Floating Houses

We found many beautiful places along Lake Erie’s southern shore this summer.  One of the nicest was Presque Isle in Erie, PA.  The entire island is a state park.  It’s wild and beautiful.  The beaches on the lake side were windy and the waves were crashing.  So invigorating!  One of the lighthouses was on this north shore.  The other was at the tip of the island that curled back south forming the mouth of a small bay.  Winds and water were much calmer there. 
On our drive between the two lights we rounded a corner and had to pull over because were were so astonished.  This picture shows a part of what we found.
OK, I know there are floating homes in many locations.  I’ve watched several TV specials about them and find them fascinating.  But this is Pennsylvania.  It gets really, really cold here.  Even Lake Erie freezes.  What do they do with them in the winter?
But just imagine staying in one of these floating cabins.  I’ll take the one way on the other side with the screened in porch.  Mosquitoes like me too much.  Then again, it really doesn’t have a nice deck around it.  Wouldn’t it be fun to get up in the morning, step outside your door and go swimming?  Or sit on one of those decks and watch the stars at night? 
What would you do if you could stay in a floating home?

Wednesday Hero

Sgt. 1st Class Brandon McGuire  The early morning April sky dawned clear over Forward Operating Base Iskandaryia, Iraq. Sgt. 1st Class Brandon McGuire, a platoon sergeant with 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment, whose home base was Fort Richardson, Alaska, and his spotter settled in for their third day of looking for insurgents. "We were observing a stretch of road that had recently been cleared of IEDs (improvised explosive devices)," said McGuire, now first sergeant of Fort Polk's Alpha Troop, 1st Battalion (Airborne), 509th Infantry Regiment. "The area had also seen a lot of mortar activity. We had several Soldiers killed and severely wounded along that stretch of road by IEDs and mortars." As the two Soldiers gazed across the expanse between their hiding place - an abandoned shed - and their target area, they noticed a man in local garb sauntering up and down through a series of canals. When he dug into a canal bank and uncovered a mortar tube, McGuire said he knew this was a target. You can read the rest of Sgt. 1st Class Brandon McGuire's story here.

Photo Courtesy Army.mil These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.

We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Sparty Would Do Anything For Love

Michigan State University’s Sparty is the subject of a series of videos.  This is just one.  Enjoy!

 

More Cute lolcats.

I’ve been spending way too much time at I Can Has Cheezburger.  I just fell in love with this adorable little kitteh.  See, I’m even starting to spell like them.

I Play Farm Town on Facebook

I’m participating in NaBloPoMo this month.  That’s National Blog Post Month.  The theme for this month is ‘Play’.

I’m totally addicted to Farm Town.  I love planning and planting my crops, harvesting, and adding them to the facilities to manufacture other products.  Some of the facilities you see on this page are an oil rig, a gold/silver/diamond mine, snack factory, food preserves, pizza/sandwich/sushi/pasta/taco restaurants, and many more.

The picture below is only one of the six farms I run in the game.  The others all have just a couple of facilities but are filled with crops and trees.

I really like this game because there’s actual strategy involved.  It’s not just a mindless game.  You can find me on Facebook thru the link about half way down the page in the right hand sidebar.

What games do you play?

Flag Friday - Croatia

Flag description:

The Croatia flag was officially adopted on December 22, 1991.

The red, white and blue are traditional Croatian colors. The centered coat of arms was first used during World War II. The shields are from the arms of five of Croatia's regions, including Croatia, Dubrovnik, Dalmatia, Istria and Slavonia (left to right). The red and white checks are Croatian symbols.

The above information is from this site.

The following information comes from the Flag Counter widget in my sidebar.  There is much more to be found there about geography, government, population, economy, and military.

      
The lands that today comprise Croatia were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the close of World War I. In 1918, the Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes formed a kingdom known after 1929 as Yugoslavia. Following World War II, Yugoslavia became a federal independent Communist state under the strong hand of Marshal TITO. Although Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, it took four years of sporadic, but often bitter, fighting before occupying Serb armies were mostly cleared from Croatian lands. Under UN supervision, the last Serb-held enclave in eastern Slavonia was returned to Croatia in 1998. In January 2008, Croatia assumed a nonpermanent seat on the UN Security Council for the 2008-09 term, and in April 2009 it joined NATO. Croatia is a candidate for eventual EU accession.

Population:

4,489,409 (July 2009 est.)

Languages:

Croatian 96.1%, Serbian 1%, other and undesignated 2.9% (including Italian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, and German) (2001 census)

Government type:

presidential/parliamentary democracy

Capital:

Zagreb

Independence:

25 June 1991 (from Yugoslavia)

Currency (code):

kuna (HRK)

 
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