year-of-adventure

Ziplining and Guy Fieri

Now that's a good title!  We did not actually SEE Guy, but ate at one of the places featured in Diners, Drive ins and Dives.

But I get a head of myself.  The trip was a type of circle tour of Western NC for a break, and to use some vouchers we'd collected that had a pending expiration date.  The first stop was ziplining in Kersey Valley.  We've done several ziplining tours, but this one was the best - the longest, the highest and the most helpful staff.  Ziping is trendy and there are many places across the country. There is nothing to fear, even for those skittish about heights - once you walk up the first tower the adventure starts and you never look down. In the photo you see the critical link - your harness clipped to a tower pole - the Kersey group never lets you be unhooked and safety is their prime goal.  Their ziplines are long, high, and fast.  I frequently had to break to avoid hitting the tower at dizzying speeds.  Interesting point is that the company has each person blow into a breathalyzer before starting how breathalyzers work.  After 2+ hours, we were zipped, tired and ready to move onto the next destination on the trip - the Inn of the Patriots - the most patriotic B&B in the USA.

The Inn is a fantastic collection of memorabilia from the owners displayed in a home-like museum setting with a great tour putting it all in perspective the morning after arrival.  If you're into presidential dinner plates and china settings, this is the place to come. Our room was the highest priced room in the place - the Grover Cleveland room

The room dimensions suited the namesake - nicknamed  "Uncle Jumbo".  Not much shaking in downtown Grover so if you're looking for quiet, you'll find it here.  We were sad to miss the reasonably-close World Grits Festival and I dared Kathryn to dive into the wading pool of grits, but it was not to be - we had a time line and the 3+ hr drive south was not worth any amount of grits.  We moved on up to Charlotte to stay for the night and eat at Jakes Good Eats.  Great food, excellent service.  The lady who answered the phone (Jake's mom I suspect) said that at opening time at 5 PM you can expect a wait of 45 minutes for a table in the small dining room.  She was very nice and assured me that for the two of us, if we got there before 5, she would find a table right away - she did.  Don't you love it when people do what they say they will do!

Last stop on this adventure was a visit to friends Eric and Rita north of Asheville.  They have a perfect setting with a beautiful house they've created and a variety of farm animals.  Here Eric gets up close to do morning bonding with one of the donkeys - the maternal ruler of the bunch of 4. 

Next post ...  I become a mobile fablab volunteer and take a course on the plasma cutter

Paczkis (Poonchkies), Lent, and hang gliding

Was visiting my sister for some shopbot time and she reminded me that it was Fat Tuesday. That magical day of gluttony before the start of Lent.  During childhood I found that Lent gave me an opportunity to better myself spiritually by "giving up" candy for the 40 days of Lent.  That worked during childhood and I feel deep in my soul that I need to continue some of that tradition, but just can't manage it.  Anyway, In Northern Ohio there is strong religious base and a strong eastern European base as well. I went to the local Giant Eagle food store and sure enough there was a big display case devoted to Paczkis (Poonchkies), doughnuts filled with a jelly filling.  Well, I didn't buy any (dieting), and Cyndi pointed out another Northern Ohio factlet, that Kiedrowski's Bakery was named the Best bakery in the United States for 2011 - a considerable honor I'm sure and they ship across country.

Ohio was having a bad spell of rain, cloudy dreary days and I was glad to be coming back to sunny NC.

The fablab is always a creative place and a friend named Matt gave me a new idea for cutting labyrinths.  Id been having an exasperating day at the shopbot with several ruined pieces because of programming variations on my part.  He is a specialist in the Epilog laser that Cyndi uses to etch her glasses and suggested using the laser to do the cutting.  He produced a sample piece by adhesing 2 quarter inch thick pieces of acrylic together in just a few minutes.  It has some possibilities, but truth be known the Epilog laser is the most used machine in the lab and I would not be able to get on it.  The idea is pretty neat though and would allow multiple colors and the fine granularity in the bottom could be etched on the acrylic by the laser.

