Cousin John & My Old Dad

It's been a couple weeks now since Cousin John moved away from San Diego. I can't help but think that it's too bad that he won't be around any longer to call needing a ride somewhere or show up at my door and ask for gas money. For some strange reason I will miss these little nuances of my cousin. It is good however that he's gone because he was only here because of the Marines and now his tour is over and he's safe once again here in the civilian world.

My parents came down the weekend before Cousin John flew back home on the 5th of May (my dad's birthday) to be with his girl and family. We went out to Sea World and had a good time. Pictures from the day can be found below. I really enjoyed the manatees and the dolphin show and the above picture of my dad is one of my all time favorites. Doesn't he look happy to be 55! He got into the park on a senior ticket! :)

Book Review: Desperation by Stephen King

I just finished reading Stephen King's Desperation in my car via audio book. It took me about 23 days. This was my first book read through audio book and I loved it. I think I'll be pushing through a lot of books in the coming months because of them.

Desperation is about a group of people that are brought together against their will by a cop possessed by a devilish spirit named Tak. We don't learn of this until a good way into the book, we just think the cop is crazy.

The group of people are from all walks of life and have nothing in common aside from unfortunate circumstances and they end up being led by an 11 year old boy who is a close follower of God. God leads the child and the child lead the adults in putting the evil spirit back to rest deep below the surface of the earth.

Like all King books, this one is relatively simple to explain in a paragraph or two but delves in to fantastic detail and holds you for hours on end. I enjoyed the book a lot though not as much of some of King's other books. I am now interested to read King's The Regulators as this is somewhat of a companion book to Desperation as it is set in the same location at the same time as Desperation but on a different plane or dimension. I look forward to seeing how the two books correlate and deviate.

Modern Marvels - Transocean's Drillship Discoverer Enterprise

A History Channel Modern Marvels Video Overview - Transocean's Drillship Discoverer Enterprise

The above video highlights the basic function of Transocean's (RIG) core business: deep water oil drilling. This is my most highly regarded stock selection in my Monthly stock picks. I have picked it in every month thus far and will continue recommending it for investment for probably a long time to come. Check out the video. Like everything History/Discovery/Learning Chanel related it is an entertaining watch at the very least.

The Merits of the San Diego County Library System

I've always been a slow and steady reader of books. In my youth I would read a lot and in my adolescence I read a fair amount and in my early adult years I've read a little but even now I've always been able to put a book down every couple months at least but I've always wanted to do more reading... I just never sit down to push through books any faster. What's a guy to do?

I was talking with my friend Josh Saddler about a month ago as he and his wife came to my apartment for a visit. Josh works at the San Diego County Library in La Mesa and he was educating Flor and myself on the merits of the San Diego County Library system. After some devil's advocacy Flor and I surprised him by stopping by the library a week later to get our library cards. I don't think he actually expected us to stop by.

What sold me was the idea of checking out audio books to listen to during my commute to and from work. I drive on average about 20 minutes to and from work 5 days a week. That adds up to 3 hours 20 minutes every week and 10 hours every 3 weeks, which is the duration of library checkout times. 10 hours plus additional incidental drive time is plenty to push through many books and would get me going through a book on average in every 3 weeks without ever sitting down to additional conventional reading time.

In the last month I've "read" Stephen King's Desperation and have begun a new book that I've been meaning to read for some time now, Levitt and Dubner's Freakonomics. I believe that this is going to get me really going on books again and I think I'm going to take some time to start chronicling the books I read here in a book review of sorts. Above all it would be nice to remember what I've read and what it was about as I tend to forget those types of things over time.

What a weekend...

Well this past weekend turned out to be one of the worst weekends in recent memory, although there were some bright spots sprinkled throughout it. Friday I dropped cousin John off at the airport as went on terminal leave as he is getting discharged from the Marines. Good for him! He made it through 4 years of military service including two tours to Iraq; he deserves to get a normal life started.

After that Flor and I started North in the direction of East Los Angeles to attend a funeral for a close relative to her family. This was hard as it came so soon after my own Grandmother's funeral and it was her first funeral for close family. I found it somewhat difficult to remain emotionally stable when everyone around was teary eyed and crying. It was a sad evening. Making it worse was that the burial was moved back to Saturday morning and I wouldn't be able to be there as I was entered into the PBA Regional in Visalia and had plans with my own family for Mother's Day weekend.

So after a good visit with Flor's family and meeting extended relatives of her family we went back to her parents house for coffee and pastries and general togetherness before finally turning in for sleep on the living room couch. I intended on getting up at 7am and getting on the road by 7:30 so as to meet my parents for lunch in Visalia but as I went out to my car I found the doors unlocked, the hood popped open, the back passenger side window busted in and all of my bowling gear stolen! Needless to say I ended up filing a police report, which seems meaningless anymore; do they actually do anything? I don't think so; it's all just purposeless formality... and then I filed an insurance claim. After doing all this I made a call to Gary Mage and let him know that I was coming up and could possibly be late to the tournament. He told me that he could help me out if need be.

