Sunday, September 30, 2007

Weekend Update - September 30th

Weekend Update
Doug and I picked up our dinner to go on Thursday from Fatburger. We both had Kingburger meals. The dinner was particularly nice because I had a coupon for a free order of French fried onion rings.

Then, on Friday, I had lunch with an old co-worker. He paid for the lunch so I was more than ready to eat for free. We talked about the direction the old company is going and we were both confused. We failed to see any value in the direction it is going in. I think the old company is going to face some hard times ahead and it may not make it to the end of the road the new CEO has planned for it.

Doug and I are going out to dinner tonight. This is one reason why this will be a shorter than usual Weekend Update posting. We will be at Fleming’s in Newport Beach; Amy will be our server, if she is working tonight.

Visitors
We had visitors from United Kingdom [2], Australia [4], Sweden [2], Ireland, Japan [4], Texas [4], Poland [2], Spain [2], Singapore, Cote D’Ivorie, Taiwan, Jordan, Germany [3], Canada, Costa Rica, Netherlands, Korea, and Italy.

We had one visitor who stopped by and stayed for eighteen minutes.

I do appreciate all of you who take time out of your schedules and activities to visit the blog.

Football [American Football]
Or Footie as my English friend Adrian would say. Whatever term you use, it was a good weekend for me.

It started off on Friday night when my old high school, San Marino High School, won its game. I think the school is either 4 and 0 or 3 and 1. I know they won the last three games including Friday’s game with a reported score of 75 to 0.

That has to be a misprint. I can’t imagine any high school coach would run the score up like that. What sort of a lesson are you teaching your young players?

What makes the victory so is the student body. There are a large number of Asian American students who are small and not the best players when it comes to a physical game like football.

The good results continued on Saturday when our Utes prevailed over Utah State University in Salt Lake City 34 to 18. It was a nice satisfying victory for the Utes. They played well in all phases of the game; holding Utah State to only two touchdowns, one in each half, and a field goal.

Sweet.

Then, on Sunday, my long suffering Oakland Raiders won on the road and beat Miami, 35 to 17. It looks like the new Raider coach, Lane Kiffen, has the Silver and Black back on track.

The Princess will be happy because our Utes won and her second school, the University of South Carolina, also won. The Tarheels beat Mississippi State University 35 to 21. She calls it the original USC; he uncle has failed to see any humor in that concept.

I guess the only one who is unhappy is my Brother because his University of Southern California Trojans fell out of the Number 1 ranking in the AP Coaches poll to the second spot.

Woman of the Moment
I haven’t found a new Woman of the Moment yet. I did spend some time on Saturday on the search. I had some ideas but they did not work out that well in terms of images. I had considered Ayesha Dharker, an Indian actress, and Jessica Alba. In the end, I remained undecided.

Finally, I made a decision to go with the Weekend Bonus Feature models for the time being. For the next few days, the Woman of the Moment will be Tamao Sato, a Japanese actress who measures 33 – 22 – 33 inches or 83 – 57 – 84 centimeters. Tamao is 62 inches – 157 centimeters tall. She was born in January 1977.

The only film that I have seen Tamao Sato act in was 2LDK with Eiko Koike. 2LDK is a fascinating film since it only uses these two actors and the film is short in their apartment. I really enjoyed the film.






I hope you all had a good weekend. I did.

Be well and stay happy.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Weekend Preview - September 27th

Weekend Preview
Doug and I are supposed to go to Fatburger for dinner tonight. This is convenient for us since he has been getting home from work rather late; last night, he got home about 8:00 PM. I don’t wait until he comes home for my dinner. I get hungry and need to eat. Tonight, I will snack a bit to stave off hungry and a noisy stomach. We can go to Fatburger, get out order to go, and have dinner at the flat.

We also need to go to Fatburger because I have a coupon for a free order of French fried onions rings. I hate to pass up free food.

Tomorrow, I am scheduled to have lunch at Chicago Ribs in Redondo Beach with an old co-worker. He is buying so I am definitely eating. It will be good to get together and talk about the changes at the old company; it is changing so fast that I can hardly recognize it. I can also hardly recognize the strategy the new CEO is pursuing.

Teaching
I need to finish the lesson plan for the class that I will miss when I go to the wedding next month. I have about half of it completed now and I just need to polish everything and reduce it to a Word.doc document so the substitute can easily work with it.

