Floating On

I have hit rock bottom creatively and intellectually. I just feel like I have lost a few steps. I feel overwhelmed. I feel uninterested.

At work I have realized that I would rather talk about problems than solve them. I have lost interest in most of what goes on. At home I have started running again in the morning and I feel great most days.

When I get home from work I usually cannot stop eating and I don't know why. I am at a weird point in my life and I don't know why or how to fix it. Maybe something is missing from my life. Maybe it is just the summer heat and the start of school. Maybe it is just the disappointment that I can't do what I want financially. Maybe...

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Is The Earth Still Flat?

If you remember your history, the Catholic church used to finance and thus control most scientific studies. Most of the advancements were actually made by members of the church. Because they financed these scientific studies, they edited the findings to support their view either literally or with threats.

I think most of us today have forgotten this lesson from history. Wealthy organizations controlling what we hear. Remember, the church believed that the Earth was the center of the universe. The church also believed that the Earth was flat.

A lot of money has been spent the last decade arguing with scientific findings from around the world. Global warming is a fact and it has been brought
on by man. Since the industrial revolution we have been polluting our planet without worrying about the consequences. It has now caught up with us!

I think most people have a problem understanding the term global warming. Especially when the weather may not be warmer today. For this reason, I prefer the term global climate change. All of the rain, flooding and tornados are proof that our weather patterns are changing. Just this week there was a tornado in Massachusetts and that is not common at all.

We need to open our eyes and stop believing all of the rhetoric being spread by wealthy corporations and the politicians and political groups they control. We need to make decisions for ourselves and our children and grandchildren. It is our responsibility and we cannot afford to make the minor changes that will solve this problem we currently face.


- Posted from my iPhone

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Who is Responsible?

The whole rapture thing that was supposed to happen in 1988 or 1994 or last Saturday or this October 21 is absolutely ridiculous. Without even starting the argument of religion and which one is the correct one, it has no basis whatsoever.

Harold Camping is an irresponsible individual who has just been looking to make a name for himself. He has raised a ton of money, all of which comes from people who believe what he preaches. Don't get me started with believing the rantings of a lunatic.

Many people gave their entire life savings and retirement funds to his cause. The money was used to post billboards all over the world. He finally responded on Sunday and stated, "I don't have any responsibility. I don't have any responsibility of anybody's life. I'm only teaching the Bible. I'm simply saying, 'This is what the Bible says.'" He also took no responsibility for what his followers did with their money and possessions stating, "We at Family Radio never tell anyone what [to] do with their possessions. That's totally between them and God."

You must always think about your words, especially if you are a public figure. There will be people who believe what you say with all their heart. You have to be responsible and make sure you are not misleading these people. Obviously Family Radio does not think this way and does not care about the listeners it has.

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Inspiration

I have been unable to find the inspiration to blog for twenty five days. If you are a follower of my twitter feed, then you have seen a few photos that I have posted. Nothing has been written here though.

I can't say why I have not been motivated to blog. I do know that I have been unmotivated in every part of my life for about that time though. I think some of it came from tax time. Last year I had to pay quite a bit for the first time in a long time so I kept putting it off and stressing about it. I just finished my taxes at the beginning of this week and got a pleasant surprise. I am getting a refund. Time to pay off some bills.

I have not been very creative for the last month or so. Instead, I have been totally wrapped up in the Showtime series Dexter. I am not a subscriber, but I have heard great things about it. I decided in December to try out Netflix and I have been pretty happy. I started watching Dexter from the beginning and I am addicated. It is a great show and I totally identify with a lot of Dexter's emotions. It has totally zapped my creativity though.

I am going to start to blog and take photos again slowly and see what happens.

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First Change of 2011

I bought the 4-Hour Body at the end of last year. I started reading it as soon as I got it, but I was moving through it slowly. I read Tim's previous book and found it interesting, so I thought I would try this one.

Tim says that you should not read the entire book from cover to cover. Instead, you should focus on specific chapters based on your goals. My first goal is to lose weight so I read the chapters that deal with rapid fat loss. On Monday The Queen and I started our new eating plan, the slow carb diet.

