señor taco’s travels

This morning I was listening to NPR and the weekly StoryCorps segment came on. I’ve been fascinated and delighted by StoryCorps. It’s a project well worth the time people are putting into it.

Today was Marry Ellen Noone talking about her great-grandmother. There was a disclaimer on the radio that this segment was hard to listen to. That disclaimer applies here as well.

Mary Ellen Noone on StoryCorps.

That a person could have so much hatred, distain, and disrespect for a human as what happened to Mrs. Noone’s great-grandmother makes me sad and angry at the same time. I realize the event was almost 100 years ago, but that our country and the world ever got the point that degradation of humans was acceptable I sometimes wonder how we ever got where we are without destroying ourselves.

At any rate, StoryCorps is fascinating. If you’ve got some time browse through it and listen to stories. If you have a story I encourage you try and share it with StoryCorps.

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.

[via Clickable Bliss]

I’ve visited New Zealand — Aotearoa — twice now. Both trips were a fantastic time and I really enjoyed seeing the country, meeting the people, and enjoying the culture. Often it’s interesting to see how other countries approach issues that arise in your home land.¹

When first I visited New Zealand they had already done away with the one cent coin. In the intervening two years they abandoned the five cent piece. The smallest denomination they have is ten cents and they use Swedish rounding to compensate for values not on the ten cent mark. In the USA the elimination of the one cent coin, which now costs more than one cent to make, has been opposed by the zinc industry and it is just plain ridiculous that companies can fight something that makes sense for our country. Also in New Zealand and Switzerland² the lowest paper denomination is the five dollars/francs and anything below five units is in coin.³

What is this all leading up to? It was hard to pin down for a while, but I’ve become unsatisfied with the state of the nation I call home. For the longest time I never thought about moving out of the USA. I look at how our society in the USA is falling down and I don’t like it. I was always told to try and change the system from within, but when you have a corrupt administration blatantly ignoring the populace what are you supposed to do? Sure, the last election had some hope, but then the ugly bi-partisain nature of our political system reared its head again and showed how it will continue to fail us. There’s always revolution to be sure, but we’re not anywhere near that state.⁴

The Constitution still works, and I have faith that the legal system will work through all the issues, even if it takes a long time to happen. In spite of that I have a feeling of dread that most people don’t really care though. They’re willing to be lead about by the nose, snapping up the cheapest products and latest gadgets they can and giving fuck-all about the world until it impinges on them, and by then it’s very hard to make changes, but they can be made.⁵

New Zealand is the one country I could consider immigrating to. The country was clean, the people friendly, and the government seemed responsible from the discussions with Kiwis that we had. People didn’t seem concerned about showing off if they were wealthy but more about if they were living a good life.⁶

I know that while on vacation a place can seem magical and it’s hard to see the tarnish. I can assure anyone that more research would occur on my part before I jumped in. This kind of decision is not one to make lightly and I’m not going to pack up and move as soon as I can. I’ll wait and see what happens with this next election at the least. I should give our representative process a chance to work, but I do despise the fact that there are only two sides that seem well versed in shouting, disagreeing and railroading just because of perceived opposites with labels.⁷

For sure the decision is made harder because my entire family is in the USA. I’m also still single, which could be a good thing or a bad thing were I to move. Moving 6,729 miles (10,830 km) from all of my friends and family is not something to take lightly. I’ll be thinking this over but one never knows, I might revisit this subject in a month or a year and come to the conclusion that I’d be insane to move. Only time will tell if this bug will stay.

1. Notice, that’s “home land” like where you live, not the fascist “Homeland” like the USA’s security theater department.↩
2. Places I have traveled and payed a little bit of attention.↩
3. With the Swiss having a five franc coin as well↩
4. At least, the levels of oppression that would make me revolt aren’t apparent.↩
5. I too like gadgets but I’m not going to go for consumer gratification over being a citizen.↩
6. We only saw one Hummer the entire time we were there and trucks we did see usually looked like work vehicles and showed it, not showpieces.↩
7. I don’t identify with any political party because I think they’re all flawed. I vote for the candidate that best meets my ideals be they from the Republican party, the Democrat party or the Baby-Mulchers party↩

This post has been brewing for the last couple of weeks and now I think I’ve finally found the words inside to finish it.

For a while I’ve wondered what it is that makes one an adult. To the government that mostly happened when I turned 18, and fully when I turned 21. It makes sense, I began paying for a lot of my own things at 18 and I moved to attend university. Over the course of that next few years I took on more and more responsibility in my life, got a job and was fully on my own 1,800 miles from my parents and where I grew up.

Over the next several years friendships cemented and a lot of fun was had. When I think back on it all it never seems much different from being in university, just that we were at work instead. That’s not to say that we were immature, just that I think we were kids at heart, we kept some youthful energy and being around each other in our particular situation really helped to keep it going.

