for a stroll to escape the four dim walls of his messily empty room. on his stroll, at the place where a dead end street exploded from its isolation into a wide, empty park, he saw a man, head down, pushing a lawnmower on a lawn that could have been covered by the three cars packed beside it in a tiny driveway. the brown grass behind his droning mower was the same height as the brown grass in front.
the wandering man teetered between the empty park and the dead end street. the lawnmower roared on behind him. the park with its bright red slides and yellow monkey bars and blue ladders and green castles and four empty baseball diamonds was eerily quiet in front of him. the lawnmower ground on behind him. a rabbit munched on the grass, near grafitti-covered padlocked bathrooms. the rabbit turned his nose to sniff the air. queen-anne's-lace and thistles and cedar trees turned and rustled in a new-sprung breeze. the scent of coming rain quickened in my nose and the rabbit bounded away as i stepped in.
25 July 2005
in the words of the great lindsay musser
GOOD LORK! I have amazing friends!
I moved into my new apartment/house/room situation Thursday and have been "offline" ever since (I never realized the extent to which the last few years of my life have become wired...) So today I am checking my email and smiling in great relief for all of the wonderful people. But smiling very quietly because my nieces are sleeping in the next room and their mommy and daddy are off shopping, so I have no one to pass them off to should they awake unhappily. my nieces leave for Africa Friday (their parents are going, too) where they will live in Moshe, Tanzania and no doubt terrorize the nieghborhood on their new, bright pink bicycles and squeals of glee. Anna drives like her dad (and her uncle dan) and this is not necessarily a good thing.
I have a some pictures and a few good stories and a great many thoughts on solitude and change, but i foisted my cameraphone on the wandering parents in the off chance that I need a lifeline...
With hope, I will be able to wander down to Houghton sometime next week and snag my computer, purchase a snazzy wireless card, and get connected with the house network (I live with a group of "students" and internet is, of course, not optional).
I have discovered the cure for urban cabin fever: urban expeditioning! I set off towards the setting sun yesterday to discover fields, a playground, an old quarry, and a crumbling football stadium with trees growing up through the old concrete bleachers (of course I trespassed!). Then I proceeded to pick up my mountain bike from the shop, run my favorite mixture of Bill Cosby routines, Grits, Redemption Songs and Maroon 5 through my headphones on random, and terrorize the park paths, small ratdogs, curbs, piles of dirt, hills, and other potential jumps and speedy patches of the city. I only incurred several small scratches in the process, and an unhealthy, unabating urge to attempt to ride down those wide stone park stairs at top speed while dodging strolling senior citizens and lovebirds and avoiding the "lake" (it's a duck pond with pretensions--I grew up on the Great Lakes, baby!) at the bottom. Life went from miserable to 20 mph in four seconds flat, and I have the next three days off!
I moved into my new apartment/house/room situation Thursday and have been "offline" ever since (I never realized the extent to which the last few years of my life have become wired...) So today I am checking my email and smiling in great relief for all of the wonderful people. But smiling very quietly because my nieces are sleeping in the next room and their mommy and daddy are off shopping, so I have no one to pass them off to should they awake unhappily. my nieces leave for Africa Friday (their parents are going, too) where they will live in Moshe, Tanzania and no doubt terrorize the nieghborhood on their new, bright pink bicycles and squeals of glee. Anna drives like her dad (and her uncle dan) and this is not necessarily a good thing.
I have a some pictures and a few good stories and a great many thoughts on solitude and change, but i foisted my cameraphone on the wandering parents in the off chance that I need a lifeline...
With hope, I will be able to wander down to Houghton sometime next week and snag my computer, purchase a snazzy wireless card, and get connected with the house network (I live with a group of "students" and internet is, of course, not optional).
I have discovered the cure for urban cabin fever: urban expeditioning! I set off towards the setting sun yesterday to discover fields, a playground, an old quarry, and a crumbling football stadium with trees growing up through the old concrete bleachers (of course I trespassed!). Then I proceeded to pick up my mountain bike from the shop, run my favorite mixture of Bill Cosby routines, Grits, Redemption Songs and Maroon 5 through my headphones on random, and terrorize the park paths, small ratdogs, curbs, piles of dirt, hills, and other potential jumps and speedy patches of the city. I only incurred several small scratches in the process, and an unhealthy, unabating urge to attempt to ride down those wide stone park stairs at top speed while dodging strolling senior citizens and lovebirds and avoiding the "lake" (it's a duck pond with pretensions--I grew up on the Great Lakes, baby!) at the bottom. Life went from miserable to 20 mph in four seconds flat, and I have the next three days off!
