Tiller shot to death

I just saw the news that abortion provider George Tiller has been shot to death.
He was shot as he entered his church just after 10 a.m. this morning.
Here is a link to the story in the Wichita Eagle.
http://www.kansas.com/topstories/story/833730.html

Police are looking for a while male in his 60s. They have a tag number and a vehicle id. They are not saying if they have the shooter in custody.
I feel this deserves some comment.
This should not be made into a political event. This was the act of a sick person. I don't know of any Christians who could condone such an act. There are plenty of political people who would however.
Sometimes its hard to tell the difference between a bible-centered political world view and conservative politics, but here we see the difference.
I don't know if the shooter will claim to be Christian or not, but one thing is clear, his actions were not Christian.
Murder is never the correct response, no matter what you believe about abortion.

The right to protest is a fundamental American right. I would hate to see this act used as a means of silencing protesters.
There are political games here to be played by both sides. Let's just not allow ourselves to be taken in by either side.
This is a tragic event. Murder is wrong. Political games that may follow will be wrong too.

Pray for the Tiller family in their time of loss.

Sunday thoughts

Luke 14:26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters-yes, even his own life-he cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14:27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
>>
Jesus told this parable while visiting with the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the religious authorities of the day, and they were watching him closely to find some reason to discredit him.
At the same time, many of the common people were following him, partly at least because he was miraculously healing people and providing food for the masses.
As was often the case, Jesus did not say what one might expect. He went past the surface issues - those following out of anger, mistrust or greed - and went to the deeper issue.
The deeper issue being one's motive and attitude.
It is good to question things as the Pharisees did, but they were assuming that Jesus was wrong and were questioning only to prove that point.
The masses were following for what they could get. There are benefits, but that cannot be the only reason for believing.
This was the deeper point. Jesus - God, wants disciples, or followers, who love God above all else. He does not mean we must hate our family and ourselves. He is not talking about feelings, but about choices. He wants us to put our faith above everything else as a priority, even above our own life.
When he talks about carrying your cross, it seems strange to us, but it would not have been strange to people hearing it. There was only one reason to carry one's cross. That reason was to be executed.
When we come to God, we do have to give up our life, and that is real salvation. But we receive a new life - which is what being born again is - and that is a great treasure. By comparison, the treasure is worth more than even our families and even our own lives.
This is the life - the new life, the exchanged life - is the life we were meant to live.
Jesus does not want us to literally hate people, or to kill ourselves.
What he wants is for us to give up our life that is sinful by nature, so that he may give us a new life that he has created for us. This is a matter of faith. Being born again is not a matter of "cleaning up your act" or making a new start.
We have to give up - crucify - our old life and begin a new life of faith.

Romans 6:4 - We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Round-a-bout

Takes a little time to get settled back in when you've been out of town. Just last night I realized the construction of the Roundabout on Kansas Ave. had started.
I lived with Roundabouts on the east coast, but there we called them traffic circles.
I always thought they were fun. They do keep traffic moving along.
I never saw, or heard of, an accident at one.
Im sure there will be some anxious people, but they are easy to figure out once you see it.
Here is a link to a study done comparing them to two-way stop signs.
http://www.ite.org/traffic/documents/AB00H1903.pdf

health and safety fair

The Arkansas City Fire Department is hosting a health and safety fair today until 3 p.m. There is a good turnout so far.
There is lots of safety information available. Several agencies are represented. One is the clean air group that will be working toward a smoking ban in ark city.
The police are doing the CD for kids. This is where their information, finger prints, photos, are recorded. If the child turns up missing, you will have that information ready to hand over to law enforcement groups.

worksession

cit y commission

City commission work session today at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall
Here is the link
http://arkcity.org/DocumentView.aspx?DID=2406

Ill have the live blog up and running.

Back home

Got back home around 11:30 a.m. today, Thursday.
Should have known that cutting across country on backroads would not be faster for us.
All those interesting places to stop and take a look.
Most of the day yesterday was just driving, across New Mexico and into Texas and oklahoma. It was about 10 last night when we decided we had had enough and stopped in Fairview, Okla.
Found a really nice hotel with an interesting design. Each room had a "back door" with a parking space literally at the door. Then the other door opened into a courtyard with a pool. Small place, cheap, and clean.
There and in Seilig, Okla., were really cool murals.
Also in oklahoma we saw a sign that said "antelope hills" so ... of course we had to go see what it was since it was not on the map. It was a great back road into the country. We did see a herd of antelope, maybe 10 of them, just hanging around in a field.
We got a lot of pictures.
We also saw a jackrabbit on that road. Hmmm, does that mean we saw a jackalope? :)
There were also a few deer.
We stopped for a bit in Santa Rosa, NM, which was interesting. Lots of old buildings and some old mission type spanish buildings.
They also have a 80-foot deep artesian well where people go scuba diving.
Anyways, good to be home.
Love being on the road though.
Ill post some pictures later on.



