Blogs from United States, North America - page 4773

Had a bit of a sleep in today as we werent planning on travelling to far so enough time to indulge in Kelly and Regis for a while again. Headed out of Winchester on VA-11 and soon crossed the state line and into West Virginia. Funny how you notice certain changes as you cruise along.All of a sudden there Gentlemens clubs everywhere some even next door to each other and some in strange places on the side of the road when there were no houses or township around.Obviously at this time of the morning they were closed so couldnt inspect the inside to see what went on n these places.People do say they do say they do things a bit different in West Virginia.The standard of housing seemed to drop as well. We moved onto WV-51 ... read more

Saturday, September 27, 2008 Listening to the local am radio station this morning; programming is back to the normal schedules. This station is, of course, www.klvi.com, 560 AM from Beaumont, Texas, that I mention often. At 5:00 a.m. on Saturdays there is an outdoor show that is pre programmed. A local host comes on at 6:00 a.m. with the Tradio Show, where people, not those offering services or business ventures, are to call in to find or sell anything they need or have. These things often range from firewood and farm animals to tractor tires, computers, vehicles and refrigerators. I, personally, have never called or bought anything from the program callers but listen nonetheless. I was amazed at the people calling in this early in the morning to offer, free, household and clothing items for those ... read more

City by the Bay: San Francisco Tuesday 30th September 2008 We are in a plane flying at about 34,000 feet towards Honolulu airport, Hawaii. We didn’t leave our hearts in San Francisco (like Tony Bennett in the famous old song) but we did love it! It is a city with a lot of heart and soul and a distinct ambience all of its own. We have been to so many towns over the last month that all look the same, which we called “Anyplace USA”; same shops in the same malls, with the same freeways running through, where once Main Street used to be and thus with the hearts ripped right out of them. San Francisco has everything going for it, great location in a beautiful bay, 19th century “Victorian’ houses in beautiful pastel colours, big ... read more

A lot has happened in September. I had originally planned to just use this blog site for my '09 trip to New Zealand but have decided to modify it a little to lead up to that trip and include other stuff going on in my life. My dad died on August 29th at the age of 89. He had been declining for approximately 2-3 weeks. After surviving an untreatable blood condition 2 years ago his passing was sad but not unexpected. Two weeks later, Sept 9th, I lost my youngest son, Matt, age 34. Matt had suffered a severe brain injury at age 7 and even tough he was very functional we constantly lived with concerns of seizures which ultimately caused his death. I have not even begun to cope with his passing. He was a ... read more

Well, About a week and a half ago, I went around to all the Elementary Schools in my area and asked the Librarians if they had any books that they wanted to donate to the African Library Project. I got about three books on those initial visits and I gave my name and number to all the Librarians so they could call me if they came across any books they thought would be useful to me. I then asked my mom to talk to the Librarian at Lakeside Elementary School, where she works part time, and she came home a couple days later with a stack of books and another stack a few days after that! I also returned to Redwood Middle School (my first visit was the same day as the rest of the schools), ... read more