Senate 9th District

Benjamin Lambert will be challenged this year by Delegate McEachin for the 9th Senate seat. McEachin, like Benjamin, is a democrat. Senator Lambert has served since 1984 and by and large has done a good job. I remember he was responsible for helping the Mill House, an adult program for those with brain injuries, stay afloat. He has also bucked this party on a few issues when he thought is was not in the best interest of his constituents.
His latest venture away from his party may prove the end of his political career. Last year he supported George Allen, the republican candidate for Senate--only his side lost. Senator Lambert escaped being expelled from the party by 5 votes earlier this week. While his political life may be on life support, I plan to support him in the democratic primary. No republican will run against him should he win in the primary.

His rival--McEachin is interested in nothing but moving up the political ladder and suppressing those that need his help the most, but that is another blog.

Penny for your thoughts?

I pick up pennies off the ground. I started in earnest when I was in college--you know the saying "a penny saved is a penny earned". Well, I have have found lots of free pennies on the ground. When I left Utah, I had accumulated about $10 worth of pennies. For some reason I stopped once I got a real job; didn't seem appropriate for a man of my stature to be picking up a mere penny. Well, sometime last year I started again. I don't remember consciously doing so, but I can remember some of the pennies I passed up during my 'dark period'. Some have had a laugh at my expense when I suddenly stop and bend over to pick up a penny. Now, the joke is on you. While I have already deposited most of my pennies, it is possible that pennies will be worth 5 cents should the price of metals continue to rise. That means my $5 or so worth of pennies will become $25. Cha ching. I have heard that New York City has $1,000,000 dollars worth of pennies on the ground. If they raise the price of a penny, that would be $5,000,000.

And you said it wasn't worth the effort.

**UPDATE** Emily, the girls, and I went walking this morning and managed to find 2 dimes, and 8 pennies. :)

Regulated Spanking?

California wants spanking to be punishable under law. As a parent I have decided spanking is not for me; however, I do notice that when I loose my patience the hand is a bit more active. Typically a little 'reminder' will do; however, do I want the state telling me I can't do so? The law will "proposes to make spanking, hitting or slapping a child under 4 years old a misdemeanor." This is tough--yes we need to reduce abuse in our homes, but I don't want the police called if I smack by daughter on the rear. I would also think abuse situations would happen indoors making detection difficult.

I think I would have a few hundred dollars in fines. Sorry Dustin, if this law passes I don't think I could afford to live in California.

I expect lots of comments on this one. :)

Another hat in the ring

Senator Obama created his obligatory presidential exploratory committee today. While I like what Obama has to say--he has a great persona--I have yet to hear anything really different come from him. To me, his new ideas have yet to be explained to me. Yes, he does have a unique background; however, I am interested to see if he keeps his 'rock star' status through the year.

My guess is that he cannot--his record is not quite beefy enough.

In Memory

Today we celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King. As I listen to "I have a dream" and "Mountaintop" speeches, I marvel his words. I wonder what Dr. King would think of the civil rights movement today. I wonder if I have done enough to promote equality and encourage independence.


"And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream." --Martin Luther King

Home Sweet Home

Well, sort of . . . It is nice to be home; however, reality came a little too fast as we found the fridge not working, the front porch light broken, the trunk of the Mitsubishi flooded, a ton of mail, and bills that needed to be paid. In addition we didn't even notice until we got home that we missed a bag at the airport. Luckily it is still in Chicago and United will bring it out--rather than us forgetting it.

Today is my first day back to work. I think I need another vacation.

Swimming with Dolphins

A wish item Emily had was to swim with dolphins. Well, I don't know that you call it swimming; however, Emily was able to get into the water with the pink dolphins found in the South China sea. Big thanks to Bryan and Laurie for making our dreams come true!

