NYC update

I haven't posted for a while because I've been crazy busy and way too tired to do anything after work. But, tonight I realized that I should put some updates before I forget.

First, I've been driving around one of my boss's cars. I don't particularly like having to drive places only because the subway is faster sometimes, but I like the driving itself. But, today I managed to either get his car stolen or lost. I have been calling a few of the dozen or so numbers to call and checking online and it hasn't been reported in anywhere yet. Hopefully it's stolen so I don't have to pay an outrageous fine.

Fortunately I had a nice day at the beach and a BBQ in my friends back yard in the South Bronx yesterday, so I wasn't crazy exhausted while dealing with the car thing this evening.

I haven't left the office before 8 for the last week at least. Friday I was there till midnight trying to resolve a problem with one of the events we had. The guy who was supposed to organize it lied and is apparently a flake so John and I had to gather media contacts and local contacts for people to invite to an impromtu event as well as make sure the 13 people on that bus had a place to stay and eat. That's the short version.

Last week John had an immigration meeting in CA and Manolo and Alison both left to be speakers on the routes so I was the only one in the office doing the caravan work. It was insane. I think I had my ear away from a phone for a collective 30 minutes from 9 in the morning to 8 at night and every moment was spent multi tasking. It was kinda fun in a strange way.

Saturday i went to the post office and as I walked out I saw something I haven't seen here before. Some dude tried to steal this lady's purse. She wasn't gonna give it up and fortunately two enormous dudes were right there. A bunch of other people helped them wrestle the guy to the ground and he was screaming as if they were the ones doing something wrong.

Then, at the bbq last night a ton of teen kids were playing ball on the courts next to this school and suddenly out of all of their fun a fight broke out. It seemed like every person was fighting. That was pretty insane.

Other than that, I managed to stay at this nice place in Brooklyn up until the day I leave and I'm stoked. I'm a little bummed that I'm already leaving in 4 days though.

New York City!

I arrived in New York City yesterday to do another month this summer working in the office for the organization that I go to Cuba with. I'm staying in Brooklyn for these first two weeks. I have a place in a rad little neighborhood close to rad pubs, a Trader Joe's, and two blocks from the subway. The ride to work is about 30-40 minutes as opposed to the 20 minute walk last year, but it is good reading time so I'm still stoked.

I have a nice back garden and an entire apartment to myself. I'm right across from a fire station and I have a door that can stay open at night--I like the white noise of the city. It helps me sleep well. In two weeks or so I have to move to south-west harlem, and harlem is where I want to be anyway, partially because there is lots of diversity and it's way closer to the office I'm working in.

Last night when I arrived I had the thought that it would be fun to show up to my first day in the office dressed as a dutch-reform woman, but all of the thrift stores were closed so that didn't work out. I did get volunteered to do a radio PSA tomorrow, so that's interesting. I also might end up driving a box-truck on one of the 14 routes that go through the US. We'll see about that one.

It's a safer neighborhood than I was in last year...for a white guy that is. Again, that's part of the reason I'd rather be in Harlem. Nonetheless, it's a good place, free, and has a garden with a fish pond (plus three turtles).

I worked from 10 to 7:30 this first day. That's the reason I'm up at 1 am writing this blog. It's nice to have plenty of time to unwind no matter how late you work. Sleep will come someday. When, I don't know.

As of now, that's it. I'll definitely have to post some pictures of this place before I leave. Ha! -- I've said that before.

Use the whole pig. There is this stuff called crackling. It's crispy pig fat. Good hot, not so much cold. I've had it homemade and it was ok. Yesterday I bought in a bag, like crisps, and i thought I was going to vomit all over everyone around me. It's good to see that it doesn't go to waste though.

I woke up this morning to the sound of my door brushing across the carpet, followed by a "RRRRROOOOBBBBB!!!!!!" It was Joseph coming to see if I was still sleeping. With that tactic he should have figured out by now that I'm never asleep when he does that. Apparently 8:30 in the morning is play time. I had no idea.

So, he likes to use my window as a pirate's den. He can yell out to the neighborhood and kinda feel like he's outside because it's a low hung skylight. I was pretty much still in the mood to sleep, but he was obviously having fun so I didn't want to disturb that. It didn't stop me from sleeping. Eventually he jumped on me and woke me up. I asked, "why on earth did you come up here." "because I wanted to see you." Aaaahhh. What a cute little terror.

