Now that your unpacked and got to test drive the area for a bit, encountered some locals and yokels, and hopefully some actual people that moved to the area from your home town or state its time to list the likes you have of your new or semi-new, or heck if the area is your native home than by all means and ways list what you like! Y'all got it? Well here goes!
Weather! You like or not!
Year round flowers!
Long springs!
Longer Autumns!
Shorts year round! For the hearty ones that is.
Variety of sub divisions to chose from!
Snow is a neat event versus a ho-hum not again event!
No rust on older cars! Amazing if your from the Northeast!
Can fish year round without cutting holes in the water (ice) for us North Easterners!
Pretty country side is usually only 5 minutes or less from where you live anywhere in the triangle.
People R People. No matter what they say!
Day trip to Mountains!
Day trip to Ocean!
And in a lot cases no trip at all to the many lakes, ponds, river, and streams that spot the area!
Good food can be had by all and more is always welcome irregardless if they are called viddles or pickins!
Out away from the city lights the sky at night explodes with the many stars that fill the emptiness of space with the occasional flying star to catch a dream or two on!
Groceries can be cheaper but we all have to eat!
Sure it takes time to get use to this place, remember the place you came from was called home and that is never a easy place to replace! But give it time, explore the area and get involved and this place too will be your new home not only in name but in feeling!
May the triangle, RDU, RTP, Crossroads, the Quay, Wake Forest, Knightdale, Apex, Raleigh, Durham, Zebulon, Oxford, Mossisville, Franklinton, Youngsville, Chapel Hill, Henderson, ...seems like I am forgetting somewhere.
...????......Oh yea! and Cary, be with you!
Oh Tarheels! I forgot to number the above as I did say I would count thy ways!
Weather! You like or not!
Year round flowers!
Long springs!
Longer Autumns!
Shorts year round! For the hearty ones that is.
Variety of sub divisions to chose from!
Snow is a neat event versus a ho-hum not again event!
No rust on older cars! Amazing if your from the Northeast!
Can fish year round without cutting holes in the water (ice) for us North Easterners!
Pretty country side is usually only 5 minutes or less from where you live anywhere in the triangle.
People R People. No matter what they say!
Day trip to Mountains!
Day trip to Ocean!
And in a lot cases no trip at all to the many lakes, ponds, river, and streams that spot the area!
Good food can be had by all and more is always welcome irregardless if they are called viddles or pickins!
Out away from the city lights the sky at night explodes with the many stars that fill the emptiness of space with the occasional flying star to catch a dream or two on!
Groceries can be cheaper but we all have to eat!
Sure it takes time to get use to this place, remember the place you came from was called home and that is never a easy place to replace! But give it time, explore the area and get involved and this place too will be your new home not only in name but in feeling!
May the triangle, RDU, RTP, Crossroads, the Quay, Wake Forest, Knightdale, Apex, Raleigh, Durham, Zebulon, Oxford, Mossisville, Franklinton, Youngsville, Chapel Hill, Henderson, ...seems like I am forgetting somewhere.
...????......Oh yea! and Cary, be with you! Oh Tarheels! I forgot to number the above as I did say I would count thy ways!
Wake Forest, Gosh its a pretty nive place to live!
Posted 03-09-2009 at 08:59 PM by dansdrive
Wake Forest, NC. located in Wake County NC. Some call it Wake's Forest of the Triangle....Ok maybe that's just me. But if you come from the North East, Wake Forest seems to fit. It has some rolling hills and many farming areas.
It has a small town feel but close to Raleigh, you could be down town Raleigh, depending on time of day in about 15 to 30 minutes. You can be at the Virginia border in less than an hour.
It has old Historical homes and some new subdivisions. It certainly worth a look see if your looking and seeing the area. It has transplants from New Jersey, New York, and many other NE State and Mid West and California and....well you get the idea people from all over this great country now calls Wake Forest home!
C'mon down, over, left, or right and check it out you may just like what you see.
It has a small town feel but close to Raleigh, you could be down town Raleigh, depending on time of day in about 15 to 30 minutes. You can be at the Virginia border in less than an hour.
It has old Historical homes and some new subdivisions. It certainly worth a look see if your looking and seeing the area. It has transplants from New Jersey, New York, and many other NE State and Mid West and California and....well you get the idea people from all over this great country now calls Wake Forest home!
C'mon down, over, left, or right and check it out you may just like what you see.
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Tuesday October 25, 2011 and its 49.1 degrees outside the window and once the sun makes its appearance for the day the temperature outside the window will rise up to a projected high of 72 degrees! Wunderbar!
Slowly and methodically, creaking, and slithering its way toward us is Halloween! Boo! Boo-minus 6 days to go! In my day as a kid the rage was box costumes. We could be Batman, Spiderman, Army man, Cowboy, Pirate, and many more I can't remember. Girls could be Cinderella, Cat Women, Nurse, and many more. These were the days before latex realistic mask. All we had was mylar formed sheets in the forms of our favorite cartoon characters.
