The Economy Claims four More Lives

A home-improvement worker and school janitor who apparently was struggling to survive the recession killed his sleeping wife and two children before turning the 12-gauge shotgun on himself, Maryland State Police said Saturday.

It is possible that financial difficulties were part of the motive.

Police announced the findings one day after the bodies of Dalton, his wife Jennifer, 37, and their children Charles Jr., 14, and Emmaline, 7, were found in their home in Mount Airy. Mt Airy is a Fredrick County town of 8,800 about 30 miles west of Baltimore.

The bodies of Jennifer Dalton and the children were found in their beds. Charles Dalton's body was lying in the master bedroom next to the bed.

Dalton also fatally shot the family's beagle in a crate inside the home's front door, he said.

Investigators believe the deaths occurred Thursday night or Friday morning. Shipley said Jennifer Dalton failed to report to her part-time job at a veterinary hospital in Damascus, prompting co-workers to try to contact her starting at 8:30 a.m. Friday. No one answered their calls or came to the door.

family friend called 911 at about 5:30 p.m. Friday after spotting a body through a rear window of the split-level house, Shipley said.

Charles Dalton was a self-employed cabinet installer who ran his business, Imagine Millwork, out of his home. He also worked the night shift as a maintenance worker for Montgomery County schools, Shipley said.

The house, on a corner lot in a modest, middle-class neighborhood, had a "for sale" sign out front. It had been on the market for at least a year, neighbors said.

How many more lives will this economy take?

Woman Wins 4 Cars in 4 Weeks

I have been doing sweepstakes and contests for about thirty years now. Over all this time I have NEVER won a single vehicle. I even got someone else to start sweeping and they won a vehicle. What's wrong with this picture?

Perhaps why I like this story about a woman from Sacramento, "Salina" who has won four vehicles in the past two months.

Last Sunday, the woman won a Lexus convertible worth $43,000 and the week before it was a Mercedes convertible worth $47,000. Last month she won two pickup trucks.

Thunder Valley spokesman Doug Elmets said casino security officials reviewed video of the drawings and were convinced they were legitimate. "After the second time she won we immediately went and investigated to make certain everything was perfectly clear," he said.

The truck and convertible drawings work like this: Players accumulate tickets during the week based on their amount of slot and table play. Tickets are then drawn from a drum Sunday evening until 10 players are chosen to select one envelope each. Nine envelopes contain cash awards of up to $1,000, and one lucky player will win the car or truck.

Elmets said Salina is one of the casino's top players, so her odds of making the first cut were relatively good. But it was phenomenal luck that allowed her to beat out nine other contestants to win the grand prize four times in a row.

"When she won her second truck she was number ten," explained Tina Rogo, the master of ceremonies for the grand prize drawings. "She couldn't even choose. She was left with whatever was left over and she still won it."

It appears karma may be at play because she gives much of her winnings, including these vehicles to people in need. How's that for a great story?

Mary Travers Dies At The Age of 72

Mary Travers of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary died Wednesday night in Danbury Hospital in Connecticut. She was 72 and had lived in Redding, Conn. The cause was cancer, said her spokeswoman, Heather Lylis.

Peter, Paul, and Mary made songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “If I Had a Hammer” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” enduring anthems of the 1960s protest movement. It's funny to look back and think of my Dad listening to these anthems of the protest movement but I can still remember him singing them to me. Even now when I hear Puff the Magic Dragon I remember my Dad singing the song not just to me but to my children too. I didn't know it was about marijuana until I was in my teens.

When I was in the fifth grade I remember the music teacher teaching us the song "Where Have All The Flowers Gone." Sometimes when I'm in a graveyard I can still hear the refrain of this song.

Henry Gibson

One of my favorite shows when I was growing up was Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. We kids would tell the jokes that we understood and laughed and laughed. What a great show that was. We were in elementary school and didn't really understand the politics of the show but you couldn't help but laugh along



Gibson spent three years as part of the Laugh-In television show's cast. He often played was "The Poet," reciting poems. Gibson would emerge from behind a stage flat, wearing a Nehru jacket and 'hippie' beads and holding an outlandishly large artificial flower. He would state the "[Title of poem] -- by Henry Gibson", bow stiffly from the waist, recite his poem, and return behind the flat

But did you know he appeared on the Beverly Hillbillies before?



He also appeared on Wonder Woman




He also appeared on shows like Love American Style and appeared in the movie Wedding Crashers. Talk about a varied career.

On September 14, 2009, Gibson died of cancer in Malibu, California at the age of 73.

Patrick Swayze Has Died

Patrick Swayze died today at the age of 57.

