Retiring DC Life Blog
I've moved to RI, so it's time to retire this DC Life blog. See you in the RI Life blog!
Nationality, Identity, and Cultural Affiliation – Part 2
If you know me, how would you define my culture? Where *am* I "from"? What does culture mean and what happens during a person's upbringing that makes them a part of a culture? Nationality is something defined by law and superficial borders and passports... national identity is how and with what nations one identifies themselves with... and cultural affiliation is basically based on what? Is it where the individual feels most comfortable in society? Is it language based? Pop-culture knowledge based?
If I basically bounced between 5 significantly different cultures growing up, am I a part of all 5? Are the younger ages more or less important? What about language? Or just the level of associations I feel with individuals from that culture?
In the US I feel a pretty close affiliation with Americans... But in Haiti, I feel like I only want to distance myself from "American" but I can't escape the label. Even my father (born there) is "blanc" ("white") to Haitians. When I'm in the EU I sometimes try to pull the 'local' card by claiming that although I have a US passport, my father was born in Haiti and my mom is Polish-- how could I be "American"??
I'm a chameleon. I am not American, but I am: legally and somewhat-culturally. I'm also Haitian to some degree; I've lived there for more than a quarter of my life and in the US for less than half of my life. When I'm in Europe, I claim a multicultural state of being and nearly refuse categorization... Is that wrong? Can I be allowed to flow from culture to culture? Is that what's happening? Or is being a part of a culture "fixed"? Or is that just my affinity with that culture?
Interesting questions to think about...
Nationality, Identity, and Cultural Affiliation (and Earthquakes)
Last night, a 7.0MM earthquake struck the island of Hispañola, and the epicenter of the quake was 15 kilometers (10 miles) WSW of the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. So far estimates are pointing to nearly 500,000 deaths and millions affected. Wow. 35 aftershock earthquakes, all in the range of 4 to 6MM. (MM stands for the Moment Magnitude scale - similar-ish to the Richter scale). The sweeping response around the world has actually captivated me.
I've spent roughly 7 years in Haiti, on and off, and a have a decent amount of family background from Haiti, so I suppose it shouldn't strike me as too odd that I feel affected by this quake... I was impressed to see Wikipedia create an article dedicated to this issue and I was more impressed to see that it was many, many pages long within 18 hours of the quake with updates and news on the issue and over 137 references. The Whitehouse website put up links to offer a few ways of supporting the humanitarian efforts now mobilizing. Why am I so interested and affected by this event?
You know, I have a lot of fun with questions like "where are you from?" or "where is home for you?" Sometimes I ask myself in complete seriousness "where the hell am I from!?" and sometimes it goes as far questioning "who" I am because doesn't the place your from define who you are? The answers to either of those questions can be long, convoluted and confusing. I usually ask a smart-ass question back to force them to elaborate. "where did you grow up?" or "where were you born?" are the two most common elaboration questions... sometimes it's "where's family for you?" or "where do you spend holidays?". Well, I'm confused - my genes, my childhood, my education, my linguistic background... it's all a mess. My genes 'cause I'm a mutt: half this, a quarter that, a quarter that that, and my childhood because it spans living in 5 different countries, linguistically because English is one of 4 languages I learned along with French, Senegalese Wolof and Haitian Kreyol... I'm educationally confused because I switched school environments 12 times before going to college! To say the least: I'm very confused.
So where am I from? Where did I grow up, even; you can see how I'd have a hard time explaining. When someone asks "where were you born?" My answer of "Washington DC!" doesn't quite quench their curiosity of wanting to learn about my background. I grew up as a multi-cultural, linguistically diverse kid, and I'm now a business process management software developer in Bethesda. How did that happen?
What has to happen for one to feel a cultural attraction to a society? Or what is nationality? National identity? Where is patriotism and how does that fit in? What makes someone a part of one culture and not another? Can one be fluid between cultures going back and forth? Does language have anything to do with cultural affiliation- or national identity? These are questions that I'd like to investigate further in a series of items titled "Nationality, Identity, and Cultural Affiliation". I hope you enjoy them.
Waste Management Mech
I witnessed an amazing piece of machinery while visiting Rhode Island most recently - I saw a WM truck collecting trash by using this awesome mech-warrior-esque robotic arm to grab a hold of the trash receptacles and dump the contents! I was flabbergasted, so I grabbed my SLR and started taking these shots!
