Ronnie Middleton

As you may know a big typhoon recently hit the Philippines. I sent Ronnie Middleton a note to see if he and his family were okay. Our exchange of emails is shown below.

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27 Sep 2011

Hi Ron,

I'm almost afraid to write and ask how you fared in the recent typhoon. When you are able please get in touch and let me know if you are okay. I'll pass it alone to others who read our blog.

Bill

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30 Sep 2011

Hi Bill,

All's well in our place and with our family except one brother-in-law. He has a farm about 6-8 miles from us and had about three feet of water in his main house.

All is ok now. We've tried to get him off that farm over the years but, no way. He's 55 and I'm sure will never leave his little farm (about 3 acres). His kids are grown and have their own families now. His wife died already so we keep an eye on him.

Again, thank you very much for your concern and we do certainly appreciate it. We hope all is well with you and yours.

Keep in touch.
RONNIE

Spammer Alert

Over the past week or so I have received a dozen or so emails that had valid classmate addresses showing in the From box.  However, the message in the email raised questions to me regarding who it really came from. Plus, the email usually had a link that the sender wanted me to click on for various reasons. However, none of the reasons seemed legitimate to me.

What this means is that some spammer, or spammers, have gotten the email addresses of some classmates from emails they have sent or forwarded. I’m guessing they got my email address from the class web site because that is the email address they have used to send me stuff.

I’m posting this info to encourage each of you to be as careful as you possibly can in which emails you open, even if it has your best friend’s name on it. If you have a viewer mode in your email program that lets you see the text of the email before you open it, use that viewer to read the email without opening it.

The emails I received are the type “tools” spammers use to gather email addresses for their spamming operations, or to get you to click on a virus infected link. If you get an email and anything at all looks the least bit suspicious, or departs from the norm, don’t open that email. If it supposedly comes from me, or anyone else in the class, it would be worth your time to start a completely new email and ask that classmate if they sent you that email. Even if it take a couple of days to get a response it’s worth the wait.

If you have any questions do let me know. I’ll help if I can.

Francine Camp McCormack

Thanks to Jackie Reynolds Robertson for letting me know about the death of classmate Francine Camp McCormack. Francine’s obituary is shown below. Please keep her family in your prayers.

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Francine Camp McCormack
Visit Guest Book

Francine McCormack went to meet our heavenly Father on September 24, 2011 after a brief illness. Francine retired from Louisiana Downs after many years of service and was an incredible artist.

She was preceded in death by her daughter, Susan Garrett and sister, Sandra Rascoe.

Francine is survived by her daughter, Teri (Jim); mother, Lula MaCall; sister, Shirley Bradford (Charles); brother, Jerry (Barbara); grandchildren, Amanda (Wesley), Stephanie and Danielle; great-grandchildren, Brett, Chandler, Holly and Thomas; and many cousins, nieces and nephews. She will be greatly missed by her large family and friends.

Graveside service will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at Centuries Memorial Park Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, please donate to the Grace Home, 1035 Margaret Place, Shreveport, LA 71101.

Glimpse of Google Plus

For anyone who might be interested, I have found a way to show you the public portion of my Google Plus (G+) account. Right click your mouse HERE and then click on “Open a new tab.”

Most of the information in my G+ account is in the private portion of G+. To see that info requires a G+ account and being added to my access lists, or as Google calls them “Circles.”

Jerry and Carrol Cook also have G+ accounts that can be viewed by typing their name in the Find people box near the top of my G+ page. If you know of other folks who are using G+ you can type their name in the same box and see their public information.

If you feel adventuresome you can also click on any of the blue text links in the articles you see while you have the G+ pages open.

If you have any questions drop me a note.

Possible Changes In Web Site Functions

The folks who provide the web space for our class web site have notified me that effective Monday, September 12, 2011, their support for certain technical capabilities will change. Based on my understanding of what they said I don’t think these changes will have any impact on our web site. But, I can’t be sure until the change actually takes place.

If you notice anything that doesn’t work like it normally does please drop me an email and let me know what you saw/experienced. Be as complete in your description at you can. Hopefully, I won’t hear from any of you.

Addendum 9-14-2011

No problems have been reported by classmates, and I haven’t noticed any issues either. Hopefully, this change will be a non-issue for us. However, if you do spot anything please let me know.

Dead Or Dying?

I saw this info in an article listing 10 technical things that are “dead or dying.”

Blogging is dead – or at least it has shifted to another medium. Now, instead of typing several pages worth of material, most Web users just tap in a 140-character sentiment on Twitter. “Long-form” blogging is not as popular, and we all know the jokes about the blogger in his parent’s basement. Sites like Blogger.com and TypePad.com have declined considerably of late, dropping about 25-30 percent in user visits per Compete.com. Granted, some have discovered the streamlined blogging tool WordPress.com, which has enjoyed steady growth the past few years.

If you want to read the full article click here.

Let me know if you think this is true about our class blog. If its time to retire it, what should we replace it with, if anything? If you would please, click on the Submit News link at the top right of the Blog page to email me your response. That way all responses will be easier to keep up with because they will all be in one email account.