your friend shea

It has been a while

2008-11-11T15:39:00.000-08:00

since I last posted. So here are some pictures. People I am blessed to know, places I have been blessed to go.

Diana

2008-05-10T11:19:00.000-07:00

is my camera, here are some pictures from her, with narration:

this is a portrait of me and diana. notice how amazingly rad my leather jacket is. betcha wish you had one.

some oranges at farmers market looking all ghostly and delicious.

fosters freeze. i have never been, but have been meaning to go for about 5 years. i still mean to. one day i actually will and it will be amazing.

rachel and sean. o you crazy kids, i don't even know what to say.

linds and josh. all engaged and crap. jeez. everybody is all in love and stuff. kinda rad.

mccarthy's looking all moody and cool like it was in new york or something.

arlo mojica. what can i say? an example to us all. what other person can pull off the fro-moustache combo and look so dirty he comes off clean. frankly, i am in awe. my leather jacket is still better than his though.

a picture is worth..

2008-03-17T14:34:00.000-07:00

a thousand words..... so heres a few thousand words about central america...

the end is near (or here?)

2008-03-09T16:52:00.000-07:00

so basically the last two weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind....

post volcano climbing led to four days of the best surf of the trip.... solid double overhead pointbreaks and beachbreaks, pretty much non stop...

which led to stephs arrival... and visit, which was awesome....

at which point my mom and lisa came to visit which was awesome as well....

in the midst of which i decided to change my ticket... thus avoiding semana santa madness and saving money and getting to be with people i very much have missed along the way ..... which was gonna be a surprise but three beers does a lot to convince me of telling just about anything ( i am seriously a lightweight its not even funny).

so tomorrow, i bid farewell to central america (and, perhaps most sadly, warm water)...

its been epic. thanks for reading. i will keep posting on this blog, but until (hopefully) about july it will not be travel related.

oh, and if you are gonna be in slo on thursday, we should all go (READ: i am going)to spikes.

when you climb volcanoes..

2008-02-25T18:18:00.000-08:00

be sure to wear shoes. especially when every person who sees you wearing flip flops tells you to find shoes. especially when some random chick you have never seen before pops out of a bush and says ¨DO NOT WEAR FLIP FLOPS ON THE MOUNTAIN. SERIOUSLY, TRUST ME, DON´T DO IT.¨ the best thing to do in this situation then, is to swallow your flip flop wearing pride, go back to your tent, grab your vans, and start asking the random hippies who are camping around you if you can borrow a pair of socks. the best thing to do is not to sit there with a dumb grin on your face and pretend you don´t speak english till the hippie girl from the bush goes away. you will remember this on the way up when your foot sinks down to your knee in a puddle of mud. you will remember it again when you are climbing on all fours, a sandal on each hand up the rocks. you will be sure never to forget it when sliding on your ass for the two kilometers of near vertical mud and rocks and then walking the last kilometer through the rocks barefoot because the sandals absolutely refuse to dry. you will think about it again as you rub your aching muscles trying to go to sleep that night in your tent while the hippie drum circle starts up somewhere in the bushes... let it be known: always wear shoes while climbing volcanoes.

Playa Gigante = Not So Gigante

2008-02-21T17:12:00.000-08:00

due to a lack of swell. surf locations are great when there are waves, but oftentimes if there is no surf to be had, surf locations are really not much more than a village two hours away from anything and smells vaguely of fish. so, onward. rumour has it that the latter half of next week will have swell, so until then i plan on spending some time on an island in the middle of a lake composed of not one, but two(!) volcanoes. yayuhhh. it's called isla ometepe, and if the waves continue being as flat as they have been, i will be embarking manana. post island exploration i should be able to get some waves before heading to san jose to pick up steph. so yah, thats the plan for now folks. as always, it is subject to change.

playa maderas= overrated

2008-02-18T16:44:00.000-08:00

too many people too few waves. this is why i left cali.... sooooooooo....... onwards.... off to the land of playa gigante, where the crowds are few, the waves are many, and the cervesa is ice cold. that last one is just hearsay, but yah.... hopefully the first two will abide...

i will be accompanied by my intrepid companion jean-michealle, of montreal river-surfing fame, and with any luck we should score. and by score i mean get shacked. and by get shacked i mean ride the tube. the barrel. the tunnel of love. the belly of the beast. get kegged. go in and out. get a frothy one. you know. all that shizz.

