Well, when I started this blog, one of the topics I said I may talk about is rocks but up to this point I have refrained from doing so. But while reading some posts from a Rockhounding group this morning, I realized that for the paleontologist, archaeologists and basic Rockhound, there is a topic that’s very polarizing. The collecting of fossils and artifacts. Currently most states have some sort of law protecting fossils, dinosaurs and human artifacts (cultural and remains) from being collected by anyone other than an authorized college, university or museum. This is supposedly to protect it. Does this make sense? Yes, in part. I understand the importance of proper cataloging and protecting the integrity of a site in order to properly excavate all artifacts as well as to be able to more completely understand the historical significance of what was found. This is how we learn about the true past. On the other hand in a lot of these cases the amateur rockhound is completely thrown out of the mix. Not given any credit whatsoever and not allowed to participate in this process. Before Big Brother got in the mix of making these laws, a vast majority of finds were found by just this type of person, a weekend warrior out looking for something nice to display at their house and show their friends and family. Nowadays most rockhounds are very cognizant of the possible importance of what they may find and take great measures to ensure that things don’t get damaged…Also a true rockhound follows common sense guidelines and treats the areas they are at with the proper respect. Personally, I take and extra bag or two to clean up any trash I make or find. Bottom line? I fall in the middle here. I understand that there are many people much better able to “work” an historic site better than me, but if I was to find something of historical importance and then was kicked from the site with no credit given while also not being able to “assist” in the collection of artifacts, fossils and data, I would be very pissed off. Would it make me think twice about reporting it? Yeah, honestly it would. This is my planet too, this is my history too, it belongs to all people.
Ice Age or break out the sun screen?
I’m no scientist, I’m no genius, but when I first started hearing about global warming, I was skeptical. I mean, I remember when I was younger, headlines reading, Global Cooling. Yes we had newspapers when I was growing up and NO, it wasn’t during the last ice age…I looked at it simply, which is easiest for me. At one time allot of the earth was covered with ice, hence the term “Ice Age”. Well, the ice receded by what had to have been warmer temperatures. Now I know that back then there were large animals like Wooly Mammoths and Wooly Rhinoceroses’, but I highly doubt that their farts and Cro Magnon campfires cause global warming enough to melt them. There is also historical proof that at one time out north and south poles were actually our equator. So maybe its earth itself that is the cause for these problems and not our SUV’s….Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely think we need to do everything possible to lower pollution levels and use of fossil fuels. I believe if we can find a cheaper and better way of harnessing wind power, solar power and even water tidal power, we should. Continue to increase fines to companies that pollute, quit razing rainforests to the ground and destroying other forests by complete clear cutting. There are hundreds of things we, as in the human race, can do to be more “Eco-Friendly” and we should do them. But that doesn’t mean we should be exposed to hypocrites like Al Gore and others mounting a worldwide campaign of “Eco-Terror”.They insist that in order to get everyone’s attention, headlines must scare the crap out of people or they won’t pay attention. True? Yeah probably to some extent. Some people can’t see the noses on their own faces till you punch them, but I think just continually getting your message across will eventually win out as well.Bottom line for me? I will continue to report litterers to http://www.dontmesswithtexas.org/reportlitterer/index.php. I pick up trash when I see it. I recycle when I can, I never dump used motor oil, I plan on planting more trees, will make my own composter and if it were monetarily feasible, I would install solar panels…I will NOT however, get rid of my Sport Trac, will NOT stop eating meat, will be buying as many new books as I can read, etc….What’s my final point? You decide. In the end it’s up to everyone to make their own informed decision.Here is a link to a good website that has a lot of facts on all of the above….. http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
NASCAR the Chase for Mediocrity
The “Race for the Chase” is a joke. 26 Races to see who qualifies for the Chase, the last 10 races of the season to decide the championship. Only the top 10 drivers …..oh wait, Dale Jr didn’t make it to the top 10 last year so now its 12….get the chance to win the championship.
Jeff Gordon, who had a more than 300 point lead going into the Chase, got it whipped out and was actually seeded second. A driver who had one more win, got seeded in front of him and now looks like he is going to go on and win it. And that’s fine one the one hand. You can say that because Jimmie Johnson won the most races he should win the championship, but what about his 4 DNF’s? JG has only finished out of the top 10 six times out of 35 races. He has more top 10’s, top 5’s and poles (which count for nothing) than anyone else. THAT’S a championship season.
