Blog Status

To let all of you know that read Mom and Dad's Blog that they were involved in a fairly serious traffic accident on Thursday night. They were hit by a drunk driver in their hometown here.

Luckly they were in the Suburban and were not injured severely. Mom was the worst, breaking 3 ribs and injuring her left leg.

Dad broke his left wrist and was badly shaken up. They are both home and resting and trying to heal.

They wanted everyone to know why they have not blogged of recent days.

Derek

Empty Nest

Husband and I talked this weekend if we really HAVE empty nest syndrome or not. Number 1 son married 2 years ago and Number 2 son left for college in September. Someone HAD to ask if it was bothering us. We looked at each other and what do you say. "Hell NO we are having the time of our lives and doing things we only thought of doing before?" or do we look sad and say "Yes, it is just terrible and such a loss!"

I will admit the telephone ringing less (much less) and actually being able to USE it and having it be for us without our cell phones ringing is unique. Being able to shower in the morning without having the water go bare assed cold in the middle is also unique. Not having to run here and go there at the slightest whim of Number 2 son because his car broke down again because he insists on having a COOL car he can fix himself is definitely on MY top 10 list of things I don't miss and neither does husband. (we took turns) and the husband and number 2 son's conversations of "While you in our house you WILL adhere to our rules (which husband made up as he went) are not conversations I miss. Or the rushing in the door and leaving it open "were you born in a barn…..jeez" and the rolling of his eyes as he goes back and shuts it with a resounding SLAM! Are also not things we miss.

What DID we used to do before we had kids? Do you remember? Not sure I do.

Ok so does my mother of the year award suffer because I don't miss those things? Did I miss the point of motherhood? We are supposed to be wandering around in a huge house, lost and unable to function? Maybe they haven't been gone long enough? Why did we have so much fun this last weekend at the coast? Hmmmmmmm…………………………..
So when does this empty nest syndrome kick in?

Have You Eaten Your Genetically Modified Food Today?


Monsanto, the real and symbolic leader in genetically modified crops, is a company that environmental groups love to hate. A “Monsanto +antichrist” Google search turns up 53,000 hits. The virtual hate carries over into the real world, too. Last month, Monsanto claimed that activists damaged 65 percent of its test fields in 2006. And yet, in the last 5 years, Monsanto’s stock price is up over 700 percent, and the company’s directors keep snapping up more shares.

But Americans don’t eat GE specialty crops, which include vegetables and fruit. As a 2004 USDA workshop found:

Relatively few GE specialty crop varieties have been submitted to regulatory agencies for clearance, and most of those that have been approved are not available in the marketplace today…The number of products in development… is approaching zero.


In August 2006, the Center for Food Safety released a fact sheet that stated, "the depth of market rejection of GE foods is arguably unparalleled by any other consumer product." It’s hard to square these statements with Monsanto's $689,000,000 in net income during 2006.

There are two parts to the explanation of this seeming paradox. One is that American public opinion is not nearly as hard-edged as the CFS statement suggests. Scores of polls and surveys by both sides can be reduced to three simple ideas. One, American consumers know just about nothing about genetic engineering, more than ten years after its introduction into the market. Two, American consumers intuit that they don't really want their food genetically modified. Three, that belief is not very strong for most people, i.e., one study found that only 2 percent of respondents had done something or "taken action" because of their concerns over biotechnology.

The other part of the explanation is that US consumer attitudes don't actually matter very much to the current GM food business. All Monsanto needs is for you to love Twinkies and Coca-Cola, the food machinery of this country does the rest. Monsanto’s model is business-to-business (B2B), like server sales or logistics. Monsanto is more like Oracle than Apple. To the average consumer, GM crops are invisible, especially because you don’t have to label them in the US. The attitudes towards GMO that matter to Monsanto are those held by big agribusiness seed buyers and corporate farmers, not Joe Six Pack. And the IT managers of the farming world love Monsanto. The chart is of US GE crop adoption of their big three products, corn, soybeans, and cotton, which just happen to compose 75 percent of the revenue generated from non-fruit and vegetable cash crops.

If you’re an opponent of GM foods, here comes the scary punchline. A big chunk of all that genetically modified corn and soy go right into our processed foods and into feed for the animals we eat. So chances are, unless you are a raw or organic foodista, you ate a GM food derivative this very day.

