A Mini Road Trip up to Squaw Creek

Saturday I had a really great trip up north to Squaw Creek NWR. I was fully loaded with binocular in one hand, and camera in the other (plus Off bug spray and a water bottle!).

It was a fabulous day for it. The sky was clear blue and the temperature in the morning hours was still pretty cool. I spent about an hour and a half making the 12 mile loop around the refuge. I only ran into a very few people. I talked to an older gentleman from Nebraska who was wondering about eagles. I told him he'd have to come back in January or February for that. Told him I was hoping to see some migrating ducks. I did see one diving duck that I couldn't identify yet. Here are some of the pictures.

First we have an Eastern Wood Pewee. Isn't he cute? On the last leg of the 12 mile loop, the drive takes one through a wooded area. I heard some bird chirping noises, so I just stopped the car and turned off the motor to listen. Couldn't see anything with my binocular though. This little fellow, after about 10 minutes of just sitting there, decided he had to find out more. He flitted to a few different trees near my car to get a closer look. Or maybe he was just posing for me!


I was so amazed to see Great Egrets on our Louisiana trip in August and guess what! There were a few at Squaw Creek. I saw 3 for sure. Their summer range extends all the way up the plains. These are probably the last few around though. I am sure they wil be heading back south very soon!

Here we have an American Coot and some unidentified diving birds.

These are my favorite shots of the day. They are both of a Great Blue Heron I was observing from the loop. The second shot shows him taking off and I love the picture of the wings outstretched. What a gorgeous pattern.

So, all-in-all it was a very nice trip. I have to go up again in a week or two and see if there are more migrating birds. The Pewee and the Egret are summer birds, so I think the migrations are yet to come. I am looking forward to a trip out to Quivira NWR in October to hopefully catch sight of a whooping crane. At least the sandhill cranes if not the other.

Road Trip Day 7 - Hotter than ****

It's still HOT here. Hot, humid, sticky.

Started off the morning with a load of laundry. *whee*. Fun eh? We had breakfast in the hotel. Really getting tired of fast food for sure.

Headed off to the Bluebonnet Swamp natural area. In a word? "spider" would be the word. Plus the heat. Even at 9:30 a.m. the heat and humidity was just awful. From the parking area there were two paths to the visitor center, a boardwalk through the trees and a gravel maintenance road. We were good people and followed our instructions. Huge swamp spiders had webs strung across the boardwalk (usually over our heads, but a couple we had to bat out of the way). This was FREAKY to say the least. None of us like spiders much. And these were strangers to us. They were really colorful anyway. We did a "fear is the mind killer" reality check and finally made it to the visitor center unscathed. One of the two ladies working there was a little bit scornful of our "trial by spider". "They won't hurt you." Okay, whatever you say lady. But they are still pretty danged scary looking. They handed us a laminated trail guide and sent us on our way. We braved about 1/4 mile, but especially nice to see was an older lady power walking the trail. Needless to say, we picked HER way! It appeared she knew what she was doing. We figured, later, that the visitor entrance boardwalk was overrun because they have so few visitors. The swamp was pretty cool. I showed the kids what Cypress Knees are. *woooo* *shouts of excitement*. Oh, I also stepped on some red ants and one bit me. Luckily I didn't have many on my foot and was able to shake the rest off or kill them. Nasty critters. After hearing a couple of birds and barely seeing any (they were just too high up in the trees) we went back to the visitor center and looked at the exhibits. They had a few baby alligators which was neat, and a lot of snakes and turtles. The gal we saw power walking was with a man who seemed to be the volunteer photographer for the swamp. Many, many of his very great photos of the swamp creatures, birds and flora were posted inside the center. Excellent photos. He did comment to me that it was a slow bird day. He was down on the ground photographing a wasp as we left. We left by way of the maintenance road..... Imagine that! No spiders. It was only 10:30. As promised I did not keep the kids there more than one hour! Hooray.

