This morning, as I was getting ready to re-launch Caspar World, Brooke googled it and we found this! Who knew there was a party totally dedicated to celebrating me! And I missed it!
Next year, I’m there. Anybody wanna come along?
Update: CasparFest 2012 will be held on August 11-12.
We’ve sent the kid to Catholic school this year. The short explanation is that we thought the small class size would be good for him. Of course, at Catholic school he gets religion added to the list of courses. We knew this. And we thought we were ok with it at the time.
But the child of two seminary-educated members of the clergy is getting a B in religion.
Yesterday this came home in his pack of paperwork:
We’re not objecting to a half a point off for this answer. But we thought that the interpretation was spot on, and the half point should have rather been taken off for spelling.
Anyway, after discussing it, the kid now has an even healthier dose of “question authority” which, I’m guessing, will result in an even lower religion grade next term.
The greater concern, though, is the way education is still geared to churn out obedient little drones to “do what whoever is in charge of you says.” Holy shit! No wonder the country is in such shambles! No wonder the church is in such shambles! Why aren’t schools teaching kids to think for themselves?
For Christmas I’m going to have to get his teacher a copy of The Element
Our friend Regina came up again last night for dinner and a hike this morning. We had a recommendation from the local folk about Copperas Pond. So this morning we packed up and went out to find it. There was some light snow on the ground from earlier in the week, but it didn’t amount to any more than an inch. The trail follows along some stream beds in several areas, making it a little slippery in spots, but still not enough to need anything more than a good pair of hiking boots. We couldn’t have asked for better weather, with bright sun and temperatures in the low 30s.
The trail-head is on Route 86 about half way between Wilmington and Lake Placid, just on the Lake Placid side of High Peaks Gorge. There are actually two trailheads, the one closest Wilmington gets you to Copperas Pond first, the one closest Lake Placid will get you to Owen Pond first. Both are on the right side of the road as you’re coming from Lake Placid, with pull-offs for parking on the left side.
When we arrived and saw that there were three ponds in such close proximity, we decided that we’d better visit them all. The whole hike with stops at all three ponds was about 3.5 miles and took us just a little over 2.5 hours, going at a very relaxed pace with time to stop and appreciate the views at each pond. The rise is about 175 feet to Copperas Pond, most of which you’ll cover in the first .2 miles right off the trail-head. Between Copperas and Own there’s a bump that is perhaps 50-75 feet up and then back down again. If you go the way we did, doubling back once we reached Owen, you’ll do that bump twice, so add another 100 feet of actual uphill time even though you won’t be seeing any spectacular mountain vistas on this little jaunt.
For campers, there are also camp clearings, two of them that we saw around Copperas Pond as we passed through.
The main trail runs from either trail-head to and between Copperas and Owen, and is marked with blue dots. The Wynch Pond trail appears to be very new, with yellow dot trail markers that intersect the main blue trail. From the Copperas end trail-head, the trail ascends along a creek bed up to a ridge. This is the steepest part of the climb, and you’ll put nearly all of the 175 ft rise behind you right away. At the top of the ridge, you’ll find the Wynch trail forking to the left. The shortest route if you want to do all three ponds is to take the Wynch (yellow) trail. It’ll lead you along an easy .5 miles to a T intersection. Wynch is to your left, and then coming back past the intersection, continue straight on to rejoin the blue trail at Copperas Pond, another easy and nearly level .6 mile walk in the woods. When the path emerges at Copperas, taking the trail left gets you over the bump to Owen. To the right takes you along a beautiful little path around the side of the pond and then back down to the road.
Our 3.5 mile walk took us to Copperas first, but if you take the yellow Wynch trail first, you’ll knock a couple tenths of a mile off your trip.
So, here are the panoramic views at each of our stops (click on them to see them full-size):
Copperas Pond (from the east side looking west)
Owen Pond Panoramic (looking southeast)
Wynch Pond Panoramic (where the trail ends, looking northeast)
And, here’s the video:
Last month we spent our second Thanksgiving in Puerto Rico. Since we planned farther ahead this year, we got a little over a week’s stay for the same price as last year’s 4 days. It was glorious.