Since then I’ve made hard decisions and moved around but I still keep in touch with friends. Through it all I knew I was considered an adult, but I never really had a feeling inside that I was adult like my parents or other relatives and acquaintances. Maybe that stems from the fact that I’m not married. I know people say that when you have kids it really hits you how adult you’ve become.

Growing up I was involved in the Boy Scouts. Not everyone gets the same things out of Scouting, but for me it was a big influence on the way I think about the world around me. The Boy Scout slogan is “Do a good turn daily.” That’s one of the lessons I’ve tried to keep with me as I’ve moved on in my life. Doing things for friends is something I’m glad to do, it’s part of the friendship. The complexity of what I do for friends has gotten greater over the years and when I look back I guess that should have given me a clue as to how adult I was becoming, but like the rest of life we have to experience it all and the changes are so gradual we don’t pick up on them until they’re well underway.

This last year has been a particularly large year for me in my realizations. My biggest event this year was riding in the AIDS/LifeCycle. I don’t have HIV or AIDS and I don’t know anyone directly infected (actually, the saying I learned is “You probably know someone that’s HIV+, you just don’t know it”) but the disease impacted my life with the passing of my uncle in 1992. On the ride I realized that by giving up some of my time to encourage people to donate the group as a whole was able to raise more than $8 million dollars to fight AIDS. While that’s impressive it wasn’t until I met a person on the ride that had been helped by the money raised that I realized the impact of my actions. It floored me and I decided I would be doing that ride until AIDS is a thing of the past.

My next realization came just two weeks ago. My friend Cort’s step-father was diagnosed with cancer sometime in the last couple of years (I wish I knew exactly when). Michael, the step-father, and Cort’s mom, Marsha, have always nice to me and even had me over for Christmas dinner in 2004 and Keith and I fried a turkey for them at Thanksgiving last year. Michael and Marsha got married in April and to help out I took their dog, George, for the day (the wedding was at their house and George is an excitable pup). He was a great dog to hang out with and it was good to know I helped them out.

Since April Michael’s condition had gotten worse. Two weeks ago he had to go to using a wheelchair to get around. Keith and I spent a day and built ramps so that they could get the wheelchair in and out of the house. We built one for the door nearest the bedroom, another to get off that patio, one to get from the yard to a gate so Michael could get to the car, and one in the courtyard so he could get outside. It was great to see Marsha’s appreciation that we built them. They fit great and would help out a lot. Little did we know they’d need them the next day to take Michael to the hospital for emergency care. When Michael came back home the next weekend Keith and I went over to visit him and ended up helping with cooking lunch (more Keith than me, I was his supervisor on the grill :). Seeing Michael was good, but it was obvious his condition has worsened since the previous week.

It’s hard to watch a person you respect and love slip away. Instantly I was reminded of my Granddad ten years ago. He was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis and passed pretty quickly as it was very rapid. My Granddad had always been a tall, strong man that I looked up to. Having to help him get out of his car and seeing him on an oxygen tank weren’t easy. In the back of our minds there are the thoughts of inevitability that we don’t want to acknowledge because they’re hard to come to terms with. When my mom called me shortly after I had moved to New York to tell me my Granddad passed away I was upset, but at least I had said my goodbyes to him.

Last night Cortney called Keith and let us know that Michael had passed away. I knew it was coming, but it’s always the same, you feel bad inside, empty. It’s especially hard when it’s a person that was warm and funny and loving. He would always welcome me into his home and share with me. It was really hard to see him go through the treatments and still slip away. I’m glad I’ll have memories of him from the last couple of years. I’m glad I was able to help a little and hopefully make his last days a tiny bit easier.

This whole post started back two weeks ago when we were done with the ramps. I realized then that I’d drifted over the course of my life into adulthood. I’ve probably been there for a while, but my own realization didn’t really catch up with me until now. As an adult you help your friends selflessly. You are there when people need a shoulder to lean on and you give them a helping hand if they need it. I don’t really know where I was going with this or how to wrap it up, but I’ll just leave you with a bit of advice my dad used to tell me as a kid: “You do what you have to do so you can do what you want to do.” Being an adult is me being there because I want to be for my friends.

Farewell Michael, you’ve gone too soon, but your memory will remain with us for ever. Thanks for letting me grow up a little with you.

Well, 2005 was one of my best years of my life since I’ve been out on
my own. It was a big year for personal growth and changing myself for
the better. I was able to continue my weight loss and physical
conditioning. While I only got down to about 225 pounds so far I’m in
what I consider to be good physical condition. I was thrilled to have
to depart with too many clothes that were now too big for me. That
process is continuing even now and I find that at the beginning of
2005 I was a solid 2XL wearing guy (XL on undershirts and the like)
but now at the end of the year I’m pushing into Large clothes sizes
and some XL gear is too big for me. While I’m excited about that I
know what’s looming on the horizon, most of my t-shirts are XL and
that means I’ll have to part with some damn fine ones. My favorites
are in that group and I’ll be very sad, but I’ll just have to find
something to replace them with.

