OK, who among us thinks the Utah police will find Susan alive? Who also believes the husband is innocent in the possible murder? Who would agree that his alibi is the strangest one we have heard in a long time?

I wish Susan would be found alive but I don’t think that wish is going to be fulfilled.  I expect she was killed the day she went missing by her husband because it seems most women who go missing are dispatched to the heavens by their “loving” spouses.  Who takes their small children out camping on a freezing night and doesn’t leave for camping until after midnight? It doesn’t happen – couldn’t the husband come up with a better alibi than that?

I know I’m a skeptic but I do believe he is guilty of her death – whether he meant to kill her or if it was accidental – he is still guilty of something.  As I said, this is my opinion based on past cases I have read.  I could be way off but history dictates that I probably am correct.  I hope they find her body, her family deserves to be able to see that she is properly buried. 

Susan looks like such a cheerful, sunny person in her photos.  I don’t understand how someone can kill the mother or father of their children – the person they married and promised to love forever.  What, were they thinking about divorce and he didn’t want to pay child support or alimony?  Was she considering leaving him? Did she have a big insurance policy? Is there another woman or man?

I know most of these questions will be answered in the coming weeks.  I do hope her body is found very soon.  I really would love to see her found alive but as well all know from the cop shows (Cops, 48 Mystery, etc) that if they aren’t found in the first 48 hours, it is likely she is dead.  My thoughts are with the families.

How can one’s mood go south so quickly? I was fine when I got off work – went and picked up my son & we went to Panera for coffee.  It was fine – I was fine…until I knocked over a full mug of hot coffee all over myself, the table, the booth seat, and the floor.  My son’s lightning reflexes saved him – thank goodness.  It was a disaster and it burned.

From there everything went downhill – I missed the turn to take him to work, which I’ve never done before, so he was almost late (had less than 2 minutes to spare) – then I went down the interstate, missed my exit so had to go down to the next one which is a tad bit longer but also has way more traffic.  I got behind someone who decided to go 25 in a 55 and could not pass.  We had a line at least three quarters mile long if not a full mile by the time we actually got to the 25 mph zone.  I’m surprised the asshole didn’t slow down to 5mph.

Got home in a semi-bad mood, sticky and wet.  Came inside and the dogs had made a big mess in their kennel which meant cleaning that, cleaning them and walking them.  I can barely hold my anger inside.  I was going to take my sister’s cat because her husband doesn’t want her to have it anymore – but I realized it would just be more of a disaster every day than just the dogs so had to decline.   My dogs chase the cats around here all the time – Bennie tries to grab them in his mouth – so no point putting myself or the cat through that.  I’m sure she can take it to the animal shelter and they will find a nice home for it if she can’t find anyone to take her.  I would love to have her – I love cats and she is a sweetie – but I have to draw the line somewhere for sanity’s sake.  Didn’t want Bennie and while I love him dearly, he is a big chore and the culprit behind most of the messes.  Someone told me he’d settle down once he was fixed – that is so not true…he is still just as bad as he was.

So here it is after 9pm and I have to be in bed in less than an hour.  I have done none of the things I had planned to do here at home plus I have to put up with that yucky wet dog smell until the dogs dry off.  I’m just so irritated I could gnaw my own hand off.

A children’s dictionary is meant to be something that encourages children to continue learning their entire lives.  If they learn how to look stuff up in it then they will be able to looks stuff up in the adult books as they get older.  It should inspire them and leave them asking for more.

However, dictionaries space is limited so what has to go to make room for the new computer slang and computer-related items that a child might want to know? According to the Oxford Junior Dictionary, there are more than 30 nature words that can be eliminated that children surely will never miss – words like “otter,” “wren,” “acorn” and “beaver” to name a few.  In these words place, one can find what an “MP3″ player does or what it means to “cut and paste” onto their very own “blog.”

Is this a wise move? Who knows.  Children rarely spend time in the outdoors anymore – they don’t go “outside” to play but rather stay indoors to watch tv or play internet games.  If this trend continues, what is the harm in removing nature from the little darlings’ dictionaries?

According to a Cambridge University study by two zoologists, the omission of words that describe nature further broadens the disconnection between children and the natural world.  I guess if they can’t experience nature through reading then they will be more apt to sign valuable parcels of protected lands to outsiders.  If kids don’t connect, then they don’t learn to care or respect the world around them which is the trend we are seeing in our teens today.

