PS - what's a prime?

I apologize for my lack of discernment in the last post about what qualifies as general knowledge and what I know because I spent years studying mathematics.

So what are primes you ask (no, you're not the only one who was wondering)?

**In this post, for simplicity's sake, I use the term "number" to refer to positive integers, i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, and the whole gang -- we're not paying attention to those with decimals or negatives or any of those crowds.**

A prime number is a number that can only be divided by itself or 1. So 2 is a prime number. In fact, 2 is the only even prime, since all other even numbers can be divided by 2.
Then 3 is a prime.
4? NO!!! because 4 = 2 x 2
5? check, it's a prime.
6 = 2 x 3 so no!
7 is a prime.
8 = 2 x 2 x 2 (or 2 x 4). NO PRIME FOR YOU!
9 = 3 x 3. No prime here.
10 = 2 x 5. Not a prime.
11 -- It's a prime!!
12 = 2 x 2 x 3 (= 3 x 4 = 2 x 6). Definitely not a prime.
So you get the idea?
The first 15 primes are: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43.
I won't tell you what the largest primes are, because the one they just discovered in the past month has 17,425,170 digits. So yeah, I don't have the time to post it right now.

So there you have it. This hopefully gives you the basic information needed to read through the post below. Let me know if you would like any other mathematical clarification!

Danville: a pearl in the wilderness

Let me share this hidden gem before our blog's readership gets too big and the secret gets spoiled. As we were driving through Kentucky, we decided to poke into Danville because it was apparently a wonderful small town to live in, and we wanted to see what the fuss was all about.

Skepticism grew in my heart as we got closer through the central Kentucky plains and pleasant yet unexciting rolling farmlands south of Lexington, with more and more characterless single-story homes around the road leading into town. What's so great about this little secluded community, thought I?

Well it's biggest claim to fame is that it was ranked 4th best place to retire nationwide by Money Magazine. That's gotta mean: 1) affordable, and 2) good healthcare (indeed as we were walking in the center, we came across almost an entire bloc along Main St of different types of health providers and services; there's also a big hospital there). But also, it's home to Centre College, a reputable college.

As we drove down the main drag, things started looking more interesting. The town was starting to show more (maintained) history in its architecture and infrastructure until we parked at the visitors' center which is located on the edge of a city-block park with old colonial buildings and plaques describing the place's history. Among the "firsts" that Danville proudly claims are the 1st courthouse in Kentucky and the 1st post office west of the Alleghany Mtns.

So we went in and talked with the young lady who was on duty in the visitors' center. She loved the place (always a good sign; we've visited some places where locals tended to say something to the effect of: "Uh, yeah, it's nice here... look, there's these interesting places/things to do within a 2-hour drive from here..."); she grew up in Danville and recently came back upon graduating from college. She enjoys the relaxed and friendly nature of the people as well as the safety (like jogging at night, not locking her home...).

She also showed us a list of the annual events that fill up the calendar. It was quite a bit more active than what I expected for this laid back, away from the mains roads little town. There's something every month: wine tasting festival, outdoor film festival, car show, Christmas parade, the state's barbecue festival, music festival, horse show... Also the college welcomes quite a few renowned exhibits and performances.

Having such a small, liberal arts, private college seems to mean: the community has fun & affordable (for college students) activities and attracts culture. In fact, next year it will host its second vice-presidential debate in 12 years. Not being a public university, it is not a "party school"; one of the locals we talked with described the students as "smart, they study hard." Also, the college guarantees to the students who make it in that they will have an internship and an opportunity to study abroad and graduate in four years. So that's bound to bring some interesting culture awareness and bright minds.

By the time we walked out, several other staff members had shown up, including one who had previously lived in Virginia (almost everyone else who lives in Kentucky apparently grew up near their current hometown and just never found a better place to settle), and it was nice to see that they were not full of themselves. They love Danville, but they told us about other small towns in the greater Lexington area that they also find awesome.

