Photos with My Husband

Pre-1900 Book

I know you've all been wondering when I'd get around to this one. I must say, it was tough. I believe that, no matter how "timeless" the story, books were written at a certain time, for a certain audience. There's no way the author of Gilgamesh would know what life would be like today and how we'd want to be entertained. Sure, the story might be timeless, but the writing style of old books bothers me. I clearly didn't take this into account when making this goal.

Anyway, I decided on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Bad decision. The book might as well have been called "How To Build a Victorian-Era Submarine and Explain How It Works in the Most Boring Way Ever." I took me weeks to read the first hundred or so pages. I decided to switch books right before Christmas. There was no way I was finishing The Worst Book Ever before the end of the year. I thought children's literature might be easier, so I chose Alice In Wonderland.

This book, I liked. So much word play. I took me a couple of days to read, but mostly because I was lazy about reading.

December Mail

Holiday cards are out! Happy Holidays!

December Volunteering

This weekend, I volunteered twice. The first was with One Brick at Holly Nights at Pennsbury Manor. This was my first One Brick event last year, and I had fun handing out hot cider to people who then went wassailing. This year, however, the split us up a bit and most of us were candle watchers. I was teamed up with someone else from One Brick and we spent about 2.5 hours walking through the kitchen house making sure people weren't too close to the candles and that the candles didn't need to be changed. (Pennsbury Manor is where William Penn lived, so there's not electricity, candles were the only way to see.) Not as good as last year, I have to say, but I still had fun.

Then, a mere 12 hours after I finished at Holly Nights, I was at St. James School for their community work day. St. James School is a private school for low income middle schoolers. They're in their second year and are opening a classroom a year. Right now they have fifth and sixth graders. It'll eventually be fifth through eighth. They had a pipe burst earlier in the week and it leaked onto their donated books that they hadn't sorted yet. So, we went through the books and threw out (I know, I was sad, too) the books that weren't salvageable. It was actually pretty quick work, so we were then tasked with sorting by what books would be good for middle schoolers. A lot of people seemed to just drop off old books of theirs, happy to get rid of them, without a thought for the audience. We had books that were for much younger children, books for adults, and encyclopedias from 1985. A word to the wise, children aren't going to be helped by books that think the USSR is a world power. I know throwing out books is hard, but no one wants those.

November Volunteering

Illness prohibited me from volunteering outside the home. I was scheduled to go to Cradles to Crayons, but I was pretty certain I was dying (or had a pretty bad head cold and could barely get through work). Luckily, I've recently taken up the task of writing One Brick Philadelphia's newsletter. So, I'm going to have to count the time I spend writing up articles and trying to get the program to work on my ancient macbook as my volunteering. You should probably sign up for One Brick Philadelphia and get my awesome newsletter. Oh, you'll also get invites to various volunteering opportunities in the Philadelphia region, blah, blah blah. Mostly the newsletter. Though you'll probably be inspired to volunteer. Because I'm such a good writer. As displayed on my blog. So you already know that.

November Mail

Sent a sympathy card.

Photos

 With my husband

 Not all that far up Mount Lemmon

San Xavier Mission

Tucson Trip

Last week, the airport managed to open in time for my flight out. I couldn't have been more excited. I was visiting my sister in Arizona. I had never been to a desert before. And we were going to an observatory (see previous posts about my nerd-dom).

I got in late Wednesday night. Thursday morning, we were up early and went for a trail run. I spent most of the time being terrified I'd see a snake and being thirsty. The thing I learned about the desert is that even if you're not remotely dehydrated, you're thirsty, because the air is making your mouth dry. In the afternoon, we went to the Desert Museum. It was kind of like a garden and a zoo. The afternoon is not a good time to go to a zoo in Arizona. Just about every animal was asleep, or at least hiding from us. Then we went to dinner and drinks and I bought a used copy of the Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? board game. Clearly, we played that.

Friday was a gorgeous, hilly bike ride. I used a road bike for the first time in a long time, and it had the clip pedals, which I had never used before. No falls, and I managed to get out of the clips to save myself from a fall as I got used to shifting with longer hills than I'm used to. I did get really winded a few times, but I'm chalking that up to the altitude, not my fitness. We were supposed to leave for the observatory at 3, so we went home and got lunch, then met up with some of Elaine's friends and found out that it was going to be too humid to use the telescope, so they canceled the event. Boooo. So we went out for Mexican food and hung out for a while.

Saturday, we went to Biosphere 2. I learned that Biosphere 1 was the earth. It was really interesting to see what they intended to do and what they currently use it for. Then we were going to go to a bar to watch the beginning of the Notre Dame game. We got quite a bit side tracked at the garage sale at REI (I got a GPS watch for 1/2 off because of a scratch on the screen that you can barely see) and wound up getting to the bar at halftime. I average watching .25 football games a year. This was an entire half with three overtimes. You're welcome, Notre Dame fans. I'm pretty sure the universe was trying to get me to watch football more regularly, so the game was really interesting AND ND won. Then more food and drinks with more friends.

Sunday, we got up and went for a hike on Mt. Lemon. It was really cool to go from cactus-y desert to a forest that would be at home in the northeast just by going up. I did take pictures so you can see the progression from cactus to trees, but I haven't uploaded any yet. We then went to the San Xavier del Bac Mission. Pretty much exactly what I expected. Since they Dia de los Muertos celebration was going on, we went to check that out in town. It was really interesting, but also really creepy.

Monday, I flew home. I gave up my seat on my flight for a $400 airfare voucher and a $7 food voucher (for the terminal). Then, I checked my bag for free at the gate. I wound up making money on this trip. I was kind of hoping to be able to give up my seat on the next flight to get even more money. Maybe next time.

October Mail

I'm starting to think that 12 months will be too long of a time to run a blog. I seem to be losing interest.

Anyway, dropped a card in the mail today. November tomorrow! Hope you all survived the hurricane!

October Volunteering

On Saturday, I went to the Philadelphia Zoo to help out with Boo at the Zoo. We (One Brick) were assigned a section with crafts and games. For the first hour and a half, I manned the "bowling" game. They had soda bottles with pebbles in the bottom and a small playground ball that looked like a jack-o-lantern. It sounded like fun, and was in the beginning. But, after each roll, I had to go get the ball and reset the "pins". I pretty much always had a line. Another volunteer came up to rescue me. I was so grateful. I then handled the eyeball and spoon run. Instead of eggs on a spoon, they had little balls that looked like eyeballs and I coached the kids in running with them. It was pretty funny to watch the really little kids. They were very concerned with not dropping it and walked so slow.

I was kind of disappointed that there were so many store-bought costumes, but I shouldn't really judge, as I was wearing a t-shirt I purchased at Target the day before.

September Wrap-up

Volunteering:
I feel like I'm cheating a bit with this, but it's all I have presently. I watched my niece. Not that I don't love baby-sitting her, nor do I usually count it, but I need something this month, and I didn't get anything else in this month. I'm currently teaching her to say "cookie" like Cookie Monster; Head Shoulders Knees and Toes in German; and This Little Light of Mine. Please note, she cannot actually do any of those, as she's basically in the phase where she copies tones, but really just says "eeeee". She tries to do the dance to Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, but doesn't really have the balance to touch her toes, so she almost falls over every time.

