A city after my heart

I have really fallen in love with Dublin. Although my flight out was yesterday, I opted to stay 4 additional nights. It's easy to get around, it's cheap, the people are super nice, and there's a big tech scene here. Who knew?

Nick left after St. Patrick's Day, so his Cambridge friend Sofia and I hung out yesterday. We walked miles around the city to see many sights including the jail (Kilmainham Gaol), the Irish Museum of Modern Art (they had another Picasso), St. Patrick's Cathedral, and Dublin Castle. We also had a number of amazing meals with hot chocolate and sushi. It was a very eventful day to say the least.

Today was a little less smooth. My original hotel had no rooms tonight and since I wasn't plAnning to stay, I moved to another hotel a 1/2 mile away. This seems close until you figure in the snow and the 45 lbs. of backpacks I was carrying. By the time I completed the move, my hip felt like it was on fire.

I've been trying to take it easy today so that I can rest up. For lunch, I went to a nice pub where I ate an amazing goat cheese / tomato / roasted red pepper soup. For dinner, I went to a tiny wine and pizza bar where the owner (who I suspect was my exact age) gave me tons of tips on the local bar scene. Tuesday is apparently the night to go out here.

Also today, I did a little shopping. I finally found a pair of boots. My shoes have been getting wet. It made me disappointed that I didn't bring my own boots, but the upside is that I now have a cool pair of boots... And an official pair of skinny jeans.

Last, I stopped by what I heard is a famous clothier to the stars (think Lansky's) call Copeland and brothers. I heard that I just had to check out this high end men's tailor. Sure enough, I got to meet the famous tailer, Louis Copeland, himself. Apparently his daughter lived for a short time In Nashville and he's visited Tennessee. He was so nice and we ended with him giving me his business card just in case I need something. I'm traveling alone again for a few days and this was another reminder of the positive things that happen when you're alone. People are so nice!

I don't think I've mentioned it yet... last year, I did quite a bit of genealogy research and found that most likely part of my family is Irish. A few times, people have thought I was Irish. That paired with the beer, all the goat cheese, and the friendly people inspired me to stay a little extra.

Well, I should go to sleep. Hopefully I will wake up rested. There's another big day tomorrow!

Happy St Patrick' Day!

I'm writing this post a bit late. Maybe it's a sign that St. Patrick's Day yesterday was great! Below is a quick post to recap the day.

I started off the day by going to the Guinness factory tour here in Dublin. I meet my brother Nick, his friend Sofia from Cambridge, and Kevin and Anna Ritz from Memphis. We took the tour together and it was a great time. We even went through the beer pouring school.

Afterward, we went to the St. Patrick's Day parade. It was much more manageable than the parade in NYC. I would recommend it.

Once the parade was finished, we want bar hopping for most of the day. We met up with a number of Nick's Cambridge classmates and somehow a number of folks from the Google Dublin office.

Here are a few photos from the great day we had. The first is the beautiful view from my hotel.

If you're going through hell, keep on going...

I debated between this blog title and "putting one foot in front of the other." I smile as I write this post as it was a great and yet crazy day. Very eventful.

This morning, Lisa and I headed into London for sightseeing. We checked out Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, The London Eye, and Buckingham Palace. It was a whirlwind of sights that was perfect. The one awkward thing-- due to my afternoon flight out, I carried the giant backpack everywhere. Fortunately Lisa carried the small one for me!

(We also saw the MemphisTravel.com taxi! Years ago, I used to do work on the website, so it was amazing to see the cab in London.)

As the day grew later, we jumped on the tube to head toward the Heathrow Airport. Since its the weekend, many trains weren't running in their typical patterns. After a few changes, we decided a taxi was in order due to time constraints.

On the way to the airport, I phoned a friend who asked surprised, "why are you still in London?!" This friend helped me book my ticket a few weeks ago. My itinerary said the flight was on British Airways out of Heathrow at 5:25 PM, so I was confused at first. My friend then let me know that although the British Airways flight was considered, it wasn't the one that was booked in the end. I had been scheduled on an AIR FRANCE flight out of London City Airport (not Heathrow) at ELEVEN AM! Holy cow, I thought. Not only did I miss my flight, but I'm heading to the completely wrong airport.

