Cinque Terre and Athens

The Parthenon!

Our ferry from Italy to Greece. Pretty much a cruise ship that carries a bunch of trucks.

Vernazza, one of the five towns that make up Cinque Terre. The village far in the background, right on the corner of the coast, is Monterosso.

Switzerland

I guess you could say we hiked until the cows came home. A great jeans and boots combination by the way.
The view from our hike from Gimmelwald to Murren.

The view from the street in front of our hostel in Lauterbrunnen. Just an outrageously gorgeous place.

Our hostel in Interlaken, probably the best we've stayed in all trip. I believe that's Jungfrau in the background.

Amsterdam

The streets and sidewalks in Amsterdam were lined with these guys. Yes, that is XXX on them. Yes, they actually look like....that.


Our hostel, the Marietta. The long boat with all the windows next to it was our breakfast boat.

Steve in our room on the boat.

Paris

Bwahahaha!


The view of Champ de Mars from the 2nd level of the Eiffel Tower. The view was a sea of buildings expect for this little area right next to the Tower.


The Arc de Triomphe. The traffic circle around it is ridiculous: 12 streets feed into it and there are no traffic lights or anything.



Me in the Pyramid at the Louvre.

Barcelona

Our hostel overlooked a street called La Rambla, sort of a crazy 4th Avenue kind of place. Here we witness the convention of Michael Jackson impersonator and Gold Man.

The water in Barcelona was crazy. It looked exactly like the picture: teal out to the shelf, then a defined line where it goes to a deeper blue. No fade, just a perfect line.


The beach in Barcelona, what else?

more pictures

Big Ben, of course.


For Casey: Proof that we were there! The sign does, in fact, say Primrose Hill at the top right.


The view of London from Primrose Hill.

pictures

Me in front of the Tower Bridge, not to be confused with the London Bridge which is not exciting at all and just looks like a regular bridge. It was windy, don't worry my hair isn't that ridiculous.



Me in front of the Blarney Castle. They let us in 45 minutes before it opened, so we had some nice tourist-free time.



I took this during our early morning hike from Cork to Blarney. That is sunrise in foggy Ireland. That's about how far we could see as well.

subtle/not so subtle differences

Over here:

-Lines of people or vehicles are called queues.
-People walk on the left side of the sidewalk, as they drive, just as we tend walk on the right because we drive on the right.
-Everything is more conducive to travel than in the USA. There are ATMs, currency exchange places, information booths, public transportation services, hostels, maps, and internet cafes everywhere. There are just a litany of services for travellers.
-Everything obviously has a different prices, but everything also has different values. Some things have a higher or lower average price than here, which is hard to adjust to. You may not be getting ripped off just because you paying way more than you would if you were home; the item may just naturally cost more wherever you are.
-Hostels are noisy, but they're cheap so it's OK. We paid 12 euros, about 15 dollars, for a bed the other night. You tell me where you can sleep for 15 dollars a night in the US.
-People tend to be more friendly here. Being approached by and talking to random people is much more common and acceptable.
-When people get in other people's way, whether it be walking or driving, the second person doesn't get all ticked off or start honking. It's almost normal for people to be sitting across 2 lanes in their car without other people caring.
-Everyone here drives better than everyone back home. Everyone's faster, more aware, more skilled. You should see these people parallel park. If the space is 1 foot longer than their car, they'll find a way in.
-Bottles are shaped oddly because, for example, an average bottle of soda is 100 mL, as opposed to 20 oz.
-Coins actually have viable use here. There are coins of value up to 2 pounds or 2 euros. Our biggest common coin is worth one quarter of one dollar. Pocket change actually adds up, you can buy dinner with only coins and people don't look at you funny when you do. It's like emptying your pocket at the end of the night and having 10 dollars in coins.
-The above circumstance makes it way easier to spend small amounts of money on menial items much easier, thereby more frequently.
-Streets a labelled incredibly poorly. In many places, major streets aren't even signed. When there are signs, they have no definitive location, like on posts on the corner, so you can find them on buildings, on lamp posts, anywhere.

-alex

London > me

After getting into London late last night, we walked the streets for 4 hours getting rejected by every place with beds. Finally we ended up sleeping on the street. This is backpacking. So it turns out London is a huge party place, with tons of clubs and weird rave like events on these ships that sit on the Thames. We tried to escape to Spain or Paris a few days early, but it doesn't look like London is going to let that happen. We'll be here until Wednesday when we ship off to the snady beaches of Barcelona! That is, of course, London doesn't get smart again and close all our subway routes and destination subway stations as it did today. When we take off, I'll stop worrying. Not that I dislike London, it's incredible here, but she's got this attitude towards Steve and I. Messing with our heads and our bodies and all. I'm sure there's more in store. I guess all I can do is enjoy the beautiful architecture, the surreal Big Ben, London Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, and the rest. Oh, darn.....

-alex

i haven't seen "Hostel", but i'm 80 percent sure it's based on the place i'm staying tonight

So here's the travelling I've done thus far:

Car ride from Tucson to Phoenix
Plane from Phoenix to Chicago
Plane from Chicago to London Heathrow
Bus from London Heathrow to London Gatwick
Tram ride from North Terminal to South Terminal
Plane from London Gatwick to Cork, Ireland
Bus from Cork Airport to Downtown Cork
Bus from Blarney, Ireland to Cork, Ireland
Train from Cork, Ireland to Dublin, Ireland
Train from Dublin, Ireland to Galway, Ireland

And walking. An obscene amount of walking. Some of it's fun. We hiked 6 miles from our hostel in Cork to Blarney, home of the Blarney Castle and Blarney Stone. It was a sunrise hike through rural Ireland, but you couldn't see the sunrise because it was so foggy. At best you could see 100 yards in front of you. I don't know how people drive here. The Blarney Castle was amazing. We got there at 8:15am, and it didn't open until 9am, but the guy opening the admission place saw us waiting and let us in, so we had the grounds all to ourselves. And of course we kissed the Stone.
Some of the walking...not so fun. Busy city streets aren't fun when you're searching for a hostel to crash in. Being wholly and entirely lost isn't too fun. But I guess in a way it is.
Best thing I've overheard so far: While sitting next to this weird smoking enclosure in Gatwick airport, a guy walks by and says "Look, they've got a fagger's bin." Guess you had to be there.
Even when it doens't rain here, there's this fog/mist in the air so thick that it get's everything wet anyway. But it's not rain. It's hard to explain.
The epitome of backpacking. Going to bed at 6pm in a hostel. Waking up at 9, getting ready for the day, and going to the train station. The station's closed. It's getting darker out. Everyone's at the pubs. What's going on? Oh, right. We didn't sleep through the night and wake up at 9 in the morning. We slept 3 hours and woke up at 9pm at night. Needless to say our hostel owner thought we were a little crazy.
Oh, and written on the bottom of my hostel bed is "I hate hostels. Especially this one." Encouraging. The bed next to me has nails sitcking out of it. Also very encouraging.

