Quote of the Night- Pearl S. Buck

Today's quote of the day comes from Pearl S. Buck (1862-1973), a novelist and author who was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia; Buck's birthplace is now a historic museum. Her parents were missionaries to China.

Buck wrote her signature novel "The Good Earth" (1931) which earned her a Pulitzer Prize. It was the fist novel in her historic literature trilogy, which also included "Sons" and "A House Divided."

The author is also a noted alumni of Randolph Macon's Women College, which is now Randolph College (a co-ed school) in Lynchburg, Va.

Here is her quote, it's one regarding 'man's best friend:'

"A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet remain silent."

http://www.pearlsbuckbirthplace.com

http://www.wvculture.org

http://www.wvtourism.com

http://www.randolphcollege.edu

Whoops, We Forgot Belgium

Well, we are posting this simply to balance this blog with our other blog "The Daily Vampire," where we made an error sending an entry meant for this blog on that one.

But, we were thinking about taking a day off from blogging tomorrow to go wash dogs at an animal shelter in Lynchburg, Va. (that is a joke, but we understand there is a great animal shelter in that city).

Alas, an image we hoped to post of Borat at the rodeo in Salem, Va., which is my hometown, as featured in the film "Borat" fell through in our Kazakhstan entry due to technical problems or perhaps a block from that particular site. (By the way, the answer is B for the question in that entry).

And, earlier today, I was able to name 24 of the 25 cities that have hosted or will host the summer Olympics in mentalfloss.com quiz. We forgot about the 1920 Antwerp Olympics. I have even been to Antwerp, Belgium, (back in 1993) but I completely forgot that the city was an Olympic host. Our apologies to Tintin, and everyone else in Belgium.

Yvonne Tousek, a former Olympic gymnast and UCLA stand-out competed for Canada, who I get to chat with every now and then, competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. She is curently performing with Cirque du Soleil.

I would say that I competed for Turkey (my late father's homeland) in greco-roman wrestling at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, when I would have been 22 years old, but I imagine the actual members of that team would not care for the joke.

Special Quote of the Week- Larry Bird

Gazooks! Originally, we were supposed to quote the late, great Italian filmmaker Frederico Fellini here, but we dongied up, so we are including a quote from the Boston Celtics great Larry Bird, who is also the pride of Terre Hautte, Indiana.

This sounds like something that the late Rev. Jerry Falwell who resided just down the road in Lynchburg, Va., might have said as well:

"I really don't like talking about money. All I can say is that the Good Lord must have wanted me to have it."

Weekend Road Trip (7 of 20)_ Lynchburg, Va. to Wilmington, Del.

Well, since our entry on our other blog "The Daily Vampire" took as long to do as writing a term paper on "War and Peace" or a Wikipedia entry on the life of its author Leo Tolstoy, we are going to try to streamline the designated time for this entry.

Today, we are looking at the distance between Wilmington, Del., and Lynchburg, Va. The two cities have teams in the Carolina League, which is a single-A minor league baseball division. They happen to play each other in Lynchburg on Monday night at 6:05 p.m.

The Lynchburg Hillcats won a double-header over the Frederick Keys in Maryland today by a 3-2 and 2-1 count. Down in North Carolina, the Wilmington Blue Rocks split their own double-header with the Winston-Salem Dash. The visitors won the first game 10-2, but fell 3-2 in the night-cap.

For this entry, we are going to examine the distance between Macado's, a Roanoke, Va-based regional restaurant chain, which has a location on Candlers Mountain Road in Lynchburg, and the Deep Blue Bar and Grill in Wilmington, Del.

Since Lynchburg is mostly known for being the home to Liberty University and the Mall of America-sized mega church that is Thomas Road Baptist Church where the late Rev. Jerry Falwell preached, we thought we would go against the city's stereotype as a beacon of fundamentalism and arch right-wing politics by featuring an image from the 1970's tv-show "The Waltons." *(Hmmm....maybe, since it is now officially Easter Sunday, we should refrain from making fun of fervent fundamentalists....nah!).

Of course, Delaware is known for being the home state of Vice President Joe Biden, who surreally looks like Rev. Falwell here!

We must profess that Mapquest's suggested time of travel for this trip is probably only doable at 4:00 a.m., which is almost what time it is now!, because the route would go through both Washington, DC, and Baltimore, but we are going with what they say here!

So, is the answer:

A) Five Hours

B) Five Hours, 30 minutes

C) Six Hours, 30 minutes

D) Seven Hours

The answer to last week's road trip quiz is C) as it takes about 12 hours and ten minutes to get from Hagerstown, Md., to Chatanooga, Tenn.

Also, we heard an interesting segment on the BBC World Service about why it might be unwise to give out to much info about yourself on the Internet as many employers around the world google applicants' names to see if there is a Youtube video of the applicant dancing with a lamp shade over his or her head while intoxicated.

Since I now have over 2,000 blog entries with my name, Dennis Alexander**, attached to it perhaps I am into deep. But, I've never danced with a lamp shade on my head. And, apparently, the government in Spain is trying to get Google to prevent such potentially embarrassing info from infringing upon the rights of its citizens. Hmmm....I wonder how Clarence Thomas would feel about this one!

*- "The Waltons" took place on Afton Mountain near Charlottesville, Va. It is about one hour, 15 minutes north of Lynchburg

**-Dennis Alexander is a pseudonymn and an in-joke. If Donald Trump is visiting our blog, we want him to know that Mr. Alexander did vote for John McCain (it was in the 2000 Republican primary in Virginia to make sure George W. Bush wouldn't become prez. Oh well!).