Seriously? Ok so Tyson Gay is running his ass off to qualify for this summer’s Olympic game in Beijing. He is doing his thing in the 100 meters and he does it faster than anyone else in the world. not the city, state or country but in the whole world. unfortunately “they” which is probably a bunch of guys behind a desk who could not run as fast if the building was on fire, will not let it go down in the record books. Why? because there was a 4.1 meters per second tail wind and that is way over the allowable 2.0 meters per second.
I am sure this maters to a lot of people especially the guy who came in second place at the race in Eugene, Oregon on Sunday. To me it is like splitting hairs. He is damn fast, let him have the record. If someone else really is better than him then they will waste no time at all breaking his record and then all will have sorted itself out.
Read the article that spawned this post here.
Too strong tail winds?
So tomorrow we are going to hit the road. We are driving up to Alexandria, LA to pick up our new pug puppy.
Tis will be an interesting drive. it will be the first time Scott and Chance have ridden in the car for anything that could be considered a long distance. I will be there too of course but I do not count because I have ridden in the car with the baby for a trip to Orlando and back (9 hours one way) Fort Myers, Fl (13 hours one way) and from ATL to Kentucky and back (7 hours one way) as well as a couple trips to Biloxi and such. I am as prepared as you can be when traveling with an 18 month old. Like I said it will be an interesting trip.
We are also a bit unprepared to pick up our puppy on Saturday but what can you do? We have to wait for money to be deposited in our account tomorrow for us to be able to go out and buy the cage for our new little guy. yeah that's rigth we do not even have a cage for him yet. We took really good care of our English Bulldog I promise and we had him for 7 years.
Death of a Laptop...Maybe, and School Tours
We had to get up and out this morning without too much fuss, we had an appointment to tour a school at 10am. Of course this is not too early but for our current lifestyle (the laid back no schedule lifestyle) it is. One of the things that is firmly on the 'Con' side of the page in regards to putting the little one in school is having to get our lives on more of a set schedule. Anyway we made it out of the house without much trouble and to the school. The place is great all the teachers were nice and almost painfully smiley but I guess that is better than frowny but neither of those are real words and the fact that I use words like that is on the 'Pro' side of the page in favor of a school that would teach him the correct way to speak. Chance, enjoyed playing with all the toys as we listened to the Admissions lady talk.
While we were there one of the groups of two year olds came back from an outing. They were all walking in a line holding onto a string which reminded both me and Scott of George Clooney children in Oh Brother Where Art Thou. They walked into the room where we were. All the children were calm and they sat down in their chairs around the little table in the center of the room prepared for their snack of goldfish crackers. This is when I wondered if Chance could do it, could he handle this kind of behavior? He will not even sit at the table for a full meal he gets down and then comes back to grab a bite and then goes again. Would he sit at a little table with a bunch of other kids to eat all of his snack? People say "once he sees the other kids doing it..." but I am skeptical. My son is a rebel just like his old man. He is a good boy but he walks to his own drummer and I wonder if he will fit into the school mold so easily. Anyway we still are not sure if we are going to put him into school or not. More on that debate later.
When we arrived back home I had left my half full coffee cup from the morning sitting on my desk. While Scott and I were in the kitchen talking and slaving over the stove to make the little one his favorite breakfast food, sausage. He was climbing up in my desk chair and spilling the aforementioned coffee all over my desk and laptop. We did not notice this until some time later and so no one really knows how long it was sitting there in a pool of sweet creamy goodness. As soon as I noticed it of course I picked it up and tried to turn it on, evidently as I was quickly told by my husband this was exactly what I was NOT supposed to do. So, I may have fried the circuits but how was I to know? Despite my ineptitude my wonderful husband took all the little screws out of the back and we are now allowing it to dry, soon we will know the answer to the question, Will I be getting a new laptop?
