"Our" stressful situation with local politicians

So I figured I'd get off the DNC topic tonight, although I hope most of you were able to catch Barack's speech this evening and were inspired as much as I was. Now we've(East Putnam Fire) have been dealing with some political issues over the past few months that I haven't exactly been able to vent about. We've been asked by the Chief not to worry about the issues, and to let him and the Fire District board members deal with them. We've all been good at listening to him, but things have gotten to the point in the media and papers, where I've read the articles and stewed over them. I finally got to the point where I had to make some online article comments, sent in an opinion letter that hasn't been published yet in the Norwich Bulletin, and I feel I need to vent. So bare with me while I rant, and not RAVE!!

Let me give a little background first. I joined the Putnam Fire Department in 1994 at the age of 18, and spent nearly 14 years with that department rising through the ranks from Firefighter, to Driver/Operator, then Lieutenant, and eventually resigned this May as an Engine Company Captain. I joined Putnam Ems in 1996 as one of the first Driver/MRT's, and started my dispatching career in 1997 with Station WA, otherwise known as Putnam Dispatch. Since then I've dispatched at Station WW(Willimantic) for a brief period of time before my daughter was born, along with having dispatched for American Ambulance from 2000 to 2006, before accepting my current position with Quinebaug Valley Emergency Communications, Inc. which is a regional dispatch center.

By the way, the signs above the doors, yeah, I made them


When I first started out in Putnam, I believed it was one of the best volunteer fire departments in the eastern half of the state. See, we had a great budget, the best equipment and apparatus, city water (hydrants) that let us play with as much water as we wanted, didn't respond to those "stupid" medical calls cause the ambulance would handle it, and high call volume of fires (both in-town and mutual aid, thus having experienced and state certified members). We used to share radio frequencies with all the other departments, and if it was busy, the radio traffic would be crazy. So we ended up getting our own radio frequency that we could operate our own calls, and if we needed help, we'd use the old ones to talk to other departments coming to help. The district is compact and highly populated compared to our neighboring towns, so our members lived close to the station, which would allow us to "get out the door" real quick. The quick responses, hydrants, along with many highly certified and experienced members allowed us to handle calls by ourselves, compared to our neighbors who were more rural and needed help with water supply and manpower. So the only time we called mutual aid in to help us, was during large incidences like mill fires, large brush fires, or fully involved houses with exposure problems(houses close to the fire building at risk of catching fire).

This lead to other departments feeling that "Putnam thinks they're too good for our help", or Putnam does things their own way. Which was true, we'd go to other towns for fires, sometimes take over the scenes, most of the time staying on our own frequency, working by ourselves, did what we needed to do and then went home. Gradually over the years I noticed we weren't getting invited to play with others as much as we used to. It seemed like each year, we'd piss someone off, get pulled off an alarm card or two, and before we knew it, we were hardly ever requested to go help out. The majority of the attitudes in Putnam wasn't "how can we fix this and work with others", but "screw mutual aid, we'll just stay in town and take care of ourselves, and just go when we're actually called."



Now East Putnam was our neighboring department, and the leadership was questionable for years, with internal problems. Putnam has the heavy rescue, and Putnam has the Ladder truck, so we'd go to East Putnam with our fully manned trucks, and take over scenes, do our own thing, and head home when the job was done. The relationship was rocky to say the least, but about 6 years ago EPFD had a change in leadership. Younger, more responsible members took over, and started straightening out East Putnam and getting many more younger members. The relationship was going good, but we (Putnam) was still in our "we got it" attitude. The new East Putnam chief asked the Putnam chief officers several times to reduce the apparatus during mutual aid calls, because East Putnam had a set alarm card, and there was no need for two engines, the ladder, and the heavy rescue for fires. Their main concern was water supply(no hydrants in East Putnam), and Putnam wasn't helping them with 750 gallons of water on an engine, when they needed tankers with 2000-3000 gallons. The EPFD chief only wanted one attack engine and the ladder truck fully staffed for the manpower, because he had other departments coming in with tankers for water. Each time he asked our "old school" chief officers, they told him no, you want us, we bring what we want! Now, if the shoes were reversed and other departments wouldn't listen to PFD wishes, they'd be infuriated, and would of stopped calling that department to help. I witnessed a grudge for years with Putnam and Pomfret for similar reasons, and actually was at a call where a PFD chief called another department's ladder truck, to come through Pomfret's district(who was closer) and come fight a fire in Putnam, when Pomfret heard the call and had a full crew and a brand new Tower/Ladder truck sitting in their station ready to go!!



