Category: Business

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And now down come the leaves

Fall is living up to it’s name.  Leaves are falling like snow.  All it takes is a little puff of wind and the skies are full of yellow, red, orange, and brown leaves.  It’s quite pretty but someone has to get them up.  That someone is ME!!

Thank goodness I have one of those attachments that goes on my riding mower that sucks the leaves up.  The thought of raking and raking and raking just gives me a backache simply thinking of it.  These things are great but one things for sure, you get dirtier than you ever did as a kid playing in the dirt.

Another good thing about them is the mower actually chops the leaves up some and I then put them on my garden before I turn it under.  That helps to feed the soil, keep it moist in the summer and is a great way to compost the leaves when you have as many as we do.  I would guess there are about 25 trees in my yard so that’s a lot of leaves.

I’m so glad we had 4 cut down and 16 topped so they aren’t producing as many leaves as they did before we had that done.  I donated the wood from the trees to a local man that didn’t have any heat besides a wood stove and was quite poor.  He came and picked up the wood and split it himself so all we had to do was pay someone to cut the trees down and top the rest.  Between the tree guys and the guy we gave the wood to, we didn’t have to clean up anything.  In fact, I bet the guy got enough wood to heat his house for 2 winters.  I hope so anyway.

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Lego League

I have been volunteering with a local Lego League.  Have you heard about them?  They use the Lego Mindstorm NXT which is robotic Lego’s.  You can go to their web site at usfirst.org and check them out if you are interested in what they’re all about.  Each year they have a challenge that has to do with the environment.  Last year it was alternative sources of fuel.  This year the challenge is on global warming and what you can do in your community to help.

There is a state competition in December and the team that wins there, goes on to Atlanta to participate in the World competition.  There will be teams from China, Germany and many other countries.  I absolutely love working with these kids.  These are our future engineers.  Not only do they win trophies, but they also can get schlorships to some pretty impressive colleges just because of their involvement with this so I feel very blessed to be a part of it.

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Stock market woes

Well it seems we are not the only country having problems with our stock markets going lower and lower.  It seems that stock markets all over the world are falling.  Could this be the beginning of a global depression?  Unfortunately it looks like possibly the beginning of a depression for us again if something isn’t done soon.

Sure I am very aware that every time we have a presidential election, especially when it is two candidates that haven’t either been vice president or was the president running for reelection, the economy slows down quite a bit but this is more than ‘slowing down’ it seems like to me.  No one is sure of what the future president will do so it’s almost like the economy is holding it’s breath like a frightened child.  Please get out there and vote no matter who you choose.  I’m not pushing one candidate over another but if you want your voice heard, you have to vote.

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Historic sites and State Parks closing

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s office announced layoffs of up to 450 state employees and the closure of 25 historic sites and state parks. Fourteen state historic sites are scheduled to be closed October 1. Eleven state parks are slated for closure November 1.

Among these sites to be closed is the Black Hawk State Historic Site, in Rock Island, Illinois, which occupies much of the historic site of the village of Saukenuk. This was the home of a band of Native Americans of the Sauk nation. It includes the John Hauberg Museum of Native American Life. The state park is located on a 150-foot bluff overlooking the Rock River in western Illinois. It is most famous for being the birth place of the Sauk warrior Black Hawk. The disputed cession of this area to the U.S. Government was the catalyst for the Black Hawk War.

There is already so much of the Native American way of life gone forever and now this?  Why can’t the white man see what they are doing to OUR countries deep rooted heritage?  We all are now Native Americans and these things must be kept to teach our young of the way of life of Our nation.  Our nation we ALL call America which is made up of many tribes from all over the world.

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The 2008 Olympics are here

So many topics to talk about concerning the events that are taking place in China, while hosting the 2008 Olympics this year. I usually enjoy watching the Olympics and have had opportunities to attend some of the games in the past, but never have actually made it to any of them.

This particular location that they picked for hosting the games, in China, has had it’s ups and downs, and it is the first time that I haven’t kicked myself in the rear for not making more of an effort to personally attend this most exciting and interesting event.

The air quality in China is a major issue and I can really feel for the participants that are having to deal with such a problem as not being able to breath properly while trying to perform the best that they have ever had to, in order to take home a medal. It has been a real eye opener for the rest of the world, and maybe now something will be done to make China a better place to live and breath in the future.

I wish them all the luck in the world, and I hope that the US can kick some butt and bring home a good amount of medals for us to rant and rave about, until the next Olympic games are held.

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Top Ten Words Not To Use On Your Blog Title

I am finding myself looking around at other people’s blogs and finding out some wonderful information that I am finding useful in my newbie stage of blog writing. One such site that I visited today tells of the Top Ten Words Not To Use In Your Blog Title and they are the following words, according to a blogger on the web-site of Businesslogs.com

The top ten names to avoid:
* blog
* life
* weblog
* world
* from
* journal
* news
* thoughts
* with
* daily

Interesting food for thought that I wanted to share here.

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Independence Day Festivities

This year the 4th of July happens to fall on a Friday which means that a lot of people have gone out of town in order to take advantage of a three day week-end, but there are still plenty of folks who are still in town and the neighborhood is filled with wonderful smelling aroma’s from all of the outdoor barbecues that are going on in backyards everywhere today.

I happen to go into town and was visiting a friend that lives in a very diverse neighborhood so the aromas from many nations are mingling together and it makes for an interesting experience if you happen to wander outside during all of this grilling. It isn’t just hamburgers and hot dogs that I smell anymore.

I have not found myself going to see a firework display in quite a few years, just not into the crowds much anymore, but I did get to kick back and watch many wonderful fireworks that were being televised from all over the U.S.  I got to view these on my brand new 49″ Flat screen HD TV.  I enjoyed them in the privacy of my own home, which is the way I prefer things in today’s complex world.

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Conserving energy is the right thing to do

I have always been an avid advocate on recycling and doing anything that I possibly can to conserve our earth’s precious energy sources. Almost everyday I do try to do something more to help the world around me, and I think that the time is right for me to go buy some CFL light bulbs to use as replacement bulbs when my incandescent bulbs burn out.

This attempt of saving energy is good for lowering the monthly electric bill, and good for preserving our earth’s environment.  We all need to do our part to help!

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Solar power news

According to an article I read on a Reuters web-site, a study was written by the Clean Edge and environmental nonprofit Co-op America that has declared that solar power will be cost competitive with fossil fuels like natural gas and coal by the year of 2015.  I think that this is the best news I’ve heard of concerning this issue in a while; I’d certainly like to see a whole hell of a lot more alternative energy sources developed and expanded as well!

Wouldn’t it be great to see solar energy, wind energy, and gasoline made from algae to be our every-day energy sources!  I’m sick and tired of the constant price increases of gasoline, and being held hostage by the companies and countries that are raking in obscenely record profits from their oil.

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Memory issues

My good old dependable Dell laptop seems to be full to the rim.  I now definitely need more space on the poor old guy.  I didn’t know that much about memory issues, like how much one should have or how much I might need so the one I got only has 18 gig of memory.  At the time it was just fine when I first got it but now, it’s totally full.

Once more the Internet will come to my rescue and will be the most useful tool that anyone could ask for in researching something like this.  Good thing too because I don’t know very many people that know anything more about their computers than just using the email capabilities of it and of course how to download games and stuff like that.