For the Heros of Pearl Harbor

December 7, 1941

"A day that will live in infamy"

Franklin Roosevelt

Today is the 60th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Bringing the United States into World War II.

Click here to go to Medal of Honor recipients.

The above photo is from the website http://www.homeofheroes.com

Trip to Cabela's

Cabela's East Hartford, CT

Today I got up early, or about 6:30 am. Maybe it isn't that early for some, but it is for me. Anyway, I hurried down to East Hartford, CT. to arrive on time for a sale that was to begin at 7:00 am, only to find out that I had the date wrong and the sale is tomorrow. Doh! Not only that but, the store would not open till 8:00. So, I took a little detour to the closest Dunkin Donuts, for decaf coffee. I don't need caffeine to wake up, it just makes me jittery, so no caffeine for me (sort of like - no soup for you).

Cabela's -- Great place, for outdoor stuff, clothes and fishing gear. I can't believe I didn't get pictures inside. They had a fake mountain inside the store covered with stuffed animals that were taxidermied. All kinds of Elk, Bears, and varmints. They also had an aquarium with live Bass and Pike on one side and trout on the other.

My favorite area was the huge fishing equipment corner. You name it they had it. I bought a carrying rack for fishing poles. I can use it as a stand to store poles and also just grab it and carry the poles to my car all at once on the rack.

Learn from Dave Barry

"19 Things That Took Me 50 Years To Learn"Source: Dave Barry

1. Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings."

3. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

5. And when God, who created the entire universe with all of its glories, decides to deliver a message to humanity, God WILL NOT use, as a messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle.

6. You should not confuse your career with your life.

7. No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.

8. When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy.

9. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

10. Never lick a steak knife.

11. Take out the fortune before you eat the cookie.

12. The most powerful force in the universe is gossip.

13. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.

14. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

15. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age 11.

16. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.

17. The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them.

18. A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.

19. Your friends love you anyway.

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907.



"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
Theodore Roosevelt 1907

Every American citizen needs to read this!

Tomasina

My cat died today. I will miss her very much. She was 18 years old. She had a great life. Playing outside, chasing squirrels, basking in the sun, and hiding out in the bushes. She would run to my car when I drove up. She would come to me when I called her. I could not sit or lay down in the house without her jumping up on me.


When I went thru a very rough time in my life, and was on chemotherapy, it was she who never left my side. Did I say I will miss her very, very much. I have had other cats before, I loved them all, but there was something special about this one. She sensed when I needed her around, and would always be there for me. She would follow me around the yard whenever I had work to do. She would play in the garden when I was weeding. She would sit next to me at the picnic table.


I buried her in the back yard, by the bushes where she used to like to hang out.



I'll miss you Tomasina

More ranting

More ranting I agree with found on the internet.

I believe this is why I need additional liability insurance....

Proof of entitlement mentality

It's time again for the annual "Stella Awards"! For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald's in New Mexico where she purchased the coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right?


That's right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your head scratchier handy.


Here are the Stella's for the past year:


7TH PLACE:
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son.

6TH PLACE:
Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.


Go ahead, grab your head scratchier.

5TH PLACE:
Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, who was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count 'em, EIGHT, days on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner's insurance company claiming undue mental Anguish.

Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish.
Keep scratching. There are more...



4TH PLACE:
Jerry Williams, of Little Rock , Arkansas , garnered 4th Place in the Stella's when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.


Grrrrr ... Scratch, scratch.



3RD PLACE:
Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. What ever happened to people being responsible for their own actions?

Scratch, scratch, scratch. Hang in there; there are only two more Stella's to go...


2ND PLACE:
Kara Walton, of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000....oh, yeah,
plus dental expenses. Go figure.



1ST PLACE: (May I have a fanfare played on 50 kazoos please)
This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down, $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just incase Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.

Are we, as a society, getting more stupid...?

Happy Birthday USMC

November 10th 1775

232 years ago the United States Marine Corp was formed.

Happy Birthday and thank you for all you do, and for all you have sacrificed.

Click on this link:
Happy 232nd
Birthday to the United States Marine Corps!

Schilling signed

This is not a sports blog despite the fact that this is the second post in a row regarding the Red Sox. I am just so excited about Curt Schillings resigning to play for the Red Sox, and finishing his career in Beantown.







He is such a classy guy and now Red Sox legend. Remember the old Ford truck commercial where he was hitching a ride to Boston. He said he was going there to bring the town a Championship. Big words, very audacious claim seeing as the team had not won a World Series in 86 years. But he came thru, he backed up those words with deeds. He suffered pain and anguish to deliver on those words.




Remember the bloody sock, well it was because he had had emergency surgery to his tendons, just to take the mound.














Thanks for all you have done for the Red Sox and Boston and all the fans of Red Sox Nation.

I tip my cap to you.

Red Sox Parade

That's right! Sox did it again. Twice in four years, I could get used to this.
I went to the Victory Parade in Boston for the Red Sox. It was a beautiful day, bright clear and sunny. I arrived with my brother-in-law and his daughter as well as a couple of her friends, early in the day, about 8:30am and we stopped off at Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market.

On our way we came across the facilities brought in for the event.

Thats my B-I-L ^^^^^^




This is Andrea - I promised to blog this, so here it is. We had a great time at the parade with you and your friend Tara

This is Tara.

