MEET SGT. MAJ. LARRY STRICKLAND

Hello Blogging Pals.

I mentioned Project 2,996 in a previous post or two. It is a site dedicated to remembering the 2,996 souls we lost on 9/11/2001. I will be re-posting this on 9/11 but I thought I might post it earlier in case anyone might wish to be part of the project. You do not have to have a web site or a blog. Check it out. There are still many souls needing volunteers to write a tribute.

Okay. So please meet Sgt. Maj. Larry Strickland. He was 52 years old, born in Washington State, and had a Bachelor of Science degree. He had served our country in a lot of places including Germany, Washington State, Washington DC, Texas, and Virginia. He had many awards and decorations. Most devastating for me to learn was his plan to retire upon completion of 30 years of service... at the end of September 2001. After all of his service, he was close to spending more time on his hobbies (fishing, hiking, gourmet cooking, and needlepoint) and especially looking forward to spending more time with his family. SGM Strickland left behind a wife, Debra, who was the Garrison Command Sergeant Major of Fort Belvoir, VA. at the time, three adult children, and one grandson who will never know his grandfather as he was only a year old when SGM Strickland was taken. His parents also were left to deal with the untimely loss of their child.

SGM Strickland headed out to work that day at the Pentagon as there were some meetings he deemed important enough to attend even though he could have skipped them. He had annual leave built up that needed to be used or lost. He chose to go to work. If you knew nothing more about him than that, you would know the character of the man. It was that character that had him in his office on the second floor when the wing he was in was struck by American Airlines Flight 77.

But this is a tribute to SGM Strickland's life. And I've got to tell you the things said about him and written about him are absolutely glowing!! What a wonderful thing... to have those left behind remember you so well and so lovingly. It's not just family. These were friends, co-workers, people who knew him on a "business" level where, many times, the feelings are not so great. I would suggest you take a few moments today to review three different web sites where there are tributes (and from where I gathered much of the information I am sharing with you). It really won't take that long and, thankfully, most of us did not actually know anyone who was lost that day. Perhaps it would be good to learn about at least one of them. I know it gave me a very new perspective.

Pentagon Memorial Fund - Names of the souls lost at the Pentagon are alphabetical by last name. Scroll down and click on SGM Strickland's name to read about his service career.

Columns - The University of Washington Alumni Magazine- Read a really great article here about SGM Strickland's personal life. Sounds like someone we would all like to have known.

The Washington Post - This project is a database of all of the souls lost that day and has a very nice tribute to SGM Strickland.

Thank you, SGM Strickland, for your service, for your honor, and for your character. I'm glad I got to know you.



We should never forget.

IF YOU'RE READING THIS...

... you have time for a quick click or two... or three... or more.

I was not aware of this until recently. I would like to encourage each of you to not only participate yourselves but to forward either this post or at least the link I'm going to provide to you to your email buddies! The more, the merrier.

There is a site that will provide you with the opportunity to help a number of causes. I was given the Animal Rescue site information by a friend and began clicking there daily. There are other causes you are certainly welcome to click for at your discretion.

I suggest you go to the Animal Rescue portion and read the information provided there. You can look across the top of the page to locate tabs providing other causes for which you can click. There is a Breast Cancer cause, Hunger, Literacy... just check them out. Since this costs nothing, it seems like a no-brainer to me. You can check out the results by scanning down the left side of the page to "About This Site" where a "Results" option is available. Click on that. It will provide you with a daily count of clicks and how much that has provided for the cause. The same applies to the other tabbed causes.

Be sure to check this blog on Friday, 9/11/2009, if you are not subscribed to the email posts. I believe I mentioned Project 2,996 in a previous post. I have been assigned a soul to research and to whom I will post a tribute. I have spent some time learning about this individual and I hope you all will learn a little bit, too. I consider it a very small thing I can do to make certain we never forget.

That's really all I have for you today. We finally got a nice rain today for which we are quite grateful. It had been a couple of weeks since the last good showers. I hope Austin, Texas is enjoying some wetness!! Things are very desperate there.

Toodles to all!! Until next time...

GOULASH

Heidy-Ho, Blogging Buddies!

Again... too long since my last post. It has been busy. Let me give you a run-down of the past week or so.

Friday, August 14th. Interview at the Newton (Texas) County Correctional Facility. Will regale you later. No, I do not have that job. (No comments from the peanut gallery regarding why it would have been the most appropriate place for me to work!)

Weekend, 15/16. The usual. A little yard work. A little housecleaning. Sigh. I really need a job!