My department chair asked me to teach two evening classes as a substitute. The extra money is nice; I could buy two dozen DVDs with the substitute pay. The instructor I would be filling in for does a poor job of preparing substitute lesson plans. Frankly, I find that to be very unprofessional. The school requires all instructors to have lesson plans so I fail to see why he can make a simple photo copy and hand it off to me. I will probably go ahead and do teach the courses.

Today’s class was interesting for me. I lost one student because she has missed three consecutive sessions; this is a school policy. That was a disappointment for me. I don’t think the student really wanted to be in school. I asked her yesterday when I happened to see her if she was going to be in my class today. She said she would.

Oh well, life happens.

Vivian’s Man of the Moment
My friend Vivian has a new Man of the Moment. He is the actor Ryan Gosling. Vivian saw him when she went to the premier of his new movie, LARS AND THE REAL GIRL.

Vivian really likes him. I can see why; he is 73 inches – 185 centimeters tall and Vivian is a tall woman.


Perfectomundo.

Doug and I both enjoyed his performance in HALF NELSON for which he was nominated for the Best Actor award in 2007.

I wonder what happened to Cute CAA Boy who seemed to wander into to her life recently. I guess I will have to wait until I have lunch with Vivian in October after I return from the wedding, Vivian wants to see the wedding photos or at least the ones I have.

I have to admit that I hadn’t heard of the film so I went to IMDb.com for some help. I picked up this reviewer’s comments.

“Lars, played by last year's Academy Award best actor nominee Ryan Gosling, is an unusual 27 year-old man. While he is somewhat normal in that he can drive a car and hold a job and go to church, he is painfully introverted and shy. He lives in a small room off of a garage and not in the main house with his normal brother and normal sister-in-law.

His life is an ever-repeating internal life with no other human breaking in. And then, his fellow cubicle worker gives him a web site address where he can order an anatomically correct plastic woman, and to exact specifications. She, a very attractive piece of plastic named Bianca, arrives via UPS and his immediate family and the town are never the same.

How should the family and the small town treat Lars and Bianca? They can't ignore it because Lars takes Bianca everywhere in his car and a wheelchair. His family seeks advice from a Medical Doctor/Psychologist. They convince Lars that Bianca is sick and needs weekly check-ups.”

That sounds like an interesting movie to me.

Woman of the Moment
I was somewhat concerned about the Woman of the Moment feature when I first started out with it. I know there are some readers who will find the photos offensive or bothersome while others will enjoy them.

I asked my friend Vivian what she thought about the feature because she is a young woman and she is involved in the entertainment industry where most of the Women of the Moment have come from.

Vivian said that these women are trying to become a success in the entertainment industry and there are literally thousands of similarly situated young women who are trying to do the same. Creating web sites and then posting these photos of themselves is one way for them to boost their personal brand images and awareness in the industry. Vivian pointed out that no one forced them to post their images or seek this type of a career [as a model or actress]. Since the young women have a very short time to become known and a success, this is one reasonable calculated step to achieve that goal.

Vivian went onto point out that humanity has had images of attractive young women around since before the Greeks and Romans. The only differences are societal changes in what is considered attractive in each era and the media by which the images are displayed. The Internet is just the latest media vehicle. There will be new media vehicles as society invents new methods of transferring and displaying images.

Vivian made me feel better. It makes sense when you look at the images in this perspective.

All of which leads to the end of the Mary Castro photos.





I hope you all enjoy your weekend. See, I told you that I would have a longer posting today.

Be well and stay happy.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Short Posting

Short Posting
I don’t really have a great deal to say today. It was one of those days that started calmly and subsequently drifted into quiet boredom.

When I was driving home from school today, the radio program that I listen had a moment of noise to observe Marcel Marceau’s death and burial today. I thought that was a fitting, if off beat tribute.

Tomorrow will be a better posting.

Woman of the Moment
We are coming to the end of the Mary Castro term as Woman of the Moment. I think tomorrow will be the end of the line.






Be well and stay happy.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday
Today in my Brother’s birthday. I hope he enjoyed the personalized M&Ms I sent him. I picked out his old school colors and had the school motto printed on the M&Ms.

Sweet.

Odds and Ends
I didn’t put the Monday posting up on time because I didn’t get home from school until really late. Then, I just grabbed some food and went to bed. I was tired.

I had another student added to my Monday night class. I am now up to thirty six students. At least, the school is not going to add any more students to the class. That is nice.

Call me naïve or overly optimistic. My Monday class is designed to help students get a job after graduation. The placement people are part of the class. I would have thought that an offer of resume help would have been jumped on. I know I didn’t have anything like that when I graduated. What really surprised me was that some students had not even made an effort to submit a resume for review and assistance.

