My Favorite Blank

Today is the 7th anniversary of 9/11 here in the States. 7 years ago today, we had 4 planes that would change our lifestyle and the way we think here in America. It took less than 2 hours and about 20 men to change our thinking as Americans and that is the reason today we fight so aggressively on the front lines of terrorism. We Will Never Forget has been the motto we have been preaching for these last few years and it’s true, we will never forget the plane crashing into the Pentagon, the brave people that took down a plane in a Pennsylvania field and the two planes that struck the Twin Towers on 9/11.

Have You Forgotten?

I think a lot of people in this country have forgot and day to day we have politicians that continue to move us further apart, instead of bringing us together. We must unite to continue and those that want to blame the president for all of these problems is not someone I want living in my country. If you don’t like the way things are being done in America; there is other countries you can move to.

Thanks to all the men and women that continue to fight terrorism in their backyard each day and it’s these battles that are keeping things in order here.

It’s amazing to think about all the things our body parts have to do over a lifetime. Someone that lives to be in their 80’s, 90’s or even 100 have body parts that never stopped working for them. Imagine how many times the heart beats over a lifetime or our eyes blink to keep us seeing. If you think about all the steps we ever took, we had the same two feet to take us the whole way. The feet go through a lot over our lifetime and it’s no fun when they are acting up. I have probably lived half of my life already and not sure my feet will be able to carry be the rest of the way. I have a lot of minor aches and pains now and nothing serious like Plantar Fasciitis. I think the best medicine would be to give them a few months off, but how do you give your feet a vacation and still go somewhere? So when your body starts to feel all the aches and pains that come from old age, just remember that with old age come old feet.

It’s time for Bulldog Football!

There is nothing like football in the South where the best football is played! Don’t get caught up with the media bias that comes from weaker conferences or in other parts of the country. The USC Trojans are the joke of the South and this has been known for a long time. Some where along the lines football in the South got mixed up with Southern California and their southern boys just ain’t as good as ours!

The Georgia Bulldogs was ranked number 1 in both preseason polls and this is the sign for Dawg Nation to rise up and show them we belong! This was just a little token of appreciation and the guys working the polls knew they could move USC to number 1 after they played a better team in the opening week of the college football season. Even though they try to look clever and make it legit, most of the money is in Southern California and it’s a money driven world we live in. The truth is that the USC Trojans would be lucky to be a 500 team in the SEC. They play in a weak PAC 10 division and maybe they don’t have control over their conference games, but they could schedule better non-conference games.

This is the Georgia Bulldogs year and they have all the parts in place to win the National Title this year in college football. A quarterback with a strong arm and the legs of Knowshon Moreno will lead the Dawgs to the title game in 2009. Georgia Southern got a taste of what this team from Athens is all about last Saturday and this week it will be Central Michigan’s turn. This team has scored 30+ points in their last 7 games, so should be interesting to see if the Georgia Bulldogs can hold them under 30 today.

The fun really starts next Saturday when we get our first taste of Steve Spurrier the ex Gator coach from Florida and see what the South Carolina Gamecocks can do. They lost a heartbreaker on national television to Vanderbilt on Thursday and this doesn’t help Spurrier and his staff with recruits. You have to win the national tv games to bring in the talent to win them all and this early season loss will stay in the minds of those that were considering South Carolina next year.

After South Carolina, the first part of the measuring stick will come into place. This is when the Bulldogs have to travel to Arizona and play in the climate out there. A road game in the dessert is not what any team wants, unless you’re the Arizona State team. I say this is a measuring stick game, because the USC Trojans will also play Arizona State and how these two teams play against the Sun Devils will determine a lot. USC will get these boys on their own home turf in the Coliseum, but we are use to the corruption like this when it comes to college football and teams from the South.

If South Carolina and Arizona State isn’t tough enough, we then play Alabama and Tennessee and who has the toughest games now? The two Oregon teams and Washington State don’t necessarily match up to the teams that Georgia has to play. Oh wait! Yes, I do see that Ohio State (over ranked too) is on your schedule and so nice of the college football gods to give you a bye this week, so you could have two weeks to prepare for the Buckeyes. It is also a known fact that if your gonna lose, better to do it early in the season than later. So USC gets two weeks to prepare for their toughest game of the year, while they will get a week and a half to prepare for Oregon State and then another week and a half to prepare for Oregon. It gets stranger every year, but leave it up to the Trojans and their faithful to hand them a silver spoon to some nice bowl game in 2009. What’s funny is that they get every break in the world and still fail to win National titles, because they do have to play a good team at the end of year. Also teams that play in bowl games have plenty of time to prepare for their opponent and it takes that little USC advantage out of the equation.

