Kathleen & Paul Smith's RV Travelblog

02/10/08 - Entertainment Tonight
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Movies. Since we've a fixed address in Sunbeam Lake RV Resort for several months, we re-upped with Netflix for movies. Paul liked Viggo Mortensen's performance in Eastern Promises. Paul was drawn to it by a funny story by Viggo Mortensen's co-star in A History of Violence, that we heard on National Public Radio. Paul highly recommends both.

We both loved Once - Played it twice plus the director's version. Highly recommended.

On the big screen Paul liked No Country for Old Men. We both thought Michael Clayton was the best picture of the year.

Literature. Kathleen reads a lot on Yoga these days - and is far ahead of Paul in the practice of Yoga.

Paul was not been able to get into any popular book for some time, until John Adams by David McCullough jumped into his cart at Cosco. We'd never before realized the important part John Adams played in the Revolution and Declaration of Independence. He played key roles in selecting Washington as general and Jefferson as writer of the Declaration of Independence. It's chock full of interesting factoids like these two:

"John Adams was probably en route to the Continental Congress early in 1776 when he listed in a small notebook all that needed to be accomplished, including (at bottom) a 'Declaration of Independcy.'" (This quote is the title of a photo of John Adam's notebook.)

"It was there, in Boston, that smallpox inoculation had been introduced in America more than half a century earlier, and by a kinsman of Adams, Dr Zabdiel Boylston, Adam's great uncle on his mother's side. The idea had come from a slave belonging to Cotton Mather, an African named Onesimus, who had said the practice was long established in Africa, where those with the courage to use it were made immune, and he had his own scar on his arm to show."

The book has been made into a series in Public TV. Highly recommended.

Paul & Kathleen

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"NO DEAL BASICALLY means that if we can't find a solution that wold benefit us both, we agree to disagree agreeably--No Deal. No expectations have been created, no performance contracts established. I don't hire you or we don't take on a particular assignment together because it's obvious that our values or our goals are going in opposite directions. It is so much better to realize this up front instead of downstream when expectations have been created and both parties have been disillusioned.
When you have No Deal as an option in your mind, you feel liberated because you have no need to manipulate people, to push your own agenda, to drive for what you want. You can be open. You can really try to understand the deeper issues underlying the positions." (9/9)

Paul & Kathleen Smith | 173 Rainbow Dr #7329 | Livingston, TX 77399-1073 | (510) 386-8973

Life on the Road with Paul & Kathleen: "Not bad for two dumb kids from Ohio" - Proving once again that it's never too late to have a happy childhood

Our Lazy Daze at Kirk Creek Camp on CA Hwy 1 40 mi N of Hearst's Castle 11/24/03: Shortly after full-timing began.	Foretravel & Toad in Buckskin State Park, AZ 5/10/06