Davis Family Home

Hello friends. I just want to say, thank you for taking the time to read this story about a friend of mine:

The holiday’s are quite stressful as it is but could you imagine your home burning down the DAY after Christmas?

Davis Family Home After Two Fires

Talk about heartbreaking… Well, this happened to a friend of mine. She is a very huge inspiration to my life. She is from a small town called Green Springs, OH. She had a dream and a passion for design. She went to college and is now living in California working for some of the biggest companies out there. I very much look up to her and was completely heartbroken when I heard the news of her family’s home.

She was home for the holiday’s and spending time with her family. Early in the morning (3am) on Dec 26th her father smelled something burning and went to check it out. He opened the door to the attic from the bathroom ceiling to discover an electrical fire had started in the attic of their home. By opening the door to the attic it fed the fire oxygen and started to spread. My friend,

her family and 1 cat made it out okay. However, one cat died in the fire and another, “Shula” was missing.  The house caught fire again on the 27th (4am) due to hot spots that were aggravated by thewinds and again the house was engulfed in flames. This did more damage to the home than the first fire.  The only part of the house that was still intact was a part of the living room where they found Shula. The cat is now at the Fremont, OH Animal Hospital. The family is not asking for help for THEM but monetary help to pay the medical bills for the cat’s recovery.  I have opened up a paypal donation for the next two weeks. If you can, please donate a few dollars to help this family, who has lost EVERYTHING and help get the best care of their little kitty Shula.

The Davis Family Home After Two Fires

If you feel more comfortable donating personally, please be my guest. A lot of you know me personally and know I will be honest and truthful with the money donated. Danielle is someone I look up to very much and I am a HUGE animal lover. Vet bills are so expensive, especially for an animal that needs special care after such a tragic event. Every dollar is appreciated and I want to thank you for your generosity. If you have any questions or concerns about donated, please do not hesitate to contact me (jamielynn@jamiestarlynn.com)

You can use this paypal button to donate money for Shula

OR, You can donate directly to the Animal Hospital, in care of “Shula” (Davis Family Cat).

Address: Fremont Animal Hospital
2357 Sean Drive
Fremont, OH 43420
Phone: 419-332-2659

If you would like to donate money to help the family get back on their feet you can do so here:

http://bit.ly/hHWl0m

News Articles about the Fire:

Sandusky Register – Sandusky, OH
The News Messenger – Fremont, OH
Toledo Blade – Toledo, OH
The Advertiser-Tribune – Tiffin, OH

Jamie Lynn

Defy The Wick - Buy Scentsy

Okay, I live with two 20-something year old boys. Okay, yes…I am a girl. Girls like things to smell good. Okay, yes…I have this terrible fear of fire, but I like things to smell nice. DILEMMA!? NOT ANYMORE! Thanks to the awesome makers of Scentsy, I can make my home smell just as yummy as using candles without the fear of my cats tails catching on fire (and spreading everywhere else…)

I have a Twitter friend, @ActivDefiance who is a Scentsy consultant in the Cleveland area. She had a giveaway, anyone to like her facebook page was entered to win a mid-size warmer and a bar of scent! To my surprise, I WON! I never win anything, but I WON! Dude, I was so excited. So, I am here to tell you ALL about it. They are SO perfect and inexpensive for that magical holiday coming up too!

First off, I have to say Cortney (that’s my Scentsy Rep) is the cutest human on earth. She brought my prize to a kickboxing class last week, and it was so adorable. It was a large, clear plastic bag, with pieces of crinkle paper that lined the bottom. Inside the bag, on top of the crinkle paper was a big box in the middle, a card to the side, and the scent bar package to the other side. It was all tied off with a multicolored, high quality ribbon. (TOTALLY FREAKING ADORABLE!). I was pretty excited to get kickboxing over so I could take it home and try it out.

Scentsy Mid-Size Warmer

I got home and opened up the bag, Cortney being the sweetheart that she is, included the most appropriate for me “thank you card”. I think if you look at the picture, you will figure out why.

Sorry for the contrasting background, it just happened she knew me all too well. LOL!

I kind of laughed to myself when I saw how well the thank you card fit me.

Anyways… I continued on to see what else was in the bag. When I won the contest, Cortney asked me to pick out a scent that I would like. I was kind of torn between a few different scent bars, but I chose Cinnamon Bear, just to be safe. I didn’t even have to open the package to smell it. It smells like amazing, cinnamon red-hots. It smells SO amazing. I love warm spice smells; so of course, I fell in love. The scent bars are pretty neat, they come in a plastic package that looks like little bars and the coolest thing is you can pour the molten wax from the dish back into the plastic to remold and store. That would be useful if you wanted to change scents. So, you really waste NOTHING! You just pour it back into the package and let it cool and save it for another time!

