Hasta La Gadget!

While plenty has happened because of the recent Sony hack by what many believe to be the work of North Korea, and the movie The Interview being the “culprit” to blame in such a matter, is there more than what meets the eye? Cue Transformers’ transformation sound effect. Apparently so, as a new bunch of Edward Snowden documents have pointed to the US government having inserted backdoor software into North Korea’s computer systems – not just months ago, but years prior to the hack. Talk about your chickens coming home to roost!

It seems that the NSA made use of South Korea’s established inroads in order to install malware on North Korean networks, and then that provided ample (and convenient, might I add) evidence to show the reclusive nation as the source of the Sony hack. Hence, one must ask the question – if the NSA had enough intelligence in the first place, how come it did not manage to advise or warn Sony of the impending attack?

Administration officials claim that the “spear-phishing” attack method failed to ring any alarm bells. After all, it is as though something like this is pretty much commonplace. Could this particular incident, if investigated further, end up as embarrassing for one of the two countries involved? After all, North Korea did issue a denial last year.

Edward Snowden Documents Point To US “Hacking” North Korea First , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

The road giveth, and the road taketh away.

John Kiewicz, who passed away on January 6 at the age of 44 while riding his motorcycle in Malibu, knew this all too well.

A writer and photo editor for numerous car magazines, a publicist for Acura, an auto enthusiast who could take apart and repair a car like a seasoned mechanic, and a performance test driver who owned world records for, among other feats, driving a Hennessey Venom GT from zero to 300 km/h in 13.63 seconds, beating the previous record by an astonishing four seconds, Kiewicz lived for and ultimately died on the road when his motorcycle crashed on Malibu Canyon Road.

Unlike a lot of car guys, Kiewicz had a fine literary style. He wrote some classic articles about his adventures on the road.

A Los Angeles-area native with a degree in journalism from the University of Nevada at Reno, Kiewicz wrote a 2006 feature for Motor Trend Magazine about driving 2,500 miles across the country in a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air.

The opening of the piece has an elegiac tone and reads as a tribute to all car guys like Kiewicz himself, who knew that life and auto driving are not without risks:

“A soldier threw a cover over his beloved 1969 Camaro Z/28 before heading off to Vietnam. Unfortunately, he’d never return, and the car would sit undiscovered for decades. Another serviceman, who did make it home a generation earlier, brought an old French car with him — a Bugatti, was it? — and left it in the garage. In 1964, a Shelby Cobra blew up in a drag race. The owner parked it in his shed and never got around to rebuilding the engine.”

John Kiewicz may not have come home from his last road trip, but he was not undiscovered. He left his mark as an automobile Renaissance man, as comfortable with the pen and keypad as he was with gears and axles.

He was a good friend of my brother, Bill, who gave a eulogy at his memorial at the Motor Trend/Hot Rod tech facility in El Segundo. They bonded over cars and met originally online at the Shelby Forum because they were both collectors of vintage autos.

Kiewicz, known as Kiwi to his friends, never stopped loving cars. At the time of his passing, he owned an original, blue ’66 Chevy Nova with a blue interior, whose image appeared on the cover of Car Craft Magazine, his first employer after college. He also owned a ’65 Mustang fastback, a rare ’69 Sting Ray and a ’71 Cheyenne pickup. Over the years, he wrote about and drove numerous, classic cars, including a Shelby 427 Cobra and a Ferrari Daytona, both from the movie, The Gumball Rally, a favorite film of car nuts.

He collected original posters of that film, including many in different languages. He gave one to my brother, who also now has the steering wheel to the ’55 Chevy owned by Kiewicz’s father, Ed.

Some will say that John Kiewicz, who spent his last moments riding his motorcycle on a tortuous canyon road, died loving what he did. To others, his death on the road resonates with irony.

Even though Kiewicz’s passing should serve as a cautionary tale, car collectors and gearheads will continue to embark on the road.

As Kiewicz wrote at the conclusion of his Motor Trend classic on traveling the country in a 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air, “We’d lived big adventure. We’d beaten bad luck…You’d think I’d have learned. But I recently heard of a guy who’s got a 1963 Corvette tucked away at his ranch. It’s supposed to be an original. Wonder if I can get it cheap? Anybody up for reliving ‘Dead Man’s Curve’ in a Sting Ray?”

John Kiewicz is survived by his wife, Michelle, and their ten-month old boy. He also leaves behind two children from a previous marriage, a brother, a stepbrother and his parents.

