It's my birthday!

Yay!  Finally, after many years of pretending I was 21...I can officially, legally purchase beer. Wow.  In light of this day, I will leave y'all with a great video of Jimmy Carter (ignore the waving American flag throughout the whole video)...



I also have a blog post in the works about Boeing and the National Labor Relations Board, stay tuned!

This Week

Well, this week I have been really busy and haven't had time to do a blog post.  Nothing much new here, other than the fact that I turn 21 in 9 days, and will be vacationing in Milwaukee for the weekend in 11 days!  I am really excited to see what the next few months are going to be like, but as always I am super nervous.  I am excited to be living in a classic American city, and experiencing independent life as a young girl in the city. I am nervous to be living with a bunch of girls, they all seem nice but it seems like we might have drastically different interests.  Mind you, I have had all kinds of roommates so I hope that it will be okay.  Basically, keep me in your thoughts these next few weeks...haha.

In other things, here is a great written piece from the New York Times by Kelly Thomas where she talks about modern love, called Ready to Take a Faithful Leap.  Check it out, and you won't be dissapointed!

Have a good night, I should get back to doing laundry and listening to This American Life.

edit: I am listening to Eddie Vedder's new album which he made focusing on ukulele music.  So far, it kind of makes my head want to explode - and not in a good way.  We'll see.  Next blog post, I will tell y'all how I felt about it. :)
xo

Cowboys, Indians, Lake Swimming and Copious Amounts of Beer

This weekend, I headed to Eastern Washington with some friends to go to the Omak Stampede!  Ashley has been begging us for years to go, and for one reason or another, it never worked out for me to go.  This year, thankfully I was able to figure out a way to get the hell out of Seattle for the weekend and enjoy some new sights.  

After working ten hours on Friday, I was obviously completely ready to go, and we started on our voyage to Chelan (where Ashley's grandma lives) to camp out for the night.  We set up our tents in the dark, and began drinking some enjoyable "nature" beers.  I stayed up until the sun began to come up - the first time I've done that in years.  The best part about it was that nothing bad happened after 2 AM. ;)

I didn't grasp the amazing view from Ashley's grandmother's house until the next morning, when we woke up to this (props to Meryl for getting such a good picture!) : 

Then after swimming in Lake Chelan for the afternoon, we headed to Omak to get to the Stampede!  At this point, it was about a million degrees outside which made me feel like death warmed over after the lack of sleep from the night before.  It was a pretty nutty experience from the first moment I drove up to the Stampede.  There were all different types of people walking around, and most of them had some kick ass cowboy boots (every single pair, I wanted to steal). 

The rodeo was a hoot, and was really impressive.  Basically, it was the craziest thing I've ever seen to see a guy wrestle a baby bull (thought that was the best way to specify the gender of a calf) after jumping off of a horse.  Wow.  The thing that the Omak Stampede is most famous for, however is a tradition called the Suicide Race.  Basically, some jockeys get on their horses some with saddle, some without and they ride their horse down a hill that has a grade of 62 percent into the Okanogan River.  Wow.  Below is a video from youtube which shows the race:

We had such a good time!

The last thing that I want to put on here today is a link to an editorial by Warren Buffett about the taxation of rich people.  I love Warren Buffett, not only do we share a birthday (which is coming up!), he plays ukulele, drives a town car and has a personality to boot! He also happens to be one of the richest men in America, and the CEO of the very successful Berkshire Hathaway.  Here's the link: Stop Coddling the Rich by Warren Buffett

London Riots

Now, I haven't been keeping up on the London riots too closely, I have been really busy the last few days.  Interestingly enough, I have heard only a few soundbites about it - they are as follows:

1.  Person One: "The Clash talked a lot about rioting in London, didn't they?" Person Two: "Yeah, but anyone comparing the two are giving the recent rioters too much credit.  They don't know anything about the Clash."
2. "Man, shit's really bad in London..isn't it?"
3. "Isn't England using Facebook to identify rioters?"

There was one little bit though that especially caught my eye and it was said today on the Stranger's blog - SLOG by Anthony Hecht was this reaction to the UK saying they were considering shutting down Twitter to prevent large demonstrations:

Huh, seems like only a couple months ago is was all these "repressive regimes" shutting down Twitter during social unrest. I guess now it's just the responsible thing for a beleaguered kind-hearted government to do.

Now the plan is to spend a little more time tomorrow looking into the London Riots.  But in the meantime, I think it's time to jam to some Clash.

image found at the top of the article came from here

EDIT: Sometimes, I am an incoherent mess.  Oops.