To solve my dilemma, I went to the Air France counter at Heathrow and explained that I had missed my flight and asked for help. The representative was very confused. Apparently Air France doesn't have flights to Dublin from there. My only options were to fly through Paris, or to get to the London City Airport and to fly from there-- both tomorrow. And both would be brand new tickets. That just wouldn't work as tomorrow is St Patrick's Day in Dublin. I had to get here sooner.

In the end, I got onto a later British Airways flight and I'm now in Dublin! My brother Nick met me at my hotel for dinner. Everything worked out and I had a nice day. In fact, I'm considering extending my time here. Today reminded me that sometimes you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other... One step at a time... And hopefully, eventually, things will work out.

Pub Life.

Today was a fairly relaxed day in London. I slept in to give my sore legs a chance to heal. Then, I did quite a bit of research for my trip, corresponded with Memphis folks, and officially added a new country to my itinerary (how exciting).

Then, I headed out to the British Museum for a bit. It was quite cold and rainy today... And at one point my Internet connection decided not to work, but I made it there (eventually).

In the evening, I headed back to Lisa's where her husband made us a wonderful dinner with pork chops. After dinner, we hopped back on a train to try one of their favorite pubs: Feathers. It was very authentic. Lots of locals and even a dog. I had a local beer and then a scotch (a nod to my Memphis friends).

Here's a photo of me and Lisa. (Note: Photos are acting up on my blog, so this is a bit of an experiment).

Highlights from London

Today was a very good, very long day. I'm going to try to keep it brief tonight because it's late and I'm quite tired. All in all, I learned a lot and got some great exercise. Below are the highlights.

Chris made pancakes for me and Lisa this morning. They were fantastic! Afterward, I went with Lisa to the tube on her way to work. She dropped me off at Notting Hill and then kept going to her stop.

(I certainly got into the deep end of the public transportation pool today.)

I walked around Notting Hill and then decided to have lunch. I found a great pub on Yelp that was about a mile and a half away, so I walked. For lunch, I had a venison pie with mashed potatoes, peas, and a beer. The pub had free wifi, so I used the opportunity to look through my Lonely Planet for London and look up a few things on Google Maps.

I decided to try to get to the furthest away place I selected: the Tate Modern. I only had two hours to get there before closing and decided that just finding it on my own would be enough if I arrived too late. I made it in time and was able to see a number of paintings and sculptures from some of my favorite artists. Below is one of Matisse's paintings.

After the museum, I took the tube back to Lisa's. Eventually, I went for dinner at an Indian place / English pub called Namaste Lounge. It was pretty good. Now, I'm back home for some rest before tomorrow.

All of my photos from the day are below. My blog software is being picky about photos from my iPad or I would mix these into the post. Enjoy!

Space and time

Someone told me once that the time while you're taking your long flight out of the country is the best, most exciting time. It's a space when you no longer have to prepare... When you are disconnected and able to enjoy the peace of having nothing to do (a very rare thing for me). He advised me to enjoy these 8 hours of my old self, because when I return, my life will have changed in some yet to be determined way.

Although it sounds dramatic, I guess it may be true. I mean, I certainly hope to have overcome my fear of solo public transportation at the very least. Other than that, who knows? It's hard to say really.

I'm writing this post just as my plane begins to land in London. London is officially my first stop. I will be visiting my friend Lisa and her husband Chris. I know Lisa from Memphis and originally met her at an event in my condo building. It's surprising how many people I've met that way over the years.

And the good news: I made both flights and all 4 train changes on the tube with relatively few hiccups. Chris met me at the final tube stop and Lisa had shown him my photo in advance (although I suspect my giant backpack may have been a give away too). Tonight, I'm so thankful to find such a welcoming place to stay with such nice friends from home.

This is just a reminder of just how small the world really is.

So kiss me and smile for me

The time to begin my journey is almost here.  I’ve done everything that I can to prepare, from completing my taxes to finding a temporary home for Tom & Jerry.  If I've missed anything, it’s certainly not for a lack of effort.  There have been many long days and nights.  One day recently I worked on my preparations from 7 AM that day to 2 AM the next.  That was a long day to say the least, but the long days are paying off.

Packing was the most complicated part of my preparation.  As you will soon see, my travels include different climates that call for different clothes.  My goal has been to take just one bag – a camping backpack.  A few years ago when I visited India, I managed to pack for 9-days in half of a backpack.  It made the travel much easier, especially in areas that may not be well paved or when there are unusual weather conditions like snow or mud.

