A local columnist went through some archives of the paper he writes for and collected a history of shocking gas prices as they were reported over the years by the paper. It's a fun read.

Just to be clear, I wasn't old enough to drive when gas was 49cents/gallon.

FrontPorchForum, a local, very innovative community website that started here in the Burlington area, has made the cut from 5,000 community organizations to be on the shortlist of 20 to possibly win a $25,000 grant from the Case Foundation. Case Foundation will aware these grants to 5 organizations based on public voting.

So you can vote for 5 of the last 20 organizations on the list. I went to the site on behalf of FPF and was happy to see an organization from my home town (Syracuse, NY) on the list and was able to vote for them as well. Even if you don't find a local organization on the list of 20, there will surely be at least 5 that inspire you. So go help them out and vote!

...then this piece, Screams, in the current New Yorker is for you. Be a fly on the wall when a bunch of old Jewish comedians gather to celebrate a book of their caricatures..

The Milton Berle Room at the Friars Club was the scene the other day of a party for Drew Friedman’s “More Old Jewish Comedians,” a sequel to “Old Jewish Comedians,” collected caricatures of such revered icons, now gone, as Myron Cohen, Groucho, Buddy Hackett, Burns, Benny, et al., along with Friars present and still carrying on. [more...]

Warning Label: Reading this article while consuming liquids may cause said liquids to eject from your nostrils.

Most of the 35 puppies from my parents' three recent litters are now at their new homes. The owners have been sending lots of pictures of their new beloved babies and they are collected on the home page of my parents' website: www.blueheavennewfoundlands.com

For example, here's Hank who went to live with a family in Akron, NY. I'm definitely in love with this little guy already. The name's pretty good, too. 

I have a few rules when I'm sick including no coffee, minimal caffeine, no sugar and no dairy. I had a bad chest cold for 3 weeks, and followed that rule pretty well. Now that I'm feeling better, I'm trying to see how long I can go without coffee. I still crave it but eventually that will go away too. So far I have survived!  The challenge will be tomorrow since our user group meeting is right across the road from a Starbucks! And of course, my fave is latte's (I blame Michele for turning me on to their Vanilla Lattes ;) which is coffee AND sugar AND dairy all together. I'd call that an addiction.

I can't say I have had no caffeine though since I am now drinking English Breakfast tea and plenty of Green Tea too.

Today I did what people think that I do frequently, though it's actually (and sadly) not common. I went skiing. That's right  - on a work day! RIch and I took off at 8:30 and didn't get home until about 3:30. We hooked up with a fellow Vermont.NETter and awesome tele skiier who commented on how many people must have called in sick that morning (which made Rich and I , both self-employed, laugh about being the only ones not getting paid to ski), and spent most of the day in the woods. I'm a crappy skiier in the woods (always worried about those trees!) but I still love being in there. It's not pretty, but I can get through it.

Mad River got about 2 feet of this fluffy stuff on Monday and Tuesday.So we had epic powder (western style powder, deep and light and fluffy) and I wasn't going to miss it. Even if it was 0 degrees out. Brr! 

My parents continue to send me pictures of the puppies to put on their website.

The first litter , which was born on Nov 22  - the amazing litter of 17 - has puppies that are over 10 lbs. already. They had their first cookies today. Their eyes have been open for a while.

The second and third litter, born Dec 7 & 8th, are still small, but they are getting fatter and cuter (is it even possible?) every day.

Yesterday was the first break - I broke a promise to myself that I was going to take a few hours out to go skiing. I never did.

Right now we have the most phenomenal snow in Vermont...highly unusual for December (it's still Fall, y'know) and everyone who loves snow wants to enjoy it while they can just in case.

So today I was determined not to break my promise. I didn't leave until 1 hour later than I wanted, but I left. I got to Mad River, put on my boots and defogged my goggles with the great defogger cloth I bought instead of buying new goggles last year. But I noticed there was a 1 inch crack in my goggles. Oh well. I put them on anyway, went outside, grabbed my skis and walked over to the single chair where I put them on. First the right, then the left. Something looked funny on the left. My binding was BROKEN! There's a big plastic piece that pulls the cable tight around the boot and it was cracked. But I could still clamp down and it seemed solid.