What are they waiting for? Graduation is about nine weeks away. The students need to get moving because hiring will slack off in December; managers will defer hiring until the start of the New Year for budgetary reasons.

One of our local weather newsreaders couldn’t believe that there was snow on the local mountains after the weekend rain. Maybe he should have remembered what he read last week. He said there might be snow in the upper elevations of the local mountains.

Guess where the snow was? That’s right, in the upper elevations. The higher up you are the colder it gets. Snow will last so long as it is cold.

It all seems so logical and reasonable to me. Maybe I should try out for a job as a weather newsreader.

I emailed the Princess about going to the rehearsal dinner. She knew that I would be there. I wanted to know what they will serve for dinner. Dinner looks pretty good now; bar-be-qued chicken and ribs and pulled pork. She said it was your basic Southern bar-be-que. She also said there would be a full bar.

Yummy.

I will sleep well on Friday night before the wedding for sure.

Woman of the Moment
I decided to make a minor change to the Woman of the Moment feature. I am going to cut back on the frequency of the feature. Speed Options web site, a major source for models, is still not functioning properly and hasn’t been updated since end of June. I need to conserve the models so that I don’t run out of models. This new change will start when I run out of Mary Castro photos.





Be well and stay happy.

Start of the Week

Start of the Week
I started the week off by watching a new Japanese serial on Sunday night. It will be a limited series, probably twelve to fifteen episodes. Doug said he was not ready for a series about Japanese high school girls.

The program is called Boys Before Flowers. That must have something to do with the translation, where are Sofia Coppola and Bill Murray when you need them.

The plot is predictable. Well, I think it is. The leading actress is a common girl at a private high school for the wealthy and privileged; she doesn’t fit in.

Obviously.

The school is dominated or run by four males whose parents are the big contributors to the school, sorting of really buying an education. The girl challenges the ruling clique and they are in open war or conflict. The girl is alone for now but will probably end up with the entire school behind her; one or more of the four boys will fall in love with her.

Fade to black and roll credits.

The road project is finally completed.

I went to the market today. I am finally beginning to know my way around the market now. Some of the sections are smaller than before the remodeling project was started. Most of the space was converted to free standing self service bars for food and lunch. Some of the fresh produce is now displayed on tables, which strikes me as being wasteful when it comes to space.

The market has a self service checkout. I have yet to try that feature although I may give it a whirl tomorrow when I pick up our dinner food for Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday is going to be Fatburger because I have a coupon and Doug will probably drift behind the Orange Curtain on Friday.

I cleaned out my Yahoo mail inbox today. I had 270 pieces of mail in my in-box; only one was one that I was interested in and I had 8,469 messages in my bulk folder.

Doesn’t Yahoo have or use a spam filter?

Woman of the Moment
Time for more Mary Castro in her bikinis; this works for me very well.

Perfectomundo.

But, I wonder how her husband feels about having his wife’s photos all over the Internet? I don’t think I would be jumping for joy about the idea of my wife’s photos being on the Internet, assuming I had a wife like Mary Castro.






Be well and stay happy.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Weekend Update - September 23rd

Weekend Update
I ordered my tuxedo for the wedding on Friday. I never realized how expensive rentals are these days. It is going to cost me about USD$170 to look nice in the wedding photos.

One nice outcome of the rain storm on Saturday was clean skies on Sunday.

I had an email from one of my high school classmates, always nice. Wendy was checking to make certain she had my address. She did. It looks like my Class is planning on having a 45th Reunion in 2008. That made me feel very old.

The Reunion should be fun for me. Who knows, I might meet one of the unmarried women from my class and that could lead to something.

I checked the Sharon Tay website and it is still under construction. I wonder when or if it will ever be functional. I also checked the Speed Option web site. It is functioning after a fashion. It is available but it has not been updated since early August as far as I can tell. That is not a very good sign.

Visitors
We had another good visitor week. We had visitors from Texas [3], United Kingdom [5], Philippines, Taiwan [3], France [2], Canada [4], Korea [5], Japan, Macao, Peru, Hungary, Portugal, Sweden, Malaysia [2], Spain, India, Finland [2], Germany [3], Hong Kong, and Australia.

To the best of my knowledge, last week was the first time the blog has had a visitor from Macao.

We only had one visitor who stopped by for more than a few minutes. This visitor stopped by for a sixty one minute visit.

I do appreciate all of you who took time out of your busy schedules to visit the blog.

