Hamas and Government

So I'm watching the world events and noticed recently the election in Palestine. The people chose to elect Hamas as the ruling majority in their government. Initially, I can't say I really blame the people of Palestine. They have had to deal with the corrupt rule of Fatah for some time now. Unemployment is around 50%. The number of Palestinians who used to work in Israel (where they could make 10X what they make in Palestine) was around 130,000. That number is around 0 now.

Hundreds of millions of dollars were taken from government budgets by Arafat and his cabinet. The government itself is nearly bankrupt. The government is now actually paying Arafat's wife several million a year to tell them where those hundreds of millions ended up. It was simply stupid, corrupt government at its finest. I have no clue why Arafat was so beloved by the people when he continued to screw them over so badly.

Now, Hamas is in charge. All peace negotiations will obviously cease. Hamas has a charter that specifically calls for the removal of Israel and its people. There are daily confrontations between Hamas and Fatah supporters in the streets. From a political standpoint, I personally think that Hamas getting in charge may end up being a good thing in the long run. It appears to be uniting the U.S. and their allies when they had not always got along previously because of Iraq. The open failure of a government run by terrorists may destabilize the region in the short term, but could result in the eventual loss of support from the Palestinian people in regards to Hamas. Just below is a propaganda picture that Hamas thinks is a good thing. I'm guessing that posing a 1-year old baby next to a machine gun is not going to draw much sympathy from most people.

Meanwhile, I read about several families in Palestine where the father is unemployed, but would love to work in Israel again to make the $1,000/month so his family can live comfortably. How screwed is this guy? He has a choice of Fatah and Hamas for his voting choices to 'help' his situation (there are other smaller parties, but much like in the US, they are not a major factor). Suddenly, I like the choice between Democrats and Republicans. It may not be without corruption, but it's a much better alternative than my friend in Palestine has at this point.

Imagine what this country could do without corruption in government..............Ah, it's always nice to dream.

Limelicker is not a role model....Part 2

Ah, so you thought there was just one incident of misbehavior in Limelicker's past? You are sorely mistaken. The amusing part of this is that my parents don't know about this one. But I digress. We'll entertain just why that is a bit later in this post.

I had an English teacher in 8th grade named Mr. Brown. He was either a high school track or football coach who taught as a side job. You know what I'm talking about. The ones that are a whole lot more interested in the coaching part than actually teaching the material. It's not that they are necessarily bad teachers, but their priorities obviously lie in sports.

One day, I come into the classroom pretty early. There's only 4-5 people in the classroom. I notice in the back of the classroom that there is a video camera on a tripod set up facing the front of the room where the teacher stands. I set down my books and go over to the video camera, making sure to duck under the lens portion of the video camera. I turned the video camera to where it faced out the window towards the football field. I went back and sat down to wait for class to start.

Mr. Brown came in once the bell rung. He began the lecture on whatever was being discussed that day. After about 30 minutes of talking by him, he suddenly stopped talking. He appeared to be pretty agitated. He said to the class, "Who turned around the video camera?". Being the good person that I am, I refused to tell him who did it, full well knowing that person would probably be in a lot of trouble. Mr. Brown went on to explain to the class that the camera was being used to tape him for evaluations of teachers by the principals. Obviously, since some fool in the class had spun around the camera, the entire tape now consisted of a recording of the football field outside the classroom window. Mr. Brown made the class sit in silence the rest of the period.

Of course, I knew I had got lucky and got away with my little prank. I was glad to get out of there without any major damage done. A couple of days later, I was called by the secretary via intercom to come up to the front office. I thought that something was being delivered for me or something like that. Once I got up to the front office and saw Mr. Brown standing in the office with his arms crossed, I knew I'd been had. But how did they figure it out?

Then I was shown the video. I definitely was nowhere to be found on the video. But there was another person visible on the video. Her name was Tiera. She lived just down the street from my house. Right as the video camera was turning towards the football field, a voice (quickly recognized as Tiera's voice) distinctly was heard on the audio of the tape saying, "Lime, I wouldn't do that if I were you!". Damn the luck.

