Me a Senior Citizen Imagine that!

I was watching the noon news yesterday and they ran a story that Tuesday was Senior Day at the Toledo Zoo. I said to Margaret, " I'm over 60, I am a Senior Citizen, I get into the Zoo for FREE today let's go." So off we went. Margaret, being the older woman that she is has been a Senior Citizen for couple of years. We got free admission & free parking...WOW! The merry-go-round and pop corn cost extra though.

As we walked through the polar bears exhibit Margaret said, "You know with Jason and family coming in the spring to visit us( you better come Jason) we could get a membership and take the grand kids for free to the zoo." No, No! This was suppose to be a FREE DAY, not a $49 today only membership day. Yes you guessed it, by the time we left the zoo the Toledo Pedees were brand spanking new members of The Toledo Zoo complete with temporary membership card.

Doesn't that zebra look like he's not sure if the alligator is real or not.

Silverbacks, are they senior citizens too?

Doesn't this look like Donna Atkinson?

Long necks aren't the only things giraffes have. Ask the horny one in the back.

Anyone notice that the name" THE TOLEDO ZOO" is not reversed. Notice the car driving on the wrong side of the road? How'd I do that? The magic of Photoshop.

Chupacabra in Michigan?

Sunday morning I was supposed to take a bike ride with my friend Joe Monks through the Irish Hills of Michigan. We had had planned to meet at 9 am at my house. At 9:10 Joe called to say that while trying to put air in the tire of his bike he accidentally pulled off the stem and the tire was flat. He said he didn't have any replacement tubes. We all know no bike shops are open on a a Sunday morning. I was all ready dressed and had my gear sitting by the front door. The thought of spending the day riding through the Irish Hills fleeting from my memory, I decided that I would take a ride on my own.

I hadn't been to Luna Pier, Mi. in a couple of years. I mentally calculated the distance at about 30 miles round trip. I haven't been on a bike ride for over a month, but I ride the stationary bike at the gym 40 minutes 3 times a week. I should be able to handle that.

We live about a mile from the Michigan line. As soon as you get across the state line into Michigan the terrain turns agricultural. Lots of open fields. As I was riding along a drainage ditch next to a corn ,my eye caught a glimpse of what looked like a large dead dog in the ditch. I circled back to get better view. What was it? Not a dog, but dog-like characteristics, large fangs pointed nose. Oh my God could it be the infamous Chupacabra? That means "goat sucker". It's a mythical creature in Puerto Rican folk lore. Could this be the first actual sighting of a Chupacabra in this part of the country? Upon closer observation I noticed a reddish busy tail. Let's see pointed snout, large teeth, large reddish bushy tail, no it wasn't the elusive Chupacabra, but a coyote. I didn't know we had coyotes in this part of the country. After talking to a number of people today, they told me that coyotes are very common in parts of Ohio & Michigan. This one must have got hit by a car.

This poor creature must have gotten hit during the night because the flies and the stench of death were overwhelming.

Verizon Wireless from Hell

Because of my new business venture 4 years ago as a energy consultant I had to have a cell phone. I checked around for different plans. Do I need 500-750 or 1000 minutes? Do you realize how long 1000 minutes is? That's about 17 hours of talking. Who talks on a cell phone for 17 hour a month. I suppose if you are very busy businessman you may exceed 20 hours per month, but the average Joe like me very seldom reaches half of my 450 minutes per month. Have you ever tried to call Verizon because you have a problem with your phone bill? "If you are new customer press (1), If you are an existing press(2)", they say. You spend 5 minutes going through the menu and still can't get to a human being. All you get is a sweet talking computer. I learned a trick today. When I finally got to a human, I asked him how I can reach a human the next time I call them. He said when the menu sweetie asks you to press(1) or (2) don't, just press(o) for operator. Not sure it works, but worth a try.The menu itself never once offers to take you to an operator for assistance.

Do we really need all those extra services like V-cast, GPS, buy a ring tone, searching the web etc.? What the matter with normal telephone ring? I got to admit, I do like to give certain people a special ring. For instance, when my boss calls it plays 30 seconds of "Taking Care of Business".

I think it is amazing that through advertising they try to make us believe that we can't live without Internet service on your phone. Besides it cost more than my home Internet service.

Now there's a reason for buying V-Cast because Prince is on it, wow!

