The Harnation

Fabulous lil' bro got his photo published on Al.com with the caption: "One runner reacts as he sees a friend stick out his arm to high five him as he passes by on Randolph Avenue."

Hopefully I'll get a few minutes in the next day or two to post some of the photos that I took of the team running the race this week.

The Petti are a very talented couple. Check out the new WPC website for an example of their hidden talents. Amanda did the graphics for the site - photos, artwork, and design layout, and Wade taught himself CSS (?) code in order to make everything work.

Nice tag team, you two!

If anyone would like to volunteer to be a smiling model, contact The Pie.

311 is Matt's favorite band, so when we saw that their new album, Uplifter, would be out June 2nd, I went ahead and pre-ordered it for his birthday last month.

Their first single, Hey You, has been out about a month and I'm finally posting it. Pretty good.

With the special referendum in California to raise taxes to (partially) make up for their upcoming $42 billion dollar deficit completely tanked, maybe politicians will finally get the point that Americans do not want to pay any more in taxes.

The New York Times writes: "The one measure to pass, which would prevent legislators and statewide constitutional officers, including the governor, from receiving pay rises in years when the state is running a deficit, was approved by more than 75 percent of those who cast ballots, demonstrating the overwhelming disgust many Californians say in polls that they feel toward elected officials in a time of deep budget paralysis."

Meanwhile, in New York, billionaire Tom Golisano, the founder of Paychex, penned a letter published in the New York Post about his decision to get the heck out of dodge and relocate to another state that doesn't have a tax burden of $5,260 for every man, woman, and child (that's on top of the federal tax burden for each resident). Read the whole thing here.

"This problem didn't begin with the current recession. New York faced a $6 billion shortfall before the economic downturn. However, in the face of economic turmoil, Gov. Paterson, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith looked to the unions and special interests, who answered with one voice: raise taxes.

"That was irresponsible -- and may just prove to be counterproductive, since the top 1 percent of earners account for about 50 percent of state revenue and are the ones who can and will leave.

"Among other hikes in taxes and fees, they raised the marginal tax rate on the most successful (and most mobile) New Yorkers to 8.97 percent, the second-highest rate in the nation.

"Bottom line? By domiciling in Florida, which has no personal-income tax, I will save $13,800 every day. That's a pretty strong incentive.

"Like I said, I love New York. But I'm not going to pay any more for the waste, corruption and inefficiency that is New York state government."

With the case of the 13-year-old boy stricken with Hodgkin's lymphoma who has been court-ordered to undergo more chemo therapy in the news, I wondered where people draw the line over which lives are worth saving and which ones are disposable or without value.

According to polls, just under half of all Americans believe that an unborn child's life is not worth protecting if the mother doesn't want to deal with the inconvenience of a pregnancy, and the Terri Schiavo case taught us that a life is not worth preserving if a husband decides it's time to pull the plug. There are also some who say that the "civil rights" of accused terrorists are of a higher value than thousands of innocent lives.

So, why are doctors being ordered to give chemo treatments to Daniel Hauser, who has stated that he will scream, bite, punch, and kick, anyone who tries to force a needle into him? The Hausers are Roman Catholics who subscribe to a "do no harm" philosophy and quit chemo for what is considered a highly treatable cancer after one treatment. Daniel's father, Anthony Hauser, said: "I know many people around here who have had cancer, they did the chemo, it would come back. They did the chemo again and again and they are all in the grave. Chemo isn't foolproof."

I'm not sure where I stand on this issue. Sure, there are plenty of incompetent parents who have no business withholding medical treatment for their sick kids. Then again, where do you draw the line? Shouldn't all (competent) parents be able to make medical decisions for their children? Shouldn't non-minor patients be able to make those decisions for themselves? Is it ever a good idea to allow the government a say in what your medical treatment should be? Who gets to decide what is the best treatment is anyway?

I just think it's so ironic that we have all of these laws allowing us to kill one another and our babies, but then we force people to undergo what we consider to be the only logical and life-saving treatments when they're sick.

Here's some of what's blooming this time of year in the yard:



First bloom of the year from my 'Mardi Gras' rose. This is such an easy rose to grow! I just fertilize it once or twice a year and periodically cut off a few buds to enjoy inside.


Peonies make me happy. Mine have been covered in blooms, so I've been enjoying them in the living room and on my desk at work.


I think all of the flower talk might be rubbing off on Matt. I was admiring some pretty hot pink and purple verbena at a restaurant this week and he spouted off, "Nice verbena." I almost choked!


