Amazing Lives

Team Hoyt

  Rick Hoyt was born with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, cutting off oxygen to his brain.  The result was brain damage and a diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy.  His parents were told he’d be a vegetable all his life, with no use of his limbs, nor his voice.  The doctors said to put him in an institution.

But his parents said no.  They raised him just like they raised his two brothers.  As normal as possible.  In fact, they fought to get him admitted into public schools.   “Because he couldn’t talk they thought he wouldn’t be able to understand, but that wasn’t true.” The dedicated parents taught Rick the alphabet.

 Using money the family managed to raise in 1972 - a group of university engineers built an interactive computer that would allow Rick to write, using slight head-movements. Rick called it his “communicator.” A cursor would move across a screen filled with rows of letters, and when the cursor highlighted a letter that Rick wanted, he would click a switch with the side of his head.

   Three years later, one of Rick’s high school classmates was paralyzed in an accident. The school organized a charity run for him. Rick typed , "dad I want to do that". His father, wondering how he would manage to run 5 miles himself, agreed to push Rick in his wheelchair. They finished next to last, but the smile on Rick’s face was worth a million bucks, said Dick.

Nic Vujicic

   The following story I want to talk about has blown my mind away. When you watch the video above it will be hard for you to stop being touched by it.

His name is Nick Vujicic. No arms, no legs is what can describe this young man from the first sight. But when look closer into his story you will understand that Nick is a living example of the people who possess the strong attitudes a human being can be blessed with.

Hopeless, alone, pointless to live is what it used to feel for Nick when struggling through his life. There was no point to do anything like going to school, not to mention going to the university.

    However, despite the feeling of coldness and bitterness inside of him, Nick Vujicic has found the strength to get up and live a happy life. Not only does Nick portray a life of a happy man but he also inspires millions of others to want to live a fulfilling life. There is no doubt that Nick’s family has made an incredible contribution to what he is today.

 Helen Keller 

 The story of a child who, at the age of 19 months, suddenly lost her hearing and vision, and who, against overwhelming odds and with a great deal of persistence, grew into a highly intelligent and sensitive woman who wrote, spoke, and labored incessantly for the betterment of others. So powerful a symbol of triumph over adversity did she become that she has a definite place in the history of our time and of times to come.

Quotes

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.

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Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

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It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.

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All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.

Body Art Festival and Tattoos

History

  Tattoos have an ancient history stretching back over thousands of years. Egyptians were tattooing themselves for decorative reasons back in the days of the pyramids. The Chinese adopted the form around 2,000 B.C. The body of a primitive man found frozen in the Swiss mountains dated back 2000 years. He had multiple tattoos on him. The practice of making permanent marks into the skin with pigment has been found at some point in nearly every major culture in history.

Popular Tattoos At The Moment

Anchors and swallows seem to be making a comeback and not just amongst old sailors and bikers. A lot of females are asking for tattoos of swallows and anchors on their neck and chest while many guys are going for the ol' sailor Jerry tattoos on their forearms. This style is further fueled by the 1950's revival characterised by retro vixens such as the suicide girls.

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Lower Back Tattoos - These are a perennial favorite particularly amongst females. The most popular lower back tattoos are still tribal designs but dragons, lotus flowers and eastern symbolism seems to be popular as well.

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Celtic Tattoos - Celtic tattoos are being done on people with a celtic heritage but also by many people with no celtic origin. Some of the celtic symbols are universal in nature and have universal meanings common to all races. This may explain why celtic tattoos are being mixed with tribal tattoos creating a style of tattoo known as tribal celtic tattoos.

Body Art Competition 

Body art carnivale winners last year. 

This years competition

Ga Ga People

Walt Disney

Quote

"Why do we have to grow up? I know more adults who have the children's approach to life. They're people who don't give a hang what the Jonese's do. You see them at Disneyland every time you go there. They are not afraid to be delighted with simple pleasures, and they have a degree of contentment with what life has brought - sometimes it isn't much, either."