So after several attempts by the new EPFD chief to talk with the PFD chiefs, and talking to the Mayor about the situation with no change, he decided to do what other departments had done over the years and pull PFD from his automatic alarm cards. Not to say he wouldn't call on us and use us, but the automatic dispatch for us was no longer, because we wouldn't respect his wishes, like we did of certain other chiefs. Now this "pulling of the alarm card" was a sore topic now at officers meetings in Putnam, and it drove me crazy.



See, I was now dispatching at QV dealing with 37 other departments that all had alarm cards, and worked well together. I would take methods and ideas back to the officers meetings, suggested an alarm card and new ways of doing things, but always got shot down. "We do things our way", "we don't need an alarm card, we call who we want", or "why do we want to do it like that, our way has always worked." You know, the traditional, old fashioned kind of thinking. Then there was a retirement which lead to two promotions, one of which was for another captain's spot similar to mine. There were three canidates, and the interview process was a joke and a debacle. The two most dedicated and deserving candidates were immediately overlooked, and a less deserving, undedicated, rule-breaking "pet" of the chiefs was chosen over the other two, including my awesome lieutenant. I totally disagreed with that and it bothered me to the core, because PFD was my life, and second family. So I tried to deal with the railroading for a few months, but it eventually got to me and I resigned and went to join one of my best friends in East Putnam.



Suddenly, the PFD chiefs were willing to reduce their mutual aid assignment to the engine and ladder, and were willing to do whatever the EPFD chief wanted. Although the Mayor was involved, and there is still some tension between the chiefs of both departments, the departments have gone on calls together, in each others districts, and have worked well together to get the job done. The problem was beginning to go away, and we were/still are, working through the problem, but then the above link came about. Now the local radio talk show, and newspapers are making a huge deal about this, and the totally separate issue of 911 calls. The Mayor probably thinks this 911 issue is about the PFD/EPFD feud, and is giving East Putnam officials a hard time over something that can be easily fixed with a simple signature....


I hate to quote it, but as Rodney King of LAPD and LA riots fame once said, "Can't we all just get along!!"..

DNC - Night Three!!!

WOW!! Two great, inspirational speeches tonight at the DNC. I've never been so interested in politics as I am now. Who would of thought??!! HA HA HA... How is McCain and the GOP Convention going to combat this juggernaut of change??!!



I was flipping back and forth tonight from the DNC in Denver, to the Sci-Fi channel cause I LOVE ME some Ghost Hunters(T.A.P.S.)!! The two speeches I wanted to see tonight was Bill Clinton and Joe Biden. Clinton had an awesome speech, and he reminded me what it was like when things were good before Bush took over. To me, he's one of the best Presidents since JFK.




Then there was Biden. I didn't know much about Mr. Biden, other than what the press has been saying about him over the past week or so. That he suffered a great lost with his family, before being sworn in as a Senator in the 70's, and that he's well respected in US politics, as well as internationally. He also had a great speech, seems to be very down to earth, and a fighter for the average joe, just like Barack is.


I know you're all probably sick of me talking about this topic, especially if you're a Republican, but I honestly can't help it. Bare with me, there's only one more night left, and by the way, for some reason I'm not interested at all in watching the GOP convention. I believe it may have been the past 8 years of Bush that's turned me off...LMAO I'm extremely looking forward to Obama's speech tonight at Invesco Field, I hope you tune in also....

The Democratic National Convention...

So Monday, I was home watching TV before heading of to work for my lovely "Tuesday" midnight shift, there was nothing on t.v. that I found interesting, but found myself watching, and actually extremely interested in the first night of the DNC. I know, a little confusing with the Monday-Tuesday thing, but to explain my shift starts at 0030 a.m., so it's technically my Tuesday shift. If you couldn't tell by one of my previous post, I'm an Obama fan. Again, not that I'm a big democrat, but consider myself more an "independent" voter. Granted, Barack was off on the campaign trail still, but I saw that Michelle Obama was to be the keynote speaker of the night, and I wanted to see how she did with all this "so-called pressure" to make a great speech. So I settled in, flipping back and forth from C-SPAN, to CNBC, to CNN for the night. The rumor early in the night was that good ole' Edward "Teddy" Kennedy was supposed to make at least an appearance, but it was said that he would be too weak to make a speech from his recent bout of brain cancer. Now even though I'm not into Massachusetts politics, my favorite radio station is WAAF in Boston, who always seem to come up with funny skits, and jokes about Chappequiddick and his drinking(Heck, he is Irish!!), but you can't help but recognize and respect the Kennedy name in New England. LOL

