UFO ?

UFO Museum
Roswell, New Mexico

Although differences of opinion exist on the specifics, there is a tentative consensus among researchers that an extraterrestrial space vehicle crashed on a ranch located about 60 miles north of Roswell, New Mexico, during the time period July 2–4, 1947.

This is one of the most controversial UFO stories of our time. If you don't believe it, try researching Roswell, NM. or Area 51.

The following is a true story and my personal “close encounter”:

It was during the early 70’s, but let me make this perfectly clear - none of us drank alcohol, smoked or did drugs of any kind.

I've only seen one UFO in my life, so far, and to my credit the 5 people I was with, saw it too. It was in the early 70's, after midnight and somewhere in Utah, I think Utah but could've been NV or CO. Wherever it was, the country was flat and deserted desert land. Six of us were driving back to Indiana from Las Vegas and we had no hotel reservations anywhere. We all had decided to drive until we tire, then find a roadside motel for the night. For hours we had been traveling on a lonely (and I mean real lonely) stretch of highway. About every hour or so we might see a car going the opposite direction, but not once all night had anything passed us. That's about it. No houses. Trees were few and far between. No sign of civilization for miles and miles at a time. We could vaguely make out the silhouette of mountains in the far, far distance.

The car we were in was a Chrysler station wagon (two seats facing front, one seat facing back) and the couple in the seat facing the rear saw it first. They alerted the rest of us, including Jack, the driver who apparently had fallen asleep while driving because he hadn't seen anything.

The couple in the back seat said, "hey man, something is coming up on us really fast, we’ve been watching it for awhile, but now it’s getting closer and going faster". At which point we all turned to look behind us. Sure enough one huge light was approaching at an unusually fast speed. Because of the flatness of the land and highway we were able to watch even though it was still quite a distance away. That light was approaching at such a fast rate that we knew it would overtake us in a matter of minutes. We were all talking at once trying to figure this out and the consensus was that it must be a semi with a headlight out and he was haulin’ A! Jack had been traveling around 90 mph most of the night and it was unrealistic to think that anything could catch up with us unless we had stopped, which we had not. How could this “semi” possibly catch up with us?

Then as fast as it approached, it begin to retreat back the way it had come. It was almost out of sight, when it suddenly started moving forward again at an amazing speed. It came closer and closer and all we could see was this one bright light. The six of us were no longer talking, only watching. There really were no words to describe how we felt at that moment, and at no time did Jack slow down, he kept up the same pace, 90 mph. The light followed us along the roadway, but as it got closer to us the second time we could tell that the light was too high above the ground to be a semi or any vehicle that traveled the roads, for that matter. Then it did the reverse, again. It began to retreat away from us, as if it was moving backwards and we were the only ones moving forward. Now, however, as the light retreated in the distance behind us, it stayed at this higher level then it had the first time. It did the approach/retreat thing about 3 more times, then followed us steadily at a not to far distance for another 10 minutes, then disappeared completely.

We were shocked, stunned, bewildered – scared!

We did not report this. We weren’t sure of what we saw. There was no way to back up our story. But six people DID witness this occurrence, and I was one of them.

The Plan

Robin Williams wearing a shirt that says "I love! New York" in Arabic.

I believe the following originated sometime in 2003 by someone other than Robin Williams. The internet says it's urban legend and somehow Robin's name got attached to it, but it didn't come from him.

As I read this, I could imagine Robin Williams saying it, the way only he can, and it does sound like something he would create.

Either way, it's funny, interesting, controversial, stimulating, divisive and thought provoking.

He says:

"I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here's one plan."

1) The US will apologize to the world for our interference in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein and the rest of those 'good ole boys', we will never interfere again.

2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world starting with Germany, South Korea, the middle East, and the Philippines. They don't want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one sneaking through holes in the fence.

3) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave. We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of whom or where they are. They're illegal!!! France will welcome them.

4) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days, unless given a special permit. No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers.

5) ) No foreign "students" over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a "D" and it's back home baby.

6) The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while.

7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go someplace else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.)

8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not "interfere." They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.

9) Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.

10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us "Ugly Americans" any longer. The Language we speak is ENGLISH...learn it...or LEAVE...Now, isn't that a winner of a plan?

"The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying

'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.'

She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling,

'you want a piece of me?' "

More castles and mansions

The Alhambra Palace

I had the privilege of going through several castles in southern Spain, the most notable being the Alhambra Palace in Granada (built between the 9th and 13th century, depending on your resources, and restored and updated in the 14th century). This castle is quite elaborately built, but the architect is unknown. The detailing of the ornamental mosaic inside the main building is quite remarkable and beautiful. The ornamented walls, archways and columns are really something to see. Also, within the building structures are courtyards, reflecting pool, gardens and fountains.

