Beats, Rhymes, Rice

2009-02-19T15:08:00.000-08:00

1. The view I get everyday as I ride my bike home. This is a low fog bank around Orcas Island.

2. I did a ski ascent of Mt. St. Helens a few weeks back. This was a lunch stop around 6000 feet. The winds were blowing hard. Mt. Hood in Oregon is in the background.

3. At the end of winter break I went on a short road trip around the edge of the Olympic Peninsula with my friends Ko and Cameron. The first night we slept in the Hoh rainforest, a few miles north of here. This is the mouth of the Hoh River.

4. That morning we saw the Roosevelt Elk herd wandering around the old growth rainforest.

Here is an article talking about the Hoh ecosystem.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008667916_wolves25.html?syndication=rss

5. We ran into some big trees on the way.

6. Hummingbirds outside the window in Seattle.

7. Logan at Christmas, hamming it up for the camera.

MTV and Pop Culture

2009-02-09T13:51:00.000-08:00

MTV makes me sick. When I watch it, I see glorification of violence, objectification of women, and consumption as the source of all happiness.

This is a list of the effects of mass (or pop) culture, from sociologist Ernest van den Haag.

1) Life is reduced to a spectator sport.
See Tila Tequila, My Super Sweet Sixteen (Spoiled rich girls getting lots of stuff), The Hills, etc etc.

2) Mass culture appeals to base instincts, distracting people rather than enlightening them.
As above.

3) In excess, it tends to isolate people from one another, from themselves, and from experience. Real life becomes trivial in the face of vicarious experience.

4) Distracts people from their lives, which they view as boring and thus generate obsession with ESCAPE. This deprives them of autonomous growth and enrichment -- lives become even more boring and unfulfilled.

5) Mass appeal needed to make mass culture profitable deindividualizes people, seeking one artist to fit all consumers as the most profitable model.

This is disgusting. It is the homogenization and packaging of art.

Life Goes On

2008-12-27T19:36:00.001-08:00

A few things have been on my mind a lot lately.

The first is the somewhat suspicious death of Mike Connell. Connell was the technical guru for Karl Rove, and as such ran Bush's online operations during the 2004 elections. He provided the same service for John McCain this election season.

The day before the election, November 3rd 2008, Connell was removed from his position as the administrator of a Ohio website responsible for providing live election results. This is part of a ongoing court case first brought against Connell in August 2006, which alleges racially based vote tampering, and voter fraud.

The case was brought by Clifford Arnebeck and Robert Fitrakis, two Ohio attourneys who have testified that Connell funnelled electronic voting data through private servers before they were processed. The servers belonged to SmarTech Inc., a Tennessee IT company that has done more than $5 million in business with the republican party, including hosting the 2004 Bush/Cheney website, and is listed as donating between $2,500 and $2 million to the New York City Host Committee, which organized the republican national convention in 2004.

What is very interesting here is that the whistleblower in the case in a man named Steven Spoonamore, a computer security expert who happens to be a very conservative republican. Spoonamore, who has worked with many large banks and credit card companies, says that anytime sensitive data goes through a private computer, it almost certainly means fraud has been perpetrated.

Connell also created the private White House email accounts that were used to discuss that illegal, politically motivated hiring and firing of US District attorneys under former attorney general Alberto Gonzalez.

This is where it gets crazy. In a letter dated July 24th, 2008, Arnebeck sent a letter to US Attonrney General Mike Mukasey, stating that "a source we believe to be credible" informed him that Karl Rove threatened Connell's wife, a washington lobbyist, with prosecution for lobbying violations unless Connell agreed to "take the fall."

The text of that letter is availible here:
http://discuss.epluribusmedia.net/node/2164

On the 19th of December, 8 days ago, Connell died in a plane crash. The Velvet Revolution, a non-profit voter protection group, stated following Connell's death that he had recently said he was afraid George Bush and Dick Cheney would "throw [him] under the bus."

This is a quote from Mike Crispin Miller, proffessor of media culture and communication at New York University, from his interview on Democracy Now (link below).

[Miller] "Well, I cannot assert with perfect confidence that this was no accident, but I will say that the circumstances are so suspicious and so convenient for Rove and the White House that I think we’re obliged to investigate this thing very, very thoroughly. And that means, first of all, taking a close look at some of the stories that were immediately circulated to account for what happened, that it was bad weather.
That was the line they used when Wellstone’s plane went down. There had been bad weather, but it had passed two hours before. And this comes from a woman at the airport information desk in Akron. We’re told that his plane was running out of gas, which is a little bit odd for a highly experienced pilot like Connell, but apparently, when the plane went down, there was an explosion, a fireball that actually charred and pocked some of the house fronts in the neighborhood. People can go online and see the footage that news crews took. But beyond the, you know, dubiousness of the official story, we have to take a close look at—and a serious look at all the charges that Connell was set to make."

This whole thing stinks.
Read about some other suspicious deaths, like Karen Silkwood, a union activist, and Paul Wellstone, the senator from Minnesota.

Sources and Additional Reading:
The BRAD BLOG : BREAKING: Federal Judge Compels GOP IT Guru Mike Connell To Give Deposition in Ohio '04 Election Case

Democracy Now! | Republican IT Specialist Dies in Plane Crash

Washblog || Michael Connell, Rove's IT Consultant, Dies In Plane Crash

SMARTech Corporation - SourceWatch

This has been my break! So relaxing.

June

2008-06-22T23:14:00.000-07:00

This month has been quite eventful. First, I finished up with class at Western, and moved out of my house up there for good. That was a bit of a strange experience. I had settled in more than I realized, and it was a bit sad to go.

I stuck around a few extra days to take part in a parkour related training. This fellow Erwan Le Corre, the founder of MOVNAT, came from France to put on this workshop. MOVNAT is a retooling of le methode naturelle, one of the precursors of parkour.

This is an explanation of the MOVNAT way from Rafe Kelley's Blog, Natural Athletics.
"MOVNAT (MOUVEMENT NATUREL/MOVE NATURAL/MOVEMENT IN NATURE) MOVNAT is an outdoor functional training method designed to develop, maintain or restore the full range of the natural human movement capacities such as walking, running, jumping, climbing, moving on all fours, balancing, lifting, carrying, throwing, catching, swimming and defending.

Through practice, fundamental physical qualities such as speed, strength, endurance, coordination and flexibility are developed.

Training also necessitates and promotes the growth of essential mental and moral qualities such as, self-control, courage, will, focus, alertness, and respectfulness, solidarity, cooperation, and reciprocal altruism.

Last, just as MOVNAT promotes the return of the bodies natural physical capacities so it encourages respect and concern for nature. We train to be able to move naturally, we train in nature, and we train to connect ourselves with the natural world and to care for it."

Here is a short video of Erwan training MOVNAT in Corsica:

It was so much fun, I have started to change the way that I move after this class. I am planning on doing a lot of barefoot running over the summer, today was actually the first day. I went two miles or so with my dad through Seward Park and then went for a nice refreshing swim.

This is my favorite picture so far from the training, although I have only developed half of them. There was a children's session in the morning, and I snapped this:

It looks a lot better in my opinion if you View Large On Black

Since then I have been settling back into Seattle. The Fremont fair was this weekend, I should have some pictures from that on flickr soon. Tim left for Spain for two months, he is going to teach english and photography. It has been great to see my friends. Possibly bread making with theo and abby tomorrow, and arayas with siena, brendan, and ab sometime? Oh, I started the Greenpeace job as well. It makes me feel good. Blah, I'm about to pass out and I've got to put the clean sheets on my bed. night!

The Emerging Police State

2008-06-06T09:23:00.000-07:00

We all worried when the Patriot Act came into action, Habeus Corpus was suspended, and prisoners were held for years with no charge and no legal representation. Now DCist reports that the DCPD, in response to rising violence in the city, is creating Checkpoints at the entrance to the worst neighborhoods, where all people are stopped, questioned, and arrested if they don't comply.

The scoop is here:
http://dcist.com/2008/06/04/mpd_to_seal_off.php

An incredible video:

This climber Alain Robert climbed the New York Times building, all 52 stories of it, with no rope yesterday to bring attention to global climate change. This is his website:
http://thesolutionissimple.org/

Slate grey mornings and spots of blue peppering the sky in the evening

2008-05-29T23:12:00.000-07:00

Things that I am excited about:
Aquaponics; combining fish farming and hydroponics to remove the barriers to each while increasing productivity.

Vibram Fivefingers: This will be my next shoe purchase.

The Phoenix Lander on mars.

"In this sweeping view, the 10 kilometer-wide crater Heimdall lies on the north polar plains of Mars. But the bright spot highlighted in the inset is the Phoenix lander parachuting toward the surface. The amazing picture was captured on May 25th by the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Though the lander looks like it might be dropping straight into Heimdall, it is really descending about 20 kilometers in front of the crater, in the foreground of the scene. The orbiter was 760 kilometers away from Phoenix when picture was taken, at an altitude of 310 kilometers. Subsequently the orbiter's camera was also able to image the lander on the surface. The parachute attached to the backshell and the heat shield were identified in the image, scattered nearby. Of course, the Phoenix lander itself is now returning much closer views of its landing site as it prepares to dig into the Martian surface." from Astronomy Picture of the Day and NASA.

Mom and Meg on Kauai:

Zola and Tippie:

Riddikulus

2008-05-24T20:58:00.000-07:00

Hello!
This is just a brief update, a few things on my mind lately.

Firstly, this article explains how the military has concealed the magnitude of suicides among active duty soldiers and veterans since 2001. They found that up to 15,000 soldiers (not a typo) have killed themselves in the past 7 years.

Second, this article explains that between 25% and 33% of the world's wildlife has died since 1970, the greatest period of extinction in millions of years. Worst hit are marine species.

Lastly, here is a shot of my dad, taken on our recent Kauai trip. I like this one.

It all comes together...

2008-05-12T18:24:00.000-07:00

Its very easy to be pessimistic about the state of the world these days. Its easy to unload the problem on other people, and blame the Chinese, the rich, or the neighbor for the environmental crisis. But the fact is, every one of us is contributing to the problem, to some degree or another. It is supposed to be the job of the government to mobilize the people from all walks of life to take action, and thats why I am so excited about this guy.

On a bad side note, the oceans are being rapidly depleted of fish, and destructive techniques used in modern industrial fishing are ripping entire ecosystems to shreds.
This article details the problem, and this article tells you how to help.
If the current fishing practices continue, the world's major fish populations will be extinct within 40 years.

To quote Mother Teresa, from an interview with Time Magazine:

Q: Is materialism in the West an equally serious problem?

A: I don't know. I have so many things to think about. Take our congregation: we have very little, so we have nothing to be preoccupied with. The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have, the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not a mortification, a penance. It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. This is the only fan in the whole house. It doesn't matter how hot it is, and it is for the guests. But we are perfectly happy.

Q: How do you find rich people then?