Anyways, after a few hours of unrecognizable people from the Midwest making speeches, mainly people from the Illinios state government, finally, surprise-surprise!! Caroline Kennedy on stage to introduce a montage dedicated to the long-time service of the popular senator from Massachusetts. The video was actually rather emotional to me, covering his family, his love for sailing and the Cape, remembering his two brothers, JFK and Bobby Kennedy and their assassinations, along with footage from his 40 plus years in government. After the video montage, here comes a more frail, swollen version of the husky senator we've all come to know. He gave an arousing speech, much like the one's I've witness in person(Worcester 6 memorial service), and on t.v. when he first endorsed Barack Obama. So here is what I was able to find on youtube.

Funny Scotsman!!

Hey all, just thought I'd let those of you know about a comedian that I found a while back. His name is Mark Day, who's a scottish comedian that lives in California, and posts video blogs/comedy about current events. If you enjoy sarcastic comedy, and someone that makes fun of current events, you'll enjoy him like I do. You can check him out on youtube or myspace if you have an account. Just search for Mark Day. Here's one of his recent skits...

So I'm having a tough time thinking about what to blog about, and can't even phathom how you blog friends do it! I guess I can blab about how my weekend went for now.

I had been making subtle complaints to my supervisor and coworkers over the past couple of weeks about how I have a hard time getting overtime. There always have be two dispatchers on per shift here, and there's usually open shifts during the week on 2nd shift, and on the weekends, just like every dispatch center out there. Of course the open shifts seem to increase during the warm months as people take vacations and prefer not to work when it's nice outside, then when the colder weather comes they decide they want to work more. The weekday evening shifts are usually filled by PT's, and most of the time, there's a few shifts on the weekend that are open. At my job, the supervisor or manager emails all dispatchers at the beginning of the month with the monthly schedule in excel format. All the PT's email back which shifts they want or are available for, and the supervisor fills the shifts in his own, special way, making sure all employees get some of the shifts that they wanted. The supervisor/manager also sends alpha-pages out during each week, up until Friday, with the left over open shifts listed. Then if there's still open shifts that they can't fill, they decide to go to the FT's list. The shifts are available to the PT's first, because obviously the company would rather pay a PT'r for an 8 hour shift instead of a FT'r for an overtime shift. So I have to sit there(well, lie there in bed because they page out for the shifts during the day when I'm sleeping), and get the pages for all the open shifts for the week, but I can't take any until it goes to the full-timer list which is on a rotational basis and by seniority. Yeah, I'm the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to seniority.



Well, low and behold I was able to grab a double for overtime for this weekend on Thursday. So I worked my regular end of the week shift, Thursday night into Friday morning, and was then talked into playing a round of golf Friday morning by three friends, Shawn, Scott, and Dan. Shawn, affectionately know as "the safety gnome" was my obnoxious buddy when I was in Putnam Fire, he worked briefly with me at American, and he now works 3rd shift at UConn dispatch in Storrs. Scott is my middle school, high school, college, and fire department best friend. We pretty much joined the FD and accended the ranks together before he got hired by the City of Norwich FD, and had to quit volunteering per his Career fire department union bylaws. However, he is now my town's part-time deputy fire marshall, since it's a paid position that's allowed by his union. And Dan is a great kid that I worked with at American, and he became interested in dispatching while covering for me during bathroom breaks. He eventually moved on to Ledyard dispatch, and then UConn dispatch also, but we managed to stay in contact and continue the friendship...



After I played a crappy 9 holes, we went our seperate ways, and I couldn't seem to fall asleep that afternoon, before going in for the double shift, Friday night at 1230am to Saturday afternoon at 430pm. I then got out Saturday afternoon and went to meet up with the ex in Plainfield to pick up Hayleigh, and went right to my friend Rene's house for a get-together. We had a NASCAR party to watch the race in Bristol while the kids played. Around 930pm, our fire department tones dropped for a one car rollover with entrapment on Route 44 near Wal-mart. Rene asked his wife Jess if she minded watching our kids, and she said that was fine. So Rene and another guy Archie, jumped in his pick up, and me in my SUV and we flew to the station. There must have been some guys hanging out at the FD, cause ET-179(Engine-Tank) was already heading down 44. So the three of us hop in the Rescue truck and fly out towards the scene. We pull up and we knew it was a "good" one(technically bad, cause firefighters and EMT's are sick in the head) as the car's upside down in the middle of Route 44, and we could see a set of legs hanging out the passenger window.



