91.3 The Summit

The World Cafe is a great NPR music show that airs on my favorite radio station, 91.3 The Summit, from 6-8 am instead of talk, news, and other NON-music crap. It's a public radio station and plays a wide variety of music from the 70's - 90's and today. They have live streaming audio at their website - go check it out!

On the World Cafe, the host, David Dye, interviews and introduces a very wide variety of music from familiar folks like MarkKnopfler to totally eclectic and new to me groups like this one:

World Cafe, April 17, 2008 - Ranging in age from 72 to 88, the members of the
Young@Heart chorus don't let age interfere with their passion for performing youthful music. Originally formed in 1982, the group began in a housing project for the elderly in Massachusetts.
In this segment, host David Dye interviews Stephen Walker (director of Young@Heart), as well as chorus director Bob Cilman and members of the group. The film, in theaters this week, follows a chorus of elderly singers with a real passion for life.
Young@Heart's repertoire is like a set list of rock's greatest hits. The group sings songs by Lou Reed, The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, Sonic Youth, The Clash, and OutKast.
Its debut album, Mostly Live, was recently released.

Rockabye Baby Rae

Rae came over this afternoon and was kicking back watching Sesame Street. Ain't she sweet?

First baby of 2008

The first baby born in our area this year has died. His dad was babysitting. He was taken to the hospital with "severe head and bodily injuries." After 13 days in the hospital, the mother made the decision to end life support:

On Good Friday, with three generations gathered around the hospital crib of Camryn Jakeb Wilson, the 2 1/2-month-old baby's mother made the hardest decision of her life.
She and her family were told by doctors at Akron Children's Hospital that Camryn had no brain function, could not survive on his own and would be on a feeding tube the rest of his life.
So, Crystal Wilson authorized ending Camryn's life support.

A picture of Camryn:

Olympic Sponsorship Partners

Sponsorship partners I've sent a boycott email message:

Anheuser-Busch, Inc.
AT&T
Bank of America
General Motors
The Home Depot

Thank You for being a Friend

The Happiness Project blog by Gretchen Rubin is wildly popular among the life and success blogosphere set. Her post on how to be a good friend has these suggestions:

Here twelve tips for how to act like a true friend:
1. Be supportive when your friend has bad news. This is perhaps the most critical duty of a friend.
2. Be supportive when your friend has good news. This is trickier; surprisingly, it’s sometimes harder to be supportive when someone gets a promotion, gets engaged, or enjoys other good fortune, than it is to be supportive when someone is going through a hard time.
3. Don’t gossip. It’s not nice. (reminder to self-see #6 and #7) Also, although it may be fun to gossip about Pat with Jean, Jean is probably going to feel wary of being your friend—you’re not trustworthy. Along the same lines…
4. Keep a secret. One of the most satisfying aspects of friendship is that it allows two people to confide in each other. Spilling secrets will destroy that. Ah, it’s so delicious to disclose a secret—but you have to resist.
5. Exchange favors. Along with the feeling of intimacy, one of the best parts of friendship is the feeling of support it provides. And while getting support is important, giving support may be even more important for boosting happiness.
6. Don’t criticize a friend’s sweetheart or spouse (or children)—and, at the other extreme, don’t flirt with a friend’s sweetheart or spouse.
7. Be kind to a friend’s children. (especially a spouse's, which I've failed at)
8. Be friendly to a friend’s friends. In fact, in a phenomenon called “triadic closure,” people tend to befriend the friends of their friends – and this is very satisfying. Friendships thrive on inter-connection, and it’s both energizing and comforting to feel that you’re building not just friendships, but a social network. ("social network" is a buzzword that somehow takes away from "friendship" in my opinion)
9. Show up. Sometimes a friend wants you to show up someplace when you’d really rather not: a wedding in Topeka; a surprise party that falls on New Year’s Eve, when you’d rather be doing something else. Recognize a command performance, and don’t miss it.
Bonus activities:
10. Remember birthdays. (I am really bad at this)
11. Be nice to their pets.
12. Help a friend think big. Nothing is more encouraging than a friend throwing out some huge goal and saying, “You should do that!” “You should write a book, you should start your own firm, you should run for office, you should join the Council on Foreign Relations.” You never know, sometimes one encouraging comment can have extraordinary effect on someone’s life.

