Cindy Lu:
This made me cry today. In a world where there is much pain, there are miracles of joy. This is one of them. Enjoy!
WELCOME BACK EVERYONE!!!
Because I love these little furry-licious creatures, I am always excited to see a new "Simon's Cat" video. There are currently three on YouTube. Enjoy!
Continue reading Simon's Cat.
It’s a rarity that I find a band I am truly fond of, but when I found Shane Tutmarc & The Traveling Mercies I got lucky! And, now the time has come for me to share them with you too. How did I get so lucky? Well, it’s a well known secret that a friend of mine, whose name goes unmentioned, is to be attributed with blessing me. Have Mercy!
Shane Tutmarc hails from Seattle, WA and is best known as lead man for the now defunct band, Dolour. A very bright and ingenious songwriter, Shane, his brother, Brandon, and their cousin Ryan have formed a tight family band, and the Mercies are just oozing with talent. It’s like a fresh breath of air to hear them play. And, the topics that Shane Tutmarc writes about have certainly hit home with me as I’m sure they will with music lovers all over. They pull sounds from many different music genres to keep it fresh and progressive. The instrumentations only add more color to songs about life and love. It’s the "next best thing in rock and roll", and I know you won’t be disappointed.
With their recent release "Hey Lazarus!", Shane Tutmarc & The Traveling Mercies are a band to keep your eye on!
Shane Tutmarc & The Traveling Mercies
You can check out Shane Tutmarc and the Traveling Mercies at:
http://www.shanetutmarc.com
http://www.myspace.com/thetravelingmercies
Also check out Dolour at http://www.myspace.com/dolour
The Beatles make it (literally) across the Universe!
The Beatles have yet again, made music history, but this time in a bit of a different way...okay, a real different way. Last week, The Beatles song "Across The Universe" was literally catapult across the the Universe by NASA!
Scientists are continuously discovering things about the Universe they didn't know before. I will never say that there is not life on another planet, because there is too much we don't know. Every time I truly think of our "big" blue planet floating out there in space, it blows me away. We don't stop often enough to think about how miraculous that is. We're too busy trying to earn a living, take care of our families, etc. But, thought is infinite and the imagination can take us far in our journey. Who knows, maybe someone, somewhere far, far away will be listening and trying to make sense.
To read more (click on the link below):
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/across_universe.html
Engineers at JPL's mission control initiated a signal telling the NASA's Deep Space Network to send the song into space. Image credit: NASA/JPL.
Best Out of State Roadtrip: Grave hunting in haunted Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Nashville, TN.
http://johnnorrisbrown.com/paranormal-tn/mtolivet/index.htm
Best CA Roadtrip: Pala Mines in San Diego County
http://www.palagems.com/mining.htm
Best restaurant: Savannah, Costa Mesa, CA - great food and love those all class red walls. http://www.culinaryadventures.com/restaurants/savannah/info_costa_mesa.html
Best Chiropractic treatment: Dr. Chan - accupressure is wonderful!
Best Find: Turtle Wax Express Shine Spray Wax - works awesome
http://www.turtlewax.com/
Best Convention: Gem Faire Southern CA.
http://www.gemfaire.com
Best Resolution: Only enjoy live music once in a while. Objective: appreciate favorite artists more, instead of hanging out in a music scene week after week.
Best Concert: Donny Osmond in concert after "who knows" how many years.
Best Class: Forensics - Criminal Justice
Best Intentions: Helping repost Animal Rescue info on the net.
http://crittercrossingscorp.com/donate.aspx
Best Outdoor Adventure - bike riding on fresh ocean air beach trails
Best Celebrity Meeting: Tyson, the skateboarding Dog - Huntington Beach, CA
http://www.skateboardingbulldog.com/
Best Hobbies: Jewelrymaking and Painting
Best Books: The Lovely Bones and Prey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lovely_Bones
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(novel)
Best Internet Purchase - The Zune by Microsoft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zune
Best Prediction: From a Psychic in TN - Marriage is in your future whether you want it or not. (ha)
Best To Come: Positive energy prayer that 2008 will be the best year ever!
