In the office restaurant

On the open-office day

In the office restaurant, I took a picture. With my colleague, We had a great time.

Hot Fudge Sundae Cake

In the book which I am reading now, Fudge Sundaes are mentioned. I keep in mind of this recipe and follow this, then I will EAT IT !!. It so looks like delicious.

11/22/63, the novel by Stephen King

11/22/63 is a novel written by Stephen King about time traveler who tried to attempt to save the John F. Kennedy from the assassination which occurred on November 22, 1963. So, the title of book is 11/22/63. I finish reading the book which has big volume of pages. Story is like a fancy drama. After reading the epic, I felt that the point of the story is love. All our purpose of living is love.

The story 

The protagonist Jacob "Jake" Epping, a recently-divorced high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, tells the story in first-person narrative. Jake assigns his evening GED class an essay titled "The Day That Changed My Life". One of the students, a learning-impaired janitor named Harry Dunning, writes about Halloween night, 1958, when his alcoholic father murdered his mother and siblings, and severely injured him, with a hammer. Jake gives Harry an A+, and Harry earns his GED.

Two years later, Al Templeton, proprietor of a local diner which Jake frequents, mysteriously summons Jake at the end of the school year. Jake is shocked to see that, in less than 24 hours since he saw him last, Al has apparently become deathly ill, and seems to have aged four years. Al shows Jake a time portal located in the back of his diner's pantry, which leads to September 9, 1958, at 11:58 a.m. Jake spends about an hour in 1958, then returns to 2011 finding that it is only two minutes later. Al tells him that the portal always leads to that same moment in 1958 every time, and that it is always exactly two minutes later on return to the present. The only person near the 1958 end of the portal who seems to be aware a time-traveler doesn't "belong" there is a drunken, disheveled man whom Al has dubbed the "Yellow Card Man" because of a yellow card stuck in his hat band. Al has learned that it is possible to change history, however the apparent "reset" on the next trip to the same moment in 1958 nullifies the change, unless it is made again.

After discovering he could change history, Al became obsessed with preventing the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy, assuming this would lead to a better world without the Vietnam war, and possibly the assassination of Martin Luther King. Al extensively researched the JFK assassination, and made a plan to spend five years in the past waiting for the opportunity to kill Lee Harvey Oswald during his attempted assassination of General Edwin Walker.

However, there is a down side: the "obdurate" past seems to resist change, and Al and Jake conclude this resistance is proportional to the historical effects of the changes. Al was forced to abort his plan in 1962, after developing terminal lung cancer due to his lifelong habit of cigarette smoking. He pleads with Jake to carry out his mission for him.

Jake decides to use the attack on Harry's family as his test case. Al gives him a fake ID to create the alias "George Amberson", and a supply of 1958 cash he has collected. Jake finds the "Yellow Card Man's" card has mysteriously turned orange this time. Jake buys a car, and travels to Harry's hometown, buys a gun, finds Harry's father Frank Dunning, and tracks his movements. Stalked by the revenge-bent brother of Dunning's first wife, whom Dunning had also killed, Jake is not able to stop Dunning's attack, but manages to save everyone but Harry's older brother. After returning to 2011, Jake contacts Harry's sister and learns that Harry was killed in Vietnam.

As Jake goes to meet with Al, he discovers Al has committed suicide by overdosing on his pain killers. Jake must now act quickly before Al's death is discovered, which will result in the demolition of the diner (and presumably the time portal.) Jake takes Al's notebook, which contains all of Al's research on Oswald, plus the outcomes of long-shot sporting events on which he can bet to keep himself financed, and enters the portal again. This time the "Yellow Card Man" has killed himself, and the card has turned black.

Jake buys the same car and gun, and this time assassinates^[9] Dunning well before the attack on his family. He drives to Florida, where he gets a mail-order Bachelor's degree in English from an Oklahoma diploma mill, and spends the remainder of the school year substitute teaching. He then drives to Texas to wait for Oswald's return to the United States following his Marine Corps service and attempted defection to Russia. He settles in Jodie, a small town located near Dallas, where he is hired for a one-year probationary period as a full-time English teacher for Dunham Consolidated High School. He becomes popular with the students and faculty, and becomes romantically involved with the school's new librarian, Sadie Dunhill, who has run away from her mentally disturbed, abusive husband.

