Which ideas were accepted?

So the meeting with the township I think went better than expected. Here’s the outcome:

1. Yes to the lecture series and we will be starting this at the end of September. First one will probably be on composting, then the next one will be in November to conicide with my live from the field.

2. Yes to the No Child Left Inside Day – Just have to pick a date

3. Yes to the Community Garden ( I was most surprised by this but really happy that this venture may be sought out. We visited the boro’s community garden last night and if I’m not too sleepy I hope to get up for sunrise tomorrow and take some pics.

4. Open Spaces wasn’t shot down, they just admitted it will be a lot of work that will ultimately result in a public hearing where the residents can and probably will express their concerns of the children playing in the woods.

We didn’t do too much today. Max cooked. He seemed to really like it . Here’s a pic. He made bruschetta for lunch.

Braddock Mayor

My SIL sent me this article link that highlighted urban gardening and it reminded me to talk about the Braddock Mayor John Fetterman.  James and I met this mayor in June during a commencement speech given to my old school’s senior class. He showed up in jeans and a shirt and looked like a rough character you might pick up at the motorcycle bar.

The speech he delivered was very meaningful. Mr. Fetterman was born into privlege and attended Havard.  He held up his degree to the senior class of 08 and said their degrees were more meaningful than his degree from Havard because they were at risk students and had to stick with school and work hard to achieve their dreams.

James went up and talked with him after the ceremony.  If you have a chance you should google Braddock and see the work he has been doing there.

The best moment of that day was running into Issac. Issac was one of my students who worked with me on the Penguin Bowl competition.  Issac is so bright and I know he has a great future ahead of him.  When I left the school he said to me that he was probably going to go into robotics or business.  When I ran into him at graduation he told me that he decided to go to a school in Vermont and study oceanography because of me. He said I inspired him to pursue it.

I think I will tuck that one inside for when I am having a really bad educational day.  Never underestimate the impact you have on every person you meet.

New Ideas New Places

Tomorrow I’m meeting with two people from the township to pitch a couple of ideas on improving the township. I am hoping to be pleasantly surprised in that I will be received well. I guess someone always has to go first. So here are the ideas that we are working on….

1. Environmental Lecture Series ( James and I are working on having monthly lectures usually on environmental topics and giving those lectures in the community)

2. No Child Left Inside Days – This is actually a national push. There is actually a law trying to be passed in congress or an ammendment to the no child left behind days.  This ammendemnt actually would free up grants for schools and communities to get their children outside.

3. Wild Zones: Free Space Utilization.  We have pockets of wooded areas.  Unfortunately we lost one last fall to a new housing development that damaged a watershed. It is our idea to get these wooded areas protected and then create wild zones from them where we make trails and allow children to play in the woods again.

4. Community Garden where residents can rent out spaces of land and grow flowers and vegetables.

On the homefront…. we are turning over the garden in the backyard. We ordered plants today for fall ( broccoli, lettuce, beans.)  James is also trying to find Jeruselem Artichokes.

The People of the South

So yesterday we get a phonecall. It was Matt from Georgia calling to say hi to Max.  How exciting this was for Max to be getting a phonecall all the way from Georgia.  The people of the South seem so much happier and nicer than the people that we live nearby.

We can all learn something of a little southern hospitality where other people look out for other people and genuinely are nice.

The Last Lecture

Dr. Randy Pausch a Carnegie Mellon Professor became famous for his book the Last Lecture. This post is not to talk about that book or about him. You can read about him online. He passed away on Friday due to his bout with Pancreatic Cancer.

Randy Pausch highlighted some really important things

• Bring something to the table; you’ll be more welcomed;
• The brick walls are there to show you how badly you want something;
• Wait long enough and people will surprise and impress you; and
• Don’t bail; the best of the gold is at the bottom of the barrels of crap.

Something we really should think about and be passionate about. Take each day and keep it close and live passionately.

Make sure the people around you know how much they mean to you.

On one final note…Abc is hosting a special celebrating the life of Randy Pausch on Tuesday at 10 p.m. 7/29 if you want to watch. It is how I believe after reading the last leacture, Dr. Pausch would have wanted it.  Not for everyone to be sad, but for a way to inspire other people to live there life. To stop what they are doing and pursue their passions and dreams.

The Farmer’s Market

Ok here’s the thing…I can see why people get turned off buying locally.  First it costs about double what you would normally pay at the grocery store to buy your produce locally which mind you comes out of the ground.  I see these local farmers out there selling their produce for twice what it costs in the supermarket and in the supermarket, I’m not sure where it comes from, but magically it just appears there every week.

I am going to digress here for a little bit…so grab a chair.

I became interested in eating locally because of a school I worked at. I worked at a school called Maritime Charter when I first moved.  Anyone who knows me knows that this wasn’t really a good fit. It seemed like a good fit when they pitched me there school in the interview. You know it was sort of like ocean minded and I figured I would get a good curriculum started there and do some important things.  Over time, it just seemed like the wrong place for me to be.