PEAS!

made it...

2008-02-16T06:50:00.000-08:00

...to nicaragua! woot! but only after getting lost in el salvador for a day, and getting stuck at the hoduras border for 3 hours and the nicaraguan for another 2 plus about five hours of actual driving to poneloya...got real good waves up in poneloya with no one out... actually no one in the town... there was only one other traveler in the hotel i stayed in, probably because it was one of the most bug infested places i have ever seen, i couldnt fall asleep for hours from so many of them crawling on and biting me...when i woke up my arm looked kinda leprous... also, there were literally dozens of bats living IN the hotel, hanging upside down from the rafters during the day, feasting at night... but the waves were real good..... i´ve been in san juan del sur, six hours south of there, for a few days now..not much to speak of... kind of a gringo-ghetto... lots of tourists and a town to support it, but not too exciting, but in an hour i will be catching a ride up to playa madera for a few days to camp and surf.... its pretty rad cause it´s totally off the grid, nothing there but one restaraunt and good waves.... wish me luck!

plansssss....

2008-02-11T13:57:00.000-08:00

so here is the new plan: i met a couple yesterday driving from san diego to costa rica and i am catching a ride with them to nicaragua. hopefully this will work. we are leaving tomorrow morning for eastern el salvador ( which supposedly has amazing waves, woot) and a few days after that should be in nicaragua. cross your fingers folks. oh, and the guy is a real good surfer, so that kinda works. (actual quote: `ya my girlfriend likes to sleep in so when i surf in the morning its like it doesnt even count for the first session of the day.....`)

shea somma and the no-good, very-bad day(s)

2008-02-06T12:26:00.000-08:00

it started yesterday when i attempted to get money from an atm in order to pay for my hotel, etc.. because i was supposed to leave today for nicaragua (and nearly did, but of course, circumstances gave me more trouble than i was bargaining for).

needless to say, my card was rejected, turns out when the bank sends you a new debit card, they deactivate the old one. permanently. there is no debit card cpr. no little pads to rub together and shock the hell out of the card, brigning it miraculously again to life. no little red emergency button to press. nothing. nada. zip.

so, determined to get cash and told that a credit card would help, i returned today to get a cash advance from a bank. three banks later, no advancement was made (by this point my companions had left me, but thats neither here nor there). still unflagged, i attempted to add a PIN number to my credit card in order to use it at the atms. guess what: no such luck. are you surprised? i wasnt.

cut to four very frustrating hours after this madness began this morning, and i think i stumble on a brilliant solution: wire money to myself via western union, using my credit card online. once again, nada.

by this point i was desperate. so i do what most desperate twenty two year olds stranded in el salvador do and i called my mom. nope, im not above it, not ashamed, my masculinity? still intact. i called my mommy. and she wired me money. and i am gonna go pick it up and hopefully this day will end with me in a hammock drinking beers.

(scorecard: Beauracracy 1, Shea 0)

sick, etc...

2008-02-03T13:34:00.000-08:00

so it all started surfing about four or five days ago. i had traded boards with someone for a minute so they could try the `somma special`(thanks again kyle) and to make a long story short, the leash on their board was far too long, wrapped around both my legs and i was dragged like a ragdoll across the rocks, losing my necklace that my mom gave me for good luck back in high school in the process, and bruising and scraping myself on the stones... cut to later that evening, post-excellent salad dinner, and i start vomiting and excreting everything i didnt want to know i had in me. for the next two days. two days of sleep puncutated only long enough to use the toilet, a day of laying in a hammock, and a day of surf, and here we are, today, ninety percent better, with my senses finally back intact... i survived montezuma`s revenge, losing a treasured item, and being dragged like a kook across some rocks... i feel ready enough to tackle nicaragua in a few days... it looks like the departure date from el salvador to nicaragua will be the seventh or eighth... hopefully until then the rocks dont try and eat me, and i don´t eat any more tainted chicken salad...

birthday, etc..