In 1492 the Alhambra became the home of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel, who as you may recall, gave Christopher Columbus money and permission to sail to the new world.

Biltmore Estate

Another mansion/castle that I toured was a little closer to home in Asheville, NC. called the Biltmore Mansion on the Biltmore Estate. This was fun to go through because it was all furnished and was actually about 6-7 different levels because there are 2 basement levels. There is even a full size olympic swimming pool under the house. We were not allowed to tour the entire house, but what we did see was pretty grand. Then we drove a couple miles around the estate to the Biltmore winery and had a very social and relaxing wine tasting. The wine was really good.

Neuschwanstein Castle

Bavaria, Germany

One of the most photographed castles in the world is in the Bavarian Alps in Germany, built in 1869 by Kind Ludwig ll. Neuschwanstein Castle served as the inspiration for the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland. Neuschwanstein appears prominently in television and several films.

My sister and her husband visited Bavaria, Germany many years ago and was able to photograph this castle from afar.

I have never visited this castle, nor have I ever been to Germany, but maybe someday. . . . .

The Count's Castle

Bran Castle in Transylvania

This castle is for sale.

An heir of Romania's former royal family put "Dracula's Castle" in Transylvania up for sale Monday, hoping to secure a buyer who will respect "the property and its history," a U.S.-based investment company said.

For all you horror movie buffs, here's your chance. This castle supposedly belonged to Prince Vlad the Impaler, better known as Count Dracula. However, several articles about it say that Vlad only slept here once.

Bran Castle was built in the 14th century on a cliff near Brasov in Romania.

Now, if only I had the money . . . . . . .

Cloned meat

I received the following in an email today and I don't think I agree with it. Do you?

"The big meat companies of the Midwest

is now trying to join the FDA so that they can

sell their cloned meat (beef, pork, chicken, etc.)

and not have to use the word cloned on the

label or ingredients’ list.

This is real scary because we do not know the effects

this will have on us,
our children, or our children’s children.

The FDA is one of the most corrupt institutions this
country has today."

They left off one major aspect of their "opinion" - the facts. Some facts. Any facts. One fact of how this cloned meat could hurt us. I need facts. Maybe the information is out there and I haven't read enough to find these "facts". For all I know (and the public as well) I could already be eating cloned meat. If the FDA is so corrupt, why should I believe that they are stopping cloned meat from being processed.
Someone please tell me why cloned meat would be any different than the original animal meat.

I believe there is some corruption in almost any organization - big or small. If you don't believe that then you are blind, my friend. And unless I have some facts, I say "what's wrong with eating cloned meat?"

And that's MY opinion! Prove me wrong.

The Preakness

Just had to post this for us horse lovers. June 9, 2007, the third leg of the Triple Crown, The Preakness, was run and although there will be no Triple Crown winner this year . . . . the Preakness was won by a filly named Rags-To-Riches. It is the first time in 102 years that a filly has won this race. The Preakness is 1 1/2 miles and that's a grueling distance for a 3 year old, especially a filly, but her trainer says this filly can gallop all day with little effort. She didn't run in the other 2 legs of the Triple Crown (Kentucky Derby and The Belmont). If she had, could we possibly have had a Triple Crown winner? We'll never know.

I watched the race on TV and when the gates opened for the 7 horses running, this filly who was number 7 and on the outside, literally stumbled out of the gate. At that moment, I thought she was done for. How could she recover from that stumble against these 3 year old colts? Well, she did. Coming into the home stretch she moved right up to the front and it was a 4-way tie for a few seconds. Then the favorite, Curlin, ran away from the pack and headed for home. Rags was right behind him and the 2 of them dueled for the lead, with Rags gaining on him the closer they got to the finish line. I had goose bumps and was yelling at the TV. I wanted her to win so bad, and she did.!!! You would have thought I was the owner. Heck, I didn't even know they were running a filly until I turned on the TV. After they crossed the finish line, the camera panned back and you could see that Curlin and Rags were WAY ahead of the rest of the pack.

So here's a tribute to the big filly that did it. Congratulations.

I'm glad I didn't miss this race. It was thrilling.

