Lego is my puppy and she always shall be

Tonight my family made one of the hardest decisions of our lives, to put our dog Lego down. She was born on Saint Patricks day in 1993 along with her 13 brothers and sisters. My Grandma's dog, Java had just had her first litter of puppies, 14 in all, (and one died directly after birth). Lego always stood out in the group. She was always the first one to the food dish and the last one to leave. I will never forget the smell of the puppy pen, with the barkdust in the garage, and the 14 little puppies just running all around you and jumping on you. Lego was different however, she was then called "Grey Baby" because she was one of two in the entire litter that had a grey patch on her stomach. We could Always identify her, not only because of the grey, but also because she would always be sleeping, she always loved to sleep. We have pictures of my sister and I holding a sleeping puppy in our arms, It is Lego. We brought her home from my grandmas house in the little VW bug, in a little towel that belonged to our grandma. We brought her home and she was a great little puppy, always hungry and always sleepy. She was so good with us when we were kids, never one bark or one yip. She loved to play tug-of-war with me and I would growl right back at her. One day she got into the basement and found the box of stuffed animals that my sister and I had decieded on giving to St. Vincents. She went through the whole box and found a big-bird stuffed animal (that had a voice box). She didn't rip it up or anything, instead she just carried it around, and packed it for months. Everyone made fun of her because her entire breding family were all hunting dogs, and so this was her way of saying that she was a "Bird Dog." She took it into the little plastic swiming pool that we had bought for her and it got soaked and disgusting, but she still would take it everywhere. I don't remeber what happened to it, I guess it finnally just fell apart.
She always loved going down to the Beach. She loved jumping in the waves and just being in the water, One time she went so far out to find the stick my dad had thrown that my mom started to cry, because she thought that Lego couldn't get back. She loved going swiming. We were on the Willamette once with my cousins from Alaska and were swiming off of a park, we took Lego and she got so worried about my sister and I. She would see us in the water and swim until she got us, which was quite far because we had lifejackets on. She would keep swiming with us until we grabed ahold of her collar and then she would drag us to shore, litterally. She did this the whole afternoon. When we moved two years ago, we knew it was going to be rough for not only us but for her. At our old house we lived on a corner, and she would always go down and sleep on the corner. We lived on Lincoln which is the main pedestrian road in SE portland, we easily had three joggers run by in just a few minutes. At first they didn't know what to do, I mean there is a dog laying in the sun in the middle of the sidewalk, and she's not moving. Some just went around her, others once they got to know her just steped over her. Everyone learned her name and she became the mascot of the neighborhood. She was friends with everydog in range and she loved every person that walked by. When we moved she lost all that, although she had a bigger yard to play in, she wasn't as young as she used to be and she spent more time sleeping in the back then out in the yard. A few months ago we noticed that her eyes were starting to get white and blurry, and then she would occasionally would have accedents in the house, something she had never done, even when she was a puppy. In the past week her situation has become worse, and now she can barely stand to go outside and go to the bathroom. I have never lived without having a dog, even before Lego we had Centari and Sebaka. To try to describe my sadness would not even begin to say what I am feeling. I have known Lego longer then anyone else besideds my family. She is leaving a huge blank spot in the middle of our family now, and we will miss her so much. Tonight is her last night. Goodnight Lego, We love you.

Some of my favorite quotes

~education does not equal intelligence

~One is certain of nothing but the truth of one's own emotions. -EM Forester

~How can you hear your soul if everyone is talking? -Issac in Mary Doria Russell's "Children of God"

~Perhaps some journeys were never meant to end. -William Shatner in "The Return"

~Rain falls on everyone. Lighting strikes some. I'm glad im not wearing armor! -Kajpin in "Children of God"

~Life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone.

~Why do people kill people for killing people to show them that killing people is wrong?

~Serenity is not peace from the storm, it is peace within it."

~What is history, but a fabel agreed upon? -Napoleon

~If you can't say anything nice, You must be talking to a cat.

~The mind knows only what lies near the heart

~Things you remember best, aren't things.

~Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom

~Go ahead and be as sexy as you can. (one of my fortune cookies! That was wierd!)

~All I did was tell the truth and everyone laughed. -Mark Twain

~A man who fears nothing, loves nothing. If you don't love anything what joy is there in your life?