2008-01-28T11:17:00.000-08:00

So my birthday was a few days ago.. which a surprising number of people realised, which is awesome.... seriously thank you all so much for the well-wishing, its amazing to get so much love from so far away...

And speaking of my birthday, a few Canadians from down the beach caught on to the fact that it was my birthday that morning.... well, not so much caught on as asked me how old i was, so i told them it was my birthday. but whatever, anyways, one in particular, matt, was super pumped on it and was buying me beers all day, and that night they had a dinner in my honor, with a cake and everything.. my friend lola, an aspiring chef, cooked, and it was seriously amazing... suuuuper good morrocan style chicken and rice and some stuff i cant even explain... but it was great... to top it off, everyone sang... actually i got sung to that day proabably six times, in spanish by the crew at my hotel, in english and swedish by my flat mates in the hotel, by the french canadians at dinner, on the phone with mom and steph.... everyone... it was seriously a great day and to top it off, the waves were great...

unfortunately though, all good things must inevitably come to an end... the swedes i was staying with left for down the coast, the canadians went to guatemala, and lola went to honduras to meet a friend. i stayed on in hopes of getting more waves, which turned out to be a good call, its been getting better and better each day, this morning was by far the best though, with rights up to 150 yards long and bullet fast... and hollow... and clean...and i think i´m gonna go surf again, so yah, hope all is well, and i´ll write again soon...

the liberty...

2008-01-22T17:10:00.000-08:00

i have left la finca ixobel, traveled seven hours to guatemala city, and now five hours south to la libertad, el salvador... the journey was going great until my bus hit a horse. a freaking horse! the horse was being led by its owner across the pan american highway but apparently not quick enough... all i know is i was fast asleep when the driver slammed on the brakes and blared the horn, which woke me up just in time to feel the impact... the horse didn´t die right there but i´m sure he did later... the driver stopped the bus and i thought he was gonna check on the horse, but all he did was check to see that the bus wasn´t too damaged to keep driving, adn apparently it wasn´t because we were driving down the road again about five minutes later...

on the plus side, there is a good amount of swell right now, and the place i´m staying at is literally a block off the beach and the waves were great this evening and should be even better tomorrow...

today

2008-01-19T14:29:00.000-08:00

i descended into the bowels of the earth... accompanied by my trusty new friend maurice and guided by the indefatigable pilar we began our journey into darkness by leaving the finca at nine this morning. two hours of trekking through the jungle later our path banked steeply to the right and into a miry pit. at the start the cavern is half filled with water, and so for the rest of our descent we swam and clambered over slick rocks till we reached the veritable stomach, a pool leading to a waterfall, that fell into the large intestine, if you will, a smaller pool leading to a semi-swift river... a fifteen foot jump into the pool found me swimming with shrimp and crabs with no coloration, and the end of the journey into the earth, two kilometers beneath the surface...

Shea Somma, Ambassador of Rock!