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 Biography

   Walt Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago Illinois, to his father Elias Disney, and mother Flora Call Disney. Walt was one of five children, four boys and a girl.

After Walt's birth, the Disney family moved to Marceline Missouri, Walt lived most of his childhood here.

Walt had very early interests in art, he would often sell drawings to neighbors to make extra money. He pursued his art career, by studying art and photography by going to McKinley High School in Chicago.

Walt began to love, and appreciate nature and wildlife, and family and community, which were a large part of agrarian living. Though his father could be quite stern, and often there was little money, Walt was encouraged by his mother, and older brother, Roy to pursue his talents.

     During a 43-year Hollywood career that spanned the development of the motion picture medium as a modern American art, Walter Elias Disney, a modern Aesop, established himself and his product as a genuine part of Americana. David Low, the late British political cartoonist, called Disney "the most significant figure in graphic arts since Leonardo."

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   Ga Ga News

 Jessica Watson Home 

JESSICA Watson is set to become a millionaire before she can legally have a drink. The Queensland sailor, who turns 17 on Tuesday, has become the hottest teen property in Australia after completing her round-the-world voyage.

She's even tipped to become Australia's next yacht racing champion.

"I'd definitely love to do more sailing, possibly racing is one of the things I want to get into," she said yesterday.

Now she plans on getting her driver's license and focusing on "slightly more normal things" such as school.

Jessica will become a millionaire within a few months no doubt.

Mother Theresa and the Nobel Peace Prize 1979

Quotes

• Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

• Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.

• Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.

     Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, on August 26, 1910. Her family was of Albanian descent. At the age of twelve, she felt strongly the call of God. She knew she had to be a missionary to spread the love of Christ. At the age of eighteen she left her parental home in Skopje and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India. 

Mother Theresa Story

     A woman lay dying on a Calcutta pavement. Her feet were half eaten away by rats and ants. She had been lying there for days and no one had taken any notice of her.

Then a nun came along. She was a tiny woman, dressed in a white sari which hung loosely about her and covered her head. She walked quickly, for she was always in a hurry. Her name was Mother Teresa.

When she saw the woman on the pavement she stopped. Full of pity, she picked her up and carried her into a nearby hospital for treatment. They told her there that the woman was too ill and poor to bother about. Besides, they had no room. Mother Teresa pleaded with them, but they said there was nothing they could do for her. However, she would not leave her patient, and set off for another hospital. But it was in vain. The woman died.

This was not the only person Mother Teresa found dying on the streets. There were many of them. There was an old man who was so thin he looked like a child. It was pouring with rain when Mother Teresa found him lying dead under a tree in a mess of sickness and blood. He was outside a hospital but no one had taken him in.

I think the world today is upside-down, and is suffering so much, because there is so very little love in the homes and in family life. We have no time for our children, we have no time for each other; there is no time to enjoy each other. If we could only bring back into our lives the life that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph lived in Nazareth, if we could make our homes another Nazareth, I think that peace and joy would reign in the world.

GA GA NEWS 

Reason For Ears 

 A six-year-old boy was saved from certain death by his ears, which prevented him from falling from a high-rise apartment block.  

Adventurous Ming Ming managed to get his head stuck in window bars of his home in Yinchang, China.

      Crowds gathered after hearing his screams and rescuers moved into save the child from an eight storey drop.

An onlooker said: 'The only thing stopping him from plunging to the ground below was the fact his head was trapped between two window bars.'

Once inside the flat firefighters quickly used a hydraulic pressure expander to force the bars apart and pulled Ming Ming back into the apartment.

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Why Elephants Have Big Ears 

     The enormous ears of elephants act as cooling devices. The gigantic earflaps (which can measure up to 2 square metres (21.5 square feet) are equipped with an intricate web of blood vessels. When the animal flaps its ears, the blood temperature lowers by as much as 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit). 

