The route was one mile each way along the walking path behind the beach up to the Santa Monica Pier and back. It ended up being overcast and chilly, a far cry from the 77 degrees and sunny predicted a few days ago, but at least it worked out well. Afterward we went to Café Crêpe for lunch.

Funny/odd bits:

• I wore a Flash T-shirt, and Katie put a Flash shirt on J. (We had him in the stroller.) We started off the walk next to a family wearing Superman T-shirts. For the record: we finished first.
• The turnaround point coincided with the finish line of a 100-mile endurance walk/run, so on the way back we saw several thoroughly exhausted runners plugging away.
• When we arrived, a huge section of the beach parking lot was cordoned off, with a half-dozen fire trucks (at least one marked Hazmat Response or Hazmat cleanup). One truck had its ladder fully extended in the middle of the lot, and they were pressure-washing something off the pavement from the top of the ladder. We never did find out what it was.
  
• Not realizing how close the Third Street Promenade was (basically, we would have walked half of the route again), we moved the car afterward to one of several identical parking structures in downtown Santa Monica. This led to a strange moment as we were leaving, when we briefly thought someone had run off with the car…until we noticed that the signs said “structure two” instead of “structure four.” It also explained why the elevator we thought we had used earlier was marked “out of order.” (Hey, it seemed possible it had been closed within the last two hours.)

A huge thank-you to those who have sponsored me so far: Jason, Wayne, Pavana, Marisa, Daniel, Devin, Greg, Damon, Jesse, Lia, Ken, aunt Julianne & Craig, and mom & dad.

It’s coming up this Sunday in Santa Monica, California (near Los Angeles), and FAAN has other walks planned across the country.

You can help with any amount down to US $10. If you’d like to contribute, please donate at my fundraising page.

As I write this, I’m $230 away from the #10 spot on the top 10 list for the Los Angeles walk. Anyone want to help push me into the top 10?

Thank you!

I carry emergency medication whenever I eat somewhere. I don’t go out for Thai food or visit restaurants that hand out peanuts like chips and salsa. I check ingredients in the grocery store, and I ask the waiter about them when I order food. If I can’t eat one item on the menu, I look for another dish that I can.

Even so, sometimes something slips through (most recently: this past Saturday) and I have to spend an anxious couple of hours hoping that the medication I’ve taken will be enough, that I’ll keep breathing and won’t have to jab myself with an auto-injector (or have someone else do it) and go to the ER. Thankfully, it’s been years since I’ve had a reaction bad enough to send me to the hospital.

I’ve also got a not-quite-one-year-old son. I’d like to spare him from having to deal with all that, if I can. And if I can’t, and he develops serious allergies like I have, I’d like to help smooth the path for him as he learns how to live with them — or, better yet, help find a cure.

So I’m participating in the FAAN Walk for Food Allergy to raise money for research and education, and I hope you’ll sponsor me.

Modern medicine understands how allergic reactions work, but we still don’t have a good handle on why some people have allergies and others don’t, or why some people react to one food and some react to another. And since the causes are so poorly understood, parenting advice is all over the map: Keep your house as clean as possible. No, keep it somewhat clean, but not too clean. Introduce risky foods early. Introduce them late.

Raising money for research? Great idea!

Then there’s awareness and education. If you’ve ever read the comments on an article about people with allergies — or worse, people with allergies who have the gall to leave the house and visit a restaurant once in a while — you know that there’s a lot of misinformation and just plain lack of consideration out there.

A lot of people don’t understand that food allergies can be serious. Some don’t even believe they’re real, just the actions of a bunch of hypochondriacs looking for attention. (It doesn’t help that there are people out there who do lie about having allergies because they’re afraid people won’t honor their preferences, which just convinces that group that they’re right.) Or they get hung up on whether a condition is an allergy, an intolerance, or some other condition.

And finally there are the people who get it…sort of. They understand that food allergies can be serious and life-threatening…then proclaim loudly that you have no business taking part in society, and should just stay at home all the time, and how dare you expect some sort of accommodation like making the cook use a separate spoon for the kung pao chicken and the beef with broccoli, you entitled jackass.

Yes, those people are out there. And very vocal. I’d like to change their minds.

Please support my fundraising efforts with a donation. Your tax-deductible gift will make a difference in the lives of the estimated 12 million Americans with food allergies and their families. You can make your secure credit card donation by selecting the Support Me Button on my profile page for the walk.

Any amount helps me reach my fundraising goal. I greatly appreciate your support!

• Too many alarms can be as bad as none, if people learn to ignore them. Aesop knew it, but modern society keeps forgetting. (NY Times via @NNgroup)
• Then and now: Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov blends World War II photos with images of the same locations today. I’m a member of a Flickr group that does this with more general timeframes, Looking Into the Past, though I’ve only contributed one myself. It blends the 1997 and 2007 views of the UCI Student Center.
• The Internet Storm Center offers tips on protecting computers from lightning.
• CNN asks: Why are food allergies on the rise? Short answer: we still don’t know. (To preserve your sanity, don’t read the comments.)

And not so serious:

• Fantastic image: Firefly crew as the Enterprise crew. Classic Star Trek, of course. One thing that really struck me was the reminder that there’s really only one woman among the regular classic Trek cast: Uhura. Nurse Chapel and Yeoman Rand are there, but neither of them would really have had the kind of focus that Kaylee, Zoe, Inara and River have here.
• Incredible custom action figure maker Sillof collaborated with Glorbes on a Star Wars in World War II series.
• The webcomic SMBC presents: The Logogeneplex! I’m pretty sure I’ve read stuff that this was used on. (Warning: archives are NSFW.)

It was listed on the menu, and I should have looked more closely…but who expects nuts of any kind on Hawaiian pizza? It’s standard: crust, tomato sauce, cheese, ham, and pineapple. Checking for nuts on that would be like checking for strawberry jam on a cheeseburger.

Cool: daily @ThisIsTrue story suitable for mobile phones: i.thisistrue.com #