Last night was a lot of fun.  Laila and I watched America’s Got Talent and she was very excited by some of the acts.  Maybe next week I should write my blog entry while the show is on so I do not miss any of the acts when I try and remember them the next morning.

The first act was a juggling act while they were pretty good they were not in my opinion worthy of winning last night.  Their act was different and unique and looked pretty cool, but it showed a talent for creativity and not actual physical or vocal talent.

The second act was an Irish family dance and music group.  I thought they were pretty good and demonstrated a lot of flexibility.  Piers, the English guy advised them to dump their parents and little brother from the act.  I see no call to do that.  All he managed to do was get the younger members of the family upset and crying.  I feel that since the panel votes 1 act in, and the people vote one act in that they could just check the group through and just not vote for them at the end of the show.  There was no reason to be cruel and I hope a lot of people voted for them, though I voted for others.

I am a bit fuzzy on the order of the other acts.  They had a singer, who the audience and the panel loved, but I was unimpressed.  They had a couple of tap dancers, and while they were good, they were not what I would call the best act to advance in the competition.

After that they had a female contortionist that shot a bow and arrow with her feet and hit dead center on the target from a really difficult position.  Laila and I were both wowed by her and I really wanted her to move on to the finals.

They then had a male contortionist who was more of a freak show act.  I liked what he and his partner did, but it was too radical of an act and he was not going to move on. He did stuff like eat fire, walk on glass and lay on a bed of nails. 

After his act they had a married couple that did a quick-change act and they were totally awesome, just as they had been in the preliminaries.  They were another group that we both wanted to pass on to the finals.

After that they had a stripper, which I thought shouldn’t have even been asked to perform.  Since they invite 14 acts and only allow 10 to perform I would have rather seen one of the four that did not get to the stage. 

They then had a unicycle basketball team whose timing was all off, and they just were not on their game last night.  It was a shame too, because they did a great job in the preliminaries.

They finished the show with a band, and these guys were terrible.  At the end of the show the jugglers were picked by the panel to get through to the finals.  Laila and I were at a loss on who to vote for so I gave five of my votes to the female contortionist and my other five to the quick-change couple.  We can hardly wait until tonight when they announce who the winner of the audience vote is.  I am also glad that they are having a wild card round next week so that the top vote getters from all the shows, that have not made it to the finals will get a second chance to get to the finals.

So that was how we spent last night and I really felt great just relaxing and talking to Laila as we were watching the show.  Judy was watching the first part but then she and her mother were going out today so she left about halfway through the show to stay over night at her mother’s place.

I do have some great news.  I have 10 vacation days left and I have to use them before the 30^th of September.  The only problem is that somehow my old boss calculated that I only have 7 days left.  This is no big deal for me and I will keep better track of them for the next fiscal year.

We have been so busy lately that I was getting worried that I may not have a chance to use them.  Well my current class graduates next Friday and since the current class is still in Receivers the opportunity to vacation came up and I am going to take it.

Since weekends do not count against my vacation I will get to actually take 11 days, since it will be over two weekends. 

So Friday the 11^th I will depart for Manila and I will be returning the evening of the 22^nd.  That time frame will also ensure that I will be able to make it to my dental appointments on the 24^th and 30^th.  Laila and I discussed it last night and this morning and I told her I would see if the time frame would work out.  I am sure she is going to be thrilled.  I know I am. 

Well I guess that is it for now.  Have a great day everyone.

I heard some great news last night before I went to bed.  The cross on Mt. Soledad will be saved.  The Senate voted unanimously to make it a federal landmark.  It now goes to the President for his signature, which is pretty much automatic and the whole lawsuit thing will be over. 

Last night Laila and I didn't get to chat all night like we usually do.  She was busy most of the evening with the phone representatives from Bayantel getting her new ISP and telephone agreements all worked out.  They will have everything set up by the 6^th and she is really happy about that.

Dennis is really excited about an upcoming competition on Level Up but was worried that the PLDT high speed Internet bandwidth of 2 Megabytes (really 40 kilobytes) might affect his game play.

This morning when I got up Laila and I were chatting about the new service and I found something she said funny, now that I have woke up and am more alert.  Usually after she would log a complaint PLDT would call her and ask her about her Internet.  With no phone (dial tone) they can't even do that.

