I’ve continued to be MIA, but will be back soon (I promise). Chalk it up to the end of a busy semester, a time consuming job hunt and the holiday season. No doubt I’m not alone in my precious allocation of time. Be sure to find time to enjoy the season. Cheers!

The following is from an email I received this evening via my Aunt about PKU (Phenylketonuria) that I’d encourage you to read – it’s a great summary of the disease as well as offers a quick and easy way to help promote awareness and offer support:

PKU is a rare inherited metabolic disorder. PKU has an incidence of about 1:10,000 births in the US, which means about one case per year in Maine. Those with PKU are lacking an enzyme needed to break down the amino acid phenylalanine which is found in all proteins. If untreated, phenylalanine builds up in the bloodstream and causes brain damage; before newborn screening, PKU was a major cause of mental retardation.

Thankfully today, all babies in the US are screened through state mandated Newborn Screening Programs. Treatment requires following a severely restricted low protein diet – avoiding anything one would usually consider a source of protein – dairy, meat, poultry, fish, legumes, soy as well as products made with regular flour and pasta.

You might ask, what CAN be eaten? The answer is measured amounts of most fruits and vegetables, fats, sugars and specially formulated low protein pastas and baked goods that are ordered from specialty companies. For the protein needed for growth and development, a metabolic formula containing all the essential amino acids except for phenylalanine is drunk.

As the need for family education and support became clear, combined with the good fortune of being on the receiving end of a grant from The Children’s Hospital in Boston, in 1994 the first Family Camping Weekend was held for families raising a child with PKU. Educational programs for parents and children, cooking classes and support activities filled the weekend.

These annual weekends have continued over the years providing needed support and education to families. The problem is that over the years, funding has been more and more difficult to secure. For the past two years, fundraising efforts have been entirely spearheaded by families. The commitment is to provide this opportunity for every family whether or not they have the ability to pay.

To that end, Laurie, a Pampered Chef consultant, who also has a teenage daughter with PKU, has organized this fundraiser.

If you want to participate, you can do so easily online. Please follow these easy steps:

· Go to Laurie’s website: www.pamperedchef.biz/lauried
· Select “Order Products”
· Enter “Maine PKU & AD” as the organization
· Place order – all orders must be placed by 11/6

I’m anything, but an avid bicyclist. In order to become one I would need to overcome a rather daunting fear – Boston area traffic. This is a leap of faith that I am not quite ready to take. However, I have an affection for those who do bike, and I am quite aware of the positive implications this particular mode of transportation has on the environment.

Earlier this week I set out to observe the Alewife T station as part of a Hub2 assignment. The task was to observe public space – more specifically how individuals and/or groups interact with such space. Though before I could even begin to observe people I was immediately drawn to the may-lay of bicycles outside the station.

Every inch of the racks were covered. It was quite apparent that the designated space was not nearly enough. Bicycles littered every railing feasibly available throughout the station. Needless to say the space provided was far from adequate. With the bike path easily accessible to city goers the lack of parking must be a point of frustration as well as a deterrent to those who might consider biking if they were guaranteed a parking space.

Today there is an urgency and a need for environmental responsibility. Biking provides an easy solution to cutting down emissions especially in a city like Boston. However, how can alternative modes of transportation be promoted when the proper means to do so are not offered? I guess it’s all an issue of infrastructure. It’s all well and good to foster environmental action (which I am very much an advocate of), but in order to ensure sustainability the proper infrastructure needs to be put in place.

While it would be easy to place all the blame on the city, a portion of the problem rests in the hands of the community. Residents, like myself, need to speak up in order to ensure that these problems and needs are noted in order foster an effective solution. Which means that while I may not be a biker I have a certain responsibility as a resident to not only observe the problem, but to advocate on behalf of its solution.

On Thursday, September 27th 2007, Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits posted an article entitled “Gigapan: Richer Context, Detail from Digital Photos”.

“GigaPan is the newest development of the Global Connection Project, which aims to help us meet our neighbors across the globe, and learn about our planet itself. GigaPan will help bring distant communities and peoples together through images that have so much detail that they are, themselves, the objects of exploration, discovery and wonder. We believe that enabling people to explore, experience, and share each other’s worlds can be a transforming experience. Our mission is to make all aspects of the GigaPan experience accessible and affordable to the broadest possible community (from GigaPan.org).”

Post excerpt:

Words and still images don’t convey the visual impact. Go explore some Gigapan images, and note their extraordinary blend of context and detail. Then imagine what value this could offer in news situations, such as crowd scenes at a political rally, a riot, the aftermath of a storm, or a bridge collapse.

Furthermore, imagine what this technology could do in the hands of civilians and soldiers in a conflict situation, or citizen journalists documenting local events or conditions.

I can only reiterate the sentiments of Amy Gahran. Words alone cannot fully describe the rich, mesmerizing effects of the images and the moments that each photograph captures. You have to see for yourself all that GigaPan has to offer.