2008-01-18T09:41:00.001-08:00

so im at finca ixobel now, arrived last night and immediately made friends with an israeli named maurice... we are doing the cave tour tomoro which should be fun.. anyways, so immediately after getting here, i set up my tent and afterward, right around sunset there was singing coming from the main office area... the finca is actually a farm and the office area doubles as a community center... so when i walked back, there was actually a catholic church service being held outside the main area... it was seriously so beautiful, a group of about 70 or 80 guatemalans singing hymns at sunset with the birds... i sat in the back for a while, until the farm served a free dinner to everyone, then i went around the corner to play uke for a bit... before i knew it i was surrounded by guatemalan children, staring at probably the smallest guitar they had ever seen... i asked them if they wanted to learn and all of them said no, until one garnered the courage to play, so i showed him a ¨C¨chord, which is the easiest one...after that all of them wanted to play, but then the adults showed up... they asked me what i was playing and i said it was a uke but that i usually play guitar, no sooner had i said so than they came back with two guitars! they all sat around me and asked me to play something... wanting to please i started playing some beatles tunes, cause everyone has heard the beatles right? wrong . apparently central america missed the boat on that one... then i tried misserlou. no dice... some old surf rock tunes? wrong again... finally i started to play some easy blues, the twelve step three chord blues that all the blues is based around... success! all of them were so stoked, saying (in spanish) ´o yah rock and roll!´ they wanted to learn so i ended up giving guitar lessons for about an hour and a half to three of them... and they are coming back tomorrow night to learn some more... seriously such a rad night, and i can´t wait to hang out with them some more...

tikal

2008-01-17T11:14:00.000-08:00

so i was on a busride back from the tikal ruins, which are amazing btw, and i had a sudden epiphany: i dont really like backpackers. as a group it seems that they are in a constant game of one-upping eachother... "oh so you saw the ruins at copan? yah those are ok, but we opted to go to el mirador instead, you know, its four day trek through the malaria infested jungle with all the jaguars and all, but we`ve been here for six months and have three left, so yaknow, it wasnt really a big deal..." and so it goes...

i know its not really fair to make blanket statements, but it seems that the majority are in some kind of "im more hardcore than you competition" sometimes i wish people would just cut the bs, and chill out. i guess i was under the mistaken assumption that just because traveling does tend to enlighten people, they were to cease being people... but i think people just for some reason or another want to compete..

on a plus side i did see the ruins and a bunch of monkeys and parrots and toucans and coatimundis (kinda like a racoon) and other rad jungly stuff, and im on my way to a supposedly very cool place called finca ixobel, and after that el salvador to surf.. which, come to think of it, might be why i myself am a little grouchy... its been over two weeks and i need a fix....

more guate weirdness

2008-01-12T16:22:00.000-08:00

so last night i went out with chiqui (my surrogate guatemalan mother) and got drinks while her fourteen year old daughter hung out with her friends in antigua... it´s kinda strange getting a bit drunk (only a bit, but still) with the person who is basically like your new mom... but what else was i gonna do? it was friday night, i was at a bar, and there were about four hours to kill, so.... yah, that was basically the only option... the definate highlight of the evening came when we were walking back to the car and chiqui decided that it would be best to take a ¨tuk tuk¨, which is the name of these tiny half motorcycle, half car-type taxi thingy´s that cruise around antigua, where we were... anyways, it was me, chiqui, her daughter edna, and her daughter´s friend maribel, marisol, or something... anyways, we four squeeze into the back of this thing that for two people would have been tight, and off we go... antigua has cobbled streets and the driver really gunned it which meant one of the bumpiest most chaotic rides i have ever taken... also, i think the driver might have been a little drunk, we were swerving literally inches past parked cars and these little pilons that are in the middle of intersections... he seemed absolutely opposed to driving in a straight line... we finally made it back to the car and as we were paying the bill he was slurring his speech... sketch.. but a pretty thrilling ride to cap the night...

so, today

2008-01-10T11:29:00.000-08:00

i climbed a volcano and saw liquid hot magma flowing down the hill, a foot away from me. it was amazing. on the bus ride back five argentine girls were singing backstreet boys songs... not so amazing... but kinda funny and weird... also: in guatemala city stuck in traffic, modest mouse came on the radio, which was weird and cool.

guate is great but i seriously miss everyone already...

hope all you slo kids are fantastic..

ciao

It is a dangerous thing...

2008-01-08T12:47:00.000-08:00

...when you ask for God to challenge you. To get you out of your comfort zone and to make you feel lonely and like you need him because you haven´t felt those things (because of his abundance and blessing) in a long time. It turns out when you say ¨God, i want this trip to be a challenge to me, i don´t want it to be easy¨ He actually answers that prayer... (but not the one for the pet monitor lizard when i was 10 what the crap is up with that...)

anyways, here´s a quick recap of the last few days....