Weather – It Really Rained in Southern California
If you had listened to the local television weather news readers – clowns on Friday, you would have thought Southern California was facing a rain storm of near Biblical proportions. They were so excited that it seemed like they pooped in their pants.

Oh, the humanity of it all.

They were all on alert. They were on storm watch.

They had storm tracker radar following the storm.

The rain storm was the lead story on the local evening television news.

Well, it did rain on Friday night and Saturday morning. But, it was not Day 40 of the Forty Days and Nights of Rain. I heard one thunderclap as I went to bed and slept soundly for six hours.

There was some rain on Saturday morning. There was no thunder or lightening that I could see or hear. It was a modestly decent rainfall. I think the total storm will probably be around an inch or a couple of centimeters at the beach. The rainfall will be higher in the mountains.

I was so very happy that my cars were inside the car park and did not get rained on over night.

I suppose this weather is reasonable since it is now actually Fall. We observed the Autumnal Equinox this weekend. Fall is supposed to be a wet and cooler season. I had to put on long pants on Saturday because it was too damp and cool to sit in shorts and grade papers while I watched some college football on television.

I wonder if the weather will affect the Utah football game on Saturday night. Our Utes are playing the University of Nevada Las Vegas in Las Vegas. The storm passed through the area in the late morning. If the rain reaches Las Vegas, it should not have that much of an impact. I think the rain will quickly evaporate in the desert and the field will be fast and dry at game time. Besides, our Utes are used to playing in snow so a little rain should not be a concern.

The post rain storm weather television news readers were bounced over the screens Saturday night. The storm was the feature story since it was a slow news day in Southern California. The rainfall for the area near where I live was less than an inch.

There was a mudslide in Los Angeles and that was almost a non-event. The area below a hillside that had burned and the rains created a mudslide.

Gasp!

All of twenty cars were stuck in the mud. The mud was only up the bottoms of the car doors so it was not very deep. One apartment building had mud in a hall. One reporter had to watch where she was walking so she could keep her nice leather boots out of the mud. This reporter made the mudslide sound so dreadfully serious and possibly life threatening.

Oh wow.

We need a whole lot less drama in our lives.

Teaching
Grading papers was not how I wanted to spend Saturday afternoon. This is one of the ugly parts of teaching.

I had to grade papers from my students who are about to graduate. I had higher hopes and expectations when I sat down to read the assignment. It was a good thing the class is not a writing or English class because almost all of the students would have failed.

I had to work through incomplete sentences, fragments, run on sentences. Then, there were all of the wrong words that were spelled correctly. Some of the sentences were written as if the student had been told that complex sentences are the best ones to express knowledge and demonstrate mastery of the English language. The student was badly misinformed.

It looks like I will have to give the students a brief writing session in my class next week.

Utah Football
What happened in Las Vegas? I don't think we will ever know because what happened in Las Vegas, stayed in Las Vegas.

Last week, our Utes humiliated a nationally ranked UCLA in Salt Lake City and then they lose 27 to 0 to UNLV. Losing is bad but losing in Las Vegas for the first time since 1979 is much worse.

I think I know what happened. The other Utah team showed up and played horribly. They were able to bottle up UCLA but gave up 190 rushing yards to one UNLV player. The Utes could not convert on third down and managed to cough up the ball four times. Penalties did not help very much either.

The Utah head coach, Kyle Willingham, needs to learn how to motivate his players. Either that or take away their newspapers so they don’t believe everything they read in them.

This is going to be such a long season for me.

Woman of the Moment
Well, the Woman of the Moment can always improve my outlook on life. Seeing Mary Castro in her bikinis will always be a mood improving event for me. I hope you will feel the same way.






Be well and stay happy.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Weekend Bonus Feature - September 21st

Weekend Bonus Feature Special Edition - Faline Song
Hello gentle readers, today is a special edition of the Weekend Bonus Feature. I found some new Faline Song photos and decided to use them. I really like her and I now have 67 of Faline's images in my screen saver program. I almost wait for the program to kick in.





I think it would be very difficult to play pool with Faline, in this outfit or any other one she put on.



Be well and stay happy.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Weekend Preview - September 20th

Weekend Update and I Was Tired
I was tired yesterday after running around when my class ended. I went to the card store and to DVD Planet.com.

I needed to go to the card store to pick up a birthday card for the Stylist. She just turned 31; that makes her almost the same age as the Princess. She doesn’t look 31; neither does the Princess for that matter.