Next we headed downtown. We toured the Old State Capitol building. There were some really interesting exhibits inside this building. One exhibit traced the moveable history of the Lousiana State Capitols. There were between 15 and 20 different places that the capitol was located for various reasons.

We walked over to River Road and entered the U.S.S. Kidd veterans museum. I really enjoyed this. I know any veteran would spend a lot of time here. We spent a couple of hours. First we bought sodas to rehydrate ourselves. You just cannot imagine walking around in this heat and humidity all day. We decided to tour the ship first. Mr. Leroy Jenkins who actually served on the Kidd was the ticket taker and I enjoyed talking to him about his time. He told me where his bunk was located. I asked him if he went down those little tiny stairs backwards or forwards. He said that when they would go down they would seldom use the stairs at all, just take the first two steps and then grab a bar and swing down the rest of the way. It was really fun talking to him and he showed me some pictures of his navy football days. The ship was very interesting and I took lots of pictures which I'll post later. We walked back over to the museum and toured all the exhibits there which included some personal effects of Kidd himself.

We had a little snack at the FrostyMug, a little dinner from the 50s. Awesome root beer float! Back at the hotel I watched Val Kilmer in "The Saint". We had dinner at Parrain's. Jordan and I shared an "everything" plate and had some fried alligator, oysters, crab fingers, shrimp, stuffed shrimp. They put PEANUTS in the cole slaw. It is GOOD that way too! We also got to sample the dirty rice and the seafood gumbo. Both were very good.

Time to pack and head home tomorrow.

Road Trip Day 6 - To the Ocean (and the bayou!)

Bayous, canals, and the Gulf of Mexico. That sums up the day. We started off at IHOP for breakfast. Jordan and I thought we were getting a side of sliced strawberries, but it was pie filling. Oh well. We ate the berries anyway. The long drive to Grand Isle State Park took us back towards New Orleans on the first leg, I-10 East. From the edge of Lake Pontchartrain we took I-310 south to its end at Hwy 90. From there we headed back west to LA #1 South all the way to Grand Isle. Once we were on LA1 we were alongside a canal/bayou most of the way down to the gulf. That was pretty neat. Just small towns along the way hugging the bayou, big telephone pole size boat tie-ups / docking spots all along the sides of the bayou. There were all kinds of little shacks selling shrimp and crabs along the roads. I saw more draw bridges today than I think I ever have in my whole life. We also drove by a Saint Mary shrine along the road, right next to city hall, and I got a couple of pictures of that.

We finally got to Grand Isle State Park after a 3-1/2 hour drive. The hurricane (Katrina) really did a number on the facilities. The toilets flushed but there weren't any showers at the bath house we parked by. There were lots of crabs to be seen, many, many birds. Yes, I think we are all sunburned too. I did stop and get sunscreen, the new spray on "sweatproof" kind. But, I don't think it worked (user error). Unfortunately I walked around for about half an hour with my clothes still on in a tank top to take some pictures. The burn is following the lines of my tank top, not my swim suit. Can you say "DUMMY get on your sunscreen!"? We all got our suits on and splashed around. The kids had a lot of fun and so did I. I talked to a nice lady from about four hours away in Texas. They had come to do some crabbing, but there weren't many out in the heat of the day, although we did see lots of partially decomposed crabs above the water line. The tide started to come in. I walked around past the rock jetty to check out a bird conclave, and I SAW A FIN. Yes, I really did see a fin. It was way out there, and I took some pictures. It was kind of freaky to say the least. I wasn't worried about the people in the water or anything, as it was shallow for a long way out. I think he was probably a small one, I saw his back a couple of times when he came up and dived back down. But there was definitely a fin. About 2:30 we decided it was time to go and that's when we discovered the showers at our bath house were not working. Luckily we had a gallon of water in the trunk and used that to rinse off a bit. One other thing, we didn't come out with oil on us at all. The water seemed pretty clean to us.

