Then I ran across SpamStopsHere.com. There are many services out there for outsourced spam and virus filtering, but I liked the pitch of SpamStopsHere, and I liked the friendly pricing they had for family domains. $12.50 a month or $125 a year for both spam filtering and virus filtering on up to 10 mailboxes (or 50,000 messages per day). Fits the bill nicely.

Yes, there are “free” solutions out there, but I like the idea of paying for a service that is useful. Once you pay, you can raise your expectation levels that the service will work properly, and continue to be around down the road. With free services, there’s no guarantee of a level of service, nor a guarantee that they’ll be there in 3 months. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure these types of services start off with the best of intentions, but it costs money to provide quality and reliability. I’m OK paying for that.

The way this service works is pretty straightforward. After activating your account, you point the DNS MX records for your domain to their mail servers, and then they forward your scanned and filtered mail on to your mail server. Simple as that.

I “installed” their service around 6:00pm last Sunday, and in the 48 hours since then they have filtered over 60,000 spam messages. You read that right, 60,000. Spam literally has stopped dead on my mailbox. Where I was once getting several hundred per day (on my mailbox alone, not to mention the rest of my family), I now get 0.

That’s the kind of dramatic effect I was hoping for, but honestly, I was anticipating something less. I like being pleasantly surprised.

One of the problems I’ve had to deal with regarding spam is “reply-to storms.” This is where a spammer decides to use your email address as the “reply-to” on the spam they’re sending out to other people. That way, when/if their server rejects the message, it sends it back to you instead of the spammer. I was getting these “storms” about once a week, where literally thousands of email messages would come in in a matter of minutes. In some cases the load was so overwhelming that it acted like a denial of service attack, crashing my machine. Since SpamStopsHere has a distributed inbound SMTP infrastructure, they can easily withstand the storms, and since they’re doing the filtering, I never see the traffic. My server is breathing much more easily now. Whereas I would regularly see 100 Postfix SMTP tasks running on my server, now I see 3 or 4.

Another cool side benefit of the service is store and forward queueing. Should my server ever go down or become unreachable, SpamStopsHere will simply queue my incoming “good” mail, and try to deliver it until my server comes back up.

So far so good. I hope the service continues to live up to what I’ve seen in the first 2 days. Give them a try: www.spamstopshere.com.

I decided to go roller-blading with the kids on Saturday, and, of course, said to myself “I don’t need to wear all those fancy pads” that are in my closet. And now am regretting it. All was well until the last 5 minutes when my skates went one direction and I went another, and ended up on my backside.

Now my right wrist is sprained, which makes typing and mousing (which I do 90% of the day for work) a little difficult.

The family and friends have gotten quite a laugh out of this. Ha ha.

I noticed that they’re selling the series on DVD, no surprise there, but I don’t see that they have it available in HDDVD or Blu-Ray, at least not on their store site. A quick jump over to Amazon shows it available on April 24th in both formats. However, reading closely, it shows that the narration is the “original by David Attenborough”, not the Sigourney Weaver narration that’s playing on DiscoveryHD right now. Interesting. I wonder what that’s all about?

Anyway, I’ll probably have to pick that one up… it would be an outstanding “demo” disk for the HDTV.

Wee, I’m going to have fun with this new toy!

There was lots we did this time around that we didn’t do back in February, and lots we did again. The main thing was that the entire resort and parks were dressed for the holidays, which really made things magical.

While we stayed at the Grand Floridian again this time around, we were on the lagoon side with a spectacular view. We also celebrated mom’s birthday while there, with a cake delivered right to her room.

I won’t go into all the detail as I did the last time around (that took way too long to write up), but I will paste in the highlights from the quick journal I kept while on the trip. Interesting point, I wore a pedometer all week and kept track of just how much we walked:

