Deborah Woehr

During this political season, let’s be reminded of these wise words

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

Abraham Lincoln

Looking at the NaNoWriMo site, it’s hard to believe they’ve been around for ten years. Check out their history, if you’d like. If you’ve never participated in this writing contest, I urge you to check it out. If you can leap over your inner critic and bang out 50 thousand words in 30 days, this will be a fun venture. There are no prizes, except peer recognition and a banner to slap up on your blog or website.

I’ve participated in three contests, never once making it to the goal. But I’m thinking about giving it another shot. Never mind that it’s taken me eight months to reach the 50K mark with my current WIP. I want to see if I can make it past last year’s 30K achievement. The year before, I reached 20K before I tanked.

Anyway, I experienced several lulls at work yesterday. Everybody was at their meetings or their cubicles, and I was sitting at the front desk all by myself, trying to think of how I could keep myself busy when there was nothing to do. Someone had reminded me of this year’s contest, either on a blog or on Twitter. I forget which and suppose it doesn’t matter.

I sat at that desk, coaxing my mind to come up with some brilliant and unique plot idea. The hamster refused to get that wheel turning. I had nothing. Finally, I decided to wait until I got home to open a partial outline that I’d started before last year’s contest. I never did finish that outline, preferring another idea that popped up at the last minute. That means I have 35 days to finish it or come up with a new idea for the 2008 NaNoWriMo contest.

How about you? Are you going to participate? If you didn’t make it to the 50K goal, do you have a plan that will bring you closer to the finish line this year?

Last month, I paid $52 to fill up my 16 year-old Mustang, which used to cost $15 when I first bought the car. That’s nothing, compared to what my husband had to pay to fill his vehicles, one of which is a truck. Over the last week or so, I got a glimmer of hope when I happened to see the price billboard at my local gas station.

The price fell from $4.56 to $3.97 in less than a month. Is this for real? Then it dropped to $3.83 last Thursday. I should have filled up my tank right then because I knew that Hurricane Ike was coming and that it would likely slam those oil refineries. It didn’t, and I wound up taking care of that this morning, surprised that the price went up by a mere .05¢.

Remembering how the victims of Katrina got gouged as high as $5/gallon three years ago, I had fully expected the price to rise as high as $6.00 in my neighborhood. After all, we Californians are deemed as rich and can afford it, right? Wrong. I’m counting my blessings.

My husband and I got into a discussion about the price of gas and how it has effected the economy. He watches the trends all the time. Me, I’m seeing more and more hybrid cars on the road, such as the Prius. Our discussion revolved around how people are sick of being gouged.

He made the analogy of someone walking into a local McDonald’s only to discover that the cost of a BigMac is $20. That person may say, “Well, I’m already here so I might as well pay for it.” That customer may pay that exorbitant price once, if he is forced to do so. But you can guarantee that he won’t be back.

He’s right. No other industry would have gotten away with the type of greed that the oil industry has enjoyed without running themselves into bankruptcy. The old saying, “You reap what you sow.” is beginning to hit the oil industry (see the NYT article below). If you’ve been watching or reading the news, then you know that people are driving less (or irritatingly slow in order to conserve), have opted to stay home for their annual vacations, etc. This isn’t a big surprise, but it was a long time in coming.

With all the talk about the Greenhouse Effect, I wouldn’t be surprised to see hybrid cars dominate America’s highways over the next ten to twenty years. Out of desperation, comes innovation.

Source: New York Times: Crude Oil Declines, Trading Below $100

Two years ago, I wrote a post, remembering Lynne Irene Morris. She was one of the many victims that died inside the Twin Towers. Today marks the 7th anniversary of this awful event.

For this anniversary, I am paying a tribute to Mark K. Bingham, a passenger on board Flight 93. Mark was flying home to visit his family in the Bay Area. As you know, the plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board. It is widely believed that Mark was one of the passengers who attempted to overtake the hijackers before they could fly the plane into another building. The video accompanying this post is a slide-show of Mark’s adult life.

One of my friends sent this to me, and I couldn’t resist sharing.

This picture is real - not doctored in any way - and was taken by a Transportation Supervisor for a company that delivers building materials for 84 Lumber. When he saw it in the parking lot of IHOP, he went to buy a camera to take pictures.

The car is still running, as can be witnessed by the exhaust.

The driver finally came back after the police were called, and was found crouched behind the rear of the car, attempting to cut the twine around the load! Luckily, the police stopped him and had the load removed.

The materials were loaded at Home Depot. Their store manager said they made the customer sign a waiver.

While the plywood and 2X4’s are fairly obvious, what you can’t see is the back seat, which contains (are you ready for this?) 10 bags of concrete @ 80 lbs. each.

They estimated the load weight at 3000 lbs. Both back tires exploded, the wheels bent and the rear shocks were driven through the floorboard.

And these people VOTE!