Sunshine Blogger Award

/ Karina Pinella / 6 Comments
“The whole idea of the Sunshine Award is that you nominate eleven bloggers who put a little sunshine in your day, who are positive, creative, and inspiring.”

“The whole idea of the Sunshine Award is that you nominate eleven bloggers who put a little sunshine in your day, who are positive, creative, and inspiring.”

Thank you for the Sunshine Blogger Award nomination, Ana, of the wonderful Ana Slanina site.

It’s nice to know that I can put a little sunshine in your day. If you don’t mind, I put a little twist to this award by not nominating the 11 bloggers one is supposed to because (a) I don’t know that many bloggers (that make me smile – just joking), (b) some already have the nomination and will likely not want to do it again (maybe?) and (d) some rules are fun to break. Continue reading →

Iron Skillet Deep Dish Vegetables and Pepperoni Pizza

/ Karina Pinella / 2 Comments
Image contributed by Hymn

Image contributed by Hymn

Depending on how many shortcuts you take, this can be quite a quick meal to prepare by starting with a 1-lb. bag of fresh dough from Trader Joe’s, or any of your favorite brand. You may also have pre-made your fresh dough by using a bread maker, or simply by hand. In any event, we will prepare this pizza, assuming the dough is already made ahead of time. The amount of dough should be at least 1 lb. in weight since that would be enough to fully line an 8- or 10-inch cast iron skillet. Continue reading →

Code of Conduct by Brad Thor (a book review)

/ Karina Pinella / 4 Comments

This is the 15th book in a thriller series about a super-agent of an NGO (nongovernmental organization) that frequently takes on covert assignments for the U.S. government. The organization is headed by Reed Carlton, a former CIA operative, who has recruited our hero, Scot Harvath. A human version of Superman, Harvath is fortysomething, extremely fit, highly intelligent, greatly resourceful, and truly patriotic. He is a former SEAL, who had served as a Secret Agent at one time, to a former U.S. President. He was so indebted to Harvath for saving his daughter that he gifted Harvath a lifetime residence at a historical site in Washington, D.C. You should read the prior 14 books first because it’s more enjoyable to know the sequence of events. Also, the story lines become more incredible. This last one is quite epic. Suffice to say it has the same theme as the movie Kingsman: The Secret Service. If you haven’t seen that movie, then I will say this is about controlling of the masses. I originally wrote something else, but I think it would be a spoiler. Continue reading →

An Ode to the American Ninja Warrior Winner – Isaac Caldiero

/ Karina Pinella / Leave a comment
Facebook

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Four stages, wrought to have you wring, wrangle, and wrestle
With ropes, chains, rings, 2-inch ledges, and cliff hangers.
The roar of the crowd cheers you on as you grab a vessel,
Trying to balance so you don’t fall into the dreaded cold pool water.
The audience shouts your name, encouraging, cheering for you.
Sweat coats your skin as you focus from one obstacle to another.
The smell of fear is in the air as you near stage four.
O, how you must taste the closeness to victory.
You’re pure action, always in motion, gets you to do one step more.
At Mt. Midoriyama’s summit, you climbed to claim your glory. Continue reading →

Republican Debate Take Two

/ Karina Pinella / 2 Comments

A spirited debate like we saw last night at the Reagan Library goes a long way toward the White House. At times contentious, sometimes petty, and even outrageous – it was all part of the mix. Now for some select talking points as the candidates weighed in:

Rand Paul is for legalizing medicinal marijuana, Mike Huckabee makes a point about accommodating U.S. citizen Kim Davis on her free will to discriminate, Marco Rubio sounds off about making sure we vote for a president who can start the ground running on day 1, Ted Cruz is firm about ripping up the Iran deal as soon as he takes the oath, Ben Carson says there is no scientific ground to connect vaccines with autism, Donald Trump continues to trumpet the same spiel of making America respected again, Jeb Bush reminds us how he was able to get Florida’s economy to thrive, Carly Fiorina demonstrates her problem solving skills by providing specific ideas on how to deal with Putin and other foreign leaders, (as well as domestic concerns), Scott Walker asserts his ability on being able to address our runaway deficit, John Kasich tells us that he has worked in the business sector at one time and how he is a much better candidate for having such experience in addition to his current public service role, and Chris Christie implies that as New Jersey’s governor, his daily dealings with a mostly Democratic state has sharpened his diplomatic skills.