Boycott 2008 Summer Olympic Sponsors

I've sent the following message to the Worldwide Sponsors of the 2008 Olympics:

In protest of the actions of the Chinese government, I am boycotting products and services of the corporate sponsors of the 2008 Olympics.
I will stop my boycott when your company withdraws it's sponsorship or the situation in China is resolved.-- Stephanie C.

Tomorrow I'll start working on the Partners level of sponsorship.

Artifacts available!

Oh lemme at 'em!! A friend and I went to see this exhibit when it was in Akron, salivating over items for sale. Now that they are within reach...I may have to participate in the online auction.

A Ming Dynasty Spirit House

Page from a triptych of illuminated leaves

Ragamala Indian Painting

Teen realizes dream with school in Vietnam

How much of an impact can you have on your world? How far of a reach? With a good example set by her grandmother, this teen accomplishes something that reaches the other side of the world.

Indoor BMX

What could be better than an indoor BMX park to work off some cabin fever? And give you road rash? And make grown men act like teenagers. As well as really, really sore. Check out my significantly crazy other:

The Happiness Project

I'm participating in Happiness: The Group Writing Project You can too! Visit Alex Shalman's blog by clicking the link, answer the questions on your blog and your blog will be listed on Alex's which is a lot more famous. This could be good - great even! So here goes!

The Questions
How do you define happiness?
Happiness is being pleased with your present circumstances; enjoying family, friends, and activities; managing stress well; having a sense of well-being. I also believe that having something to look forward to and setting personal goals contributes to happiness.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your happiness now, versus when you were a child?
My childhood happiness = 5 because of my mother's mental illness. She is bipolar, so growing up she had periods of mania, depression, and normalcy. Because of her instability and behavior, my parents divorced which contributed to my unhappiness.
My happiness now = 8 because of remarriage to a wonderful guy, a great standard of living, travel, and a better ability to cope with stress.

What do you do on a daily basis that brings you happiness? (and how consistent is the feeling of happiness throughout your day)
I love my (part-time) job at the library. Routine gives me a sense of well-being. I enjoy being an early riser and having a bit of time to myself first thing in the morning. I use an afternoon nap to 'reset' my mood since I seem to drop off in the afternoon.

What things take away from your happiness? What can be done to lessen their impact or remove them from your life?
Stress can take away from my happiness, especially worrying about my family. Severe illness and death in the family have been recent things that have impacted my happiness. I've used counseling and support to cope with these events. To lessen the impact of the types of things that take away from my happiness, I try to redirect my thoughts, count my blessings, distance myself from negativity if possible, and take a break from high stress situations if I can. If a situation is within my control, I can choose to remove the stress by fixing the problem or removing myself from the situation.

What do you plan on doing in the future that will bring you even more happiness?
I plan on setting goals that focus on things that I enjoy. I have applied to graduate school because I love learning. My husband and I look forward to our retirement (or semi-retirement). I love spending time with my grand-babies and look forward to doing things with them as they grow.

Zen Habits

I've started signing up to RSS feeds. After a short time now, I need to go through and weed or will do nothing but read feeds. At the top of my must read list right now is Zen Habits. It's like I can't escape this blog! No wonder it won the Best Performancing Blog Award for 2007. If you'd like to get caught up quick, I recommend buying the new e-book the Zen Habits Handbook for Life.

Punk Covers Folk

My punk rock son pointed out various errors in this post, so look for a revised one in the future

California Dreaming/The Mamas and the Papas covered by NOFX and Pennywise and . . .

Vincent/Don McClean covered by NOFX (Google vincent don mcclean for tons of neat sites)

Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya/traditional covered by the Dropkick Murphys

Plus here's a whole list I found while looking for links to the above. Who knew??