A: I find the rich much poorer. Sometimes they are more lonely inside. They are never satisfied. They always need something more. I don't say all of them are like that. Everybody is not the same. I find that poverty hard to remove. The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.

And a few of the latest photographs.

seen at WWU.

seen at Whatcom Falls Park.

Religion

2008-05-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

I am taking a class this quarter on Religions of China and Japan. Its a pretty good class, and we are currently studying Buddhism, which is quite interesting. My teacher made an offhand comment today that caught my attention; he said that Monasteries and Churches were essentially the first corporation. That is, no one person held control of the property of the corporation, but it rather belonged to "the Church" as a rather amorphous entity, and the dominant institution of that age.

For anyone who has not heard of it, you should check out a movie called "The Corporation" (link). It is a documentary which psychoanalyzes the corporation as a human being, which it is under the law. The conclusion that is reached is that the corporation is a psychopath, an entity which is incapable of self-recrimination, and is by definition a blame-mitigating device.

This has some interesting parallels to organized religion... what do you think?

Spring

2008-05-04T23:00:00.001-07:00

It is here. There are telltale signs everywhere, for those that care to see. The canada geese hatch their young, and are leading them out on longer and longer forays. The snow peas in the earth outside unfurl and even now climb to the sky, hungrily. In the north, chalk floats in the air among the rocks as the climbers dust off their bodies. Dandelions bloom in their tens of millions, yellow strokes across yards and parks. Vitamin-D deficient people emerge from their homes, squinting up at the sky.

Time passes so quickly. It was my twentieth birthday on Thursday. Unfortunately, I was caught in the depths of a phlegm-filled sinus, from which I just emerged. Today was quite nice, I went for a refreshing two hour kayak on Lake Whatcom, which borders Bellingham to the east. I made the first spring pilgrimage to the world-class climbing destination of Squamish, B.C., about an hour and half north of here, just last weekend. It felt great to stretch the muscles a bit, and to feel some solid, unyielding granite again. I've got a busy schedule coming up; hiking this weekend, kayaking the next, and then Otis is visiting May 22-25th. The lucky guy has no class Thursday or Friday...

Meanwhile, I pray for Obama on a daily basis. Lets just hope that Hillary's business-as-usual politics doom her as they should, and that Obama lives up to some of the hype.

The latest out of the lens: I have a backup of about 6 rolls of film that I am too poor to get scanned, mostly from Kauai but a few random rolls as well. The advantages of digital... I hope to get a place next year with a space for a darkroom.

Old Main, the original building of WWU.

These guys are sprouting up everywhere.

These too.

The Vancouver skyline, on the way to Squamish.

My new friend Brian took this one, that is me on top. Not to be confused with Bryan, the climber who I went to Garfield with.

This is Art climbing, a firefighter in Kirkland and a cool guy. Bryan is the hatted one on the right, and Daniel is spotting left.

More Kauai...

2008-04-07T19:14:00.001-07:00

They filmed Jurassic Park on this island.

A cool fern.

This valley is on the north side of the island.

Taro Fields.

Tippie the dog.

Mom.

Kauai et alii

2008-04-06T16:17:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! I am sitting at my kitchen table back in Bellingham. I spent the spring break in Kauai with my family, which was a wonderful vacation. We stayed in a little gilligans island style cabin on the northeast coast, and it was beautiful. Here is some evidence.

The Hawaiian Monk Seal is super endangered, there are only about 35 left in the main Hawaiian Chain.

My aunt Sydney, uncle Rhoul, and cousin Zola were on Kauai at the same time, and it was great to hang out with them. Our cabin was abut 20 yards from this beach.

I got out of the shower one morning and this was the first thing I saw.

This was breakfast on our porch.

This is my grandpa's camera made in 1938. It works great, I just finished my first roll on it.

Free Tibet.

2008-03-23T15:38:00.000-07:00

Since 1951, the Chinese occupying forces have killed 1.2 million Tibetans.
Recent protests have been covered a bit by western news outlets, but this is what you don't see. The dead. Why is this not recognized around the world as a genocide?

Sunspots

2008-03-19T16:50:00.000-07:00

The quarter is over, I leave for Kauaii in 5 days.

Snowshoeing on Mt. Baker

2008-03-03T18:49:00.000-08:00

vist...

2008-02-28T23:25:00.000-08:00

www.ecofoot.com

Finally a real ecological footprint calculator that asks realistic questions.
Check it out, you may be surprised by what you read.

Make sure to remember

2008-02-23T22:45:00.000-08:00

"A strong mind is essential in Parkour and provides the foundation for the rest of our armour. Our ability to move is dependant on the ability of our minds to tell our bodies what we want to do... and what we can do.

The latter is something that we need to teach ourselves. Only with time and experience will the mind learn what its body is capable of and with practice it will allow its body to do so without interfering with doubt and worry."
- Blane

even though I seek perfection, I wear my scars with pride.

Don't live in fear

2008-02-05T16:43:00.000-08:00

Super tuesday! I can only pray for some obama love, hillary frightens me a bit... she seems lacking in foresight and caution, not to mention humility and wisdom. I'm feeling a bit sick, there is a bout of coughing circling western these past few days. Hope everyone is well.

Winter

2008-01-27T19:11:00.000-08:00

It snowed today a bit, only the second time in two weeks.

Siena, Rachel, and Joseph came up from Seattle for the weekend, it was great to see them. Siena is about to leave for Central America!

Hope all is well.

08' live

2008-01-21T02:10:00.000-08:00

Hello there, its Max again. Welcome to my blog.
Perhaps you ask yourself, what has Max been doing up there in the bellingham? Well, I have been splitting my time recently between homework, listening to strange hip-hop instrumentals, reading crazy fantasy novels, taking photos here and there, watching and playing basketball (first inter mural game is Wednesday!), cooking, climbing, and bit of parkour here and there.

All of my roommates are out of town this weekend, the house has been eerily quiet. I like having solitude though, at least periods of it. I went to party a little earlier. I have gotten into the habit of biking more at night now than in the day, because the buses run during the day. Today was freezing, about 28 degrees before the 20mph winds are added on. It was beautiful by 11pm and I was biking to the party, clear skies, still air, bright stars, and nearly full moon flanking me. By the time I headed home about 2 hours ago, the wind had picked up again, and it was fully below 20 degrees. I had a stiff headwind in my face as I made my slow way home, bundled warmly, but nose numb. All the puddles had the undulating freezing patterns twisting across them, like little mirrors reflecting the moon back a thousand fold. Much better than sitting in a car for a few minutes. Especially once I step inside, make a snack, and read before bed.

I am a possessor of many habits.

Building a snow cave on mt baker with ko and cameron.

On the way home from mazama.

Parents )

Evidence of a skier.

Scrabble face, slow flakes.

Bama, card hustler.

Post Basketball tournament, a diner in Arlington.

A Blusterous Day (and a newspaper article)

2008-01-11T16:26:00.000-08:00

Its a blusterous day
gust, raindrop
grey clouds loom like sullen fortresses
tears as arrows
peppering the footsoldiers
waiting
for the bus

The calvary charge by
close enough to reach out and touch
armor clad beasts
we shy away from
rubber-shod hooves

Ping! Ping!
the barrage continues
unabating as we are whisked to the hilltop
I watch the faces as
they board and depart, looking
bored, tired

A rare smile like the sunrise
thickly cloaked in a shroud of mist
a beam cuts through
and paints a confused rainbow on the face
of the girl across the aisle

Check out this article in the Western Student paper. Its got photos by Otis and Veronica, and I am quoted a bit. Its on page 8.
http://westernfrontonline.net/pdf/all1-11-2008final.pdf

Ya... we will need dat

2007-12-19T21:25:00.000-08:00

Heading down to Portland tommorow to peep reigning Rookie of the Year (and fellow GHS graduate) Brandon Roy take on Allen Iverson and Melo. Should be fun.

Here are some old pictures I took.

Help Impeach Dick Cheney!

2007-12-15T21:09:00.000-08:00

Guys, listen up. The articles of impeachment for Dick Cheney, which were introduced by Dennis Kucinich, passed the house of representatives. Yup, they passed. This Representative Wexler is promising to push forward the hearings if he can get 50,000 signatures on this site:

http://www.wexlerwantshearings.com/

There are almost 50,000 already! The more people sign this, the stronger the message to the House Judiciary Committee (This is where the impeachment hearings would be held) will be! This is the first day this has been out, and we need to recruit everyone who will support this measure to sign the petition.

GO TO THEN SITE! SIGN THE PETITION! AND FORWARD THIS TO ANYONE WHO GIVES A DAMN ABOUT OUR GOVERNMENT!

This is an easy way to make a difference. It will take about 30 seconds.

A Slow Decline

2007-12-09T12:26:00.000-08:00

I had a final on friday, but my next hard one is not until this friday. It'll be a relaxing week. It snowed a bit here last night, and a deer was just eating the bush under the window that I'm sitting at.

This picture is of Sehome Hill, which is a big park crisscrossed with trails that abuts campus on its east side. It's very cool. Last year there were cougar sightings in there.

Dead Week

2007-12-05T00:20:00.000-08:00

I think its a little strange that they call it dead week...
Needless to say, I am a little worked. I just finished a project today for my Anthropology class (on Graffiti), and I have another project due tomorrow. The good news is that finals are going to be pretty easy. I'm excited for next quarter. I am also excited about staying in a cabin in Mazama with my family at the end of break for a few days. For those who don't know, Mazama is a tiny mountain town (pop. 100?) nestled at the foot of one of the most majestic parts of the north cascades. I got this picture from this site. I will have some of my own soon!

The other day me and otis went for a long wander around the I-90 lid in Seattle. This is a cool shot that he took of me on the way there.

2007-12-02T13:38:00.001-08:00

Snow!

I'm ready for winter break. I signed up for classes the other day. I'm in Biology, Chemistry, Statistics, and World Issues next quarter. I think it is going to be rough, you're only supposed to take 1 lab science at a time. But I should be able to declare my major for the spring. Its going to be Environmental Science Journalism, in case you haven't heard.

Peace

Brother Ali, Thanksgiving.

2007-11-23T23:47:00.000-08:00

If you haven't heard of Brother Ali, look him up. He is a hip-hop artist, and his album "The Undisputed Truth" is really well done. The song 'take me home' is particularly good, a sort of jazz-influenced beat and a verbal cross between Atmosphere and Cunninlynguists.

This break has whipped by. Tomorrow I head back to Bellingham. This break was badly needed. Although I still have a bunch of work to do, it seems less pressing now than it was last week.

What did I spend my break doing? Researching what tripod I want to buy for myself. Surprisingly complex (and expensive).

The latest pictures.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

The Continuum: 15,000 Hz in Bellingham, 15 Hz in Seattle

2007-11-04T22:11:00.000-08:00

I am on the train right now, slowly winding northwards, following the edge of the Puget Sound. I went home this weekend, just to see the family. It had been too long, it was great to be home.

