I know, you’re thinking that I’m thinking about April showers. Wrong.
I had my car washed today, and as I was waiting, I happened to pick up and leaf through a National Geographic for 2002. One of the articles was on endangered birds, and the area in focus was New Zealand.
There were absolutely gorgeous pictures of Fjordland National Park on the South Island, with incredibly tall waterfalls spearing down through tree covered rocks. The caption said the rocks rose 6500 feet above the Tasman Sea and bore the brunt of all the storms coming in from sea.
Now, I thought that it was incredible that Ketchikan, on the Inner Passage of Alaska’s Pacific coast receives over THIRTEEN FEET of precipitation a year. But this area in New Zealand gets more than TWENTY ONE FEET of precipitation, making it one of the wettest areas on Earth.
You’d have to have gills to live there!

This is one of those subjects that interest you once you pass the age of 45 and are no longer thinking you are immortal.
Strokes are extremely common, and if you identify what’s taking place, you could save the life of the person having the stroke, or you could vastly improve the quality of their life post-stroke.
All it takes is remembering three simple questions. Here’s an e-mail I received explaining what to look for:
Is It a Stroke?
Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster The stroke victim may suffer brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke. Now doctors say any bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:
* Ask the individual to smile.
* Ask him or her to raise both arms.
* Ask the person to speak a simple sentence.
If he or she has trouble with any of these tasks, call 9-1-1 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher. After discovering that a group of nonmedical volunteers could identify facial weakness, arm weakness and speech problems, researchers urged the general public to learn the three questions. They presented their conclusions at the American Stroke Association’s annual meeting last February. Widespread use of this test could result in prompt diagnosis and treatment of the stroke and prevent brain damage.
PASS IT ON……………