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Living in San Francisco

So, I finished my undergraduate degree in March of 2010.  I then went about traveling for two months or so.  I went around the world about twice, going to India, Singapore, back to the States for two weeks of rest, then off to London, Paris, Switzerland, Venice, Rome, Madrid and finally Franfurt (that’s nine countries, three continents, and dozens of cities).  I was a bit adrift, amongst the world traveling and thinking about what to do with the rest of my life.  I had applied to law school so that was a safe bet.

Well, here I am finished with the first week of law school.  On the cusp of starting the second week.  I’ve moved from my beautiful, and oft-described, heavenly San Diego to San Francisco.  While law school was a safe back up plan, I never thought moving to this city would be significant part of it.

And to be honest it’s so weird living in San Francisco. When I was a kid, we would drive around these big cities, and I’d excitedly point to every single tall building till my parents finally exclaimed, ‘Son you’d really like to live here, wouldn’t you.’ And I thought about it. Then let it be. Now to walk amongst these giants is humbling, bewildering, and almost natural. Inception does come to mind.

Between the last two years from my world travels, my three months working for Congress in Washington D.C., and a week in New York City all of which was done alone, I have pleasantly become accustomed to the life.  I am that 20-something year old described so soberingly and albeit with what seemed like some subconcious malice by the New York Times recently.  And behind it all are my parents.  Who planted the seed, perhaps unwittingly, in my head all those years ago.  They are the backbone of my life.  Their story in and of itself is never told.  Their coming to America, under the most stressed of circumstances.  Beginning their lives here crammed together in a house with the other relatives.  Going to college and incurring massive debt in student loans (I think I once naively asked my mother at about the age of 8 or less, when I picked up the mail one day, ‘Mom you always get this from the bank?’ She replied, ‘And I will for the next 30 years.’ A thought that most perplexed me, ‘How can anyone remember something for 30 years?’).  Their story while unique its features, is not entirely alone in its fitting, but it is a story of inspiration nonetheless.

I do wonder though, this life I have so far lived.  It is not the encultured tenure of explorers and adventurers of old and it is not most certainly the typical journey one takes in the modern century I am told to be living in.  Has it changed me?  I don’t think so, not in any grandiose sense.  But in the little pieces of life.  The things that fit the bigger things together, my travels, the people I’ve met, and things I’ve done in the last two to three years has perhaps continued to shape the existence I live.   I would be remissed if I did not herein mentioned that I am of course not a perfect smattering of the canvas of life, there are a few pieces I am sorry ever entered the picture.

Even so I wonder then, what will the next few years hold.  And more so than ever, I will wonder, why?

Posted in Uncategorized.

iPhone 4 Complaints: Yes, it is your fault.

Yes, it’s your fault. If you’re determined to hold a phone like an imbecile, then that’s fine. You can be dumb like that. Don’t believe me? Just take a look at the Gizmodo editor that wanted “test reception” while holding the iPhone 4 in a peculiar position while on a call. It fell and the back shattered. Back shouldn’t be made out of glass, you say? Maybe you shouldn’t drop phones either and the world will be a perfect place.

Posted in Uncategorized.

Rolling Stones Profile on General McChrystal

I haven’t written here in a long time.  In the last six months I’ve been busy graduating from college and traveling the world.  9 countries on 3 continents, I’ve probably circled the globe three times.  So, not much time for blogging.

But with this article in the Rolling Stones, profiling the Allied commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, I cannot stay quite no more.  I have a deep respect for the constitution and our democratic way of life.  In reading the profile, my confidence in this country’s ability to rightly govern itself was completely shattered.  About midway through the article, I stopped myself put my hand to my forehead and asked, ‘What have we done?’  Because the profile for General McChrystal is nothing short of also being a scathing attack on the very way we have chosen people to govern our country.  What the General and his staff have done is show us a glimpse, a very real glimpse, into the cowboy-fratboy mentality that governs a majority of our government’s defenses.  Under pressure the men and women of our government sustain their logical morally-right response to problems and elevate a gung-ho approach to problem solving and even into a general way of living.  One may look at all the incidents over the last nine years, and attribute them to several isolated events.  But taken together with this article being the final straw that leaders of our government choose not to function in the best way for the country, but in the way that looks best for our country.

