#77 - Pearson Metropark - a.k.a. Mosquito Central

My youngest wanted to go on a hike today, so I looked at the list of Metroparks and found that Pearson Park had an intriguing Black Swamp Trail to hike on.  We packed up some snacks and supplies and headed out.   On the trail we were swarmed by  thousands of mosquitoes and walked through as quickly as possible.  I had the adult strength bug spray and got 4 bites, but the kids had the safer, but less concentrated, stuff and got dozens of bites each.  It was not fun, but we felt closer afterwards, as if we'd been through war together.  We enjoyed the indoors, air-conditioned Window on Nature building where we ate our snacks and watched critters enjoying theirs at feeders and a pond outside the windows.  There was a nearby playground that the boys played on for a little while before we headed back.  Maybe we'll be back in the winter to check out the sledding hill, but for now, we've had enough of Mosquito Pearson MetroPark

#3 - Letter to Mark

My brother lost his wife last year to breast cancer at only 31 years old.  While she was his wife and the mother of his 3 kids, she was my sister-in-law and my friend.  Losing her took a big toll on my life and I feel like my family and I are still recovering from it.  Mark is having some changes in his life that are private, but that prompted me to write him.  I've done lots of talking about Melinda's death to my wife, my other family, my friends, my colleagues, my patients - I even started a blog about it to share some of the joy that Melinda brought to all of us that knew her.  Who I hadn't talked to, was Mark.  Because of how busy work had gotten, we hadn't seen him since the funeral.  We had talked on the phone about the kids and how he was holding up and things we had done recently and upcoming plans, but we hadn't talked about my feelings about Melinda.  I figured he had his own cross to bear in this regard, so why should I burden him with mine.  After breaking down during a radio program about cancer victims, I decided I needed to write him.  I'm so glad that I did. We both got a new perspective on where we were, and I believe we grew even closer.  Now it will be important to keep that communication up.

#99 - Hearing Amy Sing

Tonight, to celebrate my wife's birthday, we found a sitter for the kids and drove over an hour to Tiffin, OH.  There we were treated to the most intimate, and ultimately most enjoyable Amy Grant concert we've ever attended.  This was my fourth and Becky's fifth concert, but this little theater made her feel so close.  She sang a few of her newer songs and a lot of her classics.  She invited the audience to call out their favorites and she played many of them, accompanied by a small band while she stood in front of a microphone with her guitar at stage front and center.  We've promised each other that we would try to get to any of Amy's concerts that are close enough to be feasible.  She's touring less than she used to, but this is our second concert while living in Toledo - the last one was at the Fox Theater in Detroit several years ago. We'll be ready if she comes this way again.

#77 - Sidecut Metropark

My wife read an article in the local paper that there was a fishing lake at Sidecut Metropark. My oldest son needed to go fishing to complete a Cub Scout elective. I had put together some fishing gear for camping, so my wife picked up some nightcrawlers at Wal-mart and we headed out for Sidecut. Silver Lake turned out to be little more than a pond, but we had a good time catching fish anyway. Ok, only one fish was caught, but Becky did feed several with the nightcrawlers right off of her hook.

#10 - Wolf Scout

I mentioned in a previous post about my motivations for helping Alex go as far as he wants to in Scouts. We squeaked out his Tiger Cub badge requirements at the last possible moment. As we finished the last requirement, we found out that his aunt - my brother's wife - was dying of the breast cancer that we thought she had beat. Within hours, we were on a plane to help bury her and the boys missed their first day of school in the process. On the first day of second grade Alex had to stop working on Tiger Cub acheivements and start on his Wolf badge, so we couldn't have cut it any closer. As of today, Alex completed his last requirement for his Wolf badge. He has really thrived there, as I suspected he might, and he will likely be receiving several other awards at the end of the year Blue & Gold Banquet next month, in addition to the formal ceremony for his Wolf Badge. I am very proud of all of the hard work that he has put in. When I made this one of my goals, I didn't picture how involved his mother would be also. She made this possible by volunteering her time as his Den Leader. She's going to take it a step further next year by being both his Bear Den Leader, but also the Cubmaster for all of Pack 90. As long as he is interested, it is something we plan to encourage and support.

#63 - Walt Disney World Magic

My wife and I went to Walt Disney World in Florida for our honeymoon, and we had been back twice since, but neither of us had been in 10 years. Our kids, 4 and 8 yrs old, had never been. Some of their classmates had been and they were aware vaguely that it was somewhere they wanted to go. Our oldest even described it as his "dream" to go to Walt Disney World. Becky's parents announced to us last fall that they would like to take all of us and we decided to plan for this year's Spring Break. We told the kids at Chrsitmas and they've been counting down the days on the calendar. Disney World did not disappoint.