So I was given papers for a Friday after-school detention. This was the same year as the previously mentioned incident in yesterday's blog entry. I couldn't have my parents finding out about yet another screw-up by yours truly. So I did what any other 8th grader idiot would do in this situation. I signed my mom's name on the dotted line and handed the papers back in the next day. I served the detention that Friday, telling my mom I had after-school jazz band practice. My parents don't know that this incident ever occurred.............well, until now. I may be punished retroactively once they finish reading this blog entry.

Good night for the Limelicker clan.......

Mr. and Mrs. Lime played in a 8-person tourney tonight, $20 buy-in.

Mr. and Mrs. Lime finished 1st and 2nd. We actually just took the first and second place money and split it so the others could start playing again. $100 profit for 3 hours of work. Not bad at all.

Limelicker is not a role model.......

So, I've decided to come clean. I am a wonderful husband, child and brother to all who have to deal with me. But the slate is far from clean. I have screwed up a time or two. Time to admit my imperfections.

In 7th grade, I was in Mr. Cumberford's science class. The previous day's homework was to write a two page written paper about something related to science (the subject matter doesn't really affect the story and I don't remember it anyway). I totally forgot about the assignment that night.

The next day, upon entering Mr. Cumberford's science class, he immediately announces that there will be a pop quiz starting immediately. He also mentions that immediately after the quiz is completed by everyone, he will be collecting the two page assignment from everyone.

I'm in a big world of hurt at this point. Not only did I not write out the two page assignment, but now there's also a pop quiz to boot. As quickly as I can, I complete the quiz. I am the first in the class to finish the assignment. So now I have some time to try to get some of the assignment done. My goal is to at least get 1 page done. I know the subject matter, so it's just a matter of getting it on paper. If I get something down, I'll at least get some points for putting something down on paper.

I take out a folder to write on and some paper and begin writing on the folder under the table so Mr. Cumberford doesn't see what I'm doing. After a minute or two, Mr. Cumberford of course walks over to my area and notice me writing below the table. Mr. Cumberford always addressed everyone by their last name (i.e. Mr. Smith or Ms. Glass). He says to me with a smile/smirk, "Mr. Limelicker, what are you doing?".

At this point, I should have thought of a straight forward response such as 'I'm finishing up my paper' or 'Just some homework from another class'. But evidently my mouth caught my mind taking a nap. In frustration at being caught finishing an assignment that was due, I instead chose the words, "What the hell does it look like I'm doing?!?!?!".

Bad move.

The paper was snatched out out of my hands immediately. Mr. Cumberford told me in a stern voice to just head straight to the school office. He said I'd have to wait down there until he sent down the discipline papers. Off I went, quite dejected at my ability to say something stupid at such an inopportune time.

Normally, this would be a good enough story in itself. But my life is never simple. I got down to the office and the papers showed up about 30-40 minutes later. I was immediately asked to meet with Mr. Eddington, the vice principal. I went in to the office and we had a brief conversation just to verify the information about the situation.

Mr. Eddington then says he's going to have to call my mom. My mom at this time is an elected member of the school board. So imagine my delight when he calls her to discuss my behavior. Mr. Eddington knows my mom personally. So when my mother answers the phone, instead of immediately telling her about my behavior, he begins pleasant small talk with my mother saying things like 'how have you been?' and 'how's your husband doing?'. Meanwhile, I'm left to squirm in my seat knowing that the discussion will eventually turn to my brilliant blunder.

Long story short, he eventually addressed the situation with my mother, she was less than happy and allowed him to wield the punishment stick (i.e. I got two 8th hours cleaning up Mr. Cumberford's science lab). I had no defense for what I did, so I was just glad that my first run-in with a principal wasn't any worse.

By the way, Mr. Cumberford eventually rose to become principal of a high school in the same school district. He was a great teacher and quite a nice guy to boot. Last I saw him, he was doing quite well.

Pumping gas in New Jersey....

For those of you that don't know, there is a law in New Jersey that basically states that all gas stations must be full-service. A law was passed in 1949 stating that it was far too dangerous for citizens to pump their own gas because it was so flammable. That law is still in place.

So I was driving up to Atlantic City last month and had to stop in New Jersey to get some gas. It took FOREVER for a gas station attendant to get over to my car to start pumping the gas. My guess would be a five minute wait. I wanted to just jump out of my car and start pumping it myself. Finally, someone did show up and pump the gas for me.

