Contemplations of an Ordinary World

Test of new host

2009-08-27T10:27:00.001-07:00

Test! Disregard -- oh, and if you are still subscribed to this feed, please visit my new site at http://www.idealistcafe.com/.

Thanks!

An update and some news

2008-10-28T09:44:00.000-07:00

It seems that lately I have been less inclined to write here. Even though I still feel a lot of the same things that I have written in the past, I have (sort of) decided that the writing and venting was getting me nowhere. The good news is that I am not disappearing from the blogging world, I have just changed my focus. Now I am blogging over at my other site, Idealist Cafe. I am blogging about many similar topics, and actually I am still wrestling with how personal to make it, but I feel that it is a better site and a better forum there to suit my goals for the future. Mainly I am trying to blog about a lot of the same things -- the environment, simple living, travel, some green tips, the great outdoors, etc -- but in a more constructive and more helpful fashion. I also will be including some posts and links to help keep inspired, as well as some how-to articles like this one.

My goal here is to not only write and share, but hopefully to grow that site into something more than a "personal" site, rather I would like it to become a larger community, and ultimately one day a means to support myself. So I invite any readers that still follow me here to go ahead and also join me over at Idealist Cafe as well as here. And if you would like to guest blog or contribute in any way please just let me know.

What is the ultimate life?

2008-05-21T19:51:00.000-07:00

I have asked this to myself repeatedly for many years. I have always envied the lives of others, and have always wondering how others found happiness and combined it with their lifestyle. I will be honest and say that I think very few people are truly happy. And I will tell you why.

I believe to be truly happy, not only do you need "happiness", you also need to feel centered and aligned in your daily life. What this means is that you need everything you do to be an extension of your beliefs and your ideals. For this reason I feel that very few people, even "happy" people, are truly happy. I do not believe for a minute that the happy go lucky guy in your office feels that what he does at his desk for 8 hours a day is in alignment with his beliefs. I suppose it is possible, but the better possibility I believe is that these people have somehow convinced themselves that they like what they do.

I count myself in the total of people who are not truly happy, and I believe that I have narrowed it down to my job; the problem being that I get paid to do something that is not in keeping with who I am as a person. I have never felt that co-workers truly know the real me, and this is because my job has always defined me, as opposed to me defining my job.

So what is the ultimate life or lifestyle to ensure happiness? For a while I thought it would be endless travel. Others think it is being rich. Others, as mentioned above, are happy to sacrifice their time for a paycheck to buy big houses and nice cars and flat screen tvs. For others it is having a family.

I think that it is a combination of all these things. I have finally realized that endless travel wouldn't be the ideal for me. I like home and I like some routine. I also know that it is not about money for me. Currently I have a "good" job and a good salary, and clearly I am not where I want to be.

I think for me to get to a place where I am truly happy, I need the following things:

A job or way of earning money that is in alignment with my beliefs and passions

A modest home that is in harmony with the land

Simple furnishings, not deprived in any area, but not extravagant

Time to reflect on life itself and to be awed by nature and the world around me

Companionship (and possible family at some point)

Simplicity and understanding that being alive is life

I suppose I am halfway there, but not all the way. I think if I get to this point, I will be a truly happy person and then all the the other things that I daydream about will fall into place. I will get to experience the world, whether 10,000 miles away or in my backyard. I will know I'm successful because I will have a home and a companion.

Time for an update

2008-05-01T13:01:00.000-07:00

I had someone remind me that I haven't blogged in a long time. This is true. I guess I have just been blogged out lately, a lot of what I was writing was complaining, contemplating, pondering, dumping random thoughts onto the screen. I just haven't had the urge to do this lately.

In about 3 weeks I will likely be officially divorced, it seems like it happened a long time ago, but officially it hasn't happened yet. We separated last summer, I have been living on my own since then. We still talk, visit maybe once a week or so, but what we had is no longer there. It is better this way though, I now see that she brought a lot of negative energy into my life. Life has been good since then, a little boring at times. Sometimes I wonder where my life is going. Next year I will be thirty, with one unsuccessful marriage under my belt.

Being single is nice, but I am at my peak as a person when I have someone else in my life. I have always been sort of a loner when it comes to having friends, sure I have friends, but there are very few people who I have met in my life who really understand me. Of course I like going out with people and having drinks and just letting off steam, but I also like people who have some substance behind them, people who understand that life is more than what most people think it is.

