FUDCOURT LIVES!

Ever find yourself with some money to spare, but with not a clue as to where to spend it on food?

My girlfriend, Robin, and I are often caught up in that dilemma. But these days whenever I need to find a great place to try, or a place to stay away from, I go over to Fudcourt to see what's new with the gang culinary exploits: http://www.fudcourt.com/index.html

With a such a selection of restaurants and pretty good photos of what's on the menu, I thought you might like to know about it, too!

And they're not just in the San Francisco Bay Area. They also have in field reporters all over the world!

Check 'em out. They're free, but you might want to support them with a purchase of one of their collectibles--the site is a labor of love, i.e. they don't get paid to do the great technical and critical job they do!

And if you're in the mood for GREAT Vietnamese food, check out the piece I did for them when I was a guest judge: http://www.fudcourt.com/newlois.html

Know of great place to eat? Contact them--perhaps you'll be invited to be guest judge, too!

Fudcourt--By the People, for the People!

Well, sure helps to make sure of your references--always!

I just had a chance to reread that e-mail from Bob DeStatte and just had to say: Bob, what are you saying?!

Rach Gia is a coastal town on the WEST side of Vietnam (not the east), just south east of the Cambodia border town of Ha Tien. And if Schooley was captured with Thais, then for sure he's still going to be in the Thai Gulf.

Funny that Senator Kerry went in after a drug dealer, such as Schooley was. And $100,000 ransoming and bribing?! Yep, Vietnam was still at it's old piracy business, LOL!

For me my ransom was $10,000, but I wasn't being backed by drug lords like Schooley. :)

Slainte,
Cork

Hola!

It's always interesting to see how your websites rate in the search engine race: especially when your income revolves around how many times people come to your site or sign up for your freebies like FREE products, success courses and ezines.

Now, I have a number of sites, some active, some not, most just idle, waiting for the right time.

Then I've got ones where I make my direct money from, such as my success and marketing coaching site: http://www.successshaman.com.

But, I also have a site that's just a portal to my histories and futures, like the site you're on right now.

All of them need to be called up appropriately and within an acceptable number of pages on search engines.

Now, to get your ranking up, you first have to get a really good idea of where you stand--outside of the no-brainer of watching your bank account grow at an amazing rate. You start by putting in a number of values in the larger search engines and see where you pop up.

Well, today, I typed in a number of search strings:
1. "cork graham"
2. "cork graham vietnam"
3. "cork graham success coaching"
4. "fred graham vietnam"
5. "cork graham political prisoner"
6. "cork graham writer"
7. "cork graham hypnotist"
8. "cork graham photojournalist"
9. "cork graham corpsman"
10. "cork graham navy seals"

Both in Yahoo.com and google.com

And I got pretty much what I expected, but then I went through a few levels on the "fred graham vietnam" page:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=fred+graham+vietnam&ei=UTF-8&fr=fp-top

The flash from the past was "destatte" link, which takes you here: http://teamhouse.tni.net/destatte.htm

Bob DeStatte was one of the Pentagon's POW/MIA Division investigators who debriefed me when I was released.

For clarification, the Brit's name was Richard Knight, a comedy actor-turned treasure hunter I met one murky night in Pattaya, Thailand, in 1983: 1 day before he was planning to make the voyage to Vietnam for Captain Kidd's treasure. I kid you not! I love that pun--fits so perfectly, LOL!

BTW why do I go by Cork Graham instead of Fred Graham? Well, aside there being too many Freds in my family, in 1991 I was brought into an extended Ogalala family, and as sign of respect them, I use their nickname for me as my first name and when I write my books, I use "Frederick 'Cork' Graham".

So, what's in a name, I ask you?

What's does your name bring up when you type it up in Google or Yahoo, or any search engine? The results may surprise you!

Slainte,
Cork
************
The CASH MIND MAGNET™
www.successshaman.com
************

San Francisco used to be known as THE capital of Film Noir. Robert Mitchum, Joan Crawford, they all made movies about the crime and mystery of San Francisco here during the 1940s and 1950s: a time that many consider the prime of the City by the Bay!

Bringing it all back in live entertainment is my friend, Hal Savage, in his well-written four one-act plays, produced by Cynthia Gregory: A Savage Eye Production noted as a “Homage to Film Noir Private Eyes, Perps, and Dames!”

The show’s website is here for full look at the plays: http://home.mindspring.com/~savage-eye/

They’ll be playing from July 24th to August 16th 2003
Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays at 8 PM
Sundays at 5 PM
The Phoenix Theatre
414 Mason Street Suite 601
San Francisco CA

My girlfriend Robin Hale is doing the lighting and sound, so if you’re in San Francisco, enjoy the show and say hello!

