Bird Sitting for Beakers

While my friend Shelly has been out of town we've gotten to bird sit 

for her little conure, Beakers.  

Here are some pictures of some other friends of ours getting to know this little bird.

Tempting Beakers with a Cheerio

He takes the bait!

All smiles as Beakers enjoys his treat!

We found out quite by accident that Beakers loves to drink ice water...

and steals the ice!

Megan shares a Cheerio with Beakers

Heber says "His feet poke through my shirt but this is cool! I feel like a Pirate! 

Arrrgh Matey!"

Where have we been for the last week? ...buried in our junk!

We have been cleaning out and organizing to get ready for a HUGE Yard Sale. 

I couldn't believe how much stuff we had that we no longer needed. 

We joined up with four other families and took 5 loads up to another 

neighborhood and on our own we made over $300. 

Far less than half of what I made on our last Yard Sale in Montana.  

But it feels really good to have all the extra stuff gone!  

Now, I am just spending days getting caught up on all the things I have let slip while 

slamming this Yard Sale together. 

Happy Memorial Day!

Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Joe T. Robinson High School in Little Rock, did something not to be forgotten. 

On the first day of school, with the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she removed all of the desks out of her classroom. When the first period kids entered the room they discovered that there were no desks. Looking around, confused, they asked, 'Ms. Cothren, where're our desks?' She replied, 'You can't have a desk until you tell me what you have done to earn the right to sit at a desk. 'They thought, 'Well, maybe it's our grades.' 'No,' she said. 'Maybe it's our behavior.' She told them, 'No, it's not even your behavior.

And so, they came and went, the first period, second period, third period. Still no desks in the cl assroom. By early afternoon television news crews had started gathering in Ms. Cothren's classroom to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her room. The final period of the day came and as the puzzled students found seats on the floor of the deskless classroom, Martha Cothren said, 'Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he/she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you.

At this point, Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it. Twenty-seven (27) U.S. Veterans, all in uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and stand alongside the wall. By the time the last soldier had set the final desk in place those kids started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks had been earned. Martha said, 'You didn't earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. Now, it's up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you could have the freedom to get an education. Don't ever forget it.

This is a true story....

If you can read this - thank a teacher! 

If you can read it in English - thank a soldier! 

If you can understand the message - Thank God!!!! 

A Veteran - whether active duty, retired, national guard or reserve - is someone who, at one point in their life, signed a blank check made payable to 

'The United States of America' , 

for an amount of 'up to and including my life." 

Verified on Snopes.com

Memorial Weekend

Click here 

Everyone's Going Green or is it BROWN?

No left turns is right on!

By Peter DeMarco

April 20, 2008

April 22nd was Earth Day, but this year I'm not thinking green; I'm thinking brown, as in Big Brown, United Parcel Service. Why UPS? Because I just found out a fairly crazy fact about UPS drivers: They make a conscious effort not to make left-hand turns.

Company leaders figured out that sitting in traffic, waiting to make a left, burns way too much fuel. So they zapped as many left turns as they could from 100,000 truck routes a day.
Instead, drivers are handed computer-generated delivery routes that have them going in efficiently calculated loops, calling for left turns only when necessary.

"You start on the right-hand side of the street and you stay on the right-hand side of the street almost all of the day," said Dan McMackin, a former UPS driver who is now a company spokesman. "The only left turn you make is to come home."

According to the company, this simple technique saves an eye-popping amount of gasoline. "In the last year alone," a UPS release stated, "this system has shaved nearly 30 million miles off UPS's delivery routes, saved 3 million gallons of gas, and reduced emissions by 32,000 metric tons of CO2 - the equivalent of removing 5,300 passenger cars off the road for an entire year."

I doubt any of us can make it through the day without left-hand turns. (Even UPS drivers can't avoid making them in a city as congested as Boston, says Jimmy, my local delivery guy.) But I like what UPS does because it proves you don't have to own a hybrid to save gasoline; you just need to tweak the way you drive. And you might be shocked at how much gas you can potentially save.

Still skeptical? Let me direct you to fueleconomy.gov, a terrific government website that breaks down in dollars and cents just how much fuel you waste when you drive over 60 miles per hour, have low air pressure in your tires, or fail to replace a clogged air filter.

How much gas could you be wasting on just these three items? Let's add it up.
Most engines don't run efficiently past 60 miles per hour. For every 5 miles per hour you drive over 60, you're probably wasting 20 cents worth of gasoline per gallon, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Energy, which cosponsor fueleconomy.gov. (The 20 cents is based on a cost of $3.23 a gallon, which is just about the current average in the state.)

The amount of waste is smaller for economy cars and higher on big SUVs. But on average, if you drive 70 on the highway, you're essentially wasting 40 cents of gas per gallon.

If your tire pressure is too low, you're burning an extra 10 cents of gas per gallon.
Replacing a clogged air filter can improve your car's gas mileage by as much as 10 percent, the EPA states. A dirty air filter, which keeps impurities out of your engine, translates to a waste of about 32 cents of gasoline per gallon, based on current prices.

All told, that's 82 cents of gasoline you're wasting per gallon. Worried about paying more than $4 a gallon for fuel this summer? Guess what: If you're wasting this much gas, you already are.

Your driving attitude absolutely can affect your car's mileage. If you're serious about saving gas, then no more speeding, no more tailgating and slamming on the breaks, no more leaving your weighty golf clubs in the back seat all year long, no more warming up your car for 10 minutes in the winter, no more gunning your engine at a green light, no more skipping your regular tune-up, and no more - dare I say it - beating everyone else on the road so you get there first.

Indeed, perhaps the most important gas-saving tip, aside from keeping your car in good shape, is simply to stop driving so aggressively, Greene says.

"That's the thing you have the most control over, and has the biggest impact."

Aggressive driving (speeding, rapid acceleration, braking) can lower gas mileage by 33 percent at highway speeds and by 5 percent around town. If you split your driving time between the two, you're wasting about 45 cents per gallon, all because you're in a rush.

Of course, it's a tall order to ask Boston drivers to drive less aggressively. But at least one group of drivers I found proves it can be done. Toyota's uber-efficient Prius hybrid gets great mileage not only because it uses electricity, but because Prius owners make a game out of saving gas.
Each car has what's called an "instantaneous fuel economy gauge" that shows your miles per gallon for each moment you're driving. If you floor it at a yellow light, your gauge will drop to 10 or 12 miles to the gallon because your engine's working too hard, says Toyota spokesman Bill Kwong. If you're coasting down a big hill, your gauge will soar to something like 90 miles to the gallon because you're letting gravity do the work.

"It's no different than the old days [the 1970s] when people used vacuum gauges to monitor their engine efficiency," Kwong said. To maintain a high trip miles per gallon, drivers learn to ease into stops, coast downhill, maintain steady speeds on highways, and avoid idling.

Kwong, who owns a Prius, said he's learned to increase his average trip miles per gallon by 5 or 6 miles by driving "conservatively." Were you to start driving like Kwong, the same gains would apply for your nonhybrid as well.

You can find a horde of fuel saving tips at fueleconomy.gov, on AAA's website, or at Edmunds.com.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.

2008 Southwest Desert Rat 5K Run! And the Winners Are.....

First Place in the girls 9 and under division:

Second Place in the girls 9 and under division:

Third Place in the girls 9 and under division:

Our families first 5K Run:

Our Family Home Evening Sign Finally Done!

The best part about this is that so many family members helped to make this sign.... Elisabeth, Anne, Jon, and even Grandma McIntyre... see if you know what part they each helped with?