Of course, not everything looks good. The weeks of steady rain have caused several plants to struggle with root rot, and this otherwise healthy yellow rose has some diseased blooms that had to be snipped off.


Ace has been enjoying protecting the swamp of a back yard from all of the invading rodents and has received numerous shampoos and muddy feet wipes. I think our carpet is turning a nice shade of Alabama red clay. The boys' kill list has reached a (known) count of five in the past couple of weeks.


The back fence supports a few climbing roses and they're just waking up from their winter nap. Here is a bloom from 'Blaze'.

I love spring!

I think that one of the most thoughtful things you can do for someone is to send them a note. Whether to say thank you, get well, or just "I was thinking of you", notes seem to cheer people up. I'm not saying that I'm the best at this; in fact, I'm pretty horrible at consistently letting people know I care, but every now and then I'm reminded about how much such a simple gesture can mean to someone.

When Matt and I first moved back to the area, we weren't really sure if we were going to join the church where I essentially grew up. After a few short months of being completely independent and on our own, we didn't know if we'd be seen as adults or treated as just my parents' daughter and her boyfriend. One of our dearest and closest family friends unexpectedly dropped a note in the mail for Matt, saying how happy she was that he was part of the family, how much they loved him (and me), that they saw great spiritual and leadership potential in him and were thrilled we had moved back from Texas. That single note made such a difference to Matt and me; I still get teary-eyed thinking about it.

A few years ago, my kindergarten teacher's mother was very sick. Her parents had watched me grow up and attended my wedding. Although I never felt extremely close to them, I wanted to tell her that we loved her and hoped she got better soon. She died the week I mailed her the card, and I'll never know if she got to read it or not. At her funeral, her husband said something to me with a tear in his eye about how much Mrs. Jane loved to send people get well cards so that they'd know people were thinking about and praying for them. If nothing else, I know that he got the note and appreciated it.

We know another guy who is the purest example of a servant that I've ever known. We've watched him worked tirelessly for others for years, serving in church, school, and the community. I don't know if he knows how much he's appreciated. Everyone needs to hear that they are loved and that others are thinking about them or praying for them when they're sick, that they're noticed and that they matter.

You never know when someone really needs to hear that they're appreciated. You never know if someone needs cheering up or to hear just a few words of encouragement, and you also never know when it will be too late to tell them. There are a lot of people that I think about and worry over, but I don't have the courage to tell them in person. A simple note seems to be easier for me, and the recipient can read it in the privacy of his or her own home, without me blabbering and becoming uncomfortable in front of them.

We've been blessed with such wonderful friends and family, and I don't tell them enough how much I love and appreciate each one of them. It means a lot to me to get a quick email from a friend saying hi and that they were thinking about me; hopefully I can work at being better about doing the same myself.

Why everyone should have the right to bear arms and the right to protect themselves.

One of my favorite hymns is Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. I looked it up because I forgot one stanza of (what I thought was) the last verse.

Robert Robinson, a Methodist pastor, was only 22 years old when he wrote this hymn in 1757.

There are a couple of extra verses that I'm not familiar with. I think we usually sing three verses, with the second verse consisting of the second half of the 2nd verse through the first half of the third verse listed below (From "Here I raise my Ebenezer"... to "Interposed His precious blood" is the middle verse of the version we usually sing) . I especially love the last verse:

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

(Charlie, if you're reading this, I'd like to make a formal request to include the last verse the next time we sing this)

My ’87 325is is currently awaiting a full roll cage. I had already decided that it will be done before the next track weekend, but my dad has now made the point a little more clear.

A few weekends ago he was at a race weekend at Thunderhill park in northern California. This is a track he’s raced at a lot and the same track that I drove in Oct. ’07. His first track time on Saturday was a warm up session. Apparently everything was going well – he felt good, the car was running well, great weather – until a Porsche attempted a pass just before his track out point on a turn.

This is a section of the track that isn’t super fast, but still around the top of 3rd gear. This puts it at about 70-80mph. They made light contact, but it was enough to turn the car 90° left. At this point he was sliding sideways off into the grass. Looking out the passenger side window he saw a drainage berm coming and realized that it would trip the car, but was just along for the ride and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. The car apparently barrel rolled several times up a hill and came to rest on the wheels.



He only remembers the first impact, which was upside down, and then sitting in the car after all the banging had stopped. The safety crew did a great job and got him out of the car and ran all the mandatory checks. After an ambulance ride to the hospital for a bunch of X-rays to confirm that nothing was seriously damaged, he headed back to the track to get all of his junk.

