The Long Road, or thoughts along the way

lunch, coffee, and office

2010-04-27T19:10:00.002-04:00

Today's entry will be very brief. Ileana and I went to Love Park today to have our lunch, but realized very quickly that it was too windy and just a little bit too chilly to eat outside. So, after eating our respective sandwiches, we packed-up and walked to Liberty Place, where we finished out meal indoors.

After meeting with a client last Thursday, who told me that Dunkin Donuts coffee is watered-down and colored with soy to look a darker brown, I've decided to go elsewhere for my coffee this week. Yesterday and today I walked to Cafe Loftus, located on 15th Street between Sansom and Walnut Streets, to get a small, 12-ounce coffee for $1.75. Their coffee is brewed using La Colombe coffee, which is the very well-respected coffee shop right off of Rittenhouse Square, where I sometimes get coffee on the weekends when the weather is warm and I'm able to sit in the square and enjoy a warm cup of coffee.

Finally, I'm happy to say that I'm finally beginning to acclimate to my new office. Three weeks ago I had to relocate due to Sue's return from her maternity leave and thus her reclaiming of her office, which I had been occupying during her absence. I was bittersweet about the move, because on one hand I was happy to have my own space to organize and decorate as I please, but on the other hand I was slightly bitter at having an interior office, i.e., with no windows. After being in here for three weeks (now the beginning of my fourth week), the positive benefits are outweighing the envy-driven drawbacks. Hopefully one day I'll have a spacious corner office with ample sunlight from large office windows, but for now I'll simply enjoy having my own personal office once again.

Birds

2010-04-26T12:42:00.004-04:00

Lying in bed yesterday morning, with the door between the bedroom and living room half-open, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a small, dark shape moving quickly alongside the wall. For a few minutes before that, I had been hearing what sounded like someone throwing a pebble at my living room or kitchen window, and was confused at the sound. Now that I noticed this fleeting object, I quickly got out of bed, put on shorts and a t-shirt, and went out into the living room to investigate. A small, brown sparrow had gotten into the apartment and was flying around frantically, trying to get out. The night before, in order to let some fresh air in, I'd left the kitchen window cracked-open only about two or three inches. Somehow our small winged friend had found his way in through that opening. And now he wanted to get out. I opened the kitchen window as far wide as possible. I moved the hanging plant from that window to the open walkway between the kitchen and the living room. And I moved the large plant on the kitchen windowsill to the coffee table in the living room. By doing all of this, there was now a large, unobstructed passage to the open window. And of course the bird was too scared to come low because of Rocky and the Baby. So, I put Rocky in the bedroom and closed the door. And the Baby just stayed put in the living room, a little too unsettled by this strange creature that was flying around her living space. At this point, I tried to usher the bird towards the open window, but it was obviously too freaked-out by the large human waving his hands. I decided that I would just eat my breakfast in the living room and ignore the bird, hoping that it would eventually find its way out. After about five minutes, there was silence. I looked for the bird, but it was nowhere to be found. Happily, our brown sparrow had found his freedom.

Earlier today, on my walk from the office to the Criminal Justice Center, as I was walking north down 15th Street towards Market, I felt something hit my left hand. I raised it toward my face and saw that a round splatter of white goo had landed on the part of my hand behind my thumb and forefinger. I went right up to a food vendor and asked for napkins to wipe my hand. The woman I had been speaking with told me that I now had good luck, and she asked me to give her three numbers to play the lottery. I obliged and gave her three random numbers. Hopefully I truly have been blessed with good fortune. Let's see.

Friday update

2010-02-12T11:48:00.004-05:00

So here I am, sitting at my desk, looking out the window to bright blue skies on a Friday morning. I just got back from a short trip to Family Court, where I had to drop-off some papers to a law student volunteer at the domestic violence unit. Walking down Chestnut Street, with tall snow drifts on the side of the road, icy spots on the sidewalk, and narrow passageways at each corner where previous pedestrians blazed their way through the snow, I began dreaming. I pictured myself at my favorite beach in the world, Playa Samara, on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. I can see myself sitting there in an open-air restaurant, drinking a guanabana con leche, after a filling breakfast of gallo pinto. I'm there with a beautiful girlfriend and I'm looking forward to a lazy day with no appointments, no worries, no preoccupations. I'm looking forward to swimming in the clear, blue water of the Pacific, to taking a nap on the warm sand under some palm trees, to taking a walk hand-in-hand to the end of the beach, to kissing while the sun sets over the ocean, to eating a delicious dinner at the edge of the sand, to going to a beachfront bar for cervezas Imperiales and a few games of pool, while listening to reggae music playing in the background, to going to bed with a ceiling fan buzzing coolly overhead while lying on top of the sheets, a pleasant buzz from the beer and the pleasure of a girl best friend at my side, lazily dozing off to sleep feeling content and easy . . .

And here I am in Philly, hoping at least to get a good buzz tonight.

blast from the past

2010-02-11T20:23:00.003-05:00

in order to keep myself busy for a while, i dug up my files of papers that i'd written in high school and typed a few of them on to the blog here. reading the eighteen year old version of myself writing was quite amusing. i was a good writer, if i say so myself! but just reading the way i wrote, or to put it better, hearing the voice of a young me, really made me feel a bit bittersweet. i sounded so idealistic and innocent, so intelligent and so confident but understated in approach to the world. there are certainly remmants of that personality still within myself, but my evolution has taken me away from that clean archetype. and the weight of years of experiences and disappointments, and yes, certainly heartbreak, has undoubtedly etched indelible scars into my skin of my soul. i've become pragmatic to the point where things don't seem worthwhile. the focus of my life has moved away from internal sources of happiness, like reading and football, to external sources of sometimes happiness, sometimes unhappiness, like relationships with imperfect girls and the monotony of a job that doesn't truly exploit my talents. how did i go from a guy that was sought my most of the ivies to a single guy hopelessly waiting for love and still living in a one bedroom apartment with two cats? and yet i still feel hopeful. even despite the wistful despair at seeing my own transformation. really, hearing my young voice makes me feel that i deserve so much better than i have, and i now wonder what i can possibly do to change that. does the life of an adult necessarily demand this hardening, this pragmatization, this realization that we march towards death, and the likelihood of internal sources of pleasure and happiness becoming evermore fleeting and rare? i also wonder if i will ever find a girl who is both beautiful and intelligent and who will love me completely. does this girl exist? must i be dependent on external sources of happiness since i've seemingly exhausted my own innocence, except perhaps during rare moments of silliness and immaturity, at which time i'm usually told that i'm being weird or that i have a strange sense of humor? nowadays i'm most happy when i'm reading, because reading is something that i've always loved, ever since i was a boy, according to my own memories and what my dad has told me. also, reading provides me an escape from all the despair of mundane life. even for all my reminiscing tonight, i feel relatively good. the goal of life is to keep on living, because one simply never knows exactly what to expect. i think back to a year ago. i flew out to san diego for a 24 hour trip to visit cherise on valentine's day. it was a final hurrah, a last ditch effort at what i thought was worthwhile. of course it was a revelatory trip, so much more as a result of what was not expressed as what was. and that seems to be my predilection, to attract those that are incapable of expression. or maybe that's the grave that i've dug, that my own love for words, as i've developed through my reading, my love for expresssion, which i do through my everyday speech and writing, has created certain unusual expectations that are not likely to be fulfilled by the modern woman, who has been braindirtied by society to be independent, sovereign, self sufficient. conversely, perhaps my hatred for the way i was raised, by a mother and father who, although they undoubtedly did love me, never, not once, ever said so or gave a hug or a kiss or a simple "i love you" has made me particularly sensitive to that condition, as i consider it a deficiency, so that i cannot trust or stand anyone who fits that personality type. and then i wonder to myself whether, at the age i'm at, i'm still in the process of figuring out who i am and what i need and why this process is still taking place when others seem to have figured everything out so long ago. am i really that complex? or is it that i've been that ignorant of myself for so long? or maybe i'm self-deceiving, a quality that i absolutely loathe in others, because for me it's dishonorable to lie to others, but downright detestable to lie to oneself. i don't know. anyway, to the extent that i continue to have free time at home, i'd like to continue typing in old papers on to this blog. besides being entertaining, hopefully, they may help me to find my true self, or at least recover a part of a more innocent and pure version of me. and now, since it's late, i'm going to have some dinner, some leftovers of tilapia, rice and beans from last night. and then i'll finish the night with some reading, because that sounds like a nice way to end the evening before going to bed. by the way, the snow ended last night and left us with 16 inches of snow, on top of the already 28.5 on the ground, officially making this the snowiest winter on record in philadelphia. when the snow eventually melts, hopefully it can wash away all the uncertainty with it.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

2010-02-09T17:44:00.005-05:00

I just checked the website for 6abc news, and they're calling for 18 to 24 inches of snow in Philadelphia! If we really get as much snow as they're predicting, it's really gonna shut-down the city. The office is already closed for tomorrow, and it may be closed on Thursday too. I just can't imagine how another two feet of snow, on top of the two feet that's still on the ground from this past Saturday, is gonna be plowed. Even SEPTA is announcing that it will quite likely shut-down service.

So, the moral of the story is that I've gotta be prepared. I just finished my latest book last night, "The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems," a collection of fifty of Pablo Neruda's poems. I think he is an amazing poet, and just reading his poetry got me thinking in poetic terms, and hoping that I can be inspired to write some of my own poetry again. Maybe the day off tomorrow may afford me the opportunity, if only I am blessed with inspiration. Anyway, on my walk home today I'm going to stop by Barnes & Noble to use the remaining value on a gift card (given to me on my birthday by my mom's boyfriend, Eric) to get a new book. I already have a few titles in mind; we'll see what I actually get.

Another form of preparation is picking-up a couple movies. Just a few nights ago, I got a month-long movie pass from the video store on 20th Street. Ileana and I watched District 9 and (500) Days of Summer. But I'd like to stop by this evening to replace those two with two new ones, so that I have something to watch tomorrow during the day or in the evening.

And finally, I should definitely stop off at Trader Joe's to restock on some food and drink. I'm sure Trader Joe's is gonna be a madhouse, but I really have no choice because I'm running low on a bunch of stuff. I would've had to go there today, even if there was no impending snowstorm.

Somehow I have to do all of these things and get out to Ileana's place in West Philly before the new episode of Lost begins at 9:00 p.m. tonight! Oh man, this doesn't look good.

Mission Accomplished

2010-02-09T11:52:00.004-05:00

I feel a sense of accomplishment. I finally mailed out my 2008 tax return. I owed $2.00 in taxes, for which I wrote out a check to the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue. I had been meaning to finish it up and send it out for months, since last April really, but I kept putting it off. Finally, with a little free time yesterday afternoon, I resolved to focus on getting it done. I'm glad it's out of the way now. I'd had a post-it note hanging from my computer monitor for the past three months with the word "taxes" scribbled on to it as a reminder. That post-it note is now in the trash. Just in time for me to look forward to tackling my 2009 federal and state tax returns.

So this is the calm before the storm. Today's dry skies and calm wind belie the approaching deluge of snow; the latest predictions (at 3:30am from the National Weather Service) are for 10 to 18 inches in Philadelphia. And this on top of this past Saturday's 28.5 inches, which have barely been cleared, if at all, from roads and sidewalks. From what I recall seeing on the news, Philadelphia only needs 9 more inches to make this the snowiest winter on record. In little over 24 hours, we'll see if we're on our way to that dubious mark.

I read a comment to a news article on philly.com that global warming is causing the greater snowfalls, as a result of massive glacial melting in the North Atlantic, off the coast of Greenland, which cools the waters there and backs up the normally warm flow from the Caribbean, which has always offset, to a degree, the cold air from the Arctic in the winter months. I'm no meteorologist, of course, but that (long-winded) explanation does seem to make sense.

Class bias

2010-02-08T17:07:00.002-05:00

On Facebook, a user can become a "fan" of certain groups. There are thousands of groups for all sorts of interests. The overwhelming majority are non-controversial and harmless. One of them that has always gotten under my skin, though, is a group called "Making Drug Tests Required to Get Welfare." Presumably, "fans" of this group favor a government policy requiring an applicant for public assistance to get a negative result from a mandated drug test in order to be eligible to receive assistance from the Department of Public Welfare.

"Making Drug Tests Required to Get Welfare" would be a waste of taxpayer dollars, not to mention an institutionalization of class bias. Today, courts do not order a drug test unless there is reasonable cause to do so. Requiring drug tests to get welfare would eliminate reasonable cause and replace it with a prejudice against someone simply for being poor.

Groups that advocate this kind of position really anger me. They exemplify one more type of bias that still exists in this world. Stupid people continue to exist and promote policies and programs that reflect their own stupidity.

Winter wonderland

2010-02-08T10:09:00.006-05:00

A major snowstorm hit Philadelphia. The snow began falling late Friday night, and it didn't stop until some time Saturday night. When it was all said and done, there were 28.5 inches of snow on the ground. That's the official snowfall for Philadelphia, according to the news. And based on that, it's the second biggest single snowfall in the recorded history of the city. But from what I can estimate at the double-deuce and Spruce, I think the snow total was less than two feet. Don't get me wrong though. Even now, on Monday morning, there is still a ton of snow on the streets. Even the sidewalks of major streets, like Walnut, are not completely clear. It's times like this that I really wish I had a digital camera that worked, and a notebook computer that had sufficient memory to allow me to upload photos. Those are two things (a camera and a computer) on my list of things to get. Anyway, with temperatures not really expected to exceed the freezing mark, it will be very difficult to remove the snow before the next major snowstorm, which is predicted for this coming Wednesday.

On Saturday night, I took the Baby out on to the front stoop to let her see the snow. She was her typical self: a bit timid, but curious. We stayed outside for not much more than five minutes to let her do just a little bit of exploring.

Well, having a weekend where I mostly stayed indoors allowed me to do some reading. Last week I finished "Revolutionary Suicide" by Huey P. Newton. And although I've been meaning to make it to Borders or Barnes and Noble to get a new book, I simply haven't done so. Luckily, I still had the book that Ileana gave me as a gift for my birthday, a collection of poems by Pablo Neruda, which I've been reading for the past week. I've got a little more than 40 pages left, so perhaps I can finish it tonight.

I think Sue's husband, George, looks like Jeremy Shockey, of the New Orleans Saints. Last night the Saints won Super Bowl 44 over the Indianapolis Colts. I'd been routing for the Colts, who looked good in the first quarter. But the Saints staved off the Colts' momentum by eating up tons of clock in the second quarter, thereby keeping Peyton Manning (and the Colts offense) from getting into a groove. And by doing that, it allowed Drew Brees and the Saints offense to shake off any rust and/or nerves to get into their own groove. Despite that, the game was close, it was anyone's game, until late in the fourth quarter, when Peyton Manning threw an interception that was run back for a Saints' touchdown. Besides the points margin, it was a shift of momentum, a game-changer. Oh well, I guess I'm happy for the NFC to have won a championship. And I guess for the city of New Orleans too, as non-sportcasters in the news are making such a big deal about. As if the Super Bowl victory will do anything to rebuild a city or prevent the potential effects of another major hurricane in New Orleans. But maybe I'm being a little cynical. The Saints franchise has never won a Super Bowl, and there are no other major sports in that city, so if anyone deserves to win the big game, why not them?

Well, things seem pretty quiet today, with the snow and all. So I may write again later today, when my mind begins wandering, and I have some random thoughts that merit mention.

Good vibes

2010-01-27T17:18:00.004-05:00

cuz i'm in the mood for some uplifting music to refocus me . . . gotta hope for the best . . .

"sometimes life it seems to stall
but never be ungrateful y'all"

i'm thankful that i have all the necessities of life and the education, tools, credentials, experience, etc. to allow me to look for opportunities. i guess i just wish that things were a little more stable, in terms of employment. but as i've reasoned to myself in the past, not having a wife or children, not having a mortgage, not having anything really permanent, simply means that i have freedom: freedom to go wherever i like, freedom to work as i wish, freedom to find my own definition of happiness. it's just that the idea of a permanent job, with my own office and my own cases and my own clients, and with all the perquisites of a job, like health insurance and the assurance of a regular paycheck, would really make me happy, despite whatever "freedom" i may metaphysically be giving up. i guess this rolling stone is just gonna have to keep on rolling...

Job prospects

2010-01-27T15:38:00.002-05:00

I'd really like to be able to stay on at Philadelphia Legal Assistance on a permanent basis. I spoke very briefly with our executive director this afternoon, who told me that they're applying for funding from the Department of Justice to staff a family law attorney to focus on serving immigrant clients. That's right up my alley, considering my language and cultural background, as well as my travel experience, and ability to build rapport quickly with people of various cultures. The problem, though, is that the funding may not be available until the end of the year. And we're only in January now. The executive director told me that I should reach out to a particular private attorney, who she's friends with and who I happen to know, to discuss the possibility of getting together for lunch, with the ostensible purpose of talking about going in with him, at least on a temporary basis. My initial reaction is one of disappointment, because I'd like to stay on here at PLA. But I'm gonna have to sit down to talk more in detail about these possibilities with our executive director. And then I'll just have to take it from there. I don't like the idea of once again leaving a position after just a few months, but if I have no choice in the matter, then what else can I do?

Questions

2010-01-25T17:24:00.003-05:00

Last night Ileana and I played the questions game. That's where we take turns asking one question at at time to each other as a way of getting to know each other better. As I said last night, the questions she asked me, and my answers to them, are probably more interesting than most of what I normally write about on here. So hopefully I can remember some of those questions as topics for future posts here.

Question: skydive or bungee jump?

My answer: In reality, neither one. But if I had to choose for the sake of this hypothetical question, I think I'd have to go with skydiving. The idea of jumping off the side of a bridge, putting all my hope on a rubber cord, seems crazy. At least skydiving involves not only the parachute, but an emergency parachute, and you're accompanied by a skydiving instructor. Also, I would hope that being so high up in the air would make it seem more surreal, thus better able to confront, whereas jumping off a bridge the ground comes up at you in the blink of an eye.

capitalism/socialism

2010-01-19T18:23:00.002-05:00

Capitalism is good when it promotes competition -- which creates better products, more efficiency, and generally pushes everyone -- as individuals and corporations -- to work better.

Socialism is good when it provides essential services to individuals and families who are adversely effected by economic forces beyond their control.

A healthy economy is the positive, mutually beneficial intersection of these two basic goals.

The part of Dr. King's quote that is critical is its reference to those living "in abject, deadening poverty." That's because the existence of those with "superfluous, inordinate wealth" is only really a problem when there exist those who continue to live "in abject, deadening poverty."

a short week

2010-01-19T11:47:00.003-05:00

Because of the MLK holiday yesterday, today is the beginning of a short week. As I said a couple posts ago, I'm looking forward to a much quieter week than last week.

As a follow-up, I'd like to report that my irrational, and admittedly stupid, worries dissipated on Sunday night. They began to calm down a bit just from listening to music, which almost always seems to help me feel better and put things in perspective. But they dissipated completely when I got a phone call from Ileana late Sunday night. To my surprise, she actually read what I'd written here earlier that evening, so she picked up the phone and called me. We talked for a little while and everything was fine. I realize that there are certain reflex reactions I have, probably a combination of my personality as well as patterns from previous relationships (I guess that may be the downside to having experience). And that I must be very aware of not blindly giving in to those impulses, especially when there's no real reason to do so. As I admitted to Ileana, it's not necessarily going to be easy. But she gives me good reason to grow and become a more mature person in how I handle the downpoints in a relationship. I'm gonna give it my best shot. And I'm very, very thankful to be with someone who is caring and understanding of me. Besides that, I'll say simply that Ileana and I spent a really nice time together yesterday, highlighted by lunch at Pod (3636 Sansom Street in University City) and a really delicious, home-cooked dinner of penne pasta in alfredo sauce with chicken and broccoli.

Well, that's enough for now. I have other thoughts in mind on various other topics, but I'll save that for another post, perhaps as early as later this afternoon. Time to finish enjoying my late morning coffee and take care of a few things. Have a great day!

Remembering MLK

2010-01-18T20:47:00.004-05:00

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. told his Ebenezer Church congregation:

"If our economic system is to survive, there has to be a better distribution of wealth . . . we can't have a system where some people live in superfluous, inordinate wealth, while others live in abject, deadening poverty."

Today is Martin Luther King Day 2010. I'm happy that I work in public service. Hopefully my six-month stint at Philadelphia Legal Assistance becomes something longer lasting. I hope that an offer for a permanent position is extended to me in the next week or two. Keep your fingers crossed for me, please. Thanks.

doubts

2010-01-17T18:54:00.006-05:00

every once in a while, i get this feeling that i will never settle down into a permanent relationship, not so much as a result of my own choice, but more because of circumstances. this feeling naturally comes up more frequently when i'm single. but this feeling also comes up occasionally when i'm in a relationship with someone. i've got that feeling right now.

yesterday i'd had an idea of how the night was going to turn out. i thought i was going to bring some tilapia to ileana's place, cook it up for us and eat it for dinner, then head to a musical performance at 9pm, and then meet up with some co-workers for karaoke at the trocadero. well, due to cleaning-up around the apartment and watching football on tv, and more than anything else, just from feeling pretty tired, the time flew and the evening went by. by the time i got a hold of ileana on the phone, it was just about 8:30pm, and i was still at home, not yet dressed and trying to figure out how the heck we were going to do everything that we'd had in mind. well, i guess i made an assumption that ileana had in my mind what i'd had in mind. this became clear when ileana told me, in that short phone conversation, that she was going to the show in a few minutes. right then i realized that i wasn't going to her place for dinner, that i'd have to cook the tilapia at my place, and that this whole last-minute change of plans really annoyed me to the point that i knew i wasn't going to want to go out at all. now, as an aside, i have to admit right here that i'd been feeling reluctant all along to doing karaoke with a group of co-workers, a few of which i'm not close with. so admittedly, i may have exploited this sudden change of plans as a reason to avoid going to the troc.

but there were a few deeper feelings going on too. and they reveal my own insecurities involved in my relationship with ileana. two things came to my mind. first, the show that ileana was going to was a brazilian musical performance. and by me having to stay home to cook the tilapia (because i had defrosted it two nights before, i had to either cook it last night or throw it out for fear of it having gone bad), that meant that ileana was going to the show alone. well, here's where i admit to you, the reader, that ileana's immediate ex-boyfriend, whom she was still dating when she and i first started spending time, left for brazil less than four months ago, thereby effectively ending their relationship, and opening the door for me. so for ileana to go alone to a brazilian music show signified to me a chance for ileana -- with me out of sight and out of mind -- to think about and reminisce on her ex-boyfriend. second, to add a bit of credence to this worry was the fact that something from the night before was still on my mind. on friday night, ileana and i stopped into good dog, a bar on 15th street near locust, to see if my friend madhu was still there, as he had texted me a bit earlier. while searching for madhu throughout the bar, ileana saw a guy who she knew. she began talking with him, and after texting madhu that i was there, i approached to introduce myself. the guy seemed very nice, and was obviously gay. then he told ileana that he really liked her ex-boyfriend, although he liked my eyes. i took the back-handed compliment in stride. and a couple minutes later, when ileana apologized to me for the guy's comment, i told her, rightly so, that she had no control over what he said. nevertheless, the seed of insecurity was planted in my mind, and it was sown the next night when ileana went to the brazilian show all by herself, ditching me at home to cook the tilapia.

now, before i go any further, can i admit that my fears are probably irrational? am i being insecure? yes and yes. but can i help myself? not really. it angers me that i began my relationship with ileana at a time when she was still going out with another guy. and although the greater part of me is happy that he's out of the picture by still being in brazil as i write this, a part of me wishes he was back here in philly so that i could feel more assured that ileana was still sticking with me, even with him in town. in other words, my insecurity is that when he comes back, she goes back to be with him, thereby ditching me to cook tilapia every night if i desire. i hate feeling this way. and i'm not sure what to do about it.

notably, after the brazilian musical show, ileana took it upon herself to come by my place to see if she would get me to go out with her or, i assume, stay in with me for the night. and although i give her a little bit of credit for coming here after the show, my overactive mind was already fast at work by that point, and i just wanted her to leave me alone for the night. she respected my wishes, even though she said i was acting like an asshole, and she left, presumably to meet up with all our co-workers as originally planned. i stayed in to finish cooking the tilapia and watch tv for the rest of the night.

it's now almost 24 hours later and i still haven't communicated with ileana all day long. my worst fears are dominating my thoughts. my insecurities are impelling me to solitude. i've stayed in to watch the villanova vs. georgetown basketball game, then cowboys-vikings, and now jets-chargers. up to this point i had decided that i wanted to be alone the rest of the weekend, and not see ileana again until work on tuesday. of course i'm second-guessing that decision now. but my fears remain.

and they remain against the backdrop of ileana's emotions towards me. on the positive, ileana has spent a whole lot of time with me over the past four months; in fact, we've been almost inseparable. and she will periodically kiss me on the cheek, for no reason at all. but on the downside, she's never really talked about a future for us, and she's never told me that she loves me. in the final analysis, to the extent that i can possibly be objective, i know that i have little or nothing to worry about, i know that i'm quite likely being irrational and letting my insecurities get to me. but that's how i feel right now, and i can't help myself. if ileana loves me, then i have nothing to worry about. and that's why i'm just gonna lay low, and wait to hear from her. and in the meantime, hope that my insecurities dissipate at least a little bit.

i'm gonna go back to drinking my beer and watching the end of the jets-chargers game now. it looks like i'm staying in by myself tonight.

the end of a busy week

2010-01-15T10:36:00.006-05:00

It's certainly been a very busy week. For the first time, I had three hearings scheduled for one week. It didn't turn out so bad, though, because my client at this morning's hearing had already decided to remit all child support arrears for the defendant and terminate the support order, all by the time I got to court. So in the end, I only had to put on two hearings this past week, on Monday and yesterday. Even besides the hearings and the preparation involved for them, I've been busy trying to catch up on call-backs to clients. I still have a list of about ten calls that I need to make today. And over the course of the day, other things always seem to pop up to slow down any progress. But I realize that it's all part of the ebb and flow of work. Next week should be pretty good. I only have a custody master's conference on Thursday. So that should afford me the opportunity to catch-up on some things that really need to be done.

Anyway, enough about work. This past Wednesday, Wagner and I went to see the Temple men's basketball team take on the UPenn Quakers at the Palestra, the famed basketball arena. The game turned out as we had both hoped: Penn hung around for the first half and into the beginning of the second half, enough to make it an interesting and entertaining game, but then by mid-second half Temple began to pull away en route to their 60-45 victory. For buying tickets right there at the box office about five minutes before tip-off, our seats were not too bad: just behind the Temple student section, behind and slightly to the side of one of the hoops, and not too, too far from the Temple bench. There were no outstanding performances from the Temple players, more of just an overall team effort. As I commented to Wagner during the game, I think Temple played down just a little bit to their competition.