19 July 2005
the stories i don't have time to tell....
because i have a test tomorrow :) now it was my impression that i had graduated...
so here's the weekend in brief:
a beautiful intersection. a flat tire. the intersection decreases in charm with time. time for the Vera the Verizoid to do her work. she does. Dave Lilley responds to the call in the red chariot of justice (it's a toyota).
dan waits. he practices calm in frustration. this becomes very handy later on in the week as dan tries to cash a check in order to begin renting an apartment...a check he cannot cash because he cannot open an account because he does not have a permanent address because he does not have...an apartment. dan curses the modern world (but that's later in the week...and with a zen-like calm).
who would have thought heroes did so much paperwork? i'll bet superheroes don't have to do all this paperwork. that's what Alfred is supposed to handle in between buffing the Batmobile and fixing my morning latte. as least i get to listen to Dave's Sufjan Stevens CD collection.
dave lilley is a pancake making fiend. i am a fruit-slicing fiend. together we make pancakes. we eat them. we are unaffected by poor lighting. we even make frozen coffee/ice cream drinks and drink them. and watch movies with British accents in them. life is good in spite of paperwork.
dan visits houghton (ah! breathe the fresh air! see the mountain views! feel the mist wafting through the air! smell horses, not buses! greet people on the sidewalk!) to pick up a bicycle. in the process, Vera makes a friend with Frawley's Fone and pleasant conversation with understanding individuals levers a load off of dan's shoulders. he squares them and faces monday once more...
to be continued...
so here's the weekend in brief:
a beautiful intersection. a flat tire. the intersection decreases in charm with time. time for the Vera the Verizoid to do her work. she does. Dave Lilley responds to the call in the red chariot of justice (it's a toyota).
dan waits. he practices calm in frustration. this becomes very handy later on in the week as dan tries to cash a check in order to begin renting an apartment...a check he cannot cash because he cannot open an account because he does not have a permanent address because he does not have...an apartment. dan curses the modern world (but that's later in the week...and with a zen-like calm).
who would have thought heroes did so much paperwork? i'll bet superheroes don't have to do all this paperwork. that's what Alfred is supposed to handle in between buffing the Batmobile and fixing my morning latte. as least i get to listen to Dave's Sufjan Stevens CD collection.
dave lilley is a pancake making fiend. i am a fruit-slicing fiend. together we make pancakes. we eat them. we are unaffected by poor lighting. we even make frozen coffee/ice cream drinks and drink them. and watch movies with British accents in them. life is good in spite of paperwork.
dan visits houghton (ah! breathe the fresh air! see the mountain views! feel the mist wafting through the air! smell horses, not buses! greet people on the sidewalk!) to pick up a bicycle. in the process, Vera makes a friend with Frawley's Fone and pleasant conversation with understanding individuals levers a load off of dan's shoulders. he squares them and faces monday once more...
to be continued...
15 July 2005
the dan in the mirror
hey everybody! it's dan! with not-orange not-dyed hair! at Becca's house! looking at his fine self in the mirror! and next to him...it's his new buddy [as yet unnamed...suggestions?] through whom you can talk to an actual, real, live, conversant and incredibly mobile (we're working on the upward) dan. that's right. you could talk to dan. if you had his number. you don't. very few people do. do you want to?
ps--dan's little friend is a verizoid; if you're little friend is a verizoid, they can become verizobuddies and can talk and swap pictures and text messages to their little hearts' content. otherwise...it's best to find dan's expensive little friend on free days like nights and weekends, when he's not marshalling his 450 monthly minutes like a fat hamster guarding his little stash of green pellets. :)
ps--dan's little friend is a verizoid; if you're little friend is a verizoid, they can become verizobuddies and can talk and swap pictures and text messages to their little hearts' content. otherwise...it's best to find dan's expensive little friend on free days like nights and weekends, when he's not marshalling his 450 monthly minutes like a fat hamster guarding his little stash of green pellets. :)
12 July 2005
city livin'
0630 up an' at 'em--breakfast of granola
0700 out the door and on the bike with pack:
uniform, lunch, and ubiquitous three binders
0730 arrive Rural/Metro Buffalo. Shower. Shave. Assume uniform.
0800 Documentation training: why exhaustive documentation ensures important things:
successful billing
liability avoidance
more successful billing
more security from trial lawyers and TV-miseducated juries
because patient care is the bottom line
1000 HIPAA: the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
(why you don't talk about confidential stuff to anyone. ever.)
(except, under certain occasions, the cops)
(or, of course, those directly involved in patient care)
1200 lunch. an apple. two. i have decided to go back to string budgeting.
(everyone else is eating out....)
1230 Map Reading 101: welcome to Buffalo. the map is usually right when it
indicates a one way street. except, of course, when the street is one way
in the other direction. in the winter, half of them are impassable.
(now i long for home. in Detroit, there is a grid of mile roads.
the east-west ones are handily labeled, 5 through 27 mile
the south-north ones are sometimes tricky--they change names
but NEVER directions. and they rarely just dead-end.
Buffalo, on the other hand, has no such reliability. or common sense.
this could be fun.
