samhexum

I have some errands to run tomorrow. My 2003 car will hit 80,000 miles. I bought it in 2010 with 49,300. I've only put 1200ish miles on per year the last decade or so.

An Oklahoma teen is on top of the world after winning a car last month at a funeral 30 miles away from her home — fulfilling the last wish of a woman she had never even met. “I’m very grateful for this,” Gabriella Bonham, 16, of El Reno, Oklahoma, told Fox News Digital. “Every person that I’ve told about it has said, ‘Oh my gosh. That’s what I should do whenever I pass away.’ Or, ‘I should do something like that at my funeral.’ I think that it’s really cool to see something good happen and the effect that it makes on other people who weren’t directly involved in it. Just people want to do good things. It’s amazing.” That’s exactly the way Diane Sweeney of Oklahoma City wanted it. She died suddenly on July 7, 2022 — and just a few weeks before had told her nephew that when she died, she wanted to gift one of her prized possessions — a 2016 Volkswagen Beetle — to someone who attended the funeral. “She always had a giving spirit,” Sweeney’s nephew, Rick Ingram, told Fox News Digital. “She told a few of us her wish. I remember it clear as day. She said, ‘Whoever comes to my funeral, I want them to have a chance to win my Volkswagen Beetle.’ And I said, ‘Oh, Diane, I’ll make that happen.’” Thirty days later, Ingram said he got a call telling him that his aunt had passed away. Sweeney, who worked in biostatistics for an East coast pharmaceutical company, was not married and did not have children. After a successful career, his aunt decided to move back to Oklahoma and live a simple life, said Ingram. “She valued a peaceful life,” Ingram said. “She could have lived anywhere and driven any vehicle. And what she cared about was her Christian faith, her family and her Volkswagen Beetle. She also loved Sonic and Burger King.” Ingram said he and his cousin, Suzanne Singleterry, decided to make her final wish come true. So they reached out to local news outlets to help get the word out. “We put it in the local paper,” Ingram said. “That her wish is that whoever comes to the funeral — and she didn’t care if they knew her or not, or their age, race — would have a chance to win her car. Channel 4 picked it up and asked if they could do a news story [about it].I said, ‘Absolutely. It’ll pack the funeral home’ — which it did.” Sixteen-year-old Gabriella Bonham was one of the people who came to the funeral. “I saw it on TV and then we kind of just laughed it off because we were like, ‘That would be so funny to go to,'” Bonham said. “Then I was like, ‘Can we actually go?’” Bonham talked two of her older sisters and some cousins into going with her to the service — and what started out as a fun adventure turned into a more meaningful experience than she ever imagined. There, Bonham learned about the life and kindness of Diane Sweeney. “It was very interesting not to know her and to see her life through her family’s eyes,” Bonham said. “They put together the slideshows and everything and so it was just interesting to feel like you knew someone that you had never met before. They said that she was a very funny and fun person to be around and that she loved her family and church. It definitely seemed like she was a generous person.” Bonham filled out her raffle ticket and went on her way — but didn’t hear anything for over a year. Ingram said it took that long to settle Sweeney’s estate and then they were free to hold the raffle. Sweeney had enlisted two trustworthy friends — Rudy Espinoza and Taylor Hurt — to keep the tickets safe and finally to draw a name on Sept. 15, 2023. The staff of Resthaven Funeral Home in Oklahoma City also helped facilitate the raffle. Out of the blue, Bonham said, she got a phone call that changed her life — or at least her ability to get around town. She was experiencing issues with her current car and it was not a reliable mode of transportation, she said. “I wasn’t expecting it at all,” Bonham said. “I was just in a hotel room with my family because we were currently on a trip. They just told me and I was standing in the middle of the room, just so shocked. My parents were trying to guess what it was. They were like, ‘What happened? Are you OK? Who is it?’ After I got off the phone, we all got excited and called all of our family members who knew that I went to the funeral.” Ingram said it was a lot of fun making the call and hearing the excitement of Bonham’s family in the background. “The perfect winner was drawn,” Ingram said. “She was ecstatic and very grateful. I had a divine feeling from the start [that] this wish would be seen through one way or another — a young girl starting her life as Diane’s was ending. It worked out perfectly.” A few days later, Bonham made the trip to Oklahoma City to claim her prize. “I was trying not to freak out because it was just so cool,” Bonham said. “It was a lot of pressure, driving away in front of everybody. I was kind of nervous. So I was just thinking ‘Don’t do anything stupid. You know how to drive. Don’t worry about it, just drive away.'” Ingram said he’s grateful for the message of his aunt’s life. “Diane would have been thrilled with everyone that attended the funeral,” Ingram said. “She was always thinking of others, even after her death, which is one of her many legacies. And now [Gabriella] starts her life in the spirit of Diane.”

