Happy Birthday Observations

On January 12, 1982 you were born at 102 Lawton Ave. in Brookline, MA.
Your mother had a hard time getting you out of the womb because of your
big head. Your head was so big compared to your long thin body that
sitting up was a comical task. Your center of gravity was in your head
instead of you belly until you were about 12 months old. One of your
favorite activities as an infant/toddler was stacking blocks. You would
sit on the floor, literally for hours, stacking, unstacking, stacking,
unstacking and it seemed to please you without end. You always had a
happy and pleasantly calm demeanor except for a few weeks after your
birth, when I would sit up at all hours of the night rocking you because
you wouldn't sleep and your mother had difficulty nursing you.

You loved school from the very beginning. Your participation in baseball
was admirable, not being particularly athletic, you did well, but most
importantly you were an excellent team player. You never seemed to be
upset or express complaints about anything...sometimes that bothered me,
but generally I also considered this to be your ability to cope with
adversity. You caught on to the difference between right and wrong and
have developed a keen discipline in keeping to a high standard of
morality (as far as I know). I know however, that no one is perfect, but
you appear to have a strong integrity. I have always been impressed by
your sticking to your goals for yourself.

I have always been proud that you are my son. So if a son could succeed
at being a son, you have, and it inspires me too. So remember, it is not
from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are, so strive for
humility first, before you strive for the praise from others. And as
Mother Theresa said...."We cannot do great things, we can only do small
things with great love."

Love You, and Happy Birthday,

Dad

The Wonders of Proper Relaxation

I've started a new routine this past week in which I go to the gym in the late afternoon, around 5:30, and I run for a couple miles around the indoor track, and perhaps do some free weight exercise or two. After that I get in the hot tub for about 10 minutes. Then I get in the pool for another 10 minutes. I then get out of the water, towel off, sit down, and read a book for 15-30 minutes. Then I leave. Tonight I saw some fellow graduate student navigators, Natalie and Joel, working out while I was running.

It is extremely beneficial to my body to do this routine. Given that my back is not in the best of shape(chiropractically speaking), it often gets sore very easily. Being in water helps a lot because it relieves the pressure to a large extent that gravity puts on my back. Both the hot tub and the pool have very strong jets that I can massage my back on. The gym I'm going to is right in the middle of the campus of University of Illinois, where I go to school. It was just opened last spring and it is quite luxurious.

--
Love is the greatest thing in the world, but we mostly settle for so much less.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year's!

Living life is about perspective. No two people can sense exactly the same realities around them. If you limit yourself to your own perspective, you will miss the beauty of the world. Just a thought...

For Christmas I went to Cincinnati first and then Rachel and I drove up to her Grandma's house in the northwestern most county in Ohio. It's cold and flat and there's nothing there. But there is Rachel's family. Rachel's parents and brother and sister came also, from Maryland, and we had a good time together. Rachel's Grandma is a sweet and quiet woman who is generous and thankful. I think Rachel will be somewhat like her when she gets older(that's a good thing). :-)

I saw a good movie called Tampopo which means "Dandelion" in English. It's a wonderful movie about food and noodles. It's about a widowed woman who garners the help of skilled noodle chefs and others to make herself a truly great noodle chef and be able to have a successful business. It's a work of art about food. The tagline is "The first Japanese noodle western!"

Another good movie that I just saw last night for the third time is What's Up Doc? It stars Barbara Streisand, and while I do not care for her music, she is quite an excellent actress. It also stars Ryan O'Neil. And for you ladies out there, I think back in 1972 he was something of a Ewan McGregor ;-)

"Knowledge is just opinion that you trust enough to act upon." -Miro, Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card.

End of Semester

On Saturday at 6AM I finished my paper, thus finishing out my semester. I at least did alright in my classes. Can't say I did as well as I like, but then I have high standards for myself.

There's a nice service called del.icio.us that is a social networking site for sharing web links. They have buttons I can put right in my Opera web browser and post links to things that interest me. I can send the links to Rachel, or anyone else who uses the service. I can categorize the links by keyword or "tag" so other people can find them by searching for links labelled with a particular tag, or by subscribing to receive links with a certain tag. It's very interesting.

I'm also trying a new beta version of Gaim(2.0.0beta1), to see if I like it at all. AIM's ads have been getting on my nerves, screwing up my windows interface with those pop-up ads. They seem to have the effect that when I close the AIM buddy list window, I can't open it up again, and closing AIM from that point crashes the program.

The Bush administration needs to avoid the hilarious headlines it's been getting lately, like: Bush Vows More Eavesdropping.

Pigtails

I let Peggy Loo put my hair in pig tails. Looks pretty good I must say, although Chris my roommate strongly objects. So right after she braided my hair I did some one-armed pushups to reinforce the concept of my manliness despite my hair being in an apparently unacceptable state. Chris said it didn't matter. Oh well, I like it :-P

Drew's Vinegarette

I just made this very nice dressing for salad. You may want to try it:

lots of vinegar
a bit less olive oil than vinegar
lots of garlic powder
lots of pepper
a good amount of italian seasoning
a good amount of salt
a little bit of tabasco sauce
a little bit of honey

Sorry, I don't formulate exact amounts.
Anyway, it's great. So are those bagged salads in the grocery store :-)

I Got Towed

I went over the girls' apartment to study, and I come out and my car's not there. Turns out I misread the sign. Most of the signs there are white with red text that reads "No parking here to corner" but this one said "No parking this side". Christine drove me to the police station to get the release form, but I didn't get my car back yet. I just have to go to the tow company tomorrow, pay the $80 towing fee, and pay a $15 ticket. ::sigh:: Not a big deal, just a pain in the butt.

I need to be more detail oriented...