Iran's Disputed Election - The Big Picture - Boston.com

I love the blog "The Big Picture" which is a collection of photos from news agencies around the world covering specific topics from hurricanes to space exploration to children in Afghanistan.

Today, there is a collection of photos from the protests in Iran over the contested (many would say fraudulant) presidential election.



Iran's Disputed Election - The Big Picture - Boston.com

I was literally crying as I looked at them. What an amazing display. Please check them out. I promise you will be glad you did.

Costa Rica Zipline

Here's a clip of the zip line we went on in Costa Rica. It truly scared me to death, but I am so glad I did it. We had a great time with lovely views and fast, fast ziplines! As I said in the previous post, the highest was about 600 feet and the longest was a quarter of a mile!

Costa Rica

For our quarterly blog post, a recap of our trip to Costa Rica.

We traveled to Costa Rica in February and had a wonderful time. We flew into San Jose and then drove up into the mountains, through the cloud forest, and to Arenal volcano. The drive was interesting (and beautiful), to say the least. We were literally driving through the clouds...a first. Only on the drive back, which was clear, did we realize just exactly how dangerous the drive was. Here's a picture of the road we drove on on the way back down three days later. Keep in mind that as we were driving up the mountains, we couldn't see more than 20 feet ahead of us because of the clouds.

We arrived in Fortuna and stayed at a lovely new hotel set overlooking the Arenal volcano, which is the most active volcano in Costa Rica. While we didn't see any lava flows, there was plenty of smoke continually coming from the top of the volcano.

Arenal volcano in the background of the bar in the pool



The hotel had natural hot springs fed by the waters heated from the volcano. It was amazing. The views were spectacular, the water was warm and the forest surrounding us was amazing. We saw lots of birds and an occasional monkey and one huge spider. Later, on a drive around Arenal lake, I scared Ahmad by getting out of the car to take pictures of these curious little animals which looked like a cross between a possum and a raccoon. I think Ahmad was scared that I would get bitten, and in all honesty, the little guys were running towards me. I escaped unscathed, however.






While in the Arenal area, we went on an amazing zip line adventure. The longest zip line was almost a quarter of a mile long and over 600 feet off of the ground. Those of you who know me well know that I am scared of heights, but I conquered my fear and we had the most amazing time. I'll try and post a clip of one of the lines later.


We then drove to Quepos on the Pacific coast to the Manuel Antonio national park. We stayed in the only hotel directly on the beach. It was gorgeous. We took a hike through the national park and saw lots of monkeys and sloths and birds. I was hoping to see some tree frogs or snakes but we didn't. I think Ahmad was just fine with that. There were lots of monkeys, sloths and large iguanas at our hotel, too. We spent a lot of time on the beach just relaxing.

While in Quepos, we took a catamaran sailing trip. To everyone's surprise, we found 3 humpback whales, two adults and a baby. Mothers who have had calves spend the winters near Costa Rica while the calf learns to swim and gets fat for the trip back to colder waters for the summer. It seems that it is pretty rare to actually see them as the crew on our boat was just as excited as we all were to see the whales. One swam a foot underneath me as I was standing on the net on the boat. We felt so lucky to have been able to see the whales so close, within feet of the boat. I was too busy standing with my mouth open in amazement to take any pictures. Luckily, I am married to Ahmad, who not only took pictures but also shot some great video of the whales. Here's a short clip.

The trip was fabulous. It was great to get out of the snow and cold and to just relax together. Here's a slide show of the rest of the pictures.

A Year in Books

As I posted previously, I now use LibraryThing to keep track of the books I read.

I read, by my count, 26 books this year...although I feel like I am missing a couple.

Here's the list:

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Best American Short Stories edited by Stephen King
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
The Dark Tower (Books 1-7) by Stephen King
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding (for the third time)
March by Geraldine Brooks
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Rebecca by Daphne de Maurier
Snow by Orhan Pamuk
Stanger in the Forest: On Foot Across Borneo by Eric Hansen
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace, One School at a Time by Greg Mortensen
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmeal Beah
The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff


I just started to list my favorites of the year and I realized I was going to copy half of the list. I really enjoyed almost all of the books I read this year.


