Interesting people

On top of the interesting people I met while in Cincinnati, on the way to and from and in Denver I met several interesting people. Jiexia (pictured above) is a first-year sociology professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where my former colleague Gina is one of her colleagues. Somehow I was sitting next to Jiexia on BOTH my flight from Cincinnato to Denver, and on the flight back. Jiexia got me to tell the story of my Korean grandfather, Harabaji, and then told me about her own grandfather, a hero of the Chinese Revolution whose humiliation during the Cultural Revolution was so thorough that his wife, Jiexia's grandmother died. On the bus trip from the Denver airport to downtown Thursday night, I met Mark, a grad student for whom I pulled out my laptop to see he could help me with some of the regression analysis for my presentation later at the conference. Finally, I met two interesting Eastern European women. A night clerk at the hotel printed and made 25 copies of my 8-page presentation handout. She had moved to Denver some 10 years ago from Croatia, in the aftermath of the war in the former Yugoslavia. Another Eastern European woman I met was Olga, a sociologist from the former Soviet republic of Belarus, who was trying to introduce congregational studies to her country (via some training at the University of Texas at Austin, where Jiexia had also studied.

-- Perry

Zombie walk

A week ago Saturday night in Denver, I more or less happened upon this event. Thousands of - mainly young people - descended upon downtown Denver's 16th Street outdoor mall and environs, clad in all manner of outrageous zombie outfits, those undead creatures from such recent movies as "I Am Legend" and "Zombieland." Unfortunately, with my new camera, I took no video, and so didn't get the many kids with the halting zombie gait, growling "Brainzzz" (apparently zombies' favorite food), or the occasional time a group of them would chase oen of their friends or hapless passerbys (yikes!).

Below is something like an alien zombie.

And below - a zombie couple outside of Taco Bell!

Two zombie victims (?). At one point the Ghostbusters stationwagon drove by. The one bus line that sends buses up and down 16th Street actually had police escorts - police cars cruising in front of the buses.

These two young women - zombie victims? - stayed perfectly still throughout the whole time I could see them.

This young zombie was apparently eating through a victim's neck to get to the victim's brainzzz (yech!).

The zombie bride outfit was one of the favorite costumes.

I looked out for a slice of pizza and finally wound up on Market Street, where I had to wait quite a while for them to make slice to order - after making whole pizzas that came before it. There were a number of zombies in there, and so I was essentially having a slice of zombie pizza!

-- Perry

A tale of two cities

On the left, above, is the Duke Energy Center, home of an anime convention Vincent attended several years ago and home of lunch and the exhibit hall for the Mission Celebration (of which the Guatemala Mission and Amigos de K'eckhi were part). Below, down Elm Street, is Riverfront Stadium, where the Bengals crushed the Bears later that weekend (on Sunday).



Below - looking up the 16th Street mall in Denver. It turns out that Mom was in Denver in fall 2001 for a conference, and she (then) and I both out at the same subway resturant.



The clock tower is near the corner of the 16th street mall and another street (just around the corner from our hotel).

At the far end from my hotel was a melange of government buildings and parks . . .

. . . including the Colorado state capitol building.

-- Perry

October animals

Fall in St. Matthews

Up and down

It’s been an up and down few weeks. I celebrated a birthday twice, neither on the exact day. On Saturday as it turns out Stephanie and I only traveled to New Albany’s packed Harvest Homecoming festival and Huber Farms for pumpkin picking and an early dinner at the restaurant and then back home with Vincent for a stunning Columbus Day cake (above - the "Santa Maria," not a pirate ship) and a new stereo (further below).

In between Huber and cake I – thanks to Mom – got the camera that took these pictures but then backed up Stephanie’s car into our neighbor’s parked car. Although our rates may go up, insurance apparently is covering this. Causing some anxiety, I talked with one of the neighbors the next morning, after leaving them a note the night before. Making me feel worse was the fact that the couple was expecting a baby within a month. (Pictured below is their house, sans car.)

On Tuesday my colleagues helped me celebrate my birthday again (this time a day late).

Many folks in Kentuckiana – including kids we know with H1N1 and then Stephanie and Vincent – have been sick. Vincent has kept his job – moving from days to nights, finally buying a discounted costume (“Freddie” from “Nightmare on Elm Street”?) (pictured below) and wearing it each day to work, ostensibly joining a rock band, and turning in a draft final paper for his English class (for very slow progress). More recently, a one-time Brown friend who Vincent started hung out with last fall has joined him there (adding to other friends he's made anew there).

Both Stephanie and I have had trouble with colleagues at work – Stephanie with another teacher, and me with administrative assistants when all of the other professionals were away – and have faced managers not backing us up to varying degrees. These problems came during times that were stressful at work for other reasons: Stephanie suddenly started tutoring and leading Culture Club after school, teaching Read 180 and had the new school district superintendent visit her school and her classroom. (Pictured below is Stephanie with an early book she shared with her Culture Club students, as they began talking about Native American cultural groups.) I’ve been leading a very challenging survey project for our World Mission unit and facing other Presbyterian Panel deadlines (some management-imposed). During the same time – working with colleague Ida when she was around – I’ve been trying desperately to develop materials for a late October presentation on congregational growth at the Religious Research Association meeting in Denver.

