Why I'm Voting Yes on Proposition 19

For starters, here's the text on Proposition 19 - be informed.

One of the biggest arguments I hear against prop 19 is that it isn't written well enough. And my response is that at least it's a start. I think that the legalization of marijuana will happen someday in the future, so why not start now? By starting now, we can fix things as we go along. By waiting, we're just going to be putting off the unavoidable.

Proposition 19 is a hot topic in Humboldt County right now due to the large population of growers (most of whom are voting no). Many people are under the false belief that our economy will collapse and Humboldt County will be left in shambles if prop 19 passes. But how backwards of an idea is that?! This county has had to deal with the fall of the timber industry and the fishing industry, but guess what!? We're still here! I think that we are a smart and innovative group of people who will manage to survive if prop 19 passes.

Vote No on Prop 19 lists Ten Reasons to Vote No and How Prop 19 Will Affect Me both of which are filled with half truths and scare tactics. The Ten Reasons alone is so ridiculously wrong that I only commented on the first two; this post would be a lot longer than it already will be if I try to cover all 10.

1. "Proposition 19 isn’t really legalization. It only allows possession of up to one ounce of cannabis. Under current California law, an ounce or less of pot is a simple civil infraction — you CAN’T be arrested, you DON’T go to court, and you WON’T get a criminal record. Prop 19 doesn’t make any improvements to decriminalization or prop 215."

Have you read the proposition?? First line: "This act shall be known as the 'Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010.'" It's not called the "Carry Around As Much Pot As You Want And Not Get In Trouble Act." And what's the big deal if it isn't any more lenient than 215, it's not any harsher.

2. Prop 19 creates several new cannabis related crimes with extremely severe penalties. Don’t pass a joint to a 17 year old, you will be looking at a max of 7 years in state prison, seriously.

Well, yeah there are going to be new cannabis related crimes; I would hope that crimes are outlined when you have regulation. That's what regulation is. To regulate: to control or direct according to rule or law. In order to regulate something, there have to be laws in place that you can go off of. Additionally, what is it that makes weed so friendly? Furnishing a minor with alcohol can result with the following consequences: For the misdemeanor conviction of providing alcohol to a minor, the adult can be sentenced to community service
and fines of up to $1,000, even on a first offense. Worse, the adult can be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, even if the minor is your own child, and will face up to a year in jail, five years probation and a $2,500 fine. And by the way, if you actually read the proposition, you'd learn that it's a maximum of 7 year for a minor under the age of 14 and only a max of 5 years for a 17 year old, seriously.

Just think about alcohol and tobacco laws. Now apply those laws to marijuana. Now everything you just said kind of sounds silly. You can't drink alcohol in public, you can't smoke pot in public. You can't smoke cigarettes around kids, so why should you be able to smoke weed around them?

I think that this is my favorite point that they make:

"Do you rent your home? Prop 19 will only allow you to grow cannabis if you have permission from your landlord. Due to the risks involved, many (if not most) California landlords do not allow it. How is this legalization?"

My questions is, HOW DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL!? Why should it be okay to perform a hazardous activity within and often modify the structure of someone else's house without getting their permission first? So what you're saying is that proposition 19 will make it illegal to do what you're already doing illegally. Aaaand that makes sense how? Once again they use the term "legalization", which isn't necessarily what this proposition is about. Like I said before, the proposition is to regulate, control and tax pot, not make it a complete free for all. Thinking from a business standpoint, my guess is that some landlords might actually be okay with this and they'll just charge more for rent based on whether or not you choose to grow marijuana - the same way that if you have extra people living with you they'll charge more.

And B T Dubs, growing in rental houses is what has led to me having to pay exorbitant rent and have to fear that I'll come home to a pile of ashes because my weed-growing neighbor burnt our duplex down. Although the NY Times said that 1 in 5 homes in Arcata are grow houses and the LA Times said that 1,000 in 7,500 homes in Arcata are grow houses, I do understand that these are not concrete numbers and are probably in fact high. But if you figure that 1 in 10 or even 1 in 20 homes are used as grow houses, that's still a huge problem when it comes to being able to find affordable, safe housing!

This is just my opinion and everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I really think that it's important to look at the facts first and I tried to do that in a fairly brief manner. Have you noticed that a majority of the people who will be voting no in Humboldt County are weed growers? Not really a coincidence.

Song of the Day 15

I never stopped :)

San Francisco Giants, World Series Champions

Those have to be the best 6 words I can imagine right now. I still can't stop smiling. They did it! My San Francisco Giants are freaking WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS! They had an amazing season and I am so glad that they were able to top it off with the first World Series win for the Giants in 56 years when the Giants were still in New York. Well done boys, well done.