Anyway, even though I am a loner, I do like having someone special to do things with. I think because of what I just previously mentioned, I tend to get along with women better than men because the whole macho testosterone thing that is just ridiculous to me is out of the way. So the moral of that all is that I have been dating someone since January, it has been fun. In a way I am worried that I have come too close to giving up a freedom that many guys long for. Sometimes I think I need to date more, get a few experiences under my belt. But I am not great a meeting people for casual relationships, I really like having emotional intimacy, and being able to share things with someone who you care about for me trumps a night of fun with someone you hardly know. It also seems that I tend to get involved with women who are very outgoing and very social. Sort of strange for me being that I am not that outgoing nor am I that social, but I have always chalked it up to opposites attracting. I also think that it is good for me, to have someone who will keep me going rather than just getting into a slump and being a bum.

Well, that's that ... Maybe I'll post again this month, we'll see.

Happy New Year

2007-12-31T21:29:00.001-08:00

Well, I'm not where I thought I would be this New Years. A lot has changed in my life. I was married and am now in the process of getting divorced. My direction has changed quite a bit. I had hoped to have some new life plans in the works, of course things being what they are, that has not gone as planned.

In the coming year I hope to live life to the fullest. I want to stop thinking and dwelling so much on things. I want to eliminate the aspect of fear and "what if" from my decisions. I want to see the positive aspect of things. I want to summit Mt Whitney since I didn't quite make it this past year. I want to get into shape and do more yoga and drink and smoke less. I want to make less compromises to my diet, and continue being conscious about the quality of food I eat. I want to take a couple international vacations. I want to be more social and make some new friends.

We'll see how it all goes.

I have been quiet lately

2007-12-19T08:30:00.000-08:00

But here are a few things that are going on as the year winds down:

I leave tomorrow on a little adventure. Taking the Amtrak from San Diego to NYC. The trip will entail 3 Amtrak trains, and 4 different public transportation systems. The city bus from my house to the San Diego Amtrak Station (Santa Fe Depot). From there to LA, then on to Chicago. Then to NYC (Penn Station). From there I hope the Subway to Grand Central, where I need to then buy a ticket on the Metro North to get to Stratford, CT, where my mom will pick me up. It's a shame I can get to my mom's house via public transportation, as that would be quite a feat if I could go public transit door to door.

Everyone at my company got an IPod Touch from our boss. I am in love with it. Also, I got a nice little bonus, as well as a raise. I am making way more money than I need and the more I make the harder it will be to eventually make my escape from the corporate world. However, I am keeping my life simple so I am quickly accumulating a nice little cash reserve. I have also become satisfied for the moment with my job and my situation. Don't worry too much, I still hate that I spend my life in a cubicle.

I am trying to plan a few trips for next year. I would like to do a volunteer vacation, probably in Central or South America. I am looking into my options. I would also like to do a 1 or 2 week trip "for fun" to somewhere that I would need my passport. I have 4 weeks PTO next year, so both should be doable.

That's it for now. Gotta crank out my last day of work. Tomorrow I begin my adventure.

ARRRRRRGGGGHHHHH

2007-12-03T22:21:00.000-08:00

Feedburner has got to be the most ridiculously ambiguous service ever. I have been trying to for two months to get the freakin thing to work. I have followed all directions to "burn" my feed and redirect my existing feeds to it, and NOTHING has worked. I have a feedburner feed that says it hasn't been updated in a month, and no redirected is working. Also, if I subscribe directly to the feedburner feed, I don't see any of those "email this | add to delicious" links at the bottom, even though I added them and activated them in feedburner. Of course I probably don't see them because it says my feed hasn't been updated in a month. And Blogger and Feedburner both say redirecting is a piece of cake, but I don't have "the option" that they say is the magical answer in my control panel ... I think because I publish to my own domain. Anyone have any help for me? I am a computer geek, I can't imagine how non-techies do this.

UPDATE: Ok, one problem solved. For some reason when I first created my feedburner feed it got messed up, and when I recreated it it was using the same name, but continued to be messed up, thus none of the changes I was making were getting added to the feed. That is now solved, I just renamed my feedburner feed. But now, when I try to subscribe, it only shows the bad feedburner name and not the new good healthy one. And second problem is the redirect, still not working.

no more seals in San Diego

2007-11-30T08:45:00.000-08:00

So, no more seals in San Diego...

