This following letter has been sent to Mitch Daneils, Evan Bayh, Dick Lugar, WTHR, WXIN, and WISH-TV.

"My name is Ryan Mercer,

I am the son of a State Trooper who dedicated his life to being a trooper. My father passed from cancer, just six weeks short of retirement. He left behind a wife and son. My reason for this letter is to ask, why does Lt. Gary Dudley, who also died off-duty as my father did... get such a big deal made about his passing. Yes, he may have died during a charity event, however he died off-duty. My father was working nearly up until the day cancer hospitalized him, entering the hospital with fluid in both lungs and shortly thereafter passing.

Was Lt. Gary Dudley a better man than my father? It seems so to my eyes from what I see via my television and the newspaper. Lt. Gary Dudley gets full honors for his burial, my father was denied full honors because he died off-duty. For the past week I've been sickened by the news every morning and night, all I see and hear is Lt. Gary Dudley. I never heard Detective Mark Mercer so many years ago, but Lt. Gary Dudley is fast becoming a common name in the houses in Indiana. We've heard all about Lt. Gary Dudley, but no one has ever heard about Detective Mark Mercer, no one has heard about how Detective Mark Mercer died and left a family behind, a widow and a son who have struggled since his death due to an unjustly, and what at times seems to be meager, pro-rated pension because he passed just 6 weeks before he was eligible for a full retirement.

Did the flags fly at half-staff on March 11th 1998 for Detective Mark Mercer's death... no they did not. Did the flags fly at half-staff on March 14th the day of his burial... no they did not. Did the flag fly at half-mast via the orders of Mitch Daniels for Lt. Gary Dudley on Tuesday August 29th 2006 they did. Both of these heroes, who dedicated their lives to the Indiana State Police were equal men... why does one get full honors while the other, my father, couldn't even die leaving his family a full pension?

As a man who lost his father as a boy I ask you these questions. As a man who's father's memory has recently been disgraced by the recent events I write this letter. Can you answer these questions for me?"

So yeah, today found out... that r&c analysts with other employers start on around 35,000 a year... well fedex only pays 21,000 a year... nothing like grossly underpaying hundreds of employees.

I knew he didn't do it...

John Karr... is not being charged... dna doesn't match... he confessed because he didn't want to go to a thailand prison... becuase he knew he'd probably die there, so he confessed knowing he was a suspect but knowing he was innocent, just so the u.s. would have him extradited... knowing that Thailand wouldn't pay to have him brought back over there for the charges he was arrested for there... giving himself a get out of jail free card.

Huzzah I'm downt ot 273! Although if I want a healthy bmi (between 18.5-24.9) then I need to be between 137 and 183lbs.... so 90lbs or more to go untill I'm at a "normal" weight. *sigh*

So life is good *nocks on wood*... it is great being back on days, tons of overtime is being thrown at us if we want to take it, I'm losing considerable amounts of weight... Willy Nilly on the Wabash starts this weekend (If anyone wants to daytrip to a renn faire with me some Saturday in September lemme know, I haven't made it out the past few years, but I'm hoping that incense merchant is still there that sells the 1.5 inch diameter incense sticks)... also I have the 3 x-fest tickets since Josh and Ash have made no attempt to contact me about buying their 2... so um if anyone wants to go to x-fest I've got 3 lower pavillion tickets... I'm going to be fairly flexible on the price I'll let them go for... *nods* anyway yup.

Hrmm...

This address is for Tom Cruise... I believe it is his agent's location.

Tom Cruise
700 San Vincente Boulevard
West Hollywood, CA
90069

look it up in Google Earth... what is up with that pyramid inside a pyramid?

So... I just found out that Joyce DeWitt, who played Janet on Three's Company, graduated here in Speedway... so I did some quick checking, and she was a year or two ahead of my dad in school... and mom says dad knew her in highschool... heh, that is cool. My dad knew Janet from Three's Company!

How Australia got hot for solar power

Down under, they're all over alternative energy - starting with a 1,600-foot tall "solar tower" that can power a small city.

The result: enough clean, green electricity to power some 100,000 homes without producing a particle of pollution or a wisp of planet-warming gases.

"We're aiming to be competitive with the coal people," says Davey, 60. "We're filling a gap in the renewable-energy market that has never been able to be filled before."

More at http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/01/technology/towerofpower0802.biz2/index.htm?cnn=yes

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- Space shuttle Atlantis was hauled to the launch pad early Wednesday, a major step toward a mission to resume construction of the international space station for the first time in three years.


The window for launching Atlantis starts August 27 and lasts until September 13, but NASA managers are considering opening up the window a day earlier. NASA managers are wary of launching the shuttle too late in the window since a Russian Soyuz vehicle with three crew members is scheduled to launch from Kazakhstan on a trip to the international space station in mid-September.

More at http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/08/02/shuttle.ap/index.html

"A six-year-old boy at a kung fu school in Central China's Henan Province has earned himself a ten-year tuition waiver by doing more push-ups in three and a half hours than most folks do in their lifetime. Sporting a six-pack and dueling anacondas, Lu Di on Wednesday wowed his classmates by doing 10,000 push-ups in 3 hours and 20 minutes" http://english.sina.com/p/1/2006/0728/84625.html

On July 30, 1733, 18 men gathered at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern on King (now State) Street in Boston. Among them was Henry Price, Provincial Grand Master of the Freemasons in America, who exercised his authority to grant a charter to St. John's Lodge, the first duly constituted and chartered lodge of Masons in America. Henry Hope, a Boston merchant, served as the first Master of the Lodge.

From that time, St. John's has had a distinguished place in history. Among its members were Paul Revere, Josiah Quincy, John Rowe ("One wonders how tea will mix with salt water"), James Otis ("Taxation without representation is tyranny!"), Robert Newman ("One if by land, two if by sea") and Lowell Thomas (the writer who first wrote about Lawrence of Arabia). Guests of St. John's have included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and the Marquis de Lafayette.

Last night I had the privilege to join with 17 (a fortuitous number as 3 people were absent) other Masons of St. John's Lodge to commemorate our 273rd anniversary. As the Bunch of Grapes has receded into history, we met in the shadow of the Bunker Hill Monument at the Warren Tavern (1780, birthplace of King Solomon's Lodge) where we recalled our history, raised a toast to the two Henry's and to a recently fallen brother and renewed the spirit that has kept St. John's the oldest continuous Lodge in America. Poignant hardly sums it up.

So mote it be.