The First Week

A week.

I've been in San Jose for a week, plus or minus a few hours. It feels like I've been here for years, or at least months. I know where everything is, the weather, the schedule, the people, everything. It's really weird, almost scary.

Summer, summer summer...BAM...college. No transition whatsoever. At 1130 last Saturday I was in Pleasanton, at 1300 I was in San Jose. But I didn't even notice. High school student to college student in seconds. I had no emotion, at all. Leaving home, leaving parents, no emotion. New friends, exciting new place, no emotion. I guess I'm really adaptive...I've always thought you need to roll with the changes, but the total apathy of the fact that my life is 100% different is something I did not expect.

Anyway, THIS PLACE IS AWESOME. I can get out my longboard and ride around in the summer heat at 3 in the morning. I can play loud music until 10, when the RA kicks in the door. I can do homework whenever, 24-7, party until midnight and work until 4. I can wake up whenever the heck I want. ULTIMATE FREEDOM.

But I don't abuse it. I'm very pleased to discover that the morals and goals I set a long time ago have not faltered at all. Some of them have even strengthened. I have turned in all of my work, and have a 4.0 GPA (which is a good start, but doesn't say much since it's still the first week.) In the one week I've been here, I have not had a single drop of alcohol, a single cigarette, or a single puff of hookah. Why are hookahs so popular, I don't get it. Because they're legal and not quite as harmful, I guess. I'll have a few bottles now and then, but I've pretty much determined that I'll usually be the DD, rather than getting flat-out hammered and waking up in the middle of the quad with two fat chicks on top of me (TRUE STORY by the way, from one of the RAs.) I'm happy with my status so I'll keep it status quo.

And HERE is a run-through of my new life thus far:

~

*DORM ROOM:
My room is outstanding. I'm on the top floor of the seven floor CVC building (which is entirely Freshman.) I have a huge desk with two drawers and a file cabinet, four enormous drawers under the bed, a full armoire, and a full closet. There are eight closets total, two for each of the four rooms. Two bathrooms, four sinks, two showers, and a lounge. Broken down, thats eight of us, two to each room and sink, four to each shower / toilet.

The bed is extraordinarily comfortable, air conditioning is great. Windows open most of the way, and don't have screens which makes it possible to throw water balloons out of, which some kids have already been busted. I have a view of the quad and the CVB building, which is 15 stories and houses the upperclassmen.

The lounge for our suite is a hotspot. We have four blacklights with posters of Bob Marely, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, snowboarders, Subaru WRXs, and whatever. Super Nintendo, N64, and 32" TV. The TV will be a 50" plasma pretty soon, and we're upgrading to an Xbox. We have two turntables, a mixer, iPod hookup, and a 5 speaker / 2 woofer system, which is FUCKING LOUD. They turned it all the way up last week and the RA from the third floor kept running around until he found out where it was coming from and yelled at us. We have an enormous refrigerator, which barely fits the size constraints. Finally are the red string lights in the window, which can easily be seen from anywhere in the quad.

We have tons of people filing through here. We hit 23 max, and our limit is 24. Our room number is 724, and our rep on campus is that we're 24-7 (get it?) Everything is in regulation, but we made sure to push everything in the limit. Nobody has been drinking in here due to the 2-strikes-expulsion rule, but they come up here after they get drunk, so it's a party room anyway. Pretty dope. Apparently the kids last year also called it 24-7 but were totally out of control--you can tell by the dents in the walls--they said they had 54 people in the room (well over twice the limit,) and I don't have the faintest idea how they fit that many people in here without having some standing in the toilets.

Anyway, room is dope.

~

*ROOMMATES:
Roommates are cool. My roommate is Andrew, who is from Truckee. We have some things in common, like to ski/board, want to play drums/guitar, like Rock.

Actually it's really odd how everything worked out. Every single one of the eight of the us likes the same general kind of music, like the same kind of sports, etc. I'm the only one that doesn't really drink much. All of us are from the Bay Area except Andrew and I think Rob, who is from Sacramento. We usually agree on everything from sports to politics. Most are engineering majors.

Names are Andrew, Blake, Rob, Adam, John, Aaron, and Nick.

~

*CAMPUS
This campus is absolutely incredible. It is fairly small, 6 blocks by four blocks. It's entirely flat, which is amazing for boarding, biking, or skating. Four of us bought longboards on Tuesday, so I think everybody in here has a board now. We are about a mile and a half from Walmart, couple of blocks from 7-11, and some other stores. We are smack in the center of Downtown San Jose. Three blocks from Cesar Chaves park, where the famous Fairmont hotel is located and they hold free concerts and such. The Tech Museum is across the street from the park. HP Pavilion is about a mile away as well, bordering the Business District.

The classes take me about 10 minutes max to get to, especially on the board. Might be a little longer when it starts raining. Everything is easy to get to, long straight pathways. Complete opposite of UC Santa Cruz, which is like a damn maze in the trees.

The cool thing is that we're urban, but we have problems that only come with urban areas. For example, at any given time, there are at least three hobos with shopping carts out hunting for whatever it is that they hunt for. If I ever go out after dusk I carry a fatty bottle of pepper gel, which burns like no other. We've had a bunch of people get jumped around here, to the South and East. That is where the kind-of-ghetto residential area is, North and West is all business and is pretty clean. After about a mile of going south through a housing area, it is all industrial, which is where our football stadium is (the SJ Earthquakes play there as well.)

~

*FOOD:
Oh my God, this place is like a 4 star restaurant. You can eat three times a day, just walk in and swipe your ID, and then it's ALL YOU CAN EAT. There's a Mexican place, Asian, American, and Italian, and they change up the dishes every couple of days. Huge drink bar area with 8 types of juice, including Guava (pinch me), sodas, Cappuccino and Coffee / Hot Chocolate, milk, ICEE things, and some sparkling juice things like Apple Cider and whatever. In the morning they have like a million types of cereal, omelets, breakfast burritos...words cannot describe this place.

There are also several restaurants on campus where the ID card can be used like debit-- Subway, Starbucks, and Burger King to name a few. We also have some little convenience stores to use the ID cards at, so I can buy protein shakes before I work out for three hours. With all of this free food I'm taking in as many calories as possible, and then working it all off. I'm going for a full diet on the food pyramid, with emphasis on meat. We have a pool, track, and a full gym so I intend to gain the Freshman 15 while everybody else is afraid of it. Except my F15 is going to be all muscle...I'm aiming for 30 extra pounds by the end of the year. I'm tired of being skinny and really white. I'm going to be buff and really white.

~

*FACILITIES:
Really good facilities. There is a full kitchen and huge TV in the floor lounge down the hall, so I can go bake a cake and eat the whole thing. The laundry room is on the first floor, but the God damn machines don't have locks so you have to sit and play with your dick for two hours while the dryer is running.

