Hot Chilies - the Dorset Naga

South Texas is a great place for chili peppers. I am looking forward to trying this Dorset Naga pepper.
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12792719

Oysters and the Chesapeake

I grew up in Baltimore and oysters were a fixture on the menu. A fascinating article about using oysters to clean water. We just need to stop overfishing the bay.http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12795573

Music

This year I joined the Church Choir. Something I have wanted to do all my life. Always had a lot of excuses about why I couldn't join. Finally did, overcoming my anxiety about singing well enough to be in the choir. I have been enjoying it immensely. Singing has been one of the most challenging things I have ever done.
Another interesting, but disjointed article on music from the Economist. It has lots of ideas but none were developed well. Articles like this do give me many ways of jumping off in many directions though.http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12795510

Angels we have heard on high!

In the first grade, I earned a glow in the dark Guardian Angel night light from selling the Catholic Review. This is an interesting article on Angels that I read in the Economist. http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12792800

Sasaki Takuya

We started hosting a Japanese student through a program at the Alamo Community College. There are about 80 students here for a 3-week English intensive. We have a 25 year old young man named Sasaki Takuya. He said to call him Takuya (ta-coo-YAH). He is very pleasant and loves American television. He watches more American television in Japan than I do in the states. He knows all the popular shows but they seem to be a season or so behind Japan. Perhaps they only release them after the shows air here. In any case, he can correct me on the characters of several TV series such as Grey's Anatomy (which I only watch sporadically). He has not seen House and says medical shows are difficult to watch in Japanese because of all the jargon. He really enjoyed Mexican food, loves Italian food and pretty much all things American.
I was very surprised that he did not know the word 'Gospel'. We were browsing his Japanese-English electronic dictionary. The Japanese characters were on the left and the English word on the right. I saw the word 'Gospel' and asked him to click on the Japanese for it. He had never heard the word even pronounced in Japanese! He clicked it several more times so he could understand the Japanese pronunciation. The definition in Japanese was not exactly what I expected either. It translated something like a 'great undertaking.' I explained to him it meant 'Good News.' The story of Jesus.

Around the Bloc

On Saturday, December 6th, I took a writing workshop with Stephanie Elizondo Griest on writing a memoir.  I learned that a memoir is not an autobiography, that it may cover just a short portion of one's life, such as Ms. Griest's which details her life in Moscow as a student, and later Bejing and Cuba.  Her book was entitled "Around the Bloc", meaning the communist bloc.  An enjoyable and very personal book, I recommend to any who are interested.   

New pug in the house

After the passing of our great companion friend, the Doberman named Dante, we needed to wait for awhile before getting another dog.  My son and his wife introduced us to the world of Pugs.  We found them to be delightful and a source of laughter.  'Multum in parvo' was the phrase applied to them centuries ago: "a lot of dog in a small package."   Indeed, the pug feels bigger than her current 10 pounds.  She is confident and quite willing to explore.

We contacted a breeder through the many friends my wife has in the dog world.  The breeder we contacted was way up in Odessa (Texas, not Russia).  From San Antonio, that's about 350 miles.  After many emails and phone conversations we met her at a house on Lake LBJ near Austin.  We spent about 4 hours there getting to know her and her dogs.  They were all great.  We took our pug home with us.