Wordless Wednesday – Bats!

rmiles7721June 11, 2008Site News

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Bats at Disney's Animal Kingdom

Tornado Hits Boy Scout Camp in Iowa

rmiles7721June 11, 2008Site News

Updated 6-12 8:20pm
The raw video below shows some of the damage at the Little Sioux Boy Scout Camp after the tornado hit.



littlesioux.jpgUpdate 10:22pm – CNN is reporting that four people have been killed at the Boy Scout camp in western Iowa. There were 100 scouts at the camp when the storm struck and around 20 people have been injured. People are being transported to the hospital which is about 100 miles from the camp. While a Monona County dispatcher says that no deaths have been confirmed CNN is reporting that four people have died.
According to KCCI, the scout master said that there were 96 campers at the site (not 100) and they were trapped when the tornado hit. Many of the buildings have been flattened by the storm. KCCI is also reporting the four deaths.
CNN has more information now:

Iowa Public Safety Commissioner Gene Meyer said the four were killed by a storm that slammed into the Little Sioux Scout Ranch near the Nebraska state line.
Meyer said about 120 people, including 93 children, were believed to be at the camp at the time of the storm.
Lloyd Roitstein, president of the Boy Scouts of Mid-America Council, said the scouts at the ranch were between 13 and 18 years old and were there for a week of training. He said all of them were staying in tents and that the site was destroyed.
“All of the buildings are gone; most of the tents are gone; most of the trees are destroyed,” Roitstein said. “You’ve got 1,800 acres of property that are destroyed right now.”



All through the midwest I have been hearing about the storms and flooding that just seem to continue to get worse. Forecasters are warning Iowa City residents that expected showers this weekend may cause as much flooding as in 1993. Not that I want flooding (for me or anyone) but we damn sure could use some rain here in West Georgia.


I just came across this story at KCCI in Des Moines linked from CNN. Apparently a tornado has touched down at a Boy Scout camp in western Iowa, injuring at least 40 people and possibly with fatalities. The DOT has been dispatched to clear trees so that rescuers can get to Little Sioux Scout Camp and state troopers have been dispatched as well as a search and rescue team.
The Iowa Governor’s office can’t say why a search and rescue team has been sent and there is no definite report on the fatalities if there are actually are some. Hopefully everyone will be OK.
There is now a story up at CNN and they are reporting that first responders are at the camp about an hour north of Omaha and that at least 20 people are injured.

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Wednesday Hero

rmiles7721June 11, 2008Site News

Army Spc. Jeffrey A. Williams

Army Spc. Jeffrey A. Williams
20 years old from Warrenville, Illinois
Support Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment
September 5, 2005
U.S. Army
SPC. Jeffery A. Williams was killed in action when an IED was detonated near his combat patrol in Tal Afar, Iraq.
Your time with us was far too short
Dealing with your loss will be hard,
When I think about what this world has lost
I want to just shut out the world and cry,
But I will not do that.
Because you gave your life for something much greater than you or I
So, I will remember you as the Hero that you are
And never let what you did in your life cut short be forgotten
And that is the best way I know to honor you

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.
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Busy in the Background

rmiles7721June 10, 2008Site News

I know I haven’t posted much lately, other than a few memes and some of the new pictures. I’ve been pretty busy at work since I got back from vacation.

I am also working on a new set of templates for the blog and since I really am pretty much clueless it takes me awhile. Shadowscope V4 will be rolled out at some point in the next few months. I am going to try and streamline some things. Really I just enjoy tweaking the place and changing it every once in a while. I have kept this theme longer than any other but I feel like it’s time for a change. Once I have the site up and running with the plugins I want and everything working properly I will copy the templates over here.

Weekend Wanderings

rmiles7721June 10, 20083Site News

David McMahon is an Aussie who is an author and photographer among other things. He also asks a weekly question in an entry/meme entitled Weekend Wanderings which you can answer during the course of the next week. Another quick writer’s block knock, not that I ever lack for things to post, only the want to…

This week’s question is “when did you last complain about the weather?”