Saturday-

woke up at 430, flying to st. louis by 8, land, and find out my connecting flight to dallas isn´t gonna happen due to mechanical difficulites... so i spend the night in st. louis...

Sunday-

woke up at 430 again, flying to miami by 730, get sat next to a guy who literally takes up half of my seat, couldnt fit into his with the armrest down even, which is fine, but its dang early in the morning to have some stranger pressed against you like he´s dating you. and he isn´t. and you don´t swing that way...

anyways, land in miami, get on my flight to guatemala, take off, fly for half an hour, and then do some circles only to find out that the hydrolics system on the plane has failed, fly back to miami and have a really sketchy landing, greeted by fire trucks with their lights flashing, ready for the worst... turns out i´´m spending the night in miami...

Monday-

wake up at 8, have the shuttle to the airport be 40 minutes late from the scheduled time it was supposed to pick me up, then the plane that i´m taking to san jose to connect to a flight in guatemala is an hour late taking off, meaning i miss my connection... when i do land i rush out of the plane, because i need to make it to the ticket counter, only to get there and realize i left my camera in the plane, when i rush back to the plane, the camera is gone... i finally lose my nerve with american airlines and tell the manager that if i am not in guatemala sometime that night i´m gonna lose it (and i probably would have). i get on the flight to guatemala (it takes off on time, probably because it was a TACA plane, not AA) get to guatemala, only to find that my luggage is lost and no airline reps know where it is...

But then...

I am greeted at the airport gate by a sign that says ¨WELCOME SHEA!¨ by a family friend and her daughter and parents and taken to a house in guatemala city to spend the night and given my own room and told to eat as if i were her own son and made to feel as if this was absolutely my own family...

I woke this morning and they cooked me breakfast and then in the afternoon(2 hours ago) they threw a bbq in my honor with amazing homemade salsa and carne asada and guacamole and chiles and horchata and homemade tortillas and beer and it was absolutely beautiful...

I honestly can´t ask for a more amazing welcoming beautiful group of people to be with... it´s seriously like being with my family if my family was spanish speaking only and much more short.

so, the moral of the story is- when you ask God to make you lonely, He will, but He will also teach you something about family and what it is to be good to people...

and when you ask to be challenged you will be, but you will also find relief and rest in those people that you least expect to give it...

oh and i called the airline a little while ago and they found my luggage. so i need to go pick it up...

until next time, cheers!

-shea

fare thee well!

2008-01-04T11:34:00.001-08:00

tomorrow i embark upon a three month journey through central america. i will be updating this blog weekly... soooooo... yah... i hope you all have a wonderful few months, and if you think to yourself " i wonder how shea is doing?" then please, feel free email or comment. my email is shea.somma@gmail.com.

just to make this post a little less boring, here is a zen moment featuring arlo mojica. definately one of the more photogenic individuals i know.

christmastime is here

2007-12-21T23:22:00.000-08:00

and therfore, so are christmas festivities.

here are some of the classier moments:

happy holidays!

Who is Kirkland?!!

2007-12-14T14:16:00.000-08:00

so have you ever noticed that whenever you go into Costco that nearly every single product made is made by kirkland signature? everything from socks to cereal is produced by this company... amazing.... but have you ever considered who is kirkland exactly? who is the creative genius behind this diverse amount and type of product? i imagine a professor, not unlike doc brown from "back to the future", kept captive in a cage by the CEO's of Costco, enslaved and forced to work for his survival.

"Kirkland!" bellows the foreman, "we need an exact equivalent of cocoa puffs, but with lower production cost by tomorrow! Or you don't eat!" Kirkland, begrudgingly but ingeniously devises the product and is subsequently given another task, forever ensconced in his servitude. So, tonight, when you enjoy your oversize bag of dorito-like tortilla chips, wrapped in an imitation fleece blanket, and drinking a coke-like soda from an economy 72-pack, remember Kirkland, who made it all possible: the perfect marriage of quality and quantity.

