The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is responsible for
administering the Converter Box Coupon Program (Coupon Program).

Do You Still Have Digital TV Questions?
This website has answers.
 

Websites of the Month

March
My apologies for not providing neato websites for the past three months. Maintaining pages for our
40th Anniversary has been a daunting task...so without further ado:
Give Away of the Day
I was looking for a couple of programming resources, freebies as a matter of fact, and found this
site, downloaded a couple of files and found out the hard way that you had to install AND register
these freebies on the same day they are free. If you don't, then you've lost this opportunity. Anyway,
I downloaded a couple of these freebies and (registered on the same day) found that these were
really, so far, good quality software. You can bookmark and check them out daily or sign up and they
will e-mail you daily on their freebies. You know about Webshots Picture of the Day, well, this is
almost the same: Software of the Day. PS: Don't wait till midnight to see what the next day's freebie
is about...their servers are located somewhere in the Pacific Standard Time zone so...midnight their
time is 3am North Carolina time...zzzz
 www.giveawayoftheday.com

February
No WOM this month.

January
No WOM this month.

December
No WOM this month.

November
Deaf NC Events
Website of Events for the Deaf and the Hard of Hearing by Ches B. has been closed down and left
a gap for Deafies in North Carolina. With the collaborations of two anonymous sponsors, we decided
fill this gap with a new and expanded version of Website of of Events for the Deaf and Hard of
Hearing for all of North Carolina. This website takes the place of our own Events page on this
website which featured fewer Events but mostly serviced the Piedmont and Eastern North Carolina.
Our Events page is now being reworked back to it's purpose of featuring recent Class get-togethers,
Reunions, and Min-Reunions as it was originally intended for.

So here we are, tooting our own horn and invite you to our sister website, a new service for the
Deaf and Hard of Hearing for all of North Carolina.
www.deafncevents.com

October
Randy has sent me funny videos and they are still available online and I thought I share them here:
Why you don't hit your office computer

If you are a frequent visitor to this page, then you should know that I'm a space nut;
Here's a new site from NASA: www.nasaimages.org

September
Jigsaw Puzzle Paradise
You like puzzles? We like puzzles. How about going to Jigsaw Puzzle Paradise. You can select pictures
to puzzle AND you can select the difficulty of the puzzles. Don't like the pictures they offer? Upload
your own and make your own puzzle. It's puzzling that we haven't found this puzzling site earlier.
This site is neat. You can e-mail a puzzle post card, sign up for Puzzle-of-the-Day and you can
compete with your buddies' solve times. It's a puzzling site to enjoy!
http://www.jigzone.com

Space Stinks or Astronauts Say Space Smells Funny
Former NASA astronaut Thomas Jones, a veteran of three spacewalks before retiring from spaceflying in 2001, thinks the odor could stem from atomic oxygen that clings to spacesuit fabric.

"When you repressurize the airlock and get out of your suit, there is a distinct odor of ozone, a faint
acrid smell," Jones told SPACE.com, adding that the smell is also similar to burnt gunpowder or the
ozone smell of electrical equipment. "It's not noticeable inside the suit. The suit smells like plastic
inside."
Did I break after wimmimg?

August
40 years later, Woodstock still fascinates
Woodstock remains one of those events — like the moon landing earlier that summer — that
continues to define the 1960s culture in the popular imagination.

Consider the bumper crop of Woodstock nostalgia marking the 40th anniversary. There's a new cut
DVD of the concert movie, a remastered concert CD, director Ang Lee's rock 'n' roll
comedy "Taking Woodstock" and a memoir by promoter Michael Lang. There are also performances
scheduled by Woodstock veterans at the old site, now home to a '60s museum and an outdoor
concert pavilion.

The Woodstock legend stems from big names such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin and more
and more playing at a show where everything went wrong but turned out right.

The town of Woodstock didn't want the concert and promoters were bounced from another site at the
11th hour. Lang settled on a hay field in Bethel owned by a kindly dairy farmer named Max Yasgur.
The concert did come off Aug. 15-18, 1969, but barely. Fences were torn down, tickets became
useless. More than 400,000 people converged on this rural corner 80 miles northwest of New York
City, freezing traffic for miles. Then the rains doused everything.

It should have been a disaster. But Americans tuning in to the evening news that weekend saw
smiling, dancing, muddy kids. By the time the concert movie came out months later, Woodstock was
a symbol of the happy, hippie side of the '60s spirit.

It still is. Woodstock may have ended the 1960s with a bang but it is still part of our generation.
If you google just the word woodstock, you will come up with over 27 million pages of references to
this event...so instead of featuring a website of the month, let's just say this a feature of our
generation.
www.woodstock69.com
www.peacefence.com/woodstock.htm (Photos)
www.squidoo.com/woodstock_69 (Commentary and Photos)
www.woodstockny.org (The town of Woodstock, NY)
www.bethelwoodscenter.org (The community location of the festival)
www.yasgurroad.com/history.html (The farmland's owner of the location of the event)

July
Apollo 11 images featured on the home page this month are courtesy of NASA and/or
apolloarchive.com

Lakes Umpire
Umpires has rules to live by when umpiring games, in this case baseball games. John set up this
blog site for a friend explaining how baseball umpires should signal their calls properly. Although I
have admitted in the past that I'm not into sports, I did read this blog and now when I run across a
baseball game on TV, I will understand what the umpires are signaling. Thanks, John!
http://lakesumpire.blogspot.com

