Since I got one pseudo-angry phone call yesterday from someone demanding details about my new gig, I will share some here. Starting Jan. 11, I will be working at a large, Hartford, CT-based nonprofit organization called the Community Renewal Team (or CRT). They have about 750 employees and serve nearly the entire state of Connecticut.
Their repertoire includes providing basic needs (such as Meals on Wheels, food banks, school lunch programs, elder services, shelters, heat assistance, etc.); financial literacy education programs; employment assistance (case mgmt., training, financial assistance, job placement, etc.); policy and advocacy; youth education and mentoring; wellness; drug and alcohol education and rehabilitation; criminal reentry; and a whole bunch more. Looking at this program list will get you started.
My job in the communications office will be to help tell the stories of all of those programs, to work with the media and other publics to help raise awareness of the organization as a whole.
The CRT is nearly all grant-funded, working with a fiscal budget of somewhere around $60 million. It is the oldest community action group in America, having started much smaller in the 1950's. That's about all I know for now. I haven't seen where I'll be working yet, but I presume I'll be in a cubicle. Wish me luck!
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
A Tremendous Theory
Thanks to being snowed in to my apartment all day this past Saturday, I was able to unabashedly catch up big time on my LOST re-watching. (I watched probably 10 episodes or so in one day!) Rarely leaving my couch, I finished up season three. With the LOST s6 premiere just under 2 months away now, speculation from fans and major media alike is picking up.
One of the bggest names in the LOST media world is Entertainment Weekly's Doc Jensen. Since the beginning of the series, he has offered his own thoughts on the show's future as well as shining the spotlight on some of the fan community's biggest fanatics. He just posted a new column that gets very deep into demons (or daemons, or daimons) and their possible role on the Island. I found it very dense and boring, and skipped most of it. However, he also featured an interview with an amateur LOSTie named Andrew Wilmar, aka Eye M. Sick, who has run a LOST-related blog for a while. In the interview, Jensen highlighted Wilmar's Three Black Swans theory, which he posted this past summer. And it's a doozie.
In sum, it proposes that there have been three unexpected Black Swan events that were not "supposed to happen" but did thanks to various characters, that have kept the Valenzetti equation from causing the end of the world. We've seen the first two of these events -- the Incident from last season's finale and Desmond's turning the fail safe key.
In both cases, the energy contained in the Island would lead to the end of the world if not halted in some way. In the 1977 Incident, the normal course of events would be that DHARMA's drilling into it would have unleashed the energy with Apocalyptic results, had it not been for the LOSTies and Juliet detonating the nuclear device first. Essentially the same is true when Des turns the fail safe, keeping the energy from being unleashed after Locke prevents the pushing of the button. The LOSTies and Des are the Black Swan variables that changed the normal course of events.
**This part I am embellishing a little: Faraday's mother knows this, and that is why she is so insistent on making sure Des and everyone else important back to the Island, to keep the delicate balance of the loop in place. We can postulate that Des, when unstuck in time after turning the fail safe, had the ability to change history (whatever happened, happened is wrong), could have married Penny and never gone to the Island, and therefore never would have turned the fail safe. Bam. End of the world. Thus, because of the two events, there has been a loop 27-year loop btw 1977 and 2004 going on for who knows how long (Note: The Valenzetti equation calls for a 27-year period before the world ends if not changed). That is also why Faraday's mother does not hesitate to send her son to the Island, even though she knows his end will come there at her own hand. This also adds to the 'loophole' idea spoken by the Man in Black to Jacob.
The third we shall see in the final season. It's a little too deep to try to summarize here, but it ties in my discovery of the Omega Point motif and essentially states that the two children of the Island that have been born, Aaron and Yi Jeon, must get married before 2031 to restore balance, or order, or Yin-yang, etc. to the Island, and therefore the world. I know that sounds dumb right now, but read the whole theory, and it's actually pretty amazing, when supported with evidence from events we've seen on the Island so far.