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Tuesday, about to start home

Today was very busy.
We started out in Carrizzozo. Another cool little town.
Soon we found life sized burro statues around town, painted very nicely.
So we had to look for those.
Then we went to the petroglyphs. Another national monument. This place has thousands of pictographs done by Indians several thousand years ago. They are pretty mystical and there is not much knowledge of who they were.
They don't seem to be related to the Navaho or Apache tribes that were prevelant here in the last few hundred years.
That was interesting.
We went back to Carrizzozo. Went into this little local diner, Manny's Cafe. Tiny place. An older man and his daughter invited us to sit with them. People are really friendly here.
But the place was very packed.
Got some more real authentic mexican type food there.
Everywhere you go they have Green or Red chilis. The thing is, you have to ask which is the hot one. Down around Carlsbad the Red was the hot and the green was mild. At Manny's today, halfway up the state, its just the opposite.
The guy and his daughter turned out to be ranchers who live near there.
They explained about the burros, which gives me ideas for ark City.
The burros are brought in and are plain white. Local artists paint them, and they are auctioned off, and put around town, whereever the winning bidder wants i guess.
The idea has possibilities.
After lunch we went to this place that has had a lot of lava flow over the past couple thousand years. Its called the fire lands.
We saw rabbits there, as well as several lizards.
We went back to the mountains after that.
We found some ruins of old Spanish missions from the 1600s. It is easy to forget that when the americans arrived in this part of the world, the Spanish had already been here a few hundred years.
It was pretty interesting.
We saw three of those that were in the same area.
From there we made our way to Interstate 40, and are in Santa Rosa, about 50 miles from the state line.
Hope to get back home tomorrow night.
Probably will be driving straight through.
Glad I dont have to go back to the .... place you know.
:)
but it will be good to be home.

monday

Yesterday I was unable to post. We got a room in this little town called ruidoso. Cool little town, cheap hotel. But their internet did not work.
We started out at White Sands national monument. This is a huge area of white sand desert.
It is where a lot of missile testing is done. It is near where the first atomic bomb was blown up. That wasnt open.
We went on some other drives into the mountains.
What was interesting to me was that within 30 miles we went from desert sand to mountains full of trees and streams. New Mexico certainly has a wide variety of landscapes.

Day 4, more new mexico

We saw a lot more of the "real" new mexico today. Way out in the wilderness, the desert.
Early on we went to the living desert near Carlsbad. Its a nice zoo with lots of desert animals and plants.
Stayed longer than we thought we would, so it was nearly noon when we got out of there.
More driving then. My wife saw a water fall on a map that was way out there.
I was remembering another waterfall adventure in chatauqua county a few years back when we got stuck miles from anything.
But this was much better.
This was probably 50 miles from the nearest town. Much of it was open range. On the way there we had to look out for cows and horses on the road. The road was narrow and no side rails through the mountains.
But the waterfall was worth it. We got there just in time as a large group of tourists showed up just behind us.
We stayed there a long time walking around trails and along the water.
Then we made our way to Rosswell. Sight of the most famous alleged alien sighting in the world. This is where a spaceship supposedly crashed in 1947. There are books about the conspiracy to cover it up, and what all happened.
This museum is dedicated to that event. Its called "the incident."
They do a good job of presenting both sides.
One side says it was a coverup, the other side says there never was anything to cover up, it was just a weather baloon.
Fact remains, the guys who saw it, and who saw the bodies of aliens, and who found spacecraft material, were quoted in newspapers talking about what they saw. Then a few days later - after meeting with government people - told much different stories and denied ever having said what they said. I saw the story in the Roswell paper about it, yet only days later, everyone was denying everything. It is as though that story never existed.
They also make a lot out of the fact that the area around the crash site remains off limits to this day.
Then there are several government reports showing that its all bogus, That it never happened and such.
Pretty interesting stuff.
All day we dodged storms, just as we did yesterday.
We saw storms to our left and right, especially in the afternoon. We missed most of them though.
We got to Roswell and it was still sprinkling, but was soaking wet.
From there we headed north and went to this little place called Lincoln. It was a settlement of the wild west and Billy the Kid was one of the main characters.
Started raining about then, and i was getting pretty tired. My sweet wife had to read every single sign there was, so i kept going.
Finally got to a hotel and ate around 9 p.m.
Found a good real authentic mexican joint.
Lots of those around here.
There are lots of interesting things to see here in the desert, but they are all pretty far apart.
We are doing some scenic drives tomorrow.