In the late 19th century, whalers, settlers, and pirates changed the ecology of the Galapagos Islands by poaching some native species—like Galapagos giant tortoises—and introducing others, like goats and rats. The latter species became pests and severely destabilized the island ecosystems. Goats overgrazed the fruits and plants the tortoises ate while rats preyed on their eggs. Over time, the tortoise population plummeted. On Española, an island in the southeast of the archipelago, the tortoise count fell from over 10,000 to just 14. Along the way, with goats eating all the plants they could, Española—once akin to a savanna—turned barren. A century later, conservationists set out to restore the Galapagos giant tortoise on Española—and the island ecosystem. They began eradicating the introduced species and capturing Española’s remaining tortoises and breeding them in captivity. With the goats wiped out and the tortoises in cages, the ecosystem transformed once again. This time, the overgrazed terrain became overgrown with densely packed trees and woody bushes. Española’s full recovery to its savanna-like state would have to wait for the tortoises’ return. From the time those 14 tortoises were taken into captivity between 1963 and 1974 until they were finally released in 2020, conservationists with the NGO Galápagos Conservancy and the Galapagos National Park Directorate reintroduced nearly 2,000 captive-bred Galapagos giant tortoises to Española. Since then, the tortoises have continued to breed in the wild, causing the population to blossom to an estimated 3,000. They’ve also seen the ecology of Española transform once more as the tortoises are reducing the extent of woody plants, expanding the grasslands, and spreading the seeds of a key species. Not only that, but the tortoises’ return has also helped the critically endangered waved albatross—a species that breeds exclusively on Española. During the island’s woody era, Maud Quinzin, a conservation geneticist who has previously worked with Galapagos tortoises, says that people had to repeatedly clear the areas the seabirds use as runways to take off and land. Now, if the landing strips are getting overgrown, they’ll move tortoises into the area to take care of it for them. The secret to this success is that—much like beavers, brown bears, and elephants—giant tortoises are ecological architects. As they browse, poop, and plod about, they alter the landscape. They trample young trees and bushes before they can grow big enough to block the albatrosses’ way. The giant tortoises likewise have a potent impact on the giant species of prickly pear cactuses that call Española home—one of the tortoises’ favorite foods and an essential resource for the island’s other inhabitants. When the tortoises graze the cactus’s fallen leaves, they prevent the paddle-shaped pads from taking root and competing with their parents. And, after they eat the cactus’s fruit, they drop the seeds across the island in balls of dung that offer a protective shell of fertilizer. The extent of these and other ecological effects of the tortoise are documented in a new study by James Gibbs, a conservation scientist and the president of the Galápagos Conservancy, and Washington Tapia Aguilera, the director of the giant tortoise restoration program at the Galápagos Conservancy. To study these impacts up close, they fenced off some of the island’s cactuses, which gave them a way to assess how the landscapes evolve when they’re either exposed to or free from the tortoises’ influences. They also studied satellite imagery of the island captured between 2006 and 2020 and found that while parts of the island are still seeing an increase in the density of bushes and trees, places where the tortoises have rebounded are more open and savanna-like. As few as one or two tortoises per hectare, the scientists write, is enough to trigger a shift in the landscape. Dennis Hansen, a conservation ecologist who has worked with the tortoises native to the Aldabra atoll in the Indian Ocean, says that while the findings line up with what conservationists expected, it was nice to have their suspicions confirmed. The results bode well for other rewilding projects that include giant tortoise restoration as a keystone of their efforts, he says, such as those underway on other islands in the Galapagos archipelago and on the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean. But on Española itself, though the tortoises have been busy stomping shoots and spreading seeds, they have more work to do. In 2020, 78 percent of Española was still dominated by woody vegetation. Gibbs says it may take another couple of centuries for Española’s giant tortoises to reestablish something like the ratio of grasses, trees, and bushes that existed before Europeans landed in the archipelago. But that long transformation is at least underway. Do tortoises even have thumbs? Galapagos giant tortoises are restoring their own ecosystem | Popular Science WWW.POPSCI.COM A decades-long project to reintroduce Galapagos giant tortoises is changing the face of the island of Española.

The proper response would've been "Jimmy was okay; Warren I could take or leave," (or vice versa)

It's a shame she never married a man with the last name Stone.

She was 91.

