Pregnant Jessica Alba was seen in Mexico having her birthday party just in bikini with few of her friends and daughter Honor Marie Warren.
Pregnant Jessica Alba having birthday party fun on Mexico Beach with her daughter Honor Marie Warren
Jessica Alba turned 30 on April 28 but the star planned to enjoy a cherished birthday vacation in Mexico in place of big home party. Cash Warren, husband of Jessica Alba, was not present in this “girls only” party.
Pregnant Jessica Alba having birthday party fun on Mexico Beach without husband Cash Warren
Pregnant Jessica Alba having fun on Mexico Beach in 'Girls only Party'
Pregnant Jessica Alba having birthday party fun on Mexico Beach with her daughter and close friends
I got some wanderlust from my dad and I took a travel writing class last year, so I was really intrigued by Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World
, one of the few full length travel narratives I've seen written by a female. To add to my interest, one of my good friends from high school really liked the book so I knew it had to be pretty good. Rita Golden Gelman has reached a turning point in her life. She is living with her husband in California, but they no longer love each other and she hates their modern lifestyle. Her children are on their way to college and she doesn't feel like they need her anymore. Her career, a children's book author, doesn't require her to stay at home. When she and her husband decide to take a break she goes south of the border to Mexico for an intensive Spanish class and finds that she loves traveling. After that trip she changes her life and has no permanent address, she lives on a small amount of money, travels, and meets new people.
The bulk of this book takes place in Indonesia and in my opinion it could have only taken place in Indonesia. Her time in Mexico shows us where her nomadic journey began, but her random trips in the United States and Canada could have been much shorter. Indonesia was really the only place where Rita got to know the people around her and really participated in the culture. I really liked the places Rita went to in the book, but she didn't get to know hardly anyone so it was basically just a book about everywhere she went in this time span and everything she did.
I wanted to like this book a lot. I love the idea of just packing up your stuff, taking off, and seeing the world in your own way. Rita's voice got in the way though. The book is written in the present tense, which lends itself to "I did this, I see this, I hear this" writing. She spends so much time talking about what she did that you don't ever get a good feeling of what the culture is like. She spends at least 100 pages in Indonesia but I didn't come away from the book with any different perspective on it. And that's not totally necessary for me to enjoy a travel narrative. The Moon, Come to Earth didn't change my perspective on Portugal, but it did make me think about travel in a way that I wouldn't have without the book. That was not the case with Tales of a Female Nomad. Honestly, I thought Rita was a little self-centered and while I enjoyed reading about a few of the amazing things she did, there was always this nagging feeling in my head that the way she was telling them just wasn't right. This book could have been awesome, but it ended up just being okay.
I give this book a C.
I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.
To be a lover of nonfiction is a dangerous and confusing thing. I have become aware of a major difference in the way readers who primarily love nonfiction shop over the way readers who primarily love fiction shop. When you go to the bookstore and you look for a fiction book, there is generally one place you're searching. Maybe two if you like YA or three if you like romance or western. If you love nonfiction there are an unlimited number of places you might find your books. This can be dangerous and frustrating.
For example, after a recent trip to Half-Price Books I purchased seven books and they were each in a completely different section.
The first place I always look is in Essays and Memoirs, which is generally only one or two shelves of a bookcase (in a normal store there might be one whole bookcase). In this section I found Coop, which is a memoir, I suppose, of Michael Perry's life as a farmer and parent.
I moved to the Sports section where I found The Lost Art of Walking, a history and discussion of walking.
Nearby was travel, where in the further category of Iowa travel I found Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America
, a profile of a town in Iowa.
I went to graphic novels and found the graphic memoir Blankets
.
I caught up with Jason in the Science section where I found The Compassionate Carnivore: Or, How to Keep Animals Happy, Save Old MacDonald's Farm, Reduce Your Hoofprint, and Still Eat Meat
on the one shelf of sustainable agriculture books.
From sustainable agriculture I moved towards nature writing where I picked up The Control of Nature
, a book of essays by John McPhee.
I ended by trip in the close-by section of Green Living, which had a really neat copy of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life.
Seven books. Seven sections.
Can you see why loving nonfiction is a dangerous and frustrating process? Dangerous because, as you've just seen, it's very easy to hop around the whole store and find something you're interested in in every section. It's too easy, especially in a store like Half-Price Books, which organizes its categories down into smaller categories.
