Missing Blog Postings

Missing Blog Postings
Last week was a bad week for blog posting. I had a lot of distractions to deal with. First of all, I had final examinations and papers to read and grade in my classes and then turn in my electronic grade books.

Then, Doug called to see if I wanted to go see INGLOURIOUS BASTARDS with him on Friday up at one of the cinemas near my flat. I invited Doug to join me for lunch before the film. While at lunch, we talked about getting a new phone as an early Christmas gift and decided we could do that on Saturday since he had some free time. We also decided to try his new strip mall Mexican food place in South O. C. for lunch before phone shopping.

INGLOURIOUS BASTARDS
We went to see the film after a reasonably healthy lunch. Doug had a vegetarian pizza; he is still on his “I am not eating beef” diet. I had a turkey club sandwich.

We talked about films at lunch and, in particular, car chases in films. Personally, I have always liked the car chases from BULLET and the FRENCH CONNECTION. As a film studies major, Doug had a completely different and more expansive list. Doug and the Movie Club [Doug and four of his film friends] are working on a blog posting of some sort about car chases. He suggested that I start a list of films to buy with great car chases.

Doug said that four out of five members of the Movie Club thought DISTRICT 9 was the best film of the year. I will probably see that film this week.

INGLOURIOUS BASTARDS is a longish film at about 150 minutes. It does move along fairly swiftly though. It deserves its “R” rating for violence and language. The film is Quentin Tarantino’s alternate version of World War II; it is a Tarantino film for sure and certain. I thought the use of the Sergio Leone style of music from the spaghetti westerns was an interesting and very effective departure from what one would normally expect to hear, 1940s jazz. Somehow, I don’t think “In the Mood” would work well as a background theme as something that sounded like the theme song from A FIST FULL OF DOLLARS while Brat Pitt as craving up someone with a Bowie knife.

We can both recommend the film as worth seeing; so long as you remember that it is a violent film. Doug said he plans to see the film again with the Movie Club; he only does this with films he really likes.

Teaching and Students
I got my final teaching schedule for the coming term. I was disappointed that I will only have one class on Friday night.

I will be teaching Group Dynamics so that is a benefit and compensation for the Friday night class. I also know that I can expect to have fewer than the tentative class of 32 students show up every night. I am a good teacher but I cannot compete with Southern California on a Friday night.

Every quarter, the school holds an in-service session. This is about teacher training and providing us with new policies and procedures. I learned a long time ago that instructors get blamed for everything that goes wrong.

Such is our lot in the educational world.

On the plus side of staying at school after my Wednesday class for the in-service, I did get a very nice hug from one of the younger female instructors. Hugs are always accepted.

Then, on Thursday, as the students were finishing up the Microeconomics final examination, one of my students who has been in three other of my classes asked if I could write a letter of recommendation for him and one other student. I said that I would and that I would drop them off in their Saturday morning class. They left before I arrived at the class; I left the letters with their instructor to give to them on Monday.

I went by school on Saturday on my way out to see Doug at his mother’s house. I made my attempt at delivering the letters and completed my electronic grade books. I also killed some with the Saturday sudoku puzzle and some coffee.

Saturday was also new student orientation day. That meant donuts for me and the rest of the instructors. I passed on the Starbucks Coffee because it was not decaffeinated.

As I was leaving school, I ran into two of my former semi-favorite students. They were out and about causing confusion. They were talking with their department chair about one of the instructors in their department who, I guess, happens to be unpopular with them.

I suggested that they could come take my class on Friday night.

Esther C. and Jessie B. said, “We don’t do Friday nights.”

I tried to liven up my class by having them take it because I know they would have fun in the course and help make the class interesting.

Tea for the Princess
I stopped by the tea store to pick up some tea for the Princess and the Golfer.

