Six months after the departure, she discovers a goodbye video

My friends gave me a good bye video in May and i just discovered it this week. It had been ahem... misplaced.


But it is now found and I actually had access to a camera to clip the video. Here is the end of it, my Sara and her words.


I love my H Town friends...they are irreplaceable. MY SALVAGED VIDEO

Ciani

My Ciani as a princess.

D - Day

My friend Ashley posted about the closing of Diedrichs, which is Monday. November 6, D-Day. I will have to go see the brutal takeover for myself in December. My friend Joe sent me another article about the closure, which cleared some things up for me. I posted it below.


Coffeehouse closing upsets customers / Landlord elects not to lease site to Diedrich franchiseBy TARA WHITE, Houston Chronicle Correspondent

Jeff Grant is furious that Diedrich Winlow Coffeehouse, 1901 Westheimer, is scheduled to close Nov. 6 after conducting business in that location for 10 years.

Grant, a loyal customer, has contacted everyone in his e-mail address book and has stood in front of the coffeehouse almost every day for weeks to protest its closure.

The property owner hired a 24-hour security guard and police were called because of his presence, but he is not budging.

Grant is not the only person upset about the closure of Diedrich, which serves about 3,500 customers each week. Hundreds have signed petitions to keep it from closing.
Dirk Smith, owner of the coffeehouse and president of Magna Cum Latte Inc., the Diedrich Coffee franchise in Houston, said his customers are upset because they know the business is being forced to close.

Smith said it is closing because T-Con Properties chose not to lease the property to him.
Said Bradford Schmalfuss, vice president of T-Con Properties and landlord for the space, "We have the right to lease with anyone we want to."

Schmalfuss also said T-Con had no obligation to lease to Smith because the company's original lease was with Diedrich Coffee's corporate office, which chose not to renew.

The property will be leased to The Upper Hand Salon, which is located at 1905 Westheimer next to the coffeehouse. The lease becomes effective on Nov. 7.
Rachael Gower, who owns the salon with her husband, Brian Williard, said they plan to use the space to expand their salon operations.

Smith said he does not understand T-Con's decision.
"Our coffeehouse has brought thousands of people to the Winlow Center," Smith said. "I have never paid the rent late. Bradford told me on several occasions I was the best tenant he had."
A letter dated May 11, addressed to Schmalfuss from Diedrich Coffee's corporate office, confirms that Diedrich Coffee did not plan to renew the lease. But it states that corporate officials asked Smith to negotiate a direct lease with Schmalfuss.

E-mail correspondences between Schmalfuss and Smith indicate that Smith and Schmalfuss agreed to move forward with the lease.
Schmalfuss sent Smith a draft of the lease agreement by e-mail in late May for Smith and his lawyer to review.
Negotiations moved forward until June 9, when Schmalfuss sent Smith an e-mail stating that T-Con would not proceed with lease discussions because it planned "to take the center in a different direction."
Smith said he was shocked by the e-mail, as he had returned only a day earlier to his home in California after a special trip to Houston.
Schmalfuss requested the trip because he wanted Smith to discuss parking issues with the Upper Hand Salon.
"I jumped through hoops for him to make sure everything was going smoothly," Smith said. "I don't know what happened in those 11 hours to completely change his decision."
Gower said some have blamed the Upper Hand Salon for the closure of Diedrich Winlow Coffeehouse.

"We absolutely did not push anyone out," she said. "As small business owners we would never do that because we know how hard it is."

Smith plans to fight T-Con's decision until the day Diedrich closes, but he is also looking for a new location and wants to find a temporary space from which his employees could work.
He said employees also have the option to move to the two other Diedrich Coffeehouse locations in Houston, at 4005 Montrose Blvd. and 1008 Bay Area Blvd.

Grant said he will continue to do everything he can to keep the coffeehouse open.
"People have business meetings here. College students come here to study. Parents feel this is a safe place for their children to hang out after school," Grant said "I am going to keep speaking out because I know people love this place."

Fire in Southern California

My aunt lost her home yesterday in this fire in California. Pray for those that lost loved ones, or their homes and are having to start over...



October 27, 2006
4 Firefighters Killed by Blaze in California
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD and JENNIFER STEINHAUER

BEAUMONT, Calif., Oct. 26 — Four firefighters were killed on Thursday and one was seriously injured when an arson fire ripped through a hilly patch of Southern California, destroying thousands of acres and forcing hundreds of residents to evacuate their homes.
By Thursday night, the fire was still uncontained and, buoyed by strong and gusting winds, rolling west along the thick desert terrain.

