Repost: Paulina Porizkova: Aging

This was beautifully written by the still beautiful supermodel Paulina Porizkova.  Enjoy!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paulina-porizkova/aging_b_771127.html

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Old age is the revenge of the ugly ones is a French proverb; one that I first heard at the very advanced age of 15 upon my arrival in Paris. I had spent five years in the ugly bin at school in Sweden, and had only recently been upgraded to beautiful. My ego was still fragile and my mind still pumped full of highbrow arty self-education and nerdy jokes, which is how one gets by when one is ugly. Which of course, I promptly realized, is exactly what will pay off as one ages: beauty fades, but a mind constantly energized will shine even brighter with age. I immediately took the proverb as my own personal motto and patted myself on the back with satisfaction. I will continue to be intelligent, I vowed, no matter how beautiful I become. And then, at, like, the old age of 35, I'll be an incredibly smart and kinda attractive old lady.

In interviews I gave at the wise age of 17 and 18, I pontificated about the beauty of age and wisdom, and blabber on about how I look forward to my first wrinkle. What an idiot I was.

My first recognition of age setting in was exactly on my 36th birthday. I have no idea why, on this day of all days, I looked in the mirror and realized my face no longer looked young. I didn't look bad: only, the freshness had somehow disappeared. I immediately became hyper-conscious of my looks and went out and bought the most expensive cream on the market. (For your information, it did nothing.) And I began the battle of acceptance, something I have to do now almost every time I face a mirror. 

"Oh sure, Miss Supermodel, it must be hard for you," you may think, pityingly. (I have also heard it spoken aloud more than once, although, oddly enough, the tone wasn't so much pitying as sarcastic.) "You have always been more beautiful than the average," the conversation goes, "so it goes without saying, you still are. At least, in your age category." Hm, I know it's a compliment, so why do I not fluff up with delight? 

Maybe because nothing ages as poorly as a beautiful woman's ego. 

When you're used to one sort of treatment, it's really hard to get demoted, even if that new treatment is still better than the average. Boohoo. I know. My life is sucks. Now, I don't actually know the exact cut-off age where beautiful ceases and "must have-once-been-beautiful" begins. It's true it's not forty-five. I can still get attention when I try really hard, even if it's greatly reduced. But would I ever have dreamed that I would miss the time I couldn't walk past a construction site unmolested? These days when someone whistles at me, it's mostly a bike messenger about to mow me down. 

Having been confident with the way my looks affected others, I was used to using them as extra cash. True, this worked mostly with the male population, but that little extra I could get out of them -- as I begged them not to give poor-little-me a ticket, or keep that door open just a second longer or try just a little harder to find an empty seat on that plane -- I took for granted.

Like everything else in life, there is always payback and it's a bitch. Beauty, unlike the rest of the gifts handed out at birth, does not require dedication, patience and hard work to pay off. But it's also the only gift that does NOT keep on giving. It usually blossoms at an age where you're least equipped to handle its benefits and rewards and instead take it all for granted, and by the time you start understanding the value of it, it slowly trickles away. How's that for revenge of the ugly ones? 

To me, to let yourself age means that you're comfortable with who you are. Yes, sorry, I do believe that all the little shots here and there, and the pulling of skin here and there and the removal of fat here and there, means you still have something to prove; you're still not comfortable in your skin. The beauty of age was supposed to be about the wisdom acquired and with it, an acceptance and celebration of who you are. Now all we want for people to see is that we have not yet attained that wisdom. Aging has become something to fight, not something to accept. Aging is a matter of control and control of matter. 

We can call injections of foreign stuff under our skin "having nothing done" since it doesn't actually involve surgery. So what if Botox makes you look like a poorly dubbed movie, or worse, human sock puppet where there is no match-up between what you say and how you feel, and you're turning all your family and friends slightly Asperger-ish.

What if you chose the fillers instead? Then you can proudly say "no Botox here" and forget to mention the rest of the stuff that now inhabits your epidermis. The problem there seems to be that the minute you fix those frown lines, your forehead looks tremendously wrinkled. And the moment you fix that, your eyes are so hollowed, you need just a touch of extra cheekbone. And suddenly, you look really great as long as you don't move a single facial muscle. Because once you do, a single twitch will reveal a whole landscape of matter under your skin that really shouldn't be there. So you may use a little Botox to fix that and... And grey is much easier to blend with blonde and... Before you know it, you have joined the cult of the Scandinavian Stepfords. The members of this clan, like the once hairy-brunette-Italian Madonna and the once freckled-redhead Aussie Nicole Kidman now resemble no one as much as the blonde American Barbara Walters, who could, in turn, not only be their mother but also the sister of Linda Evans. They are all now high-cheek-boned, smooth-skinned Scandinavian blondes. But only one of them started out that way.

