8/16-8/17 Swimming sans vêtements

Went to the Pennsylvania ECKANKAR Regional Seminar. It was in Harrisburg and it was really great. …I felt like it was another step in building the eck community in the area.

Worldwide 08

It’s an old picture…

After the seminar I drove down to Galloway to drop off a friend from highschool who came with me to the seminar. I got there around 3 and wanted to play outside…so I started driving around and exploring Port Republic – where I grew up….

It was sweltering hot outside and I was longing to find a private place to go swimming (bc I didn’t have a bathing suit with me) so I drove around until I saw a cedar swamp with a river running through it. I pulled off to the side of the road, softly worked my way back into the woods and started checking out the area. The soft, moist loam gave way to my bare feet as I crept along the side of the creek. It was evident that people had been there before, but probably not for a long time. because there were no fresh tracks… As I wandered deeper into the woods I saw less and less signs of humans and the number of deer and racoon(I think) tracks increased. The brown cedar water of the creek was flowing rapidly and the vegetation along the sides looked healthy (enough)…. so I hopped into my birthday suit and dived in. The water was about chest high and refreshingly cool. I swam around for a few minutes and then climbed out. I was afraid that the police would ticket/tow my car, thinking it was abandoned (in small towns cops live for that kind of stuff) lol.

Turns out the creek is a tributary to Mill Pond. (If you ever go looking for it it’s off of Riverside drive by pomona road and there’s an apple tree just off the road as you walk down to the stream!

Living in the city, I’m constantly looking for the few green spaces and areas that are left untouched to go play in… in the city there is actually a good chance of coming across someone else in the wild places – especially people who want to go undetected… but in the suburbs its another story. There are SO many places that we just drive right on past in our daily routines. Roadside widlernesses that people don’t even think about exploring – because there are “designated wild spaces (or parks)” a few blocks away. Even 20 foot buffers of trees and shrubbery between buildings or houses sometimes lead to the coolest adventures….

I wish I had taken a few pictures but I didn’t want to risk accidentally bringing my phone along for a swim.

Having felt rushed to leave the woods (for fear of the future of my vehicle) I decided to drive around some more and keep exploring.  About 5 minutes away I found a dead end road with a graveyard from 1768 and trails heading into the woods…. there were (very) fresh dirtbike tracks so I started following them out into the forest. The trails ended up paralleling the parkway (at around exit 42) and there was a huge lake with an island and cedar swamps everywhere.  (I WANT A KAYAK!!!!If you have one, let me know)…. I laid down for awhile and took in the beauty… i love exploring so much.

After an hour or so of exploring, I heard the dirtbiker coming back so I tore myself away and drove towards civilization. On the way I saw some wild turkeys grazing in someone’s yard 

big birds

8/1-8/2 Family, Flight Night, and Lyme Disease?

Friday night Emma and I went up to New York to watch her “friend”’s band play at a hip hop music event. At 4 AM we got back to his house and i slept on the floor underneath his drumset! Then Saturday we drove ALL day stuck in traffic on the parkway to get back to Galloway. My mom picked me up from Emma’s house and we went out to Brigantine to hang out with my cousins from California and other east coast family.

Carmella and Justus picked me up after I spent some time with my cousins and we tried to go to the movies but everything was closed! (It was a saturday night at 11pm and the movie theaters were empty… what’s up with that?). So we just went back to her house and went to sleep…. it was quite an interesting heart-pounding, gut-wrenching (unforgettable) night.

Sunday I took the train back up to Philly to work at the Lincoln Financial Field (Eagles stadium) for Flight night. I’m starting as a supervisor there full time in a week…

When I got home I saw this on my stomach: (that’s not me… its a picture of someone’s leg I took off the internet)

I thought it was ringworm for about 30 minutes.. until I realized that it was circling a tick bite that I got during the Standard Class. I remembered pulling off the tick and thinking it gave me Lyme disease… turns out it did! So I called in late from work and went and got some Drugs from the doctor. Now I have to take antibiotics for a month. What fun.

The initial symptoms are muscle aches, fever, nausea… all the classics – some people get hit pretty hard. I was fortunate. My muscles were achy -they still are- but I thought it was just because I had gone to gymnastics.  On monday and tuesday I had high fevers every night and was out of it during the day at work. At night for the past week i’ve been getting fevers and feeling fatigued but it’s really not bad at all.

At least my Lyme disease is timely, check out the trailer for this GREAT documentary that just came out on the disease: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSsnMQHIJZk

(Caution: I almost hesitated to put that link on here because I don’t want it to scare people from going into the woods. Don’t worry! If you catch it early it is easily treated).

