Museum Month Coming Up for San Diego

Every February, Macy's generously sponsors San Diego Museum Month. You can pick up a free pass at any Macy's store, and pay just half the admission price for participating museums. More information is here. Of course, museums are free in Washington D.C. but I'll take 50% discount any day. ;)

Reflection After the Tragedy

It's a terrible way to begin a new year -- an attempted assassination of Congresswoman, Gabrielle Gifford, and death of six people. It appears the suspect has been behaving oddly for some time and posted incoherent rantings on the internet. According to this New York Times article, those around the suspect, Jared L Loughner, have noticed that his behavior had become increasingly odd. So much so, the community college would not allow him to return to college without a mental health evaluation.

The media, politicians, and others reflected today that if the political discourse were less acid, this might not have happened. Perhaps.

I add another reflection. Maybe when community members do notice increased odd behaviors of someone, our society should allow someone to actually take action instead of turning away from the person. Jared L. Loughner's odd behaviors led to isolation, but free, because people turned away from him. Perhaps if the community college made him take a mental evaluation test and forced help/therapy, he may not have been free to attempt such tragedy. Or perhaps it could have been friends or family that forced him to be evaluated and treatment. It seems that even when people recognized that someone seemed like they need help, our society wasn't (and still isn't) set up to force help on that person... which led to harm. Perhaps that's something we could think about too as we reflect what happened on January 8, 2011.

2011 Resolution

Ok. So I don't really make new year resolutions. But there is one resolve I made a few years back (I think on my birthday??) that's been running for a while, and I am determined to finish it. No, it's not about my weight. It's about my books. Yes, books.

I love to read, and I love libraries. Free books, who can complain? Unfortunately, that means I end up reading lots of library books before the due date and none of the books I actually buy or have been gifted to me by friends. (Friends, if you are reading, please don't buy me books anymore... I feel guilty).

Anyway, so here's a list of books that I actually own but have not read (some for YEARS!). I really, really want to read all of them and will not go to the library to borrow new books until I do.
1) Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro
2) Desperation by King
3) The Fencing Master by Perez-Reverte
4) The Surrendered by Lee
5) Lacuna by Kingsolver
6) Don Quixote by Cervantes
7) Persuasion by Austen
8) Armadale by Collins
9) Guns, Germs, and Steel by Diamond
10) Collapse by Diamond
11) 4 Novels by Dickens
12) Collected Stories and Poems by Poe
13) Short Stories of O'Henry.

Who knows? Maybe this is the year I do finish all of my books I own.

Last Trip of 2010: Las Vegas - Valley of Fire

My family and I took a little trip to Las Vegas - to see a state park, Valley of Fire - over the holiday break. Because we don't gamble, it was actually a good trip. Lots of food (buffets at Cosmopolitan, Aria - i.e. new hotels), sleep, and nature.

Valley of Fire is a little ways out (about an hour drive) from Las Vegas. The park is quite striking; red rocks and sands in middle of brown/green mountains. Here are some pictures. Happy New Year!
Here's a little description of the park.

Reminded me in part of Arches park at Utah with all these red rocks!
We completely lucked out and saw this animal grazing by the side of the road. Can you tell what it is?


I didn't know petrified had another meaning until I saw this log. =P
Look, petrified log!

Can you see red rocks against green mountains?
We also saw petroglyphs. It's a day I learned a couple of new words, because I've never heard of petroglyphs either.

I figured all this out. It's a map to treasure buried somewhere in this park. ;)
And yes, I was there!