Mail:
Sent a baby gift to a very pregnant friend. (Totally actually counts).

Bike ride:
Did the loop to the Art Museum last weekend.

Pictures (to be posted later):
A few from my cousin's wedding, including one with my husband.

Podcast Challenge 12

Woohoo! Cross Podcast Challenge off the list! For my last book, I picked Man vs. Markets by Paddy Hirsch, who is the Senior Producer of Marketplace for American Public Media. For those of you who are not nerds, it's a segment on NPR.

I'd say the book is a finance primer, with a bit of economics thrown in. It starts off very basic with what it means to hold a stock, and continues on to more complicated things like credit default swaps and quantitative easing. It looks at Wall Street, the Fed, and the Treasury and their roles in the economy. The last chapter basically explains what happened to lead up to everything with Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, and the whole mid-September 2008 debacle. It was really easy to understand and is clearly meant for people who know nothing about finance and economics, however, if you know a little but want to know more, this is the book for you. I found the last chapter to be much easier to understand than  Too Big to Fail (which I also recommend because it offers a more in depth description of EVERYTHING that happened, but you will need to devote at least a week or two, if not more, to that one, and constantly look up financial terms if you really want to understand).

Podcast Challenge 11

How does one consider a cookbook read? I decided once I skimmed most of it, made a couple of recipes, and it was due back at the library qualified as "read".

I had seen Sandor Katz speak a few months ago about fermentation (promoting his book, The Art of Fermentation) and immediately wanted to give it a try. He made everything seem so simple. I had canned a few things before, but this went beyond vegetables, to cheeses, drinks, and meats. I currently have sauerkraut and mead fermenting in my apartment. The mead is almost done, and the sauerkraut can be eaten whenever. I cannot wait to try the mead. I'm definitely buying the book later.

Podcast Challenge 10

Moonwalking with Einstein was not quite what i was expecting. Instead of being a self-help book, it's about Foer's year-long journey from covering the world memory championships as a journalist to competing in the US memory championship just a year later. He was in awe at how much information people could retain and recall in a short period of time. But the competitors he talked to were quick to tell him that everyone could do it, it's all parlor tricks. So he sets out to build his memory to that and along the way talks to experts and savants about their memories and their tricks of the trade. Savants generally can't explain how they remember, but people who have trained share a lot of the same tricks.

The tricks Foer gets into are interesting, and work. Early on, a mentor helps him learn how to memorize a list of things. As he walks through what he did to remember each item, it got stuck in my head. I still remember everything until I stopped focusing on that segment. And I couldn't recall anything past that point immediately after I read it.

While it's "easy" (it does require a daily training), it seems pretty pointless in today's world for day-to-day info. Foer himself notes it would've been great in high school and college to know these techniques, but, as an adult, it's just so much easier to write a list and put a number in your phone.

August Mail

I'm going to see Newsies on Broadway! You either have no idea what I'm talking about or are exceedingly jealous of my life choices that have lead me to this point-living within a day's drive of NYC, enough disposable income, the drive to pick a date, and having a sister who fronted me the money. Anyway, I mailed her the money I owe her for the ticket.

I also mailed another RSVP. That should be it for RSVPs for the year.

Podcast Challenge 9

In the Garden of the Beasts by Erik Larson was about the American ambassador to Germany from 1933-1937, William Dodd, and his family's time in Germany at the rise of Hitler. Hitler was chancellor when they got there, and things were already pretty bad for Jews, but Americans were pretty disinclined to believe it. Dodd got a sense that it was worse than most Americans believed pretty quickly, but his children experienced a different side of Germany and it took them a while to come around.

I found In the Garden of the Beasts to be an interesting look at pre-war Germany. Granted, I probably would've found any viewpoint interesting. I wasn't really familiar with the events in Germany leading up to invading Poland. To see it from an American ambassador's viewpoint, as well as his adult children, made for a good read. America had many issues with Germany, but primarily wanted Germany to repay debts and wanted to avoid another war. Dodd, however, realized early on that Hitler wasn't just going to go away (as many believed), and thought that he needed to show American values, which meant skipping diplomatic events when attendance would imply approval of Hitler's regime. He was a controversial figure in the state department for his lifestyle (having not been independently wealthy when appointed ambassador, Dodd was very frugal, and felt, during the depression, people representing American overseas should show some austerity) and his all-but-completely-transparent attacks on the Nazi regime when many Americans favored isolationism and keeping Germany happy to promote peace.

His daughter, Martha, was a quite different character. Having been newly divorced when arriving in Germany, she immediately took advantage of the chance to meet new people and start new relationships. She was romantically in linked to German officials, Soviet diplomats, and a whole assortment of intellectuals in Berlin at the time. She entered a particularly charged relationship with a member of the Soviet delegation and, after finally seeing that Nazi brutalities weren't just isolated incidents, started having communist leanings herself.

August Volunteering

I woke up early on Saturday, got my grocery shopping done, then headed to Pennypack Park in NE Philly to help with the clean-up effort there. I had toyed with canceling on Friday. I didn't feel like driving there (it was farther than I had thought when I signed up), I didn't want to skip the farmers market, I realized that between the clean-up and baby-sitting I'd be gone most of the day. But, I felt bad canceling so late because it was a Saturday morning event, and a lot of people cancel at the last minute and we're getting close to the end of the month and I needed to volunteer. Good job, blog!

I got there, was handed a trash-picky-up thingy, a trash bag, and a bucket for cans, and headed on my way. Pretty early on, I found a half-full can of PBR. Apparently, someone was unaware that people on drank PBR because it was a crappy beer and drinking crappy beer makes you cool (?). Anyway, that person just dropped the can in the park. It was pretty much the most awesome thing we found for a while, when I found a toy gun. As we ventured farther into the park, we decided to go off of the paved trail and follow a path into the woods to find where the teenagers party. Success! Another girl found a joint. We also found a lot of beer cans and beer bottles and capri suns. Interesting party.

I was surprised how many people who were using the park thanked us. Walkers, runners, cyclists. One guy on a bike stopped to ask how he could volunteer. Another guy on a bike didn't stop, but yelled as he passed us that there was a dead deer way far away from where we were. We were like "um, thanks..." I don't think a deer would fit in my trash bag, nor did I want to carry it. Or be near it. Unless it had been butchered.

We got back and found out that someone else had found part of a real rifle and another had found handcuffs. They were the winners of the day. And I'd totally do a Pennypark Park clean-up again. It was awesome.

Garden Update

I've pretty much spent the summer making zucchini bread and bringing it places. I add zucchini to any meal I can think of a use for it. Lesson learned for next year: plant less zucchini.

In other plant news, I've eaten some green beans and a few cherry tomatoes. Snap peas and Brussel sprouts never really took off. I think a creature ate them. I finally pulled up all of the beets I planted last week and just pickled all of them.