7/19-7/26 Tom Brown Jr. Tracking School

I volunteered for a standard class . … spent the week tracking on sand trails with a new friend Kurt, chopping vegetables, people watching, and making friends. What a cool spiritual place.

specialty track tattoo

Thats my tattoo that Bill drew for me. This is his school. Check it out http://www.ancestralknowledge.org/

7/9-7/17 Nonstop action

Thursday: Gabe (visiting from san diego). I got home from work at 6, drove straight to the Airport and picked him up then we went to parents house in chesterfield, nj for family time with mom-mom and Aunt Jan from California for Mom and dad’s 30 something anniversary!

After dinner we went with mom on a long walk and saw shooting stars. In the morning we took the train from Trenton to NYC. We walked around times square then met emma and went to lots of other new york places. At night we ended up at a lesbian bar in manhattan with Loren and his housemates and the people emma was house sitting for. Emma drove us back to Trenton, I got lost trying to find my way home and hable en espanol to a random pedestrian walking around (it was 3am) who gave me directions that I followed (sort of) to get to 206 and eventually back to parents’ house.

Around 11am Saturday we met Jess and Katie at the Batona campground. See Jess’s account of the camping trip for more details.

Sunday morning we left (we didn’t go kayaking with everyone) and walked around Atlantic City. Later we met emma and colleen at brigantine beach. In the evening we drove back to philly, walked to clark park to watch a drum circle and then had tea at the place around the corner from my house.

Monday we went out near fort Washington to meet Gabe’s cousin and go out to lunch in a beautiful section of the park…. Then we tried to go to morris arboretum but it was closed. When we got home I called avi and we picked up Joey (from walnut street) and we all went out to Narberth to listen to her brother and some other folk play folk/bluegrass music outside of a restaurant. On Tuesday we walked around the city all day –south street, etc… and then went to a dinner party for Bastilles Day at Emily’s house…. Wednesday gabe left

Wednesday night I went for a great walk by the Wissahickon… Thursday was gymnastics… tonight I have to waterproof my tent and buy a bunch of stuff (clothes, hair things, other random house things that I’ve been neglecting to buy for months) then I’ll probably stop over at Joe’s house and maybe go to Jed’s house later for a party. Saturday – work at the soccer game at Lincoln Financial Field… and then leave Sunday for a week at the Tracker school!!!

BaToNa means Back To Nature

By Jess Price

This past weekend I went camping with eight of my closest friends, with every intention of having a fun and memorable time. Backpacks loaded, tents in tow, and brewskies chilled, we were unprepared for what was soon to follow. The next few paragraphs are an account of our adventure at Batona campground– an event that has shaped our lives and outlook on fictional reinactment forever.

I rose bright and early on Saturday morning, ready to head off to Wharton State Forest for a camping trip that I had planed with a few of my friends. Along the way, it occurred to me that I did not have any food for the trip. So, I pulled into Wawa, and grabbed the first five items I saw. I also made a joke to the particularly uptight cashier which she didn’t even crack a smile for– which was a shame, because it was a funny joke. Her loss… So, I continued on my journey (encompassing all of 25 miles to the campground, but still, it was early, and I like the idea of calling it a journey…). After a few minutes I passed a yardsale, with an adorable dwarf-sized Pocahantas tee-pee tent. I make a quick U-Turn, and inquired about the tent. I told the woman how I was goin gcamping with friends, and that I didn’t have a tent, and thought it would be a funny joke to show up with the tent. Apparently being as dry as the Wawa cashier, she noted that it may be a little tight for me to sleep in, and is probably not water resistant, but that it was worth a try to use it. Mind you, the tent had a diameter of MAYBE two feet. Clearly she missed the joke. Honestly, I wish that people around here would appreciate sarcasm and humor more. So, regardless, I purchased the tent for a whopping $2, and continued along my long and strenuous journey….

