I normally try to stay out of stranger's lives because I want them to stay out of my life. I believe people should be allowed to do what they want as long as it doesn't endanger someone else. the not harming others is sometimes flexible like driving over the speed limit, or drinking too much and vomiting on someone's shoes. But it is not flexible when it comes to children.
Monday night I was on my way home, and was behind this car at a spot light. The light was about to turn green when in their back seat I saw 2 small children pop up in the back seat and start hoping on the back seat. They were no more than 3 years old and completely unrestrained. In fact, one of the girls jokingly used the seat belt to choke the other girl. My first thought was, "crap, now I'm going to have wait for this parent to get these kids back into their car seats" But no, they just drove on. And it's not like we were stuck in crawling traffic, we were moving at 35mph.
So I called the police yesterday and gave them the story and the person license plate number. The police said they would send a letter, and if they receive any more complaints, they can take action against them.
It just fascinates me that in this country you have to be approved before adopting a dog, yet any old idiot can have a child.
Showing posts with label Blue. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blue. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Update of the Miscellaneous Type
Hello good people in www land. I wanted to send out a quick update on some stuff that has been going on.
I've only told a few people so far, but I think it has been long enough that I can start to share. I finally quit smoking again! And this is not some half-assed attempt, it's been over 2 weeks already, and I've been feeling pretty good so far, no real cravings at all. I also have taken a hiatus from my good friend and sturdy companion, alcohol for that same time, which has been surprisingly easy as well. I was going to start drinking again after I got through this conference I had to work at for work, but now that I'm past that, I am actually thinking about staying away from the sauce for a little while longer. The past year or so I had been kind of reckless with my drinking, Not that I was getting plastered every weekend or trying to relive my college glory years, there were just some really bad nights, and even worse mornings where I would wake up and think, "what the fuck did I do last night?" I had a couple of nights where I blacked out, and that had never happened even in my glory days.
But fear not my friends. I will come back to the good juice, just hopefully with a little more perspective and wisdom.
The other lifestyle change I made with the new nonsmoking moniker is my diet. I'm back to cooking a lot more, and cutting out preservatives and all that horrible shit they put into processed foods to make it "taste better" and survive a mustard gas attack. (I've been doing some reading on MSG and aspartame, and I'll write on that in a little while)
My last post was a little rant about the wasting of time, and that day was a bad one. I ended up spending 11 hours at that meeting on Sunday, and did a grand total of maybe 2 hours of work. Monday was similar, 14 hours at the meeting, and probably 6 hours of work, a better proportion, but still a whole lot of wasted time.
I had kind of a redeeming day of meetings today. A couple of bad ones, but some good ones, and one really good one. A small group of us spent an hour and had a very productive discussion. I actually left feeling like I learned something. There may be some hope for this job yet...
Last thing I wanted to talk about is the Weather Chanel web page. I was checking the weather for the week the other day, and they had a video on there talking about the arrival of the Aurora Borealis being a sign that Spring is coming in the US. I've always been fascinated with the Aurora Borealis and it is a life goal to experience them in person. Here's a pretty cool video that shows what causes them, and it has some pretty good video of them as well.
I also stumbled on a pretty cool picture that I felt like sharing that shows the earth at night from space. It is a composite picture since the entire earth is not experiencing nighttime at once, but it is pretty cool and scary.
And the last thing abut the weather is a little bit of a rant about DC weather the past couple of weeks. We had better weather, and it is getting warmer, but damn it if the weekends have been kind of shitty, and Monday's have been awesome. And this weekend is no different...
All I want to do is toss some frisbee, can't a hippie get a little love from mother nature one of these weekends?
I've only told a few people so far, but I think it has been long enough that I can start to share. I finally quit smoking again! And this is not some half-assed attempt, it's been over 2 weeks already, and I've been feeling pretty good so far, no real cravings at all. I also have taken a hiatus from my good friend and sturdy companion, alcohol for that same time, which has been surprisingly easy as well. I was going to start drinking again after I got through this conference I had to work at for work, but now that I'm past that, I am actually thinking about staying away from the sauce for a little while longer. The past year or so I had been kind of reckless with my drinking, Not that I was getting plastered every weekend or trying to relive my college glory years, there were just some really bad nights, and even worse mornings where I would wake up and think, "what the fuck did I do last night?" I had a couple of nights where I blacked out, and that had never happened even in my glory days.