Yesterday, on the edge of my chair, I listened to a favorite radio show. Special guest, Dr. Gary Ridenour spoke about the coming Pandemic flu (H5N1 virus), otherwise known as Bird Flu. We've had meetings about this at my place of employment and it is definitely a part of our Disaster Recovery Program. It's no joke. Most people are unaware that the great Spanish Flu of 1918 that killed 50-100 million people was a form of bird flu. In this generation we can't fathom losing that many people within a short time. I'll spare the details, because the journey through a Pandemic is grim until it burns itself out. Metropolitan areas are unprepared because we rely on electricity, public transportation and shipped in goods. Again, as a nation we're unprepared for another possible travesty. So, it's a good idea to stock up on foods to have in your homes that will last 10-15 days. When a Pandemic hits you can stay indoors and away from people until it's safe to go out. Sounds like something out of a horror flick, I know, and I thought about not writing this....being labeled paranoid. But, I find it's better to be aware and do what you can prior, so I do believe in having some food stock on hand.
H5N1 (Avian flu) is seen to your immune system as being the biggest invasian to your body that the immune system has ever seen. In layman terms, the T cells will attack the virus in groves and in such overkill fashion that the body basically attacks itself. You wake up one morning sick and start coughing, then coughing blood from your lungs, and by late afternoon you are gone. It's that quick. The body burns itself out. Grim, yes....but I don't like to stick my head completely in the sand and since we've had meetings on a Pandemic outbreak, I like to hear the facts.
Mutation is the key factor. Dr. Ridenour noted that the pig flu and bird flu have already adjoined forces and infected pigs. Pigs are closely related biologically to humans, and so Scientists are closely watching the mutation process.
So, with that, maybe you'd like to educate yourself as well. Virus and Bacteria are the biggest threat to mankind, and yet it is fascinating to realize that these minute micro-organisms can in but a few minutes determine the fate of the human race.
The good news is that scientists are working on a Pandemic vaccine for all types of Influenza A. Let's hope they are successful very soon!
Identity theft has gone high tech. Everyone is at risk. Read about one of Orange County's biggest and most diabolical ID Theft Rings.
Orange County Weekly
Face Off
A Little Saigon identity-theft ring pounded OC businesses until one cop saw a tear in its veil of secrecy
By R. SCOTT MOXLEY
If anyone had watched Tina Thi Tran open the front door of her nondescript rented house on Forrest Lane in the heart of Little Saigon at 12:15 p.m. on June 14, 2005, they wouldn't have guessed they were looking at an undisputed giant among Orange County's criminal masterminds.
Why should they? Standing at 4-foot-8, Tran might have appeared like a slightly lost Vietnamese immigrant.
But police detectives hidden from view were watching 45-year-old Tran as she drove away in a battered, blue 1997 Dodge van that day. Or was her name Thuy T. Huynh? Or Liz? Or something else? She had stockpiled hundreds—if not thousands—of fake identities, cops would later allege.
Although officers conducting Tran's surveillance didn't know her real name at the time, they were sure she was tied to a brazen Vietnamese-American criminal organization that routinely burglarized stores at the county's ritziest shops in South Coast Plaza and Fashion Island, according to law-enforcement records.
Because of the electronic nature of today's commerce, Tran's group didn't need to use guns, knives or threats of violence to steal. These thieves relied on warm smiles and chatty demeanors, coupled with counterfeit driver's licenses and credit cards, to calmly walk out of Southern California shops with perhaps more than $1 million per year in high-end merchandise, police say. Among their favorite targets were plasma televisions, Rolex and Movado watches, Gucci handbags, gift cards, laptop computers, and anything by Cartier or Louis Vuitton.
Success bred confidence. So convinced of their infallibility, ring members even gave tips to shop clerks if they'd help carry the stolen products out of stores and into getaway vehicles. In many cases, it wasn't until weeks later, if ever, that employees realized they'd been duped.
Tran's identity-theft operation—which had elaborate safeguards against detection—might still be ripping off stores today if it weren't for a momentary tear in the veil of her organization. Tran wasn't aware of the gaffe, but a dogged young police detective hadn't missed it.
* * *
Damon Tucker, a fraud investigator with the Orange County district attorney's office, sits in a small fifth-floor cubicle with a north-facing window overlooking Santa Ana and the distant San Gabriel Mountains. Tucker doesn't have a very sexy title, but he's no unkempt desk jockey counting the days until an Idaho retirement. He's a tall (6-foot-1), lean (180 pounds), blue-eyed athlete (world-class swimming and track) who wouldn't look out of place on MTV's The Real Orange County: Newport Harbor High—except he's in his thirties.
In Spain in 2003, he was a member of the four-person OC team that won the World's Toughest Competitor Alive games, which include runs, rope climbs, bench presses and an obstacle course. Two other years, he was instrumental in the team winning second place.
