coming together

Man! what a cool day.

first off, i get to sleep in. no alarm to bother me.
when my kidneys tell me its time to get up, i get up.
i take my sweet ass time, get around to taking a shower, and head on down to issaquah to a cool dive shop there called 5th dimension.

i googled 5th dimension for directions just before leaving, and the 8th hit was back when i mentioned my first trip there back on 3/9/05.
i don't know if that's a good thing or not.

what i do know was a good thing was this time around to the shop.
if you read my first entry about last time, it kinda implies that i didn't get too much information out of them.
this time around, i again talked to one of the board of directors for SCRET in some actual depth.
he was friendly to begin with, but i think what really did it was when i told him i was ready to drop some cash.
then he dropped everything and showed me to his desk.
can't blame the guy... money is business. business is life.
so i signed up for the GUE 1 class which starts on November 18th and goes through the 20th.
that means i'll have to ask for some time off from both jobs.
oh well. this is important to me. can you imagine that though?! a full weekend off?
most of you fuckers are just laughing at me... assholes.
anyway. so i'll be getting into that.
apparently though, my setup isn't good enough for them.
if i want to get into this GUE, then i'm going to have to suit up like them.
get the same fins, the same BCD. apparently they like the back floatation BCD rather than the one that wraps around you.
the one i got is kinda shitty, but the upgrade that they want me to get is slightly expensive.
the fins are doable, but still pricey.
i can't tell yet if they do this for a reason, or just so you buy all your shit from them.
whatever, if i'm in, then maybe i'll have to buy their shit.

so i BSed with the guy for a while, and then he offered to show me an 8-minute clip of a shipwreck he dove for SCRET. it was 320 feet down off of point no point which is just a bit northwest of edmonds on the penninsula side.
the boat itself was riddled with mostly white, cauliflower-looking anenomies. they went from the bow to the stern.
along the way, the cameraman's light went out. pitch black.
scary shit. the guy i was talking to said that he had to come over and use his light for the rest of the filming.
320 feet. damn. recreational diving usually only allows you to go to 120 feet.
personally i've only done 40, and that was without scuba. with scuba i've only done about 30-35.

the guy, mark, also introduced me to another guy who comes to the shop a lot and helps beginners out with their stuff.
he offered to take me out on a tuesday or thursday up at alki.
luckily, this coming tuesday i have off. it's my first day off since the 13th.
21 days, i got lucky! what'd i tell you, shit's falling into place.
so i left there with two email addresses and two dates to use my scuba gear.

from there i went to pho on aurora and 77th. i hadn't been there since i was able to drag meg there on a rare occasion. i think this was the first time i've been to a sit-down resaurant by myself. i didn't really mind cuz it was damn tasty.
however, toward the end, i gobbled down a large jalapeno slice that kicked my ass. they never refill your water there. that's my only complaint.
good shit. good price.

from there i had to work. but you know what? that wasn't all that bad either.
arturo, my sifu (kung fu teacher) moved back to seattle from Whidbey Island and was around to keep me company.
we caught up on old times, new events, and he even helped me critique some of the moves i was having troubles learning.
before i knew it, it was 9:30, and i had to boot everyone out of the pool.

i drove over to fred meyer to get my next week's schedule, and a trip to the shari's restaurant came together.
half a dozen of us kicked it there for a while, then all parted ways.

i came home to discover that i had gotten an email from Canadian Todd. the guy that i've been hoping to go to south america with since i met him up in Alaska.
i tried to email him almost immediately after returning from Alaska, but i couldn't seem to get through to him via email. i had ambitions to write him. i even typed out a letter, but i never printed it and mailed it to him.
he just gave me a short "how do you do?" email, to which i responded with, "bitch, we goin, or not?".
hopefully he'll get back to me shortly.
leanora can't have all the fun in thailand and surrounding countries!

well. tomorrow will be a long day, especially if i stay up much longer.
but i guess in my own tradition, i still have to mention the new book i'm reading.
it's called The First Americans by Jim Adovasio.
this guy works at whichever state university that is located in pittsburgh and works at a controversial archaeological site called Meadowcroft.
the reason it's so controversial is that it predates all Clovis dates. Clovis being the supposed first Americans. those dates are around 11,200 to 11,500 years ago at the latest, whereas Adovasio's dates are more around 14,000 years ago.
I think he's trying to link his site to the Solutrean culture which can be found over in southern France and northern Spain, near the Pyrennes Mountains.
A lot of archaeologists don't accept his site stating that there has been a lot of waterflow through the site that has brought in contaminated coal samples which account for the early dating and really have no affiliation with the occupation of the site itself.

But even with this, i still like his boorish attitude toward the believers of the Clovis First:

I believed the idea that Clovis Man had leapt fully armed (out of the head of some Siberian Zeus) into midcontinent and proceeded to overrun the hemisphere in less than a millenium to be, at best, an oversimplified notion and, at worst, hopelessly naive if not simply dumb.

Called out!
I can't wait to see what else is in store.
this book is going to be a bit more lively than the last one i read.
i needed a good change of pace.

and today it came to fruition in more than just a book...

Carillon Part Deux

Manuel and I headed back to Carillon Point to get more movies of things we'd missed when we left the camera behind on its maiden voyage. This was back when I wasn't used to carrying it around all the time.

If you want to check out the pictures, they're on flickr, but today I'm going to be linking to a crapload of movies.
Some are good, some aren't so good, but there's quality hiding somewhere amongst all of them.
Oh, and just so you know, Manuel took most of these. I'll chime in when I should get the credit.

So in the beginning, we were just taking movies along the bottom.
On that third one, make sure you have the speakers up for the last second. It cracks my shit up.

Later on we came upon the submerged pier about 50 feet out.
This is where it seems like they just lopped off all the pilings and let the pier settle to the bottom.
That last movie there was mine. I think the camera was getting a bit fogged up at that point.
Or, I didn't get close enough to get a good enough view.
Either way, I know in those first four movies, Manuel got near the entirety of the length of the pier. It was probably something like 100 feet.

Here's, literally, a split second of me ascending.

Next we have a couple of surface movies. We'll for the most part they are.
Again, make sure your volume's up.

This movie I took. It's of the original positioning of the old dock.
You can see a lot of the piling stumps and the fallen pilings strewn around.

The next two movies are us playing around in the odd remains around the sunken pier.
Things like sinks and cables.

This next movie was a short one of me trying to take a picture of a lobster. If I had been in the right state of mind, I would have continued filming. But I wanted a photo, so at the end of the five seconds when the shot goes off the lobster, you hear me frantically cranking the camera to the right mode to get a picture before my breath runs out.

This final movie I'm showing mostly to make a point.
It's directed at whoever that anonymous commentor was a while ago who mentioned the manitees getting run over by boats.
Now if you have the volume up even slightly, you can hear the whine of a boat's engine.
After surfacing, I noticed that this thing was at least 500 yards away.

