Insert Your Own Clever Title About Ivory Poachers, The YMCA and Alcatraz Here!

This makes me very, very sad. Though these are Rangers trying to stop it.

Again I did not get a chance to blog yesterday. With Splenda being home for Thanksgiving we have been spending a lot of time with her, It is only 07:02 on Sunday morning right now and she is still asleep so I am blogging and will finish before she gets up for the day. She will head back to southern Illinois this afternoon. Cha Cha has been helping her with her final college project/presentation a bit and we went and bought her the materials she needs for that project. We also bought a new dishwasher and we will find out tomorrow when that will arrive. I am assuming it will be installed this week.

I am kind of sad this morning because I turned on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel while I let the sleep drain from my mind and eyes and there was a story about the hunting and slaughter of African elephants for their ivory. I am a sucker for all animals and this saddened me greatly. There are even park rangers that dress like and train like a military group to battle these poachers.They even wear camouflage uniforms and carry assault weapons. The statistics of the loss of the elephants were very alarming - about a generation ago (around 1979) there were about 1,500,000 wild African elephants and today there are only about 400,000 alive. We can manufacture plastic and wood to look and feel just like ivory so why do people think they have to destroy an entire species of animal on our planet for it? I am sad most days anymore and this made it just worse today.

We were going to go over to the YMCA today and join again but we saw their hours and the cost and decided that it is less expensive to just spend the money on food and stay fat. Our YMCA has a pool that members can use in our old high school but the hours to use it are 05:00 - 0700. What the hell good is that? It's a place of intolerance anyway with YMCA being an acronym for Young Men's Christian Association. I am not young, half of my immediate family (and the best parts) are women, I would not call myself Christian for various reasons and I don't like to be associated with things all the time. It sounds more like segregation than anything; I am sure they will take anyone's money though. It's interesting how money seems to squelch segregation many times.

I just saw a report of the laziest cities in the country listed state-by-state. It has a lot to do with median income and activity, of course. I think people all over the country read this blog from time-to-time but three of the states that I know that have regular readers are: Colorado. Illinois and Wisconsin so I will tell you their laziest cities. In Colorado it is Pueblo, in Illinois it is Carbondale/Marion and, in Wisconsin it is Fond du Lac. If you are interested in your state or in giving some of your lazy friends grief here is a link to the article. I found it funny while I sit on my lazy butt blogging.

Sadly, Splenda goes back to the laziest city in our state later today. I wonder if laziest cities have prisons in them. I know Marion, Illinois has a very large federal prison that is where many of the prisoners were moved-to when Alcatraz closed. I drove out to the prison when I was in college down there. One of my friend's roommates was doing a paper on federal prisons and he needed a ride to go on his tour of the prison. I had a car so I drove him out there. It was pretty scary for a 20-year-old to drive into that complex with his orange Ford Pinto with the guards with their sub-machine guns staring down at him. I got yo go to a waiting room while my passenger went inside the big house to interview some prisoners. I would have loved to go further into the jail but it is cool just to say that I was inside Marion. I have also been inside Alcatraz too when I was a kid on vacation in California.

You can see why they called it "The Rock!"

It always surprises me where I go with the blog when I start writing. I guess it is just like a conversation that starts one place and goes in several different directions before winding-up coming back to just about the same place that it began. Even the voices in my head have mixed conversations. I bet you;re thinking about all the voices in your head too, aren't you?

Thank you for stopping by today. It looks like a fairly nice day outside. I am happy for that with Splenda driving six hours later today. I am a worrier and I always worry about everybody I know and love. If I know you but don't love you I will just worry a little. It is safe to say that the people that I know who read this at least semi-regularly I worry about you quite often. I want the best for you as I hope you do for me as well. Have a great weekend and I will try really hard to blog on Monday. I will also work on getting those before and after photos of the kitchen now that the holiday weekend is winding down. TTTMonday...MITM (out) TA!