Fish Hawk Road

Monday, October 13, 2008

My Voting Experience

So this morning I woke up to the first day of early voting here in Illinois. Then I went and looked in the mirror. Oh. My. God. I have an infection in my left eye and it's all swollen, red and hurts to blink. Crap. I should go to the Doc. But I really want to vote. Sooooo, I take a shower, get dressed and don my sunglasses to hide my oh so attractive eye! Over to Arlington Heights I go at about 11:30 A.M. Not too bad a line. Mostly elderly people. The woman behind me is Republican ( she's carrying a republican fact sheet ) and she begins chatting to me. She was a pleasant person but I'm sure she was voting McCain/Palin.

So I wait. Chat and wait some more. My eye is hurting me. The woman in front of me is a nurse like me so we chat about nursing stuff. She's from India originally and is voting because she's leaving to fly to India to visit family. She says this is a very important vote and she wasn't going to miss it. She tells me she's voting Obama. I smiled.

OK, it's my turn to get my voting card. Off I go to the touch screen and I think it took me less than 7 minutes to finish. I read up on who's on the ballot so there's no messing around. Geezez, I really want to rub my eye. I vote: Obama/Biden, Dick Durbin for Senator and Dan Seals for Congress ( I really hope we say good-bye to Mark Kirk this time ). Yaaaaay, I'm done.

As I leave some overweight man in shorts ( Republican because he, too, is carrying a Republican voting guide ) says to me "I hope you voted the right way." I looked at him and said "Yes, I believe I did, the Democratic way." He looked floored and grumbled. I smiled and left. I swear it must be my white hair that makes people think I'm old and must be voting Republican. Hahahahaha I'm not that old! And I'm not dying my hair!

All in all, a good experience and I felt great after voting. I hope to see an Obama Presidency in November. Now, I'm going to go put a cold compress on my eye and call the Doc.

Paul Krugman Wins Nobel Prize in Economics

I just love this man. It was announced this morning that Paul Krugman, a Princeton professor and New York Times columnist, won the Nobel Prize in Economics...alone! He won "for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity" according to the Nobel Prize website. He really is the smartest man around when it comes to economics and the mess we're in now. The announcement was in Yahoo biz news. You can also view the announcement at Nobel Prize dot Org

Krugman has been a harsh critic of the Bush administration and the Republican Party in The New York Times, where he writes a regular column and has a blog called "Conscience of a Liberal."

He has come out forcefully against John McCain during the economic meltdown, saying the Republican candidate is "more frightening now than he was a few weeks ago" and earlier that the GOP has become "the party of stupid."

The 55-year-old American economist was the lone of winner of the 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) award and the latest in a string of American researchers to be honored. It was only the second time since 2000 that a single laureate won the prize, which is typically shared by two or three researchers.

This bodes well for America. Mr. Krugman is also the author of many textbooks on macro/micro economics and one of his best books is The Conscience of a Liberal. You can find that book at your local book store or Amazon.com. It's a great book. Mr. Krugman also has a blog of the same name in the New York Times.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Creating

I love earrings and things but can never find what I really like or something that 10,000 other women don't have. I always want something simple, original, don't want to pay a zillion bucks and the department stores leave me disappointed. That led me to begin making my own many years ago. Now I make what I like and sell them. I love natural stones and Swarovski crystal so I try to find interesting colors. I use the most natural materials I can find. I love stones such as the different jaspers, agates, wood and others. For me, Swarovski crystal is simply the best. When I lived in Germany I had the opportunity to drive to Austria and visit their factory. That was impressive!

I have tons of earrings and necklaces and am always ready to show people what beads I have so they can choose something they like. They tell me what they want; color, material, necklace, earring and then I put together a design. I've found that when you let a customer design their own they are never happy with the result! When I make the wire earrings ( not the threaders ) I sell them with stoppers because there's nothing worse than losing an earring. I also make earrings that have post backs. I keep my prices reasonable and sell through email contact because I work out of my home or at my girlfriend's shop on occasion. It's fun and keeps me busy.

Here are some of the simple things I make.

Made with fresh water pearls, Swarovski crystal and bali silver. Focal bead is hand blown glass

Made with leopard jasper, Swarovski crystal and sterling silver beads and clasp

Made with fresh water pearls and gold vermeil and 14 kt. gold-filled threader ear wires.

Made with hand made glass focal bead and Swarovski crystal and sterling silver ear wires

Made with Murano glass focal bead ( Murano glass is incredible and is fused with gold in the glass blowing process ), vintage crackle glass secondary bead and gold vermeil, bead and ear wires.

Wasilla Project Second Video: Religion in Politics

Here's their second video.This video discusses Palin's social conservative stance and her use of religious affiliation to advance her political career. I take issue with using religion in the political arena. I remember reading how Sarah announced herself as the Christian running for mayor in Wasilla as though her opponent, John Stein, was something other...think Jew because of his last name. He's not, he's a Christian. But things got so ugly that he and his wife were forced to produce their marriage certificate all because his wife had kept her maiden name. Even with that done there were people that said it could've been forged! Sheesh, reminds me of all the nonsense over Barack Obama's birth certificate. The film discusses the issue of abortion that came up in Wasilla due to Sarah's injection of religion in local politics. This is another in their series of well made informational films.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Dropping the Puck

What was the McCain campaign thinking in having Palin drop the puck at the opening game of the Flyers at the Wachovia Center? While the owner of the Flyers is huge GOP fan not all the audience were as noticed by the chorus of boos when Sarah Palin stepped on to the ice. Now hockey fans at NHL games are notoriously rowdy so why did she bring her 2 daughters Piper and Willow? She had to know she would get booed, right? Well, in fact, she did expect that and used her daughter Piper as a political shield. Courtesy of Fox News:

The GOP Vice-Presidential nominee said at an earlier fundraiser that she would stop some of the booing from the rowdy Philadelphia fans by putting her seven year old daughter, Piper in a Flyers jersey. She said, “How dare they boo Piper!"

Wow, that's just despicable. I'm stunned a parent would use a child in this fashion. She needs to stop trotting out the kids and then having the McCain campaign complain when anyone brings them up. Funny how Sarah doesn't seem to think they're off limits when she thinks they'll provide her some political capital.

Here's video of the event. You can hear the booing but you can also hear how they turned the music up to try and drown it out. People that attended the event said it was deafening...but you'd never be able to tell that from the AP reports in most papers. AP is such a tool.