On the day of Halloween we brought our costumes to school and changed into them after lunch. Our grade school would march all of us around many city blocks so the community could see all of us in full costumes. I remember a city police car would lead the way and behind the police car was the kindergarten PM kids (was only 1/2 day Kindergarten back than), than came the first grade and so on until the 6th graders held up the rear along with teachers and volunteer parents. It was our first experience with being in a parade.
Other than a lot of fun was there anything learned from not being in the classroom on a Halloween afternoon? Sure was! We learned how to assemble as a class and as a school, we learned to take direction as we assembled, we learned how to behave in public with the community watching, we learned that we were part of a larger community that came out to watch us walk in our costumes. It was really cool and when we got back to school....we got candy corns and root beer barrel hard candies! Hot-dig-gity Halloween! That day and the day before Christmas vacation, and the last day of school were always special school days for kids of my generation......wait I bet its the same for kids today too! Funny how some things can bridge the so called generational gap! Boo!
Quote of the day from Erma Bombeck:
"A grandmother pretends she doesn't know who you are on Halloween. "
Happy Tuesday and dust off those costumes and get them ready for Halloween as its one day a year we get to be kids all over again!
Posted 10-25-2011 at 05:40 AM by dansdrive
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Wednesday October 26, 2011 and its 50.3 degrees outside warming up a a nice 77 degrees today and the sky's shall be filled with sunshine! The word for today 'heat'....
Here we are at mid week already. Gracious me where has the time gone? Well....It has gone with a good nights rest, it has gone with the early morning get ups, it has gone with the dark commutes to work, it has gone with our days labor, it has gone during chats with friends and family, it has gone with commutes home, it has gone with supper and clean up, it has gone with chats with the Lord, it has gone with taking our loved ones here and there and sometimes seemingly everywhere! It has gone with a playing fetch with mans 'best friends', it has gone with a evening stroll in wonderment of God's beauty of the colored leaves as their work is done and they fall slowly and gently to the earth, it is gone with reading books and sometimes the greatest book of them all, the Bible, it is gone with a prayer of thanksgiving for your day, your loved ones day, and for ones you never knew or will know, it is gone as you fall fast asleep in the comfort of your bed in trust to the Lord for another day yet to come either here on earth or in eternity above!
So it not hard to know where time goes what is hard is to make sure it is worthy time that is for good and not evil!
Quote of the day, Psalm 121:
I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
Happy Wednesday and if you do one thing today please take time to say thanks to the one above!Posted 10-26-2011 at 06:54 AM by dansdrive
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Thursday October 27, 2011 and its 59.6 degrees outside ticking the digital thermometer all the up to a projected high of 77 degrees. Its all a matter of when the clouds roll in as tomorrow the warmth of today will be but a memory as the temperature will dip precipitously lower!
Plenty of taillights on the trip in this morning even the blinking and flashing red lights from some school buses. Once in a great while even the lane changers flip their blinkers on to alert all of us other commuters of their lane change intentions. There was even a small convoy of pickup trucks, four in all traveling at a high rate of speed, much more than the 65 MPH the state grants us in route to somewhere. Two in each lane and as centurions marching or in this case driving into their days battle!
The early morning commute...complete with a fox that ran in front of me on a side road and a deer that darted across the road a few cars ahead of me. Plenty to keep one alert and on ones toes even at the early morning hour. I miss seeing the sun rises on the commute in when the eastern sky is flooded with the early morning light, the reds and pale yellows. Something about a sunrise that recharges the day, the start anew we get when we see it, the energy we absorb from the crack of dawns rays! WOW!
But this time of the year its a dark drive in and soon to be a dark drive home, than we know winter is upon us! But every once in awhile something comes along to make you think, to make you take notice, to make you say WOW. Well my quote of the day did this to me the other day when I seen it. Turn up the sound and listen and enjoy...
Quote of the day from Tamara Lowe:
" AWESOME One Minute Sermon You MUST SEE! - YouTube "
Happy Thursday and after that I have nothing more to say but a whole lot to do!Posted 10-27-2011 at 05:40 AM by dansdrive
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Friday October 28, 2011 and its 54.3 degrees heading up....scratch that...heading down to a cloudy 51 degrees. Yes this is one of those upside down days where we will end the day lower than we started the day....temperature wise anyway....stocks wise that is becoming the norm except for yesterday. Stocks rose yesterday like Grandma's bread in the oven! Grandma also had a coal stove and kept two things on it year round and that was butter and tea. Nothing like warm bread from the oven and soft melted butter to top it off!