I'll miss that. I'm not really looking forward to going back to the states. When I left I wasn't sad because I knew that I'd see everyone in a few months. Many of the friends that I've made here I won't see for at least a few years, if ever. I certainly won't miss the weather. I won't miss the coffee one bit. But I will definitely miss the ale. I will miss the Royal Oak.

My friend Justin played last night at the Oak. He's really really good, but pretty much just plays for fun. Well, he likes to have fun when he's playing, so he tailors the songs he plays to the crowd. Sometimes its a sing along, other times there's a naked man running around pretending to be Guenevere from the Camelot story.

Pints of ale here are served by pump, not pressurized tap. Today I'm going to get to pull my own pint. I'm stoked.

I have one paper left to edit. Everything else is finished. It's nice to know that I never have to write a paper again unless I choose to. Also, I can finally read for fun.

Wednesday was a great day. It was sunny, Lola and I took the kids to the park. Me and Joseph were racing on the way back and we had to slow down because of a man on a bike (which turned out to be his dad) and Joseph stopped paying attention and fell. It was a good fall. He has a nice mark on his face now.

Yesterday was better than most. The bad thing about English weather is not that it rains all the time but that it constantly threatens. It's as if there's a villain outside waiting to blast you in the face with a water canon right as you walk out the door. "Oh man, it looks like weather. I'm not sure I want to get stuck out in the rain." The next morning you wake up and it never rained. You realize that you've wasted the entire day indoors. That is normal English weather. Yesterday it really rained, that was a nice change.

Today is a nice day. But not so much a good day. It's my penultimate day here. I only have two more nights to hang out with my friends. I have one paper to finish. Lola seems a bit frustrated today so I might take Joseph off her hands for a bit if she wants me to. I don't envy here sometimes. But, man she's a killer cook.

I'm not stoked about leaving.

The lost post - no, not Ireland or italy

THIS IS WHAT I STARTED TO WRITE ABOUT TWO WEEKS AGO WHEN I RETURNED TO BATH.

On Wednesday I caught a train from Seville to Malaga...a town on the Mediterranean coast. As I was laying out on the beach (that's right, tanning like girls do...minus the bikini) I looked over and saw a thermometer sign that said 29 degrees celcius (85 F). Within 3 or 4 hours I was back in England. It was cold and wet! The day before Lola invited me to Hugo's christening but the flights were too expensive so I told her unless I changed my mind about paying that much that I probably wouldn't be coming. I slept at a friend's house in London that night, took a train to school the next morning, then went home and did some homework. The whole I time was missing Spain a lot. The weather didn't bother me here until I went to Spain and got a reminder of what warmth is like. As soon as Ian got home from work we started talking about Spain and the christening and how it was too bad I wasn't going to be able make it. Then I decided that I didn't care. So, next week I'm going back to Spain to enjoy the sunshine, friends, and the food.

Before that, I spent about 9 days working on a little farm. This lady Angela I was staying with was a rad lady. She had good food, a nice room for me to stay in, and all the beer that I could want. The stone workers that worked for her would start at 8 take a break for breakfast and beer at 10 work til about 1 or 2, return at 3 then work til 5. In a day they drank about 12-14 beers. It was a great work culture I thought. One friend told me that if the spanish aren't offered beer when they work they won't work much. I built a chicken coup out of used materials, some removable screens for her window in the bug season, and did a bit of garden work. All in all I had a great time.

Almost every night I went down into town, about a kilometer away, to a bar called cafe jardin. The first night I went in there I met these English dudes. The thing about the European Union is that you can go to any member country and work, own property, whatever. So, one of them had come as a wwoofer (the organic farm thing I was doing) about 10 years ago and stayed, had a kid, bought property, and is just there now. For the rest of the week we all hung out almost every night after I was done working on Angela's place. I went to a rad hippie party with then and all kinds of other things. It was a blast.

On a monday I took a train to seville and got a hostel. I met up with Lola and her friend one night, then hung out with the kids (baby Hugo and Joseph) then went out again that last night I was there. I managed to arrive in Seville during Semana Santa (holy week -- the week before easter) in time to see the processions. Basically, there is one cathedral and tons of smaller churches. Each church has a float that represents some point in the biblical story of Jesus. These things are huge...many of them take 40 guys to carry them. They are accompanied by music, marchers that look like KKK members, and all sorts of other things depending on the church. They march from their church to the main cathedral and back. Often it's more than a 20 km walk which takes maybe 24 hours of so. It's nuts. Even if you're not a religious person you can't help but be a little moved by the art and ceremony of it.

