William Rusk's blog

JDRF Walk May 3rd

2008-04-16T23:18:00.001-04:00

William Rusk is walking on May 3, 2008 in State College, PA.

Hello! This year, I'll be taking part again in JDRF's Walk to Cure Diabetes, along with one-half million other walkers across the country, as we try to reach our goal of raising $100 million.Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes, is a devastating disease that affects millions of peoplea large and growing percentage of them children.There is some good news, though. For the first time, scientists are predicting that we CAN expect to see a cure well within our lifetime!Now, more than ever, you can make a crucial difference. Won't you please give to JDRF as generously as possible? Together, we can make the cure a reality!

http://walk.jdrf.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=extranet.personalpage&confirmID=87011472

This really caught my attention.

2008-01-17T10:50:00.000-05:00

Twins separated at birth met and married

Fri Jan 11, 2:33 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - A couple discovered after they had married that they were twins who had been split up at birth and adopted by separate families, according to a member of Britain's House of Lords.

British peer David Alton recounted the story to parliament last month to support his argument that artificially conceived children should be told who their biological parents are.

Alton said he had heard the story of the separated twins from a High Court judge who had dealt with the case.

"This did not involve in vitro fertilization: It involved the normal birth of twins who were separated at birth and adopted by separate parents," said Alton, an independent member of the Lords. "They were never told that they were twins."

"They met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction, and the judge had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation," he said.

"I suspect that it will be a matter of litigation in the future if we do not make information of this kind available to children who have been donor-conceived," he said.

Alton could not immediately be reached for comment and no further information was available about the twins or where they were from.

"I think it's a very tragic story for the people involved," said Pam Hodgkins, head of a group that helps adults affected by adoption.

"It is a lesson that we need to learn and apply to the situation of donor-conceived children," she told Sky News.

"Whilst ... nowadays it would be most unusual for siblings to be separated ... the risk of secrecy affecting the lives of people born as a result of egg and sperm donation is exactly the same as the risks that have affected adopted people in the past," she said.

(Reporting by Adrian Croft; Editing by Stephen Addison)

Shouldn't this be the last thing anyone would want to steal?

2007-10-11T15:25:00.000-04:00

Thou shalt not steal -- especially the Bible
Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:47am EDT SINGAPORE (Reuters)

A Singaporean judge sentenced a man to four months in jail for stealing a Bible, admonishing him with Scripture before hauling him off to prison, The Straits Times newspaper reported Wednesday.

District judge Bala Reddy also gave a new Bible to the 26-year-old thief, who said he had tried to steal the book from a bookshop last month because he wanted to replace his old, tattered copy.

At the Tuesday sentencing, the judge told the defendant -- who has previous convictions for theft -- to open his gift.

"You will see at page 65 that it says "Thou shalt not steal. While you are in prison, sit in prison and read the Bible, and ensure that you don't come before the courts again," Reddy said.

Little kids can in fact drive a car

2007-08-31T11:18:00.000-04:00

On the Smoking Gun web site there is a true account of a five-year old kid driving a car. Obviously could not reach the gas pedals, but other than that was able to drive the car!

More info here:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0830071drive1.html

Watch out for those sturgeon!

2007-06-12T08:02:00.000-04:00

Woman Injured by Leaping Sturgeon
Associated Press 06.12.07, 6:46 AM ET

A woman was injured over the weekend by a leaping sturgeon, the latest incident involving the flying fish on the Suwannee River, officials said.

Tara Spears, 32, of Bell, was knocked unconscious by the animal on Sunday while boating on the river north of Rock Bluff, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported.

She was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and was expected to recover, the agency reported.

The large, prehistoric-looking sturgeon have hard plates along their backs. They can grow up to 8 feet long and up to 200 pounds.

In April, a leaping sturgeon severely injured a 50-year-old woman from St. Petersburg who was riding a personal watercraft on the Suwannee River. She suffered a ruptured spleen and had three fingers reattached by surgeons, but she lost her left pinkie finger and a tooth.

Map directions including "Swim across the Atlantic Ocean"....

2007-04-10T10:15:00.000-04:00

New discovery using the Google Maps site.

If two locations can not be reached without crossing an ocean, Google Maps will list the ocean as well like "Swim across the Atlantic Ocean - xxxx miles".

Here is a good example:

Sample Link

Saved by a pile of ...

2007-04-09T21:23:00.000-04:00

Falling woman saved by pile of...
True story!
Wed Apr 4, 10:33 AM ETBEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese woman survived a plunge from a sixth-floor balcony thanks to a convenient pile of excrement which broke her fall, local media said.
The accident happened when the woman was hanging out laundry on Monday in Nanjing, capital of the eastern province of Jiangsu, the Kuaibao tabloid said on its Web site (www.kuaibao.net).
"Workers happened to be emptying the building's septic tank, which had not been tended for a long time and had regularly blocked sewage pipes," the newspaper said."She probably stretched out too far and fell ... right on to a 20 cm-thick heap of excrement."
The woman suffered only slight injuries, the newspaper said.
In March, a six-year-old girl broke only her left leg when she fell six floors on to a pile of snow in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.