Yesterday, I went and did some serious work in the plot. I pulled up the zucchini plants that have stopped producing. I picked the Swiss chard and the last of the green beans (then pulled up those plants). I pulled weeds all over and immediately outside of my plot. I didn't bring my camera, or I'd show a picture of what's left. The cherry tomato plant and tomatillo plants are on the right side. The bottom is full of vines for sweet potatoes, and the corner they all form has the remaining zucchini. The rest of the garden I tilled by hand, then planted snap peas (2nd time's a charm?), beets, and Swiss chard. Clearly, those are not growing, so it's just brown for the rest of the garden. It looks kind of funny with two sides being lush and huge and the remainder being brown.

I'm finally getting a lot of cherry tomatoes, but they were still green yesterday. The husks of the tomatillos are there, but the fruit themselves are not big yet. Hopefully in a week or so I'll be overrun with those and bringing salsa verde everywhere.

July Mail

Wedding RSVP. These are boring.

Bike Ride #3

After work today, I met up with a friend for a bike ride. Last time we met up (2 weeks ago) we did about 16 miles and planned to do fewer this week since a) it's been a million degrees out and b)  we decided to bike the other direction, towards bars rather than woods, so we figured we'd stop for a drink. However, it was overcast, a little breezy, and a lot cooler than it has been recently, so we decided to go farther. I mapped it out when I got home and it was 25.3 miles total for me. This puts me so far ahead of 25+ miles bike rides than I had hoped to be. I'm also pretty psyched because it comes during a week that I took off from running, so I've been feeling a bit like a slug recently. I'm now hoping to do at least three more this long now.

Podcast Challenge 8

I finished reading Me the People: One Man's Selfless Quest to Rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America by Kevin Bleyer. It was as informative as it was funny. My husband was about ready to tape my mouth shut because I kept reading what I thought were particularly funny passages aloud. He was all like "I'm trying to sleep!" And I was all like "But wait! He's at the Constitution Center! He's comparing it to a 3D Ken Burns documentary!" Needless to say, I'm a nerd. In that I find things about Ken Burns and the Constitution Center so funny I need to share them with my (I thought just as nerdy as me) husband. Even when he's clearly trying to sleep.

Throughout the course of the book, Bleyer examines each article of the Constitution, how it got to be that way, and what it means for us today. At the end, he gets to the Bill of Rights, and then touches on some of the other amendments. Again, very funny and informative. I recommend it to anyone who has a basic knowledge of the Constitution and possibly wants to learn more, but mostly wants to laugh. Learning is fun(ny)!

July Volunteering

I spent my Monday night at Cook for a Friend. We made and packaged 208 chicken dinners (with veggies and apple slices) for distribution to people who cannot make dinners for themselves. I started by cleaning and trimming chicken parts, then moved on to helping package up the final product. I left hungry and smelling like chicken, but I in no way was going to eat chicken after spending 45 minutes rinsing and trimming raw chicken.

June Mail

I'm late this month with just posting, not with mailing. The card is in the mail. Happy July!

Garden Update - with food!

I went to my garden and found this:

So I did this:

I also found these, but they're not quite ready yet:

Podcast Challenge 8

I just finished The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones. I'm not really sure what to think of it. For some reason, I thought it was going to be a mystery, but I'm not sure why I thought that. The whole book is all over the place. Part love story, part ghost story, part ruining someone's life story? It was fine, but not really good.

June Volunteering, Take Two

For this round, I drug my mom to a One Brick event at Books Through Bars. I loved it so much last time, that I felt the need to spread the love this time around. So, we spent three hours picking and packaging books to send to prisoners. At one point, I decided I had an idea about how to find books for someone who requested books on physiology and virology, then came to my senses and made Mom help me pick out some sweet medical books. I think I'm pretty good at finding readalikes for people who request fiction from specific authors, but medicine is not my forte. I'm looking forward to going back again.

Garden Update

Last week (I know, I'm horrible at updating in a timely fashion), I took my camera to my garden plot and took some pictures of what's going on there. We haven't eaten anything from it yet, which is what I need to do to consider this goal complete, but we're getting there.

We have a pepper growing! For the record, since I took this picture, I've gotten some cherry tomatoes growing and a squash blossom. I planted a ton of lettuce, but I don't think I watered it enough, as it pretty much stopped growing at 2 inch leaves. I didn't think I needed to get out there and water often, because we've been having a lot of rain, but perhaps not enough.

And now I'll leave you with a picture of my whole garden:

Looks pretty sad, now that I'm looking at it this way. I'll take more pictures next week, I think it looks better now.

June Volunteering

I headed back to WXPN yesterday to answer phones. For fund drives, it was a shame it was such a nice day. People weren't inside listening to their radios, but outside doing yard work or playing. I was inside, freezing, answering phones. Things really perk up with certain specials. Dan Reed, their drive guy, offered an additional 6 CDs to people who joined the CD of the month club during a certain break ($1,008 for the year). Three people joined at that level. We had a challenge going on and at the end of the hour, someone called, asked how much to make the goal to get the challenge, and gave it. Then, the last hour, we ran the $35 New Member Special. Well, that caused the phones to light up. The only time I've seen it busier was when I worked until 7pm on a Monday. At 7, the fund drive ends for the day, and during the last break to beg for money, David Dye had to walk away from his mic to answer the phone (they have two DJs on at each break, so it wasn't dead air).

May Mail - Slightly Belated

May didn't really present any natural opportunity for mail, and I failed at getting something out. I did send two pieces in April, and I'll strive to send two pieces in June to make up for it. And I was only 2 days late for sending it. When it comes to paying bills or RSVPing that's practically on time.

This piece of mail is particularly exciting to me. It was my RSVP (for the record, very much on time) for a Bat Mitzvah. I've never been to a Bat Mitzvah before (or a Bar Mitzvah, or any other Jewish rite, for that matter, unless you count Shabbat and Seder at college). I'm really excited to go to a synagogue and follow along in Hebrew. I. CANNOT. WAIT. Thus far, this wins for the best piece of mail I've sent this year (sorry, Casi's package with the Always Sunny card).

May Volunteering

Philabundance is a food bank that serves southeastern PA and southern NJ. I headed there with One Brick for a morning of volunteering. First, they needed to divide us into two groups: sorting and packing meat and cleaning. I opted for cleaning, since the meat locker was cold. After we cleaned the floor, they moved us to sorting and tomatoes. Bad idea. It was pretty gross, and I'm pretty sure I never want to eat a tomato again.

Giant pile of rotten tomatoes that fell on the floor.

Looking at that picture kind of makes me nauseated. See the trash bin behind her? That's full of rotten tomatoes. We had to throw out more tomatoes than we were able to save. Then they dumped the bad tomatoes into the compost (which I was really excited about; I'm glad they find a use for as much as possible). I kind of wish I had packed meat, but people I talked to about that said they did the same thing for 3 hours, so I'm glad to have done some different things. All in all, a pretty good experience. 

The One Brick crew outside of Philabundance.

