Memorial Day...

Well, i got off work this morning at 7.15am and hurried home to meet my friend Mark to go and do a quick ride.  We went to Pocahontas Park and did the Red Trial.  It is a good trial as it has many log piles and several sets of Half Pipes to go in and out of. We got there around 8:15ish and we had a tight schedule as he had to be home to get food started for the cook out this afternoon and i had to get home to sleep!   So basically we did 4 miles in about 30 minutes!!  Not bad for a 7.5 minute mile!! 

 

I got home a slept till 3.00pm and went to his house with my wife and daughter and several other friends and we had a good time eating and talking and visiting on the deck. I am glad that it was earlier as we are having some thunder storms this evening.  Good timing for the party.  I am going riding on Wednesday morning with mike and perhaps Jeff. I have to get my exercise in because of all the hours that i am working.  

I hope that all have a good rest of the evening...
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RMSTringer
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Naturally occurring asbestos ...

Naturally occurring asbestos has been mapped in approximately 11 square miles of Fairfax County, which includes a part of Fairfax City. Asbestos bearing rock is interspersed in the Green Stone Rock Formations that underlie the surface soils in the Orange Soils Group. Surface exposure of these rock formations are not usually seen.

Here is a pic link to show the exposed substance. http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/hd/asb/images/test005.jpg

Large amounts of tremolite asbestos have also been found in Virginia as well as 18 other states, including a large number of eastern states – with a recognizable band of asbestos running from Alabama to Vermont.

Natural deposits of asbestos can cause considerable problems, especially for homeowners who have unknowingly built their domiciles on ground laden with the material. California is thought to be the state which is most affected. EPA officials found natural asbestos deposits in 50 out of 58 California counties. One of the areas in which asbestos is most prevalent is in the county of El Dorado, where homeowners have literally walked away from million dollar homes due to the presence of large amounts of tremolite asbestos found in the soil.

I saw an article about this on Slashdot and i got interested as i live in Virginia. This interested me as we all know that you need to stay away from asbestos becauses it causes Lung Cancer, malignant mesothelioma to be exact. So how can a home builder decided to use land that has natural asbestos in it and sell houses on that land? One post said that they should make a park out of the land where it will never be exposed to the public. Really? A park, I would not want my kid playing in a park that was built over such a spot. Test conducted by the EPA determined that everyday activity, such as gardening or baseball games, kicked up an inordinate amount of asbestos.“Results show that everyday outdoor work and play in these areas create a personal storm of asbestos-tainted dust”

I am glad that i live in Midlothian...

What is your opinion?

Recovery Posts...

It has been a while since I posted about Recovery and the reason is that i just have not felt like doing it.  May 15 was 4 years Clean and sober for me!  It has been a long tiem since i had a drink or drug and u am the better for it. So i have just been very reflective about a lot of things in my life and i have also had  lots of things going on such as job status and work at home.  So, that si the reason that i have not posted about it for a while...

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RMSTringer
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Part 6 - Step 11 of my Recovery...

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

This is a very key step in the action part. We all get so busy in your daily lives that we forget to pray about what is going on and if that is what is needed to be what is going on with us. I guess what I am trying to say is that what we are doing; is that what God wants us to be doing. You can get into the whole preordained life or random life thing here-DONT!

In order for this to work, you have to ask God what he needs/wants us to do. I have a problem doing this like most addicts because I want what I want to go on and not what He wants me to do. I try to take back the control in my life and when I do that it most of the time messes up or backfires on me. This is very hard for me to do, but when I do this, it is amazing! When I get out of self and I help other people like I am supposed to it helps me. That is a simple concept, helping you helps me and that is how God wants it. Trying to stay in conscious contact with God is the hard part. We get so busy in our daily grind that we forget to ask is this what I am supposed to do and is it even what you need me to do?

If we just quiet our little voice that we all have and try to listen to God in a meditative moment, we will get the answer. It might not be what we want to hear and often times it is not, but it is what we are supposed to do if you follow the Step to the exact letter. In the Big Book, it says that "Half Steps availed us nothing" which means that we have to do it all or not. DO not halfass make an attempt because it will not work. I try to pray about big things and ask that His will be done; I need to do this in all situations, but I fall short.

