jollyjoker posted this video and I have to tell you, I nearly fell out of my chair. This guy is nothing short of amazing. Let it not be said that our impossible dreams are unattainable. Case in point: the portly, crooked toothed guy in this video right here.

So with all of this Global Warming talk and gas prices steadily going up (and up), you're becoming more and more interested in a gas-friendly car, likely a hybrid of some sort which gets great mileage, but you don't want to sacrifice performance or design. After all, environmentally friendly is great, but why must the thing be hideously malformed and slow as a turtle? While browsing the web for environmentally friendly automobiles, I came across the following car:

This is the Tesla Roadster, made by Tesla Motors. It's the first fully electric sports car to ever be mass produced, and runs on a pack of lithium ion batteries, has a top speed of 130 mph, and goes 0-60 in an estimated 4 seconds. It can travel up to 200 miles on a single charge, and gets roughly the equivalent of 135 mpg (when compared to a gas car). Being an electric car, it uses no gasoline at all. That's right, no gas. It's not a hybrid of any sort and requires zero gasoline to run, and in fact comes with the option of solar panels that will recharge the batteries enough for a 50 mile trek during the course of a normal sunny day, which means if you travel less than 50 miles a day on a normal day, you'll never have to plug it in to recharge it. That means it will drain zero natural resources and use no extra electricity, gas, or other power to use if you run it purely on solar energy (since you'll never have to plug it in if you drive less than 50 miles a day). It also requires very little maintenance, since the engine is electric (like your vacuum and hairdryer) and requires no oil changes (since it doesn't use engine oil), and requires less brake pad changes because it has regenerative braking (using the kinetic motion of the car to charge its batteries, which slows the car down). The estimated starting price of the car? About $100,000. Start saving those pennies.

(Credit where it's due, it's not my photograph.)

Yesterday after work, I was speaking on the phone with a friend of mine and after hearing I had never gone kayaking before, she generously offered to take me. So we went, down this long road which led from the densely populated suburban clutter of Central Jersey, to the very canal pictured above. Honestly, it has been a long time, perhaps too long since I had a real opportunity to enjoy some time outdoors, to really soak in the peaceful, serene atmosphere of nature and relax for a bit. I had almost forgotten how much I enjoy those kinds of moments. There were no cars, no roads, no noise aside from nature and the occasional cycler passing along the path nearby, and to really feel such peace for even a few moments is one of the great experiences in life I think everyone owes themself. So I guess I owe her a debt of gratitude, for helping me remember some of the pleasures I really enjoy in life that I had not engaged in for many years.

Sally: Come on, let's take a drive.
Lightning McQueen: A drive?
Sally: Yeah, a drive. Don't you big city racecars ever just take a drive?
Lightning McQueen: Ah, no. No we don't.

Sometimes while we're on our journey across the road of life, we become so focused on our destination, that we lose sight of everything else. Our goals become all consuming, taking importance over nearly everything, so much so that our only concern is reaching it, obtaining it, attaining it... sometimes at any cost. It's like we can't get there fast enough, quickly enough, we're just so impatient to have it in our grasp, whatever it may be. But why are we always in such a rush to get there? Why is it so important to us to reach our goal with such haste?

Life is about more than destinations and goals, more than just reaching each waypoint on the road of life and preparing to head out for the next one. It's not always so much about getting to where you're going, but often the journey on the way to getting there that really brings us the experiences and joy that we unknowingly long for. Too often we reach our goals and find that the fulfillement that lies therein is fleeting at best, slipping away through your fingers far too quickly to offer lasting happiness. We were so focused on getting to that point that we neglected to really take any joy in our journey to get there. It's like a movie, a book, or any good story. It's not all about how it ends, but also the journey the story takes to reach the ending that we find compelling. Some of the best stories are the ones that draw us in from beginning to end, not just the ones that have a great ending (but a terrible beginning/middle).

Life is too short to only take joy in those brief moments when we finally reach our goals. The journey we take to get there is just as important, and enjoying the time you have, the adventures you find yourself on through the process of reaching your destination is just as important. We've become a society so focused purely on goals and desinations that we've forgotten that it's not just reaching the end that's important, it's the road you take to get there and all the things that happen to you inbetween.

Lightning McQueen: Ok, you got me out here. Where we goin'?
Sally: I don't know.

And courtesy of my cousin asickboy an editted Calvin & Hobbes strip that I thought was very witty:

And a Man sat alone, drenched deep in sadness.

And all the animals drew near to him and said, "We do not like to see you so sad. Ask us for whatever you wish and you shall have it."

The Man said, "I want to have good sight."
The vulture replied, "You shall have mine."

The Man said, "I want to be strong."
The jaguar said, "You shall be strong like me."

Then the Man said, "I long to know the secrets of the earth."
The serpent replied, "I will show them to you."

And so it went with all the animals.

And when the Man had all the gifts that they could give, he left.

Then the owl said to the other animals, "Now the Man knows much, he'll be able to do many things. Suddenly I am afraid."

The deer said, "The Man has all that he needs. Now his sadness will stop."

But the owl replied, "No. I saw a hole in the Man, deep like a hunger he will never fill. It is what makes him sad and what makes him want. He will go on taking and taking, until one day the World will say, 'I am no more and I have nothing left to give.'"

