Monday, May 30, 2005
Chautauqua
This is a picture that I took this weekend of my brother, his wife, and their three kids....I really do love Western New York State. (For those of you not from New York State, just imagine that I said "Upstate New York".) If you've never been to Central or Western New York, you really must visit one of these days. It's a nice, quiet, relaxing, and beautiful place to go. The land is mostly rolling hills in quiet farmland ... and around many corners are small to medium lakes. You'd almost think you're in Minnesota or something. (I didn't take this picture ... but it is of Chautauqua Lake.)
I spent the weekend at Chautauqua Lake with my family. We decided to treat my mom to a weekend there in honor of her 70th birthday (sorry, Mom ... the secret had to get out sometime!) We rented a cottage for the Memorial Day weekend, and Mom joined my brother and his family (wife and three kids ... and I DID take this picture). Aren't they cute!!??
My mom and dad used to have a small summer place on Chautauqua Lake (if you're familiar with the area, they were about 5 miles from the Chautauqua Institute, toward Stow). Chautauqua has, for years, been a favorite of my mother's.
We had a great weekend ... the weather was much nicer than forecasted. We played with babies, we fished off the dock (I even caught two little ones while holding my brother's pole while he took care of a 3-year-old's need for a bathroom break), we played pinochle (a favorite of my family), we went to a local mini-amusement park, went to numerous playgrounds, we went for ice cream, we visited my mom's former neighbors, did a small amount of shopping, played in the sand, and did lots of other fun family-ish things. I had a blast ... and am now exhausted!!It was fun ... and brought back a lot of memories of family vacations when we were little. We used to go to one of the "Finger Lakes" (farther East), Honeoye Lake. This weekend, we did a lot of things with the boys that our parents did with us when we were little. When I was taking pictures of my nephews (lots and LOTS of pictures!!), I was thinking about pictures that I've seen of my brother and I with our family at Honeoye. It was kind of cool. :-)
Friday, May 27, 2005
I'm with Kate!!
The whole no-comments thing is making me nuts. [Sigh...]
Have a wonderful weekend. And ... remember what the weekend is for.
When Johnny comes marching home again,Hurrah! Hurrah!
We'll give him a hearty welcome then
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The men will cheer and the boys will shout
The ladies they will all turn out
And we'll all feel gay,
When Johnny comes marching home.
The old church bell will peal with joy
Hurrah! Hurrah!
To welcome home our darling boy
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The village lads and lassies say
With roses they will strew the way,
And we'll all feel gay
When Johnny comes marching home.
Get ready for the Jubilee,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
We'll give the hero three times three,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The laurel wreath is ready now
To place upon his loyal brow
And we'll all feel gay
When Johnny comes marching home.
Monday, May 23, 2005
Fun weekend...
I had quite a fun weekend. Nothing exceptional, but it certainly was relaxing and enjoyable. Friday evening I went to the Macaroni Grill in Kingstowne. I had a delicious salmon filet (no - it wasn't Alaskan salmon....) and the most delicious glass of red zinfandel I've had in a long time.
On Saturday, I went to the Joint Services Open House (that seems to be military-ese for "Air Show") at Andrews Air Force Base. I've never been to that ... it always seems way too hot out to think about standing outside in the sun on concrete all day long. But the weather on Saturday was gorgeous, though, and I took my new camera and got lots of fun shots (like the one you see here). THEN, I went to see Star Wars Episode III - The Revenge of the Sith. (It was okay ... I still liked Episode II better. Regardless ... Yoda rocks!!)
On Sunday, after playing in the orchestra for the first three church services, I came home with every intention to get chores done around the house and to take a nice long walk in the gorgeous weather. Well, at about noon, I sat down at my computer to look at a couple of things about planning for my trip this summer and did some research online. I had my DVD player going (I always multi-task!!) and before I knew it, I had watched three DVD's (My Dog Skip, Hotel Rwanda, and After the Sunset) and it was after 7:30. No chores, no walk. I'll be a busy girl tonight around the house and won't get out walking in the rain. Oh, well ... at least now I know what to pack.
Finally, a quick comment on Hotel Rwanda: you MUST see it!! There is this significant theme in the film that many Westerners don't really care what happens in the African continent. I admit guilt in the area of not caring enough to know what goes on there. In 1994 there was genocide of a million people. I don't even remember. How horrible! This film honors a man who was a manager of a hotel in the capital city in Rwanda. When the genocide began, although his race was the same as that of the killers, he allowed over 1200 Tutsis (the people who were targeted) to hide in the hotel until they were moved to refugee camps. The nerd that I am ... I watched absolutely every single special feature and was so impressed with this man (the actor was Don Cheadle, and they also had commentary and interviews with the real man, Paul Rusesabagina ) and his commitment to saving as many people as possible. The horrors portrayed in the movie were supposedly downplayed (significantly) from what really happened. Please see this movie!!
Thursday, May 19, 2005
I give up!
