Sad to say I'm on my way/Won't be back for many a day Well, life hasn't exactly been like the old Harry Belefonte song, but one can't help but think of it as they're packing up. Looks like Katrina has moved out of the South for now, and hopefully my air travel won't be that affected. Land travel is another story. I tip my hat to Her, she packed a punch did she not? Wow. Actually my worst fear is that I will be going through Miami and if any of those MTV figures are still around--I might get shot. Then again, maybe Kelly Clarkson will be on the same plane as me heading back to D/FW. Hey. I know. Shut up.

Anyways if all goes well by Wednesday night I will sleep in Texas. In a new house. This has been the longest I've been away from Texas (and stayed in one place, a difference from some of my cross-country misadventures). Some people I know are ready for me to return; others could care less. I'm pretty indifferent. But naturally as I'm packing up, or really as we were just driving home from dinner and I was looking out the windows, it seems like there was so much more I wanted to do or see. It's just the sinking in that I'm leaving the tropics. Off the top of my head a few things I'll miss about being in Grand Cayman, we have to start with just waking up every morning and looking out my window to see the Caribbean Sea. Going to the grocery store and seeing a young kid walk around with a bird balanced on his arm. The sobering solace found in the endless sky. Or you know just driving around and staring through the windshield at the varrying degrees of paradise. (On that note I'll also miss driving on the left, which believe it or not seems a lot more natural that driving as we do in the States).

So heres to you, mighty ocean. We'll see each other again soon enough.  ¶ 8/29/2005 12:08:00 PM 6 comments

  "I'll be gone in day or two..." We kind of did the tourist thing last night and ate at a hotel over on Seven Mile Beach. After being spoiled to the beautiful silence of the other (non-tourist destination) side of the island, any time I venture over there--despite being an American and being among Americans or Canadians or Europeans--it just feels weird. And not a good weird. I guess it is the difference in being among people who come here for a week and people who live here full time.
But we ate at this huge buffett dinner the Westin has (think the anti-Golden Corral, with sweet potato and plantain mash---oh yeah!) out along the beautiful white sand beach at sunset. For our entertainment they had a limbo dancer/fire eater, attractive European waitresses, and a steel drum band. My point about all this is: tourist trap or not, you haven't lived until you've heard a ten minute steel drum jam band cover a-ha's "Take On Me." It left me speechless. Oh, and the food wasn't bad either.

So it's my last weekend here, I'm out on Wednesday. I can't believe I've been here all summer. I'm ready to be back home, but nervously anxious at the same time. Well I'm off to think...or just stare at the ocean and not think about anything. Whatever my brain does decide to do, I'll be humming a-ha well into the rest of the afternoon.  ¶ 8/27/2005 01:00:00 PM 4 comments

  bottled water. I met a girl today that I didn't ask out on a date. This is nothing spectacular, as I'm going on a dry spell of...well let's just call my dating life by its formal name, "The Sahara." One can't help it but imagine themselves finding romance when they travel; call it the romantic in me, but I thought hell if it happened to Mike Seaver when he went to Spain it sure as crap can happen to me wherever I go. Almost 3 months on island and I haven't so much met a girl my age, much less shared some time with one. No romantic walks on the beach, no island lullabyes. Just pretty much the same routine day in and day out. I could try and find excuses, but when it comes down to it I blame no one but myself.
O f course I could just ignore all this and come home with some great stories about Caribbean romance. But that would be just pathetic.

It's been bothering me all day, not asking this particular girl out. I don't know why. Maybe it's because she worked here and didn't seem like the typical service employee down just to have fun in the sun and party their life away at the bars every night. Maybe it was because she worked at the cool local art shop and, when I was purchasing a photograph, she informed me that she was the photographer. (That right there should have told me something. I guess it did but about thirty minutes too late. I've always been thrity minutes too late with girls.) Maybe its because I imagined falling in love and not wanting to leave (Did I mention I'm on a dry spell?).
I have no idea if this girl would have said yes. I don't know if she would even had wanted to go out with some dumb non-resident about to leave town who was just in buying gifts for his family and friends. I keep thinking maybe I'll find an excuse to go back to the shop and ask her out, but I know I won't. Because I'm not Mike Seaver? No that's not it. I don't know, whatever man. Anyways I'm due to go home in less than a week now. It's been months since I've spent any significant amount of time with anyone my own age. I wonder if I'll even fit in. I guess we can always talk about the weather. I've done plenty of that this summer.  ¶ 8/26/2005 12:32:00 AM 5 comments