In the building next door there are pool tables and foosball tables, and a full computer lab where I can steal paper. The internet blows like a hurricane, so I'm going to have to go pay 250 bucks for the high-speed upgrade. The entire campus is wireless, except for the dorms. Eric and I bought a Linksys and are trying to put up a shared secure network, but the Linksys is fighting me tooth and nail. Seriously, it refuses to work. I asked it nicely and it spit at me, so I threw it at the wall. Then it put me in a headlock and...nevermind. The wireless isn't working yet.

The athletic facilities are in good shape. Like I mentioned earlier, there's a huge pool with lanes and a diving section, a full gym, racquetball and basketball courts, four ice rinks, a pool room, ping-pong room, and a bowling alley. Yes, a bowling alley. The ice rinks are where I will be taking my hockey class, which is going to rock my socks off. They are owned by San Jose State and are on the same block as our football stadium (athletic complex is a mile away from the main campus,) but are operated by the San Jose Sharks organization. The Sharks practice on our rinks, pretty sick.

I think that's it for facilities, except our labs which I haven't even been in yet, but are supposedly top-notch (SJSU is consistently rated one of the top engineering schools in the country.)

~

*CLASSES:
My classes are amazingly awesome. I am currently taking PreCalculus (Math 19) and workshop (Math 19W), English 1A, Mechanical / Aerospace Engineering 15, Communications 20 (a public speaking class), and Ice Hockey, for a total of 16 credits. The reason I'm an engineer in PreCalc is because I last took that class Junior year, and didn't understand everything because Mrs. James was an imbecile. Nice person, but did not get the point across.

The PreCalc professor is an Indian lady named Mrs. Bodas. She should have taken the comedian route rather than becoming a teacher, she's hilarious. The assistant that runs the lab class is also Indian, and speaks with a heavy accent at a thousand words per second.

The hockey class is basically going to be 2.5 hour open ice sessions every week, which is going to be totally radical. Dude. Not sure who the "professor" for that class is quite yet.

I haven't had the English or Comm classes yet because I just signed up for them (I've rearranged my schedule more times in the past 7 days than I've been able to keep track of.) For Engineering we have no homework outside of 8 1-page writeups, no book, no tests, and no final. The teacher is a Spanish guy named Barez, who also has a sense of humor. You have no idea how rare it is to find an Engineering professor, or anybody in Engineering, with a sense of humor. For that class we will taking a number of field trips and have a bunch of guest speakers come in. This is why I am at San Jose State for engineering, and why we are so well known for it. We have hundreds, if not thousands of business connections in the industry, since we are in Silicon Valley. And in any business, engineering in particular, it isn't just what you know, it's who you know. The first day of class, this is what he said:

"No longer can you graduate with a 4.0 GPA and say "Hey General Electric, come and hire me, Ford, come and hire me." It doesn't work like that anymore. You need connections, the field is all about connections now, it's called networking. And that is what we are going to do, build resumes, create connections, find internships."

He is exactly right, and this is why I will have a job, let alone a high-paying job, before anybody else who is majoring in engineering, especially aerospace engineering. We have a field trip to NASA Ames in two weeks.

~

*WEATHER:
It has been warm 24-7 since I got here. Very pleasant at night, mid to upper seventies. During the day it has been in the upper nineties, which is abnormally hot for San Jose, and not very fun. We have air conditioning, but one of the dorm buildings does not. On average the weather here is mild, 5-10 degrees cooler than Pleasanton when it's hot but a few degrees warmer in the winter, because of fog cover.

~

*GIRLS:
There are a lot of girls here, you could've assumed that. Most of them have already been in our dorm. Actually that's probably an unfair exaggeration, but our room is definitely popular. Nothing yet from me, because I am still too shy and picky, as you may know. I'm hoping I'll be able to open up a bit, without turning into a drunk raving asshole that rapes every fuckable object at the Frat parties. Because that's just not me.

~

*PRANKS:
I haven't really done anything interesting yet, especially to Eric who will retaliate with full force. I'm planning though, oh yes I am, and whatever hacks I pull off are going to be of M.I.T. caliber. If you don't know what that means, M.I.T. kids are geniuses who have too much time on their hands, so they manage to pull off prank stunts that aren't destructive, but people remember them because they're so outrageously clever. For example, disassembling an entire server rack in an engineering lab and rebuilding and wiring it back at the Frat house and putting it online. Or deconstructing an entire police car and putting it back together on top of a building. We will see.

~

*SKIING:
I had to add this, because one of the reasons I am in San Jose is because I ski. I'm not even kidding, if I had to go to school in southern California, I would crack. NO SNOW. ANYWHERE. It's the same here, for now. Everybody in my suite snowboards, which is better than nothing, I guess. There are snow-related posters on the walls, ski and board magazines everywhere, and I'm about to lose it because it's not even September.

When winter comes, I will be skiing. Lots. Anybody who wants to hit the slopes, let me know and I'll be glad to give you a ride up in the Scion, so you can help me pay for gas a little bit, keep me awake, and admire my interior lighting.

~

All in all, a good first week. Topped off by the fact that we just beat UC Davis 13-10 in the first football game of the year. People are out screaming and partying in the quad, horns honking everywhere. I feel like I'm back in New York.

I hope you've all enjoyed the first taste of your college experiences, or will once you begin. Keep in touch.



✌ & ♥

kdawg

Current Mood: Chill

Listening To: "Writing to Reach You" by Travis

Last Day

Today is my last day in Pleasanton. I'll be back for winter break, and next summer, but it won't be the same.

I wanted to soak up every passing second of time left here. It's funny how you don't realize what you have you realize it's slipping away. You never know where you're from until you leave. Pleasanton has been good to me in the past twelve years, overall. It's been a ride.

The only place where time can be stopped or even reversed is the mind. Last night, that's where I went. I decided to rewind 4,438 days to June of 1996 and relive my time in Pleasanton, watching my memories through the windshield of my car.

Before I pulled out of the garage I stood in the street and took a long look at the house I've lived in. The same house I've come back to after a vacation in Barcelona, where I ran to from the bus stop after school in the pouring rain, where I played four square on the sidewalk, soccer on the grass, and Starcraft in the loft. Several meters away is Aubry's house.

I remember walking across the street in the summer heat to knock on the door and see if he could play. The glass door would always be unlocked, and on the comfortable warm evenings the glass was replaced with a screen. Scott would come down on his GoPed, and we'd play Zelda O.O.T., Mario Party, and Roller Coaster Tycoon. In the later years we had some great Halo parties in the garage. In front of his house is the street light that I knocked the glass out of when I threw a basketball at it, the same street light that I would later stand under when waiting for the Jeep to go skiing at 5 AM.

I turned my attention to the far end of the street, by the cul de sac where all of the street hockey games used to be years ago. Fourth of July parties and amazing fireworks were down there too. The whole neighborhood came out and watched the display. We had a ton of '08 kids around here, Aubry Conley across from me, Scott Baggett & Katie Carlstrom down a little further, Courtney Gangnuss across the intersection. Plenty of others used to be in the area, Antonella Janero, Matti Watt, Jaclyn Pang, Janelle Larson, T.J. Barkdull, Tay Centell, Caroline Lowry, Cory McDonald...I can't list 'em all but would like to. Some have moved, some have stayed, but I remember them all.

