Hurricane Irene in Princeton

Our power was restored after almost two days - the partial vacation ended. Actually, while the power was out, we put in lots of time needed to clean up the numerous branches and twigs spread around our property.

There were two very unfortunate deaths in Mercer county:
* one was a Rescue worker who was confirming that no one was trapped in a car submerged on Harrison St near the canal which is about half a mile from our home,
* the other was a landowner who removed a manhole cover hoping to clear water from his flooded property - the large amount of water already rushing down the pipe apparently created a vortex that sucked the man into the sewage pipe.

Here is a view of the stairs and tunnel for passing under the railroad tracks at Princeton Junction train station: http://foureleven.tumblr.com/post/9518080147

What is SMA?

SMA is Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a genetic disease that occurs in approximately 1 out of every 6,000 kids; it leaves the spine underdeveloped. See A Thousand More by Kristina Budelis, Piotr Malecki and Jeff Rhode.

Tools for Managing and Protecting your PC Files

There are some great tools available on the web to help you manage and protect the files on your PC or MAC. I discuss aids to using your PC in greater detail at my Joe Budelis Help page. Here, I'll just mention two of the web sites that I recently started using that provide a great service and it's free for their basic offering.

Do you work on more than one computer? If so, wouldn't it be great if files on the two (or more) computers that you work on were kept synched? Well, files on more than one computer are kept synched by DropBox as long as each of the computers is connected to the Internet.

Have you ever lost files cause of a failed hard drive, viruses, trojans, or some other reason? If so, you know that it's important to back up your files. You can set IDrive to back up files on a scheduled basis.

In both cases, you receive a certain amount of space free. The free space can be increased by referring others to these services. In fact, by using the links in the two preceding paragraphs, you will increase the size of my free space.

Joe Budelis wins iPad at 2011 Telarus Agent Conference

Joe Budelis participated in an educational "team game" at the 2011 Telarus Agent Conference which emphasized some interesting facts about Telecom Carrier Service offerings and built team spirit. The game was played by four teams to be the first part of a selection process for the person to be awarded a newly purchased iPad. Then, a random drawing of those in the winning teams selected Joe Budelis as the winner of the iPad.

And the Snow Melts

Icicles from snow melting on roof.

Another Snowstorm hit the Northeast!

Before


and


After





Or

should

it be

Summer

and

Winter

Rome and Florence during a NJ Blizzard

We left for our Italian vacation on one of the last flights out of Newark before airport operations were seriously hindered by the December 26, 2010 snow storm. Although the weather in Rome and Florence was wintery, we were lucky to get out of the NorthEast USA before many flights were canceled and not to have to shovel and otherwise deal with the major snow storm.


Here is Valorie and KDB smokin' a clove on the front steps of a church in Rome. There are more photos of our vacation on FLICKR.