My mom and I went for a long walk in the arboredum today, what an incredible place to have in the middle of the city. It is gorgeous at this time of year, with the leaves piled deep. Although, that is probably true at most times...

I have started listening to a lot of hip-hop instrumentals recently. They are an interesting amalgam of different musical styles. Some of my favorites are mixed by Jedi Mind Tricks (questionable lyrics, but awesome beats), and The Alchemist.

Apparently GMK, Golden Mic King, is coming up in the local hip-hop scene. I just copped the album from www.onlygp.com, but I haven't got a chance to listen to it yet.

Movies that I want to see soon:
In The Valley of Elah
The Darjeeling Limited
American Gangster

Also, my grandma won her about 8 prizes in her chrysanthemum growing competition! She is so happy about it, and its only her first time... my mom is thinking about getting into it now too.

Peace all.

Magazine?

2007-11-02T13:59:00.000-07:00

I submitted a shot to this magazine, check it out and give it a vote if you like it! If I get enough it will get published!

dinner time

2007-10-21T16:25:00.001-07:00

the wilbert-galvin-kounts-steinberg-rosen-simpson residence, originally uploaded by maxswilbert.

I think bryans face is really funny. He's the blond guy. People who you might not know... josh is sitting between soren and mat. Julia has her back to us, and josephine is the other girl, they went to TOPS. Miles Kenney is the kid next to nick, he hangs out at our house all the time.

Movement

2007-10-19T17:46:00.000-07:00

I practice movement striving to reach
an innervision, an understanding

Becoming completely aware of my
mind and my body

The process will take years.

I know I have an infinity to learn,
and only a lifetime to learn it

I believe there is something
more, something pure and calm,
I wish to find what I believe in.

Movement is a part of my life, and
a part of my journey. I must train
my body. I must be strong.

I must develop my mind, my
thoughts, my thinking, my
awareness.

I know what I must do, to become
who I want to be.

- Some guy named Brad Moss

This is the video, its pretty well done.

10 ways to reduce your environmental impact, have more fun, and live healthy

2007-10-15T17:22:00.000-07:00

1. Reduce your consumption.
We live in a consumerism based society, and our cycle of consumption is almost impossible to break out of (in this country). However, it is also true that that vast social changes can be made in a short time. In World War II, the government put up posters, billboards, and radio ads encouraging people to conserve , recycle, and completely change their patterns of consumption. We need a similar drive now, and we each need to work to reduce our consumption. I like to think about every purchase before I make it. "Do I really need this object, or is it just a fashion statement, an impulse buy, or just plain wasteful?"
2. Reduce your driving, use alternative transportation.
Driving is the number 1 contributor to global warming around the world. Unfortunately, our cities were planned before the environmental crisis, so cars are often the only reliable means of getting to our destinations. However, many cities have excellent bus or subway systems, and many have car sharing programs as well. Check out the Metro Trip Planner which allows you to plan your bus ride very easily. Also look into flexcar, a car sharing system. Its a good deal, you don't pay for insurance, gas, or repairs. Other alternatives include ridesharing, vanpooling, or riding your bike (the best option in my opinion). Many employers offer showers at work for those who choose to ride their bikes.
3. Recycle and Reuse.
So many items pass into our possession momentarily, are used once or twice, and are then thrown away. Good examples of this are paper and plastic bags, rubber bands, and glass jars. Put these things to work, and eliminate wasteful items. Use a few cloth shopping bags, for example, instead of getting plastic ones at the store. Up to 1 trillion plastic bags are thrown away every year.
4. Get Outside.
Outdoor activites are one of the best things a person can do to protect the environment. When a park ranger can testify before Congress that 4,000 people per month visit this National Park, that is a powerful incentive to leave those lands alone. On the other side, being in wild, protected land has an extremely powerful impact on those who visit it. The beauty of our planet is apparent anytime one steps outside of the bursting urban centers, and many people have seen the environemental issues hit home when their favorite park or campground was threatened.
5. Green your food.
The food that we choose to eat has a huge effect on the environment. The agriculture, livestock, and poultry industries generate an amount of greenhouse gases as all cars. In general, products farmed organically (without antibiotics, pesticides, artificial fertilizers, or genetic modification) are vastly better for the environment, not to mention your own health. Meat and poultry farming requires about 100 times the energy input for the same nutritional output as agriculture. One of the best ways to reduce your environmental impact is to reduce, or eliminate, the amount of meat you consume. In general, the lower on the food chain you eat, the lower the environmental impact will be.
6. Be a smart consumer.
This is a general principle that is difficult to begin, but that becomes second nature with time. Try to be an educated consumer. Find out where the things that you want come from, what is inside them, who made them, the working situation, and as many other factors as you can. Knowledge is power, and this is never truer than in a consumer society.
7. Go local.
Transporting goods all over the planet takes a lot of energy. Energy in the form of oil, coal, and other dirty fuels almost exclusively. Apples from New Zealand, a table from China, knives from Germany; it all must be shipped. Instead of spreading your pollution all over the globe, buy as much as you can from local businesses, markets, and co-ops.
8. Spread the word.
Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Everyone who changes the patterns of consumption of others is adding to weight of the environmental movement, and beginning to tip the scale more and more towards equilibrium with the land.
9. Go Slow.
This is going to be a long process. Our society has consumed more in the past 40 years than in the rest of our existence. A good resource for guides to greening particular areas of your life is the site Treehugger. Don't try to change your whole life at once. That will just make you frustrated. Make one step at a time, and devote a little part of your brain to thinking about the impact on the environment whenever you do anything.
10. Get Involved.
This is our planet, and the legacy that we pass on to our children should not be a tainted, sickened earth. This is the only planet we have, the only world known to support life. It is worth a few hours of your time per month to protect that land, the air, and the water on which we depend. So check out some organizations like the Rainforest Action Network, The Sierra Club, and Greenpeace, and explore volunteer or job opportunities around you.

11. This last one is a little touchy topic, but it will be a mainstream concern soon. Overpopulation. I am convinced that the only reasonable solution has been put forward by Alan Weisman. In an interview with Powell's books, he said:

"What would happen if instead of procreating at the rate that we are, which has taken us from 1.6 billion people at the end of the nineteenth century to nearly 6.6 billion people at the end of the twentieth century (and now headed to 9 billion people by the middle of our twenty-first century if we keep going the way we're going, which seems to me to be fatal), what if, as an entire human race, we did what the Chinese did once and limit every family to one child?

...Eventually, I found a distinguished demographic institute in Austria. They got back to me with an interesting answer. Within a century we'd be down to 1.6 billion people again. That's not by killing anybody off or doing anything brutal. It's just by attrition.

...Every species in the history of the planet has crashed when it's run out of resources. We're beyond the limits now. We keep stretching the limits by clearing more land for agriculture, which is only undermining us. That means clearing away more habitat. You wonder what happened to all the birds? Well, they have fewer and fewer trees to land on in their migratory flyways. And those birds don't just sing pretty. They pollinate for us. They do all kinds of functional things. They're some of the nuts that hold the environmental web together."

The only way to finish a post on the environment seems to be to quote Carl Sagan. In his book pale blue dot, sagan finished with this:

I am posting this as part of blog action day, a worldwide mobilization of bloggers which is focused on environmental issues this year. About 15,000 blogs, which reach over 12 million regular readers have participated so far!

Home

2007-10-06T01:35:00.001-07:00

, originally uploaded by maxswilbert.

Josh sitting at our kitchen table. This is home. The temperature has been 11 degrees below the average for this time of year, and all the leaves are changing colors. I'm tired from the first full week of classes.

Bellingham, Whatcom County, Washington, USA

2007-09-22T19:16:00.000-07:00

A new home! Today is only the third day I have been here, and it has been fun already. We live on a dead end north of campus, and have spent our time playing ping-pong, watching movies, figuring out feeding ourselves, and exploring the neighborhood.

A cool picture, I didn't take it, but found it at Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Neglect?

2007-09-20T03:10:00.000-07:00

For some reason I have a burst of interest in this blog writing thingy.

The Warriors are the Champions! My basketball team won their league final today, by a decisive 12 points. They looked like high school players, even though a few of the sixth graders don't reach much past my waist.

Tonight the car windows frosted a bit for the first time this year. Summer, come back!

I leave for Bellingham in... alright, 7 hours. Time for bed.

northward bound...

2007-09-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

So on Thursday I take off to move to my new home in Bellingham. Its been a long, and very fun summer, what with tons of bicycling,
the annual pilgrimage to cape alava,
two kayaking trips,
lots of hikes,
physical therapy,
a new basketball season (championship game tommorow, 6pm, 19th and Alder),
a cool meteor shower,
my cousin Phoebe getting pregnant,
a few good games of hat toss and hot potato,
the usual golfing bliss and the Greenlake Pitch n' Putt,
stubbing the crap out of my left big toe 3 times in 3 weeks (bloody),
a good visit from Benjamin and Rachel, the NC contingent of the Smith family,
floating down the Yakima river, and flipping over the boat with Sophie,
a fantastic Vancouver Folk Music Festival,
Joseph's crib, billiards and pong,
Eagle vs. Shark and Superbad,
and much more that I forgot about already.

Farewell, Seattle

Sedentary Times

2007-08-16T14:32:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

I am sitting at home, feeling a little bit feverish and under the weather, so I decided to do a few updates.

I'm reading a book called "Small is Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered" by E.F. Schumacher. It is very interesting, a perspective on economics influenced by Gandhi's Indian economic proposals. The main tenet that Schumacher espouses is permanance - sustainability and peace. It is a fascinating departure from the numerical, impersonal economic systems that are so familiar - capitalism, socialism, communism.
Its slow going, but I strongly recommend it.

Check out the most recent photos on my Flickr page
Most of the latest photos are from our annual Smith/Wilbert pilgrimage to a sandy beach on the peninsula.

Also, did anyone else catch the Perseid Meteor Shower last Sunday? Clouds foiled our plans to get away from Seattle's light pollution, but they miraculously cleared over our heads at around 11pm. A few friends and I found our way to Seward Park (the darkest close spot), and saw a good number of meteors. Hope for a new moon and clear skies next year.

Windows/Microsoft is a terrible corporate monopoly that uses its market position to pass an inferior product on to consumers at a premium price. A few months after I got my new computer for school, I grew tired of the constant virus scanning, spyware, software updates, expiring product licenses, defragmenting, slower and slower operation, and general headaches. "Why am I paying for this?" I thought to myself. I searched around on the net, and it didn't take me long to come up with an alternative.

