BikerBabe

Ladies, I think we should start protesting these guys who post naked pics of themselves, BUT THEY ARE HIDING BEHIND SOMETHING! First we had Larry, our beloved lawyer who hid behind his chair. Now we have Exwaycorps who's hiding behind the board of a fence. If *we* tried getting away with doing a picture like that do you think the guys in here would let us get away with it? LOL. OK, I admit it, it's 8 am PST and I still haven't crawled into bed. Being tired and in my normal warped sense of humor way of thinking ... seeing that naked pig behind the fence board brought back the memory of the pic of Larry. (I kept a copy of that one too Sudo, even though it showed more chair than it did Larry.) I couldn't resist posting and having some fun with the cute piggie. See those of you in chat who are normally there later tonight, if I wake up at a decent hour. I love everyone here, so put your name here on my list ______ .

What about civilians or relatives of those in the military? Can we salute the flag if we love it just as much? While I always do in my head and heart, doing it for real, would feel so much better. Does anyone know the answer to this? My daddy was Air Force, my cousin was a Seal who didn't make it back from Nam, my daughter's father was Army and her husband today is in the military, so I consider myself as having a son in, who's going to Afghanistan in 8 months for a year or more. I have a very close friend (he's ex Way in fact) who's going to Iraq very soon. So yes, I also would love to salute our flag openly at the appropriate times, but am not sure if that's considered something the public are to do if they are not a vet personally and only related to many. I'd surely appreciate it if one of you know the answer, so I know how to act the next time such an occasion would arise. If it's not something for non vets, then I will continue to put my hand over my heart as the flag passes.

50 bucks a bottle?!? They don't even show a picture of it, only the picture that's on the bottle or box itself. 50 bucks for 4 oz of cologne. Not very much for that price. I looked thru their main bookstore site too and all those prices there were very high too. ...and what the heck is it with the 3 bar crosses? I've never seen one like that before and they don't say anything about them, just that they cost up to 110 bucks depending on the size. It looks like a regular cross with a shorter bar piece above the one we normally see (where the arms go), then in the middle of the down piece in the open section that's left at the bottom, the bar piece is diagonal from left side highest, down to the right. Very odd looking and I wonder where it came from. I see a lot of Roman Catholic Church references, is this something that church has? I've never been to a Catholic church so have no idea, but I've never seen any of my friends from that church/religion wearing such a strange looking cross.

Yep, that video was cool Rhino. I sent the URL to DR and he liked it so much he kept a copy of it and was watching it on and off for quite a few hours. LOL. He said to tell you thanks. He likes the good ones like that to add to his ever growing collection of vids and pics. :)

Well, well, you are birthday girl today huh? I sure hope it's been a great one my friend. Wish I was closer so I could give you a BIG hug in person, but ... *sigh* ... will a virtual hug from 1500 miles away be ok? *hugs* I love ya lady.

