This video is too awesome!  It’s of 1,500 plus CPDRC inmates in the Philippines who perform Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”  They have also performed other choreographed numbers.

975 miles and 17 hours later, we made it safe and sound to sunny southern California.  We left at 6:15 am and my mom drove until 1:30 pm.  I took over at a gas station and continued the rest of the way until 11:00 pm.  When my dad died, my uncles made the same trip from California to Oregon in 14 hours!  We would have been here earlier, but there were a lot of rest stops and I refused to drive five miles faster than the speed limit.  Maybe I’m getting old, but over the years, I’ve become a lot more laid back.  Why speed and endanger yourself to get to your destination 10 minutes earlier?  I don’t even get annoyed in traffic jams anymore.  Why stress yourself out over things you can’t change?

(L) On the road in Oregon.  (R) McKenzie enjoys the view

The view on the open road.

 Still in Oregon.

(L) “Oregon thanks you. Come back soon.”  (R) “Welcome to California.”  Why, thank you.

It starts to look dry once we hit California.  I made a point to notice where the landscape stops looking like Oregon, and starts looking like California.  It’s somewhere near Yreka, where there are no more lush trees.

Mt. Shasta had some nice trees, though.

Above are typical snacks to keep me awake.  Unfortunately, I didn’t find ANY Icees.

Tonight we’ll be making the drive to Palm Springs to visit my aunt “Nicole” - one of my mom’s four sisters.  I heard plans of visiting a casino, buffets, and shopping.

It’s almost midnight and I still haven’t really packed yet.  Me, my mom, and her black lab are leaving for southern California tomorrow morning.  We’ll leave by 6am and drive 16 or so hours straight.  So, that means we’ll be at my Grandma’s by Saturday night.  I’m not sure if there’s internet at that house yet, so I might be offline for about a week.

On the way down, I’m going to make a point of eating as many pepperoni sticks and blueberry Icees as possible.  Once there, more good food awaits.  I also see a visit to Koreatown in my near future.  Good times ahead…

Here are some things I found interesting from this interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

TIME: Is Facebook’s popularity connected to its focus on authenticity? On your site, misrepresentation of your real self is a violation of company policy.

Zuckerberg: That’s the critical part of it. Our whole theory is that people have real connections in the world. People communicate most naturally and effectively with their friends and the people around them. What we figured is that if we could model what those connections were, [we could] provide that information to a set of applications through which people want to share information, photos or videos or events. But that only works if those relationships are real.

TIME: With more than 40 billion page views every month, Facebook is the sixth most trafficked site in the U.S., and the top photo-sharing site. What are your international expansion plans?

Zuckerberg: Right now a lot of our growth is happening internationally. We have more than 10% or 15% of the population of Canada on the site. The U.K. has a huge user base.

This month, I’ve been watching a lot of movies.  Two weeks ago, I added the “Flixster” application on Facebook, and am going to list and review all the movies I see from this year on.  So far, all 16 movies listed have been everything I’ve watched since arriving in Oregon for the summer.  The best so far were: Born into Brothels, Transformers, and Hard Candy.  The list of movies to see in the next two days include: Ghost World, Grave of the Fireflies, and The Devil Wears Prada.  At the end of the year, it’ll be interesting to see how many movies I’ve seen from the second half of 2007.  Yesterday, brother rented a Japanese movie that came out this week called, “Yo-Yo Girl Cop.”  Besides the funny title, I can’t decide whether I want to watch it or not.

Looking Abroad For A Few Good Teachers

Baltimore and other school districts–in California, Florida and New York–have begun looking abroad for teachers to do the jobs they can’t get enough locals to take on.

New York City has recruited teachers from such countries as Austria, Canada and Spain for years. Three years ago, it began recruiting in the Philippines. Administrators in the city say only 10% of those recruits have left and 530 Filipino teachers are currently working in the city’s schools.

I’ve only read two of “The 10 Greatest Books of All time“.

Faith Hill unPhotoshopped.  They really removed a lot of the wrinkles around her eyes!  Even her arm is thinner and the back fat is gone.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows leaked to BitTorrent  [WARNING!!!  There's a link at the end of the article that says something like, "If you’re the type of person who likes spoilers, check out this page."  I was too curious.  There was absolutely no lead up to it.  BAM, it hits you, and there's no need to scroll down.  The page lists (in bullets) ALL the people who die in the book!!!  Don't click on the link unless you want to know.  I was actually surprised by who J.K. Rowling killed off.  There were at least six deaths!]