Yesterday morning before work I walked the dog as usual. This was the first time I didn’t finish our walk in the dark. By the time we had returned to the house, the sky was bright enough that we could see without streetlights.

It’s definitely a welcome sign of spring!

It’s been a fun 72 hours. I began it Friday afternoon with my GPS talk at Conn. Then I did some volunteer work at the Rhine.

Saturday morning the family and I puttered around the house. Around lunchtime, I brought the last of the donations I’d collected over to my neighbor, recruiting my neighbor for assistance. She seemed happy and settled in her new place.
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My recent list of commitments this week left out an important one: another GPS talk at Conn today! I met the class at 2:45, which was the time I was given. I got to the media center hearing “oh, there he is,” which made me suspect I was expected earlier.

I don’t know if there was a mix-up in time, the kids just had spring fever and I was keeping them from an extra recess, or I wasn’t as engaging speaker as before but I don’t think this talk went as well as the last. Not to say that it was bad, it just wasn’t as good as before.

I’m still very happy to have been invited and I will cherish my Conn guest speaker water bottle. It feels great to be in the classroom, if only for 45 minutes.

Carowinds. To a 16-year-old it was the ideal job: I spent a few hours a day serving guests and in exchange I could ride in my offtime all the roller coasters I could stomach. So what if I had to wear a silly-looking uniform, got paid the minimum wage of $3.35 an hour, and had to fill out an income tax return on that measly amount for both North Carolina and South Carolina because the park straddled the state lines, it sounded like a good deal to me!

The year was 1985: the Eighties were in full swing. We had lived in Charlotte for two years. Mom pointed out an ad in the paper for a Carowinds job fair and my brother and I interviewed. He got hired to work in a restaurant and I got hired as a photographer putting people’s pictures in magazine covers. We carpooled the long way out to Carowinds.
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Amazing, isn’t it? This is one Daylight Saving event where I didn’t post one comment about it.

I awoke early this morning to a loud noise that seemed to come from my side of the room. The noise was gone as quickly as it arrived. Only at breakfast did I realize that noise was me: I caught myself snoring! I had my mouthpiece in but it didn’t seem to do any good. I think the lift it once gave my lower jaw is now gone because my mouth has gradually reformed the mouthpiece’s shape.

I think I’m just going to have to get my sinuses fixed once and for all. That will have to wait until I have something other than a contract position. I’m pretty tired now and don’t want to spend the rest of my life always feeling tired.

Saturday’s Healthy City talks were more urban-design oriented than Friday’s Growing In Place symposium. It was held in a ballroom of the new Convention Center and attracted a more professional crowd it seemed. As a lowly parks volunteer I felt a bit out of my league but tried gamely to keep up.

I found a few presentations to be a bit dry, but the presentation by James Charlier was amusing and informative. His slides showed many examples of well-designed city streets and poorly-designed city streets, many of which exist in the same city. I also enjoyed hearing all about Chicago’s green initiatives in Sadhu Johnston’s presentation. Chicago is going green in a typically-Chicago way: big.

Beyond that, the day was useful for networking, and I got a chance to say hello to some good people designing good cities. While Saturday’s talks didn’t carry the impact of Friday’s for me, they were still well worth attending. I’m glad I got a chance to go.

Friday’s Growing In Place Symposium was about how cities could be designed for not only adults but kids as well. There were many discussions which focused on city parks – a topic near and dear to my heart as a Parks board member. The takeaway is that playgrounds should not engineer all the fun out in an effort to eliminate all risk. There were also some cities mentioned which do a good job of making themselves kid-friendly. I loved seeing these approaches.

I spent quite a bit of time chatting with the speakers after their talks, picking their brains about these ideas and collecting their presentation slides when I could. I also tried to make note of all the books mentioned so that I could become more informed.

It was a long day in one room but I appreciated all the new ideas I discovered. Hopefully I can help put them to use here in Raleigh.