2004

2004


Springfield, PA

My age: 48-49

School- now I am only taking adult courses at Main Line Night School.  I am taking Tai Chi and it is not coming to me naturally. However, I am enjoying it.

Work - Principal- Springfield High School, Springfield, PA.  There are 1200 students and 100 staff members.  

Music- I just looked at the list of the top 100 songs of this year and I didnt recognize any of the songs and very few of the artists.  I am out of touch.

Books

• A Fortune Teller Told Me- Tizian Terzan
• Fires in the Bathroom- Kathleen Cushna
• Hyenas Laughed at Me- Tim Cahill
• When Called to Do the Impossible- Storti
• Reading Lolita in Tehran- Aar Nafsi
• Adventure Travel Tips- Swedo
• The Opposite of Fate- Amy Tan
• Good to Great- Jim Collins
• 1000 Places to Visit In The World
• The Best American Magazine Writing 2002
• 36 Views of Mount Fuji- Cathy Davidson
• Avoiding Prison and Other Noble Vacation Goals- Wendy Dale- "I remember that it was my father who taught me that it didn't matter what the neighbors thought, it was okay to sleep in a station wagon as long as you had a dream."
• Women and Fly fishing
• Fatal North- Bruce Henderson
• Birds
• China Dog- Judy Fong Bates
• Boy Chick in the Hood- Robert Eisneberg
• Paddle Sports Discovery Travel
• A Walk Across America- Peter Jenkins
• A Journey of Madmen
• Transister Radio

Movies- I went to a lot of movies this year:

• Being Julia
• The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou- This was my first Wes Anderson movie and I thought it was so damn strange.  And it was but I have become a huge Wes Anderson fan.
• Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Azkaba- I never read the book but I have seen all fo the movies.
• The Incredibles- a fun family movie
• The Passion of Christ- bizarre
• Meet the Fockers- not nearly as funny as the first album.
• Sea biscuit
• Mystic River
• Fahrenheit 911- this movie spoke to me.
• The Aviator
• Leminy Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events- this is a clever story.
• Sideways- I loved this movie.
• Twisted
• Hidalgo
• Hotel Rwanda- I missed this horrible story as it was unfolding.
• Napoleon Dynamite
• The Manchurian Candidate
• The Princess Diaries- I love Julie Andrews.
• I Heart Huckabees
• Ladder 45
• Taxi
• Shall We Dance
• Finding Netherland- I love the Peter Pan story.
• The Polar Express
• Phantom of the Opera- a big show movie

Travels

•        Washington- spring break
•        Canada (Inner Passage) and Great Bear Reef
•        Panama- winter break

News Event

• The CIA finally admits that there was no imminent threat from weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. I hated Bush for this decision to go to war.
• Spain withdraws Spanish troops from Iraq.  Our allies were jumping ship.
• US transfers sovereignty and control of Iraq back to the Iraq people  
• Lance Armstrong wins his 6th consecutive Tour de France cycling title.  It would be several more years before we learned that he cheated.
• Fox Hunting is outlawed in the UK.  What a barbaric sport!
• The Statue of Liberty is reopened to the public. 
• Following ethnic cleansing by government backed militia in Darfur, Sudan one million people flee their homes. And it is still a mess. 
• Afghanistan held its first democratic election when Hamid Karzai becomes the President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
• Colin Powell announces his resignation and Condoleezza Rice is nominated as his replacement for Secretary of State. She is the first black woman to serve in this position. 
• Facebook is launched as a social networking site only open to students from Harvard in February by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. It is expanded first to other colleges in the Boston area and other Ivy League Colleges 
• Oil Peaks at just over $50.00 a barrel then retreats back to below $50.00
• The EU undergoes it's largest expansion so far by accepting 10 new states into the EU Poland, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Malta, and Cyprus 
• Ex-soldier John Muhammad is found guilty of sniper shootings that terrorized Washington, D.C. and the rest of the country.
• Martha Stewart is convicted of a felony and sentenced to five months in prison. I thought this was a tremendous waste of taxpayers' money. 
• Scott Peterson is found guilty for the murder of his wife Laci Peterson 
• First Same Sex Marriage is performed in Massachusetts but not recognized in other states.
• The strongest earthquake in 40 years originates from the Indian Ocean close to Indonesia, measuring 9.3 on the Richter Scale. Creating tsunami waves that sweep across much of the coastlines of Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. At least 290,000 people are confirmed to have died from South Asia to as far as South Africa. 
• George W. Bush is re-elected as president of the USA.  He is an idiot.

Family and friends

• o   In the fall, I became a kayaking kook. My friends KT and Vickie and I went out one day on the brandywine River and loved it.  For the next few months, we were obsessed. By December, I had two kayaks in my garage.
• o   My dad had a stroke on Christmas day.  In hindsight, this was the beginning of the end for him. He died three months later.