I swung past DVD Planet to pick up a copy of Quentin Tarantino’s DEATH PROOF. Doug wanted me to pick up a two disk copy for him. I ended up with a two disk version since I couldn’t find a single disk version. One nice feature of the two disk version was a USD$5.00 coupon for a purchase of Robert Rodriguez’s PLANET TERROR. The coupon expires by the end of the year but that is not a consideration since I will buy the DVD when it comes out.

I talked to one of my students who loves movies today to see if he picked up a copy. He said he was going to wait for the eventually combination release of both films in one DVD box.

That made sense but I was not going walk past the money.

I was tired yesterday.

I think I had a sugar low from not eating breakfast and lunch. I ended up taking a brief nap after I changed my clothes from teaching. I was also on the dehydrated side since I was constantly getting up to get another drink of water. I also did not get my usual amount of sleep Tuesday night.

I feel much better today.

I got a better night’s sleep yesterday and I ate regularly too.

It got cool at the beach. The local weather news reader said we may have real rainfall this weekend. Cool, rainy weather in September is most unusual. I just hope neither one of the cars gets wet from any rain. The rain, if it really happens will probably be very light and just enough to make the cars look badly and muddy.

I got an invitation to the wedding rehearsal dinner for next month. Obviously, I will be there and the Princess knows that I will be there. I think I can skip sending off an email reply. Besides, the Princess reads the blog so she can read about me being there for dinner.

After all, it is a free meal for me. Free is a good thing.

The Stylist
I went to see the Stylist today so I could have a hair cut and still look good for the wedding next month. I also celebrated her birthday. I found two really good cards including one that was hair stylist related. The Stylists liked the cards and giggled over them.

My hair cut turned out very nicely. I ought to look very nice in the wedding photos. The Stylist wants me to let her see some of the wedding photos. She also wants to see a photo of me from when I was younger, when I had dark brown hair.

I will have to root around this weekend to one or two photos of me.

Woman of the Moment
Time for me to end the week with some more Mary Castro photos.




Time for me to crawl off to bed and get a good night’s sleep.



Be well and stay happy.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Grilled Pork Chops

Grilled Pork Chops
I cooked grilled pork chops for our dinner tonight. Our is Doug and me. Mine was very tasty; I had it with applesauce and garlic mashed potatos.

Doug doesn’t eat applesauce so I sliced him a large tomato to go with the chop and potatos. Judging from the lack of comment from Doug and the manner in which he consumed his meal, I am highly confident that he enjoyed his meal.

Teaching
My Monday night class had a net gain in enrollment. Classes usually show a decline from week to week. My enrollment is now at 35, up from 33 the week before. I think this is the maximum for the course. The nice thing about the course is almost everyone is graduating at the end of the term; two students will graduate in March so I do not have to motivate them to come to class.

Sweet.

My Wednesday class is about tax preparation. I have a lab session each class that requires a software program to be loaded on the lab personal computers.

I asked my department chair to arrange to have the program loaded. My chair, as usual, punted and tossed the project back into my lap. I had to call the IT folks this morning and tell them which program I needed to have loaded. The head of IT said he didn’t have a copy of the program so now I have to give him my copy so he can load the program for the class.

Now, my program will be rendered unusable for my use. Oh well, teaching happens.

Woman of the Moment
I figure why not go with Mary Castro to end the day’s activities. It works for me.






Be well and stay happy.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Is Summer Over Now?

Is Summer Over Now?
Maybe yes.

It was cooler over the weekend but of course that may have just been all of the UCLA fans crying and drowning their sorrow after their team’s dreadful loss to our Utes on Saturday. Gloating over the victory is so much fun for the Princess and me.

The road in front of the building is about finished. The construction crew was out on Friday with the painting machines and just about completed all of the lane stripe painting. I think they can finish off with the crosswalks and the left turn lanes today. It will be very nice to have the project completed finally.

When I drive to school in the mornings, the sun is in my face. I am facing to the east. It seems to me that the sun has always risen in the east and it is always bright and fiery. Early in the morning, it is particularly difficult to see, looking to the east, because the sun is so low on the horizon.

So why do drivers have such a hard time driving east when I do?

I would hope that they would have learned by now to wear sunglasses the way professional drivers, like police officers and truckers, do. It is not too difficult a task to master. I think I learned how to drive with sunglasses on in less than five minutes. It is easy and safe

Safety, what a concept for drivers to follow.

I think we could improve the vehicle driving gene pool by taking those drivers who do not wear sunglasses out of it. We could avoid stupid accidents that happen because people can not see other vehicles around. I saw that accident happen on Thursday on my way to school.

