Letchworth State Park

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This summer our family had the pleasure of visiting Letchworth State Park in New York State.
Letchworth is located 35 miles southwest of Rochester and 60 miles southeast of Buffalo in Livingston County. The park is roughly 17 miles long and 14,350 acres of land along the Genesee River. There are three major waterfalls within the park along with many smaller ones. The three major water falls are named Upper, Middle and Lower.
This park has many hiking trails, beautiful scenery, overlooks, railroad bridge, with the highest water falls in New York state located within the park. Also located within the park is the historic, restored Glenn Iris Inn which offers in season meals and overnight accommonodations. Other features of the park include pavilions, picnic tables, a playground, pool, cabins, campsites for tents, trailer sites with dumping stations, and horse-riding trails. This is a wonderful family park with many activities for the entire family.
Also in October the park hosts one of the largest craft shows in New York state.
Please click the park web site for future details & dates of this craft show.
Please plan to visit this park in the future.
Below is a small video featuring some pictures of the park.

Auto Race Tracks (Local & National)

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This post is more for the auto race fans and even though it's the off season for most auto racing, I thought I would put links o here that will take the auto racing fan to some of the race track web sites.
The first web site is for the McKean County Raceway located in Smethport, PA. Next is Stateline Speedway located in Busti, NY. Another local PA track with lots of weekly action is the Tri-City Speedway located in Oil City, PA. Another track that is also featured on national TV channels such as ESPN is Don Martin's Lernerville Speedway located in Sarver, PA. This track is well known for it's World of Outlaws Series that races there.
Another NASCAR Whelen Series hard track located in NY state is Holland Speedway
This track is located at Holland, NY. One of my favorite tracks is another NASCAR Whelen hard track located in North East just outside of Erie. The track is the Lake Erie Speedway. This track has a great fire works display every week during the races and after.
As far as national tracks one of the most famous speedways is Daytona Speedway.
The track is in Daytona Beach Florida.
The worlds most famous auto race track is the Indianopolis Motor Speedway located at Indianopolis, IN.
I am also into NHRA drag racing and will in future post list some of the more famous drag racing tracks.
Please visit & enjoy the above listed tracks.

Health Update

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Due to current health problems and a major operation, my entries to this blog will be limited for the next several months. I am presently living or residing at the Sena-Kean Manor Nursing Home in Smethport, Pa.
Hopefully this will be a temporary stay of about 3 months then return to my home in Gifford after completing physical therapy.
I recently had a complete colon resection which was completed at UPMC
This was in Pittsburgh, PA.
As my health continues to improve, I will be adding more posts to this blog. Please stop back in the future to look for updates.

Bradford Route 219 Bypass

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This post is about a irritation I've had for several years now. It concerns the 219 Bypass going through Bradford and the work or reconstruction on it. If you live in the area you will know this has been an ongoing project for 10 years. I noticed a small little article in the local newspaper "The Bradford Era" that shows what happened 10 years ago on a particular day and then 20 years ago and 30 and so on. It showed at 10 years ago the start of reconstruction on this road. If you live in Pennsylvania anywhere you will realize that the entire 219 route is a big joke.

For the last several years construction is done on this bypass and then when the weather gets bad, they stop any more work on it and do not do anything until spring. Drive on it now and it's been going on all this past summer as it has been the last 5 years.

I recently watched a story on the History Channel about the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago, IL and the construction of 2 additional lanes that were constructed to this expressway. This expressway is 11 miles long and 14 lanes wide. The two additional lanes were scheduled to be completed in two years. Although over budget, the additional two lanes were completed on time.This is a 14 lane expressway!