9-11-07

Rememberance to the 343 Firefighters that lost their lives and the 3,009 people who lives we gone in a tragic second:

Agnello, Joseph
Ahern, Brian
Allen, Eric
Allen, Richard
Amato, James
Anaya Jr., Calixto
Angelini Sr., Joseph
Angelini Jr., Joseph
Apostol Jr., Faustino
Arce, David
Arena, Louis
Asaro, Carl
Atlas, Gregg
Atwood, Gerald
-
Barnes, Matthew
Baptiste, Gerald
Barbara, Gerard
Barry, Arthur
Bates, Steven
Bedigian, Carl
Belson, Stephen
Bergin, John
Beyer, Paul
Biefeld, Peter
Bilcher, Brian
Bini, Carl
Blackwell, Christopher
Bocchino, Michael
Bonomo, Frank
Box, Gary
Boyle, Michael
Bracken, Kevin
Brennan, Michael
Brennan, Peter
Brethel, Daniel
Brown, Patrick
Brunton, Vincent
Burke Jr., William
Brunn, Andrew
Bucca, Ronald
Buck, Greg
Burns, Donald
Burnside, John
Butler, Thomas
Byrne, Patrick
-
Cain, George
Calabro, Salvatore
Callahan, Frank
Cammarata, Michael
Cannizzaro, Brian
Cardinale, David
Carey, Dennis
Carlo, Michael
Carroll, Michael
Carroll, Peter
Casoria, Thomas
Cawley, Michael
Cherry, Vernon
Chiofalo, Nicholas
Chipura, John
Clarke, Michael
Coakley, Steven
Coleman, Tarel
Collins, John
Cordicce, Robert
Correa, Ruben
Corrigan, James J.
Coyle, James
Crawford, Robert
Crisci, John
Cross, Dennis A.
Cullen III, Thomas
Curatolo, Robert
-
D'Atri, Edward
Dauria, Michael
Davidson, Scott
Day, Edward
DeAngelis, Thomas
Delvalle, Manuel
Demeo, Martin
Derubbio, David
Desperito, Andrew
Devlin, Dennis
Dewan, Gerard
Dipasquale, George
Donnelly, Kevin
Dowdell, Kevin
Downey, Ray
Duffy, Gerald
-
Eagan Jr., Martin
Elferis, Michael
Esposito, Francis
Esposito, Michael
Evans, Robert
-
Fanning, Jack
Farino, Thomas
Farrell, Terrance
Farrelly, Joseph
Feehan, William
Fehling, Lee
Feinberg, Alan
Fiore, Frank
Fiore, Michael
Fischner, John
Fletcher, Andre
Florio, John
Fodor, Michael
Foley, Thomas
Fontana, David
Foti, Robert
Fredricks, Andrew
Freund, Peter
-
Gambino Jr., Thomas
Ganci Jr., Peter
Garbarini, Charles
Gardner, Thomas
Garner, Thomas
Garvey, Matthew
Gary, Bruce
Geidel, Gary
Geraghty, Edward
Germain, Denis
Giberson, James
Gies, Ronnie
Gill, Paul
Giammona, Vincent
Ginley, John
Giordano, Jeffery
Giordano, John
Glascoe, Keith
Gray, James
Grzelak, Joe
Guadalupe, Jose
Guja, Geoffrey
Gullickson, Joseph
-
Halderman, David
Halloran, Vincent
Hamilton, Robert
Hanley, Sean
Hannafin, Thomas
Hannon, Dana
Harlin, Daniel
Harrell, Harvey
Harrell, Stephen
Haskell Jr.,Thomas Haskell, Timothy
Halloran, Vincent
Hatton, Terry
Haub, Michael
Hayes, Phillip
Healey, Mike
Heffernan, John
Henderson, Ronnie
Henry, Joseph
Henry, William
Hetzel, Thomas
Hickey, Brian
Higgins, Tim
Hohmann, John
Holohan, Thomas
Hunter, Joseph
Hynes, Walter
-
Ielpi, Jonathan
Ill Jr., Fredrick
-
Johnston, William
Jordan, Andrew
Joseph, Karl
Jovic, Anthony
Juarbe Jr., Angel
Judge, Mychal
Kane, Vincent
Kasper, Charles
Keating, Paul
Kelly, Thomas
Kelly, Tom
Kelly Jr., Richie
