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Operation Recruiter Appreciation
I ran across a post in the Alabama Soldiers’ Angels forums from Lisa regarding the upcoming Armed Forces Day (May 17th). Gathering of Eagles is planning to set aside that day to “visit as many recruiter offices as we can and to pay some type of tribute to them,” calling it Operation Recruiter Appreciation.
An excellent idea! Recruiting is a tough and sometimes thankless job and we want to make sure that these hardworking men and women know that they are appreciated!
If you are interested in helping, contact Lisa at hottie0427 @ hotmail.com (remove the spaces before emailing).
To find your local recruiting offices, go to: www.todaysmilitary.com/contact-a-recruiter
I plan on hitting a couple recruiters’ offices around the Birmingham metro area Friday, May 16th. Will you join me in thanking our recruiters for their service to our country?
Wrong number
It’s not often, but we get wrong number calls at our house. Usually it’s someone trying to reach the local Dairy Queen. (whose number now is nothing like ours, but apparently USED to be one digit off!) Every blue moon or so, we’ll get a call intended for someone else.
I came home last night and a wrong number called the house and left a message on the machine. It was from a local insurance office leaving a life insurance quote. I laughed to myself and deleted the message. Part of me wondered for whom the call was really meant — if I knew, I’d let them know that they could probably get a MUCH cheaper rate with my insurance carrier. LOL!
Busy time and upcoming schedule of events
It’s busy time! Sorry I’ve been so quiet lately, work is busy, home is busy, and what little spare time I’ve had has been for cooking, eating, and sleeping — and pretty much in that order. Jessie’s into her last semester of the school year. Things are starting to pick back up at work. Jim’s really busy at NSR.
Coming up
My birthday is next week. Considering nobody’s asked me what I want yet, I’m hoping for something to go shopping with. *grin* Though cash would be nice … I’ve been eying a very nice Smith & Wesson .38 special. :mrgreen:
Things with Soldiers’ Angels has been going great! I’ve been gathering materials for the upcoming Magnolia Festival and will have everything I need for the event mid next week. I’m looking forward to meeting people from this and neighboring communities and will hopefully gain some new SA members from it! 
Time to roll, Tide!
Alabama’s A-Day Game is this upcoming weekend, so Jess and I will be headed to T-town to meet up with Teresa and her loved ones. I’ll be gathering a few travel supplies over the next few days and (if Jim lets me borrow his camera) hopefully get some great A-Day pictures!
Time to design
I noticed on the Lunarpages blog a week or so back that they are having another WordPress design contest. YAY! I’ve started on a few designs to enter, and will post a sneak peek of the first one here when it’s ready (hopefully this weekend, but realistically early next week).
Baby steps…
April 3, 2008 by Nicki
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Look out neighborhood, here I come!
I submitted an application this morning for a space reservation at the upcoming Magnolia Festival. I decided to take the leap and get out in the community to raise awareness for Soldiers’ Angels and try to get people informed and involved.
I still need to secure a tent, but I’ve already gotten brochures, fliers, and a table/chairs set (thanks, Jeremy!). So if you’re in my neck of the woods in a couple of weeks, come on by!
Coming to terms
I’m slowly getting used to the new WordPress admin layout. I do really like the Media Library under Manage. I stopped hosting my images here on my blog a while back, and had wanted to go back and clean up the ones that are no longer being used. This will definitely come in handy for that! Plus, there’s a search option, so if I need to find a specific image that I know I’ve used before, that will also help.
Kudos to the WordPress team for that one …
For the past two nights I was unable to find the Blogroll section. I realized today that it’s because it’s been renamed to Links. Having a good night’s sleep helps a lot when trying to suss out new layouts! LOL! I also noticed a Feeds section, and if I’m hearing correctly, the upcoming features will be sweeeeeeet.
Add-ons
I’ve dropped Advanced Tag Entry and am giving Simple Tags a run. Jim’s been playing with it on his site, and I really like their “Auto tags old content” feature for older posts (like all of mine before the implementation of tagging!).
I’ve also deactivated WP-Cache in favor of WP Super Cache. I’ve been reading lots of good things about this plugin, and after following it for 6+ months, I figured it was time to give it a go (and I’m tired of WP-Cache screwing things up).
Jim also recommended WordPress.com Stats to me, so I’m trying it out as well.
So, if anything looks screwy … please let me know!
Meme: Passion Quilt
I’ve been tagged by Cookie for the Passion Quilt. I had never heard of this thing, but its concept is interesting.
The way it goes:
A PASSION QUILT
THE RULES:
- Post a picture or make/take/create your own that captures what YOU are most passionate for students to learn about.
- Give your picture a short title.
- Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt.”
- Link back to this blog entry.
- Include links to 5 (or more) educators.