Now, let me state once and for all that I am not against plastic surgery. In many cases, it is something that can so vastly improve the quality of life it actually saves it. And even in the more frivolous cases, I do not have a problem with a woman who chooses a teensy bit of this or that to make herself feel better, as long as she admits to it. Nothing galls me as much as age-defying celebrities who achieve their looks by "healthy food and yoga." I know this is bullshit. You may not. But I can guarantee we will both feel bad about the way we look, the way we have let ourselves go, when Michelle Pfeiffer and Demi Moore look not a day over 30. 

I recently saw a comment posted on to one of the blogs I had written by a woman who stated that my problem is that I'm obviously jealous of these women I criticize, because they are not only beautiful but successful, something I'm clearly not. That gave me pause. Am I just jealous? Is my entire creative output completely reliant on this baser of emotions? It's true I'm trying to find a new place in the world that would rather I had just shut up and stayed beautiful (dying young is a terrific way to achieve this, by the way), which makes me a tad resentful. It's also true I'm still very insecure and want attention and universal love and have not a friggin' clue on how to achieve it. And likewise, it is true that I am jealous, and envious, and covetous of things I don't have. Which are, or is, rather--surprise, surprise--not an unlined forehead or puffy lips, nor a hot career, but confidence. True confidence: the kind that should come with age and that I keep glimpsing off in the distance, the kind I tell myself I would have developed already had I relied on wit rather than looks. 

I keep a list of my "heroines," the women who have dared to age, and I'm always stupidly grateful to see these women highlighted in the media. I just found out that Jamie Lee Curtis, one of the women on my list, and Madonna are the same age. Looking at photos of them side by side is a revelation. One looks no older than 30, hard-edged, determined and hungry. The other looks like she's old enough to be her mother, but radiant, confident and content. 
I already know I'm too vain and too insecure to follow her footsteps. This is what and whom I'm jealous of.

But even as I struggle with the choices -- age, age a little, age not at all -- I realize I'm blessed to even be in the position to age. To age is a privilege, not a birthright, even though most of us in the civilized world seem to forget this. This choice of "not-aging" is actually reserved for well-off women with lots of time and money. I've met a lot of these women at parties and social gatherings, and they were all lovely, gracious, generous and often way smarter than me. So when I asked them all who they would elect as their symbol of graceful aging, the overwhelmingly popular choice, Madonna, was disheartening. With all the choices we have, with all those beautiful and strong and powerful women in their 40 and 50's (Oprah? Arianna Huffington? Kathryn Bigelow? Christiane Amanpour? And although I hate to include her, Sarah Palin?), the choice was the one woman who has elected to NOT age. Of course, the kicker is: artificial youth takes lot maintenance. Maintenance takes a lot of time.

So, the more time you chase -- the more time you waste.

For the record, Paulina Porizkova diligently uses day creams with SPF 30, rain or shine. (Olay proX, Dr Denese tinted, or Patricia Wexler) She also uses the Clairisonic every night, followed by Patricia Wexler's intensive deep wrinkle treatment. She has had one Thermage treatment about three years ago when she could afford it. The before and after photos still look identical. She also had two Fraxel treatments on the secondary laugh lines next to her mouth, also about three or four years ago. Those lines never went away, but also haven't gotten any deeper. Her verdict is that she can't see any difference, but the minute she has a spare $ 7.000.00 with which to wipe her butt, she'll do them again. 

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...

Taken at Ayala Triangle Gardens...beautiful lights...

 

Our Christmas tree this year

Before these two start grabbing the ornaments :)

First Day of School

This was taken last November 8th.  It was Kenji's first day of school.  It was also his 2nd birthday.  Another milestone for my baby boy.  Enjoy school, my love.  