Watch out for those stinkin' unicorns!

2007-03-13T23:06:00.001-04:00

Lawyer: Man said unicorn caused crash

BILLINGS, Mont. - A man told police not to blame him for crashing his truck into a light post — it was that unicorn behind the wheel. Prosecutor Ingrid Rosenquist said Phillip C. Holliday Jr. initially denied driving the truck involved in the March 7 crash in Billings. He told officers at the scene that a unicorn was driving, she said.

Holliday, 42, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to felony charges of criminal endangerment and drunken driving.

A pickup truck drove through a red light and nearly struck another truck in the intersection, according to court documents. The driver then made an erratic U-turn through a gas station, crossed the street and crashed into a light pole. Nobody was injured.

Holliday has five drunken-driving convictions. District Judge Gregory Todd kept his bail at $100,000 despite his lawyer arguing that Holliday's last such conviction was 14 years ago.

RE: Meat Lovers of America (From recent email received)

2007-03-13T23:04:00.001-04:00

...Being the time of Lent, received this from a friend
who new I was Venison Lover...Thought you would find
it amusing...
....Each Friday night after work, Bubba would fire up
his outdoor grill & cook a big venison steak.  But,
all Bubba's neighbors were Catholic...And since this
was Lent, they were forrbidden to eat meat on
Fridays...
...The delicious aroma from the grilled venision
steaks was causing such a problem for the Catholic
faithful so they finally decided to talk to the priest
about Bubba...
...The Priest came to visit Bubba & suggested that he
become Catholic...After several classes & much study,
Bubba attended mass...The Priest sprinkled holy water
over him & said, "You were born a Baptist, and raised
a Baptist, but now you are a Catholic."
...Bubba's neighbors were greatly relieved, until
Friday night arrived & this wonderful aroma of grilled
vension filled the neighborhood...
...Quickly, the Priest was summoned by all the
neighbors & he rushed into Bubba's back yard,
clutching a rosary in his hand & ready to scold him
but stopped short in amazement...
...There stood Bubba, clutching a small bottle of holy
water which he carefully sprinkled over the grilling
meat & chanted: " You wuz born a deer, you wuz raised
a deer, but now you is a catfish."

This week just has to be better than last week.

2007-02-12T20:35:00.000-05:00

This week just has to be better than last week.

Here is the crap from last week.
1. The rental office lost my rent check! I had to stop payment on the first check at the credit union, then drive to the rental office to do a new check, then drive back to work. Work is within walking distance of.. the credit union.
2. I am not getting Windows Vista yet. Assuming that someone took my copy that UPS left at the front door of the apartment.
3. Found out from the doctor that I have a bunch of congestion in my left lung so I am on antibiotics and also using an inhaler. I did not feel 100% but did not know I was that sick. Five days of antibiotics was 28 bucks and the medications made me sick the first few days.
4. Ended up working screwy hours due to taking time off over two days for item 1 and 3.

Even with 6-12 inches of snow here tomorrow and into Wednesday, this week has to be better than last week.Went to a movie yesterday and out to dinner tonight, so this week is so good so far. Pay day is this week as well.

Again, this week has to be better than last week.

Forecast in Poop

2007-01-15T22:07:00.000-05:00

http://wwwa.accuweather.com/world-index-forecast.asp?partner=espn&loccode=poop

Go ahead and regift it!

2006-10-16T18:49:00.000-04:00

Having a problem giving a gift to someone else (ie regifting)?
Noticed the following article.
HALF of Americans say they do it.
So go ahead and regift it!

Half of Americans say they re-gift
POSTED: 2:33 p.m. EDT, October 5, 2006
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) -- Wrapping up that unwanted picture frame from last Christmas and giving it to someone else as a gift might not be as taboo as it once was, according to a study released Wednesday.
The survey of 1,505 American adults, conducted by market research firm Harris Interactive, found that over half of the respondents admitted to "re-gifting" with passing on gifts becoming a far more common and acceptable phenomenon.
In fact 78 percent of consumers who were polled felt that it was acceptable to re-gift some or most of the time.
Nancy Wong, a spokeswoman for Harris Interactive, said she was surprised by the number of people who admitted to re-gifting.
"It's not something I've thought about and when I saw that nearly half had done it -- 52 percent have re-gifted and or would re-gift -- it's quite a significant number," Wong told Reuters.

Another good reason not to get a personalized tattoo.