Got in the car, pushed in the clutch, shifted into reverse, and drove away. I'll be doing that again tomorrow, but I won't just be going out for a drive.

If you go down Tassajara towards Blackhawk quite some ways, you'll come to Highland Road. A dusty, winding two-lane through the hilly terrain of North Dublin, Highland is where I've gone to get away from my problems or to think about how I can fix them. This time I drove below the speed limit, taking in the golden light spilling over the hilltops. I had The Eagles playing, the best music for double-yellow cruiser roads.

"Dont let the sound of your own wheels
Drive you crazy
Lighten up while you still can
Dont even try to understand
Just find a place to make your stand
And take it easy"

It really allows you to open your mind and let your troubles blow out the windows, drowned out by the sound of the engine and Don Henley. It lets you just kind of...take it easy. Couldn't be more fitting.

I spent over an hour and a half just driving. I turned whenever I had the urge to turn. When I felt like speeding up, I gassed it, and when I felt like slowing down I eased up. Ultimate freedom, no plans, no schedule, nowhere to be and nothing to do. No one else in sight. I ended up around Las Positas, and took the freeway home.

When I got back back I had a nice lasagna dinner. Damn good lasagna. Went to Jenelle's house for a few hours to chill with some other kids that are leaving for the Cal State schools tomorrow. Watched the Olympics for a while. I still wanted to go drive around some more so I left at around 1 AM.

...
Alisal

First place I went was Alisal. That is where it all started for me in this town, first grade in Mrs. Gould's class. I met a ton of kids there, I still know everyone in that class bar three or four. First person I met in class was a guy named Matt, he moved to Monterey at the end of the year, as I recall. Second person I met was Ben Anderson. Ben, Justin Maslana and I would play Star Wars out on the playground. Jessica McKinley was Princess Leia. I think it was Ben that got in a fight with some kid one time, and ended up with sand in his eyes, that sucked. It was a good single year there, though, we had a pajama party in class on a Friday night one time, that was awesome.

...
Mohr

The reason I say single year is because at the end of the year most of us moved over to Mohr. That's where I drove next. Mohr was awesome...I remember taking the tour there in the summer of '97 before it opened...everything was brand new. Those were the four square and tetherball days. I sucked at tetherball. Four square was sick, we always had crazy slam moves that usually ended with someone getting nailed by one of those red rubber balls. In fifth grade I drop-kicked one across the playground and it bashed Tom Morris on the head. That is the closest I've ever gotten to getting the living shit beat out of me. We're friends now, he lives in Alabama.

Soccer was cool too, soccer and football out on the field. Kris Stambaugh was playing goalie one time and managed to kick himself in the face, one of the most hilarious things I've seen to this day. I'd race Tay Centell out on the field too, but he'd usually kick my ass. He's in Southern California now. Also out on the field we had field day at the end of every year, when it'd usually be 50º and windy even though it was June. Everybody would end up totally drenched.

On the basketball court is where we had P.E. with Mr. Maz. Our class was incredible, most of our physical fitness test scores are still unbroken records posted on the wall in the multi-purpose room. McDonald, Lowry, Sweeney, Starkey, Hadlock...all records yet to be shattered. Maybe they were doping. After a game of capture the flag (the best game in the world, by the way,) Mr. Maz would shout "NEVER SMOKE." The whole class would reply "YES SIR." Most of us kept our promise.

Most of my teachers there have retired...Annen, Steyart, Crawley, Parker. Parker is the only one still working, I think, she's a principal at one of the other Elementary Schools here in Pleasanton. We were her last class, and that was, by far, the most awesome class I have ever had. Second floor of the then-new building, with a view of the quarry lake behind Martin, down at the East end of Mohr. That was the year we first had band, and DARE (although I never liked Officer Batoy, he never called on me.) Outdoor Ed. I could write a book on Outdoor Ed, so I'll just keep it in my head for now. It was hardcore for me, since the week before we left I had a major injury. I was running the bases in Scott Baggett's backyard when we were playing wiffle ball, and I caught my toe on a metal post stuck in the ground (they were re-doing the backyard.) It sliced down to the bone, so I did every hike at camp with six stitches and one of those goddamn boot things.

I remember graduating from Mohr, I felt kind of the same way I do now. I sat on the field and looked at my school for a long time, and then walked home down Martin on the new walking path. It was a hot day, mostly clear. I was unsure of middle school, but the best was definitely best to come.

...
Harvest Park

I drove back down Stoneridge and headed for Harvest Park. Now that I think about it, I had some pretty damn good times there. The first day of school I showed up in front of Ms. MacCleoud's science class (she was a real bright one, she gave us the answers to the tests BEFORE we took them.) There was a really tall kid standing there with a high-top haircut. I walked up to the door and all he said was "RENOB."

"What?"

"RENOB!"

"Uh..."

"RENOB. It's boner backwards..."

That was first impression of James Peters.

In sixth grade we had all kinds of new stuff to deal with. P.E., where everybody loathed running the mile every three weeks. Now they run it weekly. Band, getting up at six every single day. About two weeks into 6th grade I got up one Tuesday and when I went downstairs, my mom was sitting silently in a chair staring at the TV, with her hand over her mouth. I will never forget that look. When Blake's mom picked me up I didn't say much until we got to school. "Two planes have hit the World Trade Center towers in New York. They're about to collapse." They didn't believe me. Blake realized that I was very serious when three, five, ten other people said the same thing. They fell to the ground while we were running warm-up laps. That changed me forever.

Also in sixth grade was the laptop program. Gatehouse, Lars Hegstrom, Alex Kato, K.W. Kim and I went into Ragsdale's room every day at lunch and played adrenaline-filled games of F/A-18 Hornet and Bolo. Eventually, Ryan Brody and some other kids joined the crew. We'd all be cussing each other out, yelling across the room. The laptop classes were freakin epic, with Raimondi and Robeck. We had endless problems with the damn things, but it all worked out. Halfway through the year we moved all of Raimondi's stuff from the portables into the new room, where she still teaches. Robeck assigned 60 problems of Pre-Algebra a night, and it almost killed half of us. He had barbeques out on the blacktop for kids that got A's on the tests.

Seventh grade was even cooler, because we had the Medieval Fair, where everybody duct-taped up plastic swords and armor and beat the shit out of each other. That was serious gladiator stuff right there. Also in seventh grade, Ragsdale got some new eMacs, so Gatehouse and Hegstrom and I basically skipped a whole day of school to set them up. We installed Jedi Knight on all of them, I still have a copy of that game that Ragsdale gave me. He retired a year early because of his Parkinsons, moved up to Sparks, near Reno. I'll catch him on AIM every couple of months. For english, I had Mrs. Wilder, who was passionately despised by most of our class. She made Lizzy Harford cry when she sent a few of us to the office for forgetting to print an essay.

I still go back there every year, with Scott, to teach "boot camp" to the incoming sixth grade laptop kids. We do two five hour sessions to train the kids, and a two to three hour session to answer all of the parent's questions. We've been back I think five years, built up some serious connections with management at Apple, where I think I might end up working sooner or later. We just did it again earlier this week.