Day 1: (14,738 steps; 6.28 mi)
Woke up at 4:00
Left for airport at 5:10
parked in Remote North (C-40)
took shuttle to gate (C28)
Checked in – mom/dad were 2 minutes late checking in, so their bags went on the next plane
Took off 6:50
Landed at 10:00 local time
ate a light breakfast at airport
went down to bag claim B and checked in with DME
rode bus to Grand Floridian (stops at Wilderness Lodge and Contemporary first)
checked in (rooms not ready)
- we were upgraded to first floor, connecting rooms with lagoon view. In boca chica (8101/8103)
- i upgraded our park tickets to a 9th day
checked bags with bell services
rode monorail to Contemporary
ate lunch at Food & Fun _____
Went shopping at BVG and the other gift shop.
- Matthew / Madison got mickey/minnie santa hats
- all three got autograph books/pens
- Matthew found 9 cars he didn’t have from the movie Cars
- Michael bought a Jedi Mickey
- Cynthia bought Tori a necklace
- Mom bought a car decal
Rode monorail back to hotel
hotel called on the way to say our rooms were ready
checked in with front desk to get our room assignments
went to our rooms and rested
- luggage, bags, and package delivered
- unpacked and took a nap
rode boat to Magic Kingdom
walked down Main Street (very crowded) and had our picture taken twice with castle backdrop
went to tomorrowland
ate dinner at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe
- listened to Sonny Eclipse while eating
got a fastpass for Space Mountain (never used it)
rode TTA
walked to fantasyland
rode teacups
rode dumbo
- fireworks show started while on the ride
watched the rest of Wishes
walked to front of park (very very crowded)
rode monorail back to hotel
once back
- matthew/cynthia tried to find a swimsuit for matthew, no luck
- mom / dad stopped and got milk from the sundries store
- i carried madison back to room with michael
showers and bedtime

Day 2: (17,208 steps; 7.33 mi)
Breakfast in bedroom
Rode bus to Animal Kingdom
Bought hats at entrance
Got a stroller
Got a fast pass to Expedition Everest
Saw Flights of Wonder
Saw Finding Nemo show
Ate lunch at Tusker House
Got fast pass to Kilamanjaro safari
Rode Expedition Everest while Mama De sat with Madison
Rode Kilamanjaro Safari
Walked to exit
took bus to Fort Wilderness
Saw Hoop-De-Do revue and ate dinner
Rode boat to Contemporary resort
Rode Monorail to GF
Bought Matthew a new swimsuit / flipflops
Went swimming

Day 3: (23,215 steps; 9.89 mi)
Got breakfast to go at Gasparallias- ate in room/on veranda
Took monorail to TTC
switched monorails to Epcot
Went thru bag check, turnstiles
I went off to The Land to get fast passes for Soarin’
Cynthia/everyone else got a stroller, restrooms, waited at spaceship earth
I met back up with crew
Rode Spaceship Earth
Went to Imagination Pavilion
rode Journey into your Imagination
played with the Kodak Camera stuff
Went to Seas pavilion
Rode Seas with Nemo and Friends
saw Turtle Talk w/Crush
Went to the Land
Rode Living with the Land
Rode Soarin’
went to Electric Umbrella, ate chicken strips
went to Mouse Gear, bought lots of candy
Left Epcot, rode monorail back to TTC, switched and rode to GF
went back to rooms
Birthday cake had been delivered to mom’s room
sang Happy Birthday and ate cake
took naps
Rode monorail to Magic Kingdom for MVMCP
got stroller
Went to see Mickey’s twas the night….full
rode Buzz Lightyear
rode Space Mountain
went back to hub and waited on corner for show in front of castle
watched “Spirit of the Season” show in front of castle
saw Parade
went to Cosmic Ray’s to eat (burgers and chicken strips)
CD and kids and I went back to bridge to tomorrow land to watch Wishes fireworks
met mom/dad back in tomorrow land and went to see Mickey’s ’twas the night before christmas show
walked down mainstreet to exit
rode monorail back to GF
bed (11:50p)

Day 4: (20,307 steps; 8.65 mi)
slept in
rode monorail to epcot, got there around noon
got stroller, I went to get fastpasses to TestTrack
Met group back at mousegear – cynthia bought a new fannypack
went to Canada, poked around
went to UK, ate fish&chips
went to France, looked around
saw Impressions de France
went to Morocco, poked around
went to Japan
-saw Tycho drums
-saw Japanese storyteller, told story of new years in Japan
rode boat back to futureworld
rode test track
Michael got a remote-controlled test track car, had it sent to front
rode test track again (matthew & I)
walked back to boats
rode boat to Germany
saw trains
walked to American Adventure
listened to choir
poked around in the shops
got roasted pecans/almonds
went to japan
saw Miyuki (candy lady)
-matthew got dragon
-michael got eagle
-madison got horse
went back to American adventure
-got hot chocolate
-listened to choir
went to Teppanyaki for dinner
watched Illuminations from 2nd story in Japan
walked to front
picked up Michael’s car
tried to take a bus, no bus to GF from Epcot
got on Monorail
got back to hotel, bed at 11:45p