Last week, I had thirty four students on my roster. I wonder how many I will have in class tonight.

Woman of the Moment
I have one of those “inquiring minds want to know” questions today about the current Woman of the Moment, Mary Castro.

According to her biography on her web site, and I am assuming she put up only information that was correct, Mary is 67 inches – 170 centimeters tall. That is on the tall side for a woman, maybe not tall enough for a woman’s basketball team but taller than most women.

Why does Mary continue to wear platform shoes that seem to anywhere between 4 to 6 inches – 10 to 15 centimeters to her height?

Inquiring minds want to know.






Be well and stay happy.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Weekend Update - September 16th

Weekend Update
I’m not certain that I will get all that I planned to complete this weekend. I changed my cable service a bit so that I now get the Versus Channel. The only reason to make the change is that Versus carries Mountain West Conference football including the UCLA – Utah game from Salt Lake City.

I checked the Sharon Tay website on Saturday. It is still in an under construction mode. I wonder when she will launch the web site.

Speed Options still has not updated their model of the month feature. They are still showing the model from July. I would think that they could update the feature since it is now the middle of September.

Visitors
We had another good week for visitors. We had visitors from Germany [2], Australia [2] Chile, Spain [3], Texas [2], united Kingdom [3], India [2], Singapore [3], Canada [8], Ireland, New Zealand, Korea [3], Brazil, Hong Kong [2], Philippines, Belgium, Italy, Taiwan, Greece and Hungary.

We also had two visitors who stopped and spent some with the blog. One stated for twenty three minutes and the other stayed for twenty seven minutes.

I do appreciate all of you that took time out of your schedules to visit the blog.

Utah Football
The Los Angeles Times had an article on Tuesday about how badly beat up the Utah team is. In the first two weeks, Utah had lost its quarterback Brian Johnson, top running back Matt Asiata, wide receivers Brent Castell and A. J. Reilly, offensive tackle Jason Boone, defensive end Gabe Long, and line backer Matt Martinez. They were all starters.

Our Utes also lost back-up tight end Colt Sampson.

Ouch; losses of that nature are tough to overcome.

Weather wasn’t a factor in the game. It was clear and sunny and warm in Salt Lake City Saturdays afternoon.

The game was broadcast by the Versus Channel. The broadcast was about average for non-major network. The one thing that I didn’t like was the fact that Versus did not have a score crawl across the bottom of the screen so I could see how schools were doing.

The Princess called during the final minutes of the first half. She wanted to know if my friend Sharon was going to go to the wedding since today was the RSVP deadline. The Princess hadn’t received one from Sharon.

I said I hadn’t sent mine in either. She said, “Daddy, I know you’re coming.”

The Princess was very pleased when I told her that our Utes were up by the score of 10 to 7 at half time. The Princess and I talked off and on during the game until my cell phone battery started to fail. We called after Utah scored.

Utah 44 UCLA 6

Epic.

The game was over around the twelve minute mark of the first quarter when Utah went ahead 7 to 0.

I wonder what the score would have been if all of the Ute starters were healthy and played in the game. Oh well, I can’t worry about what might have been. I just know it would have been a bigger margin of victory for our Utes.

My brother will be very happy. He went to the University of Southern California and always roots for USC and whoever is playing UCLA.

Tomorrow’s Los Angeles Times Sports Section will have a very nice coverage of the game. I will send it off to the Princess. I know she will enjoy the article.

My Friend Sunny
As many of you know, I have chatted with a number of people over the last ten years. We usually have met because they sought me out to practice their English with me.

One of my current chat acquaintances asked me to help me pick out an American nickname. She said her Chinese name is too difficult for Americans to pronounce. I thought for a moment or two to come up with a name that I thought matched personality and would be easy to pronounce.

I suggested that she consider Sunny.

She was not excited by that recommendation. She wanted some other choices.

Since my friend is going to graduate school in the South, I went through some logical Southern choices like Melanie and Scarlet. She didn’t care for those choices.

In the end, my friend said that Sunny was a good choice after all.

College Classes
Some schools and universities have courses that are questionable in my mind. I used to think that courses in subjects like Exercise Management were bogus and only offered to give the athletes an easy course to pass. You know, like basket weaving.

I think I found a new educational low for a college course for academic credit on Thursday.

Pitzer College, one of the Claremont Colleges, is offering a course on You Tube. The students watch You Tube video clips and then discuss the clips. Pitzer is a top level, private liberal arts school and is located in Southern California.

