One Year Ago Today

We were swimming and enjoying in the summer time weather. When we were there I didn't think I'd ever say it or feel it, but I do miss Chile. That was a lot of fun and it was hard and it was worth it. Corey's been down there for two weeks, I'm glad he's headed back home to us tomorrow.

Flight To Heaven

I loved this book. I didn't read any reviews before I read it, got interrupted by kids after starting it on Monday, then last night after they were all in bed, I started on page 78 and stayed up until 2 a.m. reading it, I kept telling myself: "...I really should go to bed... well, just one more chapter..." Finally made myself stop at 163 then finished it today. It was fun to read, some things I didn't expect that I won't talk about here in case it spoils it for you, but if you read it and want to talk about it, shoot me a facebook message and we can chat.

He only shared a little bit about heaven (chapters 14 & 15) and they are similar to other NDE accounts. That was okay for me, cause the thing I loved most about this book was the journey of faith he experienced through his broken ankle. He prayed and prayed for his ankle to heal, and there were miracles along the way that eventually made it happen, but for a time doubt set in and he feared along with his doctor that his "faith experiment" had ruined his chance for healing and that he would be crippled for life. He called himself an "untrained unit" in the war for faith, which I liked cause I feel like I'm untrained too and am still learning how to defeat fear and doubt at times. I also liked on page 134 "I wasn't going to make a parade out of my faith this time." I think I've been guilty of that before. Mostly just in my mind, silly things like when I was so sure we were going to with the Body for Life contest - lots of times as I experimented with my faith, it was more of an experiment using "The Secret", trying to "will it" to happen by my will, not letting God's will decide. So I really liked this book cause I related to his story about how he learned HOW to have faith. I think I've had the same journey but in a different way (mostly through MovieMouth). One of my neighbor's family is having their own experience of faith but through the illness of a child (Here on the mom's hospital journal entry on November 14th "Walking Through Water") as I read this particular entry, I know that I've learned that too, but did wonder why they are learning it in such a hard way, my way really wasn't hard in comparison. (Poor me, I had to live out of suitcases for 9 months with 7 kids and live in a small apartment in Chile... boo hoo. Corey said one time in Chile "Come on, this isn't that bad... it isn't Valley Forge!" (At that time he was reading a George Washington book.))

How do we want to view our life? I know that people who look for the good are happier, so I think since I want to be happy, I'll keep trying to do that. (In Costa Rica, I lived 10 minutes from the beach, awesome! In Chile, I only had 700 square feet of apartment to clean! Sweet!) How do we want to look at our life - Are we grateful as we see the blessings or do we like to complain and murmur about the difficulties and inconveniences?

Anyway... learning to Trust God and turn our will over to Him is a journey that all of us need to have, we all need to experience our own personal Gethsemane where our will is broken, giving us a broken heart and a contrite spirit (see verse 7) - giving up what we want most and letting the Lord give us what He wants for us, according to his will. And as we remember that God loves us we will learn to trust him, and we'll recognize that he has and IS blessing us. We will know that whatever happens will be for the best. (amazing talk at that link above too!!)

I'll end here with another part of the book I liked in chapter 10 as he sat in the backyard in his wheelchair and pondered on the change of seasons:

"Up until (the accident), I had always been a doer; now I was learning to just be.

"Trees need the winter. They need time to strengthen for the growth in springtime.

"I had experienced a lot of growth. Now was the time for the energy to be diverted from the branches to the roots. The roots of my faith were going deeper. Much of what was going on with me was going on underground, so to speak, beneath the surface, unseen. Growth can be a lonely place, but it is a necessary place."


So when we go through changes and trials and hard times, keep a proper perspective, remember past miracles and answers to prayers like talked about here in one of my all time favorite talks ever. Trust that things will work out, but that it's a winter season for you before the blessings and beauty of springtime.

