January 2004 Archives

Here's a few photos I took on Friday Jan 30th of my niece, Rowan. She's very active compared to just a few months ago. The first few in this group were taken while she was still in her high chair immediately following dinner.

I think this January 28th cartoon by Cam Cardow of The Ottawa Citizen captures my feeling about the current cold weather trend that's been gripping New England:

I found Cam's work in the BRRRRRRRRR! It's COLD Outside! collection on Daryl Cagle's Professional Cartoonist Index.

"The art of a people is a true mirror to their minds."

- Jawaharial Nehru (1889-1964)

I found this quote on a job web site this morning and thought it was worth sharing. For those of you who don't remember your world history, Nehru was the first Prime Minister of Independent India and architect of its foreign policy.

This quote gave me reason to reflect on how moved I felt when I toured Antoni Gaudi's architectural wonders in Barcelona last October. I still think about the beauty and diversity of his works, particularly how they stand in contrast to the rest of Barcelona's far less inspiring architecture, let alone the stale trends of cookie cutter architectural blandness that drive us to complete the paving of America.

As mentioned in my post on January 26th, I applied to Intercultura, a school in Heredia, Costa Rica. This afternoon I received a response from their English Department Director saying that they are not hiring right now, but suggested contacting her again in the May/June timeframe for positions opening in August.

While this is a bit disappointing, I am buoyed by the fact that this is the first response I have received from any application that I've made since leaving Spain in November. Even better, this was from a school's English department director which means that I now have established communication with her and have a reference point for future contact. Yeah!

The market in Costa Rica seems to be warming up. Today I found a new job posting and applied immediately. The job is with C.P.I. English School in San Joaqu?n de Flores, a suburb of Heredia.

The little bit of research I was able to do on various web sites revealed that this school primarily recruits volunteers for English teaching positions, but I'm hoping that they are looking to hire someone to provide professional guidance to the deep-pocketed travelling do-gooders who spend their vacations teaching English. :)

There's a bill before the House and Senate called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act (Senate bill S.1684 and House bill H.R.1886.IH) which will require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It's about eliminating the "drive-through mastectomy" where women are forced to go home hours after surgery against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and some times with drainage tubes still attached.

Lifetime Television has put this bill on their web page with a petition drive to show your support. Last year over half the House signed on.

PLEASE! Sign the petition by clicking on the web site below and help women living with breast cancer get the care they need and deserve! You only need to give your name and zip code—no address, no phone numbers, no money. You just need to scroll down the page to sign.

If you wish to take an additional action, please contact your U.S. Senators and tell them you want them to support this bill. This is particularly important if you live in a state whose Senator is on the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (see the list of members) where the bill is now under review. Likewise, please contact your House Reps to move the bill out of the Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations (see the list of members) and to the House floor for a vote.

Today I was exploring more job opportunities, branching out away from the three or four popular ESL job web sites and I discovered what looks like a great school called Intercultura in Heredia, Costa Rica. On the first page describing their ESL program was a quote that really struck a chord with me:

"Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savor their songs. I again realized that we were not different people speaking separate languages; we were one people, with different tongues."
    - Nelson Mandela

This was followed by an explanation:
The words of Nelson Mandela reflect the ideals of the English Department at Intercultura. The English department was developed in order to give back to the community, and to aid in closing the communication gap between cultures on a local and international scale.

Intercultura sounds like the kind of place where I want to work, so I sent an e-mail with my C.V. and photo--as requested--to the hiring director tonight. Wish me luck!

Today, with the passing of Captain Kangaroo, yet another of my childhood icons has left this world. I hope he finds peace and is blessed with knowing how much of a positive role model he created for kids like me. Both as Captain Kangaroo and Clarabell the Clown on the Howdy Doody Show, Bob Keeshan set an example and standard of quality that modern children's television has lost sight of. I hope that someone within the children's television industry will take pause on this occasion and reflect on the lessons that pioneers of kids' television programming such as Keeshan and Fred Rogers, who passed away last year, offered us. I know I learned a lot from watching them and I am certain that today's generation of kids could too.

With this in mind, I'd like to make a bold proprosal to my friends at CBS: Show the public how much you think of American children by running a marathon of Captain Kangaroo episodes this weekend. You don't have to compete with the Super Bowl hype, so take a moment to remind Americans that it is possible to entertain and educate children without the vulgarities and raw stupidity that is so abundant in American television. Just a thought.

Finally I'd like to say to this to the Captain: I will miss you and I'd appreciate it if you'd say 'hi' to Mr. Rogers for me when you see him. Thanks.

This amusing and somewhat disturbing image was provided by my friend Becca:

When it comes to visiting people with kids there always seems to be a window of opportunity when everyone is healthy that is somehow narrower than what the average astronaut has for re-entering the earth's atmosphere to land a space shuttle.

Last Tuesday night the window of opportunity for a healthy visit was briefly open as I was finally feeling better and my friend LeAnn reported that for at least the next day or two, it looked like her family of five were going to be sniffle-, cold-, and fever-free. Not wanting to waste a chance, I decided to quickly venture to Framingham for an evening of their fine company.

While trolling the Internet for job leads today, I came across this great quote on the U.S. Peace Corps' web site:

"There are three things which are real, God, Human Folly and Laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension, so we must do what we can with the third."

- John F. Kennedy

Yesterday I was able to get an appointment with my doctor. She confirmed that I indeed have a sinus infection as I thought. She's prescribed two generics for me: Guaifenex PSE and Amoxycilin. Guaifenex is the generic for the brand name Guaifenesin, which you may have heard of. According to my pharmacist there was a brand-name version of Guaifenex that contained phenylpropanolamine which had the unfortunate side effect of causing an increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke in women and less so in men. Needless to say, I am not on that version because the FDA has banned it. The version I am taking is merely an expectorant with some pseudophedrine to stop the postnasal drip. The other drug is an antibiotic that we hope will kill the sinus infection.

So while I'm recovering, please keep the tissues handy and your fingers crossed for me, preferably in that order.

I've been sick more or less since I returned from Buffalo on December 28th. I had a sniffle when I was driving back and it has gotten progressively worse. I made plans to go out with Liz to hit a pair of New Year's Eve get-togethers her friends were having but I ended up staying at home because I wasn't feeling good--stomach ache on top of the sniffles. By mid-New Year's Day my stomach had calmed and my body turned its attention to the full-fledged head cold that settled in my head, like a New Year's hangover fog that won't lift.

Here's a small collection of photos from my trip to Buffalo over the Christmas holidays.

Here's a cute close-up of my friend Debbie's daughter, Allison (age 23 months):

I've just spent the last six hours working on getting my friend Rob's blog, "The Daly Planet" converted from a blogging tool called, imaginatively enough "Blogger," to the one I use for this blog, "Movable Type."

God I am tired.

Here's a great joke from my friend, Becca:

A precious little girl walks into a pet shop and asks in the sweetest little lisp, "Excuthe me, mithter, do you keep widdle wabbits?"

As the shopkeeper's heart melts, he gets down on his knees so that he's on her level, and asks, "Do you want a widdle white wabby or a thoft and fuwwy bwack wabby or maybe one like that cute widdle bwown wabby over there?"

I'd like to wish everyone a happy new year! Best wishes for a prosperous and healthy 2004!