I just sent a huge email to the VP of the corporation listing the reasons why we need to go green as a company. It's a full blown argument minimized into talking points and links to internet resources, but it still goes on for at least two pages (which is massive considering the 2 sentence company email average).

I've been researching the need, cost, and incentives for us to "go green" for quite a while now. I've read books, magazines, gone very partially organic, planted a container garden, and spent full days on the internet over this... and it's helped keep my mind off of my life.

My best friend/roommate/supervisor is all but completely out of my life, even though we went on vacation together less than two months ago. We still live together, but he no longer returns emails, phone calls, or feels the need to talk to me for any reason. Nothing happened, other than the definate end of his relationship to my other incredibly close friend, who has also completely cut me off because he felt I was my voice was "patronizing" when I assured him that I was still his friend and wanted the best for him. I sure know how to pick 'em. My best guess is that my best friend is depressed, but is trying to fight it by shoving every negative emotion into the small compartment of his life that is represented by me, and ignoring it until the hurt goes away... or I go away.

I know this may be the healthiest way for him to deal with it, but I hate being the one who has to bear the burden of the consequences.

After finally casting my ballot for a specific Democrat candidate in the presidential election, I feel I've been following most of the arguements, controversies, and all around 'hoopla' pretty well for the past several months.

Although I'm adverse to anyone who will mimick President Bush's approach to democracy and to interpreting the Constitution, I am starting to believe Democrats do not deserve the opportunity to pick one of their own to be the new president. You'd think after eight years of being outraged, we'd have our act together...

We have selective memories, which allow us to replay every word fumbled from the mouth of the current president, but  we mentally block the moments when one of our strongest candidates for the Democratic party tells blatant lies and changes personality masks as often as female celebrities change outfits.

I understand that the race is close, but it's not close enough for her to actually win, without getting the superdelegates to go against the will of the people, which will disillusion voters in November, thus leading the way for Republicans once again. The longer she holds on to the campaign trail, the more I feel we should be bracing ourselves for the moment at the DNC when Obama's name is announced as the nominee and Hillary goes up to accept the award. Zoolander anyone?

As we all stand around scratching our heads about why Hillary can't accept the fact that now is not her time, I think we're overlooking a couple of monumental facts: Hillary is no stranger to not getting her way and usually has a plan for rising up from the ashes. I think she's going to do what she can to botch November for the Democrats and come back in four years to remind us that she tried to warn us that Obama couldn't beat McCain, forgive us for doubting her, and swoop in to save us from another four years of Republican rule.

I think she's a brilliant woman and has cleared quite a path for future women everywhere, but she's crossed too many moral lines to be allowed into the Promised Land.

I just finished reading the book "Three Cups of Tea", by Greg Mortenson, and it may have changed my life. If nothing else, it's changed my mind, which is good enough for me.

The story details the events of how a failed climb of the mountain K2 ended up leading Greg Mortenson to his destiny: to promote peace in the countries of Pakistan and Afghanistan through building schools, women's vocational centers, clean water projects, and hostels for students on scholarship.

Greg was a fairly normal guy, if you discount the fact that he lived in his car to save money from his nursing job to support his climbing addiction, but as the son of two missionaries in Tanzania, he was raised to spot a need and to fill it himself. When he wandered into the Pakistani village of Korphe, after getting lost from his porter for the second time, the villagers took him in and showed him around. When he asked to see their school, they solemnly took him to a frostcovered mountain ledge where little boys and 4 girls drew their multiplication tables in the mud with sticks. They were avidly studying despite the fact that they didn't have a teacher. Shocked, Greg promised them that he would one day return to the village and build them a school. One year later, after scrimping and saving and finding a donor, he was able to do just that-- and it changed his life forever.

The experiences detailed in the book are amazing and mind-blowing, and the people he meets during his travels and work are both heart-warming and scary. He was in Pakistan during 9/11, had tea with the Taliban, and ended up building schools in Afghanistan with a general who is known for loving his people, but tearing apart his enemies with the help of two jeeps.

