Catching a Glimpse of (and helping) a Balloon Land Near our Home

I realize that September 11th is a special day in the hearts of Americans, but this past weekend held a different event for me: I was able to experience (and help with?) the semi-planned landing of a hot air balloon about 50 yards behind our house.

Each year, the United Way of Southern Kentucky holds a weekend event (Balloon Classic) with music, food, booths, various kinds of entertainment, and well, more than a few hot air balloons.  As part of the Balloon Classic, there is a hot air balloon race in which teams try to score points in various piloting skills (but still at the whim of the wind), with the winners taking home prizes worth thousands of dollars.

Hot air balloon flying near our home 

So fast forward to this past Sunday morning.  We received a text message from one of our neighbors that balloons were flying just north of us.  Apparently, the race, which began about a mile east of the local airport, was ending near our neighborhood. Heidi and I stood outside with the kids and watched a few bright-colored globes pass just north and west of our house and we got a good glimpse of one that passed overhead.

We thought all had passed and that we were going to continue with our lazy day, but that wasn't the case. Because of the glorious weather, we had the windows open, and soon after sitting down to enjoy our coffee, Heidi and I heard hear the loud sound of a hot air balloon fiercely torching. I walked out the front door, looked around, and saw nothing.  I heard the balloon torch again, so I walked around to the back of the house where I saw a low flying balloon approaching our house and well....

Well, you're just going to have to watch the video below of the balloon coming down, bouncing a bit, and finally resting in the clearing behind our house.

My neighbor and I helped secure the balloon and move it to a safer area where it was deflated and put away.

If you want to support the United Way of Southern Kentucky, you can visit their website: http://www.uwsk.org/ 

Or visit their Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/theUWSK

You can get more information about the Balloon Classic on their Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/BalloonClassicBG/

Cutting ties with DirecTV (or cable or Dish?) -- Using VPN to view what I want!

So, I posted on Facebook that I had dropped DirecTV and that I was exploring streaming services. I left DirecTV because we were only watching a few channels and paying almost $70.00 for it.  Truthfully, the main reason I got DirecTV was to watch the Dallas Cowboys whose games were not always broadcast locally here in Bowling Green, KY.

I had considered using a VPN to subscribe to the international package of NFL Game Pass as a work-around, but then I found out that I could watch their games much more easily (and cheaply) with Sling.

Sling is a streaming service like HULU, Prime, or Netflix.  But unlike those services,  Sling offers live streaming of many "cable" channels, and in some markets, you can even get local channels. (You can visit their site to see their offerings.) And so, I'm going to subscribe to a VPN service and use a 7-day trial to see if I can get the Dallas market channels.  If I'm successful, then I will be able to watch all the Dallas Cowboys' games for much less than I would have paid for DirecTV plus NFL Sunday Ticket or for NFL Game Pass.  Plus, I get the added benefit of getting some of the channels that I would have watched.

Since that Facebook posting, I have had few questions about VPN.  So here goes my brief explanation of what it is.

VPN stands for Virtual Private Network and is used by corporations and by travelers for security by showing that a machine is located somewhere else. In short, a VPN masks the location of the device being used by making your machine appear to be anywhere that the VPN server is located.

There are various VPN services and all are subscription-based.  Some are more expensive than others and their interface and capabilities vary, but they all accomplish the same thing.  Right now, I'm considering using Private Internet Access VPN because I have a friend who currently uses it, and it will provide me with a low cost trial in the event that I don't like Sling's service or the VPN client.

This weekend I'm going to use Sling's free trial and a month's subscription of the VPN client to see if I can get the Dallas game.  If this works, you could do the same if you live out of the market of a team you wish to see.  So, let's say you're a New York Giants fan (gross) living in Dallas and you want to watch one of their games that is not being broadcast locally, you could make it seem like you are in New York and get the local broadcast of the game.

But if you live in a local broadcast area, you don't need a VPN or Sling to watch those games.  Just get some basic $8.00 rabbit ears.  As long as you have a digital TV, it should work just fine.  If you live in a holler (as they say around here) or farther away from a local broadcast, you may need a powered antenna, which is more costly.  Start with the less expensive antenna and work your way up.  I currently use rabbit ears to watch our local channels: ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, PBS, and a few others.