I arrived at the park office, and met Denise to pay for the permit, and choose our campsite. Originally, we had planned to kayak directly to our campsite, but determined to drink, we decided to choose a site that we could drive to, so we could easily store the alcohol. Determined to be as far away from children, or any site with the words “family friendly” in it, I chose the Batona campground. After we talked to the particularly nasty clerk, and paid for the permit, Denise and I set about the journey of finding our campsite. After missing the turn about three times, we arrived at the site, where we met “Jess”– a girl in her mid-twenties, covered in red stage-blood. She introduced herself as a Lord of the Rings reinactor. After contemplating running full-pace in the opposite direction, we decided to set up camp, and enjoy the spectator sport of “weirdo-watching” from the comfort of our tent. Also, the Pocahantas tent was set up as a “bathroom shield” for the shy-bladders of our group.
(Jess clearly didn’t use it…)
Laura and Gabe met us about an hour after we arrived, and we all decided to go on a nature walk, where we found that the nearest body of water was at least five miles away. (Note, half of this trip was supposed to be kayaking… way to pick a campsite Jess!) We did, however, encounter a large and particularly mucky swamp in our “backyard”. We all got stuck up to our ankles in the muck… Laura, to her hips.

Determined to find water, the four of us set off to drive to Atsion Lake to go to their beach. On the way, I directed Laura to go STRAIGHT, which she was trying to do, but with her crooked arm, kept pointing her at an 83 degree angle. Finding ourselvbes abslutely hysterical, we laughed form the pits of our stomach for about 15 minutes… of course, none of this about STRAIGHT will make sense to you, because that’s what it is… NONSENSE. Complete nonsense, but hysterical all the same.

Upon arrival, we found the beach to be closed as it was to full capacity…. a whopping 30% of the beach was occupied. That being no deterrent to our want for water, we found a set of cabins along the opposite side of the river, and went into the water at the dock area of cabin #7. Why yes, that is considered trespassing. Why no, no we did not mind. We swam in the murky cedar water, and played bseball with pinecones and branches.

After a few miutes, Laura and I took on our alter egos of Ren and Stimpy, and started making strange faces (and noises) while attempting to swim. I asked one of the kayakers to tow us back to our docking area, explaining at length that if we just held on and paddles our feet she would hardly feel the extra weight. She made a strange face and paddled away hastily. Her loss. We swam back to the dock, and dried off. This is the point where I noticed the nice big leech on my toe, just latching on. I ripped it off, and inspected the digit…. no blood, no problem.

We stopped by a produce stand on the way back, and picked up corn, blueberries, and peaches to eat that night, and then alcohol to wash it down with. Then we returned to our camp to enjoy the Lord of the Rings Show. Let me make it perfectly clear to you that they were wearing capes, swords, and shields, talking in horrible english accents, playing Rennescaince musiic, and running around and chasing and beating the crap each other> They stayed in character the entire time, even while sleeping. We continues to watch, in awe, for about an hour or so, and then decided to go talk to them. We invited them over to our campsite, and offered to share our alcohol if they would let us watch their “game”. We were corrected that it is not a game, and then they accrepted. Sweet deal if you ask me…

We made friends with a few of the people (who turned out to be complete alcoholics-but cool!), and mortal enemies with some others who were a bit offended by our interest. Oh well, you win some, you lose some…

Laura, Erwin, Nicole, and Dan met up with us later, and we ate pizza (the campfire food of champions), drank, and laughed hysterically at our “neighbors”. Cue the rain… torrential downpour, time for bed.

The next morning we ate breakfast, cleaned up camp, and prepared to go kayaing. Less four from our group, Denise, Laura, Erwin, and I set off to the kayak place to join in on the five-hour kayak trip. On the way, Denise and I spotted a huge black and white snake slithering in the middle of the road, and we screamed and jumped for about five minutes– my feet propped off the floor and out the window for another ten minutes. Once we arrived at the kayak place, we boarded the bus, and headed out to the river. We were dropped off, and began our kayak expedition. The water was extremely low in the beginning, and we had to walk and drage our kayaks for the first 1/4 mile. Once in the kayaks, we were good… at least until five minutes later, when I fell out of my kayak, and filled it almost entirely with water. RIP beach towel…. you will be missed. Once I was back in the kayak, we continued… for almost five hours. It was great, and beautiful, and fun, until we all almost plummetted to our deaths. You see, there was supposed to be this HUGE RED SIGN, to point us in the direction of where to dock our kayaks and meet our driver. Somehow, all four of us missed the sign. Straight ahead there was a little bridge where the water seemd to drop a bit, with a small fan turbine above. We heard this loud noise (which sounded much like a waterfall), but agreed that it was just the fan, and the drop was only a small one– after all, if it were anything large, there would be big huge warning signs, right?. Now about three ffeet from the drop, Denise pushed a bit forward to see the drop.Not able to see much, we all docked, got out of the kayaks, and went on the bridge above the drop, to see how big it is. That “small drop” turned out to be a water dam, with a 7 foot drop to extremely rocky water, with huge metal spikes at the bottome. Yes, we each would have been impailed and instantly killed. Good thing we didn’t continue….