The good news is – I did it!  All of my “worldly” possessions are now packed up in one big bag.  I’m also taking a small backpack for day trips.  I hope that between the two, I will have enough space.  And, who knows: maybe I will develop a few extra upper body muscles along the way.  I’m certainly going to miss my regular trips to the gym.    Here’s the final product:

When packing this bag, I was careful to only bring just enough of each item.  In a worst case scenario, I can always buy anything I’ve forgotten.  I was careful not to buy many things for this trip, aside from tiny soaps and various medicines (just in case I get sick).  This was further reinforced by my friend Jane who recently returned from a four month trip to Cambodia.  Her best piece of advice: take clothes that you don’t care about and can leave behind.  That way, you can make space for new things that you find.  At first, Jane’s suggestion seemed out of my world.  I already donate all of the clothes that I don’t wear, so I don’t have many that I would want to part with.  But, after much consideration, I've decided to give it a shot.  I’m taking clothes that I might feel okay donating to the travel black hole.  I’m also keeping the option open to possibly mail items back during the trip.  

Of all the things I packed, there are two items that really stand out.  The first are these Puma shoes.  They are beyond comfortable.  As a bonus, they will (hopefully) allow me to look like a local.  When I visited Norway last year, people assumed I was Norwegian.  Not feeling like an immediate target made traveling more comfortable.

The other important item is an external battery to charge my iPhone and iPad.  I’ve forced myself to only bring these two devices on the trip and my biggest fear is running out of battery above the ocean.  I’ve downloaded books, movies, TV shows, games, music, and my travel documents.  It’s simply amazing how many different things one tiny device can hold.  After filling up my iPad, my next concern was its tiny battery.  The answer?  An external battery made by iSound (check it out here).  It charges up to 5 devices at one time and provides up to 480 hours of power.  You can use it with an iPad, iPhone, Android, or Blackberry.  The best part is that it only weighs 1.4 pounds.  As you can imagine, I’m charging it now!  (Big thanks to Kyle at Nibletz for the recommendation!)

The best news of all – my big adventure starts tomorrow.  I will do my best to blog each day, and my plan is to reveal my route along the way.  In fact, a few pieces are still being decided as I type.  Please check back to follow my progress.

Until next time… Tell me that you'll wait for me… Oh, babe, I hate to go.

Taking Inventory

One of the first parts of my travel planning is always to take inventory of my travel points whether it's hotel, flight, or auto points.  It's helpful in shaping my overall travel plan.

Since Delta has a hub in Memphis, they're usually my first stop.  Unfortunately, due to my traveling streak in 2012 (hello Denver, OKC, and LA), my mileage balance with Delta is pretty low.  I'm at a little over 5 thousand miles which is not even close to enough to get a ticket anywhere.  I started looking for other Delta options and found that if I sign-up for the Delta credit card, I will receive 35K additional miles.  Together, this would probably equal one trip within the US.  Although this is nice, it's not quite the trip I had in mind.

Next, I remembered that two years ago, I signed up for an American Airlines credit card to get some "big" (whatever that means) mileage bonus.  I almost never use the card, so my initial assumption was that I had either very few miles or the miles were lost altogether.  In fact, I didn't set up a frequent flier account when I signed up, so I had no idea where the so-called-miles might be.  After a few phone calls though, I tracked them down.  To my surprise, I had over 84K AA miles!  This was definitely enough to make a little dent.

But, what if I wanted to go farther than these miles would take me?  I had heard about this plane ticket that will allow you to circle the entire globe on one big Euro-Rail-Pass like plane ticket, a Round-the-World ticket.  These tickets are a bit of a mystery, so it took some research on my end to nail down how to get one and how they work.  Here's one of the better blog posts I've found on the topic, How to Buy a Round-the-World Plane Ticket (That Kicks Ass).  This could be a great option.

In the end, I paired up my AA miles with a number of individual tickets.  It turned out to be even cheaper than the super cool round-the-world ticket.  Since I booked the trip a little last minute, I was concerned that my options would be limited, but it has really come together.  I booked quite a few different flights for my upcoming adventure.  I'll post about them along the way to keep you wondering about what's next.  

Stay tuned...

