Charest Family on the Web Posts

Car Travel Cartoon
Car Travel

Winnie and I successfully completed a week’s worth of traveling, visiting family, and sight seeing. We returned home late Saturday evening, July 7, after a 13 hour trip from Massachusetts. It was a really nice week, but also more tiring than I expected. It’s taken until now for me to feel rested again, ready to get back into the old routine.

Or perhaps, it’s really that I haven’t wanted to get back into the old routine again…

Family Stories

Ron Charest announces a vacation trip to the Northeastern US to visit with family. It would be the first time his wife Weifang would be meeting the family.

Family Stories

Commonwealth of Virginia
Commonwealth of Virginia

As many of our frequent visitors (visitors => More Than Two) may remember, back in December and January I posted about a problem with our local DMV.  It seemed that the various DMV officials were making stuff up in increasingly new and original ways, to prevent Winnie from obtaining her driver’s license (and by default, proof of Virginia residency).  My breaking point was when, on our fifth trip over a period of 7 weeks, they denied her license on basis that she could not prove how she made the jump from her maiden name “Wei Fang Li” to married name “Wei Fang Li Charest.”

Opinions & Commentary

Flying Mail Cartoon image
Flying Mail

Once again, our own Jonah Goldberg, the greatest living writer of all time, has presented us with a column of striking insight concerning the urgent need for privatizing our public schools.

Opinions & Commentary

…And A Resolution on My Anti-Immigration Complaint

Bad Nurse
Bad Nurse

Yesterday morning I did contact my financial adviser and discussed Sunday morning’s incident with the home nurse.  Our agent became noticeably upset over my description of the event, and promised to pass the information to the medical agency.  She asked some questions, and apologized several times for what happened.  She promised the incident would be taken care of.

Family Stories

…and another Ugly Example of Anti-Immigration Hysteria

Bad Nurse
Bad Nurse

Winnie and I are currently in the process of buying some additional life insurance.  Not a big deal or at least it shouldn’t be.  Part of the process now-a-days to buy life insurance is take a medical exam, and the insurance companies actually make this part easy by sending a nurse-practitioner to the prospective client’s home for administering the forms and lab work.

Yesterday, we had our home visit.  As part of the nurse’s visit, she subjected me to some of the ugliest anti-immigration crap I’ve been personally subjected to.  As a side bonus, she performed what at best would be the sloppiest blood sample draw, on Winnie, I’ve ever experienced or witnessed.  Ever.

Family Stories

Fisherman
Fisherman

Winnie and I had an impromptu fishing trip this Sunday with my Aunt and Uncle who live nearby.  We drove up to a Navy recreation center they enjoy going to in Maryland, and despite the rain and cold weather we did end up catching a few nice fish.

Family Stories

It was a long time coming, but this past weekend I finally had the boat out on the water again.  It turned into a weekend’s worth of boating actually, as I had “Sea Dreams” out both Saturday and Sunday.  Sunday Winnie and one of her friends went with us and we did a bit of fishing.

Family Stories

…And Other Comments on Spammers and Hackers

My rant on being hacked and spammed
Programmer At Work

When I started this website over two years ago, I envisioned a comfortable family-type website that could help our far-flung family keep in touch.  I wasn’t a newbie at running websites as I had operated a “commercial” website for the five years prior to my divorce (commercial in the sense that I had hopes of making money off it, not that I actually did make money). 

I was well aware of the threats from hackers, and the annoyance of getting hundreds of daily spam e-mails offering everything from increased site traffic to earning thousands, even millions, of dollars overnight using whatever money-making system the particular spammer was pushing. It was about three years between the times I shut down my flagship “RCM TravelSite” to the time I started “The Charest Family on the Web.”  I have been shocked at how the Internet community has changed over those years.

Tech Talk

This And That
This And That

I just wanted to wish all mothers reading this website, and even those who don’t read it, a very happy and belated Mother’s day. Here’s hoping that everyone had a lovely day and was able to spend at least a short while with family and close friends.

I also wanted to say a few words after a very long and busy month.

Family Stories