The Front Page
The Risk is Real - Serving our Country
Remembering those that have served and those that are serving our country.
You know sometimes it doesn't hit you until it is personal.
Please remember these Santa Anna folks that are serving our country in combat, training, or support: Maricela (Marty) Siller, Clay Hubbard, Eddie Dawson, Ike Garza, James Watson, Austin Voss, Randy Casey, Mike Montgomery II, Mark Rutherford, Allen Tucker, James Culpepper, and Shane Watson.
1502 American soldiers or sailors have died in Operation Enduring Freedom as reported by the
Department of Defense and the
Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. Pray for our country, its' leaders, and our soldiers and sailors.
I don't want to take away from any life given for this war or for wars of the past but I was curious about how the War in Iraq compared to other wars in the past as far as those in service, number of deaths, and wounded. The Korean War lasted about 37 months and resulted in about 54,000 deaths and 103,000 wounded Americans. The Vietnam War lasted about 101 months with around 3 million men in the conflict and resulted in about 58,000 deaths and 153,000 wounded. Some of this information was taken from The Korean War Educator and The Department of Defense DIOR.
Desert Storm included around 225,000 in service, over 380 deaths, and 467 wounded.
World War II saw over 16 million in service, over 405,000 deaths, and 670,000 wounded.
World War I had almost 5 million in service, over 116,000 deaths, and 204,000 wounded.
And the Civil War had over 2 million in service, almost 365,000 deaths and over 280,000 wounded.
You know sometimes it doesn't hit you until it is personal.
Many service men and women return home safely. Operation Tribute to Freedom Homecoming Photographs.
Sometimes..
You all bear with me for a minute..
You know that sometimes life is disappointing.
This past week I experienced several things that really made me think about how I spend each day. Some of which I will share with you now, some later, and some maybe not all.
By now you know that I place a lot of emphasis on getting an education and how important I think it is. After all Life is an education.
I had a little set back in my formal education this week. I had told you how I had been accepted into Texas Tech's distance learning program. I also got their evaluation of my transcripts a little later this week. I was really expecting around 90 hours of transfer after Angelo State accepted all of my hours at Howard Payne.
I thought at worst my two religious required courses at Howard Payne might not transfer. At Howard Payne you are required to take an Old and a New Testament course with the first called Hebrew Heritage and the second Christian Heritage.
Actually, I consider these to be two of the most valuable courses I have taken.
I was especially surprised when I opened the envelope and 39 hours of courses were not applied towards the Bachelor of General Studies Degree that I was hoping to get. The six hours of religious courses were not applied and neither was 33 hours of Computer Science.
Well you can probably imagine my disappointment. I called to make sure that there was not a mistake and there wasn't.
Now you might be thinking that I would give up by now.
But I haven't.
I figure that it is an opportunity.. remember opportunity?
I will try to take advantage of this one to at least knock out that science class and lab that I have worried about and that is so hard for me to get because of Friday afternoon labs for most science courses..
Well enough of this.. I will let you in on some more later.
Remember.. life is an opportunity.. don't let it pass you by.
Unpatriotic and Unsportsmanlike Stuff
There have been a couple of things that have just kind of gotten to me recently.
First off, the suggestion of the removal of things like "Under God" from The Pledge of Allegiance, or "In God We Trust" from money, removal of Bibles and The Ten Commandments from court rooms, prayer from school, etc. There is a big deal being made now of saying the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools. I am for it. I even remember singing "My country 'tis of thee" when we were kids.
At a recent basketball game I was a little surprised when one of our student athletes did not stand when the National Anthem was played. This student was not participating in the game that was fixing to be played so it is was not that big of deal I guess. It becomes an issue of protest and disrespect for your school and other teammates as much as it does a patriotic one. I am not saying that you should have to sing it. While I respect the religious freedoms of others I am not so tolerant of unpatriotic behavior. It is sort of like flag burning.. if you don't like it here in this country maybe you should live somewhere else.. There is a big news story about this going around this week about a teacher that expelled student for being extremely unruly when the Pledge of Allegiance was being done school wide over the intercom. The student actually videoed his behavior and put it on his website.
Now for the unsportsmanlike behavior. There have been several incidents in smaller college schools recently where assault charges have been filed against players that blatantly foul or against coaches that promote it during games. In a couple of these incidents I heard or read about some players that were put in by their coaches to "Take an opponent out". In one the victim received a broken arm and another received 30 or so stitches. In each of these incidents assault charges were filed against the athlete that was injured. I think this reaction to this type unsportsmanlike conduct may very well be a wake up call for coaches, fans, and athletes alike that promote this type of game play. In one of the incidents the coach was suspended.
