Puppies helping people help people (or) Yet another reason to love puppies.

This story is from http://optimistworld.com/ which is a great website for inspirational stories.  This one just warms my grinchy heart.

Inmates train dogs to work with children with physical or mental disabilities

By Maya Hanley

Nine Labrador puppies arrived at Plainfield Correctional Facility recently. Eighteen inmates will train them with the help of Indiana Canine Assistance Network’s Service Dog Apprenticeship (ICAN) programme.

The 18 inmates who will train the 9 puppies will have a chance to give back to their community and will help the dogs learn to assist children with physical or mental disabilities.

“You’ll see the most hardened felons turn into the sappiest guys,” said prison spokesman Kevin Mulrooney. “It’s incredible the difference that a few dogs can make.”

30 years ago, a nun called Pauline Quinn, from Michigan, came up with the idea and now four area prisons participate in the 9 year old ICAN programme run by Sally Irvin.

A total of 42 dogs are in training at Plainfield and the Branchville Correctional Facility, Indiana Women’s Prison and Rockville Correctional Facility for women.

Irvin said it costs ICAN about $1,600 to train one dog, so the program depends on donations and grants.

“Private citizens are by far the biggest donation source,” Irvin said. “Since we only charge clients $950 for the dogs and offer two weeks of training and a lifetime follow-up, it takes a lot of financial support.” Each dog lives in the housing unit with the inmate-trainer and remains with trainers nearly 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

To qualify for the program, offenders must have a background clear of violent behavior, have had no negative conduct reports for at least a year, and apply and interview for the programme as they would for a job.

“The programme requires (offenders) to take complete ownership in their job,” Mulroony said. “They all know that there’s a lot of effort that goes into the training for the dog and how it will benefit the community.

“When you see an offender walking through the hall with their dog, you can just tell that there’s a bond already. That dog and this job becomes their world.”

Thursday's cartoon day!

I decided to start Cartoon Thursdays as I used to be all about cartoons.  Now, not so much but I still loves me some Calvin and Hobbes.  This is one of my faves:
(Feel free to submit your favorites!)

Piano Stairs!

This is just a commercial but I really like the concept.

More cats!

This was sent to me by my good friend Tricia at Tee short and I agree with her description: I think this is positive and uplifting.  It's Wilford Brimley look-a-like cat tricks.  
I think they're adorable.  And the one totally looks like Wilford Brimley.  I really want a cat now.

We are more

This is a pretty sweet video sent to me by my Aunt Cheryl who is a pretty sweet aunt. It's all about Canada and how awesome we are. Here's a little preamble before you watch:

Slam poet Shane Koyczan delivers his poem "We Are More," which was commissioned by the Canadian Tourism Commission. Shane Koyczan urges us to keep exploring and keep being inspired by Canada. Shane Koyczan has performed at Slam Poetry and Spoken Word festivals from Vancouver to Toronto and everywhere across Canada.

I'm sure you've probably seen this but if you need a laugh today, watch it again. It's probably my favorite video of all time.

Taking the time to think

This was actually taken borrowed from another great blog, Hannah Unscripted.  Hannah, if you're reading this, I can't comment on your blog for some reason and I was going to say that I really loved this story so, seeing as I can't comment on your blog I'll comment on mine and also get a post out of the deal!  Also, I loved your poem.

Anyways, I'm sure many of you have read this story before as it's part of one of those email forward chains but, if you're like me, you may not have taken the time to really read it.  It really makes you think about what you're spending your days doing and what things are really important to you.

So, if you're going to read it, I advise you to read it and really think about it.  And, maybe, today's the day to start making little changes in your life.  Maybe today's the day you phone your Mom and tell her you love her.  Maybe today's the day you read a book instead of cleaning the bathroom.  Maybe today's the day that you comment on my blog and tell me how much you love me and that you think I'm really really awesome.  The beauty is, you don't have to make huge changes to make your day just a little bit brighter.  It's all up to you.


When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar...and the beer.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.
He then asked the students if the jar was full.
They agreed that it was.
So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full.
They agreed that it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.
Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full.
The students responded with an unanimous "yes."
The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand.
The students laughed.
"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things--your family, your children, your health, your friends,your favorite passions-- things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.
"The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car.
The sand is everything else--the small stuff. If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.
The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.
Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house, and fix the disposal. "Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."
One of the students raised their hand and inquired what the beer represented.
The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of beers.

