The Primordial Call

Back

2009-05-02T15:33:00.000-07:00

So I am back home.
Africa was sweet.
More on that Later.

Here are some photographs:Zanzibar

Indian Ocean at sunrise

Ruaha National Park

Home stay family

Zanzibar

Here's a Salinger Quote I like:
"He said that a Man should be able to lie at the bottom of a hill with his throat cut, slowly bleeding to death, and if a pretty girl or an old woman should pass by with a beautiful jug balanced perfectly on the top of her head, he should be able to raise himself up on one arm and see the jug safely over the top of the hill."

Current Interests

2009-01-02T23:29:00.000-08:00

I like listing things.
So here are the things i have been filling my time with lately.

I have been watching far too much West Wing. It is a good show, however, and I am on break and dont feel guilty.

Interesting read. I Recomend it.

Caleb and I started recording some Call of the Wild songs. Until Caleb's Mac began to behave like a mac and broke. So we have postponed recording for a bit.

Josh Ritter is really good. The song "Good Man" is pretty classy.

I often overlook Iron and Wine. But Whenever I give them a listen I am generally blown away. This albulm is pretty classic.

The Bon Iver Daytrotter session is pretty cool. Daytrotter is pretty cool. WWw.daytrotter.com

Alright
that is all.

sensory memories

2008-12-13T19:35:00.001-08:00

It's been a while. I found this piece that I wrote sometime this summer in my documents tonight, and thought it was blog worthy.

The smell of zest triggers memories; zest reminds me of summer camp. In elementary school I went to camp every summer; the camp was named Indian Village and I was a proud to be in the Apache tribe. Every year, before leaving for camp my Mom would take me shopping for supplies: toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, not deodorant, I wasn't old enough for deodorant, sunscreen, bug repellent, and soap. It was always Zest soap. The problem with bar soap is that once you take it out of its original cardboard wrapping it is no longer a friendly travel companion. The only way to avoid an awful mess is to place it inside a plastic bag. However, in third grade keeping my soap in good condition was not high on my priority list - - there were rabbit furs to buy, lanyards to make, and games of capture the flag to play. Naturally by the end of the week my bar of Zest soap was pretty gnarly, with small rocks lodged into it, dirt spattered about it, giving it a sandpaper texture. Maybe even a small leaf would find its way onto my bar of Zest soap. It is interesting that this sea-foam green bar, designed to wash away dirt, was so prone to attracting and holding onto dirt itself. By Tuesday I would inevitably deem my bar useless and toss it into the black duffel bag containing all my clothes. Slowly but surely each garment would begin to take on the zesty aroma. And slowly but surely the smell of zest soap became connected with childhood and camp.

Three versions

2008-11-06T19:45:00.000-08:00

Smokey Robinson & the Miracles

The Beatles

She and Him

What?

2008-10-24T15:48:00.001-07:00

2008-10-08T00:48:00.001-07:00

Something that Struck my fancy

2008-09-25T22:44:00.000-07:00

While reading an essay for my composition class called, "On the Fear of Death" by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross; I happened upon this quote that made me pause:

"Are we becoming less human or more human?"

Guthrie

2008-09-25T11:28:00.000-07:00

“I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim or too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard travelling. I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you. I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think that you’ve not got any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I’d starve to death before I’d sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow.”
– Woody Guthrie.

The Beauty of Ambiguity

2008-09-24T13:22:00.000-07:00

This month on the cover of my National Geographic Magizine one of the headlines was:

"High in the Ozarks."

Perfect

This rules

2008-09-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

Tucked away on top of my hill

2008-09-08T23:51:00.000-07:00

I have become a hermit. Kinda.... well i guess not really at all. I have just stopped following what is going on in the rest of the world. This is a familiar occurrence for me. Every time I come back to Westmont I get so trapped in this little world of friends, books, quizzes, lectures, and essays, that I feel cut off from what is happening in the rest of the world. I haven't blogged since being here, I haven't payed attention to any current politics since I have been here, I have no idea what the current situation in Georgia is, I hardly know anything about Hurricane Gustav, I have hardly even been following the Dodgers. I hope that when I get back into a rhythm and get my schedule nailed down I will become more aware of the world outside Westmont.

current tastes

2008-09-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

DeYarmond Edison - Silent Signs

Radiohead - OK Computer

Bruce Springsteen - Greetings from Asbury Park NJ

Ryan Adams and The Cardinals - Cold Roses

The Beatles - Abbey Road

I am pretty pumped on this

2008-09-02T11:25:00.000-07:00

A video from the Radiohead show last night

2008-08-29T18:49:00.000-07:00

Something I find worth noting

2008-08-29T14:48:00.001-07:00

Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin has 5 children.
The oldest, a son named Track.
3 middle daughters: Bristol, Willow, and Piper.
And the youngest, a son named Trig.

