All I have to say is a “GOOD BYE” to 2009.  We are going to make 2010 a GOOD YEAR for us and the people we care about.

Ken and I are planning to make things go great this year for our business. Just a week into the New Year and things are starting to look up for us.  Business is picking up, we have a partnership in a  construction company and own a engineering company.  So lasted year was a bit rough for us, but we made it through.  In the businesses we plan on making 2010 a good year for us.

As for personal plans this is what I want to do is as follows………..

I’m now working on a photo project where I’ll be taking a picture everyday and posting it on my web site. Click here for the pictures I have already posted.  This should be a fun project although a bit of work.  But it will be interesting to see all the photos at the end of the year that I posted.  So keep checking back to see the latest pictures.

Also I’m the new Education person for the Ocala Camera Club.  Which means I have to come with the ideals for our club!  Now I really need to work and go to the board meetings. No sitting back and relaxing as much as I was.  I guess getting involved doesn’t hurt..  I’m working now to come up with ideals.  This should be interesting to see how well I do this.  Along the with the photography I’ll will be finishing up that course I have been taking through the New York Institute of Photography.  I should be done with that in a couple of months. That will be a nice win for me.

As you can see from this blog I also am a pilot.  Lasted year in 2009 I flew for a total of about 11 hours… Not many at all.  Ken and I did little if any “fun” flying. All the flying that was done was for business.  When I could go along I would do some of the flying, but not enough.  This year I have a goal of flying about 30 hours.  This weekend will be my 1st flight of 2010.  We will be going down to Lakeland for a family get together. I’ll probably do both legs of the trip.    Also for our EAA chapter I’m going to try to get the newsletter out quicker then I have been doing. Probably in the 1st week of the meeting.  Those are my goals for aviation.

We also want to start spending my time with our family.  I think we do pretty good, but you can always improve that area in our lives.

One of the last things, is to have MORE fun this year.  We did one cruise in 2009, but was not as relaxing as our past vacations have been.  We had a lot going on at home,  so the last few days of the cruise we wanted to get home.  But this year I plan on that not happening.  We are going to go on vacation and enjoy it the whole time.  Ken has a class reunion in July in Ohio.  So we may fly the plane up there and make a trip out of it.  Also I would like to plan another cruise somewhere. I think a cruise is going to be our “vacation” of choice this year.

So that is what I would like to get done this year. I will see how it goes… Hopefully I’ll make all my goals and then some…  Well lets get 2010 started.

I decided to go on Cruise Critic. Well came across this post (Just think how low cruise prices would be….)  So I click on it.  It was a video from You Tube someone found.   This lady is pretty amazing… to think people like her also have the right to vote…. Now that’s scary…

Here is my husband landing our plane and video taping at the same time.. Don’t try this at home. :-0 I guess that means he is a pretty good pilot.. That is multi-tasking at it best.

There is so much to learn in this world.  People need to be more “interested” in things then being “interesting”. The people that seem to be interested in life and things around them.  Also make this world go…  One way to stay healthy and happy is to be learning something new and something that is a challenge to learn. So go out there and challenge your self….

When I hear people say “I never need that or What use would I have for that.”  I think they are limiting them selves.  Ken and I were coming up on our contract with Sprint/Nextel.  The phones were okay, but old. They did get the job done. But they did not work in our homes or even in our neighborhood.  But work out side of our neighborhood.  Since we had a contract of course. We kept them.  But we now only had about 2 1/2 weeks left.. So we started looking around for a new cell phone company.

We looked at either AT&T or Verizon. Ken did most of, if not all the research on this one.  He was either looking at the Iphone or a Blackberry.  I know a little bit about the Iphone being some of our family members have them.  But didn’t think much about them other its just another phone with to many “things” on it.  Well I was ready for a change anyways.  So we made the switch and went with the Iphone.

I think that was the best move we could have made.  Since Ken wanted to started using his phone more for business and couldn’t with Sprint and our “lack” of service.  AT&T has provided that for us. Although the service isn’t prefect. We do have service in our house. It ranges from 1-3 bars, its better then none.  Plus the phone is totally amazing….. I have never been this excited about a cell phone before. I can have my calendar, Picasa, music, Podcast, news, games, pilot stuff, Facebook, email and some many other tools to use.  It also has a camera, but for me that’s just something fun to play with.. For any of my “real” photography I use my DSLR camera. But the camera is still a nice one. Even adding phone numbers and contacts is easy now.