Exercise Equipment

My exercise quote for February:
I'm going to remember this and focus on diet this month a lot more and still give 100% to my 15 minute daily workouts. Wait, no, let's add some stretching and cool down to make it 30 minutes, and guess what % of your day that is? Not 30%, just a tiny 2.1%! Anyone can all do that, right? I'll leave it at 30% (cause we walk and go up and down stairs during the day) but modify the quote a little to read: "30% Exercise, 70% Diet - Abs are made in the kitchen and with Zuzka!" :)

During January I've mostly just been doing bodyweight exercises with Zuzka plus I did do my own additional exercise goal for January and got 100% in doing 12 minutes of planks 3 x a week (Mon, Wed, Sat) - I do either 3:00 min intervals or 1:00 minute intervals 3 times of (I found random videos online to demonstrate):

1) Center Plank Hold
2) Side Plank Hold Left
3) Side Plank Hold Right (sometimes I do the up and down moves, sometimes just the hold)
4) Yoga Table (this is a P90X Yoga X move, but that link is some other guy showing it. Everytime I do it I hear Tony Horton in my mind "You're gonna feel this in your biceps and your shoulders, I know I do!")

I used weights for ZWOD #2 but haven't done any Bodyrock workouts that require equipment, well, except for the Gymboss timer. Plus I've kinda bailed on the new BR, but I still do Z's old workouts there. For some of her old workouts, I still want/need to get the equipment. I'm waiting for my birthday to get some of the real equipment things. Going to either get a sandbag or equlaizer first.


This is my current "sandbag-ish enough" thing. I bought the above tool bag at Walmart a long time ago, the tools have all been moved to a metal toolbox, so I threw a 30 lb. weight in this bag and padded it with some fleece vests - works pretty good for some of BR exercises, like the power lunge.


But I need to get a real sandbag or better DIY version of it soon. Post about why sandbags are good here and a sandbag DIY here.

I'm glad I never ordered a Dip Station. I almost ordered one for Christmas, but then read the reviews of it on Amazon and decided to try and find a walker for cheap at the thrift store first before I paid $100 bucks for it. Now BRtv is advertising a new product, the Equalizer, which looks like you can use for all the same dip station moves, only it's more functional and you can do more stuff with it.


I haven't ordered the Equalizer yet, I'm just using two chairs for exercises like core splits, or using these two long vacuum poles I found in our house for reverse push ups. The owner of our house has some stuff in the basement, so these are two of my make shift workout centers.


Making it do and doing without for now. It's fun to improvise. Did pretty good with my diet and exercise goals for January, making more diet adjustments and pushing a little harder with my exercises this month. I was able to zip up my pre-pregnancy jeans again, so that was exciting! ...just have a major muffin top. :) It's okay, cause I'll get there... "I'll never give up, you'll have to kill me!" -Zuzka (I just read this post about Zuzana, I liked what she said so thought I'd repost it.)

Thank You Email

This is Ramana and his wife Aruna and their little daughter Celina. Corey received this email today from Ramana-

Hi Corey, My name is Ramana Seerapu, I met you about 4 years ago when you have visited Chennai. I was glad that I made an effort to come from Bangalore to Chennai on that day. You have inspired me to apply for BYU MBA program. You have also gone through few problems from Official Guide 10 to make us feel comfortable with GMAT. You have also shown us your project and took our introduction videos. Since then I was trying hard to get into to BYU MBA program. As part of my preparation, I came to BYU-Hawaii in 2010 for a 60 credit program in Corporate Finance. This program adds value and considers transferred credits from my previous Indian degree in Mathematics and Physics. Now I will be graduating in BYU-Hawaii with a 4 years US degree, This would qualify me to apply for MBA program. In addition, I am also writing GMAT on 16th Feb. I am confident that I can get a good score in Quant and a medium score in Verbal. I want to thank you for your few minutes of time 4 years ago, that led me to make some of the important academic and career decisions in my life. If I get into this program all credit goes to you for the seed of hope that you have planted. Attached is my family picture, I was married to Aruna; we have a 16months daughter, Celina, who was born in Hawaii around Laie Temple re-dedication last year.
-Ramana

Isn't that great? What a beautiful family! And it was so nice of Ramana to send a thank you email to Corey, I have a few thank you's that I need to send out to people thanking them for things they did years ago that have made a difference in my life. On my February to do list.