It's frustrating, however, because if you are looking for a specific book there can be at least three places it will be located. Is it in essays and memoirs? Is it in environmentalism? Is it in cookbooks? I've found Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in every place. Even from the books I purchased you can probably see some overlap. The Compassionate Carnivore, The Control of Nature, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and Coop could have easily been found in the same section, but for some reason Half-Price Books distinguishes them. The distinguishing factor might be something as arbitrary as what type of writer wrote the book. Was it a journalist? A farmer? A scientist?
Part of this is just that the majority of the books in a bookstore are nonfiction, and bookstores do distinguish all the nonfiction by subject because that is how most people look for it. But when you're a general lover of all types of nonfiction it gets frustrating when there isn't just a single section titled Essays that contains all the books of essays. Since nonfiction is a constantly evolving genre (I'm not saying fiction is not, I'm saying literary fiction has a more established, concrete history) it's difficult for a lot of readers to make the distinction between literary nonfiction and what I would consider "How to" nonfiction. How to travel in Mexico. How to become a Buddhist. How to farm sustainably. Versus. My travels in Mexico. My experience as a Buddhist. My experience as a sustainable farmer.
Do you read nonfiction? Do you find yourself running around the store looking for a book? If you are a fiction reader, how many sections do you generally look in?
I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.
Salma Valgarma Hayek Jiménez-Pinaultor commonly calledSalma Hayek(Spanish pronunciation: [ˈsalma ˈxaʝek]; born September 2, 1966) is a Mexican actress, director and producer. Salma Hayek is one of the most prominent Mexican figures in Hollywood. Salma Hayek received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role as Frida Kahlo in the movie Frida. Hayek was born in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico, the daughter of Diana Jiménez Medina, an opera singer and talent scout, and Sami Hayek Dominguez, an oil company executive who once ran for mayor of Coatzacoalcos. Hayek's father is of Lebanese descent, while her mother is of Spanish descent. Her first given name, Salma, is Arabic for "safe". Raised in a wealthy, devoutly Roman Catholic family, she was sent to the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, at the age of twelve. While there, she was diagnosed with dyslexia.She attended college in Mexico City, where she studied International Relations at the Universidad Iberoamericana.
Movies Tittle:COLOMBIANA(2011) Starring:Zoe Saldana, Lennie James, Michael Vartan, Marshall Warren, Callum Blue, Jordi Mollà, Max Martini, Sam Douglas, Monica Acosta
Directed by: Olivier Megaton
Release Date: September 2, 2011
A young woman grows up to be a stone-cold assassin after witnessing her parents’ murder as a child in Bogota. She works for her uncle as a hitman by day, but her personal time is spent engaging in vigilante murders that she hopes will lead her to her ultimate target – the mobster responsible for her parents’ death.
Production Status: In Production/Awaiting Release Genres: Action/Adventure, Art/Foreign, Drama and Thriller Release Date: September 2nd, 2011 (wide) Distributors: Sony Pictures Releasing Production Co.: EuropaCorp
Filming Locations: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
New Mexico, USA
Paris, France
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Mexico
Produced in: France
Here isColombiana (2011) Video Trailer. Check it out!
Leif Reads is a monthly feature I work on with Aths of Reading on a Rainy Day. Each month we choose a book that covers an environmental topic and discuss these topics and the book.
I've really enjoyed reading Coop this month because it's fitting in nicely with a long term comic I'm working on about sustainable agriculture. If you haven't noticed I've been thinking a lot about the disconnect that has happened between Americans and their food. While it's great that Michael Perry is able to live on his family's farm and teach his children about how food is grown and made I'm starting to realize that most people have never even set foot on a farm. A couple of weekends ago I went to an organic farm to do some volunteer work through an Iowa City organization called Local Foods Connection. Even though I grew up on a farm and around agriculture this farm was in a completely different league. I was amazed by the variety of produce they grew and the methods they used. The farm I visited started everything in a greenhouse and then moved it to a field.
If you have the ability to visit a farm or do some work with a farmer I would encourage you to do so. Next time you're at a farmer's market talk to the farmers there and find out what methods they use to grow their produce. It saddens me when I hear people talk about how lettuce comes from the bag. They don't realize that the lettuce in their bag was grown in Mexico and shipped to a plant where it was bagged and then shipped to their grocery store. They don't realize that the food they're putting in their mouths has gone through miles and miles of travel to reach them. They have no idea who is on the other side of that lettuce.
