The government had the balls to issue an announcement yesterday that stated that women do not have to get their first mammogram at 40 and that they don’t need to examine their breasts anymore – as these methods of detecting breast cancer are not very accurate and cause anxiety, false diagnosis and sometimes unnecessary biopsies.

Well.

The first thing that came to mind, well actually two things did…was “what insurance conglomerate is sick of paying for all these mammograms?”  Awareness and education have assuredly caused the insurance-covered procedure to increase annually and they must be losing money because the majority of the women who have these done annually who are under the age of 40 are not finding anything.  The logical reasoning is, if we stop suggesting women in their 40′s get the mammograms, we’re only going to lose 1 life.  ONE LIFE.  As if one is no biggie.  What if I’m the one life?  That’s a big deal to me.  That’s a big deal to my family.

Second, I cannot believe in this new dawn of tolerance and acceptance that women’s health is being dismissed at this level.  “Don’t worry about it, put it off, don’t even touch your boobs – they’re gonna be a-okay!”  Wow.  That looks like a 1950′s ad.  “Ignore it and it’ll go away”.  I’m not a feminist.  I love having the door held open for me, having my dinners purchased by a man on a date, keeping a home, whatever.   But I DO NOT like the idea that this area of women’s health care is taking such a ginormous step backward.  The government should be aggressively striving to protect the fairer sex – we are delicate, we give life for Christ’s sake.

I’m actually more determined now to have a mammogram at 40 than I was before.  The whole idea of going is frightening.  What if they find something?  That’s just the thing.  What if they DO find something?  If I were to take the advice that the government is suggesting, I could be in for quite a fight for my life when it didn’t have to be.  Some very prominent doctors on the national front say that these new suggestions are bullshit and that if women do decide to heed this advice, they are confident that not only will breast cancer be detected later and require aggressive treatments that may or may not have been successful had they found it in an earlier stage, survival from the disease will go down.

I’m not taking the advice of the government.  I realize that what is to come is that my insurance will no longer cover these preventative procedures if I’m in my 40′s  but I will be dutifully prepared to write that big check.  It’s my life and it’s important.

The manipulation of PR and media and all that we are allowed to see or hear is not happenstance.  It’s not random.  Reality is so far from it when you’re talking about television, websites or radio that cater to the celebrity/singer/artist. 

I dont care why he did it.  I dont care if he was paid to do it or if he was self-promoting in his own twisted way.   I don’t even care if Taylor Swift knew about it.   What concerns me the most, is this is what the media types think we need to see to hold our interest….and they’re not wrong!

Is it really any suprise that after his little outburst that the entire country was blogging, tweeting and watching the rest of the awards show with baited breath?  Weren’t most viewers anxious to watch sweet Taylor cry or go running off the stage?  Didn’t the viewers hope to see Kanye get hit or kicked out?  And the outrage over the fact that he was allowed to stay and not be removed from the event was palpable the next morning on every news outlet in the world for god’s sake.   Im disappointed in any so-called celebrity that buys into it.  Kanye is not a great guy.  He’s either a complete sell-out or an asshole.  Or both.  I’m confident he’s not the only one – he’s just not very good at it, I fear.

The more I see swirl around me, the more visionary and accurate I find films like Running Man and Idiocracy, hell even WALL-E.  They seemed so futuristic as if there was no way in the world society would tolorate a pay-per-view of a live execution or that civilized society would become so dumb that there would be programs dedicated to the most debased behaviors or that our world would be reduced to pushing buttons to create a glutinous, sedintary commonwealth. 

Uhm.  Well, I dont think we’re so far off. 

The insatiable appetite of the average watcher gets bigger with each passing day and media will feed it to the watcher with a silver spoon.  Eat it up fat boy!  The frenzy to see evil punished is already there – public stonings, executions in other countries are filmed and put on the news.  Lynchings and mobs included.  It’s news now, but I’m willing to bet that in the not so distant future, it will be pay-per-view worthy and a large majority will pay to see it, sponsored of course.

After killing off the Twins, the floor drops out from under you and you land in a cold, icy pit.  You land in water, but you really need to be grouped in the center of the arena…if you dont land in the water, you die.   In the distance you see a bunch of little neutral scarabs skittering around, minding their own business.  Beyond that is the final challenge to overcome before unlocking heroic mode so you can start it all over again.

The fight is broken up into three phases.