The 219 Bradford Bypass in my opinion, is nothing but a big joke as is the entire 219 system in Pennsylvania. If you live in the more remote parts of Pennsylvania, the saying is, "The closer you get to Harrisburg, the better the roads get". Seems also the state of Pennsylvania wants to funnel all it's money into the Philadelphia area also. I guess the money from the taxpayers in this NW Pennsylvania area doesn't mean crap to Harrisburg. Drive on any local road in this area and watch the PennDot workers out trying to patch all the huge potholes and then you get the idea of how the local people are getting screwed. This post is all my own personal opinion but if you've lived in the area all your life you'll get the idea. :)

NASCAR

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Today's post will be about NASCAR. I have added a small poll to the lower right of this site to get your feelings on NASCAR. If you get a chance please feel free to select a option on the poll. Nothing is saved of any personal information. It's just to get peoples thoughts on NASCAR since I'm a big fan of NASCAR racing.

Some people go nuts over NASCAR racing and plan alot of their free time around it by either going to races or watching it on TV weekly like some sports enthusiasts watch football or baseball or golf or tennis.

Some people dislike it all together and thinks it's just a "Redneck" southern sport with no real talent and the drivers just go around in a left circle all the time.

Now if you have ever driven in city traffic in 4 lanes of traffic at 70 to 90 mph bumper to bumper speed on your way home from work during rush hour for 50 miles and it gives you any anxiety or makes you nervous then try doing it at 200 mph and actual bumper to bumper contact for 500 miles then you might get more of a appreciation for the talents and stress these drivers experience when they do this with 43 other cars each week all trying to be in the same spot at the same time.

If you've never attended a NASCAR race, I would suggest if you get the time to give it a try. Some of these tracks get 200,000 people in attendance and almost every single week at every single track the attendance is in the 100,000 area. How many football games or baseball games can say that? And this is on a weekly basis!

Until you have actually been to a NASCAR race and get the feel and sound you will not believe it. This is not the same sound you get at your local racetrack around your area.

Enjoy the experience if NASCAR is a sport your interested in. :)

Diabetes Test Strips

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Greetings,

This post will be about diabetes but not about the disease itself. This post is to make people with this disease aware about the cost of some supplies relating to the monitoring of the blood sugar levels. Mainly the very costly test strips. As anyone with diabetes can tell you, most test strips are costly. If you do not have insurance that pays for these or any retirement health plan and the cost comes out of your own pocket this can be a problem for a lot of people.

A good portion of people that pay for test strips and even the monitors themselves get them locally at either a pharmacy such as Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid just to name a few or one of the Big Box stores such as Wal-Mart. Many older people are not aware that getting test strips thru online companies is much cheaper. In fact in alot of cases the price is half of what is purchased locally.

The best place I have found to get test strips and whom most people think has the cheapest prices on the planet for test strips is on Amazon.com.

A very good example of the difference in prices is I personally use a Accu-Chek monitoring system and Accu-Chek test strips. To purchase these strips for a box of 50 at Wal-Mart for example cost $38. I can purchase the same strip, model & brand on Amazon for $19 per 50.

I have looked at other brands and models of the meters and strips that they need and almost every single brand of strips for all different brands and monitors cost less than half on Amazon.

Now alot of diabetes customers tell me that they have a particular brand & model of meter and some of their test strips can range in price up to $75 to even $100 for a box of 50 or 100. I'm sure that if you look on Amazon you will find them much lower in price. Also as a personal opinion, I would suggest that if you have a monitoring model that uses this costly of a test strip that with the cost of present day monitors being so cheap and some companies almost giving them away for free, that if yours is and older brand & model that you might want to update your present monitor with a newer brand & model that uses a cheaper test strip.

I'm sure that alot of readers on here do not like online buying, or do not have access to the internet for whatever reason but I would strongly suggest that they have some family member, friend or anyone with access to online to check into this for them as this can save any diabetes patient a great deal of money.

I hope this information may be of interest to anyone that has to pay for these supplies out of their own pocket.

Myasthenia Gravis Disease

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Recently I was diagnosed with a rare disease called Myasthenia Gravis. Without going into a lot of personal details, let me just say that it will turn your life up side down very quickly. This disease falls under the MD umbrella of muscular diseases. Below I have tried to describe this disease as easy as I can so that people get the general idea of what it involves. If you have been diagnosed with this disease or know someone that has, I would suggest that they look at some of the very important links relating to this very dibilitating disease.

What is myasthenia gravis?