Slainte,
Cork
***********
The CASH MIND MAGNET™
www.successshaman.com
***********

Hello, Adventurers!
Thought you might enjoy an article written this week about an adventure I had with Paul McHugh, outdoors writer for the SF Chron, last Sunday--enjoy! Here's the link to the story: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/07/17/SP250450.DTL

Technical writer? I haven't been a technical writer in 3 years. But, the other info is accurate, and hopefully interesting, drawing more to the sport! Let me know if you ever want to try it, great white sharks aside, it's fun!


Slainte,
Cork
***************
"Luck doesn't just happen. . ."
http://www.lifeisjusttooshort.com
***************

Howdy, Folks!

Sunday was a fun: a group of Nor Cal Freedivers took Paul McHugh of the SF Chron out and got some fish. The story will be in this Thursday's Sports section.

Pretty hard hunting, though, after the CenCal meet that was held at Pebble Beach on Saturday. I was only able to get a couple average-sized rockfish.

I'm waiting for the photos that were taken. But, I realized in all this research that my photos from last year were lost in non-link world. So, here's a link to see the fish brought in by the men and women competing for their respective state teams: http://www.corkgraham.com/spearfish2002.html

Look the size of the lings some of the ladies brought in! And hey, if your'e interested in getting your feet wet with us, sign up on the CenCal list link at the bottom of the spearfish2002 page.

Slainte,
Cork

Hola, amigos!


As you probably know from my homepage, I'm a fanatic outdoors enthusiast, and am even an outdoor writer. Well, this weekend, I won't be reporting but will be part of a piece that Paul McHugh, a great outdoors writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, will be doing on freedive spearfishing. So, I'll be out at Pebble Beach this weekend to hopefully get some fish for my plate, and, along with all the other much better freedivers, give him a story subject worthy of his feature!


I'll let you know how it went, next week. And shoot, might just write a piece for the outdoors section of my website.

If you're interested in getting into freediving and/or spearfishing, check out these site:

http://www.norcalskindivers.com

http://cencal.org/

http://freediver.net/freedivelist/index.html


Great groups to get started with. Also, you can check out my friend Aaron Lauers site:

http://norcalfreedive.com/catalog/default.php


Aaron's based in San Francisco.


Slainte,
Cork

From what I've learned in my research of the outrageously wealthy, having an aggressive attitude towards life is one of the most important qualities in order to attain phenomenal success in anything.

The question is when does healthy aggression, the attitude that enables you to accomplish many tasks, fast, go overboard? The answer in my FREE success newsletter, in a week or so, me thinks: http://www.lifeisjusttooshort.com/subscribe.html

Slowly I turned and realized how long it has been since I added to my weekly words--unbelievable!

What with all the success coaching, success newsletter and eproducts I've been creating and updating over the last two months--which are available at http://www.lifeisjusttooshort.com/products.html--I haven't been paying much attention to my weekly on my personal site.

Well, I promise to do something about that in the next two weeks.

Slainte,


Cork

For some it starts slow. For others there's that moment when after a week of lightning speed, clear and concise prose, that juice just dries up! You say to yourself, "What the Hell?!" I've got a deadline! I've got to get this piece out or I don't get paid. Then it REALLY happens. You can't even describe it anymore. It's this other being, a mirage shimmering just above the horizon. Yes, a mirage, but more lke a reminder that you're cornered. You have no way to go, because the shimmer on the distant horizon is now illusion to your mind. It's the Grim-Reaper, a sniper that's got you pinned! What are you going to do?

Slow down, look around, what are your avenues of escape? Do you see that boulder right over there? See the brush on your left? Feel that torn down wall in this wasteland called Writer's Block? Keep your head down, keep your head on straight. Slide, glide all the way back behind that wall that had you cornered in. Crawl to the rock and using it's shadow to cover your head, sneak a peek.

Yep, he's still there. But now you know you can take 'im! You have the control. You have the upper hand. You're in your mind and you're alright. Never let him take the field. And you know that. And now you REALLY know that.

Yep, that's right, bring it up. Line him up. See the image in your mind. Put the cross-hairs dead on accurate. Take a deep breath, touch your fingers to the keys, leaving one more obstacle in the dust. . .writer's block. . .work your imagination and you'll never let the delusion of writer's block blind you. . .

Greetings Fellow Adventurers!
Finally, after a couple years hiatus, I'm back to write personal interpretations of adventure, journalism, books and book writing, outdoors, and world events. And whenever possible, I'll make sure that you get the actual news of the moment that caused me to comment.

Good to be connecting up with you again!

Slainte!