Good news rescue!

Montana man spends 4 days stuck in car in snowbank
By MATT VOLZ (AP) 

(AP Photo/Lou Rogers)


HELENA, Mont. — A 67-year-old country musician from Montana who spent four days in his car stuck on a remote mountain road said he wrote a goodbye letter and was preparing himself for death when he was rescued.
"I thought before I lose my bearings or start hallucinating, I'm going to write my last letter and tell my last goodbyes to my friends and relations," Louis Rogers, of Lakeside, said Tuesday, two days after his rescue. "I told them to have faith in the Lord and don't go cracking up because we are going to see each other again."
Rogers — who has played guitar for big names in the country music business, including Merle Haggard and George Jones — left northwestern Montana's Flathead region Thursday to make a trip to Calder, Idaho. He decided to take the remote Gold Creek Road across the Bitterroot Mountains, a route he had taken several times before and which he knew could shave more than an hour off the trip.
After about nine miles and with dusk setting in, the road got too snowy for Rogers' 1996 Cadillac STS, which was loaded with musical equipment, so he decided to turn around — and got stuck in a snowbank. He checked his cell phone — no service.
"That is very rough country up there. There's nothing but big, steep mountains all around you," he said.
Rogers has health issues, including diabetes, liver troubles and a history of heart problems, so he decided to wait for help. He melted snow to drink and occasionally turned the car on to run the heater at night.
He slept very little the first night. On Friday morning, Rogers said he looked out the window and saw a silver wolf staring back at him 100 yards away. The wolf moved to within 75 yards of him before bounding down the mountainside.
Other than the wolf, he didn't see another living soul. Rogers said he spent his time praying and thinking about the mistakes he'd made in his life, but his thoughts kept going back to the wolf.
"The Indians say if a man ever gets in trouble, that is your guardian angel and he's there to make sure he watches you until you get out of danger," he said.
One night, Rogers repeatedly flashed his headlights at an airplane that was flying low directly above him and believes he got the pilot's attention, "but nothing came of it."
In the meantime, more than 200 friends and relatives spent the weekend searching for Rogers along with several law enforcement agencies. His sister, Iva Mather, 68, said rescuers searched for Rogers in Flathead County and in Idaho's Shoshone County, where he had been heading. She and her 50-year-old son participated in the search along with friends from the Flathead area and Idaho.
"You don't know what kind of a hell it is until you experience it," Mather said. "We were so happy, but I'll tell you what, it was a nightmare."
Rogers was weak and losing hope Sunday when a Coeur d'Alene couple, Scott and Penny Kalis, decided to go for a drive in the St. Regis area in their four-wheel-drive vehicle and came upon Rogers' car.
"She said, 'Well, what are you doing way up here?'" Rogers said. "I said, 'Dying, and if you don't believe it, here's the proof, and I showed her the letter.'
"I was serious because I thought I was a dead man," he added.
The couple returned Rogers to St. Regis. He did not require hospitalization and felt better after getting something to eat.
There is no phone listing in Coeur d'Alene for Scott and Penny Kalis and the Shoshone County Sheriff's Office did not immediately return a message for comment.
Rogers said he backed Haggard, Jones and a slew of other country stars from 1964 to 1967 when their tours brought them through California, where he was living at the time. He later moved to Washington state and back to Montana about 12 years ago, where he still writes music and performs.
Rogers is grateful to his rescuers, the service that towed his car for free, and for all the people who searched for him.
"I want to thank everybody who was looking for me and saying prayers for me. I love them all," Rogers told The Daily Inter Lake, which first reported the story. "You never know the friends that you have until something like this happens. I just feel really fortunate to have these friends."
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Check this out!

I found this side called Help Others.org and it's pretty sweet. You can read stories about people who have done random acts of kindness and even download these cool smile cards that you can give to people who can then "pay it forward". Cool hey?

Reading some of these stories really made me think. I'm too often impatient with people who are moving too slow and somehow "inconveniencing" me when really I should think that maybe they're having a bad day or need some help. I think if more people tried to slow down a bit and take a look at the other person's situation, maybe both people would end up being happier.

