Florence View

Japan, Six Degrees of Separation, and Gaman

2011-03-17T13:30:00.000-07:00

I have a feeling that people will remember where they were on 3/11/11 like they remember where they were on 9/11/01. Not with the same horror of mans inhumanity to man, but awe and horror at mans infinitesimal insignificance in the face of Mother Nature. I woke up early in the morning for some reason and saw something about the earthquake posted on facebook. I turned on the tv and watched with horror and fascination for hours when I should have been asleep.

I was wondering why I was so fascinated by all of what was going on in Japan. I had felt bad for the people in Haiti last year, and for the tsunami of 2004 and even contributed a bit to charities but I hadn't truly thought of it very much. I watched Katrina hit the coast with horror and amazement but I had visited Gulfport more than once and loved the city. But Japan is around the world, I knew no one there and was related to no one or so I thought.

The theory of six degrees of separation was brought home to me though in a photo of tsunami refugees in a shelter the other day. Many of the Japanese people do not have strong oriental features or what I think of as strong oriental features, and these two elderly ladies looked like my grandmother and my aunt. This stuck in my mind till I put 2 and 2 together and did manage to come up with 4. I do have relatives in Japan and they are related to my grandmother and aunt. It's a long story but there is a family disease (Machado Joseph Ataxia) that is transmitted genetically. Everyone who has it is related to a group of Portuguese sailors, everyone. There are families with this disease (which I do not carry the gene for, thank goodness) in Germany, Portugal of course, Japan, and the United States among others. So through a wandering Portuguese sailor I do have relatives in Japan.

All of that didn't explain why I was so fascinated by this disaster. The people enchanted me, their stoicism in the face of horrible deprivation and loss, the ability to go on after witnessing that horrible black wall of water was so different from what we expect to see in a disaster. The nuclear disaster is giving them more worry but their attitude is one of Gaman which means quietly enduring difficult situations. This seems to work for these people. The lines for food, water, and gas are orderly, no shootings, no looting, the idea the squeaky wheel gets the grease is not even an option there at this time. I wonder if perhaps we could all take note of their dignity in the face of tragedy and perhaps learn a lesson from it all?

If you want to read more about Gaman and Japan's history of disasters you can go to this link. Macado Joseph information is located here. There is also a wonderful article about Japanese stoicism here.

A GREAT FamilyThanksgiving

2010-11-27T14:44:00.000-08:00

We had a great Thanksgiving. This is a long story but some of the lines contained within are worth it, trust me. I know it's supposed to be great every year but sometimes it isn't? This was my nephews idea. It was all a big surprise for my brothers 70th birthday (there are only two of us, brother and I, 16 or 17 years difference, depends on when you ask). Anyway it was all a big surprise, my brother knew my husband and I were coming and maybe his son, my nephew. The rest was a surprise....we were missing one of my brothers nieces, the step kids, and of my brother grandkids but we had a great deal of the family together...
My daughter her boyfriend and his two sons showed up first, that was a big surprise to my brother. We made like this was the reason we kept telling brother we needed more ice, chairs, silverware, etc. Then his daughter (giving rabbit ears in above picture) appeared. I wasn't there to see it (I ran out to say hi) but they said his mouth actually dropped open, he said "I'll be dammed" and he grinned and went for the door when he spotted them out the front window.
A great time was had by all, the "I'll be dammed" will go down in family lore as we usually figure out when something is "up." Everyone was there, even the 5 dogs...(two were left behind with sitters). It had been a long morning, lots of coffee, I decided that I had time to visit the facilities before the blessing.......I knew I'd made a grave mistake when it was deadly quiet before the flush...I came out of the bathroom to face like 30+ eyes.....then my niece said in an impatient voice tapping her foot ......"Jesus is waiting!" My daughter said the blessing and she did make it through it but then we bent over double....was just too much... So now we aren't really a sacrilegious family, but that will go down in history.
So then I put the above photo on facebook, it has been blurred and crinkled to protect the not so innocent...We were trying to decide which family photo we liked best on facebook. My daughter who wasn't there got on and said "I'm the pretty one." I replied gently, "but you weren't there." She said "I'm still the pretty one."
So you get the gist of how the whole thing went....TOO much food and laughter.
I'm just wishing everyone could have a Thanksgiving like that at least once, even including asking the lady walking down the street if she wanted to be in the photo......no we didn't but it was mentioned......and no we hadn't been drinking...

Children's Luggage and Tis The Season

2010-11-21T03:24:00.000-08:00

You know what next week is right? Thanksgiving and then we know what comes, full blown shopping frenzy. CSN has ways to combat that frenzy, from Children's Luggage, to handbags, furniture, clothes, and one of my favorites, dog crates. The overnight bag pictured are only $20 a piece and are perfect for kids going to grandmas house, in fact that is the name of the bag! The bag is made of nylon and polyester, and has reflective cording for safety. The wheels are inline skate wheels and the handle is telescoping so it adjust for different size kids. CSN offers this and so much more this holiday season for gifts or even for YOU!!

Here are some special deals CSN stores let us in on. Since these sites are offering exclusive savings at incredible discounted prices, promotional codes will not be accepted.

CSN Baby
CSN Games
CSN Exercise and Fitness
CSN Toys and Games Online

Now think about shopping Friday morning after Thanksgiving early, then think about sipping coffee in your pj's while surfing from these sites or even doing it earlier in the week? Sort of a no-brainer if you ask me?

What Do Black Friday and Children's Luggage Have In Common?

