Once upon a hoopty...

All Things Must Pass Away

2009-05-11T20:34:00.002-06:00

Ladies and Gentlemen. I know I haven't blogged in a while, so I probably don't have many readers left anyway, however...

I will no longer be blogging at this site because it has seemed most economic and logical for my wife and I to pour our blogging desires into one location. She just read my first post there and said that she can see how things are going to be: I'm going to write intellectually and she's going to write circumstantially. Thus we are. And it seems that anyone who would read either of our blogs would appreciate getting both sides of the love coin that we are.

I don't know why I'm still putting words into a post that was just meant to redirect you, but it seems I still am.

As a reward for those of you who stayed until the bitter, bitter end, please enjoy the following link and may all your days be filled with joy and somesuch.

http://www.with2ts.com/

January

2009-01-28T17:38:00.002-06:00

So... the snow/ice storm that has come through Kentucky has given me a little bit of free time to finally get back to the blog and maybe write something a little happier and controversy free.

Happy New Year, Everyone!
2008 in review:
I spent the entire year, for the first time, a married man and as a home-owner.
Lost was shortened by the writer's strike, but still managed to pull off an amazingly written season.
I started substitute teaching and taking classes at U of L to pursue a Master of Arts in Teaching Spanish. That seems to be working out.
A community group from our church started meeting in our home as of August. That has been good. It has been really good to share life together.
2008 was the year I began to imbibe and found that I quite enjoy Killian's Irish Red and some good bourbon.
A HURRICANE hit LOUISVILLE! I move to mid-America and figure I'm safe from hurricanes. Sure, maybe the occasional tornado, but, seriously?
An American President was elected that has given me hope for the first time since I've given any consideration to whether or not a president gives me hope. (although, to be fair, I was hopeful about McCain, too -- either candidate would've been better than any option we've had since...)
I paid off my truck!
We visited Charleston, SC for our first anniversary (and to see my good friend Candi get married).
It was a very busy year. My decision to drop out of seminary led to putting myself in a position to work as much as I could while I was trying to figure out what to do with my life and even making the decision has led to a lot of work and very little free time. That's just what I have to do right now, and I'm okay with that. Substituting can be draining, but it can also be really rewarding. And I had to learn this year that at starbucks, all I'm doing is making coffee, so there's no reason to get stressed out about it.
2008 was a good year. Many good things happened, but right now I just feel like it is characterized mostly by business.
More later.

History

2008-11-21T09:29:00.003-06:00

To the victor always goes the spoils and this includes the right to write history the way that puts the winner, or at least the survivor, in the best light. I have often felt frustrated by attempts in many locations in the South to do away with any celebration of the Antebellum Era, in which the South flourished and most of the nation's millionaires lived in Mississippi. I do understand that anytime one people prosper it is going to be at the expense of another people, and the story of the civil rights movement, the story of a group of people captured, taken on ships to faraway lands, sold into slavery and then separated from family and loved ones at owners' whims, beaten and mistreated, eventually freed from slavery, but still not respected, considered less human than others, then eventually given fair and equal, and no longer separate, treatment, allowed to prosper and as of January 20, finding themselves with a representative of their people being sworn in as political leader of their country -- this story is beautiful and good and should be told. However, as it is told, it usually takes the same path that victors and survivors have always taken and it is rewriting history. Any celebration of Antebellum South is considered to be racist, because calling it such is the most subversive way to have it silenced. Any who would celebrate Antebellum South are called ignorant, because disregarding these sentiments as unintelligent will keep them from being respected as legitimate.

All that to say, I am proud of U of L for the way they are handling the problem of having a Confederate War Memorial right next to their campus (see link in title). Instead of creating an outcry and demanding that such a memorial be torn down, they are adding to it the celebration of those whose story is not told by that monument but who lived through the hell of the same time period. It is good to find a way to celebrate the fallen dead of a people and also celebrate the freedom and civil rights of another.

Please understand me. I do not think the South will rise again, at least not in any kind of pro-slavery or Antebellum sentiment way. I do see much of the South growing economically, and I hope that it may someday rise again to a place of economic strength. If it does, I also hope that it is not at the expense of any people group. I love the South and I love Mississippi, for all its strengths and faults and I am proud of my ancestors, even if they refused to see that owning people as slaves is just wrong. They had other issues, too, but it is hard for me to judge them from my 21st century point of view, because I don't know what i would've thought in that time. They also had strength that led to me being who and where I am today.

In this post-modern time, I find it difficult to run across popular opinions that the South has ever been "the bad guy." They had different opinions, opinions which led to bullying in the Congress and a decreased representation because they would not adhere to the opinions of others. When they decided they had had enough, they decided to use the Constitutions offer of secession to leave a government they no longer had any say in. This move was fought against and the secessionists lost the war and their entire way of life. The freed slaves were given positions of authority and those formerly in power were refused the right to vote. I am proud of a people who stuck to their guns and fought against injustice, even if they were supporting injustice of another kind. I don't think they were perfect, but they were never the bad guys. They still aren't. We're just a people who are co-citizens with those who generations ago oppressed our ancestors just as our ancestors oppressed the ancestors of other co-citizens. No one is free from blame in all this, but our say is just as significant as the say of anyone else.

The election has made me ill

2008-11-07T11:07:00.003-06:00

Monday night I had nightmares about Obama winning and the worst-case scenarios that radical far-right talking heads predicted and then McCain won and all the worst-case scenarios from the radically left media predictions came true. I woke up easy enough and then I went to work, where I realized we were going to be handing out free coffee all day with no extra employees on the floor to handle the extra customer count. It was harrying for the first few hours, but by the time I took a lunch break and came back, I had a pretty nasty headache and I started feeling weaker and weaker. I voted in the mid-day after I got off work, and had a headache for most of the next two days. Thursday, I went to work and my first class with a headache and then started feeling a little nastier. I stopped by my prof's office to drop off the paper that was due and to apologize for skipping class, and then drove home through rush hour traffic where I fell into a delirium of hot flashes and chills, sore throat and nausea, not to mention the continual headache. After I gagged at the nothing I had put in my stomach since midday on thursday, I started feeling a lot better and had some chicken-noodle soup, some crackers and my baby got me some jello and vitamin C.

In other news, I've heard several people in the liberal media talk about how much we need to come together as a nation and unify and stand behind our president. I find it interesting that they have decided we should all do this when the president they voted for has been elected and were less focused on standing behind the elected president 4 years ago. I've also noticed, in listening to news, that Obama's biggest problems are going to come from his democratic-voting supporters. There is a large pocket of people who tend to vote liberal/democrat because they are optimistic and/or feel that the world would be a better place if only we would elect the RIGHT president (not that there aren't conservative/republican voters who feel the same way, but conservatives tend to not be quite so optimistic). So now, Obama is going to have to live up to the hype that has been built up around this election. People actually believe that he will turn around the economy, provide jobs, lower taxes and end the war, single-handed. I do hope that whatever programs our federal government work out will accomplish these things. Lord knows we need more jobs and some of the basic foundations of our economy need to be reset in order to fix this mess into which the banking and real estate industries have put us. I do agree that we should stand behind our president, whether he is a knuckle-head or is merely from a different idealogical camp, because it isn't about getting my way: it's about all of us working together to do what we think will best help our nation. So, I'll work hard at my job, spend money on the things I can afford, do my part to help my neighbors and my community and pray and hope that our new President will make wise decisions that benefit us all, and President-elect Obama will do his best to fix what's wrong with our country in the way that he thinks will work. In four years, I may decide not to vote for his re-election and if I choose to do so, I will because I think that I'm doing what's best for the country.

I hope his supporters recognize that Obama is not our Savior, and though he may be a good man and a good leader, he is, at the end of the day, just a man. I hope that in two years when not all of his promises have been fulfilled, that his supporters will continue to support him as president, even if they think they might vote differently in the next elections, because turning around the economy and satisfactorily diminishing the troop presence in Iraq is going to take some time. I hope the "us versus them" feeling that's been going around will die down a little bit now that the election is over, because it has literally made me sick. Or maybe that was substituting at middle and high schools 3 days a week...

Former Secretary Colin Powell

2008-10-20T14:43:00.006-06:00

The reasons that Powell has professed to be in support of Obama and opposed to the Republican party ring true to me. I feel that the Bush administration has tottered very near to power abuse if such an accusation cannot be stated in full assurance. The Republican party has been leaning some odd ways under W's Presidency and away from what I heard someone on the radio today call Republican Values. If small government is no longer a Republican Value, limited government is and Bush has been leaning far toward a totalitarianism. W's view of how a military should be allocated has not been satisfactory. I do think that Republicans can be lovers of liberty, but they have been found way too much in bed with the corporations.

That said, I think, as I've said here before somewhere, that both parties are guilty of pandering the radical extremes of their respective parties. Republicans have leaned far too right and Democrats have leaned far too left. Both parties are also guilty of fascism at this point. If our economy needed a boost from our government (especially in light of what other world governments are doing), then something should've been done, but the government owning major shares in our banks is against everything our constitution stands for... and I don't know how so many leaders in Washington could think that it is a good thing for freedom to be traded in times of trail for security.

I would like to say that I still intend to vote for McCain. I don't like what the Republican Party has been doing lately. The election theory is, at best, behind the times. I think that both McCain and Palin should've been allowed to showcase the parts of their personalities that have made them popular enough to be nominated for president, instead of turning to tactics that are obviously in contrast with the kinds of things that they appeared to stand for before. The hypocrisy of the situation is not lost on voters, and definitely not lost on the media. The same thing happened to Bob Dole (not that he would've necessarily defeated Clinton in 1996). Dole is a funny, charismatic politician, and that's what won him the nomination, but his personality had to be overshadowed during the campaign by attack ads. I don't mean to say that there isn't a place for some kinds of attack, but the Republican Party doesn't seem to understand how to appeal to the undecided voter in their media campaigns, and at the center of that problem is the way they seem to think that these personalities that were charismatic enough to win the nomination, are not strong enough to be showcased for the final showdown. I do have to cede that the Democratic party knows how to run a campaign, but I can't let that alone sway my vote.

At the end of the day, the next president is going to have a big mess to clean up and I'm just not impressed by the way Sen. Obama intends to do that. I think McCain has a level head and that he really is interested in rooting out corruption. I think most Americans would agree that fighting corruption would be the best thing for our country right now and I think that if voters were to stop and think about it, that the majority don't want radical left solutions. Just because the pendulum has swung one way doesn't mean that it should swing as far the other way. Moderation really is the key to this. Also, Obama, as typical Democrat, is also a fan of bigger government, to the point that he feels that the government should take care of health care. I know that capitalism has its drawbacks. No economic system is the perfect system, but we can't take advantage of moments of the weaknesses inherent in the system to change gears and start aiming toward more Totalitarian or Socialist or Fascist tendencies. There are problems in our insurance/health care systems right now, but taking them out of private hands and letting the government have more power over our lives is not what we need.

Now I remember why I was so jaded after the last presidential election. I'm still planning to vote for McCain, but I have lost the stars from my eyes.

We're far too corrupt to ever have a savior on Capital Hill .

Stupid Politics

2008-10-03T14:14:00.003-06:00

The other day, my wife and I noticed that Sarah Palin reminds us of my mother-in-law, who happens to be a big fan of the governor. She doesn't look like Palin, especially, but they have similar personalities and expressions. At first it seemed a little eerie that she would be voting for "herself," but it occurred to me that we all do that, to some extent. On some level, we want the winner of the election to be the one who believes the most like us so that s/he will make the decisions that we would make in his/her position, if we had all the information that s/he would have. And some people will vote for Obama because he is black like they are, and some people will vote against him because he is black and they are not. Polls seem to indicate that the McCain campaign got a real jolt when he announced Palin as his VP, and it seems probably that some people will vote for her because she is a woman (and there are some very conservative people who don't know what to do because they don't want to vote for a woman or Obama). We want to vote for a candidate that remind us of ourselves, especially on our best days. That's why good speakers like JFK are so enrapturing: we want to be like them, that determined and optimistic, even if we are actually cynical. And that's why politics is so personal: we identify with our candidates on some kind of intimate level, and when people dismiss that candidate, it is easy to take it as a personal affront.

I hate how things get every four years at about this time. I have enjoyed listening to NPR with some regularity for the past two years, but right around election time, I just want to punch reporters in the face. I really don't believe in our government. I feel like voting for politicians is just stating who I think will keep screwing up the government less. And definitely, on some level, I'm taking things personally. I have the control not to say anything and to realize that what I'm thinking is untrue, but I find myself joining in the fray of thinking that anyone who doesn't agree with me must be a complete moron instead of a reasonable, thoughtful person who has come to a different conclusion than I have.

Not as any kind of taunt, or because I think the candidate I intend to vote for is so wonderful, but for the sake of our country:

may the best man win.

The Political Musings of John Irving

2008-09-17T19:16:00.004-06:00

I've been reading "A Prayer for Owen Meany" lately. The movie "Simon Burch" was based on the book, but kept out all of the political aspects of the book, which is a major theme. I read the following today and loved it. (I turned all of Owen's soliloquy into straight dialogue.)

"What could Marilyn Monroe's death ever have to do with me?"
"IT HAS TO DO WITH ALL OF US. SHE WAS JUST LIKE OUR WHOLE COUNTRY -- NOT QUITE YOUNG ANYMORE, BUT NOT OLD EITHER; A LITTLE BREATHLESS, VERY BEAUTIFUL, MAYBE A LITTLE STUPID, MAYBE A LOT SMARTER THAN SHE SEEMED. AND SHE WAS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING--I THINK SHE WANTED TO BE GOOD. LOOK AT THE MEN IN HER LIFE--JOE DIMAGGIO, ARTHUR MILLER, MAYBE THE KENNEDYS. LOOK AT HOW GOOD THEY SEEM! LOOK AT HOW DESIRABLE SHE WAS! THAT'S WHAT SHE WAS: SHE WAS DESIRABLE. SHE WAS FUNNY AND SEXY--AND SHE WAS VULNERABLE, TOO. SHE WAS NEVER QUITE HAPPY, SHE WAS ALWAYS JUST A LITTLE OVERWEIGHT. SHE WAS JUST LIKE OUR COUNTRY.
"AND THOSE MEN, THOSE FAMOUS, POWERFUL MEN--DID THEY REALLY LOVE HER? DID THEY TAKE CARE OF HER? IF SHE WAS EVER WITH THE KENNEDYS, THEY COULDN'T HAVE LOVED HER--THEY WERE JUST USING HER, THEY WERE JUST BEING CARELESS AND TREATING THEMSELVES TO A THRILL. THAT'S WHAT POWERFUL MEN DO TO THIS COUNTRY--IT'S A BEAUTIFUL, SEXY, BREATHLESS COUNTRY, AND POWERFUL MEN USE IT TO TREAT THEMSELVES TO A THRILL! THEY SAY THEY LOVE IT BUT THEY DON'T MEAN IT. THEY SAY THINGS TO MAKE THEMSELVES APPEAR GOOD--THEY MAKE THEMSELVES APPEAR MORAL. THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT KENNEDY WAS: A MORALIST. BUT HE WAS JUST GIVING US A SNOW JOB, HE WAS JUST BEING A GOOD SEDUCER. I THOUGHT HE WAS A SAVIOR. I THOUGHT HE WANTED TO USE HIS POWER TO DO GOOD. BUT PEOPLE SAY AND DO ANYTHING JUST TO GET THE POWER; THEN THEY'LL USE THE PWOER JUST TO GET A THRILL. MARILYN MONROE WAS ALWAYS LOOKING FOR THE BEST MAN--MAYBE SHE WANTED THE MAN WITH THE MOST INTEGRITY, MAYBE SHE WANTED THE AN WITH THE MOST ABILITY TO DO GOOD. AND SHE WAS SEDUCE, OVER AND OVER AGAIN--SHE GOT FOOLED, SHE WAS TRICKED, SHE GOT USED, SHE WAS USED UP. JUST LIKE THE COUNTRY. THE COUNTRY WANTS A SAVIOR. THE COUNTRY IS A SUCKER FOR POWERFUL MEN WHO LOOK GOOD. WE THINK THEY'RE MORALISTS AND THEN THEY JUST USE US. THAT'S WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU AND ME," said Owen Meany. "WE'RE GOING TO BE USED."

Keeping all that in mind in terms of the present election, I find it interesting that both candidates are trying to run on a motto of change, when everyone knows that nothing ever changes: it's just men and women claiming that everyone should not ask what the country should do for them but what they can do for their country, when what they really want is a position of power so that they can get the thrills and perks of power at the expense of the people they are elected to lead/serve. People will say anything to get what they want. And it is mostly not going to come down to issues, but instead how people feel about the morals of the candidates: whether they are thought to have the same beliefs as voters, how they conduct their campaign (defending themselves and smear campaigns and whatnot).

I'm typing this out over conversation around me (because our power is STILL out and we have to borrow electricity and internet from friends), so I'm not able to edit myself or think all the way through my thoughts, but please feel free to respond. It might even help me get my thoughts fleshed out.

Catastrophe

2008-09-15T09:22:00.002-06:00

They are, apparently, calling it "Gust 2008." Outer edges of Hurricane Ike came through the Louisville area yesterday, Sunday September 14, with gusts up to 81 mph and not a drop of rain. So, now, 60% of Louisville and large percentages of residents in surrounding counties are without power, some 1/2 million people. Of course, this includes my beautiful wife and I. We were fortunate in terms of destruction to property: we only lost one of the temporary gazebos in the backyard. My next door neighbor lost a recent roofing job on her carport (at least it isn't the house, but still...that sucks). Also, the radio said that a 10-year-old boy was mowing the grass afterward and was killed by a falling tree limb, which may be one of the most tragic things I've heard. The electrical company says that power will be out for 10-14 days. The mayor and governor asked for assistance from surrounding states, but they are all cleaning up their own messes... and it seems that we and our surrounding states all sent trucks down to Texas to start getting to work cleaning up Galveston and Houston, etc.

So, really: nothing awful has happened in my life. I mean, I wasn't able to work today (I substitute and the county schools are all closed), and that's not going to help pay the bills, but I'm taking advantage of the fact and making it a point to mow the lawn and spend down time with the wife. We have a group from our church that usually meets together on Monday nights at our house, but we'll just be able to meet by candle-light, so I'm not at all disappointed by that.

However, I'm noticing in myself and the people around me that the rest of the world has become much less important today. I sat down to look at my news (I check headlines through google news), and I was almost surprised that our big gust wasn't making prominent headlines when it's such a big deal to my life. It made me think about people in war zones like Jerusalem and Sudan and '90s Bosnia and how the world must feel only as big as surviving until tomorrow and finding a safe place and protecting my family. So, I hope things are going well everywhere else. I'm not suffering so much that I need anything (although, it would be nice if the power was back on). I'm just myopically dealing with the crisis at hand and waiting until it all, if you'll excuse the pun, blows over.

Music rights

2008-09-07T18:35:00.003-06:00

I'm writing this post because I'm lazy. Most people who are online enough to read my blog know about situation with the Republican National Convention playing Heart's song "Barracuda" as an intro for Sarah Palin, and Heart not being okay with that. (See some article here: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/liberal-rock-st.html)

So. I am a little confused to how all this works. Clearly the RNC can't just play music in a public venue like that just because they bought the cd at target. If that is the case, then there are major legal issues at play. If, however, the RNC did pay the royalty fees to play music in a public venue, then I'm not sure that I understand what legal issues are at play. I can understand an artist requesting that a certain organization with which they disagree not publicly play a song that connects their song with that organization. That being the case, it does seem that it would be an honorable thing to do to not continue to play the song, even if Governor Palin continues to go by the nickname Barracuda, that just happens to be name of a song by Heart. Even if the RNC has deliberately gone ahead and chosen to play the song in spite of having received the request from the song's writers/original performers, if they have paid the royalty fees, I'm not sure that I understand why lawyers are getting involved. I suppose there may be something to a fear that the artist's reputation may be connected to the organization that is publicly using their song, but I wish understood how that was a legal issue.

Also, if the point really is about reputation, and not wanting to diminish the pool of potential buyers of music, it seems really silly to me that Heart has made it a point to distance themselves so publicly from the RNC. Their official statement is obviously pointed and biting (especially when compared to John Mellencamp's words). They aren't quite being Dixie Chicks, nor is their normal fan base so specifically one camp or the other, but it seems that publicly declining your support of a political candidate would do more to limit your fan base than actively supporting another candidate through music or staying neutral.

Politics

2008-09-04T11:03:00.002-06:00

It seems to me, lately, that almost everyone's opinions have been preformed. Any news article or comment on a news article about the upcoming presidential elections doesn't even try to pretend that it's not slanted toward one candidate or the other. And that would include my verbal comments. Most people who attack Joe Biden as a VP choice, or feel like Obama isn't being straight-forward enough, have already made up their minds to vote for McCain, and most people who attack Palin as a VP choice or who try to link McCain with the unpopular Bush, decided 4 years ago that they were voting democratic in this election. I try to be as objective as I can when I talk about politics, but I know that my opinions exist and they keep me from being able to look at all information with no prejudice. So, to be clear: at this point I intend to vote for McCain. And to be fair, this is the first time since I've been able to vote that I haven't felt like I was voting against someone. I have never been a big Bush fan, and I was sad back in 2000 when Bush beat out McCain in the primaries. I don't agree with McCain on every issue and I don't think that he's some sort of perfect person who will finally fix everything that's wrong in the world, but I don't really expect anyone to do that. He really does seem to me to be the kind of man who doesn't walk the party line and is willing to find places of compromise, on some issues, with people who are also working for the country's best interests. I feel like both candidates seem to be concerned about doing the right thing and helping people, but I wish that Obama would be more forth-coming about what he stands for and what he believes. Someday soon, when I get a chance, I want to read through his Blueprint for Change and think on what he means. Whoever wins, I hope that they are genuinely concerned about all of the people in this country and that whatever changes they bring about are for better.