The Adventure Begins

This is the first of what I hope will be many posts in the days ahead.  I have always enjoyed traveling and have dreamed for years of traveling more and possibly taking a "big trip."  It’s a little spurt of the moment, but I think that time has finally arrived. 

I'm going to use this blog to document my travels, and some of the travel planning as it comes along since it’s all a little last minute (and as the planning is frankly more daunting than the travel itself).  My hope is to preserve the memories for myself, and possibly to inspire others to travel a little more too.

Prior to 2012, I had traveled quite extensively (to places like India, Spain, Argentina, and others), but always with a companion.  Last year, I tried traveling to another country alone for the first time.  I went to Norway to visit my friend Greg, who had recently moved to Tromsø.

The hardest part of the trip was getting from my home in downtown Memphis to the Memphis airport.  It was 15 minutes of pure-fear as I worried about what might happen to me while I was traveling in another country and through multiple airports (I had 9 flights in total!) all alone by myself.  I had tears in my eyes all the way to the airport thinking about what I had gotten myself into.  The friend who drove me to the airport chuckled when he thought of the much bigger mountains I had climbed compared to this one that scared me so much more.  I really felt like a five-year old child on their first morning of kindergarten.

Soon after arriving at the Memphis airport, I was upgraded to first class on the flight from Memphis to Amsterdam.  Even more surprising, a British couple I knew from Ballet Memphis was seated in the row directly behind me.  It was then that I knew that things would probably be okay, and that I wasn't really alone after all.

Needless to say, I made it all the way to the hotel in Oslo to meet Greg just fine.  It was an amazing feeling to open the hotel door with my key and have Greg sitting there waiting for me—all the way around the world.  We had a great time in Oslo and then headed on to Tromsø (where it was daylight 24 hours a day!).  After a few days, I embarked on my own to visit Bergen and then back to Oslo before returning home to Memphis. 

My biggest lesson was not only can I travel alone, but that it's actually fun.  Many more people spoke to me when I was alone and offered to help.  I even made a friend that I still stay in touch with today.  And as for being afraid of what crazy things might happen to me as a foreigner - most people thought that I was from Norway.  Nothing happened, except that I was occasionally stopped on the street for directions by tourists.

So here is to a new year, a new perspective, and new travels to new places!  I hope that you will follow my journey on my blog, blog.AngelaCopeland.com. 

© Angela Copeland, Bergen Norway, 2012

 

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Mud Island Public Use Study Meeting Thursday

Downtown Friends,

I'm emailing you today to tell you about a study that's going on downtown that you may have heard of: the Memphis Riverfront project.

In a nutshell, Mud Island River Park will be overhauled soon. Today, I went to the first of 2 meetings to solicit public feedback.

One of the big topics up for discussion is putting a large skate park on Mud Island. I'm very excited to support this concept as it would positively support the city in a number of different ways. On the flip side, some folks are either against the park, or are in favor of putting it underneath I-40. This is bothersome.

I also had one other big concern about the meeting. I was in the minority. The majority of folks were parents and young children. Very few of them actually live downtown.

If you have time on Thursday, I really encourage you to go to the meeting and be heard. Until I attended the meeting tonight, I had no idea of the magnitude of this project.

Literally, they are asking citizens to place mock-ups of attractions on a map of the existing Mud Island river park. The choices include things like a skate park, an aquarium, a walking bridge (yes!!), shopping, dining, green park space, the Zippen Pippen, and a carousel... just to name a few.

For more information, check out www.MemphisRiverFront.com.

You can also check out this blog article to read more about the skate park: http://gatesofmemphis.blogspot.com/2009/05/sk8mud.html.

I encourage you to go Thursday and give the perspective of a young Memphis professional-- someone who LIVES in Memphis. The meeting is this Thursday, May 14th from 5:45 to 7:15 PM at the HIRP Landing at 101 Island Drive.

Thanks for listening!
:~) Angie

Congrats Parvez!

Congrats to Parvez for getting his work in ZGallerie.com!

OMG - Ann Taylor Deal!

Wow... if you have any interest in Ann Taylor, you should absolutely check this out:

I visited AnnTaylor.com tonight to purchase a dress that I've been looking at. I decided to give it a try, as they have shipping on any order for $6! The dress I chose was already on sale for 40% off because they're having a big sale. Just before I checked out, I looked around for online coupons and I found one that's wonderful... It's $50 off any order of $100 or more-- even sale items.

