A fitting tribute to a great man

President James Faust will indeed be missed! He was a wonderful leader and a great example.

Spoiler Alert!!!

Everything in the news about Harry Potter has had spoiler alert attached to them. Here is one of my favorites from CNN:

Editor's Note: This story contains spoilers. If you're not done with "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," you'd better stop reading now.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Less than a week after the release of the final Harry Potter book, author J.K. Rowling is giving hints about its conclusion.

Before publication, Rowling pleaded for secrecy about the ending of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." But in an interview broadcast Thursday on NBC's "Today" show and in one published Thursday in USA Today, she discussed Harry's fate.

THOSE WHO DO NOT WANT TO KNOW HOW IT ALL TURNS OUT FOR THE BOY WIZARD SHOULD STOP READING HERE.

Have you stopped yet?

This is your last warning.

For the full story, click here. But beware there are spoilers.

And also this from the Onion:

Final Harry Potter Book Blasted For Containing Spoilers

NEW YORK—Harry Potter fans throughout the world were shocked, disappointed, and outraged to learn last week that J.K. Rowling's 750-page...

Has anyone got 50 cents?

My sister, Jenny, our two friends, Amy and Kathleen, and I took a road trip this weekend to upstate New York to see the Hill Cumorah Pagent. We decided also to check out Niagra Falls. We rode the Maid of the Mist and got a little wet, but the vantage point from there is amazing!

After the boat ride, we wanted lunch and decided to walk over to the Canadian side becasue it looked cooler (and it was!). We had lunch at the only place that seemed Canadian, Boston Pizza. On our way back, we had to walk through customs. There were little pedestrian gates where you had to pay 50 cents to get through. 50 cents to walk back to America!


Amy joked that if they installed these gates on our southern border, there would be fewer immigration problems!


So we have to go through customs on the American side - show our driver licences and answer a few questions. The agent asked what the purpose of my visit to Canada. I said to have lunch. "Lunch?" he asked. Then he asked if I had come all the way from Virginia to have lunch in Canada.

How Very American!

I found this in the Washington Post this morning...

In France, Jogging Is a Running Joke
President's Exercise Regime Has Critics in a Lather

By Joel Garreau
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 7, 2007

The sight of the new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, jogging -- often wearing his favorite NYPD T-shirt -- has fired up a tempest in a Reebok in France and Britain this summer. Sarkozy's running is an un-French, right-wing conspiracy, suggests Paris' left-wing newspaper Libération. In response, British commentators gleefully conclude: The French have lost their minds, again.

On the primary state television channel, France 2, Alain Finkielkraut, a leading French intellectual, recently demanded that Sarkozy give up his "undignified" exercise. Not only did he imply that exposing the boss's naked knees is something that never would have occurred in the time of Mitterrand, much less Louis XIV, Finkielkraut claimed strolling is the proper activity of the thinking person, from Socrates to the poet Arthur Rimbaud.

"Western civilization, in its best sense, was born with the promenade," said Finkielkraut. "Walking is a sensitive, spiritual act. Jogging is management of the body. The jogger says I am in control. It has nothing to do with meditation."

Sarkozy has fueled a French suspicion that running is for self-centered individualists like Americans, reports Charles Bremner, Paris correspondent for the Times of London.

"Patrick Mignon, a sports sociologist, noted that French intellectuals had always held sport in contempt, while totalitarian regimes cultivated physical fitness," Bremner writes.

"Jogging is of course about performance and individualism, values that are traditionally ascribed to the right," Odile Baudrier, editor of V02 magazine, a sports publication, told Libération.

The British press is having a wonderful time with all this.

"The Sarkozy jog, say his critics, is a sad imitation of the habits of American presidents, and a capitulation to 'le défi Américain' (a phrase that was the title of a book published here as 'The American Challenge') as bad as the influx of Hollywood movies," writes Boris Johnson, a British member of Parliament and confirmed jogger, in the Telegraph.

"I am not deterred . . . by the accusation that jogging is right-wing," he says. "Of course it is right-wing, in the sense that the facts of life are generally right-wing. The very act of forcing yourself to go for a run, every morning, is a highly conservative business. There is the mental effort needed to overcome your laziness.

"Charles de Gaulle . . . moved with the stately undulation of a giraffe, and never broke into so much as a trot."

Jogging is not a new affectation for Sarkozy. When he was finance minister, visiting Washington for meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, he found it congenial to jog around the Mall, a French Embassy spokeswoman says. Former French ambassador to the United States (and recently named an adviser to Sarkozy) Jean-David Levitte does not indulge, however. Levitte "has a lot of things to do. He is on the run intellectually," she says.

Meanwhile, the readers of British press Web sites are piling on. "No decent conservative would dream of jogging. It's a vulgar, untraditional form of self-advertisement that might frighten the horses. What's wrong with croquet?" posted Ian Morrison on the Telegraph Web site. "Had it been a spot of extracurricular horizontal jogging instead, je pense que ze political classe wouldn't have batted an eye," posted Nixon McVicar.

In the heyday of vaudeville, there was a routine that had one woman complaining about the food at a Catskills resort. "It's terrible," she says. "Yes," agrees her friend, "and the portions are so small."

Just so, not only is Sarkozy's running being criticized, so is his style.

