Friday Lunch

During lunch I went to the park and walked the trails and ran upon this beautiful creature. I counted 8 points! He stood there until I left which was perhaps 3 minutes. He is not frighten of people. I don't think that is a good idea on his part.

The cost of Freedom....

I read in the paper today that 3881 American Solders have died in combat operations in Iraq since the beginning of hostilities. The human sacrifice for this flag is very high. I pray its not in vain. God Bless This Flag.

Show me the money...

Well it looks like the United States Mint has changed yet another bill, this time it's the $5 Bill. The United States Mint added, moved and deleted some features of the $5 Bill to make it harder to counterfeit. What they added was the color "purple" and moved the security strip from one location to another. What they removed was the ever popular oval frame that surrounded the President Lincoln and the Lincoln Memorial. I was a bit shocked but not surprised to find out that the 5 dollar bills were bleached and then were reprinted as fake 100 dollar bills. Apparently the features of the $5 and $100 were similar so the counterfeiters didn't have much trouble swapping the two. Well let's see how long it will be until the next face lift.

The ultimate weight loss..

Laparoscopic Adjustable Gastric Banding which is also known as LAGB or the LAP BAND System procedure is the ultimate weight loss procedure for persons having difficulty losing or keeping excessive weight off. I know someone who had lap-band surgery and the results are remarkable. She lost a very large amount of weight, several health issues have gone away and her confidence is way up. All good things that have happened to her since her surgery. Don't hesitate let the inner you shine get the help you need to keep that weight off and you happy.

Protect Yourself on Cyber Monday...

Cyber Monday the Monday after Thanksgiving, is expected to ring up more than $600 million in sales and attract cybercrooks so here are a few safety tips for us online shoppers:
> Switch your web brouser to Firefox, Safari, or anything besides Microsoft's popular Internet Exployer, which is often in the cross hairs of computer viruses, spyware and adware. You can enhance browser security with add-ons including eBay Toolbar, Google toolbar and NoScript, a Firefox extention. They all help identify phyishing websites.
> Do not click on links in e-mail. E-mail attachments are a breeding ground for viruses. Use unguessable passwords on your Web mail accounts.
> Use a single credit card for online purchases. Limit the damage, in the event someone steals your credit card numbers.
Have fun shopping online just use some simple security measures to keep cybercrooks at bay.

Presidental Families: Dolly Madison coin unveiled...

On Nov 19th Laura Bush paid tribute to

one of America's most beloved first ladies

Dolly Madison at the unveiling of a coin in Madison's honor. Madison's coin is the fourth in the first ladies coins, the first coin series to honor only women. The series movies chronologically: already in coins are Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, and Lady Liberty who appears in lieu of a first lady for Thomas Jefferson, who was not married at the time of his presidency.

Meteorite auction lands with a thud…..

I read that the owners of two of the world’s most famous chunks of meteorites are confident they’ll be able to sell them even though the space rocks failed to attract buyers at an auction in late October. A 30 pound chunk of the Willamette meteorite, which was found in Oregon in 1902 was offered by Bonhams auction house in New York at an estimated value of $1.3 million but was withdrawn from sale after bidding ended at $300,000. The 1,410 pound Brenham Main Mass meteorite, which was dug from a Kansas farm field in 2005, was withdrawn after it drew a top bid of $200,000 well short of the pre-sale estimated of $700,00. The sellers said they have other potential purchasers in mind.

Final Thoughts.....

Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year: to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.

-Edward Sandford Martin

MRAP Shipments to Iraq Delayed, Congress Reports

I read today that the Pentagon $23 billion program to rush thousands of armoured vehicles to Iraq is bogged down by production delays and the demands of the military services, members of Congress said. At a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, lawmakers said a Navy Warfare Center in Charleston S.C. being used to install radio jammers and communication systems on the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs) is not organized to do the work. This is an outrage.....! With all the skilled labor that Ford, GM, and Chrysler has layed off there should be no shortage of anything our troops need outragous.....!

Conservationists Fight to Save Anne Frank Tree...

The chestnut tree that comforted Anne Frank while the teenager and her family hid from the Nazis and that she mentioned warmly in her world famous diary is still strong and should not be cut down, conservationists say. The 150 year old tree behind the Amsterdam warehouse annex where the Frank family hid for two years, until they were discovered and sent to Nazi concentration camps in 1944, is schedule to be cut down Nov 21. The city council decided that the tree is so deceased and damaged that it could fall over at any time. Conservationists went to court to argue that the decision was hasty and that the tree stands as a monument to the memory of Frank, who died in a concentration camp at age 15. A Dutch court is schedule to hear arguments on the dispute today.

