Few movies leave you with the overwhelming urge to share them with those who haven't seen them. Movies that when you are finish watching them, you actually feel uplifted and enlightened. I don't know if I can count those kind of movies on two hands. One very obvious exception to that norm is a movie I watched last night called "August Rush". It's about a child musical prodigy who is taken from his mother at birth and raised in a boys home. His parents were both musicians, but the boy is much more - he can hear music in his head and when he finally gets the chance to handle musical instruments, his genius shows. I don't know exactly what it was about the movie - maybe the fact that it didn't have any of the trash that almost every other movie has today - but it was just really enjoyable. I like good music, so maybe that's part of the reason I liked it. I've always wondered what it would be like to have a musical talent like a prodigy. But more than that, the movie seemed very hopeful. It was even very emotional at times. I highly recommend August Rush to everyone. ...

I am experiencing that strange phenomenon where my sense of awareness is heightened because of a change I've made in my life. I know you know what I am talking about: when you start the car buying process, for example. You've never noticed any green Honda Civics on the road before, but once you decide you want to buy one, you start to see them everywhere. It happens to people when they begin to look for a home. You notice 'For Sale' signs on every corner; you begin to think that everyone in the world is selling their home. That's not the case of course, but since you've started paying close attention, your awareness has increased drastically. For me right now, it's my diet and exercise routine. Four weeks ago I started the P90X exercise program and the corresponding diet plan. The diet plan is strict, dictating how many portions of which foods I am allowed to eat throughout the 90 day program. I'm taking the diet seriously, and that's where my new-found awareness comes in. I've become super-sensitive to the foods around me. At work, I never noticed how much junk food there is free for the taking until I eliminated it ...

My wife showed me the coolest site a few days ago. It's called Free Rice, and it is a humanitarian website that helps your brain as you give to the less-fortunate. Visit the site and you are given random vocabulary questions - some of the words are difficult, some not so much. Each time you get a question right, 20 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program to help world hunger. I think it's a wonderful idea. I am big on grammar (maybe annoyingly so sometimes), so naturally this site would appeal to me. But even so, it's beneficial for anyone to play, because correct grammar and food are two things there are a shortage of in the world. Especially food in some parts of the world - that is the most important part of the site after all. If you've never done so before, you really should go and play for a while. You'll be giving good service and it's fun. Tags: Free Rice,United Nations World Food Program,world hunger,vocabulary No related posts.

I am about 30 pages into David McCullough's '1776' and I can already tell I am going to like it a lot. His biography of John Adams was excellent, and the first book of his that I have had the pleasure of reading. I know he has written a number of other books, so I will have to add them to my list to. After I put down '1776' a few days ago, I remembered something that a former co-worker of mine liked to say. He was the type I would find it almost impossible to have a conversation with, because for some reason he felt he had to disagree with everything I said. I never discovered his true beliefs on most subjects, because he was usually so caught up in disagreeing that his statements of belief would usually contradict, depending on who he was talking to. One day another co-worker and I were talking about something one of my college professors had said about the American Revolution. 'Disagreeable co-worker' heard the words American Revolution and immediately stepped in to assert his conviction that the founding fathers weren't such good guys - in fact, ...