It's all perfectly legal.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy?  I'll let you know and post an update on this once I've tried the VPN service with Sling.

My Silly Reason

I just watched a video on YouTube, and I re-remembered a conversation I had with my brother Jimmy.

In 2008, I had gone home for Thanksgiving.  I remember my sister Mary Ann telling me that Jimmy had specifically requested that I drive him and Mercedes to my brother Sammy's house for our Thanksgiving get-together.  I did and we spent much of the day with one another.

The 20-minute drive was mostly quiet.  We drove through the countryside taking a road north of Roscoe along a highway lined with hundreds of windmills.  At one point, while Jimmy stared out the window, he said, "This is good.  It's about time that these poor farmers came out on top."

We arrived at my brother's house and family was bustling around.  Jimmy sat quietly taking it all in.

We left that evening and attended church together.  After church, we went to Wal-Mart and bought some candy for Mercedes and some flowers for mom.

Family Picture 11/08

We returned to Sammy's house and enjoyed the company.  Some watched football; we ate; some laughed; we took family pictures.


As the evening came to a close, I recall sitting on the porch with Jimmy and my sister Helen and we started talking about Obama, whispering because, well, Obama wasn't the choice for most of my family. I don't remember if my sister Helen remembers this or not, but Jimmy said he had voted for Obama because he felt that he would make an impact on the kids that needed it most --- the underprivileged. (Some readers don't know this about Jimmy, but he spent most of his life working with juvenile delinquents.  He always championed for the oppressed.)

I knew he had voted for him without him telling me as much.  I knew what Jimmy meant, and if one hasn't worked with troubled kids, it would be hard to understand his point.

I just finished watching the video again and it put a smile on my face to know that Jimmy was right.  It's perhaps a silly reason to vote for someone, but it's my silly reason.

I will vote for Obama again.



* My brother Jimmy died of cancer the day before Obama was inaugurated into office.

My Case Against Romney, My Case for Obama: A list

I’ve gotten on Facebook a few times to vent about Romney. It’s no secret to people who know me: I’m voting for Obama. And I’ve made my case, in several fits and spurts, but I’ve not yet put down my thoughts in a cohesive manner.

Here is my first attempt.

The core of why I’m not casting a vote for Romney has to do with trust. I’m talking about the core of the person and the core of what will follow later in my posts. I just can’t trust him.

Here are a few reasons why:

1. I can’t trust a candidate who changes his position as frequently and with such lack of care as does Romney. He has changed his positions on almost every issue: women’s rights; the auto bailout; the effect of the stimulus; foreign policy; and yes, even domestic economic policy.
2. I can’t trust a candidate who has made millions of dollars by sending American jobs overseas to the country that he calls one of our biggest economic adversaries -- China.
3. I can’t trust a candidate who is less than transparent with his taxes.
4. I can’t trust a candidate who says he will close loopholes for the rich when most of his money is tied up in offshore accounts, which essentially means taking advantage of loopholes.
5. I can’t trust a candidate who tells me that he will close loopholes but won’t provide details about which he would close.
6. I can’t trust a candidate who can’t give a straight answer on whether or not he supports equal rights, yet has said in the past that he does not.
7. I can’t trust a candidate who doesn’t support Latinos and whose immigration advisor wrote the Arizona immigration law.
8. I can’t trust a candidate who tries to make political hay with an ambassador’s death (before even knowing the details).
9. I can’t trust a candidate whose military advisors will be the same people who advised George W. Bush.
10. I can’t trust a candidate who wants to ramp up military action in the Middle East.
11. I can’t trust a person who thinks corporations are people and should have the same rights.
12. I can’t trust a person who calls himself bipartisan when the record clearly shows he has not been.
13. I can’t trust a person who bullies others.
14. I can’t trust a candidate who claims he is unemployed and can relate when he has never lost his job and makes more money in a day than most do in a year.
15. I can’t trust a candidate who believes that 47% of the American population is not worth his time and says so (but only behind closed doors to rich donors).
16. I can’t trust a candidate who, in order to avoid military duty, went to France on missionary work. (This is not to say that missionary work is bad; rather, the point is that he did this to avoid military service.)
17. I can’t trust a candidate who says that our military must grow and that we must spend more taxpayer dollars on this, even after we have already doubled the budget of the military under Bush’s term in office.
18. I can’t trust a candidate who left the Office of Governor of Massachusetts with the same approval rating as George Bush.
19. I can’t trust a candidate whose running mate wants to make Medicare into a voucher system.
20. I can’t trust a candidate whose running mate voted to privatize Social Security.
21. I can’t trust a candidate who denies the impact of human behavior on global climate change.