1400 Epinepherin Auto-Injector protocol/skills training. Albuterol "peace pipe"
preparation and protocol. Mass-Casualty Triage, with chipper, black tags
with "dead" in big white letters for those we give up on after a thirty-
second assessment. we are cheerily told that after arriving on-scene and
triaging twenty patients (going through an entire SMART tagging hit) we
will be not assist in patient care because we will probably need
counseling. or at least a coffee break.
1530 Confirm schedule with Chief Field Training Officer: a month of 12 hr. shifts,
four days on, four days off.
1600 embark on semi-intentional bicycle tour of Buffalo, including two major
hospitals (ECMC--D-Zone, Level 1 Trauma Unit, Burn and Psych Ward; Buffalo
General--E-Zone, General Emergency with Cardiac Center and Psych Ward).
tires on bike need repeated pumping--need new tires. scratch. need new bike.
1900 "home"--Becca's apartment. T minus three days 'til Robin gets back and i have
no bed. humidity awful-shirt soaked-shower necessary.
2000 Mac 'n Cheese for dinner. Email. Read homework. Write piteously to friends
hoping for solution to housing dilemma. ponder fiduciary limits and weigh
the convenience of car ownership verse ever paying off my college debts.
2100 Read more homework. Documentation and billing and Medicare requirements and the
fine line between...
2300 Test finished. At least it's open-book. Bedtime.
No wonder I feel so satisfied, so fulfilled, so stinkin' tired. looking forward to: Thursday, 0800, driving an ambulance. :)
0700 out the door and on the bike with pack:
uniform, lunch, and ubiquitous three binders
0730 arrive Rural/Metro Buffalo. Shower. Shave. Assume uniform.
0800 Documentation training: why exhaustive documentation ensures important things:
successful billing
liability avoidance
more successful billing
more security from trial lawyers and TV-miseducated juries
because patient care is the bottom line
1000 HIPAA: the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
(why you don't talk about confidential stuff to anyone. ever.)
(except, under certain occasions, the cops)
(or, of course, those directly involved in patient care)
1200 lunch. an apple. two. i have decided to go back to string budgeting.
(everyone else is eating out....)
1230 Map Reading 101: welcome to Buffalo. the map is usually right when it
indicates a one way street. except, of course, when the street is one way
in the other direction. in the winter, half of them are impassable.
(now i long for home. in Detroit, there is a grid of mile roads.
the east-west ones are handily labeled, 5 through 27 mile
the south-north ones are sometimes tricky--they change names
but NEVER directions. and they rarely just dead-end.
Buffalo, on the other hand, has no such reliability. or common sense.
this could be fun.
1400 Epinepherin Auto-Injector protocol/skills training. Albuterol "peace pipe"
preparation and protocol. Mass-Casualty Triage, with chipper, black tags
with "dead" in big white letters for those we give up on after a thirty-
second assessment. we are cheerily told that after arriving on-scene and
triaging twenty patients (going through an entire SMART tagging hit) we
will be not assist in patient care because we will probably need
counseling. or at least a coffee break.
1530 Confirm schedule with Chief Field Training Officer: a month of 12 hr. shifts,
four days on, four days off.
1600 embark on semi-intentional bicycle tour of Buffalo, including two major
hospitals (ECMC--D-Zone, Level 1 Trauma Unit, Burn and Psych Ward; Buffalo
General--E-Zone, General Emergency with Cardiac Center and Psych Ward).
tires on bike need repeated pumping--need new tires. scratch. need new bike.
1900 "home"--Becca's apartment. T minus three days 'til Robin gets back and i have
no bed. humidity awful-shirt soaked-shower necessary.
2000 Mac 'n Cheese for dinner. Email. Read homework. Write piteously to friends
hoping for solution to housing dilemma. ponder fiduciary limits and weigh
the convenience of car ownership verse ever paying off my college debts.
2100 Read more homework. Documentation and billing and Medicare requirements and the
fine line between...
2300 Test finished. At least it's open-book. Bedtime.
No wonder I feel so satisfied, so fulfilled, so stinkin' tired. looking forward to: Thursday, 0800, driving an ambulance. :)
09 July 2005
so do you know anyone in Buffalo?
because I start work Monday and I'm living on a friend's couch until I can find an apartment. :)
cheers for me!
cheers for me!
27 June 2005
sufjan stevens
thanks to the eclecticly well-versed Dave Lilley, i give you Sufjan Stevens, who has been helping me reconnect with my native Michigan. from a distance. if you do nothing else with Sufi, go here and click "Paradise," up in the Upper Peninsula towards the east. and Sault Saint Marie, of course, which i have the privelege of knowing the correct pronunciation for ("Soo Saint Marie").