-alex

i'm standing here, outside your door

Everything's packed up, so I thought I'd post my final packing list

Eagle Creek Explorer LT Backpack
Sleeping Bag
Sleep sheet
4 T-shirts
3 pair of shorts
4 pair of boxers
3 pair of socks
1 bathing suit
1 bath towel
Mini Shampoo/Conditioner
Mini Toothbrush/Paste
Mini Deodorant
1 box of contacts
1 Bottle of contact solution
2 contact cases
iPod + charger
Canon SD 200 camera + charger
2 Europe Travel books
Travel Journal
3 backpack locks

And of course:
Passport
Plane tickets
1 Month Eurail Pass

This list looks about as long as the loaded pack weighs. I guess I could cut some stuff out, but I still have a fair amount of room, so I'm not concerned.

-alex

it's going to be weird we graduate college and May isn't the landmark end of school/beginning ot summer month anymore

I suppose another year long break is adequate. I seriously have graphoschizophrenia or something that's an actual condition because I always feel compelled to write, yet I switch the means by which I write constantly. However difficult it is, I think I should stick to the blog just because I know I can't decieve myself into believing I actually don't care if anyone reads what I write. I've discovered I'm actually quite bad at keeping in touch with anyone who isn't directly involved in my life on a regular basis, whether it be family or even friends whom I was convinced I'd never lose touch with. I suppose being naive will always cost you a little disappointment.
I felt mostly invincible going into this school year, and with two weeks left before my final final I've been wholly humbled and hobbled. Apparently learning things is difficult and even working hard (blasphemy, I know) doesn't always...work. Although a majority of the people I know in the Astronomy/Physics program are fairing about as "well" as I am, I'm not sure I find consolation there. Repeating classes and failing tests wasn't necessarily what I had in mind a year or so ago. I suspect the next 3 years will be similar. Er, make that 8 or 9 with that whole graduate school thing, assuming that my grades and research will be good enough to get me into...well, anywhere. I think my inability to see anything nearer than a year away is the only think keeping me from academic despair. Of course the whole "finding out who I am and what my life is going to be" thing adds a little weight on the shoulders. Not that much though. Only because I'm really pretentious. In a good way...

-alex

deja vu all over again

So I've inevitably returned to the blog. My intent, for now, is to make this a travelogue of sorts to keep everyone in the loop while Steve and I venture about Europe. I suppose email would work just as well, but I don't have everyone's email address that I'd like to keep in touch with, so here I am. So I have my plane ticket, my passport, my rail pass, my backpack, my travel books and all I have to do is wait I suppose. I'll definitely keep this updated as it gets close to May the 23rd.

-Alex

conveyor belt memories

You graduate high school once. It seems like a "Yea, so?" kind of fact, but you graduate high school one time only. Let's go the chart: You can get multiple degress, buy multiple houses, get multiple cars, even get married a couple of times...Cap and gown, Pomp and Circumstance? Once, and only once. Everyone has a high school metaphor. Every valedictorian is capable of coming up with some "High school is like..." speech to make more profound an event that is already made of and drowning in profundity. Actually I guess a "High school is like..." speech would be a simile, not a metaphor...moving on. Here's my metaphor. High school is one of those moving walkways at the airport. We see it, and it looks like it'll be fun. We get on, quickly decide that the whole thing is the same, and eagerly await the end. But once we're there we realize how unique the ride is and how we've taken the whole thing for granted. From now on we don't have anything under our feet to keep us up and carry us along. We had one ride, and in a matter of minutes, it ends. Now we just have to find our way to the terminal, wait 3 months, and catch our flight. Although I'm not sure how I feel how about getting on an airplane dressed like this....

-alex

i'll admit it, i had to spell check the word "hypocrisy"

So I guess that complaining about something that always has been and always will be is kind of dumb. Then again most of the stuff you'll find if you scroll down can be classified as dumb so I'm right on track. I think political humor has run its eternal course. Count the number of movies, television programs, books, magazines, newspapers, and radio bits that fall under the less than endearing classification of "Political Satire" and, well, you'll probably become pretty good at counting...movies...and books....maybe just counting in general. Now count up how many of those can be classified as "Original" or "Clever." I'm guessing that it took you less time to count that up than it would take to count up how many times I've used the word classified or classification in the previous five lines. I suppose it's two more now. It seems as if a real comedian would recognize that the political humor well went dry a couple hundred years ago. You'd think maybe if someone was trying to be funny, they wouldn't go after a dead horse like politics. And please, let slide my blatant hypocrisy. When the president says something funny(stupid), doing a three minute TV bit on it isn't going to make it funnier. Drawing a cartoon where a missle is pointed at Iraq which is drawn 43 times bigger than Afghanistan isn't going to make anyone laugh, nor convince anyone to change their opinion on certain political decisions. Comedy isn't usually the best medium by which to send some persuasive message. Writing a book with a sophisticated title like "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" may return a nice paycheck from a publisher but in the time it took to write the whole book, the anonymous(cough) author could have come up with a one-liner that evokes more laughter. Talk about sandwiches. Joke about the different ways you can pop a balloon. Rant about the milk crust under the cap of a gallon of milk. Just don't talk about the most wrung out, humorless topic ever. And I'll do the same. Starting.....now.