Last night after work, I went out with a few co-workers for happy hour. Diane organized the outting, and we went to the American Pub, underground near the Clothespin on 15th and Market. The atmosphere was decent, though nothing to really go back to in the future. I had a couple Miller Lites. Afterward, knowing that I had nothing at home to make dinner, I invited Ileana out to dinner. We shared some mozzarella sticks and a pizza at Pietro's Coal Oven Pizzeria, on Walnut Street near 18th.

So that's what's been going on. Besides simply reporting my weekly, or even daily, activities, I wanna get back to writing here about random stuff. Maybe if next week isn't so busy at work, I'll be able to take a quick break here and there to post some thoughts on non-personal issues. In the meantime, I hope you don't mind too much reading my online personal diary. Have a great weekend, fellow user of the world wide web!

the weekend starts here!

2010-01-08T18:49:00.004-05:00

I stayed up late last night reading my book, "Revolutionary Suicide," by Huey P. Newton. So that's why I got into work late this morning, which in turn explains why I'm still at work at 7:30pm on a Friday. But I'm about to leave now. I spent most of the day closing out files from 2009. I hadn't done any of that until today, so there was a lot that needed to be done. For the past three hours, I've finally gotten around to calling back clients who had left messages for me.

Well, I'm happy that the weekend is about to begin. I was surprised when I got into work today, even though I got in late, to see Ileana walk into my office, having already gotten here a half-hour before me. She had been up in New York all week because her uncle passed away suddenly this past Monday. I knew that she was coming back to Philly today, but I didn't think that she'd beat me into work, especially coming in all the way from New York! I guess it was a function of me being so late this morning, and Ileana being so early leaving her mom's place when her mom had to leave early for her own work this morning. So, although I'm a little tired, I'm really happy that Ileana is back.

Anyway, I'm looking for this weekend to be on the quiet side. I have to do at least a couple loads of laundry and I absolutely have to make a trip to Target to re-stock on a bunch of necessary home supplies. Besides that, I'll probably have a few drinks at some point, probably tomorrow night, but we'll see what develops. Or maybe I'll even have a drink tonight, who knows? If I do, I'll toast one to you! "Wait," you say, "how do you know who's reading this?" I guess I can't be sure, but the important thing is that I have a drink in someone's honor. Right? right. Alright, have a beautiful weekend. Peace out!

BCS National Championship

2010-01-07T16:02:00.004-05:00

Tonight is the big game between Alabama and Texas. I have no plans tonight other than to chill out and watch the game at home. Hopefully it's a close, entertaining game; wouldn't want to end this college football season with a flop.

Earlier today I filed exceptions in a child support case. I thought the master did a really shitty job of calculating the child support. And I think she was motivated to prove me wrong since during the hearing I refused to settle with the other side for a meager monthly sum on behalf of my client. I insisted on a hearing, and the master became visibly angry that she'd actually have to put on a full hearing. That's why I think she wanted to tweak the numbers in whatever way possible to make the final order for less than the other side was offering to settle for. The exceptions were due today, and I got them done just in time. I found plenty of caselaw to support my position. But as with anything else, there's no way to know how the court will resolve my exceptions. With the court, as on the football field, it's "any given Sunday." But as I instant messaged to Ileana earlier today, while I was putting the finishing touches on the exceptions: "my legal arguments are swift and painlessly painful." That was my way of saying that I think I did a good job in preparing my exceptions, i.e., making my arguments. Now we'll just have to wait for a hearing date.

Besides that, all is quiet on the western front. I've been super-busy at work and that has been the main focus of my life these past few days. The only other thing that I'll comment on now is that the weather has been really cold. I think I heard that it may snow tonight, which is hard to believe since we've had perfectly clear (yet cold) skies all day long today. But hey, it is winter, so what else should we expect? That's all for now, folks, hope all is well and quiet on your front and back too. Peace.

Marathon

2010-01-06T16:15:00.003-05:00

I came back just a little while ago from a late lunch at Marathon Grill, near Broad & Chestnut Streets. Several of us from work went there to have lunch with our old co-worker Sue, who's out on maternity leave; in fact, Sue is who I'm filling in for here at PLA. Meeting everyone for lunch worked out perfectly since I didn't have time to make lunch this morning to bring to work.

As we were about to leave, I heard a great song by Beck, "Gamma Ray." Check out the video:

Wherever you are, I hope you're staying warm. It's pretty cold these days in Philly! Check ya later.

Happy new year!

2010-01-05T11:18:00.007-05:00

A new year has begun! 2009 is in the past, 2010 is the present and the future. Hopefully it's a good year filled with good health and happiness.

The New Year's Eve weekend was pretty good. My sister Jessica came down from Easton to hang out with Ileana and me for the night. Jess picked me up and we drove out to West Philly to meet up with Ileana and her roommate Jess. Ileana warmed up some dinner that she had cooked earlier in the evening: yellow rice with shrimp and vegetables. It was really good, although it would've been better if it had been warmed up more. The highlight was the sangria that Ileana made from a recipe that she got online; she used a bottle of malbec and mixed in a bunch of fruit. It was really good.

After that, the four of us walked the block and a half or so to a house party on 45th and Locust. Even though we didn't get there until around 10pm, people were still showing up around that time. We milled around for a while, chatting it up with a few people and eating some of the appetizers laid out on a table in the dining room. Mostly I just talked with Ileana, while Jess talked with this guy John who sorta looked like the actor Ryan Reynolds. Finally midnight approached, so everyone gathered in the living room, where a smaller television was set-up to watch the ball drop. At a few minutes before midnight, John and I psyched everyone out by shouting out a countdown "ten, nine, eight..."; everyone's surprise reaction at being caught off-guard was pretty funny. Finally midnight struck and I realized that there may not have been any couples there at all, which Jess told me later, made her happy. We all toasted small plastic cups of champagne and the new year began!

The next morning, Ileana and I cooked eggs with green pepper and onions for ourselves, with english muffins on the side. Then Jess and I drove back to my place so that I could clean-up my apartment while Jess went out to do reading at Cosi in the afternoon. Later, I walked over to meet her, and then Ileana took a bus to come meet us there too. From there, the three of us walked back to Jess's car and we drove to have a late lunch / early dinner at Bar Ferdinand in Northern Liberties. Because there was a happy hour special when we got there, we were able to have two carafes of sangria. And we all split 8 tapas and 2 bowls of soup. Overall the food was delicious; nothing like empanadas to hit the spot. After dinner, Jess drove us out to West Philly so that Ileana could pick-up her passport (to use as ID for the night), then dropped us off at Drinker's in Center City so that we could hang-out with my friend Mike and his girlfriend Christine. Before that, though, Ileana and I ran in to buy tickets for the movie Avatar, playing later that night. Ileana and I split a pitcher of Bud Light at Drinker's, while chatting with Mike and Christine, and then booked it just in time to catch a cab out to the Bridge at 40th and Walnut. The movie Avatar was awesome. Upon the advice of Ethan (who texted me earlier that day for new year's), we decided to pay the extra money to watch it in 3-D; so worth it! The special effects were amazing and the visual picture was just beautiful. Ileana and I really related to the storyline, especially as it paralleled the Conquest of the Americas, a topic that we had spoken a lot of while I read the book "Open Veins of Latin America" by Eduardo Galeano, which I had just finished reading a few days earlier. The only bummer was having to wait for 20 minutes on the corner of 40th and Chestnut for a bus back to Center City on a night when it was freezing cold and windy. Despite the cold weather, though, we were both buzzing from the after-effects of watching Avatar.

Saturday, we took our time getting the day started. We finally made it out in the mid-afternoon to take a walk to a coffee shop. We tried going first to Good Karma, but every table was taken, so we kept walking until we got to La Va Cafe, on 21st and South Streets. We got a table there and sipped our coffee while reading: she with Song of Solomon (by Toni Morrison) and me with Revolutionary Suicide (by Huey P. Newton). From there we stopped back at my place to pick-up a Trader Joe's gift card, which my mom had given to me for Christmas, and we went food-shopping together. We had a lunch of California rolls and crackers with Iberico cheese and salami. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching television, including some college football, which I tried to explain to Ileana. Later in the evening we cooked some organic spaghetti with spinach mixed into the red sauce, and then Ileana left to go home to get ready for the night. Although I was feeling pretty tired, I had promised Ileana that we would go out dancing. So when she texted to say that she was in a cab on her way down to the Walnut Room, I left my place and walked over there. There was a pretty decent crowd there and I took a few minutes to ease in to the atmosphere by drinking a couple PBR's and feeling the music, which was mostly 90's to more recent hip-hop. Ileana was dancing pretty much right from the get-go, and eventually I started dancing too. After a little while, I had gotten into it. Towards the end of the night, the dj played a merengue song, and I could see that Ileana was impressed that my dancing skills (at least when it comes to merengue) were better than I had let on. Even though I was tired throughout much of the night, the music energized me just enough and we had a really fun night dancing together.

Sunday was a very lazy day. We got up at 11:30am, only to migrate to the couch for breakfast and then a nap that lasted until around 2pm. After getting up and having lunch, we finally went out later in the afternoon for a coffee at La Colombe. I did a little more reading in my book, while Ileana read from Citypaper and Philadelphia Weekly. We went back to my place so I could drop-off my stuff before going to church, while Ileana stayed behind and did some reading. When I got back from church, we cooked a dinner of pollo asado (pre-seasoned courtesy of Trader Joe's), white rice with coconut milk, and black beans. It was a good dinner, enjoyed while watching episodes of Lost, season five. Our Lost marathon lasted until past midnight. And so, our long New Year's weekend finally came to an end.

And so now, it's back to the grind. In this new year, I'd like to do a much better job of getting to work on-time, getting to the gym more regularly, and keeping in touch with my friends more, all things that sound easy, but I find ways to make difficult. That being said, I wish you the very best in 2010!

Wow, two days in a row!

2009-12-31T10:56:00.004-05:00

Okay, so I'm actually back again. I was surprised to look out the window this morning and see some snow on the ground outside. It's a half-day at work, being that today is New Year's Eve. Today at work I only have a couple of complaints (divorce and support) to file at the Clerk and then make a couple phone calls.

Last night was nice. Ileana and I wanted to go out to eat. So we first walked to Erawan, where I was hoping my friend Laddie would be working. But since she wasn't there, we left and walked to Grace Tavern. But there weren't any open seats there. So we walked a block down South Street and decided to give L2 a try. We walked to the dining room in the back, which had sofa benches with dark red satin all along the walls. There was swing music and other 1940s-sounding music playing. The room was dimly-lit and there were large framed paintings of portraits of women on each wall. The vibe was somewhat Eastern European or perhaps Parisian. So we had hopes that it would be a good meal. Things became a bit disappointing right off the bat when the waiter said that they didn't have many wines to choose from. Of course I wanted malbec, which they didn't have. So we had to settle for two glasses of merlot. Then when Ileana ordered a pasta dish, the guy came back and said they didn't have pasta! and that she would have to order something else. Despite his explanation that they had been closed for five days for the holidays, the idea of such a sparse menu seemed preposterous and shoddy. To top things off, when I got my chicken parmesan, the red sauce was so thin that I think they must have bought the sauce on sale at Shoprite. We really enjoyed the atmosphere (music and ambience) and the appetizers (pita with hummus and shrimp wrapped in bacon) were good enough for us to enjoy our time there. But everything else was disappointing enough that we decided that we're never going back there.

After wrapping up the check, we decided it was still too early to go home. So we walked another block down South Street to Ten Stone. We had a couple rounds of beers: two Palm Belgian Ambers for Ileana, and one Palm Belgian Amber and one Hoegaarden for me. I watched the Sixers-Kings basketball game while we talked.

Well, I hope you have a wonderful New Year's Eve tonight. Be safe. And may the new year bring you good health and happiness!

Did you miss me?

2009-12-30T13:04:00.004-05:00

It's been over three months since I last wrote anything here. I give credit to Wagner for reminding me about the blog and, in turn, for reviving my interest in preserving my very weak memory. So the question: where do I begin?

Well, things have come full circle, at least professionally speaking. Before going to law school, I worked for nearly four years as a family law paralegal at Philadelphia Legal Assistance. Back in mid-October, there was word that one of the attorneys was suddenly going out on maternity leave, after finally being approved to adopt a baby girl. I was asked to interview for the temporary, six-month position. I did so, and was hired to begin working on Monday, November 2nd. Since then, I've enjoyed being back with a group of people that I truly consider to be my second family. And I've really enjoyed practicing law in the way that I believe I was meant to practice: client-based, client-centered, and in the courtroom.

Now, some highlights from the past three months that I will simply list for the benefit of my own memory:

throwing a birthday party at the double-deuce and Spruce, to which my sister and a bunch of my friends came, and even my mom made a surprise appearance
watching the Temple basketball team upset #3-ranked Villanova at the Liacouras Center, to the dismay of Wagner who was there with me to witness history
going to a live music performance by Sara Tavares at the Kimmel Center, then going to dinner at Valanni's and then drinks at El Vez
going bowling at Strikes in University City, and even playing a little ping-pong afterwards
being snowed-in by the 23.2 inches of snow on Saturday, December 19th, and staying in the apartment that day to watch "The Hangover" and then "Up", then venturing out later in the afternoon to have a late lunch at Continental Midtown
going out to West Philly a lot, including a pleasant afternoon lounging in the grass at Clark Park and nights at Local 44
speaking of going out to West Philly, having to walk Walnut Street all the way out to 44th Street, because the buses weren't running as a result of the SEPTA strike back in late October
taking a stroll arm-in-arm from the double-deuce and Spruce all the way down to Mixto for a first date

. . . and other stuff I can't remember right now. I'm gonna start writing here more regularly, so that way I can actually keep track of everything that I'm doing. In spite of the bigger picture (e.g., the economy), 2009 was a pretty good year. And I feel that things are on an upswing as we head into 2010. I hope that the new year brings you good health and happiness. And, if it's not too much to ask, I hope the same thing for myself. Let's see if I can write again tomorrow . . .

Mojitos

2009-09-22T00:11:00.004-04:00

Yesterday afternoon I met up with my ex-girlfriend Heather. The last time I saw her was six years ago, and that was merely a brief, chance encounter on Walnut Street. The last time that I spent any real time with her was seven years ago. So needless to say, despite not having any intentions of anything beyond seeing her to catch up, I was still a bit excited to see her. We met at 3pm in Rittenhouse Square. Since I usually attend evening mass at 6:30pm, I figured a little more than three hours should be enough to catch up on most everything. The weather was sunny and dry and simply beautiful. Our meeting went exactly as I had hoped; I felt good that we had reconnected as friends. Now that I've seen her, though, my pre-meeting intentions have not changed. I'll be happy for she and I to be friends. Of the girls that I've dated for more than a month or so, there's now only one that I don't communicate with. All of rest care about me, just as I care about them, and they're mature enough to maintain a friendship with me. When I was younger (i.e., around the time when I broke up with Heather), I had a rigid philosophy of cutting all contact if a relationship didn't work out. But I don't feel that way any more: life is too short to hold grudges or exert mental/emotional energy to keep a wall up. Unless something really egregious happens to end a relationship, there's not much reason to turn your back on someone who you were compatible with to have a relationship with, even if it wasn't long-lasting. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of all relationships fail; relationships are the classic live-and-learn experience. So anyway, to bring it all the way back around, I'm glad that Heather and I can now be friends.

This past Saturday night was great. Wagner came by the double-deuce and Spruce to help me move out my old television and put it curbside. I had a few beers in the fridge, so we hung here for a little while. I took the opportunity to ask him some serious questions about his vision and goals for his law career. Since he's becoming one of my good friends here in Philly, I wanted to know if he would ever consider going into practice for himself, since that is my goal/hope/ambition. He said he had never really considered it, but said that he would now that I put the thought out there. It was a good, refreshing conversation before hitting the town.

Originally I had wanted to go to a new spot near me (at 20th and Sansom) called Village Whiskey. As we were walking out of my place, Wagner called up Tobin to let him know where we were going. At that moment, I took the opportunity to check my phone, lo and behold to discover that I'd missed a text message just a minute earlier. It was from Ileana, a girl who works with some of my friends at one of my old workplaces. She was out with her roommate and was inviting me to stop by if I wasn't busy. So the timing was perfect; Wagner's and my plan changed and we went to Rum Bar to meet up with them. It was a nice atmosphere in there, as there was a pretty good crowd, several of whom were wearing an eye-patch in honor of Talk Like A Pirate Day; it was pretty funny. We all spent the rest of the evening drinking mojitos. I was really happy to have the chance to talk to Ileana, since I'd only really talked to her once before for not much more than ten minutes. I kept being happily surprised to find out that we had a lot in common. So between the (strong) mojitos and the good conversation, I had a very good Saturday night.

The next morning, Sunday, I forced myself out of bed early in order to volunteer at a community event in South Philly: la Fiesta de San Mateo de Ozolco. For those of you who may not know, San Mateo de Ozolco is a village in the state of Puebla, in Mexico. And interestingly, anywhere from one-quarter to one-third of that village resides for at least part of the year in Philadelphia. Thus, to honor their community's community here in the 2-1-5, they hold an annual fiesta, with a traditional misa and dancing by los moros y cristianos and by traditional Aztecs. It was a fun cultural event to be at, although I had to leave early in order to make it back in time to meet up with Heather in Rittenhouse Square. But I have to admit that my Spanish-speaking skills were dulled as a result of all the mojitos I drank the night before. It was all worth it though.

Alright, that's all for now, folks. I hope things are well in your little part of the world, wherever that may be.

Quiet night

2009-09-19T00:39:00.006-04:00

Today was a pretty quiet day, and tonight has been a quiet night. Being a night person, I got up late today. There are some days where I feel guilty for getting up late. Not today. Today I felt fine about getting up late. I had already set it in my mind that today was gonna be low-key. So I took the time to clean-up all the dishes and pots and utensils in the sink. I spoke on the phone with Evan for a while. And I made a call to an insurance company on behalf of one of my clients, but I only had to leave a voicemail there since no one picked up the phone.

Besides running out to Radio Shack to buy a power strip (to organize all the electrical cords now behind my television stand and to finally have an extra outlet to plug-in the antenna amplifier), I was inside all day. But I'm glad that I did run out for that quick errand, because on the walk home, coming up Walnut Street, I heard my name being called. I looked around and then across the street to the other sidewalk, and I saw my friend Nayami. So I ran across to say hi and give her a hug. We ended up walking together through Rittenhouse Square, she invited me to see her music group, PhillyBloco, perform at World Cafe Live on Halloween, and I gave her the gift of one of my two new power strips, since I only needed one. It was good to see Nayami, she's a really nice girl.

Tonight I just chilled out at home, drank a couple of my new favorite beers, Victory Whirlwind Witbier, and ate some spaghetti with sweet apple flavored chicken sausage and spinach mixed in with the sauce. While I ate, I had the Phillies game on low volume and listened to music from my iPod, played through my stereo. Overall, it was a good, chill night.

Now I think I'm gonna do some reading before going to bed. I hope you had as good a night as I did. See ya soon!

Autumn: coffee, football, and work/out

2009-09-17T00:14:00.005-04:00

Today was a pretty good day. I met Michael for lunch today at Coventry Deli (at 20th & Market). Actually, he had lunch while I drank a coffee I had picked-up along the way at La Colombe. We were able to catch-up on some gossip, which is always a lot of fun. Afterwards, I walked across the street to the courtyard at Commerce Square, where Jeanette came down to say hi. It was nice to see her; she looked good. The three of us talked for about 15 minutes before they had to get back to work.

After getting back home, I took care of some phone calls (one to a potential client, the other to a current opposing party) -- as you can see, I'm trying to keep busy while I'm in between projects. And then I ran out to mail a bill and deposit my last paycheck at the bank (may it last for long time!). Anyway, I feel like this is turning into a play-by-play of my day, so let's move on to other topics.

The Philadelphia Eagles. Along with so many other people, I'm not expecting much from Kevin Kolb this Sunday against the Saints. I'm predicting that McNabb won't even suit up, now that they have Garcia. I think Garcia will be in by midway through the 2nd quarter. And I actually think that the Eagles will come out with a win, after the offense rallies around Garcia and the defense generally stifles the Saints' offense.

The weather. I love autumn; it's my favorite season. I wore a short-sleeve t-shirt to meet Michael and Jeanette, and I was fine. Tonight the windows are open at the double-deuce & Spruce, and there is a nice chill in the air. The weather reminds me of football. And it reminds me of long walks in the leaf-covered trails of state parks when I was a young boy. Autumn reminds me of growing up, since it reminds me of the excitement of returning to Gettysburg for four consecutive years as an undergraduate. I really love this time of the year.

Now, to return to my daily recap, I finally made it to the gym this evening, my first time there in about a week and a half. The work-out was good; I felt strong. Bench press was solid, dumbell bicep curls, lateral raises, cable tricep push-down, front raises, crunches on the Swiss ball, and an extra set of dips and push-ups at the end for good measure. I saw my recent gym buddy Brian there and talked to him for just a minute, told him that I felt good and wanna do better to make it in there more often. With the way I felt during and after the work-out, I most certainly will.

Good night folks!

Highlights from the weekend

2009-09-16T00:44:00.005-04:00

This past Sunday I volunteered at the Mexican Independence Day Fiesta at Penn's Landing. It was a great day: the weather and the girls were beautiful. I helped out Juntos, a South Philly cultural organization, to get a ton of people to sign postcards that will be sent to our congresspeople, asking them to take the initiative to reform the immigration laws. The process by which I did this was simply walking around through the crowd with a clipboard and a bunch of postcards, and asking people to sign. It was a great opportunity to use my Spanish for an entire afternoon. And the feeling I got by approaching people was the same feeling (though perhaps not quite as nerveracking) as I get by approaching girls at a bar: the pressure of capturing someone's attention within just a couple of seconds and trying to hold their attention long enough for them to give you something (here, a signature, at the bar, a phone number). Overall I had a really good day. When I first met with Valeska, the executive director of Juntos, about a month ago, this was the sort of experience I was looking for: something where I felt useful and something that was for a good cause. Hopefully the more I help out, the better chance there may be for greater opportunities to arise, maybe even an opportunity to direct my career in a more fulfilling direction. I leave that in God's hands; but in the meantime I'll do what I can to get more involved.

So I finally have television again. As I mentioned a few posts ago, I went and visited my dad this past Saturday. Our mission for that afternoon was to hook me up with a television antenna, a digital converter box, and a television stand. Check, check, and check. After a long and harrowing afternoon trying to assemble the tv stand and negotiate all the wires, I was finally able to put on the tv by the evening. After Pito had left, I was able to watch, of all things, the women's U.S. Open semifinal between Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters; as fate would have it, it was the match where Serena blew her lid and thus blew the match by threatening to shove a tennis ball down a line-judge's throat. Great drama. Proof that sports has always been and always will be the best form of reality tv.

Finally tonight, I'd like to mention that I finished the book "My Antonia", by Willa Cather, this past Sunday night. It is one of the most beautiful novels that I have ever read. It's about the love between a boy and a girl, who eventually become man and woman, but whose love is never fulfilled, much less consummated, with anything more than a kiss. It showed that true love, as it is really felt and expressed, has very little if anything to do with sex. It showed that true love is truly beautiful. And so, although the main characters' love was never fulfilled with each other in any traditional, logical, or preordained sense, thus giving the novel a tragic feel and the reader a certain feeling of discouragement, it was ultimately a romance of the highest order. Even more than the dynamic between Antonia and Jim Burden, the book really romanticizes, in a non-proselytizing manner, the plains of the American midwest. The imagery and lyrical descriptiveness with which Cather describes the land of Nebraska was incredibly moving and simply beautiful. I'll finish this post with two beautiful quotes from "My Antonia", one of scenic imagery and the other of pure love:

"If there was a road, I could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made."

"The idea of you is a part of my mind; you influence my likes and dislikes, all my tastes, hundreds of times when I don't realize it. You really are a part of me."

I Can't Help It

2009-09-13T00:29:00.009-04:00

It's been a lil' while since I posted some music. Here's "I Can't Help It" by The Roots, off their Rising Down album.

One of my favorite lines, right around the 1:05 minute mark:

"i only do what i got to do 'cause it's possible and climbing over whatever's known as a obstacle."

If this video link eventually goes dead, then I encourage you to check out The Roots website or myspace page in order to listen to this and other tracks.

End of an era . . .

2009-09-11T23:19:00.003-04:00

. . . or at least another project. My time at Pepper Hamilton is over, at least for the time being. There was talk that we may be called back in two or three weeks to begin another phase of the case we were working on, or else for a new case. I don't necessarily mind the break, as long as it's only two or three weeks. I have to complete a case for one of my friends. And I've got a couple side projects, personal and professional, that should occupy my time for a couple weeks. I sure hope, though, that by the beginning of October, I've landed another gig. Of course I'll also take this opportunity to scope out the scene for permanent jobs, although I don't hold too much hope on that front, what with the economy and all. But who knows, it's worth a lookie-lookie.

I don't think I fully realize how excited I'm going to be by the end of tomorrow. I'm taking the R7 up to my dad's place in Levittown to have lunch and then head out to the Walmart near him to pick-up a television antenna and digital converter box. Then we'll drive down I-95 south to the Illadelph, and more specifically to the Ikea down on Del Ave so I can hook myself up with a nice television stand. After that, the project will be to put it all together. And hopefully, voila, by the end of the afternoon, I'll be able to kick back and watch some college football. And that's when it'll hit me how excited I'll be. Right now it's just a vague premonition of excitement.

Finally, I'm resolving myself to hitting the gym consistently now that I'll have no excuse. I've been too lax for too long now, and I really gotta get in there. Last time I was there, about a week ago, this guy Brian told me that he would push me back into the gym if he saw me walking around the street. I haven't seen him yet. But I'm not gonna wait to find out if he was serious; I'll get back to the gym on my own. I'm pretty sure that watching football on tv will motivate me to work-out; football fires up the athletic competitiveness within me.

Follow-up on the Baby and no NYC

2009-09-11T00:36:00.002-04:00

The Baby is doing fine. As I write this she's sitting on my bed, grooming herself by licking her tummy. Earlier tonight, Rocky and the Baby were chasing each other around the apartment. Rocky cornered her underneath the bicycles leaning against my bedroom wall, the Baby assumed her normal defensive position by lying on her back with her four paws up in the air, trying to stiff-arm Rocky's attempts to nose-dive into her and bite her, and the two of them alternately swiped at each other's paws to create an opening for "attack." It was fun to watch them play.

I was going to go to New York City this weekend, but I think that's no longer gonna happen. First of all, there is a very strong likelihood that the project that I've been working on is going to end tomorrow. The work has simply run out. That translates into once again having to be conservative with my spending. Second, I had hoped to hear back from at least one of two girls: one, Elsa, an El Salvadoran girl I met about a month ago when I last visited New York, and the other, Anne-Sarah, a French girl I met last November when we sat next to each other on a four-hour bus ride from Vang Vieng to Vientiane, Laos. Elsa lives in New York, Anne-Sarah is currently visiting New York. I had been corresponding with both of them a couple weeks ago, and since mentioning to each that I'd be in New York this weekend, neither one has responded. This has seemed to be my luck lately, in a general sense. I write to people and they don't write back at all. Oh well, what can I say, if they haven't thought to write back, then it's probably not really worth my time to go see them, I'll just keep doing my thing here in Philly. Finally, my third reason for staying in Philly this weekend is that my dad has offered to help me pick-up a television stand from Ikea, on which I'll put my new, pre-owned television. I'll also need to buy a digital converter box and an antenna, and then I'll be set to watch football. I've effectively not had television (other than to watch dvd's) for the past three months or so (whenever the digital transition took place). Now that it's starting to get dark early, with the coming of autumn, the nights have seemed just a bit darker and lonelier lately. The distraction of television and the accompanying illusion of other human voices in my apartment will be comforting. Not to mention, watching football is one of my true and simple pleasures in life.

