Grow your very own Sangre de Grado - Dragon’s Blood Tree

Now wouldn’t this be a handy addition to your back yard? I don’t know how big they get, but they sure have a lot of healing properties. If you’d like to know more about the Dragon’s Blood Tree click on link below:

http://www.ehow.com/how_4419868_grow-dragons-blood-tree.html

Main Preparation Method: undiluted resin is taken internally (in small amount of juice/water) or applied topically.
Main Actions (in order):
wound healer, antifungal, antiseptic, antiviral, antihemorrhagic (reduces bleeding)

Main Uses:

To stop bleeding and to seal, and heal wounds, burns, cuts, tooth extractions.
For herpes virus ulcers (taken internally and applied topically).
For skin fungi, rashes, and dermatitis.
For insect bites, poison ivy and other itchy or allergic skin reactions.
For stomach ulcers, ulcerative colitis, dysentery and diarrhea.
Properties/Actions Documented by Research:
Anesthetic, anti-allergic, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antidysenteric, antifungal, antihemorrhagic (reduces bleeding), antileukemic, antioxidant, antiseptic, antitumorous, antiviral, neurasthenic (reduces nerve pain), wound healer.
Other Properties/Actions Documented by Traditional Use:
Analgesic (pain-reliever), anticancerous, anti-itch, antiulcerous, astringent, and a blood cleanser.

Saturday morning musings…pass the sugar please

It’s Saturday and a busy day lies ahead for me. Here’s some of the news items that caught my eye while slurping my coffee and getting my caffeine fix this morning:

Achoo! Allergies to keep getting worse  the 2011 spring allergy season is shaping up to be a miserable one, with pollen levels reaching record highs, thanks to heavy winter snows, early spring rains, and an early spring warm-up. photo source

Man trains for marathon eating nothing but McDonald's 

Remember the guy who trained for a marathon in Los Angeles this past March by eating nothing by McDonald’s food for 30 days straight? Joe D’Amico (left) of Palatine, Ill., explains what the hell he was thinking in an interview with WSCR radio in Chicago on Wednesday.

 

 

 

South Korea's "kiss apple" for better breath, dating pleasure

In South Korea, home of kimchi and other pungent, garlicky food, having fresh breath for life's big moments -- such as a kiss -- is a major concern.

Speaking of apples, I’m going to grab one and head on down the road…

The Lakers lose key Game #3 against the Mavs tonight…ouch!

I’m trying to come up with inspirational quotes for my Lakers (as a fan for over 44 years I feel a certain ownership), but it’ll take a lot more than talk to save this best of seven series.

One more loss to the Mavs…and it’s time to go home. Time to ride off into the sunset with no three-peat. No storybook ending for Phil Jackson in his last year as a coach. The game was close up till the end, until the Mavs did the clutch thing. Peja producing 11 4th quarter points proved to be too much.

Dallas stands on the threshold of moving on to the Western Conference Finals. Pau Gasol just couldn’t rise for the big event. The story (according to the Orange County Register) is his girlfriend broke up with him two weeks ago and he’s been mooning ever since. To add some real drama to it, the story says Kobe’s wife instigated the breakup and Pau and Kobe had words. Since they they reportedly haven’t talked. It shows.Two strangers passing in the night instead of two basketball pros passing the ball to each other.

I can’t help bemoaning the irony of the timing of these events. Why now? It completely destroyed the chemistry of the team. It especially dismantled the successful pick-and-roll that Kobe and Pau had going prior to all of this madness. Without that chemistry, the Lakers have turned into mere mortals. A team that was on the brink of history – another three-peat – fell short for many reasons. This little squabble is certainly one of them.

Would it have helped if Ron Artest wouldn’t have been suspended for this game? I doubt it. The basketball world is shifting. New powers are rising from the West. New young guns have arrived in town and are looking for their place in history. Dallas, Oklahoma, and Memphis. All bit players for decades on now on center stage. Once only punching bags for the powerhouses like the Lakers, the Houston Rockets, and the Spurs, their time has come.

I remain a loyal Laker fan and will continue to hope they win at least one game in this series. They have one more chance. If they win then they would have two more chances to win, and could make history as the first team ever to come from behind in a 3-0 to win a series. Imagine that? I sure like to. Go Lakers!

Good Luck Paul! Beatles legend ready for 3rd try at matrimony

Beatles legend Paul McCartney and his girlfriend of four years, Nancy Shevell, are engaged to be married.

McCartney's previous marriage to Heather Mills ended in divorce after 4 years and resulted in a reported $48 million settlement. His first wife, Linda, died of cancer in 1998 after 29 years of marriage.

Hopefully the third time around will work out for Paul and he’ll spend the rest of his life in wedded bliss. Like so many others, I admire the Beatles as a group, but Paul has always been one of the most talented in my humble opinion. Cheerio!

It’s hard to believe it’s been 41 years since this photo was taken…

I was a combat engineer in Vietnam in 1970. Most of the time I did mine sweeping, but there were times my license to drive bucket loaders and earthmovers came in handy when another unit needed a temporary fill-in.