Carlsbad

Today we went to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. That was an amazing experience. Took about three hours to walk through the caverns.
The cave is vast and huge. 750 feet below ground is a huge room, at least 100 foot high, with all the formations you usually find in a cave.
In the afternoon we went to the Guadalupe Mountains in Texas, just across the border.
Great mountains.
The desert is fairly well in bloom too, so there were neat flowers here and there.
Did not see a lot of wildlife.
In the evening we went back to Carlbad Caverns to check on the bats. Allegedly bats come out of the cave at sunset. we only saw a couple but it was raining.
We watched rain storms all day long. We could see them to the south, the east and the west, but we only got rained on late in the day.
Tomorrow we are going to Roswell, to the museum of UFO's.
More scenic drives in store too.

Day two

Pictures from the top. A collection of windmills in someone's yard near Portales, NM., A feed lot just before getting to New Mexico. Lots of these in the Texas panhandle, but this one was huge. Probably half a mile long.
In Amarillo there were statues of horses everywhere.
Couple flower pictures from the Amarillo botanical garden.
The steakhouse in Amarillo.
The white deer in the square of the town named white deer.
the bottom two are pictures from Canadian , texas.
One is the wagon bridge that has been made into a walking trail.


We are in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Going to the caverns tomorrow. The national park is about 20 miles south of here, but its pretty hard to get a room there unless you book ahead way in advance.
Long time driving today, but we managed to stop some.
The idea of people making something out of their town was really brought home to us today.
We saw saw some really nice towns, and some real dumps. Only difference seemed to be what people chose to make out of it.
Canadian Texas is in the middle of nowhere, but has built itself up.
They took an old wagon bridge that went across the river and have made it into a park. That was neat.
Also lots of really nice yards and such.
They say it has 2000 people but it looks a lot larger.
Between Canadian and Amarillo were four towns, great cases in point.
First up was miami. Pretty area around there, lots of hills, nice ranches. They had a nice looking museum, nice county courthouse.
Then was pampa, which was pretty much a dump.
White deer was very small, but had lots of white deer statues around. They were trying to make something out of it.
Then was the town of panhandle which was pretty cool.
Amarillo had a great botanical garden. That is also where the home of the 72 ounce steak is. If you can eat it all, its free. We didnt try, but i did get a look at it. Huge.
From Amarillo to New Mexico was pretty dumpy. Lots of cattle feed lots. Thousands of cattle waiting for slaughter. Smelled bad. Made me wonder if i really wanted to eat meat again.
In New Mexico was stopped in Clovis and Portales briefly. It was starting to get late in the day by then. The GPS led us astray a couple of times, but we saw some nice historical buildings.
Going through the desert between Roswell and Carlsbad, it was raining. Just seemed ironic.
We are going to the caverns early tomorrow.

First day of the trip

From the top. Wildflowers near the Texas border, The Windmiill museum at Shattuck, (there is a windmill from the 1930's made in Ark City there) , Red hills in the panhandle of oklahoma. The train depot and harvey house in Wanoka, Okla. If you click on the picture you will see a larger version.




