The Year 2011 in Review

Greetings from Ben & Carolyn

As we look back at 2011 it’s been a busy year…

In January, we got a late Christmas present by going to Jamaica. January 8th, Carolyn, Asha, Deva, Jai, and Ben flew to Montego Bay, and after long delays, due to snow storms, and were met with cold Red Stripes and driven to our lovely villa. We stayed for a week at a house called Tia Maria in the Silver Sands community on the north coast. Our cook made us ackee and saltfish, red beans and rice, Johnny cakes, callaloo, and twice we bought dinner from the lobster man, John Wesley, who came by daily. We all went zip-lining, snorkeling, kayaking, splashed around in the Luminous Lagoon, and the kids jumped off a cliff at Ricks Café in Negril. It was a wonderful trip! There are pictures online.

Later that month, Deva graduated from the Presidential Management Fellows program, and became a permanent employee of the Dept. of Interior Bureau of Land Management. When his office moved a couple blocks from Nationals Park and the Department of Transportation in Southeast – it was close enough for Ben and Deva to meet for lunch. Having Deva in DC also meant we had a chance to get together with him and his girlfriend Gloria regularly, and by the end of the year they managed to cut housing expenses in half by moving in together!

Thanks to Asha, we got to see and meet The Civil Wars in February at a small Virginia club just before they all went to Paris together and proceeded to get really big. By November, she was with them at the Grammy Awards Nominating Show where they were nominated for 2 awards. Also thanks to Asha, we got to see and meet Josh Ritter, Pink Martini, Madi Diaz, and Blind Pilot this year. In May we went to Nashville TN to visit, dine, and met lots of Asha friends; even enjoyed the Country Music Hall of Fame and recording studio.

In March Ben gave up alcohol for Lent and forgot to take it back up. We became regular members of Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church in College Park and ended up co-chairing the Stewardship Commission. Ben especially enjoys brunch after church at Plato’s Diner before going home just in time to see the Redskins lose another one. Having run out of book space, Ben also discovered the local library again, especially digital loans. At the new Arena Stage we saw Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf? – powerful stuff.


We visited Jai and Tommy in Richmond in April, and saw a big Picasso exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Art, and returned several times to see Jai as Cecile in Dangerous Liaisons, Cordelia in King Lear at Agecroft Hall, and solo as herself in Elephant Epiphany. They both came to visit us several times this year too.

In July, we took our annual summer Road Trip – this time to upstate New York – stopping in York to see Ben’s cousin Eric Menzer, family, and the York Revolution baseball team on their way to becoming 2011 Atlantic League Champions (Eric is the general manager). We then visited Harrisburg to see Keith; and the Corning Glass Factory, Cooperstown, the Catskills, Hudson River towns, Woodstock festival site, and Dunn’s in New Jersey. Ben collected more maps.

Nieces Hannah and Holly visited in August and we all wore ourselves out in DC on a Metro ride, the Air and Space and Natural History museums, and carousel. Later in the year Ben watched the girls all by himself! He had lots of fun and is still tired. Jamie’s daughter Rachel visited too.

In September we began our annual Maryland Terrapins tailgating season with Brenda, Alan, Dave and other friends and family. Even though the team was less than stellar this season, it was still fun to see friends and enjoy some great Saturdays in Lot 1.

At the end of September, Carolyn was deployed by FEMA to assist with Hurricane Irene recovery. After a few days back in Albany, NY, she was sent to New York City to work with city and State elected officials. She was gone for almost 6 weeks and both Ben and Jai were able to visit during that time. One plus of being is New York was getting to see lots of Broadway shows and visiting with her brother and family.


For Thanksgiving we made our regular trek to Montclair, NJ. Tom and Susan Dunn hosted 18 guests. We contributed 7 – Ben, Carolyn, Deva, Gloria, Asha, Jai, and Tommy. We had a great feast, wonderful fellowship, and a fierce game of Demon to round things off. Ellen still wins every time. After Thanksgiving Jai, Tommy, and Asha came back DC and we began our annual cookie backing marathon. Over the course of the next few days, we produced more than a dozen kinds of cookies. Cookie baking has continued throughout the next few weeks.


In December, we had the great privilege of seeing Jai perform in a solo show that she wrote, produced, and performed as part of her senior project. We are looking forward to her graduation in the spring and what will come next. Christmas preparations are well underway at the Dunn/Gribbon household. We just swapped our dining room and living room – that we rarely used. Now we have a cozier living room and bigger dining room, with more room to have you over if you find yourself in Hyattsville anytime.


We hope that this Christmas and New Year’s finds you and those you love well and happy. We hope that we have a chance to see you soon. Until then, we are thinking of you and sending prayers and good wishes for a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Peace,

Ben & Carolyn

Amy Polk

Amy Polk, 42, of Takoma Park, Md. died yesterday (April 29, 2010) in a pedestrian accident in downtown Washington DC.

Her husband, John Robinette, said Amy was a vital part of her neighborhood and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring, MD.

Next to spending time with her two sons – Adam, 7, and Bryan, 4 –Amy was a tireless advocate for expanding women’s access to midwifery care across the state. She was leading the effort to open the Seasons of Life Women’s Health and Birth Center in Takoma Park, a center devoted to providing health care for women before, during and after childbirth.