We had Ms. Kennedy for eighth grade, who was a great teacher. Now she goes by Mrs. Valentine, and is on maternity leave for the second time since we graduated. One time she lost one of the fish in her fish tank, so some of the kids made up "LOST FISH" posters and taped them up around campus. She found the fish buried at the bottom of the tank a few weeks later. On the last day of school, K.W. was agitated that he got a B+ instead of an A, so he smacked his huge Korean forehead into the glass door, shattering it. Ms. Kennedy was laughing but he still got a referral on the last day of school.

Eighth grade was also cool because in the winter, after our last class (Physical Science with Mrs. Jones,) Blake and I would go to Cassandra's bakery over by the Hopyard and get Lemon Tarts and Hot Chocolate, and then sit in his mom's car and play SNOOD on our laptops until his sister got out of dance practice. Good times.

Graduation was alright, but at the end of the three years of middle school I will still a nerdy little white kid. I wore a clip-on tie to the graduation commencement ceremony. That started to change at Amador.

...
Amador

Spinning my wheels over to Amador, where the parking lot was dark completely dark, I thought about the last four years. I've done that a lot this summer. The place has already changed, with the portables in a different place, the parking lot slightly re-worked, and those completely useless security cameras hanging off of the buildings.

I have too many memories at Amador to list them all, but there are some that stand out. A few weeks into Freshman year, a bird dumped on my backpack. I was pissed. At lunch that day, Joe Falls spilled a cup of marinara sauce on it (from the Dominoes breadsticks that they don't have anymore.) I was really pissed. Then, on the way home from the bus, Aubry decided to pick up a stick and smack my backpack with it. Of course, that was the only damn stick on the planet with a half-eaten peach stuck on the end of it, so I got peach glop on my backpack. I was furious. When I got home my backpack was like a cesspool with straps, it was disgusting.

I remember the football games. The one we one against Foothill in, I think, Sophomore year was when everybody jumped the field and I got buried under the mosh of football players and fans on the 35 yard line. Epic.

Sophomore year I had Tofanelli, which is when I met Eric Miller. Every day he'd come in and grab Matti's enormous sunglasses and Katie Gellerman's Starbucks, and walk around looking like Paris Hilton. By third period, he'd already had three Monsters so he was always wired. Now I have to deal with him at SJSU. I had Ekstrom too, that was funny. Ronnie Buckley, who I hadn't really talked to since the Mohr days, and Jeff Squire sat next to each other and wouldn't shut up. Ekstrom put them across the room, and they started using sign language and throwing things. Ekstrom would turn around and a barrage of Starburst wrappers would by flying over his desk. Aswin Kolady was there, too. One day when we were taking a vocab test, Aswin, who sat in front of me, tied my shoes to the desk. I got up and fell flat on my face. I have to laugh at it now, pretty sly prank.

Junior year sucked, except for Emerson's class and hippie day or whatever the hell it was called. Emerson literally shouted his lectures at us since he is deaf in one ear. We all got the notes, though. Aswin, Topher Mitchell, Andreas Rodriguez, and I all were in Hanson's Comp Sci class, and we'd all send each other our code on e-mail and play pocket tanks and DX Ball. I think I did a total of around ten days of work the whole year, and skidded by with an A-. He was a big star after the streaker hit the field during one of the rallies, since he was in the pursuit team with Scarpelli. That was the only time I've ever seen Scarpelli run, when he was going after that naked dude. He was a good coach though.

I ran track Sophomore and Junior year, and it was completely miserable. I loved it. "Pain is temporary, pride is forever," that was the quote on the back of our T-shirts. I won a couple races, ran 100M, 200M, and 400M. Unfortunately I had to drop out Senior year because I was having severe knee cartilage problems. I'd rather keep my knees till I'm 90, so I can keep skiing.

I don't need to explain much about Senior Year, it was amazing. Everything from Senior Picnic, when it was nut-shrinking cold, to the last night of high school, Grad Night, was just perfect. Experiences of a lifetime, indeed.

But it's all gone now.

...

All gone. I left Amador and drove downtown, and up Foothill, around to places I've been to so many times over the years. Good memories from all of them. After about an hour I headed home with only a quarter tank of gas. Time is infinitely more valuable than money, though, and my drive wasn't a waste of time, so I don't care about wasting the money on 3/4 drink of fuel.

It's all over now. Summer is ending again.

I'll let you on something kind of personal. There's a tradition I have had for years. Each summer, on the last day before school starts again, I sit on the highest peak of my roof, and listen to a song. One song. It is called "Boys of Summer," by Don Henley. Some of you may have heard the version by The Ataris, but I like Henley better because it's a slower, more apt tribute to another summer gone by:

"Nobody on the road,
nobody on the beach.
I feel it in the air,
The summers out of reach

Empty lake, empty streets,
The sun goes down alone.
I'm driving by your house
Though i know that you not home...

...

Out on the road today
I saw an AV sticker on a cadillac
A voice inside my head said don't look back
You can never look back

I thought i knew what love was
What did i know
Those days are gone for ever
I should just let them go and...

I can see you
Your brown skin shining in the sun
You know your walking real slow
Smiling at everyone

I can tell you
My love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone.

...

Now i don't understand what happed to our love
Now baby gonna get you back
Gonna show you what i'm made of...

I can see you
Your brown skin shining in the sun
You got your top pulled down,
Radio on baby

And i can tell you
My love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone..."


Why this song? The lyrics carry a sad parting with summer, with friends, or someone else, and with memories that you just can't let go of. As I leave for college, they are shockingly close to my own situation. This next and final evening, I will sit up there on top of the roof that has covered my for the past decade, listening to Henley formally close the last summer of high school. I will watch the sun set, and with it, my past.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Tomorrow I will be in my seventh floor dorm at San Jose State. It will be an odd change of direction, having not moved for over twelve years. I'll definitely miss all of you, and all of my experiences here in Pleasanton. But I was born in Silicon Valley, though, so in a way I am leaving home to come home. I will be back to where I am truly from, surrounded by the hills of gold. Bittersweet. Bittersweet Symphony, this life.


The boys of summer are gone. I am gone. I'm free, but alone.


We're in college now.

So let's do this. Bring it.

Current Mood: Adventurous

Listening To: "The Story" by Brandi Carille

Bucket List

Life from here on out is going to be like trick skydiving without a parachute. Free falling is inexplicably awesome, as is life. At the end of both is certain death. So I'd best get started on pulling as many awesome stunts in the air as I can before I hit the ground.

