Wow! Can you imagine being foun d after 18 years????

On Aug. 27, the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office in Calif. released the police mugshots of Jaycee's kidnappers: Phillip Garrido and his wife Nancy. Police charge that Nancy was with Garrido when they snatched Jaycee on June 10, 1991, as she walked to her school bus stop.

Phillip Garrido, kidnapping suspect in Jaycee Lee Dugard case, admitted to drug-fueled sex fantasies! The monster who kept a California girl as his sex slave for 18 years once told a detective he needed to dominate women to satisfy his sexual urges.

Phillip Garrido made the creepy admission after he was busted in 1976 for kidnapping and raping a Nevada casino worker.

DeMaranville said Garrido - some 30 years before he kidnapped and held captive Jaycee Lee Dugard - appeared surprisingly sharp despite a heavy drug habit.

The sicko drifted through much of the 70s high on acid, pot and cocaine.

The twisted sex fiend was sentenced to 50 years for the kidnapping conviction and life for the rape conviction but was inexplicably granted parole in 1988.

Dugard, now 29, vanished after getting pulled into a truck at a South Lake Tahoe bus stop in 1991, prompting a frantic search.

It turns out Garrido kept Dugard and the daughters he fathered with her captive in a secret compound behind his home in Antioch, Calif..

Local cops acknowledged they missed an opportunity to save the girls three years when a neighbor told police the man known as "Creepy Phil" had sexual addictions and kept little girls in his backyard.

The deputy dispatched to Garrido's home left without even stepping foot in the registered sex offender's backyard.

The mystery of Dugard's abduction began unraveling Monday when Garrido showed up at the University of California, Berkeley, seeking permission to pass out religious tracts and was told to come back the next day.

Alerted by a suspicious staffer, campus cop Allison Jacobs ran a background check on Garrido and learned he was a registered sex offender on lifetime federal parole for a 1971 kidnapping and rape.

When Garrido arrived the next day with his daughters, Jacobs sat in on the meeting and noted that the girls "had this weird look in their eyes like brainwashed zombies."

She described the girls' appearance as "'Little House on the Prairie' meets robots."

New York, new york. Big city of dreams, but everything in New York isn't always what it seems....last twitter message from the now dead DJ AM

DJ AM (real name Adam Goldstein) was found dead in his NYC apartment on Friday. A friend found him laying face-down on his bed on Friday, and there was drug paraphernalia in the apartment. A pipe for smoking drugs as well as prescription bottles were discovered.

DJ AM's last post to Twitter was on August 25th, and quoted Grandmaster Flash from the song "New York New York."

"New york, new york. Big city of dreams, but everything in new york aint always what it seems." --DJ_AM, August 25th, 5:57pm.

The celebrity disc jockey and Los Angeles club owner was a jet setter who spun records at some of the world's most exclusive parties, including private events for Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lopez and Ben Stiller, among many others, and could command more than $25,000 for a three-hour set. A former member of the rock band Crazy Town, he grabbed tabloid headlines for having been engaged to socialite/reality TV star Nicole Richie and dating actress/singer Mandy Moore.

Throughout his early 20s, he struggled with drugs, depression and his weight, which reached 300 pounds in the mid-1990s. In 1997, Goldstein said in interviews that he came close to killing himself. Instead, however, he gave up drugs and alcohol and underwent gastric bypass surgery, resulting in a drastic weight reduction.

Goldstein's death comes almost a year after he survived a fiery Learjet crash on the runway of a South Carolina airport that claimed the lives of two other passengers and left him covered with second- and third-degree burns.

Goldstein announced his participation in a new reality TV show for MTV called "Gone Too Far." The program followed Goldstein -- who battled addiction for 10 years -- as he helped the loved ones of drug addicts stage interventions. At a news conference last month, Goldstein said he wanted to help others because he had escaped death twice as a former addict and crash survivor."There's no reason why I should have lived or why I lived and they didn't," Goldstein said. "I'm alive and I'm here and I have another chance. So I have to do something better with my life this time."

Hmmm...very interesting!!!!

Madonna is booed off the stage in Romania!

At first, fans politely applauded the Roma performers sharing a stage with Madonna. Then the pop star condemned widespread discrimination against Roma, or Gypsies - and the cheers gave way to jeers. The sharp mood change that swept the crowd of 60,000, who had packed a park for Wednesday night's concert, underscores how prejudice against Gypsies remains deeply entrenched across Eastern Europe. Despite long-standing efforts to stamp out rampant bias, human rights advocates say Roma probably suffer more humiliation and endure more discrimination than any other people group on the continent.

Swedish Crayfish Party Anyone?

In honor of my Swedish (straight of the boat!) father-in-laws 80th Birthday this week...Rik and I are hosting a traditional Swedish Crayfish party for family & friends!

A crayfish party is a traditional summertime eating and drinking celebration. The tradition originated in Sweden, where a crayfish party is called a kräftskiva.
Crayfish parties are generally held during August, a tradition that started because crayfish harvesting in Sweden was, for most of the 20th century, legally limited to late summer. Today, the “kräftpremiär” date in early August has no legal significance. Customary party accessories are comical paper hats, paper tablecloths, paper lanterns (often depicting the Man in the Moon), and bibs. A rowdy atmosphere prevails amid noisy eating and traditional drinking songs (snapsvisa). It is culturally correct to suck the juice out of the crayfish before shelling it.

AND WE WILL BE DRINKING LOTS OF SHOTS OF AQUAVIT WHICH MAKES THE SOUND OF THE SWEDISH DRINKING SONGS MUCH BETTER!!!

Whitney Houston Makes a Come Back!

Big news this week...if you like Whitney Houston like I do....she will appear on Opra for her first interview in 7 years! And she is releasing a new album titled I Look to You on August 31st!
Houston, cited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the "most awarded female artist of all time" with 411 awards since her self-titled debut in 1985.

Back to School soon...how would you like to hear this message when you call your kid's school?

Click on the locker above to hear this the message that the Maroochydore High School, Queensland, Australia, staff voted unanimously to record on their school telephone answering machine . This is the actual answering machine message for the school. This came about because they implemented a policy requiring students and parents to be responsible for their children's absences and missing homework. The school and teachers are being sued by parents who want their children's failing grades changed to passing grades - even though those children were absent 15-30 times during the semester and did not complete enough school work to pass their classes. I think the message is AWESOME!

Three rummage sales a year is enough in the City of Onalaska

You are lucky if you've made extra money by having garage, yard, basement or just plain rummage sales...I haven't had the same luck! But obviously there must be others who have been able to make money in the City of Onalaksa. So much so, that some of the council members wanted to allow folks to have at least one more this year, but sadly it didn't pass this week! Click on the house above for the whole story.

Gary Franke...adopted from the Coulee Region Humane Society

Here is a new addition that we made to our family thanks to the Coulee Region Humane Society! We love Gary and he loves us!