When she gets her new service I hope she will blog about her dissatisfaction with PLDT.  Since many folks from the Philippines read her blog they should be warned of the poor customer service and incompetence exhibited by that company.  Of course if her readers have PLDT it may be a few weeks before they are able to read her post. 

Yesterday Judy got a picture on her cell phone of all the dogs sleeping together on the couch.  She is going to post it on her site today and I will of course steal it and post it here.

Well it is time to earn my paycheck so I had better get to work.  Have a great day everyone.

I don't know if I told this one before but today one of the more humorous things that happened to me back in my Navy days came back to me.  The air conditioning in my classroom was not working so well today and the classroom was a little stuffy so during one of the breaks I went outside to get some air and saw one of the LPD's leaving port.  It brought back memories of something that happened back in 1990 just before we left for Operation Desert Shield.

It was October of 1990 and we had received orders to deploy early in December, so they moved all of our inspections up to the month of October so we would be ready to deploy in December instead of our regular deployment that was to start in May.  We had several underway hoops to jump through at the time such as our Propulsion Readiness Exam, Refresher Training and Amphibious Refresher Training.  We were going out to sea every Monday and returning every Friday, if we returned that week at all.

One Monday was overcast pretty much like it is here today.  Also being late in the year and the fact that we were getting underway early in the morning had me driving to work with my headlights on. 

I got to the ship, made sure the underway check off list was completed and then went and manned my sea and anchor detail station on the bridge of the ship.  As we were getting underway I happened to glance over at the parking lot and low and behold there was a car parked there with the lights turned on.  What was worse was, that it was my car. 

I remember calling the wife when we pulled in that Friday asking her to bring the jumper cables and her car.  She always hated coming to the base, especially since she never knew when I would be able to leave the ship.

I think that was the last time I ever left my lights on, and of course with today's cars you get an audible alarm if you try and get out and you left them on.  I sure wish they had had those alarms back then.

Last night after getting off work I cruised by the post office and paid all my bills.  I then went home and since I was feeling a little tired and my stomach felt acidic I took some antacid and ate a very light meal. 

I actually took a little nap in my chair while waiting for Laila to come on line.  When Laila did come on line again she had a bad connection.  We had been discussing that she drop PLDT and have her go with Bayantel and she finally decided to do it. 

I have to say that she has given PLDT every chance in the world to fix her service.  Lately they have not been answering their trouble call line, and if she is lucky enough to get a hold of someone there she feels like they are ignoring her problem since she has complained too often.

This morning when I got up and chatted with her she said she spent two hours at their office yesterday to complain about no dial tone on her phone and her very slow DSL bandwidth speed.  While there she talked to a few other customers and they were all upset.  None had dial tones, and Laila actually talked one person out of subscribing to their DSL service.

Laila has been a good and loyal customer.  She pays her bills in advance and hates the fact that when she changes her service, she will get a new number.  But a new number that is in service and works is better than a number that all her friends know, but don't work.  All she will have to do is notify her friends and family of the new number once she gets it.

Laila is still going to the gym almost every day and has been taking the kids.  She comes in and gets on line just about the time I get up in the morning.  She is usually still out of breath when she comes on line, but I am glad she is doing it.  Not just for her figure but for her general health. 

We checked out a few websites yesterday about better diets and stuff.  I guess I had better not drink as much soda as I do.  I don't drink much in the way of Coke and Pepsi.  But I drink many cans of Sunkist Orange.  At my age I had better slow that down and drink more fruit juices and Gatorade.

Well I guess that is about it for now.  My students are at Naval Military Training and should be returning to class soon, so I will have to go ahead and get to work soon.  Also I don't like to do this during working hours, so I do it before work, on breaks, or during lunch.

I hope everyone has a great week.

Last night Laila and I watched Television for a change of pace.  We watched House, Law and Order Criminal Intent, Crossing Jordan, the news and the first hour of War of the Worlds.  It was fun to just take a break and kick back watching television for a change.

I went to bed a little late, but got up on time.  After getting ready for work and getting some coffee I went in and was going to chat with Laila, but I found that she was not on line.  I tried chat and Skype, but no answer.  Finally I sent her a Chikka text message and she had been there all the time.  Her son had messed with her volume controls and she hadn't heard me. 

