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The Risk is Real - Serving our Country

As I watched ABC's Good Morning America on Monday morning before going to work they showed Dianne Sawyer on location where the Tsunami hit and she was telling about all of the tragedies, rescues, and the rescue helicopters flying in from the USS Abraham Lincoln. The very same USS Abraham Lincoln that Santa Anna's own Clay Hubbard is stationed on in the Pacific Ocean. See the official USS Abraham Lincoln CVN-72 website for more information and some really cool pictures.

Sent to me from Clay on Wednesday the 5th, Just a little info about the stuff that we are doing . We are delivering to Sumatra coastline supplies, cargo, food, and medical help from the ship are helping out on land, a few selected people are going ashore to help out with what they can, because of the shots and medicine that you have to take, then you have to do follow up shots and medcine. Transporting aid to isolated areas, search and rescue. what you are seeing, and hearing on the news that's talking about the Abe lincoln that's what we are doing. Jeb Bush, and Collin Powell are going to be here Jan 5.

We were in Waco this past weekend visiting Cindy's Mom and Brother and I really wanted to go to Baylor's Floyd Casey Stadium to see the ceremonies sending the Texas National Guardsmen off on Saturday, but we had to settle for watching it on the local news that evening. Here is one Send Off Ceremony photo archive from the 56th Brigade Combat Team's web site.

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, Eddie Dawson, Ike Garza, Clay Hubbard, James Watson, Austin Voss, Randy Casey, Mike Montgomery II, Mark Rutherford, Allen Tucker, James Culpepper, and Shane Watson.

Many service men and women return home safely. Operation Tribute to Freedom Homecoming Photographs.

Santa Anna Livestock Show

The Santa Anna Livestock Show will be this Saturday at the show barn. I am planning to be there to take some photos for the kids so I hope to see you there.

Mountaineers 3 Falcons 0

All three Mountaineer teams beat the Veribest Falcons on Tuesday night. I am not sure about the JV Girls score, but the Varsity Girls won 67-61 and the Boys won 52-46.

West Texas Sunset

Kidnapped!

.. or should I say G-Pa napped.. or maybe G-Pa needs a nap?

$1.559 per gallon for Gas?

That's right.. we bought gas for $1.559 in Waco this past weekend. And we saw gas at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club for $1.529 with a Wal-Mart or Sam's card.

I remember back when I sold gas for a living how sometimes it was cheaper to "pull" gas from the Waco rack. The "rack" is where they pump the raw fuel onto the tanker trucks and usually where the brand additives are put in.

By the time the gas is branded, wholesaled, and shipped you could usually add another 20 cents per gallon to the rack price, but most of the time it was cheaper to get it from Waco than Dallas, Abilene, or San Antonio. Even after the $400 or so transport charges. Of course by the time you add the Federal and State taxes it jumps on up there. Regardless it never made much since why it was always 10 cents per gallon or so cheaper in Brownwood than here. Oh sure we had plenty of competition.. there were six other service stations and two inconvenient stores. The trick is, at the time, there were "fuel zones" where the delivery charges to certain areas were higher and we just happen to fall in one of those "no man" areas where most of them don't want to deliver to much less be in business.

For example Mobil pulled out of all of West Texas around 1985 and Exxon became a real stickler for brand awareness and quality control after the Exxon Valdez disaster. And even Texaco became pretty strict in the 90's and now most of the really nice Texaco locations have become Shell branded with the not so nice ones being closed up.

Santa Anna 2004-2005 Lady Mountaineers

Santa Anna 2004-2005 Lady Mountaineers coached by Bob Libby L-R Standing: Angel Deleon, Micah Pritchard, Chaplin Delarosa, Jesse Hensley, Amanda Moreno, Tasha Zarate, Raelee Watson, Bianca Dean, Kneeling: Jessica Pelton, and Mayra Dean.

Photo by Cindy Pelton.

Unsportsmanlike Conduct - Part III

As I watch the Dallas Cowboys finish out their season on Sunday Night Football it really seems a lot more like Monday Night Football. They have just lost another game but it was very exciting as it came down to the last play of the game and it wasn't just on the same old field goal kick for a win. I am really impressed with the class of two standout players. The Dallas Cowboys' rookie running back Julius Jones and the New York Giants' Pro Bowl and veteran running back Tiki Barber.

Julius is coming out of Notre Dame and reminds me of one of my all time favorite players Emmitt Smith. Emmitt really had a lot of class and rarely spiked the ball on touchdowns or celebrated. The couple of times I have seen Julius interviewed this year he has been really cool and not too big headed like so many of today's "professional" athletes. Tiki Barber set the all time and season rushing records in this game and was so cool in all of his interviews it made you wonder how he could run so tough.

I am not that much of a Dallas Cowboys fan since Tom Landry was fired by Jerry Jones, but I have kept up with them a little more this year since getting to see my first game ever at Texas Stadium in this years' home opener vs the Cleveland Browns.