Of course, I'm the only EMT on scene aside from the Chief, and he's running the show, so I got stuck helping the paramedic with patient care. We get her out, collared and backboarded, loaded in the ambulance while the helicopter is flying overhead, heading to the hospital down the road, to meet them and fly her to a trauma center. I go and start helping the guys clear the debris from the road as the wrecker arrives. Then the chief comes over and says "Come with me and help me with something." We had to go 100 ft down the road to a state police cruiser with 4 ladies huddled next to it, who had been in a car that was struck by the overturned one. Come to find out, they were four nurses from the hospital who were uninjured, but shook up from the incident. We had them sign refusals, finished cleaning up the scene and re-opened the road. We finally get back to the station and get everything back in order around 11pm.

We head back to Rene's house and catch a little more of the race before dragging Hayleigh out to my truck and home to bed. Surprisingly she was up by 830am!! We spent the morning at my house, then the afternoon back at Rene's house before bringing her back to Mom. Of course, I ended up going to the firehouse when I got back into town, and went home later this evening to try and take a nap before work tonight. I got like an hour of sleep tonight, and of course, was comfy as hell in bed, before leaving for work. It better be just as comfy in the morning as it was tonight, cause I can already see myself passing out once I hit the pillows...LOL



On a brighter note, my partner is back from his vacation/wedding, so it's nice to have him and his humor back. It was definately interesting the past few weeks, now if I can only snag up some more overtime, but I won't bet on it....

In regards to my previous post.....President Erik Huhtala

I was thinking after I put up the last post, imagine if an average Joe Blow was elected President of the United States of America, rather than a famous actor, war veteran, or popular senator or governor. I was thinking to myself of the things I would do if I ever became President, and I found that some of my views are simillar to those from the funny email jokes that have circulated around, from Robin Williams, and the late George Carlin. So here's a few things I would do.

1. Tell all the other countries in NATO, that we're done being the world's policeman, bodyguard, lunch lady, doctor, and loan "Lending Tree." It's their turn to do it, and if they have a big problem that they all can't solve, then come see us...



2. If you're here illegally, get the fuck out! My grandparents did it the correct and legal way back in the 40's during the depression, applied for visas and citizenship when they came over from Canada, Finland, and Scotland!! Yeah, you can visit, but don't overstay your welcome. I don't care if you're trying to make a life for yourself, you're breaking the law, that's why the call it "Illegal" aliens.....



3. Learn to speak english. I'm not saying you can't speak your native tongue around your family and friends, but when dealing with, and being in the public, speak english like my French-Canadian grandparents did. Their first language was French. I'm sure you wouldn't like it if I went to your country and expected you and all your friends to speak and learn english, or spoke english to my friends and family while living there, -I'd go there to your country legally, I might add...



4. I'd pull all of our troops, seeing that we're not the world's policeman anymore, and guard our borders from the aforementioned illegal aliens, or any other country that decides to mess with us.



5. Stop worrying about other countries problems and let NATO worry about it. We have our own problems right now with the homeless, the military veterans that need to be taken care of, unemployment, housing, etc., etc., etc....



6. Stop the outsourcing of jobs in the U.S. If you're a company here in the states, and you want to make money and be a productive company, you shouldn't be laying off our citizens, then shipping the jobs overseas to 3rd world countries just to save some bucks. You're not helping the country with unemployment, just making it worse. If you choose to do that, take your COMPANY and move it to the 3rd world country and screw them...



7. Make special interest lobbying illegal. It may just make the politicans less dirty and corrupt, and make them fight for what the people want and need...

8. Give major league sport athletes a salary cap. How can a MLB baseball player make $30 million a year, but teachers make crap for pay? They're the ones that are making our children smart, wouldn't you want to pay them respectively????



9. Salary cap the Oil executives' salaries! Give me fricken break! "It's all supply and demand", and "we have no control over the prices" crap. Then how the hell do you make $30 BILLION in profits a fricken quarter????? Quarter, not in a year, a fuckin quarter!! Meanwhile, the citizens are struggling just to make ends meat, and choosing between food, clothes, etc., or to put fuel in their vehicles or heat their homes...