Just in case, I went to the ski shop and they said that it would be way too dangerous to ski on them. Arrgh. We are talking PERFECT PERFECT packed powder conditions, 30 degrees and no wind. And I couldn ski. Rather than renting skis and skiing anyway, I drove down the mountain in to Waitsfield and dropped off my skis at a local ski place to get the bindings either fixed or replaced overnight.

Then I drove home and figured I'd go ski in my woods instead.

I took out my brand new back country boots that I've only worn 3 times so far. They are new fangled hightech boots and the zip up (similar to cross-country boots now). The zipper pull broke off in my hand.

I managed to zip it up anyway and I finally got out to do one loop in the woods with no more breaks and got back to the house before dark. The snow was so perfect, it was worth all the effort.

But geeze loueeze - that was starting to push it!

While I was at my parent's house helping out with their THIRTY-FOUR new newfie pups, Tasha was at home hitting an amazing milestone! She turned 14 years old. This is very old for a newfie. While she isn't the athletic young girl she used to be thanks to arthritis, she is still full of it! Barking every morning to make sure everyone in the neighborhood knows "I'm still here!", eating like a champ and full of desire (though not the ability) to go down to the road and see what there is to see. I spent years keeping her from getting hit by cars. Now that she's old, I finally don't have to worry about that any more. Her eyesight and hearing seem to be fine and she gets acupuncture to help out with the arthritis since her back legs are quite stiff. It's hard to get up, get down and to walk. Not so hard that she's not willing though although she hasn't been doing stairs for a few years now. Every day I watch her so carefully to make sure that I'm not being selfish.

Here's a picture of her today. A little scruffy because it's basically impossible to give her a bath as we can't make her stand for a long time. We can't get her upstairs to our easy access shower to try to bathe her there either and now it's too cold to bathe her outdoors. But she doesn't mind and neither do we. She's 98!

A little less than four years ago, I took some pics when we were giving Tasha a bath at our local (wonderful) pet store that has a great setup. Even then she was old for a newf at 10 and standing for a long time was a little problematic. But look how cute she is!

No less amazing is Daisy who will be 13 in a few more weeks.

We just got a call from my mom on her way home from the vet with the last of the three litters! Bumper had eleven puppies. We can't wait to see them.

You can keep an eye on things at my parent's website: Blue Heaven Kennels.

Here's a picture of the mommy, Bumper, at a dog show.

It's feeding time again! These are Celeste's 6 puppies.

(On going... you can catch up at www.blueheavennewfoundlands.com)

The second litter was born yesterday. I'm helping to watch over them today. Celeste has to feed them every two hours and they nurse for over 1/2 hour. In between everyone rests up and the puppies get a Snuggle Puppy to curl up with. These are more than toys as they have a heartbeat and are warm. Sometimes they are all underneath it. Here's what they are doing right now (there are 6 total but you can't see them all here). The upstairs puppies (the litter of 17 that is now two weeks old) get two Snuggle puppies!

My parents have sent me another batch of photos (puppies at day 2) for their website. This one is especially gorgeous.

Possibly a record... my parents Newfoundland, Elsa, had 17 puppies on Thanskgiving day. My folks are breeders. They actually have 2 more littlers coming which when all added up could double this number. The pictures of the babies are already on their website . They are cute as cute can be. Newfie puppies weigh about 1 lb each when born and then they just grow and grow and grow!

Blue Heaven Newfoundlands

A little family tree:

The puppies' mother is Elsa and father is Solomon.

Elsa's father is Theo. Solomon's mother is Theo's sister, Celeste. (So they are cousins, not siblings...this is not scary in the dog world, like it would be in the human world!)

Theo and Celeste came from France, but their mother, Rudy, was a puppy bred by my parents and her father is Packard.

And Packard is the son of my Daisy!

So these puppies are Daisy's great, great, great grand-puppies!

Daisy, by the way, will be 13 years old in January. But Tasha's not impressed, as she will be 14 in two weeks. 13 and 14 are both amazing ages for newfies.

My parents breed Newfoundland dogs. This fall, 3 girls came into heat and they bred all three, just in case. Surprisingly, all three girls got pregnant and the latest x-rays counted a total of 26 puppies in their three big bellies.

You can see the girls, the fathers and lots of pictures of lots of gorgeous newfies on my parents' website here: Blue Heaven Newfoundlands.