If you look up, there are Frost Orbs swimming above you.  These need to be shot down by one or two ranged players to create an icy platform called Permafrost.  Permafrost slows down anything that is standing on it – including the boss and the adds.  This is imperative to success as Anub’arak needs to be tanked on it thru phase 1 and 2 and adds need to be killed on it or they will burrow and regen to full health.  Permafrost disappates so it needs to be shot down thruout the first two phases.   We found that 6-7 orbs was a sufficent amount for tanking the boss and adds at any given time. 

Thruout the entire event, a cast called Penetrating Cold will be on five random raiders.  The cast creates 3500 frost damage every 3 seconds for 18 seconds.  Once the cast drops off of the five raiders, another five will gain it.  This is on-going until the end of the event.

Phase One :  The raid was grouped up and our designated ranged shot down the frost orbs to create the permafrost platform under Anub.  The main tank ran in and quickly turned him so that he was tanked facing away from the raid as he has a nasty cleave that can one shot anything that isnt a tank.  Dps starts on the boss.  A few moments in two Nerubian Burrowers will pop up - our off tank grabbed them and they were tanked on the permafrost platform right next to the boss.  This way those of us that can aoe damage did so.  The priority was to burn those burrowers out as fast as possible as they put a debuff on the tanks called Exposed Armor that can stack to 10 increasing physical damage taken.   On 25, we only had one off tank, so we switched full dps when there was more than 2 on the off tank, as the stacks of exposed armor can reach ridiculous levels and obviously kill.  When Anub burrows, this will signal the beginning of….

Phase Two:  This phase has Anub burrowing every 90 seconds..and the pesky nerubian burrowers are still a factor as well.  When Anub burrows, a random raid member is targeted and will be pursued by Anub’s spikes.  This raid member needs to kite the spikes around the parameter of the room by running and heading toward a platform of permafrost.  The spikes do increase in speed very quickly so any speed enhancement you can use is advisable.  Once the targeted raider is on the permafrost, the spikes are absorbed, the permafrost disappates and the raid member is safe and another random raider is targeted.  If the spikes reach the player, they will be impaled. 

 This part of the phase continues for about 60 seconds.  During this kiting, chasing phase those neutral scarabs that were seen skittering around are now summoned as an angry swarm and biting raid members with a nature debuff that causes damage.  They have very little hp but need to be killed as those bites of nature damage can kill raid members.  Anub resurfaces, the tank will still have threat on him – we then go back to our phase one tactic, with nerubian burrowers popping up and everything. 

Phase Three:  Begins when Anub reaches 30%.  We made sure to have all adds dead prior to hitting this mark because phase three is hard enough on our healers as it is.  Once Anub hits 30% its a tank and spank with a twist:

Leeching Swarm is cast on the entire raid – A swarm of insects attack the raid leeching 10% of each raid members current health every  1 second.  This cast also heals Anub.  What this means, is that no one except the tank should be over healed or kept at full health.  I watched my health meter and I was hovering around 30%.  The more health a raid member has, the more health will be leeched per second and healing Anub. 

It’s a fine balancing act and very hard to watch out of concern for your own health bar, but if your healers are awesome, you will see very little drop below that 20% mark.  You do NOT want to be at full health as it only prolongs Anub’s death.  In a full health, 25 man raid Anub would be healed for 60,000 hp per second.   The challenge is of course keeping those five random players with penetrating cold from dying – they will need spam heals just to keep them up at 30 percent.

This is the final fight to unlock heroic mode and once we knew about all of the debuffs and stopped underestimating the adds, we have been able to go in and one shot this bug every time.

Heroic mode was next!  Our guild finally bested the Northrend Beasts last week – it was no joke.  The hits are HARD and there is no room for error.  You need every raid member alive and participating, doing their very best the entire time.

We started in 25-man mode.  When you enter the Coliseum, one twin will spawn on the right and one will spawn on the left.  They are basically stationary so there is no issue trying to keep them separated as long as each is tanked opposite each other.   That being said, we split the raid evenly and separated to engage each boss.  Once the challenge is started, there is a brief monologue.  During this time, 2 sets of portals will appear.  At this time, each group needs to click on the portal on their respective side to receive a buff, either light essence or dark essence.   Clicking on the portal does not engage the bosses.

The twins share a health bar.

