While we were down in the Hocking Hills, amidst all of the buzzing crowd, there were small groups that stood apart from the rest. As we descended into the Old Man’s Cave area of the trail the first one popped into view. There was a guy hollering in what seemed a falsified Queen’s English accent at a bunch of people who were hanging on the rails of a bridge on the outside. Now, the bridge wasn’t that high above the ground, but they were hanging on like their life depended on it, and exactly like you would expect to see kids aged 5-9ish hanging on a railing. Except they weren’t kids. These were young adults and adolescents, none of them super fit but all seemingly similar in their mediocre athletic build. As we continued down the trail we saw more and more of them, always in groups and doing random strange things. We saw them lined up off the trail preparing to run and jump through the rocks over the tunnel where the trail continues. We saw them rock hopping and running up the side of the hill towards the ridge through the restoration area which said “stay off” and “not a trail”. It seemed the longer we were hiking that a few things were certain: 1) They were doing some sort of training or simulated training, 2) They were not practicing reading signs and rules, 3) They were paying for these guys to shout at them.
Then we came up past a bridge where they were walking backwards along the arch. I’ve included the picture so you can see just what kind of obnoxious stupidity was going on in the park last weekend. Luckily we moved far past the craziness and were able to enjoy a real walk away from the madness. I’ve also included a couple of videos made by the company putting this on so that you can see what I’m talking about. I see two reasons why anyone would want this skill. Either they haven't grown up yet or they're practicing running from the cops. Or both.
So the question posed after seeing all this and learning about the company (Parkour Horizons), I had a couple of questions which I would love answered. First, how is this company or group allowed to formally come onto park property, regulated by the ODNR, and violate all the rules of the place, posting videos of their park rule violations? They even brought a video crew and set up in the rocks to make a video production out of these shenanigans. Secondly, who would pay for something like this? It’s all just one little taste of the American diversity which made itself known in Hocking Hills last weekend.
Some labels come easy, some come a little harder. For example, I struggled with what to call this post because everything that sorted through my mind seemed either inappropriate or a bad conglomeration like our trip to the German buffet on Sunday. Truth be told, this post is about Marijuana and Salvia, the old and the new, the legal and illegal, and how a class discussion about omega 3 fatty acids earned me a label by accident - one that you hope not to get during your time in grad school - as the pot kid.
So I'm taking this nutrition class and as we reach the end of the quarter and all the main topics have been discussed, we've had the opportunity to talk to the boom in omega enhanced food products which even extends to the pet industry. As we ran down a list of sources of omega 3 fatty acids, I was shocked to see salvia pop up on the list. For those of you who've forgotten about salvia's "recent" publicity appearance, I've included the link.
Coming from Michigan, I'm pretty sure there's not a drug or substance that goes undiscussed, so I was pretty familiar with this one to the point that I knew people who wouldn't touch this stuff no matter what, even though it's legal, because it supposedly really messes you up like a bad trip. Of course, not all herbs are bad for you, but this is one really potent herbal supplement with some polar opposite effects on the body.
Of course, I raised my hand without stopping to consider the social consequences and asked the professor if that was the stuff that you could get high off of, "like pot"? His response to a shocked and silent class, "Well, it wasn't around in the 60's". He then went on a diversion into a guy named Jim Stafford, recommending we need to watch his song "Wildwood Weed". So I Googled it and include the embed here for you. Based on the clip, I'm pretty sure there was one person in class who appreciated the reality of my comment.
I recently changed my blog site over to Dutch as a primary language. There was a time when I pretty proficiently read formal Dutch, made pretty solid attempts at Dutch email, frequented a Dutch 'hyves' (social networking site) account and even floundered around with some pronunciation. Well, truth be told, I feel like I'm always getting stupider in my logical attempt to short-circuit needless work and effort. Somewhere along the way, I found out that Yahoo Babel did a pretty bang-up job of translating things so I stopped using a dictionary and stopped using my head. I'm not sure how much switching this back over has really done for me yet, but it's nice to use my head a little every day to renew those old mental connections formed between strange excessive usage of misplaced vowels and the common meanings that over 16 million people successfully associate them with.
