So given that I am in a foreign country and don’t have the time, money or space for a huge workout center, I’ve been using this pretty-easy-to-follow workout vid. I might have linked to it in the past, but it’s worth highlighting again.
Living Room Workout
1694: One of the greatest French writers, famous for his critical capacity and satiric wit and still widely revered as a courageous crusader against tyranny, bigotry, and cruelty, Voltaire was born this day in 1694.
1620: 41 male passengers on the Mayflower, prior to landing at Plymouth, Massachusetts, signed the Mayflower Compact, by which they agreed to abide by the laws of the new government they would establish.
2002: A North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit meeting in Prague extended an official invitation to become new alliance members to Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
2000: The United Farm Workers called off the boycott of California table grapes begun in 1984 by union organizer Cesar Chavez, saying the goals of the strike had been met.
1964: The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, spanning New York Harbor from Brooklyn to Staten Island, opened to traffic.
1920: On Bloody Sunday, the Irish Republican Army killed 11 Englishmen suspected of being intelligence agents, and the Black and Tans took revenge the same afternoon, attacking spectators and players at a Gaelic football match in Croke Park, Dublin, killing 12 and wounding 60.
1878: Lord Lytton, the viceroy of India, launched the Second Afghan War.
1806: The Continental System, a blockade designed to close the entire European continent to British trade, was proclaimed when Napoleon issued the Berlin Decree.
1783: The first manned hot-air balloon flight was made by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, marquis d’Arlandes, traveling from the Château de la Muette across the Bois de Boulogne on the edge of Paris in a balloon made by Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier.
And I was born today in 1975. Thanks, Mom and Dad!
Yesterday I ordered two books to help me from the fine folks at McGraw-Hill. They are textbooks from 1985. I wonder how good/bad they will be. and if they will help me master a little more of this language.
Downside: I have to wait until I am home in a month to touch them.
I am starting to understand now that to gain anything, something must be given up. It’s both a terrible and wonderful realization. As long as life keeps swirling around, I suppose I can ride the wild wind.
The ‘Who I Am’ section has been updated.