Its called Ubuntu. It is a South-African founded operating system that completely replaced Windows for me. It is based on the Swahili concept of Ubuntu, which translates loosely as 'Humaninty to Others.' Its based on Linux, and it has a long, long list of advantages over Windows. First, and perhaps largest, it is 100% free (as in speech and beer). You will never pay a penny. On top of this large incentive, we have these:

1. Ubuntu has a large upgrade every 6 months. Security upgrades occur more than once a week.
2. It is very solid operating system. No more crashes, freezes, or lagging at inopportune times. Just use your computer.
3. Its is far easier to find and install the thousands (100% free) programs than in windows. It usually takes typing a keyword and two mouse clicks. Done. Uninstalling programs is as simple. After installed, programs are automatically kept updated to the latest version, behind the scenes.
4. Security. The fundamental nature of Linux is far more secure than Windows, and this is why there are actually no known viruses for Linux. Spyware is virtually nonexistant as well.
5. Fast and simple. Ubuntu provides exactly what you need. Nothing bogs down your computer, and it will run much more smoothly and quickly.
6. Easy install and simple, customizable interface. I could set this up so that my 87 year old grandma could use it.
7. Nelson Madela is a fan!

To try it is simple. Go to www.ubuntu.com, download the file, burn it onto a CD, and restart your computer with the CD inside and you can test it out with no obligation and no modification to your computer.

I'm just starting some photography using my Grandfathers TLR Rolleiflex made in Germany in 1934. The mechanical sophistication in it is amazing. 70 years old and in perfect condition. He used it to take a photo of Albert Einstein one day. Cool!

On a final note, I am usually not a campaigner for the Vegetarian eating habits that I follow, but after reading this article my opinion has changed somewhat. In brief, it states that dietary choices have as much of an impact on the environment as transportation and electricity use, and that vegan and vegetarian diets create incredibly low amounts of pollutants compared to meat and dairy heavy diets. Read it.

The Latest Photography....

2007-07-22T23:26:00.000-07:00

Fore more, visit flickr.com/photos/tefricative

Created with Paul's flickrSLiDR.

The Future....

2007-07-19T17:47:00.000-07:00

Things happening:

1. Cape Alava soon!
2. 4 weeks of physical therapy for my Osgood Schlatter begins Tuesday.
3. I'm going to coach basketball with Dustin again, practice starts next Tuesday for the summer league.
4. Le Tour De France is on! Hooray! If you watch it for a few days, you will be hooked. Its amazingly fun.
5. Summer, please come back, these clouds are raining on me.

A Little Reading Material

2007-07-03T20:48:00.000-07:00

Barefoot feet are my latest obsession:
http://anthropik.com/2007/06/learning-to-walk/

This article is extremely interesting. It deals with the growing intersection of religion and science, and with the possible reasons behind the formation of the universe.
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/07/03/paul_davies/index.html

Cycling!

2007-06-27T13:37:00.001-07:00

I wrote a long entry about Bicycling and Parkour on the WAPK forums. It can be found at: http://www.washingtonparkour.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1654

The text:
I've been struggling with alot of questions recently, trying to analyze my life and understand fully everything around me in the context of the human species, of evolution and the human race. Inevitably, Parkour came under my microscope.

Parkour is an art defined by its utility. We have had long discussion on this site and others about that. Our very own History Thread says: "This emphasis on the utility of Parkour is a common theme amongst the French traceurs."

Parkour roots are found in the Natural Method of George Hebert, whose motto was "Be strong to be useful." (Etre fort pour être utile). Raymond Belle, David's father, was himself a firefighter, as was David for a time. They found meaning from their training by helping others. Keep this in mind.

Without a doubt, the techniques and strength learned in Parkour are very useful, in any number of emergency situations. They can save your life, and the lives of others. However, I think it is fair to say that Parkour has little usefulness in the everyday activities of your average person. It may appear to some outsiders to be a selfish activity. We know that this is not true. But we can do better.

I believe every experienced traceur has a responsibility to others. We spend huge amounts of time and money training our bodies, and most of the time we do nothing with them for the good of other people. We develop out minds, breaking down traditional ways of thinking with our movement., but we don't apply ourselves to improve the quality of life. We have alot of power. The community of traceurs is growing exponentially right now, but there is little real good being done by the larger Parkour community.

Many people don't have the time and motivation to volunteer, organize, and otherwise change society. However, one thing we all do have, and in abundance, is physical fitness. This is a resource.

We should use it. Specifically, bicycles. By riding bicycles instead of hopping in the car, you:

1. Foster the traceur mentality. A big hill is a daunting obstacle, and topping out on it is one of the best feelings.
2. Get stronger.
3. Reduce dependance on fossil fuels. This is huge.
4. Fatten your wallet. 3/4 of car trips are less than 5 miles. Operating a car for one year costs, on average, $5000 (AAA). One year of bike maintenance costs an average of $120!

5. Reduce your environmental impact. This is fundamentally aligned with the Parkour mentality of helping others! Cars account for nearly 80 percent of carbon monoxide and 50 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions in the U.S. Air pollution contributes to the deaths of 60,000 people nationwide. In urban areas with poor air quality, asthma is becoming a more significant health concern. (Harvard University School of Public Health).

6. Reduce traffic jams and parking troubles! No more scrounging for quarters or sitting on I-5!
7. Get some fresh air! Cyclists breathe in less gross, sooty, carcinogenic exhaust then the people in the cars! (source: Rank J, Folke J, Jespersen PH. Differences in cyclists and car drivers exposure to air pollution from traffic in the city of Copenhagen. Sci Total Environ 2001; 279: 131-6.)

8. Reduce noise pollution. Cycles are quiet and pedestrian friendly.
9. Change your mentality, foster a positive attitude. Bicycling allows you much more freedom that cars. In urban environments, short trips are probably faster by bike than they are by car! Being on a bike puts you in touch with your environment and makes you use all your senses. You have to be completely aware of your surrounding on a bike. Sound familiar?
10. Cycling is fun!

Bicycling is a method of transportation that is, in my opinion, perfectly suited to the traceur. Try it!

thoughts?

wow... just... wow

2007-06-13T17:52:00.000-07:00

http://www.pantherhouse.com/newshelton/there-happens-to-be-a-lot-about-me-that-you-don’t-know-mr-smarty-man-there’s-plenty-of-joy-in-my-life/

Work and Leisure Through The Ages

2007-05-31T22:57:00.000-07:00

As some of you already know, I'm taking an extremely stimulating class this quarter about work and leisure. We have analyzed the writings of philosophers from ancient Greece to modern America in order to formulate a
conception of my own place in the world. The final project was to write a paper. The prompt was, what is good and meaningful work for you? I put alot of effort into this paper, so I thought I would post it here so others could share it with me. Tell me what you think!

Happiness is the most important goal in my life. Everything I do is driven by a desire to be happy, to be fulfilled. But do not take that to mean that I am a hedonist - many things have value to me that do not make me happy directly, but I try to find meaning in them anyway. Work, at least a common contemporary version of work, is somewhat at odds with my values. In millions of jobs across the world, people mindlessly jab at keyboards, roll cigarette after cigarette, cut the loose threads on jeans, and toil at even more demeaning jobs in return for a pale imitation of well-being. They are policed in their jobs by restrictive managers, watched by police with inflated egos on the street, and are so degraded by the time they get home that their close relationships are shallow and few. How do I find a meaningful life in a world that is full of suffering? What is my place on this earth, one human among the uncounted multitude? Why am I here? These are the questions that everyone must ask themself at some point. Some turn to religion, others commit themselves to some other path. In my opinion, my duties as a human being are two: be a steward of the earth, the only home we have ever known, and be a steward of my people, human beings.
There is no doubt that there are problems beyond measure in today's world. No one has trouble listing what some of these problems are, but each person's list will be different. Let me try to list off some of the biggest problems, that, in my eyes, hold back our species from its full potential. This is a short list of the things that I take as my duty to help change, for the good of our species. I realize that I will miss many problems here, but I believe the vast majority stem from a few of these basic inequities.
Poverty is perhaps the biggest inequity in the world, and affects the most. The vast majority of all people in the world are poor. From the projects of Coney island and Queensbridge, the 9th ward of New Orleans, the post-industrial wasteland of Detroit, to Oakland and Compton in California, to the south end of Seattle, poverty is a reality for millions in the United States today. The state of the poor in the richest country in the world is small compared to the uncounted hundreds of millions living in extreme poverty, forgotten and outcast, in Sao Paulo, Rio De Janeiro, Mexico City, China, India, Senegal, Darfur, Congo, and all across the world. Wherever you go, the poor are not far away. Why are people poor? I will address this later.
The vast difference in the quality of life between the rich and the poor accounts for the majority of crime. According to the US Department of Justice, more than 2 million people were incarcerated in 2002 in the United States. Prisons are one of the fastest growing industries in this country, and a San Fransisco Chronicle article recently stated that within five years, California will be spending more money on prisons than on higher education (Sterngold). The US jails
600,000 more people than China, the second leading country, and 1,200,000 more than Russia, in distant third place (Straw). Jails are not a solution, they are a temporary fix that does nothing to address the direct causes of crime. They serve no good purpose in society, only creating a culture of imprisonment among the most impoverished people and a black hole of resources and lives.
Racism, sexism, and classism are bigger problems in this country than most people admit. The fact that these prejudices exist is evidence of a deep sickness in our culture. They are a major source of war, social conflict, and violence, and serve to alienate people around the world from one another.
War is going strong today, flourishing around the world as a means of solving a conflict. Why do people kill each other around the world, especially under the guise of nationalism? What are the primary motivations, and what justifies war? This is a rather complex, often confusing issue, but I believe that all war is fundamentally flawed, and only hurts all the involved peoples. As Gandhi once said, "I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."
War and the psychology of violence are ingrained in out culture. Society, relationships, and the health among people in the U.S. are strained, and the principles that lead us to war also lead us to internal conflict. Abuse, fights, divorce, suicide, murder, hate crimes, and other extreme behaviors are widespread. People spend less time raising their children, with their families, with their elders, their friends, in their communities, and speaking to strangers. Overall, less time is spent with neighbors and other humans, and more time is spent watching TV, surfing the Internet, and at work. I believe that the increasing technological innovations have combined with the individualist spirit of our culture to cripple the social skills and compassion that are innate in humans.
This same technology and individualism have lead to a dangerous irresponsibility among most all people with respect of the Earth. Environmental destruction and climate changes are occurring at unprecedented rates. From the rain forests of Columbia, the strip mines of the Australian outback, the coral reefs across the oceans, the Uranium mines on First Nation land in New Mexico, to carbon emissions around the globe, contamination of groundwater with agricultural chemicals, and depletion of oil reserves, the earth is in somewhat dire shape. This destruction inevitably leads to hard questions. What is the benefit of this destruction? Why is it occurring? What are the motivations of the people and the bodies who are fostering this destruction?
These are all frustrating, persistent, and extremely destructive problems, but I believe that all of them are completely solvable, albeit on a long timescale. One of the most effective ways to understand and solve any problem is to deconstruct its causes. All of the problems I have outlined stem from only a one root causes, namely, the economic and resulting cultural system of capitalism. Capitalism is an unsound social construction that has profoundly negative consequences on every corner of the globe and every corner of your life. This may sound somewhat radical - I can assure you that it probably does - but the reality is, we live in a world of such wealth that every human being on earth should have a home, access to pure water, uncontaminated air, fresh organic food, clothes on their back, and a community of people to live with. Each person should have a loving environment to learn in, teachers to help them along their way, special consideration for any unusual needs, and the freedom to express themselves in almost any way they want. Each person should have a supporting environment, clean land to live on, and a strong family. And all this should, and can be achieved while respecting our stewardship of the Earth, continuing the advance of science to benefit the race, and cementing the future of our global family. These things are not dreams, beyond the current abilities of technology. This could be the reality. If it does not become reality, in some form, than human beings as a species are in danger of destroying ourselves.
Capitalism is based on the precepts of individualism. Individuals who work harder, get more. If an individual chooses not to work, or cannot work, then that person has no inherent worth in the system of capitalism. Capitalism alienates people from their jobs by dividing labor into ever smaller pieces, keeping workers always in danger of being fired, downsizing and outsourcing, and separating the worker from the final product, which allows them no sense of accomplishment. When the skill and the challenge is removed from an activity and replaced with mindless repetition, boredom and anxiety set in, and this is a problem seen in many jobs today. The extremes of capitalism, the very rich and the very poor, are very secure in their positions. Wealth begets wealth, and poverty spawns greater poverty. At the same time, consumerism entices poor people to buy into the very system that holds them down. Advertisers spend millions to create a need for a new product among an entire population. These new products and technologies foster the spirit of capitalism. Television, computers, iPods, video games, second life, cell phones, microwaves, online shopping, they all serve the core principle of individualism by reducing encounters the extent of relations among people. Where for most of history a person would have conversations during their free time, walk to the store to buy some food or clothes from a real person, go to the pub to see a band or maybe even play and sing themselves, and cook dinners with family, friends, and neighbors, now these things are done in relative isolation.
This system is dehumanizing to all of its participants. Consumers in our society are separated from the food we eat, the cars we drive, and everything we consume by a price tag. While this may seem trivial, it separates us, the consumer, from the consequences of the things we consume, which is very dangerous. Factory farming, while it produces cheap eggs and big profits for the owners, comes at a price. Chickens, cattle, and pigs are often squashed into tiny cages, unable to turn around or lie down, force-fed antibiotics, and most will never see the light of day or smell fresh air. We pay for a car with our labor, never seeing the results of global climate change on our scale, the earth ripped apart for raw materials, or the worn down workers on the assembly line. We browse merrily on our computers and talk on our cell phones, but almost never hear mention of the devastating civil wars in the Congo that are financed by Tantalum mines, ripping apart the jungle and resulting in more than 3 million killed since 1994, all for the sake of transistors and circuits. The irony is that we have the buying power in this system, which is the power to control what we consume. In a traditional economy, the consequences of unethical, harmful, and destructive practices was immediate and present, and this self-protecting system flourished for hundreds of thousands of years., while our system hurtles us towards our own destruction faster and faster.
Capitalism fosters a disconnect between all people. New material goods separate us from the earth, which is the ultimate source of all of our livelihood. Ancient cultures around the world, strong in their traditions and deeply rooted in their respect for the land, are exploited by globalization, free trade agreements, and outsourcing. Columbian farmers, who have grown and sold crops locally for thousands of years, are now competing with massive agri-businesses from the United States for customers. Many of these farmers, forced out of their traditional, sustainable agricultural practices, turn to Coca fields as their only means of feeding their family, only to be set upon by the forces of the War on Drugs. All of this is justified in the minds of many people by the notion of progress in the global economy, and growth in the price of their stocks.
The question that must be asked is, progression towards what? Is there some light at the end of the tunnel for capitalists? What is the point of all this work, all this labor that goes beyond providing what we need? Corporations amass wealth, vast production lines crank out millions of doo-dads per day, and dump trucks build mountains of trash upon the earth. Why do we uphold a system that necessitates a poor, underprivileged class alongside an extremely wealthy and powerful one? What is the benefit of such a system to any one person, and to humanity and the earth as a whole?
In February of 1990, the Voyager I spacecraft, launched in 1977, began to leave the solar system. As it left, NASA commanded the Voyager to turn around and photograph the solar system from 4 billion miles away. The photo, immortalized as "the pale blue dot," is the furthest picture of the earth ever taken. Carl Sagan, the famous author, philosopher, and astronomer, wrote about the photo in his book of the same title.