Rise up Dawg Nation! This is our time to shine! The sun might shine bright in Southern California, but it shines on our land first and it’s because the best college football is played in the South! You Cali Boys chose the wrong team to hunker down with this year!

Wow! Where are all of these hurricanes coming from? Who would have thought New Orleans would have been hit so soon after Hurricane Katrina caused so much damage just a few years ago. The 2008 Hurricane that clipped the New Orleans area was nothing like Katrina, but did cause a lot of flooding problems in the nearby and surrounding areas of Louisiana. You don’t have to go far New Orleans residents to find sympathy, because Hurricane Fay just wouldn’t leave the state of Florida alone! Fay struck Florida over and over and just wouldn’t leave the Sunshine State and lots of Florida soil is still under water from all the flooding caused by Fay.

Now let’s look to the next one on the horizon and her name is Hanna. Predictions right now would suggest a South Carolina to North Carolina landing, but it’s still a few days away. This hurricane will gain speed and drive into the coast very fast and there is already rip currents being reported all along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Hurricane Hanna will cause evacuations and the wind and flood damage associated with hurricanes. When Hanna has made her landing on the Atlantic Coast of the U.S., we will still be looking at two more potential hurricanes making U.S. landfalls. Hurricane Ike is a category 4 hurricane right now and this could be the worse one of the bunch. Ike is going to be a problem for somebody in the near future and is already causing problems to the countries that exist in the Caribbean area. Hurricanes Hanna and Ike are coming to a town near you and if you live in the hurricane regions of the southeastern part of America, you will want to keep an eye on the weather for at least the next 2 weeks. These hurricanes are always changing and can easily stray off their course and head straight for your town, city, home or state. I believe Ike is going to be a non stop coverage type of event if this big boy gets anywhere near the U.S. coastlines of that Atlantic Coast or finds a way to make it into the Gulf of Mexico. Ike making a Florida land fall would be about the worse possible scenario and I’m not sure if the state of Florida could deal with a category 4 hurricane right now, after the damage done by hurricane Fay.

Some of these hurricanes could actually help out the drought stricken regions of the U.S. and I know North Georgia would welcome any of the wet stuff from these hurricanes. I don’t think no state wants to deal with the wind damage that comes from hurricanes and maybe when they do reach the shores of the USA, that they will find unpopulated areas of the coast to make their landfall. Also keep in mind that the atmosphere is creating a lot of these hurricanes right now and Ike is not the last one on the radar right now and the whole month of September could be filled with hurricane news. Things are already on pace to make the September of 2008 the worse hurricane month on record for U.S. hurricanes and this is factoring in all the destruction caused by Hurricanes Hugo, Andrew and Katrina! We all know that a hurricane landing like Andrew or Katrina was due to happen and the only question now is which major area will be hit next? Miami is not hurricane proof in South Florida and if a hurricane like Ike would ever find it’s way to Miami, we would be looking at destruction beyond belief!

My two older nephews are beginning to get up there in years and I think the trouble that comes along with it too. One is 15 years old and the other is 14 years old and those are the ages they begin to see what kind of trouble they can get into. I know their bodies are changing and they are going through their early adult years or at least they think they are. They still need the acne cream and have to do their homework for school, but I can see it won’t be long until I am taking them to the pool halls and out with me. I believe we got an early taste of that this year in Daytona, Florida; where we spent time cruising around the strip down there together. We had a good time cruising and turning the radio up down in Florida on vacation. They are just learning about teen life, but we all know those years don’t last long and soon they will be getting jobs and having bills to pay like the rest of us.

The athletes competing in Beijing, China are not really getting a solid gold medal if they win their respective competition. The gold medals in the Olympics do have real gold in them, but they are not pure gold. Based on the gold prices right now and the amount of real gold that goes into an Olympic gold, the shinny medal is worth about 158 dollars. I think this would shock some people that these gold medals are not valued more than this. I’m sure they do have value to the people that win them or someone that collects Olympic memorabilia, but the net worth is 158 dollars for each gold medal. I would assume that a gold medal on Ebay would get more than 1,000 dollars and people would pay more than what they were really worth. So the value of a gold medal is measured more in blood, sweat and tears better than a dollar figure.

