Did any of you watch Oprah on Friday? It was an amazing show demonstrating the bonds between humans and animals, and also animals and animals. There were many touching segments, but my favorite was the first.

The first segment dealt with a program wherein prisoners train dogs to be service animals to Veterans of the Iraq and/or Afghanistan wars. I've seen similar programs and they are all fantastic, so I was not surprised to see yet another program that is amazing. You can check out the program here.

I have a particular interest in the criminal justice system. It stems from my early college career when I almost majored in criminal justice. Despite not majoring in it, I took many classes including Criminal Justice 101, Juvenile Deliquency, Criminology, as well as many Sociology classes which dealt with criminology.

One of the first things I learned in my classes, almost all of which were taken at BYU-Idaho, was that our prison system has many many problems. It attempts, very poorly I might add, to rehabilitate people who have never been habilitated, it teaches criminals to be better criminals, and often times turns addicts into worse addicts by allowing them to be introduced to different drugs.

But, it's through programs, such as Puppies Behind Bars, programs that allow inmates to get education, programs that teach prisoners skills, and other similar programs are vitally important to the prisoners and society.

I've loved salmon since the first time I tasted it. Most of the time I've enjoyed it, I would buy 3/4 pound fillets of, I'm sure, the cheapest salmon out there. This was a great way to enjoy salmon and save money and not worry about salmon going bad because I could take out one fillet at a time from the freezer. The salmon tasted good and I even cooked it for a few friends who loved it as well.

Last week I decided to splurge and buy two fillets of King salmon at the Metropolitan Market. King is supposed to be the best salmon out there. The fillets were expensive, but I have never had really nice salmon and was anxious to see if there really was a difference in taste. Well, I can pretty much say that once you taste King salmon, you never want to try another type of salmon ever again, it is THAT good. Not to mention the fact that I was cooking with fresh garlic and had honed, almost pefected, my salmon cooking skills.

I feel very lucky to live in Seattle where we have such an abundance of salmon and selections of places to buy it from. Not to mention the fact that I am less than 2 miles from Pike Place Market where there are multiple places to buy fresh fish.

With King salmon being so pricey, I think I might go out on a limb and try some Sockeye. It is usually about $5+ cheaper a pound, and is known as the second best tasting (though everyone has their preferences).

If you have a food you really like, but haven't splurged for a better quality version of that food, you owe it to yourself to splurge every once in a while. But just a warning, once you splurge you won't ever want to go back to the cheap version!

Tonight I volunteered at an event for the King County Conservation Voters. A part of the evening consisted of a live auction, which had about 30 items. Many of the items involved getaways, such as a trip to Sedona, a stay in Great Britain, a condo rental in Washington D.C. and some little getaways in our own Washington.

If you aren't from Washington, it can be difficult to grasp the weirdness of the geography of our state. We have some bodies of water that break our state up. If you see water shots in a picture of Seattle, it isn't the Pacific Ocean you are seeing, but either a lake or the Puget Sound. To get to the Pacific Ocean from Seattle, you need to drive a few hours, and in some routes, take a ferry, which would be quicker. (I'm totally simplifying things here, sorry).

For you Twilight fans, Forks is pretty close to the coast, and is, I think, about 3 1/2 hours away from Seattle. You would drive north a bit and take a Ferry and drive a few hours to get to Forks. I definitely want to go there because it is beautiful.

If you look at a map of Washington and really zoom in on the western part, you can get a better idea of our geography and see the Puget Sound.

I write about this because aside from the auction I attended, I have been watching reruns of Little People, Big World and right now the reruns are of the Roloff's RV trip to some National Parks. It reminds me of the diversity and the beauty that is all around us. Even the most "boring" looking states, contain vast amounts of beauty.

Most of you know that the area that Mt. Rushmore is in, Badlands, is pretty nice looking. Well, I would disagree, it contains an infinite amount of beauty. You cannot even imagine how gorgeous it is. I so badly wished I had a day or two to spend near there because it was breathtaking! But, even before I got to the Badlands area, I was shocked to find so much pretty scenery in South Dakota. I really want to go back to South Dakota because I loved the Badlands area and the whole western history was really neat.


So I guess the moral of the story is that there is beauty all around us, in our state, in our country, and in our world. We should carpe diem and see as much of it as we can. We need to spend less time working (which is easy for me to say) and more time living.

"When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits I dreamed of
changing the world. As I grew older and wiser I discovered the world
would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to
change only my country. Bu it too seemed immovable. As I grew into my
twilight years, in one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing
only my family, those closest to me. But alas they would have none of
it. And now as I lie on my deathbed I suddenly realized: If I had only
changed myself first, then by example I would have changed my family.
From their inspiration and encouragement I would have been able to
better my country and, who knows, maybe even change the world."
-Unknown

If anyone else is "dieting", thinking about "dieting", or what have you, head on over to my diet blog because I am restarting detox/induction today.

The problem with me is that I find too much enjoyment in being a nomad. The thought of settling down somewhere is frightening! Being in Las Vegas and not knowing where I would go next was both scary and exhilarating. Same thing with New Hampshire. When I spent a month flying all over the east part of the USA, (Michigan, South Carolina, Florida, Tennesse, Connecticut, etc) I had the time of my life. I found it far too easy to live out of suitcases, motels, and my car.