This is the way of the future! ... or maybe the "future" is already here?
I’m Batman.
Sooo last Wednesday, around midnight and I'm dozing off in bed when I hear my cousin start to flip out in the living room; I hear him cursing, loud noises as if he was throwing or hitting something. I thought he'd quiet down, but the activity just continues on - so I get up and wander out there to ask him what's going on. When I step out there, he's running around cursing breathlessly and dodging what I thought were imaginary flying things... I'm laughing and asking him "hey - what's going on???" until my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I saw something flying around and then it made sense: it was a bat. My cousin was freaking out and it was hilarious!
He opened the door and the bat finally made it outside. My cousin looks at me and looks out into the hallway and with a quick shrug of the shoulders says: "well, it's their problem now" and slams the door shut! LOL
He walked up to me and starts ranting and raving about how this bat apparently flew onto him while he was laying down getting ready for bed and how he flipped out, flew to the ground, went into the kitchen--but it followed him-- ran back out. By the time I came out I think he gained enough mental capacity to figure that he had to try to get the bat out of the apartment, so he opened the door (into the rest of the apartment building. Kudos Nick--instead of the balcony or something.. but nevermind that). Then he started telling me that we had to get Rabies shots because we were in the near vicinity of the bat. I laughed at him 'cause his eyes were huge of a mixture of fear/excitement/paranoia/sleep-deprivation. I wished him sweet dreams and went back to bed. Bianca asks what the hell was going on - I explain briefly but we dismiss any concerns and passed out.
The next day he was scolded by his mother and our uncle (a doctor) for not having already gone to the ER to get rabies shots... sooo we prepped for the ER trip and made our way over there. So let me outline a few points here. First of all, because we weren't bitten by the bat, the potential of actually getting rabies is slim to null, but with something like rabies: you can't joke around. And how could we get rabies without being bitten? Well, apparently it is possible (I won't go into the details, you can research it if you want)... and the biggest question was how the hell the bat got into our apartment in the first place (!)... no windows open, no doors, nothing. So we don't know how long it was in there, and that adds to the concern of potentially getting rabies.
9:10pm: We make it to the hospital (we forgo the local Prince Georges County hospital for obvious reasons and go to the Shady Grove hospital: a good choice - trust me). On the way there we pass a couple stores and I'm not sure who came up with the idea first, but we decided that we will definitely be wanting to reward ourselves with donuts after the shots. We get excited.
9:11pm: We enter and get processed relatively quickly.
9:13pm: We get our vitals taken, and we sit in the post-processing-but-still-waiting seating room.
9:14pm: A nurse has us follow her to the MITU (Minor Illness Treatment Unit) where we wait for a few minutes.
9:15pm: Bianca starts freaking out and begs me to hold her hand while she gets shots. Nick and I are both trying to console her and tell her that it really won't be bad.
9:16pm: Nick discovers an unfinished bag of Cheez Its in the trash and is contemplating finishing them. "Who the hell doesn't finish a bag of Cheez Its??" he exclaims.
9:17pm: Another nurse/orderly walks up to us and explains that there are PAs (Physician's Assistants) available in Peds (the Pediatrics department). We follow her dutifully. (Peds meant that there were beds, nice doctors and walls painted pretty colors for kids to be distracted: AWesome!)
9:18:00pm: We arrive in Peds and walk past a couple rooms where doctors and patients are, and the last room was pass has an uncooperative kid being treated - he's screaming. He screams and yells, obviously resisting the treatment and crying out to be left alone and that he doesn't want to be touched. We nervously start laughing when no one is looking, but Bianca starts freaking out even more.
9:18:30pm: We all file into a room which has three beds in three alcoves with different colored walls: Nick's is blue, Bianca's is Green and mine is Pink (YEEesssss!!).
... and we wait...
While we wait, wondering if we should stay in our separate alcoves or if we can group together to talk, we continue to hear the kid next door that is yelling and freaking out. We hung out in Nick's alcove... he says that he thinks things will be fine.. if we make it out alive. My uncle TXTed Nick saying that the yelling next door were "the echoes of [his] yowling, pussy!". hahahah
Apparently the PAs were not quite available, and the doctors finally made it in at around 10:45 and drill us on what happened. Do we have any bites or scratches. Where did it come from? ... when finished, they brought us over to a scale to weigh us. Now - apparently because of the possible infection, they had to give us two types of shots: the vaccine (1 shot) and "immune globulin" (which is multiple shots, but the exact number is determined based on your weight). They weigh us and tell us to go back to our room and wait for the nurses to bring the shots. By this time it's aorund 11:15 and we're waiting for the shots.