Now my guess is that either the manitees can't hear the "low frequency" squeal of the boat as suggested by that person, or my hypothesis that the manitees aren't probably properly equipped as I am to surface and check out the scenery for possible collisions with boats.
So when they hear the scream of a boat engine, my guess is all they can do is hope that they don't come up for air right as the boat goes by, or that they're in deep enough water for the boat to glide past them.

Either way, my ass aint gunna get hit by no boat.


As for the rest of the adventure, Manuel and I both tried new things.

Manuel tried to use pop bottles as a way to manage another breath underwater.
While the internet said that this was fully plausible and told how to manufacture such poor-man's scuba, when applied, the experiment unfortunately turned out to be a bust.
Manuel said that the two-liters were crumpling under the pressure of even 10 feet or so.
So even though our submerged pier was relatively shallow, only about 20 feet, those bottles wouldn't really do any good.
He also said it was way to hard to pull them underwater that deep.
Damn. Such the valiant effort!

As for my new toy, since the water was about 65 degrees today, I thought I'd finally give half of my wet suit a try. It was the legs and chest part. The other piece is mostly for your arms as well as coupling with the other half to doubly protect your core and nether regions.

With my arms free, and my legs covered, I had enough warmth to last me for hours.
I had to ask Manuel when he got cold, so I guess that's indicitive of some effective wet suit action.

There were problems, however.
Pushing myself to the bottom required a lot more effort.
Air bubbles get trapped in the suit and keep you more bouyant.
That's the whole idea of the suit: to create that small barrier between you and the colder water.

After a while I got used to it, but I think the energy used to get down there, along with the time it took to get down there, obviously greatly decreased my submerged time.
On the other hand, with increased bouyancy, when it came time to surface, I shot up like a rocket!
The first time I did come up after a dive down, I think I literally shot up out to my waist like a dolphin. What power a little bit of compressed air has. . .

Over a it was a good dive. It was probably the best one since the last time we went there.
But now that I do have this underwater camera, I think we need to revisit all these past sites.
Like when I went back to Sand Point, there was some good stuff there.
This camera opens up a whole eye for me and everyone out there willing to see what I do.
And I'm sure as we progress, we'll take more and more movies.
Good times.

La Maria

i actually emailed this place in patagonia.
but unfortunately, it seems like somewhat of a farce.

first of all, it's only 10 days.
i learned my lesson after going to guatemala that, although it's an enjoyable trip, you really need more time than that to get aquainted with your environment.

second, looking through the itinerary, it seems that out of those 10 days you're only really excavating for 2 of them.
now that's some bullshit.

it seems that they have this set up more for toursits than aspiring archaeologists.
the program calls for more museum trips than actual digging.

my guess is that they only really have this one site to dig at, and they're milking it for all it's worth by keeping the amount of excavation down to a minimum, hence 2 days out of every 10.

that really sucks cuz it's right in the heart of where i want to be, and as far as i can discern, there aren't really any other legitimate field schools in either the Patagonia or Pampas regions.

¡Qué lástima!

Professional Update

oh.
so i figured out what disadvantage is coupled with my lack of professionalism: lack of respect.

yesterday i asked to leave fred meyer's a half hour early so i could get to my other job.
all they would tell me was, "get back in your checkstand!".
no love.

then. when i was closing at the pool, these two boys that i always play with started beating me with noodles as i was doing my fifteen minutes of work: putting on the tarps, turning of lights, hosing down the place.

but the kids wouldn't stop! i'm dragging tarps with both hands as i'm getting the crap beat out of me with wet, foam noodles.

i ask, "can't you see i'm working?"

"yes!!" *giggle, giggle*

"could you pick up those balls you keep throwing at me and put them away?"

"NO!" *giggle*

walked on by 7 year olds.
it's too bad that the only way i'd know how to manipulate them would be to beat the living fuck out of them.

so how do other people do it?
i guess with the harshness of their tone.
but i think i lack that attribute.
or at least it isn't natural in me.
it takes a lot for me to get overly frustrated and use it.

just like with joan's 4 and a half year old kid, celena.
she came to visit me at work today.
she throws out her arms so i have to pick her up.

but then after feeling a bit guilty for standing around at work with a small child hanging around my neck while i'm doing nothing, i try to put her down.
"OK, Celena, its time to go down."
"NOPE! UPPIE!!"
she grips tighter.

so what ends up happening?
i go outside with a little girl hanging around my neck while i push carts.
eventually her mom calls me on my parcel phone so i know she wants to go.
joan calmly tells her it's time to go and she immediately releases the death grip.

HOW IS IT THAT EASY?!??!

i guess she's seen her mom angry.
i know i have....

Eastlake movies

Manuel uploaded the movies he took of our Eastlake dive.

the first one shows him following down along some pilings to the depths.
the depths actually get to be too much, as there is no light for a bit of the movie.
but then the beauty of the depths returns with some matrix-like panning in the stagnation of the water.

the second one is Manuel making his way through the wiring of the house boats.
he took one way around to the right of the wiring, i went through by going under a fatty plumbing pipe.

these movies are totally awesome, but raping my batteries' lifespans.
i need to get rechargeable.

Professional

Today i had an epiphany that i, in no way, exude professionalism.

whatever subjective characteristics comprise this ideal, i lack them.

maybe it's the lack of difficulty in the jobs i have.
or maybe it's the boredom i'm driven into that forces me to explore ways of entertaining myself.
or it might even be that i don't give a fuck.
possibly a combination of some or all of those.

but either way, if someone was to intently watch me in my daily duties at either job, anyone with any authority would fire my ass,
or at least give me a stern talking to.

at fred meyer its not so bad. i just try to not cashier and come up with some of the lamest, yet effective excuses to do so.

but at the pool, i have any lack of discretion.
i play with the kids.
i run. i let them run.
horseplay is not in my vocabulary unless its completely dangerous.
i've come to realize that i only yell at kids under two circumstances:

1) i have the tarps on the pool and they want to go under.
that's a big no-no.
possible asphixiation is no fun. and besides, i don't want to get wet in order to save them.

