Robert Louis Stevenson ...

Robert Louis Stevenson ~ click HERE for a nice wikepedia summary

Robert Louis Stevenson ~ click HERE for a "scathing open letter"
which so reveals this man's values & literary skill ...

Robert Louis Stevenson ~ click HERE for more information on the Molokai Leper Colony

And now for the awesome quotes ~ be inspired!

• Judge each day not by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant.
• Keep your fears to yourself but share your courage with others.
• A friend is a gift you give yourself.
• No man is useless who has a friend, and if we are loved we are indispensable.
• Everybody, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences.
• For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.
• You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.
• To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying "Amen" to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive.
• To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.
• The world is full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

and there are many more in the comments if you'd like to click through ...

Recession ... or not?

Recession ... or not?
The economy isn't doing as badly as you think. It just feels that way.

By Geoff Colvin, senior editor at large
Last Updated: September 17, 2008: 1:53 PM EDT

(Fortune Magazine) -- The recession is no doubt hurting you, perhaps badly. Your sales may well be down. Maybe you've even lost your job. Whatever your troubles, you may safely blame them on the recession.

After all, most of the CFOs questioned in a recent poll agree that the U.S. is in a recession; among the general public, 76% said the U.S. was in a recession six months ago, and other polling suggests most people believe things have grown worse since then.

the comment section for the rest ...

Whew ... they are all labeled!

So that I can be like my beautiful cousin Keri .. :)

It's been an undertaking but I've now completed going through my blog
since its very beginning and adding labels to each of the 555 posts I've made to date.

Now there is a section on the right of this blog page called 'posts by label'
that lists all the labels I've used and when I click on any of the labels,
then all the posts I've ever done which have that specific label will come up.

This seems like a great way for me to be able to look back over my blog
and find particular types of posts for memories, pictures, or thoughts.
(for example ~my Ponderings, which are quite boring,
or pictures from our Adventures, which are quite fun :)
And now each of my boys (including Dave ;) can click his name
and he'll find all the posts that have his pictures ~ hopefully they'll like that.
And there are labels that gather all the posts for each of their mission trips
(for example, clicking 'MT - India' will show all the posts for Ryan's Indian Summer)

And for me, the few awesome videos I've ever included all show using the 'Youtube' label,
which I'll enjoy because they are fun to revisit and be happy with again.

All in all, these labels seem to be a pretty neat feature, especially with their list.
(And yes boys, I said NEAT because it really doesn't bother me too much that I'm old!)

I even figured out how to use the "customize" feature to add a family picture
to the top of the blog ~ now how cool is that?

Love to all, Sherrie

Physics & Rap ...

So ... are you aware of the new super collider and what's up in physics land of late?
If you'd like a great, fun, amazing 4 minute report via a rap done by a science writer
who was granted access to the CERN's Large Hadron Collider, here it is:



Go ahead -- you want to know where the anti-matter has gone,
so click it and get rocked in the head!

(if you go directly to youtube, you can choose watch in high quality for even a better view :)

From the lead page of wikipedia today ...

The following is a webpage from the lead page of wikipedia today.
You do NOT want to click on links in e.mail messages, you really do NOT want to ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srizbi_botnet
This has been an interesting public service announcement on behalf
of 60 billion spam messages a day from this one botnet.
Love ya, Sherrie

Be warned, be careful, and don't "click"

Sherrie's Note ~ If your friends' e.mail becomes hi-jacked,

then these links will look as if your friend sent them him/herself ...

USA Today
Fake news headlines are the latest spam Storm
Posted at 09:45 AM/ET, July 21, 2008

Be careful when you open your email at work today. Over the weekend, your inbox may have become inundated with messages carrying links to news stories with lurid headlines about Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Britney Spears and other celebs. Don't even think about clicking on the link. If you do, you will instantly join millions of others duped over the past 18 months into turning over your PC to the operators of the Storm botnet. Your PC will then be used to spread fraud spam; you'll help these guys sell fake drugs and carry out pump-and-dump stock market scams. For good measure, the Storm gang will gleefully harvest all of your usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, Social Security number -- any sensitive data you type into web page forms. Your personal data will be sold to the highest bidder in a thriving, eBay-like underground market. And to add salt to your wounds, the only way to get Storm off your PC is by reinstalling a fresh copy of your Windows operating system.