Those are some wild names.

In other news Radiohead is nuts live.

Mountain lions were a possibility

2008-08-24T13:43:00.000-07:00

There is an abandoned mine in the hills of Nuevo. The other night at around 9:30 pm, me, Jeff, Jamie, and Jeremy decided to go to it. With the summer coming to a close we were itching for an adventure, our stomachs were longing for the exhilarating hollow ache which is only brought on by fear. Getting to the mine is about a 40 minute hike, 15 minutes or so on a private gated road, and then 25 minutes on a path which winds through the hills. Jeff was the leader. Jamie was always falling behind. None of us had been to the mine at night, I had never been to the mine at all so going at night was semi frightening. I had no idea what I had ahead of me. We were purposefully trying to freak ourselves out. Jeremy made me get a pocket knife from my house to protect us from wild animals. The whole way up we were talking about what kind of ferocious animals might be sleeping inside the mine. We were also talking about what we would do if we saw people up in the hills. Seeing people in the hills late at night was probably the worst scenario we could think of; it seemed unlikely that anyone who would be up in the hills at that time of night would be up to anything half as innocent as what we were doing. After many discussions about what we would do if there was a mountain lion, or if we saw a trucks headlights, we made it to the cave. The mouth of the mine is pretty small, you have to crawl through it, but once you are inside the cave you can stand up strait. Before we went in we threw rocks inside, and screamed into the opening, hoping that this would cause any creature to reveal itself to us before we went inside. After Jamie yelled in a commanding voice, "is anyone in there." We figured it was abandoned and safe. I was the last to enter. As I was walking through I was wondering if there were any rattle snakes or Black widows living in the cracks of the cave. The walls of the cave looked like solid granite, you could see the scrapings where the picks had swung. The mine probably went back a hundred feet, the further you went in the thicker and mustier the air became. Once inside, the fear left pretty quickly. When we got to the back of the mine we sat for a while, turned all the lights off, and let the complete darkness surround our silence. It is a good thing to sit in pitch black every once in a while, it takes your mind to places it needs to go.

This song Pumps me up.

2008-08-24T12:58:00.001-07:00

Cataloging

2008-08-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

This weeks Top Albums

Bruce Springsteen- Born to Run
Top Tracks:
Thunder Road
Tenth Ave Freeze-Out
Backstreets

Beirut - Lon Gisland Ep

Top Track:
Elephant Gun

Bruce Springsteen - Live from Hammersmith and Odeon 1975
Top Tracks:
Thunder Road (Its a version that is just piano and Harmonica)
Lost in the Flood
E Street Shuffle
Jungle Land

Ben Kweller - On My Way
Top Tracks:
I Need You Back
On My Way
Believer
Here Me out

Inspiration

2008-08-21T16:00:00.000-07:00

I just saw a guy walking down the street with a tattoo that said "Cowboy up." I think that is awesome.

And you know what? I think i will. I will cowboy up.

Jury duty #2

2008-08-19T13:09:00.000-07:00

I think that in my whole morning at jury duty I had 2 maybe three interactions with another person. I pretty much kept to myself and my book.
Here is one of my interactions: I went to the coffee vending machine to get a hot chocolate. There was a woman ahead of me getting a cup of coffee. For some reason her cup was taking a while to fill up. She looked at me and said:

Woman: Sorry, its going real slow.
Me: Its ok I am in absolutely no rush.

She left, I got my hot chocolate.
I didn't want hot chocolate really, I was simply wasting time. I was pleased that there was a delay.

The thing that gets me thinking is that there are people out there who would have been annoyed that it was taking her long to get her coffee. Some people would be in a rush to get their coffee and go back to their seat to do absolutely nothing but sit and wait. People, myself included, are strange creatures.

Jury duty #1

2008-08-19T13:03:00.000-07:00

The guy sitting next to me was wearing this tie. He didn't get on a jury. Like me he didn't even come close. I bet he was disapointed. You only wear that tie to jury duty if you want to appear like you are glad to be serving your civic duty. You only wear it if you want to get on a jury.