A Good Plaid is Hard to Find...

2007-12-03T10:53:00.000-08:00

this is me wearing a plaid

this is a me wearing a flannel

why is it that in all my years of thrift shopping i have found a grand total of three plaid patterned shirts that fit well? these are seriously some elusive little creatures... so, all this is to say, if you have a plaid or flannel shirt you like or even love, hold onto it with all your heart... because a good plaid is hard to find.

for those

2007-11-16T23:49:00.000-08:00

of you who weren't aware, i have spent the last four months writing and recording music. i finished said music about two to three days ago, and now you can hear some of it (four of the sixteen songs) at www.myspace.com/itshappeninginsoledad...
let me know if you want a full length and i will be sure to get you a copy, lickety split.

here is randy johnston playing drums for a song on the record. thanks, randy!

SEX, or how capitalism stole my virginity

2007-11-07T16:55:00.001-08:00

Yah that's right, this post is about SEX. WOOT....

so anyways, before we focus on the wrong things right off the bat, let me preface this discussion with a quick contextualization.

I was talking with a friend a few days ago, and the subject of books came up, as often does with people I know or am getting to know. I think a good way to guage a person's views about life, the world, etc.. is through the books they choose (or choose not to) read. Anyhow, as we were talking, we came upon discussing the kinds of books we read when we just want our brains to rest, i think "slumming" was the word I when I referred to a book my mom bought for me called "Life is a Campaign" by Chris Matthews. It's a kind of Oprah's book list, self help type thing that I normally wouldn't pick up had I not promised my mom i would read it. In any case, the friend went on to say that the kind of novels they read when "slumming" were erotic. "Excuse me?" "ya, erotic novels." "not porn?" "no, novels"

(!)

So, slightly taken aback, I asked for a little further explanation.

"Sex is beautiful, and it's relaxing to read them when you don't really want to read something deep" or something approximately like that was what was offered.

Now, this was a bit of a quandry. This person is a self proclaimed Christian, albeit of a different breed than most, but they align themselves with the faith none the less. Also, the reasons given, when considered thoughtfully, seem to actually make a bit of sense. Surely sex is beautiful, and surely one should be able to engage in activities to relax, especially activities that increase an appreciation of beauty. So, why is it, then, that I couldn't equate reading an erotic novel, with, say, taking a hike?

To be honest, for a few days I couldn't figure out why it bothered me so much. It seemed that my inability to appreciate the recotic novel as a valid form of art was a result of some deeply instilled hyper-conservative evangelical brainwashing and I was a bit annoyed at myself for my inabilty to be more openminded.

However, today I came to a kind of epiphany.

Here it is, then, and I really feel like my thinking is pretty straight here, but by all means call me out if it isn't.

Sex is beautiful, surely, and we should engage in activities that relax, and calm, and instill in us a sense of beauty. However, the reasons why people consider casual sex to be a beautiful thing preclude it from being categorized in those activities that we should use to relax in a casual way, especially if sex in this case is the reading of a racy novel.

Sex is a beautiful thing for a number of reasons then, many of which are obvious: the human form is a beautiful thing, the feelings that sex evokes physically are generally considered to be "good", but there are two reasons why it is considered beautiful that make it categorically unique from other human activities, and I sincerely believe if one were to take away either of these characteristics of sex, it would cease ot be considered as unique or beautiful activity. First, it is a deeply personal activity. Definitionally it can only be truly shared by two people at a time, which automatically excludes any other would-be participators (ie: readers, viewers, etc.._) from experiencing it in the same way as those directly engaged. The uniqueness of each individual's experience of the activity, then, is part of the reason it is considered to be beautiful. This is naturally tied up with the appreciation of individuals as such, but notice it is not the same thing at all. Sex is an experience, while individuals appereciated by The Other, are appraoched as objects. SO, when one is appreciating an individual through the lens of sex, it is definitionally an objectification of the other. Another side to this is the individual experience of sex with another individual is the appreciation of the individual as such, as a human being.... this, I believe, is engaging the individual in a "love" relationship. There is something profoundly metaphorical about two flesh becoming one. It bears no further explanation why this should discourage one from engaging in multiple sexual relationships, but we are speaking mainly of why reading an erotic novel seems, at the very least, sketchy ethically.

