secret ingredient revealed!!!

I always wondered what made geysers erupt. LOL


2 Yellowstone workers fired after watering geyser

By BOB MOEN, Associated Press Writer – Thu May 14, 7:34 pm ET
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Two seasonal Yellowstone National Park concession workers have been fired after a live webcam caught them urinating into the Old Faithful geyser.
Park spokesman Al Nash says a 23-year-old man on Tuesday was fined $750 and placed on three years of unsupervised probation for urinating, being off trail in a restricted area and taking items from the area. The man also was banned from Yellowstone for two years.
The second employee's case is pending.
The park's dispatch center was called after someone watching a webcam on the geyser saw six employees leaving the trail and walking on Old Faithful on May 4.
The geyser was not erupting at the time.
Xanterra Parks & Resorts general manager Jim McCaleb says the former concession workers were hired at the Old Faithful Inn and that such incidents were rare.

CAR WARRANTY TELEMARKETING

WOO HOO! YAY! OH BOY!

Texas, federal authorities sue auto warranty telemarketers behind 'robo-calls'
By Marcy Gordon
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Friday, May 15, 2009
WASHINGTON — Federal regulators filed suits Thursday against several companies that they say are behind a national wave of spam "robo-calls" that warn people their auto warranties are expiring and offer new service plans.
Federal Trade Commission officials asked a federal court in Chicago to halt the illegal telemarketing campaign.
The FTC named Voice Touch Inc. and Transcontinental Warranty Inc., which it called the telemarketer and promoter of the scheme, respectively, in the lawsuits. The agency is seeking injunctions requiring them to return allegedly ill-gotten gains.
In Austin, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a separate lawsuit against three other companies, saying they conducted a "campaign of deceptive and abusive telemarketing calls" to sell car service contracts.
Abbott's lawsuit says the companies used automated dialing systems to make the calls, which went through even when consumers had registered for federal or state do-not-call lists.
His lawsuit names SCM Media Inc., On Point Media Inc. and Pacific Guard Warranty LLC.

In the 512 area code alone, the lawsuit says, the companies made 4,300 calls between Feb. 4 and Feb. 6.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz called the warranty calls "one of the most aggressive" telemarketing schemes the agency has ever seen.
"I'm not sure which is worse, the abusive telemarketing tactics of these companies, or the way they try to deceive people once they get them on the phone," Leibowitz said. "Either way, we intend to shut them down."

It took some sleuthing to determine what companies were responsible because they made "extraordinary" efforts to conceal their identities by masking their true phone numbers, he said. Such concealment by telemarketers is illegal, as is refusal to promptly identify themselves to consumers.
None of the companies returned calls for comment.
Attorneys general in Arkansas, Indiana and Missouri have taken similar actions over the calls that offer deals on extended warranties, which have brought about 300,000 inquiries and 4,000 complaints to the Better Business Bureau from consumers in the past two years.

The calls target people regardless of whether they have warranties or own cars. Telephone numbers are called randomly, and a computerized voice leaves messages falsely claiming that auto warranties are about to expire, regulators say.
The telemarketers are misrepresenting service contracts, which consumers have to pay for, as warranties, which are included in the price of buying a vehicle, the FTC says.
"Out of warranty? You are still eligible to reactivate warranty coverage. This is the final call before we close the file." The recording typically gives the caller an option to stop receiving calls, but the calls continue to come even if consumers opt out.
If people agree to buy policies, the companies often don't let them see the contracts until they agree to pay. And some people don't learn until they've spent thousands of dollars that the deals don't cover many types of repairs, according to regulators.

Rotten office fridge cleanup sends 7 to hospital

This is why I NEVER use the fridge at work! It always stinks!



