Day of Infamy

On December 8, 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt went before a joint congress and uttered those now famous, "December 7, 1941, a date that will live in infamy...."

Almost every person has a "day of infamy" in their lives. For me it was October 3, 1973, the day my mom died. That day my life would change forever. I would no longer be the person I was, but started on my journey to become the person I am today.

I was only 8 years old when that happened, my life would take a spiral turn downward, one that would take me over 20 years to recover from. Not every year now is bad for me at this time, but I am getting better, each year brings me another step forward.

For me, this event brought me to the brink of suicide, the loss of every friend I ever had, and hardship in dealing with relationships. I have been divorced twice, have an revengeful ex who keeps refuses to let me talk to my kids.

But in the recent several years, I have made great strides in recovery, several long lost friends have reentered my life again, one bringing much needed postive influence in my life. Even though I may never fully recover from the tragedy that happened, I hope faith that one day I will look upon all that has happen and be happy that she is in a better place now.

We must never forget what brought us to this time and point in our lives. Everything that has ever happened to me I try to use daily to help others bring order into their lives from all the choas in the world.

And I end this blog with a reminder to all who read this, that at this very point in time, we are the sum of all that has happened to us, both good and bad, and to change just one thing, reguardless of how small or large, we would not be the person we are. Remember God loves us all, and always will. Take care my friends.

IN MEMORIAM

IN MEMORIAM: JOANNE JOYCE SMITH JULY 28, 1938-OCTOBER 3, 1973

Our Wonderful President [Part 1]

This photo was taken by AP news service.

How many of you voted for our wonderful president? I have to admit that I did. Now looking back as to how our wonderful president is doing, I have to say I regret voting for him. Actually I did not want to vote for either him or McCain, basically I voted for Edward Biden for Vice-Presient.

Our economy still has not improved, I know it will take time, and I do believe that it MAY have bottomed out, but that really remains to be seen. Since President Obama was sworn in, he has spent trillions of dollars to buy banks, auto manufactuers [namely GM], insurance companies and God knows what else. If he [and Congress] want to save money, why don't they lead by example, take a pay cut, at least until the economy gets better, show the American people that they are willing to make sacrifices.

Yesterday [July 23, 2009], President Obama went to Chicago [from Washington D.C] to pust his latest spending plan, overhauling the health care system. He flew on Airforce 1, which if he was going from state to state, or spend a few days here, no problem, but he wasted a whole lot of money to fly here [Chicago] spend a few hours talking about health care, visited his house, talked to baseball pitcher [he pitched a perfect game], then flew home, all on the same day. What a waste of money, I know that it is his "private" plane, but it costs a lot of money to fly that thing just for one little press conference. It would have been cheaper to fly commercially, chartering a plane from United, Contential, American or US Airways.

I know I am not an expert on economics, I never attended college, I am a self educated man, but I really think there is a lot of money spent on things that are pointless. If we could cut all that "pork spending" out, we would most likely have the debt paid off in my generation. Oh Mr. President, I know you are not entirely to blame for all the pork spending, your buddies in Congress and the Senate are just equally to blame. I can go on an on about our wonderful President so I will continue this again tomorrow, and I will tell everybody about the letter my dad got in the mail..............{TO BE CONTINUED}

What Photographers Do For A Shot

For the last few weeks I have been getting back into Photography. I have learned that when a photographers go anywhere, wheather they are driving, walking, on the bus, subway, train, they are always looking for interesting shots.

Recently I was talking to a photographer friend of mine. We were talking about the things we do for shots. A few years ago I was at the local beach here. I was way out at the end of the breakwater when a very severe thunderstorm came up. Back then I just had a disposible film camera, but there I was standing on this breakwater taking pictures of the storm, not paying attention to all the lightning strikes hitting the water. I was thinking, "Kevin what a stupid idiot you are for standing in such a dangerous location" LOL.

Yesterday, I was at my sister's house. She was in front of the house and saw a great big grey bag stuck in a bush. She went to grab it and realized it was a large hornet's nest. She came inside and told me. So you think I cared about if my sister got stung or is ok? NO, I grabbed my camera and asked where was the hornets nest. For 5 minutes I kneeled in front of the bush snapping photos. The shot on the left is one of those. She was concerned that I might get stung, but I didn't care about that, all I cared about was getting a good shot, LOL. I told if I was perfectly still, left them alone, and acted like I belonged there, I would be ok. I got many shots, without getting stung.

