Inside My Mind

Just in time for Christmas...looks like WiFi, wireless internet access will be available from Ivy ISP in the cornfield!

Well...not everywhere in the cornfield, but in select area of Dugger, IN. Plans are to expand the service through the town and Sullivan County and adjacent Linton and Jasonville in Greene County during 2010. If all goes well, WiFi will be a reality in northeastern Dugger by next weekend.

Ivy Cellular continues to hum along. During this month we are now in a position to offer FREE cell phones with each sign up. With unlimited minutes and unlimited text for $39.95 per month, it's hard to beat our offer.

Next Saturday, the 19th, we will be traveling to Indianapolis to celebrate Christmas with my boys, daughter-in-law and granddaughter. Dylan should really get in the spirit this year...after all she will be 3 in February!

Other items on the agenda this holiday month are: Christmas Eve with Kev, Mom, Bill, Leticia, Chance and Jackalee. Earlier that day there is a dinner at Phil Jr.'s and Nikki's home. Christmas Day, we plan on trying to go to Danville IL to spend some time with Iohn's twin, Nate. On the 27th, I'll be taking Kev to the airport in Indy to fly to Austin TX to spend the rest of the holiday break with Hailey and her parents.

Going to be a busy, busy month!

In these days with black clouds of doom and despair overhead and vultures of economic gloom circle, we can pause and reflect not on the negative, but on the positive. We can celebrate the blessings in our lives. This is the purpose of this national day of thanksgiving that is a time-honored tradition here in the US of A. In the midst of war, famine, pestilence, tragedy, our nation has keen sense of right and wrong and realize our need to take one day out of every year just to say to our Creator, "Thank you."

The thanks are not sarcastic. The thanks are not for the bad in life, but for the good. And there is plenty to still be grateful for and about even during these gloomy times.

We are thankful that we can disagree with one another without fear of execution or prison. We are thankful that neighbors still donate and then drop off food baskets for those facing the hardest ordeals. We are thankful that troops are not in the streets, trampling our liberties, but rather continue to remain strong fast in their determination and resolve to protect those freedoms.

We can be thankful we have the right and the privilege of sitting in the Den and putting our thoughts, opinions, disagreements, agreements in this blog, Inside My Mind. Not everywhere in the world could we be as liberated or as free. Thankful we are to dissent without reprisal.

Let us be thankful we have survived another year. Let us be thankful we have been given another year to "get it right". Yes, as we pause this day, let us be thankful.

It has been about a week since my last entry. With the rain falling across the cornfield, perhaps now is a time to once again provide insight to the comings and goings, ups and downs that are part of life in Mark's Den.

We are progressing well with our cellular service. Plans have change and the rates are much lower! All the details can be found at Ivy Cellular. We are actively looking for a storefront to rent or to buy. Preferably, the building will be such that we can live in part of it.

The annual Toys for Tots auction will be this Saturday at the Sullivan American Legion Post 139. This event makes sure that Santa calls on all the children throughout the county.

Ivy Web Services is a duly registered retail merchant with the state of Indiana. The move to expand to cellular has necessitated the need for state stamp of approval to collect sales tax. We have also a business account now opened just for the various entities of Ivy Web Services.

For the uninformed, Ivy Web Services family includes:

Ivy Cellular

Ivy ISP Broadband

Ivy Web Host

Ivy Site Design

We provide DSL broadband internet access starting around $30 per month. We also have available digital or internet phone from $25 per month. As you can probably tell we offer hosting for your web site and can provide your business or personal web site design and graphics.

Kev's birthday is coming up on the 29th. My "baby" will turn 20. Hard to belive my little "Bubba" has grown up so quickly. We are having a combined birthday and Thanksgiving dinner this Sunday at Mom's in Sullivan for Kev.

As of now, plans are made to celebrate Christmas with my adorable granddaughter, Dylan, and of course her two great parents, my son Dave and daughter-in-law Anna, on Saturday December 19 up in Indianapolis.

As the rain continues to fall, I need another cup of coffee.

A tip of the hat, a salute, a heartfelt thank you is extended to all our veterans throughout the world (even a vet like me) for keeping us safe and secure throughout the years. Today is Veteran's Day in the US of A. A day set aside to honor the men and women who have served in our armed forces, those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

Being a veteran or a service member has not always been easy. I remember growing up in the 1960s. I could never understand the disdain, the spite, the outright hatred of so many towards our returning soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen. Instead of focusing outrage at the political powers that were at the time, the veteran was castigated, abused, ridiculed for having done his or her duty in that Asian land that now seems so far away, Viet Nam.

We talk with pride of the varied wars, the ones who served with dignity and honor. The exception still remains those who served, most without choice, in Viet Nam. While strides have been made, we still have a lot of healing to do for these warriors from a war that scarred and changed the landscape of America so deeply.

No matter which conflict, police action, intervention, war or peacetime service, I for one say again, "THANK YOU!"

Happy Veteran's Day!

The new lower plans from Ivy Cellular are now available! Even better we have yet an even lower plan!

You can get unlimited minutes and text with 20 MB of data for $39.95 per month. Or...if you choose...you can get our new 1200 plan that includes 1200 minutes, 1200 text messages and 50 MB of data for only $29.95 per month, which includes picture texts! Of course we still have our premier plans with and without data. Any of our plans are with no credit check, no deposit and no contract.

Breaking news! Tigger is a boy, a tom...not a female cat! His testicles finally dropped. All this time we thought we had a girl kitty and instead Tigger was hiding his gender!

Missed the deadline for new ads in the Sullivan paper and The Shopper. But with the lower plans, I do plan on running ads next week.

Tonight is bingo night as is every Thursday at the Legion. I don't play, but sell the packages to hopeful bettors.

Iohn wants to go out to eat today before working. Why not? So after we get up and moving, bathed and all, we will be heading to Linton and La Fiesta for daily repast.

Now have the ability to create karaoke disks for people who may want them. Will burn up to 14 songs per disk for anyone for $10, including a personalized label.

Time for more coffee...