Hopes and Dreams

Well, my last post was only actually this morning. Buuuuutttt since I've still trying to catch up on that blog I mentioned, here's another update. Two in one day? Rarity to be sure. This one is FIVE Hopes and Dreams.

1. I have a Bucket List that I started. While some things have been checked off, there are still more being added...almost weekly. The list has all of the things I want to do and places I want to see. For this one, I HOPE to Do most if not all, of the things on my list.

2. While I've been to quite a few countries, I don't think I've been to nearly enough in my honest opinion. Let's see...where have I visited (and stepped both feets): US (duh, but still...it's a country ;-) ), Canada, Saudi Arabia (when I was in the Air Force), Terceira Acores (lived here), Bahamas, Virgin Islands, San Maarten, St. Thomas (last 4 on a 7-day cruise), England (lived here), France, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Italy (live here currently), Czech Republic, Belgium, Poland, Austria, Germany, Croatia, and Holland.
My DREAM place to visit is Egypt. The pyramids, the sphinx, and the sand, and the history, and the pharaohs, and the.......*sigh

3. This was mentioned in my last post. My DREAM is to one day have at least one of my pictures published in a book or magazine. That would be a dream come true. Not even my family knows. Oops. hehe

4. I HOPE to one day be fluent in Spanish. I love the language. I think it's beautiful. Some are probably thinking, "but aren't you in Italy surrounded by the ITALIAN language? What's wrong with that?" Nothing, but not a desire of mine. While I do think it's beautiful when heard, not high on my list.

5. One more travel. Since I've left the US out nearly completely, I'll add one of mine (and hubby's) dreams. I HOPE/DREAM to travel the entire Route 66 from east to west (or vice versa). I'm not talking what is now, but the original route. I know that this will entail lots of research, maps, and planning, but I/we soooo want to do this that it will be worth it. Thanks to Cars for putting the idea in our heads. :-D

A Bit About Me

Before I update this with something a bit more "me" and more....recent (yeah, yeah I know...lol), I thought I'd do a mini about me. Ages after I last posted, I started following a blog or 4. It all started because I went Googling for...something or other. I found the first one (about cleaning), then the second (about Organizing!!!), then one a Mix Mash (LOVE!!!!! her humor and will be reallllllly sad when I'm finally caught up and have to wait like all of the others to read the next post..*pout), and finally her second blog (which I just never thought was sinking in...just liked the humor. UNTIL I wore a random outfit to church and got tons of compliments. Holy cow!). That was a long lead-in. Oops. Anywho....As I'm going through blog #3 (not in any order, just the third one I mentioned), I came across the "Getting to Know You" post from earlier January. I thought I might as well post one too since it sounded something I would do. So.....Here are FIVE things about moi. :-)

1. I always say that I was born with a flash in my eyes from a camera and it was downhill from there. I grew up with a mom who was/is OBSESSED with taking pictures. It annoyed me at the time having to pose, but I have to say this is one thing that I've inherited from her that I don't mind. I love cameras and taking pictures!!! I hate the posey, posey shots that most people do (unless there's a reason...like getting everyone together for a family shot), so most of my pics are Surprise {insert chuckle}.

2. Since this next is similar, I'll add it here. I don't really like taking pictures of people. Don't know why...just me and my odd tastes. My favorite topic is buildings, architecture, etc. And no, refuse to go into that. Why? Do NOT care one iota why this group of people decided to go from brown in their paintings, buildings to red. Maybe it was an accident and these idiots are making a big deal out of an "Oops." Ooookkkkaaayyy....getting off the soapbox now. Back to....um.....buildings. Not just any building. My favorite are old...older than my parents (they're older than my peers' parents...I'll explain one day)....buildings. They have character and are not made from steel. Boring...for the most part. It is one of my dreams/wishes/Bucket List items that a photo or two of mine are published in a book or magazine. I haven't even put it on my list because....not really sure how to explain. It would be a dream come true and....I'm just odd like that. I'll leave it there.

