Back in the late 90’s my cousin J married a really great woman, T. He picked a really good one…a beautiful person both inside and out. She wanted to be a speech pathologist and started attending
They got pregnant a year or two after they were married and were blessed with a little boy. About 6 months after T delivered she found out she had breast cancer. Everyone rallied around her, she went through all the usually treatments/operations and made it through.
Not too long after the breast cancer was gone, the brain cancer came. Luckily we have a cutting edge facility here in
About a year after the brain cancer was deemed gone they discovered cancer in her lungs. She and her amazing family dug in and went through the treatments for it.
Yesterday I found out she has cancer in her liver now. I’m trying to figure out what God’s plan is here and I’m really having trouble with it. She is one of the good ones in our family…always has a smile and a kind word at family parties. Never mean or condescending…I do not understand God’s logic here.
On Sunday my mom, sister-in-law, niece and I are walking in the Race for Cure for the Susan G. Komen foundation. We started it when one of mom’s co-workers had cancer and continued doing it through all of T’s cancer. T’s got her own very large team now for the race and her slogan is Attitude is Everything.
We need to find a cure for cancer and we need to do it pronto. If you are reading this and can afford it please give some money to one of the various cancer charities…American Cancer Society, Susan G Komen are a couple that that I can think of at the moment. Even $5 bucks helps.
Here's the link...I voted for Duc in honor of the late Kevin Duckworth.
I got this from the BBC web site...a zoo in Japan captured the birth of a new Giant Panda on video.
This is pretty darn good. I've started having nightmares about what's going to happen if he doesn't win. I know how strongly I feel about having Senator Obama elected, and I know others who do...if he is not there is going to be a large amount of people that will be totally disgusted with the whole political process. I'm really hoping the people of this country recognize the change we need...
Sorry for the length of time between posts. I haven't been feeling chatty.
Here's a link to this really great blog. Some of you have heard of Daily Coyote...if you haven't the link is here. Well Shreve, the Daily Coyote author, helped her 92-year-old grandma create a blog to post her life story to. It's so great to read her adventures...kind of makes me sad that I can't hear these kind of stories from my grandmas.
Another blogger I find interesting put up a great post on the accumulation of stuff...pretty much describes how I feel about it to a tee. Experiences are way more valuable then stuff...the experiences don't have to cost a lot...some of the cheapest can be remember the longest.
I remember when I was little we had a storm and lost power. My dad was at work and mom brought out the candles and the tape recorder and we recorded a letter to so me relatives.
Yes, I admit it...I like professional wrestling. I've been watching professional wrestling since I was a kid, both live and on tv. I went through a period of time in my teens where I thought it was "beneath" me. It was fake after all, what was the point?
It wasn't until I got older that I figured it out. Wrestling is about the constant battle between good and bad. You route for the good guys and cheer when the bad guys finally lose...and they always do in some way. Wrestling was a way for me to bond and spend time with my dad and brother...it gave us a common ground to connect with.
The wrestling industry did go through a period of time where it lost it's family appeal, there was cursing, beer throwing, etc. Luckily the programming unit saw that the family appeal is what brings in the money and that time has past.
WWE is having a contest next week to give away the sum total of $1 million dollars. The details of it are here. You can enter once per day between now and next Monday at 7:45pm Pacific. You just have to know the secret code (found 6/9 on wwe.com or found by watching the live broadcast at 6pm Pacific on USA) and be ready to give it when they call between 6pm and 8:15pm Pacific.
Moveon.org recently had a contest asking people to submit 30 second videos in support of Senator Obama and his vision for our future. The finalists are here. This one was the winner and this one made me so proud to support Senator Obama (is it too early to call him POTUS?). Which one is your favorite?
Is it wrong that I find the techno-viking so fascinating? I know this went around a while ago, but I have a link to it so I can watch it every once in a while. For those that prefer the non-Michael Jackson version, here's a link to that. For those wanting more information about the techno-viking...here's some info from the best reference tool around, the urban dictionary.
Don't believe me? Without looking, tell me what a merkin is? Yeah, I didn't know either.
The eggs in the hawk's nest from the Raptor Cam hatched today...here's a link to the cuteness.
Here's a neat article on an ancient ghost forest that has been uncovered at the beach. Should we be concerned about all this sand being displaced? There's also been reports of enough sand being displaced to uncover cannons and shipwrecks.
Here's an fun-to-read account from one of our representatives, Congressman Earl Blumenauer, about his tour with the Obama camp during their recent visit.
Back for the second year in the row is the Raptor Cam. There's three eggs in her nest this year. Last year there were two, but one of the little hawks died when he/she fell out of the nest (before learning to fly). Sometimes you get to see them with some prey they've caught for dinner. YUM!