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's Thanksgiving Day for our American neighbors.  Even if this isn't a holiday for us here in the Philippines, I think it's still nice to remember all the wonderful things that has happened to us this year.  These are some of the things that I am very grateful for:

1. My 2 boys, who are growing up too fast in my opinion.  You both bring so much joy and love into our lives.  Everyday, I thank God for blessing me with you and showing me what life is really all about.
2. My husband, my soul mate, my love, my partner.  I can't ask for anything more from a partner in life.
3. My family, dad, mom and my brothers, who are always very supportive of my decisions.  They've always allowed me to grow up, make mistakes, but still remain patient and loving, no matter what.
4. My grandparents, especially Kongkong, who is currently battling cancer.  I hope and pray that he's able to continue to enjoy life with Ama for a few more years.
5. My friends, who are always there to lend a helping hand and to just share a coffee and stories with.  Girl friends are really one of God's greatest gift to women!  

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Funny

I thought this was so hilarious AND true! (source unknown)

Repost: A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

The New York Times

By MONA SIMPSON

Published: October 30, 2011

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I grew up as an only child, with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif. I hoped he would be rich and kind and would come into our lives (and our not yet furnished apartment) and help us. Later, after I’d met my father, I tried to believe he’d changed his number and left no forwarding address because he was an idealistic revolutionary, plotting a new world for the Arab people.

Even as a feminist, my whole life I’d been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I’d thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.

By then, I lived in New York, where I was trying to write my first novel. I had a job at a small magazine in an office the size of a closet, with three other aspiring writers. When one day a lawyer called me — me, the middle-class girl from California who hassled the boss to buy us health insurance — and said his client was rich and famous and was my long-lost brother, the young editors went wild. This was 1985 and we worked at a cutting-edge literary magazine, but I’d fallen into the plot of a Dickens novel and really, we all loved those best. The lawyer refused to tell me my brother’s name and my colleagues started a betting pool. The leading candidate: John Travolta. I secretly hoped for a literary descendant of Henry James — someone more talented than I, someone brilliant without even trying.

When I met Steve, he was a guy my age in jeans, Arab- or Jewish-looking and handsomer than Omar Sharif.

We took a long walk — something, it happened, that we both liked to do. I don’t remember much of what we said that first day, only that he felt like someone I’d pick to be a friend. He explained that he worked in computers.

I didn’t know much about computers. I still worked on a manual Olivetti typewriter.

I told Steve I’d recently considered my first purchase of a computer: something called the Cromemco.

Steve told me it was a good thing I’d waited. He said he was making something that was going to be insanely beautiful.

I want to tell you a few things I learned from Steve, during three distinct periods, over the 27 years I knew him. They’re not periods of years, but of states of being. His full life. His illness. His dying.

Steve worked at what he loved. He worked really hard. Every day.

That’s incredibly simple, but true.

He was the opposite of absent-minded.

He was never embarrassed about working hard, even if the results were failures. If someone as smart as Steve wasn’t ashamed to admit trying, maybe I didn’t have to be.

When he got kicked out of Apple, things were painful. He told me about a dinner at which 500 Silicon Valley leaders met the then-sitting president. Steve hadn’t been invited.

He was hurt but he still went to work at Next. Every single day.

Novelty was not Steve’s highest value. Beauty was.

For an innovator, Steve was remarkably loyal. If he loved a shirt, he’d order 10 or 100 of them. In the Palo Alto house, there are probably enough black cotton turtlenecks for everyone in this church.

He didn’t favor trends or gimmicks. He liked people his own age.

His philosophy of aesthetics reminds me of a quote that went something like this: “Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.”

Steve always aspired to make beautiful later.

He was willing to be misunderstood.

Uninvited to the ball, he drove the third or fourth iteration of his same black sports car to Next, where he and his team were quietly inventing the platform on which Tim Berners-Lee would write the program for the World Wide Web.

Steve was like a girl in the amount of time he spent talking about love. Love was his supreme virtue, his god of gods. He tracked and worried about the romantic lives of the people working with him.

Whenever he saw a man he thought a woman might find dashing, he called out, “Hey are you single? Do you wanna come to dinner with my sister?”

I remember when he phoned the day he met Laurene. “There’s this beautiful woman and she’s really smart and she has this dog and I’m going to marry her.”

When Reed was born, he began gushing and never stopped. He was a physical dad, with each of his children. He fretted over Lisa’s boyfriends and Erin’s travel and skirt lengths and Eve’s safety around the horses she adored.