I started href="http://danimal.org/SenorTacoSnowboarding">snowboarding
and riding a
bike again seriously. There were a href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2005/03/20">couple href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2005/04/24">of href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2005/12/07">bumps along the
way, but I’ve been very fortunate to recover quickly from them.

The high lite of the year had to be my trip to href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/Travel/New_Zealand/">New
Zealand in August. I worked my butt off to make sure that I could
play hard and enjoy myself there and it really paid off. Next to the
NZ trip I’d have to say the accomplishment of doing some href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2005/11/21#morning-hill-climb-3">hill
climbs and training for the href="http://aidslifecycle.org/1846">AIDS/LifeCycle 5 in June
2006 is the next biggest thing. That will be continuing into the new
year and I’m looking forward to getting back on the href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2005/12/26">bike after the rain
lets up.

The end of the year has been a little bit of a bumpy ride, but it’s
all going to work out just fine. Our landlord told us that he’s
going to sell our place. While Keith and I thought about buying we
just didn’t want to rush into a house purchase at this point so we
ended up renting again. We’ll move into the new place in mid-January
and we’re both pretty excited about the change. I also href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2005/12/07">dislocated my
shoulder, but my recovery has been very fast for that and I’m
already back up and active with full range of motion. There was some
other stuff, but now that I think about it I’m only going to say there
was other stuff and not go into detail. Sorry.

I can only hope that 2006 will be as exciting and as fulfilling for
me. There’s a lot to look forward to and I have a pretty full plate
through June already. I know of at least two weddings I’ll go to so
I’ll need to get a new suit at some point (remember what I said about
clothes sizes before? yeah, that goes double for the suit I had).
I’ll continue my physical training and hopefully I can push down even
farther towards my final goal.

Well, here we are, the end of the year rundown. I’ve been thinking about the
last year a lot and I think i have to honestly say that the last twelve months
were the best I’ve had so far.

And here are just a few of the highlights:

• By far the highlight of the year is moving in to the Whitney House with
  a great roommate, Keith. Followed shortly thereafter by Chris and Athena moving
  out here. Now there are just a few more souls to move out this way and plans
  will be complete.
• Best travel: This is a toss-up between href="http://gallery.danimal.org/Las_Vegas_Birthday/">Las Vegas for my
  birthday and href="http://gallery.danimal.org/Chris_and_Athenas_Wedding/">Chris and
  Athena’s Wedding on Block Island. Both were great and celebratory. I
  would almost give the edge to the wedding because I saw more friends, but you
  only turn 30 once, and Vegas is a heck of a way to celebrate.
• Best thing I did for myself: get off my butt and start losing
  weight. I moved into my current apartment in March. At that point I weighed
  about 300 pounds. Through a change in my diet I immediately saw a few pounds
  drop off. It then took me until July to get motivated enough to start hitting
  a gym every day. Since then I’ve href="http://danimal.org/health/weight-overall.png">lost over 40 pounds.
  I purposely leveled off my weight in the middle of November to give my body a
  chance to even out. I’ve been able to hold to about the same average with
  a little up and down in there and in January I’ll go back on a more strict
  diet.
  It’s been really encouraging to have my friends, family, and
  coworkers comment on my progress. The best is seeing a person the I hadn’t
  seen in months. Generally their expressions were priceless and in the case
  of a person that hadn’t seen me in years, he didn’t even recognize me.
• Best Party I Helped Throw: href="http://gallery.danimal.org/Halloween_2004/">Halloween at the Whitney
  House. Keith, Cortney, Athena, Chris, and I put on one heck of a great
  party if I do say so my self. Hopefully we can top it next year.
• I got two big tattoos this year: an anchor and a skull and cross bones. I
  haven’t posted on them yet because I was waiting for the skull to heal so
  I can have some pictures of it up. Look for a post very soon about both
  experiences.

I’m sure there is a lot more stuff, but nothing I really feel like writing
down. If you look through the archives here and at the href="http://gallery.danimal.org/">photo gallery you’ll see a glimpse of
what the year was like. Very good overall as I said before.

Now I get to look forward to what will happen in the next year. It’ll be
interesting to see what happens out of this list of my predictions.

• I’ll be losing more weight, this is for sure as long as I keep to working
  out and a good diet.
• I’m probably going to shave off my goatee. A lot of people seem to like
  it but sometimes I just don’t think it fits me.
• More tattoos. As much as my mom doesn’t like them they are a part of me
  and I’m sure I’ll be getting more.
• I’m going to read a lot more books. I’d like to shoot for at least two a
  month.
• My job will get more exciting, but nothing I can talk about yet.