We have drastically reduced our intake of sugar and carbs six days per week. On the seventh day, we can eat anything we want. We decided that our "cheat" day will be Sunday and we cannot wait. We have been thinking about what we will eat that day all week. It has really not been that difficult for me to stick to the plan, but The Queen has been struggling a bit. She is sticking to it, but she is not very happy about it.

I have been on this eating plan for three full days and as of this morning I have lost two pounds. At that rate I will be able to drop about sixteen pounds in a month. I have not even exercised at all this week and am still losing weight. That just goes to show you how damaging carbs are to your waist line. The only exercise Tim recommends at this point is the kettle bell swing. I hope to start that soon.

I will be travelling next week for business, so I am interested to see if both The Queen and I can stick to the plan while I am on the road. I have been cooking all of the meals this week and don't know if she will stick to it while I am gone. Our goal is the The Queen and I to both look good for our trip to New York next month. We need to stick to it!

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Out of Control!

We, in the United States, often look at the messes in other countries and laugh at them. We believe that the struggles they have are because they are not as civilized as us. We believe that the things that happen there could never happen here. We are jaded. We are arrogant!

Politics in this country has gotten out of control. Obama was elected president based on a campaign of change. The people bought into this change agenda, even though we knew that it is virtually impossible to change politics in this country.

Obama and the Left pushed through health care reform, which I think is a good thing. I have said before that I don't believe health care reform was marketed correctly. It is really insurance company reform. The Right was angry and they got everyone all riled up about reform. The Tea Party started whipping everyone into a frenzy by making them believe that this was going to be bad for them. It was going to turn us into a socialist country. Even people on government health care, Medicare, were furious that we were implementing government health care. A lot of hate was being directed at the Left from the conservative Right.

The Tea Party gained some control back in the elections last year. The first agenda from the Right was to reverse health care reform. That is the last thing we need in this economy. It will cost us hundreds of millions of dollars to reverse what is already being changed. That money could be better used to create jobs for the massive number of unemployed workers this economy has created. Or, it could be used to pay down the deficit that has been increased in order to help spur the economy along. Instead the Right is forcing this reversal of health care reform as a direct attack on Obama and his supporters.

Sarah Palin created a frenzy in March of last year when she released her target map of congressional districts with cross hairs on them. The map pointed out districts that her and John McCain had won in 2008 whose Congressmen voted for health care reform. She created hate among her followers for anyone who disagreed with her and the Right. I believe that her and some other politicians from the Right have gotten out of control. They are not trying to solve any problems, they are just trying to force their agenda down the public's throat. And I think that there carelessness contributed to the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona. She was one of the Congressmen in the cross hairs and Jared Loughner, the shooter, took her words literally.

I don't blame them for the actual shooting as it appears that Loughner was mentally ill. What I do blame them for is dividing this country and creating anger and hate. They are just fanning the flames of unhappiness instead of trying to overcome the issues we are all facing and improving our situation. They are creating a bad culture in the United States and that can be blamed on poor leadership on their part.

You can look at countries as larger versions of companies and we all know how important culture is to the success of a company. Without a great, or even good, culture, a company will not thrive. It can limp along and be somewhat successful, but it will never be a great company. The same goes for countries. The culture of the United States needs a severe tune-up. We need to stop the hate and fighting amongst our politicians and focus on trying to make positive changes. I don't know if Obama's health care reform is the answer for the problems in the system, but at least he is trying to change it for the better.

We need our politicians to be leaders and focus on being positive and inspiring us to do great things. They need to help us embrace change and realize that it is necessary if this country is going to survive. We need to stop all of the hate and fighting and move forward so we can make this country great again.

Read this good article.

