Check Me Out on Twitter

Hey loyal readers,

I recently moved to an unlimited text message plan for my cell phone (thanks Mom and Dad!), so I started Tweeting several times a day. I will do my best to not have it be boring, but have it be a catcher for little things that fall in between the cracks of this blog. In case you aren't on Twitter, or don't have the time to check it frequently, I added a gadget to the site that shows all my recent posts, and if you are an email reader, I will be compiling all my Tweets and posting them once a week.

Thanks for reading!

I promise, I will have a new post coming soon.

One Bus Ride, and Its Stories

I really enjoy riding or walking through the same area again and again. Even riding the same bus route. Every time I notice something different, talk to new people, hear new things, and have thoughts that are foreign to me.

The street that spurred this train of thought was 1st Street in san Jose, and I am usually walking to my church's office/Ministry Center, or walking from there to the bus stop. I have walked down it at different times of the day, on different days of the week, in diiferent seasons of the year.

Something I realized, as I was observing people, and thinking about them, is that each person has a story. I know that sounds cliche, and I knowing calling it cliche is cliche, but it feels very true. Every single detail about every personhas a story, and that story is interesting. The man in front of me, how did he afford that phone? Where did he get his job? Why did he get that tattoo? The two black men who just off, why were they friends with each other? The white lady who is about to get off, what did she buy at Wal-Mart? How come she walks like that, all choppy, and slightly stooped? Her purse, the Dolce and Gabana one, did she buy that new, or did someone give it to her? Every car, every hat, shoe, pants, shirt, every bike, every stroller, grocery cart, laundry cart, every tattoo, every bag, every packpack, every book, every friend, every pet, every laugh, song, greeting, farewell,  they all have a story, and they are all important to that person.

Those people living in that horse trailer at the fairgrounds, what stories would they tell me about? How about the Latino boyfriend and girlfriend sitting in the front of the bus.  What caused that huge tomato plant I rode by to be planted, and what caused it to grow? What is important to that man watching new tires get put on his car? I don't know, but someone does. and someone cares. Why don't I care? Is there an excuse for not caring why people talk to themselves, or why people are totally drunk, or why people are pushing a cart filled with everything they own? Should I be worrying about wether the woman sitting next to me has access to as good of an education as I do? How would I be able to think about that for everyone, because that is what would be required, not just thinking about some people, but about everyone. I'm waaaaay out of my league here, after all, there are 7.something billion people in the world, and a tiny percent have it "good". Just thinking about the stories, let alone the problems  is fairly over whelming. Everyone has jokes, best stories, highs (of all kinds) and lows to tell about. There is something so fulfilling about telling those.

I was up in San Jose for a meeting with CityTeam, a non-profit organization that does a lot of really good work in the San Jose/Sillicon Valley area for the disadvantaged. First, why I was there. Actually, it was myself, and my youth pastor, Kyle, and we were there to meet with one of their guys about the youth group doing some volunteer work with them over the summer. We got a tour of one of their locations, and I think, the biggest and most important one in San Jose. We saw the men's shelter, where they help rehab men, the learning center, where both men and women can learn practical skills, the community kitchen, where anyone can come and get a free meal, the food pantry, the clothes rooms,and the furniture room. We also heard about some of the other, seasonal programs they do, like "Backpacks of Success", "Coats for Kids", etc. It was really interesting, because it sounds like they do a fair amount of middle-manning, but in the non-profit sense of the word. There are large donors out there, and give in quanities that just cannot be handled by small groups, but there are also small groups out there that wouldn't even get a sit-down with one of those large donors. What City Team does a lot is find all those small groups, and break up what the huge donors have given. I don't have numbers in front of me, but I will post those when I do, but they talking in terms of hundreds with things like winter coats, backpacks, toys, and other things that would be overwhelming to a group of 7 in one neighborhood. To me, this is a really important function, partially because I have seen how well it works for the for-profit system.

School is out here, so I'm seeing lots more kids my age around. Most of them look bored, angry, or tired, and often a combination of all 3 at the same time. Walking around, with no real goal, hanging out, with no plans at all. Perhaps my hanging out skills are a little weak, and my summer sensibilities are underdeveloped, but hanging out with zero plans sounds like the most awful way to spend the summer, which has the nicest weather. I guess I shouldn't talk, because doing school isn't exactly the funnest either.

Some guys act around girls like they take no pleasure in being with a pretty girl, which is a shame. Why has being nice to someone become something that can only happen if two people are in a relationship?