10. Make federal, state, and local workers buy their own cars, and buy their own gas! I can't tell you how many times a week I see state employee cars, government cars, state police cruisers, and other vehicles carting their families around, going shopping, taking trips out of state to RI, MA, etc. and filling their gas tanks up at state buildings, without having to pay a red cent!! Maybe if they did have to pay for things, they'd start fighting for us ordinary citizens and lower the price of gas!!!!



That's all I can think of right now.....but I'm sure I could find a lot more stuff to change if I was president. I wonder if I could get enough petitions signed to get me on the ballot in 2012? LMAO

Never one to talk about politics.....Ahhh...what the heck!!

So, I'm at work, it's like 02:31 a.m., and it's been dead quiet over the past three nights. That's right Linda, I said "DEAD QUIET" ;) (Those of you who don't know, that a bad word to say in dispatch, "Quiet")

So what can I think of, to write about and bore all of you? How bout politics....

I've never really been into politics, seriously during my life. I've have my favorite canidates and voted for them no matter what party. I pre-registered to vote while in my senior year of high school during a lunch break in the cafeteria. The local politicians came to school and gave us registrar cards. I believe I signed up as a Democrat or Independent, honestly can't remember, but the political party never really mattered to me. I was 17 and couldn't vote for Perot when he ran, and was really disappointed when he didn't get elected/dropped out/re-entered/then lost. Talk about confusing.... I considered him a no-nonsense, business professional who was going to straighten out this country finacially, and help the US prosper.


I was so disappointed from that election, that I didn't pay too much attention to the primaries the next election and decided not to vote when Bush, Sr. was challenged by Bill Clinton. I was too busy, consumed with work, the fire department, several women, and sleeping. Ha, ha, ha... But I voted for Clinton the 2nd term, because I felt he did a good job despite "the smoking gun" in the Oval Office. Or should I say "smoking cigar??!!" But seriously, I though Clinton, aside from his extra-marital affairs, did a great job running the country, reducing the national debt and unemployment, balancing the budget, and helping out the middle and lower class citizens. The country prospered and life was great for a lot of us....


After Clinton's last term, again I wasn't interested in the canidates, but I thought Al Gore was the better canidate than Bush, Florida and the "chads" thought otherwise. Could Al Gore have dealt with or handled the events of 9/11 differently, we'll never know. Would John Kerry have been a better president to deal with Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans, we'll never know. But I'm sure the two of them would have dealt with the War in the Middle East, the housing market crash, and the fuel crisis much better than the bumbling idiot we have now.




But this year seems really different for a lot of us. Quite frankly, I think(and the press seems to agree) that Lil' B, or George Bush #2 as some refer to as, has done an absolute crappy job as President. Finally, his term is up, and someone other than him is next. Obviously, at the top of the post you saw who I'm leaning towards, but I can't knock McCain down. He's a true American Patriot who served his country and sacrificed himself so that other P.O.W.'s could go free. He's a national hero and a great senator. But McCain seems to have similar policies as Bush, and I feel the country, definately does not need that!!! It's time for a change, which Obama will bring. Maybe it's because I like to root for the underdog, which Barak was for quite a while, remember? It was supposed to be Hillary and McCain, right?! Wrong. I had been flipping through the tv channels one night and came across C-span or another one of those public access/political channels and saw him give a speach before he entered the running. It was extremely motivational, and his views were like mine. Time for change, time for someone to fight for the middle and lower class, to bring peace to the middle east, to allow us and our children to afford the things in life and save for the future, so that our children don't have to worry about our grandchildren, and to fix the damn problems so the US can prosper again...

Am I trying to convince others to vote for Obama? Not at all, vote for who you want, and I'm doing the same. I just felt like venting about Bush, and stating why I'm voting for Barak Obama this year. I'm tired of living paycheck to paycheck, just trying to put fuel in my car to come to work... I hope I didn't bore you too much?

Oh yeah, I have a blog......update time.

So I'm back to work after taking a week off for vacation with my daughter before she heads back to school. 1st grade already, my word does time fly by! What did we do for vacation you ask? I had planned to go camping with her for a day at Yogi Bear Campground in Sturbridge, MA, and possibly a trip to Six Flags New England, and my Dad's in Westerly, but due to my never ending bills, funds were to low. It felt like we did nothing, well, as far as day trips, but we did end up spending time with one of my best friends, and his kids. Unfortunately, he had some stuff go down at his job and ended up quiting, but he had already started the interview process for another job. So needless to say, we were both off from work, and had the kids, which our daughters are best friends like ourselves.