It was a nice break – being able to operate a vehicle - from humping mine detectors for miles every day.

This was taken at Bien Hoa sometime between April and May. I was 19-years old and when I look at myself here it’s like looking at a stranger.

Those were strange days in a strange land that transformed us all to some degree. Some of us lost our humanity. Some of us never came home. Some of us still see ghosts at certain times of the year.If only I could convey my feelings like a grand master on the canvas of life, I would share the madness of war so future generations understood there are no winners…only survivors!

So what is the answer to all of these questions? Anybody?

VIA Association of American Editorial Cartoonists

The Music Scene: Stevie Nicks Releases Solo CD After 10 Years

All I can say is….enjoy!

Fleetwood Mac songstress Stevie Nicks talks about her new album "In Your Dreams," her first solo disc since 2001's "Trouble In Shangri-La."

Fleetwood Mac is one of my all-time favorite groups, and I’ve always enjoyed Stevie Nicks’ work.

Woman awakens from surgery speaking in foreign accent

As medical oddities go, this incident stands out: A lifelong resident of Oregon went to the dentist for surgery and awakened from sedation speaking in a British, or somewhat-British, accent. 
The 56-year-old woman appeared Thursday on NBC’s "Today," answering questions in what this MSNBC story describes as “an odd mixture of Irish, Scottish and northern British, with perhaps a dash of Australian and South African for good measure.”

Story Here

Faster than a bullet or speeding train: not Superman, but JetMan!

HUALAPAI INDIAN RESERVATION, Ariz. — "JetMan" has soared over the Swiss Alps and rocketed above the English Channel and early today he was given permission to soar over his next target — the Grand Canyon.

Swiss daredevil Yves Rossy was wasting no time, preparing to fly in the next few hours after the Federal Aviation Administration approved plans to use Arizona's scenic wonder as a backdrop for his first U.S. flight in a jet-propelled wing suit.

Story Here

Washington State bans coal tar sealants made from cancer-causing industrial waste

Toxic ingredients turning up in water, house dust, researchers say

Washington state has become the first in the nation to ban toxic asphalt sealants made from cancer-causing industrial waste that have been spread over vast swaths of the nation’s cities and suburbs. Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire signed the measure today, making Washington the largest government to ban or restrict coal tar asphalt sealants. Last month, Prior Lake, Minn., joined a growing number of local governments to ban them. The Washington state legislation and Doggett’s drive for a nationwide ban flowed from studies by the U.S. Geological Survey, which showed that components of the toxic sealants are increasing in many waterways, while levels of most pollutants are declining.

Story Here.

Blogger's obituary was his last post

Being the pragmatic sort, writer Derek K. Miller asked that his last story be published on his blog when he died. It was. On Wednesday, after a four-year battle with cancer, the 41-year-old husband and father's self-penned obituary, titled "The last post," made its appearance and went viral:

Here it is. I'm dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote — the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive.

If you knew me at all in real life, you probably heard the news already from another source, but however you found out, consider this a confirmation: I was born on June 30, 1969 in Vancouver, Canada, and I died in Burnaby on May 3, 2011, age 41, of complications from stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer. We all knew this was coming.

That includes my family and friends, and my parents Hilkka and Juergen Karl. My daughters Lauren, age 11, and Marina, who's 13, have known as much as we could tell them since I first found I had cancer. It's become part of their lives, alas.

Miller, of Burnaby, British Columbia, wasn't one to mince words. Those who battle diseases like cancer usually don't, quickly losing any euphemisms about the impact of the illness once it takes hold and starts to ravage the body, and sometimes the mind.

In Miller's case, his mind — and his writing — stayed quite clear until the end.

His father told The Province newspaper in Vancouver, in a story published Thursday, that his son was "proud of his blog and now it is his legacy. It connects him to the world, and to his family, forever. We were there for him, but Derek was comfortable sharing his thoughts with a worldwide community."

Visits to Miller's blog, ThePenMachine, Twitter and Flickr "were so heavy that, despite his planning, those Internet sites kept crashing," noted the newspaper.

In his online bio, Miller talked about the magazines and newspapers he'd written for, and said he started his website in 2000. The last entry in his bio is this: "Late in 2010, I discovered that my cancer is terminal. I expect it will probably kill me sometime in 2011 or early 2012."

But it is not the last entry about his life. That comes in his final posting, and in his words to his wife, Airdrie, and to his daughters:

The world, indeed the whole universe, is a beautiful, astonishing, wondrous place. There is always more to find out. I don't look back and regret anything, and I hope my family can find a way to do the same.

What is true is that I loved them. Lauren and Marina, as you mature and become yourselves over the years, know that I loved you and did my best to be a good father.

Airdrie, you were my best friend and my closest connection. I don't know what we'd have been like without each other, but I think the world would be a poorer place. I loved you deeply, I loved you, I loved you, I loved you.

Story Here