Where was the Academic Senate when this course was approved?

What will the parents, who are paying around USD$30,000 a year to send their children to Pitzer, say?

At least I know that all of the courses I have taught will be able to help the students earn a living after graduation.

Doug
Doug will be staying with me for the next two weeks or for most of the next two weeks. He has a temporary job as an assistant with a production company on the Sony Pictures lot. I will try my hand at cooking again since he will be here for dinners.

Woman of the Moment
I only had one thought about these photos of Mary Castro.

I hope that wasn’t poison ivy she had in the photos. As an eagle Scout, I ought to remember what poison ivy looks like.




My Friend Sharon
My friend Sharon, not Sharon Tay, called me on Thursday evening. She was on her way home from work.

Sharon wanted to know what I had been doing and how I was. That was nice of her; to show an interest in me. Like most conversations with Sharon, I listened and she talked.

We talked about the Princess’ wedding. Sharon said that she didn’t think she would be able to go because she is going to have to stay close to home to take of her mother who broke her foot. Sharon had wanted to go to Atlanta because she has never had a chance to go there. She wanted to go sight seeing and shopping.

I told the Princess about Sharon’s mother and that she didn’t think she would be able to go to the wedding. The Princess understood completely. These things happen.

Market
I went to the market on Sunday. I will be back at the market on Monday to pick up the dinners for Doug and me during the week. I feel proud of myself for not having another Mocha Mudslide from the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf store in the market. Once in a week is enough for me.



That was my weekend. I hope you had fun this weekend.

Be well and stay happy.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Weekend Bonus Feature - September 14

Weekend Bonus Feature - Tamao Sato
Here we are at the weekend and it is time again for the Weekend Bonus Feature. The Bonus Feature is a reward for those of you who visit the blog on Friday or Saturday. it is not the same as the full blog but it is a good substitute until Sunday.





Nothing but bikinis.

Sweet start for a weekend.


Be well and stay happy

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Weekend Preview - September 13th

Weekend Preview
I have to do some laundry again this weekend. I so do not look forward to laundry and cleaning.

Weekends also mean lesson plans to write and quizzes to design.

Hopefully, I will have some time to relax and rest and enjoy the weekend. I should be able to do this since my lunch plans with my friend Vivian have been pushed back into October.

Painting the Prelude
I had time to think about painting the Prelude as I drove to class yesterday. I’ll more about the drive later on.

Now that the Prelude’s paint is starting to fade from too much sun exposure and crud in the air, I have to think about the possibility of repainting the car. The obvious color choice would be Honda Black, the same as the original paint. Then, it would look like it just came from the factory.

Well, almost like it just came from the factory.

Since the inside trim is mostly a beige color, I can almost select any color and it will look good. Originally, I was thinking about having the Prelude repainted in British Racing Green. That is a dark green color. I’ve always like that color, ever since I had my MGB.

Lately, Wednesday actually, I started thinking about a dark blue color. Dark blue would look good with the interior and black trim. I have never had a blue car before so that would be a change for me.

The whole problem with painting the Prelude is the cost. Once I paint it, then, I have to go ahead with the big repairs like a new transmission and front axles. Of course, I would want to add alloy wheels to make the Prelude look really sharp.

At the end of the day, I am faced with this question.

Does it make much sense to pour USD$7,000 or so into a nineteen year old car?

That’s a difficult question to answer.

Vivian’s Man of the Moment
Today’s Vivian’s Man of the Moment is Jason Mraz. Vivian has had a long time interest in Jason from when he was a local singer in San Diego and Vivian was there for school. As you know, Vivian is very partial to actors and this is logical since she helps finance film productions.




Vivian and I are going to get together for lunch I think in a couple of weeks. We had planned to have lunch this Sunday but she is exhausted from attending the Toronto Film Festival. Then, Doug and I are doing something the following week so I suggested October since Vivian wants to see some wedding photos.

It all works out in the end.

Sharon Tay and 9∙11
Like many Americans, I was shocked and horrified as the television broadcast the attack on New York City that day.

I woke up that morning and was watching the early morning local news show on Channel 5 because it was co-hosted by Sharon Tay, an obviously good decision on my part. When I switched the television on, it was broadcasting a report about a plane flying into the World Trade Center. I saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center as it happened.

Clearly, it was a sobering and transformational moment for our Nation.

The one thing that I can clearly remember was how professional and calm Sharon was during the broadcast. She did not panic or become overly emotional and that was probably a very good thing for her viewers.

I have always respected Sharon for that.