Photo from the San Francisco Chronicle

2010 World Series Game 1

The San Francisco Giants in the WORLD SERIES!?!? I had to go.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize that tickets were already being sold and I thought that I had missed my chance. The games were immediately sold out and tickets were selling for an arm and a leg on StubHub, Ebay and craigslist. Buy boy did I luck out! My aunt Patty and uncle Steve had 2 tickets to the first game in the World Series and the sixth game in the World Series. Because they already had plans during the first game and they had tickets for the sixth game, they asked me if I wanted to go to game 1 with their friend, Pauline. Is that even a question? The next morning, I was on my way to San Francisco.

The drive down was a breeze and my giddiness kept me awake after only getting a few hours of sleep the night before. And then when I was a mile from my family's house, I got a flat tire. Awesome. NOT. I had less than an hour before Pauline was going to pick me up. I managed to pull over in a gully (barely any cellphone reception) and away from any street signs, so I could barely call AAA and had no idea where I was. Additionally, I had 7 cases of beer in my trunk (I was going to pour at a CCOF event in San Francisco that weekend) that had to be taken out and put on the side of the road so the AAA guy could get my spare. Fortunately, after a few calls to back and forth to get him to the right place, the AAA guy showed up in less than 10 minutes. I had just enough time to drive to Patty and Steve's, lug my stuff to my room upstairs, change into my Giants gear and my new orange kicks before Pauline came to pick me up.

Being on the train and arriving to the stadium was a surreal experience. There were so many people and they all had orange and black on. I was just blown away. Pauline must've thought I was an idiot because all I could say was "WOW!", "Holy Moly!" and "This is so ridiculous!"

The Star Spangled Banner was sung by John Legend, they brought the biggest flag I'd ever seen onto the field when they announced the opening line ups, and Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, Monte Irvin, Gaylord Perry and Juan Marichal were brought onto the field - the crowd was amped up and we were ready to PLAY BALL!

The game was everything I could've hoped for and more. It had twists and turns and the Giants ultimately won; it was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity :)

P.S. Can you find me?

2010 NLCS Game 4

I had the extreme pleasure of attending NLCS game 4 in San Francisco (Giants vs. Phillies) on 10/20. I had 2 standing room only tickets for the game, but my aunt Patty invited me and my dad to the very same game. This meant that me, my mom, my dad and Grant could all go, we would just switch tickets halfway through the game - standing room only tickets for 1/2 the game and awesome seats for the other half.

Here is the pre-game show that aired on Comcast Sports Net. I spent 3 hours the night before making 2 signs and both of them made it on the air! You can see my sign throughout the video and an close up shot from 3:40-4:00. My mom also got a close up :)


You can't get access to the club level seating without a club level ticket. To get around this, my mom, dad, aunt and uncle took their tickets up to the club level and my dad walked back with his ticket and two other tickets. This at least got us to the club level with the standing room only tickets. Even better, the people who had seats next to my family had two empty seats!! AANNNNDDD...they were willing to let us sit there!

It was definitely the most exciting game that I've ever been to! It was such an amazing experience to be surrounded by over 43,000 other fans who were all cheering their hearts out.

I showed my team spirit to the max! I wore my new Buster Posey jersey, my orange and black baseball bead necklace and a new Giants baseball cap that I bought at the game. I also brought my strikeout orange K and my foam finger.

And to top it all off, I had my awesome handmade signs:


Oh, and by the way, they won :)
One more win and we're on to the World Series.

HSB 2010 Pictures

I've uploaded some pictures onto Facebook. Here are a few of my favorites:

David Rawlings & Gillian Welch

Conor Oberst

Bulldog at Conor Oberst

Tie dye at Elvis Costello

Avett Brothers Cellist

HSB 2010 Recap

Saturday 10/2
Dry Branch Fire Squad
Carolina Chocolate Drops
Fountains of Wayne
Conor Oberst
David Grisman Quintet
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings

Sunday 10/3
Hazel Dickens - so old she doesn't even have a website!
Umphrey's McGee
Randy Newman
Elvis Costello and the Sugarcanes
Yonder Mountain String Band
The Avett Brothers

It. was. AWESOME!