2010-11-20T09:47:00.000-08:00

I'm going to talk about children's luggage and tell you how you might find some black Friday deals.

I admit I'm doing this for CSN, tomorrow or later today I'll have a review of children's luggage. I don't do reviews for every store however. I do research and stick to reputable organizations with good track records. Are you dreading black Friday? If so you might want to check out the deals CSN stores have to offer. Shopping online with CSN is easy. CSN offers free shipping on items over $69 that can be shipped via regular shipping methods.

Watch for my review tomorrow or later today!! I'll have a bit more on some other deals CSN has to offer also.

I'm looking seriously at their handbag section.

Ground Zero And The Mosque

2010-08-23T10:33:00.000-07:00

I thought about writing this last week (we aren't going with prescribed blog format here, just what comes off the top of my head) then I said naw......there are enough people talking about the mosque @ ground zero in New York. Then I saw this video or what I could see of it because my internet connection is limited.

It seems that a man of vaguely African heritage (do rag on top of head basically, why not offend all while I'm @ it not just the conservatives, why should they be special?) walked through the crowd of protesters that were gathered @ the proposed Islamic Center close to the former site of the Twin Towers or Ground Zero. (BTW you should check out the hallowed ground they are right, Mc Donalds, Strip Clubs, Chinese Restaurants, I know my insurance agency was next door too) So this guy who is a carpenter is walking through the crowd of protesters and they basically attack, especially one dude in a shiny shiny blue hard hat and green t-shirt. He really wants to fight the guy who looks vaguely foreign. You all know the end to the story, the man with the white African hat was going to work @ the memorial @ ground zero, he is a carpenter there.

What does this teach us?
1. The guy in the shiny hard hat just bought it.
2. Do not judge people by their do rags.
3. First impressions are often wrong.
AND most importantly except for the Native Americans WE were ALL foreigners once.

I Thought Trouble Came In Threes?

2010-08-16T13:57:00.000-07:00

This isn't South Texas, actually it's green down here. The heat thing? It's worse down here I swear than this photo. Of course it's just as bad everywhere. Who cares if it's 98 or 105? Deadly hot I can't stand outside and survive for long periods of time hot is just HOT.

So the refrigerator broke last week? The truck broke the week before? Well this weeks problems decided to condense themselves to this morning. This may be a good thing but it led to some rather short fuses and nerves.

1. Air conditioner fan broke in front of the semi. That wouldn't be such a tragedy because there are two ac units on trucks except our other one had a leak in the freon and he plugged it off so the one in back REALLY doesn't work. BUT this gave him an extra fan to install in front until we could find another fan which took 3 stops. Freightliner truck, you'd think a freightliner DEALER would have a fan? Silly silly you!! We had to go 3 places to find a fan and freightliner couldn't even tell us where to find one. (Pharr Texas) He got it running first thing this morning by pushing on said fan blades while fiddling with the knob, a fact which he should not have told me because I was meditating on his great mechanical skills before his confession.

2. We got locked out of the motel room we stayed in last night. OK, we left the key on the dresser and then decided we needed back in the room because it was HOT @ 5:30 AM in the truck and the dog and I might as well be in the cool while he worked on the truck and then he could come back in and get cleaned up (he hadn't actually GOTTEN to the fan blades to PUSH on them yet), BUT being brilliant OCD people we were going to be ORGANIZED and EARLY and got out of the motel room @ 5:30 for our 8 AM appointment 10 miles AWAY!. 5:30 AM not supposed to be HOT in the truck!! Then the new key the night manager (boy) wouldn't work and he had to come make it work for me...
.
3. After finding a new fan motor much later this morning and putting it in we were following behind a gravel truck, Diamond Rock BTW but I know from previous experience it's useless to call them. POW a rock hit our windshield and it will have to be REPLACED soon.

4. You thought we were through didn't you? We go to clean out the trailer (husband has been doing trailer cleaning as he is still in the----she wouldn't go trucking with me for 8 years, I'd better not screw this up------phase. But since I used to clean trailers out all the time I decided I needed the exercise. Trailer wouldn't start. For all of you non trucking people it's a reefer. A GIANT refrigerator or freezer. Would be nice to have it started since it's 100 and we will be doing physical sweeping inside of it. I swept and he fixed the unit, it had lost it's prime or ground or something. Sweeping wasn't too bad but the dog did get rather dirty "helping". This is AFTER I washed his feet, twice.

So we are still married. I haven't demanded to be taken to the nearest airport, he made me take the dog carrier out of here anyway. Hopefully the rest of the day will be better? Thank goodness I married a mechanical person!

One Refrigerator, Two Refrigerator

2010-08-15T13:41:00.000-07:00

This is my world, those are my feet. This is the back of the truck. See the little box up in the left corner? That is the built in fancy refrigerator. It's been in here since last November (husbands father built the shelves for it all) it was on my bench in the family room before I moved it to the basement before THAT. A new frig like that costs between $700 and $1000. It hasn't been working for a few days now. Quit last week. I fiddled with it and looked up the repair manual on the internet. Fiddled some more. Decided he had it wired wrong even though it worked before...

We went to Wal Mart yesterday. Bought a small refrigerator for $58, realized when we got it in the truck it wasn't DC it was regular AC but thank goodness we have an inverter. The difference between $58 and $1000 is quite a bit though. One of those regular coolers that plug into the power source don't do well in hot weather or if the truck is turned off. You can see the new refrigerator, it's the white square on the floor in the left corner. You have no idea how COZY it is to have only about 1x2 ft instead of 2x4 ft back here by the bed. Now I have to move the frig to get clothes out etc. We do now have a frig again though.