I love seeing two people who really like each other, coming back together after being apart. They

One of other things I was thinking about as I was walking was the setting. What brought those buildings into existence? Why was the courthouse built there? Who is that statue of, and why is he so great? What are all the things that have happened at that park? I think it would be so interesting to just stay in some public place for an entire year, just to take in everything that happens.

Even more so for things like trees, streams, and hills. What natural disasters, human dramas, changes in the environment has that bid old tree seen? What animals have nested there, who has taken a nap under it? How did that tree even get there? Some squirrel?

Friday and Saturday were pretty fun, and very exhausting. Did I say exhausting? It  was exhausting. After the Aquarium, which will get a little mini-post later, I rode the bus/rode with my dad (Thanks again!!) to Manresa Beach. The youth group was having a beach party. Highlights included a group of college kids coming over and playing football with us, just the youth playing tackle football (I  was savage!), and jumping over a huge pit. For a whie I sat in an inflatable couch someone left behind, and watched the pitjumping, while eating my bratwurst and drinking my cream soda. I thought of a new term. "Beach Potato".

We left the beach at 10:30, and didn't get to the Ministry Center, where we would be spending the night, until 11:30ish. We played some video games, I got demolished, we played Sardines (one of the most terrifying games ever), ate some unhealthy food, then did it again. Someone, perhaps Kyle, perhaps not, got the bright idea of t.p.'ing someone's house. One of the youth had said she would be there, and she wasn't!! Like signing her own order of exucution. Actually was my first t.p.. outing, and I can see why it is fun. Unfortunately, the father of the house is from Pittsburgh, where t.p.ing is really malicious. This was in good fun, with no harm intended. Intentions do not make actions though, because if they did, we would have found so many WMD's in Iraq the globe would have been tilting in that direction.

Hold on!! What is a Christmas tree farm sign doing in the middle of June?

Morgan Hill, my town, is really trying to have a vital and ineresting downtown, but tjere just isn't the heighth for it. Almost everything is single-story, which really limits the amount of people, or stores, or anything that can be in any given area. I am waiting and waiting for them to get this. Probably doesn't help that the only people buying much of anything right now are leperchauns, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and quiet little dogs.

A bunch of handicapped guys just got on, and Alex bowled with them for a while. They are all so darn nice, they all have buddies that they see on the bus, and they talk to them, and build up a relationship. Why do the "misfits" make up some of the most beautiiful interactions in our society? How do people how are learning disabled learn multiple languages? I'm still trying to get mine down perfect. I wonder if the uses make a difference? The hardly write anything, and use their language for a different magnitude of communication. Still amazing. I know a guy the same age as Al, he speaks Tagalg, English, fluently, and is learning Spainish.

I just had an interesting idea, looking at San Martin, which is an unincorporated area between Morgan Hill and Gilroy. In ecology, there are places known as "ectotones". They are places of transition between different biomes.  San Martin is one of those places. Not quite suburban, not quite country. Can you guys think of others places like this?

That's all I have for now.
Have a good day!!

Cool Stuff I Want to Share

Perhaps one of the funniest sites I have ever seen that actually has function besides inducing painful laughter. Some of my favorite excerpts.
"how heavy is that fattest person?", "did joe cheated on my mom in the past?", "who will win the stanley cup tomorrow?", "what kind of bait should i use to fish in Palo?".
The amount of questions that can't be answered is really interesting to me. The concept is amazingly cool.

This is another example of the Internet flattening the Globe, and bringing people together who would never meet in any other circumstances.

Music+news+comedy=AWESOME!
I love this, on so many levels. It is fairly good music, but it is also a joke about autotuning, and it is news, and a joke about the news, and a joke about the people who make and deliver news.
The first video, at the beginning until about 15 seconds, is absolutely hilarious. "What's wrong with fantasy? I fantasy, and I live in the sea!"
The second video, my favorite part is the beginning till 45 seconds in, and 1:23 till 1:50.
The third video, my favorite part is 31 seconds, till 1:25. Ron Paul!! Also, watch Rachel Maddow's lips. 1:35-2:10. This one is probably my favorite.
The fourth video, my favorite part is the beginning until 1:20. Any song that uses "jurisprudent" and "shawty" is awesome in my book.

This is an amazingly silly, yet funny video.
Make sure to check out the other two that are part of the same set.

If you happen to be part of the nerd news cycle, you probably already heard about Google Wave, but in case you aren't, and you haven't, here are some of highlights, according to Lifehacker. There is something fascinating to me about seeing new technology. I can't wait to get my hands on it, see how it works, and just play with it in general.

