Music - "Route 66"

Nathaniel Adams Cole born in Montgomery, Alabama. He grew in Chicago and there he started to receive the Jazz influence by some friends, the same friends that he a few years later started to sing together in the trio called The King Cole Trio. Cole was the responsible to popularize a lot of music like “Mona Lisa” in 1950 and ”Unforgettable” in 1951.

Bobby Troup wrote the song “Route 66” and he was the original singer of this song. A lot of different singer re-recorder this song in some different styles. In 1942 this song was recorded by The King Cole Trio, making it a popular song in this year. Nat King Cole was the piano player in the trio and a few years later, in 1947, he recorded the “Route 66”as a solo singer.

The Route 66 is a very popular and historic route in the USA responsible to connect Chicago to Los Angeles. Maybe this road is the most famous road in the country and because this it is possible to find a lot of different things related to the road, like some music of different groups, movies and series for TV. I heard about this road in a song that I don’t remember the name, and after I saw this route in a movie where the characters just want to take their motorcycles and rode in this road enjoying the life. In Brazil, I saw a documentary, where a guy rent a Corvette and crossed this route filming the nature, the things around the route and the typical places that he found in his travel.

References

Song Facts (2014). Route 66 by Nat King Cole. Retrieved from http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=2247

Song Places. Route 66. Retrieved from http://www.songplaces.com/Route_66/Route_66_Oklahoma

Dragon Ball Z and GT

In the last week I spoke about the cartoon Dragon Ball the first of three series of Dragon Ball Saga. After Dragon Ball, Akira Toriyama created a new story to Goku and his friends, this new Saga was called Dragon Ball Z. In this new story, Goku and his friends faced a lot of different enemies, between them some of the most popular characters like Vegeta, Frieza, Cell and Majin Bu. This is the most popular Saga of the Dragon Ball story, where it is possible to find the most important and famous characters and the most exciting stories of the Saga. Dragon Ball Z had almost 300 episodes and was written in 1989 until 1996, being transmitted for a lot of different countries around the world. 

Related with the big success of the Saga Z of Dragon Ball, Akira developed a few movies with parallel stories that help to explain the main story of the cartoon or just gave for the fans another stories involving the principal characters in some big fights against new and strongest enemies. After the Saga Z of Dragon Ball, without Akira in the command, it was created the Saga Gt of Dragon Ball but this Saga did not make the same success of the Saga Z and lost the credibility with the fans.    

Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball is a cartoon created in 1986 by Akira Toriyama and his employees. This cartoon made a big success since it was created and passed in a lot of different countries. Dragon Ball told the history of a little child called Goku born in Vegeta planet. Goku is a Sayajin, one race that lived in the Vegeta planet and was exterminated by Freeza, a bad guy who conquest planets and made the population his slaves. When his planet was destroyed, Goku was throw for a distant planet called Earth and in this new planet he was created by a men who found that little boy in a spaceship and took him, going with the little Goku to his house. The old man that found Goku was Gohan, that created Goku like his son and gave for him one ball with four stars, this ball was a Dragon Ball and with six more like that, it is possible to call a big dragon who performs three wishes. After the dead of Gohan, the young Goku find a girl called Buma who was looking for the seven Dragon Balls and with Goku they stared to looking for other balls and in this mission, they found a lot of different enemies that like them, want the seven spheres to made them wishes real. 

Sugar cane and the alcohol

Sugar cane is one of the most important cultures produced in Brazil. This culture was introduced in the end of the 16-century in Brazil and started to be produced in the north west of the country, going down later for different places with better conditions for the cultivation. The sugar cane culture have a important place in Brazil and in the last years this place become more important than ever because the need of new types of fuel, called renewable fuels. The search for others types of fuel become a important issue in the world because the main form of fuel used in the present, the petroleum, is ending and with this it is really important to find another type of fuel that can be sustainable and renewable. The alcohol extracted by the sugar cane is one form of fuel very helpful and can be produced by the humans, and this production is made in the factories of cane process. This factories are responsible to process the sugar cane and in the end of this process, have the alcohol that can be used in a lot of different forms of vehicles and others devices. In Brazil, the state of Sao Paulo is one of the most important producers of sugar cane and one of the biggest producers of alcohol too, producing yet a lot of other products derivatives of sugar cane. In the quest of find new types of energy, each country have your own way to do this new font, like in the USA, they used the corn to extract the alcohol to use in different things, but this process is more expensive that the extraction of the sugar cane. It is really important find new forms of fuel to replace the traditional petroleum because it is a kind of fuel that has your days counted and the end with sure.

Chicago

In this weekend my friends and I were to Chicago to make the TOEFL exam. We leave Macomb on Friday by train and almost four hours later we arrived in Chicago and after this we walked a long time in the city, to know more that amazing city and waste time until we can make the check in the hotel. Almost in the check time we walked again by the city but now we want to find our hotel. We found the hotel and we saw that is a simple hotel but well enough for two days. After we made the check in the hotel we stay there and contact our families to say that everything was ok. In the other day we woke 5 am to prepare for the exam and we lived the hotel and walked again for the place where we will do the test. Almost four hours and half later, we finished the test and we took the subway for a Brazilian restaurant and we ate a very good feijoada with a natural orange juice. After that we keep walking to know more the city and we were to the lake and after to the zoo. How we were a long time out of our hotel we decided to go back for rest and after enjoy the night. In the night we ate a sandwich and after we were for a nightclub and we back to our hotel 5 am just to take our bags and leave, going back to Macomb.

My knee surgery

In Brazil, a big part of the people play or like to see soccer games. With me was not different, since I was young I played soccer, I played side my house, in street, even in my school, every place is good to play soccer. Once, when I was playing at my school, I was running and had a guy on my side and when I kicked for the goal and my leg was in the air, he hit my leg, upon my knee. After that, I fell in the ground I almost can’t walked back to my class. My knee swelled, and stay swollen for 2 weeks, after that, my knee was back to normal, and I tried to play soccer again, and of course it was not a good idea, because my knee got out of the place, I swelled again. So, I can not run and I can not play soccer, so I went to the doctor, and he said that everything was fine, I just needed to rest. I did it, I rested for a few weeks and of course, I tried to play soccer again, and again, my knee got out of the place and swelled again, so I went to another doctor I did some tests, to know what was happening. The doctor discovered that I had ruptured the ligament of the knee, and almost two months later, I passed for a surgery, in August 18 of 2008, I remember that date, because it is my birthday. After the surgery, I was in my house and I needed to do physiotherapy, to  have the movement of the leg again. So I did almost 60 physiotherapy sessions and I stayed two months without putting my foot in the ground, but after that I can walk again. After the physiotherapy sessions, I needed to go in the gym, to worked out my leg, because it was weak. So I worked out for 2 months and my leg was back to normal. Almost 7 months after the surgery, I went back to playing soccer again.

Water

Almost 70% of our planet is water, the most important liquid for our survival. Unfortunately, the amount of freshwater is not big for everybody in the world, being almost 5% of the total water. The freshwater can be found in rivers and underground, in groundwater, that focuses a big part of the freshwater. Brazil has the biggest reserve of freshwater in the world, but, until it the people suffers with the fault of freshwater, because in the present day, the rivers and the dikes have not enough freshwater for all the population. With this problem, the government try to take some strategies for stop the waste of water, and trying to redistribute the water for places that need more than others. Is really important stop with the waste and the pollution of the freshwater, because we can't live without water.