Ok, so here’s my picture, and its title is Find Your Voice
Photo courtesy of Hagit
Here are my educator picks that I think today’s young people could learn a lot from:
- Teresa
- John and Miranda
- White Trash Mom
- Beth of My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
- Conservative Belle
- Greta of Kiss My Gumbo and Hooah Wife
- Jules of Everyday Mommy
Cookie gets honorable mention — he would have been in my list, but he’s already done this meme … and he’s the one who tagged me in the first place! 
Weird deliveries come by email
March 26, 2008 by Nicki
I got all kinds of weird things via email. Hell, half of them are from Uncle Monster. ;P hehehe… But he’s not the only one … I have a friend in CA who owns a little San Diego carpet cleaning company. He sent me a whole slew of stuff today (bored are we, George? ), including two pieces in the animal kingdom that caught my eye: apparently it’s not the feathers that makes a bird, and scientists work on fishing for the lazy. The first one kind of surprised me … I always thought peacock feathers were the ultimate end-all-be-all of sexy costumes of the animal world.
Shows what I know. :lol:
Senate says ‘no’ to guns on campus
Several local ‘Bama blogs are already steaming over news the proposed campus gun bill has been blocked by the Senate. A shame really, because personally I thought that was a pretty good damned idea! Per Erwin, it was “designed to discourage gunmen by making them aware someone could shoot back quickly.”
Ya damned skippy.
Something a little lighter
Want a good laugh? Check out this SondraK post.
Very cute. :mrgreen:
Spice of Sci-Fi
And last but not least … because I have GOT to have something sci-fi every day, here’s a list of the six most brilliant “bite your head” dragons from science fiction.
Because dragons are cool, mmmkay?
Omega-packed weekend
March 17, 2008 by Nicki
We had an absolutely FULL weekend this weekend. Our furniture delivery took a bit longer than I had anticipated. Apparently the setup of the bed wasn’t quite as easy as the salespeople had us believe (it never is!), but what aggravated me was that they forgetting to deliver some accessories to the bed. Oh well, it’ll be here later this week, and it wasn’t essential … but still …
Jim and I popped by OmegaCon for a bit Saturday. (at the time of this post, the OC site is down) We saw TONS of cool stuff, met lots of interesting people, and came home with a few goodies, cool swag, t-shirts and other geeky goodness, an Asian version of a Swiss Army knife, and my (early) birthday gift from Jim: a black on red Victorian/goth dress and corset set (courtesy of Lady Heather, who was fabulous dealing with all my questions and helping me with my dress and corset!). :mrgreen:
Complete Photoset:
Among the many we met were: Dixie Hallows, 501st Legion (Alabama Garrison), Southeastern Browncoats, Fiona’s Fancies, Iron Age Remains, Lady Heather’s Fashions, Legendary Leatherworks, Pegasus Publishing (t-shirts), Renaissance Fashions, Brain-On (he and his girlfriend were very sweet!), Mark Helwig, Mitch Foust (artist of that lovely Dark Phoenix print I bought!), Capt. Comics (who sold me the Bleeding Edge Goth doll).
We had a great time, and I will DEFINITELY be looking forward to going back next year!
I’m pleased to say that things with Soldiers’ Angels are going well. I’ve been busy mailing out donation requests to a few local businesses who’ve expressed interest in the organization and/or donating, so hopefully I’ll be getting some help in that area. I will say this: Intuit’s (the makers of TurboTax) It’s Deductible online site has been a great way to keep track of out of pocket costs that can be deducted from next year’s return.
Hooray for helpful tools!
And last but certainly not least: got a bit of an “Aww…” moment, courtesy of BlackFive.
Stories of heroism and intrigue
March 12, 2008 by Nicki
There are a lot of things I wanted to cover today, unfortunately I wasn’t able to finish this post prior to class this afternoon, so bear with me … there’s a lot here.
Those of you who are local I’m sure have been following the story of the busload of Marines that overturned Sunday. They were from E Co., Anti-Terrorism Battalion, 4th Marine Division, returning from a weekend training exercise. I read this morning about Lance Cpl. David Miles, the Marine that passed away Monday afternoon from his injuries. However, even in death he still served others.
“According to his mom, he was very adamant about (donating) his organs … so the mom is very adamant about carrying out his wishes of harvesting as many of his organs as possible.”
Courtesy of The Birmingham News.
No doubt about it in my mind, he’s a hero. Courtesy of Villainous Company, here’s another tale of heroism: America’s Female Warriors Show Bravery, Loyalty. Greta highlighted a brave soldier’s father that she has met through Soldiers’ Angels: Robert Stokely, a fellow SA member and father of Mike Stokely who proudly gave his all for his country in Iraq.
