Russel's Blog

Grandma is 89 and still drives.

In a letter to her grand-daughter, she writes:

"The other day I went to our local Christian book store

                      and saw a "Honk If You Love Jesus" bumper sticker.

 I was feeling

particularly sassy that day because I had just come from a thrilling

choir performance followed by a thunderous prayer meeting.

So I bought the sticker and put it on my bumper.

Boy, am I ever glad I did; what an uplifting

        experience that followed!

I was stopped at a red light at a busy intersection,

just lost in thought, and hadn't noticed that the

light had changed.

It's a good think that someone else loves Jesus, because

               if he hadn't honked, I'd never have noticed.

                                   I found that's lots of people love Jesus!

 While I was sitting there, the guy behind me

                                                                                  started honking like crazy,

and then he leaned out of his window and screamed,

"For the love of God!".

"Go! Go! Go! Jesus, GO!"

What an exuberant cheerleader he was for Jesus!

Then everyone started honking.

I just leaned out the window and started waving at

         all those loving people. I even honked a few times

                   myself to share the love!

There must have been a man from Florida back there

because I heard him yelling something about a sunny beach.

I saw another guy waving in a funny way with only

one finger in the air.

I asked my young grandson what that meant,

          and he said it was a Hawaiin greeting.

                  Well I never met anyone from Hawaii, so I

leaned out the window and gave him

                   the greeting sign back.

My grandson burst out laughing!

Why, even he was enjoying this religious experience.

A couple of people were so caught up in the joy of the moment

         that they got out of their cars and started walking towards us.

                       I bet that they wanted to pray or ask what church I attended,

                               but this is when I noticed the light had changed again.

So, grinning, I waved at all my brothers and sisters

and drove through the intersection.

I noticed that I was the only one who got through

          the light this time, and I felt kind of sad to leave

                      them after all the love we had shared.

                                   So I rolled down the window and gave

                                                them the Hawaiian greeting one last time.

A lot of them got out of their

cars and gave me the Hawaiin greeting sign right back.

Praise the Lord for such wonderful folks!

I got this as an e-mail and could not resist sharing it with my AR family!!!!! Let me know what you think!!!!!     HIGH SCHOOL -- 1957 vs. 2009   Scenario 1: Jack goes quail hunting before school and then pulls into the school parking lot with his shotgun in his truck's gun rack. 1957 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack. 2007 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again.  Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.     Scenario 2: Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school. 1957 - Crowd gathers.  Mark wins.  Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies. 2007 - Police called and SWAT team arrives -- they arrest both Johnny and Mark.  They are both charged with assault and both expelled even though Johnny started it and Mark was just defending himself.      Scenario 3: Jeffrey will not be still in class, he disrupts other students. 1957 - Jeffrey sent to the Principal's office and given a good paddling by the Principal.  He then returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again. 2007 - Jeffrey is given huge doses of Ritalin.  He becomes a zombie.  He is then tested for ADD.  The school gets extra money from the state because Jeffrey has a disability.      Scenario 4: Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.  1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college and becomes a successful businessman. 2007 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse.  Billy is removed to foster care and joins a gang.  The state psychologist is told by Billy's sister that she remembers being abused  herself and their dad goes to prison.  Billy's mom has an affair with the psychologist.       Scenario 5: Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school. 1957 - Mark shares his aspirin with the Principal out on the smoking dock. 2007 - The police are called and Mark is expelled from school for drug violations.  His car is then searched for drugs and weapons.     Scenario 6: Pedro fails high school English. 1957 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English and goes to college. 2007 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state.  Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist.  ACLU files class action lawsuit against the state school system and Pedro's English teacher.  English is then banned from core curriculum.  Pedro is given his diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.       Scenario 7: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from the Fourth of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle and blows up a red ant bed. 1957 - Ants die. 2007 - ATF, Homeland Security and the FBI are all called.  Johnny is charged with domestic terrorism.  The FBI investigates his parents -- and all siblings are removed from their home and all computers are confiscated.  Johnny's dad is placed on a terror watch li st and is never allowed to fly again.      Scenario 8: Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee.  He is found crying by his teacher, Mary.  Mary hugs him to comfort him. 1957 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing. 2007 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job.  She faces 3 years in State  Prison.  Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.          This should hit every email inbox to show how stupid we have become !!