Check this out...I seem to be on a Star Wars kick lately (watched it on the plane with Stacey's husband Jeremy, then watched it with my niece and nephew this weekend).
It's just funny that as I would be on the internet watching election results that someone would send me this link to some classics by George W. Enjoy!
CBS has the complete series of the old Star Trek to watch online...for FREEEEEEE!!! The link is here. Looks like they have a bunch of other old shows too...Melrose Place, Hawaii Five-O, THE TWILLIGHT ZONE!!!! Why isn't everyone screaming this from the rooftops???
This weekend I went with M&D on a mini-road trip down to Eugene. There we went to some nifty places...one being this place and the other being the covered bridges tour in Cottage Grove.
The raptor center was so utterly amazing...there were so many beautiful raptors (eagles, hawks, falcons, owls) there that would have died had it not been for these folks. Definitely worth a see if you are down in the Eugene area. If I could have gotten good pictures I would have...they have a fine mesh around the enclosures to prevent other birds from coming in, so the pictures weren't good.
Good tidings fair readers. :)
Tomorrow there is going to be a lunar eclipse...the next one won't be until 2010. Here's a link to a nice graphic Nasa has showing who can see what and when.
I guess Fox just picked up the rights to do an American version of this game show. I peed a little bit while watching it because I was laughing so hard. It originally came form the Japanese, and this is the French version.
Some of you know what a fan I am of PostSecret. It's an ongoing art project where folks anonymously send in their secrets on the back of postcards they've created. Mom got me a book for Christmas and I guess a big thing to do after reading it is take it somewhere and leave it with 5 of your own secrets in it. I might do that sometime after I finish it. It seems like it would be liberating. It's so fascinating to me how some peoples secrets mimic my own. It makes you remember how similar we all are regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation.
Anyway...they posted this nifty Valentine's Day montage of different love related secrets they've received. Happy V-Day Everyone!
A co-worker sent this to me today (one of the few I have left!). We need more public art like this:
In case I wasn't the only one wondering why the government is forcing us to switch from analog to digital...here's a link that explains it.
When I was a kid, pictures of old things were boring. Museums, etc...boring. Stories about old things...boring.
Who would have thought that when I got older (one could say I became an older thing) that these things would now fascinate me? I love hearing stories from my grandma about how things were different when she was younger. I love looking at old photographs, and things in museums.
I read Wil Wheaton's blog (Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The New Generation) and he just posted a link about the Library of Congress posting over 3,000 old photographs on Flicker. Check it out. (Side note, Wil's a really great story teller and has a couple of great books out. If you want to read them let me know.)
http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2008/01/library-of-cong.html
I had a post all planned where I was going to talk about my work, how when one door closes, another opens, yada-yada-yada.
I just found out that the brother of one of my co-workers committed suicide today. He was 42, had a wife, children, grand-children. What can be so wrong with someone's life that they would leave all that behind? Some days I yearn so much for a mate and some kids that I can't breath ...I can't imagine having those things and feeling so much despair that you'd end your own life.
Anyway...just had to get that out.
I like Barack Obama. I think he's a well spoken, intelligent, decent man, whom I could sit down and have a sandwich with without being too terribly bored. He's not afraid to say what's on his mind, and he conveys it in a way that everyone can understand.
When asked by a student if he ever inhaled when he did drugs in high school, he indicated "The point was to inhale. That was the point". He also indicated it was a mistake and he had wasted part of his life on it. He's human.
That's part of the reason I'm voting for him. The other part is that he inspires me. I wasn't around when JFK was alive, so the closest I've come to be inspired by a president (or candidate) is with Jed Bartlet on West Wing. I believe in him, and for the first time ever I've given a political candidate money for their campaign.
This kind of enthusiasm is nice to see.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article643231.ece
I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while now...my stumbling block has always been what to call it.
Yesterday afternoon I went with my parents out shopping. My dad needed to pick up a computer microphone for one of my uncles, so I decided to pick one up too. You just never know when you are going to need to talk on the computer.
I got home and started plugging it in. When I did, I called my dad on Yahoo Messenger to test it out...my family has tried calling me many times on Yahoo, but I never had a microphone so couldn't answer. That was that and I went in to watch a movie.
My brother tried calling me, but I couldn't get to the computer in time and I got a prompt asking me if I wanted to setup voicemail. I clicked Yes, and was taken into the voicemail setup. It said I'd receive an email to my Yahoo account when I had a voicemail. GREAT!
Well, after I completed the setup I got 3 voice mails that my uncle had left me back in October. The weird thing is my uncle died in November. So, I had a minor cry fest before I listened to them. One was empty, but the other two had my uncle's voice. In both he said "Love you" and in one he sang me "Oh What a Beautiful Morning". That was it...the flood gates opened. You lucky people.