You wear these cuff links if you don't want to get on a jury.

Instance

2008-08-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

Last night me and Jeff were sitting on lawn chairs in Jeff's front lawn. We were just chewin the fat, talking about everything and anything. Jamie pokes his head in Jeff's window and this is what ensues:

Jamie - You guys want to get some Steak and potatoes, I really feel like a hearty meal.
Jeff - I'm down
Jamie - No you guys have to come with me, I can't go out alone in my underwear, I need you guys with me and then I can go out in my underwear.
Jeff - ok
Jamie - naw, it's ok, we don't have to go.

Jamie made a sandwich. Me and Jeff talked a little bit more. I went home.

They know....

2008-08-17T15:15:00.000-07:00

The flies attack me; I will be watching tv, or reading a book, or lounging talking to friends, or whatever else it is I do. They Land on my legs, my eyes, my elbows, my neck, my nose, my lips, my feet, my hands, etc. Finally I get frustrated enough to grab a fly swatter. As soon as I sit down with the fly swatter there are no more flies to kill. They have all fled. Now you my say: "you should be happy all the flies left when you grabbed the swatter. You have struck fear into their hearts. Your power and cunning with the swatter has brought you victory." But this is not how I feel. I want to punish the flies, to kill them for the small annoyance they have caused me. I want the satisfaction of seeing them smushed on the coffee table. I know that when they flee from me like the philistine army fleeing from David after he lopped off Goliath's head, they have left only to go annoy someone else, to poop and vomit all over the house. I want to terminate them.

I am sensing a general trend in topics on my blog.

I made some montages for call of the wild

2008-08-17T01:23:00.000-07:00

The Apoidea have struck back

2008-08-17T00:15:00.000-07:00

I felt something land on my shoulder. I went for the palm smash kill technique. This turned out to be a bad decision. My palm smashed a bee. The bee stuck its stinger directly into my hand. Swiftly I pulled out the stinger, stepped on the bee, and put ice on my palm. Luckily I am not allergic so I only had to deal with the temporary pain of a sting.

This was the first wave of attack the apoidea have thrown at me, the war has just begun. The bee that stung me didn't survive, I did survive, thus I won. My enemies place no value on the individual life, their missions are suicide Kamikaze attacks. This will be a long ugly war.

Today....

2008-08-15T23:42:00.000-07:00

I saw a yellow Hummer on the free way. The license plate read "Mr Suave."
It was awesome and I apologize that I didn't get a picture of it.

Mr Suave is now number 1 on my list of people to meet before I die.

Since growing my moustache I like to think I look like every famous person with one

2008-08-14T11:51:00.001-07:00

Today it's Mark Spitz. I was swimming in the pool, Flopping around, inspired by the Olympics, pretending I know how to do the butterfly. I was also pretending I was Mark Spitz.

Maybe someday my facial hair will look that good, probably not though. He would have made a solid baseball player.

Favorite thing about myspace and facebook:

2008-08-14T10:03:00.000-07:00

we get to see what girls couldn't live without. Very often a female social networking page will say: "I can't live without......"

My collection of things vital to life for these girls so far is: Golden Spoon, chapstick, coffee, naked juice, Iphone, coat hangers, hair dye, fiji apples, Whole Foods, and designer jeans.

Sorry if I am being pretentious/a jerk, I hate myself for it.

I like to pretend that people care about my opinion

2008-08-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

These are my current albums of choice:

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - The wild, the innocent, and the E Street Shuffle

Top tracks:
4th of July, Asbury Park (sandy)
Wild Billy's Circus Story
New York City Serenade

Pedro the Lion - It's Hard to Find a Friend

Top Tracks:
Big Trucks
When They Get To Know You They Will Run
The Secret of the Easy Yoke

Ryan Adams - Demolition

Top Tracks:
Desire
Dear Chicago
Gimme a Sign

She & Him - Volume One

Top Tracks:
Sentimental Heart
Change is Hard
Take it Back
I Should of Known Better

The glory days

2008-08-13T00:24:00.000-07:00

Jeopardy might be my favorite show

2008-08-08T20:14:00.000-07:00

Surprise, Arizona

2008-08-06T23:08:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I am going to visit my grandparents who live just outside Phoenix in a suburb called Surprise. Should be fun.