The Baby

2009-09-09T22:54:00.002-04:00

I have two cats: Rocky and the Baby. Earlier this summer, when I took both of them to a veterinarian appointment, the vet noticed that the Baby had a lump on the back of her tongue. It was a raised whitish bump about the size of a Tums. Earlier tonight, when the Baby came out from underneath the bed (as she eventually does every night when I come home from work), I picked her up to pet her and to clean out her eyes (as I usually do, because they always have eye gunk collected at the corner of each eye). I noticed that she had dried blood in one of her nostrils. After I cleaned it up, it seemed that there was blood still inside her mouth. I held her for a few minutes, and she was content as always. So I just let her run around the apartment for a while with Rocky. Now, only a minute ago, I come into the bedroom to find that several streaks of blood are on her coat, indicating that she must've been licking her coat with a bloody tongue. I forced open her mouth to examine the back of her tongue, and it looks the same as it has for the past couple months. So I'm not sure what's going on. I just pray to God that it's nothing serious and that she's as healthy as she has been. On a positive note, she's acting as she always does. I'll say a prayer for her tonight when I go to bed.

Samsara

2009-09-07T22:39:00.002-04:00

I feel like I'm stuck in a samsaric cycle, living the same general series of events over and over again. Every job I take is a temporary job, destined to end after a few weeks or months, just as every relationship I begin is a temporary relationship, similarly destined to end after a few weeks or months. After a lively Saturday night on the town, from dinner at Parc, to drinks at Oscar's, Continental Midtown, then down to Old City for drinks at Cuba Libre and Bleu Martini, the rest of my weekend was spent mostly in bed or on the couch, in a frozen stupor, not wanting to get up or get out because to do so would require energy that wouldn't change things anyway. It was a minor period of depression, of course, which looked at objectively is pretty silly, but it happened nonetheless. Oh well, knowing myself, I know that the stable framework and forced interaction of work is a good thing, and I look forward to that tomorrow. I try to step back from my situation, and I remind myself that my life is much better than it was when I was in law school; at least now I have an income and decent savings to fall back on if necessary. For whatever its evils, it's nice to have at least enough money to happily blow-off on a weekend night, and not feel too guilty about it. I'm also pleased with the fact that my evenings and weekends are free from bullshit homework and the resulting anxiety from not feeling sure if I remembered anything of what I just read and thus feeling exposed to potential embarassment in class. So yeah, life is not too bad now compared to my three years of law school. But life is more than avoiding embarassment or having a few bucks to blow. And so I'm back where I begin my thoughts: with the eerie feeling of living in a samsaric cycle, wondering when it will end. I have faith that I made the right decisions when it came to past relationships and, for the most part, I have generally steady faith that things will develop naturally. But on a weekend like this one, where my physical hangover and psychological malaise that resulted from a very drunken Saturday night prevented me, or at least discouraged me, from going out, and thus cubbyholed me in my overly self-reflective thoughts, my faith seemed to waver enough for me to notice and feel a little worried. But hey, what can I do? At least I wrote about it to get it off my chest. After an unproductive Labor Day, I'm ironically looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow, with hopes that this project will be rolled-over into another one.

Healthcare now

2009-09-02T00:00:00.002-04:00

Squinting his eyes while gazing into the distance,
he thought back to the days of the Pistons:
when Detroit was strong, and days seemed long,
and his wages didn't seem like a pittance.
But now the plant is closed, and so his home is foreclosed,
and all his dreams are nothing but wishes.
To add one more line to this pitiful rhyme:
his efforts at healthcare are fiercely opposed
by forces that seem kinda vicious.

Movietime

2009-07-23T17:01:00.006-04:00

It's another overcast and relatively cool day for July in Philly. I played with the idea of pulling an all-nighter last night, just for the hell of it, but I ultimately decided against it around 6 in the morning. So, as one might guess, I slept in until 3pm this afternoon. The day is totally lost, which I'm only slightly bitter about.

For the past half-hour, I've been catching-up on washing dishes. And for some reason I got to thinking about Cherise, and about how I still harbor some bitterness from flying all the way out to San Diego in order to spend only 8 hours on Valentine's Day with Cherise, and how all I got at the end of the day was a weak kiss on the lips -- the kind of kiss that a grandmother would give to her grandchild. It was total bullshit. But I realize that I needed that in order to feel convinced that, despite anything Cherise says or does, she simply does not love me. And I need to move on from her. For the most part, I've done that. But on occasions like the one just now, while washing the dishes, that bitterness bubbles to the surface. It's as much anger directed toward her -- for having strung me along for so long, for not having the dignity to admit her lack of love for me and thus for not having the courage to end our relationship years ago; as much as it's anger also directed at myself -- at my own ignorance, self-imposed much of the time, that allowed me to continue in an unfulfilling and fruitless relationship, all for the love of a body and an image. Oh well, it's all part of living and learning, I guess.

Recently Cherise will periodically "poke" me on facebook, but I always remove the "poke" instead of responding to it. If she has something to say to me, she can write it in an email or pick-up the phone and call me. If she merely wants to provoke the attention of a guy who fucked her for four years, then she's wasting her time. I'm much more interested in the girls that I know now and any girl that I may meet tomorrow.

Well, that's all the venting that I'm gonna do today. It was on my mind, so I figured that I would spill it out here. And, you know what, I feel better for getting it out.

As a postscript, the title to this post refers to the fact that I'm gonna watch "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" in just a little bit. I hope its good.

Red, red wine

2009-07-23T00:30:00.000-04:00

Last night I finished the book "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway. It was a good book about American and British expatriates in Paris who decide to take a trip to Pamplona, Spain for las fiestas sanfermines, or more popularly, the running of the bulls. Much of the book's action took place in cafes and bars. For that reason, when Julie suggested that we go out for Center City Sips tonight, I told her that I wanted to go to a Hemingway-esque place. We settled on Caribou Cafe, on Walnut Street between 11th & 12th. If you've never been there, the place does a very nice job of recreating a typical Parisian bistro, down to the wicker chairs and "black cat" posters. I drank three red sangrias there. After the first one, I told the waitress to bring the next one without any ice; I knew what I was there for. From Caribou, we walked up Walnut to Rum Bar, where we met Wagner and the girl he's been dating for a couple months, Adrianna. They were there with several of Adrianna's ballerina friends. I drank two red wines, Cabernet Sauvignon, I think. After that I was feeling "pretty tight" (to use a phrase from "The Sun Also Rises"). So, after talking politics and law school with Maggie, an attractive 25 year-old girl who was friends with Adrianna, I suggested to Julie that we take a walk to the park. In Rittenhouse, we found a comfortable spot on the grass to lay down and look up at the one star visible in the city's nighttime sky. It was pretty relaxing. A little while later Wagner and Adrianna found us and we all stood up to talk. Adrianna showed us her two tattoos; I showed-off mine. Those guys took off and Julie and I came back to my place to hang out while I warmed up some spaghetti for dinner. I finished it off with a nice salad of greens, tomatoes, dried cranberries, and crumbled goat cheese. Now, since walking Julie home and then returning back to the double-deuce & Spruce earlier, I've been wasting time on the internet all night long. Only now did I decide to post something on the blog. Although I'm vaguely tired, I'm not in the mood to go to bed. That may not make any sense, but I guess I'm in an obscurely restless mood tonight. With coffee earlier today and a lot of wine later in the evening, along with meeting friends, I felt a bit like Jake Barnes, the protagonist in "The Sun Also Rises." It was a good night.

Overcast

2009-07-21T16:29:00.005-04:00

It's overcast and cool in Philly today. I vaguely remember waking up earlier this morning to a healthy rainshower, heard through the windows I leave open for most of the spring-summer-fall. That was probably around 8 or 9am, the time that most everyone else was getting ready and on their way to work. I rolled over in bed and fell back to sleep.

I just got done reading a chapter of "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway. I sat in the reclining chair near the living-room window. For some reason there was an occasional smell of peaches, but not the smell from the actual fruit, it was the smell you'd associate with the peaches-and-cream flavor of Quaker oatmeal. I enjoyed the smell, despite being perplexed at its unknown source.

This past weekend was pretty good. Being temporarily unemployed (or, as my friend Julie calls it: "funemployed"), I decided to take advantage of the free time and take a trip that I haven't done for well over half a decade (as my friend Corey reminded me last week): south to DC and Baltimore. On Friday late afternoon, I walked to 30th Street Station to catch an Amtrak heading to DC. It was a two-hour ride that was pretty pleasant. Somewhere between Wilmington and Baltimore, I started talking to the girl sitting next to me. She was on her way from her Central Park apartment to visit her parents in Phoenix, Maryland, about 45 minutes north of Baltimore, on their multiacre property; she needed to recharge in the peace and quiet of the countryside. We wished each other a nice weekend as she got off the train at Baltimore.

Arriving in Union Station in DC, I was very impressed with the size, architecture, and quality of shops in the station. Philly's 30th Street Station has amazing architecture, but does not come anywhere close to rivaling Union Station's commercial appeal. Mike eventually met me in the food court, where I was eating some rice and bourbon chicken for dinner.

We took the metro to U Street, our destination for the night. We went to Marvin's, Saint-Etas, Gate 54, and Black Cat. My favorite spot, by far, was Gate 54. It had the feeling of an old World War I bunker, complete with street signs and war paraphernalia on the walls. The fact that it was underground and dimly lit gave it a sense of coziness. And the dj really set things right by playing a lot of Motown before eventually transitioning to some old school, jazz-influenced hip-hop. The whole scene brought me back to my early days in Philly, and my favorite spot of all-time: Soma, which no longer exists. I may be going back to DC more frequently, if for no other reason than to soak up the positive, nostalgic vibe that I get at Gate 54.

Saturday, Mike and I went to downtown Silver Spring for lunch. Then, after stopping back at his place shortly, we hit the road to Baltimore. After patiently hunting down a parking spot near the corner of Charles and Chase streets, we walked to the Metro Art Gallery, where Evan's brother Ryan was playing a gig with his band, Rain the Shining. Mike and I had only missed two songs by the time we got there. The gig was part of the larger event: Artscape. Walking to the gallery, there were tons of artists' booths and displays, and tons of pedestrians crowding Charles Street, which was blocked-off to traffic. The weather was clear and low-humidity; it was perfect.

After the show, we got a jerk chicken dinner from a food vendor under a tent. Then, we drove to Bourbon Street, a club on Guilford Street in Baltimore. We hung out there for the rest of the night, on the roofdeck. I talked to several people over the course of the night. At one point an attractive girl, whose name I later got to be Alexa, walked by, so I waved at her, she said I was "hot," so I waved her over to me, she came directly up to me and we spontaneously exchanged a warm hug; she gave me her phone number without me even asking, and she told me to meet her later at some bar in Towson.

Despite the invitation, and our initial plan to do late-night in Baltimore, Mike and I decided to take the plunge and just drive back to Philly right then, at around 3 in the morning. We drove north up Charles Street, passing through Loyola College (prompting me to send a late-night text to Jess Lauria), and eventually getting on to 695, then on to 95-North. We stopped once at a rest stop to get a large coffee, our fuel to make it the rest of the way back to the double-deuce & Spruce. We finally arrived at around 5am. But I couldn't fall asleep for at least a couple hours, probably because of the caffeine still coursing through my veins.

The rest of the weekend was typical: coffee at La Colombe, hanging out in Rittenhouse Square, going to church at St. Patrick's (Mike joined me for that). So that's that. Now my sleep schedule is still messed up, but I'm trying to get back on track. It was a good weekend and thus totally worth it.

Injuries -- new and old

2009-07-17T14:08:00.004-04:00

I hurt my back playing tennis with Priscilla about a month ago. It still hasn't healed completely. When I went in for my yearly physical exam with the doctor a couple weeks ago, I mentioned it to the doctor. He told me it was probably a pulled ligament or muscle in my lower back. He gave me a worksheet with some lumbar stretching exercises, which I have still yet to do. A side effect of the back injury is that I haven't gone to the gym more than a couple times in the past month. So I've lost a few pounds of muscle that I would normally have maintained. I've resolved to start going to the gym on a regular basis again, in spite of the back. If I have to do a lighter work-out, it's still better than nothing.

Another side effect of the back injury is that I haven't played tennis since the evening that I hurt it. I had started getting pretty good, finally learning how to serve and developing a pretty good back-hand stroke with a little bit of back-spin on it. Not playing has also, I believe, affected the dynamic of spending time with Priscilla; before hurting my back, we were playing about once a week. It was a nice way to spend time together and have fun, especially doing something that's an important part of her life. There are deeper issues affecting our dynamic, but I'm aware of the fact that not playing tennis has been a loss. Oh well, I do believe that things happen for a reason. In the end I just pray to God that my back eventually heals completely, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Finally, since I've now resurrected this blog, I've felt a strange compulsion to express this final thought -- apparently picking-up where I had left off several months ago -- I'm really pleased that my short relationship with Diana came to an end. The reaction of her friend, Yadira, even more than Diana's own reaction, exposed to me the truth that I would not want to be part of that circle. It simply wasn't meant to be, and I accept that unequivocally. I expect that they would say the same thing about me, and that's just fine with me. I wish Diana the best, but I'm content to leave that experience behind as a lesson learned: be slow, cautious, and methodical when starting a relationship with a girl, even if it means being conservative about expressing my feelings, until time passes and the relationship solidifies over the course of shared experiences.

Enough said for today . . . I hope you enjoy the video below for "Panic Switch." I heard the song on Radio 104.5 not too long ago, and I pumped up the volume and bass to enjoy it.

Panic Switch

2009-07-16T21:59:00.002-04:00

This is one of my favorite new songs, "Panic Switch" by Silversun Pickups. It has a really cool vibe, somehow it conveys smug self-pity while simultaneously conveying a certain rebellious coolness. That probably doesn't make any sense to you, but that's my best attempt at describing what I get from the song.

Also, I love the video because of the drummer. I think the drumming in the song is really good. And (as the comments on Youtube note), the drummer looks like Animal from the Muppet Show.

Enjoy:

Email to Pito

2009-07-16T19:18:00.001-04:00

A couple days ago I called every single legal staffing agency in the city. Yesterday I had a registration interview with one of them. And a guy at another agency told me that he has a couple projects slated to begin in early August, although he gives preference to people who have previously been employed through his agency. I'm hooked back in to unemployment compensation, and having already called in my first claim, I should receive my first payment by this coming Monday. Today I went in for a visit to PLA; it always makes me feel good to be received so well by so many people; I don't think there's any better place for that than PLA, so it was really nice. To take advantage of the free time, I'm very likely heading down to DC tomorrow to hang out with Mike from Gettysburg, then going to Ellicott City / Baltimore on Saturday to finally see Evan's house. As Corey reminded me, it's been well over half a decade since I've been down that way, so I'm definitely overdue for a trip, considering the number of times that Mike and Evan have each visited me here in Philly. I may take you up on the pool offer some time after that. I hope things are going well in Newark and Levittown. In the meantime, stay healthy and consider doing something off the beaten path this weekend, it would be good for you.

Email to Pito

2009-07-07T18:24:00.001-04:00

Well, about an hour after that last email I sent to you, one of the associates came down to tell us that the case had settled, which of course meant that the project was over. And then last week I got the email that my score was not high enough on the FSOT. I was surprised, but not shocked: the competition is much higher with so many people flocking to recession-proof government jobs. I'm not sure if I'll even bother to request the score breakdown, but I imagine it was my honesty on the biographical section (e.g., I don't volunteer, I don't usually stay late at work, I haven't taken courses to improve my skills) that brought down my score just low enough. Oh well. I'm not too disappointed because I was lukewarm about the idea when I really let myself think about it; the effect on the future of my personal life was a real consideration weighing against the idea. Getting pinkeye a couple nights ago has kept me from going out at all, including to the gym. So I'm trying to clean my apartment, which I'm convinced I'm allergic to, with all the cat hair, mold, etc. Everything else is pretty good, though, so despite the vague depression of being home all the time, it's all good in the hood.

Email to Pito

2009-06-26T14:08:00.000-04:00

I stayed at work until 9:30 last night in order to meet a deadline. Fortunately the project has continued to provide a source of employment and income, and with the outlook looking good, hopefully it lasts for a while longer. Last Friday night in Hoboken was a fun time. Paul was non-existent once we were out at the bar, he drank a lot of shots in honor of his own birthday. That's why I made sure that Corey was gonna be around. I met him at Penn Station and from there the two of us took the Path to Hoboken. We stayed at one bar all night, and by the end of the night, we had talked to every group of girls in the place, no exaggeration. I even met a group of really attractive girls from Ramsey. Tonight I'm thinking of going to the Femi Kuti concert at World Cafe Live, but it'll be a game-time decision. Besides that, I'm gonna work a bunch of hours this weekend. I have the movies Into the Wild and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button waiting for me to watch at some point, maybe I'll watch one or both this weekend. Hope you get a chance to get out on the bike this weekend, since the rain may stay away. Consider my three ideas or to hell with them, but you don't need me to tell you that.

Email to Pito

2009-06-19T14:34:00.000-04:00

Hey sorry for the late email this week. Along the same lines, my father's day card for you will likely be a day late in the mail, but keep an eye out for it just the same. Last weekend was pretty good, Evan came in on Saturday afternoon and we played two hours of basketball at the courts at the end of Spruce Street. Then we drove to Cinnaminson for Bill's daughter's first birthday party. We drove back in to Philly to pick-up Corey at his favorite coffeeshop, after he'd taken the bus down from New York, and the three of us had a fun night on the town. I'm leaving directly from work today to head up to Hoboken to celebrate Paul's birthday, should be a fun time. Just to give you a heads-up, in case you wanna make sure you're not around, Jess may try to visit you on Sunday. She and I have wondered why you don't communicate with us. Well, have a great weekend! Hopefully it doesn't rain too much!

Email to Pito

2009-06-10T18:00:00.000-04:00

Hey, hopefully you had a nice weekend and things are going well. Yesterday I took the foreign service officer test at the Community College of Philadelphia; it lasted three hours. Despite minimal preparation (some practice questions), I think I did pretty well; I'll get the results in about a month. The true test will be the oral exam, which is brutal and which very few people pass. I played tennis for two hours this past Saturday, was taught how to serve, my fifth try was actually an ace. I'm playing again this evening after work, hopefully my game continues to improve. Jessica and I have been wondering why you don't communicate with us. Hope you're healthy and happy. Take care.

Email to Pito

2009-06-04T17:19:00.000-04:00

Hey, hope that June started out well for you. This weekend should be good. Evan comes in for a visit tomorrow night with his wife Amy. Evan's younger cousin is celebrating her 21st birthday in Philly, so we're all going out to support the festivities. I'll probably play tennis on Saturday; it'll be the fourth time in the past two months. Stay resolute with the cold turkey decision. Have a great weekend!

Email to Pito

2009-05-27T13:05:00.002-04:00

Hey, I hope you had a nice Memorial Day weekend. I enjoyed a long weekend down along the Gulf Coast: flew in to Tampa, drove up the coast and across the panhandle to Panama City Beach, drove back to Tampa to party and hit the beach at Clearwater. I'm glad to hear that you quit cold turkey, keep it up!

Checkin' back in

2009-03-10T19:03:00.002-04:00

Hey folks, how's it going? Here's the deal: for at least the past month I've had to come to the coffeeshop in order to connect to internet, and that's the reason I haven't been posting too much.

Things have been pretty chill, still working on that project in a Center City firm, but wondering how much longer that's gonna last, hoping that it lasts until the end of March, if I'm a lucky duck. But just this past Saturday I officially submitted my online registration for what would be a career track; I applied to take the foreign service officer test. I'll sit for the exam this June, and depending on how well I do, I'll likely be asked two or three months after that to go to Washington, D.C. to take the oral exam. By the beginning of 2010, there's a decent chance that I'll be working in a foreign country. So keep your fingers crossed for me, thanks!

This past Saturday night, Corey and Evan came into town to visit me. The brief run-down of where we went (purely for the purposes of my own recollection) was: Sidecar, Ten Stone, Parc, Alfa, and Denim. Needless to say, that last place should trigger the correct guess that it was a late night; didn't get back to the double-deuce until somewhere around 4am. Although I did a vodka shot at Ten Stone and an Irish car bomb shot at Alfa, I wasn't completely out of my brain; I can say with confidence, though, that I was feeling pretty toasty by the end of our long evening.

Well, the other nice thing about this past weekend was that the weather was pretty nice: our first real taste of spring with temps near 70 on Saturday. Corey got into 30th Street Station at 2:30pm, and after I dropped-off some groceries from Trader Joe's, we walked over to Rittenhouse Square to enjoy the sight of all the passers-by, especially the females. We sat there for a while, enjoying the weather and generally catching up. I suggested that we take a walk down Walnut Street, and as we were leaving the park, I heard my name; it was Teresa, my friend from Friends of Farmworkers. I haven't seen Teresa for at least a couple of years, so it was cool to see her and catch up; her future mother-in-law, as she claimed, was flying in from Puerto Rico early that evening, and she was just hanging out eating a salad before she had to catch the R1 to the airport.

Anyway, I really oughtta get going home now. I'm representing one of my clients at a child support hearing tomorrow morning and I need to go home to eat dinner and do some final, last-minute prep for the hearing. The feeling I get the night before a hearing, and as I go to it, are very similar to the hyped-up feelings I got before football games in high school and college; there's a certain acute awareness that's part adrenaline rush and part psychological coming-into-focus for the big event. As much as I didn't want to represent this guy at tomorrow's hearing (because, in my estimation, this will likely be my first-ever true loser of a case), I'm happy for the primed feeling that I'm already starting to feel. Oh well, if I can possibly get back in here sooner than a month from now, I'll let you know how it goes. Peace out, friendly readers, and I hope all is well in your corner of the world!

Whoa, look who it is!!!

2009-02-08T17:11:00.003-05:00

It's been a lil while, huh? Well, let's catch-up. Since my last post, not too much has been going on. I've been working ridiculous hours, billing almost sixty hours per week. This leaves me with very little time, and usually even less energy to post anything on to the blog, or do anything on internet for that matter. On the extracurricular side, I've gone to a couple Temple men's basketball games, both of which they won. And I've gone out a couple random times to get a few beers. Speaking of which, I went out last night to meet up with Tobin (who I hope is pleased now that I've put up some new material) and two of his girl-friends at McGillin's, on Drury Street between 12th and 13th Streets, in the section of the city that certain people are now calling "Midtown Village." After working for a good chunk of my Saturday, I had enough energy left at the end of the day to drink three beers and have some good conversation with those guys. So what else is going on? I'm just focusing on working a lot (since there's a tentative end-date to this project), and thereby trying to make a bunch of dough. As I said last night, it really sucks that when I have lots of free time, I'm very money-conscious and I don't wanna do anything that isn't free, but when I'm acquiring greenbacks, I'm so busy or tired that I don't wanna do anything other than rest up, or try to catch up on the invariably neverending list of personal things to do. On that topic, I'm in the coffeeshop right now, about to make some more progress on some online registrations. So in the interest of actually making that progress, I'm gonna end this post here. I promise that I'll try to post weekly. In the meantime, live long and prosper!

Positivity

2009-01-13T19:27:00.003-05:00

"Life comes in phases, take the good with the bad."
"Sometimes life, it seems to stall, but never be ungrateful, y'all."

A couple of quotes from songs by the Beastie Boys, arguably my favorite music group due to their playful humor, diversity of musical genres, and occasional bits of wisdom (such as the above) to be found as nuggets throughout their songs.

Anyone who's been keeping up with me lately knows that there has been a decent amount of negativity in my life lately, much of it admittedly brought on by myself. Hey, I never said I was perfect, and just as every single one of us (unless you're God) must do, there's always room for improvement and making progress.

And speaking of making progress, I was hired today to join a project at the Philadelphia offices of one of the 15 largest law firms in the world. I interviewed with one of their associates just yesterday, and today I got the good news that they want me on-board. Of course I said yes. As is the nature of these projects, there will be an end date. But that's not a bad thing by any measure. In emotional terms, it gives me some purpose on a day-to-day basis, and brings me into daily contact with other people; perhaps I'll even make some new friends. In financial terms, of course I'll be earning more by working than what I'd been receiving in unemployment benefits (as not insignificant as they - surprisingly - were), and even better than that I'll be making even more than I was making at the end of my last project. Looking at the bigger picture, though, the greatest benefit to this project is that it takes the edge off of the urgent pressure to fulfill one of my top two pre-eminent new year's resolutions: to begin a career track (the other resolution being to be a better communicator, as that has hurt too many people, including myself). Don't get me wrong, even though I got this job, there will continue to be a certain steady determination to begin a career track. I already have a good idea as to what I would like to pursue, i.e. where my unique skills and personality traits best suit me to work. At the superstititious risk of jinxing myself, though, I'll keep these dreams and aspirations in reserve until I at least begin to make more substantive progress in real, material terms to achieving those goals. As with any true resolution, I know that I have to consciously focus on making progress toward fulfilling the objective that the resolution represents.

Anyway, I'm here at Good Karma cafe, typing these very words, and hoping that I can begin to soak up some good karma. As I wrote in an email to my friend, Lisa, in Dubai, earlier this evening: the Eagles are feeding off of the cautious optimism of the city of Philadelphia, an optimism that is no longer dulled by cynicism as it was in the past, due to the Phillies' breaking the championship ice just a few months ago. The cynical, self-defeating edge to past optimism has been largely defused by the Phillies, so now there's just the good energy of truly "believing". Let's all root for the Eagles, and for the growth of that positivity in the city of brotherly love. E-A-G-L-E-S, go Eagles!!! And may we all turn the page to a positive, happy and healthy new year.

6.2 earthquake in Costa Rica

2009-01-11T01:46:00.005-05:00

Just this past Thursday, a 6.2 earthquake struck Costa Rica. The epicenter was located 10 kilometers east of Volcan Poas. My Tia Tere lives just a few miles from Poas. Fortunately I received an email from my cousin Yorlen yesterday saying that they had spoken with Tia Tere, and although there was a lot of structural damage to the homes and buildings where she lives, everyone was safe and sound, thank God. Yorlen said that in San Jose, the capital city (where she lives), the earthquake felt strong and lasted a long time.