Well, actually I am not necessarily giving up (or, "quitting") ... as much as I am putting it on hold. Yup - I'm putting We Need to Talk About Kevin on hold for now. I've found the book simply too exhausting (and I'm only on about page 135 out of 400). I intend to come back to it, though....In its stead, I have decided to pick up a piece of historical fiction that I started in the summer of 2003, but didn't finish (a pattern?) for lack of time. See, our students are starting a historical fiction project, so I thought I'd play along. Now we're all reading historical fiction.
Mine is Centennial by James Michener. Now, I know you're thinking, "Lou Ann is a very slow reader, and Michener is a very long writer." Yup - it may take me a while (maybe all summer?) ... but I am going to thoroughly enjoy Centennial. And, you probably won't even hear me philosophize about it (unless I am pining for the mountains of Colorado!)
Friday, May 13, 2005
Google!!
Kate's most recent post was about her friend Anna, who is a librarian in Portland, OR. I had the best time looking at her librario-blog. :-) And, I have to say that I have always appreciated Google as a websearch tool.
And I have also used Google Images, which rocks. For example, type in a search string, like "begonia" (I used that as an example because I just bought one!), and Google will give you a ga-zillion photos of begonias. Woo-hoo!!
Well, I have also, occasionally, used other features in Google, like the News search and Google maps. But who knew that there were so many other things that Google will do for you!!??
Check out this page. Google does a whole bunch of things. You can search the entire text of individual books. You can listen to audio of Shakespeare. You can translate foreign websites into English. You can do mathematical conversions and computations. You can look up definitions of words directly (I always used to use www.mirriamwebster.com ... but no more!) You can look for local retailers all near your house. You can look up movies and showtimes (I always used to use www.movies.com). You can type in questions (like I used to do in Ask Jeeves). You can search entire websites for a specific search string. You can look up stock quotes (not that I have any investments...) You can look up conditions at specific airports using the three character airport code. You can look up weather conditions (I used to use www.weather.com). You can even see what other pages have links to a specified website.
Amazing. This will completely revolutionize my Internet information gathering processes!!
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Driving Through PA
Yup ... I was driving through Pennsylvania again yesterday (coming from Buffalo to DC) on route 15 South. You may recall that I blogged about an encounter with an Amish store keeper a couple of months back. Well, I have two things related to the incident that I wanted to mention to you. First of all, while I was going through a place called Lewisburg, PA I stopped at a McD's to use the facilities. The place was full (long lines) of Amish. Now, if they are supposed to be basically subsistence living (living off the land, right?), then why does a trip for fast food not make sense to me.
Anyway ... the second encounter that I want to mention happens to be with the same Amish woman at the same farmer's market. I recognized her right off the bat. This time, I decided to ignore the feelings I had from the previous encounter. They had a large number of potted plants and flowers, and the begonias caught my eye. I know absolutely nothing about begonias (I know next to nothing about plants in general), but I found a gorgeous begonia that was bright orange. I picked it up, and when I went to buy the molasses cookies (the reason for stopping in the market in the first place), I asked all sorts of questions about keeping a begonia. What kind of light? Indoors or outdoors? Etc. She was most pleasant, and completely happy to answer my questions, and even seemed concerned that my windowsill might give the begonia too much light. Interesting....
By the way, here's a picture of me with my three nephews who I visited on my way to see my mom in Buffalo. Enjoy! (I have to keep up with Christine!!)
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Appalling!!
Okay, I typically attempt to stay away from doing lots of "teacher-y" posts. I especially don't want to blog about controversial things because I want to be real careful to steer away from the professional ethics line.
BUT..... I am tired of an ongoing item in the news, and am needing to vent a little about it. The "it" that I'm talking about is ... Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualauu. Okay, let's start with how disgusting it is that a 34-year-old woman would have an affair with a 13-year-old boy (BOY!!!). Then lets mention that she totally deserved to be in prison!! That's why it's called *rape*!! (That'll probably not get through the internet filters, either!) Let's not even mention that one of her children from her first marriage has given interviews saying that he has reconciled with his mother, and that he's okay with her relationship with Vili.
My biggest problem with the whole thing, though is this: They are now celebrities!!! I happen to have been home last Thursday and last night and tonight with the television on in the background while I'm doing "stuff" around the house. Mary Kay and Vili are being interviewed on ET ... apparantly long term. This upcoming wedding is shaping up to be the wedding of the century. They've had a wonderful wedding gown hand made. They are televising all sorts of the wedding preparations. Her brother will be walking her down the aisle. (Suffice it to say that if I had an affair with a student 21 years younger than I, my brother wouldn't walk ME down the aisle after my getting out of prison!!!)
If anyone who works for any of the news magazines is reading my blog (it could happen!), please, please, please, please, please, please stop making this couple into a celebrity couple. It can only lead to sensationalizing them as role-models for relationships. This truly sickens me!!!
(Lou Ann now gets down off of her soap box!!)
