This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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 Speaking of acheivements in the family… also about a month ago, something else was announced:
2005 Antoinette Brown Award recipients named
The Antoinette Brown Selection Committee today named Ruth M. Brandon and Barbara Brown Zikmund as the 2005 recipients of the Antoinette Brown Award. This honor is awarded to two distinguished clergywomen at the biennium gathering of the United Church of Christ’s General Synod.
Ruth M Brandon, originally from Vermont, is a graduate of Oberlin College (1963) and Union Theological Seminary – NYC (MDiv 1966) and Christian Theological Seminary – Indianapolis (STM 1983). Ordained in the UCC for 32 years, she is Pastor of United Church of Christ, Second Congregational, in Westfield, Massachusetts; is vice moderator of the national Wider Church Ministries Board and active in the Massachusetts Conference. Ruth’s ministry has included campus ministry, missionary work and settling refugees for Church World Service. She has participated in the struggle for peace and justice from Mozambique to Nicaragua and in this country’s peace, anti-apartheid, civil rights and women’s rights movements. As a missionary Ruth served as a teacher with Mozambicans during the war of independence and later taught Ethics at the Ricatla United Seminary. At the seminary, she organized the first conference for Mozambican women pastors and seminarians. Ruth served on two UCC conference staffs and directed a Campus YWCA which also served as a Women’s Center and related to many justice activities.
The award is apperantly a pretty big deal in my mom’s denomination. The actual reward will be given out July 2nd in Atlanta at the UCC General Synod. I have agreed to go to the event and introduce my mom when she gets the award. I have to come up with a 2 to 3 minute introductory statement. I have no idea what I will say yet. But I am sure I will come up with something. I was very honored that I was asked to do the intro… I wouldn’t miss it.
Congratulations Mom!
 This happened back a month ago, but I failed to post when it happened. But that gave time for it to be on the web where I could link to it…
Cynthia was in the National High School Moot Court Competition. Cynthia advanced through all the rounds. Ended up as one of the four finalists. The other three were Seniors, Cynthia is a Freshman.
This is not the first competition that Cynthia has been in the finals for (or won), and I’m sure it won’t be the last. She of course shruggs them all off. And, as her mom mentioned in an email, “This achievement would be greater cause for celebration if Cynthia had any interest in being a lawyer. She doesn’t.” She was apperantly drafted into the whole effort, and really didn’t have a big desire to do it. Of course, she did well anyway. :-)
Anyway, a belated congrats to my sister. I’m jealous! :-)
For anybody who happened to be wondering after my post a couple posts ago, the MRI results on my liver came back, and whatever they saw on the ultrasound that they thought might be a “nodule” on my liver turned out to be nothing. The MRI results came back showing no abnormalities at all.
Whew.
Now, still have a bunch of tests related to the kidney stuff that I have not heard back on yet, and don’t know exactly what the follow up will be given that the doctor is unfortunately gone. But hey, a few kidney stones every couple of years is a lot less scary and worrysome than being told that you might have unexplained growths on internal organs.
 Author: Mary Renault
Started: 3 Apr 2005
Finished: 9 May 2005
403p/37d
11 p/d
When I finished the book before this, I needed a fiction book to read next. My “book pile” of the books I am supposed to be reading in order has not yet been fully restored from the move from PA to FL, let alone the move to the new house in FL. So I had to go searching for a book to read. I rummaged through several of my book boxes that were accessible. I rejected a bunch of books that I remembered reading many years ago in high school or before. I wanted to read something new that I had not read before. After rejecting dozens of titles and making a general mess, I settled on this book. It did not particularly excite me, but I was tired of looking. I believe I had gotten it as a birthday present sometime in my teen or college years from some relative, but I could not be sure.
It is a novelization of the ancient Greek Theseus legends, written in the mode of a possible “real life” interpretation of events, eliminating the magical and mystical portions, except as reflected in the beliefs of the characters. It started very slow. I had to force my way through the entire first portion of the book, the section describing Theseus’s childhood in Troizen. Roughly the first 75 pages or so. But after that, as Theseus left home and started his adventures, it picked up quite a bit.
I started to get engaged in the adventures, and was starting to like the style of highlighting the ancient greek religious beliefs as actual religion, but without going Clash of the Titans style and being all about magic and legendary monsters and such. The minotaur for instance is not a magical beast, just a beastly human.
Anyway, from that point on, I enjoyed the actual adventures, liked the whole historical context of the thing, and enjoyed the detail and historical research that was obviously put into it to give it an “authentic” feel… well as close as could be expected. The section near the end in Naxos was a little weak again, and did not feel anywhere near as convincing as the sections in Eleusis and Crete.
But hey, it was OK. No masterpiece or anything, but kept me entertained for awhile, enough so that by the end I was taking it with me places, not just reading a few pages here and there when I remembered to. I finished it on the plane on the way to the west coast.
There is apperantly a sequel. This novel ended when Theseus returned to Athens from Crete. The rest of the Theseus legend is left for the next book. Guess I shall need to order it.
Just added a state to my map!
I’m in Tacoma, Washington for work. Just arrived here a little under two hours ago. It is my first time in Washington state.
12 more states to go to have all 50!
(Map made using World66.)
After my latest round of kidney stones back at the beginning of this year, my regular doctor reffered me to a urologist, who in turn refered me to a kidney specialist to help find out just why I keep making stones, and how to possibly prevent more. I went to my first appointment with him about a month ago, and was in the process of doing a bunch of medical tests, and had a follow up meeting scheduled with him for Monday.
This morning while getting yet more tests done, I heard the nurses at the test facility talking, and then Brandy found this article to confirm…
Brevard doctor dies in Keys’ diving accident
A Palm Bay Community Hospital kidney specialist died during a weekend Key Largo diving accident, officials confirmed today. Dr. Tarik Khair-El-Din, 44, was reported missing during a diving expedition Saturday to the USS Spiegel Grove artificial reef, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.
That was my doctor. I had only met with him once. But he had immediately impressed me, because he took the time to talk and explain and answer questions, and just generally had a good bedside manner. I’d heard other people speak well of him too. Not much else to say. :-(
Meanwhile, the test I was having this morning was not my kidneys at all, although I have more of those tests yet to do. It was an MRI on my liver, because while doing the variety of tests for my kidney stones over the last few months, they found some non-normal results related to my liver in both blood work and an ultrasound. So this is to investigate further. I’ll get the results later this week probably. I am crossing my fingers hoping it is not serious.
As for the kidney investigation, no idea what will happen now. Guess I may be refered to someone else. Maybe. Not sure if I should still do the test scheduled for this weekend. Probably I guess. But it is a shame it will not be with Dr. Khair. :-(
OK, I took a long lunch to run some errands. I need to get back to work now…
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