Americans spent $8.3 billion on plastic surgery in 2005, $2.3 billion more than it would have taken to provide a basic primary education to all of the world’s children. Help eliminate global inequity at www.unmillenniumproject.org
One of the cool things I did get to do during my hectic winter was go to a Mos Def concert. I had never been to a hip hop concert before and was curious as to how it would go. The show was at the Nokia Theater which is like a 10 minute walk from where we live which was quite dope.
My initial impression was disappointment because the show started 45 minutes late and the opening act was quite lame. Jay Electronica was dude’s name and he tried a little too hard to get his message across. What the message was I have no idea because the crowd basically booed him off the stage.
This was my main curiosity about a hip hop concert - it’s basically one dude, maybe two, carrying a show with no instruments, just a couple of DJ’s with bobbing heads and wrist flicks. You are pretty much on an island, and Jay Electronica was voted off the island by the crowd.
It was another frustrating 45 minutes before Mos Def appeared but when he did, he killed it. He truly enjoys what he does and his music is about positive social commentary which puts him in an upper echelon in my book - and you just know a skinny, dorky white dude’s opinion means a lot in the hip hop world.
Yes, I am alive! A celebratory cigar on my roof was in order this week as my life will resume somewhat of a normal pace again now that my busy season at work is coming to a close. I have done a few fun things in the past few months that I will recount soon, but it is safe to say that in the past few months the amount of reading I have done probably equivocates to reading Moby Dick . . . fifty times.
It has taken me a while but it is time to finish off the pictures from Cotsa Rica. By far the most impressive part of the trip was just observing nature. Enjoy . . .
This was a section of rocky beach that was cool to look at. I’m not sure how the circular pattern developed. My suspicion is a combination of water and intense sunlight.
We saw a few iguanas, both alive and dead. The dead iguana was in the middle of the road, an obvious victim of being hit by a car, and this one was missing the end of its tail. Must not be easy to be an iguana in Costa Rica.
We saw lots of pelicans.
Hermit crabs were everywhere! When the sun set the entire beach was full of them. No joke here, we are talking 1,000’s of them all at once scavenging the beach. It was stunning to witness.
We saw several groups of birds that were migrating.
Most of the beach was sandy but there were rocky portions that made the crashing waves cool to look at.
Ummmm, paradise?
As you can see, the beaches were really, really crowded.
One day we went to a quiet island . . .
. . . and they had a pet pig. Witnessing the pig and being on the island took me back to a high school English class when we read Lord of the Flies. I should read that book again.
And in the somewhat unrelated but interesting category, we were in the airport in San Juan and we saw this kid in line. The note of interest is that she is wearing a Carters Jacket - the company Ariel designs for.
I have been spending time on Bike Hacks but I don’t want to neglect bike related content on Pintglass so expect some cross posts.
Brendon wrote a few days ago about ways to “Ugly” your bike. Because I have to lock my commuter bike outside a great deal I have been practicing the art of deceit for some time. It’s not that my commuter bike is all that wonderful anyway, I only paid $100 for it. Actually, that brings up another hack.
When I moved to NYC I wanted a bike that would get the job done as far as commuting but not attract much attention. After a few days of looking on craigslist I found the perfect “mule.” It is a 1985 Peugeot that had been sitting in some closet, untouched for years. It had a thick coat of dust and flat tires when I went to pick it up and looked as if it had been ridden about 100 miles in it’s 20 year lifespan. Perfect! Old but “new” at the same time.
I decided to mix it up a bit and do a combination of “uglifying” techniques. The first thing I did however was to wrap most of the frame with Saran Wrap. This is a good hack because some day you just may want to take the disguise off and this will ensure that it comes off easily.
After wrapping the frame in plastic wrap, I used a mixture of inner tubes and duct tape. I put tubes where my lock commonly rests on the frame when I chain up and duct tape on various portions of the frame.
The inner tubes are secured with zip ties. Then I moved on to the fenders which you also can see in the picture. Now this is where I do have a bone to pick with the Make Magazine article Brendon pointed to on uglifying your ride. It states:
“A can of spray paint is a good start but choose wisely. Black is out. We’re talking ugly here, not cool. Think orange.”