LOL, since I'm still awake being the night person I am and waiting for ex to get here after he gets off work to go to the store to pick up some meds I need I thought I'd let you know I'm harmless Bumpy, unless you try to hurt me. I didn't include any TWI related rapes in my original post, that one I left out as I think I touched on it before in here. Maybe not, that one is the one that took me the longest to get over. I had broken up with the guy from TWI I'd been going out with, then lived with for quite some time and found my own little place. It was a sweet little one bedroom 'mother in law' house behind the main house in the next town over closer to where I had found a job. One night, the wrong night, I forgot to lock my door I guess because I woke up in the middle of the night to find someone standing next to my bed. He then spoke and I realized who it was and he had been drinking, something he didn't do often so didn't handle it well. He drank with friends from work, which then made him horny. He thought he'd just come on in and see me. I told him to leave and started to get up. That got me pushed down and held down as he took what he wanted in any body orifice he wanted. Finally after about an hour he left. I curled up, cried myself to sleep knowing I had to be up in a few hours for work. I did talk to my twig leader the next day and was told to try to forget it happened and go on with life. Same thing they told every girl. I was told that too, like with the other ones before in the 70's and early 80's I talked about in the other post .. this was in the mid 80's, shortly after VP died. Then about a week later I got some bad food from one of the fast food places I'd hit for lunch I guess. I woke up and hours later when I was able to leave the bathroom the only thing I was passing was water and blood. I couldn't even stand up. I crawled to my bedroom window, thankfully it was low and sat beside it until my neighbor got home from work and called out to him to come help me. I had no phone, but he did. He got me to the hospital and they did all kinds of tests on me. They couldn't figure out exactly when I got the bad food, so we couldn't say which restaurant it had come from. I was reported to the health dept though it was a serious enough type of human transferred virus due to someone not washing their hands then preparing food and told to stay home for a week, which of course meant I lost my job. As I was leaving the ER the nurse handed me some scripts for what the doctor wanted me to take. The last one she handed me, was one for prenatal vitamins. I asked her why he was giving that to me, she said 'oh, you don't know yet I guess, blood tests pick up before you would normally start your period. You are pregnant, congratulations.' I thanked her for all the help I got there and went home and I cried again. Another couple weeks went by and the bleeding started and didn't stop. I was slowly miscarrying and needed to get a D and C done the doctors said when I was again looked at, but with no insurance and no job, I couldn't afford one. They suggested using a woman's clinic since it's the same procedure an abortion is and it was something I had to do. That virus I caught shortly before is what they felt caused me to lose the baby. That was the only thing I could afford after borrowing some money from my mother. My twig leader took me there, holding her baby so the anti abortion group protesting outside wouldn't attack me as they did all the women going in that day. They thought we were going in for her, not for me. She left me there and then picked me up when they said to later on after it was done. I wasn't put to sleep, they just give you laughing gas, twilight sleep my foot. I remember to this day every second of that and knowing as I was losing that innocent baby to begin with, I had to lay there and listen to it all that was left inside being sucked out of me and feel the pain emotionally and physically. While it wasn't a true abortion, I went thru all the same things a woman getting one, against her will, did. You will find many of us here on this site. My circumstances are just a bit different in this case is all. If I would have had insurance I would have been in a hospital sound asleep and never have had to go thru that. Had that boyfriend from TWI not been such a jerk and believed TWI's line about women I wouldn't have been there to go thru it. Had I stood up for myself I would have turned him in to the police, but I instead obeyed leadership. So now I will live with the memories the rest of my life. I found a silver tie tac on one of those black plastic squares they use to show them to you on a rack in a local Christian book store when I first moved to Phoenix 9 years ago. I bought it. It is the size and exact shape of a 10 week old baby's feet in the womb. I keep it still on the black plastic square, pinned on the corkboard that is always next to my computer, wherever I may live. I look at it many times a day and ask God for His peace in my heart for yet another day, till the day comes that my life ends. It really helps me get thru life and I'm so happy I found it. As I look at it now I tear up, those feet are so very tiny, but perfect. 10 weeks is normally the time a woman has an abortion it says on it. I wasn't quite that far yet, but close enough. I know it was made to shock people, but I use it for comfort. I know one day I will be reunited with that baby I lost again in heaven and am reminded of that when I look at it every day. I'm a reunited adoptee, so I don't use the word reunited lightly. When I made the statement in my original post I'd been raped in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I only talked about the near rape. I didn't include the total rape from the 80's because it's still hard to talk about most of the time, I have to be in the right frame of mind to be able to. I was there now, so it was time to post it and add it to the first part of my story already here. The other time I mentioned it I didn't go into much detail I know. ...and I see it's after 6 am which means he will be here any minute, so I have to go run and get ready to go out. Then it will be time to come home and sleep for 'my night' which is actually morning and part of the early afternoon. Typical 3rd shifter. :) Have a great day everyone, see y'all later tonight when I'm online during my 'afternoon' and 'evening'.

Nothing is in plain sight here. Only I know where they are and how to quickly get to them should it ever be needed. One of my ex's was also a nidon in Karate and taught me well. I ranked around a 3rd brown belt before we divorced. I did not want to go to a black belt due to at that time, the state we lived in required you to register your hands once you got your black belt. My soon to be ex hubby, who I'm still buddies with and hang out with daily for the most part, is a retired cop. As I said, I have a lot of the 'toys' of the job around and he taught me how to use them. I've always been a knife fan. I still mourne the loss of my balanced throwing knife I lost in a move. Never have found another one to equal it, but when I do, it will be mine. LOL. If I should ever pull one, I would have every intention of using it and know how to use them. I may look like nothing at my 5 feet even and with the Crohn's my weight can vary from my lowest 9 years ago of 72 pounds to the 104 I am at today, (due to separating from, then starting the divorcing my husband, so I was able to get the SSI and medicare I had qualified for ... if I had no income. Gotta love our Government huh?) but now I'm under the care of a very good pain doctor and G. I. doc. Where I live is mostly disabled and elderly people, so there is no fear to be had in this building and the manager ensures it stays that way. It was where I used to live that I was terrified to go outside the front door with all the drug dealers and gang bangers that had invaded that few block area, as the wave of illegal aliens has now reached that part of town. Now away from there all is good, but I still keep my toys handy, mainly now just out of habit and the feeling of security. Hang around with cops and the like the majority of your life and you kinda pick up the habits of keeping your home, thus yourself, secure.

I don't have a TV, but was able to watch it thanks to David. I see it as the 3rd guy was imitating the sounds the DJ at the club he dreamed about was making and the ahhhh at the end meant he had a great date with Sunny. It also made me remember why I don't have a TV. I miss all the stupid commercials like this one they put out and which seem to get worse each year. Honestly they did give me free basic cable, only 22 lousy channels, none of the good ones you really want, for that you have to pay like 60 bucks more each month for extended basic. I have a winTV unit that enables me to watch TV on my computer, I just haven't gotten around to installing it again since I moved here 9 months or so ago. Guess that shows how much TV means to me. LOL.

