Aram

Foothill Athletic Club

There aren’t many real swimmers in this sports club so when Aram came flying next to my lane, the primordial instinct to compete kicked in, but my breaststroke was no match to his butterfly. Shame! “I’m Armenian.” He said. “Yerevan?” I asked. “Actually I was born in Persia.” Here we go again. Persia (now unglamorously Iran) used to be very good friends with America during the reign of the Shah, before the Iranian Revolution and before the Ayatollah came into power. To avoid prejudice and bias many choose to hide their true identity, just like Aram. "Wanna race?" "Hell yeah!"

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Foggy

San Fernando Valley

When you come from a country where it’s summer all the time you'll appreciate weather like this: foggy, rainy, cold, with blowing wind swirling autumn leaves up in the air. When I was growing up, Dad and I used to walk to the farm at dawn. At times it would be too foggy it messes up with visibility such that you are inches away from people and you stopped just short of kissing their noses and you’ll never know who you’re going to bump into and it doesn’t really matter, it’s the vibe, floating in the air, like fog….

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Tickler

Sports Illustrated

Words can’t describe all emotions that go by watching this photo of Kate Upton the first time. It tickles the baser instinct in men. Uh boy! Uh boy! Nothing there. There’s something there. My jaws shattered on the floor. I couldn’t help but stare. How! What? It becomes funny in an instant then back to being awestrucked, shocked. There's fun, disbelief, pleasant surprise! Libido comes much later when the mind gets to digest what’s happening but for sure there’s a delay in grasping what the eyes are seeing! For that Kate Upton was 4^th most searched on Yahoo for 2012. Whew.

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The Real Deal

Universal Studios

Hollywood

This totally changed the way I view actors. Compared to moviemaking in the Philippines, the story comes first, actors have to audition for a role, and only the best ones get hired to play a part. The sets are mind-blowing! In Steven Spielberg’s War Of The Worlds for example, a real Boeing 747 was bought, then blown-up. There are studios to stage fire, storms, floods, earthquakes, collisions. Asian, European towns? They’re there. With camera tricks, small pools can be made into oceans, miniature boats into Titanics, and a huge green canvass into any background. What role shall I audition? Hmmm….

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Don't Be A Fly

Here’s a great perspective from a story by Jack Canfield. A fly was desperately trying to get out from a closed windowpane. From the inside, it can see the flowers and trees and blue sky. But however it tries, it cannot break free. A few feet from the window is an open door that leads to the outside garden but the fly was too fixated on exiting through the glass pane. If you have tried really hard and not getting what you want, maybe you’re doing it wrong. Don’t be a fly. Find that open door!
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Long Nose

Downtown

Los Angeles

How many times has this happen to anyone? At red light somebody tapped at my window. I thought she was asking for money. No, too pretty to be penniless. She smiled and wiggled the long nose. Not her nose, but the tool. “This was on your bumper” she said. A bulb lighted up inside my head. Earlier I was fixing the Christmas lights and probably have left it there while I was in the garage. I just had enough time to say thanks when the lights turned green. I looked back but she was gone, lost in heavy traffic….


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Riptide

Big Lagoon Beach

San Francisco

When you see a calm spot amidst surf, beware: current is churning underneath – created by oncoming tide and backwash - two forces in opposite directions. Don’t be fooled to swim in the calm surface – beneath is underwater turbulence that can be a death grip. It doesn’t suck you under, it just feels like it. If caught in one, don’t fight. Instead, slowly swim away parallel to the shoreline. Remember it’s just a little spot you can easily swim away from. Exhaustion and panic cause drowning. Keep calm. Don’t drown, then tell the others.

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200th Post With Mark Twain

Pardon this break in the 100-word-rule. This is a 200-word-post, 100 each for myself and Mark Twain. Now, he and I had something in common – a watch that needed repair because one day, it stopped. The uncanny resemblance in our state of affairs is narrated by Mark Twain himself:

“The regulator wants pushing up” sayeth the repairman as told by Twain. “And my watch begin to gain. It gained faster and faster day-by-day. At the end of two months it was thirteen days ahead of the almanac….” Unsatisfied, he consulted another. “It needed cleaning and oiling besides regulating” says him. “And my watch slowed down. It gradually drifted back…. until the world was out of sight. And had this fellow-feeling for the mummy in the museum, and a desire to swap news with him.” Not wanting to give up he went on to another. “There’s something the matter with the hair-trigger” it diagnosed. “It did well now,” says Twain “except that always at ten minutes to ten the hands would shut together like a pair of scissors, and from that time forth they would travel together....”

Together, in celebration of this 200th milestone, I share this post with Mark Twain.
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