2 hrs 30 mins ago
SAN JOSE, Calif. – An office worker cleaning a fridge full of rotten food created a smell so noxious that it sent seven co-workers to the hospital and made many others ill.
Firefighters had to evacuate the AT&T building in downtown San Jose on Tuesday after the fumes led someone to call 911. A hazmat team was called in.
What crews found was an unplugged refrigerator crammed with moldy food.
Authorities say an enterprising office worker had decided to clean it out, placing the food in a conference room while using two cleaning chemicals to scrub down the mess.
The mixture of old lunches and disinfectant caused 28 people to need treatment for vomiting and nausea.
Authorities say the worker who cleaned the fridge didn't need treatment — she can't smell because of allergies.

Mothers Day

Went to mom and dads to partake in the Sunday breakfast of Homemade biscuits and gravy. I also had mom's mothers day gift in my car. It was a small bicycle to put in her garden. If you go to her blog, she has posted a photo of it along side of the plants daddy gave her.
It is back to work for me today. I am looking forward to vacation in July. I am still planning on visiting my brother and his lovely wife in Virginia and meeting my new nephew as well. I get to play Auntie! WOO HOO! Perhaps I should consider making this an annual thing, going to visit them. Hmmm. I'll have to think on that for a bit.

Couple found dead in Llano County

Might be time for me to have a loaded gun in my house too, hmm?



01:40 AM CDT on Sunday, May 10, 2009
KVUE
Police in Llano County and the Texas Rangers are investigating the death of a man and a woman after their bodies are found in the front yard of their home.

Deputies say they found the bodies in front of a travel trailer along Rural Road 1431.

Both had apparent gunshot wounds.

A baby girl was found inside the trailer.

She is fine and is in the custody of CPS.

An autopsy will be performed by the Travis County Medical Examiner.

NH boy finds $8,160 stuffed in charred backpack

There BETTER be a reward coming to this HONEST kid!


Fri May 8, 2:49 am ET
ALTON, N.H. – A 10-year-old boy picking up litter in New Hampshire found a charred backpack stuffed with more than $8,000 in cash.
Arie Johnston of Dover was helping his grandmother with her town's annual roadside cleanup when he spotted the backpack Saturday. He told Foster's Daily Democrat his first thought was that a person had been killed for the money.
Arie's grandmother called the Alton town clerk, who identified the bag's owner based on the passports and other documents found with the money. The owner was a woman who had lived across the street until a fire damaged her apartment last year.
Police say the woman has since moved to Maine and has asked that her belongings be given to her sister who lives in Alton. Arie's grandmother says a reward may be coming.

fun yard sign

Tough' toddler found alive after 2 days in woods

Poor kid!

By JIM SALTER, Associated Press Writer – Thu May 7, 6:55 am ET
ARCADIA, Mo. – Thirsty, dirty and tired after spending two days and nights barely clothed in the wet, chilly woods of Mark Twain National Forest, 3-year-old Joshua Childers was ready to go home.
The boy was lying on the ground of a hollow near a creek bottom Wednesday afternoon when a volunteer searcher spied his bare bottom.
"Hey, bud!" called out Donnie Halpin, a 57-year-old construction worker from nearby Fredericktown, who wasn't sure whether the grimy figure was even alive.
But Joshua sat right up and grinned at his rescuer.
"You ready to go home?" Halpin asked.
"Yeah," said Joshua.
The boy was wet and only wearing a T-shirt and one tennis shoe. Halpin called 911, then wrapped the child in his shirt, scooped him up and carried him about a half-mile to a house.
"He hung on to me pretty tight," said Halpin, who didn't have any water for the child but gave him some candy. "Outside of a few scratches, he was in really good shape."
Joshua had slipped out of his family's mobile home near Arcadia in rural southeast Missouri around 11:30 a.m. Monday, while his father slept and his mother talked on the phone.
Terry Schulte, the boy's grandmother, told KSDK-TV that Joshua told her he was on his way to visit her. She lives about five miles from his home, and he was found covered in ticks about a half-mile away. Somewhere along the way he lost his pull-up diaper and one of his sneakers, which searchers found near a pond Monday.
Halpin discovered Joshua around 4 p.m. Wednesday while walking along an all-terrain vehicle trail about three miles from the boy's home, after first spotting some stray dogs sniffing at something.
"I'm going to put him up for the Grizzy Adams Award, send him bear-hunting with a stick," his overjoyed father, Adam Childers, told reporters, marveling at his son's survival skills.
"It's undescribable how grateful we are," Childers said. "I mean, you doubt if God's actually with you for awhile, and then something like this happens, and you know he's there."
Madison County Sheriff David Lewis said searchers had been growing increasingly pessimistic about their chances of finding Joshua alive. He figured three days was about the limit for the boy's survival in the wild without food and water.
"It's a miracle," Lewis said. "I'm so happy, you can't believe it."
Hundreds of volunteers from as far away as St. Louis, 100 miles to the northeast, came to help in the search. So did professional search and rescue crews from dozens of agencies. The Missouri State Highway Patrol brought in planes. The state Water Patrol brought in divers and sonar. Dozens of dogs, horses, ATVs and even donkeys scattered in the miles around the tiny home that sits along the wild, rocky terrain of the Mark Twain National Forest.
The area is home to bears, mountain lions and snakes. Heavy rain Tuesday night and Wednesday morning swelled creeks in the area.
"I don't know how he did it," Adam Childers said. "I don't know grown men that could do it. But all I can say is he's a tough little bugger."
Doctors have told him that his son is a little dehydrated but otherwise fine, Childers said. The child was evaluated and listed in fair condition, first at Iron County Hospital and later at Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Crystal City, where he was transferred because it has a larger pediatric unit.
The boy has been asking for milk and hot dogs since his rescue, Childers said.

