Recently my son told me “You can’t do it with one.” I was remembering a visit to the American History Museum more than six months earlier. He was talking about his attempt to attach magnetic objects on a ramp in order to direct a ball into a hole in the hands-on science exhibit.

I was delighted he remembered because at the time I stood there marveling at his minimalist approach.

For over an hour, every other kid [...]]]>

Recently my son told me “You can’t do it with one.” I was remembering a visit to the American History Museum more than six months earlier. He was talking about his attempt to attach magnetic objects on a ramp in order to direct a ball into a hole in the hands-on science exhibit.

I was delighted he remembered because at the time I stood there marveling at his minimalist approach.

For over an hour, every other kid immediately proceeded to add as many gadgets as possible to the ramp. More and more and more, without even checking if their system worked.

When my son walked up, he was the only one to remove all the pieces and try with one. Only one. No matter what he did, it didn’t work so he tried two.

When we have a project or assignment, we tend to try to add as much as we can. For instance, if you are designing a website, you might add as many bells and whistles as you can find. If you are planning an event, you might schedule more people, displays, and presentations than you need. The temptation to add every possible feature is especially evident in committees or groups of decision-makers. More must be better.

However, my son is right. You should always start with the bare minimum and see if it works. Then add each additional piece of the plan but only if you can justify additional benefits.

There’s a reason for K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid). Some of us come by this direct no-nonsense philosophy naturally but most of us don’t.

As Albert Einstein is attributed to saying:

Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.

What he really said is slightly more complicated:

It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.

The message is the same.

When you are working on any project, start from the bottom and only add what is needed.

Can you do it with one piece?

Photo from ParMieux Adventures

Three years ago the Silver Spring Zombie Walk was started by a few local bloggers who decided to invite the readers to show up as zombies. Since I wanted to see the turnout inspired by these blogs and I always enjoy a fun time, my husband and I doned some white powder and makeup and ventured back to our old Silver Spring neighborhood. Doing our best to appear to be the [...]]]>

Photo from ParMieux Adventures

Three years ago the Silver Spring Zombie Walk was started by a few local bloggers who decided to invite the readers to show up as zombies. Since I wanted to see the turnout inspired by these blogs and I always enjoy a fun time, my husband and I doned some white powder and makeup and ventured back to our old Silver Spring neighborhood. Doing our best to appear to be the walking undead, we dragged our legs along and observed. Much to our delight, everyone was friendly, talked, and a great camaraderie grew. We were immediately part of the group even though we didn’t know anyone. The spontaneous gathering attracted between 100-200 people.

With big crowds lining the route this year, the 3rd annual event grew to over 2,000. If you’ve experienced the Zombie Walk, you know the reasons why. If you see the pictures and wonder why anyone would ever do this, here’s what’s going on! The Silver Spring Zombie Walk mixes interactive theater, creativity, community, and straight-up fun for a out-of-the-ordinary escapade.

Community. People come to meet friends and see their costumes/makeup. Almost everyone walks with someone they know. The main focus is being together to share the smiles and laughs. This is something you definitely talk about around the water cooler or over the backyard fence. This year, while looking for one group of friends, I lost track of my other friends. I found myself completely alone and the Zombie Walk had started. After looking around at the crowd, I realized I’d be fine by myself because everyone in this massive crowd was in this together. You become part of a broader community.

Creativity. Dressing and pretending to be a zombie allows participants to express themselves creatively. Being a zombie goes beyond a typical Halloween costume because you need a personality too. If you don’t perform on stage or act in some capacity, you most likely don’t have many imaginative outlets in your daily life. Being a zombie allows innovative commentary about our society, our flaws, and our icons. Santa, Yogi, Superman, and Politician Zombies populate the wonderful craziness of this pretend world.

Breaking The Norms. In society we share expectations of how we all should behave. Stepping outside these learned behaviors is a treat. During the zombie walk, our norms are disregarded which results in an exciting, unstructured event. The freedom to growl, scream, and flail at strangers is certainly an attraction, but seeing others behave as zombies is just as thrilling.

Interactive Theater. The Zombie Walk is a live, free, ad lib show. This year a Zombie Hunter walked with a working chainsaw protruding through an unsuspecting zombie. A pretend policeman used his club to defend the innocent crowd. A very authentic looking Jesus attempted to bless and save lost zombie souls. If you are a zombie, each step brings an opportunity to act. These on-the-spot performances are a rare occurrence worth experiencing. When in college I did gorilla theater to create awareness about Apartheid, so I’ve always loved spontaneous theater.

Spontaneity. During the first zombie walk, almost everyone in Silver Spring was unsuspecting. The blogs informed their readers but the general population was unaware. The unsuspecting reacted. Managers locked business doors and everyone moved away from the windows. A lone security guard bravely ran toward his office building doors to lock out the chaos. One woman in a restaurant window was visibly shaken. This year the event had regional newspaper coverage and WTOP was even given traffic advisories to avoid the area during the Walk. People at outside restaurant tables had obviously planned their ring-side perch. Only one woman reacted unfavorably to the knife through my head as we walked to the event early in the evening. Although a more institutionalized and planned event can quash some of the radical uniqueness, individual behavior can always bring it back.

