12 September 2009

Infro me!

I love being infromed! And I love Amercia!

Click on image to get the full-size fun.

10 September 2009

9-11 Tribute: W. David Bauer

Once again, I am re-posting a tribute I wrote three years ago (and have edited as I find more information) as part of Project 2,996, a blogging effort to honor each of the people killed on Sept. 11, 2001.

It is the least I can do. And each year, my stats show that, on this day, many people find this blog by searching for "W. David Bauer," so I know that they still remember and have him and his family in their thoughts every year on this day.

I collected this information from other articles and obituaries found online.

**********


The victims. We hear it over and over again about Sept. 11, 2001. The 2,996 victims.

The person that I am writing about, W. David Bauer, Jr., may have been a victim for one short moment of his life. But for the rest of his 45 years, he was clearly a winner. From what I have read about him, he was a player and a competitor, someone who took to the field of life with gusto and determination and who gave it all he had.

In the NY Times tribute article, it mentions that he competed in a triathlon on the weekend of Sept. 8-9, 2001 before coming home to watch his sons play football and the to grill steaks and to drink good red wine with his family and friends.

He also played football in college at Villanova and was inducted into their Hall of Fame. One of his friends from college said: "His nickname was "Superman" because he could catch the bullet passes of our starting quarterback, Brian Sikorski, with one hand, either hand!"

He also had a lifelong love of basketball and volleyball. His teammate Tom Dooley said "I knew David as a competitor on the basketball court when we were both well past our prime playing days...[He] was a gentleman of the highest caliber on and off the court."

Mr. Bauer played professional football as a linebacker for the New York Giants ans another team before being sidelined by an injury.

In business he competed and thrived. He climbed up through the ranks at Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse First Boston before becoming head of global sales for eSpeed, a division of Cantor Fitzgerald located on the 105th floor of the North Tower. He was one of 658 Cantor employees who died in the World Trade Center.

He also contributed to his community. He was a past President and Founding member of the Villanova Financial Club. He served on the Board of Family & Children's Services and he and his wife were honored with the Helen Hoffman Award for Community Service. He was a member of Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church in Rumson, N.J., where he lived.

Mr. Bauer, who was 45 years old at the time of his death, was married to his wife Virginia "Ginny" and had three children, David, Steven and Jackie, who were 16, 14, and 12 when he died. He and Ginny had met in third grade.

So this is a man who lived, who really lived. He was someone who made good things happen for himself, his family and his friends. The type of hard-working, hard-playing family guy who is the backbone of our country and whom you would probably love as a neighbor.

Since Mr. Bauer's death, his wife has become a leading advocate for the families of victims of 9/11.

My very best wishes to the Bauer family. I am sorry for your loss and I hope this tribute did Mr. Bauer justice.

Here is a link to the 2,996 project.

09 September 2009

Messing with me

WHY? Why never any red tic-tacs??
I mourned the loss of red tic-tacs for a long time, I did. No other flavor could match their cinnamony goodness.

But then I moved on. I adapted. I grew. I decided that spearmint would do if I couldn't have cinnamon.

And now, this. They took away my spearmint, too. It seems a calculated move - to gradually take away my choices until I break and eat one of these: Orange, which, excuse me, is NOT A MINT, Original (which has exactly one second of good flavor, right at the beginning, before it degenerates), or Wintergreen (which is like eating Vicks Vap-O-Rub).

These are all the choices I have. Not just at the store shown, but everywhere.

Why? Why does it have to be like this? Can someone fill my mailbox with red TicTacs, like Juno did for her Bleeker in that movie (except he liked the orange ones. Dumb kid).

08 September 2009

Adventures in Dogwalking #67

My dog and I share the same favorite place: the beach.

I go online to look up the time of the lowest tide - to ensure we have a nice, wide stretch of wet sand to play upon - and we head out to our Super Secret spot.

On the path to the beach, there is a pile of wood that Goldie likes to explore every single time. She thinks small animals live in it. She may be right.

She wedges herself in there to get a better look:
She got herself in this spot

When we get to the sand (it is a remote area, down a path and about 1/2 mile walk from the road) I let her off leash to run and run and run. She will race up and down for as long as I let her, sometimes disappearing into a tiny dot at the furthest end of the beach.

When she gets hot, she plunges into the waves for a few minutes to cool down, her sides heaving, panting. Sometimes she goes out far enough that she has to swim for a bit and waves splash up over her head.
Beach350px

Her hobby is chasing birds. The little birds just fly up and out of the way, but the seagulls like to mess with Goldie's head. The same bird will fly just out of her reach or hover about 20 feet over her head, watching her circle around on the sand below with her head tipped back.

Often a gull will fly up and down the beach for 10 minutes or more with the dog in hot pursuit. When the bird tires of the game, it just takes off out over the ocean. I have seen this happen again and again.

Eventually I decide that we have to go home because it is getting dark. Sometimes Goldie lets herself be captured easily, but not very often. She usually pretends she can't hear me and races right by, tongue flapping. Then I have to wait until she is standing in the deeper water and can't run away. I plunge in and snap the leash on.

Once again to the beach, dear friends

The next day she is always sore and moves around creakily. This is a 14-year old dog, after all. But she never lets it stop her the next time. Every day at the beach is a good day for dogs.

07 September 2009

One love

My sister lay there, intubated, paralyzed, her lips cracked and dry around the plastic tube that had been forced down her throat.

I sat there alone with her, listening to the machines beep and hum, the air being forced in and out of her body.

"I wish we were at a Neville Brothers concert instead of doing this," I said.

Her eyes widened. She turned her head toward me. Around the tube, she mouthed, "No shit."

Both of us sat there in silence, tears leaking from our eyes.

"Oh, god, this sucks," I said. That was the last thing I remember saying to her. Doctors came in, the bustle of the hospital started, and she died the next morning.

*******

Yesterday I sat in the shade on a hillside on a perfect warm day, thousands of people in beach chairs crowding the hill below me, a open-air stage at the bottom.

When the Neville Brothers took the stage, I burst into tears again, remembering. CC and Jim comforted me as I spilled my story.

Then I went down and bounced around like a dancing fool on the lawn in front of the stage.

When Aaron sang a medley of "Amazing Grace," "One Love" and "Train to Jordan," my heart was stretched wide open with joy. I know she was there with me. She had to be.

Neville bros 350 px
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