Guess what else happened when we bought the new frig and got groceries in it? On a lark I had turned the old one back on. It was freezing water by last night. I did fiddle with the thermostat while ago and I think that is it but we fiddled with it for like 4 days last week and that didn't work! So now I'm trying to figure out whether we should find a place to strap the white frig outside the truck and take it home or just try to sell it in the parking lot of a truck stop? Of course if we did do that the old one would immediately quit again. Oh and we have another small frig almost identical to this one @ home, it's not like we needed a small frig! But we weren't home to pick that one up.

You aked what is the black square up above in the middle of the photo, or maybe you don't care but I will tell you? It's the microwave. To warm my coffee up in the morn, I have fried eggs etc. and don't make fun of my shelves, stuff has to be crammed in there or it falls out!

So Murphys Law and all the other sayings and laws are fully in effect and all is well with the world.....

Thoughts On Life And Kindness

2010-08-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

My friend Maureen @ IslandRoar has an excellent post titled the Kindness Of Strangers . She lost her father recently and tells of herself and her daughter saying the very same thing to their respective mothers...I didn't want you to be alone. It really got to me. Then the kindness the ticket agent showed her reminded me of so many times strangers were kind to me and sometimes became friends.

Nothing like this has happened in my life recently. Just a slow trickle. Actually I'm happier in ways than I've ever been, more comfortable in my own skin as they say. But we have had our share of setbacks and today is no exception...slow to get unloaded. I'm applying for online writing jobs for a bit of extra moulah. Actually all of this started with a graduation, a wedding, a reunion, the Mexican Government and a load of pork but it's a long story still being looked into by insurance so we won't go into it here.

It (the bad luck) all started again last week with the truck breaking but we got it fixed cheap enough, just took awhile (for those of you who don't know I'm riding with my husband in his truck, I used to run his trucking company but we wanted to stay sane and got rid of it have one old truck now ugly but it's PAID FOR!....I used to sell on ebay before the recession...I used to paint and sell on ebay, I even worked @ Wally World for awhile and was groundman for a hurricane crew and gopher) anyway we have been shown much kindness that was unexpected in the last week. A friend of ours and his wife came and picked us up and let us use their vehicle to go to the motel, they had dinner with us and even looked for motels with laundry facilities in them for us. Then he took us to our other friends house the next day and he (2nd friend) took us to pick the truck up when it was fixed. Then he took my husband to KC to pick up a check (I admit I did clean said friends bachelor pad while they were gone). You ask why we didn't just go to enterprise rental? I think the nearest one was 50 miles away for one thing..... We finally got out of there and went and picked up a load in IA. We stopped to see my daughter in Wichita and she drove us countless miles when we had a tire go bad, the dog got fleas from another dog, had to go get flea spray, etc. etc...... Now we are going to get loaded it seems after all tomorrow which is good due to my husband being the fastest most dependable trucker there is but also because of the kindness of the produce broker who has saved our hides more than once this year.

This isn't a pass it forward plea or anything like that. Just take a moment and think who do you have to be thankful to or for today. Who is suffering and could benefit from just a phone call. Who haven't you forgiven? Who could just use a little help and encouragement? Who were you close to last year and why aren't you this year?

Two Chairs On The Porch, It's A Very Very Fine House

2010-07-30T18:57:00.000-07:00

Traditional porch design courtesy of houzz.com

We recently drove from Buford Pusser Land to Muscle Shoals Alabama and before you can sit and think where have I heard that Muscle Shoals before it's in Lynard Synard's Sweet Home Alabma....

It was like 50 miles through these totally neat little farms and landscaped country homes...after awhile it started to feel like we were in Stepford though. All of the sudden I realized ALL of the houses with porches had TWO chairs on the porch if they had a chair @ all. Once in awhile there would be a swing and two chairs or a bench and two chairs but the only times the RULE was broken was when there were a bunch of people actually pickin guitars and banjos and singing on the front porch and then another house had a computer chair on the porch and some sort of old naugahyde couch. I don't really believe they were into serious decorating @ that house.

We then drove through Florida, parts of GA and south Alabama, MS, LA, TX and NO WHERE else did I see so many homes with TWO chairs on the porch. It's weird what becomes tradition.

I have two chairs on my front steps.......BUT there is a broken chair with a flowerpot on it sitting by the wire plant stand in the flowerbed so that is ALMOST three chairs?

I was seriously wondering how rigid the customs in those hills had to be to be able to dictate the number of chairs on a porch though? Thoughts?

Storm and Landspouts? plus a word from our baby turkey vulture.....

2010-07-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

It's rained for days in Missouri. To be honest it's rained pretty well since March except when it snowed. It has been a tad dry the last month though but we are in our rainy season again I think. Yesterday the sun broke through right before the REAL rain hit and I had to take these pictures. I hate to be melodramatic and mushy but it just about made my heart hurt to see the beauty.
Right after this I'm looking @ the weather map (I could tell you it was because I was concerned about the storm but it was because I was wondering when dish network would come back on and how long it could POSSIBLY stay off). A tornado warning popped up to the SW of us which is always a cause of interest if not alarm. It just wasn't tornado weather. They said they were landspouts and would disappear but should still be watched? Now I'd heard of a landcane a couple years ago when that hurricane went nuts and decided to regenerate over Oklahoma or something like that but a landspout? Seems there is such a term and NOAA has decided to use it?
The wikipedia definition is here if anyone is interested. I'm thinking I've seen a landspout tear up a house once but ......
We didn't have anything but rain and a couple claps of thunder last night, it's a beautiful day today. I even walked down the hill to the main farm and took video and photos of the ~~RABID HATEFUL SATANIC~~ baby turkey vulture in the barn we found. There are more videos of the ~~HISSING MONSTER~~ little dear on youtube under ambacrombie.

