I have been hiding

The corporate fat cats have been getting on my nerves so I have been watching videos. The lastest video I have watching is called "Lillie" it is about a Victorian women and her affair with the Prince of Wales very "Up Stairs Down Stairs" style. Dad had pizza for dinner and Barbra Ann stopped by to drop off some things that Aunt Ann had and since she was clearing out her house. Some glasses and plates that Grandma Crouse had and a statue head from the cottage. If anyone wants to see remind me. They also had a chart that I think James made of the Crouse and Mckernan family, why she had it I don't know but I will pass it onto to him.

The World Goes Round

No much happening here, I am trying to find a doctor that would be able to treat me as a "whole person"- someone who is up to date on the Physiology of the human body which is: "The biological study of the functions of living organisms and their parts". My body hit a rough patch in 1990 and I have tried talking to my Family Doc, Endocrinologist, and my GYN Doc and everyone has the same answer.... you are normal nothing I can do but as I had to do for Brian, which took until he was 10 I will start fighting back! I wonder if other people go through crap like this. I don't smoke, don't drink, I do like a cookie or two before bed but you have to have atleast one vice! Well everyone will be thrilled to hear my MRI of the brain is normal! The "aphasia" I have been experiencing is from something else so I will add that to my list.
By the way Jenni was made "treasurer of the Rugby team" anything to do with money Jenni loves so congratulations to her. She also get a discount on her dues.

From Maureen Dowd

I couldn't have said it better, thank you MAUREEN DOWD
January 28, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Wall Street’s Socialist Jet-Setters
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
As President Obama spreads his New Testament balm over the capital, I’m longing for a bit of Old Testament wrath.
Couldn’t he throw down his BlackBerry tablet and smash it in anger over the feckless financiers, the gods of gold and their idols — in this case not a gilt calf but an $87,000 area rug, a cache of diamond Tiffany and Cartier watches and a French-made luxury corporate jet?
Now that we’re nationalizing, couldn’t we fire any obtuse bankers and auto executives who cling to perks and bonuses even as the economy is following John Thain down his antique commode?
How could Citigroup be so dumb as to go ahead with plans to get a new $50 million corporate jet, the exclusive Dassault Falcon 7X seating 12, after losing $28.5 billion in the past 15 months and receiving $345 billion in government investments and guarantees?
(Now I get why a $400 payment I recently sent to pay off my Citibank Visa was mistakenly applied to my sister-in-law’s Citibank Mastercard account.)
The “Citiboobs” — as The New York Post, which broke the news, calls them — watched as the car chieftains got in trouble for flying their private jets to Washington to ask for bailouts, and the A.I.G. moguls got dragged before Congress for spending their bailout on California spa treatments. But the boobs still didn’t get the message.
The former masters of the universe don’t seem to fully comprehend that their universe has crumbled and, thanks to them, so has ours. Real people are losing real jobs at Caterpillar, Home Depot and Sprint Nextel; these and other companies announced on Monday that they would cut more than 75,000 jobs in the U.S. and around the world, as consumer confidence and home prices swan-dived.
Prodded by an appalled Senator Carl Levin, Tim Geithner — even as he was being confirmed as Treasury secretary — directed Treasury officials to call the Citiboobs and tell them the new jet would not fly.
“They woke up pretty quickly,” says a Treasury official, adding that they protested for a bit. “Six months ago, they would have kept the plane and flown it to Washington.”
Senator Levin said that the financiers will not be able to change their warped mentality, but will have to be reined in by Geithner’s new leashes. “I have no confidence that they intend or desire to change,” Levin told me. “These bankers got away with murder, and it’s obscene that close to nothing is being asked of financial institutions. I get incensed at the thought that a bank that’s getting billions of dollars in taxpayer money is out there buying fancy new airplanes.”
New York’s attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, always gratifying on the issue of clawing back money from the greedy creeps on Wall Street, on Tuesday subpoenaed Thain, the former Merrill Lynch chief executive, over $4 billion in bonuses he handed out as the failing firm was bought by Bank of America.
In an interview with Maria Bartiromo on CNBC, Thain used the specious, contemptible reasoning that other executives use to rationalize why they’re keeping their bonuses as profits are plunging.
“If you don’t pay your best people, you will destroy your franchise” and they’ll go elsewhere, he said.
Hello? They destroyed the franchise. Let’s call their bluff. Let’s see what a great job market it is for the geniuses of capitalism who lost $15 billion in three months and helped usher in socialism.
Bartiromo also asked Thain to explain, when jobs and salaries were being cut at his firm, how he could justify spending $1 million to renovate his office. As The Daily Beast and CNBC reported, big-ticket items included curtains for $28,000, a pair of chairs for $87,000, fabric for a “Roman Shade” for $11,000, Regency chairs for $24,000, six wall sconces for $2,700, a $13,000 chandelier in the private dining room and six dining chairs for $37,000, a “custom coffee table” for $16,000, an antique commode “on legs” for $35,000, and a $1,400 “parchment waste can.”
Does that mean you can only throw used parchment in it or is it made of parchment? It’s psychopathic to spend a million redoing your office when the folks outside it are losing jobs, homes, pensions and savings.
Thain should never rise above the level of stocking the money in A.T.M.’s again. Just think: This guy could well have been Treasury secretary if John McCain had won.
Bartiromo pressed: What was wrong with the office of his predecessor, Stanley O’Neal?
“Well — his office was very different — than — the — the general décor of — Merrill’s offices,” Thain replied. “It really would have been — very difficult — for — me to use it in the form that it was in.”
Did it have a desk and a phone?
How are these ruthless, careless ghouls who murdered the economy still walking around (not to mention that sociopathic sadist Bernie Madoff?) — and not as perps?
Bring on the shackles. Let the show trials begin.