Let’s keep the words in there and add a few others – dictionaries should not have words that can be taken out.  No word has an expireation date like bread and milk.  The words don’t spoil.  Let’s not so openly contribute to the dumbing down of America.

I just got my reminder notice that I have training tomorrow at 8:45 am.  This means I will get off at 7am and have to hang around for a few hours before getting to go home.  It does not make me happy.  I won’t get paid for the time between getting off and the training – then the training could last 90 minutes which means I won’t get home till 10:30 am.

Obviously I can’t let the dogs stay cooped up in the kennel for this long so I suppose I will have to run home, walk them and then come back in for the stupid meeting.

Why is the meeting stupid, you may ask.  The thing is, we are not allowed to do anything with the alarm program itself so whatever they “train” us to do, we aren’t going to be allowed to do anyway.  Only two people are allowed to mess with the alarm program – the rest of us just acknowledge the alarms.  So why should we go to that training???

I don’t understand going to training for training sake.  This week long training we went to a couple weeks ago is probably a mute point too because now they have decided they can’t afford to pay us to be trainers.  But they didn’t “just” decide this, apparently they decided it last month so why didn’t they cancel our training?

I’m sorry, I don’t feel like wasting my time on pointless training even if I do get paid an hour of overtime.  I figured by moving to days and not getting my raise I will be losing $100 a month in shift differential pay.  Is it worth it? I just don’t know.

Ok, so I’m disenchanted and grumpy.  I know I should be thankful I have a job and all that good garbage.  But how great is it to have a job when you feel like the job is sucking your life away?

My job takes most of my energy for five days out of the week – I have to sleep or come into work.  That leaves two days to clean, see family and friends, relax, read, write, run errands, etc.  I realize that is the way it is for everyone usually.  But most people work 8 hour days so they have at least 4-6 hours each day for themselves.  Working 12 hour nights (or days soon) means there is no time for anything else but getting home, sleeping, checking a few emails, walking the dogs and coming back to work. I don’t sleep well – wake up tired all the time.

So yes, having to come in for crappy training, barely getting any sleep and having to be back in to work just pisses me off.  I have got to get published or something but when is there time?

I’m sorry, I know I’m complaining.  It is 3:30am and I am so very tired – nothing looks bright and cheery when I’m this tired.  Like this coming weekend I work 5 days instead of 4 because I agreed to work for my coworker Friday night.  I thought I would get the following Tuesday night off so I’d still only be working the 4 days but I was wrong.  Sunday is November 1st so it would be two different months to do it the way I thought.  Ugh.

My sister said it seems like I’m having a bad year.  I wouldn’t necessarily say it was a bad year but it certainly isn’t where I wanted to be at this juncture of my life. 

What I need is one of those invisible dog fences at the entrance to every store so that, as I get closer and closer, I get a shock. Kind of like shark shields too. That way, every time I get near a Barnes and Nobel, Target, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Borders, etc., I will not be able to go inside to spend money.

Today I fell victim of the last two on the list. My son asked if we could stop in at Borders (Waldenbooks) in the mall today after we ate. I said “sure” because I was positive nothing in there could sway me to use my bank card. Well, I was wrong. They had a nice selection of books for $6 plus a 20% off if you signed up for their FREE book card (why is Barnes and Nobel’s $25 a year or whatever it is now?) so how could I resist that?

I bought “The Woods” by Harlan Coben whom I have never read before but the book cover looked very good and “Pandora’s Daughter” by Iris Johansen who is an alright author in my opinion. As I was paying, the clerk told me that right next door they had their “specials” store that would be open through the holidays. This store had even more books on sale, he said. Why? Why did he have to tell me that??

So we stopped next door just to browse when my son found a book he wanted on politics so I decided I couldn’t pass up a Tess Gerritsen book also on sale for $6 called “The Mephisto Club” which I had in Florida but didn’t make the trip back with me. OK, so that is four hardbound books for $20…I can live with that.

I needed to pick up groceries so that is where Wal-Mart came in. Going there was the only thing on my list to do and I had a list I was going to stick strictly to. Actually, I did stick to the list pretty much with only a minor addition here and there like egg noodles, biscuits, and hair color. All my groceries fit in three of those tote bags I take with me. Granted, they fit a lot of stuff – using one tote easily saves three plastic bags or more – but that came to a whopping $78. I’m going to quit eating. Wal-Mart is such an evil place.

