Here are two stories

Story 1. Sadly I see my family coming to the crossroads where we stop seeing each other as we used to. We have slowly been arriving at these crossroads in small steps starting with Charles going to UPS, then me going to Berkeley, and then Charles going to NYU for grad school. This year will be the first time Mom, Dad, Me, and Charles aren't going to share Thanksgiving with each other. Charles being in New York doesn't really have time to come back for just the weekend. Partly because of this, and other reasons, I wont be seeing my parents over the Thanksgiving weekend either. Instead, I'm going to J-Tree. Anyway, I think the moment when a family stops sharing family oriented holiday's with each other marks a significant shift in the dynamic and structure of the immediate family. There is some sense of us growing father apart, but at the same time there is the assurance that we can trust each other enough and bank on our love holding us together and not just the actions of meeting and sharing a meal.

Story 2. Today the light in our bathroom burned out. This means that for now we have to either 'do our business' and shower in the dark, or do it with the door wide open. The door wide open option will be kind of awkward for the person coming out of the shower as the shower faces the door directly.

A Test in Maths

Today I learned a cool math problem. You are asked to solve this equation:
(1/n)(sinx)=x
If you cancel the n's, you end up with six=x!

Tim

This post is dedicated to Tim.
I met Tim briefly when he came to stay at my apartment last weekend with five other people from San Diego (all of whom deserve a blog entry too, but I didn't get to spend much time with them, so I'll not write much about them). This group of Billy's friends came up to Berkeley on Thursday and stayed until Tuesday morning. That's about 6 days and 5 nights away from home.
On Monday night, we were hanging out in the living room and doing strange things with the ab wheel and on the hangboard when Tim mentioned something like, "If I did that, I'd probably crap my pants." To me this was strange. I thought, "Why don't you just use the bathroom and not have to worry about craping your pants."
I learned that Tim has never crapped outside of his home. That means he didn't take a dump for 5 days.
Today I heard that he went home and took a dump that clogged the toilet. He lost five and a half pounds.

The Crocodile Hunter

If you haven't heard: CNN News

Peace in the hood

Today, as I was walking back from class, I made eye contact with a guy. He started redirecting his path toward me until it was evident that he was going to talk to me. My thoughts were something like, "Crap, he is going to tell me that children are starving in the world, or that there is some corporate corruption that I can help fix. Then he is going to ask me for money or to sign up for some 10 cents a day type of thing. I hate people like this."
Anyway, he started telling about his journey. I guess he is making his was across California and other places and documenting graffiti on bridges, walls, rocks, and I guess anywhere else. He had with him a small photo album full of pictures of different tags in all types of locations. Some right in suburbia and others taken in what looked like the middle of nowhere. Somehow he plans to get his pictures into magazines or articles or DVD's and use the profits to help people that suffer from gang violence and other intercity struggles. I thought this sounded pretty cool. For some reason, his project and journey seemed much more personal than other huge organizations. It was encouraging to see one person have the convition that he can make a difference through something as simple as documenting graffiti.
I wish I could have talked to him longer, but I was kind of in a rush. I couldn't really make out his last words but I think he said, "Peace in the hood."