The Cat and the Snake

I wonder what the story might be in this situation. When I was coming through the alley on my way home today I saw this story.

The cat died in the corner like he was cowering from the snake. The snake died a couple feet away from the cat.

I have never seen a cat and a snake fighting one another but that is what looks like happened here? Both animals died in the fight.

Both have been in this exact place and position for quite a while. Dried out and dehydrated.

In summer mother nature will probably cause decay to collapse both into piles of bones, with the growth of bacteria that are mostly absent in winter?

The snake looks like he has markings that indicate he might be a rattler, but I could not see rattles. Maybe I might go back tomorrow to take another look.

Local Clouds

This odd cloud formation was outside my window yesterday so I took a picture of it.

There is a square portion hanging off the bottom of this cloud. I wonder why.

Kind of looks like a bucket of cloud without the bucket that it was formed in.

1969 Chevelle SS on ebay

The Portland International Auto Show had a lot of cars, but they did not have Acura and they did not have the Chevy Volt electric car. If they had offered any wheelchair friendly two door coupe I would have bought one.

I have looked at all the possible passenger cars that should work but there is none. Manufacturers do not make cars for people like me anymore. I have started thinking about possibly buying an "old car". An old car that has been rebuilt or restored. I looked at a 1969 Malibu last Saturday in Portland, but it has been modified too much and isn't stock. It has loud pipes and a powered up V8 engine. And it does not look nearly as good in person as it looks on ebay. That car needs a lot of work.

Here is an ebay Chevy Chevelle in Illinois that is stock and looks great. But they are asking a ridiculous price of $42,000. Man... that is a ton of money for an old car. But as you can see, it is in wonderful stock condition. I won't be buying this one either.

Portland Auto Show 2010

This is the logo from the 2010 Portland Auto Show next weekend.

I have plans to attend with a couple friends. Maybe they might have some interesting new models. Pretty much all the 2010's will be there and they said there will be some 2011's as well. And some concept vehicles that probably will never see retail sales floors.

I still would like to find a passenger car that works for my needs as a wheelchair person. Needs to be a bigger 2 door coupe like the older cars used to be. I owned a 1965 Impala immediately after I was released from the army. Bought it in Denver when I was recovering from war injuries in Fitzsimons Army Hospital. What a nice car.

The modern two door cars have a very small passenger cab. The cars are about the same size overall but the passenger space has shrunk a lot. Especially back seat space.

My 65 looked exactly like this one.

I Sold The Element

After somebody crashed my 1993 Honda Accord in September 2009 when I brought it in for service I ended up buying a 2006 Honda Element and a 2010 Toyota pickup truck.

I just don't need two vehicles and neither one of these fits my unique wheelchair living needs all that well.

I placed both on craigslist this week and said that they are both for sale and I will keep the one that is left. The Element sold today. I am keeping the Toyota.

Now I am back to owning only one vehicle. Whew...... . I really want a passenger car but they are so hard (impossible) to find. I have not been able to find a car that I can use. When I do find one I can then trade the truck and get a car. Maybe.... if I ever find one that I can use?

That Element was a good vehicle but it was was too difficult for my needs. I am glad it is gone..

Ahhh.. Back to School

Isn't it great that school is back in session. Oregon State University, Corvallis Public Schools, and all the rest. The Holiday season is over and we are back to normal everyday life. Ahhh...

I am glad to be back to my volunteering in local schools and the kids are glad to be back too. I spoke with the Principal and some teachers in my local volunteer site today, as well as the kids I work with. How fun....

Here are a few worthy quotes I have found along my way:


Holidays are enticing only for the first week or so. After that, it is no longer such a novelty to rise late and have little to do. ~Margaret Laurence

As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools. ~Author Unknown

A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep. ~W.H. Auden

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. ~Albert Einstein

He who opens a school door, closes a prison. ~Victor Hugo

Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it. ~William Haley

Home computers are being called upon to perform many new functions, including the consumption of homework formerly eaten by the dog. ~Doug Larson

When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course. ~Peter Drucker

Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know. ~Daniel J. Boorstin, Democracy and Its Discontents

I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught. ~Winston Churchill

Learn as much as you can while you are young, since life becomes too busy later. ~Dana Stewart Scott

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. ~Henry Brooks Adams

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. ~William Arthur Ward

2010 Already?

Is it 2010 already?