I read somewhere that someone said that ALL sports has a playoff system….whooooaaaaa now. I don’t believe college football has one. I may be wrong, but I don’t think any other motor sports league has any kind of playoff, I KNOW the Busch series does not. So why NASCAR? MONEY MONEY MONEY.
NASCAR did this for one reason….Money…..for them…
C.O.T (also know as Car of Tommorrow, Car of Today…) Sucks as bad as the chase. It has taken away from competition and is eating excitement alive. It has turned each race into a big rolling game of stratego. With few, very few, exceptions, there is very little racing to be had in the top 10. Whoever is leading, whether they are on 4 new tires, 2 or hell, even 1, has a distinct advantage over the rest of the field. In the last race, the last 18 laps was a joke. NASCAR says it levels the field and it does do that…at the expence of excitement. You want to win, you better have good pit strategy cause that’s about 90% of getting to the front.
Whether Jeff wins or loses it doesn’t change things for me. The COT sucks and the Chase sucks.
Thank you CNBC – Move along Rosie
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is a part of the United States Bill of Rights. It prohibits the federal legislature from making laws “respecting an establishment of religion” (the “Establishment Clause“) or that prohibit free exercise of religion (the “Free Exercise Clause“), laws that infringe the freedom of speech, infringe the freedom of the press, limit the right to assemble peaceably, or limit the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
I agree with this document completely. Rosie has every right in the world to say what she wants. I just happen to disagree with almost everything she stands for. What really hacks me is that she feels she can get away with all this and noone should ever question her integrity or get upset at anything she says, yet, disagree with her at your own risk. Instead of writing the same old tired diatribes against her, I will let her own words speak for me. These are all direct quotes of Rosie from the last few years.
While saying she didn’t know what to believe about the U.S. government’s involvement in the attacks of Sept. 11, she said, “I do believe that it’s the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. I do believe that it defies physics that World Trade Center tower 7—building 7, which collapsed in on itself—it is impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved. World Trade Center 7. World Trade Center 1 and 2 got hit by planes—7, miraculously, the first time in history, steel was melted by fire. It is physically impossible.”
She said there is no difference between radical muslims who kill in the name of allah and the bible believing christians who follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.
During the April 19, 1999, broadcast of her talk show, she stated, “You are not allowed to own a gun, and if you do own a gun, I think you should go to prison.”
A former magazine colleague and breast cancer survivor testified that O’Donnell said to her on the phone that people who lie “get sick and they get cancer. If they keep lying, they get it again”
In January of 2007, she questioned American Idol for airing auditions that humiliated aspiring singers. “To make fun of someone’s physical appearance. And when they leave the room, laugh hysterically at them. Three millionaires, one probably intoxicated.
On November 20, 2006, O’Donnell commented on Live with Regis and Kelly co-host Kelly Ripa’s words to guest co-host Clay Aiken, when he put his hand over her mouth as if to stop her from talking. Ripa apparently did not appreciate his action and responded, “I just don’t know where that hand’s been, honey.” O’Donnell opined, “If that was a straight man…if that was a guy that she didn’t question his sexuality, she would have said a different thing.”
On March 26, 2007 O’Donnell discussed the Iranian seizure of British Royal Navy personnel comparing it to the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident that escalated the Vietnam War, implying Britain was provoking war with Iran stating:
| “ | There were 15 British sailors and marines who apparently went in to Iranian waters and they were seized by the Iranians. And I have one thing to say. Gulf of Tonkin. | ” |
She stood by the statement on March 28, 2007, stating on her weblog that the British had intentionally sent forces into Iranian waters, triggering the hostage crisis as part of a false flag operation intended to precipitate the invasion of Iran, writing:
| “ | The British did it on purpose. [They went] into Iranian waters as the U.S. military builds up on the Iranian border. We will be in Iran before summer as planned. | ” |
On May 17, 2007, O’Donnell rhetorically asked, “655,000 Iraqi civilians dead. Who are the terrorists?” She further explained, “If you were in Iraq and another country, the United States, the richest in the world, invaded your country and killed 655,000 of your citizens, what would you call us?”
O’Donnell also complained of how the media would portray her as a bully attacking “innocent pure Christian Elisabeth” whenever they disagreed on air .
