Paul Brannon, RealtorⓇ

Did a repeat of my ride to Washington, Texas earlier this winter, only this time, it was 45 degrees instead of 28 degrees.  I had my new battery heated gloved - nice and toasty fingers.  I also had a new Givi windshield on my scoot.  The  new windshield is amazing .  It is about 6 inches taller, and  3 inches wider on each side. The wind noise and buffetting is practically gone from my helmet.  It was a much more relaxing ride.  I was also able to hear the engine more clearly than I ever had.  It was neat to hear it ticking away like a fine watch.

Driving down was great, light traffic, low wind, nice and cool.  Gone was the discomfort of below freezing weather.

Got to Washington, actually the Navasota airport, and my friend and I headed off to pick up his Cessna 172 in Brenham.  We had a great flight.  Took some great pictures of some property we're listing and got to see the giant generator being trucked through Brazos county. Also got a picture of a new lot that I've sold.  A new house is going in there as soon as my clients current house is sold.  The wind had picked up a lot since we left and I was very glad that George had so much experience as a pilot.  He was going to fly back to Navasota, and I was going to drive his car back, but with the wind, he decided to wait until a calmer day.  Smart, very smart.

Coming back 45 miles was a little different.  The wind, cutting across the road, was effecting me as well and I was having to make constant adjustments to the bike.  One thing though, I should have pulled the liners from my riding gear. I was pretty warm by the time I got home.  I was thinking about my friends up north who are still snowed in.

There have been several reports of hacks to Google, government, and private sites.  The technique for the hacks has been published, and they are all based on Internet Explorer.  The published hack has been directed at IE 6.0, but experts seem to think that it could be used on all versions of IE.

Many people have advocated using Firefox, Opera, or now, Google Chrome, but I've really been impressed with Firefox.  Yes, there have been hacks of Firefox, but they have been repaired very quickly.  This is in stark contrast with the way Microsoft does their patches.  A Warning over using Internet Explorer from German Government as exploit goes public expressing their concern for problems with Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8.

Now  is a good time to choose another browser.  I'm very preferential to Firefox and the myriad of resources available to it.  If you'd like to give Firefox a shot, here's a handy link to help you get started.