Hurray for Mac!

Well, my sister Allison has a really cool photo feature on her Mac laptop...You look into the computer screen--the lense is at the top--and you can choose any sort of distortion, a background, a color scheme...nearly anything. Pretty sweet stuff. I'm kinda jealous. Ok, so, really jealous. So anyway, my sisters and I had a little fun with the lapity lapper McLaptappy on Sunday evening and took a whole slew of goofy pictures. You know how it goes: beautiful Sunday evening, the boys are playing some hoops, the grass is starting to look green again, and it's been almost an entire winter since you pulled some faces into a camera. How could we resist?



Me & the next youngest, Allie. Below: Me, Allie, Liz, Jenni.


"Pencil-in" effect

THE MAN AND HIS MUSIC

May 10, is Bono’s birthday. I know I’m a crazed, obsessed fanatic; I don’t care. I love U2. I seriously...love...them. I don’t know how to describe it exactly, but I FEEL their music. It’s so utterly filled with raw, powerful emotion that seems to be bursting right out of their souls. I feel like I could narrate my life by their albums. And something in Bono’s personality connects itself to mine; fills me with yearnings and hopeful fantasies! They’re down to earth, they make fun of themselves, but they’re determined, driven, committed, idealistic, passionate. And their music is…magic. Pure…magic. I feel too tired right now to try to explain just WHY I can’t comprehend HOW in the world ONE group of musicians out of millions managed to discover and produce such a gloriously OTHER-WORLDLY sound that lights my soul on fire like no other music has ever done.

So I won’t turn you off by saying any more. Except: you know you can’t listen to “Where the Streets Have No Name” and not FEEL something. Impossible.

Anyway, FYI, Bono also started the One.Org. I joined their list—it’s easy and free—and if you want very infrequent, unintrusive updates on worldwide hunger, or opportunities to sign petitions for UN members to consider issues like the one I pasted below…you should take 2 seconds and sign up too.

**************************************************

Dear ONE Member,

It's being called the "Silent Tsunami." In three years, prices for the basic staples that feed the world—wheat, rice and corn—have risen by a staggering 83%. For people in the developing world, affording enough food to eat is becoming a daily struggle for survival.
The New York Times is reporting that in Haiti, people are eating cakes made of mud mixed with a little sugar and oil to try and beat the hunger pangs. Without action to stop the upward spiral of food prices, 100 million people around the world will face deeper poverty and hunger, and hundreds of thousands will confront famine and starvation.In the face of this suffering, we cannot be silent.

***TELL A FRIEND***
Subject: Did you hear about the hunger crisis?
Hi,

The world hunger crisis is all over the news this week. In just three years, the price of staple foods like wheat, corn and rice has almost doubled. If we don't do something soon, hundreds of thousands of people face starvation and a hundred million more could fall into extreme poverty. I just took action with the ONE Campaign and you can too, here: http://www.one.org/hungercrisis/?rc=hctaf