But fear not my friends. I will come back to the good juice, just hopefully with a little more perspective and wisdom.
The other lifestyle change I made with the new nonsmoking moniker is my diet. I'm back to cooking a lot more, and cutting out preservatives and all that horrible shit they put into processed foods to make it "taste better" and survive a mustard gas attack. (I've been doing some reading on MSG and aspartame, and I'll write on that in a little while)
My last post was a little rant about the wasting of time, and that day was a bad one. I ended up spending 11 hours at that meeting on Sunday, and did a grand total of maybe 2 hours of work. Monday was similar, 14 hours at the meeting, and probably 6 hours of work, a better proportion, but still a whole lot of wasted time.
I had kind of a redeeming day of meetings today. A couple of bad ones, but some good ones, and one really good one. A small group of us spent an hour and had a very productive discussion. I actually left feeling like I learned something. There may be some hope for this job yet...
Last thing I wanted to talk about is the Weather Chanel web page. I was checking the weather for the week the other day, and they had a video on there talking about the arrival of the Aurora Borealis being a sign that Spring is coming in the US. I've always been fascinated with the Aurora Borealis and it is a life goal to experience them in person. Here's a pretty cool video that shows what causes them, and it has some pretty good video of them as well.
I also stumbled on a pretty cool picture that I felt like sharing that shows the earth at night from space. It is a composite picture since the entire earth is not experiencing nighttime at once, but it is pretty cool and scary.
And the last thing abut the weather is a little bit of a rant about DC weather the past couple of weeks. We had better weather, and it is getting warmer, but damn it if the weekends have been kind of shitty, and Monday's have been awesome. And this weekend is no different...
All I want to do is toss some frisbee, can't a hippie get a little love from mother nature one of these weekends?
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
The first snow/#21
This is one of my favorite days of the year. For me, winter officially begins with the first snow, and yes, we still have 15 days until winter actually begins and we'll probably not see snow again until February, but I will celebrate now. I used to have a tradition on t he first snowfall of the year where I would run around my yard in nothing but my underwear, but I think I might actually be maturing (insert you own sarcastic comment here).
I also wanted to briefly comment on the Sean Taylor stuff that went down last week. As you all know, I am a huge Skins fan, and Taylor was one of my favorite players. I was shocked when I first heard the news, but like some, I was not surprised. Michael Wilbon has taken a lot of criticism about his article Dying Young, Black (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/27/AR2007112702680.html registration is free, you just need to sign up) and how he said he was not surprised Taylor was shot, but not necessarily because of his past like many have said, rather because the culture of violence in our country. He called for an open honest discussion about how the number one killer of black men between the ages of 15-24 is murder.
I can never fully understand the difficulty of this situation, I will never have the life experiences to gain the perspective of what it means to be black in America (or any country). The perspective I can share though is an overall fear about the direction our country (and humanity in general) is heading. I know every generation looks at the ones that follow and fear the worst, but I am genuinely afraid of how our value system in degrading and what we perceive as a society is important.
I think technology has played a major role in this, in the way we seem to be creating more and better ways of avoiding actual human contact to the point where our lack of reliance on other actual people has made us devalue other people's lives. We no longer see the need to have actual human contact and perceive our lives more important than anyone else. While a sense of self-preservation is natural, and necessary, but not to the level of thinking someone else does not have as much of a right to existence as you.
I also wanted to briefly comment on the Sean Taylor stuff that went down last week. As you all know, I am a huge Skins fan, and Taylor was one of my favorite players. I was shocked when I first heard the news, but like some, I was not surprised. Michael Wilbon has taken a lot of criticism about his article Dying Young, Black (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/27/AR2007112702680.html registration is free, you just need to sign up) and how he said he was not surprised Taylor was shot, but not necessarily because of his past like many have said, rather because the culture of violence in our country. He called for an open honest discussion about how the number one killer of black men between the ages of 15-24 is murder.
