The neat thing is that when you sign up you get a “Zipcard,” which serves as your key. If you need to use a car, you reserve it ahead of time, and then just walk up to the car with the Zipcard. It has an RFID which automatically unlocks the car.  The ignition key is affixed to the steering wheel.

The only catch is a $50 annual fee and a one-time $25 application fee.

They also have this great referral program (which in no way influenced my decision to blog about this). If you click the link above, I get $25 credit, and so do you. So, in a sense, I’ve paid your application fee for you.

Health

• To run a 5k two to three times during the week, and a 10k every weekend.

Spirit

• To spend at least 30 minutes each day praying, meditating, studying the Psalms, and journaling.
• To find a spiritual community.

Work

• To take time each week to learn what one other person at the company does, and how.
• To keep better records of the work that I do each day.

Home

• To keep things a bit more clean.
• To add more variety to my cooking.

Play

• To work on my electronics projects for at least two hours each week.
• To start taking photographs again.
• To do more reading (like on the subway).
• To blog more often.

Friends

• To spend more time getting to know my roommates and their friends.
• To write more letters and make more phone calls, particularly to my friends in El Salvador.

Family

• To call my parents and my brother more often.

Love

• To talk more often about more things with Melinda.
• To figure out new and better ways to express to Melinda how much I love her.

Since we actually do like these things and wish it could still be cool to enjoy them, we make substitutions. For instance, instead of watching a few hours of television each day, we spend a few hours on youtube. Instead of listening to popular music that everyone knows is bad, we listen to music no one has ever heard of, so they won’t know that it’s actually no good.

When all is said and done, we then have to make an obligatory statement along the lines of: “I make these choices because I am a self-actualized individual; it has nothing to do with popular culture or social pressures.” Of course, in actuality, watching or not watching the coolest show, listening or not listening to the coolest music, and all other such either/or choices are just opposite sides of the same coin. The truth is that humans are social creatures and can’t really do or not do anything without society having had some influence over it. We either do it because we feel some pressure to do so, or because we feel some pressure not to do so. And then we talk about what we did or didn’t do on facebook.

Really the only reason I am saying any of this is because I am about to ridicule a very “popular” activity, and I would like everyone to know that I am fully aware that the reason I feel comfortable doing so is because in certain circles the very fact that I reject it makes me cool. Once I have finished ridiculing it, I will then proceed to do it. This also makes me cool because I will be doing it because I want to, not because anybody told me to. So since I can be cool for doing or not doing it, and I will not do it and then do it, I will be twice as cool.

The “it” to which I am referring is… New Year’s Resolutions.

I think New Year’s Resolutions are a dumb idea. If you have decided that a certain change is necessary for your life or beneficial in some way, why wait until the beginning of a year to start? Rather than thinking of each year as an opportunity to make positive changes, we should see each day as an opportunity to do so.

That said, I am going to begin preparing my list of New Year’s Resolutions for my next blog post, because I actually do think it’s a good idea, but I’m doing it just for myself, not because of external pressures. This is obvious, since I’ll be waiting for a few weeks after the start of the new year to post them. Which couldn’t possibly have anything to do with being lazy.

See how cool I am?

The Dimas family house

I received this note yesterday from one of the Salvadorans who works for the Peace Corps. Later, another staff member sent me an email with photos of my host family’s house. She said she had spoken to Priscilla, who had asked if I could send some of the pictures I had taken of Kevin. She has lost everything, and just wanted to see a photo of her son.

Kevin Josué Saravia

Two familiar organizations working to provide disaster relief are Compassion International and World Vision. Both are Christian organizations which connect Americans to Salvadorans through child sponsorship programs. In the aftermath of Sunday’s flooding and landslides, they are working to provide basic necessities to affected families in those communities which were hardest hit, including Verapaz. I have provided the links to their websites if you are interested in contributing to their efforts. A donation of even $25 can help to provide a needy family with food and water through the coming days as they struggle to get back on their feet.

Compassion International

World Vision

Thank you once again for your continued support.

In a newspaper article (in Spanish), it was reported that David, Emma’s husband, spent Saturday night in his corn field, as the heavy rains prevented him from traveling home. The landslide struck in the middle of the night, but he was able to make his way to safety. When he returned home, neighbors informed him that his daughter, Priscilla (Kevin’s mother), had escaped by climbing onto rooftops, but her condition and whereabouts were unknown. The bodies of his mother and his father-in-law were found inside the house. Still unaccounted for were Emma, her mother, her grandson Kevin, and Kevin’s father.

Later, I was sent a video report (in Spanish) from another newspaper; Kevin’s body had been found several miles downstream from Verapaz. Emma’s mother’s body had also been found in the house since the previous article was published. Emma’s neighbors confirmed that she was in the house the night of the landslide. There is little reason to believe that her body will not be found shortly. Kevin’s father often worked out of town, so he may not have been home when the landslide struck.

