Sephy’s Platzish

This post marks a couple of milestones - first, this is the tenth edition of This was the Week that Was, and it’s also the 300th post for the blog. It’s taken a little bit over a year to get there, but things go on.

Posts I liked -

• From Create Business Growth - a simple way to Find 2-10 hours a week; it’s something that a lot of us do.
• Darren from Problogger asks about your preference for spelling - American, British, or Canadian (I’m in the Canadian camp myself ;))
• From Duncan’s TV - an ad supporting the Aussie Rugby World Cup effort - basically taking the Mickey out of some of the others in the competition
• Bluejar has 7 signs you’re obsessed with stats - it’s great reading. I recommend it
• Katie lists eight of the most touching Simpsons moments, with video.

New Blogs I’m reading in Google Reader
None - I’ve actually cleared out a lot of blogs from my reader for a variety of reasons - either they’ve disappeared, I’ve lost touch with them, or a few other reasons. I’ll be going through my links list during the week and getting that sorted out - I’ve set Wednesday aside to do that

New blogs this week in the US Blogs community at BumpZEE -

• A Logical Illation
• Amuse Me

This week around the blog, there were 250 visitors - an average of 36 a day; approximately 80 of those were from stumbling my Tuesday Think Tank post.

Search terms -

squeezo recipes - About the only thing I know how to do with a squeezo is to make tomato puree, which you can use to make tomato sauce - just add some onion, garlic and green pepper (capsicum) and simmer for a couple of hours, stirring regularly until the correct consistency is reached. Put into jars and process for approximately 35-40 minutes.
dilana nude - still no luck on that, eh?
hp pavilion n5475 fan - it sucks! It’s made noise almost from day one, I think that it has something to do with a ball bearing or something. I’m not 100% sure. I usually put a fan under it to force cool air into the processor.
stupid computer repair synonyms - uh, maybe system unmalfunctioning? Or what about Deprobleming the Mainframe?

This week, I told you all about RSS, discussed my good neighbors. I also talked about one of my favorite TV shows and took a day to write (and give a tip).

Coming up, I’ll discuss the vast array of changes you can make to a blogger template. Also the Hump Day Hmm for this week is all about school - it can be about anything to do with schooling, I’m going to take a look at the “required shopping” lists that are out for the area. There’s some strange stuff on them!

So, for now, til next week y’all.

It’s time again to recap the week in walking, along with the other changes in my world. As always, you can click on the photos to make them larger.

Monday, 20th August

Another shot of some of the beads of water hanging off the needles of a pine tree; you can also see some of the webbing created by a spider.

Yet another wet day, but it wasn’t too wet. When I started. On Sunday I had noticed a tree that was somewhat across the regular path, and as it happened, the tree had fallen completely across the path, so I went ahead and moved it out of the way. It’s now sitting at the side of the path. However, by the time I was coming back, the rain had begun to intensify and the wind was getting a bit stronger, so I gave up on the umbrella and let myself get wet.

Total Distance 5121 steps, 4.09km

Tuesday, 21st August

Another of the flowers along the pathway, as you can see, the sun was actually out for a few minutes..

Yay! It wasn’t wet today, finally! The mosquitoes weren’t that bad either - though I’m expecting them to be pretty nasty tomorrow with the higher temperatures expected. I decided to go along the long route, and use a version of the grand rounds route, going around and then cutting back through a route which cut down on my stepping through high, wetter, grass.

total distance: 5926 steps, 4.74km

Wednesday, 22nd August

A butterfly and another insect occupy the same flower.

Amazingly, the sun was out today! However, that made it hot outside and quite humid, so it was a bit of a challenge to walk - I just had to drink some extra water while walking. I walked the regular route, with the diversion. I was quite sweaty, but it all went well.

Total distance - 5013 steps, 4.01km

Thursday, 23rd August

I think this is a moth, but I’m not 100% sure - they’re fairly prevalent, and tend to be really small when they close their wings.

On Wednesday night, there were some big storms that blew through the area - and they caused a lot of damage, including a lot of branches in the road. Fortunately, by the time that I went to walk, most of the branches had been cleared to the side of the road. However, in the park, there was a branch that had fallen on one of the paths, and in fact a whole tree had fallen into the path of one of the holes of the disc golf course that is there. I went along the reverse regular route, with the diversion.

Total distance - 5314 steps, 4.25km

Friday, 24th August

Uh, yeah, this was taken with the flash - at 7.45pm. Like I said, it was quite dark by that time - likely due to there not being any sun to help out a little bit.

This is what I get for not walking until after I eat dinner. First, I get asked why am I going to walk so late - simple, I hadn’t walked earlier in the day. It was after 7pm when I started walking. Everything was fine for most of the “out” leg of the walk, but I started having troubles seeing when I was in the middle of the forest - growing darkness combined with humidity fogging up my glasses led to me taking off the glasses, putting them in my pocket, and moving along carefully.