The only catch-- you must be logged into your Ann Taylor online account (not a credit card, just getting a user name to their web site).

What a great deal! Here's the coupon code if you want to try it out too: 91900015.

Just thought I'd share this wonderful find.

From Arts Memphis - Whole Foods Day

For one day only, you can shop at your favorite store and support the arts at the same time. Whole Foods will celebrate its grand re-opening on Tuesday, October 28 and they have chosen to donate 5% of the day’s profits to ArtsMemphis in support of the local arts community!

Join us at the East Memphis Whole Foods for a fabulously fun day of shopping and celebrations all around! Pick up your favorite healthy foods and make your support matter. We will even be there in our ArtsMemphis garb bagging groceries and welcoming customers!

Go Organic for the Arts!

Tuesday, October 28

8 am to 10 pm

Whole Foods at 5022 Poplar Avenue (near Malco’s Paradiso movie theater)

It's Been a While

Wow... it's been a while since I've posted. It always amazes me when I look up and a month has gone by without a post.

One thing I'd like to know how to do is feed Twitter into my blog. Although Twitter only contains one sentence updates, they're frequent and timely.

Anyway, it's time for work, so hopefully I'll have more time later to post an actual update.

Happy Thursday!

Check This Out! Kidney Donation Story on The Early Show

My friend Anthony DeGuilio who gave his kidney to a stranger recently (see previous post) was featured on The Early Show yesterday!

Check out Anthony on The Early Show here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/06/earlyshow/main4324353.shtml

Anthony will be making an appearance on CNN tomorrow between 5 and 6 PM EST during Headline News.

Congrats Anthony! :~)

Scrabulous Game Removed from Facebook

Here's an interesting article from the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/29/AR2008072901393_pf.html

A preview of the article...

It's game over for Scrabulous; the popular Scrabble knockoff game on Facebook is no longer available as of this morning.

Facebook users who logged on to play the word puzzle game this morning instead got a message that it has been "disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice."

The game was one of the most popular applications on the social networking site, but Hasbro filed a lawsuit last week accusing Scrabulous makers of having infringed on copyrights with the Facebook game.

Hasbro and Mattel, which share global ownership of the Scrabble trademark, had asked Facebook to remove the game in January. Hasbro has partnered with game publisher Electronic Arts to develop a new version of the game for Facebook.

According to the Scrabulous page on Facebook, the game developed by a pair of brothers in India had 509,505 daily active users. The application was launched last summer.

Washington PR consultant John Edgell said he logged onto Facebook at 7:30 a.m. to continue a match he was playing with a Facebook acquaintance, only to find that the application was down.

"I was getting creamed, so it's probably a good thing in that respect," he joked. "The country is probably 10 percent more productive today."

One of those users was Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who has said that he is a fan of the game and plays it with his grandparents.

Electronic Arts launched its Scrabble game, for Facebook and cell phones, earlier this month.

In a statement released today, Hasbro steered frustrated Scrabulous fans to the new application.

"In deference to the fans, we waited in pursuing legal action until Electronic Arts had a legitimate alternative available. We invite Scrabble fans in the U.S. and Canada to log onto Facebook and try out the authentic Scrabble application."

But the new Scrabble application was generating mostly hate mail today. Users complained on the application's Facebook page that the game was slow and buggy.

"Scrabulous was great PR for you and you had to ruin it for EVERYONE," wrote one Facebook user. "As the mother of 2, i will be boycotting all hasbro products until you do the right thing."

Job Posting: Business Manager

Below is my second job posting. If you are interested in this position, drop me an e-mail at: JobPostings (at) AngieDawn (dot) net.

Business Manager

Description
This job posting is for a Business Manager position at an Internet based publishing company.

General Summary
Do you know a driven Business Manager who'd like to lead a Email Marketing team of A-level professionals and work from ANYWHERE in the world?

Here's a description - please pass it along!