Once the tanks grabbed each twin, we began dps’ing awaiting their first of two main abilities.  The first ability is called Twin’s Pact: One of the twins throws up a either a light shield or a dark shield depending on who will be casting the pact and begins healing 20% of their total HP.  The cast time is 15 seconds.  This can and must be interrupted.  We burned thru the shield, and interrupted the Pact before they were able to gain the full heal effect.  This happened twice during our fight.

The second ability is Vortex: Light or Dark depending on which twin casts it. The twin will channel for 8 seconds causing a vortex of damage.  Dark Vortex is shadow damage, Light Vortex is fire (we think).  The members of the raid who have the buff of the twin that casts the Vortex need to run to the portal and change to the opposite buff – this will keep a player from taking any damage.  Vortex causes enough damage to one-shot almost anyone…it’s about 30k.  So, it’s pretty important to click that portal and change  your buff for the 8 second cast.  Once the Vortex ends, those that had to change buffs need to quickly click a portal to go back to damaging their target.  Obviously tanks do not click portals and most can take the hit because there is always a healer who has the opposing buff and is able to keep their health up.

During the fight, little orbs of white and black begin swirling around the room.  If a player has the Dark Essence buff, and a white/light orb collides with them, it causes the orb to explode and some damage…around 6-7k.  If a player has the Dark Essence buff and a black/dark orb collides with them it will start a buff that stacks to 100.  Once a player has 100 stacks of their same essence orbs, they will gain an ability called Empowered Light/Empowered Darkness: which increases 100% damage dealt to their target for 20 seconds.   Our Shaman hit 100 stacks, gained Empowered Light and was hitting Darkbane for 40k damage!

The goal of the orbs is to run interference.  You do not want any orbs reaching the Twins as they too will gain the power up buff and kill many.   We assigned a ranged on each side to attempt to reach as many orbs as they could.

They do not put out a lot of damage – this is mainly about reacting to their abilities and keeping orbs away from them.   We made some assumptions about heroic mode – that it will be imperative for as many people to gain 100 stacks and that portal clicking will be esscential as well.

The ten man version is exactly the same – there was no difference in our strategy.

Next week is the final boss before we unlock Heroic Mode.   Let’s hope for more of a challenge than this week.

Our guild started out in the 25-man version.  We knew based on some information that we would be certainly seeing 10 Horde champions with at least three being healers.  Once the event was activated, the Faction Champions drop down from the arena seats – which is pretty cool.  After two attempts getting acclamated we agreed with the information we found that the healers were the priority in burning them down.

The healers we were facing was a Shaman, Priest and Resto Druid.  We also faced a Hunter with a Cat, Death Knight, Warrior, Rogue, Ret Paladin, Mage and Shadow Priest.   When the event started, the Resto Druid was banished, Shaman and his totems were first following the Holy Priest.  During this time, the other NPCs are randomly attacking members of the raid so our tanks taunted until they hit diminishing returns.  Initially, the encounter is busy and you have to be pretty quick thinking.  Every stun, lock, poison move we had, we used.   Our hunter put down traps to slow down the NPC’s that were chasing squishees and healers, giving a plate wearer time to taunt them off.

We did find that the NPC’s would become immune to moves that we used over and over for a time, so we got creative with damage.   The kill order fell like this: Shaman/totems, Holy priest, Resto Druid, Ret Paladin, Shadow Priest, Rogue, Mage,  Hunter, DK and finally Warrior….with his nasty whirlwind, we just taunted the crap out of him, kited him as much as anyone could.

We got this down on our third attempt.  If there is a true strategy, it would simply be to kill those healers and attempt to decurse, despell, cure poisons and diseases as fast as possible.  Our shaman healer purged until there was nothing left to purge.   Our hunters put down traps, rogues poisoned, it was all out war…arena style!

Ten Man Version

Was basically the same, except we had a holy paladin that had to die.  We still started with the Shaman healer but that paladin had to go.  Once those two dropped, we had no problem with the remaining NPC’s.

Next week are the Twin Val’kyr: Edyis Darkbane & Fjola Lightbane!

I didn’t catch on until the second season was just about to start.  I spent an entire weekend watching every season-one episode and was hooked and like so many others was anticipating the second season.   My 17-year old son actually was a fan of the Charlaine Harris books after he watched the first episode ever.  For Christmas we bought him the entire set of “Sookie Stackhouse” books…Vampire books for Xmas…there’s an irony there somewhere.

