Working out

Ok, so it happened, I finally started working out. Strengthwise, I was doing pretty good up until 2001/2002. I was in a couple accidents that really just sapped me of my strength. In the first one, I was rear-ended by a truck while I was stopped in traffic. That messed up my back a bit and started the ball rolling toward desending strength, but I was ok. Almost a year later, I was driving a rental pick-up. The truck had a problem where it would suddenly slip into neutral on its own. The malfunction happen while I was in a freeway entrance on a rainy day. Needless to say, I lost control. The pick-up rolled. It was totalled, and my back got more fucked up. From that time on, I was noticing myself progressively getting weaker and less agile. I've played sports and stuff since than, but I'm really now realizing how little that helped.
Well, that's all changing now. In just one week, I am feeling a substantial difference. The stronger I feel, the more I realize how far I've fallen. It's helping me feel more energized and more satisfied. I've even been hornier. lol Dare I say that I'm actually excited about how much I can improve. It's a rare event for me to use the word excited when referring to myself. I'm a pretty casual, easy going guy.
I've already got a feeling that this is a turning point for me.

Homerism

"I wish God were alive to see this." LOL

Trouble with handling Crime

There seems to be a modern Catch-22 in handling crime. We try to use punishment as a deterrent, but it really doesn't deter. The prisons are full of people that simply didn't think they'd get caught, or simply just didn't think at all. Also, the punishment should fit the crime. That's not to say let's use the ancient eye-for-an-eye standard. The Constitution protects us from that sort of nonsense (usually).
One problem is that the bar for what passes as reasonable punishment has been lowered substantially in the 20th Century. There is somewhat of a reversal of this going on right now, as many crimes now have much higher jail times.
Another problem is that punishment for serious, violent crimes shouldn't be treated as a deterrent, since it's not. We should simply punish the criminal in a way that fits the crime and leave it at that.
Yet another problem is that our prisons are actually considered desirable turf by gangs. They intentionally commit serious crimes in order to get arrested and sent to prison so they increase their membership in a given prison. So, prison isn't the necessarily best way to exact justice. This is where we encounter the crux of this catch-22.
The way out of this problem may to be punish people in a way that directly addresses their motives. There are attempts at this, such as counseling, but that only goes so far. What other options are available?

My Life - Part Two: Talking and Cheeze

When I was a toddler (2-3yrs), I loved cheeze. My favorite was cottage cheese. I remember this time pretty well. I had long since made a conscious decision to hold off from talking just to see how long I could get away with it. Yes, I do remember making that decision. And I remember when it backfired.
When I was about 3 1/2, my mom got tired of the subborn game. The routine we had at the time was that I let her know that I wanted something with just gestures. In particular, I asked for cheeze in this way. She finally used this my desire for cheeze to try to get me to talk. She refused to give it to me unless I asked for it vocally.
After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to break her stand, I finally gave in and spoke. From that point on, whenever I ask vocally for cheeze, she got it for me.
It didn't take long for me to get so tired of cheeze, that one day, I just stopped eating it. In fact, since then, I can't stand cheeze unless it's cooked into food. I eat (and enjoy) pizza, but can't stand even that if it was too much cheeze. I often pick off particularly thick sections of cheeze from my pizza slices. ...and never order double cheeze for me, thank you.
So, basically, as a toddler, I loved cheeze. I learned to talk, and got so much cheeze because of it that cheeze now disgusts me, for life.

Enumeration of Same-Sex Marriage

Same-Sex Marriage Essay is a good, quick overview of reasons why it is illegal to prevent same-sex marriage. It even makes a great point as to why even a Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage would be illegal since the Constitution prevents itself from contradicting itself.

No trouble this weekend

Sunday, my g/f and I spent the day together. We met up with a friend of hers from out of town later in the evening. We later saw Mean Girls. It was better than I thought it would be. I mean, it’s still about teenager girls in high school, but it was funny and not too sappy. Lorne Michaels produced the movie. Once I found that fact out, I excepted a movie that was going to be more funny than chickflicky. It lived up to expectations.

On Monday, my g/f and I spent the better part of the day preparing for a BBQ at her place for her folks. After all the rushing around, we got the BBQ started at about 6pm. Just in time for her folks to show up at 6:30. The food came out very tasty. The BBQ was surprisingly successful.

Moving

I'm not moving. I'm helping Miriam move. She's get kinda psycho during the moving process, so I'm keeping her sane by imitating her just enough that she realizes what she's doing and gets out of her zone. Otherwise she'll be going nuts...yelling even.

Yes, it's true, I'm helping my friend move over Mermorial Weekend...see what a great guy I am. ;-)

The Spitfire in a race 

General statement about me. :)

For someone that doesn't know me, I can seem to have many contradictions. For someone that does *know* me, I can seem to have even more. However, everything about me makes perfect sense to someone that really knows me. :)

"Can you state that objectively"

Huh? I think a lot of people tend to confuse objectivity with void of any responsibility. It's like it's wrong to blame anyone for things they are doing wrong. "Objective" is a code word for "remove all blame". Sheeze.

As a general statement about our country, we have religious conversatives blaming everyone else for there own poor job performance and mistakes; and liberals trying not to blame anyone for anything. The end result is that neither side is blaming the people actually responsible screwing things up. Moderates and centralist are caught in the middle without any support from either side, so it's next to impossible to hold people accountable for their actions in government.

