Aristotle

My last week History homework was to read about Aristotle. To tell the truth, I have never read anything about this philosopher, or at least about his life, until now. So I opened my History book expecting a world of boringness, but I was wrong, this man's existence was fascinating. That is why I have decided to post in here a little fragment of his biography.

Aristotle was born in Greece in the year of 384 B.C. His family was accommodated and his father was the doctor of King Philip of Macedonia, father of Alexander the Great, who later turn out to be Aristotle’s student for five years (isn’t that great?). Like his father, Aristotle went to medical school, but before finish it, decided to change the carrier and become a philosopher. He was Plato’s favorite disciple in The Academy for a long time (20 years), until they started to have irreconcilable differences. Plato theorized that life and everything else was in the mind, and Aristotle said that life was material. As a consequence of these discrepancies, Aristotle was expulsed from the Academy. He then found in Greece his own school, The Lyceum.

This brilliant man was good in almost everything he tried, he even wrote more than 150 books. His ability in Biology, Literature, Philosophy, and Mathematics and so on was superb, but his determining work was made in Politics, which was his particular contribution to humanity. Aristotle died in 322 B.C. at the age of 62, but his ideas have been traveling the world ever since.

All this has taught me one thing, and is never under estimate the value of the persons that had made the History of this world, because their ideas are the roots of ours today.

Being a Sudoku lover

I am not a newspaper reader but when I got one in my power my instinct drives me directly to the entertainment section. My passion was always with crosswords and some other medium popular puzzles. But two month ago, while looking for my favorite page in the Star Ledger newspaper I found this new evil game called Sudoku. Curiosity was greater than ignorance, so I decided to give my first try and destroy this new comer. After many defeats I solved my first one and became another sudoku-addicted (one of many), dragging my brother to this world of numbers with me.
Today, I am not going to talk about the right way to solve Sudoku, instead, I have decided to show some people’s opinion concerning this matter. For example, Chris Palmer makes in his blog a fine exposition of how to play a good game. He also mentions that Sudoku is the escape window that let him avoid the amount of work he has to do every day. This is a very well wrote post, with the use of pictures, easy of understand and is my opinion, with a lot of soul.
Another follower, Tim (Much ado about Sudoku), talks concerning the rapid rise in popularity of the game. He says that today, seven of the top ten best-selling books in USA are abut this new hobby. I like this blog. It is one of those where you can find the information you need, it gives you some tips of how to make some money out of it.
Finally, I went to another page similar in some way to the first one (Palmer’s), but with a nice touch of history; this one is from Beezee (Do U Sudoku?). He explains here his theory of how to break a Sudoku in a matter of minutes. The thing I liked the most in here is his honesty, because he admits the difficulty of the game and that only after many days or weeks, could be months, of practice he solved his first. In here you can find also some links to Sudoku web pages.
Now that you know about Sudoku, take a little bit of your time try to find one; I promess you will enjoy it.

The Tropicana Hotel in Atlantic City

In order to visit a pre-Castro Cuba you don't need to travel through time or go to some places in Miami, now you can do it right here, in New Jersey. Just go to Atlantic City and visit The Tropicana Hotel and you will feel the great sensation of been walking in Old Havana in the year of 1958. The beautiful colonial architecture and the sky like ceiling of the building make us believe that the city is always awake. But if you stay in one of the Hotel's rooms and miss going to the "Cuba Libre Restaurant", then you did nothing in this Casino City. The Cuban music is on all the time and is a mix of son and salsa, mambo and guaguanco. I really recommend you to prepare a trip right in this moment and enjoy a deserved vacation in a wonderful place that has caught a piece of history, letting today’s generation to learn a little something about a different Cuba.

Something about reincarnation

A few weeks ago a friend of mine started a conversation about reincarnation and past lives. I must confess I am a skeptic in this theme but I decided not to stop him. He posed his theory about other lives and related me very interesting stories including his own experiences in the field. He then suggested me to read some books about the topic. Because I am not a close minded person I decided to do some research and I found the unthinkable: thousand of people all over the world are convinced that previous lives exist. One of the books I found very explicit is Brian L. Weiss's master piece, "Many lives, many masters". I went also through the internet using Google and I discovered a web page (http://www.childpastlives.org/) with hundred of threads regarding this theory. Even though I have learned a lot, it is impossible for me to say that I am now a believer. But I must admit that I have developed a huge respect for those persons who are convinced that in some other time, they were a different person.

Not just a game

I have been playing chess since I my eighth birthday, when my perfect older bother bought a whole set of different table games and decided to give me the most boring game of the box. Yes, that was the beginning of a nice career as a professional athlete, although, now a day, it is just a way to entertain my self. Today I can say, from the bottom of my heart that this fine game has helped me taking the most difficult decisions during my life.