The drive home was still interesting. I had to fight urges to stop every time I saw a bird. These coastal birds just fascinate me. Especially the Great Egret. It's such a pretty bird and when one or two fly over the swamps they are just beautiful. They have an interesting hunting stance too. They are so patient standing in the water until their target appears, then GULP. Dinner. Ahhh.

We drove across a little draw bridge to the other side of the bayou on LA1 for some Burger King. Cajun food just doesn't appeal to me, and I hope that doesn't disappoint any of you.

We got stopped when the draw bridge over the Intercoastal Canal (a big one) was raised to allow some boats to go by. We had one more traffic jam about 15 miles out of Baton Rouge. The traffic had to merge to one lane and it was a 20 minute process for about 2 miles.

Back at the hotel we are all interested in getting the salt off our skin, so I am patiently waiting for the shower.

Kids are anxious to check their face book accounts and e-mail of course. I try to imagine a world without computers sometimes, but I just can't. Then I remember Isaac Asimov's description of the planet Solaria (The Naked Sun novel) where all human contact, physical of course, was disdained, in favor of flawless "virtual presence" technology. Is that where we are headed?

LOTR Update: Two Towers, Gollum, Frodo and Sam in The Dead Marshes.

BIRDS: Brown pelican and more, but I have to look them up first.

Road Trip Day 5 - a swamp and Nawlins (new orleans)

John headed off to work and the rest of us got cleaned up for the day. By the time we came home we needed another shower. It's HOT today.

On our first stop for gas I got a call from work and found out I GOT THAT JOB! More later about that.

Started the day heading over to a place called Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge. I wanted to find the endangered "Red Cockaded Woodpecker" . Didn't see it. We walked the boardwalk trail, about a mile, most in the burning hot sun. *whew*. I did get to see one bird to check of my list. It took me about an hour of internet searching to figure out what it was when we got back to the hotel. It was a Yellow Crowned Night Heron (juvenile). That is the only checklist bird I saw today. But hey, that's one more off my list!

After the swamp sweat, we headed through Sidell, over a 5 mile bridge to get across Lake Pontchartrain, and into New Orleans. We headed right to the French Quarter. We had lunch, I had Muffliato ? sandwich, Jordan had a shrimp sandwich. I loved seeing all the architecture, but the T-shirt shops had a lot of disgusting things on them. We stopped at Jackson Square and the Moonwalk (river front walk). We saw the Supreme Court building too. We drove by the superdome on our way out of town.

The drive back was unremarkable. Tomorrow we head to the Gulf Coast - Grand Isle State Park (oh the BIRDS!) Just call me a bird loser. :-)

LOTR update - we are still in Two Towers, chapter 5.
BIRDS: Yellow Crowned Night Heron - juvenile.

Road Trip Day 4 - happy birthday Steve

Started off the morning with a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday for Steve who turned 15 today. After we were all clean for the morning and had our breakfast, Jordan gave Steve his present (a Green Day CD). Then we headed off to downtown. First we drove around downtown not once but twice, trying to figure out the parking dynamics of a new place. We drove by the Brand Spankin' New "Welcome Center" situated right on River Road. Found some free parking by the tracks. The ladies at the welcome center were very nice. We walked from there over to the State Capitol, which was not in session so we got to see all the chambers. We also took the elevator up to the observation deck on the 27th floor. We saw a couple of very strange bugs up there. John things one might be a palmetto bug. After that we walked back to our car and noticed an odd thing. Probably not odd to Mardi Gras savvy folks, but new to me. I saw LOTS of beads that appeared to have been thrown up into tree branches.

Next we parked at 7th and Laurel and walked to the City Deli, a little kosher luncheon place. The kids weren't hungry but I wanted to try something. I had a pulled pork sandwich and it was pretty good! We then walked about 4 blocks to St. Joseph Cathedral. We went in and looked at the inside. Apparently they have confession on Mondays at lunchtime. Oh well. We were quiet but I did take a couple of pictures. The inside of the church reminded me of my own St. James in a way. By the time we walked the 4 blocks back to the car we were HOT. It was about 95 degrees and very humid. I drove by the Capitol Lake, parked and got out to take some bird pictures. The kids sat in the car with the A/C on!!

