Surprising article from the Daily Breeze - what will they come up with next??!!

Air pollution, asthma link studied

I find it hard to believe they actually pay money to run studies like this. As a person who suffers from COPD (of which asthma is one) this is a big duh. Any time I leave for a weekend or a week to somewhere with higher air quality, I can tell as soon as I walk outside the terminal doors at LAX.

Blogging from Grandmas' Part 2

(Posting once again in the Eastern Time Zone)

Well, tomorrow is my last full day in Florida - I leave early Sunday morning. I've had the opportunity to do a lot of fun things and have taken a lot of pictures. With my cousin I have visited the Everglades, driven to Miami, and gone to the beach pretty much every night for sunset. I have read two novels (The World Without Us and Heart of a Soldier), visited with my Grandma and Great Grandma, and generally had a very relaxing and enjoyable time. Here are some of my favorite pictures:

Great Grandma Grace and I praying after communion at home
Me, Gina (a friend we met at Grandma's church) and Andrew at sunset Wednesday night
Spectacular lightning storm backlighting the beach on Wednesday night

Returning to prophecies from "I Can't Think of Anything Clever to Put Here" regarding travel - I am going to postpone my trip back to the Midwest until spring, mostly for vacation time and weather optimization. The men of the family are planning a camping trip sometime around the new year.

Sanctify is beginning Isaiah with an introduction this Tuesday. We will be there a while. It should be pretty interesting - prophecy always is.

Greetings to both of my readers from Marco Island!

(Today's post time is in PST; however, I am actually posting from the Eastern Time Zone).

As August begins, I find myself in Florida once again. If you will recall, I last visited in February for a family reunion that coincided with Great Grandma Grace (AKA Triple G Threat :-P)'s 100th birthday. A little over a month ago, my cousin Andrew sent me an email informing me he was coming for a few weeks for some R&R and I couldn't pass up an opportunity to visit and revitalize myself so I got a ten-day round trip flight.

This is only two weeks after returning from Huntsville, AL for business travel. I was also able to tack on a few days of personal travel at the beginning to see my best buddy from high school in Nashville. Seeing Josh was great, the instructional workshop I attended was highly informative, and I got to visit the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville (co-located with Space Camp). My one regret was that I didn't take my camera - which I would have used a lot at the Space and Rocket Center.

Back on May 16th, I graduated from the University of Southern California with a Master's of Science in Electrical Engineering. It was a sometimes arduous road, but I feel I am richer for the experience and it was a positive step both for my career and personally. Don't get any ideas - no PhD for me, at least for a long time. The farther away I get from it the happier I am I don't have to go back. I think that's a good indicator that I stopped at the right time.

On Memorial Day weekend, the entire family went up to visit Daniel in St. Helena, where he was employed during his externship. It was a fun weekend and it was great to see Daniel, who ended up moving back to Torrance after his externship ended. We will take another family trip to San Francisco in a couple weekends to attend his graduation (which the school plopped in the middle of August for some reason).

June 2nd marked my 5-year anniversary at work - I started my co-op on June 2, 2003. I have found myself both more satisfied and more productive at work since I graduated - not having school looming over my head makes it much easier to focus and excel. I am forming solid friendships and business relationships and really feel like Aerospace is where I belong at this point in my life.

My car has been treating me well but the motorcycles have not. With Daniel at home, there are 4 2-wheeled vehicles in the household. The only one running is his scooter, which is brand new and I am not responsible for maintaining (yet). My bike has a bad oil seal and should have some pretty significant maintenance done (since I have the engine out anyway). The engine is now out and mostly disassembled, but that got put on hiatus for a while since I'm not exactly there. Stevo's scooter needs work too - It has a frightening rumble. Dad's bike burns a lot of oil and makes a bad sound when taking off. Well, one project at a time I guess.

Well, there's more to say but I've gone on for a while already. Stay posted for more blogging at Grandma's!