Renaud Longuèvre, a noted coach, tells L'Equipe magazine that Sarkozy's arms hang down, he bends too far forward, his stride is bad and his feet strike the ground incorrectly, Bremner reports. The coach advised the president to get his feet checked, strengthen his abdominal and posterior muscles and to "check your diet because it seems you are carrying a slight excess in weight."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/06/AR2007070602104.html?nav=rss_print/style

Death by Nerf Gun

Last night I had a crazy dream....Nothing was actually happening to me, so I think I was more of an observer/narrator.

I was in a house with a young family: a mom, dad, and two kids. The British and the American soldiers were fighting on the lawn. From the looks of their costumes, you could tell they were actors, but we were still really scared. The soldiers on both sides were not only fighting with weapons but also with funoodles (like what kids play with at the pool). A couple British soldiers came up to the house and were peeking in the windows - which were so high that they could just barely see in. They were looking for the husband who was hiding under the laundry, standing up with bed sheet hanging off of him. As the soldiers were looking in, the husband thought it would be a good time to find a new hiding place. As he emerged, I saw that it was my coworker, Brian. Instantly the soldiers saw him and came into the house and threw him on the ground. They took a Nerf gun that could shoot tennis balls and sawed off the barrel. They shot Brian multiple times in the back. We were all in hysterics. In the next scene, I was helping the wife clean up. Brian was gone - dead I think. As we were cleaning, Purple Heart showed up and wanted a clothing donation that had been arranged previously by Brain. She said she could wait and understood the delay. I gathered some of Brian's tshirts and gave them to Purple Heart.

Then I woke up...not sure to what, but I had forgotten to set my alarm, and had overslept. Luckily, the 4th of July is this week and not many people went in to work today, so I was right on time.

A Bedazzled Pirate

My sister's office is having a competition between all the different locations to see who can design the best office to show to perspective clients. She was telling this to a guy she met at church. He said she should do a themed office, like pirates, or something. He said they should go to the dollar store to get supplies. It was at this point she realized he was serious. So they made a date to go to the dollar store. She didn't have the heart to tell him. So afterwards she comes home with a bag of pirate booty - wall hangings, streamers, eye patch. Luckily it was the dollar store and not some place fancy.

But in telling this story to a friend of ours, she suggested to make the pirate theme a little more work-appropriate to get a bedazzler and bedazzle the eye patch.

Library Nerd

I am the first on to admit that I am a nerd. I love the library. In the last couple of weeks, I've been to the Library of Congress twice (the LOC as I fondly call it) and to Folger Shakespeare Library.

The Shakespeare Library is a rare treat. Only really smart people that are studying Shakespeare and that time period can use the library and there are a bunch of hoops to jump through before one is even allowed in. They have a few exhibits open to the general public and a theater (that looks like the Globe) where Shakespearean related events are performed.
My classmate and I went to interview one of the people that is employed at the library for a class project. He was super smart and talked our ears off for about an hour (which makes the project that much easier), but afterwards he gave us a tour. We were so excited.

He took us through the offices and then into the main reading room which was modeled after a mansion in England. It was a long hall with dark wood and book cases floor to ceiling. There was a balcony level and stain glass representing scenes from As You Like It and the crests of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. (Here's a picture from the Folger website http://www.folger.edu/imgdtl.cfm?imageid=775&cid=1326) He also took us to the card catalog room and the meeting room (which looked like a dinning room). In this room was the ticket that Mr. Folger used to see Ralph Waldo Emerson give a speech on Shakespeare that initiated Folger's desire to collect all things Shakespeare. Folger apparently kept everything - tickets, receipts, catalogs, etc. - which makes it really easy for researchers today.

Library school rocks!!!

http://www.folger.edu/index.cfm

A fuzzy package

I got home from work yesterday to find a package from Amazon on the doormat. I brought it in. It was sealed with saran wrap, which I thought was odd, but I opened it anyway. When I saw what was inside I screamed and dropped it on the floor. At least a dozen fuzzy caterpillars were crawling around inside. My mom came out from the kitchen and told me they were Garrett's. I wondered what they were doing here and then Garrett walked out (he's 5). Now Garrett thinks I am afraid of caterpillars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_tent_caterpillar

Where you lead, I will follow

I am in the land of the barren north, also known as Canada (Edmonton, to be specific), visiting two of my dearest friends from my mission. On a lazy afternoon, my friends and I were watching old episodes of Gilmore Girls. They have been watching a lot of GG over the past few months and my friend's son (who is 10 months old) enjoys the theme song. He was asleep on her stomach as we started the episode. As soon as the song came on, he sat straight up looked around and when it finished went right back to sleep. Oh, the entertainment babies bring!

Canada is lovely. It's been a good week of friends, relaxing, and reminiscing. I hope to return sometime. But next time, I'll make sure to come in the summer!

word of the day

Moochamachama. 'mü-chä-mä-chä-mä. noun. definition: (1) a miscommunication of ideas. (2) the inability to understand what someone else is saying due to mumbling, an inability to articulate, or the need to have one's ear canals cleaned out. (new English)

Beginnings

So I must explain the title of my blog. My mom told me about someone she wants me to get to know. She found out he has a blog and told me this as I was getting ready one morning.
"Would you consider..." she trailed off.
"Would I consider what, mom?"
"Would you consider blogging with him?" she asked.
My sister, who had walked in, and I laughed to the point we almost fell on the floor.

Thus the beginning.