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I have always had a hard time meeting new people.
That was a contributing reason why I joined Alpha Phi Omega, a national co-ed service fraternity, while I was at Texas A&M University. Since I enjoy helping others, I could do that while basically being forced to meet others through the fraternity system.
I think the main (maybe the only) reason I like Facebook is because I can meet people without having to meet people. Then, once I’m comfortable meeting them, if I go to where they are, I will try to look them up.
Blogging is the same thing. People find my blog, I find theirs, we become Internet friends, and maybe somewhere down the road we’ll meet, either at their place or mine.
Yesterday, Barb (Life in the Foothills) and her husband (Paul), came to San Diego after their Carnival cruise had docked in Long Beach. Long Beach is about 110 miles from me, so they certainly didn’t have to go out of their way to come down here instead of going directly back home to life in the foothills. I don’t know whether or not they came here specifically to see me, but they sure made me feel like they did.
Jim and I took them to the San Diego Zoo, where we spent 4½ hours traipsing around watching the animals and, of course, taking pictures:
After we wore ourselves out at the Zoo, we had drinks and food at On The Border.
Barb makes the fourth WordPress blogger that I have met in actual reality since I started using the WordPress platform on January 7, 2012. Here is my complete list now:
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Rommel (The Sophomore Slump) — Rommel and I went to the USS Midway Museum on May 27, 2012. See his pictures and my pictures.
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Bashar A. (2 Rivers Photos) — Bashar, Jim, and I went to the La Jolla Cove on October 17, 2012, to take pictures of a negative tide and a beautiful sunset. See his pictures and my pictures.
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Marsha Lee (Marsha Lee) — Marsha came down with some long-time friends of hers on January 5, 2013, just to spend some time in San Diego. She and her friends introduced Jim and me to a new restaurant here in San Diego. See her pictures and my pictures.
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Barb (Life in the Foothills) — Barb and Paul were on a cruise that originated in Long Beach. After their cruise, they came down to San Diego to visit Jim and me. They just got home today so keep an eye on her blog for pictures of their cruise and trip to the San Diego Zoo. I’m still cataloging the 380 pictures I took, so stay tuned here, too, and I’ll have some pictures this week.
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Will YOU be next on this list?
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
History through Philately — Texas becomes the 28th State
On this date in 1845, the Republic of Texas entered the United States of America as the 28th state.
When the United States bought the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803, the U.S. attempted to include Texas in the Purchase. In 1819, after sixteen years of dispute, the boundary was set at the Sabine River, which is the current border of Louisiana and Texas.
From 1819 to 1836, Texas was part of Mexico. On March 2, 1836, Texas declared its independence from Mexico, becoming the Republic of Texas. As most declarations of independence do, this one resulted in a war between the Republic of Texas and Mexico, including the Battle of the Alamo, lost by the Texans, and the Battle of San Jacinto, which resulted in the Texans soundly defeating the Mexicans.
Texans elected Sam Houston as President of the Republic but also endorsed Texas entering the Union as a State. The likelihood of Texas joining as a slave state delayed formal action by the U.S. Congress for more than a decade. Congress agreed to annex the territory of Texas in 1844, and on December 29, 1845, Texas entered the United States as a slave state. A dispute involving the southern boundary of Texas resulted in the Mexican American War, which the United States won.
The Mexican American War ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in which Mexico ceded the current lands currently comprising California, Nevada, and Utah, as well as parts of Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. The southern boundary of Texas was set as the Rio Grande river.
Other interesting facts about Texas:
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The south Texas farming and ranching community of Kingsville welcomed me to the world on March 11, 1955. Kingsville is located in the disputed territory between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. -
Texas is pretty much a red state, which is one of the many reasons why I don’t live there anymore. I left on April 15, 1993, and arrived in San Diego 12 days later, taking a circuitous route to Fargo, North Dakota; over to Seattle, Washington; and down to San Diego.
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Texas has a gross state product (GSP) of $1.307 trillion, second behind California’s $1.936 trillion. If Texas were an independent country, its gross domestic product (GDP) would rank as the world’s 11th largest. -
Texas does not have a State income tax. Its money comes from property taxes and sales taxes.
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Texas has a population of 26,059,203, making it the second most populous state (behind California).
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Texas is the second largest state (behind Alaska), with 268,820 square miles.
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Texas is headquarters for 57 Fortune 500 companies (tying for first with California). -
Texas has three cities ranked in the Top 10 for population: Houston at #4, San Antonio at #7, and Dallas at #9. (California also has three cities in the Top 10: Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Jose.)
