Graduation: My dad graduated on Saturday. As kids he always talked about going to school and getting an education. He worked hard in the Navy for 29 years and retired at the top of his rank. When he left the Navy 7 years ago he started taking classes at the community college and working towards his associate degree. His associate took about 4 years to get. Then after graduating with his associates he started going to ODU for his Bachelors. He finished his bachelors in 2 and a half years. As he likes to say he was pacing himself.

This Saturday all his hard work paid off and I was able to sit and watch my dad graduate. I can't express how proud I am of him. He finally did the one thing he has always wanted to do. So good job POPS! I'm proud of you.

Chris Matthews: While at graduation I got to hear Chris Matthews speak. He has a tv show in MSNBC called Hardball with Chris Matthews. I really enjoyed his speech. I don't often get to hear professional speakers. I liked his style and his brevity. His point was this. Don't expect success to find you but go out and find success. People won't be knocking on your door asking you to take incredible jobs but rather you have to seek them out. He said the secret to success is in the word "ask". The more you ask the better the chance to hear a yes. When people say yes to you they have invested in you and when people invest in someone or something they want to see it succeed. It left me with some motivation.

China: If you haven't seen this month's National Geographic it's worth checking out. The entire thing is about China and provides some great insight into their culture and mentality. It's also casts an outlook in their future, which I must say looks bleak. The culprit seems to be their incredibly large population is providing most of their economic growth at this time and then their new 1 child policy for those of the Han nationality. In just one generation the work force will begin to dwindle because of this policy. Another major concern is the lack of water to drink. The many damns on their major rivers that are used to power industrial plants have reduced the water to a trickle in many places add that to the pollution that those same plants dump into the rivers they are on the verge of an epidemic.

But what I wanted to comment on is the recent earthquake that has so far claimed the lives of 19,000 people. I don't think we americans can grasp 19,000 deaths. I don't think I want to. You can read more here http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,355247,00.html.