A bucket list is a must to set goals for yourself, goals that you need to achieve to complete yourself. I myself am only a fragment of who I want to be when I leave this world, so I should get working. I'm separating this list into "Achieved," "Average," and "Challenging" goals. Some of them may never be reached, because they are lifestyles that contradict one another, but I'll call them "Challenging" because IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING.I will continually update this indefinitely as I reach these goals and add new ones:

Achieved Goals:
-Wear chromed aviators daily :-D
-Go 100mph+ in a car (We hit 132.4mph in the Cadillac on Stanley)
-Drive 100mph+ in a car (My record is 108.6mph in the Scion on Highland)
-Ski A Double-Diamond
-SKi out-of-bounds at a ski resort
-Run on a Track Team
-Win Track races
-Land a 40 foot ski jump
-Break 50mph on skis
-Go backpacking
-Stand on a mountaintop and watch the sunrise
-Become an Eagle Scout
-Obtain High School diploma
-Find at least 1 person I can trust
-Ask someone out (regardless of the outcome)
-Go for a 5 hour walk in the middle of the night
-Own a tuner (goal from the old Need For Speed Underground days)
-Waterski
-Play ice hockey & watch a hockey game
-Make a wish on a shooting star (I saw 78 in two hours in Willets, CA...and made the same wish on all of them)
-Swim at least a mile continually
-Become a half-decent writer
-Have a H.S. crush
-Go to Las Vegas
-Go to New York


Average Goals:
-Meet Glen Plake and have him sign my face (and skis)
-Skydive from at least 15,000 ft.
-Get a Bachelors Degree
-Heli-Ski the Alps & Alaska
-Get married
-Have a family
-Travel to Japan
-Travel to Africa
-Travel to Germany
-Write, sing, produce an album and perform it live
-Learn to play guitar
-Become an advanced drummer
-Meet John Glenn
-Break 100 mph on skis
-Land a 55 foor ski jump
-Do a front flip on skis / do a whole bunch of stunts on skis
-Bungie Jump
-Go to a Tom Petty Concert
-Go to a Mark Knopfler Concert
-Go to a whole lot of concerts
-Do a backflip on dry ground
-Live in New York for a year


Challenging Goals (I can dream):
-Find that 'someone,' who also thinks I am that 'someone'
-Fly a military jet at Mach or higher
-Become a Marine Officer
-Become a Marine Officer Fighter Pilot
-Get a Masters Degree
-Win a gold medal in the Olympics
-Go to all 7 continents
-Fly in Zero G
-Go to space
-Stand on the Moon
-Act in a movie
-Produce &/or edit a movie
-Work for Warren Miller or Teton Gravity
-Work for Apple

Current Mood: Busy

Listening To: "Believe" by The Bravery

One Week

College.

Some of you have already left, some of you have a few weeks of Summer to go (you lucky bastards.) As for me, I have one week left in the fast-dying days of youth-hood in Pleasanton. And as the final hours wither into dust, I'm realizing that I've never had such a bizarre cocktail of emotions.

I've never been so ready to leave, but I've never been so reluctant to do so. I've never wanted so badly to meet new people, but I've never been so hesitant to leave old friends forever. I want to be somebody amazing, and I want to be myself. Maybe they're the same thing.

When two sides of yourself face off and contradict, you are in limbo, walking the thin wire between the towers of your former and future self, at risk of falling and losing your identity. It seems odd because my College career is set in stone and I'm all packed, but I still feel like I don't know where I'm going.

It's like filling your bags with your memories and going to the airport...buying a ticket to nowhere, to anywhere...you'll figure it out when you get there. How long will you stay? Who knows. Who will you meet? You will see. Where will you go from there? Who will you go with? Only time can answer these questions. But they will never be answered until you get there, because time is always a step ahead of you.

I don't care how organized you are, or how detailed your plans are for the next two years, or four, or ten...there is always the fog of uncertainty that keeps you from knowing exactly how the game plays out.

I'm going to spend this last week seeing and talking to as many people I care about that I can before I leave. I will only be 30 miles away from here, but we will go in different directions to different places, and our lives will be different. Some of us will be at Community Colleges, some at 4-year Universities, some directly into the workforce. The truly honorable will be fighting for our country.

For the past 13 years many of us have gone to the same schools with the same teachers and the same rooms. We've walked the same halls, been to the same football games, the same lockdowns. Now, for the first time, we will no longer start in sync. The gun has yet to be fired, but some of us have already left the blocks, and some will wait longer. But we are running the same race, against time. We are no longer in the same place but in relation to the scale of this universe, we are still right next to each other. Same stars, same sky.

So now, I bid you auf wiedersehen, until I see you again. But remember that we aren't really as far apart as you think. Call me if you ever want to talk about anything. I always have been, and will be, someone that anybody can trust.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. I wish you all good luck in this new beginning. This is the next chapter in your unfinished book. Don't spill the ink-- have fun but don't be stupid. I don't want invitations to anything but weddings and birthdays until I'm at least 40. No funerals! That goes for all of you Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines, too, dammit.

Most importantly, enjoy life.



I've got adrenaline in my veins, spikes on my feet. Down in the blocks, looking at the ground. Finger on the trigger. SET..........


...and here...we...go..............






peace & love forever,

K2

Current Mood: Weird

Listening To: "Call to Arms" by Angels & Airwaves

Neons

This is the full story of what happened. Nothing here is made up, the quotes are close to exact.

I was driving back from Dublin Iceland after playing some hockey and skating around. I didn't want to take the freeway and felt like doing a little bit of night driving, so I was taking the long way home, down Foothill to West Las Positas, and then down Hopyard to cut through Birdland at Crestline. As I was coming up to the light at Hopyard, my iPod fell on the floor. The left turn light was red so I stopped to find it.

I'm going, "ahhh where did it go..." because I wanted to change the song. Not able to see it on the black carpet, I turned on my neons. What you need to know here is that my interior and exterior neons are linked to the same switch, so when the inside lights up so does the outside, and visa-versa. I have been planning to wire one switch for inside and one for out, but I hadn't gotten around to it yet, so at this point all of my neons are on.

When I bent down to find the iPod, there were no cars anywhere in sight. When I sat back up, there were two obnoxious spotlights and some very pretty red and blue roof strobes blasting me in the face off my mirrors. Before I even saw the damn cop, I had already turned the lights off because I found the iPod, so to him it looked like I was trying to hide them.

Pulled around the corner and off to the side of the road. Dude walks up, maglite searing my eyes.

"Know why I pulled you over?"

"Assume it would be the lights. Wasn't doing much speeding at that red light."

"You know those are illegal in the state of California?"

"No, actually. I bought this car from a police officer, so I figured it was safe to assume they were legal."

He looked very confused. He could not imagine a fellow police officer doing such a horrible thing as installing neons on a car. This was outrageous. I continued my sympathy-seeking ramble:

"I also did a pretty intensive search through the California Vehicle Codes, but wasn't able to find anything, really, because they're written in Finnish...no normal person can read those without getting a headache."

He laughed. This was good.

"I wouldn't use them on-road, but I've been trailed by several Pleasanton Police squad cars before without being pulled over."

I knew why this guy pulled me over while the others hadn't. I give him credit, a tuner with neons driving around at 1:30 in the morning on a weekday when there are no other cars on the road would look suspicious to me if I were on patrol.

"Okay, well I'm going to need your license and registration, it's just going to be a fix-it ticket, no points on your record. You got anything illegal on you?"