This was hailed as the next Google killer, but then it got booed for insufficient results, and inability to pull results from inside sites. Good for some kinds of searches, but awful for other kinds.

Again, the next Google killer. Good for particular kinds of searches, but lacking in others. The most useful features have to be manually turned on, which can be a turn-off for those who don't know how, or don't have the time.

A fun little oddity of the Web, where anyone can tag San Francisco, legally.

One of my favorite news sources, due to the user-generated gathering of news, and the ability of the collective to pass judgement on anything and everything.

A great new experiment in journalism. The contributers are required to interact with the comments, and each other's articles. I also happen to be the 6th most active reader at the time of writing. I really enjoy that the content is broken up by writer, not content. Plus, the content is fairly broad, and not bland like network news and main-stream articles.

A super-interesting article about social behavior, and what can be learned from non-verbal communication.

Google's upcoming treasure hunt "Day in the Clouds".  Co-sponsored by Virgin Air, the cloud refers both to metorlogical and technological. The tech cloud is something like Google Apps, which can store data on your computer, but the default is to keep everything on the Internet, so you can access it from anywhere.

Two of my favorite blogs. Landscape+Urbanism and Ve.itcuture. First, I love Portland, and second, I love architecture and nature, so I love these blogs.

That's all my cool stuff to share for now.
I want to hear some comments on this one. Even if they are mean, just something, some kind of feedback.
I would like to hear what you think of this. More sites, more articles, neither, both, corn-on-the-cob, whatever you would like to see out of the blog.

Assorted Anecdotes

There a lot of things that I could share, but they are marginally interesting, so I will just share the things that have a precedent on this particular blog.

I texted in a couple of IPTP, but there is one I would like to add, and also explain what made that trip out of the ordinary. What made that trip unique was the people I had with me. Mom and Dad went up to the Sunset Idea House, which is up in Menlo Park, and they left directly after church, which left Alex, Mandy, Nick, Beth, and myself in San Jose, needing to ride the bus home. Now I will not try to say that I did not volunteer, but when I volunteered I did not fully understand what would be entailed. It was not awful, but I would not to do it again, at least for a while. I got off, and my shoulders were so tense, all I felt like doing was laying on the ground. There were some interesting people, besides my family, though, so the trip still had redemptive value. As I texted in, the first IPTP was Latino, and what made him interesting was his general talkitiveness, despite the fact absolutely no one was listening. Plus he had those old-style sunglasses, the round ones, that are totally black. Tragically he got off pretty quickly.

The one I didn't text in was a Asian gentleman, between 50-80, dressed entirely in white, including hat and shoes, with a neat little goatee. He was one of the IPTP I wanted to talk with, if only to see if he could teach me karate so I could deal with a bully at my school. Perfectly quiet, really normal IPTP. I guess the "I" for him stands for "Intriguing".

The final IPTP was, as I said, the bus driver. We stopped at a stop, and I noticed a man sitting on the bench in a VTA shirt (VTA stands for Valley Transit Authority, whose bus I usually ride). The current driver got off, and he and VTA shirt talked for a bit, then VTA shirt started singing, not too badly, but certainly not good. He plopped himself down in the driver's seat, and off we went.

I noticed he was either a very experienced driver, or a very brash one, probably even a brashly experienced driver. Several times I saw the speed limit sign, and I knew we were going at least 10 mph over that. We were tootling along, and then I noticed one of the other passengers holding a $10 bill out to the people around him. Couldn't really hear, but then I hear the bus driver say over the intercom "Sir, we will stop at Starbucks, and you can get your change there." I didn't even know the buses had an intercom.  So we stop, which is totally out of the norm for bus drivers, and we waited for a couple minutes, then he says "Forget it!", and then the guy comes running after the bus, and he let him on. Probably 20 minutes later, he picked up a large group of students, and after they sit down, he busts out another announcement. "Y'all need to have your money ready when we pull up. I have to wait while you get out your change, and that wastes a lot of time. There is even an announcer voice reminding you. (This is true) Its really rude, and I don't appreciate the attitude behind it." That's when I knew, this bus driver was a maverick. Perhaps he was a bus driver for John McCain. Moving along, and he comes over with an announcement that we would be stopping for a "courtesy stop, not an official stop, since I know how hard it is to get to Wal-Mart if you get off at Curtner"  His last little tirade was against people who try to get off without pulling the cord. "If you don't pull the cord, I don't know you want to get off. I've been noticing a lot of this behavior too, and you people should know, I'm not physic." As we were coming into Morgan Hill, there is part of the route that doesn't have a lot of street signs, so it is harder to know which stop is the one you want. He solved this problem by announcing the name of every street we were about stop at. Nick had caught on to the fact that this driver was a cut above, so he started mocking the street announcing thing. I, unfortunatelly, had to shush him, because Nick has not mastered the concept of subtlety, so he was doing this as loud as possible.  I wished I had been able to ride until the end of his route, just to if he did anything else.