Speaking of topping it off, we made it to Friday! The end of the work, school, and any other ending you want it to be! Not a day to soon I say. Friday's were the days in Jr. High which in my case was, all one city school, it went from 7 - 12 grade, how did us Jr. high students survive? Basically because the Sr. High kids could care less about us, we all shared the same hallways and I can't remember the Sr. High kids picking on the Jr High kids other than some family rivalries, older brother or sister showing there were the older ones!
Friday was the day to dream about the weekend which in Jr. High amounted to nothing more than one did during the week. To young to drive and to young to see the good movies, and to young to well.....just to young! When that bell rang throughout the school on a Friday it was like the start of the Indianapolis 500! That bell rang; Boys and girls start your engines! We flew out of that school like a fighter plane in a airshow. Low, quick, and non stop!
This was the time to really kick back and have some fun. Flying out the door in an uncontrolled order, pushing, shoving, just about everyone in front of you, especially the girls! Then as fast as we could get out of the school that is how fast we dissipated back to our neighborhoods. Till Monday rolled around and we all slowly trudged our way back to school with a lot less zeal and spark than when we left on Friday.
But during Football season our High School put on some big PEP rallies on the field on home game Friday nights. Our city High Schools shared a football field, we did not have our own field. The one in front of our school was to small to hold varsity games only Freshman and JV games were allowed. So there would be some cool pep rallies and big Bonfires in front of the school. Ones where they always had the Fire Dept there to put the fire out! In fact every time I see the movie Grease I am reminded of my High School Pep rallies, they were pretty much like that less John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John of coarse! Where have those days gone? Do schools even have them for kids anymore?
Quote of the day from John Travolta from the movie Grease:
"You just can't walk out of the Drive-in!"
Happy Friday and the same held true on a Friday exiting school, you just could not walk out....YOU RAN OUT! Enjoy your day, weekend, and all seconds in-between! What a GREAT DAY....its Friday! <SMILE> the world is watching!
Posted 10-28-2011 at 05:52 AM by dansdrive
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Monday, October 31, 2011 and that means two things its the start of the week and its 41.2 degrees outside and two its BOO-DAY, with a projected ghoulishly high of 51 overcast degrees and lightly sprinkling day! Now that the days vitals are out of the way, wishing all a safe and Happy Halloween!!!! BOO!
Tonight is the night when things go bump in the night! The night when it is perfectly fine to get the pumpkin scared right out of you! The night to get the sugar rush without worrying about staying hush! Its the night as a kid you could not wait for. It ranks right up there with the night ole St. Nick comes a droppin in!
My best costumes as a kid? That's is a tough one! The standard box suit and mask did just fine, there was the cape crusader, Batman! There was Superman, there was Fred Flintstone, there was the Green Hornet! Then as one got older it was the make your own costumes, which featured Mummies, and Frankenstein, Dracula was always a costume favorite, there was the Army guy complete with camouflage face! There was the football, baseball player....basketball NOT! As on October 31st in the northeast no one wanted to wear shorts out and in my day the NBA players wore the equivalent of hot pants!!
There were the lectures from our teachers and parents to be on the lookout for razors, needles, and glass chips stuffed in the apples and candy.....fortunately for us none of that was ever found in any of our candy. In my day we got things like apples, candy apples, cup cakes, popcorn balls, and Rice Krispy treats!!! There were no candy bar mini's, if we got a candy bar it was the full size ones and they were the houses we took a mental note of to hit again before the night was through! <evil grin>
Halloween was a blast! I thought about Halloween past as I sat at the bonfire last evening. Something about a fire on a cool night to help bring back the warm memories of childhood and Halloween! How sweet they were!
Quote(s) of the day from Charlie Brown:
"I got a rock!" , 'I got another rock!!'
Happy Halloween, and may the day let you be a kid again to enjoy with your children, grandchildren, or the kid inside of you! BOO!Posted 10-31-2011 at 05:22 AM by dansdrive
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Tuesday November 1, 2011 and its 38.2 degrees outside heading up to a projected sunny high of 58 degrees. 'Chilly' is the word of the day after a 'chilling' Halloween evening! It was a rain filled soggy evening all that was missing was the fog!
But Halloween 2011 is in the books! Now its on to Thanksgiving and if the characters of Halloween did not scare you than your Thanksgiving Day grocery bill surely will! Prices for food have been acting like helium in a balloon and rising up so much so fast that alternative products and coupons have helped to keep the rising balloon within our stratosphere! Charlie Brown said it best; 'Good Grief!'
But that is for tomorrows worries, today is the first day of November and a great day to help someone through a tough time, a great day to be that friend someone is looking for, and a great day to cast the light of a smile onto a dark frown....its all within our control you know!
Quote of the day from Francis of Assissi:
" For it is in giving that we receive."
Happy Tuesday and Saint Francis knew the secret of Thanksgiving long before the Pilgrims started celebrating it!