Entirely off the subject of Real Estate..but. On top of my full time career in Real Estate I also am the fire chief of our local volunteer fire department. I can't stress enough how important it is to make sure that your address is clearly visible at the road and also in REFLECTIVE NUMBERS. Washington County is very rural in nature and sometimes roads are not well marked, mailboxes may not be there as some folks use PO boxes, or driveways may be just a two trail road through the woods. This morning at 3:30 AM we received a page for a 32 year old woman reportedly not breathing. Both county ambulances were tied up on other calls. Needless to say the adrenaline was cranked up and the morning was extremely foggy. We missed the residence because the street was not marked, no numbers on mailbox, and could barely see to start with. Reflective numerals would have made all the difference. Luckily we were able to find it when one of the residents drove to the road with flashers on. Also luckily the patient had not had a true seizure and was breathing when we arrived. As Realtors, we should observe the address when viewing homes and suggest to the owners or buyers that the 911 address needs to be highly visible from the road. Perhaps as closing gifts we could provide reflective numerals. Such a simple thing could make all the difference in the world when minutes count. I for one do not want to live with the self imposed guilt if a life was lost because I could not find the patient. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to get this message out.

I like to return comment for comment, considering it a polite way to participate at ActiveRain.

However, I've been here at ActiveRain for ten months, and it gets more and more difficult to do that, especially when I like to camp out in blogs and leave multiple comments.

Generally, if someone visited my blog and left a comment, when I do visit that person's blog, I'll read and comment at least back to the date when that person commented in my blog. If there is lots of good stuff, I've been known to go back even further.

Currently, there is about a three-week time lag between someone visiting me and me returning the visit, so right now I'm generally leaving just one comment per visit and doing a minimum of 20 comments per day in an effort to get caught up. So for long-time readers, friends, associates, etc., if you only get one comment from me in the coming weeks, know that I still love you and your blog, and I'll be back many times to leave many more comments.

*****

This week's blog posts (they will open in a new window)

1. Life series - 53 posts, various dates, most recently 5/8/09
2. Guerrilla Marketing series - 3 posts, most recently on 5/9/09
3. It's not rocket science! You don't have to work hard.... - 5/14/09
4. WWW (Wordless Wednesday with Words: "The War of the Cats and Dogs" - 5/13/09

Last week's blog posts (they will open in a new window)

1. Let's end the ActiveRain week with some kitty cat(nip) facts - 5/9/09
2. Movie review: "Chapter 27" - 5/9/09
3. Who are you? - 5/9/09
4. WWW (Wordless Wednesday with Words): Torrey Pines Glider Port and Blacks Beach - 5/6/09

Helpful blog posts for ActiveRain newbies

1. Twelve reasons why I won't comment on your blog
2. How the system works and working the system, or Active Rain point values that I know about
3. How to get 500 points with your ActiveRain success story
4. Do you have some commercials for your business?
5. Free help for Active Rain newbies
6. 10 ways to get a featured post at ActiveRain
7. How to keep people from reading your Active Rain blog
8. How do you get people to comment on your blog?
9. Using Active Rain more effectively by finding Power Partners
10. Quit putting huge, gigantic, monster pictures in your blog. Now! (Help on resizing them)
11. Using YouTube videos without slowing down page loading
12. Don't forget to remember how Active Rain supports you indirectly
13. How to use the Active Rain system more efficiently
14. How do you choose a subject for your blog posts?

Need help with marketing? Join the Guerrilla Marketing Tactics Group.

Inspired by nature? Join the Inspired By Nature Group.

Classical music lover? Join the Classical Music Group.

Want to share a good book? Join the Active Rain Book Club.

After a few weeks of glitches in our points system, we have finally been able to repair most of the major glitches.  Points should now be working close to 100%.  There still is one minor issue that we are aware of and need your assistance in correcting.  It appears that if you go back and edit posts that have previously been published that the system is deducting points from your total.  We are working hard to correct this issue but need detailed examples to get this issue fully solved.  If you have an exact example please post in the comment section below in detail to assist our developers in correcting this issue.

The major loophole that was allowing some people to post more than 10 posts in a week and receive points for all posts has been closed.  It is now back to 10 posts per week, 10 comments per day with 200 points awarded for posts and an additional 25 points if you put it in a channel and 25 points per comment left.

One major change that has taken place is the schedule for posts. The posting week now starts at Monday at 12:00:00am and ends Sunday at 11:59:59pm. 

If you are experiencing the glitch above please post in the comment section below.  Also, please do not flood this post with amount of points you have lost over the past few weeks.  Those comments will be deleted to keep this post as clean as possible for our developers to track the issue and resolve. If you did experience the loss of points, use the Contact ActiveRain at the bottom of this post.  Please be patient if you submit a ticket regarding lost points and condense your list to one ticket.  If multiple tickets are submitted it will slow down the response time for not only this issue but other crucial parts of the network.

Thanks to everyone for your patience during this time and continued great contributions to ActiveRain!

My sister who is an avid reader shared a website with me that she has been using and thinks is great.

The website is www.bookmooch.com  Once you sign up for the website you list the books you own that you would be willing to give away.  Other readers can ask you for your book, which for a small amount of money you can put in the mail and ship to them and vice versa, if you find a book you are interested in they will mail it to you at no charge. 

I have checked out the site and think it is pretty cool myself.  Let me know what you think.