I grew up in a different era when showboating wasn't really all that popular even in professional sports and earned some of them nicknames, such as "Hollywood" Henderson. I remember begging Mom to take me to the 7-11 when we lived in Garland, to get an Icee cup with the Cowboys images and trying to get a treasured Roger Staubach. Those 7-11's I guess were the first of what I call "inconvenient stores". Back then the cool thing wasn't to play NFL on a Playstation it was to get one of those vibrating tables that had the little player figures that carried a cardboard ball as the table was turned on and off. Oh for when life was simpler.. anyhow.. these guys really had class.

Some games I have recently watched have really wanted me to just turn the TV off and some I have.. not so much because of the Cowboys, because Coach Bill Parcells for one thing doesn't put up with any of that stuff, but most of the poor sportsmanship has come from their opponents.

I particularly did not like the taunting of the Philadelphia Eagles Terrell Owens. Where in some previous games he had gone to the center of Texas Stadium and danced on the Cowboys' Star in teh center of Texas Stadium.. only to flattened by one of the Cowboys players. In later games he danced on the endzone stars.. but this is the kind of stuff I am talking about that is just plain ridiculous.

The real topper was when Terrell was featured in one of the most tasteless Monday Night Football commercials I have ever seen, where he was opposite Desperate Housewives' star Nicolette Sheridan in the pregame locker room scene wrapped only in a towel and propostioning Terrell to skip the game for her. This is one of the few times I have ever e-mailed a TV network but I sent ABC an e-mail stating that I had watched my last MNF show along with thousands of other viewers.. because ABC later released a public apology.. see this AP article on ESPN.

Terrel likes to be called "T O", which I thinks stands for "Too Overrated". What made it worse was the Monday game was with the Cowboys in Dallas. "Too Overrated" was later knocked out for the season in a game with the Cowboys in Philadelphia.

I also got to watch a few College Bowl games over the New Years' Holiday and was floored by the the actions of a couple of University of Miami players. In one play the player ran into the endzone on a dead ball and threw the ball into the stands. On the ensuing touchdown play the players taunted by "rolling the dice" with the ball after scoring. They were winning at the time but were not winning by all that much and were penalized fifteen yards on both plays.

..Anyhow I think this would make for some good reading, especially for Santa Anna's players and fans: The University Interscholastic League Sportsmanship Manual

Unsportsmanlike Conduct - Part IV

After reading the University Interscholastic League Sportsmanship Manual and reviewing my own actions, even just here on this site, I want to concentrate on and promote Good Sportsmanship rather than unsportsmanlike behaviour.

For example I can already see some change in our fans at the last basketball games versus Veribest there was mostly positive cheers from fans. I noticed the almost erie silence during Veribest's free throws.. and I really think that it had a beneficial effect as they missed quite a few of the many they got to shoot.

Anyhow I hope that you will forgive me for my negativeness over the last few weeks as I will try to do better and encourage you to do better. Thanks for listening! James

Free Anti-virus Protection for Your Computer

Tired of paying for that anti-virus program?

There is a pretty good one that has been free for several years called AVG Anti-Virus. To get it go to Grisoft's website and click AVG Free Edition on the left hand side of the page.

Good luck and safe surfing!

Reward

Sometime in the last few weeks someone stole my Duofast coil roof nailer out of Ray and Jean Findley's garage. I am offering a $50 reward for information that leads to the return of it. I can positively identify it.

If you are the one that stole it, not that you would be reading this, I hope that you at least used it to buy Christmas gifts or food for children that would have to do without and not for drugs or a habit.

SantaAnnaNews.com Photos for Sale

I have debated whether or not to do this but I am going to try it out and see how it works for a while.

Several have asked me for copies or prints of various photos on the site. Based on my experience and what I have read in various publications, photos printed at home just are not lasting very well, especially in the Sun or bright rooms. Some that we have printed out look good for a couple of weeks and just seem to fade too fast. So I have found a site that will do a pretty good job of printing and of course all the photo places can print from a floppy or compact disk now.

Many want photos of some of the various school games and since this whole deal really started after the Booster Club asked if I would take some photos for the programs and maybe to give each athlete a CD with some photos on it at the Sports Banquet in the Spring, I want to be sure that each of you knows about it. The CD's given to each athlete won't have all of the photos but will have some of the better ones, simply because they all won't fit on a single CD. Of course you can always just right click on any image on this site and print it out (please note that they are copyrighted but I will grant you personal use.. especially if they are of you or one of your children!). For other use please get my permission before using them.

The photos on the site are also not the original quality or size in most cases, because they have to be redone for the Internet and faster loading. Some of the photos won't be suitable for printing larger than 5" x 7"s.

With that said I will be selling season CD's for $5 each and you can get the whole season for each sport and then print out whatever you want. The 2004 Football season with pep-rallys, homecoming parade, and some halftime activities is on one CD and the 2004 Volleyball season on another. The Basketball season should be available at the end of the season but will probably be on two CD's.. one Girls and one Boys.

The following pricing will be for professional quality commercial prints:

Prices are subject to change but I will give you notice before ordering. Plus shipping and handling which is currently $2 for any amount. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back upon return of photos in original condition. Please allow a few weeks for delivery... which I will have a better idea of as time and orders go by.

To place an order just locate the photo or photos you want, identify them by game and photo number (right click on the photo to see the filename and number), and then send me an e-mail at photos@santaannanews.com.

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