Pictures to come soon, I got some awesome ones. At both Gillian Welch and the Avett Brothers, the security people let me go up to the very front of the stage to take pictures :)

Current rank: Intermediate 1

National Geographic is currently conducting a study titled Field Expedition: Mongolia. The study "aims to utilize modern non-invasive tools in the search for the tomb of Genghis Khan, thus shedding light on Mongolia's rich historical heritage and enabling conservation and education of this rapidly changing landscape." Blah, blah, blah. Why does this matter? Because you get to help and feel like an Indiana Jones-type archeologist!

Personally, I think that this is a fabulous idea! National Geographic is looking for Genghis Khan's tomb and seeing that expeditions are costly and that Mongolia is a large place to be looking for a small thing, they're using other people to do the grunt work for them. Sure, you're spending your time and energy doing National Geographic's work for them for no pay, but there's still a reward. I see it as a puzzle game or an I Spy...or somethingtodoatworkwhenyouareboredandnobodyislooking :)

The way that it works is that you go through satellite images one at a time and mark interesting landmarks (road, river, modern structure, ancient structure or other). While amateur, at-home-explorers might not be that accurate, the thousands of them combined are. This means that once a few thousand people have consistently marked something as a point of interest, the researchers can go out in the field and check it out. This saves valuable time and money. I suggest you give it a try.



On another note, if you're into using your resources to help with research (without pay), there are studies that just need to use your computer. All you do is download their software and they use your computer (when you're not using it of course) to process data. This allows the often under-funded projects to have the ability to conduct their work without requiring the costs of owning and running the expensive machinery.

I originally only knew about SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence), but from their website I learned about climateprediction.net which is trying to predict the Earth's climate up until 2100, Rosetta@home which is determining the three dimensional shapes of proteins and World Community Grid which is attempting to identify drugs that can combat the Dengue, Hepatitis C, West Nile, and Yellow Fever viruses.

Personally, I don't leave my computer on while I'm not using it, but if you do, I'd suggest helping out one of these groups. If nothing else, you should become an online explorer and help out National Geographic. :)

Money, money, money

First there's this lady. Now this guy wins two multi-million dollar lotteries on scratchers within 3 months of each other. Gahhh! When is it my turn?!

Baby Animals!!!

AAAaaWWWWWwwwWW!!! I love baby animals. This website is amazing :)

And now I will continue to post my favorites:

Baby Cotton-Top Tamarin

Columbia Basin Pygmy Rabbit - the world's smallest rabbit!

Pygmy Hippo - so ugly that it's cute! It only grows to be 3 feet tall

Prairie Dogs

Meerkat - O.M.G!

Ring-tail Lemur

I WANT THEM ALLLLLLL! :)

Two for Tuesday

Tuesday nights are buy one 14" pizza, get one free at Big Pete's! Mmmm :)

This was a regular occurrence when Grant, Sean and Jenny and I were watching Lost on DVD. Grant and I have also been going for the past few weeks for the Giants games (they have cable, we don't).

There's enough pizza for us to have dinner and then for each of us to have lunch for the next couple days. And it only comes to $20. Twenty bucks for two tasty pizzas is in my price range :) I suggest the Chicken Parmigiana with mushrooms and olives added and the Maui Wowie. Deeeeelicious!

Giants Post-season

As stated in an earlier post, I entered into the drawing for the chance to buy Giants post-season tickets.

I was drawn and so was Rebecca and Grant. To ensure that we would get tickets, I went over to my mom's and at 2pm sharp (when ticket sales started) the three of us got on three different computers using the three different codes and tried buying tickets for three different games. By the time we got on they were all sold out. There were a few tickets in the nosebleeds and that was it. Within 10 minutes, the tickets were sold out with the exception of a few singles seats here and there.

I am so, so, so disappointed! :( The season ticket holders and then group ticket sales both had a chance to purchase tickets before the drawing winners did. I looked on eBay last night and it looks like what happened is that people snatched up a ton of tickets just to make a profit. Meanwhile, my only wish is that I can see the Giants play in the division series for my birthday and I don't get to go.

I'm going to keep looking on eBay and craigslist, though. I might even try to get some scalped tickets - I want to go SOOOOOOOO bad!

I will also cross my fingers that the Giants make it to the league series or even the world series and that my name gets drawn again to buy tickets. If that happens, I will buy nosebleeds if I have to, I MUST be there.

Until then I'll keep my fingers crossed.

LEARNING!