Interesting song, Interesting video, interesting guy.

2008-08-06T00:58:00.001-07:00

Weird dream

2008-08-05T10:22:00.000-07:00

Last night in my dream Steel played a huge concert. I think Thrice was headlining, but it was like woodstock big, just a huge mass of people. The only people from Steel who seemed to be able to make the show were me, Jeff and Jamie (who isn't really in Steel). Jeff was playing guitar and I seemed to always be switching which instruments I played. I never played keyboards, which is odd because that is what I play in Steel. We really sucked and I remember knowing it. I remember playing a pillow as a bass for a while. And I was also the screamer the whole show. For a while I was looking for a bass but couldn't find one, so I kept plucking the pillow. Jeff kept refusing to play any of our good songs. He said "stone your grandmas bear" was too boring and he refused to play "folk" for a reason I cant remember. All he wanted to play was Daedalus by Thrice. It sucked real bad, everyone hated us (which is normally the goal of a steel show), but I was disappointed. I think the woods kids were the only people who enjoyed our performance. I also think I remember someone saying they saw Paris Hilton at the show. It was an odd dream.

Poolside Pt. 3

2008-08-05T08:46:00.000-07:00

The heat drove me to the pool. I jumped in and did a few laps, Bruce Springsteen's The River Album playing in the background. I got out and went into my usual post swimming position: Laying with my cold wet back on the hot deck, my arms spread in the style of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio De Janeiro. When drips of water rolled down the side of my face, it felt as though the heat from the sun was pushing the water in the way the backside of a magnet pushes metal away. I sat up. I looked down at my feet, which were dangling off the edge of the deck into the water. I saw a wasp inches away. Coolly, I pulled my feet out of the water, scanned my surroundings for a weapon, found a bucket (the type a kid would play with at the beach. It was yellow). I grabbed the bucket and placed it in the air above where the wasp was tranquilly floating in the water. With force I hit the wasp with bucket. After the first hit it was stunned, badly injured but not dead. My only objective was its death. Neither shall live while the other survives, and I was going to survive. I hit it probably 4 times with the bucket, but the water had softened my blows enough that it did not die. I decided to clean up my technique a bit; I used the bucket to push the wasp up against the side of the pool. I smashed it in between the bucket and the wall of the pool. The Boss was singing "Independence Day," and the victory was mine.

Today I watched

2008-08-04T23:38:00.000-07:00

And

It was an interesting combination. Quite a contrast.

Good Authors tend to look pretty cool

2008-08-04T13:36:00.000-07:00

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Walt Whitman

John Steinbeck

William Faulkner

Kurt Vonnegut

Jack London

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Flannery O'Conner

The Apostle Paul

Ernest Hemingway

Herman Melville

J.D. Salinger

New Idea

2008-08-04T10:36:00.000-07:00

Every time someone says "God bless" try to insert the word "America" as quick as you can, and then say I was just finishing your sentence for you.

I see this blog as a way to collect things.

2008-08-03T22:41:00.001-07:00

Here are some quotes from East of Eden that I thought were interesting:

"And you must not expect to find that people understand what they do. So many things are done instinctively, the way a bee makes honey or a fox dips his paws in a stream to fool dogs. A fox can't say why he does it, and what bee remembers winter or expects it to come again?"

"His Mother and Father thought him a poet because he wasn't any good at anything else."

The Bugs are out with a vengence

2008-08-03T22:36:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was reading on the patio, and the bugs are every. All kinds: flies, spiders, gnats, praying mantis, and mosquitoes. I don't feel like I have ever had a problem with mosquitoes in Nuevo, but the are here, and there are a lot of them, and the like to suck my blood at night.

Current Drink of Choice

2008-08-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

Bundaberg Ginger Beer, it is the best ginger ale I have tasted thus far. Go get some from world market.

I also wouldn't be opposed to the idea of someone buying me some.

The Beach Boys

2008-08-03T09:14:00.000-07:00

The Beach Boys are pretty sweet. When I was in high school they were supposed to play at the Farmers Fair but got rained out. I was upset.
Yesterday me and Jeff watched this video and jeff said, "you would have to be an idiot to not like this." Their melodies are ingenious.

I just finished rereading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,

2008-08-02T23:15:00.000-07:00

And I am a little embarrassed by how into those books I get.