Lost Again

2008-08-24T14:06:00.002-06:00

SPOILERS!

At the End of Season Four:

Death toll (passengers of Oceanic Flight 815): Pilot (Seth Norris), Marshall Edward Mars, Riptide girl (Joana), Boone, Scott (or was it Steve?), Mr. Artz, Shannon, Donald (in flashback), Nathan (in flashback), Ana Lucia, Libby, Eko, Nikki, Paulo, Charlie, 3 redshirts at the barracks (Doug, Jerome, and one other), Michael
Other Islanders: Ethan Rom, 2 Others on "Tail" beach, Goodwin Masquerading Other with "Tail" group, Inman (flashback), Other running near river, Colleen, Danny, Miss Klugh, 7 Others trying to abduct women, Tom (Mr. Friendly), Bonnie and Greta, Mikhail, Naomi, Rosseau, Karl, Alex, everyone from the freighter (Keamy, Captain Gault, Minkowski, Dr. Ray, Hendricks, Omar, and 7 others)

Total Survivors of Flight 815: 48 "wing section," 1 nose section, 19 tail section, Deaths: 13 Wing, 1 Nose, 5 Tail; the remaining tail sections survivors (13 of them) should all be alive and with the Others at the Temple
Current Survivors at moment of Island disappearance: 35 known survivors. 1 Off-Island (Walt), 5 on helicopter (as well as Aaron, Desmond and Frank), 4 on the freighter (Jin and 3 others who might have survived), 5 (or 6?) with Daniel Faraday in the raft, 1 in inexplicable circumstances (Claire), Locke is in the Orchid, Sawyer is on the beach with Rose and Bernard, and 7 'redshirts' most of whom I assume to be on the beach, even though one woman should still be at the barracks. Juliette, Charlotte and Miles are among the castaways.

I love this show.

LOST Ruminations

2008-05-04T06:28:00.003-06:00

*Spoiler Warning: for anyone who is not caught up on the show, you may not want to read the below, as some emotional moments are a little bit betrayed*

I love LOST. Can't get enough of it. What really struck me the other week was the succinct killing of 3 unnamed extras in one fell swoop. I thought there were more extras with Locke's group, but i was wrong. All the extras died. So, I wanted to take a look at all the deaths and the current state of the Oceanic Survivors. Saying that only 8 survived the crash might not be so far off...

Running death toll (passengers of Oceanic Flight 815): Pilot (Seth Norris), Marshall Edward Mars, Riptide girl (Joana), Boone, Scott (or was it Steve?), Mr. Artz, Shannon, Donald (in flashback), Nathan (in flashback), Ana Lucia, Libby, Eko, Nikki, Paulo, Charlie, 3 redshirts that went with Locke
Other Islanders: Ethan Rom, 2 Others on "Tail" beach, Goodwin Masquerading Other with "Tail" group, Inman (flashback), Other running near river, Colleen, Danny, Miss Klugh, 7 Others trying to abduct women, Tom (Mr. Friendly), Bonnie and Greta, Mikhail, Naomi, Rosseau, Karl, Alex

(5/2/08) Total Survivors of Flight 815: 48 "wing section," 1 nose section, 19 tail section, Deaths: 13 Wing, 1 Nose, 5 Tail; the remaining tail sections survivors (13 of them) should all be alive and with the Others at the Temple
Current Survivors: 35 known survivors. 1 Off-Island. 2 on the freighter. 1 missing (Claire), Locke and Hurley are looking for Jacob, Sawyer is in the jungle with Miles, Jack, Kate, Sun, Jin, Rose, Bernard, and 22 'redshirts' most of whom I assume to be on the beach.

I tend to waste too much time thinking about these things...

Me

2008-04-19T14:24:00.002-06:00

I feel like I've lost me a little bit.

I've been so busy over the last year with getting married and job changes and buying a house that when I stopped and had some free time today, I didn't know what to do with it. And I mean real free time: all of the major projects around the house have been completed. All the files have been organized, I've come to a level of satisfaction with finding a place for a lot of things. All the little weekly projects are mostly caught up, too: the yard has been mowed, the dishes are done, the laundry is clean and folded and put away and I had endless possibilities for what I could do today. But there's not really anything I want to do today. I don't want to sleep (i feel like I've slept too much). I don't want to read. I just feel gross.

It feels like it's been so long since I actually had time to do what I wanted to do. I usually fill my "me" time by relaxing with a book or tv show/movie or by accomplishing some tasks that need to happen. Having actually accomplished all the tasks I can think of ... it worries me that I was having a lot of fun when I was at work this morning, but that I felt dimmed after I got home and did one or two things I wanted to do.

It's like I don't have opinions anymore. I know what movies I would like to see, but that's about it. I don't know what i want to eat (or where). When did this happen? Have I become some sort of drone? Is it possible that I've made such a big deal out of agreeing with people or trying to be likable that I don't have a personality anymore? Am I just thinking too much while the sky is kinda cloudy? Maybe.

No answers. Oh well.

April Showers

2008-04-03T09:29:00.002-06:00

I now understand that the stupid little "april showers" rhyme from childhood was supposed to be a reminder that the rain won't last forever. I am so sick of cold and rain. I miss Florida. I really enjoyed having a fall this year... but I sorta wish it would have gone straight into spring, like it used to when i was growing up. Stupid temperate climes....

2008-03-17T14:14:00.002-06:00

"I think it's all stuff and nonsense to say that there can be love without passion; when people say love can endure after passion is dead they're talking of something else, affection, kindliness, community of taste and interest, and habit. Especially habit. Two people can go on having sexual intercourse from habit in just the same way as they grow hungry at the hour they're accustomed to have their meals. Of course there can be desire without love. Desire isn't passion. Desire is the natural consequence of the sexual instinct and it isn't of any more importance than any other function of the human animal. That's why women are foolish to make a song and dance if their husbands have an occasional flutter when the time and place are propitious."
"Does that apply only to men?"
I smiled.
"If you insist I'll admit that what is sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose. The only thing to be said against it is that with a man a passing connection of that sort has no emotional significance, while with a woman it has."
"It depends on the woman."
I wasn't going to let myself be interrupted.
"Unless love is passion, it's not love, but something else; and passion thrives not on satisfaction, but on impediment. What d'you suppose Keats meant when he told the lover on his Grecian urn not to grieve? 'Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!' Why? Because she was unattainable, and however madly the lover pursued she still eluded him. For they were both imprisoned in the marble of what i suspect was an indifferent work of art. Your love for Larry and his for you were as simple and natural as the love of Paolo and Francesca or Romeo and Juliet. Fortunately for you it didn't come to a bad end. You made a rich marriage and Larry roamed the world to find out what song the Sirens sang. Passion didn't enter into it."
"How d'you know?"
"Passion doesn't count the cost. Pascal said that the heart has its reasons that reason takes no account of. If he meant what i think, he meant that when passion seizes the heart it invents reasons that seem not only plausible but conclusive to prove that the world is well lost for love. It convinces you that honor is well sacrificed and that shame is a cheap price to pay. Passion is destructive. It destroyed Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde, Parnell and Kitty O'Shea. And if it doesn't destroy, it dies. It may be than that one is faced with the desolation of knowing that one has wasted the years of one's life, that one's brought disgrace upon oneself, endured the frightful pang of jealousy, swallowed every bitter mortification, that one's expended all one's tenderness, poured out all the riches of one's soul on a poor drab, a fool, a peg on which one hung one's dreams who wasn't worth a stick of chewing gum."

-"The Razor's Edge" W. Somerset Maugham

This book is quickly becoming the best I've ever read. And it's not because the above quote is the theme of the book, but because it's a novel that likes to ask a lot of difficult questions and presents the unattractive side to likable characters. As in, the author genuinely feels that all the characters are likable, but is not afraid to show the other side of things and refuses to let us believe that any of them are saints. But we still like them! Any way, I just wanted to talk to people about this quote because I think it's a topic worthy of discussion.
So, what is the relationship between passion and love?

Confessions of a Late-Night Cover-Stealer

2008-02-11T08:40:00.000-06:00

I am a cover stealer. I steal the covers in the middle of the night, right after you've made yourself perfectly comfortable and planned against whatever temperature drops might be expected. And I'm good at it, too. My best technique is stealing only the sheet, while the blankets on top remain unmoved, so that if you wake up and feel cold and look around you'll think all the covers are in place, while I am wrapped up in the entire sheet. I've also perfected stealing the middle cover. This one's a little more difficult and has taken some time to learn. I'll steal both the sheet and the blanket under the comforter and then when you wake and demand back the covers, I'll only hand back the sheet, leaving an extra layer of covers over my greedy body.

And the best part is that if you were to decry me a thief, I can always respond that I was asleep, apologize profusely, and use my sleepy puppy-dog eyes. There are few crafts that can be perfected while one is completely unconscious, but I have mastered this illustrious art. So sleep. Close your eyes and relax. No amount of pre-planning will keep safe your covers. No my-side/your-side technique will stay me. Nay, I will not stop short of victory: the covers, all of them, will be mine! I AM UNSTOPPABLE!

...oh, come on baby, you don't really want me to sleep on the couch, do you?

Accomplishment

2008-01-28T12:25:00.000-06:00

My dear, sweet wife likes to make fun of the fact that I really get a buzz off of getting thing done. And of course, she's right. Just today, I was excited to get up while she was still sleeping and make a quick little home depot run so I could replace the air filter on our home, hang some candle holders on the wall (I think they're called SCONCES), and cut some branches off of the white pine in the backyard. (Shout-out to friends and family members who gave us gift cards at showers and as wedding gifts. HO-LLA) It's so nice to have a day or two off from work and have a chance to get some tasks done around the house.

So, on that note, I happened upon a blog of someone I don't know who made a list of achievements in 2007 and my mouth watered. So, here's my attempt:

ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF 2007:

Met, Dated, Proposed to and Married my wife.
Bought a House.
Bought a Dog.
Got a promotion at work.
Made B's or higher in all my classes.
Bought and learned how to smoke a pipe.
Bought and set up a Christmas Tree.
Attended my first minor league baseball game.
Became part of a church after my last church disbanded
Learned Hebrew.
Ate Pizza.
Moved a Piano twice with no apparent damage.
Got a Kentucky Driver's License.

...that's all I can think of.

Jack

2008-01-22T09:30:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I want to strangle the life out of him: for instance, this morning when he opened the gate from the backyard and ran off, wouldn't come when I called him, and then ran away from me. Of course now he's all cute and cuddly on the couch and it's harder to stay mad.

Stupid dog.

2008!

2008-01-04T08:50:00.000-06:00

So, it's that time of year again when everyone has a hard time writing in the correct year when they write the date. Last January, I made a prediction of the things that would take place in 2007 (see link above). I was grossly incorrect.

1. I did not go to Atlanta, and planned not to once I got to know Rebecca well...

2. I am MORE involved in my community, but I'd still like to be more involved.

3. I lived with the Huesteds for 6 months. So I was half-right

4. I also gained internet when I moved in with my new roommate, Rebecca

5. The translation degree is a shadow of a memory now.

6. Most of my friends came to see me in 2007!

7. I still love people in faraway places, but i most definitely love more the one that lives in my home.

8. Lost: still addicted. Class: Gradually faded out. Lattes: still making 'em

9. Debt: I married into more of it :) ...and then we bought a house!

10. 2007 was my new best year. And I think 2008 is going to have to show some real gumption to be able to compete. 2003 was memorable in quantity and 2006 was good, but 2007 was the year of Rebecca. And that's hard to beat.

I'll make some 2008 predictions later...if I can think of any.

-Æ

2007- A year in review

2007-12-29T19:42:00.000-06:00

So, here's a tribute to 2007 as experienced by Adam:

For half of 2007, I lived with Matt Huested and his family. They were gracious enough to open up their home to me for a cheap rent and live among them. I had been living in a rough roommate situation and moving in with them was a very happy alternative. It was nice to be able to occasionally sit down and eat meals with the family. Matt was also nice enough to let me learn how to smoke my pipe with him, as we sat on his back porch or huddled in his attic playing chess.

For the first 4 months, I was part of a house-church that met in the Huested home, continuing from 2006. At that time, we decided all together that the time for our church had come to a close and that we should pursue our worship and reaching out into our communities through other churches. The house church was a great support for me as I came to Louisville and played a large role in helping me deal with cynicism in my heart against the United States in general still carried over from the years while I was living in Nicaragua. It's crazy the stuff we continue to cling to.

2007 has also been a year of Starbucks. I don't know what to say about that except that it is nice to have a job and one that has so many co-workers with whom I enjoy working. And the free coffee is nice, too.

2007 was my first full year of being a seminary student... and seems to be also the last. It's really funny the way we make plans and work on steps toward reaching our goals, only to find that the steps we were taking were the right steps, but to an entirely different goal.

To speak directly, I did not come to Louisville to meet my wife. I knew I could only meet my wife wherever I was looking, but I never really figured on Louisville. So, January 15 of this year, I met her in the coffee shop co-owned by my landlord. I had her at "nice Mac." We started getting to know each other over the next few months and on April 20, I asked her to marry me. She said yes before she vomited. On August 18, 2007, I married my amazing wife in her parents' backyard in the garden. Two months later we bought our quirky little blue house, moved in the piano that I wanted to give her as a gift and acquired two dogs (one of which was hers before and one of which we picked out together). We spent our first Christmas together in our quirky little blue house with our own little Christmas tree.

Because of weddings and such, I got to see a lot of my friends this year that I did not expect to. I am very happy for that.

This has been a year of changing plans. I think if 2007 were to have a moral for me, it would be that life is never what you expect it to be, but that things never seem to be as bad as they could be.

Thank you, 2007. You've been a good 'un.

Offensive at Christmas

2007-12-26T17:38:00.000-06:00

I feel like I offend everybody at Christmastime. On one hand, I'm a Christian and so i feel like people who are not immediately are offended by my being a Christian at Christmas, as if I came up with a holiday and deliberately chose not to include them in on it. It seems a more prominent time of year for me to feel like people think that all Christians are the same. As if all anything are the same. On the other hand, I feel that in Christian circles, I don't give ENOUGH importance to Christ's birth in late december. I generally try to celebrate his resurrection year round and don't feel the need to place great importance every year on the birth of Jesus just because it's Christmastime.

For me, the "reason for the season" is family. The reason that we have a chance to get together at this time of year is because of the traditional celebration of Christmas, which is a Catholic response to paegan religions for winter solstice, but I don't really care why this particular time of year is the time of year that we get together. Every year I have been alive, we have gotten together with family this time of year and I have always enjoyed that. It has become more important as I live farther and farther from home. I only saw my parents 7 times in 2007, so seeing them at Christmas was really fantastic.

The Christmas season is the time of year when i can remember that while "you can never go home again," there are a lot of things that stay the same at home and with the people I love.

So, while I wish year-round that you would know who Jesus is, when I wish you a Merry Christmas, please know that I wish you happiness with your family. Merry Christmas.

-Æ

Warmth

2007-11-27T11:08:00.000-06:00

Heat is something I too often take for granted, but life has a little way of reminding me of those little things that make a huge difference when taken away. I have good reason to consider heat something that is readily available, though, having been raised mostly in sunny florida where it gets below freezing maybe 2-3 nights per year and then having spent two years in nicaragua where "below freezing" isn't part of their language. I know I lived in a house with bad heating last year...but I usually took a bathtub bath every morning...and their hot water heater worked pretty fine.

This year, as the temperature began to drop after we had been in the house for about 2 weeks, we realized that the thermostat was set to heat, but it wasn't doing anything. Like an idiot, I sat in this cold house for a week before contacting the home warranty people, and another week while I tried to figure out why no one had contacted me yet. Sunday night I finally came to my senses and bought a space heater. And she runs like a dream.

At any rate, the repairman is here right now. And we intend to have heat in this here house running all night long.

Yeah, buddy.

Grace

2007-10-25T17:00:00.000-06:00

I haven't had much spare time in the past few months as I've been busy buying a house and a dog and now moving into it. I'm also figuring out how to be a husband to my wife. It's not that this is such a strain or is so difficult (although, I am nowhere near the husband to her I wish i was), as it's just so new. It's a wonderful new way to live.

But not having a lot of free time lately, I've not been able to spit out some of the ideas that float through my mind and it's made me feel more and more claustrophobic, like the walls are closing in, and it's increased my stress level. (I should also mention here that I transfered to a different coffee house and got a promotion, so there's a little added stress from that in my life as well.)

The thought that's been most prevelent in my mind lately, however, is the idea of grace and how much, despite my confession to the contrary, I don't actually believe in it in a lived out sort of way. Let me clarify that statement first. A life-changing epitome for me years ago was when someone was describing eastern thought especially as relates to believing: in short, that if you don't live it out, you don't actually believe it. In the western world, or at least in my growing up, believing has more to do with what we mentally acknowledge to be true, whether or not we let such knowledge affect the way we live our lives. (Example: getting drunk all the time is bad for me; i know that, but I'm still going to get hammered this weekend. One who would confess such doesn't ACTUALLY believe that getting drunk is bad, or he would stop doing it.)

So, part of my confession as one who follows Christ is that I believe that everyone has messed up and is therefore unworthy to live before a perfect God, but that God, in his love shows grace to us by offering Jesus as a sacrifice that earns my forgiveness. My debt is paid, despite that fact that I have done nothing to deserve that payment. So, in my unbelief, I accept the gift of grace that I cannot earn and then I turn around and try to be good enough to deserve it. Because I continue to function in this mistaken understanding of grace, I try to hide my faults (because if no one knows that I have problems, then maybe I'll be a little closer to good enough) or worse, I deny to myself that certain aspects of my life are good enough as they are. The problem is not that I'm striving to be good, it's that I'm trying to be good so that I can earn grace instead of pursuing goodness because grace has been shown to me.

Remember the opening chapter of Les Miserables? This is the best picture of grace (outside of the Bible) that I know. It sticks with me. Jean Valjean is trying to find a place to spend the night, but because his papers show that he's a former prisoner, no one will put him up for the night. So, the Bishop in town (and his sister) take him in (despite the sister's urging), and give him food and a place to stay. Jean, in turn, sneaks out in the middle of the night having stolen their silverware. Local police find him and bring him back so that the Bishop can accuse him, but the Bishop surprises both the police and Jean by saying that Jean did not steal the silverware, but that they were gifts, but he then asks Jean why he didn't also take the candlesticks that were offered to him as well. The police leave and the Bishop tells Jean to use the silver to make a good life for himself. The next day on the road, Jean falls into his old ways and beats up a kid and steals his money, only to stop and realize what he's done. He vows then and there to accept the Bishop's kindness and to use the silver to live a good life. In fact, he keeps one of the candlesticks as a reminder of the grace that has enabled him to live the good life he wants to live.

And that's what I mean. I don't need to live a good life to earn the candlesticks. I want to live a good life because the way to do so has been given to me even though I would never deserve it.

T-minus

2007-08-02T15:22:00.000-06:00

I'm getting married. The ceremony will start exactly 16 days from when i started typing this. And even though it's supposed to scare me, it doesn't. I'm very excited about it. There are moments when i cannot grasp the immensity of the decision I have made/ am making, and there are even moments when i stop and question whether or not this is right. But it is. Not because I want it to be, because my getting married to Rebecca is the most natural thing I have ever done. It won't all be easy and it won't all be fun. In fact, there are going to be moments that are downright hard and frustrating. Sometimes I'm going to have to do what is in our or her best interest that I don't want to do or that may even be painful to me (in some manner). The truth is, I will probably get "my way" no-questions-asked a very small minority of the time. But THIS...she and I together...is so worth anything that I might have to sacrifice.

In sixteen days.

Thanks for reading.

-Æ

Not About Sodas

2007-06-05T06:42:00.000-06:00

I was going to write this blog about how I'm giving up soda. Now, I'm not giving up all sodas. And I don't mean to say that no soda (of the ones I am giving up) will ever cross my lips ever, ever again. So, for an indefinite amount of time I will be drastically cutting back on sodas. I don't count root beer or other, say, Stewart's Sodas among the ones I am giving up, but Coke and Pepsi products are out. I am willing to concede the occasional Coke over ice, but when I do so, I want it to be intentional, and not because I'm at taco bell and it's either soda or water.

The reason I decided to not quite so completely empty myself of soda culminated saturday night at work. I had a pepsi left over from a few days ago and decided to drink it instead of buying a new drink for my dinner. My body told me not to drink it and it didn't taste very good. I'm getting enough caffeine in my system from the coffee at work. And there is nothing in a soda that my body needs. It's an entertainment drink, and as such, it is tastier when it is only partaken from time to time.

And maybe I just decided all this because of all the philosophy books I had to read last week for the Philosophy class I'm sitting in right now. I should've taken an intro to philosphy in undergrad. I would've really enjoyed it. It just didn't appeal to me at the time for some reason. It's interesting to go through all the major schools of thought and ways to see the world. Looking through all of them expanded my brain for a few days...but now I just have a headache....which may be more the result of lack of caffeine than any kind of epiphany.

So. I was going to write about all that, because that was the light-hearted thought on my mind for the past couple of days. However, my heart is heavy with other things. Things that are probably too heavy to put in a blog. Maybe I'm just in a funk.

