Space shuttle Endeavor's final flight

Thursday, 11:15 am space shuttle endeavor did a fly by over Tucson while on its way to be decommissioned in San Diego. It would be the last time the space shuttle would ever fly. It was Amazing! talk about goosebumps. It flew down at only 15,000 feet so we could get a good look. It really only came to Tucson for Gifford's and Kelly because Kelly wanted to see it one last time in the air, lucky for us all of Tucson got to enjoy it as well :)

The Silver Eagle: A Novel of the Forgotten Legion by Ben Kane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

i great sequel to the first, i believe Ben's writing has improved...

By the time you get to the second book you finally have an okay connection with the characters and are able to relate in a way. Most of this book is about the long journey south, further and further away from Rome. it seems hopeless until the last few pages that Romulus will ever see Rome again. Good battle scenes in this book but i wish they were more in depth, I realize there were several battle scenes and if they were all in depth the book would be way too long, but still...

Other things I didn't like about this book:
-The lack of suspense and hooks
-The descriptions of everything
-The painfully long recap
-And the time jumps

I found it way to easy to just set aside for a week or two because nothing was grabbing my interest and compelling me to read on. The story and plot is not bad, its just not fast paced i suppose.

I also did not like how Ben just described events I really wanted to watch unfold (like battle scenes!). It was like reading a text book at times as he just 'told' you what happened form a birds eye view, you didn't 'live' through it with the character.

Time jumps really annoy me too, I understand that its almost impossible to live through a whole mans life in three books without time jumps (although Iggulden did it well!) but turning the page and seeing 'nine months later' or 'three years later' so many times consecutively annoys me.

Its definitely good enough to continue the series, as I have stated too already, now that a character connection has _finally_ been made, I am enjoying the series. definitely worth a read if Ancient Rome is your thing.

Desk Job & Rugby

     Not only did I graduate high school, but I graduated form all of my extra curricular activities. And that really sucks. I have been activity-less a year now and I didn’t know what to do with myself, so finally I committed myself to a new sport. Rugby. That’s right, rugby. I love it so much! Not only does it feel amazing to be physically active again, but also I think I found a sport I am actually pretty good at. Basketball was great, but I wasn’t very good at it honestly, rugby on the other hand I think I am getting a good hang on. I was extremely hesitant about joining because the team I found was a club team, not part of a school or anything, so I had no idea what to expect, if the girls were nice and well mannered, if the coach was good… that was probably my biggest concern, because ever since being under the hand of my varsity basketball coach I convinced my self there was no better coach out there. And I still kind of stand by that, but the coaches here aren’t that bad, I don’t think they stand up to my coach Al, but there definitely not bad. So I am very happy about this, I am glad I went out on a limb to try something new. Learned a life lesson about confidence and new beginning, who would of guessed?

    My mom is not crazy about me playing rugby, she didn’t believe me when I told her my plans and when I said I had to go to practice for the first time she was pretty surprised. My dad on the other hand is all for it, he is super excited (for once). He made the decision for me really, as soon as I see that sparkle of “wow, my daughter is actually doing something I can brag to people about” in his eye I know there is no changing my mind later. That ‘sparkle’ is what coaxed me to go to practice for the first time. And I am very, very, glad that I did.

    Turning the page, remember how I said that I despise desk jobs? Well guess what, I got myself a desk job. It’s really not that bad, it’s boring at times, and I hate staring at the computer all day, but I have my own office and the starting pay is awesome. I am a graphic designer now, designing what ever is asked of me such as: logos, UI’s, flyers, brochures, coupons, and more. I also do stuff like update the server and retrieve hex codes and make images transparent and easy quick stuff like that. Thank goodness for rugby, this way I can get out at least.

     There’s no way I am going to make a career out of this, I will go insane if I must be confined to that office of mine forever… but at the same time I feel really bad complaining about it because the pay is so good. And I am thankful I have the talent to even do this kind of thing, and at my age too.

     In all I am very happy with every thing going on in my life right now, I have things to worry about, sure. (like choosing something to major in…) but as it stands, life is good.

I finished my book!

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

the back cover of this book doesn't lie. it is a powerful, gripping book about friendship and loyalty. told through the eyes of a horse it brought me back to my favorite childhood book Black Beauty. there was satisfying amount of action and i really appreciated the historical context.

i found this book to be a bit slow at times, it had been on my too read list for a few months before i actually pick it up in order to read it before seeing the movie (the movie in my opinion did this book little justice) my interest was originally sparked after seeing previews of the west end/broadway show where they used life sized puppets for the characters. i'll be brutally honest, i fell asleep reading this book (and i lost my page and place, how annoying) its an easy read, but its also one i had to force my self through. yet, the inspiration was always evident and the plot did move through out _most_ of the book. its one i am happy to keep on my shelves.

if you are looking for a fast paced, action packed, page turning book than this may not be for you. although if you are looking for a rememberable, heart wrenching, inspirational, sweet, happy ending story, (and you like horses) you may really enjoy this book.