“Amy was a beautiful wife and mother. She meant so many things to so many people, but the best way to remember and honor her life is to support her vision of a birth center,” said John.

Donations in memory of Amy can be sent to:
"Seasons of Life"
7224 Central Avenue
Takoma Park, MD 20912
Or made online at: http://www.seasonsoflifebirthcenter.org/Donate.html

Amy leaves behind her mother, Bonnie Becker of Arlington, Va.; her father James Polk of Marietta, Ga.; and her brother Jeffrey Polk of Burke, Va.

A private funeral for the family will be held on Tuesday, May 4. A celebration of her life is scheduled for Friday, June 18 at 2 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring, Md.

Superfreakonomics

A great read. Like Freakonomics, this book applies economic analysis and freakish curiosity to disprove some things you thought you knew or shed light on things you didn't know that you didn't know – especially among numbers you didn’t know were related. Whereas the first book introduced a whole new approach, this one merely picks up where then first left off - with a fascinating but somewhat random series of applications. They could keep up this series forever.

Here's a few interesting tidbits (without the complete explanation):

- On a per mile basis, drunk walking is 5x more fatal than drunk driving.

- As rural India got television, domestic abuse went down and female education and autonomy went up.
- Prostitutes are more likely to have sex with a cop than be arrested; demand goes up during family reunions; and the clients of expensive escorts are price insensitive so will pay more for less sex.

- In the US, teacher IQ and student test scores declined, as the number of women with degrees entered other business fields after 1964.

- Infants conceived shortly before summer Ramadan or other periods of fasting are more likely to be sickly. Babies born in January and February are more likely to be stars.

- The shoe bomber Reid sort of failed, but the time it takes to remove shoes at security takes the equivalent of 14 lifetimes per year in traveler time.

- The DC sniper attacks in October 2002 only accounted for 10 of the average 50 homicides a month in the area.

- The Kitty Genovese murder in March 1964 made famous the 'bystander effect' which has been in the news a lot lately when a crowd witnesses a crime and does nothing, but the original story was sensationalized.

- Washington Hospital Center in DC went from worst to first in Emergency room care by implementing electronic medical records in a patented system now owned by Microsoft and used throughout the US.

-Chapter 4 is devoted to simple solutions and unintended consequences, so its this chapter that's the most controversial. The authors argue that ADA and the Endangered Species Act resulted in fewer jobs for people with disabilities and less habitat for endangered species respectively; but also that whale extinction, polio, and heart disease were easily cured by the discover of oil, vaccines, and drugs. Likewise the biggest improve in car safety was seat belts, which Robert McNamara adapted from airplanes. However, child safety seats are only effective for a small age range, not the range covered by NHTSA rules. Finally, carbon emissions may not be the most important part of global warming and there are some pretty simple solutions available that haven’t been seriously considered. But here they leave their focus on microeconomics and wander into ecology and macroeconomics which they state up front isn't their specialty. The buzz from cutting edge think tanks is interesting though.

The Kitchen is finally finished! Travis finished the tiling around the window and the artwork finally arived. The house isn't perfect but the kitchen might be! Not just because it looks like a catalog, but because it will be great to have you all over. Thanks carolyn; thanks everyone!

Finished Kitchen 2

Rant #1 - Greeting Card Envelopes

Why the heck do they make greeting cards in every conceivable size so that only one unique envelope can go with that card? Once they are separated both useless, and they aren't even attached when you buy them. Even if they came in hundreds of sizes there is no number or standard code for greeting card envelopes like there is for business envelopes so they can't be purchased separately even if you wanted to. It would even make sense if the cards were cheap but you had to pay extra for the envelope that fit it. Why not just make the %^&* cards and envelopes in standard sizes? Meanwhile, here I sit with a stack of nice cards and a stack of useless envelopes.

The Way of the World

Ron Suskind's narrative follows individuals with roles both large and small on the world stage, so its part history and partly how people see the world. Although the review points out the revelation that the CIA manufactured a fake letter from Iraqi security chief Hubbush; the real point of the book is that our emphasis on secrecy has resulted in missed opportunities, and that more honest information sharing would be a very powerful tool in combating terrorism. That's the theme, but the story is full of very specific insights to the events and personailities that brought to Spring 2008 in Iraq. For a great summary of a good book, see Louis Baynard's review on Salon.com. Let me know if anyone wants to borrow it.

House for Sale

Carolyn and I can't wait to move into our new house; at least we won't be able to wait when the kitchen is done. Meanwhile, we still love our old house but are pretty anxious to sell or rent it and settle into just one. Know anyone who needs a house? Look at the rest of the pictures!

Having found a new house, I wanted to sell my house at 10600 Hockberry Way in Beltsville.

In Spring 2003 the Episcopal Church in Forestville needed the rectory back, so I started looking. Julie Tetrault helped me look at a lot of houses and we finally found this one. Carolyn and I both liked it and I bought it from Chris Ulmstott - a friend of friends - that summer.

I moved in here in November 2003, and Carolyn moved in sometime in 2006.

We posted an MLS listing with Long and Foster on July 25th and had a few open houses.