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20071130-9999-7m30seals.html

This is sort of bridging a big gap from the seal topic to make this comment, but I figure all things are related... Anyway, I swear, sometimes I think people are going to eradicate themselves from this planet by always being all high and mighty, and I think we deserve it.

Plastic bag debate

2007-11-20T09:47:00.000-08:00

If you follow this blog at all, you know that I am for the most part pretty environmentally friendly. I am especially concerned at excessive trash. At home I keep my waste to a minimum, I compost, I use canvas bags when I grocery shop, and I never buy plastic bags for my garbage. I just use bags that have somehow infiltrated my apartment. So with all that hard work I create maybe one small bag of trash per week, and throw it out in maybe one or two plastic bags. My concern though, is at work. They line the trash bins, which are at every desk. And even if I drop one tiny non perishable item into my trash, the next morning there is a nice clean new baggie in there. So for all that hard work at home, I am by no fault of my own probably going through several plastic bags per week at work, and multiple that times 50 employees, you can see the problem. My primary concern is me, I make an effort to keep waste down, so what should I do at work? Just not use my trash, thus making it so the cleaners don't pull the bag out and replace it?

Help sick people or vacation on Mars?

2007-11-20T09:34:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about this for a while. I was watching National Geographic or one of those similar channels, and they were talking about the whole travel into space thing, the possibility of sending tourists to the moon or Mars, and how many companies are working on developing technology for such things. My big question is why??? We have people dying around the world, we are destroying our planet, we are facing a crisis of massive proportion with global warming and overpopulation and destruction of necessary natural resources, so why in the world are people funneling millions of dollars into "space programs"? Shouldn't they be trying to develop ways to heal our sick, save our planet, or develop medicines or new technologies that can solve existing problems? Hell, I mean, we can't even live on this planet without destroying it, why should we be looking to send people onto another one? We're going to just end up destroying that one too.

Just me ranting

2007-11-08T15:15:00.000-08:00

From CNN

In a brutal echo of a 1993 battle involving Somali militias in which the bodies of U.S. troops were dragged through the streets, crowds Thursday shouted "God is great" as they pulled the bruised, bullet-riddled corpse through a dusty Mogadishu neighborhood.

I'm sorry but this is my problem with God and those who profess to love him. Do you see the irony in saying "God is Great" while dragging a "bruised, bullet-riddled corpse" down the street?

Obviously this is just an isolated incident and I understand it is not reflective of others, but seriously, this sort of shit happens way too often in the name of god. Maybe not to this extreme, but most of the problems in this world have something to do with religion, whether it be intolerance or something done in the name of faith.

Man, what is going on?

2007-10-23T15:12:00.000-07:00

Well, quite a bit actually. I took a killer road trip this weekend, from San Diego up the coast to San Francisco, and amazingly it was a great trip. We returned to find Southern California burning up. We were in Malibu on Friday night, and have since found out that the places we were burned down a short 36 hours later.

Now I'm supposed to be working, I'm able to "work from home" since they have recommended people don't go to the office if they don't need to. So basically I am sitting here watching the news, blogging, walking around aimlessly, and loading music onto my IPOD. But this has all got me thinking...

I swear I feel like a broken record sometimes, as anyone who has read my this for any amount of time knows, I really have a hard time going to work to sit in an office all day long. And this whole apocalyptic scenario just doesn't help. I find it incredibly hard to care about a business that is insignificant in the whole scheme of things, when 500,000 people in San Diego are being evacuated from their homes and the world around us is going to shit. I just don't know what the hell I want to do. There are so many things out there in the world that I'd like to be a part of, but at the same time none of them I am any more or less passionate about.

And I've been still spinning my wheels trying to figure out if I want to try to stay in San Diego since this whole separation with my wife. Do I want to travel? Do I want to quit my job and find something else that pays less but doesn't suck my soul out of me? Do I want to stay here, suck it up, keep my job and get back on my feet? Do I want to move somewhere else and find a job? Fuck if I know.

To make matters more confusing for me, I have recently found myself developing a little school boy crush on a girl that I am friends with who has a boyfriend, but just keeps seeming more amazing and flirty to me everyday.

WTF?

Do you wear makeup?

2007-10-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

After reading this ... you might think twice.