Weekly Review - Barrack's Books
The audio version of Dreams of my Father has an epiloge which includes his speech at the last Democratic National convention. After hearing the story of his life, learning where all his convictions come from that speech brought tears to my eyes. And I did not even vote for the guy (in the primaries that is).
George Carlin, you know you want to...
...what? I do not know but I do know you want to. Anyway, I opened my homepage today to find that Mister George Carlin has passed on and by that I mean he has died. He was 71 so I don't think he went too soon or anything but in his heyday he changed the way a lot of people including the supreme court thought about language as well as other things. I have always loved George Carlin's stand-up, I like seeing him in movies and I have read all of his books. I have gone back through youtube to watch his old stand up routines and such. There is one thing has really stuck with me and that is the longing to be there, to be a part of what he was.
At any comedy show there are people in the audience and they are laughing but when you watch one of Carlin's shows from his peak the people in the audience are not just laughing they are there with him they are not just agreeing with him they are cheering him on because he is saying things that no one else has ever said before. At least not on Television. I have a urge to be there in that audience to be a part of the revolution that only Carlin brought to life.
Comedians like Lewis Black and Bob Saget (some of you know what I mean) are allowed t say the things that they do because of George Carlin and people like him. I want to encourage you to go out and find all the Carlin you can his comedy albums or old videos or his books such as Napalm & Silly Putty or all of the above. If you have young children and believe their tender ears are not yet ready for the likes of Mister Carlin do not fear there is a Carlin for you, he hosted Thomas the Tank Engine from 1991 - 1997 so get yourself a copy and enjoy.
Food
For a while now I have been hearing about the food crisis. It is of course due in part to global warming and in part to the global economy being screwed up and in part to a few really bad people. There are people eating cookies made of dirt in Haiti as well as other countries I am sure and in Africa there are countries who can produce food but the people there can not afford to buy it. You do not have to look very hard to see that this food crisis will reach America sooner rather than later. I wonder if it has not reached us already. Over the last few months while at the grocery store I have noticed a strange trend. The bread that I usually buy has been out of stock more than half the time. When looking around I notice it is not just my usual brand either.a lot of the time there will be up to a whole shelf empty. Also, I have been experiencing the same trouble with the cereal aisle. I do not know if the two things are connected at all but it makes me think. Lots of people watch the news then walk through the grocery store but the two things do not connect in their head. I do not want to be naive. When things are going wrong right in front of your face but you go on believing what the American media tells you that it is not a problem here, that is stupid. I do not know for 100% sure that the cereal in my local grocers has anything to do with the world's food crisis but it might be, open your eyes!
Waiting for what again?
I am sitting here in the dark on my couch. The TV is showing a slide show of the most recent pictures om my Flickr account. The bathroom light is on and is flooding light into the hallway but is still too far away to shed any light onto my keyboard to make this post a little easier to get out there. I am waiting. Waiting for Scott to get home, he just called from the airport and will be here any minute. He had to take a taxi since his plane did not land until 11pm and that was too late to keep the little one awake just to go pick Daddy up from the airport. It's weird because in a normal family it would be such a special occurrence picking Daddy up from the airport that you would keep the kids awake and all go to the airport together but here it happens all the time so taxi it is. That should never happen to a family. One member of your immediate family should never be gone so often that it becomes a common occurrence. Of course if it were solely up to me that would never happen to me either but it isn't and so here I am alone.
But I will not be alone soon, the aforementioned taxi should be pulling up any minute now and then we will all be one big happy family again. For how long? We can not be sure but at least for the weekend and no matter how much the next day he leaves will be looming over my head I will try to push it to the back of my mind and enjoy the moment. That is my new goal to enjoy the moment. I do not feel optimistic about this.
I am thinking of trying to find a farmer's market to go to this weekend. I have been trying to "green" myself up a bit. I figure this would be a great way to meet your neighbors as well as get some cheaper and fresher fruits and veggies but so far I have not looked one up so unless I stop what I am doing right now to look it up we probably will not go tomorrow because once the baby wakes up if you do not have a plan the you might as well just wait for nap time and then it is afternoon and too hot and before you know it the day is spiraling out of control.