This shot was taken this morning. I was driving to work and saw the sun coming up over the clouds and had to stop to take a few shots. Luckily there was no traffic behind me as I changed lanes extremely quickly so I can pull over and take them.

As a photographer I find I will do almost anything to get a shot. I won't do anything illegal, but I will risk getting stung, electrofied in water by lightning and crashing into something to pull over. This is my wacky life, it's a miracle I have survived this long, LOL

Fire!!!

What is our fasination with fire? Why do we like to sit and watch a fire burning in our fireplaces or sit around a campfire and watch it burn?

Last night my sister had a few friends over and made a small fire in her fire pit in her backyard. They sat there talked, toasted marshmellows, gossiped for hours. They drank some wine, caught up on girl talk.

I was just fasinated with how it burned. Being a retired volunteer fireman, fire has always fasinated me. I enjoyed put them out as much as watching them burn.

The heat from the fire really felt nice since it was a littel chilly. My niece was toasting marshmellows, she fell asleep watching it. My sister and her friends were talking, enjoying the fire until a little past midnight. The fire in the photo is a shot of the fire last night.

People have been fasinated by fire since it was first discovered, people have been trying to control it, tame it and use it since, but fire is dangerous, no matter how much we try, we will never be able to control or tame it.

Garage Sales

Every summer you see the signs on almost every corner, "Garage Sale" they usually have an arrow pointing down a street or have an address on it.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow morning, my sister has been having a garage sale selling all the junk that she, myself and the rest of immediate family have collected over the last 2 years.

I am selling among other junk, a "Windows '98" computer and a printer. So far [as of this writing] I made a whopping $14. My sister has made about $150.

Yesterday, we didn't too much business, don't know why, but it was a slow day. Today however, was busier.

The first wave lasted about 2 hours, it was mostly white and black people, no big problems, we sold quite a few things, no bargining, they just waited for my sister to total everything up and paid her. Then it was quiet for about 45 minutes.

Then the second wave hit, the Mexicans. They all undestood the price my sister told them, but they didn't want to listen, my sister would tell them $5, they would counter $1, some of them said no and walked away unhappy, the others, they eventually were able to come to a price my sister was happy with.

The third wave, the Russians, were no better. They expected to pay a quarter [25 cents] for a child's outfit that sold for $35 [original tags still on] and marked $5, which is a great deal. I know the economy is bad, but does that mean everything should sell for nothing.

Tomorrow will be worst, they know it's the last day and people want to get rid of everything. My sister is donating everything to charity. The clothes go to our state's child services, they take in clothing for the foster kids in need of clothing. The computers and printers will go to a place called Allendale, they help people with ADD, who are Bi-Polar learn and get training they need to survive and get jobs. They also house children and adults with severe emotional and mental problems who could not survive without constant care.

photo is of the garage sale sign in front of sister's house

Living in a Plastic World

Today the world we live in is basically a plastic world. Since plastic was first invented in 1892, but wasn't widely used until the 1950's. Since 1976 plastic has been the most widely used substance in the world.

Almost everthing made today is either entirely made of plastic or is mostly plastic. In the 1950's cars were made entirely of steel, they lasted forever, a lot of them are still on the road today, just go to a classic car show. Today, we buy "disposable cars" mostly made of plastic, they last only 5 years, 10 if you really take care of them. From soda bottles, baby bottles, diapers, breast implants, cell phones all are only a few examples of plastic things in our lives. These are things that were made of much better materials, but for convience and profits, they are made of cheap plastic.

If sceintists were to say tomorrow that the center of the Earth is actually made of plastic, I wouldn't be a bit surprised. In 1969, men stepped on the moon for the first time, the spacecraft they flew in was made of aluminum, at some places it was about 1mm thick. Now the shuttle has very little metal in it, mainly for cost and weight reason, mostly for the cost. Even the airlines are looking to plastic, not because it's safer, but because it is cheaper and weighs less than metal.

What ever happened to making things last a long time. I guess it's not very profitable to do that, it is better to make things to fall apart after a short time so people would have to go to the store and replace it.

So what if we boycotted everything that is made of plastic and go back to "old school" living? I don't think society could handle it. Just imagine, changing cloth diapers, not using plastic disposibles? Paying a fortune for a car made from steel, instead of buying a cheap disposible car made of plastic. Ladies, what if your unhappy with your beast size, I guess you have to live with it, plastic boobs would be out of the question.

My point is, society today, could not live without the invention called, "plastic." The world would come to a stand still if all the plastics in the world were taken away.