Larry's a Star Volunteer!

I'm departing from my usual trip focus to share an achievement of Larry's. He's been volunteering at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and has enjoyed it a great deal. They have also appreciated having him there, as shown by a feature in their annual report. I'm sure they won't mind that I am "lifting" their text.

Larry Valcovic will tell you that there is no typical activity when he volunteers at CBF's headquarters in Annapolis, Maryland. "Sometimes it's getting mailings out, sometimes it's data entry. I've helped set up the CBF booth for boat shows, [spoken with] Maryland legislators, even spent a day at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center collecting baby crabs for tagging." After 20 years evaluating toxicity data for the Environmental Protection Agency, and almost 30 living within walking distance of the water, Larry had to get involved. He explains that living in Annapolis, and seeing so much shoreline construction, combined with declining fish, crab, and oyster populations, sent him to CBF's door. While he jokes that volunteering "gets [him] out of the house," it's clear that Larry, like most office volunteers, enjoys the camaraderie of the office, and the shared commitment to giving something back.

A New Wonderful Toy!

Larry found the most wonderful thing for our trip! He was browsing through the TravelSmith site and found a translator. Since none of us speak Slovak, Hungarian, or Czech, we can use all the help we can get.

With the talking translator, you just type in an English word or phrase, then you listen and see the translation in 20 languages, including Russian,Japanese, and Korean--Slovak, Czech and Hungarian. You can also use it in reverse, so I'd guess it's possible to have conversations--albeit slow conversations--using it as a go-between.

We've been playing with it and, not only is it fun, I think it will be helpful. More on this later.