We re-entered the water, and carefully avoided the dam. After a few minutes of paddling, we found the exit, and headed back home.

It was fun, scary, dangerous, hysterical, creepy, and completely unforgettable. <3

Blueberry Picking special- By Jess Price

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A MIGRANT WORKER…
By: Jessica Price

As the holiday crowds recovered from their post-Independence Day festivities, Laura and I pondered what we could do with such a beautiful day, other than the beach. We had spent the entire previous day at the beach, and thought it wise not to spend the day in direct sunlight as we were already the color of ripe tomatoes, and didn’t want to get any riper…. as we ate breakfast at Gardner’s Basin in Atlantic City, a discussion began about how good the blueberry pancakes were, and the server mentioned that they ought to be good, after all, the owner owned a blueberry farm in Hammonton. Voila…it was decided, we would talk to the owner and spend the day at his farm picking blueberries! After all, Hammonton is the bluenerry capital of the world, as per President Ronald Reagan. Once we talked to the owner he was kind enough to draw a make-shift cartoon map (sketches of planes, churches, and oak trees included), and call his son to “make sure that none of the Mexicans bothered us”. That bothered us even more, as we were looking forward to meeting some new people and brushing up on our stellar Spanish skills. As we viewed it, half of the fun of the adventure would be talking to the migrant workers, and learning about their jobs and the industry.

After breakfast, our day as migrant workers officially began, as we drove from Atlantic City to Hammonton, with our most serious “berry picking” faces on. Initially we tried to follow the handy-dandy GPS (which is now nick-named “dumbass”), but gave up after it told us to take three turns in the absolute opposite direction. Good thing we had that handy-dandy doodle map. At the oak tree with a yellow ribbon we turnedinto “Columbia Cranberries, Inc.”. We walked in during the lunchbreak, and found the son of the owner, who was already drunk– great sign. After using the forklift to lift his worker to get us what he referred to as “blueberry accourements”, he led us to a field where we were set free to roam and pick as many blueberries as we pleased.He offered fus each a beer, which we declined… we wanted to be fully attentive to our blueberry picking duties. After we ate the first 10-15 ripe berries we saw, we each walked up and down the field, filling our bushels with blueberriesand thanking the bushes (okay, maybe only one of us did that part, guess which one…?). As we walked we pondered about the blueberry business… is it profitable? What is the turnover? How many blueberries do they pick in a day? What is their brand name? Where do they find the workers? Is it a word of mouth job offer, or is an advertisement listed on craiglist for undocumented workers? If so, under what category would such a listing be listed? Just as we were pondering the idea of selling our “pickings” at Columbus Farm Market, we looked to our left to find a naked worker fresh out of the outside shower… okay, well that answered the question about what that little building was…so, we continued to pick. After about an hour, we came to the conclusion that our brilliant idea of staying out of the sun was shot to hell, as we were probably worse off picking blueberries than laying on the beach. Oh well, the pick was worth the pain. After filling our bushels to the brim, we headed back to the main area to pack our berries, and pay for the goods. To our suprise, and delight, we weren’t charged a dime for the berries, and were given pint containers and labels to package our blueberries ! ! ! ! ! ! (Let the six exclamation marks show how absolutely excited we were that we actually got to package and label our picking, as if we were the real deal migrant worker) We each went home with about 20 pints of blueberries. During this time, we also were able to see the packaging assembly line, and how the whole thing works. The berries are sorted by the workers, then loaded into a machine that filles the pint containers, closes them, and sends them down the line where more workers add the labels, and load them into flats for storage and selling. Then, they’re stored in a large walk-in cooler, and sold to the large berry companys (sush as Driscolls). On this particular day, three large outdoor trashbins full of unripe or overripe berries were filled… I wonder what the do with those? Fertilizer? Can they find another use for them, or are they just discarded in the garbage?

After we packaged our goods and thanked our guide, we made makeshift coolers with towels, sleeping bags, and bags of ice to keep the berries cool as we ate lunch and trekked back to out homes. I am sure that tonight we will dream of blueberries…. blueberry pie, blueberry bread, blueberry milkshakes, blueberry jam… already, I am sick of blueberries. =/

Tune in next time for: “Strawberries: The inconvenient truth about the nations fondest berry”.