When I finally got to the parts of the book that mirrored time I could recognize and events I knew about, I became upset. It's one thing to hear the promises of our government, see our rationality, and another thing to see the US and our actions from the other side.

I doubt I could ever be mistaken for a supporter of Bush, but I did happen to agree with the Afghanistan war. After all, we knew Osama bin Laden was in that country and there was a massive amount of Taliban fighters there. Even the people of Afghanistan wanted us there. However, I also thought we took care of them, but for the second time (the first time occurring after the war when we helped the Afghanis expel the Soviets), we completely forgot all of our promises. We promised them an amazing amount of money to help them get back on their feet, but only a quarter of that promise actually made it over there. The excuse? "They don't have a central banking program. We can't wire the money over there," said one of the members of Congress responsible for sending the money to them. Nevermind the fact that we flew bags of money into Afghanistan to bribe warlords into helping us during the fight. We also took around $634 million of the little bit of money that got sent to the country and moved it over to Iraq in preparation for the war over there.

Not to mention the actual war in Iraq.... can anyone PLEASE tell me why we're over there? Because I'd really like to know. I was a huge supporter of Bush  back at the beginning of the Iraqi war, but even then, our sudden switch to Iraq didn't really seem right. I never saw the correlation between Iraq and Osama bin Laden. I heard about WMD's, but we never found any. I know he was a dictator and needed to be held accountable for his actions, but so do a lot of other world dictators, some worse than Saddam, as well as countries where combatants are causing mass genocide even as we speak. But we decided to bomb Iraq, where it wasn't abnormal at all for someone to live a long and fruitful life, and we killed women and children, thus uniting 200 million Muslims against the US, when we would have had a large majority of supporters. I started to turn against Bush when I read the book "Bush at War", by Bob Woodward, in search of what happened to turn our attention to them, and found the part in the aftermath of 9/11 when Bush repeatedly asks his staff if there could be a connection between Saddam and 9/11. Even though no one has anything to offer up in answer to his question, Bush continues to ask about the connection and even tells them to find one. Despite the fact that we knew Osama was in Afghanistan, along with a large majority of the people responsible for the attacks, before the war in Afghanistan, Rumsfeld complained about the bad targets in that country and suggested striking Iraq instead. It turns out that most of our intelligence came from a man that the CIA had long since stopped believing because of his strong ties to Iran, the country profiting the most from the Iraqi War.

And on top of all of this, we've avenged the deaths of over 3,000 people from 9/11 with the deaths of over 4,000 soldiers in the war in Iraq alone. Despite the fact that 70% of Americans believe things aren't going well, and strong calls from the public to pull out of Iraq, VP Cheney sits there and answers the reporter who repeats this information to him and says, "So?", shrugs his shoulders, and snickers a little. Really?

Rumsfeld and friends have taken the liberty to declare the Geneva Convention null and void when dealing with Guantanamo prisoners and we're TORTURING them. Except, it's not torture because they haven't died or dealt with permanent mental or physical damage. Who cares about the fact that we "respect the Rule of Law", not the "Rule of Force"? Oh wait, a Democrat president said that, so obviously it doesn't matter.

Our president has allowed for wiretapping, created a Patriot Act, and manipulated the Constitution into whatever works for him and his personal values. He has made a mockery of us around the world, and we've helped, by either buying into his call to the required warped sense of patriotism or by sitting around complaining with little to no action. Benjamin Franklin once said (and this is incredibly paraphrased, as I don't remember it word for word), that those who give up their freedom out of a desire for security, deserve neither freedom nor security. So the people who continue to cite the need to protect ourselves against potential future attacks by allowing the government to take away even more of our freedoms will wake up to realize that they've made a serious mistake. And that time is now.

