Makes me sick!

The following is from the Miami Herald. This made me royally sick. Not only for the unimaginable loss that these parents have to endure but also because a person with his driving record should not have been driving in the 1st place. As of today, it was reported that his alchol level came back at 3x the legal limit. THREE TIMES! I've always asked what will it take to get them off the streets. Sadly, this is just one example. I was in an accident with a drunk driver many years ago. ABout 5 years after the accident, I received a subpoena to testiy in another one of his DUI cases. It just so happens that this was his 6th arrest for dui since my accident. This one included a fatality. Something was finally being done.

Here is the article. All I can say is that I could never be a defense attorney. Not for all the money in the world.


Miami, FL - Early Sunday morning, Hector Serrano, 42, roused his three children and loaded them into the family’s minivan to drive his wife, Mirian, to the Metrorail station so she could get to her early shift at Jackson Memorial Hospital. Hector didn’t like waking the kids at 4:30 AM, but he didn’t want to leave them alone, either. While stopped at a red light on their way home, their vehicle was rear-ended at full speed by a Chevy Trailblazer driven by Gabriel Delrisco, 40. All three children were killed instantly.

''There were no skid marks,'' said Lt. Pat Santangelo, with the Florida Highway Patrol , indicating that the SUV's driver did not brake.
The impact knocked the minivan across the intersection, said Santangelo. Its rear was crushed . . . giving the rear seat passengers no chance of survival.
The wreckage remained in the intersection for hours while Florida Highway Patrol troopers investigated.

Delrisco has been stopped and ticketed no less than 20 times since 2001. Twenty times. He was convicted of driving under the influence in 2001, and his license was suspended for six months. He was last ticketed in January 2008 for driving the wrong way on a one-way street. That ticket, like so many before it, was dismissed.

Hector Serrano, 10, and his sisters, 7-year-old Esmeralda and 4-year-old Amber died at the scene, as their father — despite a broken arm — tried desperately to pry open the rear door of the minivan. Esmeralda would have been 8 years old today. Their mother, Mirian, collapsed with grief at the accident scene. Hector Serrano says, ”She’s destroyed. My wife and I, now we’re left alone.”


There were no skidmarks at the scene. He never stepped on the freakin' brakes.

I can NEVER live in Iowa!

I have been a bad blogger. So here's a little recap of what has been going on and what will be coming up.

Danny & I took a little roadtrip up to St Augustine. It's about five hours away by car. We left very early in the morning on Tuesday since we wanted to be there in time to watch the inauguration. Temperature was 65 degrees when we left. We had a smooth, uneventful ride up. Except for watching the temperature go down. We arrived in St Augustine at 10:00AM and the temp was 43. We both had to change out of our shorts. I haven't changed in a car since college! We should have taken it as a sign of things to come. Anyhoo, we went straight to the
Plaza de la Constitucion , America's oldest public park, where they were having a public viewing of the inauguration. People were all bundled up in their hats, gloves, coats, scarves etc. Are you sure we're still in Florida?

The days were GORGEOUS but freakin' cold! Nightime lows dipped to about 24. I don't think that I have ever been in temps that low. We were staying at The Saragossa Inn, which by the way, I HIGHLY recommend. The innkeeper is great and he's an excellent chef. Well, they have a bird bath in front of the house. Unless the birds know how to ice skate, they did not get any use out of it! It was frozen solid!! Now, St. Augustine is a walking city. My thin blodded self was miserable most of the time. I thought that my nose was going to fall off! Note to everyone. Do not trust weather.com. It said that it was going to be in the 60's so we packed accordingly. We only accomplished 1/2 the things that we had planned on doing, so I guess we'll have to go back. Fortunately we have been there before, but this ives us another excuse to return.

Danny was being Danny and took a picture of me in my misery. I have TWO jackets on and am still freezing!

The next couple of pictures are from the cafeteria at Flagler College. Students dine surrounded by Tiffany Windows!

Oh, and in case you'd like to visit the Giggling Gator... here's some info for you!

As for what's coming up. Nothing too thrilling. The start of a new diet & my return to the gym. Wish me luck. I really need to lose the weight for health reasons and because I just saw all the cute Spring/Summer clothes at Macy's.

Braces?

At my age? I .Don't. Think. So! I wore braces for about 2 years when I was about 10. I'm 42 now. I had perfect teeth for 30 years. So what if they are shifting a bit now. I'm too old for that crap. What am I going to do, sit with all the other teens in the ortho's office and wait to get my colored bands on? Nope. As long as my teeth are not falling out, I'm a happy camper.

In other oh, so exciting news, I renewed my gym membership. Oh, joy! Now if I actually make it to the gym this year, we will be in business!

Nothing else going on around here. The new year has started off on a sour note. Been sort of busy, trying to get to my start of year dr. appointments but aside from that, not much else going on.

Hope ya'll are having a great start to your year.

Blog It Forward For a Wonderful Cause!

As some of you may know, my charities of choice are Curesearch.org & St Jude's . They get the bulk of my annual donations. My previous blog post is the reason why I chose these organizations. I came upon Let's Eat Cake. First of all, an event name that just happens to be my personal motto!

This is a copy & paste from the original post:

Masterpiece Weddings, an event coordination agency founded by Melissa Margarita-DiStefano, is working really hard to put on an amazing fundraiser in February called Let’s Eat Cake! - which will benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital - an incredible organization that’s dedicated to treating children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases.

Let’s Eat Cake! is a wedding cake competition, featuring Wedding Cake confections from all over the United States. Bakers will feature their cakes to be judged by Local and National Culinary Celebrities. In addition bakers will be asked to make enough cake to feed the general public, so that they may judge the cakes as well! Our Goal is to raise $50,000 for this extremely worthy cause, we know times are tough for everyone out there. But that doesn't mean that doesn't mean that kids still aren't getting sick. Please help spread the word about our goal, and our mission. If you can help financially, that'd be great, if you blogging about this right now.... your spreading the word - and that's all we can ask for!

All it takes is one short blog post. Make those dollars add up!

R.I.P. Sweet Coleman

Coleman Scott Larson

December 10, 2003 - January 5, 2009

I do not claim to understand why these things happen. But I do know that something must be done to prevent children from going through this. Coleman was one tough "Tookie" & he fought a brave fight. Please keep Coleman & his family in your prayers. Especially his twin brother Caden.