Webb Family Blog

Webb Family

Unfortunately, the University of Phoenix’s holiday break this year did not start until Christmas Day. This was made tougher by having several assignments due on Christmas Eve. This also did not work with our schedule, as the Webb Family Christmas occurred the weekend before Christmas. My brother Richard flew in from Lincoln, Nebraska to Sacramento, California, arriving at 2AM on December 20^th. The flight was supposed to have landed at 11PM on the 19^th, but his United Airlines flight was delayed in Denver, Colorado. I had previously arranged to take the 20^th off, so it was not as bad as it could have been. After getting up later in the day, Richard and I did some shopping. We purchased the parts to build two computers… one for Richard and one for our brother-in-law Kevin. These machines were identical, being based on an AMD Phenom Quad-core processor and has an NVidia Geforce 8800GT graphics card. Richard began building the computers that evening. I unfortunately had to work on the 21^st, as did Kellie.

On Saturday morning, the 22^nd, Kellie, Richard and I headed off to Waterford to meet up with the family. We attended the Waterford SDA church. My sister Vicki and her family were already there. In the afternoon, all that had gathered so far in Waterford headed up to Sonora, to see Debbie’s new house. We had a nice supper that night and headed back to my parents place. While we were there, Vicki’s son Xander had been playing with Debbie’s sons, Jared and Caleb. When it was time to go and we were going out to the cars, Richard asked Xander, “Xander, are you coming with us?” Xander asked if he had a choice. This was not what was expected, but none of the parents had any problem with it, so Xander spent the night with his cousins.

On Sunday morning, us men folk were watching the disastrous Oakland Raiders game, while Kellie and my mother were making lasagna. Kellie made both a red lasagna and a white lasagna which were both extremely delicious. Debbie and Vicki went to visit my mother’s aunt Hulda, who had been admitted to the hospital earlier that morning with a new onset of congestive heart failure. Aunt Hulda had diuresed four liters of fluid! My other sister Terri and her husband Patrick also arrived that morning, as did my Uncle David, Aunt Fran and Grandma Christiansen. We went downstairs to the big room for our Christmas feast.

After the meal, we reconvened upstairs near the Christmas tree. We all opened our presents. I received a cardboard box that had several trophies I’d received as a teenager that my parents had been storing. Most of these trophies were fairly meaningless… two were for being an umpire in a youth softball league. Another was for being the Newspaper Carrier of the Week from the Riverside Press-Enterprise back in 1986. I was one of the best newspaper carriers during my stint, receiving the distinction every time I was eligible to win. Besides my gifts, the children all got fun presents. Kellie and I got Jared a K’NEX roller coaster kit. He built this later in the evening and following morning. In addition to our regular presents, we played a gift exchange game. I ended up with a blanket and Kellie got a game. Xander ended up with a NERF dart gun and a bag of Velcro-coated darts. As one could imagine, there were darts flying everywhere for the rest of our time. After we opened our stockings, many of us sang our favorite songs from Handel’s Messiah. After singing, many of us played games until we were too tired and went to bed.

On Christmas Eve morning, I made my favorite type of pancakes, macadamia nut pancakes with coconut syrup. My mother also made waffles. After breakfast, we packed up our belongings and headed back to Roseville. I was exhausted. I took a long nap.

Weifert Family

After I awoke from my nap, Kellie had made some more lasagna and invited Katie and her father over to eat. We watched Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, followed by Bing Crosby’s White Christmas. White Christmas is Kellie’s favorite Christmas movie and has become a tradition to watch it every year. Kellie’s mother came over to our house while we were watching that movie as she had just gotten off from work. After the movie, Katie and Kellie’s parents left.

On Christmas morning, Kellie and I went to her parents for Christmas breakfast. Leslie and her friend Kurt (Kay) were there, as was Kellie’s grandparents. We had a delicious breakfast and then opened gifts. I had already received my gift of a new workbench for my garage. My workbench is “Ron height.” Probably not that many people other than myself will feel comfortable at the table, but it works well for me. Kellie and I also received a new game, but we have not had a chance to play it yet. After a little visiting, Kellie needed to head off to work, having to work on Christmas Day.