————————————————————————————-

(Then we went to a diner with Katie )

4th of July

On Saturday morning I drove down to South Jerz to meet Healani. but I was two hours early so I went and laid in this field

field

later Healani found a tick on my ear….  next to the field I found this:  so I had to explore.  inside there was all this stuff. I wanted to look around more but I was too excited to see Healani. So I went to her house and hung out with Edda  her mom. Then Healan got there and we drove to Atlantic City to meet Jess on the beach.

then healan and I went to the AC boardwalk.

then her boyfriend met us. He’s a famous rockstar so that made me feel pretty cool. His band is called Law. Then we went to Gardener’s Basin to watch fireworks.

It was fun. I slept at Jess’s mom’s boyfriend’s house….and the next day the adventure weekend continued.

6/27 Kenny Chesney Concert

I work at the Lincoln Financial Field part-time during Eagles games. I got called in on Saturday morning for the Kenny Chesney concert.

It was something I had never experienced before – the demographic of the people and their behavior. I felt like I was at a circus. From 1pm to 11pm I watched drunken blondes and their beefy boyfriends stumble around the stadium.

the Linc at night

Though I’m not a country music fan, it was pretty cool to be there because the stadium was packed and I could walk anywhere I wanted… including right next to the stage.  

stage to the right

more perspective

6/23-6/24 ARRGh Emergency Room night and Healthcare

Yesterday I had a discussion about healthcare with a friend. (my opinion at the end of the blog post**) I mention this discussion because it turned out to be quite timely.

Less than 12 hours later, at 10pm last night, I got a call from my 3 year-old godson’s mother, Amelia. She had rushed him to the emergency room after his fever spiked from 99.7 to 102.5 in less than an hour and continued to rise. When she called I had just laid down in bed and was reflecting on my long day (after work I went for a run and then a two-hour walk around the city – I ended up in Clark Park and listened to the West African drummers play and watched people dance).

She is a single mother raising the child with absolutely no family support system aside from myself and a social-worker-turned-godfather of the baby. After hearing her voice crack and waver on the phone while trying to be strong and tell me that she would be fine waiting in the emergency room alone, I knew that I had to go be with her. 

I got there at 10:30 pm. I left this morning at 5:45am.

 The emergency room waiting area smelled like bleach and old undies. Slightly overweight triage nurses rushed around, purposefully avoiding the demanding stares of untreated patients, a saggy security guard stood complacently by the sliding doors – every so often setting off the motion detector and letting in “fresh” outside air/exhaust from running ambulances sitting outside, there were some old people with varicose-veined legs sitting alone in wheelchairs, crying families, a few defiant-looking youth, a boy with a broken finger, a fat lady with a wet rag on her forehead, and a shared feeling of tired helplessness. The fluorescent lights were annoying and they cast reflections off the too- shiny floors. Every 2 hours (it seemed) the janitor came by and buffed the floors even more with a loud machine.

(Everything was too clean, too disinfected, so un-human. All anyone wanted was for someone in a uniform to touch them on the arm, hold their hand, explain what was going on, give them any type of sign. I guarantee that every single person in that waiting room would have traded their sterile shiny floors for a few moments of prolonged attention and respect.) 

After 3 ½ hours we were escorted out of the waiting area to a long room/hallway with six curtained-off “rooms” with beds lining the walls.  (note the reflective floors… I wasn’t exaggerating!)I was absolutely amazed at the diversity of the cases that came through our area. Directly across from us was a tattooed and pierced boy in his early 20’s with severe kidney stones. His father paced nervously back and forth looking for any sign of the doctor while his son writhed and moaned in agony. Next to him was another young man (late 20’s) who had been hit in the eye with a 63mph baseball pitch during an intramural game. It’s hard to describe exactly how bad his face looked, but it was bad… imagine an almost-ripe plum (still slightly reddish, but mostly purple) filled with water and stretched out to the size of a mango….  I couldn’t look at it for too long. He was still wearing his blood-stained baseball gear and was surprisingly optimistic for the first few hours as various teammates filtered through to see him. That changed by 3am. He cursed loudly – sick of waiting for painkillers, yelled that he was fine, proceeded to vomit repetitively, then continued his tirade of complaints. His loud Italian family only made things worse. On the other side of kidney stone boy was a middle school-aged girl who had fainted and had been having problems maintaining her equilibrium for the past day or so. Her fat younger brother walked around picking his nose and tried to be helpful while she was hooked up to an IV, but really just annoyed everyone. By 4 am those three cases were gone but the EMTs and fire department rescue teams had rushed in two more people on stretchers in the meantime.

