- The Falmouth Public Library has an excellent children's room. Visitors can take out a "courtesy card" that allows up to 6 items at once. We've borrowed books, DVDs and museum passes, which provide discounted or free admission to local attractions (Cape Cod Childrens Museum, Plimoth Plantation, etc.)
- There is a farmers market from May-October on Thursdays downtown. In May-June, the selection is limited, consistent with the New England growing season, but there are fresh breads, seafoods and coffee available. It sure looks like greater variety would be evident later in the summer.
- The Shining Sea Bikeway is excellent, and has been extended another 6 miles north.
- There are no 24-hour laundromats in Falmouth. The three laundromats open early, but close by 10 (last load at 9). Town Laundry on Main Street has a TV and free wi-fi.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Some Cape Cod vacation tips: Falmouth edition
Here are a few things we learned about Falmouth this week:
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil
I've been giving a lot of thought lately to the Genesis 3 narrative, and finding myself in it.
Do you recall what the forbidden fruit is? The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil... eat of it and you will surely die. Or will you? So tempts the slippery serpent.
For all my years, I've seen this a little more than the first act of disobedience. Sort of like God putting something there just to make us see what we cannot have. And eating of it allowed our first parents to see what they were missing -- clothes. Aha, nakedness must be evil, and it was the fruit of of the tree that opened that up to them. Perhaps this reading is consistent with your understanding. The great thing is that most expositions of this passage focus less on the actual sin and more on the solution, Genesis 3:15.
I've started wondering, though, what the actual knowledge of good and evil looks like. Was there something magic in this fruit that opened Adam and Eve's eyes? Perhaps the forbidden fruit was filled with vitamin K, helping their vision? Indeed, I've come to realize that the knowledge of good and evil arose from the realization that one thought they were better than the other. Eve was the first one to bite, and Adam realized that he had something on her. But he saw that she actually didn't die, so he ate too. Now, they were both ashamed because they started comparing themselves to each other. And they realized that their bodies weren't perfect either. In their shame, they started covering themselves up and hiding from God.
When we draw lines and decide that we are better than our fellow travelers, we gorge on the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We decide that we know something about goodness that they don't know and hold it over them. We then hide our own deficiencies out of shame. And the fall affects us all.
Jesus came to save us from our shame and guilt. As the first to live without shame, he showed us the way. It's backwards to the fallen world: you lead by serving, you win by dying, you triumph by rising again on the other side of the death that brings final shame to all. May we feast on the fruit of the tree of life and not be ashamed.
Do you recall what the forbidden fruit is? The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil... eat of it and you will surely die. Or will you? So tempts the slippery serpent.
For all my years, I've seen this a little more than the first act of disobedience. Sort of like God putting something there just to make us see what we cannot have. And eating of it allowed our first parents to see what they were missing -- clothes. Aha, nakedness must be evil, and it was the fruit of of the tree that opened that up to them. Perhaps this reading is consistent with your understanding. The great thing is that most expositions of this passage focus less on the actual sin and more on the solution, Genesis 3:15.
I've started wondering, though, what the actual knowledge of good and evil looks like. Was there something magic in this fruit that opened Adam and Eve's eyes? Perhaps the forbidden fruit was filled with vitamin K, helping their vision? Indeed, I've come to realize that the knowledge of good and evil arose from the realization that one thought they were better than the other. Eve was the first one to bite, and Adam realized that he had something on her. But he saw that she actually didn't die, so he ate too. Now, they were both ashamed because they started comparing themselves to each other. And they realized that their bodies weren't perfect either. In their shame, they started covering themselves up and hiding from God.
When we draw lines and decide that we are better than our fellow travelers, we gorge on the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We decide that we know something about goodness that they don't know and hold it over them. We then hide our own deficiencies out of shame. And the fall affects us all.
Jesus came to save us from our shame and guilt. As the first to live without shame, he showed us the way. It's backwards to the fallen world: you lead by serving, you win by dying, you triumph by rising again on the other side of the death that brings final shame to all. May we feast on the fruit of the tree of life and not be ashamed.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
School Fundraiser Manifesto
Dear School Board Representative,
I write this time to discuss the use of our children as captive sales agents for private companies. Our son's school today sent home notice of our third fund-raiser since the winter break. One was the coupon book drive, which I believe many schools in the area participated in. The second was the PTA Cake Auction, a popular, parent-led and family involved fund-raiser. The third was a request to provide the names and addresses of 7-10 friends and family members to a magazine marketer, with some of the profits from magazine sales being returned to the school for "school supplies and student and teacher incentives".