-alex

the intricacies of chocolate and cheese

Putting these two topics in the same paragraph is kind of like mixing, say, chocolate and cheese. They're both alright on their own, together they're probably disgusting but the combination sounds interesting enough that most of us would give it a try. The first topic is a question, the second one is, well, also a question. So read on.
Have you ever thought about how rarely someone accurately answers a question you ask? We all ask people questions as part of daily life. In most cases the answer satisfies us so we move on. But if we stopped for a second and considered if our question was truly answered, we might be surprised at the answer. Think of a simple question....Hey, can you give me some help? "Give me a couple minutes." Ah ha! I did not answer your question. You assume that this means I will help you, in a few minutes of course. But really my answer has no connection to your question. I played you like a fool, like a fool! The problem is that in many cases, answering a question accurately sounds archaic or even rude. Do you know what time it is? "Yes, yes I do." And by actually answering what you've asked, I've annoyed you and ended our conversation. So we settle for giving responses that will simply appease the inquirer rather than address the question that was asked. What do you think of that car? "I like it." Well that's fantastic, but I didn't ask whether you like it or not. What's up? We've all heard the clever little answer to this classic. What kind of question is that anyway? What's up? Clearly we have an astonishing mastery of our language if we can come up with a dandy like "What's up?" In retrospect there's no real solution to all this. If you actually answer people's questions they're going to look at you funny and probably won't ask you questions anymore. So why did I write all this? It's probably best for the credibility of this rant that I don't try to answer that question.
How much extra gas does your car burn because it has an antenna? Think about it. Obviously the antenna creates wind resistance, which creates a force on your car in the opposite direction that the car is moving, which means the engine has to work harder to move the car. Of course the wind resistance is tiny, but it still exists. Let's say you have the privilege of owning a particularly reliable car, perhaps a 1997 Toyota Camry (ahem), that lasts for about 200,000 miles. The amount of extra gas the engine consumes is probably miniscule but the number still exists. Think of all the factors you'd have to consider to actually calculate this amount. You'd have to consider the altitude in order to find air pressure and obviously the altitude is changing with every dip or hill. That alone would be difficult enough. Then you'd have to take into account the speed of the car, the surface area of the antenna, wind speed, mileage of the car without an antenna, other measurements of the car that I don't even understand, and so on. I'm sure the master equation would be littered with atmospheric and structural constants and such. Everything considered, actually figuring out an exact number is impossible, right? I doubt it. Keep a couple instruments on the car that record factors like altitude and such and I'd imagine that you'd have enough information to calculate it. Not easy, but not impossible...I guess this really isn't as interesting as I thought it was when I was in the shower a while ago. Umm...yea, this paragraph is cheese, the first is definitely chocolate.

-alex

slowdance on the inside

It seems like there are some things that just shouldn't happen. Something that's just a mistake in the story that we're writing and we can go back to fix it all up. But we can't. It shouldn't happen. It does. It is and will be no matter how much it hurts. So what can you say? Today, a group of us stood under some trees down at a park and experienced something very few of us had experienced before. Some mourned the loss of a friend. Some the loss of a teammate. Others just the loss of a kid who shouldn't have a mourning group right now. It's a kid who should be hanging out with his friends right now. A few weeks ago he scores a state championship winning goal. Now, instead of continued celebration, he leaves a group of guys that are no longer the 2005 state champions. From February 15 until early this morning, we were. Now we are just a group of guys who played soccer together. Now we all take our prescriptions and go the the pharmacist, pick up our precautionary medication, and swallow the most bitter, most painful pill of our lives. As his friends and teammates, we join other friends and acquaintances in disbelief. We all just sit on the grass, stand against the fence, bury our faces in our hands, look off in the distance. That's all there is to do. Everyone there was part of something that not a single person wanted to be a part of. We can say it's not fair. It isn't. We can say it wasn't his time. It wasn't. We can search for consolation by saying that everything happens for a reason. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't. But it happened. It was sudden, unexpected, and rare. But it happened. They'll be an article in the papers in the morning. It'll be on the evening news. Everyone who hears about it that didn't know him will say "That's too bad." For everyone who knew him, it just makes it more real. I feel like I should be doing something now. But there's nothing to do. There's no absolution anywhere. Only pain, for everyone who knew him, everyone who was close to him. I wasn't even close friends with him, but it's still damn hard. Stuff like this shouldn't happen. We should be able to learn about death without anyone dying. I'm sure everyone who is affected by it will take something away from it all. I don't know what I will take away. I don't like thinking that I'm gaining anything from something like this. That's all I've got. It hurts for us all, it will for a while. Life goes on, until it doesn't.

Chris, it's been fun.

-alex

despite my best efforts

So I suppose some form of attempt to get back into the swing of blogging is in order. It has been a little over two months since I convinced myself not to even apply to Stanford in my last post and enough has happened to provide some decent blogging material. I could talk about my soccer team and our recent state championship. I could talk about how I hung out with an old friend for the first time in months. There was an awesome concert at a terrible venue. There were scholarships and tests and bad grades and homework. There were T-shirts. There's Valentines Day. I could write about all the rain lately and attach some cosmic meaning to the movement of the raindrops on my windshield. I could talk about the reuniting of a band. A lost purse. New Years. Christmas. Collapsing Christmas trees. Personalized chess sets and their alterior meaning are certainly rant worthy. Maybe you want to hear about how I got two dispoable cameras for Christmas and after all the events and happenings since then I've taken only one picture. Of a soccer field. There wasn't even a game going on. It wasn't even a cool soccer field. I could write about Alias, golf, Halo 2, text message bills, Peter Piper Pizza, new clothes, "massage devices", newspaper pictures, futons, Honda Accords, winter break, chemistry study groups, All About Us books, foggy windows, khaki shorts, hang gliders, being a vegetarian, the immaturity of a Calc BC class, college, blood donation, being broke, lock picking, still owing money for lock picking tools, ping pong, the Super Bowl, four month anniversaries, three month anniversaries....two month anniversaries. I could cover crazy English quizzes, guitars, violins, pianos, Festivals, I-10, the pain I feel everytime someone recites a line from Napoleon Dynamite that I've heard nearly 4700 times, movies, Uno, porches, tennis racquets, Captain Morgan, the name Bryce, fish, Yavapai, GCU, ASU, clay pots, peanut M&M's, musicals, bracelets, Hemingway and Steinbeck, computer viruses, never having a full tank of gas, burritos, sweatbands, dodgeball, the Minnesota Vikings, and so on and so forth. Or I can just write about all the things that have happened since December 7 in one clever little list in one pointless moderate length post so I can catch up without having to write 500 words on every little occurance. Although that kind of is the basis of my blog....(insert shoulder shrug).

