A reunion 30 years in the making

So I think most of us are aware of the evils that can come from sites like facebook, myspace, and the like. However, there are some good things about them also. Case in point, a little over a month ago I got a message on facebook from someone asking if I had attended the North Penn School district. I replied letting her know that other than Kindergarten nope I had not been in the district. Well it turns out I was the person she was looking for.

It was my old friend Missy from Kindergarten that I had not seen in close to 30 years. She was someone I played with a lot that year in school and went to her house outside of school, fell down a big hill in a bicycle accident, and helped her pick on her younger siblings.

If you can say you have a best friend in Kindergarten Missy would have been mine. Sadly we moved int he middle of the year and even though I finished the year out there after that summer we lost touch. That is until she tracked me down on facebook.

Here we are in August of 79 probably one of the last times we saw one another.




I cropped her brother and sister out of the picture so you can focus on the beauty that is us.



Fast forward 29 years and here we are from tonight, almost 30 years after we first met.



It took a couple weeks to get our schedules to mesh with school, work and vacations but we met for dinner tonight and it was like we had never lost touch over all those years. Things were completely cool, laid back and fun. I see many more night's out in our future as our schedules allow. We have a lot in common still and are looking forward to getting to know each other all over again. Oh and how cool is it she still has her sticker book and a collection of Strawberry shortcake dolls. Us children of the 80's have to hang together....

Bobbi Moments

In our Family we have what we call Bobbi moments. So I thought I would track a few from my last vacation and document them. Now I must also say I adore my step mother and I am very thankful to have such a great stepmom because trust me I have had the opposite and it was not pretty, and have friedns that have had bad experiences so having such a wonderful one is something to be thankful for.



Bobbi Moment #1

While we were at dinner on Thursday night at Chili's Bobbi had the epiphany that Chili's is a Mexican themed restaurant. Yes she has eaten there before and noticed the little chili pepper, just didn't realize it was a Mexican restaurant. We love Bobbi. It was Josh's first Bobbi moment since being home for a whole hour.

Bobbi Moment #2

While having dinner Josh mentioned how his mother sent his birthday card tot the wrong address and gave his brother the wrong address also. Fast forward to the car ride home. She mentioned wanting to send Josh's girl friend a graduation card. and we said she could also send it to Josh and the comment was made she could get it from Linda, Josh's mom and we all started laughing, and Bobbi didn't understand why which only made us laugh harder at her. Finally we reminded her about the conversation about the wrong address but only after laughing for a bit..

Bobbi Moment #3

Do you see mountains like that every day? This comment came when looking at pictures of Utah. The comments continued, there is mountains like that on both sides? Oh that is why they call it Salt Lake Valley, Utah Valley, etc.. because it is in the valley of the mountains? She is very taken by the mountains, she just could not get past it. The going on about the mauntains continued for a good 20 minutes seriously in awe. We can't wait for her to go out there to see them in person.

Bobbi Moments #4 and #5 both had to deal with technology. First it was a USB memory stick, ahe was amazed that all the data that could be stored on one, next up was the ipod nano and how little it was and all it could store on it. Then when they showed her pictures and video on one intead of just listening to music she was blown away.


We also have what I like to call Bobbi-isms my favorite of the trip was .....
Suzy cream cheese - translation good two shoes.

This is how she felt about my birthday gift to dad. Probabl;y because he thought it shoudl be placed on the mantle...

One more down 5 to go

For those following my educational journey another class can be checked off the list. I wrapped up a class last night and that leaves me with 5 till graduation. I will have 3 this fall and the final 2 in the spring. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

China is making its move in more than the olympics

Will there come a day when historians will write about how the United States globalized the world, but forgot to globalize itself.

I am sort of deviating from my normal blog entry, which I admit have been slow to come lately and I apologize to those that stalk my blog that there has been nothing new and exciting to read. I will get back on track I promise.

So yesterday I was working from home and flipping through the channels to see if I could find something good to watch. I came across the CBS news show called Sunday Morning and they were talking about China’s rapidly growing economy.

Here is a link to the entire article: Coming soon a Post-American World

And here is the Carnegie study they mention: China’s Economic Rise—Fact and Fiction

I found them an interesting read and some of the estimates they give are staggering. Such as in one economic model they show that China’s economy will be as big as if not bigger than the US by 2035 and by 2050 it will be twice the size of the US economy.

And here are some quotes from the Sunday Morning transcript of the piece by Martha Teichner

” And it's happening right under our noses. America's beverage, Budweiser beer, is now owned by Belgians.

The government of Abu Dhabi last month bought a 90% stake in New York City's iconic Chrysler Building.

And isn't the United States supposed to be the place with the biggest and best of everything?

The tallest building in the world isn't in New York or Chicago anymore. It's in Taipei.

The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, once the world's largest, isn't even in the top ten now. The biggest one's in - surprise, surprise - China.”

My latest vacation to Maine

So I realize I have been neglecting my blog lately. I promise some new posts though from my latest vacation. The pictures will have to wait till after I get home though..

So I woke up at 4 AM yesterday and was on the road by 4:20. Since I was able to avoid a good amount of traffic I made good time I arrived in 7 hours 10 minutes..

The drive was fairly uneventful, well except that stupid rock that hit my windshield and left a divot in it.. grrrrr.

Saw some rather interesting things, as always. One thing that amazed me was this guy cruising along on his motorcycle going about 70 mph with a ball cap on. No it isn't that he didn't have a helmet on because that is a personal choice, but that he was able to keep that ball cap on his head at those speeds. I mean was the thing super glued to his head, velcroed, or maybe stapled on? Seriously I was amazed, and kept waiting for it to fly off but never saw it leave his head.

The other thing that is worth mentioning is also related to a guy on a motorcycle and oh how I wish I had a picture of this one cause it was special. There was a rather large man riding on a motorcycle. This individual was wearing a pair of denim overalls. You know just your typical denim overalls, however he had on no shirt and he had a super dark farmer's tan. So here is a guy cruising along with no shirt, but his pale skin against his farmer's tan looking like a hairy skin shirt and his old beat-up overalls with his hairy fat rolls just a flapping in the wind as he cruised down the highway doing about 80. I know my description just does not do it justice but it made me do a double take.


Other than that it was pretty uneventful. It was clear with no rain till the last 20 minutes when it started to pour. AFter I arriced we went out for lunch, then I came home and showered and changed so we could head down to the airport to pick up my siblings, Josh's flight was delayed but he finally made it, but poor Susie had her flight cancelled so she comes in at lunch time today. poor kid. We went out dinner wating to hear from her, dinner was eventfull. It took forever to get our food, and some of it was not all that good. We ended up getting some of it comped and got 2 free deserts. We finally got back home and I was beat so I was in bed by midnight...

Stay tuned for more updates and pictures once I get home.