Tucker is guarded about his own life. For example, he's from the Midwest, but he won't say which state. A shoulder shrug is his answer to what city he lives in. His age? He volunteered a ballpark figure.
But our own probe found that the detective balances all of his wholesomeness with a hint of rebellion. He's a bassist and vocalist in a Huntington Beach-based U2 tribute band. In 1992, he also started the band Parkaimoon with guitarist Tony Howell. Their success earned them a spot on KDOC's Buzzz Television show.
But it's Tucker's skill in tracking white-collar criminals that has earned him frequent tours as an expert lecturer on identity theft to other detectives, store security professionals, college students and even community groups. Cal State Long Beach employs him as an instructor in its criminal-justice program.
Tucker's ability became apparent while he worked as a detective for the Irvine Police Department in the late 1990s. EBay-related Internet crimes were skyrocketing, especially in that city's well-to-do neighborhoods. While some older detectives were baffled in their attempts to solve these new types of high-tech scams, Tucker proved adept at catching such crooks.
White-collar crime wasn't his first choice of assignments, though.
"I wanted to be like Martin Riggs [Mel Gibson's character in the Lethal Weapon series]," he recalls. "I wanted to be working homicides and narcotics. But somebody thought I was good at solving computer and high-tech cases. I guess it was fate."
Though it would take half a decade, Tucker's career turn put him on a collision course with Tran and her crew.
* * *
Police detectives say there are two types of white-collar-crime conspiracies: roundtable and hub-and-spoke. In a roundtable scheme, most, if not all, of the criminals meet and plot strategy as a group. In a hub-and-spoke arrangement, a shot-caller gives directions to a supporting crew whose compartmentalized roles prevent them from knowing the identities of most of their accomplices.
According to Tucker, Tran built a hub-and-spoke ring that maximized efficiency and limited risk. Even if one person in the ring was arrested, he wouldn't know enough to lead cops through several layers of the chain of command. Certainly, Tran—as the unlikely ringleader—couldn't be touched if everything went as planned.
"If you look at her on the street, you'd never know in a million years what this little lady was up to," Tucker says. "She was really smooth, and she ran a good organization. It was a corporation, really. It had a human-resources department. It had management. It made investments. It had recruiting. It had a raw-material section. It kept detailed records. It had everything a corporation has—but they didn't pay taxes or obey the law."
In short, these people knew what they were doing.
"ID-theft rings don't randomly walk into your shop," Tucker says. "They've given it a lot of thought. For example, they're looking for places where employees get a commission and maybe won't question a suspicious situation."
Work in Tran's ring was divided into three roles, according to police: collectors of stolen identities, converters of the stolen data and passers (or runners) who hit the stores
Click below to read more:
This time of year we find a lot of bittersweet stories of strife in the world. Along the way, you get a smile and can see happiness in someone's eyes, but it is a constant battle between good and evil. The other day, someone sent this YouTube video about little Kelsey Briggs to me and it made me stop and think about how this could have been you or I, or a child we knew and loved. The children are the innocent ones who suffer in abuse situations. They have no real way of protecting themselves from the evils that betray the world. Katharine McPhee's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" fits perfectly with this video, so get our your kleenex, please. But, more importantly, there is so much need in the world that during the Holiday perhaps you can find someone who needs a helping hand, or a lift of soul, and reach out...it's the greatest gift one could give.
The Texas Reporter has some amazing stories that are posted out on YouTube. This story about the last graduation of Spade High School in Texas will surely touch your heart. Check out all the rest of the Texas Reporter videos too.
Some of you know how much I love animals and that I try to help out some of my friends who have non-profit organizations such as Critter-Crossings in Northern California. And so, I fell in love with this sweet YouTube story and had to share!
This past week it happened...I joined the Microsoft Zune Generation. No, not with the latest sold out, color driven 80mb Zune, but with a brown (who cares about the color) 30mb Zune. Even at 30mb, I'll never get this thing filled with enough CD's or Movies and Videos. It's pretty amazing. So far, I've downloaded several of my fav CD's into it, including Dale Watson, James Intveld, and many more. In addition, I have 103 other various songs downloaded, and 506 pictures. I often had trouble justifying buying a iPod, and it seemed so many of my friends had iPods, and there I was without. The Zune Generation is now biting hard. The newest are all sold out and the screen size is a BIG plus. I like my Zune, I am having fun with my Zune, and the rest is history!