"Thar She Blows!"

No, it's not a whale. Sorry. But, it is a whale of an idea. As a lobsterfisherman I am very "in tune" to the weather, as any of you that have been following my blog may know. I need to be, since my livelihood and my crew's safety depend greatly on weather conditions. I think I've been seeing a change in the amount of wind we get and how often we get it. This could just be that I am not the young "cowboy" I used to be and have less tolerance for windy days at sea, although it sure seems like I spend a hell of a lot of windy days out on the boat! Or maybe it's too many movies, like The Day After tomorrow and An Inconvenient Truth. (Yes, I know, I "plugged" Al's documentary again, and no I'm not getting paid for it...HINT, HINT AL!) Back to the wind. Does anyone else sense, or know for that matter, if the wind does blow more often these days?

Have you ever found yourself saying, "If I only had enough money, I would..."? Well, that's almost become my tag line in the last year or so, and goes something like this..."If I only had enough money I would go into the wind turbine business." I am not a "greenie", but I am open minded, (Not usually a foremost trait in a traditional lobsterfisherman. We're often fairly stubborn.). In my open mindedness I'm starting to think that wind power might be a really good idea, not to mention lucrative. It is clean, we probably aren't going to run out of wind anytime soon, there's endless amounts of places to put wind turbines, there are tax breaks for using them, and ,(if used to power my own home), I would love to see the day that I could live "OFF THE GRID"! Wouldn't you? If you aren't sure what "off the grid" means, just imagine generating all the power you need to run your own home and being able to tell the electric company to go "piss in the wind"! (Sorry if that offends anyone, but it works too well here.) Another alternative to telling them to do that is selling them your excess power generation, at least in some places that allow it, anyway.

You can find out a lot more about wind energy at American Wind Energy Association.org I seem to like these .org and .gov sites, don't I? This is actually a good starting point, as there are links there to other sites as well.

Mammograms, breast cancer, support?

Yes. You are really seeing a post about breast cancer on my blog! So far on my site, if you have been frequenting it, you've found incites to my occupation, a few recipes and some humor. So why a serious topic like this now. Well my sister has been dealing with breast cancer for some time now. I am not here to tell her story, that would be for her to do. I guess you could say I have always been one to try to fix things if I could, and this is out of my realm. I can, however, continue to offer my love and support and prayers. As she had to have yet another surgery today, (and on her birthday too!), I found myself again wishing there was more that I could do. Well, I figured this post was the least I could do. I thought maybe acknowledgment of what she was dealing with might be somewhat comforting. While doing yet more online research, I realized that I might be able to help some others in some small way.

First, let me say that I AM NOT an authority on this subject or any of the sites I wish to share with you. Use your own judgment and INFORM YOURSELF!

Now, with that out of the way, let me tell you what I have found. You can do a GOOGLE SEARCH using just the words...breast cancer, and you will get as much information as you could imagine. It may take you some time to sort through it all, but you might find something specific you are looking for. Below is just a sampling of what I found.

Probably, the most information I found in one place was on the National Cancer Institute's Breast Cancer Site. Here you will find tons of information. This is a .gov site and seems to be the most comprehensive site I found in my brief search. They even had a toll free line for questions about cancer(1-800-4-cancer) and they offer LiveHelp online chat. U.S. tax dollars well spent, take advantage.

Not to be confused with the previously mentioned site, The National Breast Cancer Foundation, a .org site, has a lot of information in video format, as well as text. Could be helpful if you just don't feel up to doing much reading. This site has a very welcoming and "homey" feel to it. Another .org site that was welcoming was Breast Cancer Support, and it seemed to be easy to find your way around. They offered forums and a chat room to reach out to others. As the name implys, this should be a great place to find support.

Breast cancer can be a scary topic for us grownups, but what about for the children that know someone with it or just want to know more about it? Kids Health-For Kids, yet another .org site, breaks down breast cancer at a kids level, and offers related articles and resources. It is geared to kids to help take away some of their fears and give them the knowledge to cope and understand it better. Parents I recommend this site for anything kid related, start here first...KidsHealth.org, where you can chose either the Parent, Kids, or Teen site. I liked it so well, I put a shortcut to it on my desktop.

Husbands and partners of breast cancer patients and survivors need support, too! I hadn't even thought of this until I came across this page on MyBreastCancerNetwork.com There appears to be a great deal of support here for them as well. As a husband or partner, you can probably find information here to help you understand, cope, and communicate with others.

I have not had to "deal" with breast cancer directly, but it has come close enough to me to make me aware of it, and to be more understanding of those have had to "deal" with it directly. I would like to those of you with it and effected by it, I sympathize for you, I support you, I pray for you, I respect you, and I wish you all of the best.

I truly hope that this post helps someone in some way. If you wish to comment, I would love to here from you. But, more importantly, my sister and others can read your comments here as well. If wish to make a comment privately, please feel free to e-mail me. My e-mail address is on the side bar.

Last, and most importantly...Welcome home Sis and Happy Birthday. I love you.

Bad Economy Killing Your Credit Score?

Me Too! My conclusion...
"With a credit score like mine, no need to worry about identity theft."