Corey went to India for 3 weeks in October 2007 for business. Whenever he travels he offers to teach a GMAT class, I think he's taught classes in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, India, Mexico... (am I missing anywhere sweetheart?) He loves to wave the banner of BYU.


Good job, sweetie. I love the righteous desires of your heart.

Chile Update - Week 1 Done

Corey had a good week and a rough week. Things went well at the schools except for communication with the consejo about expectations. Here are details from Corey's skype conversation with his developer in India, the amazing Kiran (the fact that he's from India plays into the story) :

Corey Wride: I'm a little frustrated. The "take-away" I have is that we simply cannot afford to leave a bad impression with unstable software. I didn't even know those people (the Consejo who showed up during the classes to take notes, video record, and evaluate the software) existed before I got here - and had only agreed to do one class with 8-10 people, so we did very good delivering - but they simply did not view it as a pilot which is strange. This organization has some influence, but its not certain that they'd be helpful. the root problem is that people are very excited about this - and they want it finished sooner than we can finish it. Its a good problem to have - as long as we can manage expectations, its funny - the first day at the University I had a meeting with all the students - inviting them to participate, I told them about the "pilot" and how they would be "testers" and that its not finished, but we want their influence and opinions, then, the woman in charge got up and said "oh, no...Corey is just being modest. Its very great software. We love it, and you're going to love it, its really wonderful" - even though she had never used it, so even when I tried to keep expectations low ...sort of funny. One other thought you might enjoy, they said they want to start using it for all the students at home, so they can use it whenever they want - and I said its not ready yet for that. The woman who is the most critical said "just have people in India finish it for you- they are very smart and they work while you sleep"

Kiran Babu: :D

Corey Wride: I wanted to assure her we have the best India has to offer - but it still takes time

Kiran Babu: That's really funny

Corey Wride: yeah, its weird. I'm told I should l get angry at them and tell them how unorganized they are - but that's not really my style. ok, I'm done venting - anything else you want to talk about in that regard? Monday appears to be the last day of the pilot, and now that all the machines work it should go just fine.

So that's where things were left at after Friday. Sunday he went to church at our old ward in Santiago. Saw old friends, sent me this email: "Funny, I just bumped into her at church and told her that our kids missed the lady with the rabbits - and guess what she had in her purse?"


(On Easter Sunday last year, Corey was out in the lobby with Lily who was being fussy, when the "crazy lady" from the other Las Condes ward (that shared the building with us) told Corey to go get the rest of the kids who were in the meeting with me. Corey waved for them to go to him, a few went out, then came back in, whispered to the other kids, then they all went out again, all while someone is giving a talk from the pulpit, I was starting to steam out of my ears like "You guys are really distracting the meeting, what is going on?!?!" The kids informed me that the 'crazy lady' (which we call her for lack of remembering her real name) had some baby rabbits that were SOOOOO cute, so all the kids were out there, waving for me to come out too, Corey shrugged his shoulders like "Hey, it's Chile. I don't have a say about this..." I sat alone on the bench for the rest of the meeting in defiance. I was like "NO! We don't skip out on sacrament to play with rabbits!!!" So that is funny that my kids miss her and her rabbits, and that Corey ran into her and there was a baby rabbit in her purse AT CHURCH again, funny.)

So, after Church, Corey took a bus to Peralillo to visit an area where he served as a missionary back in the late 90s. He ate breakfast but didn't take any food with him so was pretty hungry all day. He decided to buy some water from the bus personelle, he said as he called me to tell me he was on his way, I said have fun and good bye, then he called back and said "Serves me right for buying something on the Sabbath - the water is carbonated." I laughed. Yuck! Something particular to Latin America - have you ever had water "with gas"? It is nasty. Ugh. Don't think they even sell carbonated water here in the US, do they? But in Chile you have to specifically ask for "Agua sin gas" - water without gas - or they will bring you carbonated water, and the first time I ever tried that, I just can't explain it. You'd have to experience it, but it was nasty. Doesn't seem like it should be incredibly horrid, but it is.

