Green vistas, GPS and ESGR

The College World Series is an event not to be missed. Rosenblatt Stadium is the perfect setting. Our Omaha daughter and granddaughter treated us to a game in honor of Father's Day. We four, along with some 23,000+ other happy fans enjoyed the evening. The atmosphere was festive, the weather perfect and everybody was simply having a good time. Well, maybe the LSU fans could have had more fun had their Tar Heels done better against the Tigers. Not having a dog in the hunt the score didn't really matter but I'll confess that I sided a bit with the eventual winner, 8 to 4, North Carolina Tar Heels.

I'd watched the college baseball games on TV before but comfortable in my living room vs. totally immersed in the fun at Rosenblatt Stadium; there was no comparison. Ten bucks for general admission, ten bucks to park your car on some enterprising neighbor's lawn. Six dollar hotdogs, four dollar cokes, $7.50 for the big greasy "flowered onion‚"! Long lines for everything and some really interesting fans to watch, it is all just pure fun. It is one experience that I think every Nebraskan should put on at least once in this lifetime! Just another outstanding event that makes our state "the best."

Green green green across Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and best of all Western Nebraska. Driving across those states and on home can be all summed up in one word--Green. Wild flowers abound. The cattle are sleek, the deer and antelope within sight of the Interstate look the same. I know that it is only a snapshot but hopefully our long drought is over. Eastern Nebraska is already flat wet.

All across Utah I discovered that some kind soul deemed credit above a $75 limit unsafe. Their gas pumps automatically cut one off as the last penny ticks past $75. Unfortunately that amount never quite filled my pickup but then in another state I was able to get full for only $99.80 -- not a drop more would fit!

Gasoline was highest priced in California the maximum I paid $4.57 a gallon. California officials are evidently unreasonably concerned about pollution, particularly gasoline vapors, so all gas pumps are equipped with a prophylactic device over the gas nozzle to seal off your gas tank from expelling any deadly vapor as the tank is filled with liquid. Cumbersome and unhandy as heck but it must make those watching over us happy.

"Leaving on the present road in 1⁄2 mile." And then "Leaving on the present road." The Asian female voice in my GPS kept saying, as she meant to have me continue straight ahead approaching an intersection.

Using the road-wise GPS was a new experience and I welcomed the help plus the plethora of data available. Useful things like miles traveled today, average speed, constantly updated coordinates, miles to the next, and just past, exits. And especially distance and direction to the next gas station, shopping center, grocery store restaurant or about a million other "Points of Interest‚" along the way. It boggles my mind that all that information can be stored on a little bitty computer chip. But then why did they make the little lady inside talk with an Asian accent? Yeah I know it is the language of the software programmers. For sure it makes travel more interesting!

I spent part of the weekend in a workshop of volunteers across the state doing good work in defense of Employer Support of Guard and Reserves (ESGR). When Congress abolished the draft in 1972 laws were made to further protect the employment rights of those military members who elected to serve their country in the various National Guard and Reserve units. McCook has one of each. Some 76 of us volunteers from across the State of Nebraska endeavor to keep our fingers on the relations between individuals and their employers when Guard or Reserve duty beckons. And since 9/11/2001 the Guard and reserve members have stepped forward to now comprise 48 percent of the total military force in the United States so we feel that their support is a vital issue.

ESGR is a two-way street however, and at times it becomes necessary to intercede on behalf of the employer when the military member maybe oversteps the intent of the law and takes unfair advantage.

In my experience employers in Southwestern Nebraska are to be complimented for the support that they consistently give their member employees, and their families, when that citizen soldier has to be absent from work to help defend his or her country.

That is the way I see it.

ESGR

http://www.esgr.org/