Week of 17-21. The spousal-unit made a Texas run on Wednesday the 19th. He has been hanging out with his pals in West Texas, allegedly preparing a new deer blind. He is scheduled to return on Friday the 28th unless he can find an excuse to hang longer! :) He does have a commitment to make a Costco run for us and I don't think I can wait so he will likely be compelled to meet that 28th date. Oh, and I had another interview on Friday the 21st for a "Project Coordinator" position with the city. I'll keep you posted.

Weekend, 22/23. Well, the danger when one leaves town and leaves the remaining party to his or her own devices is that information not necessarily for public consumption is shared. So... let me just mention that the spousal-unit celebrated his "L" on Saturday. Now, he did this in Junction, Texas with his pals. (I know as I received a call during the pool tournament.) I, on the other hand, remained in Louisiana, holding down the fort... and the leftover cake from my "LVI" that had taken place previously. Never one to waste a cause to celebrate, my buddy, Faux Auntie Jo (on right), and our pear-tree-proprietor, Helen, gathered to hoist a toast to the "old man" in absentia.

I think the fish add a nice "manly" touch... and no, there is not one growing out of Helen's head!!

We had frozen the "LVI" cake that remained, carefully preserving the "L" for this occasion. After libations (which should explain my "walleyed" look... no fish references, please?), we decided to have just a sliver. I cannot believe they allowed me to wield a knife at this point... and a sharp one at that!!

Alright. The minor crisis occurred on Sunday evening when my aunt's air-conditioner went out. No, I don't mean it had a date with a heat pump. It CRASHED! Those of you in Texas understand the crisis that occurs if one loses air-conditioning anytime from late April through mid-October. You Alaskans and Pennsylvanians... probably not such a big deal. :) At any rate, I began making calls Sunday evening (everyone in business has either a cell phone or an answering machine) after taking a box fan over to at least provide circulation in her house. We had a gentleman come out Monday afternoon after 4:00 pm who pronounced the fan motor DOA. He ordered one and had it overnighted. He installed it this afternoon (Tuesday) and the crowd at the aunt's is VERY happy!!! (I know... I got a text message!) Crisis resolved.

Finally, my aunt's neighbor, Susan L., brought another little cutie over for us to enjoy. This little one is "Sissy" and she is undergoing heartworm treatment. She will be adopted out in about 6 weeks. Thought you might want to take a peek. She's a real sweetheart.
I can hear the collective "AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" even through cyberspace.

Thanks for staying with me!! I will try to do a bit better with more timely posts rather than such LOOOOONG ones infrequently. (No guarantees.)

Oh... and if any of you are interested in an excellent crawfish recipe, just drop me an email. I have tried one from the "Louisiana Life" magazine (published by Louisiana Public Broadcasting) that is REALLY good!! Crawfish-stuffed Tomatoes with Pesto. Yummmmmmm!!

Until next post...

IT AIN'T JUST LOUISIANA...

Greetings, Blogging Pals!! My apology for such a delay in posting. It has been a bit busy.

So... let's cover the title stories here first.

We had reason to make a trip to Newton, Texas (in the County of Newton) recently. Now, Newton is about a 40 minute drive from our little burg in Louisiana which places it approximately the same distance from the state line (the Sabine River) into Texas as we are into Louisiana. Differences? A few. The 2000 population of Newton appears to have been about 2,000! That makes us about five times larger... but the Newton web sites (there are a couple of ways to check out Newton, Texas) were FAR superior to anything we had over here... until now. Check out the brand new web site for DeRidder! HUGE improvement here, folks. HUGE improvement.

So... let me refocus on Newton. While driving around the town, we encountered some signage that begs many questions. Unfortunately, there was no one around to answer any of them so we just have to speculate on exactly what is meant: The white sign on the left is the typical "NO TRESPASSING" signage. It's common around here. It's the yellow sign on the right that really piqued my interest. It reads "Keep Gate Closed. Wild Animals Inside." Now, that's some mighty fierce fencing going on there... and there is a swampy area you can't see in the photo but it's back and to the right and has a feeder positioned above it. Typically you see that for fish feeding... but I'm wondering if there are gators here? It is an appropriate environment for them! If further information becomes available, I will enlighten all of you.

