My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings » poke

Izeafest . . .here I come

Lisa — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:29:42 +0000

My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings - A day in the life of a busy mom . . .

Well, I finally did it. There is a conference there in September that I had registered for months and months ago. However, I was looking for a roommate and hadn’t set up my plane or my hotel yet. However, now it is done. I am using the free Southwest ticket I won at BlogWorld last year to fly there (when I called to set up my flight, the lady was so nice and friendly and even spoke English!). We are going to be staying at the Courtyard Marriott. I found an awesome deal on their website (better than the deal that the conference was getting for us!). I wish I would have time to do some fun playing at the theme parks there, but I have to get back to my kids plus the conference has us booked up. Let me know if you are going to be there too, so we can meet up!

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Wednesday’s Hero

Lisa — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 01:00:12 +0000

My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings - A day in the life of a busy mom . . .

This Weeks Hero Was Suggested By Mary Ann

Spc. Jeffrey Jamaleldine
Company C, 1st Battalion, 77th Armor
“How can I say to my sons, stand up for something, fight for what you think is right, if I don’t do anything myself?”

The Jeffrey Jamaleldine that you speak to today is a complete 180 from the Jeffrey Jamaleldine that you would have spoke to in the past. In 1991, Jamaleldin was living in Germany when joined in anti-American protests on Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm boulevard during Operation Desert Storm. “That was the way it was back then,” he says. He was 15 and “America was simply the enemy.” And today, Jeffery Jamaleldine is a wounded veteran of the U.S. Army. On June 6, 2005, after the terror bombing in Madrid, Spain, in the middle of the Iraq war, he showed up at the U.S. Army recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas, to enlist. His father, Bashir, told him at the time: “Son, this won’t be a picnic.”

On June 30, Jamaleldine was on patrol in Ramadi, Iraq. The patrol ahead of him had been ambushed by at least 70 combatants and were now under fire. During the fight, Spc. Jeffrey Jamaleldine was hit in the face by a bullet. In the end, the battle lasted into the next morning and the soldiers were able to stop the enemy from returning to Ramadi.

The article on Spc. Jeffrey Jamaleldine is five pages long, and I simply can not condense it down to only a few paragraphs. You can read the entire story here.

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.

Me? Crazy?

Lisa — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:17:04 +0000

My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings - A day in the life of a busy mom . . .

Bill and I thought we were going nuts for about a week now. Every so often we would hear what sounded like a radio. It was driving us nuts. It wouldn’t last long enough, so we could figure out where it was coming from. Last night, I finally located where it was coming from. I had already tested the speakers from the entertainment center, so I knew it wasn’t coming from there. Bill lifted the love seat last night and guess what we found!

A cell phone. What sounded like a radio was a ring tone. And how did that get there? Well, Bill had a poker party at the house while I was gone and one of his friends spent the night and slept on the couch. It was his phone that has been ringing for the past week!

I am glad to say that I am not crazy and that we got to the bottom of this mystery!

Wednesday’s Hero

Lisa — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:22:03 +0000

My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings - A day in the life of a busy mom . . .

This week’s hero is a good one. Robert Cone is the second Cousin of Wednesday Hero’s partner in crime, Greta.

Robert S. Cone
85 years old from Delray Beach, Florida
506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division

Surrounded by family, feted by a U.S. congressman and a Veterans of Foreign Wars color guard, one of the few surviving members of the “Filthy Thirteen” was honored on October 8, 2006 in a backyard on Massapoag Avenue.

Robert S. Cone, 85, now of Delray Beach, Fla., finally received the 13 military medals he was due for his service on D-Day during World War II, including the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, POW medal and Presidential Unit Citation.

“To tell you the truth, I never expected it. I’m very honored to get it and really feel good about it,” Cone said.

“He’s finding it an honor, and he’s a little embarrassed, to be honest,” said Cone’s son, Edward R. Cone, 45, who hosted the family barbecue that included a visit from U.S. Rep. Stephen F. Lynch.

Only a few members remain of the 101st Airborne Division’s famed “Filthy Thirteen,” an elite parachute and demolition unit that volunteered for a suicide mission on June 5, 1944, the eve of the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

The Filthy Thirteen, who shared a Quonset Hut in England, were a group of “pretty bad boys,” Edward Cone said, renowned for hard-living and fierce fighting. They are believed to be the inspiration for the 1967 movie “The Dirty Dozen,” although none of the Filthy Thirteen was a convict.

The unit’s mission was to parachute behind enemy lines on the night before D-Day to blow up bridges and impede the Nazis.

Many were killed on the drop. The survivors found it difficult to reunite on the ground because the pilots had panicked when the Germans opened fire.

Cone said he spent two days in a hedgerow battle and was shot in the right arm. When he escaped to a French farmhouse, the owner turned him over to the Nazis and he became a prisoner of war.

His unit and his family thought he was dead. His mother, in Roxbury, received a telegram from the War Department saying he had been killed in action.

Cone spent 11 months in three POW camps in Germany before being liberated by the Russians near the Polish border. He fought alongside the Russians as they made their escape, his son said.

Cone walked to freedom through Poland, Russia and Romania, journeyed by ship to Egypt and was eventually flow to Italy, finally making his way home.

All the medal ceremonies had taken place without him.

Cone married Ida, now his wife of 61 years; became a postal worker and plumber; raised three children in Hull; and spoke very little about the war, Edward Cone said.

About four years ago, Edward Cone decided to find out whether any of his father’s Army colleagues were still alive.

He found the Filthy Thirteen’s leader, Jake McNiece, in Oklahoma, and put his father in touch by telephone. Their conversation was recorded by the BBC and played on the anniversary of D-Day.

Later, the History Channel filmed its own segment on the pair, which still airs, Edward Cone said.

The group reunited in Taccoa, Ga., the home of their jump school.

“My Dad and I drove from here to Georgia. I heard everything on that trip,” Edward Cone said. “Three were alive from the unit. They talked and drank and told stories for days.”

Three years ago, McNiece published a book, “The Filthy Thirteen: From the Dustbowl to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest: The 101st Airborne’s Most Legendary Squad of Combat Paratroopers.”

It was McNiece who mentioned that Cone was due a few medals. Edward Cone and his fiance, Kate Guthrie of Leominster, who works at the Statehouse, gathered documentation and contacted Lynch.

The result was the Sunday party, also attended by Cone’s daughters, Ronna Townsend of Monroe Township, N.J., and Natalie Gaudet of Hampton, N.H., and most of his seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Cone admits he never talked much about the war before.

“I really didn’t,” Cone said. “But they insisted I tell the grandchildren and the great grandchildren. So I talk to them. I tell them stories. I tell them true stories. They all enjoy it.”

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.

Heath Ledger Update

Lisa — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:14:09 +0000

My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings - A day in the life of a busy mom . . .

I don’t normally write too much about celebrities on here. However, I was interested in the Health Ledger autopsy results. It is so sad to see someone with so much potential die young. I watched The Patriot the other night and got all teary eyed when I saw him.

“Mr. Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine,” medical examiner’s spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said in a statement. What that means is that he died from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs that included painkillers, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication.

He would have turned 29 on April 4. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and especially his little girl.