Sunshine State

2007-05-21T09:04:00.000-06:00

Saturday, May 12, I woke up early, finished writing and turned in my final paper and the semester was over. Relief overwhelmed me. I have had so much on my plate for the past month and I have enjoyed it all, but i am glad to lighten my load a little. So, here I sit a little more than a week later at the only wifi place I am aware of in Pensacola (Panera Bread) next to the woman who will be my wife in 89 days and just enjoying a rest. Sure, we're thinking about and talking about wedding plans and all the work that goes into that, but it is really nice to have an actual vacation.

Which, like most things, brings me back to scripture. Of the 10 commandments, I think that Christians have the hardest time with the fourth which is to keep the sabbath or seventh day as a holy day and to do no work in it. Of all the commandments, it has the least logical basis. Worship only God Almighty who has delivered the Israelites from Egypt? Sure, that makes sense. Don't steal or murder or even covet? Those make sense from a moral point of view. Honor your parents? Sometimes we can balk at that, but they have lived longer than we have and probably have a good idea about how to better our lives. So, there's logic there, too. But don't work on the seventh day? The scripture says to do so because God created in 6 days, but on the seventh He rested, but that seems like odd logic.

I like the idea that it has to do with our natural cycles as humans. We need a day to rest from our work to remain healthy, the same way we need 7-8 hours of sleep. We can go with less rest than we should have, but we're going to feel the consequences. And maybe it's more than just a physical stress that is relieved. Maybe our souls need to rest from our toil so that we can remember on a regular basis that we are more than the works of our hands. Is that something so important that if God had 10 things He wanted to tell us about how we should live our lives that He would include the command to rest in that number? Apparently.

And so, for a little week, I will be enjoying a time of rest. With my fiancee. At my parents house in Pensacola. The place that will always be home, but is in the process of losing some of the meaning of that word. In other words, it is really nice to bring my new home to see my old home.

Rest well.

10 years

2007-04-09T17:44:00.000-06:00

A few hours ago someone said to me, "I don't know where I see myself in 10 years...," and it got me thinking about what I see for myself in ten year and that's such a crazy thought. The truth is that I do have some naive ideas of where i hope to be in ten years and what I expect for the time in between. But these ideas are more based upon hopes and personal desires than reality and I can't really bring myself to write them down. 10 years ago I was 16 years old, a sophomore in high school. I couldn't have dreamed of what has happened in the in between since that time. Obviously, on some level, I have experienced things like living overseas and some life changing events that maybe don't fit in with the norm, but I also did things like meet college friends, fall in love, have my heart broken, break others' hearts. All of these things, even some less significant have brought me to here in a way that I couldn't have forseen. Even five years ago, I was 21, finishing out my junior year of college. I had a much clearer guess as to what was to come. 21 year old me would've been much less surprised by where I have found myself. Maybe 10 years down the road is a good place to set goals for, but I'm not sure it's even fair to speak of "where I see myself in ten years." It's just too far away.

Right now I would say that I'm the cusp of change in my life and that things have the ability to take a certain course that will make a large difference in my future. Even though some life choices may, in fact, have farther reaching impacts than others, I'm always on the cusp of change, really. Hmm...that sounds awfully 'today is the first day of the rest of your life.'

Five years from now, I see myself living overseas; continuing to learn new things; maturing, but also continuing to keep a little bit of a childish nature; keeping in touch with some old friends, and having lost contact with others, sadly; meeting new people; trying to make a difference; still dealing with my vices and growing in my strengths; loving life, even on the hard days.

what about you?

A Tender Tennessee Waltz

2007-04-01T18:00:00.000-06:00

Friday, I slept in a little because I had stayed up a little too late the night before. When i finally got up, I packed a bag and had some blueberry pancakes that Aleasha made (the mom of the family I live with), took a little bath (just a reminder...we don't have showers at my house), and I was all but ready to go when I realized I had forgotten to make a road trip mix cd. I was in the process of doing that when Rebecca came in (without knocking). We ended up leaving a little late around 11:15 and took a bypass road because I-65 south was REALLY backed up the night before. Around 12:30 we got to Becca's Aunt Katie's house and I got to meet some of Becca's extended family. Afterwards we headed to the Trappist Abbey at Gethsemani not too far from Bardstown and really enjoyed the quiet atmosphere. It was very much a weekend of nature. I bought some cheese that I ended up leaving in Tennessee. We'll get to that part later.

We left the Monastery just in time to be EXACTLY 30 minutes late to see Ben (roommate from college), Bethany (his wife) and Violet (their adopted taiwanese little girl). They are moving soon, so it was good to see them, introduce Rebecca, share sushi and talk with Ben. We left late from there too (this might be a personality trait of mine) and got to my Aunt's house at 9:30. My sister got there around 9 and everyone was happy to meet Rebecca. I am my grandmother's favorite grandchild (as everyone knows and likes to remind me), so she was in a good mood. She's in middle-stage Alzeimer's, but she had a pretty lucid weekend, besides thinking I was my dad a few times. Rebecca survived and enjoyed meeting people who are a part of my life, even though she and I both were a little tired from the drive (and Gethsemani hike).

This morning (sunday) we got up early and got off late after my grandmother gave me a book that she thought I could use at seminary which I was hoping I could coveniently forget to take with me. I do appreciate her well-meaning, though and I love her and I was glad that she has been in a good mood. I know it's hard for my aunt to take care of her. On the way home, Bec and I listened to a MIX TAPE that I made for her last week with a few significant songs and said disgustingly cute things to each other in the privacy of the truck (Angie). We stopped on the way back in Bernheim Forest (also near Bardstown) and just enjoyed the beauty of nature...well...I guess I did, I was mostly just enjoying her company, although it was nice to her enjoy her company in such a beautiful location.

Upon arriving home, we decided to meet up at the coffee house, from whence I'm writing this blog. After a weekend with each other, non-stop, we still want to hang out with each other. Things are good. It's spring. I'm no longer mustachioed. I'm in love.

EDIT:

I bought some delicious looking mild tappist cheese and left it in the fridge when I left my aunt's house. That makes me sad. Also, After I wrote this update, Bec and I went to the house where I lived and watched BEFORE SUNRISE. A perfect ending to a perfect weekend.

In like a lion...

2007-03-08T15:49:00.000-06:00

So, it's march. My birthday has passed and now I have 26 years under my belt. Nothing really new here. Except for Rebecca. It's awkward to write about somebody in a public forum that I know she will read. But here goes. I met Rebecca in January and we started hanging out a lot and now things are serious. The last time I had a technical girlfriend was spring of 2002. Wow. So, things are exciting. My mind and emotions are spent from thinking about and feeling so many thoughts and emotions. And with her and class and normal life, I don't have much time to update. So, for that I apologize. This is what you get.

a Poem

2007-02-17T17:37:00.000-06:00

I wrote a poem on February 12:

little red hands
chapped from windswept winter
guide ink along the page
as muse's thoughts unsplinter

little cold eyes
mask depth and love outpouring
stare down the forming void
and force the soul's undoing

little broken semblance
of what was once a heart
bleeds red and gives its life
as words are turned to art

2007!

2007-01-19T12:23:00.000-06:00

We are a solid two-thirds of the way through the first month of 2007, but I thought I would answer the question I have been asking everyone else.

It's 2007, a new year. What do you think 2007 holds in store?

The answers give a lot away about people. Some people want to talk about politics and the war, some talk about personal events, some talk about emotional occurrences. Feel free to let me know what you think 2007 holds in store via comment or blog.

For me: I hope to intern in Atlanta this summer with my good friend Derik. I hope to be more involved in my community here in Louisville. This will be a year of living with the Huested family, which I am already enjoying immensely. It will be a year with no internet at home, so that i will have to find other ways to entertain myself and I will be forced to leave the house more. I am looking into this translation degree that I mentioned before and I hope that I have opportunity to work on that. I don't foresee being able to visit as many friends as I was able to see in 2006. I intend to live more where I am, even though I love people in other faraway places. I foresee LOST continuing to be a source of discussion and addiciton. It will be a year of a large focus on school and classes and another of making lattes. I hope it's a year of paying off debt. I have always felt that every new year is the best year. I always love where I'm living (well...after some middle school problems...everything looks better in comparison to middle school...which really wasn't as bad as I thought it was). So, I do foresee 2007 being a new best year (although I think 2003 and 2006 get awards for memorability).

A Short Update

2007-01-12T10:19:00.000-06:00

Just under two weeks into the new year, I feel settled in and ready to get going. I moved in with an elder in my church and his family (three daughters ages 10, 9, and 7). I have much more personal space than I had last semester and as far as I can tell, it seems to be a good match. I bought a bookcase the other day from a thrift store and finally got settled in, books in place, clothes in the closet and towels in the bathroom.

It was good to go home, but it's nice to be back in Louisville and to get into the swing of things here. It's nice to live somewhere that actually experiences winter, although I'm told this is a mild one. The house has limited heating, but I'm getting used to bundling up. All these new wardrobe concepts are going to take some getting used to.

Classes will start at the end of the month and financial worries aside, I'm excited. I'm hoping to change degrees to a translation degree which I hope would focus more on linguistics. This would truly be the best of both worlds in terms of a job that I think would suit me.

My sister has a cochlear implant and processor that she's getting used to. I'm very excited about the possibilities for her being able to hear things and perhaps hear speech better.

This is a good time.

2006

2007-01-12T09:17:00.000-06:00

It's a new year, and I've been unable to post for about a month, but before I get into well-wishing and dreams for the new year, I think last year deserves a nod. Emotionally, I spent most of the year dealing with the culture shock of returning to the U.S. and living with my parents. It was a period of wheel-spinning on my part, but a time in which I learned a lot about myself and matured in many ways. I was able to visit with many friends from happy times of yore. To steal a layout from a friend:

In January, I rang in the new year with friends in Tallahassee and began working maintenance at my church.
In February, I made the mistake of being attracted to "easy money" which ended up being a job as a vacuum salesman. I didn't actually make it past the orientation. I suppose I can appreciate the experience?
In March, I reached a quarter century of time spent on Earth, quite content with how it has been lived so far, but excited to see what lies ahead. I also got to visit Tallahassee again and was quite famously stood up.
In April, I visited a friend in Atlanta and a broken-down car allowed me to extend my visit.
In May, I journeyed to Virginia to try to put some closure on my overseas term with "debrief" where I ran back into Grace and met some new friends. I also took a trip to Kentucky with my friend Matt, breaking down in Palaski, TN along the way, to preview the Seminary.
In June, my junior prom date and my college roommate were wed and allowed me to be a part of the ceremony.
In July, I took one last trip with Mike to Atlanta
In August, I packed my bags and left for Kentucky with the hope that I would be accepted to the Seminary, find a place to live, a job and a church, all of which came together within the first few days of arriving.
In September, I started making lattes and frappuchinos and began getting serious about researching family history
In October, growing the fro and beard out, I was able to be Bob Ross for Halloween.
In November, I finished out my first semester of grad school much better than my first semester of college (no F's from sleeping in this time!)
In December, I was able to spend the whole month in Pensacola, enjoying the holidays and helping take care of the farm and my sister as she was recovering from her cochlear implant surgery.

The low points to the year come nowhere close to outweighing the highs. It really was an amazing year. Thank you, 2006. And thank you to everyone who helped make it possible.

Burqas

2006-11-17T17:22:00.000-06:00

Western Europe is in an uproar over muslims and terrorists and burqas (burkas). When your peaceful streets are attacked, we, as Americans have also learned, it is far too easy to sell freedoms for security. Does the government of the Netherlands have the right to ban burqas? Right? I suppose any government can forbid anything it wants. But is it right to forbid it? Right?

Our day and age would have us believe there are not moral absolutes. And if you believe that then I suppose you would agree that a burqa would not be a problem, unless we fear guerrilas and terrorists to dress in them to hide their weapons. It is too much, then, to provide female security officers to check woman who feel is it morally appropriate to wear garments that cover their bodies. It is inefficient, I will grant.

It is inefficient to provide liberties to everyone, to the minorities, especially in a time when it is much easier to travel to different countries and make a dwelling among different cultures. It is also possible that, were we dwelling among their culture, they would not offer us the same liberties. And that will be used as a justification as well. Far be it for us to do what is right since there are others who do not. Or since others would take advantage of our doing right. If we even believe in "right." Or because it is them and not us this time.

It is easy to condemn Christianity because those who confessed to it claimed it as a reason to conduct an Inquisition and drive out Jews and Moors from Spain. Or because they claimed it as a reason to war against Muslims and Jews for "the Holy Land" in a crusade. There are those today who would claim Christianity as a reason to hate jews or muslims or blacks or homosexuals, but can I please profess that hate and war and torture are not Christian values in a Biblical sense. Though Christ teaches that we must pursue moral righteousness, the highest end of that righteousness is love. Please let us not pursue another crusade of religious intolerance in the name of Christianity, or of any religious or secular reason.

Freedom. Is not easy.

Football Blog

2006-11-12T00:28:00.000-06:00

Wow. It was a week for upsets. And boy am I upset.

Louisville's undefeated streak was broken up, Arkansas beat Tennessee, Georgia upset Auburn, Florida squeeked past S. Carolina (i'm no gator fan, but I'd rather see Spurrier lose any day of the week; this wasn't techinically an upset, but it was so close, it's worth mentioning), Arizona upset California, and Kansas State beat Texas! Wow!

I'd also like to point out that there are 5 ranked ACC teams right now: Boston College and Virginia Tech one would expect to see in this group...but alongside Georgia Tech, Maryland and WAKE FOREST? Where did the Demon Deacons come from? When was the last time they had a winning season? Seriously though. Where did FSU and Miami go? If FSU doesn't show up to play against WESTERN MICHIGAN they're going to have a <50% season. 50% is hopeful at this point. It's amazing how fast a team can go from "dynasty" to "crap." I don't know enough about the problems to blame Jeff Bowden, but he seems like an easy scapegoat. I'm just ...shocked....

EDIT: I went back to look and see that Arkansas is actually higher ranked than the Vols, but I'm just so surprised to see the razorbacks doing so well that they deserve honorable mention here as well.

Win-win, if you will

2006-11-08T07:45:00.000-06:00

As per Crystal's suggestion to exchange ideas on abortion and a possible solution, i thought I would do more than merely complain about the inevitable shift farther and farther left unto some crazy dystopia a la Brave new World.

My stance, my actual belief:
1. I think a fetus is a life. [A lot of Christians would define a fetus as a life using Bibical scripture, and while I do think the scriptures they quote are inspired by God, I don't think these passages prove anything about the life in fetuses. The way the Bible inspires me to believe what I believe in this instance is God's command in the Old Testament telling the Israelites that murder is wrong. This, of course, depends on thinking of the fetus as a life, a conclusion to which I come more practically.] It cannot be a parasite, by definition, because a parasite is a foreign body. I suppose if the fetus is unwanted, it can feel like a parasite or an unwanted tumor, but if left alone, it will mature into a human being. Also, most humans will procreate on purpose. This means that what one woman may feel is a parasite, another woman longs for. If a woman, 8 months pregnant, who had a decorated room and tons of baby clothes, were to be shot in the stomach, we would mourn as if the shooter took two lives. The difference, then, seems to be the woman's preference, which cannot be a definition of life. Emotionally, I know too many heart-broken couples who cannot have children to think of abortion as acceptable. I've seen too many sonograms and felt too many kicks to compare a human fetus to a tapeworm. Granted, that's an emotional and not logical plea, but i think it's somewhat valid.

2. A woman has a right to a preference and a choice. The way abortion is treated right now is that it is hated by half the US population and heralded by the other half. This creates a lot of situations in women's clinics where a woman is pressured into either outright having an abortion before fully understanding all the ramifications, or she is pressured to not consider abortion as an option. I don't consider either one of these as protecting a woman's choice. I think that not providing or maybe requiring counseling before going through with an abortion is wrong, because as much as the woman may have the right, she also has the responsibility to know what it will mean and what her other alternatives are. Abortion is still a surgery and that always means risks. An abortion can result in the woman's losing the ability to have children in the future. There are plenty of other results. I personally believe that abortion should always be a last option after every alternative has been weighed, and perhaps not even then, and I'd like to think that most people would choose to selflessly give birth to the baby and keep it or give it away rather than abort it, but people don't do things because I think it's right.

3. The best way to discourage abortion in a society where it is an option is to decrease the stigma of pregnant teenagers and single mothers. This is a social answer to a social and moral dillema, but there's no way to enforce this. This way is not a quick solution, but this is the right solution. As long as parents make ultimatums like "I'll disown you," children will do whatever they can to hide from them. I think it is obvious that the best time and place to have kids is within a marriage or otherwise committed relationship, but i don't know why the alternative to "best" has to be so looked down upon. When my mom was growing up, the stigma kept most girls (or at least "more") from being sexually active as teenagers, but now we tell teenagers that they're supposed to have sex, just not have babies. Which makes no sense. All this to say, changing cultural stigmas is, at best, a difficult task.

4. Legally, I am a moderate on most issues and likewise on this one. I think that taking more permissive steps is the wrong direction. I think that taking more preventative steps is a pipe dream, unless the culture backs it up. At the risk of repeating myself, I don't know if there's any legislation that requires women desiring an abortion to go through any kind of counseling, but i do think that is important. And in more than a "don't teach me about politics and government, just tell me who to vote for" kind of way. I think that having a legal abortion is a right that comes with responsibility, and that is knowing the full ramifications of what you are having done.

Nicaragua Elections

2006-11-07T17:36:00.000-06:00

My first response is to be passionately outspoken against Mr. Ortega. I have seen the lies that have been told and unfulfilled by his party. I was not there in the eighties when he was in control of the country, alligned himself with the soviets and with a marxist socialism, but i have heard the stories. They celebrated their revolutionary victory by calling on the poor farmers in the cattle lands of the north to share and eat the cattle. And then there were no cattle. They discredited education, and placed as teachers anyone who would parrot the ideals of the party. They did try to educate the poor and country folk, but only in marxism.

Can people change? Of course I believe that. Has Daniel Ortega changed? I am sure he has changed in some ways...he is 16 years older than when he last was presidente. Has he mellowed out a little? Does he still hold to socialist ideals? Like many countries, and like his Venezuelan ally, I think he is mostly a proponent of any idealogy that is against the United States and their attempts to neo-colonize his country. Does he have a point? maybe so.

And that's where I find myself. If I had been born and raised in Nicaragua, I might want to believe the party lies, too. I might want to believe that Ortega is the best hope for Nicaragua. And I hope he is. I hope I'm wrong and that he reaches out to the poor without so offending the rich and the international community that he can continue to help the poor to put food on the table. With Fidel's rebellion against the U.S. fading to a fizzle, Chavez and now Ortega will continue to stand against the U.S. in this new era of capitalist colonialism. Are they any better? I doubt it. Will they challenge the way we view international politics? I hope so. Maybe we'll even have to act like equal partners in the international stage.

Oh, I don't know what I think anymore. God bless Nicaragua and have mercy on her whether her new leader be good or bad.

Active Euthanasia

2006-11-05T07:58:00.000-06:00

Found this article online.

"We can terminate for serious foetal abnormality up to term, but cannot kill a newborn," he told The Sunday Times. "What do people think has happened in the passage down the birth canal to make it OK to kill the foetus at one end of the birth canal but not the other?"

If we can justify killing a fetus, because it's not alive yet, because it hasn't been born yet and therefore isn't a citizen and so it doesn't have any rights, then why can't we justify killing a newborn? I mean, really, what's the difference? In fact, the whole first year of life a human is barely able to interact with the world around it. I mean, what's the difference between a fetus and a 6-month-old baby? And while we're talking about incoherancy, what about the elderly who suffer from Alzheimer's? It would be merciful to shorten the "years of emotional and financial suffering" for those who are unfairly given the burden of having to care for such people. And since they barely know what's going on.... I mean, what's the big difference between an elderly Alzheimer's patient and a fetus? What about prisoners? Anyone who can't obey the government is just going to have "years of emotional and financial suffering," and if we were a merciful people, we would put them out of their misery and make room for their time and space and assets to be used by other more worthy people. In fact, anyone who doesn't agree with the policies of the current administration shouldn't have to suffer under their leadership. It would be merciful to end their suffering. We should get to choose, after all, who lives and who doesn't.

Where will it end?

Freedom of Expression must include the right to offend

2006-11-01T13:43:00.000-06:00

There are a lot of news articles out right now about the Dixie Chicks documentary and the pseudo-documentary "Death of a President" which carries on as if Pres. Bush has been assassinated. The publicity all seems to say that most film houses refuse to show the films because the subject matter is offensive and is against the current administration. And then the film producers whine about their freedom of speech/expression.

I understand that this is a marketing ploy, but really: can we really, honestly believe that film houses don't have the right to not show whatever movie they don't think will make them money? The freedom of speech has a lot more to do with the fact that you cannot be arrested for believing or saying anything. You are legally allowed to want someone to be dead and to tell that to anyone you want. That's fine, as long as you don't try to bring that about in any way. It's related to freedom of the press: you have the right to print (or broadcast) anything, and with that right comes the social responsibility to make sure that the difference between opinion and fact are clearly stated in your press release. Are you legally forbidden to lie in the paper or in the news? Well...kinda. You can sue for libel and slander, but the government cannot silence you.

As for movies, you can make a movie about whatever you want. You can even produce whatever movie you want. In fact, you can own a movie house and show whatever movie you want. But the owners of theaters don't have as lofty ideals as most directors and are usually driven by income. And documentaries have primarily played in indy houses for decades. The recent exception of the Michael Moore and Penguin documentaries are not the norm. I don't really care about either of these two movies. At all. It makes no difference to me whether my local film house shows these movies or not.