We stopped for lunch at a family-owned restaurant that makes excellent pizzas then kept walking down Main Street before stopping into Karamel Kreations where Beth, who runs the place, gave us some samples of her chocolate-caramel concoction and told us all about the area and why she set up her fun little shop in Danville even though she lives in Lexington, a good 45-minute drive away.

By the time we left the little town, we were surprised by how much we loved it there. There's even a river and a lake nearby, so kayaking looks feasible. I'm not sure how far good skiing and hiking are, but there were some hairpin turns on the road up to Lexington, along the Kentucky River, where the driving reminded me of going up some parts of the Cévennes mountains more than anything else.

The biggest downside for us of living in such a place seems to be that it is about as far from either of our parents as we could get within the part of the country we think we'd enjoy being. So that doesn't sound ideal if a baby is in the picture (no, this is NOT an announcement, we occasionally happen to think ahead).

Review: Megabus

Last month, for my trip to Boston, I decided to give Megabus a try. It's one of the express bus companies that connect cities, mostly in the Northeast, though their network does branch out way beyond the region. It seemed like a much more affordable way to get up to Boston than by plane or train or even Greyhound (and with less security hassle than airports) . I opted for a most established, organized company than the Chinatown buses that run up and down the coast, and this was the only company I found that had direct trips between DC and Boston (others would have me change buses in New York).

I looked for reviews. Some hated their experience with Megabus. For others it was their favorite way to travel.

My experience turned out to average. Overall, it wasn't terrible or traumatizing. It also wasn't wonderful.

Organizationally, it seemed a little under par ("under" not being used in a similar way as in golf). In Washington, they used a parking lot a 10-minute walk away from Union Station as their departure/arrival area. They were setup to get things working pretty smoothly with staff and cones and booths to direct people to the right bus or waiting line. But operating from a parking lot can be a bit unreassuring. Fortunately the weather was fine, but I can imagine it being unpleasant in rain or snow. Now, I have since heard that there's a new bus terminal near Union Station, so that issue has maybe been solved now.

We had one stop on the northeast side of Baltimore, on the edge of a mall's parking lot right off I-95. There were a few cones and small signs as a waiting area for passengers. And the other stop was in Seacaucus, NJ, at what seems to be a major bus terminal right off I-95 with a rail connection to NYC. That's where we got a new driver for the second half of the trip.

Then in Boston, arrival and departure were at a pretty well organized bus terminal next to South Station. At least it seemed well organized at first. When I was returning on Sunday morning, I had a bus scheduled for 10:15 am. I got there 45 minutes early, and another bus was at my gate, leaving for NY at 10:00. It was filling up with passengers 20 minutes early so that was encouraging. But after that one left, no new bus came in its place. After waiting 15 minutes past the departure time, I went to a Megabus guy who was trying to keep the amassing travelers waiting for their buses in the right line (it was getting closer to the departure time for the next bus to NY as well) to ask him if he had any information on when the bus would be there. "It's on its way." So it finally arrived just in time to fill up and leave at 11:00.

Comfort wise, it was OK as long as I could put my legs in front of the seat next to that which I was sitting on. That posed no problem on the way up, when I don't think there were more than 20 people on board (in the middle of the week). On the way down however, it was another story. It was the day after an overnight blizzard that had seen a whole lot of bus cancellations (I was originally scheduled to leave Boston Saturday evening and arrive in DC Sunday morning early enough to get to church in Reston). And it was on a weekend to boot. So I sat next to someone from Boston to Baltimore, and could not comfortably fit my legs in the space behind the seat in front of mine. I also wasn't too comfortable when I twisted my legs to dangle my feet out in the aisle, where there was more breathing space. At the stop near Baltimore, enough people got off that I could switch sides of the bus to have 2 seats to myself for the last hour.