I happen to believe that orange is beautiful so it’s the perfect match. The majority of the population probably thinks my orange spray painted fenders are ugly while they make me smile. Bonus for me. Here is a picture of the whole ride.
I also have peppered it with stickers and even some stuff I have found on the road like this air freshener. Nothing says irony like a car air freshener on a bike.
I am a peace loving person, but I am declaring war. I am calling on others to join me in what I see as a just war. What has gotten me riled up enough to want to declare war you ask? Well, listening to Troy Aikman during the Super Bowl pushed me over the edge.
Now do not get me wrong, I have nothing against Troy Aikman, other than the fact that I despise the Cowboys and he was a member of the egocentric “America’s Team.” My angst had been growing a long time and involves most of the American population, including myself. It’s just that countless Fox NFL telecasts this year were the proverbial last straw.
I am declaring war on starting a spoken sentence with the following words:
“I mean . . . . “
“You know . . . “
I am not a grammarian by any means and I do not even know what the technical terminology is for a sentence that starts with such words, however I do know that I find them extremely annoying and unnecessary. For example . . .
“I mean that Tom Brady is a tremendous player.”
“You know Eli Manning has really matured this year.”
Isn’t in perfectly acceptable to say:
“Tom Brady is a tremendous player.”
“Eli Manning has really matured this year.”
What do “I mean” and “You know” have to do with anything? The answer is, NOTHING! Therefore I urge you to declare war with me. This is a self imposed war on yourself really, I am not asking you to physically strike someone who begins sentences this way. I am asking that we seek to eliminate the use of these “sentence introductions” (official Big Apple Blog term). If all of you out there get the ball rolling we can begin this offensive on these offensive “sentence introductions.”
So I say, CHARGE! Maybe after a few decades our self imposed war will pay off. I mean I can’t tell you how happy that would make me! =)
Here is some food for thought. At the present time the cost of the “War on Terror” is approaching $500 trillion dollars. During the same period of time the War on Terror has been going on, approximately $2 billion dollars has been spent on funding the Peace Corps.
Let’s see, that puts Peace Corps expenditures at less than 1% of expenditures on the War on Terror.
Question: What has a better chance of bettering the image of the U.S. in the world, bombs or volunteers assisting those in other nations?
Is anyone else laughing / amused / confounded at the “economic stimulus” package news? To me it’s quite comical. Call me silly, but isn’t the government just rewarding bad behavior? In 2005 the personal savings rate in the U.S. dipped into negative territory – the first occurrence since the great depression. Another stat from 2005 is that credit card debt in the U.S. reached over $750 billion. It is also estimated that for each dollar of income the average American earns, they spend $1.2 dollars.
I love the logical picture this seems to paint. People spend more money than they have, so we want to give them more money with the implicit purpose of more spending. Am I missing something?
The important distinction to me is the difference between “need” and “want.” Americans obviously need to be educated about wise use of money. I think we need more transparency in our government. I think we need health care for all Americans. I think we often get confused between needing a wanting (myself included!).
Meanwhile, Washington is passing important legislation like mandating digital television starting in 2009. Never mind that millions of Americans are without health care and our education system continues to fall in world rankings, we need to see the dimples on the football and individual blades of grass on our flat screens dammit!
Rather than pouring $150 billion into the economy, how about spending money on educating Americans about the wise use of money? How about subsidizing public forums on issues related to personal finance, budgeting, retirement planning, and investing?
The whole thing reminds me of the Peace Corps slogan I always hear: “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish and he will be able to eat for a lifetime.”
How about we TEACH Americans about the wise use of money as opposed to offering an expensive $150 billion Band-Aid? How about an “Economic Training and Sensibility Package?” And isn’t it also ironic that a government that is responsible for an estimated increase in the national debt of $1.44 billion PER DAY is telling us to spend, spend, spend?
Rome was once the envy of all nations and now ancient ruins remind us of their focus on entertainment and pleasure as opposed to the most critical resource of all – human capacity and intelligence. When I look at U.S. politicians standing in front of government buildings reminiscent of ancient Roman ruins, I fear we are in for a pretty hard fall with the “solutions” they are offering.
