Frankly, My Dear…

This is Taylor Hicks at a local autograph signing in Birminngham before his sold-out concerts earlier this month.

(Michelle Williams Birmingham News)

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This is Knut, an adorable baby polar bear who was abandoned at birth by its mother and is being raised at a zoo in Germany. An animal rights group has decided it would be better off dead and want it put to death since they think he won’t be able to assimilate with other polar bears.
I bet they aren’t as cute as the baby bear–maybe they should be put to sleep! heh (j/k–maybe!)
If you go to Youtube and do a search for baby polar bear, there is a cute video of the little bear playing but it’s in German.

I’d just like to say, I miss Rob and Amber!

First thing Mirna says is how glad all the teams are that she and Charla knocked Rob and Amber out of the race. It might mean less competetion but it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re happy with the couins! heh

Oswald and Danny were first to leave for the base of Marital mountain chain, ride a chair lift and hike half a mile to Marital Glacier. There they had to use an avalanche beacon to find a buried beacon in the snow for their next clue.

Joe and Bill, were first in line when the lift opened the next morning and found their clue quickly. They were to fly 7000 miles to the southeast African city of Maputo, Mozambique.

Dustin and Kandice failed to pick up their beacon before using the chair lift and had to hike back up to get it. I like these two–they get along well and usually play the race well but the past two shows have caught them making big mistakes. So far, they managed to come out well, in spite of this!

Meanwhile, Danny and Oswald were having trouble finding their clue and were last to leave. They said if you were lost in an avalanche, not to depend on them to find you! ha In the end, it didn’t matter as all teams were on the same plane! I think it was Oswald and Danny who picked up some cologne at the airport and generously sprayed themselves!

After arriving in Mozambique, teams had to pick a taxi with a driver and travel to the Apopo Training Field. Eric decided, to play a joke on Joe and Bill and pretended to be trying to pass them, which had the desired effect. The girly men didn’t like that. Eric said they were annoying and he was making fun of them! After they stopped, Joe snottily told Eric he should watch his jokes! There was talk about freaks and bipolar! Bill said peace several times and said they weren’t letting any negativity into their game. Excuse me, I think I have to throw up!

When the gates opened, teams had to use a large rat–they were cuter than NY rats–using a collar and a leash, to find a deactivated mine with a flag to get their next clue. They are actually used to find mines, have names and hey, if there’s an accident, the worker has a snack! (jk)

Joe’s rat, Nelson, was first to find the clue so they were on their way 50 miles back to Maputo to find Praca dos Trabalhadores, a building designed by Gustav Eiffel. (Eiffel Tower, maybe?)

Next task was Pamper or Porter. Pamper was going to a market area and offering to paint fingernails for money, which was usually done by a man but the teams didn’t know this. Some thought it would be too hard to get people to do this and went on to the Porter task which meant they had to fill large bags with coal, using their hands, sew them up and deliver one 45 lbs bag to a residence.

Charna and Mirna decide on the fingernail painting and put on a show about offering the people in the market a manicure. It was a good decision and they were first to head to Fortaieza, a fort completed in 1781 and the oldest building in Maputo. They were first (cough) to step on the mat and won a trip to Aruba. (They better stay in well lighted areas and stay away from the Dutch guy!)

The beauty queens also decide to do the manicures and were very good at it! Teri almost had to beg Ian to do the manicures–he didn’t think people would want a man to do it! heh They also finished quickly.

The teams doing the coal were having a much harder time of it, and they were getting very dirty! Oswald and Danny tried to chase down Phil to give him a hug at the Pit Stop with their dirty clothes and hands, but he said, “No way!”

Eric and Danielle had a footrace with Joe and Bill and barely lost. Eric said they were beaten by two queens.

Stepping onto the mat in last place, a thrilled Uchenna & Joyce received the very good news that this was the first non-elimination leg of the race. While the threat of elimination now hung over their heads with a 30-minute penalty assessed if they don’t win the next leg, they still counted their blessings to still be running the race. Uchenna said, “I don’t like being in this position. We need to rock and roll. We just have to keep our intention right and stay forward.” Joyce added, “Given the competitive people here thirty minutes could be pretty disastrous so we’re gonna work like hell the next leg to come in first. We certainly can make miracles happen. We did on the last race.”

Now just why couldn’t that have happened last week for Rob and Amber, huh?

Major Pain has a post about the gathering of Eagles in DC yesterday. It was hard to find anything about them on the news, as expected. They were easy to spot, though–they were the ones holding American flags! Thanks and a standing ovation to all who went and stood in the cold!

http://www.onemarinesview.com/one_marines_view/ (One Marine’s View)

GunnNutt also has quite a few pictures at Semper Gratus
http://sempergratus.com/

Taco also has a post at SandGram:
http://sandgram.blogspot.com/

(If the links don’t work, they are in my blogroll)

Major Pain (One Marine’s View) has an important message about a gathering of eagles in Washington, D.C. on March 17th. Please read! http://www.onemarinesview.com/one_marines_view/

I have a slight problem with procrastination. Even though I promise myself I’m not going to do it again, I find myself dealing with something I’ve put off, yet again.

Last fall, I had to find a special dress for a special occasion, and once again found myself putting it off until I had to get it done! I’m not a big shopper–I don’t like to shop just to shop. Because this was a special occasion, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to find what I wanted and I dreaded the “looking” that I knew it would take! I also knew after the first attempt, I was going to have a problem with my feet and legs cramping afterwards. I found aspirin helped with that but by procrastinating I had painted myself into a corner timewise! This was also causing some anxiety which isn’t good when you’re diabetic. I was down to the last week and this little voice kept saying that I should go by the doctor’s just to check on numbers to be sure I was okay. Again, procrastination.

