Thursday, July 24, 2008
Alabama is hot...
yup, that pretty much covers it... so hot, want to touch the hiney hehehehhehehehe
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Kill Your Television
Twenty seconds ago I was curled up in my cozy bed unwinding for the evening. I have just started reading The Assault on Reason by good ol' Al Gore. I haven't even made it through the introduction and I feel compelled to spill my thoughts out and since I live alone and no one wants to be awoken at this hour with a political phone conversation (oh, and I realized that I had forgotten to take my evening fruit salad of pills thanks to undeclared war in Iraq) ... here I am.
I don't mean to steal someone elses words, but - I never really made an active decision that I wouldn't own a television, I've just never had one. It was never meant to be a political statement, but you can't help but make one through the absence of a television.
Gore draws a fascinating connection between the American addiction to television and the utter decay of our democracy. I won't kill you with the details (after all, details are what we don't have time for anymore because we can get all the information we believe we need through a thirty second broadcast), (sorry for the aside) but I found myself really feeling a lot of truth in some of his conclusions. Ironically enough I had my bedroom window open and can hear my neighbor's television blaring a sitcom across the street. I stopped reading and thought about why they had that show on at ten p.m. Here are some of the reasons I came up with:
1) escapism - we believe that watching a fake life or a fake-reality-TV show gives us a chance to breathe from our own stresses.
2) loss of faith in entertaining ourselves - when I go over to a friend's house the first thing that tends to happen is the television is turned on or a movie popped in... I think we do this because we believe that we can't interact in a fun enough way. When really I actually want to spend time with that person. I don't care if it's throwing sticks for the dogs to chase off the deck or playing scrabble or looking at pictures or laughing about gossip or planning out house projects. I think this is also why we watch when we're alone. The "I'm bored" syndrom. There are so many amazing things outside, in your house, visiting with a neighbor, walking around the block, listening to music, cooking, canoodling with someone special (or not special for that matter), conversing with a friend, any of the zillions of hobbies out there... the list goes on and on and on and... but when we come home from work, why do we reach for the zone out box?? Seriously, if you're reading this and have thoughts, please throw them up here!
3) habit - I think this is the most prevalent and scariest reason of all
4) because you actually like the show - yup, there is some funny stuff out there
5) to get the news - fair enough
But in all fairness, if reasons 4 and 5 were how we spent even one third of our television viewing time we would be unbelievably happy and educated. Can you believe that the AVERAGE person watches 4 hours, 30 minutes of television A DAY!!! We have lost our damn minds.
I don't mean to steal someone elses words, but - I never really made an active decision that I wouldn't own a television, I've just never had one. It was never meant to be a political statement, but you can't help but make one through the absence of a television.
Gore draws a fascinating connection between the American addiction to television and the utter decay of our democracy. I won't kill you with the details (after all, details are what we don't have time for anymore because we can get all the information we believe we need through a thirty second broadcast), (sorry for the aside) but I found myself really feeling a lot of truth in some of his conclusions. Ironically enough I had my bedroom window open and can hear my neighbor's television blaring a sitcom across the street. I stopped reading and thought about why they had that show on at ten p.m. Here are some of the reasons I came up with:
1) escapism - we believe that watching a fake life or a fake-reality-TV show gives us a chance to breathe from our own stresses.
2) loss of faith in entertaining ourselves - when I go over to a friend's house the first thing that tends to happen is the television is turned on or a movie popped in... I think we do this because we believe that we can't interact in a fun enough way. When really I actually want to spend time with that person. I don't care if it's throwing sticks for the dogs to chase off the deck or playing scrabble or looking at pictures or laughing about gossip or planning out house projects. I think this is also why we watch when we're alone. The "I'm bored" syndrom. There are so many amazing things outside, in your house, visiting with a neighbor, walking around the block, listening to music, cooking, canoodling with someone special (or not special for that matter), conversing with a friend, any of the zillions of hobbies out there... the list goes on and on and on and... but when we come home from work, why do we reach for the zone out box?? Seriously, if you're reading this and have thoughts, please throw them up here!
3) habit - I think this is the most prevalent and scariest reason of all
4) because you actually like the show - yup, there is some funny stuff out there
5) to get the news - fair enough
But in all fairness, if reasons 4 and 5 were how we spent even one third of our television viewing time we would be unbelievably happy and educated. Can you believe that the AVERAGE person watches 4 hours, 30 minutes of television A DAY!!! We have lost our damn minds.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Joy under the Big Sky
I managed to scam some leave out of work and jumped on the plane headed for Montana to see Randy. Really cool little factoid: while fireworks were entirely illegal in Colorado, you could pretty much buy a rocket launcher from a roadside fireworks stand in Montana. Definately an awesome place to spend the Fourth. Ironically, it was the one year anniversary of my departure from Iraq. We flew out at night and it was kind of cool because the perimeter guys were launching illumination rounds which were a cool substitute for fireworks. That was such an emotional departure - glad it was dark inside that C-130 because I couldn't hold back those tears. Guess it's just the immensity of everything that had happpened, the relief at leaving with all my body parts intact and a weird unwillingness to leave. Stupid Iraq. But enough about that... onto fun in the motherland...
Since we couldn't get the dirtbike back together, we ended up doing a lot of hiking which you know I was stoked about. These pics are from the hike up to Beaverhead Creek. I didn't see any beavers, but I did see a whole buttload of tadpoles.
We also hiked up Mt. Baldy which was amazing. We were the only two on the mountain and a lot of the hike was off-trail so we were just tromping through the woods. The view from up there was breath taking. It was such a beautiful day.
The Dirt Bike Project: we had big plans of reconstructing his old dirtbike so that we could go riding together. Unfortunately those things never go together as easily as you'd like... the wrong radiator came in, but we put the rest of the bike together anyway... it was fun getting all greasy and cursing at bike parts when they wouldn't fit right :)
Since we couldn't get the dirtbike back together, we ended up doing a lot of hiking which you know I was stoked about. These pics are from the hike up to Beaverhead Creek. I didn't see any beavers, but I did see a whole buttload of tadpoles.
We also hiked up Mt. Baldy which was amazing. We were the only two on the mountain and a lot of the hike was off-trail so we were just tromping through the woods. The view from up there was breath taking. It was such a beautiful day.
I know it's sideways, just tilt your head to the left!
The marker at the top
Telluride!!
Well I never posted pics from Telluride, so I figured I'd better throw them up here. Mainly I just want to make EVERYONE jealous that wasn't there. It was phenomenal. When I close my eyes and go to my peaceful place that's the first image that shines on my eyelids. Oh, and Ani played... Juni, Randy and I were like in the third row - I loved it so much. I stole all these pics from Juni's Facebook - dude thanks.
So much laughter
Big Fat Fun at the Duhks... freaking cool
Yiesters
Beautiful Telluride
Our Incredible Campground
He totally likes me
always making a silly face
Sisters! Can you see the resemblance?
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