Finally at around 12:30 I made it to Visalia, with duct taped windows and everything and I waltzed into the bowling alley. I didn't get to have lunch with my parents because it was so late and I had to bowl in just over an hour. Amazingly Gary introduced my to Eric, the Brunswick Equipment Rep for the tournament and he was immeasurably helpful as he went out of his way to give me a new ball free of charge and have it fitted and drilled for me as I lost all of my equipment. He game me a Brunswick Fury. It was the only ball I had to throw for the entire tournament so I didn't quite bowl up to the level I wished I had but considering the generosity of the gesture and my performance under limited resources I was pleased. Final results of the tournament can be found here, my complete bowling stats page can be found here, and my game by game break down follows:



After the tournament I ended up heading the rest of the way to Fresno where I spent the evening having a barbecue on the Airport Tarmac with my mom and the rest of her TSA co-workers. It was pretty funny, around 9pm TSA announced over the intercom that the security gate would be closed for one hour and at that point a police officer walked up to me and without making direct eye contact said in a low commanding voice: "Follow me."

I got up from my chair and was led out onto the tarmac and around to the backside of a building where there were many airline employees gathered with much food and a big grill full of meat. I had a good time but man, how often do civilians get to eat meat with their mothers on the airstrip of a major airport on Mother's Day weekend.

Anyway, to wrap up, I ended up sleeping that night on my parents couch and going to church with them in the morning. After a hearty Mother's Day lunch at a local steakhouse I started my long trip home in my busted up car. I picked up Flor and did Mother's Day dinner with her and her family and made it home just shy of Mid-Night. Whew, what a weekend. Hopefully the next tournament isn't so stressful and I'm crossing my fingers that insurance comes through for me with the car. Rest in peace, Ramon Salgado.

A funny piece of mail...

I got a funny piece of mail yesterday. I carefully opened it up slid the single sheet of thick paper out. Knowing what it was the entire time I made sure to not bend any corners or tear and sides. I flipped the sheet of paper around and looked at at it as I held it in both hands. A funny smile crossed my face as I couldn't decide whether I was happy or amused.

Flor watched the whole thing from behind and when I turned to her she had the most curious look on her face I've ever seen. I flipped the paper towards her and flashed my diploma for the first time.

Later on as I was going to bed I glanced down to my desk and I saw the diploma sitting there just like any other piece of junk mail or scratch paper would and I laughed out loud as I finally realized that I wasn't happy I was amused. I worked for that one random piece of paper for 5 years and then 3 years later finished earning it. All together it cost somewhere around $100,000 to get that piece of paper and it just nonchalantly came to my room and sat on my desk with no fanfare via the USPS & Jeremy White as he diligently gets the mail and sorts it in our apartment every day.

Too funny. I guess it's time to cellebrate though. Maybe a small party is in store. :)

Suck My NASDAQ!

Haha! I found the funniest market commentary I've ever seen this afternoon. Check it out. This guy puts something out everyday it seems. I might just subscribe.

Our Amazing Yet Complicated Bodies

I really enjoy reading Healthbolt.net as that blog continually digs up very interesting medical stories every day. Two stories linked to today I found particularly interesting. I had a Windows Vista moment after reading them both. Wow!

The first article was Treating The Dead. This is about recent discoveries pointing to heart attack victims not dying because of lack of oxygen to the cells for 10-15 minutes but dying because of the reintroduction of oxygen to the cells after 10-15 minutes. This is kind of like when you sit on your leg for a bit and then get up. Your leg is weak for a spell and then you get the pins and needles feeling. If it's bad you can hardly stand let alone walk. Its the reintroduction of oxygen to cells that have been deprived.

The second is the discovery of a Gene Linked to Longer Life Span. This gene is activated in adults (animals) when the subject has a restricted caloric diet. The animal must not be starved but the amount of food eating must be 50% less than average. In clinical studies animals of various types have been found to live up to 40-50% longer lives when this gene is activated. Tests are currently going on in primates and if proven in primates could bode well for humans. I've been reading CRON Diary regularly and she voluntarily restricts her calories in an attempt to add years to her life. This gene discovery is an interesting scientific argument backing up her lifestyle and the lifestyle of calorie restriction.

Journey Into Africa

Last week I took a couple vacation days to have some time to relax without any obligations. Unfortunately Flor was studying for a mid-term but that didn't keep her from stepping away from the books for a bit herself.

Tuesday, the 24th, we slept in and drove North to the Wild Animal Park. I had never been there before and as it turns out I've never been anywhere close to the place before. It was like I wasn't in San Diego anymore... I even saw signs for Ramona on the road so maybe we weren't in San Diego anymore, who knows. Anyway, Flor and I got there pretty late, which is fine by us. We had lunch and hit the park somewhere around 2:30 in the afternoon giving us about 2 1/2 hours to walk around.

Let me be frank. I love my annual Zoo membership! We got in for free, less $6.00 to park, and we got in line for the Journey Into Africa Tour, also free with membership. Cool!



Anyway, after walking up and waiting about 10 minutes our tram came around the bend and drove us all through the park. We saw angry Cheetah's hissing at the tram, big muddy hippos rolling in the mud, big ostriches threatening a bunch of hoofed unicorn-like animals, Giraffes, elephants, everything. It was awesome!

We ended up finishing the day by walking around the park a bit and getting really close to a Big Cat of some kind. I love the Big Cats. All said it was a great day spent in the sun and among the many amazing creatures that we never encounter in day-to-day life. We ended up taking a few pictures and here they are.

2007 - Wild Animal Park