On December 5, 2006, O’Donnell made a comment in reference to the November 29, 2006 appearance on The View by Danny DeVito who had been up and celebrating most of the night. O’Donnell was amazed that the controversy had become such an international media news item, and joked that it was being talked about as far away as China. “You know, you can imagine in China it’s like, ‘Ching-chong, ching-chong. Danny DeVito. Ching-chong, ching-chong-chong. Drunk. The View. Ching-chong.”
In her January 31, 2002, appearance on the sitcom Will & Grace, she played a lesbian mom. A month later as part of her act at the Ovarian Cancer Research benefit at Caroline’s Comedy Club O’Donnell came out as a lesbian, announcing “I’m a dyke!”
Not a big fan of Rosie
Texas Friendly
Have you ever been driving down the road and see a stop light ahead. You look and see someone wanting to pull out and a quick glance in the mirror shows several cars behind you. You stop and let the person pull out in front of you, in case the person behind isn’t so nice. Then you look as the driver pulls out, glances in your direction….wait for it…….and nothing, Zero, Bupkiss. No acknowledgement whatsoever that you were being nice. I hate that. I keep saying the next time someone doews that I am ramming them. Of course I never do. And then I promise that that is the last time I let anyone out. Of course I still will. That’s because being a polite driver was ingrained on me when I was younger.
Now don’t get me wrong. You get me in Dallas traffic and I am doing 90 and on the bumper of the car in front of me just like everyone else. When I am in the country on a nice Sunday day, I am pushing the limits again, just cause I can. But I am still polite. In Texas we have wide shoulders on a lot of our country highways, it is tradition to pull over and allow a faster care to pass, if it can be done safely. This was called Texas Friendly. I have no idea what happened to that but it is becoming less and less frequent. Probably because idiots will still pull over to the far left lane and look at you like you don’t know how to drive. And of course will not give you a wave of thanks.It has become so bad that when I actually do get a wave it I feel like calling someone and saying “You’ll never guess what just happened to me”.
Of course, its not just Texas. Lets face it, rude and obnoxious are the rules of the road across the nation. Heck, it’s the rule of life in general far too often.
Missing – Parents where are you?
I don’t think I have missed one of Cody’s practices. I take either no lunch (not that I couldn’t afford to skip a few meals anyway) or ½ a lunch so I can watch at least the last hour or so of practice. His mother and I have joined and volunteered for the PTA and of course we make all meetings and never miss a football game. Well if we have 10 people at a PTA meeting it is a miracle and if we get more than 20 parents to a football game it seems crowded. Try to contact someone to help? Good luck.
Why? I don’t know but I think it is an example of some of what is wrong with society. The parents drop them off at school, hope they take some extra curricular activity that will allow them to leave them there until later that night, then pick them up as late as possible. And it shows. Most of these kids have cell phones and Ipods but no family support. Some of these kids are way out of control too. I have listened to them and let me tell you if you heard some of what they were saying you would be shocked. At least I hope you would.
I remember when I was a kid. We cussed, heck we had contests to see who could come up with the longest most profane string of cuss words. But we also had respect. We never cussed around adults. My own mom heard me cuss one time between birth and my 21st birthday. To this day there are things she has never heard me say. And do you know what we used to call that? Respect.
There is so little respect out there it is almost unbelievable. And they learn it from us. They learn it from watching their “Idols”. Barack Obama refuses to put his hand over his heart during the national anthem. Roseanne Barr cupping her groin and spitting, politicians on both sides slamming the others, Baseball players taking steroids, football players running dog fighting rings. How on earth can we expect to tell our kids to grow up and be good people if the grown ups are THAT out of control. Now I know I have been a part of that problem. I mean when I first heard about Roseanne my first thought was big deal, she’s a comedienne and what did you expect? As for the rest of them? For awhile my thoughts were so what? How does that affect me? Well right now in my life, it doesn’t. What happens to them or the repercussions’ from them, does not affect me at all. But it could and it may be sooner than I think. It damn sure will affect our kids. You can’t be with your kids 24/7 but people we have to start finding ways to make as much time for our kids as we do for work.
Now I am lucky and I know it. My job, when I am here, allows me the flexibility to make some extra time, and I know that there are a lot of parents out there who can’t make as much time. But there are a lot of you out there who can… if they want. I know it’s hard. But the time you spend with your kids now, may impact the rest of their life. The old cliché of Beaver Cleavers house has long been a running joke to most people and let’s face it, those days are long gone. But the older I get the more I wouldn’t mind stepping back to those days. As long as I can take my cell phone and Ipod with me.