From there I went to Malaga, the beach, and the bad weather of England -- as the story begins.

Below are pictures. I didn't feel like taking the time to add caption or give the narrative journey by pictures as I normally do. Go ahead and make up your own captions.

The first NINE are of ORgiva, the others are from Seville and MAlaga

more on politics

That last post about what's really going on with the world got me to thinking about all kinds of things that governments do. Now, I'm going to be talking about politicians here but I do not mean to make politicians the bad guys and not governments. The job of the government is simply to perpetuate itself. The politician is simply a tool. Now, that leaves the question of who the government is if the politician is just a tool for it. I could answer that but I'll let you think about it.

The more time I've spent over here the more I've begun to hate the British government. Recently there was a scandal where Members of Parliament were using legally allocated money for their living and travel expenses to enrich themselves if they live outside of the main London area. One woman claimed her sister's house as her primary residence and got something like 100,000 pounds per year for it even though it was not her primary home. Her real house would have gotten her significantly less.

Gordon Brown's statement was that the law for this kind of compensation needs to reduce the compensation and ensure that it cannot be abused to assure the voting masses that MPs "serve the public and not themselves." Well Mr. Brown, when a vast majority of people resent the fact that your government is closing down all of the post offices, you're not serving them. When you install CCTV virtually everywhere, you're controlling the population through fear of reprisal not serving them. When you allow the National Health Service to revoke the credentials of a nurse who secretly filmed abuse and neglect of elderly patients due to institutional failures, you are not serving the public. I'm amazed to say it, but the government here is worse than the government in the United States.

One thing I miss is the ability to talk cops and border agents however I wish. Although the constitution is a giant pile of crap, it serves me some good in that way. Here, I do not have nearly the same freedom as I do in the US in terms of that. However, encounters with the police are much rarer here. I don't think I've ever seen a cop pull anyone over and the only people I've seen them stop are people who are blatantly drunk and causing problems. And as a side note, they aren't allowed to carry guns or tasers, only mace and a truncheon (beating stick).

That's not to say that I like the US...even though the gods sent Obama to clean things up. First of all, and I've mentioned this before, his economic team is on the side of the wealthy elite, not the other 95% of Americans. Those guys have made an absolute fortune on Wall Street -- of course the plans they have developed involve no risk for the companies and no benefit for the tax payers. More than that, I recently read that Obama's new budget is going to actually increase military spending by 4%. The navy is going to get a bunch of this to fight a new enemy with some fancy speed boats -- PIRATES! I've said it before and I will say it again. WE CREATED THOSE PIRATES!! They first began pirating when chemical companies began dumping waste off the Somali shore because the "government" there had no ability whatsoever to patrol the shore with the chaos we destabilized, then started to fix then, tragically bailed on.


There's more than just pirates and rich bastards but I'll leave those for another time. For now, I'm going to write a few of my several final papers and work on a post about Spain with a ton of pictures. To the bar!!

The News

The news in the UK is absolutely flooded with the news of that ship captain who was recently released. Before that? It was all about how there is an American captain being held by pirates. Apparently when the navy people finally did their little offensive and got the captain back they killed three of the pirates. Something that is most likely being overlooked by most people is that in each statement by any pirates there, they start off by saying that they are only interested in the ransom mainly because life in Somalia is hard and this is a way that they can make money. Let me remind you that to a great extent we did that to them. In fact, our miserable failure there is the reason that your president Clinton sat by and refused to call the genocide that was going on in Rwanda exactly that.

The other thing I have to say about this is that IT DOES NOT MATTER!!! You have a president now who is giving a shit load of money to the exact corporations who got the US, and the world for that matter, into the mess they're in now. There are workers all over the country who make barely enough to live on -- not because of this whole financial mess, but before this. In fact, the majority of workers, in order to afford a place for their families to live. But, while Obama is pretending to get stuff done by saying 'it's in the right timeframe of the plan he laid out in his campaign', which somehow has a great pacifying effect, the financial advisors he hired are helping out their wallstreet friends. Anyone who thinks that each tiny upsurge in the market is a sign of improvement is an idiot. Let me digress a bit to say that at least he is putting some restrictions (though not many) so that the tax payers won't completely lose out unless the whole system absolutely collapeses...this is more than I can say for what I think the other guy would have done. And back to it. Even if things do get better financially the suffering has already occurred and it will continue to occur as long as people are forced to accept that the value of their lives can be determined by money.

