People are not as they appear

I just finished reading "The Millionaire Next Door" by Thomas J. Stanley & William D. Danko. In a nutshell, this book gives an inside glimpse into wealth in America. This book isn't meant to help someone become or even aspire to be a millionaire. Instead, I find it to focus on our perceptions of society. Are we to look up to the guy with the new foreign car? What are status symbols? Why do Americans crave to have certain material possessions to quantify their life and prove their worth to someone?

This book goes on to describe how it is the people you would never expect to have a million + saved up and attributed to their name that do. It is the guy in the pick-up truck who has worked a construction job his whole life who actually has more of a net worth than the business executive who may make more annually but has an extravagant lifestyle he must keep up with -- this comes at a price -- a high one. Of course, this isn't the scenario EVERY time but it is an important lesson to how we are to judge people.

How does one accumulate wealth? Not necessarily being born into it or winning the lottery or even having a high paying job can gurantee it...frugality is the key. Wealth takes a huge amount of sacrifice, discipline, and hard work, qualities that are positively discouraged by our high-consumption society.

To capture a moment

To continue my post below entitled "1 Week Later" I am adding a clip of the memorial outside of Heath Ledger's SoHO apartment where someone filming the scene captured me placing a memento among the flowers, notes, candles, etc.

What a small world it is. For me to be in NYC that weekend and to happen to stop by the memorial after a dinner with friends to be captured by a fellow human being at the same time and end up on the Internet. Even more bizarre, I guess, is how I was able to find that video and pick myself out. How a series of random incidents can lead to a number of connections with random people you'll never meet is baffling to me. For one split second in time, we are etched into someone else's memory, camera, and camcorder among other things without any notice to us whatsoever. These little moments remind me that life is beautiful and intricate. Sometimes, things remain a mystery and there is a lot wonderment in that alone.

This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by Arthur Conan Doyle:
"life is infinitely stranger than anything the mind could invent… "

Click Here for link to YouTube video

Fly the Friendly Skies

Watching ESPN

Why can't every airlines have Direct TV on board? Flying jetBlue to New York (JFK) from Houston was a pleasant experience. It is nice having a whole row to yourself, sitting in leather seats and enjoying in-flight entertainment. It is pretty surreal watching live television from a moving airplane thousands of feet above the ground.

Flying has become such a pain since all the changes to security at the airports. I'm glad there are a few airlines left who try to make flying a little bit more enjoyable for their passengers. Oh and I love the Terra Blue Chips! Yum.

1 Week Later

It has been a week and I still find myself mourning the death of Heath Ledger. He had fifty more lives to live in his lifetime. It is tragic to see someone who was not only amazing at his craft but walked through this world with so much empathy. He will be missed.

While in New York over the weekend, I stopped by Heath Ledger's apartment on Broome Street in the SoHo area of town. A memorial was present at the front doors to the apartment. I left Tibetan Buddhist beads among the flowers, candles, notes and pictures left along the front of the street. It was a moving moment to see how much one person (that most of us hardly knew but through movies) was able to be loved by so many. It such a tragic loss for his family as it is for all the fans who have admired his independent spirit, conviction for life, and beautiful energy that hopefully continues to radiate in his films and daughter, Matilda.