Even if you're not into gardening, visiting farms or farmer's markets, you might find it fruitful to grow a little something. I don't have my own yard but we're working on growing some things on our patio. Even if you don't have the option to do that, if you live in an apartment with one window you too can grow something. Jason and I are growing coneflowers, sunflowers, basil, and a few other things on our kitchen counter. It's set by a window and we water it every once in awhile. We planted all of these things just a few weeks ago and as you can see they are growing like crazy. If nothing else it's an exercise in understanding. Children often grow something small as part of their science classes in elementary school, but adults can learn from growing a flower in their kitchen to. It will help you understand that everything starts somewhere, even the book I'm reading came from a tree.
I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.
New Fine Arts Center becomes the first public building constructed in a small Texas city for last thirty years. Local artists and active workers, parents and teachers, historians and collectors of national creativity participated in center building. All of them thought over what should be their place for public meetings
Hi-tech Audience
Project by Kell Muñoz Architects is almost 2000 sq.m., a hall 975 places and an audience completed with the hi-tech audio-visual equipment. The project budget has been limited enough, $5.7 million dollars. This building of time declaring a multicultural modernism, traditional for district (Rio Grande Valley), mixed with the international modernism associating with Mexico.
Art Center in Texas
To allocate a new public place, the construction facade has been raised. The front composition from the bright vertical strips organized according to a color spectrum, very brightly allocates a building in a silent and harmonious landscape.
Jamilet is a beautiful young woman from a small town in Mexico. Throughout her life she has been shunned by local townspeople because of a horrible birthmark that taints her back and part of her legs.She flees to Los Angeles illegally in order to seek treatment for her birthmark and begins working at a local mental institution. Her patient is an elderly man named Antonio, a difficult and angry man from Spain. Antonio insists that his true name is Señor Peregrino. Antonio steals Jamilet's illegal immigration documents and promises to return them upon the condition that she listens to his story. Jamilet agrees, and thus begins an unbreakable bond.
Antonio’s story details his pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago in Spain with his friend Tomas prior to joining the priesthood. The young men meet two young women: Rosa, a beautiful but destitute woman and Jenny, a plain but wealthy woman. Both Antonio and Tomas instantly fall in love with Rosa. Antonio and Rosa promise to get married once they reach Santiago. Upon arrival, Antonio learns from Jenny that Rosa has instead married Tomas. Antonio marries Jenny, but doesn’t learn the truth about Rosa until years later. He is so pained by the revelation that he isolates himself in his room at the institution.
Inspired by Antonio’s story, Jamilet learns that her mark does not define her as a person. Beauty is more than skin deep. She breaks herself free of the shell that has been preventing her from opening up and allowing herself to love. The ending of the story was a bit sudden; several aspects were left hanging, but this doesn't detract from the powerful storytelling.
Bureau Foster + Partners, the well-known British architect, will take part in the program on studying of prospects of building of buildings on the Moon. Details of the project do not disclose, but, according to edition Building Magazine, bureau Foster + Partners will be engaged in studying of the materials existing on the Moon and Mars and potentially suitable for building.
The project will be a part of the big program "Aurora" of the European Space Agency. The representative of a bureau has informed, that a certain tender is provided, but on details to make comments has refused.
Spaceport for Virgin Galactic
The Guardian reminds, that Foster + Partners is engaged in designing of the first-ever private spaceport by request of company Virgin Galactic. Spaceport should open in 2011 in desert in the State of New Mexico.
The well-known architectural bureau
Norman Foster — the winner of every possible architectural awards, architectural bureau Foster + Partners was engaged in the project such known constructions, as: a covered court yard of the British museum, reconstruction Reichstag in Berlin, Hurst's tower in New York, the London skyscraper.
Mexican architectural company Tatiana Bilbao has created the design project of a university building. The author has inspired on project creation — an ordinary tree.
Biological Penates
The building has received the name “Biotechnological Park Building”. The six-storied structure will shelter researchers and experimenters in the field of the new technologies applied in agriculture.
The project will take places on 8,000 sq.m. of a campus of the largest private university in Mexico (Tecnológico de Monterrey) in the city of Culiacan.
The university concept
The concept represents a complex of the blocks placed in chessboard order. On-opinion architects, such structure is similar to a live, growing tree.