Of course, that's really just a prelude to the other topic on my mind this morning. With the Final Four in Detroit in 2009, the great town economically and emotionally rallied around the home boys, my very own MSU Spartans. And while I'll be the first to admit that it's not always a great place to be, there are some really nice things about Detroit that commonly get neglected by those who jump on the hating wagon, like Glenn Beck so mistakenly did.
And here's what people had to say about Glenn Beck:
Two very good friends of mine live in Detroit. Young professionals, they embody the hope that accompanies the town and the potential that it has to capture the old, progressive vibe it used to have. Just like Chrysler mentions in their ad, this is a town that bounces back and not just like a brief rebound. We're talking about the oldest city in the Midwest, the French fort when Ohio was just a bunch of trees (similar to the UP now). Regardless of circumstances or even mismanagement by government officials (something Michigan is all too familiar with), this town finds a way to keep on, and you have to love that about it. If you walk the streets like Amanda and I did back in September, you can feel a town that is trying to bounce back once again. Nobody said it was easy, but they're doing it or at least trying.
And this is Hockeytown, the city with the best team on ice, this side of the great pond. Don't every forget it. There's nothing quite like playoff season in a crowded, dirty bar, watching the Wings duke it out.
I thought when I saw Rosie the Riveter, that that was the oddest thing to put into a music video... but it goes haywire from there. So here you are with a classic Pink video (they all are pretty crazy), and then this one from her new song that just weirds me out too much. Frankly, she's crazy, but I think that's the only reason I like her music. If you make it through those, I've included Kesha's for a grand finale of what on earth is going on in these? Almost like we're chilling with Miley Cyrus on pot.
... because you're human ... because you've felt this kind of pain ... because you can't imagine feeling this kind of pain ... because you are powerless to fix this broken life ... because there are so many more of them. They call out for help, broken, lost in this world of pain and suffering. I think one thing that made the 9/11 tragedy so terrible for so many people is because it bridged the gaps.
Every day bad things happen - all around the world. But this attack was on a symbol of hope, this was an emblem of international cooperation. And it was a symbol of the wealthy as well as representative of the land of promise for those less fortunate. This bridged the gap between politics, religion, ethnicity, country of origin, age, sex, race - and it dumped us all into a feeling of vulnerability.
Tomorrow will be 69 years from the date of the last attack on American soil before 9/11. 69 years to ease the pain and yet there are still people scarred forever by the impact of this attack. It's been over 9 years since 9/11, and these scars still scream fresh pain in many families. And many similar incidents occur all of the time around the world.
That is why those serving our country overseas are such heroes to me - both those on forgotten bases and training camps, and those on the front lines. The supply managers and those with the responsibility to rebuild following devastating events. These heroes risk their lives every day because they don't want anyone to have to suffer in the way in which so many people have. It makes me so angry inside every time I hear this song that I can't even cry, despite the fact that to not cry when exposed to that much sorrow in the form of another human is unreasonable and against human nature. Angry that there is no way to fix the fact that this and other tragedies have happened. Angry that there is no compassion for fellow man to prevent these atrocities in the first place. Angry that there are Americans more concerned about whether their dog can sue someone in court than they are about the suffering of their own; they are unwilling to even recognize the cry of desperation every day.
I had to, I hope you can understand. I just don't think my blog would be complete without the "Safety Dance". Personally, I would pass on the first one and watch the LSD version which comes second. It makes so much more sense, but it also would not be the PG version of the two, be fairly warned.
And as a final thought, please enjoy the daily mail song. You can't always believe what you read. ;)
Just in time for the 1st of December, the first real snow came down this morning on my way to class. Surprisingly the roads weren't nearly as hazardous as I anticipated and I still made it to my class on time. But man is it cold out there! I wore a long sleeved t-shirt this morning and it was definitely the difference maker for my walk to class. Now if I can just get out to the folks and grab the gloves, I'd be doing well. It's really pretty to get some snow in the air if I don't have to worry about it tormenting my commute.
Of interest in my randoms wanderings today...
Lee Harvey Oswald's coffin is up for sale. Yep, I said coffin. Good news is it's been vacant for about 29 years now.
Mercury makes Ibises stop mating... which apparently means they're gay. Who knew you had to reproduce to prove you were straight?
Finally, I saw this car on Top Gear last night and so it's on here today for being pretty crazy awesome. Not that I'll ever drive one or be good enough to appreciate it, but it was fun to watch.
