John Burkholder

I understand the purpose of a homeowner's association (shaking my head in disagreement). As I understand it, it is to make sure that every house in our subdivision look exactly like every other house in our subdivision. It also provides a community based feel to bring you close to your neighbors. It also provides me my community swimming pool and trash and snow removal services. I pay $53 per month for this over and above my principal, interest, taxes, and insurance of which has gone up nearly $700 per month over the past 3 years. This is due to the taxes part. Where do I start with the homeowner's association? The community swimming pool? Sure. The pool opened a fews months after we moved into our house. I don't swim in it for multiple reason. First, it is packed full of arrogant, inconsiderate, belligerent teenagers. Any time I have stepped foot near the pool it is dirty. The tennis courts / basketball courts are no better. They are combined. You can shoot a net or hit a

The Queen and I went to Clinton on Saturday to look around since my office is going virtual. We miss Clinton. When this opportunity came about, it only made sense since the cost of housing, gas, etc is substantially lower there than it is in Plainfield. We cruised down in the viniman and by the time we arrived, everyone was whining about starvation. I don't really think they were THAT hungry, but they wanted to have some Monical's Pizza. We arrived, sat down and after a few minutes another couple came in with a mother and sat down at the table not far from me. The man looked familiar. After about 20 minutes, he said hello and I responded in kind. This quickly became one of those awkward points in a conversation where you think you know the other person but don't really know the name. So, I am the first to make the awkward situation worse and try to stall for time while I tried to figure out who he was. I asked him if he knew who I was. In the back of my mind, I knew he coul

My company is considering changing our company structure to practice what we preach. We have downsized enough and consolidated applications enough to be able to actually use virtual office. This excites me in multiple ways. First, I can officially work from home full time. Second, it is very good for the environment and for our company financially. No office space means that there isn't a lease cost, utilities, infrastructure costs, or commute costs thus saving money on a personal level. It also means that when we go to hire more people for support, marketing, etc., they can be anywhere in the world. This again saves the company money because a security engineer in Rapid City, SD costs much less than one in Washington, DC. IceWEB creates and markets hosted Microsoft Exchange and Sharepoint for companies to reduce their internal costs and not have the headaches of maintaining and monitoring servers that they don't have the expertise to manage. Additionally, the company (big or

My Queen filled the van with gas the day before yesterday. She paid $3.15 per gallon, $60 to fill the tank. Yesterday we drove by the same gas station and the price was $3.30 per gallon. The price of gas has gotten to the point where you have to either take out a second mortgage, or car pool to the grocery store. Somebody came up with the bright idea to boycott the gas stations on May 15. This is not the first boycott (April 1997), but the last one just didn't get much publicity. The last time, the price of gasoline dropped 30 cents. This time, thanks to the internet, people are trying to get the word out. This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). If everyone who could, refused to pump gas on one day, maybe the record profit making oil companies will finally wake up and stop hiking the price 15 cents per day. If we could show them via mass transport, car pooling, and maximizing trips (combining trips to the grocery, hardware, school, or work), I am sure the oil com

On Monday, April 23, I wrote an email to customer support at Days Inn corporate: I was booked in your hotel by my company. I already planned to stay in Holiday Inn, but my company found a better rate at this hotel. Hotel. I am not intending to go on a tyrade about the word hotel but as for me and many people I know, a hotel is an enclosed building with a restaurant, meeting rooms and stores. This motel (what I consider the proper word for a place with doors facing outdoors) has meeting rooms. As for my room (that I am currently in), the vinyl wallpaper is holding together the wall. I have killed multiple flies, and my non-smoking room smells like smoke. As I was outside my motel room door, another customer was complaining because the room had makeup all over the room assigned to her. I figured I would at least take a bath...nixed that after finding hair (very possibly pubic) still in the tub. When I arrived in the room, there was an overpowering smell of deodorizer. I now understand wh