As I was heading out of the forest, I could barely see anything, but there was still just enough light to tell where I was going, though I was starting to lose sight of things. I then decided that, while it wasn’t raining anymore, I’d use my umbrella as a visibility assist on the road. Fortunately, no cars came in the lane I was in, though one did to the other way. When I was on the final approach to the house, I then heard calling for me from the house, so I replied by calling on the phone

By the time I got back to the driveway, it was hard to discern the lines on the road further away than about 20 meters. I’ll definitely make sure to get out there earlier now

Total distance - 5423 steps, 4.33km

Saturday, 25th August

Some of the damage that the storms did on the long route.

On Thursday, I had decided that I would do two ‘reverse’ routes - then I did the reverse regular with the diversion, and today I did the reverse long route. The thing about the path I take is that it’s normally equally balanced between uphill and downhill. However, it just seemed that going this way was a lot of uphill, and not so much downhill, especially when I went up a very steep hill that I had only gone down before. Nevertheless, it was a good walk. I even managed to find a stick that could be used as a walking stick - it’s got all the bark off of it, but I’d have to do a little work on shortening it, since it’s almost 8 feet long.

Total distance - 5500 steps, 4.40km

Sunday, 26th August

A turkey shows its legs behind a tree - it wasn’t there a few seconds later.

It all started out well, but then a little bit into the walk, I had to go over to the other side of the road due to a motorcyclist stopped at the side of the road - he wasn’t in trouble, he just wanted to watch the train that was there. After that, it was a normal walk along the regular route (the diversion I’ve been taking has become regular now ;)). However, I did spot a snake slithering into the forest as I was making my way back around to head out.

Total distance - 5184 steps, 4.14km

In the other news, I’ve kept to my goal of having my posts made by 4pm each day. I’ve also started to work on getting them written ahead of time now. I didn’t go to volunteer this week, but I will be setting a day from now on to go volunteer, and sticking to that.

My goal for this week is to keep up the work on having the blogs posted early in the day; I am also going to write up a proposal to establish a website for an organization that I’m a part of; it had been started by someone else, but never got to its completion. The biggest challenge, I think, will be finding a decent domain name - the most direct ones are already taken. Another goal for this week will be to have somewhere between five and ten posts prewritten, or at least started

A long time ago, I had mentioned someone looking for a video of a truck using an escape ramp. That request was echoed by Radioactive Jam. As it so happened, I flipped on the National Geographic Channel today, and they had a show on about the science behind runaway vehicles.

The first segment mentioned the well-known (at least if you’ve watched those John Bunnell police chase shows) PIT maneuver - which usually ends a police pursuit. The case they mentioned featured someone from the Washington State Patrol PITting someone, but since he didn’t have access to the local PD’s frequencies, he couldn’t coordinate with them on how to sort out the chase. So the bad guy got away. I’m just curious why they didn’t have the local channels available to them - here, the State Patrol is heard frequently on local Police and Sheriff frequencies. I guess it’s different in Washington.

Anyway, the last segment of the show featured the Runaway Truck ramps, and their science. They also featured a truckie who was forced into using a runaway truck ramp, and she says straight out that if it weren’t for the ramp, she would have rolled the truck down a mountain.

All in all, it’s an interesting video to watch. I think that’s why National Geographic is one of my favorite channels on cable.

While I watch a lot of TV, I usually never watched primetime dramas; I’d always preferred to watch comedies (and even those I’ve shied away from over the last ten years or so). There was a time when I watched Law and Order SVU, because I liked the stories and it was a really good show to watch, but even that didn’t last too long.

However, one TV drama that I had never watched, and never really cared to watch at the time it was on TV (assuming that it had a massive political bias) was The West Wing. All I really knew about the show before really sitting down and watching it was that John Spencer died while the show was filming its final season, and that led into a discussion of the resulting situation. I didn’t know anything about the characters, or really about the content of the show.

Ironically, last year, one of the new shows that I watched was the ill-fated Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - created by Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme - who also created West Wing, and Sports Night (all three of which have a season 1 finale titled “What Kind of Day Has it Been?”). It was an alright series, but after a couple of weeks I lost interest - mostly because it was on at 9pm on Mondays, but also because the storylines were somewhat confusing and hard to get into.

Then, Snoskred got hooked into the show, big time. Eventually, I was convinced to, ahem, procure, a couple of episodes - you know, take the show for a test drive. I think it took about three for me to be sucked in.