It's the fear of commitment that gets me. I can commit to friends and family, but beyond that it gets really dicey. Having pondered my living situation for the last year or so, I always found the idea of buying an RV and living out of that and being so mobile really attractive. Driving across the country twice exposed me to this whole culture of RVing that was really fun to watch.

Most of the RVers were, of course, retired folks, who had the time and money to do it. BTW, It's so absurd that you have to wait until you are 65 or older to actually travel and enjoy our country. I know someone who is closer to my age who bought an RV and has that mobility, but chooses to stay around the Vegas area. He loves it and I can't blame him.

So having been unemployed since November, I've found myself a bit disappointed that I didn't do something more fun with this time. I truly didn't think the economy would keep getting worse and that hundreds of people would be applying for janitorial jobs and such. It would've been fun to rent an RV back in November and just drive around!

I don't wanna believe that my traveling days are behind me. Is normalcy that only thing I have to look forward to???

Having been born on Tax Day, is it safe to assume that I was born to be a Democrat? It only took about 21 years, but the best Democrats are reformed Republicans!

Aren't really so funny and/or interesting because they are often false, misleading, half-truths, etc. Generally speaking, the emails that are simple jokes or funny pictures, aren't what I am referring to. You know exactly what I am referring to!

The emails that drive me insane are the ones that are political in nature or something that is a picture of something but the description isn't accurate, but almost always political or social in nature.

For instance, I received a forward of this beautiful building with this awesome interior. What was the building? A prison in the United States. The problem is that the prison in this particular email is actually a prison in Austria. A very nice prison, but something that US tax dollars didn't fund.

Honestly, I don't care how Austria spends it's tax dollars, but I do care that people spread these emails around without verifying the contents via Snopes.com or another website that is in the business of debunking. It takes, literally, 10 seconds of Googling to get to the bottom of these forward emails.

I remember getting so annoyed when people would assume what I believed as a Mormon. Really, it only took a few minutes of researching or asking questions to figure out that Mormons DO NOT sacrifice animals in the temple. Sending emails around is akin to the same type of ridiculous assumption that just because someone told you something or sent you something, it must be true.

This problem has only be exacerbated by President Obama's fast rise in politics and stunning defeat of Hillary Clinton, as well as the massacre that took place when the McCain campaign was dismantled by the Obama campaign's superior practices and theories of campaigning. How many Obama forwards exist? I would guess somewhere in the thousands. For the record, no he isn't a Muslim and even if he was, who cares?

One thing that has been great is that I receive fewer and fewer of these ridiculous forwards. The Republicans I know are either too smart to send me crap or they just don't get involved with this email forwarding game. When I do get forwards, they are usually funny jokes (even the political jokes can be funny), funny pictures, cute pictures of animals, etc.

A few days ago my dad took me out to lunch. We went to the Space Needle and ate at the top. It was a bit overpriced, but really fun as the restaurant moves around and you get a whole view of the city as it slowly moves (makes a whole rotation every half an hour or so). To eat at the restaurant, you must spend $25/person. Included in that $25 is the admission to the top of the Space Needle. So really you are only needing to spend what you would spend eating at a Cheesecake Factory or similar restaurant.

It was fun to get the view of Queen Anne and find my condo building! Seattle is a very unique and fun city and it is fun to live here. But, my mind can't help but wonder where I will be living come November, when my lease ends. I like Seattle, but parking is expensive, the bus system is overpriced and when you are in the ride free zone, it's a bit scary. Anytime you live in a big city, there are always complaints, which I why I just need to move out into the suburbs a bit. If I want to go to the mall or a movie, I don't want to pay for parking, unless it's valet parking. But I will miss my view!

Living in Idaho really gave me a craving for living on a property with some land. A bit of seclusion, but not too far from the city, some land for a big yard, a fire pit, but not tons of acreage because that would be a little scary.

Am I describing Auburn or something more eastward? If I won't live in the big city, do I really want the typical suburbia city with regular neighborhoods all filled with families and minivans? No thanks.

Federal Way has turned into "Ghetto Way" or "Federal Watts." Other nearby areas are equally as scary, or so I've read. How about a place with some land and a view of some water? Does that exist?

The blue team on The Biggest Loser drive me insane. I can have seen bigger babies than those two. Their problem taking orders from a woman is so evident, is there any doubt that they are sexist? Are they really Mormon? If so, what an embarrassment.

Wow, out of the thousands, maybe millions of people who manage to get thru customs with their undeclared items, Cuban cigars, drugs, suitcases of liquor, and way too many cartons of cigarettes, I got caught bringing in undeclared jewelry. So lame, but I should've been honest and declared it. Anytime I enter the country now, I am on some list where I'll be searched. Oh joy. 

I've most likely shared this quote before, but I love it so much, I'd like to share it again.

"When I tell any truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do." ~William Blake

In just a few days, I will be on my way to Miami, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten and I cannot wait. I definitely need to just get away and recharge my battery. How sad is that as I am not even working right now!?!

The weather this winter in Seattle hasn't been too horrible, but I am stoked for sunny skies, warm water, and warm wind, if there is any wind at all!

As the economy continues to take more and more victims, I am left wondering if there is any point in looking for a job at all? News story after news story document hundreds and thousands of people applying for low-paying and often times temporary work.

With that said, I am definitely moving full steam ahead with getting my knowledge compiled into a small book so as to consult campaigns on the use of candidate trackers. If they can't afford a consultant, they can get the small e-book and I might print out some hard copies because it would come in handy to have a small copy.

I better get to work, the 2010 campaign season is fast approaching!