I was hoping to use my eight hours on the road productively and get some work done (well at least on the way up to the conference, I wasn't planning on working on the overnight trip back). Megabus's website says that they "will make a reasonable effort to make WIFI services available free of charge to every passenger." But I could neither my phone nor my laptop could find a WIFI connection on the Boston-bound bus. I did spend a little time doing some offline work like preparing invoices, but I couldn't be as productive as I had hoped, so I got more sleep than anticipated. I also read some. And played on my phone. There wasn't much space to open my computer anyway (I balanced it on my leg and the seat next to me), and with the bounciness of the bus, I could type all that efficiently anyway.

Of course on the "cozy" way down, I did not open my computer. My phone found a WIFI network whose name matched the number at the front of bus. My phone said it was connected. I could not pull up any website on my phone (unless I turned off the WIFI and used up some 3G data). So that got kinda frustrating. I had been able to get on a free Megabus network when I was waiting around in the bus terminal, but once on the bus, no matter what I tried, I couldn't use the network I was connected to all day long.

The drivers were friendly and accurately announced our lunch breaks and all. They were also safe. Nothing to complain about there.

Their communication was imperfect but got the job done. Buying the tickets was quite quick and easy on their website, and very affordable. On Saturday afternoon, as the freak snowstorm was getting closer, I decided to call their customer service to check if I should expect any problem with my trip, and was told all the information is on the site. Hmph. I was expecting more detail than that from a human. The website noted some cancellations but my bus was only marked as 2 hours late. It wasn't clear if that meant the departure would be 2 hours later or if the trip would take 2 hours longer. So I continued according to plan. As I was packing my last things I got back online to check for updates, and my bus was cancelled. Stink. I called their customer service and after not too long got rescheduled on a bus twelve hours later than the one I had bought, and they're hassle-free enough that I didn't even need to print off an email with the new confirmation (good thing, 'cause I never got that email); I could just make notes of the new confirmation number on my previous reservation. Sometime later that evening I got an email telling me my (original) bus trip was cancelled. It would have been nice to get that earlier, like right after they decided to cancel it. It was a good thing I was staying with an easy-going friend who didn't have a problem letting me stay for another night, rather than at the expensive Marriott where the conference was held. An extra night there woulda been painful to the bank account.

In conclusion, I'd say you can consider Megabus a cheap option to get between major cities without much hassle and if you're not in a big hurry. But I won't tell you you have to use them to travel whenever you can.

I'd say... 6.5 / 10

Roller Derby

Today, I actually met a woman who does roller derby! They're actually real people who do that. She's another translator, and we were talking about activities that get us away from the computer and out of the home, and that's her thing. She doesn't have the big build you'd expect for such a high contact sport, but she said she can hold her own against other women who come at her with more weight. She explained some of the rules on who the scoring works with the "jammer" passing the opponents in the "pack" and also how in Quebec, the English words are used as well. And apparently, it's a challenging process to get into Montreal's league: she had to pass tests!

Also, there are apparently men's leagues starting up for the sport. But no, I'm not planning on joining one.

You learn some everyday. And some days, you'll even be surprised by some of the things you learn.

Lesson of Summer

As the morrow shall see the winds of change come once again to flip the page of yet another season (i.e. fall's gonna start tomorrow), I feel like sharing with you something I learned this summer.

You know how when you turn a lamp on, you have to click it twice for it to turn on, and twice again to turn it back off. So annoying, right? Why do they keep designing them that way? Why not make it quicker and efficienter with just one click for the light to respond?

Well, my dear readership, this summer it suddenly hit me! Pow! Just like that! When I saw a box for light bulbs with three different wattages listed. And I remembered! "Oh yeah!" Just like that! I've been in the presence of lamps that have three different luminances, so you can pick if you want the room brightly lit up, if you want a calmer illumination, or just discrete I-need-to-see-where-I-am-going lighting. It's not the lamp systems that do that, Silly, it's the light bulb. And so there are four settings for the turny-switchy knob thingy: off>bright>medium>dim. But with normal light bulbs, there's only two levels of brightness for the whole circle, so they round the in-between settings: off>bright>bright>off. But they design the lamps that way to accommodate a variety of bulb styles.