*sigh*

Marketing makes me angry.

Dixie Chicks

2006-10-25T15:03:00.000-06:00

Today, while I was setting the VCR to tape LOST, I saw a few moments of Oprah while she was interviewing the Dixie Chicks. I've been out of the country for a while, and so everything I'd heard about the whole situation made me think that they were stupid for making the remark. By that I mean that a large portion of their audience has a different political view than the singers do, and there was no need to take advantage of their platform to speak to talk about something unrelated. Famous people are allowed to have opinions, but if they are not famous for those opinions, then they need to realize that voicing those opinions may decrease their fame. In my hometown, all the country radios did a poll among their listeners to see if they wanted to play songs from the new Dixie Chick album, and the local audience overwhelming voted that they did not. I felt like they audience members were entitled to their opinions. When i saw they had made a documentary about the whole thing, I immediately felt like it was a publicity stunt and a desire to try to make up for the large numbers of audience members they had lost.

But I'm glad that I saw them on Oprah today. One of them (the taller, slender one who kinda looks like Sarah Jessica Parker) said that the movie was not about people not buying their albums, because they have every right to do that. It had more to do with the organization behind boycotting, with the threats, the labeling of "communists" and "sluts." I also think those things were wrong. If you don't want to buy their album, that's okay. You want to tell your friends why you aren't going to buy their album? That's okay, too. You want to personally ruin their careers by encouraging a boycott? What the crap?!? You feel the need to give them emotionally-charged and inaccurate descriptions just because they don't agree with you? How do people get so mad about someone voicing their opinion? Who do we think we are?!? It works both ways, and plenty of anti-war people get angry when pro-war people voice their opinion, but what is up with the hatred? Why can't we just discuss it? Why does everything have to be so passionate?

And I wonder if losing a son makes some people hate the war, because it took their sons, and makes others embrace it, because if it wasn't a good war, he has died in vain. And I wonder if our opinions have more to do with how it affects our lives, personally than the philosophy behind war.

Even the staunchest of supporters are starting to wane, now. And I hope we don't look back on this Iraqi conflict as another Vietnam. I hope that when we pull out that it's for the right reasons.

God help us.

Impotence

2006-10-08T08:44:00.000-06:00

The frustration that comes when the situation in which you find yourself is out of your control. It doesn't matter how smart you are or strong you are or how good a person or how bad a person. It is nature or fate or God or something taking a swing at your personal pride. Very little can be more humbling or belittling. And it is not easy to take sitting down. Responses vary, but anger is a common one. You want to fight against that greater power that somehow singled you out from doing what you wanted to do. You want to curse God and damn fate. But these powers seem so out of reach that trying to injure them or seek revenge on them is so obviously hopeless that it is much easier to blame a person. Your spouse. Your parent. Your boss. Your child? Your government. Because it always feels safer to blame someone who is one layer beyond people you actually know. Or you can take an even safer approach. Blame someone else's government. All your neighbors will agree with you, so your anger and resentment will be approved by your friends and peers. The other government has little say where you live, so you can denounce them all you want and they can do little about it. In fact, you know you have so many friends in your own country that you can probably hide there if you attack the other government and run away back home. Then, if the other country responds at all, especially if they respond in a manner that was more extensive than the way you attacked them, your nieghbors will side with you to continue to attack them. For revenge's sake. So then hate will continue to breed hate. Because you only feel good when you feel like you have the power to affect that other country's emotions and policy. It makes you feel powerful. And safe. And not impotent. Even though that's really what you are. To some degree, we all are.

My Friend Jessica

2006-09-26T23:23:00.000-05:00

Last monday I ran into my friend Jessica. I had seen her twice before and was pretty sure it was her, but I was in the middle of something, and she looked busy and I was a little too shy to get up and go see when she didn't seem to be recognizing me. So, i finished what I was doing and went back to where I had seen her and she was leaving about that time. I called her name and she said, "Adam?" It was the best hug I've had in a while.

I met my friend Jessica while we were in Costa Rica at the language school. I cannot say enough good things about my fellow students from that time. In fact, that year (2003) may have been one of the best years of my life. I met and became closely connected with people during my orientation that summer before I went overseas and then I met and became close with the people at language school in the fall. (I won't go into why the spring was so good, because she's married now.) I have lost contact with my friends from language school because i lost all their emails when my comp got stolen. So, this was a huge blessing. I knew Jessica was from Louisville, but I didn't think I'd ever see her at the Seminary. How random.

We went out to lunch today (lunch? i guess so..around 2:30) at a cuban restaurant and we caught up. No one else that I know can understand how happy I am about running into her. I cannot explain the connection of having shared living overseas with her and all the others. I like to think that I am quick to love people, but it is always hard when you are new to town and don't love anybody yet. I have a few friends from before that I love and a few that I am getting to know that I love, but too often I just feel alone. It's nice to have friends.

P.S. I think I'm going to go see that Braff movie tomorrow. Thoughts?

P.S.2 is better than gamecube. Just kidding.

Another friend named Jessica had her first baby today. How exciting. I am happy for them and I pray that all goes well and that they stay in health.

"It is not good for Adam to be alone..."

2006-09-24T22:47:00.000-05:00

Loneliness is one of the worst stages of life. I felt lonely most of the time I was in Nicaragua. And this weekend was a reminder of just how horrid that was. Friday and Saturday I saw very few people outside of work. I can only remember seeing my roommate and just a few acquaintances as I sat alone eating lunch on friday. I try to blame the rain, but the truth is that I chose to stay in my apartment instead of looking for a nice, warm coffee house to cuddle into. And it would be nice if I could blame it on the fact that I was doing school work. I had plenty to do, but I kept putting it off. I'm really nervous about this next paper. It's just a book review...and it's only 10% of the final grade, but I really am unsure what the grader (not the prof) is expecting. *sigh* Expectations. But I digress. I have friends in town and I have tried to hang out with them, but it seems that they are like every other American and don't have time to slow down more than once or twice a week. Maybe I should just go drive over to U of L campus and look for anybody having fun.

I'm reminded of that great 60's hit: "Another Saturday Night." It's hard on a fella when he don't know his way around. If I don't find me a honey to help me spend my money, I'm gonna have to blow this town. It's not really the honies that I'm after, but I do need to find some friends. It isn't good for man to be alone. It's the first thing God says about man besides that "it was very good." I find that to be an important truth. We don't do well on our own. We need to interact with other human beings. That's all I've got.

John Ritter

2006-09-20T11:43:00.000-05:00

John Ritter is dead? I ask myself. I speak the words aloud in shock as if he were a close friend. I feel betrayed by the world for taking someone like that away from me and not telling me about it. Then I look at the date: 2003. Oh. I was gone. It happened during that time when I had left the world to fend for itself while I went to live abroad for 2 1/2 years. I can't believe I've been back 10 months now and there are still things that surprise me. I expect for people to have in-jokes that started during that time. I did too. I expect for people to refer to commercials that aired during that time.

When i was at debrief in may, two guys who had been living in Africa went to youtube (the first I had ever heard of it) to watch the big basketball brawl that happened while we were gone. A lot happened while we were gone. And the worst is things that are now gone for good. Relationships that were passionate when I left are non-existent. My Grandpa passed away...and his wife behaved in such a way afterward that she's kind of on outs with the rest of the family. I can't believe he's gone. My friend Ashley Jones sings "Everything is different now...and it's okay." I guess it's okay, but it doesn't always feel like it is.

I have joy in the everyday, don't get me wrong. It just always comes as a shock to realize that something you thought you had was taken from you years ago.

I didn't know you were gone, John. Rest in peace.

I'm the King of the World!

2006-09-14T12:41:00.000-05:00

My body lies to me. I'm leaving my first exam today and my body says "oh, I'm soo hungry...you would be able to write that paper a lot better on a full stomach." So, I agree and we come to the terms that we will 1) eat and then 2) write the paper. As soon as I'm done eating, walking to the place where I plan to write, body says..."oh...I'm so tired...you would be able to write that paper a lot better if you took a little nap." Tricksy, body...but I ain't falling for it again (instead I'm going to waste time by blogging).

All that to say: Yesterday was a great day. I took apart my iBook and put it back together with a new LCD screen that I bought off of eBay spending a total of less than $230 for what Macintosh would've charged $1000 parts and labor. My power cord that I've been without for 5 weeks (borrowed one from a very generous man for about 3 weeks) finally came in the mail. So, I started her back up and BAM. Working Computer. Anyone want to buy an iBook LCD with a big crack in it? It leaks purple!! Then I finished my book and started writing my response to it when I got a call to help someone move. I was a part of it for about 7 hours, but it was nice to get a chance to be around people that I like and am getting to know. It's good to have friends. Soundtrack of the day included REM's Nightswimming, Norah's first album and Nickel Creek's first album. We salute you.

Okay, paper due in 3 hours. Back to work

Hippies and Feminists

2006-09-08T21:27:00.000-05:00

I've been wanting to put my thoughts down about this for some time in some form of media, but I can't seem to get my thoughts straight. Oh, well; here goes.

It seems to me that hippies and the civil rights movement and the women's rights movement all had something right, but that when it came to legislation passed, they settled for things that didn't matter. Like, with civil rights, they passed legislation furthering welfare that, looking back, seems to have worked against the idea of equality that they were fighting for. What rights did women get? Equal wages? I wish. Does it seem like the only thing the feminist movement acheived was more promiscuous sex? Because it seems to me that women had more sexual power when they were less likely to *achem* give it up [Abortion rights aside]. All in all, with these civil rights movements, I feel like the important issues were cast aside in favor of the issues which didn't matter but that were moderate enough that they were passed into legislation.

Did we stop fighting for what was right because we won a battle that didn't matter?

Hippies saw that something was wrong with the way their parents were doing government. After the death of Kennedy, surrounded by controversy and shortly erupting in a war in Vietnam, it became clear that certain parties were stooping to new lows to acheive what they wanted. Suddenly, killing off a man who was elected to represent the people was acceptable and "secret" government agencies felt no qualms using the same techniques they used for foreign "relations" within our own government. Big issues. Whatever happened to the hippies? It seems like they all picked one issue and started to sink to the same level as the big government: my issue at any cost. Or they sold straight out and just started working for or owning the major corporations that run the politicians.

What happened to the American Way? We still have a way, it's just that now it's "my issue at any cost." Nothing but my issue is sacred.

And I am very afraid of these party lines. Suddenly all Democrats are for certain sides of issues while Republicans represent only the opposing view. So, if, for example, I support the ideology of "pro-choice," then I will vote Democrat, no matter what else they stand for. If I support "our boys in Iraq," I can only vote Republican. (If I want a small federal government that lets the states handle all the areas that the constitution entitles them to handle, then I don't have anyone to vote for. Jerks.) This polarization of the nation is bad news and will not get fixed by enough converts from one party switching to another. It's just not going to happen.

Like I said, my thoughts are not very concise right now, but I just needed to put them down somewhere. I worry about this nation. Feel free to respond critically.

P.S. y'all don't be fighting in my comments section. The only person you're allowed to fight with on my blog is me.

Random Updates

2006-09-05T21:34:00.000-05:00

I don't do "adam's life updates" in blog format very often, but I'm kinda in the mood for it. I just got hired at Starbucks which is awesome. Sorta. I think that it's mostly going to be a lot of fun. Tonight, though, my big scare was when we had a coffee tasting and it tasted like "coffee" to me. I was supposed to write down my thoughts and I had none. I ended up writing "bold." I mean, I enjoyed it, i guess. I was also already a little dehydrated and so coffee didn't help things. I knew i had the oncoming of a headache. But the people who work there seem like fun. One guy who is training with me also plays ultimate frisbee on campus on tuesday. Fun times.

Labor Dabor was fun. My sister came up and I came down to New Johnsonville, TN (near Waverly for anyone who cares) to see my Aunt, Grandmother and Cousin. It's nice to see family and I got to visit the Morrisons on the way up and back. Life is grand.

Or rather, it would be grand if the post office would stop sending my packages back. I think I started existing today. I hope. *sigh*

Hardly anyone commented on the new days. It was more fun when people were offering suggestions. Announcing winners is depressing because the contest is over. Hope all the readers are doing well.

It's Official!

2006-08-31T20:47:00.000-05:00

Attention!

Sampson and Whikiwhak (see also, Bobby Teenager) have concluded their search for new more powerful names for the days of the week.

As of September 1, 2006, please be aware of certain calendar changes, especially for those affiliated in some way with Fivefloortytwo or FiveThirtyFloor and Landis Hall Council. The stale names (see also, traditional) of the days of the week have been revoked their rights due to lack of power and the need for people using these days of the week to have a more ready access to power. Original names (see also, outdated) may be used over the course of the next few months during a "phase out" time period, but mostly in a parenthetical format (e.g. Hemanday (Thursday)).

We would like to thank the sources of power that will be sponsering certain days of the week for the power they possess and for being so willing to provide everyday men and women with additional power to make it through the day.

And now, the annoucing of the new days

Henceforth, the first day of the week will be known as OptimusPrimeday.*
Henceforth, the second day of the week will be known as CareBearStareday.*
Henceforth, the third day of the week will be known as Sheraday.**
Henceforth, the fourth day of the week will be known as Voltronday.
Henceforth, the fifth day of the week will be known as Hemanday.**
Henceforth, the sixth day of the week will be known as SuperSaiyanday.*
Henceforth, the seventh day of the week will be known as NinjaTurtlesday.***

(may the reader understand that the first day of the week is equivilant with the day formerly known as Sunday.)
for a brief explantion, see below.

Optimus Prime, whose name come from the same roots as "optimal" and "primary," became an easy choice to replace the first day of the week. His source of power being one of transformation is also appropriate for the day before the workweek begins. As he stands tall and proud, so may those who derive his power and as he also is known to be solid as a mac truck, so may those who derive his power begin their week.
Care Bears are known in several formats, usually portrayed as cutesy little stuffed animals and playthings for children. Do not be fooled. For when evil threatens to disturb the ordinary lives of boys and girls (and men and women), a beam of hardcoreness shoots forth from their midsections, ready to stare evil down. Their placement on the first workday of the week is therefore appropriate as many need a beam of hardcoreness to begin the week.
She-ra is the princess of power and therefore stands ready to continue to provide power as the week tarries on. Her source of power comes from her twin relationship with He-man (see below) and from her Femininity.
Voltron's source of power comes from its unity of many coming together to form one. Its patron day, then, is appropriately placed that all may band together to make it over the hump.
He-man is the prince of power and provides and equal balance to the power of She-ra, albiet in a masculine form.
While Dragon Ball Z is at least better known in less "old school" times, the ultimate power that is the Super Saiyan provides power on the last day of the work week to finish projects and keep everyone going as they head out from work into the nightlife of the weekend.
The final day of the week is equally deserving and needful of power, but perhaps in a more laid back way. For this reason, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been chosen to be the fun-loving, butt-kicking source of power for the laid back, worry-free day of the week.

It shall also be recommending to refer to these days in short form as follows:
1: OP(D), 2:CBS, 3:SR(D),4: VD or VTD, 5:HM(D), 6:SS(D), and 7:NT(D)
OR
O -- C -- R -- V -- H -- S -- N (our apologies to Ms. Ra)

Feel free to leave comments voicing your agreement and rejoicing, they will be cherished. You may also leave comments of critique and they will be duly noted and discarded. Thank you.

*These 3 days of the week may be spelled with only one capital letter (the first) or as shown above. Either way is acceptable.
**It seems easiest to read and comprehend to leave these days without the hyphen that is part of the day's patron's name. However, we leave the choice to whomever whether to use it or not.
***We understand that this is not the full title of the source(s) of power representing this day, however, for ease's sake, the name has be shortened enough to be specific and at the same time not ridiculously long.

Hemanday!

2006-08-24T19:53:00.000-05:00

Let all be advised.

Sampson and I have declared that henceforth the three middle days of the week will no longer be known as tuesday, wednesday or thursday. Finding ourselves in an adult world and feeling the need for extra-powerfully named days to encourage us through the week, we have chosen these days to be, respectively "Sheraday, Voltronday, and Hemanday."

Let all be advised.

We understand that there may be further need to name the other 4 days of the week and so we have allowed for all readers of either of our blogs to offer up candidates for these days. Next Hemanday we will convene and decide which offerings shall be given the priviledge of replacing the current names of the days of the week.

You may now leave your comments

Political frustration

2006-08-23T08:18:00.000-05:00

Attention Republicans and Democrats.

It has come to my attention that we are living in 2006 and elections are just over 2 years away. In case you haven't realized, out nation is absolutely polarized politically and overall, discontent. And the problem lies with you guys. There is never room for any middle ground. If you are republican and you don't think we ought to just keep doing what we're doing in Iraq, you're a traitor to the party. If you're a democrat and you don't think we ought to pull out of Iraq entirely, you're a traitor to the party. Do we really have to be so petty? Is there no room for middle ground?

So, from one voter to both major political parties: GIVE US A CANDIDATE! And I must say that as someone who is registered republican, I'm about ready to vote democrat, if the party can just offer me a decent candidate. I find myself disagreeing with the democratic party, but agreeing with most of the people who vote democrat. So, here's an idea, democrats: provide a candidate who isn't the most popular or who has the best connections, but who can be rallied around because they hold the ideals of their party members (and I don't mean the party members who are holding an office). I understand that politics is all about making friends and connections and trading favors, but do yourselves a favor, democrats: offer up a candidate who stands for american ideals. And I'm not talking about morals in the republican sense. For crying out loud, take a stand on some morals! Morals are not owned by the republican party. We need not be so polarized on every little thing. Can we focus on peace instead of war? That's moral. Can we focus on cleaning up the world? That's moral. Although, if I may say. I think that we can make compromises here. There's no need to enforce veganism on the nation, but there's got to be a safe way to drill for oil and a responsible way to cut down trees to provide for american industries that need oil and wood that also protects the environment around it. Because that's moral. Although, i must say that I'm about defending life in whatever form it comes and I always think that a right to live supercedes any other right of another person. Because I think that's moral. And I think the government has the responsibility to protect the rights of those who cannot protect themselves.

Also, Democrats, pay attention. The Grand Old Party traditionally has taken a stand on less government involvement. The current administration does not seem to hold with that. Get your federal education laws out of my state. Get your ears out of my telephone. Take notice and see if you can hold to your ideals as democrats, as liberals, and still govern less. Make a stand on the issue. It will be noticed by many who would traditionally vote republican, but only if it's a man or woman of ideals.

I've got more say, but I need to think through it first. You've still got a little time to get it together.

Oh. And by the way. I'm a Florida voter.

Christianity

2006-08-20T15:30:00.000-05:00

Christianity is not merely a theology.

In fact, there are several theologies that would fall under the category of "Christianity" because of the central role Jesus Christ plays in them. Even that is beside the point.

If one takes the teachings of Christ seriously, then Christianity is a lifestyle. When Jesus says not to worry about tomorrow, Christianity is about changing the way I think about living. When Jesus says to care for the down-and-out, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner, Christianity is about changing the way I seek justice. When Jesus says to turn the other cheek, Christianity is about changing the way I demand my personal rights. When Jesus says that it's better to pluck out my eye than to look lustily at a girl, Christianity changes the way I think about right and wrong. When Jesus says "come to me all of you who are weary...and I will give you rest," Christianity is about changing the way I view independence. When Jesus says to seek primarily after God's Kingdom, Christianity is about changing my entire focus.

When Jesus declares himself the son of God and declares that the only way to God is through himself, Christianity becomes more than a lifestyle change. It becomes something that affects every moment of life and every fiber of being.

Hebrew, or Jewish, beliefs established the concept that man once had friendly relations with God, but that due to direct disobedience of a simple guideline, humans found themselves in a place where their imperfection could no longer exist in God's presence. So that God set up a series of laws that, if kept, would allow him to have friendly relations again with humans, laws that required a blood debt for repayment when people disobeyed them. The system had a lot of faults. Well, it had one: that people kept disobeying the laws. After a while people just started depending on the repayment part of the law and stopped caring whether or not they did good or bad things. That's not how the system was supposed to work.

Christian beliefs would step in here and say that God had a better plan so that he could keep up friendly relations with humans. The sacrifices that were being offered were imperfect animals sacrificed by imperfect priests EVERY YEAR for the community at large, besides the sacrifices made for invidual sins (or "crimes"). So God sent himself in human form to be among his humans. And while he was there he fell down and scraped his knee, experienced betrayal, showed love, taught the people how to get back on track from their legalistic interpretations of the guidelines God had set for them, and offered himself as sacrifice to pay the blood debt that the humans owed.

Christianity would say that this offering, this sacrifice freed us from the debt owed and gives us the freedom to pursue God and his goodness. It would say that just like Jesus, God in human form, died and came back to life, we can end our current struggles against that thing within us that makes us do the things we know we shouldn't do, and lets us begin anew in a fresh life that can choose to seek goodness. It would say in the way that he ascended from Earth, we have been given new strengths in the presence of God in us to bring about a goodness here on Earth.

And that should change everything. It's more than belief in God and the afterlife. It's more than (if it can even be considered) a moral code. It's more than a way of thinking. It's a way of doing. It's not something that leads us to hate; it's something that causes springs of love to overflow into every part of life.

And I think that if the presence of God is heaven, a place where only goodness happens, and God is living in us, as followers of Jesus, then we have been given the strength and guidance to bring about heaven on earth. A place where the needs of the needy are met. A place where no human, plant or animal would ever be mistreated. A place where disagreements are settled and peace is prevelent. And I think that's what God wants. I think that seeking after this kind of kingdom, first and foremost, a kingdom where God's will is followed, would cause all these things to happen. And I think that's what God had in mind from the beginning. And I think that if everyone did this, God could again be present among us. And that's what I want. And that's why I would want to call myself a follower of Christ.