-Apocalypto

I watched Letters From Iwo Jima today and if there's anything that I realized from it, it's that doing the right thing can mean completely different things to different people. Even those of us who were raised with similar backgrounds, in similar cultures, with similar values can come to believe in vastly differing perspectives on some of the most fundamental issues that drive our motivations in life. What exactly is the right thing? When you're faced with a dilemma with no clear solution, with no clear answer, with no stark black and white contrast to serve as an obvious guide, how do you know what path is the right one?

To believe that there is only one true, good path through life ignores how we all have different wants, desires, and hearts. There is no universally true path, only the path that's best for you. As we walk through life, the best we can do is to be true to ourselves and make those choices that are true to what we believe and what we really want. Therein, however, lies our real problems. Many of us scarcely examine ourselves deeply or frequently enough to know what lies in our hearts, or to truly know the real nature of ourselves and our personality. It's a difficult, frightening thing to take the time to really examine yourself and your motivations, your upbringing, your history, your personality. What lurks within isn't always rainbows and sunshine, but rather a mixed bag of both good and bad, of fond memories and frightening demons, all of which can threaten to overcome and consume you if you give in to your fear.

Knowing yourself, however, is the only way to know what's truly the right thing to do for you and what the best path to walk through your life might be. What's the right thing? Discovering that is a journey in and of itself, but once you know your own truth and the reality of your own heart, then no one will ever be able to take that feeling away from you of finally being at peace with who you are.

Some people call it being complete, but I think that truly, we are never really incomplete.

We're just painfully aware of how don't face what lies within our hearts, and how true or untrue we are being to who we really are.

I was reading an exceptionally (tremendously) long post by sharkey92 which you can find by clicking here about trust and how it breaks down into different types. To make a long story short, I liked reading it and I agree with the concept of it. I think I understand within the context of his arguement why people often radiate towards others of their same heritage, culture, and ethnicity. There's a certain comfort that comes with the predictably and certainty you get from a shared cultural ethnic background, to a degree. I'd elaborate further, but I lack the energy from all the hours I worked this week. I'm damn exhausted. Not even going to go anywhere today. I'm just going to go to bed early. Ergh. If you feel daring and have a much longer attention span than I do, read his post. It's quite good.

Just saw Spider-Man 3. It was pretty good. Not the best of the three, but not the worst, and not as bad as I was led to believe it would be. My favorite part of it was this quote by Peter:

"No matter what comes our way, no matter what battle we have raging inside of us, we always have a choice. My friend Harry taught me that. He chose to be the best of himself. Our choices are what makes us who we are... and we always have the choice to do what's right."

Sometimes through the course of our daily lives, we complain. Complaining is normal, because inevitably there's always something in your life that goes awry. There are those people, though (and everyone knows someone like this) who complain about everything in their life, for whom nothing ever seems to go right. Who we are is partially influenced by our genetics and partly influenced by our experiences. When we're young, we don't get the benefit of choosing those experiences, but once we're older we have a choice. We can choose to let our past consume us, or we can choose to deal with it creatively, rather than becoming the victims of our own inner demons.

Whenever we are faced with a choice in our lives, sometimes what we want doesn't coincide with what's the right thing to do. In other cases, though, there is no real right or wrong choice, it's just a matter of which choice is more true to yourself. Either way, it's not your feelings or your past or even your inner personality that defines who you are, it's the choices you decide to make. We are defined by the choices we make. I may believe myself to be a good person, but if I choose to do wrong against others, it's those choices that define me, not my inner feelings and desires to do good because despite my feelings I have chosen to act in a manner contrary to what I truly want.

Own the choices you make. If you want your life to be different, if you want the course of your destiny to be different, if you're unhappy with how your life is, then make different choices. Examine who you are, discover your true heart and make appropriate choices that go along with that. No matter what, you always have a choice. Make the choices that will bring you to where you want to be.

"If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following. There would be:

57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south, 8 Africans;
52 would be female, 48 would be male;
70 would be nonwhite, 30 would be white;
70 would be non-Christian, 30 would be Christian;
89 would be heterosexual, 11 would be homonsexual.
Six people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth . . . and all 6 would be from the United States. 
80 would live in substandard housing;
70 would be unable to read;
50 would suffer from malnutrition.
One would be near death; One would be near birth.
One (yes, only one) would have a college education.
(One would own a computer (a year ago no one had a computer).

How could the wealthy 6 live in peace with their neighbors? Surely, they would be driven to arm themselves against the other 94 . . . perhaps even to spend, as Americans do, about twice as much per person on military defense as the total income of two thirds of the villagers. When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent."

And, courtesy of jollyjoker who brought it to my attention that it's APA Heritage Month:

Happy Mother's Day!

I care about my mother, but the two of us never quite got along all that well. I suppose that's the plight of every child and their mom, trying to balance her desire to protect and support you with your need to be free of her overwhelming presence interfering in your day to day. My aunt (my mom's sister) always likes to tell me that despite your disagreements, no one will ever love you like your mother. She's the one who carried you for nine months and gave birth to you, who went through great physical ordeals and changes, through pain and hardship I will never know (being a male), which creates a bond between a mother and her child that she tells me she feels is the highest form of love possible. So on this special day, just one out of 365 each year, we celebrate our mothers who gave birth to us, raised us, supported us, and who, for some of us, continue to try to meddle generously offer up advice and support to us even well into our adult lives. Cheers to moms everywhere, for doing for us (and saying to us) what few people would dare.