family news...............

our new path...to be debt free this next year - following the dave ramsey plan (the radio guy).

i recently started a new blog called aloneontheweb.com that was supposed to be about my journey after being laid off in july, 2008 from my corporate job in web design. i was planning to chronicle what happens with my freelance web design business gushindesigns.com and my other money making internet projects such as eBay and internet marketing.

well, i'm happy to say that there have been some changes in that plan. on december 3 i started a new job at the university of texas at dallas in the web services department as a web specialist.

it was a position i happened to come across on one of my favorite sites to troll for jobs and all sorts of other things to sell, buy, barter and trade, craigslist.org. i have been working for 2 weeks so far and i really like working at the university. it's going to be a really good experience for me and the benefits are really good. i will still be able to continue some of my freelance work as well, so aloneontheweb.com will still continue to chronicle that work. best of all, since i started in early december, i was eligible for the paid winter break dec. 20 - jan. 4th! so i'm starting a new freelance job for the dallas jewish community foundation redesigning the site.

i also am going back to school again. i signed up yesterday for a course at richland college in multimedia programming, which teaches how to code in the open source computer language php.

we bought a new house in early 2007! it is in richardson, tx. and it is the first home we have picked out ourselves and we are excited about it. the house was built in 1963 and we are doing some updating to it. we tore out 3 closets and a bathroom to make room for a larger master bathroom with a corner whirlpool tub and a large shower. we moved about a year ago, but all this takes time, so we have not finished yet.

both my shoulder and my hand are doing better after many months of therapy. many more details on the blog. plus, our soldier, yoshi is home for good.

in 2007 we were in milwaukee, wisconsin for a big 75th birthday party for my aunt mur (see a new gallery of pics on the "themes" page). we got to spend a day roaming around chicago with cousin craig taffel and he took us on a tour of the chicago board of trade where he trades commodities in the market. the whole trip to milwaukee was great. we got to see many of our cousins, our aunt renee and uncle jack, aunt mur and uncle nate. on saturday we went to visit our cousin jimmy guten's house where he was having a bash for his son's high school graduation. jimmy is in a band and he and members of his band jammed in the backyard along with his son jessie on the electric guitar and my mom on the keyboard. it was loads of fun.

we went back again in 2008 to milwaukee for uncle nate's 80th birthday party on july 26. hopefully i will have some pics up from that event soon.

check out the blog i have been developing

the guten/antebi/rahmani family?...............

rooty jr...............

rooty has been spending many hours up at children's hospital visiting little 8 year old amber poplion, who has been in the hospital for weeks after having a case of encephalitis. amber's mom is her co-worker regaynal poplion and the two have become very close, now and before this sickness. there are updates on the life of buford blog about amber.

rj is sad that our good friend jacqueline "la-quenna" valdes moved back to florida to have her baby there with family. she was living in dallas with leora (gotta say it with a south-african accent), our good friend and old next-door neighbor. update: la-quenna did indeed have little lorenzo avery valdez on august 9th, 2008 at 1:58am (5lbs, 2 oz., 16 inches). new update: la-quenna and lorenzo will be here soon for a visit! new pic of lorenzo. they will be here for over a week and also during new years. all of us are really excited about finally geting to meet little lorenzo. they are also going to go visit la-queena's father who is also in texas.

my lovely wife has worked on her database for her class in "essential oils". the database is complex, huge and a wonder to behold in the working form. she has been taking an extensive course in this field for many years and is building a custom database that will allow customization of oil blends based on a profile of the client.

we are both working on a web site to distribute essential oils that will have a database search and down the road it will also be capable of using her database on the web. you can peek at the beginning of the site here at www.e-scentiallyyours.com

ruthie also has a distributorship in an exciting company, named waiora that carries health products (that i of course know nothing about and could'nt even try and explain to you-check out her site). check the site out. it is open for business and we are just waiting to get more time to develop it to the next stage, but it is fully operational now.

she has also committed herself to a life-changing path to better eating, a plan laid out for her by dr. bruce berkowsky. this just started (in the recent past sometime-i'm not telling when) and i am very proud of her for the way she is conducting herself with it.



the gush...............

i have been enjoying being married and being a part of my great family with rooty jr. and the boys, elden, midlin and youngin (see the names page). of course, our two doggies, allie and tasha are also a large part of our lives and we enjoy them both.

this is my own web design company, gushindesigns. it has all of my online portfolio and is a site for me to point prospective customers to for the work i do. it has recently been totally redone and opened in may, 2008.

in april 2006 i started a new job at hitchfinder.com doing web development there on that site and 13 others, but recently in june, 2008 i was laid off due to cutbacks all across the board. you can however, see the list of the sites i did work on

recently i have started up a few new web sites.

www.appleproductsdepot.com
www.photoproductsdepot.com
www.trailerhitchauction.com

each of these are what are known as niche sites that target a specific small market and try and make money on affiliate linking, in this case primarily with eBay.

yoshi...

yoshi finished taking a class studying to be an emergency medical technician (emt) and now is kicking it up a notch and taking the follow up course for paramedic training. he has been spending some nights working as part of his training at local emergency rooms where he is enjoying all the blood and gore.

yoshi (josh) was in israel for 14 months since april of 2006. he toured the country, visited the many relatives we have there and just plain had a great time for a few months before he got down to business. the business was his joining the israeli defense forces (idf). he has such great timing too. he started his training in a camp just 10-15 miles from the lebanese border right about the time hezbollah decided to kidnap those idf soldiers and the missles started raining down nearby that first week.

this is a photo of yoshi...i think it was taken with his cell phone.



david...

david is in his second year at a & m university in college station, texas! he is a physics major and is very excited about 1) being out of the house and on his own 2) starting college as he is looking forward to the challenge.

we have been down to a & m many times with him and it is a terrific university so i think it will be a very good experience for david. he got back from a trip to argentina with hillel in march, 2007, where he helped out disadvantaged kids. he now has an off campus apartment in the same complex as his girlfriend amy and there are pics on page ten. btw...amy went to argentina too. actually, they just went together to israel on a trip called the "birthright" trip where they got to see a lot of the country on tours. quite the world travelers, these two are.

jon...

our youngest, at 16, is in the 10th grade at his new high school, richardson high school. he was accepted into the culinary arts magnet program at the new high school. he is in wrestling this next season and he has been working out tons to get into shape. i think he has grown like a gazillion muscles and has really slimmed down too. he had gone to oklahoma for a wrestling camp where they worked him to the bone. currently, he is trying to get us to take him driving so he can get all his hours in so he can qualify for a real license to drive and not just the learner's permit he currently has.