If you haven't read it, you MUST read The Poisonwood Bible. It's haunting.

Bel Canto is a great tale, as is Water for Elephants.

The Golden Notebook was fabulous, as was The Name of the Rose. I loved Umberto Eco's style of writing and the historical aspect of the story.

I actually read more non-fiction than normal this year. Stranger in the Forest I read before we took our trip to Malaysia and I loved it. What a great tale of travel and immersion in another culture. I wish I was as brave as the author is when it comes to just letting it all go and living a totally different life. Three Cups of Tea was fascinating and made me realize how much more I could be doing to help change the world. Inspiring.


What did you read this year? What would you recommend?

Feel free to check out my library over at LibraryThing.com.

Meredith's Birthday!!!

As I alluded to in my last post, I went home to Kentucky in July. I didn't go just to visit family, although I certainly was thrilled to see everyone.

I went home for a very special day....my niece Meredith's first birthday!

Laura and Michael had a wonderful party at their house to celebrate this momentous milestone. I was so glad to have been able to travel home to be there on her first birthday. It's hard to believe that she is one year old now.

I know I am a little biased, but she is just the cutest thing ever! Here's some pictures from her birthday party on July 26, 2008!

It's been a long time...

I suck at posting. Let's just get that out there. Okay, I feel better now.


We have had an incredibly busy summer this year. We traveled to Orlando, Malaysia, Jordan, Kentucky and Las Vegas. We have one more trip in a couple of weeks to New Mexico and then we will stay put here in Rochester for awhile. At least until I can dream up a reason to go somewhere else.


The trip to Malaysia was fantastic. It was 18 days of no pager, no cell phones, no television, just uninterrupted time together in the hot sun.


We spent 5 days in Kuala Lumpur and had a great time eating wonderful food and shopping in Chinatown. Then we traveled to Tioman Island, which was the most amazing place either of us has ever visited. We spent the days laying on the beach, hiking in the jungle, snorkeling right off the pier and getting massages. Who could complain about that? Our final destination was Penang where we visited a snake temple, lounged around the pool and ate some amazing street market food. All in all, it was a wonderful trip and we can't wait to go back! (Pictures from Malaysia are in the previous post!)


We also visited Jordan and our family there this summer. We had a great time relaxing in Aqaba with Ahmad's brother and his wife and their adorable son, Hashem (2 and half years old). We also went to two weddings and ate a lot of home cooked meals that were out of this world.

Ahmad and Hashem building a sandcastle in Aqaba.

Delicious!

Virginie, Sufian and Hashem

Ahmad and our nephew, Hashem. He is the son of Ahmad's younger brother, Sufian, and Virginie, Sufian's wife from Belguim.

Hashem

Finally, we just got back from Vegas this past weekend. We met Shannan and Aleco there and had a great time gambling, watching Ka and Chris Rock and eating at Tao (the best meal any of us have ever had!). We didn't win any money, but we didn't lose any either, so I guess we can't complain.

In front of Paris hotel in Vegas.

Shannan, me, Ahmad and Aleco shopping in Vegas.

Our trip to Malaysia

As promised...pictures of our trip to Malaysia.

We had such a wonderful time. The trip was absolutely perfect and we fell in love with Malaysia. We can't wait to go back!

Click here to see a larger slideshow, or just watch the one below.

Just a Little Note from Paradise

I don't know if anyone even reads this blog anymore...but if you do and you wonder where we have gone to...

Ahmad and I are laying on a beach in the middle of the South China sea as I type. The water is crystal clear, the breeze is light, and the sun is hot, hot, hot. It's truly the most beautiful place I have ever seen.

We'll post lots of pictures when we return, but for now, greetings from Tioman Island, Malaysia!

Feel like a shopping spree?

I was perusing another blog and came across a link to this site.

