Michael Jackson: Gone But Never Forgotten!
I am an American that has been living in The Netherlands, (Holland), since 1994. I have not stepped foot on American soil once in all of those years, except to...
Archive for July, 2009
That First Step is a Dusey!
One of the methods of ridding yourself of a phobia, according to the professionals, is to confront your fear and then magically it will probably go away.
Speaking as a person that does have a couple of phobias I have never been able to do this, what can I say? I am weak! I am afraid! In fact, I think I have a phobia about trying to cure my phobias! I don’t quite know what they call a phobia about curing your phobias but I do know the name of one of my personal phobias and that is…Acrophobia! Yes! I have a terrible fear of heights!
So I was reading about the tallest building in the United States today, The Sears Tower, soon to be renamed to Willis Tower, and how they now have “The Ledge”, or I suppose, The Ledges, which are glass balconies that are suspended 1,353 feet in the air and jut out four feet from the building’s 103rd floor Skydeck!! They consist of transparent walls, floor and ceiling leave visitors with the impression they’re floating over the city!!! I Don’t Think So!!! I don’t even like being IN the Sears Tower, much less 4 feet from it in the middle of the air!
I don’t know about any other acrophobics, but I do know about this one, and I for one, will Not be trying to confront my fear of heights by stepping out onto “The Ledge” to see if I can overcome my fear of heights! In fact, just seeing a photo of one today gave me heart palpitations!
But for those of you that do want to confront your fears OR for those Evil Knievels of the World that love thrills and danger all I can say is:
The First Step is the Hardest!
That’s all for me today as I am going to lie down now and try to get these palpation’s stopped! But I hope to see all of you back again soon for more…
New Kid On The Block!
A few days ago a red panda cub was shown off to the World for the first time at the Calgary Zoo. She was born on June 4 of this year and is said to be doing very well. She is obviously eating well as she supposedly already has a nice, big tummy!! The public will not be able to view her until the end of the summer.
Zoo keepers are keeping watch over her and her 5 year old mother, Malikha who gave birth to this little ones sister two years ago. Malikha is reportedly a good mother and while she only tolerates her new cub being taken away from her for brief periods of time for the necessary health checks she takes care all of the the rest of her cubs needs such as grooming and making sure that she is returned to her nest box!
When a new red panda is born and raised by it’s mother it is very special because unfortunately the mortality rate for these red panda cubs are as high as 74%! Red pandas reach maturity at about 18 months old.
There are less than 10,000 mature red pandas in the World today and they are classified as “vulnerable” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red list.
The cub hasn’t a name yet but when she does I am sure that it will be something very fitting for this:
That’s all for me today but hope to see you back again soon for some more good old fashioned…