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My hometown of Kingsville has an average high temperature of 65°F in December. However, on Christmas Even 2004, six inches of snow blanketed the city. -
Texas has the most farms and the highest acreage in the United States.
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Texas leads the nation in livestock production — cattle, sheep, and goats.
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Texas leads the nation in cotton production.
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My alma mater, Texas A&M University, is the state’s first public institution of higher education and has the state’s largest enrollment at 53,337 students (fourth largest in the nation). It is the nation’s only land grand, sea grant, and space grant university. Texas A&M also has the largest main campus of any university, with 5,500 acres. -
Two presidential libraries are located in Texas: Lyndon B. Johnson in at the University of Texas at Austin and George Bush at Texas A&M University. A third one is in the workds, George W. Bush at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
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The Texas healthcare system is ranked third worst in the United States by the Commonwealth Fund; 25% of Texans do not have health insurance, the largest percentage in the nation. -
Texas emits more greenhouse gases than any other state, with Port Arthur (a heavy oil refining locale) having some of the dirtiest air in the United States.
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I survived many hurricanes and tropical storms while living in Texas, the most significant of which were Beulah (1967), Celia (1970), and Allen (1980).
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The deadliest natural disaster in the history of the United States was the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which killed an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 people.
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My childhood home in Kingsville, courtesy of Google Streetview:
I planted the two oak trees after Hurricane Celia in 1970. They were just a foot high.
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
Once I give my money to the government, it is no longer my money
During the Summer of 1975 when I was a Junior at Texas A&M University, I pledged a Greek organization called Alpha Phi Omega National Service Fraternity (hereafter, “APO”). When my friends asked me the difference between APO and other Greek fraternities and sororities, I explained it thusly:
Fraternities and sororities spend 80% of their time partying. APO spends 80% of its time helping others.
From August 1973 to June 1975, I was without my wise old grandmother. She was in Kingsville, Texas, and I was 300 miles away at Texas A&M. APO came into my life and continued to remind me, through today, that there is, indeed, always someone worse off than me.
My wise old grandother had always told me, “There is always someone worse off than you are.” She usually said that as I was complaining about pruning the oleanders, mowing the lawn, hanging the laundry, washing the dishes, cleaning my room………. APO continues in me with the words of my wise old grandmother.
So today, for those who love charities and real pumpkins, here’s what I want you to do. Yes, this involves planning and work, but it’s always fun. And I have some work music for you, too:
Before you do anything else, pick a number from 1 to 100. Write it down.
Now, since October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and October 31 is Halloween, take the family out to the pumpkin patch and get a real pumpkin, one that has seeds inside. Take the pumpkin home, cut off the top so you can get to the insides, and get all those seeds out of there. Young children often like this part of our project because they get to get all yukky and oogy.
Take the seeds, separate them from the rest of the pumpkin guts, wash the seeds, and set them aside to dry. Continue cleaning out your pumpkin and carving a face into it for use on the front porch for the next few days.
When the seeds have dried, count them! Write down the number of seeds. I usually get about 300 seeds out of my pumpkins, which are average size. Small pumpkins will have fewer seeds, and those really really really really big pumpkins will have more.
Once you have counted the seeds, roast them! They make great snacks, have lots of good fiber, and your children will be bragging to the neighborhood, “We roasted our pumpkin seeds to eat! I have some here. Do you want one?”
Here’s a good pumpkin seed recipe: Roasted pumpkin seeds.
Okay, remember those two numbers we wrote down? Take the first number, that between 1 and 100, and multiple it by the second number, the number of seeds, to get a final number. For example, if you chose 25 and had 300 seeds, your final number would be 7,500. Drop the two zeroes, and you have 75.
Now I want you to write a check to your favorite charity, or to a cancer charity in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, for $75. If $75 is too much for you right now, that’s okay. Write a check for whatever amount you can. As we have seen in President Obama’s grassroots money-raising, every little bit helps.
Remember that your donation is often tax-deductible, so in addition to helping people who are less fortunate than you, you just lowered your taxes!
I donate to various charities on a quarterly basis, and since September is the end of the third quarter, I use pumpkin event to donate to cancer organizations during October. I also never complain about how the government spends its money, for two reasons:
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Once I give my money to the government, it is no longer my money. It’s the government’s money.
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The government rarely gets much money from me because I’m not from the rich 1% and I use deductions to lower my tax burden. I figure I can do a better job of spending my money than the government can do spending its money.
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
I’m a cat napper…. So there! (cat napping pictures included)
Throughout my life I’ve never been able to sleep well. Or so I thought.