That would be TODAY!

Somewhat…

I love the change in weather and while I will bitch the entire summer about how hot it is, I prefer the spring and summer over the cold of the winter anyway. I suppose Autumn is my favorite time of the year but the older I get the more I seem to like the warm weather. 90+ is a bit much though and that’s where it’s been here all week since I got home from vacation. It’s almost as if I brought the warm weather with me.

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Blogs For Borders Video Blogburst

rmiles7721June 9, 20082Site News
Our weekly vlog — podcast on illegal immigration and border security issues. In this weeks edition…
Jobs Americans Won’t Do? Are American kids being screwed out of summer jobs by greedy and unethical employers? We investigate.
100% Preventable! Americans continue to pay the bloody price for open borders. When will the madness end?
Why We Do What We Do.

Download for your ipod here.
This weeks show proudly brought to you NO ILLEGAL ALIENS…

Bringing you the reality of the illegal immigration invasion from the frontlines of Southeastern Florida. Make sure to check them out, they are doing great work!

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If you’d like to sponsor a show contact us here.
This has been the Blogs For Borders Video Blogburst. The Blogs For Borders Blogroll is dedicated to American sovereignty, border security and a sane immigration policy. If you’d like to join find out how right here.

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Disney – More Day Three…

rmiles7721June 8, 2008Travel

The post I wrote about our third day in Florida really was just the morning. I realized quite a bit into putting pictures into it that I was going to have to start breaking some of these up and posting them at intervals, so I shall.

After we had breakfast at the Crystal Palace we set out to explore the Magic Kingdom a bit further than we did a couple of years ago.

We started out in Tomorrowland, where Space Mountain resides. The wife wanted to get Fastpasses so that we wouldn’t have to wait in line for too long. While we were there we rode the tram thing and just sort of hung out for a while. The Mad Hatter’s Teacups sit right between Tomorrowland and Fantasyland. It’s one of our favorites so we made sure to ride it.

Disney Transportation System

RePete in a Cup 'o Tea

Me and Pete in the Cups

While we were in Tomorrowland we also rode the Buzz Lightyear ride. It was a frigging blast. Basically it’s an arcade game and a ride all in one. Pretty cool actually.

Afterward the girls ended up behind bars with Emperor Zurg…

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There seem to be a couple of different photos with the girls behind bars during the week. That’s all I’m going to post for today. Time wise it’s about noon on Friday. I will pick through and post some more tomorrow. Considering that we took somewhere in the vicinity of 700 photos I have a couple to pick through. Believe it or not I actually took a lot less than I normally would during something like this.

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Weekend Open Track-Back Post

rmiles7721June 7, 2008Site News

Linkfest Haven, the Blogger's Oasis

If you are participating in the linkfest this weekend, make sure that you use the form over at Linkfest Haven Deluxe so that your link shows up properly, or heck, just send a ping to this entry and it will show up right here on the main page!

Disney Day Three…Even Midgets Gotta Work…

rmiles7721June 5, 2008Travel

I say it was day three but it was really day three of my vacation. It was the second day we were at Disney. We started the day pretty early.

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This was taken out on the dock in front of the Polynesian Resort. You can take a ferry over to the Magic Kingdom from there as well as to/from several other resorts. I wasn’t entirely sure how often the boat ran and we were running short on time so we ended up taking the monorail to MK instead. The reason we were running short on time is that we had reservations at the Crystal Palace shortly after 8am, even before the park itself opened. The Crystal Palace is buffet, which is cool and it’s where Pooh and his friends hang out, which is even cooler. I’ll bet Tigger holds doors open for people and doesn’t worry about offending people by helping them out if they are bleeding in the street…