We all talk and joke about that f'ing bat that is probably laughing its ass off because it probably isn't infected and we're at the ER about to get shots. We can at least breathe a sigh of relief because the yelling next door finally has stopped. At around 12:30 a nurse comes in to ask us how we're doing and lets us know that she will likely be handling our shots. She explains that they have to order the immune globulin from a pharmacy and that it may take about an hour... so we wait. In the mean time, we made bets on how many shots we were going to be getting... Nick's bets were 3, 3, 4 (for Bianca, Nick then Me.) Bianca's were 2, 3, 4. I bet the same as Nick... but we were all off... very off.
The nurse returned around 1:30 and brought another nurse to assist... They had bundles of syringes and explained that we would all be getting lots of shots. The bets were very wrong. The final results were: Bianca: 5. Nick: 6. And they looked at me and said: "and you get 7". SEVEN shots! F*ck!
They went alcove by alcove, gave Nick his shots, then Bianca then me. They had us lie on our stomachs to inject our tushes, then our back to get our legs, then they did our arms. These shots were "intra muscular" shots, so they were relatively uncomfortable because they go deep into the muscles. (and yes, I held Bianca's hand).
Just when we thought it was all over, we discovered that the heavens were frowning on us for some reason because (1) the Krispy Kreme was closed, (2) our butts were sore so every bump and turn was painful and (3) we hit traffic going back home. Traffic at 2am on 270! Traffic so bad that at least 15 cars reversed back from the HIGHWAY up the ONRAMP! ... so that lasted another 30 minutes or so, then we were able to make it home.
Now, with rabies vaccines, we have to go 4 subsequent times to get "booster" shots. Luckily we only have to get one shot for each of those visits, not multiple ones. Grand total of $1k+ ... and insurance doesn't cover much (if any of it). Woohoo!
Fucking bat.
This Just In: Sunday 8pm
Nick came out of the shower today and asked me to take a look at some marks on his arm and we took a quick picture of it. I can't find any pictures of other bat bites, but this looks like one to me!
Africa – a troubled and backwards “nation”
(a BBC Article triggered this posting)
There are some real ignorant people out there. And those that actually believe that Africa is a continent with many countries are the crème de la crème of ignoramus idiots. Let me set you straight: Africa is a country full of backwards peoples wearing nothing but cloth (if that) and hunt every day to feed their families. The average "city" is infested with AIDS, and the scenery is all pretty much what the Lion King portraid. It is the poorest nation in the world, and the 49% of the worlds diamonds that come from Africa are all blood diamonds. (Please don't believe all of the above).
I visited the British Museum and took a gander through the "Africa" exhibit - displaying all of Africa. I got to see lovely "artifacts" of seats that people used, and I could swear to you the title of the seats on display was something like: "African Chair" or something... the chair in the display was an damn stool- it wasn't even an articulately painted or particularly nice one at that. I mean - they could have had some write up explaining that these stools are still used today in informal settings and that some regions have used them for a long time-- but I'm thinking they may as well also put a four legged chair in the display and title it "African Chair".
Are you getting my point yet? Some individuals really have distorted perceptions of Africa - and not only Africa, but also the rest of the world. And some Africans perpetuate these silly impressions... I mean - I don't know how many Africans today actively practice animal sacrifices, but apparently the chairman of "Makhonya Royal Trust" (whoever the hell they are) -- apparently they (according to BBC) "co-ordinate African cultural activities" -- is quoted as having said "We must have a cultural ceremony of some sort, where we are going to slaughter a beast."... really? ... REally?? Oh dear... perhaps I'm fighting for a lost cause. Or maybe it's entirely an entertainment business and this chairman is just determined to entertain the world with something that once was a continental way of prayer and having everyone around the world pause and think: "oh my - all Africans perform sacrifices?"... and since this is fascinating, let's hire this Makhonya Royal Trust to have a demonstration of "African cultural activities" and show us how things are done in Africa!
