countdown to finals...

to Professional Responsibility Final:


To Evidence Final:

Fort Lauderdale in Winter...

Ah, the joys of endless summer mid-winter and the agony of coming home to temps 1/3-1/4th what they were in FL.

We went here:
Parrot Jungle Island

and here:
Seminole Tribe of Florida: Billie Swamp Safari

ate here: Bimini Boat Yard Bar & Grill

and here: 15th Street Fisheries

and stayed here:
Bahia Mar

which is steps from here:
Fort Lauderdale Beach.

Community Supported Agriculture

I've been volunteering at our local CSA. Nothing like getting dirty in service to growing food for grounding oneself firmly in the present moment.

Wrote an essay about volunteering & farming, published here.

Welcome to Annapolis

Just spent a week in Annapolis. Among the trouble we got into, in no particular order:


The Yin Yankee Cafe -- sushi, fusion, spicy when they say spicy. Really good restaurant in Annapolis.

Rented Kayaks from Spring River, explored all over the Annapolis bay. Saw dead horseshoe crab, live skates, jellyfish. Enjoyed playing in powerboat wakes.

Ate dinner at the West River Sailing Club. Also, watched Wednesday races from the decks of a 34 foot Tartan as a monster thunderstorm somehow blew all the way around us but never quite on us. At this dinner, ate crabcakes from the Pirate's Cove Restaurant. We're told to keep looking for crabcakes better than these.

Also kayaked here but found it a little too quiet. Nice park for walking and quiet boating. The name is accurate.

Also ate a fabulous dinner at the Main Ingredient.

And, in DC just for half a day, we really enjoyed the International Spy Museum. Our group ranged in age from 80+ to 7; we took nearly 2.5 hours to get through just 2/3 of the museum. Informative and engaging.

Tilley Endurables - The Finest Hats and Travel Clothing in the World

Tilley Endurables - The Finest Hats and Travel Clothing in the World

Those who know me know that I'm an anti-shopper. I buy new clothes once every 15 years and that's only if what I own has worn beyond repair. Literally, I still own (and wear, on occasion) clothing I acquired almost 30 years ago (well, one sweatshirt has survived that long).

I'm well over it, if I ever believed that a new pair of shoes would improve my social standing and self esteem.

However, I have to say something about my new Tilley sun/rain hat. These people know how to stroke their customers, that's for sure. It's an excellent hat, and I suppose I would have bought it (at REI with a coupon and member rebate) even if they didn't say such wonderful things about the people who wear their hats...

Rethinking Schools - Just For Fun Map Game

Rethinking Schools - Just For Fun Map Game

Think you know the Middle East/Northern Africa region? Nothing like a hands-on exercise with immediate feedback to clarify a little geography. Now if only all the politics and religions and capitalization on natural resources could be sorted out...

To grow life to destroy it

Even if I were a strict vegetarian, some of the rhetoric being flung around the stem cell debate would still give me pause.

Quoted on NPR yesterday, stem-cell research opponent: "We can't grow life only to destroy it."

What? Where stop the squeamies so that murder doesn't tweak on a conscience? We grow life all the time with the sole purpose of destroying it. Entire industries and economies predicate themselves on growing and killing life. Meat packing plants. Corn silos. The freezer aisle offers both animal and plant life generated only to be killed.

And not just killed: eaten.

Perhaps the morality becomes a question in a science lab with just one cell at a time. Isn't one of the first tenets of 4H not to name your livestock? Perhaps we're afraid scientists are too familiar with the individual cells. I didn't think individual cells were complicated enough to identify provenience.

On the other hand, we, as a society, seem to think nothing of growing chickens in boxes to spec then killing them.

When a stem-cell someone tells me that we're growing fibroblasts out of humans cells to augment the protein content of my dinner, then I'll have a snark and get really upset.

I smell a faint reek of hypocrisy. Was that last night's dinner left out too long?