For all of those readers who did not catch the clue, I am Native American. As I have travelled across the United States and Canada, I have found that a LOT of people actually have ties to some tribe through their grandma, grandpa or step-second-cousin-in-law-on-their-mother's-side. But even those people with more than enough ancestry to be considered Native, have some grave misconceptions about the Native culture.

Let me provide you an example. About blah-blah-blah years ago, I started working for a company and after finding out I am Native, asked about my heritage.

Really smart white guy with native heritage in his bloodline as explained above: "What tribe?"

Me: "Well, I am half Lakota, you know it as Sioux, and I am half Cherokee."

Really smart white guy: "Really? I am not sure exactly what I am. I think I am Navajo or Apache."

Me: "That's great."

Smart white guy: "So, where are the Lakota from?"

Me: "My group is from the South Dakota and Wyoming area."

Almost smart white guy: "What about the Cherokee?"

Me: "Well, the Trail of Tears took most of them from the Carolinas to Oklahoma."

Not-so-smart white guy: "Where were you born?"

Me: "Los Angeles."

Dumb as a rock white guy: "If one of your tribes is from South Dakota and the other is from Oklahoma, how come you were born in California?"

Providing my best possible straight face: "Well, I guess since they both were students at UCLA, I am going to guess they either drove cars or maybe even took a plane to get there."

Why is it people think Natives still live in tepees and ride horses wherever they go? Most of us walked...geez. Really, how is it in today's culture, people still think that we are backward, uneducated drunks? That is like thinking Chinese are still building railroads or Irish are all drunk cops.

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). So many authors out there in the world and so few people trying to educate on the current customs and lifestyles of Natives. There is one movie that reflects Native culture, Smoke Signals. I encourage anyone who has any interest of educating themselves to rent or buy this movie.

Did you know...

About 4,000 people died on the forced relocation called the Trail Where We Cried.

Happy Birthday Shae! Today, Shae has turned 17.

She is another amazing story. She has managed to continue on through school well enough to graduate early this coming January. Shae is also attending her second year in an early learners program at a local college earning college credits. When she does graduate, she, her 24 ACT, and her good college GPA have managed to provide her a full ride to the same college.

She has dreams of criminal forensics and executive bakery chef. To be honest, she can do anything. She will probably be a partical physicist if she puts her mind to it.

This brings me to my point (which is really only for Shae). You can do anything as long as you maintain focus. You WILL be the best in your craft whatever craft you choose. You are the one person who can either hold you back or help you prosper. I am so proud of how far you have progressed in such a short time.

Did you know...

Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen turn 21 years if age June 13, 2007. Their net worth is one billion dollars.

There are certain things in life a man should never be asked to do: Go to the Gyno with your wife for a yearly check-up; volunteer to be the supervising parent of a Chuck E Cheese birthday party for your 8 year old daughter and 50 of her closest friends; shop for tampons.

There have been times in my life that I have been unfortunate enough to do just that. The first time I was directed to "grab a box" was for my first wife. What's the big deal? I am strong enough in my own sexual being to know they aren't for me. Who cares what anyone else thinks?

Off I go. Trooper to the core. I need to pick up eggs, milk, bread, toilet paper and tampons.

All of the other items have been collected as begin the quest down the feminine supplies isle. Massengill, panty liners, maxi-pads, ahhh...tampons.

Is it me, or is the tampon section of the store large enough to rival toilet paper and paper towels? How many different types of tampons do women really need?

Maybe it is psychological...maybe because women have to have so many pairs of shoes and shoe choices, the marketing department for tampons decided they need that many choices as well. For me and I think I speak for most of the common man, shoot me.

All I was there to do is pick up tampons. Now, I had to think about what type of tampon to buy, quantity and size. For those men fortunate enough to NOT go through this, I will attempt to map this out.

First you have to narrow down the brands (which is not too hard) Kotex, O.B, Playtex, Store-brand, and Tampax. For the purpose of this exercise, I will choose Tampax. Then comes absorbency which if you choose the wrong one, you could cause something called Toxic Shock Syndrome which as I understand it is bad. As far as absorbency, there is the Junior, Regular, Super, Super Plus, Compak Regular, oh, and to really make things easy, Multi-size. Next comes the applicator; Flushable, Biodegradable, Slender Flushable and Non-Flushable. Lastly, how many? Do you just need to last until she goes to the store or is this suppose to be a "lasting" purchase?