I've tried, with everyone that I've interacted with on the topic of Africa and where I've lived in Africa, to paint a different picture than what they are used to. I really believe that one of the things that I enjoy doing the most is breaking stereotypes and getting people to understand that not everything they read about in the news or see on TV or in a movie is a blanket picture for an entire continent. What can you do though? How can just a few people change the way a world views something? Is it possible?
Advertising Lullaby
George Carlin's Advertising Lullaby - a phenomenal piece of work. Listen to it on YouTube:
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Economy, savings, performance, experience, hospitality
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No cash? No problem! No kidding! No fuss, no muss,
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No one will call on you, no payments or interest till September.
But limited time only, though, so act now, order today, send no money,
Offer good while supplies last, two to a customer, each item sold separately,
Batteries not included, mileage may vary, all sales are final,
Allow six weeks for delivery, some items not available,
Some assembly required, some restrictions may apply.
So come on in for a free demonstration and a free consultation
with our friendly, professional staff. Our experienced and
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selection that's just right for you and just right for your budget.
And say, don't forget to pick up your free gift: a classic deluxe
custom designer luxury prestige high-quality premium select
gourmet pocket pencil sharpener. Yours for the asking,
no purchase necessary. It's our way of saying thank you.
And if you act now, we'll include an extra added free complimentary
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high-quality premium select gourmet combination key ring,
magnifying glass, and garden hose, in a genuine imitation
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Yours for the asking, no purchase necessary. It's our way of
saying thank you.
Actually, it's our way of saying 'Bend over just a little farther
so we can stick this big advertising **** up your *** a little bit
deeper ... you miserable no-good f*ing consumer asshole!' "
Contribute to Wikipedia
Take a minute, donate to Wikipedia. I just donated for the first time this year.
Technological Castration
Movies, books and parents always try to humble us and tell us of back in the day when technology didn't exist at all. You know... flint... no MP3 players, iPhones or hair dryers, and even refrigerators. They all tell us the same story: "back in my day, we used to walk uphill (both ways) to school, with snow up to *here... barefoot!..." Their message: be grateful.
Technology is relatively new - and the development of it is still "growing"... and our generation (those in their 10s and 20s) are going to (or have) developed such a dependence on technology that if it were to somehow disappear or go away, they would be clueless as to how to accomplish something an older generation did all the time.
On top of this, we can see how technological advances increase in relation to population, and that shows the tremendous increase in advances over time.
Now, technology aids us- there's no dispute there. Without technological advances, we wouldn't have so many helpful tools that allow us to be more efficient, effective and productive. I do, however, believe there is a threshold where we become negatively impacted by technology. These days, human interaction for some is marginalized because of social media tools. Reasoning and deductive skills may not be honed because we get information spoon-fed to us rather than trying to figure something out on our own. I'm definitely affected by this! Maybe because I'm biased I don't believe I have been negatively affected by technology - after all, I grew up in a technology deprived environment and didn't mind it all that much: living in Haiti, we experienced times where we had maybe 2 hours of electricity (in the middle of the night) every two days. On the other hand, now-a-days I've been nick-named "Mark-a-pedia" because when some topic comes up where we don't know the answers, I look it up on my trusty iPhone! And haven't you ever met someone who spends HOURS on good ol' fb, IM and Twitter? Imagine what they would be doing if that wasn't available to them? Gamers spending 8+ hours interacting on an online world rather than their neighbors in the real world. I'm content with reading a book, walking to a store (instead of driving), writing letters (instead of emails) and so on... but how would the next generation?
Now, I th
ink I've painted the appropriate picture of those seemingly "castrated" by technology... now, who is whipped and who is making good use of the technology (and still have their... uhh... proverbial "goods"...)?
This subject was a discussion I had with a very good friend of mine Luke (I promised to credit him for the title of this article). Being a police officer in the DC area, he plays a role where the officers are able to look up data on computers in their police cars to determine if there's a warrant out for the driver, if the car has been stolen, etc etc. Now, comparing that to 50 years ago, the advances have been great! Now, when an officer stops someone and talks with them, they have to rely on instinct and observation skills to determine if the person is a risk, is hiding something or lying... but today the officer can just get the driver's license and run the data on the computer to see if there are any "hits". But perhaps this interferes with the enhancement of an officer's instinct and "6th senses". Does it?
