From CNN: Giraffe gathers troops, leads great escape from circus

Fifteen camels, several llamas and a potbellied pig broke out of a circus near Amsterdam on Monday. The ringleader? A giraffe who bolted, too.

Police said the giraffe kicked open a fence and walked out.

"The other animals walked out with him," said Amsterdam police spokesman Rob Van Der Veen.

The animals were part of a traveling circus that had set up its tents in the city of Amstelveen, six miles outside the Dutch capital.

They made their break about 5:45 a.m., wandering about a residential street and riling up a neighborhood dog, police said.

Officers and circus employees rounded them up before they could get too far and returned them to their pens.

"It must have been a funny sight," Van Der Veen said. "Waking up in the morning and looking out the window to see those animals walk through the streets."

Teen Challenge

Yesterday at church, we had a group of teenage girls from Teen Challenge come to sing and dance for us. This was the first time I'd ever seen these girls. I was so excited when I got to church and remembered that they were going to be there. I'd heard lots of good things. Several of the girls that were finishing the program gave their testimony. These girls have been in trouble the majority of their life until they went to Teen Challenge. Whether it was from drugs or sex, they put it all out there for us to hear and then told how they've come to know the Lord. It was emotional, to say the least.

Anyone that knows me well at all knows about one of the best friends I've ever had. We'll call her A. A & I met when we were in 2nd grade. We went to different elementary schools, but we were both in a gifted program in the county schools here. We never talked much that year...or the next 3 years even after I started the same elementary school that she was attending. When we were in 6th grade, we became best friends. We were nearly inseperable. We even spent school nights together. Mostly at her house. She lived with her grandparents. Her mom gave her up when she was a baby, and her dad was an alcoholic. Her grandparents gained custody of her. She had been raised in a very strict Christian home. It was the kind of Christian home where the man was the only person allowed to really think. You had to agree with his thoughts or you got slapped, kicked, beat, etc. Now, I loved her grandparents...at least at first. I was young, and I had never been around someone that hit me or even thought about hitting me. She acted like it was nothing the first time her granddad slapped her when I was in the car with them. I started crying, because I was so scared for her. Onto 7th grade, we started jr. high school...when the county schools all join to one high school - from 4 elementary schools. Not only is 7th grade one of the hardest ages to face, you add on going to a school where you know 1/4 of the people. You weren't able to keep the same friends, because you started having to change classes. Where we were used to having 1-2 teachers a day, we had 6 different teachers every day. Rude Awakening...

A was an extremely intelligent person. She almost never studied and maintained all A's. She was already boy crazy, but when we got into 7th grade she went wild! She was very, very flirty and could pretty much have any guy she wanted. Back to the whole strict Christian household. She was just not at all allowed to like guys. They better not call, and they better not come over. Well, the stricter her grandparents were...mainly her granddad, the more she rebelled. She started making less than good grades, so she would come to my house after school and "make" a new report card. It worked every single time she did it too...

Fast forward to 8th grade. A started seeing a guy that was a druggy, loser, etc. He was everything her grandparents didn't want her to have. I guess that was the appeal. Her grandparents found out who she was seeing and forbid her from seeing him. Well, of course she wasn's going to have that. She (and I) started sneaking out of her grandparents' house at 2-3 am to walk up to her boyfriend's house. He lived probably 3-5 miles from her, and we had to walk up the side of the highway. Not the smartest thing to do when you're 13-14 years old. :) We learned that the hard way. After a few more times, she eventually got caught sneaking out. Her granddad caught her. She happened to be wearing a sweater and skirt that belonged to me. He grabbed the collar of the sweater and pulled. I don't know how it didn't hurt her neck. The collar of the shirt was more or less non-existent after that. She then took off to my house...2-3 miles away as well. I remember hearing her knock on my window. I woke up my parents, because I had no idea who it was. Well her grandmother called and immediately came to pick her up. My parents begged her to let A stay the night so her granddad could calm down. No luck. She went home, and I'm sure she was beat. This happened a few more times. Her grandparents then decided she should move to TN to live with her aunt there. Well, first of all, her aunt was living with a man that had AIDS...she also didn't care what A did. Moving up there was quite possibly the worst thing that coule have happened to her. She had absolultely no supervision. She skipped school all the time and was having sex with all kinds of guys that she did not know...all the while she was only 14 years old. She apparently was arrested and sent to a juvenile detention center one night. I don't know if it was for drugs or what. Well, her granddad decided to drive up to TN that night and pick her up. He brought her back to AL. Nothing changed. She was a completely different person once she came back. We had nothing in common any longer. Still, she was my friend, and I didn't care what she'd done, I still loved her like she was my sister.

