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Strawberry Picking Fun

I originally hoped to take the family up to Dallas to see friends and sightsee… but with the Shuttle mission of STS-119 being delayed and launching on Sunday, that had to be canceled.. or at least postponed.  So I started looking into things you can do around Houston area.  You’d be quite surprised at how many things there are to do!  One of those is fruit picking!  It just so turns out that there are lots of farms around the greater area of Houston that let’s you PYO (Pick Your Own).  Great website to look into that is PickYourOwn.org and it lists by counties and/or metropolitan areas!  For Houston area, look here.  It turned out that only one nearby farm offered PYO strawberry:  Froberg Vegetable & Fruit Farm.


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At $1.50 per pound, you can’t beat that!  So off we went.  Younhe’s kids, Pastor Shawn’s kids, and Alison’s family all went!  And here are the pictures to prove it!  Kids sure seemed to have fun.  It was great to get out.  Starting in May, blueberries go in season!  😉  ’nuff talking.  Here are the pictures.

JJ enjoying the picking…

And the group picture to finish it off…  🙂

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Apple Greed: Proprietary chip in Shuffle earphones?!!

Gizmodo

I knew that Apple (and all other companies) was greedy but… WTH?!  Apple put proprietary chip in the new Shuffle’s earphones?!!  This means that you can’t just use other earphones or headphones!!  You have to shell out extra if you want a better one ’cause other third parties will have to pay a licensing fee to Apple to build a Shuffle-compatible earphones!!  WTH?!!  Now, I really despise Apple!  😡

Oh and I am on a roll!!!  Three post in one day!!  Woohoo to me!  😛

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Cold War 2: The Return of … USSR?!

Source: Gizmodo

CNN article

I wonder if Russia thinks we all need the Cold War back in order to return the world economy to normalcy.  I sure hope not, but these long range bombers that they will “place” in Cuba and Venezuela sure seem like it’s back!!  What the hell are they thinking?!

But it’s also rumored that the Russian president is doing this to see how our new president would react, as many seem to think he will be a pushover.  Hate these power struggles…  “My gun is bigger than yours” crap.   I sure hope it’s just a bluff!  >.<

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AIG’s $165 million bonus: The Counterpoint

NY Times

So here the author provides a counter point.  That, despite the inexcusable bonus, we should let that pass.  Now that we have invested into 80% of the company, we don’t want to scare off the people from leaving.  Then, all that we put in as taxpayers would surely be lost.  And since these were contracts written prior to AIG’s million mile fall, contracts should be honored.

I can kind of see that.  This was why I wish we had let AIG flop instead.  Insuring what was bound to be a catastrophic failure of sub-prime mortgage, they and whoever invested in them should fail.  Yes, it would send the world economy into depression perhaps, but we are almost there already despite having invested so much in trying to prevent it.

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$165 million in bonus to AIG execs?!!

Source: NPR News

What?!!  I sure hope the administration puts a stop to this madness!!  We put our OWN money in saving AIG’s butt and what do they do?!!  They give themselves bonuses for making one of the worst decisions ever?!!  (in regards to sub-prime mortgages)  I am beyond mad!!  If this keeps on going, I say pull the plug!!  What is going on with “responsible spending”?!!  😡

EDIT:

CNN Money article

Evidently it was ALREADY paid out!!  😡  And much of the bailout money went to Goldman Sachs & Merrill Lynch along with some European companies!!  WTH?!!  This is stupendous as the PEOPLE/government own 80% of the stupid company!!

Whoa!!  We paid back a German bank?!!  The bar graph on the left is from CNN Money article…

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Roughing it at Pedernales Falls State Park

One of my church friends, Chung, organized a camping trip opportunity so I hopped on.  So six guys set out to rough it out.  Our destination: Pedernales Falls State Park.  It’s a state park about half hour west of Austin.  Here’s the who:

That’s Yong on the left, Mike in the center, and Ken on the right.

Chung was the driver, I sat in the forward middle (which sucked!) and Walter on the passenger side.

The drive was just shy of four hours from the west side of Houston.  Here’s the group shot.

We camped at the primitive site, which meant no running water or electricity.  And this required about a two-mile hike into the site from the parking lot. Here’s some pictures of the hike into the site.

Chung is hard-core when it comes to nature and roughing it.  He’s from Canada after all!!  :p  But it was Mike’s first time and I hadn’t camped in over 10 years!  Last time was at Grand Canyon back in ’96!  Yikes… That’s Walter in the back and as a seasoned hiker, he hiked slowly and eventually I realized he was doing it deliberately to cover the rear and leaving no one left behind, mainly me.  So I really appreciated that.

Here’s a shot of Mike after his very first tent put up!

And Chung & Walter brought burners (since there was a burn ban in place) for cooking.  Leave it to Chung to bring steak to “rough” it!!  LOL.

Yong had brought cup ramen for dinner!  But one of the best had to be Ken’s choice from REI.  They evidently sell these meals in packets where you just pour hot water in the pouch, shake and then eat!  Awesome idea!  The only downside is the rather high sodium content!!  >.<

Here are some night shots…

Mike with his “head lamp”. And at night, the moon was almost full so we could actually see our path in the dark!

And because we didn’t realize they had no water at the site, after dinner, we hiked back to the parking lot to get more water!  So the first night, we had already hiked about 2 and 1/2 hours!  >.<

Day 2, we decided to hike to the top of Wolf “Mountain”.  Why did I put it in quotes?!  That’s because the top really wasn’t a mountain!

Above picture is a site where someone USED to live in!  Wow… now, THAT’s roughing it!!  After we had snack lunch at the “top”, we hiked back down and set out.  However, we did stop by the falls…

And to finish the day, we stopped by the good ol’ BBQ at the Salt Lick BBQ for late lunch/early dinner!  If you are ever near the area, you should definitely check it out!!

All in all, as sore as I am, I really enjoyed the time.  I had needed to get away from work and the busy craziness of life to get released from it all.  Additionally, I had great time getting to know Walter, catch up with Yong, and just chuckle at Chung and Mike.  I wish Ken would walk slower and get to know us but he was all about getting through the hike.  It definitely was a great bonding experience overall.  I am just scared to go again with Chung next time though… since he keeps on saying that he won’t be as “lenient” next time.