Day 5: (17,004 steps; 7.24 mi)
woke up early
monorail to polynesian
had breakfast at Ohana’s (mickey, pluto, lilo & stitch)
caught bus to MGM
got stroller
saw chip & dale
saw Ariel show
saw Beauty & the beast show
saw Indiana Jones show
saw Lightning McQueen and Mater
saw Sully and Mike from Monsters, Inc.
walked to back of park
saw Lights, Motors, Action stunt show
rode backlot tour
shopped, got pictures taken
ate dinner @ 50′s prime time cafe
rode great movie ride
got seats for fantasmic
Matthew and I went and bought tape, fudge
saw fantasmic
caught bus back to GF
saw water parade
bed

Day 6: (16,088 steps; 6.85 mi)
slept in, got up late
got breakfast from gasparillas
rode monorail to MK
tried to get ECV for mom, sold out
adventureland
-got fast pass for jungle cruise
-went to see pirates, ride closed down
walked around to frontierland
saw country bear jamboree
I went and got fastpasses for Big Thunder
saw hall of presidents
-mom,cynthia,madison went in before we caught up with them
-boys and I had churros while waiting
-saw HOP again
rode small world
got a seat for afternoon parade
Papa, michael, matthew, cynthia and I rode BTM
got hot dogs for parade
watched parade
went around to fantasyland
rode Haunted Mansion
saw Philharmagic
walked back around to liberty square
shopped in christmas store, bought stuff (sent back to hotel)
went to adventureland
rode jungle cruise
found spot for fireworks
saw mickey’s dream show in front of castle
saw wishes (fireworks)
rode monorail to GF
got a table at GF Cafe, had dinner (mom and I waited for table while everyone else went back to room for a little bit)
went back to room
saw water parade
saw MVMCP Holiday Wishes fireworks show from our back porches
bed

Day 7: (8,584 steps (partial – epcot only); 3.65 mi)
Mom, Mama De and Madison went to BBB
Matthew, Michael, Papa and I went to MK
got autographs from Fox and Cat from Pinnochio
Got fast pass for space mountain
got autograph from Buzz Lightyear
rode Astro Orbiters
rode Buzz Lightyear SRS
rode Space Mountain
went to Adventureland
rode Pirates of the Caribbean
took bus to Saratoga Springs
walked to Downtown Disney, met up with girls
went to Christmas store
went to Team Disney
went to Once upon a Toy
Ate lunch at McD’s
went to Lego store
went to World of Disney – bought a lot of stuff
rode bus to GF
dropped stuff off in room, repacked, rode monorail to TTC
rode monorail to Epcot (got stroller)
went to Norway
ate dinner at Akerhaus, princess storybook dinner
-saw Ariel, Belle, Princess Aurora, Cinderella, Jasmine
rode Maelstrom
shopped in Norway gift shop
went to Mexico
shopped around
rode El Rio De Tiempo
found spot outside mexican resturaunt for fireworks
got hot chocolate and churros
watched Illuminations
rode monorail to TTC
rode monorail to GF
washed a load of clothes

Day 8: (17,225 steps; 7.34 mi)
Commando day
got up early, breakfast in room from gasparallas
caught bus to AK
got mom a ECV, got stroller
saw festival of the lion king show
saw tough to be a bug
caught bus to Epcot
no ECVs available
went to Land pavilion
ate at Garden Grill
went to mousegear, shopped
caught bus to MGM-DS
got ECV, stroller
walked around
saw Muppets 3D
rode Star Tours
saw Osbourne Spectacle of Lights
caught bus to GF
went swimming/hot tub
packed, packed, packed
bed

