There are some sweet toothed and surprisingly religious thieves out there

Apparently, there are things that thieves steal more commonly than others and interestingly it's not always  cars or wallets. I found this article on AOL.com about odd things that thieves steal. Here are some things that made the odd list:

•  The Bible: Really? The Bible? Why steal that? There are people/churches that give it away for free. Can you imagine if a crook was jailed for that? I can just see the conversation it would lead to  in a jail cell if someone was actually incarcerated for stealing the Good Book: 
• Crook 1: what are you in for?
• Crook 2: Stealing the Bible
• Crook 1: (laughing) Oh My God!

•  Pregnancy tests: This is a tad more understandable as pregnancy tests can be pricy but then again there are clinics that offer them free and confidential.
• Nutella: According to the article I read, in Niederaula, Germany 5,000 jars of Nutella were stolen from a  semi truck that was parked at a former train station over a weekend in April of this year. Someone really loved Nutella.
• Hair extensions: Last Monday 2 thieves in Chicago stole $32,000 worth of extensions from a beauty supply store. This might be a strategic robbery as the crooks could then use the extensions to hide their identities from police-very spy movieish!
• High end vacuum cleaners: There's nothing like a safe house that's clean!
• Red Bull/general energy drinks: There must be some very hyper thieves out there.
• Tide clothing detergent: I guess if you're already laundering money you might as well clean your clothes too!

To read the article I got all this from click here.

Oh the horror!

The idea that we don't have anything to fear except fear itself, should be comforting except when one  considers how they define "fear itself." What's interested me is that despite the negative aspects of being afraid, people still actually want to be afraid...for fun- which leads me to horror movies. In my case there are limits to how much I want to be scared by the silver screen.( I have to admit  I don't like slasher movies. It just doesn't seem like there's much point to watching people get hacked to death just for the heck of it. I think that dislike started when I watched the movie called Valentine about a guy who asks 4 women to dance with him at his school dance. Three of the women say they wouldn't dance with him and give some gruesome reason why they wouldn't e.g. I'd get my throat cut first-or something like that. When the guy grows up he kills off all of the women in they manner in which they said they wouldn't dance with him. The only woman he doesn't kill is the one that said she might dance with him but then didn't get the chance to do so because the dance ended. It was a very bloody movie and afterwards I never looked at school dances the same way again.) I guess then that movies I really like are thrillers, a liking I think I obtained from my parents who are big Hitchcock fans. Anyway, here are some of the horror/thriller movies I actually like:

• The Birds: (Birds start attacking people in a small town) I remember vividly, one appropriately dark night in the middle of a torrential rainstorm watching Hitchcock's The Birds with my dad. I couldn't look at a bird for a couple days afterwards without fearing it was out to get me! 
• Wait Until Dark (Audrey Hepburn plays a blind woman who gets terrorized by 3 men who believe there's a doll with heroin stuffed in it hidden in her apartment. Fun fact: when talking about Oscar nominations he did/didn't receive Alan Arkin who plays the lead baddie in the movie said of his role in Wait Until Dark that: You don't get nominated for an Oscar for being mean to Audrey Hepburn.") I happened to watch this movie on Halloween with a large group of friends and there's a certain part in the movie where Audrey thinks she's finally killed Alan Arkin's character until he suddenly grabs her ankle. Just at the moment he did this we all screamed as if on cue. Then we all burst out laughing at ourselves.
•  The Skeleton Key (Kate Hudson plays a hospice nurse for a man living in Louisiana. After acquiring a skeleton key to the man's attic, she finds a secret room within the attic where she discovers instruments for practicing voodoo. Violet-the man's wife says she has never been in the secret room, but that the items probably belonged to the original owners' two houseworkers, who practiced black magic and were lynched as a result. It turns out that Violet and another man named Luke Marshall were the two lynched house workers who somehow managed to inhabit the bodies of victims they lure into living in the house for a while and so they live forever.) I liked this movie because it kept me guessing to the end, even if I did feel it was a really messed up story when I finished watching it.

From watching these movies I learned that I'm glad I'm not a zookeeper so I don't have to deal with  birds all day long, I need to religiously watch where I step so people don't unexpectedly grab at my ankkes  and I should avoid entering spooky old houses as it leads to rather awful results. (Unless of course it's a haunted house on Halloween and I'm going there with a group of friends who would protect me!)

You're never too old to reach a dream!

 Today a 101-year-old woman in Iowa named Pearl Russ finally got her high school diploma! It was her dream to get it as she had to drop out of school after finishing 8th grade because her family didn't have the money for her to continue her education. I think at 101 years it's high time she got her wish. As she says: "It's never too late to do what you want to do, to find your goal and your drive in life."  Her story reminded me of another story I heard a while back about a man named Alfred  from Missouri who, at 70 years old decided to learn to read and write. (He was unable to go to school at all because he and his family had to work in the fields with his family to survive. Despite the adversity he faced he still kept a promise he made to his mother and successfully learned to read and write. What I think is great about these two individuals is not really their age but that out of all the dreams they could have, their goals related to education. They wanted it badly enough that even age couldn't stop them and I think it shows you never stop learning and that's why knowledge is awesome! 

To read more about Ms. Russ click here.
To learn more about Alfred click here

Sailing Sailing on the Charles River!