I had no intentions of giving up my virginity until I found the man I would marry. I made this very clear to every guy that liked me when I was a teen so he knew he wasn't gonna get any from me. The ones that stayed I knew were there to enjoy time with me and not just to try to get me into bed. I was still young, just about to turn 16. I met the guy I was hanging out with and considered my boyfriend at the beach. He was 18 and spending the summer in town with his father. He had gotten the same talk all guys got and we'd been going places together, driving around town in his little VW bug for over a month. He smoked pot on occasion and asked me always if I wanted some, which I declined. I wasn't into drugs. He always asked though .. daily. One day I guess I just got fed up with it and said sure, figured I'd smoke it once with him and he wouldn't bother me again. The next thing I remember we were at his dad's house and he was helping me down the basement stairs to where he had made his makeshift bedroom for that summer. We hung out down there and watched TV quite often. That night though, he decided to take advantage of my inability to function due to the pot and he didn't stop where he normally did and I lost the one thing that mattered to me the most. Funny part was I didn't know how to have sex all the way even. I wasn't a bit curious due to wanting to wait. Kissing and hugging were plenty for me at that point in my life. I just had no desire to know until I was ready to marry, then knew I could find out from my mom or books. Turned out I never got that chance and I found out how it was done while I was in a position where I couldn't stop it. All I could do was lay there as the room spun in circles and everything went out of control. I broke up with him shortly after that night and didn't bother saying no to other guys after him I met, it didn't matter anymore, what I treasured was gone and I couldn't get it back. This was in the mid 70's. In the 80's I was home alone with my newborn son and my brother in law stopped by. He was married to my then husband's sister. He asked to use the rest room and I said sure, then heard him call me. I had to use cloth diapers on the baby due to his sensitive skin and I had a messy one soaking in the toilet. I went in there and removed it, then left him so he could use it. I stopped in the hallway and put the diaper into the diaper pail and as I was walking back down the hall towards the living room, he came out of the rest room right behind me. That's when he started to try to grab me. I ran into the living room before he caught me, threw me down on the floor and attempted to get my clothes off and kiss me. I bit his tongue as hard as I could which made him stop and relax his grip on me enough that I could get away. I ran to the front door and opened it and went out onto the patio. I then ordered him to leave my house and never come back again. When my husband got home I told him I was almost raped and by whom. He told me to go ahead and call the cops and make a report, he didn't care if the guy was married to his sister or not. I did just that and even though I did not press charges, I wanted the cops to scare him so he would never do this again. They did their job well. I'm still friends with that cop to this day in fact and have enjoyed watching him rise in his dept. thru the years. Doing this alienated me from the rest of the family of course and to this day they still hate me. They never believed he would do such a thing and claim I made it all up. I had been friendly with him until that day, so had no reason to make such a story up unless it was really true. Then the 90's hit. I was divorcing yet another husband and stopped by the house to pick up some of my belongings. He was not supposed to be there and until I was inside the house I didn't know he was. I was in the bedroom getting clothes when he came in and closed and locked the door. I told him to get away from me (I was leaving due to physical abuse prior) and to unlock the door so I could leave. He of course blocked my way, threw me down on the bed where I fought him until I had no strength left. He then said goodbye to me 'his way' as he so put it. He didn't hurt me physically, but he really showed me what a sleeze he was by doing that. Now it's the 2000's. I would pity any guy that tried to touch me that I didn't approach first or given permission to saying he could. Within reach as I sit here at my computer, where I spend the majority of my time, is a blackjack that I would not be in the least bit scared to hit someone with. On the shelves next to me on the left I have a very sharp Buck knife and one very intimidating looking bayonet. On the floor to the right I have a police baton with handle that I know how to use if needed. On the other other side of the room there is a bigger blackjack and a straight baton too. There are sets of handcuffs all around this place. Being with a retired cop for almost 9 years I've gotten quite a collection of nice 'toys'. On the table to the right behind one of my speakers is a bottle of pepper spray. While I've never had a need to use any of these weapons, I feel more secure when I know they are within reach when I am home alone. My cellphone is always within reach too. I'll be damned if I get raped in the 2000's. The 70's, 80's and 90's were plenty enough for me in my life. Catcup gives wonderful advice and knows what she's talking about ladies. We all handle it differently when it happens to us. I am fortunate in that I'm the type who can go thru very bad times (what I've talked about above is the least of things I've been thru), without needing to talk about it to someone else, like a doctor, in order to move on. I couldn't have afforded it even if I wanted to. I just accept it happened and moved on. I thanked God I wasn't physically hurt and so there was no lasting damage. The sun always came out the next day and I would begin again as they say. I've talked to many women online who had the opposite reaction though and done my all to give them a shoulder and drawn from my own personal experience to help them if I could in any way. I do that to anyone on any painful issue that happens in life if I've been thru it, which more than likely I have. Due to losing what I treasured most at almost 16 years old, I made some really bad decisions for many, many years after that. Add TWI into the mix and you have what would make a great Movie of the Week if I ever sit down and write it all out, or so I've been told by those who have heard the majority of my stories. If by talking about the painful things I've been thru, I can help people learn from it and avoid it happening in their lives, then it was worth my going thru it. I do that a lot online with the young teens I meet in different chats I go to. The ability to openly talk about it all helps me, knowing that by telling them the stories, then they will never go thru it in the first place. So it's all good.