Last time I checked on the website of La Nacion, there are at least 15 dead and over 100 people missing as a result of the earthquake. Several people, including a couple of tourists, died at a waterfall: Catarata La Paz. Last time I was in Costa Rica, in August 2007, we drove past that waterfall through some really treacherously winding roads through the mountains of la Cordillera Central. I can only try to imagine what it must have been like to be there at the time of a strong earthquake; the roads are scary enough when the ground is still.

In fact, here's a photo of my Tia Sula standing in front of Catarata La Paz, August 2007:

Please keep the people of Costa Rica in your prayers; may God save those who are missing, pray that they are found alive.

Books and quotations

2009-01-10T16:52:00.004-05:00

I'm reading the book Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein. I'm almost halfway done right now. It's not a particularly well-written book, if compared to Hemingway or Baldwin or Morrison or Dos Passos or numerous other well-acclaimed authors. But the book is serving its purpose. There is a suspenseful plot that keeps me turning the pages and it's a nice escape from everyday life. After recently reading a heavy history book, this is exactly what the doctor ordered.

I'm not too sure yet what I want to read next. Not that I have to decide for about another week, but right now I'm leaning toward either non-fiction regarding immigration issues, or some philosophy by Marcuse, or more likely than not, another good fiction work, probably a classic, like something by Cather. We'll see; I'll keep you posted.

Now, some random quotations from books that I've previously read:

"I think that humans are the products of struggles and difficulties, that problems gradually mold a person in the same way that a lathe shapes a piece of material -- in this case, the matter and spirit of a human being." -- Fidel Castro, Fidel: My Early Years

"When do we say that a man has put his life in order? It is when he has achieved an understanding of his life and conformed his conduct to what he believes to be true." -- Albert Camus, Between Hell and Reason: Essays from the Resistance Newspaper Combat, 1944-1947

"don't try to cloud my healthy eye with your melancholy breath!" -- Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

"Each of us must be tempered in some fire. Nobody had more to do with choosing the fire that tempered me than myself, and instead of finding fault with the fire I give thanks that I had the metal to take the temper and hold it." -- Jack Black, You Can't Win

"Man lives only to learn. And if he learns it is because that is the nature of his lot, for good or bad." -- Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

Ridiculous

2009-01-10T03:03:00.003-05:00

Reality television can really suck you in because there's always a lot of drama. But usually after watching a couple episodes in a row, you feel dumber for having watched it. That's how this whole situation has become. This is my last post on this topic, because it has gotten past the point of ridiculous.

To lie: to make a statement that one knows is false, esp. with intent to deceive. Keep this definition, straight from Webster's Dictionary, in mind as you read the following.

From the time I met Diana until I returned from my trip, I made statements based on how I felt at the time: Diana was a fun girl, she showed me a lot of attention, and we seemed to have a connection. I emailed her every single day during my trip to southeast Asia. Did I have to do that? Not at all. As the cliche goes, actions speak louder than words. During a trip to the other side of the world, where every minute of my time was precious, where I could be doing plenty of other things, every single day I emailed Diana. And not only that, but I called her on the telephone from southeast Asia more than I called my own family. Don't anyone dare call me a liar.

From the moment I met Diana until well past my birthday into mid-December, I did not kiss another girl, I did not so much as touch another girl. Again, actions speak louder than words. I respected and cared for Diana so much that I remained faithful to her for every minute of our undefined and short-lived relationship. I have nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of. So don't anyone dare call me a liar.

Part of living life means sometimes trying to figure out how you feel, even when you can't put your finger on what it is that's making you doubt or feel ambiguous. At some point toward the end of my trip (I cannot pinpoint the exact date), I began to have doubts about my relationship with Diana. Am I allowed to have doubts? Am I allowed to change my mind? I'm human, so of course I am. Any mature person understands this.

Unfortunately, after returning home, by around Thanksgiving, I had come to the conclusion that my doubts about Diana were just too big to ignore; and I knew that I had to back out of the relationship, I tried to do that as gently and respectfully as possible. Because I respected and cared for Diana, I did my best not to hurt her, although there was obviously no way to avoid all hurt.

Do I feel badly that I changed my mind? Yes, because I hurt her, but No, because I know that I made the right decision. I never wanted to hurt anyone, and I never did so intentionally. If there was one mistake that I made, it was coming on too strong out of the gate. This is precisely the mistake that is causing all the caustic reactions on the part of Diana. The bottom line is that I created expectations that far exceeded what reality ended up being. For that, I sincerely apologize. It's a mistake that I know I must learn from.

Finally, I just want to address two points that Diana mentioned in a recent text message. First, her accusation that I lied to myself all along. That is absolutely not true. This would be a good time, dear reader, to refer to the definition of lie above. From beginning to end, I was honest with myself. When I felt very optimistic that the relationship was good, I expressed those feelings openly and honestly with Diana. Towards the end of the trip, when doubts started creeping in, I talked about them openly and honestly with my good friend Paul, with whom I was traveling. And when I came back and realized that those doubts became substantiated, I changed the way I was expressing myself to honestly reflect the way I was feeling: I was not going to lead-on Diana any more than I already unintentionally had. I never made any false statements to myself, nor did I ever make any false statements to Diana.

Second, Diana asked me how she has been immature in all this. I'll answer this question by giving an example from Diana's own life to illustrate. [deleted at the request of a reader].

And just as Diana went through a period of self-reflection [deleted at the request of a reader], that is just what I've done here: I went through a process of figuring out my feelings for Diana, and I made a decision to stop continuing a relationship with her. The difference with me, though: I never cheated on her. I never lied to her. I never lied to myself.

As far as all the juvenile insults flung at me by Diana's friend, they rolled right off my back. They don't even warrant a response.

I'm now done airing my dirty laundry. Look forward to future posts about football, travel, comical stories about my friends, and other nonsense. Thanks for checking in, friends!

Love hurts

2009-01-07T15:57:00.006-05:00

Man, love really can cut both ways. Any time you give your heart to someone, you are taking a risk, whether you realize it or not, that the person to whom you are giving your heart is giving you their heart in return and that they will continue to do so. Even if you are married, don't take love for granted, because as one of my close friends just realized -- his wife left him to re-live a youth that she never really lived in the first place -- nothing is guaranteed in this life, nothing.

I couldn't sleep last night because I wanted to post my thoughts on Diana. I almost got out of bed at around 3am, but then I decided that I would just write about it today. As fate would have it, she and I chatted on IM earlier today.

A certain degree of guilt regarding Diana is what kept me up for a little while last night. I know that she's hurt by the fact that I did a complete about-face in my relationship with her. Throughout my time with her, I acted authentically, based on how I felt at the time. I did not intend that -- nor could I foresee how -- the trip would make me begin to realize certain things that would make me reconsider my relationship with her.

The real time of transition in our relationship was my first week back in Philadelphia after my return from southeast Asia at the end of November up until my birthday on December 5th. That process consisted entirely of realizing that I could not and did not want to pursue a relationship with Diana. There were certain things about her that I began to reflect on as a result of long conversations with Paul during the trip and also within my own head both during and immediately after my trip. The conclusion that I had to pause that relationship, if not stop it altogether, was reached independent of any outside influence.

It was not until after my birthday that I even began to consider anything serious with Cherise. To be unequivocally clear then: there was no overlap between Diana and Cherise in any way, shape, or form. Although I can understand from a third-person's perspective that the timing appears conveniently close, there is no connection.

I remember on my birthday that part of me wanted Diana to join me and my friends, but ultimately my true inclination was that I was still struggling with how to most gently and respectfully let her down and back off the relationship, so I didn't really want to see her on what was meant to be a fun night for me.

In our IM chat earlier today, Diana accused me of lying to her. Yet she did not and has never offered any example of when I actually lied to her. And the fact of the matter is that I never lied to her. I understand that she's saying that in an attempt to convince herself that I'm a bad guy. Although I undoubtedly hurt her by failing to live up to the expectations which I myself had played a part in setting up, I never lied. Once I realized that there were seeds of doubt and discontent on my part, I talked about them openly with one of my best friends. And I took the time to deliberate within my own head what the best course of action would be. Once I came back to Philly and saw Diana, my thoughts coalesced, and I quickly realized that the relationship was over for me. So I began delicately backing out, doing my best to do so respectfully. I didn't mention anything about Cherise, because she had nothing to do with it (in fact, Cherise would later complain that I didn't contact her when I got back from my trip, which is very true, because my complete attention was focused on Diana and how to slowly back out of that situation).

I'm legitimately angry and offended that Diana has accused me of lying. I'm a very honorable person (that's part of why I became a lawyer) and I demand truth from everyone around me as much as I'm truthful to everyone in my life, sometimes to a fault. So for someone to accuse me of lying is a major insult to me. Diana, if you read this, let's hear one concrete example of when I've lied to you.

I would truly like to clear the air with Diana and begin the new year as civil, mutually respectful acquaintances, if not friends. But to the extent that she continues to exhibit her immaturity through baseless accusations, I become less and less inclined to deal with such a person -- I simply have enough problems to deal with that I don't need more negativity piled on.

I'm observant and aware enough to realize that the end of my relationship with Diana, in combination with the competition that Cherise intentionally threw in my face at the end of the month, impelled me to assert myself toward Cherise much more than I would have otherwise done. Is that such a bad thing if I've loved Cherise all this time, despite trying to bury it or ignore it, and if Cherise still loves me too? I don't think so.

Sooner or later I would have come to the conclusion that I should not pursue a relationship with Diana, regardless of anything and everything and everyone else. Looking objectively at my purpose in her life, I think I was meant to help her break up with her ex-boyfriend, with whom she was mired in a stagnant and unfulfilling relationship.

I feel sorry for hurting her and for letting her down. But I was honest at every step of the way, from the beginning when things were fresh to the end when I realized that it just wasn't right. Although I certainly feel sorry for hurting Diana's feelings, I cannot be sorry for being honest with myself and with those effected by me.

A lil lighter

2009-01-03T17:56:00.003-05:00

The last two posts have been on the heavy side. New Year's Eve was as terrible as I thought it would be, despite going out with a friend of mine to a local watering hole. But hey, that was '08; that's old news.

It's a new year, and that means turning over a new leaf, at least in terms of outlook and attitude. I've resolved to be a better communicator, keeping in more frequent contact with my family and friends. The one positive that I can take from all the negative of the past week or so is the realization that when times get rough, I will oftentimes retreat within myself. And that a lot of what happened recently is a direct result of failing to communicate my feelings during a time of separation. Cherise lost a lot of faith in me because, as far as she could see through her eyes, I basically abandoned her; all she could naturally assume was that I didn't really care about her too much. And believe me, this exact same paradigm has definitely affected my relationships with my family and friends. I want to change this, and I hope to God that this is the year that I can make that change. I want to foster better relationships with my family and close friends, and as far as Cherise, I will make sure to keep in touch, and take comfort in the fact that whatever will happen, will indeed happen.

I went to the gym earlier today. This was my third visit in four days, but before that I hadn't gone since October 31st. The gym is a good way to blow off steam and I know that it makes me feel good when I'm in good shape. I'm gonna keep that up consistently, as I always did before my trip to southeast Asia. Knowing myself as I do, I should be close to good form in about two weeks. By the end of the month, I should be lifting close to my max weight.

A funny thing, though, from the gym earlier today. The radio was broken, so there was complete silence. Well, at least until a tough guy came down to use the squat rack, and began screaming at himself at the end of every set. This kind of thing reminded me of my college weight room. For those that don't know, I played football in high school and college. So being around my teammates, I was exposed to the archetypal meathead, and it always made me laugh when they screamed in the weight room. And for some reason, it's almost always during squats. Great stuff.

Well, that's all I feel like posting today. Speaking of football, I wanna get home soon to watch the NFL wild-card playoff games.

Here's to a healthy and happy '09. Cheers!

Follow-up

2008-12-31T01:15:00.003-05:00

I feel like I should follow-up on last night's post to clarify what's going on and so as not to put anyone in an unfair light. Here's the recent history of Cherise and me:

A little over three months ago, Cherise came to Lancaster for a three-month contract that was to end today, December 30th. Before she got here I remember thinking to myself that I was interested to see her, since I hadn't seen her face-to-face since March 2007: a year and a half ago. During that interval we did keep in touch, admittedly most of the time because she would reach out to me, and not as often the other way around.

A significant point in our time apart was just this past June, on her birthday. I was working at the time, but there was a lot of downtime that day. I spent the whole day thinking about her, and I made a list of the things about her that make me love her, along with a list of things that concern me as potential impediments to a future relationship. Of the latter, I didn't think that there was anything that couldn't be fixed or addressed, as long as we really committed to each other one day, namely in marriage. But at that time, Cherise was in the middle of a 7-month contract on a cruise ship around the world. So I never shared my thoughts with her.

Fast-forward to right before she got to Lancaster three months ago. I was at a point where I really wanted a relationship with someone. As I said, I was very interested and a bit excited to see Cherise, but I focused on keeping my expectations modest: I just wanted to see what my gut told me the moment I saw her face-to-face.

As fate would have it, only days before Cherise landed at Philadelphia International Airport, I went out one night on the town with my really good friend, Corey, and my sister, Jessica. That night I met a girl named Diana. My first impression was that I was really attracted to her. And after exchanging numbers that night we met, beginning the next day she showered me with attention. It was something that I really liked. Even besides that, I liked her for two big reasons: she lived in Philly and she spoke Spanish pretty well. Stepping back, I know that distance was the undoing of Cherise and me that led to me breaking up with her. And a part of me always wondered if my cultural background was so core to my sense of self that I needed to be with someone who was Latina or at least spoke Spanish.

Diana had entered the picture at a key moment. After several days of amazing attention from Diana, Cherise was flying into PHL, and she had asked me to meet her there, which I still very much wanted to do. For better or for worse, though, my mindset was not as open-minded as it would have been had I not met Diana. And this has implications for why I'm feeling so hurt that Cherise is refusing to spend New Year's Eve with me, and instead told me that she's not breaking plans that she made at least a month ago with a 25 year-old kid from New York (who she met, incidentally, years ago on a flight from Long Beach, California back to Philly to be with me).

For the first month that Cherise was here, I saw her two, maybe three, times. Each time I was very distant and aloof. My mind was on Diana. It's important to note, though, that Cherise asked me to consider moving out to Los Angeles to live and be with her; I rejected that idea out of hand. But the point is that she came to Lancaster to be near me and see if we could start a relationship again. The timing, unfortunately I would say, was off.

I did very little to reach out to Cherise from the time she got to Lancaster until Election Day, when I left on my three-week trip to southeast Asia: a whole month where I did little if anything to initiate communication, but instead focused on my blossoming relationship with Diana. I thought I was doing the right thing; I liked all the positive attention that I was getting and I was happy to reciprocate.

But, looking back, I think that knowing that I was leaving made me speed things up with Diana, where I really should've taken it much slower to be sure that I was beginning things with the right person. While I was in southeast Asia, I emailed Diana every single day of my trip. But certain thoughts and self-reflections, which I won't get into here, made me begin to realize, at the deepest levels within me, that I wasn't ready for or interested in a serious relationship with her. It took me returning to Philly, seeing Diana face-to-face again, and the first few days of downtime back here at home to really comprehend that I couldn't pursue a relationship with her. I felt terrible for that mistake, because I didn't want to hurt Diana, but I knew that I had to back out then, because I wasn't going to live a fraud.

I came back to Philly only a few days before Thanksgiving. I remember that I had mentioned to Cherise before she got here on the East Coast that she could spend Thanksgiving with my family; I remember that on Thanksgiving that I thought about her a lot, but I didn't invite her because I was too guilty since I was still in the difficult process of talking to Diana and expressing my change of heart to her. But deep down, I really wished that Cherise had been with me for Thanksgiving; that was probably a mistake on part to not be more communicative and invite her.

Only a week later I celebrated my birthday, on December 5th. Cherise was the very first person, among all my friends and family, to wish me a happy birthday. It made me feel happy to hear from her. Metaphorically, it was like she was knocking on the door again, and this time I was prepared and happy to begin slowly opening the door. We began talking and hanging out consistently from then until now. So of course long-buried feelings were uncovered, or at least I can say that for me they were (not to say that she didn't have feelings, but I'm trying to be careful not to make assumptions unless she explicitly said or did something).

So here's where I have to back-up. Early in her contract, Cherise tore her calf muscle. She didn't call me to tell me about it; and I was really calling her because I was busy with Diana. Since I didn't know what happened, I couldn't act on what I didn't know and show my caring and concern for her. But by that point she had already met some other guys, three that she told me of, that were showing her attention. Looking at this situation objectively, neither one of us was doing anything wrong; we were both single and we were seeing other people.

But I feel like Cherise is punishing me now for not being there for her at the beginning of her contract, even though we were both single and had no obligation to each other. And I think she loves me, but she'd prefer to be in a relationship that she has complete control over: she's 30 years old and surely has the control over the 25 year-old. And I think that stems from her fear of being hurt again by me: that I would let her down or break up with her again.

As it relates to my current predicament with Cherise, my timing with Diana was really unfortunate. But I say that it took that short relationship, and the opportunity to step back from the situation on my trip to southeast Asia, that made me begin to realize and even start to accept that I still love Cherise and that I'd like to spend the rest of my life with her. Can I be faulted for the events that led me to that conclusion? Should I be punished for coming to my senses? You tell me.

So here's how this created Cherise's rejection of me for New Year's Eve. Back at least a month ago, the 25 year-old kid asked Cherise to promise to spend New Year's Eve with him; she promised him that she would. She told me that she would not break her promise to him, especially since he made the effort to visit her when she was on crutches from the torn calf muscle and had visited her (at least one more time that I know of) while she was out in Lancaster.

This has totally broken my heart because the way I look at it, she's choosing him over me. But if I step back, she was single (and thus had no obligation to me) when she began spending time with him and made the promise to spend New Year's Eve with him. In an abstract sense, I really can't blame her honor for refusing to break a promise.

But here's the real problem: now I fear that I have no chance with her. I'm scared to take a risk to show her that I want to begin a committed, exclusive relationship with her, one that will eventually lead to marriage.

I did my best to overcome that fear by going out to Lancaster yesterday with a dozen long-stem red roses. And before she dropped me off at the Lancaster train station against my will, I showed her the gold necklace with the diamond charm that I wanted to give her as a Christmas gift. Although I showed her the necklace, I refused to give it to her, because I felt in the moment that she didn't deserve it; she was telling me to leave because she had plans later that night with someone else. As you can imagine, my imagination began to run amok. And I've been a mess ever since, sad and scared that I lost the chance to be with the woman that I love.

Cherise called me shortly after she had dropped me off to make sure that I was okay. Among other things she said in the short conversation, she told me to have faith. She didn't elaborate on what she meant by that. Then, this morning she sent me a text message saying "Good morning!" A couple hours later, I replied in a text message by saying "I miss you. I'm so sad, it hurts. I wish I was there to see you today." Only a few minutes later, she texted back: "Believe it or not. I miss you too!" And finally, I texted back a couple hours later: "I believe you. That's why we should see each other again while you're here." That was 5:18pm today, right around the time her final show was ending. I haven't heard back from her since.

I just tried calling her a few minutes ago, just before 2am here. She didn't answer and I didn't leave a message. I want her to see that I'm thinking about her, even if she's with someone else right now. In the past, my defensive mechanism is to shut down all lines of communication, refuse to reply to any communication initiated by her, and basically go AWOL. I'm trying to overcome that defensive mechanism because I know that our chances for a real relationship are running out. I know that I have to do my part to change past patterns if we are to start something new.

As much as I still really hurt, I'm somewhat resigned to the fact that Cherise will be with someone else for New Year's Eve. I really, truly hope, though, that she calls me tomorrow to say that she wants to be with me. But I'm not going to bank on it.

What I'm banking on is that she told me to have faith. Once she completes her promise to this guy, I need her to accept my offer to be faithful to her and I need her to promise to be faithful to me. She flies out on January 1st to San Diego for a three-month contract on a cruise ship there. I want to have an exclusive relationship with her beginning immediately when she goes out there. If she promises this to me, then I'll book a ticket right away to go to San Diego on the first flight that I can find. If she loves me, then she'll want a relationship with me, just as she expressed when she saw me again three months ago. As soon as we begin the exclusive relationship, I'll really focus on adding more money to my savings to buy a ring to propose to her before this time next year, if not much sooner.

My biggest fear here is that she'll say that she doesn't want to promise to be faithful or exclusive with me. I simply can't compete with other guys. I've been in the picture (in her life and in her heart, one way or another) for over five years, since September 20, 2003. She should know by now whether she wants to be married to me or not. I'm not going to compete with guys that just entered the picture a few months ago; I'm too tired for competition and I'm not so foolish to chase a woman who wants to play the field.

If she doesn't want to promise to be faithful or exclusive with me first thing after the new year, then I'll have to walk away.

Cherise, if you read this, and if you love me, then please let's just be together.

Bad episode

2008-12-30T02:47:00.003-05:00

I had a really bad night tonight. One of the worst nights that I've had in a long time.

I went to a bar to try to drink it off. Really immature, I know. But I just wanted to drink myself into a stupor. It didn't exactly work, as you can see since I'm still awake and typing into the blog right now. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised since I could barely sleep at all last night.

Earlier today, I went out to Lancaster to try to lay it all on the line for my ex-girlfriend. I've realized that I still really love her, and I'd like to spend the rest of my life with her. But she drove me against my will to the train station at the end of her first show, telling me that another guy was coming in at around 2am tonight to visit her. My heart was totally ripped to shreds. And to add injury upon injury, she insists that she has plans to be with another guy, a 25 year-old kid, on New Year's Eve.

I brought her 12 long-stem red roses to her show today. I guess it doesn't matter, though, when someone doesn't love you. I give up. I'm not going to compete against other guys, especially kids.

I pray to God that there is someone out there for me. Someone who will not push me away. Someone who will express her emotions to me. By that I mean: someone who will not turn cold on me at any hint of conflict or difficulty. I want someone who is affectionate toward me. Someone who loves me for my passion; not someone who makes fun of me for it.

I tried to drink myself into oblivion tonight; it didn't work. It's nearly 3am right now. I know that Cherise is with a guy right now. That guy is in her bedrooom right this very second. I wish I was drunk. I wish I could cease existing for the next week or so.

Tea with honey

2008-12-21T01:06:00.002-05:00

I'm drinking a cup of Salada tea with 100% desert Mesquite honey. The reason: I've been sick for the past couple of days. Though I think it's breaking now: yesterday was a lot of sneezing and a lot of clear, runny mucus; today was thicker mucus in the morning and now more of just a dry cough with a little congestion.

Why am I sick? Superficially, the yo-yo temperature changes on a day-to-day basis is not helpful. Also, on a few occasions over the past week (especially last Friday night on Washington Street in Hoboken and last Saturday night in Philly's Gayborhood), I was definitely under-dressed: wearing a blazer when I should've been wearing a winter coat.

In most cases, though, I could probably get away with all of that, being the healthy guy that I am. So the deeper reason for getting sick, I think, has to do with my primary frustration these days: being unemployed. I figured that I would've had a job by this amount of time after my SE Asia trip. But due to the bleak job market, and some unfortunate timing, I'm out of a job right before the holidays. The stress from this situation finally wore me down this past week. I had a lead that I thought would materialize this past Monday (in a meeting with JuriStaff), but it was an opportunity that faded quickly. To hit the nail on the head, I can say that the disappointment - and even anger and depression - that resulted from that let-down was the true cause of my cold.

Not unrelated, though, is another byproduct of my unemployment. Being without a job means spending an inordinate amount of time at home (i.e., all day everyday). Because I've never been so good at dusting around the apartment, I think my respiratory system is paying more of a price than usual, thus making me more susceptible to falling ill. So I dusted some (certainly not all) of the apartment earlier tonight. I hope to motivate myself to do some more dusting tomorrow.

So that's that. I'd appreciate any prayers or well wishes that you could send my way. But I feel better tonight than I did last night. Hopefully tomorrow will be the last day of feeling sick so that I can start fresh on Monday. Yesterday I just paid to re-join my gym, so I'd like to get in there on Monday for the first time since very early November. And I hope to start the new week with an eager and optimistic approach to getting a gig as soon as possible. And to have a generally happy state-of-being for the holidays.

For tonight I'll enjoy my tea with honey, which I just happened to finish right now!

Bottom of the bag

2008-12-20T16:45:00.003-05:00

Popcorn.

I've been eating it with my lunch for the past week.

Today I got to the bottom of the bag.

So I poured out almost all the remaining contents of the bag on to my plate.

A lot of small pieces of popcorn.

Very few intact, full pieces of popcorn.

In order to effectively eat it all, I simply pressed my tongue to the small pieces of popcorn on the plate so that they stuck to my tongue and I could eat them.

Bring back the home-cooked meal

2008-12-19T21:17:00.004-05:00

"Those most vulnerable to obesity are those who frequently eat out," said Gary Foster, head of the Obesity Research Center at Temple University.

I heard that statement while listening to a WHYY news report this morning on 90.1 FM. You can hear the entire news clip by clicking HERE and scrolling down to the headline "Restaurant menus must have labels" with the December 18, 2008 dateline.

I've always been a strong proponent of cooking meals at home. By cooking at home, I know exactly what is going into my body, because I'm the one that buys the meal's ingredients and then prepares the meal. Growing up in a household where my mother (or sometimes my father) prepared a home-cooked meal every single night, I valued the importance of a well-rounded meal. I remember that every dinner included one meat (or, every once in a while, seafood), one grain (usually rice or pasta), and at least one vegetable. We rarely drank soda. And we rarely ordered out; we might get pizza or Chinese food about once, maybe twice, a month.

Conversely, I'm generally opposed to eating out. Even on nights when I'm tired from working all day or have little to choose from other than macaroni and cheese, I'll still usually choose to cook my own dinner, rather than eating out or ordering in. Ideally, I would eat out at a healthy, reasonably-priced restaurant once per week or every 10 days.

We live in a culture in which too many people have lost sight of the benefits of preparing their own meals and eating in the comfort of their own home. Our culture has placed too much emphasis on outsourcing everything to others so as to do as little as possible for ourselves, as well as on the perceived social prestige of eating out. I'd rather eat healthy and save money for doing it, than worry about showing off for others while paying more money for my laziness.

Unrealistic reaction

2008-12-19T10:50:00.004-05:00

Here in the United States, there has been a television advertisement on the major national networks for Toyota. It features their promotion for the "Toyotathon of Toyotathons."

Throughout the commercial, a guy in a tan jacket is going around town placing a sticker that reads "of Toyotathons" on all the already-existing signs and billboards that read "Toyotathon." The point, presumably, is to advertise that this sale is going to be the mother of all sales for Toyota products.

Well, at the very end of the commercial, there is a shot of a woman reading a newspaper, and she's holding it up in front of her face. On the back page of the newspaper is a print ad with the bold and easily-legible title: "Toyotathon". The guy in the tan jacket briskly places one of his stickers directly on to her newspaper, then quickly disappears out of the camera shot, ostensibly to walk away quickly to continue his task of placing stickers elsewhere. And the woman reacts by turning the back page toward her and then tilting her head to see what was placed on her newspaper. And nothing else!

