Cooking For Engineers!

This is a great site! A few nights ago in the book club we discovered many of our husbands use http://www.cookingforengineers.com/ site to cook. I checked it out and I LOVE it! I specially like the chart at the bottom of the recipe to keep you all organized and on task. Yes, ok, I know... I'm a geek and I don't care!!!

I'll be trying the grilled salmon tonight!!!

Thanks to Harry Potter a new game is in play...

Whatever happened to those Harry Potter-obsessed 11- and 12-year-olds who devoured the books and went everywhere dressed as Harry and Hermione? They're in college now, and instead of the usual campus sports, you'll find some of them running around on brooms, chasing the snitch. We visited the College Quidditch World Cup finals in Vermont to see how the game is played by young adults with brooms that can't actually fly.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97260173&ft=1&f=1032

Explore flu trends across the U.S.

OH SO Clever!

Google has found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity in your state up to two weeks faster than traditional systems.

http://www.google.org/flutrends/

Wonder what else they'll accomplish with search?

Bored out of my mind

So, here is my horoscope for the day:

Taurus April 20 - May 20
For Tuesday, November 18 -People aren't listening very carefully, today -- there is a lot of distraction in the air, so be warned that what you say might be misinterpreted. When you speak the truth in a direct manner, some folks might think you come off as pushy or even pompous. It stinks that you have to exert extra energy to make sure they don't read you wrong, but you do. The good news is that by putting forth the extra effort to make things clear with them, they will give you a huge reward.

How Not to Look Old

I like this book. It's practical and I like how at the end of the chapter it has product recommendations. I'm at the age that I now require maintenance so these kinds of books come in handy. I also liked it cuz it's available on Kindle!

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0446581143/bookstorenow30-20

See my blog entry on Kindle here: http://urabrand.blogspot.com/


Here I have a picture of Helen Mirren. An example of a woman that will never look old. I hope I look this good when I'm her age!

CNN Weight Loss Center

Pretty Cool - lots of inspiring stories and good information:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2008/fit.nation/index.html

Heard a Great term today!!!!

Instead of saying "Weight Loss" I heard a woman in the Weight Loss and Health industry say "Weight Transference" That's what she called weight loss -- I think that's a riot....

"I don't need to lose weight! I need to transfer it!" -- and that begs the question where do you transfer it to??? Then instinctively makes me wanna say "Please keep your transference to your self...I've been transferred to enough."

It almost sounds like a disease, doesn't it? "I'll transfer my fatness to you... How is that honey?"

What I'm Reading These Days

I'm reading Suite Francaise these days for the book club and I found out through Facebook that a friend of mine is reading it as well. And he can't seem to put the book down. It intrigued me that he is enjoying it so much and then I found out he is a Balzac fan.


While in college I had a professor who was obssessed with Balzac. Her life's goal was to read all of Balzac's work before she leaves this world. Now that I look back she looked to be about in her 50's and to my 20 year old mind she seemed so ancient and I remember internally wishing her well and wishing that she indeed gets to have her dream fulfilled... Anyhow, I digress...

I found from him that he likes Balzac cuz Balzac mixes fiction with Journalism. So I'm now asking him what he thinks of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And this reminds me of when I had to read the "Autumn of the Patriarch" in college for my Masters Degree. OH MY GOD. I thought I'd go insane. The book barely has any punctuations or any paragraphs. You feel controlled by the author and imprisoned. You can't get away. There are no punctuations to allow you to get away. So slowly you start feeling insane... Quite an experience.

As a class we all felt so angry by the book. It has so much power over us. Quite an experience.
If you ever get a chance and you haven't read the book, at the very least I suggest that you take a look inside it and see what I mean. Just read a page or two... You won't forget the experience.

End of Innocence

My little baby - maybe not so little - lost his Pokemon cards at camp. This, after all the warnings his dad and I gave him. A few weeks ago I had argued with him until I was blue in the face on how he should not take his cards to camp. But he wouldn't (or maybe couldn't) believe that people would take his cards. And it happened. He lost about 200 of his best cards in camp. Vanished, gone, poof!

When he came home he was inconsolable. He cried and cried. He'd calm down and cry again. Lamenting that he had lost his best cards. He cried at dinner, he cried in the shower, he cried at bed time. He'd ask "why"? Why would they take it? Why didn't I listen to you? Why did you let me take them to camp?

And it broke my heart over and over. Every tear broke my heart. My baby now knows there are those who are jaleous, there are those who'll steal, in this young life of his he now already has regrets.

As a mother I wish I could protect him. I wish I could delay dissapointment and mistrust. I'm so very sad for him and I'm reminded that he is on his way towards adulthood. However, I wish that he preserves as much innocence as possible before those adult years really come to greet him.

It is Such a Beautiful Day

It's July, It's Washington DC area and the weather is SO beautiful. I want to stay out all day!

New Word!

I love it....

Wikidemia
An academic work passed off as scholarly yet researched entirely on Wikipedia."An A on my English paper? That's a fine piece of Wikidemia!'

Go Wiki!!!!

This is Just to Say...

Have you heard of "This is just to say" poems? They are becoming increasingly popular on the Web. It all started with Williams Carlos Williams who wrote the following:

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Copyright © 1962 by William Carlos Williams.

So the poems begs the question. Is the author really sorry? Here are few others I found. I want to write one of my own. Please if you find any post them here for me.

http://onethingiknow.net/2008/04/30/this-is-just-to-say/

Time to be Positively Postive!

Take a look at this wonderful website:

http://www.positivityblog.com/

-- Sepi

Notoriously bad with...

Money - specially my own well only mostly exclusively my own. :-( That's what I am. I love these links:

http://www.usnews.com/features/business/your-money/money-saving-tips.html

I love this title: Taking a Vow of Frugality - we'll see how well these links will work for me.

I like this one

Since I'm "trying" to learn how to play poker... I enjoyed reading about the Dead Man's Hand in Poker:

http://wordsmith.org/words/deadmans_hand.html

I fell for this one!

Ha Ha Ha! And I was so fascinated.... Ah well it's good to be duped this way - once in a while!

http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/91536

The Not-So-Lost Tribeby Mike Krumboltz
June 23, 2008 06:09:40 PM
Even in an age when cynical sleuths can hyper-analyze stories for truth and accuracy, the occasional hoax still slips through the cracks. Such was the case with a so-called "lost Amazon tribe."
A few months ago, mainstream news outlets (including, ahem, Yahoo!) reported that a photographer had found a lost tribe of warriors near the Brazilian-Peruvian border. Photos of the tribe backed up his claim.
As it turns out, the story is only half true. The men in the photo are members of a tribe, but it certainly ain't "lost." In fact, as the photographer, José Carlos Meirelles, recently explained, authorities have known about this particular tribe since 1910. The photographer and the agency that released the pictures wanted to make it seem like they were members of a lost tribe in order to call attention to the dangers the logging industry may have on the group.
The photographer recently came clean, and news outlets, perhaps embarrassed at having been taken for a ride, have been slow to pick up the story. Now, the word is starting to spread and articles in the Buzz are picking up steam. Expect a lot more brutal truth in the coming days.

Envisioning myself as a Bride

Ok, so, my really good friend, Ladan, is on her way to becoming one of the top if not the top Wedding Planner in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area. So first of all "Watch out world!"

The upside is I listen to all her exciting stories and I love it when ever she has pictures to share. The downside is, I can't help myself thinking what I would do if I was to be a bride in the near future. Well it's not really such a downside ... Unfortunately the dress I have in mind were this event to take place can not be posted here as the readers would need access to facebook. Oh well, just as well... what's the point?

I'm back