2006-09-22T13:34:00.000-04:00

"Auto Theft" tattoo tips police to thief
Thu Sep 21, 2006 11:50 AM ET

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - A Canadian man's apparent fondness for the video game "Grand Theft Auto" has led to his arrest in connection with an auto theft, police said on Wednesday.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Shylo Kujawski -- who has "Grand Theft Auto" prominently tattooed on his back -- was spotted acting suspiciously in a Vancouver suburb where several stolen cars had been reported.

Using the tattoo to identify Kujawski as a convicted auto thief, police said they then set up a stakeout that nabbed him attempting drive away in a stolen car.

Police said during the stakeout they also watched Kujawski thwart his own attempt to drive away in another stolen vehicle by accidentally disabling the car with the owner's steering wheel lock.

Kujawski, of no fixed address, has been charged with possession of stolen property in connection with an auto theft, as well as breach of probation and driving while suspended.

And you thought road rage was a problem?

2006-09-06T23:03:00.000-04:00

And you thought road rage was a problem?

Here's a couple good examples of how just "off" drivers out there can be now.

Is it me or are we starting to see a bunch of bad driver stories out there now?

Well here's the examples....

Speeding driver blames lack of goats
Wed Sep 6, 2006 12:54 PM ET OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Swiss driver caught speeding in Canada explained that he had been taking advantage of the ability to drive fast without hitting a goat, police said on Wednesday.The driver was caught traveling 161 km/hr (100 mph) in a 100 km/hr zone in eastern Ontario Sunday."A motorist from Switzerland, used to driving around hills and mountains, takes advantage of the ability to go faster without risking hitting a goat," read the traffic officer's notes of the incident.Local police said it was the first time they had ever heard of such an excuse."I've never been to Switzerland but obviously they must have a problem with that there," said police spokesman Joel Doiron, adding that in his 20 years of service he had never found a goat on the highways of eastern Ontario.The Swiss driver's imaginative excuse did him little good. Police issued him a C$360 ($330) speeding ticket.

Motorist jailed for blowing up traffic camera that flashed him while speeding
MANCHESTER, England (AP) — His driving was swift, but his thinking wasn’t. A 28-year-old man who blew up a speed camera, hoping to destroy evidence of his speeding, was sentenced to prison for four months on Wednesday. Craig Moore, 28, from Doncaster, England, said he saw a flash of light from the camera, indicating that it had detected him speeding on Aug. 14, 2005. Moore said he feared his drivers licence would be suspended, making him unable to work to support his family. So, he employed thermite, used in his work as a welder, to destroy the camera. That backfired because images of his speeding survived the explosion, and so did images of him returning to attack the camera. Moore earlier had pleaded guilty to a charge of damaging property. “The defendant accepts that he has created a mountain out of a molehill by behaving stupidly,” said defence lawyer Andrew Bailey. “He finds himself in a great deal of trouble rather than the little deal of trouble he would have been in.” In fact, Moore would have been in no trouble at all. Tameside Council confirmed that the Watchman camera was designed to deter speeders, not catch them, and that it flashed only as a warning. However, the Watchman does contain cameras which monitor the area, and that’s what caught Moore.

Sign of the Apocalypse?

2006-07-24T19:52:00.000-04:00

Fish from heavens rain on India's Manna

Mon Jul 24, 4:26 AM ET

The people of Kerala in India's southwest are famed for turning fish into spicy feasts fit for gods, but last week the heavens turned provider as fish rained down on the village of Manna, a newspaper reported on Monday.

When the clouds broke last Thursday, villagers said they saw small, pencil-thin live fish falling from the sky.

"Initially no one noticed it. But soon, we saw some slushy objects on the ground and noticed some slight movement," Abubaker, a local shop owner, was quoted as saying in the Hindustan Times.

"I alone collected 30 ice-cold fish of which many died," said the resident of Manna, 20 km (12 miles) from Kannur, in the north of the state.

Locals said the fish looked like parals, a common freshwater fish found in lakes and rivers.

Similar reports of objects falling from the sky -- including frogs and tomatoes -- have been put down to spiralling whirlwinds or waterspouts which suck them up from land or water. They fall back to earth once the wind speed drops and can no longer support them.

Finally did the MySpace thing.

2006-06-29T23:19:00.000-04:00

Found out my cousin and a few other people now have their own MySpace pages, so I have also started my own MySpace page at
http://www.myspace.com/willdrusk .

I don't see a problem with MySpace as long as you are careful with your content. Waiting to see what happens with the site now since they are now a part of Rudolph Murdoch's News Corp business group.

One place where gas is still cheaper than water

2006-05-11T16:52:00.001-04:00

Gas is currently about 12 cents a gallon in Venezuela.
Not kidding!

The government does a gas subsidy there were gas is sold at below market rate, therefore causing the outrageously cheap gasoline. The government is actually losing out on getting a large amount of money (possibly billions of dollars) due to this subsidy.