Blogs And Facebook, Women Bloggers and My Brother.....And an Old Dog....

2010-07-08T15:39:00.000-07:00

You need to go read this blog.
It's funny. And interesting, but we all know funny is better.
She talks about bloggers all getting their periods @ the same time like girls living in the same house. Not to far from reality.
No time to do anymore, I have to go look for my dog. Skeeter. Judy (Squirrelqueen) suggested that Skeeter may be a zombie. We laughed and laughed @ that but it's not too far from the truth. She can hear whistles though. She has been walking from house to house which is like 300 yards every day, I've had to feed her ham while she lays down and bring her water though. Have you ever seen a dog eat while laying on her side? Trust me they WILL do this.
I am also swearing off facebook for the day.
It's harder than I imagined.
My brother is SUPPOSED to be getting a computer today. If so I will have to make him a facebook account (excuse for getting back on facebook, my DOG is even on facebook, he needs me to check his page?), my brother is old enough to be my father but I bought him a computer (with his money) years ago. He never did get on the internet with it and now it's obsolete but like the WHOLE family is on facebook. Hopefully he's going through with getting the puter this time. He can run a computer, our dad was a mechanic and I swear the idea is the same, turn the switch on, it needs power and the stuff to work, duhhhhhh. We will see.
I keep telling him he has to get on the internet so I will quit making fun of him on it.......

Make Firefox Window View Full Screen In Mac

2010-07-07T10:01:00.000-07:00

I phrased the title like that because I used all those words,

Make Firefox Window View Full Screen In Mac,

plus the word bigger in my search. I found this link, which basically says make a book mark, put it in the bookmark bar up @ the top. For location paste this in, (if it doesn't give you the option to edit location, right click, go to properties and voila put location in)

javascript:self.moveTo(0,0); self.resizeTo(screen.availWidth,screen.availHeight);

And put it all in ONE LINE, OK? Oh and BTW I have a mac from 2005 and os 10.39 so I'm upgrading soon but that's what I'm running. Newer firefox and os 10 versions may have this built in.

Click on the bookmark in the bookmark bar, the bookmark that you have hopefully named something like Firefox Big or something catchy like that, and you can live life normally again.

Furniture And More

2010-06-29T10:32:00.000-07:00

I like furniture, I LOVE furniture.

I love QUALITY furniture, see this desk? It was in the shop, my dads mechanics garage, it cleaned up rather well don't you think? It's a rolltop and the roll top still works. It was really really sturdy because the bottom drawer used to hold ball bearings that I played with (when I was a child, I just feel of them now, don't ask). Ball bearings are REALLY heavy.
Remember I said I like quality furniture?

The people @CSN stores believe in quality too. The cherry bedroom vanity above is extremely high quality. It also has free shipping, check it out. They have 200+ stores all together and often have the same prices you can get @ your local discount store and a MUCH bigger selection. In other words they have the dog crates I like for $30 and gorgeous well crafted furniture like this with FREE SHIPPING.

Or if anyone is really interested and the vanity above would go better with my bedroom decor.

Dress Choices For A Wedding

2010-06-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

OK, the blue dress? My step daughters wore it to their college graduations, I LOVE the blue dress, I need blue shoes. The black dress? I bought it when the son that is getting married this weekend graduated from high school. He's 27 now. I have stilettos with ankle straps that I might wear with the blue dress, they are black though. I do have better shall we say undergarments to go with the blue dress.....OK, I didn't have on undergarments....
I'm thinking the blue dress? I have one that is big print black and white but I'm just not into big print....it's a morning wedding outside and it's supposed to be 95 with over 100 degree heat index.....I am going shoe shopping Fri probably so maybe I'll find something else. My computers are getting so outdated though they won't open certain things.....$100 not spent on a dress and shoes is $100 toward the computer right?
So do I look like an aging slightly chubby slut in the blue dress? The black one has tiny tiny little polka dots btw, I LOVE tiny polka dots.....and my knees aren't that weird, it's the light I swear....so what do you think?
I don't know what the camera does, I'm taller and skinnier in person......

GREAT Photos and Fathers Day!

2010-06-19T18:08:00.000-07:00

Fifteen Photos from a fabulous atlas that costs $5800.
And the Twelve Weirdest Fathers Day Photo's both courtesy of the Huffington Post.

Happy Fathers Day to All, my other half got a low carb, low fat, low sugar chocolate crazy cake, just substitute yogurt and applesauce for the oil and splenda for the sugar, yummmmmmmmm.

Spooky Clouds After Mowing

2010-06-18T04:15:00.000-07:00

We'd just gotten through mowing or rather husband was still on the tractor and I decided standing outside with a metal pole (weedeater) wasn't smart so I took these pictures Sunday.

We didn't even get any rain out of this. But we have gotten rain ever since!

