Stats for Today - November 17, 2005

Here are some stats for our household and locale:

Price of Gas: $2.37 per gallon and falling for the moment after reaching a high of about $3.07
Price of Milk: $3.79 per gallon and holding
Bridge Toll: $3 (except on the Golden Gate where it is already $5)
Today's High Temperature: 73 degrees F
Dow Jones Average: closed at 10,766.33 (up 46.11)
Shopping Days to Christmas: 37
Thanksgiving Dinner Item: Ham
Average Commute Time: 1 hour and 10 minutes (in a 3-person carpool)
Cost of Area Homes: $600,000 plus
Movie Ticket: $8.75 and higher
Time with my Kids: Priceless

How do these numbers compare with yours?

New War Anthem?

Just saw a commercial today on television with the lead singer of Green Day saying something like, "anything successful is built on a series of mistakes." Could it be that we've stumbled on what could be used as the basis for a new series of talking points regarding the War in Iraq?

On-line Travel Writing

Just wanted to share an on-line travel magazine that covers all facets of travel. The site also will take submissions with the enticement that their site has a broad reach (they aren't able to pay).

One current listing on their site that caught my eye was a review of Karin Muller's "Japanland: A Year in Search of Wa." I think I'll have to check it out.

http://www.worldhum.com/

About the Name of Our Blog

The name of our blog comes from a Japanese children's song about a turtle. Here's the first verse:

Moshi moshi Kame yo,
Kame-san yo.
Sekai no uchi de,
Omae hodo,
Ayumi no noroi,
Mono wa nai.
Doshite Sonnani,
Noroinoka?

Hello Turtle,
Mr. Turtle.
In all the world,
there is none,
who walks as slow.
Why are you so slow?

Back Yard Wonders

You just never know what you'll find in your own backyard. We found a praying mantis one weekend recently when we were pruning one of our trees. It was about three inches in length and was a yellowish-brown color, not the usual green color that we are accustomed to seeing. After we finished with the tree, we put the praying mantis back on the tree and watched it climb out of sight. Here's a photo of the mantis looking back at us seemingly saying, "so long."

Hey, Chuck!

The City of Santa Rosa completed a summer-long tribute to its favorite son, Charles "Sparky" Schultz. In celebration of the 55th anniversary of the Peanuts comic strip, the designing of 55 unique statues of Charlie Brown was commissioned. One last viewing of all of the statues was possible with the assembling of all 55 statues in a field near the Schultz Museum. We couldn't resist taking our kids to this unique event. Here we are with the original Chuck.

Truth is a Person

The senior pastor at our church gave his final sermon at our church this past Sunday. A couple weeks back he announced that he was moving onto a church in Minnesota after 13 years in California.

Much of the sermon had applicability in the secular world, but there was one message that resonated given all that has taken place the past few weeks. Truth is a person.

Our government, our leaders, the "for profit" news organizations have been guilty of doling out the truth as one would dole out scarce grain to the hungry. But truth is a person, not a commodity.

Truth is George Jones of Beaumont, Texas who was filmed by a C-SPAN crew. George was outside his home on street with no life, a street that looked like it had been cleared by a superhuman sized street cleaner. He was busy cleaning his grill. "We're gonna barbeque our venison and other meat before it goes bad. We're gonna have ourselves a barbeque this afternoon. Me and the couple of neighbors who are still here."

The C-SPAN reporter continued with the questions, "Have you heard that they're evacuating the entire town? Are you staying? What are you going to do about water?"

George seems unfazed by all these questions. "I don't know why they turned off the water. We're here and doing okay. This is not like New Orleans. We're not nine feet below sea level. We survived Rita and ain't going nowhere."

Later, the C-SPAN crew is at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Beaumont where people are queued trying to get back to their homes to see what's left. The skies look clear and it's apparent that the brunt of the storm has passed. The security forces are not letting anyone through and those that push on are warned that there is another checkpoint down the road with troopers waiting who will just turn them back. At least one truck charges through with the driver obviously upset.

The truth is Les Sheffler who is sitting in his SUV with barely a quarter tank of gas with no idea about the location of the nearest shelter. Sitting next to him is his slightly frail looking 83-year old mother. "They're not telling us anything. Where we are the roads are drivable. Maybe it's worse in town, but they're not telling us anything. This doesn't make any sense. This just convinces me that I made the wrong choice by leaving. Next time I won't leave. I'm all prepared to make it through the next few days. "

"What are you going to do about water?" asks the C-SPAN reporter.

"I have a whole swimming pool full of water. I also have 35 to 40 gallons of drinking water stored just for this. I have a freezer full of food and a generator. If I can get in there I can save the food. I have gasoline stored and cars in the driveway with tanks full. If my roof is leaking I could cover it with tarps to prevent a total loss. This is all only about 4 miles from here and they won't let me in. This just doesn't figure. Next time I won't leave."

Our Summer Vacation - The Yellowstone Leg

Ethan was sitting on Dorothy's lap when the photo was taken to answer a question posed in our first blog entry. The photo was one of last decent ones that we got out of our digital camera before it succumbed to the rain squall that drenched us.

