blog

Here are a few interviews I have conducted:
Musician: XOC
Musicians: Robotobots
Musician: Doujah Raze

Reviews too:
Nintendo Wii: Donkey Kong Country Returns
Nintendo DS: Mario and Sonic at the WInter Olympics (sponsored review)
Nintendo Wii: No More Heroes
Nintendo Wii: Super Mario Galaxy
Nintendo DS: Pokemon Pearl (Japanese game-card pre-view)

Story time:
You suck! Continue?: Games you love, but cannot defeat.

Hire me!

This earthquake that just happened in Japan has sent out pretty big waves across the Pacific Ocean. Hawaii got hit with them, California got em, and Oregon got em too. And so did I, living on top of North America and actually almost most of the world, Colorado is known as the Mile High State in the United States because of the one mile above sea level we live at. We are very far from the coast, but still something has been stirred up in me.

I still am trying to figure out why this has connected with me so strong, when the United States herself is on the rebound after the disasters that hit our southern coast in recent times. But I have decided that the "why" is less important than the "what" right now, and "what" happened is that right now sitting at a local starbucks, drinking a $3.75 cup of chocolate espresso, I am itching to pack this laptop up in my backpack, and drive straight to DIA and fly non-stop into Japan and help do whatever an extra set of hands, legs, eyes, and ears can do! I know that at this exact moment there isn't much I can do as I haven't any specialized training in anything at all. But I am still filled with a new energy.

I really do want to help, so I have already donated to the American Red Cross for the fight, and I have created a sort-of home base for donations over at N+: http://my.opera.com/Nplus/blog/japan-earthquake - and while this does make me feel good, I can't stop thinking about throwing sandbags, carrying food, tying tents down, or doing anything that my body can do to help. I rarely depend on my mind to help me out, but I have always been able to rely on my body, it's got much more strength in it than what appears to be, I know I have pushed it pretty good at times, but I know I haven't even come close to it's max. I have no idea what that might be, but I bet it's tied pretty close to the strength of my spirit, and when the chips are down, my spirit won't give up - especially when the challenge is physical, maybe its a bit masochistic but I like "the burn", or the sore muscles the next day, or wobbly legs.

Now this might sound a little selfish, but I am going to say it anyway, even though I really want to help out, I would not like it if I was stuck at a home-base type position if I were to be a part of an organization like the Red Cross. It wouldn't feel right to me, I would really only want to go into it, if they were to let me help out directly with the people in need. I want face time, this is more than just a rescue effort for people in these disasters, it's also a spiritual journey for myself, one where I am allowed to continually meet new people, even in just fleeting moments, and to go to new lands, and to be without, but all the while know that behind every action I take in this journey, they all benefit others.

I need to do some serious research. This feels very important to me. I mean it's been a while since I put anything down in this online log, and it's because most of what I have been doing isn't really different than the day before, but it hasn't been bad! don't think so! I have been very very happily married for almost two years, and each moment I get to spend away from work and sleep, I have loved spending with my wife. I have been rediscovering my beautiful state of Colorado, which really is awesome when you get into our wilderness. - So to return to this log, which I have been wanting to add to for a while now, is a small sign of how this relief work has got some kind of hold on me right now.

I package chip bags into boxes at Frito-Lay (a devision of Pepsico) now, last night was my first night next to the belts actually putting the chips into the boxes. I can't tell you too much because of trade secrets and stuff but I can tell you that after this first night I feel like I broke my arms the muscles are so sore! The guy I was training with said I was doing super good though for my first night, better than he did, which is good because I want to stop struggling asap! it's nuts how fast you have to move. Anyway if you want a rough idea of how well I do my job, Lucille Ball can illustrate this for you pretty well, as for me im going back to the icy-hot.

Today we went up to Deckers in Colorado, It's in the Rocky Mountains (photo gallery), and is one of my favorite places. Usually when I visit Deckers it's to fish but I don't have a fishing license yet this year so I didn't bring the gear, and today we just went for a hike.

The weather was amazing today, very warm, not too hot because we had enough shade while walking between the trees, the breeze blowing through the mountains helps, and near the river it's a little cooler, oh yeah and there wasn't any stupid tar or asphalt around either! It's so nice up there, all you can hear is the river, and breeze, and the occasional fishermen talking to each other, you can't see any sky scrapers, walmarts, starbucks, banks, or other city life crap - just pure awesome clean air, clean fresh-water, and clean forest. The drive up to the place takes you right through a part of the famous Hayman Fire though, and it's not so pretty but luckily the fire never got to this part of the river. Most people fish downstream from the area I like to hike all the way up to, which is nice because it helps to get the solitary feeling, AND this area has bigger fish . A few miles downstream there are camping sites, and a little bit further down is an area where people can park their cars and after even just a minute of walking can begin fishing - in shallower water, with smaller fish, but because the river is shallower it is wider and offers a safer current.

Today I decided to go swimming in the water, it's very very refreshing and cold, it actually takes the breath right out of you when you first go in, but after a little bit your body adjusts and it's great! I could swim all day here! There are also plenty of lizards running around up there, and snakes too, this time I didn't see any Bull Snakes like I did last time but I did see a couple of baby snakes of species I couldn't identify, one actually leaped to attack the walking stick I was using, nice! We saw I think it was seven lizards, and two deer while we were up there too. We are going to shop for more pro-style hiking shoes before we go back, converse (him) and sandals (her) just aren't good enough for some of the climbing you need to do there to continue along the river. Well here is a short clip of me swimming in the river, and believe me it is just a small fraction of how long I stayed in the water, I even submerged a few times to get the total effect.

Today we swoke up without having any plan, but we had 2 ideas to choose from: Red Rocks or Deckers. We chose to go to Red Rocks because it was closer and our tummies weren't feeling so great. We went and felt a lot better after hiking around on trails that were longer than we thought they would be. We also saw three deer while we were there, 2 males and 1 female. I got very close to 2 of them to take pictures and even a bit of video filming. After we left Red Rocks we decided to get lost somewhere and see where the adventure would take us, rain was threatening us all day, it never really came which was good. See all the photos!

The second part of our journey accidentally placed us in Mt. Falcon Park, a nice place in the Rocky Mountains with very impressive views, and because the winds that were blowing rain clouds overhead were so close and it was raining in the mountains, just not on us, it smelled really good, and the temperature was fantastic! The hiking tired us out though, so we came back down into town and had some dinner with our buddy Justin Vigil, we ate at the same place we did exactly one year ago - the day Olga arrived home in Colorado!

Whew, I'm tired, I think we should watch some episodes of Friends and maybe play a little Super Mario Galaxy 2 together and call it a day.