Shingles And Not What Goes On A House, Naturopathic Links

2010-06-17T03:15:00.000-07:00

I am not a doctor nor do I play one on TV. I was an EMT and I've read more books on examinations, nursing, natural remedies, and homeopathic medicine than is smart or decent probably.
My husband got what seemed to be shingles, general tired feeling, achey, burning sensation in almost a square moving from his backbone around his body, changing into blisters...
I have MANY relatives that are doctors and nurses. My daughter is a nurse...cousin, aunts, sister in law, neices, cousins doctors, uncle doctor....I've also had steroids and took one dose and said NO MORE. It was like being on amphetamines but NOT FUN. (not that I would know). It's not like we don't KNOW medical people?
Steroids, antibiotics, antivirals, and painkillers are the treatment of choice for shingles we found out.
My husband isn't too much on traditional medicine and he didn't think he was "sick" enough to go to the doctor and then he got worse when he had to work....he wanted to know what the doctor would probably prescribe and he said NO. (we are talking about the man who had a kidney stone pass and tried to get me NOT to take him to the emergency room when we were almost there after he couldn't even DRESS himself!!)
My husband also takes Dr. Sinatras Vitamins and has for years. He also takes the blood sugar supplement and q-10 as well. In all defense we don't get sick very much anymore since the kids are gone and not in school. My husbands mother is 85 and had open heart surgery in February which started this all we believe because she also had a stroke and was sick before the surgery etc....
So with all that under consideration I tried and tried and tried to get husband to go to the doctor. I thought it was shingles, his sons had had shingles as well as my mother. Husband said NO, what else can I do about it, I'd rather buy vitamins than take all that medicine. (he hates painkillers and has had some bad experiences with antibiotics) So I researched on the internet and found what vitamins etc. were recommended for shingles and we bought common run of the mill vitamins, herbs, and supplements from Wal-Mart.
He is better now. He would say he is cured. Remember this is not medical advice in any way this is just what worked for him.
What did he take besides his regular Dr. Sinatra vitamins and a low carb, low glycemic diet he's been following for awhile anyway?
Pain relievers either ibuprophen or naproxen sodium both generic, as needed.
Aloe topically (left over sun-burn pain reliever) as needed.
L-Lysine
Echinacea
St. Johns Wort
Vitamin C
Viatamin B combo
Vitamin E
And we were also trying grape seed which had some green tea in it.
The vitamins were given @ the rate of 2 a day, not sure on the amounts but they were whatever you would grab off of the shelf @ Wally World. The Vitamin B and E in fact I had in my arsenal of vitamins so I have no idea what the dosage was. We are down to 1 a day on the vitamins.
The St. Johns Wort we were both taking 4 a day, now it's 2. Everything else was 2 a day, now it's 1.
Also some foods can not cause shingles but they aren't good for it. Nuts are one food that isn't good for shingles, we had a giant can of GOOD mixed nuts not long before he got shingles...
Some days he misses the vitamins but we try to keep it up.
The normal course of Shingles is a month or 6 weeks. His lasted maybe 3 weeks, maybe a month. They never did get very bad except for the pain. He had two blisters which lasted a week maybe?
He swears he is cured.
I lift my hands and say (in my best faith healer voice) you are CURED, I say CURED, I have CURED you. He doesn't think this is funny.
His blood pressure is also down about 20 points which is GREAT. He attributes those big white pills.( L-Lysine).
Links not harmed in the filming of this documentary are....
http://thisisawar.com/HealthCold.htm
http://www.mothernature.com/Library/Bookshelf/Books/23/130.cfm
http://naturopathicmedicineworks.blogspot.com/2008/03/shingles-is-caused-by-same-virus-as.html
http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Shingles.htm
http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/shingles/shingles-medications
Humor me OK??? Just our experience and what helped.

Landscaping 101, 102, and maybe 103

2010-06-15T19:07:00.001-07:00

First of all I forgot to add a link yesterday to the Road To Here for the Silly Photo Contest. Well here it is!!

And here are the photos from my landscaping, brush cutting, rat killing (no I didn't kill any rats, it's an expression) or whatever you want to call it. See the before here....

Look Ma no BRUSH!!

Silly Photo Contest, Find The Animal

2010-06-14T20:27:00.000-07:00

Over on The Road To Here my friend (and extremely talented photographer and blogger and all around nice person.) Judy has a photo contest. It's one I can enter because it's the SILLY photo contest.

Let me assure you there were many contenders in my files. From pictures of the dog where you can't see his eyes and he looks like a white rug to pictures of two dogs that were fuzzy but I just kept on taking them to pictures I took of a shed that blew over before it got daylight like it was going somewhere again? Or the 20 pictures I took of the stuff that had been in the shed and was still sitting in the same place, or the tornadoes that happened that day only you can't see anything in my pictures but maybe bumps in the clouds? These were all contenders and we are only talking a very small percentage of my pictures here.

The one above won though. There is an animal there. You can't see it, the tape is hiding it and the reflection. It's a snake. A tiny tiny tiny snake. We'd just built the wall to finish a garage, it wasn't sealed and evidently the tiny tiny snakes got upset. So they started coming to visit in the house, UNACCEPTABLE. I had left some tape accidentally on the bottom of a lamp and it caught one of the snakes. Therefore OUT comes the super duper packing tape and the dog had to stay out of the corners. None of this is here nor there. You can't see anything but a dirty concrete floor and cords and a toy tractor plus a scrap of rug and lots of tape.......I am an animal lover, the snakes have to stay out of my territory though.

If you were looking for landscaping pictures they will have to wait, the SILLY photo contest is ON!!!!