It’s Ariel’s Birthday today. She was obviously destined to be a fashion designer some day! Not only that, she worked for adidas for three years. I gotta find some more pictures of her when she was young to see if she had lottery ticket numbers since she seems to able to predict the future =)
One day in Costa Rica we hiked to a waterfall that was back in the rain forest. It was about a 30 minute trek and it was well worth it. The water was very refreshing and I’d say the fall was about 100 feet tall. When we got there some locals were showing off. They were climbing the rock face, in nothing but board shorts, and cliff diving. You can see an example below. It was a cool free show.
We then enjoyed a swim and hung out under the waterfall which was cool and refreshing.
And amazingly enough, there was shopping to be had by the falls! This dude was hanging out with a blanket spread out on the rocks and was selling hand made jewelery. I loved the dude’s dreads! I was so envious and would love to rock them some day. One of those life goals that will probably have to wait until retirement. Ariel bought some cool stuff and we felt good about supporting a local merchant.
One of the cool things we did in Costa Rica was a canopy tour. I had never been on a zip line before and it was dope, dope, dope! I’m not a huge fan of heights but I really enjoyed the zip line. It was like a really fast chair lift.
I cannot recommend taking a tour like this enough. The feeling of flying through the air with the whizzing sound of the line is a real rush. We went down ten lines and I think the longest was like 700 feet.
So the town we ended up staying in had a population of approximately 1,500 people. It was just what the Dr. ordered - lack of both major corporations and mass quantities of human beings. Two towns actually merge where we stayed: Mal Pais and Santa Teresa.
The hotel we stayed in was basic and comfortable. They had a small pool out back along with a restaurant and breakfast was included with the price of the room.
The maids also did cool things with our towels every day. The first day was the best, swans with fresh tropical flowers and they put Ariel’s sunglasses on one of them.
There were a variety of restaurants in town. They ranged from a dude with a BBQ on the street with picnic tables scattered around to more “formal” places that actually had a roof. We could not get enough rice and beans and there was this chicken place that was totally awesome. They fire roasted their chicken on a tilted grill that faced the street and it was some good eatin’.
The journey to Costa Rica was an interesting one. I was nervous with only a 45 minute layover in Houston, and as it turns out, I should have been. Anyone who tells me they have flown out of JFK on time will be the first. I had high hopes for leaving on time when all passengers were seated and the door to the plane closed a full 15 minutes before our scheduled departure time.
The pilot then comes on and says, “Um, folks. There is good news and bad news. The good news is that everyone is on the plane and all systems are go. The bad news is, the baggage loader is broken and they are estimating 30 minutes to resolve it.”
Great! 45 minute layover to catch our next flight in Houston and already 30 minutes late. We end up leaving 45 minutes late and I am nervous about landing in Houston. The good news, there appears to be about twenty people on our flight who are all hoping to catch the connection to Costa Rica.
So we land in Houston (quick side bar, I thought the air in LA and NYC was dirty, Houston’s air makes ours look clean!) and they tell us our plane has been held, but to run. So we run, run, run and barely make the door. On the way in I ask about our luggage and the (lying) service person says “Everything should be fine!”
Long story short, we land in Costa Rica but our bags don’t. This is complicated the fact that we are catching a puddle jumper to the boondocks where our final destination is. Said puddle jumper his here:
We sat right behind the pilots and it was a hoot. It is amazing how many buttons, knobs, and gauges there are. Gotta love too how the flight plan is pinned to the wheel.
The “airport” we landed at was basically like a bus stop. At the end of the very narrow runway was a little shelter . . .
. . . and high tech equipment like this scale.
Funny enough, on our first full day there we ran into someone who was on our flight out of JFK who also lost his luggage. Turns out he was from the Bronx and we ended up hanging out and having dinner. Our luggage finally did arrive, but a massive downpour made things even more complicated.
There were no paved roads where we were staying and if you drive, you have to take a 1 hour ferry to get to where we were staying. Note to self - pack one day worth of clothing in your carry on in the future. In all my years of traveling this was the first luggage mishap I had - guess I rolled the dice one too many times on not being better safe than sorry.
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