After he arrived in Peralillo, he went to go buy his return bus ticket for that evening and they were all sold out, so he was stuck there for the night until the 5:30 a.m. bus to Santiago. I was sorry for him (glad the kids and I weren't there with him). Corey did find a few of the members that he went there to find. Carlos in particular. Carlos didn't remember Corey at first. He isn't active in the church, it was a little bit of a depressing experience but gave Corey some good insights. Corey ran into the missionaries and went with them for a while on their visits members and teach people, he enjoyed that. They offered for Corey to stay with them at their apartment, he asked "Is that allowed?" They called the Mission Pres. for permission, it's not allowed. Poor Corey, abandoned and alone in Chile. I told him he needs to write down these experiences in his journal (as he was talking to me that night from his alcohol smelling hotel) and he said "No. I just want this experience to be over..." and entrusted me to try and document it. It's hard being the historian for our whole family. Especially since I don't really know half the stuff that's going on at Corey's end with MovieMouth. But anyway, so Sunday night the kids and I here in our comfortable home with soft beds said a prayer for Corey to fall into a deep sleep and that the night would pass by quickly. He was at some run down house turned into a hotel, where the owner was drunk from celebrating his first customer and Corey's arrival as his second customer. I was a little worried for him that night, I woke up and called him at 6 a.m., he was already back in Santiago and plugging away so that was good.

As for me here at our house, things are going well... 1)I gave myself a haircut - feel free to fix it for me if you see me and can tell that I did it myself. 2) I bought "the genie bra" at Walmart on Saturday night. Love it! Saw their infomercial some time ago and so it was on my list to check it out - happy I saw it, and I give it 4 stars, go buy one!! (there were two in the package). 3) I learned that Oxyclean is also a great wedding ring cleaner. My ring hasn't been cleaned for 3 years, looks so nice now! And 4) yesterday at 5:00 I noticed my cell phone had a voicemail message - it was from the principal at the kids school. She didn't say what she was calling about, I just figured I'd call back tomorrow to see. Then during the evening it came up in a conversation with Joseph that he was called to the principal's office where he met Wesley, my 1st grader, who told the principal that Joseph had given him his Scouting pocket knife. So Wes took a pocket knife to school, showed it for show and tell to his teacher, his teacher had to (district policy) send him to the principal's office with it. Then Wes passed the blame onto his older brother. Pretty funny. The knife is still at the school, I have to go pick it up. I think Wesley found it under the boys' bunk bed when they were cleaning their room on Saturday, and Wes snatched it then. He won't fess up that he put it in his back pack. I'm not mad that he took it, but do want him to tell the truth and not be scared to tell the truth. We'll probably revisit the incident again when Corey gets home Saturday and see if we can get Wesley to feel safe enough to admit it, or see if we can figure out if someone else did put it in his backpack. Anyway, that's the Chile and At Home update. How's it going at your headquarteres?

Book Reviews

Thought I'd do a quick book review of these two books, both by Suzanne Freeman (as told to Shirley Bahlmann (Hmm?))- Led by the Hand of Christ and Through the Window of Life

I read this first one in 4 hours over the weekend. I liked it at first, then around page 84 I was like "What?! That's not right..." I was already starting to wonder how she remembered all the details about everything, started to think some of it was maybe made up or borrowed from other sources? (not sure how much the "as told to Shirley Bahlmann" added to the content...) Then on page 84 she writes about meeting Nephi: "He lives in the heavenly version of a city that the Nephites built after they left an area in the eastern United States." That's where I was like "Mmm, I'm not buying this story..." - I don't think it's impossible that she met Nephi, my doubts come cause I think the Nephites lived in Peru - (that's the current theory I'm leaning toward) so that added detail derailed my waning confidence in this book.

