A new life; same as the old life?

I am truly grateful for all the wonderful people and things in my life. I have a wonderful loving & caring wife, a very supportive family back home (despite my not visiting them very often) and probably the most well behaved and mannered dog in the world. I have terrific friends all over the world, including a number of bloggers I have never even met! I get to work with some awesome people in a job that I really enjoy, and at the same time allows me the freedom to do the the things I love to do, like Habitat, play bad golf and ski. All in all, the last 18 months have really been the pinnacle of a life I have, for the most part, enjoyed to it's fullest. As another year closes out I find myself wishing for only one thing. Several more years to do it all over again! Happy New Year to one and all!

What a festive season it has been this year. We had a packed month planned between a city trip, checking out the lights in the neigbourhood , visiting Santa in the town square, a Christmas party and some friends for dinner on Christmas Day. Work has been a little quieter throughout December, but we have had a lot of fun decorating the office and adopting a family for Christmas. There are pictures here . This picture is from the Kris Kringle market in the city, but more of that later. The first event was the lighting of the Libertyville tree and a visit from Santa. The high street looked excellent and many shops had taken part in a local competition for the best windows. One of the local choirs came along and were singing Christmas carols. You can see some pictures here of the lights, the town tree, and some of the neighbourhood lights. The next event was the city trip. We wanted to check out the biggest and oldest flea market (car boot sale) in the city, since the late 1800s. We boug...

Here's Why! I received this email today from our local Habitat chapter. "I want to tell you how exited I am because I was "dyeing" to give money to buy a house for a person out there who didn't have one." Ellie, 9 years old I was "dyeing" to give money. Ellie's words brought a smile as I opened the envelope containing her bright pink construction paper card, decorated with a rainbow and a pot of gold. With the certainty of a very wise person, Ellie told us she chose Habitat because we put our money to good use. This is a high honor from a nine year old of limited means. Later, Ellie told me that when she lost her second tooth, she decided to save her tooth fairy money so she could buy a Habitat house. She added several years of birthday money to Hanukkah money. For her 9th birthday, she requested donations to Habitat instead of gifts. She even returned several gifts, so she could make sure there was enough money for a house. Her gift totaled $9...

I cannot claim to have researched this story at all. I just heard it on the radio this morning and thought it was an incredible story. Just the size of the extended family is mind boggling, but think of the things she has seen! The world's oldest living woman has died at the age of 116 in a nursing home in Memphis, Tennessee. Elizabeth "Lizzie" Bolden held the title for just over three months, according to Guinness World Records, following the death in August of Maria Esther de Capovilla of Ecuador, who was also 116. Mrs Bolden, was born on a cotton farm in Fayette County, Tennessee, to freed slaves and worked as a farmer. In 2004, she suffered a stroke which left her unable to speak and moved into a centre where she spent much of her time sleeping. Born Elizabeth Jones on August 15 1890, she married Lewis Bolden and had seven children, two of whom, "Queen" Esther Rhodes, 89, and Mamie Brittmon, 86, still live in the Memphis area. Mr Bolden died in the 1950s. Ac...

Most of you will know that I am a supporter of the Habitat For Humanity charity. I volunteer regularly at the Lake County affiliate here in the Chicagoland area, and always have a great time. Like any charity, of course, they always need more money. Right now, they are working to build a whole new subdivision of homes and most of their funds are being sucked up by building new roads and sewerage systems, which means that vital supplies and tools are really in short supply. This isn't helped by volunteers losing or accidentally removing tools from the job site. I was out there at the weekend, and saw for myself the struggle they are having with basics such as utility knives, which cost only $2 each, but they currently only have two left. I purchased 10 for them right there and then. I don't tell you this for kudos or plaudits, but to show you how easily you could help them with a very small donation. So I decided to try to raise funds for them to buy these essential supplies. I...

Whatever your thoughts on the subject of this terrible disease which has been with us for some years, coming to prominence in the mid/late 80s. It is obvious, as with all diseases, that it will take a lot of money and awareness to defeat it. Although, I guess it may never ultimately be beaten globally. Light To Unite is an effort to raise funds on behalf of World AIDS day, which was on 1st December 2006. Sorry this posting is so late, but I only heard about this effort on the radio this week. Basically, this website, run by a major drug company, pledges to donate $1 to the fight against AIDS, for every individual who goes onto the web site and "Lights A Candle" on the site. So far they have raised over $1m. It will cost you nothing, go on, you know it makes sense. Do it from any computer you can, and tell your friends too. This article from last year offers some interesting insights to the changes in attitude towards this once most feared disease, particularly in the Wester...

The Vodka Scooter... How many times have you woken up in the morning after a hard night drinking and thought, " How on earth did I get home? " As hard as you try, you cannot piece together your return journey from the pub to your house. The answer to this puzzle is that you used a " Vodka Scooter ". The Vodka Scooter is a mythical form of transport, owned and leased to the drunk by Bacchus, the Roman God of Wine. It works as follows:- The drinker reaches a certain level of drunkenness and the "slurring gland" begins to give off a pheromone. Bacchus or one of his many sub-contractors detects this pheromone and sends down a winged Vodka Scooter. The Scooter scoops up the passenger and deposits them in their bedroom via a Trans-Dimensional Portal. This is not cheap to run, so a large portion of the passenger's in-pocket cash is taken as payment. Which answers the second question after a night out, " How did I spend so much money? " Unfortunately...

Those of you who know me well will know that this is my favourite time of the year. I love Christmas! Everyone's mood improves, it gets cold, and snows (not everyone's favourite thing I know), the feel good movies start showing on TV (the many versions of the Scrooge/Christmas Carol tale are my favourites, but there are too many to name), here in the US everyone decorates their houses, and the trees go up really early, but most of all, I love all the music. One of our local stations renames itself every festive season to the Holiday Lite . WLIT is a local station, which most of the year plays decent music, but from 1st November this year they have been playing non-stop Christmas music, which I love. If anyone is interested, you can actually listen on line assuming it is not blocked on your connection. I decided, in the spirit of the season, to share some of my favourite Christmas tunes. Again these will not work if your connection blocks such links, but if you click on one of t...

In many of the major cities in the UK, in common with most major cities around the world, we have bus lanes to try to help our public transport move more efficiently through our ever more congested streets. For many years, the busses have shared these lanes with other authorised vehicles, such as the Royal Mail, Taxis, and cyclists. However due to certain citizens sense of self importance, they are also abused by members of the general public. Many schemes have tried to prevent this use, as ultimately it ends up back where we started with public transport being held up. We have had signs with "strong warnings", police and traffic officers issuing tickets, and even cameras designed to capture your picture and issue automatic tickets. Manchester has now come up with a new, but it would seem not completely idiot proof scheme. They have captured some fools trying to avoid the issue on camera. I especially liked the young lady in the Silver Fiesta

It's been a while coming this year, but the first big snowfall happened overnight last night. They have been tracking a big storm all week and were pretty accurate with their predictions. We woke up to about 8 inches this morning and it continued to fall most of the morning. Several people could not get to work and those who did took many hours. I just drove my truck over it all! I cleared the path and deck for Lorraine to walk Reggie this morning, but by the time she woke up there were several more inches; so she had to start again. Reggie loves the snow, and had great fun frolicking around in it this morning. One of the guys from work managed to drive his car over one of the corner stone rocks in the parking lot and actually stranded it on the subframe. We tried to pull him off with the truck but to no avail. I couldn't get enough traction. The towing companies were predicting 6 hours, and so eventually he rounded up about 10 volunteers to basically lift and push the car fro...