Adventures I want to take

• I want to explore NYC and see the following:
  • The Statue of Liberty
  • Ellis Island
  • The New York Stock Exchange
  • Central Park
  • See Ground Zero
  • Go Shopping at Christmas
  • See the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in Person
  • Spend some time in the Lion Brand Studio in Manhattan
• I want to visit the Grand Canyon
• I want to visit one of the Disney theme parks here in the states when they have it decorated for:
  • Halloween
  • Christmas
• I want to visit Washington DC
• I want to see Boston
• I want to go to Vermont/New Hampshire/Maine in the fall and see a New England Fall
• I want to see some old ghost towns
• I want to go back to San Diego and spend more time in Old Town San Diego
• I want to go to as many yarn stores in New England as I can and by yarn at each one. Even if it is just enough to make a pair of cute fingerless gloves.

Watching History Happen

Yesterday, I was glued to the BBC poll results webpage, as well as twitter as I watched for the results from the Independence Referendum in Scotland slowly start to trickle in. I still may see an Independent Scotland in my life time, but for now Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom. The final result was 55% for the no’s and 45% for the yes. There was also a overwhelmingly strong voter turn out at or above 85%.

Here are some of the things I took away from this election, as well as elections within my own country:

• The need for the electoral college makes no sense (lets not forget the 2000 Presidential election here in the US)
• Waiting until AFTER the polls close to start releasing the official results for each council/state/province is highly effective, and helps ensure that voter’s won’t be swayed by early results that may not be accurate.

I am fully aware of the fact that 307 years ago in 1707, Scotland chose to join the United Kingdom. I am not refuting that fact. Why I wanted to see Scotland become its own country, is because it is not the 18th century anymore, it is the 21st. The world is a completely different place now that it was then, and I believe that Scotland could and would make it on its own.

From what I am seeing, and the breakdown of the votes by age group, this is just the beginning. We will be seeing more from Scotland in the future.

It's Almost Here!

I have literally been on edge the past couple of days keeping up with what is going on with the Scottish Independence Referendum vote that is taking place today (their time). It may be weird or crazy for those who don’t know me that I am keeping such a close watch on Scotland when I am not a British citizen or even a citizen of a commonwealth or EU country. I have been following this since I found out about it because I have been interested in Scotland and their culture and so on and so forth (as I have Scottish (as well as English and Welsh)  ancestry, but not enough to actually work in my favor for immigration purposes).

During my senior year of College (what we call University or Uni over here in the states) the dream was to eventually move to Scotland. That has indefinitely been put on the back burner, do to issues in terms of the only legal way I would have to immigrate would be through marriage, and that has to happen (and may never will). That being said I am still fascinated with their culture and way of life. The whole reason I have wanted to live there, is not because I hate my own country, but rather I want to experience living in a different country, adapting and trying to assimilate into a different culture and way of life. I have no objections to staying in my own country, it is just the anthropologist in me that wants to experience how life is lived somewhere else.

My own country, declared it’s independence from Great Britain in 1776, and It has been even longer than that since Scotland has been it’s own country (1707).

I am also excited to see what happens, to see History in the making.

End of Summer Beach Afternoon

If any of you have read this post, you will get an idea of the kind of day I had, just without my best friend, and the sand fight. The only thing stopping me or holding me from moving to the coast is the whole job/economy situation. I would love to live at the coast. 

I am going to keep this post short, in terms of writing, but post several pictures for you all to enjoy. 

Saturday Adventures

I love weekend adventures. Especially when those adventures take me Home. I had gone home for the church picnic. At the beginning of each school year the church typically has a picnic, and most of the church turns out for it. 

Going down I sat in two traffic tie ups one, was just because of a cop doing photo radar at the south end of the metro area, and yes, it brought the freeway from easily doing 70, to being a parking lot. The other tie up was just before the outlet mall exit. Nutty. If it had staying being Friday night commute bad all the way down to where I got off the freeway I would have passed it off as a boat load of people going down to Eugene for the Ducks Game, and die hard, gotta be tail gating all day Beaver’s fans, but even that didn’t make sense as far north as I was. 

I had finally gotten to my destination, and I had gone to the new side of the park (which is the side where we have had the picnic when I was in College), and no one was there, and it was already half an hour past the start time. I found that odd, so I sat there for a bit, then drove by the church. Then I remembered that there was also the Old Side of the park, and figured I should check there before I got to far away from town. I had found my group and then enjoyed the rest of the picnic with my church family. 

After the Picnic and before driving back to the city, I drove back through the town where I went to college and stopped on campus for a few minutes. On the drive back up here, I got stuck behind a tractor for a ways, and then on the freeway as I got closer to the city, I had seen smoke coming from somewhere, which I thought was weird (and rather stupid if someone was intentionally having that big of a fire that the smoke could be seen from miles away) beings that we are currently under a red flag advisory, since it has been hot the last few days, and we have had an incredibly dry summer. Turns out there was a car fire on the southbound side of the freeway. It had been relatively recent too, as the fire department was still on scene with a couple fire fighters up at the engine compartment with their hoses. You could tell that it had been a major fire as there was damage mid way back on the van. Southbound traffic was a parking lot for a good couple miles behind this accident.