I’d be in bed at night, but after falling asleep for a couple of hours, I’d wake up. Not being able to immediately go back to sleep, I’d read a book….. under the bed covers…. using a flashlight. Man oh man was my wise old grandmother upset the first time she caught me. But just getting caught and punished didn’t stop me from reading. Besides, why punish a child for reading? It’s not like I was getting up at night and sneaking out the bedroom window to carouse the town. That didn’t start until a few years later. I wonder if there’s a correlation between being punished for reading and sneaking out instead. Hmmm.
At Henrietta M. King High School in Kingsville, Texas, I learned to schedule the late lunch (12:30; early lunch was 11:30), P.E., and Study Hall in the afternoon so that I wouldn’t fall asleep in an important class.
At Texas A&M University, I scheduled all my classes for 8:00 a.m. to noon, 1:00 at the latest. Then I could go home and sleep for a couple of hours. The nice thing about early morning classes is that all my final exams were on Monday and Tuesday. I was out of school two or three days early each semester over those people who always scheduled afternoon classes.
In the work world after college, I would never go out to eat lunch with co-workers, choosing instead to take an unknown-to-them nap in my car. Eventually the world found out about people like me and started calling our naps “power naps.” Whatever. They always made fun of us, though, for “always being tired.”
Now comes David Westcott writing an article, “Do Not Disturb,” in the April 23 2012 edition of Bloomberg Businessweek. Westcott quotes Ronit Rogoszinski who describes herself as “an expert ‘practitioner of the power nap.’ ” Rogoszinski says, “By noon, my brain starts to fry.” What does she do? She heads to one of her favorite hideouts, her car, “to recharge” (code for taking a nap).
Westcott found that on Wall Street Oasis, an investment banker Internet forum, people were obsessed with daytime napping. He found tips on “sleep hacking” (developing “polyphasic sleep schedules“), lists of places to nap, and tips on how to act if you’re caught napping.
One commenter discussed napping on the toilet, saying that it’s best if you have your pants up and the seat down. The toilet stall is one place that I never tried. Maybe later today.
There is a difference, though, between using naps to make up for lost sleep, such as when you have a newborn child, or a close family member is in the hospital. There are some people — like me! — who have no specific reason for losing sleep and needing to make it up during the day. We are called lazy when we’re caught napping during the day, or, at best, “short sleepers” or “sleep pros” if we still get more accomplished than our non-short sleeping colleagues.
Westcott quotes Dr. David Dinges, a sleep researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, who encourages workday napping, or “multitask relaxing” (can’t we just call it what it is? Cat napping!). According to Dr. Dinges’s research, one’s “cognitive ability depends on how much sleep one accumulates over a 24-hour period, not just overnight.”
Dr. Dinges encourages people to work for short periods followed by a nap — “sleep reinforcement” he calls it. “Rather than fighting to stay awake at your desk with diminishing cognitive returns, work on it in your sleep.” And I wasn’t even part of his research!
Whenever I have a particular problem to solve, I have found that a quick nap, a cat nap, helps me solve it, often to the point that I will dream about it and various ways to solve it, including benefits and problems relating to different scenarios. These are not REM dreams because I never reach REM sleep, according to the sleep research 
that I have been involved in (Boston Medical Center, Houston Medical Center, UCLA Medical Center, Texas A&M University).
We cat nappers are gaining acceptability, but since we’re only one to three percent of the population, we need to “come out” to our family, friends, and
co-workers as what we are:
cat nappers. I’m a cat napper….
So there!
SNIPPETS are short posts about anything and everything.
Each SNIPPETS will have at leasst one picture.
After all, this is Russel Ray Photos.
Who knew there was so much life in a cemetery?
My home inspection yesterday was across the street from a huge cemetery. Cemeteries are rare here in San Diego, certainly much rarer than in my home state of Texas where I think there were just as many cemeteries as there were churches.
Although we used to play in the cemeteries in Kingsville, Texas, when I was growing up, and they have tours of cemeteries in New Orleans, I had not been in a cemetery in 20 or 25 years.
I took 357 pictures in the cemetery in a little over two hours. Here are fourteen of my favorites:
Black Phoebe (Sayornis nigricans)
Black Phoebe (Sayornis nigricans)
How long you gonna watch me?
I wonder if he has friends. Better check over here....
....and over here....
....and behind me.
Now that nobody's looking
Let it all hang out
See ya later!
The cemetery was actually quite relaxing, and I wasn’t the only one who thought that:
Mallards, a snow goose, and turtles
Squirrels were frolicking everywhere but were wary of me:
Where'd you come from?