I know 2 guys online who did invest in MS back then, they are very rich today. *sigh* Wish I would have done it, but back then I had no income at all and was going thru a divorce, so investing wasn't on my mind. Besides being online since late 1993 / early 1994, I also dated my ISP for 2 years. He's the reason I learned what I did, as he'd let me play at the console when I was at the office, much of the time at his root prompt. :) I never broke anything thankfully as I surely didn't have $150,000.00 to replace his DEC Alpha 2100. Beautiful machine, I miss it, even if it was as big as my refrigerator. Hahaha, when he moved into a new office, I even got the honor of being the one who got to plug in the T-1 line! That will always be one of my favorite memories about my first years online. Back then it was a big deal to have a T line, today my cable connection is just as fast as the T was then. It's been a true joy watching the internet grow and change. The only thing I hated was when spam started, I had been online over a year before I got my first spam email ... today, even with filters, I get 10 to 20 times that daily. I think it was during the summer season in 1994 when my then boyfriend who owned/operated the ISP offered TWI a free website with as much space as they needed. They turned the offer down and then locally I was told to make a choice, TWI or the internet. Told them I'd think about it and slowly faded away so I didn't get kicked out and lose touch with family that remains in to this day. I often wonder if they even realize what they turned down, it's not often you get such an offer and now that they finally did decide to get a website, instead of it being free, it gets paid for by ABS I'm sure. What a waste.

I seem to have a little problem here. When my ex roommate was kicked out of here by the manager after he went nuts on me (long story, ask in PM if really interested), seems to have stolen my WinXP Pro discs. It is going to be some time before I can afford to upgrade and get Vista, couple years perhaps, SSI doesn't go far every month after I pay my bills. If there is anyone out there that upgrades to Vista and has no need for their copy of XP Home or Pro, I would love them forever if they could pass their copy on to me and let me register it on my machine here. There is a good chance I will need the full version, but if that isn't what those willing to pass theirs on have, I still have my full win98 discs and my upgrade to ME that I could install first, then use an upgrade to XP Home or Pro. LOL, just a lot more time consuming doing it that way for sure. I will leave the question if this can even be done and work to those in IT work here. I've heard from some people it would and heard from others that MS won't allow it and as soon as Vista is installed your old version of XP will be marked in their files and it can't be used by someone else that's stuck in my position and needs the CD's in case of a crash. If they are going to allow it, then I ask anyone who's upgrading and not needing their XP discs anymore to not toss them out, send them to me and let me install them here so I am assured if I crash, I can reinstall without a problem. Thank you to anyone who can help me with this. I don't like sitting here knowing I have no way to fix this box if it crashes other than to drop back to ME which is the only disc I have left after he stole my XP Pro ones. *sigh*

Guts? Cool, I can *prove* I have guts, but will behave myself for a change and not post the URL to the picture I had the surgeon take of the foot section of my small bowel he removed that the Crohn's Disease had destroyed. Sorry, it's late and y'all know my humor is warped anyway and gets worse when I get slap happy later at night. Seeing guts in that list when I read it, just had it calling to me and I had to post. LOL. Consider this the humor break in the thread. Seriously, I have always pretty well said what I thought, which is why I was normally always in trouble in TWI with the higher ups for something I said or did. I never went higher than the Inter. class, knowing that if I did, then I'd end up getting myself kicked out and due to family members still being in, I had to avoid that happening. I did my best to protect them from being used for many years till I just couldn't take it or fake it any longer and had to fade away before I got M and A'd which would have resulted in TWI telling them never to speak to me again. Thus we can still talk on the phone to this day thankfully. I think the 20 years I gave to TWI was more than enough and even though I was aware of all the crap really going on as early as 1979, I stayed until 1994 due to the love and concern I have for family still in, who bought every word TWI told them hook, line, and sinker and were open to be used if I wasn't around. (The using did happen off and on after I did leave.) They will probably never get out, but at least I'm thankful I am able to call and talk from time to time. It would have been hell had I gotten myself M & A'd and never had contact again. I will say the relationships are very different now that I'm not in though, the love and closeness feeling left years ago, shortly after I got out. I just have to remind myself where it comes from .. TWI .. it's not the true person saying rude things to me, it's Corps training and Advanced Class teachings that changed them into how they think today, so I ignore it and avoid talking about anything TWI at all. I remember who they were prior to TWI and keep praying one day they will leave, but am not expecting to see that happen. After getting out I grew stronger yet mentally and have been told by many I'm the most obstinate woman they've ever met when it comes to something important to me. I openly agree with them and know I'm stubborn as a mule at times. I will stand my ground if I feel I'm right and won't back down no matter what they try to get me to change my mind. If it turns out I'm wrong, I'm strong enough to admit that too and will when I apologize to the other person for being wrong. I got in TWI at 16 years of age and I left 20 years later still mentally at the same stage. It's taken many years of hard work to 'grow up'. I still don't think like most people my age who were never in a cult. At least I am up to around 25 to 30 now emotionally and growing more towards where I should be at my 50 years of physical age every day. I think that was one of the worst things TWI did to me was to keep me from growing mentally in age thru the years, so when I got out it was very hard for me to communicate with people my own age. I still have many friends half my age that I relate to great and some my own age I just don't understand at all at times, but then they grew up outside of TWI. Once I explain it to them, they then do realize what I've been thru and will help me to understand them, which in turn helps me grow up more mentally to my real age. I'm sure there's plenty of you out there who've experienced or are going thru the same thing. Isn't it wonderful to be out finally and be able to say things like 'no' or 'I don't feel that way about the subject at all', without condemning ourselves. Feels good to stand up on our own two feet and speak our minds, like we should have been able to do our entire lives, but we had that stolen from us by TWI when we were still in.

