Shopping in Sorrento

Bongiorno from Sorrento, Italy. A small tourist town, located on the Italy's Amalfi coast, it lies only one hour train ride on the Circumvesuviana railroad. We looked up at Mount Vesuvius as rode past Pompeii and Erculano, two of the cities wiped out by the 96 AD volanic eruption.

Here are some photos from where we were today:

Photo1: K and I atop the Sorrento cliffs above Napoli Bay.

Photo 2: Bay of Napoli.

Photo 3: Inside the Cathedral in Sorrento, looking up at it's golden dome.

Photo 4: A stained glass inside the same cathedral.

Photo 5: Shopping seemed to be the highlight of Sorrento.

Photo 6: Sorrento square from our table while sipping iced Cappachino.

Photo 7: K walking the cobbled and narrow streets of Naples.

Viva Italia

Five things?

1. Vacation in Italy.
2. Vacation in Italy.
3. Vacation in Italy
4. Vacation in Italy.
5. When I get home all the political conventions will be over!

Elect Me for President

For something funny go to this site:

http://www.inews3.com/play.php?first=Matt&last=Osmak

Superheroes

Everyone has a super hero. As children many of us tied a blanket around our shoulders and pretended to be Superman. Older folks may remember the song "Mrs. Robinson" by Simon and Garfunkel that asks the question, "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? Our nation turns it's lonely eyes to you..."

Everyone has a hero... who is yours?

101 in 1001-- Item #23-- Do 100 situps at one time

Why I Chose This Goal: When I was in the military, 100 sit-ups (in two minutes or less) was the gold standard. I never achieved this goal... but hitting in the 90s when I was a young dude.

What I Did: After retiring I decided to eliminate the two minute time limit. After a few weeks of warm-ups, I did 100 sit-ups in a little over three minutes. I rested along the way and aside from sore stomach muscles it was mission accomplished at 9:28 this morning.

Five things

Here's my five things:

1. Olympic games and Michael Phelps. He's winning every gold medal in sight. Did you hear that he eats 4,000 calorie breakfasts? The local sports morning guys decided to cook up a Michael Phelps breakfast and eat it on the air. It started out with two of them eating it. Then they called in a buddy and then another. Three egg sandwiches, french toast, grits, an omlet, an order pf pancakes... and that's just the stuff I remember. I got to work after listening to this and I was full just having listened to it.

2. Wine making. We have four gallons of wine fermenting right now. Concord grape, chardonnay, peach and raisin. Yes Raisin! It's actually a combo of two pouns of white raisins and 1/2 pound of green grapes. It's an experiment. On the what's new front... I ordered a Barolo wine kit. It's a premium wine from the Piedmont region of Italy. Also a buddy has a small vineyard. He's not sure if he'll make wine this year... the grapes are pretty young. If he does I am hoping to t get in on helping to crush, press and barrel the wine. It would be a first for me- wine from vine to bottle.

3. School days. We it's almost here. BMO starts next Tuesday (aug 18). talk about not getting a summer! It has to do with all the time they lost during the brush fires last fall. Erin starts in mid September. Gary is going to summe classes and will finish up with one class in the fall.

4. Football. Lions and Chargers are coming up... hope springs eternal. We have season tickets to the SDSU Aztecs. Sports Illustrated is picknig them for dead last in the Mountain West conference. MSU Spartans are gonigto be good this year- count on it. 8-4 or 7-5.

5. My Italy trip is less than two weeks away. It should be great!

If I Were the King...

...this is what I would do to solve our Energy Appetite

1. Solar power. New homes would be required to have solar roofs put in. Huge tax incentives would be given to existing homes to put up solar panels. I'd allow homeowners to "make a profit" by selling electricity to local power companies.

2. Wind Power. I'd utilize the medians of highways to erect windmills. As long as there is enough wind to generate power, these areas could be used the harness it. Eisenhower built these highways, we might as well maximize their use.

3. Electric cars and Hybrids. It's time to demand automakers get these on line. Five years should be enough time to re-tool and re-skill our factories to producing electrics and hybrids. If they want to keep putting out gas guzzlers than fine but after five years slapping a $10,000 surcharge on a new gas guzzler might change their thinking. I mean the technology is there it seems that only Big Oil, Big Auto and the status quo stand in the way of making this happen. After all Europe and Asia only have small fuel efficient cars. Why anyone needs to drive an Escalade or Hummer is beyond me.

4. Beef up public transit. Evey one has a million reasons to not take a bus, a train or the subway. we need to Mass produce Mass Transit and get it working again in our big cities. Also getting city workers to move back into the cities should become a priority. Cleaning up blighted areas (its happening downtown in San Diego) would be a good thing. Revitalizing or razing/rebuilding our downtown areas would be good for everyone. It would cut down transportation costs build a stronger community, etc. Is it "pie in the sky" type thinking? Yeah. But it would help out everyone in the long run. I think our urban sprawl has sprawled enough already.

5. Nuclear/Solar/ Wind Power stations. Why can't we combine all three in those vast, desolate areas that exist between big cities in the southwest that we call deserts? I lived out in 29 Palms and can say that on any given day you could put up hundreds of these plants and not effect anyone. Since no one wants a nuclear power plant in their backyard then put them up in the middle of no where. Those vast areas of "no where" exist in the deserts... where there is also lots of wind and sunshine.

Wanting to sit on their hands, our President and Congress seems to only think about the next election. Lots of oil money goes into financing each and every politician. Our elected officials are owing to these guys big time. Is it any surprise they all went on vacation for five weeks without resolving anything?

Whenever a far sighted visionary leader emerges in this country will be the time when we'll finally get things accomplished . Empty promises of alernative energy (remember the hydrogen fuel cell car ofjust five years ago?). Pleas for off shore drilling seem to be the only solution our leaders are offering. (not that this is a bad idea but it won't solve our problems of shipping billions of $$$ overseas to people who want to see us dead). Keeping on the same course is only giving our children a pretty messed up situation to solve in their lifetimes.

All this would cost big money but is it really too much? For crying out loud- we give so much away to countries that hate us, we're fighting a war (some might argue, over oil) and we've got billions tied up in stupid pork barrel projects each and every year.

Maybe by just by moving the funds around and the government tightening it's spending belt we could make it happen.

... and that's what I would do... if I were King.