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.

The Obaminator

So Obama has been recieving a bit of criticism for 'borrowing' some words and ideas in his speeches, most notably from the current Gov. of Mass. Deval Patrick with whome Obama openly admits they exhange ideas and phrases.

But here is another phrase which has been central to his message lately and I believe I have the approximate source. He stated recently "the problem that we face in America today is not the lack of good ideas. It's that Washington has become a place where good ideas go to die." reference here. Now one year ago I was talking with a roomate about the Univ. of Chicago where Obama was a lecturer (I will let you check Wikipedia). My roomate said that his friend who attended school there said that people at the Univ. of Chicago called it "the place where fun goes to die". Of course the Univ. of Chicago and Obama are not the first places or people to have this statement attributed to them, but I found it very interesting given Obama's time at Univ. of Chicago, and especially with the claims from the Clinton campaign that he is borrowing ideas.

Really politicians in my opinion, very rarely 'create' ideas, they are more often the messengers who synthesize and communicate most effictively a certain message to the right audiences, and that is really what makes all the difference.

San Francisco

I just shot both of these yesterday in San Francisco at the Martin Luther King Waterfall (right by the Museum of Modern Art) and at Fisherman's Wharf with Alcatraz in the background. I noticed the video angle isn't very good in one of the videos. I could blame the person who shot the video however I did watch them film it so I could have taken more notice of this.

AntiAntiBiotics

So for a long time I really didn't get very sick. I would feel a little sick a few times a year for about a day or two, that's it. Then two years ago right after the bird flu scare started I got really sick for 7-8+ days. Since then when I get sick it lasts 4-5+ days, although it doesn't happen very often.
So I have learned with Anti-Biotics that the more people use them the more the strand of the bacteria is strengthened. So theoretically over time the bacteria that causes you to get sick with the flu will make you more sick for a longer period of time than it did before.
So I don't have much to base this off of, but I think Antibiotics have been overused, and right now I am anti antibiotics.

costa rica videos

Costa Rica-worth the sunburns (for now)

For about 7+ years I have really wanted to go to Costa Rica, I don't even know completely why. Starting a couple of years ago I would take a picture of myself on my cellphone in the greenhouse and would tell people it was a picture from a recent trip to Costa Rica-hoping that the greenery with convince them for atleast a minute or two. It usually didn't work, but now I have pictures and multiple witnesses. Its quite a paradisically beautiful country with volcanos, rainforests, misty mountains and sunny beaches.


Here is photographic overview of my trip:


















This is from the canopy tours, a few hundred feet in the air-- spectacular view of so many trees/plants.


















Arenal Volcano- still an active Volcano with flowing lava and usually cloudy on top















I like this picture because it shows some of the natural beauty of Costa Rica. There were so many moments where we just sort of stood in awe at something like this.

The first beach at Manuel Antonio Park. We did some body surfing and built sand castles here. Mine was the strongest, if maybe not the best looking.




















This is in some deep rainforest, I think we were going for the hanging from vines Tarzan look.


Below: We did a rather intense short hike to get to this beach, which we actually left right after this picture, because we wanted something with more sand. From left to right: Me, Fiorella, Maria, Laren.

2008=Bad Election for Bigots

I am thinking one plausible reason that candidates this election season tried for a long time to play clean campaigns was to avoid as much as possible any criticism and bigotry associated with each candidates respective race, gender, religous or ethnic background.

On the Democratic side you have Hillary and Barack. A strongly racist or bigoted person would most likely have a difficulty voting for a woman or African American. John Edwards although probably not viable at this point for president (V.P perhaps?) made it clear on many occasions in 2007 that if a certain voter would vote for him based solely on the fact that they would not vote for a woman or an african american that he did not want their vote. And so amongst the top three democratic candidates, there is no clear candidate for people with strong bigoted or racist views.