New Museum 2

A few months ago, I found out that the Penn Museum was going to have an exhibit called "Run!" Clearly, I immediately let Natalie know she had to pay the Penn Museum a visit the next time she was home. She leaves for Tanzania soon, so she's home to see the family before she leaves, and she asked me to take a day and go with her. How could I refuse? We arranged to meet at the train station, and then walked to the museum, getting lost along the way. But we got a nice little tour of Penn in the meantime. I know I had never been to Penn before, and Natalie wasn't sure, so it was cool to see a bit of it. We finally found the museum, bought tickets, and promptly got lost trying to find the exhibit. By "got lost" I mean, totally didn't bother to find out where it was. Once we found it where it was, we wandered around quite a bit before we got there. And there was some sort of lunch event going on in one of the rooms we wandered through. Luckily they were just setting up, but it took us so long to find it, I was worried we'd  never make it back before the lunch started and we'd be stranded in the bottom floor of the museum. Also, I felt like the guy in Indiana Jones. You know "Marcus? He once got lost in his own museum." If his museum were the one I was at, I'd totally understand. The exhibit was pretty interesting. I didn't really know anything about the runners of the Sierra Madre and their ultramarathon. I don't know how much Natalie got out of it, since she had read the book, but I learned a lot. I'm going to read the book, hopefully soon (I currently have 3 other books out of the library).

Having accomplished what we set out to do, we decided to spend a little more time exploring the museum. We saw the evolution exhibit.  In it was a recreation of the mother of all mammals - a little thing that survived the mass extinction 65 million years ago. The placard about it had a note on it that said something along the lines of "No modern mammals, including humans, lived with the dinosaurs."

We then wandered through the Africa exhibit. I feel like that's seriously the best word for what we did, as I spent minimal time reading anything, and mostly just looked at artifacts. I'd like to go back another day when I have more time to look around a bit more.

25 Mile Bike Ride 2

My parents came this morning for a ride to the Art Museum and back. It was a pretty awesome ride for several reasons:

1. The Dad Vail Regatta was going on. So, on the way back, we stopped to watch some races. My arms hurt just THINKING about rowing for that long. We stopped to watch near the finish, then decided to head farther up to the start and we kept being like "it can't be farther than this", but it was. Mad props to crew teams. My dad thinks my family should have their own crew team. I volunteered to be coxswain and am totally stealing his idea to sing Friday from start to finish to make people row faster.

2. We saw the Purdue JV 8-man Heavyweight team row. I texted my friend who went to Purdue to let her know that I was watching the Purdue JV crew team, to which she said "Wow...must not be much on :)" I informed I was at the event, and she expected me to blog about it, so here it is.  Then she told me not to text and bike. For the record, I did not text and bike.

3. There was a dad out with his roughly 4-year-old son on a bike. My dad passed him. My dad likes being the slowest person on the road, so this was a big step for him.

4. We saw many geese and goslings. The geese were, as usual, not excited to see us and hissing at us. Geese are pretty mean.

5. I bought a couple of pretty awesome toys for my neice who turns 1 this week. I'm pretty sure she reads my blog, so I can't tell you what I got her.

6. The weather was perfect. It was a bit cool when we started out, but it warmed up quickly, but not too much. It was sunny, and my face now shows that (note to self: fine aloe).

The downside was we did not see a Coke truck, so my dad didn't get to bike up to anyone and ask them if they got to drink all of the free Coke they wanted. Also, the place we had lunch was a Pepsi place. Minus 2 for dad.

I have just one more long bike ride to do to meet my goal, but I definitely want to do more. Contact me if you're interested in joining me (even if it's for a shorter one).

Podcast Challenge 7

I just finished reading Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier by Neil deGrasse Tyson. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Tyson, he is an astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium in NYC. He's the astrophysicist you always see on Colbert or Stewart. He also hosts NOVAScienceNow and is pretty well known for demoting Pluto in his planetarium exhibit before the International Astronomical Union did. All in all, he's basically my hero. So when I heard he had a new book, I had to read it.

The book is a collection of essays that explain the science of getting to space, the history of space travel, and the future of it. It's really informative. Since it's not a novel, nor is it written in novel form, I don't feel I need to summarize anything. I definitely recommend it to people who are at all interested in space, or science in general. The science in it is really accessible, even to someone who has taken exactly two science courses since high school. Granted, I do get a lot of science education via PBS.

Broad Street Run

My parents picked me up at 6:45 and dropped me at the start line, which was really nice because it meant I didn't have to drive to the sports complex and fight the crowds on the subway. I got there in plenty of time to go to the bathroom and find the starting line water, then came the wait for actually starting the race and for my corral actually starting, and I took off. My knee was feeling fine! Then I got to mile 0.5, and my knee started hurting. But I was committed. To finishing, not to my time. I was just going to do what I could. I decided that between the crowds and the knee I'd just enjoy the race. I stayed close to the sidewalk for high fives and cheers, and waved to people as I ran.

Around mile 2, I saw my parents and husband. So I waved and kept running. This was probably when my knee was bothering me the most, but they said they couldn't tell. As I ran past Temple, I high fived the owl, waved to people in the stands, then high fived the football team. High fives gave me more energy than clif shot blox. There was a bit of a funnel effect to get around city hall, but then I immediately crossed to the other side of the street and it opened up a little bit. Around mile 7, I kept telling myself "just a 5K left, 30 more minutes of running." At this point, though, 30 minutes seemed like a long time. My husband saw me around mile 8 and said I was looking quite tired. I didn't see him, so I couldn't pretend I was excited.

Then came mile 9. I signed up to run with Jimbo's Squad. My boss has been running with them for a while, so I signed up, too. I didn't know anyone else running with them and couldn't find them at the start, but at mile 9, I saw their cheering section. They were yelling for me, and I was waving and fist pumping. At mile 9.5, a guy came up behind me and was like "hey, Jimbo's Squad, can I cross the finish with you?" He was also running with Jimbo's Squad. The clock time when I finished was 1:49:xx, and I was pretty certain I'd started somewhere around 0:20:xx, but couldn't be sure. So, I thought I was close. When I finally met up with my family, my mom had been getting text message updates, but they were all giving her the clock time and giving my pace based on that as well, so I still couldn't be certain that I'd beaten 1:30:00 like I wanted to.

We stopped for lunch, then hopped on the subway to head home. When we got above ground, I had a text from my sister Elaine telling me that she saw a sub 2 hour half in my future. I got really excited and tried to text her back as I was walking down steps, when I thought better of it and waited until I was on the side walk. I was really hopping down the steps, as my left knee wouldn't bend enough for me to walk down the steps like a normal person. She texted me back and said my time was 1:27:46. 8:46 pace! I was so excited! My last 10K was slower than that. Now I really want to do another half, but I totally need to take a few weeks off from running. Maybe at the end of the summer.

25 Mile Bike Ride

Actually, it was 28.7 miles. I had some time this afternoon, so I decided to go for a ride. I thought I'd try for the 25 miles, since my last ride (aside from to my garden plot) was over 17 miles. I biked down to Manayunk, up to Valley Forge, then back to Conshy. The headwind head to Valley Forge was killer. I've had headwinds before, but not like this. I had to downshift to keep biking. It was awful, but I made it. Then, I got to spend two miles riding through some bug swarm. I'm not even kidding. Every time I looked up, I got more bugs in my face. I had to stand outside and clean off my jacket and shirt when I got back so I didn't bring bugs into the house. It was pretty gross. In two weeks, I'll be biking with my parents. Hopefully, that'll be another 25+ mile bike ride, but I'll leave that up to Mom & Dad. If you ever want to ride with me, just let me know. I'll do shorter rides, if you like. I don't ride fast, but I am getting faster than I used to be, and I'm totally willing to go slower, take breaks, pack a lunch, go out for food. Just let me know.