We got back to the hotel around 1 and played, you guessed it, BURNOUT REVENGE! Although first I finished my book. Jordan and I drove around to find the pizza place Steve wanted to go to for his birthday dinner, and we also stopped at Winn Dixie to pick up a birthday cookie for his "cake".

John finally got to the hotel around 4:30 or 5. We went to pizza. I tried this appetizer with sliced tomatoes layered with mozarella and basil covered with a vinigrette. It was pretty good. The pizza was good.

Back to the hotel for more BURNOUT REVENGE!! Steve enjoyed all his birthday presents. We left one at home so John wouldn't have to bring it on the plane. It was an Effects Board for his guitar. Can't wait to hear it!

BIRDS: Today I saw a Great Egret, a Snowy Egret, and I think a Neotropical Cormorant. Got photos of all three, so I will double check on the cormorant when I get back home. The other two were pretty obvious.

Road Trip Day 3

After our free breakfast at the hotel we headed back to the car. I made the kids wait around while I tried to spot a bird making an interesting call that I didn't recognize. I never did get a good look at the bird though. Oh well.

We stopped at Walgreens and bought batteries for my camera and a gallon of water (the same price as an individual water!).

Next we headed north on I-110 and then US 61 to Centenary College State Historic Site located in Jackson Louisiana. This was a really nice tour. Our tour guide was originally from Joplin Missouri which was neat. We got some neat pictures. In one of the old dorm rooms where the old lead paint had been peeled back, this exposed some handwritten messages from the 1800's. It was very cool! 19th century college grafitti. Nothing bad. "Sophomore class of 1857" and a list of names is one example. Latin quotes was another. The really sad thing is that the Main Academic building with its 3000 seat auditorium was torn down in the 1930's. Before the days of historic preservation. There was no one to save the building. Kind of sad.

http://www.crt.state.la.us/parks/icentenary.aspx

We headed southwest on LA 965 to the Audubon State Historic Site at Oakley Plantation. Apparently he taught their child for a few months during the time he was drawing and painting for his famous Birds of America book. We met Gus the turkey and got caught in a sudden rainstorm. Very fun. A small plantation, but really neat because it was in the same family since its beginning, until sold to the state in 1942.

http://www.crt.state.la.us/parks/iaudubon.aspx

Well, by 1:30 we were HUNGRY. The nice lady in the visitor center at Oakley mentioned a little place called the Audubon Cafe next to an antique shop. That sounded interesting so we headed over to St. Francisville and found this place, right next to the local grocery store. The place was very homey, just old tables and chairs and a kitchen tucked into a corner. But the food, oh, the food. I swear that must have been the best egg salad sandwich I'd ever had. The kids each had something called pita pizza which was just a pita bread base for a pepperoni pizza but it looked really good. Then we splurged for dessert. Jordan had Butter Pecan Cake, Steve had Chocolate cake and I had Coconut Pie. Oh MY! Wow. We all sampled each others and WOW is all I can say.

We headed back to Baton Rouge with the thought of a nap. That actually turned into a Burnout Revenge round. Then I thought I would try and head out to Bluebonnet Swamp (to look for birds - just a few miles from our hotel) but when I looked it up on the internet, found out it closed in a half hour, so that was a no go.

Jordan and I got a load of laundry started, stopped by University Lake for a few minutes, and picked up some Wendy's for dinner. We watched the 4400 and then The Dead Zone on TV. The Dead Zone was really good. I hadn't seen it before.

BIRDS: Today I saw a Swan Goose and a Tri-Colored Heron!!!!