Officials said the fire, which began about 1 a.m. Thursday just northwest of Palm Springs, was deliberately set but did not give details. Carried by 25 mile an hour winds, it spread throughout craggy, mostly unincorporated areas in Riverside County, where residents began to evacuate in the dark of night.

The flames quickly encountered the Santa Ana winds, which are common this time of year, and streaked through the parched vegetation, igniting ranch homes, some of which burned to their foundations, and scorching at least 24,000 acres, including 10,000 acres in just four to five hours.

By midday Thursday, a long and wide churning curtain of orange-beige smoke cloaked a wide strip of desert, and the smell of smoke lingered as far west as downtown Los Angeles, 90 miles away.

Officials painted a horrific scene in Cabazon, where five firefighters were working to protect a home and found their truck suddenly engulfed in flames when the wind shifted.
Three firefighters died at the scene, and one died hours later at the hospital. A fifth was in critical condition Thursday night. The names of the firefighters, members of the United States Forest Service, were not released.

It was the worst loss of life among firefighters in Riverside County in over 50 years.
Officials said they would offer $100,000 to any informant who led them to an arrest of the arsonist.

“A deliberately set arson fire that leads to the death of anyone constitutes murder,” Chief John Hawkins of the Riverside County Fire Division of the California Department of Forestry said.
Residents of Twin Pines, an area near the origin of the fire, awoke in the middle of the night to the strong odor of smoke and an orange glow over the top of the mountains. By 3 a.m. emergency workers were ordering them out, and they hustled to collect clothes, family photos, insurance papers and pets.

“Does anybody know anything about Wonderview?” Lilly Arroyo, 77, called out through tears at an evacuation center at the Banning Community Center, near Cabazon.

A dozen neighbors huddled around a television hoping for a glimpse of their homes from news coverage, but shook their heads, “No.”
Her cockatiel, Toots, died, Ms. Arroyo said, as she sped from her trailer home in the path of a wall of flames. Officials said roughly 700 people had fled their homes.
Chief Hawkins said that 11 structures had been destroyed but that he did not have details of what they were. The chief said at a news conference last night that the fire was 5 percent contained. “That may not sound like a lot,” he said, “but it truly is.”

The rocky terrain and lack of open roads made it hard for emergency workers to get water to the fire-fighting sites; 400 people in recreational vehicles on a mountain near the fire’s center were told to stay put, protected by firefighters, so as not to clog the only open road to the area. Fire officials said winds hampered efforts to drop water and fire retardant.
“Dry, windy weather can push a fire like this to grow very quickly,” said Patrick Chandler, a spokesman for the Riverside County Fire Department. ”

Dennis Watkins, 54, just finished building his “dream home” in May and, following the authorities’ precautions against wildfires, had cleared away much of the brush and trees near the house. On Thursday he asked neighbors at the community center if they had heard anything and waited for definitive word.

Some residents snaked their way up a one-lane road out of town; using a leash, one farmer pulled his lama alongside his truck.

With 1,000 firefighters already at work and 2,000 more coming, officials worried that the fire could reach an area of the San Bernardino National Forest where a bark beetle infestation had killed trees that could easily fuel a blaze.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the state “will put the full force of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection behind fighting this fire and will reach out to evacuees to see what can be done in their time of need.”

The governor also declared a state of emergency in Riverside County.
Wildfires in California’s national forests are common this time of year. Almost exactly three years ago, fires killed 17 people and burned more than 376,000 acres and 2,600 homes across San Diego County.

Flags of our Fathers

My mom and I are planning to go see the movie, Flags of our Fathers when she comes into town next week. It's a special movie for me because my grandfather fought in the Pacific. He served on Tinian Island where Little Boy and Fat Man were held until the bombings. My grandad was a very meticulous man when it came to his job, keeping the airplanes in excellent condition. He never would really share with us about the atomic bomb and being so close to all that, but he did have some amazing stories about the war.

He served a number of years in Enid, Oklahoma at Vance AFB after the war and knew these two guys written about below who fought in Iwo Jima.