I almost wanted to eat it, it smell just like red hot candies!!

Okay, it was time to play with my new Scent*Sational toy! I took out the box from the bag and opened it. You are greeted by the user manual, which comes in a variety of different languages. I think I love Scentsy even more than normal people because the packaging and supporting materials are so nicely designed.There is no mistake in using this product, everything is spelled right out as soon as you open the box.

Great design, great product, great scents!

I took out all the stuffing and packaging. The warmer comes in two pieces. The top dish is under the manual and the rest is underneath the Styrofoam. Included in the base of the warmer is a light blub for the warmer, so it’s basically all ready to use out of the box!  Just screw in the bulb and you are ready to start melting stuff. I mean, the bars of course.

All parts are included in the box! Even comes with the first lightbulb!

I am a bit terrible with screwing in light bulbs, I ALWAYS put them in crooked. I hope you have better luck with this than I do.

Get in there dangit!

Okay, with the light bulb in, you put the dish on top. This particular warmer’s design had this “crease” where the top fit into the base. Genius by the way…

Okay, I was now ready to melt some stuff. By stuff I mean scent bars!!! I opened the package and popped two little scent cube bars out and put them in the top dish. The warmer comes with a hand on/off switch on the cord. That totally made my day! I plugged it in and turned it out. It took about 15 minutes for the ceramic parts to warm up and start to melt the wax, by then things were starting to smell AWESOME. The longer I left it on, the more smell that it produced. I was trying it out in my craft room/office and they could smell the scent all the way downstairs!

See the package? It's easy to remold the wax back into bars!

The ceramic DOES get warm, but I could still touch it without hurting myself. I wouldn’t recommend keeping it around pets or children just because of the melted wax, but I am just saying when I touched it, it didn’t hurt me. I would definitely recommend keeping it on a counter top or away from easily bump-able areas. I am a crazy person, so I definitely turn off the warmer when I leave. I know some people that would leave it on, but I am afraid of everything always catching on fire. I just turn it off and let the wax cool in the dish. When I get back home, I turn it on and the wax re-melts itself and continues to release more fragrance.

Perfect Accessory For Your Home

The Scentsy warmer uses the light bulb to warm the ceramic and melt the wax, so it also serves as soothing mood lighting, along with scenting the air for added effect! So next time you have friends over for a relaxing evening, put some scent bars into your warmer and turn it on… or put on in the bedroom and …. Bow-Chicka-Wow-Wow….. (Adults Only, of course…)

Scentsy - Great for setting the mood.

Are you ready for more? Well, that’s all I have. You have to contact/call Cortney to have your own Scent*Sational experience! She will hook you up. They have warmers and scents to pretty much fit ANYONE. Men, Women, even Scentsy Buddies for kids!

Ready for more Scentsy? Call Cortney!

Buy Scentsy from Cortney: www.DefyTheWick.com or book her for a Scentsy party with friends!
Keep up with Cortney’s latest deals and Specials: Defy The Wick Facebook | Twitter
Contact Cortney directly: Cortney Macwherter | 330-730-1048 |defythewick@gmail.com

This is a movie review about the Cleveland International Film Festival film Elephant in the Living Room directed by Michael Webber. Oddly, this is a (mostly) Ohio based movie. Takes place in Dayton/Southern Ohio.

*PLEASE NOTE*
It’s possible this post MAY contain spoilers about the movie…so if you want to see the movie without knowing stop reading now. If you want to know more, continue…

With a packed theater (I don’t think there was an empty seat in the house), I thought it was going to be a documentary about a guy (Tim Harrison) just going around and saving/rescuing exotic animals from (stupid) people’s homes and taking in animals that have been let  loose into the wild. However, I was mistaken. It was SO much more than that. This film, was….AMAZING. It covers SO many topics and areas that should be considered before buying or raising exotic pets (or any domestic pet as well). The sale and ownership of exotic pets (lions, tigers, bears, cougars, poisonous reptiles, etc) believe it or not, is NOT illegal. There are auctions of exotic pets (monkeys, hyenas) and direct sales of some of the most dangerous and poisonous reptiles and animals on earth RIGHT IN OHIO. In part of the movie, they show a son of about 8 years old and father buying a baby alligator or crocodile (sorry, I can’t remember which…) from one of these sales/auctions, Tim (undercover) asks “Do you know how big this one will get?” The man answered “Yeah, about 8 feet.”  Okay, sir… WTF are you going to do with a croc when it gets BIGGER THAN YOU!? Keep it in the bathtub? Spend thousands of dollars building a sanctuary in your backyard? I think not. I think YOU are not using your brains AT ALL.