Yesterday I learned that prodigy and prodigal are not at all the same.
From Merriam-Webster:

Prodigy:
1
a : a portentous event : omen
b : something extraordinary or inexplicable
2
a : an extraordinary, marvelous, or unusual accomplishment, deed, or event
b : a highly talented child or youth

Prodigal:
1
: characterized by profuse or wasteful expenditure : lavish
2
: recklessly spendthrift
3
: yielding abundantly : luxuriant —often used with of

Movies Galore :)

Friday 9/17:
Leap Year
Nacho Libre
When In Rome

Saturday 9/18:
Match Point
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Remember Me
Old School
Bruno
Stealing Harvard
My Best Friend's Girl
Child's Play 2

Sunday 9/19:
Easy A

Giant Leap for Frogkind

Awesome picture. Kind of looks like Zach Galifianakis :)

I found this photo on the LA Times. It was taken on "May 24, 1981 during the annual International Jumping Frog Jubilee. Denny Matasci cheers on his frog, E. Davey Croakett, in what clearly is a giant leap for frogkind. Sadly, Davey’s jump fell short of victory."

Holy Mother of Pearl

Speaking of Andre the Giant, I remember watching a tv show on Andre the Giant a long time ago. I don't know what channel I watched it on or what it was called, but one thing stuck out in my mind, that guy could drink!

Out of curiosity (and boredom) I Googled "how much could Andre the Giant drink?" And sure enough,I found what I was looking for. The Greatest Drunk On Earth by Richard English chronicles the life and drinking habits of Andre the Giant.
Here are some facts that I learned:

-He would drink 30 beers as a "warm-up" before the match
-Before one match, he drank 16 bottles of plum wine in 4 hours
-He drank 40 gin and tonics one night AFTER last call had already been announced
-And the kicker? He drank 119 beers in 6 hours. That's a beer every 3 minutes, for 6 hours straight.

Nom nom nom!

Birthday cake french toast.

When I looked at the picture at first, I thought it was french toast topped with frosting and sprinkles. However, once I read the recipe, I realized that it was something so much greater...
It's an actual slice of birthday cake fried, frosting and all, like french toast. O. M. G.

I must make this.

6 to 8 slices leftover birthday cake, chilled in the refrigerator overnight
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk or light cream
3 tablespoons sugar
Dash of cinnamon or other spices, to taste
2 to 4 tablespoons butter, for frying
Confectioners' sugar glaze or sprinkles, to garnish

1. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, milk or cream, sugar, and any spices you'd like to add, until the mixture is fully combined and lightly frothy on the edges.

2. Remove your cake from the refrigerator. It will work if you haven't chilled your cake too, but chilling it overnight keeps the frosting from melting all over when you pan fry the cake. Slice the cake into thick slices.

3. Put 2 to 4 tablespoons of butter into your frying pan. Heat the burner to medium-high, and let the butter melt. Once it is lightly bubbling, you're ready to start frying your cake slices.

4. Dip each cake slice in your egg mixture, coating it fully on both sides (go ahead and submerge each slice). Place the dipped slice directly in the frying pan; depending on the size of your pan, add 2 or 3 slices at one time.

5. Let each slice fry for a minute or so, until it is lightly coming up on the sides (you can lift a side gently with a spatula to see if it is browning). Turn over and repeat on the opposite side, being sure to turn gently so that you don't let the frosting smear across the pan.

6. Remove from the pan and transfer to a serving platter or directly to plates. Repeat with the remaining slices until you've finished them all. If desired, top with a confectioners' sugar glaze and sprinkles. Serve immediately.

P.S. I want a Lagunitas Brown Shugga' to go with it.(see first pairing)

BahaHahA!

The title of this article is "Hulk Hogan ready to wed after leaving hospital"

In my mind I'm thinking, "Dang! What could've put Hulk Hogan in the hospital?"

-Maybe he was gored while trying to wrestle a bison
-Maybe he strained his muscles when he tried to lift a car off a baby
-Maybe he got jumped by a gang and got all knifed up when he was fighting them off

I'm going through these crazy-awesome scenarios of what could do the Hulk enough harm to put him in the hospital, when I read a little further into the article and saw this:

"The celebrity wrestler has been battling 'excruciating back pain' after injuring himself while picking seashells last weekend"

Picking seashells!?!? This is the guy who beat Andre-the fucking-GIANT in WrestleMania III and he went to the hospital because he hurt his back while picking seashells?!?

What is this world coming to?

I Heart My Giants :)

In order to buy tickets for a Giants post-season game, you have to enter into a drawing. The winners of the drawing have the chance to purchase up to 4 tickets for one of the games.

Of course, I've already entered. By entering, you have the opportunity to win the chance to buy tickets for the National League Division Series, the National League Championship Series and the World Series. The deadline to be eligible for the Division Series is on 9/14, so enter ASAP. Here's the link.