I’ve been leading a very challenging survey project for our World Mission unit and facing other Presbyterian Panel deadlines (some management-imposed). During the same time – working with colleague Ida when she was around – I’ve been trying desperately to develop materials for a late October presentation on congregational growth at the Religious Research Association meeting in Denver.

And no time for blogging.

P.S. For the first time ever, Monday afternoon an official person came to observe Stephanie's tutoring and Culture Club. Tuesday morning Stephanie’s troubles with colleagues may come to a head with a meeting scheduled with half a dozen teachers and administrators. Pray for Stephanie to stand up for herself but diplomatically and for a peaceful but just resolution to differences.

-- Perry

New beginnings

Today is the first day of 21st Century program afterschool activities at Stephanie’s school, with Stephanie tutoring half a dozen kids for an hour after school and then leading the first of her (weekly?) Culture Club activities. Registration, you might recall, was last week. You might also recall that – like some of new drop-in/pull-out school-day activities – this involves Stephanie working with English as a new language students and other students. Today is an introductory day in Culture Club, with no single country in focus. This all assumes Stephanie's school stays open, since dozens of students and several teachers were out - or left mid-day - Friday, because of flu-like symptoms - some of them probably with H1H1. The school district seems to have something like an 80 percent threshhold for this sort of thing. If less than 80 percent of students are there - because of illness - the school closes.

Today is the middle of three work days in which I am apparently the lead person left in our office – with my three senior colleagues and another professional colleague out – and with the deadline for a big project I – and now we all – have been working on looming tomorrow. Some of the administrative assistants have been even more cooperative than others, and we’ll see who shows up for a staff meeting I called for 9:15 a.m. Today will be a test not only of my leadership skills (imagine for example that in 15 years I really was a manager) (this reminds me a tiny bit of teaching) but also of my technical skills. With my former turtlesitter, senior colleague – and our database manager – Ida out and able to finish a little less than she hoped she would before she left – and with less good wireless Internet access on vacation than we had hoped – I’m getting stucked running more SPSS than usual. This is good in some ways – I was able to do some runs for a presentation Ida and I are supposed to do in a couple of weeks in Denver on my own – but it also means if things go wrong this afternoon with deadlines looming, there’s no one to bail me out.

In other new beginnings: Mom continues to self-administer her new medication - starting mid-week last week - and Nancy has shared with us by Facebook pictures of her newly renovating downstairs.

- Perry

Early October weekend

For the past three years, this was the weekend that the Danish exchange students arrived - and then there was a five-day weekend - but we're done with Danish exchange students, Vincent is not at Brown, and the exchange program is no longer. We've often gone to New Albany (IN)'s Harvest Homecoming Parade and Huber Farms on Saturday (and I've sometimes gone after work to Old Louisville's St. James Court Art Show Friday). We ended up not making it up for the parade but Stephanie and I did go to the art show Saturday afternoon. Stephanie asked me not to post the pictures of her eating, but there's a picture of the famous St. James Court fountain during our visit above and a scene of an artists' alley below. The art show was packed! I can see why I often go late Friday afternoon. Cool, fall weather has descended upon us. Although it rained some Friday morning - which no doubt complicated things - it's been clear since.

Next we picked up Vincent and headed to the KY Seminole Club viewing of the Florida State-Boston College game. With the recent losses, the crowds have dwindled - and some die hard members were actually in Boston for the game - but we hung around almost to the end, when a would-be turnover turned out to be for not and BC was able to run out the end of the game. A questionable call and a blown interception also punctuated the parts of the game we saw. We had too much food and Vincent took turns playing us in pool (where we meet for game viewing pictured below). The Buckeyes beat Indiana, which of course some of Stephanie's colleagues root for, but Louisville and Kentucky lost this weekend.

On the way home we stopped at Choi's Korean market (below) - in Linden, just a block from Pizza by the Guy, and some 3/4 of a mile from the Corner Cafe, where we celebrated Sarah's birthday the previous evening.

Stephanie - feeling somewhat better - and I - ailing - spent a decent amount of time at church today. I helped represent veteran members at a smallish potential new members' class - and then I said "Korea" in a World Communion Sunday opening celebration of where we're all from. This was a good service, complete with everyone in a circle at the end and cool music with Brad on percussion, Doug on the flute, and Kendra on the tambura) during the Lord's Supper: http://www.dougyeager.com/samples/DougYeagerCHPCWorldCommunion.mp3. Then at 4 p.m. Stephanie (for the first time this school year) and I were back - this time with Anna and Dawn - for Children's fellowship - sans "Debbie time" - the Children's choir part of it - because Lewis, Debbie, and Jessi went to Evansville after church. In the regime we've moved Children's Fellowship from Wednesday 6-8 to Sunday 4-5 and our seminary student intern, Rebecca (child of former Crescent Hill pastors) is leading it. Stephanie has been sick and two weeks ago we had just the two of us (Rebecca and I) and some 12-13 kids. This week we had nine kinds and four adults (much better)! After church I had noticed the church sign with a long-awaited new interior (below).