We have elected, quite literally, leaders who exhibit cowboy and fratboy like mentality to steer our country, and it’s powerful forces in directions unimaginable to the founding fathers.  For eight years we let a ranch-hand from Texas run the country.  While in office he appointed more of his colleagues and like-minded individuals to help run the country, it’s economy, it’s infrastructure, and it’s armed forces.  Frat brothers through college, they would be frat brothers at the helm of government.  And we put them there.  Just like we put an inept Terminator in charge of California, just like we put a suave gung-ho idiot in charge of South Carolina, New York, or Illinois.  Nothing short of idiocy would also govern the choice’s for the top picks at the Pentagon.  People who had better business herding cattle and riding horseback were in charge of a trillion dollar war machine.

The war in Afghanistan is over, it has been irepairably harmed by the comments and criticisms of the guy who was suppose to win it.  The War might putter along for a few more months, maybe even years, but there is no semblence of victory; and under any measure of American guidance, the continued sacrifice of our troops will be lost on deaf ears and hollowed hearts.  To be mourned by the families they leave behind, but not by the cowboys, frat brothers, and other dumb folk that continue to clutter the government.  Today, the world as we knew it changed and out of 300 million Americans it was not even an afterthought.

Posted in Uncategorized.

Traveling: India

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I’ll be traveling the next month of April to several different countries… India first.

My experience thus far has been amazing, lost my luggage, and wierd.  Things that can only happen at the same time in India.

I’ve seen elephants, camels, goats, peacocks, monkeys as well of course squirrels and pigeons.  I was asked at one point, “What is that smell?” Some trash was burning in the distance… I said, “Doesn’t all of India smell like that?”

Today I might ride an elephant, traverse the Amber Fort, and a few other things… In India, you never know.

Posted in Uncategorized. Tagged with , .

Israel Announces Investigation

“Israeli Prime Minister has set up a team to investigate why Israeli officials announced new settlement construction while U.S. Vice President was visiting the country.” -News

REALLY? I mean wtf? Really?

Who in Moses’s most holy name runs Israel? A bunch of yahoos? Does the Israeli PM really believe he needs a ‘team’ to ‘investigate’ why he, himself, orders ‘his’ officials to make announcements certain to annoy the Americans’ and a double slap in the face while the American VP is in the country to discuss peace and the cutback of settlements?  I hope when the Israeli PM visits the U.S. we announce a $25 Billion dollar aid package to the Palestinians.  Hopefully for the construction of their own damn fences to build around each individual Israeli settlement.

If Israel want’s to continue to be a country, it should be governed by atheists.  So far the only thing the Israeli’s have proven is that they are not in it for the democracy, liberty, or freedom.

Posted in Israel, Middle East Affairs, News, Uncategorized.

A Word on the Students of the University of California

A scathing attack on the UC Student Body:

The University of California (UC) is set to again gain some name recognition in the coming days, namely on March 4th, for the actions their students will attempt to undertake in that time.  One University in particular, the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) has already thrust itself into the national spotlight for the ongoing racial tension on the University’s beautiful forest enhanced campus sitting on top of the bluffs to the Pacific Ocean.  Even before this, the events of the last academic quarter, Fall 2009, with the fee hikes and student protests, the UC system is gaining a name for itself synonymous with vile and not with excellence.

Many will argue that much of what occurs on UC campuses is of a neutral academic matter, where the students participate peacefully in the day-to-day activities of student life.  But what goes on these campuses, is hardly neutral, academic, or excellent.  The UC’sare a right piece of mess.  With rampant alcohol and drug use comparable to that seen at the party schools of Arizona and Colorado, comparable even (if not exceeding) the drug use at San Diego State University – where at one time upwards of a hundred students were arrested in an undercover drug busting operation.

I would hesitate, though, that the reader understand that I do not speak of every UC student.  In fact statistics places the number at just 40% of students who participate in what the law would see as illegal.  Student leaders then turn around and trumpet the fact that a majority of UC students are good natured learners of excellence, and the like.  But this is an idiotic statement, to the say the least.  It ignores the thousands of students who act in an ill-natured manner.  Simply for the benefit of calling the whole community good.  It is misleading; rubber stamping an OK on the not-so-good activities of UC students.