So we pretty much relaxed and let the kids go at it every day. We did get to go to Quaddick State Park for an afternoon and I never realized how much of a fish Hayleigh is. I sat on the bench under a tree, as I hate swimming with fish, and there were three huge pumpkin seeds lurking around when I first went in, so needless to say I wasn't in the water very long. So I sat on the bench nervously gazing out into the water, while my 6 year old and her friends were flopping around and diving underwater without her usual Hannah Montana life preserver on. She wears it while in pools, as the water is usually close to being over her head at times, but she was smart and wouldn't go into the lake too far. After a while she came out and we played in the sand for an hour or so, then headed back to my friend's house to have dinner on the grill.

Our last day was last friday, where I treated her to a pedicure at one of the local nail salons(the ex wife loves to spoil her with girly stuff, it wasn't her first time). I spent the time sitting across from her, glancing back and forth from her to the front of the store where the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen was getting her fingernails worked on. Of course I was to shy to do or say anything, so I continued to watch Hayleigh while she attempted to have a conversation with the oriental lady that was painting her toe nails. Honestly, I know the lady didn't understand what she was saying, and spoke in extremely broken english, but it was cute and funny to watch Hayleigh at the same time enjoying her "pidicure" and trying to talk to her. We then continued on to the friend's house again, before bringing her to North Windham to meet up with the ex around 6:30 pm.

I spent the rest of the weekend relaxing and doing fire department stuff, and went ATV riding with friends on Sunday, before heading into work Sunday night. Now I feel like the "white cloud", as it's been extremely quiet all week so far, on the 9-1-1 front, so I decided to try out my laptop's movie maker and made a slideshow. It's my first attempt, so I decided to make one about my trip last September to Scotland. My friend Linda(who's probably the only one that reads this blog..lol) has mentioned that she wants to go, so I figured I should post it. I'm hoping to get some more fire department pictures so I can make one for that. Enjoy and feel free to let me know what you think....
i

Been a long time, Man-O-Man!!

Wow!! So I just noticed that I haven't been on here in a long time, little over a year. I thought I'd catch on with this blogging thing a couple years ago, but apparently I couldn't get into it enough to keep it going like most people.

So what have I been up to?? Still at home, trying to pay off my little debt that I have left(so I can buy a house or condo), but my luck, things keep happening when I seem to be making progress, and just kicks my butt back to the poor house! LOL. I still have my daughter every other weekend, and take her during a week in the summer. As a matter of fact, next week is my summer vacation, and, of course, money is short, so nothing too big, maybe camping for a day or two, and a trip to Six Flags New England. Yeah, she's 6, but she's tall enough, and crazy enough to want to go on the "scarey grown up rides."

She had her first year of dance classes, and performed in the Mohegan Sun's Nutcracker, and had a wonderful dance recital. She's been nothing but perfect as a child, maybe a little spoiled by me, but my ex or myself haven't had a single problem with her. I am a little worried though, that she may have a problem lately. She's been very worry-some, and apologizing for the littlest things almost to the point of annoyance, and I'm afraid she may have inherited some form of mental illness from her mother, or both of her grandmothers. I'm hoping it's just a phase, and her pediatrician and both of us are keeping an eye on it.

I was dating a great girl, off and on for two years from Foxboro, M.A., but it didn't work out. She's a great, sweet, beautiful woman, who's family is extremely messed up, and take things out on her. I felt I was responsible to save her from the situation, but obviously couldn't, and I finally realized that she deserves more than I could give her at the time.

I also took my first ever out of country trip, in Sept. of 2007, to visit and stay with family in Scotland. They were extremely generous, and gave me a wonderful tour of the area where my grandmother grew up(Muirkirk), Glasgow, Edinburgh, Ayr, Prestwick, Alloway, and London. I was also there to see history, as my last night was spent in the family owned pub/Inn, drunk as a skunk, watching the Scottish EURO-Cup soccer team beat France 1-NIL, on french soil for the first time in 57 years. You think the 2004 Red Sox championship celebration was crazy in New England?? You could only imagine if you were there!! AYE!! T'was a grrrr-eat trip for Mae!!