Travel Groups and Attrition Levels

The Rumor Queen site has some new statistics up based on information she has requested from readers regarding attrition. According to her, the approximate attrition level for those families logged in January, February & March 2006 is 23%.

Now, I realize that these attrition levels are not going to filter down to individual travel groups. But...it makes me wonder. Originally we were told that there were 5 families traveling, including us, in our group. So based on attrition...maybe at least one of the families has dropped out of the China program....presumably choosing a SN child or switching programs to a different country.

We have recently found another one of the families that is still traveling with us though! They are Lori and Andy, they live in Florida. So, including us here in AZ, we know of two of the other families, Susan and David in WI and now Lori and Andy in FL. Possibly if one family dropped out, we only have one left to find??????

I joked with Tom and told him that I thought family number 4 lives in Maine and family number 5 lives in Washington State. That way we would have all corners of the US covered just in our little group! So much for making it easy to plan some kind of travel group reunions for our girls to get together! Oh well, I guess if we all travel from China to the US...it should be a piece of cake to go from one coast to another!

Global Warming and China's One Child Policy

U.N. Climate Change Talks went on this week in Vienna and China says that its one child policy has helped the fight against global warming by avoiding 300 million births, the equivalent of the population of the U.S. Beijing says that fewer people means less demand for energy and lower emissions of heat trapping gasses from burning fossil fuels.

I am not going to go on with the quotes from the article, you can read the whole thing if you wish from this link:
www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL3047203920070830

Now, I am by far not an expert on climate change. I absolutely DO believe in global warming. And absolutely believe that if we do not do something to try to help avoid further erosion, that maybe not our children's lives, but quite possibly their children's lives will be directly affected by our actions, or lack there of, today.

Tom and I try to live "green". There are many, many more things we could do than we do...but we are making an effort and continue to be aware of the greater impact of our choices and try to make decisions based on this. I drive a hybrid car, we recycle-even though it is not mandatory or particularly even convenient in our community, we have replaced all our light bulbs with fluorescent, we have landscaped to conserve water, we use canvas re-usable bags when shopping-not store plastic shopping bags, etc.
If anyone is interested in some suggestions for change they can make, big or small, in their lives here is one of the many websites that offers many suggestions: www.fightglobalwarming.com

But back to China's response in their fight against global warming.....all I can say is.....PLEEEEEZEEE! Could they possibly have given this response with a straight face?!
Okay, let me say, I do recognize the theory that less people, less fossil fuel consumption, less effect on the environment. But anyone who has been to China can tell you how horribly polluted the country is. The lack of government regulation, or enforcement of regulations, regarding pollution from corporations in China is notorious. Just look at articles, from any other country than China, that are relating to the Beijing Olympics in 2008-one of the major issues everyone is concerned with is air quality for athletes due to pollution!

Ironic that enforcement of laws regarding population control seem to be more important, and certainly more widely enforced than those of pollution control!

The Things You Tell Your Kids

We are having a pretty big monsoon thunderstorm here tonight. With wind, thunder, lightening and rain....which tends to be a little unusual here in the desert. Often we get wind storms and some thunder and lightening, but usually the rain never hits the ground.

My two sweet doggies don't like the thunder! And they look to their mommy for protection and "comfort from the storm". Tonight as I was comforting them, I told them "it's okay, it is just the angels bowling"....."there's no reason to be afraid of that!"

Okay, now move beyond analyzing the logic behind me trying to use something like this to comfort my dogs and think about it. This was what my parents told me when I was a child and afraid of the thunder. I can remember them being in my room in the night during a thunderstorm and when I jumped from a loud boom of thunder, them holding me tighter and saying "WOW...that must have been a strike!"

Now I have talked to several of my friends about this story and none of them were told this story of the angels bowling when they were young. I do remember one of my friends telling me some other story that she was told growing up. I don't remember what that story was though...but obviously it was not nearly as convincing or believable as the bowling scenario.

My husband told his children, from a prior marriage, the same story when they were young. But he does not remember if his parents told him such a story when he was young, so maybe this story got handed down to him and his children from his ex-wife.

So now as I sit here on the couch, joined by each of my fur babies, one on each side....I wonder.....
How many others were told the angels bowling story? What other stories are out there?
While I don't expect everyone, sadly even a majority, to explain things like this to their dogs as I have, what is it that you tell your children to "comfort them from the storm"?

For me....I'm good with the angels bowling theory. It worked for me.....it seems to comfort my dogs.....so I think Willow will hear about more than one "strike from the angels in heaven" before she grows out of it too!