Okay. That's Newton information for today. Another little town that is in Texas between DeRidder and Newton is Bon Wier. I tried to find a Bon Wier web presence... but such does not exist. At any rate, someone had apparently recently pulled the vegetation off of a fence along Hwy 190 as the signage below caught my eye:

This hand-painted sign reads "Bon Wier Helicopter Landing Pad." This is almost as mysterious as the Wild Animals in the Newton signage!! Bon Wier has no traffic controls with the exception of a piece of highway with a lowered speed limit. The highway shows us a truck stop, a post office, an abandoned gas station, and about five homes that appeared to be occupied. Is there a NEED for a helicopter landing pad?!? There is no apparent reason for one. If any of you can enlighten me, I would be ever-so-grateful.

Okay. That's it for our little foray into Texas. Changing subjects here.

So... one day the spousal-unit and I are rolling down toward Lake Charles, La. We have an appointment then plan to enjoy the rest of the day with a Sam's Club run and maybe a couple of other "large" store runs (think Target, Home Depot, Academy, etc.) that are not available to us in DeRidder. A variety of vehicles are passing us and I noted something that had struck me before. The pickup trucks have license plates that are AMAZINGLY long!!! They seem to begin with a Letter which is then followed by about 8 or 9 Numbers!!! Seriously! Since we were not having any great, mind-boggling discussion at the time, I pondered aloud to the spousal-unit, "I wonder why they have so many numbers on those license plates?" There was a pause and I figured he was just going to let my question go as a rhetorical one when suddenly I hear, "Numerals are cheap." WHAT?!?!? I started laughing aloud and we both had moments of speculation on why the prisoners would make numbers for less than letters. It was silliness abounding. Now... this happened a little while back so it had left my brain. You can imagine that it took me a few moments before I recognized exactly what was meant by the writing on the cake the spousal-unit brought to me on the anniversary of my 29th birthday. (Those are what I celebrate now.) Take a look:
I really wonder if he had to write this out for the cake lady to put it on the cake. I also wonder if she thought he was completely out of his mind! LOL!!! At any rate, we had another really good laugh at this and went on to libations at Faux Auntie Jo's with Miz Marty in attendance. The cake was cut with the "L" numeral reserved... since the spousal-unit has THAT birthday looming near and large!! We will savor it then.

That's pretty much it for today. This has gotten long (as usual) and I need to save something for a future post. Perhaps I will regale you with the tale of my interview at the Newton County Correctional Facility. Oh yes. That was a good one.

Until the next time...

PEARS PRETTILY PRESERVED... WELL, PUT UP

Greetings, Blogging Pals!! Welcome back.

I don't have a whole lot to enlighten you about today but I thought I would provide you with an update and let you know about something I'm working on.

UPDATE: We have 12 pints of prettily put up pears!! Yep. The man got busy on Friday and slaved away until he had those pesky pears put up. I am so very pleased with the results. Now then... we haven't opened a jar yet so I can't give you a taste-decision... but I'm betting they will be fabulous! More on that later.

UPDATE: The job search continues. I am almost ready to provide you with the titles of positions for which I have applied to get a vote in on the one for which you all think I would be best suited. *chuckle* I am certain some of them would likely get your attention. I know I have even questioned myself on a few... but the choices here are limited, boys & girls! I forge ahead.

NEW IN THE WORKS: I stumbled across a web site while I was cruising the net last week. Feel free to take a peek at it at http://project2996.wordpress.com/what-is-2996/. After reading about the Project, I felt like it was a small, human thing to do to remember just one person who likely got up that morning (9/11), went through a morning routine, then headed to work with no thought as to that being his or her last day on our planet. I signed up and have been assigned a soul to remember. I will post my tribute on Friday, September 10th, so it will pop in your email on September 11th this year. If you follow other blogs or know someone who does, why don't you provide them with this information? They may wish to participate, also.

Finally, for those of you who know me so well, I have begun tackling the overgrown and completely out-of-control flower bed surrounding the pool. There is a real assortment of plants in there just growing away. While cleaning out a very small first section today, I encountered four plant tags that I'm sure were placed there when the given plant was put into the ground. The interesting part here is that two of the four plant tags identified plants I could find. The other two tags identified plants that absolutely are not in the bed at this time. I'm sure they probably gave up under the overwhelming growth of other things. Wish me luck!! This is gonna' take some time.

Thanks for playing!! Until next time...

A PEAR-PICKIN' PARTY PARTNER

Hello again, Blogging Buddies!! Welcome back.

You know how sometimes one thing can be a portent of something unexpected? I think we have all experienced it at some point. Even those who will not admit to being "superstitious" will still deem something an omen if the event following turns out a particular way. C'mon. You know you've done it.