It appears that with 6 billion people on the planet and the bigfoots that exist on Earth, they have finally managed to get caught. Two boys up in North Georgia have stumbled across a dead bigfoot and even more amazing they saw 3 more that they were able to take pictures of from about 50 feet away. So with a find like this you would think they would be showing a lot of people to show them that bigfoot actually exists. Well not exactly and this is where the story starts to lose it’s crediability. One of the men said about 8 to 10 people has seen this dead big foot they have in a freezer and it’s been almost 2 months ago since they stumbled across the hairy creature.

DNA results have come back as human, possum and undetermined when samples were submitted. They actually took parts of the guts and gave up as samples to be tested in a lab. I don’t think I would have gave guts and cutting a small piece of skin with hair attached to it would have been the way I would have submitted a sample for testing. They end up calling a guy all the way across the country in California to help them solve this dilema of having a bigfoot on their hands. So if you wanted to create a hoax and you lived in California, the story might stay local if you find the body in the Northwest Pacific somewhere, because that is where the most sightings have took place. If you could pick a place on the other side of the country this story would have the chance to go national and sure enough that is what happened.

I have lived in North Georgia all of my life and I have never seen anything resembling a bigfoot. I only have 2 bigfoot stories to tell from all of my friends and what has been said that my ears have heard. I do have a friend that claim to see something with long red hair by the tail lights of his car at night time. This was on Conns Creek Road in Ball Ground, Georgia and this is also near the Etowah River where two Cherokee County Sheriff employees saw one floating down the river and then walked out of the water. The story involving the Sheriff Deputies did make our local paper, but I don’t recall it making Atlanta News and certainly not national attention like this latest story has gotten. So I am a Georgia resident that has heard the bigfoot story in the past, but as someone that has hunted and fished all over North Georgia and the people I know that have did the same and even coon hunted with dogs in our state, the sightings would be more frequent if Bigfoot was really out there.

I also know the time and attention it takes to make a website and someone just finding a bigfoot would not be concerned with a website when you have the real thing to parade around. I think a book and website would be things you might do years down the road, but already talking about money and these things within a 2 month time frame and the fact you haven’t let a credible source see the body screams foul all the way around. As much as we would like to hope that a story like this would be true some day,  the truth is that no bigfoot has passed away in Georgia.

If your a lottery player, please be sure to share your strategies for coming up with your numbers each week. I have a set number I like to play a lot, but mostly get quick picks. It would be nice just to hit 5 out of 6 numbers and that money would do some damage on the bills. I would have a hard time spending millions of dollars but it would be a nice problem to have. Please be sure to share your ways of choosing numbers or a system that someone else has that you know. I am looking to find a system that works and if I do win, I won’t forget who told me the winning trick!

What would you spend your lottery winnings on? I know I would focus mostly on investments and a lot of my money would go into the stock market buying stocks and mutual funds. I would put a big portion into interest bearing accounts, so I could continue to grow my wealth. I could sit here and say that I would buy a big house on a nice piece of land and all of the cars and boats I would buy too, but who knows what we would really buy if we won millions from the lottery. I think most people would not buy everything they say they would and realize they are other things they would want if they actually had the money to buy it with. Dreaming as a poor person is much different than spending as a rich one, so the only true way to know what we would actually buy with our lottery winnings is to go out and win the darn thang! Good luck on your next dollar that you spend on the lottery and if this post caused you to buy a ticket and you win, please remember me! Feel free to leave any replies on what you would do with a jackpot that you won from a state or multi-state lottery.

The Atlanta Falcons made their preseason debut on Saturday night with a loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. It was the first chance to see Matt Ryan in uniform for the Falcons and he played well. The other 3 quarterbacks for the Falcons played good also and it will be a tough cut for one of these quarterbacks that don’t make the roster. They all deserve to be a part of the team, but the Falcons will only keep 3 of the quarterbacks that played on Saturday night.

A field goal would have tied things up late in the game, but the Falcons elected to go for a touchdown and get the win. Not sure if that was exactly the thought process that was reported and if they were afraid of another missed field goal. Jason Elam had missed 2 field goals in the game and maybe there was just a lack of confidence in giving him the chance to tie the game up late. It’s a pattern that continues to haunt the Falcons and they play for field goals a lot and haven’t found a kicker that was up to meet the challenge of the field goal style of play. I guess we will just have to see how the Falcons come back and play a team like the Colts next Saturday and see if they can play for more touchdowns than field goals in this one.