Unpatriotic and Unsportsmanlike Stuff - Part II
On the way to work Wednesday I was surprised to hear about the Supreme Court hearing a case on the Ten Commandments granite monument on the Texas Capitol grounds. At lunch I caught CNN interviewing the homeless lawyer that filed the suit but couldn't afford to go to Washington DC to hear the proceedings and refused the help of friends.
On the sports side there were several incidents in the news as one soccer player was suspended for ten games when he pushed a referee and used threatening words. See this CNN article for more information.
In a separate incident a teenage girl was arrested for throwing a bottle at soccer team members as they exited a bus. See this Scotsman article.
James's Cool Site of the Week
Of course most schools are running track right now but for those that are still playing basketball the UIL has a really neat website for the State Championship Tournament with one for Boys and one for Girls.
One of the things that is really neat about it is in each bracket they have links for the individual teams that include a team photo, roster, with regular season and playoff match ups and scores. For example, take a look at the Girls team from Moulton which has had 22 appearances at the tournament.
Weather
Once again what great weather we had Sunday. After the little showers Friday and Saturday, I poured out another two and a half inches of rain Saturday afternoon and another inch on Sunday.
Sunday of course we had a great day going when some clouds started gathering and blew right passed us.
What a nice day Tuesday was.. I at least got my front yard mowed before the storm blew in!
I read in the paper where Hords Creek Lake has filled up for the first time since 1993. I knew it had been a while, but that sure will make it nice this Summer. It is one of our favorite places to go.
I Like..
Not so much to bore you too much with what I do but to just let you know a little more about who I am and where I am going with SantaAnnaNews.com, I am going to lighten up things just a little after the way too serious "I Believe" stuff from the last two weeks. This next week or so I am going to share with you some of the things that I like.
I Like.. to spend time with my Grandson's.
No none of my kids have had any more kids. Cindy and I have come to love Josh's son Jayden just as much as we do our grandson Dawson. Sunday afternoon Jennifer asked if I would keep the boy's for a while and since Cindy had been a little under the weather I was glad that the Sun was shining so we could play outside. When Jenn dropped the boys off Jayden came up to Cindy, not really knowing that she had been sick, and gave her a big hug. I am not sure if it made Cindy feel any better but it really made me feel good. I had a lot planned for Sunday since it had rained alot Saturday but that changed with the added help.
Cindy had bought me a new grill at Sears for our upcoming Anniversary and we went to pick it up in Abilene Saturday.
I had hoped to be able to put it together and did get part of it done. The boys played in the empty box for a good bit but soon got bored with that so we had to go for a wagon ride.
I did find enough time to finish it before it got dark after Jennifer came home earlier than she had expected. I was glad because I had promised Cindy some Kabobs and had already bought all the stuff.
My last gas grill was also a Sears Kenmore that Cindy had bought me for our Anniversary a couple of years ago but I never really did like it too much. It had an "I" burner that had recently just about burned up. I told Chrystal and Jason they could have it since they didn't have a grill and that they could get a burner for it. The grill we had before that was a Christmas gift from my Mother and Father-in-law and it had an "H" burner that I had replaced several times before giving it to Jennifer and Josh.
I like to Bar-B-Que. Cindy will tell you that Bar-B-Queing is one of my three favorite things to do and I will tell you about the other two of them shortly.
We don't normally cook Kabobs and probably would have rather have cooked a steak or some burgers to break in the new grill, but they really turned out great. I had bought some pearl onions, red and green bell peppers, fresh whole mushrooms, and some sirloin tip steak at the Baskit. Cindy did all of the hard stuff, cutting everything up and putting it on the skewers. She wrapped the meat in bacon before skewering it and then poured a Teriyaki marinade over it. This was actually the first time we used the flat skewers that came with a set I got Christmas a year ago and they worked great.
Well you will have to take my word that they tasted great but just to tease you here is how they looked:
I Like.. Part II
I like to eat.
Well you might be able to tell if you have read SantaAnnaNews.com for very long that I like to eat.
Let me tell you that Cindy can cook and I am just thankful that she doesn't cook anymore than she does or I would weigh a lot more than I do!
My favorite food is Mexican.. all types but mainly enchiladas, quesadillas, and fajitas. I also like good chips, hot sauce, guacamole, and creamy queso. My favorite place to eat most of these is at home but I really like Mi Familia in Early, Alejandros in Ballinger, Abuelos in Abilene, and several in San Angelo including Mejor Que Nada, Fuentes', Enrique's, Henry's.
After that I would have to say spaghetti is one of my top favorite foods with a tie between my Mom's and Cindy's.
Then it goes to the grill for steak, burgers, and ribs in that order with home being the favorite place.
To round it out seafood, mainly shrimp and crab, at home followed by Landry's. Papadeux, and Red Lobster in that order.
And you can't eat without drink.. and I like to drink Sweet Iced Tea.. followed by Dr Pepper, beer, and milk in that order but it has a whole lot to do with what I am eating.
I Like.. Part III
I like to watch TV.