Planetary Science Misconduct
Huh? A list of scientists who have committed scientific misconduct and fraud? Wow! You wouldn't
think scientists would do such a thing and go so low as to commit falsification in order to receive
funding and grants. Then again, for all we know, this has been going on "in the name of science"
for ages. Anyway, the new age of the internet now exposes these horrific waste of funds and the
scientists who do mankind wrong earns the right to be placed on this listing. Hopefully, those who
commit fraud by releasing funds to these so called scientists aught to be included on this same
listing...you would think?
http://www.bccmeteorites.com/misconduct-planetary.html

June
DTV Transition
Well, the historic DTV transition has come and gone. A non-event really, unless you were watching
TV with rabbit ears or an antenna. At a specified time, if...and only if your TV station mentioned it,
your tube went snowy/dark/blue when the TV station's analog signal was powered off. If you were
watching on a satellite network when the local station's analog power off switch was pushed,
your screen probably went pink for maybe 20 minutes or so until the provider scrambled to find the
signal they were supposed to use. Still have questions? this site sponsored by DTV Transition
Coalition may have your answers.
http://www.dtvtransition.org
 

May
NASA Links to the Hubble Telescope Repair
Extensive repairs are now in progress for the Hubble telescope and NASA has provided links on their
website to other locations in the internet for more information and pictures. Of all the space
missions to date, this STS-125 Hubble mission is probably the most attention grabbing mission so
far...with exception to the moon landing in 1969. Go to this page and click on Hubble Links, located
near the top right corner of the page.
http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/hubble_servicing

Hubble Telescope Gallery
Visitors to this page know that I'm a outer space junkie. There's tons of pictures accumulated over
the years and are now collected all together on this website. I've collected many pictures to use as
you can guess, screensavers and wallpapers. I go to this site several times a week and still can't get
enough.
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/solar_system

April
Possible feature here called TV show of the Month?
TV show produced in 2002 titled "Sue Thomas F.B.Eye" is rerunning on the Animal Planet channel.
The original 2 hour pilot episode aired Monday, April 6, 8pm and again Tuesday morning 12am. Her
dog Levi is the reason that we now have a second chance to catch these past episodes. Remember,
the remaining shows airs on Mondays at 9pm EST/PST (8pm Central/Mountain). And repeats after
 midnight.

FBI 100: Celebrating a Century
Celebrated in 2008, the history of the FBI is so expansive, their website has broken down their
history into "periods". Everything you wanted to know about the FBI...it's all here.
www.fbi.gov/fbihistory.htm
 

January
As promised, here is my CSDVRS review:
www.csdvrs.com
Well, this one is not a website of the month but a disappointment and a grief about the company
behind the website. I've put off getting VRS because I just didn't want a another TV waiting to be
used. The CSDVRS folks at the ASL Expo in Greensboro, NC back in September 6, 2008 convinced me
to sign up for Z30 (Z340) on sale for $80. Although it has a small screen, I really liked this unit
because of its laptop like portability. It would serve its purpose very well as I could take it with me
on my road trips as well as being able to connect this unit in any room in my house as well as inside
my workshop separate from my house. Really, a perfect and ideal VRS unit for me.

OK, so weeks go by...no e-mail, mail, or any communications from CSDVRS. I go to NCSD's
Homecoming and eureka! CSDVRS has a booth! I asked about getting Z340. Their representative said
I will get e-mail in three weeks. So again, I waited and waited. No e-mail, nothing, nothing, and
more nothings. So, on January 6, I contacted them through their website and basically I wrote: "It is
now 2 and half months OR 4 months since September 2008! WOW. I waited and waited. No e-mail,
nothing, nothing, and more nothings".

And now, finally, I received a response, albeit a manufactured response...you know...the same
response sent to anyone who's asking. Here's what they said: "We are completing the final stages of
testing the new Z phones. The Z-340 has started being shipped to customers, and there is still no
release date of the Z-150. This has been due to an overwhelmingly high volume of requests we have
received for the Videophone. CSDVRS will be contacting you once the Z becomes available, and the
current units we have will be assigned on a first come, first serve basis."

Oh, wow, whoopie doo! Geez, I didn't ask about the Z-150. Here was my response:
Same old, same old.
That's the same story the rep said at the NCSD Homecoming on Oct. 18, 2008.
So in effect, nothing new, nothing changed.

Sigh,
Lester Latkowski

So the moral to any company offering any product: Don't offer products until it has come off the
assembly and testing lines. DUH!
 

Sonicbomb.com = MH-47 Chinook helicopter
John forwarded this military clip and...well...I'll let his e-mail do the describing:
Gutsy move...This is some chopper pilot...a rarely seen perspective: a video of a U.S. Navy SEAL
extraction was filmed from inside an MH-47 Chinook helicopter. The pilot has lowered the ramp,
dipped the tail end into the water to partially flood the compartment (a maneuver that requires quite
precise flying) and awaits the Navy SEALs to board in their F470 Zodiac.
The rest of the website is outstanding...has historical items never before released to the public or
declassified after so many years. Needless to say, I spent several hours on it.
www.sonicbomb.com
 

Previous Websites of the Month can be found here.