The rest of the story is in the comments ...

I always thought they were stars ...

The Big Dipper ~ Stars AND Galaxies!

Where to put your money now ...

Larry King just did an interview with Suze Orman and CNN.com put the high points in an aricle that I thought was very good. If you are interested, you'll find it in the comment to this post :)

The big yellow one is the sun ...

A favorite comedian of our family, Brian Regan, is known for the line,

"The big yellow one is the sun!"
But in 5 million years, it may look like a cat's eye...

X-Rays from the Cat's Eye Nebula
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/STScI

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080804.html

Explanation: Haunting patterns within planetary nebula NGC 6543 readily suggest its popular moniker -- the Cat's Eye nebula. Starting in 1995, stunning false-color optical images from the Hubble Space Telescope detailed the swirls of this glowing nebula, known to be the gaseous shroud expelled from a dying sun-like star about 3,000 light-years from Earth. This composite picture combines the latest Hubble optical image of the Cat's Eye with new x-ray data from the orbiting Chandra Observatory and reveals surprisingly intense x-ray emission indicating the presence of extremely hot gas. X-ray emission is shown as blue-purple hues superimposed on the nebula's center. The nebula's central star itself is clearly immersed in the multimillion degree, x-ray emitting gas. Other pockets of x-ray hot gas seem to be bordered by cooler gas emitting strongly at optical wavelengths, a clear indication that expanding hot gas is sculpting the visible Cat's Eye filaments and structures. Gazing into the Cat's Eye, astronomers see the fate of our sun, destined to enter its own planetary nebula phase of evolution ... in about 5 billion years.

Bug Terrorism??

Pennsylvania Post Office Discovers Giant Beetles in Package

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

PHILADELPHIA — Customs agents seized more than two dozen giant beetles — some the size of a child's hand — from an overseas package after postal workers heard the insects making scratching noises.

The large bugs arrived last week from Taiwan at a post office in Mohnton, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Philadelphia, in a box whose contents were labeled as toys, gifts and jellies, officials said Wednesday.

But the postmaster suspected the package contained live organisms and notified authorities, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency. The package was sent to Philadelphia, where it was X-rayed and then opened.

"The specimens were some of the largest of their kind, and some of the largest I've ever seen, averaging five to six inches in diameter," John Plummer, an agency agriculture specialist, said in a statement Wednesday. "They are highly destructive insect pests that can cause extensive damage to fruit and vegetable crops, trees, shrubs and turf grasses."

In all, authorities found 26 Hercules, rhinoceros and Goliath beetles. It is illegal to ship live beetles into the United States without a permit from the Department of Agriculture.

Seven of the beetles were in containers labeled by gender, which means they could have been intended for breeding, customs agency spokesman Steve Sapp said Wednesday.

The sender and recipient have been identified, Sapp said. An investigation is under way, but no decision has been made whether to file charges, he said.

'Crazy' Ants Swarm Houston Area, Ruin Electronic Devices

Thursday, May 15, 2008

DALLAS — In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers.

The hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known as "crazy rasberry ants" — crazy, because they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and "rasberry" after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on.

"They're itty-bitty things about the size of fleas, and they're just running everywhere," said Patsy Morphew of Pearland, who is constantly sweeping them off her patio and scooping them out of her pool by the cupful. "There's just thousands and thousands of them. If you've seen a car racing, that's how they are. They're going fast, fast, fast. They're crazy."

The ants — formally known as "paratrenicha species near pubens" — have spread to five Houston-area counties since they were first spotted in Texas in 2002.

The newly recognized species is believed to have arrived in a cargo shipment through the port of Houston. Scientists are not sure exactly where the ants came from, but their cousins, commonly called crazy ants, are found in the Southeast and the Caribbean.