Heres an interesting quote:
"Do not pity the dead, harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love."

Today I killed a Wasp,

2008-08-02T19:04:00.000-07:00

or at least I think I did. I was laying by the pool, my feet in the water, my wet back rested pleasantly against the synthetic wood deck, which the sun had been warming all day. I was listening to Death cab For Cutie, enjoying the late afternoon breeze, when I felt something crawling on my knee. I thought it was just a fly, I tried to gently kick my knee, thinking it would scare it off. It stayed and felt slightly heavier than a fly. I decided to investigate. I looked and there it was: a wasp. I lifted my hand and flicked it into the water. It was submerged in the water and its wings were useless. It was aimlessly flapping around the water. I did nothing but watch it writhe in agony, beating its wings uselessly, struggling to make it out of the watery death trap. I didn't stick around long enough to see if it died or escaped, I saw two other wasps and feared that they had their stingers poised for revenge. I dried off and went inside. I am scared that if I continue my wasp killing ways there will be a wasp rebellion and I will be first on their list of people to sting to death.

Update: I just checked, it is dead.

A dream I had on the farm

2008-08-01T09:54:00.000-07:00

Wednesday night sometime, 7-23-2008
Location: Scott's trailer, Gene Wheeler Farms Property, Lancaster, California.

In my dream me and some friends, I don't remember who I was with, were walking through a crowded street in India. We went inside a store and did the normal stuff you do in a store, pick up and play with anything that interests you. We were in the shop for a little while, and then went back to the street. All of the sudden, one of my friends has a shot gun, and he fires it into the air. Quickly following this shot, elephants begin running down the street first only a couple and then enough to fill the street, after the elephants hordes of people start running down the street, completely covering every inch of street. At this point I was standing on the side of the street next to the store I was just in. I had three choices: Run with the people, get trampled, or try to go inside the store. I go for the third option and make it in right before they lock the doors. I ask the shop owners, it was a man and his wife, if all the doors are locked, and we start checking. For some reason it seemed like a matter of life and death that the doors be locked, that we not let any of the massive mob inside our store. I am checking one of the side doors, and it turns out this door is not locked. Right before I was going to lock the door someone opened it. I could feel the danger of the massive crowd rushing into our store and trampling us. I looked at the person who had opened the door. It was an emaciated, bald person, I am not sure if it was a man or a woman, all I know was that this person was very skinny and had no hair. The fear was pounding through my body, and I knew I only had one option: to push this person out of the doorway and into the hungry open mouth of the horde. So i did. I pushed Baldy by the shoulders, feeling only skin and bone, no fat no muscle, just a leathery layer of skin covering a brittle set of bones. I closed and locked the door before I saw what happened to this person. But I had no doubt in my mine that I had pushed him or her to his or her death.

This is when I woke. I had to use the restroom. This dream kinda freaked me out. I had just thrown this person from the safety of my store to a sure death. When the rubber met the road I only cared to save my own skin.

I know only one thing: those hordes of people represent the never ending flow of onions that I was seeing day in and day out at the onion farm.

I Started Reading East of Eden

2008-08-01T00:44:00.000-07:00

And this line really resonated with me:
"You can boast about anything if it's all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast."
John Steinbeck

Coming from a place like Nuevo, this sentiment really captured a way I feel and think.

Manny Ramirez

2008-07-31T14:27:00.001-07:00

So, the Dodgers picked up Manny today. I don't really like Manny very much, but he is a great player and we got him for cheaper than the Lakers got Pau Gasol.
I am not going to allow myself to get too excited though. Lets take look at the last couple guys the Dodgers have picked up that I got excited about: Andrew Jones (I have never liked him, but I let myself get excited) who is hitting a whopping 167 with 2 homeruns and 13 RBI, Jason Schmidt (I think the Giants planted him as sabotage), who has started maybe 2 games in his 2 years he's been with us. Nomar Garcia Para who has played very well but been hurt 80% of the time, and the list goes on. Manny is a great player and should give the power that the Dodgers really need. But I don't like him and I have become accustomed to disapointment.

