Do you think it odd that to celebrate its 10th anniversary, the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC is adding "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" to its collection? The explanation is that Harry Potter will be part of a book burning exhibit. Remember back to when some churches were condeming the books as satanic since they portrayed the lives of witches and wizards.
I definitely agree that book burning is the ultimate sign of ignorance and censorship. The exhibit also focuses on book burning in Nazi Germany. But to me, as much as I am a huge fan of Harry Potter, it feels like a poor fit for Holocaust rememberance.
The last couple days Gary has been doing tons of chores - making dinner, doing the dishes, taking out the trash. Today he went grocery shopping, did dishes, and made brownies. What a swell guy. I just have to say, I sure am glad he'll be my husband.
Here's a wedding information update. Last weekend, we decided on Brookside Country Club as the site for the ceremony and reception. It is right next door to the Rose Bowl, which has one of the best fireworks shows in town. To see pictures of the venue, go to our wedding website .
Today I finished my second 10k run, the Run Against Pain, with a personal best of 57:31. That means a race pace of about a 9 minute mile. I accomplished my goal to break my previous finish time of one hour. I am proud of myself. It was also nice to have Gary and his school mates walk the 5k and cheer me on.
Today is the last day I will be keeping Kosher for Passover. Traditionally this means eating unleavend bread. This usually refers to things made with wheat, barley, spelt, oats, and rye which came into contact with water and ferments. Most authorities say that this condition takes place after 18 minutes have elapsed since the contact with water. Examples include bread, noodles, spaghetti, custard, cereals, beer and all malt products (which includes whiskey!). Many Askenazi Jews (from Eastern European descent) refrain from eating legumes (beans, corn, peas, lentils, and rice). But not me, there has to be something left to eat besides matzah. Usually this mean quite a bit of Chinese and Mexican food during passover.
I jogged just over 7 miles today, a new personal record! I think it was during the only two hours it did not rain today. I probably got the energy pent up from not doing the triathlon yesterday.
It's raining and I am so bummed. Today I was supposed to compete in my second half triathlon. The whole week I've been getting ready and psyching myself up. My first triathlong last month was really fun. I was looking forward to doing another one. But no, somethings are out of our control. I'm so disappointed. Damn rain.
My brother, Ari, told me about this neat game he learned how to play this weekend called Geocaching. It is basically high tech scavenger hunting. If you have a global positioning systems (GPS) unit and web acess, then you can play. Ari found his first cache after hiking in San Diego. Sounds like fun if you are into high tech gadgets.
This weekend flew by. Every evening we were out with Gary's friends from Sac State. My favorite was a birthday sushi party. Gary's friend Jessica had all the accoutrements and some rolling experience. I'd never made my own sushi before. At first it was pretty tough, my initial roll was too big and wouldn't stay together. But by my third try, it worked. Of course by then I was too full to eat any more. But what a great idea for a party!
I know many of you have already seen mine and Gary's wedding website. If you haven't visited lately, be sure to check out the new message board. It allows you to post comments as well as responding to other's posts. It takes a bit of work at first, you have to register and enter in a password that is emailed to you. I am hopeful this will be better than your average guest book, but only if our friends and family participate. So sign on today.
If you enjoy making fun of the goverment, you'll love this very funny mockery of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's recommendations for terrorism preparedness.
I'm not sure how effective this will be, but apparently you can add your phone number to the Attourney General's do not call list. This will prevent telemarketers from calling. Organized by the federal trade comission, this list is supposed to go into effect October 2003.
But beware bogus lists. Some scam artists have been taking money from folks and promising to add their name to the list, which they then turn around and sell to telemarketers.