Bellytop is a 10" long dragon catching up on his email on his bellytop computer. He is available in natural clay with porcelain details and staining for enhancement. $48 + shipping.
Oh I wish I had the extra money! Look how cute this little dragon is while he is surfin the web!
I would like to get to Ely this summer. They have The International Wolf Center and the North American Bear Center. Here is one of the wolf web cams. The North American Bear Center Has 3 bears and there mission is to educate the public about bears "to advance the long-term survival of bears worldwide by replacing misconceptions with scientific facts about bears, their role in ecosystems, and their relations with humans."
The International Wolf Center is also located in Ely and is somewhere I have wanted to visit for a long time. The exhibit does more than what a zoo would do, number one it has more information about wolves, but it also has more information about the different kinds of wolves from different areas around the world.
The Exhibit Pack refers to the wolves in the main enclosure. Members of the pack may vary as wolves age and new wolf pups are socialized and added to the Exhibit. In early summer of 2008, the Exhibit Pack consisted of Shadow and Malik-two arctic subspecies born on May 8, 2000, and Grizzer and Maya-two great plains subspecies born May 5, 2004.
In early August 2008, Aidan and Denali, two northwestern subspecies, joined the Exhibit Pack. The pups were born on April 27, 2008, at the Wildlife Science Center in Forest Lake, Minnesota.
Exhibiting three subspecies in one exhibit, with three age structures represented, is historic for the Center. This is a great opportunity for visitors to observe the dynamics of a wolf social hierarchy and to learn about the differences of the subspecies.
While I have always wanted to visit the Ely Wolf center, knowing that there was also the new North American Bear Center in the same Town has made it much more of a destination spot for me this summer.
I just finished reading the story of Ada Blackjack and her companions on their failed journey into the Arctic. "In 1921, four men and one woman ventured deep into the Arctic. Two years later, only one returned.When 23-year-old Inuit Ada Blackjack signed on as a seamstress for a top-secret Arctic expedition, her goal was simple: earn money and find a husband. But her terrifying experiences — both in the wild and back in civilization — comprise one of the most amazing untold adventures of the 20th century. Based on a wealth of unpublished materials, including Ada's never-before-seen diaries, bestselling author Jennifer Niven narrates this true story of an unheralded woman who became an unlikely hero." While the story of what happened while they were living in the Arctic, and ultimately what happened to each person was very interesting, the author adds more to the story but tying in the families reaction to hearing the news of their son's deaths, and the political reasons that the men were told they were venturing north, followed by the fallout of who was to blame for the complete failure of the expedition, whether it was the man who had arranged it (Stefansson) or the boys themselves were just incompetent. I was amazed by the human spirit that it took Blackjack to survive not just in the Arctic but the rest of her life as well.
Niven has another book, her first book, which was written about another Arctic expedition disaster. This book actually ties into the Blackjack book because one of the explorers, and the man that arranged the expedition in Blackjack's book were also on the mission that takes place in THE ICE MASTER."In June 1913, HMCS Karluk set sail from Victoria, British Columbia; less than six weeks later, the boat was trapped by ice and clearly would not move again until the spring thaw. Stefansson (no hero he) chose a dozen of the best sled dogs and set off "to go hunting," accompanied by his personal secretary, the expedition photographer, and an anthropologist. The ship's captain understood at once that "they had been abandoned." And only days after Stefansson's departure, "a fierce gale carried the ship deep into the heart of the Arctic Ocean." Niven's riveting, hair-raising account is all the more real because she has assembled this astonishing work from the journals kept by the abandoned scientists and crew. Niven's assiduous research and her unprecedented access to the last living survivor as well as to the descendants of other survivors, lend an immediacy and credibility to The Ice Master that are, in a word, extraordinary." I am excited to read this book next in order to understand how Stefansson and Mauer(one of the men exploring with Blackjack and also on the Karluk) came to be in the place they were in the beginning of Ada's story.
So people have always got me journals as gifts. Even when I was little, people would buy me diaries, journals, blank books etc. Don’t get me wrong, I have always loved the idea of journaling. The idea of filling a book with memories and thoughts of times past, reading something from years ago and remembering a single instant that your own words cause you to relive, a strong emotion evoked by the simple retelling of a day that had long since been forgotten and when it maybe shouldn’t have been.
The only problem I have really had in journaling is the ability to follow through, to keep up the writing week after week. Of having enough to say to fill a page, then have enough to write about the next time too.
This Christmas season I stumbled across this:
Keep your memories in line with the One Line a Day: A Five Year Memory Book. A classic memorykeeper is the perfect way to track the ups and downs of life, day by day. The 365 daily entries appear five times on each page, allowing users to revisit previous thoughts and memories over five years as they return to each page to record the current day's events. The beautiful hardcover blue book measures 4.25" x 6.25" with 370 pages.
And it makes me excited because I know I could think of one sentence to write about the day at least, and it holds FIVE YEARS! This is something I am going to have to lay my hands on.
I recently watched this movie and came away more impressed than I thought i would be. I also left the theater with the knowledge that I knew nothing about rugby and next to nothing about Nelson Mandela. The later I plan to fix, the first one...well *shrug*. I did learn it is quite an interesting game, but this movie holds more, it encapsulates a moment in South Africa's history when Governments, leadership, and power was changing hands. It could have gone very badly for the whole country if people's voices were not heard in this new democracy, if peoples voices were thought to be ignored because of their race.I recommend seeing it.
The title of the movie is actually a poem, one that's rhythm and meter stuck in my head long after the movie was over. I have included it here for you.
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
1. Mail Bills-I was supposed to do this yesterday, but life go in the way.
2. Find a place to keep my photo albums-right now they sit in a stack on the floor because I have no room on any of the three bookshelves I have.
3. Go to the pharmacy- need a new pill thingy and some perscriptions to put in it. Yea pills :(
4. Change my sheets- really, need I say more.
5. Take return back to Target.
6. Find a place to keep new boxes that I organized my scarves and belts in.
7. Organize closet.- this makes me happy. I love to organize things.
8. Organize jewelry box- it's a mess, you can't find a thing in it.
9. Do paperwork for student loans.
10. Call about getting my tire fixed- I can't believe I almost forgot about this one!
11. Find place to keep excess shoes- I know crazy huh?
12. Go through clothes that are in storage to see if they are all keepers.
13. Go through purses to see if they are all keepers.
14. Sort through my dad's Antarctica memorabilia and see what should be kept to be put in the scrapbooks and what should be put back in storage.
That should take me through my week of 'almost no days of work'.
I just finished reading the story of Ada Blackjack and her companions on their failed journey into the Arctic. "In 1921, four men and one woman ventured deep into the Arctic. Two years later, only one returned.When 23-year-old Inuit Ada Blackjack signed on as a seamstress for a top-secret Arctic expedition, her goal was simple: earn money and find a husband. But her terrifying experiences — both in the wild and back in civilization — comprise one of the most amazing untold adventures of the 20th century. Based on a wealth of unpublished materials, including Ada's never-before-seen diaries, bestselling author Jennifer Niven narrates this true story of an unheralded woman who became an unlikely hero." While the story of what happened while they were living in the Arctic, and ultimately what happened to each person was very interesting, the author adds more to the story but tying in the families reaction to hearing the news of their son's deaths, and the political reasons that the men were told they were venturing north, followed by the fallout of who was to blame for the complete failure of the expedition, whether it was the man who had arranged it (Stefansson) or the boys themselves were just incompetent. I was amazed by the human spirit that it took Blackjack to survive not just in the Arctic but the rest of her life as well. 
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