Onto high school. A was still with the same loser guy as before. She didn't care at all about school. She hung out with the lowest of the low at school. The summer before our 10th grade year, she called me and told me that she was pregnant by the loser guy. She'd gotten it into her head that if she could get pregnant by him, her grandparents would force her to marry him. She got her wish. She quit high school about a week after she turned 16. Her granddad passed away around this time as well. The perfect thing for her to do would have been to stayed at home with her grandmother and stayed in school. I don't know if she was married more than 2 years to the loser.

The last time I heard anything about her was in 2001...she was 19. She was apparently working in GA as a stripper. She'd lost custody of her son.

Now to my point...my parents wanted very badly to have A come and live with us. They didn't want money or anything. They just wanted to take care of her and hopefully straighten out her life. Her grandparents refused, and she turned out to be nothing...If she had gone to a place like Teen Challenge, I wonder if she would be something today. She had all the potential in the world to be anything she wanted to be, and she wasted it on some loser who only wanted one thing from her. I am glad that places like Teen Challenge exist, so maybe other teenage girls can get the help that they need and point their life in the right direction.

Nine Inch Nails release new song : Echoplex

The second of NIN's new free releases has come out, through a FaceBook program. As with the previous song, "Discipline", the song file contains full lyrics, a cryptic image to accompany the song and the message "Go to www.nin.com on May 5th"

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Wishing I Had a PS3...

Trying Again...

I'm trying to get back to blogging on here again. Full time worker + full time student = not a lot of free time. :(

It's Been One of Those Days...

Anyone that knows me well knows that I am always on time for everything...usually several minutes early even. I got home a little late last night (late for me that is) and I went through the trouble of moving my alarm clock back 15 minutes, but I didn't set the stupid thing! I woke up at like 7:55 this morning. I thought I was going to die. It's not a big deal if I'm late for work. Most of the people I work with don't come in until 8:30 anyway, including bosses. I just can't stand to be late. It just threw my entire day off. I had several people tell me I looked like I'd been hit by a truck! Gee, thanks! I felt like it too, ok?

Blah Blah Blah

This has been a really crazy week. I allowed myself to get all upset with one of my co-workers. She always annoys me, but I've been able to just ignore it. I guess I'm just tired and a little stressed. I can't stand people that act like they are the only one that actually has work to do. She never even works any overtime. I mean I wish I could arrive at work at 8:30, take an hour lunch and leave at 5. I couldn't live with myself if I did that. It's dishonest. Of course, management knows it and they don't say anything. I guess I shouldn't care. It's just one more thing that annoys me. I feel like I'm a pretty nice person and easy to get along with, but it's like she's just impossible. She apparently thinks it's ok to talk to people like they are stupid and then 5 minutes later be best friends. That doesn't work with me. You're not going to treat me like that and get anything nice in return. I'm not going to be outright ugly to you unless you give me a reason for that, but don't expect me to be all nice to you. grr sorry, I'm venting.

I have felt sick since last Friday. I dunno if that's my nerves or what, but I hope it goes away soon. I'm out of school until January 10, so hopefully that will help my nerves and my lack of sleep!

Last night I went to Fantasy in Lights with a good friend of mine, and we had a blast of course. I actually have never seen Pine Mountain, GA (of all places!) that crowded before though. We were late leaving and then traffic was backed up forever. Then, we had to stand in line for like an hour waiting for the jolly trolley. It was worth the wait though.

Tebow

So, I don't care how tired you are of hearing about Tebow. I didn't care much for all the hype about him last year. Then I started actually paying attention and stopped hating that he was SO very good! Add his awesomeness on the field to his character, and...Tebow will you marry me?!

Florida's Tebow wins HeismanRecord-setting QB first underclassman to hoist trophy

NEW YORK (AP) -- Tim Tebow needed only two years of college to graduate to Heisman Trophy winner, putting the sophomore in a class by himself.