"At this point, it would be nearly impossible to eradicate the ant because it is so widely dispersed," said Roger Gold, a Texas A&M University entomologist.

The good news? They eat fire ants, the stinging red terrors of Texas summers.

But the ants also like to suck the sweet juices from plants, feed on such beneficial insects as ladybugs, and eat the hatchlings of a small, endangered type of grouse known as the Attwater prairie chicken.

They also bite humans, though not with a stinger like fire ants.

Worse, they, like some other species of ants, are attracted to electrical equipment, for reasons that are not well understood by scientists.

They have ruined pumps at sewage pumping stations, fouled computers and at least one homeowner's gas meter, and caused fire alarms to malfunction. They have been spotted at NASA's Johnson Space Center and close to Hobby Airport, though they haven't caused any major problems there yet.

Exterminators say calls from frustrated homeowners and businesses are increasing because the ants — which are starting to emerge by the billions with the onset of the warm, humid season — appear to be resistant to over-the-counter ant killers.

"The population built up so high that typical ant controls simply did no good," said Jason Meyers, an A&M doctoral student who is writing his dissertation on the one-eighth-inch-long ant.

It's not enough just to kill the queen. Experts say each colony has multiple queens that have to be taken out.

At the same time, the ants aren't taking the bait usually left out in traps, according to exterminators, who want the Environmental Protection Agency to loosen restrictions on the use of more powerful pesticides.

And when you do kill these ants, the survivors turn it to their advantage: They pile up the dead, sometimes using them as a bridge to cross safely over surfaces treated with pesticide.

"It looked like someone had come along and poured coffee granules all around the perimeter of the rooms," said Lisa Calhoun, who paid exterminators $1,200 to treat an infestation of her parents' home in the Houston suburb of Pearland.

The Texas Department of Agriculture is working with A&M researchers and the EPA on how to stop the ants.

"This one seems to be like lava flowing and filling an entire area, getting bigger and bigger," said Ron Harrison, director of training for the big pest-control company Orkin Inc.

Ryan wants to be an Astro Physicist

Ryan wants to be an Astro Physicist :)
here are a couple of cool links ...

This one is a place you can go everyday for The Astronomy Picture of the Day with a bit of education to go along: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html

And here is a great article about some of the recent research in the field: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/05/09/physics.nima/index.html?iref=topnews

(the article is in the comment if you'd like to read it here :)

Child Molester(s) ...

My friend Mel posted recently on things that she 'hated' and in using that as a springboard, I too shall share ... albeit unpleasantly.

Here is a picture of Josef Fritzl the monster from Vienna, Austria who recently was discovered to have imprisoned his daughter in a windowless celler at age 18 and has fathered 7 children with her in the past 24 years of her imprisonment.

Men who look like this have always raised my ire and Dave has had to listen to me for 26 years mutter under my breath, "grrrrrr, child molester ...."

(with minor apologies to all of you who don't care for such generalizations)

PS ~ And why are all the Texas polygamy pictures of the women and children victims
rather than the men who have been abusing them? This I don't understand.

Digital TV Coming to You Soon ...

KUSA - On Feb. 17, 2009, all TV stations, including 9NEWS, will begin broadcasting in digital signals. On that date, your old analog TV won't work any more without a converter box.

5 simple things you need to know about the Digital TV transition:

1) Feb. 17, 2009 is the transition date
2) If you have cable or satellite: do nothing
3) If you have analog TV with antenna: need converter box
4) $40 government coupon available
5) Don't need new TV, but could be opportunity to upgrade

Gratitude Campaign

Saying Thank You ...

A short movie

Have you heard?

www.hulu.com

I wish she were my friend :) What a hoot!

(Oprah.com) -- I had it all down to a system. Whenever a conversation would turn to the subject of age, I'd casually mention that I was 28, or 37, or 42, or however old I was at the time, and then I'd pause, magnanimously allowing people the beat they needed to acknowledge their surprise and commence with their compliments.