Broad Street and Garden Update

First, Broad Street Run. I had been keeping my goal somewhat secret (I had told a few people early on, and more as I got more confident I'd make it) so that fewer people would know if I didn't make it. I'm going to finally state my goal for the whole internet to see, followed up a caveat that I may not make it, and that's ok, and you'll see why.

My goal for the 10 mile Broad Street Run is 1 hour 30 minutes. So, 9 minute miles. Last week, I did 10.3 miles in 1:33, which worked out to a 9:05 pace. And you always figure you'll run faster in a race than you do in training (except the third leg a Ragnar Relay when you have to run 9.1 miles, no shade, 3 hours of sleep, and you've already run a total of 9.1 miles over 2 runs in the past 24 hours; then you run slower), so you'd think I'd be fine. However, 8.5 miles into the run, my knee started really bothering me and I think I have and IT band problem. I bought a foam roller, iced my knee, and took some ibuprofin. My knee felt much better the next day, and I ran 1.5 miles on the treadmill on Monday with no real issue. Then, on Tuesday, I got an ear infection. It really hurt, was making me miserable, and I couldn't even fit my earphones in my ear (actually, the nurse practitioner couldn't get the ear looking at thingy in my ear). So, no running until Saturday, when I decided music or no (no music), knees hurting or no (pain), I had to run. I did four miles this morning, and my knee hurt around .25 miles in. On the plus side, I'm pretty sure I could've made it 10 miles. The pain wasn't too bad. Also, my knee didn't hurt nearly as bad after the run (last week, I limped until I finally got the foam roller, this week, I could walk properly and my knee was just uncomfortable, not painful). So, my current goal for Broad Street is back to 10 minute miles. My run today was faster than that (9:23 pace), and I didn't feel like I was pushing myself, but I'm not sure how much I'll be pushing myself if my knee hurts for 97% of my race and I don't know if I'll have to slow down more as I run farther. Maybe we should say my goal is 1:35 (9:30 pace). We'll go with that. Thanks, internet, for the confidence boost!

Onto the garden. I was finally given the OK to plant this week, so I loaded up everything in my backpack (aside from the watering can and markers for what I was planting [oops]), and biked out to the plot (holding the watering can in my hand while I biked). I planted cherry tomatoes, purple tomatillos (what do you call purple salsa verde?), green beans, sugar peas, brussel sprouts, green beans, lettuce, and zucchini. I still have a bit of space left, so I'm going to look for more seeds, and probably plant some flowers. I really enjoyed bringing home flowers for my dining room table earlier this year, and I think I want to continue that.

April Mail- take 2

In case you don't know, my little sister ran the Boston Marathon earlier this week. Yes, the one where it was 90 degrees on race day and she was used to running in the snow. You can read about her experience here. (I particularly like the post for her run after the marathon, but the link is to her marathon post.) Anyway, she is raising money to go volunteer in Tanzania, and has pledged to run a mile for every $10 someone gives. The rest of my siblings and I decided to to sponsor her marathon. She is also taking demands about what to wear/listen to/do on the run. We demanded she yell "Liquid Schwartz!" every time she had water/gatorade/goo as well as after when she had beers. This is a shout out to our Ragnar Relay team, Ludicrous Speed. If you don't get it, rent Spaceballs. Or come to my house and watch it on Blue-Ray. It's the only Blue-Ray I own. If you haven't seen Spaceballs in HD, you should probably visit me. Maybe I should just throw a Spaceball-themed party... Though I don't know what kind of food I'd serve... Raspberry jam?

Back to the mail part of this story: To make everyone's life easy, my older sister made the donation and the rest of us paid her back. Despite seeing her twice and bringing the check once, I never remembered to actually give her the check, so I dropped it in the mail about a week ago. And then was properly chastised earlier this week for not blogging about.

Podcast Challenge 6

In theory, I should've loved Death Comes to Pemberly. I'm currently obsessed with Downton Abbey, and while early 19th century Britain was different from early 20th century, I think the flavor should've been good. I also love a good mystery, and this mystery was quite interesting. Despite this, I couldn't get into Death Comes to Pemberly. My first problem was the way it was written. The tone was so forced to sound like it was written in 1805. Throughout the whole story, too, not just in dialogue. The story jumped around a lot to give background, but this was after it spent the beginning giving background, so I didn't understand why all of the background wasn't given upfront. Then, once the true story behind the murder came out, the details were given several times by several people, with a lot of the facts being repeated in each retelling. I found this rather ironic, since the judge the case was in front of was known for disliking hearing the same evidence more than once.

April Volunteering

I was supposed to help beautify my church this morning, then head to the community garden to help spread compost and till. So, I went to church and got assigned cleaning windows. Very exciting. I banged my elbow really hard and it still hurts, hours laster. Then, I helped set up for the Bishop's Tea tomorrow and volunteered to make scones for it. When we wrapped up there, I drove to the garden, but they appeared to get everything done in the morning (as there was no one there when I got there). So just one volunteer thing today. Unless you count the scones I'll be making after I go grocery shopping...

April Mail

I was surprised to learn this month that it was possible to send mail before the 20th of the month.  Who knew? Anyway, I had collected a few box tops for education and sent them off to a teacher friend. Maybe I'll send two pieces of mail this month.

Community Garden Update

I'm sure you're all sitting around wondering to yourself "What's up with Carolyn's garden?" Well, last fall, I planted some flowers, and they've bloomed! Plus, we had a meeting earlier this week, and since I had a fall plot, I can start planting whenever I want instead of waiting for tilling. They'll till around my plot. Here is a picture of some of my flowers. (Clearly, I did not think to bring my camera to my plot, as I was unsure what I would find).

March Mail

This is my most exciting non-fiction trip to the post office yet! Yesterday, after over two years of doing nothing with my hair, I got it chopped. Chopped, I tell you. I decided since I hated my way-too-long hair, it was time for a complete change. Clearly, I scheduled my haircut through the mail. Just kidding. But I'm glad that Locks of Love provided me with something worthwhile to do with my hair. So, my mail this month is sending ten inches of my hair to be made into a wig for a child who needs one. For the record, you could make my current haircut with the hair I'm donating. No kidding.

Me and my donation.

Podcast Challenge 5

The End of Illness by David B. Agus, MD (I don't think I've ever read a book before when someone used a suffix in their author name) is not about stopping viruses or bacteria per se, but more about preventing chronic illness that are within the system rather than outside invaders. It's also about living a healthy lifestyle through things like diet and exercise.