First, let me say that I love the cake auction and events like it. They involve the creativity of the students and their parents and teach the students very useful lessons about how markets and prices work. I wish we could do things like this more often without wearing out the idea, but it's a great success for our school.
That said, I'm quite disturbed by the deputation of our children to sell stuff for private companies. Whether wrapping paper, magazines or coupon books, there is a company on the other side of these transactions making money from putting our kids to work as their sales staff. Children are encouraged to participate so forcefully that when we chose to opt out of the coupon book sale and instead make an equivalent cash donation, our son felt left out. Today, he was so excited to write down the names and addresses of our relatives so that he could get a trinket. I'm frankly appalled that our teachers were essentially discouraged from showing the President's address to students unless some clear link could be made to the standards, but class time is taken up to get them to sell overpriced (maybe) stuff to their unsuspecting relatives for a private company's profit.
Is our school district budget really so constrained that our children need to hit up their fixed income grandparents for another magazine subscription? Don't teachers get supplies contributed by parents? We'd be far happier to provide supplies requested than sell out our siblings' contact information. The letter accompanying the magazine fund raiser suggested "staff incentives". I don't know about other teachers, but I get incentives. They're called a job and a salary. The salary goes up when I get good teacher evaluations and publish successfully and the job ends when I don't. If we can't compensate our teachers appropriately, then the school district needs to trim expenses in other areas (like retired administrators now serving as high-salary consultants in the school district office) or request a tax increase.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when we use our children as the sales agents for private companies, we send several messages to our children. First, we provide them with an opportunity to learn sales skills. I know that this is an invaluable skill, but I resent having them learned under duress and at such a young age. But on the down side, we tell our children that it's ok to pay more than market value for something. This attitude that has led to record consumer debt. We tell our children that competition doesn't matter because people will pay more than market value for a cause. This is no different from asking our children to go hat in hand from door to door asking for contributions for our struggling schools. It tells our children that our community doesn't really value public education, since they, at ages 4 and up, have to do their part to raise the funding for it.
No, I'm not generally opposed to fund raisers. For specific purposes, extracurricular activities, sports, and even PTA/PTO support they are vital. I am vehemently opposed to conscription of our children to private profit-making companies for operating budget support. I am even more opposed to using classroom time to train the children to make poor economic decisions and guilt them into participating in a wrong-headed fundraiser.
You have been a good listener to my concerns in the past. Please help me know how to communicate these concerns to the board and the superintendent.
Best regards,
Bitter Man
I write this time to discuss the use of our children as captive sales agents for private companies. Our son's school today sent home notice of our third fund-raiser since the winter break. One was the coupon book drive, which I believe many schools in the area participated in. The second was the PTA Cake Auction, a popular, parent-led and family involved fund-raiser. The third was a request to provide the names and addresses of 7-10 friends and family members to a magazine marketer, with some of the profits from magazine sales being returned to the school for "school supplies and student and teacher incentives".
First, let me say that I love the cake auction and events like it. They involve the creativity of the students and their parents and teach the students very useful lessons about how markets and prices work. I wish we could do things like this more often without wearing out the idea, but it's a great success for our school.
That said, I'm quite disturbed by the deputation of our children to sell stuff for private companies. Whether wrapping paper, magazines or coupon books, there is a company on the other side of these transactions making money from putting our kids to work as their sales staff. Children are encouraged to participate so forcefully that when we chose to opt out of the coupon book sale and instead make an equivalent cash donation, our son felt left out. Today, he was so excited to write down the names and addresses of our relatives so that he could get a trinket. I'm frankly appalled that our teachers were essentially discouraged from showing the President's address to students unless some clear link could be made to the standards, but class time is taken up to get them to sell overpriced (maybe) stuff to their unsuspecting relatives for a private company's profit.
Is our school district budget really so constrained that our children need to hit up their fixed income grandparents for another magazine subscription? Don't teachers get supplies contributed by parents? We'd be far happier to provide supplies requested than sell out our siblings' contact information. The letter accompanying the magazine fund raiser suggested "staff incentives". I don't know about other teachers, but I get incentives. They're called a job and a salary. The salary goes up when I get good teacher evaluations and publish successfully and the job ends when I don't. If we can't compensate our teachers appropriately, then the school district needs to trim expenses in other areas (like retired administrators now serving as high-salary consultants in the school district office) or request a tax increase.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when we use our children as the sales agents for private companies, we send several messages to our children. First, we provide them with an opportunity to learn sales skills. I know that this is an invaluable skill, but I resent having them learned under duress and at such a young age. But on the down side, we tell our children that it's ok to pay more than market value for something. This attitude that has led to record consumer debt. We tell our children that competition doesn't matter because people will pay more than market value for a cause. This is no different from asking our children to go hat in hand from door to door asking for contributions for our struggling schools. It tells our children that our community doesn't really value public education, since they, at ages 4 and up, have to do their part to raise the funding for it.