53 pounds of packed cocaine found on Texas beach

snake heads and cocaine... hmmm

Wed May 6, 9:01 pm ET
SABINE PASS, Texas – Beachcombers found more than seashells while strolling on a Texas beach: two dozen neatly wrapped packages of cocaine. Jefferson County Sheriff's Lt. Troy Tucker said drug smugglers have been known to use freighters and the cocaine may have been kicked overboard to avoid detection.
The sheriff's department was working with federal agencies Wednesday to try to determine the source of the 53 pounds of cocaine, worth about $500,000.
KFDM-TV reported the cocaine was found Tuesday west of Sea Rim State Park, in the Sabine (suh-BEEN') Pass area.
It was found by people looking for debris, such as metal, that washes ashore. Their names weren't released.

Snake head in food rattles diner at NY restaurant

A little extra protein never hurt any one, hmm?


CLIFTON PARK, N.Y. – A diner at a T.G.I. Friday's in upstate New York says he got a little something extra with his broccoli — a severed snake head.
Jack Pendleton says he was at the restaurant in Clifton Park on Sunday when he spotted something gray mixed in with his vegetables. He realized it was a snake head the size of his thumb, with part of the spine still attached.
Pendleton says he snapped a photo with his cell phone camera and called the waiter over. He says he has no plans to sue.
A spokeswoman for the Carrollton, Texas, chain says it's investigating. It wasn't immediately known what kind of snake it was.
Pendleton and his girlfriend weren't charged for their meals.

Deer

I took this photo last year on the way to work. I sent it in to the local newspaper, and it was published! I won that months photo contest in the nature category.

painted bunting

Mom said R didn't think he had seen a painted bunting before, so I found the best photo I had to post here. Isn't he beautiful?

INSIDE WASHINGTON: Taxpayers to get rude surprise

INSIDE WASHINGTON: Millions of couples, retirees may have to repay some of Obama tax credit

Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press Writer
On Thursday April 30, 2009, 6:55 pm EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Millions of Americans enjoying their small windfall from President Barack Obama's "Making Work Pay" tax credit are in for an unpleasant surprise next spring.

The government is going to want some of that money back.

The tax credit is supposed to provide up to $400 to individuals and $800 to married couples as part of the massive economic recovery package enacted in February. Most workers started receiving the credit through small increases in their paychecks in the past month.

But new tax withholding tables issued by the IRS could cause millions of taxpayers to get hundreds of dollars more than they are entitled to under the credit, money that will have to be repaid at tax time.

