Dear Professor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrisTT8kVrM

This song was shown to me by a close friend. There are little things in this song that make me remind me of my friend. Little things that they say they are 20 years old and class of '08. This is what my friend would want to be playing. She loved fun remixes of songs and find the newest songs before anyone else did. I miss her more and more each day, but listening to music that I know she loved and watching videos of her make things just a little easier!

Over in Ireland

Today, as I was driving to class, I was switching through my radio stations. I landed on BBC Radio on Sirius Radio. I heard them talking about a Police Officer's car being blown up while he was in it. This happened because of his religion, something he believed in. It switched to his mom talking about how horrible this incident was and how she will miss her little boy. I was interested in this. Why do we always have to kill on faith or religion? This is something people choose to believe in. I went and googled the article. I attached this link for anyone who would want to read it. People need to stop killing each other and start loving each other for who each other is. I remember when I was 7 years old and I thought the world was perfect and there weren't any wars, but I was wrong. There was Desert Storm, bombings of embassies, and how can anyone forget the Lewinsky scandals. I don't understand how people think it is okay to blow each other up and get it away with it. We all bleed the same color blood, all have problems, and all have families. We are human beings not toys that people can blow up. http://article.wn.com/view/2011/04/03/US_condemns_murder_of_policeman_in_Northern_Ireland/

Billy Joel - Only the Good Die Young

We were merely freshmen..

If you haven't heard this song in awhile, take the time to listen to it. When I was a kid, I remember liking this song but I never understood the meaning of it until one of my good friends in high school accidentally took his own life by overdosing.
I don't mean to sound cruel or threatening, but think about it.. how many times have you endangered your life by doing stupid things? Have you ever gotten behind the wheel after you had been drinking? Was anyone in the passenger seat? Do you talk on the phone while you drive? How about texting, do you do that while you are doing 50mph? We all commit these crimes without thinking of the deeper consequences.. no one ever thinks about dying on the way home. At most, we worry about getting a pulled over by the cops and getting a DUI, but do you ever worry that you might kill yourself and/or your friends in the car with you?
It is a troubling thought, I know. This song does a good job in portraying young and accidental death by saying "for the life of me, I cannot believe we'd ever die for these sins, we were merely freshmen."

2011 Tohoku disaster

My cousin is currently an active Marine, stationed in Japan. When I first heard the news about the earthquake, I was in the gym and the small TV screen in the corner of the room caught my eye. It was the headlining and first reports of the quake.
Since Iain, my cousin, has no direct contact to US I immediately logged on to facebook to see if he was okay, considering that he lives in Sendai, only about 50 miles from the worst. Thank goodness, he and his base were unharmed besides some equipment damage due to flooding.
When I was finally able to talk to him on the phone, he told me that he watched the waves roll in from the top building rooftop. He told me that his first thought was remember the movie "The Day After Tomorrow," and it didn't seem real. After he got it together, all he could think about was how many people were down on ground level, and whether he would be sent as a "rescue"(a search team) or "collect" (a team that takes care of handling the found bodies).
The last news feed I remember hearing about the disaster was a death toll of over 12 thousand people, with 10 thousand still missing. It is a terrifying thought how quickly something can take life away in such great numbers. We always think, "it couldn't happen to me," when in reality I think we all have an equal disadvantage.

5 Stages of Grief in Games

I found this downloadable computer game that won a number of Indie game awards a while back. This game is called Solace, and it is a PC game that tries to not only provide a fun top-down shooting experience, but also to portray the 5 stages of grief through their use of art and music. I thought that this was a very interesting way of putting the 5 stages into a more artistic form, and for all who are interested in trying the game, the download link can be found on their website at http://solacegame.com/ . For those who either do not want to download the game, or are just not into video games, I still recommend watching the video on their home page to get an idea of what kind of work was put into creating this experience.

Ocean Reef Burials

A new-ish cremation memorial option is having your ashes incorporated into a permanent artifical reef. I find this particularly interesting because my great-uncle John Rybovich's ashes were incorporated into a cement mold "memorial reef" and lowered into the ocean. My uncle, a boat-builder, loved everything involving saltwater and was an early proponent for artificial reefs.

The website EternalReefs.com describes the history behind what they call "reef balls":

"Patented mold systems were developed to create reefs that closely mimic natural reef formations. Special design features were included to make it easy for sea life to attach and grow on these designed reef structures. An environmentally friendly concrete formula was developed that would be attractive to the microorganisms to make the new reefs, and reef balls were born.

In 1990, the Reef Ball Development Group and the Reef Ball Foundation completed the first Reef Ball project near Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Since that time, there have been over 3,500 projects worldwide with more than 400,000 Reef Balls placed on the ocean floor. With years of documented history of stability and habitat development, Reef Balls have become the world standard for fisheries programs, coral restoration and habitat development projects."

(Eternal Reefs, INC)

My uncle's reef has been listed under South Florida Dive Sites and Palm Beach County Wrecks since October 7, 1999.

"eternal reef" supporting life