We finally got away some time in the afternoon. Its about 10 p.m. and we are in Canadian, Texas. That's just across the border from the Oklahoma Panhandle.
We crossed lots of wide open prairie today, then hit the red clay hills of the panhandle.
The trip so far has been fairly uneventful, which is good.
We stopped in Wanoka, Oklahoma. Its a small town but very cool. We have come across several neat little towns in Okie-land. You can really tell a difference between those that have pride and those that do not. Wanoka has its train depot preserved very nicely and has one of the original Harvey Houses still in operation.
Lots of muruals. Nice downtown.
We went through Shattuk, Okla. We didnt stop but we went by the windmill museum, which is kinda cool but we have been there before.
We went by the salt flats near Alva.
We got into Canadian and are suffering a bit of sticker shock for a hotel.
The first one we went to didnt look too terribly bad but you had to walk down to one of the rooms to inquire about a room. This really strange looking blonde chick was straightening up her clothes as she came out of the room and told me how much the room would be. At least i think that's what she wanted $70 for.
We kept looking.
Found a pretty nice place but it cost more than we wanted to pay.
Canadian is kind of a tourist trap looks like. On the map it was another 50 miles to the next town that would have a hotel, so we just went with this.
One thing that looked really cool is a trail that goes across the river. Looks like they have converted an old train bridge into a walking trail. We are going to check that out in the morning.
It is a tourist trap of sorts, but it looks like they have done a lot with their little town.

Probably wont post in the a.m. :) so this will have to count.

Best - worst drivers

U.S> News and World Reports ranks the best drivers by state, from top to bottom.
There's also a survey to see how you do.
Here is the link


http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/993/where-the-worst-drivers-live/;_ylc=X3oDMTE5ZmdmcGVkBF9TAzI3MTYxNDkEc2VjA2ZwLXRvZGF5BHNsawN3b3JzdC1kcml2ZXJz

Heading out

We are heading out on a vacation. You knew we would not be able to resist a road trip for too long now that the weather has improved.
We thought we would leave Wednesday. Its Thursday morning and we are nowhere near ready to go. Fortunately neither of us are too hung up on keeping a schedule. We hope to be back Monday, but ... we shall see.
An aside - i have never understood why the house needs to be cleaned up before you go on a vacation. Must be a female thing. I have learned to not question it too much though.
Also a note for any criminal types that might be out there. We have people coming by every day to water the flowers and generally take care of things. Our neighbors will also be keeping an eye on things. So the place will probably have more scrutiny than it would have if we were home. We have also misplaced our pet rattlesnake again.
We are going to New Mexico. Why? Because it is there.
I will be posting from the road. With tales and photos.

Water billing woes

The water billing thing came up again Tuesday. The city has over $600,000 in bad debt from customers who have not paid their water bills. Some of these bills are several years old, and some of the people are long gone.
Kanyon Gingher wants the city to collect on those bills. She has been trying to help pay down some of those bills by selling cookies. She as raised more than $900 to pay down some of the bills. It is a start and she is doing something positive to try to help solve the problem.
That is good activism. She complained a lot about the water billing situation, and is doing what she can to help out.
The city is already in a state setoff program that tries to collect some of the bad debt.
Commissioner Dotty Smith introduced the idea at Tuesday's meeting to try to see what could be done to collect on the bad debt. One idea is to use city attorney Tamara Niles, but using a lawyer for that kind of thing can get really expensive.
Another idea is a collection agency of some sort.
At the meeting Tuesday, city staff agreed to get more information and bring back a report to a future meeting as to what could be done.
Commissioner Patrick McDonald did not like the fact that it was brought up at the end of a regular meeting. He felt the commission was being blindsided and that it should have been brought up in a worksession first.
He said he thinks the idea itself may be good, but he just didn't like the procedure.

City Manager Steve Archer and administration head Lane Massey are not as excited about the prospects. There was a long discussion after the meeting between Archer, Massey, commissioner Smith and Kanyon. I went along for the ride.
(kanyon is proof that they do listen. you too could have such a discussion on an issue you are concerned about.)
Anyways, Archer and Massey feel like going after these bad debts - beyond the state setoff programm - is treating the symptom and does not address the real problem. The real problem being that there are a lot of people who just dont pay their bills.
Massey was saying you could collect $100,000 with an agency, but by that time you would have that much or more in new bad debt.
Massey said several months ago that there are people who just leave their bills behind. He said there are also people who will wait until their water is shut off and they would send a different family member in to get a new account and start the process all over again.
Even with the $600,000 in bad debt from several years, it is still a small percentage of customers who do not pay their bills on time.
Their answer was the $50 fine for turning on or off your water, and shutting people off after five days. It was a bit harsh, they admit, but it did work. Late payments and shutoffs went way down.
Since then there was a great public outcry and the fees were reduced to $35 and you get more time to pay now.
Massey said the late payments and shutoffs have been increasing since the city backed off its tougher policy. Kanyon countered that it could be because more people are out of work and the economy has worsened.