Squirrel on a eucalyptus tree
I saved the best for last. I don’t know if the gal in this picture is a coyote or fox. I’m thinking it’s too big and too light to be a fox. Anyone?
Coyote or fox?
I was at Mt. Hope Cemetery, a municipal cemetery for the City of San Diego. Two other cemeteries are nearby: Holy Cross Cemetery, a Catholic cemetery; and Greenwood Memorial Park, an endowed care cemetery, which means you have to pay big bucks to be buried there.
Me?
Cremate me, scatter my ashes one-third at Blacks Beach in San Diego; one-third under the Century Oak at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas; and one-third on the railroad tracks at the Union Pacific Railroad yard in Omaha, Nebraska. Then forget about me and get back to enjoying life.
Oh, by the way. Ask me how many living people I saw in the cemetery in two hours.
YOU: Russel, how many living people did you see in the cemetery while you were there?
ME: Three. A San Diego Gas & Electric employee was hiding out in his company truck parked under a tree. He was sleeping. Probably wore himself out at the Padres game the day before when we beat the dastardly Dodgers 8-4. A groundskeeper was mowing the lawns. A lady was pulling weeds from around the headstone at the grave she was visiting, obviously not happy with the job the cemetery was doing.
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Music on Mondays — #8: She’s a rainbow
#8
She’s a rainbow
The Beatles are my #1 singing group of all time, so I’ve necessarily not been a big fan of The Rolling Stones. lol
However, once I got to college at Texas A&M University, I was introduced to more music than what the American radio stations presented to me. Now I also have World Music — The Music Journey right here at WordPress to help me expand my tastes in music.
I currently have 53,114 digital music files, exceeded only by my 73,071 photographs.
I started collecting music in 1965 when I got a reel-to-reel tape recorder and recorded music off the radio. For my sixteenth birthday, while all my friends were getting cars, I got a stereo and my first vinyl records: Black Sabbath Vol. 4, The White Album by The Beatles, All Things Must Pass by George Harrison, and Wings Wild Life by Paul McCartney.
I eventually had over 15,000 vinyl records which I sold to a record store in Austin, Texas, in 1993 when I moved to San Diego. That allowed me to start collecting CDs, eventually growing it to over 5,000 CDs, which I stripped and sold in 2007 when I moved yet again. Now I’m just a digital file person. I’ll make CDs for long road trips, or to listen to when I’m gardening or at the beach but that’s it. Once I listen to them, they get thrown away.
One of the groups that I caught up on, beginning in 2007, is The Rolling Stones. My favorite song of theirs is “She’s A Rainbow.” It took me forever to finally find out that this song was by The Rolling Stones, off of their fantastic album (and my favorite of theirs) “Their Satanic Majesties Request.” I have no idea what the lyrics mean; maybe they were just a decade or two ahead of their time in describing today’s young women with all their weird hair colors, jewelry, piercings, tattoos……….
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An inherent desire to help others
This post is dedicated to the men and women of Xi Delta chapter of Alpha Phi Omega, National Co-ed Service Fraternity, at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.
Throughout my life I have had this inherent desire to help other people. It started at Henrietta M. King High School in Kingsville, Texas, when I joined Key Club, a service organization that is in many high schools throughout the nation.
It continued at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, when I pledged Alpha Phi Omega, National Service Fraternity. Texas A&M was founded as a military college in 1876. Women were admitted for the first time in 1964, and social fraternities finally found their way to campus in the mid-1970s. Alpha Phi Omega was one of the first Greek letter organizations allowed on campus; Xi Delta chapter was founded at Texas A&M in 1962.
Alpha Phi Omega introduced me to Special Olympics, Muscular Dystrophy Association, Red Cross, American Heart Association, blood drives, assisted care facilities, animal shelters, and so much more. I became aware of the world and the people who were suffering, hungry, homeless…. Xi Delta chapter at Texas A&M awarded me its Distinguished Service Key in 1977, its highest honor.
I remained involved with Alpha Phi Omega for fifteen years after college but I also broadened my experiences by becoming directly involved with Special Olympics, Muscular Dystrophy Association, Red Cross, and American Heart Association.
When I moved to San Diego from College Station, Texas, in 1993, helping other people had to take a back seat to helping myself get established in a new locale. Although I haven’t spent a lot of time helping others since 1993, I do make it a point to donate money to the organizations that I was involved with in the past. They need money just as much as they need volunteers.
Xi Delta is celebrating fifty years of service to its members, the Texas A&M campus, the Bryan/College Station community, and the United States of America.
Here’s to another fifty years of service…. In the Southeastern Conference! Gig ‘em, Aggies!