My point is this: what kind of reaction is this??? Does this not seem unnatural to you? If someone abruptly touched something that I was holding in my hands and then walked away quickly, I'd look first to see who this stranger was, then I'd quickly look at what was done to the newspaper in my hands, and then I'd look again to get a good look at the suspect.

This woman's reaction was so nonchalant to the point of being completely incredible. And this, in turn, takes away from the veracity of the commercial and, thus, the consumer's trust in this company and its products. It should have come as no surprise, then, that while listening to NPR Morning Report this morning, it was reported that Toyota is forecasting negative growth (an oxymoron) in 2009, the first time this will happen in the company's 70 year history.

And it all started with a stupid commercial.

A small, but not insignificant, accomplishment

2008-12-18T15:00:00.002-05:00

Earlier today, for the first time in nearly three months, I finished reading a book. The book was "American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia" by Edmund S. Morgan.

When I chose to read this book, I knew it would take me a while to get through it. History books, even those that are well-written and engaging, tend to be more dense than other sorts of books. Even still, three months to finish a book is atypical of me, and that's not failing to account for the fact that I'm a slow reader.

The author aimed to understand the paradox between slavery and freedom that existed at the time of our nation's founding and that continues in some ways to effect relations among us today. As the author states in the preface, there was an "apparent contradiction between [the colonists'] proclamations of equality and liberty and their continuing possession of slaves," a deep contradiction that "required a civil war because slavery and freedom are irreconcilable opposites."

Reading the book took a long while for reasons both internal and external to the book itself. Internally, the author began his inquiry at a point in history that pre-dated even the European settlement of present-day Virginia, and from there slowly and methodically worked his way through socio-historical developments that eventually led to the American Revolution. This meant that that issue of the enslavement of Americans from Africa was not dealt with directly until the penultimate chapter of the book. I felt a bit misled and this sometimes affected my motivation for reading the book.

Externally, I had the nearly three-week trip to southeast Asia that put any reading effectively on hold. And for the month before the trip, almost all my free time was consumed with dating a girl with whom I'd had high hopes of starting a serious relationship. It was only once I came back from the trip, and soon realized that the prospects of landing another legal project were bleak, that I settled into the idea that I wanted to finish this book once and for all.

So there you have it. I finished my book. And with that, I've made a small, but not insignificant, accomplishment. Psychologically, I feel that I've made progress on something, and I'll certainly take that for what it's worth; it's something to build on. As you can see to the left of this text, I was finally able to add another title to my list of recently-read books.

Now I think I'll take on something a little bit easier to read, perhaps a fiction novel.

Extra, extra . . .

2008-12-17T20:13:00.004-05:00

. . . read all about it!!!

I've gotta get back to what makes me happy. Or at least one of the things that makes me happy: writing. Being still unemployed, I've had a lot of free time to think lots about a lot of things.

I've been very aware of the open question after my return from southeast Asia: what do I write about now? The same thing happened after I got back from Egypt. Life seems so mundane that it doesn't even warrant writing anything. But that's the superficial assessment. Which simply means that I'm gonna have to dig deeper. Into my brain, into my thoughts, into my heart, into wherever it is that blog entries come from. From post-partum depression to pre-party progression, the time is almost here.

Look for new posts very soon!

Anne-Sarah

2008-12-09T20:53:00.002-05:00

I know it's a little crazy,
but if your memory's kinda hazy,
I'm T___, the guy from Philly.
And although it was a bit silly,
I sent an email to a female
and a couple of guys at your school
to see if I could try to get through
to who I thought was possibly you.
After our long talk on the bus,
I was in such a fuss
that we couldn't keep in touch,
since I lacked at the task
to ask for your information de contact.
So I had to take a chance
to reconnect with the girl from France.
If you ever see yourself
coming to the Illadelph,
then just reply
and say "hi T__, ah, oui c'est vrai!"

Reflections on TLC

2008-12-04T15:30:00.007-05:00

Vapex. For some reason, in Bangkok especially, many men and even some women periodically put a small white plastic tube (similar to Chapstick) into their nose, sniff, and then repeat with the other nostril. Several men that I observed did this obsessively, to the point that I thought it was some kind of narcotic or chemical stimulant. We found out from an 18 year-old American girl who has been living with her mother in Bangkok for over a year now that this practice is meant to open the air passage from the effect of the city smog. She said that a lot of cab drivers use the strong menthol smell kinda like people back here at home use coffee: as a quick jolt to stay awake. In fact, the cabbie that drove us to the Hualamphong train station -- when we made it at the very last minute -- was using the Vapex like a fiend. Here's a pic from a guy on the Chao Phraya Express Boat gettin' his fix:

Volleyball. It seemed that everywhere we went in Cambodia (which was admittedly limited to just the town of Siem Reap and then the road from there to the border town of Poipet), we saw games of volleyball being played. When we first arrived in Siem Reap, we took a walk around town. After crossing a bridge to the other side of the river, we saw a spirited game of volleyball being played. And then on the day we took a taxi to the border (to eventually return to Bangkok), I saw at least two games of volleyball being played out in the Cambodian countryside. It made me wonder how the Cambodian Olympic volleyball team fared in Beijing.

Asian tourists. In my previous trips to Central America, Europe, and Egypt, the great majority of fellow travelers (not that kind, silly) were Europeans. On this trip, it was quite different. Most of the tourists generally -- as opposed to the subgroup of backpackers -- were Asian: from my estimation, they were mostly Korean and Japanese. Of course among the backpacker crowd, the travelers were almost entirely "white," but even here a slim majority may have been Australian as opposed to European. One look at the map or a globe explains this phenomenon. Nevertheless, it was a new experience for me. As a final sidenote, I can count on one hand the number of Americans (i.e., from the USA) that we met on the entire trip. I guess the typical American tourists were all in Cancun or other Americanized neo-colonies: too scared, narrow-minded, or culturally conservative to step outside of their own culture.

Bangkok sidewalks. The transformation of the sidewalks of Bangkok over the course of a night is quite striking. In the normal hours of the night, up to midnight or 1am let's say, the sidewalks are characterized by streetside vendors selling souvenirs, t-shirts, and handicrafts. Besides that, there are handfuls of prostitutes on each block, just standing around waiting to be picked up by middle-aged white guys with lots of American dollars in their wallets. After 1am or 2am, though, as we realized when we took a cab at 4am to get to the airport, the sidewalks turn into a nocturnal, and much rougher-around-the-edges, version of Paris: by that I mean that there are lots of people still out drinking beers and smoking at tables all along the sidewalks. Believe me, this was more than just a couple of tables on one block; this was many tables block after block after block. By virtue of staying active throughout the nighttime hours, Bangkok must be classified as a world city.

Same Same But Different. That was a common phrase that we heard throughout all three countries of our trip. It was used in every situation imaginable. For example, you would ask if a certain dish tasted similar to pad thai, and the waiter would respond, "same same but different." It was funny, but vexing. But the phrase was so common that everywhere we went we saw t-shirts announcing it: "Same Same" on the front, "But Different" on the back. If you look closely, the girl on the right in this photo is wearing the t-shirt:

Prostitution. I guess it should come as no surprise that prostitution was prevalent where there were older, relatively wealthy tourists -- thus, in Bangkok and in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Although I have to admit that some of the prostitutes were quite pleasing to the eye, it didn't take long for me to feel disgusted by the whole scene: rich white guys basically "buying" companionship and sex from young women. But hey, that's capitalism, right? Money talks. I felt pity for most of these guys, who back home probably have no chance to get a beautiful woman. So can I blame them? Yes and no. And I pity the women too, because I wonder how many of them are pursuing any worthwhile goals, like education or an eventual career, while they sell their bodies; probably not too many, unfortunately. The whole situation is just shitty. I also thought of another byproduct: how many beautiful girls in Bangkok -- who are legitimately not prostitutes -- are eyeballed and objectified by old white guys who jump to the conclusion that they must be a whore because they're young and beautiful? Terrible, really terrible.

Ladyboys. Well, as long as we're talking about the openness of sex in parts of southeast Asia, we may as well talk about the openness of sexuality too. This is one thing that I felt was refreshing. For those not in the know, "ladyboys" are basically southeast Asian transvestites: men dressing like and adopting the mannerisms of women. Don't get me wrong, coming from a comparatively sexually-conservative culture like that of the United States, it was a bit weird to see the ladyboys. Here in Philly, it's easy enough to walk down to the Gayborhood and you can see all the transvestites that you'd like. But that's the big difference: here in the U.S. the places that sexual expressiveness is culturally acceptable are quite limited and the boundaries are clear; they're kinda like modern-day ghettoes (in the Jewish sense of the word). In southeast Asia, though, you could see a ladyboy anywhere. For example, the receptionist at our hotel on our first morning in Bangkok was quite androgenous; we really couldn't figure out that person's gender at all. And this openness of sexual expressiveness, without boundaries, was noticeable throughout much of our trip. Being the fan of freedom that I am, I found this facet of southeast Asian culture to be very refreshing and quite advanced of our culture in the United States.

French legacy. Continuing with my smooth segues, I'll dovetail off that last comment about culture in the United States with an observation of the cultural legacy of southeast Asia. In Laos and Cambodia particularly -- formerly colonized by the French -- you can see the lasting influence of French culture. Baguettes and crepes are common. Restaurants have French names. And not only that, but outdoor seating at bistro tables is widespread. And for the first time in my travels, I met a traveler who was French; her name was Anne-Sarah and she was studying law at a university in Can Tho, Vietnam. She was traveling with a group of fellow French students to Vang Vieng and Vientiane. Although the international lingua franca is now most definitely English, it seems that the French enjoy visiting areas that remind them, even a little bit, of home.

Backpacker circuit. Paul and I followed an itinerary that can be described as a big oval: from Bangkok, north to Chiang Mai, east to Luang Prabang, then south to Vang Vieng, Vientiane, Savannakhet, and Pakse, then southwest to Siem Reap, then west back to Bangkok. On the map it makes the most sense to follow this route, especially if doing most of it overland: by bus or train. And apparently we were not the only ones with this approach. When we were in Siem Reap, a girl came up to me at Temple Bar and told me that she remembered seeing me back in Chiang Mai. And from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng, we hung out with our Aussie friends, Nick and Josh, and our English friends, John and his girlfriend Jenny. And lastly, the French girl, Anne-Sarah, and her friends were on our minibus from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng, and I spent the entire 4-5 hour bus ride from Vang Vieng to Vientiane sitting next to and chatting with Anne-Sarah. The point is that, in southeast Asia, there is definitely a well-worn path which backpackers follow, what I called the "backpacker circuit."

Philly at Angkor Wat. Walking through one of the many temples at Angkor, I saw a Cambodian artist sitting on a rock, painting a picture; he was wearing a Philadelphia Eagles hat. I pointed it out to him and said "I'm from Philadelphia." His response was simply "godson", in the speech of a deaf man. I said, "ahh, your godson lives in Philadelphia," and he nodded his head. Later, as we were about to walk up the long and steep climb to the top of the tallest hill in the area -- where we were gonna watch the sunset -- I saw a guy in his early-20s wearing a red baseball cap. I was almost sure what it was, but I walked closer. Yup, it was a Phillies cap! So I approached him and said, "Phillies!" We talked for a few minutes. He asked me what it was like on the streets of Philadelphia when the Phillies won the World Series, he said he missed it because he was already in southeast Asia, I told him that it was mass joyful chaos, and I described the scene from Market Street and along Broad Street from that night. The guy said he lived in Northeast Philly. It was cool to see -- not once, but twice in one day -- Philadelphia being represented halfway around the world. Three cheers for the Two-Fifteen!

The Roots. Finally, speaking of Philly represent, I was at Temple Bar in Siem Reap when, over the loudspeakers, they played a song by The Roots. How appropriate: I graduated from Temple Law in North Philly and they were playing a song by Philly's very own hip-hop leaders, The Roots. Everything seemed just right at that moment, as I sipped on my Angkor beer, listening to "The Seed (2.0)", a great song that you can enjoy right now by clicking HERE (I couldn't find any videos that I could embed directly onto this website).

Back to Basics

2008-11-30T23:37:00.002-05:00

Today was a great day. While it rained all day outside, I spent the whole day watching football from my couch. After a long weekend, beginning with my bus ride from Philly to Easton on Thanksgiving, to my bus ride on Friday from Easton to New York, to my train ride from New York back to Philly yesterday, I was totally pooped. I've had more than my share of public transportation and traveling in general, and I was really looking forward to passing a day at home, by myself, and without any distractions. The weather played right into this plan. And I really, really enjoyed my relaxing day.

But I'm back to business tomorrow, as I've gotta prepare for a hearing this coming Wednesday morning. It'll be good to get to work.

One Night in Bangkok

2008-11-28T12:35:00.002-05:00

Classic 80s song that I wanted to post onto my blog from Bangkok. Please enjoy responsibly:

Lyrics can be found HERE.

More buses

2008-11-28T10:37:00.004-05:00

It seems that my traveling on buses doesn't end just because my trip to southeast Asia is over. Yesterday I took a bus from Philadelphia to Easton, where my sister lives, so that I could celebrate Thanksgiving with her and our dad. And once again, the traveling gods were on my side:

In typical fashion I arrived at the Greyhound bus terminal just 5 minutes before the bus was scheduled to depart; it was irrelevant to me that it was a holiday, so there would probably be lots of people there (and there were). The line was too long to wait to buy a ticket. So without even having a ticket, I went directly to the line to board the bus; I figured I would ask to buy a ticket at the first stop at Broad & Olney in North Philly.

Well, 10:40am, the scheduled departure time, came and went. There were about 6 people in front of me in line. And we were being told that the bus was full; there were no more seats. But somehow still, I didn't panic or worry in the least. I would just wait out the situation.

At about 10:45am, a woman Greyhound worker came up to those of us still waiting in line, and explained that they were going to switch buses: the bus already full only had a capacity of 47, while another empty bus right next to it had a capacity of 55. Doing the quick math, I knew that I could get a seat.

So I took advantage of the time that it was going to take to unload the first bus and then board the second bus, and I ran back into the terminal to wait in line to buy a ticket. I waited for nearly 10 minutes before I finally got up to the ticket counter. I told the woman, "one ticket one-way for the 10:40am bus to Easton." She said that bus already left; I told her, no its still outside. Then, she asked me if the bus driver told me to come inside to buy a ticket; without a moment's hesitation, I said yeah.

And just like that I bought my ticket at 10:55am for a 10:40am bus that was overbooked when I got there. And thus I was able to make it on time for Thanksgiving with my dad and my sister.

When I handed my ticket to the woman checking tickets at the door to the bus, she said, "oh there you are! I knew we had one more." HA!!!

ps. I'm writing from my sister's apartment in Easton right now. I leave in a little bit to catch yet another bus: this one from here to New York City to spend some time with my friend Corey. More buses!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T09:50:00.003-05:00

Thanks for checking in! I don't have much time to write since I have to run to catch a 10:40am bus to Easton, where I'll celebrate the holiday with my sister and dad. But I couldn't leave without first posting a big THANK YOU to everyone who has contacted me since I've been back and to all who've kept up with my adventures on this website. It's great to be back, and over the course of the weekend, I'll do my best to hit everyone up.

Also, because today is Thanksgiving, I want to offer the following two quotes:

"The true history of Thanksgiving reveals embarrassing facts. The Pilgrims did not introduce the tradition; Eastern Indians had observed autumnal harvest celebrations for centuries. Although George Washington did set aside days for national thanksgiving, our modern celebrations date back only to 1863. During the Civil War, when the Union needed all the patriotism that such an observance might muster, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday. The Pilgrims had nothing to do with it; not until the 1890s did they even get included in the tradition. For that matter, they were not commonly known as "the Pilgrims" until the 1870s."

"The archetypes associated with Thanksgiving -- God on our side, civilization wrested from wilderness, order from disorder, through hard work and good Pilgrim character traits -- continue to radiate from our history textbooks."

These two quotes come from the book, "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" by James W. Loewen, pages 90 and 88, respectively. I offer them simply as a reminder that we've gotta get our history straight. Without an honest understanding of our roots, we can't truly understand who we are today. And that principle applies at the personal level as much as it does at the national level.

Alright, I would write more, but I've really gotta get running. I hope you have a wonderful day with a generous helping of good food and whatever else you enjoy about this holiday (see the poll to the upper-left for reference). HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Bangkok airport under siege

2008-11-25T12:03:00.003-05:00

While lying in bed this morning, listening to the BBC World News Report on NPR, I heard that anti-government protesters stormed the Bangkok airport, thus suspending all outgoing flights. This is the airport that I flew out of exactly 66 hours ago!

It reminds me of the advice of our taxi driver on our first morning in Bangkok: he said not to wear either red or yellow, because those are the respective colors of the government supporters and the anti-government protesters. As the BBC reported (see the article and video clip HERE), hundreds of yellow-shirted members of the People's Alliance for Democracy broke through police lines and entered the main terminal of the newly-built Bangkok airport.

Bangkok's two year-old Suvarnabhumi international airport is really nice; it may be the nicest airport that I've ever been in. Its architecture is sleek and modern: a steel lattice framework with large transparent windows, all lit up in a cool blue light (good photo HERE). It is spacious without seeming immense. It is multilingual and thus inviting to all visitors. I can only imagine the reaction of travelers at the sight of hundreds of yellow-shirted anti-government protesters; the article describes it as one of "bewilderment", I would guess that it would be one of incredulity along with a sick realization of misfortunate bad timing.

Home Sweet Home

2008-11-24T12:07:00.004-05:00

Here I am. I'm sitting at my desk in my apartment at the double-deuce and Spruce. Rocky is curled up on the bed, leaning against the sweater that I wore yesterday to keep warm on the trip from Newark-Liberty International Airport to 30th Street Station Philadelphia and from there back home. The Baby is on the other side of the bed, leaning up against my pillow, and she's cleaning herself diligently. I'm drinking a cup of Costa Rican (Tarrazu) coffee that I just made. So, for the moment at least, things are good.

On the flight from Tokyo to Newark, I decided to watch the movie "Philadelphia", which I've never seen; I thought it was appropriate to see since I was on my way home, and also since I can't see myself ever renting it back home. The opening scenes of the movie, as well as the opening and closing songs (i.e., "Streets of Philadelphia" by Bruce Springsteen and "Philadelphia" by Neil Young), really tugged at my heartstrings. I was so ready to be back home. While the closing credits of the film were rolling, I wrote a few lines on the flight menu:

as far as i roam
i will always come home
to my city of philly
the place that i love

It was such a warm feeling to see the illuminated skyline of Philadelphia as my Amtrak train made its way alongside I-95, then through North Philly, then across the Schuylkill River, and finally into the station at 30th Street. The train pulled in at 5:30pm; only 24 hours earlier, I was boarding my flight in Bangkok.

The flights were pretty uneventful. From Bangkok to Tokyo, it was a quick 5 hours, 30 minutes. From Tokyo to Newark, it was a steady 11 hours, 45 minutes. Both flights were faster than at the beginning of the trip; flying east is always faster because you're going with the flow of the jet stream.

Well, that's all for now. Keep an eye out for some interesting tweaks and additions to all my posts from TLC over the next day or two. Since I mentioned it, I'll conclude this post with a video for your viewing and listening pleasure:

By the way, I'll be sure to post some reflections of my TLC trip very soon, the kind of stuff that never fit into my narratives.

Runnin' on empty

2008-11-22T01:57:00.003-05:00

I got food poisoning yesterday. I'm recovering now, but I'm really angry that the trip has to end this way. I'm not sure who or what I'm angry at, but it fucking sucks that my trip is ending on such a terrible note.

It began with the taxi ride from Siem Reap to Poipet, two towns in Cambodia, the former is where we had stayed for the previous three nights, the latter is the town on the Cambodia-Thailand border. Poipet is the stereotypical border town: dirty, dusty, and just plain nasty. Paul and I were fortunate to get hooked up by our remork (the Cambodian word for tuk-tuk) driver, Mr. Prom Meta, with a personal taxi ride to the border; Meta called up a Thai friend of his who then drove us the three hours to Poipet. The ride was through the Cambodian countryside, which was characterized by flat marshlands. The first two hours, from Siem Reap to the town of Sisaphon, was on a bumpy, rocky, dirt road; this is when I first realized that I wasn't feeling normal, because I could hear a lot of liquid sloshing around in my stomach with every bump in the road, which was literally constant throughout the ride. The ride from Sisaphon to Poipet was not as bad, because it was a paved roadway, but by then I knew that I had to get to a toilet as soon as we'd arrive in Poipet. When we got there, I went inside a hotel within 50 meters of the border crossing to use their toilet. The bathroom was nasty and looked as if it had been abandoned for a long time. There was no toilet paper in the men's room, so I went into the women's bathroom where I found a half-full/half-empty bag of napkins, which I took back into the men's room. This time I emptied my insides in a way that felt different that other times on this trip; even though I had diarrhea for many days on this trip, I never felt so terribly unwell as I did this time. Previously it was just a matter of letting loose and then going on my way, feeling better for letting it out. This time I still felt like crap afterwards.

We walked across the border and the barrage of putrid smells -- from garbage to fish -- began to make me feel nauseous. But I kept going, knowing that I had to reach my ultimate goal of making it to Bangkok, where we had a nice hotel, with all the amenities, already booked. We walked through customs, and entered Thailand. Upon walking out into the streets, we got a tuk-tuk, which took us the few kilometers to the bus station of the Thai border town of Aranya Prathet. We were just in time; a 4:30pm bus bound for Bangkok was already loaded and about to depart. So we quickly bought our tickets and had our luggage put under the bus. Taking our seats on the bus, it seemed like the ride would be comfortable.

But for me, it wouldn't be. Not long into the ride, I realized that any smell would begin to make me feel nauseous. Paul had bought some potato chips, and I didn't say anything to him (he still doesn't know now), but the smell was making me feel sick. It wasn't more than a few minutes later, while looking out the window, that I felt the sudden impulse to run to the bathroom; I made it just in time to puke for a few minutes straight. The last meal that I had eaten, breakfast at Angelina's in Siem Reap that morning, came out. I continued vomiting until nothing was coming up, and still I kept gagging. I felt like shit, hunched over because the ceiling was too short for me to stand up, in a cramped bathroom at the back of a bus in Thailand. And right then, I knew it was going to be a long bus-ride back to Bangkok; it was four and a half hours long, and we hadn't been on the road for very long at that point.

There is no point belaboring how shitty I felt for the rest of the ride, or how various smells continued to nauseate me. By the end of the trip, after other passengers had gotten off at earlier stops, I was sitting in the very back of the bus, in an open area behind where the bathroom was, gagging and spitting up the last of the fluids from my insides into a plastic bag that someone had fortunately left behind. I had tried drinking some water when the bus stopped for its only pitstop, and while sitting in the seat next to Paul, and I had started puking that water into a long-sleeve dress shirt that I had in my hands. The entire experience was wretched.

Upon arriving to the Bangkok bus station at around 9:30pm, we hired a taxi to take us to our hotel, Suk 11. That ride was about 20 minutes long, and was uneventful. Paul checked us into the room, while a woman at the hotel took me directly to the room, where I immediately dressed down into more comfortable clothing and settled in for a few minutes. When Paul came up to the room, I told him that I was giving in, and he gave me an antibiotic, Levaquin, to begin killing the bacteria in my system. Then I got up to take a long, warm shower, and then got into bed. At that point it was probably 10:30 or 11pm. I stayed in bed for the most part until almost 12noon today. I only got up once in the middle of the night to puke out the one slice of white bread that I had eaten earlier in the night and the bottle of green gatorade that Paul had gotten for me.

Relative to that entire experience, I'm feeling better today. Thanks to God, I'm holding food and drink in my system today. I've drank some more gatorade and eaten some more white bread, and just before coming to this internet place, we went to a Starbucks, where I drank some hot English breakfast tea, and ate a cinnamon bun. I'm sure I've lost a couple more pounds in the past 24 hours. I'm happy to be ending this trip and returning home. A comment that I made to Paul earlier today is really unfortunate: I told him that I don't think I'll ever come back to this part of the world; out of 16 full days here, I had some degree of diarrhea for all but probably five days, that's not my idea of a good time. But I guess that's what I get for trying to eat the local food and for not being a tight-ass about washing my hands every two minutes. I don't mean to discourage anyone for coming to this part of the world. And maybe I won't feel so bitter once I'm home and I'm able to re-read this blog and look at all the photos from this trip. I guess you can just say that I'm ready to go the fuck home. I miss Rocky and the Baby. And I miss my regular and humble life at the double-deuce and Spruce. I guess I can really say, "there's no place like home, there's no place like home."

Anyway, I may post once more later tonight; I leave to go to the airport at around 2 or 3 in the morning. My flight out of Bangkok departs at 6am, then I'll have a layover in Tokyo, and then it's on to Newark-Liberty International Airport, in beloved New Jersey. The flights will be about 6 and 14 hours respectively, so I'd appreciate your prayers that I maintain my constitution throughout the flights and continue to feel and get better quickly. Once again, thanks so much for keeping up with my travels. I look forward to seeing and talking with everyone once I'm back home.

Philly, here I come!!!!!

On the road again

2008-11-21T00:08:00.003-05:00

I'll have to post a more complete blog entry later tonight, but for now Paul and I will be leaving momentarily to once again hit the road. We're leaving Siem Reap, and all of Cambodia, to head back to Bangkok, Thailand. Thus, our trip is about to come full circle. It's gonna be another long travel day, as we've gotten somewhat used to doing: 3 hours or more from Siem Reap to the Cambodia-Thailand border in a taxi, then 4 hours or more on a bus from the Thai border town of Aranya Prathet back to the capital city of Bangkok.

Yesterday we spent the entire day, from sunrise to sunset, at the temples of Angkor Wat. I'll have to write some details about that later, but if you haven't been there before, I'd suggest that you look at some photos online to familiarize yourself before the written word comes later; just a suggestion, that's all.

Okay folks, hope you're happy and healthy, or at least moving positively in that direction. I'll write again soon, God willing. Peace!

R & R

2008-11-19T10:59:00.003-05:00

Today was a day of rest and relaxation. Our marathon traveling, on buses and planes, definitely caught up to us. We were gonna wake up at 8am this morning, but we never heard the alarm (if it even went off in the first place). We woke up on our own a little past 10am. So we decided to just bum around the town of Siem Reap today, which wasn't such a bad thing. We went for a really good breakfast at a place called Angelina's, which I assume was named after Angelina Jolie, who came here to film the movie Tomb Raider at Angkor Wat and also to pick-up a child to take home with her too. After breaking our fast, we went to Blue Pumpkin, a fancy-looking cafe, but with refreshing coffee products for about US$2 each and very easy-to-look-at-and-talk-to (too many dashes) Cambodian waitresses. The rest of the day went by as a blur of just walking around, going back to the room to fall asleep while listening to tunes, then walking to the Lucky Mall where we acted like goobers (as Evan would say) by going up and down the same escalator at least 20 times -- no exaggeration; everyone was laughing at us, even the security guards. After that, we walked to a nearby Thai restaurant to eat some pad thai. Tonight we went for just a couple drinks at the Banana Leaf, a nice spot located on Pub Street (a kind of Bourbon Street type atmosphere sans beads). Well, as you can probably tell, I'm a little too tired to type tonight, plus its gonna be a 5am wake-up to go to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat tomorrow morning. Hope all is well wherever in the world you happen to be!