The cashier actually acted, at first, like using my totes (which they sell for ninety-nine cents) was going to be such a huge hardship on her. She frowned and sighed heavily because using them held up the line. Well, damn, I was the only person in her line so I don’t think it mattered much.

As I was driving home the sky went from sunshine to completely covered in clouds – it was like I drove into another dimension or something because the temps dropped quite a bit in minutes. We are suppose to get rain tonight so I will have to walk the dogs again before it starts.So now I am back home. There are many chores that need done and then I hope to have time to write tonight.

I know I harp on this a lot but it infuriates to the point of rage when people think they have a right to poach animals off refuges or anywhere.  This kind of thing needs to stop NOW before all our endangered species are no longer endangered but have moved to the “extinct” category.   This video brought tears to my eyes.  That poor tiger might lose it’s paw because of this.

Here is part of the article at the WWF website:

The Tiger was freed from the snare early Sunday morning by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) officers who were called to the scene. The Tiger is being treated by Perhilitan at the Malacca Zoo and vets are hopeful that they might not need to amputate the animal’s leg.

Perhilitan Perak Director Shabrina Mohd Shariff said investigations into the case were ongoing and that initial information showed the suspected poachers were from Kelantan.

The rescue should set alarm bells ringing for the remaining wild Tigers in the Belum-Temengor forests, one of the last strongholds for this species, said a WWF Malaysia and TRAFFIC joint press statement.

Research carried out in the area by both groups has indicated that the rescued Tiger is very likely just one of many that have been poached in the area.  Illegal hunting in the Belum-Temengor area is rampant and the demand for tigers continues to drive criminals into the forest to kill the remaining ones.

The Belum-Temengor forest complex is one of three priority areas identified in Malaysia’s National Tiger Action Plan. It is also part of an area of global priority for Tiger conservation. Yet it is highly vulnerable to encroachment and poaching for several reasons.

The area lies close to the porous Malaysia-Thai border and is easily accessible because of the 80 km long Gerik-Jeli highway that cuts across the landscape, providing hundreds of easy entry points for poachers.

Apart from the Perhilitan-WPU joint patrols, neither the vast and wildlife-rich area, nor the highway is systematically or thoroughly patrolled, making it an open target for poachers.

In August, a Thai national was caught by the police with pangolin scales and agarwood in the forested near the highway. He was one of 10 poachers arrested in the area over the last nine months. In that time also, Perhilitan, Police and the WPU removed 101 snares from the area.

“This incident clearly demonstrates the need for a stronger enforcement presence in the Belum-Temengor area. If this isn’t enough of a clarion call for the government to afford more resources to form an anti-poaching Task Force, I don’t know what is,” he added.

Sometimes I feel like I am sleepwalking through life.  I know most of you know what I’m talking about – I’m not putting forth any real effort to make life better or worse.  I’m floating down the middle of the river without a care which might sound ok but in reality, it isn’t.  Life is too short to be passive.  When did I go from Rogerramjet to passive? I don’t remember but I think it started back when I had that car accident ten years ago. 

Besides being painful, it was a very scary thing that galvanized the knowledge that I wasn’t indestructible.  It also made me ask myself if something happened to me, what would happen to my son? So I started working at being more “safe” and somewhere along the way lost my passion and perspective…neither is a good thing to lose.

Today I looked myself in the mirror and had to admit, I don’t like the person I see peering back at me.  I don’t like my hairstyle or color; don’t like my face looking splotchy; don’t like how fat my cheeks look; don’t like the turkey neck I’m getting; don’t like my body as a whole because I’m out of shape and way overweight; and I don’t like my clothes either. 

But beyond appearances, I also don’t like that I sit on the sidelines a lot for fear of being hurt again – physically and emotionally.  I look at the task of fixing myself and loath that the first thought out of my head is “this is impossible” because I’m defeating myself before I even start. 

I hate that I let the fear of failure stop me from trying to be published and possibly bettering not only my life but also my son’s.  I look at children I want so badly to adopt but have no idea how to get to the point to be considered.  Yes, I know the paperwork part but seriously feel I better have my shit together before bringing children home to live with me – especially children who have had other adults in their lives who let them down.