Here's another thing that nearly caused me to laugh out loud. The pump that I pulled up to had the credit card slot built into the pump, which is obviously meant to make it easier for self-service customers to pay for gas. He took the card from me and actually inserted the card into the pump. Did I really need a guy to walk over to me, take my credit card and turn one step to insert the card and then hand me back the card? Good lord. After roughly 2 1/2 hours at the gas station (slight exaggeration), I headed off to complete my trip.

Late last month, I went up to see the Chiefs game when they played the Giants. Most of the drive is through NJ. As hard as I tried, I was going to run out of gas before I hit the New Jersey state line. So I was forced to fill my gas at a New Jersey gas pump. When I pulled up, I immediately thought back to my previous New Jersey gas filling experience. So when an attendant didn't show up after 10-15 seconds, I got out of my car with credit card in hand and headed for the pump intending to insert the credit card into the pump. Imagine my surprise when an attendant showed up before I could get a card into the pump and asked me how much gas I needed. I told him and he started filling the gas tank. When the gas finished, I got out of my car and headed back to the tank like I was going to remove the filling handle from the gas tank. Yet again, I couldn't make it back there before the gas attendant showed up to remove the handle and send me on my way.

The moral of this story is:

If you have a car with out-of-state plates, pretend you don't know New Jersey law and try to fill your gas tank yourself. You'll get immediate service and be on your way in a hurry.

To think we take it for granted......

Don't be fooled by the general tenor of news coverage of overseas events. Most people in the world want no more than what we already have.......pure freedom. Here's an interesting exchange between an American and an Iraqi.

"This evening I went to the ING [Iraqi National Guard] compound – mainly to coordinate another shopping trip to Dahuk – I am trying to buy heaters and blankets for the poor people with no heat. As always when visiting with Iraqis, there is an art to the conversation – you must “make small talk” — it is expected and polite to converse about little things before getting down to business – our conversations will usually flow from insignificant things, to business and back again. Tonight was no exception. I was able to make more plans to work with the ING to help the Iraqi people – we will help the ING get kerosene to their compound, and then they will share the kerosene with me so I can distribute it to the schools and some poor people."

"Anyhow, at one point after being there about an hour and a half, LTC Amar asks if we mind if he asks some questions. He first asked about some of our leaders, mentioning Condoleezza Rice – he asked if in America there is prejudice against African Americans. We said that it is against the law to be prejudiced, however unfortunately there are still some people who feel that way. Then he asked a question that almost brought me to tears. He asked us, “Your freedom, the freedom that you have in America, can you feel it? – is it something you can feel inside of you?” I immediately answered “Yes, I feel it very strongly.” He then asked other questions, like, what if your president does something you don’t like – like he becomes like Saddam Hussein – what do you do about it? We explained the balance of power between Executive, Legislative and Judicial. Said that the President just can’t do what he wants. To which he replied, then what is the President for if he can’t do what he wants?"

"He also asked: what if someone doesn’t like the president and says bad things about him – what happens to that person? We told him that as long as someone doesn’t threaten to hurt the president, that person is free to say whatever he likes. LTC Amar raised his eyebrows at this. Our conversation turned to the towers in New York, why we think they were bombed, and about the evilness of terrorists who choose to murder innocent people. It was a very interesting discussion that will stay with me forever."

Sorry for the long delay in posts.....

Between the travel home and various family things, been very busy this week. I should have time to start posting regularly now. I had my laptop power cord fall in half (thankfully the sparks didn't catch anything on fire), so I had to order a new cord for that computer. It should be in today, so that should help a lot.

Thanks to all for the well-wishes related to last week's event.

I'm not meant to be a tester.....

It's not all peaches and cream. Don't get me wrong, I'm paid quite well for what I currently do and like the people that I work with in Baltimore. But it's not really what I would like to do long-term.

For several years, I was a programmer. I liked it because it was constantly evolving. It resulted in late nights or occasional overnights of work, but I liked the rush of having to fix something in a short amount of time. It was even more rewarding that I often exceeded expectations in regards to those critical situations. Often, that resulted in me jumping other, older workers who didn't work as hard as I did. As a result, some didn't like me at work, but I honestly didn't care. It was no fault but their own for getting outworked by a younger worker.