i'm enjoying sufi on a two day break between trips. First STEP is done, which is a pity because the middle schoolers are much more, if not innocent, at least ready to engage in a hearty stretch of goofy childlikeness, than high schoolers. tomorrow we leave for a ten-day program in conjunction with Upward Bound, a program for local high schoolers who want to be the first in their family to get a college education. i'll be bouncing up to Algonquin Provincial Park in lovely Canada with the UB graduates for a canoe trip. which is kind of a pity because i have new waterproofallleathersh*tkickingrockthumpingmudslogginghiking boots and a new hiy-uge gynormouse 5300 in3 uber-backpack into which i could no doubt load everything along with both the kitchech and bathroom sinks. but not a new paddle or sunglasses. o well. i guess that just means i'll have to keep on hiking after STEP. :)
in other news, we picked up four freezers' full of ice cream at the food bank for only 17 cents a pound. so while we don't have any real food in the house outside of mac n' cheese and eggs, our dietary needs are met by vanilla/crunch bar ice cream bars, popsicles and pints of Perry's Cookie Dough. last night we went and played in the waterfall at Wiscoy--the water was low enough to pile into the little cave behind the falls (more of a "nook" than a cave) where we bemoaned the lack of beautiful women and then looked at each other in horror, recalling all the anguished conversations of the past several weeks, and determined right then and there to not kiss women until we were ready to marry them. sometimes it royally sucks to be a guy. we firmly banished womanliness from our minds by psyching ourselves up to do stupid things, like exploring further up into more dangerous waterfall sections as darkness fell. we urged each other on, shouting ourselves hoarse over the roar of the waterfall with little bits of manly wisdom such as, "because it's there!" and do you know how we got maps? because men went to the edge of the maps they had and walked off!"
at least that's how they did it in the old days. now they use satellites from a safe and cold distance. bah and humbug.
have fun exploring the infinite abyss!
i'm enjoying sufi on a two day break between trips. First STEP is done, which is a pity because the middle schoolers are much more, if not innocent, at least ready to engage in a hearty stretch of goofy childlikeness, than high schoolers. tomorrow we leave for a ten-day program in conjunction with Upward Bound, a program for local high schoolers who want to be the first in their family to get a college education. i'll be bouncing up to Algonquin Provincial Park in lovely Canada with the UB graduates for a canoe trip. which is kind of a pity because i have new waterproofallleathersh*tkickingrockthumpingmudslogginghiking boots and a new hiy-uge gynormouse 5300 in3 uber-backpack into which i could no doubt load everything along with both the kitchech and bathroom sinks. but not a new paddle or sunglasses. o well. i guess that just means i'll have to keep on hiking after STEP. :)
in other news, we picked up four freezers' full of ice cream at the food bank for only 17 cents a pound. so while we don't have any real food in the house outside of mac n' cheese and eggs, our dietary needs are met by vanilla/crunch bar ice cream bars, popsicles and pints of Perry's Cookie Dough. last night we went and played in the waterfall at Wiscoy--the water was low enough to pile into the little cave behind the falls (more of a "nook" than a cave) where we bemoaned the lack of beautiful women and then looked at each other in horror, recalling all the anguished conversations of the past several weeks, and determined right then and there to not kiss women until we were ready to marry them. sometimes it royally sucks to be a guy. we firmly banished womanliness from our minds by psyching ourselves up to do stupid things, like exploring further up into more dangerous waterfall sections as darkness fell. we urged each other on, shouting ourselves hoarse over the roar of the waterfall with little bits of manly wisdom such as, "because it's there!" and do you know how we got maps? because men went to the edge of the maps they had and walked off!"
at least that's how they did it in the old days. now they use satellites from a safe and cold distance. bah and humbug.
have fun exploring the infinite abyss!
21 June 2005
*gulp* [apprehension]
at six thirty tonight, i have my first interview with Rural/Metro Medical Services of Buffalo. it's a skills test involving skill sheets from the class i took two years ago. i have a professional-looking haircut, semi-professional-looking slacks, a battered polo shirt, and yesterday's shave. i'm going to brush my teeth. and then i'm going to study skill sheets like crazy. heaven be with me...
20 June 2005
now it's your turn
ok. i don't "go to church" anymore, because at best i am amused, and at worst angry. a short list of reasons:
-irrelevance. sermons preached reiterate the same feel-good, irrelevant pop theology. i could preach a thousand "good sermons," whose goal seems to be to reassure congregants that they are better than everybody else, more knowledgeable, and selected the right sort of people to belong to. or they elucidate a fine point of some new pop theology designed to solve your personal problems by theological education--rearranging ideological furniture at a surface level.
-alienation. i cannot remain polite and honest at the same time. those who do not join the herd are looked down upon with "pity" by the better-informed ones with the good theological answers and placed in a special mental class of "project people," who really need God's help. God's help is then brokered by the better-informed who attempt to form the "project people" into their own image.
-the importance of the unimportant. things like worship techniques, speaking in tongues, using socially-acceptable language, sharing the group's opinions on art, culture, values, and the good life, having the proper political viewpoint, dressing appropriately, being involved and invested in the consumer-driven lifestyle, having appropriate hobbies and bad artistic taste, and being immersed in and content with the evangelical subculture.