Throughout the book, Agus shows steps he takes and steps he recommends to his patients. The biggest takeaway for me is to have a set schedule for just about everything in your life. Bedtime, wake-up time, meal time, work-out time. They should be the same every day of your life, if possible. The body relies on regularity to, well, regulate itself. Our systems are remarkably good at keeping us healthy and fighting diseases if we let it. And the body craves regularity to know when to release certain hormones that let us sleep, digest our food, boost our metabolism. I'm pretty good with my sleep regularity (as most people who know me already know, I'm pretty much in bed before 10 every night and up between 6 and 7, no matter what day of the week it is). However, I do need to work on regularity for eating (including snacking at the same time every day) and working out, both of which I tend to do when I feel like it and when I have time. And skipping lunch isn't a rare occurrence for me if I'm too lazy to pack something, or just don't feel like eating.

I'm vaguely inspired to go to the doctor for a physical, too. I haven't been since I started my current job (and then I only went because you have to have a physical if you're going to work at a school in Pennsylvania) and I've never had blood work done. One of Agus's suggestions is to learn as much about your body and your system as you can, and a good way to start is to get some blood work done. He's also a proponent of genetic testing so that you can start to alter your lifestyle to prevent diseases rather than wait for them to hit you and then have to treat them.

I do hope I take some of this book to heart so I can be healthy until I die. I recommend this book to people who want a good, middle of the road approach to healthcare, using technology, common sense, and hopefully minimizing (though not necessarily omitting) pharmaceuticals.

New Museum

Clearly, I celebrated St. Patrick's Day by touring Laurel Hill Cemetery. Not precisely a museum, but I'm calling it close enough.

Laurel Hill Cemetery is the nations second oldest rural cemetery. All of the church plots in town were getting full, so a group of people came together and purchased land on the outskirts of Philadelphia to provide more space for burials. It's HUGE. It sits on 78 acres. There are still plots available, if you're interested.

We signed up for a St. Patrick's Day tour, tasting, and toasting. So, we had a tour of the cemetery, followed by a meal of ham, cabbage, and potatoes, some cookies, and some beer. The tour alone took two hours, and could definitely have been longer. Our tour guide is also a civil war buff, and General Meade is buried there, so we learned a lot about him. Harry Kalas is buried there, too. His headstone is a broadcaster's microphone and some seats from Veteran's Stadium. I had no idea he was there. The views are spectacular. It's on a ridge above Kelly Drive, so you can look out right over the Schuykill River. I highly recommend taking some time to see it.

March Volunteering - Take Two

One Brick (see side column) had an opportunity to help set up for a fundraiser for Feel The Warmth. Nothing too exciting happened. I helped with tables, chairs, and decorations. Help set up some food towards the end. They were doing a dinner and raffle to raise some money. I did not stick around for the fundraiser itself.

March Volunteering

I can't believe it's March already. Where does the time go?

I had a really great volunteer experience today. One Brick Philly had an opportunity with Books Through Bars. Books Through Bars is an organization that provides books to prisoners. Apparently, a lot of prisons don't have libraries, and prisons that do have libraries have small collections. Books Through Bars doesn't just send prisons books, but gets letters from prisoners requesting by title, author or subject (they prefer subject, because all of their books are donated, so they're not guaranteed to have any one book in inventory).

They started us out wrapping books that had already been selected. We reread the letters and checked to see if the books were appropriate based on what they asked for and what the prison allowed. Then we wrapped the books in brown paper and way too much tape (per their request, not because that's how I wrap packages).

That's me in the front, doing something with the package I just wrapped up.

After about an hour and a half of wrapping packages, I found myself, surprisingly, ready to get away and make my own packages. When I make kid packs at Cradles to Crayons, I generally find it really stressful, because all you know about the kid is gender, age, size, and reading level. From that, you're supposed to pick out clothes, toys and books. Way too much pressure for me, since I know nothing about the kids. But, since the prisoners write their own letters, it was fun, rather than stressful, to try to find books that match their requests. And their requests were so varied. Some wanted fiction to read. Others wanted to learn a trade or improve skills. Books to prepare for GED were popular and still others wanted advanced math and physics text books. It was interesting to see what people wanted and now I know what to do with all of my husband's old text books. There's a prisoner somewhere who wants to read about foreign policy.

New Running Shoes!

I last bought new running shoes back in July. Since then, I've trained for and run a half marathon and the Ragnar Relay Florida Keys. Needless to say, I've known I should get new ones since the relay. In fact, I had toyed with the idea of donating my shoes at the end of the race. But, I didn't. This winter has been so mild (knock on wood) that I've been running more than I planned to do. On Sunday, I went to the gym and decided to do some intervals before weights, but after three quarters of a mile, my shins were screaming.

My new shoes:

I think the color and design makes them look a little futuristic. I'm hoping to break them in tomorrow.

February Snail Mail

One of my good friends recently bought her first house with her husband, so I headed to Penzey's Spices to pick up their housewarming gift. Can I just say that I think spices are a great small gift? Fun, tasty, and useful. Especially since I haven't seen the house and I have no idea what they might need to fill it or to decorate it.

Enough patting myself on the back. In true Carolyn fashion, I bought them a week ago, and last night finally wrapped it in brown paper and my trademark excessive amount of packing tape. I love that there's a post office on my commute that opens at 7:30. Since I need to be at work at 8, this means I can stop on my way in, rather than head out at lunch.

Now that I'm writing this, I'm remembering that I had a dream about a week ago about writing this post. It wasn't the same package, and I decided to take a picture of the package to post here. I forgot to obscure the address in any way, so all four of my readers knew his address now. Sorry about that, dream package receiver.

February Volunteering - Take 2

I am an avid listener/watching of public radio and television. One of the most exciting moments of my life was when a friend of mine asked me if I had been watching Masterpiece recently. No one had ever STARTED a discussion about a PBS show with me before. (For the record, that was about Sherlock, which aired last spring. A second season will air this spring. I highly recommend it.) Today, I decided to give back and volunteer at a phone bank for WXPN, a public radio station out of the University of Pennsylvania.

In college, I worked at Phonathon, which meant I was one of those college students who called and asked parents and alumni for donations to the school. After college, I managed a Phonathon at another school. I will say, waiting for the phone to ring was much easier than making a phone call, and 100% of the people I talked to today gave. It was awesome.

I had assumed that it would be kind of like the pledge drive rooms you see on PBS, only with the DJs up front, and everyone else behind them taking calls. No, this was set up in a conference rooms. Two DJs on one side, with their stuff set up on an old desk, then phones in a horseshoe around the rest of the room. When they break to encourage people to pledge, calls start coming in. When it goes to music it trickles and just stops until they come back to ask people to give again. I found this really interesting. I guess I had always assumed people called kind of throughout, but it picked up in the breaks, but it was almost completely silent when music was playing.

For the record, I'm going back on Monday to help out again. I probably won't post again unless something really exciting happens.

Podcast Challenge 4

In case my post about counting puzzle pieces didn't convince you that I'm a nerd, I stopped at the library after counting puzzle pieces (for charity) and got a book about people who love maps. No, not a book about maps, a book about people who love maps. Maphead by Ken Jennings was hilarious and eye opening. I didn't know there were so many people who loved maps and who loved what maps can do. There are people who have been to over 100 countries, who have climbed to the highest elevation point in each state, who travel to integer degree confluence points* (if you know what that is without me telling you, you are awesome), and (my personal favorite) who make Earth sandwiches**. And, of course, what book about people who love maps would be complete without GPS and Google Earth.