In another scene they show a father buying his son “one of the most dangerous snakes in Africa.” FOR HIS 8 YEAR OLD SON! Now, someone please, tell me what the HELL is wrong with people. What quality of life is this animal/reptile going to have in a cage for it’s whole life. It’s not like you can play with it. You get to watch it, in a cage. Please, if you want to watch animals in cages, go to your local zoo. They will appreciate your patronage more than these animals which you will keep as “pets” will.

The direction or crew document different situations of exotic animals being found in the wild, but where they are being found is not their natural habitat. They are now finding snakes native to Africa, in the Everglades of Florida or Cougars & Wild Cats in OHIO because either they escaped, the owners didn’t want them anymore, or the owners realized they couldn’t care for them anymore and let them loose. In MOST cases, the sanctuaries that take in these animals and reptiles are being so saturated with tenants because of this reason, any animal they capture they often have euthanize the animals on the spot because of someones greedy “want”, unwillingness, and lack of education to take care of the animal in the first place. Throughout the whole film we follow a man (Terry Brumfield) and his two African Lions that he keeps in makeshift cages in his backyard. Terry, who now suffers from multiple lifetime injuries from a tractor trailer accident, was given the lions and he fell in love. I mean, who WOULDN’T fall in love with two adorable lion cubs, right?   You can see the love and determination on his face and in his eyes whenever he talks about or is around the animals. One day, the male escapes from his cage and ends up chasing cars down the freeway! Scary, right? Terry is forced to keep the 2 adult lions in a old, rusty horse trailer because he has no means of fixing the cages. Many people come and try to take the lions away from him, and for many months (at least 5 as the story goes) these two full size African Lions are kept in the small trailer. They end up breeding and producing baby cubs. Tim, the advocate for Outreach for Animals (a not-for-profile animal rescue & advocate for proper behavior around wildlife), instead of trying to take the lions away brings a team of interesting, yet perfect people to help rebuild cages for the lions. They build up cages from scratch, welding and twisting metal for the male, female and 3 cubs.  However, the conditions of this mans backyard aren’t really the greatest. There is scrap metal, junk, and who knows what else piling up. After showing the life of the lions being improved with the new cages, the movie cuts in on a rainy day in Southern Ohio, the ground is soaked, mud is everywhere. They show the male lion in what seems to be an extreme exhausted state. He is laying on the ground while the other lions sit on wooden housing boxes looking on at their father with the most concern of faces. The male lion breathing very oddly, laying on the ground with a low painful growl. The owners have no idea what’s going on, just stating “they all went crazy for 15 minutes, it was like radiation or something…” They then realized, after being shocked by the chain link fence, it was electricity. Turns out, there was an electrical surge from a fridge which sent electricity traveling through the wet ground for 15 minutes. You then see the male lion leap into the air in no natural way, you see his female companion try to help him only to lay one paw on the ground and quickly retract. The male lion cashes head/neck first into the wet concrete pad on the floor the cage. Terry screams for the lion to get up, Terry opens the cage and lays next to his fallen friend, petting his face and comforting him in his last final breaths.  The male lion was electrocuted to death. He was quoted earlier in the movie, by saying if anything happened to his lions, there was no real reason for him to go on in life. That my friends, is dedication; complete selfless dedication. It was truly heartbreaking (I am crying my eyes out  by this point in the movie, btw…) You can tell this man TRULY LOVED these animals. It was his best friend, he watched his best friend die. Ugh, just totally heartbreaking to me. (I get choked up now even writing this)…it was so emotional.

After the death of the male lion Terry agrees to remove the lions from his care. Tim calls in a personal favor from a friend in Colorado and the lions go to live on a reserve in Colorado where they live and run for the rest of their days.

I am kind of torn with the whole “legality” of owning/buying/selling of exotic animals. I think there needs to be laws in place where if you can’t properly provide for them and are NOT properly educated and trained how to take care of the animal, you have NO business having anything to do with them. IF you REALLY wanted to own an exotic animal you would have to be properly trained, educated, and certified to own these animals. If you down have ownership of an exotic animal, you would have to be evaluated on a monthly basis, pass inspections of holding facilities and living conditions, pass yearly mental evaluations, employment verifications and jump through MANY strict hoops to be able to own and care for these types of animals. These aren’t cats and dogs people – these are wild, unpredictable lions, tigers and bears.

