Yesterday, many people witnessed a phenomenon on facebook in which their friends, mostly females, posted a color as their status update. For example, our friend Olga Bonemarrow may have posted the following:
Olga Bonemarrow white
So, what did this all mean? I found out that girls were posting their color of their undergarments to raise awareness of breast cancer. I was vaguely amused at first, but the more I thought about it the more I disliked it.
What happens is that I don't think a stunt like this is really effective at what it does. For one thing, we're already pretty aware of breast cancer, in fact, I'd say we're more aware of it than any other form of cancer. What about other types? My grandmother died of brain cancer, which struck suddenly and swiftly. And how about skin cancer, the most common type of the disease? Are males going to post what's on our boxer shorts when the time comes for prostate cancer awareness?
And, dare I say it, are we aware of lung cancer? Of course not, because as we all know, the only people who get lung cancer deserve everything they get because you can only get it due to vice.*
The other thing is, awareness only does so much, and I don't think any of the awareness generated by this stunt will translate into action. If people truly want to do something about this, as a friend of mine said, volunteer at Cancer Care Alliance or donate money to cancer research. Posting your bra color will do little more than elicit snickers.
If you care about getting something done about breast cancer, doing something easy like posting a facebook status will accomplish next to nothing. The amount of sacrifice you put into making a difference shows your true commitment.
*Note: This is not true. |
I want to do something a bit different for my New Year's Resolutions. I am planning on only focusing on one thing that I want to accomplish by the end of the year, instead of setting many goals. It will be something different, and something I have never done before.
The trap I often fall into for New Year's Resolutions is that I get overambitious. Oftentimes the resolutions are for things I should be doing anyway, such as exercise, scriptural study, dating, career goals, being less of a jerk, and so on. The result of this is that I have way too many goals to keep track of, and I neglect them.
I decided this year that I will not set any goals on any of those topics. That's not to say they aren't important (in fact, they're probably more important than my actual resolution). But since those are things I always need to work on, I'll leave that to my weekly and monthly goal planning.
So, without further ado, my goal this year is to learn to play a new instrument. I already play the violin, and want to learn either piano or guitar. I'm leaning toward piano, since I think that will be more useful (male piano players are frequently needed in church -- think priesthood meetings, and I think learning piano would teach me more in general about music than guitar). I could attempt both.
I'm not sure how to measure this goal for the whole year, but I know how to measure it for the short term - find somebody who can teach me, find a place I can practice, and start learning. As I start to get into it, I think I'll get a clearer idea for what my goal for year end should be.
So let it be written! That's my goal for the year. I'm sure I will post on my progress throughout the year.
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At the beginning of November, my roommates decided to not shave for the rest of the month. For some inexplicable reason, I joined them.
Some background: I had never attempted facial hair before, aside from a feeble attempt at a goatee shortly after graduating college. I abandoned that quest after a week when I realized that (A) it didn't look very good and (B) goatees are for jerks.
So, I grew the beard. I did shave my neck, however. There's no way I'm growing a throatee. The beard came in nicely, although I realized I didn't have much facial hair on my cheeks. It was kind of scraggly and I didn't particularly like the upkeep on the beard - it was almost as much trouble as shaving. Not to mention the constant itchiness against my face. I did get some compliments on the beard, but then again, I got some compliments after I got rid of it, too.
So now the beard is gone. I think I'm going to stay clean-shaven from here on out. I personally didn't like how the beard looked, and I'm willing to put up with the trouble of shaving because it's preferable to the trouble of not shaving. And besides, while many consider beards to be manly, I take a particular kind of manly pride in the art of giving myself a clean, close shave.
And of course, this post is useless without pics, so here they are - the beard, and what I did in the process of shaving the beard.
( Pics under the jump! ) |
White Christmases seem to be the romantic ideal for this time of year, so I started to think, how many White Christmases have I ever experienced?