Orgiva! La Vida BUENA!!

So, I'm in a small village about 40 kilometers from the Mediterranean right now called Orgiva. I'm here with a lady named Angela. She's been living here for 3 years and was in another part of Spain for several years. She English and lives here off her pension that she earned from working as a social worker for over 30
years.
This period before Easter is when Spain goes off. Yesterday, the day I arrived in Orgvia, was the day to celebrate the town's saint -- I don't know who it is and I didn't get the impression that many people in the town did either. The celebration was with fireworks and a huge procession of people carrying a big display of Jesus and one of Mary (dude's mom, not the hooker). Everyone in the town was there. As soon as Jesus came out of the cathedral this giant chain of firecrackers went off outside this little pub we were in. The windows were taped because they've learned that the noise is so intense that it even blows out the windows in the back of the place unless they're taped.


The procession went on until 2 in the morning as did the fireworks. Every time the procession stopped there were fireworks to greet it. It would stop at every crossroads and the fireworks went off to keep the evil spirits away. Plus each little neighborhood had their own display. Some were poppers some were Disneyland style fireworks.
















The it sounded like a war zone and it didn't look much different, minus the dead people...well, Jesus and Mary were there.











One of the coolest things was seeing all of the people there. I guess it's kind of like Santa Cruz on Halloween or New Years but fewer stabbings and less belligerent people (although they certainly had their share of "communion cervesa"). Plus the party wasn't contained to streets, anyone with a balcony, including the dentist office, had people up to celebrate.




Jesus at night was pretty impressive, but it really seemed like the main event was the firework -- no offense to the right hand man of course.




















Here's a view from Angela's house. Well, two. The second one at night is way rad. Click on the second one to see a big version. You can see the smoke...all of that is smoke, no clouds. Plus you can see the silhouette of the hill in the background. Now, past that hill on the right is how to get to the sea. Hopefully I'll get a chance to go there.

On the Road

Well, tomorrow I'm off to Spain for nearly two weeks. I'll be working on a farm for a bit just south of Granada. Depending how long I stay I'll make my way to the coast for a few days then up to Seville. Lola and the boys are visiting her family there so if I end up there I'll probably swing by and see them.

I've been lagging on updating my blog with pictures and stuff. At some point I'll put up some pictures of Ireland and Milan.

I'm bringing my running shoes and can't wait to run in some nice warm weather.

I didn't think that I was endowed with the emotion of excitement until I realized the other day that I get to be in the sun. If you experienced the weather here you'd understand how that can be exciting.

A night with the Gypos

So, I relay to whoever is paying attention to this a report that is out of chronological order. I should be telling about my weekend in Dublin but something else way funner (excuse the lack of proper english) that happened tonight. I've made this group of friends who I love here in Bath. We always have talks are of history and philosophy and it's always a good time.

Tonight, though, a few gypsies (watch the movie SNATCH to know what I'm talking about) were hanging out at the pub tonight. They were perfectly fine until they stole my hat. My hat is my "kick ass red knit cat" that I wear most of the year. It's become a trademark here in Bath just as it is in the US.

As we were hanging outside these gypsie guys took my hat off my head and continued to walk on. They wouldn't give it back. After walking a few blocks trying to get it from them I punched the bigger one with the dog in the face to stun him, ran up to the other and took my hat off his head -- it was an opportunity that made itself available so I took it...the timing couldn't have been better. This entire time the police were riding along side because they saw the commotion going on but didn't do anything about it. So, while the one guy was stunned I took my hat off the other guy's head and ran so they wouldn't beat me up for stealing MY hat from them.

Fortunately I run fast so they couldn't keep up with me. Now I have my hat. The cop who was watching the whole thing simply turned around and headed back into town. I actually had a conversation with the cop but he was unwilling to do anything for some reason that is unknown to me.

On my way back to the pub a few friends were walking towards the mess to help me out but since it was already taken care of we headed back. Basically, I fought a gypsie, stole from him, and managed to have a good rest of the night.