Charity the Internet Way

Gimundo is one of my favorite sites for Good News . . . Served Daily. Their post on Five Ways to Give without Spending a Dime is worth clicking into.

Bumblebee

I'm not a big fan of bumblebees only because of the sting risk, but apparently they do much more good than harm! And who will solve the mystery of why have all the bumblebees gone?

Janet Marinelli explains how important they are on the Brooklyn Botanic Garden:

We live on a planet pollinated primarily by bees. Bees fertilize most of our
favorite flowers, and pollinate a third of the plants we eat. Bumblebees are
important pollinators of tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, melons, raspberries,
blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, and many other crops, and are the only
known pollinators of potatoes worldwide.

I'm not a big fan of global warming and whatever did happen to the ozone, but this seems like a legitimate problem that can be solved by those in the know. I found it interesting.

A Little American History

Betcha didn't know this story posted in the Devoted Intellectual. Not having visited, I didn't know and found it really interesting.

My aunt and uncle, a veteran of the Korean War, are buried there. How cool is that?

LERCH, LADYNE M
DATE OF BIRTH: 04/25/1923
DATE OF DEATH: 12/24/2004
BURIED AT: SECTION 65 SITE 1256
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
C/O DIRECTOR ARLINGTON, VA 22211
(703) 607-8000
WIFE OF LERCH, THOMAS F
LCDR US NAVY

LERCH, THOMAS F
LCDR US NAVY
WORLD WAR II, KOREA
DATE OF BIRTH: 11/18/1918
DATE OF DEATH: 07/03/2001
BURIED AT: SECTION 65 SITE 1256
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
C/O DIRECTOR ARLINGTON, VA 22211
(703) 607-8000

Happy President's Day and a heartfelt thank you to all of our troops.

The Goodyear Blimp

The Spirit of Goodyear was floating around the other day and reminded me of the ride I was honored to have years ago when I worked at Goodyear. My ride was actually in the Spirit of Akron, retired in 1999. That gondola that you ride in underneath the blimp? About the size of a minivan. It's amazing that the filming crews and their equipment plus the pilots are crammed in there.

While working at Goodyear, we caught a rare glimps of all three blimps together in Akron out of the windows of the headquarters building.

My kids and I lived in the village close to the blimp hangar at Wingfoot Lake, so we saw the blimp flying around all the time - it was cool. When the Spirit of Goodyear was christened by Sally Ride, my son and I went to the ceremony at the blimp hangar.

Good memories.

Centering

From Pick The Brain:

The Now. Focusing yourself on what you have instead of what you don’t have. Focusing on present actions instead of future worries and past regrets. Focusing on what is.
Your Dreams. Center yourself on the direction you want to take your life. Re-reading any goals I’ve written down helps me reaffirm what I want from life instead of responding to cynicism and frustration.
Family. Center around the people you love. This may be harder to center on if you’re having conflicts with your family. But by focusing on the best part of your relationships you can center yourself on what is important to you.
Your Passions. Center around the work you love doing. Focus on your ability to create.

Have a Heart, Donate an Organ

Gretchen of the Happiness Project posted about organ donation for Valentine's Day. My son brought home a wristband for me from the Donate Life presentation they had at school.

Coincidence? I think not.

More Ohio Babies

Cop's baby

Is it wrong of me to expect the police to 'serve and protect?' This cop not only killed his pregnant girlfriend (which he said was accidental?) but instead of following police procedure, disposed of the body with the help of a high school friend.

So the guy was mean, dumb and shouldn't have been a cop, let alone a boyfriend or baby-daddy. This little family story disturbs me so much more. How in the hell do you kill your baby in the microwave. What circumstances lead up to that? Somebody put that baby in the microwave, closed the door and pushed the buttons. How, how, how could that even occur to someone??

Free Travel

This sounds interesting. I may have to follow the adventure.

It reminds me of the one red paperclip guy's brother who had an adventure. Check their accomplisment here: http://hitch50.com/