The ongoing events at UCSD are a product of this, ‘let’s forget about the alcoholism, the racist bros, the rude comments, the like-clockwork high students, and the list perhaps could go on.’  UCSD is perhaps the worst in terms of its nonchalant I could care less attitude of their stubborn, ignorant, and mostly arrogant student body.  Here at UCSD you’ll find students so high-minded of their self-worth that they need not smoke pot to ascertain a plain of existence above where the average human being is.  This kind of attitude is what led to the Compton inspired party and follow-up party.  The organizers of this event could’ve given a flying-fuck to the sensitivities of the rest of the student body.   Like southerners trumpeting the constitution they’d point to free speech rights and an assortment of other laws they would like to think work in their favor.  They are, if anything, a pitiful bunch of children.  Not to mention, San Diego isn’t exactly a breeding ground for racial equality or temperament.

But the exact same could be said for students at other campuses.  Minority students at UCLA, UCR, and UCSC all rally around their respective sexual orientations and racial identities.  Segregating themselves from other minorities and the student population as a whole.  They protest that they are unequally affected fee hikes.  They protest that the system doesn’t help them achieve.  They blatantly and with vagrant choice ignore the rest of the student body should it seemingly in their minds work in their favor to trumpet their own perceived unique identity.  They see themselves as a unique part of the UC system, when in fact they are no better or no worse then the rest of the UC Student Body.  They too act in childish ways, organizing protests where they claim all those who are members of the organizing party “protested peacefully,” but those ‘other’ students act badly.  Bullshit.  You invited protest without leadership, any violence or illegal escapades that may result from that are your sole responsibility.  As one student put it to me of the UCLA protests last quarter, “We were just sitting and protesting peacefully and singing, when these other students uninvited starting messing with the police.”  Yes, indeed, you only invited certain people to your protest.  Grow up and take responsibility.

The other UCs are equally worthless to some degree or another.

I have great faith that a few students will graduate with an excellence in academics, ethics, and morals but I have little faith in the great many students who will most certainly graduate with very few morals, very little ethics, and a sub-standard academic portfolio.  Good thing we live in the United States of America where this is absolutely OK, and that we live in California, where this is has become seemingly expected.

Posted in College, Economy, Life, News, Uncategorized. Tagged with , , , , , , , , .

Crossroads. And Complex Thought.

This is an exploratory essay, in the end I hope to find an answer.

I stand at the crossroads to my future.  And I don’t know where to look.

As if there was some imaginary help desk at the fork in the road.   Like a little counter staffed by some random lady you’d expect at one of these information desks; they have them in usually complex buildings.

“May I help you?” She might ask.

“Yes, I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life?”  I lean in closer, look left at the vast open expanse then look right to see the same, leaning in closer I look at the lady and ask, “isn’t that why you’re put here?”

“Well of course hun, but life isn’t about who can help you make the right decisions.  It’s about making the best decisions for the right reasons.”

Damn.  This imaginary information desk is about as good as a fortune cookie.  Why is the future always clouded in mystery? The world is, after all, what I decide to make of it.  But what clouds the mind is emotions.

They are beautiful things, but they prevent us from making the best decisions for the right reasons and we end up making those decisions that best please our emotions.  Not acting in any logical way we supplant our emotions for all logical considerations acting therein for whatever reason rather solely for the right reason.

However, emotions are needed.  What counter balances our emotional needs? We have logical considerations, most regular thinking people do at the very least.  But that is not enough to counter emotions.  Instead we look to outsiders to balance our emotions.  Sometimes the outside force is God, sometimes it is our parents, or our friends.  Whatever the outside force is though, it does not come unpaid for.  In choosing to use the force of our friends to propel our inner forces into what we may percieve to be a neutral balance we also push back, as most natural objects do.

For example: We need to buy a widget.   Our emotions might want widget A because it is the most pleasing, our logic might consider widget B because it provides the most utility to myself.  To help us resolve these opposing forces we might ask our friends to use their force to help us choose.  But draw your attention to your friends inner forces.  Your friends inner emotions might want to choose widget A because you having it might enhance the overall reputation of the group, although their inner logic might consider widget B because of it’s superior quality but it may also decrease the overall social quality of the group.  In the end though, which of your friends inner forces wins? The one with the least self-harm to your friends, acting in self-interest they will tell you buy widget A.  Herein you are paying for asking for your friends advice in correcting your two inner opposing forces with the undue and improper influence of your friends emotions.