No, I'm not generally opposed to fund raisers. For specific purposes, extracurricular activities, sports, and even PTA/PTO support they are vital. I am vehemently opposed to conscription of our children to private profit-making companies for operating budget support. I am even more opposed to using classroom time to train the children to make poor economic decisions and guilt them into participating in a wrong-headed fundraiser.
You have been a good listener to my concerns in the past. Please help me know how to communicate these concerns to the board and the superintendent.
Best regards,
Bitter Man
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Washington Nationals Park
Wow, sometimes it's unbelievable how the pace differs between National League games and American League games. I think the last NL game I went to before last night was John Smoltz' complete game 3 hitter in Atlanta, which lasted 2:35. Last night's Nationals/Cardinals affair was hardly a pitchers' duel, given that every single run was scored on a homer, and the game was still over in 2:40. I can't remember the last Sox game I went to that went less than 3 hours, and many have been much, much longer.
In a nutshell, Pujols is as dangerous as advertised. Jordan Zimmerman, pitching in his third major league game, pitched admirably and sharply, but made a few too many mistakes, including an early one to Pujols, and eventually gave up a tater to batters 2-5 before his night was done. The Cards dominated this game in every sense, but there wasn't a lot of excitement. Two double plays, I think? The most exciting moment was the fastest trip around the bases on a homer I have ever seen.
The park (#12 franchise, #13 stadium for me) was nice and clean and our seats were in the club level, which meant padded seats, nice amenities and short lines. But in general, I was underwhelmed. Of the newest stadiums, AT&T, PNC and Citizens Bank Parks have a lot more personality. Beer selection was poor, service was worse and fan intensity was non-existent. Food was mediocre. It certainly seemed that Cardinals fans outnumbers Nats fans, at least in intensity. The spectacle scoreboards had so many gimmicks, I could have sworn I was at a minor league game. And why do so many teams (my Bucs included) insist on copying the old sausage race tradition of Milwaukee? I certainly would rather have a clear announcement of a pitching change (which we did not have) than a stupid "kiss-cam" or follow the baby in the bucket game.
I guess if we sat in the upper decks, we'd have had a nice view of the Capitol and Washington Monument, but from where we were, nothing special.
I'd go to another game there if I happened to be in DC on a game night, but if I go out of my way to go to a game in the DC area, it will be in Baltimore...
In a nutshell, Pujols is as dangerous as advertised. Jordan Zimmerman, pitching in his third major league game, pitched admirably and sharply, but made a few too many mistakes, including an early one to Pujols, and eventually gave up a tater to batters 2-5 before his night was done. The Cards dominated this game in every sense, but there wasn't a lot of excitement. Two double plays, I think? The most exciting moment was the fastest trip around the bases on a homer I have ever seen.
The park (#12 franchise, #13 stadium for me) was nice and clean and our seats were in the club level, which meant padded seats, nice amenities and short lines. But in general, I was underwhelmed. Of the newest stadiums, AT&T, PNC and Citizens Bank Parks have a lot more personality. Beer selection was poor, service was worse and fan intensity was non-existent. Food was mediocre. It certainly seemed that Cardinals fans outnumbers Nats fans, at least in intensity. The spectacle scoreboards had so many gimmicks, I could have sworn I was at a minor league game. And why do so many teams (my Bucs included) insist on copying the old sausage race tradition of Milwaukee? I certainly would rather have a clear announcement of a pitching change (which we did not have) than a stupid "kiss-cam" or follow the baby in the bucket game.
I guess if we sat in the upper decks, we'd have had a nice view of the Capitol and Washington Monument, but from where we were, nothing special.
I'd go to another game there if I happened to be in DC on a game night, but if I go out of my way to go to a game in the DC area, it will be in Baltimore...
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Alleluia, Christ is Risen!
The Lord is Risen, Indeed! Alleluia!
Easter Festival Bread... from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice.
Easter Festival Bread... from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice.
Great new iPhone/iPod Touch App!
I am greatly looking forward to opening day tomorrow. Since going to spring training this year, I'm about as excited about opening day as I ever have been.