Currently, I'm a tester. This means that I basically run the system through various tests to make sure it's running as it should. I like the job when I am busy, but that usually only occurs about half the time. The other half is spent documenting various processes. While I understand that documentation is needed, it's just not my cup of tea. I like action and a testing job just doesn't provide enough of that action.

So, life lesson learned. I know that I'm not a tester. Between the lack of action and the fact that I only find problems, it's just not for me. If I find the problems, I want to fix them too. Who knows, someone may read my impressions and figure out that one or the other job may be for them. If so, I've spent the last 5 minutes doing something that helps someone else, and that's always a good thing.

The big day has arrived.........

January 16........MU vs. KU at Mizzou Arena. There may be more important games related to whether this team makes post-season play, but none means more to thost that support the University of Missouri or the University of Kansas. The rivalry is born out of the Civil War from the Missouri unit known as the Tigers and the Kansas unit known as the Jayhawkers. In addition, several raids across the borders ended in many civilian deaths that only fueled the hatred.

If you have never attended a MU/KU game, make sure you do it. You won't regret it.

GO TIGERS!!!!!

Tough news

We found out today that our baby did not make it and has died. We're obviously upset that the baby didn't make it, but we're hopeful that we can soon try again to have our first baby.

So no more belly updates for awhile, but we hope that they can resume in the near future. :)

Lesson time for future fathers.....

For those that have already had a child, you can probably ignore this post. For those that are planning to be fathers in the future, I thought I'd pass on a bit of advice that I've learned during the first trimester.

First, no matter how much you support your wife, you will not be able to offer her any words or actions that will make her happy that her belly is quickly growing. Even if you offer support or a simple factual statement such as "You're not getting fat, you're going to have a baby" after she complains that she feels fat. No words in the English vocabulary will be able to console your wife into thinking anything other than she's "getting fat", even when you are being quite honest and have nothing but the best intentions with your comments. I'm sure she appreciates your support, but when she's pregnant, she's not really in the mood to hear about it.

Second, the moment when your wife gets to the point when she no longer fits into her regular clothes, run (do not walk) to the nearest maternity store with a few hundred dollars in your pocket fully expecting to spend it all. While the cost of the clothes may smart for a day, the instant and future dividends when your wife feels better about herself and is able to actually breathe in her new clothes will last much longer. Trust me, this is one you want to store away. It will save you a lot of problems.

Two words: Tigers and Pride

For those of you who have no interest in sports, no need to even bother reading this post.

I am so, so proud of the Tigers tonight. All year long since the first game, which Mizzou lost to Sam Houston State University, I have had to hear how bad my team is this year. The Tigers took a tough loss at Davidson, who is a very disciplined team who showed the Tigers how an offense is supposed to be run. The Tigers lost to Illinois by 32. Yet I insisted that this team had talent that was starting to develop and that you could see the coaching staff was making changes that were helping on offense.

Flash forward to this week. On Saturday, my Tigers beat Oklahoma State at home in their best performance of the season. Tonight, they followed it up with a performance that topped their previous performance by beating Oklahoma on the road. There were several times when Oklahoma tried to deliver a knockout blow. Yet time and time again, Mizzou got off the mat and fought back. Some quick points:

--Kevin Young won this game tonight. He had two key baskets. One was the three point play he scored after OU went on an early 6-0 run to start the second half. MU could have easily been blown out had he not hit that key basket to break OU's run. The other great basket was the one that put us ahead 47-45 and allowed the MU team to believe that they could win the game. Also, Kevin made a momentum changing play with Mizzou down by 6 in the second half. OU had a 4 on 1 break and Kevin managed to draw a charging foul despite being outnumbered. He has really progressed as a player and it's great to see it finally showing on the court. No one deserves it more.

--Thomas Gardner is a legitimate leader for this team. He still makes the occasional bad turnover, but when MU needs a score, Thomas has been the one to deliver it all year long.