We recited the rosary and then I left for work about five minutes early, because it was raining.  That seldom happens here and when it does there are many more accidents than usual.  The traffic was worse than usual but not as bad as I have seen it in the past, so I got to work early.  That was good since it gave me a chance to get my end of the month paperwork ready to drop off at the office. 

I taught all morning and we managed to get a bit ahead, so I gave the students the afternoon off.  I saw some things that I need to get done with the equipment before we get into the labs.  That will give me the afternoon to get ready for that.

Besides that, the change in the weather has had its regular impact on my back and so I am a little sore today.  I will live with the soreness and it is only a little inconvenience. 

Yesterday was kind of funny.  Judy had trimmed all the dogs except one, since he kept snapping at her.  She did manage to get all but the side of his face and his legs done, but she was worried about getting bitten so she waited until yesterday to finish him up.  He again snapped at her, so we went ahead and put a makeshift muzzle on him and she was able to get him done.  He didn't like it one bit, but now he is done.  It was kind of amusing watching him try to get away though.  He did manage to escape twice, but there was no place for him to go so we caught him pretty easily.

I guess that is about it for today.  When I get out of here today I have to drop by the post office to mail my bill payments off, then I will stay in the house and off the roads.  It is really unsafe to drive here when it rains, mainly due to others trying to go too fast.

I hope everyone has a great workweek.

Well last night I spent the entire night trying to get the game that Laila sent me via Fedex to run online.  We worked and worked, and then when we couldn’t get it to work we contacted the game site and found that they do not accept IP’s from outside of the Philippines.

I guess I will play it when I visit again in September.  It was a lot of fun though trying to get it to work.  It has been a while since I had to play around with installing software and working with windows, so it gave me a nice review of using the different commands and all.

The kids and I after eating Chinese takeout last night sat down and watched America’s Got Talent as a family and that was a lot of fun.  I am glad they are going to invite some of the highest vote getters back for a wild card game as a lot of acts made it to the finals that I do not think should have won.  There were also a few that I felt should have made it that did not.

Laila could not watch last night because even though her Internet is back up it was very unstable.  Hopefully they will get her fixed up over the next couple of days.

This morning when I got up my PC was giving me a hard time.  I think it was all the stuff I did to it while trying to get the game to work.  I will go ahead and remove it today when I get home.

I guess that is all for now.  Once I get done teaching today I have a few errands to run and then will try and take it easy over the weekend.  I hope everybody has a fine weekend.

This morning I got up a bit early, made my breakfast and coffee, and then found out Laila's Internet was still down.  Actually it was up for a few minutes last night but Pearl plugged in the phone line and everything went dead.  I hope they get it fixed soon because this time she went right to the PLDT office and filed her trouble call.

After I sent her a message via text mail to her cell phone, she gave me a call on her cell phone.  Her sister, a friend, her daughter and her kids were all on the way home from the gym.  I guess everyone's weight loss plan is working well.  They have all lost weight, and I am so happy that they are all very interested in it and are having fun.

Since Laila couldn't be on, I went ahead and recited the rosary by myself.  I guess it rained in some places last night and they had traffic problems on all the major freeways.  I am sure glad I don't travel that far in the mornings via freeway.

On the radio for the second day in a row Rick Roberts had the father of the children he managed to get out of Lebanon on, so I switched over to Laura Ingraham and she was addressing illegal immigration with the Lt. Governor of Maryland. 

I guess the folks near Washington DC and a few counties near the eastern coast have had it and are demanding something be done about it.  He talked about Reagan's amnesty program and the great failure it turned out to be. 

I liked the way he put it.  If you are in a boat and the boat springs a leak do you fix the leak or do you just bail out the water.  You fix the leak of course, and then remove the water.  We have to fix the leak that allows these folks to come in, and then worry about guest worker programs and things like that.

He said that there is one thing that congress is not too good at and that is multitasking.  They have to treat this as to separate issues, first border enforcement and then guest worker stuff.

