New Mayor For San Diego

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Out For awhile

Hello everyone, just wanted to make a little note in my blogs since I haven't worked on them basically since Jan 24th when I went to the hospital, and since then there has been a lot going on, I am healthy enough now that I am back in college, for the summer semester I am at South Western college, normally I am a student at San Diego City college, but because it is a public school with the largest percentage of their income to keep the school open and students in class and California is having a serious budget problem, all summer classes at San Diego City where cancelled because the state and the city of San Diego it's self are broke.

At first I about had a heart attack because besides my navy retirement the 9/11 GI Bill is my main source of income, however luckily City farmed out the veterans attending class there so we wouldn't loose our GI Bill income.  The good thing is that we didn't have to do the normal transferring of records, all we had to do is get a Parental letter from our original  school.

Now that I am back on me feet completely and going back to school, you should see more posts from me in all my blogs.  God Bless everyone of you and I pray everyone is doing well.

This semester I am only taking

9/11 My Outrage

USS Dubuque, LPD-8 Courtesy US Navy

Hello everyone, if you are a regular reader of my blog you have already read my first entry on 9/11 and how I'm getting so upset at my fellow Americans and other people of the world who are bad mouthing the United States over Afghanistan. So the last I posted I was telling the story of where exactly I was on that day.

For me and all the other sailors stationed on board the Amphibious Transport Dock USS Dubuque, LPD-8 it was actually September 12th because we happened to be on a port call in Darwin, Australia.  First thing we heard was rumors going around the ship that a small plane, perhaps something like a Cessna had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. At hearing this we all stopped what we where doing and took a break to see if we could find out was happening by tuneing in one of the news stations.

We turned on the news, and basically getting from them that it could have been anything from a light aircraft to a passenger jet that had gone terribly of course but not even a whisper about a possible attach. Then as we were watching another a jet liner came into view and smacked right into the other tower. Like I said in my first post on 9/11 all hell broke loose!

Before any of us could respond the general quarters (battle stations) alarm went off, our commanding officer didn't even second guess, he knew something bad was going down.  All of us on duty assembled on the flight deck and where given weapons and ammunition, the ship installed weapons which are normally unloaded while in port where loaded up and manned.  Our first responsibility was to make sure the ship and our crew were protected, our second job was to get over three quarters of the crew who was out enjoying liberty in Darwin back on the ship so we could get underway.  Sailors and Marines are not a dumb lot, and as soon as the attacks started making the local news there in Australia it didn't take long to get just about everyone back on board.

At this point all of us on board knew that our deployment schedule had totally changed and we would be heading somewhere to strike back, to be honest most of us thought our target was Iraq, but myself I wasn't surprised to find out that it was Al Qaeda after all they by this time had already killed some of our shipmates from the USS Cole. Within probably about 12 hours we where manned and ready to get back out to sea. I remember seeing others on board, as well as myself watching planes take off and land at the Darwin airport and just wondering if we or Darwin could be an attack, but Thank God no further attack came.  I to remembered that soon we would loose communication with the outside world so I immediately emailed my wife Sandi to tell her I love her and was OK.  My Father In law Gary Vines who was also in the navy

and although permanently assigned to the USS Pellilu happened to be on board the Dubuque that day of the attacks and he to wrote Sandi's mom to do the same.  About 1 hour after the attacks our phones and email was off. You can't have people telling family what our plans of attack were.

Like I said about 12 hours later, all of us exhausted from getting ready to get to sea, and watching the news we headed back to sea.  Now this is another thing I won't forget, as we started to slowly leave port, sliding through the channel the citizens of Australia lined the banks of the bay all the way to the beach waving US Flags and holding signs declaring their support for the American people, at that time I thought we would have the majority of the world's people supporting us.  We didn't know the death toll yet but we knew it would be large and because the main target was the World Trade Center it wouldn't be all American citizens who where killed.

As the coast of Australia slipped over the horizon that day I knew the world had forever changed and that we where in for a long deployment, I was right on both counts as our normally six month deployment stretched to almost ten and here we are nine years later still fighting in Afghanistan.

