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Showing posts from 2013

The "C" Word

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October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month where you see pink everywhere, from NFL players sporting pink wristbands to pink ribbons on various products. This effort and campaign started twenty-five years ago and is headed up by the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month Organization . Great strides have been made  over those twenty-five years  to educate, prevent and treat women, but sadly science has yet been able to eradicate breast cancer. What's telling about this disease is that we can all probably name someone within our own circles that have been impacted.  About 1 in 8 (12%) of women in the US will develop invasive breast cancer during their lifetime.  Currently, there are more than 2.8 million breast cancer survivors in the United States (this includes women still being treated and those who have completed treatment).* The key that is starting to turn the tide is early decection. The NBCAM offers low-cost screening options on their website to help provide the medical

Amalfi Coast: Living & Driving the Good Life

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Ro and the Fiat 500 We had managed to avoid driving a car to this point in our Italian adventure, but that was about to change.  The driving adventure started when we took a taxi to the Ciampino airport to pick up our rental car.  We had planned to add a GPS to our rental, but the rental car agent quoted a price of $700 Euro to rent a GPS.  Upon further inquiry, for some bizarre reason, his records showed we were going to be renting for approximately 70 plus days.  Now wouldn’t that be fun?  But, even the cost of a three day GPS rental and returning it to another location he did not recommend.  "You can buy one much cheaper in Rome," he suggested (of course we had just come from there with no plans to return).  So neadless to say we set off in our sexy Fiat 500 white on white edition (JLo style) and headed South.  This has to be one of our biggest feats to date, actually navigating data and GPS free, old school style, in a foreign country.  We have to believe many a marr

Ashes to Ashes: Preservation of Pompeii

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One of the most interesting parts of our trip to Italy was our visit to the remains of the once vibrant Roman city of Pompeii. It felt as if we had entered a time vortex and were suddenly in an ancient city that had been preserved exactly as it was 2,000 years ago.  It was our mission to explore the exotic remains of the city and its inhabitants over the next few hours.  It felt like watching an episode of Land of the Lost as a kid. Mt. Vesuvius looms behind the ruins of Pompeii Photo: Artist's depiction of the eruption which buried Pompeii (from BBC 's Pompeii: The Last Day ). On a fateful summer day in A.D. 79 Mount Vesuvius erupted catching the nearly 20,000 inhabitants of nearby Pompeii completely off guard.  They had no idea they were living so close to a volcano as it had not erupted for over a 1,000 years.   Some residents chose to quickly abandon their homes and flee to safety.  Others made a less wise decision and chose to remain in the city. They unfortu