My memory is a bit hazy prior to the Berlin years (1989-1992). I'm fairly certain my Christmases in Garmisch were snowy, and that my Christmases in the first four years in Oly were not. I have no recollection of the Heidelberg Christmases, but my mother informs me that there was no snow. After moving back to the USA in 1985, we traveled to Logan, Utah for two Christmases, which I believe were snowy.
However, since then, I have only had one Christmas with any kind of snow. That would be 2007, when we got a light sprinkling of snow. None of it stuck to the ground, however. Apparently there was an abundance of snow last winter, but I was in Germany, and the part of Germany I was in...had no snow!
So, let's list these out:
1980, Heidelberg: No Snow
1981, Heidelberg: No Snow
1982, Garmisch: White Christmas
1983, Garmisch: White Christmas
1984, Garmisch: White Christmas
1985, Logan: White Christmas
1986, Logan: White Christmas
1987, Olympia: No Snow
1988, Olympia: No Snow
1989, Berlin: No Snow
1990, Berlin: No Snow
1991, Berlin: No Snow
1992, Olympia: No Snow
1993, Olympia: No Snow
1994, Olympia: No Snow
1995, Olympia: No Snow
1996, Olympia: No Snow
1997, Olympia: No Snow
1998, Olympia: No Snow
1999, Comodoro Rivadavia: It's Summer in Argentina
2000, Plottier: It's Summer in Argentina
2001, Olympia: No Snow
2002, Olympia: No Snow
2003, Olympia: No Snow
2004, Olympia: No Snow
2005, Olympia: No Snow
2006, Olympia: No Snow
2007, Olympia: Holy crap, a smattering of snow that didn't stick to the ground!
2008, Grafenwohr: No snow
2009, Olympia: No Snow
Dang, that's a lot of Christmases. |
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Xmas
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Dec. 23rd, 2009 @ 10:41 pm
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It's a strange feeling to be at my parents' house after they've retired to bed, with nobody else home. Like any other situation in which there's no people to talk to and no forms of amusement immediately at hand, I am forced to entertain myself with my own thoughts (which can be a scary prospect). Frequently, my thoughts turn to where I am in my life, and where I'd like to be in the future.
However, being the Christmas season, my thoughts are of course turned to Christmas. I've been thinking about the "war on Christmas," which has become a big debate in the last few years. Conservative Christians seem very offended by the fact that many organizations no longer wish people a Merry Christmas, but they now simply use the generic phrase "Happy Holidays."
I don't really see what the big deal is. We have a lot of cultures and religions represented in this country, and there are many celebrations that take place around the Winter Solstice. Whether it's Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia* or Yule, somebody's celebrating something. Happy Holidays is a pretty easy way of including everybody in that statement. I don't see anything wrong with this because nobody's attempting to change your personal celebration of the season. In fact, frequently it's businesses saying Happy Holidays, for business reasons.
Of course, I don't really see why anybody would take offense at being wished a Merry Christmas, either. In fact, most people probably wouldn't. Christmas is the most popular of the solstice holidays and it's usually reasonable to assume that somebody is observing it. If they don't, I would hope they understand that there's nothing wrong with being wished a happy Christmas, even if you don't celebrate it. Yeah, I know, that's easy for me to say coming from a Christian perspective, and I'm trying hard to think of a situation where I'm on the receiving end - being a Mormon, maybe the closest equivalent is being offered alcohol when I'm a teetotaler?
So, after all my meandering observations, my point is that people need to relax and just enjoy the holidays for what they are. There's no reason to get irritated about whether it's PC to say your holiday by name, or get huffy because somebody assumed you celebrate one holiday and not the other.
'tis the season to not let yourself get ticked off!
And personally, I'm far more offended by the horrible, horrible pop renditions of popular Christmas tunes that are constantly being played on department store speakers.
*I am being needlessly clever. |
| » Microsoft products |
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Being a Microsoft employee, I am compelled to use our own products for the betterment of the company. I do this, to a point. If a Microsoft product meets or exceeds my minimum level of acceptability, I will use it, but if a far superior option is available, I will use that instead.
So, that raises the question, what Microsoft products do I use, and which ones do I eschew? Time to make a list!
