Frank Lloyd Wright

I know the price of Success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.
Frank Lloyd Wright

Today I was looking at random quotes when I came across this one by Frank Lloyd Wright. I started to think about the meaning and I realized that this one quote sums up my senior year. Not only my senior year but who I am and what I have worked so hard to accomplish. This is a quote that represents everything I have done to become a senior; all the standards, requirements, every single late night I have spent studying for a test. This quote is about success and being the best you can possibly be, and never giving up. This quote is about reaching the impossible.

I think I will use this quote in my CE presentation.

Gas prices

Every day as I sit down to watch the news, I feel as if I am experiencing déjà vu when I hear the same story day after day: Gas prices have gone up again. We are breaking new records for gas prices every day and it is absolutely ridiculous. Every time I fill up, I am thankful that my car gets good gas mileage and i can literally go for a month without getting gas. However, I can't help but wish that there will be another fuel solution. Will we soon turn to bio-deisle? Will more and more hybrid cars be coming out that are affordable to the public. Will hydrogen be the fuel of the future? There has to be some alternative to the prices that are being thrown at us.

Although prices in the United states are high, i did a little research and found that European countries are actually paying a lot more than us.

"The Dutch have the dubious distinction of paying the most to fill 'er up, according to the U.S. Deptatment of Energy. As of April 10, drivers in the Netherlands were paying the equivalent of about $6.73 a gallon at the pump. The gas itself cost $2.61; the rest — $4.12 — represented tax. That’s a 158 percent tax. By comparison, the U.S. has the lowest tax on gasoline of any industrialized country: about 15 percent at current prices. Elsewhere in the industrialized world, the actual cost of gasoline ranges from $2.15 a gallon (France) to $2.61 in the Netherlands. But the after-tax price is $5.80 in France and over $6 a gallon in most other major European countries. Japanese drivers get off relatively easy: taxes there only push pump prices to about $4.50 a gallon."

This makes me feel a little better about our prices, but as I read on I see that some countries pay between 12 and 40 CENTS per gallon.
"The cheapest places to top off, not surprisingly, are in countries that produce the most oil. In Iraq, until recently, pump prices were capped at 10 cents a gallon. Prices have recently risen to nearly 40 cents a gallon — still a bargain compared to the U.S. Iran also keeps pump prices low — less than 35 cents a gallon, according to a recent Reuters survey.

I don't know what will come to us in the future, but I can only hope that we don't end up paying drastically more than we are now. It would be a miracle to go back to paying less than a dollar for a gallon of gas.

Here's the whole story:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12452503/

CE

Last semester I read everyone’s blogs that discussed CE. I want to know what the class all about and why everyone one always complained about the class and the requirements. The majority of these blogs discussed that feeling and views of the class. I really can’t remember any that were really positive. So I entered CE with a fear, that it was going to be terrible and I was going to hate every day until the end of the semester. I truly believed that it would be a huge burden that I would have to carry around for the last few months of school. The truth is I have actually enjoyed CE. I really don’t mind the paperwork and all the small steps required to journal the progress of my project. I choose to make a quilt; I have enjoyed every step of the process and have learned more then I ever hoped to learn.

Handful of Dust

Right now I am reading the book Handful of Dust. I have to be honest, this wasn't my first choice of books and, after hereing its description I thought it would be rather boring and dry. However, so far I have been pleasantly surprised by the plot and the characters. The book is a satire on the England's upperclass and I often find myself thinking "does this really happen?" and "Are there really people who act this way?" Believe me, usually I am NOT one to often enjoy books that I read for a class. Normally, in an occasion such as this, I would find my eyelids drooping after the first paragraph and have to seriously fight to stay awake. This time, however, the reading is going rather fast. I have been easily reading 50-70 pages a night. Just to give you an idea of the plot (without ruining anything of course) I will tell you that there has so far been a new love interest, a death, and many other interesting twists. I will definately be sure to let everyone know how the rest of the book is, but right now, I strongly recommend this book for people to read if we do another round of book groups. I hope everyone else is enjoying their books as well!

True Joy

For as much as I like all of you, nothing compares to experiencing my daughter. Tate Rose arrived early on Monday morning, 1:33. For the girls who are into all of this, she weighed 7 lbs. and 8 oz. and was 20 3/4 inches long.
I will see you in all in a few days. Remember to do your post for this week and keep up on your reading.

Congratulations!!!!

Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. McNamar! I hope all is well with Baby Tate.

Einstein

I have always loved reading books about various people and their life stories. I find that I would rather read these books then the best selling fiction novel. I think its because I like to read about real life experiences and the impact people have made on the world we live in. A few weeks ago I finished a book about the creation of Google, now I have moved on to The New Quotable Einstein. This is a book with a collection of Einstein’s thoughts and ideas ranging from himself, his family, religion, war, science and mathematics to miscellaneous subjects. I have found the book to be extremely fascinating, even though this is not the first book I have read about Einstein. The book was collected and edited by Alice Calaprice with a forward by Freeman Dyson.

Clinton for president?

No, Bill isn't up for another term, and this is nothing like we've ever seen before. Hillary Clinton, our former first lady and current New York Senator might just be in the race for the 2008 presidential election.

WASHINGTON - Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is raising money like a presidential candidate even though she’s only running against poorly funded Senate opponents.

“It’s mind-blowing. She is raising money at a presidential level,” said Doug Muzzio, a professor at Baruch College in New York.

Considering that 2008 will be the first presidential election that we can vote in, I am quite interested in the idea of Hillary running for president. Think about it, the first time we vote could ultimately be the first year that our country has a female president. I have no idea who she will be running against, if she does indeed run, but in many ways, I already feel that I have a strong idea of her belief system. Actually, I probably know more about her viewpoints than I have known about other presidential candidates...and her campaign is still a whole two years away. One concern that I have, however, is that the voters will have a biased opinion of Hillary that was formed during Bill's years in office. She is not Bill, and she is bound to make her own decisions. According to the amount of money that she has already raised, I think Hillary might just have a chance of winning, and of becoming the first female president in America.

“I didn’t give her money for the Senate, I want her to run for the White House,”

If anyone wants to read the whole article, you can see it online at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12307755/