It seems the story of Brett Favre just keeps going and going and I’m not sure why. Finally he has found a team for the upcoming NFL season and hopefully this will slow down all of the talk surrounding Mr. Favre. The Jets was the one that won the Brett Favre sweepstakes, so Brett will still be in green next year and playing in cold temperatures, but he is no longer a Green Bay Packer. I’m not sure how good people really think this guy is and he’s just a QB that has stayed healthy and has been able to put up great stats that way. He doesn’t have a wide receiver tandem like he did in Green Bay and Favre will be very average as a Jets quarterback. I think the Jets would have won 8 games without Favre on their side and I think they still only manage to win 8 games with him there. Brett Favre will not make the Jets a playoff team and he is overrated in the NFL and media circles too. The Brett Favre story is old news and now maybe we can learn about other teams and players as the NFL is already starting up preseason football games. It’s a fun time of the year when it gets to the preseason and now we can start counting down the days until the games start counting for real in about 6 weeks.

Well today is Thursday and that means it will be my night to go shoot pool. I spend 6 days a week on the computer and most of those are 12+ hour days, so it’s nice to get out and shoot pool on Thursdays. I am now going into my 7th week tonight, in my first 6 matches I have won 4 of them and lost 2. So I have a winning record and not bad for someone that hasn’t shot any serious pool in about 10 years. I use to play all the time and I am now just trying to work myself back into shape, to where my pool game use to be.

Billiards is a fun sport and if you haven’t ever joined a league before, see if the APA has an event in your area. They rate players based on their skill level, so you will have a fair advantage in your matches. My league is based on 5 matches a night and you play once a week. That means our team will put up 5 members on our team; against another teams 5 players and there will be 5 different matches. I’m a 3 ranked player, so that means I need to win 3 games before my opponent gets to their desired games needed. If I play a player that has a 2 ranking, they only have to win 2 games against me, where a player ranked a 6 would need to win 6 for them to be victorious. We play 8 ball in the league I am currently in, but there are 9 ball leagues available. As long as you make a clean hit and one of your balls goes in, then you get to shoot again. So slop is allowed and I’m not use to those rules in 8 ball. We do call the 8 ball and must say which pocket it will go in. We do this by placing a piece of chalk next to the pocket. However, the 8 ball can bounce off rails or other balls and as long as it finds its way to the pocket you chalked up, you will get credit.

The thing that can this the most fun is by being on a pool team that you like. So if you don’t feel comfortable with your team or someone is on your team that makes pool night no fun, be sure to change teams. Get on a team that you like everybody and this will make your league the most fun; whether your winning or losing. I really enjoy my current team and I hope they stick together for the fall pool league and I get an invite back to join them.

Well it was a normal weekend for the Atlanta Braves fans when they kicked off the month of August with a 3 game weekend series against the Milwaukee Brewers. All of the fans were going to be treated to things they have seen many times over the last 17 years or so. It’s late in the baseball season so things were pretty much in-line to see some good baseball at Fulton County Stadium and get to watch a team with a real good shot at the World Series in 2008. So the fans really couldn’t have seen anything about this past weekend that would be surprising or off of the beaten path that this Atlanta Braves team has grown accustom to over the years or could they?

Well as the story would have it, that isn’t quite how things shaped up in Atlanta for the fans at the game or watching at home on television. The games weren’t at Fulton County Stadium and they were being played at Turner Field or “The Ted”. The team with the 2008 World Series on their mind wasn’t the Atlanta Braves, but it was the visiting Milwaukee Brewers. So maybe this first weekend in August was everything but ordinary and it didn’t take long to see how different baseball in Atlanta is these days. The Milwaukee Brewers got off to a red hot start on Friday as they beat the Braves 9 to 0 and showed why they are in contention to win it all this year. The Braves wouldn’t be so easy to beat on Saturday, but again the Brewers added another tally in the win column with a 4 to 2 victory over the Braves. So why it might have been different from the last couple of decades in Atlanta, the series was actually going as it should and the better team was proving it. So there really wasn’t much hope going into Sunday and playing the final game of this weekend series. Everybody knew what was expected and how the Sunday match up would end, but someone forgot to tell Jorge Campillo. Who? Well he was the ace on the mound for the Bravos Sunday and he pitched great with 7 scoreless innings and the bullpen closed it out, as the Braves prevented the sweep with a 5 to zip victory. So the weekend wasn’t a total loss for the Braves organization and they did manage to come away with something. Unfortunately the weekend wasn’t over yet and all of the joy, smiles and high 5’s would come to a grinding halt as the Braves would soon learn about the bad news.