None of us who attended Reed’s graduation party will ever forget the scene of Reed and Steve slow dancing.

His abiding love for Laurene sustained him. He believed that love happened all the time, everywhere. In that most important way, Steve was never ironic, never cynical, never pessimistic. I try to learn from that, still.

Steve had been successful at a young age, and he felt that had isolated him. Most of the choices he made from the time I knew him were designed to dissolve the walls around him. A middle-class boy from Los Altos, he fell in love with a middle-class girl from New Jersey. It was important to both of them to raise Lisa, Reed, Erin and Eve as grounded, normal children. Their house didn’t intimidate with art or polish; in fact, for many of the first years I knew Steve and Lo together, dinner was served on the grass, and sometimes consisted of just one vegetable. Lots of that one vegetable. But one. Broccoli. In season. Simply prepared. With just the right, recently snipped, herb.

Even as a young millionaire, Steve always picked me up at the airport. He’d be standing there in his jeans.

When a family member called him at work, his secretary Linetta answered, “Your dad’s in a meeting. Would you like me to interrupt him?”

When Reed insisted on dressing up as a witch every Halloween, Steve, Laurene, Erin and Eve all went wiccan.

They once embarked on a kitchen remodel; it took years. They cooked on a hotplate in the garage. The Pixar building, under construction during the same period, finished in half the time. And that was it for the Palo Alto house. The bathrooms stayed old. But — and this was a crucial distinction — it had been a great house to start with; Steve saw to that.

This is not to say that he didn’t enjoy his success: he enjoyed his success a lot, just minus a few zeros. He told me how much he loved going to the Palo Alto bike store and gleefully realizing he could afford to buy the best bike there.

And he did.

Steve was humble. Steve liked to keep learning.

Once, he told me if he’d grown up differently, he might have become a mathematician. He spoke reverently about colleges and loved walking around the Stanford campus. In the last year of his life, he studied a book of paintings by Mark Rothko, an artist he hadn’t known about before, thinking of what could inspire people on the walls of a future Apple campus.

Steve cultivated whimsy. What other C.E.O. knows the history of English and Chinese tea roses and has a favorite David Austin rose?

He had surprises tucked in all his pockets. I’ll venture that Laurene will discover treats — songs he loved, a poem he cut out and put in a drawer — even after 20 years of an exceptionally close marriage. I spoke to him every other day or so, but when I opened The New York Times and saw a feature on the company’s patents, I was still surprised and delighted to see a sketch for a perfect staircase.

With his four children, with his wife, with all of us, Steve had a lot of fun.

He treasured happiness.

Then, Steve became ill and we watched his life compress into a smaller circle. Once, he’d loved walking through Paris. He’d discovered a small handmade soba shop in Kyoto. He downhill skied gracefully. He cross-country skied clumsily. No more.

Eventually, even ordinary pleasures, like a good peach, no longer appealed to him.

Yet, what amazed me, and what I learned from his illness, was how much was still left after so much had been taken away.

I remember my brother learning to walk again, with a chair. After his liver transplant, once a day he would get up on legs that seemed too thin to bear him, arms pitched to the chair back. He’d push that chair down the Memphis hospital corridor towards the nursing station and then he’d sit down on the chair, rest, turn around and walk back again. He counted his steps and, each day, pressed a little farther.

Laurene got down on her knees and looked into his eyes.

“You can do this, Steve,” she said. His eyes widened. His lips pressed into each other.

He tried. He always, always tried, and always with love at the core of that effort. He was an intensely emotional man.

I realized during that terrifying time that Steve was not enduring the pain for himself. He set destinations: his son Reed’s graduation from high school, his daughter Erin’s trip to Kyoto, the launching of a boat he was building on which he planned to take his family around the world and where he hoped he and Laurene would someday retire.

Even ill, his taste, his discrimination and his judgment held. He went through 67 nurses before finding kindred spirits and then he completely trusted the three who stayed with him to the end. Tracy. Arturo. Elham.

One time when Steve had contracted a tenacious pneumonia his doctor forbid everything — even ice. We were in a standard I.C.U. unit. Steve, who generally disliked cutting in line or dropping his own name, confessed that this once, he’d like to be treated a little specially.

I told him: Steve, this is special treatment.

He leaned over to me, and said: “I want it to be a little more special.”