Bed

2006-08-19T07:52:00.000-05:00

I'd like to thank the fans for their immediate responses and enduring support.

My dad is coming to town today, very much on his dime, to bring me a bed (among other things). A bed. It'll be nice to have a bed again, as I've been sleeping this past week on a friendly couple's and then my roommate's couch. I've become one of those people that doesn't need a comfortable bed every night...or maybe I've always been this way? At any rate, sleeping on floors in Nicaragua or on the ground in a tent makes sleeping on a couch seem like nothing worth complaining about. But it'll still be nice to get a bed.

It's actually my grandmother's bed. She's 8...3 and we finally convinced her to move out of her house where she's been living alone for at least 10 years in south-eastern Mississippi to go live near Nashville with my aunt. This is a hard time for her. She lived in that house for near 60 years. It's not easy to make great changes like that for any of us, especially as we get older and more set in our way. Although, she had a wonderful thing happen to her before she left. Garrison Keillor from Prarie Home Companion told a story telling of a man's funeral where everyone said great things about him. He said it was a tragedy wasn't there to hear all that, and that he only missed it by a few days. My grandmother had a little send-off party at her church. They all came and talked about their memories of her and nice things she'd done and talked about how much they're going to miss her. It was just like being a funeral where the person in focus is still alive and gets to hear all those nice things. May we all be so fortunate.

So, I know there were two beds in my grandmother's house that might be coming. One was in my dad's room from when he was a kid. It's a full size, so I don't know if he had it when he was a kid, but it is HIS. The other one was the one I slept on most of the time when I went to visit my grandmother. My Gran-gran. It's just funny to think how things can get passed down. She's been thinking about what she wants to pass along a lot in the past few years. She made my sister some 4-5 quilts and now she's working on me. She also left me Great-uncle Griffith's cuff links. I never met him, but being the only grandson, it kinda naturally falls to me and it's really touching to be given something with familial value.

Overall, I've been thinking a lot about how I'm going to make it lately. I don't have any money and even with scholarships and help from the parents, i don't know how I'm going to pull through. I'm looking for work, and that's going to help a lot. Even 20 hours would be huge. But knowing that I'm getting a bed that I can fall into each night that will be MY bed and MY place of solace helps me see that everything will work out. As it always has worked out. In the same way that birds don't save up food, and yet are provided for. In the same way that the lillies of the field are clothed. I do have food. And clothes. And a place to stay. And schooling. And a SWEET RIDE. And friends and family whom I love and who love me. I'm going to be okay.

Melange!

2006-08-18T08:28:00.000-05:00

I have been in Louisville for a little over a week now, including a full week of classes. It's an odd step. It makes sense, i suppose, but I can't tell if I'm moving forward or backward in going back to school. Everyone says that classes are hard and "not like undergrad." But they seem to be a lot like undergrad with just a greater expectation that students will excel and get things in on time. And I'm one of the most academic guys on campus. One of the advantages (disadvantages?) of attending a religious institution. They're more concerned with our believing the right thing than being able to articulate it well. That's okay, because I don't have to cave into that. Mr. Folds says, and I agree, that he never was okay with turning in a bunch of bunk.

Starting a new chapter always requires some saying goodbye to the previous chapter. Except that the last chapter was more like an entr'acte between two major chapters, 2-3 years long each. And very few new things got started during the past nine months. Friendships were rekindled, caught up with, a few were started, but most would really fall into the "acquaintance" category. I did meet Sara. and Jeff. and Dallas. and Luccia. I was able to say goodbye to a lingering question from many chapters ago in a perfect way that sent me on my way to the next chapter.

I'm old enough now, i think, to know what I want and who I want to be, although I still need a little work in being that person. Louisville, i think, will be a good crucible to let my personality simmer and to add a few things. I'm living in such a strange dichotomy on the campus of this religious institution, surrounded by students who believe unwaveringly in a Christian Right philosophy and politik, while nearby is a community of coffee shops and book shops and a "liberal" community that longs to protect the greenness of the waterfront area, to pull soldiers away from a war and who wants little to do with Jesus if he is best represented by a conservative political group. Oh, and bluegrass.

Addendum:

Eight and a half years ago, four adolescent boys stayed in a hotel room together and laughed at their own silliness hours into the already late night. They were friends before that, some of them better than others, but the power of an "in-joke" changed them, i think, that night. A strong connection was born, so much so that despite school choices and graduations and car accidents in parking lots and years apart, they still choose to run into each other and play catch up. Incidentally, if you're looking for me on December 31, 2007, I'll be with my friends in the Melting Pot, the Melange that is New York City.

myspace problems

2006-03-28T10:05:00.000-06:00

I can't find any record of this story online, but I've seen it on local tv news around here and it deserves discussion on several levels. Either 8 or 10 students were recently expelled from Pensacola Christian Academy after school administrators found incriminating information on their myspace accounts: they were listening to christian rock music. School rules forbide the listening of any kind of "rock" music. The report actually only mentioned the specific reasons for one student, as that student's mother was complaining that though she understood her child had disobeyed school rules, she felt the punishment a little severe.

At first, you just want to be angry at a dumb rule that forbides students at a christian school to listen to certain types of christian music, in their free time, no less. The truth is, though, that they are a private school and they can make whatever rules they want. If you don't like the rules, you don't have to enroll your child at that school. There are people who have serious problems with christian rock for several reasons. Some would say that it is immitating the sex and drug culture prevelent in American Society and that a school teaching Christian morals should forbide anything that even gives off the appearance of "evil." I know some people have a problem with a market of a kind of music that is only for Christians. It seems that if a band has a good enough talent, they shouldn't have much problem making popular radio play, no matter the subject matter of their songs. After all, I think "Come out and Play" is a good song, but I don't support gang warfare that makes neighborhoods a dangerous place to be. Makes ya thankful for bands like Switchfoot who don't hide the fact that they are Christians and even sing about their Christian life and God, but they write GOOD songs.

It seems like maybe they were not respecting the rights of the students by looking at their personal web pages, but the truth is that myspace, xanga and even our beloved blogspot are public access pages. There are a lot of news stories out there right now trying to remind people that perspective hirers have all the right in the world to look at pictures you have posted on a public-access sight and refuse to hire you based on your admission to illegal or unethical activities. So friends and neighbors, if you feel the need to post the intimate details of your life online, you may want to consider making your page private so that only people you want will be able to see your pages. The alternative there, really...is don't put incriminating stuff online in a public place, unless you want to be punished or to otherwise reap the "rewards."

People who make me smile pt. 1

2006-03-22T21:24:00.000-06:00

I work with an older gentleman who we call "Woody." We call him that because that is his last name. He is the sweetest man you could ever meet. When we are working on a project and he gets something wrong, he curses: "chicken!" He is happily married to his wife of who knows how many years. He's the kind of man who flirts with young girls and it's not "dirty old man." Sometimes he gets turned around and he likes having young ladies get him turned in the right direction. I worked with him 2 summers during college and again now, for a few months and he is a pleasure to work with. He's not afraid to admit he's wrong, even though he's a master electrician and I don't know anything about electricity but what I've learned from him. As you can guess, he's usually right, but even when he's not, he's proud of me for being right instead of refusing to accept the fact that a little whipper-snapper like me could be right. He has to walk real slow and I am able to haul things for him and hold the door. Everyone at the church where we work knows his name and always smiles and greets him in the hallway. He is a very simple man and seems to enjoy the simple things in life, and every now and then, he teaches me something about being simple. He also teaches me a lot about electicity. Maybe what I like most about him is that he really, genuinely seems to like me, just for being me. Sometimes, when we have to work in tight spots, I smell his body odor and I equate the smell with old men. It's not the sweetest smell, but he is the sweetest man and it is a pleasure to be alongside him every day I get a chance to be. Thank you, Woody, for being a bright spot in my life.

Everybody loves Narcissism!

2006-02-14T22:24:00.000-06:00

This is a lot more fun that filling out a survey on myself. If you fill one out on me, and post it in your blog, I'll fill one out on you. But mostly, you'll respond to this because you're so happy I actually posted. Steam is building up, though, and I'll post something meaningful pretty soon.

HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ME?

This is funny. YOU fill in the blanks about ME even if you dont have any idea what they are and send it back to ME. But first post a blank one out to all your friends so they can return the favor to you. Be honest.

my name:

Who is the love of my life:

Where did we meet:

Take a stab at my middle name:

How long have you known me:

When is the last time that we saw each other:

Do I smoke:

Do I drink:

When is my birthday:

What was your first impression of upon meeting me:

Do I have any siblings:

What's one of my favorite things to do:

Am I funny:

What's my favorite type of music:

What is the best feature about me:

Am I shy or outgoing:

Am I a rebel or do I follow the rules:

Do I have any special talents:

Would you consider me a friend/good friend:

Would you call me preppy, average, sporty, punk, hippie, glam, nerdy, snobby, or something else (what):

What is a memory we have once had:

Have you ever hugged me:

Do you miss me...do you think i miss you:

What is my favorite food:

Have you ever had a crush on me:

If there was one good nickname for me, what would it be:

What's your favorite memory of me:

Who do I like right now:

What is my worst habit:

If you and I were stranded on a desert island, what one thing would I bring?

Are we friends:

Will you repost this so I can do it for you?:

Return of the Native

2005-12-05T09:38:00.000-06:00

Wow. Coming home. So, I'm in the States and have been for about two and a half weeks. People keep asking, "how does it feel to be home?" and the answer is that I don't know, yet. It's such a mix of emotions. I feel stronger and weaker; fearful and more sure of myself. My happiness and sadness are on a continual roller coaster. Things move so quickly here that I haven't had the chance to stop and breathe. I find myself faced with my weaknesses in places where I didn't expect such a confrontation. I am happy to find that I am much stronger, in many ways, from when I left and my parents are willing to accept that. I made the two big trips: Nashville for family and Tallahassee for friends and survived both trips. Well, I did take some sort of injury in Tally, apparently, because I came home nasty sick. I have only ever been sicker when i was in Nicaragua and I had some kind of parasite. I am almost used to being around my parents again and though my sister and I quickly found each other's pressure points during the holiday, it was a welcome to see her again and nice to see how quickly and amiably we get over our disagreements. Nobody gets my trip and I mostly don't want to talk about it. It was two years of my life and it was my job for those years. Some parts are easy to sum up, but anyone who asks "How was Nicaragua?" is not going to get a satisfactory answer, because it's not like I was down there for a vacation. And you can't explain to people in the States what Nicaragua is like, especially people who have never left the country, or who have done so and only stayed in resorts. Because it's not "like the U.S., except they speak spanish;" I mean, they don't even think the same way. They have completely different values (well, not completely, but so much so that it is better to assume a difference than to assume likeness to my own understandings of the world around me). I mentioned to someone that it seems like all the things I had hoped would change, stayed the same and the things I hoped would never change, did. Going to stores: Wal-mart, Grocery Store, whatever, is a big ordeal for me. I get stressed out. I don't stop going, because I know I need to get used to things again. And I am getting used to things. I foresee things going well over Christmas break and I'll be getting some kind of job soon and things will turn into some kind of routine. I have been able to keep my head through the chaos of the last few weeks and as my body recovers from its violent physical reaction to its return to its native land, I too am discovering how to stand on my feet again here. I miss my Nicaragua, my Nicaragüita, but it is also good to be back. And life goes on....

Lump

2005-11-14T08:59:00.000-06:00

I think it's pretty easy to lump everyone I disagree with in the same category as "idiot." It is silly, of course. There are plenty of people with whom I disagree who are intelligent people willing to weigh all sides of issues. And also there plenty of people with whom i agree about things who agree with me out of ignorance and not because they have really thought about the issue. One of the things that really scares me about going back to the states is the obvious polarity, seen easily in almost all media that comes out of the US. If someone is a "liberal," they tend to go about bashing anyone who is "conservative" and vice-versa, all the while standing steadfastly by whoever they align themselves whether they are right or wrong. I know of very few people who ever allow for their opposition to be right or have a better idea than their own ideas...or even a good idea. If I'm a southern Christian, then obviously, I must agree 100% with the republican party and must believe conservatively on every issue, but the problem is that I don't. I am more than can be summed up in one word. I am more than can be summed up by a party affiliation. I hope that most people are. I have often in the past been accused of thinking too much, but I am so thankful that my problem is not the opposite.

Also, I'd like to thank Pat Robertson for helping encourage the belief that all Christians must be idiots. And I'd like to give a shout-out to the media for paying any attention to him at all.

An actual update

2005-11-05T07:18:00.000-06:00

I sit now in a quickly-emptying apartment as I try to pack all my stuff this weekend so that I can move in with the Wests for my last 10 days in Nicaragua. Packing is frustrating and sad. Packing reminds me nothing of the great Thanksgiving and Christmas times spent with family that is just around the corner or the wedding of friends that i will actually be able to attend this coming summer. Instead, every book, paper and peice of clothing remind me only of leaving. I called the airline to make sure I was correct in my assumption that each passenger is allowed: 1 carry on piece, 1 personal item, and 1 musical instrument. Yeah, that's not true. First of all, "musical instrument" means "guitar," they do not intend for any passenger to bring a djimbe onboard. So it has to go below, but in what case? I have two djimbes and I have no clue how to send them back. If I put them in footlockers, they are both going to take up the majority of the space in the footlockers. I can see it now: I'm going to have 6 bags plus a carryon and personal item. I am so in trouble.

Lately I've been reading articles like this one: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051105/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/americas_summit that talk about the Free Trade Agreement talks in Argentina. Does anyone understand economics enough to explain to me why Chavez et al are so opposed to free trade, besides a mere anti-American sentiment? What really kills me are the riots. Really, these riots have nothing to do with economics. Free Trade protests don't end in the smashing of 30 storefronts. These people are just mad at the US for their presence. The protestors don't understand that the police officers they injured are Argentine and are all the workers in the shops whose storefronts were smashed. Even if it was a McDonald's, owned by an American Corporation, McDonald's always hires all positions locally. So many times extremists want so badly to make a statement that they don't mind doing so against the wrong people, just so long as everyone knows that they aren't happy. And really, how selfish is that? Someone in the article above pointed out that Bush may not even hear about their riots. I'm sure he is unaffected by it. Latinos have been, for so many years, building up a growing hatred for the US which is odd as, if I were to tell any Nicaraguan on the street that I'm about to go home to the states, they would ask me if I would sponser them for a green card. It's a jealousy thing, kinda. There's a latin american concept that if you get one, I should get one too. A concept that works really well with socialist revolutions (see Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Bolivia, Venezuela). Capitalism, as a concept, fails in latin america (see Argentina for a macrocosm or any latin american city or town for a microcosm). There is no desire to work any harder than I have to get by. Hard work doesn't pay. Working for a rich man and stealing when he's not looking does pay. Case in point: in a small store in Costa Rica, a man offered an item imported from the States that wasn't being offered by any other local store, so his sales, especially for that item went through the roof. One day, someone walks in looking for it and it isn't there and the store owner tells them that he stopped ordering them because he just couldn't keep them on the shelf and he kept having to restock and he didn't like restocking that much.

I still haven't blogged about my trips in the Rio Coco because I'm a little insecure about the trip. I'm not sure that we did the best thing and I don't know how to categorize the trip on the scale of success/failure. It makes me fear that I wouldn't be able to last in aid work because I walk away angry with the people for being so dishonest and selfish, instead of being grateful to have been able to helped someone whether they appreciate it or not. I will say that it was gorgeous. If you click on the "myspace" link over on the left, my main picture is from the area as is the picture of the lady with the bucket on her head. It's a place that I can take pictures of, but that pictures can't really tell the story.

I hope to see you states people soon.

I'm a movie nerd

2005-10-27T11:19:00.000-06:00

scroll to bottom to copy the html

IMDB's Top 100 Best Movies of All Time
generate this HTML for your own page at ObeytheFist.com

Rank	Movie	Didn't See It/ Started It/ Finished It/ Hated It!
1	Godfather, The (1972)	Finished It
2	Shawshank Redemption, The (1994)	Finished It
3	Godfather: Part II, The (1974)	Finished It
4	Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The (2003)	Finished It
5	Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The (2002)	Finished It
6	Casablanca (1942)	Finished It
7	Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (2001)	Finished It
8	Schindler's List (1993)	Finished It
9	Shichinin No Samurai [Seven Samurai] (1954)
10	Star Wars (1977)	Finished It
11	Citizen Kane (1941)	Finished It
12	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)	Finished It
13	Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)	Finished It
14	Rear Window (1954)
15	Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)	Finished It
16	Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)	Finished It
17	Memento (2000)	Finished It
18	Usual Suspects, The (1995)	Finished It
19	Pulp Fiction (1994)	Finished It
20	North by Northwest (1959)	Started It
21	12 Angry Men (1957)	Finished It
22	Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, Le [Amelie] (2001)	Finished It
23	Psycho (1960)	Finished It
24	Lawrence of Arabia (1962)	Finished It
25	Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il [The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly] (1966)	Finished It
26	Silence of the Lambs, The (1991)	Finished It
27	It's a Wonderful Life (1946)	Finished It
28	Goodfellas (1990)	Finished It
29	American Beauty (1999)	Finished It
30	Vertigo (1958)	Finished It
31	Sunset Blvd. (1950)
32	Matrix, The (1999)	Finished It
33	Apocalypse Now (1979)	Finished It
34	Pianist, The (2002)
35	To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)	Finished It
36	C'era una volta il West [Once Upon a Time in the West] (1968)
37	Some Like It Hot (1959)	Finished It
38	Third Man, The (1949)
39	Taxi Driver (1976)	Finished It
40	Paths of Glory (1957)
41	Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi [Spirited Away] (2001)
42	Fight Club (1999)	Finished It
43	Boot, Das (1981)	Finished It
44	Double Indemnity (1944)	Finished It
45	L.A. Confidential (1997)	Finished It
46	Chinatown (1974)	Finished It
47	Singin' in the Rain (1952)	Finished It
48	Maltese Falcon, The (1941)	Started It
49	M (1931)
50	Requiem for a Dream (2000)	Finished It
51	Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957)	Finished It
52	All About Eve (1950)
53	Se7en (1995)	Finished It
54	Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)	Finished It
55	Saving Private Ryan (1998)	Finished It
56	Cidade de Deus [City of God] (2002)
57	Raging Bull (1980)
58	Rashômon (1950)
59	Wizard of Oz, The (1939)	Finished It
60	Sting, The (1973)	Finished It
61	Alien (1979)	Finished It
62	American History X (1998)	Finished It
63	Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
64	Léon (1994)
65	Vita è bella, La [Life is Beautiful] (1997)	Finished It
66	Touch of Evil (1958)
67	Manchurian Candidate, The (1962)
68	2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)	Finished It
69	Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The (1948)
70	Great Escape, The (1963)	Finished It
71	Wo hu cang long [Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon] (2000)	Finished It
72	Reservoir Dogs (1992)	Finished It
73	Clockwork Orange, A (1971)	Started It
74	Amadeus (1984)	Finished It
75	Modern Times (1936)
76	Ran (1985)
77	Annie Hall (1977)	Finished It
78	Jaws (1975)	Finished It
79	On the Waterfront (1954)	Finished It
80	Braveheart (1995)	Finished It
81	High Noon (1952)
82	Apartment, The (1960)
83	Fargo (1996)	Finished It
84	Sixth Sense, The (1999)	Finished It
85	Aliens (1986)	Finished It
86	Shining, The (1980)	Finished It
87	Strangers on a Train (1951)
88	Blade Runner (1982)	Finished It
89	Metropolis (1927)
90	Duck Soup (1933)	Started It
91	Finding Nemo (2003)	Finished It
92	Donnie Darko (2001)	Finished It
93	General, The (1927)
94	City Lights (1931)
95	Princess Bride, The (1987)	Finished It
96	Toy Story 2 (1999)	Finished It
97	Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)	Finished It
98	Great Dictator, The (1940)
99	Sjunde inseglet, Det [The Seventh Seal] (1957)
100	Lola rennt [Run Lola Run] (1998)	Finished It

Which movies have you seen?

Okay, so, a story: I did indeed watch Double Indemnity. I watched it during exam week, spring 2001. The night before an early exam. Late at night before an early exam. So, obviously, the alarm didn't go off (or I was sleeping so hard, i didn't hear it). I slept through the exam, bring my grade in that class from an A to a D (final exam = 30%). Thanks a lot, Double Indemnity. I think I watched it with Morgan and Devon, but I could be wrong.

Dreaming

2005-10-07T06:40:00.000-06:00

In last night's dream, I was at work. Two of my co-workers were goons and were "racing me home" and so knocked my bike in the street while I was locking up and carrying a whole bunch of stuff. While it was lying in the street, a car came by and ran over it, bending one wheel and completely knocking off the other. I let myself back in and complained to our other coworker who was either Beth or a black lady (dreams are all muddy after you wake up) we talked and hung out and I think there was a storm and we watched the weather channel on a tv in the office. Later I went to a MSU-UF game nearby and the Bulldogs were beating them. And I thought maybe I could get half the boxes home during half-time. Good times.

Clarifying Creationist Classroom Chaos in the Current Court Case

2005-09-29T11:28:00.000-05:00

I do so love having friends both more liberal and more conservative than I in their political views.

So, in talking to one such friend, I feel i must make an addendum to my previous statements concerning the current court case.