Kathryn and I were in Orlando after a winter cruise.  She is in a bucket-list mode and has always wanted to do hang-gliding.  As you know, Orlando is flat.  There is a great place (found by a groupon), called Wallaby Ranch.  Check out the website for a fantastic video. They tow you up in an ultralight to about 2000 feet with your instructor and then launch you.  The ultralight is shown.     The whole things takes maybe 20 minutes tops and here is Kathryn suited up and ready to go.  If you happen to be in Orlando for theme parks, this is a neat place to visit.  Ten or so cabins that can be rented and bring your own equipment.  If you're certified, it costs $25.00 to be towed up and you can hang out at the rock wall, communal food area, or pool.

 

Read a fantastic article on "piddling" in the latest Southern Living.  Gives one pause to decide if you are a piddler or an action person - doesn't seem to be much overlap.

More labyrinth uses and African Food

You've been reading along with my adventures with the shopbot making labyrinths.  I wanted to update you on some of the possible uses in patient care. I went to the Hope Lodge in Greenville, a house with full housekeeping capability for people undergoing chemotherapy, who are over 18 years old and live more than 40 miles away.  David Roscoe, the Director gave me a tour of the place and it is impressive.  Funded by the American Cancer Society and my friends Bill McConnell and Mary Raab, it provides kitchen space and living apartments that ease the burden of chemotherapy.  The Lodge is always in need of volunteers or donations and if you are so inclined, give it a look!  I wanted to see if there may be a space for my finger labyrinths in helping people lessen their stress during chemo and so i donated several to the lodge.  I'll be anxious to read any comments they may have.  In preparing the journal article we submitted with Kristen and Tammy, I've done some digging to find how walking a labyrinth may help.  There is considerable literature about the similarities between meditation and hypnosis.  In both states the person is able to enter a peaceful space either by themselves or with a hypnotist. Walking a labyrinth is said to be a meditative technique.  Maybe a goal with the finger labyrinths is to allow people who do not have experience in the complex discipline of meditation to undergo something I'll call "therapeutic distraction" during the time they use the labyrinth. I'm planning to look a bit further into studies in acute rehabilitation and chemotherapy - more to follow on those topics as they develop.

We've done quite a bit of fun stuff with Groupons or their counterpart, Living Social.  The format is the same, buy usually a half price something and get the other half free. We love to try new places and got to one in Raleigh - Mawa's Taste of Africa recently (Mawa's). Got there just after the lunch crowd and Abdou, chef, owner and waiter guided us through the menu and prepared an excellent lunch - spicy yes, very spicy, perhaps, but the color and texture of these new tastes were exceptional.

See for yourself in the following photos from Mawa's  The first is Sipakh - grilled shrimp in a spciy and creamy sauce with rice and a beef-shrimp roll wrapped in lettuce leaf.  Abdou in his finest outfit - he changed outfits for the photo!

Kathryn had a chef's sampler of maffeh guerteh (lamb) and chicken and vegetarian dishes as specials of the day.  The ginger lemonade was spectacular! 

Continuing labyrinths

I've been privileged to work with two dedicated women in bringing labyrinths to the patients at our hospital. Tammy (recreational therapist) and Kristen, administrator for the Division, have helped me complete a study of the finger labyrinth in patients with stress in the hospital - not surprisingly, the prime reason for Recreational Therapy consultations is stress reduction. The labyrinth seems to help quite a bit, even with as few as 2 sessions, but a bit better in up to 5 sessions.  Tammy and Kristen:

Of course, this promoted a whole new line of thought and I decided to go all out and join The Labyrinth Society and attend their annual gathering to see what might be up with the clinical use of labyrinths.  A very interesting group of people and my sessions included "Walking the Virtual Chartres Labyrinth" where an intrepid minister Father Paul has memorized the pattern of the Chartres labyrinth and he walked it with us in a very small space - his use is for prisoners confined to a small space.  His thought is for them to use a relaxation tool to decrease the stress of confinement.  I went to a keynote by Lucy Pringle, one of the premier researchers and authors in the world on crop circles Lucy's website - strange and beautiful images and an attempt at serious science, but still no explanation for the appearance in a short time by apparent nonhuman intervention.   One of the gratifying uses of walking labyrinths is by Turning Point Consultants in communities where there has been intense personal stress - the group continues work at New York's ground zero, Katrina-ravaged New Orleans and with various populations of abused teens and young adults.

According to the Labyrinth Society organizers, there were nearly a hundred applications to present sessions and only a fraction could be presented at the 3 day conference.

