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It’s a long shot that would mean cutting almost an hour off her fastest marathon time. But odds mean nothing to a woman once considered morbidly obese, who shed 110 pounds and worked her way into the city’s amateur running elite.
Or, as she told me again and again — in a voice reflecting her own amazement — “Never in my wildest imagination did I believe I would be able to become an athlete.”
I wanted to meet her because I was intrigued by her story. No Jenny Craig or LipoZap; no Lap-Band surgery or boot-camp training. Just daily vigilance and exercise — healthful food, small portions and hours spent running and working out until 100 pounds fell off. All immeasurably hard work.
I met up with Jeanpierre at LA Fitness on La Cienega and Pico. I’m grateful she spotted me, because I’d seen only her pre-diet photo and would never have recognized the slender woman who called out to me.
She was wrapping up her daily 90-minute routine — 30 minutes on the elliptical, then an hour of weight training
on upper body machines.
Her shirt and pants were soaked; her face was dripping sweat; damp strands of
hair dangled from beneath a red bandanna.

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Talk of the Nation, March 14, 2008 · On Friday, math enthusiasts celebrate pi, the infinite number representing the relationship between a circle’s diameter and its circumference. Represented by the Greek letter pi, the number is usually shortened to 3.14, so festivities take place on March 14 or 3/14.
Across the country, math aficionados trade pi recipes, hold pizza parties, and recite as many digits of the never-ending number as they can remember. (Listen to a recitation by Mark Umile, North American record-holder for memorizing pi.)
Physicist Ron Hipschman talks with host Ira Flatow about the all-day pi celebration taking place at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.
A lot of people are excited about the power of pi. But not everyone knows it has an official celebration — Pi Day, on the fourteenth day of the third month, 3.14. Those are the first three digits of pi, that transcendental number, the icon with the digits after the decimal point that go on forever.
Strictly speaking, pi represents the constant ratio of a circle’s diameter to its circumference. There is no pattern to pi. But it’s a cool number with real-life applications. Today, as Dan Hellerich of PiDay.org reports, numbers geeks all over the world bake pies, write “pi-kus” and recite pi to as many decimal points as possible. “I know 15,” he says. “Some people know 10 times that, but you really only need about 10 to do accurate math in geometry or physics.”

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A COLLEGE TUITION ASSISTANCE SEMINAR will be held 7-8:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Multipurpose Room of Tek Park, 9999 Hamilton Blvd., Breinigsville. Representatives from colleges, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, Army ROTC program, and the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) will attend. Financial aid experts from Lehigh Carbon Community College, Kutztown University, Penn State Lehigh Valley and Lafayette College will also be available. Details about grant and loan programs will be offered, including forms and when to apply. For information, or reservations, call Rep. Doug Reichley at 610-965-9933; or Rep. Carl Mantz 800-770-8114 or Rep. Pat Browne at 610-821-8468.
IN THE ALLENTOWN SCHOOL DISTRICT a public hearing on the renovations and addition for Allen High School will be held 7 p.m. April 2. Anyone wishing to speak during the meeting or to submit written testimony should contact board secretary Debra DeCaro at 484-765-4266 before March 26. The project booklet will be available for inspection at Allen, 126 N. 17th St., and at the district’s Administration Building, 31 S. Penn St.
THE DIERUFF HIGH SCHOOL BAND will perform at Carnegie Hall at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday as part of the New York City Wind Band Festival. The group will join the Allentown Marine Band in a ‘’side-by-side performance” later that evening at 7 p.m. at Allentown Symphony Hall.

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Talk of the Nation, March 14, 2008 · On Friday, math enthusiasts celebrate pi, the infinite number representing the relationship between a circle’s diameter and its circumference. Represented by the Greek letter pi, the number is usually shortened to 3.14, so festivities take place on March 14 or 3/14.
Across the country, math aficionados trade pi recipes, hold pizza parties, and recite as many digits of the never-ending number as they can remember. (Listen to a recitation by Mark Umile, North American record-holder for memorizing pi.)
Physicist Ron Hipschman talks with host Ira Flatow about the all-day pi celebration taking place at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.
A lot of people are excited about the power of pi. But not everyone knows it has an official celebration — Pi Day, on the fourteenth day of the third month, 3.14. Those are the first three digits of pi, that transcendental number, the icon with the digits after the decimal point that go on forever.
Strictly speaking, pi represents the constant ratio of a circle’s diameter to its circumference. There is no pattern to pi. But it’s a cool number with real-life applications. Today, as Dan Hellerich of PiDay.org reports, numbers geeks all over the world bake pies, write “pi-kus” and recite pi to as many decimal points as possible. “I know 15,” he says. “Some people know 10 times that, but you really only need about 10 to do accurate math in geometry or physics.”

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As the legislative session ended in Olympia on Thursday with no resolution on the city of Seattle’s KeyArena funding proposal, many issues remain. Here are some key questions and answers concerning the Sonics’ present and future in Seattle:
Q: Why didn’t the city’s arena plan float in Olympia?
While finger-pointing is a fun political game, the simple truth seems to be there just never was enough support for the city’s late push in the session among the varied interests in Olympia.
This wasn’t about lack of time, it was about lack of votes.
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels provided a clear plan from the city, but he was flying solo, not even needing approval of the nine-person City Council that rarely walks in lockstep. Olympia leaders faced a far different challenge of trying to amass two-thirds majority opinions among 147 state representatives and senators for an effort that didn’t arrive in force until the final week.
Political insiders say there were too many legislators who either don’t want to support any tax extension, particularly for a pro sports facility, or were split by the recent bid by the University of Washington for help with its football stadium and didn’t want to spurn that effort and then turn around and support a Sonics facility.