Hey Al, really?
There have been at least four major ice ages in the Earth’s past. Outside these periods, the Earth seems to have been ice-free even in high latitudes.The earliest hypothesized ice age, called the Huronian was around 2.7 to 2.3 billion years ago.
The earliest well-documented ice age, and probably the most severe of the last 1 billion years, occurred from 850 to 630 million years ago in which permanent ice covered the entire globe. This ended very rapidly as water vapors returned to Earths Atmosphere.
A minor ice age, the Andean – Saharan, occurred from 460 to 430 million years ago, There were extensive polar ice caps from 350 to 260 million years ago.The present ice age began 40 million years ago with the growth of an ice sheet in Antarctica. It intensified around 3 million years ago, with the spread of ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere.
Since then, the world has seen cycles of glaciations with ice sheets advancing and retreating on 40,000- and 100,000-year time scales. The most recent glacial period ended about ten thousand years ago.There have been periods in which ice has covered the entire earth and periods in which there was very little ice anywhere. Is Al Gore trying to tell us, that ancient cave men were the reason the ice receded? Too many campfires? Dinosaur farts?
Ok, that last paragraph was a bit out there but so is Al Gores alarmist cries of global warming. That’s the problem with the left. They have to make everything an emergency. They want to use a wide brush to paint republicans as nature haters. I am a republican and I love nature. Whenever I go to an area to fish, look for rocks or just hike, I always clean up my trash as well as any other trash that may be in the area, when I see someone throw trash out of the window of the vehicle, I take down their license plate number and report it to the “Don’t mess with Texas” web site. (You have been warned). I want to see clear cutting of rainforests stopped, I want endangered species to be protected, I want our dependence on fossil fuels to be stopped…..I’m just smart enough to realize that it wont and cant happen overnight and I don’t need Chicken Little to scream the sky is falling to make me aware.
I also don’t want to pay for it all. And guess who will? That’s right. Its not going to be Al “hey dear, can I fly our personal jet to the environment meeting?” Gore. His house and family alone will waste more fuel and electricity this year than most of us will use in 20.They need to take out the emotion, pull out their heads and lets really sit down and discuss viable long term solutions to the problems.
Hello world!
Welcome to my blog. Why did I do it? Why not? Its been my experience that most people are not going to be swayed by a blog or editorial no matter how well written and if I can be totally honest I am not a good writer. Sure, sometimes there are some good thoughts and ideas in my head but once they get on “paper” there is some kind of strange metamorphosis and it comes out looking nothing like it went in.
It goes from “I don’t want to go on a rant” by Dennis Miller to “Deep thoughts” By Jack Handy.
I could talk about Politics……but no, Political talk now is more about emotions than information. And to be honest, the chances of anyone changing MY opinion are slim to none and I don’t want to waste time and energy trying to change the mind of some highly charged Liberal who is firmly convinced that he/she is right. Want an example? I was talking to my 28 year old brother, who by the way, is very “book smart”. He hates Bush and has stated that he is a lib. I asked him if he his opinion on Abortion, Taxes, Free trade, the War in Iraq and several other topics. After he told me what his opinions are I told him that with the exception of one point he was completely in line with George Bush’s policies. Did it matter? Nope, not one bit. I asked him who he liked at the time. Kerry, even though he DISAGREED with all of HIS policies. I asked him why he was going to vote for him. He just didn’t like Bush. Like I said, emotions.
Sports? Well I like NASCAR and College football. Jeff Gordon and the Gators and of course ALL my Texas teams. Yeah, I might occasionally talk about sports. My dislike of the “Chase” format. The need for some kind of playoff system in College football to bring it in line with almost any other sport played on any other level. Yeah, maybe I can talk about that.
Hobbies? Well we like to go rock collecting alot and because of my job I get to go to a lot of places that are very good for that, but can I write a blog about it? Yeah, probably. Will I get many hits? No, not very likely. But yeah, maybe I can talk about that.
My job? No, its like most others, some good points, some bad. No one cares but me and my family.
Random ruminations? Well that’s more my speed and probably closer to what you can expect and probably what I will go with. You wont care, but then again, I don’t really care what you think anyway…lol