"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you've ever heard of, every human being who ever was lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish this pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." (Sagan)

No one holds the solution in their hands. I have no medicine, no miracle plan to save ourselves from this position we have backed ourselves into. I'm only one man, one among billions. So what do I do to change the world? What is my good and meaningful work? I choose to structure my life around compassion. Wealth and property are enticing goals, but when I consider my place as a human being, alone with my people on a tiny pale blue dot, most of the things that are considered important in our capitalist society begin to fall to the wayside. When the potential for good change in the world is so enormous, I must take some of it as my responsibility, as my work.
The first way that I seek to change the world is to live simply, and live well. The guidelines that I set here are few and simple, but it is nonetheless work to follow them. Such changes do not come easily. I try to reduce my consumption as much as possible, and to encourage others to do the same. Our power as consumers is total, but it is only as educated consumers that we can make the right choices. I try to be compassionate, and to live with an appreciation for every other being. Fundamental in this endeavor is self respect. It is often said that you cannot love another without first loving yourself, and I believe this is truth. By spreading standards of beauty and bias based on appearance and manner, our culture has seriously damaged the ability of most people to truly love themselves without compunction, and this in turn has led to a population that often sees compassion as weakness.
Perhaps the biggest victim of our modern way of life has been our relationships. Humans are inherently among the most social creatures on the planet, and the individualism preached on the pulpits of Wall Street is antithetical to our nature. I believe that the best way to build change in the world is the forge strong relationships among people. The only way to forge lasting, meaningful relationships is to spend time on them, which is why I choose to spend time with my family, with all of my relatives, with my friends, and even with strangers. You can never tell who will be a new friend. The time spent with friends and family is the primary building block of culture, and culture is among the strongest forces for change in the world.
Another aspect of my work is storytelling. My favorite methods of telling stories use writing and photography, two mediums which have a fundamental power to influence people. The disconnect between consumers and the consequences of their consumption is a fragile barrier, and the written word and printed image have the ability to pierce that wall. Both photography and writing have an intrinsic value to me as well. Both formats have the ability to capture beauty in a form that is usually unseen and unheard. With a camera in my hands, I have the power to capture and share some small parts of the beauty that, for the most part, goes unappreciated in the everyday world.
Although traditionally my leisure activity of choice has been rock climbing, it has been supplanted in the past year by a french discipline called Parkour, which was born in a suburb of Paris in the 1980's. A highly physical training discipline, Parkour is about the perfection of movement from one point to another, learning to bypass any obstacle in the path. Although it is most often practiced in urban environments, the discipline is formulated around fast, efficient, and graceful movement across any terrain. This commonly involves running, jumping, climbing, hanging, swinging, quadrupedal movement, swimming, balancing, dropping, and vaulting. However, the spirit of Parkour is much more than this. Founded by David Belle, the son of a national hero fireman of France, Parkour is a complete path toward "strong body, strong mind." As a Traceur (practitioner of Parkour) begins to develop, the world becomes a much different place. The profound self discipline required in Parkour training has a fundamental effect on my mindset at all times. One of the principle tenets of Parkour is that there is always a path, always a way to move forwards. I would even say that this is the most basic component of the discipline - the art of moving forwards. This is not something that comes easy, which is why a Traceur trains, trains, trains. The skills, mental and physical, that are taught by living the life of a Traceur have real applications in every aspect of life.
Parkour has unlimited potential. Far from the anarchic successor to skateboarding, it is a way of life that has the ability to change the practitioner and everyone in touches. It is the logical successor of the games that every child plays, jumping around, climbing on anything and simply moving in their environment for the pure joy of movement. It can be a spark of creativity in an otherwise drab urban environment, a splash of excitement and health in an unhealthy world. It causes spaces to be used in ways that were never anticipated or designed for, and bucks the constraints of traditional sport. It is often said in the community that anyone can do Parkour, at any time, anywhere in the world. This to me is power beyond imagining, a resource for humans that is just beginning to be tapped.
I have tried to give a portrait of what I consider to be my work, my path as far as it is illuminated to me now. I want to live a simple life as far as possible, rejecting consumerism, capitalism, and all the ills that come from it. I want to build strong relationships with all the people around me, and build a strong culture. I want to tell stories to people, through words and pictures, that teach them a little bit more about the world that we live in and our place in it. I want to practice and spread Parkour as a strong remedy to the monotony of our increasingly urban and digital lifestyle. In William Gibson's award winning novel Neuromancer, a grim post-information age landscape is portrayed. In this future world, "Power... meant corporate power... the multinationals that shaped the course of human history, had transcended national boundaries. Viewed as organisms, they had achieved a kind of immortality" (Gibson 203). If our current path continues, it seems that our future looks depressingly similar to Gibson's vision. I am only one person among billions, but I believe in my ability to make change. Gandhi said "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." It is my job to be it.

and again...

2007-05-20T20:08:00.000-07:00

Here is a little embedded slideshow of my flickr account.

Created with Paul's flickrSLiDR.

Photomacrography, racial profiling, music, and sunshine

2007-05-17T22:52:00.000-07:00

My life recently has been a case study in business (busy-ness?).
Hmmm.... I never thought about that word orgin.

By the by, I have decided I would like to major in Environmental Science Journalism, so I can do three of the things I love: Photography, writing, and making some change. Hopefully it will also involve alot of travel and fresh air. My dream job would be to work for National Geographic, but that is in the future.

I've got a new camera in the mail, it should be here in five days. Look for a ton of new picures on my Flickr account in the next few weeks and months.

The Blue Scholars have a new album out, entitled 'Bayani,' which is... beyond words. In my opinion, it is the best album out of the northwest in my lifetime. A fantastic affirmation of life and questioning of the injustice in the world, and a musical gem. Sabzi spins the tables with the best and Geologics rhymes are light years ahead of the previous albums. I think anyone, no matter their age, can enjoy this album. The best songs are Joe Metro, about the bus system in seattle, 50 Thousand Deep, about the 1999 WTO protests, North By Northwest, about the left coast, and Bayani, which is just phenomenal.
Buy this album. Play it. Enjoy. Repeat.

Peace.

a purple friend in Larrabee State Park

cool stuff!

2007-05-09T15:33:00.000-07:00

Hello people. Spring is here in Bellingham, and I am looking for a house with some friends, we might even move in this month. I got a painting job for the summer, I'm gonna be working a ton. Check this site out, it is fantastic:

www.eol.org

two incredible sites...

