HUMANE SOCIETY WEB PAGE WITH PICTURES
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TRAGIC MIX-UP
Last April news came out of Fort Wayne about Taylor University students who were killed when a semi crossed the road and hit their car head-on. One survivor was taken to Prkview by helicopter in a coma. Just today, the announcement came that identities had been mixed up and Laura VanRyn was not the girl in the coma; she had died in the accident. The survivor is Whitney Cerak.
SPELLING BEE IN PRIME TIME??
Yes, read
THIS ARTICLE and see what I am talking about. Now, I don't think I will watch, and to tell the truth, I don't know why anyone spends time on a major spelling bee such as this unless he/she has a photographic memory. I would think the time memorizing the exact spelling of words could be better spent learning vocabulary, reading about what is going on in the world, reading well-written books, working puzzles that require reasoning. But I guess that's just me.
SO????
All day yesterday, I kept looking to see if we were going to get rain. We did not. My mother is LaGrange County got rain . . . and lightning and thunder. In fact, the cat went to the basement so it is official it stormed there. Not here. Now perhaps will we in the line of fire - maybe that was an unwise choice of words.
ED GRISAMORE
I received a notice in my email today that Ed Grisamore has a new audiobook out comprised of some of his favorite columns from the Macon Georgia Telegraph. Ed and I share a progenitor, but we didn't know this, nor did we know about each other until my husband, who spends a lot of time in that state, noticed Ed's last name and found it much like my maiden name: Grismore.
I emailed Ed and he referred me to his father, retired surgeon, Jennings Grisamore, who is the family historian. Dr. Grisamore's branch of the family was in Missouri when he was young, and after the war he attended medical school at Washington University in St. Louis. He interned - as they called it then - at Grady Memorial in Atlanta . . . and he says, "I married a Southern girl." He has practiced and made his home in Macon ever since.
You can read about Ed Grisamore at
this site. You can continue to read about me right here at Indiana Territory.
ROBERT REDFORD SPEAKS OUT ON OIL
Look
HERE for an article written by Redford on the dependence on oil and responses to his viewpoint.
CONCERT AT EAST NOBLE
Okay, so this isn't a picture of the concert; it is a picture of Cameron and his baritone at the concert at East Noble.
HERBS AND PRESCRIPTIONS
THISis interesting - especially the part about Ginko. Isn't that supposed to help your mind work better? Well, use it . . . your mind. Think before you put something in your mouth.
NO RAIN THIS AFTERNOON
Well, we didn't get any storms or even rain . . . and now it looks as if we are caught between two storm centers. Will it come up from the south? I don't know.
UPDATE: I believe it is going to miss us.
UPDATE 2: Okay, the wind is picking up.
ALERT ALERT ALERT
THIS PERSON WILL BE GETTING OUT OF SCHOOL SOON!!!
GET READY FOR THE HUNT
This Saturday night at 6:30 at the east end of the fishing channel at Bixler Lake, the park is holding a Garlic Mustard Hunt. YEA!!!!!
Actually, Garlic Mustard is not some elusive plant, but just the opposite. A more common name is "creeping "charley" and it is really an invasive plant that crowds out native species.
STORMS COMING??
I just looked at the radar and thunderstorms (RED) were sitting on the Elkhart/LaGrange County line. Are they coming this way? Will we get rain? thunder? lightning? Maybe I better take a shower now.
MEMORIAL DAY CARDS
Want to say hi to someone on Memorial Day? Go
here to Yahoo Greetings to see cards to send.
To read a HISTORY of Memorial Day, look
HERE.
ANOTHER HOT ONE
High 90° F
Precip:10%
Mostly sunny. A stray thunderstorm is possible. High near 90F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
Well, there may only be a 10% chance of rain, but I think water will be involved a lot in people's days - - - drinking, swimming, running through sprinklers, pouring over the head
HORNISH WINS
Point 6 hundredths of a second . . . in the last second . . . pushed Sam Hornish Jr. ahead of 19 year old Marco Andretti to win the 90th Running of the Indianapolis 500. The announcers thought Andretti was going to win it . . . maybe they jinxed him.
THE EGG
There is a story
HERE that will says when it comes to the chicken and the egg, the chicken came firt. No change in the tortise and the hare story.
CORN FED
Next year the Honda engines at the Indianapolis 500 will be fueled with 100% ethanol. In fact, to make that point, one of the reporters at the Speedway reached into a car and pulled out an ear of corn - husk and all. No, it's true; I'm not shucking you. Bwhahahahaha.
INDIANAPOLIS 500
Oh, I forgot it's Race Day. I remember when they always had the race on May 30th - Memorial Day - except when it fell on a Sunday. Times change.
UPDATE: Just passed the 300 mile mark.
The winner takes back about a million and half dollars.
