The Sort-Of Dirty Hippy

Stuff

2009-01-21T22:03:00.000-08:00

I feel really bad for Obama. He may have a fairly low standard to be compared to last time, but that is not the standard that has been set for him. He the FIRST black president, and as much as everyone is going to say judging him by his race is wrong, he will be. Bush could mess up his presidency pretty badly and it will mostly reflect poorly on him and his party. Obama on the other hand is going to reflect on his race as well. Add to that the unreal amount of hype that has surrounded him. People think that he will be a magic cure for everything. By electing him, everything will be magically better. Yeah, sure, and if you believe that I have a bridge I would like to sell, cheap. His first hundred days are going to be even more crucial for him then other presidents. Oh well, we shall see very soon. I love his bringing fireside chats back. FDR had the right idea, and if it means I get to hear more oration from Mr. President, all the better.

I just finished Gene Wilder's autobiography, "kiss me like a stranger". Very honest. Not as funny as perhaps he would have liked it to be, but very likable, and again, breathtakingly honest. Now to find another good book to read while my friend finishes reading "Downtown Owl".

Combative is PT tomorrow, so I get to work off some stress and resentment I have against some of the people I work with. Things are going to get painful. I must say, even when I get out of the Army, I am going to enroll in a jujitsu class, not because I want to learn, but because there is something very therapeutic in making another guy tap out.

Hopefully I will be getting PRK (the Army's version of LASIK) for my 21st birthday as a present from my sergeant.
--Andy

Working in an ER

2008-10-19T20:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I got to work in an ER for a few days, mostly observing really. The official Army tag line for why we were there was to "psychologically harden us to trauma". Really, the hospital we were working at didn't have any where near enough trauma to be hard on our minds. Watching a recent movie has far more blood. None of the trauma really turned my stomach. One kid with an open fracture from a car wreck was the worst, but even that wasn't bad.
One thing was pretty bad though. The drug overdoses. There were quite a few of those. Most of them were Heroin ODs which weren't bad. The junkies were just hit with NARCAN, an opiate receptor blocker. But there was one kid, 16 years old, who had taken a cocktail of drugs. He had been on antidepressants and ADHD medication and had proceeded to take a variety of illegal drugs on top of his meds. He came in comatose and stayed that way. The nurses worked on him for a while, rehydrated him, made sure he could breathe among other things. When they wheeled him to pediatrics because of his age, the nurses told me that he was going to be brain damaged. The jerking of his body was his brain spasming from lack of oxygen. That was way worse to see and hear then anything else. This kid, at 16, was going to live the rest of his life with that one mistake. Man, I hope I never have to live like that. I think the realization that it was one short period without thinking would be far worse than the actual damage.
--Andy

So Long, You will Not be Missed

2008-09-27T18:09:00.000-07:00

I finally concluded about 2 months of being in the field. Most of it was pretty lazy. For over a week I was doing medical coverage for ROTC, which, by the way, seemed to consist mostly of whiny children (the cadets) or talking with the cadre (awesome ex-Special Forces sergeants). We returned to Ft. Lewis for 3 days, just long enough to ready our Stryker to go back out and bam, we were at Yakima for a month. Yakima is a place of sand and misery in about equal amounts. It has a lot of sand, FYI. 100 degree weather while in body armor, missing the 3 weeks of yearly beach weather Washington state gets.
We finished that interminable month up and came back for some well deserved showers and the glorious ability to order pizza. Except for poor little Andy. He "got" to go to Mountain Medicine.
On the plane ride out to the location of the course, my head was filled with visions of myself dressed like Rambo, mashing up some plants to create a dressing for bullet wounds, constructing a bow to hunt for dinner, and sewing up gashes using a fishing hook and a thread from my shirt. Yeah, that really wasn't what the class was about.
The first three days were spent in a class room learning about things like HAPE (high altitude pulmonary edema) and HAFE (high altitude flatulence expulsion) and trying to catch our breaths after climbing a flight of stairs. In case you didn't pick it, the class took place at about 8000 feet. Well above the height that oxygen lives and dwells.
Of course our instructors knew that the best way to acclimatize is strenuous exercise. So we went for a hike. 4 miles laterally and 4000 feet up. With 90 pound rucks. Yep, the Army knows how to have fun. This was of course foreshadowing of good times to come. The next few days we spent learning how to set up a rappel, how to do steep earth evacuation of a casualty, and how to make a one rope bridge across a river so that only one person had to get wet. Oh yeah, that person was me. All of this culminated in a Casevac race Army vs. Navy in which the Army, led by my team, completely dominated. It was beautiful when they staggerd in an hour after us. Sweet victory.
We got the weekend off for fun and games, and then Monday the craziness began. For the next few days we did nothing but walk around the mountains going up and down hills all day from one casualty to the other, always wearing our rucks. Total distance according to instructors with GPS was 45 miles. Not fun at all. The last night was survival night. We got one rucksack for every 11 people and were told that the instructors would be back in the morning, don't start a fire. That was cold and miserable. The only thing that kept most of us from leaving was the fact that we would be done the next morning. The sun has never been so desperately awaited. Thus concluded two weeks of not fun.
--Andy
And I am reading Catch-22 for the first time. What a funny book. Even though the narrative is spoofing military life, Heller is disturbingly accurate quite often.