2) if i happen to chase them into the weight room from the pool when they're all wet, i will yell at them to walk.
with just wet feet i've eaten shit on those mats too many times to unnecessarily watch a kid do so.

so the pool is rather like a playground. anything goes.
balls are always flying past my head from any number of kids in the pool.
i don't think i really have any authority. i'm basically one of them yet slightly larger and a bit more agile.

i kind of like it though. when i'm playing with the kids on the deck, balls flying everywhere, or noodles being used as swords, people in the hot tub take notice.
we entertain them while they soak their weary bones.
it's almost like being a gladiator.
although i guess at any moment i could beat those kids down, it's just like professional wrestling. i have to let them have their day.
otherwise, what would be the fun in playing?

so. any public pool's lifeguard would probably have their jaw drop to the ground if they saw what i do, but hey, i'm there for 6 and a half hours in one sitting.
what the hell else am i going to do when they won't let me read?!

i talk to patrons too.
today i realized just how many patrons i know. not to mention what i know about them.
i was talking to a guy who only knows patrons by their physical characteristics.
on three seperate accounts i came up with their name and occupation with a single, short description of their appearance.
damn. maybe i've been there too long.
but the people are really cool.

it's amazing the type of diversity that you can fit in under one roof.
going back to the roman theme, the place almost reminds me of a Roman bath.
i guess it would mostly be the rich who frequented the place, but still the diversity of trades would be immense.
it's a very good place to meet people.
fuck bars.
(ok. i didn't mean that, but i bet it's easier there. the only limiting factor is the amount of hot people that go there.)

Eastlake

Manuel and I, after some contemplation decided to hit up Lake Union today, namely Eastlake.
We entered the water just below those 3 rectangular boat coverings, and headed north through that small cove. We got to the farthest point north of that cove, which is where my sister's building resides, right opposite that parking lot.

Manuel and I ran into a duck even before entering the water. she was brave and hungry, but neither of us had anything for him.
she waddled around us at the car, and then flew over to where we were getting in the water.
she swam around Manuel as he began gently dipping his balls into the water with clenched shrills.
the duck was laughing, i was laughing. good times.

then it was my turn. crap.
i had no duck to egg me on, but i eventually made it in.
the water seemed cold, but it was 66-67 degrees the whole time.
i've been in 65 that felt better than this.

we swam through the boats. the water wasn't that deep, maybe 10 feet.
there wasn't too much down there as compared to other marinas like at Leschi.
but there were still bottles and tires, the usual.

i stopped to take a picture of one of the propellors of a boat as i heard the cranking of an engine.
it scared the crap outta me.
i could have been that boat!
but the cranking continued, and no boat engine started. so i don't know which boat the whine belonged to.
all i know is that i got the fuck away from that propellor!

we got spotted by a couple people. or maybe they didn't see us.
either way, no one really said anything and we just kept going.

we stopped to check out Gasworks and then made our way to the house boats.
they're all held up with these huge barrels.
i should have swam underneath to see what was there, but i wasn't thinking about that at the time. too bad.
we weaved through the boats, it felt a bit like venice.
some tight squeezes, other larger canals.
there were electrical cords and plumbing strewn about the walkways from beneath.
you had to watch to not get tangled in it all.

speaking of which, manuel took a couple movies again.
one is of the trek through the wires.
once they're uploaded, i'll link to them.

also on the plumbing was something that looked like coral.
i don't know if coral grows in freshwater, however.
so maybe it wasn't. there's a picture up of the spongey-looking stuff.

like i said, we made it as far as my sister's place.
that took about an hour.
we were freezing cold so we decided to head back.

on the return voyage we saw a small speed boat, a kayaker and the duck tours.
i could hear the conductor talking, but not well enough to hear what he was saying.
although from the looks of the pictures i took of the tour boat, people were taking pictures of Manuel and I.

back toward the marina, Manuel found a lawn chair.
we stuck it underneath the dock that was there by tucking two of the legs under some plumbing on the deck's underside.
we always have to leave a reminder of our presence...

on the home stretch i found a backpack acting as an anchor.
to weigh it down, it had a large rock zipped up inside it.
i also found a metal wheel and a small statue of a little kid throwing back a few.

Manuel ended up with a cool Sprite bottle, and i kept a cylindrical glass container that somewhat resembles a test tube, but is slightly larger in both width and height, and also has a flat bottom.

the dive wasn't full of excitement, but fun enough to be in the midst of all those house boats and see how some people living so close to you can live so differently.

on the drive back to Manuel's, we both were left with a funny metallic taste in our mouths.
mmm. Lake Union.

Juanita Beach revisited

Although Juanita Beach was mostly a bust, Manuel did happen to make something of it.

while swimming toward the pilings he had some fun with my camera.

in the second movie you can see the weeds we're swimming through and how they catch onto our gear.

finally, we arrive at the pilings, and you get the quick tour of our view.

so thanks to manuel for both shooting the movies, and allowing me to post them here.

oh yes, and there's sound too. so crank it!

Underpass Closure

goddamn, they close the underpass by my house and it's the biggest hassle.

the underpass is where 132nd St meets 405. my house is just on the east side of 405, and north of 132nd.

when that road is closed and i'm working at fred meyer, to the south, which is right under that top 405 emblem between 124th and 116th St, which are under the Totem Lake Mall.

instead of just taking that road that straddles 405 on its west side, i have to take 124th St to 124th Ave which goes right by Totem Lake, then cut up past the Totem Lake Mall and 132nd St to my house. that may not seem like much, but the lights on 124th St are some of the worst around.

when coming from the pool from the north on Lake City/Bothell Way to Simonds Road, which dead ends to 100th Ave, i have to cut through the "new" safeway parking lot to Juanita Woodinville Way, and take that all the way up to 160th St. Once there, i have to cut into Kingsgate before 124th Ave, and wind through all the residential streets on down to the lower 405 emblem that you see just under Kingsgate Park.

if i forget to do that, i have to go all the way down to 124th, head like i'm going to the Totem Lake Mall, and do like i do from Fred Meyer.
now that one's a big pain in the ass.

it's so retarded that there's nowhere to get across the freeway from 160th St on down to 124th St when 132nd St closes.
that's 36 fucking blocks!

i know no one really cares about my plight and the daily wrath it brings me, but i just thought i'd put it out there to relieve a bit of built up frustration.

russian

i did kung fu today at the pool.
i was beating the crap out of this little 7 year old russian kid to the point of total frustration.
so we squared up to dual once more when he just takes a cheap shot to the nuts.
it was so quick because that's right at his striking level.
i immediately drop.

he victoriously stands over me, fists raised in the air, and jumps up landing his ass on my stomach.
he rubs in the pain by bouncing continuously on my stomach as i'm left writhing in pain.
totally owned by a second grader.

but later on, hard feelings were forgotten and we went over to his house for a good russian meal.
i wish i had my camera, there was a cool modernist (if i have my styles right) painting hanging over the mantle in vivid primary colors. along with that were russian writing which added to the whole effect. maybe i'll have to get myself invited again and snatch a shot.
the russian dish was good too. it was some goulash type meal with a side of buckwheat and a greek salad. cantalope on the side.

and since we were celebrating arturo's belated birthday we had a tasty chocolate cake with coconuty icing.
i thought it was a weird combo, but it was rather good.

from there i had to book over to kevin's for a BBQ. i was only an hour and a half late, i guess it coiuld have been worse.
i showed up right when the hamburgers were done, so i was happy.

a day of free food always makes for a good day.
and i felt productive with my kung fu.

this coming week, however, might suck.
i don't have a day off at all.
back to the grind.

