What A Week!

Wow. This has been such a crazy week for me. I'll start at Monday, and then skip over a day or two, and finish on the bang that was my weekend.

On Thursday, I went over to OTRA, to do some moving around of cars, and  more importantly, doing the prep work to make the moving around possible. Across the way, in the same industrial park as the shop, is a repossession shop, where cars that are being repo'd are taken, and stored. The lot is used as storage, but part of the business is taking the cars, from wherever they may be, and cleaning the cars out. The prep work was cleaning out a pile that was all the unclaimed rubbish that had been pulled out of various cars, and left there. I was talking with one of the employees at the lot, with a few questions about all the stuff. Legally, the owner of the vehicle is entitled to all possessions contained within the vehicle, and has the right to reclaim said possessions, without fulfilling due obligations that would allow them to regain ownership of their vehicle. Furthermore, after a time of 60 days, the agency in current possession of the vehicle is no longer required by law to retain the personal effects contained within the vehicles, if said effects have not been reclaimed. Furthermore, the agency is allowed to charge a nominal fee for the reclamation, as a charge for storing the effects. Now, naturally, the guy I was talking with didn't use similar language, but that was the point. I didn't know any of this, and found it pretty interesting stuff. It was equally interesting to see what was left in cars. A baseball bat and glove, tons of car seats and clothes, and even a wallet. Most of the valuables were reclaimed, but there are a few who know their vehicles are going to be repo'd will actually load it up with junk or debris. The most interesting moment came as we were moving the cars around, and there was one with a flat, so instead of filling up the tire, the guys at the lot used one of the trucks for us. I didn't know how easy it is for a tow truck like that to pick up a car, and maneuver it. It's scary easy. Under a minute to start driving away. The guys were talking, and they showed me a picture of a pickup truck that looks exactly like a regular truck, but has the equipment sitting in the bed, and can pull up, grab your car, and drive away, without you ever knowing. Life lesson, don't get your car impounded.

Friday was pretty fun, got to go down to Monterey, work at the Aquarium, which is always fun. I had some fun interactions. I have to share a few with you guys, because they were just too great to keep. I was at the Seafood Watch cart, and I offered a card to lady wearing a New Mexico shirt. Turns out she was from Fresno (shout-out to my Fresno readers!) and had some issues with the environmental movement, particularly restriction of water to prevent the die-off of smelt in the rivers. We had some amount of back-and-forth about how we, between the two of us, did not understand the role of the smelt in the eco-system, and imagined that they do play some role, but were not sure of the importance. She walked away, unhappy with my agreement with her point that people are more important than fish. It's not like I, or anyone, is going to argue with that point. People are more important than fish, but we boil it down to people or fish, which is where the problem comes in. How do the fish affect people, and would the loss of the fish have more of a negative impact on people than the actions taken to prevent the loss of the fish do? I don't know, but it is a complicated question, and one that I feel is worth the time it will take to gain an understanding. I also talked with several students from a community college, and found out how much fun it is to help other people with their homework.  I also got a nice compliment from two guests, who said I have an accessible way of talking about ocean stuff, and make things understandable for a younger generation. Nice compliment, good to know that people appreciate what I try to do.

Friday night was a football game, at Valley Christian, a local high school. The only reason we were there was because Alex attended a football camp VC held for Down Syndrome kids, to give them a chance to feel like stars, and have some fun playing football. As this was the last regular game of the year, all the campers were invited. It ended up being myself, Dad, Alex, Mandy, and Nick. Mandy and Nick had a great time, as this was a new experience for them. I was mostly cold, and bored. Valley Christian was far better than than their opponents, and it was just a killing. Its hard to watch sports when you've played, particularly if you still play. The most important fact about that night was when we got home, and when I went to bed. I'm pretty sure it was somewhere around 11:45, which isn't great, but isn't as bad as it could be.