Truck #27

2008-07-31T09:48:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 7-22-2008
Location: Gene Wheeler Onion Farms, Lancaster, California

As usual me and Trudenwilk were tying bags, monotonously going about our business. The onion belt had broken down a few times, and it had taken about an hour to get it completely up and running again. This meant an hour break for me and Trudenwilk. It also meant we would be working an hour longer (which was nice because that hour extra is overtime). At about 2 in the afternoon, Ryan (one of my bosses), points at me and gestures for me to come with him. I get in his car, having no idea what the job he wants me to do is. We chew the fat a bit talking about what I'm doing at school, and I ask some questions about the onion business. Him and Scott are partners running the farm, Scott running the shed, Ryan running the fields. He asks me if I have my drivers license, I say yes, still unsure what my job is going to end up being. We arrive at the field, and it turns out that I simply need to follow him while he drives a tractor to a different field, easy enough. We successfully transport the tractor, and he drives the truck back to the first field. When we get back to the field he drives the truck into the middle of the field and starts watching one of the tractors fill up a truck with onions. I was glad to see this, I desired to be something of an onion farm intern, learning as much about the trade as possible.

(Photo credit: BlueEyes5, http://www.flickr.com/photos/49182852@N00/436765075/)

This is what I learned: The people who pick the onions place them in burlap sacks and place the sacks in strait rows along the field. A tractor built specifically for this job drives up and down the field picking up the sacks on a conveyor belt which moves the onions upwards, towards the back of the tractor. At the top of this conveyor belt is a man who empties the sacks of onions onto another conveyor belt which moves the onions across the tractor dumping them into a truck. Once the truck is full of onions it transports them to the packing shed (where I normally worked).

Ryan and I watched this process take place, after about 2 minutes of watching the truck is full and ready to head to the packing shed. Ryan looks at me and says:

"Take the truck back to the shed."

I got scared. The whole time I had been on this excursion the fear that he would want me to do some job that I had no idea how to do was residing in the back of my mind, and now the moment had come; he wanted me to drive a truck, which was slightly smaller than a Mack Truck, full of onions back to the packing shed. I looked at him with horror in my eyes and mumbled out:

"I don't think I can do that, I mean, I've never even driven a stick before."

Before I even finished this sentence, I knew that it was one of my dumber moments. There was no way that he could possibly want me to drive the truck back. I was completely unqualified and the truck had a perfectly good driver whom they had hired to do specifically this job. He simply wanted me to hitch a ride back to the shed with the truck.

Ryan looked at me with the are you an idiot stare, and I said,

"Never mind, I get it you just want me to ride back, you scared me for a second there."

I didn't need the stare to feel like a complete idiot.

So I got into the truck, it was green with the words, "Fred Williams Trucking" painted on the door. It had the number 27 on it in a couple places. I sat in my seat and waited for the driver to get in. He was an older, very friendly looking Mexican man with a kind disposition. We didn't have very much of a conversation because my Spanish skills are so minute that I could think of nothing that would stimulate any sort of fruitful conversation.

When I first got into the truck I instinctively tried to put my seatbelt on. I failed to do so. There was no sign of seatbelt's receiving end (the female end as an electrician might say); it had decided it was tired of being used, tired of the uncertainty of its existence. It couldn't handle constantly being a precaution, a just in case; it decided it would rather be a nobody than a just in case (Sorry for that lame attempt to be litarary, I think it will be embarrassing to look at in the future). When the driver got into the truck he tried to signal to me to put on my seatbelt. Through gestures I showed him that it was impossible. Through gestures he told me to hold it in place as if I had it on until we drove past Ryan and he was no longer in danger of getting in trouble for not making me wear my seatbelt. I thought this was kinda funny, but I obeyed his wishes and pretended to have my seatbelt on until we had driven past Ryan's truck into safety.

We drove back to the shed in almost complete silence, neither of us knowing how to communicate with the other, I, as I often did that week, quietly observed my surroundings trying to get an understanding of this new world. When we arrived at the shed, I turned to my driver and said, "Gracias, adios senor (Insert Accents), and he replyed, "Adios Amigo," (Note: when a person who is native to the spanish tongue says, "Adios Amigo," it doesn't quite have the same cheesyness that it does when a white person says it), I was happy that he used the congenial amigo instead of senor. I walked back into the shed, said high to Trudenwild and resumed tying bags. My adventure was over.

