A giant diamond that was found at the Cullinan mine in South Africa has been sold. The diamond is about 507 carats and is still in rough form. Petra Diamonds sold the piece to Chow Tai Fook Jewelry Co LTD from Hong Kong for $35.3 million dollars. The sale marks the highest amount ever paid for a rough diamond.

What will happen to the stone remains to be seen? It may be cut into a large stone that could be similar to those in Britain’s Crown Jewels. It will be interesting to follow the life of this stone and to see it when it is cut.

The people of Chile are recovering from a magnitude 8.8 earthquake that shook their country in the early morning hours. The quake was one of the worst ever recorded. The shaking lasted for more than a minute and terrified the local residents. Homes, Buildings, and Bridges were destroyed as the earth trembled and shook.

The giant quakes destruction is not over yet. The quake set off a tsunami that is expected to travel as far as Hawaii at a peak of 8 feet. Over 50 other nations have received tsunami warnings. In all, the destruction is wide spread and has already taken over one hundred lives. I will pray that these unfortunate people will be able to recover from this devastation.

I guess we’ll all have to hand it to Canada. Their Olympic hockey team defeated the United States team for the gold medal today. Just seven minutes and forty seconds into overtime, Sidney Crosby scored the game winning goal. He zipped the puck pass American goalie Ryan Miller.

The unlikely goal was a masterpiece in puck handling and was a pleasure to watch. The overtime period came when Zach Parise scored a game tying goal with just 24 seconds left in the third period. I congratulate the Canadian hockey team on their great victory.

It seems that another American icon is going down the tubes with the economy. This time it’s the auto brand of the Hummer who will be discontinued soon. General Motors Corporation owns the brand and has been trying to sell it. After a last minute deal with the Chinese corporation Tengzhong fell through, GM announced it will end production of the vehicle.

The Hummer was being built at a plant in Shreveport Louisiana. The ending of the brand will cost American jobs that will be sorely missed. Gm stated that they will honor all existing warrantees on the vehicles and assist the dealers throughout the country.

One thing that almost everyone will agree on is the need to help keep our environment healthy. That’s why we decided to look for easy ways to do so. We also wanted to reduce our house bills if possible. We were glad when we discovered a way to achieve both goals. We found out about rain barrels and their positive impact on the environment and our monthly water bills.

Fresh water is a precious commodity. Many of us tend to take it for granted, but its availability is becoming scarce. We found that using a rain water barrel could help us utilize water that came to us for free. Whenever it rains, our supply is renewed. There are many benefits of rain harvesting and I’ll explain a few of them.

Rain water is basically very clean. It can be used to water plants and wash cars. Saving the water that comes to us for free is easy on the environment and our wallets as well. When we saw that there were rain barrels for sale, we knew we had to have one. Now we are able to put our ecological views to the test. We are helping our community’s water supply and lowering our water bills at the same time. It’s always good to find ways to improve our land; I hope we can find more good ideas like this!