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I'm in a business that I hate, working on the front line between patients and upper management, and I'm considered to be damned good at what I do. I'm a senior customer service representative for a pharmacy benefits manager. I'm praying though, that the job interview I have this morning will get me out of the job I'm currently in, and back into the fairly sterile world of IT. It's not my job to deny benefits, no matter what the patients might think. My job is to explain the denials, explain how the benefits plan works, and to help the...

Howdy! I've installed Windows Server 2003 on an older box I've got here at the house. Installation went fine, as did running all the updates, and setting up the initial roles for the server. I've added the print server role, and I'm going to be adding shares to the D: drive I have installed as well. Why install this as a home network? For the practice, so I can learn more about how Server functions, for more control over what my daughter can do online, and when she can do it. For the experience, basically. I've got down how to...

Officials from the Tennessee Department of Transportation are now evaluating a sinkhole that opened up Monday evening on Pellissippi Parkway. Its in the southbound lanes of Pellissippi, just south of where the Parkway merges with Oak Ridge Highway. The hole looks to be about four feet wide on the surface, but a TDOT geologist says its at least 25 feet across, and goes under both southbound lanes. He says it was caused by water eroding the limestone. Crews will work all night to get that sinkhole filled, but they likely won't be finished by the morning commute, and it may...

Ok - just looking for some help here. I've been trying to research pharmacy law regarding how long an RX for a legend drug is valid. I have CFR1306.22, and 1140-3.03 (6), but these for scheduled/controlled meds. What I'm trying to find is a specific citation to Fed Law regarding the life span of a non-controlled RX. We currently tell folks that the law is 1 year from the date it is written. I can find local (state level) statutes that cite that, but nothing in Federal Registry. I'm sure I'm looking in the wrong place, and I know there...

Yes, it's a prayer request, and it's about a job interview - please, read on. Tuesday at 4:00 PM, I have a job interview at Scripps Networks. This is the company that does HGTV, DIY, and a host of other cable network programs. Scripps also owns newspapers and broadcast television stations, but I'm interviewing with the group that does their cable programs. I'm interviewing for a position as a Deskside Support Tech, level 2. It's a little further down the road from where I work now, but only by about five or six miles at the most. I've been praying...

It's trivial, it's a vanity - but I was talking with a couple folks at work today and it dawned on me - I can tell you exactly what I was doing twenty-two years ago today. Twenty-two years ago today, my dad came down to the MEPS Center in Knoxville, Tennessee in his dress blues, his retiree pin on his lapel, and took his place in front of me. We both raised our right hands, and I repeated the Oath of Enlistment as he read it off to me. Somewhere at the house, I have a copy of my first...

Almost swapped a lower end Dell Inspiron 1200 for a 1984 300ZX the other day. Despite the fact that it was full of rust, if the motor had been running, I would have taken it. But there's something about a slipped timing belt and valve slap that made me say no. So I'm discussing it with a friend here at work, and he mentions that he has a 1987 Alfa Romeo Milano Platinum that he would be interested in swapping for the laptop. Only problems is that it needs a new headlight cluster switch inside the steering column, and there's...

A deputy with the Roane County Sheriff's Office were shot early Thursday evening. Another individual was shot in the same incident. One person is reported dead. The shooting happened off Highway 58, on Barnard Narrows Road near Shiloh Baptist Church. The suspects in the shooting have been identified by police authorities as brothers Rocky and Leon Houston. Rocky Houston drove himself to Methodist Medical Center in Oak Ridge, where he was treated for a gunshot wound and then transported to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville. Leon Houston is still at large, believed to be on foot, and...

0545 - 04082006 - We're ok here in Oak Ridge as far as I can tell. Warnings and Watches through the night, lots of heavy lightning, thunder, heavy rain. Stepped outside the school during my daughter's play to keep an eye on the weather, and it was constant lighting across the horizon. My daughter slept in the living room with ear plugs, the Sheltie kept running back and forth between the two of us. Still dark out there, so I don't know if we sustained any external damage, but no leaks here in the house, and power was never lost....

Not a huge post here - but I'm looking for anyone out there with experience with wood burning stoves. After my first gas bill of the season - I used less gas than the same time frame last year, and the price doubled - I'm seriously considering going to what seems to be a less expensive resource. The house I own was built in 1944, as part of the worker housing for the Manhattan Project here in Oak Ridge. It's a concrete slab, with low pressure boiler and radiant heat coils laid into the slab. The walls are primarily concrete...