The republican side have a bit more to offer towards people with bigoted or racist views but not much. It's interesting with Romney how on one side people may be prejudiced against his religion because they don't see it as Christian, while others have claimed the religion is racist based on their own interpretration of church policy prior to 1978. You also have Rudy Guiliani who was particularly welcoming of any person (legal or illegal) who would work in New York City, many people with bigoted view may take serious issue with this. McCain and Huckabee also rather soft on illegal immigration and support what many in the anti-illegal immigration movement see as a rather easy path to citizenship.

McCain and Huckabee have sharpened up there stances and given greater emphasize to ''securing the border'', from a certain angle this could be an indirect way to offer appease bigoted voters as illegal immigration has become an issue at the forefront in surprising places like New Hamphsire and South Carolina where immigrant populations from Mexico are small but growing rapidly.

Guiliani comes of from a Italian Roman Catholic and McCain from Scotch-Irish descent (according to his website). In many parts of the country it may surprise people the strong prejudices and animosities which existed in the past towards people of these respective groups. Things are different now than they were then, which may be a sort of omen for what the election could like in another 4,8,16 or 32 years?

Either way with peoples views as they are today there may be no real clear candidate for the bigoted vote to flock to.

Some books I read last year (featuring mini reviews!)

These are some of the best books I read last year. I didn't get to nearly all the books I wanted to. But I did get to read several especially good books. (note: I have blogged previously about some of these, so I keep it brief here).

Perhaps since we are still sort of in the season I could rate these books as library card or amazon card worthy?

Freakonomics- Read it mostly on the subway. Easy to grasp and a fast read. It includes quite a bit of economic and social commentary that is good fuel for thought and conversation. I conversed with I think 5+ people about what the books states about the relationship between Roe V. Wade and crime. The book seems to be part of modern econ-political mantra these days.

Rats- Like the first book its a freaky title, but if you've lived in New York (or many other cities) you have probably experienced what led this author to write this book, seeing rats in all over alleys and subways. In interesting fashion this book describes the history of the struggle and clash cities have fought with our crawling fury little foes. Its mostly interesting, occacionally gross and like good non-fiction good come away with some off the wall facts that come in handy when you are talking about, say poison gasses used in Korea in World War II, seriously it happened to me.

P.S--I lived in NY less than a short block from where the author observed rats for a year as part of his research, crazy huh.

The Brother Karamazov- This is 900 pages of some of the deepest stuff I have ever touched. First 100 pages were not too captivating but it really had me soon after. It follows a pattern of story-philosophy-story-more philosophy/social commentary-story. The author explores some of the deepest human struggles with questions about religion, government, law and social mores. Very deep, very fascinating and worth the unending paragraphs and words that fill up the entire page.

Icon- This books takes you through the ride that is the life of Steve Jobs. Intertwined heavily is his life with the respective lives of the companies he helped build (Apple, Next, Pixar) and later reinvent. Not too techie and written so anybody interested in Apple, Business, Entreprenuerism or even just entertainment would really enjoy it. Insightful and motivating

The Innovator's Dilemma- This book is just over 10 years old now, and is still higihly regarded as an authority on why most companies (not just tech companies) succeed for a time and then fail. Not all of the companies discussed (in Harvard Business School's very Case Study Method style of course!) are equally interesting, but the business insights reading this gave me were invaluable. It seems like my few years of business study and experience were sort of pieced together as I read this (Hooray now I can strategize with the corporate Big Whigs), and it just might for you too... Maybe thats a sappy endorsement.

scrabbled

word to the wise-- Be cautious when playing scrabble with people who A) don't read much, or B) have weak vocabularies.
Most of this can be solved with a really good dictionary, or with dictionary.com -- Even so, the game can turn painful as some people realize there is more than about 500 words included in the English language.

Opportunities

sometimes when an opportunity is over its like when a door is slammed shut, much to the shock to everyone present. There are other times when we see opportunity slowly fade away, like a gradual colored sunset.
Additionally its usually impossible to discover what additional opportunities were averted by not choosing the initial opportunity.