For all of us who are outraged and shocked about where the previous 8 years have taken us, let us not simply complain and be full of talk. The way we're infighting even now falls in line with what happens almost every time we get a chance to change something and fail. We need to stop worrying about lapel pins or crazy pastors and ridiculous claims of radical Muslim ties and do what we can to keep the next 4-8 years from being a repeat of the ones we just limped out of.

triathlon..

Last night I was in the bookstore searching for a book assigned by my VP for our weekly meetings when another book caught my eye. This book claimed that if I dedicated four hours a week to doing what the author told me to do, I'd be able to compete in a triathlon in just six weeks. Right.

With my incredible history of failure in the area of running or races screaming in the back of my mind, I thumbed through the book. Four hours a week isn't too much time, and I had just been cringing at my reflection as I walked into the bookstore only minutes before.

I had been abruptly shaken by the adventure tour in Puerto Vallarta as I'd always felt capable of doing anything I put my mind to and despite the horror of clothes shopping, lived in the basic denial of the facts-- I seriously needed to become more active. But even with the idea that I don't get around to exercising on a regular basis, I felt I got some activity from my job, where I lift heavy trays and run about the restaurant for hours on end. The truth remains: after getting through the Adventure Vallarta mountain course with flying colors, I hurried to the computers loaded with the photos of the days adventure only to discover that all but two of my pictures were shareable. Granted, I was wearing a bright turquoise shirt and bright orange boardshorts and was strapped in a harness, but the photos were awful.

Thus the reason I continued to search the book about triathlons despite the better judgement of my well-trained nay-sayer voice in the back of my head. The mere fact that I've devoured three books about traveling in the past week and a half and have started to consider trips to places I never thought I'd be interested in has shown me that I need a change and some excitement. Getting up and going to work every morning and then going home and sleeping is not how I want to live out the rest of my days. It seems like something as outrageous as a triathlon could be the very thing to shake things up for the better. If nothing else, I could lose some weight- and that is always good.

Despite my initial hesitancy, I bought the book and read 3/4 of it last night. I used to be a lifeguard and love swimming and actually still have my racing bike from when my family would do 50+mile bike rides in August heat. With a little training, I may feel confident enough to enter the Danskin Women's Triathlon in June and should be able to at least finish the race.

We'll see. :)

Puerto Vallarta

The gods smiled upon me and I made it through my short little trip to Puerto Vallarta with all my body parts in tact and no bout of food or water poisoning to speak of. In fact, besides the fact that my legs, feet, and ankles are more than twice their original size because of  a random horrible sunburn, I'm fine! The funny part about the sunburn is that I got it during the 40 minutes I sat on the beach almost fully clothed (but in shorts), writing in my journal, and waiting for my friends to show up so we could find a good part of the beach to actually sunbathe and play in the ocean. As it was early morning and wasn't actually hot out, I hadn't bothered to put sunscreen on and was just passing the time... until I realized my legs seemed to be a little red. As I spent the rest of the day covered by the ocean or towels or pants, I know my sunburn came from that little bit of time.. Weird! I hobbled slowly through the airports Monday, thankful I had my more comfortable Croc sandals to wear, since normal shoes and pants don't fit my larger than life shins and feet. Gross.

But anyway, between the nightlife, the great breakfasts with chilequillas, uber-fresh seafood, beautiful scenery and artwork, and wonderful people, I was never disappointed in the trip. Vallarta is a newer tourist town that is slowly getting the hang of their thriving tourist industry. Tourists who've been visiting for the past 20+ years mention the changes with sadness, although noting the convenience of various specific changes- like the fact that almost everyone takes dollars, not just pesos. The fact that there was a Starbucks every five blocks, a Hooters right next to the ever-popular Los Arcos (the center of the downtown nightlife), Office Depot, Home Depot, Carl's Jr, Pizza Hut, KFC, Dominoes Pizza, Chili's, and at least two Blockbusters in the small area I traversed during my time there, was a little surprising, but only slightly comical. The down side was that the natives now understood that they could increase their prices with little shock from us, and most of the food, beer, and taxi rides cost what I would have been charged here. It's all good, though, I was just happy to be away from the restaurant.