 

One was an 86 year old woman (with a history of minor heart attacks) who had severe chest pain – she described it as a 9 out of 10 (ten being the worst pain she’d ever felt) who came rushed in on a stretcher and hooked up to heart monitors. Her worried middle-aged son rushed in a few moments after she was wheeled in and started spewing information about her medical history to the nurse.

The other person who came in on a stretcher was a middle-aged woman with “pain everywhere”. Her symptoms were described as: “I don’t know, I just can’t breath, my neck hurts, my stomach hurts, I’m nauseous, the light hurts my eyes, my knees are aching so bad, I can’t move, I think I have to throw up.” Her husband came in a few minutes later and rattled off a list of at least 10 medications that she was taking (no wonder so many things were wrong with her). She was really annoying. The entire time she was there she made moaning noises and gasped out complaints. Eventually her husband left.

 

At around 5am a gay (very feminine) 20-something male wearing bellbottom jeans, a scarf, a tight-fitting faux-fur vest and a sparkly belt (belly somewhat exposed) came in (whining) with a woman I assume was his grandmother (maybe mother). The nurse asked him what the problem was. He said, “can you answer her?” and looked at the woman with him. She sighed and said “he has split personality disorder and is bi-polar” (he interrupted and said no, not really bipolar, she just thinks I am)…the woman continued “yes, he is diagnosed with bipolar disorder and is having anxiety attacks and is possibly suicidal. He has been in a facility before for this.” The nurse asked him if he was feeling depressed or physically ill. He said, “ew, no, not now, but I can’t deal with this all. I need a cigarette.” and got up and left to go smoke.

 While all this was happening Amelia and I sat with the baby and waited and waited.

The baby’s temperature fluctuated. Sometimes he seemed fine and was rambunctious and giggling and other times he was despondent and his eyes had that “I’m sick and don’t feel good” glaze over them.

 After 8 hours it was determined that the baby had an inner ear infection. I am positive that the bill will be in the hundreds (especially because Amelia called the ambulance to pick them up from her house because she can’t drive). I’m also pretty sure that the amount of time spent occupying a bed in the emergency room will be factored into that cost – as well as the hourly fee for having extra emergency room doctors (who we never got to see) on call in case of a ‘real emergency’. There are countless reports online of people getting ridiculous charges on their emergency room bills (for procedures and materials that they never saw). Those were some of the thoughts that I mulled over as we waited hours on end.

 As we walked into the morning sunshine towards my car I made a quick comment about how awful it is that the bill will be so high and reminded Amelia that that’s why it’s probably not best to go back to the emergency room for anything except a definite emergency. Her response, “I don’t give a damn about how much it costs, the government pays for that – I’ll take him (the baby) back to the emergency room as many times as I want – for anything –if he stubs his toe I’ll take him – just to get those darn nurses back for making us wait so long this time…”

 My thoughts, “oh my god. Welfare, taxes, healthcare, taxes, my money is paying for this… and this cycle will never end.”

 But I was way too tired to argue, so I drove us to the pharmacy and paid for the prescription. Amelia had spent her welfare money on cigarettes earlier in the month.

 6:15am I got home, cleaned my room, hopped in the shower and headed to work – until 5… then I have another meeting at 6:30…. Just a day in the life.

**I believe that the inflated costs of prescription drugs and exorbitant price of medical attention (yes, I know this is because doctors have such high liability insurance nowadays) are the biggest problem with our society and one of the first issues that should be addressed (yes, even before education reform). The debt that we are incurring as a nation because of privatized healthcare is dragging us down- draining retirement funds of baby boomers as they pay for healthcare for themselves, their parents, and college-aged children.  Because there is no one party in charge of the system, pharmaceutical companies pump up the prices of their drugs, hospitals over-charge on bills, and both the ill and the healthy (taxpayers) bear the burden. High insurance premiums to cover the inflated bills cut into our paychecks and overall spending budget. Imagine the increase in the nation’s GDP and philanthropy if we weren’t paying twicefor healthcare (1. taxes and 2. personal insurance or hospital bills for those of us who don’t have insurance)!

6/23 Quarry in Conshohocken!

Last night I drove out to Conshohocken for gymnastics class. I was a few minutes early so I drove past the gym on a road next to some train tracks. All of the sudden I saw this:

 

It was an active quarry. There were signs explaining what to expect (one loud horn blowing) before an explosion and (ten horns blowing) when the site is clear. The sign said not to trespass but of course that didn’t stop me.

 

I always knew Pennsylvania was a big mining state – but I had no idea how close the mining operations are to Philadelphia! I think I’ll have to go back there again sometime soon to explore.