Larges, just $13.99..

They don't say anything about medium, extra larges, males, females, or livelies.


But there is this.

I just happened to notice this today as I was getting my morning coffee and walked past Pizza Boli's in Wilde Lake - no idea how long it's been on offer. I'm not sure if I'm intrigued or grossed out. Normally, if I eat there, I stick to cheese sticks (they'll put pepperoni on them as a topping, if you ask).


Anyone got more info? (hocofood@@@)

Wounded Warrior Project Fundraising Recap

Hello!


Ahem.


Is this thing on?


...you might have noticed the lack of posts these days. It's probably going to continue that way for the next few months while I complete my thesis work and such, but I wanted to stop in and give a recap of our fundraising efforts for the Wounded Warrior Project. Our initial fundraising goal was $300.


Unfortunately, due to circumstances no one could control, we were not able to travel to Virginia to participate in Tough Mudder. We plan to get there next year, but we still managed to raise some money for the 2011 event, with your help!


Special thanks goes out to our families, Tom at HoCoRising, Tonia at Maryland Thai Boxing, and Matt's efforts to collect cash at the coffee-pot. We raised an AWESOME total of $430.00. ($50 was generously donated before Tough Mudder switched from Active.com to Raceit.com, and does not appear on our team site; however, we were assured at the time of the switch that the donation would make it to the WWP).


Don't worry. Next year, we'll set the bar even higher. :)


If you would still like to contribute to the Wounded Warrior Project, please consider visiting their website and learning how this organization can benefit from your support.


Thanks again everyone. You rock. 

Book Review: First Case In the Dresden Files...

Storm Front by Jim Butcher

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


After years of being told that I should read The Dresden Files, I finally remembered and picked this up at the library.



I loved it.



Think hard-boiled detective novel meets fantasy, with a touch of humor. I really liked Dresden - everything from the way I pictured him to the way he spoke and the slight twist on what otherwise might be cliche. Butcher takes stereotypes (ie, the hard-nosed private investigator) and makes them more interesting with innovative twists (ie, oh yeah, he's a wizard. And a gentleman.).



The book is well-paced, a page turner that kept me flipping to the end, and the story was very easy to follow. Butcher balances the details of his world nicely, too. There are places where Dresden explains aspects of the world to the reader (like a detective narrative), but there are others where he doesn't - and he doesn't need to, the details are sprinkled in and it's easy to pick up what's important and move on. Nor is he shy about setting Dresden up for failure (or a little pain) which had me pulling for the wizard even more as I got to the end.



I recommend this book to anyone who's ever enjoyed even light fantasy, detective stories, or someone who's just up for a unique twist on old ideas.



View all my reviews

Emergency 2.0

Yesterday I mentioned (or at least, intended to mention) the lag between the official "Emergency Notification Systems" in place where I work and the actual event as it blew up on social media. 

There was anywhere from a 15-30 minute lag time between the quake and notifications via email/land line phone. I never actually received text alerts, although I'm signed up for them and have received them in the past (although some cell services were down/flooded). The decision to evacuate didn't reach me until almost 3:00pm, and it was shared by someone who walked the hallways knocking on doors.

Which of course begs the question... when an event can erupt over facebook instantly (I got info about the quake, reported/updated magnitude and epicenter, etc, within 8-10 minutes or so via Facebook postings), how can that power be used to make emergency communications more effective?

I think this is a question that must be asked of those who design the community response infrastructure.

Howard County has sort of done this - for example, today I saw a safety update/recommendation from Ken Ulman on facebook about reporting damage and emergency preparedness. But I don't recall seeing any coordinated messages yesterday via facebook - did I miss them (entirely possible)? Anyone?  (hocoblogs@@@)


In the mean time, look at this shiny and relevant infographic, featured today via The American Red Cross, which kind of illustrates my point. I'm surprised that the numbers of people that get info via FB/Twitter aren't higher, but also recall that there was "info passing" from those sources in the halls at work. So FB & Twitter may play a larger role than can be measured directly.


How do you think Social Media should be incorporated (if at all) in emergency response?

Social Media in Emergencies

Edit to add: Marshmallow Man mentions the local response he received within hours of the quake over on 53 beers.

Earthshake!

By now, I suspect it will surprise no one to hear that we had a small earthquake here on the East Coast.

Ok, not so small. 5.9 on the Richter Scale (or, by some reports, 5.8). Now, if you're like me and can count the number of times you've been in a quake on one hand (yes, it's more than one), that number doesn't mean a whole lot.

Here's what it meant for me: my lab is centrally located in a pretty solid building on campus. The tremors were strong enough to rattle all the glassware on the shelves, the chemical hood behind me, and create a swaying sensation (easily felt as I was cowering cleverly crouched under my desk).

It was very disorienting, especially in the few seconds it took me to figure things out. I work alone, so there was no one I could ask "did you feel that?" until well after it was over.

The University's response was strange. Emergency notification came in the form of two email (in the 15-20 minutes post-quake), and a robocall (about 35 minutes after). There was then an "evacuation" of our building, but not others in the continuous complex.

I was actually amused by the warning time, although considering the size of the campus and the coordination required it was probably pretty fast. This might spinoff a post about the expectation of immediate information - for example, how facebook blew up with info immediately - and how social media could be put to use by emergency notification systems.

But I digress.

After milling around a while, I "snuck" back in, finished my work, and left.