It's been one year since you looked at me, Cocked your head to the side and said "I'm Angry"

2008-08-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

Well, for better or for worse, it has been one year since my joining of the U.S. Army. In about 4 months it will be 2 years since I dropped out of college. At least I wasn't pregnant. That would be every parents nightmare. More to follow.
--Andy

Float like a Butterfly, Sting like a Bee

2008-08-03T13:53:00.000-07:00

I actually have no idea where the title came from. Well, obviously, Mohamed Ali, but why it became the title will be forever a mystery.
Anyway, time for an update. Over the past...long time I have gone on leave to Colorado Springs and had a wonderful time in the mountains, hiking and playing cards and trying to find some oxygen to breathe. Yes yes, quite the wonderful time. Met old friends I had not seen in four years. Saw my parents whom I have not seen in a year. We were all playing tag at night and someone fell out of a tree and broke his wrist and got a concussion. As the only person who knew anything about medicine, I got to be "hero" and help them get down the mountain and call an ambulance. Mostly the trick was to calm the mother down.
I got back from leave a little late on Sunday the 27th. I was supposed to be back on Saturday, but since I had called in and let the right people know I would be late, it was all good. A little later Sunday I got called and told I was going to the field for a week. Which is what I got back from yesterday. It was a week of long days helping ROTC kids with blisters. Even though most of them were quite older then me, they acted like small children, disorganized and whining. We spent most of our time pointing and laughing when they ran around panicking because artillery simulators were being set off. Taking their lunch money and other things of the sort. Ahh, I am so easily amused.
On Wednesday I go off for a straight month in the field. That is going to be sheer joy. If this was a spoken word blog, the sarcasm in that last sentences would have been thick enough to cut and spread on a slice of bread. Immediately after getting back from that (on or around August 28th) I go off to a Mountain Medicine course that I am very excited about as well as being terrified about. It will be myself and a friend working with Navy SEALs and US Special Forces guys. It is quite a privilege to get to do this, but most of my prayers recently are for my survival.
One thing I have been considering recently (other then my line of thought on how pure and evil are so different than purely evil and if unicorns were the explanation) is getting a tattoo. I've always wanted one, and if there is one place that a tattoo would not be out of place, it is in the army. I found a great website that has literary tattoos. Although it seems as though everyone has decided to get a Slaughter House Five tattoo, I think I might get one on my arm that says "Man found alive with two legs." Or one of a baby rabbit. Or a small potato on my ankle (points if you know what the potato tattoo is from).
--Andy

Unreasonable Faith

2008-05-19T21:24:00.000-07:00

"Time passed, the possibility was there, Abraham believed; time passed, it became unreasonable, Abraham believed."
This is the reason Kierkegaard found it so odd when people claimed to have moved on past faith. Embedded into the word faith is eternity minus a day. To move past faith is to be forever. As Christians we live in expectation of what is to come, holding in the faith in our Lord. We move past faith only when the promises have come to pass.
Abraham held onto faith past reason, believing that he would have a heir to fulfill the promise God gave him. And it was given to him. Yet God gave him another test, sacrificing that gift and the fulfillment of his faith. And with Isaac would die the promise yet again, falling from possible to unreasonable. Yet Abraham persisted in his faith all the way to tying Isaac to the alter, all the while convinced that his promise would not die. Even though God himself seemed against him. And in his powerlessness and folly he contended with God and prevailed.

"Abraham was greater than all, great by reason of his power whose strength is impotence, great by reason of his wisdom whose secret is foolishness, great by reason of his hope whose form is madness, great by reason of the love which is hatred of oneself."

--Andy

FAST1

2008-04-24T17:53:00.000-07:00

What I did today. Well, it started off innocently enough. Just some minor paperwork, no sick call. Did Physical Training for the first time in forever. Etc. It was after lunch that it all started. I came back to the Aid Station and got told that one of my co-workers 11 year old child was going to stick an IV in me. If I could figure out how to do smiley faces in the posts, there would be a smiley face with its eyes bugged out in surprise. Well, we got that over with quickly. He messed it up, but it didn't hurt at all. Then they told me I would be getting a FAST1. That is what you get if the medic can't get a vein in your arm. It is a large needle that punctures your sternum and you get fluids and meds into your bone. Yeah. Sounds like fun huh? Well, it hurt. A lot. A FAST1 has a circle of 10 big needles and in the middle of those needles is one big needle that hooks up to the IV. All of the 10 guide needles have to be up against your sternum and have 35 pounds of pressure on them for the middle needle to get shot out into the bone. You hear a nice crunch as it goes in. Much pain. For your viewing pleasure, here is a video of one (unfortunately not one of myself getting it done as the camera apparently malfunctioned.) And that was my day. Saweet.
--Andy

Equilibrium

2008-04-21T20:33:00.000-07:00

I think one of the most enjoyable pieces of this movie is the contrast between the sense offenders and those still taking their dose of Prozium. The movie paints such a bleak life for the sense offenders. They live outside of the city for the most part, in abandoned buildings that are crumbling and decaying. Compare them to the loyal citizens of the Tetragrammatron. They live in clean apartments with huge TVs and so many of the things that people work towards. And yet it seems clear that the only real choice is to sacrifice comfort and stability for the ability to feel, even if it is pain. Unlike Brave New World (on which Equilibrium is heavily based), there is no conflicting ending. No suicide of the "good guy". It presents a clear cut choice and a clear cut ending. But that is part of the appeal. The movie is not posing a question about the value of emotion, but showing that the material goods we work for and strive for can be empty and lacking, and what we think is good for us might not be. Truly a masterpiece of a movie.
And as a guy, I feel obligated to point out that Equilibrium has action sequences that make the Matrix look like child's play.
--Andy

Swigging 'Tussin

2008-01-30T18:21:00.000-08:00

They let us self medicate here at AIT. This is truly awesome. As 68W's, Army Medics, we run healthcare. You only see a doctor if you are really sick. So we keep close tabs on the medication we give to other people, but we are just straight up stupid with our own stuff. Measured doses are for weenies. I have been sick for about two weeks, running 104 fever for a few days. Lately it has just been a cough that won't go away. It is a cough that makes other people ask me if I'm okay, and then clear the way so I can run and puke. And I assure them that I am fine. And at nights, I take swigs of other people's Robitussin. That and some guy's anti-inflammatory pills are my sustenance at night for the past week and a half. Cause my tonsil's are swelling up so bad I can't breathe. Only at night for some reason. I can't wait 'til I have full access to my units stash of meds. Although I hear Morphine is pretty well regulated. *wink wink.
--Andy