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The little Piglet that RePete is holding is kind of an interesting story. When we took the kids back in 2005 I bought her a Pooh. She’s never really shown that much of an interest in Pooh. Of course she will occasionally play with him but for the most part he’s just one more fucking stuffed bear to contend with when cleaning her room. Anyhow, Pooh is in several pictures with her from that trip, which she spent 90% of in a stroller. She was two and a half after all. That’s a lot of walking for a toddler. Anyhow, I had asked her if we should take Pooh back with us since he might miss his home. She thought that was a wonderful idea. So I forgot his sorry ass and left him at home. She was cheered up when I offered to get her Piglet so that he could report back to Pooh on our vacation and come to live with us and keep Pooh company. The fact that he is small and pink certainly didn’t hurt. If you can’t tell already, Pink is RePete’s favoritist color. Piglet went EVERYWHERE with us in Disney, although I had to put a stop to it when we were ging to the water park on our last day there.

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Apparently Zonker scared this dude so bad at the Atlanta Airport that he ran off and went to work for Winnie the Pooh in Disney World.

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The star of the show finally made his way over to our table…

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We had plenty of eating time with lots of characters and the girls completely filled their autograph books. As a matter of fact if I had thought about it I would have dug up their books from last time and still had room.

After breakfast we headed out into the Magic Kingdom. Right outside of the Crystal Palace there was some sort of ‘Dreams’ show going on in front of Cinderella’s Castle.

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Hell, Walt, I got a dream for you. How’s about an adult Disney where I can bone the Disney Princesses? Some of them weren’t too darn shabby. Heck, I would even settle for a couple of the dancers up there…

Good thing this blog isn’t kid friendly…

Back to the subject at hand. We went on a bunch of rides and had a blast but sometimes the most fun is found elsewhere…

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Disney Day One (and two)…

rmiles7721June 5, 20081Travel

The first couple of days of my vacation were pretty uneventful. Wednesday I spent the morning running around, taking the dog to the kennel, packing and repacking the car, doctor’s appointments and filling prescriptions prior to leaving town. It seems like a lot to be doing on the very day that I was leaving town but it was also my first day off of work so I had not had the chance to take care of any of it prior to that day.

I actually managed to get a nap in prior to the wife coming home from work as well, which was going to be needed. I planned to drive to Lake City Florida and spend the night, which is exactly what we ended up doing. Prior to that we stopped somewhere south of Macon for dinner. I had picked up cold cuts, boiled eggs and other goodies. Last Wednesday was our actual 20th anniversary so if we were going to be on the road I wanted our celebration to be nice. We drove on and made it to Lake City around 9pm or so and spent the night at…Best Western I believe it was. I would have to find the receipt to be sure. It certainly wasn’t anyplace I would remember. Just another generic hotel room with crappy too soft beds and a continental breakfast.

Magic Kingdom Entrance
We made it to Disney before 11 on Thursday morning…

Once we got there we immediately drove to the Polynesian Resort to check in. While it was too early to actually get the room and put our stuff in there I knew that we could get our keycards which contain ID, park tickets, room keys, and meal information. I also had mine linked to my bank account so that we could just charge any purchases to the room as well. Very convenient. Once we had checked in the bellhops locked our stuff up and we changed so that we could head off to one of the water parks, Typhoon Lagoon. It was OK, I think the girls enjoyed it a bit more than I did.

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We hung at the water park for a while and once we were able to check in to the room we took the bus back to the resort and I took a nap while the girls went swimming.

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I am almost sorry I napped, but I was pretty beat from the drive and then hanging at the water park. The wife got to watch the Space Shuttle lift off in the distance from the beach while I was asleep. I don’t guess you could see much more than the smoke but cool nonetheless.

After they woke me up we went to eat supper and then hung out on the beach to watch fireworks.

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They also do this light show on the lakes on either side of the magic kingdom that is pretty cool as well. Some things never change I suppose. I can remember the light show out on the lake when I went as a child 31 years ago. I guess Disney World was about five years old at that point. We stayed in the Camp Wilderness camp ground when I was a kid. My version of camping now revolves around a hotel room with air conditioning and someone else to prepare my food.

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