I haven't read anything very convincing about it being in the eastern US. (If you have anything compelling about New York feel free to share, cause so far I don't think that New York or Mesoamerica are the right locations. I read this book by George Potter and it was very compelling and lots of it rang true. I have it if you want to borrow it. Now I'm reading the Book of Mormon again with Peru as the setting in mind and so far it fits well)

...Anyway, then in Suzanne's book on page 130 she says that she chose to not remember her near death experience, but then after she's been back on earth she's been able to remember parts of it and then prays and remembers more. So to myself that validated my skepticism about all the details in her story. Just my opinion. I'd be interested to see how/if my opinion would change by seeing her in person and or hearing her speak. But as for now, meh -

So then I thought I'd read her other book (didn't know why she's have two books talking about the same experience, felt like I had fallen ploy to marketing techniques - 2 for 1 the other way around - 1 for 2 - one experience, sell two books about it) - to see what this one was about and about page 4 I was like, ohh, I'm not going to like this, and I was right, I didn't enjoy this one at all. It was a chore to read it but I felt like I had to, sort of like when I forced myself to read Twilight, just felt like I should know what everyone was talking about, like some obligation.

Twilight tangent: I did think the first book was fun, and since I started it I felt like I had to read all of them. But I didn't do the 4th book Breaking Dawn, but I remember totally just trying to get book 2 and 3 "over with", no offense to Twilight fans, I just don't have time in my life for fiction right now. And this book "Through the Window of Life" fell into my "fiction" category, cause after book 1, I started this one pretty skeptical, and as I read I just didn't like it at all. It's a short book but it took me a week to finally force myself to finish it, and I was forcing my eyes to keep looking at each word so I could turn the page and finish it - it just read like a lot of made up ideas and stories, so I didn't like it, sorry. I don't think that we'll all be crawling out of caves when the Lord comes again. He's not building his kingdom on earth (which I believe is what the restoration of the gospel is) just to destroy everything and start over again when he comes for the Millenium. The world's not ending yet, look to the living prophet and apostles for guidance. Keep setting goals and pursuing your dreams. As President Packer says in the 2nd to last paragraph of this talk:

"Sometimes you might be tempted to think as I did from time to time in my youth: “The way things are going, the world’s going to be over with. The end of the world is going to come before I get to where I should be.” Not so! You can look forward to doing it right—getting married, having a family, seeing your children and grandchildren, maybe even great-grandchildren."

When the Lord comes, I don't think it will be how people tend to think it is, which this book is an example of how I think people think it will be like, I don't agree with it. Plus, one of the apostles lives on our street a few houses down, so we'll keep an eye out on him for all of us. ...If we do see the moving van in his driveway, we'll send out the alert to all of you and we'll all pack up and follow him wherever he's driving to. ;)

So these two books are now put on the "Things I don't know what to do with" shelf in my brain. There are lots of other things on this shelf. The other shelves in my head are "things I believe are right" and "things I think are wrong". The reason why this is on my "don't know" shelf rather than the wrong shelf is cause there is a lot I don't know about this lady. I have no reason to believe she is insincere, I think it's possible she did experience many of the things she shares, I just don't believe all of it, thus it's in the "I don't know/don't get it" category.

So there's my opinion. If you want to read them and give me your 2 cents, let me know and you can borrow these copies. :) See ya later!

My Motivation to Get Moving

Viva La Vida meets Love Story and Without You

The two links above are to two of my favorite workout songs - both by the Piano Guys - when I'm not motivated to exercise, I play these songs and they give me the energy I need to begin it - starting off slowly and just start moving and stretching, and soon I'm working harder and lost in the song, love!

The Triple Whammy

"The Triple Whammy is a devilish interaction among three factors: non-stop stress, low levels of stress-buffering serotonin (a brain chemical that is behind good moods), and imbalances in your female hormones."


I stumbled upon this book at the library a few years ago during an exceptionally stressful time, and have mentally referred to it several times lately when talking with friends, sharing what I could remember... I finally bought it so I could read it again and have the actual quotes on hand for reference since my brain is getting rusty. It is good stuff. You can buy it on Amazon used for like 50 cents.