Fatherhood

2008-01-27T15:35:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been reading Dooce. I really don't know why I'm reading it, seeing as it is a blog written by a mother about raising a child. It is freaking hilarious, and as much as I can be sure about any complete stranger, I think I would get along with the lady who writes it. Because I have been reading it, I have thought about parenthood (God forbid it happen to me anytime soon.) I really don't think anyone really knows what it is about when they get into it, no matter how many books you read. It seems like the ultimate play as you go scenario (which makes me happy, because that is how I run my life.) After all, small children are basically little animals, slightly less furry puppies. Try to plan it as much as you want, but after they poop in the middle of the living room for the 8th time, all of those promises to not eat your young just go flying out the window. I'm pretty infant mortality rate was what it was because parents could get away with it back then, not because everything was dirty and unsanitary. Mmm, small child stew. Well, enough of my eligibility to be a father.
While I was on Exodus, I bought a knife. Yes, let me pause.... a pointy sharp object. In my hands. So I was trying to cut open a package with a minicard. One of those impossible plastic containers. And I cut the tip of my thumb off. So now, not only is the tip of my thumb coolly lopsided, but I can't feel anything, making picking up small objects neigh impossible. I know, I know. I should never have sharp objects.
At lastly, we started the fun part of our training. On Friday, we did injections. With needles. It was AWESOME. I was with a guy named Kettler. His went smoothly. Mine went great except for the very first part. I went to stick him in the upper arm, and his muscle spaszed out. And that freaked me out. Not good. But I calmly extracted the needle and did it with the next needle. And the rest of it went smoothly. Now on to IVs and further opportunities to thrust sharp objects into people's flesh. Hurrah.
--Andy

Yin Yang

2008-01-17T19:23:00.000-08:00

In the Army, you pick up a lot of injuries with no known origin. Personally, if I put any pressure on the lateral aspect of my left foot, my leg crumples. Last time I jumped out of bed and landed slightly wrong, my knee buckled from the pain and I hit my head on the ground. Kranda, a battle buddy, has a huge lump on his wrist. It looks like his bone dislocated and is sticking out.
These injuries start to separate the people you are with. You learn alot about a person by seeing how they handle these inconveniences. Kranda still passed his PT test with his wrist, including his pushups. I ran my fastest time so far on my two mile. Houlahan actually fractured his ankle about 6 months ago. Instead of going on profile, he told the sergeant that he got a RTD (return to duty) and kept going. It hasn't healed yet, he has to wear a wrap on it constantly. He didn't report it because he wouldn't have been allowed to finish training while on profile, so he decided to just get surgery once his training is done because of how aggravated his ankle has become.
On the other hand you have people like Lyons who never does PT with us because she is constantly on profile with her crutches. She never does anything. As soon as her profile runs out, bam, back to the med station to get a new one. People like Jean who escapes from doing any work what so ever. Tomorrow is a CI (command inspection) with a LTC and CSM from Battalion HQ. Jean came in 10 minutes past bed check when everyone had been in the bay cleaning their butts off.
The Army doesn't allow you to do things half way. You know where people stand. Either they will be like Kranda or they will be like Lyons. You don't talk about people behind their backs. You say it to their faces. If you think someone is a douche bag, you tell them. Feelings are not at all spared. Its nice really. I don't like Jean. He is a Blue Falcon (Bravo Foxtrot/Buddy F****er) to the highest degree. And he knows I don't like him. Like I said, quite freeing. There really is no grey. And after listening to our sergeants rant about war enough, you start measuring everyone by "Do I want them watching my back in Iraq/Afganistan?" Everything goes to the lowest common denominator. The Army makes everything so simple. I can understand why so many people start out with a 4 year contract and end up staying in permanently. The civilian world is kind of messy and scary compared to the Army. You know who is your superior in the Army, and people tell you when you messed up. Things can be taken at face value.
--Andy
Well, everything is simpler, but harder. Like the 3 hours of sleep I get tonight thanks to a 2.5 hour fireguard shift, followed by a ruckmarch followed by a test followed by our inspection. YAY.

High Speed Medic

2007-11-27T17:13:00.000-08:00

I must say, I do take a bit of pride in being the most enthusiastic person in my class. Basic Combat Training has changed my attitude about things. I found out that if you have to do something, have fun doing it. An easy concept, but nobody ever said I was smart. But having figured this out, I am having a ton of fun learning about being a medic. EMT training is boring, but learning about it knowing how it applies to Whiskey training makes it a million bazillion times more interesting. We get to use things in ways they were never meant to be used, and we do this with complete impunity, as long as it works. As an EMT-B, we have tons of guide lines and regulations we have to follow. As combat medics, we just keep people alive. All rules and regulations are intelligent, as the stupid rules have been weeded out.
The Army also uses things that the civilian world has not been issued yet. Things like QuikClot.

Don't watch this if you are squeamish. But this stuff is teh AWESOME. Also, improvisation is going to be a lot of fun. Tampons are going to be a regular visitor to my alice bag. Great for gunshot wounds. Basically, a lot of fun will be had after Christmas break.
--Andy

Just a Brief Note

2007-05-15T15:06:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to let everyone know that my mother is now Dr. Lamp. Not medically, but academically. Which makes it even more amusing. My parents are two very smart people with very high scholastic degrees, and yet we are just above the poverty line. Sigh, missionary life. Well, gifts of the Spirit and all that. Just a little bitter that we only have a maid that comes twice a week.
--Andy

Awesomest Food EVAR

2007-04-28T15:21:00.000-07:00

Warning, the next pictures should not be viewed by smokers, pregnant women, people with weak hearts, and old people.
Goat stomach pretty much ranks in my top 5 coolest things ever eaten. My mom and sister refused to eat it. My sister had to eat in another room.

This is a picture of the inside of the pot. All the yummy goodness. The large bloated thing is the stomach proper, but there are plenty of other tasty treats.

Here is a mixed bag. The thingy on the spoon closest to you is the small intestine wrapped around bone. Definitely my favorite part. It was amazingly delicious, and I have always like the texture of things like squid and intestine.

This is my plate, fully loaded. The mushroom looking thingies are the kidneys. Plenty of vegetables (for a nuitritious and balanced meal) with some small intestine wrapped around bone
and some free floating large intestine. And of course, the stomach.

And this is what is inside of the stomach. It is a ground up mixture of blood, heart, liver, kidneys, brain, and other assorted organs. Kosher? Probably not. Delicious, why yes. It actually was very good. Not something I would eat every day, but once a month it would be a treat. My biggest complaint is that after stuffing the stomach with the ground stuff, they sewed it up with a near indestructible cord. Which is great for the form factor, making the stomach look prettier, but it makes it very, very hard to eat it. You have to pull the string out piece by piece.

Bonus picture. This is one of the many pictures I took when I was going around in the US. It was one of the several murals in the town. But this was definitely the best. I was going past it at a walking pace (cause I was walking) and almost had a seizure. I can not imagine driving past it in a car. The color overload. It was snowing when I took it. I love the snow so much. But anyway, this mural was amazing. It was on the wall of a kindergarten-middle school, and I have to believe that a few of the kindergarteners were terrified when they first saw it. Like the building was one huge monster. Or they thought it was a candy factory and cried because lets face it, Wonka was a freak. Funny at our age, scary much younger.
--Andy

Bygone Childhood Relics and Manliness

2007-04-23T16:20:00.000-07:00

I would like to start this post with the proclamation that the Animaniacs should probably be held responsible for the ADD age in which we live. And it is awesome. I say this only because I have been watching "A Bit of Fry and Laurie", and resemblance between the two shows is stunning. Well, perhaps the wordplay in the Animaniacs is perhaps a bit more sophisticated and slightly less childish.
I recently stumbled upon a way to tell women and men apart. A brilliant, quite scientific solution to the problem that has been plaguing the world for years. And I found it by cooking a pork chop. Yes, yes, I am just that awesome. Let us begin in the beginning.
Several days ago, I found out that we were quickly running out of hot sauce. Although we were buying it by the crate, I went through it quickly because apparently, the main consumers are little children who whine if the food is too spicy. Fed up with constantly eating a soup of rice and beans, the broth consisting of the amount of hot sauce it took to make the food spicy, I took matters into my own hands. Bum bah dum DAH!!!!! I took a bottle, filled it with the most potent peppers and chilies I could lay hands on, then filled the gaps with olive oil. I let it sit for a few days. Today, I took it out of the biohazard container my parents made me keep it in, poured some in a pan, flopped in a pork chop, lit the burner and waited to make history. As the oil started to evaporate, the steam started to peel the tiles off the wall, singeing my nose hairs, and sending my family running from the house. After forcing myself to at least get the chop brown on the outside, I devoured it with relish. Tears streaming down my face, it was at that moment that I realized my triumph. My victory. Indeed, my vanquishing of the mysteries. I knew at that moment that my hot sauce was for men only. Indeed, it would not only separate the men from the women, it would separate the men from the boys, the men from the animals, the men from girls, the men from everything else, except maybe dragons. But lets be honest, man...dragon, not that much difference.

In other news, a child was eaten by alligators (in China, at a zoo). He and some friends had apparently hopped the fence of the enclosure, and get this, they were poking the gators with sticks. Wow. That is amazing.

And lastly, some native culture. This is something I think is either a breadfruit, something related to a breadfruit, or is nothing like a breadfruit. I am about 50% sure it is a bread fruit, 40% that it is related to a breadfruit, and about 10% of me thinks it has absolutely nothing to do
with a breadfruit.
I am not sure why my font just changed on me. Oh well, I'll just flow with it. As you can see, inside the possible breadfruit are yellow, slimy, lump thingies. That is the edible part. This is only half. It is shaped like an o val when it is one big fruit. Sounds like bread to me. And it has a spiky crust, which also sounds like bread. But here is where it gets crazy. *whisper*
it doesn't taste like bread. *e ndwhisper* Crazy, huh.

See, these are the lum py edible things. Although it does make me wonder who found out that they were edible in the first place.
This is the edible part. There is a huge seed right in the middle that you have to sort through and spit out, or you will have a bananabreadfruittree growing in your stomach. And yes, the texture is about what you would expect.
--Andy
ps tomorrow, hopefully I will have picture of my family eating goat stomach. Yes, I am serious. Somebody at my sister's art class told her that she had to try it and then brought some to class for her to eat. She brought it home, and our maid is going to prepare it tomorrow. I am excited.

I Had a Crush on the Little Princess

2007-04-18T07:47:00.000-07:00

I was renting a few movies, as is my wont to do, and having gone through most of the Drama, Comedy, and Action, I turned to the Children's movies. Lo and behold, there was the Little Princess. I think it might be one of the finest movies concerning reality and myth to ever be made. Of course, I am going on memories which are almost as old as I am, so it is possible that I am a teensy bit mistaken, but I think not. When the girls wake up with the buffet in their room, and fine sheets and jewelry, certain boundaries are crossed. Plus it has a blue Indian deity. And everyone knows that blue Indian deities immediately make for an excellent movie.
I was just watching the latest Pride and Prejudice movie, and I have but one complaint. I do not think that any on would ever say that Keira Knightly is "perfectly tolerable". And anybody that would is certifiably insane. Other then that, a perfectly tolerable movie.
Man oh man. I am rereading Kierkegaard's journal and I think that it might just be something that continually gets better through each reading. Wonderful. I need to get my hands on the unedited journals. He wrote quite a bit. I think unedited, it comes to thousands of pages.*gleep* Awesome.
My one disappointment is a lack of Anastasia at the movie store. I think I will start watching all Disney movies through in the order that they were put out. Only originals though. No Little Mermaid 2 1/2 for me. Although maybe after that time she will be older then 12.
--Andy

