Good morning all,
It is good to be back home and connected to all my friends at GT. It is also good to be able to connect to GT again with a work-around site address (I was able to post to Our Daily Pledge when I first returned, but then faced the technical problem with GT); both being away and unable to connect only reaffirms my need of this tool. It was interesting that right after I returned home and logged on to GT for my pledge and read a few emails my computer completely froze up allowing only navigation within a scam type, and official looking Window’s warning message, that turned out to be a virus crashing my entire system. After a few hours on the phone with the computer technicians and the Internet provider I was able to reload my hard drive and go back on line (still lost everything not backed up to disk), finding that I could not connect to GT; making me think that the virus had somehow blocked this life line. (The importance of such tools for connecting with others is the subject of today;s "Reflection for the Day" posted in this Forum also, read it.)
My trip was full of coincidences and evidence of interesting happenings also. On the way down to New Orleans I passed through some of the worst affected areas of our recent flooding alone the Mississippi River. Saint Louis and New Orleans did not have to contend with any of the catastrophic destruction, but the areas in between in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi were a total loss to miles on both banks of this mighty river. And then, the tornadoes and storms in the Midwest!
We had just experienced a couple of tornadoes and storms in the St Louis area, but while in New Orleans the extremely large tornado hit another part of Missouri (see the following site for a before-and-after satellite view of a small portion of Joplin, MO; the same type damage covered many times this area (you can drag the bar back and forth to see the differences between the lush green and standing buildings to the ugly browns and destruction afterwords)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-joplin-tornado-slider,0,2395484.htmlstory .
And then on the trip home we passed through the worst rain and wind storm I can recall, just missing another tornado a few miles to the east of the location I had to pull off the road to wait it out. When finally arriving home, we had just missed the baseball-size-hailstorm that hit St, Louis. This timing saved me a few hundred dollars in deductibles for the damage that would have incurred.
And I though my gambling problem was bad; at least the gambling devastation to my life can be avoided by me just making the right choice — the choice to not gamble for anything — something that I can take control over.
God’s speed. Stay strong. Stay safe.
p.s. By the way, I did enjoy my stay in New Orleans without incident.
Larry
Thanks to my Higher Power, My 3G’s – God, GA, and GT, "Day Two Is Another Day Behind" and with the help from all , I will continue to remain gambling free.– 5/28/2011 3:35:13 PM: post edited by paul315.