First Things First

Thanks for visiting my homepage.  If you didn't already know I'll remind you all that September 2004 marks my 33rd birthday.  Sure, for a lot of you that's not a big thing, but I never thought of how it was going to feel to be in my 30's.  But enough of that, on to the updates.

As always, Vista Drive gets another round of updates to all sections.  Motel continues to be the fastest growing section of the site.  I started the Motel photoblog July 1st, and since then I've added over 200 pictures, and 30 pages of content.

American Bliss has a few updates to it too.  There are new journal entries to Windmills, with many more reasons why you shouldn't vote for George Bush in the coming election.  Also Composition gets a new poem, and finally coming September 22nd a new issue of American Bliss Magazine.  Don't forget.  Enjoy the update.

Afterthoughts : Ripped Jeans

The picture to the left is of my super favorite pair of Levi's 501s.  I can't really wear them anymore, since they can barely stand up to public nudity laws.  Nevertheless, I keep them.  These jeans are special to me for many reasons.

When I first got this pair of pants they were like any other jeans I wore before, or since.  Slowly they developed a personality that made them special.  For some reason, probably boredom, I started to write on them.  I've done that to other jeans, but never so much as with this pair.  I wrote so much on them that people thought I had ran out of paper to write on.  I hadn't, of course.  Somehow paper wasn't as fun to write on as these jeans.

I wore these jeans so much that they started to develop a tear on the knee.  Not a big thing, but none of my other jeans had ever been worn to this point.  It felt like some kind of badge of honor.  Crazy, I know.  In my mind these jeans now belonged to only me.  I had finally wore them to the point that they were totally, and completely, different from everyone else's jeans.  And they were SUPER soft.  They felt like silk.

Slowly the small hole grew.  At one point I tried to stem the cut with some sewing, but it was to no avail.  With ever wash, the torn sections grew bigger.  To the point that I could no longer slip on the jeans without catching some of it, and ripping it more.  I did some patchwork repairs on it, again, trying to keep it together.  The day came that the jeans were not really something I could wear out anymore.  Yet, I still keep them around for some wishing.

My belief in thinking that they could grant wishes was proven, if you believe in such things, when I went with a friend to a hockey game.  I asked him who he thought was going to score.  I had wished a lot of little things with the jeans on, and they had mostly come true.  So I asked my friend to name a player, by number, and that one would score the first goal.  I would make sure of it, by wishing on my super jeans, that that player to score first.  Sure enough, he thought about it for a moment, and tells me, "Number 17."  I rubbed the legs, and silently wished that #17 would score the first goal.  The game started.  Fast action back and forth.  Finally, there was #17 shooting and scoring the game's first goal.  Only problem was, he was on the other team.  They had a #17 as well, little did we know until the horn went off announcing the goal.  I turned to my friend, who was stunned, and said, "Did you know they had a #17?"  He didn't, but now he did.  Funny enough, #17 for our team later scored a goal as well.  Lucky.

Editorial : What fear couldn't do

What al-Qaeda couldn't do, George Bush has accomplished in spades.  There is no way any terrorist attacks are going to take away a person's rights.  Attacks can only bring fear, they are not legislative actions.  Nevertheless, the attacks of September 11th ushered in an era in which the erosion of civil liberties is called patriotic, and necessary for the greater good.  What the terrorist couldn't do with fear, George Bush did with the Patriot Act.

Fear can not strip a person of their rights, only men with bad intentions.  Fear can not use tragedy for their own benefit, only Presidents with little else to run on can.  In these days where the President tells us not to let fear overtake us, not to have it change our lives, we find phantom terror alerts.  We have the insecurity of a president that tells us to beware of every little thing.  To beware when you cross the street, because a terrorist might run you over.  To beware when you fly, because someone might sneeze and spread deadly germs.  We are told not to fear, but then also told not to drop our guards, because that's when they get you.  Terror alerts do little to help the average person.  Those who need to know what these alerts mean are police, fire, and various other government agencies.  They serve little useful purpose to the average person, except to instill a sense of total and complete fear.

And that's what this election is really about, fear.  Whether we are going to live in a cocoon for the rest of our lives, fighting everyone who isn't on our side.  Making others pick whether they are for us, or against us.  The world doesn't work that way.  The world has become more unified, but also more polarized.  In this era we don't need a president that acts unilaterally.

Bush has wielded the 9/11 tragedy to portray himself as a champion of humanity, and as a champion of freedom around the world.  Before 9/11 Bush was ineffective, lethargic.  Afterwards he was still lethargic.  While the economy spun down, his solution was to cut the taxes on the rich.  When the search for Bin Ladin yielded nothing, he launched a war on Iraq.  Each move creating more of a problem than it supposedly solved.  For all of his "accomplishments" now he wishes to be re-elected.  No thank you.  It's time for a regime change here.

Etcetera : Photo Blogs

There is phenomena that has grown from the digital imaging revolution, Photo Blogs.  Not only are good digital cameras more affordable, but the explosion of camera phones, means that you don't have to have a camera to capture a moment.

I even started a photo blog myself.  Here are but a couple of recent photo blogs I found.  They speak for themselves.

Fufu's Fotolog and Open Your Eyes

There are so many great photo blogs out there, that sometimes it's hard to keep up with them.  If you visit Photo Blogs dot-org for more photo blogs, and the resources to start your own.