Update on Ads at San Diego Schools

Just a quick note before I head off to school, while watching the local news this morning it was reported by KFMB News 8 San Diego that the San Diego Board of Education voted down the proposal to place advertisements in various places on school campus's to try and bring additional funds to the cash strapped district.

According to News 8 the only board member that gave it a affirmative nod was the school board president himself, who commented that this proposal should be put before the board again, however this time seeking parent's input. I totally agree that it should be brought before the board again and I will keep you updated.

San Diego public schools to consider campus ads

Hey here is a new one I've never thought of, and surprised they haven't already been doing it. Schools all over the US just like any business (and face it public schools are a big business) have been hurting financially. All of them are scrambling to find ways either to save money or make money and lets face it the ways many of them have been trying to save money has been doing nothing but hurting our children. Instead of loosing teachers let all schools consider what San Diego is considering; allowing advertising around the school districts campus's.

In an article by Dana Chivvs in AOL news dated 23 March 2010, California's education budget was cut by $17 billion over the past two years with another $2.4 billion getting the axe during the 2010 school year. Also as of the date on her article 23,500 California public school employees had been laid off, and I'm not sure of the number as of today's date I'm quite sure that numbers grown larger despite President Obama's attempts to put a halt to the lay offs nation wide.

During a meeting of the Kansas City, Mo. School Board of Education in March it was announced that they plan on closing down almost half of all their district's schools in 2011 to try and erase a $50 million budget shortfall for next year. The closing of these schools will also result in the loss of 700 jobs, 285 of those teachers.

I could go on all night about all the emergency cost cutting actions being taken by school boards all over the country, with the exception possibly of Wyoming and South Dakota which have large oil and coal revenues to rely on, but I won't because we all are aware of the problems.

Now I know there will be a lot of parents and others who will be totally up in arms about San Diego's proposal to allow advertising in the schools, but I ask you will this advertising hurt? The ads won't be in classrooms to distract the students, the school board will be very selective on what advertising they allow and besides our children are pounded with ads everywhere else including the home.

I say lets back San Diego in this proposal, this is an easy why to bring in revenue; saving education programs and keeping teachers in the classroom instead of the unemployment lines. Our children are going to be hurt far more by not allowing this advertising because as budgets get cut its the student who looses now, in the long run remember these children are our country's future and with out a quality education our future leaders won't now how to lead.

Save our children by saving their education, let them advertise corn flakes in the cafeteria, running shoes in the locker room and video games in the halls, it's not like I'm saying stick a billboard for cigarettes in the schools. These are ads they see everyday, lets let these ads help in their education.

Thought I might get on here and just say a bit about the San Bruno fire, its scary right now PG&E right now of course are trying to cover their asses, which is what you would expect any company to do, and all their failures will come out in the investigation.

What I want to bring up is the responsibility of each city, county, township or what ever jurisdiction you may live in. The local government is overall for the citizens well being and should be watching and keeping records of every bit of construction that has or will occur in their area. Now I've heard to conflicting story's about the age of this gas line, but the two dates out their are 1948 and 1956, either way old for a pipe and defiantly not up to the codes we have today.

Now above I did say it is the local governments responsibility which it is, however the overall responsibility for our safety and well being is ours, get involved, attend a council meeting. Find out when the pipes (Gas, Water, Sewer) where installed in your town, make the council and the utility companies responsible for the pipes test them if they are over 20 years old. The next disaster may not happen for 10 years but do you want it to be in your neighborhood.

One last thing, do you know what kind of pipes do run under your streets? Few people know because of the large military presence in the San Diego area there are highly vol tile jet fuel pipes running all over San Diego County transferring fuel to Naval Air Station North Island and Marine Corp Station Mirimar. Check it out because I be live some of those went underground as long ago as the mid 1930's. God help San Diego if one of these lines rupture.

Think about it!!!!

New safety steps at Santee intersection where family died - San Diego, California News Station - KFMB Channel 8 - cbs8.com

New safety steps at Santee intersection where family died - San Diego, California News Station - KFMB Channel 8 - cbs8.com This is probably one of the worst Toyota accidents on record inthe current investigation.