bkdelong

So there appears to be an outbreak of Norovirus going around - from at least two parties in the Boston area this past weekend. Given there's another large one this weekend, I wanted to post this. I wish you the best and hope those of you ill heal well. If you have read about someone on your Friends List who has a confirmed diagnosis and got ill yourself, please read the CDC FAQ and educate yourself:

• This is a foodborn illness.


• People with norovirus are contagious from the moment they begin feeling ill to at least 3 days [past when symptoms subside]


• Norovirus can spread rapidly in closed environments like daycare centers [and indoor parties].


• Contamination vectors include: Eating food or drinking liquids that have been contaminated, touching contaminated surfaces or objects then touching your mouth, and having direct contact with an infected person through caring for, sharing utensils, food or drink with them.


• Prevention: Wash hands with soap and water while potentially supplementing (not replacing) with a hand sanitizer that contains at least 62% ethanol solution, washing all fruits & vegatables and not letting anyone who shows symptoms prepare food for others until at least 3 days after better, clean all household surfaces with bleach-based cleaner or one made with 5-25 tablespoons of household bleach per 1gal of water and immediately launder any clothes that could have infected biological material on them at the maximum length washer cycle with detergent while machine-drying them.

If you have gotten a diagnosis or were confirmed at the same location as someone who was and got ill yourself, perhaps submit an anonymous report to HealthMap (a joint project by Harvard, BU, MIT and other researchers funded in part by Google) and PLEASE encourage others to do the same.

They also have an iPhone and Android app. Be sure to state in your note whether you had a CONFIRMED diagnosis by a doctor or whether you got sick with a gastro-intestinal "bug" and were at a party with someone who received a confirmed diagnosis. We don't want to skew the statistics here with the telephone game.

This is apparently spreading around Eastern MA but I'm not seeing the vectors. If someone at work, or you know someone with a child who may have been ill..it might be worth mentioning to those folks what's going on.

Take the above-mentioned precautions, be sure you've recovered for at least 3 days prior to attending any public events, and most of all - get better, feel better and be well.

For those of you attending parties, simply follow the precautions and you should be fine.

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Yes, I think I would eliminate the concept of Valentine's Day if only I could supplant it with the concept that a single, commercialized holiday should not be the only day out of the year to let your best friends, family and lovers know how extra-special you feel about them. They should know this through regular communication and unexpected surprises throughout the year - even if you pick some other random day or two annually to do something out-of-the-ordinary that shows forward-thinking, careful thought, sentimentality, and how much you care.

All Valentine's Day does (besides boost the revenues of the candy, greeting card, and floral industries) is not only set unrealistic expectations for relationships but it also often brings them out into the light if one partner does not get what they were expecting. It also takes those not in a relationship and perpetuates a set of ideals that aren't necessarily healthy when looking for a sustainable long-term relationship.

Being an emotionally-intuitive person who relies heavily on observation of interaction, semantics, body-language, facial-expression and action you can truly learn a lot by watching what is being said vs what someone's facial expression and body language is saying as well as what they end up doing. You learn a lot about what someone really wants verses what they claim is acceptable.

(Unfortunately, this doesn't always work for me personally as part of the challenge with having strong empathy is it clouds logic and reason so when it comes to something personal, I lose my own abilities to parse...working on that.)

That being said, I've always made an effort when a friend is lonely, depressed, having relationship challenges, struggles seeking someone out or just wants to vent a bit - to be there to listen, to hold space, to siphon off the burden of negative energy that is consuming a bit of their soul and their being so they can feel a little more weightless and a little more functional.

I think when not engaged in my own activities, Valentine's Day seems as good a day as any to make an extra effort - if you want to chat, message me on Livejournal/Facebook, the myriad of IM services listed in my profile, email or SMS via my cell. Let me know if you'd like to talk voice - that's limited during day hours and somewhat in the evening.