Swayze was born on August 18, 1952 in Houston, Texas, the son of Patricia "Patsy" Yvonne Helen a choreographer, dance instructor, and dancer—and Jesse Wayne Swayze, an engineering drafter. He has two younger brothers, actor Don and Sean Kyle (born October 13, 1962), and two sisters, Vicky Lynn and Bambi, who were adopted into the family.

Swayze's first professional appearance was as a dancer for Disney on Parade. He starred as a replacement for Danny Zuko in the long-running Broadway production of Grease before his debut film role as "Ace" in Skatetown, U.S.A.. He also appeared as Pvt. Sturgis in the M*A*S*H episode Blood Brothers and had a brief stint in 1982 on a short lived TV series The Renegades[12] playing a gang leader named Bandit.

Swayze became known to the film industry after appearing in The Outsiders as the older brother of C. Thomas Howell and Rob Lowe. That was one of my favorite books when I was a young teenager but I didn't see the movie until last year when I substituted for an English teacher.

Swayze, Howell, and Howell's friend Darren Dalton reunited in Red Dawn the next year, and Lowe and Swayze reunited in Youngblood, where he was considered a member of the Brat Pack, but his first major success was in the 1985 television miniseries North and South, which was set during the American Civil War. North and South was a great book series by John Jakes whom I really loved.

Swayze's breakthrough role came with his performance as dance instructor Johnny Castle in the 1987 film Dirty Dancing, alongside Jennifer Grey. Dirty Dancing was a low-budget project that was intended to be shown in theaters for one weekend only and then go straight to video, but it became a surprise hit and achieved massive international success. I can still remember being a cocktail waitress that summer and we had "Dirty Dancing" nights when they played "Time of Your Life" and you competed for the best dancing couple. I can't watch a Sandals commercial and not think about that summer.

Swayze has been married to Lisa Niemi since June 12, 1975. The couple first met in 1970 when Swayze was 18 years old. Niemi, 14 years old at the time, was taking dance lessons from Swayze's mother. Swayze and Niemi have no children.

Swayze was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in late January 2008, and has undergone chemotherapy and other treatments at the Stanford University Medical Center. In early May 2008, it was widely reported in a number of tabloids that Swayze had undergone surgery to remove part of his stomach after the spread of the cancer and that he had rewritten his will, transferring his property to his wife. In 2008 Swayze was treated with Cyberknife radiotherapy cancer treatment. In late July 2008, six months after reportedly being given just weeks to live by medical experts.

Swayze died today of pancreatic cancer

Missing Yale Student Annie Le's Body Found

CRASH

Once again my main laptop crashed. I was getting ready to go to school on Friday and an update popped up for a windows application. wouldn't you know it I did what I was instructed to do and when it turned off to boot back up it never did. CRAAAAAASH Two. This is the second time but this time it's not so easy to fix and now I will have to order a back up disk.

This of course means that once again I have to try to retrieve the songs from my ipod. Good luck right?

Meanwhile Darryl and I spent the morning running around trying to catch up on chores. In other words a typical weekend. I had to get my hair trimmed and we had to drop off some stuff from the library.

We stopped at McDonalds and I had their hot chocolate which I LOVE!!!! I treated Darryl to an iced Chocolate Latte which he thinks is the best. We checked out four movies and then we stopped back by McDonalds for lunch. They have this really yummy Southwestern Salad. I could eat those things every day they're that good.

We watched two movies. One was called The Walker and the other was Two Days in Paris. Both movies were real let downs in my opinion. I suppose the only good thing about the movie The Walker was hearing that Bryan Ferry Song, Which Way To Turn.

Hardly anyone checked out ThriftyMaven today. That's got me a little sad. Then again it is a three day weekend so I suppose people have better things to do than to check out my site.

So that's it for us today. I'm hoping that Darryl won't have to keep working until 7:30 every night next week.

Garrido Hung Around Schools

The Monster charged with kidnapping Jaycee Lee Dugard and holding her captive in his backyard for 18 years had sick "sexual fantasies" about little girls for decades.

Phillip Garrido admitted that starting in 1968 he hung around schools and pleasured himself while "watching young females."

"I have done it by the side of schools, grammar schools and high schools, in my own car," Garrido said in court testimony obtained Tuesday by The Daily News.

Asked how old these girls were, Garrido replied, "From 7 to 10."

Meanwhile Garrido's first wife says he once "tried to gouge" her eyes out with a safety pin. Phillip Garrido went into a jealous rage when he saw another man flirting with his wife.

"He took a safety pin and went after my eyes," Christine Murphy told Inside Edition. "He left a scar on my face."

Murphy, who said she and Garrido were high school sweethearts in northern California, said he "smacked" her around during their brief marriage and that she became his first kidnapping victim when she tried to flee him.

How many chances does this guy get? Why in the HELL did the cops and his PO not actually look around his home to see what was going on in light of the neighbor's complaints?