The thing about The West Wing is that it is an intelligent program. It’s not filled with the double-innuendo that you see in most comedies nowadays, and it’s not filled with blood and guts and murder investigations, like most modern dramas. It’s a show that goes very far to give an insight into the world of Washington and of politics. As someone said in a review of Studio 60 on Amazon - “Could it actually be that if “West Wing” was first being premiered this fall that it would also not last one season?”

Unfortunately, I think that would be the case - in early 2006, the West Wing was not performing very well on its way to the end of the series; in fact, NBC put it on Sundays at 7 - against the Simpsons and Extreme Makeover Home Edition and whatever was on CBS at the time, mostly to just let it finish its run. Today’s TV is all about the ratings - not the quality. Luckily, we have had the priviledge to have quality television in the West Wing.

Part of the reason I’ve loved watching the show so much is that the writers knew how to tug at all of your emotions - from humor to fear to just times where you want to cry (the end of season 2 was the first time that I really cried at the show, and the final episodes of the series were awfully difficult to watch). Another great thing is that, in the final season, they knew that the show was coming to an end, so John Wells did an excellent job to close the series - letting you know what the characters would be doing in the future, and even bringing back an old friend and putting them back into the fray. It was, really, a great way to end a show, and it reached a logical end with the end of a Presidency, and the beginning of another.

Yes, the show did have some less-than-stellar moments; an episode from season 5 - “Access” comes to mind with that, but almost all of the 150+ episodes were of excellent quality. Like Snos said at one point - it’s hard to believe that people had to wait four and a half months between seasons hwen the situations at the end of one season make it necessary to watch the next one, two or even three episodes. At one point, I even watched half of one season in one day, and I think that if you were determined, you could watch all 7 seasons in a sitting, but that would take a massive effort.

The only thing that I missed out on with the way that I, ahem, procured, the series was the commentary tracks to the episodes that they put on the DVD sets. One day soon, I hope to be able to get the full series DVD set; that will be a major acquisition for me, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go and buy it for yourself. However, if you just want to take the “test drive”, I think you know where to find these things.

Now, I have to find another show to watch at lunchtime….anyone have a suggestion?

And, I want to leave you with a couple of my favorite scenes from the show -

First, from Season 3, President Bartlet calls the Butterball Hotline and tries to not reveal that it’s him….

And this other clip from Season 3, CJ lays down the law to Josh -

Note: This is a sponsored post.

One of the emerging health problems facing the US today is Alzheimer’s Disease, especially as the average age of our population goes up. It is a condition that receives some attention, especially when a famous person is affected by the disease; the most notable case being President Reagan. There is one organization who are making an effort to get the word out there about the disease, along with finding ways of defeating it.

The Alzheimer’s Association has been in existence since 1979, and every year since 1989, they have been holding Memory Walks across the country, raising in excess of $225 million for Alzheimer’s research and support for the people who have been affected by the disease. While I do not have anyone in my immediate family who has the disease - I’ve seen its effect on actual patients and their families.

In fact, one place that touched very well on the disease and its effects was the TV show The West Wing - where CJ, the Press Secretary, had a father who was affected by the disease. It was the focus of an episode from season 4 - The Long Goodbye, where she has to go home and handle the effects the disease has already had on her father, including the fact that his wife has left him.

Over the next two months, over 600 Memory Walks will be held, including two in my immediate vicinity - I’ve seen the banners for the walk in previous years around the area it is held in but haven’t looked into any of the details of the actual walk. Right now, the Alzheimer’s Association is looking for people to sign up as a Team Captain for the Memory Walk.

What being a team captain involves is leading a group of approximately ten other people in raising funds for the walk, and to rally support - either from the general community, or from within the group you’ve recruited your team members from. They could be the people you work with, your neighbors, your friends - anyone; all they need is an interest to help out for a good cause.

Also, as a team captain, you get some experience with being a team leader, a team player, and also some basic management skills - great things to have on a resume to send to potential employers - it could help make the difference between getting that job or being passed over. It also shows that you’re willing to be a leader within your community and willing to take the initiative to get something started that you may not have done in the past.

On the page to sign up as a Team Captain, the Alzheimer’s Association has all the information you need - where the walks are located, tips on how to set goals for your team. If you do decide to sign up, you will have access to tools that will allow you to make a website for your team. You can then use that website as a headquarters for your team’s fundraising operations.

I haven’t decided whether I am going to do the walk or not, but if you’re interested in signing up, definitely go for it! I have done a couple of other similar walks in the past, and they have been a lot of fun - even if I didn’t finish the complete distance. One thing about the Memory Walks is that they’re relatively short - 2-3 miles, or, about the same amount of walking I’m already doing on a daily basis. However, it’s not all about the distance - it’s all about raising awareness of Alzheimer’s and raising funds for the Alzheimer’s Association.