Monday, May 2, 2011
Lessons from tri training
Lesson number one from tri training came on day one: ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS bring conditioner when swimming at the gym pool. It looked like my cat had used my head as a ball of string. Not good.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Fat but agile
My cat killed two mice. He is 20 pounds and spends 23 hours a day sleeping and the other hour eating. I'm not sure how he managed to kill 2 mice. He actually eats his food, then eats the dogs food. He is pretty spectacular.
We believe, but cannot prove, that he is able to catch mice by luring them in while appearing to be dead. He then pounces. If he doesn't get them on the first pounce, it's over. He gets winded easily.
We believe, but cannot prove, that he is able to catch mice by luring them in while appearing to be dead. He then pounces. If he doesn't get them on the first pounce, it's over. He gets winded easily.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Flashbacks :0
Went and saw Battlefield LA today. It was awesome.
Somehow, it reminded me of being in Israel and under fire. I seriously will never forget that. I remember driving back north to pick up our gear from the hotel. We were driving towards missiles. We weren't even wearing helmets. who does that? I was pretty freaked out. I was looking up in the sky to see if i could see them coming at us. About an hour before a missile had hit about 300 yards from our hotel.
Later, we went to Ceserea Phillipi to escape the onslaught from Hezbollah. I would wake up in the middle of the night hearing the military choppers circling the city, waiting to warn us of attacks. The loud noise would send me into a panic. the missiles that had hit near us had given me an acute fear of loud explosion like noises.
I know it wasn't that big of deal, but running down those stairs after the BOOM, running for my life to a bomb shelter, that was probably one of the scariest moments of my life. THe hotel shook with the force. Most American civilians don't get bombed. And I got bombed by a janky ass missile shot off a bbq in the back of some Lebenese pick up truck. but still....
I will always hate CNN for their coverage of that event. They blamed Israel. BS. B freaking S. Just cause Hezbollah aim blows and Israel can hit what they aim at. Hezbollah shot at me. They shot at civilians. They shot first. Hezbollah hides behind children. That's why there was casualities...they count on you being angry because kids die, so they hide behind them. they hide their weapons in schools. don't buy the lies.
Somehow, it reminded me of being in Israel and under fire. I seriously will never forget that. I remember driving back north to pick up our gear from the hotel. We were driving towards missiles. We weren't even wearing helmets. who does that? I was pretty freaked out. I was looking up in the sky to see if i could see them coming at us. About an hour before a missile had hit about 300 yards from our hotel.
Later, we went to Ceserea Phillipi to escape the onslaught from Hezbollah. I would wake up in the middle of the night hearing the military choppers circling the city, waiting to warn us of attacks. The loud noise would send me into a panic. the missiles that had hit near us had given me an acute fear of loud explosion like noises.
I know it wasn't that big of deal, but running down those stairs after the BOOM, running for my life to a bomb shelter, that was probably one of the scariest moments of my life. THe hotel shook with the force. Most American civilians don't get bombed. And I got bombed by a janky ass missile shot off a bbq in the back of some Lebenese pick up truck. but still....
I will always hate CNN for their coverage of that event. They blamed Israel. BS. B freaking S. Just cause Hezbollah aim blows and Israel can hit what they aim at. Hezbollah shot at me. They shot at civilians. They shot first. Hezbollah hides behind children. That's why there was casualities...they count on you being angry because kids die, so they hide behind them. they hide their weapons in schools. don't buy the lies.
Friday, June 18, 2010
musings
I love life. I love the stars. I wish the real world was more like a fantasy novel. If it were, I would be a kender because I'm not afraid of anything and I love shiny objects. I try to be awake because Henry David Thoreau says that to be awake is to be alive. He says the mass of men live in quiet desperation. I have a hippy van and a dog named charley. I love my Thomas and believe in God. I'm very smart, and I know a lot of things, but the only real knowledge I've gained is that I am not wise.
I am naive. I believe that people are good and i always think people tell the truth. I am an easy target for salesmen, but i don't care. i'd rather be gullible than cynical. I believe in Karma but i don't think bad things happen to people JUST because they are bad. I mean, look at poor Job. I haven't figured out the algorithm yet, but karma definitely plays a role in the universe's justice system.
