So I'm egocentric, huh? hmmm

I took this quiz that attempts to discern your "city personality." I must admit, I didn't find the personality traits outlined in my assessment to be very flattering: moderately egocentric, unstructured, and moody? Well, I'm big enough to admit to being moody. And I certainly could work on my organizational skills. I'm sure my chosen profession belies my unstructured-ness. Ok. I won't deny that I have my egocentric moments. So, in other words, this is another one of those quizzes that identifies the traits you'd like to deny because they are unflattering, perhaps, but accurate. Give it a try and see where you should begin searching for your next home.

Your city personality type is SLUEI

You are social, moody, unstructured, moderately egocentric, and intellectual, and may prefer a city which matches those traits.

The largest representation of your personality type can be found in the these U.S. cities: Reno, Washington DC, Providence, New York City, Denver, Norfolk, Salt Lake City, W. Palm Beach, Baltimore, Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, Detroit, Albuquerque/Santa Fe and these international countries/regions Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Greece, Argentina, Iceland, Taiwan, China, Croatia, Italy, Poland, Spain, Israel, Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, Turkey, Finland

What Places In The World Match Your Personality?
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12

Digging Through the Family Photos

As many of my friends and family know, my grandmother moved from New Brunswick to Alberta last summer shortly after she was diagnosed with Leiomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer that affects soft tissue areas of the body such as the lungs, liver and blood vessels. Although she's definitely done much better than the doctors expected, it's been a tough year for my parents and my grandmother. On Friday, my mother emailed me two really great photos of my grandmother and grandfather and I thought I'd share them. The first one of my grandmother, Mary (Mollie) Miller, was taken while she was playing catch with my father.

The second one is of my grandfather, Eldon Miller, taken in 1942 when he fought in the second World War. He is the one in the foreground; the man standing next to him is Jimmie Stevenson.

I've not seen many pictures of my grandfather from when he was young, most of the available photos seem to be from when I was a kid or teenager, and it was quite a surprise to see what he looked like at the age of about 25. They obviously weren't real picture takers because I've not seen many pictures of my father from when he was a kid either--though a few months ago, my mother did send me one of my father's class photos. He's in the back row, third from the left. I can see quite a resemblance between father and son from looking at these photos.

Road Trip

On Sunday morning, we left for a short, adventure-packed trip to Washington, D.C. and Charlottesville, Virginia. The plan was to stay at Aviva's parents' house in Charlottesville and spend a day in D.C. exploring a few museums and other Capital attractions. The trip to Charlottesville was uneventful, albeit long. We stopped in Corning to pick up our flowers (they had to spend a day in a cooling oven to ensure the glass wouldn't crack), which turned out much better than we expected. After we'd made them on Friday, they' whisked them away quickly--before we'd really had a chance to see how they looked. You can see the results in the following photos. In photo one, the artists are, from left to right, April, Aviva, and Dianne. In the background of the first picture you can also see my new favorite possession: my "smush Bush" doll. I bought it at this store in Charlottesville and I'm sure it will help me relieve stress as the summer winds down and I try to get some more writing done.

The day after we arrived in Charlottesville, we went to D.C., where we visited the Hirschorn Museum and the Holocaust Museum. We also wandered around the mall and walked past many other sites. Although our time in D.C. was short, we managed to see quite a bit of the city--and we ended our day by feasting on seafood at Phillip's Flagship restaurant where I ate enough snow crab legs to feed a small army. Yummy.

Unfortunately, on our way home from D.C. we encountered heavy rains and Aviva's car, affectionately known as "Alex," suffered some sort of mechanical breakdown. As far as we can tell, some part of the car's exhaust system was knocked loose by all the rain. As a result, the car began to make this horrible noise and suddenly it sounded like we were driving a small prop plane. In the end, we rented a car for the return trip and abandoned Aviva's car in Virginia.

We also stopped at one of the pre-requisite panoramic viewpoints to catch a glimpse of the blue ridge mountains.

Corning Museum of Glass

My mother has been visiting this week and I've been busy concocting new, original things for us to do while she's here. Anyone who's lived in upstate New York has likely seen the Corning Museum of Glass advertisements, which encourage you to participate in their hands-on glass workshops. Because I'm a big geek, I've always thought they looked like fun but never seriously considered signing up for one until last week. I though they're probably not as fun as they look and suspected that anything I tried to make would end up resembling a glass blob rather than a glass flower or ornament. But with my mother visiting, I thought it might make a fun outing and give me a chance to compare reality to the advertising hype. So, Aviva, my mother and I went to the museum and made glass flowers. Though it was over quickly (it took only about 30 minutes), we really enjoyed the whole process. The museum was also really amazing--full of wonderful works of glass from as long ago as the 6th and 7th century. We managed to catch a few minutes of our glass workshop on film so feel free to check it out here. Unfortunately, I've not managed to reduce the file size so it might take a while to open it!

We also watched a glass blowing workshop where two glass artists created a large, absolutely beautiful glass bowl. It took them about forty minutes to create it and we were amazed to see this large, yellowish blob of glass go through its various transformations. At the end of the show, they raffle off one of the items made in the shows but we weren't lucky enough to win.