Things start to sour for Jake when Sadie becomes suspicious of Jake's anachronistic slang and singing rock songs that have not been written yet. When he refuses to confide in her who she actually is, she angrily breaks off the relationship before traveling to Reno, Nevada over the summer vacation to divorce her husband. The school principal has also discovered "George Amberson's" mail-order diploma, and the holes in his background. By this time, Jake has decided not to renew his teaching contract and leave Jodie, so he can concentrate full time on monitoring Oswald and keep Sadie out of danger. He rents an apartment across the street from Oswald's future Fort Worth residence, and monitors his activities with audio bugs and an omnidirectional microphone.

Through the bugs, Jake witnesses Oswald's abuse of his Russian wife and his conflicts with his overbearing mother. Around this time, Jake reconnects with Sadie and reveals that he is from the future, proving his claims by correctly predicting the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis; he eventually reveals his full plan of preventing Kennedy's assassination. Sadie is reluctant to believe Jake at first, but her love for him leads her to support his efforts. Meanwhile, Jake becomes hesitant to kill Oswald when he sees his friend, George de Mohrenschildt, seemingly egg on the would-be assassin to kill Walker and Kennedy. Jake is unable to interfere in the Walker attempt when Sadie is disfigured by her psychotic ex-husband. Jake himself is beaten by a bookie who lost money due to Jake's knowledge of future sporting outcomes.

Jake spends three months recovering from the beating and resultant memory loss. He regains his memory just in time for Kennedy's visit to Dallas on November 22, 1963. Jake and Sadie race for Dallas and are able to reach Oswald's sniper's nest at the Texas School Book Depository seconds before the fateful moment when Kennedy's motorcade drives past. Nevertheless, Jake successfully prevents Oswald from shooting Kennedy. In a rage, Oswald fires at Jake, but the shot misses him and mortally wounds Sadie. The noise of their confrontation draws the attention of theSecret Service and police, who fire through the window from the outside and kill Oswald. Sadie dies in Jake's arms as the authorities gain access to the Depository.

Jake becomes a national hero, being personally thanked by President Kennedy and his wife. The FBI suggests that Jake disappear for a time until the situation dies down. Agonized over Sadie's death, Jake resolves to return to 2011 and back to 1958 in order to repeat his journey in order to save both Kennedy and Sadie. As he leaves Dallas, he learns that there has been a massive earthquake in California in which thousands have died. He suspects that it is a direct result of his actions.

Returning to the portal, he finds that the Yellow Card Man has been replaced by a younger man with a Green Card. He reveals himself to be a "guardian" who explains that many other portals exist in the universe. The portals, he explains, are temporary "bubbles" in time, which will disappear as the physical environment they reside in changes. The "Green Card Man" also explains that traveling through the portal does not erase the past, it creates a new string until the portal is destroyed. The larger the change, the more unstable reality becomes - even minor changes will eventually overwhelm reality. The yellow/green card is shown to be a type of film badge dosimeter that measures mental degradation caused by exposure to time changes. Guarding the portal is difficult since he has to keep the myriad realities in his mind at all times, explaining the demise of the Yellow Card Man. The Green Card Man begs Jake to set things right again, otherwise reality itself may be destroyed.

When Jake steps back through the portal, he discovers that the world is now a lawless dystopia. He comes across a wheelchair-bound Harry Dunning, who explains the troubled history of the world since 1963, namely that the fact that LBJ's presidency never happened and therefore neither did the civil rights movement, leading to race riots. This situation is made worse by unexplained earthquakes which are slowly destroying the planet. When Jake returns to 1958, and the Green Card Man advises him to go back to 2011 and see that the portal is closed. After contemplating returning to Texas, Jake changes nothing and returns to his own. History is restored to its original track after Al's diner is demolished. Learning that Sadie survived the confrontation with her ex-husband without his interference, he goes back to Jodie and sees that Sadie is now an old woman. The two lovers from different timelines share a dance.  (excerpted from Wikipedia)

Swing Dance

In the part of ending, Jake play the swing dance with his lover who didn't remember him in present. But she feels that he is very familiar like her well-known man. LOVELY DANCE!!, Strong desire to learn how to dance.

Glenn Miller - In The Mood

If this song spread over the wide open glass field in the sun-setting, We cannot help but dancing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJE-onnw2gM

Urban Farming

What if I were urban farmer after retirement?

