Bossa Nova acai juice

Anything containg the words antioxidants, superfruits, exotic tropical locations, and better health made easy will get my attention. Enter Bossa Nova acai juice.

Acai berries are purplish and come from the Amazon jungle in Brazil. People native to that area are allegedly healthier than most. Bossa Nova is a California-based company markets acai juice in a 10 oz. bottle for $2.99. I've been drinking 3-4 ounces every day and it tastes pretty good if you drink it like a shot.

There are several superfruit juice products like this. You may have seen juices with pomengranate, goji berry, or mangosteen. According to Consumer Reports none of them can really claim anything but that won't stop me from buying it. I guess it's just part of being human. People have been concocting elixirs, panaceas, and magic potions for centuries. If they at least make people think they feel better then perhaps they serve a purpose.

Daytona Beach, FL

This weekend I went to Daytona Beach for the first time. It's a well-known destination for spring breakers, NASCAR fans, and cars on beaches. The little I got to see of it made it seem like a slow-paced, sleepy beach town which didn't jibe with its reputation.

To begin with, the airport is small and easy to get in and out of. I had a friendly cabbie named Pierre that took me to the Hilton which is right on the beach. Pierre left Haiti in 1980 and spent 24 years in Miami. He speaks French, Creole, Spanish, and English (decently).

I'm definitely looking forward to going back there sometime in a non-Spring Break week.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daytona_Beach

St. Patrick's Day & being American

Today is the day when many people suddenly become proud of their Irish heritage whether they're Irish or not. Others use St. Patrick's Day as a reason to go drinking or to pull something hideously off-green out of the closet.

Over the years I've become a bit ambivalent identifying myself as Irish-American. Sure, I wore a green shirt to work today and said "probably" when people asked me if I was going to drink beer today (although I had no intention of doing so). My policy has been just to acknowledge it if asked. There are some people that make a big deal about it but who really cares if you consider yourself Italian, Irish, Polish, etc.

There are two things that caused me to think about this: one to do with Theodore Roosevelt and the other Christoper Walken. Interesting pair, eh? Roosevelt said:

"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all."

"This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance."

"But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else."

Finally there was a scene in The Deer Hunter where Christopher Walken was being questioned by a doctor after being rescued as a POW in Vietnam. He was asked if his name was Russian and he said in an proud, certain tone that it was American.

Harrumph!

to health care to not health care

If you haven't taken a side in the health care debate, ask yourself these two questions and it may clear it up for you:

1) Is health care a right that should be provided to you by the government?

If yes, move to #2. If no, call your congressperson and ask them to vote no on the deem and pass vote coming soon.

2) Should a country already $12 trillion in debt tax or borrow another $950 billion to provide health care coverage to the populace?
If you say yes again, call your congressperson and ask them to vote yes.

If you're still confused, the tiebreaker is whether the picture above scares you.

March Madness

Every March real and casual college basketball fans take part in what is called March Madness. The madness is that there are 64 teams and after 63 games there will be one champion. There are typically upsets and dramatic finishes.

What I think people tune into is to see the emotion. Unlike football, one can see basketball players clearly from a closer vantage point. I have no idea whether I'll fill out a bracket tomorrow or even see many games as I have nothing invested in any of the teams. It makes a big difference if you have someone to pull for.

I hope you have a fave team and have fun with it. Also it's always great to see the One Shining Moment video at the end. Here's the 2009 version.

31 down 19 to go

This weekend I made a short business trip to Baltimore, Maryland and I'm debating whether this even counts as a visit to the state. I was only there 15 hours, it was overcast and raining, and all I did was go from the airport to a downtown hotel and back.

I'd like to go back sometime for a couple of days, catch a baseball game, and go outside the city too. The word to describe this affliction is wanderlust. I always thought the word had Irish roots but it actually comes from Germany.

Here's the proof from dictionary.com which proves again that Wikipedia is right:

wan·der·lust   /ˈwɒndərˌlʌst/ Show Spelled[won-der-luhst]
–noun
a strong, innate desire to rove or travel about.

Origin:
1850–55; < G, equiv. to wander(n) to wander + Lust desire; see lust

Today my wife was trying to cull books from our bookshelf. I have many travel books of places I've never been and for languages I've never even attempted to learn. A person that doesn't care to travel would think I'm slightly mad but another like-minded individual would understand completely. Needless to say, I wouldn't allow her to remove any of them.

muscle memory

About a month ago I read about an Olympic figure skater whose mother passed away shortly before her competition. She was out of sorts mentally so she was going to do her routine on muscle memory. I don't know but it turned out but this interested me because I've heard the term before but didn't really grasp it. I've been training for a 25K race in May and have noticed that even if I'm tired or unmotivated that my legs will carry where I need to go. Muscle memory also explains why I'm no longer good at basketball or golf. My muscles don't remember all the motions that I'd done so often when I was young.

Wikipedia says "When an active person repeatedly trains movement, often of the same activity, in an effort to stimulate the mind’s adaptation process, the outcome is to induce physiological changes which attain increased levels of accuracy through repetition. Even though the process is really brain-muscle memory or motor memory, the colloquial expression "muscle memory" is commonly used.[1]"

Now I understand better what I need to do to improve in one activity and also not to get so down on myself now when I do dabble in basketball, golf, or another sport. Since the brain is also a muscle it seems like it would make sense that we can improve our minds through repetition too. I'll leave that to the Tony Robbins of the world.