"No. Except the neons, apparently."

I think he realized at this point that I wasn't a drug dealer, a serial rapist, a drunk, or a street racer. I know this because it only took him five to ten minutes to write me up. When cops are pissed at you, they take as long as they can, especially when you're in a hurry. Plus, when he ran my license there wouldn't have been anything on the record, so he didn't need to file through hundreds of offenses, like some of you have. A second officer had pulled up, because in Pleasanton, you need at two squad cars to write a fix-it ticket. So my neons had, at that point, attracted a quarter of the active patrol. He walked back over.

"Hey turn those things back on for a second."

The newly arrived cops were now enjoying a light show while I sat there wishing I could strangle them, but I didn't need assault on an officer on my record so I just kept the show going.

"Do they change color?"

Okay, now I'm ready to get out and backhand you.

"I'll sell 'em to you for two hundred...you can put them on the Crown Vic...it'll keep the drunks entertained at least..."

One of the other ones was talking now:

"Hey, sounds good to me, it is tax dollars you know..."

This is ridiculous. I'm sitting in my car, at two in the morning now, while four cops are admiring my neons, and writing me a ticket for them at the same time. And they're considering buying them off me. The first guy walked back over.

"Okay, here you go, you're going to need to get this...what happened to the inside of your car?"

Hm. I forgot that I had removed most of my interior paneling to repaint it, so the inside looks totally ghetto. It's pretty much just the gauges and my stereo deck, with some of the dash board still attached. I told him I was having it re-done, because "...if anything were stolen it would've been my deck and that's still there..."

"...uh, okay...well take this to the Pleasanton Police Department or flag one of us down once you get the problem fixed and we'll sign if for you. Then you can take it to the clerk at the Courthouse."

The "problem" fixed, like my neons are like a blown taillight or something. Screw you. The only problem here is that you have too much time on your hands, and you're giving me a ticket for being awesome.

At this point, a white Cadillac drove by in the opposite direction, and the face of the driver could only belong to Blake. Sure enough, my phone rings 15 seconds later. I cancelled the call. Kept calling me until around 3AM, but I turned my phone off. What the hell are the chances of that?

Anyway, being a suck-up, I thanked the officer for my ticket.

"Okay, thank you sir, I'll do that. Have a good evening."

The caravan of cops drove off, and I went home. Fast forward 12 hours.

---------------------

Now it's mid-afternoon the same day. I spent about 10 minutes cutting the wires and unscrewing the bulbs, and I'm sure it will take about four times that long to put the damn things back on. Oh, yes, they're going back on.

I drive to the Police Station and walk in, handing my paperwork to the lady at the front desk. She did not seem to know what to check for, because I don't imagine they get very many 24003CVC violations.

"Purple lights?"

"Purple? They were blue. He wrote purple? Oh....they were neon lights, you know, like underglow, running lights, whatever?"

We walked outside.

"This yours, the sporty lookin' white one? Okay, just go ahead and show me the lights."

"Uh...I took them off."

"Why'd you do that?"

Oh my God. She was not getting it. For some reason, she was looking for the lights, to make sure they were fixed I guess.

"Well...that was the violation, to have the lights on the car. I took them off, they're gone."

"Ohhh, okay."

She signed the paper. She didn't even look under the car, or under the hood, just took my word for it. This really pissed me off, because I didn't even have to cut the damn bulbs off, I could've just left them on and she never would have known the difference. What a waste of my time. I hate the government.

Fast forward 24 hours.

---------------------


I drive to the courthouse, everything is signed, supposedly. Park in the parking lot, walk past the 15 Bail Bonds trucks, all of which are Tacomas with bad vinyls and 19" Rockstar rims. I threw all of my junk in a bucket and walked through the metal detector. The security guy there grabbed my keys. I was like, "why is he looking at...oh shit."

Ever seen my keychain? It has a .223 bullet casing on it, pre-fired and filled with a fake but very realistic copper round in the top. I almost didn't make it into to building.

"Yeah, uh...that's fake, it's a keychain...see the firing pin mark? It's been fired...I probably should have taken that off..."

He let me in. There were about 20 cops sitting on a bench, waiting for different trails. That's my idea of making a living, getting paid government salary with pension to sit on a bench in an air conditioned building. I walked up to the window and gave the guy the paper, who said he didn't think it could be processed right away because I had received it less than 36 hours before. When I threatened to rip out his tonsils, he went in the back and processed it. No way was I about to leave and come back later...Courthouses are my least favorite places ever, next to DMV offices and hospitals.

I paid him ten bucks and left. End of story.

---------------------

And now I'm putting my neons back on, but I'm not going to use them unless it's an ego emergency. You can still notice me by the StreetGlow® decals on the back windows, black 18" rims and the fat dent in my back right quarter panel.

Neons will never die.

Current Mood: Aggravated

Listening To: "Limelight" by Rush

Should've Been A Rock Star

It's weird.


I've always been a really technical person, I work well with logic and reasoning, and am "left-brain" oriented (although anybody with experience in psychology can tell you that the whole left-brain right-brain thing is a bunch of junk.)

I'm such a technical person that I've geared my future in that direction. I'm lined up to become one of a group of some of the most technical people on Earth: Mechanical / Aerospace Engineers. It's a high-paying, highly sought-after field of work, but Christ is it work. Lots of work, math, science, and other tedious little detailed classes. So get like the user manual on a Trident Missile and read it from front to back, that's the kind of light reading I'll end up doing. Before, I was totally cool with that, because I knew that this is what will be best for me.

But, of course, right at the time when I am supposed to decide which one of 8,000 majors I'm going to work towards, I start to change. Lately, I've been doing a ton of photography, most of which, if I do say so myself, isn't half bad. I've been teaching myself drums and guitar, and can suddenly write lyrics that make sense and sound alright. And writing, good grief. I've been writing collections of notes, philosophical cross-examinations of things, and some creative stuff. I used to HATE writing, for 17 years, until just now. It's completely bizarre. It's like a gust of wind blew through my head and dusted off the "right brain" that I didn't know was there.

So here I stand, at a huge fork in the road, and suddenly both directions look like they could have some hope. For now, I think I'll stick with M.A.E. and follow what I've been working up to. What do you think, should I be an Engineer or a Rock N' Roll star? Should I build jet engines or play the guitar?

Current Mood: Inquisitive

Listening To: "Should've Been A Rock n' Roll Star" by Tom Petty

The Olympics

The Olympics.


They only last 17 days every two years. But those are inarguably the most miraculous days of that time.

The Olympics are a time where dreams are lived, and others extinguished. It is a time when the world's best athletes leave their cities, towns, villages. They travel far from their apartments, suburban townhouses, farms, igloos and huts, to a common destination to pursue a common dream. They already stand as the world's best, as part of the Olympics, but it is there, at the Games that they strive to become the best of the best, the world's absolute elite.

But there is more to this event than simple athletic competition. It is known for this fierce competition and the battle to reign as world champion, yes. But it is also known as a time of unification, of compassion and goodwill. Bitterness and mistrust divides humanity at the invisible borders drawn by the longitudinal and latitudinal grid of a map, but somehow the enigmatic atmosphere of this occasion deletes those walls. Humanity is one.