After watching the first few episodes this season, I decided to crack open the first book, “Dead Until Dark”.  I found the writing to be almost entirely in first-person which makes it a very easy read for me.  Before I knew it, I was in book four, “Dead To The World” and moving at a very rapid pace to find out what was in store for Miss Sookie, Eric and Bill. 

For sure, the books only enhance the joy of watching the show.  I am now reading the Sookie book that was release this past May 2009, “Dead and Gone” and I can say with all confidence that the casting for the HBO True Blood series got most of it right.  Eric is the most accurate portrayal and Sookie is pretty close.  Obviously there has been some creative changes due to the fact that it would very difficult to have it all be from Sookie’s point of view.  I’m so excited to see what situations they put into the show – there is a treasure trove full of adventure in the books.  I try to figure out what they might eliminate or beef up. 

What I’m trying to say is that the books are actually better than the show.  It’s true.

I praise Charlaine Harris for such an exceptional series.  I’m jealous that she makes her writing look so effortless and maybe it is.  I recently purused her website and found that this series has not nearly come to a close (thank goodness) and even tho she knows how it will all end, we arent there yet.  The one thing she assures her readers is that Sookie will never be a vampire.  I’m actually quite glad about this…its too easy a solution.  Sookie is always wishing for a normal life – she dreams regularly about making her man breakfast.  A situation that will never come to pass with a vampire lover.  

I strongly encourage anyone who is a fan of the show True Blood to start reading.  Just like the show, these books are mature and are not meant for kids…even tweens.  This isn’t Twilight…its better!   WAY better!

Last night our guild entered the 25-man Crusader Coliseum.  I wasn’t sure if we were going to be allowed to skip the Beasts of Northrend and get to the new boss or what…I’m kind of lame when I make assumptions.  I should have known we’ d be going thru all of the Beasts prior to obtaining access to the next boss.  Thus the whole definition of attunement…duh!

Our raid blew thru the Beasts of Northrend like it was easy-peasy.  After we rezz’d the dead, handed out some loot – we readied ourselves with the second boss on the menu:

Lord Jaraxxus – A very nasty fire damaging demon.  He has a plethora of damaging attacks: Fel lightning, Fel fireballs, Legion of flames, Incinerate flesh and spawns all kinds of fun for the other tank to control: Mistress of Pain and Infernals.

The fight is reminiscent of KT in Naxx as the ranged needs to stay the maximum distance apart from each other.  We tried to do 15yards – but it was more like 12.   The boss has a fel lightning that is just like chain lightning….but it causes moderate damage to a maximum of 5 raid members if allowed to run thru.  It’s uncessary raid damage and is avoidable if you keep ranged and healers at max distance.

This is not a melee friendly fight so we limited the number of melee, bulking up on ranged, specifically mages for spellstealing and any class that can de-spell and interupt, our best geared tanks (2) and five (5) incredible healers.  This fight is not about “leet deeps” its about “uber hlz” and controlling the room.  Fire resist is imperative so we took the advice we could find and made sure to have fire totems up.   No one can be carried in this fight.

Once Jaraxxus was released there is no waiting – our main tank positioned the boss in the middle of the room – all dps focused on the boss.   The main tank was regularly hit with Fel fireball that hits for a good 22k and continues to tic for 8k per second – this had to be interuppted, however, if the tank is hit with it - it can be dispelled and cannot be allowed to tic even once.  Jaraxxus will buff himself with something called Nether Power – increasing his magic damage by 20%.  Mages need to spellsteal this every time he casts it.

Jaraxxus targets random players with Legion of Flames thruout the fight.  This is a debuff that causes 4k damage per second that leaves a pool of fire at your feet.  Healers and melee dps who were targeted, ran to the outside perameters of the arena, leaving a trail of fire that will cause damage if you are dumb enough to stand in it before it fades out.   Ranged DPS who are afflicted with this debuff were healed thru it until it dissapated. 

Another random ability of Jaraxxus is Incernate Flesh…this is a horrible debuff.  If a player is hit with IF, healers need to IMMEDIATELY spam heal the player as 70k healing is absorbed by the debuff and their damage output is reduced to 50%.  If the player does not receive 70k heals within 15 seconds, sadly the player will…explode.  Their body explosion will cause 3k damage to anyone friendly within 5 yards of them.  If this is a melee dps you can imagine the chaos this could cause to the main tanks health.  We did have the melee run out if they were unfortunate enough to obtain this buff just to ensure the health of the tank should the healing prove unsuccessful.