That was pretty amazing.

and so the story goes...

I should be studying for a midterm right now but I've had enough of the damn British empire for a little bit.

So, I finally have my plans for spring break figured out -- I'll be spending two weeks on an organic farm in souther Spain. I'm heading off to Dublin next weekend and the weekend before spring break I'll be heading to Milan.

A few weeks ago we visited London, I may have already put something up about that. This is a picture of Big Ben. It's really not all that exciting. We got a tour of Westminster Palace, that was neat. Last Thursday we went to Oxford. We took a tour of Christ Church College. It's where they guy who wrote Alice in Wonderland taught and where the stuff in the book was inspired from. It's also where the first few Harry Potter films were made...some of the people in my class were way too excited about that part. I knew there is a reason that I think San Jose State is a mediocre pile of crap for a school and that set it in stone. Then again, there's people back home who I really like who might be just as excited so maybe I shouldn't be too hard on 'em.

As for school, it's going pretty well but I have a lot of reading that I can't really get done. So I'm just picking the stuff that actually interests me and going with that. I don't recall if I've posted the courses I'm taking: the history of Empire, a self-guided study/history of anarchist thought, anthropology (we go around to neat stuff in England on Thursdays), and a class on novels. After spring break the dude expects us to read a 600 page novel along with bits of a critique of it within two and a half weeks. This wouldn't be too bad if I didn't have all of the other reading and research papers. With that, I'm a little frustrated with school part but everything else is good.

Pictures!
This is the River Avon that goes through Bath.








This is what it looked like in my back garden when it snowed.















this is their version of living on a boat













this is the intersection I live near...i just thought it was a nice picture.












apparently they even have graffiti in quaint little Bath. I think it's supposed to be George W.







My hat's a hit everywhere. I even met a girl at the Royal Oak one night who was a friend of a friend and she says she always see 'the hat guy' all over town. It's nice.

Separated by a Common Language

this is Bath from a distance...i actually thought the photo would be much bigger. Oops.

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One of my professors likes the joke that UK and America are two nations separated by a common language. The funny thing about that is that it's a little bit true. The classic difference is that they call french fries 'chips'. So, what then do they call chips...as in potato chips? Crisps. Then they have fries which, as far as I know, are just really thin crisps (chips). Maybe fried?

The most confusing one is 'alright.' It's a greeting - 'Alright mate.' Sometimes it's a statement sometimes it's a question - 'Alright mate?' In either case the appropriate answer is 'Hi' or hey or something along those lines. The real way to answer would be to say 'alright' back. That seems easy enough and once you catch on it is. At first I wasn't sure whether or not to give an answer to let them know whether or not I'm alright. Then when someone asks 'are you alright?' it throws you off because you're not sure if they just added a few words to their greeting or if they really want to know your current state of alrightness. There is also 'Hi ya.' I'm used to that one though because I have an English friend in the States who says that...plus it doesn't require any interpretation.

Here's another one. The English love to 'queue' (pronounced like the letter 'Q'). I had a ridiculously long conversation tonight about queuing with some locals. One girl's explanation was that they try to take out the unnecessary words. So, instead of saying 'wait in line' they say queue. There's that.

Now, there's the normal ones: bloke=dude, lad=boy, mate=friend, quid=bucks($).

Chips (or crisps) aren't the only one that takes some getting used to. The one I haven't figured out is what to call crackers or cookies. The names range from crackers, cookies, biscuits, digestives, and there are a few I can't remember at the moment. Sometimes I go into the store to get some cheese crackers or something and ask one of the workers after my search through the aisles proves unsuccessful. I ask where the cheese crackers might be and the aisle he points me to has nothing but cookies -- well, what I would call cookies. Then i finally find something that is close to a cheese cracker. It looks basically like a Ritz cracker but apparently it's called a biscuit. And the messed up thing is that none of them are consistent. Among the cookies are biscuits that look just like the crackers, which look exactly like the digestives.

I'm sure more will pop up, but the only other ones I can think of at this point are sledging, which is sledding...that's easy enough. Then there's winging (sounds like win-j-ing)...it means whining.

Oh. The locals in the area I'm in call supper 'Tea' and they call lunch 'Dinner.'

My guess is that a lot of these things are local (maybe Southwest) things. So, I guess they don't apply to the whole of England. Nonetheless, it's still messed up.