Our Ancestors Left Trash Laying Around

2010-06-14T04:49:00.000-07:00

Actually these weren't MY ancestors because I have a feeling this was there before we bought this part of the farm. See that thing sticking up that looks like it's made out of metal? It is and it's a car spring and it's ensnarled by many roots by a tree, there are stumps nearby too so this will have lilies planted around it instead of being scraped bare around it like the rest of the trees. I found it while clearing brush around our extended lawn that gets bigger and bigger...my brother got the other half of the farm or we would mow more.....LOL

Here are the before pictures and another piece of iron I found in the grass.

Tomorrow the finished product.....

Blogging Tips

2010-06-12T07:09:00.000-07:00

My friend/cousin Robby launched a blog this week. Being lazy and it's after 10 pm decided to write about blogging since I've been keeping up with blogging this week even though I've been working part time again. And Robby can read this when he gets time.

I read an interesting post about launching a site using just twitter. This is pretty interesting, especially the authors use of wordpress etc. as I am ~~totally screwed up~~ fairly proficient in wordpress and related apps. What did this post tell me? I need to find tweet meme for my blogger blogs, this one (serious blog), Animals That Give Pause (animals, duh) and Missouri Books (book reviews). I already have tweet meme for Tresa's Blog (my humor blog and personal. I do need to work on animalsthatgivepause.com which is basically like the blogger animalsthatgivepause but it's MINE as in no one can take the name or the blog away...think about it.

Second tip about blogging? Mention your blog everywhere....facebook, link in your other blogs, comment....this will get you a decent amount of readers.

Easiest way to get bloggers? Have a post that is really like current. I lucked out with Labradoodles when the president and his family were looking for a dog. Use a picture everyone wants to see and voila.
You are probably on facebook? Go with it....get connected with others with your interests. I've recently started searching out artists and other bichon frise owners. Of course I have to like the artist and feel comfortable (most are women) before I ask them to be my friend. The bichon owners? Most of them I am friends with are in this big social circle of bichon owners. Of course you could do this with anything.
Go to http://www.problogger.net/ and do what they say.

Go to Twitter, be good and do follow Friday, don't just tweet yourself, follow everyone within reason....and everyone who follows you IF you want a network which is why you are there right? I'm TCblogger btw on twitter.

I know you are saying she has 19 followers who is she to tell me this? Ahhhh go see Animals That Give Pause on blogger and check out the number on the bottom right. Considering I haven't really been a good or prolific blogger not to shabby huh? Tell you a secret, I gave up on blogging after a few months, went back a couple months later after not writing hardly anything and had almost 10,000, decided I'd start writing again.....

We walk and look @ my garden and yard pond.....

2010-06-10T05:26:00.000-07:00

Two more videos, the last one stopped but....

The Leak In The Gulf In Relation To Our Present Way Of Life

2010-06-08T15:47:00.000-07:00

The Gulf Oil Leak,Government, Big Business, Politics And Our Way Of Life
Probably not politically correct but it's me.....
I voted Democratic in the last election. I have admitted it to most. In fact I'm rather proud of it. Yes I voted for the ~~negro~~ black man. Most of my relatives voted Republican because they are Republicans. They are also doctors, law enforcement officers (they like that better than being calle the fuzz ;-)) and some are older, I'm willing to give them that that probably influenced their mindset. I'm probably one of two people who voted this way in my town so we don't talk about it much locally. I vote for whom I like.

I have a 1/4 black step grandson. I helped raise him till he was 3 or 4, we had him quite a few weekends anyway and sometimes for days. His mother was a divorced young mother and we had young children too so it was just natural. It's really hard to be prejudiced toward black people after you have held a black baby for days and weeks, drove him around in the night to get him to go to sleep, helped him take his first steps, fed him, bathed him etc. He graduated from High School last month and is going to college this fall on a scholarship because he is smart and hardworking, handsome too but we don't want him to get the big head. I often examine my motives on everything (I really do, not making this up, it's probably a character flaw but I will call a spade a spade) and this may be partly why I felt extrememly comfortable voting Democratic. Not to say those who voted Republican are prejudiced but that was the reasoning for some even though they don't admit it. I'd even voted for Mc Cain previously but he just didn't have the message that struck a chord with me this time. Not criticizing just explaining my mindset.

I was listening to some PBS type radio show yesterday (yes I listen to pbs and voted democratic and I go barefoot and sometimes drive too fast, heathen all the way around). The radio show was criticizing Obama for being in bed with big business. I'm thinking ahhhh our previous president got all of his wealth from oil and they are criticizing Obama for being slanted toward oil. Before this happened last I heard Obama was being criticized for being unfriendly to oil companies? Which goes to prove the man isn't going to win no matter what he does. And yes he is a man the same as every president before him. This unfairness is rather beside the point but I just wanted to point it out.

The BP oil leak in the gulf is a horrible thing. To those of us who grew up reading the Mother Earth News and George Orwell (and before anyone starts screaming socialism is what Orwell was about he was also about corruption, greed, and control) things are getting just a bit uncomfortable. Ok they are uncomfortable for everyone but the fact is we are pouring poison into a worldwide ecosystem at a rate of thousands of gallons a day. Then I heard part of what is coming out of the leak is colorless and there is more than one leak. The only good thing for the gulf is that it is a warm or hot ecosystem so the rate of decomposition and change is more rapid than the colder climates. Translation is heat and moisture makes the bad stuff go away faster. That being said it is still a tragedy the likes of which we have not seen before. As one who would/or would have moved to Biloxi MS in a heartbeat if my kids weren't here it makes me sadder than some. Yes BP should be punished, it will probably lead to their demise as an entity if this continues much longer, BP is just a company and people in the end though, punishing them will not bring back one pelican or fish. It could have just as easily been an American company that we have warm fuzzies toward that made the fatal mistakes leading up to the leak. The reason for the leak is being pointed out as cutting corners, bad safeguards etc. Which would utimately lead to treating the whole world badly and has through the pouring of thousands of gallons of poisons into our largest body of water.