The university education will be taught on the building ground floors — in "roots", and research and business programs — on top, in "crones".
A coalition of environmental groups filed suit in federal court on Wednesday to push back against Bureau of Land Management's permitting of hydraulic fracturing wells near Chaco Culture National Historical Park.An oil well is pictured in September 2012 off County Road 6480 at sunset [Credit: Daily Times]
The suit, which names the BLM and the U.S. Interior Department as defendants, argues that the federal government is putting the environment, public health and the region's cultural resources at sites like Chaco Culture at risk by allowing oil and gas development in the lower San Juan Basin, primarily the Lybrook area.
Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, the San Juan Citizens Alliance, WildEarth Guardians and the Natural Resources Defense Council, with attorneys from the Western Environmental Law Center, collectively filed the complaint in New Mexico's U.S. District Court, arguing that the BLM's ongoing permitting of drilling in the area violates the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, and the National Historic Preservation Act, or NHPA.
The groups also took to the state Capitol Wednesday to try to convince legislators to support a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, production for Mancos Shale oil in the Gallup Play area. The drilling process involves injecting fluid into the ground at a high pressure to fracture shale rocks and release the natural gas or oil inside.
On Dec. 30, the BLM said it would defer issuing leases for five Navajo allotment parcels that represent 2,803 acres in response to a protest filed by environmental groups that demanded the agency suspend fracking on public lands near the Chaco park.
The BLM's Farmington Field Office is expected to finalize its amended resource management plan later this year, said Victoria Barr, the BLM Farmington Field Office district manager. Barr declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Jeremy Nichols, the climate energy program director at Santa Fe-based WildEarth Guardians, said the lawsuit was a last resort but a necessary one, given BLM's continued drilling permitting.
"The BLM has not fully analyzed the full impacts of horizontal hydraulic fracturing in the Mancos Shale area. Why are they approving all these permits? We wanted to take it to court and have a judge decide," Nichols said.
Groups like WildEarth Guardians complain that the BLM should cease approving all oil drilling permits in the Mancos area at least until its management plan is completed.
"They're leaping before looking because, at the same time, they're trying to update their (resource management) plan, and they've acknowledged that fracking wasn't something they'd thought hard about," Nichols said. "While they're doing that, they're approving dozens — over 100 permits. It doesn't add up to us."
Overall, Nichols said the groups' concern rests with the unknown implications of unchecked drilling in a culturally sensitive region.
"They are approving these permits and arguing that they're insignificant. It's unfortunate that we have to go to court," he said. "Maybe they should think more about the public resources that are at stake. These are public lands and minerals. It's not the oil and gas industry's lands and minerals. Hopefully, we can get BLM to realize that a little restraint is warranted."
Colleen Cooley with Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment said in the group's March 11 press release that the impacts of ongoing horizontal drilling pose dangers to Native communities who live in the region.
"The (BLM) is not taking serious consideration of the sacredness of the Greater Chaco region and the impacts on surrounding Diné communities as they continue to approve more drilling and fracking," Cooley said in the release. "It's time to account for what really matters, our health, our environment, and future generations."
Author: James Fenton | Source: The Daily Times [March 11, 2015]
The Best American 2009 series just came out this month, so in honor of that I thought I would say a bit about The Best American Travel Writing 2009 and in contrast The Best Travel Writing 2009. It's getting a bit cold in Iowa so I have travel on the brain right now anyway, although I do like the cold weather.
The Best American Travel Writing 2009 Edited by Simon Winchester
This is one of the better essay collections I have read. The transitions between the essays are quite good, I never felt like anything was out of place. There is a negative said that though, sometimes a few essays seemed like one really long boring essay just because I was disinterested. The best thing about essay collections though: you can pick and choose what you want to read.
