Country vs. City

Thursday evening around 7:00 and

I'm sitting around waiting for a few friends of the family to show up so we can all go to dinner. And I'm very hungry. This morning I finished a book, Snow Melts in Spring, by Deborah Vogts. It was a love story between two people set in the Flint Hills of Kansas. The conflict was a dilemma in the two lover's locations. Her heart was in Kansas, and he wanted to live in California. It got me to wondering: which holds better statistics? Country or City? So I tried to look up statistics comparing the two. What I found was an article written by Melinda Beck of the Wall Street Journal (article here). The article stated that country dwellers suffer from poorer health. They are at a higher risk of diabetes, stroke, heart attack and high blood pressure. They tend to smoke more, eat more, and move less. City folk are less likely to die prematurely, but they have a fair share of adversities too. They have more sexually transmitted diseases, underweight babies, air pollution and violent crime than their country kin. In the end though, suburbs are be awarded a certain prize for having the lowest rate of premature death, homicide, STDs, and low-weight babies. 

Back in 2010 

I visited New York City with my family for the first time. I fell in love with the city. Currently I live in a fairly rural location; the population of my town hovers around 4,000 people. I'm not unhappy here, I just feel drawn to the lure of city life. At the same time, I know that I could live comfortably just about anywhere, population 8 million or 800.  

Which do you prefer?

Inspiration From Refrigerator Photos

Stumbleupon sent me to another pot of gold at ten o'clock last Thursday. I was "stumble"-ing exclusively photography when they sent me here. I got a kick out of this photography collection featuring open refrigerators. A very neat little picture show. There's no button to share, and I don't want to infringe on any copy rights, so you'll have to click on the link to check out the pictures. 


A photography stunt I've wanted to try for a while is just asking random people "Hey! Could I take your picture?" and seeing who'd let me. Something also taken from the internet, but sadly I don't remember where exactly. It was a while ago. I'm going to do some digging. The photographer that pulled this stunt had a neat little display of a whole bunch of people they'd asked to take pictures of. They set up a background- a piece of yellow poster board hung up onto an alley wall. They even gave people who said yes a candy cane. :) Something pretty neat that I still want to try.  (Boom! Found it! Click here for link)

This is a different site that offers some tips.  Such as:

—be polite and friendly. Here are some good pointers to help you along:

- Look for people dressed interestingly, or that have a particular great feature.

- Compliment them, mentioning that feature.

- Be aware of your location, to create the best photo that you can.

- Your subject will obviously ask to get a copy of the photo when it's done, so be ready to exchange contact info.

- Try to get the right exposure, and shoot quickly.

They also mentioned a "Photo Safari," which I googled and now believe to refer to a small, hands-on photography class where you go out with a few people and an instructor and take pictures. 


I'm not really a photographer, but this actually sounds like a fun time to me! :) Someday, I'll post pictures of it on here, but it'll be in the distant future. 

A Quote

This is probably my all time favorite quote.

Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.

~Stephen Vincent Benet

Read more athttp://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/stephen_vincent_benet.html#W4JmYc2ic1pmTEvB.99

Reading Books

I'm going to share something with you all. It's something a little personal, that I don't like most people to know. I'm a bit of a bookworm. When I was in primary school, I read a lot. My mother taught my brother and I to read at a young age, and we were both able to do so before kindergarten. My brother stood up on the introduction day of kindergarten- where the parents take the kids to school and meet the teacher and learn what kindergarten is all about- and read the syllabus out loud the room. I was shier than he was and refused to do so when my mom tried to make me two years later. Yup. When I was little I read through the whole Junie B. Jones series, and was very sad once I finished. Harry Potter was another one, a series I've read several times over. I used to tear through books like there was no tomorrow. This Twilight Zone episode pretty much sums it up: 
 I was that guy- minus mustache and glasses.Truth be told, my heart breaks for him at the ending. But after 6th grade, however, I quit reading as much. It was too nerdy and I didn't want anybody to think I was a nerd. Now, I don't really care- high five for self confidence! I do however, still struggle in finding good books to read. So a few days ago, I stumbled upon a link goodreads.com and made myself an account. Admittedly, some of the literature I devote my time to is somewhat embarrassing, namely the romantic genre, but I can't quite figure out how to take that off of the display without deleting it from my "read" shelf, which I do not want to do, because then I couldn't get recomendations for other cheesy romantic novels :) 

Erin's bookshelf: read

Erin's favorite books »

Something Interesting

My posts suck. I need to do something interesting. and fast. Think think think..... I KNOW. I'll just do what I always do when I can't think of anything. WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING THAT POPS IN MY HEAD!

1. 1. Ear buds.... the gummy bear kind 
2. 2. That party dress.... is such a mess
3. 3. Dreams.... Overrated 
4. 4. Life.... wasting it.
5. 5. Japanese ... why do I not know it?

Let's expand on this, shall we?

1. 1. I have probably purchased 15 pairs of ear buds in the last 2 months. I either lose them, drop them in water, or Cat(my cat) eats them. I finally decided I wasn't going to buy anymore until I move out... until yesterday. I was just walking in Walmart, hovering between the electronics and toy section(naturally), when I pair of ear buds catch my eye. As I get closer, I realize just how awesome they are. Not only are they shaped like gummy bears, but the SMELL like gummy bears. Depending on the color of course, you could have green apple, grape, or strawberry. I now have an amazing pair of gummy bear ear buds.  
2. 2. This is initially lyrics from a song I'm listening to by The Black Keys. It's a really good song called Nova Baby. BUT on the other side of things, my party dress really is a mess. I'm fairly positive I spilled juice on it.... The song is good though. You should listen to it. Along with the rest of the album. and the other albums. Pretty much the entire band. Go for it. You won't regret it. 
3. 3. I glanced around my living room and saw a sign that says dream. Although dreaming is good,(both conscious and unconscious) sometimes I think maybe instead of dreaming about something, we should make it happen. Now, If you're anything like me, you should stick to the conscious ones. It is very possible you will die attempting to replicate these dreams. I'm talking writing more, exercising, socializing. More like goals.
4. 4. Recently, I've realized just how much I'm wasting my life. I mean, a do a few things, but mostly I hide from society and watch movies. So that needs some work. Maybe I'll talk to a real person today! Of course, I'm not counting my brother, even though I talk to him everyday. He isn't a real person, so it's all good.
5. 5. Seriously! Why is it that we can only learn Spanish at my school? A little Japanese could have helped me out yesterday. I bought a new CD by The Black Keys.(I know, CD's still exist?) I brought it home and went to put it on my computer. When I came back to listen to a song, the entire thing was in Japanese! WHY. The Black Keys are from Ohio. NOT Tokyo! It took me forever to change it. I did get all of the songs to English, but the band name still remains

 エル・カミーノ ザ・ブラック・キーズ

How's that for interesting? ... 

You're right... it still sucks.. Oh well.

Another Quote

Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.  ~Elbert Hubbard