-alex

spell check found 17 errors in this post, i fixed none of them

Since I was in seventh grade I had planned the whole college scenario: where I'd apply, where I might actually go, what I need to do to get in and so on. I always figured as soon as I had access to an application I'd fill it out in a matter of days, send it in, wait for a response and repeat the process for the 6 or 7 schools I'd apply to. I thought by Christmas I'd have a new school. As is usually the case with me, my thoughts were the antithesis of reality. I've completed two applications, one to a school I know I'm not going to. I've forgone the application process for three other schools because I know I won't go to those either. I have one application left to complete and less than two weeks to do so. Apparently, in the opinion of the Stanford Admission Department, prompted essays are the best way to judge someone's character, so here I sit, writing an instant message in one window, a text message in another, a blog in this one and an essay about my most meaningful personal activity in the last. And as I'm exercising my multitasking muscle, I realized that the latter of those is the least genuine form of writing. In the essay I can't begin a sentence with "And" like I just did, nor could I change tenses within a sentence, as I did in that same line. I can't overdose on commas, by far my favorite writing technique. I have to take into account the suits sitting around a desk up in Stanfordland and whether they're old or young, male or female, liberal or conservative (It's northern California, so that third one is pretty obvious). I get to insert a prompt into one side of my head and wait for some processed, synthesized, cookie-cutter word conglomerate to fall out the other side into Word 2003 so I can copy-paste it into Stanford's online application. It will have no personality. It will have no color, it will have no substance. It will scream "I'm a promising young student who would love to attend your institution in hopes of maximizing my chances of having an ideal life." I get this mental image of rows and rows of girls in casual dresses and guys wearing ties just smiling. Every one of them is intelligent, responsible, and qualified, yet none of them can be anyone, they all have to bow to the powers that be and submit the same lifeless text that I will undoubtedly send in. Writing isn't about capital letters and parallel structure and proper conventions and all the other arbitrary concepts that every English teacher and so called "scholar" will feed you for a period everyday at school. It's purpose. It's pouring your mind out and letting it fall where it may without trying to shape it or form it so someone might think you're a good writer. I can write whatever I want in that instant message window or in that text message, I can write whatever I want, however I want, in this blog. In that essay, I can do no such thing. Writing is not servitude. Writing is not appeasement. Testing the agility of my cursor as I dart from grammar error to punctuation error is not writing. Granted, no one's forcing me to apply to Stanford. I don't have to write three short essays and one long one for a school represented by a tree, but it seems as if there should be at least one person among America's "intellectual elite" who realizes that they aren't going to see or find any real people in what they receive and read. Open it up. Give us a prompt like "Write 3500 words. And begin." or "By the time I get to your essay, I will have read hundreds of others. If you can keep me interested enough to finish your paper without me having to throw back another cup of heavily caffeinated coffee, you will be accepted." I'll bet my Stanford acceptance/rejection letter on my belief that they will find more character in those papers than in any about meaningful activities, personal obstacles or influential people. Stanford asked me for 1500 words. I'm tempted to give them the 724 I just wrote.

-alex

the unheralded power of the traffic control system

Every once in awhile we all have one of those moments. I'm not sure I have any way to describe what I really mean other than to just give you an example. The lonely red light. You're driving home and it's either really late or really early, but dark regardless. You approach an intersection, the light goes red and you slow to a halt. There are no cars behind you, none approaching, and you can't see any headlights to the left or right. There are no stores or buildings at the intersection; no activity of any kind. All that's there is you, yet you have to wait there anyway. It's impossible not to start thinking at that point. You think about what has happened, what will happen, what you want, what you fear, and so on. You think about everything because when you look around, there is nothing else. You may wonder why the light doesn't turn green when there are no other cars around. I think the light knows. I think the light is on a higher level, both literally and figuratively, and knows us better than we know ourselves. It knows that if it turns green, we'll speed off, get home, and fall asleep having gained nothing from the evening. So it stays red to let us, to make us, consider something, anything, and gives us the opportunity to step outside ourselves and see everything much more clearly than we do in most situations. I think the lonely late night red light is one of my favorite moments in life. No joke. I'd sit through 2 or 3 cycles if there were no other cars around, but that would be abusing the privilege of the red light. The light knows how long you need to be there, or if you need to be there at all. Do what it tells you to do, not because it's the law, but because it is objective, because it isn't influenced by anything. Its judgement is flawless.

Enjoy your next red light.

-alex

the baseball metaphors run wild/i would love some cheese with my whine

As I have stated before, I have avoided the usual high school drama scene. I also try to keep teenage related stuff out of my blog because I know there are a litany of journals and such out there for you to find. Today, I must regress. Today, I am simply another young adult trying to fight his/her way through the dangerous, arduous, tedious, inevitable game that is high school. Today I will do what we all have done or will do at some point; I will simply complain about something that isn't nearly as bad as I will most assuredly make it sound. As I sit in class looking off in the distance as if the answer to my troubles is posted up next to the periodic table on the far wall, I can picture myself sitting in front of the television, watching myself look off in the distance as if the answer to my troubles was posted up next to the periodic table on the far wall. Add a little music, some overly dramatic fade-to-black transitions, and scenes from next week's episode and I've got myself a primetime hit. I don't like being the guy who puts a rift in between people. I don't like knowing when all these people get together that my name will undoubtedly come up in some fashion. With nothing but good intents, I have succeeded in finding the balance in a well established group of friends and beating it to a lifeless pulp with a Fayville Slugger corked with secrets and drama. I can't step out of the batter's box, but I know if I stand in for the next pitch it's going to clock me in the head and that when I wake up there isn't going to be anyone on the field. I made my choice, I took the pitch, I told the catcher to call for one high and inside, and he did. I'll take my medicine, I'll take one in the noggin, but I hope when it's over I can take my base and keep playing the game I love with the people who I enjoy the most.

-alex

Blogification = 1/Lifeitude

I theorize that blogging is inversely proportional to having a life. I have two pieces of evidence to support this. First, I have not blogged in almost two weeks, by far my longest drought. In the last two weeks I've been doing a lot of stuff, thereby having a life. When I am expending all my mental energy in the real world, I have nothing left for my beloved blog. I have no bathroom humor, deep observations, or thoughtful questions. I really have nothing. My second support is Steve's blog. He admits in the first line of his most recent post that his life has been rather unexciting, yet he manages to discover new blogging genius every time he posts. No offense to Steve, of course, but boredom leads to the aforementioned blogging genius. I love blogging and hope I can get back in the swing of things, but for now I'll focus on life rather than try to force low quality blogification, which is all I would have right now.