Florida's folk-hero quarterback with the rugged running style and magnetic personality won the Heisman on Saturday night to become the first sophomore or freshman to take college football's most prestigious award.

Since 1935, when Jay Berwanger of Chicago won the first Heisman, every winner had been a junior or senior -- until Tebow, who picked up quite a souvenir on his first trip to New York.

"I am fortunate, fortunate for a lot of things," Tebow said. "God truly blessed me and this just adds on. It's an honor. I'm so happy to be here."

He beat out Arkansas running back Darren McFadden, the first player since 1949 to finish second in consecutive seasons. Tebow received 1,957 points and 462 first-place votes to McFadden's 1,703 points and 291 first-place votes.

Hawaii quarterback Colt Brennan was third, and Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel fourth.

A year after Tebow helped Florida win a national title, and in his first season as the Gators' starter, the chiseled 235-pound quarterback in a fullback's body put together a historic campaign. He's the first major college player to run for 20 touchdowns and throw 20 TD passes in the same season.

"When I get back to the University of Florida, we're going to have fun," Tebow said.

In an unpredictable college football season, the Heisman race was as unsettled as the national title chase. Tebow emerged as the front-runner even though Florida (9-3) stumbled early.

Six of the last seven Heisman winners picked up their bronze statues on the way to playing in the national championship game. Tebow won't get that chance this season, but Heisman voters didn't hold Florida's failure to defend its national title against him.

McFadden slumped in October before finishing with a huge November, capping his season with a spectacular performance -- 206 yards rushing, three touchdowns and a TD pass -- in the Razorbacks' 50-48 triple-overtime win over No. 1 LSU. It seems doubtful the junior with sprinter's speed will return to Arkansas next year to make another run at the Heisman. Not with some NFL team likely to make him a top-10 draft pick.

Brennan and Daniel each passed for over 4,000 yards and led their teams to breakout seasons.

But no player was more important to his team than Tebow.

The closest he came to a bad game came in a 28-24 loss at LSU, when he completed 12 of 26 passes for 158 yards, throwing for two scores and running for another. He finished with a school-record 3,970 yards of total offense and accounted for 51 touchdowns.

Simply put, he's the perfect quarterback for coach Urban Meyer's spread-option offense.

Florida fans might argue Tebow is just plain perfect.

Tebowisms have become all the rage with Gators fans on the Internet. A sampling: Superman wears Tim Tebow pajamas. Tim Tebow has counted to infinity ... twice. Tim Tebow ordered a Big Mac at Burger King, and got one.

And if joining Steve Spurrier and Danny Wuerffel as the only Florida players to win the Heisman Trophy wasn't enough to make Tebow the most popular man in Gainesville, there's one more reason for Gators fans to be excited: the promise of two more years of Tebow, who has said he has no plans to leave school after his junior season.

The legend of Tebow started at Nease High School in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., where he once finished a game playing on a broken leg.

Homeschooled by missionary parents who run an orphanage in the Philippines, Tebow took advantage of a Florida state law to play for Nease, about 90 miles from the University of Florida campus.

Tebow has worked and preached at his parents' orphanage since he was 15. He regularly speaks at schools and delivered his message of faith at a prison in Florida earlier this year.

He arrived in Gainesville with superstar status, and Gators fans could hardly wait to see their quarterback of the future.

In a part-time role as a complement to Chris Leak, Tebow played with a fiery passion. He bowled over defenders and bounced around the field, fists pumping and arms waving.

He ran for 469 yards and eight touchdowns as a freshman, throwing only enough to take advantage of defenses stacked to stop him from running.

This season, the Gators became Tebow's team and at times he was a one-man offense.

He completed 68 percent of his attempts for 3,132 yards and 29 touchdowns and continued to run with reckless abandon, even while playing the second half of the season with a very sore shoulder.

Compensating for the Gators' lack of a reliable tailback, Tebow led Florida with 838 yards rushing and set a Southeastern Conference record with 22 touchdowns. With speed and a strong arm to go with his power and grit, Tebow is part throwback to the days of single-wing football and part 21st century prototype for the position.

Add winning the Heisman as a sophomore, and Tebow is truly one of a kind.