Ramblings for the Morning (8/24/05)

Greetings from Vail! Currently I am hiding behind some Aspen trees in order to escape the people who think I am a celebrity (oh, I wish I were kidding). With that in mind, here are some ramblings to keep you satiated until I return from New York (my next stop).

Vail: I will talk alot more about this when I return, but Vail is GORGEOUS. Oh my. I've been walking here a whole bunch, which I love doing. There are some odd things about this town, however. For example, I have been followed around by people with cameras, service people, and more. My wife and I were on a nice simple walk around Lionshead Village. Everywhere we went, people would say, "Good morning, sir. How has your stay been so far?" Now, I would think that they would do this for anyone, but we decided to experiment (it's the scientists in us) and watch to see who else they talked to. No one. Not a single other person. Even worse, on Monday, I was followed for two miles by this group of tourists who kept taking pictures and whispering around me. Finally, as I sat outside the Betty Ford Alpine Gardens, one of them asked me, "Can I take my picture with you? I'm a big fan." Now, I have no clue who they think I am. Maybe it's Grunberg again, maybe it isn't. So, I politely said, "I'm not who you think I am. Sorry." The response? "Sure, sure. You celebrities always say that." And with that, I took a picture with this person, apparently making their day. If it was a prank, it wasn't funny. Other than that, it's been awesome.

School Starts SOON: One last hurrah before I have to return to the classroom. Yup, instead of months, or even weeks, it's now down to days and hours before the new year begins. Am I excited? Yes and no. I look forward to seeing alot of my students, but I haven't missed grading those papers.

Salespeople: Look, if your a sales or marketing person, and you read this blog, congratulations. I applaud you for reading this. However, You may not EVER treat some badly, because they aren't in sales. My wife is an engineer, which is why we are in Vail. She had to go to a sales meeting in order to make sure they all understood the product. During the opening reception, my lovely wife was treated very badly. They ignored her, they talked down to her, and they talked to ME (a teacher, for pete's sake) more than her. She was called, "Sweetie", "Honey", and worse. Look, if you're going to act like scum, I am going to treat you like scum. That's why I made fun of you, picked on the fact that you were single and needed prostitutes, and told jokes where salesmen were the butt of them. If you can't take the heat of being picked on, then don't pick on others. It's a good life lesson, kids.

Quick Note of Hypocrisy: I want to make something clear: I don't want to turn this blog into political rants. There's alot of that out there. However, I want to address a few things regarding politics, so let's begin:

1. It's totally hypocritical to be completely and utterly upset about abortion and stem cells, but not care that men and women are dying left and right in Iraq as well as not be upset that an innocent man was killed in Britain. You can't say that one person's life means more than another's and then argue that all life is sacred. That's hypocrisy

2. You can't use God as a weapon. If you pray to God and say that people against your way of thinking should, using Pat Robertson as an example, "be assasinated," that's hypocritical and not really very Chrisitan.

3. Intelligent Design supporters: Just admit that this isn't about God. What it really and truly is about is that you don't want to think about the fact that the very first human may have slept with a monkey-like creature. Ever see evolution at work? Perhaps a animal is born that is different from the others? Well, he or she is going to have to get with the original animals in order to procreate. The first human would have to have slept with a monkey and produced another human and on and on it goes. Just admit that you don't care about the God aspect, but you really believe that evolution means that we may have slept with animals and that upsets you. I bring this up because of conversations I heard out here in Colorado. My personal thoughts? If you can bring me scientific data that helps show that Intelligent Design is real, then maybe I'll think about it. Until a REAL scientist (and Deepak Chopra is NOT a scientist) shows me otherwise, I'm going to avoid the whole thing. Oh, and remember that we once thought that God gave us sickness if he was angry. So if I know a priest who has cancer, does that mean he was "bad"?

4. My last thought on this political stuff for awhile: It's totally and utterly hypocritical to blame all of the world's problems on the other guy. Hey guess what? All of America's problems aren't solely because of Liberals/Democrats or Conservatives/Republicans. That's right, folks, we are ALL to blame. We are all guilty of screwing up the world. God can't fix it, only we can, and right now, we can't even look at each other unless we think the same way. I blame Liberals/Democrats for making it difficult to talk about anything in this country, but I blame Conservatives/Republicans for trying to make me feel guilty about the things I like to do. If you want to me to call a friend African-American instead of black, that's fine, but if he tells me otherwise, you don't tell me he's wrong. At the same time, if you want me to not smoke or drink or whatever, you cannot accept money from those companies. Also, I will never, ever, feel guilty about premarital sex. Leave God out of any discussion with me when it comes to politics. I don't think God tells me who to vote for, and I sure hope you make up your own mind on things instead of listening for God to tell you what to do.

As I said before, I will be in New York until next week. So, I will try to read the blogs and maybe even write, but I promise nothing. I hope this little entry is enough for now.