KING TUT AT FIELD MUSEUM
Yes, King Tut is back . . . in Chicago. You can read about it
here at FOXNEWS or visit the
Field Museum site itself.
HOT HOT HOT
People wanted to enjoy their lakefront homes - or invitations to picnics at lakefront homes - last year on Memorial Day were weather-challenged. It was cold and rainy - not a time for swimsuits or cookouts. Well, this year it is supposed to be warmer - a lot warmer.
Oh, by the way, I do not have a lakefront home. So if it gets too hot, you can find me under the sprinkler.
ETHANOL
Thursday in Huntertown I stopped to get fuel and saw and ethanol pump - which is good if you have a car which can use ethanol . . . but you don't want to do so if you have a conventional one, say automakers.
Look here for story.You can view a story I wrote for the Kendallville Mall about ethanol and biodiesel over at
Pictures on the Mantle.
MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND
The Bluegrass Festival is all set up at the fairgrounds, and as usual, the weather is not the best. Yesterday was rain; today it is cloudy and threatening storms and I think it supposed to get very HOT.
Yesterday on a trip to the cemetery where my dad is buried in Fountain County, we drive through two torrential downpours. More accurately, when the rain started to come down the first time we were right by a Goodwill store in Rochester and went in there and listened to the buckets of rain hit the roof. The lights flickered, but did not go out.
Farther down the road, between Warsaw and Goshen, we had to pull over at a car dealership while it rained very heavily again. Then . . . as we approached 120, we were greeted with a road closed sign, a man waving everyone toward a detour and the sight of some limbs down. We found out later 7 electrical poles had come down and brought the wires with them. It took over two hours to safely extricate all the people whose cars were caught in the mess of poles and wires.
IN FACT, the 7 poles coming down made the
CNN news coverage.
BAND CONCERT
The combined band concert for East Noble was last night we spent about an hour and half in the Big Blue Pit. It was the first year the bands have met together like this and there was a lot of down time as chairs, stands and people were moved from one part of the gym to another.
Jim Swartzlander was recognized for 20 years as the asst. director at the high school and will now concentrate on the middle school. Called up to receive a plaque marking the occasion, Swartzlander received a hearty ovation and cheer from students and parents.
UPDATE: A good time was had by all.
NAME CALLING IN THE MIDWEST
Actually, there is quite a bit of it going on all over the country - in blogs, by people who often use only their first name as indentification . . . and you are left to wonder if that name is actual theirs.
I'm talking about what was mentioned in an article in today's Journal-Gazette: "Liberal Bloggers directing rage at Bush." The article originated out of the Washington Post about a woman in Sherman Oaks, California who calls her rants on the blog My Left Wing are "one sustained scream." I think it is more like a screech.
One blogger, identified as Bill, says this of Bush: (I have to take a long breath because this guy is a wellspring of obnoxiousness) "the most asinine, brutal, criminal, disgusting, enranging, felonious, gross, horrendous, incompentent, jaundiced, kleptocratic, lazy, malicious, nefarious, objectional, psychopathic, quarrelsome, repulsive, sanctimonious, treasonist, unfit, vindictive, wasteful, xenophobic, yahooish, zealotic piece of (expletive) inhabiting the White House and the planet . . ."
Gee, I'll bet Bill really thinks it's cool to go down the alphabet with anti-Bush adjectives . . . I hope Bill's parents stopped at "B" although it is pretty clear they should have stopped at "A."
Bill can't be in a class by himself, because people who sputter out such garbage have no class at all.
But the title said Midwest - and that's because there are people right here in the area, including Noble County who have blogs devoted to saying just down right mean things about George Bush. I've read some . . . but I'll not recommend them. Maybe I'll email the sites to Barbara and let her take them out to the woodshed.
THE DaVINCI CODE
I liked the movie and thought it was reminiscent of an old Alfred Hitchcock movie.I do not agree with the critics who gave it a "C-".
I consider the plot to be a supposition and thought the negative response to it was not unlike the Muslims reaction to the Danish newspaper that printed cartoons of Mohammad.
Robert Schuller of The Crystal Cathedral said that he welcomed any thing that would bring about discussion of Christ.
Apparently, the idea of boycotting the movie has not panned out since
reports are that it has grossed $29 million on its first day in theaters. It would have been higher but The Strand only charges $4.50 a ticket.
AT THE STRAND
Da Vinci Code, The Rated PG-13, 2 hr 29 min
Showtimes: 7:00, 9:35
Over the Hedge Rated PG, 1 hr 27 min
Showtimes: 7:15, 9:00
BLUE SKY . . . SO FAR
Okay, I have a 1pm appointment in Fort Wayne, but it is only 8:30am now and let's see what I can do to make use of the sunshine . . . Paint? Maybe. Pull weeds? Nah. Clean the garage? You gotta be kidding.