Patrich Henry Hughes

Today I meet Patrick Henry Hughes the ESPN Award Recipient of the Louisville Marching Band with his father Partrick John Hughes at CedarCreek Church, Perrysburg Campus. Patrick is a remarkable young man who was born without eyes and without the ability to fully straighten his arms and legs, making him unable to walk. Despite these circumstances Patrick has overcome these physical issues to excel as a musician and student. Patrick plays the piano, the trumpet and sings. He is a remarkable young man and it was my honor to shake his hand and offer encouragement to him and his dad.

Gov. Wallace shooter gains freedom today....

The man who shot Alabama Gov. George Wallace during a presidential campaign stop in 1972 was released Nov 9, 2007 from a Maryland prison. Authur Bremer shot Gov. Wallace on Laurel, Md. Wallace who was paralyzed and abandoned his bid for the presidency, died in 1998, twenty five years after the assassin attempt. Mr. Bremer was 21 at the time and testified that his motive was to become a celebrity. He was sentenced to 53 years and served 35. Mr. Brenner appears to be the first and only assassin to become a free man although I fear more assassins like Sirhan Sirhan, Mr. Hinckley, Mark David Chapman, Lynette Fromme, Sara Jane Moore will be released because of their age and the perceived notion that these people are harmless.

PhotoHunt # 84: I Love___>>

I love pictures of landscapes especially mountains and streams. This was taken in West Virginia during my summer vacation and is this weeks entry for PhotoHunt.

Intel Chips to Have More Transistors....

Intel rolled out its newest generation of processors on Tuesday Nov 13th, showcasing a sophisticated new process that crams up to 40% more transistors onto the company's chips. The most complex of the chips have 820 million transistors, compared with 582 million on chips using the current standard technology. Its difficult for me to perceive the smallness to the transistors and yet they keep getting smaller...awesome!

Miami and Erie Canal: Maumee Side Cut Lock #6

My friend Greg and I share a love of history and one day during lunch he asked me if I wanted to see a lock that one was part of the Miami and Erie Canal. The rest is history.....Today we found the last of the 6 locks that made up the Maumee Side Cut Canal. I found it strange that even though it is surrounded by houses and a small park, if you weren't looking for it you wouldn't find it, and if you did find it, you wouldn't know what it is unless you know your history.

Falls Splendor ln NW Ohio....

Today at lunch I came upon this beautiful Maple Tree in full glory.....!

College the money drain.

Three years ago I took an advanced Visual Basic programming course at The University of Toledo and was very surprised at what it cost to take one 4 hour class. Today I read that college costs have risen 48% faster than the consumer price index since 1983. According to Forbes the federal government is at least partly to blame, because of federal tax credits, grants, and deductions and government subsidized loans have soared 151% over the past 10 years after inflation to $94 billion. Forbes reports that success on that front may owe something to their investment on lobbying, where they've outspent the real estate and oil and gas industries over the last 10 years. My wallet tells me that the coat can't keep going up, it has to slow but then again I will pay almost any price for my childern to graduate college.

Calling all Veterans....

To all veterans of the United States Military if you have any medical issues that are not being addressed I would encourage to visit the following link: Veterans Affairs This link will help you in starting to understand the procedures required to help you to receive earned VA medical care. The most important issue to remember is to call or write your local VA Rep. and request parer work to process a medical claim. All major cities in the U.S. have VA clinics where veterans can go for immediate care for colds and flu that sort of thing. In Toledo Ohio the address is Toledo VA Outpatient Clinic 3333 Glendale Ave. phone number 419-259-2000. I encourage all veterans to take care of their bodies and seek preventive medical attention such as a check up, blood pressure, and all other issues.

Earn Money Blogging

I'm always excited when it comes to making money the easy way! The Easy way you say? That's right, setting at home and getting paid to blog about products and services. Some of the products and services I have heard about, others are new but bloggerwave gives me the opportunity to review and express an opinion. What's more I get paid to do it! Pinch me! I've died and went to heaven.

Photo Hunt # 83 Flexible

Life sometimes requires one to be flexible like water flowing over, under, around obstacles and never giving up.

Marine Corps... Happy 247th Birthday....

Originally organized as the Continental Marines on 10 November 1775 as naval infantry, the Marine Corps has evolved in its mission with changing military doctrine and American foreign policy. The Marine Corps has served in every American armed conflict including the Revolutionary War. It attained prominence in the 20th century when its theories and practice of amphibious warfare proved prescient and ultimately formed the cornerstone of the Pacific campaign of World War II. By the mid 20th century, the Marine Corps had become the dominant theorist of amphibious warfare. Its ability to rapidly respond to regional crises has made it, and continues to make it, an important body in the implementation and execution of American foreign policy. Semper Fi!

Vietman Memorial turns 25.....