I don't have any special training I'm not a psychologist or have any experience as a mediator. I don't claim to be better than anyone else at anything but I seem to have a bit of a knack for fostering a safe environment for allowing people to open up and purge a bit of what's eating them up. If I can do that, why not.

Happy Valentine's Day - let's change the meaning of this sterile, day of consumerism and get a little healthy healing on.

I did this last year and I'll do it again. This year I'm doing more preemptive reciprocity and giving friends and those dear to me their own Valentinr notes where I see them.

So however you feel, even if it's just an elementary school Batman & Robin "I'm glad you're my partner in crimefighting", (yes, yes...oh the double-entendres), feel free to pass one my way and I will do the same if I see it.

Egotistical? Attention-seeking? Perhaps. But in soliciting I also find out if you have one as well and I like giving back more than I receive.

So an early Happy Valentine's Day to you:


Get your own valentinr

An awesome, awesome show.

Handsome Chuck put together an amazing performance at Oberon with the Boston Circus Guild last night through the "Bohemian Bacchanalia".

With no words and quiet aplomb, he sax-blasted his way throughout the audience and on tables all night, keeping the ever-lively and stomping Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band (ENSMB) rocking their fans throughout the night. Johnny Blazes as MC wryly kept things moving from act to act with salacious naughtiness donning both sultry and Bleach-esque outfits - yes, Steampunk + glitter works! It IS the metal!

All of the acts were really a feast for the eyes. T'was truly difficult to pick which I liked best- I think the 3 aerialist performances were most breathtaking but "A Different Spin" really was a lot of fun. The second routine by "Rogue Burlesque" using Oingo Boingo's "Weird Science" brought me back to the 80s in a bemused way and the Vadalna Tribal Dance Company's second act (I missed the first) was mesmerizing.

Then again, anyone who saw me might have noticed I was a little...into the music and dancing quite a lot. I have this...body/music intuition and once I feel it I get a bit hypnotized.My mind tries to pick out all the trace strands of melody, harmony and percussion from each of the instruments, moving the entirety of my body to all of it in synchronicity and it is a challenge to break me from the trance. Once I managed to procure a bottle of water, it was well-used (though rationed).

All in all a great and absolutely wonderful time. I can't wait for the next show - if you missed it, are local and any of the above sounds intriguing or interesting, for $15 you should truly be asking yourselves why you missed it and be sure to be at the next one.

All these groups have Facebook Pages so just "Like" them and you'll receive occasional event invites (if you want) to be alerted and some of them have email lists as well.

Just had an incredibly vivid dream on the coming together of two family traditions - one taught to a child through blood by their Granny (Aching to know who it was but she had a vibe) & the other tradition taught by the family "help" who appeared to be decended from Africa or some sort of non-white, African aboriginal-blooded slaves (e.g. whether the SLAVES came from Haiti or Jamaica, their decendants were of Africa).


At the end, Granny wanted to learn the ways of "Fred" and what I gathered were his wife and mother. I remember there was a spitting on her left hand and holding it out as well as commentary by my partner of "Well, they're family now...we have to decide how much to let them into our lives,".

Intense - no real reading or listening to any books or anything of substance before bed. Very curious where this came from.

I do remember looking up at the moon at about 4:15am seeing it 3/4 elipsed and having a quiet, private, reflective moment in the chilled air before going inside and up to bed - acknowledging the eclipse, the full moon, retrograde and the "dancing" of Winter and Summer at the Solstice. So to speak.

Ah, the human mind.

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I'd definitely suffer a degree of withdrawal. Plus I sit in front of a computer all day working on it so while I could take a week's vacation, I wouldn't necessarily want to do so without some access to Net or a mobile for looking up dinner places, dinner plans etc. So I'd probably want to be compensated for a week worth of work pay.