Afraid of the Dark

This weekend has been the weekend of errands.  Nothing too exciting to report, other than a nice day at Madison Beach enjoying the sunshine and a few Blue Moons.  We saw some drunk, rich girls get off of some boat that they had just jumped on when some men invited them, and they were all crying and apparently had gotten in a fight which involved throwing corn husks (certainly a crime in Nebraska)!

Here's a photograph of a Madison Beach sunrise, found on Flickr by Asa Bass. [Goodness, how I wish I had a camera!]

My friend Jordan Hill, posted a video (which can be seen below) from the Sagan Series about space travel.  The video is worth watching not only if you're interested in the possibility of "another world", but is worth watching just for the images.  Make sure to turn the resolution up (on youtube) to HD and watch it in fullscreen mode.  Seriously, it's pretty awesome.

Also, lately a concept that I haven't heard covered in the classroom at school has really piqued my interest - the relationship between government entitlements and rural lifestyles.  In Washington state, it is not uncommon to hear people from Eastern Washington get mad about tax money that they feel only gets spent on Seattleites (Safeco Field, the Viaduct, etc.).  Interestingly enough, when you examine the way that the tax money is divided up it is obvious that Eastern Washington receives way more money from Western Washington than the other way around.  The people who live in Eastern Washington are much more likely to vote Republican, which in my head seems to go directly against their interests in government.  On top of all of this, it seems that this might be a nationwide trend.  Unfortunately, I have not found a source which argues the other side of the argument, from a Conservative perspective (if any of the three people that read this blog find one, let me know).

Here are some links talking about this:
Mother Jones: "The Price of Rural Life" by Kevin Drum (an Op-Ed)
Los Angeles Times: "A Lot At Stake for Small-Town America," An Editorial
The Stranger: "Welfare State" by Goldy (an ex-Huff Post writer)
Federal Spending by State Per Dollar of Federal Taxes (2004), A Graph from The Tax Foundation

Tomorrow I am going to the art museum with "camp," a bunch of kids that I used to watch when they were much younger.  I can't wait!
xo.

Be good, be kind, be truthful, and be free: Musings of the Week

Be Good - Hothouse Flowers: I've been jamming on this song ever since it got stuck in my head from playing during work.  Everyone should give it a good listen. I like it so much that I think I might have to buy the record...we'll see.

The Independent: Lost World: Scenes from North Korea's Closed Society: This link leads to a British newspaper's photo collection on North Korea.  These images are perhaps some of the most "candid" that the Western world has been allowed to see, as the North Korean government does not allow many journalists the opportunity to chronicle the lives of their citizens.  Below is a photograph taken by David McNeill that captures downtown Pyongyang:

Los Angeles Times: Unraveling Mexico's Sinaloa Drug Cartel by Richard Marosi : In this article, Richard Marosi explains a bust involving Carlos Cuevas, a drug trafficker from Calexico, California.  It is a beautifully written piece about the nature of smuggling drugs over the U.S.-Mexico border.

"19 Reason's I'm Not A Duggar" - by Mikaela Foster : This link needs no explanation

Oh, and also, I got a twitter (make fun of me if you will!), it's @decibelfurther - so follow me/or whatever the heck you do on twitter.

xo

Vancouver and MTV News circa 1995

Found on SLOG (The Stranger's online blog - check it out at slog.thestranger.com), this video is a seemingly ancient (only from 1995) MTV news segment talking about the internet.  Enjoy!  Also, MTV celebrated its 30th birthday yesterday!  Is anyone else shocked that "Video Killed the Radio Star" which was the first song ever played on MTV is now 30 years old?

In things not on crappy but enjoyable cable television, Audrey and I had a great time in Vancouver.  As you can tell by my previous post about green cards, I lost mine while travelling.  Andie's looking for it, and I sure hope that it still turns up!  Here are some great pictures (also posted on facebook) from our adventures.

Swisher Sweet advertisment from the Tulalip Indian Reservation.  Note woman in the center of the advert really enjoying her cheap, grape cigar.

Andie at the Granville Island Brewery (www.gib.ca), where we intended to take a tour but instead just ordered sampler platters of different microbrews.  Tasty!

Audrey at the restaurant Bridges, right at the end of Granville Island.  They served some delicious tuna sashimi, and some spicy Bloody Marys!

Overall, we had a really great time.  I really appreciated being able to understand Andie's non-stop, busy lifestyle while also meeting her new (and great) friends from film school!   Let's hope that my green card is located so I can go back up before summertime ends! :)