Pool dive

friday's at the pool: slow as fuck.
so i decided to spice up my night by bringing in the camera.

i hopped in and shared the pool with a few people who hopefully don't care that i took some shots of them. some knew about my roving eye, others didn't.

i was somewhat dissapointed at the outcome of the pictures, but some are still pretty good.
no flash means a blurry picture.
flash means floating particles will mess with your shot.

i got paid to take these pictures.
i got to the pool an hour early, and i got out an hour late when 2 small kids showed up.
i should have gotten a picture of those two, as everyone was making comments about "the children of the corn".
and they were dead right.
the hair color and cut, along with the penetrating stare that they'd give you, made you want to go running for the hills.

after i got out and dried off, i went and talked to my boss, who for the first time in a year and a half of working there, i figured out that he's a pretty good guy.
that was the first conversation i've had with him in my whole time working for the pool.
i'm sorry i didn't start talking to him sooner.
his wife, however, still strikes fear in my heart.

around 6 or so, his two youngest kids, 8 and 10, came out and played with me.
we have half a dozen rubber basketballs about the size of small bowling balls that we'd run aroubnd pegging each other with.
it was two on one.
for the most part, i could handle my own, but every now and then, they'd wise up and attact in tandem.
i ball to the face and a ball to the stomach. ouch.
the 10 year old's got quite the arm. i took a hit in the flank that stung like hell for a few minutes.
i got him good a few times as well. i'd feel bad afterward, cuz i don't mean to throw the ball that hard, but i had some that would bounce on the water and hit him square in the face as he surfaced for air.
his little sister i went easier on, she'd just get some slight bonks on the noggin from a dropped ball as she came up.
connie joined in on the fun for a bit, which was utter chaos.
she's funny. she'd yell, "i hate you!" in a giggly voice, then ask for the ball that i had after she'd thrown her ball at me.
i laughed for a moment at her logic, but gave her the ball to see her smile.

we continued this game for about 3 hours.
9 o'clock rolled around and i finally had a chance to clean up and get the tarps ready.
when i was done playing, my clothes were soaked from all the wet balls striking me.
luckily i had brought spare clothing for going out to jeff's 21 run.

all-in-all a good night.

cunning linguists

i'm still reading that damned Diamond book.
yes, the same one i bought in the Seatac airport to accompany me throughout my Alaska trip.

but i'd like to just talk about a random fact.
it's about Eastern Asia.

The majority of eastern Asians speak some form of Sino-Tibetan, which includes Mandarin, Cantonese, and all those dialect/languages that we lump together as "Chinese".
this extends out of China and into most of Myanmar.

There is another language that is spottily represented around southern China and extends into northern Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. it's called the Miao-Yao language group and is probably very spotty because of the infiltration and overbearing qualities of the "modernized" Chinese over these people who might be compared to Native Americans in the fact that their land has been somewhat overrun by outside forces. so the forced change in language, or conquering of the people of the Miao-Yao languages, left the language with only small island strongholds.

Then there's another language group called Tai-Kadai, which encompasses some of southern China, some of eastern Myanmar, most of Thailand, and most of Laos.
historical writings recorded that the language started in southern China and had people migrate south to where the language is more prevalent today.

Finally there's Austroasiatic which can be found in most of Vietnam, Cambodia and western Malaysia. There are also large chunks of this language group in eastern India, and another near Bombay in the west.
what Diamond might allude to, but isn't obvious in the chapter where he explores these languages is that this austroasiatic language group extends through most of Indonesia and into Polynesia. It also can be found as far away as northern Madagascar.

so there are two things i wanted to say here.
1) i should have learned more about the vietnam war than i did, but was there some sort of Laotian/Vietnamese rivalry that may be explained by language differences?

2) that austroasiatic culture is crazy. i think they start to show up in the archaeological record around 3200 BP and break through areas that hadn't been explored prior to them. other than australia, the furthest extent people had gone over their entire existence was the Bismarck archipelago, which is that island grouping just beyond Papua New Guinea.

i guess my question is, what the hell would force these people to expand so greatly as to expound exponentially on their seafairing technology. Agriculture had already been in or around that area for 4 thousand years prior to their expansion. so a population boom from that might not explain it.
maybe they were feeling some sort of external influence to explore. China to the north was coming down on them?
do people really wish to explore that much just to see what's out there?
i guess once the technology was set and in constant use, then it wouldn't be as frightful,
but that initial leap...
what urged that?
famine/drought?
war/impending opression?

i guess we could also look to the Minoan of the mediterranean to see what their deal was.
but i know even less about them than i do the Lapita (which is the name of the cultural expansion who allegedly used the one form or another of the austroasiatic languages).

i wonder if digging can ever answer that question...

dusty davis

i like this guy's setup.
he has a good eye and can brighten any picture by just throwing his bike in there.
it makes me want to do a cross-country road trip again.

FFM

FINALLY!
i called my store director today, who said he had news for me.

apparently as of September 4th, i will have been making journeyman pay.
he said it may take a two weeks to show in the paychecks, but i will be getting retropay to that point.

too bad my letter to him demanded that it be initialized starting August 21st, the week after i wrote the letter.
but right now that's of no bother to me.
cuz i aint done with these bitches.

i'm going to throw another shit fit asking why they could up my pay now, but couldn't when i asked over 3 months ago on May 20th.
i'm going to ask for retropay from at least then, if not further.
i'll have to see what i can get away with.

god, these guys are such assholes to deal with.
three months of giving me the run-around, and i'm still not totally satisfied.
i'll show them they fucked with the wrong person.
i can be very motivated if there's enough of a fire under my ass.

Juanita Beach

Today at 10:30, Manuel and I arrived at Juanita Beach to check out the old pilings I took pictures of yesterday.
we entered the water at the farthest extent of the looping boardwalk and headed east toward that old road.
It doesn't look that far, but it felt like quite the swim. now that i carry my camera around, i only really have the use of my legs and feet. occasionally when i feel like i really need to move, i'll use my left arm as well, but that tends to send me in a direction that's not very straight.

so Manuel and I swam through a thick jungle of weeds and arrived at the pilings.
the weeds dissipated in some areas, but were really a constant factor throughout the whole dive.
The bottom was actually a very fine silt. i stuck my hand, and then my arm into the lakebed hoping to find a hard bottom, but i never did.
i got up to my shoulder when i decided that i had found a good stopping point.
i'd see if i could pull anything up, and sometimes i would find something, but on more than one occasion, it was just a stick.

the water was very shallow. i never really recorded the depth because for the most part i could always stand. the picture of me holding up the pipe is me standing flat-footed. the deepest it could have gotten was only about seven feet.

the temperature, was another story. when we started it was 67 degrees. the sun was barely out and trying to warm us up.
by the time we made it to the pilings, the sun had slipped behind some clouds and i immediately felt a temperature drop.
i checked my watch to see that it was now 66 degrees.
it's amazing how such little variation can be felt in water.

at the pilings there were only really weeds or algae covering the bare ground.
there was nothing to be found.
we found a plastic bag, but that's recent.

the smaller pilings to the south were easily navigable.
the weeds weren't so bad.
we found a part of the walkway that had fallen into the water. it was about a 15-foot stretch.

as for the larger pilings to the north, i had to push my way through a sea of weeds.
imagine trying to push your way through a ton of christmas trees stacked about 2 feet away from each other.
that's similar to what i had to do.
it was somewhat sharp too, but only to an annoyance and not really to do any harm.

so i made my way through that and into the lily forest.
i didn't really try to penetrate it, as manuel was yelling that it was time to go,
so i just took some shots of intertwining lily bulbs and made my way back.
it was a long swim back.

i took a few shots along the way, but tried to stay on course.
using the left arm for propulsion helped a bit, but just meant that i had to keep checking my bearings.

all in all, it wasn't the worst dive, but definitely no where near the top.
maybe next summer we can explore further, as we're running out of places to explore along the lake as far as piers go.

i think all we have left to look forward to is renton.
maybe we can get wetsuits and continue on with the tradition of the weekly snork.

Juanita Bay

I had today off, Tuesday.
and since no other normal person has a tuesday off, and the weather was wonderful, i decided to do my own thing.

i went down to the part of Lake Washington that is nearest to my house, Juanita Bay.
i've been here a few times before, so i knew what i was in for, but ever since i've been carrying my camera around, things seem to have a new light.

The park itself was once a golf course, and it kinda looks like it too. At some parts, in the brown grass, you can see indentations that would look like the size and shape of sand bunkers.
I don't remember why it was given up as a golf course, maybe partly due to the gopher problem.
Where's Bill Murray when you need him?

there are two boardwalks at the park with 3 look out points.
they don't want you to jump off into the brush, but there are a few points where there are well-established paths on ground that's hard enough to walk on.
i jumped onto one momentarily to get a quick picture of the two turtles on the log, but i totally scared them, and everything to the left that was out of view from the boardwalk.

after walking around the boardwalks, i headed down the old road that seems like it could only be oneway nowadays.
there was a cool covered part at the beginning of the bridge, but my camera has issues every now and then from the loess (dust) from alaska that keeps the shutter from opening all the way.
it's way too bad, cuz the part of the picture that i could see was pretty cool.

along the road were a few informative placards telling me about the local flora and fauna as well as a bit of the history of the area both in pioneer and pleistocene times.

there was an area affected by beaver, which didn't show their damn mugs. i've never seen a wild beaver. is it so sad that that's on the top of my list of wild animals to see?
bear, check. cougar, check. moose, check. beaver, NO. dammit.

further along came a clearing in the road where you could see the old pier that was built back in 1907. all that's left are a row of pilings. this used to be a ferry service that transported people from kirkland to bellevue, madison, and mercer island.
then they had to go and connect the lake to the sound, which lowered the lake and made large ships sailing in that area a hazard.
poor kirkland.

the interesting animals seen on the walk were 2 blue heron, maybe a dozen turtles, and a bullfrog chillin' on a lily pad.

i made my way down to the end of the old road and found Orexi. this was a Greek restaurant that finally went under a few years ago. everything that takes up residence in that location goes tits up within a few years. i can remember it being a jack in the box as well as some mexican restaurant.

when i walked by, there was some mexican dude on the roof and some asian dude inside working.
i took a couple shots of the shat inside.
as i was doing so, i look behind me to see Mitch, a guy that i talk to at the pool.
he asked why the hell i was taking pictures of a shat building.
but before i could really answer, the light changed and he rolled off.
i'm sure he'll ask me again later on thursday if he's in.

i ran from the restaurant all the way back across the bridge and to my car.
my ass hasn't run in such a long time.
i was sweating and breathing like crazy and it was probably only a 200-yard dash.

that's alright. water's more my element anyway.
tomorrow, pending good weather, Manuel and i are going to enter at Juanita Beach, which is a bit north of the park, and swim down to the hundred-year-old pilings to see if any sort of garbage can be found below.
i'm somewhat skeptical, because that small pickax that i found over at Carillon Point, i only found as i was pushing off from the bottom to get some badly needed air from above.
if my hand wouldn't have accidentally gripped around it, it would still be submerged and covered in muck at the bottom of the lake.

i still think it's worth a try.
so tomorrow, it's on.

FFM

Fred Meyer's pissing me off.
i finally got around to looking at the union contract.
it seems that they bumped me down to a payscale that presumes that i was gone for 3 years or more rather than just the TWO that i quoted them in the beginning.

i can see the mishap with the two-year mark, since i was rather vague and neither party decided to look into it in very much depth, but now they're just being plain mean!

so not only did they bend me over, but they duct taped my wrists to my ankles.
ruthless bastards...

FFM

i love fucking fred meyer!

i received two pieces of mail today.

one was saying that i am eligible for additional benefits and inquiring what kind of dental plan i want.

the other piece of mail was a notice stating that i haven't fulfilled my necessary alottment of hours required to keep my benefits, so as of August 31st (the letter was dated September 1st), i no longer have benefits.

make up your fucking mind!
i was gone for a fucking month, of course i'm not going to be working enough hours!

jesus.
i also gave a letter to my store director asking simply to give me the pay that i'm due.
no retro-pay at all, just a bump up in my payscale.

he keeps avoiding me and today he walked by when i was talking to my boss.
it went a little like this:

store director: "Jacob! you're doing a standup job! Travis. you could use a little work. just kidding."

asshole. the last time i confronted him about the letter i sent him, he immediately changed the subject by noting that i didn't shave in the morning.
what a jackass. can we stay on the subject?

he said he'd get on it today (friday), but i didn't have the time to bug him about it again.
from what i've heard about my boss that transferred to a different store, and thereby having no qualms spreading the dirt on people,
our store director takes a vacation day everytime he's scheduled on the weekend.
now that's a guy who diserves what he makes...or something.

it's the most interaction i've ever had with a store director and i despise him.

(Bea, is this the kind of stuff you were talking about?)

Food and Oil

i think before i was bitching about how people were complaining about food prices rising.
at the time i don't think they really had.

but now they noticeably are.
i was talking to a guy who stocks the food isles.
he was saying that coca-cola is now more expensive than orange juice.
with the exception of bananas (for some reason), fruit seems to be either stable or rising.
avocados are DAMN expensive.

as for oil, i was watching C-Span2 for some godawful reason last night where senators were bitching about the gouging of gas prices, democrats and republicans alike.
north dakota man, his name eludes me, kept bringing up the fact that oil profits for this year were going to be a mere $80 billion.
another woman senator reminded the board that a year ago gas prices were a mere $1.30 compared to the near $3 of today.
virginia is looking into the lawfulness of the price gouging for that state, as something like the 50 cent increase that they saw in one day needed to be approved by their state board.

everybody seemed to be fed up with it, the democrats understandably moreso than the republicans, but no one was about to point the finger.
i guess that wouldn't get anyone anywhere anyway. although north dakota man reiterated the fact that we're definitely not involved in a free market, but where do you expect that a large portion of the oil profits end up?
definitely not with an oil tycoon...

Deception Pass

I guess i did have an eventful weekend.
well, my personal weekend.
tuesday i had off and decided to go spend some of it with my sifu, arturo, who had recently moved to Whidbey Island to work as a chef at a place called the Pot Belly Deli.

We met at the local walmart and went down to the nearest beach where we practiced our kung fu.
we had a nice view to practice by and it was good weather.
i hadn't worked with arturo in a while, and i actually picked up a lot this time around.
i was very greatful for coming up. i doubt i'll be able to work with him when he comes down to seattle on sunday. stupid work.

after we finished that, we went and saw his new place.
he rents a room in a house with two other people.
his room was rather large and had its own bathroom.
actually there was a lot of space. his bed was twin sized, and a la-z-boy sat in one corner, with a tv and dresser on the other side of the wall.
we could have almost practiced kung fu in there.
i watched a video he had of my set 'kung gee fook fu kuen'.
the showing of it didn't help, but what did help was the showing of the application of the moves.

so i watched this while arturo showered.
then we went down to the deli where i had a damn tasty philly cheesesteak sandwich.
very good, very large.
arturo had a turkey sandwich that was even larger than my sandwich. when he sent me off, he left me with half. he also left me with some good pork ribs he'd made earlier.

after eating we had an hour or so before he had to work.
arturo had never been south of Oak Harbor, so we decided to check it out.
we made it a bit past coupeville (which was amazingly founded in 1853), which was where we found some navy planes circling a runway.
damn it was loud but exciting to watch.
many passer-byers would stop and wait for the pair of fighters to fly in and out of the field.
i think seeing them sparked something in arturo, who used to be a pilot himself.
he said that he wants to take one of those puddle jumpers out with me where i can take pictures of all the san juans below.
now that would be a cool trip!

after catching a few rounds of the touch and go's, it was time to head back to drop arturo off at work. we hung out for a bit and he got paid to BS for a half hour with me.
only a few hundred more hours and he'd catch up to all the time he's spent talking to me while i was "working".

so at 2:30 i left him and headed back to Deception Pass.
i parked and paid the stupid $5 to not get a ticket and headed off to the bridge.
i took a couple of shots from the bridge like all the other tourists, but then i decided to do my own thing.

on that small island on highway 20 between the two larger islands, Fidalgo (north) and Whidbey (south), i took the stairs down below the bridge, to a path still well worn.
more photos were taken.
then came the tricky part where i hopped down a small cliff and made my way to the water below.

that's where i spent the most time, on the west side of the island.
seaweed, other maritime plant life, and shelled creatures abound.
i was really glad i brought my underwater camera case, so i can take a few shots of what i couldn't really see underwater. all i could do was hold the camera underwater and snap.
a few pictures actually came out well.

heading to the north side of the island i ran into a cliff with no rocks at its base to make my way around.
this is where i found a slope of maybe 25 degrees that i thought i could climb.
for the most part there were enough places to grab to get to the next height.
i have a very basic rule where i need to have at least one good hand and foot hold before i continue upward. i guess this is a good thing, as it keeps me from falling to my death.
it seems like a really simple rule, but sometimes it's hard to comply with.
at the spot in the photos where i found that small cave, the cliff above it kind of sloped back toward me and turned more into a dirt landscape than grippable rocks, which made for an interesting predicament.

while trying to figure out what i was going to do (down might have been an option, but i huge set back and possibly also dangerous) i took some pictures.
after doing this a bee decided to keep me company.
normally bees at a picnic will come around and bother you, but if you have no food it will soon lose interest.
this bee was not like that. maybe this guy had never seen a human before, or maybe my ass was extra-specially attractive due to its sweaty nature, but he would not leave me alone.
and it wasn't really like i had room to move around or swat at him.
so all i could do was cover my ear so he wouldn't have the chance to land in there.
he did land on me a few times, my hand and in my hair.
he wasn't very aggressive, just curious.
he left after what seemed like 10 minutes of me stuck in the same footing.

this is where i had to really put my mind to how i was going to get out of this small platform that barely held my feet.
i tried putting my backpack on my chest, turning backward and backing up the hill.
too scary, couldn't see where i was going.

i tried so many different handholds that were either only of dirt or small plants that wouldn't hold my weight, or rocks that would come off in my hand.
it was so frustrating when you could see the next handhold, but not one to get you to it.
after what seemed like 10 minutes of experimenting with handholds, i finally devised a way of getting out of there.

i had to lay my right leg from foot to toe across the top of the cave entrance to get enough of a boost to reach the next closest handhold.
it kinda defied my hand and foot rule, cuz i really didn't have a handhold, i was just hugging the wall, and my whole lower leg was the support rather than my foot, but with a bit of effort i made it out of there.
from there on it wasn't too bad. i think i got held up once more, but only shortly.
i climbed to the top and took photos of the cliff that i conquered.
for some reason through the lens, the drop doesn't look as harrowing.
maybe it was because it couldn't get the full length of the wall, as it curved back underneath me at some points.

so from there i made my way toward the north bridge which proved to be more forested and full of brush about my height.
in this brush were a bunch of spider webs that were more like clumps than a web.
it was just like balls of cotton that had gotten caught up in the trees.
after the first few totally freaking out, i kinda got used to them.
however, when i did see some in my path, i would try to destroy them by breaking off a nearby stick and waving it around to clear the path.
just underneath the north bridge i pass through a spider web ridden area.
i came out into a clearing and started to wipe myself clean.
i started with the chest, but i then realized that i should have started with the hand.
when wiping my hands on my chest, the force pushed my fingers together, which must have had a spider between them because i felt a sharp pain.
it actually felt more like a wasp's sting than a spider bite, but i couldn't confirm the culprit, it fell or flew away before i could find it.
it's been a full day now and it's still bugging me. it itches/hurts depending on how much i mess with it. i still can't find the exact location of the bite, but there's no local swelling, so i'm assuming i just have to put up with a little discomfort and don't really have to worry about anything else going wrong.

so at this point i kinda wanted to just get back to my car, but i had another cliff facing me just to get up to the bridge alongside the supports.
this time there were no rocks.
the only thing i could use to elevate myself were the bushes themselves.
i'd pull myself up to them with my hands, then force my feet onto the same branches and repeat the process.
this had a lot more spider webs that i couldn't really fend off since i had no free hands.
more fun. yay.

but i made it through and took some pictures of the underside of the north bridge.
by this time it was easy sailing to the bridge, but i realized that i ended up on the wrong side of a chain-linked fence.
so instead of being spotted, i went deeper into the island, again along the shoreline.
this area was more well worn and actual paths were somewhat used.
there were still some spider webs around to show that the paths hadn't been used in a while, but i still made my way around. this is where i decided to circumnavigate the island.
screw the small spider bite.
if i let my hand hang idly, i could feel my finger throb, but otherwise, i was good.
so i continued forth.
after a few sparse trees, the east side of the island was fairly bare. it was more grass and small shrubs than tall trees.
so it was easy to follow the shoreline, which was also a lot smaller drop to the water than the other side of the island.

by the time i got around to the south side of the island, i could reach out and touch the water.
actually, when i got to the south side, i saw a huge swarm of small fish that i took photos of by sticking my underwater case and camera in the water without a problem.

i didn't realize how far the east side of the island jutted out until i tried to make my way back from the south side. it took a lot of walking.
by this time i was ready to be done, but all i could do was continue on.
i eventually made it and took a picture that showed the entirety of the circumnavigation.
i made my way back up the steps and to the car with only a few people staring at the dirt that happened to get on my shirt and shorts when hugging the walls and running through spider-webbed brush.

i ate arturo's half a sandwich, drank a bunch of water and headed home.
i was tired throughout the ride, but made it home safely.

i don't know why, but there's something about nearly killing myself that makes a real adventure for me.
i truely feel that i know that little-ass island more intimately than anybody who's visited it in a long while. maybe even since those bridges were built.

man, i love getting out and getting dirty for the purpose of a bit of excitement.
i think amidy was right. alaska did change me.
but not in the way she had suspected.
i've come to realize that bushwhacking is incredibly fun, and climbing even the slightest bit of slope can be very dangerous, but very satisfying if conquered.
my limbs may have been shaking when i got done with the climb, but i owned its ass.

i think the next step with this whole climbing fad might be to do it in a cave.
man, imagine that:
a partially submerged cave that requires both climbing and snorking/scuba.

heaven in a hole.

Sand Point

So i'm a little behind the times, but at least i'm getting to it.
that's worth something, right?

so i went on a solo snork run down to Sand Point on Labor Day.
it had just occurred to me a couple days before that i had no pictures of the place that sparked my love for this weekly summer adventure, so i set out to correct that.

i park at the parking lot at the south end of the photo, and i walk to that dirt opening where the mish-mash of crossing dirt paths are, and enter the water just below that clump of trees.
then i follow the shoreline north until just before that gravel area at the top of the photo where there's a road that seemingly ends there. that's the dog park.

along there is where the US Navy and whoever else decided that dumping unwanted items in the water meant disposing of it for good.
well, i guess it worked, until i came along.

this area kind of holds a sense of nostalgia now.
but doing this round of snorking wasn't like all the others.
for the most part there's a sense of adventure that comes with each place we visit.
but here, i've dove this area at least 6 to 8 times, so the thought of finding something new is long past.
so whereas in the past i will be excited by everything, here i was basically doing a mental check-off list to see that i took pictures of everything i wanted to.
which wasn't so bad, but it just seemed like more of a task than an adventure.

what did make me glad, however, were the amount of fish.
i'd always seen fish there before, but this time they were more abundant.
i dove down one time to see about 8 fish waiting for me.
i think that's the largest number i've seen yet for fish that are over an inch or three long.

and to actually get a semi-decent shot of that large, pale fish made my day.
i've seen him before in the distance, but never that close.
that guy's really shy and doesn't play around like the others.
the others are more curious and will wait for me to get a breath and come down to chase after them again.
but i guess that's how that one guy gets so big. he takes no chances.

so i did many dives. most were around 20 to 25 feet.
that also seemed to be the level where most of the fish hung out.
but i think the consecutive dives got to me after a while.
or maybe, as i remember my scuba instructor once warning me, "don't let CO2 build up in your snorkel."
but either way, i came to the surface and had a coughing bout. this was some hardcore stuff, like a smoker's hack. i did this for a minute or two and then everything turned fine again.
i could breath and i didn't feel like i needed to puke.
my throat was a little sore, but that's something i could deal with.

so i continued to do the dives and took the snapshots of everything i wanted to.
the last thing on the list was those large spool-looking things.
but i think by that point the 70 degree water was getting the better of me and i didn't even remember to take a side shot of the spools to actually show their spool shape.
oh well. maybe there will be another time.

so after i hit up the random junk, the underwater tree, the chairs, the shelving, the old pier remnants, the safe, the oil drums, and finally the spools, it was time to head back.

but silly me, i had one more thing on my mind.
i wanted to see how far down i could go.
the last time i had an opportunity was at mercer island, luther burbank park.
the two times before that in Kirkland and Montlake, the water never got that deep at all.

but this time i had a revelation, just like with the fact that i hadn't taken any Sand Point pictures at all, i thought, "why not take a picture to prove my depth?".

so i attempted this. failed once with a blurry shot.
i took some time to recover and attempted again.
i thought i had everything set up so i would just have to push the button when i got there,
but for some reason it seemed more difficult than that.
i guess i still had to line up the shot which took valuable time.
so when i got to the bottom, and i started to fiddle with the camera, i still had a foot or two below me.
but i snapped the shot anyway.
what was also getting to me was a thermocline that presented itself at that depth.
i could feel an immediate change to something that reminded me of the bone-chilling waters of alaska that i would find only 10 or 15 feet down.
at least here, where i took the picture, i was at 39 feet.

i think i'm making all these excuses because i really wanted to hit that 40 foot mark.
i know i did it at mercer island, but i have no concrete proof.
one damn foot. balls.

by the time i reached the surface after marking my 39 feet down, i realized it was time to head back. that insanely cold water just saps the life and energy right out of you.
it makes you somewhat lathargic especially later on in the day.
after snoking i went to my pool to see if the hot tub was up and running yet.
apparently it wasn't. one co-worker came up to me and asked if i was alright.
she said my lips were purple. i was also shivering. good deal.
another coworker came in and again asked if i was alright.
she commented on my unusual paleness.
i think that deep diving did have its effects on me.

but anyway, heading back i took one last quick sweep over everything and found what i'm going to call a radio. there's pictures toward the end of my Sand Point set. it has dials with labels above them that read "elevation", "azimuth", and "range".
maybe when i get another day off i'll clean it up and take a picture to see if it strikes any familiarity with anyone.

