Sorry for the lack of updates. Life took over blogging.

I am developing a fever right now, for a cause that I do not know yet. Probably catching the flu bugs (it's the season you know). I ran for three hours last Saturday, going to places in Chicago I haven't been, in the unusually balmy Chicago spring.

I didn't go to the library last Saturday, just another proof of the difficulty in maintaining an unbroken habitual activities. I had to cancel the band practice for today and move it forward later on this week. A friend and I starting a hack acoustic cover band playing the Beatles. We'll be playing and singing on the street of Chicago in the coming months. Just for fun.

Saturday I'll be volunteering to help the annual Chicago Shelters' drive for pet adoption. I bagged another 3 people with me already, and I am expecting the number to grow bigger.

Cancer, that's an awful word especially when it happens to your loved ones. A good friend is a medical purgatory right now waiting for results to determine a suspected Cancer case. These are things that you do not know until you experience it. The multiple visits to doctors, labs and hospitals, crafting a macabre story in discovering the limit of your immortality. And I am watching all of this from the sidelines, on standby, ready to do little things that might or might not matters. Little chats (mostly listening), weekend's jogs, long dinners. Anything to keep the ghost away. 

And one good news from the Western shores of Africa.

“DodyG,

Greetings!

Things are still fast improving; I am sure in the next couple of months
Liberia will be getting closed to NORMAL! OK! I will then invite to Liberia:)

Have a great day.

Henry”

Celeste is going to Tunisia on a program that Youssef, Digidy and I concocted two years ago in a coffee shop in Calgary (shitty coffee, but great idea). That little idea somehow took a life on its own and managed to be brought to life by various dedicated people in five countries to its current form (whom much of the credit belong). She told me that the story was repeated to the current batch of participants while they were in New York for the pre-departure preparation. This makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

I found myself being less sarcastic in the past few months. It's probably much influenced by change of lifestyle I've had this year. Drink a lot less, exercise more, talk less, eat less meat, read more, work more, play more, spend less, think more, love more, dream more.

April I turned 26.

A friend diagnosed with possible cancer.

Two friends lost their jobs (one sales, one architecture). One is on the brink of losing one (science). SilverKey had its best month yet.

One death in New York.

100 miles run.

”This is far from a case of a fine cabinet official undone by the actions of a few obscure bad apples in the military police. Donald Rumsfeld has morphed, over the last two years, from a man of supreme confidence to arrogance, then to almost willful blindness. With the approval of the president, he sent American troops into a place whose nature and dangers he had apparently never bothered to examine.” (NYTimes Editorial Board)

”"Dear Heavenly Father, please keep the leader of China, President Hu Jintao, healthy and on an even keel. Please see to it that he moves steadily and carefully toward restructuring the Chinese banking system and ridding it of its huge overhang of bad loans and corruption, before there is a real meltdown that would be felt around the world. Give him the wisdom to cool the overheated Chinese economy without creating a recession that would prompt China to stop importing like crazy and start just exporting like crazy. And Father, forgive us for all the bad words we used in recent years to describe China's leaders — terms like `Butchers of Beijing.' We did not mean it. We meant to say `Bankers of Beijing,' because their economy is now fueling growth all over Asia, bolstering Japan and sucking up imports from everywhere. May China's leaders live to 120, and may they enjoy 9 percent G.D.P. growth every year of their lives. Thank you, Father. Amen."”

(Tom Friedman - NYT)

We are still going strong, not a Saturday goes by without a book review.

1. How the Markets Really Work by Joel Kurtzman.

The author cited an anecdote about a meeting between a group of Russian economists and politicians and some of its American counterparts. The Russians were trying to understand who exactly in charge of the Markets.

If you want to understand the nature of prices, read this book (why my Gucci bag costs $5000 dollars?)

The previous book reviewed here (How Market Really Works) works on the fundamental nature of market. This book address the higher issue of how information shapes market (including stock market, bond market), consideration about price and value, etc.

It's  a compact book and an entertaining to read one.

Go read 'em.

2. Hunting the 1918 Flue (by Kirsty Duncan)

What is the most devastating disease ever? Black Plauge, AIDS, EBola ? nope.

It's the 1918 Spanish flu that killed an estimated 20 to 40 million people in just ONE YEAR. 1918 is not even a hundred years ago.

And the problem is, even until right now the nature of the virus is not understood. More is known about AIDS than this flu virus.

This book chronicle the effort to exhume the bodies of the victims located under permafrost in Norwegia. Kirsty Duncan is the leader of the expedition and it tells the tale for struggle within the acadamic cirlce (back stabbing, betrayal, money, soap opera stuff) regarding the project.

The book can be a bit dry at places, but the story is gripping and the educational value about the flu (of what little is known about it) is tremendous.

Recommended.

3. Murder in the Hearse Degree (by Tim Cockey).

This book is hillarious. It's a story about an undertaker who play detective. The writing is sharp and witty and I can heartily recommend this book to anyone, even to a non-fan of this genre.

Recommended.