The video showed a few glimpses of Kevin’s funeral. His Aunt Nuria, who lived in San Salvador, was in attendance. Nuria’s son Rafael was very close to Kevin. David was also in attendance, and very distraught.

I thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers.

Verapaz, El Salvador

If you have been following the news out of El Salvador, you may have noticed that one town has been receiving the most coverage; Verapaz. For the first three months I was in El Salvador serving with the Peace Corps, I lived in this town.

The moment I saw the headlines, I picked up the phone to call the family I had lived with. I’ve been sending text messages to other friends since I got back, but just this week I figured out how to get an affordable phone card with a good connection to call my host family.

As I waited, almost breathless, the phone on the other end just rang. I tried again several times over the next few hours, but no one picked up.

I started sending out e-mails to Peace Corps staff, trying to see if anyone knew the extent of the situation. Late Sunday night, I heard from a volunteer who had lived with the same family after me. Peace Corps staff had informed him that the family was missing, and presumed dead.

An e-mail the following morning confirmed:

I don’t have much detail about your host family in Verapaz, but [Peace Corps] staff went yesterday to Verapaz and confirmed the terrible news. The house (actually the two buildings in the family property) was destroyed by the landslide; Noé told me that just pieces of walls were still in place.

Neighbors confirmed that Doña María Emma was in her house on Saturday night when the tragedy occurred. They have found one of her grand-daughter’s body, a man’s body as well (one of her relatives), but they have not found [Emma's] body yet [...]

There are not many people in town. They are all over in “albergues” [shelters]. Tomorrow, as [Peace Corps] we are sending some food and clothes to the Training Communities [communities where volunteers live during the 10 week training period]. Authorities are not letting unauthorized people pass to affected areas due to unsafe road conditions [...]

When I visited the family in June, there were eight people living in the two houses; Niña Emma, who was my “host mom,” and her husband David shared one house with Emma’s parents, who had moved in a few months prior after their other son, who had been caring for them, passed away unexpectedly. Emma and David’s daughter Priscilla and her husband lived in the other house with their son Kevin, who was eight years old, and my constant companion when I lived with them. David’s mother also lived in this house.

In addition to doing the bulk of the cooking and cleaning for these seven people, Emma was also heavily involved at the Catholic church, and was well known among her neighbors as someone who could be called upon for a helping hand.

And, about twice a year, Emma opened her home to young, bewildered foreigners who had little ability to communicate with her and no understanding of her culture; that is, Peace Corps volunteers in training, such as myself. I lived under Emma’s roof for nearly three months, and she took care of me the same way she did any other member of her family. She cooked all of my meals, packing lunches for me to bring to the training center. For the majority of my stay, she washed my clothes for me, as I was too busy trying to learn Spanish; eventually, she went through the arduous process of trying to teach me how to do it myself. I was a horribly slow student. Once, on a weekend when the family had planned a rare excursion to a water park, she stayed behind to take care of me, as I had a stomach bug. It would have been her only vacation that year.

She willingly and gladly accepted this responsibility, and had done so for several years; in the evenings, we would often sit and talk about the 15 other volunteers who had stayed at the house prior to me. She believed in what the Peace Corps stood for, and was proud to support us in the work that we did.

In these conversations, we would also talk about the difficulties that she and her family had lived through. They had moved to Verapaz from the country in the late 90s, toward the end of El Salvador’s devastating civil war, when most other families had fled to safer areas. In the depressed years after the war, she and her husband struggled to establish their family.

She told me how on the afternoon of February 13th, 2001, she and her mother-in-law, the only ones home at the time, stepped out of the house to buy tortillas just moments before a 6.6 earthquake struck, causing the house to collapse behind them, and killing dozens of their neighbors.

But on Sunday night, it seems that they were not as fortunate.

The news has been hard to deal with, and though there is a shred of hope left due to the lack of details, it is a shred I am reluctant to grab hold of, as the details are grim; no one was expecting the landslide, which struck in the middle of the night, while the entire family was home. I am awaiting more news from the Peace Corps, and a current volunteer who also lived with the family is trying to get in touch with other relatives, to see what news they have.

Emma and me in 2007

In the meantime, I would ask you to consider making a donation to Aid El Salvador, an organization founded in 2004 by a former Peace Corps volunteer, which is currently working to provide emergency relief in Verapaz and the other communities which were most affected by the disaster.

I know that if she were able, Emma would be out in the streets right now, doing whatever she could to keep her family and neighbors sheltered, dry, and fed. The greatest way I can think to honor her memory is to support those who can do that same work in her absence.