It seems a latin cult leader in the Miami area who truly believes he is Jesus, but his wife wouldn't quite agree with that and is saying so in divorce court! You can find the video on CNN here: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/20...rcing.jesus.cnn I hope that link works, if not, I found the story as I scrolled down thru their main news page more towards the bottom. It's a section on left called Video and they have thumbnails you can click on to start the vids playing. He really has a nice sized cult going down there with many followers who find him blameless of course. There's some good scenes of him 'in action' during one of his services and the place is packed. He reminds me of a Latin VP from what I saw in the video and is also very loved by everyone in his cult, one guy even says when he sees the leader he sees God, not a man....that's scary! Thanks to his wife and divorce court though, now the government is starting to look a little bit closer at this cult. Hahaha. I'll shut up now and you can go watch it and see it all yourself, much better than I can put it into words.

I just checked over my bottle of Chlorpheniramine Maleate (Allergy Relief Antihistamine, for those who don't know it by the chemical name) and all it shows is that it was distrubted by CVS. There is no where on the bottle that says where it is made. You could try asking the pharmacist where you buy yours, but I am not sure he would even know. OTC (Over The Counter) meds they aren't as involved with as they are with the drugs they give out via prescription. BTW, I have tried almost every antihistamine on the market and this is the only kind that doesn't leave me with a hung over feeling the next morning. I have bad sinuses and insomnia, so along with a prescription form of drug called Vistaril (HydroXYzine Pamoate capsules, USP) 25 mg I take one of the Allergy Relief tablets at bedtime. The Vistaril leaves me nodded out in my chair for hours after getting up the next day if I take more than one. He originally told me to take 1 or 2 by mouth daytime and 1 to 4 more at bedtime to help with sleep. Hahaha. I took 2 and I couldn't stay awake the next day. Then I tried only one and mixed it with the OTC Allergy pills and bingo, works great. My doc just laughs and tells me once again I confirm I react so totally different to drugs than normal people. :) At least we found a combo that works when mixed with 2 Soma and 10 mg of Valium. I now can sleep thru an entire night without waking up instead of waking every half hour to hour on the half hour to hour all night every night. It feels wonderful to finally be able to sleep again, breathe while I'm sleeping and feel rested when I wake up the next day. My paradoxical reaction to the high amount of pain meds I take for the Crohn's and Fibro is the cause. Instead of pain meds making me sleepy like normal people feel, they do the opposite and keep me awake. It's like I've taken speed of some sort that keeps me awake (just not the high that real speed would give LOL). Via trial and error, we finally came up with what combo of other drugs works to make me able to get tired and fall asleep in a couple hours after taking them. Anyway, I wish I could offer you more help. I know a lot about meds after having so many tried on me thru the years, but where they are made at I can't answer. If a pharmacist can't help, the only other person I could think of to ask would be the person responsible for buying the OTC drugs for that chain of stores you buy yours at. S/He may know where they are made since all that info should be in the wholesale book the buyers would use to choose the drugs. This is only a guess though, hopefully someone else here will know exactly where you can find out and save you a lot of hassle. I am happy to hear you found the great antihistamines though. I try to tell everyone I know about them, since not all of them on the market use that chemical, in fact most don't and that is why you are left feeling so tired still when you wake up the next day. I check bottles for the ingredients so I'm sure I'm buying the one I need.

Now, now Excie, you know 11 pm to some of us, *cough* *cough*, is just like 11 am is to day people. I did get up early today though ... at 2:30 pm, so I bet I will actually go to bed (my) tonight at 4 to 5 am instead of my normal 6 to 7 am. :) (You *know* I couldn't resist saying that to ya sweetie.) John, I have emailed with you many times, but not in the past few years due to illness mainly. Now that I am under a doc's care and on SSI, I do owe you one if nothing more than to say hi and how much I love you for all you do to help the victims of TWI personally as well as in here. You may not know me under this nickname as I more than likely emailed you using my real name, which very few know. It doesn't matter though, I'm not writing this to be remembered for emails done back then, but to just say hi and how loved you are by so many on this site who have been helped by your website. :)

Toppie, if you are serious and want to get rid of it, I would love to have it. I would like to read it. I would go nicely with the proof drawing given to me by Meg that ended up being used as the cover of the children's book TWI put out. I love unique things I guess you could say. You should still have my phone number, if not, drop me a line and I'll give it to you again or call you if you say to. I have yours in my cell.