It talks about stress, serotonin and hormones, and the multitude of afflictions that women in particular suffer from as a result of any one of these being out of balance - and the author gives the biology behind our moods and such aches and pains as:
-anxiety disorders
-chronic fatigue syndrome
-depression
-fibromyalgia
-irritable bowel syndrome (diarrhea/constipation)
-memory loss and brain fog
-menopause transition
-migranies
-PMS
-sleep problems, etc

Says Dr. Edelberg, in his introduction:

What you're experiencing is not a disease, as doctors think of disease, but rather the consequences of a susceptibility you have as a woman on three separate fronts. Your symptoms are the result of a three-pronged assault - a "triple whammy" so to speak - consisting of:

1 -stress - Women are poorly protected against the ravages of stress on their bodies because they have less available serotonin, which acts as a buffer to damp down the physical effects of chronic stress
2 -a shortage of a chemical in your brain called serotonin - Women are genetically predisposed to low serotonin, one of the feel good neurotransmitters in our brains. Women actually have more serotonin than men, but it doesn't work as efficiently
3 -our ever-shifting female hormones - Women have shifting tides of hormones, which themselves control serotonin levels and function -monthly and through out life.

One last thing about this book - he says his interest in women's health came about when he gained access to the medical records of his grandmother, years after she'd died in a state mental hospital. Because of the stigma associated with mental illness, he'd been told she died as a young women, when in fact she spent virtually her entire adult life institutionalized. He didn't even know she was alive when he was young - years later as he looked through her doctor's notes, he realized sadly that she could have lived a real life if only antidepressants had been invented a few decades earlier. I can relate to this, cause sometimes I can see myself acting crazy and stressed out but I feel like I can't control it (like now since Corey's out of town for two weeks!!! AHH!!) Going to read through this book and breath, go for a walk outside in the sunshine (sunlight produces serotonin) exercise, get a massage (massaging skin stimulates serotonin production), eat my fruits and veggies, call a friend (no need for a therapist, just call your BFF and start talking - it produces serotonin!) etc.

Another quote "The stress response is a two-edged sword, helpful for the soldier if the bombing is actually under way, but definitely the wrong reaction for the student to feel ten minutes or ten hours before the exam even starts, or after it's over. when faced with a stressful situation, whether actual and dangerous or created by unrealistic worry, if you don't have enough serotonin, two things can happen: your mood may plummet and you'll be come apathetic, or you'll become anxious in the extreme, sometimes to the point of panic."

Like I said, lots of great stuff to help us understand stress and how our bodies react to it. Going to go read some more...

Zip Itty Dodah (aka Brian Regan)

Hey Beka, how was Brian Regan? I've tried to remember some of the jokes from our show so we could compare. :)

- Hogle Zoo - "Well, this is what we look like..."
- Doctor Late to appointment - 5 minutes ok if there's blood under the door
- House construction - what is your net worth?
- Water heater installation - "Not over there, over THERE!!"
- 3 a.m. music for free
- One free kill
- shadow boxing, shadow polo, chest bump (he didn't do the lottery ticket at ours)
- Mortgage crisis - magician trick
- Magician doing dog tricks
- Dog doing "illusions"
- Edna, I love what you're done with your hair!
- space tourist, the rocks are hard!
- checking into a hotel - Is it under another name? Yea, check under Zip Itty Dodah or Yip E. I. O. Kaiyay
- ipod is amazing - it's able to turn all the songs we love into the songs we hate "nope, don't want to listen to that, not that... not that, well, guess I'm done!"
- dancing on the dance floor!
- marching bands, that was the flute player's idea "Come on guys, it's easy! Like this! We're spelling Mississippi!"
- There are only two kinds of sprees - shopping spree and killing spree. "I'm going out for a spree honey, see you later." "what kind of spree?" "You said we needed bread and milk... so I'm going to go kill all our neighbors and take theirs."

I've been wasting time on YouTube now... this clip had a few jokes I hadn't heard before, he's so funny

What were some others? Brian Regan is hilarious!

Sophia Studies Hyrum

When Sophia was born, she looked exactly like Joe and Hyrum did as newborns. She was taking a good look at Hyrum the other day to check out what many of her facial features may be when she's 8 years old...

She was studying hard...


And her conclusion? Hmm, I think she looks a little concerned...

Don't worry Sophers, you'll have longer hair than that and we'll let you wear pink and dresses.

Yeah, put Hyrum's face with Mel's hair and pink shirt, something like a combination of that. Is that better? It's fun to be a girl! Playing ring a round the rosies, without ringing around. Sit around the rosies.
Love my pretty girls.