Intubated, when he couldn’t talk, he asked for a notepad. He sketched devices to hold an iPad in a hospital bed. He designed new fluid monitors and x-ray equipment. He redrew that not-quite-special-enough hospital unit. And every time his wife walked into the room, I watched his smile remake itself on his face.

For the really big, big things, you have to trust me, he wrote on his sketchpad. He looked up. You have to.

By that, he meant that we should disobey the doctors and give him a piece of ice.

None of us knows for certain how long we’ll be here. On Steve’s better days, even in the last year, he embarked upon projects and elicited promises from his friends at Apple to finish them. Some boat builders in the Netherlands have a gorgeous stainless steel hull ready to be covered with the finishing wood. His three daughters remain unmarried, his two youngest still girls, and he’d wanted to walk them down the aisle as he’d walked me the day of my wedding.

We all — in the end — die in medias res. In the middle of a story. Of many stories.

I suppose it’s not quite accurate to call the death of someone who lived with cancer for years unexpected, but Steve’s death was unexpected for us.

What I learned from my brother’s death was that character is essential: What he was, was how he died.

Tuesday morning, he called me to ask me to hurry up to Palo Alto. His tone was affectionate, dear, loving, but like someone whose luggage was already strapped onto the vehicle, who was already on the beginning of his journey, even as he was sorry, truly deeply sorry, to be leaving us.

He started his farewell and I stopped him. I said, “Wait. I’m coming. I’m in a taxi to the airport. I’ll be there.”

“I’m telling you now because I’m afraid you won’t make it on time, honey.”

When I arrived, he and his Laurene were joking together like partners who’d lived and worked together every day of their lives. He looked into his children’s eyes as if he couldn’t unlock his gaze.

Until about 2 in the afternoon, his wife could rouse him, to talk to his friends from Apple.

Then, after awhile, it was clear that he would no longer wake to us.

His breathing changed. It became severe, deliberate, purposeful. I could feel him counting his steps again, pushing farther than before.

This is what I learned: he was working at this, too. Death didn’t happen to Steve, he achieved it.

He told me, when he was saying goodbye and telling me he was sorry, so sorry we wouldn’t be able to be old together as we’d always planned, that he was going to a better place.

Dr. Fischer gave him a 50/50 chance of making it through the night.

He made it through the night, Laurene next to him on the bed sometimes jerked up when there was a longer pause between his breaths. She and I looked at each other, then he would heave a deep breath and begin again.

This had to be done. Even now, he had a stern, still handsome profile, the profile of an absolutist, a romantic. His breath indicated an arduous journey, some steep path, altitude.

He seemed to be climbing.

But with that will, that work ethic, that strength, there was also sweet Steve’s capacity for wonderment, the artist’s belief in the ideal, the still more beautiful later.

Steve’s final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times.

Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them.

Steve’s final words were:

OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.

Mona Simpson is a novelist and a professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. She delivered this eulogy for her brother, Steve Jobs, on Oct. 16 at his memorial service at the Memorial Church of Stanford University.

Do You Know What Drowning Really Looks Like?

A Repost from http://drbenkim.com/signs-of-drowning.htm


Note from Ben Kim: Many thanks to Mario Vittone for graciously giving me permission to share this valuable article with our readership. Please read through Mario's article below and consider sharing this information with family and friends.

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

By Mario Vittone

The new captain jumped from the deck, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the couple swimming between their anchored sportfisher and the beach. "I think he thinks you're drowning," the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. "We're fine, what is he doing?" she asked, a little annoyed. "We're fine!" the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. "Move!" he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not ten feet away, their nine-year-old daughter was drowning. Safely above the surface in the arms of the captain, she burst into tears, "Daddy!"

How did this captain know - from fifty feet away - what the father couldn't recognize from just ten? Drowning is not the violent, splashing, call for help that most people expect. The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that’s all of us) then you should make sure that you and your crew know what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, "Daddy," she hadn't made a sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn’t surprised at all by this story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for, is rarely seen in real life.

The Instinctive Drowning Response - so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water. And it does not look like most people expect. There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind. To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) - of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult. In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC). Drowning does not look like drowning - Dr. Pia, in an article in the Coast Guard's On Scene Magazine, described the instinctive drowning response like this:

1. Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled before speech occurs.
2. Drowning people's mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When drowning people's mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.
3. Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water's surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.
4. Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.
5. From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people's bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.

