The further away I’ve gotten from my active duty days, the more important Veteran’s Day has become. As of today I’ve been retired off active duty for 15 years and Veteran’s Day has become the day I consider “my” holiday, as well as “the” holiday for my fellow veterans and those still serving.
My mom sent me this important and useful piece of information on disaster preparedness. Considering the number of disasters I’ve lived through these past years, I wanted to share it here.
Another season passed, another season beginning. It has been a very busy summer here in the Virginia edition of the Charest family. We started with refinancing our house the evening before leaving on a three week trip to China. Upon our return home; the rest of the summer was a blur of recovering from our vacation trip, work, boating, really hot weather, earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding rainstorms, and several groups of family visitors.
It was just last year that we as a nation had a vicious and bitter “debate,” more properly called a descent into insanity, over whether we should have some semblance of pretending to create a national health care policy. I did my part in debating the position of sanity and compassion in the reader’s comments section of our local rag, now called “Inside NOVA.com.” What I remember most from this experience was just how vicious and selfishly mean the Republican side of the argument was.
Winter seems to finally be at an end. Daily temperatures are slowly climbing back up, trees are beginning to show blossoms. We’re having rain instead of snow. All-in-all, things are looking up.
For the first post of 2011, I thought it would be appropriate to post a YouTube clip of my all-time favorite movies about finding your dreams.
Another year passed, a new year ahead. Another time to sing Auld Lang Syne and celebrate the western world’s marking the start of a new year. All things considering, this is as good a day as any to take a few moments to reflect on the year passed, and what may lie ahead.
On Loosing A Hammer and Standing Up to People
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a hammer that I lost over 35 years ago. Rather, I’ve been thinking about losing that hammer and how I lost it. It involves my maternal grandfather, a school play, and a high school teacher whom I still consider to be one of the most inept teachers I suffered through during my entire public school career.
Back when I was in the Navy, our standard phase was “a happy sailor is a bitching sailor.” In fact, most sailors did spend a lot of time complaining about stuff. Including me, which may come as a shock to many people who know me now.
So when I stumbled across this on the ever-wonderful YouTube, I knew I had to post it.
My Letter to the City of Oakland
I’ve watched the “Occupy Wall Street” movement from the start, and can’t help but being impressed with the way the protesters have handled themselves. For the most part, they have conducted themselves with exemplary behavior. However, the same cannot be said for the local governments and police departments. Aside from New York, the worse is the City of Oakland, California.
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