-the unimportance of the important. i can't remember the last time i heard someone preach the Kingdom of Heaven. and it's the most important thing in the world. i can't remember the last time i heard someone tell me good news--the poor are truly poor but can be wealthy. the brokenhearted really have a reason to weep, and ought not to ignore their wounds, because they can be bound up. injustice is real and horrific, and justice can be brought to their prisons. bondage is real, in and outside of the church, and it can be undone. innocents do not have to be bombed by US soldiers--third-world farmers do not have to be reduced to poverty by unjust trade--the evils of capitalism can be redressed by the righteous.
so--that was a lot longer than i expected--why should i go to church? why do you go to church? what is the church supposed to be. this is the part of the game where you tell me. feel free to discuss and elaborate, share an idea for consideration and laugh if it turns out to need refining.
-irrelevance. sermons preached reiterate the same feel-good, irrelevant pop theology. i could preach a thousand "good sermons," whose goal seems to be to reassure congregants that they are better than everybody else, more knowledgeable, and selected the right sort of people to belong to. or they elucidate a fine point of some new pop theology designed to solve your personal problems by theological education--rearranging ideological furniture at a surface level.
-alienation. i cannot remain polite and honest at the same time. those who do not join the herd are looked down upon with "pity" by the better-informed ones with the good theological answers and placed in a special mental class of "project people," who really need God's help. God's help is then brokered by the better-informed who attempt to form the "project people" into their own image.
-the importance of the unimportant. things like worship techniques, speaking in tongues, using socially-acceptable language, sharing the group's opinions on art, culture, values, and the good life, having the proper political viewpoint, dressing appropriately, being involved and invested in the consumer-driven lifestyle, having appropriate hobbies and bad artistic taste, and being immersed in and content with the evangelical subculture.
-the unimportance of the important. i can't remember the last time i heard someone preach the Kingdom of Heaven. and it's the most important thing in the world. i can't remember the last time i heard someone tell me good news--the poor are truly poor but can be wealthy. the brokenhearted really have a reason to weep, and ought not to ignore their wounds, because they can be bound up. injustice is real and horrific, and justice can be brought to their prisons. bondage is real, in and outside of the church, and it can be undone. innocents do not have to be bombed by US soldiers--third-world farmers do not have to be reduced to poverty by unjust trade--the evils of capitalism can be redressed by the righteous.
so--that was a lot longer than i expected--why should i go to church? why do you go to church? what is the church supposed to be. this is the part of the game where you tell me. feel free to discuss and elaborate, share an idea for consideration and laugh if it turns out to need refining.
19 June 2005
church
so i went to an amazing church service today in my kitchen. it started when Tim asked me if i went to church today and i said i just couldn't stomach the thought. then we talked for a while. highlights of our worship experience:
-"I don't understand why we go to church and listen to some guy talk for forty minutes about things we either block out as unimportant or already agree with. why don't I just go out and feed the poor or do something important?"
-"yes, i feel alienated from the body of believers, but that's not because I stopped going to church. if i went back to church, i'd feel even more alienated. the church has rejected me and my generation because we ask too much, because we are hurt and cynical, because we swear and drink and smoke and don't follow the stultifying traditions and regulations of men, becuase we haven't embraced the culture of the upper-middle-class contemporary Christian America. i feel alienated from the church because i don't understand and embrace its idols: its theology, its arrogance, its safety-first comfort-first fear of the reality that surrounds it. i feel alienated because the church lives in comfortable illusions of importance and power and smug competence and has thus made itself irrelevant."
-"Jesus rarely ever talked about someplace we go after we die. He came and preached the Kingdom of Heaven: here but not here, within us and breaking out of us, hidden and yet inexorably movng forward. a world where the heartbreaking things--the things that make us cry out this should not happen--don't happen. where losers are not losers and children do not die and the brokenhearted aren't brokenhearted any more and the hungry eat."
-"There is no "them" and "us" in the Kingdom of Heaven."
-"We are--somehow--the Kingdom of Heaven. We have the power to neglect it, or to make it happen around us. If we spend out lives averting one tragedy, taking one poor person and helping him or her become truly wealthy, we have done something worth more than a thousand pretty worship songs or a hundred passionate prayers."
it's a pity we didn't break bread and speak the benediction, because for a moment i actually shared communion with two members of my family. but we didn't have any bread, and it was scary because i was thinking seriously of wandering off and joining a group of Franciscans and ministering to the poor and that's scary.
-"I don't understand why we go to church and listen to some guy talk for forty minutes about things we either block out as unimportant or already agree with. why don't I just go out and feed the poor or do something important?"
-"yes, i feel alienated from the body of believers, but that's not because I stopped going to church. if i went back to church, i'd feel even more alienated. the church has rejected me and my generation because we ask too much, because we are hurt and cynical, because we swear and drink and smoke and don't follow the stultifying traditions and regulations of men, becuase we haven't embraced the culture of the upper-middle-class contemporary Christian America. i feel alienated from the church because i don't understand and embrace its idols: its theology, its arrogance, its safety-first comfort-first fear of the reality that surrounds it. i feel alienated because the church lives in comfortable illusions of importance and power and smug competence and has thus made itself irrelevant."