Was just gonna say what Bear did. I take Soma for my Fibro and there are two generic brands that most pharmacies use. One brand (Watson) work great for me, the other which I forget the name of, doesn't work at all. When I was given the other generic I took my normal dose and it felt like I'd taken nothing at all they were so bad. The burning pain in my shoulders would not go away the entire month I was taking them. It was explained to me what caused the difference was the inert ingredients used to hold the pill together, since the medicine itself is the same, only the bonding / inert stuff the companies use can vary. I got the Watson brand again and all was back to normal and I had no pain at all the following month. The pharmacy I use now carries both brands, so they wrote on my file that I need the Watson brand of Soma, so they are sure they give me the correct kind. I've had the same thing, but not as noticable with other meds over the years too. When added to my paradoxical reaction, it makes for fun times. LOL. If you ever find a drug you take suddenly doesn't work the same, ask someone at the pharmacy if they have changed who they are buying them from and if the inert / bonding ingredients are different. If they won't be going back to the kind that helped you, then I'd suggest asking them what it's makers company was named and find a pharmacy who does use that brand and change over to them. I've had to do that a few times in the past in different places I lived.

No surprise to me. They stopped allowing smoking in their parks except in a very few designated areas a few years ago. Remember they are family oriented, so would want to show evil smokers or allow them in their parks. They do have Gay Day at all their parks though. I'm still trying to figure out how they consider that family, since it's obvious gays can't have a baby together unless they involve a 3rd party of the other sex or use an artificial form to conceive. A few states allow them to adopt too. I have nothing against gays, have friends that are, I just think that it's odd that something legal Disney will say is evil and ban, then go against what is considered family by having Gay Day every year in their parks.

OK, I'll spill the beans here with my story. My neighbor has Cerebral Palsy and uses a power chair when he is outside his home. Most of the time I will ride my bike and he travels behind me in his chair when we go places together. One day we needed to go up to the grocery store to get some Pepsi, which is easily put in his lap on the return trip home. I decided to walk that day though. Keep in mind here we are both 50ish and have the same warped sense of humor. Probably not a good combination. LOL. It was rush hour when we took off for the two block trip and we live on one of the major roads in town, so it was packed bumper to bumper with cars. As soon as we got out on the sidewalk from the driveway of our complex, I just couldn't resist it .. I jumped on the back of his chair and held on by wrapping my arms around the headrest. Of course I hadn't pulled my hair back that day, so it was hanging loose. (For those that don't now, it's down to the bottom of my butt now in length and NO David, you still can't have it for your fiddle bow.) People driving home after a long day at work proceeded to get a 'show' of two old farts having the time of their lives, my hair flying in all directions around us and the two of us laughing from the fun of doing it just as they were at seeing such an amusing sight on their way home from work. We are now thinking about digging out my wheelchair from the closet where I stashed it once I no longer needed it. Mine is a regular one, so I need someone to push me or move it myself. We are going to get a long piece of rope, tie one end to his power chair and I'll hold on to the other end behind him and he will pull me around the block. That should give the homebound rush hour folks a good laugh too we figure. If possible, we are going to try to do it on a day when my soon to be ex hubby is around with his camera, which also does video. Then I could put it up on My Space along with the video I have there now of me on my bicycle at night with all my blinky lights going, so everyone can see I am really very safe riding after dark. Handicapped people are no different than us, except they are confined to sitting in a chair. They still have the same emotions and thoughts we do and in the case of my neighbor and I, can be a lot of fun to hang out with! I think the only thing I really hated when I was using my chair full time was that smile people would give me as they looked down at me sitting in it. It always felt like they were 'sorry' for me and couldn't think of anything to say, so would smile to cover up that fact. I've heard that from others in chairs too. When I see someone in a chair I will say hi to them the same way I would an able bodied person or at times, if they look like they have a good sense of humor, crack a line like 'well darn, wish I had my chair with me, we could have a race'. That one is a good ice breaker and makes it very clear I don't feel any different about them than anyone else I meet while out and about. My neighbor's chair died recently (it was pretty old) and they weren't able to find the parts needed to fix it. For now he's using a loaner and they are building him a new chair. I can't wait till he gets it so I can take a ride on it like I did the old one. LOL. A new one will look better in video too when we do our rope pull. His old chair was starting to really show it's age. Hopefully in a couple of weeks he'll have his new one and then as soon as we find a long rope, we'll do our video. If you think Loren would get a kick out of it David, make sure to tell me and I'll send you the URL to where it will be online as soon as I get it uploaded.