Kennedy, Thomas
Kerwin, Ronald T.
Kiefer, Michael
King Jr., Robert
Krukowski, William
Kopytko, Scott
Kumpel, Kenneth
Kuveikis, Thomas
-
Laforge, David
Lake, William
Lane, Robert
Langone, Peter
Larsen, Scott
Leavey, Joseph G.
Leavy, Neil
Libretti, Daniel
Lillo, Carlos
Linnane, Robert
Lynch, Michael
Lynch, Mike
Lyons, Michael
Lyons, Patrick
-
Maffeo, Joseph
Mahoney, William
Maloney, Joseph
Marino, Kenneth
Margiotta, Charles
Marchbanks Jr.,Joseph Marshell, John
Martin, Peter
Martini, Paul
Mascali, Joseph
Maynard, Keithroy
Mcaleese, Brian
Mcavoy, John
McCann, Thomas
McGinn, William
McGovern, William
Mchugh, Dennis
McMahon, Robert
McPadden, Robert
McShane, Terence
McSweeney, Timothy McWilliams, Martin Meisenheimer, Raymond Mendez, Charles
Mercado, Steve
Miller, Douglas
Miller Jr., Henry
Minara, Robert
Mitchell, Paul
Mingione, Thomas
Modafferi, Louis
Mojica, Dennis
Mojica, Manuel
Molinaro, Carl
Montesi, Michael
Moody, Thomas
Morello, Vincent
Moran, John
Mozzillo, Christopher Muldowney Jr.,Richard Mullan, Michael
Mulligan, Dennis
Murphy, Raymond
-
Nagle, Bob
Napolitano, John
Nelson, Peter
Nevins, Gerard
-
O'Berg, Dennis
Oblschlager, Douglas O'Callaghan, Daniel
Ogren, Joseph
Oitice, Samuel
O’Keefe, Patrick
O'Keefe, William
Olsen, Eric
Olsen, Jeffery
Olsen, Steven
O'Rourke, Kevin
-
Palazzo, Jeffery
Palmer, Orio J.
Palombo, Frank
Pansini, Paul
Paolillo, John
Pappageorge, James
Parro, Robert
Pearsall, Durrell
Perry, Glenn
Petti, Philip
Pfeiffer, Kevin
Pickford, Christopher
Phelan, Kenneth
Powell, Shawn
Princiotta, Vincent
Prior, Kevin
Prunty, Richard
-
Quappe, Lincoln
Quilty, Michael
Orourke, Kevin
Otten, Michael
Quinn, Ricardo
-
Ragaglia, Leonard
Ragusa, Michael
Rall, Edward
Rand, Adam
Regan, Donald
Regan, Robert
Regenhard, Christian Richard, Vernon
Riches, James
Rivelli Jr., Joseph
Reilly, Kevin
Roberts, Michael
Roberts, Mike
Rocco Jr., Anthony
Rodriquez, Anthony
Rogan, Matthew
Rossomando, Nicholas
Rubach, Paul
Russell, Stephen
Russo, Michael T.
Ryan, Matthew L.
-
Sabella, Thomas
Santora, Christopher
Santore, John
Saucedo, Gregory
Scauso, Dennis
Schardt, John
Scheffold, Fred
Schoales, Thomas
Schrang, Gerard
Sikorsky, Gregory
Siller, Stephen
Smagala Jr., Stanely
Smith, Kevin
Smith Jr., Leon
Spear Jr., Robert
Spor, Joseph
Stack, Lawrence
Stackpole, Timothy
Stajk, Gregory
Stark, Jeffery
Suarez, Benjamin
Suhr, Daniel
Sullivan, Christopher
Sweeney, Brian
-
Tallon, Sean
Tarasiewicz, Allen
Tegtmeirer, Paul
Tierney, John
Tipping II, John
Tirado Jr., Hector
-
VanHine, Richard
Vaskis, Francis
Vega, Peter
Veling, Lawrence
Vigiano II, John
Villanueva, Sergio
Virgilio, Lawrence
-
Wallace, Robert
Walz, Jeffery
Warchola, Michael
Waters, Patrick
Watson, Kenneth
Weinberg, Michael
Weiss, David
Welty, Timothy
Whelan, Eugene
White, Edward
Whitford, Mark
Weinberg, Michael
Wilkinson, Glenn
Williamson, John
Wren, William
Wooley,David
-
York, Raymond