We've all heard the 3 trillion dollar figure...apparently that is how much money we have or will have spent on the Iraq war.

I don't want to get into my thoughts on the Iraq war as most of you know them already and I don't feel like getting myself angry tonight.

I do, however, want you to take a look at http://www.3trillion.org/. What a fascinating website.

We know 3 trillion dollars is a LOT of money...but I now you can find out just how much it really is. The website gives you a budget of 3 trillion dollars and then offers you everything you can think of...and guess what? It's hard to spend 3 trillion dollars.

I have spent almost 2.5 trillion and I am having a hard time spending the rest. Here's a sample of some of my "purchases:"


For the good of humanity:

End our dependence on foreign oil
A Raise for every teacher in the US
Converted completely to solar energy
Cured two deadly diseases
Universal literacy
End world hunger for one year
Assist Iraqi children displaced, mamed or orphaned by the war
Universal Health Care for every American
New clothing, school supplies and books for ten million children
Finish repairing the damage done by Hurrican Katrina
Plant one million trees
Educate the world on sustainable agricultural practices


And I would send every man, woman and child in the US on a three week foreign vacation. This is a critical one, I think. If we all were more educated about the rest of the world, perhaps we would be less inclined to support policies which destroy it.


For you, my friends and family:

A bought a private island in the caribbean so we can all vacation when we like
A house for all of my family and friends
A luxury yatch...again, you're welcome to borrow it!


And finally, for myself and Ahmad:

New shoes every week for life
A really nice digital camera
Two iPhones
The entire Ann Taylor clothing line
Our dream house
My own personal library
And a car for you, Ahmad...your Mercedes 600!


Finally, I paid for the salary of 8 new weapons inspectors...so perhaps we can avoid this entire disaster in the future...well, at least once Bush is out of the White House.


Enjoy!

My New Favorite Thing

Earlier this year, Stephanie and I discussed books we had read in 2007.

As always when I talk about books with anyone, I started to feel guilty that I hadn't kept up better with books I have read.

I always tell myself I should keep track of the books I read, along with when I read them and what I felt about them. I even have more than one empty journal taking up space in my cluttered office for doing just that. The key word there is empty. Despite my best intentions, I never write anything in those stupid journals.

This year, I started to keep an Excel spreadsheet with the books I read and I even blogged about it in my very first post on this blog....until I found this.

This is my new best friend. It's called librarything and it rocks my world.

Seriously, it is awesome. I have archived most of the books that are on my overflowing bookshelf (although I haven't tackled any of the ones in the boxes in my closet) and I have lists for each year.

You can apply tags to the books that you enter that help you keep track in various ways. For example, I have "Books I read in 2007" and "Books I read in 2008" and "Books read more than once" tags. I also have a "Favorite" tag.

The other really nice thing is that you can see how many people have the same books that you do and you can peruse other people's libraries.

In other words, I am in love with LIbrarything. Check it out. And you can find my lists with my username: acardin11.

Happy perusing.

Busy, Busy

Ahmad and I have been very busy these last couple of weeks. He had several tests which of course were all scheduled the same week and I have been working a lot lately.

This is all in preparation for our trip to..........Malaysia!

We are going for two weeks of uninterrupted sun, sand, spicy food, and snorkeling/scuba diving.

Did I mention we are also going to do a couple of day trek through the Malaysian jungle? There are Asian tigers, wild boars, vipers, leopards, orangutans and even elephants. The likelihood of us actually seeing most of those animals is remote, as the jungle is huge and the animals are naturally skittish and hide deep in the jungle, but I can dream, right?

We will probably see lots of very large insects and a lot of leeches! Apparently, they are pretty much everywhere in the jungle and from all I have read, they are fantastic at jumpling onto you as you walk through the trails and then wriggling their way up to who know's where to attack themselves and drink. Sounds like fun, huh?

Kuala Lumpur is the capital and there is great diving in Malaysia with lots of turtles and sharks!

I hope we will have lots of interesting stories and photos to post after we get back....but until then we have two more months of work and school before we leave.