Jennings takes you to meet so many people, from 6 year olds who can find point to any country on a map (even without borders drawn) to tweens and teens competing in the National Geography Bee (special appearance by Alex Trebek); from everyday people who travel as wide as possible on as little money as possible to the inventors of geocaching. I found them to be simultaneously strange and inspiring. I couldn't imagine doing what these people do, but at the same time, I had to look into different groups and games just to entertain the possibility that I may tray. And, who knows, maybe someday, I will travel to 100 countries or make Earth sandwiches.

All in all, I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a passing interest in maps. Jennings is really funny and the book contains plenty of anecdotes from his life (like how his wife turns maps around so the top of the map is the direction she's looking and how he changed his GPS to say "You turned the wrong way, dumb-ass. Just do what I say" instead of "Recalculating").

*places where integer lines of latitude and longitude (no minutes, no seconds, exact lines) meet

**when people on exact opposite sides of the Earth lay a piece of bread down at the same time so the Earth is like the meat in between those slices of bread

Broad Street Run

The Broad Street Run opened registration today. Last year, it sold out in just a few days, so I wanted to be sure to register today. Naturally, I forgot this morning, thought about it while I was away from my computer, then thought about over an hour after I got back to my computer. Good job, me. I did manage to register, though. Now I have to stop skipping my long runs, though.

This is the first race I'm training for that I'll actually be focusing on being faster rather than just being able to do it. I already know I can run 10 miles, so that's not really a challenge. But this goal time means more running than I usually do (5 days a week vs. 3-4) plus weights and a day of cross training. If nothing else, this will be good for my fitocracy account.

Photos- With husband (2) and events in general

A background on the event I took pictures of:

Two of my bffs live in Baltimore. According to Google maps, this is a 2 hour drive from where I live. We've met a couple of times before in Delaware so we can see each other a bit more easily. A kind of long drive for a meal, but a great way to see friends who are farther away. Last time we were together, we decided to meet at Dogfish Head Brewery because we heard the tour there was great, and, hey it's in Delaware, which is in the middle for us. Within a week of the event, I looked up directions on Google Maps and discovered that the brewery is 2 hours and 15 minutes from my apartment. So much for meeting in the middle. Another reason we decided to meet somewhere instead of doing a weekend visit is that our February and March visits tend to get cancelled due to inclement weather. (Snowmageddon's real issue wasn't that it snowed for so long, but that clearing roads took forever; I wouldn't have been able to get near their neighborhood a week after it snowed.) Rather than having to miss out on a weekend of fun, it would be a day. So, naturally, it snowed. Not enough to keep us away (thanks, mild winter), but it snowed nonetheless.

We started off with a brewery tour:

I'm pretty sure this is the master brewer.

Our tour guide kind of reminded me of Forrest Gump, what with the full beard and the plaid.

When you tour a brewery on a weekend, the bottling section is pretty boring.

This wood is so hard, you can shoot it with a pistol and not leave a mark. One of their beers is aged in a barrel made of it.

Treehouse, what!?

Then we went to Dogfish Head Brewings and Eats in Rehoboth. Good food and good beer. I highly recommend it. Plus, they're super-hippies. They feed local animals with leftover grains from their beer making, and then buy meat and dairy from the farmers they sell the grains to and use it in the restaurant. So my short ribs came from a cow that ate grains used to make the beer I drank.

Then, since we were in Rehoboth and it was wintry mixing and dark, we decided to go to the beach. This is how you get ready to go to the beach when it's 35 degrees outside:

Don't want to get sand on your jeans.

Photo number 2 for the year! On the beach, in the wintry mix.

February Volunteering

Today, I went to Cradles to Crayons for their monthly Young Friends volunteering. Cradles to Crayons collects new and like new clothes, shoes, books, toys and school supplies and gives them to low income kids in the area. They have offices in Boston and Philly. Go here for more information.

This month for volunteering, they were packing kid packs and counting puzzle pieces. I find packing kid packs to be stressful because I don't know the children who are getting the packs, so I can't make informed decisions on what they want. I don't know their style, or what kinds of books they like, or what games they like to play. So, clearly, I picked counting puzzles.  (Full disclosure: I would have counted puzzle pieces anyway.) I really like puzzles and kind of wished I could do them instead of counting them. Could I have started with a 24 piece puzzle and stuck to puzzles of 100 pieces or less? Yes. Did I? Clearly not. I started with a 500, did another 500, then did some smaller ones, then 1,000. That's how I spent two hours today. And I enjoyed it. Even if I left feeling a bit cross-eyed.

Side note: if you ever want to volunteer, or have any new or gently used kids items you want to donate, let me know.

Podcast Challenge 3

I just finished reading Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything by David Bellos. I was really excited to read a book about translation. Having studied (to varying levels of competency) three different languages, translation interests me. I like having better words and phrases to express myself, which I do use from time to time. (My favorite is "hygge", a Danish word that loosely translates into "cozy", but it's really a noun and a verb, not an adjective.¹)

I'd always thought of translation as being difficult (I was never anywhere near fluent in the three languages I studied), but hadn't thought it through beyond "Poetry must be really hard, because it has to rhyme and have the same rhythm." Is That a Fish in Your Ear? discussed the difficulties in translating for subtitles (limited by the number of characters we can read per minute, plus the speaker must be on screen while the subtitles are up), instruction manuals (depending on what they're for, a mistranslation could kill someone), and comics (the words need to fit in the speech bubbles), just to name a few.

The book did have some interesting historical points. The Nuremberg trials had a necessity for simultaneous translating between four different languages. We still use a similar system in the UN. The skill of these translators astound me. They have to listen to a speaker while saying what that speaker is saying in another language. That just seems impossible.

Bellos spends quite a bit of time explaining different ways to translate, and demonstrating how different translators can come up with different words that express the same thing. It really drives home the point that what is important is the meaning, and not the words.

If you have an interest in how communication works (not just language), I do recommend this book. If nothing else, you'll leave with a greater appreciation for anything you read that is translated.

¹ Check out this website for more information on hygge

January Snail Mail Sent

In order to make my trip to the post office remotely interesting, without disclosing what is being mailed to whom, I'm going to pretend a dragon live in my post office. To my knowledge, my post office is dragon-free.

This morning, I found a shoebox, loaded it up, wrote a quick note, wrapped it in brown paper, then used excessive amounts of packing tape to ensure it would stay together. The amount of tape may seem insane, but, for those of you who do not know, my mom once sent me cookies, and all I received was the brown paper she had wrapped the box in. So, apologies to the package receiver.

I went into the post office, and was greeted by Claude, the dragon who lives at my post office. His kids (he has 37 of them) are now all grown up, and live a post offices all over the world. You may find it strange to learn that dragons live in post offices, but they're a great cost-saver. They heat the post office at half the cost of electric heating. It works out well for most dragons, too. They're fed through the winter, and have their summers free to do whatever they choose. They're always welcome in any post office, as they're great pest-control, so traveling is easy. Semi-domesticating them was a great advancement for people and for dragons.

Anyway, the package should be delivered on Monday. Enjoy, package recipient!