--I have no clue how Marshall managed to bang home those two free throws at the end of the game. That is some extreme pressure and Marshall did a great job making 2 of 3 free throws when it counted.

These players and this coaching staff have been told they are no good all season long. All they've done is continue to work hard, rewarding the fans who have stayed loyal to the program through thick and thin. There better be a full house in Mizzou Arena when I come back to the state of Missouri this Saturday. It's the very, very least that the season ticket holders can do for a team that has fought through a slow start to earn the respect of this Mizzou fan and many, many other fans. It's a shame that a fair weather fan base has to have this kind of a statement game to support a team that they supposedly love. Those same fair weather fans owe this team and the coaches an apology for their lack of loyalty. Great job Tigers!

I've now been warned about winter in Baltimore.....

Evidently, there is a very interesting procedure that occurs during and after a winter storm regarding parking along the street.

Once the snow slows down, people come out to dig out their cars that are parked along the street, often covered by a layer of snowfall AND the snowplows that push even more snow upon their cars. Once people have finished digging out their cars, they feel that they should have some sort of a right to the parking spots that they clear. So they often put various items (examples include garbage cans, lawn chairs, dining room chairs, tools from the garage) in the cleared spot as they leave for work so people know that someone cleared that spot and expects to use it when they get back from work or wherever they are headed.

I've been told by co-workers that I should be aware of this practice in advance for a very specific reason. Evidently, rarely does a snow storm go by where someone isn't shot and/or killed because of a dispute over one of these previously discussed cleared spots. So in summary, if you see a parking spot cleared along the road that has lawn chairs in it, pass it by and find a different spot. It may just be a life-saving decision.

Casanova goes AWOL

Casanova is our dog for those of you who don't know. He's had two other dogs in the house this weekend. At some point each night, we always have Nova come up to the bedroom to go to bed. Tonight, Mrs. Lime brought up Nova when she came upstairs since I was already upstairs. I was working on the computer in the office. Nova walked into the bedroom like he always does and laid down next to the bed.

I finished up on the computer while Mrs. Lime was still brushing her teeth. I got up from the desk and walked into the bedroom. Checked one side of the bed......no Nova. Checked the other side of the bed.......no Nova. Asked Mrs. Lime if Nova came up with her. She says yes and asks if he's still up here. I told her he was nowhere to be found. Evidently, Nova has decided that more play time with the other dogs is in order. I offered to go down and get him. She says, "No, I want to see the look on his face when I find him."

A few minutes later, I hear footsteps coming up the stairs and Mrs. Lime saying, "See, if you hadn't gone back downstairs, you wouldn't have to climb all these stairs all over again. That'll teach you."

Mrs. Lime reports back that upon seeing Nova, he knew immediately what was up and put down his head and started up the stairs to go to bed...............again.

Belly Update - Week 12

Here's the latest pick. A trip to the maternity store netted a good stash of clothes for the expectant mother. She was happy to have pants that actually fit. If you compare to last week, there's quite a change for one week. It would appear that we may have a fine power forward in store for Mizzou in about 19 years.

Time for a little poker

OK, time for a poker post.

I've been playing in a weekly poker game just a few blocks away from my house. Small stakes poker with several guys recently graduated from Loyola University - Maryland. I've only lost money in one of 5 sessions, so I think I'll make sure I keep playing at this game.
One hand in particular struck me as funny. Three players involved.

---Rhodes, a fairly tight player who occasionally goes all in with nothing for the fun of it.

---Jake, a loose player who's favorite hand is 97. He calls it 'the cab' because when he plays it, people end up calling a cab to go home with their last dime.

---Eric, a player who will play great hands and bad hands alike. You never know what he'll have.

Blinds are .25/.50. Everyone buys in for $20 in chips to start. Early on, Jake raises to $3. Rhodes behind him decides to go all-in. Eric quickly calls the all-in. Jake is now left with a decision. He was the original raiser and now two people have pushed all their chips in behind him.

Interesting reads that I got while I was watching Rhodes and Eric. Rhodes was very quiet. Usually a sign of a good hand. Also, he sat back in his chair which is another tell. Normally, these guys wouldn't give off those kinds of tells, but Rhodes had a few drinks, so those tells usually show up a bit easier in that case. Knew he had some sort of a pocket pair most likely.