2007-04-28T23:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182

on a entirely different note, check out my flickr, I've been doing tons of photography lately.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tefricative/

The 206

2007-04-04T11:52:00.001-07:00

The 206
Originally uploaded by maxswilbert.

I had a nice spring break, full of relaxation and family, it was wonderful to be home. I'm back at school now, starting my new classes: Sociolinguistics (a little boring but cool), Native American Litereature (Sweet & Sour Sauce), Geography (Very sweet; the teacher has done a ton of research in the Ozette/Cape Alava region), and Work & Leisure Through the Ages (Awesome, its almost a philosophy class with the goal of defining a good and meaningful life). Overall I'm very pleased, it looks to be exponentially better than last quarter and the weather is getting better too!
Ciao!

Podiobooks are cool

2007-03-19T21:52:00.000-07:00

Check out this cool website: podiobooks.com
They host a whole set of mostly unpublished authors' audiobooks, and allows you to subscribe to the book as an RSS feed; you can recieve a new chapter every day, week, or month to allow slow consumption.
There are some great books on there, I've been exploring it for the last few days.

It combines very well with netvibes.com, which is a personalized homepage that I have been using. It lets you set up RSS feeds and many other things to show everytime you open your browser. Mine is set up to get my email, about 10 blogs from my friends, weather, news, and also has a notes and to-do-list feature.

Combine them?
=cool.

Take the money and run

2007-03-15T14:24:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. Max here, reporting from the city of Bellingham. Did you know that Bellingham was the site of a gold rush of 80,000 miners in 1858?

Random fact for the readers. I picked up the Hiking Guide to Whatcom County earlier, should make for interesting tramps. I am considering making a foray out to Olympic National Park over spring break, we shall see. Contingent on the sky not falling down in a thuderous wet splash, as has been known to happen around here in March. Here are a few pictures from up here.

The remnants of the latest snow Soren drifting off in class

spring or winter? Fog is thick and common

Oyster Dome

2007-02-13T14:51:00.000-08:00

So I met up with some people and did some parkour/hiking on Oyster Dome, just south of Bellinghman on Chuckanut Drive. It was fun,
a long day at 7 hours and many miles. There is a 200 or so ft. escarpment up there, which looks to have 5 or 6 climbs up to three pitches on it. Gotta check those out asap. Here are a few pics, I didn't take many.

Fright

2007-01-23T23:52:00.000-08:00

almost two and a half thousand nuclear weapons are located
at Bangor Submarine base, 20 miles from Seattle.
That is 1/4 of the USA's nukes.
Frightening.

Day 13... and counting

2007-01-21T15:43:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm still in Bellingham since the last time i posted, things have been good up here.
the snow has melted out over the last couple days, and yesterday was actually sunny! The first
nice weather since i have been up here. Me and some friends threw a frisbee around on the field,
soaking in the sunlight. I think we all had the rickets.
Last night we all went to the Basketball game, Western vs. our rival Central Washington. We won
the game in overtime, there were probably 25 lead changes through the course of the game. Fun!

here are some random photos ; a sandstorm in iraq, marshall and megan cruisin in thailand, and tokyo in HDR.

...

2007-01-13T12:17:00.000-08:00

In other news...

2007-01-12T10:41:00.000-08:00

snowfall blanketed bellingham on wednesday, leaving a 4-inch blanket across the entire region. The skies cleared thursday morning,
but continued low temperatures in the teens and twenties have made many of the sidewalks and road into treacherous slides. A deer was spotted off my front porch yesterday, munching on the carefully manicured brush.

Coollege

2007-01-08T15:08:00.000-08:00

So I am at college. WWU. Bellingham is windy and has clean air. My roomate is from alaska and is named Dylan, he is cool. I just signed up for Psychology, Medievel History, and Philosophy. Cool. Played some B-ball today, and set up the dorm room. Its gonna be fun, I can already tell.

The Aurora Borealis and other things

2006-12-18T11:23:00.000-08:00

Hey. I'm home, been here or a long while, putting off this and just putzing around. It's good to be home, but I already miss New Zealand a lot. I want to be on the road again. I'm really feeling the idea of traveling to Alaska/Yukon territory asap, we'll see when that works out.

Things that have happened:
A fight in the NBA, Basketball practice started, got a laptop for school, began Christmas present buying procedures, Harry, Nick, and Roland back from school, seattle had an enormous wind storm and we lost power for about 48 hours, we purchased a Christmas tree and assembled it in our living room, I got a new mattress, and was motivated to rearrange and clean my room with my great-grandfather's bed frame as my new bed frame. I also saw the new James Bond movie. Thats all I can think of right now.

I'm coming home

2006-11-20T13:32:00.000-08:00

Today is November 21st, and my flight leaves at 8pm tonight. I can't really believe I'm going home, it seems like so long since I've been there. The last week has been fun, but spent way too much time on buses and boats and such, It'll be nice to slow down at home. I fly into San Fran, then catch a flight from Oakland to Seattle. The weird thing is that I leave at 8 on the 21st, and my flight gets into Seattle at around 8 on the 21st, so 24 hours will have gone by but not counted for anything. Craziness.
Thanks for reading everyone! I'll post some more pictures on here in the next few weeks, so drop by every once in a while. Hopefully I'll see you all in person soon!
Love,
Max

Quantum flux, classical music, and a little drizzle

2006-11-16T18:49:00.000-08:00

The pics: My faithful shoes, Milford Sound, the sea.

Woooo. So last time I wrote, I was... ah, yeah, Queenstown. So I went kayaking in Milford Sound (which was wet, cold, and incredible), and took buses north for a few days. I spent the night in Picton, the town the ferry launches from, and had an excellent dinner of polenta last night. Wow, comfort food.
Outside the cafe, the rain was falling sideways.
I caught the ferry this morning, had a cloudy crossing, with lots more horizontal, and occasionally upward-falling water. I'm back in Wellington, the capital of NZ. They got a washington state style situation here, with Auckland the biggest city and cultural center (by a factor of 3), and Wellington the capital. I got a haircut earlier, its pretty short now. I went for a really fun run along the water, with waves thundering against the sea-wall beside me and spray soaking me. Its funny how you can forget to be tired when you are surrounded by that kind of energy and power!
So now I've got to go get some dinner, and then I'm off to see the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra play Shostokovitch! Cool! Somehow, I still qualify as a child, so I got a ticket for NZ$10, aka $6.70. Which is just insane. All of the public museums and art galleries are free here, too. Christchurch's art gallery was built 2 years ago and is a gorgeous building that cost $50million, and its still free. Cerazay.
Anyways, this show should be fun. I'm staying one more day here, tying up some loose ends, then taking a bus to Auckland for my last 3 days. Its gonna be overwhelming to be home. See everyone soon!

"We talk a lot about Malcom X and Martin Luther King JR, but It's time to be like them, as strong as them. They were mortal men like us and everyone of us can be like them. I don't want to be a role model. I just want to be someone who says, this is who i am, this is what i do. I say what's on my mind."
Tupac Shakur

Kwai, Saleum, Allo, Halaw, Kia Ora, Hi!

2006-11-14T22:21:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! Well, my journey is winding to a close. I've spent the past two days, and will spend the next four or so making the long trek north to Auckland, then home on the 21st.
I had a good few days down in Fjordlands NP, a UN World Heritage Area, kayaking in Milford sound beneath towering peaks and thundering waterfalls, among seals and penguins, and, thankfully, away from the cruise boats. I'll post some pictures and give you guys a full update in a few days, in Wellington on the 18th (17th by your reckoning).
Meanwhile, hope everyone is well, and I'm looking forward to home food, basketball, friends and my own bed!
love from NZ...

On rain, snow, Antarctic fronts, and more....

2006-11-09T15:44:00.000-08:00

Wow, I've got alot to write. This is gonna be a long one. Check out the pictures in the last post as well.
Ok. I left Christchurch about 7 days ago, and headed up on a shuttle to Arthurs Pass. The pass is a tiny village at about 3000ft. which probably has a population of 10 or so. On the way up, we drove by Castle Hill, and looking out the window, it became very clear to me that I needed to find a way to get down there.
I stayed in Arthurs pass for 2 days, and only did one day hike. It climbed to the top of Avalanche Peak, which looms 6000ft over the village. It was a very cool hike. I made it to the main ridge halfway up by 9:30, and waited to see if the clouds in front of me would develop into some bad weather or what. As I sat, a Kea, the curious and beautiful alpine parrots of NZ, came and kept me company for half an hour, sitting about a foot or two away. At 10, the clouds abruptly lifted, revealing clear blue skies and the beuatiful peaks surrounding me. I climbed the final snow slope to the summit, wrapping my head in a shirt so I was able to see. The views from the top were amazing. I spent about an hour watching avalanches on nearby Mt. Rolleston (~8000ft.).
Anways, the next morning I hitched down to Castle Hill. I wandered around Castle Hill Village, a very wierd place with lots of vacation homes, for an hour until I found a small hidden patch of forest to pitch my tent in. I walked back to the boulders, a 6 mile walk that I repeated twice every day for the next 5 days. I spent the afternoon climbing with a local girl who showed me lots of cool problems, and these two english fellows, Jeff and Tom.
That evening, a french guy, Tivo, and the girl he was traveling with, Toyo from Belgium, brought their campervan back to the village and us and the english blokes spent a nice evening around a fire, swapping climbing stories. Turns out Jeff and Tom are taking a year after they graduated HS to travel around the world climbing. Toyo left the next morning, but Tivo threw up his tent next to mine and is still there now. The next day was cold and overcast, but I got about 3 hours of climbing in.
Castle Hill is just amazing. It is like no other place I have been, the rocks are sculptures. The third day some bad weather closed in. Since Castle Hill has no public shelter whatsoever, me and Tivo spent about 20 hours trapped in the tents, with brief, wet forays to the bathroom. That evening, the rain cleared up a bit, and, seeking fresh air and open spaces, wandered around until we found an empty house and cooked up our dinner on the porch, which we repeated for the next two nights.
The next day was perfect; bright sunshine and a crisp wind combined for sublime temperatures for climbing. Tivo and I had a great morning, sending awesome climbs left and right. At around 2pm, a cloud bank blew in suddenly out of nowhere. This was a southerly, one the storms that crosses the ocean between Antarctica and NZ, picking up water and growing colder before blasting the south island. Temperatures dropped about 20 degrees in 1o minutes, and we spent a very very cold hour in the rain before someone gave us a ride to the village. The next day was the opposite- cold and miserable in the morning, but clearing to perfect temperatures in the afternoon. Tivo, Jeff, Tom, and mostly climbed in our tennis shoes the whole day, finding ridiculous problems and making up our own, having a really fun time.
The weather report called for really bad weather this weekend, so we got out of there that evening. I don't wan't to know what really bad is like after those few days. Those seven days where just incredible. I think I'm gonna have to come back to Castle Hill with crash pads, a camper van, and good friends.
I'm catching the bus down to Te Anau tommorow, which is in the midst of Fjordlands NP, reputed to be utterly gorgeous. Should be fun. I come home in 11 days! Looking foreward to seeing everyone! Maybe I'll have a slideshow or something...
p.s. check out the new book review on the right.