Done and done.

English Coffee

There is no such thing as English Coffee. There is English pisswater in a cup... there is English instant crystals that turn into a coffee-like substance... there is English tea... there is English cafe's... There is no such thing as English coffee.

When I was in London last weekend I went until about 3PM (15:00) without having a cup of coffee. Half way through the morning I realized that I didn't have a headache. I usually have a headache by 11AM if I haven't had a coffee yet. My body is dependent on it and I'm perfectly fine with that.

When I got home on Sunday, Lola told me that they bought a mini French press so I could make real coffee instead of instant. This morning I went to do that. All I found was 'real' decaf coffee in the pantry. Then I looked at the instant coffee that I've been drinking since I got here. IT IS DECAF!!!!

Now, I understand that I have been weened off of caffeine, and more so, the plecebo effect works...since I didn't even realize I was drinking decaf. Well. My life has changed. I don't mind. I suppose it's better for me. They asked me if there's anything I want and I've been considering cutting back on the caffeinated that I drink since I drink more than the average human, so I've decided not to request regular instant coffee, or even the good stuff. I figure if I want it I can pay for it...that's a disincentive for myself.

It was a real surprise this morning, when I discovered all of this, but now I've come to terms with it.

Alright!

A post without pictures

So, I keep thinking about hooking up my camera to upload the few pictures I have, then think of the 10 minutes that will take and put the camera away again. It doesn't really matter that much because I don't have many new pictures anyways. I was in London all weekend, then in Cardiff to watch a Rugby match among the Welsh (who were playing against the English that night). And, despite all of that I never found a time when taking a picture was worth while. So, I'll just tell you about it breifly.

But, mainly this is just for the sake of an update to any of my friends and family who are keeping up on this.

This last weekend we went to London. We saw a few museums, but the most interesting thing to me was seeing Westminster Palace (or Hall -- I'm not too sure which one to call it). This place is where Parliament sits. Apart from the historical points, the thing that stuck out the most was that nothing, not even the seat of government, was guarded as heavily as things are in the US. I'm not sure whether that is rhetoric/image or tactic (although those two choices could be the same things really). They don't have as many visible, physical guards, but they have a ton of cameras so I guess that does the trick.

After we visited London I took a train to Cardiff. A few friends who I met here in Bath were going up there to watch an England vs. Wales rugby match, mainly to experience the Welsh pub atmosphere during such an intense game. It was at least as good as what I thought it was going to be.

Other than that I'm doing well. It's a little warmer now -- 7 degrees celcius. I've learned that I don't like examining novels in a big class setting. As far as I can tell it's a waste of my time on earth...when I'm sitting in class all I can do is think of starting to shoot people, starting with myself. I enjoy my other classes. Now, let me clarify. I don't dislike the novels I'm reading. I dislike the discussion. People are stupid, they try to impress the teacher and/or make and original point, and I'm just not sure what it is that I'm supposed to be learning from that. But, the other three classes I have are stimulating enough for me to enjoy.

The main reason I wanted to write this post was because of two events that happened with the kid I live with. First, when I was gone this weekend he put a broken hanger on his lip and said "hey daddy, look, I'm Rob." That's pretty good for a four year old. Then, tonight, he was fighting eating his dinner. He always does this, which is probably just a phase he's going through because his mom's cooking is amazing (there's no rational reason to refuse it). So, we thought it was just his 2nd or 3rd excuse to get out of eating. Then, he started to spit his food out...Well, he wasn't spitting his food out, he was starting to vomit. Apparently he's sick. He ended up doing two or three huge heaves of puke onto the table and floor. It was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. I can't explain the volume of vomit other than simply calling it amazing.

So, maybe I'll put those pictures up.

Tomorrow, I skate!

On America

I've been asked numerous times since I've been here what I think of the new president. My answer is always something along the lines of "at least it's not the other guy." I've been trying to follow the newspapers back home as much as I can and it seems that Obama is creating quite a stir -- which is good. Someone needs to break the American public out of their complacency, whether it is for good or bad, as long as people are feeling passion for something. (well, I don't totally agree with what I just said because I think the Republican side of things is way more full of shit and it would be and aweful world if they ruled everything.)

To the point: I've been reading about the upcoming stimulus plan. I think the original version was just fine. In fact, it may have been too moderate. But, as I'm reading all of this I see the Senate deciding one thing, the House deciding the other and nothing much getting done.

