Blog Post #8

The video I chose is of the Mars rover that got stuck and may loose it's power and die. The rover titled Spirit was built to last only 90 days but ended up being on Mars surface for six years. But now the rover got stuck and will loose its power by May because the solar panels are facing away from the sun. The sister rover is on the other side of the planet and combined the two rovers have traveled 15 miles. 

"NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit skipped a planned communication session on March 30 and, as anticipated from recent power-supply projections, has probably entered a low-power hibernation mode. 
In this mode, the rover's clock keeps running, but communications and other activities are suspended in order to put all available energy into heating and battery recharging. When the battery charge is adequate, the rover attempts to wake up and communicate on a schedule it knows." (http://marsrover.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20100331a.html) 

Blog Post #12

1) The volcano is in Eyjafjallajokull, Iceland. It is affecting more than just the people living there.
2) Economically it is causing airports to shut down causing airlines to loose money. Farmers are having problems finding their livestock and their crops are being destroyed.
3) The Volcano is located between glaciers and started erupting March 25 and began to spit ash April 14.
4) "It is assumed that the eruption will continue over the coming days and possibly weeks, and civil protection measures will be structured accordingly. This means that there is still a danger of flash flooding and ashfalls which may have serious consequences for livestock, homes, roads and bridges, etc. The public and tourists visiting Iceland are urged to keep up to date with the latest news and announcements from the Civil Protection Department and to exercise caution." (http://eng.forsaetisraduneyti.is/news-and-articles/nr/4223)
5) Transportation in all of Europe was suspended because of the ash moving across the countries. As of now, they are slowly being reopened.


I found this website, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2010/apr/15/volcano-airport-disruption-iceland, and it allows you to see how the ash covered areas of Europe.

I chose these pictures because it shows an awesome display of electrified ash from the Eyjafjallajokull eruption. "We saw lava fountains probably 500-700m high through the ash cloud. This lava fountain and ash cloud was followed by severe lightning activity. The brightness seen in the volcano is not erupting lava but extremely powerful lightning strike that was created by the ash cloud." (http://www.flickr.com/photos/orvaratli/4528090113/)

Blog Post #11

I chose to look at Concordia International's website and find out a little more of how schools differ around the world. It was interesting to see how they say they still use American curriculum in a different country, especially a country where they are proud of their education. Also, I think it was awesome to see how open they are with being a Christian school. Their mission statement says it all, "At Concordia, we view every student as a gift from God, entrusted to us by parents, and are committed in Christian stewardship to educate students holistically in a nurturing environment that includes comprehensive and challenging opportunities in academics, creative arts, spirituality, athletics and extracurricular activities."

This Concordia prepares students for college by offering university-level advanced placement classes for students in high school. Also, advanced placement exams offer students the opportunity to earn credit or advanced standing at most U.S. colleges and universities.The school prides itself on having small classes that promote individual learning so all students will be able to understand what is being taught.

Since I love sports I looked at all the different sports they offer. I'm jealous. They have high school boys volleyball, I never had that opportunity. I played in grade school and coach volleyball but to play in high school, I can only wish.

Blog Post #10

One thing I have noticed with being at Concordia where there are students from everywhere is that not many people have heard of venison. I love venison, living in Wisconsin everyone has at least heard of it and if you happen to be a vegetarian, you will be made fun of. Hunting is huge in the Midwest and it's interesting to see students not from the Midwest who have never tried or heard of venison. The map that you used in class involving where all the Whitetail trophies are from sparked my interest about who has even tried venison. I have never really thought of this before because my dad has hunted since I can remember and even since I was a kid I have loved venison. It never occurred to me before I came to college that not everyone has tried the same types of meat. All my classmates have at least heard of venison while growing up in Wisconsin and then when I brought venison back from the doe I shot this year everyone wanted to try it because they had never tried it. It shocked me, I was so used to everyone already knowing what it was and liking it.

