In a time long ago in the past I made my first trip to the south. This was not the deep south, but to eastern Tennessee. I am not sure what I expected but many things surprised me. One thing that struck me was that neighbors seemed to care less about broken down cars and junk littering the yards. I think this has to do with the prevailing "live and let live" mentality that is common throughout the Appalachian region.
Another item that amazed me was the landscape. I think I was...

I am looking forward at the moment, and it is just tiring to listen to the constant negativity about the economy. I thing we need to have a two-pronged approach. First, I do agree that we need some of the items in the stimulus, but do we need everything that exists in the package? I think not when China still holds our indebted bonds that are becoming even further wrangled in increased defecits by the day. The developing countries are continuing to gain a greater influence due to the fact that so...

This fall has just been spectacular so far in terms of:
Temperature- most days with highs in the 60s and 70s.
Sun- many sunny days with light winds.
Foliage- warm days and cold nights has led to a brilliant display of color in most areas.

As fall advances the soft shadows become more stark as the sun angle becomes lower in the sky during the afternoon. At the ridge lines the sun goes behind the mountain at around 4:30 in the afternoon with dusk about 45 minutes...

In this election cycle I am really getting sick of partisan politics where one side blames the other. I think part of the problem is that we still LACK a solid 3rd party candidate like we had back in 1992 with Ross Perot. You never hear anything about Ron Paul anymore! The mainstream media tried to silence him whenever possible-- it seemed. I think partisan politics and one side against the other is continuing to divide the US in many ways. I am still not entirely sure which candidate I will vote...

Ever since I was small I have always liked winter compared with any other season. I was just absolutely fascinated with the variety of weather that could occur on any given day. I grew up in the middle of the country and we could have 50F temperatures in the middle of January followed by a snowstorm and lows below zero. Freezing rain, sleet, and blowing snow were common. However, winters were too short for me due to the very low latitude of less than 39N. I knew that I had to move somewhere that...