Nelson Demille is an author who I can feel confident in when I am reading one of his books. He wrote probably one of my most favorite books, “The Gold Coast,” and now after reading “The Charm School,” I’m fairly certain it wasn’t a fluke. “The Charm School” was recommended to me highly, almost to a fault, by Barbie and her mom, so I came into it with some seriously high expectations. Unfortunately, like a good movie that is ruined by too much hype, it didn’t live up to it, but was extremely entertaining. I flew through the book in under a week, and for a person who normally takes a good month to finish a book, it proves that it is definitely a page turner.rnrnOK…now is the time to stop reading if you are going to read the book.

The book is set back in the Cold War era and is based in and around the U.S. embassy in Moscow. It is about a school that the Russians have set up with captured American POWs from the Vietnam War who are used to train Russian KGB men and women to think, act, talk, walk, and do everything American. The reason being that after they have graduated from this school, they KGB students can then be sent to America disguised as Americans, and eventually infiltrate everything and every occupation that is American. If you think about it, this is a great concept and is kind of scary to think that your next door neighbour John Smith, who says he is from Des Moines, Iowa and acts just like any other American, is actually a Russian born KGB spy. The ramifications of such a school that is successful is unbelievable. The entire book revolves around this school and how the embassy is going to shut it down or bring it to light, so if you have read this, I haven’t given away too much. Either way, if you like action based books and page turners, this is right up your alley. Enjoy.

With the baby on the way, Barbie felt it was important to have a car that had a 3rd row in case we had some visitors in town. Also, since she won’t drive the Nissan, she wanted a second car that we could both drive to eliminate any possible hassles that may arrive. Me? Well, I was quite happy to play it by ear and see how it went when the baby was born, but seeing as this is the right time of year to buy, I’m not sure we would have gotten too good of a deal in January or February. Thus, we now have a new car, although this one is not on the level of the Lexus. It is the EX model, which is the mid-range.

There is no installed navigation, but we just bought a Garmin c550 navigation so that both cars will now have Nav. This is supposed to be our second car, so it a 3yr. lease, and shouldn’t cost us too much in the end. Either way, we still have the famous Nissan that has been around for 10 years. I’m not sure what I am going to do with it, but we’ll see.

After getting all of Pope Benedict’s luggage loaded into the limo, (and he doesn’t travel light), the driver notices that the Pope is still standing on the curb in his red Prada shoes.
“Excuse me, Your Holiness,” says the driver, “Would you please take your seat so we can leave?”
“Well, to tell you the truth,” says the Pope, “they never let me drive at the Vatican, and I’d really like to drive today.”
“I’m sorry but I cannot let you do that. I’d lose my job and what if something should happen?” protests the driver, wishing he’d never gone to work that morning.

“There might be something extra in it for you,” says the Pope.
Reluctantly, the driver gets in the back as the Pope climbs in behind the wheel.
The driver quickly regrets his decision when, after exiting the airport, the Pontiff floors it, accelerating the limo to 105 mph.
“Please slow down, Your Holiness!!!” pleads the worried driver, but the Pope keeps the pedal to the metal until they hear sirens.
“Oh, dear God, I’m gonna lose my license,” moans the driver.
The Pope pulls over and rolls down the window as the cop approaches but the Cop takes one look at him, goes back to his motorcycle, and gets on the radio.
“I need to talk to the Chief,” he says to the dispatcher. The Chief gets on the radio and the cop tells him that he’s stopped a limo going a hundred and five.
“So bust him,” says the Chief. “I don’t think we want to do that, he’s really important,” said the cop. The Chief exclaimed, “All the more reason!”
“No, I mean really important,” said the cop.
The Chief then asked, “Who ya got there, the Mayor?”
Cop: “Bigger.”
Chief: “Governor?”
Cop: “Bigger.”
“Well,” said the Chief, “Who is it?”
Cop: “I think it’s God!”
Chief: “What makes you think it’s God?”
Cop: “He’s got the Pope as a chauffeur!!”

This was forwarded to me today, and if you have ever worked in an office environment where you were forced to have a cubicle, then this will definitely make you life. The song is a parody the currently popular James Blunt song titled “You’re Beautiful.” Enjoy.

“Busting Vegas” is another true story by Ben Mezrich about some MIT students and how they managed to win millions of dollars at the Casinos playing Black Jack. If you don’t know Vegas odds, Craps has the best odds for the player, i.e. you, unless you know how to count cards or do some other tricks in Blackjack, at which point BlackJack is the best game for you. At first I thought this was going to be another card counting game like his last book, “Bringing Down the House,” but the MIT students don’t count cards at all, unless you consider being able to cut a 6 shoe deck exactly 52 cards in. If you didn’t understand that last sentence, you probably won’t like the book. Anyways, if you plan on reading the book, stop here, as I am about to tell you there tricks, which may or may not ruin the book for you.