Therein, my point, what to do?  If using outside forces to correct an inner imbalance only leads to outside self-interest running amok on one’s own life, how can I make decisions? And it is at this crossroads where I stand.

Some might argue that not all outside forces act in self-interest.  But how can they not?  Should I perhaps be lucky enough to meet the man who starved himself to free a nation, I might perhaps trust his force.  Or if were to meet a Jedi.  But either of those are few and rare.  I perhaps could count them on one hand (with Jedi’s making up zero fingers).

Furthermore the issue is hardly about trust.  I trust everyone to act in their own self-interest.  To do what is good for themselves is to most certainly make the best decision for quite honestly the right reason – fulfilling ones own needs and wants to further one’s own existence – nothing wrong with that.  It would be diametrically opposing if I were to then trust everyone to act in the best interest to myself.  That equation does not compute.

So then, how do I do?  How do I make decisions when the only option I have, to use others, is not really an option at all.

If the three options exist, listen to your emotions, listen to logic, or listen to advice exist.  Then neither emotions nor advice are options most suitable to making the best decision for the right reasons.  At this point in the fork though, logic seems to have been drowned out by the overwhelming siren songs of emotions and advice.

I have found the answer.  Now I must steer this ship from the rock strewn path of the sirens song and turn it sailing toward the sunrise of a new day.  Thanks.

Posted in Life, Uncategorized. Tagged with , , , .

The Best View

Is always from far up.  It’s the calmest place to be.  High up there.  Physically, not mentally.  I’m not for that, very much against it.

At the top of the hill it’s surreal.  There’s nothing but the air dancing around you, the sun wielding the sky, and perhaps the earth – the dirt, grass, and plants – sitting contently below your feet.  But the hill is not always real.  Hill, mountain, or tippy top thing whatever it’s called it’s not real. Because the mansion you live in, the lavish things that take you farther and farther away from the true things in life, it’s the figurative hills we look from.

At 40, the view outward at least is always better then it was at 30.  This metaphor will help explain why the Democrats lost it all on this day in history.  Today is the day the country failed, our great song turned into something of a Russian opera, sad and depressing.

It is not our fault, our failure that is…but the fault of motivation instead.  The fault of emotions.  The fault lies in leaders and advisers, not the economy and people.

The view at the top was good, when the Democrats won in November, 2008.  The view was surreal, calm, complacent, and happiness abound like the chocolate rivers of a Wonka factory.  The life lived was the life less cared about.

Through all of this, however, a certain thing died when President Obama was elected and that was the passion of an angered populace.  If anything, volumes will be written on what was lost and what was found. 

When Barack Obama was elected the people saw inspiration, they saw hope and happiness.  But those aren’t factors that move a population, they don’t pound a nations heartbeat into existence.  They calm it.  Without fervor, we are dead.

We hated Bush, more then 60% of us hated our President.  We would of rather seen a chimp finish out the days of the second Bush presidency, then have the man continue.  What developed in us was anger, it was a passion that lit the fire bright and strong.  The nation mobilized to the drumbeat of their own enraged passions.  They knew what they wanted and when they wanted it.  But like a rich bastard, when we got what we wanted, when we realized the dream that seared our minds fresh every night, we stopped.  We stopped caring about the nation and turned our eye toward the lives around us.  In finding Obama, we delivered our souls unto the boat of hope and left the shores of our homeland, loosing our anger and passion.

To Democrats, the victory is lost.  And rightly so you pussy-footed bunch of wretched idiotic tree-hugging morons.  To Republicans, you now have a chance to screw it up again.  You have a chance to show us again just how stupid your policies, your attitudes, and sometimes your very selves are.  Like the unstoppable rats of New York, like a cockroach that’s survived a nuclear blast, or like a bad case of constipation Republicans live on.  Till death do us part, is it?

We may be the greatest nation on Earth, but if this is the kind of politics it takes to stay that way, the kind of politics we’ve seen over the last year ending today… then we are truly doomed.

Posted in Life, Philosophy, Uncategorized. Tagged with , , , , , .