Film brings back Iwo Jima memories

By Jeff MullinSenior WriterOn Feb. 23, 1945, a group of U.S. Marines climbed to the top of Mount Suribachi, a volcanic hill nearly 600 feet high on a small Pacific island called Iwo Jima.The Marines encountered little or no resistance, in stark contrast to the brutal fighting that had been taking place on the island since the Marines invaded some five days prior. The flag-raising spawned a book by James Bradley, “Flags of Our Fathers.” That book has been made into a movie, of the same name, directed by Clint Eastwood. The film opens nationally today and can be seen in Enid at Dickinson Theatres’ Oakwood 8. Among the many men on hand the day the flag went up on Mount Suribachi were several from the Enid area.

Here are three of their stories:

Jim Goodrich

Goodrich was an 18-year-old corporal that day, a member of the 5th Marine Division, 27th Regiment.The Garber native joined the Marines when he was 16 and already was a veteran of the bloody battles at Guadalcanal and Tarawa.“I was considered an old veteran,” he said.He was in the first wave of Marines to hit the beach at Iwo Jima Feb. 19, 1945. He was a machine-gunner.Goodrich and his unit fought their way across Iwo Jima. It was brutal fighting, with the Japanese firmly entrenched in caves and foxholes, fighting to the death to retain control of the island.“The other two battles I was in, I thought were pretty intense,” Goodrich said. “But (on Iwo Jima) I never saw so many mangled bodies in all my life. The artillery was just something else.”On Feb. 23, 1945, a member of Goodrich’s machine gun squad said, “Something’s going on on Suribachi.”“I had binoculars because I was the crew leader, so I looked up there, and there it was, they had raised the little flag,” Goodrich said. “Then they took it down, and I said, ‘It didn’t stay up there long,’ but it was very hard to see. After while, I don’t know how long it was, they said, ‘Hey, there’s a bigger flag going up.’ That was the one Rosenthal got his picture of.”When the bigger flag went up, Goodrich said, “Ships out in the bay, I could hear them tooting their horns. I thought I could hear men hollering, even. Everyone was glad to see it up. It was a real morale booster to us.”Goodrich’s stay on Iwo Jima ended 15 days later when an enemy machine gun round passed through a letter from a pen pal he had stuck in his shirt pocket and entered his intestines. He lost three and a half feet of his intestines in surgery performed in a tent on an Iwo Jima beach. Of the 250 men in Goodrich’s unit who hit the beach at Iwo Jima, only 22 walked off the island.“And I wasn’t one of them,” said Goodrich, who still has a framed copy of the letter that bears the bullet hole.Today Goodrich lives in Enid with his wife, Peggy. The couple plans to see “Flags of Our Fathers,” once with their grandson, himself a former Marine, and twice with friends.“We’re going to see it until we’re probably sick of it,” said Peggy, laughing.

Cass Montgomery

The 1940 Enid High graduate was a radarman on the Navy destroyer USS McCall on Feb. 19, 1945, when the Marines began going ashore.“The first report we got back from Iwo Jima from the Marines was, ‘There’s nothing going on, we’re just advancing right up the island.’ The next report was, ‘Help,’ they were surrounded. And from there on it got worse and worse.”The McCall was doing patrol duty around the island. During the day the ship pounded Japanese positions with its five-inch guns, and at night it would light up Iwo Jima with incandescent star shells.“We never let the island go dark,” he said. “Every one minute we’d put a shell out and kept the island lit every night.”The McCall earned the nickname “Lucky McCall,” since it was never hit by enemy fire. During the battle for Iwo Jima, however, a destroyer sitting near the McCall was hit by a Japanese mortar and a number of men were hurt. Montgomery was part of a team dispatched to help the injured sailors.Reading about the incident this week in the log book he kept during the war, “Almost makes you cry,” he said. “I’d never seen a captain of a ship cry, but when he buried those guys at sea he stood there and cried.”On Feb. 23, 1945, the McCall was stationed about 1,000 yards off the beach at Iwo Jima.“I was standing on the bridge of the ship,” said Montgomery. “We had binoculars watching and I looked up and said, ‘Hey, there’s a flag on top of Hot Rocks (the sailors’ nickname for Mount Suribachi).’”After the war Montgomery worked at Vance Air Force Base for more than 40 years, retiring in 1985. He continued his lifelong love of aviation and today, at almost 85, still owns his own airplane.During a trip to a reunion of Iwo Jima survivors, Montgomery and his wife, Louise, met “Flags of Our Fathers” author Bradley, whose father, John, was one of the men raising the large flag on Mount Suribachi. They say they’re not sure whether or not they’ll see the film.“He told us at that time they were thinking of making a movie of the book,” said Louise.

Matthew

My brother at his second triatholon,
the biking arm of the race. Nearly finished
at the top of his division!! Strong work!!