We stayed in the Polynesian Resort which gave us great transportation options to every location on the resort property, including riding the Monorail to Epcot and the Magic Kingdom, and even shuttling around by boat (both much more enjoyable than the Disney buses). The Polynesian had a pool with a steaming volcano rising out of one side of it that the kids enjoyed. We hit all of the major parks - first Epcot, then Animal Kingdom, the Magic Kingdom, and the newly renamed Disney Hollywood Studios. We took a day off in the middle and had a leisurely brunch at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, and midday fishing excursion for the guys while the ladies were shopping, and a performance that evening of La Nouba by Cirque du Soleil in their own dedicated theater in Downtown Disney. Becky and I even got a night to ourselves while the grandparents watched the boys where we dined at the top-tier California Grill and partied (gently) at Pleasure Island (mostly taking in a few comedy shows).

The parks were the highlights of course and were universally loved by all of us. They had fun mixes of thrill rides, educational experiences, shows and playscapes that the kids could burn off steam on. The weather was fairly reasonable - warm most days but not sweltering with a couple of annoying rain showers that are typical for this time of year. We were disappointed in having to leave, but we vowed to go back again someday.

#70 - Dining at the Top of Walt Disney World

When I envisioned this meal for the List, I never thought it would be at Walt Disney World. Becky and I left the boys with their grandparents while we went to the California Grill atop the Contemporary Resort on the Seven Seas Lagoon overlooking the Magic Kingdom.  The setting was gorgeous with an open-air kitchen and large windows looking out over Walt Disney World.  It is one of several five-star restaurants located on the property.

For our apppetizer, we shared the Triple Cheese, Pecorino, Asiago, Provolone Flatbread with sun-dried tomatoes and basil pesto which was a delicious start.  Then I had the Seared Jumbo Day Boat Scallops with farro risotto, roasted wild mushrooms, and banyuls reduction for my entree while Becky had the Oak-fired Filet of Beef with cheese orecchiette pasta gratin, sauteed asparagus, and teriyaki BBQ sauce.  We each took about half of our respective dishes and traded so we could both have some of everything.  I preferred the scallops which were perfectly seared, but the filet was excellent also. While I loved my risotto, I could have eaten a whole bowl of Becky's cheese orecchiette pasta gratin, which was effectively the best macaroni and cheese I've ever had. For dessert we did the same divide and conquer routine to share a Warm Chocolate Cake with molten center with blood orange sorbet and raspberry reduction and the Inspired by "The Year of a Million Dreams" Honey Crunch Cake with chantilly cream, oven-roasted golden pineapple and crunch candy crumble.

Afterwards we took a walk on a railed section of the roof accessible from the restaurant and took in the sunset over the lagoon and let our meal settle before enjoying the rest of our evening.  It was a wonderful meal and one we'd love to repeat.  We'd like to also thank Becky's parents for the opportunity to be at Walt Disney World and their significant contibution to the cost of the meal through the Disney Dining Plan.

# 3 - Letter to Aunt Joyce

I have been woefully behind in my correspondence though I do keep up with some friends and family over the phone and with email. However, I believe that there is still something tangible and special about writing and reading a letter you get on paper. I am so used to composing my thoughts in a text editor and then editing the writing before anyone else reads it, that it is hard for me to write letters like this by hand. So when my father's oldest sister, Aunt Joyce, wrote us a nice card talking about some of the things going on in her life, I took that opportunity to type her a reply and mailing it to her. I know Dad keeps her updated when he talks to her, but I know she doesn't read our family blog, so I took this chance to tell her about Becky and the boys and all the things going on in our life now. My goal of writing these letters is to get me into the pattern of writing letters to family and friends, so I plan to send her more in the future.

# 69 - Chicken Tangine

I got a new cookbook the other day that I love, by the people who produce America's Test Kitchen on PBS and edit Cook's Illustrated magazine - The Best 30-minute Recipe. As you can imagine from the title, they've selected a variety of their favorite recipes and tested ways to cook them in 30 minutes or less. I've found that my actual time is greater because of my cooking skill and prep time, but the methods have still resulted in making some tasty meals. The other thing I like about this book is that they've come up with several recipes from different styles of cooking and different cultures. Several of their Indian recipes use a spice blend called garam masala that I assembled from cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, ground cloves, and coriander. Today I made Chicken Tangine which included garbanzo beans and dried apricots. It was quite tasty. I may make it again someday, but I want to explore some more Indian recipes before I come back to this.