Besides hanging out with my dear friend that I haven't seen in several months, my moment of personal achievement came my first of the two full days I was there. We went on an Adventure Tour. There are a ton of canopy tours available in Vallarta and the surrounding towns, but this is the one I'll go on again if I ever get to go back. The adventures started right away, with us stepping into raft-like speedboats that were driven so wildly across the ever-so deep Banderas Bay, that I didn't even question the fact that I would soon be tossed backwards off of the bucking boat, but planned a way to throw myself so I wouldn't hit the propeller. Miraculously we all made it through just fine. Our boat drove into a mountainous cove and "docked" on the tiny beach at the head of it, which had a couple of cantina shacks straigh out of Gilligan's Island. The families who lived there played in a river they'd created by digging a snake-like valley out of the sand, creating a sort of harbor for their personal fishing boats at the end of it.

We were loaded into the backs of open-air, caravan-like trucks, complete with two benches on either side, a jumpseat attached to the back fold-up gate, and rubber straps hanging from the ceiling. Self-assured, we laughed and pushed our seatbelts aside, only to regret the move later as our driver forgot that we were in a massive vehicle making our way up winding mountain roads, rather than speeding crazily through downtown Mexico City in an armor-covered taxi. Holding on to the straps for dear life, and struggling to stay upright on our seats, we winced as we saw the sudden valley drop-offs only inches from us as we bounced around the road, weaving around approaching cars.

Although the truck stalled out a couple of times on various hills, we made it to our destination just fine- all of us just a little closer from forced intimacy as we'd continuously invaded each others' personal zones and laughing from the thrill of our second "adventure". The best was yet to come.

We were suited up in our harnesses and helmets and given bandannas to wear for the dust. Lorena was the tour guide who helped me the most out of the entire trip, but every single one of the tour guides were hilarious, trustworthy, and very knowledgable. There was no way I could have gotten through the next several hours without each one of them, especially Lorena, as she seemed to always be the guide with us when I needed the most assurance or help.

We were given a five minute tutorial on how to ride a donkey, were paired up with a certain donkey, climbed on, and started up one of the mountains of the Sierra Madres. My donkey was particularly stubborn, often pausing in the middle of ledge-less, steep, tiny, mountain trails that dropped straight off to nibble on plants or just stand there until Lorena, who happened to be riding in line behind me, would sing, whip, or yell at her to move. And she would snort from annoyance and move on. My time with Liluana (my donkey) ultimately stopped fifteen feet below the top of the mountain, when she refused to budge. Lorena again to the rescue! (her words, not mine), and Liluana was tugged up the mountain and I was helped off.

We were then given a 7 minute tutorial on how to do the zip lines, headed a little farther up the mountain and began zipping immediately. Thankfully Lorena was our first zip-line guide, although I think I would have been just as comfortable with any of the others. Our role in zipping here at the Adventures Vallarta tour was a little easier and a little harder than my role in zip-lining at the camp I once worked at, as (1) the camp zip-line may have only been 30 feet high, while this one was an average of 150 feet high, (2) the camp zip-line required me to drop straight off of the 30 feet ledge while this one only required me to lift up feet while in standing position (much easier, let me tell you), and (3) the Adventures Vallarta zip-line required me to have my incredibly gloved hand brushing the line above me so I would brake farther down the line, while we just rocked back and forth until naturally stopping at the camp zip-line. As terrified as I am of heights, I braked pre-maturely on almost every zip-line and even came to a stop too early and had to pull myself in twice. But I still enjoyed it.

About the time I got the hang of zipping and was no longer scared of it, they changed up our routine. We suddenly zipped into a little crowded ledge against a cliff side with no sides to hang on to, and were then clipped onto a zip line going almost straight down, with a waterfall in the background. There was no way I could just lift my feet up and let myself fall straight down. Then the guide told me we were being balleyed (sp?) and I relaxed some. Thankfully my time at the camp ropes course allowed me to trust in our equipment and have a basic understanding of some of the terms, as balleying (once again, I'm not certain if this is the correct way to spell it) is a very controlled way of falling. Although I was braking like there was no tomorrow, I really wouldn't have had to do a thing, as the guide had me.