It was quite a sudden revelation. You learn some every season…

Churching

This morning, pastor Chris preached on Romans 12:1-2, which includes "Do not be conformed to this world..." (and also referencing Ephesians 4:17-24).

As he was talking about how the church is not to conform to the culture, he mentioned that in the parlance of today's youth, Christians are to be "hipsters," although in my mind that term carries additional connotations of unhealthy pride and self-absorption in knowing better than "them."

What struck me more was what he said about different kinds of worship service styles. In particular, the Bible church style, or maybe more so what I find a lot of churches that don't have the word "church" in their names do: exciting music praising God, stirring particular emotions, impressive visual aids grabbing the congregation's attention, etc. I normally have the impression that is a way of conforming to the culture: "This is what (young) people like these days, so let's do exactly that, and even more, or else there's no way we'll reach them." So although I wouldn't say that there's no redeeming factor in that, it has not attracted me as a helpful habit for Christ's local body. But Chris pointed out that to some people, some parts of our society, that kind of worship goes against everything they know and it is counter-cultural.

That was good food for thought. After all, in some other people's eyes, the fact that we use a drum kit in the church's music is a sign of conformance to the surrounding culture.

That said, I do still think certain worship service styles are much richer than that mentioned above, even if they may not be as quick to grab the attention of some segments of the population.

I was blessed to have grown up in churches that had intentional, thought-through liturgy that better covered the breadth of the Christian walk. It was not just because that's what had been traditionally done. It was meaningful and purposed. And it follows scriptural examples. As an example, when the Israelites gathered as a people upon leaving Egypt, they first joyfully praised God for who He is what He has done and His amazing goodness; then as they came to meet with the Lord, He revealed the way things are, what He wants and expects of His followers, and thereby putting a mirror to the sin in their lives; so they repented of theirs sins, and they recommitted themselves to the Lord; then they were better able to follow God's leading.

As that's what I was raised with, I saw all that as normal. That was how churches prepare hearts to listen to the sermon, to better build one another up to go back into the world, to which we do not belong, for the week ahead. That is how church functions, through reading the Bible, prayer, the different steps emphasized with fitting songs, in preparation to hear the main message clarifying God's word for life in our current situation.

There are of course a variety of ways to practice this in its details. However it reminds me of my first real church search when I left home for college, and Sunday after Sunday I was shocked by how easy it was to go to what felt more like a praise music event (or maybe a Christian music and prayer event) with a message from the pastor thrown in. I'm sure many of these establishments do wonderful things for the Kingdom of God, and their members can have a faith that is on fire, but going there on Sunday morning, I'd feel like I missed church and would be disappointed that so much of the wealth of the Christian experience that was thrown out of the service and ignored.

This is all mulling around in my mind, as we are starting to look for where we will move to next, which is intrinsically tied to our next search for a church family, with which we can grow into the man and woman, and family, God created us to be.

What I'm good at

I recently decided go ahead get myself tested for my strengths. I took the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment. Now when Sara told me about her results and how she was so adept at learning, I was expected to find that one in my top five too. My first surprise was not seeing that, though it made more sense once I found out what "Input" meant. From what I gather, the difference between the two is that those who are strong in Learning are driven by the actual process of learning, to master new concepts, whereas as the Input folks have more of a drive to accumulate new information to continually shape their ideas. Yep, that's me.

The other surprise in my results was to see Harmony smack-dab in the middle. I know I don't like conflict and even have a tendency to avoid it, but I certainly didn't see myself as one of "those harmony people" to quote a recent conversation we were in. At least not as one of my top 5 strengths.

