WELCOME TO SANDLAND!

Friday, August 14, 2009

LONDON CALLING!

So FINALLY after about 2 years of passing through Heathrow on my way home and back to Iraq I got to spend a week in London. The trip was poorly planned but it was a sort of last minute venture. My main goal of the week was to get out to Stonehenge, however, a number of influences put the kaboshes to that.

#1- There is so much to see in London proper, travelling 2.5 hours is a lot of effort when your time can be spent better in the city.

#2- The locals actually say that Stonehenge is the least attractive of the formations in The UK, I will still visit it next time but I want to batch it in with other formations outside the city.

#3- My fuckin feet HURT!!! All week long so I had no motivation, LOL!!

You get the idea, definitly in the future, I very much enjoyed London and I hope you will enjoy it in my eyes! I will post as many pictures as I can, I took about 800 so I may have to break up the posts so they are not too long. So for right now lets start with some of the more popular tourist attractions......CHEERS!!!

THE UNDERGROUND

Also known as "The Tube"

A symbol known worldwide.

Please mind the gap! The Underground trains sit high on the rails, hence the "mind the gap", the trains themselves are very short and narrow, I felt like a giant riding around in them.

......Cause thats where the fun's is!

THE TELEPHONE BOOTHS

Aside from smelling like piss and being littered with empty alcohol bottles and plastered with flyers for local prostitutes, these are very classic symbols of the UK.

THE PUBS!!!

The pubs are many and crowded! Apparently many people leave work and go out to socialize until the pubs close at 11pm during the week. Many are classic looking and have beautiful flower boxes adorning the exterior of the buildings. You are also allowed to drink outside and the sidewalks are lined to show where to stand. At night they have people that act as parking attendants, making sure you drink within the lines! LOL!!

SOME OF THE MORE POPULAR TOURIST SIGHTS...........

TRAFALGAR SQUARE

Positioned in the heart of London, this tourist attraction is the most popular square in the United Kingdom and the world. Nelson's column stands in the center and is guarded by four enormous lion statues at it's base. It is a site of political demonstrations which was named after the Battle of Trafalgar, 1805, a British Naval victory of the Napoleonic Wars. Nelson's column is named after Horatio Nelson, a British Admiral who lost his life in the Battle of Trafalgar.

The Fountain

NELSON'S COLUMN

THE LION GUARD

THE FOUNTAIN
ALWAYS PEOPLE THRUMMING AROUND
THAY POOR MERMAN IS THROWING UP!

Thursday, July 2, 2009

MY FATHER, BEFORE AND AFTER ME

John Ewald Herr: 14-Dec-1939 to 02-Jul-2009

Mom & Dad at John and Christines Wedding.

At Nana's house in New Jersey

This post is dedicated to my father. I have been thinking a great deal about my relationship with my him and while it has been loving and respectful, I feel I need to know more about him now, before he was a father and a husband. Of course I know many stories about his growing up, Military career and courtship with my mother but there is much more to learn, and now, document. Ultimately I would have fared better getting his history from him of course but that opportunity has past so I will rely on family and friends' input. Dad was a master story-teller, quick with a joke and a good listener as well (Unless he was watching TV, right Mom?!). In a way I feel I have failed him as a son, not knowing and understanding him as well as I should. I will try to right myself and share all I can about him with anyone who reads this. He is truly an extraordinary, ordinary man. So allow me to share some pictures and tell you a little about him.

I am sitting in the Hospice center at the Concord Regional Hospital with my family as our father passes from this life. He is being kept in a comfortable state and constantly surrounded by loved ones. To know my father is to know that this course of action is what he would have wanted. He understands the issues with quality of life and, like myself, would never have wanted to be kept alive in a vegetative state. So now, here we sit literally, waiting for him to pass and while I feel deep sadness and pain, I know it is what he wanted and we are all here to guide him into his next life. I hope for his sake he isn't a deer when he comes back!!

With all that is unravelling around us now, I will leave this for now and get into full swing as soon as possible.

Dad and Charlie

I'd like to say this was caused by static electricity but...

My High School graduation, 1985

Mom posted this on Facebook, she said it was taken at a Settlers Dance around 1964. What a great picture.

The Wedding of the Century!!

I am always amazed at photos from the past, they always look so classic.

So the big question is..... Did she smush cake in his face after the picture was taken???

Mom's side of the family, look at little Laura with the devious grin on her face!!

The Wedding Party.

The newly weds with Dad's parents.

More to come as soon as possible!

IMPERMANENCE

There is no place on earth where death cannot find us- even if we constantly twist our heads about in all directions as in a dubious and suspect land.... If there were any way of sheltering from death's blows- I am not the man to recoil from it....But it is madness to think you can succeed....
Men come and go and they trot and they dance, and never a word about death. All well and good. Yet when death does come- to them, their wives, their children, their friends- catching them unaware and unprepared, then what storms of passion overwhelm them, what cries, what fury, what despair!
To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death.... We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.

SOGYAL RINPOCHE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogyal_Rinpoche

A few other quotes on death & dying.......

MONTAIGNE

Death is a vast mystery, but there are two things that we can say about it: It is absolutly certain that we will die, and it is uncertain when or how we will die.

The continuous work of our life is to build death.

Kings and philosophers defecate, and so do ladies. (Not a quote about death, but interesting none the less!)