The racing community is a great group and a lot of people stepped up to offer their well wishes and help with whatever he needed. They managed to get everything loaded back into the 4Runner and the bashed car onto the trailer (with a forklift) for him.






This car is definitely done, so now begins the process of reevaluating just what he wants to do and probably getting another car. My guess is that once the soreness wears off and the reality of weekends without racing sets in, he’ll be right back at it.

The part that I like is knowing that, with the right safety gear, if things do go wrong, these things can take some major impacts/rolls/tumbles and the driver can essentially walk away. This safety gear isn’t cheap, but I’ve decided that it’s worth way more than it costs.

There will be a nice new roll cage going into the ’87 sometime in the next few months, but I hope to never have to test it this way.

I know a certain journalism major who is pretty good at helping me proof my blog posts. She is on top of things when it comes to proofing, having been a copy editor in a past life, and pointed out that one of my quiz answers - 'Duck Tape' - was incorrect.

"It's DUCT tape, not duck tape... hahahah," she told me. I replied, "Yeah, I know it's 'd-u-c-t', but there's a brand that is specifically called 'd-u-c-k' tape." (I purposefully thought about the brand name when I put up the quiz answer.)

This got me thinking... I use brand names all of the time (sometimes to my mother's horror when they're competing brands with 3M products), like Band-Aid, Kleenex, ChapStick, and Post-It, instead of their actual product names like bandage, tissue, lip balm, and sticky note, respectively. Have I been saying and writing the wrong thing all of this time when I use the word "Vaseline" instead of "petroleum jelly"? (Seriously - who wants to say "petroleum jelly"?)

I think I generally write coherently, but I still make grammar mistakes all of the time. I break grammar rules regularly - sometimes out of ignorance, other times out of laziness. I like that other people can remember the correct way to use the English language, especially since I'm no expert.

I remember having to memorize rules from the MLA Handbook in college. In fact, along with my Great Books literature, it was the only non-technical book that survived the post final exam resell. I used that thing fairly regularly even after finishing up my English comp. courses. (Someone had to know how to cite references in a research paper for my senior design class). Sadly, a lot of it has been forgotten and I regularly look up words on dictionary.com and Wikipedia - unless I'm too lazy or don't know any better, then it just gets posted incorrectly.

I hyphenate words regularly, without a clue as to whether it's correct or not. I misspell (actually - I just misspelled misspell... thanks spell check!) and use the wrong homonym, hoping that at least the words in the blog titles are correct. I also tend to write how I talk/think, and use way more parenthesis than anyone else I know. (Honestly, do I really need four or more side notes in parentheses per post?)

Maybe the brand name isn't technically the correct term, but I'm not too worried about it. Engineers aren't generally known for their skills with the English language, so maybe that's why it doesn't bother me too much when I've made a few grammatical errors. Plus, I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm not the only one who uses brand names this way.

For those who don't keep up with politics, Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Senator since 1991 and Republican since 1966, decided to switch parties this week. This switch will most likely give the Democrats a filibuster-proof majority (which essentially means they can pass any legislation they want without any Republican consent or cooperation).

Now, good ole Arlen was talked into switching parties by his longtime friend, Vice President Biden, especially given the fact that it would be extremely difficult for him to survive the Republican primary for reelection to the U.S. Senate in '10 because of his cross-over votes for the bailouts and runaway spending.

Arlen has served on the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary which is responsible for voting to confirm or not confirm federal judge appointments made by the President in addition to passing all Constitutional amendments made by the Senate. When the Republicans were in the majority, he was the committee chairman from 2005-2007.

The ironic thing with Specter's party switch is that the Democrats may not be able to pass a new Supreme Court appointment through the Judiciary Committee for the up or down vote by the entire Senate if the Republicans decide to block the appointee. In order for a judicial nominee to be voted on by the entire Senate, he or she must receive 10 votes from the Judiciary Committee, one of which has to be from the minority party (the Republicans). (For a better description of this process, see here).

Since Arlen Specter has switched parties, he can no longer be the minority party's vote to pass a potential Supreme Court appointee to full-Senate vote. If President Obama nominates a new Supreme Court Judge to replace Justice Souter (who is set to retire), and the Republicans adamantly oppose him (or, most likely, her), they can block the appointment in the Judiciary Committee.

Ahh, the irony! I bet Biden is kicking himself now.