Feedburner?

2007-10-04T21:49:00.000-07:00

Is it just me or is feedburner incredibly complicated? I'm a computer geek and I can't figure any of it out. The only reason I even care about it is because I want to put Digg links into my feed, and it appears that from everyone else's feeds that I've seen, that happens through feedburner. I was able to edit my template to get the link in if you view the site, but I can't do it with the feed.

So I signed up, set up my feed, but now I want to redirect the others to it. It doesn't make any sense, the options that they say to use in Blogger don't exist in my account, I think it's because I have a custom template and publish to my own host, not blogspot.

Also, I can't find anywhere in my feedburner account that references how to add "digg" links. Man I feel like a retard right now.

No wonder why

2007-10-01T16:58:00.001-07:00

It sometimes seems that we live in a country full of idiots.

Breaking News in our major news media!

Am I wrong to take people at their word?

2007-09-30T17:23:00.000-07:00

It seems like when I actually take people at their word, I end up getting screwed over. When I was with my wife it would always happen. For instance, we would make a tentative plan, say, Saturday afternoon we'll go do such and such. Then come Saturday afternoon it would either be, "Oh, I don't really feel like doing that" or "I'm not feeling well." The I'm not feeling way thing is understandable, it happens ... but it happened all the time.

And now more recently, with one of me new friends it seems to be happening too. We'll talk, and say ok we'll meet up in an hour, then an hour and 20 minutes later I get a call saying "I'm not feeling well, I'll give you a call in a bit." I feel bad even complaining because it always works out fine and I enjoy spending time with these people, but still, how does it happen that within 1 hour of making plans you suddenly don't feel good? I just don't get it.

I mean, I flake sometimes or show up late, but whenever this happens I end up getting screwed over because I have this plan in my head and then it falls through and I've wasted my time.

My corporate observation for the week

2007-09-30T09:55:00.001-07:00

I know this is not a groundbreaking observation, but I have finally realized that in a corporate environment it is not about how much work you do, but more about the appearance of doing work. I saw this at my old job, and it seemed weird. There were some days that I would not be doing a damn thing, and I would go and ask my boss what I should be working on, and wouldn't really get an answer. So this led me to believe that they knew I had nothing to do. Yet I was still expected to stay in the office.

I also know how much I slack at different times during work hours. However, and I'm not just tooting my own horn here, people I've worked with always have considered me a great worker. I am reliable, and I get my stuff done, while at the same time managing to slack off quite a bit. But importantly, I keep up the appearance of doing work, and show concern with the quality of said work.

I finally put it all together when I read The 4 Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. The author describes these scenarios and how you can work them in your favor by removing yourself from the office environment. Which is when it finally dawned on my conclusively that it's not about the work you do, but the work which it appears you're doing.

An example is a project that you are given one week to do. You fit it into 40 hours, and finish by Friday afternoon and appear to have worked diligently. However, if the boss said, I want this done, and if it is done before Friday, you can take the rest of the week off, you can damn well bet that it would be done in 16 hours. It is a weird phenomenon, and one that since it rarely exists in offices, encourages slacking. Where is the incentive for me to get something done quicker if there is something else to follow it up, with no reward? This, combined with the fact that I am considered a great worker despite my own knowledge of how much I slack off, combined with my ability to keep up the appearance that I work diligently, lead to my conclusion that it matters not what you get done, but what it looks like you are doing.

Do you think diet affects allergies?

2007-09-28T14:37:00.000-07:00

I always see people who suffer terribly from allergies, and I often wonder ... what is the root cause of them? I am always suspicious because I have never really had allergies, I mean if I am sitting in a dust cloud, of course I get a sore throat and sniffles, but in general I've never had chronic allergies.

Am I lucky, or is there more to it? I really want to believe that diet plays a large part in this. Some people think that's crazy, but in general I feel like a large percentage of common ailments could be cured by change in diet. So could seemingly healthy people be causing their own allergies by eating food loaded with chemicals and pesticides and hormones? I think so, of course I have no proof otherwise nor am I a professional.

I do know that since I have changed my diet (I've always eaten healthy balanced meals) to be mostly organic, I very rarely get sick or tired, unless there is a very good reason. I have seen people who seem to be chronically sick go to McDonald's or Taco Bell for lunch in the middle of complaining that they don't feel well. I have also seen people who have chronic allergies drinking many sodas per day while eating candy bars for lunch, then go to the doctor for an allergy shot.