I keep telling myself it is TIME to start making changes but often the thought goes right out of my head several minutes later and I forget I was even considering it.  It is like I’m drifting along in an inner tube, poke my head up to see a waterfall coming and thinking I should get out of the water, only to be distracted by a stick floating alongside me to the point that the waterfall is totally forgotten.  Eventually, I’m going to arrive at that damn waterfall and I’m going to be wondering why I didn’t see it in the distance.

Tonight I’m sitting here again, seeing that waterfall, thinking about what I should be doing.  It is frustrating yet also a bit exciting to think about changing…oh, my pizza is done.

Once again I find myself outraged over the sensless death of a beautiful creature by stupid men who think gaffing a shark from the safety of their boat is somehow “sport.” Sport would be getting in the water to gaff the shark – not safely hunting it from above. I think the quote from Jamie Bunn, Blue Water Movements, Inc, exemplifies how these buffoons regard life “We might as well gaff this thing, someones going to die today.”

The mako shark they gaffed all in the name of fun – I suppose they weren’t having any luck fishing and didn’t want to go home empty-handed – was a female so they irresponsibly wiped out future generations of this beautiful shark. These kind of fishermen are, in my opinion, the worse because they simply don’t care about how their actions affect the environment. They find sport in killing things, whatever it would be. Their attitude and immature stance, like so many other “sport” fishermen, contribute to putting animals of all kinds on the endangered species list.

Maybe next time they are swimming in the water, it will suddenly occur to them that there could be a shark swimming by thinking “Ah, a human.  Might as well kill it since someone needs to die today.  It won’t go to waste, whatever I don’t eat I’ll give to my other scavenger friends.”  Karma is a bitch.

I have included a little information about the Mako.  I am disappointed that the Florida Wildlife Conservation office advised what these men did is LEGAL – albiet not ethical in my opinion.

The world’s affinity for shark fin soup and the flesh of the shortfin mako has lead to a decrease in population numbers. Worldwide, the shortfin mako is not only subject to overharvesting by direct hunting, they are also often by-catch victims of the tuna and swordfish fishing industries. As a result, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has included the shortfin mako on their list of “managed” pelagic sharks. The NMFS has reduced the number of commercial and recreational shortfin mako catches allowed per year by 50% in an attempt to counter act its declining numbers. However, the NMFS regulations apply only to the United State’s Atlantic and Gulf waters. Also hastening their population decrease is their slow reproductive rate.

The shortfin mako is listed as Lower Risk/near threatened (LR/nt) on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species – provided by Marinebio.org

I am so tempted to request off at 11pm both Monday and Tuesday night – at least Tuesday night.  But I tell myself the problem I have those two nights each week is not going to go away so just have to deal.  How pitiful is it that my coworker who works 11pm-3am Wed-Fri and I both want to go home every night at 11pm to avoid a certain person? But we both just have to suck it up and work.

There are way too many things this person does that drives us both insane – working with her makes us down, agitated and want nothing more than to go home and drink till we can wash her memory out of our brains if only for a few days.

But nothing a person can do about it – such is life and we all have people we have to put up with even if we would rather not.  I work with her 416 hours each year – if I had that much vacation time, I would just about consider using it all to keep me from working with her – really, it would be medically necessarily to keep from going insane.

I wonder if we could get our boss to allow us to take those hours leave without pay? LOL. Probably not.

I was told by someone recently that it is a little strange and surprising that I have never contemplated suicide.  Not that I have a reason to but these thoughts do seem to cross most depressed people’s minds now and then.  But not mine.

I have a favorite quote from Agatha Cristie that I think sums up the way I have always viewed life:

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

How can one argue with this? Yes, I get very depressed sometimes – my whole family is prone to it.  Yes, I have been so depressed I didn’t want to move off the couch, didn’t want to go outside, pretty much sat catatonic for hours – but never once did suicide enter my mind as an answer. 

I understand how some people see suicide as the answer when they are in a situation they can’t see their way out of or how they are in a miserable plight that looks like it will continue for the rest of their life.  I don’t hand out the platitudes when I talk to these people because I know they are in a very dark place and all those stupid pat answers only add to their darkness. 

But for myself, when the darkness surrounds me, I always know the sun will rise again – that depression is like the tide, it ebbs and flows.  My son and I have a saying when the going gets tough “We are Jackson’s, we can get through anything” which, to us, means that whatever we are going through is just a “thing” and things have a way of changing every moment of every day. 

Is that unusual? I love life – I celebrate life and nothing about death appeals to me.  Nothing.