-alex

apparently staying up late kills my ability to articulate my point

I've always been interested in limits. Like something is what it is until some point, then you change one tiny thing about it and it's no longer the same. If you push a pen into your arm, you can tolerate the pain to a point, but at some point the tiniest bit of pressure is going to make you pull it away. If you go to buy something, you'll purchase it for a certain price but at some point, one more penny onto the price is going to make you walk out of the store with nothing. If someone asks you what time it is, you'll most likely round it off to something like 2:30. In your mind there is some threshold that as soon as the time crosses it, you'll say 2:45 instead of 2:30. It's these psychological kind of limits that you never really think about but determine every snap decision you make that just kind of fascinate me. There is a point where you'll speed through the yellow light, and one where you'll stop. There's a point where you'll wait for someone who's is late, and one where you'll leave. You'll remember something you were told all the way up to the exact point in time when you forget it. There was a point tonight where I was actually going try to get to bed, but once it hit a certain time, I didn't care how late I stayed up. The thing that I find most interesting about these is the exact point at which the mind switches from Plan A to Plan B. Maybe you don't exactly understand what I'm talking about, or maybe you do and don't find it interesting, I don't know. Odds are you'll remember this blog next time you go flying through a yellow light, though.

-alex

the one with all the money

The University of Arizona sent me a letter yesterday offering me a certain amount of money because I was named a National Merit Semifinalist, which is just based off of a PSAT test. Now I'm not complaining about it by any means, but there's part of me that feels like I don't necessarily deserve it. It bothers me that I am getting money just for being me, while others aren't because they are them. I haven't worked particularly hard in high school, I skip a lot of homework, I'm not always focused or dedicated in class. I know people who put in tons of effort and are getting nothing, or very little for it. All I did was sit down for 3 hours and take a test that, as crazy as it sounds, I enjoyed. Someday I'll get over the ridiculous guilt I feel for things like this, but not today.

-alex

blogger confessional

If you scroll down the blog for about 10 minutes you'll come across my post regarding my passionate disdain for phones. I must admit, despite that post, that I went down to Alltel and got the latest and greatest in cellular technology. It rings like a stereo, it has a camera, and yes, I can make your picture pop up when you call. What drove me to buy what I did not necessarily need? I don't know, but I hope my loyal fanbase doesn't think any less of me.

-alex

return of people watching

Listening to the radio in my car on the way to dinner, there was a report on the weather. After talking about the storm in Tucson and the forecast for the week, the meteorologist proclaimed that "there is a 50 percent chance that there will be more rain than average this fall/winter." Enlightening. Absolutely enlightening.

-alex

a spade's a spade

If you can read this cryptic hand history of one of my hands on PartyPoker.com, you'll appreciate how I knocked this guy out of the online tournament.

***** Hand History for Game 50841069630 *****
NL Hold'em 10 Buy-in + 1 Entry Fee Trny:6779168 Level:4 Blinds(50/100) - Wednesday, September 15, 21:26:20 EDT 2004
Table Play money 1257577
Seat 6 is the button
Total number of players : 3
Seat 2: BHawk00 ( $5715 )
Seat 6: koyre ( $315 )
Seat 10: afay05 ( $1970 )
Trny:6779168 Level:4
Blinds(50/100)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to afay05 [ Js Qs ]
koyre calls [100].
afay05 raises [250].
BHawk00 folds.
koyre calls [200].
** Dealing Flop ** [ Ts, 8c, As ]
afay05 bets [150].
koyre is all-In.
** Dealing Turn ** [ Jd ]
** Dealing River ** [ Ks ]
afay05 shows [ Js, Qs ] Royal Flush.
koyre shows [ Th, 8h ] two pairs, tens and eights.
koyre finished in third place and won 20 play chips.
afay05 wins 135 chips from side pot #1 with Royal Flush.
afay05 wins 730 chips from the main pot with Royal Flush.
koyre has left the table.

-alex

place of business

To outsiders the men's bathroom may just be a place of "business", there is an incredibly complex dynamic to it that is worthy of blogification. Here are my unwritten rules of the men's room.

-Conversations are off limits. I don't want to be in that place any longer than I have to be. Talk to me outside, never inside. Ever. Never.
-Never assume the position at a urinal directly next to an occupied urinal.
-Only use the little boys lowered urinal if your willing to sacrifice your dignity to a whole bunch of guys who won't say anything, but will still laugh to themselves.
-You don't need to be so close to urinal that you appear to be humping it. We aren't trying to catch a peek. We already know you're small.
-Don't stand 6 feet away from the urinal either. Distance urination isn't an Olympic sport. It never will be.
-Don't use the mirror. The risk of seeing something in the background you don't want to see is far too great. You look fine.
-If the guy who exits the bathroom right before you doesn't wash his hands, you can avoid touching the contaminated door handle by sneaking out as someone else enters or exits. If there is a garbage recepticle within reasonable distance of the door, grab a paper towel, use it as a makeshift glove to swing the door open safely, then toss it in the trash and escape before you become trapped again.
-Don't turn the loose hand dryer up towards your face and let it blow on you. You're not in 4th grade.
-If you're going to go through the trouble of wetting your hands so it appears you washed them, just take 4 extra seconds and use soap. Other guys notice the dunk-and-dash. You will be red flagged.
-Don't worry if you put your hands under an infrared faucet and it doesn't activate. It happens to all guys. We won't frown upon you. In fact, thank you for sacrificing yourself so no other poor man has to experience similar embarassment.
-Eyes should be horizontal at ALL TIMES. You don't want to see any wayward equipment, and it makes last minute recovery zip-ups easier to execute for everyone.
-Don't enjoy any part of your visit to the bathroom. When guys walk out of the bathroom laughing or smiling, it makes us all suspicious.

