Fresno, and Catching Up

So I've been a little behind. Whoops.
Aquarium Stuff-Going well, good to start meeting a new group of kids, and working with a new group of ambassadors and mentors. Also, frozen yogurt is really not the best dinner. Adding berries and nuts doesn't help either.
Work-Pulled the front bumper off a MGB. Got dirt in my eye, repeatedly. Waxed the floors. Wouldn't want that unseemly floor hair. I'm really not a huge fan of gorilla shelving anymore. It's pretty absurd.
School-Reading City of God, by Augustine. Taking an "Earth Ethics" class with Pastor Tony. It's kinda hard for an average person to find good sources on say.....environmental justice. The rest of my classes are going well. GBT is interesting, as always. I'm having some inter-classroom conflict in a couple classes though. Don't really get along too well with my classmates.
Habitat for Humanity-The site is looking good, some serious work is getting done. Makes me sore just looking at it.
Softball-The only game I've played in so far, we won, and we still are undefeated. Supposedly the "tough" games are coming up. I scoff at tough games. How I knew I still had the knack for the game was our team's last at bat. Tie game, 10-10, bases loaded. Grand slam. Chris Hays. I think everyone there was surprised. Including me. I've still got it.
The news-Everyone in America agrees President Obama does not deserve the Nobel. No one knows who should have gotten it. Perhaps the most moving story I have read for a long time. Military Contractors Suffer Due to Lack of Care

Just a little gloaty moment, I got an invite to Google Wave, the new Google product/service that is being rolled out, bit by bit. As of now, there are 700,000 invites being given out, and then those 700k are allowed to invite 8 people. Roughly comes out to a lot of people, but not a lot really, considering the amount of people that use the internets.

So Alex and I left for Fresno on Thursday, about 8:50 in the morning. The ride was normal for public transit. Slightly creepy driver, alternately scary or scared looking people, and uncomfortable seats. This last fact is my personal theory for why more people don't ride buses. The seats are awful. It's like someone paid a 5-year old to look at a comfortable seat, and then draw a picture of that seat, and built the seat from that drawing. Also explains the lame fabric patterns. Like I said, the ride was pretty normal, except for the part where we picked up about 20 women who had just gotten out of jail. That was interesting. Unless my grasp of slang failed me, one of them had already gotten her hands on some pot, and was discussing its street value with the other ladies. They looked like they had just gotten out of jail, with the shirts, the boxes of stuff, the tattoos, the hair, but if you had just heard the tone of the conversation, they sounded like a book club headed off for some trip to a romantic field mentioned in their current book. Lots of laughing, having fun, and being "normal". We arrived fully inctact, and bundled off to where we were staying (Thanks again!!) Then I sat through about 4 hours of speech and debate class, in which I was not enrolled. Taking books with you is a good thing. John Le Carre's latest book is pretty great.

Next day I got to meet one of the host family's good friends, who I will call Joshua for anonymity. He is a good guy, and a fun addition to the group. We played gatorball that night, which is a sick combination between soccer and football. The game starts with kicking the ball, but as soon as the ball is up in the air, anyone can catch it, and then run with it. The point of the game is getting the ball into a goal, by kicking or throwing. It was hilarious, and tiring. The next day I woke up around 9:00, but it felt like 11:00, so I guess that's better than the other way around. The girls were off to a bridal shower, and two of the boys were at a swim meet, which left me, Alex, a 9 year old, and a 5 year old alone. We did some dishes, cleaned up a bit, and then played guns. Yes, guns. My favorite moment was scaring the daylights out of the 9 year old. He was looking for me, I was hidden well, and then I killed him. Done.

Later that night was "contra dancing". Not totally sure what that means, but it was traditional dancing, with simple music, and confusing terms. Sounds fun huh? I actually did all right, and enjoyed myself. My personal favorite move was the California swing. Easy for the male. Just spin the girl, then smirk at the other guys who can't pull off the move. Good times. Then we went to Sonic, which is one of the best places in the world. THEY SELL TATER-TOTS!! I know, right?

Riding home was pretty much the same, just without lady prisoners, and with two men who had been in jail, and at least one had gotten out recently. Got to hear some jailyard philosophy. Very 12-step program meets Chicken Soup meets Reader's Digest.

The picture is the grassy shared area in the complex, which is flooded, thanks to a 24-hour plus a little rainstorm. First one of the year. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome......El Nino!!! Anyway, we had a little wading pool for a while.

The rest of my weekend is busy. If I get a chance, I'm blogging about Earth Ethics, a great class I'm taking, which is simultaneously enjoyable and depressing. How's that work?
Hope you all are doing well!!

