If you are interested in Charles North,

then try to leave work early. There will be a community event at 4:30 PM on Thursday, November 13, 2008 for those interested in having input into the Charles North area. More info here.

I have just been informed that the presentation will begin after 5 PM, but its still good to get there early...

The Baltimore Womens Film Festival

This is the second year that the Baltimore Women/s Film Festival occurred from Oct. 23- 26, and I volunteered at the festival! 50% of all ticket sales went to the Johns Hopkins Avon Foundation Breast Center. During my shift, I got to see 'Who Does She Think She Is' about women and their pursuit of art. One of the heavy running themes was the woman's desire to pursue her art while balancing a family. Most of the women who tried to strike this balance ended up divorced. Very interesting now, isn't it?

Why does it seem like a woman has to make a decision between career and family?

Stopped this morning

Usually every morning, I greet and hug enthusiastically a newspaper distributor outside of my office building. A person stopped me and asked me why did I hug a complete stranger. I asked, why not? This greeting has become routine for me. I told the person about the older gentleman I made friends in the afternoon on my commute home. He's usually at the ticket office and I give a peck and greet him as if he were a long lost love. To start my day, I have a hug and in the evening, I have a peck. My day is a little bit better while exchanging pleasantries with new friends. Unfortunately, my older friend has not been at his ticket station. Some folks said he went back downtown, but I've been worried about him lately. I did catch him one day while leaving work. The ticket office man said that he had been 'away'.

To all others...

do you exchange pleasantries with others you see regularly to and fro from work?

Why?

Why not?

Woman

God created woman to tame man. -Voltaire, 1694-1778.

Weyerbacher Tasting Review

I love the Weyerbacher Pumpkin Spice Ale, which is fortunately served at Bel Air's Sean Bolan's...
Here is a review on a Weyerbacher tasting...

Commute Home

My commute home varies from day to day. Roughly I spend about four hours a day commuting on a car, train, and Metro. 12 hours of my day are committed to some form of work or transit...

On Monday, September 15, I stayed later at work to wrap up a couple loose ends and my boss traipsed back in from a meeting. We thought we lost the client and I stayed longer than usual to chat about the meeting. I thought with extremely good follow up, we could capture their attention again.

With time winding down, I had to run away around five pm. Unfortunately, I had to wait about 8 minutes for the Metro to arrive...

4:53 Rush out of office to catch Metro
5:00 Metro arrives
5:21 Metro arrives at Union
MARC train leaves at 5:21
I buy a small Chilean red wine
Get on 5:34 PM train to Baltimore/Penn
6:30/6:40 arrive at Penn
Ask lady for a spoon at coffee stand.
Thank goodness had dinner packed in bag.
Ate and waited for the 7:05 to Perryville.
7:30/40 Arrived in Edgewood.
7:47 Arrived at home.

At Home: Changed Fire alarm battery. Packed away lemon bars. Jogged up and down drive in dark for 20 minutes. Checked email and blogged.

10 PM Get read for bed.

This was a particularly unusual evening, as I had missed my original train home....

Atmosphere at Rams Head, Oct. 10

Friday, October 10th, I saw Atmosphere at the Rams Head Tavern! They were very good. Blueprint opened, with Abstract Dude to follow. Atmosphere had a head cold but performed really well. He even went on to do a half hour encore set wrapped up with a very good freestyle. The Exactly.net posted a music vid here.

My OTHER blog

I have been more in love with my other blog here.

Repost from Telegraph: Learning from Japan

We are in an era of globalisation, we are told, of flat, inter-connected worlds. Yet the response in the US Congress to the Treasury’s proposed $700 billion remedy for this very international financial crisis has been strikingly parochial.

Not just that: it has been delusional. How else to describe those Congressmen who opposed the first vote, accusing Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson of practising “financial socialism”, which was somehow “un-American”?

This episode bodes ill for the world economy’s stability. For, huge as it is, this $700 billion package is unlikely to be the end of the story. At some stage next year, the new administration, whether led by Barack Obama or John McCain, will most likely need to offer another strong dose of “socialism” – a big bag of money, this time used to help recapitalise the banks directly. Given the public anger displayed in the past week about an undeserved lifeline for the greedy bankers of Wall Street, the politics of that next package are likely to be just as poisonous.

More Here