ADDS: Jaraxxus summons two types of adds.  They enter in the most dramatic sense.  Mistress of Pain comes out thru a portal door that he summons.  Adds were picked up by our second tank and dps that did not have to interupt, de-spell or spellsteal, switched to burn her down as fast as possible.  She has an armor piercing move and will randomly attack one player and they will be instantly hit for 50% health.

The other add is Fel Infernals.  A firey volcano pops up and they come flying out the top like lava.  Each volcano spawns 3 to 4 Infernals.  They have AOE damage so the tank needs to keep them as far away from the raid group as possible.  Ranged were the only dps responsible for the infernals due to the aoe damage and melee continued on Jaraxxus.  While the Fels are being burned, one will randomly attack a raid member for a quick 6k damage before refocusing its attention back to the tank. 

Yes, it is as chaotic as it sounds.  But we were successful!  I would say that the healing has to be flawless.  The ranged classes really shine here as well.  There can be very little error – and once the raid group is comfy this will be as easy as KT at the end of the day.

Next week we will face the Faction Champions!  Can’t wait!

My Alliance guild is a progression guild so the new content was on the menu last night.  Yes, there was the atrocious lag and disconnects that are all too familiar with WoW patch days.  Luckily for me, I had none of those due to my new computer that is slightly geared towards gaming. 

First on deck was the 25-man Crusaders Coliseum, Trial of the Crusader.  A lot like Violet Hold or Ring of Blood in Nagrand, Trial of the Crusader is a succession of bosses that come out for battle.   Additionally, each completed round will unlock a new set of bosses the following week.  There are five (5) sets of bosses.  Which means, it will indeed take 5 weeks to unlock the next level of intensity, the Heroic mode “Trial of the Grand Crusader”.

First round of bosses are the captured beasts of Northrend.  Having zero idea what to expect with a handful of hearsay from the internet, we were able to defeat these beasts after a handful of attempts.

First Beast: Gormok the Impaler.  A Magnataur with two abilities.  Staggering Stomp and Impale.  Staggering Stomp stuns spellcasting for a period of time, 8 seconds or so and causes around 10k damage to players in a 15 yard range.  Impale causes a bleed that tics for 4k every 2 seconds for 30 seconds.   Our strategy was to turn him away from the raid, tanked near his entrance against the wall, having two tanks who traded threat as they allowed Impale to fall off. 

Pretty easy except that little critters called Snobolds show up and attach themselves to random player’s heads.  Our solution was to have melee burn them down right before we finished off Gormok.  This worked out very well.  Snobolds cannot be CC’d or have a threat meter so its a huge pain in the ass to have them roaming around as they had a penchant for healers.  If they jump on your head, you are rendered useless and so its pretty important to burn them as soon as you can.  There is of course an achievment if you are able to complete the round of bosses with at least two Snobolds in the arena. 

Second/Third Beast(s): The twin Jormungar Giants Acidmaw and Dreadscale.  Big worms!   Acidmaw is  full of acid.  Acid spray, spews and bites.   All of which cause anywhere between 9 – 14k nature damage.  Additionally, the acid bite and spray can cause you to be infected with a paralytic toxin that if not burned off by a counterpart who has been attacked by a Dreadscale debuff, will cause total paralysis and quickly tick your health down to death.   Additionally, a poison cloud or pool on a player will cause anyone near the pool to be affected with severe damage.   If a player is affected with the cloud, DONT RUN INTO THE RAID.  Run on the outer edges of the arena until you’re clear of it.  One panicked player can wipe the raid with their poison cloud and no one wants to be that guy.

Dreadscale is all about fire.   Bite, spray, spit and spew.  Spew and Bite coat the player with burning bile.  This causes 8-12k in fire damage.  The side benefit is that this burning bile will also remove paralytic toxins from your fellow players.  Our answer to this was to dedicate an area of the arena to healing the toxin.  If you have the burning bile debuff, you would run to the toxin players and burn off their debuff.

The worms do go underground a few  times, hunters can track where they will pop up and tanks try to keep the worms apart.  Once we got the debuff strategy down, theses worms were easy.