A few months ago I blogged about all the cars I saw in the parking lot of Paradise Valley Hospital had Mexican plates and I complained about a person driving erratically that almost caused a wreck going to the same hospital.  The other night I heard that they may have to close down the emergency rooms of Paradise Valley and I think the other one was Alvarado hospitals, since the unpaid bills of illegal aliens have bankrupted them.  So again the average citizen will lose a vital service due to abuse by people here illegally.

Currently for the past week firefighters have been fighting the Horse fire, the number 1 priority fire in the country.  It has burned tens of thousands of acres and was started when some illegal aliens failed to extinguish their campfire.  I think the bill for the costs of fighting the fire should be sent to Mexico.

Also this morning before leaving for work I had NBC-7/39 on for the local news, when I saw another example of the biased news reporting.  Ann Curry from the Today show did a report from Lebanon where she made a big deal out of saying the Palestinians are refusing US aid. 

Let's see here, the Palestinians are hiding Hezbollah and Hamas.  Hezbollah and Hamas are terrorist groups that likes to blow up civilians at weddings, funerals, when shopping, when eating pizza, or riding the bus.  Both terrorist groups captured Israeli soldiers.  Israel reacted by attacking the terrorists and some of the terrorist human shields are being killed.  In the meantime over 100 Iranian rockets and missiles are being lobbed into civilian towns in Israel.

And now those that shield terrorists are whining and crying that they are being inconvenienced.  I'm sorry but I just don't get it, and I hope that Israel is successful on getting rid of these terrorist groups.  If I were Israel I would bomb both Lebanon and Syria into the Stone Age like the United States did to Bremen and Tokyo in World War II.  If we or anyone for that matter involved in war fail to realize that we have to get them before they get us we will lose.  Those that want to fight a politically correct war are doomed to failure.  When Hezbollah blows up a wedding party do you see their folks out there criticizing their war effort?  No, because they are taking what they do serious.

When World War II first started our troops got the crap kicked out of them.  The enemy who did not follow the rules of conduct that our guys would try and use would kill our medics when they were trying to help them and things like that.  The people we were fighting wanted to win at all costs.  Our Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen learned that their enemy would do what it took to win, and followed no rules.

You cannot regulate war where it is kill or be killed.  We as a country have to get back that aggressiveness that we had back in World War II and fight to win.  We need to start taking reporters that publish our secrets off to jail.  We need to stop trying our young soldiers in the press or making them scapegoats for something possibly made up and reported by the enemy.

The enemy we are fighting today wears no uniform and fights in dirty ways.   In World War II one of the most reported about and dangerous weapons were the Kamikaze Pilots.  That is what we are fighting now, but the Kamikaze's at least were flying a marked plane and wore a uniform.  These suicide bombers can be anything from a child, woman, retarded person, or man.  The one common factor is that they are able to mix with the crowd and are hard to spot. 

 I have no sympathy for people who would shield terrorists and these people in Lebanon, know who the terrorists are, where they are located, and where their weapons are stored.  In other words they are supporting the terrorist's so I see no reason what so ever to have sympathy for them. 

This morning on my way to work I was listening to the Rick Roberts Show and a caller to the show made such a great comment that got me thinking.  I don’t have the exact quote, but pretty much the jest of it was he has lived most of his life in what the countries greatest generation left for him, and he was happy to have lived in the zenith of civilization, and he was disappointed with what we have done to the legacy of what our generation inherited.

I was quite impressed and it has made me think of what the generation of my grandparents left us, and what my generation and my parent’s generation did to flush what they did for us, down the drain.

My grandparents were all immigrants, and they were legal of course.  On my dad’s side, his father hailed from Ireland and his mother was from Germany.  On my mother’s side her father was from Germany and her mother was from France.  They all learned to speak English, got jobs, and worked hard to build a life for themselves.

They survived the depression and in fact all were homeowners.  They were also the generation that won World War II.  At the end of that War the United States was a respected country, and people looked up to us.  What happened to us, and why are we looked down upon now.

I started thinking about that.  Before World War II the United States was kind of an isolationist government though there are some folks in some of the US territories, the Philippines, and Mexico that might disagree with that, as there were still a few things going on from the Spanish/American War and the Mexican/American War.

World War II gained America respect throughout the world.  What have we done with that legacy?  We have flushed it own the drain is what we have done.  And I blame the whole thing on the media, our schools, politicians and Hollywood.