My top three favorite pieces from this book were: 1. The Mecca of the Mouse by Seth Stevenson. The narrator traps himself on Disney property for five days and analyzes everything from Disney to American culture to architecture. It is quite funny, especially in regards to animatronics. "I'm sure 'audio-animatronic' creatures were nifty when Disney pioneered them in the 1960s." 2. A Mind Dismembered by Frank Bures. The piece takes place in Africa and is all about penis snatching. For those of you who don't know what that is (I sure didn't before I read this), there is an epidemic in Nigeria and other parts of Africa where men believe that people on the street, witches of some kind, steal their penises, but then when they go to the doctor the penis is still there. It's a really fascinating example of regional illness. 3. Who is America? by Chuck Klosterman. I am probably choosing this one out of bias, but this is generally the type of essay that I like. I am fairly certain that I would like this piece even if I hadn't know it was written by Klosterman (who I saw speak at my campus last year, he is even funnier in person). Klosterman was teaching a seminar on U.S. consumer culture in Germany. To get into the class he required the students to write about the most interesting 20th Century American. I won't give away who was chosen, but if you've read Klosterman before you know exactly how this is essay if functioning. (And if you haven't read him before, I suggest Killing Yourself to Live)
The Best Travel Writing 2009 Eidited by James O'Reilly, Larry Habegger, and Sean O'Reilly
While it is a less popular series I will admit that I enjoyed this essay collection more than The Best American one. These essays are less research essays and more travel narratives which was more enjoyable. If you're only going to read one of these books, I would suggest The Best Travel Writing.
My top three favorite pieces from this book were: 1. The Bamenda Syndrome by David Torrey Peters. This essay is a really fascinating account about psychological syndromes that travelers get. It questions if we can really trust what we see when we are traveling. Two such syndromes are the Florence Syndrome and The Jerusalem Syndrome. To find out more about the three syndromes mentioned in the piece, you should read the piece. 2. Officially a Woman by Stephanie Elizondo Griest. This takes place in Mexico and is a really honest account of quinceaneras, or a sort of coming of age party. My favorite part is when the daughter who is having the party is getting her nails done even though she has to take an exam the next day. "Yet her new nails are so unwieldy, she can barely grasp a pencil. No one seems to fret about this except me. What is an exam compared to womanhood?" 3. A Vast Difference by Deborah Fryer. The subtitle to his essay is, "Summer Camp is the first adventure for many a traveler" which kind of turned me off at first. Believe me, after you read the first paragraph you will not be able to stop. Deborah's summer camp experience is like no other, she is at a Jewish summer camp and her camp counselor has the children perform a pretend burial. If that isn't a hook, I don't know what is.
Andrea Hernandez is the creative mind behind the DoublClik brand that specializes in enhanced digital photography. DoublClik has a magazine-ready appeal that has shaped a philosophy of "feel fabulous and look flawless." Andrea took her eye for design and applied it to photography about a year and a half ago and made www.doublclik.com official this past January. She also launched a blog this year which is full of updated photoshoots and a must-see "Wear to Work" feature. Andrea currently lives in Monterrey, Mexico. With breathtaking backdrops of palm trees and mountains, summer season lingering year round, and a significantly wealthy clientele, DoublClik is well on its way to becoming a household name. Her forté is editorial photography, which is why she jumped on the chance to retell the classic fairytale of "Sleeping Beauty" behind the lens of DoublClik.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The majority of these pictures were taken on a white seamless and backgrounds were photoshopped in afterwards to create a finished fairytale scene. I wanted to take a modern approach but keep key elements. For example, in the "Once Upon a Dream" scene, I had thought about putting in squirrels and bunnies but instead scattered stardust. Still enchanted forest, minus the small game lurking around her feet. Meet the model behind Sleeping Beauty here and for more behind the scenes magic, check out the video below!
Heidi Klumand Seal marked their wedding anniversary with a ceremony attended by their children - Leni, seven, Henry, five, Johan, four, and 19-month-old Lou – and 100 of their closest friends at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday night (07.05.11). The couple had originally planned to celebrate the occasion in Mexico at Seal’s beachfront home where they originally tied the knot on May 10, 2005, but recent unrest in the country due to drug violence led them to change the location with business mogul Donald coming to the rescue at the last minute.
Speaking about their annual vows renewal, supermodel Heidi Klum has said previously: "It's our time - a lovely family time. It's about remembering this moment of love we gave to each other and reinforcing it.
![[VIDEO Trailer] Colombiana (2011)](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7E7pZdv2ageHKvPra66DK4keU-mRO4Rhq9qXsI6hj4RB2JxMxfeLmpCueIZF_wOMGTmWInSamHu9L07cqx2bBeUIA-XIFSUwI-awViNnPokCp9uN8Yg4D2vrYRkE8Fmxi8Uf4oolneoR8/s1100/colombiana_3.jpg)