What a great weekend, including some great upsets in the BCS standings. Amanda and I had a chance over the last 5 days to see nearly all of our local and some non-local extended family, and I got a chance to shoot a couple hundred shotgun shells with Amanda's dad. She and I were talking tonight about Robin Williams, and so I thought I'd include some videos to show his many sides. Be warned, I would not consider these appropriate for kids or other delicate minds.
This woman has gathered a lot of attention in the candidates races, everything from Wolf Blitzer on CNN to Stephen Colbert on his report, mostly for this ad. For example (and entertainment), check out this SNL parody. And for the record, I can see where people found those accusations worth digging up.
However, it was what she said in the Youtube video that I saw today which shocked me the most. I absolutely agreed with her standing on allowing schools to teach whatever theory of the origins of life that they want, holding that a religious belief being represented in school is not the same as being forced down a kid's throat. Maybe a little more explanation of multiple theories would lead children to be better informed and equipped for the questions that they will encounter in the future. In my opinion this is not a violation of separation of church and state, but O'Donnell hadn't thought that far. She apparently didn't even know that there was an amendment about separation of church and state. Either that or she got too caught up in the debate. (Watch this video for the first half, you can ditch it after that).
Today, having exhausted my recent Colbert episodes, I return to Tosh.0 to find that there is nearly nothing worth putting into my blog. Because of the lack of funniness recently, I think we can agree that this video's at least worth a shot (you'll appreciate the pun later).
In case you're wondering how my day is going, I only need quote my conversation with Amanda on gchat: "She nuked her brain into the stone age". Not that you can guess what it's about, but I think you empathize through your own experiences and I hope your day is looking up. :)
I'd also like to give a shout out to those unfortunate souls who are already starting school. This is probably the longest summer break of my life (May 6 - Sept 20) and I am loving it. Sure, I can't wait to get back to those good old seats that I did so much napping in, but I'm enjoying the sense of accomplishment that comes with doing a good hard real day's... wait. No, that's not what work feels like at all. Ok, I'm jealous of you guys for your school sessions starting early. I'm ready to officially be a grad student, in class and working on figuring out what a project might look like or include.
I just google-mapped where I'm going for work tomorrow, and after it found the location it just started revolving around the globe. In fact, it continued to revolve even after I refreshed the page with driving directions, coming back to rest in Afghanistan, which is definitely not where I'm going to work tomorrow.
And then I found this chicken video on the comment bar of Tosh.0.
I dedicate this post to Gail as I steal 2 great Youtube videos for the blog. We had a pretty cool bonfire last night and I'm getting ready to head out and help Liz and Chris move today. Yup, after an extremely long day of work (bet you never guessed from my posts yesterday) it's nice to have a weekend ahead of us.
Yep, I couldn't believe it when I saw it, but Youtube has collected a playlist of political ads from across the US. This literally left me just jaw agape in the grad office. I couldn't even believe I saw it.
In case the guy riding a horse and his list of experiences didn't scream right-wing (oh, and by the way he was running for Ag. Commissioner in Alabama), then whipping out the gun at the end probably did the trick. And while we're on the topic of Alabama, I think this one's right in the same flavor.
And I don't know if this link will work for you or not, but it should be jumping spiders fighting.
In case you ever were interested in MSU football tickets, I'm trying to get them moved this weekend before Amanda and I put them on Ebay. I got them for half of face value on discount and I'm just trying to get my money back on them. I had to buy the set to get Notre Dame tickets, of course I could've gotten them other ways apparently, but now I just need to move the rest of the season.
Thanks to Michael for the Youtube of this morning, where Michael Cera gets hit by a bus.
This might be the last time that I have time to post here before I ride the Pelotonia this weekend. The final tally in pre-ride training is 10 lbs lost, and never more than 30 miles biked. I'm sure hoping this goes well. I guess what I'm most concerned about is the bike seat and how sore I'm gonna be by about mile 40, or how sore I'll be on Sunday when I ride back. Anyhow, the big rally is tonight and I'm very excited to see Counting Crows in concert.