  "thunder-boomers" It's typical for August to bring about sudden rainshowers or thunderstorms. They often start by dark clouds moving in slowly from any direction, usually the North or East. Next thunder rolls across the skies; this is followed by lightning and finally perhaps some percipitation will fall. More often than not rain does not come however when it does it tends to brief, isolated, and usually somewhat severe.
This morning lightning caused a power outage over the entire island. I repeat: a lightning strike caused the entire island of Grand Cayman to lose power for 5 or 6 hours today.
I hear that Grand Cayman--where I have been living this summer--is one of the more developed islands in the Caribbean, especially in regards to utilities. A power outage here is a rare experience, whether caused by overload of the system or Mother Nature. Elsewhere I hear this is not the case, and electricty can come and go just as the thundershowers can. And yet this is the life I have chosen for the next two years. Beautiful.  ¶ 8/22/2005 11:10:00 PM 4 comments

  lightning crashes. the angel opens my eyes. Tuesday night around 9:30 I was sitting on my bed listening to The Beatles. I was starting to get tired so I decided that before I crashed I wanted to read some Bible. I randomly turned to Psalms as I have been lately and enveloped myself into the beauty that was the writings of David ("But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you.")After a few minutes with with the Word I turned off my bedside lamp and rolled over to look out the window, 'Golden Slumbers' in the background. Sometime shortly after I dozed off. Around 1am I awoke and thought it was already dawn breaking. The moon outside was very bright and there wasn't a cloud in sight to deter it from shining. It hung in the Southwestern sky outside the window and I (drearily) stared at reflection on the ocean. Suddenly I saw a flash, and then another. To the Southeast, beyond the moonlights reach, there was a lightning storm somewhere just about at the horizon line. So I had to the SW light as bright as the new morning, and then to the SE a darkness constantly being disturbed by the raidly occuring flashes of lightning. It was amazing.

I don't remember falling back to sleep, but when I awoke next it was sometime around 3:20. I looked out the window and couldn't even see the back porch it was so dark out. The moon had dissapeared; the lightning had ceased. I was left with was darkness.

The next morning in the shower, before I was even awake, my mind was thinking. It said to me: "It's easy to praise your God when things go your way. It's easy to praise Him when you are happy with life. It's natural to give thanks when things go your way. Never forget that it is just as important to praise and respect Him when you are unhappy. Never forget that you must honor the spirit when things do not go the way you want them to. What's the point in taking time towards thanks just when you feel like things are good? Why not when things are bad? Don't just use those times to ask why or beg for mercy! Use them also to praise life. He never fails you, no matter how it seems. No matter how bad it gets, He never goes away. Don't forget that. Don't ever forget that." I believe the Earth woke me up to witness these stark differences in the night. It was keeping me in check. And also She was issuing a warning. A beautiful, spine-tingling warning.  ¶ 8/20/2005 02:42:00 PM 1 comments

  an epic (and somewhat lame) story 5 years in the making...
I'm officially a college graduate now. Yea.

wait a second...5 years? What took me so long? I should have finished months a...hey look at those clouds! Cool!  ¶ 8/18/2005 05:10:00 PM 7 comments

  Wake me when September starts Well I am now officially in hour 240 of my internship; when 5:00 pm comes and the workday is done I will have completed the amount of hours required for me by my university (I'll go ahead and work through Friday...they're paying me like $17/hr...why not?). So tomorrow I will complete the paperwork and send it in and by the end of the week I should be officially a college graduate. No cap, no gown, no diploma (yet). Just a big sigh of relief. And then two weeks from today I will bid the Caribbean adieu for a few months, returning home to get everything in order before my January departure for destination unknown. Scary. Exciting. I still have some work to be done on my medical clearance, but since I was accepted so early along in the process the people in D.C. tell me I have plenty of time. Still, it will be my first priority once I arrive back in Texas. That and moving my mom and sister into their new house. And having some authentic Tex-Mex. And seeing my family and friends. And watching a Texas sunset.