Apple did do a nice job on this “Phone”.  I think I’ll keep this one for a long time.  I’m sure someone will come up with something better. But for now this is it.  By changing and trying something new I have expanded my world.

Well not quite yet. But I’m sure I’ll be there some day.  I just got together with my sister for a family dinner.  She has been dying her hair for 3 years now.  She has been dying it a black color.   I personally don’t think she needs to. But that’s what she wants.  I had herd a while back that dying  your hair black is not good for you, as far as you health goes. When you go on the internet you can see many “reports” saying now permanent hair dye is being link to current cancers, like bladder cancer for one.

I personally have done my own research and feel that I will not be dying my hair with any of those hair dye chemicals.  I had done it in the pasted a few times. I have done high lights a few times.  But it has been years since I have done that.

So what will I do if I don’t want to show my grays when I do get them.. Well there are two things that I can do.  One is buy organic hair dye which is 100% Natural Henna. It’s plant based and washes out in 3 weeks so doesn’t stay in long. It just wraps around the stock of your hair.  The second is to buy wigs.  I went looking on the internet to see what they cost. You can get them any were from $27-1200. So there is a wide range of prices. Plus the fun thing about wigs, is you can change your hair style and color.  The thing about a wig is there is no mess. Just take it off if you want something different.

Personally, I like the wig ideal. But I will stay away from the permanent hair dye. I don’t want to risk my health for a few grays.

Well 2008 is gone now.  I think lasted year was not fun for us.  We had a few things that didn’t really go our way. Plus with the slow down of construction and engineering it made it hard for us. Personally I’m glad 2008 is gone. One good thing that did come out of it, was Ken got to do something he had been planning for a while. He was able to complete what he wanted to get done. Which there was no better time to do it.

But this YEAR should be a good year for us. Our Business is picking up. Plus we are promoting a lot and will keep doing that. We plan on expanding out were we can.  We are going to grow in our business this year.

As for personal stuff, we plan on getting more traveling in this year. I hoping we get at least one cruise and maybe do something smaller. You have to get some “play” time in if you are going to be working harder.

For me I want to finish my photography course I have been doing. Also I’m going to learn to play the Piano and Guitar. I have always wanted to play an instrument. Why not do it now. The reason for picking those, was my husband already has them. Makes it easy. But if we ever decide to buy me my own instrument I’ll probably buy an Saxophone. I have a few other things I’ll like to get down this year.

I guess my lasted thing is I hope things go better for my family and my husband’s family. 2009 is going to be a better year.

Second Life is a virtual world.  The first time I herd of it was when we were in our plane flying up north to Tenn. We were listening to XM radio through our GPS.  And what we herd wasn’t good. The host was talking about this guy that had a “second virtual” family and left his real family out.. And started to get more involved with his virtual family then his own real family. Some people called in to say that’s not what happens 98% of the time.. Well I didn’t think much about it other then well it seems interesting but I have know interest in it..  Well months later Second Life came up again..

So my husband is the first one to do research on it. Then decided to join and find out about it.  I saw what he was doing and decided a week later I would join. Ken did most of the research, so in a way I was learning from him. We both explored Second Life together. It’s really neat place with talent people there. And people are making money in this world. Even major groups like NASA and major colleges have places in Second Life.

You can do things in Second Life that you can’t do in the Real World. Build buildings that you could never be built in Real Life. Its a world were a artist can really be an artist. I have even seen real life photography be sold in Second Life. You can meet people from all over the world and feel like they are standing right next to you. Well at least their avatar is. I can just see this world growing bigger as people, groups, companies join in on this new way of communicating.

Yes there is the side of it were someone “can” lose him/her self to Second Life and forget about their First Life or develops an family in Second Life.. But as I recall that has happen in Real Life also. I remember hearing about a man that had two families going on for many years. The two families never knew about the other..They even made a movie about it.  So those things can happen, but probably that is rare.

