Great for getting to volleyball tournaments.

Darth Tater

Saw this in the paper today. Too funny! I gotta get me one of these.

http://www.hasbro.com/starwars/pl/page.news/id.1130/dn/default.cfm

Darth Tater--"Together we shall rule as father and spud."

Star Gazing

That's star gazing as in Astronomy, not entertainment type people. Some friends gave Claire a telescope last fall and we've used it a few times. While checking for a new weather site, I found this one where you can enter your zipcode and it will display a map of the sky showing planets, constellations, stars, etc. You can change the options of what is displayed and enter a specific time and date to get that particular map. Pretty cool stuff. I think we'll take the telescope out tonight!

http://www.wunderground.com/sky/index.asp

Tsunamis and Turkey

Two topics on my mind today are the tsunami and Turkey (the country not the fowl.)

Found some incredible before and after satellite photos of the affected areas--http://homepage.mac.com/demark/tsunami/9.html

These showing Banda Aceh are the most stunning. Here's the before--



and this is after--


I'm putting on a fundraiser in April for a Microenterprise development organization, Five Talents, that is part of the Anglican Church. My friend and former co-worker (and beloved "little brother"--not in DNA but in spirit) is the Executive Director.

They have two programs in India and one in Indonesia but neither were affected by the tsunami. I'm sure that once the affected areas get beyond relief and into recovery, Five Talents will have some programs to assist people in recovering their livelihoods. Craig has asked me about going on a trip with him and teaching in some of the business seminars they put on for the people they serve. I may just have to go if he does a trip to India next year. Here's his update on the tsunami----http://www.fivetalents.org/1204.htm

And, now onto Turkey....I watched "Gallipoli" with my friend Monica as part of the preparation for her trip to Australia. I thought it would be a good choice and it was confirmed by our friend, Luke. Wow, what a depressing movie. I decided to do a little research on the Gallipoli campaign and The Nek battle that is depicted at the end of the movie. The movie did a pretty good job of giving context but #1 the sound on the VHS tape wasn't the best and #2 I was somewhat distracted by Mel Gibson's 25-year-old arse that is one of the better pieces of scenery in the movie.

Anyway, I found some good sites with a lot of historical information about the battle. I think the most heart-wrenching part is that The Nek was merely a diversion to enable a British landing at a nearby bay. I'm sure the Turks were quite diverted busily loading their machine guns and mowing down 600 ANZACs in a matter of 45 minutes. Here are some interesting figures on Australia's participation in WWI --"From a population of fewer than five million, 300,000 men enlisted, of which over 60,000 were killed and 156,000 were wounded, gassed or taken prisoner." This is from The Australian War Memorial web site. (http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/ww1.htm)

This site gives some interesting info on The Nek--http://www.macknortshs.qld.edu.au/ANZAC/nek.htm.

And this one has a good overview of the entire campaign--
http://www.anzacday.org.au/spirit/gallipoli/gallip02.html

After eight months, the British High Command decided that the war at Gallipoli was too costly and the ordered the troops to withdraw. Its interesting how the troops tried to make everything look normal during the evacuation that took two weeks to complete. The soldiers rigged up "Ghost guns" so it looked like there were more soldiers there. A rifle was placed among the sand bags with a tin cup above and one below. Water dripped slowly from the top tin into the one below. The rifle fired when the bottom tin became heavy enough to pull a wire attached to the trigger. There's a picture here--
http://www.anzacday.org.au/spirit/gallipoli/gallip04.html

The dreaded words....

...from my 19-year-old daughter tonight were, "Mom, you HAVE to see this movie." Now, I love it that she wants to share her interests with me but when its a move that she has deemed that I HAVE to see, I'm not allowed to do anything while the movie is on but sit on the couch, be quiet and watch the movie. She will go get a glass of wine for me if I ask, so that's nice. :)

The movie tonight was Garden State (http://www2.foxsearchlight.com/gardenstate/). I must say, it was AWESOME. If you want to see an offbeat movie with moments of comedy, tragedy and weirdness that really makes you feel, this is it. I highly recommend it.

Watched it with Amy and two of her friends tonight. I'll have to watch it again. It really was incredible. Go rent it NOW!!

It also has an incredible soundtrack. One of the themes of the movie is putting your fears aside to pursue something real, regardless of the emotional risk. The song "Let Go" by Frou Frou just captures that feeling--

drink up, baby down
mmm, are you in or are you out
leave your things behind
'cause it's all going off without you
excuse me, too busy you’re writing your tragedy
these mishaps
you bubble wrap
when you've no idea what you're like

so (let go) let go, jump in
oh well, whatcha waiting for
it's alright
'cause there's
beauty in the breakdown

so (let go) yeah, let go, just get in
oh, it's so amazing here
it's alright
'cause there's beauty in the breakdown

it gains the more it gives
and then it rises with the fall
so hand me that remote
can't you see that all that stuff's a sideshow
such boundless pleasure
we've no time for later now
you can't await your own arrival
you've 20 seconds to comply

The Tsunami

Its just unbeievable the death and destruction from the tsunami. My family is made up of news junkies who are also compassionate to a fault. Trying to understand the magnitude of loss and the science behind the tsunami has dominated our conversations of late. While out on the Deerfield Beach pier after dinner on Monday night, we watched the waves come in and tried to size the tsunami. It was windy and cold but we just stood there talking about how tsunamis are generated, how far inland the tsunami went and the emotion of standing on a beach and seeing the wall of water rushing toward you.

Some interesting facts--the largest tsunami ever recorded was in 1958 in Alaska. The wave was 1,700 feet tall! It was generated from a rock slide in a bay. Lituya Bay Tsunami

I would encourage everyone to donate to their relief agency of choice. The government shouldn't be expected to do it all and, as I learned on my trips to Haiti with Food For The Poor, government to government aid is riddled with corruption. If you don't know who you can trust, give money to www.worldvision.org. (Their site may be tough to get to due to the disaster response but keep trying.) Even $5 will help.

My co-worker from Food For The Poor went to work for them in 2002 and was communications director in Herat, Afghanistan beginning in August 2002. Her stories of their work and dedication were incredible.

And, one little bit of humor I've found in the news coverage is this caption on msnbc.com. Does this guy have the perfect name to be discussing a tsunami that killed tens of thousands of people?

Dec. 27: Waverly Person, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, says lives could have been saved after the earthquake in Asia if there had been a tsunami warning system in place.