When I think what is my dream, Sometime It occurs to me that maybe I want to be a farmer. As for social perception and reputation, That is a good dream to my parent and others who are related to me. Now, I think twice about the dream. Not in the paddy field, Not in the rural area But in the city. Nowadays, Some  innovative person start a business of being a urban farmer.

First company is Yourbackyardfarmer. Owner of the company is Donna Smith in Portland.
She was a family farmer at first. To produce veg and fruits for her family she started to plant vegs. Then She got a brilliant idea. Like realtor, She begun to sell her farming skill. She got a subscription from her community to make a organic farm by monthly fee. Once a week or twice, her employee visit the customer's farm and manage the farm and harvest vegs, then put basket in front of back yard door. Also her company provide consultation to someone who dose not want to visit often but need advise from the company. All charge depends on the service.

The other company is YUF(Young Urban Farmer) in Toronto. Young three people start the business to provide custom designed edible gardens since 2009. Unlike the first company which tried to make profit by selling their farming skill, They focused to sell raised bed gardens and organic garden kit. They are young like their company name. Therefore, they pay attention to social network for marketing. However, I think they need more matured marketing skill. Anyhow, they are young. Everything is possible for them, isn't It?

One of these day, after retiring I will start this business for sure. 

Blooming full of Korean forsythia

Forsythia are in full bloom

Today, I went to mountain to go biking. On the way to the peak of mountain, forsythia are in full bloom. Last week when I visited here, It didn't bear buds. Nature is very wonderful like magic. For a week, mountain get a colorful cloth. 

I spend a whole afternoon to bike in the mountain. In there, there is a spot to take rest. There are some bench like bed in the forest. So, if someone need to take rest, we can lie on the bed. I went to there. I took a nap for a hour. On the bed, I could see the very bright sky through pine trees. I just thought how many times can I see the sky? Now, I was in the heaven. My bike also need a rest.

Today I get a haircut in the morning. But I don't like the result of that even though hairdresser made a effort to make me good. 

ALONE TOGETHER

I share, Therefore I am?

This book can give alarm signal to today's social trend. The author said that when we look at our social network access, she try to describe that behavior to come down to this sentence "I share, Therefore I am". When I watch her message during her TED speech, I have to give a big ovation to her. Nowadays, There are tremendous social networking applications which are forced to connect each other. If we feel that we are isolated from others, we feel nervous and insecure. We have to post anything we can do without any meaningful purpose, if we feel lonely. Habitually, fumble the pocket to get out phone and click to facebook or tweeter in order to make them know that I am here.

As the author quoted that we shape our buildings, then they shape us by the phrase of Winston Churchill. I will read her book after I finish reading the Novel.

Technology promises to let us do anything from anywhere with anyone. But it also drains us as we try to do anything everywhere. We begin to feel overwhelmed and depleted by the technology. We may be free to work from everywhere, but we are prone to being lonely everywhere.

Alone Together is the result of MIT technology and society specialist Sherry Turkle’s nearly fifteen-year exploration of our lives on the digital terrain. Based on interviews with hundreds of children and adults, it describes new, unsettling relationships between friends, lovers, parents, and children, and new instabilities in how we understand privacy and community, intimacy and solitude. It is a story of emotional dislocation, of risks taken unknowingly. But it is also a story of hope, for even in the places where digital saturation is greatest,there are people—especially the young—who are asking the hard questions about costs, about checks and balances, about returning to what is most sustaining about direct human connection. At the threshold of what Turkle calls “the robotic moment,” our devices prompt us to recall that we have human purposes and,perhaps, to rediscover what they are.

Her speech in TED

http://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together.html


  

Escaping the cult of the average

Here's a question for you. What's the best piece of advice you've ever had?

For me, it's been three words, "Be happy now". Let me explain why.

In my Trusted Adviser seminars, I notice that happy salespeople sell much more than unhappy sales people. Most people think that successful salespeople are happy because they're selling more and earning more money. This isn't true - happiness is an inside job.....

.....research by the brilliant Harvard psychologist

Shawn Achor (fantastic video of Shawn speaking at TEDx) reveals that successful salespeople sell more and make more money because they're happy.

Next to love, happiness is probably the strongest stuff in the world. It's more energizing than oxygen. It's more mind expanding than a dose of LSD. It's more intoxicating than a glass of Dom Perignon on a summer's day.

Its only when you're happy and enthusiastic, that you can enthuse others and create the business relationships that you want.

So how about setting this as a goal? To know when you take your last breath, that you always expressed who you really are and did what made you happy.

What say you?