See, we made it to the C in TLC

2008-11-18T05:22:00.004-05:00

Cambodia. More specifically, the town of Siem Reap.

Immediately after signing out of this 'ere blog last night in Savannakhet, Paul and I deliberated our choice of options. Option #1: stay in Savannakhet for the night, take a bus to Pakse, then try to figure out how to get from Pakse, Laos to Siem Reap, Cambodia, a pretty good distance apart, including an overland border crossing. Or, option #2: leave immediately on a 9:30pm bus from Savannakhet to Pakse, Laos, go to the Pakse airport, and see if we'd be lucky enough to buy plane tickets for a 10:30am flight from Pakse to Siem Reap, Cambodia, the next flight not being until Thursday.

We chose option #2. Although we were still pretty wiped out from being dropped-off at the side of the road outside of Savannakhet at 2:30 in the morning less than 24 hours earlier, we decided that the benefit to gaining a lot of time -- with much less hassle -- by flying to Cambodia outweighed the cost of pushing ourselves back on the road so soon.

The bus ride from Savannakhet to Pakse was about five hours long: 9:30pm to 2:30am. It was more comfortable than the hellish bus ride the previous day from Vientiane to Savannakhet. But, for me at least, there was one pretty good highlight. So I'm sitting toward the back of the bus, on an aisle seat near the stairwell that led down to the lower deck (it was a double-decker bus). Sitting next to me on my left was the stereotypical small, gray-haired, old Asian guy. Over the course of the trip he took off his sandals and his legs were short and frail enough to pull them up towards his chest and rest his feet on the edge of the seat. Anyway, about three hours into the trip, the old guy slides open the window next to him, grabs a plastic bag from the ledge in front of us, and tosses the contents of the bag out the window. I kinda chuckled at that. Oh, by the way, the bus was completely dark, as there were no street lights on Route 13, there were no other vehicles on the road besides our bus, and all the lights on the inside of the bus were turned off so people could sleep -- the only light was from the headlights of the bus and the moon high overhead. So that's the set-up when this old guy is holding the now-empty plastic bag in his hand; he then inches up to sit on the very edge of his seat, and angles his body slightly toward the wall. He sat in that position for a solid 30 seconds or more, then cautiously took the plastic bag filled with his warm piss, held it out the window, and let it fly. He sat back with a look of contentment, and I just laughed to myself.

For the second night in a row, Paul and I were dropped-off on the side of the road in the middle of the night. We were on Route 13 -- the major north-south artery in Laos -- just outside of Pakse. A Laotian guy who I had been joking with showed me his watch, and it read 15 minutes to 3am. Paul and I sat there as there was an intermittent light drizzle, until finally, about half an hour later, I was able to wave down a motorcycle with a sidecar, the driver willing to take us to the Pakse airport. But he was already taking another fellow who had to sit behind him, while Paul and I squeezed into the narrow sidecarriage, and our bulky backpacks had to be strapped to the back. We were dropped-off outside the airport, which was closed, at about 4am. We had no choice but to rest/sleep under an awning of a wooden shack on the side of the road across from the airport. I barely slept because the mosquitos began to harass me a bit. I watched the sun rise over the Laotian countryside.

We were successful at buying tickets for the 10:30am flight from Pakse to Siem Reap: US$106 each. So that now brings us to our arrival here in Cambodia. We're now staying at the River Star Hotel, right in the center of town for $15 total per night, with air-conditioning and cable television. We're within easy walking distance of tons of bars and restaurants. And I got the business card from the young guy who drove us from the airport to downtown, in case we decide to take him up on his offer for a discounted rate to drive out to the temples of Angkor Wat.

Anyway, Paul just came up to me here in the lobby of the hotel. We're gonna head out now to get a bite to eat and get things rolling for the evening. By the way, please click HERE to visit Paul's blog; his goal is to get 1000 hits before the end of the trip, so he'd appreciate your help in his cause.

Alright folks. Peace in the Middle East. Health in the Illadelph. I'm audi!!!

The world's universal sport

2008-11-17T08:03:00.003-05:00

Futbol. Or as we United-Statesians call it: soccer. It certainly is the world's universal, unifying sport, as you'll see just a lil bit below.

Earlier this afternoon, after a long, long conversation -- concerning life and love -- over coffee (for me) and ice cream (for Paul) at the Dao Savanh restaurant here in Savannakhet, I suggested that we take a stroll to let everything digest and to see the town a little more since we're leaving tomorrow morning for Pakse. While walking along, we saw a typical storefront selling all sorts of clothing and various random items. Among those other things I noticed several soccer balls hanging there; we tried to bargain the guy down from the 60,000 kip price tag, but he wouldn't budge. We moved on, but the idea was set in my head; we had the rest of the afternoon to kill, so why not? We fortuitously came upon another shop on the other side of the nearby intersection, and were successful in bargaining down to 40,000 kip for a small soccer ball. But where were we to play? I looked down a side street right there, and saw a group of kids milling about; a couple of girls were flying a kite high, high in the air. So we walked over and tossed the ball towards the the young boys, all probably around the ages of 10-12. For the next half-hour, Paul and I played soccer with them. At the beginning they tried to dribble the ball past us. But by the end we all gathered in a circle to see how many times we could hit the ball without it hitting the ground. I should also mention that, while Paul and I were wearing sneakers, all of these kids were running around barefoot on a gravel and dirt side-street. Older people in nearby buildings would stop to watch us play with the kids. The kids had asked us where we were from, so we told them "America." At the end, having sufficiently worn ourselves out, we went around to each boy -- I shook their hand, Paul gave them a high-five -- and left them with the soccer ball. When they realized that we were leaving the soccer ball with them, the kids' faces lit up like it was Christmas morning; they were thrilled! Paul and I felt proud that we had played our role as positive intercultural ambassadors. Those kids won't forget that a couple crazy guys from America had lots of fun playing soccer with them on their little street. As I told Paul, that's the kind of shit that's not in the guidebooks, and when we look back on this trip, whether it be in just a few days or weeks or months or even many years from now, that's the kind of memory that we'll feel good about, knowing that so many other tourists stick to their Lonely Planet itinerary and follow the elephant-train of tourists from one spot to the next. We had a blast kicking the ball around with those kids, and all it took was a $5 ball and just making shit happen.

Alright, time to make a decision. We might actually take a bus out tonight, in order to get to Pakse in time to fly from there to Siem Reap, Cambodia tomorrow morning. Do I really feel like leaving right now? Not really, but we have to be mindful of the fact that time is at such a premium at this point in the trip. I gotta sign out now; time to figure out what the heck we're doing . . .

"Sabai dee"

2008-11-17T00:48:00.004-05:00

"Hello" in Lao. I'm writing now from Savannakhet, Laos. There is much to catch up on. But I'll live it backwards: ooooh, crazy, huh? It's now Monday early afternoon in this here part of the world. What time is it in your neck of the woods? [I just made you look at the clock in the lower-right of your computer screen and answer that question with that little voice -- that sounds a lot like you! -- inside your head].

Right before coming to this internet place, Paul and I went into St. Teresia's Catholic Church, purportedly the only Catholic church in Laos, built in 1930. It's located right in the middle of town. We went in and took a few minutes to say our respective prayers. I thanked God for, among other things, allowing me the freedom and ability to make a trip like this. As much as I'm missing home right now, I'm still quite aware of the fact that I'm living a life experience, and that so many people throughout the world never see much beyond their immediate surroundings. I'm tremendously grateful to be here, and to share the sights, sounds, and smells with one of my very good friends is a very fortunate thing too.

Yesterday was a major travel day; hence the fact that I've appeared -- to you, at least -- to have been absent for a little while. We left Vang Vieng on a 10am VIP bus for Vientiane, the capital city to the south. Despite the fact that the bus was labeled as VIP, and we thought the ride would be quick, the bus moved at a snail's pace. The main redeeming aspect of the trip was that I sat next to a French girl, with whom I spoke for most of the five-hour bus ride. I was interested to find out that she's a law student back in her hometown of Paris, studying abroad in Vietnam, and -- get this -- that one of her favorite groups is The Roots (Philly's premier hip-hop band, and yes they're most certainly a band). I'll take the liberty, and risk, in admitting right here that talking with her really made me miss the companionship of a girl. To save my ass from certain retribution back home, though, I'll immediately follow-up and say that the Parisian girl and I parted ways as soon as the bus arrived in Vientiane. But the residual of that conversation got me thinking about Philly for the rest of the day and night:

"All this roamin's got me missin' home 'n' all this globe-travelin's got me unravelin'" - me

We took a very long and quite excruciating bus ride from Vientiane to Savannakhet last night; we departed at 6pm and didn't get into Savannakhet until after 2 in the morning. There were long stretches of that ride that I was staring out the window, looking out at the outstretched moonlit fields, convincing myself foolishly that I was on Route 70 back near Medford, New Jersey. And for the first couple hours of that ride, I listened to The Roots' albums "Things Fall Apart" and "The Tipping Point" back-to-back. About two hours or more into the busride, the bus driver pulled over to let everyone go take a piss in the high grass alongside the road (even an old woman went into the grass to squat down and do her thang); after relieving myself under a midnight blue canopy pierced with thousands and thousands of stars, I talked with Paul for a few minutes. I told him that I felt so homesick that it felt like my heart hurt; it felt to me that my heart was just gonna jump out of my chest and run to the airport for the next flight back to the Two-One-Five. Oh well. I understand that a trip like this comes with the full gamut of emotions.

The bus ride was rough, but I was so serene in my own dreamy thoughts that I guess it could've been worse. I sat in the second to last row at the back of the bus, so I didn't want to recline my seat, knowing that the last row couldn't recline theirs. And Paul was sitting in the seat directly in front of me, reclined as far back as possible, so my room to manuever was quite minimal. And the guy (French I think) sitting next to me didn't afford me any room to move my upper leg past the dividing line between my seat and his. I was packed in like a sardine.

When we arrived in Savannakhet, the bus literally dropped us off on the side of the road. We had no clear idea what direction to walk, as everything was closed and pretty dark. We decided to walk in the direction that we'd seen a couple Laotians walking, but we were really clueless. The first two guesthouses that we saw were locked up and inaccessible. So we just kept on walking. A security guard pointed us in the right direction, but as we found out later, we were still pretty far from the center of town. We were certainly blessed when a guy drove up and offered us a ride into town and directly to the Savanbaohao guesthouse, which happened to be one in our guidebook. The main gate was padlocked, so I hopped the fence while Paul waited outside with the bags. I walked around the entire premises, but "not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse." Finally, I saw the reception area, behind the desk there were two tents, so I did my best not to startle their inhabitants; I noticed a clock that said just a few minutes to 3am. Fortunately one of the guys woke up and let us have two rooms, we didn't really care what the price was, we just wanted to lay down our hats and get some shut-eye, which we definitely did.

But rewinding back to the beginning of the bus ride, something very interesting happened. Our bus was scheduled to depart at 6pm from Vientiane, which it did. But as soon as it pulled out of the station, not even one minute later, it pulled over to the side of the road. A horde of vendors came onto the bus and began hawking their candies and drinks to all the passengers. They were literally elbowing each other to be the first one down the aisle. I thought that was pretty funny, but pretty normal. Eventually they all got off the bus, but for some unknown reason we continued to sit there. After several minutes, I noticed the bus driver squating down next to the sidewalk and smoking a cigarette; by this time it was almost 6:30 and I thought to myself, what the hell is going on? Then the driver started messing around with this motorcycle; this made no sense at all. Until a couple minutes later, when I realized that two guys were bringing the motorcycle on to the bus! Let me repeat that: they brought a fucking motorcycle on to the bus and parked it in the narrow aisle between passengers. And it was not only one motorcycle, but two! Absolutely amazing. I was just laughing incredulously, especially when I realized that the Laotians were looking back to see our (the falangs': the foreigners') reaction. Later, as I said, we got out of the bus for piss breaks, those of us toward the back of the bus had to step on and climb over the motorcycles in order to get out. And that's when I also realized that they squeezed in even more passengers by making several people sit on plastic stools in the remaining section of the aisle that wasn't already used as a parking space for motorcycles. Only in the Third World, I tell ya, only in the Third World.

So let's continue on our odyssey in time from the present back to the not-so-distant past. I told you how we left Vang Vieng on that bus ride to Vientiane. Well, the day before was our big day in Vang Vieng. I mentioned in an earlier post that the main attraction in the double V is floating down the Nam Xong River on huge tractor inner tubes. What I did not mention, though, is that there are several bars located right along the river, that patrons stop at to drink Beer Lao, Tiger beer, and Mekong whiskey. Each bar is also equipped with enormous speakers, blasting out electronic music (e.g., Kernkraft 400), alternative rock (e.g., Sublime, Green Day, The Killers), and classic shit (e.g., AC/DC, Bon Jovi). These bars are filled with mostly early 20-something backpackers, wearing bikinis and bathing suits, everyone just getting fucked up from all the alcohol under a hot Lao sun. The scene can best be described as Spring Break / MTV Beachhouse, Laos style. Besides the tubing, each bar has ziplines and high platforms that revellers can ride or jump from into the river. Because I had heard that a guy had literally cracked his head open the day before (and our Rough Guide book says that people have died), I decided to be a little more cautious, and only rode one of the tamer ziplines out into the water. But other spring breakers were doing flips and all sorts of stupid tricks. An older Canadian guy who we had met on our bus ride from Luang Prabang the day before actually dislocated his shoulder on the zipline at the second bar; they had to boat him over to the other side of the river and take him back into town for medical attention. We had a lot of fun, although it was certainly tantalizing to see all those girls in bikinis; fuck I wanna go home! [straightening my tie and regaining my composure]. Umm, so anyway, another highlight was playing volleyball in a large puddle of mud (no intentional reference to the rock band) at the third bar; I would serve the ball and fall face-first so that I could splash all the other players, especially the girls [stay focused], with mud. At the last bar that we stopped off at, there was a very real feeling that we were at spring break. The Laotians had built a huge slide that shot you out into the middle of the river; the interior was lined with bathroom tiles. Paul gave it a try, while I took a photo of him, his body spit out like a rag doll into the river. There was a rosy-faced white guy manning the dj booth at that bar, and people were dancing as drunk people do. A large circle formed, so Paul and I realized that our skills were being called forth. Paul entered the circle, kneeled down in the middle, and held a bottle of Tiger beer up in the air, but not too high off the ground; everyone held their breath, wondering what I would possibly do; so I dramatically stretched and showboated for a minute before approaching the bottle, bending over, putting my mouth on the bottle and then did a flip over Paul and the bottle to land like a jackass in the dirt on the other side. I think I kinda messed up my right wrist, which still feels a little weird, but it was all for a good cause. The final stretch from the last bar to our point of disembarkation was really, really long; for at least 20 minutes we were just gently floating down the river, as the sun set behind the limestone mountains that rose imposingly not far from the riverside. It was really quite beautiful.

Well, this has become an incredibly long post. So I think I'll stop it here. What's that? You want more? Well, we'll see what we can do to deliver so more tomfoolery and shenanigans your way; our skylarking and horseplay will surely continue.

From the double V

2008-11-14T10:13:00.004-05:00

Vang Vieng. I'll keep this one short, because I'm in a chilled out mood tonight. Two quick stories and a personal message from me to you:

For our last night in Luang Prabang, Paul and I decided to check out the much-talked about bowling alley. There is a city law that alcohol cannot be served past 11pm in Luang Prabang. To get around that law there is a bowling alley just outside the city limits that continues to serve alcohol for a bit longer. We took a tuk-tuk (that sounds funny) from the night market to our guesthouse to drop off our stuff, then we were driven out to the bowling alley. It was a really good time. I think there were eight lanes, with electronic scoreboards on monitors both above the lane and next to the chilling-out area. Around 11pm, when some more people started showing up, they began playing popular hip-hop tunes, like Cyclone, One-Two Step, and others I can't remember because the Beer Lao's were starting to get to me. For the record, I beat Paul in our first two games, by two points and then by five points, ha!

Now tonight we just went out for a bite to eat on the main drag here in Vang Vieng. Very interesting to get a "happy menu," which is apparently quite common here in VV. The happy menu literally lists a bag of weed, opium tea, a ganja joint, and about 15 other similar choices for sale. You can see why Vang Vieng is a very popular stop-over for the backpacker crowd.

Finally tonight, I just wanna thank everything for continuing to check in. I know that my writing style is very detail-oriented; for those that enjoy it, cool, for those that don't like it, you can go to hell. As much as I'm very happy to be able to pass on our stories to everyone back home and around the world, I'll admit that as much as anything, my blog -- just like my previous handwritten journals -- is a way for me to remember things after they begin to slip into the past. You see, the thing is, I've had a very bad memory for experiences my entire life; I don't know why, but that's the way I am. So, more so than most other people, I really, really need photos and my own personal words and descriptions to eventually remind me of good times past. Believe it or not, if not for these things, I would forget all but the most striking experiences. And, selfishly, I'd like to relive these memories over and over and over again. So thank you very much, kind reader, for accepting me for who I am, and also for joining us for a good ride through SE Asia.

With that said, I wish you a very good night from Vang Vieng, Laos! Buenas noches! Boa noite! Bon soir! Good night!

I've got the runs and I've got to run

2008-11-14T05:56:00.004-05:00

That was the title that I would've used if I had written an entry first thing this morning; it was too good not to use now. The title concisely describes how I began this Friday here in Laos. My ass was explosive, creating a hazmat situation in two separate toilets at Viradesa. And Paul and I once again left one place to go to another new one.

We left Luang Prabang on a scheduled 9am mini-bus that actually departed at about 9:15am, so I could unload in the main toilet at Viradesa guesthouse, while the group of six other travelers waited for me. The bus ride was a solid six hours, with two pitstops at about the one-third and two-thirds points. Because Paul and I were the last two to get onto the minibus we were stuck having to ride shotgun -- normally a good thing, but in this case not so much so. I sat in the middle of the front bench seat, right next to the driver, so that every time he shifted to third gear, he was jabbing me in my left thigh. Paul was squeezed up against the passenger door in order to make room for my legs, which necessarily had to face away from the stick-shift. It was a difficult six hours, with pins and needles and also cramping in our muscles. I was so tired from last night, though, that I was in and out of sleep for a good part of the ride.

When I was awake, there were many observations to be made. The road from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng is not particularly long, but it winds and twists and bends through some high mountain terrain, thus making the trip much longer than it would seem on paper. The scenery looked very much like it does in the Vietnam war movies: high, limestone mountains rising straight up out of the ground, interspersed by rice paddies and open fields. The road, once again, was quite stereotypically Third World: wooden shacks on small stilts built right next to the road; more little kids running around naked than you can count; cows, water buffalo, pigs, and even ducks with ducklings walking idly along the side of the road -- or in the case of some cows, in the middle of the road; the road itself so beat up and potholed in places that the driver drove just as much on the shoulders than on the actual road.

We finally pulled in to the new bus station on the outskirts of Vang Vieng at 4pm. From there, I somehow convinced Paul, along with a British couple: John and Jenny, to walk into town -- like authentic backpackers -- instead of hiring a tuk-tuk for the umpteenth time. The 3km walk into town wasn't too bad; I passed the time by talking with John. He told me that he and Jenny quit their jobs back in the UK to come backpacking for a solid 6 months; they'll keep going until the beginning of February.

Paul and I checked into Pan's Place right on the main strip in town. Our room is in a modest bamboo bungalow, with mattresses on the floor, and geckos running on the wall (I told Paul that they're our friends because they eat insects and save us 10% or more on car insurance). This place will be our first experience with a shared toilet/shower; Paul was a bit reluctant but I told him it would be a good way to meet other travelers. We both liked the fact that there's internet right here on the premises and a television room upstairs, fully stocked with tons of movies on dvd. So that's where we stand now.

Tomorrow we'll go tubing down the Nam Kong River; it should be an awesome experience, but I won't ruin the reader's surprise by telling you why this town is packed with backpackers and exactly why the tubing will be a kick-ass experience. You'll just have to check back, ya heard?

To be continued . . .

Bad Moon Rising

2008-11-13T09:31:00.005-05:00

Earlier tonight, while we were picking up the laundry (proud to say: first time on this trip) from another guesthouse down the lane from Viradesa, we saw the large, orange, full moon rising immediately to the left-hand side of the well-lit Buddhist temple at the top of Phou Si hill. It was surreal. That alone justified our decision to stay an extra night in Luang Prabang.

Tomorrow morning we leave at 9am on a mini-van to the village of Vang Vieng, located about 4 to 5 hours to the south. Just a few minutes ago, after we had a nice dinner -- at the Hive Bar -- of pizza and Pepsis (hey, every once in a while on a trip like this you gotta give your digestive system a break, especially after my sticky situation this morning), we popped our heads in the Lao Lao Beer Garden, just a few doors down. And whaddaya know? Who else was there but Nick and Josh, our fast-growing friends from the land down under. We found out that they're heading down to Vang Vieng on an 8am mini-van tomorrow. So we'll very likely have some more good times with those guys in the double V (not to be confused with the double-deuce and Spruce).

Well, I'm having some more rumblings originating in my intestinal area, not unlike the sounds that Jeff Daniels hears in the movie Dumb and Dumber. I think Vesuvius might be getting ready to destroy Pompeii, aka our toilet in room 12 of the Viradesa Guest House. I'll be thinking of all you guys back home while I'm doing it. Cheers!

Oh shit!

2008-11-13T01:16:00.005-05:00

Today got off to a shitty start, as you'll soon see. Paul and I slept in this morning after a really rockin' good time last night at the full-moon party (more on that below). Actually, although we both woke up at 10am, I stayed in bed to listen to some tunes on my iPod in order to ease into the day, while Paul went out to a local internet spot to do some emails. I took my time getting up, but eventually made my way out to meet him. From there, both of us feeling quite hungry at that time, probably about 11am, I suggested that we find a place to eat along the wide, brown, "mighty and mellow" Mekong River, on which we had not eaten since our first evening after checking into our guesthouse here in Luang Prabang. As a sidenote -- and in response to a beautiful reader's question -- we are staying at the Viradesa Guesthouse here in LP (not to be confused with Linkin Park). Back to the story, then: we went to a wooden table overlooking the Mekong; I ordered a crepe with honey and Paul ordered a full omelet with a baguette. As you can see, the legacy of French colonialism here continues to endure, most especially in the cuisine. Well, I'm just finishing up my crepe, when I feel an urge that many of us feel day in and day out: I discretely picked up one ass-cheek and let one rip, but instead of a toot it was a squirt. Oh shit! The look on my face immediately telegraphed to Paul what had just happened; I told him to pay the bill and I'd get him back later, I asked the waitress where the bathroom was, she said across the street, just wonderful I thought to myself. So I gingerly stood up and made my way, step by step, across the street, into the woman's own personal home, and went directly to the bathroom, where I took off my boxers, wiped down and left them there as souvenir. Of course I went back to Viradesa, where Paul had already returned, and I took a nice long shower (the water pressure and temperature has been as good here as anywhere else). I'll have to be a bit more deliberate when busting ass throughout the rest of this trip.

Yesterday evening, after we had gotten back from the waterfalls, we decided to follow a fellow traveler's (not that kind, at least I don't think) advice, and climb to the top of Phou Si hill, which is located on the center of the peninsula that comprises most of Luang Prabang. At the top of this tall hill there is a Buddhist temple with a golden spire that can be seen for miles around. We were told that watching the sunset from the top of Phou Si is priceless, as much as or more so than any Mastercard commercial. We found out first-hand that watching the sunset from Phou Si is beautiful, perhaps even borderline magical. The sun sets behind typical green Asian mountains -- by that I mean that they look like the ends of French baguettes sticking up out of the earth -- with the slow-moving Mekong down to our right-hand side, and all below you can see the village of Luang Prabang. This experience alone -- watching the sunset -- convinces one immediately why Luang Prabang is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

A funny little thing also happened just after the sun set. All of a sudden a guy with a heavy French accent starting asking everyone (and there were tourists packed in shoulder to shoulder) to move out of the way in order to do some filming. A couple guys with professional cameras and a guy with one of those boom microphones on a long pole were there too. Then this actor with a backpack comes running up the steep steps to the cement landing where all the tourists had been taking their photos of the sunset. A minute later, a few more actors, some a bit older, came up. Since I was standing right there, one of the French actresses asked me, in French, what my nationality was. I answered her directly: "Je sui americain." I'm really losing track of all the languages I've used at least once on this trip! When the filming was over, I asked the sound guy what the filming was for; he said it was for a French reality television show called "Peking Express." Seeing all of that proved to me once and for all that reality tv is nothing but a fabricated illusion.

After climbing down the multitudinous steps from Phou Si back down to the LP night market, Paul and I headed to dinner. It was a shame to see a group of several young tourists causing problems with the Laotian owners of the restaurant. At one point I heard a young tourist say loudly, "do you know how much money we've spent here all day?" The arrogance pissed me off; I mean, really, they probably spent a total of $10 for their entire meal for all of them, which they'd be lucky to get an appetizer for that price back home. That's the kind of cultural arrogance that really irritates me. As Paul said, those tourists probably think they're superior to the Laotians; really shitty approach to life. And unfortunately I know people like this back at home. When you peel away all the money and material possessions, these kinds of people are essentially really pathetic and insecure, if you ask me. That's my two cents; which can buy a nice drink here, ha!

The highlight of the day yesterday was our night. Earlier we had stopped off to get a cup of coffee at a little spot on the lane where our guesthouse is located. We ended up having a nice conversation with a young Laotian woman there, and she recommended that we go to the full-moon party at Wat That Luang, a Buddhist temple just outside of the main drag, but not too far from Viradesa. Paul and I had met a couple Swedish girls the night before while walking through the night market, and we ran into them by chance after climbing down from Phou Si and while walking to find a place for dinner. We told them about the full-moon party and asked them if they'd wanna come along; they said yes, so we met them later in the evening so we could all walk together to the party. We also mentioned the party to Nick and Josh, the Aussies, and they ended up meeting us there later on.

The full-moon party was such a fun time! As we walked there, we could hear the music from the main road, so we knew we were heading in the right direction. Once we got there, we realized it was a summer carnival type atmosphere: games were set up all around the outside of the temple, there was a tent under which there was a guy on a microphone and another guy on a keyboard blasting out all sorts of beats and music, there was plenty of plastic patio furniture for everyone to sit down, and there was beer aplenty. We walked through the carnival and realized quickly that we were the only non-Laotians there; this was true for the rest of the night, with only one exception that I observed. Finally we had come upon a truly authentic cultural experience that was not overrun by throngs of tourists taking photos! We went to the back of the grounds, where many Laotians were offering yellow flowers as a donation at the foot of the golden Buddhist shrine, then perambulating the outside of the temple. Back that way, too, there were games set up for the kids. Of course we got involved. One game was darts, which you had to throw toward balloons stuck in wooden cubby holes. For 1000 kip, you got 3 darts. I went first and got 2 out of 3, so I got a little coffee-flavored candy. All four of us took turns throwing the darts and we laughed a lot when someone threw a bad turn. While we were doing this, a group of Laotian kids came by and watched us. Later, when Paul won a carton of orange juice, he gave it to one of the kids, who looked so happy to get it. After tossing darts for a while, we walked back toward the front of the grounds and sat down to play a game of large dice that is just too complicated to explain right now; we'll have to show you the photos when we return. Needless to say, we were surrounded by tons of kids at this point and we kept giving away our "yellow cards" (which you use to play the game) to the children so they could take part in the game with us. We all had so much fun.