Microsoft products I use
- Windows 7
- Office
- Bing
- Visual Studio (for home use as well as work)
- Mesh
Microsoft products I don't use
- Internet Explorer (I use Firefox)
- Windows Mobile (I have an Android phone)
- Virtual Server (Currently looking for a better VM player)
- Zune (I have an iPod, although I'm trying to figure out if I can sync it with Windows Media Player instead of iTunes.**)
So as you can see, I "eat my own dogfood," but only when I consider the dogfood good enough to beat out the alternatives.
*Please note that I did not say "begs the question," as begging the question is a logical fallacy, not an occasion in which someone asks a question.
**I dislike iTunes.
Dec. 21st, 2009 @ 10:32 pm
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| » Sports sports sports sports |
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Today I have become more interested in the Mariners - the possibility of getting Cliff Lee in a trade has almost made me believe that the Mariners can be contenders next season. If they add a big bat and maybe bring a couple positions up to the league average, they could be contenders.
I'll admit, ever since 2004 I've been disenchanted with the Mariners and baseball in general. This season, after attending many soccer games and a few baseball games, I realized I enjoyed the soccer games a lot more. I might even dare to say that soccer has replaced baseball as my favorite spectator sport.
I still like baseball, of course. But I like baseball and soccer for different reasons. Soccer is more fast-paced and has few breaks in the action. Baseball is much more slow and deliberate, and a lot less action-oriented. On TV, soccer is more fun to watch. On the radio, baseball is more fun to hear.
It's funny to note that for all the criticism I give to American football, baseball is an even bigger offender. Long pauses in the action? Frequent commercial breaks? Baseball has football beat on both fronts. And yet, I enjoy it more - I think one reason I like it more is the aforementioned superiority of baseball on the radio. If I'm listening to any sport on the radio, I'd pick baseball. I also love the numbers game. I'm a geek at heart, and there's no geek like a sports geek. Baseball is the ultimate geek sport, because there is a stat for everything. Soccer, being a more free-flowing game, has few stats that are worth looking into.
At any rate, consider me a lot more interested in following what is hopefully a successful season for the Seattle Mariners next year.
Dec. 14th, 2009 @ 10:49 pm
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| » BEARDFACE |
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I'm home for Thanksgiving Day, once again, and it's good to have mom and dad back this year (last year, they were off on their mission). Family dinners always seem so much more organized when my mom is spearheading them.
I brought a surprise home this year. No, not a girl, unfortunately, but I brought the next best thing: a beard! That's right, starting November 4, I started growing a beard for the first time in my life.
I got some amusing reactions. One of my nephews stared at me with his mouth agape. My mom and dad just looked at me and laughed. My older brother said, "I think your face is moldy."
I, for one, am actually not wild about the beard and will most likely shave it off, maybe even tomorrow. Maybe I'll give it another shot further down the road but as of right now I think I prefer being clean-shaven.
Nov. 27th, 2009 @ 08:01 pm
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| » When Things Go Wrong |
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On a day when nothing seems to go right, I like to listen to a song or two to pick myself up. Today, that song was Jessica by the Allman Brothers Band. It seemed to do the trick, at least temporarily.
Unfortunately, things got worse later on in the day, and I admit I was a bit of a grouch around the house this evening, even with guests over.
Maybe I should pick a different song next time.
Nov. 16th, 2009 @ 11:37 pm
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| » Football, the Role-Playing Game |
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Many people I know, both friends and co-workers, participate in the phenomenon known as Fantasy Football. Well, fantasy sports in general, but especially football. I have only attempted a fantasy sport once myself: baseball. I got sick of it after about a month - granted, perhaps it was due to the nature of baseball being played almost every day rather than weekly like football, but I got tired nonetheless.
A recent Penny Arcade cast fantasy football in a different light. You create a party of characters based on optimal stats. Every week, your party does battle, and depending on the outcome of their encounters, you either end your battle gloriously, or wallow in defeat. Yes, that's right: fantasy football is a role playing game. "They might as well call it Final Fantasy Football," as Gabe puts it.