Eric was much different. He was standing up and bouncing a bit. He also was talking to Jake, trying to convince him that folding was a good idea. In a normal game under these circumstances, this kind of behavior means that the player really wants him to call. However, knowledge of the players in this game allow the book to be thrown out the window when Eric says, "Jake, if you call and suck me out, I'm going to be pissed!"

Immediately, this tells me exactly what's going on. Eric has a hand that he believes is better than Rhodes' hand and he doesn't want Jake to call. If Jake calls, there are simply more flukey things that can happen with the cards and Eric's win percentage drops quite a bit.
Jake hears Eric say this and, of course, decides to call against what I would consider better judgement. Here's what everyone flips over......

Rhodes: JJ
Eric: QQ
Jake: 44

So Eric is pretty far in the lead, but Jake has created a problem by bringing more losing possibilities for Eric into play. Eric is extremely aggrevated that Jake would gamble with a measly 44 knowing that he was definitely beat by either Eric or Rhodes and probably by both of them. The flop comes.......A........K.........4.

Everyone not involved in the hand busts out laughing. Eric screams 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!'. The last two cards are not a Q or a J and the pot is scooped by Jake, taking down a pot for roughly $65. Jake still has not lived that one down, but he walked away with a lot of cash on a terrible play gone good.

Two things about this:

1. Knowledge is power. If you learn to understand the other player's tendancies, you can figure out what you're generally up against. Poker is a great study in human psychology. For example, I know that if one of the guys in the game is shaking his knee up and down, he's got a monster. I actually like to sit next to him at the table because then I don't even have to look at his knee. His knee just starts bumping against mine and I immediately know to fold. This kind of study also helps me in life in general. I am much more able to get a feel for people and determine how sincere or truthful they are in their actions or words. You'd be amazed how different things seem when you start to understand human nature.

2. Math is all-powerful in poker. It allows you to make decisions when you are unsure of things. The above hand is an excellent example of that. Luck is going to happen in poker. But you can mitigate it's randomness by determining the win percentages in the hand. In this case, Jake had a win percentage in the 10% range against these other hands. In this case, the 10% hit for him for a $45 profit. However, if you repeat this scenario 10 times, Jake would only win 1 out of those 10 times. So while he will win $45 once, he will lose $45 9 times assuming all things equal. So Jake's expected value is $45 - $405 = -$360. Moral of this story is that you want Jake to call every time with that hand in this situation because you're going to make a lot of money in the long run off those type of bad decisions.

I'll probably get into other poker theory as I go along, but I wanted to give some of the people that don't know much about poker some insight into how much is involved in decision making in a hand of poker. Too often, after hearing about a hand like the above, people say that poker is just a game of luck or chance. There is some luck or chance involved, but a greater understanding of both human nature and math can allow you to gain an edge over other players that are at the table. Even playing without money, there is still a lot that can be learned through the game of poker.

For those that missed the halloween party.......

Here's some pictures of what the front yard looked like for the Halloween party a couple of months ago. Roughly 50-60 people attended the party. You can see the house we currently live in as well for those that haven't been out to Baltimore yet. A couple of familiar dogs and their tails also show up in the pictures.

Gettysburg and the picture I wanted to get.....

As many of you know, I am an extreme ghost aficionado. I have a large library of books I've collected over many years of reading. Every time I go to Barnes & Noble, I always look in the 'New Age' section to see if there are any new ghost books that have been printed. I can look through the whole section and quickly pick out any new releases just by looking over the shelf. I've read that many of them.

As a child, I ran into a problem because I would go to the library only to find that I had already read all the books in the 'Ghosts' section. I can even remember that the ghost books were under 133.XX in the Dewey decimal system. Yes, I was that interested in ghosts. In the gifted children program that I was a part of during elementary school, we had to do one large research project. Of course, I did my project on ghosts. The teachers both loved it.


I've read several books that are solely about the ghosts of Gettysburg. The city is packed full of ghosts. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why that might be the case. Over 175,000 men fought in 3 days' time in and around the city of Gettysburg. Casulties were extremely high (over 10,000 men lost their lives and 4 times that amount were wounded). There was an extreme amount of death and suffering in the battle. At left is a picture of bullet holes in an inn in the town. There were several hundred bullet holes in this wall alone.