I don't think many would argue with me that online social networking tools (Facebook in particular) can impact one's ability to be socially engaging. I feel like those that game online without a cultured up-bringing end up being quite socially awkward... and there are some positive effects of using both the games and/or social networking tools: the games will enhance hand-eye coordination and processing skills, and social networking tools connect friends, allows people to find friends that they haven't spoken to in years or see what friends in countries around the world are up to.
Technological Castration effects anyone that reaches the point of dependency on technology where it starts to negatively effect them in some way - most likely socially or professionally (ie: Facebook distracting employees from doing their work). No matter how you cut it, technology can help significantly; it can also impact you negatively. Keep your goods - be responsible (and grateful) for technology.
Human Rights of the 21st century
Human Rights. Interesting concept isn't it? Just rights that are automatically granted to someone/something because they are human. Very philosophical, but in all honesty, it's a serious topic. Millions have been murdered because human rights were violated. Are there things that everyone would agree are human rights? I mean - I feel as though nearly all actions could be considered human rights - and aside from intentionally harming or risking other people's safety, is there anything that shouldn't be a human right? Interesting how we, as humans, have experienced moments in our history where the ability of any individual to do what they wanted wad limited or people were prosecuted based on anything conceivable among other things: gender, race, eye color, religion, dress, beliefs of science, favorite color?... I mean a people were discriminated against because they read books and it led to the dark ages. Humans freakin' killed individuals for believing the earth orbited the sun! * - gasp - *
We have spent our history on earth commanding order over the population, restricting thought and beliefs. Fascinating, isn't it? Most of these people persecuted weren't physically harming others or terrorizing them at all...
So let me ask you my question: is there anything that someone can do that would not harm others that should NOT be a "human right"? Think about it. Is there a non-harmful way of life or action that should not be allowed?
Along with "human rights", there are some things in today's age that I feel should become a human "right". I feel like free access to world-wide media should be a "right" (as long as FOX isn't one of 'em... hahah - jk ;), and also free access to the resources and information. And perhaps "free" would be contingent on taxes -- by paying taxes in an area, you are able to receive these items. I think it'd be an interesting cultural experiment to see what would happen to a society if there were free access to internet as a "citizen's right" for an area. Why not right?
Keeping Secure
My company requires that I update my password every 2 months. I think that's fantastic. When I got over the "what a pain in the ass" reaction, I realized that I could use that 60 day timer as a time for me to update my passwords on all the systems I consider "critical" (where I have at some point bought something with a credit card) or the account contains access to personal information I don't want stolen or read.
I recently started collecting this list of locations where I would want to update my password, and today I modernized my password for 25 different accounts. The fun part of this most recent update is that I made the password for each system unique. Call me paranoid, but this way, if my password was compromised somewhere, it'd be useless in my other systems.
Password Saves: Some people use tools to maintain all of their passwords... But that is dangerous because suppose you lose your password for the password save? Or what if you lose your laptop? I don't trust the password saves, and I also never save my passwords in my web browser... that's just bad news waiting to happen.
Am I too paranoid?
Property, Space and Intellect
Interesting, isn't it? How as part of a society, our cultures have developed methods of defining ownership of ideas... words... space... and things?
My Bubble: Take a minute-- we have established ourselves in society as such individuals that we require a huge space to live in (in solitude mostly). I believe I've already blogged about the space we waste driving SUVs, etc., but consider how so much of our days are spent standing physically as distant as possible from the people around you. Standards (even formulas) have been established to calculate what someone's personal space is; a certain amount of space around an individual where if it is breached by someone (other than family, etc.), the individual grows uncomfortable. If a stranger walks up to you and hugs you without intention, this is odd, right? They have breached the space considered your personal "bubble". Elevators and crowded busses are exceptions to these rules- or crowded subway trains in NYC. This cultural "common courtesy" is even applied to men using the urinal in a public bathroom! (For you ladies that don't know what I'm talking about: men try to have one unattended urinal between each occupied urinal.) It's awkward entering a public restroom to use a urinal where the two ends of 4 urinals are being used!
Thoughts: An individual or a company can have rights to a slogan (a set of words for crying out loud!) or an idea- a concept not yet implemented even! It's amazing, isn't it? I recently started inquiring at my work about my delving into iPhone development and how I want to make sure my work isn't compromised under any intellectual copyright mumbo-jumbo that was in my contract that I signed. I pulled up my contract and the section of interest states that anything I develop could be owned by the company. Interesting eh? I mean, simply because I am working at an organization I have surrendered at least parts of my freedom of intellectual property.