GA GA WORDS 

BEAUTIFUL
 

Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.

Mother Teresa  

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The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.

Helen Keller

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Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.

Martin Luther

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A BEAUTIFUL STORY 

    There was once this guy who is very much in love with his girl. This romantic guy folded 1,000 pieces of paper cranes as a gift to his girl. Although, at that time he was just a small fry in his company, his future didn't seem too bright, they were very happy together. Until  one day, his girl told him she was going to Paris and will never come back. She also told him that she cannot visualize any future for the both of them, so they went their own ways there and then...

    Heartbroken, the guy agreed. But when he regained his confidence, he worked hard day and night, slogging his body and mind just to make
something out of himself. Finally with all the hard work and the help of friends, this guy had set up his own company ...

    You never fail until you stop trying. One rainy day, while this guy was driving, he saw an elderly couple sharing an umbrella in the rain walking to some destination. Even with the umbrella, they were still drenched. It didn't take him long to realize they were his girl's parents.

    With a heart in getting back at them, he drove slowly beside the couple, wanting them to spot him in his luxury sedan. He wanted them to know that he wasn't the same any more; he had his own company, car, condo, etc. He made it! What he saw next confused him, the couple was
walking towards a cemetery, and so he got out of his car and followed...and he saw his girl, a photograph of her smiling sweetly as ever at him from her tombstone and he saw his paper cranes right
beside her...

     Her parents saw him. He asked them why this had happened. They explained, she did not leave for France at all. She was ill with cancer. She had believed that he will make it someday, but she did not  want to be his obstacle... therefore she had chosen to leave him.
Just because someone doesn't love you the way you wa nt them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have. She had wanted her parents to put his paper cranes beside her, because, if the day  comes when fate brings him to her again...he can take some of those
back with him...Once you have loved, you will always love. For what's in your mind may escape but what's in your heart will remain forever.   

      The guy just wept...The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting  right beside her knowing you can't have her, see her or be with her ever again.........hope you understand. Find time to realize that there is one person who means so much to
you, for you might wake up one morning losing that person who you
thought meant nothing to you.

MARTIN LUTHER KING

 

     The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them.The time has come for us to civilize ourselfs by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.

     At 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968, a shot rang out. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who had been standing on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN, now lay sprawled on the balcony's floor. A gaping wound covered a large portion of his jaw and neck. A great man who had spent thirteen years of his life dedicating himself to nonviolent protest had been felled by a sniper's bullet. Black Americans needed a Martin Luther King, but above all America needed him. The significant qualities of this special man cannot be underestimated nor taken for granted. Within a span of 13 years from 1955 to his death in 1968 he was able to expound, expose, and extricate America from many wrongs. His tactics of protest involved non-violent passive resistance to racial injustice. It was the right prescription for our country, and it was right on time. Hope in America was waning on the part of many Black Americans, but Martin Luther King, Jr. provided a candle along with a light. He also provided this nation with a road map so that all people could locate and share together in the abundance of this great democracy. 

     We honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. because he showed us the way to mend those broken fences and to move on in building this land rather than destroying it. He led campaign after campaign in the streets of America and on to the governor's mansion - even to the White House - in an effort to secure change. Today Black Americans have federal legislation which provides access and legal protection in the areas of public accommodations, housing, voting rights, schools, and transportation. These rights were not easily won, nor readily accepted, but the good will and conscience of an enormous spectrum of our society both Black and White said "Move On."

Thank you Dr. King for being the drum major who was able and ready to lead our nation to greater heights through love and peace. 

Professor Melvin Sylvester, June 1998

GA GA NEWS

JESSICA WATSON

Teen sailor Jessica Watson has rounded the south east cape of Tasmania and is homeward bound after a three-week battering from heinous storm conditions.AUSTRALIAN teen-sensation solo sailor Jessica Watson will return home a celebrity but she revealed she just wants to enjoy the party when she sails into Sydney Harbour next Saturday.

