5 Days!

Fort Lauderdale, here I come! Updates will hopefully be video blogs! Christerssons, Hunters, Campiones and a surprise guest (dunno who yet) are congregating - Cannot WAIT!

Go "Frick" Yourself

Picture from www.frick.org

What a week this has been so far! Mom, Dad and Scott came into town for a fun weekend on Friday! After a day or walking around, Saturday we went with some relatives to Billy Elliot - loved it just as much again! Sunday we had a family party and Dad and Scott left Monday after some plane delays at JFK (go figure).

Monday Mom, Soo and I rocked out shopping at Columbus Circle and Whole Foods - I'm stocked for a week or two - yay!

Today, we went not only shopping in Soho before Mom left for home, but also to the Frick Collection- a museum on the Upper East Side. It is a WONDERFUL place to go check out some cool art pieces. It was owned by Henry Clay Frick - a man known for working with the coke and steel business in the early 1900's. His residence, now this museum, is unbelievable - indoor and outdoor gardens and fountains, and extraordinary rooms filled with really cool paintings, sculptures and whatnot. A definite highlight is going into the library and seeing the collection of leather bound books he owned - I'm not an art or history nerd, and it was still awe-inspiring. Another cool note is that it is right on Central Park- so cool views of the trees, park and vegetation are there too.

Definitely go when it is warm outside. There are tons of flowering trees and plants that will look even better as spring comes nearer. Also, listen to the free audio guide - it tells neat facts about the collection and the mansion itself. Don't watch the movie- it's a snoozer and worse than the film reels we used to watch in elementary school.

Last note- BURGERS at SOHO PARK!!! Eat there, drink there, love it there - nothing is better than awesome food in a really cool part of town!

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I LOVE THIS! I'm really considering getting it - what are you thoughts? Like the art on it? I think the buildings remind me of NYC, and it's pretty neat!

From the Slums to the Oscars to Phenomenon

When I saw this movie the first time, I was speechless. So moving. The story was written fantastically. The actors, cinematography, soundtrack, etc. were also phenomenal. It is a movie that relishes on the search for hope, love and optimism is a world of volatile uncertainty. It is the new fairytale.

Congratulations on it winning SEVEN Oscars tonite! All the winners were well deserved, and the show, I thought, for the most part, was quite good and not stale as in other years. But, it was truly a Slumdog evening.

Choo Choo, Next Stop My Thighs...

http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/

If you have not seen this website, CHECK IT OUT. While the food looks gross, it also, for some reason has a percentage of "appetizing-ness."

Why do I write about it in this blog? it reminds me of several things. Yes, America is fat. Yes America has problems with weight control and consumption. No, I do not think it will end soon, especially with a recession and Mc Donald's being a cheaper alternative to dining.
My friend Josh just got back from Europe and we were talking about the fact that you go there, eat a meal, and you are "pleasantly full" but not overstuffed as in an American meal. Why is it we eat 1 pound hamburgers when we are supposed to have 4-6 oz of meat per meal or day? Why the extra-large french fries when they are nothing but starch, fat and salt? Do we need the 4th-scoop and a 3rd-topping mega sundaes from Ben an Jerry's? NO.

Portion control and consumption are becoming ever-alarming in today's society; more so than in the past. We are seeing more and more younger children struggling with problems seen in the past with adults (high bp, obesity, diabetes setoff from dietary consumption, etc.). The question arises what to do?

I am no genius; I think hard and truly express whatever it is that I say. When it comes to this type of question, I will make people mad with my answer, but I am all for a healthier America, and a satisfied world. I think that:

1. All schools should promote ONLY healthy eating. No burgers, unless wheat buns or veggie/turkey ( baked), frozen yogurt instead of ice cream, etc. Though it may cost the schools a bit more, it is preserving the future of these children brought into a world of grease and health issues.

2. All foods not recommended in the pyramid or by nutritionists should have a higher taxation, while somehow (dunno how, but feel this way) decreasing the value of fresh produce, meats and grains.

3. Mandatory breaks in jobs for walking/excercising/even napping (for mental health). It hurts the percentage of actual hours worked minimally. Most people slack off for a certain amount of hours/day, and if they had the option of walking, etc. I bet they would take it.

I have a lot of other ideas, and forgive me if I am rambling (it's 5am and I'm having trouble sleeping), but I feel these are good ventures for not only America (mainly), but for first and secondary countries to try and implement for a healthier population.

So eat the meatloaf with mac n cheese in the middle, or the cheeseburger in a doughnut. Just remember that it shouldn't be a thing of normalcy in the diet. And if you do eat one of the things on the list, at least walk so the food coma isn't like Glenn Quagmire giving you a "ruffied-colada"......

Fun and Sun

This is where I'm going - hells-yes! Ft. Lauderdale has never looked so good!

Forgive the old video, this resort still rocks though!

How Well Read

Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
Instructions:

1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X++++++
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X+
6 The Bible X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell +
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare /(read some, not into them)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams *
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky X
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X+
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini *
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X+
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown *
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving X++ ;-)
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X+
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel *
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X++++++ (one of my FAV books)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X++
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath *
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker X
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X +++
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom *
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X++
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

The Run Down:
Read: 30
Loved: 10
Plan on Reading: 5

Not too shabby ;-)