The popularity of the game puts football in an interesting light: are we more concerned with the flow of the game itself, or the outcome? I tend to think it's the latter: you often hear people obsess more about statistics than the game itself (although I suppose that's okay in baseball, in which the game basically IS statistics). I think this is why I have become a fan of soccer. It's harder to quantify with numbers, to describe how a game went you have to talk more about the play itself rather than the numbers afterward, and of course, ties are considered acceptable. Yeah, I think that's a good thing.
Of course, the real reason might be the fact that there are far fewer commercials and breaks in play.
Nov. 11th, 2009 @ 07:58 pm
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| » The Unwalled City |
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November 8, 9 and 10 of 1989 were a few days of an emotional roller coaster ride for me. It all started on the 8th, with the death of Grandma Edith, my paternal grandmother. This being the first time I had lost a close family member, it hit me pretty hard.
The next day was different. I don't remember exactly where I was or what I was doing when I got the news, but I got the news nonetheless. East Germany was lifting travel restrictions for its citizens. In minutes, Berliners from east and west headed for the checkpoints and the Ku'Damm, and the border guards could not keep the East Berliners out. A mass of people flooded into the West, literally into the waiting arms of the West Berliners. Pandemonium ensued (but the good kind of pandemonium).
We did not go out on the night of the 9th, as we were still in mourning for grandma. My dad left for her funeral on the 10th. That night, my mom decided to take me and my siblings Kurt and Carolyn out.
We left our house in southern Zehlendorf and took the S-Bahn through Steglitz up to the city center. The train was packed, standing room only. We stayed on for the segment of the S-Bahn that went through the east, as it passed through the eerie abandoned Potsdamer Platz station. We got off in the West, and I'm not sure how which direction we walked, but we ended up just outside the Brandenburg Gate.
The festive atmosphere from the night before had died down. Now there were guards lining the top of the wall, and news vans from networks all over the world parked everywhere. Mom wanted us to see this to show how important an event this was not just to Germany, but to the entire world.
After that, we had to walk through Tiergarten to find a train station, which we eventually did. Mom was a bit worried about walking all the way through Tiergarten, but I wasn't particularly worried - I was having fun! We eventually caught the U-Bahn, I'm not sure which station it was, but I want to say it was Gleisdreick. After a few transfers, we found ourselves home. We didn't go to the Ku'Damm, probably because Mom didn't want to take three kids to a crowded shopping district.
A few days later, we found ourselves with hammers and chisels at the Steinstucken exclave of Berlin, chipping away at the wall and bringing home as many pieces as we could. We still have a box of pieces of the wall in our garage at home.
They were three incredible days. While I don't exactly remember the details of what happened (I was nine, give me a break!), I don't forget how it felt.
I look forward to writing about the twentieth anniversary of reunification day next year!
Nov. 9th, 2009 @ 05:11 pm
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| » Divided Berlin |
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Sometime in 1989, my parents started talking about a potential move. I don't know when the discussion started, but they eventually told the children that we might be moving back to Germany. We had already lived in Germany for five years - while I was born in Kansas, we moved to Germany shortly afterward and I spent my earliest years there. I was happy with our home in Washington, but being a military family I wasn't too surprised about having to move.
I knew we were going to Berlin, and I started to learn a few things about the city. Its role in World War II, the blockade, the Cold War, and of course, the wall. When we arrived in Berlin sometime in July, we went to see the wall in the American sector, near an apartment complex in Duppel where many Americans lived. The western side of the wall was covered in graffiti - some of it simple vandalism, some of it art - and there was a wooden observation tower for us to scale and look over to the eastern portion of the wall.
The image of looking over the wall was unforgettable even to my nine-year-old mind. The death strip was a stark, lonely strip of land, littered with tank barriers, ditches, and cordoned off by multiple fences, most of which had barbed wire over the top. On the other side of the wall, you could just see the small town of Kleinmachnow. There was a single guard tower in the middle of the death strip, and we could see two guards keeping watch. I waved at them, and one of the guards waved back.
