Saturday, August 30, 2008

Where do we stop.....


So ...I watched Gov Palin on an old episode of Glenn Beck. First of all Glenn Beck should have asked her to marry him because he appeared to be in love with her ...but anway...

She was talking about drilling in the ANWAR area of Alaska and how its the duty of the people to explore that area and open it up to drilling. SHe said that there is plenty of natural gas and oil trapped beneath the surface to handle the needs of the United States. What she failed to mention was this ...and she is not the only one who fails to mention these things, but here goes...


  • Drilling in that area will not create immediate results. It will take years to study the impacts on the region and then years to get the drilling actually going . Do people think that the Alaskan Pipeline was built overnight ?

  • All the oil and gas in the world is great BUT it will eventually run out . Plain and Simple. There is only so much of the stuff left and once its gone, then what???? We make more of it ? I dont think so .....Some analysts predict that the worlds reserves of oil will be used up in the next 50 years, and thats being conservative . Then what ??

  • Who will really benefit from all of this untapped oil and gas ? The people of Alaska ? The people of the lower 48? Will these great reserves of oil be used ONLY in the USA or will it maybe be sold overseas to the growing economies or China and India? Nations that are growing at an alarming rate and greatly need fuel. Who will recieve the huge $$$ windfalls that will happen once this land is opened up?

  • And speaking of opening up land ....where do we stop? Proponents of the drilling in Alaska say it will be restricted to a small 2000 acre tract but what happens when it is figured out that oil is beneath Kachemak Bay in Alaska? or near the Portage Glacier ? or off Prince William Sound ? Or in Chugach National Forest ??? No one answers these questions ...

Why dont we use this time to focus our energy and resources on finding real alternatives to not just foreign oil, but to oil in general . Gather the best scientists and minds in the country and offer them incentives of some kind to find a real change. We have done this before in this country. When no one else could figure out a way to dig a canal across Panama... we did . When no one thought that polio could be wiped out ...Dr Salk figured out a way to do just that thing. When people said we could not land a man on the moon ...we did just that and when folks said we could not beat communism ...we did.


But instead of agreeing to any of this Gov Palin will tell people how terrible stem cell research is and how terrible it will be for the nation if gay men and women are allowed to get married . How every man and women should own a gun because the constitution tells them they should..forgetting to mention that in the second line of the 2nd Amendment it says that the federal and state governments have the right to enact laws restricting gun ownership..... BLECH .....This is just one of the many reasons I will not be voting for McCain/Palin on November 4th.


Perhaps we need to explore other options ...just a thought .


Friday, August 29, 2008

NORTH TO ALASKA ........























So ...It would seem that Alaska has been in the news quite a bit today ....I am not here to talk about Sen McCains choice of his VEEP canidate. I will only say one thing and thats this ...the McCain camp can now lay off the whole "experience " thing....I mean come on.

Having said that I will now talk about my great trip to Alaska last week....

IT WAS AMAZING ....I have said that time and time again over the last week and I reallty dont know how else to describe the place ....Its just wonderful,glorious,amazing, breathtaking ....everything really.
To be in a place that is really untouched by human hands is a wonderful, soul mending experience. To be able to stand on the back deck and look across the bay and see a huge glacier and know that that glacier has been moving slowly for the past several thousand years...
To see whales off from the small boat you are riding on....and a 35 foot boat is small to me folks. It was really the trip I had hoped it would be .....enjoy the pictures





















Saturday, August 23, 2008

It's Never Easy....


So...I was going to post about my trip to Alaska tonight but other events have bumped that posting till a later date...

I did get to go to Alaska and it was AMAZING but on Friday morning right after we had finished breakfast I get a call from Mama telling me that my Nana had died that morning at the nursing home in Georgia.

This was my Dads mother and she had been in failing health for sometime ....Hospice had been called in last week but still its never easy to get that call and realize that someone you love and care for is gone. She had breakfast on Friday morning and was sitting in her room when she had a massive heart attack . She was 88.

Words right now cannot begin to tell you how much I will miss having this wonderful women in my life. She taught me so much and showed me so much ....I ache tonight knowing she is gone.

I will get to posting about Alaska soon but for now I remember my Nana .

Peace be with her tonight.



“I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid. "

John 14:27

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Travel is fatal to prejudice......

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and, narrow mindness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad,wholesome,charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all ones's lifetime.
Mark Twain 1869

Tomorrow is the day ....I leave and head to Alaska. It's gonna be fun,cooler and more than anything..... relaxing.
Travelling prayers are much appreciated.
ALASKA HERE I COME !!!
See yall next week!!