My mom called tonight to say that she was with Elsa (who has at least 10) camped out at a hotel near the vet so that there will be no problems. Rather than take chances, my mom  let's the vet help (with all of the safety nets nearby) when there's lots of puppies coming. So probably tomorrow for Elsa and another few weeks for Celeste and Bumper. Very exciting!

Last week, I was fortunate to have dinner with Rick Chapman, author of In Search of Stupidity, who had come to Vermont to speak at the monthly meeting of the Vermont Software Developer's Alliance.

Rick is an software marketing guru who also author's the Softletter newsletter for software company business owners. He is also someone who does a lot of trend analysis.

During our dinner, the conversation shifted to e-books. Rick is sure that e-books, when the devices reach the right form factor and functional features, will replace books. I said,"No way. I love books. You'll have to take them from my cold dead hands." (Very creative of me, eh?)

He couldn't be convinced; but I know I love books. I know I love it when I get to add the latest read to my bookshelf. I love reading in bed and I love carrying a book with me when I travel. One argument of his was "aha - so how many books can you carry on a plane? Wouldn't an e-reader be better?" My reply was that it didn't matter because I can't read that fast anyway. One book will usually suffice for a plane trip.

I love the different fonts that are created for letter presses. I love the varying quality of the covers and the paper. I love the feel of the paper.

It's probably why I also always enjoy Charles Petzold's many posts about his books. Today he wrote about digital vs. paper books and wondered about wanting to re-read a book after a decade or two. If it's digital, what are the chances of the original technology/format that the books was delivered in still existing, or the device still even working. But if it's a book on his bookshelf, no problem. Just pull it out and read it. Maybe a little dusty, perhaps some yellowed-pages, but there for all time.

It's been snowing for about 5 hours. The grass is still peeking through the wet & slimy white stuff, but the ground is throughly covered. And I"m sitting here at my computer wearing a brand new pair of back country ski boots trying to determine if they are keeper or not. I'd say winter is here.

Over a week ago, I accidentally left a car window partially open overnight. The next day there was lots of evidence of a mouse in the car - shredded kleenex, mouse poop and more. I looked everywhere for the mouse but could not find him (her?) and figured it was gone. I didn't really go anywhere for about a week. On Friday night I rove to a neighbor's house wondering if it was possibly still in the car and was going to jump on my head while I was driving, but it didn't.

But on Sunday I looked in the car again and there was more shredded kleenex and poop. Rich and I spent an hour cleaning, vacuuming and inspecting every nook and cranny but found no mouse.

Rich decided there was only one way to get rid of the mouse if it was still hiding out in the car - a solution that I am not fond of at all, but let him take charge of the situation. So he put a mouse trip (oh boo hoo) with some peanut butter on the floor of the front seat. I'm more of a hava-heart trap kind of girl.

Poor little mousey.

This morning I unwillingly looked into the car when I took the dogs out. Seeing a tail and a butt was enough, I didn't want to see his poor little head or neck under the business end of the trap. Rich is going to go out and deal with it.

I pilfered this from my parent's website, www.BlueHeavenNewfoundlands.com. They are newfie breeders (mostly Landseers, like Rollo). Rollo is one of their puppies, now 8 years old, who is owned by a really neat lady who dances with her dogs competitively. Yes dances. She and Rollo were even on Nick at Nite and they compete in various "Freestyle" events. YOu can read more about that here. She dresses up her dogs for the dancing and also for pics like these - for Halloween, New Years and more. There's a page filled with them on my parent's site.

I am a graduate of a college that I will love until the day I die, Well College. I went to Wells almost begrudgingly, with my heart set on studying film at a giant party school: Syracuse University. Being at a tiny 500 student school with no boys around seemed like hell for an 18 year old. During my first semester I begged my parents to let me transfer, but they made me promise to see the year out.

And I fell in love with Wells and spent my entire four years there, learning, learning who I was and not worrying about how I appear or sound to possible love-interests in my classes. It's amazing to have all of that stripped away so that you can just keep your eye on the prize - getting a great education. I allude to this in my "Proud to be a Geekette" essay on OReillyNet's Women in Tech series.

Wells is in a tiny little town in New York State on huge Cayuga Lake (one of the finger lakes) half way up the lake from Cornell (in Ithaca). Many former Wells students stayed in Aurora after graduating. Most continue to have strong ties in one way or another. Mine is through the incredible friendships that I have maintained with a number of women that I graduated with and are still the absolutely dearest friends in my life.