This year we rented a car so we could explore a little more. So we spent several evenings in Old San Juan, and took a drive to the other end of the island (that would be the west end) looking for a beach that we never did find. But we had a good time seeing seaside through one car window and mountains through the other simultaneously. And, since we needed to stop for lunch, we got to experience Puerto Rican shopping on Black Friday.
The mountain and ocean views we recommend. The shopping on Black Friday, not so much. And Puerto Ricans may be even worse drivers than Brazilians, so we don’t recommend taking unnecessary road trips either.
This year we were also able to visit the forts in San Juan. Whereas last year at age 6-almost-7 the kid didn’t really care, this year at age 7-almost-8 he really loved these. The forts are national parks, so we got him a park ranger hat at the gift shop and he took us on a “personal guided tour.” He said at the time that he wanted to be a park ranger when he grows up. Which was just fine with us.
Besides that, we got to spend plenty of time at the beach while the snow fell in Jay. It made us feel more like we got our money’s worth to know that it was snowing back home, even though by the time we flew back into Burlington it had all melted.
When we tell people we’ve been going to PR for Thanksgiving, they often ask about thanksgiving dinner. But we had a week of Thanksgiving dinners. Add to your list of “don’t miss this” places to eat in San Juan Raíces (for those reading in libraries, this link has sound) in Old San Juan. They’ve got a mofongo that is to die for.
It used to be that every year, we’d raise a glass to toast, “Next year in Savannah!” And sometime we’d still like to spend some time there, too. We’ve started considering whether to stay with what we know is a great thing and spend next year in Puerto Rico again, or if we’re adventurous enough to try someplace new. Savannah, perhaps. Or Hawaii.
We have basically three criteria:
People speaking English, Spanish and/or Portuguese is also a bonus.
Any suggestions?
When we moved to Jay for Brooke’s assignment, we got these pedometers as part of the company health plan. It’s administered by Virgin Health Miles.
So I’ve been working the pedometer plan. I’m on level 2, chugging along toward level 3. I’ve got about 3400 “HealthMiles” to go to get there and bag my next $25 “HealthBucks” reward.
Yesterday, we got the following email:
We know you’re busy preparing for Advent and Christmas, but we wanted to remind you about the changes in your HealthMiles rewards program coming in January.
Beginning January 5, 2012:
The current “5-level” program will be replaced with a new HealthMiles target and reward every three months. Each season you’ll receive a new HealthMiles goal designed to help you reach your personal best – plus the opportunity to earn rewards to boot.
With a little more than a month before you receive your next target, remember to rack up as many steps as you can. And don’t forget to upload your pedometer by 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, January 4th to get credit for all of your steps.
To help you count down to the new Virgin HealthMiles program, we will reset your anniversary date to January 4th this week, so you’ll see exactly how many days you have left to earn your final levels HealthMiles.
Login to your VHM account or visit the HealthFlex/WebMD page for Frequently Asked Questions about the new program.
We hope the new Virgin HeathMiles program will challenge you to reach new heights of activity and wellness. Stay tuned for more details!
Best,
Shocking, really. So unlike a health management company to change the rules in the middle of the game to avoid paying out their end of a bargain. And how generous of them to “remind” me of changes that they’re announcing out of the blue for the first time barely 30 days in advance.
Under the current arrangement, I can get a maximum of 100 HealthMiles per day – by walking about 10 miles. It’s not that hard to figure that with just over 3400 HealthMiles to go and 34 days I’d have to get that full 100 HealthMiles every day without fail between now and January 4 to make my “next target.” Not likely. So, this morning I took the pedometer off and dropped it in the crap drawer.
Maybe on January 5, when the new target and reward is announced, I’ll get it out again. Maybe. Because I’m not overly confident that they won’t change the rules in the middle of the game again. Something about “fool me twice.”
 Caspar World by Caspar Green is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at CasparWorld.net. |
Crayons and CasparWorld background by Caspar and Silas. | Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha |