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Recap: Personal Goals for 2010

I think I failed miserably this year. In my post of January 7, 2010, I listed my personal goals for 2010 as follows:

1. Reed 1 Book a Month.
2. Run in 2 5K Races.
3. Volunteer.
4. Change a Child's Life.

Here is a recap of how I did:

1. Reed 1 Book a Month.
I did OK on this goal. I read eleven books, listened to one audio book and read three short ebooks or pamphlets. I learned a lot this year and I plan to keep on learning into 2011. I plan on keeping this goal as is this year.

2. Run in 2 5K Races.
I failed miserably at this goal. I not only did not run in any 5K races, but I stopped exercising and running the last quarter of the year. I have put on about five or six pounds since I stopped. I am slowly starting to get back into things again by using the Nordic Track, but I really need to start running again. I plan on keeping this as a goal for 2011.

3. Volunteer.
All I can say is epic fail! I did not volunteer for anything this year. My excuse is that this year has just passed me by, but that is only an excuse. I really need to volunteer in 2011. I want to volunteer again at the Visalia Rescue Mission and I would like to do some work for Habitat for Humanity. I also have the idea in the back of my mind of an afterschool photography program at The Queen's school. Maybe I can figure out how to get that started this year. I really need to focus on this goal for 2011.

4. Change a Child's Life.
I don't know what to say about this one. We ended up getting two foster children for a little over a month. I really think we did change their lives, but I feel bad that we could not make a permanent change in their lives. I don't think we will get any other foster children for some time as it was much different than we expected. It was a learning experience. I think we can change a child's life without actually have them as a foster child. We can do this with some volunteer work or we can find another way. I would like to keep this as a goal for 2011, but I don't think it is realistic any more.

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Ch Ch Ch Changes

I don't know why that song line popped into my head when I was thinking about this post. I really don't even know what song it is.

My family has gone through some changes this last month and a half...and the changes continued yesterday. As you may know, we added some foster kids to our family in September. Today we had to drop them off with their new family.

I can't give all the details about why this happened, but I can say it was a sad day for all of us. We hope that B and K will be able to grow with their new family. We also hope that Meg will be able to go back to being the old Meg we love so much.

Foster care is a big decision. It is not to be taken lightly. We all thought we were prepared, but there really was no way for us to be. We were all taken by surprise.

I hate to call it an experiment because it affected so many lives, but it was definitely a learning experience for us. I hope that B and K will take the things we taught them with them for the rest of their lives. We hope we did our little part to make their lives better.

If "stuff" is a measure of happiness, then they are much happier now then when they first arrived in our home. When The Queen picked them up they only had the clothes they were wearing and the shoes on their feet. The county gave them each a sweater, but that was it. We bought them a lot of clothes and some toys to help them be kids. I just hope they took more than "stuff" with them. I hope they learned some things from our family.

It was somewhat funny. When we told them that they were going to live with a new family, K just asked what she was taking with her. She asked if she was going to be able to take a couple of items with her, like her Halloween costume. She also told us she wanted to leave a picture she drew recently with us.

She told us she missed us, but she was OK with the change as far as we could tell. B shed some tears, but she was her same outwardly strong self. I know she was disappointed that they were moving, but she tried not to let it show.

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Choices

We all make choices everyday. Some of us make choices based on doing the right thing. Others make selfish choices.

I am a selfish person by nature. I don't know if it is a product of my upbringing or something else. Even though I am selfish, I try to always make decisions that positively affect my family.

I put my family first and take it very personally if they are not treated properly. I don't spoil them and do not expect anyone else to either, but I want them to get what they deserve.

Some people make other things more important than family. Some choose their friends over their immediate family. That is one thing I do not believe in. My family is everything to me.

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Why We Do The Things We DO

We all have our own reasons for why we do the things we do. It is human nature to do things that get you some recognition. It feeds our egos. But some of us do it much more often than others. Some people truly want to do the right thing while others want to do the thing that gets them noticed.

There was an episode of Friends in which Phoebe wanted to do a truly selfless good deed. Everything she talked about doing or did was found to have some self interest in it. She got some satisfaction from it. If you really think about this, it is true that almost everything you do has some bit of self interest involved. You do something because you want to help people. You do it because it is the right thing to do, and that is what your parents taught you. In other words, you don't want to let your parents down. I am not saying this is wrong, but what is wrong is when someone does something because they want to get recognized for doing it.

You can't look at the public person and judge them by that persona alone. There are many people who lead double lives and are completely different at home and at work. There are many people who like to manipulate people into thinking they are someone they are not. These are the people who do good things for the wrong reason. Many politicians fall into this category.

I despise these people. I understand that if there was not some bit of self interest than nobody would do good things. I have a problem with the people who only do it to be looked at as good people. These people are living a lie. Nobody knows who they truly are and that is a sad thing.

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The Tea Party

So The Queen was telling me all about Dancing With The Stars this morning. She is an avid viewer. So she was telling me that everyone expected Bristol Palin to leave the show, however she was miraculously spared the humiliation and remains to dance again.

Let me start off by asking, is Bristol is a "star?" I don't believe she is and think that she was a very cunning publicity stunt for the show. They roped in all of the Tea Party viewers with that one casting decision. I think the producers of that show are the most brilliant in all of TV. Year after year they put people on the show who us non-viewers question, but they bring the viewers.

So, Bristol is not a star. She is just a young girls from Alaska who got pregnant as a teenager and has a famous mom. Her mom is not a star either, by the way. But she is famous because John McCain was desperate to find a running mate that he thought would get him votes. That is the only reason she was chosen as a running mate. She is not smart. She is not good at her job. She is just a strong-willed, attractive woman and that is what he thought he needed to combat Hillary Clinton.

By all accounts, Bristol is not a good dancer. She was expected to be voted off the show last night, but the voters, er Tea Party, kept her on. I am not a fan of the Tea Party. I think they are a bunch of misguided individuals who are being manipulated for a bigger agenda. The right wing is always good at manipulating people and whipping them into a frenzy. They love to play on fear and racial issues and they do a great job at it. They create a loyal group that will not question right and wrong. They create a loyal group that will even keep a bad dancer on a TV show because she is the daughter of one of their own.

I hate when people stop questioning authority and become sheep that just blindly follow their leaders. That is what the Tea Party is whether you want to believe it or not.

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Feeling Negative

For some reason I was feeling very negative this past weekend. I don't know why, but it just happened. Maybe it was the change of the weather that made me feel this way. Or maybe it is just that there is a lot of negativity around me right now.

Either way, I need to change my attitude so that it does not bring me down. For the last few years I have really tried to change my outlook on life and I have succeeded for the most part. Every once in a while though, even the most positive people can start to feel negative. This is what happened to me this past weekend.

I don't like feeling this way and as soon as I realized that I was, I made a conscience effort to change. It is not something I can change immediately. It will take some work, but I know I can start to feel more positive. There really are more positive things happening around me than negative, so I just have to stay focused.

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My Story

I awoke this morning too late to exercise. I guess I am still feeling the affects of my sinus infection.

I laid in bed and my mind started going crazy. I remembered a dream that I had last night. In my dream I ran into my college room mate whom I have not seen for almost ten years. We were talking about life and our careers and he told me that he was thinking about going back to school to become a doctor. He started out as Pre-Med in college and then changed his major to business after taking Organic Chemistry.

In my dream we continued to talk about our lives and future opportunities. He kept talking about medical school. I told him that I would love to go back to school, but that I cannot afford it. I asked him how he would support his family if he did go back to school. He told me that it would not be that difficult for him since he would get a scholarship to attend. I told him that was great for him, but that I am still paying my student loans and am starting to pay my wife's student loans as well. He asked me if there was anyone who I could lean on for support and I told him that there was not. That is when I woke up.

I laid in bed for fifteen more minutes thinking about my life and how I got to the point I am at today. My life has been a struggle. Not in the traditional sense of struggling to stay alive or out of jail, but in a much different way. I have struggled my whole life to do what I am supposed to do. To do what other people think that I should do. I think about this almost every day. I am a very private person for this very reason. I only share the parts of my life that I feel are appropriate for my station in life. The things that I am expected to be experiencing.

I would absolutely love to go back to school. I want to be able to make a difference in the world. I want to make life better for people who are less fortunate. I would like to travel to Africa and help build a school for a village. I would like to travel to Mexico and teach life lessons to kids in a remote village. I would like to travel the world and learn from people of different cultures. I just cannot afford to do this. I don't have the time or the money.

I told The Queen this morning that I am thinking about writing my autobiography. I told her that my life has not been exciting, but that there are things that I have kept to myself my entire life that I feel like I am ready to share. She questioned me about those things and I told her that I did not want to burden her. She kept asking so I told her that I do not share my true feelings about how much things affect me. In particular, our financial situation weighs on me every single day. By American standards, we are in great shape financially. I am just not happy with where we are.

So Maybe I will start writing my autobiography today. Or maybe I won't. Who knows.

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Judge Yourself

The most difficult thing to do is judge yourself. It is always pretty easy to judge those around you. I am not saying that your judgements about them are always correct, but it is easy to do. It is much more difficult to take a long hard look at yourself to see what you are made of.

We have all heard of people moving away for college or travelling in order to find themselves. I myself did this totally unintentionally. I decided that I wanted to move away from my home town in order to go to college. I was not smart enough at that time to decide that I wanted to do it to better myself. I just wanted to get out of my home town. For this reason, my college experience was not all that it could have been. If I was moving away for college today, I think I could get a lot more out of the experience.

Self-examination is necessary for self-improvement. You have to want to change if you are going to change. These two phrases are basically saying the same thing with different words, but they are very true. I come in contact with many different people in my work life. Most of those people are unwilling to change. They have not examined themselves. They have not found themselves. I am open to change, but I have not done as much self-examination as I think I should.

I learned a lot about myself as I went through all of the paperwork for FamiliesFirst. Many of the forms that I completed asked questions that I have never asked myself before. I learned some things about myself and my family, but not as much as I could have. I am a very private person. I am not in touch with my emotions. I hold things in. I don't like to talk about things with other people. I feel embarassment, shame, or that I am letting people down. I don't know if that is something that is just hard-wired into men or if it is just something I stuggle with.

I really need to take a look at myself and learn who I am. I need to learn what I like and dislike. What I truly like and dislike, not what I think I am supposed to like and dislike. I have been trying, but I have a long way to go.

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I Judge

I know that I am a very judgemental person and I know that it is wrong. So, how do I change that aspect of my personality?

I don't think I look down on people or consider people to be beneath me, buy I do constantly judge the people around me. For instance, I look at the jobs my coworkers do and judge whether they are doing more than I am to contribute to the company. I judge my friends in order to decide how much time I want to spend with them. I think some of this is healthy, but I may take it too far.

I really believe that you have to surround yourself with people who have traits that you respect and want to emulate. So, how do you do this if you do not judge people? That is the dilemma that I am facing. Where do I draw the line? How do I change so that I am less judgemental? I need to find these answers in order to make myself a better person.

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Loss

Loss is always difficult to deal with and it always seems like it is a shock to everyone, even when it is expected. We all deal with it differently because we all have different relationships with the person we lost and we all express our emotions differently. Some of us are silent while we deal with our emotions on the inside while others have no problem letting their emotions show to the world.

We all know that death is inevitable. We cannot deny that, but we are never really prepared for it to come. It seems like we always have regrets. We wish we could have told the person that we loved them or we wish we would have made up with them. There always seems to be something that bugs us when that time comes. I guess the answer would be to live your life with no regrets, but that is easier said than done.

Is it better to lose a loved one suddenly or to lose them over time as they are dealing with an illness that we know will eventually take their life? I don't have the answer to and I think it is an individual preference anyway. No matter how you answer that question, I don't think you will ever be prepared for the day anyway.

It is really interesting to hear people justify the loss of a loved one. I guess that is just something that is hard-wired into humans. You often hear some say, "they lived a full life." Or you may hear someone say, "they have gone to a better place" or that "they are no longer suffering." This is just our way of trying to move on in our own lives. We want to believe there is a purpose to everything that happens, so we use these phrases to make us feel that way.