Anyways, whether you agree or not, the cards are pretty sweet and they're free!

This is just adorable.

Thanks to my new Facebook BFF Amanda from the hilarious blog It's Blogworthy, here is Kittens inspired by kittens!
Also, this is the first, and last time you will see me use the letters "B" "F" and "F" in sequence.

Strength in friendship

This was sent to me by my good friend Lindsay of The Watson Life. Not only did she want to share the information about a TV show called Always Good News which totally fits the theme of this blog, but she also wanted to share a personal story that was featured on the show. This story is about her sister-in-law's friend, Tanya, who passed away from cancer recently. Before she passed away, Tanya was presented with a beautiful quilt by her group of close friends. Each square in the quilt was lovingly made by Tanya's friends and family members who each incorporated their own version of love and friendship.

While this story is very sad, I also found it very inspiring. It especially gives truth to the quote, "They are rich who have true friends".- Thomas Fuller

CTS Television: Online Video Player

I've never heard of these before. Does that mean I'm lame or old? Or both.

Making an offering to the Panty Tree

Carrie Tait, National Post Published: Friday, March 12, 2010

LAKE LOUISE, Alberta -- Mike Stevenson found them under this bed at Lake Louise: A pair of panties. A thong, to be precise. White. He was 90% sure who the undies belonged to, and they were not his girlfriend's. The panties had to go, even though he swears they preceded his relationship with the gal.

He knew just the place, and so like a Rocky Mountain conquistador, Mr. Stevenson picked up the evidence, strapped on his snowboard, and headed to the backside of Lake Louise. Under the Paradise chairlift, the mountain's ricketiest ride, there is a larch tree, naked of needles but dripping with bloomers and brassieres.

"I thought: I can't throw these panties [in the garbage] when there's a panty tree," Mr. Stevenson said. He and a few buddies rode up the chair, and he cast the skivvies onto the designated trophy tree.

"It was a great shot. They landed right at the top, so they couldn't blow off."

Panty trees colourfully reflect mountain culture and are everyday sights at ski resorts far and wide. They are depositories for evidence of illicit excursions, acrobatic activities on chairlifts, and random stripping. Every shade of La Senza dangles above the snow.

"Lake Louise is one of the most romantic spots in the world, and it can be a real turn on," Charlie Locke, a Calgary oilman the mountain's majority owner, said. "It might be the ski hills' version of the mile high club."

Colorado's legendary Vail mountain claims it is home to the panty tree phenomenon, with the first decorated number showing up between 25 and 30 years ago, May Lilley, a spokeswoman for the resort, said. An aspen tree hosts undergarments at Vail, under its High Noon lift in the Sun Down Bowl.

Grand Marnier, the liqueur, took notice and once ran a print ad mentioning the unmentionables. "You just recognized a pair of panties in the Sun Down Bowl tree.... The conversation is waiting," it said.

Matt Mosteller made a contribution to Fernie's panty tree, a Douglas fir, last weekend while in British Columbia. He skied a run called Holo Hike, slipped into a dense cedar forest, and then peeled off his light blue boxers, size 34. They said "Life is Good" on the front and "Ski Bum" on the back.

"It was a tribute to how fortunate we are to be able to enjoy the mountains and skiing," he said. "Some sort of thank you."

The boxers were clean, Mr. Mosteller, the vice-president of marketing for Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, said.

Fernie's panty tree is at the beginning of the Holiday Trail, a beginner path. It sits near tower six on the Elk chair. Lake Louise's lingerie is displayed between towers eight and nine, just before the Paradise chair emerges from the trees and begins its climb over Paradise Bowl. The three-person lift gets powder hounds in and out of some of the mountain's toughest terrain.

Lake Louise's tree stands about 40 feet tall, and when you are riding up the lift, it is on the left side, just out of a ski pole's reach. Right now it is generously coated with offerings -- a reversible bra, purpley with white poke-a-dots on one side, solid peach on the other; an almost-sheer peachy underwire; a white bra with embroidered outlines of hearts. Numbers in teal, black, white, pink and other colours stuffed in underwear drawers around the globe also dot the tree.

A tree close to the panty tree hosts its own rogue underwear. Mardi Gras beads are common panty tree decorations, too.