I am fairly confident that they will enjoy the tea. One of the three pouches contains tea leaves from a single tea bush and the bush is probably several hundred years old. It is definitely not what they have been drinking, based on what I have sent them and it is unlikely they can get this type of tea in Seattle. The other two bags contained lightly flavored teas from the Phoenix Mountain in Guangdong Province in China.

The tea store owner said the teas would probably keep for at least a year. I don’t think they will last that long with the Princess and the Golfer. They both like tea. The owner suggested that the Princess should go to the store web site for brewing instructions. She also said that she responds to email questions and that the Princess could call her as well.

I mailed the teas along with some other stuff off to the Princess over the weekend. With any luck, she should be enjoying her new tea by the middle of the week.

Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf & Tihana
I went over the local Coffee Bean on Sunday for a large ice blended coffee drink. I hadn’t been to the Coffee Bean in a couple of weeks.

Sunday was my lucky day. Tihana was working then. She made my ice blended drink and it was excellent. Tihana was also very happy because it was “clean off the top of my dresser day” where I scoop up all of the loose coins on my dresser and toss them into the tip box.. I figure there was five or six dollars in coins.

It looks like my days of having excellent ice blended drinks are numbered. Tihana is expecting; she said that she was due around November 18th. That means that I probably have about two more months, maybe less depending on her health, of looking forward to the excellent drinks.

I will miss Tihana.

But, life goes on and change must happen eventually.

Visitors
The blog visitor traffic is still on the low side compared with earlier this year. Last week, we had 148 visitors who viewed 195 unique pages.

I suppose that I could start running the Woman of the Moment feature again but I am not that interested in doing that because it was a fair amount of work to find all of the images. Besides, the Princess would probably frown on me if I did.

Programming Note
This week and next week I am off from school so I will be posting even less than I have been in the recent past. I know that is disappointing to some. I am entitled to take some time off every now and then. Furthermore, it is the end of Summer for me with Labor day right around the corner.


Be well and stay happy.

Woodstock

Woodstock – 40th Anniversary
I was sort of caught up in the Woodstock 40th Anniversary over the weekend. It was hard to escape the television coverage of aging hippies waxing semi-eloquently over how great the actual event was.

I think more people have claimed to have been at Woodstock than were actually there; sort of like the Middle Ages and the sale of religious relics than included pieces of the Cross.

This all got me to thinking what was I doing when Woodstock was happening.

At the time, I was in a semi-depressed state.

A month or so earlier, I had a terrible breakup with my girl friend. We changed dramatically in the year that I had been overseas on the good ship USS Leonard F. Mason. I had just been transferred from the Mason to the good ship USS Lucid as the Operations Officer. I was also looking at my third trip to Vietnam and having my active duty service time being extended involuntarily to complete the project one year cruise – deployment.

The Lucid was in San Diego at the Fellows & Stewart Shipyard undergoing a major overhaul when I joined her. The ship was a noisy, dusty mess and I suppose this contributed to my discomfort. The Mason was always ready for sea and neat and clean.

I probably had the duty that weekend. I had the watch as the Command Duty Officer from Friday morning until Monday at Noon. When you are the CDO, you cannot leave the ship. I think we had perhaps 25 enlisted men on the ship with me.

There was too much for me to do. The ship was in dry dock with large holes in the bottom. We had no anchors or any electronics equipment except for a partially installed sonar system. The new sonar system resulted in the removal of the ship’s one gun. It was a small 40 mm gun but it was still a gun.

Had I not had the break up with the girl friend, she would have probably come down to the ship to have dinner with me. That would have made the days go by faster.

Colorectal Surgery Clinic
I had been phoning the clinic off and on for three weeks to talk to them about consolidating two appointments I had scheduled for September. On Friday, I finally got a return phone call from the clinic. The clerical staffer who called said the clinic was going to consolidate the two appointments. That was nice of them.