3. I love musicals! My mom and I would watch old musicals growing up. Then in band, we would watch parts of certain movies so we could get the feel of certain songs that we would be playing. When I was little my dream was to be a dancer. Explaining. My mom & I watched "White Christmas" from since before I can remember every year for Christmas. There is a scene where Danny Kaye and his dance partner (brain fry at the moment) danced out of the room onto the "boardwalk" outside. I would dream that it was me up there. See....not a "Wear-little-next-to-nothing-for-creepy-people" or a "Shake-your-booty-for-God-only-knows-why", but a "Wear-a-flowy-dress-and-glide-across-the-floor" dancer. Sigh..........

4. My favorite actress growing up and even today doesn't even have any movies out anymore. She retired and walked away from the scene. Doris Day. She was America's Sweetheart and I thought she was amazing. And she sings....which adds to my love of musicals. Have I seen all of her movies? Not even close. I get into "Movie Moods", which I'm not in at the moment. I get into these moods where I crave movies....watch at least one per night...most of the 2 or more. Then....a lull until the next hits. Sometimes it's a mini one; sometimes a big one. I'm in a lull at the moment. So, might have to have some saved up on-line for when the next one hits. ;-)

5. I love Disney and now Pixar movies. To me, Pixar is now what Disney used to be. I love the older Disney movies. Some of them now are too....something. Pixar makes sweet kid movies that Disney seems to try to get away from. The whole "How-far-can-we-push-the-ratings-boundary-and-still-keep-it-kid-friendly" is too....REALLY?!?!?! for me. Pixar is usurping them...which is fine by me. I've started to realize that most of the recent kid movies I enjoy don't come from Disney. Kinda sad when you think about the legacy.

I guess that's it for now. I'll do a catch-up post eventually. Hopefully it won't take me another few years.

Thoughts about Obama from Obama

From Dreams of My Father: 'I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.'

From Dreams of My Father : 'I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa , that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself , the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.'

And FINALLY the Most Damning one of ALL of them!!!

From Audacity of Hope: 'I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.'

Hmmm...and he's "fighting" for ALL Americans? Yeah, right!

Taxes--A View from Both Sides

CAPITAL GAINS TAX
MCCAIN
0% on home sales up to $500,000 per home (couples).
McCain does not propose any change in existing home sales income tax.
OBAMA
28% on profit from ALL home sales.
How does this affect you?If you sell your home and make a profit, you will pay 28% of your gain on taxes.If you are heading toward retirement and would like to down-size your home or move into a retirement community, 28% of the money you make from your home will go to taxes.This proposal will adversely affect the elderly who are counting on the income from their homes as part of their retirement income.

DIVIDEND TAX
MCCAIN
15%(no change)
OBAMA
39.6%
How will this affect you?If you have any money invested in stock market, IRA, mutual funds, college funds, life insurance, retirement accounts, or anything that pays or reinvests dividends, you will now be paying nearly 40% of the money earned on taxes if Obama becomes president.The experts predict that 'higher tax rates on dividends and capital gains would crash the stock market yetDo absolutely nothing to cut the deficit'.

INCOME TAX
MCCAIN (no changes)
Single making 30K - tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $31,250
OBAMA
(reversion to pre-Bush tax cuts)
Single making 30K - tax $8,400
Single making 50K - tax $14,000
Single making 75K - tax $23,250
Married making 60K - tax $16,800
Married making 75K - tax $21,000

Biden's Chopper and Miner "Story"

When Joe Biden tells voters he understands the threat posed by Afghan extremists, he dramatically illustrates one reason why: His helicopter was "forced down" on "the superhighway of terror." Actually, snow, not the enemy, persuaded the helicopter pilot to land and wait out a storm.
The Democratic vice presidential candidate has repeatedly left that part out, in an episode that Republicans hope will become an echo of Hillary Rodham Clinton's errant tale during the primaries of landing in Bosnia under sniper fire.
Biden has made a number of questionable statements recently that, viewed in isolation, might not amount to much. But this is a man whose first presidential campaign collapsed 20 years ago after he told a story about coal miners in his family that he lifted without credit from a British politician.
Another Tall Tale? Biden Says He Was 'Shot At' in Iraq

In a recent speech in Virginia coal country, Biden seemed to embellish his background once again. He declared, "I am a hard coal miner," which he's not and never has been. His spokesman, David Wade, said Biden was joking.