I can’t tell you the exact details but I can guess how the story would play out from here. I’m sure many players and coaches returned home after the game and were packing up their bags for a west coast baseball trip that would start in San Francisco on Monday Night. I’m sure many of them was spending as much quality time as they could with their families, since it would be a long time until they came back home. After all the bags were packed and the hugs and kisses were given out to their wives and children, the Braves would board their flight and rejoin their teammates that had just beaten the Milwaukee Brewers earlier in the day. Some were probably still talking about the game; while others were probably closing their eyes and preparing for a nap on the long plane ride that would take them across the country. Some where up in the darken sky between Atlanta and San Francisco the tragic news from Georgia would find its way into that plane; the sad news that the voice of the Atlanta Braves Skip Caray had passed away at his home in the backyard.

One of the people that knew him the most was in that plane and it was Skip’s longtime co-worker and friend Pete Van Wieren or “The Professor” to those that follow the Braves team. He was not the first one on the plane to learn of the horrible news and I can only assume how things proceeded on that plane. I’m sure there was a discussion on how they would tell him or better yet who would deliver that message. It turned out that it was probably the person most qualified for this duty and someone that had been giving us leadership all of these years here in Atlanta. It was the Skipper him self and Bobby Cox would be the one that would make his way to Pete and softly let him know that his longtime friend and partner was no longer with us. I’m sure everyone on that plane knew about the passing of Skip Caray before it touched down in California.

The Atlanta Braves organization has given us so many memories over the years and the type of memories that you will never forget. Who could forget Francisco Cabrera’s single to left field that would send a charging Sid Bream sliding to the plate? I think that was the finest moment ever in their 14 year-run on winning the division. I know that wasn’t Skip’s pick as the best moment ever and he chose something else that Braves fans will never forget. Skip describes the event in his own words as just a “lazy routine fly ball that centerfielder Marquis Grissom caught” and this was the final out in the 1995 baseball season and only World Series they would win during this impressive 14 year span. The people that were there to witness these things will never forget these moments. Now we get one more memory from the Braves that we will never forget and that is the shocking news that Skip Caray will no longer be watching the games with us.

We all know that everything must come to an end sometime. Nothing last forever and sometimes change comes soon and sometimes it can come much later. We all know the feeling we had in Georgia when the Braves just kept winning division after division and it seem like it was going to last forever. It just wasn’t us that thought this and all of the teams and fans in our division were sharing these same thoughts too. You can even go outside of the division and look at all of the other Major League Baseball teams and they wanted to know where the end was too. Even the other professional sports like the NBA, NFL and NHL could recognize how special it was for one team to win their division year in and year out. It’s great that the fans of the Braves got to enjoy that feeling for so long but the Skip Caray streak goes way beyond 14 division titles in a row. In fact, it’s more than double that because Skip Caray has been doing this for the last 33 years! How do you say good bye to someone that has been a part of your life for 33 years? I think the simple answer is “you don’t”. I don’t believe any of us are ready to let him go yet and if he can’t be around here to speak or give us his thoughts on our Atlanta Braves, we will just have to do it for him. It’s up to us to wipe away those tears and leave the sorrow behind, because now is the time for celebration and to honor a man that gave so much of his life for the Braves organization, the fans, the game of baseball and to the residents of Georgia.