Posted 11-01-2011 at 05:37 AM by dansdrive
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Wednesday, November 2, 2011 and its 35 sun filled degrees today in route to 65 degrees! Now that's 30 more of something that will really help take the chill out of the air!
The sun is bright, the roads were filled, and the sun glasses shaded my drive in this morning. What a beautiful day right smack in the middle of the week. As we come off the sugar high of Monday's Halloween we are ready to reach the peak of our weekly summit! Wednesday's are always good days to take stock in the weeks accomplishments so far and still have time to adjust ones weekly coarse to finish the week strong....in what ever it is one does.
Which is important to us adults and far less than when we were kids. As a kid Monday meant back to school while Tuesday through Thursday were just necessary days till Friday arrived! These middle days were the time for friends, homework, and playtime and not necessarily in that order! Early November days up north were the days we looked forward to that first snowfall, the first day off from school, and the first sled ride down the hill in the abandoned park we use to play in. The leaves had already fallen and the tall grass was at the end of its cycle. The paths through the park were leave covered and harder to navigate. They also became quite slippery when one is chased through them and falling was common and part of the fun. We use to rush through those paths on our way home from school and have a real blast! The paths were sometimes littered with broken pumpkins from Halloween days past! Those pumpkins would find their way into this park to be smashed along its paths, why? Not really sure, I guess the kids that took them off porches had to take them somewhere!
These smashed pumpkins always gave the allure to the park as being haunted and a many a stories were told of the haunting in the park. No kids were to walk through the park in the dark without meeting up with one of these park ghost! This was some pretty scary stuff for us kids at the time! Needless to say as we became teens we would challenge each other to walk through the dark park at night and luckily for us everyone that took that challenge made it out the other side all in one piece and always had a story to tell on their journey! See we didn't need movies to scare us we had an abandoned park, a bunch of friends, and some great imaginations!!
Quote of the day from Theodore Roosevelt:
"Do what you can with what you've got wherever you are."
Happy Wednesday and ole Teddy pretty much sums up for a Wednesday!Posted 11-02-2011 at 07:01 AM by dansdrive
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Thursday November 3, 2011 and its 38.3 degrees outside heading on up to a projected high of 67 degrees! Sun filled Yippee-i-aye sort of speak! Bit foggy on the trip in this morning by anywhere where there was standing water. Not the London type fog just the run of the mill November North Carolina fog. One knows the difference if they have been in both.
The fog reminds me of my early work life career when I lived in at the time West Germany, let me tell you it can get pretty darn foggy over there. Driving the autobahn in the fog is no picnic in fact driving the autobahn on a clear sunny day is a already a white knuckle experience, add fog and rain to that and it down right scary! Seen some horrific accidents while I was there just due to the speeds.....gracious me! I sure like our 65 MPH recommended speed or suggested speed limit. I say that as most people cruse by me well above the 70 MPH I set my cruise on.
In Germany I drove a Chrysler Simca, the car was never even marketed in the US. It was a small car for our US standards at the time but a large car for theirs. I would be cursing on the inside lane of a four lane autobahn at a mere 80 MPH of coarse my speedometer would only be in KPH which was a much higher number and flying by me would be a small BMW, and in the lane next to them would be a nice big Mercedes flying by them and than in the outside lane would be a BMW motorcycle with its driver hunched down lowering his wind resistance going well over 110 MPH! Just wild! My first days of driving over there taught me what a tension headache felt like. Over time like anything else you get use to the speed and hope for the best!
Quote for the day Frank Howard Clark:
"A man's conscience, like a warning line on the highway, tells him what he shouldn't do - but it does not keep him from doing it."
Happy Thursday and may your day be brighter, longer, and more enjoyable than yesterday!Posted 11-03-2011 at 06:32 AM by dansdrive
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Friday November 04, 2011 and its 52.2 light raining degrees heading all the way up to 56 degrees! Doesn't look like the odds are good for sunshine today but that is ok as the weekends odds are very good for sunshine! In the word of the old sit com personality JJ.. 'Dyno-mite!'
Now that the week has slipped by quicker than a dollar in a lotto machine it is time for me to focus back on my last weekends second floor bathroom project. All the wallpaper has been striped clean off the walls. The walls have been washed down. Ceiling has been painted. First coat of paint has been applied to the walls and woodwork. Vanity cabinet has its first coat of paint. Toilet is setting in the hallway awaiting its rebuild kit. So I will have my work cut out for me this weekend finishing up the bathroom make over for under $30! Sweet! After that project is completed......its on to our first floor half bath. That needs to be refreshed as well. It has dark wallpaper and has no windows so its really dark in there. Time to brighten it up.
Of coarse there will be the normal outside activities of mowing the lawn, picking leaves up, raking leaves up, and just moving a lot of leaves around. But my best estimate for the amount of leaves left on the trees is about 60% so many many many more leaves to fall!