This is in no way displayed better than at the opening ceremony. The people from all walks of life stride into the stadium, and each of them is cheered. Not one is booed. All are welcomed. And the tensions between nations are released, the guns are lowered, and the fists are eased. And they walk together, across the same ground, to the center of the same stadium, in the same city, the same country, the same exact spot on Earth. It is awe-inspiring. It brings tears to my eyes to see citizens of two hundred and four nations from across the globe standing side-by-side, together. The clothes they wear are different, the flags vary in color. But they flow in the same breeze, and from afar, they are one.

Comité International Olympique President Jacques Rogge stated at this opening ceremony to the people of Beijing, "You have chosen the slogan 'one world, one dream.' Tonight, we are one world." And he is right.

At no other time and in no other place is this possible. These games bring out the best in the human race, and after watching nine Olympics, I still find it unbelievable.

You should watch them.

Listening to the Olympic Theme, I can't help but see images of past Olympics in my head, screaming fans, slow motion cuts of Michael Johnson extending every ounce of energy through him to win the 100M, of Picabo Street destroying the mogul hill, knees folding at every turn. The excruciating pain of training, the indescribable flood of triumph, the devastating weight of defeat. I remember those moments of the past. It makes me want to dust off my track cleats and do what they have done, but I know I have no chance. I could at least sit there in the blocks and experience that familiar feeling of adrenaline overcoming every pound of muscle, the same feeling these high-caliber athletes feel before their shot. They are primed, loaded and cocked, ready to fire for gold.

Most won't win. Eighty-seven of those two hundred and four nations have never brought back a medal. There can only be one gold, one silver, and one bronze. But what matters is that they have participated in something greater than their individual achievements, the bringing together of the human race. They, collectively, have achieved what no government, organization, treaty, or negotiation ever will. They have achieved peace.

For this year's games, there will be problems. People will protest China's destruction of the environment, their relentless harassment of Tibet, of Taiwan (yes it IS called Taiwan, dammit,) and of their own people. The Russians invaded Georgia during the opening ceremony, killing hundreds of people. The fuckers. But the focus should remain on the fact that at least there, in Beijing, peace has been reached.

Adding to that, I must say that the Chinese did a damn good job with the opening ceremony for the 2008 Summer Olympics, the entire production was well-done. And the fireworks...if you ever need a fireworks show, go to the Chinese. They invented them. Very nice.

So here goes another Olympic Games...the Summer Games of 8/8/08! GO TEAM U.S.A.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



"That was spectacular. Tonight, the world was able to join in a magnificent tribute to the athletes and the Olympic spirit. It was an unforgettable and moving ceremony that celebrated the imagination, originality and energy of the Beijing Games."
-Jacques Rogge, President, IOC

Current Mood: Optimistic

Listening To: "Olympic Theme & Fanfare" by John Williams

Travel Part I: First Impression of New York

I'm sure many of you have been to New York City, and know at least a little bit about the place. Even so, I'd like to take down my first impression of the Big Apple.

The flight was quiet, unnaturally quiet for a five hour ride on Delta hell across the country. I've been back and forth over the states countless times, and this topped the list as the calmest and most relaxing. There were four to five kids sitting around me, but I swear I thought they were dead, none of them made a sound.

Fast forward past 2500 miles of terrain, two Great Lakes, and a Pierce Brosnan movie to the tarmac. There was a huge double-decker Emirates plane at one of the gates, which I later found was the first A380 ever to land in the U.S., and it had arrived 2 hours before us. Kinda cool. John F. Kennedy International airport is a fun little hairball. This particular terminal reminded me of the salt mines they have in Switzerland: hot, tiny, winding passages with low ceilings. The only difference was the addition of some marble flooring and mirrored pillars, and some really nasty looking security personnel. But seriously, for a city of this size, the place is like a municipal airport. We managed to escape the JFK labyrinth, and got in line for a taxi.

This is where it really starts getting interesting. A brand new Ford Edge taxi pulled up and the trunk popped. I was a little confused, because I had to work my bag into the trunk, wedged next to the subwoofer. This is a taxi, remember, not a limo. Out gets Rodney, he was the driver, in black 87 jeans, white Nikes glossed with at least three full bottles of polish, and a New Era Yankees hat, Navy with white pinstripes. He opened the door for us, and after hopping onto immaculate white leather seats I noticed the polished wood paneling on the doors…and the blue neons under the seats. I did all I could to keep from laughing…this thing was like a pimp taxi…Seriously, it had more neons in it than I have in my tuner, TV screens in the headrests, and Usher playing through that woofer in the back. This is a New York Yellow Cab, or at least from the outside.

But that was nothing, the fun started when Rodney turned this thing on. You know, they say New York City hardens you after a while, but let me tell you I was hardened before I got off of Long Island. Between JFK International and the Mariott on 53rd and Second, I nearly died on several occasions.

He began the ride by laying rubber for about 30 yards and burning out of the JFK arrivals taxi lane like a dragster off the line, and then proceeded to swerve between shuttle buses like a slalom skier. At the same speed, too. I think he had just finished a game of GTA IV and was continuing it in his head.

Before I continue, I need to explain New York drivers. New York drivers are not idiots, like Bay Area drivers, and they aren't maniacs like they are in Boston. New York Drivers are just assholes. If they want to be in that lane now, dammit, that's where they're going to go. But the thing is, unlike in the Bay Area, EVERYBODY is an asshole. This is good, though, because it puts everybody on even ground, so even though everybody is an asshole, nobody notices. To be considered an asshole driver in New York, you need to be like asshole squared in Bay Area terms.

But, back to my story. So, we're cruising along…by which I mean screaming through stopped traffic…and my dad decides to strike up a conversation with Mr. Perrie, that was his last name according to the taxi registration.

"So, what kind of things are there to do in this town?"

Mad dad figured he'd just rattle off the usual list of sightseeing activities that every tourist does. He has been here numerous times, he was just trying to talk to the guy.

"Uhhhh…aw…well…hmm"

He acted like he didn't know what there was to do in New York, one of the most active places on the planet. I almost reached up front and backhanded him. Go to Pleasanton, you bitch, and then you'll know what it's like to have nothing to do.

"Uhhh…well there's some nice clubs in Mid-Manhattan…"

My lungs collapsed. I could feel my ribs cracking as I tried to keep from laughing. I'd been in New York for less than an hour, and there I was, sitting in a neon-filled taxi, and the pimp driver is suggesting that the two very white tourists in the back seat go clubbin'. Keep in mind here that my dad is still in his business suit, and I look like I'm fifteen. I almost died from asphyxiation, trying not to laugh.

Now I will give the dude credit, New York has a highly energetic nightlife and club scene. There are nearly as many clubs in this city as there are Starbucks in Seattle. I actually would not have minded going to one of them, either…but it really isn't something you expect to hear suggested by a taxi driver. At least not where I'm from.