-alex

growing up VHS

I think some of the most underrated movies of all time are kids baseball movies. There are some all time classics in this category. Little Big League. Rookie of the Year. Angels in the Outfield. And yes, quite possibly the greatest baseball movie ever: The Sandlot. There are other sports movies (The Mighty Ducks, Little Giants) that had similar appeal but the baseball movies are the ones that we were enamored with when we first saw them as little kids. Seeing someone close to our age involved in the big leagues in some way was simply captivating. The slow motion shots of the baseball in mid air. The seasoned pro that overcomes his disdain for the kid to take him under his wing. When one of these movies appears on TBS or ABC Family or another offbeat station, we forgo watching the latest Real World or World Series of Poker or Chapelle's Show so we can be little kids again for an hour and a half. We have to. Our childhoods makes us. We see how many of the little kids in the movies are actually actors we recognize now. We let out the "oh yea......" as the scenes come that we didn't remember. We still sit on the edge of our seats even though we know that the batter strikes out on the floater, and that Ken Griffey rips a homer, that the Angels win the pennant, and that they find out who lives behind The Beast. We all played little league baseball and home run derby because of these movies. None of us didn't even know what derby meant, most of us still don't, but it never mattered. We just wanted to play baseball. We wanted to watch the movie again. I'm sure there are younger kids now and older adults that enjoy these movies. But for those of us who didn't grow up on the internet or skateboarding or with 3d video games, these movies were more. They were huge. They were all that mattered.

-alex

writing under the influence of lividity

I've decided that people need drama to survive. It's a form of sustenance. We thrive off of it, it drives us to do. It's entirely possible to remove yourself from the social hustle and bustle and sit by the wayside. It makes things simpler and you tend to learn a lot about how people act. As you watch all your friends and acquaintances trudge through every painful situation, you convince yourself that this is the way to live, free of drama. Unfortunately simplicity and life don't coexist. Social inaction desensitizes you. You become instinctively objective and stoic. You don't become overly angry or overly happy. You almost forget how to become overly angry or overly happy. Life becomes routine. With drama, you are a piece of the social puzzle. You have to identify who you are, what's around you, and where you fit in. As tedious as this may be, at least you end up surrounded by people that make life fun. It may seem like you could enjoy yourself so much more if you didn't have to go through all these difficult situations but without dark there is no light. Happiness is relative and if you have no pain to compare it to, it won't be happiness, it will just be. Life is drama. So when you get your heart broken, or argue with your parents, or fight with your best friend, realize that though life shouldn't be that hard, it is, it has to be. If life is easy, you're not living.

Bright white is best, but I'll take pitch black over dull gray any day of the week.

-alex

a travesty of elastic proportions

So I usually wear a number of rubber bands on each wrist to school. I kind of don't know why I do it, but I do it. Today in AP Gov, an assignment that required the use of notecards was due. The teacher instructed us to put a clip or band on our notecards for organization. Of course everyone comes crawling to me for a rubber band and reluctantly I give away 6 of my 7 rubber bands. These weren't just any rubber bands either, they were fresh clean high quality rubber band of the perfect width and circumference; this was no petty sacrifice. No sooner does everyone turn in their cards with my bands on them, some girl starts walking around with a huge bag of colored rubber bands for everyone. So not only do I go from hero to zero in about a quarter of a second, but everyone else is sporting multiple colored rubber bands on their wrist. I'm left with one, lonely, classic tan rubber band. It's like being put up on a pedastal, thrown off the pedastal into the mud then having the pedestal hurled at me. Fantastic.

-alex

tug of war

Hey I haven't had much to write about lately. I think that last poem drained all my writing energy. Neither the blog writing nor the song writing has been impressive lately. I'm constantly being pulled back and forth from my fun, relaxing world to my emo world which makes it tough to focus on one thing to write. It's also hard trying to get all your work done and still make the most of your last (and most fun) year of high school, all the while trying to retain something resembling sanity and stability. Enough complaining.

I'm doing my best, I'll be back. No worries.

-alex

try to look through the gray skies

It's kind of weird when you can't remember what you were like before you had something. We had to put our dog down today, and I honestly couldn't remember a time without having him in the house. I don't want to make this too depressing, I just wanted to get my goodbye in. It'll be weird without him here.

It's been fun.

-alex

a testament to the power of public education

So the problems for my Calculus BC homework were 24-72 multiples of 3, 74, 75, 78, and 79. This doesn't seem so complicated or overwhelming. I plow through the first 3, then, in an awesome display of arithmetic, I go from 33 to 37 and continue on to 40, 43, etc. I proceed to finish the homework, close the book, then realize that 37 isn't a multiple of 3. I had to go back and erase the problems I didn't have to do and complete the ones I skipped. It was awesome.

Yes, I do understand the irony in this. I really do.

-alex

uncensored

What if you were the dog that everyone pets and adores while buying the dog next to it? What if you had the ability to find the darkness in even the most bright of moments? What if you had yourself so figured out that it confused you? What if you were a window that was only looked through, never truly looked at? What if you had no real reason to feel how you feel, but you couldn't do anything about it? What if you see people’s little superficialities, and so many times you’ve looked around and realized that no one else sees them, that you don’t even bother looking around anymore? What if you couldn't just let loose and not care? What if you just gave up on letting people try to understand you? What if you felt isolated and didn't know whether you had a legitimate reason to or if you just do it to yourself? What if no matter where you were, who you were with, or how much fun you were having, you felt alone? Maybe it goes away. Maybe it's just me.

-alex

just wondering

Isn't it disappointing when something that means a lot to you doesn't mean anything to the person you want it to mean something to?

I think the combustion engine is useful, but how smart is it to invent something that turns a finite resource into something that kills you?

Shouldn't there be a list of dating rules written so we can bring the percentage of relationships that end in disaster down to 90% from 98%? Does anyone see the foreshadowing of a future blog here?

How pretentious does a teacher have to be to claim that his/her class is the most important one?

Are $1 coins practical in any way?

What makes something so interesting when it's 20 times larger or 20 times smaller than its usual size?

What ever happend to spectacular words like 'lest' and 'alas' that provide a entertaining break from dull words like 'so' and 'but'?

How do people critcize Olympic athletes for taking a small step after doing 3 backflips off a 4-inch wide beam or for winning only 6 gold medals when they could have won 8?


-alex

real restaurant slogans

McDonalds: Bad Restaurants. Bad Service. Bad Food. The American Way.

Burger King: We're Better Than McDonald's!....Who Are We Kidding, We Still Suck.

In-N-Out: Come Try Our Delicious Cult-like Following!