She is back

A very late word in tonight... Jenni's team has won Bar Trivia again. Following their rise to the top, a new team entered the arena with age on their side, they were all over the age of 45 so as Jenni said they are really old! Jenni's team was coming in 3rd and tying for 2nd so frustration was mounting. But, Tuesday's game came down to SUDDEN DEATH ... the question was, "how many times did Bob Hope host the Academy Awards ceremony"? They had to guess, and the closest would win. The answer is on the bottom. Jenni's team guessed 17 and the other guessed 7 so you can guess who won. So congratulations to Jens Team for getting another 50 dollar bar tab!




The Answer is 18 times.

Dear Hunter Concert

Look for Brian at the 1:15 mark and the 2:20 mark on the video, he went to the concert last year. The music is loud so Brain recommends you turn the sound down. Brian had a front row place!

Just saw Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog .... is a very disturbing movie. How do the people live in such desperate conditions. I am speechless... that people can use children and that the children have no childhood. Everyone wants a piece of them. How do they grow into an adult with any morals at all. But, we have in the West children raised in a household with a mother and father, all the food they need to eat, a good education, but they end up as unhappy- rage filled beings that go to work for Banks or work other influential companies and they spend their days thinking up ways to screw people out of money or to deny medical care to people that need it. The world puzzles me?
People think that if you are a Godly person only good things could happen to you and if you have a hard time well then, you MUST have done something to deserve the crap that has been thrown your way. I have known from an very early age that awful things happen. We grew up hearing of babies dying and people we knew killing themselves.... Dad always said, "life is no bed of roses"... maybe that is how he has gotten through life but I find the entire idea depressing... knowing these things as a kid has affected me more than I know... I find it difficult to be happy. Aunt Ann died another funeral... I am tired about thinking about death. You know- a women that I worked with, into her late 40's before she knew anyone that died- she knew people died but didn't have to deal with it until then... that is a very foreign idea to me. As Dad said, "the world goes on"- nothing stops, I guess I just have to hang on or be left behind.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADELINE

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

In Sickness and In Health: A Place for Couples Dealing with Illness: How to Have the Hard Conversations

In Sickness and In Health: A Place for Couples Dealing with Illness: How to Have the Hard Conversations

A New Day

There is sad news for the family today- Aunt Ann died. The day of her death is unclear. She was visiting Barbra Ann in Kentucky for Christmas, she developed pneumonia and was to be discharged last Saturday but she had a relapse and died. The Viewing is next Monday evening and the Burial is on Tuesday. Maureen has to fly in from Europe, Greg was vacationing in the Bahamans and they are having a service in Kentucky so that is why there is a delay.
It has been a GREAT day for our country with a new President- I adored his speech. The time of rewarding the wealthy is over, a time in which good people that work hard may be admired not the "50 -id Cent" or the Enron CEO with 40 million dollar parachuts .... I now know that people of value and hard work will be allowed to grow and be rewarded by making a better society. I was so tired of seeing people that stumble into being President of the US or a company by just having a famous father.... it just drove me crazy.
So, onto a new day, I raise a glass to a new world- one that will allow ALL, to enjoy the benifits this country offers.

Cold Weather

Liz made it to San Diego with many obstacles she had to master people should realize that taking a plane these days is not a comfortable start to any vacation or work conference. The weather is keeping us all hostage, you don't want to go out and when you do you get into the store and sweat to death because you had to bundle up to go outside in the first place and then the stores put the temperature up to make you comfortable but you just start stripping off layers until it is time to leave then you end up going out into the cold weather. Then all the people out and about giving off germs.