I searched venison on Zimmern's Bizarre Food's and was expecting to find dishes from somewhere in the Midwest, but to my surprise found a venison dish from Toledo, Spain. Before starting this post I had never really thought of other countries enjoying the great taste of venison like I do. Here's a paragraph about the cuisine from Toledo, "It is easy to dine very well in Toledo. Because the province is the hunting center of Spain (a hugely profitable business), game dishes are excellent. The highly sought-after red partridge is typical of Toledo cuisine. It is generally prepared in one of two ways: pickled and eaten cold, or a la toledana, cooked slowly with onion, garlic and bayleaf and eaten hot." I really want to try this now, so I might actually change my view of leaving the United States to experience differences around the world.

Blog Post #9

The person I chose to talk about from the Forbe's List is Sergey Brin who is the twenty fourth richest person in the world. He is also the youngest person in the top twenty-five. At the age of 36 he is worth 17.5 billion dollars. Brin is the co-founder of Google along with fellow Stanford grad Larry Page. The Pair left their studies to focus on developing the Google search engine. Sergey Brin and his partner Larry Page went on to become two of the wealthiest young entrepreneurs in America with the success of their university project, Google.

"Brin and Page left their studies at Stanford University and started Google Inc. in 1998. The popularity of the search engine increased dramatically, forcing the company to constantly expand its computing power, improve its technology, and move to bigger premises (now situated at the "Googleplex" in Mountain View, California). The company became a publicly traded company in 2004 (traded on the NASDAQ as GOOG) with individual shares being valued at $85 each and quickly rose to $100+ in the first day of trading. Google has continued to grow through acquiring and creating new Internet services and products online. The stock price also grew rapidly to more than $420 per share at the end of November in 2005." (http://www.woopidoo.com/biography/sergey-brin/index.htm)

Google since it's start in 1998 has grown into the largest search engine in the world. Last year, Google and China got into a lawsuit because China is strict on what their citizens can search on the web and wanted Google to block everything.

Blog Post #7

This spring break I went home to Wisconsin. Some of the things I like doing when I'm home is to go golfing, especially at Hawthorne Hills. (http://www.wisconsingolfonline.com/directory/coursedetail.cfm?recordid=425) One of my favorite things to do is play at all the different golf courses whenever and wherever I can. I have golfed at more than 20 different courses and my favorite by far is The Bog Golf Course in Saukville and was designed by Golf Pro Arnold Palmer.
All the holes at The Bog are absolutely amazing they all have their own landscape. It has been rated one of the top ten best golf courses in Wisconsin.

I have golfed at a few courses in Nebraska, one of them is Whitetail Run in Fremont. I really like the layout of that course because it sits right by the Platte River. I have also golfed at some really nice courses in Illinois including one in Elmo, IL. Sadly, I do not remember the name of the course. Golf courses provide some of the greatest landscapes that one could ever see. It is so relaxing to play golf while at such nice courses.

(Both pictures are from The Bog)

Blog Post #6

The video I chose is about Hadrian's walls in North Africa. Hadrian was a successful Roman emperor and lead conquests in North Africa. He strategically built walls in North Africa to protected farms and vegetation. His wall marked the southern boundary of the massive Roman Empire. The difference between Hadrian's wall in parts of Europe and those in North Africa, was that in Africa Hadrian used Natural boundaries such as mountains and desert to protect his kingdom. Using North Africa's geographical layout and man made walls he was successfully had full control of who could enter his kingdom.

I think it is awesome that parts of the walls are still standing. The most amazing part is that Hadrian used natural geography to his advantage. Being from Europe and not having technology at his disposal it is possible that he had never seen a desert before. But he was still able to use the desert and mountains to protect his kingdom.

