1st Annual Car Raffle Benefitting Habitat Homes for Haiti and Union County!

Hendrick Chevrolet Cadillac will make several important announcements during a Press Event this Thursday, 1/28/10 at 11:00 a.m. at the dealership on Highway 74 in Monroe.  These announcements will include information about Hendrick’s partnership with the Union County chapter of Habitat for Humanity.  “We wanted to find a way to help the earthquake victims in Haiti,” explained Phil Marshall, General Manager of Hendrick Chevrolet Cadillac.  “Our partnership with Union County Habitat for Humanity will allow us to contribute not only to the relief effort in Haiti, but to help those in need right here in our own community, as well.” Hendrick Chevrolet Cadillac will sponsor several Homes for Haiti and a Union County Habitat Home in Marshville, NC. “We are so excited about this partnership with Hendrick Chevrolet Cadillac,” said Mike Reece, Executive Director of Union County Habitat for Humanity.  “Hendrick will become an integral part of Habitat’s efforts both locally and in Haiti.”   Hendrick will be kicking off their commitment with the First Annual Car Raffle Benefitting Habitat Homes for Haiti and Union County.  Participants will have the chance to win a BRAND NEW 2010 Chevrolet Camaro, Equinox or Colorado pickup.  Ticket Sales for the raffle will begin this Thursday, and end on June 26, when a winner will be announced at 3:00 p.m. at the dealership.   Hendrick Chevrolet Cadillac/Habitat for Humanity

Tickets can be purchased at the dealership at 3112 Highway 74 West or at Union County Habitat for Humanity at 2520 West Roosevelt Boulevard.  Ticket prices are $25 each, or 5 tickets for $100, with all proceeds going DIRECTLY to build Habitat Homes for Haiti, and to build a Habitat Home in Marshville.  “This is an incredibly generous gift from Hendrick Chevrolet Cadillac, and one that will make a lasting impact in Haiti and in Union County for years to come,” added Mike Reece. For additional information about Hendrick Chevrolet Cadillac or to purchase tickets for the First Annual Car Raffle Benefitting Habitat Homes for Haiti and Union County, join them for their Press Event this Thursday, 1/28/10 at 11:00 a.m. at the dealership located at 3112 Highway 74 West, Monroe, NC  28110. For more information about Habitat for Humanity’s relief efforts in Haiti or locally, contact Union County Habitat for Humanity at 704.296.9414.

Address: Hendrick Chevrolet Cadillac

3112 Highway 74 West

Monroe, NC 28205

[Via http://wsocfm.radio.com]

Ducky - Se7en

The setting, the inside of a dark green, 2002, Pontiac Grand Am. The windows are up, the seats are down, and past the 8 year old tan roof lay over a million specks of flaming gas, dancing without moving.

The location is somewhere in the continental US, anywhere from 3 to 7 1/2 hours from an overpopulated suburb in northern Virginia. The time is morning, though the sky says night, and half of the world has to be sleeping. A fair amount of the world is also experiencing orgasm.

Our scene, the car, is surrounded by trees, or perhaps pavement, or buildings, or even a little of everything. Cars are parked all around, or maybe they’re not. Birds are passing one-liners to each other across the air, sweet talking each other from their separate trees, unless of course there are no trees.

I find it beautiful wherever I am. The only other character is you. The date is unknown.

Action.

[Via http://thetransformationofthings.wordpress.com]

The slightly longer weekend...

I had a belly dancing workshop on Saturday. It was well worth going to. Each belly dancing teacher has a different style and way of teaching and often a different name for a familiar move, so it makes it all the more interesting. In the morning we went over some Egyptian belly dancing moves and in the afternoon we learned a choreography incorporating those moves. The dance was fun and short enough that we were able to practise it several times. This was much better than a workshop I went to in Wellington in which the choreography was so long and complex that most of us gave up trying to follow halfway through and we didn’t finish it in time to practise the whole thing. (I didn’t go back to that particular teacher’s workshops or lessons. I didn’t much like her style in any case.)

I’ve since made a list of belly dancing moves learned from elsewhere (ie outside of normal classes) and hope to use them in my own choreography at some stage. I nearly bought another DVD by the same teacher as a DVD I currently own, but decided against it as I saw examples of the choreography on Youtube and didn’t think much of it. Instead I did order a DVD of dancing by Serena Ramzy who I just love to watch.

Sunday disappeared quickly. I helped my daughter with her photography assignment, dropping a tomato into a large glass vase several times or flicking the hose around so she could take photos of water droplets at fast shutter speed. She then went off and sought help for more photos from friends.

And then Monday morning loomed which I dreaded for the knowledge that the car wouldn’t start. After the workshop on Saturday my car was rather sluggish in starting and I thought, oh no. However, I got home (luckily as I’d forgotten to take my cellphone with me, idiot). As suspected, the car didn’t want to start so I rang the AA then work to say I’d be late. I had intended to get the AA to start the car then take the car to a garage in town so I could catch a bus to work. But the AA man put paid to that idea. “You won’t get that far” he said. The alternator had gone so the battery wasn’t charging, so I toddled off down to the local garage and walked back home. I missed daughter so couldn’t get a lift to work. That left me totally without transport. The only bus that goes from this village to town about once a day is at a totally inconvenient time. I wasn’t too pleased at having to take an unplanned day off work.