To quote his friend and fellow car journalist, John Pearley Huffman, “Rest in peace at 200 mph, John.”

Low carb lasagna with an Indian flavor twist. It’s butter chicken, in lasagna form!

Remember that time that we talked about stuffed peppers and my undying love for food mashups?

Well, it happened again.

SorrrNotSorry. CantStopWon’tStop.

Ok, fine. I’ll stop.

And, again, we’ve taken a comfort food and then put it in in one of those black hats that magicians put bunnies in so, POOF, it comes out as a healthy version of what it once was.

Sidenote: No bunnies were used in the making of this lasagna.

Anyway.

The whole idea to “healthify” AND “lasagnaify” comfort food, ALL at the same time, actually originated WAY back at the start of Food Faith Fitness, when I made a zucchini pizza lasagna.

And then I made it one zillion times over because it was num num in BOTH me and the Hubberoni’s tum.

When that happens, you make the same recipe for dinner for about 3.4 weeks. There is no messing around with dual recipe love.

But, after 3.4 weeks of eating the same thing, (I could be slightly exaggerating) there does come a time in life when you need to let the lasagna go.

Or just transform it.

It all started out one Friday night when I was about to surprise my hubs with butter chicken for dinner (his favorite.) I had the sauce simmering away and the house was smelling like maybe I should start munching away at its very walls. Read: it smelled AWESOME.

I skipped (read: walked. Skipping alone is creepy) to my pantry to grab some basmati rice, because you just don’t DO any kind of curry without the stuff.

You know, unless you fail at ALL things life, and don’t actually have any rice.

WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP.

How a food blogger had no rice, quinoa, lentils, ANYTHING, I will never know. But, it happened.

I may have cried for a few minutes.

Until… I saw my favorite vegetal friends in the fridge. BINGO.

And, you know what? It was a success in a MAJOR sense of the world. My hubberoni? He ate HALF the pan in ONE sitting.

Zucchini: saving surprise date nights and evenly possibly saving marriages, one dinner at a time.

Get the Low Carb Lasagna recipe on Food Fanatic now!

—

About Taylor
Taylor keeps food, faith and fitness close to the heart on her blog of the same name. We’re excited to have her as a Healthy Eating fanatic.

By: Dr. Eduardo Sanchez

Latina women play a vital role in our families. They are the heart, el corazón, of the home, acting as gatekeepers for their loved ones’ well-being. But it is their own hearts that are in danger.

Too often, Hispanic women are struck down by heart disease, their No. 1 killer.

So, as a community we need to help empower women to take care of their own health first, so they can be there for us. That’s why the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women/Go Red Por Tu Corazón movement is so important.

Later this week, I have the privilege of hosting a Go Red luncheon in Miami with members of the national Hispanic media. I would like to thank our co-host, Telemundo news anchor María Celeste Arrarás for helping facilitate this important conversation. Together with our partners in all Hispanic media, AHA and Go Red can spread the word about how crucial it is for Latinas to take control of their health. It’s an incredible opportunity to reach a widespread audience affected in so many ways by this killer disease.

Consider:

• Only one in three Hispanic women knows that heart disease is their No. 1 killer.
• Hispanic women are likely to develop heart disease 10 years earlier than Caucasian women.
• Only three in 10 Hispanic women say they have been informed they are at a higher risk of developing heart disease.
• Only one in four Hispanic women is aware of treatment options.

This is not just a man’s disease. One in three women die each year of heart disease and stroke, conditions that since 1984 have claimed more women than men.

Yet, 80 percent of cardiac events can be prevented with education and lifestyle changes, lifestyle changes as simple as: cooking traditional foods with healthier ingredients; exercising as a family; asking for blood pressure, glucose and cholesterol checks; and even going grocery shopping together as a family for healthier foods.

We need all of you. Join our Go Red campaign. On Feb. 6, commit to sharing the symbol of increasing awareness about heart disease among Latinas and all women by participating in National Wear Red Day.

Visit GoRedForWomen.org or GoRedCorazon.org , nationally sponsored by Macy’s, to learn how you can reduce your risk of heart disease and stroke–and be sure to tell every woman in your life.

Esto es para nuestras familias. Es para la mujer Latina.

Dr. Eduardo Sanchez is chief medical officer for prevention at the American Heart Association.

The one thing that every technologist shares is the desire to solve a problem, and there are several as-yet unsolved issues that relate to disability. It’s not all bad news, however, since in the last few months we’ve seen inventions that help the bl…