A few weeks ago, I picked up my copy of Backspacer. I was particularly interested in having it as early as possible, as I’ll want to be familiar with all the songs by October 31, when I will be attending my first ever Pearl Jam concert thanks to my wonderful fiancé Melinda, who bought me a pair of tickets for my birthday.

The album opens with a three-song progression powerful as that from Vitalogy. “Gonna See My Friend” expresses frustration with the wrongness of the world in punk tones; the hard-rocking “Got Some” expresses ability to change that wrongness; and in “The Fixer,” the album’s first single, Eddie screams out his determination to “put a bit of fixing on it.”

Track four, “Johnny Guitar” is one of five songs about love and relationships. In the first verse, Eddie expresses jealousy of a rockstar who is always surrounded by beautiful women. By the end of the song, we see that the rockstar is Eddie himself, and he is jealous of the fact that his own rockstar alter ego is more attractive to the woman he loves than who he is on the inside.

“Just Breathe,” follows and goes even deeper. It could arguably be called Pearl Jam’s first genuine love song:

Did I say that I need you?
Did I say that I want you?
Oh, if I didn’t I’m a fool you see,
No one knows this more than me
As I come clean

Next comes “Amongst the Waves,” a ballad drawing parallels between love and surfing. The seventh track closes another three-song progression; first came the deep emotion of “Just Breathe,” followed by the carefree love of “Amongst the Waves.” “Unthought Known,” which may prove to be the album’s greatest song, closes it off with a breathtaking crescendo.

“Supersonic” recalls the punk rhythm of the first track, but lyrically continues in the optimism of “Unthought Known.” Next comes “Speed of Sound,” which, along with “Just Breathe,” seems heavily influenced by the time Eddie spent writing the soundtrack for Into the Wild. While the guitars in “Force of Nature” re-hash the style of the band’s first two albums, Eddie compares the relationship between a man and a woman to that of a ship in a storm and a lighthouse on the shore, wondering if love will be powerful enough to reunite the two. The album ends with “The End,” Eddie’s final refection on love, expressing gratefulness despite feelings of regret at the end of a relationship.

Altogether, the album comes through solidly—a rock trio opens in classic Pearl Jam style, followed by a trio of songs about love, capped off by the powerfully optimistic “Unthought Known.” The next part falters a bit; “Supersonic” is just too peppy to be juxtaposed with the trio of more introspective songs which follow. But this is small complaint against the strength of the songs themselves.

I often find that one of the best ways to judge an album is by playing the first track again immediately after hearing the whole thing for the first time. In the case of Backspacer, the energy of “Gonna See My Friend” reminds the listener of the depth of the album’s positive tone after Eddie’s voice has faded into silence on “The End.”

The same principle applies to Pearl Jam’s whole musical career as well—having so thoroughly enjoyed Backspacer, I listened my way through their other albums with a renewed appreciation for the way they have interpreted themselves in the past 18 years. The optimism of this newest effort seems much more genuine once reminded of the difficult topics addressed in earlier albums.

So on October 31^st, when I’m standing beside Melinda at the concert in Philly, and the lights go up, I’ll be just as ecstatic to recognize the opening notes of an old favorite as I would one of the songs off Backspacer.

I remember the day, about 12 years ago, that my brother came into the family room to play a song for me off a CD he’d just bought. The album was Yield by Pearl Jam, which a friend of his had recommended. The song was “Wishlist,” and he was mesmerized by it.

I was 13 at the time, and hadn’t really begun to get into music. But I filed that song away as a cool tune to be included on mellow mixes from time to time. Through high school, I acquired a few more Pearl Jam tunes, but didn’t pay much attention to them otherwise.

When I got to college, I got a job, and since I didn’t have a local bank, I always cashed the checks when I got paid every other week. This was bad for my spending habits, but helpful in other (perhaps less important) areas of my life. On Friday or Saturday nights when there was nothing to do on campus, we’d go out, usually ending up at Starbucks. After getting our drinks, we’d wander over to the record store. One night I browsed my way to Pearl Jam, and found they had a used copy of Ten, the first album, for $6. I recognized a few of the track titles, and decided to buy it.

Pearl Jam's second album, Vs.

I’d heard many of the songs before, but never together as an album. I was intrigued. When I got paid again two weeks later I went back to the record store, and bought Vs, their second album. I was the only one of my friends with a car at the time, so I always drove—and they always listened to my music. While they agreed that Pearl Jam was a good band, I’m sure I pushed their limits as I played “Rearviewmirror” and “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town” over and over again, and then included them on mix after mix.