This Saturday was the end of National Neighborhood some about beautification Week, and an event was held at the apartments, which we attended.It was marginally fun, I certainly enjoyed finishing, and seeing all the new growth around the complex. Lots of little plants, and flowers, all around. The planting of the flowers was just ok, but I did pick up on a Spanish phrase. "Is that the first flower you planted all day?" Darn proud of myself.

Today I picked up one of the kids we watch when we are housesitting, but I picked him up on my bike, so he rode on the seat and I peddled. He was really scared, but we didn't fall even once.

With the public school year ending, people keep asking me when my school year ends. It never really ends, which I like, because it discourages me disconnecting education from the rest of my life. Another reason I like doing school in the summertime, is because I can study outdoors, which is fun. Today I discovered the dark side of studying in natural light. I was laying on a blanket, reading Shakespeare, (Much Ado About Nothing), and suddenly I woke up, went inside, and realized I had taken about a 10 minute nap, accidentally. First time I fell asleep during school hours unintentionally. Might have been the Shakespeare.

The next post will be a collection of cool articles, music, videos, and sites that I have collected over a while.
That's it for now!
Enjoy!
  

Minor League Baseball

I learned some interesting things about baseball games and everything that surrounds them. I'll start at the beginning.

I rode the bus up to San Jose, tragically, without much drama (though I am assembling some interesting observations on NPTP), and walked the .7 mile to the San Jose Municipal Stadium.

My group showed up, eventually, and we went inside. The group is some of the homeschoolers who graduated from 8th grade at the same ceremony as myself, and most of whom will be graduating from high school with me as well. Actually, the main organizer didn't come in right away, because he was waiting for one of the girls, who was bringing a bunch of people with her. I was sitting with Matt, who I walked off the stage with in 8th grade (we wanted to jump, but that got nay-sayed), and on the other side was some mother who I didn't know. Before we were even inside the building though, we saw at least one interesting person. There were other marginally interesting people, but one who was an obvious choice. This man was Caucasian, between 50-55, 5'10", with shoulder-length grayish-blonde hair. He was wear a purple tank-top that looked half a size too small, and cut-offs that suggested they were not designed for a person of his size. His tank top, which was really unflattering, showcased his strikingly hairy arms. I have pretty hairy arms, and even by my standard, this guy was hairy. He was also pushing a stroller, with nothing in it. My biggest question, why have a large stroller like that? It looked fairly new, and nice. This guy confused me.

Inside the stadium, once we got our seats, on the away team's side, we all rose for the National Anthem. This was, perhaps, the most disgusting National Anthem ever. The singing was nice, though a little echo-y, due to the warehouses around the stadium. One member of the Stockon Ports however, did not have proper respect for the Anthem. He was standing in the line of players, all facing the flag, and he had each of his hands firmly planted on one of his teammates' butt cheeks on either side of him. One of the them was just accepting the reality of the situation, while the other kept brushing the hand away. The guilty party seemed to be relishing his teammate's discomfort, because he ratched things up a notch, and started spanking them. When the Anthem, perhaps the longest one ever, finished, all three of the involved parties turned, red-faced, and one of the fans shouted something to them, and the guilty party gave him a little smile. My theory was that there was some kind of bet, but it was hard to tell. Hilarious, but really awkward, and a little innapropriate.

The game was ok, and it was great to talk with friends. It was interesting seeing how the population differed from a major league game. Less drunk people, more families. The drunk people were louder, and the families left earlier. I also accomplished a personal goal, I got on the Jumbo-tron. I happened to be wearing a sombrero at the time.

One more thing. I want to rave about In Defense of Food  by Michael Pollan. This book is, to some degree, a follow up to The Omnivore's Dilemma, just more practical. The concept I most enjoyed is the mystery of food, how we don't know what makes certain foods good for us. We, as partakers of nutritionism, try to find things in foods that are good for us, isolate them, and put them in other foods. When we eat it, we find out that particular nutrient doesn't do the same thing when it is isolated. I really like this idea, and really loved his concrete rules for eating. Eat food. Not a lot. Mostly plants.

I want to leave you with that.
Thanks for reading, good night!