In the first few months of living in Berlin, the realities of the divided city hit me. We went to Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg Gate, and saw some of the memorials set up for those who died trying to escape into West Berlin. I saw the monument to the Berlin Airlift at Tempelhof Airport (and later, saw its corresponding monument in Frankfurt). And of course, we walked along the wall at Potsdamer Platz.
I was perhaps too young to truly understand all the context of the Cold War, and why the wall was there. But I was old enough to realize what an injustice it was, and what it stood for. I figured it would remain standing for the three years we were planning on living in Berlin, and that it would stay up for most of my life.
Twenty years ago today, that all changed.
Nov. 9th, 2009 @ 12:44 pm
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| » Crustaceans |
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Lately, my roommate Christian has had an obsession with crawdads. Some of the local lakes (Lake Union and Lake Washington) are supposedly teeming with them, and he had the idea of creating a trap to catch them. So, he bought some wire fencing and got to work, eventually creating three traps.
It's hard to describe how these traps look, but they're quite unusual. They are cylindrical, with a cone pointing inward on either end, and a suspended wire cube in the middle. When looking at the completed trap, I almost expected Carl Sagan to show up and begin using these traps to model the theory of a cylindrical universe (I would have been very surprised if he had shown up).
Last night, Christian and Stephanie laid the traps in Lake Union and waited a little over an hour. We returned to check on them and alas, no crawdads. Just a few bottom feeding fish and nothing else. Obviously some of the parameters of the crawdad hunt are going to need to change (perhaps leaving them in the water longer will do the trick, or using different bait).
Of course, crawdads are never going to help me fulfill my dream of having lobster rage fists, but they're a step in the right direction.
Nov. 8th, 2009 @ 10:05 am
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| » As I walk down the highway, all I do is sing this song |
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Karaoke, as we all know, is awesome. Wednesday night, I had the opportunity to do some karaoke with a few friends, and a good time was had by all.
The funny thing about karaoke is how my favorite songs or favorite musicians may not always make great karaoke songs. For example, I love Pink Floyd, but most Pink Floyd songs aren't much fun for karaoke (given the fact that some of them are over twenty freakin' minutes long). On the flipside, some songs that I would rarely or never listen to on my own volition make surprisingly fun karaoke numbers.
The first time I ever sang karaoke was when I was 18, at a school activity. The song was "Pinball Wizard," which was appropriate given that I sang it with some friends who happened to be appearing in the all-city musical Tommy (I was the hawker, incidentally).
When my family and I went on a cruise back in December 2005, karaoke was a regular activity as well, and last year my brother created his own karaoke system, which turns out to be awesome. It is now a regular activity when I visit family once a month or so.
The key to enjoying karaoke (besides being drunk, of course, and as a teetotaler I am never in that situation) is to first pick a song that's fun to sing, and then just get up there and put everything you've got into it. Don't worry about looking ridiculous because EVERYBODY looks ridiculous doing it. The question is what kind of ridiculous you're going to be: awesome ridiculous, or embarrassing ridiculous? I prefer the former.
For the record, I sang two of my favorite karaoke songs (Sabotage and Born to Run), and one that I'd never done before (Out on the Tiles, which I didn't do a great job on - Zeppelin was not meant be sung an octave lower). When I'm with the family, Queen is usually a popular selection - my brother and I have a killer duet of Under Pressure, and the whole family joins in for Bohemian Rhapsody.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to practice for my rousing rendition of "Baby Got Back."
Nov. 6th, 2009 @ 05:49 pm
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| » Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes! |
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After having worked in the building at 5th and Jackson in the International District for two years, my corporate superiors finally saw it fit to move me to a different location.
Four blocks away, in fact.
My new office is in Seattle's Pioneer Square district, a building I've worked in the past back in 2006. The building is nice, and it has a certain older charm to it than the relatively young 5th and Jackson had.