If we pray for His power and knowledge to help us in our lives, we are doing Step 11 to the fullest. Do not think that it can be done all the time and completely from the beginning, Rome was not built in a day and it took time for you to get this way. SO try to do as is requested but don’t be too hard on yourself if you do not get it right and you don’t get the answers that you were looking for. They will come when your will come inline with God's Will...


God Bless and have a good Memorial Day.

What is your opinion?

Memorial Day Weekend... Part Dux

It has been a very busy weekend at the Stringer house. I slept till 12.30pm when i got home from my shift yesterday and then the fun began...

We bought paint and proceeded to redo the upstairs bedrooms. We used a Toasted Wheat colored paint. We got it from Home Depot as well as several brushes and rollers. What we learned really quick was that we needed lent free rollers. SO, back to the store we went and bought several lent free rollers. They worked very well, no more lent, but we had to worry about dried latex paint strings getting on the rollers from the paint dish.

We did the little room quickly and then moved on to the big room, it was Chelsea's old room. She moved to the other room upstairs (over the kitchen) We painted the walls and trimmed out around the tape. we decided to leave ti on till today and then we decided to paint the ceiling Ultra Bright White. IT was kind of messy as we will have a lot of trimming to do once again with the Toasted Wheat where it ends and the white begins. We moved around the Air Hockey table to the bigger room and the old set and now all we need to buy is a mattress set and we will be doen with this phase of the house project.

I am off to sleep as i have taken an extra shift on Sunday Night...


What is your opinion?

Indiana Adopts $1000 Speeding Tickets...

I used to live in Indiana, Maryville to be exact, and this state like Massachusetts roads SUCK!!They need the revenue from these gangster prices to help keep their roads repaired. It was and is a continuous cycle of lay new road in summer, road get beat all to hell in Winter from snow plow and then rebuild in the Summer again. The only thing that is different in Indiana is that they do not have a 10 billion dollar sinkhole called The Big Dig.

Indiana Adopts $1000 Speeding TicketsThe Indiana Department of Transportation to collect work zone speeding ticket revenue beginning July 1. Maximum citation increased to $1000.The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) will soon be the direct beneficiary of speeding ticket revenue under a bill recently signed by Governor Mitch Daniels (R).

The measure gives INDOT the power to decrease speed limits "without conducting an engineering study and investigation" in highway work zones. INDOT can direct police to enforce this lowered limit, regardless of whether workers are actually present. The law also mandates that no work zone speed limit exceed 45 MPH.As of July 1, INDOT will collect the revenue from these fines which the law also boosts significantly. The first offense runs $300, the second $500 and the third $1000. Anyone contesting the fine in court faces an additional $70 fee if found guilty.

The bill also creates a new work zone category for "aggressive driving" that makes it a misdemeanor to drive 46 MPH in a freeway work zone while flashing headlights and honking the horn at a slow-moving car in the left lane, or any other combination of three maneuvers deemed aggressive. The first offense carries a $5000 fine and up to one year in jail, while a second offense is a felony punishable by up to three years in jail and a $10,000 fine."I would like to thank the governor for his quick action in signing these important bills into law," said the state Senate sponsor of the legislation, Mike Delph (R-Carmel).


What is your opinion?

Beaumont Texas...Circa 1994

I lived in Settler's Cove Apartments in Beaumont Texas in 1993 and 1994. We called it Suckers Cove. It was Beaumont's premier dysfunctional community back then. They were close to Parkdale Mall which was nice.

During my stay there, I was a writer for a Public Press magazine in Beaumont called Image Magazine. I did music reviews for it. A friend named Cliff Lofton ran the mag and he also did promotions at Phaze 2 dance club like Trash Disco, Starz Reunions (which still go on in Beaumont) and various other things around the "Golden Triangle"

It was fun during those times. I was attending the Lamar Institute of Technology for at that time, computer robotics. That later became nothing as I left school, got engaged, and moved to Tempe Arizona. That will be another story for another day. We always went to the club and over to Houston to Numbers Club. I knew the owner and he also owned Record Rack (RIP). His name was Bruce Godwin. I used to purchase massive amounts of music from him at Record Rack back in the day. Needless to say, those were heady times back then running the roads from Houston to Beaumont to Louisiana at any time during the day or night. It is a wonder that I am still alive...

I have come a long way since then. It is nice to revisit old memories, but that is all, never go back down them and learn from them...
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