One of the most interesting stories regarding the battle involves the handling of the dead following the battle. The dead were buried where they lay on the battlefield to avoid any spread of disease. Wood markers were used to identify the dead with a name when possible. Once the wounded were dealt with, the dead were dug up and reburied in a formal cemetery. One problem is that some of the markers had been knocked down or used as firewood. As a result, when the citizens finished moving the dead, they found that there were 700 war dead that they could not find. Those 700 war dead are still buried in various parts of the city. There is actually a modern neighborhood that is now build over a portion of the battlefied. There were several war dead found when digging the basements in that neighborhood and there are many reported hauntings in this neighborhood. It would appear that many graves were probably disturbed in this area.

Another place where there is a high amount of activity is in the Gettysburg National Cemetery. This is where most of the Gettysburg dead are buried (many are unknown graves) and President Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg address when the cemetery was formally created (there were many people already buried there, both civilian and military, but the cemetery was not officially a National Cemetery until his visit).

I decided that I was going to go ghost hunting in the cemetery at dusk with my camera. I got several good photos of various monuments and graves. Nothing really of interest, but nice pictures of the various sites in the graveyard. Here's a couple of them.......





One of my last pictures was just a random shot of the graveyard. It was sunset. There are small, square stones on the ground. Each one of those stones marks the grave of a soldier. There are a couple hundred graves in this picture alone. The graves in this picture are all soldiers from a specific state. The state that the soldiers are from is noted on the larger stone on the extreme right of the picture about 2/3 of the way down. The specific state is not visible in this picture, but I believe I took the picture because it was the Maryland soldiers. The sun is setting on the extreme right of the picture behind a mountain.



The intriguing part of the picture is located on the left side of the picture between the two trees just beyond the graves. If you look closely, there is a small, white orb of light located between the two trees. Orbs are generally recognized as energy that indicates a supernatural presence. Obviously, the first thing to look for is possible reasons for the orb of light. First, the sun had already set to the extreme right behind a mountain, so no direct sunlight was available to cause the light. Second, some multicolor object are visible just over the wall in the background. Those are actually where the maintenance vehicles are kept. While these vehicles could possibly produce the light, the maintenance workers had already gone home for the day, so there was no one in that area. Finally, the most convincing piece of evidence that can be notice in the photograph. There is a tree limb that directly crosses the area where the light is located in the picture. If the light were coming from the area just past the cemetery wall, you would be able to see the tree limb splitting the light source in half. As you can see the light is actually in front of the limb because the entire limb disappears behind the light.

I would suggest that you right click on the picture and save it to your desktop to get a better look at the picture and the orb in the picture. It's certainly interesting and I was excited to get something on one of the pictures. If you would like the hi-res version of the picture, e-mail me and I can send you the picture file. There is a group that will be doing a ghost investigation in the coming months in an old inn in Gettysburg. If I get the chance, I'm heading up there to check it out.

For those that think life is rough......

My good friend Casanova has some advice for you. There is simply nothing more blissful than rolling around in towels that smell like shampoo. I'm not sure what causes him to do this, but whenever we lay wet towels on the floor, he absolutely goes crazy rolling around in the towels. I've tried to do something similar, but I just don't get the same excitement out of it that he seems to get.




Also, Casanova would tell you that there is simply not a more enjoyable way to spend the afternoon than watching the Tournament of Roses Parade. He was so excited as horse after horse was shown on the TV for over 2 1/2 hours. He ran up and watched every single horse go by on the screen. My dog simply couldn't have had a better day today. I had him write a brief blog so you could experience his day in a nutshell.....

"Everyone's staying home to play today! Yippee! Towels that smell like shampoo! Yippee! Horses on TV! Yippee! Chasing around the other dog in the house! Yippee!"

As you can see, it was a really good day for Casanova.

Belly Update - Week 11

First Belly update is ready. We'll try to do this every weekend so you all can watch the baby grow. We're up to nearly 3 months (11 weeks total).

Happy New Year

Lexie wishes you a Happy New Year from the New Year's Eve party we attended last night.