I arrived on another crowded ledge perched on top of a rock overlooking a high waterfall. From here we shuffled our way along, without anything to hold on to, and watched as they gave us a three minute tutorial on how to rappel (sp?). We were going to rappel down the waterfall into the water below. While I've balleyed other people, I don't think I've ever really rappeled before, and while the hand motions are virtually the same, I was having to concentrate on maintaining a perfect body position, figure out a safe place to step, and keep my safety had in position. I had a hard time keeping my safety hand underneath me while doing everything else. Meanwhile, the professional photographer whose been taking alternate paths and lines to be able to photograph us shows up on the side of the waterfall, telling us to pose for him and his camera. I think I managed a non-stressed smile in the middle of figuring out how to get my brake hand underneath me without letting go (as it was holding 20% of my weight). As hard as I was concentrating, I didn't realze I was at the bottom until I was told to jump off and landed in the brisk water, shaking from the muscle stress, and grinning from ear to ear. We then zipped down a short line that went along the rapids and landed in a natural pool, only to be hooked up to a line and start "drying off" by zipping some more.

The most challenging of all the activities that day was when we found ourselves standing on a plastic grate ledge that jutted out into the middle of the forest about five stories high without anything but black string to hold on to on either side. We were always attached, but as terrified as I am of heights, I always need something solid on either side of me or I freeze. Imagine a thin plastic grated diving board five stories high that ends in a small "T" and only string to hold on to. This was the only time I thought I wasn't going to make it as the holes in the grating were huge and it shook with every step someone took. But I concentrated on my friend in front of me, made to the end of the "T", was hooked up to another line, and told to free rappel down- which means to sit in your harness and let the safety rope slide slowly through your safety hand so you lower yourself. We did this along another waterfall, and I had so much fun. I hit the water with an even bigger grin than before, ready to take on any other challege they thought to throw our way. Of course, it was simple rope bridges and zip lines from there on out.. how do you top free rappelling off of a grate ledge in the middle of the tropical forest?

The end of the adventure came soon after that and we hiked down a quick trail to the adventure site. We were given fruit, water, and Mexican beer, and climbed back into the trucks of death to go back down to the cove. Once in the cove, we surrendered our shoes yet again, waded into the water and jumped into the raft boat to go home. Only, we noticed there was a problem with our boat as our driver wasn't taking us back to the Vallarta Marina at top speed anymore. We were puttering along in the ever-so deep Banderas Bay, where whales come to have their babies, dolphins swim, and mantra rays reside on a little raft boat with no sides, cover, or lights, and the sun was setting quickly and we had miles to go. Fun. After over half an hour of a usually ten to fifteen minute trip, we noticed another boat skipping across the water in our direction. Our savior! The other raftboat driver pulled up alongside us and held the two boats together as best as possible with a rope... which only meant that we each had random windows of time when the sides were close together, not that the sides were actually touching. We tumbled into the other boat, smashing knees and shins along the way and made our way back into the harbor, where our co-adventurers pointed out Bill Gate's yacht, complete with a helicopter and GPS navigation bubble on top.

We had many other "adventures" while we were there- nightlife on the Malecon, a creepy creepy gay bar in the Romantic Zone, night swimming, and just trying to get a bottle of water in a city surrounded by the ocean, tequila, and beer.

My flights were great, and I'm almost able to declare myself a confident flier. I'll need a little more practice, though, before I quell  the desire to get drunk before the first flight of the day (which, for the record, I never succumbed to).

Although it was an extremely short trip and my friends are still in Mexico, I got to do everything I wanted and more. It was refreshing and I'm glad to be back... if even to just get a regular glass of water out of the sink.