This experience of having to call the clinic and leave voice messages for three weeks did not give me an altogether good feeling about the idea of a completely government run medical program in the United States. All of my calls were placed when the clinic was open. I knew the clinic was open because I only placed calls at times when I had previous appointments so there was no apparent reason why someone in the clinic could not have picked up the phone.

I suppose that I should not be upset since the clinic has established a low level of customer – patient service and satisfaction with Doug and me.

Referral Sites and Popular Pages
I was wandering around Sitemeter.com’s statistics for the blog over the weekend. I do this randomly.

I noticed that I had referrals from sites that I would not have thought of. One was from SkeetonMischa which was Doug’s old blog at blogger.com. The site has been dormant for close to two years now. The other one of interest was from bing.com. I would not have thought that bing.com was indexing any of the blog.

Doug was surprised when I mentioned to him that I had a referral from his old blog site last week. I think his explanation was that good writing doesn’t go out of style.

In another surprise to me, the actual blog is now the second most read page. None of the readers have posted any comments about the blog. I think I have had only two or three actual comments about something that I wrote.

My favorite comment came from Faline Song. She was one of my Women of the Moment and was featured in 2007. I think she was one of the last of the Women of the Moment. I ended up with a collection of over 65 images of her.

Faline said that she liked the nice things that I wrote about her.

Perfectomundo.


Be well and stay happy.

Annoyances

Annoyances
Life is full of annoyances. Mine is no different.

I came home from the market on Tuesday to find a notice on my door from the building management board. It said the building’s fire alarm system was out of compliance with the city fire codes. Apparently this is something that is serious since work had to start the next day.

Finding out the building’s fire alarm system was out of compliance was more than a minor annoyance for me. After all, my life could depend on it functioning properly in case of an emergency.

The work on Wednesday was mostly unnoticeable by me. I know there were workers in the building but I only saw them when I came home from my Wednesday morning class.

I really noticed the workers on Thursday. Thursday was the beginning of testing of the smoke sensors in all of the units. This seemed like a very good idea to me. Unfortunately, it meant the alarm in my unit was going off about every twenty minutes or so. The alarm is a very high pitched shrill piercing sound. This continued into Friday.

I was able to get all of my spaces tested so I am off the hook for any more interruptions. The testing was not completed on Friday so part of it will have to be completed early next week. The remaining testing should only take a morning to complete. I will have to put up with the alarm going off during the testing.

Of course, one morning next week would be an excellent day to go see some films like PONYO and DISTRICT 9 at the local multiplex.

I am still curious about the term “out of compliance” and what it means or meant. I also wonder how long the fire alarm system was out of compliance.

Teaching
I picked up my tentative teaching schedule for the next term. Right now, I am semi-firmly slotted to teach one course. I may get to teach another course but that depends on class enrollment which is uncertain.

The class is one that I have taught before so that means I won’t have to create any new lesson plans or lecture notes. That will save me a bunch of preparation time.

Unfortunately for me or maybe it is some of the bad karma from this life and any of my prior lives that is catching up with me. The class is a large one with a projected enrollment of 39 students. The class is also on Friday night from 6:00 to 9:20 PM.

The Friday night session is both good and bad. It is bad because it is Friday night and if you are a young person in Southern California, where would you want to be on Friday night. School is not likely to make any list of the top ten places to be on Friday night.

The good part is that all 39 students are highly unlikely to show for class on every class session. In the past, when student attendance was a major instructor evaluation factor, having a Friday night class could kill your evaluation. So attendance is something that is considered but its weighting has fallen off significantly.

I won’t know about the second class until the end of next week. I can wait that long.

Visitors
It is still Summer somewhere and the blog visitor count remains depressed from the first half of the year. The past week saw 158 visitors who stopped by to view 215 unique pages. I do appreciate all of you who took time from your lives to visit the blog.


Be well and stay happy.

Interesting Reading

Interesting Reading
I was reading one of my Internet news feeds this afternoon. I try to stay informed about what is going on in my world.