I just received a saddening telephone call from my best friend Rick. For those that remember a month or two ago, I posted a prayer request for Rick's brother-in-law Junior. With the help of his friends and family, and with prayers from people around the globe, Junior had been fighting the good fight against cancer and later on against leukemia as well. He was hospitalized on Thursday, and the family was called in, and earlier this morning, around 2:00 AM, December 3, 2005, Junior was called home to be with Christ. Rick called me just a few minutes ago to...

My best friend Rick just called and asked "Are you still on that prayer list thing?" Of course, I told him yes, and he passed along an urgent prayer request. His brother-in-law, Junior, has been fighting cancer for the past year and a half - he's put up a good fight, been in and out of remission, but today, there was a setback. Junior's platelet count was down to twelve. Rick advised me that the regular count is up around one hundred or so (I'm not a physician, so I'm not certain), but the count was definitely twelve. They performed...

First Christian Church of Oak Ridge – commissioned October 9, 1955, decommissioned October 9, 2005. Today, we decommissioned our church – well, to be honest, our church building. The church still lives on in our hearts – and always shall. The building was just cinderblock and concrete, fired bricks and wood. And memories – I’m not writing this for the animal or animals that burned our church down. I don’t believe that you’re intelligent enough to get online – and I don’t believe that you would ever willingly find yourself on a conservative website such as this. I’m writing this...

Ok, let me get a couple critical things out of the way first. Yes, I am logged in. Never met a moose. I don't have a sister. I do like cheese. I am not running CP/M. I have Googled this. I'm pretty sure it's Bush's fault. I hope I got everything out of the way, but I'm sure if I didn't, it will be pointed out in a bold, 24 point font. Yesterday, I had two machines, one running XP Home, one running Win2k. After fixing a friend of mine's computer (why is it that the only time women ever...

Two East Tennessee National Guardsmen died Monday and two others were injured in Iraq after their vehicle struck an improvised explosive device, according to family members of the soldiers. The four Tennessee National Guardsmen were on a combat patrol Monday afternoon southwest of Samarra when the explosion rocked their vehicle, ejecting at least one of the soldiers. Spc. Joseph "Joey" Daniel Hunt, 27, of Sweetwater and Sgt. Victoir P. Lieurance, 34, of Seymour died in the Aug. 22 incident. Lieurance leaves behind four children; Hunt was the father of two boys. Two other members of the 278th Regimental Combat Team...

Ok folks - asking for your prayers for a fellow-coworker's mother. Z's mother, Francis, was admitted to the hospital over the weekend as a result of a severe asthma attack. She was taken off the respirator yesterday, and Z just got a call from the hospital that they've put her back on the respirator. Please - keep Z and her mother both in your prayers.

With this quote from the Bagavad-Gita, Oppenheimer summoned in the nuclear age at 5:30 in the morning at the Trinity Site in New Mexico. The yield of code name Gadget was estimated to be equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT - 2,000 B-29s worth of explosives. A quote from Brigadier General T.F. Farrell regarding the blast - "The effects could well be called unprecedented, magnificent, beautiful, stupendous, and terrifying. No man-made phenomenon of such tremendous power had ever occurred before. The lighting effects beggared description. The whole country was lighted by a searing light with the intensity many times that...

It was twenty-one years ago today at the Knoxville MEPS station that my father stood in front of me in his blue uniform, silver oak leaves on his shoulder, raised his right and and said, "Raise your right hand and repeat after me..." And so I did: I, Robert _____, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of...

Vietnam trip report The last time I got back from my trip to Vietnam, someone asked me “why did you choose such a place to visit on your vacation?” I smiled and answered, “Well, because I loved to”. That’s true. I am no different than any of you. On my vacation, I always try to find a beautiful place where I can get my money’s worth. For these reasons, I chose an orphanage because it is a place where my dollar is always worth more than its value. How about beautiful? Many of you will agree with me that nothing...

An Oak Ridge staff sergeant from the Knoxville-based 278th Regimental Combat Team was killed Monday in fighting that followed an ambush south of Balad Ruz, Iraq, officials said. The sergeant has been identified as 35-year-old Jeff Stephen Kennedy, said state Sen. Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge, who learned of his death Tuesday morning at a National Guard breakfast in Nashville. Kennedy is the second member of the 278th to die in recent weeks and the first Anderson County man killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The 278th's Sgt. Paul W. Thomason III, 37, of Jefferson City, died March 20 when his vehicle...