#18 - Almost Got to Keep This Unit

When I donate blood, I am still struggling to find the right balance between not enough pre-hydration, which in the past meant my veins would be too flat to puncture, and too much pre-hydration, which has meant that I had to pee really bad. This time I was almost too close to flat veins, but they found one they could work with at the last minute. One more to go.

#50 - The Terror

When I planned to read books on things I didn't know about, I assumed that this would mean non-fiction books. One of my patients was reading "The Terror" by Dan Simmons and encouraged me to do the same. One one hand it is a novel about a group of 19th-century British explorers who are trying to find the fabled Northwest Passage over Canada who face an overwhelming combination of weather, poisonous rations, mechanical failures, incompetent leadership, and, oh yeah, a 10-foot Yeti-like creature stalks them through the frozen landscape. On the other hand it is a well-researched compendium of the state of Arctic exploration in the 1800's, from the politics of launching a mission to the day-to-day details of running an icebreaker. While the narrative was intensely engaging, I left the book with a level of knowledge about that world that I never expected. The HMS Terror was a real ship from that era that was lost during an attempt to find the Northwest Passage, so Dan Simmons took what was known about the ship and its crew and spun this detailed narrative that I was very satisfied to explore.

#98 - Exploring Old HBO Shows

I've been enjoying watching old shows that I own on DVD from the beginning - X-Files, Star Trek, Buffy, Lost, the new Battlestar Galactica among others. I watch them while I exercise on a treadmill in the basement. I'll watch one disc from one show, then start the next disc from another show, until I cycle back around. I realized I could employ the same method to test out TV shows available on DVD that I've never seen. I subscribe to Blockbuster Online Rentals which sends us 3 discs at a time through the mail, including individual discs from TV shows. I keep them as long as I want, then trade them in at the Blockbuster store down the road for another free rental. They mail them back for me and then send me the next mail order disc on my list. Using this method, I am working my way through the Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and Deadwood - all award winning shows that I've heard about, but never seen because they aired on HBO. I really enjoy what I've seen so far and I look forward to trying this with other shows too - The West Wing, The 4400. Plus, it keeps me going back to the treadmill.

#7 - Christmas Letter in January

I added writing a yearly Christmas letter to my list because I have a bad habit of procrastinating this to the point of skipping it, and I've been averaging about every other year. I wrote our letter this year before Christmas, but life caught up to me and I got too busy to send it before Christmas. They all went out today, edited as more of a "Happy New Year" letter. Next year, I'll try to get it out in December.

#90 - Consolidating the Office

I've been in my current job for over 7 years and I have accumulated a lot of clutter in my office. Because of some rearranging in our suite, I had to move my office to a smaller one down the hall. This gave me the perfect excuse to get rid of a lot of the stuff I had not touched in years. I still need to clean out some files - it is very easy to file papers into obscurity. I know that 2/3 of my file drawer could be shredded and never missed. My goal now is to actively work to prevent recluttering of my more efficient workspace.

#38 - My Disaster Kit blog

I began preparing for disasters in preparation for the Y2K scare. The 9/11 attack, anthrax scare, Indonesian tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina devastation just reinforced my desire to prepare for unexpected disasters. I've put together small kits for short-term personal use, "bug-out" bags designed to keep us going for 72 hours outside the home, car kits to provide basic needs if we got stuck in the vehicles with help late in coming, shelter-in-place gear in case we get stuck in our house for a few weeks, and enough camping gear bundled up in one spot that I could grab if we needed to get way out of town for a little while. At least in theory I have. I have done lots of research and made lots of lists about what I want and need in these kits. They are not all complete though. I wonder if they'll ever be complete enough.

The problem with preparing for the unexpected future is that you are always trying to estimate the odds of certain scenarios (stuck in the house during a blizzard vs. stuck in the car during a multi-car pileup vs. terrorist attack) and your mind can quickly come up with worse scenarios that you aren't prepared for. This almost got the best of me during the Y2K scare. I almost quit an internship (that would have been devastating for my career) to move into a farm and prepare to raise our own food off the grid. Thankfully, that was too difficult to contemplate, so we stockpiled some food and water, found an alternate heat source that we never needed and hoped for the best. I panicked last year when I was trying to figure out how to seal off a room in our house per the Dept. of Homeland Security's Shelter-in-Place instructions in case of a chemical or airborne biological terrorist attack. I added this item to my 101 list to give myself another reason to complete these preparations to an acceptable level.