"You're kidding," they'd gush. "I mean, you sure don't look [fill in the blank] years of age."

This is where I'd generally blush slightly and mumble something just a touch self-deprecating about how God probably figured giving me a bad case of split ends was enough. But I was being coy, and we both knew it. The truth is, I have never looked my age.

Then something happened. While chatting with one of the other mothers at my daughter's preschool, I casually mentioned that I'm about to turn 47 and, naturally, stood back, waiting as usual for the shock and awe to set in. Only it didn't.

Perhaps she was distracted. Perhaps she didn't hear. "Yep," I went on, "the big four-seven ... can you believe it?" She didn't appear to have any trouble believing it. I searched for an explanation: Isn't this the same mommy who forgot the class snack? Didn't she inadvertently kill her kid's radish-plant-in-a-Dixie-cup project? Perhaps she's a teeny bit deranged, I reasoned and wrote the whole thing off as an isolated incident.

Only it wasn't. Over the next few weeks, it happened again and again ... and again. My date of birth came as no surprise to the new dentist. The woman who renewed my passport didn't give it a second thought. My mother actually changed the subject. Soon I began desperately shoehorning my age into even the most mundane exchanges, hoping against hope that I would once again hear all about how young I look. Only I didn't.

The Butcher: "Should I bone the chicken breasts?"

Me: "You know, I'm not exactly a spring chicken myself."

The Butcher: Odd grunting sound coupled with cold, dead, heartless stare.

Me: "I mean I'm practically 47 ... can you believe it?"

The Butcher: "I'm leaving the bone."

Me: "My grandma always looked good for her age, so I guess ... "

The Butcher: "Next."

There comes a moment when you know that your face has changed; when that effortless glow you always had going for you suddenly requires serious effort. For me, that moment came on the fifth of August at 4:13 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time, while buying a pound and a half of chicken breasts at Simchyk & Sons.

The thing about being young, or at the very least, looking young, is that you honestly think you'll live forever. And the thing about not being young is that it finally dawns on you that you won't. I stare into the bathroom mirror as my fingertip traces a fine line in my forehead that I swear wasn't there yesterday, and just as sure as I know I was born, I now know that one of these days I'm going to die.

It saddens me that unlike Leona Helmsley, I do not have a yappy little Maltese dog to whom I can bequeath my vast fortune. It further saddens me that unlike Leona Helmsley, I do not have a vast fortune. Still, I've got stuff ... not good stuff, not giant-flat-screen-TV, fabulous-shoe-collection, secret-family-recipe, antique-emerald-brooch stuff, but stuff just the same. So without further ado, here is my last will and testament, or as I like to call it: a place for my stuff.

I know there are many who choose to donate their bodies to science, and may I just say what a noble choice that is. But I have yet to forgive science for forcing me to dissect a frog in 7th grade -- like I didn't have enough to deal with as a preteen geek in Southfield, Michigan --so in the unlikely event that he doesn't already have it at the time of my passing, I want to donate my body to Mr. Benicio Del Toro, because, let's face it, if he can't bring me back to life, nothing can.

I think my long-suffering assistant, Polly Brewster, would agree that I became a much better boss right around the time she repeatedly began asking if I'd seen "The Devil Wears Prada." But as I look over at Polly proofreading one of the 11,000 essays I've written to get my daughter into a decent kindergarten, I realize it'll take more than a Banana Republic gift certificate at Christmas to secure a permanent place in her heart.

So, Polly, I offer you all the office supplies (including but not limited to stapler, tape dispenser, Post-it notes) you can get your hands on before somebody points out that they belong to the company.

I remind my dearest friend, Brenda Josephs, of our Sunny von Bülow pact: If ever I end up in some kind of irreversible coma, I fully expect you to come by every few weeks and pluck any unsightly facial hair that might spring up. I'll be surrounded by doctors, so for God's sake, Brenda, throw a little lip gloss on me, and by all means, help yourself to my Partridge Family albums.