Photos to go with the words

2006-11-09T15:20:00.000-08:00

Arthur's Pass, Avalanche Peak, Kea's chewing on my shoes, Toyo, Tivo, Jeff, and Tom, and the bathrooms at castle hill.

Home

2006-11-01T22:16:00.000-08:00

look outside my window.
what do you see?

A lawn
with a garden in the corner.
the chicken's house is there, too.
a rose bush
yields fragrant, beautiful
yellow cream flowers.
Birds peck at Emily's leavings;
a Bluejay struts the rows of lettuce.
The crows that live
at the top of the great cedar
claim their sky raucously.
The cat chases off the squirrels
across the yard
the cherry tree
is a 24/7 all you can eat feeding frenzy;
the blueberries and rasberries are untouched.
You sit
in a blue chair
under a blue sky
exploring.

Trying to be a hermit...

2006-10-31T23:07:00.000-08:00

So the Castle Hill plan is getting a little tenuous. Turns out the closest (legal) accomodation to the hills is 20 minutes away. By car. Seeing as how I don't have one, or even a bike for that matter, it seems a little far. I'm figuring a speed limit of 100kph, which means its a little more than 20 miles. Crap. So I'm trying to work this out. Turmoil in the brain. I think I might just have to do a few day trips up there, which sucks bigtime. Oh well, it'll still be great.

On a lighter note, I ran into Christine on the street today. She's the friend of a friend who I randomly met up with in Auckland. The one person I kindof know in
the whole country, and we are walking down the same street in Christchurch
at three o'clock. We hung out for an hour or so, got some ice cream and smoothies and such.

I don't know what my plans are. Any suggestions?
I suppose I'll wander down south, try to find a nice campground in the crook of a river to hide away at for a week or two.

That one right there

2006-10-30T23:57:00.000-08:00

More pictures.... the ones in the last post are of hiking, rinding the ferry to the south island, the westt face of Travers peak at night, and Christchurch. These last ones are Travers falls, a swingbridge over the Travers river, and flowers in the botanical gardens.

city keeps on going...

2006-10-30T23:34:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone. I'm still relaxing from my hike, this time in Christchurch, "the Garden City." They call it that because 1 acre in 3 is designated parkland. Wow. It shows, the city is beautiful and very airy. I haven't really got much to say, I've been taking it easy, getting ready to head up to Castle Hill in a few days. Its gonna be fun up there. I thought I'd post up some old pictures.

down again...

2006-10-27T19:47:00.000-07:00

Just got back from my 5 day hike in Nelson Lakes National Park. The Park is comprised of two large lakes, Roititi and Rotoroa, and a range of peaks up to 2900m. The track I took wound along the Travers river into the heart of the park. I made it to John Tait Hut the first night, about 13 miles in, for my first taste of the NZ wilderness. It was windy and cold on the way up, so I was very happy to step into a wood-fire heated, running water, mattress equiped cabin that evening. These things are nice, and for $10nz a night, a bargain.
Inside, I met a group of 9 (more on them later) and two couples, one of them climbers who I had some nice chats with, the other a couple who had been working in Antarctica, at McMurdo station, where my old friend Ian is right now!
I asked them if they knew who he was, and they said no. I mentioned offhand as I trailed off that he had gotten frostbite. "Mittens!" they exclaimed. Apparently thats what everyone has been calling him there days.
The next day took a leisurly 3 hours to get to the next hut, Upper Travers, which is situated in an alpine cirque at 1700m. Took the rest of the day as a rest, lounging in the sun in 70 degree temps. Spent the evening talking and playing cards with the group of nine. Turns out they were with a Christian Organization that organizes these trips. The two leaders, Norm and Christie, where volunteers who had moved over from the states, and the participants were from all over; switzerland, the netherlands, oregon. They were very welcoming, warm, and kind, and we spent an excellent night and morning together before they set off on day 3.
I left most of my gear at the hut and ran the 2 or 3 miles up to the top of the saddle, around 2300m, which was a steep climb on slushy snow. It was reassuring to have my ice axe. The views on the top were spectacular, especially of the east face of Travers Peak. Imposing, to say the least.
I spent the next day and a half descending, and the weather held out just long enough for me. I'm back in Nelson now, off to Christchurch in the morning for a few days, then to Castle Hill. Hope everyone is well!
love, Max

Pics that I missed

2006-10-27T19:37:00.000-07:00

Rain and Photographic madness

2006-10-21T17:33:00.000-07:00

So I got rained out of that first tramp. No worries there, I'm about to set off tommorow on a six day romp into the Alpine Lakes Park around Marlborough here. It is a traverse of two alpine saddles and spends much of the time on exposed ridges or following the edges of two giant lakes, Rotoroa, and I forget the name of the other. I'm stocking up on food and such today, making sure I've got it all together. Its gonna be good!
I took the ferry to the south island, which is said to be the most beautiful ride in the world, which I'm, inclined to agree with. The day before in Wellington, the wind was gusting at about 50mph all day long. It made for some amazing surge along the coast. A great day, I walked around for hours! The wind would take the spray from the waves and carry it 20 or 30 feet to drench me and all the people on the waterfront path. Cool!
Well I'm here in Nelson, the largest city in the north of the south island. I've been here only 1 night so far, and it has been rainy and a little crappy. Oh well. I watched the NZ national cup rugby final last night, Wellington vs. Waikato. It was a really exciting game, with the pride of each team on the line. Waikato won in the end.
On my last night in Nelson I took some really cool photos. I was wandering around after the sun had gone down, and was walking along the train tracks when I realized how cool the light had become. I took a photo of myself, but moved the camera before the shutter fully closed. The result is cool, kindof ethereal. I took a few more cool shots that day, too. Hope everyone is well.
max

Gaagghhhh! Still can't post pictures! Arrrrggg.

hello from wellington

2006-10-17T18:01:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! I just arrived here in Wellington, the capital of NZed. It has been the first nice day since I got in the country, and it has been really nice. Wellington is located on the tip of the south island, and the roarin' forties are known to bring 70-80mph winds to the harborside area of town. Not today, though! I went for a nice run in the morning, and then had my first taste of the legendary kiwi ice cream, which is as good as it has been rumored to be. Just look at that expression on my face!

The bus down here from Auckland was about 10 hours, but on the way we passed these mountains. first was the 2000m mt. Tongariro. then Ruapehu, and up next was... Mt. Dhoom!!!! Aka Mt. Ngauruhoe. Cool. I got really excited seeing these peaks, and I'm leaving tommorow for my first tramp, Mt. Holdsworth Circuit. Cool!

The last picture is of Lake Taupo, which is ridiculously huge and beautiful. I looks like an ocean, with big waves rolling in and gulls winging overhead. Hope everyone is well! Thanks for the comments, too.

edit: Hmm, I can't post pictures right now for some reason. I'll have to get back to you all with those.

of toilets, trees, and bubbles...

2006-10-14T17:28:00.000-07:00

I've only used two toilets down here so far (hard to believe, but true), and both of them had very weird flushing mechanisms, so I can't tell you guys either way if it is true or not.

Its official: New Zealand is the tree climbing capital of the world. I went for a walk in the park near the center of Auckland today, and these arboreal highways are what I found.

The weather here is really eccentric. Today it has been really windy and rainy, and then suddenly the sun will break through and you will be too hot. 5 minutes later its raining hard again.

I saw one of the most incredible things today. At a park near downtown Auckland, there is a fountain that sends water flowing down several cascades before being recycled back to the top. I'd walked by it a few times yesterday, so wasn't planning on stopping to see it during my wandering today. On my way to the library, where I am now, I saw a few people standing above the fountain looking down, confusion written all over their faces. At that moment a strong gust of wind came along, and a strong cloud of bubbles rose into the air.

I walked over to the rail, intrigued, and saw that all of the pools were full of bubbles! somebody had poured detergent into the feed for the fountain, and there were giant, feather-light icebergs of bubbles floating all over the park. I sat and watched for a long time, it was mesmerizing.

Travel and such

2006-10-13T15:56:00.000-07:00

I took the train down to San Fransisco on Wednesday, getting into San Fransisco at about 10am on thursday. Met the usual mix of very strange people on the journey, including a man with the largest nostrils I have ever seen. They were like black holes on his face. I also met a girl who is the Illinois state horse jumping champion of the past two years. I spent a while exploring that city, taking photos and stuff, and got on the plane to New Zealand that evening.

The flight was smooth and long, 6,500 miles in 12 hours 29 minutes. Air New Zealand is luxury. They fed us well, have comfortable seats, big thick fleece blankets, and everyone has movies, games, and music on demand on a little screen in front of them. I was asleep most of the flight, because I didn't sleep well on the train. I only saw one empty seat on the plane, and it happened to be between me and the woman to my right! It was nice to be able to spread out a bit. The sun was about to rise as we came into the airport, and a strip eastern sky was illuminated in deep pastel red, fading into green and purple. A nice way to wake up.

Well, I'm here. Auckland, city of sails. I am staying in a hostel with a scottish guy, and have been walking around all afternoon with Ruben, a guy from Arizona that I met on the shuttle from the airport. Auckland is a cool city. I'm ready to get out into the hinterlands, though. I think I'm going to cut my stay on the north island short. Hope everything is well! I can't post pictures at this cafe, I'll find one where I can for the next update.
Much love.

The Time is Near...

2006-10-08T14:17:00.000-07:00

I leave on wednesday morning for my trip. I'll be posting some pictures and my first impressions of the country in the next few days. Talk to everyone soon!

Kayaking...

2006-09-27T16:48:00.000-07:00

Me and abby went Kayaking the other day on lake union. Our friend Tim works at NorthWest Outdoor Center, and he snuck a few boats around his boss for us to hop in, and we went all over the bay. It was hot and beautiful, and I got quite a few good pictures. There was awedding going on at Gasworks, complete with brass band and lots of dancing. I think the couple must have rowed over, because we came upon this fearsome looking craft in the shallows. The picture of the flower I took early the next morning.

t-minus 15 days, 4 hours, 34 minutes
364 hours

working, toiling, sweating...

2006-09-19T17:21:00.000-07:00

I've been working a ton the past couple weeks. I leave in three more! I just picked up the book on tramping (hiking) down there, and I am psyched for some of the areas I'm going to explore!

I stumbled upon my friend Ian's website, he's always been an adventurous guy, but he's outdone himself this time. he's in Antartica at Mcmurdo station, and some of the pictures are amazing. In his last post, he's excited because of temps forecasted in the positive for the first time since he arrived.

A little eye candy: breakfast in Utah.

Big news!!