One former grad (from before my time) went on to create the American Doll company and in the 90's sold it to Mattel for $700 million dollars. She decided to use a lot of her new-found fortune to help the college and to help the town. But it was soon apparent to many that her help came at a cost. She turned the town into a big doll house, which created a moral conundrum for so many and a rift through the residents of the town. I haven't been back since my 5th reunion, but have been thinking that I'll be there for the one coming in 2008. (my TWENTY-5th! Egad!). I wonder if I'll mourn the old Fargo, where I spent probably more evenings over those 4 years than I would like to admit. Oh, the memories!

While my suspicion is that there is a Wells alum working at CNN, it must be a slow news day because this is the headline story on CNN.com this morning. In reality, the article comes from the AP Newswire and was written by Helen O'Neill.

I promise not to say anything along the lines of "it's about time". I promise! I won't!

(And you can blame Cicero for that little trick I learned in Latin class many years ago...)

There's been a lot of talk about role models in the various Women in Tech essays over on OReillyNet.

But I wanted to brag about my best role models!

My parents celebrated their 50th anniversary yesterday.

Our resident garden snake has gone of for some growing and left behind his skin - right next to the garden. Something of an "I'll be back" message, I suspect. This year he (she?) was about 15" long. Rich is already teasing me about how BIG and scary he'll be next year!

Our friend Brian Berry is pedaling in the Paris Brest Paris ride that started today. It's a 1200km route that must be completed in 90 hours. That's about 750 miles in 3.75 days. That's about 200 miles per day. The ride is every 4 years. Brian has ridden it before, though I can't recall how many times. He  does a lot of long distance riding. In the past when Brian and his wife have come to visit, he generally leaves their home in Woodstock NY on his bike at about 2am and she drives up. It's about a 250 mile drive to where we lived the first time they did this. The second time, he slacked off and only road to Burlington - just 230 miles. That's about a normal day's ride for Brian. He thinks nothing of riding through the night with lamps. He's a nut.

Brian also often rides in the "BMB" (Boston Montreal  Boston ride) also 1200 km and goes almost right by our house.

RUSA (Randonneurs USA) also has lots of great info on PBP and the riders from the U.S.

While today was a perfect summer day and I not only got to go for a great bike ride, but I was introduced to a fantastic swimming hole, tomorrow is a day I've been looking forward to for a long time.

I am on a team of 20 women who are paddling a Dragonboat, along with 75 other teams, in the DragonFest.

I have never witnessed this event, but seen articles and videos and promised myself that I would go watch this year, but I was lucky enough to be invited to be on a boat filled with mostly women from my town.

You can learn all about the Dragon Boat Festival on this website.

Every summer, when strawberry season comes around, I have to look through my collection of old Food & Wine magazines for my favorite recipe. Its a Strawberry Tart and I know enough things about it that I should be able to find the recipe on www.foodandwine.com or just by googling. One of the interesting things is that the article was about Katrin Theodoli, then owner of the super luxury yachts Magnum Marine, and recipes she whips up in the little galley of the yacht when she's cruising the seas with kings and queens. Granted, you could solve a lot of problems in the world for the cost of some of these higher end boats; but still, I'm grateful for the recipe.

[Wendy, I hope you're reading this one!]

So since I decided I would ensure I could find the recipe more easily by just putting it here on my blog along with the reminder that it's in the June 1997 issue: "Outdoor Entertaining".

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 sticks of cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch dice
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted
• 1/4 cup seedless strawberry jam, melted
• 1 1/2 pints strawberries, hulled and halved lengthwise

STEPS

1. In a food processor, pulse together the flour, sugar and salt. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the egg and pulse until incorporated.
2. Preheat the oven to 375F. Butter a 10 inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and pat into a disk. Roll the dough between 2 sheets of wax paper into a 12-inch round. Transfer the dough to a cookie sheet and refrigerate until firm, about 15 minutes. Peel off the top sheet of wax paper, invert the dough into the pan and peel off the other sheet of wax paper. Fit the dough into the pan and chill again for 10 minutes. Prick all over with a fork and bake in the middle of the oven for about 20 minutes or until evenly golden. Let cool on a rack.
3. Transfer the tart shell to a platter and brush the bottom with the melted chocolate. Refrigerate until set, about 10 minutes. Brush half of the jam over the chocolate. Arrange the strawberries in the shell, cut side down, overlapping them slightly. Brush the berries with the remaining jam.
   