The conference was in Taos New Mexico, a labyrinth mecca, but a desolate drive from Santa Fe in the dark. Images of some of the conference labyrinths 

 On the drive back to Santa Fe I got a good view of the stark desert countryside between Taos and Santa Fe.  I prefer a bit more green, but these are the true open spaces. 

In November, Kathryn and I went to Asheville for a wonderful hot air balloon ride.  It was a nice crisp fall morning and even though the leaves had passed their peak, the 8 person balloon was spectacular and we got just over an hour flight over farmland with a peak altitude of just over 3000 feet. The balloon was new and made by the Cameron Ballon Company.  Next on the to-do list - hang gliding as I've done skydiving.  More to follow on the clinical use of labyrinths as things develop.  Balloons over Asheville.....

Sailing in Maine in the summer heat

The last post described our planned trip on the Grace Bailey sailing out of Camden Maine.  The Grace is their flagship and 19 guests, 4 crew and Captain Ray made our way out of Camden harbor for the open water - 70's during the day, no rain, and 50's at nigth were a great change from the 100's of the rest of the country.  The cabins are "tidy" and believe me, we needed the blanket nearly every night.       Captain Ray is a great host and always finds something to chat about from sailing to Labyrinths.   The food is hearty and cooked on a wood stove in the galley - Travis, the cook, is the highest paid crew memnbber and well deserved - he is in the galley at 4 AM and stops only after dinner dishes are put away.  The high point of the trip is a Maine lobster dinner cooekd on shore.  Lobsters are about $5/# up here and the guys in the cooler are ready to rock   Fully a quarter of the people did not like lobtser so there was plenty to go around.  Of course the scenery was incredible.  This trip was about sailing and we got plenty of wind with several days at more than 30 knots.  Captain Ray is an old salt who knows his ship and did not feel we needed to reef, so we heeled and loved it.   Mornings were crisp, sunny with a bit of fog over the water - great for coffee and fresh pastries to greet the day. 

No power on the ship so not much to do after sunset except talk a bit and turn in.  Next post - the foods of Montreal

 

 

 

labyrinths and shopbotting

In a previous post I shared my interest in the shop bot - a highly specialized computerized router that can create virtually any figure or object.  On my first visit to the campus of Lorain Community college and their fablab, I tried various types of fish designs in wood - the intent was a fish plaque for the river mailbox. 

With a little experimentation I made some interesting (but not very useful) pieces).  The learning curve to go from concept to production is not too bad.  It helps to take a course in shop bot training in nearby Durham, NC. The fish on the right  is "in production" - I have the fish cut but trying to decide how best to finish it so that it will hold up the UV light and elements of outdoor hanging at the river is another challenge.

On the visit to Nova Scotia last year, I walked the outdoor labyrinth at a B&B The Inn at Glyndyer and was impressed with the calming effect - that sparked a more useful idea for the shop bot.  Patients in the hospital have a bunch of stress not only with their illness, but with the health care system and personnel - no matter how caring a nurse or doctor is, it's still someone new.  Many health care facilities across the country have placed walking labyrinths on their campuses and the studies show that use by staff and patients is about equal - for the same reasons - stress relief, calming.  I did some research and found that there are finger labyrinths - smaller versions of classical labyrinths used in private meditation.  I thought this would be a perfect possibility for patient care.  Although there have been some publications on use of labyrinths in diseases states (mainly cancer), there have been no applications in general patient care. 

Back to the shop bot with designs for the classical Chartres labyrinth in a 24x24 inch size and contact with the acute Recreational Therapy department at my hospital for their interest.  I needed to do it in acrylic for patient cleanliness and with some tweaks got two units  for the Rec Therapists to try.   The units are pretty good, but using them in acute patients suggested several modifications that are in process.  It's been really fascinating to watch patients of all walks of life use this tool.  Awaiting surveys of patient results on the unit's we have in process now.

One of the most common patient questions - what are those etchings around the outside edge?  Answer: they are lunations - used in the original Chartres labyrinth as a lunar cycle calculator - 28/quarter the timing of the lunar cycle.  Not much use in our application and they are gone in the next designs.

Going to the Lorain shopbot is nice, but there are others closer such as the one offered by Techshop RDU, but for now the Lorain unit seems to work best for me.

More to follow on labyrinths in patient care.  Headed off to a  Maine Windjammer Cruise and hope to post after return with some great scenery.