Oh yea don't forget to turn the clocks back 1 hour Saturday night before bed or for those that go to bed after 2AM, turn them back at 2AM! But I quality the above statement by saying one only needs to turn back their clocks in areas that allow such 'Back to the Future' events! Not all in this great country of ours do such time travel to and from the present!
Quote of the day from Victor Borge:
" I don't mind going back to daylight saving time. With inflation, the hour will be the only thing I've saved all year."
Happy Friday and ole Victor had a way with words, how true his statement was.....Peanut Butter has been removed from the shopping list! Refuse to pay the price for peanut better they are now asking! Enjoy your weekend and be safe, happy, and helpful to those in need!Posted 11-04-2011 at 05:58 AM by dansdrive
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Monday November 7, 2011 and its 39.6 degrees outside heading up to a nice sunny 67 degrees! One word to describe today, 'appealing!'
Speaking of appealing, it was nice to drive in this morning with the day being brighter as the sun was almost peaking up over the horizon on this first work day of Daylight Savings time. It was also appealing to get that extra hour of sleep in yesterday. Even with the yearly extra hour of sleep the weekend went by faster than a magnetically levitated passenger train! ...and that's fast!
Did manage to get the bathroom project finished! After I rebuilt the inner workings of the commode and was ready to set it back on its rightful place I was a bit awestruck by the seal between the commode and its drain pipe. It is still a ring of wax. Of all the technologies that have been invented since wax, the old tried and true sealing properties of wax is still used today! Amazing....
What else I found amazing was reading a passage in a new book I started this weekend. The book is by Jacob Needleman and is titled, "American Soul". It caught my eye as I read the forward in the library as Jacob attempts to capture the wisdom of the Founding Fathers. This particular passage on page 6 really resonated a cord with my soul.
"Throughout history ideas of a certain kind and nature have been disseminated into the life of humanity in order to help human beings understand and feel the possibility of the deep inner change that would enable them to serve the purpose for which they were created, namely, to act in the world as conscious, individuals instruments of God, the ultimate principle of reality and value. Ideas of this kind are formulated in order to have a specific range of action on the human psyche: to touch the heart as well as the intellect; to shock us into questioning our present understanding; to point us to the greatness around us in nature and the universe, and the potential greatness slumbering within ourselves; to open our eyes to the real needs of our neighbor; to confront us with our profound ignorance and our criminal fears and egoism; to show us that we are not here for ourselves alone, but as necessary particles of divine love."
WOW! That one requires a few re-reads to let it sink in. There were no bonfires this weekend, drat! But even without the dancing flickering flames of the bonfire there was time for thought and reflection on the above passage. Conclusion drawn....more can be done and will be done by me towards my fellow human being!
Quote of the day from Stephen R. Covey:
"We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey."
Happy Monday and where is your soul parked in the spiritual highway of life? There is time you know to get back on the on ramp of life and cleanse your soul for the eternal journey ahead!Posted 11-07-2011 at 05:40 AM by dansdrive
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Tuesday November 8, 2011 and its 41.1 degrees outside the window heading on up to a projected sunny high of 72 degrees! Weather word today 'Brilliant!'
Speaking of brilliant, one of the smartest engineers I had the pleasure of working with over the years was not technically an engineer in today's standards. This gentleman was a self taught work his way up from an entry position to retire as a distinguished engineer! His senses for the practical side of our physical world was absolutely amazing. He could read a technical document and know it! As a young green engineer practitioner working with him I learned more from him than the many hours I spent in the classroom on the theoretical side of the sciences.
It always amazes me how many of our former small to become large corporations were started with individuals that never learned that because they 'did not' have a engineering degree or an MBA could actually and did succeed and succeed in a big way. What did these people possess other than a fancy degree? They possessed the can do attitude, they possessed personal dedication and pride, they possessed a driving force within them not to fail. How many of our children today possess those traits?
What our children do possess is the drive to have the best game station, the newest and coolest cell phone, the quickest, thinnest, and eye popping laptop or its cousin the pad something or another. Who is consistently beating the US in test scores....China and India. Do there children have access to the newest, coolest, and best of the best electronic gadgets. NO! They will have those items all awaiting them when they reach adult hood as their economies grow to match their growing intelligences.
Turn the clock back four or five decades and this is where we were as Americans. So what happened?
Quote of the day from Gilbert K. Chesterton:
"Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another."
Happy Tuesday and what will today's generation pass onto the next's? Hopefully the thirst for knowledge and hard work and dedication to helping others that are less fortunate than themselves!
P.S. Don't forget to VOTE today!Posted 11-08-2011 at 06:08 AM by dansdrive
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To reduce consumption of resources, protect our forest. i thought it should to do from below sides.
First, change the material of furniture.Ask furniture factory to use other material to produce furnitures. Of course, this side still needs further study.