And oh yes, the parade.
After waiting about 5 hours standing on the edge of City Hall Ave. The Sox finally came in to view. They also stopped about 100 yards ahead of us to speak to the crown and have John Papelbon dance his jig for the crowd. From where we were standing, we could not see any of it.

I should have stayed home, I would have seen more of the parade and my legs would not be hurting so much from standing endlessly.

But, I guess it was worth it. It was exciting to be in that atmosphere of jubilation.

Here a some pics from the parade.

This is the Series MVP 3rd baseman, Mike Lowell


Yes, the Yankees still suck.






Finally, I want to leave my sentiments for the last few years of enjoyment the team has brought Red Sox Nation and myself.

A rant I saw on the web and agree with in principle

Lets suppose something here.. suppose you owned a home and that you raised your family in that home for many years. Then one day, some people decided that they could have a better life living with you and they tell you that they will mow your lawn and wash dishes for you while you work and make a living for your family. At first you tell them yea, thats a good idea we can use the extra help! After a time, you notice that your bills rise, electricty, water.Then your helpers decide they need a few extra snacks from your fridg. Then one day, the one of the woman has a baby and she proudly proclaims the new baby is now a member of your family and you have to help support this baby with the hard work you do at the office or factory. Your barely making enough money to pay for your real family and you tell the people that you cant afford to take care of them anymore and they have to leave. They refuse and tell you that they have a right to live in your house because you did not complain before and they just want a better life. Well, this makes you angry and you call the police, they come and talk to these people but since they cops are not allowed to ask if they are the rightfull owners of the home, they cannot make them leave. So now that you cant get help from the cops, you give up. Your new family takes more and more and expect you to work harder to help support them. Your home is falling apart by now, it is dirty and smells because the new family realizes that the law will not do anything to them. There is nothing you can do, so you take your real family and move to another home and vow to begin to do something to make the Gov, people like Bush, Mccain and Kennedy do something to help you and others like you. You find out to your horror that these,elected people by the people, could not care less about your problem. There main concern is allowing this to keep happening at an ever faster pace. They claim that they do this because all our parents came here from other lands, but leaving out the fact that our parents asked to come here and do so according to the laws of the land. They leave out the fact that these people did not expect free handouts and free housing. These people worked hard to survive and built their own homes and learned the laws of the new land they now lived in and that included learning new ways to live and learning a new language. Their hard work and willingness to be part of the culture that welcomed them here made this country strong and prosperous.
Now, we have people from other countries coming to our house and expecting us to support them and to allow them to act like they did in the country they came from. When we tell them that we dont like they way they act, they threaten us with violence and riots. They expect us to feed them and house them. They expect us to be over joyed at the fact that they have kids one after another and they expect us to let them bring in other family members that still live in other countries and take care of them too. I don't believe in Mohamed or alla or however you spell their names and if I say they suck, I should not have to worry about you blowing up yourself in my house.
If you think that you can come into my house and wash your feet in my sink and wallow on my floor and speak in someway I don't understand, I will ask you to get the hell out of my house and not come back. I am sure your more then welcome in your own country.
If you go to the streets, and wave flags from your country and want to be made part of my country, even though you broke our law and snuck here, again in no uncertain terms, I say to you..get out and go back to your country and make it better. Dont expect me or my country to baby you.
I urge everyone that agrees with me to write their senators and tell them to vote no for the amnesty sham they are trying to stuff down Americas throat. It is your country, now is the time to protect it from becoming a third world country. If you dont, you have no one to blame but yourself.

2007 Scantic River Canoe Race

Saturday March 24th, 2007 - Scantic River, CT

Hoax Causes Havoc

Hoax Devices Part Of Cartoon Ad Campaign

(WBZ) BOSTON The suspicious devices which forced bomb units to scramble across Boston today were actually magnetic lights that are part of a marketing campaign for a television cartoon.

The reports forced the temporary shutdowns of Interstate 93 out of the city, a key inbound roadway, a bridge between Boston and Cambridge, and a portion of the Charles River but were quickly determined not to be explosive.

"It's a hoax -- and it's not funny," Gov. Deval Patrick said.

All of the devices are magnetic lights which resemble a character on the show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", on Turner Broadcasting's Cartoon Network.

WBZ has obtained a statement from Turner Broadcasting:

"The "packages" in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger. They are part of an outdoor marketing campaign in 10 cities in support of Adult Swim's animated television show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. They have been in place for two to three weeks in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco and Philadelphia. Parent company Turner Broadcasting is in contact with local and federal enforcement on the exact locations of the billboards. We regret that they mistakenly thought to pose any danger."

A total of nine devices were found in Boston and Somerville.

The first device was found at an MBTA subway and bus station located under Interstate 93 on Wednesday morning. The device was detonated and determined to be harmless, but as a precaution the station and the interstate shut down temporarily.

Then, around 1 p.m., four calls came into Boston Police reporting suspicious devices at the Boston University Bridge and the Longfellow Bridge, which both span the Charles River, and the corner of Stuart and Columbus Streets and at the Tufts-New England Medical Center.

Another device was found in Somerville under the McGrath Highway Bridge.

The FBI is assisting Boston police in the investigation. F-B-I spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz says the investigation remains "fluid." She stresses the devices are NOT related to terrorism.

Stay with cbs4boston.com for the latest on this developing story.

(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. )

Who is going to pay for all the extra Police man hours this event caused? Should the promoters pay? Should anyone pay? This caused an extreme hardship on people today as traffic backups and time lost was the order of the day. Hope you did not have an important appointment in Boston today.