After standing in front of the tampons for about an hour and having absolutely no idea as to what of what is what, I grabbed the safe bet that they seemed to sell the most of, Tampax Multi-Size absorbancy, flushable applicator with the Super, Regular and Lite 40 count.

I can't imagine having to go through this with the pads or panty liners which had almost the same size lot in the store as tampons.

I check-out without the required price check that always seems to occur on items you hate purchasing in a store, like condoms and drudge home proudly choosing the best choice of all of the choices.

As I begin unpacking the bags, I hear, "Honey, I use Tampax Pearl."

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). Women, think Depo Provera. Depo is not only a birth control shot given every three months, but in most cases it STOPS the monthly visitor. It has other benefits as well, such as lower incidences of endometrial cancer and not having to worry about missing a pill, but that no period thing is BIG.

Did you know...

There are 85 million women of menstruating age in North America.

The Keeper is the environmentally safe alternative to tampons and pads.

This blog entry is not in my normal style and will more than likely be very long as it is an account of this day, five years ago. The purpose of this entry is for my own emotional and mental healing but is available for everyone to read. Please keep this in mind when or if you read. The Queen has also written an emotional entry.

The day started as any other. I was living in Springfield, Virginia and working at the District of Columbia. My normal commute to work starts with a ride on the Virginia Railway Express (VRE) from Lorton. Lorton is actually closer and the commuter train is much nicer and often faster than the Metro (DC’s subway).

Once arriving in DC, I walk to the office about a mile from Union Station. The day is sunny and not too warm.

After arriving at the office and getting seated, we check all of the email systems to make sure there have been no hiccups. There is nothing out of the ordinary so Tim and I start Metro searching to find the subway/bus route to the data center. This is our first time at this data center and we didn’t want to end up somewhere that would require some sort of SWAT extraction.

While trying to map out our route, Michele notices a slow-down in Internet traffic when she tries to connect to CNN.com. It is at this point we all jump into action and start trying to hit any site noticing everything is slow. I finally connect to MSNBC.com and the main page only shows a news break about a plane hitting the World Trade Center.

Thinking this is a freak accident, I called my wife and asked her to turn on the TV to CNN to find out.

She does. The Queen is utterly shocked and can’t believe something like this could happen with all of the technology that is in the planes and on the ground.

Meanwhile, Tim and I decide that if we don’t leave now, we will end up missing the bus to get to the data center. We leave.

After walking two blocks in the wrong direction, my phone rings.

“OH MY GOD JOHN!” the Queen is screaming on the phone so loud I can barely make out anything she is saying, “Another plane just slammed into the other tower! You need to leave!” As the Queen is still bawling on the other end of the phone, I look over to Tim to relay the information and we both stop in our tracks. “We are under attack! You need to leave!”

I inform the Queen that Tim and I are heading back to the office right now and we are leaving.

We had not walked an entire block back toward the building when the mayor’s cavalcade flies in to excavate him from our building. Tim and I look at each other knowing that we are in trouble. Black Suburbans are speeding across intersections heading toward the Capitol building to pick up their respective Senators and Representatives.

Our building is place half way between the Capitol building and the White House. If something sis happen, we were definitely going to be affected.

At this point, Tim and I are picking up the pace toward the office. We enter the lobby and already security had tightened up because of the threat. Tim and I ran downstairs to pick up our laptops. We had to run upstairs to the 8th floor to notify our boss that we are leaving.

Once arriving, the big projection TV at the main lobby is showing footage of the towers and is informing us that air space is being shut down for all air traffic. Then we heard it.

From our vantage point, we heard it first. It sounded more like a chair being thrown against the glass than an explosion. But when I looked over toward the Pentagon, it was perfectly clear that it was not. The black cloud had just begun to rise and it was entire too close for me.

Fear had stepped from worry to panic. I told Tim that he was heading out with me. Any way out of town was better than nothing. Tim was living in Sterling at the time, but was a close friend and had been to my house many times before.

Now, how do we get out of town. The Metro was already being shut down and being underground was not a very acceptable option right then. We agreed to walk to Union Station and catch the FIRST train out of town heading South. Amtrak and VRE have an agreement that they will take you as far as the VRE ticket at no additional cost.

While walking to the station, the black Suburbans are nowhere to be found. But traffic in the city had stopped due to instantaneous panic and congestion.

Tim and I ran and boarded the Amtrak heading to Springfield. The train was full of other VRE riders looking for the fastest way out. Right when the train was ready to leave, a man with a FBI windbreaker came on board and informed everyone they need to disembark the train and head out of Union Station on the West side. There was a possible bomb on the train and in the station and everyone was to evacuate immediately.