A Thunderbird weekend

I had an Amazing weekend with the thunderbird pilots and there families and i am so grateful to them that i was included!

the Thunderbirds put on one hell of a show, and they are really nice, extraordinarily talented people who love what they do. envious? i am. Poor Blane though was having a rough week, he forgot to perform a maneuver during the show because he lost the location of the other planes, but that was a safety thing so thats fine. what he got in trouble for happened the day before when he accidentally dove down too fast causing a sonic boom at too low an altitude, breaking 11 businesses's windown, and 7 windows in a nearby nursing home. oops. he said he didn't even relies it, he just happened to look down at his speed and it said mock 1.2, he pulled up a few seconds later and wasn't aware of any damage until later that evening when he was at a make a wish event and and people were calling in to the air base complainig. Blane's commander was denying all claims than Blane was all "well...actually..." luckily he didn't get in any trouble, the are force base agreed to pay for all the windows. so whats the silver lining? well, there was a retired air force vetrain who had passed away and the family was having the funeral that same day, apparently as soon as the 'amen' was said Blane boomed them. they thought that was the best thing ever and they called to thank him for that!

i had the pleasure of babysitting thunderbird #6 Blane Jone's and his wife's two adorable twin daughters Jet and Tally (go figure!) later that night my family and myself were invited to a BBQ with a few friends, neighbors, and of course thunderbird pilots #6 and #1. wonderful, wonderful evening.

 opposing solo pilot Cpt. Jones of the Thunderbirds

Lt. Col. Moseley, #1 pilot and Commander of the Thunderbirds

Thunderbirds are GO!

Man, I have been neglecting this… I'm not one to make excuses, but this whole college research project fro WRT 102 is a killer.

Anyway….

The air show is coming again this year! This weekend! The thunderbirds will be here!  I'm going J

I am also fortunate enough to know thunderbird #6’s mother. With this connection thunderbird pilot #6 (his name is Blaine) has asked me to babysit his twin daughters Jet and Tally. I. Cant. Wait!

As payment he has invited my family and I to be his VIP guests at the airshow. And his mother invited us to a BBQ on Sunday with all the pilots! I'm going to make up a major for myself because I'm sure they will ask, and I don’t want to sound so indecisive. The mom always asks when I go over there… the answer is always “still undecided….”

Maybe ill say CIS, I am taking a CIS class now and I'm really enjoying it, and its pretty easy to me. Could this be a reality someday? No, I don’t think so. I hate desk jobs remember? And ‘desk job’ is the definition of CIS major.

Speaking of still being undecided my applications for the academy’s came back.. It’s a no go. I'm not…devastated. That much. Really. I wrote a blog post all about it when I received them, but decided not to post it because it was too depressing. Maybe when the whiplash is gone.

Oh well. I have this weekend to look forward to, and I will do that :) 

Celebrating our churches 20th anniversary!

I have a huge weekend coming up, and I'm super excited! Preparation for these few days along with school have really taken up all my free time. I mean, I couldn’t even find time to read for pleasure, I'm reading in-between classes :P

Anyway, my church (New Apostolic Church Tucson congregation) is going to be celebrating its 20^th anniversary! And guess what, the Bishop is coming down to hold service on that day! The Bishop! I’m so excited to have him in our little church in the desert. Oh yea, did I mention he will be spending the weekend in our guest house :D

The congregation and youth group did a lot to prepare for today, we painted the entire church in fresh coats of paint, we cleaned all the carpet, we re-landscaped the front yard and back, planted new trees and flowers, and we (the youth) put flyers on every door in the surrounding neighborhoods in hopes that lots of gusts will come.

Were going to make a weekend out of this celebration, starting on Saturday the youth and the bishop are going on an hour long horse back riding session, after were going to have a BBQ at the ranch. Later, because the Bishop is staying at out house were going to go out and eat with him and his son and a few people who will come down from Phoenix. All in preparation for the climax on Sunday, the choir has prepared a special program for the 29^th anniversary and they will start the morning off. After service will be a fellowship than a youth fire side/swimming chat with the Bishop at my house.

Its going to be a busy weekend, but a fun one! 

CES Convention

I had the good fortune to be invited to attend the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that takes place in Las Vegas every year. There were 140,000 people in attendance from all over the world gathered to see the latest and greatest in technology advancement. It was something else. I took a few pictures, not too many. The convention was HUGE it took over two convention centers, the Luxor, Bellagio, and one other large place…

The vendor’s booths were extravagant, some were two stories high, and one was suspended from the ceiling. Many vendors invited famous people like Fifty Cent, Justin Bieber, and the 7 year old from Americas got talent to sell there product, others just gave free stuff away lol

 you know who that is...