There have been rumours of vigilantes chopping down panty trees in Vail, and complaints that racy, lacy bras have no place at family resorts and national parks. But the panty tree movement marches on.

Spring -- with its warm weather and fresh attitude -- means more garments strewn about. A 20-foot spruce under the Angel chair at Sunshine Village, Lake Louise's arch-rival, awaits further coating.

"It kind of reflects the whole ski culture," Doug Firby, a spokesman for Sunshine Village, said in a phone interview as he was riding the gondola up to that mountain. "Part of the culture is lifestyle, and tearing off your bra and throwing it on a tree just seems like a natural part of that whole culture.

"Skiers and snowboarders tend to be young people just having a great time," he said.

Indeed, back at Lake Louise, Mr. Stevenson said he has not repeated his panty catch-and-release feat, a move he completed four years ago during his first season at the global get-away. The 29-year old Kingston boy, who now draws draught at Lake Louise's Powder Keg pub for thirsty skiers and riders, said the panties he did toss were "boring," and the woman he hid them from his now out of the picture, too.

"I went on a pretty good tear when I got here," he said.

National Post

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2677085#ixzz0iCJXS9oq 

The unveiling!

Well, I hope everyone is as excited as I am about the unveiling of my new blog.  What I'm hoping for this particular blog is that, ultimately, people will come here when they need a bit of a pick me up or just some reassurance that the world isn't actually all that bad.

I would love to hear your suggestions and advice and please, if you see anything that you think would suit the "Good News" format, send it my way!  My email is on the sidebar and please always include the link to the story/video and the source.  I want to make sure I give out the proper credit.  That being said, I'm new to this type of blog so, if you see any crediting errors or have any suggestion on how to credit people properly, please let me know!

The honor of the inaugural post goes to my home town news paper The Regina Leader-Post.  The Leader-Post  actually has a section devoted to good news called Good to Know! which I think is fantastic.

Regina couple help fight polio in west African country of Benin

 

 

BY PAMELA ROTH, LEADER-POSTMARCH 10, 2010

Photograph by: Supplied by Scott and Janice Yule

REGINA — Dressed in a white a T-shirt and matching baseball cap, Janice and Scott Yule suddenly had a fan club as they made their way through a remote African village in the Kpomasse region of Benin.

Armed with coolers stocked full of polio vaccination, the Regina couple traveled in the sweltering heat to villages with mud huts and thatched roofs, and placed two little drops of the vaccine into the mouths of children under five years of age.

The curious children followed them around like Pied Pipers and burst into laughter when they saw their image on a digital camera screen.

By the end of the day, the pair had immunized more than 3,000 children for polio, and they wouldn't hesitate to do it again.

"It was just an incredible thing to get involved and see," said Janice as she flipped through the photo album of her trip to Benin last November. "The people knew it was a good thing to have this so they were pretty excited about it."

Polio is a crippling and potentially fatal infectious disease that strikes children mainly under the age of five in countries throughout Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

During the past 20 years, Rotary International has undergone an ambitious immunization campaign to eradicate polio. In 1985, there were 350,000 polio cases in 125 countries. Today, there are only four endemic countries — India, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.

The disease has spilled across the Nigerian border into regions of Benin, which is the reason the Yules travelled from Regina to spend two weeks in one of the poorest countries in the world.

While there, they worked with about 50 other Rotary volunteers from across North America to immunize thousands of children under the age of five.

It was definitely an eye opener, they said, especially since the couple had never been to a place like Benin.

They arrived late at night in the capital city of Coutonou and stepped into a hot, crowded airport.

When they woke up to their new surroundings the next day, it didn't take long to figure out they were in a third world country.

The chaotic streets were littered with an ocean of motorbikes and friendly people selling whatever they could to make a few dollars.

When it came to immunizing the children, walking five miles among the villages under the hot sun was draining. Yet the Yules did it with a smile upon their face because it was the chance to finally fulfill a lifelong goal.

"The day was exhausting, but it was very fulfilling. You felt so exhilarated," said Scott. "This was an opportunity to go and experience something we've always wanted to do."

The Rotary Club recently marked its Polio Eradication Awareness Day on Feb. 23. Rotary has now surpassed the halfway mark in its effort to raise $200 million and match $355 million in challenge grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

proth@leaderpost.canwest.com

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