daily quote

  

"It's like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way" ~E. L. Doctorow

Summer Reading

A blog post highlighted 10 books to read before heading into the real world.  They are:

1. The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman
2. Classic Rachael Ray 30 Minute Meals by Rachael Ray (really? i mean food is important, but really?)
3. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (love this book!)
4. Tiffany’s Table Manners for Teenagers by Walter Hoving
5. Getting From College to Career by Lindsay Pollack
6. How To Be A Hepburn in a Hilton World: The Art of Living with Style, Class, and Grace by Jordan Christy (want to read)
7. Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny by Suze Orman (meh, i can skip this one)
8. Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson by Mitch Albom (great book, should read it again!)
9. Oh! The Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss
and they asked for reader comments to get #10.
So my #10 would be a Malcolm Gladwell book, either Blink or the Tipping Point or What the Dog Saw, all good quality books.

My list of books to read keeps getting longer and longer, and the stack beside my bed keeps getting larger and larger.   And it probably doesn't help that I read 3-4 books at the same time.

But thinking about Three Cups of Tea made me think about how many philanthropies there are in the world that I want to support (and some which I do suppport) such as 1. Doctors Without Borders, 2. Partners in Health, 3. American Cancer Society, 4. St. Jude, 5. Theta Foundation, 6. JMU, 7. ODK, 8. KDP, 9. the local NPR station, 10. JMU ATEP, 11. Greg Mortensen's foundation, 12. Congo Leadership Initiative (run by my brother's little) and there are more!  Are there really a hundred foundations that all support similar things?  Would problems actually get solved if the multitude of foundations worked together better? Or would that make things worse?

Happenings

Wow, lots to update on...

I found a blog called snippet and ink which is actually all about weddings, and i'm not planning on getting married anytime soon, but i'm attending a ton of weddings right now which makes it a current topic running through my brain.  The blog has these inspiration boards, and so far my favorite is #463: Robin's egg blue.  So pretty!  It's funny how some of the inspiration boards remind me of certain people, like #459 Squeeze and Kiss is oranges and yellows and made me think of my roomie J.

I'm going to save this now because I'm headed to see the Soloist with my irish dance friends, but I'll finish later!

I'm back, the movie was great and it was great to see Sarah Lynn before she moves to Ottawa.  And of course I didn't finish looking at the inspiration boards...only 300 more to go.  Some of my favorites are: Garden of Joy with hedge green and raspberry punch, ideas of a formal English garden; Navy & Yellow for a whimsical modern glam (altho I'm not really modern, we could make it whimsical preppy glam ;o); French country chic in French blue and butter yellow; and Licorice & Lemon Drops with black, yellow and white, just to name a few.  I really like the preppy themes (most have j.crew items on them somewhere) and the whimsical themes.  I also like classic, elegant and romantic ones.

Last weekend I headed to VA Beach for my friend Lauren's wedding.  The first wedding from ATEP 09 which is kind of crazy.  Mini is getting married as well, but it's no surprise that non of us were invited.  At least LP invited a few, even if not all were able to make it.  It was a beautiful ceremony in their home Catholic Church, which was more round than the traditional rectangle, but it really worked.  LP looked beautiful!  Then the reception was held at the VA Beach hotel on the waterfront (bay side).  There was dinner, a pause in activities at 9 for the fireworks, the whole reason LP wanted to get married on the 4th of July, then more dancing and fun.  I was staying with my friend Megan, and because we had an hour drive and had to get up early the next morning we left at 10.  It was a great time!  I loved the bridesmaid's dresses (lime green and from Ann Taylor) and the flowers were pretty blue hydrangeas.  LP looked so happy!  I hope to see her sometime this fall.

This week has been a whirlwind of driving back on Monday, stopping in Charlottesville for some shopping, class on tuesday followed by driving to Richmond with J to see Michael Bublé (FANTASTIC CONCERT!), getting back at 1am, dealing with roommate drama, classes, more roommate drama and one class finally ending. Phew. I'm tired after just writing all that, much less doing all of it.

Sweet Dreams.

wij winnen!!!

wij winnen!!!  wij slaan Brazilië!!!  didn't play so well in the first half, letting a quick first goal for Brazil, but then we didn't let them score again and scored 2 great goals.  on to the semifinals!!!!  Hup Oranje!!!!

My First Movie!