Words: Trademarking a word or a phrase has also been such an issue that there are legal battles because the name of one company is similar to another's. Or a product is named the same as some other company. What about slogans? If I want onto national television and got popular because I said "So easy, even Mark can do it!", I'm betting that if I got popular enough, Geico (if they were an evil corporation) could sue me (and win) if they were motivated enough.
It's interesting just thinking about how these intellectual rights come about and some take them so seriously. Now, I know that lots of this is cultural and they are more behavior patterns attributed to the "West" and so on, but that's my point.
Shell Stations Suck… and Havier
So when Bianca and I were moving to DC, we were still in the college mentality. Everything was so great and people were so trustworthy (Hint Hint - Foreshadowing). We stopped at a Shell station on 29N just 30 minutes before getting into the city to get some fuel. I hopped into the station to buy something bad for my teeth - a snickers if I remember correctly - and hop back into Chiquita and we rolled out of the station parking lot back onto 29N. Perhaps 2.4 seconds after getting onto 29 I realized that was phone-less. For some reason (inexplicable at the moment) I not only went into the station's store with my phone in my hand, then I put it on the counter of the store next to the cash register and left it there.
Bianca grumbled and pulled a yuuuiiiee so we could get back to the Shell station. I hopped back out and slid into the store to ask the cashier if I had forgotten my phone there. Mr Cashier was not a native English speaker and so I did a little more hand movement and gesturing to get my point across and his response was non-committal, almost as if he didn't want to spoil a surprise for me. I was kind of confused at this point because I was more than 100% sure that I had my phone before getting to the store, and I was about 98% sure that I left it in the store... and then Oh Yeah! Wasn't there someone else behind the counter in the store when I bought my snickers?
When I asked about the other guy that was there (perhaps he knew where my phone was?), Mr Cashier's eyes lit up with excitement of understanding and started calling to the back "HAavvviieierrrr!!??". There was no response though, so I stood idly so he knew I wasn't going anywhere. I stepped to the window to indicate to Bianca that I was waiting for my phone. There was a relatively long silence in the store so I looked back at Mr Cashier and he promptly called for Havvy again: "HAaaaaaaavvvvvvviiieeeerrrrrrr!?!?". There was no response from our Big H, so our cashier dude just shrugged at me with a helpless look. It was obvious he didn't want to leave the register to go find this guy, so I was getting frustrated. I looked back at Bianca and I paused right away 'cause she has this look of daggers in her eyes with her phone to her ear- she starts using her sign language finger-spelling to tell me from behind the steering wheel "U-S-I-N-G" and "B-U-S-Y" ... I cocked my head to the side trying to figure out what she was trying to communicate and that's when I realized that she was calling my phone and there was no answer-- but not only that -- you know how when you call someone and if they're on the other line you hear a low pitched beep if they're on another line? Well, my great detective Bianca was two steps ahead of me.
She took the car for a spin and brought it around the store to take a look see to search for our ghost Havier. I waited in the store to put a bit more pressure on Mr Cashier to find him. 45 seconds later, Bianca re-appeared waving my phone in the air with the engine still going. I went out the store and Bianca started before I could say anything: "HE WAS USING YOUR PHONE!! I called and it was busy! So I went around the back and saw him-- he was LAYING on the floor! JUST LAYING There. His knees up in the air back on the floor just LAying there." She went on to tell her story about how she drove up to him to see if he was on the phone and found him to not only be using the phone, but oblivious to her too. As soon as she stopped the car she noticed the passenger side swing open undramatically (I guess I didn't shut it properly when I got out to go into the store... oops!). So before berating Havier, she reached across the passenger seat to shut the door embarrassingly, then leaned out her window looking at this guy on the floor and started: "Is that your Phone?!!? IS that your Phone!?" <pause> "I don't THINK so. That's my FRIENDS phone!"
Havier got up and handed the phone to her explaining that he was trying to call the owner or something. Bianca snatched the phone and peeled out to come pick me up. Once she explained all of this, I was half laughing my ass off at (1) Havvy with his knees up in the air talking on the phone, (2) it wasn't 2 minutes ago that I left the phone in the store, so he must have _really_ needed to call someone! (3) the car door swinging open when Bianca tried her dramatic appearance! and the other half of me was quite appalled at this guy's comfort with nabbing the phone and making calls so quickly. So yet again, I hopped out of the car and bolted into the store to find Havier with Mr Cashier.
