Have I mentioned...

how much I love horseback riding? Went again Sunday and had a BLAST, yet again. Got to go (pretty slowly, but still) around some barrels, in a controlled trot. I feel like I am learning so much! I don't have any real ambition to compete (although the trainer was telling me about a 12 year old whose parents took her out of public school and were home-schooling so they could travel and she could compete... well, yeah, she made $170K last year at it !!!). My goals right now are just to become an excellent rider, which could take a while.

This weekend - veggie in my VW

Well, this weekend John & I are going to Blacksburg for the VA Tech game. While we're gone we're leaving the Jetta TDI with an associate of John's, and it will be magically converted to run on VEGETABLE OIL! Yay! Veggie oil is a great sustainable resource and any diesel car can run directly on it if you have a dual tank system (you can't leave the pure veggie oil in the system or it will congeal in cold weather, so you have to start and stop the systems on diesel), or you can mix it with diesel and pump it directly into your tank. See this site for more info on the dual tank system and this one for more info on the mixed fuels system.

I'm so excited! I'm just a bit disappointed that I won't be in town to witness and take pics of the steps of the transformation. I promise I'll take and post some of the completed install.

We're going to get the veggie oil from the guy doing the conversion, he has a great filtering system already in place to be sure its cleaned sufficiently, and he sells it at 25% of the going rate for regular diesel.

He's got the system installed on his car and he says he only fills up the regular diesel tank about once every six weeks. John (geek that he is - got to love him) has calculated the timeframe for full ROI at about a year.

Riders on the storm

I had my first horseback riding lesson since I was, like, 8, today. It was awesome!!! The original plan was to take a couple of lessons, just to get up to speed and comfortable again so that I could do a trail ride with my friend Erica without killing myself, but now that I have been one time (and LOVED it) I'm just planning to keep on going. The stables I rode at do a lot of competition work with the folks they train. Who knows, maybe even this old dog could learn some new tricks.

Katrina

My heart is heavy over the Katrina tragedy. My first instinct is to open our home and take in at least some of the displaced people. Of course cynic John's point of view is, "yeah, but if you do that you don't really know who you're going to get." This is true, and while I admit that it is (more clearly than ever, now) obvious that you might take in someone that would rob you or do something else that was bad, I think the likelyhood of them doing that to you after you open your heart and home would hopefully be very small.

Here are the local Red Cross shelters, I am thinking of seeing if I can talk John into going to one of them with me and picking a family or some people to offer temporary housing to. We don't have enough money to support a bunch more people, but I am also a believer that you have to do the right thing first and somehow needs will be met.

Henderson Gym
701 Willard Street
Albany
GA

Adamsville Recreation Center
3201 MLK Jr. Drive
Atlanta
GA

Central Avenue Church of Christ
304E Central Avenue
Valdosta
GA

Hilton Terrace Baptist Church
2236 Warm Springs Road
Columbus
GA

Georgia FFA SCCA Center
720 FFA Road
Covington
GA

Warren Baptist Church
3203 Washington Road
Augusta
GA

First Baptist Church on the Square
100 Broad Street
LaGrange
GA


Note that the "official" stance on this from Rick Schofield, Response Mgr., American Red Cross is:

(caller with question:) "With so many people left homeless in the affected areas are there any plans or programs for people in other parts of the country to open their homes and take to take in people while the local officials secure and prepare these areas for the return of the local residents?"

Rick Schofield: Although a generous offer, the logistics and challenges with such a donation make it something Red Cross cannot accept. Our role is to provide emergency shelter and assistance and then assist in recovery, working with other terrific local and national agencies.

Original link is here.