Before cell phones became the big rage in the 90s, I was so happy to just have a pager to ignore. No incessant ringing, just a sexy vibration on my hip. Get a call ignore it or find a pay phone to return the page. Paying 25¢ for each call cut your phone time down considerably.

If anyone has any cell phone stories, I'd like to hear them.

Texas Here We Come!

On October 1st Margaret & I will pack up the Camry and head South. We haven't seen Ryan Pedee, our 3rd grandson (good going Jason) since we were at his baptism in May. Jason says that he is growing like crazy. Last I heard he was around 14 lbs. Being that he is almost 6 months old he's probably doing neat things like laughing and holding his head up to observe his surrounding. Andie said that Ryan is starting to get a bump gums possibly his first tooth.

Because we a driving this time and not flying we are trying to come up with things to do along the way. So far we plan on stopping in Kentucky to explore a few caves near Mammoth Cave. That area of the country is loaded with limestone caves.

After tending to our bruised arms and sore legs from climbing around the caves we head West to Tunica Mississippi, which is 20 miles south of Memphis. Why you ask would anyone go to Tunica ? Tunica my friend is the 3rd largest gambling area in the United States next to Las Vegas and Atlantic City. There are 9 casinos spread along the Mississippi River. All gambling has to be on water, so all the casinos are floating barges anchored to the shore. We were there last year and thanks to Margaret's comps we will be sleeping in a FREE room. It happens to be behind the furnace in the maintenance building, but free is free.

When we were returning from a visit with Allan & Margie in Houston back in the middle eighties with the kids, we were trying to come up with a place to stop and stretch to break up the driving. We found this park in Arkansas where the kids could look for real diamonds.

The Crater of Diamonds State Park is an 911 acre Arkansas State Park situated over an eroded lamproite volcanic pipe. The park is open to the public and, for a small fee, rockhounds and visitors can dig for diamonds and other gemstones. Park visitors find more than 600 diamonds each year of all colors and grades. Over 25,000 diamonds have been found in the crater since it became a state park. Visitors may keep any gemstone they find regardless of its value. The crater itself is a 37 1/2 acre plowed field. It is periodically plowed to bring the diamonds and other gemstones to the surface.

On the way to visit the Texas Pedees a couple of years ago Margaret & I stopped again to try our hand at searching for the allusive 20 carat diamond or anything that looked like a diamond. It was very romantic. It happened to be February 14th. Valentines Day. What better way to finish out the day than to find a diamond for your sweetie. I could say it was a beautiful day. Reality check, it was February in rural Arkansas, it had been snowing and raining for weeks. The field where you allowed to look was a large mud pit. I happened to have my boots and they were covered in primordial mud. Anticipating that we would be going to the park, my dad made up a couple of sifters to sift the soil and have that raw diamond pop up. How are you suppose to sift thick gooey mud? We got there late in the day so I didn't have much time to prospect. I may try it again this year. I think October will be a better month than February.

If anybody has any suggestions of things to do & see between Toledo and Austin via I75,I65,I40 & I30 Nashville /Dallas route I'd be interested in hearing from you. You can email me at dragonfly1947@yahoo.com.

Las Vegas in Motown

There are many games of chance that you can play for free on the Internet these days. Who hasn't played Texas hold em for free. You know if it were that much fun to play on the Internet, there wouldn't be such a strong internal homing device drawing me due North like a compass.


Detroit, Michigan has 3 rather large casinos, the MGM, Greektown and Motor City fill that excitement genes needs. They are located in downtown Detroit less than a mile apart. The MGM is new and glitzy with a hotel, The Motor City has had major renovation to their old building, adding a hotel and Greektown is Greektown, new hotel and an gaming addition that push out the side of the building taking part of Lafayette Blvd.





I personally like Greek Town the best. Maybe it's because I've been there more and I like the assortment of slot machines. I read that they have over 2400 slot machine there.





Here I go remembering the "Good Old Days" back before Detroit had any casinos, we used to take a bus 3 1/2 hours to a floating casino near Gary, Indiana. Man that was desperation to gamble. If the wind was blowing off Lake Michigan, the boat would rock & roll. It was difficult to walk up & down the isles without seeing someone seasick. Every good gambler has a collection of those small plastic buckets with name of the casino emblazoned on the side. That weight of that bucket of quarters is what kept you from sliding off your stool during a stormy day.





