco E4220 v2 and the Asus RT-N56U.  Both routers received great reviews and both routers had their pros and cons.  I ended up selecting the Asus, as it was less expensive and offered everything I was looking for in a wireless router and more.

I ordered the wireless router from best buy online and received it within a week.  The first thing I noticed when opened the packaging was the look of the Asus RT-N56U.  This has to be the slickest looking router I have ever seen.  The Asus is slim and sexy.  It only took me a couple of minutes to get it setup; entered my ssid, enabled WPA2, entered my passphrase (aren’t you dying to know), and I was up-and-running in no time.  I performed a speed test before I disconnected my old netgear wireless router.  On a 15Mbps connection I was getting 5Mbps via my old wireless router.  After installing the Asus (without any fine tuning), I was hitting 10Mbps via wireless; Sweet…  The range of the Asus is great; I have not found any bad spots in my house, yet.  The GUI of the Asus is user friendly.  The main page of the admin is very intuitive.  The Asus also supports external hard-drives and printers (though the list of supported printers is slim) via two usb drives on the router.  I purchased a 1TB western digital hard-drive and had it up in running in minutes as the wireless router recognized it instantly.  This provides me my own personal cloud to save files, since my wife is an avid photographer this was an added bonus to the router.

As I have only had this wireless router for sometime, I will comment on this post as time passes if I have any issues.  Especially when I use it for gaming for my kids, which is certainly to put the router to the test.

A major factor in my workout regimen was nutrition.  I had to re-learn what my body required to build lean muscle; high protein, medium to low carbohydrates and low fat meals, which were divided out to an intake of at least four to five times a day.  However this alone would not meet my required protein intake.  Thus, I drink at least one to two protein shakes a day.

Today’s protein powder is not your grandparent’s protein powder.  I can recall when I was back in high-school, I choked down several protein shakes to try and put on pounds.  The key word is “chocked down”, as I can still remember the taste of those shakes.  Protein powder has come a long way since my high-school years.  I have tried numerous powders in recent years and relatively all of them tasted great.  I currently use Dymatize Elite Whey (pictured below).  I really like the offering of Amino Acids and the bioavailability of their product.  Mr. Supplement offers this protein isolate, along with a great selection of other high quality protein powders; last time I accessed there site, they even offered FREE super fast delivery with orders over one-hundred and fifty dollars.  If you are working out or if you are trying to lose weight, make certain you maintain a high protein intake.

Zenni Optical actually has a limited time offer; buy 2 pair, get 1 pair free.  This is perfect for individuals that don’t want to spend an enormous amount of money on eyeglasses.  Especially if you only need glasses to wear around the house, after you take your contact lenses out of your eyes.  For contact lenses wearers, eyeglasses are not on the top of their list, especially if you only wear eyeglasses at night or first thing when you wake up in the morning.  This excellent offer from Zenni Optical provides an easy means to purchase a fashionable pair of eyeglasses at a great price.

While on vacation last summer our house was broken into. We did not yet have a home security Addison system. This was a big mistake. Our house is in a rather secluded part of town and we have no neighbors that are in close proximity to our house. These thieves must have been in my house for several hours because they cleaned us out. We arrived home from our vacation at about 7 PM on a Sunday. Our front door was wide open, we knew something was not right. As we noticed that our large LCD flat screen TV was missing from the wall. We knew immediately that we had been burglarized. It is hard to explain how violated you feel when someone else breaks into your house. All of our stuff was scattered throughout the house. My husbands and mine senior rings were both gone. Our wedding album along with the rest of our family photos were in the bath tub underwater. These thieves had not only stolen are belongings but they had also ruined the things that could not be replaced.

So this prompted me to hire and retain an attorney.  Once my son’s mother moved, she actually got worse (she was partying frequently and actually had a confirmed overdose due to depression).  Thank the Lord I had already set the paperwork in motion.  I tried to reason with her once she received the paperwork, but to no avail.  Since my son was already staying with me the majority of the time and he was well accustomed to his current school, I required final decision over his education.  This is one of the main factors I sought to have adjusted in my case.

Retaining a great attorney requires research.  I looked for references; has anyone I know used the attorney in question?  Was their case similar to my case?  I also look for an attorney that returns telephone calls the same day and stays up-to-date on my case.  I don’t want to have to update my attorney every time I speak with them about my case (unless something has changed on my side of the case).  Another question I ask is: Can I afford the attorney?  How much of a retainer does the attorney require?  The attorney I retained was confident in a favorable outcome, and Praise God, that is just what we received!  I know this decision will give my son more stability in life and in a promising future.

I give God all the glory, Thank You Lord!