Month: November 2009

Should Redland Incorporate?

Since some of the comments on my last entry on the latest Wetumpka city council meeting brought up the possibility of the Redland Community incorporating, I thought it might be interesting to see what some of you think. So, what do you think?

Should Redland remain as it is now, an unincorporated community? Should they seek to become a city? Should they be annexed into the city of Wetumpka? What are the benefits/liabilities of any of these choices?

I don’t suppose I really have an opinion yet. Maybe I can form one based on some of your input, provided there is any input. The last Redland resident to comment here said this was a “pathetic blog” which may mean nobody who cares even reads it. I hope I’m wrong.

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If You Want to Lose Weight and Get Fit, This is a Must Read!


Jeanne Dulaney, Founder 
Ignite! LLC
…Life Adventures for Women

I thought I might hijack my running buddy’s blog today to talk about some running things. You see, Thad is a typical runner… “Just Do It.” Grab a pair of shoes, hit the road and run a triathlon. Easy, right? Fun? Of course! Go ahead, get out there…
Well, for lots of us, not so much…
When I started running at age 48, it was a deliberate decision on my part that I would MAKE it work. I had a lot of weight to lose and not a lot of time for exercise and walking wasn’t going to do it. I needed something with a higher calorie burn, and I figured I’d try one more time to become a runner.
You see, I’d tried many times before, always with the same results – try it 2 or 3 times and fail. This time it was different. I was in Wetumpka for the weekend to buy a house (the one I live in now), and it was the day to try. The odd thing was, it was also the day to figure out the secret. I did it. Stayed the course. Kept running.
Five years later, I’m still running. Running 5k’s, 10k’s, half marathons, and now I’m signed up for a marathon. What’s more, I’ve become a running coach, sharing what I learned the hard way with Wetumpka (and Montgomery, Prattville, Millbrook and Elmore) women who want to run.
Lots of women talk to me about running. And a lot of them say “I can’t run.” And then add:
“I don’t enjoy it.” Usually from women who’ve tried keeping up with a spouse or running friend who thinks it’s “just do it.” Try running with a group of NON-runners and succeeding together. And laughing together. And talking your way through till you CAN run a 5k.
“It hurts my (pick one) feet, knees, hips, low back.” Uh huh – it can, if you don’t know the secrets to running pain- and injury-free. Most of you just need someone to show you how (yes, there are real problems. Most people don’t have one that prevents them from learning to run).
“I can’t even run a mile.” Yep. And you’re not a teenage boy who can just pick up any old sport and do it. There’s a right way and a wrong way to start. And to try and run a mile on the first day is definitely a wrong way!
“I can’t breathe when I run.” I know what you’re doing. Been there, done that. Now, I know a better way to start running and keep breathing.
“I (bike, do the elliptical machine, swim), but I just can’t run.” Did you try and swim ¼ mile the first day you jumped in the water? Of course not! Lance Armstrong called his first marathon “the hardest physical thing I’ve ever done.” He learned that you can’t just transfer from one sport to another and expect to perform at the same level.
“I don’t know how.” Well, yes, and that’s why I’m teaching running. Most of us don’t know how to start.
I’m starting another class next week. Monday, 6:30 PM. Rumbling Waters Health Club. Downtown Wetumpka. Come LEARN to run with me! You won’t regret it.
For more information, go to Ignite! Life Adventures for Women
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Did Someone Watch Zombieland Before Work?

I was just listening to the radio as I was getting ready for work. The news person mentioned that one of the DC snipers was put to death last night. John Allen Muhammad was executed by lethal injection last night in Virginia while relatives of the victims looked on. Here is the last line of the story…

“Prison officials say they’ll hold the body for a few days to make sure he is dead.”

What?

I’m no doctor. In fact, I haven’t even stayed at a Holiday Inn Express since 1997. But with modern medical technology isn’t there a better way to tell if someone is actually dead or not than holding them for a few days to make sure? What is the guy going to do, stand up and say, “HAHA! GOTCHA!”

Then what do you do if he is not dead? Does the whole double-jeopardy thing apply to this situation? If he somehow wakes up do we get to execute him again or does someone say, “Darn. We need to be sure to up the dosage of potassium chloride next time we do this.”

Maybe I’m just an uneducated bumpkin, but it seems to me that prison personnel should be able to tell if someone is dead or not. As usual, I could be wrong. Some of you medical folks fill me in on this. Please.

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What Happened to Halloween?

In actuality, evil may be a bit of an overstatement. I don’t suppose I’ve run into anyone who thinks that Halloween is completely evil and that those who trick-or-treat or attend a Halloween party are engaging in some sort of sugar-induced Satan worshiping. What I have seen in the years since I last trick-or-treated, somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty years or so ago, is a dramatic increase in the number of families who don’t take part in any Halloween festivities at all. I’ve heard several explanations from these families, some in person and some that I may have seen on the news or read about in the paper, as to why this is the case. Though there are many, they all seem to share a common theme that goes back to that particular family’s religious beliefs.

Make no mistake, if that is your conviction then you are doing the right thing by standing firm in that conviction. In a society where conviction of any sort seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur, that is a refreshing change. So, kudos to you! My question is simply this: What has changed so much over the years that has made Halloween taboo for so many?