Last Beast:  Icehowl, a really cool looking yeti.  He does have a frost move, Arctic Breath that freezes players where they stand and ticks for a tremendous amount of frost damage: 20k over 5 seconds.  One would think it would be easy to steer clearof except that regardless of threat, will turn around and get the raid if he feels like it.   Most of Icehowl’s abilities are brute force, however.  First, Massive Crash in which he jumps up high and lands with a huge thud that will knock every player back to the wall, stunning us for a good 2-3 seconds and causes about 10k damage.  Quickly following, Icehowl will stare at one player and threaten them.  He backs up and readies himself to deliver a Ferocious Headbutt to said player.  If you dont move, its insta-kill.  However, Icehowl will not follow you, if you move out of his sight he hits the wall of the arena instead stunned for 8-10 seconds.  At this time, we burned him down as fast as possible.   Icehowl will kick into Frothing Rage, around 20%.  This means his physical damage and speed increases by 50%.   He’s still killable and controllable.  The key to besting this beast is Ferocious Headbutts.  If he hits the walls instead of players, a lot of damage can be done in a very fast period of time.

Upon his death, we looked forward of course to the new badges and the loot.  We each received 3x Emblems of Conquest.  Additionally, a Trophy of the Crusade dropped.  These trophies are required to purchase the new Tier 9.3 pieces in addition to emblems.   A cloth belt, a mail chest and a dagger dropped as well. 

Can’t wait for next week’s arena challenge!

It’s incredibly surreal to me that as I just finish writing about my parent’s generation losing an icon, now my generation has.

I’m not a rabid fan and since the child molestation situation, I stopped paying attention to what he was up to.  But the one hard fact remains….he was truly a talent of the industry.  A modern-day Elvis apparently even in his tragic death. 

There are a mere handful of artists who can be elevated to the rank of legend in the music business.  They are iconic figures and their personas are recognizable by almost any human being on the planet.  These icons have a lot of similarities as well.  Becoming so public, so beloved and revered for their talents, they become somewhat odd.  Their personalities, somehow erased and in turn become these vapid caracatures of their own selves.  They seem sad or mentally disturbed.  To be prisoners of their own celebrity is a horrible price to pay for wanting to only do what they loved.  Additionally, they all suffered some horrific childhood.  A loss, abuse or other equally life altering event in their  youth.  

In retrospect, I can only hope for the sake of his family, as disfunctional as they may be, that media will remember why he became such a public figure.   I’m certain his international fanship as well as the myriad of musical talents that are proud to say he was their influence will make sure of that.  He helped launch MTV – his videos making that cable channel a home base for all teens of the 80′s.  My own personal memory of Michael Jackson is the first time I heard PYT (Pretty Young  Thing) and it was the first of several of his songs that I would record off the radio and dance, dance, dance.   How many cheer routines did we do to Thriller, I cant even count…

I’m sincerely saddened by the loss of Michael Jackson.  It seems no iconic figure is allowed to live and die a quiet, peaceful, long life.

My parents thought she and Ryan O’Neal were pretty awesome…probably the way my generation thinks Angelina and Brad are fun to watch on the red carpet. 

When an icon of a generation dies, its sad for more than a few reasons.  She was so vibrant and outrageous in her prime.   Every girl wanted to be like her and of course, every boy wanted her.  The famous poster, the feathered hair.  She was a baby boomer. 

The new struggles with health and career, money and impending retirement, causes me to reflect on the fact that my parents are Farrah’s age…and they arent the same as they were back in the 70′s and 80′s either.   It’s a rude awakening.  Although still very much active, they are focused on different aspects of their lives.   Health and wellness and the need for companionship versus passion and lust seem so OLD.  What happened to that whole mantra of 70 is the new 60 and so on?

There are always exceptions to the rule but overall, it seems that my parents generation is not what they once were.  They are becoming senior citizens.  Farrah passing away seems to me, the beginning of what is sure to be eventual loss of the big names of their generation.  Let’s be real, the Baby Boomers didnt start taking care of themselves until Jane Fonda’s workout tapes.  So, many could be paying the price of hard partying and “free love” now as they hit their twilight years.

But the one thing that never seems to  change about my parents generation is that they face new challenges with fervor.  They find ground-breaking alternatives, success in curing what seemed incurable and making it easier for their children: me and my sisters and friends.

A quality even Farrah possessed in her struggles with health, love and life.

Cheers to the Baby Boomers