DO YOU KNOW THIS PERSON?
Sarah Eileen Shimp Grismore - My Mother
WELL, THE SIDEWALK DRIED
I decided this morning if the side walk dried, I would start mowing the lawn; well, it did. The grass remained moist in a lot of places, but I figured this might be my best chance to cut the grass. In fact, with this rain, everything seems green and growing and having watched "The Day of the Triffids" when I was a girl, I wanted to do something to take control of the vigorous greenery. Even if I did not succeed in taking control, at least I would be making a statement against the encroachment - I would have taken a stand.
It is done, and the sun even briefly came out while I was mowing - just enough so I could see my shadow and that of Sydney, my dog who follows me as I walk back and forth behind the mower. It - the sun - is back under overcast and I have downed a half bottle of GatorAde. Will it rain? I don't know, but I suspect so.
I have a small lawn, which is good when it comes to time spent mowing - not to mention effort, but not so good for croquet. When we lived in West Chester, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati, we had a lawn that was not good for croquet either - but not because of its size. It was a huge hill sloping down to a ravine and creek on one side and to the road in front. It used to take me many hours to mow it with a regular push (but powered) mower and I didn't at that time realize the benefits of keeping hydrated while mowing. A bottle of water and a self-propelled mower seemed like Heaven to me.
We had some neighbors who had a much smaller lawn and mowed it with a rider; I thought the guy was a wimp. Well, I did and if that seems harsh, so be it.
Cincinnati could get really, really humid and hazy and the traditional blue of the sky was only seen on the rare occasions that a wind came through or on winter days.
We did manage, however, to play croquet on a small flat area in back between the woods and the house. Actually, the area wasn't that flat - one of the wickets was located up a pretty steep slope and we referred to it as "Dead Man's Wicket." It was also right at the very edge of the woods and close to the ravine and if you hit your ball too hard, it would be in the undergrowth - and no telling whatelse was in there.
All and all, if we still lived in West Chester, I would still be mowing now . . . but we don't, so I am inside, sitting down, looking at the gray sky. Thinking about it that way comforts me a little when I bemoan the lack of cheery sunny days.
READ ARTICLE ON GENE STRATTON PORTER
If you go to
Pictures on the Mantle, you can read an article about the GSP site that I wrote back in 2003
GENE STRATTON PORTER FIELD TRIP
My granddaughter Summer is going to Gene Stratton Porter's cabin in the woods up on Slyvan Lake today and I would like to link to the site, but either its server is not working or the page is being updated. Here's a picture and a
wee, wee bit of information from the Noble County Convention and Visitors Center site.
END NEARING
As the days at North Side grow to a close in its final year, here's a picture of the main hall outside the office.
WHEN WILL SHE MOW?
!!!!!!!!!!!!!GRASS!!!!!GRASS!!GRASS!!GRASS!! GRASS!!!!!!!!!!!That is what people must be asking themselves when they drive by my house. To tell you the truth, I don't know. When will it stop raining? That is my question. According to the weather prediction we could have thunder with out rain today . . . great. At least we are not wading through streets as they are in New England . . . but give it time, give it time.
LOOK,
BLUE SKY!!! Once upon a time, they say the sky was not gray . . .
RV AT THE STRAND
While Mission Impossible 3 continues for another week - I saw it and it was enjoyab3e -
RV will start at the Strand tonight.
Mission: Impossible III
Rated PG-13, 2 hr 6 min
Showtimes: 7:00, 9:15
RV
Rated PG, 1 hr 38 min
Showtimes: 7:00, 9:00
SO I THOUGHT FOGGO WAS A FUNNY NAME . . .
and now the FBI thinks there might be
something funny about Foggo himself.
FIRE LAST NIGHT
This morning as I was driving Alison to work at the hospital, I looked over at the open fire house door and remarked on an engine being gone. She replied,"There is it," and pointed to the business on the north side of the road just a wee bit west of the fire station.
"NEW" CAR FOR SALE
I forgot to check the address and I didn't take a picture of the for sale sign - but this is a 1949 model year. Until I can look up the address, this will have to do: it is just down the side street from the building that burned on Rte. 6 this morning.
EN SENIOR
VINCENT MARTINEZ
Every year I write an article about a senior at EN whom the counselors designate and just a really good person, but one whose name isn't in the paper a lot. This year it was Vincent Martinez and I want to say that I really enjoyed getting to know him. You can read the article in the Kendallville Mall.
V-E DAY
May 8th was V-E Day - Victory in Europe. I thought about it on the 7th - thought that I would post about it on the 8th, and then I forgot. That's not right. War isn't something to cheer about, but it was, I think, about as just a war as you can get and a lot of men paid with their lives for the victory. I don't only mean that a lot of men died - a lot were injured permanently, their futures forever changed. We should at least remember.
