cool comments

Just read through recent comments people have posted. They were mostly interesting and had some sort of insight to the post such as a connection with the location, or their view on future of x topic.

No Habla Espanol at Food City

There is a chain of Grocery Stores here in Phoenix called Food City which caters primarily to people who speak spanish. They have a variety of Mexican foods and most products are labeled in Spanish as well as English. Most people there speak spanish- however I heard a commercial on the radio featuring the fact that they don't only speak spanish. So I finished my ultimate frisbee practice and didn't want to drive to Trader Joes so I stopped at Food City, I got some cheap grapes and strawberries and some Coconut Ice Cream (hecho en Mexico!).

Whenever I'm in a predominantly spanish speaking area or store, I use what spanish I know to communicate. So I did the same as I arrived in the checkout lane asking "esta cerrado?" (is it closed?) when I got closer she asked "How are You?" in perfect English, I responded "just fine", more than a little bummed that she didn't want to speak spanish with me. For me that's half the fun of places like that, but oh well.

Not shy to be unshy

I have seen a lot of people labeled as shy. Some of these people who had just had a unpositive encounter will be protected later by friends or aquaintences by simply stating that "that person is shy" as an excuse for there ungracious or even somewhat rude behavior. While I believe many people are shy, I also believe that people often mislabel people as shy who simply don't like talking to people in general or more specifically don't like or want to converse with or associate with certain people. Maybe even this consistent behavior has led to people to lose social prowess they may have otherwise had, had they been interested in meeting people.

So Old Navy

I guess the main downside to buying clothes at Navy is somewhat awkward feeling you experience as you go to a crowded area and you can sense its obvious to everyone around that you actually shop at Old Navy...

New Cell Phones

Its can be a bit of a hassle learning all the new buttons of a new phone and even more so if you switch phone companies. It takes extra time to do anything.

But atleast it saves time as you don't have to scroll past as many people (who you don't really call anyway) in your phone directory, simply because you haven't bothered to add them yet.

Gmail

Gmail increase in value as more of your friends use it. I recieved an invite to join in early 2005. Now a lot of people have it, but some don't, and I don't always understand why-- its so useful.

Surprise Opening Act

I went to a show with Jeremy Enigk the former lead singer of Sunny Day Real Estate (very well known in the Seattle music scene). The show was really good. I really like it when artists who have gone solo are still willing to throw in a few songs from their previous projects from which they gained most of their original fans. When my friend Brock and I were entering the club I noticed the opening act listed was fronted by a guy I went to elementary school with, we talked a little after his set. Funny little coincidence, made the whole show a little more interesting, you never know who and when you are going to run in to people.

Free thinkin

Which regions and re'li'gions of the world allow most freedom to think? Do these areas correspond to high levels of entrepreneurism? Living for 1% (3 months) of my life in this interational hub called New York and spending most of my waking hours at the U.N learning about all kinds of different countries culture, politics and history has caused me to wonder about this.

No big idea or concept yet- I was just fascinated this morning contemplating different regions of the world which are predominantly various branches of Animism, Buddhism, Christianity, Confuscism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism- I was so fasinated I scribbled ideas onto paper for about 10 minutes. It would very naive to assume religion has and does affect heavily regions of this planet.

Comparisons

I met Richard Bushman yesterday. He gave a lecture to the J. Reuban Clarke Law Society New York Chapter. He is a proffesor emeritus at Columbia University here in New York. He has a written a bunch of books, including "A rough stone Rolling" which is cultural biography of Joseph Smith. He lectured on the law in the United States during the lifetime of Joseph Smith giving a number of insightful details of the history of law in this country.

I spoke with him for a moment afterwards. I explained to him an article I wrote for a Pre-Law Review less than a year ago comparing and contrasting Slavery with Illegal Immigration (I guess it might benefit to explain what I said so I might blog that out later). I asked if any of his colleagues had proposed similar ideas, or if he saw comparisons, and most importantly perhaps if he thought people would even care about that concept. He responded to those questions: No, Yes, Yes. So it probably a fair and interesting comparison to make- between slavery and illegal immigration. I will have to blog more on this later

Sticking to Strengths to Look Smart

If you always particpate and work with things and people you are naturally good with, it is easy to lead in then you look smart. Stepping outside of this zone however, is an increased risk to trip, fall and look dumb to everyone. Why? because you are not sticking to your strenghts. I think we should generally stick to our strengths- it gives more opportunity to excell and lead in our area of choice. Stepping outside our 'comfort zone' of things were naturally good at can do even more to enhance our strengths. This could be analagous to excercising your heart- this improves all other areas of your physical health. Our how climbing a mountain makes living in a valley seem easier.

Wikipedia- The Modern Expert

Wikipedia is in my opinion an amazing academic, intellectual, social phenomenon. I used it first in 2005, it wasn't exactly new then(created in 2001) and is improves everyday. It contains a plethora of information-significant stuff to insignificant- on an incredible of amount of ever expanding topics. If this had been here sooner we could have all spent so much time finding out insightful details about the lives of our favorite music stars, some city like Valparaiso Chile that you've barely even heard of. And best of all: correct information about historical events or people which the people who lived through it or already know about it are too biased or their memory does not serve them properly to actually relate it themselves. Note: Picture is a snowflake uplclose compliments of wikipedia.

Some people critique Wikipedia (just as they did the internet circa mid to late 90's) for its authenticity because literally 'anyone' can add or edit an entry. Misinformation on the site, is I believe limited and much less than people suppose for two reasons.
1) It's updated frequently-by good sources. (I once made a posting before lunch and when I returned it had been improved with more info).
2) It's difficult to miseducate people on topics on which you are ignorant.

So it's still good to double check sources for research. But Wikipedia gives further illimunination that we know more collectively than individually.

Moving All Over and Never Leaving Home!

I was listening to my friend Nick(he's sitting on the right) speak with an acquaintance on the phone when they discovered they each lived in New Canaan Connecticut and the same area of Surrey England. Coincidence? Yeh a little, however under closer examination maybe not. Why not?

Well it really seems that people most often live in places based on 1) What they can afford and perhaps slightly more important 2) What they are comfortable with. A kid growing up in a suburb of Atlanta is probably more likely to live -if he moves- in a suburb of Chicago or Denver or San Francisco or wherever which will probably have a similar demographic makeup as the one he grew up in. People from rural small towns in the inner mountain west often eventually stay in rural areas with towns with similar population sizes.

This is definitely not always the case, but I believe is more common than not. Often people in socio economic brackets keep some distance from each other, so it is easier to bounce around the world in the hot spots and bump into the same faces.

Obviously changing countries or states or areas within states where the economies is significantly different has a huge affect. The point here is that often when people move address and actual city or town name changes, but the city or town itself doesn’t. The Wall Street Journal lists every Sunday the property value in select zip codes across the country. You meet people from those places and find out where they have lived, their friends they see on the weekends, often their extended families live in those same select zip codes. It’s easy to change locations, but with respect to the values and standards and way of life that emanates each city; we generally stay close to home.