Things have changed in how you are paid with your winnings. It used to be the person with the most bucket of quarters was the biggest winner. At the end of the day when you were about to go home you had to stand in line and have the clerk pour your many buckets of quarters in the counting machine. I can still hear the tinkling sound as the coins were counted. That was the sound of success. Now you get a piece of paper from the slot machine that looks like a cash register slip with your winnings printed on it.


I have a number of machines that I like to play, but I guess my favorite is Star Wars based on the movie. I have had a love /hate relationship with that machine since I discover it over a year ago. It's a 1¢ machine, one single penny. Doesn't sound like much, right? Well those who have played penny machines know that 1¢ covers the bet for only one stinking horizontal line. You could sit there all day playing 1¢ at time till you used up your initial $20. However, to win you have to cover many combination of lines. You can choose to cover 1-5-10-15-30. Yes that's 30¢ per pull of the handle. You can increase your winnings by how many times you want to multiple that 30¢ bet 1-2-3-4-5-6 etc. Your penny bet can now be up to $1.80 per pull. You now can rip through that $20 bill in a matter of minutes not hours.


What happens when you get a machine that seems to be defying the odds of payback. You are beating the casinos ass, taking it for $40 or $50 dollars on a penny machine and you have to go to the bathroom? One thing I learned is that luck on a slot machine is directly proportional to the distance from the restrooms. I hate myself for taking that last complementary drink from the hostess with big pushed up boobs that walks around looking for people that are winning so she can ply them with her free drinks that will go through you instantly and force you to leave your hot machine for the bathroom. And guess what, after you have made the pit stop and come back to your machine a big fat lady is sitting your machine, smoking a cigarette and holding a drink. She, however, has expandable bladder gene that allows her to sit at the same machine for hours on end without getting up to go pee.

Extreme Makeover Home Edition - Frisches Come Home

At about 1:30 today the Frisch family came home to their new home in West Toledo. I knew their was going to be a ton of people their today so I avoided it like the plague. I was, I admit, curious as to what might have transpired. I found that someone had posted the homecoming on You Tube already. Click on the link to view the video.

http://www.youtube.com/toledobladedotcom Then view the homecoming video on the right.

The show will air sometime in November of this year. When it airs look for me towering over everyone in some of the crowd scenes.

Huricane Ike-- How It Affected Our Family

Hurricane Ike was the ninth named storm, and fifth hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season.

On the night of September 12, 2008, the eye of Hurricane Ike approached the Texas coast near Galveston Bay, making landfall at 2:10 a.m. CDT over the east end of Galveston Island.

People in low-lying areas who had not heeded evacuation orders, in single-family one- or two-story homes, had been warned by the weather service that they "faced certain death" in the overnight storm surge. Near Corpus Christi, a man was reportedly swept away; he is presumed dead. The Coast Guard will search for his body after the storm has passed. Another death was confirmed to have been Ike-related as a tree fell onto a boy while being cut in preparation for the storm, and another person was killed not far away from a fallen tree during the storm. Another fallen tree in Huntsville resulted in a fatality after it crashed into a house. One death was reported in Galveston as a result of natural causes when the generator failed.

Who'd think that us Toledo Pedees being thousands of miles from the nearest ocean would be affected by a hurricane. Well after hitting Houston and taking out the power to over 3 million customers, like Uncle Allan & Aunt Margie, it quickly traveled up the center of the country. The Weather Channel kept saying that the Detroit/Toledo area was in the direct line of the north bound storm and to expect 10+ " of rain directly related to Ike. As it advanced inland the rotation started to cease. By the time it got here today, it was just another big cloud on the radar. The storms kept tracking across Chicago, first a cold front and then the remnants of Ike. Some areas in Chicago got 5-8 " of rain and areas flooded that have never flooded before. We got 3 " of rain over the last couple of days, maybe 1/2 " from Ike. We need to count our blessings.

We talked to the Fanaffs today in the aftermath of the storm today and they are okay. Alan said they had at least 10" of rain and winds of over 100 miles per hour. The palm trees in the backyard uprooted and a tree in front snapped in half and fell across their driveway. Their swimming pool was emptied in anticipation of the storm. It then nearly overflowed with rain water. The Weather Channel said that it might take up to 3 weeks to get all the power back. Alan said Jeff''s family and Lisa's were okay. No major damage reported. Thankfully the phone lines still work.

Jason's home in Cedar Park was on the extreme western edge of the storm. Other than wind and a little rain no damage.