Myasthenia gravis is a chronic autoimmune neuromuscular disease characterized by varying degrees of weakness of the skeletal (voluntary) muscles of the body. The name myasthenia gravis, which is Latin and Greek in origin, literally means "grave muscle weakness." With current therapies, however, most cases of myasthenia gravis are not as "grave" as the name implies. In fact, most individuals with myasthenia gravis have a normal life expectancy.

The hallmark of myasthenia gravis is muscle weakness that increases during periods of activity and improves after periods of rest. Certain muscles such as those that control eye and eyelid movement, facial expression, chewing, talking, and swallowing are often, but not always, involved in the disorder. The muscles that control breathing and neck and limb movements may also be affected.

What causes Myasthenia Gravis?

Myasthenia gravis is caused by a defect in the transmission of nerve impulses to muscles. It occurs when normal communication between the nerve and muscle is interrupted at the neuromuscular junction—the place where nerve cells connect with the muscles they control. Normally when impulses travel down the nerve, the nerve endings release a neurotransmitter substance called acetylcholine. Acetylcholine travels from the neuromuscular junction and binds to acetylcholine receptors which are activated and generate a muscle contraction.

In myasthenia gravis, antibodies block, alter, or destroy the receptors for acetylcholine at the neuromuscular junction, which prevents the muscle contraction from occurring. These antibodies are produced by the body's own immune system. Myasthenia gravis is an autoimmune disease because the immune system—which normally protects the body from foreign organisms—mistakenly attacks itself.

There are many government groups, self help support groups and agencies to help with this disease such as The Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America or the Mayo Clinic or MDA as well as a support group that covers many diseases called MDJunction.

This post may not be of interest to you unless you have been diagnosed with this disease or know someone that has, but please follow through on to the links if you have a need for more information about this.

Medical Problems

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Greetings,
Due to current medical conditions and presently in Hamot Medical Center in Erie for treatment, I will not be posting to much for the next couple weeks. I look forward to getting back to adding more to this blog in the near future so please stop back on a daily basis to see what is added. Hope to see you soon.

Gifford Yard Test Video

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I have decided to do a test video to see how it will show up on here. We plan to go to an upcoming event in mid September and I will be taking lots of still pictures and some video which will be added to this site and I want to see if the video will look ok when viewed on here. This video was made using a Cannon PowerShot A1000IS digital & video camera and is just a short 1 minute video of some of our property.


Please feel free to leave any clean comments you have about any video or any other post on this site. Click on the "Comments" selection below each post.

Web Browsers

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While adding more items to this web site today, I noticed that the scrolling "TopStories" and "NASCAR News" tickers to the right of the screen along with the "Amber Alert" might not work depending on which web browser they are viewd with. I use Mozilla Fire Fox as my main web browser and design my site for viewing using it.
More people use Microsoft's Internet Explorer. When viewed using Internet Explorer the tickers I mention seem to work properly. I did notice that the pictures of our home when viewed using Internet Explorer seem to be out of order. These are some of the little "Quirks" of using different web browsers when surfing the internet.

Gifford Home

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This past January we moved from Kane to Gifford. It is on Rte 646 between Bradford & Smethport. Many of our family and friends have not seen our home so I thought I would post a few pictures of the house.

Click on any picture to view full size

Starting Back Up

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Thanks for stopping by. I have been away from from this blog for quite some time now. Since I have more free time now and health permitting, I will be adding more to this blog in the near future.
This blog use to be based out of Kane, PA but has recently moved in January 2010 to the Gifford, PA. area. Not much distance and really nothing much has changed other than our address. Due to recent illnesses in the past two years there hasn't been much time for computers.
Please stop by in the future to see what's coming next. In the mean time please view some of the past posts I've put on here and check in the "Archive" of older posts on here. You might find some items of interest to you.
Also as a point of interest, on all my posts listed on this web site. You will notice that certain words are underlined or different colored in each of the posts. These are "Links" to that particular word(s) and when you click on them, they will bring up web sites relating to that word or area of interest. This can be of great help so that you can see other web sites that relate or be of interest to that post.