In Memory....

I don't recall WWII; the war I was born into.  I do remember the fighting in Viet Nam, Korea and Iraq.  The Bible says there shall be wars and rumors of wars in the last days.  We commemorate the fallen in all the wars, back to the Civil War, The Revolutionary and beyond.  We have family members who were soldiers in all those wars.  Yesterday as we sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic, in church - I thought about the age of that song and the fact that our great grandfather probably heard it and may even have sung it.  It is a link to the past in so many ways.  We must remember the history of the country and of our friends and family.  In Viet Nam, the first time that war became a personal thing to me was when Mom told me that a childhood friend named Danny had a brother who died in 'Nam.  Here is a link to the Viet Nam Wall Memorial in Washington, DC.  You can find Wayne Hutchinson listed here from Miami.  Say a prayer for him and for all the brave men and women who put their lives on the line for us each day. 

A Nose by any other name is stuck in a book....

The folks at Amazon sent me an email and a link to UPS so I could check the status of my pre-ordered book by Stieg Larrson.  It's the third in the Millennium Trilogy and I ordered it way back beyond the beginning of the year.  Well, maybe just after.  It was a good deal off the new-book price and I already owned books 1 and 2, courtesy of Walmart.  I planned on checking the website to see where book 3 might be spending the night but when I got home yesterday, there was a brown box on the dining table where our new mail lands.  Ripping it open, I did an internal happy dance.  There in all it's shining glory was The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest.  Um, I think I will see you on the other side of the weekend - or when I decide to come up for air. 

And baby makes three

I work with a young woman who has been in waiting these nine long months.  T. and I attended her wedding.  It was a very special occasion where the whole audience laughed when the preacher told her brand new husband, "You may now kiss the bride." and he reared back and wiped his mouth with the back of his arm and both hands. 

They had a honeymoon, came back to work and after a while nature took its course and they had a baby girl.  They had thought to only have the one child and so the husband, we'll call him Clint (since that might even be his middle name.) had a little outpatient procedure done that the doctor said would guarantee no more children.  After a time, they had an opportunity to adopt an older child.  It was a boy.  His circumstances were such that he might have been in foster care for some time except for the two adults taking a decision to expand their family.  Now there were the four of them.  A perfect number for a family nowadays.  The children grew and the parents overcame the normal things a family deals with.  And then, the young woman had a startling revelation.  She showed signs and symptoms, and when she took a test, lo and behold - she was with child.  Clint went roaring back to his doctor who did some testing and discovered the previous out patient procedure had, uh for sure - come un-undone.

The young woman and her husband may have gulped a little.  After all, having three children when you only planned for two would take some adjustment.  Insurance will be more expensive, to say nothing of food and laundry bills.  The pregnancy went well, despite some problems.  When she went home on Monday, she said, "See you tomorrow, unless ... "

Today this young couple gave birth to a girl child who weighed a little over 8 pounds.  She is lovely on her Facebook picture.  Her daddy looks so proud holding her for her first daughter and father photograph.   Their Facebook friends' messages of congratulations were at 24 and growing the last time I checked.

It strikes me that this is the same size family as our Mom and Dad had.  And in the same ratio, 2 girls and a boy.  Now, when they go to a restaurant and the hostess says, reservations for a party of five... the party of five is all their own sweet family.  May their joys multiply! 

And may that un-named doctor be right this time around!

Not exactly your game of Pong.

I saw on Google News where it is the 30th anniversary of Pac Man.

Wow, who keeps track of these things! And to celebrate, you could play a game right on the World Wide Web, within the Google logo. It wasn't just the familiar colorful letters as per usual. It was a game of Pac Man with the playing field around the name Google. I don't know how they did it but I took full advantage of the offering. I played Pac Man. Right on the computer at work, where access to almost everything fun, exciting or family oriented is blocked on the server.

It was just like stepping back to those early gaming days. I felt giddy, like a kid who is getting away with fooling mom and dad.

I shared the information with the one other person who happened to be in the office at the time. Pretty soon the Pac Man theme was wafting across the office and I heard the other player's voice over the music. She said,"Neat!"

It takes so little to satisfy, sometimes. Thanks, Google!

Yeah, but would you drink the water?

