I will start by saying that I'm extremely picky when it comes to food. I know what I like and dislike and usually go with a restaurant that I'm familiar with. My Mexican food favorites pretty much stop at Taco Bell and I wouldn't even consider that real Mexican food. A few teammates and I decided to give Los Amigos a try last week. I have heard good things about the place so I figured I would give it a try. I went in thinking I would order my usual choice of a steak quesadilla or a nacho dish. I decided to go with a Chimichanga with Mexican rice. First of all the thing was the size of my head which pleased me as I tend to eat large portions. It took me all of about 15 minutes to eat the entire plate of food and rice as it was delicious. The one thing that I really enjoyed other than the food, was the authentic Mexican feel of the place. Everyone that worked there fit the mold and there wasn't one thing about the restaurant that seemed Americanized. Los Amigos was a 100% authentic Mexican restaurant. The waiters and host's were all extremely polite which made the trip that much more enjoyable. I would definitely recommend this place to you guys.

Dr. Karowe presented a very interesting lecture on Monday regarding the global warming issue. I entered class not knowing much about the subject aside from the fact that indeed the earth is being affected by this phenomena. The first thing that impacted me upon listening to the facts was the issue regarding the energy from the sun. There is much debate regarding whether or not we are receiving more energy from the sun and if this is playing a major role in the warming of earth's temperature. I learned that over the time period discussed that indeed the earth has warmed fastest while receiving a lower amount of energy from the sun. This immediately led me to believe that humans are playing a much larger role in global warming then originally thought. Dr. Karowe then gave us this statistic; 95% of the increase in earthly temperature is a result of humans. The burning of fossil fuels and forest clearing being the leading role players in that stat. I also appreciated the portion of the lecture that provided ways in which we can begin to minimize this climate change. So often we hear of all of these complaints and people continue to contribute to global warming without realizing it. It is nice to know that there is a group of people who are adamant about making positive changes in order to sustain the earth we live on.

Traveling as much as I do for baseball gives me the grand opportunity of eating at any and every fast food place in existence. I will admit that I probably consume more fast food than I should but how can you turn down some chicken nuggets after a long day on the field?? This brings me to the irony of these same fast food places... they have some of the slowest service in the nation! Places like McDonald's and Taco Bell were created because of the appeal they had to people knowing that their meal could r=be received quickly. The don't call it fast food for nothing right? Now-a-days you can drive up to any McDonald's and see that they have two lanes in the drive thru. I don't know who made that brilliant decision because all it does is slow down an already slow service. I can see that it allows more cars to pass through and thus increases the amount of money being made but I don't want to sit in line for 30 minutes waiting for my food. Some teammates and I walked to a Taco Bell that was near our hotel this past weekend and came to find it completely empty. We figured that we would be in and out of there in 20 minutes; WRONG! It took Taco Bell 20 minutes alone to come up with our orders...! You can't keep a handful of hungry ball players waiting on their extremely unhealthy food when they have been craving it all day. (We tend to get a little cranky when we're hungry) Fast food places need to take a page out of the Jimmy Johns handbook and start taking it up a notch!

The further I read the more interested I become in the way Ernest Hemingway writes. He writes in a way that is very short and to the point. Early in the book he describes the way in which he begins his work with the most simple sentence he can think of and goes from there. He goes into more description of how he writes in the chunk that I have just read. He referred to his ability to deal with hunger as he works and how writing while he is hungry makes him a better writer. He feels as though he is able to notice smaller details in things around him when he is hungry. I took this as he is more focused on his writing when he is working on an empty stomach. This characteristic of Hemingway I found to be odd. Writing is his craft and being able to perform in that craft better when he is starving was interesting to read about. Another thing I found interesting in this portion of the story was the conversation Hemingway had with Miss Stein about the generation of that time period. She refers to it as the "lost generation." She felt very strongly that all of the men in this generation were drunks and then in turn were worthless.

I was a little hesitant to begin reading A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway simply because I'm not a huge reader. I have heard so much of his work and kind of thought that it might not reach into something I was interested in. After the first 50 pages I will say that I am pleasantly surprised about what I am reading. The story takes place in Paris and is told through the eyes of Hemingway himself. It describes his day to day activities throughout the city and goes into great detail about the unique bars, restaurants and shops he often visits. Only 50 pages in and I can tell that Hemingway loved to drink, he often described the various wines or other beverages he enjoys throughout the story. Hemingway is very descriptive in his writing about the various things he comes into contact with this was evident in the very first chapter as he describes a beautiful women he notices at a bar. His writing instantly puts an image of what this women could have looked like into your head and I think this is one of the qualities of this story that I have enjoyed. Hemingway puts you directly into Paris with his various descriptions of the cool, damp, and bare sky of the winter time. I also noticed that in just the first 50 pages he visits a number of interesting and cool places. These places included various bars, museums, shops, and even the horse track. It is because of these qualities that I looked forward to reading the remainder of the book!

Now that I have read the whole book I can say that it had a lot of my attention at times, whereas other parts were not as interesting. I was impressed with the resiliency of Katniss and Peeta throughout the games. The situations that they found themselves in were very tough mentally and physically but they always seemed to keep their cool. I still found myself scratching my head when learning of how the kids killed one another but I guess that is why this book is so unique. I recall the time when the remaining tributes were racing towards the cornucopia to collect backpacks loaded with important items and Thresh saved Katniss by crushing the skull of a girl. Reading about kids killing each other just isn't something that is typical for books. I don't believe I will read any of the other Hunger Games books as I wasn't that impressed with this one but I will say that I really enjoyed portions of it!

I have been impressed at how quickly I've been able to make my way through this book. Like I said in an earlier post, I haven't seen the movies let alone read the book so it has been a nice read so far. I have been more focused on picking up on the plot of the whole story and trying to figure out the point behind all of the twists and turns within so I haven't focused on comparing the story to modern day issues. The chapter discussing the training in which the tributes had to go through was interesting to me. Each tribute has a different set of skills that will come in handy once the games start so reading up on the different things they had to do during the training sessions was cool. The most exciting part of the story was obviously the start of the Hungar Games. As I started the book I didn't expect to read about kids killing one another right from the start but that's what happened. Katniss was noticeably anxious about the start of the games but I also thought part of her was calm knowing that Peeta was on her side. As the games went on I was impressed at the poise in which Katniss carried herself especially when she realized the career tributes had teamed up. She seems to have a strong survival instinct in tough situations and I predict that to come in handy as the story unfolds!