Appointment October 17, 2023 at 10:30 a.m. Walgreens Vaccine(s) RSV Pneumonia (Pneumococcal)

Legal Cannabis Shop Cleared To Open in Astoria After Two-Month Battle

It was exactly a month ago today that Max Scherzer’s season seemed to be over, when Rangers GM Chris Young told reporters that Scherzer was “unlikely” to be part of any postseason play due to a teres major strain. However, Scherzer almost immediately started some level of light baseball activity, and has steadily ramped up his work to the point that he now looks to be on the verge of joining the Rangers for the start of the AL Championship Series. Scherzer threw a 68-pitch simulated game on Wednesday, and told reporters (including Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News) today that he threw another bullpen session and participated in fielding drills. With all of this regular workload complete, Scherzer feels “I’ve pressed all the buttons I can. I’m ready to go….I feel normal. That’s all I can say. All I can do is describe what I feel like and if I have an issue, I have to let them know. But my arm feels fresher.” The final verdict won’t come until Sunday when the Rangers officially submit their ALCS roster in advance of Game 1 against the Astros. But, all signs point to Scherzer being in the mix, making for quite a boost for the Rangers in getting a future Hall-of-Famer added to the pitching staff. Jordan Montgomery is the announced Game 1 starter, Nathan Eovaldi will very likely start Game 2, and Grant figures any of Scherzer, Andrew Heaney, or Dane Dunning could start Game 3. It stands to reason that Scherzer might be face a relatively quick hook if he does start, to keep him from overtaxing his arm. In that scenario, Scherzer could be part of a piggyback situation with Heaney, Dunning, or possibly Martin Perez. Jon Gray is another possible X-factor for the series, as the righty has been working his way back from forearm tightness and could also be included on the ALCS roster. The pitching plans will likely also hinge on how things play out for Texas in the first two games of the series, so the official Game 3 starter might not be known until after Game 2 is over on Monday.

Bear Breaks Into Connecticut Home, Heads Straight for the Refrigerator and Steals Frozen Lasagna WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS, GARFIELD? Read in People: Bear Breaks Into Connecticut Home, Heads Straight for the Refrigerator and Steals Frozen Lasagna APPLE.NEWS “You can see him going from room to room, as comfortable as I am in my house,” said the homeowner

MAJOR BUMMER! I don't like ANY of the reimagined songs.

A student was excited to move to Florida for college. Then she realized she'd applied to Miami University — in Ohio perhaps she should take a course in reading comprehension. When Valerie Do, 19, applied to study at Miami University in 2021, she was excited by the prospect of spending her days lounging on beaches in the sun in Florida, surrounded by palm trees like she'd seen in the movies. As an international student living in Vietnam, she couldn't visit the university before applying. So when the university sent her an acceptance letter welcoming her to Ohio, Do felt confused. At first, she wondered whether Ohio might be a district or a county in Florida. But after a quick Google search, her beach fantasy was shattered when she realized she wouldn't be going to the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, as she'd initially thought. She'd be going to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Martha Stewart Flaunts Her High Slit and Full Glam Before Hitting the Carpet: ‘Fun to Dress Up’

THINGS TO DO IN QUEENS Tomorrow, 9 am Free Tai Chi classes for seniors 60+ Moore Homestead Playground Tomorrow, 2 pm The Amazing Maize Maze Queens County Farm Museum Oct. 14, 10 am Experience Civil War Living History at Fort Totten Bayside Historical Society

Whenever I think of Will & Jada's relationship (which I try to do at least once a millennium) I'm tempted to sing "Isn't it semantics?"

Have you ever heard of google? You know how competitive Germans can be.

He turned 100 May 27th. I bet you didn't even send him a card.

Accent on 'little'. I think I'll use my extra $43/mo to retire to the south of France.

Urban farm on roof of Fenway Park is growing 6,000 pounds of produce a year Fenway Farms is a roughly 5,000-square-foot rooftop garden area tucked up behind the third baseline at legendary Fenway Park, home to the Boston Red Sox. With 2,400 total square feet of growing space, the beds can cultivate anything from A to Z – “asparagus to zucchini,” says Chris Grallert, president of Green City Growers, and a local farmer who grew up going to Red Sox games as a kid. “Local is not new. In 1920, this area [in downtown Boston] ranked fifth in the nation for values of crops or fruits and vegetables. And all the communities around Boston had local markets and local gardens,” Grallert says. “Having a rooftop farm at Fenway Park is an amazing way to be a part of reinvigorating a local food production system.”

Jeremy Allen White must undergo alcohol testing 5X/week to see kids “The Bear” star, 32, has reportedly agreed to be tested for alcohol up to five times a week when he has custody of his daughters Ezer, 4, and Dolores, 2, according to court documents obtained by Page Six. If White does test positive for alcohol, he will be retested 15 minutes later to ensure the test is accurate. If he fails, he loses custody of the girls until next steps are determined. White and Addison reportedly have joint physical and legal custody of their daughters, but the “Shameless” alum’s custodial time comes with the condition that he must attend at least two Alcoholics Anonymous meetings a week in addition to therapy.

These boyfriends have a huge 14-inch height difference. Charlie is 5-foot-7, and Max is a towering 6-foot-9. See how the thirty-something couple in England flaunt their wildly different sizes on TikTok, often with the hashtag "gay couple goals." https://nypost.com/video/short-king-shows-off-his-super-tall-boyfriend/