One of the things I am looking forward to during my summer at home in Vermont is participating in the Dragon Boat Festival/Race/Fundraiser. The even raises money for DragonHeart Vermont (for breast cancer survivors) as well as for the VNAs Hopsice and the Vermont Respite House which provides care for terminally ill patients.

In addition to being able to help these organzations, it is a fun day. I have been paddling something or another all my life, from war canoes, kayaks and canoes at the age of 7 at summer camp, to rafts on Class 5 waters in West Virginia's Gauley River to kayaking all over Lake Champlain with my hubby.

The dragon boats are beautiful and have teams of 20. Check out the site and the pics! Come out and cheer us on this August.

I have found myself with no travel plans for the entire summer and I am thrilled. Last summer I was hardly in Vermont with a hectic travel schedule that began, well, in March with DevConnections, then two trips in April, a user group and DevTeach in May, TechEd and then my Moncton/Nova Scotia/Newfoundland trip in June, 3 user groups in July, 1 in August, 3 in September, Bulgaria and more user groups in October, DevConnections in November and then Redmond to visit Microsoft  in December. That's not just the summer, it was the whole year, wasn't it? So now that I have finished up my crazy spring 2007 travelling (DevConnex in late March, then Seattle area in mid April and Las Vegas (MIX) in late April and Montreal for DevTeach last week) I am done.

No TechEd.

No user group trips.

No conferences.

It will all start up again in the fall, but for now I am looking forward to a long and beautiful summer in the place I love with the man I love and the doggies I love.

We'll see how long this plan stays in tact....

Bob Dylan is my hubbie's A#1 favorite musician so I was very happy to get tickets online just as they went on sale this morning for his July 1st concert at the Champlain Valley Expo (aka the fairgrounds) outside of Burlington Vermont.

I can't wait until Rich gets home so I can tell him my big surprise! (Since he doesn't read my blog, I know the surprise is safe here...)

We have had some gorgeous snow reappear in the past week. Friday was an historic powder day at Mad River. I went on Friday and skiid like sh*t. I was so disheartened. Rich went yesterday and came home to say it was the best skiing of the year. Since it snowed more last night and today; and since Mad River was allowing weekday pass holders to ski for free this weekend,  Rich and I went again today.

On our first run, Rich took me into the woods. I'm a bit of a scaredy cat in the woods but, while I didn't swoosh straight down through the trees, I didn't have to pause and get my courage up between every turn like I usually do. It was actually fun. And nice powder!

Then when we hit the trails, something amazing happened. I started skiing the way I know I can ski, but rarely  seem to pull off except on the groomers. I ski on telemark skis - freeheel. I switched over from being a very experienced and confident alpine skiier of 30+ (on and off) years to tele about 5 years ago but never really regained my confidence.

But today my ski legs returned and I was just bopping down the hill doing what felt right. When I looked at (and blogged about) this great video of some tele guys at Mad River from Friday earlier today, it nearly made me cry to see these guys skiing the way I know I should be skiing. Perhaps it was watching that video and keeping that in my head, rather than the image of me really sucking! Who knows. But that's how I finally got to ski today and it just feels so good!

If only I had been skiing more frequently this year and this had happened earlier, because sadly, today was the last day of the season for Mad River.

So next winter, I have to start all over again. Oh well. At least I can end this season with a big smile!

I decided that I'm finally ready to make the move to a PocketPC Phone. This means buying a new phone and upgrading from a $40/month plan to an $80/month plan. But Verizon just does not seem to want my extra $40/month. I re-upped with them for another 2 year contract last summer (there was a mixup which is why my phone's end date and my contract's end date are not in synch) and if I want the upgrade discount on the phone I have to wait until June 2007. If I want to upgrade my monthly contract I have to wait until June 2008.

I understand the 2 year contract is a good thing for discouraging clients from cancelling, but I just don't get Verizon telling me that my options are either to purchase a second plan while continuing to pay for my $40/month plan for another 18 months and paying $250 for a phone when NEW customers that have NO history with them and NO loyalty can get the phone for $79.