Now what?

Tim and I stood outside the station and met up with a couple of the network security guys trying to do the same thing. We considered walking to the bike shop and purchasing a bike to ride out of town.

We were buzzed by two F-16s flying over the Capitol building. The military Humvees had started rolling into town and the situation went from completely uncomfortable to scary. After talking to the police officer, we found our options limited to none.

After many attempts to use a cell phone, we found that Blackberry messaging was working…slowly, but working nonetheless. Also, Tim’s Nextel phone could grab a signal every so often. I emailed the Queen with message which I will always remember:

Can’t get out of town. Walking to the bar across from the train station. I love you.

What were we to do? We walked into Irish Times and watched TV and drank at 10:30 in the morning. There was actually a large turnout for the bar considering how many people were trying to leave. We sat there in amazement as the information was relay to us. While in the bar, we relayed messages to loved one via Blackberry. We had people using Tim’s phone when they could connect since it was most likely to get service.

We were watching as everyone else did as the first tower fell to the ground followed closely by the second. What hit home for us was when the Pentagon wall crumbled.

I called the Queen. That was the hardest thing I could do. She didn’t answer so I left a message informing her that I am alright and that when we can figure how to leave town, we will. She was at the school pulling the kids out.

We sat in the bar until around 5:30 when we decided the worst was over and again tried to find a way out of town. Union Station was still closed, but the Metro had just reopened.

I would be taking the Blue line back to Springfield and Tim would take the Orange line.

The train was fairly empty but not the Springfield station. Everyone that normally took the VRE South, was now out of town but stranded in Springfield. One of these people was an Air Force Colonel that rode with me on the Metro and the two network security guys from work.

As I was talking to the John and Jim, the Colonel overheard me tell them that my wife could drop them off at Potomac Mills. The Colonel asked if he could also catch a ride which I promptly replied “Sure, not problem.”

Springfield station was wall-to-wall people. As we weaved through the crowd to be picked up, my wife spotted me and a noticeable sigh of relief came over her. I have three other people in tow and informed her that we were dropping them off.

While driving toward Potomac Mills, I asked the Colonel if he was in the Pentagon.

“Yes. I made it out without issue, but I know people in that wing. We were supposed to move back to that wing next week.”

A stark quiet came over the sport utility vehicle.

“Does your wife know you are OK?” says the Queen.

“Yes, she knows.”

After dropping off John and Jim, we continued toward the Colonel’s house. We tried to have some small talk, but he was understandably short on answers. Mostly, the questions asked were directions to his destination. We dropped him off and Andi considered going back to the station to pickup more stranded people.

After asking her where the kids were, she decided it was best to get back to them to keep them from worrying. That night was spent camping out in front of the TV and on the phone.

The Aftermath…

That evening, we found out that the Queen’s cousin, Jason who normally works in the Cantor Fitzgerald office in World Trade Center 1 was in London. Most of his friends were lost that night. He was devastated and no longer works there.

One family in our neighborhood also lost a loving husband and soon-to-be father as he was in the wing of the Pentagon that took the impact. The wife and unborn child moved in with her parents and sold the house. The community had a candlelight vigil for the fallen soldier next to Lake Mercer.

The Queen took the whole incident very hard. We were unable to drive by the Pentagon without her bawling her eyes out because of all of the people lost and those left behind. Even after the wing was completely rebuilt, it is still hard to drive that stretch of I-395.

It was an awakening for me. I came to the realization that no matter what I do, or where I am, I cannot have complete control over my life. I continued working at DC Government until July 3 of the next year. I worked through the Anthrax scare. I worked through so many code Orange threats that the sign never appeared to turn off. Since I had some money saved up, I took a six month sabbatical and attended school. After six months, I ended up working on another project for DC Government in the same building. It wasn’t until I moved to metro Chicago that I felt safe…well, safer. I still do not go to the office on September 11.

On this fifth anniversary of one of the biggest days in American history, please remember the 2,996 people who lost their lives. Remember Commander Patrick S. Dunn of Springfield, Virginia for his wife Stephanie and their child Alexandria Patricia Dunn.

Tonight, I joined Toastmasters. Toastmasters is a group of individuals dedicated to the creation of perfect toast. Making perfect toast is actually a complicated art. The group meets to discuss breads, toasters, toasting technology and even regular ovens for those times when you have to make a whole lot of toast.