But Down Inside of Me They Still Live On

2007-04-11T04:57:00.000-07:00

Some people ask me (faces twisted in incredulity) if someone as awesome as myself has heroes. I generally let a lengthy silent period whiz past, creating tension before I answer, Why Yes, I Do Have Heroes. As the crowd mutters to themselves about what kind of person would I idolize (coming close to the OT use of the word), what person would I lift above the rest, to sit on the shoulders of a giant, so to speak, I utter just one word. "Hargrave". This man hacked the Superbowl. Clearly a mad genius, someone to emulate, admire, and indeed follow.
--Andy

Excitement is in the Eye of the Beholder

2007-03-28T14:53:00.001-07:00

Its been a little while. I do not update this blog very often because I do not consider my life at the moment to be interesting. But looking over what has happened in the past few weeks, from things I have seen (a boy sniffing shoe glue out of a coke bottle to get a cheap high to some guy getting the stuffing beaten out of him as I was driving past) to things I have done (eating various uncommon plants and animals to having to jump a tall fence to get out of my apartment complex at 4 in the morning) to stories I have heard ( mostly from my dad who does street ministry. Some of the stories bums tell him are only believable because we are in Recife, the city with the second most crime in the country, note, not per capita, but just flat out crime, quite a feat for a city of 2 million competing against cities with 5 million or more. It even beat out Sao Paulo, a city of 18 million.)
Speaking of Recife's crime rate, it made news recently when statistics showed that Recife had more murders during Carnival then any other city, and Pernambuco (the state Recife is in) had 1/3 of the top twenty cities for murders during Carnival. And my parents are worried about Iraq.
I also recently rented Moulin Rouge and am now quite addicted to the soundtrack (currently listening to Children of the Revolution, although my favorite is Elephant Love Medley). I am less enthusiastic about the movie as a whole. Piece by piece it is nice, but Baz wrapped it up in a very common plot. Seriously, star crossed lovers? Even Shakespeare took that from other people, and those people plagiarized from others. It probably is from before Homer. Iliad certainly carries that theme.
I also just rewatched Phantom of the Opera for the bazillionth time. I am still berating myself for losing that train ticket, as well as spending so much time in some places on my trip that kept my from reaching my ultimate goal of Broadway.
And lastly I rented Dear Frankie for my parents to watch, that they may partake of the very sweet and easily mockable movie.
--Andy
p.s. Best moment in Moulin Rouge. "We Could Be HERROOEESS." I have listened to that part several times. Some songs just have those little moments that lift them head and shoulders above the rest. That was it for Elephant Love Medley.

EDIT: I also realized at drawing class how utterly different a model's face (from a magazine) is from a real person's face. I could not get the proportions right. It was so weird.

Here There Be Monsters

2007-03-01T12:35:00.000-08:00

I was ambushed by a Dentist with a root canal. It was very painful (she said my root was dead, so I would not feel anything, and thus gave me less pain killer). I am embittered forever. Or until I have churrasco later tonight. I am faint with anticipation.
--Andy

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

2007-02-27T12:27:00.000-08:00

Well, I found a great bookstore here in town. I bought the Count of Monte Christo. I was quite happy because not only is this one of my favorite novels, but it was much bigger then I remembered. I think I might have always read abridged versions without knowing it. As such, I could have 200 new pages to read through. Combine this with my mothers gift of "The Portable Oscar Wilde" and I have my work cut out for me in a very very good way.
I also found out that I am going to be having a root canal very soon. I had surgery on a tooth about 6 years ago which was never canalized (which should have been part of the procedure.) Now, bad things are happening, and I require a root canal. And I hate having knifes and drills in my mouth. It seems so very drastic.
I spent the rest of my time wandering through the city. Parts of it have a old, colorful yet faded look to it. I personally do not like that in a larger city. In small villages, that look makes them quaint tourist traps, but in a larger city, it gives a tired air. I just have trouble in a place that eats mostly fish. Fish is to meat as tofu is to vegetables. They theoretically belong to the other categories, but it takes a hippy to enjoy them. And hippys steal and lie. I suppose that is why my parents dislike my night time wanderings.
The more I read of Dante, the more I am puzzled by him. Unfortunately, every detail must be considered important. But this leaves me puzzling about the nature of some of the characters, such as Minos the Judge and Phlegyas the ferryman. They are not demons or angels or tortured souls. But they do not seem to fit into the category of pure constructions of thought. They serve too integral a purpose in Hell.
On the other hand, some parts of Dante strike me for the first time. Because of the structure of Hell, I have always thought of Satan as being half out of hell. For the first time, I realized that he is half in hell. Just as he is chewing on the three great betrayers, Hell physically has him (the greatest betrayer) in its mouth. Dante provides a great image of Hell in the chewing of Brutus, Cassius, and Judas. While Satan is chewing, bloody tears are running down his face. He is not enjoying himself. Yet he is determined to make the three of them suffer just as much as he is suffering. Even if he must hurt himself to cause them pain, he considers it worth it. So opposite of our God. Thankfully.
--Andy

To Brasil in 2 Days.