Yes, they have a day already - Memorial Day, but for what they did, is it too much to remember more than once a year? It wasn't only the soldiers, either; it was everyone on the homefront who sacrificed and supported and prayed. As Winston Churchill said to people gathered in London: "This is your victory."
SO WHAT IS UP WITH NEW ORLEANS?
Although vast swaths of this hurricane-battered city are still without electricity and basic services, residential real estate sales are at a fever pitch, a shining spot in an otherwise struggling economy.
Last fall we watched New Orleans inundated and people are paying big bucks to move back in?? Does this make sense in terms of geography weather trends? More tax dollars to New Orleans to do this all over again? Not a good idea, in my opinion. The complete article is
HERE.
BY ANY OTHER NAME?
KYLE "DUSTY" FOGGO
The number three guy in the CIA is probably going to quit or has already quit. His name is Foggo; does anyone else think this is a very ironic name for someone in an intelligence agency - a real Mr. Magoo type of name? Imagine the people having to practice being introduced to their new boss - Mr. Foggo.
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III
Yes, I liked it - lots of nifty stunts and split-second timing procedures carried off perfectly . . . sort of the opposite of my life.
EGYPTIAN ANCESTORS?
A little King Tut dancing to enliven the afternoon . . .
NICE SUMMER DAYS
This is Colin, saluting the day.
So, Cameron and Summer have a little confrontation . . . Is Summer thinking, "Will that furball down there save me?"
Robert painting in the garage.
Like Alison's outfit for painting in the vestibule?
SO WHAT'S THIS I HEAR?
Wal-Mart is in a patent fight over the use of the Smiley face???? Well, sheesh, this seems ridiculous to me: a circle, curved line and two dots that has been around for a long time and Wal-Mart wants to claim it for its own? That's low.
Actually, I have not found the Wal-Mart Smiley Face to be an inducement to buy anything - I think the yellow circle that sometimes bounces in TV commercials to be a little on the annoying and stickman cartoonish side. Look at it: Doesn't this guy look a little vacant to you? Does he say to you, "I've thought about this product and price and I'm smiling because I'm happy that this is a good deal?" I think he looks like a manic shopper out of control, sreaming, "I'm happy, I'm happy, Oh, yeah, I'm happy but I have no idea why . . . Oh, I'm yellow, yep, yellow. Woo-hoo, Let's buy something because I'm yellow and I'm smiling.
UPDATE: Read about it in
THIS ARTICLE from the LA Times.
BRAIDED RAG RUGS
Sometimes I get lucky, and today was one of those times. I went down to the rummage sale they were having at the Restoration Lutheran Church and found two old braided rag rugs. I have a picture but I have yet to upload it. I also found a hardback copy of Eragon and we are going to donate it to the North Side School Library; we found four original little Coke glasses and a scythe. Okay, the last item may seem a little odd but I think we may mount it on one of the outbuildings at my mother's.
Her mother nearly lost a leg when she came up behind her father who was cutting grass in the late 1880's with a scythe. She was hit on the front of the shin bone and had to lay for weeks on the sofa with her leg elevated.
TO GO TONIGHT OR NOT TO GO
Mission: Impossible III
Rated PG-13, 2 hr 6 min
Showtimes: 7:00, 9:15
REVIEW OR
Wild, The
Rated G, 1 hr 25 min
Showtimes: 7:15, 9:00
REVIEW
JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO GO BACK . . .
THE FIN
A giant fin has appeared in the crater at Mt. St. Helens.
Reports say it is growing at the rate of four to five feet a day - which is better than watching the grass grow, but then the grass doesn't erupt all over your cookout.
SOME NEW FAMILY PICS
Some picture from last night, which was the last night to shine at the old North Side are posted in photo galleries. Actually, there are no pictures of North Side because I wimped out, but there are a lot of shots of the people who went . . . and one dog who did not.
CRUISING INTO TOWN
MIssion Impossible 3 will be at the Strand tomorrow night. I will no doubt go to the movie while it is in town, but I wonder if I will think more about how they are using camera angles to make Tom Cruise look taller than the plot. And then there are the special effects . . . oh, we already talked about that: stand on a box, tall shoes, short co-stars and so forth.
GRAY SKIES
Let's see - Saturday and Sunday were chilly, rainy and gray, gray, gray. Monday was gray and today, well, today was gray until just a little while ago. One of my bet peeves is gray cars on a gray day with no hightlights on. Tomorrow they are predicting fog for the morning and to me that is spelled TWO HOUR DELAY!!!.
So, Cameron and Summer have a little confrontation . . . Is Summer thinking, "Will that furball down there save me?"
Robert painting in the garage.
Like Alison's outfit for painting in the vestibule?
