I would really like to wish everyone a safe and fun filled 4th of July weekend now encase I don’t post tomorrow. People around here have been celebrating this past week with fireworks all over the place and my Shadow is really ticked at all the noise. This post will be a quickie because I’m way behind in many things and need to play catch-up. I personally love when I go to a blog and don’t have to read a whole page because lately my brain cells aren’t co-operating with me.

I received an e-mail from Trader’s Hub this morning letting me know his contest was over and he would be drawing the winners within 48 hours he also informed me that my top commenter for the month of June is also entitled to 10 entries to a separate raffle and may win 10,000 EC credits so I went through my comments for last month and counted them and the winner was Lin from Duck And Wheel With String, she and Jan from Better Spines were close so I thought I would thank you both with link love just for being so nice.

Bounce rate doesn’t bother me, but apparently many bloggers complain all the time about the crappy traffic they get from Entrecard. I get crappy traffic from search engines especially when they are looking for mature sexual activity from and about old women and are expecting to see pictures, how long do you think the perverts stay on this blog? My stats tell me that the average visitor is 1 min 11 seconds.

For those that are involved with Entrecard I’m sure some of you will like the change that they are planning to their system and others of course will balk. The email said they anticipate those that are power droppers will be yelling the most because they will now have to interact before they get credit. Does it really matter? If people are interested in something they will react.

I don’t want anyone to feel like they have to leave me a comment or do anything when they stop by my blog. I certainly don’t want a lot of insincere gibberish that I have to sift through. I appreciate the traffic and my Alexa makes note of it. I personally have met a lot of nice bloggers through Entrecard, but I certainly don’t want to feel like I have to leave a comment every time I visit.

I usually go with the flow so it really doesn’t matter, but when and if a program gets too stupid and doesn’t make sense to me anymore then I just leave. So far Entrecard hasn’t reached that plateau for me even though they have done some pretty stupid things in the past I still find them useful and I’m grateful for the traffic whether anyone interacts with me or not so thanks for your visit.

We all know we will face death at some point in our life because that’s part of the cycle, but most people don’t like to think about it. Yesterday I think everyone received a shock when the news broke that Michael Jackson had died especially since he was only 50. Celebrities that are sick really don’t shock us when they pass like Farrah which was sad for those that loved her, but at least she isn’t suffering any more and Ed McMahon who lived a long good life, these were expected.

I think the death of Elvis probably shocked me more than any because of how we all felt about him and I never thought of him as ever dying. Regardless of how people thought of Jackson’s personal life and sometimes bizarre behavior it still came as a shock because it was unexpected. I watched the 20/20 special last night and actually felt sorry for him and the life he had led even though it was a privileged life he was pitiful. His music will live on and just like Elvis no one will ever take his place, he was unique.

Celebrities like David Carradine that die under bizarre conditions do tend to shock and even appall some and leave you shaking your head thinking what in the hell were they thinking and at his age. I sure would hate to be remembered for some weird sexual act instead of the creativity and art that I had been involved with. Other actors and celebrities that have been killed by someone elses’ hand also shock us like John Lennon, Sal Mineo, Sharon Tate, George Reeves, Selena, Bob Crane, and many others.

We certainly don’t understand when celebrities commit suicide when they presumably have it all like Freddie Prinze, Marilyn Monroe, Allan Ladd, Nick Adams, Dave Garroway, Virginia Woolf, and even Sigmund Freud. These are only a few of a very long list and I wont even list those killed in plane crashes and other types of wrecks that have seemed so unreal and shocked us equally. The attempted suicides by celebrities is also staggering, I just don’t understand.

Ordinary people die all the time and they are just as important, but for some reason we are more upset and identify when it’s a celebrity because for some reason we feel like they belong to us just like family. Of course the media always milks it for all it’s worth depending on how popular they were. I’m saddened by Michael’s passing and feel very sorry for those he left behind and their grief. I am grateful that we all got to experience his talent and that will live forever for generations to come, have a peaceful weekend and enjoy what comes your way.

I certainly understand feeling down or detached and just being, drifting through parts of my life, experiencing beautiful parts as well as devastating events, but never would I consider ending all these experiences nor would I ever feel I had the right to deny someone else those experiences of being. Yesterday they reported another incident of a man losing his job and instead of making just a choice for himself he decided he needed to choose for his Sister as well, he killed her and then killed himself.

It was reported that this 54 year old man shared an apartment with his 49 year old sister and she was mentally challenged, but she worked at the York hospital in the food department and was very dependable, never missed a day since 2001 and was very friendly and outgoing. No one really knows why he did this, but noticed he had been depressed and unemployment was running out and he couldn’t find another job. He had been taking care of his sister for several years and maybe he thought she would be lost without him.

So tragic when we hear about these types of events, but this man had no right to end her life just because he was miserable. Stupid people, but it seems to be happening more and more some taking out their whole families, kids and all. It’s just not right for someone else to choose if you have the right to experience life or not. No wonder things don’t make sense to me sometimes. If someone is crazy enough to want to end their life then more power to them, but leave every frickin body else alone.

A  while back I took Bill to visit my home state, Tennessee. I was born in Chattanooga and know it like the back of my hand. Even though I am easy to get lost regardless of where I am that is one place I was never lost in. I showed him where I had lived in the orphanage for 4 years of my life when I was young and there are only a few buildings left, the chapel, the administrators home and the office building with the library and study hall.

The photo’s below were taken in front of the chapel and the fountain in the center of these 3 buildings where all the children would gather for sunrise services. I have many good memories of this place and shared them with Bill. Most of the grounds are now occupied with commercial businesses and it was sad to see my home of 4 years closed down, they helped many children over the years and I’m grateful that I was one of them.

No matter where we are we always have to find the local Harley Davidson store and buy a few t-shirts Bill has quite a collection. Below is Thunder Creek in Chattanooga. I of course had to take him to visit the Chattanooga Choo Choo and then we headed to Lookout Mtn. and I made him ride the Incline Railway which he hated, there’s a view from the top. I lived and worked at the base of this for several years. I have to go now, but thanks for visiting with me.

I was beginning to think Entrecard packed up and left town until I started dropping cards this morning and ran into tons of invalid and no such user cards. It looks like someone is at least doing something over there. I’ve noticed lots of blogs backing off lately with drops and new posts and I happen to be one of them, sometimes I simply have nothing to say nor do I feel like making a lot of drops.

I was so happy to find the wordpress automatic upgrade plugin because no way can I do that manually so I depend on Bluehost when I need to upgrade, but their program never has the latest upgrades so I’m always behind. I upgraded with that plugin on my other blog and it was easy it disables your plugins makes a backup and then reactivates the plugins. You need to check to make sure your plugins are compatible first though.

I didn’t check beforehand and had a problem with one of my plugins so I simply went in with my FTP and deleted the culprit and then I was able to get my blog back straight away. I really like this WP plugin and it would be nice if all of the plugins that I like would get updated to work with the new release. I’m not sure that I really like the 2.8 so I didn’t upgrade this one yet, looks like they almost have a new release ready so I’ll wait for that one.

Well, that’s all I have for this day so I hope everyone has a great weekend, since we are expecting rain storms tomorrow I will probably spend some time online. I really need to change a lot of things on some of my websites and get them condensed and moved to my main one because I plan on dropping 3 domains and moving 1 to this webhosting plan so I’ll have everything in one place, too much to keep up with now and boring.