So I was elated to see the new MLB At Bat app. For $10, you get a full season of pitch by pitch updates, video replay and... And.. Gameday audio. This means that I can listen to the Sox and Bucs on the treadmill at the gym, and listen at the office without using pc processor power. For even moderate baseball fans, this is a great deal!
So I was elated to see the new MLB At Bat app. For $10, you get a full season of pitch by pitch updates, video replay and... And.. Gameday audio. This means that I can listen to the Sox and Bucs on the treadmill at the gym, and listen at the office without using pc processor power. For even moderate baseball fans, this is a great deal!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Spring Training Trip: Coda
While we camped in Fort Myers, we had arranged for hotels on the way down and back. As I have for the past 10 years, I booked on hotwire.com, in which I commit to a hotel in a particular area at a particular quality level for a deeply discounted price. The downside is that I do not know what the hotel is until after I pay, and cancellations are not refunded. From an economics perspective, this makes perfect sense: hotels can sell otherwise unused inventory for something close to marginal cost while the commodity-seeking traveler sacrifices some certainty about lodging for a huge discount. In 10 years, I have stayed in very nice hotels in New York, Boston and San Francisco and some other reasonably clean, though bare-bones hotels in other parts of the country. The only disappointment I have ever had was a hotel in Boston that was technically in the zone advertised but much less convenient to public transportation than I expected. But this was not hotwire's fault -- it was mine.
Even our hotel for the trip down was a clean, bare-bones Days Inn in Lake City, FL that was easily worth the $40 we paid for it. Certainly nothing luxurious, but convenient, clean and safe.
The hotel we had in Valdosta, GA for the return trip was an extremely different story. For the first time, it was not a brand-name hotel. After learning the hotel name, I looked for some online reviews and very few were positive, so I was leery. We pulled in at 10:40 pm, tired boy in tow and very tired Dad in the lead. We had to turn down a spooky alleyway, with a strip club on the corner and a semi-truck depot on the other corner. Around the bend, we found the place. My concern was well-placed.
In Peter's words: "The room had an echo. It didn't even have a radio! We got out of there so fast we still had our pajamas on! And a little dog tried to get into our room before the woman picked him up and put him on the trailer!"
So here's a tip: If you are ever looking at hotwire for a hotel in Valdosta, GA, don't take any 2-star facility for less than $40. You might end up with the Briarwood Homeless Shelter Nightmare. It's very good to be home.
Update: Hotwire responded to my complaint and reviewed the star rating for this hotel. They determined that it was not up to their standards and downgraded it to a 1-star (still generous in my opinion, but at least I know never to bid on a 1-star hotel...) They credited the total fee to my account for use on a future hotwire purchase.
Even our hotel for the trip down was a clean, bare-bones Days Inn in Lake City, FL that was easily worth the $40 we paid for it. Certainly nothing luxurious, but convenient, clean and safe.
The hotel we had in Valdosta, GA for the return trip was an extremely different story. For the first time, it was not a brand-name hotel. After learning the hotel name, I looked for some online reviews and very few were positive, so I was leery. We pulled in at 10:40 pm, tired boy in tow and very tired Dad in the lead. We had to turn down a spooky alleyway, with a strip club on the corner and a semi-truck depot on the other corner. Around the bend, we found the place. My concern was well-placed.
- In 20 years of hotel stays, all around the world, I have never been asked to pay a $2 key deposit.
- I have also never been asked to leave a $5 deposit for the TV remote.
- I've never been able to hear every noise in the parking lot.
- I've always had a clock radio (they haven't always worked, but that's beside the point)
- I've never had to call hotwire to complain, and have them call the hotel while I was on the line to seek intervention on my behalf.
- I've had pools closed for the season, closed for cleaning, or had inconvenient hours. I have never had pools closed for "mandatory upgrades" with yellow police tape across the front door.
In Peter's words: "The room had an echo. It didn't even have a radio! We got out of there so fast we still had our pajamas on! And a little dog tried to get into our room before the woman picked him up and put him on the trailer!"
So here's a tip: If you are ever looking at hotwire for a hotel in Valdosta, GA, don't take any 2-star facility for less than $40. You might end up with the Briarwood Homeless Shelter Nightmare. It's very good to be home.
Update: Hotwire responded to my complaint and reviewed the star rating for this hotel. They determined that it was not up to their standards and downgraded it to a 1-star (still generous in my opinion, but at least I know never to bid on a 1-star hotel...) They credited the total fee to my account for use on a future hotwire purchase.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)