We are going somewhere with all of this I promise. We have all heard that this generation that is now coming of age is the first who can look forward to a lowered standard of living from the one their parents had. Things are just going downhill economically. Why is this? Many say it is a normal cycle, some say previous greed led to our present downfall, the reasons are numerous and varied.

I believe big business and their mindset is at least partly to blame for the lowered standard as well as the leak. Their greed and wall street specualtion has led to an economic system that does not sustain the people whom give it the ability to keep moving forward and who compromise the biggest part of our population. This is why I voted Democratic, big government is bad but we have seen and are seeing what big business does and I think it is getting worse. I seem to remember a Republican program, the trickle down effect where we would cut most social programs and basically give tax cuts and more weath to the rich so they would give back to the poor freely. Nice thought Robin Hood, I mean truthfully it's rather like a fairy tale isn't it? Then we had the economic collapse of 2008 but we can blame it on housing and the democrats. Why housing? People couldn't pay their mortgages? Why? They were spending too much elsewhere..... like on their fuel bills so they could get to work or move their freight or heat their homes because the price of oil had been driven up by speculation. But lets blame it on permissive Democratic programs from a decade ago? Don't get me wrong, I'd just as soon not deal with the government either and Democrats are no saints, sometimes they are just plain looney, sometimes they seem the lesser of two evils howerver. Big business has been doing about what they want for years and if someone says that isn't right they will tie it up in court till you go broke or die, if government says it isn't right? Big business pays for lobbyists to wine dine and coerce, if that doesn't work they contribute to campaigns.... At least with government there is some hope for change? Some moral responsiblity. I'm Pollyanna but surely there have to be SOME people who want to be in politics just because they think they can help or do a better job instead of getting their hey look @ me jollies?

I believe the Republicans are inexorably tied to big business and are all for the richest. That is fine if the richest truly want a middle class and don't mind paying their fair share. Why is their fair share larger? If you have $100,000 in income you are MUCH more likely to be able to spare $21,000 for taxes than if you have $10,000 and are asked to contribute $2,100. It just isn't there.. I know this is oversimplified but with the increased wages and the $250,000 higher tax bracket I couldn't belive how many people were raising holy hades. You aint making this much ever to make it plain and simple. In fact the politicans who implied it would effect you lied and they know they lied. It was like saying buy a barbie doll and you will look like one, it aint happenin people to put it bluntly. I probably know off the top of my head 10 people I could name in a minute who make that much, ok maybe 15. I know lots of people. The rest of you? Your taxes are not going up. This is what gets me, it's like oh my we can't raise taxes on $250,000. Why???? If you get remotely dirty or sweaty in your job you aren't making that much. If you have less than 10 people working for you you probably don't make that much. If you DO make that much you can afford to pay a bit more and if you can't you need to quit having parties for 100 every weekend or trade in the jaguar or something.....that is the FIRST reason why big business and Republicans are linked....

This all started to come together for me in the car driving home from the bank on a hot June day. Why was I driving home from the bank? Why? Big business has once again been giving us fits. I can't say too much but my husband has been in his field for 40 years. 20+ of these years he has dealt with this particular branch of the industry and this particular company. I may criticize my husband but careless with the actual process of business he is not. He has often risked his health (I think) because he told someone he would do something. I mean we are talking a man who can tell you what he was doing most days from a mileage diary and who sorts his paper money and cringes when I stuff mine in my billfold, of course he can usually tell you to the dollar how much cash he has and what his last fuel mileage was, anal is the word we are looking for, careless is not. Now a big company is saying he/we/the entire company is lying about careless at the best, malicious at the worst damage to a product (actually I don't think the product was damaged, I think the foreign customer just didn't want it). A product which we never even touched just had control of the environment and I know personally what they are saying happened didn't happen. They are saying something that is scientifically impossible in any case is what went on or else we deliberately and maliciously attacked their product, yeah I want to retire broke, always been a dream of mine....NOT. This could end up costing untold $ when actually we aren't getting paid for the work we did do and extra time involved at the present time. Would this have happened years ago? No. Why? Because the company did things differently, didn't expect something for nothing, actually believed people they had dealt with for years, many many smaller companies worked for them and life was good, they actually cared about people or seemed to. The same company used to subcontract many family members and local people and businesses in the 90s and early 2000s. Something started changing a few years ago...it was gradual but the effects have been horrific. Subcontractors were strung along and lied to and then abruptly terminated. New equipment purchases that were required? Tough t&%%* said the kitty, you now own a $40,000 piece of equipment you have no use for, pay for it as well as you can. In fact as I wrote these words I realized this had happened before with this company and us..we had done business with them in the same location for years...they asked us to buy equipment to do MORE business, we went out and bought the equipment it was well over $50,000 of EXTRA equipment. A bigger company got wind of it and saw the room for profit, buying the equipment for them was a drop in the bucket...we the small company got the shaft and the big company got the job, they were sloppy and lost it but that is neither here nor there. Shortly after that we quit doing business with them for a period of time.