Podcast Challenge 2

Today, I finally finished Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revoluntion by Holly Tucker. Ever since I heard about this book on the Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast, one of my favorite questions has been "When do you think the first blood transfusions took place?" The answer is 1666 for animals and 1667 for people. This book walks us through the history of blood transfusions, including the scientific rivalry between England and France and the political aspects of medicine in France, as well as a history of science at that time. The main thrust of the book relates to one of the early human transfusions in France. The murder comes in when one of the first human subjects mysteriously dies within months of receiving  the transfusion. With so many people anti-transfusion at the time, the death of the subject creates a reason to ban transfusions all together, while allowing the transfusionist the believe that there is a conspiracy against him, one he hopes to overcome to continue his experiments.

January Volunteering- Take 2

In honor Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, my mom and I volunteered at Valley Forge National Historic Park. We were assigned to taking down wreaths from Christmas at the National Memorial Arch. There were about 2,000 wreaths decorated the ground around the arch, commemorating the soldiers that died during the winter at Valley Forge. Nothing too exciting, but it still needed to be done. Now for a few pictures, because I finally remembered to bring my camera.

The arch with wreaths being taken down

Me, carrying wreaths from the arch (in the background behind the tree) to the dumpster

My mom, taking the stands and bows off the wreaths to save what we could for next year

January Volunteering

Today, I volunteered with We Feed the Homeless through One Brick Philly (you can check them out on meet-up here). We Feed the Homeless set up a buffet line with sandwiches, soup, chips, fruit, and drinks, and people went through getting one of each. My job was to count people we served (166). In case you were unaware, today was pretty cold for this winter, so far. They usually serve 275-300 people, so this was pretty low, which just shows how cold it is today. They stayed in the shelters rather than venturing outside.

Today made me grateful for having a warm place. After we finished, people were talking about how cold their toes and fingers were, and I just kept reminding myself that I was outside for an hour during the warmest part of the day. Some people we served will probably sleep outside tonight.

Podcast Challenge

I should probably start off by explaining the Podcast Reading Challenge. A friend and I listen to similar podcasts and NPR, and have heard of quite a few books from it. We also like to read, so we decided to try to read some of the books we've learned about through podcasts and NPR. (We include NPR because it's basically one giant podcast anymore.) Our goal is 12 books, but right now the list only has 9 books on it.

I finished before the new year (which is OK according the challenge I made up, because I didn't want to wait a month or so until I could read these books), but I wanted to add it here. I read 11/22/63 by Stephen King. It's about a man who travels back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination. You should probably stop reading now if you don't want spoilers.

All-in-all, I like reading Stephen King. I haven't read much of his stuff, but I've enjoyed everything I have read. This book was no exception, but I found it to be a little long for me. I think I found it to be too long because it was probably 300 pages longer than anything else I've read in the past year and because you know what the major climax will be, and I reached a point (around page 650) where I no longer cared about the events leading up to the assassination and I just wanted to know what happened. I've heard some people think it could've been 300 pages shorter, and I didn't think it was that bad, I think I was just getting antsy.

A brief background of the book: Al found a portal into the past. When you travel through it, you always go to the same date in September 1958. When you come back, it's 2 minutes after you left. Al wanted to see if he could change history in a huge way, and decides on the JFK assassination. He does a quick butterfly effect test by preventing a hunting accident that left a teenage girl paralyzed for the rest of her life. When he gets back, he finds that life is mostly the same, looks her up, and sees her life is different, but since everything is generally the same, he thinks preventing JFK from being killed will change the future, but it will be better (the Vietnam War will end earlier, Martin Luther King, Jr. will not be assassinated, no race riots, RFK will not be killed). While Al is waiting out the 5 years, he develops lung cancer and returns to the future for better treatment and to get someone else to go back and take care of it. His cancer is so bad, he may not make it to the assassination. He recruits Jake, gives him a new identity as George, and George starts his travels.

George does a test, too. He thinks Al's, while doing good, didn't save a life, and he wants to see that difference. He know about a father who killed nearly his entire family in 1958, so he headed there to prevent that. The world was mostly the same when he got back. He goes back again, this time for JFK.

It's at this point in the book where I think there is a disregard for the butterfly effect. While George doesn't (as far as we can tell) save lives, he does start to touch a lot of people's lives. He becomes a high school English teacher (his profession in 2011), falls in love with a divorcee, and becomes a fixture in a small town. He catches, but doesn't punish kids drinking at a dance (one of whom would've lost his scholarship to play football). He convinces a football player (in 1960s small town Texas) to start acting. I'm just saying this activity could cause some major changes in the future.

A theme throughout the book is that the past is obdurate. The bigger the change, the harder it is to change it. When Al saved the girl, he got a flat tire and a bridge was out. When Jake/George saved the family, he got sick and nearly got killed by someone else. So, the past worked against George again when trying to save JFK. (And I often wonder what little obstacles came up with the smaller changes). He got beat up and lost his memory. He spent weeks trying to remember Lee Harvey Oswald's name. In the end, he figured enough out. Then he lost a tire, a bus he was on crashed, his girlfriend almost got mugged, they stole 2 cars, but they were able to get to the book depository and prevent Oswald from shooting JFK. George initially has some trouble, but he's able to return to 2011. Before he does, he speaks to a man who lives near the portal and that man tries to convince him to go the 2011, then immediately return to 1958 to reset and go back to 2011 and leave the past alone. The butterfly effect isn't the only problem. The past does not like being change and bite back. When George returns to 2011, he immediately sees that at least his corner of Maine has not changed for the better. He gets a brief history lesson and learns that while we cut back on Vietnam, MLK was still shot, the race riots were worse, and now there are frequent massive earthquakes across the world. Undoubtedly, this world is worse for the average person than the one where JFK died.

George goes back to 1958, but, due to his love for the woman in Texas, he doesn't head immediately back for 2011. He has no plans to save any lives, but will clearly be changing the past just by staying. When people become so wrapped up with the idea that they're supposed to be with someone that they will do so with complete disregard for everyone else really bothers me. I think authors try to pass it off as romantic, but I just see it as selfish. Especially in this case where George has been told and has seen what changing the past can do. Thankfully, he returns to 2011, and life is normal.

Picture 1 with My Husband

So far, so good. We were with friends for New Years, and we have a photo together.

A good start to the list. I hope everyone had a great New Years Eve and is ready to have a great 2012!

Welcome 2012

Another year has gone by, and I'm ready to tackle next year! In an effort to have a great year, I've come up with a list of things I want to do before the end of 2012. Hopefully, I won't be running around in December trying to everything. I don't want this to be a 2012 bucket list. Here's my list:

1. Volunteer at least once a month.

2. Travel somewhere new.

3. Bike at least 25 miles in one day at least 3 times.

4. Grow and eat vegetables in my garden plot.

5. Visit a new (to me) museum.

6. Complete the 2012 Podcast Reading Challenge.

7. Take pictures at events.

8. Take at least 5 pictures with my husband (just one for all of 2011=fail).

9. Update this blog at least twice a month.

10. Send one piece of snail mail once a month.

11. Do the Broad Street Run.
12. Read a book written before 1900.

Happy New Year to All of You!