Brazilians are coming across the border for gas, and Colombians are smuggling it. SUVs are also popular there as well, so that's an environmental bad thing.

More info
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/energy_gasoline_dc

Ouch!

One place where gas is still cheaper than water

2006-05-11T16:52:00.000-04:00

Hidden thing for submitting your web site

2006-05-10T21:17:00.000-04:00

One of the places that people tend to overlook is the Open Directory Project web site.

If you are submitting your web site to search engines, also submit it to the ODP web site as well.

Why?

A lot of popular web sites, including the most popular web sites, use the directory from the ODP.
If you're on the ODP, you may also be on the other web sites as well.

Check out the ODP at www.dmoz.org, find the appropriate category your site belongs in, then submit your site.

Of course still go ahead and submit your web site to the search engines as well. Most of the popular search engines still have a free web site submission page - you just need to look for it in the information about the web sites.

Art of the middle finger

2006-04-17T21:46:00.000-04:00

This is a picture of my blind sister Amy, which makes this a special picture. It actually took a while for us to figure out a way to teach her this (flipping people off). Some other people have their moment of greatness with a discovery or a historical event, and my sister's "art" is the the art of the middle finger. We did not intentionally go out of our way to teach her this but she was already doing it the wrong way - kept flipping off the ceiling or something else.

She heard the camera and very quickly got this in the picture.

This is actually a two part story. I had dropped off the pictures at CVS and they gave me the wrong pictures. They showed me another set which turned out to be my pictures. The picture they showed me happened to be the above picture. I just said that it was mine as it was my blind sister flipping off the camera. Believe they got a kick of that and I also got the pictures for free.

Real Newspaper Ads

2006-04-08T16:52:00.000-04:00

FREE YORKSHIRE TERRIER.
8 years old. Hateful little dog. Bites.

FREE PUPPIES:
1/2 Cocker Spaniel, 1/2 sneaky neighbor's dog.

FREE PUPPIES...
Mother, AKC German Shepherd.
Father, Super Dog...able to leap tall fences in a single bound.

FOUND DIRTY WHITE DOG.
Looks like a rat ... been out a while.
Better be a reward.

COWS, CALVES: NEVER BRED.
Also 1 gay bull for sale.

NORDIC TRACK
$300 Hardly used, call Chubby.

GEORGIA PEACHES
California grown - 89 cents lb.

JOINING NUDIST COLONY!
Must sell washer and dryer $300.

WEDDING DRESS FOR SALE.
WORN ONCE BY MISTAKE.
Call Stephanie.

AND THE BEST ONE!
FOR SALE BY OWNER:
Complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica, 45 volumes.
Excellent condition.
$1,000 or best offer.
No longer needed, got married last month.
Wife knows everything.

One noticeable change coming up on South Park

2006-03-13T21:05:00.000-05:00

I have been looking forward to the return of South Park with new episodes starting March 22nd.

However, I noticed that there will be one very noticeable change coming up.

The AP is reporting that Issac Hayes (yes the "Shaft" guy) has quit South Park. Issac did the voice of Chef on the show.

Quotes from the AP story - ``There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins,'' the 63-year-old soul singer and outspoken Scientologist said. ``Religious beliefs are sacred to people, and at all times should be respected and honored,'' he continued. ``As a civil rights activist of the past 40 years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices.''

It will be a very noticeable change for new episodes and we'll just have to see how the show goes from here. I would have to agree that the show has lost some of its original spark but there are still a few great episodes coming out still.

The Updated Wish List - at least some of it

2006-02-01T21:22:00.000-05:00

Everyone at some time had a "wish list" of items that they would like.
My friends and family got a kick out of me when I wrote out a complete wish
list for the holidays (Xmas gift to me).

Here are some highlights of things I would still like:

A GPS

Philadelphia Flyers customized jersey

Black Stetson cowboy hat

Trip and tickets to an Eagles or Flyers game (away or home)

Trip to Niagra Falls

Trip to Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto

A home cooked meal (not including immediate family) unless you're
a bad cook or take me out for dinner (HINT CAROLYN HINT HINT)

A very tall dresser

PSU sports items (no T-shirts)

Re: FINALLY BACK HERE!

2006-02-01T20:57:00.000-05:00

Well have been a bad boy, I'd suppose, for not having posted anything here for quite some time now. Will be getting back to it soon!

-Will

Removed some recent posts due to idiot spammers.

2005-12-16T17:29:00.000-05:00

Noticed some recent spammers have been going thru and putting spam in for user comments.

It is just another weak, feeble, and stupid thing to do by people who have nothing better to do than to ruin someone's personal blog.

Well to all of the spammers who put stuff here, your trash is now gone. I have turned on the additional settings in Blogger to keep you losers off of this site.

That means I now have to approve any comments placed here. If you don't like that, blame the spammers.

- Will