I have mixed feelings about the move. I like being closer to the teams with whom we coordinate, and a change of scenery can be nice. On the other hand, 5th and Jackson is the place where I got my first "real" job in February 2006, and I have a lot of fond memories for the place. I also like its ideal location in the heart of the International District, just two blocks away from Uwajimaya and many good restaurants.
Not only that, but the dreaded team split finally took place, and there are now only three developers and one database guy on my team. We have a new boss, who I met earlier this week. And most impactingly (I am allowed to invent new words), I find myself with newfound responsibilities on the smaller team. I won't describe too much how that's been, but suffice it to say, I am being asked a lot more questions now, and I frequently don't have the answer.
I must admit I am a little intimidated about all the new demands that are placed on me, but I will do everything I can to rise to the challenge and fill the void left behind by the team split.
Either that, or I'll start a bakery and sell cookies for a living instead.
Nov. 6th, 2009 @ 01:43 pm
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| » In Memoriam |
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Many years ago, when I was in high school, I joined a writing group known as Operation CWAL. I was a bored teenager looking for a creative outlet, and Operation CWAL combined two of my favorite things: video games and off-the-wall humor. While my story writing has slowed down substantially since then, I still look back on the early days of CWAL with fondness.
One of the members of CWAL was Mark "Maggott" Argyle, who wrote hilarious stories about an evil alien overlord (the eponymous Maggott) who was supremely powerful, but too lazy to actually cause any serious destruction. He later began a pre-podcast radio show hosted by that character (voiced by himself, of course). I used to download each new episode as soon as it came out and listen to it several times, cackling madly the entire time. I was even a guest on the show once, playing the role of my own character, Arcturus (a paintball-obsessed front lines fighter).
It was to my great dismay that I learned that Maggott was found dead today in an apparent suicide. I was shocked, and then saddened.
It is difficult to describe the role Operation CWAL has had in my life. I didn't write very many stories that were particularly good, and many of the stories that made me laugh back when I was seventeen might not make me laugh now. I didn't know anybody in the group in person - they were spread all over the continent (and in some cases, across the world). I didn't meet any of them in person until I was twenty-one.
And yet, the CWALers were like brothers to me. The humor may have been juvenile sometimes, and we frequently ripped off from other published works, but the storyverse we created was OURS! We were proud of what we made, and while writing will only ever be a hobby of mine, I feel being a part of CWAL gave me a better appreciation for the written word, and for the craft of comedy.
Maggott was one of the creative driving forces behind the group. He was one of the first to join. He wrote some of the earliest gut-bustingly funny stories. Through his music and radio show, he branched out into a new medium for the group.
Operation CWAL doesn't write stories anymore. We're grown up now, and the CWALers have stopped writing stories and are moving on with their lives, going to school, and getting married. What was once a group of bored teenagers are now scientists, engineers, doctors and lawyers. We have become husbands, wives, and parents to children. But the world we created all those years ago has kept us together.
When we lost Maggott, it was like losing a family member. I had no idea that things were so bad for him that he felt the need to take his own life. I wish I could have done something to sway him from his decision.
But whenever someone is taken from this world, I feel it best to remember them for the life they lived. With that in mind, I'm going to dig up some of his stories, listen to a few episodes of the Maggott Show, and laugh myself silly.
Rest in peace, Maggott. You won't be forgotten.
Oct. 5th, 2009 @ 10:30 pm
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| » Party! Pizza party! |
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Some weeks ago, my roommate Christian decided to do something awesome: He would build a wood-fired brick oven at his parents' house in Kenmore, so that we could use it to make pizza, and other delicious things. After about a month of toiling away, his project was complete. All that remained was to bring delicious ingredients and turn them into pizza, and bring a sufficient number of friends to eat them all.
Last week, we did just that.
The pizza was delicious. I was appointed toppings manager, and fulfilled my duty with aplomb. I think we ended up making over thirty pizzas, and there was no trace of leftovers. Afterward, we decided to use the oven's residual heat to make s'mores (you're killing me, Smalls!), and they were the best s'mores we ever had. Theresa also decided to make a loaf of rosemary bread, and it came out perfectly.