My family experienced the loss of a loved one this past Friday. The Queen's grandfather passed away in Mexico not even two years after her grandmother passed away. This "sudden" loss really took everyone by surprise even though his health had deteriorated over the last six months or so. I regret that I did not get to spend more time with him to get to know him better. From what I know, he was a good man with a great work ethic who loved his family very much. He made a lot of sacrifices for his family. Rest in peace Damian.

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My Mad at You Voice

It really was a rough day yesterday. I got a call from ChaCha at about seven thirty in the morning. There was something wrong with her car and she was on her way to school. It turned out that she had a blowout and drove on it for a while not knowing what was wrong. I left work to pick her up and take her to school.

I had every intention of changing the tire myself, but when I saw that the tire was ruined I decided to call AAA to do the dirty work. I was just not a happy camper at that point. I called The Queen to let her know what happened and to vent a little bit. She called me back to make sure that I was taking ChaCha to school. She was driving so Cheeseball was talking to me. She was put in the middle of our conversation and I was not happy at that point, so she took the brunt of my anger.

When I picked her up from school later that day, I appologized to her and told her that I was not mad at her. I was just upset in general. I explained the whole situation to her and actually vented a little bit. She then told me that the way I spoke on the phone upset her. She said, "you used your mad at me voice." She then told me that my mad at her voice was louder than my mad at ChaCha voice. Those two sentences were a real eye-opener. I know she is old enough to pick up on emotions and the little things that we still think she is too young to notice. But she really is a smart little girl with a lot of emotion. I think she put that in the exact words that I needed to hear.

I think I use my mad at her voice a lot more than I should. I don't want her to be afraid of me, I just want her to think about things more and realize how they affect other people. I guess I am going about it in the wrong way. Maybe I have an anger problem that I need to work on? I know that I have a lot of stress that builds up from me having to do a lot of the things in the house. I need her and ChaCha to pitch in more and be responsible for themselves. That is a lot to ask of an eight year old, but I think she is ready.

I decided to try my hand at writing a haiku about the major issue of the day.

My mad at you voice:
it hurts you so much inside
I must change my ways

I don't know how good this haiku is or if it is really a haiku at all. I know that it does follow the structure of a haiku though. I have never been good at poetry or writing because it is difficult for me to express my emotions. It is even difficult for me to think about my emotions. I think that is why I am so cold most of the time. I guess you could say that I am boring. I don't laugh or have fun as much as I should. I am always worried about something. I need to change, but it is difficult.

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We Are Poisoning Ourselves

I was flipping through TV channels yesterday and came across a channel that I think was called "Treehugger TV." I have never watched that channel before and really did not even know that it existed. The program that caught my attention featured short stories about different things that are affecting our lives and the environment. The story that I watched from start to finish followed the founders of Seventh Generation.

Seventh Generation is a company that "is committed to becoming the world's most trusted brand of authentic, safe, and environmentally-responsible products for a healthy home." In other words, they make products that are environmentally friendly. They are most known for the cleaning products they make, but they also make diapers, napkins, tissue and feminine care products that are all natural.

The TV show followed the founders for a day. One of them was carrying around a meter that measures the amount of volatile organic chemicals in the air. He measured the level outside as they were driving to their first stop. I don't remember the exact level, but outside was higher than in the car. They next went into a dog groomer and the levels of VOCs inside were higher than outside. They then went to a dry cleaner and the level inside that business was off the charts. The owner was so surprised that he invited them to his house to measure the level there. Before going there they stopped off at a nail salon and the levels there were also very high. The reading really spiked when they opened a bottle of nail polish.

At the dry cleaner owners house the levels were much lower than anywhere else they had been, except for the car. They then decided to use some of the household cleaners he had on hand. The sprayed one of the cleaning products on the kitchen counter and the reading spiked very high. It also took it a while to drop back down to the normal reading. They then sprayed some of their Seventh Generation cleaning product on the counter and the reading did not move at all.