I lead a charmed life. I have received great love, witnessed of true sublime beauty, and felt a deep compassion for the suffering of humanity.
I hate holier than thou people more than pagans. I don't like smooshy apples. I want to believe in reincarnation for two reasons. 1. i think it would make the universe more fair, 2. i have too many things i want to do in life to complete in one lifetime.
When I was little i wanted to be a hobo. I wanted a stick with a little bundle wrapped in a handkerchief. I wanted to ride the trains and find work on farms with the seasons. I still think that would be a good life, but I think i'd have to live in the 1920's or 30's for it to work out.
I think God is beautiful and mysterious. I don't like when people try and subjugate God to reason and science, as if God must defend himself to our tiny world, like a human trying to explain his existence to an ant. Describing God, creation, and redemption is more poetry than physics, more art than equation. Sometimes I am afraid because there is so much I don't know.
I can't comprehend eternity. I can't even really think about it. It is more than I can bear. So i don't think about heaven or hell or what will happen to me when I die. I can't. I love God not because of eternity, but because I am humbled and and awe-struck that God allows me to know him in the terribly brief moment that is my life. I find it a great act of mercy that he even lets me try to worship.
I love Thomas because he is authentic. I love thomas because i am more myself with him than i am when i'm alone.
i don't need to be important, but i yearn to live fully, or as Thoreau says, "deliberately." I've seen true poverty and real sickness. I've seen a child die and a people suffer because they lived on the wrong continent. I've talked to AIDS patients who were abandoned by their families, I've danced with the oppressed, and I've lived in a hut. i've been to funerals of those who could not take the strain of another day. I've walked the halls of dirty, decrepit desolate hospitals. I've held mal-nurished children who cried for human touch. I've seen evil, twisted, horrible things. But, i'm an optimist and an idealist. In all the terribleness i've found beauty and joy in the enduring spirit of people all over the world.
Through natural disaster, war, oppression, famine, disease we live and we do the craziest thing of all, we bring little people into the world. Little people who will see the same awfulness and experience terrible heart ache. We must procreate because we believe there is something greater to life than suffering. that's cool.
I am naive. I believe that people are good and i always think people tell the truth. I am an easy target for salesmen, but i don't care. i'd rather be gullible than cynical. I believe in Karma but i don't think bad things happen to people JUST because they are bad. I mean, look at poor Job. I haven't figured out the algorithm yet, but karma definitely plays a role in the universe's justice system.
I lead a charmed life. I have received great love, witnessed of true sublime beauty, and felt a deep compassion for the suffering of humanity.
I hate holier than thou people more than pagans. I don't like smooshy apples. I want to believe in reincarnation for two reasons. 1. i think it would make the universe more fair, 2. i have too many things i want to do in life to complete in one lifetime.
When I was little i wanted to be a hobo. I wanted a stick with a little bundle wrapped in a handkerchief. I wanted to ride the trains and find work on farms with the seasons. I still think that would be a good life, but I think i'd have to live in the 1920's or 30's for it to work out.
I think God is beautiful and mysterious. I don't like when people try and subjugate God to reason and science, as if God must defend himself to our tiny world, like a human trying to explain his existence to an ant. Describing God, creation, and redemption is more poetry than physics, more art than equation. Sometimes I am afraid because there is so much I don't know.
I can't comprehend eternity. I can't even really think about it. It is more than I can bear. So i don't think about heaven or hell or what will happen to me when I die. I can't. I love God not because of eternity, but because I am humbled and and awe-struck that God allows me to know him in the terribly brief moment that is my life. I find it a great act of mercy that he even lets me try to worship.
I love Thomas because he is authentic. I love thomas because i am more myself with him than i am when i'm alone.
i don't need to be important, but i yearn to live fully, or as Thoreau says, "deliberately." I've seen true poverty and real sickness. I've seen a child die and a people suffer because they lived on the wrong continent. I've talked to AIDS patients who were abandoned by their families, I've danced with the oppressed, and I've lived in a hut. i've been to funerals of those who could not take the strain of another day. I've walked the halls of dirty, decrepit desolate hospitals. I've held mal-nurished children who cried for human touch. I've seen evil, twisted, horrible things. But, i'm an optimist and an idealist. In all the terribleness i've found beauty and joy in the enduring spirit of people all over the world.