I was reading up on the various remembrance of George Parks on Facebook and came across one of the infamous 1986 Harvard game when the band "charged" the field after they were told they'd get arrested if they'd play during halftime. Some said they saw the first-year football coach at the time, Jim Reid (later coach of the Miami Dolphins, now current Associate Coach & Defensive Coordinator for the University of Virginia Cavaliers) seem a bit dejected prior to the incident and then use the band's chutzpah to encourage the team to go out and kick some butt.

Being the people-finding researcher I am, I reached out to Jim, asked if he heard of Mr. Parks' passing and wondered if he'd share his side of the story while we were all in a reminiscing frame of mind.

So here it is, from former UMass football Coach Jim Reid in his own words:

First, the story of the UMass vs Harvard game, November 8, 1986 in Cambridge, MA -

"George was angry that the police wouldn't let him on the field. I think my exact quote was:

'F**k them George! Run right through them!'

I really didn't think that he would do it but he did. Then I did, in fact, tell our team that the band just ran right over the police and if they tried to arrest George (and the band) we would all fight them. They were all fired up; we went out and kicked their butts. "

(Editor's Note: UMass won 17-7. This story is also told by various people on Pgs. 156-157 of "Through These Doors: The History of the UMMB, 1863 - 2003" by Kerstin Becker)

---

"But a better story (which I have not told to many people) occurred during the 1990 season.

November, 10, 1990: It was raining heavily during the Villanova game - in fact it had rained heavily all Friday night. We were leading 3-0 at the half. If we won that game we would be Yankee Conference Champions.

As I walked out of the stadium at half-time I saw George. He was angry so I asked him what was wrong. He told me that the administration wouldn't let him on the field.

I said, "Of course not, George, that field would turn into a quagmire if you guys got on it."

I thought about it for a minute then ran back to him and said 'Get that damn band out there and march around as long as you can.'

Honestly, I was shocked when I came back on the field. It was 10" of mud. Nobody scored in the second half and we won the Championship. George and the famous UMass Marching Band was the key factor. Of course, I denied to everyone anyone that I ever told George to take the band on the field.

I have told Andy Talley, Head Coach of Villanova for 20 years, I had nothing to do with the UMass Band going on the field. He may find out now [but considering the circumstances], I think that will be OK.

I loved both those men - both George Parks and Gerry Grady [NB: Grady passed on 9/2/2010]. Both great, great, great men!!!"

(Editor's Note: The New York Times covers that game very briefly here:

Hofstra Will Face Cortland State
by William N Wallace
November 12, 1990

...

UMass in Playoffs

...

The East has another playoff team in Massachusetts, the Yankee Conference champion, but the outlook for bowl-game invitations dimmed for Syracuse, which lost to Tulane on Saturday, and Army, defeated by Air Force. Penn State, which next plays Notre Dame, is the only viable Eastern bowl candidate.

...


UMass, a 3-0 victor over Villanova in the mud at Amherst, clinched the Yankee Conference title for the third time in five years and became the first outright champion since 1985 even with one game left, against New Hampshire.

The Minutemen thus gained the automatic bid for the 16-team Division I-AA tournament, which begins Nov. 24. This team, which survived the loss of its quarterback, Gary Wilkos -- injured in the sixth game -- has an 8-0-1 record, the tie coming against Holy Cross in the opening game, Sept. 8.)

Social Networking startup looking for freelance PHP, MySQL, & AJAX coder that's fast, reliable, and currently available to work on a unique project to architect a system where people can share "short stories" within the site's community and/or with a select group of "Friends" or contacts that they follow in the site's network.

Each "story" would be open to "reviews" and contributing to a set of statistics based on words that appear in the stories on the site. Ability to link user accounts with Facebook IDs through Facebook Connect or the Facebook API is key.

This would be a two-phase project ideally lasting no longer than 2 months. Phase One would net result in a $2000-$3000 payout depending on experience or arrangement made prior to work commencing. (The more fast and proficient the coder, the higher the rate of pay for the less time it takes to complete required tasks and milestones.)