And this paddle game. But that's all.

I've been looking forward to September for so long, I can't even explain it. I've been trying to put thoughts of the future aside, but sometimes I can't help it. For at least a month...no school...no work...no internship...no academic worries. Just life. Regular, ordinary life. But it will be life a la Josh, of course (that just means expect plenty of Fletch quotes). Five and half years. Seems like a lifetime--(cue flashback music, fuzzy screen...)  ¶ 8/17/2005 05:06:00 PM 2 comments

  musings from an afternoon thunderstorm/bathroom reading Despite the fact that we do live in a beautiful world, it is going to hell and a handbasket. I don't even know what that saying means, but just trust me when I say it applies to our current living conditions. So in a time like this, it's good to take a minute and let your friends and family know how much you appreciate them.

On a completely other random note, I was reading on the jon the other day about the Voyager Golden Record, a time-capsule of sorts launched into space back in 1977. It has a record that includes natural sounds of this Earth, music from a New Guniea men's house song to chuck Berry doing "Johnny B. Goode" It passed Pluto in 1990 and left our solar system in 2003. It is now in empty space, with forty thousand years expected to elapse before it or makes a close approach to another solar system. Do you have any concept of how amazing this is? Blows my mind. When it was launched Carl Sagan noted, "The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced spacefaring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this 'bottle' into the cosmic 'ocean' says something very hopeful about life on this planet." How inspiring, no? That's my deep thought for the day.  ¶ 8/16/2005 05:00:00 PM 5 comments

  I got a Phillips head... Check out this guy. What a tool.

I don't think any of my Lubbock cronies keep up with me on the blog, but just in case that title is for you guys.  ¶ 8/15/2005 09:24:00 PM 7 comments

  Sunday. This afternoon I found myself sitting outside in the back of the house continuing progress on a memoir I had recently begun. The sun was hidden behind an ever-growing mass of clouds and periodically I would raise my eyes from the pages of my book and follow their evolution. The rain finally came several minutes later, after I had been joined by my Gran and Grandaddy. We moved under onto the porch as the drops began and watched is slow progression across the face of the Caribbean Sea, slowly covering the distant beach from our eyesight, then the house down the hill and finally, with strong and cooling breezes, making its full on approach to our location. The squall continued steadily for nearly forty minutes.
Later in the afternoon after the rain had stopped and as the humidity slowly began to creep back in my Grandaddy and I went for a walk, where we heard wild parrots calling each other and looked up to find them meeting in nearby treestops. Beautiful shades of green and red and yellow amazed our eyes.
When we got home Gran and I fried up a plantain, and we snacked on the fruit and some crumpets for dinner. Soon we found Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo beginning on the television, which I enjoyed yet again in all its creepiness and beauty.
Now the moon is reflecting on the water, illuminating in the night the never ceasing ocean outside my window. The television off, I am reminded that nighttime in this world can be so creepy and yet so very beautiful at the same time. I just had to write this down, lest I ever forget it.  ¶ 8/14/2005 11:19:00 PM 4 comments

  Lost in America, vol. 1: Somebody Who's Actually Producing Hogs In one of what will be I project many posts about my home country, I find this story from the LA Times to be very interesting. I love my country but sometimes feel disoriented. Welcome to your twenties, am I right?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/20050813/ts_latimes/theyourhobbyherehalloffame

In the past few years I have been spending my days & nights on college campuses among relatively like-minded individuals. Like minded in the fact that none of us knew what the hell is going on but damned if we weren't passionate about it--in our own ways. It's been great, but also socially constricting as far as understanding how the "rest of the country" might be thinking these days. The only adults we came in regular contact with were professors or administrators who generally were on the same wavelenths (theres a reason they never leave college!). At a dinner party earlier this week I shared the table with several middle-aged Americans down here for a little business/vacation week. From overhearing some of the conversations about being American and traveling , my eyes were opened to another side of the story. And albeit second-hand I've been made aware of several different facets of America over my years in school. But my understanding is far from over.