Candy Houses

It's a little late to be posting this Christmas activity, but better late than never :)

My mom came over and helped out big time with this activity - spending the better part of her evening the day before making all of these little graham cracker houses. "Oh, it will be easy!" And I guess it is, but it's still time consuming. Want to know the quick way to make candy houses? Sugar melted on a skillet - see pic below. Careful though, it is hot like molten lava, and since it cools quickly, it will promptly singe your skin and stick to it at the same time if it drips on your finger (just got me once but that was enough - my attempt to ease the pain by giving in to my first reaction and sucking on it removed the skin that just got cooked and left the burn exposed. 3 weeks later and my finger finally fully healed.)

Mom helped Hyrum frost his house a little - royal frosting is the other must have when making candy houses.


Hy decorating with nerds and gumdrops (and I like Wes's suckered cheek in the picture below)

The finished product:


I thought I'd let Hyrum be the poster child for this activity - he's such a quiet and non-assuming kid, trying to make sure I post pictures of all the kids now and then, not just the littlest ones.

Corey's Chile Update

On Saturday Corey pulled an almost all-nighter (stayed up 'til 5:30 a.m. then slept 'til 10:30) went to the airport at 12:30, layover in Atlanta, arrived in Chile at 9 a.m. Monday and went straight to the university. He's a really hard worker. If millionaires are created by driving yourself into the ground, I think Corey's definitely earned it. (Don't have a heart attack, sweetie) Here's an email he sent me yesterday of the trip update thus far (on Day 2 of 14):

"Thought I’d take a moment to give you and update of happenings here in Santiago. Last week I was busy with some other non-Media Mouth priorities and so have been playing catch-up with work – so if I don’t sound coherent, it’s due to a couple of all-nighters – interrupted only by flight to South America.

"When I was here last I had agreed with Cristobal who works for the CNIC (Chilean National Innovation council) that we could do something small with them – and get a chance for them to learn more about M o v i e Mouth. I had worried about doing something big because we had just finished a pilot and we knew of many issues to address before presenting again, and I didn’t want to get distracted, and frankly the software is not ready yet. I also worried about not having enough resources to do it “right”. Cristobal assured me it would just be 8-10 students on summer break at a lab at the Catholic University.

"So far, 50-60 people have used the system under the watchful eye of maybe a dozen or more administrator’s and academics at two Universities, one of which is the most prestigious in the country and sets the trends for the rest of the nation. Unfortunately, Gabriel was unable (despite my strong urgings) to get access to the labs before I came, so we’ve wrestled with various installation/technical issues that temporarily shook the confidence of some of the people working with us, but they appear to be mostly behind us. Many of the computers didn’t even have sound cards to work with, and are super slow. But we have gotten through most of those issues (happy to go into details if you’re interested. We have three separate, unfinished projects surrounding auto-installation and testing – we just haven’t been able to get to them yet but they should help identify/solve problems much sooner.

"There is a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of attention here – my biggest worry is whether we have the resources to execute like we need to – and like everyone is expecting/hoping us to. The entire staff at the CNIC seems involved in the project and anxious for its success – and they even hired an outside firm to monitor/track/study the progress. It was not the low-key pilot I had agreed to by any means, but the enthusiasm seems too great to contain. I know that if we do moderately well with this pilot they will want to talk about expansion. As with the last pilot, the vision/concept transcends the technology issues – but we need to close that gap ASAP."

So with Chile on my mind, I thought I'd share a personal political side note that after watching the State of the Union (as much as I could handle) and after South Carolina, I'm a little worried about the future of America so thought I'd let you all know we're going to self-deport ourselves to Chile if Gingrich gets the nomination. (Come on Romney!!) I'll stick around for Santorum or Paul, but if my choices are between Obama and Gingrich... see ya. Feel free to try and convince me if there are other options, but I'm not alone, I'm going to start recruiting (see 14:12-14:27). Seriously, Herman Cain left the candidate pool because of shadowy accusations, and now we have Newt claiming to be the Republican lifeguard with his substantial record of adultery, divorce and ethics reprimands? Really?? Please, I just hope that we will have someone conservative, decent and honest to vote for. Is that too much to ask?