-"Jesus rarely ever talked about someplace we go after we die. He came and preached the Kingdom of Heaven: here but not here, within us and breaking out of us, hidden and yet inexorably movng forward. a world where the heartbreaking things--the things that make us cry out this should not happen--don't happen. where losers are not losers and children do not die and the brokenhearted aren't brokenhearted any more and the hungry eat."
-"There is no "them" and "us" in the Kingdom of Heaven."
-"We are--somehow--the Kingdom of Heaven. We have the power to neglect it, or to make it happen around us. If we spend out lives averting one tragedy, taking one poor person and helping him or her become truly wealthy, we have done something worth more than a thousand pretty worship songs or a hundred passionate prayers."
it's a pity we didn't break bread and speak the benediction, because for a moment i actually shared communion with two members of my family. but we didn't have any bread, and it was scary because i was thinking seriously of wandering off and joining a group of Franciscans and ministering to the poor and that's scary.
thankyou, dan p
 | You scored as Loner.
What's Your High School Stereotype? created with QuizFarm.com |
17 June 2005
i love the children (pt. II)
annnnnnnd...interlude. it looks very cut and dried coming as a "pt. II", but remember a few weeks span since my last post. with this lapse comes my sincere apologies, but i have been busy. i am now working (temporarily) for Houghton College's Wilderness Adventures as logistics personnel. So now I'm the behind-the-scenes man for Houghton's hiking/backpacking/rock climbing/canoeing/ropes course programs for the time being.
rough translation: i get to work with the kids again! soon! and when i'm not working with the kids, i'm helping train and support a staff of ten amazing and awesome adventure leaders. rock on! and i get to live with and goof off with them during the off hours.
the kicker? the other logistical man is a man named dan. and we're roommates now. dan and dan (sahli and holcomb). it's a duo unmatched. which is good because now i have someone to talk to. funny how we're both dealing with pretty much the same stuff--i love that! and (and this is vitally important) we have basically the same tastes in music, bedtimes, and room climate (slightly cluttered, full of gear, and cold at nights).
rockin' awesome. we just got of a few days of hiking and climbing, just the staff, through beautiful Hammersly on the STS in Pennsylvania and up Rattlesnake Point in Canada. life is good. we dammed a river. twice. raised the water level at Hammersly by two feet. i beat two 5.8s including a wicked underclinging mad cool reach at the top of McMasters. i have a two-week beard and despite the heat, i still have not cut my hair. i smell a little though...i think it's time to take a shower and see if my new boots are here yet (o please please please please...)
rough translation: i get to work with the kids again! soon! and when i'm not working with the kids, i'm helping train and support a staff of ten amazing and awesome adventure leaders. rock on! and i get to live with and goof off with them during the off hours.
the kicker? the other logistical man is a man named dan. and we're roommates now. dan and dan (sahli and holcomb). it's a duo unmatched. which is good because now i have someone to talk to. funny how we're both dealing with pretty much the same stuff--i love that! and (and this is vitally important) we have basically the same tastes in music, bedtimes, and room climate (slightly cluttered, full of gear, and cold at nights).
rockin' awesome. we just got of a few days of hiking and climbing, just the staff, through beautiful Hammersly on the STS in Pennsylvania and up Rattlesnake Point in Canada. life is good. we dammed a river. twice. raised the water level at Hammersly by two feet. i beat two 5.8s including a wicked underclinging mad cool reach at the top of McMasters. i have a two-week beard and despite the heat, i still have not cut my hair. i smell a little though...i think it's time to take a shower and see if my new boots are here yet (o please please please please...)
01 June 2005
i love the children
things i did today:
why am I applying for jobs where I won't be expected to play Nalgene Gold or Uncle Bunkley? I just don't get it...
- got paid to play games with hyperactive third graders from the King Center in Buffalo
filled out two applications for jobs where "vast knowledge of group games for hyperactive children" is not a selling point.
talked to Dan Perrine who might be my neighbor in Buffalo (if I go to Buffalo)
why am I applying for jobs where I won't be expected to play Nalgene Gold or Uncle Bunkley? I just don't get it...
31 May 2005
i AM indigo
thanks to my GMail account's sponsored ads, i have discovered my true identity: i am an Indigo Child. [this works better if you intone said title in a reverent, thundering tone]. this could come in handy for my world domination planning, i think. Are you an Indigo Child?
the great thing is, via the mighty power of the internet, you don't actually have to meet Toby--you just Paypal him $100/session and your schedule, and at the appropriate time he thinks himself towards you and "aligns" his uber-consciousness with yours, then proceeds with a Karmic Cleansing and whatever else is necessary to re-align your DNA with the appropriate pre-Babel perfection. Lovely.
and here I am actually trying to find a job to pay off college debts...