Man it feels like it was just 1969...

Time goes faster when you start getting older. I will become 63 years old in 2010.

Thank you to the universe for allowing me to stay this long. My next big time-line goal is 2012. I want to be here all the way through 2012. All the way to New Years Eve.

There might be another date that comes along before then but 2012 should be a good time to be alive. (look it up on Google).

I have no plans for New Years Eve so I think I will go down to the restaurant and the wine bar on the first floor of my high rise building for midnight bells and whistles.

Avatar the Movie

I seldom go to movies but I did attend Avatar today. Good movie and worth going to the theater.

Please go to the 3D showing (with the glasses). I doubt that the 2D version would have the same effect.

Plase don't drink coffee or get one of those huge cups of Coke that they try to sell you before you go inside. The movie goes on for two and half hours and has no intermission break!

I never recommend movies but I do recommend this one.

Needle Boy

Stories like this take a long time to leave my life for some reason.
this kind of cruelty and evil are just incredible to me. I cannot imagine anybody doing something like this.

I am a volunteer in a school for special needs children for the past 16 years. I work with kids of all kinds of abilities and disabilities.

All children of the world belong to all of us. We truly are a village and it is our collective responsibility to protect children and to be outraged about things like this.
Maybe it is because this is the holiday season or something, but this seems especially heinous this time of year?

This is a picture of the boy I found on the internet and here is a clipping that accompanied the photo. The link to CBS News is below.

In this file photo, a 2-year-old boy, found with 42 needles inside his body, arrives to a hospital in Salvador, northeastern Brazil, Thursday. Roberto Carlos Magalhaes, the boy's stepfather, said Sunday in a jail cell interview that he intended to kill the boy out of spite for his wife and didn't think he would be discovered. (AP Photo/Arestides Baptista

What do you think? Perhaps the punishment for the perpetrator should be prison and 42 needles stuck into his body? Since he is a grown adult maybe he should get 84 needles stuck into his body?

Sorry that I posted about this issue two days in a row. These kinds of cruel acts stay with me for a while. I sure hope the boy recovers and is placed into a safe home where he is loved and protected.

"It was truly an unbearable suffering," said Magalhaes. "It was to get back at the boy's mother. I thought the needles would work their way through his body and kill the boy. It was a way to kill without anyone discovering." But the pain led the toddler to complain to his mother, and on Dec. 10 she took him to a hospital where X-rays revealed about 30 needles lodged throughout his body. The boy underwent a five-hour operation in the northeastern city of Salvador on Friday to remove four rusty needles that most threatened his life, near his heart and in his lungs. Doctors said Sunday the child is doing well and will likely undergo two more surgeries, the next one on Wednesday at the earliest, to extract needles up to 2 inches long from his abdomen and spine.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/20/world/main6003001.shtml

Needles Stuck into Boy

This excerpt is from the internet.

RIO DE JANEIRO - A Brazilian man publicly confessed to pushing dozens of needles into his 2-year-old stepson, saying Sunday he intended to kill the boy out of spite for his wife and didn't think he would be discovered.In a jail cell interview aired on Globo television's Fantastico program, 30-year-old bricklayer Roberto Carlos Magalhaes said he mixed water with wine to dope the child before he and his lover held the boy down and stuck sewing needles into him.
"I did this two or three times a week during one month," Magalhaes said.


Here is a link to just one site that has the story. It is hard to believe that anybody could be this cruel? This is truly an evil person to do something like this.

Man.... An innocent two year old boy.


http://www.lipstickalley.com/f50/man-sticks-needles-stepson-revenge-215018/