Find YOUR name here!

If you frequent my blog, your name should be below in anagram. Let me know if I missed you....Some maiden names, blog names, and one couple are included.


Banana proudly
Replaces sins
Eeriest elk
A beery kingdom
Re:Re: Robot egg
Overtly nectar
Arise, kitten!
Renown star
Rivet mom

and two I forgot:
kosher barometer
facsimile here

And for extra extra credit, (I'll be really impressed if anyone gets this person)
A nice macaroni bath

8 lines about 4 events

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Mckenna won the essay contest, "Why it's great to be an American" from the American Legion Hall, along with a $75 award. Lauren won the school spelling bee as a fifth grader, so she beat all the sixth graders in the process.
Patrick's first communion was yesterday, along with losing his first tooth later. Thanks Mike (and my Mom and various parishioners) for making it a good day.
I just got back from my quarterly Department of Homeland Security focus group, this time in Charlotte, North Carolina. Annamarie couldn't come so my mom came along and visited some old friends, a very good trip as we got some time to drive into South Carolina.
Annamarie's garden is waking up again. This is the pavilion part with the three fishponds, and I think all danger of frost is past so she'll be doing some major planting---wants everything perfect for the reunion in August (4 months to go!)

Mr. Pettit II

Everyone had to give a global warming speech in Mckenna's 'life skills' class. Most were gloom and doom. Mckenna's was very upbeat, challenged the BS numbers given by Al Gore and others, showed how just recently the fear was the coming ice age, and dealt with the 'overpopulation' myth....(pointed out that you could put the entire earth population in Texas, and they'd each get 2000 square feet to live in)
Mckenna was sure she'd get a bad grade since she challenged Mr. Pettit on everything he claimed. The class got to vote for the best speech and she won. Mr Pettit, to his credit, gave her a 49 out of 50 possible points.
What's too bad is, kids will eventually see through the rhetoric and gross overstatements, and make the conclusion that conservation doesn't really matter. If we concentrated on teaching kids the benefits of acting locally--how eating food cooked at home generates less trash, is cheaper and better for you; how bottled water is a waste, and how biking somewhere nearby instead of driving is an option.... instead of telling them our whole way of life is killing the planet, you'd probably have a greater impact. A kid can recycle a can. A kid can't understand a gross reduction of their carbon footprint...

Dear Mr. Pettit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~You teach my daughter's 8th grade 'life skills' class. She showed me her global warming test. It is unfortunate that in the same school in which any evidence of faith is erased from your 'Holiday Pageant', a teacher is allowed to spout nonsense from the global warming cult unchallenged. What has this to do with lifeskills? Why are half of my property tax dollars going to education when you fill kids heads with this unadulterated rubbish?
Your 58 question 'test' starts with questions about global warming then moves towards human activities, assuming a connection that is so far unproven. I wish I had the time to go over each question with you. I plan on petitioning to do just that, in front of your class. Here's a few of the questions I have a problem with.

# 22. What is the carbon impact of a single cheeseburger?
Your 'correct' answer--- 200 million metric tons.
To an eighth grader that's just a big number. To anyone with an ounce of critical thinking, it's preposterous.
There is a total of 3 trillion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere (Source--NOAA) McDonald's has served an estimated 140 billion cheeseburgers. (Source--Mcdonald's sign on Convoy street) by your numbers, McDonald's cheeseburgers alone account for 61,712,000 trillion tons of CO2. Where did all the CO2 go?

# 13. What will happen to the coral reefs if there is a 2 degree rise in temperature?
Your 'correct' answer---we will lose them.
Given that coral has been around since the precambrian era, when the CO2 load in the atmosphere was 7000 ppm (compared with today's paltry 372 ppm) isn't your statement off? DO you really believe there hasn't been much more significant temperature changes in the last 4 billion years?

#51. What percentage of greenhouse gasses are produced by cars?
Your 'correct' answer--20%. Sorry to hit you with actual numbers. NOAA claims 95% of greenhouse gas is water vapor. There is 326,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of water in the atmosphere. There are estimated to be 12,588,949 cars in the world. If you assume each and every car drove 100,000 miles already, and they made 20% of this water vapor, that's 51,791 gallons of water from each car, PER MILE. This must explain why the tailpipe rusts.

I could go on. But I don't see a need. I have to remember you are teaching a 'life skills' class, and my daughter has learned an important 'life skill lesson' from you which will serve her well in future education. Sometimes teachers say stuff without having any idea what they are talking about. If you want to believe the global warming myths, fine. If you want to believe in killer comets, killer bees, acid rain, the hole in the ozone layer, ebola, e choli, overpopulation, deforestation, etc---go right ahead. Just don't try to pass along fatalistic, unproven theories on our kids.

Something different

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The National Guard copters want to get certified for firefighting. San Diego Fire wants to have a few military copter managers on hand so we can use them in the city. Put those two needs together, and it eats up my weekend.
I headed up to Los Alamitos early morning, and had a briefing with the blackhawk guys. We briefed on the Bambi bucket and headed out to Irvine Lake to practice some drops in the Santa Ana foothills. Man---the blackhawk is big. I have to lean way out my window to direct the bucketwork. The new pilot kept missing to the left so I started steering him in more to the right. That worked well. Only having two radios to talk on makes it easy, versus the six (!) I'm used to.
Cool stuff---flew over Mike F's house in Orange. Flying over our old stomping grounds was cool too; I've flown over San Diego County enough to recognize most of it, so to have that perspective over my old neighborhood was a trip. Also flew over Knott's and Disneyland. We probably flew over RBG's and Shoo's place too but I'm not sure. If you see a big blackhawk with '830' painted in giant lime green numbers Sunday, wave; we're going to ruin another nice day of fishing at Irvine Lake tomorrow.