~Things without all remedy should be without regard: what is done is done. -Lady Macbeth

~The less we know about someone, the easier we find it to make a snap decision, to condemn or sneer or believe the worst. -Mary Doria Russell

~ Everything we thought we understood--that is what we were most wrong about. -Emilio Sandoz

~Nessisary? Is it nessisary for me to drink my own urine? No, but I do it anyways because it's steril and i like the taste. -Patches O'Holihan

~Don't try to be a great man...just be a man. Let History make it's own judgements. -Zepheren Cochrine

~Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

Insert A Creative Title Here

Ever get that feeling where you know you have just lost something? You don't know what it is or why you think its lost, but you just know you have lost something. Because I don't. I also don't have really random dreams, all the dreams that I remember I can put into context, either in the real world or the dream world. Basicly I was hoping for insperation to strike while I started typing because I just really wanted to post something, But I did not know what I wanted to post about. Haveing a really young blog sucks, especially when noone cares enough about you to comment. Here I am putting some of my best work on this Blog (okay I resurve my best work for the books that I will eventually write [more on that later]) and nobody seems to care enough, if half of this stuff was on gravy, which most of it was, it would have been sung with praises, that is if it had been typed in the olden days, when Gravy was a community blog where everyone could post whatever they wanted. I am unhappy to report that Gravy has fallen. It was once the best thing that could have happened to our group of friends, but as we have moved away Gravy has seemed to take a turn for the worst. No longer is it a place to just post about whatever one feels, despite how creative or inventive, or entertaining it is. Gravy has gotten High on its own success, it belives it is not worthy of the posts that I as well as others offer to it. This is not meant to insult the creators and administrators, only that people now feel that gravy has a "Greater Purpose," To update people on our lives, and if anyone hasn't noticed that can get quite boring after a while, as my post about homecoming obviously points out (IT IS CALLED IRONY PEOPLE). My problem, or rather the problem people have from me stems from their misunderstading of my posts. They are never meant to control or "spam" as some might call it, they are meant to be entertaining, if you do not find them entertaining then simply don't read them, it is not difficult. People take my posts to seriously, they take them as they are titled, which in some instances may be true for example the previous two, however the vast majority is meant to entertain, somthing that Gravy no longer sponsers. I admit I do not try my hardest on blogs, for i say, "whats the point in revising a post seven times?" I make a point in a means to entertain, and what do I get? Rejection. I am not surprised and I am not angry, I am mearly frustrated that people cannot appriciate a post for what it is, instead of trying to destroy the writers confidence. By all means critque the post, how else will a writer learn from his/her mistakes, but do not just say, "That was one of your shitiest posts ever!" That does no good, first it hurts the writer for you to use that language toward them (and yes it is toward them, because their writing is part of them, despite what you may think) . And second it does not help them to fix their writing in the future. The same is true with other things, if you belive someone is acting inappropriate, sure say so, but you cannot just say, "that was really stupid." You may not need to explain it, but just give suggestions on how to correct it in the future. Yeah, so perhaps inspiration did come after all.

The House of Bernarda Alba (a review)

Well I went to see our play called "The House of Bernarda Alba" tonight and to be completly honest I was disappointed. First of all let me be positive, the show had tremendous potential, and some of the characters were really really good actresses and portrayed their parts perfectly. The tech aspects were very well coordinated and the set was simple yet it was gave the illusion of a large house (which was the point).
However overall, the play could have been so much better. Firstly I did not agree with all of the casting choices, some of the daughters did not seem convincing for the characters and feeling they were trying to express. Althought they were on the right track they had not yet reached the point where they could convince the audience that they were those characters. Also there were times when the actressess just beceame completely out of character, like they would be in character for a full paragraph, then be out of it for just one sentence. Having not read the script myself I will admit that I do not know how much of what i saw was written in. The most distracting and strange parts were between scenes where there would normally be a blackout and a progression of time, instead the main characters did strange interpretive danceing to show the progression of time, which although was creative and perhaps entertaining it did not fit the story that they were trying to convey and at times it destroyed all the momentum and climax that the dialog was building to.

News from Home

Fort Clatsop Has Burned Down!