My first movie with iMovie from my technology class is now on youtube!  Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLYowNVU5ho 


Enjoy!

North Valley Pike Plan

After reading the plan for the North Valley Pike, here are my comments:

Love the idea of a bike path or greenway along the stream as shown in the map on page 18 as it would encourage outside exercise. 

How will you make sure that motorists just passing through are diverted to the new North South Connection rather than continuing up 11N through the commercial section, will it be just signs saying detour?  Will the commercial section be more local businesses or large scale businesses and franchises? 

Love the idea of having enough sidewalk space for outdoor cafes and seating, as well as increasing walkability.  There needs to be enough close parking (side street lots?) for people to come up from Harrisonburg to shop/hang out.  There should also be enough trees and green around the sidewalks to make it feel like a small town street rather than a big city feel (all concrete), see pictures on page 27 of the plan.  I fully support adding sidewalks to every road possible, especially the side roads to increase walking to the main street.  Not only would it help businesses, it would help form a community feeling and create healthier people.

It’s really hard to see how the context area map and the Illustrative Vision map connect to each other when they are shown at different angles, either redrawing the maps to have north in the same direction or placing a compass rose in the map would help readers understand what they are looking at.  Example of this on page 26.

For the employment area with the new connector road, it would make more sense to have Alternate 2 (page 31) where you have 2 lanes per direction if you are using that road to divert traffic from Route 11.  Having only one lane may cause problems with the extra traffic that is diverted and the traffic that needs to go to a place in the area.  It would be fabulous if there could be a rail link here that would supply D.C. so people who live in the area could take the train to D.C. (wishful thinking?)

Harrisonburg could take some hints from the Well Networked Uses/Streets guide on page 33.  It would make for a more resident friendly area.  Thank you for planning this area before development occurs, unlike the area surrounding Reservoir Street to Neff Avenue.  If this area develops like your plan lays out, I would live there over many areas in Harrisonburg, even though I would probably have to drive to attend JMU.

update

the boy is just friend material, he's not right for me and i'm not right for him.  the roomies knew this but were letting me figure it out on my own. thanks. yay for realizations!

"I just haven't met you yet."

Happenings

This past Wednesday I headed up to Philly for the NATA convention.  I had class at 1pm where we had to give our assessments that we created to our peers so that we could get feedback on our questions.  Luckily we finished in an hour and didn't have to stay until 3:30, so I was able to get on the road.  81 and 66 were fine and I sped right on up, but then 495 had some traffic issues, meaning it was a parking lot. Then 95 had some bad parts too and I swore I will never drive on 95 again.  Finally got to Baltimore and saw my dad's old office from the freeway, then drove through Wilmington and on up to Philly.  I got in about 7:30, put my stuff in the hotel room and walked over to where the JMU reunion party was.  I had a quick bite to eat before the party started and then got to see a bunch of the JMU people that I haven't seen because they moved or I haven't seen because I'm not working in sport medicine anymore.  Lets just say free drinks is not the best idea...we drank them out of yuengling and vodka.  A group of us headed out after to the Field House which is by the convention center, but were unable to get drinks there because it was so crowded so we headed back to the hotel.

Thursday we got up and headed over to the convention to see the speakers on Sudden Death in Athletics.  The first speaker discussed cardiac implications, like HCM and commotio cordis, the second talked about sickle cell, the third was Kevin Guskiewicz talking about concussions and the final speaker discussed heat stroke considerations.  Thinking about concussions I realized that we have lots of information on return to play post concussion, but we have little (that I know of) about return to school.  I was certainly not able to return to school the day after my last concussion (junior year).  In fact it took me a week to get back to class and be able to fully participate.  The other big thing I got was from the heat stroke discussion where I learned that you have 30 minutes to cool a person after they collapse from heat stroke and the best way is through ice water immersion (all but the head), and the problem with just calling an ambulance is that it takes 45 minutes on average to get the person to start cooling at the hospital.  They apparently don't believe in ice water immersion, even though studies done by the Army have proven that it's the best technique.  Complete lack of communication and evidenced based practice there.  That afternoon was the keynote speaker after they showed the JMU video Smooth Professional.  It was so neat to see that on the big screen and know that two guys from my school created that!  Go Dukes!  The keynote speaker talked about keeping play part of your life and focusing on making an impact.  He showed a video about the human polar bear, a guy who swam a km at the north pole!  Crazy dude, but it really showed that climate change is a big issue if someone can actually swim in the north pole.  The other neat thing about that session was the awards part.  My PT from high school, Craig Denegar (who is an ATC/PT) who helped me with my shoulders got an award.  I ran into him after the ceremony and said he probably didn't remember me, but he did!  It's a small world.  He even asked how my parents are doing and remembered my mom.  Crazy!  Thursday night I didn't go out because I was so exhausted from so little sleep the night before and because I had to be a the convention center at 9 the next morning.  I saw on the news that night that there had been huge thunderstorms rolling through the area around 3pm while we were in the keynote session.  We knew it was raining because we could hear it hitting the roof, but didn't know that there were 75 miles per hour winds outside!  The news showed all these photos of trees knocked over into houses and such.