Blog Post #5

HDI stands for Human Development Index and combines different statistics from every country and comes up with a way to measure development. The stats they use are life expectancy, educational attainment and income. They used a combination of Microsoft Excel and a HDI calculator to come with the final numbers. (http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/data/calculator) The number value is anywhere in between zero and one, the lower the number the less developed the country.
The geographic pattern of the world is higher in North America, Europe, Northern Asia, and Australia. While most of Africa, the Middle East, and Southern Asia. It seems that most of the less developed countries also have a lower HDI.
I think that the reason Africa has some of the lowest HDI is because of it history. Africa was colonized by the Europeans and not until fifty or so years have they had their own governments and an opportunity to try and make their own countries. The living style in Africa is rough because the Europeans took all the resources and anything valuable from the region and left pretty much nothing for the Africans.

Blog Post #4

Lingerie model allegedly hired beautiful models to smuggle cocaine.

Former lingerie model Angie Sanselmente Valencia is currently on the run in Mexico or Argentina. USA Today reported the article. (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/02/lingerie-model-sought-for-allegedly-hiring-beautiful-models-to-smuggle-cocaine/1) She would hire models to transport cocaine from Argentina to North America and Europe. They finally got busted when one of her "angels" was caught with 55 kilos of cocaine at the Buenos Aires airport. She broke up with Mexican drug lord, nicknamed "The Monster" so she could start her own drug ring.

Latin America has a history of drug related crimes. Latin America is a major supplier of illegal drugs around the world. According to the DEA, Latin America supplies around eighty-two percent of heroin in the United States. (www.drugpolicy.org) The United States have tried to intervene in Latin America but has been ineffective and has promoted violence. Also many experts believe that in 50 years some Latin American countries will have problems with a fast growing population but not enough agriculture to support the growing populations.

The models were more likely to slide through security since no security guard would expect models to be hiding cocaine in their luggage. Also, since many of Latin American countries are less developed than other parts of the world their police forces tend to be part of drug rings. Many hospitals in Latin America have on average fifty to a hundred drugs addicts that check in a month. The problem is without the money most addicts are back doing drugs right when they leave since they do not get the proper medical treatment, mostly because it is not as easily available as treatment is in the United States.

Blog Post #3

This map shows the amount of car related accidents in the world. In 2001 there was 984 thousand deaths from car accidents around the world. In 2002 there was 18019764.574 miles of road worldwide. On average, in 18 miles of road someone will die in a car crash. There are a few reasons for higher death tolls in less developed countries than in more developed countries because of better roadways and better drivers. More developed countries can afford to teach people how to drive safely and give driver licenses before they are allowed to get behind the wheel of a car, while other countries cannot. Also, the reason China's and India's death tolls are so high is because of the amount of people that are able drive. Also, Africa does not have as many people who drive so their death toll is lower.
This map shows the total population of the world. This is by far one of my favorite just because it accurately shows how many countries look like they are too overpopulated or underpopulated based on their normal size. The population of Europe makes it look like it is about the same size as Africa and larger than South America. The populations of India and China are larger than any continent. It also looks like Australia and Canada are non existent. It is very interesting to see the difference of sizes when comparing this map to the map
of the world. Another interesting thing that the map shows is the most populated cities of the world, and how the eastern part of the world has more than half of the populated cities.

Blog Post #2

I choose this picture of Latin America because it shows an interesting view of the area being flipped upside down. It also shows the borders of Latin America and how skinny the region actually is. You can compare the size of Cuba to where Latin America meets South America and close in size the two are.

This map shows the weather of Latin America on Sunday Feb. 8. It shows how closer you get to the equator the warmer the weather will be. It was 32 degrees in Nebraska and at the same time the coolest temperature in Latin America was 70 degrees. This picture is very interesting as you can also see the clouds over the southern part of Latin America.

Blog Post #1

I picked this video because it shows the damage that the earthquake caused. The video also goes into why the earthquake caused so much damage, like how Haiti is one of the the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. The aftermath is shown in this video and also touches upon what is trying to be done to help out. Red Cross is doing all they can to help out. Many convoys are moving supplies and people between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Many survivors have been sleeping outside since many homes and hospitals were destroyed.




The picture i choose is of a main road in Haiti that got completely destroyed. It is another example of how much work it is going to take to fix everything that happened. Haiti is going to need all the help they can get from other countries to rebuild all that was lost.