New York City

My daughter and I decided to "do" NYC in July 2005. We coordinated our flights - hers from Florida, mine from Indiana - and we met up at La Guardia. I arrived first on my flight (can't remember what airlines) she was arriving an hour later at the terminal next to mine. So I got my luggage and walked to her terminal to meet up with her then we took a cab to our hotel. My daughter had made reservations over the internet and not knowing anything about NYC she could only go by maps and what she read. The taxi took us to the Red Roof Inn in "Little Korea". Oh my! We weren't sure about this when we arrived, but it worked out very well and the hotel was nice. We were only about 2 blocks from Macy's and wouldn't you know it, in the 4 days we were there, we visited Macy's at least 5 times.

On Saturday night we went to Little Italy and they were having some sort of festival, but we later learned that they did this every Saturday night in the summer - they closed off the streets to cars and allowed pedestrians only. All the restaurants and shops utilized this street space to expand their business for the night. We stopped at a little pizza place and sat at a table in the street and watched the crowds and believe me, it was very crowded. We weren't in a buying mood, but when I passed this little T-shirt shop I had to get this shirt that said "fuggedaboudit". Hey! I was in Little Italy NYC where they filmed parts of the Sopranos and I had to have this shirt. OK? Then my daughter (who watches the Sopranos - I don't) wanted to find some building or something that she knew was on the show and it was right here in Little Italy. Well, we left the crowds behind and started walking further into the Little Italy territory. She had us walking down some pretty deserted streets and it was around 10 or 11 p.m. I am very surprised we didn't get mugged - or worse. Finally we came to a street that actually had some traffic and I hailed a cab. I just wanted to fuggedaboudit and get the heck outta there.

While we were in NYC we visited some dinosaur museum and Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, St Patricks Cathedral, Statue of Liberty, took a carriage ride in Central Park, then walked through Central Park, saw the apartment building where John Lennon lived and was killed, went by the Trump Tower, Madison Square Garden, Times Square, visited the World Trade Center Memorial and saw the huge hole in the ground where they stood. Went to the SoHo area one afternoon and had lunch outside. Rode the subway numerous times, even bought a 3-day pass, because we knew we would use it & it was good for the bus, too. We made at least 3 trips to the Empire State Building but it was so crowded and the lines were so long each time, we decided to come back later; we never did go up to the top of that building, but we tried! We never went to a Broadway Play or even an off Broadway Play.

I have NEVER walked so much in a 4-day period as I did when we went to NYC. My daughter did not believe in slowing down for anything. Consequently, when I got back home one of my toenails had turned black and the toes on my other foot were numb for about a week. Seriously! I kept complaining about my feet the whole time were were in NYC, but it did no good, it only made my daughter mad that I complained so much. The last day we were there, we "needed" (yeah right, needed) to go to Macy's one more time and I said I cannot walk another step. So when we got out to the street I hailed a cab, we got in and I said take us to Macy's.

The cab driver told us, "Get out! Macy's is just around the corner! You can walk!"

How rude.

The last night we were there we decided to splurge a little. I looked in the phone book for restaurants that were in the Park Ave area. I wanted to dine like the rich people. We decided on Vong Restaurant which specialized in Taiwan food. When the cab took us there he stopped at what looked like an office building with no lights inside or out. He insisted that this was the Vong Restaurant. There was some small lights by the door, so I thought if this wasn't it we were close enough to a main street that we could get another cab outta here. We went in and had the best meal of our lives. The restaurant was very upscale (and expensive) and our waiter was fantastic and also said that celebrities often dined here because it was secluded. Both my daughter and I had our cameras with us and our waiter took our pictures . . . . . See above.

Not too much went wrong as in my other vacations (except my feet) and we really had a good time in spite of my constant complaining. My daughter is a fun person to be with. She absolutely loved NYC and would like to live there someday. Not me!

It's a nice place to visit, but. . . . .

Doggone Good Vacation

If anyone is a Dye-hard golf nut, I'm sure you've heard of Pete Dye. He has designed golf courses all over the world, and is quite famous for doing so. This story is not about golf.
I hate golf. This story is about his son Perry Dye, kinda....

Perry Dye's dad (Pete, remember) owned a very large house (small mansion) on Lake Maxinkuckee in Northern Indiana, home of the famous Culver Military Academy. Perry worked with my first husband selling real estate and although we were not that close to Perry, we did socialize with him and his wife occasionally. Perry was having a big 4th of July blow-out at his dad's house in Culver and had invited us, along with about 10-12 other couples, up there for a 4-day weekend. Great! Not only did Perry invite a lot of people for the long weekend, he told everyone to also bring their DOGS! What? Dogs? I had to call Perry on this one.

"Perry, gosh, I have 3 dogs and I don't know which one to bring, and then I'd have to have someone watch the other two while I was gone. So, I'll just not bring my dogs, ok?"
Perry was having none of this: "Bring 'em all," he told me, "everybody's bringing their dogs."