Sonic: If We Made Our Parking Spaces Any Smaller, You'd All Drive Golf Carts.

Wendy's: Customers Served Worldwide: Almost 14!

Subway: We're Healthy, So Our Food Must Be Terrible.

Quizno's: Take The Family....After Taking Out A Mortgage!

Pizza Hut: More Grease Than Your Average Politician.

Pizza Factory:

DelTaco: Perfecting The Fine Art of Not Advertising.

Taco Bell: Bad Restaurants. Bad Service. Bad Mexican. The American Way.


-alex

2-7 off

I am going to preface this post with this: Two different kind of people will read this. Person A will say "Is this kid actually getting this serious and philosophical about poker?" and scroll the mouse up to the little "X" at the top right of IE or go the other way for the "BACK" button. I'd put about 75% of people in the 'A' category and that's fine, to each his/her own. Then there is person B, who will know exactly what I'm talking about. So 'B', my friend, read on. There is a dynamic to poker that is unlike anything else. There are moments of absolute ecstasy and pride almost everytime you play a serious game. A smart call, a good lay down, or a big win, and deep down you're saying "Wow, this is the greatest thing since pizza bagels." There is a disappointment unique to poker as well. When you get eliminated from the intense game you've been playing for the past few hours, you almost don't know what you feel. You're frustrated that you're out, confused about the sequence of events that just happened, angry at the person who is raking your chips, depressed you just blew 20 bucks. Defrangerfusion, if you will. All these feelings are so extreme that you just sit there, completely lost. You get this actual physical feeling that can't be described. If you doubt the ability of this feeling to drive people to the brink of insanity, read again what I just wrote. Think about it.

-alex

Smells like rat

I don't know if anyone has seen the latest ALLTEL commercial on local TV. It has a man and woman sitting at a restaurant and the man takes out his cell phone, which grinds pepper, has breath spray, and contains parmesean cheese. Now I admit this has no direct connection to my earlier cell phone post but I couldn't help suspect that some ALLTEL marketing rep. was browsing the internet, ran across my blog where I complain about excess features and was like "Hmmmmmm...this could make a good commercial." You know it's true.

Anyway, school's coming soon, so let's take a moment to reminisce about our last real summer......................And scene.

One more year people. One more.


-alex

tee'd off

So it's around my favorite time of year: school shopping time. (Insert ridiculously sarcastic tone) As most of you know, my clothing repertoire isn't anything all that impressive so I figured I'd extend my wardrobe from 3 shirts to maybe 5 or 6, and from 1 pair of shorts to 3 or 4. Shorts are simple and no problem to find. You'd think that shirts would be as easy, but alas, they are not. All I really want is a simple solid color T-shirt with whatever brand name or logo modestly placed on the front but down at the mall that does not seem to be an option. I could go with the typical Abercrombie/American Eagle horizontal striped polo and turn myself into Alex Uber-preppie. I could overpay for a T-shirt with some blatantly suggestive faux-advertisement on it, like "Alex's Hot Dog Stand: Open All Night". Always a classy choice. Another option is the T-shirt with some oversized retro advertisement on the back for some Surf Shop or (Insert brand here) Athletic Team. The shirts without such obnoxious fake advertisements usually come in the form of a shirt with a gigantic "OLD NAVY" or "ABERCROMBIE" plastered across the chest, visible to the naked eye from hundreds of yards away. As much as I'd love to pay 20 dollars to do the company's advertising for them, I'm going to have to pass. I don't want a shirt with 3 panels of some stick figure cartoon, I don't want a shirt that misspells Hooked on Phonics, I don't want a shirt that has some "clever" one liner or pick up line on it, or one that attempts to make people think I'm a sociopath with voices in my head. Maybe I'll just have to stick with my A) Red, B) Blue, and C) Gray Aeropostale shirts for another year. I don't mind.

-alex

yes, you

The only problem I've run into with the blog so far is that I know, for the most part, who all reads it. Because I know this I tend to tailor the blog to these people, and instead of writing whatever is on my mind I have to avoid anything that may be awkward or offensive to these people. It's kind of a minor thing but, on some levels, it's defeating the basic purpose of the blog. If you have to ask yourself "Is he talking about me?", the answer is yes. This doesn't mean I'm going to stop or significantly change anything but it is simply a small source of frustration for me.

Note: This is in no way an attack on the people who read the blog; you're the reason I keep writing.

-alex

gracias

I just want to thank Justin, Steve, Katie, Emily, Ben, Lauren, Lisa, my parents and grandparents, and the mystery cell phone caller at 8:09pm for making me feel good on my birthday. It means more than you think.

-alex

Annual Rambling TV Awards

Who Cares? Award: MTV. I don't care about Nick and Jessica's life, or what everyone's house looks like, or the Diary of so and so. "You think you know, but you have no idea, and you probably don't want to."

Most Played Show: The Ashlee Simpson Show. I don't even need to explain this one, you know it's true.

Late Night Award: Conan O' Brien. How can you go wrong with a show that plays Walker, Texas Ranger clips as a comedy routine? Plus Leno and Letterman just aren't funny.

Worst Commercial: YJ Stinger Energy Drink. Mmmmm, I really want to drink something that explodes with bees when I open it. Plus it's an energy drink.

You're Cool, But Not That Cool Award: People who watch The Daily Show. Granted Jon Stewart is hilarious and the show is great, but watching the show doesn't make you "unique" or "hip". It seems like a lot of people think they're "underground" because they like the show. News flash: everyone watches it, everyone likes it, you're not that cool.

Re-run the Re-runs Award: Bravo. Bravo's lineup consists of three things: The West Wing reruns, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy reruns, and Celebrity Poker Showdown reruns. Even though I love the West Wing, I can only watch the same episode once or twice a day before I'm tired of it.

I'm going to add more as I go.

-alex

Cows with Guns

This is simply the most creative thing I have ever seen on the internet. Note that the cow is referred to as a "he", yet has an udder. Hmmmm. Enjoy.

"Bad cow pun..."

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/cowswithguns.php

-alex

looking ahead

I got my Stanford application in the mail a few days ago, so I guess the beginning of this whole insane process has arrived with it. The colleges I plan on applying to as of now:

University of Arizona
University of Colorado
Stanford University
University of Michigan
University of Maryland
Arizona State University

Those are in no particular order, and the list is pretty much devoid of small schools simply because most smaller schools don't have Aerospace Engineering, which is what I plan on doing.