At home I constantly talk to people about politics so talk of 'House this'/'Senate that' just seems normal. I don't question the idea that these two houses have the ability to check each other. We take pride in our 'checks and balance' and that is essentially what is going on between the House and Senate...right? Wrong!

It's all political bullshit. These bankers and aristocrats are just gambling with the lives of normal people for nothing more than a few years of job security in their government office.

But, what struck me is not how this stimulus plan is turning out. What struck me is that none of this stuff is relevant. I'm sitting on this "side of the pond" (that's for heather) looking at the incredible complacency of these people, whose economic crisis might be worse than ours, and seeing that they trust their government just as much as we do...and theirs is just as worthless. In short, I guess it's becoming even more odd to me that one nation can see themselves as better than another when really they are all completely worthless.

Update and pictures tomorrow!

Weekend Number One

I had my first full weekend here in England and decided to spend the better part of it away from Bath. I was kinda missing the ocean and i wanted to take a ride through the countryside to see the rural side of England so I took a train down to Plymouth. This is the place that the Pilgrims took off from. Well, they really took off from Southampton but broke down in Plymouth and went on to America from there. They spent their last night in this Gin Distillery (which was some sort of Christian gather place at the time) that I visited.

The first thing I did when I got there was check out a few historic type things. That only took about an hour or so. I don't really care all that much to relish in the historicness of stuff -- i'm perfectly fine with looking at it, reading a little about it then moving on. This is also a reason that i will probably do most trips while I'm here on my own.

I was waiting to be in a coastal town before I marked fish and chips off the list of English cliches. I was walking from the food place to go take a tour of the gin distillery when two drunk guys got out of a cab right near me. This is at about noon. As they're stumbling into the pub they tell me that i'm going with them and they're buying me a drink -- can't refuse that. A bunch of their friends showed up at the same place and it turns out they are all army guys. There's a base in Plymouth and apparently these guys had the weekend off. Another fun thing i found out was that when they first got out of the cab, the guy in the picture on the right didn't want to buy me a drink, he wanted to beat me up for no reason. The other dude's solution to that was to invite me for a drink. 2 points for me. You can see that one of them is wearing a t-shirt. well, it's literally freezing outside and apparently he left his jacket with the prostitute he bought the night before. With that, when the army guys offered to sneak me on to the base for a free place to stay i figured i'd rather get a hostel.

I ended up at this pub near the university for some dinner. As I'm sitting there a group of college students keeps running over to the jukebox to put on the worst American music -- Pantera, Blink 182, bad 80s stuff, and Michael Jackson. I made a comment to them about it and next thing I know we are all hanging out for the rest of the night. We bounced around from place to place all night so I met a ton of people. I got comments about my accent everywhere from "they're right, you guys do sound stupid" to "say something else, that is so hot."

Even though hanging out with those folks on Saturday was fun, Sunday was pretty great too. I took a ferry over to a Mt. Edgcumbe, which is across the river from Plymouth. I walked around there for a while and on beginning to dread the walk from the ferry dock to the train station a bus pulled up that would take me directly to the station. What I didn't realize was that it was going to be almost a two hour bus ride. It would through the mountains, went through three tiny little villages, along the coast, on a ferry, then finally to my stop. It turned out to be pretty rad. I was in the very front of the top level of the bus so I got a killer view and some decent pictures.

Back Home...
I finally found a nice comfortable coffee joint with free wifi. I went into one place to ask if they had it and they charged so i asked where else might be comfortable and have free wifi. McDonalds was the best she could do.

I'm heading off to Milan this weekend. Hopefully I can have a good time and keep up on my reading too.

The other day it snowed. Then it melted. Then, last night it got about 4-6 inches. That was fun.

A long but fruitful introduction

After about 5 days being in Bath I've finally figured out how to get around the place without getting completely lost. It's not on a grid system and there are tons of little alleyways and side streets that you wouldn't expect to offer anything but that's usually where the cheaper food places and thrift stores are. I've been enjoying myself at this local pub called the Royal Oak. It's a friendly place. I can usually just sit down to a table of people and just start talking and we have a nice conversation.

