What a weekend!  I don't know if I can fit it all into one little post so this may run on for a bit.  Friday was on the quiet side, really didn't do too much, but we did do our grocery shopping to gear up for saturday. 
    Here's where the fun kicked in!  We went to TopSail Island, I believe it's part of the outerbanks, as it is on the outer most edge of NC, but I could be wrong on that.  We went with Joni's cousins from Mebane and had a blast!  We burried the kids in the sand, boogie boarded, collected shells, played in the water, and just had an all around good time.  The beach wasn't too crowded which is exactly what we wanted.  There are other places we could have gone that had more attractions, but that is for some other time, we just wanted to relax and not have dozens of people in the same square foot as us. 
    We talked a little about taking another trip later this summer, possibly to the same beach, only this time renting a house or something right on the water.  Joni wants to do it for a whole week, I'm more inclined to do just a weekend as these trips can get expensive quickly, and well, I'm cheap!  Even if Michelle and Keith split the place with us, I think a week is just too long. 
    I learned one thing about adorable little girls, they may seem sweet at times, but damn can they be annoying!  Joni's little cousin Ashley, is probably 11 or 12, and started driving me absolutely crazy on the trip their and back.  She pulled the classic Simpsons "Are we there yet" routine and asked about a thousand (no lie) times.  Then on the way back, it was "Can we stop at McDonald's", I thought for sure I would jump in the back seat and strangle her, but I didn't.  In ten years, when we go to have our first child, I pray that it won't be a girl!
    Yesterday was not very action packed, but we did accomplish alot.  We went to church like good little christians.  When we got home....we cleaned.  And I don't mean picked up a few things, I mean WE CLEANED!!  We dusted, vacumed, did the blinds, the window sills, and did laundry.  We sorted though clothes and other miscellaneous junk and filled two big bags to go to our church for a yard sale that will benifit community outreach programs.  We also filled two huge boxes with garbage and clothes that couldn't be salvaged (and junk we thought the church couldn't sell).  There is now lots of space in the closets, and the whole house has  a feeling of more room!  We bought a paper shredder and took care of the sensitive paperwork we had collected over the years.  Pay stubbs, loans, old taxes and credit card statements etc. all got hacked to 1/4" strips and are happily sitting in the dumpster.  The shredder we bought sucked, and we'll have to go back today to exchange it for a more industrial one, this one wasn't cutting it (can't help but laugh at that one) anymore as the last 20 or so sheets, we had to tear by hand when the shredder crapped out.  That'll be getting exchanged today! 
    I belive I sucked Mark into my problem with my blocked port 25.  I think it's being done at the modem level, and he thinks it's being done at a border router.  My reasoning for thinking it's on the modems is simple.  Putting the filtering on a router would make so much extra work for the router, especially since they are a HUGE ISP.  It would be so much more efficient to send a flash to the modem and have it filter out port 25 then having your border (or any other) router analyze each packet to see what port it's destined for.  Neither of us are Network Engineers so we could both probably be wrong, but that isn't the point.  He suggested that I have my email point to his server as a backup MX and when it gets refused from me, it'll be sent to him and I can pick it up later.  Which is ultimately what I may do, but it just doesn't sound complicated enough.  I'll keep working on it (and I'm sure he will too) and will come up with something.