The "I can see all of you" X-ray at the airlines

Have you heard about this x-ray machine? It's also called the "Whole Body Imaging" scan. Have you seen this? No? Well here ya go..

http://privacycoalition.org/stopwholebodyimaging/

This is a virtual strip search and more and more aairlnes are proposing to have them. Here in Las Vegas they are used on internation flights and I heard that other airlines are going to be getting them next year.

I plan on signing this petition to stop these virtual strip search x-rays because it really seems like an invasion of privacy to me. I can only guess at the things the people who would be looking at these screenings would be saying to one another or to their family members after work. And what happens to the imprint after you go on your merry way onboard the airline? Is it stored in a data base for others to look at and laugh?

I will never, ever fly on a plane again regardless of the use of this machine. With so many problems popping up with the airlines, I think people should boycott the airlines until they get their shit together.

I just wanna know...

What's up with the Im, chat, texting or emails instead of an actual phone call or handwritten letter?

You know what made me think of this? I used to write letters all the time, and then we got a computer and now I write letters jsut to the people who don't have a computer. I still call my mother almost everyday and I call my brothers. My sister called me the other night and we talked...not texted.

I don't have a cell phone and I don't need one, I don't want to be texting with my family instead of actually talking to them. I used to put my Im on when I was on the computer but I got so irritated with it that I don't turn it on anymore.

I want people to have courtesy when someone is chatting with them in IM and if they want me to converse with them, do the same for me. Otherwise it's just annoying. I used to love talking to some people on yahoo Im, others, I just sent an IM now and then, cause I am not gonna converse to LOL HAHA LOL LOL :) HAHA LOL LMAO. I'm not asking for a super IQ chat here, most people know me to be a tad goofy and sometimes there is a thought inspiring chat, but I'm not a difficult person to talk to. I only ask for people not to be idiots. Is that too much to ask?

When was the last time someone under the age of 18 wrote a handwritten letter because they wanted to? Not many I'm guessing.

Fire Safe Cigarettes

My husband got to talking about how the cigarettes have changes since they became Fire safe. I don't smoke, never have so I didn't notice anything different with them. Well, except for the cussing all the time from hubby because his cigarette goes out after less than a minute if he doesn't inhale on it.

That's the big thing on these cigarettes, you either inhale alot...alot more than some people were doing before they became fire safe, or your cigarette goes out and you have to relight it.

I was doing some research online about these cigarettes and found out that in order to make them fire safe, they had to use chemicals that have harmful proven side effects.

People are coughing more, getting headahes, light headed and sick to their stomaches just to name a few.

I don't think most people know that there are chemincals used in these new fire safe cigarettes than are more harmful now. Even the glue they use to seal the cigarette was changed and now has more chemicals in it to make the cigarette fire safe.

How crazy is that?

Now people who used to light a cigarette and for the most part just hold it in the hand and take the occasional puff...are having to take a puff every minute in order to keep it from going out...Does that sound like it's safer for people as well as being fire safe? I think not.

Great gifts..

This year I got great gifts but the best was having my entire family over for christmas dinner. That and the fact that everyone got along..lol

This year I received gift cards to:
Starbucks
Borders Books
Visa gift card
iTunes
and bath stuff, scarf and I bought myself a bunch of books with the points I turned into amazon.com gifts cards from the survey websites I have been taking surveys from all year.

My daughter got a huge surprise this morning when a neighbor came over with a brand new 10 speed bicycle for her. The neighbor had bought it because she thought she was going to lose her driverse licrense when she got a ticket, but when she went to court she got her license back and didn't need the bike. So she just gave it to my daughter. How nice was that?

Good news

So I just hear that airline passengers now have new rights. There are new rules regarding how long the airlines can keep people on the tarmack. After 2 hours food and water have to be offered now and after 3 hours they have to take the plane back to the gate and let everyone off. I think this is so much better than what had been happening. Some people have been stuck in planes for 18 hours or more with no food, no water and restrooms that didn't work. That had to stop.

Bunny

My husband found a bunny in the alley this morning. Now I need to find her a good home. I would keep her but my daughter is allergic.

Interview!

I was recently interviewed by Sabah Karimi on The AC Weekly about my articles on Associated Content. http://theacweekly.wordpress.com/2009/12/12/meet-ac-rockstar-mary-kirkland/

I really enjoyed the interview and if you want to read my articles..... http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/37985/mary_kirkland.html

You can always get to them by clicking on the links on the right hand side of this page as well.

Wrapping presents

I was wrapping a few presents today and sure enough tore through the paper a few times because the box I was trying to wrap had some small edges sticking out and it kept poking through the paper. I ended up putting the whole thing into another box and wrapping that.

Sometimes I really dislike wrapping stuff and want to just through it all in gift bags and be done with it. The thing is gift bags, at least to me don't give the same feeling as a wrapped present. I don't know if it's just me or maybe others feel the same way.

I've found some interesting ways of wrapping odd ball shaped presents though. I once had a small oblong round plastic tube shaped present to wrap and decided to to the 'tootsie roll' wrap on it. Put it in the middle of the paper and wrap the ends with ribbon so it looks like a piece of candy.

worked well enough.

The wall tree

Years ago when my daughter was really little, we didn't have enough money to buy a real christmas tree that year for christmas and we didn't know what we were gonna do. So my inventive hubby went to the dollar store and bought some cheap garland.

I had no idea what he was gonna do with it, but as you can see...we had our christmas tree. I had a few ornaments and some lights that we also put on our wall tree and we were so proud of it, we showed it to everyone that year.

Ken (my hubby) even made the star that's on top of the tree. He cut it out of cardboard and painted it.

This is one of my favorite christmas tree's we've ever had.

Christmas Pets

Well it's almost Christmas now, so I thought I would share a couple of of pets pictures.

The first two pictures are of my dwarf hamster, Chance and of my rat Romi.
Chance is eating pumpkin pie by the pine cones me and my daughter painted, while Romi is sitting in front of the snowman I made. She was sniffing around which is why her neck looks like she is bending down to see what's beneath her, because she was.

The pics of my pets were taken a few years ago and even though they have all passed away, they live on in my heart and in these pictures.