Honestly the grace and bravery that our finest men and women exhibit every day never cease to amaze me. Too bad the liberal media doesn’t show them more often! :sad:
On Cookie’s site earlier today, I read a story about a couple of vets experiencing problems with Verizon:
Verizon Cancels Returning Marines’ Cellphones, Gives Their Number Away, Charges Them $500
Two Marines, a husband and wife, found Verizon had an unpleasant welcome-home gift waiting for them when they got back from serving in Iraq: canceled cellphones, a $500bill, and their phone numbers were given to other people. Under the Service Members Civil Relief Act, when a soldier goes off to war, they’re able to send their deployment letters to their service companies and get their service put on hold. Apparently in the case of Haley Katz and her husband, that letter wasn’t good enough. When they complained and reached a manager, the manager told them ” it was their fault they owed the money”, and then hung up on them. Read their letter as published in Stars and Stripes, inside…
At 3:30 a.m (Iraq time), [recently], my husband and I called Verizon Wireless to reactivate our phones, as we are returning home [from Iraq] soon and wanted to catch the company during its business hours. Upon speaking with a customer service representative, it became apparent that Verizon not only suspended our contracts, it disconnected our phones and gave our numbers away to other customers.
What is truly amazing is that the company took the letters our commanding officers signed regarding our deployment dates, and deemed the letters not worthy of suspending our contracts. It continued to charge us for those months without notifying us and when we did not pay, it disconnected the lines.
Long story short, when we called to reactivate our phones they told us our numbers no longer existed and that we owed them nearly $500!
When we asked to speak to a manager, we were told nothing could be done. When we did actually speak to a manager we were told it was our fault that we owed the money. The manager then proceeded to say “We’re sorry but nothing can be done for you. Goodbye.”
We were hung up on … in Iraq … at 3:30 in the morning. Real professional.
We spoke to another manager who was courteous enough to recredit our accounts and cut all remaining ties with their service. We are no longer with Verizon Wireless.
For all of the soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen out there, make sure you are checking up on the status of your accounts. Apparently, a letter from your command stating you are deploying is not enough these days. And aside from seeing service members off at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point (N.C.), I am not sure what else they are looking for.
Marine 2nd Lt. Haley Katz
Camp Fallujah, Iraq
:shock: I’ve heard horror stories about Verizon and their crappy customer service for years, but this takes the cake!
And speaking of human depravity, there’s the Berkley protesters. We’ve all heard of this one, right? Today, Rachel Lucas gave plenty examples of and commented on the ‘fine minds’ (and I say that lightly!) objecting to our nation’s finest.
Somebody please put these morons out of our misery!
Moving on to cooler (and more intriguing) things … a Starbucks employee donates a kidney to her customer. In today’s Mental Floss blog postings, a UAB study is mentioned where researchers are studying the use of scorpion venom in cancer medication. (YAY us!) Also, one of my fave sci-fi blogs, IO9, tells me that there is a remake coming for one of my favorite ‘B’ movies, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! :grin: And last but not least, a funny bit courtesy of A Bama Blog: How to tell that you’ve ticked off an engineer.
I think that just about covers it.
Oh … before I forget … anyone going to OmegaCon this weekend?
Never shop when you’re hungry
March 7, 2008 by Nicki
Jim and I went out for the evening and on the way to dinner, we ducked into Wal-mart for “just a couple of things.” Boy oh boy, I should know better than to shop when we’re hungry. I think we came home with half the store. LOL!
Rather than buying Jessie a pre-made Easter basket, we stocked up on various candies, stuffed animals, and other toys and goodies and will be putting her basket together manually. All together it probably cost 3 times as much as the basket, but she’d have more stuff and it’s more personalized. After all, who can resist camo Easter eggs?
Jessie’s so gonna be spoiled.
A couple of hours later, we finally get out of Wal-mart and headed up to El Carreton in Gardendale. It looks like a hole in the wall place, but trust me, it’s got the BEST Mexican/Spanish food I’ve ever had!
I highly recommend their chimichangas! :mrgreen:
We need more of these
(cross-posted to The Cotillion)
I was perusing The Birmingham News blog entries and ran across this one, featuring a local Marine vet who’s making a stand in honor of those who have served and sacrificed for our freedom.
Michael Rudulph, a three-tour Marine veteran, has taken a stand — vigilantly guarding the Eternal Flame of Freedom monument, a tribute to all war veterans, located in Linn Park here in Birmingham. The flame has been out for many years, and no one knows for certain how long or why. Sitting beside the monument with his own make-shift torch, a fire extinguisher, and some coffee, he has vowed not to leave his post except only to attend his classes at UAB and to sleep.
My hat’s off to you, Mr. Rudulph! It does my heart good to see our own local heroes stepping up and setting a good example for the rest of us. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I for one am tired of hearing about spoiled rotten starlets and pop stars hopping in and out of drug rehabilitation clinics. Give me more stories like Rudulph’s. Stop rewarding bad behavior with press and start rewarding those who are actually trying to make a difference in this world — even if it’s only starting with one monument in a small park in the South.
To Michael, thank you for your service and for raising awareness. To The Birmingham News, we need more of these!
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