I can never fully understand the difficulty of this situation, I will never have the life experiences to gain the perspective of what it means to be black in America (or any country). The perspective I can share though is an overall fear about the direction our country (and humanity in general) is heading. I know every generation looks at the ones that follow and fear the worst, but I am genuinely afraid of how our value system in degrading and what we perceive as a society is important.
I think technology has played a major role in this, in the way we seem to be creating more and better ways of avoiding actual human contact to the point where our lack of reliance on other actual people has made us devalue other people's lives. We no longer see the need to have actual human contact and perceive our lives more important than anyone else. While a sense of self-preservation is natural, and necessary, but not to the level of thinking someone else does not have as much of a right to existence as you.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Original? thought
This is a post from my original MySpace blog, that I thought was worth bringing over.
I was reading a post from k-os, an amazing musician, the other day about whether there are any original ideas out there anymore. He was mostly talking about frustrations around so-called pop culture, and how mixing what is "popular" and what is "underground" has come to represent originality. I can understand his frustrations. Many times when I read or watch something that is "popular" it pisses me off because it feels forced, devoid of any passion for being artistic, and is mostly a vehicle for marketing some useless product that attempts to replace the need for human interaction.
This brings me back though to a conversation I had with my friend Jeff a few years back that seemed to start along this path, and lead us to think about if there are or ever where any original ideas?
If you take a purely philosophical approach and think of thought as an evolutionary event, wherein no thought can occur without the previous one happening first, and each new thought is child of the previous, then you can trace all thought (and therefore originality) back to the first thought. So if you look at inventions as an example, each new product or invention is a derivation of it's predecessor; the light bulb is just a different was of lighting a candle.
If you go around in circles looking for originality when you think about it in that way, it can frustrate you because it challenges your notion of the people that inspired you and the idea that anyone can leave a lasting impact on society. And then it will probably depress you because you see a deterioration of the human desire to be be original and therefore praise originality. When I think about what the vast majority of people in our society hold up as artistic expression and drew inspiration from, it scares the shit out of me, it really does.
I've been saying for a while that the future of our society scares me because we seems to have relinquished control of our free will to sensationalist marketing. And the strong of us who are able to recognize this either do our best to fight the good battle, or have given up.
What do you all think?
p.s. I am well aware of the irony of using MySpace as my forum for these thoughts
I was reading a post from k-os, an amazing musician, the other day about whether there are any original ideas out there anymore. He was mostly talking about frustrations around so-called pop culture, and how mixing what is "popular" and what is "underground" has come to represent originality. I can understand his frustrations. Many times when I read or watch something that is "popular" it pisses me off because it feels forced, devoid of any passion for being artistic, and is mostly a vehicle for marketing some useless product that attempts to replace the need for human interaction.
This brings me back though to a conversation I had with my friend Jeff a few years back that seemed to start along this path, and lead us to think about if there are or ever where any original ideas?
If you take a purely philosophical approach and think of thought as an evolutionary event, wherein no thought can occur without the previous one happening first, and each new thought is child of the previous, then you can trace all thought (and therefore originality) back to the first thought. So if you look at inventions as an example, each new product or invention is a derivation of it's predecessor; the light bulb is just a different was of lighting a candle.
If you go around in circles looking for originality when you think about it in that way, it can frustrate you because it challenges your notion of the people that inspired you and the idea that anyone can leave a lasting impact on society. And then it will probably depress you because you see a deterioration of the human desire to be be original and therefore praise originality. When I think about what the vast majority of people in our society hold up as artistic expression and drew inspiration from, it scares the shit out of me, it really does.
I've been saying for a while that the future of our society scares me because we seems to have relinquished control of our free will to sensationalist marketing. And the strong of us who are able to recognize this either do our best to fight the good battle, or have given up.
What do you all think?
p.s. I am well aware of the irony of using MySpace as my forum for these thoughts
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