The Skip Caray legacy is much different from the other legendary sports announcers that came before him. The person that has did this job the longest was Vin Scully and we may never see anyone else that makes it 59 years in this profession like the voice of the Dodgers did. The Scully family has not escaped tragedy either, as Vin lost his 35 year old wife in the early 1970’s and he lost a son in the 1990’s. Vin Scully has roots that go back to the Brooklyn days and the ones he grew in Los Angeles. This is still a very small comparison to the roots Mr. Caray has grown all over the country. Ted Turner was able to beam the airwaves of TBS for everybody in the country to see. Turner being the owner of the Atlanta Braves meant that he would show his team on the television station he owned called TBS. So the Atlanta Braves were America’s team and this wasn’t just a slogan but the actual truth. A person living in Florida or North Dakota at the time didn’t have a baseball team in their state and the only professional baseball they could see on television was the Braves games. The states that did have their own teams and fans could only watch their local team and if they wanted to watch any extra baseball on tv, they had to do so via TBS. So the Atlanta Braves was the most loved team in those early 80’s and if they weren’t your favorite team, chances are they were the team you liked 2nd best. So while the whole country was falling in love with the Atlanta Braves, it was Skip Caray that was coming into their living rooms every evening and letting the fans around the country know what was going on with the Braves. Most baseball fans can tell you that Vin Scully is the voice of the Dodgers because he did it for 59 years. Most baseball fans can tell you that Skip Caray is the voice of the Braves because they use to watch him and this makes his legacy much different.

Skip wasn’t the pioneer for the Caray family even though Chip Caray is currently an announcer for the Braves and another son named Josh does the radio for a minor league team associated with the club. Most people remember the late Harry Caray and he was a big staple in the Chicago Cubs history. Harry is the father of Skip and he is the one that got everything started and the reason so many baseball fans around the country know the Caray name. Harry Caray is most remembered for the 7th inning stretch where he would sing Take Me Out to the Ball Game over the PA system in Chicago. It’s a tradition that still lives on today and a different celebrity now wails out the lyrics for each home game the Cubs play. It was always fun for the Braves and Cubs to play each other with Harry still around and hear the different things him and Skip had to say. It just doesn’t seem right without them and I know everyone in Cub nation knows what the folks down in Atlanta are going through now.

The first game has already been played that Skip Caray wasn’t watching and this was in San Francisco on Monday night. The Braves lost the game but it was the best game I had seen all year. I’m not sure how many loyal Braves fans stayed up that late here on the east coast watching it, but I’m sure there was some. It was great watching all of the old footage they showed that Skip Caray was a part of. The stories and memories that the Braves crew was telling was really soothing to all of the aching hearts back here in Georgia. I think a lot of the things Joe Simpson said were the best and he did such a great job sharing his memories of Skip with us. He does a great impersonation of Skip’s voice, so a lot the things he shared on television last night, he could tell the viewers what he said and then when he wanted to tell us what Skip said, he changed his voice and it was just like hearing it on replay. I think Joe will need to bring that voice out a lot more for the rest of this season as the Braves try to finish up a rough 2008 year that just got a lot rougher on August 3rd.

“Well if you promise to patronize our sponsors you have permission to go walk the dog now”…….Skip Caray

The USA basketball team is looking great and all of the signs are pointing to a gold medal in China this year. The Olympics will be huge for the American Team and they have to prove to the world and people in China, that the USA still has the best basketball players in the world. They have been running up the scoreboard in their tune up games that will lead to the real thing in the China Olympics. Russia proved to be up for the task today and they held the USA basketball team to only 89 points. Russia’s offense only managed 68 points and the game was really never close. You still have to be pleased if your a Russian fan and to see your team hold the Americans to their lowest score yet. I think the USA team needs to score 100+ points a game and they are more than capable with all of the firepower they have. I think Kobe Bryant continues to prove he is the best basketball player in the world. Dwayne Wade and Tayshaun Prince have played solid for Team USA too and when you factor in the cast of characters that surround these guys, no team on Earth would ever beat them in an 82 game season. Now 82 games is what the NBA has on their regular schedule and they will be far fewer games in the Chinese Olympics.

Most Olympic basketball teams get a chance to play a lot with each other. It starts very early for them and sometimes they are 14 years old and getting a chance to play with someone that they will be sharing a team with 10 years later. So the USA Team does have that going against them and they don’t get a chance to work with each other like many of the basketball teams in the Olympics does. I still don’t think things like this matter much when you have such gifted players so deep down on your bench. It’s amazing that teams have beat the USA Team in Olympic contests and I’m sure we haven’t seen the last loss by a USA Team in the Olympics. I just think considering the past failures with this collection of talent will be the difference in the 2008 Olympics in China. I can’t see no team in the land beating these guys and fully expect them to bring back gold in the Olympics this year.

The folks in Southern California got a big scare today from a 5.4 magnitude earthquake that struck shortly before noon local time. The residents in Chino Hills seems to have got the worse of this as this where the epicenter was located. The earthquake was also felt in the nearby areas of Los Angeles, Riverside and Palm Springs California. It is also being reported that the people in San Diego and as far away as Las Vegas, Nevada felt slight shaking from this Southern California earthquake.