One of the bggest names in the LOST media world is Entertainment Weekly's Doc Jensen. Since the beginning of the series, he has offered his own thoughts on the show's future as well as shining the spotlight on some of the fan community's biggest fanatics. He just posted a new column that gets very deep into demons (or daemons, or daimons) and their possible role on the Island. I found it very dense and boring, and skipped most of it. However, he also featured an interview with an amateur LOSTie named Andrew Wilmar, aka Eye M. Sick, who has run a LOST-related blog for a while. In the interview, Jensen highlighted Wilmar's Three Black Swans theory, which he posted this past summer. And it's a doozie.
In sum, it proposes that there have been three unexpected Black Swan events that were not "supposed to happen" but did thanks to various characters, that have kept the Valenzetti equation from causing the end of the world. We've seen the first two of these events -- the Incident from last season's finale and Desmond's turning the fail safe key.
In both cases, the energy contained in the Island would lead to the end of the world if not halted in some way. In the 1977 Incident, the normal course of events would be that DHARMA's drilling into it would have unleashed the energy with Apocalyptic results, had it not been for the LOSTies and Juliet detonating the nuclear device first. Essentially the same is true when Des turns the fail safe, keeping the energy from being unleashed after Locke prevents the pushing of the button. The LOSTies and Des are the Black Swan variables that changed the normal course of events.
**This part I am embellishing a little: Faraday's mother knows this, and that is why she is so insistent on making sure Des and everyone else important back to the Island, to keep the delicate balance of the loop in place. We can postulate that Des, when unstuck in time after turning the fail safe, had the ability to change history (whatever happened, happened is wrong), could have married Penny and never gone to the Island, and therefore never would have turned the fail safe. Bam. End of the world. Thus, because of the two events, there has been a loop 27-year loop btw 1977 and 2004 going on for who knows how long (Note: The Valenzetti equation calls for a 27-year period before the world ends if not changed). That is also why Faraday's mother does not hesitate to send her son to the Island, even though she knows his end will come there at her own hand. This also adds to the 'loophole' idea spoken by the Man in Black to Jacob.
The third we shall see in the final season. It's a little too deep to try to summarize here, but it ties in my discovery of the Omega Point motif and essentially states that the two children of the Island that have been born, Aaron and Yi Jeon, must get married before 2031 to restore balance, or order, or Yin-yang, etc. to the Island, and therefore the world. I know that sounds dumb right now, but read the whole theory, and it's actually pretty amazing, when supported with evidence from events we've seen on the Island so far.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Sad News
Greta Goldfish Armstrong passed away sometime between 5 p.m. Friday, Dec. 4 and 8 a.m. Monday, Dec. 7, at her residence in the James Madison University Office of Public Affairs.
Burial services took place Monday morning, at sea. She will be missed.
Memorials should not be put toward buying me another fish. Thank you.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Late Photos
So I know I'm a little late on posting about my travels and Thanksgiving weekend. Suffice it to say that the trip was terrific as was the Turkey Day meal. Aside from a minor flat-tire-at-the-Hartford-Airport snafu, most everything went off without a hitch. I flew, cooked, ate, drove, interviewed, slept, changed a tire, flew again, rested, ate, bowled, ate again, won several board games, ate again, slept, and so on and so forth. It was nice. Here are a few photos I took on my phone. The first two are repeats of ones on Sarah's blog.
One of the days, Sarah and I traveled to Brattleboro, Vermont. Read her entry for a better description of the trip. We ate at a Thai restaurant, visited several used book stores, a few thrift stores and stopped at the unhappiest place on earth on the way back. This is a picture I took too late of the "Welcome to Vermont" sign.
Sarah enjoyed her meal at Thai Bamboo.
Sarah did not enjoy my antics.
The nail which, upon entering Sarah's tire head-first, caused our flat; costing $25 to repair plus $4 for the 10 minutes we were "parked" in Bradley International Airport's garbage-riddled Economy Parking Lot D.
Sarah enjoyed her meal at Thai Bamboo.
Sarah did not enjoy my antics.
The nail which, upon entering Sarah's tire head-first, caused our flat; costing $25 to repair plus $4 for the 10 minutes we were "parked" in Bradley International Airport's garbage-riddled Economy Parking Lot D.
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