If you want to help as many people as possible evolve and get better then why do you charge for your services?
..."there is something called Divine Right Order that needs to be taken into account and respected here in this universe. In Divine Right Order, which is how the universal physics operates and is totally related to the concept of karma, it is appropriate for a healing facilitator to accept payment for the personal time and energies invested in learning and developing facilitation skills...The time and expertise offered by a facilitator to assist the client in stimulating their own healing energies allows them a legitimate right to honor their own worth as a being by requesting reasonable payment in fair energetic exchange for the service that they offer. I believe that seeking to find one's personal Divine Right Livelihood in sincere service to others by providing client service via healing facilitation, IS a spiritually legitimate motivation."
the great thing is, via the mighty power of the internet, you don't actually have to meet Toby--you just Paypal him $100/session and your schedule, and at the appropriate time he thinks himself towards you and "aligns" his uber-consciousness with yours, then proceeds with a Karmic Cleansing and whatever else is necessary to re-align your DNA with the appropriate pre-Babel perfection. Lovely.
and here I am actually trying to find a job to pay off college debts...
the bean sets forth
hello world. this is me. it's time to set out again, and i have no idea where i'm going. yet. by my feet are itchin' to get there.
here i'll post notes from the road, pictures (soon'z i get a camera--i'm hoping to do a picture a week to help keep in touch), and ideas.
in the meantime, here's a good idea: watch Garden State (not with children or those with weak consciences, please, even though it's an amazing movie) and ponder a few salient quotes--
and
here i'll post notes from the road, pictures (soon'z i get a camera--i'm hoping to do a picture a week to help keep in touch), and ideas.
in the meantime, here's a good idea: watch Garden State (not with children or those with weak consciences, please, even though it's an amazing movie) and ponder a few salient quotes--
Large: "Hey Albert? Good luck exploring the infinite abyss."
Albert: "Thanks. Hey--you too."
and
Large: "This is my life, Dad. This is it. I spent 26 years waiting for something else to start. So no, I don't think it's too risky because it's everything there is. I see now it's all there is."
27 April 2005
I'm really sorry to bring toby the rabbit back up again, but on my latest visist to the effort to protect this most fragilist and cutest of creautres, I found this (it's an actual screenshot...just imagine the little brown bunny scampering back and forth across the screen while the letter blink bright yellow and sordid red...)
cheers!
cheers!
22 April 2005
please, please, please do not think i am a monster, but this is quite possibly the funniest and best way to cover my college debts. if anyone would like to donate a charming dwarf lop bunny to my cause, see my mailing address in the righthand column.
Save Toby
Save Toby
18 April 2005
tonight
i am happy because two of my hosuemates have that look in their eyes and rather silly grins on their faces
i finally finished Lord of Chaos(ouch, does it look as silly as it sounds? sigh, i'm always a sucker for adventure...) so i can get on with important things like writing the last paper of my undergraduate career
i went swimming in the icy grip of wiscoy creek today; the rock bed is still covered with a slick blanket of silt, and the current off the falls is so strong that standing up one cannot help but slide downriver as if wearing wool socks on a kitchen floor. with a torrent of water rushing by. and numb toes.
i did my laundry!
i am now listening to great big sea's "old black rum." in a few weeks i will finally be able to truly appreciate the glory of a good solid Irish drinking song while simultaneously raising a toast to my alma mater! perhaps i could burn that old Statement of Community Responsibilities.
i am happy because two of my hosuemates have that look in their eyes and rather silly grins on their faces
i finally finished Lord of Chaos(ouch, does it look as silly as it sounds? sigh, i'm always a sucker for adventure...) so i can get on with important things like writing the last paper of my undergraduate career
i went swimming in the icy grip of wiscoy creek today; the rock bed is still covered with a slick blanket of silt, and the current off the falls is so strong that standing up one cannot help but slide downriver as if wearing wool socks on a kitchen floor. with a torrent of water rushing by. and numb toes.
i did my laundry!
i am now listening to great big sea's "old black rum." in a few weeks i will finally be able to truly appreciate the glory of a good solid Irish drinking song while simultaneously raising a toast to my alma mater! perhaps i could burn that old Statement of Community Responsibilities.
06 April 2005
BusinessWeek Online, October 10, 2002 "Why 'Trade, not Aid' Isn't Good Enough"
Question and Answer Session with Jeffrey Sachs.
Q: Why can't countries in these regions pull themselves out?
A: One characteristic of the historically poorer performers is they're farther away from the major markets, so they don't have market forces pulling them. So Mexico is better than Central America, and Central America is better than central South America. Central Asia does much worse than coastal Asia.
For a lot of the poorest places, I don't think we have an economic theory for getting a lot of growth going. I challenge anyone to debate me on how you are going to make Mongolia prosper. I've been there many times, and I haven't had a good idea yet. It's basically 1,500 kilometers away from big population centers and has a few million people.
