David's Tangled Thoughts

On this week’s update of Post Secret , I saw a secret that expressed something that has been going through my mind lately and whenever there is a family function. I hate that my family will talk amongst themselves wondering if there is anyone I’m dating. With the engagement of one of my cousins and my own sister’s relationship, questions about me are coming up. Quite frankly, I think that they already know if not suspect. I feel the probing of their questions and sometimes I just want to stop and say, “Why don’t you ask the question you really want to ask?” I figure that if they can ask the question, then they are ready to hear the answer.

It's that time of the month and it's going to be particularly rough because I will be doing about a weeks worth of work within three days. I don't think I'll be able to make it to the blog any time soon so I might catch you on Black Friday. Happy Thanksgiving! To the internationals: Happy... Thursday?

The National Intelligence Council recently released a report titled, “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World” that predicted the decline of the United States. This is not news to me. I’ve touched base with this topic many times during my time at university in the social science college and in the ROTC program. From all the published material that I’ve read, the conclusions have been that America is in a state of decline. Not in the sense that there is an actual decline in hard/soft power but in that other countries are catching up. One paper (and I wish I had access to Lexis-Nexus and JSTOR again ) put the US as being eclipsed in power by China by 2050. These reports are interesting in that they make a more convincing case when painting a picture of the future than most sci-fi novels. However, I put less and less stock in what these reports have to say the further in the future they go. I tend to get more suspicious after the 5-15 year mark (which is about the time period ne

To close out these series of posts, I want to show you a picture of the Pacific Ocean. I've never seen it from the American side until that moment. Although not technically true, it felt like I was standing at the edge of my country. Despite an expanse of water, I felt a little more confined. Freedom of movement--only within four time zones. It was a humbling experience. I walked in just far enough to say that I've been in the ocean. I'm not a big fan of the ocean. I much prefer the Great Lakes--less sea weed and nasty critters. So now that I can say that I've lived in the Gulf, swam in the Atlantic, sailed the Great Lakes, and stood in the Pacific. I'm not done with this world just yet...

There were actually two trips to Mexico. The plan was to park on the border and then cross over by foot but we missed the last exit and went right in to Mexico. We were never stopped or acknowledged. Heck, we probably weren’t even monitored. And I thought Canada was easy to cross into! I doubt any of us really wanted to drive around in Mexico, much less park so we got ourselves turned around and got in line to get back into the states. And what fraking long line it was. I think our time was over an hour and a half in line. After some uneasy answering we were pretty much done with Mexico but vowed come back the next day. The next day went a lot smoother. We actually were able to park and walk over just like we intended before. Still it was easy as hell getting into Mexico. Still no waiting or checks. I know where I’m going if I murder someone! We spent some time on Avenida Revolucion before heading to the Cultural Center where we toured the Museo de las Californias. We wer

Something that we learned while crossing back into the United States: when the border agent asks what you are bringing back, it's best not to say, "people." The laugh was well worth it, Kraig.

I honestly didn’t put much thought into what I wanted to do while I was out in California. I had a preference for the Zoo, Mexico, and beach (score—I did all three) but there was one place I definitely had to visit and that was Jollibee. 2003; Lee, Emanuel, and me. I’ve mentioned it before but when I was in the Philippines, I visited this chain a lot. You see, I had some pretty bad experiences with trying to eat some of the local dishes at the cafeterias on campus there. I mean, you can only choke down squid rings that you thought were onion rings for only so long. So yes, I frequented the westernized eateries quite a bit. Jollibee is like the Filipino version of McDonald's only—they’ve got McDonald's there too but they’ve got their own little twists on the menu. Anyways, Jollibee is here in the United States but since I live in the Midwest, it would be quite a drive to get to the nearest one which I believe in New York. Unlike Harold and Kumar, I’m not going to put that

On Friday we went to the world famous San Diego Zoo . Stacey and Kraig, being the social animals that they are, managed to score free tickets to the place! So let that be a lesson: the next time you are lined up for something, try talking to your neighbor. Stacey thought that going on the Friday would mean beating the weekend crowds. The tradeoff would be the school kids: Just kidding. Actually, they weren’t even noticeable once we got in the canyons of the park. One of the first things that we saw was a sea lion show. I had hoped that when I went to the beach, I’d see some there but Stacey told me that there weren’t any there but I’ll settle for a show. Really, what sea lion in the wild is going to perform tricks for me? This zoo is one of the few places outside China that you can see a live panda. The murals of them were almost as fun to look at. The most interesting exhibits I would have to say were the simians. The apes were in a mood to interact (as much is possible behi

Ugh. A picture has been released of the "new" Enterprise (on the bottom). Personally, I prefer much of the fan-produced images such as the one on top.

