Sept. 24, 2009 The wind

Bible verse of the day:

John 3:8 (New International Version)
8The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

Celebrations:Boy have I fallen off the wagon. There is so much catching up to do. If I missed anyone, my bad. Please forgive me. If you celebrate a birthday on September 10th, you share a birthday with Charles Kuralt. For all you youngsters, he was a journalist and did one of the first travel segments on tv with a statement referring to "on the road again". It was interesting to see where his next destination was. If you have ever eaten a tv dinner, on this date in 1953 Swanson sold the first one. If you are into cartoons, the "Road Runner Show" premiered in 1966.

Now if your birthday is September 13th, you share the date with my sister-in-law, Patricia Cockrell and friend Sharon Ward Cooper. You would also share your birthday with Roald Dahl, the screenwriter of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. Judith Martin, Miss Manners was born on this date and if you are a Muppet fan, The Muppet show premiered on this date in 1976. Miss Piggy, Kermit and Fozzie Bear, I guess today is your birthday, too. September 14th is the day Nancy Corter celebrates her birthday. She shares her special date with Ivan Pablov. Now it would really be ironic if her husband, Jim, shared the birthday. Jim theories on everything like Pavlov did.

September 15th is the day that Gerald Drope and Steve Ralston have birthdays. They share a birthday with Agatha Christie. Julie Clark share her birthday on September 16th with Lauren Bacall and Peter Falk.

September 17th was a special day in the family. My mom and dad got married in Lawrence county on this date in 1938. Unbeknown st to all my Aunt Lois and Uncle Bill got married in St. Louis on the very same day.

Pharita Calkin has a birthday on September 18th adn shares her day with Greta Garbo and if you love the vacuum cleaner you can thank Melvelle Bissell for the patent of the carpet sweeper on this day in 1876. I may have one of these next birthdays wrong. Seems like they were on the same day but Jill Hansen celebrated a birthday on September 19th while Kristi Pierce Craig celebrated her birthday on September 20th. I think the 20th is also Jay and Karen Gamblin's anniversary. September 20th is also Dr. Joyce Brothers and Sophia Loren birthday.

September 21st in the day that Stephen King , Leonard Cohen and H.G. Wells call their birthday. This is also the day my first born son entered the world. I am sure all mothers would agree that when the first born child enters the scene it is an eye-popping experience. Doug and I had our world turned upside down that day. Since Douglas is a new daddy this year, I hope he knows exactly what I mean. It is so different being in charge on your own life and letting your spouse take care of their life but when you bring that child into the world, you are responsible for the life of another individual. What a change! Doug and I traveled to Iowa last week to spend a few days with Douglas, Caroline and Tristan. I hope he thought is was better than a birthday card.

If you were born on September 22, you are born on the day of the cusp(?) between summer and fall.

Now that I have caught up with all the who's who around here I think I can move on to my random thoughts.

Random thoughts: You would think I would have lots of random thoughts since I have been MIA for so long, but the ole brain is kinda empty. I mentioned that Doug and I took a trip last week. We hopped in the car and set off for Davenport, Iowa. When we got around Springfield, Il we noticed the wind farm was coming up. This prompted speculation on our part about a lot of things.

1) we noticed how tall the windmills were. (We observed even closer when we saw flatbed trailers hauling single blades closer to Davenport. One blade hung off the trailer.) There was a tower close to the windmills and it appeared as though the windmills were taller than the tower.

2) There were no beacon lights on the windmills. Are they on flight plans for planes?
Are there any airports close by and why don't they have to be lit when the tower that looks shorter does have a beacon?

3) Are these monsters individually owned or are they a cooperate thing? Is this an energy company or someone just selling energy to the utility company?

4) We wondered what kind of expense there would be to putting up a windmill? What kind of return you receive on the investment? How long would it take you to receive a profit.

5) We figured that there was a switch to turn these things on and off because some were turning and others were not. Will the electric company only accept a certain amount of energy from one supplier or if these were just down for routine maintenance?

6)Is there anyone as fascinated by these things as the two hicks from Arkansas?

I hope to research this further since we are getting a plant in Jonesboro to make these things. I had assumed the ones made here were going to be on a much smaller scale but they may be as big as those. It will be interesting to see if these things crop up around here.

We were discussing this wind farm thing with a pilot friend last night. He was telling us about all the places in Texas that had these wind farms on the open plains. His friend made comment that all the "greenies" have a problem with the windmills because they destroy the landscape. Well, to my way of thinking, if you are a greenie, you should appreciate the fact that the energy is clean, does not pollute the air and is not using up all our fossil energy. Someone would have to have an extremely hard case to sway my way of thinking. If you are anti wind energy, you can try.

BTW, I hope my photography friends don't fuss about how bad my pictures are. Going down the interstate at 70 miles an hour this is the best I could do.

Until later,

Hope the wind whispers your way,

Vera