Road Trip Day 2

After a nice late morning start, we ended up at Cracker Barrel for breakfast at 10. Actually that was a good thing, since after that yummy homestyle breakfast, we weren't too hungry until suppertime. The drive was once again flat and dull. As the sole driver I wasn't able to enjoy the scenery. Some things I did notice:

• Older style air force jet in someone's backyard (seriously-their backyard!) that was adjacent to I-55.
• Washington Monument style obelisk, complete with viewing holes at the top, about 50-75 feet high, right on the highway in the backyard of what looked to be some kind of commercial property.
• Big red barn with a rainbow painted on it!

Okay, now here's a little tidbit. If you're taking I-55 south through Mississippi, be prepared. EVERY rest area was closed. Can you say "bummer"? We did stop at the Country Junction Truck Stop in Wesson MS. On a Saturday afternoon the restaurant section seemed to be the local hangout for old guys. However, the restrooms were clean.

We crossed into Louisiana and the Welcome Center was a great thing to behold, just one mile across the border. *sigh*. It was really nice. We picked up a lot of literature. I found an AWESOME Louisiana Gulf Coast guide to birds! WooHoo. I got my first glimpse of the "southern fox squirrel". I got a great picture of it too. You'll have to watch for my "road trip recap with pictures" post when I get home. It was a cutie.

LOTR Book on CD Update: We finished "Fellowship" and got two chapters into "Two Towers".

We easily found our hotel when we got to Baton Rouge. It was right next to an Outback, so that solved the dinner question. Kids had burgers. I just had some potato soup.

BIRDS: I saw what I think was a Great White Egret. There's a drainage ditch / creek that runs behind our hotel and the restaurant. It was just standing around. It flew off though when I tried to walk towards it, so no picture. Can't wait to get to the coast! I might try and visit a park tomorrow and see if anything interesting appears. We're on the 3rd floor and our balcony faces the trees, but all I saw was Mockingbird, Cardinal and Blue Jay. The Usual Suspects.

Okay, back upstairs to play some more BURNOUT REVENGE. Um, fellow moms, I HIGHLY recommend this Xbox game! Great for stress relief. You'll especially like it if you enjoy demolition derbies.

Road Trip Day 1

A LONG DRIVE. Nothing exciting to report. We arrived safely in Southaven MS. We listened to much of "Fellowship of the Ring" on CD. That was relaxing for me as the driver. We skipped some of the boring parts. The kids got a bit tired of the british accent. Overall a good drive. Ran through a rainstorm in southern Missouri, but nothing too awful. It didn't last too long either. After a wrong Google maps turn, we called the hotel and got the correct exit (just 2 miles away) and found our spot. This hotel computer is very, very slow though. Must be dial-up or something. No rush to get up early. We just have a 5-1/2 hour drive down to Baton Rouge. We'll finish Fellowship early and be able to start on Two Towers, which is much more exciting than Fellowship. No bird sightings to report yet. I saw something I didn't recognize but as I was driving, I couldn't exactly pull off the interstate to whip out my binoculars! Eating lots of junk food and slugging down sodas like crazy. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better food day!

It's been a long, long month. - Updated 8/3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~start of update~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

July was just an awful month. What with Diane's , the family squabbling that ensued, and the bridge collapse on 8-1. There have been some good things happening too, but I just haven't felt like saying anything about how I'm feeling. It's just hard sometimes to put all that down in writing. Embarrassment? Afraid to share the deep stuff? Maybe.

Good things. Jordan's Lead America trip, Driver's Permit, and getting the job she really wanted. Steve's amazing guitar skills and my introduction to Halo 2 and Breakout revenge (the most awesome drive and crash game - I LOVE IT). Home improvements, much needed and turning out great! VACATION. Potential of a new job on the horizon? (hope and pray).