So... let's just say that one lovely afternoon, while enjoying a light Refreshing Adult Beverage (RAB), the conversation took an unexpected turn that eventually provided the subject matter for this post.

We had dropped by Faux Auntie Jo's place to drop off her order of Stonewall peaches that the spousal-unit had picked up on his recent trip to Segovia. This prompted the discussion to turn to fresh fruit relative to what one can do with it. (There is a fresh peach trifle that has been promised if the peaches were provided!) This happens to be the time for figs in this area so fig preserves are being put up in many homes. If you will allow me a digressive moment, my brother and I were picking figs from one of the four or five HUGE fig trees in the back yard on July 20, 1969, when my father came out to hurry us back into the house as Neil Armstrong was about to walk on the moon!! We dropped what we were doing, rushed inside, and we all sat amazed at what we witnessed taking place. You can't get a 15-year old to stop anything these days to watch a shuttle launch or return. Technology has become commonplace.

Okay... So... at some point during this conversation, Faux Auntie Jo commented that a friend of hers had a big pear tree in the front yard and that she had noticed LOTS of pears on the ground under the tree and that she was just AMAZED that her friend was not taking advantage of these pears. Her friend (we'll meet her shortly) even confessed that the "yard man" simply runs over these pears with the mower!! Well, Faux Auntie Jo appeared to be taking this rather hard as she mentioned she had tried to retrieve some of the pears from the tree but was not terribly successful. At that point, I could no longer bear her distress. I immediately offered to join her as a "Pear-Pickin' Party Partner" if she would like to attempt to retrieve more of the fruit!! She seemed pleased and advised she would confirm it would be alright for us to move forward with our plan and let me know.

Later that evening, the call came. Faux Auntie Jo had confirmed we were welcome to retrieve all of the pears we could handle. Her friend, Helen, had given her blessing. I was told to arrive at Faux Auntie Jo's at 8:30 a.m. the next morning for the event. I was also told that another friend, Marty (you remember... my FAMOUS neighbor!), had provided Faux Auntie Jo with a "pear-picker." What? I don't believe I have ever heard of one of those.

The next morning, I headed out to retrieve Faux Auntie Jo who had offered to provide plastic bags for bagging our bountiful harvest. The spousal-unit had made a comment he will likely regret soon when he mentioned he would "put up some pears" if I retrieved enough to make it worthwhile. Sounded like a challenge to me, folks.

We arrived at Helen's lovely home. She very graciously greeted us then told us to move forward with our party!! (She would remain inside, sipping coffee. Smart woman.) We toddled out to the heavily-laden pear tree to begin our work. This is how it started:



Faux Auntie-Jo, dressed "to the nines", as usual, armed with plastic bags AND the amazing, incredible "pear-picker!" (I'm wondering if Marty got two of them for the low, low price of $19.95... BUT WAIT... act now and we'll send you a pear-polisher?) Okay. Kidding. Marty received the pear-picker as a gift. At any rate, I am looking at this thing with some skepticism. It is essentially two pieces of narrow PVC pipe, one piece sliding inside the other to allow extending the pole for those pesky high-hanging pears. There is an orange, heavy-plastic item that has the appearance of a crown kind of like the Burger King wears. Attached below that is an orange sack. Hmmmmmm. Let's see. If I take the pole, place the "crown" up to the little branch the pear is attached to, shake the pole a bit to jostle the pear... HOLY COW!!! It WORKS!!! Folks... we had a system going in no time. I would jostle a pear or two into the sack, drop the sack down directly in front of Faux Auntie Jo who would reach in and retrieve the captive pear(s), placing them into one of her MANY plastic bags! We were totally on a roll. Nothing could stop us now!

So... after far less time than you might imagine, we had a plethora of pears which Faux Auntie Jo proudly gathered around her.

After such a "pears of plenty" morning, we had to thank Helen for her graciousness in allowing us to harvest from her tree. She had had time to complete her coffee by then and even stepped out for a photo opp.After reiterating our heart-felt thanks, Faux Auntie Jo and I piled back into the Suburban, turned the A/C on, and discussed what we felt was our incredible good fortune. There was brief mention of a sales booth at the local Farmers Market but that idea was rapidly squashed. Remember... there was an offer to "put up some pears" at my house! (I'll let you know if and when that takes place!)

The next time you are sitting around having a conversation about something that seems inane at that moment, just remember that a casual conversation can quickly turn into an EVENT to remember!!

Until next time, Blogging Pals! :)