Watson, 16, said she was excited by the prospect of finally stepping on to solid land for the first time in seven months - and into the arms of family and friends, the Sunday Herald Sun reported.

One friend who has proved invaluable during her epic journey is Mike Perham, the 18-year-old sailor who holds the record for the youngest person to sail around the globe assisted.

From his home in Hertfordshire, north of London, Perham has been in weekly contact by phone with Watson as she sailed the seas. He said: "I'm just one of her friends and we chat.

"When you're out there sailing across the ocean, you don't want to get the same questions: how's the weather and what did you have for dinner?

HAS SHE GONE FAR ENOUGH 

Jessica Watson has not travelled far enough to claim the record for being the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world, according to Sail World magazine.

When the 16-year-old schoolgirl arrives into Sydney Harbour this month, she will not have fulfilled the World Speed Sailing Record Council’s criteria to snatch the record from Jesse Martin, the magazine claims.

‘‘She has simply not gone far enough north of the equator,’’ the magazine said.

GA GA HOUSES

The Winchester Mystery House

• In 1881, Sarah Winchester, the widow of famous gun maker Oliver Winchester, became convinced that she needed protection from the evil spirits of all the people killed by Winchester rifles. A psychic advised her to continually add rooms to her San Jose, California, mansion to confuse any ghosts that may try to find her. (It's not clear why ghosts, which can supposedly move through walls, would be confused by the rooms, but it apparently made sense to Winchester.) She did so for nearly forty years, adding more than 100 rooms and staircases, until her death in 1922. After Sarah's death, her own ghost was said to haunt the halls of her mazelike mansion. Today the building remains a popular tourist attraction, a bizarre monument to superstition and paranoia

The Amityville Horror

• On Nov. 13, 1974, six members of an Amityville, New York, family were killed by one of the family's sons, Ronald Jr. ("Butch") DeFeo. In his legal defense, DeFeo claimed that demonic forces in the home drove him to kill. The new owner of the home at 112 Ocean Avenue later claimed a variety of ghostly phenomena, and the story was further fictionalized into a best-selling novel and horror film. Yet the supernatural events were never proven, and DeFeo's lawyer later admitted that the story was a hoax.

GA GA WORDS

VENUS

A Goddess on the mountain top

Was burning like a silver flame

The summit of beauty and love

And Venus was her name

EVENING STAR

• One of the nicknames of Venus is "the Morning Star". It's also known as the Evening Star. Of course, Venus isn't a starat all, but a planet. So why does Venus have these nicknames?

• The orbit of Venus is inside the orbit of Earth. Unlike the outer planets, Venus is always relatively close to the Sun in the sky. When Venus is on one side of the Sun, it's trailing the Sun in the sky and brightens into view shortly after the Sun sets, when the sky is dark enough for it to be visible. When Venus is at its brightest, it becomes visible just minutes after the Sun goes down. This is when Venus is seen as the Evening Star.
  

• When Venus is on the other side of the Sun, it leads the Sun as it travels across the sky. Venus will rise in the morning a few hours before the Sun. Then as the Sun rises, the sky brightens and Venus fades away in the daytime sky. This is Venus the Morning Star.

GODDESS OF LOVE

• Venus is the daughter of Jupiter, and some of her lovers include MarsVulcan, modeled on the affairs of Aphrodite. Venus' importance rose, and that of her cult, through the influence of several Roman political leaders. The dictator Sulla made her his patroness, and both Julius Caesar and the emperor Augustus named her the ancestor of their (Julian) family: the 'gens Julia' was Aeanus, son of Venus and the mortal Anchises. Ceasar introduced the cult of Venus Genetrix, the goddess of motherhood and marriage, and built a temple for her in 46 BCE. She was also honored in the temple of Mars Ultor. The last great temple of Venus was built by the emperor Hadrianus near the Colusseum in 135 CE.