There was an article on the very promising use of aspirin as a treatment regimen for colon cancer patients. It seems like very good news because aspirin is really cheap and I don’t need a prescription for it. I think a bottle with sixty low dose tablets costs a couple of dollars, certainly a lot less than the Xeloda which is now down to USD$397.95 for a two week supply.

Of course, there are some side effects like internal bleeding. But, compared to the risks of colon cancer reoccurrence, the bleeding seems like a worthwhile tradeoff.

Now, I will have something to ask Dr. Karen when I see her on the 28th instead of my usual questions like how was the latest series of blood tests.

Grips and Complaints
I went to the local Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Sunday as usual.

Regrettably for me, Tihana was not working on Sunday. She hasn’t been working on either of the last two Sundays when I went by for my iced blended drink. I am beginning to think the baristas didn’t pay attention to my request for the drink to be made with decaffeinated coffee.

I am certain that my drink on Sunday was made with regular coffee. I did not sleep at all that night. I think I might have gotten four or five hours of tossing and turning sleep. On Monday night, I took in a solid ten hours of very restful sleep.

Why is it so hard to simply make a drink the way a customer has asked for it?

I know that Tihana had no trouble in making my iced blendeds with decaffeinated coffee. Some of the other baristas were able to do the same.

Was I asking for too much? I don’t think so. Of course, the tip stayed in pocket.


I have a high definition television. Doug urged me to get one last year and I will agree with him that having a high definition television is the best way to view almost anything outside of a regular sized cinema; especially watching the 2009 Sugar Bowl football game where our Utes crushed Alabama..

I do have a less than modest complaint about the high definition service. The local newspaper only lists the low definition broadcast schedule. I have to use the cable service’s on-set program guide to find out what the high definition schedule is.

This is not too much of a problem with the broadcast channel programming because it follows the listed programming schedule. The cable channels follow in a less than logical order and seem to be based on what is being shown on the East Coast.

This is so frustrating for me.


Be well and stay happy.

Leftover thoughts and observations and events

Leftover thoughts and observations and events
This blog posting is a collection of activities and drama in my life that failed to make it into the regular log postings of the week. Some weeks, my life is on the dull and boring side.


I had lunch this past Monday with two members of my senior management when I was the president of a medium sized credit union. We used to have lunch once a quarter when we first started the practice several years ago. As time went by, we found it easier to defer the lunches because of any number of valid reasons such as having a separate life.

We’re all like that you know.

We had the last lunch in probably two years, maybe longer. But, the time interval doesn’t really matter that much. It was Sharon’s turn to buy the lunch; she was the Chief Marketing Officer. Sue will buy the next lunch. She is eager to plan the next one; Sue was the Chief Financial Officer.


From left to right, Sharon, Sue, and me.

We agreed to meet at the Olive Garden restaurant in the Ontario Mills Mall complex in Ontario, California and not Canada. The Olive Garden was chosen because it was convenient for Sue and Sharon; they both work out in the area.

Interestingly, I was the first to arrive even though I had to travel the farthest at about 55 or 60 miles. Well, I thought it was interesting to me.

I can’t say a lot about the meal. I had a simple lunch of some bread sticks and pasta with scallops, shrimp, clams, and mussels in a spicy tomato sauce. The bread sticks are extremely nice when they are served warm from the oven or bread warmer.

Most of the table chatter was about our children; Sue had one daughter get married a year ago and is looking forward to her other daughter getting married in a year when she finishes up her medical schooling. Sue’s son seemed to get by passed in the conversation or maybe I was not paying that much attention.

Sharon has no children.

For those of you who are regular readers of the blog, you know more than is probably necessary about the Princess and Doug.

I enjoyed myself and, as I drove home, I wished that we had not let so much time pass between meals.


I checked the blog visitor count yesterday. It doesn’t look good for my earlier prediction that the blog might achieve its 50,000th visitor this month. Right now, the total visitor count is at 49,220.