Escapism. If people go to see zombie movies as a form of escapism, then a live zombie walk has to be even better. When you are at a zombie walk you escape in much the same way as when you see a movie, except you are the movie. Whether zombies snarl at you when you are standing on the sidewalk or you actively participate by defending yourself from zombies or you scrape by as the undead, you are automatically participating. When bystanders hold up their phones to take a picture and the zombies react, they are brought into the performance. With so many hundreds of zombies, it’s difficult not to begin to imagine the situation is real, or could be real, while the movie rolls all around you.

Shared Experience. A professional photographer commented, “I wish they would all put down their phones so I can get a picture.” Because of the great excitement and fun, people constantly took pictures and video. Even a police officer blocking an intersection for the Walk had a gigantic smile on his face as he snapped photos nonstop with his phone. You could tell he was having the best time on duty. The Zombie Walk is not something you can keep to yourself.

It’s impossible to have this much fun and keep it a secret. Step into the zombie world and live.

Riding in a Zorb is a wild rebirth of an experience.

Last year when my husband and I were watching the Amazing Race, the contestants raced down a hill with Zorbs in New Zealand. We knew we’d jump at a chance to try. After firming up our vacation plans with our friends to go to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, my husband and I were dual-laptop researching the area and he turned his screen toward me with his [...]]]>

Riding in a Zorb is a wild rebirth of an experience.

Last year when my husband and I were watching the Amazing Race, the contestants raced down a hill with Zorbs in New Zealand. We knew we’d jump at a chance to try. After firming up our vacation plans with our friends to go to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, my husband and I were dual-laptop researching the area and he turned his screen toward me with his find. “The Zorb! How close?” I asked. “IN Pigeon Forge.” Woah, baby!

After hiking along cascading streams and then to the top of amazing waterfall in Great Smoky Mountain National Park, our group was hot and wanted to cool off. Ranging in age from 8 to 48, the nine of us couldn’t wait to ride in a giant ball.

For years I played with my sons designing Marble Raceways and dropping balls down plastic chutes. At the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore, one exhibit has balls travelling around on metal tracks. Maybe because I love roller coasters, I always stare fascinated by the motion of gravity, trying to imagine what it would feel like to be on those tracks. This was my chance to be IN A BALL as it free falls, twisting, turning, reversing down a zig-zag trail on the side of a mountain.

So what’s it really like? You start by diving in arms first through a small tunnel. You are zipped in twice for the inner and outer balls. The ride is too brief, only 40 seconds. The sensations were just as I imagined and I laughed the whole way down. Water in the Zorb allows your body to shift from side to side, back and forth. Sort of like body surfing on a wave but with much more motion and sloshing. You are at the mercy of your weight and gravity then wind up falling backwards. If the zippered opening rips across your back, you need to shift your body to another side or pay a raw red consequence. You get out by slipping feet first out of the hole with all the water, which resembles my vision of birth a little too closely. We all felt a weird birthing moment at the end.

The price for our group was $33 each. That’s a steep cost for such a quick experience but we all were glad we did the Zorb. It’s just one of those things you HAVE to do in your life because you CAN! We all tried the water version, Zydro. The other version is Zorbit, which allows you to experience weightlessness and g-force. My arm was in a sling and I’m still trying to decide if I would have strapped myself in for the dry rollover version if it wasn’t.

Maybe I have an addiction to balls but you want to ride the Zorb, even if it’s just once in your life!

California Teacher Gets Creative “The budget is so tight in the suburbs of San Diego that at Rancho Bernardo High School calculus teacher Tom Farber didn’t have enough paper to give practice tests. Then a bus advertisement sparked an idea.

“I said, you know, in the face of tough times, maybe I could do something similar in my classroom and advertise on my test,” Farber said.

The bottom [...]]]> ABC News Reports the following and my mouth is hanging open:

California Teacher Gets Creative

“The budget is so tight in the suburbs of San Diego that at Rancho Bernardo High School calculus teacher Tom Farber didn’t have enough paper to give practice tests. Then a bus advertisement sparked an idea.

“I said, you know, in the face of tough times, maybe I could do something similar in my classroom and advertise on my test,” Farber said.

The bottom of each of Farber’s calculus quizzes features an inspirational message paid for by parents or local businesses. He’s not happy about taking such desperate measures, but the average public school teacher already spends around $430 of their own money on supplies, according to the National Education Association.”

Has it really come to this? I was appalled when technology would allow advertisers to flash messages in the night sky from satelites. Thank goodness no one has pursued this method, but advertising on the bottom of tests is just as invasive.

I choose to use gmail and view the advertisements down the right-side column. While on Facebook, I fight the urge everyday to type in “sex toy” just to see if they have ads on this subject. I know the price and attempt to find humor as I trudge along in cyberspace.

In these situations I’ve chosen to use a service for free with the understanding that I will be subjected to advertising. We’re the t.v. generation so we know that we need to pay the price with advertising or subscribe. But students don’t have a choice and I don’t want my night sky blocked by advertising.

The sad part is that teachers are so poorly paid that they must resort to such measures. In our community, the last two affordable housing proposals have been met with resistance. Expenses are up and we’ve all lost more than 30% on our investments. Times are tough.

I applaud ingenuity by our teachers, but advertising on tests, even if the message motivates, seems out of place.

Lets not miss the big point here, our school budgets should include enough funding for paper so that teachers can give tests.

Our PTA reimburses teachers for some of their out-of-pocket expenses. At the last meeting, we asked the teachers to tell us what we could purchase to make their jobs easier, especially since they were voting to forgo their salary increases. Perhaps the parents in San Diego could start a fund instead of paying for advertising.

Sometimes it’s all about morale.