But it wasn’t until the following payday that I really got hooked, when I picked up a copy of Vitalogy. “Better Man” was the only title I recognized on the track listing, so as I put the CD in I thought that maybe I’d already bought the best PJ had to offer. But 55 and a half minutes later, I realized that I was dead wrong, and that I had found the greatest rock album I ever hoped to listen to. From the cacophonous opening racket on “Last Exit” to the slowly fading interference in the last moments of “Foxymophandlemama,” I was mesmerized.

Pearl Jam's third album, Vitalogy

The album opens with four of the hardest-rocking Pearl Jam songs to date, pausing for a break with “Nothingman.” “Pry, to” gives a hint that something odd is coming, but you have to wait until after “Corduroy” (the number five hardest-rocking Pearl Jam song) to get to “Bugs,” a spoken-word, accordion-accompanied, schizophrenic manifesto. It’s off-the-charts weird, but sets the stage for the rest of the album; four songs combining musical experimentation, catchy-like-velcro riffs, and thoughtfully melancholic lyrics. The final track would be nothing on its own, but the monotony of the interference, sound-bytes, and cymbal crashes in “Foxymophandlemama” couldn’t be a better way to end the album.

With Vitalogy in my system, I couldn’t stop. I bought No Code, and was intrigued by it’s philosophical musings and introspective reflections. I bought Yield (the album my brother had shared with me) and found that it’s thoughtful mellowness, punctuated with a couple of hard rockers, was like the flip side of the Vitalogy coin. I bought Binaural, which felt just as ethereal as the pictures in the liner notes of quasars, nebulae, and distant galaxies.

By the time Riot Act made me realize I was the “Love Boat Captain,” I was all caught up on Pearl Jam history, and ready for whatever came next. As I waited, I picked up Lost Dogs, a collection of rarities and B-sides, and Rearviewmirror, the Pearl Jam greatest hits CD.

Pearl Jam's eighth, self-titled, album

In 2006, the wait ended with the release of their self-titled album. It was the first album I was buying on release day, and I was ecstatic. The political bent of the lyrics harked back to Riot Act, the previous album, but the musical style seemed to draw from Pearl Jam’s entire history. The first five tracks are riff-laden rockers, reminiscent of the first two albums, while showing the boldness of Vitalogy. The next few tracks are more laid-back, showing the maturity of Yield. Two five-minute-plus jazz-influenced ballads close the album beautifully. All together, it sounds like a revisionist history of Pearl Jam—13 tracks interpreting the music the band had written in their 20s from a 40-something perspective. Perhaps this is why the album is self-titled.

But despite its success, I knew they could do better. Pearl Jam is still overloaded with the political message which had pushed musical excellence to the side in Riot Act, even as it starts to show a renewed sense of optimism. The rocking songs lacked the earnestness of the tracks they echoed from the earlier albums, and the optimistic tracks didn’t seem to fit quite right with the rest.

After Pearl Jam, I felt that the band could go one of two ways—either they’d close the books on their history by retiring with this wonderful yet timid album—or they’d set it down as a milestone as they pressed on. As I awaited their next move, I feared they’d choose the former.

“Happy” can’t be a good translation, I thought. To get a different perspective, I checked a couple of Spanish versions. I had learned that the word for “blessed” is “bendito,” so I expected to read “Benditos los que lloran.” Literally, “Blessed are those who cry.”

But this is what the text says: “Bienaventurados los que lloran.”

“Bienaventurado” is not a word I am familiar with.” “Bien” means “good” or “well,” “aventura” means “adventure” or simply “venture.” But taken together, the meaning does seem to be a lot closer to “fortunate” or even “happy” than “blessed.”

“Happy are the sad…” I left it at that, and started digging in to the second half of the saying; “…for they shall be comforted.” In the gospel of Luke, a distinct version of the beatitudes is recorded. In his version, Jesus concludes the statement by saying, “For [they] shall laugh.”

Laugh? Sure enough, in every English version I could find and a few Spanish versions, the word is “laugh.”

Taking this with the first half, a somewhat unscholarly interpretation of Jesus’ saying would be:

“Happy are the sad, because they will laugh.”

The next time you attend a funeral, ask yourself, “What Would Jesus Do?” Then run up to the family of the deceased, grab them by the shoulders, and excitedly proclaim, “I am so happy that you are so sad!” Surely they’ll start laughing right away.

If I were Jesus, I would have said, “It’s OK that you’re sad right now, because after a while the pain will start to fade, and you’ll find reasons to laugh again.” But what Jesus said was, “It is good that you are sad.”

At the very beginning of his first recorded sermon ever, Jesus says, “Happy are the sad.” “Black equals white.” “Zero equals one.” If this is wisdom, then surely I am a fool.

I would like to say that this is Jesus’ point here–just to catch us off guard. But I have a sneaking suspicion that he actually means what he says, and that if I could understand how, I would begin to see the kingdom of God.