At-risk taxpayers include a broad swath of the public: married couples in which both spouses work; workers with more than one job; retirees who have federal income taxes withheld from their pension payments and Social Security recipients with jobs that provide taxable income.

The Internal Revenue Service acknowledges problems with the withholding tables but has done little to warn average taxpayers.

"They need to get the Goodyear blimp out there on this," said Tom Ochsenschlager, vice president of taxation for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

For many, the new tax tables will simply mean smaller-than-expected tax refunds next year, IRS spokesman Terry Lemons said. The average refund was nearly $2,700 this year.

But taxpayers who calculate their withholding so they get only small refunds could face an unwelcome tax bill next April, said Jackie Perlman, an analyst with the Tax Institute at H&R Block.

"They are going to get a surprise," she said.

Perlman's advice: check your federal withholding to make sure sufficient taxes are being taken out of your pay. If you are married and both spouses work, you might consider having taxes withheld at the higher rate for single filers. If you have multiple jobs, you might consider having extra taxes withheld by one of your employers. You can make that request with a Form W-4.

The IRS has a calculator on its Web site to help taxpayers figure withholding. So do many private tax preparers.

Obama has touted the tax credit as one of the big achievements of his first 100 days in office, boasting that 95 percent of working families will qualify in 2009 and 2010.

The credit pays workers 6.2 percent of their earned income, up to a maximum of $400 for individuals and $800 for married couples who file jointly. Individuals making more $95,000 and couples making more than $190,000 are ineligible.

The tax credit was designed to help boost the economy by getting more money to consumers in their regular paychecks. Employers were required to start using the new withholding tables by April 1.

The tables, however, don't take into account several common categories of taxpayers, experts said.

For example:

--A single worker with two jobs making $20,000 a year at each job will get a $400 boost in take-home pay at each of them, for a total of $800. That worker, however, is eligible for a maximum credit of $400, so the remaining $400 will have to be paid back at tax time -- either through a smaller refund or a payment to the IRS.

The IRS recognized there could be a similar problem for married couples if both spouses work, so it adjusted the withholding tables. The fix, however, was imperfect.

-- A married couple with a combined income of $50,000 is eligible for an $800 credit. However, if both spouses work and make more than $13,000, the new withholding tables give them each a $600 boost -- for a total of $1,200.

There were 33 million married couples in 2008 in which both spouses worked. That's 55 percent of all married couples, according to the Census Bureau.

-- A single college student with a part-time job making $10,000 would get a $400 boost in pay. However, if that student is claimed as a dependent on a parent's tax return, she doesn't qualify for the credit and would have to repay it when she files next year.

Some retirees face even bigger headaches.

The Social Security Administration is sending out $250 payments to more than 50 million retirees in May as part of the economic stimulus package. The payments will go to people who receive Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, railroad retirement benefits or veteran's disability benefits.

The payments are meant to provide a boost for people who don't qualify for the tax credit. However, they will go to retirees even if they have earned income and receive the credit. Those retirees will have the $250 payment deducted from their tax credit -- but not until they file their tax returns next year, long after the money may have been spent.

Retirees who have federal income taxes withheld from pension benefits also are getting an income boost as a result of the new withholding tables. However, pension benefits are not earned income, so they don't qualify for the tax credit. That money will have to paid back next year when tax returns are filed.

More than 20 million retirees and survivors receive payments from defined benefit pension plans, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. However, it is unclear how many have federal taxes withheld from their payments.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union raised concerns about the effect of the tax credit on pension payments in a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in March.

Geithner responded that Treasury and IRS understood the concerns and were "exploring ways to mitigate that effect."

Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, the top Republican on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said Geithner has yet to respond to concerns raised by committee members.

"So far we've got the, 'If we don't address this maybe it will go away' approach," Camp said.

Flowering red tips

Take a look at gramas red tips! I cut them back when I moved here, and let them be since. They are now at least as tall as the house! look at those blooms! The scent reminds me of dogwood.