Mark: "Havier?"
Havier: "Yes."
Mark: "Do you have a phone number for Shell Gas?"
Havier: "UUUhhhhh no."
Mark: "No business card? Receipt with a number? Nothing?"
Havier: "UUuhhh no...?"
Mark: <stare>
Havier: "Oh! I can give you number"
He proceeds to open a notebook to rip out a sheet of paper-- that's when I laugh at him (really! I did!) saying "No no no no... I want something where the number is written already". Havier remembers that he does in fact have a receipt template with numbers on it... so he gets one and hands it to me. I say thank you and leave.
In the car I call the number to file a formal complaint with Shell but it doesn't get to any prompt or a "Welcome to Shell! We'll be happy to--"... instead a guy answers the phone right away... a guy vaguely sounding like our buddy Havvieeeerrrrrr....
Mark on phone: "Havier??"
Voice on phone: "Yes??"
Mark on phone: "HAhahahah. Thanks." <click>
(The <click> was me hanging up). I dialed 1800-555-1212 to find the 1800 number for Shell, call them and file a complaint. The lady was very apologetic and very sorry. I was done with the experience so I just hung up - but in retrospect I should have milked it for all it was worth - like gas for life, or something. Before talking with the Shell rep, I looked to see if Havvvvvvierrrr had called anyone overseas or used up any crazy minutes -- but it was a weekend and they were calls to like Baltimore or Florida or something... but that was it. Thank goodness for "unlimited nights and weekends!" eh? lol.
Havier. PShh.
The Fantastical Frontiers
Whenever (hu)man(-kind), as a large entity, strives for some goal never achieved before, unimaginable things happen. Incredible (as in "good") things, or horrible (as in.. errr "bad") things. WW1: advances in airplanes, WW2: rockets. The atomic bomb. Humans on the moon. Many of the catalysts for thee human feats were unfortunately negative and stressful events. War, potential of war... sometimes even just monetary profit (another thing I'm considering negative)...
I feel like humans are still at a stage where we are "reactionary," and not proactive in performing great feats. If there was impending doom on half the population because of some virus, I believe that a vaccine would be conjured that could also be used to fight cancers and AIDS, or the common cold. If the planet was in peril from asteroids or a global catastrophe, I believe humans would be up to the task for finding a solution. My point is that we are a capable species, and when we let our creative minds relax, we spend our time focusing on the marital life of a stupid governor, the stupidity of a pop star singer, the bickering and nagging and lies from 24-hr media... But I believe that there is another step in evolution for humans to make. Another level of existence where we feed off of innovation and inspiration to accomplish new goals rather than fear and jealousy. We LANDED HUMANS ON THE MOON. 6 TIMES. And we're spending our days plastering a governor's love life all over the news? Really??
People ask "should we really be going to Mars?" For a huge percentage of humans, the answer is "no", and the only reason it could ever turn to yes was if there was a situation similar to the cold war. But what people forget is that while striving for such goals, inventions sprung out of minds around the world advancing our technology, teaching us new things and advancing our knowledge.
I think (hu)man(-kind) should be constantly looking to higher and further goals- sometimes unattainable at first glance- and reach for it. People need to consider the value and be open minded and forward thinking. No matter the goal, I think that achieving something is greater than saying no and passing up the opportunity to learn more. Achieving goals so fantastical are more interesting and appealing to me than trying to "save the planet".
That's just fascinating to me people think otherwise.
Update 7/22/209 12:00pm: And for these adventures or goals, I'm not only referring to space exploration or interplanetary propulsion (although these are big ones for me) I'm also referring to advances in atomic knowledge (Large Hadron Collider), the automotive industry (hybrid cars, etc), virus handling and vaccines, etc. There's a lot that could be done!
Nice. 911. Hope you get a ticket, b*tch.
Yes, I'm bitter. And would we not have gotten a ticket if we had a Porsche? This car was definitely parked all night in this no parking area... Ugh.
And the audacity to have such a vanity plate? That was honestly the tipping point for me. Honestly - I'm not always bitter - I just felt this was something I wanted to remember 5 years from now when I'm living somewhere where parking is never a problem and people are so happy they'd give you a parking spot if you wanted it.
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