Being a Screw-Up is Easy-To Error is Human

Hot bikes, Hot biker chicks!!!!  Who needs sunshine!!!!  Check out the new Baker Bike Rally photos in my photo album.  It was a rainy weekend but the Hells Canyon Motorcycle rally was a blast.  I also made Pinnacle which is the honor society for non-traditional students at EOU.  The pinning was today but it was way too early in the morning.  They will send my pin and certificate by mail.  I did go to my BMCC graduation tea though.  It seemed weird because I actually got my diplomoa in March 2008 but that makes me a 2008-2009 graduate so off to tea I went.  It was fun and I got to see Mrs E. and Mr. Randy so....last graduation celebration until I walk for EOU next year.  Busy, busy but overall another great day in Eastern Oregon with a wonderful husband.  Can't ask for anything more. It can be hard living with a university student sooo..... He deserved to get his picture taken with hot biker chicks in bikinis and leather chaps!!!! Eat your heart out AL!!!!! LOL. 

 

 

 

 

Tami

Do you remember Lee Iacocca???
This is a wonderful piece of writing and thinking.
Remember Lee Iacocca, the man who rescued
Chrysler Corporation from it's death throes?  He has a new book, and here are some excerpts. Lee Iacocca Says:
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'Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage?  We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car.   But, instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course". Stay the course?  You've got to be kidding.  This is America , not the damned 'Titanic'.  I'll give you a sound bite: 'Throw all the bums out!' You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up.  

I'll go a step further.  You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged.  This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.The Biggest 'C' is Crisis! Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself.  It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history.  We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes.  A Hell of a Mess.
So here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia , while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy.  Our
schools are in trouble.  Our borders are like sieves.  The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership. But when you look around, you've got to ask:'Where have all the leaders
gone?'  Where are the curious, creative  communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense?

I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point. Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo?  We've spent
billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened. Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again.  Now, that's just crazy.  Storms happen.  Deal with it.  Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time.

Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing.  Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when 'The Big Three' referred to Japanese
car companies?  How did this happen, and more important, what are we going to do about it?
Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debit , or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening.  But these are the crises that are eating away
at our country and milking the middle class dry.
I have news for the gang in Congress.  We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of?  Why don't you guys show some spine for a
change?

Had Enough?
Hey , I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here.  I'm trying to light a fire.  I'm speaking out because I have hope I believe in America. In my lifetime I've had the privilege of living through some of America's greatest moments.  I've also experienced some of our worst crises: the 'Great Depression', 'World War II', the 'Korean War', the 'Kennedy Assassination', the 'Vietnam War', the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11. If I've learned one thing, it's this: 'You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's the challenge I'm raising in this book.  It's a call to 'Action' for people who, like me, believe in America   It's not too late, but it's getting
pretty close.  So let's shake off the crap and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had 'enough. Make a real contribution by sending this to everyone you know and care about......our future is at stake!

Just thankful for another beautiful day in Oregon. PET scan came back clean, so it is official I am cancer free. Now, it is not just a 50/50 chance of beating it, I have a 60 percent chance of a permanent cure.

Sorry, I have not been on. The day I went to get my PET scan taken the lady who drives me and I got road raged by some jerk and I had to go to ER. Can't hardly type but I am SO HAPPY I just had to tell somebody. I might have some health limitations both from before the cancer with the MS, Osteoarthritis, and Degenerative disk and some treatment side effects but I am going to be back to the way I was before they gave me that nasty terminal word.

And now I know just how strong I am!!!! Watch out world, cause here I come! Change is afoot, can't you smell it in the air. Let's fly! I'll find a way to keep up, even with my cane!!!!

 

Together We Can!  

Tami

My Aunt just sent me the cutest song lyrics to a song called "Down on the Farm" by a couple called Lewis and Lewis and I just laughed (it's on You Tube). That made me feel a little guilty. It also kind of made me miss the South a little. Those of you who have never lived there will just have to take my word for it. There is nothing quite like walking down the streets of a tiny Arkansas town with all of your biases in place laughing at the (fill in the ethnic or person who is different) along with everybody else knowing that you fit right in. It made me ponder what I have been learning about diversification and if it was worth blogging about.

 

I have spent the last few years going and getting myself diversified and I think I have just started to learn a few things. I know I ain't supposed to run around saying the words n*****r and q***r.  I don't suppose I wouldv'e anyway, it just ain't polite and I have always know your color or sexual preference was not the be all and end all of who you are. And to be honest, it ain't much fun when they punch you in the nose for it. I never really cared what color they were or who they slept with anyway.  And, I really haven't found many that do. We did not care if they were black, white, red, or yellow and tattooed. We did not care if it was guy on guy, girl on girl or whatever else they could think up. What we were really laughing at was not what they were or who they had done but at thier differences from us which made them seem unusual in our eyes. And we were using the laughter to make ourselves feel better about who we were because at least we were not like them.  After all, they were different.

 

Now; I suppose one of the things I should say that I learned at this point was how we should embrace that difference, celebrate that difference, and then tell others how great it is to accept diversity. Sorry, not what I took away from it. I started to evaluated the diversity/acceptance movement and it made me wonder, did we really accept thier difference? Or is it something we turned to our own purpose again? After all, instead of laughing at them for it to make ourselves feel better about our insecurities we just use a more polite way of making ourselves feel better about ourselves.  Nobody is out saying accept them for what they are, ignore thier differences and treat them the same as you would any other person . Politely, if you are polite and like a jerk, if you are a jerk. That would seem to me to be equality. I suppose, it would be easier to understand if the political correctness applied to all. But, I haven't heard many say "Hey a*****le, quit acting like a jerk when it is just some white guy walking down the street with long hair and some idiot yells "Hey hippy, get a job."

 

Then, just when I was wondering if what I was picking up from my evaluation was right  a professed liberal friend wearing a celebrate diversity T-shirt asked me if I knew someone who could use a little side work then insisted when I suggested my hubby stated "You can't let your husband apply because he has long hair and these good ol boys don't accept that kind of thing and we must work within thier paradigm." Nothing about changing thier mind and absolutely zip about acceptance. Blew the whole diversification thing she had been preaching right out of the water.

 

So, what I ended up learning from it was that what they are really saying is "I am better than you because look, I can even accept the people who are not as good as I am because they are different." What is the difference between them and us hicks who were down south in the 80's laughing at the gay kid?  I believe what they are really saying is accept me for what I am because I am a good person for accepting them.  And what we were saying was accept me for what I am because we are both not like him. Both ways are usually; although, not always a means of making us feel better about who and what we are and a way to gain acceptance. Well I have a better idea!

 

Maybe, everybody should just be taught that if they accept themselves for who and what they are, fixing what they don't like about themselves including thier unacceptance of others differences and spend less time in everybody else's personal business then world would sort itself out.

Oh my, I forget sometimes how much work there is in making your own food. I am so exhausted.  And I still have the rest of the summer veggies to put in over the next few days. But, I feel soooo blessed!!!! I am out of my wheelchair. I have an Associates degree. I am on well on my way to the next one. And my wonderful husband who is also my favorite tech found me a new photo software program I can play with just as soon as I get the chance. I will be examining a watershed project in our area over the next few days to learn how that works and may become politically active on one of those commitees eventually so want to know how the work. My friend who is driving also used to play in the SCA so we have been working on projects for the mechant booth just in case we actually do make an event sometimes soon.  Of course, I have been working for about ten years on projects just in case. So, I guess I could open up shop even without the extra stock but the more different things that are handmade and period the better right? In other words busy, busy, busy.  Next doctor's appt on the 17th.