The fort that so many of us traveled to with our parents or for school has now burned to the ground. Built in 1955, the replica of the fort that Lewis and Clark built was destroyed 50 years after completed. Firefighters worked for hours Monday night trying to extenguish the flames but by the time the fire was out half of the 50 by 50 fort was comletely destroyed and the other half had irreversable dammage done to it. They authorities don't know what caused the fire and they are not ruling out arson. The fire was exactly 40 days from the Lewis and Clark Bicenntenial celebration, that was going to be held there, it is unclear where (or if) it will be moved. Park officials said that they will rebuild it as soon as they can. It is sad to think that the fort I had visited so many times is now gone, my aunt said today that she went there as a kid and now her kids will not be able too, perhaps another recreation, but it will never be the same.

Jesuit Theatre department:

The Forigner cast has been...cast.
Such actors include: Brooks Hosfieled, Drew Cotton, Alex Ward, Rachel Wojo, Sam Wason, Spencer Audet, and Ellen Nye. Tech has yet to start on the play, The tech crew is still doing introductions to the certain areas and they just went up to the grid for the first time. The Third Period Class is trying to convince Jeff that they should have a lightsaber duel on the grid sometime in the near future. And tap has already begun for 42nd street and my sister is attending weekly. In the words of the Simpsons, "tappa, tappa, tappa."

where will we be in 6000 C.E.?

I didn't mean for the title to rhyme but all the better. The title is basicly the question. See, I was reading my theology text about the Jewish faith (and I have now discovered that i am partly jewish, like five generations back) and the book was talking about Abraham. Abraham lived in about 2000 BCE (or BC) that was 4000 years ago. And, if anyone didn't already know, there was not much writing at that time if any at all. It makes me wonder; if we have stories and details about someone that was, 4000 years ago, what kind of information will people 4000 years from now have? Who will be remembered and will we be able to look down and watch the world unfold. It would be nice if Humanity keeps it together after our generation, and not destroy the planet or anything, cause heaven could be really boring then (sorry Jesus). What will be remembered about today?

I remember a movie that i watched years ago where, before entering heaven you had the choice of being reincarnated. For some people are just not ready for eternal bliss yet. So you can choose if you want to be reincarnated and who you want to be and where you want to be born and all of that. Of course you're memory is erased and so you have no memory of it when you return from earth. (the premise of the story is that this man is so anxious he forgits to get the shot to erase his memory, so he remembers his past life) ANYHOW, what if this was the case. why did all of us choose this certian point in time to be alive?

As I have done research for both religion and my story: Omega, I have discovered an unsettling fact. Most major religions, Hinduism, Buhdism, Islam, The ancient Mayans, as well as the tribes of Great Britain all forshadow an earthly demise. And all of those that had mathamatical capabilities somehow all point to a period of time between 2010 to 2015 CE (or AD)! Is this why we chose to be reincarnated at this time, so we can witness first hand the destruction of our planet through whatever means? I had this discussian with my theology professor who is so much like me its scary, and she also was questioning the same things as me.

Just something to ponder.

Homecoming Weekend

Thursday: I woke to the sound of my early alarm. Lion King tickets were being sold again. If anyone doesn’t know the Lion King is in Portland right now on the national tour. The week before I had gone early to get the cheep tickets for only $20. To my dismay the following week they quickly sold out, and I was pushed out the door with no ticket and no name on a waiting list. Well today would be different I woke up extra early and left so that I could insure my ticket. When I arrived at UP I met a ferocious crowd and just about everyone on campus had had the same idea as me, except I had to drive there instead of walk across campus. Once again I was kicked out, however I was placed 23rd on the waiting list. The day continued to Drama class where we performed the plays we had written. I wrote two although the assignment was only for one. The one that I submitted was about a daughter and her parents, she arrives late and is interrogated. Then she meets with her sister and they talk about really happened. It is discovered in the end that the daughter is a lesbian and the sister is joining a convent to become a nun, and their father is really against both of those. However the plot was not as important as the content. Each line of dialog is a question. There are no statements or exclamatories, only questions. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, if you would like to read it go ahead and tell me and ill e-mail it to you. I als wrote a play that is a section from Omega: Reborn the sequel to Omega which I will not hand out (sorry but it crashed and burned in class so you will have to wait for the books). I then proceeded to write my history paper that was due the next morning with no success, I ended up falling asleep with it incomplete and extremely rough.