I did take a look at who is visiting the blog. We had one visitor this week that stayed around for 50 minutes. I think he or she was taking time to look at some of the pages that feature the actresses or models. We also had some Marines stop by.

Semper Fi Marines.


Be well and stay happy.

An Almost Epic Day

An Almost Epic Day
Friday was an almost epic day for me. It was my regular once every three weeks appointment to see Dr. Karen.

I am calling it an almost epic day because Dr. Karen on vacation on Friday. I got to see one of her medical BFFs, Dr. Michelle Wang. Dr. Wang is a very nice doctor and is an oncology fellow just like Dr. Karen.

I wonder if there is a female version for a member of a fellowship program or not. Would she be a fella or fellete?

Wendy and Vrunda really liked the Tommy Bahama aloha shirt that I wore to the clinic. I told them I wanted to dress up for them and look nice. That made them giggle and smile.

Some of the patients do not seem to care about their appearance and that may be a result of their condition. I suppose that if you are a woman and you have lost your hair, it is difficult to want to look nice.

Dr. Wang kept the appointment short because she was not familiar with me. I think this was the second time has seen me. She suggested that I hold any questions regarding long term treatment plans until Dr. Karen returns in three weeks. I don’t know if Dr. Karen is on vacation for three weeks; my next appointment is in three weeks.

One thing nice about Dr. Wang is that she starts seeing patients early. I was the first patient to be seen so I was in and out of the oncology clinic quickly. She gave me my prescription and I was off to the pharmacy.

The pharmacy is usually a bottleneck when I go to the clinic. Friday it was like an express lane for me. I walked in and picked up my number to drop off my prescription. I looked up and saw that my number was the next patient to be helped by the pharmacy clerks. I walked right up to the counter and turned the prescription in.

I was in and out of the oncology clinic and pharmacy in less than two hours. I still had to return to the pharmacy to pick up the prescription but that was in the late afternoon. The pickup only took five minutes to complete.

In and out in less than two hours; an epic day.


Be well and stay happy.

lab tests today

Lab tests today
I went into the hospital for my regular lab tests after my morning class today. The tests were uneventful for me; there was only a very minor pain from the needle. That was nice and so was the short time I had to spend at the hospital. I was in and out, including updating my patient information in about twenty five minutes. What is especially noteworthy is that I was there during the middle of the lunch period.

My Brother
My Brother phoned me on Tuesday and asked me to see if I could find some financial information on a potential client of his. My Brother sells natural gas for industrial uses. His client was a domestic subsidiary of a Korean chaebol [conglomerate] that does not release financial information.

Korean businesses are secretive by nature. They do not like to furnish financial information to anyone generally except another Korean. By dinking around several different web sites of public, listed companies that are part of the chaebol, I was able to piece together enough financial information so that my Brother’s company’s credit department can make a decision and approve a sale.

I’m not sure how much business he can get from the potential client since the project is scheduled for demolition in later 2010. The replacement project would be very attractive for him to land as a client.

Visitors
I checked our visitor count this afternoon following my lunch. The traffic count was down slightly from last week. We had 154 visitors who viewed 187 unique pages. At this rate, it looks doubtful if the blog will cross the 50,000 visitor mark this month. Right now, the blog visitor count is at 49,185.

In any event, I still do appreciate those of you who take time to stop by and visit the blog.


Be well and stay happy.

Buzzin' Around

Buzzin’ Around
I was out buzzing around this morning; taking care of this and that and running errands. I figured it was best to make all of my trips in the morning when it is cooler at the beach and the roads are less crowded. Mostly, I needed to go to the ATM to get some pocket money for the next week or so.

I discovered that a road I drive on regularly is being torn up for repaving this week. I hope the road is resurfaced by the end of the week. It is inconvenient to take a longer way around the construction work.

bikini baristas
I was watching the local news yesterday when I happened to catch a feature on independent coffee stores that are now serving coffee made by female baristas who wear bikinis. This obviously caught my attention. Naturally, some people are upset by this.