Home Work

It's been a busy week here in the Cardin/Almasarweh household, which doesn't really differentiate it from any other week. Too bad none of what we have been doing is really that interesting. I have been working on a new research project which is really neat, but unfortunately I can't disclose what it is on the internet! Anyway...

I thought I would post some pictures of our house since most of you have never seen it. We only have 2 more years here, so like I told Stephanie the other day, you better get busy making plans to visit if you want to see us here!

Ahmad and I have done a lot of work on the house since we bought it. One of the big projects was building a patio for the backyard. Mom and Dad came up to help us last summer and we worked for two days solid on this project.

As you can see, the guys did most of the laying of the stone so we could blame them later if it didn't turn out right. Mom and I carried every single piece of stone to them, though, so over the course of the day, we moved a ton of stone together. It was hard work, but we had a lot of fun, and as you can, the finished product is amazing. We've already thrown several cookouts and the patio is a big hit.

The patio turned out great. And this picture also illustrates the huge cherry tree we have in the backyard which in the spring fills up with cherries that are bright red/yellow and taste delicious.

The jungle (see the previous post) is also visible, as is some of the landscaping we did on the back yard. My project for this year is to landscape around the patio. I can't wait. I have to admit, landscaping and working outdoors is my favorite part of home ownership.

And here is the landscaping we did on the front of the house. We have single handedly kept our local Home Depot in business!

Lastly, Ahmad remodeled one of our bathrooms. It was sorely in need of a lot of work when we bought the house. Here's the before and after pictures.

More Political News

Our illustrious governor, Eliot Spitzer, was apparently caught on tape soliciting a prostitute in a prostitute ring in D.C. This, after he ran as a champion of removing corruption in our oh-so-corrupt New York state government.

While everyone seems to be really shocked (he apparently had everyone fooled into thinking he was squeaky clean), I am not. Not because I have some inside info on Spitzer, but mainly because there is no one I trust less than a politician.

Two things I don't understand:

-Why, oh why, would you solicit a prostitute if you were the governor? Can't you just have an affair or get a divorce and sleep around or something, besides PAYING for sex?

-Why would his wife go on stage and stand behind him while he gives a press conference confirming what everyone already knows at this point, that he not only cheated on her, but it was with a prostitute in a prostitution ring? Why would she stand behind him and "support" him while he announces to the whole country how he screwed a prostitute and now his career and possibly his marriage are over? Wouldn't it be better for her to have her own press conference where she announced to everyone what a jackass he is? At least, that is what I would do.

Read more about this story here.

And the campaign rolls on...

Mom sent me this funny cartoon and I had to post it. I don't know how much more of this election I can take!

Courtesy of Walt Handelsman from Newsday.com.

Robotic Training

As I stated in my last post, I went to Hackensack New Jersey for a davinci robotic surgery training course this week. Since I am always talking about robotic surgery, I figured I would give a little course of my own. Seriously, if you want to see what I am talking about when I say "robotic prostatectomy", here you go.


This is the general set-up for a robotic prostatectomy, courtesy of Boston.com. The surgeon (that's me), sits at the console and performs the surgery via the robot, which is that big thing towering over the blue drapes in the background.


First the ports are placed into the patient by the surgeon, similar to any other laparoscopic surgery. Then once all the ports are in place, the robot is wheeled over to the patient and is attached to the ports. Long instruments are placed through this ports and they can be changed depending on what the surgeon needs.

A camera is placed through one of the ports. It actually has two lenses or cameras in one, so that the image the surgeon sees through the console is in 3-D. The image is magnified about 10 times normal so that all of the structures are very clearly visualized making surgery a lot more precise. This allows us to see vessels and nerves that are difficult to see during a regular surgery.

Finally, as you can see in this picture, we use two funny looking contraptions to operate and move the robot inside the patient. It allows better movement of the instruments than even our own wrists and fingers could. There are also 5 pedals that we use to do various things.

So, that's the robot in a nutshell.