Continuing on the trip to the hotel, at least a third of which was spent with Rodney's hand planted firmly on the horn, we had some very close calls to catastrophic collisions. I got used to it quickly…I think being here for a while is going to give me nerves of steel…California is going like cake compared to driving the streets of New York. We were hurtling through lights and suddenly Rodney mashes the brakes, not like he wanted to shed a little speed, but like he was hell bent on coming to a standstill. Halfway through the 50 foot long skid (no way that thing had ABS,) I looked up and there was another taxi turning through the intersection in front of us, completely blocking our green light. We stopped, I swear to God, three feet from him as he completed his turn through the red light. That was as close as I've ever gotten to getting destroyed in an auto collision. What an asshole. Squared. And Rodney let him know, too.

Driving into Manhattan from Long Island, it feels like you're entering the guts of a machine. The buildings pack up against the waterline like they are held back by some invisible barrier, a black wall against the river. The glittering lights of the towers pierce the densely bundled mass of concrete, glass, and steel, and as you enter, you can hear the hum of this urban machine. The low churn of car engines echo through the city's canyons as the river of yellow taxis flows over the grid of pavement. The various pitches of horns pierce the monotonous drone. Major kudos to New York drivers for using their horns.

They are very stilled at honking, indeed. They have some sort of Morse Code of horns; alerting other drivers that they are moving in and cutting off with a series of short beeps (in addition to blinkers, which they actually USE.) Longer honks mean "what the hell," or "you are a tool, GTFO." It's an interesting contrast to California drivers, who only see a honk as a rude gesture, like a finger and a dirty look. Here, it's more of a form of communication.

Anyway, after crossing the river, we tailgated a cop for a few blocks, and then after running over 20-30 pedestrians, he dropped us off at the hotel. I gave him a decent tip, and told him to get some more shoe polish, and maybe a turbo for his taxi-ricer. It was the best taxi ride, ever…like one of those IMAX things where you're in like a crazy mine ride that makes you feel like you're going to DIE. Epic.

We dropped the stuff off at the hotel, and then went out to walk around. Out in the glamour and the grit. That's all New York is, glamour and grit. It's pretty and it's dirty. And it's pretty dirty. New York is like the Terminator with eyeliner, very stylish, sexy, and hardcore. Mmm actually, that's kind of gay, San Francisco is the Terminator with eyeliner, New York is more like…the Terminator…in Calvin Klein. There.

Well we start walking and we got, oh, fifty yards maybe before I caught the scent of pot smoke. Funny, I thought that was more of a West Coast thing.

Walking down Second, we went to Subway to get a sandwich. I sat out on a bench next to the entrance to the 33rd Street station, on the very subway system that inspired the sandwich chain where I had just purchased my dinner.

As I ate I watched the city breathe. And the city had bad breath. It was trash night in Mid-Town when we got here, and it had just rained. New York isn't the prettiest scented metropolis, and the wet trash sitting out by the ton on the curbs did not help. There were some nice cars that passed by, though. New York has some damn nice cars. A black Rolls Phantom, a yellow Lambo Murcielago, red F139, Aston Martin DB9, and Jeep. What the hell, a Jeep? Fire engine red, four inch lift, 35 inch MUD terrains, with the top down and a massive winch on the front. I guess so he could offroad on the sidewalk and winch a fire hydrant out of the ground, or pull himself up the Chrysler building like a Spider-Jeep. A Jeep in New York…yeah it's a Jeep thing, blah blah, no I don't understand, shutup. Jeeps do not belong in New York Fuckin City.

I took out my iPod Touch to see if I could get a WiFi connection to check my e-mail. I found forty-seven different networks. Yes, that's 47 networks in an eighty foot radius. Hey, it's the city.

So there I was on a bench, soaking in the city. Soaking in the smell. The reason it's not a clean city is because it's so large and uncontrolled. People here do what they damn please. If that cigarette is running low, it's going to drop to the ground right where they're standing. If the light says "Don't Walk," well that's only a suggestion. If there aren't any cars in the immediate area, they're going to cross the damn street. No mater that there are three cops there watching…they don't care either, they have much more important things to do, like tell each other dirty jokes with New York cheesecake-thick accents.

It's fun to watch people. There are some relatively interesting people in New York. In San Francisco they're just flat out weird, but here they're interesting, diverse. This is by far the most diverse place I've ever been, at least half of the people here speak a different language (granted, it is a weekend in the Summer, peak tourist season.) You can distinguish the locals from the tourists. The women from out of town, for example, are easy to spot because they have trouble with heels on uneven pavement. They aren't as aware of the numerous subway ventilation grates, either, and those are especially nasty when combined with spike heels. The tourists, in general, are always looking up at the buildings, have shit hanging around their necks, like a camera or ten, and are entirely draped in New York apparel. They wear cute little shirts that say "I Heart New York," among other things. You know you've got a local when their shirt is solid black, and has in white, bold letters: "NEW YORK FUCKIN CITY." Other than that, the furthest New Yorkers ever go is a Yankees hat.

I was eating a sandwich a while back…about finished with it now, so we walked a few blocks to the first building I wanted to see here. Located at Fifth Avenue and 58th Street, the famous Plaza Hotel is an architectural work of art that was been featured in dozens of movies and TV shows, from Home Alone to the Sopranos. But what I was really looking for was across the street: the Fifth Avenue Apple store. A striking, illuminated, glass box that rises from the plaza between the CBS studio and the hotel. Two Apple bouncers in black suits with white ties and secret service-style earpieces guarded the door, like it was some kind of exclusive club. Entering through the glass doors, and descending in an entirely glass elevator, you find yourself in what resembles every other Apple store. Light birch tables, white walls, associates in brightly colored shirts with white, rectangular nametags. The only difference is that this one happened to be beneath the streets of New York, and it was ten times bigger.

I browsed around for a while, though I'd already seen everything in there a million times. As you may know, I'm pretty good with Macs, and everything related to them. I know Apple stores like the back of my hand. It's actually kind of sad.

After sending out a bulletin to y'all from a very sexy 3G iPhone I was playing with, I left the glass box through the glass elevator, glass walkway, and glass door. Jesus Christ, who cleans all of that glass, I hope they're well-paid.

I was getting tired so I went back to the room to catch some shuteye on a very puffy Mariott bed with 200 pillows.

And that was my first few hours in New York City.

Current Mood: Accomplished

Listening To: "New York" by Richard Ashcroft

Travel

Okay, ready?

I did a little bit of writing while I was out of town, and I've decided to post it on the blog. It's kind of long, 20 to 25 pages, not double-spaced, so I'm breaking it up into pieces and posting them in order. I haven't finished everything yet, so the posts will be delayed. The first one will be up in a few minutes.


Some of it's funny, some of it's sad, some of it is boring. If you think it takes a long time to read, think of how long it took to write. I took notes everyday and processed them into these posts each day I was gone--I was up until about 4 to 4:30 in the morning each day completing them.


Here we go.

Current Mood: Accomplished

Listening To: "Everybody" by Richard Ashcroft