The PUBLIC you

Kristi and I were taking a Sunday drive in the beautiful weather we had yesterday when we ran across a home for sale. Well, maybe it was for sale and maybe it wasn't. You see, the "For Sale" sign was very old and hard to see from the road. The house looked like it was no longer occupied (no visible furniture) and the yard no longer maintained (lots of leaves).

It was obvious the house was once loved, but today it really needs a helping hand. Maybe what this old house needs is our helping hands. So we decided to do some investigating...

First, we looked at the real estate listings. Nothing there -this is a dead end.

Then I checked the county website for property tax assessments. From this I found the owner's name, learned the property was purchased in 1970, and the house built in 1978. I learned the owner no longer lived there because of a lost Homestead Exemption (it's a Texas thing) and the owner was over 65 in 1992.

Using Google I was able to discover the owner was mayor of the town in the early 70's.

After thinking about his age and how the house was lived in anymore, I was able to discover some information on ObitsArchive.com about his recent death.

During this stage, our search became a quest to fill in the missing pieces. Going back to Google we discovered information about his family, profession (dentist), and hobby (golf).

After a little more searching, I can now tell you about his last house. Further, I can tell you the land her mother lives on now was previously owned by their daughter, a real estate agent, through a series of companies.

One of his sons took the same profession and would seem to be a successful dentist in town.

All of which leads me to say, it doesn't take much to find out all about you and yours. Heck, if I feel a little bored tomorrow I might be investigating you!

Tsunami Toll & Relief

The tsunami that hit southern Asia has caused massive destruction. The death toll is staggering, and the photos show unbelievable devastation. A number of respectable charities are rushing aid to the area and I want to encourage you to use one of them.

If you have not yet chosen a charity, let me recommend Oxfam. And to give you something in return for your donation, I pass along the following message from a software company I have used and like.

Hello,
This is Nick the CEO of CoffeeCup Software.

I'm sure you have heard about the earthquake and tsunamis that have devastated Asia. Over 120,000 people have died so far and almost 1/3 of these are children.

I just gave to Oxfam - a respected non-profit that is working to help survivors of this horrible disaster. Oxfam can not give you anything for your donation, but CoffeeCup can give you software when you help the people of South Asia.

You can donate quickly and easily online Here:

-> https://secure.ga3.org/02/asia_earthquake04?source=aqt04_cc


If you donate more than $35 email me your receipt and I will give you your choice of CoffeeCup VisualSite Designer, CoffeeCup Firestarter, or CoffeeCup PixConverter.

Donate more than $100 and I will give you the CoffeeCup HTML Editor or CoffeeCup Direct FTP.

Donate $500 or more and I will send you ALL of our software on CD.

To get the software just donate to Oxfam using the link above, then email your receipt and choice of software to: donate@coffeecup.com


Thank you for your support in this time of great need,

Dr. Nicholas Longo - FounderCEO
CoffeeCup Software Inc.
http://www.coffeecup.com/

It's not much and maybe it won't mean anything to you, but it's a gesture of support for those in need. So I share this with you while hoping we all find one of our own.

Family Portrait

Click on the picture to see a larger version of The 2004 Davidson Family Portrait.

2004 Winter Snow

2004 Winter Snow

Look, it's snowing... at our home in Dallas of all places. The area is not guaranteed to see snow every year, with kids sometimes seeing their first snowfall at the age of 4 or 5. And those beautiful white flakes would typically fall much later in the season when it's quite a bit colder, but this year's roaring arctic front changed all that. What a nice treat as the first full day of Winter portends a beautiful Christmas.

2004 Winter Snow

Are you flying for the holidays?

USA Today has a super cool feature. Maybe you know about it because you already fly a bunch, but you can get airport delay updates from this page. It helps you know if you have time for another cocktail before heading to the airport.