You either love the circus or you hate it. Countless Americans suffer from coulrophobia – a fear of clowns. I am not one of those Americans.
The company that employs me and helps me maintain my lavish lifestyle is very involved in the local community. It seems that there is always some upcoming service activity requesting volunteers. An out-of-the-ordinary opportunity presented itself this week and I immediately signed up.
The Big Apple Circus is a non-profit circus. When they come to Boston they always have a “Circus of the Senses”, which is a specially-tailored show to kids who are blind, deaf, or have learning disabilities. We volunteer to greet the groups of kids who come in, show them to their seats, and help them get audio headsets, etc.
Confession time: my motive for going to the circus was completely selfish. I think service is important and I try to do it, but this time I just really wanted to see the circus!
The trapeze lady was phenomenal. The juggling twins had an incredibly-choreographed routine. The tightrope lady did the splits on the tightrope. The ballet dancer was on point on top of somebody’s head. Wow.
I loved it. I can now check that off my life list. Except next to the check, there would have to be an asterisk (a la Barry Bonds) with the note: “There were no lions or elephants in this circus.” Someday.
Rhode Island has the coolest license plate of any state. Hands down. It’s a wave. Simple, yet elegant. Timeless.
Yet it wasn’t the incredible license plates that brought me to the fine (yet often misunderstood) state of Rhode Island. It was a romantic stroll along the Cliffwalk, a path in Newport that goes along the ocean and passes by several of the famous Newport Mansions.
The Newport Mansions were built by the uber-rich New York tycoons as summer homes. Several of the mansions offer tours and are open to the public, although they are still owned by the families. You can rent them out for weddings and other events. I’m almost positive that multiple movies have been filmed there. They decorate them to the teeth during Christmas and had a symphony concert there on Valentines Day.
I’ve wanted to go to Newport since I first heard about it shortly after moving to Boston and I finally did! My girlfriend was in town and we wanted to do something exciting on Saturday afternoon. Instead of going to a museum or one of the local historical sites, for some reason Newport popped into my mind. Probably because a trip there is cool for several reasons:
1) It feels like a road trip
2) It’s in another state
3) It’s in Rhode Island (and neither of us had been to RI)
4) It’s historic
5) It’s beautiful
6) There are beaches
7) There are mansions
8) The town is very quaint and well-maintained
We hopped in the car and spontaneously headed down to Newport. Because we hadn’t planned, when we arrived the mansion tours had already ended for the day. But we didn’t really care. The guy behind the counter at Pizza Hut claimed to live at the Breakers (one of the more famous mansions). It turns out he’s one of the guides there and is semi-obsessed with the mansion. But he doesn’t live there.
Side note: we had one of Pizza Hut’s specialty pizzas (chicken and bacon?) and it was incredible! It seems like Pizza Hut is really working on improving their image. When I was in Maine I saw a Pizza Hut Bistro that was a classier sit-down restaurant. Interesting.
With the mansions closed, we headed instead to the Cliffwalk (recommended by our friend behind the counter). It was so soothing to watch the waves crashing along the cliffs. There was only one small section of beach: the rest was cliff or rocks. The rocky sections reminded me a lot of Lake Michigan right by Northwestern.
One of us had trouble getting onto a tree branch for a picture. The other one didn’t.
We took a picture for a nice family of bicycle tourists, and they returned the favor.
Trip Rating: A+
Twitter. Uh… yeah. Although I initially thought it was really stupid, and I’m still not sold on the idea, I started a Twitter account. It’s an interesting idea and is obviously quite popular, so I’ll see what kind of merit it has.
Rumors have been flying around about Google buying Twitter. If they do, it would be one less status to update (Gmail, Facebook, Twitter…)
Some things are inevitable. For example, I get sick every winter. Doesn’t matter if I get a flu shot or not. It’s usually a throat issue. Sometimes it’s so bad I have to go to the doctor and get on medication.
Another thing that's inevitable is that freak accidents happen to me. Like the time someone bit me and I had to spend the night in the hospital. Or when I broke my finger and had to have pins put in place. Can't I just have a normal accident?
I spent three miserable sick days last week. When I arrived at work on Wednesday, my co-workers said I looked horrible and that I should go home. So I turned around, drove home, and worked remotely. Thursday felt about the same as Wednesday, and I worked remotely then as well. I went in on Friday, but wasn’t feeling all that great.
My mom’s in Ireland so she’s not there to tell me what I can and can’t do when I’m sick. But I’m lucky enough to have a close friend who eagerly volunteered to take over that role. I got a thorough talking-to for going to Institute on Wednesday night when I was too sick to be in the office.
I’m at about 90% right now. But I need to get lots of rest and eat healthily so I can be all better for this weekend.
Twice a year there is a General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The conference consists of five different sessions lasting two hours each, spread out over Saturday and Sunday. During the conference, the Church leadership speaks about issues and topics relevant to everyone today.
As a child I didn’t particularly enjoy General Conference. As I’ve grown older, however, I’ve begun to look forward to it. The speakers are all carefully selected. The audience is the 13 million members of the LDS church worldwide (although I have no idea what the average viewing audience is) and anyone else who wants to watch and listen.
My Moleskine notebook is full of notes and insights that struck me as I listened to conference this past weekend. I’m looking forward to re-reading them.
One noteworthy insight came from an address given by Elder Boyd K. Packer to the men of the Church. He advised that we don’t get so caught up in the technical that we ignore the practical. I’m fairly passionate about life balance, and this statement caused my ears to perk up. Yes! While it’s important to know and be proficient at your chosen career, it’s just as important to have people skills, to change a bike tire, to build a fire while camping, to solve unstructured questions.
Also (from a different speaker) Gross Faith – Fear = Net Faith