I woke up one morning with something in my right eye, but when I looked in the mirror, my eye looked fine. I thought it might be a floater and went on with my search for, by now, a damn dress! While I was out, I sudenly noticed that I was looking through lines of blood in my right eye. Again, nothing when I looked in a mirror, but now, I’m paniced! I called the eye foundation and the person I talked to said he didn’t think it sounded like an emergency but if I wanted to come by they were open all night! Not an emergency? Silly me.  I called my cousin who lives near Montgomery and she said she would be up in the morning to go with me to see the doctor. I had a hard time going to sleep and really didn’t sleep much.

We went to the GP’s the next day and my BP was high, as was my blood sugar. We left there and went to the eye hospital. I had had an extensive eye exam the year before and this was more of the same. They do everything but take your eye out and put it back in! This time I had an eye sonogram. When the intern asked me to look at a light on the wall, it was blank. He thought I might have a detached retina and called the “retina” doctor to come in and have a look. He did everything again and after almost 2 hrs, said the veins in my eye had burst. It seems when you’re diabetic you grow extra veins to make up for the circulation problems. My choices now were to have surgery where you’re put to sleep, or I could have lazer surgery to avoid that, but I needed to have it right away. No procrastination this time! The doctor said it wouldn’t be bad and I had heard lazer surgery didn’t hurt, so I agreed to have it done.

There wasn’t much prep. I got in a chair which let down and the doctor came in with a needle in his hand that he was attempting to hide from me. He put it in my face, right by my eye and I could feel it touching the bone under my eye. He put one of those contraptions in my eye to keep it open and I made an “oo” sound and he asked if it was too big and removed it and had another one in very fast. The lazer was louder than I expected and for the first 15 mins or so, was tolerable. The last 15 mins were very uncomfortable–every other blast felt like a needle going into my eye! I was trying my best to be still because I sure didn’t want him to hit the wrong thing in my eye! I was shaking alittle and questioning if this was better than being put to sleep!

The doctor said there was a lot of blood in my eye and he couldn’t get all of it and I would need to come back in 3 wks for more surgery. Just what I didn’t want to hear. He said it wouldn’t be as bad–I asked if I could have that in writing! He said to sleep with several pillows and not to lie flat, and not to take aspirin. The next day my eye felt like it had been rubbed with sandpaper but wasn’t unbearable. The hardest thing was not lying down flat!

I made another attempt to look for a dress but just gave up and wore something I already had. Everyone looked at my slightly swollen, red eye and said in horror, “what happened to you?”

Driving proved to be a problem especially at night. It has gotten better but is still not as good as my vision was before. Reading is also a problem and I sit a lot closer to the computer now! It looks like I have hair in my eye (to me) and the lazer evidently cut my eyelashes in half. I’m very irritated that they haven’t grown back!

I also haven’t been back for the rest of the surgery. Yep, I’m procrastinating. Knowing what to expect makes it very hard to pick up the phone and make an appointment. I really think I’d rather be put to sleep!

My cousin told me later she couldn’t believe how calm I was–well, I didn’t think it was going to hurt! She left the room after he fired up the lazer. Chicken. heh.

I’m trying to work up the courage to make an appointment, but, so far, no luck!

Well, phooey! This is not what I wanted to see happen! Not Rob and Amber!

Rob and Amber left first and got their clue to fly to Punta Arenas, Chile and find Lonsdale’s Shipwreck.

Charna and Mirna find time to not only fight with other teams but each other as well! I realize Charna is at a disadvantage as a little person, but these two do not make me want to cheer for them!

The choice of tasks is Navigate It or Sign It. Rob misspelled the name of a country while making the sign post and didn’t want to give up until it was almost too late. They decide to do the Navigate It which means they have to find a sailor, get a compass and find the  Nautilus Building for the next clue.

They have to take a charter plane to the Southern most part of South America called the end of the world post office, find a letter in a sack of mail that was written by someone from their original race team, read it and head for the pit stop.

Oswald and Eric finished the task first and win a trip to Maui.

Charna and Mirna are really ugly and call Amber a bitch as they run for the pit stop. Amazingly, they reach the pit stop first and since Rob and Amber are last, they are eliminated!

On the experience, Amber commented, “This isn’t the end. It might be the end of the race for us, but the fact that we got to come back and do it a second time is pretty spectacular. Just to spend this time with each other means the world to me.” Rob added, “I think the thing I’m gonna miss most is not being able to compete, knowing that there’s a game going on and I’m not in the game. At the end of it all, I still have an amazing wife, a great life, a great family. I’m a lucky guy. I’m already a winner.”

Indeed! And I am going to miss seeing their adorable cuteness!

Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut and still think they are sexy!

Taylor Hicks played to two sold out crowds this past week-end at the Alabama Theatre. First he got the key to the city of Homewood, complete with a plaque, then he did some autographs while the Red Cross took up donations for the tornado victims at Enterprise.

He was alittle under the weather but put all he had into his performances and made his fans happy.

He has a new tour bus and said he quickly learned to close the privacy blinds while enroute, or there would be people honking and waving while moving down the road!

Taylor said he was glad to be home for awhile and was looking forward to eating some good food.

Andrea Holldorf might be the busiest lady in the tiny city of Grant, Iowa. She’s busy making quilts using blue jeans for wounded soldiers at WRAH.

Her husband helps her by cutting the jeans into squares at night.

They don’t need more jeans but could use quilting supplies and donations for postage.

Send to:

Andrea Holldorf

PO Box 258

408 Jefferson

Grant Iowa 50847