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Chad and Robyn Barker thought that Pi would make a good baby name years before they knew they would have children together.
There seemed to be something spiritual about pi, the irrational number that represents the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It begins 3.14159 and goes on for eternity. It is always the same number, no matter the size of the circle.
Baby Pi wasn’t born March 14, but the cute little guy, whose birthday is Dec. 6, 2007, will be among the folks celebrating Pi Day at the San Francisco Exploratorium at 1:59 p.m. Friday, which also happens to be Albert Einstein’s birthday.
The day will be celebrated with a Pi Procession, in which Mill Valley resident Larry Shaw, the founder of the event that is in its 20th year, leads attendees around the museum all the way to his pi shrine, where participants sing “Happy Birthday” to Einstein, famous for his mathematical prowess.
Ron Hipschman, who has worked at the museum for more than 35 years, and Lori Lambertson, the Exploratorium’s New Teacher program coordinator, will lead a demonstration in the computation of pi. Other events of the day include the Ask a Scientist Pi Day Puzzles, pie eating and pizza pie tossing contests with nine-time world pizza champion Tony Gemignani of Pyzano’s in Castro Valley.

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March 14th is PI Day - the very first and pre-eminent international holiday of cyberspace - celebrated across the United States, and around the world. At Pi Headquarters, the count-down to Pi Day, has started - the day when math geeks, students, and quants can have their Pi and eat it too. March 14th is Pi Day because the date is 03.14 - the first three digits of Pi. New this year are the official Pi Day video, the PiOMatic Pi Dispensing Machine at the Pi Diner, the 2008 Pi Day special collectors edition poster featuring Isaac Newton, and more.
"It's Pi Day," says the the fabled keeper of the Giant Pi at MathematiciansPictures.com, "because March 14 is 3.14, the first 3 digits of pi."
At 1:59 pm - 3.14159 being the first 6 digits of pi - the annual ritual Drop of the Giant Pi takes place at Pi Day ground zero - the Pi Department at MathematiciansPictures.com, the cyberspace emporium which is the high temple and sine qua non for math lovers.
"The annual drop of the Giant Pi is like the dropping of the New Year's ball in Times Square and the legendary arrival of Santa at Macy's - rolled into one giant cyberspace event."

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For students like junior math major and math club president Tevis Tsai, today is better than Christmas.
It’s March 14 - Pi Day, that special occasion when the date reads 3/14 and the mathematical constant of the same figure is elevated to sacred status.
“I don’t celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah,” Tsai said. “When those holidays come around, there’s all this commercialization … [and] arguing about whether we’re celebrating Christmas anymore, or if we’re celebrating that there’s a whole bunch of sales.”
For most of the year, pi is a modest part of mathematical formulas used to derive the dimensions of a circle. For instance: pi = circumference over diameter. The commonly used digits, 3.14, are only the first three of a never-ending stream of decimals.
For some, though, it’s a day to indulge in pie of all sorts - cream, cherry, pepperoni - and boasting how many digits they can rattle off.
“You don’t have to stress about ‘What do I buy so-and-so?’ or ‘What do I tell so-and-so to buy me?’” Tsai said. “You get together with some friends, and you buy a pie, and you eat it together.”
First celebrated in 1988 at a science museum in San Francisco, the punny tradition involves pie-eating among grade-school math classes and pi aficionados across the country.

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Gregg Perez is a painter, printer and LCVA president.
Daily Telegram staff writer
TIPTON — A change in the Lenawee Council for the Visual Arts’ goals in the past year coincides with its current president’s tenure.
Gregg Perez of Tecumseh, the council’s president for the past year, said the organization is doing more work in the community, from youth art programs to more exhibits to a Web log — or blog — where people can check up on new projects. The address is lcvamembers.blogspot.com.
Perez deflects compliments for the new efforts, instead directing them to others, such as vice president Janet Graham, who organized the LCVA’s current exhibit at Hidden Lake Gardens in Tipton. A public reception with the artists is scheduled for 1 to 3 p.m. March 15 at the gardens off M-50. There will be free admission to the gardens and people can view the artwork of several of the group’s 65 members, including two pieces by Perez that reflect his interest in nature.
The linocut print — similar to woodcut prints — is of a moth and is called “Metalmorphosis.” The second, an acrylic painting called “Pin-Up Flame Begonia,” is dazzling in shades of blue, orange and red.

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IT REPRESENTS the final chance we have to see our words set in stone. Often heartfelt, sometimes pithy, and occasionally unmentionable, the epitaph is increasingly becoming an outlet for the dead to communicate their idiosyncrasies from beyond the grave.
It emerged yesterday that John Peel, the late Radio One disc jockey, had the lyrics of his favourite song sculpted on to his headstone.
As he had made no secret of his love of the song, Teenage Kicks, the 1978 debut single by the Northern Irish group the Undertones, his family granted his final wish for a lyrical exit.
Now, along with the emblem of the DJ’s beloved Liverpool football club, the song’s key lyrics: “Teenage dreams so hard to beat,” now feature on his headstone in St Andrew’s church in the Suffolk village of Great Finborough.
The father of four, whose real name was John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, died in 2004 after suffering a heart attack. The song was played at his funeral service, but it is only now that his headstone has been erected.
The delay, his widow, Sheila, said, was to let the ground settle, then find a traditional type of York stone she knew her husband would have liked, before hiring a stonemason to carry out the work.

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