So, there are three ways in which these guys are able to tip the odds into their favor, all of which are technically legal. The main thing about all of these is you need to have the table to yourself, which is usually available to high enough rollers, which these MIT students were able to do.

1. The first method used is to somehow find a dealer with small hands. This way, when they are re-shuffling the decks, you are able to see what the bottom card is. What you are looking for is an ace. When the ace is seen and when the dealer asks you to cut the deck, you cut it exactly 52 cards in, and then wait for that card to show up. You then increase your bets substantially when that 52nd card is about to come up, and assuming you are the only person at the table, you can give yourself a tremendous advantage over the house.
2. The second method is to find an old trusty dealer who always shuffles the deck perfectly. Assuming the dealer will always shuffle correctly, you can watch a hand play out and memorize the sequence of cards that were played and put back in the shuffle deck. Then, depending on the number of shuffles, you can assume the dealer added one card in b/t each card in your sequence. Then all you do is wait for that sequence to appear, and make your bets accordingly. I could be off on the exactness of this method as I read the book a few weeks ago, but I am pretty sure this is how it went.
3. The final method is almost a complete replica of the first method, but you are looking for a face card. You then cut to the 52nd card, but instead of trying to get the 10 or face card on one of your hands, you try and have it hit the dealer as a bust card. Since you won’t bust yourself on your 6 hands (maximum allowed), and you assume the dealer won’t deal himself a 17 or higher, you can force the dealer the bust himself, thus allowing all your hands to win, instead of just the one hand like in the first method.

All these methods are based on mathematical calculations. I believe the house has about a 2% advantage on a normal blackjack hand, but with the 3rd method listed here, you can have a 50% advantage, which completely negates the small house advantage. Assume you are betting hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you can see why they became rich rather quickly.

Of course, as with the first MIT kids in “Bringing down the house,” this group of kids eventually became banned from all casinos around the world, including the famous casino Monte Carlo that Barbie and I once gambled at. An overall fun read if you are into gambling.

Last week Barbie and I found out the newest Graver will be of the male gender. I must admit, that I was one of the few to think it would turn out to be a boy, so we can already say our little one is beating the odds. Barbie was kind enough to inform me before the news that no male blood relative on my maternal side had ever had a boy within the first two babies. It always took at least 3, and 5 in the case of my grandfather. So, for our baby to be a boy is what some would call a shock, and others like myself, just what we predicted. I always thought that we would have a girl, even before Barbie was pregnant, but once she told me she was, it just felt like a boy. Of course, all of this could be for not as doctors have sometimes been wrong, but judging by the ultrasound, it was DEFINITELY a boy. So…now we are onto the naming game, and if you have any suggestions please let us know. We won’t tell you what name we have decided on until the baby born in order to prevent any comparisons with other people of the same name, so you will just have to advise and wait to see.

I read this book a few weeks ago, but when I first saw it in the book store I couldn’t believe that someone was able to write a book about a dog that would keep anyone entertained for a full 300 pages. Then, I heard a sample of the book on audible.com read by the author, and the passage that they read sounded similar to some of the experiences we had with Kymba at the dog training school. Still, I didn’t go out and buy the book. Eventually, Barbie got the book from a friend and began reading it. Within a couple of days she was finished, but physically with the book, and emotionally. I literally watched her as she read the book every night in bed go through a roller coaster of emotions. She would be laughing and nodding her head agreeance, as if she could fully understand what the author was trying to say, then the next night she would be in tears, trying to convince herself to continue reading. Needless to say, I was hooked and had to read this book that brought forth so much emotion.

If you have ever had a slightly crazy dog, then you will fully understand the hardships the author had to endure with Marley. However, if you are a dog lover, then you will also understand why he stuck through it and gave the dog all the benefits of the doubt, no matter what the disaster that had occurred. Luckily for the reader, the author is newspaper writer, so he is able to fully detail the different scenarios that Marley goes through, and also bring you into his world of love and hate for the dog. In the end, you have developed a sense of love and forgiveness for this overzealous and slightly crazy 100lb. beast. So, give the book a shot, unless for some reason you are one of those “cat people” that just don’t get dogs.

Apparantely your eyes can process about as much information as a standard ethernet connection, i.e. that oversized phone cord that goes from your computer to your router or modem.

Eye Transmits to Brain at Ethernet Speed