Second, let furniture get a good maintenance, extended service life. For example, you can let your outdoor furniture take a protection layer. Such as a patio furniture covers. I found a website which offer high-quality and inexpensive outdoor furniture covers: [url=http://www.thepandacover.com]Car Cover, Motorcycle Cover, SUV and MPV cover and more! - PandaCover[/url]. After lengthens furniture service life, quantity of furniture shopping can be reduce.
Third, To improve the environmental awareness of everyone by promoting environmental-protection knowledge and popularizing the environmental-protection consciousness. Refuse to use wood furniture.Posted 11-08-2011 at 11:07 PM by pandacover
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Wednesday November 9, 2011 and its 50.4 degrees outside sun shinning its way all the to 70 degrees today! Today's weather word is 'alluring!'
Alluring is a great word to talk about something we love to do. Albeit shopping, reading, going to the movies, going out to eat, or staying home and cooking a meal for our families. I remember as a kid growing up in my neighborhood we had smells in our neighborhood that were alluring. We had a bakery that made fresh bread and rolls everyday and man there is nothing in my opinion like the smell of fresh bread baking! We also were in a neighborhood that had a lot or Italian and Syrian / Lebanese homes and the smell from those homes when the windows were open would really make one hungry if they were not during the dinner hour!
But how many of us use the word alluring to talk about visiting a sick friend or helping a stranger with a meal for the day or just giving a stranger some of our precious time to lend our ears to their plights? We tend to be so very busy in our daily lives to even listen to our own families let alone the voice of a stranger. I for one can do a better job of listening and helping our fellow brothers and sisters as we all know it is getting harder and harder for them to stay afloat in this sea of turmoil and chaos we currently are in.
So, it starts with you and me! Say HI! to someone you pass today with a smile. Ask a friend how they are doing and really mean it. Ask your spouse and/or children how their day is going? Its amazing the reaction you may get!
Quote of the day from John Lennon:
“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.”
Happy Wednesday and what plans are you busy making while life goes by?Posted 11-09-2011 at 09:42 AM by dansdrive
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Thursday November 10, 2011 and its a moon filled sky of 46.8 degrees outside heading up to 63 degrees give or take a few. What a full moon this morning acting as a beacon to my drive in! It was spectacular and to the eastern sky the sun just below the horizon began to do its magic and illuminate the deep dark night sky! Yes it is a new day, filled with the hope and anticipation of one better than the last! We are a day closer to the weekend too! There is a religious word for that....'Alleluia!'
Which reminds me of my days as a kid and going to the Italian church in our neighborhood. Our Italian Priest was by the book and did not tolerate kids not paying attention in mass. In fact back in my day the kid sat in the front of the church and the parents sat behind the children. After mass it was straight to Sunday school in the church basement. But during mass the priest use to come down and give his Homily to us children and eyes needed to be fixed upon him. It was not uncommon for our Priest to call one out and ask a question if he thought / knew you were not paying attention and if he caught you fooling around you had to go back with your parents! That was a fate far worse than any of us ever could imagine! Because not only was our parents in the church so was our Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, cousins.....oh lord! One thing you never wanted as an Italian was to be called out in front of the Father! The word Lecture comes to mind, lecture by the Priest, lecture by mostly Dad as Mom would be somewhat sympathetic, lecture by our Grandparents in broken English, and jabs by our Uncles, saying.....How was church this morning? Ah those were the days!
Quote of the day from Matthew 22:37:
"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. "
Happy Thursday and that love is what got us through those days we were called out for not listening!
P.S. Today is a great day!!!!!!!!!!!Posted 11-10-2011 at 05:27 AM by dansdrive
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Friday 11/11/11 and its 36.1 degrees outside heading up to a projected high of 54.1 degrees! As you can see the operative word today is the 'one'. One and only one is in today's date! So today is officially the #1 day of the year!!!
Its also #1 because we celebrate Veterans Day. So the words to commemorate that is simple....'Thank-You!' Special thanks to my Grandfather who was a prisoner of War in WWI by the Germans while serving for the Italian Army, to my Dad who served in the Pacific in WWII, and to my oldest Son who served in the Persian Gulf for the U.S. Air Force. And thanks to all that served our country over the years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So the only thing 'occupying' me today and weekend is remembrance and gratitude to our Veterans and current service personnel. By year-end we will be out of Iraq and the sooner out of Afghanistan the better in my humble opinion.
11/11/11.
Quote of the day by Elmer Davis:
"This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave."
Happy Friday and may your weekend be filled with happiness and abundantly showered with <SMILES>!Posted 11-11-2011 at 05:45 AM by dansdrive
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Monday November 14, 2011 and its 57.3 degrees outside heading up to a pleasant 72 degrees! The weekend has come and gone, tucked away neatly into the archives of our minds. Some will soon forget the weekend past while others will keep the past weekend fresh in their minds...