All of which brings me up to Tuesday.

Sharon was providing a new report for the early morning news show from a memorial in Manhattan Beach, the next city over from Redondo Beach. I could have hopped in the Prelude and driven over to see her report live but that would have been stalking on my part.

Woman of the Moment
Here are some more Mary Castor images from her web site. These should be a nice way to start the weekend.




Black and white is nice.


Be well and stay happy.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Sunny and Not So Warm

Sunny and Not So Warm
It was sunny and not very hot today. It was a perfect day at the beach.

I took the Prelude to the car wash this morning. It was filthy and badly in need of a good cleaning. It was filthy on the outside; it was clean inside. The Prelude also crossed over 347,000 miles – 558,400 kilometers mark this morning.

Sweet.

After I got home, I noticed that the paint on the hood is starting to fade. This is expected after all the car is now nineteen years old. I guess I will think about repainting it once I decide if I am going to make all of the major repairs that it needs.

Teaching
I found out that I have thirty four students in my class last night. That is the most I have ever had in a class. I think it is the largest class this term.

For the most part, it will be a good class for me. All of the students will be graduating at the end of the term so they are focused on finding a good job and my class will help them find a good job.

I won’t have to do too much motivating to get the student to do the work. I just have to remind them to learn the phrase, “Would you like fries with your order?” Working at McDonald’s for USD$8.00 an hour is no fun.

Woman of the Moment
I decided to go with a simple bikini image collection tonight. I hope no one objects.






Be well and stay happy.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Monday Morning Leftovers

Monday Morning Leftovers
Mondays just seem like a blog posting leftover day to me.

I have an evening class so I have to write and post an entry either in the afternoon or when I get home from school. Starting to write a blog posting around 10:00 PM on an empty stomach is not the most productive approach to being creative. Besides, I will want food and sleep more than filing your need to see what my life was like today.

Doug came over on Sunday night in preparation for an interview this morning. We started to watch the Video Music Awards. That show was a train wreck and we could only suffer through the first thirty minutes before we had to bail out of the program.

We both did not believe the aired statement that the program would only be broadcast once. It will recycle on television for the next few days and weeks and maybe months.

The larger question in my mind was why was the Palm Hotel and Casino hosting the event? I suppose they did it for the promotional aspect of being the host venue. But, after a quick check of The Palm’s extended weekend [Friday to Wednesday] pricing on Expedia.com, I wonder who the target market would be since the average nightly room rate was USD$320 for a standard room that is not on the Las Vegas Strip where the vast majority of the casinos are located. That price seems high for the likely VMA audience.

Anyway, it was painful to watch and I am glad I crawled off to bed at 9:30 PM.

I had an early morning phone call from the recruiter. We talked for about half an hour. I think I did well with the phone interview as he said he would try to set me up for an interview with the credit union sometime this week. I will see what develops next.

I caught Sharon Tay on the early morning news report today. She had a small segment about a new program by Los Angeles City Schools to escort students from their parents’ cars to the school proper. It seems a lot of students have been injured getting in and out of cars.

Parents must not be paying attention to the basic business at hand.

What ever happened to the school bus and walking or riding a bicycle to school? I rode the bus for a while and then I shifted over to a bicycle and later walking when I was in high school. My brother did about the same. On those rare days when it rained, we either got a ride or took the bus.

The Princess
I had a long phone call with the Princess on Sunday.

We talked about the wedding and how the plans were coming along. I told her that she ought to expect my wedding gift around the end of the week. She was excited; she is always excited about opening a gift.
Her bachelorette party in San Diego was last weekend and it was excellent. She said that she ran into a bachelor party where all of the attendees were from Atlanta and the other wedding will be on the same day as her wedding.

I thought that was fascinating.

The Princess told me that all of her immediate family would be at the wedding. She suggested that I might want to take everyone who wants to join me for lunch on Friday. The Princess said she would send me a list of nice, local [walking distance] restaurants. I wonder if they will be able to handle a party of ten or twelve for a Friday lunch.

Woman of the Moment
The new Woman of the Moment is Mary Castro, a Speed Options model. Mary is from Southern California, born in West Covina in the San Gabriel Valley on April 14, 1981.

For the statistically inclined, Mary is 67 inches – 170 centimeters tall and measures 36D – 25 – 36 inches or 91 – 66 – 91 centimeters.

The photos came from her web site http://www.marycastro.net. I think only a handful of the photos are in outfits other than bikinis which should please the readership and possibly increase blog traffic.






Be well and stay happy.