2007-02-23T20:50:00.000-08:00

I have arrived. My journey down started out great and gradually spiraled downward (although in the end everything was fine). One of the concerns was my Miami-Sao Paulo connection, because I had less than two hours to get my two huge bags off the carousel, recheck them, get my ticket, find my proper gate, and go through security. However, after asking very nicely at the check in counter, the very nice lady (her niceness was boosted because one of my bags was exactly 50.0 pounds and the other was 5 pounds over. Instead of paying $50 for those 5 pounds, I took out a box of gummi bears and a bunch of pixie sticks and gave them to her. Sugar makes everyone happy. Except two year olds. It makes them bratty. Not that they do not start out bratty.) checked my bags all the way to GRU, where I had a substantial layover. This was great, and in Miami, I made it to the gate with plenty of time to spare. I even got to help a little old Brasilian guy find his way. He had been away from Brasil (and therefore his wife and kids) for about two years, living and working in the States to earn a bit of money. He barely spoke a word of English, the poor guy.

After this point, things started to go a bit downhill. When I arrived in Sao Paulo, I found that my bags had not made the flight with me. Which was actually kind of nice, because it meant that I did not have to take my bags through customs. They ended up being delivered right to my door in Recife. And I had a bit of a scare when I was looking for my parents number, realized that I lost my notebook with all my contact information and could not find my cellphone. I found my phone after upending my backpack, but the consequences of not being able to find it would have left my stranded at the Recife airport with no way of talking with my parents to let them know what was going on.

Upon arriving in Recife, I found (or rather, didn’t) that my parents had not come to pick me up. Calling them, it turned out that they could not leave our neighborhood because of the water levels. Having been traveling for far too long, I decided to take a taxi as far as I could, and then walk the rest of the way. I rationalized this potentially risky maneuver by convincing myself that Recife’s sewers had alligators of a size easily killed, the wombats lacked the numbers to be a true threat (they are small furry creatures who overwhelm their prey through the sheer weight of their numbers, biting with little teeth.) and than no criminals would be out in the rain. The taxi made it through without ever stopping, keeping death matches with Recife’s wild animals to a bare minimum of zero. Since then, I have been home doing nothing. It is boring here. But it is Brasil, containing very nice people, and lots of Guarana and Acai.

--Andy

Steinbeck Had It Right

2007-02-13T15:07:00.000-08:00

Alas, the best laid plans of Mice and Men (or as Douglas Adams would say, no, just of mice). I went down to the Amtrak station to buy a ticket to visit my auntie and then off to New York and found that in the bustle of the crowd, had misplaced my pass that would allow it. Even though the pass was made solely out of paper, Amtrak refuses to reprint it. On the plus side, this accelerates my leaving for Brasil. That I am quite happy about.
I recently purchased Harvard's 5 food shelf of books, and am going to spend some time trying to figure out which books I can take. I think I am going to stick to some tried and true books, Dante, Milton, Goethe (which comes along with Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, which I had wanted to read) as well as an autobiography written by the charming and utterly self conceited Benevuto Cellini. It really is fun to start reading all of these old books. Milton is a bit of a pain because he does not provide convenient stopping places like Dante does.
I was in Borders looking for the final book I have not read in a roughly 6 or 7 thousand page series. As you can imagine, I have really gotten into the characters, so imagine my frustration in not being able to locate the book. Not being able to leave Borders with out buying a book, I bought Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's collaborative spoof on the Apocalypse, as well as an anthology of poetry based on the concept of solitude. I much prefer an anthology based around something concrete (well, sort of) then one simply titled "America's Favorite Poetry" where the compiler has made quite a few assumptions about peoples preferences. The first poem was by Walt Whitman, which I rather enjoyed, even if Whitman was a dirty hippy along with Thoreau and probably Emerson. In fact Poe is one of the few poets (barring a few obvious ones such as G.K. Chesterton) who is not a dirty hippy.
--Andy
p.s. The book by Gaiman and Pratchett is called Good Omens, and is dedicated to "G.K. Chesterton. A man who knew what was going on." Amazing. Explains why those two are such good writers if they are following he lead.
p.p.s. Buy I think Wordsworth is also okay. He seems like he would enjoy scaring small children.

Happy Happy Happy

2007-01-18T18:58:00.000-08:00

Well, even if I have not been involved in a single misdemeanor (other then being on a highway that I should not have been on), some good things are happening on this trip. Once I stopped trying to hitchhike, my life became simpler, giving me lots and lots of time to read. I found out that because I am a Brasilian resident, I can get a 30 day pass that lets me use the train as much as I want. So I will be coming back to California to visit friends and relatives then on to New York to see some Broadway. I also found out that tickets to Broadway shows are not $400. For some reason that was in my head as the price of a close up ticket. And by close up, I mean about 6 or 7 rows away from the stage. I am very excited. Hopefully I can then spend some time in Colorado Springs learning to snowboard and skateboard. We shall see. There are many possibilities.

I just bought a book by Harold Bloom, a literary critic. The book's name is called "Where Shall Wisdom Be Found". In it he examines several different texts. The first two parts that I have read so far involved Job vs. Ecclesiates, and the second part has been Homer vs. Plato. This second part is very interesting after reading the Republic. I am trying to remember what Dr. Reynolds said about these two authors. It seems that Reynolds attempted to reconcile the two authors, which Bloom claims is strictly impossible. I now wish that I still had my notebook. Alas, alas.
--Andy

Amish Country

2007-01-08T06:03:00.000-08:00

Apparently the Amish are lying to us. This whole time we all thought that they were so innocent. All, "Oh, we don't use electricity." Ohoh, but they do. (Ominous whisper) They do. Apparently there are levels to Amishness, ranging from no elastic in their underwear to don't use electricity too often. They aren't all the same, except for their awesome sauce beards. And the cool hats. The reason that I am in the know is my...situation. I am in Ohio right now, staying with a Mennonite friend. They are very nice people (the friend and just Mennonites in general). Apparently they are nice to me because I am from out of town? I think it is because I am just that charming. Apparently the pastor of the church I attended really liked me. So I am thinking about moving here, settling down and marrying a nice Mennonite girl. Except it also gets boring after a while. And given that the town
I am in has about 200 people in it and is surrounded by farms, I think I can see that happening. La Mirada was bad enough for me. Well, as I believe I have stated before, hitchhiking is an exercise in exercise (hiking to the right on-ramps) and boredom (sometimes it takes a while for a ride to materialize). And no excitement. Maybe I attract boredom. I haven't had a knife pulled on me. Nobody has offered me drugs. I haven't had to jump from a moving vehicle. Hitchhiking not only doesn't give me any more crazy experiences, but it keeps me from reading (have to pay attention to potential rides or chat with the driver when you are picked up). However, after visiting California, I will go to New York and Broadway, and then after that, Brasil. Oh man, I was thinking about Churrasco last night.
--Andy