My brother and his 3 kids had to leave their home when an ice storm knocked out their power this winter. They were fine, but I sent him a few of the links to resources I had used for my preparations. I realized that a blog might help me organize my thoughts (like it has for this 101 in 1001 list) and get me motivated to complete my kits. I started posting to My Disaster Kit (http://mydisasterkit.blogspot.com/) recently and I plan to keep up with it to raise awareness about disaster preparedness and to help me get my own act together. Please check it out and comment on the posts I've got so far. I'd rather have a conversation than preach.

#66 - Arbor Mist Strawberry Zinfandel

My forrays into finding a wine that I like are amatuer at best. Wine is one of those beverages that everyone talks about like it is a normal part of good meals and being an adult. I just don't get it. Since I was a kid I have loved the subtle depth of flavor that grape juice provides, but its sweetness has likely positioned my palate to expect that same sweetness from wine, which of course it is not. Even the "dry" sweet wines I have tried come across as tart. I have also never been a big fan of the fermented alcohol taste that come with beer and wine. I've come across a few mixed drinks I like, but these are usualy highly sweetened and flavored with other, typically fruity, ingredients (daiquiris, mojitos, etc). This has left me feeling like I am missing out on the wine experience. I am especially interested in wine's purported ability to make other food taste better, to complement my meal as they say.

I know that to do what i have set out to do, I will need to find someone who knows wine well enough to know what they are doing and guide me through it. This will involve trying a lot of wine. It is something that i think i have neither the time or the money for. In the meantime, I couldn't help but pick up a strawberry-flavored wine - Arbor Mist Strawberry Zinfandel - because of the promise of the extra fruity flavoring. I thought it was quite good. I tried it with meals and it lost some of its appeal, but cold and by itself, it was quite refreshing. I prefered the small bottles because I didn't want the remaninder of a full bottle to spoil if I only wanted a glass of wine. I know that this is the beginning of my quest and not the end, but at least I've started on the path.

#60 - Jason the Jedi

30 years ago I saw Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope in a drive-in theater with my parents and baby brother. I barely remember it, but I knew I had to see it again, and again. For the first 3 movies I identified with the young desert moisture farmer, Luke Skywalker, who found out that he was the heir to a great legacy of powerful knights. He found out that his father was the greatest Jedi Knight but that he turned to darker powers to try to save his mother who died in childbirth. Luke became a Jedi himself and defeated the evil Emperor by drawing out the good that was still in his father. I loved the adventure and the themes of the movies and the philosophical insights of the Jedi. In the next 3 movies we get to go back and see the transformation of his father from good to evil and learn of his close relationship with his mentor, Obi-wan Kenobi. Now that I'm older I identify more with the older, wiser Jedi Knight. I decided several years ago to start assembling a Jedi costume and this year my mother-in-law and my wife collaborated to make it happen for me. I've got to say that I have not felt such joy in a long time as when I put on the costume for the first time. It took me back 30 years and brought out the kid in me. I wore it to work on Halloween and chaperoned my sons in the costume while they were trick-or-treating. Nobody messed with us - either because they respected the uniform, or they thought I was crazy. Now I've got to resist the urge to wear it for fun, like right now.

#18 - Blood for Blood

My sister-in-law Melinda needed over 80 units of blood products to help her survive 3 weeks before she died in August. I was a blood donor before that and frequent blood donation made this list. Now however it feels very different. Many people had to donate their blood to keep her alive. I was thinking about that today when I was donating another unit. I know that this blood will help keep someone else alive, maybe to save their life, maybe to allow them to say goodbye. They'll let me try to repay this debt again on 12/22/07.

#71 - MacQueen's Apple Orchard

I didn't get to any true farmer's markets this summer like I intended, but I kicked off this fall with an annual tradition. Today we went to the MacQueen's Apple Orchard for their annual Apple Butter Stir and Festival. Part of the morning's festivities included a chance for us to pick our own apples straight from the trees. We filled a half bushel bag full of the tastiest, crispest red delicious, golden delicious, and honey crisp apples - better than anything shipped in from Washington. Those apples are bred for shape and transportability, but not for flavor. I dread getting to the bottom of the bag.

#19 - Funds for a Cure

Through the generous support of friends, family, colleagues, and patients, we were able to raise $1770 for the Northwest Ohio Race for the Cure, sponsoring breast cancer education and research. The total on the NWO Komen website is over $131,000 raised in donations, plus registration fees for all the runners. I am overwhelmed. I thought it would take all 1001 days to get to my goal of $1000. I realize now I set my goal too low. We're not stopping here. We have to find a cure.