What do you think? Should the sale of exotic animals be illegal? Or should it remain legal with the education, training, and possibly monthly evaluations by federally appointed officials?

Links & Resources:

If you want to know more about the film, click here.
Become a Facebook fan of Outreach for Animals by clicking here.
Follow Outreach for Animals on Twitter at @OutreachAnimals.
If you want to know more about Outreach for Animals (For-impact organization saving lives, transforming lives and changing lives. Educating young people about the realities of wildlife and how animals belong in their natural habitat.), click here.
Information on Cleveland International Film Festival, memberships, and contributions can be found here.

After seeing this movie, I will be making a contribution to Outreach for Animals. The work that Tim does is both crazy-dangerous and amazing at the same time. See if you can’t find $5-$10 to donate as well and PLEASE take a minute to check out the work he does.

This is a review of the movie Pinned from the Cleveland International Film Festival. Yet, another Ohio based film! Saw this film at CIFF because Brendan and Cody did the website for the movie.

*PLEASE NOTE*
This review may contain spoilers of this film.

Directed by the Norman Brothers (Mike & Pat) this film take high school wrestling to the next level. While I completely HATE high school athletics, this film captivated me. During the matches, the movie was filmed in such a way, I found myself squirming in my seat, kicking my feet as if it would help the teenage wrestler get out of being pinned and get a pin for themselves.

The movie’s home base is in Lakewood, Ohio – a cute suburb of Cleveland.  Pat and Mike follow two high school wrestling teams from two local Lakewood high schools, Saint Ed’s and Lakewood High. Okay, basically it follows two wrestlers (Lance from St. Ed’s and Matt from Lakewood High) – with the team in the background as they prepare for State competition match in Columbus, OH.  The main star of the show is a St. Ed’s senior, Lance Palmer along side of him is his father, Dwyane, his little brother, and his coaches. The movie follows these two boys with two VERY different lives.

Lance Palmer has been pushed and backed by his father every since he was a boy. His father turned the basement of their home into a training and practice facility for the two boys. The house is complete with a full gym, padded walls and wrestling practice mats… Matt, while living in an apartment, the only thing you learn about him is his “broken” home, constantly starving himself to “make weight”, and his passion and determination about high school wrestling and winning the state title.

The movie follows the boys and teams through the best of matches and the utterly worst of matches with close-up, in your face action. You really get a sense of what sacrifices these boys take on while fighting for medals, trophies, placing at competitions, and unusual training methods such as wrestling bears and eating next to nothing.

I really loved Lance’s father Dwayne. He was a bit typical high school athletic father but has characteristics that I think A LOT of parents could utilize and benefit from. In our current day, parents really don’t give a crap about what their kids are doing, who they are doing it with, and if they are even at school – EVER. Even though he beats (not physically abusive, but make them work hard) his boys until they are nearly dead, he supports them at the same time. He puts drive and determination in their heads. He expects nothing less than the best out of his boys, which I think has made them so strong headed and successful. I honestly think, this man should write a parenting book and it should be distributed in every birth center on Earth. If you don’t motivate your kids, keep tabs on them, work them, making them work themselves they are going to turn out like fat slobs. Honestly, come on I don’t see Lance standing on the corner waiting for the RTA to go to his $9 job at McDonalds. He’s in college, wrestling and making something out of his life. He might end up be a wrestling coach in the end, but at least he never gave up trying.

Anyways, if you are into high school wrestling (or kids wrestling bears), like I know ALL of my mom’s side of the family is and my entire hometown of Monroeville, OH – I suggest picking this one up on DVD and reliving your high school dreams of making it to state all over again.

Info & References:
Pinned Movie official website
Follow Pinned Movie on Twitter
Become a fan of Pinned Movie Facebook
Pat & Mike talk about Pinned on Youtube at CIFF
Printing of the movie poster design by Jeff Finley of Go Media – Jakprints: “Pinned” Wide-Format Movie Poster
Web site design by Cody & Brendan at Vector Bridge

I wanted to take a minute to get the word out about this pretty awesome fest happening in Cleveland this May 22-23rd (2010).  Presented by Go Media, a Cleveland, Ohio based design & media powerhouse.

WHAT IS Weapons of Mass Creation, you ask?