The Death of Innocence

2006-12-31T12:20:00.002-08:00

Well, my heart has just been broken by the American people. I thought I was in love, but I found out that it would never work. They are too stupid (obviously I am exaggerating slightly as not all Americans are idiots). Yesterday I was watching a show called 1 v. 100. The outline of the show: A series of questions is asked to a group of 101 people. 1 person is the main contestant. Every time he gets one right, he receives money for every person in the mob (the other 100 contestants) that gets knocked out. He can choose to leave with his money or keep going after every question. If he defeats the entire mob, he gets one million dollars. If he is knocked out, the remaining mob members split however much money he made. Yesterday a young man was on, probably a few years older then me. The question was:

If a person parallel parks their car, which of these sides is perpendicular to the curb?

a)The passenger door?

b)The driver’s door?

c)The back end?

His answer was b. I was instantly cast into a deep and lasting depression until I realized (about 30 seconds later) that his childhood had probably consisted of eating lead based paint and seeing if he could break large falls with his face. Reassured, I continued watching the show. The host then revealed how many of the mob got the same question wrong. 54. Yes, that is the right number. Five, four. 10x5+1x4. I cried that night. It was a blow to my confidence in the idea that mankind was the most intelligent species on earth. I think the title should go to…the dodo. I mean, sure, it built its nest on the ground, but it has a better grasp on right angles and parallel lines than the average person. Plato had it right. If you do not know geometry, please GO AWAY.

Well, I hope to be leaving my grandmother’s house tomorrow. I actually have quite a few things I need to do before I do leave. Laundry, decide what should be taken. I am going to map out a route, decide what roads I can take that will make it easiest to hike along. I want to avoid major cities if I can. They are just a big hassle, full of people. Small towns are what I like. I will be going to see an old friend of mine in Indiana (I think. For some reason I can never remember where it is.) and then back to California for the start of school so I can finish clearing my stuff out of the room. Then I am going to try to do a true cross country trip, starting in California, and ending in New York.

--Andy

P.S. I have left Milwaukee. I have decided to postpone my visit to Chicago for a few days, at least until after New Years. I am now in ?Champaign?, a city south of Chicago. I am in love. Right now I am seated opposite of an antique bookstore, waiting feverishly until it opens. There are many small cafes with WiFi. I am of course sitting at one as we speak. I think I might get a hotel room here for a day or two. Or even better, hike to the edge of town, find a nice deserted spot and camp out. Unfortunately, it is raining. I would rather not get my computer wet.

P.P.S. I have been in the bookstore. The picture above is not very good quality, because xanga will not let me do a high quality upload. That was a corner of a three story book store. Amazing. I bought an old journal which is partially filled in. The previous owner did what I have done to so many of my journals. He/She started to fill it in, and after a few days kind of forgot about it. Since we are starting a new year, I decided it would be perfect. I can't wait to start writing small things in it.
I have decided that I want to live here. It has stopped raining, so hopefully I can camp out tonight. First I am going to try to find a church. Maybe someone in the church will let me stay at their house for the night.

Viva Las Vegas

2006-12-31T12:20:00.001-08:00

Well, my day started off very auspiciously, if that word means BAD. Waking up after only 3 hours of sleep, I started to pack up what was left, so my roommates did not have to deal with it. Having reviewed my ticket and travel time, I decided I would start moving towards the airport. I took public transportation (which compared to Brasilian public transportation is horrid), and barely managed to make my way to the airport.

I had already made my first mistake of the day (I went to the wrong bus stop, so I had to walk a mile with all my luggage to get to the right one), and on arriving at the airport found out that I had made another. My flight from LAX to Las Vegas was not at 4. It had been at 12 (which was long past). I had been looking at the wrong part of my travel information. Thankfully the nice lady at the desk booked me another ticket for a plane leaving in 20 minutes. Dashing (and by dashing, I mean waiting in endless lines. YAY Bureaucracy) through the multiple layers of security, each of them which did less then the one before them, I made my flight, and found myself sitting next to a delightfully sarcastic young lady. We made fun of the TV’s, the Christmas music videos, other peoples luggage (someone had a suitcase wrapped in duct tape which she promptly proclaimed to be “Ghetto Bling”.), the safety announcement (pull on your seatbelt to tighten, etc. etc., if we crash at 400 miles per hour, please exit the plane in an orderly fashion, etc. etc.). She started hitting on me, so when she found out that I had a several hour lay over in Vegas like her, she invited me to go to a bar and drink with her for a while. She apparently thought I was in my mid-twenties. After telling her that I was 18, she got tired and dozed off, leaving me with a boring business man sitting next to me. He did not have the appropriate levels of sarcasm for me to talk to him.