This weekend was the usual chores around the house, leave collecting is in its peak season and there are a lot of leaves to collect. They go from the tree to the ground, the ground to a lawn mower bag and dumped around the property as a pile of finely mulched leaves. Than the ones on the driveway and walk ways are blown into the surrounding woods almost as fast as a passing motorist on my Route 540 drive in each morning! VROOM!
Last evening did get some time to start up the bonfire. As it got going with its bright yellow flame consuming the small twigs as fast as I could lay them on the fire, I reflected on the past week. Mostly news events and family events. The news events seem to consume my attention as fast as my fire was consuming my sticks. There was the occupy gang flaring up in city after city, there was the 'We are Penn State!' who wanted to be anything but Penn State after that terrible news had broken. There was Veterans Day who's memorial flame burned brighter and longer than any bonfire I could create. There was family events, talking to the kids via phone to see how their week had gone. There was reflecting on my oldest Son and his new job that will take him all over the country in the next six months, flying and filming the topology of the earth surface underneath his wings.
As the flames roared my mind raced of the above thoughts, as the flames started to subside and I added larger split dry oak logs the fire took on a new phase. The bright yellow flame had grown smaller and dimmer, the yellow flame seemed to have a battle going on with the hotter blue flame now rising from the oak logs.
This blue flame acted as a calmer mellower light source that took over the rapidly burning, consuming, haphazard flames of the yellow fire. The fire basically settled in to provide heat and warmth in a nice steady flickering of a yellow flame with an occasional spark or two rising from the flames. As the sky fell to darkness the red hot coals and the mostly blue flame with a touch of yellow from time to time lite up the area. This was the time to reflect on the past week, reflect on the week to come, reflect on the challenges that lie ahead, with my trusty Lab to my side resting after tossing her the ball over and over again.
As I reflected the bonfire reminded me very much of our lives, the exuberant bright energy of our youth, with the sputtering of sparks and bellowing smoke as we get going in life to the calm tranquil blue smoke of the second half of our life's. Occasionally stoking the fire a bit to shake things up and get a bit more oxygen to the fire to brighten up the flames, as in life where we need a kick in the behind sometimes to realize how fortunate we are to be where we are!
and than as the wood burns itself out the flames subsides and the blue flame dims into the red coals and eventually the red coal cool to gray dust and the bonfire is no more....that too is a part of life we will all pass through hopefully in the same slow gentleness of the decaying bonfire.
Quote of the day from Benjamin Franklin:
"A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body."
Happy Monday and if you ever want to understand about the roots of America read a book or two on Benjamin Franklin....he was a man at the right time, at the right place, for the right reasons, who provided one of the main ingredients of the melting pot we became!Posted 11-14-2011 at 06:02 AM by dansdrive
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Wednesday November 16, 2011 and its 69 cloudy degrees out heading on up to 80 degrees! Word of the day 'Hot'.
80 degrees in mid November for our next of the woods is well, 'Hot!'
Condensed post today....busy, busy, busy!
Happy Wednesday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Posted 11-16-2011 at 10:37 AM by dansdrive
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Thursday November 17, 2011 and its a wet 52 degree high for the day as the temps will fall into the upper 40's so they say! Word of the day 'bedewed' ....sounds better than wet I suppose.
Today was one of the few times I have taken Rt 540 into the park in the rain. I avoid traveling on Rt 540 when the weather conditions are anything less than pristine. But it appeared to be raining lightly and I said what the heck. Well it was raining lightly and a little heavier down by the airport. I set the cruise to 65 MPH and for the most part was able to keep it there. I also said God's speed to the car that passed me in the outside lane at easily over 80 MPH. Most drivers took heed and drove appropriately for the conditions which was NICE!
Today it kind of hit me that its Thursday.....holy flippin calendar pages Batman! Thursday! How could that be, seems like a Monday to me....work has consumed much of my time this week and Tuesday evening went out and celebrated a work milestone with a colleague. Which is really cool as it help all of us put in perspective where our life in work goes. Its amazing to me when we celebrate our own or someone else milestones albeit work or life's how we reflect on our own. As if the event is some form of yardstick we use to measure ourselves against the person celebrating the event. Sometimes we measure favorably and sometimes not. Sometimes we envy the milestone and wonder if we will ever get there and other times we add perspective to it by already achieving that milestone in our own life.
Those milestones could be birthday's, anniversaries, years of service to a company or organization, graduations, achievements. Maybe some milestones we should celebrate are simpler ones, where we celebrate a new day, we celebrate a bright sun rise or sun set, we celebrate another day with our loved ones, we celebrate the freedom we were given, we celebrate the greater power over us who leads and guides us into each day. Hopefully for good and not evil, hopefully to help our fellow person, hopefully to shine light where there appears to be only darkness! We all have it in us so celebrate this day as if it is some kind of milestone in our lives. For time waits for no one but we have the power to not only wait but to help everyone we encounter!