You’d think I’d take advantage of the day off and do something useful. The weather wasn’t particularly good so nothing doing outside. But no. I couldn’t think of anything I needed or wanted to do, so I ended up playing Sims 2 for nearly the whole day. Quite wasted. What I should have done was to embark on some more genealogical research or something, but once I started playing Sims I couldn’t stop. Oh dear. And then there was the feeling that I couldn’t start anything that required a long stretch of time and concentration (such as genealogy) because the garage might ring up at any time for me to collect the car. Well, come 4.40pm I hadn’t heard a thing and rang up. The car was ready and they hadn’t thought to let me know and they closed at 5pm. So I shot down there on foot arriving at 4.55pm. $250 poorer but the car is now behaving itself. Phew.

Back at work today and while the weather this morning was the pits, it’s quite lovely this afternoon. Oh well. Only three more days until the next weekend.

[Via http://driftingon.wordpress.com]

Rome - Day 3 on film

Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore

Trevibrunnen

[Via http://eoik.wordpress.com]

OTHER NIGHT TIME DRIVING SAFETY TIPS

OTHER NIGHT TIME DRIVING SAFETY TIPS

There are many tips for night time driving safety which are as under,

• Prepare your car for night time driving.
• Check your car condition carefully.
• Check the car lights conditions.
• Accelerate slowly.
• Wax your car at least twice in a year.
• Check your car tire conditions.
• Don’t drink or eat during drive.
• Avoid from drunk drivers.
• Keep your car windshield wipers clean.
• Keep your headlights in a high beam.
• Adjust your car right side and left side mirrors carefully.
• Avoid from smoking during drive.
• Reduce your car speed and increase the following distance.
• Keep your car windows and door clean.
• Be alert during drive.
• Avoid from parking no parking areas.
• Keep in your lane.
• Don’t follow the big trucks and busses.
• Follow the well lighted area route.
• Park your car in a well lighted area.
• Plan out your route.
• Check your car tire air pressure regularly.
• Drive with a comfortable speed.
• Avoid from any glares and halos.
• Prevent from fatigue driving.
• Avoid from drowsy driving.
• Drive very carefully in wet weather.
• Drive very slowly in a wet weather.
• Be patience while drive.
• Be normal and don’t take any stress at night driving.
• In fog keep your car headlights in a low beam.
• Keep turn on your car headlights at night.
• Keep clean your car windscreen from both sides.
• Keep your car headlights, taillights, back lights, signal lights and hazard lights clean.
• Be alert on the road.
• Follow the traffic signals.
• Avoid from any accident or small damage.

[Via http://tipsforcarcare.wordpress.com]

Pick Up Car Central

I’m waiting for you to come and pick me up feeling mildly guilty for not having a car and making you always drive.

We met under supremely strange circumstances.

We met on a chance.

We met while I was drunk and you were crying.

There is roughly twenty minutes between the time I finish writing this and you picking me up.

There is a thumping in my chest.

There is an overwhelming sensation running through my body.  I have to go back and check my list of emotions printed out for me by my counselor; increase my vocabulary and finally describe if and what I am feeling.  There is a feeling, and that feeling is strong.

I’m entranced by you.  Frankly, by most circumstances, we should have never met.  We probably wouldn’t even be friends.  We have a varying amount of shared interests.  Nevertheless, when we talk, we don’t stop.  You make fun of me and I revel in it.  You say words and I listen to every one of them.

When you laid your hand on my chest while tightly crawled up against my body, feeling the warmth emanating like the steam out of a sewer drain, feeling the slow hesitation in my stilted breath, feeling the irreverent beating of a physical heart, I drew in the most curious of emotions in a raw form: happiness.

Not the type that comes from watching terribly good movies.

Not the type that comes from reading a delightful book.

Not the type that comes from insulting someone I don’t like.

Happiness that I cherished, happiness that I believed in, happiness that felt tangible.

We swap stories and emotions and lifeless sentences through a pixelated core set of 26 letters and about 6 units of punctuation.  We swap flirts and emoticons through waves sent in the air.  We swap digital glances.

All in all, I’m happy.  I’m nervous.  I’m feeling that that good thing I was trying to force came from the most unlikely of places when my head was turned the other way.   I’m feeling that that undivided attention and giddy remarks came from a place I did not expect, but I do not want to abandon like a final soldier holding the ranks back on top of the hill.

I’m feeling, and that counts for everything.

Like the wind rushing past your ears when your bicycle no longer needs to switch gears, like the air surrounding us, like the wind rushing past your body when you stand on top of the largest, most beautiful mountain that only Atlas could have ever imagined.

[Via http://mechanisticmoth.wordpress.com]

auto lot of fun

Remember that partially-buried old sedan I posted awhile back?  This is the brightly-colored beacon that led me to it.  Tried out some new editing techniques on this one.

It is a gorgeous day outside, and I intend to spend a bit of my break outside with my camera.  Off I go!

[Via http://rediflex.wordpress.com]