This was our second visit, but first with our kids. We didn't cover nearly as much of the park this time, but did manage to squeeze as much as we could into parts of two days. I think the kids will not forget Old Faithful (left, best picture that we got), but mainly because it was cold and wet. Although we didn't venture enough to see bears, there were sightings of geese, one coyote (although the kids may have missed this one between the yelps of "where? where?"), eagles nesting, elk, deer and bison. Perhaps when the kids are older we'll spend more time and get in a hike or two.

We arrived in West Yellowstone on the fourth day of our travels to overcast skies having driven through rain on Highway 20 from Idaho Falls. In Idaho Falls we heard so much about this place called Yellowstone Bear World, but paying money to feed bears didn't strike a chord with us. From the highway, Bear World looked like a Six Flags amusement park surrounded by log cabins.

Enroute to West Yellowstone we made reservations with a hotel that was listed in the AAA book as a Fairfield Inn, but upon calling we found that it had gone independent. You could tell this in their pitch to us, even being so enthusiastic about their new make-it-yourself waffles that were now part of their continental breakfast, the same make-it-yourself waffles that seems to be the staple of every hotel chain continental breakfast this year. In the end, their homey hospitality won us over.

Note: In the Bay Area, you might want to check out the geysers at Calistoga or the bison in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark

Case 1 - FEMA has already awarded millions of dollars in contracts without competition. Several of these contracts have gone to companies with connections to the current administration. One of these companies is Shaw Group, Inc. , who is on the client list of lobbyist and former FEMA director Joe Allbaugh. The same Joe Allbaugh who helped to identify college buddy Michael Brown to be his successor. So let me get this right. One college buddy has a hand in what will most surely be the costliest disaster in U.S. history, and the other buddy has connections to a company that could be profitting from this disaster. I suppose this is exhibit one for the saying, "it's who you know, not what you know."

Case 2 - The Davis Bacon Act enacted in 1931 requires paying workers at least the prevailing wage rate in a region. In the New Orleans area, the prevailing wage for construction labor is about $9 per hour. On September 8, 2005, President Bush suspended Davis Bacon for Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida citing a need to reduce costs for reconstruction efforts in these states. So does this mean that the efforts by residents in these areas are worth less than $9 per hour? Does it make sense to reduce wages for people who are in great need? Are there regulations that limit what profits companies can make from disaster recovery efforts?

Case 3 - The founders of our country struggled with the concept of political parties and what role they should play in government. People such as Thomas Jefferson thought that political parties would do more harm to the republic than good. Fastforwarding to 2005, it seems that nearly every decision is made with the political party, Democratic or Republican, in mind. Will it hurt my party? Will it hurt their party? Even if intentions are good, it's too easy these days to be cynical about even the best of intentions. Perhaps this has always been the case, but living in the information age means that we know so much more now and what we see is perhaps not too appealing.

Pixieland - A Hidden Gem

Disneyland proclaims itself to be "The Happiest Place on Earth." However, we have a place here that rivals Disneyland in the eyes of our kids. Ask the kids, "Disneyland or Pixieland?" And we're sure to hear, "Pixieland! Pixieland!" Of course, if you must know the details; they've never visited Disneyland and Pixieland is only a short drive from our home.

This weekend's visit marked a special moment for Naomi - her first roller coaster ride, ever! At most amusement parks, two or three circuits on a single ride is quite the deal. The Pixieland Dragon Coaster whips around four or maybe five times. But who's counting, expecially when you can barely see over the safety bar. The only memory is still that the ride was too short.

Rule of Three

Bad luck happens in threes so say some. Others say, "not so, if you believe that things happen in threes, you'll just keep waiting and waiting no matter how long until it comes true." Things happen it twos, eights, baker's dozens too.

But the number three has had quite a history. For starters, there's the Holy Trinity or just Trinity for you Matrix fans. Jesus was crucified in a place with three crosses. Then there's the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. The Three Musketeers. In more recent times, there was the assassination of JFK, RFK and MLKJ.

In sports, one can find threes everywhere: the hat trick in hockey is three goals, a field goal in football is three points, horse racing has its Triple Crown, the most seldom type of hit in baseball is the triple, a triple play in baseball is to be marveled, three strikes and you're out, three outs and the inning's over, the three-point shot in basketball, the three-second call and three bumps in volleyball.

This leads us to Katrina. I read a reference to an article by Eric Berger of the Houston Chronicle that was written in 2001. Eric in his article (see link below) cites a FEMA report from early 2001 that states that the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country are a terrorist attack in New York City, flooding in New Orleans and ... a massive earthquake in San Francisco.

http://www.hurricane.lsu.edu/_in_the_news/houston.htm

First Entry

Welcome to our family! The purpose of this site is to share information on happenings in our household. New discoveries, milestones, stones overturned, overtures, adventures, guesses ventured, observations, ruminations, and favorite stories. Visit us from time to time, and if you care to leave a note!

Here we (Naomi, Ryan and me) are caught in a downpour while waiting for a tardy Old Faithful. Dorothy is behind the lens, but where's Ethan?