Even if you have no desire to go to the game, please register anyways and if you win, you can let me buy the tickets! :) Pretty please? I want to go really, Really, REALLY badly!

Go Giants!

Cardio Beast

Yesterday I went to the gym and did almost 40 minutes of cardio. When I got home, I was bored and still had more energy so I went on a run! I realize that I was pretty slow, but to my credit I did do a fair amount of cardio before running. I ran/jogged the first 1.10 miles in 11:10 minutes.

Started: Sep 9, 2010 6:32:17 PM
Run Time: 18:00
Stopped Time: 0:00
Distance: 1.65 miles
Average: 10:55 /mile
Fastest Pace: 9:12 /mile

And the accompanying map.

Random Movie

www.imdb.com/random/title

I got Idiocracy...good movie.

What did you get?

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Dukehealth.org

I just filled out a survey on picky eaters for a Duke University food study.

So there, my picky eating is actually good for something :)


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Sad face

Who cheats at Mario Kart online?! That's just poor taste.

Now I'm going to bed angry.


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Location:H St,Arcata,United States

The guy I work with

has audibly burped three times in the last hour and hasn't said "excuse me" once.

Overrated

TLC

No, not the R&B group whose "Waterfalls" ranked #8 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the '90s. I'm talking about the television network, also known as The Learning Channel.

The Learning Channel. With a name like that you'd think that you would learn something...WRONG! Granted, there are a few shows on TLC that I watch and actually take something away from. I feel that I learned something in watching What Not To Wear, Trading Spaces, Say Yes to the Dress (kind of but not really), and Flowers Uncut. On the other hand - okay, now I'm going to make assumptions (and yes, I know what assuming does) since I haven't actually seen these programs - there are shows like 19 Kids and Counting, John & Kate Plus 8, and Toddlers & Tiaras. The only thing I could imagine learning from these shows is to not have a million kids, not be a crazy wife and not make my kid to be a crazy pageant kid. Duh.

But wait, it gets better. TLC is bring us two new shows: Sister Wives and Freaky Eaters. My first thought is that they are titles for B-grade horror movies. But no. They are actually television programs chronicling people and events that TLC thinks the American public should learn about.

Sister Wives: A real life Big Love. Now, Big Love is a show that I really do want to watch; however, I don't want to learn about the lives of a polygamist husband, his three wives and his many children.

Freaky Eaters: Shows people that eating only pizza is equivalent to 5 large jars of lard and that eating too much sugar will kill you.

It seems like TLC is just trying to out-do itself. As viewers, we are no longer learning anything useful. We're learning that "hey, some people are worse off than me"! What's next TLC?

My prediction is a mash-up of everything titled "The Craziest People We Could Find": the story of the guy who's his own grandpa, whose wife gave birth to nondecaplets (19 kids at once - take that Duggar family), one of which was a narwhal who went on to win beauty pageants and used the money to start a wedding planning company that specializes in movie-themed weddings for motorcycle-riding paraplegics. Boom.

Awkward Family Pet Photos

This is awesome!


Now I want to dig up some of the old pictures of me and my pets! I have some good ones :)

Genius!

As Gawker says, "anything can seem enthralling when paired with symphonic music and a British narrator."

Run, run, runny run

Yesterday I went for a run - okay, it was kind of slow and more like a jog - and used a GPS application for my iPhone. It actually encouraged me to run because I wanted to see how it worked. Here are the results:

Started: Aug 16, 2010 6:04:55 PM
Run Time: 13:50
Stopped Time: 0:00
Distance: 1.30 miles
Average: 10:40 /mile
Fastest Pace: 9:30 /mile

And here is the accompanying map. I think the map might be the coolest part! I might have to start running more often because it's kind of fun to get the results :)

Um, yes please!

I love to travel. I have not done nearly as much traveling as I would like to do, but it's always on my mind. Among the long list of places I'd like to go is Turkey. I was looking into it more and came across Cappadocia. It...looks...AWESOME! It looks so amazing and I want to go really badly!


Not only does Cappadocia have these ridiculous rock formations, but there cave dwellings carved into the rocks that are now shops, apartments or hotels.

Song of the Day 14

Bee tee dubs, I totally listened to this song at least 7 times on the drive down to SF on Friday. And then they totally played it at the Giants game!!!! Unfortunately it was the Rascal Flatts version, but it still rocked my socks.

I do not understand how one could not think that this song is amazing.

Aaaaaaand, I just learned that Tom Cochrane is Canadian. Who new Canadians could rock!? Okay, yeah, there's Rush, but that's for another song of the day.