The Way Things Were

So, this post is going to sound a little random, but I think it will be enjoyable.
I was bored, and decided, for old time's sake, to read one of my favorite series from when I was younger. That's right, The Bobbsey Twins. I jumped in the middle, and was immediately enthralled, not by the story, or the writing, but some of the details of the story, and events that take place. Children going on picnics, just because, small children sleeping in haylofts, citizens calling up the sheriff, who they know by name, and my personal favorite, two boys who are having some conflict of personality being told by an adult to get it out of their system, and to have a good old-fashioned wrestling match.  Crazy, right? Amazingly enough, it sorta worked. There are some great examples of how things were way back when. Way more relaxed, much more communal, and everyone was a lot happier and healthier. The healthier seems a little odd to me, because everyone is eating ALL the time, and the most awesomely rich food. Homemade cake, coleslaw, ham, just outrageous. Perhaps the fact that everyone was outside+the fact that there wasn't a lot of processed foods, lots of things were handmade from scratch could account for that. Huh. Anyway, I just wanted to share a bit of random thought process, prompted by a passage from a children's book from 1950. Isn't it interesting how children's books reflect the times?

Fresno-Kingsburg Trip Photos

Since I'm working on getting the photos out, here is the link to photos from the Fresno-Kingsburg trip, as well as two photos from a recent beach trip. http://picasaweb.google.com/Iskid2astop/FresnoKingsburgTrip#
Enjoy!

Liberia Pictures

Hey All,
I know I have derlict in posting all the pictures from my trip to Liberia, but I am working on it now.
The link is here. http://picasaweb.google.com/Iskid2astop/LiberiaFromBaker#
And there will be more pictures coming on throughout the day. If you don't like all the captions, particularly the obvious one's, I'm sorry, but it helped me remember, and weed out the bad ones.
Thanks!
Chris

The Summer of Our Enjoyments

Whew! Summer is over. School is begun. I said I wouldn't blog for the summer, but would start up again when school began.

I probably should summarize my summer, just because having some backstory is always nice. This is not a Marvel comic, so unexplained gaps in the story are not acceptable.
Most of my summer was doing some kind of volunteering, in some fashion. I belive I have talked about Village Harvest. We did a few of those harvests, and a lot of another aspect of VH. There is a small, local, fruit farmer in Morgan Hill, named Andy Mariani. Appropriately enough, his orchard is called, "Andy's Orchard" (He is located, for you locals, just across from the LO ball field.)  He has something called "seconds". If he can't sell all of a certain fruit before it starts to go bad, or at least too bad for him to sell. Instead of letting the fruit go to waste, he wants it to go to those who need it. That's where we come in (and Village Harvest, by proxy). We take the fruit, give as much to a local food bank as possible, and then pass out the rest at various low-income apartment complexes. While I'm immensely proud to be involved in this work, it can be a bit grueling. The crates (or as some call them "lugs"), when filled with fruit weigh somewhere around 25 pounds per. Enough of those makes some hard work. The record was over 30 crates in one night. That's 600 lbs of fruit.

In Silicon Valley, there comes a time in the summer, when every church is having a VBS. (Vacation Bible School) I call this VBS month. It is like an all-you-can-ship-your-kid-off-for-a-week-buffet. Perhaps this is partially because kids can't just go out and play (at least not without some kind of liability), but regardless, why do kids always have to be doing something? I console myself with the thought that while I participate in this bizzare ritual, I try and make things a little more.....silly. I was at the San Martin Presbyterian Church VBS. We were a small but goofy group. There were about 25 kids, and about 10 adult and teenaged helpers. I was the game czar, and mission proclaimer. For the missions part, I talked with the kids about my trip to Liberia, and encouraged them to give money to support kids, just like them, in Liberia. For games, I just kinda flowed. We quickly exhausted the games I had planned for, and so, we moved to a more casual game set. There were also some boys who had a LOT of energy. I ran them ragged. That was pretty fun. I also made the mistake of making water balloons. (Thank you Josiah!!) I did learn from that mistake, namely, that I make a great target, and everyone loves throwing water balloons. Was that a mistake?

Another standby of my summers has become the Los Alto United Methodist Church (I just remembered that, without looking at anything) rummage sale. This is a huge rummage sale. Last year, they made $45,000.  Quite a few things, and a lot of work. I am one of manual laborers, and usually the youngest person, excluding my little siblings. I pick up things, carry things, and do whatever the sweet little old ladies ask me to do. My favorite part is the cool stuff I get there, for prices that are outrageously good. Examples-The Agony and the Etsacy, 25 cents. An college level Environmental Science textbook, free. For Whom The Bell Tolls, 50 cents. Nice shirts, $1 per.  I like it. Plus, I got to work with one of the coolest guys I have every worked with. Dolph, perhaps about 65-70, quiet as all get out, a great worker, and he brought snacks. I loved him.

