This wknd....

I scored at The Book Bin downtown and found 6 used Dragonlance books. A couple of them are even out of print, so I really scored. Of course I then had to reorganize them all again, cause that's super fun.....

Getting them organized by series

I didn't get the whole bookshelf in the picture, but you get the idea.

Saturday John and I went over to Jess and Nicks for a family night tournament of Pokemon....lol. When the kids were little, we had tournaments. The winners would play each other, and the losers would play each other. John even made some badges out of wood. We took our Pokemon games seriously, even playing the pokemon soundtrack in the background...yes, we are nerds!

The cutie in her jammies, we got to see her before she went to bed


Jessica used a fire deck. It did not serve her well, she was toast!!

John and Jess on the losing side of the table....lol

Sunday was Ethans birthday party. Jess and I went, and we got to see Jen and Daves new place. AMAZING! JEALOUS! Also had some super yummy vegan birthday cake!

Korissa running, Ethan maybe thinking about running, and Jess scratching her head....lol

Gorgeous daffodils on the tour

Awwww!

Korissa was very excited to open up her playdough

Ok, so I hear a lot of people outraged and saying that the Orca who killed its trainer should be put to death. Of course that's the first thing that people would think of concerning an animal. It is horrible that Dawn was killed. It's very sad that this had to even happen. This should be another wake up call to people though.....this Peta post says it all......


'Earlier this afternoon, another trainer at SeaWorld in Orlando was killed after being pulled into the tank by an orca named Tilikum (or Telly, for short). According to a witness, the whale, who has been involved in two previous fatal incidents involving human beings and who our captive wildlife director, Debbie Leahy, describes as "12,300 pounds of sheer rage," leapt out of the tank and grabbed the trainer by the waist, pulled her into the water, threw her around like a rag doll, and then held her underwater until she drowned. SeaWorld officials canceled the dolphin and whale shows for the rest of the day, but SeaWorld remains open (have they no shame?!) and will continue to exploit and abuse these captive animals despite the many horrific injuries and deaths of trainers and animals that have occurred throughout the theme park's history.

PETA has long been asking SeaWorld to stop taking wild, ocean-going mammals from their families and ocean homes and confining them with no semblance of a life to an area that, to them, is the size of a bathtub. No wonder these huge, intelligent animals, like the beaten elephants in the Ringling Bros. circus, lash out after being forced into subservience and forced to perform stupid circus tricks for their food for so long. For years, PETA has been calling on SeaWorld to switch to hugely popular robotic replacements like those used in the amazing "Walking With the Dinosaurs" exhibit. The public needs to stand up now against this cruelty and stop patronizing aquariums and whale and dolphin shows. Please join us in saying, "Enough!"

Posted by Logan Scherer




Dawn

From People.com:

Dawn Brancheau, the SeaWorld Orlando trainer who died Wednesday after being attacked by a killer whale named Tilikum, had dreamed of working with the huge mammals since childhood. Brancheau's mother, Marion Loverde, told the Orlando Sentinel her daughter, 40, had been inspired by Shamu when she saw the famous whale three decades ago. "It was her dream to do it," Loverde said. "She loved her job." Brancheau, the youngest of six children, studied psychology and animal behavior at the University of South Carolina and worked with dolphins at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey for two years before being hired at SeaWorld, her mother said.But Brancheau, who was married to husband Scott Brancheau for about 13 years after they met at SeaWorld, was aware of her job's inherent dangers. "You can't put yourself in the water unless you trust them and they trust you," she told the Sentinel in 2006.

Sea Shepherd is Safer than Sea World
Commentary by Captain Paul Watson

For all the talk about how Sea Shepherd endangers life and limb of whalers, sealers, poachers, and even supposedly our own crew, the fact is that in 33 years of operations not a single Sea Shepherd crewmember has been killed or seriously injured. This covers more than 250 voyages and confrontations on the high seas in some of the most remote and hostile waters in the world. Nor has any Sea Shepherd action ever caused a single injury, let alone a fatality to those we obstruct, harass, and prevent from continuing their illegal acts of exploitation.
The Greenpeace Foundation is always accusing Sea Shepherd of being violent and irresponsible, yet Greenpeace has had at least two deaths at sea, numerous injuries, and they have had numerous crew convicted of felony crimes.
Not one Sea Shepherd crewmember has been convicted of a felony anywhere in the world.
Another Sea Shepherd critic is Sea World, whose enslavement of Orca whales and dolphins has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in profits.
And now, once again a Sea World captive – Tilikum - has killed his third human being.
I can’t really blame Tilikum. If I was taken from the ocean and plopped into a concrete prison cell for four decades I would be inclined to get a mite angry also.
No reasonable person would walk unescorted across the exercise yard of a maximum-security prison, and it is irresponsible to expect a frail human being to turn his or her back on a stressed-out, angry, captive orca - the most formidable predator on the planet.
By the way, I’ve met Tilikum. Way back in the 80’s, I toured SeaLand of the Pacific as a special guest of Bob Wright, the owner of the facility. He wanted me to see first hand what his business was all about. I sat by the pool and patted the big Orca on the head. I also put my hand in his mouth and put my palm on his tongue so he could taste that I was not afraid of him. I remember looking into the left eye of that magnificent predator, and what I saw there was resignation and sadness. He was not a happy whale.
I knew then as I know now that Tilikum should not be, and does not belong in a swimming pool.
I think that Sea World has only one honorable option. They should return Tilikum to his home in the sea. His pod can be identified and Sea World has the funds, the skills, and the technology to do the right thing both for the Orca and for the interest of humanity.
If Sea World does not return Tilikum to the sea then the next time a human being dies as a victim to an angry, frustrated, stressed, and possibly insane Orca, it will not be simply another tragedy: it will be willful negligence!