News, Britney Spears and William Shatner
I’ve actually been reading the paper. Although for years newspapers all around the world have been an amazing outlet for the happenings of the day. I have loved writing for many many years now and fully believe that we as a people should never do away with print newspapers but there always seems to be so much in them that I don’t want to read and therefore there has never been enough motivation to dig the fifty cents out of my pocket, slip it in the slot and bring the paper home. Then on top of that to actually read it, forget about it.
However for the past few days I have been reading the local paper to fulfill one of the requirements for my 101 things in 1001 days. I have learned a lot of things some of which I do not even want to know and most of it I do not need to know at all. I guess in a global world everyone should be ‘in the know’ but the truth of the matter is that life would be a lot simpler if we did not know some of that stuff. Take my last entry for instance. Think about how much topics like that weigh on your psyche everyday. How much simpler would your life be if you did not have to worry about floods in Iowa or famine in Africa or what Britney Spears is doing for fun these days.
People are not supposed to be burdened by these types of things everyday. Of course there are more crazies in the world today because 100 or 200 years ago we never had the same concerns as we do today. Our families and friends were probably better off for it too since we all had more mental time to give to them and to ourselves instead of our minds being spread out over not only our immediate lives but also those of other people and things that have very little to no effect at all on us or our familes.
Reading - Up Till Now - William Shatner, I just started this audio book but I really like William Shatner. I loved him in Star Trek and in Boston Legal. I also just experienced his spoken word songs, Rocket Man and such which if you haven’t yet then check it out here.
Watching - The Time Tunnel - Season 1
Hello, I am Rayna
I guess that says it all, doesn't it? Well not too much but a girl has to keep some mystery in her life. I have been keeping a traditional paper journal for years, since I was 12 years old, I am 27 now. I also have a livejournal that I have been keeping for a few years and another blogger journal that is mostly dedicated to family, since we live so far away from both sets of grandparents. Oh yeah did I mention I have a baby? No, well it's that mystery coming into play again.
So, you are no doubt asking yourself with all those other writing outlets why start a new blog. I can see where you are coming from with this thought. The truth in the matter is I am trying to make the transition from hobby blogger to professional blogger. This is my first attempt. I have high hopes for myself but not too high because I hate to be let down. Also, I am not sure I could handle it right now so I think to play it safe I will say this website is going to be a complete failure but I will learn from it and move on. With that things can only go up.
I am currently a stay at home mom but I never wanted to be. Some would think that is aweful to say but those people are not me. I am just not cut out for staying home all the time. Yeah the little one keeps me busy but I need more of a purpose in life or at least more of a personal purpose. I always wanted to go back to work part time but that did not work out so here I am sitting on my couch watching Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and I keep thinking what can I do, what are my talents? That is when it hit me I love writing I have been keeping a journal forever how can I make these things work for me and here I am.
I don't really know if writing is my true talent but I am going to try to make it into one and once I get really started I am sure you will not be disappointed. At the very least you will be entertained.
A Little About...
...Rayna (that's me). I currently live in New Orleans with my husband and toddler, the terrible twos are upon us. We moved to NOLA in November 2005, yes after the hurricane. This picture was taken when we were on a river cruise last Christmas. I picked this picture because the Portland look is so hot right now. Everyone "going green" and all (me included so who am I to talk).
Writing fills my heart with joy and so I do it much and often like laughing in that poem. Speaking of poems I like to write those too as well as this blog and a couple others. I am here to entertain you and myself with my witty ramblings. And to share info on books and reading in general, of course.
I did not return to my job after giving birth to the aforementioned baby and so spend most of my days desperately trying to find something to fill my schedule. Oh yeah and trying to avoid becoming a complete fat ass from lazing around the house. So far it's working out, I'll keep you posted...
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