4 The Hampton Roads Messenger Shaking off the Daily Grind in Greece Editorial


majestic breathtaking views of cliffs and the bluest sea below. Although it is now dormant, Santorini is an active volcano. It last erupted in 1950. Santorini has a rich history, which


is on display at the prehistoric museum there called Museum of Prehistoric Thera. This museum features artifacts dating back to 1700 B.C. I saw wall hangings, vases and figurines from 1700 B.C. that look like they could have been made today. After viewing the hot items from


the prehistoric period, it was time to cool down by touring Santorini's many beaches. Anyone who has been to Santorini now knows that you do not go there for their beaches. There are much


Dr. Gladys West FROM PAGE 1


Photo of the port taken from a bus in Santorini, Greece BY ANGELA JONES


I wrote about traveling to the


beautiful city of Berlin, Germany a few months ago. I did not mention, at that time, that Berlin was a stop-off destination while I was traveling to Greece. I toured Crete and Santorini, Greece.


From Berlin, I flew into Crete. As the plane approached the historic Greek island of Crete, its full beauty soon came into focus. Rocky and hilly, sea and sand, there was no shortage of landscape eye candy on Crete. As usual, I tried to use public transportation to ensure that I am able to spend an ample amount of time with the locals and to ensure travel costs are kept to a minimum. At the airport, I discovered that there was a bus that would take me to the center of the city of Heraklion where my hotel was located. The gentleman that I asked about the bus spoke English, especially the sharp and snappy version of it. As I tried to show him what the hotel address looked like on the phone, he quickly pointed out that he could not look at the phone of everyone who approached him. Although I did not appreciate those sentiments at the time, looking back, I can understand how that could become a problem. Once we got off the first bus at the city center, we asked the next bus driver if the bus he was driving went to the hotel and he


responded affirmatively. I’m not going to say that I went as far as documenting my surroundings with photos and videos after the driver let everyone off of the bus but me and my traveling companion and began driving down a desolate road but that is exactly what I did. I took photos of the bus, of the driver, of the bus ticket and plenty of video too. Needless to say, he dropped us off at our hotel unscathed. We decided to go to a restaurant next door to the hotel that night where I was served by a very opinionated waitress. I say that she was very opinionated because she insisted on telling me what to order after I told her what I wanted. She said “Oh no, that’s too much food.” I was actually planning


to have the leftovers for


breakfast but since she refused to give me what I ordered that did not happen. I am glad that she shortened my order because the pizza did not have a whole lot of flavor and the hotel breakfast was banging. I could not really enjoy the hotel breakfast buffet because we had to rush to take a ferry to Santorini, another Greek island. The ferry took a couple of hours


to get to Santorini, an island made from a volcano. The views from Santorini were spectacularly stunning. When one arrives on the island, a bus winds you around the volcano with


group of women who did computing for the U.S. military in the era before electronic systems.


Hired in 1956 as


a mathematician at the U.S. Naval Weapons Laboratory, she participated in a path-breaking, award-winning astronomical study that proved, during the early 1960s, the regularity of Pluto’s motion relative to Neptune. Thereafter, from the mid-1970s through the 1980s, using complex algorithms to account for variations in gravitational, tidal, and other forces that distort Earth’s shape, she programmed an IBM 7030 “Stretch” computer


to deliver Shutdown FROM PAGE 1


Congress to work on their behalf, not abandon them in favor of political brinksmanship.” “Virginia


is being hit hard


by President Trump’s shutdown because we have a high number of federal employees wondering if their paychecks will come, but we also have a lot of federal contractors. We often do bills to make sure that paychecks for federal employees are made whole after a shutdown, but it’s not the same for these hardworking federal contractors who just want to do their jobs. To make it worse, many of these federal


contractors are living paycheck- to-paycheck, so this really hurts them. I’m glad we are trying to find a way to make sure some of these workers get paid. This shutdown was completely unnecessary and we need to protect people who have been hurt by President Trump’s actions,” Kaine said. Warner and Kaine have been outspoken against President Trump’s use of a


increasingly refined calculations for an extremely


accurate geodetic Earth model, a geoid, optimized for what ultimately became the Global Positioning System (GPS) orbit.


The Air Force Space and Missile


Pioneers Award pays tribute to the leaders of the early years of the Air Force space program, as well as the subsequent innovators whose vision and perseverance overcame the obstacles of the unknown, those who transformed the cutting edge of technology into operational systems, and those who dedicated their lives to exploring space in support of our national security concerns.


better beaches in other places in Greece. Santorini


does still have beautiful


beaches that include those with black sand, white sand and red sand. We took a boat and saw all three. If visiting Santorini, allow plenty of time for transportation once you are on the island. You will probably need buses, boats and taxis to see all that you want to see. After taking the clean and efficient ferry back to Crete, I was ready to relax on the beaches there. Crete has very nice beaches too and they are more along the lines of what you would see at east coast beaches except the water is more blue and more clear. Photos from my Greece trip are available at hampton- roadsmessenger.com.


Volume 13 Number 4


January 2019


government


shutdown as a negotiating tactic. Virginia is home to more than 170,000 federal employees and tens of thousands of federal contractors.


You are cordially invited to attend... City Council meetings...


Established 2006 A. J. Jones, Publisher Chris Parks, Editor


Sarah Parks, Graphic Designer Ida Davis, Contributing Writer Sales and Information: info@hamptonroadsmessenger.com Copyright pertaining to contents of this edition. All rights reserved.


Norfolk - regular meetings are held on the first and fourth Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. and the second and third Tuesday at 2:30 p.m.


Chesapeake - regular meetings are held on the second, third and fourth Tuesday of each month at 6:30 p.m.


Newport News - regular business meetings are held on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month at 7:00 p.m.


Suffolk - regular meetings are held on the first and third Wednesday of each month at 7:00 p.m. Hampton - typically take place on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month at 7:30 p.m.


Virginia Beach - meets on the first four Tuesdays of each month. In July the meetings are scheduled on the first two Tuesdays only. Formal session begins at 6 p.m. Portsmouth - meeting dates are the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at 7:00 p.m.


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