There are more reasons, some of which I am likely to address at a later time, but the gist of this is

…. I …… just…. can’t...don’t….. trust…… him.

* I will add links to this list.

Poem in Your Pocket Day

Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day, and here are two poems that I will keep with me today. Each gives me solace. If you’re here, I hope it provides for you as much.




Poem for the Living
By Theodora Kroeber


When I am dead,
Cry for me a little.
Think of me sometimes,
But not too much.
It is not good for you
Or your wife or your husband
Or your children
To allow your thoughts to dwell
Too long on the dead.
Think of me now and again
As I was in life
At some moment which is pleasant to recall.
But not for long.
Leave me in peace
As I shall leave you, too, in peace.
While you live,
Let your thoughts be with the living.





Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?



* To hear Hayden read his poem go here. The link also takes you to a wonderful poetry site.

Weirdness....anomaly?

So yesterday I was visiting with my Freshmen English class after we had watched portions of Fahrenheit 9/11 and we had moved into the topic of language and how it is used in documentaries to influence how we view a subject matter. Specifically, we had gotten into an article that was a rebuttal to Moore’s production.

(And as political as I am here and on facebook, I work quite hard to steer clear of my personal viewpoints and try to present different viewpoints on issues so that students feel more comfortable in their discussions.)

What usually happens with this unit is that the movie influences those who have no opinion of the Bush Administration to think negatively of him, it influences those who dislike the Bush Administration to dislike him even further, and it has little to no effect on those who previously viewed Bush positively (at times it makes them dig in even deeper).

Essentially the video helps to underscore the role of language in our perception of the world around us and how it affects how we interact with it.

As we started discussing the “59 Deceits” (the rebuttal), I tried to make everyone feel comfortable enough to voice their opinion and I ususally get a mish-mash of students who feel one way or another: some feel used, some still don’t like Bush, some still like Bush, some don’t trust Moore, and some feel vindicated -- again, there is a wide range.

Surprisingly to me, in one particular section of my class, not a one felt any sort of positive feeling toward the Bush Administration, EVEN IF they didn’t like Moore and EVEN IF they realized that some of what Moore did was stretching ideas, and EVEN AFTER reading “59 Deceits.”

This is surprising to me because out of a class of about 20 students, all from Kentucky and about half being rural, not a one denied supporting the Democratic Party.

I was floored by this. This has never happened in all the times I’ve taught this unit and this includes my time teaching in California.

Anomaly? Peer pressure? I don’t know, but it certainly was different.

What? You didn't know they were that rich? What else didn't you know?

So, today I was reading that most Americans don’t really know how much the gap has grown between the haves and the have nots. Well, to put it this way, Americans in this recent study unknowingly picked Sweden’s distribution (where 20 % control 36 % of the wealth) over ours -- the U.S. (where 20% control 84% of the wealth).

I think the percentage of Americans who preferred Sweden’s model was 92%. That’s right. A VAST majority of Americans don’t like the current distribution and don’t even know it!

So, here’s something else that locals here (at least those who vote on WBKO’s poll page) don’t know.

While 87.73% of people said that they didn’t understand the current healthcare law, a whopping 71.52% said it should be repealed.

Uhhhhh... can someone explain that one. I know that there might be a few who vote on one and not the other, but to have it skewed so much???? It’s a sad commentary on sheeple.