I have compiled some of the suggestions for names for my new tortoise with some that I have picked out and I thought I'd have a poll to see which name everyone liked the best. Please vote for your favorite.

Due to the fact that I get up for work in the wee hours of the morning, I get to see things like this beautiful sky that I photographed last week.

Early this morning as I set out for work, I had just turned out of my neighborhood when I saw a large gopher tortoise on the side of the road, heading like he was going to cross the street. If you are not familiar with gopher tortoises they are huge land turtles that live in our area and are endangered. They have mostly sweet dispositions and are called gopher tortises because they live in elaborate underground homes which they excavate themselves. They are quite large, around a foot and a half long when full grown. Here is what a gopher tortise looks like.

Anyway, back to my story. I saw this tortoise starting to cross the road, and I just had to help it. It was very dark out still, and I pulled over to the side of the road and parked. I ran over to the tortoise, who was just starting to venture out into the street. I put my foot in front of him to block him, because a car was coming. A couple of things happened really fast just then. The light from the oncoming car illuminated the tortoise a little better and I saw a long tail sticking out from its shell. That's strange, I thought, tortoises only have small tails. Also in that split second, I felt something hit my shoe instep, like it was being punched. I realized in that instant that the tortoise was not a tortoise, it was an alligator snapping turtle and it had just tried to bite my foot! I squealed and jumped out of the way. "Sorry buddy, you are on your own" I said as I hurried back to the car with my heart racing but also laughing at myself. I found it all quite funny. I am just glad I used my foot and didn't reach down to the turtle with my hands, because those things can snap your fingers off with their powerful jaws. Here is the meanie I found instead of a tortoise. I would have helped him across the street too, except he would have bitten the crap out of me.

I found a clipping from "Reader's Digest" that I had saved for quite a few years. It was one of those little things at the bottom of the page and was called "Pats not Pending". It reads:

The Washington Post challenged its readers to send in ideas for useless products. The resulting list included:

Silicone thigh implants
Nuclear hand grenades
Fire alarm with snooze bar
Jarvik-7 artificial appendix
Inflatable dartboard
Salted bandages
Can-opener-in-a-can
Dyslexic's edition of Scrabble
Mobius strip toilet paper
Lobster Helper
Popeil Pocket Wasp & Hornet Teaser

I thought these were good, and I came up with a few of my own:

OSHA approved safety contact lenses
Personal oxygen tank with built-in ashtray
Crayola clear markers
Pilot's manual in braille
Teflon shoe soles

What useless products can you think of?

Look at this cool leaf I found on the sidewalk while on my walk this afternoon. I spotted it right away. It's too bad it doesn't look like the Virgin Mary or I could put it on eBay and sell it for thousands!