I remember well one branch leader who decided to take me on. First the background then I'll bring him into the story. My then hubby and I were sent to Pocotello, Idaho for our WOW year. NOT exactly the place to send 2 hippies and 2 single women as the only family going there. We were allowed to rent separate places, which was the only good part of the whole WOW experience. The ladies found an apartment and we found a single wide mobile home not too far away from each other. By the end of the first month there we had our nice rednecked neighbors shooting off their guns at night to get our attention. The next morning we'd get presents from them ... shotgun shells left on the windshield of our car. Next the girls were over one day and when I walked down the hallway back to our bedroom, I encountered one of them near the doorway. She had plastered my hubby against the wall and had one big liplock on him as he struggled to get free from her. (He wasn't a big man physically, she was actually bigger than him in height and weight.) If I wasn't so angry at what I saw I probably would have laughed given how funny it did look. I asked very loudly 'just what the hell do you think you are doing?' and she then realized I was there. She backed off him quick and said 'oh I was just giving him a little hug for being such a great man of God'. I said something like 'yeah, it looked like that too, uh huh, now get the hell out of our house'. Next I call VP and told him about what was going on. He said 'leave and leave now, you can go out WOW again another year, but that is not the place for you to be this year'. With his blessing, we packed up everything in our car and drove home. We stayed at my mom's house when we first got back till we could find an apartment. Then the branch leader heard we were there and it was just a couple/few days. Next, one morning at like 7:30 am we heard LOUD persistant knocking on the outside porch screen door by someone. We had been out with friends till 4 am so with just a couple hours of sleep it took me a minute to get up, get a robe on and walk outside to the screen door to see what the racket was about. It was the Branch leader, with the local Twig and asst. Twig leaders. I asked them to return later, explaining we had just gotten to bed. He insistsed on talking to us right away. I finally said ok, come on inside and he stomped into the house. I went in the bedroom and told my hubby to get up and then went into the kitchen to grab a Pepsi to try to get caffine in me to wake me up a little. That totally annoyed the BL because I kept him waiting and he said so. I told him if he wanted to talk to me he could, but he had to let me be coherent or forget it and leave. Of course he stayed. I sat down, lit up a cig and then he started.....'GET YOUR ASSES BACK TO IDAHO RIGHT NOW!' Yelled at the top of his lungs. I just looked at him and said no, sorry, we aren't going back and VP told us to leave and his word overrules anything you have to say to me as far as I'm concerned. He proceeded to start calling me nice names such as slut, whore, etc and accused me of coming 'home' to where all my friends were so I could sleep around with the guys. I said to him 'Ummm, I am married and faithful, I think you should be more concerned with the asst. twig leader here who's pregnant with a married man's child'. That was supposed to be secret info that only the 'few' knew, but I had learned about it and I wish I had a picture of the look on her face when I said it. She thought I had no idea till I said that about her. It also pretty much the key to his explosive 'GET YOUR ASSES BACK TO IDAHO NOW!' once again. I said 'if you have nothing more to say than the same things, please leave now or I'm going to help you leave by throwing you thru the picture window'. He saw I was dead serious and while I may not have been able physically to actually toss him thru a window, I could call the police and ask for an officer to come there and escort him off my property. He and the girls took their leave informing me as they walked out that I was banned from every twig in the entire state. I thought that was pretty cool and said so, which just upset him more. Hahaha. We had already decided, due to lack of jobs in that area, we were going to move to the state my hubby was originally from anyway, the BL just didn't know that and I wasn't about to tell him. Being banned from twigs in a state I wouldn't be living in didn't do me any harm at all. To this day I still don't get it why that BL didn't *get it* that we left the WOW field because VP told us to due to the danger he felt we were in and the exchange between our WOW sister and my hubby. Talk about being on a power trip ... to think that he could order us to go against what VP said to do and we'd obey him. Just totally crazy and this all happened in 1977, long before the face meltings became popular. I had gotten one from that twig leader a year prior also. Or should I say she tried to give me one. She started yelling and I told her to shove it or something like that and turned around and walked out of her apartment. Next she tried it to my mom, yelling about me and my mom told her to quit calling me names and accusing me of untrue things, none of which was a twig leader's business anyway and then she also walked out of the woman's apartment. The twig leader gave up at that point, there was no one else she could talk to and try to turn them against me. I didn't hang out with anyone from the twig, all my friends were non TWI people. Anyway, that's how my WOW year started and quickly ended. I never went again, no desire in the least. I never ran into that BL again thru the years, but did get into it years later with one from Florida who had the same attitude. He really didn't like me, but put up with me cause he did love my mom dearly. He only had to deal with me when I was there visiting her anyway and then only if he happened to stop by or we went to some event together and ran into him. I never did do authority well and I don't do as I'm told to do without questioning it from all angles first to make sure it's something good for me. Needless to say, I spent a lot of my time in TWI upsetting everyone higher up than me, which was almost everyone since I never went higher than the Int. class by choice.