Conservation efforts in Asia

One of the most popular dishes in Asia is shark fin soup. While I never felt the urge to try it, and am glad I did not, many people find it enjoyable. While visiting the zoo I found the methods for obtaining the fins for the sharks deplorable. Sharks are captured and then the fins(dorsal and tail) are cut off and kept, while the shark is dumped back in the ocean to bleed to death. I do not know how many bowls of soup is made from one fin; however, I am sure it not too many as the shark population has decreased dramatically from the practice.
Governments have taken steps to abolish the practice; however, there are so many 'local' fisherman it is virtually impossible to stop all of it. Public relations campaigns have pushed for individuals to avoid consuming the dish to help stop the killing of sharks.
Please consider your choices of food when visiting Asia.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Chacon family. May the spirit of the Lord enter into your homes as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

Durian--Asia's fruit gem

There are a handful of fruits found in Asia that are not found in the USA. Durian is probably the most popular and as I mentioned it has such a strong smell you are not permitted to eat it inside. It is large and shelled like a pineapple, but has a much harder shell and has spikes. The fruit sellers actually wear gloves while opening it up. Once open the fruit is almost a slimy goo with a seed around each section. In a large fruit there can be as many as 12 or 14 seeds. There are several different kinds of fruit, but I can hardly taste the difference.

Miriam is eating a Mangosteen and the fruit on the bottom right is an opened Durian. You can actually eat them right at the stand where they are sold.

Henrico County School Board

Because we are leaving next week, I decided to think about my 'real' life this evening and remembered a conversation I had in November with Hugh Palmer, the Varina area (my area) representative to the Henrico County school board. It has been rumored that he will not seek another term and I have considered seeking the office. After meeting with him about several pressing issues facing the school, he told me he had not made a decision regarding the election next year.
While I have not decided to run should Hugh decide to retire, I would be interested to get your feedback on public school systems--especially Henrico county.

Singapore Science Center

Miriam and I had some daddy daughter time yesterday afternoon and we ended up at the science center. Everything was kid enabled and Miriam enjoyed pushing all the buttons. The science didn't interest her that much, but we did talk about a few things.
It was fun to see her decide what stations she wanted to visit and we did learn quite a bit in our short trip.

Singapore Zoo

Yesterday we ventured to the Singapore ZOO. As you can tell by the pictures, the elephant was a big piece of our experience. Miriam enjoyed the penguins, the zebras and the polar bears. Elaine enjoyed the elephants--her favorite animal. She is quite the daredevil and helped feed the elephants, pet the kangaroos, wanted to pet the snakes, and even wanted to play with the monkies. My favorite animal was the white tiger.


In coming to Singapore, Emily really wanted to ride an elephant and we thought we would need to go to another country to do so; however, we were delighted to find out the zoo had a short elephant ride. Miriam did not want to ride; however, after standing in line for about 15 minutes she decided it was ok for her to ride. I had a runny nose and there was a sign asking 'me' not to ride.

Only 1 in 10,000 tiger is white. We almost did not get to see them as it had been raining and the waters were high in the morning; however, by the afternoon they were out.

Melacca Malaysia

Ana Requested some pictures from Melacca, and here my attempt to fulfill that request. We took the bus there--Singapore is connected to Malaysia via a bridge. Asian has an interesting definition for continent. Because Singapore and the islands above it are connected via a bridge they are deemed part of the Asian Continent; thus Singapore is literally the southern most point of the Asian continent even though it is an island.

The highways are roads were in great condition. For some reason I had thought Malaysia would be poorer than it is. I should have guessed by the exchange rate (1USD = 3.5 Malaysian Ringgit), which is the second highest of the countries we have been too. ADVISORY: When traveling to Malaysia, make sure you have small coinage and bring lots of your own toilet paper. It costs money to use the 'toilet' as they are labeled and TP is extra. You may consider practicing using the 'toilet' without your fanny actually hitting the toilet, because there are actually not any toilets in the 'toilet'. We call the squatty potty (official term). I can't speak for the hotels--just the places we visited--tourist centric places and customs/border patrol location. You have been advised.

We only had about 5 hours to look around and 1 of those we spent eating and 1 shopping. Luckily the historical sites are are centrally located and we hit the big items--Several churches, the fort, and a Portuguese Man of War. This picture was taken in front of the oldest church in Melacca with the Man of War in the background. Miriam was very happy we were taking another picture--I just love my kids.

We did do the touristy attraction of the trishaws--cousins of the rickshaws, but with a bicycle. They were decorated very nicely and our driver thought he was king as he honked at everything in his path. I rode with Miriam and she loved it. We also bought Miriam and Emily some leather shoes for about $8USD, but I managed to step on her foot yesterday and now she claims they are 'broken'. c`est la vie

oh, more pictures of Melacca can be found here. Sorry there are no captions--all this recording takes a lot of effort and I am on VACATION!! Again I would encourage anyone traveling this far to make it a two day affair. :)

Singapore Update

I did not do as much blogging as I thought I would do today; however, I did finish up some old ones, so be sure to scroll down.

