Matter, Energy, and Life of Michaela A. Castello.

Category: Life

Short (and long) reads extracted from my personal life.

  • Keller Peak Camping

    Naturally, the aforementioned camping trip came bundled with its own share of unexpected adventures. We took two cars so some of us could leave earlier (and so we could bring all of our food). I was in the late car with the food, and promptly managed to get us lost. My phone’s been acting up…

  • Forest Falls Redux

    You may recall that over Easter weekend, a few of us attempted to climb Forest Falls but were stymied by the high water levels. This past weekend a smaller group returned and successfully traversed rock and water until we made it up to the actual falls. Our sure-footedness allowed us to keep our socks dry,…

  • Exfoliating My Faith

    I have been thinking, with some trepidation, about writing this for a while now. My friend wisely pointed out that if I feel like it requires “working up the nerve to do” it’s probably a good idea. Essentially, I’ve reached a point in my life where I feel like my beliefs need to be aggressively cast off…

  • Snorkeling in La Jolla

    We’re in La Jolla right now, where thanks to the magic of smartphones and 3G I can share a few picture. I’ve never been snorkeling before, and it is incredible. Turns out the aquarium actually does make their environments look like the ocean. I doubt there’s a conspiracy theory about that, but if there were,…

  • Family and Birthdays

    Family and Birthdays

    It’s been an exciting week. Mark and Mom have been visiting us for the first time and we’ve been celebrating “family birthday month.” Mark’s on July 3, Rachel’s on July 8, and mine on July 10. This has been their first time visiting us since we moved, so we’ve been trying to show them as…

  • A Connected Life

    I remember the first time I got online, typing commands into Trumpet Winsock on Windows 3 to establish a dialup connection over our single phone line. From that moment onward our house answering machine message was effectively modem sounds—I kept a computer online as much as possible. Even when I was nowhere near the computer,…

  • Spaghetti with Lemon and Basil

  • Joplin Trip Aftermath

    Now that we’re back I wanted to give one final update on the trip and disaster response itself. While I think everybody would agree that we made a difference, there are areas for improvement. It was interesting seeing the FEMA contractors working alongside nonprofits and church-based organizations. While their street closures made it tough to…