Half of the people live in yurts. Their connectivity is low. They have no viable industry right now. They sell some camel hair but can't process it because they get a higher price by selling it to China, which processes it at much lower costs and gets it out of the ports cheaper than they can do by having a knitting factory in Ulan Bator. The real economic answer for Mongolians is to leave. But that's not the answer for Mongolia.
That's an extreme example. But let me put the positive side on that. No Mongolians need to die of extreme deprivation. Africans do not need to die of these pandemic diseases. Everyone should be able to have a basic education. But in some places, it can't all be paid for out of local resources. And my belief is that we ought to have a global system that enables a Burkina Faso or a Mongolia to have a shot at the future, rather than dying.
Now the really interesting thing to do is look internally; look locally. What happens when you replace "Mongolia" in the previous conversation with, say, farming communities in America? Textiles manufacturers? Inner-city Detroit for crying out loud? The cost of capitalism is the worship of efficiency. It doesn't matter if a way of life is desireable for social stability or cultural heritage--if you aren't efficient, you must change. We don't want local farmers, local musicians, local artists, local flavor, neighborhoods--we want everything mass-produced and available at Wal Mart.
And when you've become inefficient, you're laid off and sent to a nursing home.
If it were just us--just America--I'd say fine. But we're changing--some would say demolishing--the rest of the world. We're demanding free trade, mass market capitalism, and the destruction of incompatible lifestyles. It's the Western conquest of America all over again: become a consumer/producer or watch yourself become marginalized and die.
One time I taught my little sister a card game. And then I proceeded to annihilate her at it time and time again. I was better at the game than my little sister; she didn't know the tricks, the ins and outs. If we had been playing for money, soon she would have had none. And I would have it all.
One time in Russia, they decided to privatize the state industry. But no one had played that game before. Now 80% of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of 20% of the population. The rest live with what they can to get by. With interest rates hovering around 18%, business investment is difficult to come by. Those with money, make money. Those without cannot generate the capital to begin. Marx's capitalist oppressors are back!
And now the US wants the world to play a new game, a game called free trade. Long-developed, efficient American businesses want access to less-developed markets. Who will win this game?
Question and Answer Session with Jeffrey Sachs.
Q: Why can't countries in these regions pull themselves out?
A: One characteristic of the historically poorer performers is they're farther away from the major markets, so they don't have market forces pulling them. So Mexico is better than Central America, and Central America is better than central South America. Central Asia does much worse than coastal Asia.
For a lot of the poorest places, I don't think we have an economic theory for getting a lot of growth going. I challenge anyone to debate me on how you are going to make Mongolia prosper. I've been there many times, and I haven't had a good idea yet. It's basically 1,500 kilometers away from big population centers and has a few million people.
Half of the people live in yurts. Their connectivity is low. They have no viable industry right now. They sell some camel hair but can't process it because they get a higher price by selling it to China, which processes it at much lower costs and gets it out of the ports cheaper than they can do by having a knitting factory in Ulan Bator. The real economic answer for Mongolians is to leave. But that's not the answer for Mongolia.
That's an extreme example. But let me put the positive side on that. No Mongolians need to die of extreme deprivation. Africans do not need to die of these pandemic diseases. Everyone should be able to have a basic education. But in some places, it can't all be paid for out of local resources. And my belief is that we ought to have a global system that enables a Burkina Faso or a Mongolia to have a shot at the future, rather than dying.
Now the really interesting thing to do is look internally; look locally. What happens when you replace "Mongolia" in the previous conversation with, say, farming communities in America? Textiles manufacturers? Inner-city Detroit for crying out loud? The cost of capitalism is the worship of efficiency. It doesn't matter if a way of life is desireable for social stability or cultural heritage--if you aren't efficient, you must change. We don't want local farmers, local musicians, local artists, local flavor, neighborhoods--we want everything mass-produced and available at Wal Mart.
And when you've become inefficient, you're laid off and sent to a nursing home.
If it were just us--just America--I'd say fine. But we're changing--some would say demolishing--the rest of the world. We're demanding free trade, mass market capitalism, and the destruction of incompatible lifestyles. It's the Western conquest of America all over again: become a consumer/producer or watch yourself become marginalized and die.
One time I taught my little sister a card game. And then I proceeded to annihilate her at it time and time again. I was better at the game than my little sister; she didn't know the tricks, the ins and outs. If we had been playing for money, soon she would have had none. And I would have it all.
One time in Russia, they decided to privatize the state industry. But no one had played that game before. Now 80% of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of 20% of the population. The rest live with what they can to get by. With interest rates hovering around 18%, business investment is difficult to come by. Those with money, make money. Those without cannot generate the capital to begin. Marx's capitalist oppressors are back!
And now the US wants the world to play a new game, a game called free trade. Long-developed, efficient American businesses want access to less-developed markets. Who will win this game?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