Through natural disaster, war, oppression, famine, disease we live and we do the craziest thing of all, we bring little people into the world. Little people who will see the same awfulness and experience terrible heart ache. We must procreate because we believe there is something greater to life than suffering. that's cool.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Saturday, November 21, 2009
A slice of the past, circa 2005
so much to say, so little time to write. 4% left on the old battery and i'm too lazy to go get the power cord. I need to write more....but i can' t now, so i will simply copy and paste something i wrote a long time ago and let it lurk.
“Quien es el otro?” my Spanish professor asked her small Pepperdine classroom our first morning of Latin American History in my last semester of my senior year. My nervous companions and I glanced at each other, wondering what she could possibly mean by “the other” and who would be brave enough to answer first. I, too nervous to voice my opinion in a language I still felt clumsy in, answered to myself silently: “everyone different from me.” I was embarrassed and ashamed that my answer was so stark, awkward, and ugly. I thought myself well educated in other cultures, I volunteered in schools with a high Hispanic population, I worked in hospitals in poor rural areas of Honduras, I lived in Italy, and I taught English in Brasil, how is it that I could still harbor such a thought. Just a few weeks earlier while building a house in San Felipe, Mexico I met a woman my same age, and we talked in broken Spanish and English, she told me of her three children and the trials of beginning a family at 14. She marveled at my stories of the university. And as I left a few days later, we hugged, and instead of seeing a poor uneducated girl, I saw a strong woman, holding and laughing with her youngest daughter; she had lived a life much different from mine, but not any less fulfilling or valuable. She had much to learn from me, but I knew that the real lesson that weekend was for me. As I sat in that classroom, I began to realize that no matter how many times I had accepted and loved and learned about new cultures, living in them, breathing them and becoming part of them, it is nearly impossible to lose your sense of fear that different is threatening. How do I overcome that? Everyday it must be done. Everyday when I feel that fear creep in, whether it is in my urban diverse city of Portland or while walking the halls of the malnutrition wards of Honduras, I stop myself; I remember the surprising similarities all of humanity has, and, then, I silently celebrate the differences. It is in that moment, a seemingly small and insignificant moment, that I conquer the fear of “the other,” and rejoice in the love of “the different.”
I think I should continue on this vein soon....seeing as i've now actually lived and breathed what it is like to be the other in a far away land full of strange people and strange customs with strange food.
gypsy on
“Quien es el otro?” my Spanish professor asked her small Pepperdine classroom our first morning of Latin American History in my last semester of my senior year. My nervous companions and I glanced at each other, wondering what she could possibly mean by “the other” and who would be brave enough to answer first. I, too nervous to voice my opinion in a language I still felt clumsy in, answered to myself silently: “everyone different from me.” I was embarrassed and ashamed that my answer was so stark, awkward, and ugly. I thought myself well educated in other cultures, I volunteered in schools with a high Hispanic population, I worked in hospitals in poor rural areas of Honduras, I lived in Italy, and I taught English in Brasil, how is it that I could still harbor such a thought. Just a few weeks earlier while building a house in San Felipe, Mexico I met a woman my same age, and we talked in broken Spanish and English, she told me of her three children and the trials of beginning a family at 14. She marveled at my stories of the university. And as I left a few days later, we hugged, and instead of seeing a poor uneducated girl, I saw a strong woman, holding and laughing with her youngest daughter; she had lived a life much different from mine, but not any less fulfilling or valuable. She had much to learn from me, but I knew that the real lesson that weekend was for me. As I sat in that classroom, I began to realize that no matter how many times I had accepted and loved and learned about new cultures, living in them, breathing them and becoming part of them, it is nearly impossible to lose your sense of fear that different is threatening. How do I overcome that? Everyday it must be done. Everyday when I feel that fear creep in, whether it is in my urban diverse city of Portland or while walking the halls of the malnutrition wards of Honduras, I stop myself; I remember the surprising similarities all of humanity has, and, then, I silently celebrate the differences. It is in that moment, a seemingly small and insignificant moment, that I conquer the fear of “the other,” and rejoice in the love of “the different.”
I think I should continue on this vein soon....seeing as i've now actually lived and breathed what it is like to be the other in a far away land full of strange people and strange customs with strange food.
gypsy on
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