Instead of my usual stint at the Aquarium as a student guide (docent is another way to think of it), I got to do some pretty cool stuff this summer. I was involved in pilot program, helping develop a new teen program for the Aquarium. We were looking at how to unify various student programs, and develop a new direction for teen programs in the future. I got to spend time behind the scenes, and enjoy greater freedom around the Aquarium, as well as spending more time out on the floor. I had a great team, and really enjoyed working with them all. My time there is a whole post worth of stories. One more bonus of being in Monterey was the fact I got to spend two nights down there, by myself, more or less. A couple from my guide shift offered to let me stay in their guest house, on Wenseday and Thursday night, then my parents would pick me up on Friday afternoon. Those two days, were like a Costco sample of living on oneself. Except no one was wearing those goofy beard nets. I got to shop for myself, get myself home, do my one dish, and having down time for the rest of the night. Got to read, exercise, and go to sleep early. Made my own coffee, turned off my own alarm, and ate my own breakfast. On the front of food, one of my favorite things, I got all my food from the grocery store, and kept things pretty simple. Mostly fruits and veggies, with the addition of bread and cheese. Brie was my favorite, but Irish cheddar was pretty nice too. My favorite meal was breakfast. Warm bread, white nectarines, an orange, a banana, and some Brie. Good times.

One of the weekends this summer, the entire family took a trip to Fresno, to see our good friends, the Vehrs. It was pretty fun. As much as I enjoyed hanging out with my friends (which was a lot), I enjoyed something else even more. We took a trip to Kingsburg, where my grandma and "gramma auntie" grew up. I didn't know that Kingsburg was a heavily Swedish town. Certainly led to some interesting pictures. This question is just for Auntie. In the picture with the Viking, do I look like Rick? Mom thinks I do. I had a lot of fun seeing a small town thriving, without exploiting its small-townness.

One final thing I did over the summer was some work at On The Road Again, a British auto restoration shop. If you are not sure why I'm doing this, check out my other blog. Most of my work is janitorial, sweeping, mopping, etc, but, from time to time, I get to do some new, fun stuff. Setting up a extra level of industrial shelving, installing a paper towel holder, strapping a car to a trailer, sandblasting a brake drum, and other such interesting tasks. I'm really enjoying my time there, and over the school year, I hope to be doing enough mechanic-related tasks, on my car and others, that I can count this as a school class. I have to say, I got some pretty cool teachers. One has been working on cars since he was 16, and raced for 20 years. I'm looking forward to it.

I'll include a link to pictures in a later post.

That is more or less my summer, with lots of details excluded, because I forgot, or because they aren't worth the effort to include. Now, on to everything after!
Thanks.
Chris

The Story

I know I said I would start blogging after summer was over, but I had so much happen, getting it all into one post would be a challenge, as would be writing that post. I was kind of wait for a story, something short, sweet, and interesting, as a way to get back into the groove of blogging. This is that story.

My church has a tradition of a summer/post summer softball league. Ever since I played baseball/football/basketball in Iowa (another story entirely), any chance I get to play organized sports, I do. The games started this week, but my team had a bye. (We didn't play) Instead, we got some of the team together, and had a little practice. This went swimmingly, I think I did fine. I was more concerned about my batting than my fielding, and I hit consistently well. Out of 25 or so pitches, I fouled two, and hit the rest. My fielding was ok, if a little rusty. How do I know it was rusty?

We were taking turns getting some batting practice, and the rest of the team was shagging the flies. One got hit right to me, and it was coming down, and then I had one of those scary lucid moments. I saw the ball, coming down towards me, and then, I realized it was going to hit me right in the eye. Sure enough, it did. Odd how that worked out. I'm a good enough ball player that I don't miss an easy fly without some reason. My guess is that the wind blew it just enough that I missed. Or, I'm just rusty. Either way, it hurt. I didn't see any stars, just people, so my eyes worked. I stayed awake until I went to bed at 12, so I think my brain is mostly fine. Aside from the nasty bruise I have (black eye baby!!), the only other possible effect is my nose, which has some cuts, and hurts. Did I mention I have a cold too? Sneezing with a bruised nose is a real joy. Included is a picture of my poor eye. I'm not sure how well it will show up, it feels worse than it looks. My eyebrow hurts.
Looking forward to another year of blogging with you all!'
Chris

Temporary Hold On Posts

Got an announcement. I will not be "blogging" over the summer. I just don't have enough time spent in one place. I will be Tweeting, and collecting those into posts, and occasionally writing up a short story, but regular blogging will resume once the school year starts up again.
Sorry all.
You can be secure in the knowledge I am having a great summer. I hope you are too!!
Thanks, Chris