Even though the buildings were reopened, police remained on the corners of MLK. I'm not sure what they were looking for, but as of 4:30 or so they showed no signs of moving. Some of them looked like they'd been pulled on duty - still in jeans and plain tee shirts, with only a police vest to mark them.

At the corner of MLK and Pratt Street.

It was a very odd day, courtesy of what might have been the Spotsylvania Fault Line, according to a report on NPR (I couldn't find the link, but the quake already has its own Wiki Page).


Oh yes, and everyone I know seems to be alright.


What was your Earthquake experience?

Book Review: (Crazy + Lonely Planet)/Communist China in 1986 = 2 stars

It's hard for me to say that I fully enjoyed this book (which was chosen by my book club a while back), but it did tell a unique story, at times in language that took my breath away. Which might rate it three stars. 


But I gave it two. Here's my review of "Undress Me In The Temple Of Heaven," a memoir by Susan Jane Gilman (aka, Susie, aka, "Sushi").





Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven by Susan Jane Gilman

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I have some conflicted feelings about this book.



To start: the writing is beautiful. Gilman not only gives an account of visiting the other side of the world, she shares the experience of being there in 1986, just after China opened its borders to independent travelers.



After graduation, Gilman and a friend pack malaria pills, water purifiers, picky appetites, and some naivety, and hop on a plane to Hong Kong. The goal? Travel around the world. Stop 1: China. Gilman describes a route that most people would not take, mixing in their experience with local culture and her encounters with the surprisingly large (but also small) backpacking community. It's almost shocking to read about how they travel now, not just post-9/11 - something that Gilman does address briefly - but the decisions they make that I can't imagine choosing (even in my early 20s).



There is also a lot of bat**** crazy in this book.



And the crazy is what kept me reading, because for most of the memoir, I found Gilman's friend - and at times, Gilman herself - aggravating and unlikable.



To Gilman's credit, she's the storyteller, and she doesn't sugarcoat the areas where she behaves badly/questionably/etc. And when I think about it, I might not have continued reading without that element of realness (or, if I felt I was getting a very sanitized account). I really want to write this review without spoilers, so I won't go into more detail. But that aggravation did at least keep me reading, if only from the desire to see if/how the women changed.



So at the end of the day... fantastic writing style, pretty imagery, and a unique story/setting... but difficult to read because at times, Gilman and her friend just make me want to walk away.



View all my reviews

Fund me... but not Rick Perry.

Let's be honest, I'm not often impressed by the Republican Right. Or even the Republican "middle" - which is really just less-right.


But Rick Perry is on my radar with his stance on Global Warming. Not because I Love Al Gore, but because of Perry's line of reasoning.


From the Huffington Post:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry took his skepticism about climate change one step further on Wednesday, telling a New Hampshire business crowd that scientists have cooked up the data on global warming for the cash.

In his stump speech, Perry referenced "a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling in to their projects."

"We're seeing weekly, or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what's causing the climate to change," Perry said. "Yes, our climates change. They've been changing ever since the earth was formed."

That's right. According to Rick Perry, Scientists cook the data.



But wait, that's not all!


The WaPo goes on to report the next day:

“They have seen the headlines in the past year about doctored data related to global warming,” Perry writes. “They know that we have been experiencing a cooling trend, that the complexities of the global atmosphere have often eluded the most sophisticated scientists, and that draconian policies with dire economic effects based on so-called science may not stand the test of time. Quite frankly, when science gets hijacked by the political Left, we should all be concerned.”

Good thing science is never manipulated or hijacked by the Right. Never. Never ever.


Now, I'm not saying scientists should never be questioned, or that science is always right, or that science knows everything about a given topic (let alone global warming) right now. There are too-frequent reports of people who have falsified data and lost their positions, issue retractions, damage other careers, etc. This is very, very bad. Even one report is too-frequent, given the nature of scientific research to build upon the findings of others.


But this is discovered through the process of competition, further experimentation, and peer review.


Not by politicians.


Just because a poll says a majority of people don't believe a theory (Global Warming, for example) is not true, doesn't mean that their theory is any more correct. Popular opinion does not a truth make. Ask Copernicus. 


It's the collection and evaluation of evidence - which can be a long, gradual process - that should influence our interactions with (and actions on) the world.


Perry uses general terms when he talks about these Scientists Gone Wild, if you watch the clip (at the end of the post). "Substantial number." Which then becomes "some cases". He points to the emergence of scientists that question the working hypothesis as evidence that the theory is false - thereby furthering the implication that the data is false and politicized. 


No, it's science. 

Science.

Scientific development comes from trying to prove or disprove a working hypothesis. Perry is merely taking the flip side of what he's accusing liberals of doing - that is, politicizing global warming - only he's doing it at the expense of science's credibility in the eyes of the public.


And I didn't hear any disclosures, Governor Perry. Come on, even "scientists" do that.


I'm not sure if it's willful ignorance, or a belief that the public is not interested in specifics behind his accusations, or the desire to capitalize on a popular idea about science.


And in a way, that's what's most alarming about Perry. His comments reflect a fundamental problem in the perception of science - which, in turn, leads me to believe this is an attitude he's likely to carry into the White House. 


The prejudice that scientists would fabricate data to funnel in research dollars doesn't bode well for the future of research in America. Clearly, Perry has never tried to apply for an NIH grant.


It's not about global warming, Perry. Sorry.


Here's a video of his answer so you can judge for yourself. The question takes a while and is hard to understand, but Perry is loud and clear.