This show was very informative. I did not realize how much more harmful our indoor environments were than our outdoor environments are. Outdoor pollution does not seem to be the thing we should be worrying about the most. We are all indoors much more than we are outside nowadays, so we should really be concerned with the cleaners and other products that we use in our homes and businesses.

Common sense tells me that we have a sense of smell so that we can tell the difference between things that are dangerous to us and things that are good for us. It is a primal sense that helps us lead a safe life. We know that we are attracted to the smell of foods because we must eat to survive. We find certain types of smells bad because something about them is harmful to us. Most of the cleaning products we use now have some sort of lemon or other pleasant scent added to them to mask their real smell. This is very deceiving. Most of these products would have a horrible smell if they were not masked by the lemon scent. That tells me that the chemicals in the product are dangerous and should not be used indoors.

I would love to switch to products like those made by Seventh Generation. I just need to convince The Queen that they work as well as the traditional cleaners. I have my work cut out for me.

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Where I Belong

I was at Fresno State yesterday for their spring career fair and I must say that it is always interesting when I go there. There is just something about that campus that does not feel right to me. I just don't feel like it is a university. It has the feel of a junior college to me. I guess that is why you really need to visit any potential college you are considering before making a decision.

I made my college decision without making a visit. I did not actually visit the campus until orientation over the summer. The good thing is that I felt comfortable on campus. My only regret is that I did not get the chance to live in the dorms my freshman year. It was not by choice, but I still regret it. It is so easy to make a lot of new friends when you live in the dorms. I would encourage everyone to do it their first year of college, especially if they have left their home town and don't know anyone like I did.

College was a great time in my life. I got to escape from my home town and meet people that were very different than I was. For instance, I did not know any black kids in my hometown. When I got to college I lived just down the hall from a few. Later in college I met a few more. I also only knew a few asians in my home town, but in college I met a lot of asian guys and girls. My junior and senior years I ended up living in a house with an asian guy and four asian girls. For some reason, I just did not click with a lot of white people in college. I was definately more comfortable with minorities and I think that had to do with the fact that I was a minority while going to school in my home town.

To this day I feel extremely comfortable when I travel to different parts of Mexico. I also felt comfortable when I traveled to Puerto Rico earlier this year and to China a few years ago. The places I really start to feel uncomfortable is areas of California that are traditionally known for having wealthy populations. I just don't fit in with that whole keeping up with the Jones' mentality and you are what you wear attitudes.

My other regret is that I didn't do something more exciting and helpful when I graduated from college. As I think back, I realize that it would have been a great experience to have joined the Peace Corp and traveled around the world helping disadvantaged people. I just wish it would have happened.

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The Truth About The Tea Party

I knew that there was something wrong with The Tea Party movement. It has struck me as being wrong from the first day I heard about it. Now my suspicions have been confirmed. This movement is not just about politics or health care plans. It is about something much bigger and much uglier. It is about racism.

I came across a study with some really surprising information earlier this week. The study from the University of Washington found that "those who are racially resentful, who believe the U.S. government has done too much to support blacks, are 36 percent more likely to support the tea party than those who are not." This is a big deal.

The Tea Party has been playing on people's fears from its inception. It is using fear as a tool to convert supporters. It has bashed Obama's health care plan as being bad for the country. Now, it appears that they just don't want to provide health care or other resources for people who are not white.

Supporters of The Tea Party have painted themselves as patriots looking out for the well being of the citizens of this country. They are the new revolutionaries. This study would suggest that maybe they aren't revolutionaries at all but just a more mild version of the Klan. They are haters who are trying to spread their beliefs to the rest of the country.

I knew I didn't like what they stand for, and now I know why. They are a bunch of racist hate mongers who are pretending to be something they are not. I am horrified that they have received so much main stream support. Here is a quote from an assistant professor of political science at the University of Washington who was involved in the study. "It’s clear from the data that people who want limited government don’t want certain services for certain kinds of people. Those services include health care," says Christopher Parker. All I can say is wow!

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