Time to move on.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~end of update~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I haven't blogged for awhile. I guess I'm just too sad to try and put down in writing what I've been expecting for awhile. Diane is losing. She has been fighting cancer for about 10 years now. After just 3 she had her first recurrence/mets. She's been close to several times in the past few years. Medical advances have given her more years than any of us could have expected, but eventually comes the day when they say "There is nothing more we can do". That day came shortly after Father's Day. We drove up to St. Joe and visited on Father's Day, and that was Diane's next to the last day at home. She was awake and enjoyed our visit I think. However, she has been in a lot of pain for a long time, and it just became too much. She returned to the hospital a couple of days after Father's Day and won't be coming back anymore. Each time we have visited, she's been slowly getting worse. Last night we heard news that 24 hours may be all the time she has left now. Their kids have made picture boards already over the past couple of weeks, and a picture book, preparing for the funeral and rosary that will be said. God be merciful.

Hail Mary,
full of grace.
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our .
Amen.

Ohio Road Trip

IT'S ALL ABOUT

AUBREY!!!

After many long years and hard work, she

completed

her

paramedic

school

Hooray!

Here we are on the campus of the college.

Cool stained glass

sculpture

thingie

L-R

Terry, Aubs, Steve, Sue, Grandma, DeeDee

Next day: Steve and I did a little touristy stuff

not wanting to wake the sleeping Aubs too

early. Here we are at the Scioto River park in Dublin OH

This is a sculpture of Chief Leatherlips. Ummm, there's a story about him, but I can't remember it right now.

Next we went to the Olentangy Indian Caverns.

It was a regular tourist spot with a climbing wall,

"gem mining" for kids, playground, souveniers, etc.

The museum part (which I'd have enjoyed) wasn't even open.

We saw this old church c.1810 on our way and

stopped to look through the cemetery.

This was on the tomb of a young many

who died in 1857 at the age of 23.

"Stop young friend as you pass by

As you are now so once was I

As I am now so you must be

Prepare for death and follow me"

The Scioto Mile - Riverfront park in

downtown Columbus OH

Steve and Aubrey

FRIDAY NIGHT CONCERT AT

THE LC

Here's a pic of the inside of the venue.

Band #2

The Scotty Bratcher Band.

Very, very good band!

http://www.scottybratcher.com/

Then, the act DeeDee came to see!

Here's his band....

And here is

Joe Bonamassa
ttp://www.jbonamassa.com/

This was pretty much one of the best

concerts I've been to.

The venue was small, choice.

The music was over-the-top excellent.

What a skilled musician

and an excellent showman too!

His band is superb. And to think we'd

never heard of the guy before this!

Ummmmm....

Don't think that

Steve is enjoying this.

Not for one minute.

*cough, cough*

L-R, Aubrey, Sue, Steve and DeeDee)

SEE OUR STAGE POSITION

FRONT ROW MOSH PIT

QUITE FABULOUS!

Little nature walk

Cool Sky picture by Jordan

Jordan took this stellar picture after we hung out at MLNS for awhile. Awesome!

Father's Day means sadness for some

Father's Day is getting closer and I have so many friends and co-workers who have lost fathers just since the first of the year. It will be hard for them. I can't imagine not having my dad here on Earth. I wish I could do something for all these friends, Jim, Joanne, Judy, Dana and others. I wish they knew how often I think of them. In honor of lost fathers and living fathers....

• Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes. ~Gloria Naylor

• The greatest gift I ever had came from God; I call him Dad!~Author Unknown

• When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. ~Mark Twain, "Old Times on the Mississippi" Atlantic Monthly, 1874

• Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope. ~Bill Cosby

• A father carries pictures where his money used to be. ~Author Unknown

Speaking of reason

Seems like a lot of protestants (and I grew up one) take issue with the Catholic Church because according to some, we just sit at church and take whatever we are told without reasoning and questioning. Obviously quite untrue for those who care enough to seek out what's real and what isn't. There's plenty of questioning going on!

Unfortunately it seems like the same group think I shouldn't question this friggin' war, or use my capability to reason and my human instinct, my women's intuition. I should just take everything that's dished my way because otherwise I'm anti-American or something. What a joke.