 Huge tree complete with butterflies ^.^

 floor to celling curved 3D TV. thats right, 3D floor to celing. curved.

 2 level colorful booth

 HUGE booth (although not as big as Sony booth...)

Audi 

 I got two large bags of stuff, my favorite being a pair of ear buds made if memory foam. Why wasn’t this thought of before? They’re so comfortable! And they form to your ear and cancel out any out side noise. Another thing was a pair of ear bud headphones that blow Skull Candy and Beats brands out of the water; I put my memory foam ear buds on them... Magic. Unbelievable sound quality and comfort. The ear bud headphones will be released to the general public in two years; they will be a huge hit. The memory ear buds are already on sale and you can buy them online (link at bottom of post)

Other cool things included concept cars and the high tech gadgets and robots. there was this super HD TV that was only 4mm thin. yup, 4 millimeters. I tried to take a picture but it was so thin it didn't really come out.

There are 3 TV's in the above photo, the thick one with the lights is not a TV that is a division/mounting wall. You can barley see the screens but there are two in front of the wall and one behind. 

 concept car

 this car is not a concept car, its on the market, you can have it for an unspeakable price :0

this little car made the entire room shake it was so loud. They were only allowed to turn it on for 20 seconds every half hour.

It was fun! I hope I can do it again next year :)

buy your memory foam earbuds here 

http://www.complyfoam.com/categories/T%252dSeries/

Finished my book!

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It was a good sequel to the first book, a lot of creativity is evident in the way the plot unfolds Collins has a great imagination. being a 'teen' book i found the writing not as high quality as i like. the story is great, the writing level not so much. but its definitely a good read, if you likes the first one i think you will really enjoy the second.

Collins does a very good job connecting the reader to the characters which i firmly believe is one of the most crucial elements in any book, and the most crucial element in a piece of fiction. when you care about the characters you care what happens to the characters and therefore become so engaged in the story you cant put the book down. this is what I felt reading Catching Fire.

Everything in this book is top notch, I rate it 4 stars because of the writing quality. i found myself having to re-read paragraphs to really understand, and with so many important characters running around (24 tributes that include the two main characters, than the mentors, family, and lovers of the main characters, and a couple others) the people get jumbled and I found that sometimes I had to flip back a few pages to remember who these people were and what districts they are from.

all in all a highly recommended read, I've already acquired the third and final book int he trilogy and cant wait to read it.

New years Homicide

I want to first wish every one a belated Merry Christmas and a very happy new year! I hope this coming year will be a great one; there are lots of things to look forward too!

2011 has been one of the best years so far, so many great things happened to me and I am extremely thankful. There were set backs too, especially with my academy applications, but obstacles were made to be overcome.  And I will overcome.

New years resolution: this WILL be the year I'm accepted >:D

On to the horrible news. Talk about an awful way to start a new year. On new years night, about 11:00 pm I herd news of a homicide in Tucson. This is horrible and my whole family felt bad, the boy was only 17 and his parents were out of town so that makes it really hard on them too, we said a prayer for the family and just went home. Then this morning when I watched the news report about it I found out the boy went to my school for one year (he was a freshmen when I was a sophomore) before he switched to a catholic school. That’s when I found out the boys name, Carlos Sandoval, and I realized, that’s my Neighbor. His family along with two other brothers lives two houses down from mine. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it. In my own neighborhood just two houses down a family lost their son to a homicide.  I feel awful for the family and I'm thinking of delivering flowers or something. I feel like I have to do something for the family, it must be so hard. I cant even imagine.

Just in case you are interested you can read the news article and watch the video report here:

http://www.kgun9.com/news/136511883.html

November is Crazy! + a new puppy!

November has been a busy month! It’s been non-stop every day. First off I went to phoenix because my dad had a meeting at Petsmart HQ (that’s weird, I know) on our way there we had a tire blow out, that wasn’t fun. We didn’t stay long in Phoenix, right after my dads meeting was over we went to California for Disney land, church service and my dad had to attend a Vision Meeting for the church. I got to see the Bishop and District Elder again!! I had pictures but I'm not going to post them. It gets better, I was allowed to eat dinner with them too ☺ originally it was just ministers and wives of the Vision group dinner but when the Deccan from Phoenix couldn’t make it my sister and I were invited. It was a wonderful night out. The next morning my sister, mom, and myself drove to Anaheim to spend the day at Disney land again while my dad was at the meeting.