I have never been in a earthquake before but it sounds like a very scary experience. The people that were in California today and felt this late July earthquake will remember this experierence for a long time. Most are describing that they thought a large truck was close by and soon after the noise and shaking became louder, they knew they were in a earthquake. The governor of California has told residents that he will use all of the emergency response units to make sure that everyone is safe and that all infrastructures are intact. Bridges and large buildings could be severely hurt from a earthquake like this. There are already 30 aftershocks from this earthquake that struck the Chino Hills, California area at around 11:42 AM on Tuesday that have been reported. The after shocks will probably continue for days and even weeks later as the Earth’s ground settles down from this earthquake. Hopefully the people of Southern California has seen the worse of this earthquake and things can get back to normal for the residents there. Just make sure you check your home and property closely if you live in this area affected by the 5.4 magnitude. Gas leaks are the most serious risk and make sure to notice for unusual odors that might be in the air. They do put a chemical in natural gas that will cause gas leaks to be noticed by people due to the smell that will be present in the air, when a gas leak occurs.

This Thursday will be the deadline for baseball’s trading period between teams. All of the MLB clubs will be looking to do something between now and then. It is now called a buyers and sellers market. The teams that expect to be in post season this fall will be buyers and looking to add 1 or 2 quality veteran players to their lineups or their pitching staffs. The sellers are teams that are packing it in for this year and will try to move a player with value for a package of prospects or young players that they hope will be productive for them in the near future.

As a Braves fan we are in a tough position. It’s still unclear if we can be in the post season or not, so management has a difficult decision on their hands. Most of the rumors right now circle around Mark Teixiera and the Braves would move him for another first baseman and some prospects; if they decide they are sellers in 2008. If they are buyers, you might see them try to add another quality pitcher to their team and there are a few out there. Most agree the wild card will come from the central division this year and that leaves only 1 team that will come out of the east this year. You have the New York Mets, Florida Marlins and Philadelphia Phillies that all have better records than the Atlanta Braves right now. So it would probably be smart just to trade away players and become sellers this year. Mark Teixiera only will be under contract for 2 more months, but many teams would like their chances of winning it all this year, with a big bat like Tex’s in the lineup every night. I think the Tampa Bay Devil Rays has a lot of good prospects and this is where the Braves should focus their attention. I believe the Angels could benefit the most getting Texiera and they should really try to pursue him hard in the next couple of days. The Braves are in the driver’s seat and they can sit back and wait for the offers to roll in. If they don’t get one they really like, they can just try to go out and make a big comeback for these last two months of the regular season. It should get very interesting as the Major League Baseball trade deadline approaches on Thursday.

What is the best way to eat tacos? I personally like to have a few spices in my browned ground beef and then to add on top I like to have tomatoes, lettuce and grated cheese. I’m not picky on which type of cheese, but the mixed cheese that you can buy that is already grated is pretty good. It’s a blend of several different types of cheeses and I think a lot of cheese is what makes the tacos good. Fresh tomatoes are best to use too, but if you can’t find them, the store bought ones will do. Some people don’t even preheat their taco shells, but I think it’s a must to warm up the shells before you toss on the taco meat and other things you plan to top your taco with. That is the way I like to eat my tacos. If you have a great recipe or a way to prepare tacos, please let me know. I am always looking to try a new way to fix good homemade tacos! It is also a good idea to add a good hot sauce on your tacos and I would like to know of a good hot sauce to add to my tacos too. I usually just save the extra packs I get from the fast food restaurants that serve tacos and use them on my homemade tacos. I find they taste better than any of the store bought hot sauces I have tried to add to tacos.

They say that failing to prepare is preparing to fail and I really believe that. We do so many things in life that we don’t fully prepare our self for and when failure happens, we are left feeling blue. If you have had a string of bad luck and it seems like everything you do turns out bad, start trying to prepare for success. Don’t leave any stones unturned and if you still fail, you will know you did everything to the best of your ability and you will have no regrets.