Quote of the day from Gamaliel Bailey:
" Never respect men merely for their riches, but rather for their philanthropy; we do not value the sun for its height, but for its use."
Happy Thursday and how will you use your riches today?Posted 11-17-2011 at 05:25 AM by dansdrive
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Friday November 18, 2011 and its 28.7 degrees outside heading all the way up to 49 degrees! 100% sun and 40 to 49% chance of heat!
Been an extremely busy week for me which made Friday come all the quicker! Made me think of life in terms of aviation advancements in our life time.... When your young and under 21 life is like the Wright's brothers 'Flyer' ...it slowly travels down the grass runway and gets several feet off the ground for several hundred feet and back on the ground. Than in our twenties and thirties life moves like a passenger jet, fly's high, steady, and usually lands where planned. Our 40 and 50's, 50's at this point for me is only through observation, fly's by like the retired Concord Supersonic jet...fly's by at supersonic speed and occasionally has a flame out or two. Its comfy and roomy and can fit the whole family, it just moves to dang fast when your all together! Than I envision in ones 60's and 70's it more like a fighter plane, movement is limited to the size of the cockpit, income (ones available fuel) slows up so fuel consumption with full afterburners on to maintain the speed of life burns up our incomes quicker than we planned...and than those fortunate to hit their 80's and beyond....well, their time fly's by like a personal ultralight aircraft where movement is very limited, it fly's just above the tree tops and its top speed is a mere 55 knots or 63 MPH! For an aircraft that is like being stopped!!
...and that's my analogy of traversing our life span in aviation terms and I am sticking to it!
Quote of the day from Helen Gurley Brown:
" After you're older, two things are possibly more important than any others: health and money."
Happy Friday, Happy Weekend and always be for-ever young!!Posted 11-18-2011 at 06:15 AM by dansdrive
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Monday November 21,2011 and its 61.8 degrees heading up to 72 give a few more degrees today! For November 21 I'll take it! Its the start of the Thanksgiving week and oh so much to be thankful for.
Sure the news is always dire, the OWS crowd is getting louder, the super committee to cut cut cut cannot even trim a little, and we seem to be a country that is a drift morally, spiritually, and financially into an abyss of self centered individual egoism, complete with hands out to receive and not out to pull one another up and out of the abyss.
How was that for an opener for the Thanksgiving week. But all is not lost, this is the Thanksgiving week. The week to reflect on the good and not bad. The week to extend the hand out to lift up and not to receive into. This is the week we remember the Pilgrims who landed here for a new life and almost starved to death without the extended hands of their fellow man namely the Native Americans or as a kid growing up where known as Indians.
What a great story for us to follow today. The cultural differences between the Pilgrims and Indians was so vast yet they found a way to learn from each other and help each other survive. To produce food for all to eat irregardless of culture or race or social status between them. They found out that the human spirit they both possessed was stronger than their differences. And that is the real story behind Thanksgiving Day, the food is a surrogate to share with each other while we enjoy the company of our loved ones and strangers alike. Billy Ocean said it best in his song Caribbean Queen, "Simply Awesome!"
Well the weekend was all about picking up what has fallen over the past several weeks or better put over many a weeks. Leaves is what I am speaking of. Having a mostly wooded lot allows for some awesome shade, awesome views, awesome colors, and awesome amount of leaves. That awesome amount of leaves is and was everywhere. In the garage, in the gutters, on the decks, covering the heat pump and gas pack. It is amazing all the places leaves can get into! Whewwww! After Friday evening, Saturday, and some of yesterday the leaves are all nestled back into the woods in large piles. Still a fair amount to go as I drove down the driveway this morning in the dark and all I saw was leaves yet again! Good grief Charlie Brown! But nothing that a back pack blower won't send on their way!
The leaves and pine straw makes great fire starters and that is exactly what they did last evening. Cranked up the bonfire and just let the world go by for awhile. Tossed our four legged extremely devoted friend a tennis ball or two or possibly twenty two times till she got tired and laid down beside me and the fire. As if to say that's enough I'm ready to kick back and feel the warmth of the fire.
The glow of the yellow and blue flame of the bonfire as it flickered into the dark stillness of the evening made for a perfect time to give my weekly thanksgiving to the one above. Isaiah 25:1 may sum it up best. " O LORD, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth." Yea......that says it well!
Quote of the day from Joseph Auslander:
"Dear Lord; we beg but one boon more: Peace in the hearts of all men living, peace in the whole world this Thanksgiving. "
Happy Monday and I hope there is more than turkey in your heart this Thanksgiving week!Posted 11-21-2011 at 05:46 AM by dansdrive