Point the first, I am a Christian and my beliefs do include, to at least some extent, the creation of living things by God. As others have mentioned and let me intone my agreement, I do not think that teaching this in a classroom is appropriate, unless it does have some scientific weight to it. Being that I am not a scientist, I can only assume that all my friends who working or have degrees in a field of science have valid points in saying that thoughts of Intelligent Design have no basis in science. Point taken, point accepted. If there may be some scientific weight to an arguement for Intelligent Design, likewise, I think it would be inappropriate to exclude it from the classroom, at least in mention, but that doesn't seem to be the case now, so it's beside the point.

Point the second, the best argument for putting the phrase (whether or not it need some editing) in a science class is to allow the teacher to address a political/religious concern that, at least in this day and age, will be in the fore of most students' minds throughout the evolution discussion, if it isn't treated at the very beginning. A certain school-teacher friend of mine mentioned to me that school teachers, this court case aside, are free to do so if they so wish, meaning that all this court case would do is require such statements to be said/read aloud. It is a bit silly to require this, but I'm still not opposed to it because i don't mind appeasing people on points that are relatively unimportant. I think any high school science teacher worth their weight would want to get this topic quickly out of the way so that they can teach and the students might actually be listening.

Point the third, This means that the only major point that the court case is fighting for is requiring the provision (or announcing the provision) of material explaining intelligent design. I think that such is a worthy cause, although I doubt that the points making it worthwhile are being fought for in the current case. The only way such material would be appropriate is: The Material is not merely a discussion of Judeo-Christian beliefs on Intelligent Design, but explores all other options as well, including the marriage of Intelligent Design with Evolution [It was mentioned to me at this point that "Intelligent Design" is merely a different wording for "Creationism" and that it is still the same group of Conservative Christians that are fighting for it. Even if that is true on the surface (which is to say, the beliefs of those people who are funding the legal side and most if not all of the supporters), the inclusion of material on "Intelligent Design" must by its attempted use at a more general term, provide more general information. Intelligent Material would offer critique of Intelligent Design while discussing it and I think that if someone from the Evolution side of the argument were to write such material, describing beliefs and noting points both opposing and in favor of Intelligent Design, it might be more helpful to...well, to either the shutting up of the other side, or at least their being made to look fools. As it is, neither side will consider the other and both just want to throw mud.]

I don't suppose there is any way to make a state-sponsored board to provide and approve such material and let it go to state legislature or something.

So that: *ahem* If by "Intelligent Design" they mean "Judeo-Christian beliefs on the origins of life on earth," then I am opposed. If they mean that, because that's the only thing they really want added, but they are actually adding in a well-rounded discussion of alternatives to Evolution, I am in agreement, because the motives of the supporters is really beside the point, if they are doing the right thing. If they are trying to get subject matter that is not considered science taught in a science classroom, I am opposed. If they are trying to require that a teacher mention that there are other opinions and that there is material available to read about them, I don't really care either way, although I think a short mention will help out the teacher in the long run. I think the points being made are valid points in this court case, but I think that instead of constantly shooting down the people who are doing it wrong because of this little thing and that little thing, a committee ought to be created to sit down and do it right. [And I mean on the state level and may the federal government get its unconstitutional nose out of education.]

The court case...

2005-09-27T07:22:00.000-05:00

[disclaimer: The following is not an attempt to woo anyone to any side, but an attempt for me to get my thoughts straight, as I tend to do so better in written word.]

Intelligent design in the classroom. My first thoughts are "what's the big deal?" It seems like saying what the media seems to indicate the teachers in Penn. are being pressured to say should be a happy middle ground for both sides. It seems like being upfront and getting the hot topic out of the way so that class can continue seems like a good idea. I'm under the impression that the school board is requiring (encouraging, demanding) teachers to say that some scientists do not agree with the popular view of evolution and in its place have theories involving intelligent design, perhaps waste 2 minutes giving the basics of what that would mean, maybe even mention that it is largely relgiously-based, instead of science-based, and then go on with, "but we're not going to study that any more in this classroom; we are going to study evolution, and that is what you'll be tested on." Maybe I am misunderstanding the situation and that is not at all what is happening. However, the above scenario seems to be the best way to not have to deal with what is a passionate topic for some on both sides of the fence. It seems odd to me that no one is willing to compromise on this in an age where treating all beliefs as equal is popular. Both sides are only interested in a full-scale, 100% win.

I do believe in intelligent design. I'm not much of a scientist and I don't think I really understand all the information that is going into evolution, but i do know that the theory is continually, if I may, evolving. All of that really is beside the point, because i do believe that a science classroom is a place to teach science and scientific method. I know there are people who share my beliefs in intelligent design who are extreme in their position about it being taught in a classroom and evolution not taught in the classroom, but i don't think this court decision is giving into their extremism. It seems like a sensible resolution that moderates can accept and then drop the issue.

I don't know too much about the specific case, if there is more information to know than the general, nation-wide debate (although, that's not quite correct...the nation-wide difference of opinion?), so I can't make a very educated opinion on this court case. I'm not much of an expert on science, which is why they aren't calling me in as a witness, so I can't argue either side very well from a scientific point of view. I guess that's all I have. I wish people didn't get so mad about all this.

Apologies

2005-09-25T21:15:00.000-05:00

...are good for the soul. And I am happy to find that even at my bitterest, I cannot stand to not be at peace with the world around me.

Why I hate tall people

2005-09-25T16:34:00.000-05:00

It has lately occured to me that I have a short man complex. I don't like tall people. I avoid meeting them, I assume they wouldn't like me even if I did talk to them. Even the times I've tried to talk to tall people, I cannot find anything in common. They don't do any of the same things I do. They don't like any of the things I like. I guess I'm speaking generally, but I cannot think of any specific examples of tall people who I have gotten along well with. Even with Jerris, I always felt like there was something keeping us from being close friends. Okay, so I just remembered Marshal from high school and Andrew, another roommate, both of whom are in the 6 foot realm. Maybe it's just tall people I've met lately. Maybe I'm letting specific instances get me down. What? You want examples? Well, let me just prove what a jerk I am:

So today, we're playing ultimate frisbee (a common sunday afternoon activity for us gringos). A guy is guarding me (i kinda feel bad that I can't remember his name, even if I wouldn't actually spell it out here if I did remember) and he is roughly 6'7." This makes his armspan so big that there is absolutely no way to get the frisbee around him. So I throw too low for his arms (up high) to block and he blocks me with his feet. Nobody sees any problem with this but me, apparently, so I merely try to use my legs to block him. I'll remind you at this point that I'm 5'6" and the really short part is the legs. I'm a short-legged fella. I always fit on bus and airplane seats, comfortably. Always. First time i try to leg-block, I fail. Later he uses his legs to block someone else. It still makes me mad because I see it as a cheap move and my complaining that it's not a legal move just makes me look like a whiner. "Oh look at Adam, he's a big legalistic nerd who always has to play by the rules." So, maybe I get a little too mad. I kick twice in the air and at the second kick, he has moved forward a little bit (and it currently throwing the frisbee) and I kick him in the stomach. He gets mad (and rightly so, I wasn't trying to kick him, I just wanted to tick him off...which I suppose makes me even more of a jerk). He tells me that it looked awfully deliberate. I tell him I can see how he might see that, but i did not mean to kick him. Truth is, if my legs were as long as his are, I might have kicked his hand instead, which is what I was aiming for, as that is where the frisbee was. I was happy to see that I was calm, because I genuinely was sorry I hit his stomach, but maybe he should have punched me in the face. I've had it coming for a while. As it was I walked off the field. This is another of my poor qualities: upon encountering conflict, I usually walk away instead of hanging around to solve the problem. I don't think I do this with close friends, but i definitely do with people I don't know at all. In fact, I was just thinking how I wish I could solve all of this by deciding never to play sports again, but that's not the right answer, either. I'd rather not play than play mad; it's just not fun anymore if I play angry. I wasn't angry at this point, but he was, so instead of trying to recreate the scene again, I kept the incident from possibly recurring by walking off the field. Shortly afterward, one team won, still not sure which, as we were close when I left the game. I told him I was sorry, and I am, but I'm still not interested in making things better with him, because I'm petty and I hold it against him that I'm sorry I wronged him when I feel like he is not sorry he wronged me (although, I doubt he feels that he wrongs me or thinks that I feel wronged).

So, I guess this means that I don't want to forgive him...and for whatever reason, I don't want to forgive tall people in general for having been born with an athletic advantage that i could never overcome. I actually blame them for having been born the way they were, can you believe it? And I definitely feel like they consider me a lesser person, dislike me for being too short, or too smart, or not athletic enough, and I let all that get to me, as if it matters what they think. I'm so petty it's ridiculous.

It's amazing how right one feels in the heat of the moment, only to look back and realize that one was way out of line. I hate being a jerk. I wish i was a better guy.

I should've been punched in the face. Maybe that would've knocked some sense into me.

Grey Jason

2005-09-22T16:56:00.000-05:00

I was just remembering elementary school. My 5th grade year, we moved to Mississippi (those of you who are thinking of humpbacks and crooked letters right now are sad, sad souls) and I had a hard time fitting in with people. So, the one kid who had lived there forever and had a hard time fitting in with people thought it might help his cause if he had some lower lifeform to pick on, namely, me. I ended up hitting him and we had in-school suspension. He showed me the ropes, having been there mulitple times before. So, of course, my sister, being the loyal sibling that she is, took to holding a grudge against the boy's little sister (who was in my sis's grade). I was recalling a movie their fourth grade class made together starring both my sister and the other boy's sister. It was funny. Their roles were slightly antagonistic. I do love my sister. Thanks for holding up your end of the feud, Lulu.

Victory!

2005-08-23T18:04:00.000-05:00

NCAA removes FSU from banned list of nicknames

BY MICHELLE KAUFMAN

mkaufman@herald.com

Seminoles they will stay.

The Florida State University athletic department celebrated a major victory on Tuesday when the NCAA announced it had removed FSU from its list of universities subject to restrictions on the use of Native American mascots and nicknames.

Earlier this month, the NCAA told FSU and 17 other schools that their use of a Native American mascot and nickname was inappropriate, and that mascots deemed ''hostile or abusive'' would be prohibited from appearing on team uniforms during NCAA-sanctioned tournaments beginning in February 2006.

FSU president T.K. Wetherell threatened legal action. The school appealed the NCAA ruling on the grounds that its six-decade relationship with the Seminole Tribe of Florida was one of mutual respect, so much so that the tribe in June passed a unanimous proclamation offering its endorsement of FSU's nickname and mascot, Chief Osceola.

The NCAA, upon review, decided to scratch FSU from its list.

''The NCAA Executive Committee continues to believe the stereotyping of Native Americans is wrong,'' read an NCAA statement from Bernard Franklin, VP for Governance/membership. ``However, in its review of the particular circumstances regarding Florida State, the staff review committee noted the unique relationship between the university and the Seminole Tribe of Florida as a significant factor.

``The NCAA recognizes the many different points of view on this matter, particularly within the Native American community. The decision of a namesake sovereign tribe, regarding when and how its name and imagery can be used, must be respected even when others may not agree.''

Andy Haggard, a Coral Gables attorney and vice chair of the FSU Board of Trustees, was thrilled with the news.

''The NCAA showed great wisdom,'' Haggard said by phone from Daytona Beach, where he was involved in a trial. ``We never should have been included in that list. It should never have come to this. But I'm extremely happy with the final result. I can see banning names like Savages or Redskins, but Seminole is completely different. The NCAA is finally treating the Seminole tribe with the dignity they deserve.''

Among the other school still on the list are the University of Illinois (Illini), University of Utah (Utes), and Central Michigan (Chippewas).

''The NCAA position on the use of Native American mascots, names and imagery has not changed, and the NCAA remains committed to ensuring an atmosphere of respect and sensitivity for all who participate in and attend our championships,'' read the statement. ``This decision applies to the unique relationship Florida State University has with the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Requests for reviews from other institutions will be handled on a case-by-case basis.''

Love, actually

2005-08-23T03:06:00.000-05:00

Tonight was the most romantic night I've had in a while. In a good two years, no doubt. It's 3 am and I haven't gone to sleep yet. I watched a movie with a friend as a bit of advice to go get the girl he loves. I had a wonderful two-hour conversation with a gal, and let me go ahead and clarify that it was merely nice friendly conversation with an attractive member of the opposite sex and nothing more and that is, in fact, what was so great about it. All of this was sandwiched in my watching of Love Actually.

"Two movies in one night?" you're asking? Yes well, bugger off, they're cheap here and the video store rents 2 for 1 and the first movie was for the above-mentioned friend. "Bugger off?" you're asking, "Are you altogether British, then?" No, actually, although I seem to have been reading quite a few books authored by Britons and watching one or two movies taking place there. Right, then, have all questions been answered? Jolly good, let's off to continue our discussion of the movie.

I'm supposed to be off tomorrow (I was supposed to have been off today, but plans changed) for lands to the north and so watching both movies was a bit of a stupid idea. I had a time set for the first movie (6) and so couldn't really get another movie taken care of before i had to go watch the other, but when i sat down to supper, I figured I could maybe start the movie and then finish it when i got back or in the morning or never or whatever. I was absolutely drawn in. I do love ensemble casts, and the writer/director's views of love were stunning and blew me away. The pain was severe, the longing ached, the devotion was amazing beyong words. Every love that was touched upon in this movie went straight for the heart and is something that we all deal with. It was a discussion of the world around us and the director pulled no punches, even refering to the 9/11 incident, to showcase the love that surrounds us all. I feel giddy at having stayed awake for it all and after pausing the film 30 minutes in to go watch another one, I knew that I could not sleep tonight without finishing.

And the evening (morning) ends itself with my taking the Witts off for their trip to El Salvador. They'll be back later this week to get more stuff, but this is "the" trip. And that's romantic in and of itself, eh?

So, thank you all for the lovely, romantic evening. It's been a long time since I've stayed awake until 4:30 in the morning, and I have enjoyed every moment. Not too many evenings that I haven't wanted to end. Goodnight all, may your lives be sweeter than your dreams.

Adam is...

2005-08-22T09:42:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I stole this from a friend, who stole from...and so on....

The deal is google "[your name] is" and find out some things about yourself that perhaps you didn't know.

Adam is...

-the ideal human male with his rippling muscles and elegant contours. (i always had a feeling this was true)

-not complete (tell me about it)

-"all things to all people." (me and Paul, ya'll)

-right. (Yer darn tootin!)

-an interesting study of lower working class characters

-slow and boring (hey, shut up!)

-a little slow and claustrophobic (hey, gimme a break guys!)

-basically a delightful child and is generally well liked

-not a metaphor (just to clear up any doubt)

-ten centimeters wide. (i may look a little chubbier, but the camera puts on 60 cm)

-drawn to bears (like, the big furry things)

-a hero

-forever having to move his Mac around with him. (i'm so glad I found this one)

-currently sold in the States at $700 (I was hoping I would go for more)

-three times more likely to win than Mercedes. I challenge german auto vehicles to foot races all the time)

-wear a tie (not really good grammar, but they do have a point)

-a welcome sight at every PTA meeting and his ideas are respected by both the PTA members and the school staff (what can i say? parents love me)

Give it a try.

Late-night musings

2005-08-20T23:06:00.000-05:00

This is the second time recently that I've laid down and just known that I wasn't going to be getting to sleep any time soon. I've never been one for insomnia, but it's never too late to start.

I was recommended Grapes of Wraths, the only book in my Steinbeck collection that I haven't finished and so I thought I'd get back to it. It turns out I was in chapter 10 which is about the family packing up and leaving Oklahoma. It was about saying goodbye and Steinbeck writes about anything so tragic better than anyone I can think of. They'll be going to California soon, as perhaps I shall. I may be in school in San Francisco a year from today and that's an exciting thought, but it's just one more chance to pick up and leave everything and everyone I know. Reading Steinbeck makes me want to be discontent with something or everything, or maybe I'm just discontent. Perhaps that's why I read discontent into the world around me in my previous post. Beg pardon if that was the case and I mistook personal feelings for universal human condition.

I am discontent right now and I think it's mostly due to slight inactivity. Not enough to do since I had to wait in town this week to make sure the Witts didn't need any extra help, and then with the power out for 3 days.... But I do have a lot, too much, really, on my mind. In fewer than three months I'll be home. My time here is coming to a close. This worries me because I don't feel like I've accomplished what I came to do, but since I don't know what I came to do, I think that is more the point. If I never set goals, I'll never reach them. So, instead of doing something, I worry in inactivity that I'm not doing anything. Pathetic.

Going home means I'll see family and friends, although I know they aren't the same as I left them, much as I am not the same. And how many friends will I really have the chance to run into? My friends have been scattered across the US and my hopes of running into them depend greatly on how much free time I have and how much of it can be taken up with travel with the sole purpose of visiting. I'll have to deal with the expectations of my parents, my culture, and my bosses in whatever jobs I acquire. I don't suppose the US is ready to accept that in my culture for the last two years 9am means before 10am and that running into a friend who needed some help is a good reason to be late for some things. I am between cultures now and it may take some time if I can ever feel fully part of my home culture again. Freaky. I will be moving back in with my parents for a little while and I'm sure this isn't going to be the Christmas homecoming I picture it to be in my mind. We'll all survive and I won't stop loving them, but we'll see what's in store.

The thought of settling down, if not in a location, at least with someone is becoming always more prominant in my mind. It really has been a lonely two years and i don't want to be alone anymore. I'm sure that being around my parents, at least having someone else in the house will be helpful in that regard, but there's an obvious desire for a mate. This is rather difficult because I've essentially been off the market for 2 years and while I know some gals here that are my age (gringa and nica), none of them are the one. That's the negative end, of course. The positive end is that I would love to just go out on a date, take a girl to a coffee house and just talk. I would love that.

I feel like no one ever told me how to be a man. I think that's what I always expected: "here son, this is how you gotta be a man." But growing up, I was not interested in spending time trying to become a man, I was busy being a kid. And I stayed being a kid until the summer after my sophomore year of college when suddenly I decided I wanted to be a man, after all. And now I feel like there were things I should've been paying attention to as a teenager that I didn't pay attention to and now I'm having to learn them on my own. Reading about the men slaughtering the pigs and loading up the trucks all night long, cause it had to be done validated to me that getting 7 hours of sleep a night isn't necessary, just preferable. I wish I had known that years ago; I wouldn't have been such a prick about getting to sleep sometimes.

Well maybe that'll put me to sleep. Goodnight.

Counterpoint

2005-08-20T19:22:00.000-05:00

In Nicaragua, lately, there have been many attacks in the media and by other politicians against the president, Enrique Bolaños. There were marches in the streets that turned violent including burning out buses. In response, some people decided to show their steadfast, but silent support of the president by putting a small nicaraguan flag on the window of their cars. Anyone who doesn't support the president was so outraged that they went and started putting up political party flags on their window just to show that they could make a statement, too. It all seems rather childish. And then I read this article.

Do we all have to be so childish? I mean, as one can read in my blog, I am not in support of the Sheehan lady, her demands, or her cause. That said, could people be opposed to her with a little more tact? Calling out into debate? Please. That is OBVIOUSLY not what she is about. And what does a debate resolve anyway? Whether or not we should be there in the first place? Whether or not we should still be there? When you use "should," you know you're getting into opinion and opinion cannot be debated. It's just a chance for everyone to scream and holler and show which side yells the loudest. And I think we all know which side would yell loudest were a debate to take place anywhere in the state of Texas, much less up the road from Bush's ranch. There is no need to protest the protest. I understand that it's the same thing that happened in the sixties that people protested so much and nothing ever got done and then the populace just got annoyed with them (which is why the nation-wide response to the Kent State shootings was only moderately shocked). And as much as I don't agree, I do think that makes it even more my responsibility to listen to a protestor with an open mind. Maybe I have missed something, after all. Protesting in general gets on my nerves (as it usually seems to be about "my rights" in a sue-happy time period), but to respond to protesting by protesting oneself just shows our natural condition of wanting to be discontent with something and lameness at not being creative enough to do so in a way that is meaningful.

For example, the way that the father of a dead soldier removed the cross bearing his son's name from the protest against the war. Doesn't he have a right to do so? Don't the protestor's have a right to name every america's son whose life was taken in a war they believe we shouldn't be in? I'm mostly just impressed by the father's actions (assuming he wasn't a jerk when he did it), even if he came across a little war-happy in his one quote in this article.

I don't even mean that we should agree to disagree. This is an important issue. I just think maybe we can be a little more tactful in trying to get the nation's attention and that may even help people understand the other point of view, or even change their own. I'm done.

EDIT: Okay, so I'm not done. I found this great quote by Ari Fleischer that I agree with. It mostly sums up my point.

Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Bush's focus on the long term rather than the immediate is "part of what, to his supporters, is steadfastness and, to his critics, is stubbornness."

"If you allow those who are the most vocal and most antagonistic to get a meeting with the president for fear that publicity will hurt you if you don't, you're creating incentives for your critics to become even more antagonistic and more vocal," Fleischer said. "Then, you're forever stuck in: Will you or won't you meet? You'll no longer lead. You'll just wrestle with meetings."
(above is quoted from Washington Post article found here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/20/AR2005082001046.html)

Yesterday's journal entry

2005-08-18T13:36:00.000-05:00

It wasn't so much that there was a small tarantula on a pair of my pants, it's that I was putting them on.