I find myself somedays still, five years in, waking up and reading the news, seeing Mr. Bush's face and saying "Oh yeah...it's real. He is the President. Geez." Being away and looking in we're really a backwards country. I wouldn't give up calling the United States my home for anything, but we're really confused, and it is my opinion that we really have our priorities in the wrong places. I never question my decision to join the Peace Corps, and I anticipate serving more and more everyday. But before I leave I have to find out what it is I will be representing when I am abroad. Is the America seen the America I know? Is the America they know the America I will be? Is that a good or bad thing? Is there an answer, or just some suggestions (or lies)? Are we known for our freedoms and civil liberties, or for our pocketbooks and our hypocrisies? Why has the image of Mount Rushmore as the symbol of America seem to have been replaced by grizzly desert scenes from Americans in a different country all together? I have hundred of more questions...and very few answers...
One crucial answer comes at the end of that LA Times article, with a fathers dream carried out after his death by his daughter with the opening up of a Trucking Hall of Fame.  ¶ 8/13/2005 06:03:00 PM 6 comments

  not a Dylan lyric, but close Did anyone else see the meteor shower this morning? I woke up at 3:00, they said the peak would be around 3:18 CST. I saw a dozen or two during the half hour or so I was outside, but by and large the greatest one I witnessed was earlier in the night. We got back from dinner about11:15 and I went out back to see if I could find Mars. A few minutes later right before I went in a spectacular large meteor streaked across the southwestern sky, a bright trail following it. At first I thought it was a shooting star, so I made a wish. Later on I remembered that it would be a meteor, and that more than likely my wish wouldn't come true. Sure enough, when I woke up this morning I still had leprosy.  ¶ 8/12/2005 10:59:00 AM 4 comments

  i changed my blog template once again. i dig this one the most. eh?  ¶ 8/11/2005 02:22:00 PM 5 comments

  WOLVERINES! Allow me, if you will, a few moments to depart from my daily adventures and share with you an experience I just had while in front of SPIKE-TV. I don't know how I have missed out on a film this complete until now but somehow I did. What is this mystery movie that changed my life? Nothing much, just a little something called Red Dawn. I'm sure I am the only person my age who hadn't seen it by age 23.
If you haven't seen it, it can pretty esily be summed up: The Commies invade Colorado, and high school kids form a militant group and kick some serious Commie ass. There are many levels to this movie, including Charlie Sheen and Lea Thompson in career making roles, but I'll leave it there with you mouth watering for more until you see it yourself.
As we all know there were so many great movies to come out of the 1980's, but this one captured everything that was great about those movies and then some.
The comraderie of The Goonies.
The high school conflicts of The Breakfast Club.
The product placement of E.T.
The miltary prowees of Platoon.
C. Thomas Howell.
The hard-ass father figure of Prancer.
The Cold War paranoia of War Games.
The Cold War propoganda of Rocky IV.

Not only that, it also included an all-star cast (featuring a precurser to the amazing acting from Patrick Swayze in Road House, and the horrible acting from Swayze in Dirty Dancing--of course in this movie Baby committed murder-suicide rather than face capture by the Commies, something that would have made Dirty Dancing a lot more interesting.). If only the cast included Michael J. Fox and Ally Sheedy, it would have been perfect. And maybe Gerald McRaney. I must however admit that it was edited for television, and, according to my granddaddy, edited pretty badly. According to him we missed more fighting scenes (there was more!!!) and some pretty important meetings in between the armies and the Americans in the re-education camps.
Watching it I could just picture Ronnie Reagan enjoying the film over and over again during his tenure at the White House. So take it from me, if you haven't seen Red Dawn, rent it tonight. Or better yet, go ahead and buy it. It's rare for a movie to have everything, but this one does. And so much more.