Day 9: (15,508 steps; 6.60 mi)
got up early
finalized packing
called bell services to retrieve bags
checked bags with airline, got boarding passes
stored remaining bags with bell services
rode monorail to MK
got funnelcakes and milk in liberty square
went to adventureland
rode aladdin’s carpets
saw tiki room
went to liberty square, fantasyland
got fast pass for peter pan
saw philharmagic
got mom a coke,water
rode snow white
got fast pass for pooh ride
rode peter pan
rode haunted mansion
rode pooh ride
saw donald duck
went to toontown
rode barnstormer
walked thru minnie’s house
walked thru mickey’s house
rode train back to front
met up with mom
rode monorail back to GF
met up with mama de/papa
ate lunch at Gasparalla’s
took pictures in lobby
went to gift shops
got photopass cd
caught bus to airport
went thru security (snow globe incident)
sat at gate for 2 hours
boarded plane
flew back to dallas
wrangled bags to truck
drove home
arrived 9:30p
unload
bed

You may note that I’m actually posting this on April 2nd, 2007, 120 some-odd days after our trip (what can I say, I’m very slow about getting some of this stuff done). I’m backdating the posting, though, so it appears in the right calendar month in the archives.

Cynthia went to the glasses store on Monday to place the order, and wouldn’t you know it–Madison found them on Wednesday! They were behind a tree in the yard of a neighbor across the street. I was sure we had looked there, but I guess we didn’t look close enough. The best part is they seem to be in almost perfect shape.

I called the glasses store this morning and they were kind enough to not charge us anything for canceling the replacement order!

Yea, Madison!

The nurse reported back that we should have her eyes professionally checked, so we set that appointment up. The ophthalmologist informed us that Madison’s left eye was very bad and we needed to do something about it immediately, in the form of glasses. So last Monday we made a trip to the eyeglasses store and she picked out some pink frames.

Well, the special ordered lens for the left eye finally came in today, so we were able to pick her new glasses up. The right eye is in fine condition, but now with the new glasses, Madison says “things aren’t blurry anymore!” Not that she had complained before, but I think now she realizes that she wasn’t seeing as well as she could’ve been.

She looks very “grown-up” with them on, and was very impressed with all the new instructions she has about how to treat them, not to let others wear them, etc.

And, with luck and prayers, the eye doctor said the sight in the affected eye may improve over the next 3-5 years to the point where she may not require glasses long-term.

Cynthia took hold of it and before Madison knew what was going on, it was out. Madison was most pleased with herself.

On Wednesday, Michael had his orthodontic appointment and they put his braces on! He already looks older, which makes me feel ancient. He’s taking the change very well.

So, anyway, after a fun birthday party at Dave and Busters, we came back to the house to open birthday presents. Some Lego, a video game, and what’s this? An AppleCare box? What does that have to do with anything? Michael got Matthew to go upstairs for the remaining gift (what Michael thought was a stand for Matthew’s synthesizer), and lo and behold, a bright new shiny 20″ iMac G5 on the computer table.

Needless to say, he was a little bit surprised.

Of course, the main thing here is I get my G5 back now. Ahh.

Pictures are here.

Cynthia and I took a short trip to Vegas, stayed at the Luxor, saw Blue Man Group, had a blast, but had to come back.

Work is busy. So much so, that I haven’t even had the time to put together a decent website for the new business. Got to get that done. Several projects (happily paying ones) have been keeping my attention.

And yet, the world marches on. Plenty of dumb things happening in the political landscape: Fahrenheit 911 is getting plenty of press, but people seem to be wising up to all the fallacies and deceits of this mockumentary. John Kerry picks a “safe” VP running mate that won’t help him at all. A story leaks today that Homeland Security is investigating the possibility of postponing the election in the event of a terrorist act; something that won’t happen (the postponing, that is). It would be just about the stupidest thing ever to do, giving in to the terrorist threat. Ah, to have more time to comment.

Apple previews Tiger, steps all over a successful developer, introduces marvelous new displays (including a 30″ monster), and sells the 100 millionth song on the iTMS. If they’d only hurry up and release Motion…

O, and it’s hot. But that’s not news, that’s normal for Texas in July.

The neat thing was that the conditions were just right to create that soft, perfect to make things kind of snow. You know the kind–you start a small snowball rolling and it picks up the snow completely, leaving a clean trail of grass behind you. Pretty soon it’s as big as a pumpkin. The first ball we rolled for our big snowman was easily 4 feet in diameter. No slush or anything.

Unfortunately, the temperature quickly rose to above freezing, so shortly after lunch the snow began a rapid melt. Our big snowman made it until about 1:30, then took a tumble. I expect there’ll be a little remaining in the morning, but it will probably melt off completely by mid-afternoon. It was fun while it lasted.