After dropping off my shtuff at the apartment, Stacey and I went to one of the malls. It probably wasn’t but to a country bumpkin like me, it was pretty glitzy. It was an open air mall with wondrous stalls like Bose, Tiffany, and even [gasp] an Apple Store. But I didn’t make a trip out there to shop. No, that’s just silly. I came, in part, to eat! Back here where I live in Michigan, there’s a curious product in the freezer section of the supermarkets. Pizza. There are these novel pizzas with weird toppings that are made by the California Pizza Kitchen . Well I wanted the real deal and so Stacey and I went to the restaurant where we had a delicious pizza topped with steak, some green gunk, and diced tomatoes. Seriously, great stuff… try it out. Kraig was still at work so we also made it down to the bay where we visited the maritime museum where had exactly two hours to get our sightseeing in. The first ship that we visited was the Surprise which was the ship used in the movi

I remember the first time I went to California. My dad was taking my sister and me from our home in Idaho to Disneyland in Anaheim. One of my most vivid memories of that trip was when we were going through some interchange. The highway which we were on was crowded, moving fast with lanes splitting off and merging in and multi-leveled. I thought it was fun. Once we got through it, my dad said, “You like that?” I nodded my head. Years later I found out that it scared the crap out of him. When I arrived in San Diego, Stacey picked me up at the airport and we were off to her house to drop off my luggage. At first, I didn’t think too much of the driving aspect as we were on the surface streets but soon enough I was grasping for the Oh-Shit-Bar as we plunged into the California Highway system which didn’t seem to end until were practically at her apartment. And it wasn’t just one highway that we were on… at least… I don’t think it was one. Anyways it felt like we were mergining

Grand Canyon

Well I’m back from an awesome trip visiting my friends Kraig and Stacey who live in San Diego , California. There so much that I want to blog about and so many pictures to show but I’m not quite ready yet. Instead, I’ll throw out the trip in more manageable chunks over the next few days. Unlike some countries like, say, England, you can’t exactly ride your bike across the country. Well you could, but your trip would be horrendously long. Kraig and Stacey live way on the other end of the country—at least the contiguous part of it. My choices are a month’s long bike trip, a three day car trip, or a four hour flight. And for $350 (including those nasty taxes and fees), a flight seemed to be just the ticket. In order to travel west, my travel plans had me going east to Detroit where I had a layover for a little while. It turns out that the idea of free wi-fi in international airports doesn’t apply to Detroit Metro . Bummed I rode the tram that travels up and down the concourse. T

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In every election I’ve voted in, polls in Michigan open at 7am and stay open until 8pm. I thought that I would go and vote when the polls opened. I figured that most people would wait until work was over. Also, since I have more cows for neighbors than actual people, I thought that there wouldn’t be a large line. I was wrong. What I didn’t consider was that I also live amongst the old farm folk. The ones that go to bed at 9 but get up at 5. The ones that don’t have much to do in the morning but go vote. And vote they did. I arrived at my polling place with no place to park and a huge line that was about 30 yards long outside the building. I couldn’t tell how long it was inside . I had to be at work at 8:30 and I wasn’t sure I make it if I tried voting then so I left without doing so. All throughout the day I was slightly irritated. People were talking about the election, what they were hearing on the radio or if they had computers-internet. I just wanted to get it over a

Go Vote! I'm off in a few minutes to cast my ballot and remind myself that, here, the people are sovereign.

I had a good time at the party last night. Getting there was a hellish adventure as I took the main roads to get there. The same roads that people from the Notre Dame game were using to get out after a heartbreaking loss to Pittsburgh in the fourth overtime. I forgot to take them into consideration when I drove my usual route to Mishawaka. After hearing all the King George comments these past few years, I figure it’s going to be my turn to make fun of the [future] president. So I went as Barackus, the man who brings down the American Republic demanding your change to fund change. Trying to combine celebrity (the party’s theme), political commentary, and my fascination with history turned out to work pretty well. That was a relief since I thought that a lot of people wouldn’t get it. Not that I was expecting to, but I didn’t win any prizes for my costume. Those went to a guy dressed up in a big foam milk shake, another guy with a snake coming out of his pants, and the king and qu

You know how it goes, it was the end of the week so I couldn’t muster up the energy to write any posts. Yadda yadda, same ol’ excuse I know. For the majority of October, I had been covering someone else’s duties. Basically, it left me with little to no time to do the other things that I normally do which is compile statistical reports and data entry/manipulation. My job alone, can take up my whole day and, depending on the period of the month, even more. Yeah, this past month has been murder but I’ve gotten through it. My relief has finally moved into her office and has taken back her job. Just in time for me to compile the BIG ASS Report which takes a straight up 2.5-3 days to do. I got that done last night and submitted it for review and approval. I’ll do a final look-over on Monday before it can be submitted for billing. On Monday, I was made into a member of a committee. The membership is meant to have at least one person from each building—office and floor side. So I am