As for me, I do not believe it will impact me very much. So long as the coffee store passes the local health inspections and receives a grade of “A,” I am satisfied. I don’t think my favorite coffee store chain, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, will adopt this dress policy so it is mostly a point of discussion I guess.

I suppose I would reconsider if my favorite barista Tihana were to go to work at one these coffee stores.

Personally, I think this is only a warm weather idea. I just can’t see young women wanting to work at the drive up window in a bikini top and bottom in the middle of what passes for a cold December here in Southern California.


Carbon dating myself
I can remember when we tended to avoid sending massive files to our friends as email attachments. A large file was defined as something more than 250 kb. Of course, this was back when we were all using Netscape 1.0 as our web browser and 28.8 kb was considered to be a very fast modem speed.

I was reminded of this when my old CFO from when I was a credit union president sent me three files of photos of her daughter’s wedding a year ago. The three files totaled 21 MB and were downloaded quickly.

Isn’t technology grand?

cell phone battery
Technology isn’t so grand when it comes to cell phone batteries. The six month old cell phone battery in my Nokia cell phone died on either Sunday or Monday when it wouldn’t hold a charge.

Since it is a cell phone battery, you just can’t walk to your nearest Ace Hardware store, at the bottom of the hill, and buy a replacement.

Finding a replacement is work, much like going on a safari with a less than skilled guide.

I first went to Best Buy because they sell all of the cell phone plans from all of the major and not so major vendors. I figured since they sell for all of the major carriers they would have lots of batteries.

As it turned out, they don’t carry any batteries. Best Buy expects you to sign up for a new phone and another two year extension on your existing service contract when your original battery dies.

Great for the phone companies but not very good for me.

The Nokia that I have is a simple, simple being a relative term here, cell phone. I can talk on it, send and receive text messages, take a few photos, and send them if I had signed up for that extra cost feature on my phone plan.

Mostly, I talk. I have sent a grand total of 62 messages since I purchased this phone number in 1992 or 1993.

I left Best Buy disappointed and walked across the parking lot to the local AT&T store. It has a really crummy parking situation. AT&T was a disappointment for me; they had no batteries that fit my phone; they referred me to a t-mobile franchised dealer. The dealer carried a replacement battery.

The AT&T representative said that if I wanted a simple phone that I would have to order it from the AT&T online customer care service; more like noncustomer care service to me. This was not what I wanted to hear. I was expecting a response like this though.

DEFYING GRAVITY
I tuned into the new sci-fi program from ABC on Sunday night. I like sci-fi programming in general. I was a regular viewer of the Stargate SG-1 series on the Sci-Fi channel for years and before that, there was always a version of Star Trek available.

I didn’t think much of the program.

It seemed like it borrowed a great deal from the Star Trek spin-off series. The voyage commander plays with a baseball just like Commander Sisko and his son did in Star Trek Deep Space Nine. In one scene, the voyage commander was tossing and catching the baseball while he was on the ship in space where there is no gravity. The ball should not have fallen back into his hands.

Then, there is this mysterious entity that is beginning to plague the voyage at the very start by opening and closing exterior hatch and causing medical problems with the crew. I don’t know if this is an updated version of Q from Star Trek – Next Generation or a new version of HAL.

I gave the show the benefit of the doubt by watching the first two hour episode. If it fails to catch me next week, I think I will bail out and watch something else or maybe write some blog entries.

Lastly, the ship itself looks like it came from 2001. It has that long cylindrical look that I suppose makes some sense. Frankly, I think a more compact vessel would make more sense since it would be easier to get around in for the crew and not have the crew all spread out. In space, there is no friction causing drag to avoid.


Be well and stay happy.