On the way up there we were wondering how many dog fights we'd have to contend with and is anyone going to be able to walk barefoot along the beach? I mean, really! That's a lot of dog poop. We arrived in the afternoon, most of the others did too, and Perry was assessing the dog situation and who got what bedrooms. There were about 7-8 bedrooms in the house (scratching my head, trying to remember back that far) and only 2 or 3 bathrooms, if I remember correctly, but that never seemed to be a problem the entire weekend.

I had the most dogs, a few couples had 2 dogs - most had just 1 dog, so my husband and I got a downstairs bedroom all to ourselves. Some of the other couples had to share. To say that the first day there was utter chaos is an understatement. We had dogs running everywhere, barking, sniffing, jumping and doing what dogs do. By the end of that first day we decided that it would be ridiculous to try to leash these dogs or tie them up away from each other so the general consensus was to.....let 'em go. We wanted to enjoy our weekend and not have to worry about walking dogs or where to put them all. This was gonna be interesting to say the least.

In the kitchen, Perry had designed a huge poster that hung on the wall. This poster had every meal listed - 3 meals a day for 4 days - and names were assigned to each meal as to who would cook that meal and who would clean up afterwards. He also had other duties for each day including "pooper scooper" duties and planned activities. The second day was to be a hog roast and the last day was going to be a dog show. He had thought of everything. He gave every couple 2 brand new white beach towels with the Steak 'n Shake logo, that his dad got for free (it's all in who you know, folks). I still have one of those beach towels and I forbid anyone to use it. Don't know what happened to the other.

By the second day, everyone was getting used to the "open door policy" that we had established the first day, after all it was July and really hot out. All doors were to remain open at all times so that the dogs could come and go at will. Even though the house was owned by a rich famous guy, there was no A/C - just fans. Believe it or not there were no dog fights and we had all sizes and breeds of dogs. Those listed on the roster to prepare the hog roast were out early in the morning; they dug a hole in the back yard close to the beach and that's where they were gonna roast the hog. It cooked all day and smelled so good. By evening everybodys mouth was watering. I was neither listed to cook nor clean that day, so my day was spent out on the dock and the beach soaking in the rays, and drinking. I had more comments on my dogs then anyone else because they followed me everywhere. They literally would not let me out of their sight at anytime. I would go to the end of the dock, jump off, swim out a ways and when I looked back there were 3 little poodles swimming single file after me. People on the dock were pointing and laughing. When everyone else went swimming, their dogs just lay there and waited for them to return. Not mine! Someone had brought a bloodhound named John Henry and at any given time of the day or night, you would find John Henry asleep on the couch in the living room in front of the fan; probably the smartest dog there. Anytime anyone would walk through the living room they'd say (in a low deep voice) "John Henry" and would be lucky if they could get him to open even one eye. We were all amazed at how well behaved the 15 (or so) dogs were and how they stayed close to home. They could have taken off down the beach, but none did.
The hog roast was a success. Absolutely delicious. After that huge meal we all just sat around in little groups and talked, drank, played cards, reminisced about the weekend so far, passed out or just went to bed.

I was one of the first ones to awake on the morning after the hog roast. My shriek brought almost everyone immediately to the kitchen. Words cannot describe what disaster had struck!
Not only were there dog prints on top of the counters and tables, but the refrigerator was open and everything that HAD been in the fridge or on the counter was now gone - eaten! The kitchen was in such disarray that you could not walk safely through it. The floor was greasy and slippery. There were sacks, bags, dishes & containers - all on the floor and all empty. Even the leftover roasted hog, which was going to be a meal for this day - gone! I guess that's what we get for drinking & eating too much and sleeping so soundly. The dogs had a heyday in there and no one heard them! It must have been "John Henry" (the smart one) that opened the refrigerator door. So he really could move off that couch if he wanted to....hmmm. Again I must say, words could not describe it. You just had to be there. It took all morning to get that kitchen back in order, while the dogs slept it off. As we were cleaning up we were thinking about revoking the open door policy but then decided - what the heck! The damage had been done and there's only one day left, forget it.

The last day we all were exhausted, to say the least. So the dog show was a half-hearted effort, but fun just the same. Most of us lounged around the beach and generally relaxed. My husband took off for home the day before (which is a whole other unpleasant story) so I rode back with some friends.
All in all it was one of the most fun vacations I'd ever had. And if Perry ever reads this, I'm sorry but I forgot your wife's name. I think it was either Ann or Susy. It was so long ago.