Jeez what a day, first the lovely Farrah Fawcett passes away now the king of pop (and inventor of the famous Moonwalk) Michael Jackson has died. Currently the cause of his death have yet to be released but it has been confirmed that he was rushed to the hospital not breathing and unconscious.

It is truly a sad day in Hollywood. Michael's Moon Walking in heaven now. Rest in Peace, Michael.

A sad day indeed for all the Farrah Fawcett fan's out there. According to just about any news and media source, Farrah Fawcett died today at the age of 62 after a long battle with cancer. USA TODAY has an article here that goes into more detail for those interested. As you all take a moment to reflect on all the golden years, I leave you with this final homage....DISCLAIMER:NOT SUITABLE FOR GRANDMOTHER'S!!!!.....sorry.

Welcome to another day in my life, this week I have been left in charge of my father's business while he is away on business. Now I haven't been left in charge of everything just some responsibilities along with the well being and security of his business, that's all.

Last week was a very interesting week indeed. I spent most of the week in the car with dad running around the entire city in a desperate attempt to accomplish several tasks before he left.

The city of Lima is huge which often makes running errands an all day experience. This isn't such a bad thing if you have a camera handy because there is always something going on in the city. I remember sitting in the car with my father and john (my godfather) in congested traffic on the Av. Alfonso Ugarte in North side of Lima. Traffic was barely moving and we were killing time by eating sugar cane, a snack that can be bought on the streets and is really good. After about 15 minutes of sitting and stuffing my face I noticed 3 cars down a man who had approached a dark sedan from the sidewalk. At first I did not think much of it since there are a lot of vendors and beggars that walk the streets going from car to car, but then he looked into the car and thats when it happened. The guy pulled his arm back like he was going to throw a punch, thats when I noticed that in his hand he had a rock the size of a softball. Within the blink of an eye the theif had the window of the sedan shattered into a million pieces and with the same speed and agility he dove into the car through the window. With legs sticking out it is unclear what went down inside the car since the windows were all tinted, what is clear is that when the thief pulled out of the car he appeared empty handed. My father who had been watching searched furiously for his gun which he had apparently forgotten. This seemed to irritate him as he was ready to deal with the thief on his own terms. The thief who ran past our car was clutching his other hand which was covered in blood. This time the thief walked away with nothing but a beating as it was now clear that the individual in the car must have beat the crap out of him. What was a 3 minute rush of adrenaline to witness such an act was now over and after a few minutes of scanning for other possible thieves all went back to normal. After all that has just happened I admit I feel kind of sad, not because what happened but because I had put my camera away just before the incident took place. :( Oddly enough this whole incident was followed by a lecture on vehicle safety and dangers of traveling in the city from my father...Fun!





The next few days were nothing but sunshine and smiles with the winter weather on a hiatus. Sunny weather always makes for colorful pictures. most of these above photos were taken in Chorrillos and Magdalena del Mar.

Below is a photo that depicts a scene of an activity that is all too common in Peru unfortunately. Often many times for what seems like no real reason at all, a police officer will pull you over, still think it's nothing...think again. Because the National Police don't have the kind of funding that police in the United States have, they are unfortunately underpaid. This in turn leads to the kind of corruption that is common place in a city like Lima. What you see below in the picture is nothing more than an attempt by two police to intimidate a civilian in an attempt to collect bribe money. Most people usually end up paying the "toll" so that they can go on with their lives, abeit a few soles poorer. Unfortunately my father having inherited the "badass" gene can't help but expose their intentions in the most verbal and aggressive manner. For him it's effective they usually aren't prepared to deal with an individual who doesn't give a damn about authority.



Some photos of downtown lima, the sky was fairly cloudy and ugly so I used black and white for my photos which I prefer when overall color is muted.




These photos were taken in a seafood restaurant in Breña. The below picture is of a dish that I consider a personal favorite. This is a variation of Causa de Pollo, with crab meat as a substitute for chicken. The yellow stuff is mashed yellow potato which is native to Peru and is rare (code for hard) to find in the States. The crab meat in the center is mixed with a little bit of homemade mayo and a mixture of diced greenbean, carrot, and sweet pea. The red salsa that is drizzled on top is made from garlic, lime juice, and rocoto. It is delicious.

Today I received an email from a friend of mine who sent me this very inspirational article. I recommend that you read this article and maybe just maybe it will give you a new outlook on your life.

10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job

Just for fun I recently asked Erin, “Now that the kids are in summer school, don’t you think it’s about time you went out and got yourself a job? I hate seeing you wallow in unemployment for so long.”

She smiled and said, “Wow. I have been unemployed a really long time. That’s weird… I like it!”

Neither of us have had jobs since the ’90s (my only job was in 1992), so we’ve been self-employed for quite a while. In our household it’s a running joke for one of us to say to the other, “Maybe you should get a job, derelict!”

It’s like the scene in The Three Stooges where Moe tells Curly to get a job, and Curly backs away, saying, “No, please… not that! Anything but that!”

