Its been a heck of a winter here. It started out nice enough, then came Groundhogs Day, with 'Phil' declaring an early spring. What followed next? - Artic Air, Snow, Ice, Rain, and more snow - and on its way tonight, more snow. Lets not forget the many, many miles and hours of Pennsylvania drivers stranded along the turnpike that went along with Phil's Omen
Up here in the Pocono's I find chains are the best way to go, theres nothing like the secure grip of a chain against the road.
Anyway, Joe Jr. has returned from Iraq, he seems unscathed. He was promoted to Sergeant. I'm very happy. Apparently he was closer to the "action" at times, than I had thought. In his opinion, and I can agree, we can't have war and peace at the same time, and war is such a tragedy. He quotes the same sentiments of many soldiers, "If we want to know what its all about, go to Iraq and see for yourself." I always add,"instead of changing the T.V. channel." Joe strongly opposes the public perception of the war - via the news media, and stresses the long term impact of our military purposes. I guess we'll all have to wait and see what time has to tell for the future of peace.
Sid and I, I'm sure you're aware "grinded" out over a hundred pounds of italian sausage in late Dec. I think we had a good time doing it and the sausages came out much better than last year. It was a healthy amount of work that kept us at it until about 3 AM and again the same morning 9 AM til about 4 PM. We just split them up yesterday at my parents house in the Philly suburbs. My Pop packaged em up for us with his shrink wrap machine, after Sid and I were doing it wrong. I think my parents are impressed with our new sausage making skills. I hope Sid will get some out there for you soon.
Other than that all is well with my son and daughter. Matt is doing wonders at work with me and is a very good worker. Kristy my daughter, works at a giant gasoline mart (WaWa food stores), in Camden just under the Walt Whitman Bridge. She works at least 40 hours a week and is attending Community College, she hasn't missed a class yet. I hope she's still shooting for Penn.
As always hope to see you soon, Best to All and please take care.
Wow, what a night! The Beavers beat the Huskies (Jessica broke the news to me from Vegas - she's there with a family of die hard Huskies, so she delighted in telling me the Beavs won!).
Kay, and Bill and I drove to St. Martins University in Lacy (near Olympia) to watch the Redhawks win their game. We lost to the Saints earlier in the season, so it was fun to get a win on their home court. It got kinda tense because the Saints made over 25 points in free throws, and we couldn't hit a free throw if our lives depended on it! Noah did not play, but I know for a fact that he really works hard at practice to make the guys who do play, better than they would otherwise be.
The other good news for the Redhawks is that two of the teams with slightly better conference records both lost last night!!!! GNAC (our conference) is incredibly challenging this season. Anybody might beat you on a given night. If we make it to the play offs, that kind of competition might help us against all those talented California and East Coast teams.
If you remember could you ask Judi to get the type and order of the cherry trees that we planted? I am afraid that we will loose the names if we wait too much longer.
Bopcha has a new web connection!! Way to go Thompson! Bopcha your user name for this blog is "Bopcha" with a Capital "B" and the same password. Good luck
I have started writing in here so many times, but life is so hectic that I never seem to get much time for writing fun things. Diana, I am so happy for you that you are done with the surgery and the worst is over. I am sure it just gets better from here. KC, I had intended to let you know how thrilling it was to hear about Tory's promotion. Tory if you are reading this, congrats and I am sure it was well deserved. It sounds like Murray should also be commended. What a smart and talented group.
You can imagine what it is like to be on this side of the publicity over Barbaro. There really were many sad people on Monday. I had a meeting with the head of the Large Animal Hospital the day they decided to euthanize Barbaro. In fact at 10:30 am she called me to cancel the meeting because she had to get back to the Hospital to deal with the media. It has really been a whirlwind for those who work out there.
There is so much that goes into taking care of a horse like Barbaro. Mostly we have all just seen Dean Richardson, (his surgeon) in the media. But really, we have lots of nurses, technicians, etc... who took care of him around the clock. It has been really intense here at New Bolton Center for eight months. The media surrounded the place all the time. Can you imagine what it was like for the employees out there with the reporters everywhere. Actually it has been exhilarting but also very stressful.
Well Barbaro was a fiesty and very smart little horse. He really firgured things out and did very smart things to protect his leg. His determination and smarts are part of what made him survive for so long. He had the energy of a typical 4 year colt, a challenge to handle. He was in an isolation unit all this time (since May)
There is a lot of criticism about keeping the horse alive for so long. You can imagine. Assumptions are made that the owners (the Jacksons) were only in it for the money and they kept him alive so long so they could breed him and make lots of money, including collecting their 1million insurance. I guess we will never know for sure, you never do know what the true motives are. However, I do know that the owners visited Barbaro every day - twice a day and brought him grass. They seemed to really cherish him. I frankly think they just loved Barbaro and wanted to see him recover. Perhaps it has been at Barbaro's expense, but this journey has also provided a lot of learning in Vet Medicine in general.
What has been really amazing - bordering on ridiculous is the amount of attention and fuss over this horse. Each time I went out there for meetings, there were flowers sent, letters sent, food for Barbaro and for the staff. The gifts continued to pour in to New Bolton Center up to his last hours. It is really great but also strange at the same time. In any event this really was an usual situation and one that got an overwhelming amount of publicity.
I included a website of some photos that have been taken over time. This is the Vet School's website.
Hope you can access it. Enjoy. Also if you go to This Link http://www.vet.upenn.edu you will see lots of newspaper stories - you can just click on the various links on the right hand side.
I hope all of you are well and enjoying winter. Bye for now.