You may think that making toast is as simple as placing white bread into a toaster and depressing the lever. What do you do when it is a heavy white bread or pumpkin raisin loaf? Do you turn the knob to the heavier setting or do you feel oregano cheese bread should be made with a lighter toast setting? The bread can make allthe difference in perfect toast.

The toasting mechanism is equally as important. Those days when the toaster has one of the coils not quite right, what do you do? What if you use a toaster oven instead of the pop-up toaster? What if you are toasting for 30 people? Do you toast in the oven, or do you stack the toast? How do you keep the toast from getting soggy as it sits there waiting for the next round of toast?

All of these questions and more can be answered at your local Toastmasters chapter.

At the club, they concentrate on the performance of toasters, the best breads to use, and the answers to all of your toasting questions. I personally LOVED seeing the 40 or so different toasters lined up in rows with people pressing down levers and turning knobs with enthusiasm and jest. Watch people spread the vats of oleo, butter and lard across those perfectly brown squares of oral pleasure excites me to tears.

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). Buy a good toaster, buy good bread, and join Toastmasters. Not only will you be suddenly surprised that Toastmasters has nothing to do with either, but you will also become more comfortable with public speaking.

I joined tonight. I have never given a speech for the club and I did something they all looked atme like I was crazy...I joined the competition for a humorous speech. The other option was a tall tale speech, but I think that could be a stretch. This is going to be GREAT!

Did you know...

75% of college graduates have a difficult time giving a speech.

I have four phones. My work phone, my home phone, my personal cell phone and my work cell phone. All of them have voicemail.

When voicemail was first invented, it was far from a miracle of technology. Basically, it is an answering machine for LOTS of people. The object of the "mail" part of voicemail was for computer telephony integration of which yours truly was one of the pioneers. I know, a Native being a Pioneer...funny. Ummm...yeah.

So, the "mail" part of voicemail was intended for voice message delivery through the email system. If you received a voice message, it would package it as a .wav file and send it through email for you to listen. Some voicemail systems would just send you a link to the system computer so it can call you up to deliver the messages. Either way, the intent was to send the message to the user, not make the user dial in to retreive the message.

The system I see today are glorified answering machines. All of my phones work in the same way:

• I dial a secret number that I never remember to connect to the voicemail system
• Punch in my 14000 numeric password
• Shake the phone violently because I missed 1 number
• Punch in my 8 digit password
• Wait for the unknown lady at the other end to tell me I have no messages
• Get frustrated and hang up the phone to the "voicemail" that I pay extra money to keep operational.

This works on all of my phones except one: my home phone. We can't get into the voice answering system attached to my home phone. We have had our phone for nearly three years and we can't get into it.

I have only a mild lack of intelligence so I picked up the phone and called the phone company to inform them of the issue. They "reset" or changed the tape in the answering machine or poured coke into it and said it is fixed. Ummm...nope. After repeated attempts, I gave up.

Hold on...phone ringing...Oh, they can go to voicemail.

I am sure that Ed McMahon has called many times over tha past three years to inform me that I won a billion dollars, but I consider those messages lost. The voicemail system filled up in the first couple of weeks and we just don't care.

The Queen has since purchased new phones (twice) and the most recent one has (get this) an answering machine. We are reluctant to turn it on. We are actually used to not having to listen to messages.

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). Shut down the voicemails and answering machines. Shut down the call waiting. Shut down the call forwarding. Make it simple.

If you are not home, and they know you, they can call your cell. If they don't know you, then you probably didn't want the call in the first place. The caller ID (wonderful invention) will tell you if you want to talk to them anyhow.

Get rid of call waiting. How rude is call waiting? If you are on a call with your friend and your other friend calls, you look at the caller ID and do one of two things: tell your friend you have another call (which is more important than the call you are on) or tell your friend that you have to get rid of the other caller (making them less important than the call you are on). Either way, someone doesn't rate. If you get rid of call waiting, you get a busy signal. What a concept...

I asked about removing all of the services from our home number... I still have voicemail.

Did you know...

The first FAX machine was patented in 1843, 33 years before Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone.

First of all, what is a work spice? The origin of the word work comes from (for all of those Big Fat Greek Wedding fans) the Greek word ergon meaning to labor or be employed. Spice is the plural form of the word spouse...work with me here...mouse: mice, house: hice, spouse: spice.

Where does this come from? I have a work spice and the Queen knows about it. Fact is, she encourages it.