Friday
I did not want to wake up. History paper was due in a few hours and I had only a really bad introduction written. Without the advantage of the dorm life, I was rudely awakened by my mother. I jumped out of bed and went to my laptop to work on my paper. I couldn’t hide it from my mom so I just told her that I was finishing my History Paper and that I would have to skip some of my English class. I left at 8:15 with a really bad paper printed on multi colored paper with blue ink (because we were out of paper and black ink). I drove up to the Morrison bridge like usual (where I was almost killed two weeks ago) and got onto the I5 freeway ramp. Now this usually takes about 30 seconds, today it took about 30 minutes. Rather then missing 20 minutes of my English class I missed all of it and barely made it on time for history. So that sucked. That night was the men’s big soccer game, I did not go. Rather I had signed up to go to OMSI to see “Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon.” The Bus was as you would expect nerdy guys and girls talking about their telescopes. I saw the movie and was overwhelmed, RIGHT UP MY ALLEY. I WANT TO GO TO THE MOON SO BADLEY NOW!

Saturday
I woke up and left for work. Sufficed to say that it was a not a good day. They were very restless and sometimes angry. It must have been the weather, for it was raining on and off all day. It is getting quite wet here in town (that was not a sexual comment in any way). I got back in my car at 6 to leave and I had three messages from three different girls trying to convince me to go to the homecoming dance. I decided to go home have dinner with the family and our friend Reed. Good coconut rice! Then I went to the dance, and can you say “lame” ? It was the stupidest thing I’ve attended sense the anti-rape thing they had in August. There was no good music, all either rap or like “clubin’ like we’re making dirty love to each other as we sidestep to the music and make ourselves look like we are fu*king whores.” I was really board. It ended at 1 and I went back to campus and because Mailing hall is an all girls dorm, I had to be out at 2, so that was stupid. I ended getting back home at 2:30 a half hour after my parents wanted me to be but whatever, they are driving me insane, it is so much worse then living with them during High School. But that day was kind of pointless

Sunday
Today I woke up at 11:45 to the sound of Flik calling my cell, reminding me that we had auditions for the one-acts today at one. So I had a quick blueberry bagel and two Krispy Kreams (mmm… So good) and was out the door. I showed up late because every spot in the parking lot was full because of the girls soccer game. I ended up parking on the opposite side of campus and running to auditions. I was 10 minutes late, but it was cool because there were only two other guys there. So we had auditions and the director wanted me to adlib an illicit story. Well not knowing what illicit means, I let the other two go up first, then I still hadn’t figured it out so I made up this story about being downtown at the bus mall and beating up a homeless guy and his girlfriend. It was really screwy. I read a monolog and about three scenes. The play is a one-act called “Lone Star” which is the name of the beer that the characters are drinking, it also takes place in Texas so that has something to do with it too. So with only 3 parts, and only 3 people auditioning I was cast into the play, I don’t know my role yet but the two cast lists will go up tomorrow and I’ll be able to tell you. Then I drive home and here I am now typing this on word so I don’t make as many mistakes as usual. I am now going to type my English paper on short stories because I learned my lesson, Don’t wait until the morning that the paper is due to write it.

Senior Year

some of my favorite parts of senior year:

-Driving to school (I can drive whoo hu!)
-Driving my sister to school (damn driving sucks)
-Auditioning for my first play (spitfire grill) and getting called back
-Creation of mmmgravy
-getting kicked off mmmgravy
-Creation of my spin-off blog that faded away too quickly
- November Men's Encounter
- Father Kolvanback comming and being a Eucaristic minister
- Auditoning for one-acts
-Auditioning for Dead Man Walking, getting in, then haveing to wait a month before they told us the roles
-Continuing Omega and creating Omega Zero, then The Omega Directive (damn copyright laws)
- Mr. Higgins 5th period class (enough said)
- Everyone applying to college except me and freakin out!
- The only thing everyone is talking about it college (can you say annoying?)
- droping Spanish at the semester
- failing math tests and the increase of my testing anxiety
- begining to feel the symptoms of Senioritus
- Performing on stage for the first time in the most mind-blowing plays ever (people cried a lot)
- having my talepipe on my car fly off on the way to school
- The Donald Ray Wallace Posters and the massive outcry of injustice
- Sister Helen Prejean comeing to school and then to rehersal
- Submiting a play for the playwriting festival
- Directing the playfest, amazing!
- being wait-listed to UP (the only place I applied) freakin out again!
- Spring Soccer hell yeah
- Senior Silent Retreat (14 hours, 5 min, and 23 sec)
- Graduation
- Graduation Party
- goodbye