Tahoe

Tahoe is a pretty laid back place. I visited there with my g/f recently. It snowed early each morning, but you wouldn't know it by late morning because the snow would melt and the water evaporated so fast. I think the water evaporated quickly cuz the air is so dry there, at least when we visited. We mostly enjoyed backdrop and each other. I know, gag. lol Anyways, had fun.

My Life - Part I: The Funk Mindset

For most of my life, I lived in a funk mindset. This funk mindset is hard to explain. It was like I wasn’t fully self-aware of my own thoughts and actions at any given moment. Almost as though I was under a trance or in a haze. If life was the act of watching T.V. (not what actually is on the T.V., but the act of watching it) then this funk would be like having the volume turned almost all the way down and assuming that what little you do hear fully represents what was going on, even though you can’t hear most of what is being said. Sometimes the funk is like I was a remote spectator to my own live. Other times, I knew I was in control of my actions, but had my options unnecessarily limited, as though I was wearing blinders when looking at the situation while it was happening. Other symptoms of this funk mindset were: the feeling of complete inferior anyone else around me; lack of self-worth; natural inclination to choose the least successful or most disastrous option available; and even when I was successful at something, I didn’t really feel as though I was the reason for my success. I only seemed to have full self-awareness when I was reflecting on events after the fact, usually when I was alone, often late at night in bed. I often acted or thought in ways that confused me upon reflection.
I entered into this funk sometime before 2nd Grade, I think. I can’t remember there being a particular event that triggered it. Maybe it gradually overtook me. I first realized something was wrong when I was a teenager. I didn't have it figured out yet, though. I had enough trouble just trying to deal with the adolescence. My acute awareness of the funk didn't happen till I was 24. I really didn't exit the haze of the funk completely till I was 28.

I'm 31

It seems a lot of people end up reflecting on life sometime around the age of 30 or 31. More than one friend of my ended up asking, "where did the time go?"
Well, for me it's a bit different. I've been aware of where the time went and it zoomed by me. I starting becoming aware sometime after I turned 25. The age itself wasn't the reason. Events in that year of my life are the cause. I have since realized that my level of selfawareness, selfworth, out look on life and emotional state mark the different periods in my life. I'll go more in to this soon.

Warning about Acura reliability

The Acura TL is having some serious reliability problems. I'm under warranty, so it's not costing me anything, but the issues are bothersome.

First, my transmission broke down after 37,500 miles. It started seriously slipping gears. I brought my car into the dealership on 4/14/04. At that time, the service agent admitted that they have seen 50 cars this month so far come in for transmission problems...and that was just one dealership!!!

Second, THREE interior parts have broken without any abuse whatsoever: The mirror swivel, and both front door interior side mirror covers. Even though these parts are not technically covered under warranty, the dealership has been very gracious in fixing these free of charge.

Given the number of problems that Acura seems to be having with 2002 and 2003 model years, I am now worried about the re-sale value of my car. I had intended my TL to be my long term workhorse car, but now I'm seriously considering trading it in for something more reliable within a couple of years.

You've been warned!

Artifacts of Evolution

I’ve got a few hypotheses about human evolution. The underlining hypothesis is that humans developed our large brain and self-awareness before evolution was completely done with the development our body plan. These are based on nothing more than observation, conjecture, and being a human myself. They were developed after considering lapses in the modern human body. It would be interesting to see someone explore these hypotheses.

Question: Why do we have Wisdom Teeth?
Hypothesis: Evolution provided humans which just enough teeth to get our ancestors through about 30 years of life.
Explanation: Wisdom Teeth provide one extra late life set of teeth to replace adult teeth lost due to harsh living conditions and tooth decay. The modern human generally do not have a need for this extra set of teeth.
In prehistoric times, humans had life expectancies limited to 30 years or so. Without dental care, our teeth tend to deteriorate rapidly in our adult life. Evolution adjusted to this attrition by providing one extra group of teeth. Prehistoric man relied on this extra set of teeth late in their lives. Maybe around 25 or so?
Observations: Many animals either have teeth that last roughly as long as their lives. Many hunter animals lose or damage teeth frequently do due the harsh nature of hunting. These animals either have teeth that rejuvenate, or that get replaced. For example, cats and dogs have teeth that grow throughout their life. Sharks are constantly growing new teeth to replace teeth lost during the hunt.

Question: Why do we get leg cramps?
Hypothesis: Leg cramps are part of a diminishing instinct to grasp items with our feet. This instinct is from a time when the body plan of prehumans was designed for tree climbing.
Explanation: Although there are certain medical causes for leg cramps at specific times, there seems to be an underlining cause to leg cramps at other times which go beyond the medical explanations. It is possible that instinct, which causes leg cramping, is an artifact of evolution that hasn’t quite died out yet, even though it is no longer useful.
Observations: Leg cramps can be triggered by things such as: our foot being in a tight space; while swimming; during sex; etc. Some monkeys appear to instinctively grasp branches with their feet while they are in trees.

Future questions to be addressed:

Question: Why do we require so much water for our survival?

Question: Why does our jawbone grow throughout our life?