5 Things We Learned This Week 8 of 2011 (Facebook, teens, animals, Bowling, Survivor)

Facebook Pics

At From Tracy I read her post Why The New Facebook Pages Are Good For Bloggers and finally found out how to change those pictures that are at the top of my profile. If there's one you don't want up there, just click the little "x" in the top right corner. I never noticed it was there!

Freekibble.com

In the "Best Friends" magazine, there was an article about the founder of Freekibble.com and guess what! The founder is a 14-year-old girl named Mimi. When she started the site, she was hoping to be able to feed 20 animals. About 53,000 people play daily. About 1,000 were playing daily just 3 months after she started it. She said "I think it became such a success because it's fun, easy and free and gives people a chance to help homeless animals, especially if they don't have time or money." We play every day, do you?  I have the link in my left sidebar so you could easily play when you visit my blog!

Scottish Deerhound

This is a breed I never heard of before and found out that it is a very tall dog, golden brown, long fur with what looks like sort of a beard when I saw a picture of Hickory at Scottish Deerhound Wins Westminster Best In Show.

Bowling

It is possible to bowl well two-handed like little kids do. Check out my Alternate Bowling Style Lesson post from yesterday if you missed it.

Survivor

I found Jeff Probst's blog about Survivor this week! He also has a Twitter page where he gives tidbits about the show.  I found out about this through Jeff Probst Reveals Secrets About 'Survivor:  Redemption Island' over at examiner.com. 

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Our Favorite Reads For January 2011

We both read a lot of good books in January, but if we had to choose, our favorites, it would be Half A Life (non-fiction) and Perfect Chemistry (YA romance). Can you guess whose is which? I bet you can!

Gerard's is:

Half A Life by Darin Strauss

A Must Read!  Half A Life is a memoir of Darin Strauss, who at age 18 while driving, had a car accident that killed a girl.  This book is good; read it in two days.  It was hard to put down because I never read anything like it before.  It is all about how Darin handled what happened.  I kept thinking about what if I did this?  Half A Life is an outstanding and a memorable read.  I highly recommend it! 

Karen's is:

Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles

What a fun read “Perfect Chemistry” by Simone Elkeles is!  I enjoyed reading Perfect Chemistry very much because it was such a cute high school romance story about the “perfect” pom-pom girl, Brittany Ellis, and the Latino Blood gang member, Alex, who had the reputation for being the most dangerous guy in school.  The Fairfield high school is cross cultural with the uppity rich kids from the North and the poor drug-dealing gang members from the south.  The Chemistry teacher and principal are determined to get the kids to learn from each other. 

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Let the Teens Play Whiffle Ball in Greenwich Field!

I read an article by Connie Schultz in the Cleveland PLAIN DEALER yesterday about a community in an uproar over some teens who just want to have fun. In the wealthy community of Greenwich, Connecticut, about 10-15 teens spent about a month cleaning up an overgrown lot which no one cared about. They fixed it up into a whiffle ball field and many teens play there now. I was glad to see some upbeat news for a change and it brought back some great memories. It's really rare nowadays to see kids creating their own fun and having a good time without adults organizing their activities.

When I was a little girl, I thought it would be cool to have nine kids so we'd have enough for a family baseball team. (This idea died around age 12.) I dreamed about making a ball field in my backyard one day. I used to love baseball! These teens actually did it! BRAVO!!

It's hard to believe everyone isn't thrilled and applauding these teens that are not in gang warfare, or selling drugs to little kids, or being promiscuous. They are not vandalizing or bullying people. All they are doing is having some fun playing whiffle ball. A whiffle ball is plastic and a plastic bat is used to hit it. We used to play home run derby in our driveway on occasion with a whiffle ball. It is unlikely that even if it hit a window, it would break.

I can't believe how grouchy some people are. One neighbor actually hired a lawyer to shut down the field. A town meeting about this whiffle ball controversy is set for tomorrow. I'm pulling for the teens! Thankfully, the community response is mostly for the kids. I really think sometimes older people are just plain jealous of the fun kids and teens have so they complain "they make too much noise." These teens cleaned up an eyesore and should be appreciated and congratulated for their initiative! Go Teens!

Great news story, Connie! Thank you.