I particularly like to watch action movies. My all time favorite movie is Top Gun followed by The Green Berets, and then Pearl Harbor. I really like John Wayne. When I was little I would sit next to my Dad in his easy chair and watch any and every John Wayne movie that came on. Some of my other favorite actors are Sean Connery.. as James Bond and in his new movies, Martin Lawrence and Will Smith together as Bad Boys, and Mel Gibson.
One thing about action movies is you have to be able to feel like you are there and the better the sound the closer I feel.. a couple of years ago I learned about "Tactile Sound".. If you can't feel the jets take off the aircraft carrier it's just not the same.
The other thing is you have to be able to feel something inside.. emotionally to make it a good movie. For example the young Vietnamese boy looking for Peterson at the end of The Green Berets and The tragedy of "Goose" dieing in Top Gun.
We don't watch a lot of "unreal TV". We watched most of the second Bachelor and Bachelorette and some Fear Factor for a while but now we seem to have better things to do. We watch some American Idol and we usually watch Law and Order SVU anytime it is on. For some reason we watched The Osbournes when it was on MTV and now we have started watching Growing up Gotti. And you may think this is weird but we like to watch MTV's Cribs.. I guess to see how the rich and famous live or something. I like to watch CMT too but that is on the rare occasion that I get the remote and no one else is around!
Well enough of all that!
I Like.. Part IV
I like to listen to music.
If you have read SantaAnnaNews.com for very long you know by now that I like to listen to country music. But you may not know that I like several other types as well.
My all time favorite country artist is George Strait. Some of my other favorite country artists are Alan Jackson, Tracy Lawrence, Tracy Byrd, and Kenny Chesney. Female country artists that I like are Faith Hill, Shania Twain, and Martina McBride.
After hearing Gretchen Wilson sing the National Anthem during the World Series I have become a huge fan. I kind of liked her different kind of songs along with other Muzik Mafia members Big and Rich.
I also like 70's and 80's rock and roll with my all time favorite group The Eagles. I also like AC/DC, ZZ Top, and on the softer side Chicago and the Doobies.
More recently I have started listening to a little more R&B though I haven't listened enough to have a favorite yet.
A Scouting friend from Abilene introduced me to Classical Baroque music a long time ago when he gave me an album of Pachebel's Canon in D. This album contains music that is popular in weddings and television. He also had an album with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture that included digital cannon fire that I really liked a lot. I extended my exposure to "art music" in Music Appreciation class at Howard Payne where I learned, and since forgot, how to identify styles and periods of music by listening.
I Like.. Part V
I like to work hard.
I enjoy the feeling of accomplishment that hard work gives.
By hard work I mean there are two requirements.. you have to sweat and you have to wear gloves.
I am looking forward to a couple of things I have going on with SantaAnnaNews.com next week besides all this talk about me.. but I just needed to express a couple of things. I have been working pretty hard on the new stuff though I haven't sweated any and haven't been wearing any gloves! I am still not real sure where all we will end up but I hope that you enjoy the ride with me.
I like Fridays. Especially after a week of hard work. And I hope you work hard and have a good Friday!
Track Meet and "You might be from Santa Anna if.." and what the heck.. "I wonder whatever happened to..? all rolled up into one article!
The first track meets are scheduled for this week according to the SAISD Monthly Calendar.
The Jr High will be at Strawn on Thursday and the High School in Menard Saturday.
My lawyer friend from Snyder, Mike Hartman, recently sent in a suggestion for "You might be from Santa Anna if.." which was, "..you know what an incredible track athlete Liz Morris was." Well I thought that was pretty good but since I have been using a little bit more humorous side borrowing from Jeff Foxworthy and Bill Engvall's "You might be a Redneck..if" I thought it might be a little more appropriate to ask "Whatever happened to.. Liz Morris?" especially since it is the start of track season.
State Champ
The 1976 SAHS Mountaineer caption reads,"In her four years of high school track Liz Morris ran the 440 yard dash in three State Track Meets. She set State Conference B records in her Junior and Senior years, running a 56.8 in 1976, her Senior year."
SantaAnnaNews.com Classifieds Work..
Well I hope that you didn't have your heart set on buying Jessica's Kia, because we sold it last Wednesday to someone in Mills County that found out about it from SantaAnnaNews.com!
But it's not too late to send in YOUR classified. It doesn't have to be a car or big ticket item. It can be anything from a house for sale to a garage sale. Best of all it is FREE! Send your classifieds to news@santaannanews.com today.
Want your own dot com?
This is a great time to get it whether you just want it for an e-mail address of your own, like james@yourlastname.com, or for putting some family pictures on the web, or getting your business on the web
1 and 1 is by far your best bet!
Any questions just send me an e-mail and I will be happy to help you get started, or just click the 1 and 1 ad on the left, or any of the links in this article.