I would like to leave Johannes Labusch (the father of my child, the light of my life, the low-fat vanilla yogurt of my blueberry parfait) the freedom to remarry after I'm gone. I'd like to do that, but technically, my darling, you never did marry me. A minor detail, really. You go right ahead and buy that ring, rent that tuxedo, introduce your great-aunt Elfie to your brand new in-laws. I have but one request: Do not under any circumstance have sex with this woman. Or if you must, let it be with the understanding that I will poltergeist you to a degree that makes "The Amityville Horror" look like "The Sound of Music."

Last but never ever least, I leave my lovely and amazing daughter, Julia Claire, and the most beautiful boy on earth, Julia's half-brother, Jonathan Anteo Labusch, the comfort of shared experience and unwavering friendship, because honestly, that's just about the only defense against the world's darkness that I know of.

So, Julia, you get Jonathan, Jonathan, you get Jules, and as long as I'm on a giving streak, you guys both get my favorite quote from the book we were reading last night when one of us (okay, me) fell sound asleep. I'm hoping that if you don't quite trust me on this, you'll consider taking Christopher Robin's word for it just the way that Pooh did: "You must remember this: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."

And, if you'll permit me one final piece of advice: See if there's any way you can make friends with Leona Helmsley's Maltese.

By Lisa Kogan from "O, The Oprah Magazine," January 2008

A doozy!

When I was pregnant with Trey (back in the 1800's ;) and my sinuses swelled a bit with pregnancy, I started using Ocean Nasal Spray at the recommendation of my obstetrician to help keep my sinuses clear. A few squirts of this saline water in each nostril at the beginning of my shower followed by a big blow out at the end of my shower allowed me to breathe freely all day.

I began to notice that when Dave, Ryan, and Drew were bringing home colds, they skipped over me and I concluded that keeping all the mucous out of my nasal and sinus passages was helping to keep me healthy. As such, I've used this great product ever since. In the past 14 years, I've been the healthiest one in the family with a only two or three extremely brief sniffles. This was in great contrast to the numerous colds leading to bronchitis that I had been prone to prior to using the Ocean Nasal Spray. I'm a lifelong convert.

But alas, even my clean nose couldn't protect me from an evil chest virus that has been flying around the metropolitan area. It took a direct hit at my lungs and started last Wednesday night with a vengeance ... pain in the middle of my chest, extraordinary weakness and dizziness, and a cough to kill. I got out of bed finally on Monday afternoon and am starting to return to full speed. I understand that the cough with this one lingers for weeks, but I am thankful to be back in the ranks of the functioning. It was nice that we had Lost season 3 to watch while I was down and out :)

What a doozy!

It's sad the damage that's been done ...

Home » News

EPA to start pumping out water to avoid looming disaster posted by: Jeffrey Wolf , Web Producer written by: Jace Larson , Investigative Reporter and Deborah Sherman , Investigative Reporter created: 2/15/2008 6:08:46 PM Last updated: 2/15/2008 8:10:31 PM Click to enlarge Contaminated water from old mine near Leadville LEADVILLE – The EPA says it will begin pumping water trapped inside a mountain within seven to 10 days in an attempt to prevent a catastrophe that could kill hundreds. The move will significantly reduce the risk of a blowout at an old mine drainage tunnel, according to Lake County Commissioner Ken Olsen. This concern was first raised publicly by 9Wants to Know on Wednesday. Lake County Commissioners met via telephone with state and federal agencies on Friday. All agreed that pumping water out of the mountain was the fastest way to reduce danger to residents and the environment. THE REST OF THE STORY IS IN THE COMMENT ...

Lots of Skiing Pictures ...

I've posted lots of skiing and snowboarding pictures -
And there are some from days I haven't yet posted.

But when they are all posted,
I'm happy that one of the pix from our family will NOT be this one!

The story is in the comments ...

Plastic ...

http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Sea-Plastic-LN-PG5oct05.htm

http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Plasticizers/Out-Of-Diet-PG5nov03.htm

YUCK!

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=84947