Top 3: People Most Likely to Tailgate

2008-07-30T09:18:00.000-07:00

1. Bro's

2. Soccer Moms

3. High School Girls
(Note: one must remember that High school girls are Soccer Moms waiting to happen)

Catch

2008-07-29T11:05:00.001-07:00

Baseball forms the backdrop of many of my first memories. I remember, when I was three years old, Tim signing up to play pinto baseball. His team was the Perris Pony Baseball, Pinto Kansas Royals. I remember wanting to play terribly bad, but I had wait a whole year, (one must realize that a year at this point was 1/3 of the time I had lived previously and it seemed like an eternity) till I would be on the Perris Pony Baseball, Tee Ball (Shetland), California Angels, (It was before they where the Anaheim Angels and long before they were the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim) with Jonathan Peaslee and Danny Buchanan. We had the hats with the C and the A on them. At this point, however, I had a year of waiting to do. I was sitting on the white couch with the greenish pinstripes, in the living room of our house(we hadn't been in the parsonage a year at this point), I begged my Dad to let me play, I pleaded, I knew I was good enough, it was stupid that I had to wait a year when i was perfectly able now. He said something about life not being fair and that I would have to wait my turn. Like all of my early memories I am not sure if this really happened or if I only want it to have happened. (The picture above is of Caleb not me.)

I also remember from the time I was 3 til I was 8 or 10 begging my Dad to play catch with me. I think I would go to his office in the church with two gloves, his and mine, waiting impatiently for him to get off the phone, probably playing with the small red bycicle model he had or making my voice sound like a chipmunk with his tape recorder, to see if he would play. The older I got the less interested in catch I became.

This past semester I started playing a lot of catch again. Just about every sunny afternoon either Curtis, Miller, or Jumpshot would walk into my room with their gloves on wanting to play. We would go out to the Kerwood lawn and throw the ball around maybe get some root beer in the DC afterwards. In my opinion there is no better way to avoid homework.

What I did at the onion farm

2008-07-27T09:11:00.000-07:00

I thought since I will be talking about this a lot in the next couple days I should thoroughly explain what my job consisted of.

I worked in the onion packing factory. The majority of time was spent at one of these machines.

The machines you see in this picture are onion baggers. The machine consists of four tubes that the onion bags connect to. At the back of these machines is a conveyor belt which feeds the onions into the tubes filling up the onion bags. Once the bag hits 50 pounds it shifts over a spot and the next bag starts filling up. When the bag shifts it was my job to take off the bag, tie it and drop it onto the conveyor belt. If the machine was moving slow it was also my job to put a new bag onto that tube. If the machine was moving fast someone would put the bag on at the next station. A lot of the time me and Trudenwilk would be working the same machine taking turns tying for a while then putting bags on for a while. That's it. We did it 10 hours a day. My hands got torn up. Sometimes the bags would fill up fast and my job would get hectic, sometimes they would fill up really slowly and my job would get unbearably boring. It blows me away to think that this is what these people do for a living, day in and day out, mindlessly tying onion bags 6 days a week 10 hours a day.

Trend spotting: Hawaiian Shirts

2008-07-27T09:04:00.001-07:00

Last night I had dinner in Orange. I just have one thing to say: the Hawaiian shirt is making a come back in a big way.

My new favorite jam

2008-07-25T21:43:00.000-07:00

The Onion Journal

2008-07-25T21:02:00.000-07:00

These are my journal entries from when I was at the onion farm. I didn't journal too much, but I indexed memories for blog posts, so there will be more to come.

Monday, July 21 2008
Today I was talking a guy at work, his name was either Iram or Iran; I am not quite sure he said it in a heavy spanish accent and I didn't catch it exactly. I am led to believe that it was Iran because after he told me his name he made machine gun motions and the only logical explanation I can come up with for this is that he was referring to Iran and their current arms policy. He didn't speak English but he was nice and I decided to practice my Spanish with him. We had a shallow conversation about our names, ages, work history, etc. At one point he asked me if I liked Mexican women, gesturing to the women around. I said, "Si, pero tengo novia," (It took me a little while to remember "novia"). He then pointed to a women and told me that she was his wife. After telling me this, he said, "pero" and made a hip gyration in the direction of the surrounding women, thus communicating that he was not a strong symbol of fidelity.

Wednesday, July 23 2008
Today I realized that I don't eagerly await my breaks because I get to stop working, I wait for them because they prove time is actually passing.

Thursday, July 24 2008
Today I saw Trudenwilk grab an onion bag to stick on the machine. For some reason it looked as though someone handed it to him. But no one had handed him the bag he had simply picked it up. After realizing this, I thought, "Jesus handed Trudenwilk that bag."