so along with that radio, i took home with me a golf ball (as usual), a tea cup from PA, and a hunk of metal.
i should take pictures of those too, along with the cleaned-up radio.

so after all this time, a 18 months after my first solo snork, i can finally bring to you the joys that sparked my interest in this whole endeavor.
cuz if i had first gone into seward park with the same curiosity, and found maybe a can or two, i don't know if i would have continued doing this as a passion.
i wouldn't have introduced it to keith, manuel, or calen.
my summers would have been a lot more boring, and my time at home would be spent blogging about nothing, well, maybe just about how my jobs suck and how i want to go to school.

haven't done that in a while...
it's nice to have something else to keep my mind occupied and away from the mediocrity of my current position in life.
so i guess a thank you should go out to the US Navy for all the crap that they dumped in our beautiful lake.
and i guess everyone else in the past who perpetuated this mindset.
well, i guess archaeology wouldn't even exist if people were more concious about waste disposal.
so there ya go...

cultures

its weird to think about the evolution and power of cultures.
conservativism and liberalism can spring upon a people virtually instantaneously.
i'm always amazed at the open-mindedness and grandeur of the muslim empire back in the medieval times. they were willing to try out an sort of new technology that they could get their hands on and prospered greatly because of it.

at first my notion was that only peaceful nations have this mindset, but that's really not true as all.
shown through this first example, and many others, like rome and china. but on the other hand, war doesn't necessarily spark technological advances, although it has been known to do so.

but then what i start to ponder is: what the fuck happened to that arabic nation. i guess it's still a power to reckon with, but not nearly to the extent that it used to. islam had such immense power and accumulated knowledge compared to anyone else in the world at that time, and now what do they have to show for it? some oil.
maybe it's just that cultures and religions go through a life cycle. they were a young, vibrant, blooming religion at a chipper age of 600 or so, but by the time it rolled around to being 1000 years old or so, it became more traditional and set in its ways. it isolates itself from the outside world, maybe in an effort to preserve itself, but it's not doing itself any favors.

so maybe it all has to do with who's in control. well, shit, of course it does, but can the effects be felt that much within a single decade? religion has been shoved in our faces more and more recently, well, at least certain aspects that it feels strongly for, and shit like stem cell research has been put on hold just because of some jackasses need to please those who aren't open-minded to possibilities of medical advancements because it would be unethical/irreligious.

so maybe an entire culture's outlook can be turned on a dime. within almost 60 years (granted thats not as short of a time as a decade, but still a lifespan), Japan, in the mid-1500's were introduced to guns by the Portuguese, greatly improved on their technology, and then banned because of the prestige and clout that the sword-wielding samuri craved to maintain stability and power over the islands.

ill-will toward the acceptance of new technologies can be retarded. granted they don't all need to be accepted, or may not be useful to a culture, but at least the Japanese had the heart to try it out for a while. but then by the 1850's the necessity arose to reintroduce the concept of the gun when the US came and decided to kick some ass.

odd. that never seems to happen EVER anywhere else in the US's past.

so i guess what i was getting at was that our nation is heading toward that close-minded mentality. and where i couldn't have the heart to fault cultures that aren't on the global scene for trying to maintain their heritage and past, the US is in no way in that situation, and if it's not careful, it'll lose it's status as the best place around.
well. maybe it's too late for that, but i'm sure some of it's power and respect might be salvaged.

but history, and i'm sure cultural life cycles are just that, cyclical. it'll bounce back for a little while. it just may need some help from the dumbfucks in charge.
my favorite example of this comes from a Mayan king who lost a huge battle but wanted to keep the morale of all his people, so Seven Rabbit created a fat monument to himself and past great battles that were actually won by the empire's inhabitants.

it just reminds me of a cheap way of making oneself look better... increasing a false sense of patriotism in the face of defeat; increasing morale without merit. i just can't wait til the WTC gets put back into effect. too bad i think its completion will just miss bush's term (2010? or was it 2008?). but i'm sure he'll be involved somehow with its unveiling.

sorry. i really don't know what the point of this whole rant was, i really didn't sit down and organize it too well, i just kinda let what came flow. but what i think i was hinting at was the conservative turn for the worse that has never in history shown to be helpful to a culture.
those cultures who were smaller and resistant, got consumed by those who were open-minded or had the technology. those who are open-minded also have an influx of ideas by immigrants with different perspectives. it's amazing to see the list of inventions that had a certain beginning, with a certain purpose, got bounced around from culture to culture and turned up being used for something totally different or vastly improved upon that revolutionized the world.
certain examples, the steam engine: greece to europe to america, or the printing press: china/mediterranean, and a few places around europe til it showed up in germany. granted the printing press concept was always used for spreading written word, but it came in many fashions.

today it just seems that education and the furthering of technology isn't that much of a priority for this culture. maybe i'm wrong, who knows, but i think the whole idea of capitolism to create a vastly lopsided, well pyramid-shaped heirarchy, where there's the few rich and powerful, the middlemen that have some power and intelligence, but are kept in check, and the masses of ignorant fools that are mindlessly controlled in one manner or another (usually by religion).
but maybe i'm preaching to the choir here...

anyway. to keep the sea of inept, lowered education standards are a priority which means less technological advances, or at least possibilities for them.
but hopefully as i've stated earlier, the whole process is cyclical.

eventually enough people will get tired of it from the middle class and make enough of a stink to level out the playing field a bit.
granted things can't totally go the opposite direction, cuz then you come upon problems again, just different ones. like under communism, people are less likely to come forth with their ingenious ideas cuz there's really no insentive for them to do so. if they share it with the community, they won't see anything from it other than pride for that being their invention.
but really, where's the lure in that?
so a fucking capitolistic mentiality is necessary to promote technology, but just not to the point of creating a few elites. there are always going to be the really poor, but education of some of them should be a priority.

but what am i saying? is there really a need for advanced technology? i guess for my lazy ass there is. but i guess it's important for other reasons other than mere comfort. to keep billions upon billions of people (and growing) extant, some advances are necessary.
so everybody, get at it. although a lot of the time inventions don't reach their full capability the first time around and require more tweeking and manipulation and general use to be improved upon for something as earth-changing as, say the light bulb (which had many prototypes from many past people before edison took all the glory).

so let's get going at it.
if that made sense at all...
(i don't really think this was the direction i had in mind when i started this post, but we'll go with it.)

Garrett

I spent a crazy Friday night at home watching my coworker's kid, Garrett.
He's ten weeks old and about as active as a turd, but still cute as hell.
He got fed and changed and ended up falling asleep on my chest for the remaining few hours.
He was cool to have for the few hours, but I'm sure glad i don't have one of my own.
They require so much damn attention.
maybe he'll be a cure for my ADD.