But for me its fun to do and I get to meet people and make friends.. What ever group you are interested in you can find someone with the same interest. Although it does take some getting use to. But when you give it time everything will start to come together. I think it will be the wave of the future in teaching and how companies market the products. Just test it out in Second Life.. Then sale it in Real Life..

Some people may not be at all interested in doing something like Second Life. But I think it will become a NEW social medium for people.  Second Life is only about 6 years old.. But I can see it getting even better as computer speed gets faster and graphics get better.

If you want to know more about Second Life, go see it for yourself. Then make the decision on what you think about it.  See you in Second Life.

I’m setting watching The Olympics like must people.. Watching through the T.V. since going there would be to expensive!!! In a way I wish I was there!!! Because it reminds me of the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996. I can say I was apart of the Olympic/Paralympic Games.

I was an member of National Civilian Community Corps, which was pick as a group to help out with security for the games. There was 4 campus for NCCC. Each campus choose a different way for picking how many people was going to go. There was limited amount of people that would be allowed to go. Charleston campus had the biggest number of people that was allowed to ger involved.. I’m figuring because we were the closets campus to Atlanta. I think around 200 people from Charleston got to go.. Our campus decided to do a lottery.. You put you name in if you wanted to go.. Well the choice for me was a YES. Since this probably would be the only time I would get to experience anything like this..

Well it was a few weeks later that I found out indeed I was one of the lucky people.. I couldn’t believe it.. We had a listed of people that was picked tape to a wall.. I had to go look at it just to see for my self… And yes my name was on it…

We were soon off to Atlanta in 13 passage vans. We got there around the beginning of July and was there to after the Paralympics games. So we were probably there for a good 2+ months. As a group we help out with security for the games and did other volunteer work having to do with different groups in Atlanta. There was a lot going on even before the Games started. Finishing touches on buildings and the athletes coming in to get pre-paired for the games. Plus we did some training for the security part we would be doing.

When the games finally got underway Atlanta was packed to the gills with people. I didn’t know you could get that many people in to one city. There was no driving down in Atlanta at least not near the Centennial Park. A lot of streets were blocked off which didn’t make the locals happy. But you really didn’t need a car to get around in Atlanta. We used the subway and walking was the easy way to get around.

Looking back it was a fun time and I met a lot of nice people. I got to meet people from all parts of the world and work with some also. I also enjoy the Olympic experience. Pin trading was a big deal. Every company and country had pins. If you had pins you traded them.. Of course NCCC didn’t think to get us any pins to trade.. So any of the pins I got from people I didn’t want to give up. Plus we were given pins that were just for the people that worked with the Olympics. So I do have those and never gave them up..Plus I have a whole box full of Olympic stuff I collected and pictures. I don’t think I’ll give any of it up. It was apart of my life.

All I can say is I’m glad I had the Olympic Experience.

Having animals in our lives keeps us alive. We have two a bird and cat. Sam the bird and Tenacious the cat. Sam is Ken’s bird. He had him or her before I came in to the picture. He has had him for 20 years now. He is a Yellow Nape Amazon. Frankly Ken is the only one that can handle him other then my mother when she has taken care of him. So the only thing I’m good for as far as Sam is concern with. Is me giving him his food and peanuts. Ken is his 1st love and it probably will also was be that way…

But Tenacious our cat likes both of us.. She came in to our lives when we were building our house. We were going through the house with one of our neighbors. We were in the framing stage. When walked in our master bath. There was thin skinny little baby cat looking at us.. Then rubbing up against our legs. At first we were thinking we can’t get a cat. We had Sam it couldn’t work. Well later on that day we were still debating whether to keep the little kitty or not. Well we ended up feeding her.

We realized she must to have been from a group of kittens a lady was dumping out. We passed by while she was doing that. She asked if we wanted any kittens. Well we said no, being we had Sam.

Well one ended up in our master bath about 4 or 5 weeks later. And yes we ended up keeping her. We do have to manage them at times. We never let the bird out of the cage with out making sure Tenacious is either out side or in the hangar.

They both add to our lives and family. I have never been with out some type of animal in my life. And Ken has had animals also in his life off and on. If you take care on an animal and not harm them in any way. They will love back in their own animal way.

Everyone should always have some type of animal. They make you live longer.