Adventure Golf

So I was watching OPB a few weeks back and I see this preview: "Next on OPB: [and it shows all these african animals on a sufari and very plesent them you hear a "FOUR!" and a golf ball comes wizzing by the elephant." This was my first introduction to ADVENTURE GOLF. Of course this interested me immediatly, "what the hell is a guy doing hitting a golfball at an Elephant!" So i watched the show. It follows these two guys, one Autrailan and the other British around the world showing people the different and diverse places to golf. The first one was on the African Savanah. There are actually elephants and antelope and crocadiles, and wierd bird things mieandering and frolicing around the different holes. Like on the 8th green there were a herd of Impalas grazing. The Austrailan guy whacks the ball right into the middle of them and says, "Oh mui! I just hit 'et in 'da mittle o' dose Impalas 'dere! I 'ink it mought be safer to take a drop!" it was the funiest f-ing thing I had heard in a long time. Then there is a river going down the middle of the course, which wouldn't have been bad except that they had to cross three seperate times accross crocidile infested waters! There were actully crocidile crawling up onto the green and the two guys just decided to take 2 below par, because they didn't want to be attacked. But that wasnt the end of it. It continued and they had an interview with the owner of the golf course, and he said that a few days prior "a laddie had been trampled by a stampeed of elephants." He said it so casually. This lady actually had died and it was just another day for him. The two guys looked at the owener when he said this and it did a little screching sound like a car coming to a stop, with the crickets in the background, yeah i know youve seen "the simple life." So when everyone comes back for christmas break i suggest that first; we learn how to play golf, second learn you to stun a rampaging elephant, and third fly to africa and play some Extreme Adventure Golf!

Why does Science Fiction have such a bad rep?

I don’t understand it. No matter where I go, no matter what I do, I always seem to make enemies. It is hard enough to make new friends at college, but then to be immediately stereotyped and shoved away…that just hurts.

People ask me, “So, what’s your major?” And I always have to respond that I am undeclared and am unsure of what field I want to go into. They are usually really nice and want to help so they ask, “Well what do you like to do?” I respond that I like to write, and immediately they get excited. They envision Shakespeare, Mark Twain, and great poets such as Yates and Hemmingway. They then are eager to ask the next question, “What do you write?” And I respond that I am writing a science fiction novel. There hearts sink. Science fiction? How awful, how horrible, what kind of person writes science fiction?

I am immediately stereotyped as a weird crazy guy that is nerdy and has no life (and you probably all believe the same thing, sadly enough, after all I don’t write comedy like Ken, or write about weather disasters like A, or just come up with hilarious comments like Ben, or write about drunk friends like everyone now-a-days). But I am so much more then that and people are so ignorant and weirded out that I might have something truly creative and unique that they run away and treat me like a nobody. I have actually been told that people from Jesuit have contacted my friends here and talked crap about me, perhaps even people here on this Blog! And that kills me! When I tell people about myself I trust them and I believe that they will return the trust and respect that I give them. But no I am treated with disdain and given a strange look, by those that have not even taken the chance to get to know me. People accept outside views of people they don't even know and accept things that are said with no knowledge to back the statements up.

I did not want this to be a “poor me” post, I’m sorry about that. The real question I want answered Is why does science fiction have such a negative reputation, you tell someone that you like science fiction and you are labeled. As I was doing my Senior Project on SF I was shown a great understanding and acceptance of science fiction, but here at UP, for some reason it is looked down upon. I believe that it is because people don’t understand it, and people fear the things they don’t understand. Take Star Wars or Star Trek for example, why do people dislike ST over SW? Its because they havn’t given it a chance. The vast majority of those that hate Star Trek are those that have never even seen an episode. Just like a food, you can say you hate it all you want but if you have never tried it, how would you know? The same is true with people, if you don’t get to know someone you won’t understand them, because you haven’t even given them a chance. I just hope and pray that all of you are more open minded then some of the people I have come across.