Happy New Year Y’all!

I have now pulled out of all Friend of a Friend (FOAF) services (Friendster,
Orkut, etc.). They don’t do anything for me and I manage my network much
better via email, phone, and good old face to face contact. If you know me
you know how to reach me.

Warren Ellis
and
Cory Doctorow have good verbage on the subject as well.

This last year was a great year for me. In no particular order:

Rise Against - Revolutions Per Minute: this is the album of the
year for me. Nothing else even comes close for me. I listen to it at least
once a day (in fact, I’m listening to it right now). The previous release
from these Chicago rockers, The Unraveling was great too, but if you
can imagine great multiplied by about 5 you’d have Revolutions Per
Minute. These guys were also the best band I saw live all year (sorry
John, Rancid was good, these guys were better :).

The Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatorium: definitely the
runner-up album of the year. These guys came out of the ashes of the El Paso
rock outfit At The Drive-In. I love ATDI and when Sparta released their album
(also former ATDI fellows) I thought it was amazing. However this album blows
that one away. It is so complete and flows so well that I never mind putting
it on and letting it go.

Rancid - Indestructible: many people claim that Rancid has sold
out. Whatever. Selling out is so not an issue in this case. What happens
when one of the song writers gets his heart ripped out in a nasty divorce? You
get a great album like Indestructible. The songs definitely return to
the roots of Rancid’s music and are so listenable that I find myself spinning
this album all the time.

Moving to California: what more can I say? I love living in California.
I definitely don’t miss the snow and ice. Making the move out here was
easily the best thing that happened to me this last year. I generally feel
happier and more relaxed than when I was living in New York.

runner-up: paying off my car 3 years early: through a serendipitous
series of events like me paying extra on my monthly payments and some bonus
cash I was able to pay off my car early. That really felt good.

Moving to California: for as happy as I am in California one of the
worst feelings was leaving friends behind in New York. Thankfully we stay in
touch, but I miss them so much. If it weren’t for good friends that are now
out here California wouldn’t be as good. Life would be better if I could see
my NY friends more often though.

This is a tough one. I really liked Lost in Translation and 28 Days
Later, but I think I have to go with something that wasn’t even released
this year. On the recommendation of my friend Andre I got a movie on DVD.
I had never heard of it but I like Andre’s taste in movies so I took the leap.
The movie? Tampopo. It’s a touching story with just the right amount
of humor and human emotion. It very much feels like something one could live
through (okay, well, maybe a little more humorous than real life, but still
great). Lost in Translation would have my vote for something released
this year though.

There were many good proclamations from friends this year. News that Mitch
& Deb were moving to California right after I did is very high on the list
because now I get to hang out with them and their son Ryan. Also a great bit
of news was that my best friends Matt & Susan were buying a house, I’m
happy that they are on the right track with that. But, the best news by far
is that my friends CB & Athena are getting married. I can’t wait to go to
the wedding next year. It’s going to be a hoot!

Minako: located on Mission Street in San Francisco this restaurant is
one of the few places I’m glad that a good friend, Andre, knows the owner and
the chef. Even if we didn’t know them the food is top notch and the service
stupendous. Every time we go there I expect to get a good meal and instead I
end up with a fantastic meal. I also come away from there so stuffed that I
generally feel like I should be rolled out. I can’t give enough praise to
Minako. If you are in San Francisco you should go there. If you know Andre
you should get him to go with you, it’s a blast.

(update Thu Jan 1 15:59:11 PST 2004)

title="Stiff @ Amazon.com">Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
by Mary Roach. This is by far the best book of 2003 for me. I loved
it. In fact, I like it so much I bought a copy for a friend. While some may
cringe at the subject matter Ms. Roach provides a very human, humorous, but
respectful look at the realities of human cadavers. A definite must read.

So, on Saturday at the Whitney Street House Andre and I were discussing cake. Somehow it came about that a great epitaph for Andre would be “I love cake!” because, well, he does (he also brings the greatest cakes to parties, but that’s a story for another time). Then it gets around to me and Andre mentions that he’s always seen mine as being just one word: Music. No name, no date, just the word “Rawk.” Now, not to be morbid, but I actually like this idea because it fits right into the plan in my head. I’ve always envisioned just a block of beautiful pink granite from Texas, say about two feet on a side. There would be one polished rectangle with whatever I wanted written in there. I now want that polished area to just say “Rawk”, nothing more, nothing less.

Some people have objected to the no name and no date thing, and at some point I might see that argument, but if I did have them it would probably be some laser engraved thing that is very tiny along with the sentence “Thank you for reading this line.”

Of course I’m going to be donated to science and then burnt to a crisp, so maybe this will just be a monument to hold what’s left of my pinky toe or something.