SO, the first (important) reason why sex is beautiful is that it is intrinsically an individual experience. The making of a novel that is purposefully sexually explicit then, seems to directly work against why we might consider sex to be beautiful.. while speaking to other reasons. Consider this , if sex were merely beautiful because of the physicality of it, good physical sensations, beautiful physical appearance, etc... Then why can we not appreciate an act of pure physicallity such as, say defecation, in the same way? Imagine Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie defecating.... very beautiful people doing something that feels pretty good.. not the same? Didn't think so...

One might argue that defecation is a deeply personal experience as well. One would be right. However, it is a deeply personal experience for ONE person, intentionally so. Think about it.

No, the erotic novel is the comoditization of something that is intrinsically a deeply personal experience... and the engagement of such novels is not the appreciation of something beautiful, but the ingestion of a commodity.

The other reason I found that sex is beautiful is its natural result: The production of a child. Note, this is not why sex is "sexy", this is why it is beautiful. These are two different kinds of things.

Can you imagine any more miraculous human experience than the making of a child? The joining of two people into one person, resulting in a third, separate, entity. Seriously a miracle. And beautiful too, poetic.

But not erotic.

I am therefore led to believe that the reading of an erotic novel is NOT then an appreciation of beauty, but something that approximates it insidiously. It is an apprehension of physicality (objectification of The Other), an indulgence of desire beyond the intention of that desire's creation. But to say that reading it encourages one to appreciate beauty is just plain wrong.

This is not to say that sex is bad, this is all completely in the opposite vein. Sex is good, great, beautiful, miraculous, all that and more, but let us be sure to guard against our own desires that lead us to cheapen what is truly a miracle, to turn something entirely unique into nothing more than a product, a commodity.

We all know that capitalism is evil anyways...

That is all.

so..

2007-11-05T14:35:00.000-08:00

.. i was looking at my pictures and i found one i really like. here it is:

it is of my good friend kyle wilhelm. if you are reading this blog at all chances are you know who kyle wilhelm is, but if you don't then this is who he is: a fantastic individual who is probably one of the most talented, original, great people i know. i am truly blessed by his friendship. i am also blessed by his ability to create things, like the surfboard he made me in my garage. here is a picture of kyle making a surfboard in my garage:

here is a picture of me riding the surfboard that kyle made:

fittingly enough, this picture was taken by kyle.

anyways, if there were to be a moral to this post i suppose it would be that if you have the chance to get to know mr. kyle wilhelm, do. he might even make you a surfboard.

also, and unrelated, here is a picture of car that i one day want to own and drive to remote places in:

that is all.

plans, etc..

2007-11-02T15:06:00.000-07:00

so, i went to the city (sf) with my roommates soren and josh. this is us:

soren

josh

and me

and we saw a band called broken social scene play. actually, it was kevin drew backed by broken social scene, but being that kevin drew is already the leader of broken social scene i suppose this is an inconsequential detail.

this is broken social scene, or kevin drew backed by broken social scene:

anyhow, seeing the band play and being in the city made me want to move up there and live in the city next year. my friend arlo and i have already been discussing this. here is arlo:

seeing the show also made me want to play music again. this is me crowd surfing:

being in the city also made me want to do more art. there is tons of great street art in the city, like this:

so, i think next year i will live with arlo, be in a band, and make art. it remains to be seen, but could be fun, right?

2007-10-28T19:48:00.001-07:00

keep your chin up and smell the saltyness... life ain't so bad even when it is...

Hey

2007-07-27T15:04:00.000-07:00

Hey,
to all you who might read this/ want to keep tabs on me i am going to get rid of facebook and myspace and just do this now, so yah, keep in touch y'all cause this is where i', at now....