(Source: On Scene Magazine: Fall 2006 (page 14))

This doesn't mean that a person that is yelling for help and thrashing isn't in real trouble - they are experiencing aquatic distress. Not always present before the instinctive drowning response, aquatic distress doesn't last long - but unlike true drowning, these victims can still assist in their own rescue. They can grab lifelines, throw rings, etc.

Look for these other signs of drowning when persons are in the water:

• Head low in the water, mouth at water level
• Head tilted back with mouth open
• Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus
• Eyes closed
• Hair over forehead or eyes
• Not using legs - Vertical
• Hyperventilating or gasping
• Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway
• Trying to roll over on the back
• Appear to be climbing an invisible ladder

So if a crew member falls overboard and everything looks OK, don't be too sure. Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don't look like they're drowning. They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck. One way to be sure? Ask them, "Are you alright?" If they can answer at all, they probably are. If they return a blank stare, you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them. And parents: children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.

(See a video of the Instinctive Drowning Response)

About the Author

A native of Bowie, Maryland, Mario Vittone joined the Navy in 1983. After almost two years of avionics training, he was assigned as ship’s company on the USS Coral Sea, a WWII era aircraft carrier, where he spent five years as an airborne RADAR technician. Joining the Coast Guard in 1991 he was assigned as permanent party at Training Center Cape May before transferring to the Cutter Point Franklin as a helmsman and small boat coxswain. He graduated from Helicopter Rescue Swimmer School in 1994 and began his career as a rescue swimmer with two tours at Air Station Elizabeth City, one at Air Station New Orleans, then finally as an instructor and course developer at the Aviation Technical Training Center in Elizabeth City, NC

Mario is one of the services leading experts on immersion hypothermia, drowning, sea survival, and safety at sea. His writing has appeared in Yachting Magazine, SaltWater Sportsman, MotorBoating Magazine, Lifelines, On-Scene, and Reader’s Digest. He has lectured extensively to business leaders, educators, and the military on team motivation, performance, innovation, mission focus, and generational diversity. In 2007, he was named as the Coast Guard Active Duty Enlisted Person of the Year and was named as the 2009 recipient of the Alex Haley Award for Journalism.

You can visit Mario's website by clicking here: MarioVittone.com

Shanghai 2011

Hubby had to take a short trip to Shanghai last August 16-18th for some business and he invited me to tag along for the trip.  What a sweet husband!  And when I go to Shanghai with hubby, you can be sure that the food we eat will definitely be good.  Here are some photos that I took from our quick trip.

Took the Maglev from the airport to our hotel:

See how fast it can go!

Dinner on our first night was at a Taiwanese restaurant that only served set menus.  The food was beautifully presented and quite delicious.  Hubby and I ordered different items from the menu so we could taste more variety, but I only took photos of the interesting ones.  I was also too full to take note of everything that we ate :)

the salad

the soup

the steak

the dessert

Plus another dessert!

The next day, after watching the Shanghai Acrobatic Show, we went to look for a small restaurant that was featured in Shanghai's City Weekend Magazine.  Apparently it serves one of the best ramens in town.

The place is called Kota's Kitchen.  The place was really small and out of the way, but was packed even at 10pm.

While waiting for our food to arrive, we were served some fresh vegetables with dipping sauce and cold towels to freshen up.

The place was decorated with Beatles posters and only played Beatles music.

And here's the special ramen.

The soup was really rich, noodles were cooked just right and it was really filling.  But i enjoyed their Yakitori sticks (grilled meats) more.


On our final day, we wanted to try getting into the China Pavilion at the Expo Grounds, but the line up was still really long.  So here we are outside taking another shot of what we saw last year:

For our final lunch before leaving for the airport, we stopped by a Hongkong restaurant along the road and was surprised by how big and how packed the place was.  It probably can seat about 300 people and there was still a line-up at the entrance.  Good thing we came in before the lunch crowd started arriving.

Fried rice with abalone sauce - really yummy!

Interesting way of serving Iced Milk Tea.  The ice is only placed inside the bucket, this way the drink will not be diluted as the ice melts.  Really authentic milk tea, loved it!

Fried chicken with vegetables

Another shot of the delicious fried rice.  I can still taste it in my mind...

Thanks hubby for letting me tag along on this trip.  It was great to spend some "alone" time with you and catch up with each other.  Love you!