Cash for Clunkers

Cash for Clunkers
I suppose that most of you are now aware of the federal government’s cash for clunkers program to removed old, less fuel efficient vehicles from our nation’s highways. So far, it has been wildly successful and no one seems to know why or if they do know why, they seemed surprised.

Hello people, if you are giving away free money, people will respond to the offer.

This is not rocket surgery gentle readers. If you have an old vehicle that is worth next to nothing and someone will give up to USD$4,500 just for buying a fuel efficient vehicle, why wouldn’t you take advantage of free money?

The proposed extension contribution of USD$2 billion is not going to go very far. I think that money will be gone by August 15th.

Then, what happens next?

I think that new vehicle purchases will dry up or at least slow down dramatically. Take away a sweet incentive and people will return to their old ways; they will continue to drive their older cars.

Remember folks, this program was designed by the same Ivy League geniuses who are managing the federal government’s economic stimulus program.

Does that make you and your money feel any safer?

I read in the local newspaper this morning that at one local dealership only three out of fifteen cars for clunkers buyers could qualify for a loan to finance the purchase. I thought that the federal government was helping banks to lend to consumers. That was one of the objectives of the nearly USD$800 billion rescue plan for the nation’s financial system. I also read about government computer system crashes and failures. Did I mention changing rules and confusing policies too?

No? I’m sorry.

Looks like another mismanaged government program.

Just for kicks, I took a look at the successful cash for clunkers program in Germany. Germany has a population that is about 25% of the United States. The German plan put the equivalent of USD$5 billion into the purchases of older vehicles. If the United States followed Germany’s example, it should have funded the program with something close to USD$20 billion.

Where are we going to get the USD$20 billion? I don’t know where.

Paulina Garces
Any weekend day that has a Paulina Garces infomercial broadcast is a good day for me. I was trolling through my dial over the weekend and found Paulina in two new infomercials in addition to the regular two automobile dealer infomercails.

Excellent.

Paulina was in a new, for me at least, infomercial on skin care products. Since the infomercial was in Spanish, I really didn’t understand it. That’s fine since my skin is so old. The other young woman from the automobile dealer infomercials was in it too.

Excellent.

The second new infomercial for me was one for Direct TV, satellite television broadcast service. This was the first infomercial that I can recall were Paulina wore a dress. It was a short dress that stopped about half way between her hips and knees. Unfortunately for me, the infomercial never went with a long shot of her so much of the benefit of the short dress was lost to me.

Paulina was wearing a rather wide grey belt in this infomercial. I thought the wide belt was a poor choice since it drew my attention to her waist. A narrower belt would have been just as effective in my mind and would have been less likely to draw my attention to her waist..

Why am I always spending time with Doug?
One of my acquaintances asked me offline why do I spend so much time with Doug and hardly anytime with the Princess.

Perfectly good question.

I spend much more time with Doug because of geography. He lives about an hour’s drive away. Last Thursday, for example, when we had lunch, I was already in Anaheim for school and well over half way to his home.

The Princess, on the other hand, lives in Seattle, about 1,160 miles or 1,870 kilometers. It is a 17 hour drive according to MSN.com’s maps function. A round trip plane ride to Seattle is about USD$250, more or less, depending upon how far ahead to book your flights.

Visitors
The last week was better than the prior week but not much for visitors to the blog. We had 184 visitors to the blog who viewed 239 unique page sites. There was a slight shifting in favorite pages. For some reason, the blog itself moved into second place from the usual third or fourth spot in the most viewed pages list. Of course, I do have to qualify this by saying that I only go to blog periodically and Sitemeter.com only lists the most recent 100 pages views in the rankings.

For the month of July, we had a good but not great month for viewership. We had a total of 1,426 visitors who visited 1,426 unique pages. The blog is on track to have its 50,000th visitor sometime during the month of August.

I do appreciate all of you who stop by the blog from time to time.


I hope you al had great weekends. I did in spite of the coastal clouds that blocked the sun for most of the weekend.


Be well and stay happy.