It’s funny that when people reach a certain age, such as after graduating college, they assume it’s time to go out and get a job. But like many things the masses do, just because everyone does it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. In fact, if you’re reasonably intelligent, getting a job is one of the worst things you can do to support yourself. There are far better ways to make a living than selling yourself into indentured servitude.

Here are some reasons you should do everything in your power to avoid getting a job:

1. Income for dummies.

Getting a job and trading your time for money may seem like a good idea. There’s only one problem with it. It’s stupid! It’s the stupidest way you can possibly generate income! This is truly income for dummies.

Why is getting a job so dumb? Because you only get paid when you’re working. Don’t you see a problem with that, or have you been so thoroughly brainwashed into thinking it’s reasonable and intelligent to only earn income when you’re working? Have you never considered that it might be better to be paid even when you’re not working? Who taught you that you could only earn income while working? Some other brainwashed employee perhaps?

Don’t you think your life would be much easier if you got paid while you were eating, sleeping, and playing with the kids too? Why not get paid 24/7? Get paid whether you work or not. Don’t your plants grow even when you aren’t tending to them? Why not your bank account?

Who cares how many hours you work? Only a handful of people on this entire planet care how much time you spend at the office. Most of us won’t even notice whether you work 6 hours a week or 60. But if you have something of value to provide that matters to us, a number of us will be happy to pull out our wallets and pay you for it. We don’t care about your time — we only care enough to pay for the value we receive. Do you really care how long it took me to write this article? Would you pay me twice as much if it took me 6 hours vs. only 3?

Non-dummies often start out on the traditional income for dummies path. So don’t feel bad if you’re just now realizing you’ve been suckered. Non-dummies eventually realize that trading time for money is indeed extremely dumb and that there must be a better way. And of course there is a better way. The key is to de-couple your value from your time.

Smart people build systems that generate income 24/7, especially passive income. This can include starting a business, building a web site, becoming an investor, or generating royalty income from creative work. The system delivers the ongoing value to people and generates income from it, and once it’s in motion, it runs continuously whether you tend to it or not. From that moment on, the bulk of your time can be invested in increasing your income (by refining your system or spawning new ones) instead of merely maintaining your income.

This web site is an example of such a system. At the time of this writing, it generates about $9000 a month in income for me (update: $40,000 a month as of 10/31/06), and it isn’t my only income stream either. I write each article just once (fixed time investment), and people can extract value from them year after year. The web server delivers the value, and other systems (most of which I didn’t even build and don’t even understand) collect income and deposit it automatically into my bank account. It’s not perfectly passive, but I love writing and would do it for free anyway. But of course it cost me a lot of money to launch this business, right? Um, yeah, $9 is an awful lot these days (to register the domain name). Everything after that was profit.

Sure it takes some upfront time and effort to design and implement your own income-generating systems. But you don’t have to reinvent the wheel — feel free to use existing systems like ad networks and affiliate programs. Once you get going, you won’t have to work so many hours to support yourself. Wouldn’t it be nice to be out having dinner with your spouse, knowing that while you’re eating, you’re earning money? If you want to keep working long hours because you enjoy it, go right ahead. If you want to sit around doing nothing, feel free. As long as your system continues delivering value to others, you’ll keep getting paid whether you’re working or not.

Your local bookstore is filled with books containing workable systems others have already designed, tested, and debugged. Nobody is born knowing how to start a business or generate investment income, but you can easily learn it. How long it takes you to figure it out is irrelevant because the time is going to pass anyway. You might as well emerge at some future point as the owner of income-generating systems as opposed to a lifelong wage slave. This isn’t all or nothing. If your system only generates a few hundred dollars a month, that’s a significant step in the right direction.

The rest of the article can be found here: LINK

For all you who enjoyed this article PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!

Yes it's winter in Lima for those of you enjoying your summer up north. Surprisingly its been cold here. Last night I woke up because I realized that my legs were freezing which surprised me because I have never experienced this in Lima. It reminded me of the winters in Portland. So the other day I was driving around Lima with my father and I happened to take my camera with me so I decided to take some pictures of the city. We traveled to Cercado de Lima, Breña, Barranco, Miraflores, Callao, and San Juan de Miraflores. The weather in Lima for the past month and a half has been fairly overcast with rain from time to time. During the day it's a decent 65F degrees with the night temps reaching as low as 45. I definately miss the sun but I won't have to wait long for summer to come back to me!

Well this weekend was very busy what with planning my father's surprise 50th birthday. Since he is leaving this weekend and his birthday is on the 21st we decided to throw a surprise party last Saturday. Friends and family attended and it turned out to be a great party. There was fried chicken, German sausage, potato salad (mom's and grandma's recipe), and cake. The party was held at the factory and started at 8:30PM and lasted until 7AM the next day. All went well without any problems except for the small down pour of light rain that occurred during the hours of 2 and 3 AM.

So here are the photos from the funeral ceremony for Comandante Miguel Montenegro Castillo, a friend of my father who was brutally murdered in the Amazon region of Peru.