My birthday's coming up, if anyone was any great ideas what to ask for, let me know.

-alex

plugging the friends

Katie and Steve have gotten into the blogging game so go ahead and check out their blogs.

Katie: http://www.cerealblogger.blogspot.com
Steve: http://www.noiseandwords.blogspot.com

Good stuff. So yea I've had some serious blogger's block lately. I'll be back.

-alex

oui?

Does anyone else think that Jack-in-the-Box commercial is really funny where the French guy is interviewing Jack about the french fries? I just think it's great when the French guy says "Oui?" all angry-like. Good times. That's all, nothing else.

-alex

People who annoy me

I don't get why people think energy drinks are all cool now. They're not. You can say you need to stay awake for whatever reason, but a Coke will do fine for that. You can argue that it tastes good, but you know it doesn't. You can say you're tired, in that case you should probably sleep (Concept, anyone?). You can say Red Bull and alcohol go good together, but somehow mixing something that speeds up your heart rate with something that slows it down just doesn't sound like a great idea to me. The Red Bull ads annoy me. The dumb little Red Bull car annoys me. Even the stupid little Red Bull half-can annoys me. But what gets me more than anything is the people who think drinking an energy drink makes them look cool or hip. Go home people.

-alex

You know what's coming

Is it smarter to answer questions or to ask them?

When you spend hours fishing, which animal really seems to be outsmarting the other, the fish or the human?

Doesn't it seem like you can have more fun in one good conversation than in all the parties you go to combined?

If a large portion of inventions just end up causing more problems than they solve, shouldn't we just cut our losses and stop inventing things?

Is it OK to be intolerant of intolerant people?

Which would you prefer, everyone liking you or everyone respecting you?

Aside from obvious scientific changes, how would the world be different if there was no night?

How do we know that that we don't have impaired vision and color blind people are seeing things how they really are?

Is life so complicated just because we make it that way?


-alex

and it's keeping me awake

I don't know how often the average person dreams. I have like 1-2 dreams every 6 months that I actually remember, and they're never very fun. But every once in a while I have one of the good ones. The kind that has people you know and like, the kind with intelligible dialogue. Not one of the ridiculous ones where your flying or falling, but an actual legitimate situation. It's the kind that covers every little detail, so it plays almost like a little movie. It's the kind that just makes itself exactly what you want (Because honestly, why shouldn't it?). It's the kind that fills whatever void you have so well that, for a little while, you actually believe it to be real, just because deep down you want it to so bad. It's the kind that disappoints you so much when you realize that its perfect world won't be waiting outside your door that when you open your eyes, everything seems darker.

-alex

anyone play violin?

Apparently now I'm in a band as a violinist, yet I don't play violin. I better get on that. I actually had a cool, productive day today that didn't result in me coming home and listening to depressing Dashboard songs all night, so thanks to all the people I hung out with today. I learned that if you put an egg in a microwave for a minute, take it out, and just hold it, eventually it will explode. This could make me rich if I play my cards right. Anyway I'm going up to Pinetop till Saturday morning.

Katie: dust off the bass, it's game time.

-alex

i see it around me, i see it in everything...i could be so much more than this...

It just doesn't click. I know this is a terribly cynical generalization, but it seems that the wrong thing to do is both easy and fun, while the right thing, though satisfying in the end, is dull and difficult. I'm hanging out with friends because I have nothing else to do. I don't want to get too specific, but I chose to throw back Dr. Pepper all night instead of alcohol, so while people have their drunken fun and others partake in the proverbial game of baseball, I have the pleasure of playing solitaire on someone else's kitchen table. By myself. For three hours. And now I decide to hijack this computer and blog. I don't really enjoy playing the martyr, but I simply don't understand why you always have to pay some price to do the right thing. It doesn't make sense. Now I know rationality is both severely overrated and painfully uncommon. And I know that a truly selfless person wouldn't go online and bitch about making some petty sacrifice, but I'm just tired of this basic situation manifesting itself night after night. Where's the real fun, where you don't have to be wasted? It seems to have been misplaced, and there doesn't seem to be very many people looking for it.


-alex

I really do ask a lot of questions

What in the world makes AP tests so ridiculously expensive?

Are politicians really less honest than the average person, or are they just an accurate sampling of society in general?

Why do people pay $1.99 for gas, when, in clear view down the street, there's a gas station with gas for $1.89?

Do you think someday the whole political correctness thing will get so out of hand that people will complain that in a deck of playing cards, all the face cards are white people?

Why do cops tailgate you? Are they just taunting you like "haha, yea, just go ahead and break 45, sucker"?

Isn't there kind of a small ethical dilemma when someone gives you a burned copy of a CD they payed for?

Are you annoyed by all my quasi-rhetorical questions?

Who else is disappointed that all the really cool things have already been invented? (sticky notes, pizza bagels, etc.)

If people were never introduced to the concept of violence, would they discover in themselves on their own?


-alex

Just a few more questions

Why are bad decisions so much easier to make than good ones?

Does anyone else think R2-D2 should make an appearance in every movie ever?

If people didn't think swear words were bad, would they still be bad?

Has anyone else noticed that television has made people so lazy that we have to come up with "TV" just so we don't have to strain ourselves and say a 4 syllable word?

Am I allowed to believe in luck but not believe in the supernatural?

Who else is really annoyed by people who only like bands no one's heard of, and then when that band gets all popular these people suddenly don't like them anymore?

Are smart people good at not doing dumb stuff, or good at hiding it when they do?

How many people do you know that you can 100 percent trust and depend on in any situation, however petty or significant it is? Doesn't this number seem awfully low?

Aren't songs more fun when you don't know the exact lyrics so you just kinda make up your own?

If pennies were taken out of circulation, would the average person save money or lose money?

Can opinions be objective?

-alex

hasta la pizza

Well the Pizza Factory went out of business today. Last night I'm working a normal shift and now suddenly I'm out of a job. Nevertheless I thought it was a really fun place to be, whether I was working or just wanted some food. I was only there for 3 or 4 months but I still met some really cool people that hopefully I'll stay friends with. AJ, Matt, Matt, Kristen, Daniella, Emma, Tracy, Ben, David, Justin: peace. It's been fun.

-alex