We also gathered around the television to watch the Argentina vs. Brazil world cup qualifying match. It was a good match, but unfortunately, Argentina lost.
The party was a huge success. I want one of these ovens for myself someday!
Sep. 12th, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
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| » Welcoming home the Sounders |
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Last week, the Sounders won their first ever trophy, the U.S. Open Cup. The Open Cup is a tournament that has been around since the early 20th century, and is one of the oldest running sports competitions in the country. I was pretty thrilled that the Sounders won a trophy in their very first season, and since I wasn't working the next day, decided to go to the airport to welcome the Sounders back.
At 2:30 in the morning.
I wasn't the only Sounder fan there, about 150 other people gathered to welcome the team home. In spite of how late (or early) it was, everybody was excited, and we stood around chatting and singing victory songs while we waited for the plane to arrive. They didn't get there until about 3:45, but walked right to us, let us touch the trophy, and gave us high fives. Kasey Keller gave a short speech to thank us for welcoming them home. At that point, I really wanted to get to bed, so I left.
Here are the pictures from the evening. While they may appear to be blurry, let me assure you that that's how the world looked to me at that hour.
Sep. 10th, 2009 @ 09:59 pm
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| » Crazy Train |
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I am a bit of a transit nerd. The day Seattle's new light rail opened, I made sure to ride the entire distance of it, both ways. I think it's an awesome addition to the city and am glad we have it.
Today, I had some spare time during my lunch break and rode to the Beacon Hill station to check it out and look around the neighborhood it services. The station itself is probably my favorite along the entire line: it's the one that most resembles a Berlin U-Bahn station (although compared to the U-Bahn, it's almost eerily quiet). It's also a very interesting station with some cool sculptures hanging from the ceilings.
What made me smile is on the ride back to the office, I spotted two kids who looked to be about ten years old or so, raptly peering down the tunnel to watch for when the train would come. I used to do the exact same thing when I was that age, living in Berlin.
I'm excited for more light rail service to open in Seattle, I just wish it wouldn't take so long!
Aug. 11th, 2009 @ 03:30 pm
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| » Ten Years Ago |
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Today marks the ten year anniversary of my arrival in Argentina. I remember that day well. It seemed like the longest plane ride of my life (probably because it was, in fact, the longest plane ride of my life). Here's a few memories I have of the voyage:
- Saying goodbye to my parents, two siblings, and my grandmother at the Salt Lake City airport. Missionaries heading out into the field can no longer have family members come to the airport, unfortunately.
- In Chicago, I found a pay phone and called up my other two siblings to bid them a final farewell, and sent a letter to my best friend, who had recently arrived to his own mission in Georgia.
- A man passing by in the airport saw us and said, "Good luck, Elders." Ten seconds later, my companion told me "Wipe that smile off your face!"
- The plane was underbooked, so most of us had several seats we could stretch out across and sleep on. They played "Never Been Kissed" as the in-flight movie, twice. Being a good missionary, I tried to avoid watching it.
- One of our group left his sleeping bag on the plane in Buenos Aires, but was able to retrieve it.
- We were escorted to the temple grounds after that. We didn't go into the temple, but we did eat at the adjacent cafeteria. It was my first encounter with the Argentine meal I would probably eat more than any other: Milanesa. It's kind of like a schnitzel made with beef.
- Our escort then drove us through the heart of Buenos Aires to get to the national airport and our flight to Neuquen. It is hard to describe how I felt looking at the city, but I can say for sure that I felt like a lost little boy when I looked out there.
- The Buenos Aires airport does not have a ban on smoking.
- We arrived in Neuquen late at night, and we were all dead tired.
It was a grueling, bewildering, busy day. My mission was full of vivid experiences, but the drive through Buenos Aires is what really made me realize I wasn't in Kansas anymore.
And every time I think back to the me of ten years ago, I think "Man, I really had no idea what I was in for!"
Aug. 10th, 2009 @ 01:02 pm
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arcitaka's journal
