Saturday, December 29, 2018

Saturday, August 25, 2018

Duane "The Rock" Johnson was cut from pro football

His first aspiration was to be a professional football player.  He made the CFL (Canadian football team) Calgary Stampeders, played one game, and was cut.

He said it was the best thing that ever happened to him.

".... but one thing that a lot of people don’t know that I wanted to share with you guys is when I was 22 years old, I came to this city for the first time. I was playing in the Canadian Football League, playing my first pro football game. I was playing for the Calgary Stampeders. We were playing the BC Lions. I was so excited.
Two days later, I got cut (laughs). Dreams shattered, sent home with seven bucks in my pocket. I was like, ‘Wait no, I gotta play in the NFL eventually. Those are my big goals. That’s my dream.’ You realize that playing in the NFL was the best thing that never happened because it got me here.
You gotta realize we’re gonna get our ass kicked. We’re gonna get the (expletive) kicked out of us. You gotta get up. You gotta have faith that the one thing you wanted to happen oftentimes is the best thing that never happened, so have faith and just keep that in mind and keep lugging away.”

Much more to the story....

Celebrity Net Worth says:  "Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, is an American actor and former professional wrestler who has a net worth of $280 million dollars. Between June 2017 and June 2018, Dwayne Johnson earned $125 million, making him by far the highest paid actor on the planet."

Monday, May 21, 2018

A cellist loses his girlfriend -- then decides to bring hope to the dying




We will add this remarkable story to our title in a future edition:


Sunday, May 20, 2018

Kinda what I thought would happen

People increased Facebook usage after Cambridge Analytica scandal - Business Insider



Unstoppable Juggernaut.  Some call FB the marriage of Egotism and Gossip..........

Friday, March 23, 2018

The mind is its own place

Paradise Lost
Book I, Lines 221-270

Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime,
Said then the lost Arch-Angel, this the seat
That we must change for Heav’n, this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he 
Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: fardest from him is best
Whom reason hath equald, force hath made supream
Above his equals. Farewel happy Fields
Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail 
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang’d by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n. 
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then he
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: 

Saturday, March 3, 2018

Told she couldn't dance

A MODEL MISS

WHEN COSTCO MEMBER Shree Saini was a little girl, she wanted to be a dancer. But, diagnosed with a congenital heart defect at 12 and with a pacemaker implanted, she was told she wouldn’t be able to dance again.

Saini, now 22, not only pursued dancing, but also performed a dance routine inspired by her experience for the talent portion of the Miss India USA 2017 pageant last December in New Jersey. The Seattle resident won the national title and will go on to compete for Miss India Worldwide this year.
"I really hope to use my Miss India USA title to reach and help more individuals," says Saini, who was born in Punjab. Meanwhile, she plans to serve as a voice for various charitable causes. Saini, who has made it her personal goal to make 100 appearances during her reign, has spoken out about human trafficking, emotional wellness and nonverbal bullying, a form of harassment that she experienced as a child.

"I’ve been through many trials in my life, and if I once had a mentor or a role model to look up to I would have been able to get out of those tough situations much faster and then much easier," says Saini, who aims to be a role model for children.

Shree Saini, Miss India USA 2017
Saini is currently a student at the University of Washington and has also studied at Harvard, Yale and Stanford universities. In addition to her studies, she has founded a nonprofit organization (shreesaini.org) to increase awareness of and raise funds to help prevent nonverbal bullying and human trafficking.
"If I could just make an impact on one person’s life, that is priceless," she says. "I can’t put a number on that."

—Christina Guerrero

From Costco Connection

Thursday, March 1, 2018

Jon Gruden’s Raiders return: Ready to grind | SI.com

Jon Gruden’s Raiders return: Ready to grind | SI.com

We wrote about Coach Jon Gruden in Extraordinary Comebacks.  He got fired but instead of feeling sorry for himself, the quintessential football savant created the FFCA, the Fired Football Coaches of America.  Both ironic and productive.  With his encyclopedic knowledgre of the game, honed by near obsessive review of tape, he snagged a huge pay ESPN deal that lasted for many years....and put out his QB Camp half hours there, very entertaining, but in the end it wasn't enough.  Gruden is a competitor, and felt he had to get back in the ring one more time.

He is the new coach of the Oakland Raiders, soon to be Las Vegas Raiders.   His pay package is the biggest ever for his profession.

Superb feature here.  We wish the very down-to-earth, and personable and knowledgeable Jon Gruden great success as he returns home to the Raiders.

Saturday, February 24, 2018

Amy Purdy: Living beyond limits | TED Talk

Amy Purdy: Living beyond limits | TED Talk



When she was 19, Amy Purdy lost both her legs below the knee. And now ... she's a pro snowboarder (and was a killer competitor on "Dancing with the Stars"!). In this powerful TED talk, she shows us how to draw inspiration from life's obstacles.



http://amypurdy.com/

BREAKING: Hungary Wins First Ever Winter Olympics Gold in Men's 5,000m Relay | Hungary Today

BREAKING: Hungary Wins First Ever Winter Olympics Gold in Men's 5,000m Relay | Hungary Today



Hungary’s most recent medal in the history of the Winter Olympics happed 38 years ago, in 1980 at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics, where Krisztina Regőczy and András Sallay ice dancers won silver medal. 


Moral of the story:  If you stick with something, you will succeed, though it may take many years.

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

The Comeback Camp

The Comeback Camp



Helps kids whose families are facing cancer.....

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

GUTS, by Janet Buttenwieser. Book review

A recent NPR program profiled the inherent and little-known dangers of medical devices. Medical devices? Those are inert, benign, surely knee implants and the like can't hurt us? And yet they do. The cobalt in implants destroys human tissue. Mesh implants shred tissue. On and on it goes. Who knew? Patient beware. It reminded me of what a precarious transaction it is when we go to a physician for a "diagnosis." If you have a great medical team behind you, you should be grateful every day, and tell them once in a while, too.

 Here, in GUTS, the author is diagnosed with Crohn's Disease, but later finds out that is inaccurate: she has a tumor. She chronicles her subsequent surgery, complications, and other loss along the way -- so much suffering down here on planet earth. A brave, yes, gutsy soul, the author fights back against the darkness in the universe by making a comeback through triathlon, of all things, and then goes on to adopt two children. Janet Buttenwieser is an adept at keeping the reader hooked, turning the page. The style is direct, conversational, clear-eyed, and unsentimental. The author wants you to know she is not religious, it is what it is, so to speak, and not otherwise.

 The message here is that we survive, we surmount difficulties, that's what humans do. And yes, it hurts. You will find this hard to put down. A compelling read.

 Excerpt: A year before, when she’d called after my triathlon to tell me the cancer had come back, she’d laughed on the phone as I told her about the teenage girl I’d met early on the run course, the one who’d lost thirty pounds over the summer. After a few minutes of running together, I told Beth, the girl slowed down, telling me to go ahead. When I saw her again at the final water stop, she was limping, barely running. She told me her ankle hurt. “Maybe you should walk,” I said. “No,” she said, picking up her pace. “I trained all summer. I am running this whole fucking race.” ...... 

 Beth’s death from cancer had been sudden, a fact that still shocked me months later. She’d gone from the Swiss Alps to hospice care in the space of a week. The end came too quickly for all of us. Except Beth, of course. Surely she wanted that last stretch to be as short as possible: the pain, the struggle to speak, to move her limbs, to breathe. Maybe she even brought on her own swift ending by force of will. I can imagine her internal conversation, punctuated with a final, triumphant line. I am running this whole fucking race.

At Amazon.