Back home again it was school as usual. Since Fluffy passed away we have been looking to get my Grandparents a new dog and we found one the Friday before Thanks giving. He is a cream and white Lhasa Apso male, his name in Tron. He is so cute!

    him playing with his favorite horse toy

Our family eats thanksgiving dinner the Sunday before thanksgiving because that’s when we have the thanksgiving church service, and it allows my family to keep our 20-year tradition of going to Disneyland for thanksgiving. Yup, we went to Disney Land again. This time for 5 days. We did something different too, we ate thanksgiving dinner there, they have this “Thanksgiving day feast” and oh my goodness it was a feast. I ate too much. Way too much. The food was amazing!

                                                      this was the dining hall with four buffet stations 0_0


After, my family and myself could barley walk so we went to see a movie and digest ha ha, we saw Arthur Christmas, such a cute movie! I loved it. I just got back Sunday (11/27) night. I'm glad to be back, I really missed Tron and my bed. Things are almost back to normal except for the fact that my Dad left for Utah Monday morning, for another meeting, so I wont be seeing him again for another week. But after that, things will be normal… except for Christmas is coming soon and I have to prepare the house for gusts and practice for the Christmas program at church. Then things will calm down... except for going on my grandpas birthday cruise and traveling to Canada for Day of the youth, then I’m back in California for a youth retreat… it just never stops. But that’s a good thing.

Finished my Book

The Forgotten Legion by Ben Kane

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is a ‘complicated’ five star rating for this book. Ben tells a good story with a unique point of view not seen in many books set in this time period. The story has an obvious plot and the book is well organized. My main concern and issue about this book was that little effort was put into creating a connection between the characters and the reader, in my opinion this is a fatal mistake. If the reader does not care about the characters the reader wont care what happens to the characters and wont really enjoy the book. This rating is complicated because Conn Iggulden’s books are 5 stars hands down, and Ben’s book didn’t come near Conn’s in quality but it was still a great read, worthy of 5 stars only because of the plethora of books worthy of 3 or 4 stars under Ben’s book. The plot didn’t really pick up until the end, the last four chapters had me unable to put the book down, the rest of the book kind of dragged on. I do appreciate the length of the book, 525 pages, but he could of put more into those pages…

Another thing I didn’t really like about the book was that you had to use the provided glossary in the back. I love that Ben used Latin words just as the Romans would of used and he used them in the same context as the Romans, but he used them too much. I didn’t like reading a chapter only to have to stop at this unknown Latin word and have to flip to the back of the book to find the meaning. Sometimes I would have to flip back three or four times a chapter. Five or six Latin words would be ideal but seven pages of Latin words in the glossary is a bit much.

All in all I will be reading the second book in this series and then the third. Its good enough to continue the series.

My Photo Book

This is a photo book i made on shuterfly.com about my Europe trip that i had the privilege of going on this summer, i hope to get it made :) Enjoy!

(lets play "how many times you can spot Amber in her basketball shirt!")

Click here to view this photo book larger

Turn your favorite photos into a photo book at Shutterfly.com.

Back from service held in Phoenix

     I made it back from Phoenix; I love Phoenix J I would never want to live there, but I LOVE to visit. Great family time, these weekend trips. So I went up with Chris, a member of youth, and his mom and grandma, it was a pleasant journey, short too, only 2 hours. We arrived, checked into there hotel, hung out for half an hour, then my parents arrived from Vegas and picked my sister and I up and took us to check into our hotel. After we settled we went out for dinner (the café down stairs) we were having a great time at dinner, every one was in a good mood, then retired Priest and Sister Klien from El Paso walked in, so they joined us for dinner as well, we are all great friends with them, so we chatted a while and ate a good meal.

     After dinner my sister and I discovered the meeting place where all the Apostles on up were gathering for there mandatory dinner/lecture with the District Apostle so we hung out right outside the door and took our pictures with as many high ranked minsters we could. We only found two, we saw plenty of deacons, rectors and priests but most of the higher ups were already seated, we did find the Bishop Whited, and the Apostle Schmitt!

 i PROMISE you that i didn't plan on wearing my basketball shirt again! why do i wear it all the time?

     Come Sunday we had a beautiful service held by the District Apostle Kolb. Towards the end of service the fire alarm went off! Thankfully it was only a false alarm, BUT while we were evacuating the building I had the opportunity to shake the District Apostles hand :D believe it or not, even evacuating was fun, the Bishop is such a goof, he comes running over with my sister saying “Quick! Lets get one [photo] in front of the fire truck!” ha ha

     After service things settled down, I guess there was an apostle from back east that has never been to In & Out Burger and the Bishop was all “W-wh-what?!” so my dad took them both to In & Out :P 

After we were invited to the District Evangelist’s house for supper. Then we headed home again. Great weekend!