That Lady in Texas

2005-08-15T12:28:00.002-05:00

The Sheehan lady in texas and all the media spotlight she's getting really grate on me. She's got such a martyr's complex. I am sorry that her son died in Iraq. I'll go so far as to say I'm sorry he died needlessly in Iraq for a war we shouldn't have been fighting in the first place. But, that's what he signed up to do. That's what the military is. I'm sure she loved her son. And what mother wants to see her son go off to war? I understand completely that she wanted to hide him in Canada. But he was a grown man. He joined the military, knowing the risks, and joined his fellow soldiers going to the place they were sent, knowing the risks and died bravely, doing what he felt was the right thing for the people or Iraq. Now. She wants someone to pay for his death. No one can bring him back any more than a child run over by a car can be brought back. Needless? Senseless? Meaningless (to her)? Sure. No doubt. And heartbreaking. And I suppose it is every mother's prerogative to believe that the death of her child is important enough to go straight to the president about, but it's also completely unrealistic. I can forgive all that. What gets me is as follows: Her demands. She demands that the President take time from his vacation (hey, let me see you get up from the couch when you're on YOUR vacation) to tell her why her son died. The President has done this. It is common knowledge. Even if you think the President is not telling the whole truth, what universe did you wake up in where politicians can speak the whole truth and still keep their jobs? And the worst is, she has told news reporters what is the answer she wants to hear. That her son died so that Petrol Magnates in the US can make money. She won't accept anything else. She is demanding that the president tell her something that she has already scripted out in her head. Anything less in unacceptable. The President. Of the United States of America, currently the most powerful nation in the world. Lady, who made you so important? How did you come to the conclusion that this is what is owed you? What broke this camel's back was an article I read today (see title link) in which she blindly assumes that all Texans (or whoever else lives in "Bush country") are out to attack her, just because they may not agree with her. Oh, come on, people. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a total jerk. Even this guy in the article is just being a Texan. He's right. He's not threatening anyone, but he does have the right to keep them off his land. And I do have to stand by him and Texans (this doesn't happen with me a whole lot) with his right to fire his weapon in the air on his property whenever he feels like it. If this is infringing on your rights, then get off his land. How dare anyone from either side of the political spectrum make this into a party-line situation. How dare this lady make the whole situation into an "us vs. them" thing. No one is out to get her, until she starts encroaching on their lives. And then she says they are peaceful. Sure, they aren't being physically violent, but they are trying to stir up things, not make things more peaceful. What she means to say is that they are being "non-violent." I'm sorry ma'am...and ladies...and all parents and loved ones of people who have died in this war or any other. I'm sorry to the loved ones all over the world who have lost children and spouses to war, especially to those relatives of the innocent bystanders. I'm sorry for your loss. But, Ms. Sheehan, I don't stand by your ridiculous statements and outrageous demands. To those of you who live in the nearby area, don't worry, she'll be gone in a month. Just take deep breaths and deal with it until then. The reporters might leave sooner.

EDIT: Someone mentioned that I took a little liberty with her son's views on the war. Granted. If I may rephrase and at least say that her son felt the right thing to do was finish out what he agreed to do in his contract with the military, even if he in no other way agreed with what he was doing over there. He was being a man and standing by his commitments and that, Ms. Sheehan, is what he died for. For personal integrity.

Gender-segregated classes

2005-08-11T07:13:00.000-05:00

So, the first thing i read this morning online was this article, linked to the title above. Americans are such Americans. How cool is it that a state college would design classes culturally acceptable to visiting faculty from another country and culture. Who flippin cares if your teacher and all your classmates are the same sex as you or co-ed? We Americans are so short-sighted and so ethno-centric and overly concerned about "our rights." To make the situation more "American" it would probably be appropriate to have an alternative to a segregated class, but I can't imagine that in a country where segregation is the exception to the rule that it would automatically imply lowered standards, as one girl in the article griped about. Surely, we can forego our preferences for one class to honor the culture of visiting faculty? Wouldn't we expect or even demand the same hospitality when we travel abroad? (Answer, after having seen far too many Americans traveling abroad: Yes, we demand things in other countries be exactly like things are in the states even when that is impossible. [Example: I love it when people ask us if we can run to Wal-mart in Nicaragua...oh, you wish we had anything near a one-stop, buy anything in the world that you want store]) So, I don't think that we need to change our culture to suit the needs of visiting cultures, but what's wrong with catering a little bit every now and then especially with something as cool as a faculty exchange with an Middle Eastern country? These people are going to have a hard time doing anything else in this country like they would in their home country, at least we can try to make them a little more comfortable in their jobs.

okay, that's all.

I met my old lover on the street last night...

2005-08-08T17:23:00.000-05:00

There's not much better in the world than running into old friends with whom you've lost contact. I ran into a friend from college on IM last night with whom I hadn't spoken in a good three years, maybe even four. And we had a good conversation and reminded me of my great desire to travel and do adventurous things while I still can. So, I'm heading back to the states, and I would love to run into old friends, but if I don't any time soon, I hope that all my friends are doing fantastic, wonderful things and that they are loving who they are becoming.

Thinking about travel had me thinking about Wales. I don't know why. And Scotland. And I've decided that the only way to visit these places would be to live there for a few weeks/months. The thought of this is awesome. The reality of this is scary because it would mean either having the funds ahead of time to live in a foreign country or being able to scrap out a living in a place where I would either need a work visa (which is usually specific to job) or illegally make enough to live on. Even this doesn't scare me too much, but I would be afraid to do something like this because I know my parents would be on me all the time to stop it. I wonder how long an american can hang out in Britain without a visa? Wow, I just checked it out online...work program through BUNAC. Really cool. Check it out all you college students looking for a semester work-job in foreign lands.

Okay, I've run out of time. I'll talk more later. Maybe.

All-time best music videos

2005-08-08T08:20:00.000-05:00

Adam's top music videos:

Beastie Boys- Sabotage (flying cars, PI spoof, absolute coolness)
Fat Boy Slim- Weapon of Choice (The one with Christopher Walken)
A-ha- Take On Me (spinning mirror tricks)
Offspring- The Kids Aren't Alright (updated technology's spinning mirror tricks)
R.E.M.- Bad Day (News Report: genius)
Coldplay- The Scientist [Edit: thanks to Ben]

I'm sure I've missed one or two. I'll edit some more in when I remember them.

Can't you feel a brand new day?

2005-07-09T00:19:00.000-05:00

I live for days like today. Today was a great day. I have had several pretty good days of late, but today was just a great day. In the morning, i took it a bit easy, watched a movie on my comp (see title link), chatting with several people whom I love and was able to sit around the house and get some work done on my computer with no shirt on and having not taken a shower. Mid-dayish, I did shower, ran out and took care of about 7 different errands (a practical impossibility in latin america) and was a good 30 minutes early to a dinner/meeting with my missionary team (a practical impossibilty for yours truly). The meeting went well, and I had a good idea that was well accepted by everyone including my supervisor, which doesn't happen much, so was a huge ego boost. We are going to be very busy soon, so we're in that wonderful stage of making sure we've done beforehand everything we need to do so that the four teams that come over as many weeks starting tomorrow (...er...today, as it's after midnight). This is my favorite stage. I live for planning and for making sure no detail went unnoticed.

The victory song in the Wiz is so amazing. It's a song a freedom. When I watch the workers dance and celebrate and then disrobe from the weight of their oppressor, it reminds me of the freedom I have. Victory is won! I am no longer bound by what used to hold me captive! It is a brand new day!! Can't you feel a brand new day? And I love that it is not only our heroes who dance and celebrate freedom, but also all the people who have held them down and attacked them throughout their journey. All they wanted was freedom, too. I wish my enemies could dance in freedom with me. That is really my wish.

To all my peeps in Panhandle Florida (wha?wha?), ya'll keep yaselves safe through Dennis.

Another day in the life...

2005-07-04T17:22:00.000-05:00

The main reason I'm writing this post is to share a new gecko story. I got into the shower and was pulling the curtain, when I noticed small tan-colored object stuck in between the curtain and the rod. I was pulling too hard to stop at this point, and the little thing came flying toward me. May I remind you that I'm in the shower, attempting to bathe, and mention that the angle of the object's fall would not have been a convenient one for me, had the object, say, sharp teeth or claws that it intended on using to stop it's fall. I twisted around in a way that would have been pretty funny for anyone who saw it (which was only the gecko, who I think had other things on his mind) and the gecko ran into my hip and fell to the ground, barely phased and in a hurry to keep moving. I don't often laugh out loud in the shower.

Incidentally, I just got back from Guatemala, where I spent a week in meetings (and not getting over this sinus infection I have). It was good to spend time with friends there. It was also sad to realize that all of the people around my age in the region are going home in november. All but one girl who teaches at a school in Guate city. And it turns out that I really feel like november is a good time for me to go home...and start focusing on moving forward. I won't be back to Nicaragua, aside from possible trips and vacations in the future, at least as far as I can tell. It's scary and exciting.

More later.

A Day in the Life

2005-06-25T07:49:00.000-05:00

I drove by Burger King this morning on the way back from the airport, hoping to have someone else prepare my breakfast. I arrived at 7 on the dot and there was still a chain across the parking lot entrance. I pulled up a few feet, turned down the radio and asked the guard, "It opens at 8, doesn't it?" He said, "No, it opens at 7...7:10...7:30, they let me know when they're ready." "So, can I come in a park my car in the parking lot until they're open?" "Um...let me go ask..." So he did and let me in and then told me to wait in the car and then told me I could go inside the restaurant. Only in Latin America.

As for the Title link, please notice song #13.

A quote

2005-06-10T12:59:00.000-05:00

Props to Mr. Morrison for mentioning this one. Wonderful quote that I am not just yet willing to put up as one I intend to make my quote or a motto or anything, but one that deserves thought and discussion.

Whatever is the object for which men forsake Christ, that is the price at which Satan buys their souls.

I must admit, I get bought pretty cheap.

States I've visited.

2005-06-07T18:08:00.000-05:00

I decided to only list those states I've actually spent a night in as qualifiers, so that, for example, I've driven through Arkansas and South Carolina, but as best as I remember, I've never spent a night.

Ohio was junior year winter drumline national competition. NY was senior trip. Minnesota and Illinois (Chicago) was with the Boy Scouts, as was New Mexico. West Virginia was as a counselor for a youth group ski trip. Maryland and NC are from college freshman year road trip (which incidentally, would've included South Carolina if Carowinds theme park was in Charleston, SC instead of Charlotte, NC [what? they look a lot alike!]...we spent the night in Savannah instead). All other places have multiple visits.

Another dream.

2005-05-25T07:26:00.000-05:00

My dream last night was a series of vignettes about a small group of people who survived a plane crash in a post-apocalyptic urban center. Brad, from a recent team was an air-traffic controller in-training (although he called it something else). and the pilot survived, but he would fall asleep. I played various characters. At one point I was a black guy unearthing some red brick that we needed. Brad called something in the cockpit the "logitechs" that they needed to get working. That is the brand name of my britney spears-style headphone/mic that I use to call home. It only made a little sense, but it was pretty fun. I saw a picture last night shortly before i went to bed that I thought might be a still shot of Dominic Monaghan from "Lost." That's what i blame it on.

Internet psycho-babble

2005-05-23T08:26:00.000-05:00

I going to go with "I disagree" on this one. Except maybe for the last comment. And I am definitely NOT more responsible and self-disciplined than I realize.

Your Birthdate: March 4

Being born on the 4th day of the month should help make you a better manager and organizer.

You may be more responsible and self-disciplined than you realize.

Sincere and honest, you are a serious and hard working individual.

Your feelings are likely to seem somewhat repressed at times.

The number 4 has something of an inhibiting effect on your ability to show and express affections, as feeling are very closely regulated and controlled.

You are apt to be much more practical, rational, and conscious of details.

There is a good deal of rigidity and stubbornness associated with the number 4.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Rurnt

2005-05-14T18:53:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I feel like maybe I have ruined myself for women. Like maybe I have though about it so stinkin much that I'll never be comfortable enough to just be in love and marry someone. I totally fall in love about every other week. I hate that. It's obviously a real superficial thing and I think it's mostly because I just want so badly to love someone, anyone. And then when it comes down to it, I look at the situation and think: "Well...she's great and all. She has a lot of great character traits and I really enjoy being around her...except...I always hoped or pictured marrying someone like [list specific talent, passion or trait(s) here]." I pretend to throw up my arms and say I don't care, but it never lasts, if it was true in the first place.

There's a story that Jesus tells in the Bible about the kingdom of Heaven which is the way I want to feel about women. A jeweller came across a large and perfect pearl--the absolute best he had ever seen and knew he would ever see. So, he sold all his other ware to obtain the pearl. Just like a man who was travelling through a field and came across a great treasure, like maybe crude oil or something. So, he sold all his possessions and went down to his local government office and put the money down on the barrel head and bought that piece of property so that he could have it. Somebody once gave me advice concerning women that is actually quite similar and which is right now my desire: "Don't marry a woman that you can live with, marry the woman you can't live without."

I don't even know.

2005-05-07T10:47:00.000-05:00

Things are not going so well. I wrote a blog entry last night that's so disturbing I can't publish it. And here I go again. I have to write this out and I feel like I need to share it with people, but I don't mean to send out a message that I need people who have nothing to say to me to come back and force themselves to say something about how they are sorry and wish they could help. Reading the news depresses me. Reading or watching fiction makes me wish I could dwell in a world of fiction. Nobody else is concerned about doing the "right thing," everyone is just concerned about doing something for themselves. Like this jerk who ran off with the finger he found in his custard instead of returning it to the guy who had just lost it. Was he THAT disturbed by the finger that he couldn't lower himself to help somebody out? But worst of all, is this guy any worse than anybody else? Maybe, given the same situation, I wouldn't have done the same thing, maybe. But I can assure you that I think of myself above other people all the time, when I have the means and they have the need. And I can't stand that. And it makes me sick to live in a world like that.

To be more personal: I have a hard time with motivation most of the time and right now my wells of motivation are running pretty dry. Sometimes I don't accomplish the things I'm supposed to get done because a) I was busy doing something that I enjoyed and forgot about my responsibilities or b) I remembered and put them off until after I was done doing what I wanted in the hopes that maybe I would "feel like it" later. Then, I get called out on it and try to lie (yes, lie) and tell incomplete truths so that I can maybe weasel my way out of the consequences. How sick is that? And then, when I get told that I am irresponsible, which I am, I come up with good reasons to ignore all advice given to me that has nothing to do with the truth, but is more based on how it was presented to me and how they could have said it in a better way. Or maybe I prefer to focus on the other person's inconsistentcies instead of facing up to my own problems. Or maybe I don't want to see those flaws in my character because I'm so busy dealing with others and I just can't fix myself on every side all at once.

And really, I don't think any of what I just wrote is at the heart of the matter, but I'm not entirely sure what is. I think a lot of this is a response to something building up over time. Is it being in a strange country? I don't think so and maybe something about that adds to the problem, but it isn't the base. I just feel so overwhelmed. I don't even know what I'm overwhelmed with.

Oh, and by the way, check out the new links! Wheeee!

Watch out for red-splotch-headed children!

2005-05-06T06:56:00.000-05:00

I just woke up (10 minutes before the alarm, mind you) from a great dream. I was friends or relations with the president and everywhere he went, when he was off duty, these vampires would come after him, but they were totally easy to spot. There were, like, two main vampires: a man and a woman. the woman was tall and thin with glasses and long stringy hair. She looked suspiciously like one of the missionaries I know in the other side of the world. They always went after children. So all these zombie-like children were always walking up to the president. They were almost always blonde and they always had red (like candy-apple red) highlight or splotches in their hair. At the very end, they were approaching the president one by one and I couldn't lock the door...i mean, it only had one of those little chain locks that let you open the door about two inches (what do you call those?), so I couldn't keep the little red-splotched haired, zombie children out, but the president was guarded by a ton of protection and they would open fire on any little red-splotch-headed children who walked through the door. Except, I had to be outside the door because I was on door duty, and I couldn't very well stand there while they shot at little children near the door, now could i? So I kinda showed them in one at a time. And this one little girl came by and at first i didn't notice the red splotches because they were so stylishly added to her blonde little head. And she was a beautiful little girl and I told her so and she responded. That was weird because all besides the original two just kinda grunted. She had a british accent so I asked her if she from britain and she said, "I'm from heaven." And I had no CLUE what that meant, so I asked again, "No, I mean...were you born in Britain?" "No," she said with some frustration, "I'm from heaven." About that time the female leader walked up and was mad that a) i was talking to one of her spawn b) that she was talking back (that's not supposed to happen) and c) I was still alive so she started coming for me and I was screwed unless some of those secret service decided to take a glance out the door. As I started thinking of possible ways out, I got overly analytical and realized i was dreaming and woke up. I wonder what happened...?

Vengence among other things

2005-05-03T19:42:00.000-05:00

First of all, let me say that I didn't realize I had such an audience (all four of you) and it is such a pleasure to read your greetings and encouragement. Thanks!

Today deserves mention (Junior won deservable mention for his science fair project, honey). Morning started with a jolt, even though I woke up at 5,6, and 7 before shooting out of bed at 7:09. I went through my list of internet news sources (Yahoo, Google, Fox, Miami herald, and La Prensa) and carried on light morning IM conversation (always a pleasure). Next thing I know it's 9 and I get a phone call while I'm in the shower. Plans change for the day, and I fear the worst: I'm not going to leave the house. I hate it when that happens. I get to work writing up expense reimbursements and actually turn them in without the money man having to get onto me. YES! I picked up Count of Monte Cristo last night and continued to read a chapter here and there throughout the day. Suddenly at 2, life gets on track and plans fall into place. I meet with Carey who is going to help me throw a Cinco de Mayo party (ATTENTION ALL NORTH AMERICANS, CINCO DE MAYO IS A SPECIFICALLY MEXICAN HOLIDAY AND IS NOT CELEBRATED HERE. THAT WOULD BE LIKE AUSTRAILIA CELEBRATING JULY 4TH. The joke here, is that we're celebrating it anyway). Incidentally, it's mostly a 5/5/05 party because three numbers lining up all the same is always a good reason to throw a party. So, make sure and keep your 11/11/11 schedule open, cause that's just way to many ones in a row not to have a party. She came and looked at the house to kinda get an idea of the space and what we can do. I am very afraid this party is going to tank, but I really have already committed myself, so...we'll see. On the way to drop her off, I pick up Alex, who is a really nice guy and smart and who proceeded to show me around the audio stores in town. I thought maybe he knew of stores that I didn't. Turned out I knew all of them. But it was nice to have a Nica ask for a "cotizacion" (um...price check?) at all the stores. I dropped him off and went to go grocery shop, running into the beloved West family. I went from there to order my sushi (YAY!) and while it was busy cooking (no, see, that was supposed to be funny....read it again) I went to go return a late video for the Wests...since I held on to it too long. It was Garden State incidentally and was absolutely amazing! Not terribly thought-provoking, but it did make me intensely lonely and long achingly for a female companion in a romantic relationship. I mean, what else can you really ask for in a movie, right? So, while I'm at the video store they sell me the poster for Garden State (Who knew all you had to do was ask?!?) for roughly $3 (50 cordobas for all you Nicaraguan monetary unit understanders). Purchase of said movie happened only after the discovery of America's Sweethearts for $5, which I figured was a decent deal for a movie I had wanted to see, but never got around to. I mean...if it ends up being so bad that I'll wish I didn't own it, I can always give it away and cut the loss and not really worry about it.

So, on the way home, I'm thinking about ole Edmond Dantes down in his prison (Monte Cristo) and how he was thinking about vengence against his enemies and how even if he was justified in his hatred of the three men who had wronged him, it wasn't the better choice. Ew. Let me try that again. I can't seem to put it to words. It's like...they caused him earthly pain. Should they suffer punishment for this? Sure. Is it Dantes' place to give it to them? or Can his killing them bring about justice? Is his intent to hurry their journey to their Judge? The book is full of religious language and obviously plays a large part in his thinking and in the theme of the book. So then it dawned on me, an epiphany: What happens on this earth is insignificant in terms of what someone may do to me. It's not a big deal. Be they evil and wrong in every sense, all they can do is make me uncomfortable. They can take my things, they can break my pride, they can take those I love and they can take my life. All of these are things I would prefer not to happen and most of which would bring great anguish, some of them anguish beyond words. But really, these things pale in comparison to what I have in God. And that's why I must be able to forgive those who have done me wrong, whether it be in ways great or small. And I realize this and it frees me. I don't have to hold another grudge against anyone for anything. If nothing else, I must pity those who think that taking from me will make their lives better or those that treat me with any disrespect, unaware of how much harder they are making life on themselves. Even if it is someone who has broken my heart. How can I hold that against them? What if, in my forgiving what they did to me, it enables them to understand mercy? Is that not a much higher and greater thing than having exacted my revenge? I'm tired of revenge, it takes too much out of me; while forgiveness, on the other hand, fills me. I want to choose forgiveness.

Natural Course

2005-04-30T08:18:00.000-05:00

I am slowly realizing a concept I decided was true a long time ago that seperates me from people like my sister. I depend on things to work themselves out naturally. This may stem from my overwhelming fear of making decisions, because if things are just going to work themselves out, why do I need to rock the boat and mess things up? Maybe I just want to believe things will work out naturally so I don't have to freak when it becomes too late in the game to affect the situation and I still don't know what I want. I told my sister lately that I didn't know what I wanted and she came back saying, "You don't know? Adam, that's so basic!" And it is basic, to know what one wants...which makes me feel like even more of a freak for not knowing. Am I missing something inside that gives me preference? It stretches to all parts of my life...and in the minor details it's a little refreshing "Blue toothbrush or red?" "I don't care, I just want a toothbrush; whichever you don't want." There is no fear to make a decision in this situation, there is just absolutely no preference. And I can argue with philosophical and theological matters all day, but even then, I mostly just argue as Devil's advocate, to make sure the person I'm arguing with sees the merits of the other side. So here it is: I either want to just agree with everyone or argue with them so that they can be on their way to being as indecisive as I am. Cause really, I'd mostly just rather give up that have to make a decision. I'm a jerk like that. What do you want to do for a living, Adam? Gee Willakers, I don't know! I'd just as soon get a job at McDonald's. I have no motivation and no drive. It's like I'm a bad American (a fact that is probably heightened by the fact that I am living as an ex-patriot).