Imagine bad weather storms that come along from time to time. We need to prepare for those storms on the sunny days, because once the rain starts to fall, it’s too late to prepare for the storm. So while the day is beautiful and the sun is out, prepare for the thunderstorms that will be in the near future. Be sure to have plenty of batteries for flashlights, lots of can food in the cupboard, emergency cash in the house and also have a bad weather plan with all of the members in your household. Try to think of all of the things you might need when the weather gets bad. You know that bad thunderstorms often leave us without power and having a back up source of power is a good idea. Most people count on generators to supply their power if bad weather leaves them powerless. If you can learn how to prepare for the bad storms that Mother Nature brings our way, then you will be better prepared for the storms we have to face in our daily lives.

It’s been 3 years since the southpaw has toed the rubber for the Atlanta Braves or any other baseball team in a regular season game. That is all about to change on Saturday when Mike Hampton will make his first start in 3 years when the Braves face the Philadelphia Phillies. The game will be a nationally televised game and it should be interesting to see what the Fox broadcasters have to say about Mike Hampton and the Atlanta Braves.

The game on Friday night was not even close if you go by the final score. The Braves held a 1 run lead over the Phillies going into the 9th inning. The Phillies brought out the top pitcher in their bullpen in Brad Lidge. Lidge never got comfortable and he would end up allowing a run to score on a Mark Texiera single to right; where the bases was then loaded. The Braves had got their 1 run from a Brian McCann homer earlier in the game. The hot hitting Braves catcher came to the plate in the 9th inning with the bags full of Braves and Brad Lidge still on the mound. One strong swing of the bat, McCann sent the ball out over the wall in deep right field and the grand slam would end Lidge’s night on the mound. Brad Lidge had only gave up 5 runs in his career in that ballpark in Philly, but the Atlanta Braves scored 5 runs in the 9th off of Lidge and he never recorded an out and he was removed from the game by Phillies Manage Charlie Manual. The runs turned out to be huge as Ryan Howard hit a homer in the bottom of the 9th inning that would have won the game for Phillies 2 to 1 over the Braves, if Lidge would have not collapsed in the 9th inning.

So now the Phillies are struggling to find their offense as they chase down the New York Mets in the East. The stage is all set up for a nice nationally televised game on Fox Sports Saturday and the return of Mike Hampton just adds fuel to the fire. This is going to be a great baseball game and this will be one game that both teams have a lot riding on. So expect this one to be played like a baseball game in October.

Is goldfish really a cheap pet to buy for the little ones? I guess if you just go on the price of the goldfish their self, you will find most are like 50 cents to a couple of bucks. So the fish aren’t that expensive and if you can find something at home to put them in and some type of food to give them, you can come out of this smelling like a rose. Your fish might be dead in a couple of days, but you could cut a lot of corners to get the fish in front of the kids for a day or two.

Now if you did it right, you would need a nice tank, pump, rocks to go in the bottom, some type of water testers, a net and some fish food too. Now the cost goes up a little bit and you learn that the 79 cent goldfish is nothing compared to the goldfish supplies you will need. However, you can find used fish supplies at yard sales, flea markets and some of these goodwill stores. So if you took your time and started trying to piece things together one by one, you could have some fish for a good bargain. Goldfish is a good pet for the kids and they will love you for it. I just hope they aren’t like my twin 3 year old nephews, because they always want to “pet” the fish. Be sure to feed them very small amounts and keep the water clean and your goldfish should last a long time.

Our house is full to the rim of stuff and I don’t think we have room to put anything else. We have plenty of furniture and odds and ends that take up space in my home and I don’t think we could make room for a new end table or any type of small furniture like that. We have been using the attic to store stuff in and I believe our attic space is running out of room too. We use to only keep the Christmas decorations up there, but now we have old antiques, dish sets, crafts and just a lot more items in bags and boxes. I know I have a lot of sports cards up there in the attic and I was running out of room in my bedroom to store them in. There are just some things you don’t want to throw away, so you save it and after a couple of decades go by, you soon learn that you have a ton of stuff and most of it might just be junk now.

If you find your self needing some extra storage space and you begin storing things in the basement or in the attic like my family has done, I will give you one good tip. Be sure that you label the things you put in storage. Even if you only plan to put a few things in storage, go ahead and label it, so later on when you add more stuff, you can label it too. We have such a hard time going in our attic now and trying to find stuff, because we didn’t label anything. If we would have just got some Primera labels or some type of self-adhesive labels, we would be able to go up in the attic and locate things easier. Instead we have to spend all afternoon looking for one thing, just because we didn’t label our things we were storing. So just make sure you don’t make the same mistakes as my family did and keep everything organized and labeled and in about 20 years from now, you will be glad that you did it this way!