Amanda and I were out at the house yesterday, and we took the time to see both the new kittens and also to raid some onions from the garden back at the house. If there's 3 things my family did well on this year it was pumpkins, potatoes and onions (which we always grow well, funny...) My part of the garden looks like a prairie grass display that got out of hand but the rest of the garden has held up well to the tough family schedule and we took tomatoes and onions, as well as zuchinis from Josiah's garden.
Since the cousins are on vacation, the duty fell to our extended family to watch Josiah's garden while they were gone. Let me start by saying that Josiah has one heck of an impressive garden. That boy has really gotten into it. And then to top off the fact that he's got sunflowers 8 ft tall, sweet corn maturing in cycles, edible cantaloupe and tomatoes growing in experimental plantings, he's got broccoli coming up just now. It's amazing how well his garden has turned out and props to him for such a good job. Obviously, the fence keeping the critters out and Patricia helping him weed are two bonuses as well, but it's obvious how hard he's worked by the bountiful produce his garden presents. We stole a couple of huge zuchini and took them back to the house where I promptly learned in Amanda's absence how to get a zuchini shredded up for chocolate zuchini bread. I washed and peeled the zuchini, and then cut it into thirds, then quartered those thirds and then they were finally small enough pieces to fit into the manual feed for the food processor which I assembled and safely (or at least without injury) used to shred the zuchini. Be impressed, Mom, because I only knew how to use it from our times of cooking/baking back in elementary school.
We had enough to make 3 loaves and then also freeze some extra. That used up zuchini number one, but the second is still waiting outside for his doom. And man, oh man was that bread good. It made for a perfect dessert to follow the ribeye steak, potatoes and corn on the cob that we made on the grill. I also had my own experiment in baking sunflower seeds, but I have a few minor improvements to make in that department before I'm willing to share them with the world. Thanks to Jacob for unwittingly volunteering his plants yesterday while he was out fishing.
As I said, we also were at the house to see Brandy's new kittens. If you know Brandy, you'll be shocked to see how cute and normal the kittens look in the pictures. I don't have the pictures into my gmail inbox yet but I will post them as soon as they arrive. We have one gray kitten, one all black kitten and 2 black and white kittens. There's absolutely no doubt who the father is - that mangy old Benny.
For my Youtubes of the day, I would like to recommend this penguin video of penguins in a zoo chasing a butterfly. I found it on Taylor's facebook and agree that it is a good way to put a smile on someone's face. If that doesn't, then listen to the pig puppet remind you once again as we honor the approach of flu season (it's always approaching) that H1N1 is a misnomer not related to the porcines at all.
Finally today I'd just like to briefly put into words a few of the reasons that I love Windows 7. I've been using it since last November and haven't looked back since.
1) Have you tried that little button in the right hand bottom corner which displays your desktop? Time saver! 2) I was able to redirect my documents saving so that it didn't use the OS drive like some idiot at Dell had thought would be a good idea. Sure, you could've done that before? The kicker is that I know little about computers but still got it done in 2 minutes. 3) I can run stuff from Macs that my older computer would freak out about. Maybe this isn't 7 but it's the software that came with it. 4) I love how much less it glitches up than Vista. Now I can truly multi-task and actually feel like I'm getting more done. I don't waste time waiting for the system to catch up with itself every 20 seconds. 5) The ability to drag over open document icons and create a visual shadow of it without actually selecting it saves me hours when I'm doing data entry between tables.
Those are my top 5 reasons for today, but I'm sure there will be more to come.
For those of you who tried to view my previous link about D-Rep. Hank Johnson's capsizing comment, please view today's post with the more current video - yesterday's was removed from Youtube.com.
After reading this article and watching that movie, please feel free to answer the question of the day: How on earth did this man get elected?
And to solve the debate about Guam's size, I have attached a topo map, and dimensions. 30 miles long, 12 miles wide.
P.S. (4/28/2011) - I have corrected the video and links in this article since at the time I didn't know how to input them right. Thanks!
Then we came up past a bridge where they were walking backwards along the arch. I’ve included the picture so you can see just what kind of obnoxious stupidity was going on in the park last weekend. Luckily we moved far past the craziness and were able to enjoy a real walk away from the madness. I’ve also included a couple of videos made by the company putting this on so that you can see what I’m talking about. I see two reasons why anyone would want this skill. Either they haven't grown up yet or they're practicing running from the cops. Or both.