Sounds ass-backwards to me.

There is a woman in France who owns three of my parent's newfies (see them at TadoussacNewfs.com) . She is very serious about training and showing them.  These dogs have so much fun doing lots and lots of water training and showing and Bouba, the youngest of the three that came from my parents, has made a big name for himself in Europe! Today my parents told me that he is now ranked as the #2 Newfie in all of France, which in the crazy world of dog showing is a really big deal.

I know that this cartoon in the New Yorker this week sadly comes close to home to many people that I know.

Tomorrow night Patti Smith is being inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. Rock on.

Police said witnesses reported seeing two males walking on **** at about noon. One of the men was carrying flat screen television; the other was carrying a large duffel bag.

Officers arrived within minutes and found the duffel bag and television behind another house on *****. They followed a set of tracks in the snow and within minutes, officers found *** and ***, who has been under the supervision of the state Department of Corrections.

Oh, and the cat, too.

I've been working from th ekitchen for about a week so I can hang out with the dogs. They don't do stairs anymore and we haven't cleared the path through the snow for them to get to my office from the outside.

So here they are hanging out withme. G.B. the cat has found his favorite warm spot in the house (with Tasha) and Daisy is on her cushy bed. What a mush.

Yesterday I proclaimed that today would be a powder day - regardless of how much work I have to do. We had a forecast of 7-12 inches of new snow.

The promised snow started before we went to bed last night.

But when I woke up in the middle of the night to a howling wind and then again this morning to the same, I knew it would be another productive day in front of the computer. It's wild out there. Rich is still heading out to the ski hill. He's insane. I certainly wouldn't want to be sitting in the chair lift in this weather.

It's what he refers to as a "character building day." That's an old joke from when he worked for a builder that, even in the winter, had his crew arrive at 6am and work until 4pm. Even when it was 5 degrees out and all then ended up doing was shoveling snow out of the foundation. I'd last about five minutes in a job like that. Give me my cozy office chair any day!

Expecting some new snow overnight and tomorrow.  Yay. We will go do some runs in the morning. I'm currently averaging about $50/run based on the cost of my midweek pass and the number of runs I've managed to get in this year.

At a recent check-up, my doctor reminded me that now that I'm getting to be such an old lady (okay, she didn't quite put it that way) I need to be more conscientious about my calcium intake. I asked her if the half & half in my coffee counted. No. How about the small bowl of ice cream once in a while in the evening? No.

I remember my mother telling me about a doctor appt she had in her late 60's (not so long ago) when the doctor complemented her on how strong and healthy her bones were. Her reply to the doctor was that it was thanks to all those cookies she eats, because when she eats cookies, she pours a glass of milk to go with them.

So after lunch that day, (thanks to my husband's habit of stockpiling cookies in the house (which is normally a really big problem for me)), I happily placed 2 Oreo cookies on my plate, poured myself a glass of milk, and fed my bones.

Egad - not snakes on a plane, but scorpions on a plane....

When it's 35 degrees and raining slush, that's PJ Day around here. Almost every day, I start the day by walking the dogs. But today was so nasty, I just came downstairs in my pj's and let the dogs out to pee and "do the doo" and then right back in.

I think people assume that since I work at home, I do this quite often, but it is a true rarity - maybe twice a year!

I just realized it's nearly noon and here I am still in my pjs. Just need to remember to change into street clothes before I head to the VTdotNET meeting tonight.

Dave Burke's Five Things ... listing some interesting personal details of his life that you probably didn't know (and I certianly didn't and was fascinated) has tasked me with trying to the do the same.

The problem is that I think anyone who reads my blog already knows anything that might be somewhat interesting about my deep dark past.

But now I realize that i'm not allowed to bail. I've also been tagged by Andy Beaulieu. So here goes:

1. I have been to a Playmate of the Year party at Hugh Hefner's mansion in L.A.
2. I was a Cosmo Girl for two years in a row - interviewed by Helen Gurley Brown for Cosmopolitan Magazine's annual "what are young, cosmopolitan women thinking about home, fashion, work, romance, money, etc."
3. I have written software for Macs.
4. My first programming experience was on home-built Heathkit computers (by the math profs at my college).
5. For about 10 years, I split my time between programming and pottery. I had space in studio near my apartment in Brooklyn and spent about 20 hours a week there. I hope to pot again someday.

