Quick update: I am quite ill and I have not been at work for a few days because of my illness. Good news is that I am getting better.

With that said I just watched the documentary "Sicko", and I recommend everyone watching this film. It chronicles how absurd American health care is and takes a look at how many countries have free National health care. It really brings to light how our insurance companies are more interested with increasing their profit margin than actually helping someone.

I cant say I know a whole lot about the issues surrounding health care, but the movie does raise one valid question. Why, like many other countries such as England, Canada, France and even Cuba, can we not have free health care?

That deaf, dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball.
JK

Since it is a new year, I have decided to incorporate a new look to my blog. I think the previous one was getting a little old. I hope everyone enjoys it.

If anyone is interested I have a second interview with the University of Pittsburgh in the coming weeks. So keep your fingers crossed!

When the power runs out, we will just hum
JK

For Christmas, Lynn got me a sushi making kit. I know what your thinking, what a great gift. I love sushi and I am beginning to burgeon my culinary skills. Tonight was the night that we finally christened the set. Making sushi is a whole lot of fun.

We decided to keep it simple with our ingredients, so we did not use any fish, except imitation crab meat. Along with the crab meat, we used avocado, shredded carrots and tofu. We experimented with different combinations of all these ingredients.

At first I thought the hardest part would be the rolling of seaweed (nori). This actually proved to be quite simple, except that the packaged nori that came with the kit was pretty dried and cracked. No need to fear we just made smaller rolls. The hardest part actually was the preparing of the rice. It was very time consuming and require a lot of attention. Overall the preparation took well over 2 hours. All in all it was a blast and I cant wait to try more ingredients and actually use real fish.

Here are some pictures of the escapades, sushi pictures.

Ketchup is for winners, Ted!!
JK

As most of you are aware it is no longer 2007. With the birth of the new year I want to reassess what I am doing, in a way of speaking. The point of this post is for me to set realistic 2007 goals and then at the end of the year I can see what I accomplishing.

One of my biggest concerns about myself, is an inability to accomplish life-changing goals. For the past few months I have been reading a personal development blog and it outlined ways to help make change in your life. Two of ways it mentioned were to write your goals down and to also make them realistic. So here goes!!

In the early part of 2007, I saw my habit for blogging hit an all time high, but after about 6 months of consistent blogging I dwindled down to the occasional post. Numerous excuses come to mind such as, apathy, lethargy, changes in my social life, lack of a consistent internet connection and employment. I would like to try and find a happy medium this year. I hope to try and blog at least once or twice a week. It is easy to just give up on writing, but I really enjoy rambling on about anything. Personally, it is a great medium for me to be creative.

Meaningful employment has been increasingly difficult to obtain. Yes, I am currently employed but I am a deep end job, where I do not feel like I am getting any better at my profession. I also have no benefits or health insurance. I think the biggest goal that I can accomplish this year would be to get myself a better job. I am not looking for my dream job. I am just looking for something that can provide me stability to settle down, save some money and not worry about getting sick. I still plan on moving to Pittsburgh, hopefully as soon as we have money or one of us has a job.

I also want to start going to a gym, and stick with it. I think every year I say this and for a short time I actually go to the gym. I do not want to lose much weight. I am actually quite satisfied with the way I look. I mostly want to hit the gym just to tone my body and to use up all the extra energy I have at the end of the day.

Lastly, I want to adopt some new hobbies. Since I have been dating Lynn, I have been cooking and baking more than I would have imagined and I really am developing a passion for the culinary arts. I also am starting to share in some of Lynn's craftiness, and I think I want to expound on that. I bought her some looms for Christmas and I have a feeling I will be using them more than her. If anyone has any hobbies I should look into, let me know

Both at a loss for words to say, who knew we'd never be younger than today?
JK