While I was in the Navy for most of my adult life I watched opinions of Americans drop.  I remember my first trip to Townsville, Australia in 1976 and my last trip there in 2000 and saw the difference.  In 1976 people stood in line for hours to tour the ship.  Our dial a sailor program for people to take us out and show us around never had enough sailors to fill all the requests.  In 2000 that attitude had changed as there were few dial a sailor requests and I had many people there voice that they were disappointed in the US as we were immoral, greedy, and trying to dominate the world.

Where did they get that view?  It is from the movies and television shows that come out of Hollywood and also our left wing news media.  Oh and by the way this was when Bill Clinton was still President so it cannot be blamed on President Bush.

The United States started its decline in the 1960’s as television and movies seemed to start stretching the decency boundaries.   You also had all the entitlement programs started by President Johnson and his new society movement.  The colleges and high schools were taken over by people that were busy teaching the liberal agenda, and the students who were busy getting high on marijuana and other drugs.  The news media had a heyday trying to stop the Vietnam War, and as they are now, always reported just the bad things that happened.

Since I was in the Navy through the 70’s up until the millennium I didn’t really keep up much with the news.  I never had the time, as I was married to my job and trying to advance.  I would have a good idea about things that were going on, but I never had the time to analyze it as I have the chance to do now.   I knew about some of the bigger things that happened in the press, and I kept up with a little politics, mainly just to vote for who I thought would do the best job. 

I also spent a lot of time deployed over those years and during deployment you don’t have the access to the news as you do when you are at home.  Actually you do have more access these days as ships now have satellite Internet and satellite television.

On my last deployment I was exposed to FOX News for the first time, and I connected with it more than I had connected with news in the past.  Before I had been watching CNN, NBC with Tom Brokaw, and Nightline. 

When I started watching FOX it was more in line with what I had experienced while I was deployed.  I would watch CNN or NBC’s reporting and wonder where they got their story from, as I didn’t see or experience what they were reporting.

After I retired from the Navy I started channel surfing and comparing news reports.  I started seeing that commentators on the networks were presenting the news in a manner to make the United States look bad.

At the same time I started watching the recording and movie industries, along with TV.  I wonder how everything got so vulgar, and wondered how the FCC let all this happen to the public airwaves.  I started watching the ACLU attacking religion and supporting those that would destroy this country.  I also got to look carefully at the games politicians play to stay in office at all costs, while going against the will of their constituents. 

When I see the protest groups running around criticizing the government and the troops, wanting to open our borders, and now even supporting terrorists it sickens me.  If people are so dissatisfied with the way things are, then leave.  There are plenty of countries that will take you in.  If the United States were to go the route that these people want it to go, there would be no more United States.  We would be just as messed up as some of these other countries that have gone socialist.

Better yet when the terrorists that some of these left wing wacko’s support against Israel start blowing them up in shopping malls, pizza places, and movie theaters, they might then open their eyes to the fact that these people could care less if you support them or not.  They just want to kill the infidels and they don’t care if you are white, black, Hispanic, 80 years old, or 8 years old.

Imagine a world where women can’t drive, can’t divorce, can’t vote.  Imagine a world where if you speak out you will receive their justice.  That will happen if we lose World War III.  It took Pearl Harbor to awaken the nation to the horrors of the Axis Powers.  We have already had our Pearl Harbor for World War III in the World Trade Center bombings.  But it seems there are many people out there that have forgotten about that.  Instead their hatred for anything Bush is causing the enemy to sit up and take notice.  They are seeing the weakness our society as a whole is exhibiting.

In World War II all the people of this country came together and worked toward the war effort.  As a result we are speaking English instead of German or Japanese.  In these times people are worried about their Starbucks coffee, or who is going to win American Idol.  The world outside of our borders is a nasty place, and these terrorists are doing this stuff all over the world.  You just won’t see it on the news unless it makes the Bush Administration look bad.

This Hezbolla group currently at war with Israel has said that thy will activate their cells world wide, and that included the cells they have right here in the United States.  I would say get all of your Starbuck’s coffee now, before there is no more Starbuck’s. 

I guess that is all I have to say today.  I am just rambling now but I’m sure I got my point across.