Okay, now who am I going to tag? Hmmm.

1. Mike Gunderloy
2. Kate Gregory
3. hmmm Sam's been there and done that. Apparently, C was not his first language after all!
4. Camey Combs
5. Amanda Murphy

is the American Heart Association's campaign to raise awareness of the fact that women get heart disease and heart attacks, too! We need to educate ourselves. A friend of my sister's had clear signs of a heart attack in her early 40's (along with a family history of both her father and grandfather dying from heart attacks in their 40's and the fact that she was already on heart medicine), but the obvious warnings were ignored by her doctor because she was a women and women don't get heart attacks. She called 911 when she was having her heart attack and they basically told her to take some indigestion medicine. She managed to get someone to take her to the hospital where doctor's had to immediately perform open heart surgery on her, which saved her life. So, I'm definitely a big supporter of this campaign.

There will be a Go Red for Women luncheon in Burlington on Feb 9th. A dear friend is one of the local Chairs of this and I am sponsoring a table of 10.

You can learn more about the Burlington event here, if you'd like to participate or donate a silent auction item.

On NPR this morning, Philip Baruth was lamenting the upcoming ABBA museum in Stokholm, even though he loves ABBA.

What I loved about his commentary was this quote:

"ABBA is like Coca-Cola for your ears... effervescent." 

Tasha turned 13 years old last week. This is a pretty significant milestone for a Newfoundland. Because of their large size, they don't have a long life expectancy. Tasha is getting acupuncture and lots of love and short strolls. Her weight is as low as we dare get her, but this puts so much LESS stress on her legs and her organs. So this has been another attribute that has helped. She does have a hard time getting up but manages. She's pretty darned happy and as far as I can tell, her secret to long life is "as long as there is food on the planet....".

Not to discount Daisy, who will be 12 in January. Daisy is in amazing shape and can still run around. Her only obvious sign of age is her beautiful grey eyelashes and her worn down teeth.

Here's a pic of the girls I took a few months ago. Daisy (aka Daisy Dog) is on the left and Tasha (aka Boo Boo Bear) is on the right.

Sad news to see Deer Leap Books, a wonderful independent bookstore in Bristol, VT (nearby town) closing. I've definitely tried to do my book buying there when I can, because I want to see these shops succeed. Bristol is a community that loves and supports their local businesses. Another wonderful business, Angel Heart, is closing too. Very special store. The owner has lived in Nepal (or somewhere like that) for many years and buys fabulous stuff there and ships them back to the U.S. for the store which her sister (a true New Yorker that amazingly survived in small town Vermont!) ran. They also have the best collection of ageless toys that we had as kids and is fun to buy for our nieces and nephews. And some awesome classic "joke gifts" too.

Rich and I saw Borat last night and I couldn't agree more with Charles Petzold's assessment:

If Mr. Cohen's intent is to explore people's reactions in intolerable situations, then it makes no sense for this movie to have scenes of Borat by himself, or with his "producer." And yet, Mr. Cohen has obviously become so enamored of his fictional creation that the movie really becomes about Borat rather than his American victims.

I found the movie nearly intolerable myself. Excluding a few scenes that seemed pretty real (the homeboys teaching him how to dress a little more homey and the very human Lunelle and everyone's incredible patience) Cohen's version of "Candid Camera" was over the top, but not really in what I saw as an intellectual or enlightening way. His outrageous public behavior was just outright mean and not funny. So much commentary of the movie is about how he tricked people on camera, but the ruse goes much further. He tricked us into the movie theater to shock us too. I'm pretty liberal and extremely tolerant, but there was way more in that movie than I felt like witnessing and nearly walked out.  I truly feel duped that I got lured into the theater with all of this promise of some fascinating expose of human behavior. And to top it off, I have now paid my $8 and brought my husband (who was hoping to see James Bond instead), and therefore contributed to the success of the movie. The joke has been on all of us, not just the "characters" in the movie.

Something to write home about! 

(It's my mom)

We have gone to see the Telluride Mountain Film Festival for hte past few years because it comes to us. It will be in four locations in Vermont this year - Burlington, Waitsfield, South Royalton and Middlebury - during the month of November. Luckily I'll be back from DevConnections in time to see it in Waitsfield, which is near where I live. Here's the schedule.