  ¶ 8/10/2005 11:07:00 PM 5 comments

  Hump-day My boss has gone to the British Virgin Islands for a conference. Yet he still said I should come into work. It's only him and me, and I'm an intern who struggles for to find work when he's here. Still I came in today; when I left yesterday I told him that if he had anything to leave it for me and I'd be more then willing to do it. I arrived to nothing, so I have one small project I keep putting off that I guess I can work on this afternoon. Then if nothing happens by the end of the day, I'm calling in for the rest of the week.

Speaking of calling in, here at the EOC we have like a dozen phones for when it's in operational mode. Every phone has it's own extension but only one is a direct outside line. And so it's everyday about this time of the morning that someone calls in and then proceeds to tell me that they have the wrong number. One day they were looking for a florist, another day a beauty shop, and on another for Rondell. I don't know how people get this number, or how it's always someone different calling, but not a day goes by that it doesn't ring. I thought it was just changed over from another department, but everyday it's someone looking for someone different. Kinda like in the old Batman tv show, where they'd climb the side of a building and everytime someone different would poke their head out and make a comment; you'd watch and wait for someone to poke out and say something. Kinda like that. Yeah...I'm an idiot.

One last thing: the craziest headline this week has to be any number of the ones mentioning the story about Marc Cohn being shot in the head...and surviving. Very weird. I like one Farker's headline suggestion: Singer Marc Cohn shot in the head, survives. When asked if he was a Christian, he replied "M'am I am tonight!"
Only works if you know his hit, Walking in Memphis. Check it out, you'll dig it.  ¶ 8/10/2005 11:23:00 AM 2 comments

  More Overheard in the Office... Network News Producer: Why do people live in trailers if they know a hurricane is likely to blow through?
CBS News
524 West 57th Street
New York, NY

I'm supposed to be doing research and creating a presentation about safe rooms. I don't know too much about them, although I saw Panic Room. Little different I think. Need to think Twister instead. My research yesterday led me to find some wicked videos online, one was actually a Government-produced news reel from the seventies detailing the 1970 Lubbock, TX tornado that ripped through the town. It was somewhat humorously nostalgic-ish...corny music, scary narration, the whole nine yards (think of the film strips from elementary school just with more death and destruction). I don't have the link anymore, I just typed "tornado" into Google video search and found it. Google astounds me.
Of course we talk about disasters everyday at work, but still. The sad thing is, this isn't the first time I've heard this question/observation in one form or another and it won't be the last either. But from CBS News, geez. What's the frequency, Kenneth?

So why does Google astound me? A few minutes after writing the above I read something interesting, expanding on what I already somewhat knew. So to redeem my mocking of CBS News above, read this story. And then don't bother deleting Temporary Internet Files. Big Brother already knows. Just move to your safe room and await the end of the world as we know it. Don't forget the beef jerky. (grins)  ¶ 8/09/2005 11:21:00 AM 6 comments

  "Like an old man trying to return soup in a deli!" I read a book over the weekend about the ocean. The wild, angry, and contrary to popular belief extrememly untamed Oceans that inhabit Earth. We'll never control them, and we should never try to. I digress; it was actually pretty interesting, dealing with the illegality of the vessels that sail, the harsh lives of the crews that inhabit them, the pirates, the tourists, and the businessmen (or are they all the same?). If you've ever been to San Francisco, New York, Houston, or any other major city along a port, you know how striking these huge vessels can be; and how reliant the U.S. is on them--but that's a topic for another day. Still these ships are dangerous, scary, and very impressive vehicles. And so is the ocean. I've been fortunate enough this summer to every day be able to soend time staring at the Caribbean Sea in all its glory, from sunny days to hurricanes. But when you step back and consider the ocean in its many facets it truly boggles the mind. So gigantic in geography, in scope, and in presence. Wll I'm rambling, so I'll stop. Pretty much the point of this was to let you all know I read an ENTIRE BOOK over one weekend. No pictures, either!