As a child, Halloween was a day I looked forward to with great anticipation every year. I started the process of choosing a costume several weeks, if not months, in advance! I remember being Superman(I loved that cape), some sort of monster with a green head, a mummy, a vampire, and a cowboy among many others. The churches I grew up in, in which my old-school, conservative, traditional, Bible preaching, teaching, and believing father was the pastor, even had Halloween parties for the children of the church. The kids(and lots of the adults) would dress up in the costume of their choice and there would be games, a costume contest, and lots of goodies. In one church, our Samford University educated minister of music and youth actually had the youth group sponsor a haunted house to help raise money! It was SCARY! Granted, this was 1979 and maybe he just hadn’t yet been enlightened yet.

Out of all of my friends that I grew up with and spent many a Halloween trolling for candy and seeing who could put together the scariest costume, I can’t think of a single one who became a devil worshiper or joined a cult. I’m not saying that it hasn’t happened. I’m just saying I don’t know about it if it has.

As I said before, if that’s your conviction then I think that’s great and you will get no argument from me telling me that you are wrong. I am just curious to hear from some of you who might feel differently than me about Halloween. Maybe you can fill me in on something I’ve missed. I don’t want to wake up one day and find that I’ve shaved my head and joined the Moonies because I celebrated Halloween. Help me out.

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The Sound

I love roller coasters. Let me rephrase that…I love roller coasters except for the initial climb up the first big hill. Heights and I have never gotten along terribly well which I suppose might make it odd that I love roller coasters so much. Nevertheless, several years ago Gigi and I spent a few days in Tampa and with Tampa being home to Busch Gardens, we decided it would be fun to spend the day there.

Among many great rides and roller coasters there, they have a coaster called Montu. It is one of the tallest, longest inverted coasters in the world and we couldn’t wait to ride it. You can see in the picture above that it seats four passengers in each row. Your feet dangle in mid-air and your arms and upper body are largely immobilized due to the “thing” that comes down over your head and torso to keep you from flying off into the giraffe habitat or something. I always say these types of coasters, when I am strapped in, make me feel like a Tyrannosaurus Rex because the only part of my arms that can actually move are my wrists, thus giving me the feeling that I have really short arms, much like a T-Rex did. This will come into play in a moment.
We stood in line and when it came our turn to board, we found ourselves riding with two young men who appeared to be in their early to mid-twenties. The two of them boarded first, followed by Gigi, and then me. Remember that Gigi is seated between me and one of the young men. This will also figure into the story in a moment.
The ride starts and we make our way up the dreaded first hill. As we near the top, my acrophobia begins to give way to excitement. We finally top it and begin our descent into incredible thrills as we make our way through seven “insane inversions” as they are referred to on the Busch Gardens website. On just about any coaster there will be much screaming and gnashing of teeth. This ride certainly fit the bill. Gigi and I were yelling with excitement as were the two young men we were sharing this ride with.
That’s when I heard it. The sound. A sound which still haunts me to this day. Somewhere around insane inversion number three the guy sitting next to Gigi, in the middle of a scream of pure, unadulterated joy, made a sound that can’t be written with mere letters on a keyboard. The best way I can describe it is that it is akin to the noise you’d make if you ran through a cloud of gnats and sucked about 10 of them down your throat. A sort of half-choking, half-trying to expel something from your esophagus sound. It’s unmistakable and one of the last places from which you want to hear that sound emanate is the guy sitting next to your wife on the Montu. Trust me on this one.
Before you get ahead of me, it wasn’t the dreaded sound of regurgitation, thankfully. However, for someone like me, it might as well have been. Gigi would say after the ride was over that she saw it as it virtually weightlessly floated in front of her face toward me. I would not be so lucky. The “it” being referred to here was, for lack of a better term, a hunk of saliva. A gravity defying, slow moving projectile made of, well, spit. This projectile which harmlessly floated across Gigi would find a temporary home just below my left eye.
If you’ve ever been spit upon, either accidentally or on purpose, even if it’s only a tiny drop during an innocent conversation, you know that the brain immediately signals the hand to remove the offending foreign DNA sample as quickly as possible. My brain sent this signal out posthaste and my hand sprang into action. It was at that point that I realized that my tiny, little T-Rex arms could not reach my face. In fact, no combination of neck-stretching, hand/wrist distorting movements could remove this vileness from my cheek. I can only tell you that the the first two or three insane inversions on the Montu were exciting. The rest of them turned out to be quite disgusting as best I remember.
I spent the better part of three minutes, which is 7 hours in spit years, on a roller coaster with a stranger’s expectoration hitching a ride on my face. In my world, sinks rank only slightly higher than toilets in the hierarchy of the various fixtures found in public restrooms. I can’t even begin to imagine what takes place in and around a sink in the average public restroom. But as I disembarked from Montu and practically sprinted for the nearest bathroom, that sink was an oasis of anti-bacterial soap and hot water as I buried my face in it.

If I’ve been on a coaster of that sort since that fateful day, I don’t remember it. I’ve heard that sometimes our mind blocks out particularly difficult or distressing things that may have occurred in our past. Maybe that explains my uncertainty. I can tell you this much, though: If I ever do have occasion to ride such a coaster again, it will not be without a hazmat suit. What listing would those be under on Ebay?

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