We got up early and I did T's medicine doses for the coming week. While the coffee was brewing, I turned on the television and happened to catch a spot on the Fox and Friends, Sunday show about a product manufactured by a private company that they claim will fix the problem of the oil spewing up in the Gulf and heading towards our pristine gulf shoreline. It's called Smart Sponge and can be manufactured in any shape and size required. He held up a small piece that looked like a slightly over sized popcorn kernel. In fact, he told the viewers - this was the "popcorn configuration". He proceeded to demonstrate the product with a vial of clear water and a smaller one of motor oil. He poured the oil into the water, capped and shook the vial and then showed the resulting mixed liquid. He held up a second vial that was packed with the Smart Sponge and placed this vial, which had an opening at the bottom, over a third vial. He then poured the mix of motor oil and water onto the Smart Sponge vial. The motor oil stayed in the top vial while clear water ran out the bottom of the middle vial into the empty one at the bottom. He claimed that the product had been demonstrated to the companies that deal with oil spill clean-up. Nobody is using the Smart Sponge. The talant on Fox and Friends wanted to know why not.

I kind of want to know, too. It is apparently in use in drainage cleanup systems and other applications in the country.

The Stars at Night are Big and Bright -

Aunt Ranger called them the Astronomers.

The telescope was a big hit with the grandsons here and we just sent the other one to the Alabama contingent this morning. I wish I could be there to see the reaction! It was most satisfying to see the boys faces when they opened the box and then hovered as their mother assembled the lenses and finder scope. I'm telling you, sometimes WOOT outdoes itself on the offerings presented.

Helping hands

By this time, most folks are aware of the tragic explosion and sinking of the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that has left barrels of oil spewing into the water. Our daughter in Alabama says there are clots of the stuff coming ashore on the beaches. It makes us sad to think of all the ruin that may be floating toward shore.

People in our town are wanting to help and not quite knowing how. But yesterday there was an article in the local paper about the beauty salons that are collecting hair to donate to help create the booms that are extended along the shoreline to try and keep the oil from coming in.

This morning we woke to another article about the alpaca farms in the area that are collecting fleece that they will donate in order to try and soak up the spill.

There on the cover of the newspaper was a picture of a 9 year old cousin feeding a female alpaca owned by the Suwannee Valley Alpaca farm in White Springs. The alpaca was freshly shorn according to the article and her fleece will be donated along with that of other animals in the herd. Businesses from this area are sending human and dog hair along with panty hose to help in the effort to hold back the oil with the booms. This farm will donate 200 pounds of hair.

It gives one a feeling of pride to see our area step up and give so generously in this environmental emergency and to know our family members are contributing as well.

So the phone rings and.....

So, I'm sitting at the computer and the telephone rings and I pick it up and it's for T. I called him to take the call and he did. And, I'm still online and surfing the Internet.

In the good old days, when the phone rang, I wouldn't have heard anything because I was using a dial-up connection to access the Internet and y'all wouldn't have gotten through to the house. The good old days were about 20 minutes ago!

Some things change for the better. Some things are amazing. There is now a satellite dish on a post outside my side door. And a modem on the desk beside the CPU. Green lights flashing away...loading information up. Loading information down. I really need to figure out how to hook the Belkin router into the system so I can move around the house while I surf. How cool is all this technology.

Very!

Hi Speed WOOT, Mon!

Wow, it's been a while since the last post. We're blocked at work from several websites and most blogs are among the verboten. We have been told that once the server and entire new system is in place in all areas - the IT guy will go around and restore select sites. We can't even access Facebook and that is in use by some of us in an official capacity. It has been a major bummer, believe me. I feel cut off from humanity and the news and just about every amusing website on the 'net. Guess that is because, like Popeye, 'I yam whats I yam!'

The lack of contact with outside weblogs and even my personal email has brought me to the brink of despair at work. At home, my sloooow dial-up is just maddening and I made a decision to do something about it. I called our satellite company and signed up for their first level of high speed satellite service. The technician is supposed to be here on Friday between 8 and noon to install the dish, modem and cables that will allow me to jump into the fast lane with the rest of the world. Of course, the service guy may be running on a different kind of time than I am. I have taken the entire day off. I will call later in the afternoon to confirm that I do indeed have an appointment. The company has been known to schedule a call and then have it evaporate right off their screen - leaving no trace. If by some miracle we do get set up in the morning hours - I could go back to work... nah, I can't see myself doing that. I can see me surfing as fast as my fingers will take me to those sites that have always been slow to load. Places where I have sat and waited for minutes for a NASA Hubble picture to scroll down the screen. I may even set up a wireless home network and boot up the netbook in the living room. Look, Ma! No cords!

Oh, wow -I need to go work on some strong passwords!