There's Rebecca, with Naomi (from New Albany) on her right, and Cara on her left.

Oden, Ethan, and Dawn attacked an art project.

I decided to skip a Southern Indiana United for Change gathering at 5 p.m. in Jeffersonville because I had started to feel sick (and now have a fever).

-- Perry

Happy birthday, Sarah!

For - I think - the third year in a row we got to help our friend Sarah celebrate her birthday. For the 2nd year in a row we were at the Corner Cafe in Linden, near Sarah's Y. Sarah is always incorporating new people into her circle, and this year there were a number of people from the Y and Sarah's new salsa dance class, which turns out to be in town right near where the church where we're doing the English as a foreign language ministry. We were just about the last of some dozen plus people there to arrive (sans birthday present, but with a card). Below Stephanie shares a laugh with Sarah's friend Sara, with whom we've rollar skated and who we're Facebook friends with.




Below is Sara's husband Jonathan, who's talked with Vincent (who was elsewhere at a movie) before.

Below is one friend of Sarah who left early.

Like last year, Sarah put on her de facto cruise party director hat and engaged us in party games. Dennis and I - who had not met before - tagged a variety of colored M and Ms with quetions and discussed things in the questions like our pets and funny times with Sarah. Dennis is a Southern (Baptist) Seminary student who is from Wisconsin - and has 10 brothers and sisters!

Julia (sitting) and Sara (standing) helped Sarah (sitting, right) arrange the party, and Sara brought carrot cakes (I confess, I had two pieces). My camera is acting up and has no video capacity so there are not videos this year - and us singing "Happy Birthday" to Sarah, of her blowing out the candles, or of her and Wayne demonstrating salsa dancing.

But, with some effort, Sarah did blow out all of the candles - on BOTH of her cakes!

Another red-headed friend of Sarah stopped by before leaving a little before we did. Julia, Sarah, Stephanie, Sara, Jonathan, and I stayed on until the restaurant was closing. I didn't get a good picture of Dean, who was also there.

Happy birthday!

-- Perry

Interesting Thursday

In the midst of a very busy end of the week at work with the deadline for a big project and the departure of many of my colleagues looming, I took time to do a few unusual things. Several weeks ago a former Swarthmore College classmate who I had only talked with about 10 years for a college reunion called out of the blue from Seattle, where he lives, and said he is a "foodie" who was going to be going on a food tour of Kentucky. In fact, on the way from Seattle to St. Louis, to help organize Farm Aid, who was flying into Louisville to drive through Kentucky on the way to St. Louis. First on his list of food things to do was to have a Louisville special - a "hot brown" - I think Stephanie has blogged about this before - at the Brown Hotel (a signature downtown Louisville hotel featured in the movie "Elizabethtown" and on the downtown Louisville ghost tour that we've been on). And so - a little late, in the midst of all of this busy-ness - Zach and I did meet at the coffee shop in the hotel and he had a hot brown and I - more nervous about my calories - had a falafel sandwich. Then he was off to the other downtown hotel and then to somewhere in Central Kentucky for the evening. Zack is pictured at the hotel above. Click here to see his food blog: http://freshgroundpepper.wordpress.com/

By the time I got back to work, we were just about ready for really the second birthday party for my manager, Jack. You'll recall that we had ice cream and blindfolds last week. This week Ida helped organize a 1950s adn 1960s themed birthday party for Jack, who was born in 1949 and turning 60. Jack had deliberately told her not to ham it up - so no "60 is Sexy" sign on the building front door as with another colleague - but colleagues made cakes and cupcakes, I wore jeans and a white T shirt and a baseball jacket and brought Beatles CDs and a boom box, Joelle ran a 1950s and 1960s Toastmasters-style "Tables Topics" extemperaneous speaking activity that four of our colleagues did pretty well at - and some other 1949, etc. - themed touches. Below Susan takes pictures of us on an instant picture Polaroid - invented in 1949 - while Ida and Hilary cut and distribute the cake and birthday boy Jack sits at the end.



After work I went late to do health care reform phone-banking in New Albany and on the way stopped by the neighborhood where Stephanie had found the house for sale on the Web (after I had foudn another hosue for sale last weekend). I found three others for sale before finding the one below, and it is cute/interesting, but we can't afford it.

I only called for half an hour but got several people to commit to calling and e-mailing Senator Bayh and/or Congressman Hill. I left early to get home by 8 p.m. and walk the dog, but had ended up leaving something there and I had to drive back to the home of the volunteer organizer (Bruce) in Louisville's Germantown neighborhood (near Vincent's ex's family's home - blast from the past) and chatted with him (including more about real estate). Not a dull day.

-- Perry