SAYING GOODBYE ( A Tribute Poem to those who were lost)

Yesterday was just a normal day...
You smiled... said "I love you" and said goodbye...
Told me to remember to pick up milk.....
And said you would see me tonight....
Well yesterday has come and gone
and many things have changed...
For ever since 9/11/01 my life has been rearranged...
No more smiles...
no more kisses good bye.....
No more "I love you's" as you walk out the door...
Now I see your face only in my dreams....
And know you are gone forevermore...
I love you, I miss you and my heart still breaks....
But I know that one day in heaven....
We will smile and say I love you and look into each others eyes..

And never forget 9/11/01 and those who lost their lives....

GOD BLESS ALL THOSE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES ON 9/11/01 AND THOSE WHO
SURVIVED...

Written by Liza Schejtman-Bach

Smokee the Bear

Kev speaks

You know the old story of sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you? Well, that story came to life at work this last couple of months and some might remember from the old blog the story of me catching this 800 pd black bear and releasing him up further on the mountain, however he seems to have found his way back!

Now this guy was a bugger to catch in the first place, it took us about 60 days to get him into a trap the first time and NOW he wasn't about to go in that trap for anything and he certainly was harassing campers and rummaging for food. He is also very sneaky. Not to many have actually SEEN him just the remments of what was once a weekend food supply.

Most people tend to leave foodstuffs in coolers and Bags in vehicles or there tent. He has also shredded a screen on a campers RV and had himself a field day.

So all this means that we have to catch him before he actually hurts someone who think that he can fend off a bear. Never challenge a Bear. Move away slowly (upwind if possible) and avoid direct eye contact or anything a bear can interrupt as aggressive. If you have food on you try throwing it on the trail (not at the bear) or an article of clothing so as to distract said bear. Move away slowly and leave them alone. NEVER lay down and play dead as you soon will be with a bear.

So as I am driving toward where the last sighting has been I stop and get myself coffee and an a apple filled bear claw (no pun intended)……….and as I am driving away from the store a thought hits me. (believe it or not I do have them from time to time)

Why not use donuts as a lure into the bear cage? So I drive back and get a dozen of the biggest freshest smelling gooey donuts I can get. Drove me crazy for the 25 miles I had to go into the woods and to say the WHOLE dozen made it to the site would mean I could trip over my nose when I said it!

So at the site I explain the idea to the crew who by now think I have completely lost my mind. We really cover up the trap with all kinds of downed tree limbs and branches, put what was left of the dozen donuts in the cage and spray cover spray all the way back to our vehicles. The sugary smell was intoxicating even in the woods.

Then we all left and went to check on a few other things and came back only to find said donuts had been scooped out of the trap and gone…….RATS!

About an hour later on of the crew calls and said "HEY Guys come over hear, you never going to believe this!" So off we all went and this is what we came upon. The bear upside down, paws in the air asleep!
We were all laughing and I loaded up the dart rifle and we tranquilized this poor guy and drug him into the cage.

This time we took him up around Mt. Rainer to let him go and if he finds his way back this time? Good question!

Of Birthdays and Life Lessons

From my best friend Suzanne's blog who turned 48 today. To the next 20 years of freindship! Happy Birthday Babe! VIRGO'S RULE!

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement, starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye, but don't worry, God never blinks.

16. Life is too short for long pity parties. Get busy living or get busy dying.

17. You can get through anything, if you stay put in today.

18. A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood, but the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: "In five years, will this matter?"

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

35. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

36. Growing old beats the alternative .

37. Your children get only one childhood. Make it memorable.

38. Read the Psalms. They cover every human emotion.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.

41. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

42. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

43. All that truly matters, in the end, is that you loved.

44. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

45. The best is yet to come.

46. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

47. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

48. If you don't ask, you don't get.

49. Yield.

50. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.

Stunned......................

Not sure I know why a man molests children. I think it is without a doubt the most vile thing on the face of this earth to hurt a child or an animal. But for a man to have sex with a 14 year child goes completely off my "BUT" chart.

I can stand the 'but' word for a lot of things on this earth 'but cause she came on to me" just somehow effects my sense of wanting to murder someone only stopping because I refuse to go to jail for the bastard.

So can someone explain this to me in a form I can possibly understand? That there is some underlying set of circumstances of why that happens to someone you have known quite well for over 20 years and up until this point you have no clue there is an issue? Even with his own kids which now we are kind of wondering about as well. Model husband, loving father, straight arrow kind of guy.

What thought process tell them this is OK? That because she had on short shorts and wanted to kiss him this was OK because a child of 14 knows what she is doing at that age and its just sex so………

This makes it OK? I am shocked, sicken and appalled all in one breath and I have nothing else…………………………