After disembarking in Vegas, I was immediately struck by a)how many slots there were EVERYWHERE, and b)how many people were playing them. They are not fun and you have no chance of winning with them. Yay, lets give them more money. I saw an O2 bar, where apparently they serve oxygen??? Of course, that meant I had to try it. My little air stand had air that was flavored like a Pina Colada, Sex on the Beach, Eucalyptus, and something which I can no longer remember. As I was sitting there, I struck up a conversation with the nice girl who was the ???Bartender???. We swapped a few details like age, and where we are from, and then she immediately started telling me about the crazies that live in Vegas. According to her, everyone is either a drug addict or a prostitute. Then she told me of the time she went out for groceries and bum offered to carry them back to her car in exchange for money. After sympathizing with her over the sheer insanity of the world, I suggested that California (her place of origin) might be pretty crazy as well. She told me that I just did not understand. The people from Vegas are REALLY out there. I then proceeded to explain that I had just dropped out of College in order to hitchhike around the country, and my end point would probably be the US Army. Her eyes went wide and she stopped talking to me. Oh well. I can hardly blame her considering what she considered to be dangerously crazy. (As a side note, the Oxygen bar was fun, but I did not notice an increase in sexual prowess, and the security guard tackled me about 300 yards into my attempt at a four minute mile. Kind of a gyp.) Now, I am waiting for my next flight, which is in 3 hours. As a minor, I am not allowed to loiter near the slot machines, and since they are everywhere, it limits me to about 20 square feet in which to wait. (I do not think I have emphasized how many there are. I think it is literally impossible to be out of sight of a slot machine anywhere in the airport. Even the bathrooms. I went into the handicap stall and there were four plus a video poker machine.)

--Andy

Why Amazingosity Should Be a Word

2006-12-31T12:19:00.000-08:00

I just finished up a conversation with my family. A few weeks ago I dropped the bombshell that I was going to leave college for an indefinite amount of time traveling around the country, and after my break will join the Army. I have had a few conversations with them since then, but today's conversation dealt very specifically with what was going on.
They were completely supportive. Obviously they were a little less gungho about my journey, seeing as it is a bit out of the norm, and hitchhiking is no longer quite as common as it was, with the rapist and serial killers that wander our nations highways (or at least that is what the news would have us believe). My parents spent some time saying that if I was leaving college because of money, they would of course be more then happy to help me out even more then they already have. After assuring them that it was not due to monetary causes that I am leaving, they started to discuss my trip with me, helping me flesh out the details. Amazing. My mom is not to happy about the whole Army thing being in a temporal conjunction with the whole Iraq thing. But she talked with some people she knew that were in the Army so that she could give me some tips about what my best options were, and how the recruiter might have been a bit under handed with me. Yet another instance of how much my parents rule. I guess all those times when I was thirteen that I shouted "You aren't my real parents" were not true. Quite happily untrue.
--Andy

War and Peace

2006-12-31T12:18:00.001-08:00

In a few months, a movie called 300 is coming out. It is a movie based off of Frank Miller's (of Sin City fame) graphic novels which are in turn based off of the story of the Spartans at Thermopylae. I have always been fascinated by this battle for a number of reasons. It is an epic last stand of the little guy fighting for freedom from the bigger guy. It has a bittersweet ending, and on top of that, you have the little guy inflicting losses of 5:1 (or if some ancient historians are to be believed, 300:1).
Greece is being invaded by the Persians, and so it is decided to gather at a narrow pass to delay them. Most of the city-states of Greece send men, Sparta sending a small contingent of 300 soldiers. The Persian Empire is at its peak and fields an army of 500,000 men (given the time between me and them, the numbers might be a little fuzzy. The point is that the numerical difference is huge) of assorted races. Battle ensues, and while it isn't the biggest battle, since the Greeks purposefully only sent a small portion of their total armies, it was extraordinarily bloody, given the size of the battlefield. After a two days of combat, a traitor showed Xerxes a way around the pass. Finding this out, Leonidas (king of the Spartans, who expected to die, as did all the Spartans, at this battlesite) called a council, and sent the allies all away, staying with only the Spartans (Actually 700 Thespians refused to leave. They all voted to stay with the Spartans. They were also awesome). In the end, the Spartans died, as they came to do. A few days later, the Persians met up with about 80,000 Spartans at Plataea. This brings me to the interesting part.
Sparta was not a free society. Athens is known as the birthplace of democracy, but Sparta was a very strict Oligarchy. Slavery was the basis of their society. All men were required to serve for about...70 years (no, really, that long) in the military. Defective children were thrown out to die. But they were willing to die for freedom. Xerxes offered them a position at the head of his troops, but they refused. They decided that they would rather die free. When told that if they surrendered their weapons they would be allowed to live, the Spartans purportedly answered "Come and get them". And they died for the men from other cities. The Athenians lived very differently from the Spartans, yet the Spartans died for the Athenians.
As I am leaving college and eventually entering the military, I keep getting hit with the irony that in the Army, I will have no freedom, yet the Army was established to keep America free. Some give up their freedom that others might have some. This seems so wrong, and unfair. The Spartans trained their whole life under complete, forced discipline so that when Freedom needed to be protected, they could be there (we are ignoring the Peloponnesian War for the purposes of this post). As I struggle with discipline, I keep coming back to the idea that the best way to find overall freedom is to discipline myself in the small things. I do not like doing homework because I see it as a bar to me having fun, but if I made myself do my homework everyday, I would not have to worry about getting it done, and would be able to do the things I wanted to do. Hopefully this lesson will one day move past my head and make it's way into my heart.
--Andy

It Begins (Sort of)

2006-12-31T12:17:00.000-08:00

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.

— William Thackeray

As great as this quote is, it seems that a modern keyboard does not convey the same advantage as a pen. Having read my share of blogs, it can not even be said that even poor thoughts emerge. They are merely a huge swamp of nothing. Let us see how long I can keep this blog from falling into that. As a trade off, the blog will be almost unbearable pretentious, looking snootily down it's nose at other blogs, much like it's owner does at other bloggers.

This blog will serve as a record of my travels as I spend time away from college. I have some spare tuition money and plan on using it to travel for a little while. If I work up the courage to hitchhike it could well last for a while. Stay tuned for the likely zany adventures and mishaps I will undoubtedly be involved in (assuming America is "as seen on TV"). I will begin travels on the 16th of December.
--Andy