Mother Nature and her cruel jokes!!!!

Was kind of different being woke up by the furnace kicking on this morning, geesh!! We use heaters and a wood stove to heat in the winter so the furnace very rarely comes on. It's usually the peacock I hear first thing in the morning...but even HE got cold last night and slept in the wood shed with the kitties!! Since the furnace kicked on before the alarm clock went off, I rolled over and attempted to go back to sleep. It seemed like 2 seconds but it was probably 2 minutes and CLICK, Whoa oh China Grove... Don't get me wrong, I like the Doobie Brothers but I hate it when the radio is playing songs my brother used to play. Makes for a hard start to the day. There always seems to be a little 'gut check'. But that's a long story for a different day....

I finally found out I can get some days off at end of June to help my best friend move. She is moving from Kentucky to New Jersey...(tears) Not sure what I will do next time I need a getaway :( She lived like 4-1/2 hours away but now she will be 12 hours away and with the price of gas.....Maybe that's why the song this morning bothered me so much, because things are changing and they will never be the same again. I tried to teach my kids that life is about changes but there's the 'do what I say, not what I do' line I used from time to time too....lol

Okay, on to something else before I get all blubbery at work...The news today from China sure isn't good. (over 60,000 known dead) They had 2 more aftershocks yesterday that destroyed more houses and killed another 63 people. They are also evacuating a large area where the original quake caused some landslides and blocked a river. The blockage has caused a 'lake' to form and is threatening to over flow and flood many towns in low lying areas. Pray that things calm down over there.
Latest news on the Chaiten volcano is that it is still rumbling and from time to time sending ash and gas around 4,000 feet into the air. Danger zone was lifted from 50 km to 24 km so they can get 600,000 Salmon to safety. I liked the way this was written up from the AP:

6,000 tons of salmon are moved from Chile volcano

By EDUARDO GALLARDO – 1 day ago

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — First they saved the people. Then they rescued the dogs and cats. Finally they went in for the fish — 6,000 tons of them — threatened by a volcanic eruption in southern Chile.

Some 600,000 salmon were being moved by boats Tuesday from a fish farm just eight miles from the Chaiten volcano, according to Carlos Odebret, a spokesman for Salmon Chile, the association of private salmon industries.

He said that farm was the last of several to be evacuated because officials recently reduced the size of the prohibited-entry zone around the volcano, making it accessible again to workers.

The volcano began erupting on May 2, spewing vast columns of ash and gas that spread across South America from the Pacific to the Atlantic and beyond.

All 4,500 residents of the town of Chaiten were evacuated soon after the eruption began and the future of the town is now uncertain. It has been flooded by a river that overflowed its banks, damaging scores of houses, and it has been coated in ash.

Authorities rescued hundreds of pets eight days after the eruption and removed thousands of heads of livestock. They then authorized the removal of the salmon.

Odebret told The Associated Press by telephone that small teams worked for days in the salmon operation, aided by the navy, which had speedboats on hand "in case something happened that forced a quick departure."

He said the relocated fish amount to only about 1.5 percent of the annual production of Chile's salmon industry, which has exports exceeding $2 billion a year.

Today in History:

May 28, 1916

Record set at Indy

Barney Oldfield ran a qualifying lap in his front-wheel-drive Christie at 102.6mph. It was the first time any driver had rounded the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in excess of 100mph. Oldfield ended up finishing fifth on race day, as Dario Resta beat the field in his Peugeot. Barney Oldfield is remarkable for having set so many landmarks in so many different places in so many different cars. He had a knack for creating history. It was Oldfield who first drove Ford's 888 cars to success; Oldfield who made Harry Miller famous in the Golden Submarine; Oldfield who beat Ralph DePalma in a series of match races. He somehow always managed to associate himself with the famous figures and venues of his time. He even served a ban for drag racing the African-American heavyweight champion of the world, Jack Johnson.

May 28, 1937

Golden Gate Bridge opens

The Golden Gate Bridge opened to vehicular traffic on this day in 1937. One of the world's largest single-span suspension bridges, the Golden Gate Bridge was designed by Clifford Paine. Paine submitted the final blueprints for approval in 1930. With the official design completed, it took over three years for the builders to attain the approval of the military, the city financiers, and the voting public. Construction of the bridge commenced on January 5, 1933. The bridge's aesthetics were influenced greatly by an assisting architect named Irving Morrow. Morrow had no experience building bridges, but he convinced Paine to adopt many of the Golden Gate's most striking features. It was his idea for the portal bracings above the roadway to diminish in size as they climbed, thereby creating the effect of heightening the bridge. The height of the towers over the water is a breathtaking 746 feet, and the length of the suspended structure is 6,450 feet. Over 80,000 miles of wire went into the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. Morrow was also the driving force behind the bridge's striking color, international orange; he believed a warm color should be used to contrast with the cold tones of the surrounding land. The Golden Gate Bridge cost the community nearly $35 million during its five-year construction. Its name is derived from the body of water over which it spans, Golden Strait. The "gold" comes from the strait's location at the mouth of the North Bay, beyond which lies the gold of California. Other have mentioned that the Golden Gate Bridge is the Gateway to the Land of the Setting Sun, but they didn't mention this until nearly 30 years after the bridge was originally erected.

May 28, 1969

U.S. troops abandon "Hamburger Hill"

U.S. troops abandon Ap Bia Mountain. A spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division said that the U.S. troops "have completed their search of the mountain and are now continuing their reconnaissance-in-force mission throughout the A Shau Valley."

This announcement came amid the public outcry about what had become known as the "Battle of Hamburger Hill." The battle was part of Operation Apache Snow in the A Shau Valley. The operation began on May 10 when paratroopers from the 101st Airborne engaged a North Vietnamese regiment on the slopes of Hill 937, known to the Vietnamese as Ap Bia Mountain. Entrenched in prepared fighting positions, the North Vietnamese 29th Regiment repulsed the initial American assault and beat back another attempt by the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry on May 14. An intense battle raged for the next 10 days as the mountain came under heavy Allied air strikes, artillery barrages, and 10 infantry assaults. On May 20, Maj. Gen. Melvin Zais, commanding general of the 101st, sent in two additional U.S. airborne battalions and a South Vietnamese battalion as reinforcements. The communist stronghold was finally captured in the 11th attack, when the American and South Vietnamese soldiers fought their way to the summit of the mountain. In the face of the four-battalion attack, the North Vietnamese retreated to sanctuary areas in Laos.

During the intense fighting, 597 North Vietnamese were reported killed and U.S. casualties were 56 killed and 420 wounded. Due to the bitter fighting and the high loss of life, the battle for Ap Bia Mountain received widespread unfavorable publicity in the United States and was dubbed "Hamburger Hill" in the U.S. media, a name evidently derived from the fact that the battle turned into a "meat grinder." The purpose of the operation was not to hold territory but rather to keep the North Vietnamese off balance so the decision was made to abandon the mountain shortly after it was captured. The North Vietnamese occupied it a month after it was abandoned.

Outrage over what appeared to be a senseless loss of American lives was exacerbated by pictures published in Life magazine of 241 U.S. soldiers killed during the week of the battle. Gen. Creighton Abrams, commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam, was ordered to avoid such battles. Because of Hamburger Hill, and other battles like it, U.S. emphasis was placed on "Vietnamization"--turning the war over to the South Vietnamese forces rather than engage in direct combat operations.