The other night me and some classmates went to a higher end pub that had 'Robert Burns Night.' Basically, at 8:30 a piper (bagpipes) came marching around all fancy like then they read an ode to haggis and then they served free haggis with scotch. If you can get past the thought that you're eating goo out of a sheep's stomach it actually tastes pretty good.

One of the best things here is the ale. They serve it from a pump and it's served more or less at room temperature. One of the worst things is the coffee. Most places either serve instant coffee or real coffee that somehow tastes just like instant coffee. The trick is to find a place that serves 'italian coffee,' but not a chain -- chains that claim italian still taste like ass. I've found a little cart only a few blocks down from where my classes are so I go there every morning and have a nice conversation with the person working then go to class. It's a nice little routine.

one of the weirdest things is the toilets. When they flush, it's not a gentle swirl that sucks your poo to the netherworlds. It's more like a gurgling waterfall splashing everything violently and somehow managing to keep it in the toilet. The other thing about the toilets is that there is no possible way to take a quiet poo. The water is about a foot away from your butt so it really works up its speed then splash!, and you're always pretty certain that even though the nearest person is three floors down, they just heard your bowel movement.

The first picture above is the front of the house I'm living in. Our side is actually just the left side. On the roof you can see three skylights. the left two are over my room and the one on the right is my bathroom.

This picture to the left is my bedroom. As you can see there is a skylight right by my head so when I wake up in the morning i look straight out over the city without having to even move. This other picture doesn't do the view justice, but you get the point.


One last thing, because this post is getting pretty long: Lola, the mom here, is Spanish so, unlike the British, she won't settle for bad food. And, yes, if you don't already know, most British food lacks in flavor. It's not aweful but it's not good. I guess that's why the eat a lot of curry.

a 2000 year old city (+/-)

Well, here I am in Bath, England. We arrived in London this morning at 10 am (2 am CA time), jumped on a coach to Bath and met up with out families. I could not be more excited about the family I'm staying with. It's an couple in or near their forties (Ian and Lola), a five year old boy (Joseph), and a baby boy (Hugo). I thought that a five year old with a British accent might be pretty cute but I had no idea. And it makes it all the better that he talks and talks and talks and talks.... The baby is only 7 weeks old so it's really not all that exciting.

My house is about a 5-10 minute walk to the town center, 1 minute to a pub, and 5 minutes to the skate park. It's pretty perfect.

I only got about an hour of sleep on the coach ride from the airport so I'd imagine I'm going to crash at some point. Maybe after a pint at the pub. Cheers!

New Orleans update 2

Here are some more pictures of the building and the property. I've also included a video at the bottom. It's Turner explaining the school.


This picture is from the back of the garden. As of the the garden is more of a mud hole but it's one of the projects of the projects of the school. The main strip of land on the left is the current garden project. The land on the right is a future garden. And of course there is the building in all its glory.







On the left is the main room. Right now we're trying to take the sag in the joists that run across. We have to get it straightened out so it can look good with drywall on it. We've been going around the neighborhood looking for straps and angle iron to hold the joists straight once we've jacked them up. It's kinda hard to get much done when you don't have money for new materials...but we're getting closer.

This is the upstairs room. Before we started jacking up the joists this floor had a huge arc to it. We also have to patch the leaks in the roof before we can hang drywall downstairs. That's the main thing I want to get done before I leave.

When we doing the last bit of demolition the other day we came across this bottle in the wall. Since it has been tucked away in the wall the water in it didn't evaporate. We're assuming it is flood water. It would be rad to get it tested for chemicals and heavy metals.

As soon as the water was pumped out a few weeks after the flooding rescue crews went from house to house searching for survivors and the dead. On each house there's a marking that indicates what they found inside. Most of them "TFW" - Toxic Flood Water. Because of the oil refinery and other chemical warehouses around, there was a shitload of chemicals that polluted the soil and poisoned animals and people here.


The stove on the left is our heat source. My friend John who is here was a squatter in NYC for years. He built a stove like this when he was living in the Manhattan Bridge. It puts out a ton of heat and we've got plenty of wood to burn. It's supposed to be in the 40s for the next few days so I'll be sleeping by that.


The tub here is the beginning of the garden. Most of this stuff we found growing around here so we just transplanted it. Oh...and the dog in the middle is Buddy. A crack head dropped him off to Turner because he heard that Turner took good care of the dog he already had.





Hopefully this link attaches the video. If not, just google 'school at blair grocery' and look for video results.