Hey, make a slogan!

2005-03-20T10:35:00.000-06:00

The best one I saw for me was "Hoopty tested, Mother approved"

Saved!

2005-03-19T19:40:00.000-06:00

I realize that I must the last person who has wanted to see this movie to actually see it, so that commenting on it serves really no purpose for the rest of humanity, but this really is a journal, after all, and it's all about my writing what I need to get out and put voice to, so...um...nyah nyah. That having been said, may I also say that for anyone who has not seen this movie and would be mad about reading about the giving away of key plot points, don't read any further. If you haven't seen this movie because it's a slam on christianity, you're only partially right and you can read on, because you weren't planning on seeing it anyway. If I make you mad by what I say about this movie and christianity in general, you have that right, but please consider not reading my journal anymore.

"Saved!" was a double whammy in that it both poked gaping holes in the walls of purity that so many christians try to put up by declaring that it can't be as easy as that as well as only giving weak arguments in favor in its opposition. Let me start with the former. Mandy Moore's Hilary Fae (Fay?) and Chip the Christian School Director were the obvious antagonists in this film, with a hint at redemption but nothing clear. In Hilary Fay we see the judgemental christian who more often than not uses christian language in order to promote her/his own agenda. In this case it's the typical gossiping popular girl who uses things like prayer requests in order to spread rumors, even true ones, about peers and to boost her esteem among her peers by making herself seem more perfect. This is an interesting situation where culture, specifically christian culture, has somehow taught young girls (and boys) that they must be perfect and that perfection is what we are striving for, where the Bible, which this culture considers its ultimate word does not teach. I could go off here on the difference between holy and perfect, but I've got so much to say, I think I'll save it for another time. Let's talk about Chip. I cringed the very first time his character was on the screen, mostly because I knew people like him and his art imitation of life was too close for comfort. We could see in him a striving to make christianity "cool" and to try to make Jesus out to be somebody who would be accepted by the modern culture. He uses vernacular phrases and changes words around to add "God" into them. At one point he says to someone: “You get their attention, and then you HIT them with the message and then BOOM, you save another soul!” AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

No kidding, a song we used to sing in youth group: I got friends in HOLY places (a la Garth Brooks), Peaceful, easy feeling (cause I'm already standing on SOLID ground) (a la Eagles), GRACE keeps me moving (moving, moving) into the future (also a la Eagles, and I actually heard that one at Church in the Now! outside Atlanta), ...that's all I got on the top of my head, but you can easily see where this is going. I am so sickened by this now. I felt so pressured all along to think it was cool and I think that is the biggest problem with youth groups in modern churches...they're all about making Jesus apply to culture instead of just declaring Jesus. What if instead of talking about how much we need to snatch out our friends from going to hell, we preached the sermon on the mount? I'm dearly afraid that the US is becoming so hotly divided between "liberal" and "conservative" that Jesus is getting lost in the mix unless someone can get him to support their cause.

One problem I had with the movie was a lack of redemption. They tried to pretend that Mary, the main character, had some kind of redemption in that her faith in a god was revived, but there was absolutely no redemption for anyone believing a biblical God. Hilary Fay more or less confessed that she wanted God to be her genie and bring her success and Chip was merely left in crisis, not knowing whether to follow his heart or his legalistic version of God. And it was actually a really cheap move to have the jewish girl call out to God to "help her find him (the boy, not God)." Could we not show God as some kind of real entity to her? Is this what the makers of this movie think God is? The big genie who helps us only when we've run out of other options to do it on our own? Please. Surely if one can grasp the concept of a one god, one would conceive of him with a little more self-dignity. We're never quite sure what the director's son believes (and please, the director of the christian school and his wife who lives overseas as a missionary? Big suspension of reality on that one). Unless we count Patrick, there are no christians in this film who aren't overwhelmingly ...horrid. It is completely a showcase of one side of the story showing no redeeming qualities in one who might follow a biblical Jesus. I understand they only had 2 hours and it did make some good points, but most of them were actually edited out (see in the DVD, the lunch discussion about jungle tribes who haven't heard about Jesus) and even then, the points are fairly trite, even if never mentioned in a movie before. It was groundbreaking in terms of hollywood, but completly slanted and sub-par given its subject. All the heroic characters were necessarily not christians/believers in God and in a way that was not justified by the character.

I have a friend who says this movie should be required viewing for all youth groups in churches around the US. Obviously that's a silly concept (and obviously he's too young to realize the kind of response outraged parents would have). There are some things in this movie that many young christians need to see, but I think it's a bit difficult for a lot of young people to get past the message in the movie "Christians are bad." I realize that may not be NECESSARILY what the filmmaker's are trying to get across, but if you break the theme down to its simplist (and some kids can only do that much), it can come across like that. There needs to be teaching of love and acceptance in church youth groups, but I definitely sure that not all kids from 7th grade up are ready to handle this -- even with a dialogue afterwards.

Christian kids need to hear the truth in a way that isn't quite so offensive in the same way that kids who aren't need to hear it. Yes, we need to stop bible beating, but let's not tolerant-beat either, eh? Can someone please show me a movie that considers both sides? Please?

I may not agree with all I said in the morning, but I'm not up for editing. I also may have forgotten something...i need to talk to someone. How come no one's on line?

Enh

2005-03-16T22:00:00.000-06:00

Right, so...I never do this kind of stupid stuff...but I thought it was kinda funny on someone else's blog...and I thought it was a pretty funny discription of myself to be randomly generated by the mice in wheels or psychics who run the internet (I'm convinced it's either one or the other). So, here it is. Enjoy it, don't, or go eat some yogurt.

ADAM
A	is for	Arty
D	is for	Dashing
A	is for	Altruistic
M	is for	Misunderstood

What Does Your Name Mean?

Edit: Oh, and it turns out my brain is 66.67% female...whatever that means.

Stephen King, you wanker

2005-02-23T19:12:00.000-06:00

If you think you may ever read Stephen King's Dark Tower Septology, do not continue reading this blog entry. I'll try hard not to give away key plot points, but it is those plot points which have spurred the emotion which led me to blog this evening. Once again, read ahead at your own risk.

My mother, somewhere in her journey through bookdom learned just how close to your heart a character, who exists solely in an author's imagination and in his/her words on a page, can grow. It was a painful lesson in that this particular character died on the very last page of the book. She was so marred by her love of the character and her disgust at the character's untimely death that she left the practice of reading the narrative from front to end and entered into the dangerous world of skipping ahead, if ever she found that she loved a character. I have never done this, and I do not intend to, but tonight I can understand why she would take action to keep herself from feeling that kind of pain. Two characters that I loved dearly died today. And within a hundred pages of each other. When the first one died, or rather when the character received its fatal blow, i put the book down and walked away to mourn. I was confused and unbelieving. I waited a few hours and picked the story up again and mourned with the rest of the characters on the deathbed. I bid the character goodbye. And I stayed with everyone as they moved on. And then another died. And not a character I could have bared to see die, but the unbearable. I'm not prepared to give up on the book, because like the main character, I'm come too far and given up too much to quit now. From when I began reading this series in summer of 2000, from nigh page one, I have longed to see the tower and with all that I have left behind, I will tread onward.

The great evil in all this, however, is how much the writer tries to incorporate "fate" into this story. So much so that he even seems to indicate that he couldn't help killing off the characters that had to die, because some "greater force" was leading him to do so. And as much as that may be true, Mr. King, it was no fictitious character that brought about the death of these who have passed on. Please know, Mr. King, that their deaths are on your head. I suffer you know mercy from that. You must bear the guilt. You, dear writer, are a wanker.

Edit: From Peter Jackson's Two Towers: "It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something -- that there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.

touchè, Mr. King. But I still can't believe you did that.

I guess that's why they call it "the blues"

2005-02-21T19:06:00.000-06:00

Okay, so, I am a boy and so when valentine's day rolls around and I don't have anyone, I don't really care. I congratulate myself on not having to spend exorbitant amounts of money to prove that I love someone and go about with my day as usual. Things were no different this year. This brings me to roughly one week later when I get back into town and realize that every girl I know who is single is not only really bummed about no one treating them special on the one special day, but also being very verbal about it. Not a problem, it's all good. Better to let it out that hold it all in. But it gets me to realizing how much I really wish i wasn't single. And even though valentine's day slipped by me this year completely unnoticed, i find myself thinking a lot about the fairer sex, missed opportunities, girls I know that could be potential girlfriends/something more down the line, and hoping and praying that I'll find HER soon. The funny part is that besides the whole "mission rules" and everything...and the fact that I don't have the time to keep up a healthy relationship, I am a chicken turd. Rejection is probably my greatest fear. I mean, send me lions, tigers, men with machetes, long mountainous climbs, but please don't put me in a situation where I have to figure out where to sit. I seriously have major anxiety everytime I go to church because I don't know if the people I want to sit next to want to sit next to me. It's a bit silly, but if I were to genuinely like someone and find out that they would have prefered for someone else to sit next to them, ...i don't know what I would do, but I'd probably be depressed for a good week, assuming something happened all week to cheer me up. So, this is just finding a seat in church and has nothing to do with girls. So if there's a girl who I think is pretty cool and I want to get to know her better, I try to find an opportunity to talk to her or something, but usually I have absolutely nothing to say. So I just don't go talk to her. I suffer through small pleasantries and then ashamedly wander off when I can't think of anything worthwhile to say. So, on that note, I'm going out for coffee with a friend of mine who lived in Nicaragua last year and taught at the school. I haven't seen her in a while, so I think we'll have a lot to talk about...and if not, I'll just wander off.

And so...

2005-01-29T09:46:00.000-06:00

Just to set a few things straight: I have chosen to extend my time here by two years (despite my supe's requesting that I go ahead and commit to an extra summer). This would have me staying here until the end of may, 2007. In honor of my decision to hang around, I am moving to a new house that, at first glance, appears to be safer than the one in which I currently reside. Actually, my thinking about moving it was finally led me to make a decision on extending in the first place. And this decision was confirmed by the fact that as soon as I made it, someone stole my spare tire and my grandpa died. So, moving day is wednesday, and I have much to do in terms of packing. I wish I didn't live in such filth. This is also helping me choose to move. In this new place, which is much bigger so that we can house teams that come down in it, I would have a maid come probably twice a week. So...Friday night I decided to move, monday, i went around and looked at houses, thursday, I talked over a contract, and wednesday, I'll move in. It's crazy how fast life moves sometimes and I don't know if that is completely wonderful or sucks a whole lot.

So, a question. I know that blogging should not be used to write out all your deepest thoughts for all the world to see (I've written one or two unpublished drafts, myself), but it seems to be the perfect location for people to talk about their lovelifes, both in complaint and in praise. And people DO write about it. Why not? So, it always seemed to me that it might be a bit...er...wrong for me to read my current girlfriend's blog (never had a blogging girlfriend, and don't currently have a girlfriend...this is all theory here, folks) so that she would feel free to write about what she wanted to write about without worrying that I might walk up to her and say "hey, you twisted my words in your blog" or whatever. And I think I have been proved wrong. It dawns on me that it is so appropriate that there be open dialogue. It is important to me that the girlfriend/wife (whenever God sends, ...and by the way *achem* we'd all appreciate it if you'd get on that for us, eh?) be open with me, and sometimes blogging is the absolute best way to do it. I know that I seem to vent best in written form and that I am much less likely to say something I didn't mean. But I can say EVERYTHING i do mean, and sometimes, if I could just get the vent out, no interruptions, and then talk about it later...it might help get through whatever situation is at hand.

Because honesty and trust are so important to me. I think that those are important values in our culture. When we watch tv shows, we boo the person that is disloyal and lies to their friends. We feel uneasy when a character we like HAS to lie for "the right reasons" and we try to justify their actions, because they are the exception to what is right. Many missionaries in this country...and in this part of the world, and probably all across the globe...and probably millions of people who aren't missionaries (I'm stopping here, you get the point) have trusted other people, maybe even some who have earned trust only to be stabbed in the back and for the person who did it to shrug their shoulders and say "hey, that's life, you shouldn't have trusted me." That idea increases my circulation. I'd like to think that I am not easily angered. But a few things really heat me up: lying, disloyalty/treachery, stealing, and taxi drivers. How in the world can someone go back on their word in a way that hurts their friends and is personally benefitting? I don't confess to be a sinless saint, but i just don't understand why people don't WANT to be honest and fair-dealing with each other. I lost my train of thought, so that's all.

Grandpa pt. 2

2005-01-25T09:50:00.000-06:00

So, I didn't go home to be with my family during this time. And I'm okay with that. I called over there several times and got to talk with just about everyone. People I haven't spoken with in years. When I spoke with my grandpa's wife, I was comforted, which felt a little like the opposite of the way things are supposed to go. She spoke calmly and was obviously very happy to have so much family around (her kids, his kids, and his former wife's kids -- it's a blessing we all get on so well). She told me that Grandpa was proud of me. I don't know why she told me that, but I'm glad she did. I didn't know he was proud of me. One of his daughters, with whom I have not spoken in several years, told me that he was so proud of what i was doing. I didn't know he talked about me. His wife said that his eyes got teary sometimes when i sent in updates. I didn't know that. His pastor and his wife feel that he was right with God. I hope so. And I don't mean that in a negative sense, as in that I hope one way but feel sure that the opposite is true. I mean, I have hope that he had, indeed, made peace with God. May the 13 or so extra years of life given to you as a gift, grandpa, may they have been used to draw you to the Father and may you find your peace now with him.

Grandpa

2005-01-23T14:03:00.000-06:00

My Grandpa died on Saturday morning. At that time, I was driving from the middle of nowhere back to Managua. I got to my email at 12:40ish and read about it in an email from my sister, but not before first reading about another missionary I know who finally went home after fighting brain cancer for a year. There are two deaths, both tragic, but one is also a victory. The missionary was a young man in his 30s who had a wife and no children. She is comforted to know that Jon went home to be in the hands of their father, but still will have to live through the pain of moving on. My grandpa was a funny fellow, and was living on borrowed time. He had lung cancer many years ago and had to have portions removed. This did not help when he came down with pneumonia the other day while in the hospital. They performed an emergency surgery to stop internal bleeding, it was successful, and then, for a reason that I do not yet know, his heart stopped on saturday morning. I can't help but feel that his death was not a victory, but was, instead, the end of the wasted extra time to live that he was given. I am thankful that he was there with my grandma as she suffered slowly and wasted away. I am glad he was there with our family when my uncle passed away. I am glad he was able to be a comfort to his third wife when her daughter committed suicide. I pray someone will be that same comfort for her now. I hate not going to the funeral and not being able to be with family. It makes it all seem so surreal. It makes me afraid to call, almost out of shame that i can't be there, and out of fear of coming to grips with it all. I loved him. I still do, i suppose. I am not devasted that he is gone, and maybe that is why I am afraid to call. I am ashamed that I can not be there with them and I am afraid that the main reason i didn't go is because I can't afford it. And then, when people offer to pay, I am even more ashamed, because that is not the reason either...or maybe I don't feel it would be appropriate to accept such charity. I would be ashamed of the debt. I am not overwrought with grief, and in fact, I don't even believe it yet, not really. But I feel like I should be. I am going to call, though. As much for my family as for me, and even for his memory. I'm sorry I didn't see you at thanksgiving, grandpa.

I wrote this several days ago...

2005-01-20T15:38:00.000-06:00

Before getting into anything, I find it funny that blogging, for me, varies from having intellectual conversations with myself about life and God and politics to bearing my soul in my inner, personal struggles. As shallow as it may sound, i feel like the following falls under the latter category.

So. It all comes to this: Should I stay or should I go? There are good reasons to stay...and my supervisors are not below reminding me of them and tempting me with other paddings. The reasons to go home seem awfully personal in nature: I'm lonely, I miss things like Christmas, I miss being able to talk with people about things like music and literature. Of course I miss friends and family, and if I left here, I would too. I suppose when I write it all down, it seems logical to stay. But even then, for how long? I should've already made a decision to extend or re-sign up or whatever, but it seems so odd to make a decision about how much longer I want to stay without a clear reason one way or the other. I want to go home and I want to stay, and I suppose it makes the most sense to stay, as I don't have any direction upon going home. So, should I extend 6 months? extend 15 months? extend 6 months and then resign up for two more years putting me back in the states in January 2008?

I dawns on me that going home at whatever point, when I am done with my work here, is going to make me feel completely useless because no one is going to care about all that I know about Nicaragua and its people. I wish I was one to be able to tell random stories off the top of my head, on command, but I don't even do that well...so I won't even be able to appease the story-seekers when I return. Oh well, "sufficient unto the day...."

2005-01-15T16:02:00.000-06:00

God, is she out there?!?!?

Evolution

2005-01-15T07:36:00.000-06:00

[Edit: Click on the title for a link to the story to which I am referring]

Okay, reading this story, I'm not entirely sure what the deal is. The reporter must be leaving out some kind of crucial information, because the judge's final decision on this case seems, at face value, a little silly. "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered." This introduction gives believers just as much reason to doubt it as opposers reason to consider it. It challenges students to study and not just accept it or deny it unquestioningly. Perhaps we should put introductions like this in history books as well. We know that people who write history like to write it in such a way that favors their opinions. (Side note: The ship that the HMS Suprise is pursuing in "Master and Commander" in the movie is french, but in the book it was american. Wouldn't want american audiences getting mad because some one portrayed them as the bad guys!). So, back to evolution. Evolution is a theory. It is a good theory. But Creationists are not the only people who find it somewhat faulty. Evolution is the gathering of material to surmise the best scientific reasoning behind how the earth, as we know it, came to be so, and how we as a race, as a species, came to be as we are. I would hazard that it is largely in response to the unfaltering belief in Creationism, but that's just a theory. I don't mean to say that a science book should be teaching theories that are not considered scientific, but even the theory of evolution has changed over the past 50 years in some details. Whose rights are violated by asking students to consider material, ANY material, with a critical eye? Isn't that what EDUCATION and even the dadgum SCIENTIFIC METHOD are all about? Questioning what is held as truth?

The real problem that scares me is that we citizens of the US keep bringing certain cases before federal courts. I don't mean to say it scares me that we are using the court system. That's a good thing; they are there for that very reason. What I mean is that...not every issue is a federal issue. Some of them are state issues. For example: education. I understand that people are crying out for national standards and especially because as kids begin to apply to colleges, they may have a perfect GPA from the best education their state had to offer and it may end up being sub-par to that of other states. However, there are no U.S. federal schools. We have only State public schools and of course private schools. Why then, do issues concerning education move to a federal level? Why do we want a bigger government? Didn't any of you read Fahrenheit 451 or 1984? It's amazing when you look back at the way our country was founded, as a group of states. I think we no longer understand what the word "state" means. Every country in the world, besides the U.S. is ONE state. We are 50 individual states, each with it's own voice. The federal branch of our government was meant to be used for things such as foreign policy, not running our lives. Our government was set up in the constitution to be small government, unlike the monarchies of the European nations from which the original settlers came. and 200 years later, we have come full circle. So remember, folks, Vote Adam for Small Government!

Pt. 4: Dependence

2005-01-14T22:35:00.000-06:00

God called me to amazing fast in dependence this past week. My fast was to eat no food, but what was offered to me. The first thing I did was plan out where I was probably going to get offered meals in the next couple of days...and every time, I was wrong. Each and every meal I thought might happen through the weekend bailed on me. I was getting pretty hungry...it was the strongest I've been tempted to eat during a fast ever. Or, at least, it seemed like the strongest at the time...and I suppose it always does. :) Sunday night I agreed to take a friend of mine to church. I was kinda bummed that we showed up after it was over (i thought it started at 6 instead of 5), and on the way home, she up and offers to buy me a burger from McDonald's. God bless her. Stuff like this happened all week. In the final moments of fasting, I'm sitting in a meeting, writing down and thinking out strategy, when it hits me. Here I am, trying to plan out what God wants to do to reach the people of Nicaragua. We have obviously found a simple concept that seems to be blessed by God, but now I'm trying to steer the ship and decide who should be reached by this and not letting God show me where to go. I have been crying out much of late, "What do you want, God?" and finally I heard the answer. The same answer it's always been since day 1: "Your availability, Adam." Wasn't this God's call to every Israelite leader or prophet? Wasn't this Jesus' call to those who wanted to follow him? I will tell you the truth, it was his call to me. I heard, as clear as I've ever heard from any physical lips: "...as you are now, you are not usable the way I want to use you. So, get up off your butt and follow me!" I have forgotten the first rule of being a follower: I am supposed to follow. I also asked God, "What should my agenda be?" and he said, "PRAYER. Depend on me, Adam." And so, even though I was sitting in a chair in the meeting, I kneeled in my heart and said "You don't need me here, would you use me here?" And our conversation was finished. Sometimes it is not God's job to provide answers just because I want to hear them. It isn't my job to figure out the plan. It is my job to be obedient and faithful with what I have been given. But above and before all else, I need to depend on God to provide all that I need when I need it, even if I think I need it earlier. I don't have to be in control.