I put this 'song' on my bulletin section of myspace. Thought I'd paste a copy here and hope it gives you all a laugh too. Happy Birthday to me ...... Happy Birthday to me .... Happy Birthday I hit the big 5-0 ... Happy Birthday, hello AARP.

Hahaha, when I got online, windows wasn't able to be used yet on the net. The good old days when everyone was using a unix shell account and things got done easily. Once the net got popular though and 'heard about', along came windows and Macs and GUI to the internet. *sigh* That's when I got my first ever spam email and started hearing about viruses. I stayed with my dumb term and modem to my shell for a long time, then even after getting a computer didn't use windows and a PPP account, stuck with my shell since I mostly did IRC anyway and owning the network it was easier to already be in a shell with screen installed so I could open a new window and do any work needed on the code. I won't go into all I have to go thru to even get to the shell account today using windows, it would be a book. LOL, *big* difference. My downfall was having windows 3.1 on that first computer and learning about games. I was an instantly hooked gamer and today build my own windows computers so I can play the 100+ games I have amassed over the years. I also moved and the ISP's of today don't offer shell accounts anymore really. I still have one on the box my IRC network runs on of course, but the other 13 I had scattered around the world way back when are all long gone as the little ISP's got bought out by the big guys. I still remember having to learn to use windows. I think the guys online in IRC who helped me wanted to shoot me on a daily basis ... it was soooo hard to learn and I always had to know where my mouse was cause I couldn't type in my commands anymore, I had to use that darn mouse to point and click at little things on the screen. *sigh* Soooo much slower and I was at that point in time sitting on a love sofa at a makeshift desk out of boxes, so constantly lost that mouse under the cushions. I did finally learn and made the transition much to the guys relief and was functional in pIRCh without their help anymore. So there ya have it from the odd one who learned all this stuff backwards so to speak and had to go from unix to windows instead of the normal windows to trying out unix. These days I'm running FreeBSD on my IRC box and am very pelased with it. Didn't see it mentioned in other posts, so wanted to get the name out there for those thinking of trying out the different flavors of *nix. It's closer to unix than linux and since I learned on a DEC 2100 box (that was such a sweet machine the ISP/my boyfriend had), I'm still inclined to go with the proggies that use unix commands instead of linux. There is a different in quite a few of them, even in the simple IRC stuff I do. I already was comfy with it all though, so the changes in the way a few commands were typed just depended on my remembering them ... or typing them wrong and watching the box yell at me. LOL. Windows was much harder for me to learn than unix when it came to internet stuff, but I realize that very few will ever agree with me. Had I learned windows first, I probably wouldn't feel the way I do either, but I didn't so for me it was harder to learn after using unix for 5 or 6 years in here.

Hey birthday buddy. I hope yours is a good one this year. :) Do you think this cool spell (high 90's folks, that's unheard of in Phoenix in July, it should be about 110 to 120) is our present from God? Who else could make such a wonderful change to our horrible summer heat and with such perfect timing? Hehe, regardless, enjoy it, have a good one and hope to catch up with you in chat if we ever both get in there at same time. I miss talking to ya!

Twirling a flag IS a lot harder than it looks (you are so right there Bramble), plus requires a good memory for all the routines and fast reflexes when another twirler gets too close to you and you have to duck fast or end up getting smacked upside your head with their flag. I got smacked once, trust me, it HURTS! I twirled thru all my jr high and high school years in the band. I loved it and didn't enjoy playing my clarinet and marching. I changed schools my senior year and was told later that I was the one the graduating squad leader had picked to take her place my senior year. Obviously I didn't get to do that, but just knowing she thought I could lead the flag squad and come up with new routines for the songs that year meant more than words could say to me.

The best thing I found for pain during the years I couldn't afford medical help. I'd get it from kind friends who would share some with me when they could get it. I don't like the high, so only smoked what I needed to get the pain gone so I could get some sleep at night. I would still smoke a bowl before bedtime nightly if I could, but the legal agreement I signed with my pain doc allows me to take no drugs other than the ones I get from his office and the other doctors I see. The drugs I get from my GP and G.I. docs are on a list at the pain doc's, along with what he gives me so they know what should and should not show up in the random pee tests I'm given. If any drugs not on the list are found in the tests, I would be dropped as a patient. I don't really miss it at all. My pain doc has me on enough pain meds that I don't need anything else these days and he allows me to take meds to help me sleep, which is the other reason I smoked pot. I have a paradoxical reaction to a lot of meds, meaning the pain meds that would put most of you to sleep do the opposite to me. They keep me awake, so then I need to take something else in order for me to get some sleep at night. We experimented with a few different things and doses until we hit on what worked best and now I am able to take the pain meds and sleep meds and actually sleep thru the night. I used to wake up every half hour to every hour on the half/hour to hour all night long, so I'm loving this sleep thing now that I'm getting it again. LOL. I am totally in favor of making it a legal drug for pain patients and those who have other medical conditions that it helps. I don't see that ever becoming a reality though, since the most outspoken group are the people who smoke it to get high and have no medical problems. They make it look bad and that reflects on the people who really DO need it's medical properties.