Anyway, without further ado, here is what I'm best at, and briefly what it means:

1. CONTEXT - Enjoy thinking about the past; the present is understood by its history.

2. RESPONSIBILITY - Taking ownership of what I commit to; stable values (honesty, etc.).

3. HARMONY - Consensus and agreement are sought.

4. INPUT - A craving to know more, collecting information about anything and everything.

5. ANALYTICAL - Search for reasons; think about the different causes that explain things.

When I read the descriptions, my strengths made a lot more sense. It was an interesting exercise and it's fascinating info to get, to better explain why I do some of the things I do.

Thank you Ancient Ireland

Last weekend, we finished the book How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill, which we had been reading to each other while on the road. 2 out of 2 Restonians enjoyed and recommend it.

In brief, it talks about how the Roman Empire crumbled (for a lot of reasons, including the fact that it was no longer in touch with its real position in the world and its society had become complacent), and one man named Patrick felt called to evangelize the wild hordes that populated the island of Ireland at the time (one of the first missionaries we have records for who went outside the "civilized" Romanized world), bringing along literacy as well. He thus transformed the local culture, starting a long-term fascination for both Christianity and copying literature from the continent, without which Latin culture would most likely have disappeared, along with large portions of Greek culture and some Hebrew culture too. And this people's love of their new religion spread like wildfire and brought many people to leave their beloved homeland and re-evangelize lots of Europe, and even humbly reach out and care for the needy when the established church, who had risen in power in the security of the last centuries of the Roman Empire, preferred staying close to political power rather than meet people's needs.

It's a fascinating story!

In the conclusion, the author made the point, which has been sticking in my head, that ultimately history is not changed by those who represent power on the world's terms, by the big names of each age. History is rather shaped stealthily by nobodies in remote corners of the world who die to themselves and live out what absolute love looks like to those who are least loved by the world. To quote the end of the book, "if we are to be saved, it will not be by [the rich and powerful] but by saints."

That gives me great hope.

Tuesday?

For whatever reason, it is a Tuesday that feels like a Wednesday. We both had a flood of productiveness this evening, which in light of tv-less Tuesday, is a good thing. The kitchen and bathroom are brilliantly clean, and the living room, well, isn't as messy. The laundry still isn't put away, however that can always wait for tomorrow. or the day after. or the day after that.

I am indeed in some mourning for television. We both agree not relying on tv to decompress in the evening is a good goal to have, and with our limited time in the evening we now have more opportunity to talk and get things done. However, old habits die hard and I'm hoping in 21-days (the time it takes for habits to form and un-form) I won't miss it at all. In the meantime, I'm trying to keep my complaining to a minimum....

Saturday v.1

My (Sara's) Goal today: Make attainable goals for Saturday.

Past Saturday goals were generally something like: "Clean the entire house, make 4 new friends, work-out for hours, and solve world hunger." Needless to say - hard to complete.

Due to that goal, my goal list looked something like this:
1) Do the laundry (clean, and put away!) [very attainable]
2) Get a foam board to put on the map from our wedding, mount it, and hang it up! [somewhat attainable]
3) Clean the office! [ludicrously un-attainable]

That said, at the end of today:
#1 is completed
#2 is half-way completed (took 2 trips to Michaels, and now the board is drying)
#3 has been started, however is nowhere near completion. My goal is soon to have a desk that doesn't scare me when I come home!

Now in stereo-typical Perceiver style, we completed several other things during the day that were not on the list at all including:
- Sara joining a gym she intended to join last week. Now she has fitness classes to attend while Jon is at soccer.
- Finding frames were on sale at Michaels, and scrounging around for some posters to frame! We found 2 that are definitely worthwhile (one by Klimt, and "The Prodigal" by Rembrandt), and that resulted in another trip to Michaels. Hopefully the bare space above our couch will soon be filled with the art :o)
- Cooking 2 meals for the day- definitely worth noting.
- Mailing 2 letters. We don't have a very reliable solution for out-going mail here, so we have to make a trip to the mail box every time we want to mail something.

So all in all, a very successful day!