2006-09-07T18:43:00.001-07:00

I bought my plane ticket yesterday! I'm going to find some crazy way to get to San Fransisco (or just take the train), and fly out Oct. 12th at 9:30pm. I'll leave NZ from Auckland, the largest city at 8pm on the 21st and arrive back in San Fransisco at 11:15am the same day. I'll recover almost 9 hours. Weird.

Its a 13 hour flight and 6,500 miles (10,500 km) each way. Crazy.

Mount Si hike

2006-09-07T18:43:00.000-07:00

Me and my mate Otis climbed Mount Si on Tuesday, just before he started at Garfield again. We got up with the sun, left Seattle around 7:15, hit some traffic across the bridge and on the eastside, and started up the trail at about 8:15. We summited around 10, spent about 45 minutes eating and enjoying the view, and ran down the trail, arriving back at our car at 11:54 sharp.

Mount Si has a big frickin' pile of rock that makes up the true summit, which requires a bit of a scramble to get to the top of. Called the Haystack, most of the people who make the hike (probably 99% of them, and Si is rumored to be the most climbed mountain in the US) stop about 500 yards short of the base. A 200 foot scramble later, and you are treated to 360° views of Snoqualmie Valley, Seattle, and the Cascades. Its really very cool. The steepness of the west side of the mountain gives you an almost vertical 3500ft drop to the town of North Bend. Cool! Afterwards, we soaked in the river for a while. Good day.

Alaska in July

2006-09-02T17:36:00.001-07:00

These are some pics from Alaska. My dad took these from his kayak in 2001.The snow melt made waterfalls like this everywhere, and the birds nesting around them made it only more spectacular! Click for the bigger version to get the full effect.

Google Maps Pedometer...

2006-09-02T17:36:00.000-07:00

Ever find something random that you can play with for hours, with no goal or particular reason? Well, check this out. Google Maps pedometer. You click anywhere on the map of the world to make a waypoint, then click somewhere else to measure the distance between the two spots. You can create very complex paths. Cool...

Link

News...

2006-08-29T20:58:00.000-07:00

Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq closed this month. The 3,000 prisoners were transferred to other jails. Link.

Check out this photo. This was taken by the Landsat 7 Satellite on September 11, 2001. What an amazing photo. Really gives you a sense of scale.

Wisdom Teeth

2006-08-19T19:28:00.001-07:00

I had my wisdom teeth removed today. I remember going into the office after taking the pill they gave me, watching my heart rate and blood pressure on the monitor, and then not much else for about 4 hours. Apparently I was doing a Godfather impression in the recovery room, something Harry was telling me about doing when he got his out a couple weeks ago. "I'm gonna make ya an offer ya can't refuse."

Another Cool photo

2006-08-19T19:28:00.000-07:00

Check out this photo from our ascent of Mt. Triumph. On the descent, we were looking to the NE, and saw these ominous formations building. We made it down fine, and the weather stayed good until we went to bed. The next morning we woke up inside a cloud, so thick we couldn't see more than 30 ft. and with the wind tearing through the col. We packed up, ate breakfast, and booked out of there fast! Photo credit to Tom Unger.

NZ Planning

2006-08-15T22:06:00.000-07:00

I've been doing alot of planning in the last couple of weeks for my trip. So far, my plan is to fly into Auckland around October 10th, spend about a week touring the city, then start making my way south. The capital, Wellington, is on the southern tip of the north island, in a huge harbor. There is a ferry that makes the crossing to Picton in 3 hours, and its supposed to be gorgeous. I got into contact with an American woman who has lived in NZ for 3 years, in a town called Takaka (known for its wine, surfing, and national parks), and she invited me to stay with her for a couple days, so I may head a couple hours up the road and stay there for a while.

After that, I'm going to head down to Christchurch, on the east coast. I'm gonna hang around there for a while, doing parkour and exploring, then head to Castle Hill (previous post) for bouldering for a week or so! Then, I'm going to spend the last part of my trip exploring the Southern Alps, Milford Sound (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), and the glaciated slopes of Mt. Cook and her neighbors. There is a pretty decent exchange rate ($1 US=$1.59 NZ), so I'm on track financially. Plane ticket is about 1200 though, ouch. Yahoo!

PK from eastern Europe

2006-08-14T18:30:00.000-07:00


This is the video that started it all...

Bainbridge II

2006-08-07T14:20:00.000-07:00

This is the beginning of the breakfast we had at Charles'. It was an amazing feast!

This second shot is Brendan, as we're all sitting around on saturday afternoon.

This is Ko, poleing out to the raft (which had floated away) this morning.
Nick caught a big Rainbow trout after about 15 minutes. We wanted to let it go, but the hook got in the gills and it died, so people ate it for lunch. They said it was delicious. That evening, though, David threw a cast out and caught a smaller fish in, literally, 15 seconds.

Bainbridge I

2006-08-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

These are the first of the pictures I took this weekend. We spent the first night on Bainbridge at the State Park, had dinner in town, and sat out on the beach until late. We were even able to see some of the fireworks from seafair over Seattle.

The first picture is from sunday morning. We were all invited to breakfast at our friend Charles Lewis' cabin, and here are Bree, Claire, and Siena looking out over the pond on Charles' property.
I stayed the next night at Charles' with Ko, David, and Declan, and we built a big floating raft out of wood and styrofoam. It took us about 4 hours of work, but it is cool. Supposedly each of those styrofoam planks has 750 lbs of floatation.

This last shot is from the ferry on the way home, this morning. Everyone forgot to set an alarm, so Ko and Charles were late for work.

Amazing sunset!

2006-08-04T15:13:00.000-07:00

I snapped these pictures off my roof two weeks ago. I don't know how many of you spotted it (July 21st), but I think it was the most spectacular seattle sunset I've seen in a long, long time. I'm headed off for the weekend, I'll have more pictures when I get back.

The Warriors

2006-08-01T23:20:00.000-07:00

I took these pictures last winter, when I coached a basketball team of 10 year olds. Will is on the right, Conner making the face, and Calin is the other. The other shot is Calin defending Robert. This is during a practice at Miller Community Center.

Day 5

2006-07-30T15:30:00.000-07:00

Still working on the whole healing thing. I've just been sitting around my house reading, eating, and sleeping 13 hours a day. I think I'll be out of the house soon, though. I'm getting bored.

Here's a cool picture of Hurricane Ivan from the ISS.

Update

2006-07-27T15:55:00.000-07:00

Went to the dentist today and got my teeth fixed up. I feel much better now that I can eat. The swelling is way down, too. I'm supposed to stay out of the sun, and I can't swim, though. Here's the picture.

Oooooowwww

2006-07-26T22:41:00.000-07:00

A bit of a setback for me today. Fell about 7 feet onto my face at the school by my house today. Tore the crap out of chin and cheekbone, but nothing's broken. I might have a big scar, though. The worst part is, I broke two of my teeth (commence groans), so I'm toughing it out right now, waiting to head to the dentist tommorow. More news soon, and maybe pictures.

Castle Hill, NZ

2006-07-25T23:22:00.000-07:00

This is one of the places I'm going to visit in New Zealand, probably for a week or two. Some of the Lord of the Rings was shot here, and the battle scene in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe was filmed here as well. In 2002, the Dalai Lama declared it a "Spiritual Center of the Universe." Pretty good recommendation.

A few PK shots

2006-07-23T22:53:00.000-07:00

Me and my best mate Otis went out for a bit of Parkour and photography today. Light was short, and the camera is old, so these are the best shots that came out of it. This was only our first attempt at photographing PK, so it's a little rough. I'll have some better ones up soon.

Freedom School

2006-07-22T20:53:00.000-07:00

My sister is deeply involved in organinzing and running the Tyree Scott Freedom School, a reincarnation of the Freedom Schools that sprung up all over the south during the Civil Rights Movement. It is a weeklong retreat focusing on Institutional Racism. Another friend of mine, Dustin Washington, who I coached a basketball team with last winter, is also one of the key leaders. There was an article about the conference in the Seattle P-I today featuring interviews with Megan (my sis) and Dustin. Check it out.

Our Triumph route

2006-07-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

>>>>>>Our route on Triumph (NE Ridge, III 5.7) followed the red. I climbed it with Marshall Balick, Tom Unger, and Theodore Barnhart. We camped on the saddle at the mark point. The approach to there was a heinous six and half hour hike. The next morning, we got up and crossed the glacier to the climb. The route itself was great; easy ridge climbing with lots of simul-climbing and a knife-edge ridge that dropped off six or eight hundred feet down to the glaciers on either side. We summited at about 2pm, and were back at our camp on the col at six or seven. What a classic route!

Really cool picture I took

2006-07-22T19:50:00.000-07:00

I took this photo while waiting in line for the Ferry on the way out to David Martin's cabin. I picked this rose next to the public bathroom and got this nice shot. You really have to view it big to fully appreciate it. Try clicking on it once, then when that image loads, click on it again (in most browsers).

Old things I wrote

2006-07-22T19:05:00.000-07:00

Here's some old thing I wrote.Its about the month that I spent in Yosemite over the summer of 2004. I go through stints where I write furiously for a while, then totally drop off. Anyway, here is one of my products.

Its dark as we pull into Camp 4. Our Toyota pickup, spared the scathing glances of opulent tourists by the grace of the night, breathes a sigh of relief as we turn off its abused engine. Nine-hundred thirty miles from Seattle, from my bed, from free food. It felt wonderful. As we started moving our food into one of the bear boxes, I looked around the camp. It was cluttered with tents of every size and shape, and people to match them. Dozens of people sat around fires, laughing over jokes in languages I didn’t recognize and strumming guitars. The sickly-sweet smell of menthol cigarettes floated in the air, as did the smell of dirt, sweat, and marijuana. Shouts erupted from the night occasionally, as a particularly funny joke was told. We found an unused bearbox in a campground near the bathroom and stocked our larder. Beans, rice, cereal, a bit of soymilk, and a bounty of homegrown vegetables, fruit of the Californian sun. We had no money to pay for a campsite (five dollars a night seems absurd to any climber from the US under the age of forty), so we stuffed our sleeping bags into our packs and set off across the road into the meadow. We walked for a few minutes through moonlit fields of knee-high grass, and found a small stand of trees that seemed as it would suit our purposes perfectly. Finding shelter between a few fallen logs (the devious rangers have been known to root out climbers with night vision scopes), we laid out our pads and looked up through the trees at the stars shining through the trees.

Chappelle Graph

2006-07-22T15:24:00.000-07:00

This is about people who quote Dave Chappelle all the time, thinking they are funny.

Cape Alava and Mt. Triumph

2006-07-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

These are a couple photos from my last two trips; the first a climb of Mt. Triumph in the Cascades, and the second to Cape Alava, on the Washington Coast, for 8 days.
The first here is my friend Theodore, exhaused as we make our way down the climb. The other one is Marshall on the ridge, and the third is Triumph. The climb goes up the right hand skyline.

The bottom picture is me with my cousin Zola.