Just Faith

www.justfaith.org

I'm teaching it again next school year. A 30 week long process with two retreats. A huge time committment but one I feel so strongly about. I've been thinking ever since I went through two years ago as a first time student and co-facilitator about what I can do with myself, where I should focus. I guess now I finally recognize and am willing to admit and embrace that I do have a gift for organizing things, and "bossing" people around (haha). But it's true that not everyone has this skill. So, I think that by facilitating another year of Just Faith I will be able to put that skill to really good use. St. James is hosting the city-wide seminar on July 7th which is pretty exciting. I know we'll have a lot of folks from all around the diocese. As I go through it this year I will probably do a lot of blogging about the classes, reflections, etc. There were some really sad moments in the program. It happens when your eyes are opened to a different perspective. It's UNCOMFORTABLE to say the least. The first time you see that little kids in Peru live at a mountain of a DUMP and go digging through trash to find things to sell, well, you realize that if you don't have that new thing you want today, it just doesnt matter.

Lie to yourself

Look deep inside yourself and if you're an American like me you'll probably see the heart of greed and materialism that we all carry around secretly inside. We want to have it all, our cake, eating our cake, freezing the extra, then disposing of the excess because we didn't need all that cake after all. Cake being a metaphor for THINGS. That's the root cause of the war. We want our things, protected, guarded and hoarded up for ourselves.

Americans proved in the last election that they CAN make a difference, upsetting the balance. I hope and pray that the balance will be upset even more. This war is NOT RIGHT. I'm so sick, sick, sick of human beings dying for this horrible cause that's really just about money.





The fear campaign aimed at selling the Iraq war was timed precisely for the kickoff of the 2002 midterm election. The president's chief of staff explained the timing as a marketing decision. It was timed, Andrew Card said, for the post–Labor Day advertising period because that's when advertising campaigns for "new products," as he referred to it, are normally launched. The implication of his metaphor was that the old product—the war against Osama bin Laden—had lost some of its pizzazz. And in the immediate run-up to the election campaign of 2002, a new product—the war against Iraq—was being launched. For everything there is a season, particularly for the politics of fear.

Excerpted from The Assault on Reason Copyright 2007 by Al Gore.

What is Your Power Bird? Blog Thing.....Have Fun.

Your Power Bird is a Swan

You are a truly graceful and gorgeous creature. You easily see beauty in yourself and others. Intuitive and in touch, you can often guess what the future will bring. And you're flexible enough to accept the changes that life has in store for you.

What's Your Power Bird?

The Killers in concert at City Market May 11 2007

WHAT A NIGHT! We had such fun! Okay, the pictures of us aren't too good, since I had sunscreen slathered all over my face and not much makeup left. Oh well. Not too worry, most people were in no condition to notice. Jordan, Steven and I all got a concert T (see the picture from the Nelson below to view mine!). The opening band was "Red Romance...FROM NEW YORK". (they kept saying this after every two songs. "We're Red Romance...FROM NEW YORK". Ugh. Okay, okay, you're from New York, great... Thanks for sharing. Second act was Hot, Hot Heat. Very great! Then the main event! A dancing mass of people scrunched up together. We hit the road about 10:15 pm and headed home, before the end. But the kids and John had to go to St. Louis the next day for a TKD tourney. Here's some video and some pictures.

Sam's Town:


Here are some pictures from our cell phone cameras.

May 16 - Girl Scouts at the Nelson/Plaza

Our idea was to spend an hour at the Nelson, but little did we know they close at 4:00. We arrived about 3:55! Oh well. They let the girls use the restroom, thank goodness. We spent about half an hour in the sculpture garden, then headed over to Cold Stone Creamery. Mmmmm.

May 16 - A Northern Mockingbird

I took this picture on my way to a church meeting. These birds were very defensive, feeding their little babies, and did not like getting their picture taken!