And looking back on his 1972 Senate campaign, he told Pennsylvania delegates at the Democratic convention that people from his hometown of Scranton, Pa., piled in up to 10 buses and drove to Wilmington, Del., to show him support. "Literally," he said, "there were hundreds of thousands of people."

THE HELICOPTER SPIN
In a Baltimore speech last week, Biden said: "If you want to know where Al Qaeda lives, you want to know where (Usama) bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me. Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
Two days later, in Cincinnati, he said Al Qaeda has re-established a safe haven and it's not in Baghdad. "It's in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said, "where my helicopter was recently forced down."
At a Sept. 9, fundraiser, Biden addressed his national security credentials by talking about "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan where my helicopter was forced down. John McCain wants to know where bin Laden and the gates of Hell are? I can tell him where. That's where Al Qaida is. That's where bin Laden is."

THE FACTS: In February, Biden and fellow senators John Kerry and Chuck Hagel were flying in a helicopter over Afghanistan in a fact-finding trip when a snowstorm closed in.
"It went pretty blind, pretty fast and we were around some pretty dangerous ridges," Kerry told The Associated Press afterward. "So the pilot exercised his judgment that we were better off putting down there, and we all agreed."
He said the group waited for about three hours until a convoy with U.S. troops took them to Bagram Air Base.
"We sat up there and traded stories," Kerry joked. "We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to do it."
He added: "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
The area was reported as not being under Taliban control. But Wade noted "it's the wild west out there" and the senators were transported under guard and with air cover from an F-16.
Though Biden never said his helicopter was shot at in Afghanistan, last year he asserted that he was "shot at" in Iraq. He amended that later, saying the quarters he was staying in while visiting Baghdad's protected Green Zone shook from a nearby blast, and "I was near where a shot landed."
The McCain campaign jumped on the Biden stories Wednesday, putting out a statement from a retired Black Hawk pilot saying there is no mistaking being shot at or forced down by the enemy.
But if Biden was not literally in the sights of the enemy in Iraq, he unquestionably went through several dicey situations verified by other lawmakers there, including the explosion of a mortar near the compound and his plane's evasive maneuvers while taking off, in response to a possible missile attack.

THE COAL SPIN: In a speech at a United Mine Workers fish fry in Castlewood, Va., on Sept. 21, Biden told the miners he is one of them. "Hope you won't hold it against me, but I am a hard coal miner — anthracite coal, Scranton, Pennsylvania, that's where I was born and raised," he said.
Biden mentioned his great-grandfather, a mining engineer who became a state senator in the early 1900s.

THE FACTS: Biden was born in Scranton, moved to Delaware at age 10 and has never had experience in the mines. His father worked in the oil business and ran a Delaware car dealership.
Biden's comment was reported at face value in press accounts from the event. Wade said it wasn't meant to be taken literally.
"Judging by the laughter and applause, I think it was clear to everyone under the sun that they got the joke from this son of Scranton's coal country," Wade said. An AP reporter who covered the speech said Biden's claim came across as a genial if awkwardly self-deprecating effort to establish a bond with the miners — not a joke.
In his 2007 memoirs, Biden put his roots in a more modest context: "I had ancestors from the coal mining town of Scranton."
In 1987 at the Iowa State Fair, Biden both borrowed and slightly adapted lines from Neil Kinnock, then British Labor Party leader, in portraying himself as the descendant of coal miners. In one of the lifted lines, Biden talked about: "My ancestors, who worked in the coal mines of Northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours."
(Kinnock had talked about Welsh ancestors "who could work eight hours underground and then come up and play football.")
Biden also was found to have exaggerated his academic record during that campaign and a plagiarism episode from his school days emerged. The revelations crippled his Democratic primary campaign and he pulled out of the presidential race.
Years later, the matter leaves him little room to take license with his biography or experiences.

Thank you Fox news. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,431604,00.html