I found this out when I was sitting in a professional development on a February day.  Today’s guest speaker was the head of the Port Authority. Coming from Pittsburgh I automatically thought this had something to do with the bus service.  How wrong I was and how the wheels would start turning in my head.  The Port Authority here has to do with the plentiful ports in Philadelphia .  For example I learned a lot that day …like how Philadelphia is home to the largest import of cocoa beans ( I guess this makes sense ) since Hershey is just kind of like 2 hours away.  I also started to learn that much of our produce comes on a ship from Chile. That’s why we can have grapes at any time of the year.  This was of course what the guess speaker is telling us about.  About how great it is that we can have anything we want at any time of year.  Then the pitch comes ( all guest speakers have a pitch)……the pitch was that unfortunately we are being passed over in Philadelphia. Unfortunately the reason why this is not the land of people with great attitude, is that this is not the land of plentiful jobs. See the reason we are getting passed over has to do with a couple of poorly designed bridges.  The ships they make now with all of the stuff they carry (like jeans from Taiwan, grapes from chile….etc)  cannot fit under the bridges here.  Somebody thought that because of this…we can’t let this happen, we have to dredge the delaware.   This has been a debate for many years because they ran into a number of snags. First the environmentalists were opposed to it.  Because this affected nearby New Jersey, there were people in New Jersey who were opposed, then there was a pesky eagle’s nest and because the eagle is a federally protected bird…they couldn’t come some 300 feet of it.  So here he was pitching the plight and because we were a maritime school here he was telling us our kids wouldn’t have jobs in the future because the maritime jobs would most likely decline, etc, etc.

Powerpoint over….. man leaves.  Our facilitator gets up enthusiastically and tells us our next activity ( at professional development there is always a next activity and it usually involves paper, or art supplies).  We were to given a word list of terms we were supposed to learn from the speaker’s powerpoint ( dredging, maritime, etc) and create a story.

Here’s my story….. see there were these evil people that wanted to kill the eagles, and kill the fish, and even kill the little bacteria that live in the river that help us some way even if were not really sure why it helps us. so we kill all that off in lieu of some extra jobs. People take their money and soon there is nothing left to enjoy, we are left in a cloud of pollution choking us to death. Needless to say …it didn’t get rave reviews at the sharing podium.  Needless to say I’m not still at that school.

So eating locally has been on my mind for a couple of years….

Today we went to a farmer’s market…where everything cost twice as much. It cost twice as much as I’m sure someone who might email me and say because its their livelihood.  My thinking here…is that because farmers are a dying breed…you should want people to get turned on to eating locally.  Almost like baiting a hook.  Hook them into buying locally with the price first…( people really are price oriented). This is why we have Wal-marts and Targets. People are looking for a bargin. If everyone could afford to buy their sheets at Macy’s they would.  Just most people have to scrape by with what they are given.

So we bait the hook… with some really great prices ( or at least similar to what they see in the grocery store)

Then we bait the hook even more with taste.  Now people will eat your peaches, and your corn and say….man.. that stuff is so fresh and I love the taste. This is way better than those hydroponic tomatoes on steroids I had been getting at the grocery store.

Then if you want to raise the prices….( only if you absolutely need to), people will love your stuff, people will want it no matter what. When your farm goes up for sale because you have decided to sell out to wal-mart, people will be there to save it.

For someone who is trying just as hard as you are to make a living….don’t turn me off by charging double for what normally I can find in the grocery store. Maybe instead of the farmer’s market I’ll go back to the grocery store and just become uniform in thinking that I should only care about my life and the bed I sleep in.

Wedding Assistants

James and I were at a wedding on Saturday. Actually we were working the wedding. I only took one photography gig this summer because I just wanted a break from everything including photography.  I needed an assitant on this wedding because it was so big. The assistant I would have hired up went and moved to Florida, so I was in a lurch. James has been getting so good at photography, I asked him to come along.

I was a little worried because even though we tend to make a good team in low stress situations, we don’t do so hot in high stress situations ( like finding where we are supposed to be going in a new place) I always say that if there are tryouts for the amazing race, I would love to do it, but don’t think James and I woudl make a good team.

But it went flawlessly…and we had so much fun together.

Max Attack

The Max attack is back. He seems to have had a good time on his little adventure but I think is glad to be back playing with the neighborhood kids. Now we have school to think about soon and his first grade adventures which I am sure there will be plenty of adventures.

Before we got back we went to see the new Batman movie. Very good movie, but a very tense movie. So if your not up for a roller coaster ride, I suggest you see another flick.

James and I had the much needed alone time while Max was away and even got out on a date night of our own. We went to see the movie Hancock. Not bad either.

Now if we could just get time to slow down so it doesn’t race us so close to school.

Live from the Field

I wanted to put this on the blog because in the next few months I’m sure that I will be putting more about this on the blog.  When James and I were travelling in Belize we met a man on the water taxi. He had a catalog and I asked to see it. The organization was called Earthwatch.  Here normal everyday people join scientists out in the field on a research project. They offer projects all over the world.  I have been wanting to do this since we came back in 2006. I tried in 2006 but I was also at that uncooperative school.   The expeditions are very very expensive and this year I applied for a fellowship, a very specific one called Live from the field.  You are out in the field for ten days doing research and connecting to your students via teleconferencing.

I applied for the fellowship in June for this upcoming school year. I received notification on Monday that I was awarded a fellowship. I will be teaching Live from the Field from New Orleans this year studying caterpillar homes that have been damaged by Hurricane Katrina. It is almost a $5000 award provided by Wells Fargo.

Should be a really great adventure… here is a link telling more about Live from the Field http://www.earthwatch.org/aboutus/education/edopp/lff

Visiting Walden Pond

We visited Walden Pond also on the way home.  Which pretty much was a big lake and the town of Concord was a little ok..a lot pretentious.  The water at Walden was very clear and much to my suprise there were people swimming the whole distance of the lake.  This was impressive for a couple of reasons:

1. People actually are getting exercise in Massachusetts ( a lot of them it seems)

2.  The lake is clean enough for these people to want and to be taking a swim.

I’m not sure we would say the same for certain lakes near the Philadelphia region unless its the Poconos.

No pictures. I think we are planning to go back in fall and I think the pictures of the lake will be more impressive then.