A Random Pattern

Another day, another challenge. Via Joe Beda’s blog:

Check this out. Get to 30. Your day is now shot

I’m afraid to say I’m still stuck on 13 (even after a hint! Shame!!)

Hope you fare better. At least do the first five – you’ll feel better.

Update: I’m now on 17. I think. It’s getting harder to remember.

Independent Transportation Network® and ITNAmerica™ began as a graduate school project at the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service in Portland, Maine. Inspired by personal experience when someone in her family was involved in an automobile crash, ITN’s founder, Katherine Freund, realized that crashes are not the problem—they are the symptom.

The problem: the U.S. transportation system does not meet the mobility needs of normally aging people. If older people do not have good transportation options, they cannot make safe transportation choices.

Katherine set out to solve the underlying mobility problem. Throughout the two years she studied for her Masters degree in public policy, she examined all angles of sustainable transportation for older people.

…If the Independent Transportation Network® could effectively solve the problem in one community, creating the ITN model in another community could replicate that solution. The outcome: creating a national non-profit transportation solution for older people who wish to limit or stop driving without losing their independence or compromising their community activity.

That national solution is ITNAmericaâ„¢.

This is an example of what one person can accomplish with dedication and vision. Follow the link to the ITN site, and read more about how ITN is addressing part of America’s transportation problem.

The story is compelling and inspiring.

After some inspiration courtesy of www.fury.com, I set off with family in tow….

Actually they set off with me in tow….

Anyways, as we watched fireworks booming overhead, I saw it all on a tiny lcd screen. Clicking frantically, waving the camera in the air, accidentally turning on flash (I’m sure everyone on the lawn LOOOVED that), the very definition of an American holiday.

The end results are available online in our Picasa photo album. Give’em a look-see, let me know what you think. I’m thinking there’s a few marginally good ones in there.

Thanks for the inspiration, Rachel!

p.s. Yes, I know it’s spelled photo, not foto.

p.s.s. Yes, I know I need to crop and cut and otherwise pretty up my shots. I figured if I didn’t just pick the good ones and put them up now, it’d never happen. So deal.

In a rather depressing, but very eye-opening excerpt from “The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers And Fathers Are Going Broke,” by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi, America’s struggling middle-class situation is laid out in black and white. Here’s a few of the most interesting paragraphs (check out the excerpt on MSNBC for more details).

The average two-income family earns far more today than did the single-breadwinner family of a generation ago. And yet, once they have paid the mortgage, the car payments, the taxes, the health insurance, and the day-care bills, today’s dual-income families have less discretionary income — and less money to put away for a rainy day — than the single-income family of a generation ago. And so the Two-Income Trap has been neatly sprung. Mothers now work two jobs, at home and at the office. And yet they have less cash on hand. Mom’s paycheck has been pumped directly into the basic costs of keeping the children in the middle class.

At the same time that millions of mothers went to work, the family needed the stay-at-home mom (or a costly replacement) more than ever. The number of frail elderly, most of whom must depend on family for daily care, spiraled upward. Hospitals began discharging patients “quicker and sicker,” expecting the family to pick up the task of nursing them back to health. With Mom in the workforce, parents were faced with a painful choice between paying for expensive care and taking time off work. At the same time, the divorce rate continued its upward climb. This situation was compounded by a leaner-and-meaner business climate that closed plants and laid off workers with alarming frequency. In this tougher world, millions of two-income families learned the price of living without a safety net.

Inevitably, the Two-Income Trap affected the one-income family too. When millions of mothers entered the workforce, they ratcheted up the price of a middle-class life for everyone, including families that wanted to keep Mom at home. A generation ago, a single breadwinner who worked diligently and spent carefully could assure his family a comfortable position in the middle class. But the frenzied bidding wars, fueled by families with two incomes, changed the game for single-income families as well, pushing them down the economic ladder. To keep Mom at home, the average single-income family must forfeit decent public schools and preschools, health insurance, and college degrees, leaving themselves and their children with a tenuous hold on their middle-class dreams.

So what’s the state of your union? Are you caught in the “Two-Income Trap”? How can this knowledge influence your votes and your actions as a citizen and member of society?

More cheery fireworks pictures to follow.

I hope everyone had a happy Fourth (American holiday). Here’s one of the better shots I got last night, as we watched and listened to firework explosions.

Explosions had a different meaning and feeling when the first Independence Day happened…..