Preservation

It's hard to believe but someone wants to build a casino at Gettysburg. The Civil War Preservation Trust has an article on this threat to hallowed ground.

Temperatures here in Virginia have been unusually high, around 100 degrees F. Let's hope that global warming is not coming faster than predicted. Yes, there are skeptics. Read about who is financing the opposition to global warming science.

Great photos: wild animals and locales

Marie Javins posted photos of her Antarctica tour and they are delightful to see. From there you can also find her travel photographs of
Tanzania and Kenya Cats,
Ethiopia, African Animals, Tribes of East Africa, Papua New Guinea,
Australia, and Sri Lanka.

Northern Virginia Physicians

It's been a year since we moved from the D.C. area but I still drive up there to see two favorite health professionals: my allergist Pierre Gagnon and my dentist Bob Johnson. Today I drove the two hours each way for my quarterly visit to Dr. Gagnon in Alexandria. His office recently moved from Belle Haven to 312 S. Washington Street in Old Town. He is one of the few allergists I've met with an understanding of food allergies and digestive issues.

Last week I drove 2 hours to Fairfax to have Robert Johnson, D.M.D. replace a crown. He is now at Natural Horizons Wellness Center. He is sympathetic to my allergies and sensitivities.

American girl in Nairobi

The Fourth Rail has posted a review of the Comiculture Anthology which includes Jambo, I'll Have Your Money Now by Marie Javins. The narrative version of this story was told on MariesWorldTour.com and can be seen as one of her journal entries.

Cinquain

I'm struggling to keep up with my poetry class at Virtual University. Finally wrote a cinquain:

White quartz
Dark waterfall
Swish, rattle, roll, hiss, shake.
Thundering Zeus throws rain washing
Clothes clean.

Class Schedule

Dr. Poland gave me the tour schedule for this fall. See www.civilwarfieldtrips.com/moreabout.html for a list. First trip is August 27.

Community College Registration Opens

The Civil War Field Trips course offered by Northern Virginia Community College is open for enrollment for the Fall semester. Visit www.nvcc.edu/schedule/crs2054/ and select HIS (history) and Annandale, then scroll down to the last course, section 298. Click on the 50360 to see the full listing or try this direct link.

Back from the Northern Neck

We spent a week in Virginia's Northern Neck. This is the peninsula between the Potomac and the Rappahannock River. I was surprised to learn that broadband internet is not available to the Mt. Holly area except for satellite.

I have some pictures of our property and neighborhood posted at SunnyHarbor.com.

The Northern Neck is largely rural with waterfront communities and farms. It's a good place to see water birds.

The farm where Stonewall Jackson died

Wednesday we visited the Stonewall Jackson Shrine in Guinea Station. There we toured the small building where the famous general died of pneumonia after being wounded at Chancellorsville. The site was being painted and spiffed up by the National Park Service, but the tour guide was a volunteer.

You can find Guinea Station from I-95 south of Fredericksburg. Just follow the signs. You can also combine it with a Chancellorsville battlefield tour; pick up information at the Chancellorsville visitors center west of Fredericksburg on route 3.

I got an email from someone needing directions from I-81 to Brandy Station. Just drive east on I-66 to route 17 towards Warrenton. Then take US 29 south to Brandy Station.

You can see photos of these sites at CivilWarFieldTrips.com.

Guestbook Spammers

Let me rant for just a minute about guestbook spammers! They are spoiling guestbooks for everybody, filling them with ads for software, casinos, and other junk unrelated to the site that created the guestbook. I've been reading about ways to defeat them but the only effective ways take time and money. For now I am removing the submission forms from my guestbooks and asking readers to email their comments instead. I put the email link in javascript to discourage robots from harvesting my email address.

Since my email address is at aol.com, I expect AOL will filter out most of the spam anyway. AOL is agressively blocking spam - sometimes too agressively, since legitimate email often does not go through, but that's another rant.

Here are the guestbooks that I have: http://members.aol.com/linja/messageboard/post.htm, a Chemical Sensitivity Comments Board, and http://members.aol.com/ljavins/genealogy.html, Javins Genealogy.

BryceFest

We attended an early 4th of July celebration at Bryce Resort (Basye, VA). Took a brief but scenic helicopter ride and browsed the crafts fair. For some photos of Bryce see www.javins.com/basye/bryce.html. Well, they don't do it justice. It has a beautiful little valley and some mountain ridges with nice views.