Saturday morning-4:45. Yes, I really did get up at 4:45, on purpose, and I stayed awake, also on purpose. This particular Saturday, I was headed up to Sacramento, carpooling with someone else. The occasion was a get-together of students who are in online classes, similar to the one I take, perhaps even the same class. We stopped after about 30 minutes to pick up another student, whose parents did not fancy the idea of driving for 3 hours at 6 a.m. Can't say I blame them. The ride up wasn't too bad. There was lots of talking, listening to music, arguing about various characters in the books we read. Creon was right! Sorry, just had to get the last word in. I'll just give a basic rundown of the events of the day. We did some basic getting to know you stuff, which was mostly a going-around-the-circle-remembering-names game. I rock those games. Thanks to my parents for the good genes! We then did some Greek practice. I surprised myself with how much I still remember. Next was a movie, which I really enjoyed. Stranger than Fiction. First, there was a tie-in with what we had just discussed in class, but was also well written, acted, and most importantly for me, featured several songs from one of my favorite bands.  4 or 5 Spoon songs were scattered throughout the movie, and I really enjoyed it, because in addition to being good music, the titles and lyrics of the songs related to what was happening in the movie. This clip, the opening sequence, features "The Way We Get By".
After the movie, we had a discussion, which wasn't super lively, but still enjoyable. It was then time for break. YAY!! Tortilla soup, thanks to Mom and her magic leftovers. After lunch, we played some 3 Flys Up, then volleyball, and then a super-fun game, called chaos tag. Chaos tag features every player as "it", and tags result in the tagged sitting down. Once a tagger gets tagged, all those he (or she) tagged are allowed to get up. Any tags above the wrist don't count, and simultaneous tags can be settled by walking away, or Rock, Paper, Scissors. I walked away from the sports time feeling pretty good about my athleticism.

We then watched Macbeth, the Roman Polanski version. The adults and I were the only one who knew the story behind Polanski without any help. The movie itself was good, but long. Poor Wesley, one of the kids I rode up with, started to doze off for a second. Fortunately for him, I nudged him awake before he started snoring too much. Again, there was a discussion of the story, and then we did a reading of the classic scene with the witches and apparitions. "Double double, toil and trouble." Hilarious to watch these sweet, innocent, homeschool girls attempting to pull off anything close to a evil witch. I was the second apparition, the little kid. We then moved on to some singing, which I felt like a total fail at. Not really much of a singer. Then was the music recital. There are some pretty talented kids in this group. Then dinner time, which was yum, and another round of chaos tag, and finally, dancing. Lots of traditional dancing.  Reels, and polkas, and other things. I did all right, and had fun. After one more round of singing, we went home. The drive was killer, and everyone in the car was exhausted. We stopped in Vacaville, which I know, because the bathroom at the Starbucks had been tagged all over the place. I finally got home at 2:30.

I had to wake up the next morning for church, at 7:30. This took its toll, when, in the middle of a really interesting talk on poverty, I put my head back, and crashed. Next thing I know, the room is really, really quiet, and the girl sitting next to is poking me in the ribs. I felt awful. Fortunately, I have talked with the speaker before, he knows it was nothing personal. I actually really enjoyed his talk. After church was the play-off and championship for church softball. The first game was won fairly easily, and I was finally getting to a place of satisfaction with my play at third base. The championship we lost, but just barely. The bats, on both sides of the diamond, just could not get going. I had a good play at third, spearing a HARD line drive. Felt great. After my ride dropped me off downtown (Thanks Chaney!), I walked the 5 blocks to my stop. But the sun was setting, and I needed to go.....bad. Turns out it isn't that hard to urinate in public, provided you are standing in a corner, with the sun setting, and lots of trees casting shadows. I stopped a fro-yo place, more to use to bathroom to change into my pants. (Can't do that in public, no matter how shady it is.). Got on the bus, tried to stay awake for a while, and then woke up in Gilroy. Oops. I was now 10 minutes past my stop, at least. Found a payphone, as my cell phone was dead (of course) and my family came and picked me up. Thanks guys!

That's been all worthy of note for the past week. Hopefully I'll have more, in a more timely fashion.
Night!