There is a considerable amount of background on the work spice. I was married to my co-worker for about 12 years. My first wife, Teri, and I met because she was transferred to the Air Force base as my subordinate. After a few weeks of knowing each other, we married (there is a totally different blog entry for this topic).

After many years of marriage to my co-worker, when it came to working alone in the another location without my wife, I was at a total loss. It was like life was spinning out of control and I could not detox about work with a person who has an clue of what I am talking about. The Queen tried to understand and seemed genuinely interested, but when you look into her eyes, you could tell I was speaking Lakota, and she was speaking French.

So, I found people at work to turn into my work spice. They tend to be female in my case, but a work spice can be either gender. They listen to you vent about the crap at work, the weather, sports or anything having to do with toilet paper and duct tape.

There are certain rules when it comes to work spice:

1. Absolutely no SEX
2. Do not hide you work spice from your real spice
3. Keep your home life problems at home
4. Whipped cream should never be mentioned in the same sentence as your work spice unless it has Baskin Robbins or Starbucks included
5. Oh hell, just don't mention whipped cream

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). You can have Big Love without being in Big Trouble. In my case, just having the work spice means I can keep the home spouse content as long as you live by the rules.

At first the Queen was not too keen on the idea of another woman in my life taking my attention during the day. Now, she recognizes my work spouse and has had actual communications with her.

My work spouse has even invited the family to spend the weekend with them in their beach house.

Oh, one more thing, having work spice can work one way or both ways. I am also the work spouse of my work spouse.

Did you know...

Polygamy means multiple spouses. The most common form is polygyny, where a man can have many wives. Less common, but found in some societies such as Tibet, is polyandry, where a woman can have many husbands.

In this day and time where organic and foods without preservatives has become the mainstay of society, I often wonder WHY we moved away from the natural products? Was all for money? Did it really save people money by pumping hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils into their food?

Of course it did! Well, that whole increasing the chance of a heart attack or adding a new risk of heart attack and stroke in women is just minor collateral damage when you can keep food fresher longer. That's what trans fats (hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated products) do for you.

Think I am blowing sunshine? The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) advises the United States and Canadian governments on nutritional science for use in public policy and product labelling programs. Their 2002 Dietary reference intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein, and Amino Acids contains their findings and recommendations regarding consumption of Trans fat.

Their recommendations are based on two key facts. First, "trans fatty acids are not essential and provide no known benefit to human health". Second, while both saturated and trans fats increase levels of LDL cholesterol (so-called "bad" cholesterol), trans fats also lower levels of HDL cholesterol (so-called "good" cholesterol); this increases the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). The NAS is concerned "that dietary trans fatty acids are more deleterious with respect to CHD than saturated fatty acids".

Because of these facts and concerns, the NAS has concluded there is no safe level of trans fat consumption. There is no adequate level, recommended daily amount or tolerable upper limit for trans fats. This is because any incremental increase in trans fatty acid intake increases the risk of coronary heart disease.

Despite this concern, the NAS dietary recommendations have not recommended the elimination of trans fat from the diet. This is because trans fat is naturally present in many animal foods, and therefore in most non-vegan diets; its removal from ordinary diets might introduce undesirable side effects and nutritional imbalances if proper nutritional planning is not undertaken. The NAS has therefore "recommended that trans fatty acid consumption be as low as possible while consuming a nutritionally adequate diet". Like the NAS, the World Health Organization has tried to balance public health goals with a practical level of trans fat consumption, recommending in 2003 that trans fats be limited to less than 1% of overall energy intake.

The US National Dairy Council has asserted that the trans fats present in animal foods are of a different type than those in partially hydrogenated oils, and do not appear to exhibit the same negative effects.(ref)

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). Use lard.

Prior to the invention of Crisco shortening, lard was used in nearly every kitchen. Grandmother's biscuits were always the best because of lard. For those young reader that have absolutely no idea what lard is, it is pig fat. It was used almost everywhere, to include McDonald's, Taco Bell, local diners, bakeries or anyplace that cooks. Most of these places now use partially hydrogenated soybean oil (trans fats).

Some get away with it by using "less than 1%" when they display nutritional information.

However, with LARD, you know exactly that you are eating something with saturated fats. Not a product that is sneaking up on your silently to increase you bad cholesterol and lower your good cholesterol. You know it is going to clog your arteries. So, on top of the EXCELLENT taste, you have an idea of how much time you have left on this world.

Did you know...

Lard is organic and all-natural. Lard has less cholesterol than butter and fewer calories than olive oil.