Just Diving

Some photos from World Diving Championship including Chinese champions, Aussie Mathew Mitcham and Canadian Cutie Alexandre Despatie.

Friday Gossip

Sammy's mom subscribes "the Week" for us. We love to check out "Best Properties on the market" and "Steal of the week". Well I found my new favorite called "Gossip". Here is for this week

"New York Times columnist David Brooks last week said he's not surprised that politicians get caught in messy affairs because "they're all emotional freaks" who have a desperate need for both power and adoration. "They're guaranteed to invade your personal space," he said. "I sat next to a Republican senator at dinner and he had his hand on my inner thigh the whole time. I was like, "Ehh, get me out of here."

David, I thought that you love your Republican pals. You look surely cute for this Republican senator, well who I assume is him. Wow!

My Garden from A Different Angle

Last night I went to get vanilla ice cream cross the street. On the way back, I realize that Cleome on the side gives a very nice look of the garden from the distance. I just have to take a picture of it.

Sampling Our Athens hood

It is finally toward the end of my oncall week. It has been brutal. After several bad outage, I also have to stay two nights up to 6:00AM for the release. Somewhere I feel much liberated even though handover is still a day away. I woke up at 7:00AM and felt bike riding. This time I carried my fancy camera to catch some of town. I cruised a lot in our hood, took pictures of the best street Elmwood, our friend Julie's Hippie garden and this garden from a lady who overhauls her garden every year. And one of Sammy's favorite house in repainting. Then I headed to the bike path along Hocking River to snap some pictures of My favorite nurser White Mill and our Athens community garden.

Reborn Coffee Pot

I bought this coffee maker for Sammy's several Birthdays ago. Well the handle finally gave up and was broken. Since he has several new toys for coffee making, we retired it into the basement. Then after a while, this handle broken coffee pot showed up again in our kitchen counter. My poor mom turned coffee pot to a tea pot. It is surely not up to Sammy's aesthetic "criteria" to make the cut for our kitchen counter. We hided it away and have not see it in the counter for a good six months.

Well it showed up again. My mom found it and saved it from the fate of dumpster. We lost again. What do we do next? Here it is your reborn.

accumulation

As a Chinese, I know that we are good at accumulation of money. Did I just say "we". I am not sure how much of that "we" I am now. I went to lunch to Columbus' North Market with my Chinese friends at work. One of my Chinese co-worker mentioned that she starts shopping in Whole Pay Check(Food) for meats. The reason is that one of her friends does the research in OSU and told her that some strong evidence shows hormone fed meat increase the risk of cancer. I remember that my nephew told my mom that he stopped eating in his favorite KFC since the fried chicken might cause man boobs a long while ago when he was in elementary. I laughed at where he dug that out.

As I always say that I am Chinese enough to bitch about our Chinese. Money seemingly accounts for disproportionate importance to our over all richness. I have been reminding my Chinese friends that life and health are also about accumulation. "Eat healthily" is a part of accumulation of our health as well as "exercise physically and mentally". I wish that we apply the money management savvy to other aspects of life. Preaching does not help until people come to realization. I thought that our Chinese are hopeless. Now I can hope. I am so glad that she finally realizes worthiness. Well I consider we are lucky to live in a community that people are so believing in local, natural, wholesome and organic. I do not have to go to Whole Pay Check to break my bank account. Instead we have our great Farmer's Market. And after all, we grow our own vegetable all along.

We were planning to go hiking for a couple of days for the long July 4th weekend.Well 50% rain possibility made us a bit hesitate. We wind up staying at home. Finally I played outdoor volleyball for the first time this year. My whole body is just aching. How our muscle works fascinates me. I run 3-4 miles and do some weight stuff and do not feel much impact since it is a routine that I do 2-3 times a week. But my body just aches when I start playing VB after a month away. All the jumps, maneuvers and spikes certainly use very different muscles. Or simply just get too old and have to admit it.

We had a great fun when Sammy's moms visited us. They are very low maintenance ladies. Last weekend, we went to Cincinnati to pick up my mom and spent a day to visit Underground Railway Freedom Museum and got lost in IKEA.

I did some gardening as usual and took some photo as well. I experiment growing lamb ears left by previous owner. It attracts hundreds of bees without exaggeration. So glad to do something for shrinking bee population. Everything we do have impact with the surrounding we rely on. Hope more positive than negative.

I have to show the Chinese Zodiac chain that my cousin bought in Shanghai and my mom brought to us. It is three dimensional, very folkloric and authentically beautiful.

Hope that everyone has great July 4th holiday.