I, Miriam, and Elaine tried fried baby squid today. Unlike Calamari, these were not breaded and had a sweet and sour sauce on them. Miriam liked them, Elaine did not, Bryan loves them, and while I thought they were enjoyable I did not feel the need to eat every last one of them--but that is why Bryan is there. :)

We also had Durian, an Asian fruit with an extremely strong smell. So strong in fact they do not allow you to take it inside buildings. You have to eat it outside. Elaine did not even try it, Miriam took her no thank you bite and said no thanks. I actually started to enjoy it the more I had it; however, it won't be replacing ice cream or brownies as my dessert of choice any time soon. I will have to get the pictures we took. Emily still needs to try it. Another interesting fruit was the Mangotines. They have a thick skin with a white fruit. They are wonderful and everyone liked them--even Elaine.

Yesterday we went to Malacca Malaysia. It was a 4 hour bus ride and we went there and back in one day. History buffs would really love it as they have remains from the Portuguese (1700s), the Dutch (1800s), the English and Japanese (1900s). It was nice to see, but definitely stay the night if you are going to go all that way.

Time is going so fast. Only one more week and we are going back home!!

oh, I allow comments for a reason!! I would like to hear from some of you!! (Congrats on your bathroom Ana--looks good.)

Rainy Day

It started raining heavily last night and has not stopped. Today's forecast is for nothing but rain. Brian, my father-in-law, took the day off so I feel bad we won't be able to do more. Singapore is a very outdoor kind of place.

Perhaps I can catch up on some of my blog postings . . . .

Manila Temple

We visited the temple on Tuesday evening and on Wednesday. They have their Christmas lights on so we wanted to see them at night. We did an endowment session on Wednesday. We met a couple being sealed that same day; they were so wonderful!

The temple grounds are quite large and there is a fence around the premises. A distribution center is across the street and a LDS craft store is a block down the road.

I just wish we had our day pictures (See LOST entry). :( Photo below courtesy of LDS Church temples.com

LOST

I lost our camera--at least we think we lost it. We can't remember where or why we lost it--it was around my neck. We just know it is gone. I was so upset! We had a days worth of pictures on their--our temple pictures, sights around Manila, and our dinner on the ocean. Now we only have the memories.

So go ahead, give your camera a hug.

La Corona Hotel

While in the Philippines we stayed at La Corona Hotel--affiliated with the best western network. The hotel itself was great. The staff were friendly enough and the room was clean, the bathroom was nice, and the AC unit was working. They also provided 3 bottles of water per day, which we enjoyed.

In other reviews, I saw there were issues of construction and the elevator. We heard no construction noises and the elevator worked; however, it was a bit slow. It is one of the old school ones with the metal doors and the outer door pulls open like a room door. I agree with the location complaint. It was fairly near the historical area; however, it was almost 10 blocks from the metro and the area has both housing and businesses on the same street. While Manila is almost all poor and dirty, there are a few better areas to stay in. Most of the shopping/entertainment locations are on the east side of the city.

When you get to the airport--do not use the hotel car!!! It is about 3 or 4 times what you would pay a taxi. (Just remember to ask the taxi driver to start his meter) Every time you walk out the hotel, they offer you a ride. Now, I am a Lonely Planet fan and like to do things on the cheap so take that into consideration. I did get worn out from the taxi drivers trying to get more money than the standard fare--they always wanted "meter plus 30" or 30 pesos over the meter reading. We would always tip, but were not that generous. Still it was ALWAYS cheaper to use the local taxi.

The breakfast buffet was perhaps the most bizarre array of food--at least for an American. There were things like Teriyaki chicken, rice, beef tips with some bread and butter. They did have Corn Flakes. So while most of the food was what I would be looking for in a dinner, the Filipino eats for breakfast. They did have an 'egg station' that would cook you eggs, so I stuck to that and toast. There was no juice--but there was all the Tang you could drink!

Jeepneys

A different twist to your public transportation. The Jeepney first came to existence after world war two with surplus military Jeeps. While there are a few other varieties, they mostly resemble what you see. Each one is decorated by the driver/owner.

It costs 7 pesos for a short ride(in town) and 19 pesos for a long ride (between towns), so they are the cheapest ticket in town. They are loud and the drivers like to sardine as many people as they can into the back.

These things are everywhere and it was fun to use them a couple of times; however, I am unsure I would like to ride to work in them everyday . . .