Have you picked your favorite candidate yet?

Aloha (a movie review)

/ Karina Pinella / 3 Comments

I watched this movie because of Bradley Cooper, Bill Murray, John Krasinski, Alec Baldwin, Emma Stone, and Rachel McAdams. The cast sounded too good to pass up even though the trailer didn’t do much for me. Sometimes watching something light like Aloha can be relaxing; the photography looks nice and the actors look good. You don’t get excited much about anything in this movie though; it’s like watching someone’s vacation video. As the title suggests, the movie is set in Hawaii. Continue reading →

Lip Schtick

/ Karina Pinella / Leave a comment

Quack, quack, quack,
Quit the duck lip schtick.
What’s with the pout?
The moue, the pucker, or whatever you
Want to call it when your lips stick out.
Spare the sparrow face too.

©2015 Karina Pinella

©2015 Karina Pinella

A Rainy Day and Monday Get Me Dow(n)

/ Karina Pinella / 3 Comments

The Dow (I)
At times harsh like hail,
Or can be steady as rain
Is the Dow’s nature.

Images from Wikimedia-Creative Commons/Public Domain

Images from Wikimedia-Creative Commons & Public Domain-Clarence White

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Dow (II)
At times bad weather,
Crystal ball cannot predict
Dow Jones’ twitchiness.

The Fixer by Joseph Finder (a book review)

/ Karina Pinella / Leave a comment

This is a thriller set in Boston with references to the Big Dig, a fiasco of a highway/tunnel project that ran way behind schedule (try over 8 to 10 years, depending which viewpoint you take) and racked up the cost to over $20 billion (still not fully paid to date). Although that in itself is criminal, there are many other criminals in the story. Much of the story is about Rick Hoffman, a thirtysomething journalist who finds himself out of a high-paying job and homeless. He goes back to his family home, which has become a big fixer-upper because his father has been in a convalescence facility for 18 years due to a stroke that left him unable to speak or care for himself. His mother has long been deceased and his only sibling, a sister, lives in Seattle. Continue reading →

#bookcoverguessingchallenge — modified

/ Karina Pinella / 5 Comments

Thank you again for thinking of me, dear fellow bloggers at bookidote.wordpress.com. I sincerely was going to do the challenge. I went to the library and chose two books with appealing covers. But, when I reread your instructions, I missed the part about the books having to be well-known. What I had chosen were not so well-known. Since it was already late at night and I didn’t want to run into vampires, I decided to make do with what I have — my imagination and the books I checked out. I merged them and came up with a potential bestseller. I also thought since I’m making things up, I’ll alter the popular reviewer, Goodreads, as you will see below. It turned out to be a challenge, just not the kind you expected.

Book Cover & Blurb:
Airplane image from rgbstock/Gary Romin

Airplane image from rgbstock/Gary Romin

ShouldReads: “In one word: harharhar.  I laughed so hard my panties fell down and I tripped and I got a black eye, but I still couldn’t help laughing. Even now, I’m barely able to type this review because I’m wetting myself and I don’t have any panties to contain it. So, I recommend you wear Depends when you read this debut novel. Two very different groups clash like orange and scarlet or purple and yellow. The ultimate revenge thriller, on-the-edge-of-your-seat-trying-to-balance-yourself-on-the-toilet page-turner. Har, har, har!”

[BTW: The books I checked out were A Pimp’s Notes by Giorgio Faletti and The Subprimes by Karl Taro Greenfield; I don’t know what either books are about because I never read their blurbs. They are back at the library if you want to check them out.]

©2015 Karina Pinella