A Different Christmas Poem The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light, I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight. My wife was asleep, her head on my chest, My daughter beside me, angelic in rest. Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white, Transforming the yard to a winter delight. The sparkling lights in the tree I believe, Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve. My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep, Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep. In perfect contentment, or so it would seem, So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream. The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near, But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear. Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know, Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow. My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear, And I crept to the door just to see who was near. Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night, A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight. A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old, Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold. Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled, Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child. "What are you doing?" I asked without fear, "Come in this moment, it's freezing out here! Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve, You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!" For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift, Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts, To the window that danced with a warm fire's light Then he sighed and he said "Its really all right, I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night. It's my duty to stand at the front of the line, That separates you from the darkest of times." "No one had to ask or beg or implore me, I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me. My Gramps died at Pearl on a day in December," Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas Gram always remembers. My dad stood his watch in the jungles of Nam, And now it is my turn and so, here I am. I've not seen my own son in more than a while, But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile." Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag, The red, white, and blue... an American flag. "I can live through the cold and the being alone, Away from my family, my house and my home. I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet, I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat. I can carry the weight of killing another, Or lay down my life with my sister and brother, Who stand at the front against any and all, To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall." "So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright, Your family is waiting and I'll be all right." "But isn't there something I can do, at the least, give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast? It seems all too little for all that you've done, For being away from your wife and your son." Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret, "Just tell us you love us, and never forget To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone, To stand your own watch, no matter how long. "For when we come home, either standing or dead, To know you remember we fought and we bled Is payment enough, and with that we will trust That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."

The vestibule seemed to be jumping off the screen so I had to draw it. I'm glad it worked out. When I look at a design I automatically reach for a pen and tracing paper. People make fun of the fact that I always have a half dozen different colored felt tipped pens in my pocket and don't know how they got there. My former boss would hold his hand out palm up and I would put a pen in it. I recently left my pocket scale at a client's home and have been so miserable I ordered a half dozen of them. Sometimes it helps to draw the plan by hand with furniture, people, feature highlights and circulation arrows. Plan weaknesses will quickly become evident and solutions will sometimes seem to jump out at you when you are free of hard straight lines, dimensions and the burden of keeping what has already been drawn. It also helps to turn the sheet around and imagine walking through spaces from another direction. It doesn't have to be pretty; it's only for you. Few of these sketches are kept more than an hour and often I don't look at them when drawing the final on the computer; it's just an exercise. IMO unless you're using up a lot of tracing paper you're limited to reorganizing other people's ideas and those ideas can easily get out of proportion and not fit together as well as they originally did.

I was able to flush the dns on both the xp and vista laptops. But I still can't connect either laptop wirelessly to the "fmaily room" network (which is still unsecured). I cannot access the Nat,spi or firewall soI don't know if that's the problem. Both laptops show a strong signal (full bars) to the family room network - but don't connect. They do connect via wired connection (does this mean I have so far created a network switch). On both laptops I selected "family room" as the preferred network to connect to. But both connected to my Lynn network (from the opposite corner of the house - with only a weak signal). On the Vista laptop it says Windows cannot connect to "family room" - and when asked to connect to family room, it said "Windows association failed due to an unknown reason." When I selected "diagnose and repair, it said Windows did not find any problems with your Internet connection." Then I tried one further thing. I saw on the Vista laptop that it still listed the family room network as having WPA2 security - so i changed what the laptop had for listed for family room network to reflect no current security settings. Then I tried to connect again. It wouldn't connect. Then I clicked repair/diagnose - and it said "this network is marked as a "hidden" network and is either not in the range of this computer or the wireless settings saved on this computer do not match the settings of the network." It is in range of the network - 3 feet away and receiving a full strong signal. So perhaps the network settings do not match the router or access point (although I'm not sure where to look to check this since I think I set it all up to match). The other thing is says is "if you own or set up this network, reset your wireless router or access point and try connecting again." Should I try this? Does it mean unplugging SMC access point, linksys router and modem - waiting and replugging them in? If so, in what order? Or does this mean resetting the SMC completely and starting from scratch? So now what? Jane - I realize that Mikie's the guy - and I very much appreciate his help. Those links helped me get clearer on definitions, but don't really get specific enough to address these set up complications. Thank you. Lynn.

Nice post, twotogo. I was thinking about this very subject the other day with regard to my own home. There are more than 70 homes for sale in several communities in my area in the price range $225 - $275,000. I spent a few hours the other day studying all of their photos online, and the truth was that all of the homes were pretty much the same -- some were two stories, some were tri-levels, some single stories, older, newer, but all were 3-bedroom, 2-or 2-1/2 bath,bland, home-for-sale decorating. I kept thinking, "what could I do to make my home different?" We've already updated both our bathrooms and our kitchen, and we had already dropped our price $10,000 below the next lowest priced home in our semi-custom community, making ours the most affordable (but it is still $30,000 more than many in surrounding cheaper built communities.) You said, "this is really all out of our control" and I think you are right to remember that. There are so few good buyers out there in most parts of the country. In our area, there are hardly any showings. Mostly it is just comes down to price. You are already priced $50,000 below the other home. The way you described the other place, if one had $50,000 extra to spend, it is likely they would go for the other home. If their budget is tighter they will buy yours. In my community, all of the other 7 or 8 homes for sale are larger and nicer than mine. But ours is budget-priced and all I can do is wait for someone to come along who wants to live in our very desirable community at a budget price. My agent was sure that when we dropped our price last week, we would have a flurry of activity. We didn't. We had one appointment for a showing, and they turned out to be a no-show. Oh well.... Our buyer is out there somewhere, sometime. Good luck to you -- I hope the buyers choose your home