What is WMC Fest? (In the words of Jeff Finley from Go Media)

“It’s a two day event in Cleveland, OH on May 22 and 23 that draws comparisons to Austin’s SXSW festival. The event features art, film, and music, but leans more toward art/graphic design, punk/indie/folk music, and documentary/foreign/arthouse/obscure/cult films. There’s a big DIY spirit and focus on doing things your way, on your own terms. We’ll have roundtable discussions about these topics led by industry leaders.

Cleveland needs an event like this to continue to grow its reputation as a creative powerhouse.”

Sound good to you? Anything that allows the creative people of Cleveland to use their minds and talents sounds good to me!

Ever since I started learning about design and the theory behind it, I have always had a fascination with Go Media. In high school, I was so in love with this company and the media it produced. For the last (OH MY GOD) 8 years I have used Go Media’s website to help fuel my inspiration and keep tabs on what real designers get to do. I even requested a “sample” package for real life inspiration (I still have it)! I always thought, it would be “so cool ” to work there, just because of the talented and AMAZINGLY creative people who work there.

The festival is happening on May 22 & 23rd at the Go Media warehouse (4507 Lorain Ave., Cleveland, OH). Independent Art ANYTHING is so very important to me. It allows artists of all shapes and forms to display their talents with no rules and no restrictions upon their creativity.

With 23 days to go, they are still looking for people to back the project. As of tonight, they are 58% backed. This is GREAT and I thank EACH and EVERY person who sacrificed a little (or a lot) to help funding this event thus far!  However, there is still 42% left to the goal. Donations start at $1 and extend to $5K. Unlike other places you may have donated to,  you might have gotten a postcard or something in return. When you back Weapons of Mass Creation you actually get some pretty sweet stuff in return!

After the release of the iPad yesterday and due to some Apple fanboys raving SO much about the iPad, I thought I’d share my opinion about not why the iPad is a useless gadget but how people in general are not only shallow with people, but with technology as well.

Why did you go Transformers? Why did you go see Jennifer’s body? It’s probably for most of you, how good looking you think Megan Fox is.  I personally liked Transformers and I thought Jennifer’s Body was alright, but I’ve always liked Transformers.. I hear SO many of you say you’re going to go see it specifically because of Megan Fox and most of you can agree that she’s not a very good actress.  She is sex.  That is what she portrays in every movie she’s in.  But! I’m not here to rant about Megan Fox.. Continuing on..

Why is everyone is amused by Macs? Why do all these fanboys want an iPad even though it’s literally just a larger iPhone? Because it’s cool, that’s why. You can do everything that the iPhone can do, but bigger.. and guess what? It looks better. It’s extremely visually appealing.  Everything looks fantastic, the interface of the calendar, the photo gallery, everything.. it’s nice. But functional? Yes, it functions just like an iPhone that can’t make phone calls.  But yet, every fanboy wants it?

Apple didn’t get this much hype prior to OSX.  Why though?  Everyone back then still stereotyped it as an excellent machine to work with for video & image editing (I’m not going to get into that).. Because it didn’t have all these neat little transitions, it didn’t look nice, it wasn’t “fun” for the user to use.

Conclusively, am I saying I won’t ever get an iPad? No, I’m sure one day when it’s cheap I wouldn’t mind buying one to play with.  Am I saying it’s completely useless to me? No. I’m sure it would be nice to hold this thing in my hand in bed or on the couch just lounging and wanting to view a website or something. But is it worth $500+ just for me to do that? No, not at all.

Well. Another week had gone by, sorry for not updating on Monday.  I was too ashamed that I didn’t lose that pound that was due on Monday so I decided to just not tell anyone about it.  But as of this morning another pound has been shed! It’s actually a huge surprise because on Tuesday I had dinner at the Mongolian BBQ, possibly the worst place to go when trying to lose weight..

I bought a few apples (Gala) this week along with 90 calorie Kelloggs granola bars, just a few more healthy (but delicious) snacks to get me by..

Current weigh in: 164lbs.  Only 14 left to go! I’m gettin’ there..

Groupon.  What is it?  Well it’s sort of like Woot [Woot] but on a much smaller and cheaper scale.  Everyday there’s a “featured” item to do at an awesome price, but you are only able to get it if enough people join in that same day.  If there isn’t, just wait until tomorrow and give that deal a go!

For example, today I signed up and it had only required 2 more people to signup in order to get a $10 Robeks coupon for $6, I signed up and shortly after they hit their quota so my credit card got charged and about 45 minutes later I received the coupon in my email!  The only downside is that you’ll have to wait until the next day to use it.

So sign up! The link is below.

[GROUPON]