I really have no idea, but I do feel like most people look for a pill or some other sort of medicine before fixing the obvious, and I would like to believe that the way I take care of myself is at least part of the reason that I am healthy.

Oh this is good

2007-09-28T10:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.dooce.com/archives/nubbin/09_28_2007.html

Federal bill helps huge farmers, not California's innovative ones

2007-09-25T15:47:00.000-07:00

An interesting fact I saw in an article:

Federal bill helps huge farmers, not California's innovative ones
Carolyn Lochhead
San Francisco Chronicle Washington Bureau
Sunday, September 23, 2007

"Organic farming has breathtaking potential to improve the environment in ways only dimly understood by the American public and urban lawmakers. If you recycle or drive a Prius, consider this next time you go to a supermarket: One-quarter of California - 27.6 million acres - is farmland, much of it in the heavily polluted San Joaquin Valley. Agriculture covers 40 percent of the land in the United States. How food is grown on that land has big consequences for the air, waterways and wildlife. California now has more than 220,000 acres of certified organic cropland, more than any other state, but still a fraction of the total."

Tea

2007-09-17T12:00:00.000-07:00

I step in the door, see 3 people sitting around a tea kettle.

"Hey, how are you? I bought some of your tea at the market, so I figured I'd stop by and check the place out."

"Cool, would you like to sit down for some tea?"

Of course I would. It seems very inviting, and though the shop is extremely small, it's comfortable. In walks another guy who is friends of those already sitting.

"Sure..." I say, "Do you work here?"

"No, I just pour tea."

"This place sure is cozy huh?"

"Yea, it is."

"I like it in here, it's quiet and nice and chill."

"It is, isn't it? It has a really good vibe doesn't it?"

Random conversation ensues, probably half an hour passes. The energy is extremely positive, like I've never seen before. Four people sitting around drinking tea. 4 in the afternoon. Nothing negative, I didn't even feel like I shouldn't have been there.

"Do many people stop in here?"

"Some, a lot of people come to the window and look in then walk away. Some come in, they either sit for tea then get up right away to leave, or offer us money. We tell them, no, it's free. But some come in and stay ... like you ... I think people who are supposed to find this place find it."

An hour goes by. Another guy who actually does work there comes in. He sits. Talks about a vision he had of speaking with a cockroach. After about 40 minutes he finally realizes that he doesn't know me. We exchange introductions. Another 15 minutes later they begin a jam session.

Anyway, 2 hours later. I leave. What an interesting experience. And 5 blocks from my house.

Humility

2007-09-13T21:28:00.000-07:00

I was waiting for the bus after work, and generally there are at least a few homeless people hanging around by the bus stop. There were two women in particular who I see regularly, one of whom seems to have all her mental capacity, and always appears clean, however I have no doubt that she is homeless. Anyway, I saw her give the other woman who was in rough shape a sweatshirt. And I heard her say she'd give her another if she had it. It just blew my mind, not that I couldn't believe it, but it was amazing to see a woman who probably has nothing, give away the little that she had to help another woman in need.

You know what else ...

2007-09-12T19:51:00.000-07:00

... that I just realized?

I can hear the ocean from my apartment.

The farmer's market was tonight, I got some fresh whole leaf tea, and I'm in a wonderful mood.

I love it. I love it.

My wonderful little beach community

2007-09-12T09:25:00.000-07:00

Man, I absolutely love where I live ...

This is a random listing of the type of people I see on a daily basis in wonderful Ocean Beach, either just in my wanderings around the beach, or on the bus heading out to work.

Trendy Beach Types

Surfers

Tattooed skaters

Yuppies

Burly Bikers

Tourists

Homeless people

Crazy people

Old guys with white ponytails wearing tie dyes and birkenstocks

Backpackers

Normal working types

Barefoot hippies sporting dreads

Cutie bohemian girls

Joggers, cyclists, and volleyball players

Plenty of dogs and cats

And they are all friendly and tolerant.

Mountaintop Mining

2007-09-11T21:27:00.000-07:00

Terrible. This could quite possibly be being done to supply the electricity for your TV or computer (mountain tops blown off; coal removed; power plant burns coal; produces electricity; you buy it; powers your appliances)
Mountaintop Mining