While tributes to Americans who had lost their lives in battle had been held in a number of towns across the nation one of the more well-known stories about the beginnings of Memorial Day is the story about General John Logan.

Nowadays many Americans have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At cemeteries across the country the graves of the fallen are sadly ignored and worse neglected.

Another Black Label motto. That's what I think life is. It's just another bridge to cross. You ask no questions. Whatever work it is you gotta do you gotta go over it under it through it around it to do it.

God has ways of shaking the world when He is at work. He literally caused the ground to quake when Jesus died on the cross.

One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and invisible labor. To contemplate is to toil to think is to do. The crossed arms work the clasped hands act. The eyes upturned to Heaven are an act of creation.

It seems to me that in every culture I come across a chapter headed 'Wisdom.' And then I know exactly what is going to follow: 'Vanity of vanities all is vanity.'

Don't taunt the alligator until after you've crossed the creek.

The British Red Cross asked me to help them spearhead a fundraising campaign for the victims of the war in Nicaragua. It was a turning point in my life. It began my commitment to justice and human rights issues.

After every major conflict - World War I World War II Korea Vietnam the fall of the Soviet Union - what happened was that we ultimately hollowed out the force largely by doing deep across-the-board cuts.

The people of Wisconsin have been good to me. I've tried to live up to their trust. And now I ask those hardworking men and women and millions like them across America to join our cause and get this country working again. When Governor Romney asked me to join the ticket I said 'Let's get this done' - and that is exactly what we're going to do.

Wherever we go across the Pacific or Atlantic we meet not similarity so much as 'the bizarre'. Things astonish us when we travel that surprise nobody else.

You travel across the country you visit departments you give talks you talk about the work at your laboratory - what's going on what the opportunities are there - you talk about your own research.

It's hard now to imagine that kind of travel and the daily tasks they simply took for granted. If a wagon axle broke you had to stop and carve a new one. To cross a river you sometimes had to build a raft.

But as far as being an American and loving this country and getting a chance to travel across it every day and meeting people on the road and folks in the military I love this country on so many different levels.

I'm terrified of bugs and I travel with sprays lotions potions the lot. I have to check the room before I go to sleep and if I come across a bug and fail to remove it I have to sleep in a separate room as I'm paranoid that I'll be taken advantage of as I sleep.

For many years it seemed as if nothing changed in Norway. You could leave the country for three months travel the world through coups d'etat assassinations famines massacres and tsunamis and come home to find that the only new thing in the newspapers was the crossword puzzle.

Don Quixote's 'Delusions' is an excellent read - far better than my own forthcoming travel book 'Walking Backwards Across Tuscany.'

There are so many things I want to do. Like I want to get an artist a musician a photographer and a bunch of dancers that I know and just travel across Africa and just film it and just see what happens. Do and learn as much as I possibly can. Luckily I have a lot more time.

The good news is that real-world hands-on conservation is alive and well and catching on across the America I travel.

I am going to spend my time today just thanking the people that played a role in my career because I truly do believe that I was blessed by a lot of people that paths crossed mine as I went down the road in my career.

Thanks to the Interstate Highway System it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything.

Laboratories can reduce risk by implementing a proven and internationally accepted quality assurance technology that is applicable across the globe.

During the war in which several of our embedded correspondents were able to report from moving vehicles crossing the Iraqi desert the use of technology made news gathering safer.

Scientists at MIT and engineering schools all across America say that they could improve the fuel economy standards for the existing set of vehicles by 10 miles per gallon using existing technology without compromising safety or comfort at all.