I was thinking of fun things people can do in the summer that are slightly out of the ordinary and for whatever reason I thought of sailing. One of the things I wanted to do in the past is to go sailing and I was finally able to go as part of a program started by Community Boating Inc one summer. Community Boating is a charity that helps people with disabilities go sailing as they have boats that are accessible to people in wheelchairs. I went sailing with a group called Act Today Influence Tomorrow (ATIT) in the summer of 2012.  ATIT is a group of young adults (age 16-24) from the Boston area who do projects to help other people with disabilities. We were all only asked to pay $1 each for the trip. Each sailboat had a Community Boating worker who would steer the boat around the Charles River and teach us how to sail. The weather was really good and the Charles River is beautiful in summer so everyone had fun.

 I liked it most because it was something everyone in my group could do. If you do go with a group, taking a picnic like we did makes things even more fun! It was a totally new experience and it was something I’m really glad I did. Sailing (like all fun things) should be for everyone and this sailing program makes everyone able! To learn more about Community Boating Inc and download the application for their Universal Access Program please go to this website: http://www.community-boating.org/.  If you live in a state other than Massachusetts and still want to learn to sail, here are some other states that have sailing programs:

·  Arizona: Arizona State Sailing Team’s Adaptive Sailing Program (http://asusailing.org/adaptive-sailing/).

·  Florida: Shake A Leg Miami: Adapted water sports for all. (http://www.shakealegmiami.org/site/c.kklujbmqkph/b.2521629/k.bf03/home.htm.) The Freedom Waters Foundation in Naples, Florida also has adaptive sailing (http://freedomwatersfoundation.org/our-programs/adaptive-sailing/).

·  Illinois: Judd Goldman Sailing Foundation (http://www.juddgoldmansailing.org/about_the_foundation.html)

·  Maryland: Chesapeake Region Access Boating in Annapolis. (http://crabsailing.org/about-us/). There is also the Downtown Sailing Center in Baltimore (http://www.downtownsailing.org/).

·  New York: YKnot Sailing (free sailing for people with disabilities): (http://www.yknotsailing.org/.)

For information about other fun kayaking/canoeing activities that are accessible please see this link: http://www.travelinwheels.com/travelstories/story_story.aspx?which=active&uid=86.

 

What would make God laugh?

A group of children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples.. The nun made a note, and posted on the apple tray: 'Take only ONE . God is watching.'
Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a large
pile of chocolate chip cookies. A child had written a note, 'Take all you want. God is watching the apples'

Read more: http://www.ajokeaday.com/LosUltimosChistes.asp?Pagina=5#ixzz2VP8l3eKL

I wonder what God would make of that little kid, I'd like to think the Man Upstairs has a pretty good sense of humor so maybe he'd laugh too!

An adventure!

My Great Adventure

Sometimes when things seem so dark

And I’m not always so sure where to go
I may not always go the right way
But somehow I know I’ll find the way back home 
Even if  getting there means I have to weather a storm

The way to go may not be the easiest or the happiest
It may not be the safest path to go
But if you’re going to have an adventure
I believe the safest way isn’t always the greatest way
It doesn’t necessarily help you grow

So I'll take that road less traveled 

As Mr. Frost suggests 

I'm up for an adventure

And I want it to be the best

Even if things get messy and my plans unravel 

There are so many places I want to see

So many things I want to be

So many people I hope to meet

Just to tell them that I care 

And that they mean a lot to me

I think the goal of my adventure

Is to help as many people as I can

And when I'm a wise ol' lady with dentures

I want to look back on my life and see 

That it was filled with all the love a heart could stand!

80 year olds rock...climb!

60 years ago on May 29th Sir Edmund Hillary from New Zealand and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay from Nepal made the first documented climb to the top of Mount Everest. What does being 80 have to do with that? Apparently, an 80 year old man from Japan named Yuichiro Miura (pictured above) made the same climb and finished on May 24, 2013. Mr. Miura said this would be his last climb of that mountain as he's already climbed it twice before. He is the oldest person to climb Everest. This proves that age doesn't have to limit people. Heck, if this man can climb mountains I think that if people want to do something enough, age shouldn't stop them!

On a slightly related note regarding Mt. Everest, when a friend of mine discovered that the world was supposed to end in 2012 she started to think up things she should do as a last hurrah- one of which was to climb Mt. Everest. I said I'd go with her as I'd feel bad about her going alone. She seemed to be quite serious about this goal except that she didn't precisely want to climb the mountain, she just wanted to get to the top. She intended to get to the top most likely by helicopter just so she (and I as her fan club) could stick a flag there to prove she'd been there and then get back on the helicopter and fly back down again quite comfortably. Since the world has miraculously kept on spinning despite what the Mayans predicted, my friend has yet to act on her goal of climbing Everest. Maybe when we're 80 we'll do it!

Yuichiro Miura

Yuichiro Miuramade the same climb over the week of May 19th 2013. Although

Sherpa Tenzing Norgay

Sir Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay - See more at: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/#sthash.ccyr6Ijt.dpuf

Sir Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay - See more at: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/#sthash.ccyr6Ijt.dpuf

Sir Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay - See more at: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/#sthash.ccyr6Ijt.dpuf

Sir Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay - See more at: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/#sthash.ccyr6Ijt.dpuf

Sir Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay - See more at: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/#sthash.ccyr6Ijt.dpuf