Monday, August 11, 2008

It's not breaking and entering ....













....If the gate is broken ..Right ?

So ...Last weekend I went to the beach and while I was there we found ourselves at the big Alvins Island on the strip. For those of you who have NEVER been to the beach, Alvins is a HUGE store full of crap. Floors and floors of CRAP.

Coffee mugs with tacky stuff on them, airbrushed tshirts and caps,racks and racks of cigarette lighters,petrified or mummified aligator heads,wind chimes made of sea shells,beach chairs,beach umbrellas,beach toys,beach towels,beach coolers ...lots of crap. There are several Alvin stores spread across the panhandle of Flordia and into Alabama and they are always crowded. We took a group there to just kill time and hang out some ....
While they were inside I was outside with a friend and we wandered over into the parking lot of the abandoned Miracle Strip Amusement Park.

Miracle Strip used to be the spot during the summer ....It was a throwback to old time parks. Alot like Coney Island in NYC. The Big Eli Ferris Wheel, wave swinger, merry-go-round, musik express, paratrooper, teacup ride, spider, train ride, Looper Sea Dragon (swinging boat), Shockwave (Kamikaze), bumper cars, mini-enterprise, the O2 drop ride, a variety of small scale versions and spinning rides kids.The park had the old bumper cars,the big swings,an old wooden roller coster called the Starliner. The park opened in 1963 and was a regular stop for my family during the last part of the 1970's and into the 80's. The park was sold to developers in 2003 and closed in the early winter of 2004. The wooden coaster, Starliner was sold to Busch Gardens in southern Florida.

We walked around to the entrance and the gates were all locked but most of the windows of the ticket booths were broken out.....then we noticed a gate that was broken and laying open...

Well....of course we went in..Not to cause trouble but to see something one more time before its gone for good. There is a good bit of damage caused by recent storms but you could still get a feel for the old park.

We walked around for about 30-40 minutes before finally getting creeped out and leaving but man the memories came flooding back to me while in there ....

Anyway ....it was a cool walk down memory lane.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

OUCH!!


Talk about bad timing on Greyhounds part....The bus line has pulled all of the above type ads after the recent beheading onboard one of its Canadian buses.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

141 and counting ............

So....
Let me be the first to offer a hardy MERRY CHRISTMAS to you all....Yup, if yall know me then you know that I love the holidays. When the temps start staying near 100 I crank up my christmas music on iTunes and enjoy.
Christmas music is also a soothing thing for me ...It relaxes me....
Anyway....I am odd there is no doubt about it ....
Happy Holidays everyone !!!

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Something that made me laugh ....

If you are offended by crude humor of any kind then you should leave this blog now....

One day, during lessons on proper grammer, the teacher asked for a show of hands of those who could use the word 'beautiful' in the same sentance twice.
First, she called on little Susie who said " my father bought my mother a beautiful dress and she looked beautiful in it"
Very good, Susie replied the teacher. She then called on little Michael. 'My mummy planned a beautiful banquet and it turned out beatifully'
Excellant replied the teacher. Then she called on Little Ralphy...'Last night at the dinner table my sister told my father that she was pregnant and he said "Beautiful, just F@#**$G beautiful'!!!!

A teacher asks her class, 'If there are 5 birds sitting on a fence and you shoot one of them, how many will be left?' She calls on little Ralphy.
He replies, 'None, they will all fly away with the first gunshot.'
The teacher replies, 'The correct answer is 4, but I like your thinking.'
Then little RALPHY says, 'I have a question for YOU.
There are 3 women sitting on a bench having ice cream:
One is delicately licking the sides of the triple scoop of ice cream. The second is gobbling down the top and sucking the cone.
The third is biting off the top of the ice cream. Which one is married?'
The teacher, blushing a great deal, replied, 'Well, I suppose the one that's gobbled down the top and sucked the cone.'
To which Little RALPHY replied, 'The correct answer is 'the one with the wedding ring on,' but I like your thinking.'

Little RALPHY returns from school and says he got an F in arithmetic.
Why?' asks the father?
The teacher asked 'How much is 2x3,'' I said '6', replies RALPHY.
But that's right!' says his dad.
'Yeah, but then she asked me 'How much is 3x2?''
'What's the f...... difference?' asks the father.
'That's what I said!'

HA !!!!!