And then we ended the rest of the night as a full-moon party should be enjoyed: dancing under the full moon and drinking lots of Beer Lao. And still we were the only "white" people there! We did all of this back where the microphone and dance area had been set up. While Paul, me and the Swedish girls (Linda and Emma) were having fun dancing with all the Laotians, the Aussies showed up and joined us on the dancefloor. At one point we created a circle among us and the others that were there, and we took turns jumping into the middle and dancing like fools. Also, when what must've been a traditional Laotian song came on, and the Laotians lined up in two parallel circles, I got up to join in, and did my best to mimic the hand movements that they were making. The Laotians, particularly the girls, seemed to get a real kick out of that. And then later, we all joined in a Laotian line dance, kinda similar to the electric slide, though not as corny. All of us had so much fun that we danced there for a long, long while. But eventually the girls left because they had to get up early today to go on an organized tour that would take them elephant riding. And then not long after that, the four of us guys began the walk back into the village. We agreed unanimously that it was an excellent night that would not be forgotten.

So, to all my friends reading this, wherever you may be, I hope you're enjoying the stories, and Paul and I will do our best to keep the good times rolling, hopefully with some time here and there to share our good times on our respective blogs. Because we really like this town so much, we'll stay an extra night, then tomorrow morning we'll head out to our next destination: Vang Vieng. After my long shower, I now feel fresh and ready to stroll the streets of Luang Prabang!

"Waterfalls" by TLC

2008-11-12T07:02:00.003-05:00

For those not up to their 90s pop music, the title refers to a song from that era in American music history. I'll have to post the video from Youtube retroactively upon my return home. But for now, hopefully I have you singing the song in your head while you read this entry.

The highlight of the day was going out to Kuang Si waterfalls, about 35km outside of Luang Prabang. We started our day by going to a small open-air restaurant on the main road where the night market takes place later at night (of course). We each ordered foe mu = traditional noodle soup with pork. And actually, on our way there we went to a roadside vendor to have a shake; I got a blend of banana and dragonfruit, into which was mixed milk, coconut milk, a light-colored water (which we assume was some kind of sweetener). The fruitshake and the soup really hit the spot for breakfast.

From there we continued on to the Lao Lao Beer Garden, which is where we hung out and played pool last night (winning our first game, but then letting the Beer Lao affect us too much for our second game, which we lost). We had to go back there to meet up with Nick and Josh, a couple of guys from Australia who've been traveling throughout southeast Asia for a while. We met them back at Lao Lao Beer Garden at 11:30am, so that we could pool our kips (the Laotian currency) to get a covered flat-bed pick-up truck to take us out to the waterfalls. The four of us bargained hard with a couple of guys, until we finally got this young, good-natured (possibly high on something) Laotian guy to take us out for 140,000 kip for the four of us. Did I say 140,000?!?! Yes, the exchange rate is about 8,600 kip to just 1 U.S. dollar; it wasn't easy switching gears from the baht-dollar calculation to the kip-dollar calculation, but we college-educated American boys can roll with the punches.

Kuang Si waterfalls are amazing. The water is the color turquoise. The water was chilly, as mountain water all over the world must be, but it was tolerable, especially once you jumped in. And jump in we did. Well, actually I was the first one to wade into the water to check the temperature and more so to check the depth of the water to see if it was safe for diving; it was. So then we each, the four of us, took turns jumping off of a large branch overhanging the water, probably a good 15 feet above the surface. It was exhilirating. And the backdrop was absolutely gorgeous: tropical grass growing among the rocks right near the ledge of the waterfall, bounded by a forest on both sides and behind. The sun was shining brightly and we were all very happy to be there.

I must say, before I finish this entry -- as we will get ready to go to a full-moon party at a local temple, replete with dancing, drinking and merry-making -- that the ride to and from the waterfalls was also memorable, for me because of its nostalgic qualities. The small wooden shacks lining the road, the narrow bridges either wooden or metallic over small creeks, the high green mountains rising in the not-too-far distance, the young children running barefoot or in flip-flops along the sides of the road, and the overall ambience of the whole scene was so reminiscent of so many other roads throughout other parts of the Third World -- I was especially reminded of remote areas of Costa Rica and Nicaragua. It made my heart feel warm. People all over the world really do have so much in common.

And with that, I leave you to enjoy your Wednesday back home as my Wednesday night is about to begin. Hasta la proxima, mis amigos!

A lil' banged up in Luang Prabang

2008-11-11T10:58:00.006-05:00

Our flight arrived in Luang Prabang, Laos earlier this afternoon. Met a group of about 12 women from Brazil (Belo Horizonte and Sao Paulo) on the flight; they taught me some key phrases in Portuguese.

Paul and I walked through the night market tonight, cool stuff. Then we went to hang out at Lao Lao Beer Garden, where we drank a few Beer Lao's. We played pool with a group of Aussie blokes; we'll meet some of them tomorrow morning and we'll all go to the Kuang Si waterfalls together. They were nice guys. The bartender gave us all a free shot of some pretty harsh stuff that was the color green: might've been Mekong whiskey. Didn't go down easy, although I did order some french fries and then garlic bread to soak it up afterwards. But I'm off to bed now either way.

Hope all is well in the States. Plus the computer that I'm on really sucks right now, so I'm done for the night. I'll write again tomorrow, God willing. As Will Smith said, "yo homes, smell ya later!"

Up in the sky again

2008-11-10T23:38:00.003-05:00

It's now 11:40am in Chiang Mai, Thailand. In just a little over an hour, we have to catch a songthaew (the Thai version of a taxi) to the Chiang Mai airport; our flight departs at 3:05pm and arrives in Luang Prabang, Laos exactly one hour later at 4:05pm.

Now, to continue where I left off on the last entry. Paul and I rented motorscooters for the past two days. The day before yesterday we picked up the bikes so we could ride from the center of town out along one of the main roads that then climbed up the mountain just west of town to the Doi Suthep shrine. This was my first time riding a motorscooter, so I was a bit excited and nervous at the same time. Don't worry, though, I wore a helmet that said, in large letters on the back: "BEER".

Surrounding the ancient city of Chiang Mai is a moat in the shape of a square. The rest of the city has continued to grow beyond the outside of the moat. Trees and sidewalks line the banks of the moat, and then immediately on both the inside and the outside of the moat are three-lane roads that run in opposite directions (one clockwise and the other counterclockwise) around the moat. So Paul and I rode our bikes from the center of town, near our hotel, to one of these main roads, riding alongside the moat, until we got to one of the corners of the square. From there, we had to turn onto the major road that ran diagonally out from the corner of the moat and out towards the mountain. We had stopped for a red light at this intersection and we were at the front of the traffic, since the motorbikes can manuever their way to the front of all the cars. When the light turned green, I took a wide left turn to go onto the right-hand side of the road, as is normal in the United States, when I quickly realized that I'm in Thailand, where vehicles drive on the left-hand side of the road. This meant that I was driving my motorbike directly into oncoming traffic! Fortunately for me, that traffic was stopped at a red light, and I reacted quickly enough to drive my motorbike up onto the sidewalk next to that traffic. From there, I slowly drove along the sidewalk until I got to a break in the traffic and I drove across the road to the other side, where Paul was pulled over waiting for me. After the initial scare, I started laughing my ass off, and thought to myself that I'm not gonna screw that up again.

Paul and I continued on the road out toward the mountain, and after just a couple kilometers the road started climbing up the mountain. The road reminded me a bit of the road that one takes through Braulio Carrillo National Park in Costa Rica when leaving San Jose for the Caribbean coast: two lanes in each direction, with many turns and bends in the road, with amazing vistas of the lush, green mountainside below and beyond.

As we were making our way up the mountain, we saw a big sign of a Thai word; Paul joked that it said "Hollywood." That sign was on our left, and just after that the road turned very sharply to the left, while also climbing very quickly, thereby putting the sign that we just saw below us and to our left-hand side. I made the turn first, and while making the sharp turn, I tried to look down at the sign from above. But by doing this, I started veering toward the left curb, and before I could right myself, I crashed up onto the curb. I let go of the bike and because of my momentum I had to run a few more feet. Luckily the curb was large enough to stop the bike at the side of the road. Please don't worry, dear reader, I was only slightly injured: I've been wearing cargo pants my whole time here, so the long pants protected my left leg when it was caught for a second between the bike and the curb as I lost control. Even now as I write this, I have just a slight surface bruise on the inside of my left calf. For the rest of the day after it happened, my muscle felt a little cramped, but I feel fine now.

After that minor mishap, we continued riding our bikes up the mountain, honking our little horns at other motorbikes that we passed and waving at people on the side of the road. We stopped at a couple of places to get photos of the fantastic view of the city below us. From this perspective, we could see that the city of Chiang Mai really did appear to look like a city, spreading out along much of the valley below us. I think it is only because there are no tall buildings that Chiang Mai does not seem so much like a city when we Americans are inside of it.

Finally we arrived at the entrance to Doi Suthep, near the very top of the mountain. We parked our motorscooters with the long line of other motorscooters and we walked up the stairs that led to the entrance. The final stairway leading to Doi Suthep is tall and beautiful. In place of handrails, there was a dragon-head at the foot of the stairs and the tail of the dragon went the entire length of the stairway, all the way to the top. On both sides there were many trees, providing shade, and giving it a uniquely Asian feel. We made the laborious climb to the top and entered the grounds of Doi Suthep. There were beautiful buildings gilded in gold. There were also many large bells along the outside of the buildings. One larger bell, not unlike Philly's very own Liberty Bell, was inside an open structure; we took a photo with that one. All around there were courtyards and open areas. The views of the city were spectacular; and the view down the forested mountainside was breathtaking and peaceful. Also there was the International Buddhist Center; we went into an adjoining bookshop and did some reading about the basics of Buddhism. The entire scene was very serene and, as with so many ancient sites, got one to wondering about how it was all built nearly 700 years ago, how the materials were transported there when cars did not exist at that time. We took some time after we had walked around to sit down for a few minutes. I took the opportunity to drink a cantaloupe milkshake, while writing in my handwritten journal (those entries will be uploaded to this blog once I get home).

We eventually left to head back down the mountain, realizing that the sun would be setting soon. About halfway down, we decided to stop off where there had been a sign for a waterfall. When we pulled off the mountain road, we noticed a sign that the site had already closed at 5pm; at that point it may have been about 5:30 or even a little bit later. Of course we decided to continue toward the waterfall anyway. So we drove the mile or so through a very thin, although paved, roadway back towards the waterfall, hoping to take some photos. By the time we got there, though, dusk was already setting in so much that we couldn't get any quality photos. We joked that we were gonna get stuck and lost in a dark park like we had in Costa Rica five years ago (the reader can find that post on this blog somewhere around March 2003). Wanting to avoid that type of harrowing experience again, we decided to get on our bikes and get the heck out of there as quickly as possible; which we did.

We got back to Eagle House No. 2, our hotel, just in time to meet up with Andrea, a 22 year old recent college graduate from Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. We had met her soon after we had checked-in, as she was staying at Eagle House too. Since her friend had just left her to go somewhere else, and Andrea was by herself, we had invited her to come with us to the Chiang Mai Night Safari; she said yes. As we had discussed with her earlier, we met her at the hotel at 7pm, so we could hit the road to the Safari, which was located about 12km outside of town. We all sat at an outdoor table in the courtyard of the hotel, looking at maps to figure out how to drive to the safari. Then Paul gave her his helmet, and she got on the back of my bike, and we all rode out into the streets of Chiang Mai. Our next mini-road trip on the motorbikes was beginning, and I was hoping that this time it would be incident-free!

While leaving on a different road out from the city, Paul started zooming ahead on the bike. Because I had someone else on the back of my bike, though, and because I wanted to make sure that we were going in the right direction, I was more moderate in my speed. Well, we soon got to an intersection, where I knew we had to turn left onto Canal Road -- the two directions of the road are divided by a canal in the middle -- but Paul had already sped through the intersection. We had no choice but to pull over at the corner of the intersection and wait for Paul, and wait we did. Finally, about ten minutes later, I heard my name being shouted from somewhere, but I couldn't tell where. So I just started waving my hand in the air. Then I saw Paul stopped at the opposite intersection; I waved for him to turn right, so that he could get to where we were waiting and we could all start driving along Canal Road toward the Safari. The road seemed to go on for a long while, in part because I had noticed that my gas-tank indicator was on "E" and of course there were no gas stations anywhere in sight. Finally, after several miles of the wind blowing briskly in our faces on this fast highway-like road, we saw signs for the Chiang Mai Night Safari. We turned right off of Canal Road and drove a little farther until we reached the entrance.
Chiang Mai Night Safari was really fucking awesome. There's no other way to put it. It was a very modern place, with all the amenities, I felt that we could be at a theme park in the United States. And in fact when we paid for our entrance tickets and the attendant told us that we had just two minutes to make it to the tour, we hustled our way to the tram, that's when I commented that this was exactly like Jurassic Park. Seriously, watch the scene in the movie where they climb into the SUV and drive through the park, well this was the same exact thing, except we were in open-air trams or trolleys. There were two circuits/tours at the park and we did both. We saw, and amazingly close to the tram: lions, white Siberian tigers, orange and black Bengal tigers, Asian elephants, rhinos, hippos, emus, zebras, giraffes, leopards, cheetahs, and all sorts of deer and antelope and ibex. It was an awesome experience that really cannot be expressed in words. These animals were not behind cages like any zoo that I've ever been to; although I'm sure there were boundaries to their areas, these animals were out in the open. For the big cats, only a large moat separated them from the tram's roadway. For many of the other animals, they were right there, some (like the zebra) even within arm's length of the tram. It was really cool!

Besides the two tram tours, we also saw a laser light show, which was projected on to a natural screen of mist, along with an accompanying fountain show (like you would see at the Bellagio or Longwood Gardens). Before leaving, we also walked along Jaguar Trail, a trail along the outside of a lake, along which there were lots of other animals, like lemurs, flamingos, turtles, and tropical birds.

By this time we were all pretty exhausted, since all of us (including Andrea) had come into Chiang Mai earlier that day from overnight travel. We drove back to Chiang Mai, stopping off to finally get some gas, and went back to the hotel. Andrea went to her room for the night, and Paul and I, starving as we were, went out for some food. We went to a place across the street from the hotel, and not long after we had ordered our food, met a couple girls who have been living in Thailand for a while: one for months and the other for over a year. We invited them to sit down with us and we talked over dinner. A couple interesting points to our conversation. First, we talked about the king, and how there is a very real and omnipresent reverence for him throughout Thailand -- there are photos of him in practically every restaurant and establishment of any sort; his face is on all the money; and there are large posters and billboards of him alongside all the roads. The king is now 82 years old, I believe, and there is apparently a very real, though unspoken, concern about what will happen when he dies, since the people don't seem to like his son, the prince, a guy who has supposedly fathered hundreds of children with hundreds of women, and who lives a decadent lifestyle. The other interesting point of conversation was my question to the girl who has been living here for over a year: why do so many Thai men, and some women, constantly use Vapex: these nasal vapor bottles that they stick into their nostril and sniff? They use it incessantly, as if it had some kind of narcotic effect. The girl said that it is more prevalent in Bangkok, due to the smog, and that the Vapex really opens up the airways with its strong menthol odor. It is very commonly used among cab-drivers, since the Vapex is something of a stimulant, kinda like coffee. We went out with these two girls for just one round of beers at a local hang-out: the Rooftop Bar. I had a Tiger beer and Paul had a Leo beer. But by then we were really feeling beat. So we said good-bye to the girls, and Paul and I went to crash for the night.

Well, that was a long and detailed re-cap of the day before yesterday. Yesterday was pretty uneventful, but I'll catch that up later. Now we have to get ready to go to the Chiang Mai airport to catch our flight to Luang Prabang. Speaking of stimulants, I'll get a coffee now. Next time I write, it'll be from Laos. So until then, take care!

Greetings from northern Thailand

2008-11-10T05:35:00.003-05:00

I'm absolutely exhausted today, in spite of getting 7.5 hours of sleep last night. In this kind of a trip, there are inevitably days like this one. Thankfully the weather has been perfect today -- as it has since our arrival in Chiang Mai: highs in the mid to upper 80s, lows in perhaps the upper 50s -- warm sun and dry air in the day, cool and pleasant at night. So it's not the weather; it's just that over the course of a weekend back in Philly, I would normally lay out on the couch to watch some college football on Saturday and some pro ball on Sunday; none of that here, though, since we want to see as much as (reasonably) possible. So please bear with me on this post, mis estimados amigos.

Yesterday will quite likely go down as one of the best -- and most memorable -- days on the trip. The highlights can be broadly divided in 2. First, the Doi Suthep shrine, and second, the Chiang Mai Night Safari.

[Well, Paul just arrived from his late afternoon nap, and I desperately need to lay down and shut my eyes, if even for just an hour. So I will pick up this entry either later tonight or first thing tomorrow. But hey, you got your little tease for the day; you can look up the photos online. LOL!]

Chiang Mai, Thailand -- early evening

2008-11-09T17:00:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting now at the top of the mountain ridge just west of the city of Chiang Mai. Doi Suthep is the holiest shrine of Buddhism in the north of Thailand. A steady, cool wind is blowing, making the windchimes chime, and rustling the leaves on the trees. The vista from here reminds me a bit of Braulio Carrillo National Park in Costa Rica, although perhaps not so tropical since we are in the north of Thailand. There is music playing from a nearby tourist shop: mostly the sound of lutes.

Paul and I rode motor scooters to arrive here at the top of the mountain, very much a la Motorcycle Diaries. At one point, while rounding a very tight curve, and uncautiously looking back over the ridge, I lost control of the bike and ran into the curb, which was thankfully there. I slightly bruised my left inner calf muscle; the bruise is not bad at all since I'm wearing cargo pants, but my muscle feels a bit tight or sore right now, nothing too serious though.

Also, since I'm talking about the motor scooter, I have to say that I'm having issues with the lane patterns here; more specifically cars drive on the left-hand side of the road. Not long after we drove out of the center of Chiang Mai, we stopped at a major intersection; when the light turned green, everyone made a hard left right there, but I went wide, aiming for the right-hand side of the road, right towards oncoming traffic that was fortunately stopped at a red light. To salvage a very bad decision, I drove the motor scooter up onto the sidewalk right next to the stopped traffic, then I slowly drove ahead along the sidewalk until I was able to cross to the opposite lanes, where I met up with Paul, who was pulled over on a median. I laughed my ass off. But I'm hoping not to make that mistake again.

Alright, time to drive back down the mountain into town. Final thought: from up here, Chiang Mai looks much bigger than it feels when you're walking around inside of it.

Chiang Mai, Thailand -- afternoon

2008-11-09T14:30:00.000-05:00

Chiang Mai is a clean and beautiful large town. The ancient city is surrounded by a moat. Paul and I checked into our hotel after walking from the train station into the heart of the ancient city. We're staying at the Eagle House 2; hopefully that bodes well for the Eagles' game later tonight against the Giants.

I just took a shower after getting a haircut from a local Thai man for 70 baht, about 2 dollars. He did a very good job; I feel much cleaner now.

Not far in the distance a fairly large mountain ridge overlooks the small city. Its really quite a scenic place. I'm happy to have left the hustle and bustle of Bangkok, as much as I did like it, to come to another authentic side of Thailand.

I'm still amazed that I'm here, halfway around the globe. I truly thank God for the opportunity to travel and see other parts of the world. People here have been very nice and friendly. Of course some of the taxi drivers and tuk-tuk drivers and vendors can be a little bit pushy, but I don't fault them for trying to make a living. Besides them, everyone else has been very welcoming. I've already seen and done things here that have made this trip totally worth it, and yet there's so much more to see and do. Well, I've gotta get dressed now to get ready for some more experiences.

I sang "hi" in Chiang Mai.

2008-11-08T22:47:00.004-05:00

We arrived at 7:30 this morning (today is Sunday) in Chiang Mai, Thailand's second-largest city, although as throughout much of the world that term "city" is used more loosely than in the United States. Chiang Mai, at least based on our first impression, is more like an overgrown village.

The overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai was 12 hours long. We bought a second-class ticket for seats in an air-conditioned car; tickets for the sleeper car were already sold out. We had bought the tickets the day before yesterday, so we knew that we had to make it on time for our scheduled 7:20pm departure. Well, at least that was the plan...

As I said in yesterday's post, we got a late start. So our time was limited to just the afternoon. We decided to visit the Grand Palace, which we had missed the day before, and to get there, we decided to take the express boat along the Chao Phraya River, that is very efficient (I really wish Philly could develop this kind of transportation, and in general more development along the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers). Anyway, we took a boat down to the pier that put us near the Grand Palace. By the time we got there, we only had about half an hour until they closed. And that seemed to typify our luck for the rest of the day. The thing is, we were moving much slower than the first day due to going out late and having several beers the night before.

After the Grand Palace, a huge palatial estate within which were pagoda-like temples gilded with gold, we decided to find a place to find some cold drinks. So we walked to a small place across the street. The ambience of the place gave me the feeling of being in a small biermart in Germany: dark wooden panelling and dim lighting, all in a small area, with small round tables and chairs, the wall onto the sidewalk were sliding and folding wooden doors. Paul and I took our time, I had a pineapple fruit smoothie while he had two glasses of iced tea (hand-made, not commercially pre-made). We had a nice conversation, mostly talking about stuff from our past, but then also talking about our hopes for the future, especially what --and whom -- we look forward to seeing when we return. The whole time we were in the small shop, it was pouring rain outside. The weather in Bangkok has been typically humid during most of the day, the sweat sticking stubbornly to our body, as all the Thai people look as cool as cucumbers; we cannot escape our Americanness after all. Then, both afternoons in Bangkok, the clouds rumble in and the sky opens up to relieve the humidity. Yesterday's rain was more persistent than that of the day before. But Paul and I have already grown to love the rain. At least psychologically it makes us feel cooler, although the bottom of my pants invariably get soaked.

After spending a relaxing hour or so in the shop, we decided to move on. Based on a recommendation, I suggested that we try to go to Jim Thompson's house, the house of a former CIA undercover agent here years ago, and an architecture aficionado, who built his elaborate and unique house without any nails whatsoever. But according to our guide book, we had to get there before 5pm. Well, we walked back to the pier to get another express boat heading south on the river to the final stop, where we could catch the Bangkok Skytrain that would get us very close to JT's house. While we were on the train, of course, 5pm came and past; again our luck with timing didn't seem positive this day. But speaking of the train, it puts the Broad Street subway to shame; its air-conditioned, clean, modern, and even has flat-screen tv's on every car, very nice!

Since we were too late for JT's house, we decided to catch a train back one stop to Siam Square Mall. This mall puts the Gallery to shame (trust me, I still love the city of Philadelphia!), the best way to describe it is that it looks like the type of mall that you would expect to see all the rich, neo-punk/hip-hop kids in Tokyo to go to. The four-floored mall was clean and very modern; the prices reflected this, though, since they were on par with the KOP mall outside of Philly. Paul and I went to the food court on the top floor and each got a bowl of noodle soup with pork in a large, enclosed area called "Food for Fun." When we got to the check-in counter, I asked the kid if they had food there, he said yes, then I asked if it was fun, and he said yes again, that was very reassuring. Of course we had to eat there, sitting on plastic, orange-colored seats, with several groups of teenagers, mostly girls, either doing homework or gossiping as girls of that age tend to do. After that, we realized that our time was getting tight, because we still had to go back to our hotel on Khao San Road (all the way on the other side of this large city) to get our backpacks, and then still go from there to the Hualamphong train station to catch our 7:20 train for Chiang Mai. At that point, it was just past 6pm; uh oh!!!

For whatever reason, perhaps ignorance, perhaps a slight hangover, perhaps being brain-dead, Paul and I were as serene as the Buddha, despite all indications that we had screwed ourselves with our timing. We decided that we had no choice but to catch a taxi from Siam Square Mall back to the hotel, and we realized quickly that traffic was bumper to bumper, probably because it was a Saturday night in Bangkok. Our cab-driver was doing as much as he could to make it through intersections and weave through the traffic, but I realized later that it probably had more to do with his gas-tank being near "E" and less to do with us -- but who knows. He dropped us off at the end of the pedestrian-packed (think South Street on a weekend night in the summer) Khao San road, and we didn't waste a second running like Brian Westbrook, dodging and sprinting through the crowd to get back to the hotel, get our bags, then start running back out to the end of the road. We did all of this in about five minutes; when we got into our next cab, it was 7pm on the dot, we had only 20 minutes, we told our new cabbie our predicament and he told us that it would be 30 minutes to get to the train station. Again, we were resigned to our fate, whatever it would be. Well, the cab somehow pulled up to the train station at 7:22, two minutes late, but we ran directly to platform 10, hoping for the unlikely. There was a train there, we ran up to the train conductor and he said that it was our train, so we sprinted to the first car, jumped on and went to our seats, where we unloaded our bags and then looked at each other in amazement as the train began pulling out at that very instant. If we were even 30 seconds later, we would have been out of our tickets and stuck for who knows how long. We just started laughing and then slapped hands. Finally, our luck turned right when we needed. FAITH, baby, faith, that's what it's all about.

With that, I'll leave you all. Thanks again for checking in! We're now off to book a safari for tonight, to see some lions, tigers, and elephants. Don't worry, we'll take plenty of photos. Peace from the Southeast (of Asia)!!!!!

Another day in Bangkok

2008-11-08T01:39:00.003-05:00

Another day in Bangkok begins now. We got a late start today due to our late night last night; we figured we couldn't pass up the opportunity to drink a bunch of Singha beer on a Friday night in Bangkok. When I get back to the States and have more time on the internet, I'll have to post the video for that song ("One Night in Bangkok" (?), an eighties song) on to this site.

Well, we're on Soi Rambuttri, a very beautiful tree-lined, red-brick road -- located near Khao San Road --that we'll walk to the end to get to the Chao Phraya River again. From there, we'll get on an express boat like yesterday and visit the Grand Palace, an enormous compound that looked absolutely amazing from the outside yesterday, and will almost certainly blow our minds away in just a short while.

The weather is a bit overcast today, but it's keeping the temperature slightly down. Nevertheless, I'm sure its still much warmer here than in Philly.