Gas Stations

2008-07-20T15:34:00.000-07:00

On a long drive when I stop to fill up the car and unload myself at a remote gas station, I feel as though the people who live and work at these places aren't real people who live real lives. It seems as though they only exist within the confines of that road trip and that gas station. They don't have a family. They don't have a bowling league. They don't like a football team. They don't go on trips. They don't go to church. they don't read books. they don't write a blog. They only exist within that gas station. Their single activity is selling Arizona green tea, Doritos and stale coffee to stiff backed, blurry eyed travelers.

A Migrant Worker

2008-07-20T06:20:00.000-07:00

We drove home from Colorado yesterday. It was a great trip and I will probably get to writing about it later.

Tomorrow I go to work on the onion farm.
Should be interesting.

Elton John and Ryan Adams

2008-07-15T21:25:00.000-07:00

This video is super ill.

I like Edward Hopper

2008-07-13T15:24:00.001-07:00

I taught Sunday School at one Point.

2008-07-13T15:09:00.000-07:00

1. Colbert is smart an funny.
2. This is a really good video.
3. This professor has bought into a lot of myths about Satan that aren't in the Bible.

The Boss

2008-07-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

I like Bruce Springsteen.....Alot.

A Shave

2008-07-12T17:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, me and jake drove to Colorado. It was a good drive and we arrived around 2am. We bought a book on tape at a gas station right before Vegas called, "The Ethical Assassin." It was really bad in the best possible way. There was everything: sex, violence, drugs, evil red necks, vegan Vigilantes, Encyclopedia selling drug dealers, crooked cops, people drowning in a pool of pig crap... everything. It took me away to another world and made the drive go a lot faster.

Today, me, Jake and, his friend Oliver snuck into and utilized the spa's locker room at the Hyatt. It was enjoyable, and we were quite giddy and giggly. We steamed, showered, and shaved. I used aftershave for the first time in my life and I think I want to make it a habit. To put it simply we pampered ourselves like princes.

A Poem Written in My Old Testament Class

2008-07-11T10:39:00.000-07:00

I am no poet.
This is a work in progress and is still in the editing process.

A Boy with a Dictionary

When a young boy gets his hands on a dictionary,
Instantly he flips the brittle pages to each and every forbidden word.
Shining a spotlight over the dark terrain of disobedient diction,
Trying to become the rabbi of non-kosher language.
With school yard disciples, all eager to bow down,
to the idol of cool, smooth rebellion. Making a covenant;
the law of the school yard, which states: "A boy of the 5th grade
should not speak more than 15 words without one of those words
being a vulgar profanity that would make even a cowboy quiver."
This is why our mouths continually taste like soap.
The soap is our parents brilliant, literary, philosophical, theological symbol
of redemption.
The coal rubbing our unclean lips: washing, sanctifying.

Walt Whitman on My Mind

2008-07-11T10:24:00.001-07:00

For some reason I have been thinking about Walt Whitman this morning and thought it would be appropriate to put some photos of him up.

This poem is one of my favorites.

Song to Myself
Part 6

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more
than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green
stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see
and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the
vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I
receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out
of their mothers' laps,
And here you are the mothers' laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for
nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and
women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken
soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

I Hear the Call, I Am Coming

2008-07-11T10:07:00.001-07:00

The wild is calling me. I must go.

Harrison's skinny jiggy legs

2008-07-11T08:01:00.001-07:00

While watching this video be sure to pay attention to George Harrison's filthy dance moves.

A couple things

2008-07-11T00:08:00.000-07:00

It is raining. there is lightning but no thunder. I leave for Colorado in the morning.
I am packing then going to bed.

Quote

2008-07-10T19:37:00.000-07:00

"If pride was a sin, thought Dr. Larch, the greatest sin was moral pride."

John Irving
The Cider House Rules

Nuevo's Dustin Hoffman

2008-07-10T18:47:00.000-07:00

Whenever I am alone lounging by my pool, I like to pretend that I am Ben Braddock from the movie the graduate. I wear my short swimming trunks, turn on the radio, dive in the pool, then relax lazily: perhaps reading a book, perhaps just receiving the harsh rays of the sun on my cool, wet body. Today, I performed this routine, and to my absolute delight, Mrs. Robinson by Simon and Garfunkle came of the radio. I smiled to myself, and returned to my book.