This project can guarantee a degree of fun and prestige, despite the vagueness in description, the founders (coming from acclaimed Harry Potter fansites "MuggleNet and "The Leaky Cauldron") are assured that the idea in its entirety is presently unique. They're looking for someone to help get it off the ground and, ideally, an architect who would stay on an as-needed, contractual basis to keep it running as necessary.

Contact john@essentialhype.com with a resume, portfolio or examples of previous work and references. If lacking any of those, email what you've got and they'll make a decision based on that.

In my quest to find "Non-Vampire/Werewolf" fiction which seems to be clogging the "urban fantasy" genre these days, I stumbled across L. Jagi Lamplighter's "Prospero's Daughter" series. I don't remember seeing a recommendation to either the author or book(s) in my Livejournal post or its Facebook counterpart. I'm wondering if someone IM'd it to me or mentioned it in passing. If you did, please remind me - I am grateful and have stayed up late several nights reading because of it.

What is wholly ironic about my love for this series (and given my recent involvement in theatre circles and the extremely intelligent, well-read friends I am surrounded by) is that...and this is very hard and rather embarrassing to admit....I am not well-versed in Shakespeare. I have not read The Tempest and, in fact, have not really read most of his works with the exception of some high school prerequisites. It's not that I wouldn't want to, per se, it's just that given my learning challenges throughout secondary school and college, I've never had the attention span for the Bard's prose. It's beautiful, flowing poetry and I can read out loud well - strong in accent, emotion and purposeful rhythmic meter. I just never got around to it - along with many other tomes deemed traditional classics of hardcore, long-time readers.

So...the series.

"Prospero Lost" and "Prospero in Hell", written by L. Jagi Lamplighter is about Miranda Prospero, (famed daughter of the Dread Magician Prospero) who is present-day CEO of Prospero Inc., a corporation known for both its mundane and magical contracts. The latter involves Stygian-sworn contracts with several of the worlds magical beings who control the various elements to not cause natural disasters in exchange for some sort of agreed upon form of remuneration. The company (and family) are also served by the Aerie Ones - incarnations of the various elemental winds of the Earth - including Ariel whom the elder Prospero freed from the witch Sycorax (NB: Had a hard time NOT picturing the Doctor Who aliens of the same name every time I read that name. Thanks, RTD).

The elder Prospero has retired away to his island on which the famed events of The Tempest occurred but he has not been seen or heard from for months. The dutiful Miranda sends off a Aerie servant to seek him on his island and is presented with one of his journals containing a secret message urging her to warn her siblings of impending doom from the depths of Hell.

Yes, that's right. Miranda has 8 siblings - Mephisto, Theo, Erasmus, Cornelius, Titus, Logistilla, Gregor, and Ulysses - each sired over the hundreds of years the Prosperos have lived, surviving on a magical substance known as the Water of Life, which can only be retrieved at a Well at the Edge of the World. Each sibling also wields a staff made by their father of fantastic magical power which they've used for various means over the centuries. Early on they were all working together as a family - but over the last century or so, several have disappeared or gone on their own and sold their stock in the family company leaving only Miranda and Cornelius as the sole stockholders.

Miranda, along with an Aerie servant and Prospero Inc's "greatest detective" named "Mab" (incarnated in a human body made to look like a '40s Humphrey Bogart) head off to seek out her siblings and warn them of this danger which quickly becomes all-too-real. What Miranda thought was the truth quickly becomes convoluted, twisted and finally she learns were a series of falsehoods stacked upon lies jumping from "Prospero Lost" to "Prospero in Hell" as the various machinations of said darkness below have worked to tear the family apart. As Miranda finds each one and learns a little more, the puzzle just gets bigger - not necessarily more whole.

We see what was based on Shakespeare's tale expanded and crossed with deep Christian mythos, creatures of the Fey, Greek and Christian mythologies (mostly named Demons, Devils and Angels) as well as a sort of "Warehouse 13/Area 51" for relics from all manners of religious practice since the Earth was "made".

