RAGBRAI 2010 ended on Saturday. Becky made it back without incident. She was tired and had a combination of tan, burn and sun rash. Casualties included a hole in her tent from mishandling by the transport company and a chip in her bike paint from the bike rack on the return trip. All in all she had a good time, but was pleased to be home.
Personal
RAGBRAI 2010
Becky is off riding cross Iowa for RAGBRAI again this year. While I don’t understand it, I respect the effort she puts into it. She has ridden nearly 1000 miles in preparation. The ride this year is about 450 miles. There is one day that is a Century Day where they add a loop to make the total day 100 miles. That would add extra miles to the 450. She never decides about doing the Century Loop until she sees how she feels that day and what the weather conditions are. She has ridden it about half the time. (This is her eighth time at RAGBRAI.)
10,000 people are selected by lottery to ride the whole route from west to east across the state. 5,000 additional riders register as day riders for any given day. They estimate an additional 5,000 unregistered riders also participate each day.
Cold showers, Fair food and camping each night… not my thing.
Becky emails me updates on the ride which I send out to those that are interested. If you’re not already on the list and want to be, let me know.
The Destinies of Those Who Signed…
We see the romanticized portraits of those who signed the Declaration of Independence and really don’t consider what they risked to bring us the liberties that we enjoy. They might well shudder with rage to see how easily we consider giving up those rights when it seems expedient to us.
Take a look at the excerpt (upper right) which lists some of the lessor known patriots who were signatory to the Declaration of Independence and the not so pleasant fates they met after signing the document that marked the birth of our nation. Some lost their lives, some lost the lives of their families and some lost fortunes, all of which they pledged to the cause of Independence.
As July 4th rolls around on the calendar, all Americans should be cognizant of the sacrifices of the past as well as the sacrifices of those currently serving in our military to protect the rights and liberties we enjoy. It did not end with declaring independence. No, our independence had to be forcibly taken and now, just as they did then, we need to cherish it and fight to maintain it.
The except in the captioned box is taken from an essay on the signers of the Declaration of Independence by Rush H. Limbaugh Jr., distributed by the Federalist Magazine.
Memorial Day
Memorial Day was originally know as Decoration Day. May was chosen for this observance as May is the month where the greatest number of flowers are in bloom across the nation. While various cities and towns argue about who originated Decoration Day, it is generally accepted that it was begun by southern women decorating the graves of fallen confederate soldiers and that it began before the Civil War ended. Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.
CCMS Career Day 2010
April 23rd was Career Day at Culver Community Middle School. As discussed here earlier, I volunteered to speak as a Landscape Architect since April is National Landscape Architecture Month. The schedule called for me to speak to five different groups of kids in 20 minute time slots.
Speaking for 20 minutes wasn’t really a big deal, though it was hard to decide what level of detail would be interesting to 7th graders. Of course the nightmare scenarios were 1) a sea of blank staring faces or; 2) a horrible reinactment of “Are You Smarter Than a 7th Grader” with me as the brunt of the joke. As it turned out, the worst part was a planning mistake on my part. I was right that 20 minutes of material wasn’t a big deal, but by the time I was doing the third presentation I began to forget whether I was repeating myself since I remembered saying it before to the previous group. By the end, I also realized that I wasn’t used to talking that much! My throat was actually a little dry and scratchy.