Looks like one more week of the internship--maybe two, just depends. I'll be coming home August 31. I foolishly waited until too late to purchase a 3-day pass to ACL Fest in September, but it's all good. I'll still go on the 3rd day, Sunday, hear a little music, hang with some friends, eat some tacos. If you're going to be in Texas, Austin is a good town--and there's few of them left around these days.  ¶ 8/08/2005 11:31:00 AM 5 comments

  "So, you're gonna quit?" "No. No I just think I'm gonna stop going." I've been putting off posting some of these, but I figured what the hey. It's Friday. If you're at work, have a few laughs via Overheard in the Office. Real people scare me. Have a good weekend.

http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/archives/000394.html

http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/archives/000458.html

http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/archives/000443.html  ¶ 8/05/2005 12:59:00 PM 4 comments

  the view from space "Commander Eileen Collins said astronauts on shuttle Discovery had seen widespread environmental destruction on Earth and warned on Thursday that greater care was needed to protect natural resources.
'Sometimes you can see how there is erosion, and you can see how there is deforestation. It's very widespread in some parts of the world,' Collins said in a conversation from space with Japanese officials in Tokyo...'The atmosphere almost looks like an eggshell on an egg, it's so very thin,' she said. 'We know that we don't have much air, we need to protect what we have.'--Reuters8/4/05

Why don't you take a minute and thank God for life? Thank Him for life on this planet, for the lives of the ones you love and hold close. Thank Him for the sky being blue, the grass being green, and the wind keeping us cool. Then take a minute and curse yourself for the sky not being blue, for living in a civilization that encourages a wealth of poor building practices and standards of living. Go ahead, step back, it's ok...I just did.
If we all took thirty seconds...one minute...five minutes...from our day and just sat and observed life on this planet, thinking positive thoughts about the wonderment of it all, we would begin to change the way life works here. Spend that time staring at clouds or a body of water; spend it watching a horse gallop or a bird fly; spend it watching grass grow or the effects of wind blowing for that matter. Just as it's important to spend time in any relationship in order for it to nurture and grow--and yes, survive--it's equally important or more so to spend time enjoying being in the presence of the Planet we inhabit and share life with. It might not be the most "effective" time of your day, in the cultural definition of the word, but watch and see how effective a time it is from a humanistic standpoint.

Well I could write so much more on this subject, and I will in the future. This is just a start. Just remember: It's not too late, you can make a difference, and all it needs to start is a single thought.  ¶ 8/04/2005 12:10:00 PM 3 comments

  i dressed myself There's nothing worse than getting to the end of the day and looking in the mirror, only to realize you missed a belt-loop when you got dressed. It might as well be that this day didn't even exist.  ¶ 8/03/2005 05:41:00 PM 1 comments

  every picture tells a story. (updated) I had a strange feeling that I should bring my camera to work today. I don't know why, nothing big is going on, except a meeting this afternoon with a visiting professor/mitigation construction expert from the UK. So I forgot the thought, and left the house without the camera. A half hour after I get to work, what happens? A plane crashes on the runway right behind us. Just the mosquito plane, and everyone walked away from it, but nevertheless there was some drama for about half an hour. So we turn to ol' reliable: MS Paint.

ps. All 309 passengers and crew survived the crash today in Toronto. How awesome is that! Two crashes, no dead. Ok day in my book.
"It was very very fast," Olivier Dubois (survivor) said. "As soon as the plane stopped, they immediately opened the side of the plane where we couldn't see anything and they told us to jump." Man oh man.
  ¶ 8/02/2005 10:28:00 AM 12 comments

  Tie goes to the terrorists. I'm preparing a power point presentation this morning regarding personal 72-hour survival kits. Everyone should have one of these, regardless of where they live. Do as I say, not as I do, as my family doesn't have one yet. But it will be one of the first things I do at home once I get my mother moved into her new house in Ft. Worth next month.
Still no doubt most everyone reading this are my friends and if they're like I was before I became a "professional paranoid" (as one of my professors used to call us) their survival kits are probably a case of imported beer and a package of beef jerky. And maybe a roll of toilet paper and an old Maxim. I love you guys, I really do.

My point is that in doing a google search for extra ideas I find that every webpage I pull up regarding family disaster preparedness has a family that looks just like this one below. If this is who I'm trying to save, I just might give up.
I guess there's just one thing a person can say when they find themselves in my position: Don't hog the jerky.  ¶ 8/01/2005 12:00:00 PM 3 comments