It takes 65 hours to recite aloud the names of the more than 58,000 names of the fallen inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.
A reading of those names by 2,000 volunteers will highlight the 25th anniversary to the black-granite wall beginning Wednesday from 4 p.m. to midnight, and again for 19 hours a day Thursday through Saturday. General Colin Powell is scheduled to speak at the main event on Veterans Day, Nov. 11.
For the first time, organizers will stage a poetry and music tribute on the East Knoll near the wall, performed by people who’ve been inspired by the wall. I have been to the wall 2 times and both have been very emotional and is a very moving memorial to veterans of the Vietman War including my father First Sergeant John B. Leach who did 4 Tours of Duty in defense of this great country.

In Flanders Field

In Flanders Fields, 1915

In Flounders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flounders fields

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, thought poppies grow
In Flounders fields.

Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae,
Canadian Expeditionary Force

Major John McCrae...

McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915.
Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.

As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient.

It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:

"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."

One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain. The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.

In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook. A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. "His face was very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."

When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read:
"The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene."

In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.

Government Appeals Patriot Act Ruling...

I read today that the federal government appealed a ruling that the government shouldn't be able to get personal phone, e-mail and financial records without a judge's approval. The USA Patriot Act prevents internet providers from telling customeers whether the government has demanded private information about them. The law also lets the government impose gag orders that prevent the recipients of national security letters from acknowledging the probes. Federal Judge Victor Marrero in September rejected an argument that the statute was a necessary anti-terror tool. He stayed his ruling pending appeal.

The War to End All Wars......

The world had seen nothing like it, and it was the hope of the survivors that their war was the "war to end all wars". This hope was dashed even before the Armistice, because the Great War-as its participants called it, in awed honour of its bloody magnitude-had let roll events which ripple to this day. Out of the four-year-conflict came the Russian Revolution, the rise of Hitler, the Second World War, the decline of Britain, the supremacy of America and the instability of the Middle East (even the 2003 Gulf War can be tracked back to the mandate over Iraq given to Britain at the 1919 Peace Conference). World War I the Forgotten War! Pictured above is the largest American World War I Cemetery at Romagne sous Montfaucon in north east France where over 14000 soldiers are laid to rest.

World War I... The Forgotton War...

I have just finished reading “The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness World War I” with over 180 first-hand accounts of the “war to end all wars”. I didn’t realize the magnitude of the war because it’s been nearly 90 years since it was fought and almost all of the participants are deceased. Has it become the Forgotten War? Despite the haunting images of Flanders’ trenches with “solders bent double like sacks”, the fighting was not confined to a corner of northwest Europe, but took in eastern and southern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and even China and Japan. Fifty million men from thirty nations donned uniforms. When the last bullet sounded on 11 November 1918, nine million of the combatants lay dead, alongside five million citizens. It has become the Forgotten War.

PhotoHunt# 82 Classic

Ran across this gem a 1930 Ford Model T. What a beautiful car!

Honoring Veterans is The American Way...

Our TV screens are flooded with pictures of returning troops who have fulfilled a tour of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan, or other troubled spots in the world where American military has defended our freedom and that of other nations.
We see a uniformed grandmother hugging children and grandchildren, a father scooping his son into his arms, a sister racing toward her brother, and children embracing parents. These are a few of the veterans we honor November 11.

Veterans Day recognizes all who served with honor in the military, be they living or dead. But the day is intended to especially thank our living veterans whether they served in peacetime or in war. The date November 11 was chosen because toward the end of World War I an armistice between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

Some say that Veterans Day has lost its importance as surviving troops of World War II have dwindled. But with so many or our men and women fighting to preserve our precious freedom, it is time to restore Veterans Day to its former glory. The Department of Veterans Affairs distributes a poster to schools, state governments, and veteran’s organizations. Individual poster requests are honored until the supply runs out. Anyone desiring a poster can check out the Veterans Day poster Gallery and select the poster they would like to download.

If you know a veteran Please, Please Thank them for giving and making that sacrifice to ensure the freedom and prosperity of this The United States of America.

65th Anniversary of “Casablanca”..

The movie “Casablanca” was released 65 years ago, in November 1942. It won Academy Awards the following year for best picture, director, and screenplay and was named the best screenplay of all time in 2006 by the Writers Guild of America. The movie centers around a love triangle during World War II between Humphrey Bogart, As Rick; Ingrid Bergman, as Lisa; and Paul Henries, as freedom fighter Victor Lasso.
One of my all time favorite films and here are some bits of trivia about this classic.
* No one in the film knew whether Ilsa would choose Rick or Laszlo until the scene was filmed, including Ingrid Bergman.
* The piano player Sam was played by Dooley Wilson, who was a drummer, not a pianist, in real life. Someone else played the piano off screen for his scenes.
* Humphry Bogart never said, “Play it again, Sam.” Instead, his line was simply, “Play it!” He did, however, really say, “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid,” an equally enduring movie quote.