Friday I got up early, tried not to wake up my classmates (ATEP 09!) and walked over to the convention center.  It wasn't too hot yet so it was a nice walk.  I had signed up for the Myers-Briggs Personality Test and took the assessment before I got to Philly.  We talked about the different types, defining how you see the outside world (introvert or extravert), how you integrate information (sensing or intuition (N)), how you make decisions (thinking or feeling) and how you execute those decisions (judging or perceiving).  I'm ISTJ, which means introverted (the party's in my head, not in the room), sensing (practical, literal and hands on), thinking (logical, good at analyzing) and judging (organized, enjoys decisions, liked categories and control).  Makes sense doesn't it?  I think it describes me very well.  The one point that was nice to hear is that while these letters describe our personality preferences, how we like to be, it doesn't mean that we don't have any other parts of us.  So in situations I could be more intuitive or more feeling, but it just depends.  Makes me sound less like a cold-hearted b*tch.  The other interesting things that we did was separate into two groups, based on extravert and introvert and discuss what we liked about our group, what we liked about the other group, what we didn't like about our group and what we wanted the others to know.  So all you extraverts out there, know that just because us introverts go quiet, doesn't mean that something is wrong.  Or that we may not initiate the conversation, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't talk to us, we just need you to initiate.  Then we changed into SJ (completely me), NP, NF, and NT groups.  Most people were SJ and we were supposes to discuss what a company would look like if it only had SJ employees.  Basically we'd be super organized, get everything done on time and perfectly, but have little forward thinking or creativity and be very workaholic.  So we'd eventually all burn out and the company would fold.  Meaning that we need other people in our lives.  I got to thinking about how Julia (roomie) is the complete opposite of me (ENFP) and how she brings me out of my shell, which is good.  After the seminar, I headed back to the hotel and met up with my 09 kids, we grabbed some cabs and headed to Jim's on South Street to get Philly Cheesesteaks.  I obviously didn't get the cheese part, but the steak and onions was fantastic.  After lunch it was time for me to head out and start the drive back to JMU.  I decided to stop in Annapolis to see Sara for the night which was a great decision.  I took the backroads through Delaware, drove through Jaynell's town, got to call her and catch up while I drove (hands free!) and then arrived in time for dinner at Sara's grandparents.  I got to meet a bunch of her family and they were all so nice and told some great stories.  I would go back anytime. ;o) We decided to stay in because we were tired and watched some tv before chatting for about 2 hours lying in bed.  It was really nice to catch up and hear about everything going on in her life and talk about everything going on in mine.  So worth it!

Saturday we got up around 10, hit the pool at her uncle's for 30 minutes with her little cousin and aunt, then headed over to her grandparent's where we had lunch and I headed off.  The drive back was not a problem at all, 495 kept moving, I didn't have to shout at people to find their gas pedals, and then 66 and 81 were speeding right along.  No tickets either!  I'm glad to be back and get my work done for class tomorrow, and it was a pain to get to Philly, but seeing my ATEP family and knowing that it's ok that I don't look for an AT job (Bridget said "you've finally found your niche!"), and then seeing Sara was worth it.  The perfect excuse to skip class. ;o)

Sometimes we need to stop analyzing the past, stop planning the future, stop figuring out precisely how we feel, stop deciding exactly what we want and just see what happens.

Secrets, secrets are no fun...

I love reading the PostSecret books and reading the Sunday secrets when they're posted, but I always want more!  The roomies and I have been looking through all the books and marking our secrets.  It's interesting to see which we share.  But now we're out of books.  Guess we have to start making our own secrets!