For those that get an email whenever a new post shows up on my blog, I apologize for a little SNAFU I had over the weekend. I had recently installed a plugin that automatically gathered new posts Kellie placed on her separate blog and checked once an hour for changes. Apparently, after the last update, the software didn’t recognize that it already had download each post, so it was inputting the few entries Kelle’s blog had every hour. This caused those that subscribe via email to get numerous emails, despite nothing being new. I ended up deleting the plugin. That ended up creating another problem. The pictures Kellie had put up, disappeared. I finally came up with a solution that I liked. I modified her posts with pictures with another plugin I had been playing with. Look back at her post for Thanksgiving and you will see a change that Kellie and I both like. I hope that for those of you with slower connections (which would be just about everyone, as I have a VERY fast connection) I apologize in advance if it takes a bit to load; if you do have issues with it loading too slowly, reply back with approximately how long it takes. This new plugin shows the pictures in a slideshow fashion, rotating through all the pictures with random transitions.

The other update is something that most of you would not really notice (many of my updates are only visible to me). I like to view statistics of my page. I have many plugins that show me statistics, the latest places the number of unique visitors at the bottom of the page (the only portion of it that you could possibly see.) I do this for the sake of my own personal education, as a way to learn how stuff works.

I learned something interesting this past week; apparently, the Social Security Administration had no knowledge that I was a United States citizen. My mother applied for my Social Security number when I was just a little child. I presume data asked on the card was minimal at that time and moving into the computerized records age as well as the post-9/11 era, things have changed. Apparently, they know that I was born outside of the United States, in Liberia, but can’t verify I am a citizen of the United States. One look at me should answer that question… Liberia would now allow me to be a citizen of their country… per Chapter IV, Article 27, sub-section (b) of The Liberian Constitution of the First Republic: “In order to preserve, foster and maintain the positive Liberian culture, values and character, only persons who are Negroes or of Negro descent shall qualify by birth or by naturalization to be citizens of Liberia. ” As both of my parents are United States citizens, and my father registered my birth with the United States Embassy in Liberia two months after my birth, I am a naturalized citizen. Anyway, I discovered this bit of information when I just re-applied for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid for the 2007-2008 school year. My application was dinged for not being able to verify my citizenship. I thought this odd, so I called up the toll-free number for the Social Security Administration. After going through several voice automation prompts and being placed on hold for about 30 minutes, I was told to take my birth certificate to a local Social Security office and show them the birth certificate and picture identification and they could correct it in the system. I was told that no form was needed and it should only take a couple minutes once I’m seen.

Today, I finally had an opportunity to go to the Social Security office here in Roseville. When I walked in, there was a large waiting area with windows to different agents. There was a video monitor near the door where it asked you why you were there. It gave several options, but only the last option appeared appropriate for me… “Reason not listed”. I chose that reason on a little number punch pad and a ticket printed out giving me a number… “A69″. I then sat down and saw that “A68″ was being served. In a couple minutes, I was called to a window. I informed the woman behind the desk my situation and she said, “You’ll have to fill out one of those forms in the rack over on the wall for applying for a replacement Social Security card and they’ll call your name again…. A70 to Window 8!” I replied, “I don’t need a new card, all the information is correct on it. I was told I did not need to fill out any paperwork and it was just a clerical error that could be corrected quickly in the office.” She replied, “Well they told you wrong. A70!” It is amazing that these people remain in employment! I guess it is unfortunately fairly typical for government employees. I then went over to the rack of forms and grabbed the form she mentioned I needed. As I looked through it, I really did not see how any of the information on it was relevant. I filled it out as best I could, answering the basic information, but most was not applicable. Apparently, “A70″ also had an issue that was “Reason not listed” and upon dismissal by the same unhelpful woman this customer was quite irate! The rant of this customer appeared to be quite legitimate, as I too believed that the Social Security worker was as helpful as a genital wart. About 30 minutes later, I was called to a different window. I again explained my situation and when I told her that I had tried to fill out the form and most of it was non-applicable, she replied that she really didn’t need the form. I had come prepared with my original Social Security card, my Report of Birth Abroad Birth Certificate and my United States Passport. I asked if my Passport would help and she replied “Perfect!” She typed a few things on the computer and wanted to verify my mailing address. She told me that that was all she needed. She mentioned that I’d be sent a new Social Security card in the mail, although it will not contain anything different on it, other being the latest generation of Social Security cards, as opposed to my early 1970’s card. What a difference! I liked this second lady. She was polite and helpful. At least I should not have this problem again… I hope.