Battlestar Galactica rules... the 5th is Ellen... what a twist. How will she return and when. Is there another planet that they can call earth.

If Cara isn't a cylon then how is she dead on the planet. So many questions... this is what you should do with all the extra time you may have during the day... going to class or IN AN AIRPORT WAITING FOR A PLANE. To all those needing to distract themselves from work they would rather not be doing ponder this, did Ellen know she was a cylon, why hasn't anyone made a bigger fuss over the baby born to "one of the final four & a human" isn't it a miracle child. Too many ends to be tied.

Too tired

I have a lot of things in my head but I am too tired to write them so hopefully I will follow threw with my ideas tomorrow. Good luck Jenni on getting your car started and Liz I am thinking of you... email or call anytime. The rest "be safe out there".

Feral Cats

It is another very cold night in January. There is snow coming down to add a light dusting to the 5 inches we have on the ground. Gary has been coming home from work and walking on the treadmill- hurray for Gary. I encourage any workout time for anyone! I was watching TV (no shock there) and working on the computer; I came across a story “…BANGKOK, Thailand – It seemed like a good idea at the time: Remove all the feral cats from a famous Australian island to save the native seabirds.” “…But the decision to eradicate the felines from Macquarie island allowed the rabbit population to explode and, in turn, destroy much of its fragile vegetation that birds depend on for cover…” (to read entire article go to http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090113/ap_on_re_au_an/as_australia_rabbit_infestation) Later on TV, a show discussed how viruses play a vital role in our very existence. Viruses thought to bring only pain, disease, and death could play a large role in humans experiences such as love plus much more. Many people if asked to destroy viruses from the planet, would jump at the chance but as with the “feral cats,” you don’t know the whole story. (“The Viruses Hunter” was on the Explorer show on NATGEO)

Carmel was a cutey

I was doing video editing I came upon this very cute footage so I thought I would share this.

In the house again

I have not written because I have been busy working on video editing. The weather has been very brutal, a few degrees warmer.... I know I never want warmer but this cold gets into your bones. I was going through my pictures and found this pictures so I thought I would share it so enjoy.

Liz is on the left and Carl is on the right.

"Astronomers say the moon will be approximately 31,000 miles closer to Earth on Friday night. The moon will be full and 30 percent brighter.
It will mark the first time in 15 years where the moon has this proximity to the Earth. Astronomers say the moon will be 30 percent brighter on Friday evening as it begins to rise."

I was unable, due to weather, photo the Moon on friday but the sky cleared for a short time tonite and I took a picture today enjoy. I am completely engaged with everything that has to do with the moon.

It's hard to watch the news

It is very sad, when I was watching the news tonite and it started with 1. the stimulus package FF (fast forward) doesn't effect me so I FF then 2. Bill Richardson another crook so FF then 3. Israel - FF feel sorry for the dead but it is a situation where some people enjoy killing each other, next up 4. MADOFF how apropos is that name (he MAD e OFF with every one's money) FF- didn't have any of my money, then 5. dropping Car sales FF- car company CEO didn't listen to the American people/they new best, 6. doctors acting like GODs, I did listen to this- you go to a SURGEON he wants to cut (make a big incision & more money rather than an accurate NEEDLE BIOSY and less stress to the patient; 600,000 unnecessary surgical biopsies a year).
How can someone sell you on something that they know is wrong, well everyone on the News so far tonite has done the same thing. To finish up the NEWS the idiot from Illinois, 7, Roland Burris is claiming a seat in the Senate from another crooked politician- I know he wants this more than anything but for goodness sake BUSH TOOK office for 8 years and stole at least 4 year of that time and see how that ended.

Quiet Day

I had a quiet day today, went out to lunch with Mary Ann to a cafe in downtown Williamsport. The place was very crowded; I was surprised because you never see anyone downtown. If only the rest of the area could become revitalized, I always loved to shop downtown except for one time when the women that owned Lucasi thought "my kids" were acting wildly. When I was a the shoe store and "Frank... somebody" helped me after Brian dislocated his elbow by running away from me and Jenni was running through the racks. We ended up at the Peds Doc's office and he slipped Brian's arm back into place. Gary saw the Neurologist today he is doing fine...he too was amazed by Gary's recover from his stoke. He advises that Gary do nothing but monitor himself... a Carotid Endarterectomy is such a dangerous operation that he wants Gary to not have the surgery and have a new study every year to monitor his condition. Brian is working on a new painting at his studio. Penn State Lost in the Rose Bowl.

This in from Jenni's Polar Swim

A Message from Jenni

THE STUPIEST THING I HAVE EVER DONE

Make a Smilebox photobook