Email Business Manager

You will lead a TOP-NOTCH team of fun and smart professionals...
AND work from home ANYWHERE in the world

You possess the following skills:

Driver" Personality -- You must be willing to get your hands dirty, take accountability for this exciting area of our business, proactively communicate with the rest of us, be a self-starter and be able to work with the team
Process-Oriented -- You have experience quickly jumping into teams, getting to know your teammates and providing active assistance to optimize process work-flow. You'll learn our current email delivery processes, optimize this process, monitor quality assurance, balance other business needs and enable us to scale
"Bottom Line" emphasis-- You have an analytical understanding of return on investment (ROI) analysis and are comfortable allocating resources
Management & Leadership -- You have a proven track record of getting at least a few people to GET THINGS DONE!

If you know these, it's a plus!

Email marketing campaigns
Analyzing diverse data sets such as SQL and Excel
Effectively communicate the "health" of a business area to key business stakeholders
Managing ISP partner relations to insure quick, cost-effective and scalable resolution of problems
ESP companies: Dartmail, Responsys, Cheetahmail, etc.
ISP companies: MSN-Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, etc.

If you are interested in this position, drop me an e-mail at: JobPostings (at) AngieDawn (dot) net.

Job Posting: Sales Associate

Here's my first official job posting. If you are interested in this position, drop me an e-mail at: JobPostings (at) AngieDawn (dot) net.

Sales Associate

Description
This posting is for a Sales Associate Position at an Internet marketing agency.

General Summary
The Sales Associate will be responsible for generating qualified sales leads. The ideal candidate will be energetic and demonstrate professional phone skills. Your goal will be to perform phone-based qualification by identifying the prospect business drivers and pain and then map those to the contracted software companies based solution. You will articulate a value proposition in a manner that will generate interest. You will rely on your experience and judgment to plan and accomplish goals. This position reports to the managing partner.

Duties and Responsibilities
The Sales Associate will serve as an integral part of the sales & marketing team. Responsibilities will include inbound and outbound lead generation, qualifying potential customers, increasing awareness of the company’s products and services through any means possible, maintaining information in a CRM (Customer Relations Management) database and handling incoming inquires.

The Sales Associate will also be expected to attend networking events such as Chamber of Commerce and the Sales & Marketing Society gatherings in an effort to gain contacts and raise awareness about the organization. Associate should be constantly looking for new opportunities or relationships that will help further the company’s objectives and maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the company’s sales efforts as a whole.

Additional duties such as organizing presentations for the executive staff to present the company’s services in venues such as seminars or “lunch & learn” events will be required as needed. Other marketing duties, such as finding and posting articles relevant to the company on the website and helping to write or improve marketing collateral and materials, will also be part of the overall job requirement. The Sales Associate will also be expected to perform other duties as assigned by management.

If you are interested in this position, drop me an e-mail at: JobPostings (at) AngieDawn (dot) net.

Kindness of Strangers

Back in January, I wrote about my friend Anthony DeGiulio who was planning on giving one of his kidney's to someone he doesn't know. Well, Anthony finally donated his kidney yesterday and has continued to document his progress on his blog, http://giveakidney.blogspot.com.

It still amazes me that Anthony went to so much trouble to give his kidney to a complete stranger. Apparently, it's pretty hard to do that... there's a lot involved if you're not giving your kidney to a family member or friend who you already know.

I haven't gotten to speak with Anthony yet, but I think he is doing well. I see that he has already posted a blog since his surgery, and today he felt well enough to IM me.

An article will be running in today's Wall Street Journal about him in the Taste column. Here's a preview:

Lots of well-intentioned individuals want to give something of themselves, but few take the project as far as my friend Anthony DeGiulio, a 36-year-old securities trader who yesterday donated a kidney. The really unusual thing is that he gave it to a perfect stranger.

Anthony's been a nice guy for as long as I've known him. We met in the spring of 2006 when he advertised some free mulch on Craigslist. I drove over, and before I knew it he was filling his own trailer, using his own front-end loader and then driving the whole mess over to my place with his own truck. Subsequently, after clearing some land, he gave away thousands of dollars of firewood to all comers. He's also a big supporter of a couple of charitable organizations.

But when he first told me about the kidney, I wondered about his sanity. Anthony has had this response from lots of people, including relatives; after all, only 533 others in this country have ever given a kidney away without a recipient in mind, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network created by Congress in 1984. In other words, Anthony didn't just choose a stranger; he gave a kidney to someone whose identity he didn't even know (although they were scheduled to meet sometime after the surgery).

For the rest of the article, check it out in your Wall Street Journal, or click here.