You may think Oh, she is just a poor lazy loser. My husband and I have been self employed for almost 20 years, you don't do that if you are completely worthless. We've been bosses and lately employees off and on for a couple years. After being a boss I believe you make a better employee. My bosses may disagree but I think so. How were we treated as employees? By the individual people GREAT. By the large companies? Like dog poop. My husband and I both worked for large corporations. Mine was a given they treat people like dirt. His? It was a skilled job which required living away from home. They would call men down from several states away, employ them for a week and then send them home after they had quit their previous jobs. The men weren't doing a bad job. They just needed someone for a week. The corporation might call them back and they might not. Sometimes they would promise jobs and there would be none, the expense to get to the job could be more than the average family makes in a month. These men were all subcontractors as well as employees, we aren't talking unskilled labor, we are talking men who had had some degree of success previously in business and their own equipment. Whop, hit upside the head with no unemployment and no job. Then the company would lay people off for a month, get behind and need to speed up, call back the previous employees and hire more and repeat the whole cycle. This wasn't normal business but it was normal business in 2009 when a job like that was so hard to come by once again big business is in charge screwing with peoples lives to be blunt. We were lucky, some weren't. The economic damage from this all was bad enough but the psychological and emotional toll on men and families was horrific.

Part of the reason for all of this? Small companies and the self employed? They don't stand a chance anymore. In our industry large companies have been trying to drive us out of business for years. One of the last opportunities for a man to go into a lucrative position for himself is disappearing. Competing industries are partially to blame, excessive government regulations are partly to blame which are lobbied by the big business and other industries and the ability for large companies who shaft people with great glee and charge less than their actual cost in order to gain control and monopolize the market are to blame also. We have become a nation where the ability to bend the system to benefit yourself is called good business and rewarded. The ability to deliver a product or service on time and cheerfully is looked upon as mere menial labor and beneth us all. Think about it...

My solution? I'm not a politician or a reformer but I believe we need to take a long hard look @ life as we know it now. Greed and slip shod business practices have brought us a horrific natural disaster and an economic quagmire we are still slogging through. It's time to examine what is good and right, big business lies and cheats and cuts corners for greed. It has almost cost us our environment and it's time to stop. We may have to not drive as much. We may lose the generation x ability to jet here and jet there. I think we need to look @ how we teach and learn. I am all for learning and education I love to learn new things. I am totally against putting in your time for a diploma just because you need a diploma, school should be for learning, I've seen way too many graduates that didn't know their derriere from a well (their behind from a ......) they went and put in their time, they graduated but could they do their job efficiently--- no. Not only the college educated but merely technologically qualified employees. My last internet tech comes to mind... they probably $20 an hour, I went through 3 techs, I finally got it going not them and I have NO formal computer education and can't get a 9-5 job in a tech field for a big company because I haven't put in my time in a college. I really don't want one because I freelance but it's an example. You say there are too few jobs? Truly crack down on illegal immigrants. Make businesses who employ them liable and it a crime to employ them punishable by jail time. If illegal immigration had penalties like selling liquor to a drunk has penalties people would think about employing them. I know this isn't winning me any hispanic friends but we can't help our neighboring countries much longer if we can't sustain ourselves. I could have been a paralegal, people say I could have been an attorney. What does this mean? I can argue. Is arguing profitable? Just for the attorney as far as I'm concerned? Someone who is sue happy? It used to have a social stigma but no more. I don't have all the answers but I have many of the questions. Look @ yourself. Are you driving 50 miles just for fun and say a ball game, race or concert, when you don't have to? If you didn't do this could you maybe take some more time off and do something you enjoy that doesn't use energy like hike close to home? If more of us did this would we have had to drill so much in the Gulf? I know sports and music fans will have issue with this but truly everyone has a way they could slow down and support small business. If we truly cut down on travel, learned something, tried to get along with our neighbor, treated people fairly and with equity, and supported a small business this year it wouldn't be a big change for anyone but it would be a huge change for us and ultimately the world.

I know I'm not the only one who thinks they have part of the answer. I know I'm not the only one who can see some the problems. I know I'm not the only one who was shafted or has had big busieness shaft them lately and repeatedly. But I think all of the things I have written about are interconnected, we are all to blame, we are all guilty, but we are all capable of finding and making some sort of solution possible, otherwise an Orwillian world might be a best case scenario.

Lawn Video

2010-06-07T20:22:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple videos I took this afternoon after planting flowers. There are two more I will put on later.. don't everyone use up all blogger bandwidth waiting...seriously I think they are sort of pretty.

Quality, Tools and Values That Are Meant To Last

2010-06-07T03:43:00.000-07:00

I've had these shears,clippers, loppers, or brush cutters since 2000 or 2001. I went to our local lumberyard and said OK I've broken every pair of clippers we've had. (my daughter said I stole her upper body strength in a satanic ritual? she stories but I can break handles and keys and clippers easily) anyway I said I want a pair of clippers that won't break. I was also taking care of my father who had Alzheimers and was perhaps a bit frantic and preoccupied, didn't want to keep running into town after tools.

This is what they sold me. It's been 9 or 10 years. Granted the clippers were like $20 or $30 but it's been YEARS! They told the truth, I've never sharpened them and I CAN NOT break the handles. The brother of the man who sold them to me is the carpenter that helped my dad build the house we live in now. It's almost 40 years old and we still call it the new house. A bit dated but still SOLID and actually in better shape than many new houses I can think of. Once again Quality and care.

Both of these men are gone, the owner of the lumberyard and his brother but they both represented solid values not always seen today.

I'm friends with the daughter in law of one of these men on facebook, she knows who she is. As I was using these clippers the other day I remembered how I bought them and thought I would share this story. I wonder how many other people have similar stories of tools they use?