Finally, because we're gonna get going in a minute, I want to say that I loved the feeling I got from Bangkok as soon as I got here. As much as I thought language might be a problem, it hasn't been at all. Although I feel badly to appear to be a typical American tourist speaking English in a foreign country, it doesn't seem to be taken badly here, so I guess it's okay. But I always try to show my respect for their culture and language by using the Thai greeting and by saying thank you in Thai.

Well, folks, thanks again for checking in. I'll likely post again later this evening, before our 7:20pm overnight train to the northern city of Chiang Mai. Alright, bye bye from Bangkok for now!

Sawat dii!!!

2008-11-07T09:17:00.004-05:00

"Hello" in Thai. So I'm finally here in southeast Asia, more specifically I'm writing from a small internet cafe in one of the tiny alleys behind Khao San Road, here in Bangkok, Tighe-land.

Despite getting a pretty solid 7 hours of sleep last night, I still feel a bit fatigued from a combination of the 3 hours of sleep I got on my last night in Philly before the trip, the 13.5 hour flight from Newark to Tokyo, followed by the 6 hour flight from Tokyo to Bangkok, and also the fact that here in Bangkok we are exactly 12 hours ahead of the clock in Philly (meaning that I'm typing this at 9:20pm Friday night in Bangkok, while it's currently 9:20am Friday morning at the double-deuce and Spruce). But, in spite of any fatigue or jet lag, I'm loving the fact that I'm here. But bear with me if my prose in this entry is not quite up to par; I'm just gonna go in chronological order so I don't miss anything.

So last night (i.e., Thursday night), Paul and I met up near the baggage claim in the brand-new (and beautiful) Bangkok airport. Because our hotel for the first night was already booked, and it is located near the airport, we were hooked up with a pre-arranged van ride to the airport to the hotel. Once we got there, a hotel worker slid open the door to the van, bowed with his hands pressed together in a greeting of namaste, and said sawat dii khrap, thereby greeting us. We went up to the room, and after taking turns in the shower, hit the sack by 2am.

This morning we got things started at about 9:30am. We brought our backpacks down to the front desk, and then went for a walk to get some food. I had a bowl of egg noodles with roasted pork in brown broth, healthy and very tasty way to start the day. After that, we got a taxi to take us to our next hotel, located off of the famed Khao San Road, for better or for worse, main street for the backpacker crowd. The cab driver was a guy who asked us to call him Mr. Pao, and he was a really nice guy who spoke pretty good English. We took advantage of the half-hour car ride to ask him lots of questions. During the ride, Paul mentioned to me that there had been a bombing the other day here in Thailand. So I asked both Paul and the driver where the bombing had taken place; the cab driver said that it was in Bangkok and that it had to do with the ongoing demonstrations regarding the prime minister. The cabbie also warned us not to wear red or yellow, because those are the colors of the two respective political parties that are in disagreement. Fortunately neither one of us was wearing either color, and I'm pretty sure I didn't bring any shirts of those colors. The cab driver also pointed out a road where some demonstrators were camped out; of course by total accident Paul and I walked down that very same street later in the day, no bombings much to our relief.

The hotel that our cabbie delivered us to is called Sawasdee Banglumpoo Hotel, and it's located amidst a maze of back alleys, lined with vendors' stalls, selling everything from leather products to food to bracelets to cds to sandals. And as narrow as these alleys are, we learned when we got here that the Thais are skilled enough to drive motorbikes through these alleys, somehow managing to avoid the shoppers. The road itself that lends itself to the hotel's address -- Khao San Road -- is lined with all sorts of street-front restaurants and bars, with signs everywhere. Now that it's nighttime, it looks like a smaller, Thai version of the Vegas strip -- all the signs and lights and people just sitting at roadside tables and also walking by on the street.

After checking in to our room, we began our exploration of the city of Bangkok, and as any journey truly begins, we started one step at a time by setting off on foot. Navigating by the useful maps in our Rough Guides book, we slowly and not-always-certainly made our way to Chao Phraya River. From there we actually accomplished our plan of riding a boat down the river to get us closer to our first cultural destination: Wat Pho.

Wat Pho is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it surely deserves that recognition. It's centerpiece is a 45 meter long statue of the Reclining Buddha. The smile itself is 5 meters wide. The enormity of it can only be appreciated live, and its beauty was breathtaking. Because it is a holy Buddhist site, we had to take our shoes off before entering the building in which the Buddha reclines. The statue was the color gold and its feet were inlaid with iridescent mother of pearl. Also very interesting was seeing Buddhist monks walking through and taking photos of the Buddha with their digital cameras -- welcome to the 21st century.

But Wat Pho is really a large complex of temples, fountains, and courtyards, all within the confines of a white wall about 15 feet high. After leaving the Reclining Buddha, we started walking around the compound, and that's when I thought to break out my iPod to listen to the songs "Shambala" and "Boddhisatva Vow" from the Ill Communication album by the Beastie Boys; the first track is an acid jazz track that begins with the chanting of Buddhist monks and the second track is MCA's hip-hop track laid-over the subtle background of the chanting, dedicating himself to the Buddhist faith. Hearing those tracks in the heart of a holy Buddhist site was something very special. And I will always think of Wat Pho when I hear those songs.

Right before leaving, I pointed out a small temple that we had not yet entered. And boy was that a good decision. When we started to take off our shoes, a couple of guys said that we couldn't go in because there was a film being made inside the building. We looked in and saw a couple of beautiful young women who were getting make-up put on by others. After much cajoling and many attempts to get information, we eventually got the name of the film. But we did it by asking one of the guys to take our guide-book to one of the attractive actresses and have her autograph it for us. She did so, writing the name of the film as "In Search for Sunshine"; she signed her name as Miss Thailand Universe 2006. So we met a star!

Anyway, time is getting long here, and it's nighttime in Bangkok, so we oughtta live some life. Our afternoon and evening after the visit at Wat Pho consisted mainly of walking around, lost for much of the time, but not minding it since we were exploring the city. We ended up eating at a restaurant where we were the only "white" (European-descent) people. There we had our first taste of Chang beer. Then we got a taxi to Hualamphong train station to buy tickets for an overnight train to Chiang Mai, which we will take tomorrow evening at 7:20pm.

Alright, amigos, thanks for checking in. I will continue to post everyday if possible. With love from southeast Asia. Peace!

Bangkok, Thailand -- early morning

2008-11-07T00:33:00.000-05:00

I met up with Paul near the baggage claim upon arrival here at the Bangkok airport. Now we're at Queen's Garden Hotel near the airport. Paul just got out of shower; now its my turn. Be right back . . .

Wow, what a great feeling after a nice, warm shower and a thorough brushing of teeth. Well, it's now time for bed. Gotta rest up to begin the trip in earnest.

Tokyo, Japan -- evening

2008-11-06T17:38:00.003-05:00

I'm here in Asia! It's 5:38 p.m. and I just finished eating a bowl of udon with shredded beef at a small restaurant near my departure gate in Narita Airport. My flight to Bangkok should begin boarding in about half an hour, with a scheduled 7:00 p.m. departure time.

I'm realizing now that it's a bit hard to concentrate, quite certainly as a result of travel fatigue. Due to my normal last minute preparations, I didn't get to bed until just before 3:30 a.m. on Tuesday night. Part of that, though, I must say, was due to watching Barack Obama's historic victory speech on television. It was about 11 p.m. when ABC news projected that he had won enough votes to win the presidential election. Then, at midnight eastern time, after John McCain's gracious concession speech, followed by plenty of commentary by the news anchors, Obama took the stage in Chicago's Grant Park.

Anyway, by the time I was done watching that, then shaved, packed, and took a shower, it was nearly 3:30 a.m. My alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. And that's when things got moving, up until and still through the present time.

After breakfast and last-minute check of everything, I walked to 30th Street Station. I had to wait a little over half an hour to get onto an 8:30 a.m. train heading north to Newark-Liberty Airport. Even then, I recall feeling tired. And now, my eyes feel tired, and as of the last time I looked in a mirror, they're a little bit red.

On top of the travelling, though, the jet lag may have much to do with my fatigue. While its already Thursday evening here, the sun having set earlier as I was running around between Terminals 1 & 2, back in Philly it's still Thursday morning; I imagine the sun will be rising there very soon.

The flight from Newark to Tokyo was a direct, 13.5 hour flight; it covered 6830 miles, nearly halfway around the globe. Surprisingly, though, the flight didn't seem so long, mainly because I was in and out of sleep almost the entire time. When I didn't have my eyes closed, I did about ten pages worth of reading, I ate two in-flight meals and a snack, and I listened to some music on my iPod.

Well, I should get packed up here since boarding should begin soon, and I ought to move closer to the gate. Next time I write, I'll have to re-count how I tried to find Paul here in Narita, but was ultimately unsuccessful. I really would have liked to have seen him, since travelling solo like this, especially for so many hours on end, tends to depress me just a little bit. Then again, that probably has much to do with the fatigue too. But hey, I can now say I've been to Asia! Alright, off to Bangkok.

Praise be to GOD

2008-11-05T01:00:00.001-05:00

Obama has won!

El viaje continua...

2008-11-04T19:00:00.002-05:00

The journey continues...

And so, once again, I take flight to see another part of God's great creation that we call planet Earth. This time, the winds will carry me to southeast Asia, where I hope to find some tender-lovin' care in TLC: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia.

As always, a trip like this provides me with an opportunity for self-reflection, a chance to step away from my life here and figure out what my heart tells me is the right direction to take at this point in my life.

Quotes are a good way to set the tone for a journey of any kind. And so I offer a few, for your enjoyment and for my own edification:

"The boy felt jealous of the freedom of the wind, and saw that he could have the same freedom. There was nothing to hold him back except himself." -- The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, page 28.

"'There is only one way to learn,' the alchemist answered. 'It's through action. Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey.'" -- The Alchemist, page 125.

"It's a good thing to drink when dancing, because dancing stops you from getting drunk, and alcohol keeps you going." -- The Age of Reason, by Jean-Paul Sartre, page 240.

"Yes, this is the place where we must breathe, dream and lengthen the hours through an infinity of sensations." -- Invitation To The Voyage, in Twenty Prose Poems, by Charles Baudelaire, page 33.

"Every man carries within him his dose of natural opium, incessantly secreted and renewed, and, from birth until death, how many hours can we count that are filled with positive joy, with successful and decisive action?" -- Invitation To The Voyage, pages 35-37.

Now, as if the website you've been so kind to visit right now isn't enough, may I direct you to my travel companion's very own travel-blog? Check out Paul's site HERE.

Finally, I'd like to THANK YOU for checking-in. I truly and sincerely mean it when I say that every one of you is with me on this trip. Any time I leave home, I can't help but think about and appreciate the people that I've left behind; by your very existence in my thoughts, and by virtue of my physical presence in southeast Asia, so shall you be in southeast Asia too. And to those of you whom I've lost touch with, I hope that we can re-connect when I return to U.S. soil. Although my time on the internet may very likely be limited while I'm overseas, I'd still very much love to hear from you, either by posting a comment here or else by sending an email to my personal account.

And so, with that being said, let this humble ambassador from Philadelphia get ready to continue on my journey. Up, up, and away!!!

PHILLIES WIN THE WORLD SERIES!!!

2008-10-30T16:01:00.005-04:00

In the seven and a half years that I've been living in the city of Philadelphia, I have never seen anything like what I saw and experienced last night. As the title clearly indicates, the Philadelphia Phillies won the 2008 World Series, clinching the championship last night with a 4-3 Game 5 victory against the Tampa Bay Rays.

I watched the game here at the double-deuce and Spruce. I cooked a nice dinner for Diana and I to eat during the game: spaghetti with tomato basil spaghetti sauce, into which I mixed in a) roasted garlic-flavored chicken sausage, b) diced tomatoes with garlic and olive oil, and c) chopped spinach. Over the top of the finished product we sprinkled some parmesan/romano grated cheese. Along with the food we drank a glass of sparkling apple cider. As we sat down to eat, we listened to the end of "Star/Pointro", a song off of The Tipping Point album by Philly's very own hip-hop heroes: The Roots, then we turned that off to listen to the (anti-Philly-biased) commentary by the Fox sportscasters. So the scene is set, right?

Even before the game began, you could sense the anticipation in the air in the city of Philadelphia, like the feeling one might have to hear the ticking of a bomb. And as the game wore on -- one run by the Phillies, which was then matched by the Rays to even it up, and then the go-ahead run by the Phillies to make it a 4-3 score -- you could somehow feel the excitement building in the air; it was like the static ions building up in the air during a thunderstorm. And then lightning struck! Brad Lidge threw the final strike for the final out in the final game of the 2008 World Series.

The city exploded. POW!!!!! Like a bunch of kids busting out the double-doors on the last day of school before summer break, all the two-fifteeners inside the neighborhood bars sprinted out into the streets the very moment after Lidge released that final bolt of lightning. As my upstairs neighbor, Corey, told me later, a group of guys went streaking up Spruce Street moments after the game's conclusion. Carhorns started sounding-off across the city. The pops and crackles of fireworks were heard from all directions.

Diana and I went outside to the stoop to check out the scene. Groups of people were walking by on the sidewalks, dressed in Phillies red. Cars went driving by, heads sticking out, yelling and screaming. People from other buildings came outside to see the scene from ground level. A minute later, my upstairs neighbor Corey came down, drinking a bottle of beer, and joined us to talk about the game and the electricity that was so palpable in the Two-One-Five.

After several minutes of talking and soaking in the atmosphere, we came back inside to warm up momentarily. I put on some warmer clothes and closed up shop, and Diana and I went to get her car back from my man Fred at the local garage near my gym. We drove down the double-deuce to Chestnut Street, and drove that for just two blocks, although it took us about ten minutes to make it that far because of all the slow traffic, and because there were people literally walking down the middle of the street. I stuck out my hand from the passenger seat to exchange high-fives with all the party people. Racially and ethnically it was a mixed crowd, but besides that petty difference, it was really one crowd: Philadelphia pride. And that's what this city is.

Smiling ear to ear, we turned on 20th, then again on to Market Street. We took that down to 16th Street, which was as far as we could get before there were just mobs of people walking down, across, and in the middle of the streets. Driving north on 16th, passing over JFK Boulevard, we looked to our right-hand side, toward Penn Square (surrounding City Hall), and we were astounded to see a sea of Philly-humanity: a jubilation congregation.

As we had seen on Fox 29 immediately after the game and then again later that night, there were massive crowds that had spontaneously gathered on Broad Street. Here's a video of what it apparently looked like at ground level; be sure to play through to the end because there's some crazy shit in there; check it, check it out:

I love the city of Philadelphia. And at no other point have I felt the unity and pride of this city so beautifully expressed than it was last night. Sure, there might've been some crazy shit, as the video showed, but some of that is expected from drunkards feeding off of the natural high that was already floating in the air around the city.

But I love a city that puts its collective middle finger up to the national sportscasters and sportswriters who sold out the Phillies before, during, and yes, even after, the World Series. The Phillies won, plain and simple, they were the superior team in all aspects of the game, and it wasn't even close: a 4-1 game series advantage, and it wouldn't have taken much to make that single loss into a Phillies win.

A lot of people, especially fucking New Yorkers, like to try to shit on the city of Philadelphia. But there's more heart in this city than the materialistic "i gotta be somebody" cities of New York and Los Angeles, or the yuppie "my parents are rich suburban snobs" cities of Boston, Baltimore, and Washington, DC. There used to be a mural above a shop on 20th & Market Streets that said "heart" over "capital." (as an aside, click HERE for an interesting Catholic analysis regarding the priority of humanity over capital). I'll choose the heart of Philadelphia over the empty souls of those other cities.

Philadelphia: the heart of a champion, humble and hardworking, tough outer shell but a compassionate inner soul. The Phillies showed the world that teamwork wins championships. And that the heart of Philly is its greatest strength and beauty.

Finally, in honor of that spirit, here's the archetype of Philadelphia's soul to inspire you:

Sarah Palin booed

2008-10-22T00:44:00.003-04:00

Check out the video below of Sarah Palin being booed loudly at the Philadelphia Flyers home opener against the New York Rangers on Saturday, October 11th. Click HERE to read an article in the Philadelphia Daily News about Palin getting booed.

Sarah Palin is not competent to be vice-president or president of the United States. A major component of either position is foreign policy, and she simply has no grasp on international politics. No sane person can disagree with either part of that statement (for the latter part, please cf. Palin's interview with Katie Couric). Thus, logic leads to the following conclusion: anyone who votes for McCain-Palin on Election Day is out of their mind. To friends and strangers alike, I will lose respect for you if you vote for McCain-Palin.

You gotta love the honest reaction of the Philadelphia crowd.

saSQUATch

2008-10-21T21:00:00.001-04:00

That's a pretty stupid title, I know, but I couldn't think of anything more clever to incorporate the word "squat." Earlier tonight I went to the gym for a leg work-out. I did squats and lunges; here's how I did:

Squats:
1) 135 pounds, 12 repetitions
2) 185 pounds, 10 repetitions
3) 225 pounds, 8 repetitions
4) 245 pounds, 5 repetitions

Lunges:
1) 20 pound dumbbell each hand, 24 total repetitions (12 each leg)
2) 30 pound dumbbell each hand, 20 total repetitions (10 each leg)
3) 40 pound dumbbell each hand, 16 total repetitions (8 each leg)

My final set of squats today was the most repetitions I've done at that weight since I was in college. My personal best, set back then, was 315 pounds at 2 repetitions. I don't look to repeat that level of performance, but if I continue to get stronger, I'd like to reach 275 pounds for at least a couple repetitions. But even if I only maintain my current level of performance, I'll be content; that's not too bad.

A bilingual United States of America

2008-10-20T17:30:00.002-04:00

As this article (click HERE) explains, the Oprah Winfrey Show is going bilingual, i.e. it will be presented in Spanish in certain television markets.

I've said it before and I'll say it again now: globalization is not only an exporting of the U.S. culture and primary language to the rest of the world; globalization is a two-way street, which necessarily means that the U.S. is changing and evolving to the influences of other cultures and languages too.

In the area of language, then, this means that Spanish will become more and more prevalent -- and eventually mainstream (coexistent with English) -- throughout the United States. There are, unfortunately, plenty of cultural conservatives and plain racists who do not want to accept this reality. But a reality it is nonetheless.

As much as I wish this evolution would take place for reasons of cultural respect and exchange, the real reason -- as we can easily see from a savvy businesswoman like Oprah -- is money. The Spanish-speaking market in the United States is growing quickly and those who are quick to adapt to these cultural and demographic changes will reap financial rewards as a result. Whatever the reasons, though, the end result will be the same: a bilingual Estados Unidos de America.

text message to DG

2008-10-20T00:05:00.001-04:00

Buenas noches mi linda princesa, tu eres el amor de mi vida. Te extrano cada momento que no estemos juntos, como una flor extrana las caricias del lindo sol.

Los Amigos Ya Son Visibles

2008-10-10T14:10:00.004-04:00

Last night's concert was amazing. A group of my friends came to support the let's-have-a-good-time cause. And I feel pretty confident saying that we accomplished our mission. The music was non-stop and it was highly energetic and infectious, as is the nature of the music of Los Amigos Invisibles. My only minor complaint is that I feel the volume was a tiny bit too high; I think that last year's show at World Cafe Live was at a slightly lower volume level. But hey, that's a very minor point, so we're all still happy!

This morning, in anticipation of Evan and Paul coming into town, I wanted to take care of a couple things at the law library. I got done around 12:30pm, and the weather being so beautiful here today (72 degrees and sunny), I decided to walk back to the Double-Deuce and Spruce.

So I'm walking down Walnut Street and, as I'm on the 1200 block, I look across the street to the other sidewalk, and who do I see? The drummer and lead guitarist of Los Amigos Invisibles just walking down Walnut. So right there I cross the street, and as I'm crossing Walnut, I cup my hands around my mouth, and yell, "Amigos Invisibles!" They stop and look at me, I shake their hands, and then we talked for about five minutes. I told them that I saw their show last night, and had a really good time, that they did a great job. I also said that I would've loved to see them tonight down in DC, if not for a couple good friends (see supra) coming into town this evening. I asked them if they had ever played in Costa Rica, and they said yes, at Playa Tamarindo; I told them that it is a bit touristy there, but it's a really nice place. They explained to me how the style of their shows are different in the United States compared to Latin America, and how that usually means an indoor solo show versus an outdoor show with accompanying acts. They also seemed to imply that the songs that they play may also be a bit different. I told them that my family is from there, and that my mother is there right now. So the lead guitarist asked me in Spanish, "Eres costarricense?" and I replied, "Naci en Colombia, pero mi mama es de Costa Rica. Hace tiempo que estoy viviendo en Philly." And he simply replied, "Ay carajo." Haha! It was so cool to see and meet those guys after just seeing them play last night. I told them that this was my third time seeing them. They asked me my name and I told them, and they said it was nice to meet me. I wouldn't have minded hanging out with them for a bit, so I asked what they were up to, and they said that they were actually getting ready to drive down to DC in a little bit. So that was that.

But hey, from last night to today, things are rolling along nicely. I've gotta thank God for blessing me. As the Beastie Boys sing, "life comes in stages, take the good with the bad." Well, it's always more fun when you're in a good stage, and I feel like I'm just at the beginning of a good stage. The trip is coming up so soon, and I know that it will be an incredible experience, and to come back I hope to be blessed with a full-time gig again. And then, God willing, all I'll need is to find true love. And I'm truly hopeful for that. In the meantime, though, I'm just gonna keep on doing my thang, and see what happens.

Los Amigos Invisibles

2008-10-08T22:28:00.009-04:00

Listen up, friends! / Oye amigos!

One of my favorite groups, Los Amigos Invisibles, is performing tomorrow (Thursday) night at 7:30pm at World Cafe Live, 30th & Walnut Streets. / Uno de mis grupos favoritos, Los Amigos Invisibles, esta tocando manana (jueves) a las 7:30 de la noche en World Cafe Live, ubicado en la 30 & Walnut.

I've seen them live twice before, both times here in Philly: October 29, 2005 at the TLA and November 9, 2007 at World Cafe Live. / Los he visto dos veces antes, las dos veces aqui en Philly: el 29 de octubre, 2005 en el TLA y el 9 de noviembre, 2007 en World Cafe Live.

Their music is versatile and multifarious; different songs can be labeled as acid jazz, funk, disco, latin jazz, and/or dance. As LA Weekly said: ""Los Amigos Invisibles have taken the rhythmic sass in salsa, the bass-heavy fun in funk, and even the note-bending bile in acid-jazz, and mixed it all up to produce an infectious beat. They've put the joy back into dancing, sending a warm current into the cold alienating waters of industrial strength techno."

Su musica es versatil y polifacetico; piezas diferentes pueden ser catalogadas como acid jazz, funk, disco, jazz latino, y/o baile. Como dijo LA Weekly: "Los Amigos Invisibles han quitado el descaro ritmico de salsa, la diversion del bajo bien-bajo de funk, y hasta el mal genio de las notas-torcidas de acid jazz, y los han mezclado todo para producir un ritmo infeccioso. Ellos han repuesto la alegria en el baile, enviando un corriente tibio en el agua frio y alienado del techno de fuerza industrial."

If you're in Philadelphia, or at least happen to be passing through tomorrow night, then please think about stopping in. I can guarantee that you will have a good time. These guys put on an amazing show. As much as I love their music on cd or playing from my iPod, this is one group that I can truly say sounds even better live. You don't wanna miss this opportunity, party people!

Si tu estas en Philadelphia, o por lo menos estas pasando por aqui manana en la noche, debes considerar venir con nosotros. Te puedo garantizar que vas a pasarlo super-chevere. Estos maes van a poner un show fantastico. Lo tanto que me encanto la musica de ellos en cd o escuchada por mi iPod, este es uno de esos grupos que puedo decir verdaderamente que suenan mejor en vivo. Ustedes no quieren perder esta oportunidad, fiesteros!

And in case you need any more convincing, check out the video for their song, "Una Disco Llena," which happens to be my favorite song by these guys:

Y si tu todavia necesitas mas para convencerte, chequea este video para la pieza, "Una Disco Llena," que por casualidad es mi pieza favorita de estos maes:

"SIEMPRE MIA TU SERAS, SI ME BESAS AL BAILAR."

Windows closed

2008-10-06T20:50:00.002-04:00

This morning was the first time that I took out the screens and closed the windows in my apartment since the last time I had my air-conditioning on for a hot day in the summer. Today was a little bit chilly in the morning. And now tonight, it's feeling even chillier. So autumn really is coming now!

Yesterday I was out and about, and walking around the city. I realized in the mid-afternoon that I still hadn't eaten breakfast yet (I'd had a second round of coffee around noontime, due to a completely restless -- and totally worth it -- weekend). So I went into Goodburger, on the 1700 block of Chestnut Street, to get a quick meal. I've eaten there once before, probably about two months ago, not too long after they first opened. I recommend it. Anyway, it was there that I was very fortunate to catch -- coincidentally -- the last two innings of the Phillies game, in which they were victorious over the Milwaukee Brewers, thus winning that series to move on to the NLDS (the National League Division Series).

And speaking of the NLDS, it starts this Thursday right here in the Two-One-Five. With all respect to Michael, I hope the Phillies make a statement and handily handle (that's a handful!) the Dodgers. We all know that this city is desperate for a championship. And especially with the prospects of a good Eagles' season going quickly down the tubes, we've gotta send all our good karma in the Phillies' direction. (Or better yet, in the economy's direction, whatever direction it may be -- but let's save that topic for another time).

Okay, amigos, time to figure out what's for dinner. "I'm audi, so check me."

Hunt for Green October

2008-10-03T14:57:00.003-04:00

Hey there,

Last night I was thinking to myself that I've been so intent on posting old entries from my handwritten journal that I haven't posted anything in the present. So here's your update of the day:

The "green" in the title refers to money, since I'm still waiting for word on a start date for the next project. They had set it for this past Monday, but then called me at nearly 9pm last Saturday night (while I was in the middle of finishing a bottle of red Chilean wine) to tell me that it was being pushed back indefinitely. And that's the status still today. Let me tell you that I'm definitely ready to get back to a regular schedule (my body feels uncomfortable when I'm irregular) and back to making some dolla dolla bills, y'all.

I just officially picked up a new client this morning, though, so it's all good in the hood, at least for the time being.

Besides the job situation, everything else is pretty chill here at the double-deuce & spruce. Autumn has arrived and as you may remember from last year's entry around this time, this is my favorite time of year.

And just as autumn is a time of transition, so may it coincide with my personal life as things seem to indicate a transition there too. I won't speculate too much on that here, since that's not my thing on this site, but also because I'd rather let things unfold naturally without too much analysis or prediction.

Finally, I'm getting a bit more excited for the SE Asia trip with Paul. We've met once to do some initial planning. And since then, I've compiled a lot of info from various people into a single cheat-sheet travel plan. Paul and I will probably get together soon to fill-in some of the holes in that plan. But you can be sure that we'll be posting updates like mad once we're over yonder. And that's when you'll be entertained beyond all expectations.

Okay people, that's all you get for now. I will, in fact, keep putting up old journal entries at my own leisure. Thanks! And have a great weekend.