As someone who greedily read all I could about Greek Mythology as a child, took a Classics course in college on the subject, read "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" and Margaret Starbird's "Woman with the Alabaster Jar" & "Goddess in the Gospels" before "Da Vinci Code" was even published, and spent almost 4 years becoming a Subject Matter Expert in quite a few modified pantheons through Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Planescape campaign being the Canon Specialist for a custom module I was helping build to be sold on behalf of Bioware's Neverwinter Night's...I revel in stories like these that mix so many different pantheons and beliefs together. I eat it up - I crave it. Especially when you see the overlap of where various cultures essentially had the same deities just with different names and stories.

It is mystery, thriller, urban fantasy, drama, with a little horror and theology packed into two fascinating, hard-to-put-down books. I eagerly await the third book of the series allegedly due out in January 2011.

So I've been reading quite a bit lately - I always have a paperback in my pocket when I know I'm going to be somewhere with some downtime to read (including the 35min commute on the train in the AM) and it follows me to my nightstand in the evenings.

I've glommed onto urban fantasy sparked by first reading Piers Anthony's "Incarnation of Immortality" series in the mid-90s - I pick the series back up every so often when I run out of others to read or am waiting for a new book in a series to come in like many of those I reference below.

I'm struggling to find new series that aren't in the Vampire or Werewolf genre. They're everywhere!

Recently the biggest series that I've just completed was rachelcaine's "Weather Warden" series about a secret, UN-like group stationed around the planet imbued with the various powers to control the elements and actually tone down the very-living but sleeping "Mother Earth"'s powers which wreak havoc in the form of various natural disasters - there are Earth, Fire and Weather Wardens.

The series was a great read and rachelcaine has followed it up with a spinoff. Mother Earth has manifested representatives of her "energies" in the form of the Djinn. Beings made of pure fire having varying qualities of their mythical counterpart. The "Outcast Season" series is about what happens when one of these Djinn is "cast off" from the collective into human form but "bound" to a Warden in order to draw energy for from the Earth for her magic. Only two books so far but quite good.

Since then, I've also got into seanan_mcguire's "October Daye" series which is where the Seelie Court meets real life. October is a private detective changeling (half-human, half-fey) who lost everything she had and comes back to continue her work. Yet, as a reluctant knight to the fiefdom of her Duke, she is often called into service of his Court as well. Book 3 comes out September 7th.

In a mix of the elemental and pseudo-fey comes Jennifer Estep's "Elemental Assassin" series where if you don't have giant or dwarven blood, you may also have stone, ice, fire, or air elemental powers as well. Of course, being a mundane human in the normal world is perfectly acceptable as well...

The lead character, Gin Blanco, is an assassin with stone elemental powers - and quite the bad ass. She was taken in by the owner of a BBQ joint who had his own background as an assassin who has both trained her and became her handler. There's quite the cast of supporting characters and I don't actually mind that vampires actually exist (as mostly background) in this series.

Again, this series is only two books in - so it's fairly fresh.

I've read a few of jimbutcher's "Dresden Files" and I'm guessing I'll head over to consume the rest of the series. I enjoyed the one-season TV Series on Sci-Fi (when it was still called that) as well.

So what's next? There's probably more I'm forgetting offhand and I am certainly a sci-fi reader - that may be a different post. Apparently, I'm digging series that seem to have bad-ass female protagonists- (though I'm not adverse to a male "hero", I just appreciate bucking stereotypes) and again, my quest is to avoid the apparent glut in Vampire and Werewolf (or blatant "Were-creature premise to the point that it was an attempt to barely differentiate between werewolves but still capture the werewolf fan" series) and demons I can take a crack at within reason. I'm enjoying these series that are bucking the typical urban fantasy stereotypes.

So, thoughts? Ideas? Recommendations?