I Am The Messenger

Some of you may actually still be paying attention to the Seattle Mariners this season. I myself was very excited for the season to begin, watching the Mariners fair pretty well during spring training. I went to a game early in the season in which we beat the LA Angels. Things were looking very promising. Raul Ibanez was one of the league leaders in RBI’s and Jose Lopez was pretty clutch with the bat this year, something he lacked last year. Even overweight new aquisition, Carlos Silva was off to a fast start going 3-0.

Well, then the proverbial sh** hit the fan. I keep finding myself wondering what happened? When the pitching was great, the offense was non-existant. When the offense was great (which is like, never) the pitching gave up 10 runs in the first 2 innings. Newly aquired Erik Bedard was openly complaining about the way Johjima called games, requesting to be caught by Jamie Burke, then the M’s signing Johjima to a really big contract when he was hitting under .220. First baseman Richie Sexson’s bat is still dead, Vidro isn’t hitting, Ibanez started to slump, McClaren is swearing during press conferences due to frustration, and Betancourt is constantly swinging at crap. Even Ichiro is having an off season…which for him is batting .295ish which I guess is actually pretty good. GM Bill Bavasi was finally canned the other week after many crappy trades that didn’t work out and negotiating several controversial signings/re-signings. I have to be at least a little happy that McClaren was fired, especially when he was having our guys bunt with 2 strikes and 2 outs to try and manufacture runs. Talk about desperate, but also not smart managing.

The M’s might as well face that the season is in the can and start playing for whatever pride they have left. I just have to wonder about next year. Is it time to re-build, or get an actual GM that can handle a 100+ million budget and can get good players to want to play on the west coast…much less Seattle? Unless you’re the Angels or a Nat’l league team, players probably don’t want to play for you if you’re a west coast team.

I will mention a couple of things that I am so glad to see due to the slumping season: 1.) SODO MOJO is finally gone off of the official Mariners site. The whole MOJO catch phrase always sucked, and let’s face it, that Austin powers knock off motto should have never existed. 2.) ‘You Gotta Love These Guys’ is also nowhere to be seen on the site as well…because let’s face it that motto sucked just as badly. And no, we don’t love this disfunctional group of overpaid underachievers. 3.) Maybe we’ll finally see Seattle keeping some of its young prospects instead of trading them away for one hit wonders that don’t even want to play for the M’s. George Sherrill is a good example of a Mariner we traded that wanted to be a Mariner, and a Mariner only. Not to mention that he was superb last season for us, and well, has 25 saves for the Orioles this year. JJ Putz has what, 7, and he’s hurt.

Through all of this punishment that we have to endure this season as fans, maybe we’ll start seeing a change at Safeco as well. I dunno, maybe less white collar and kid based. Sometimes it just feels like I’m hanging out at Chuck-E-Cheese when I’m at the Safe. It’s also annoying how when the Red Sox come to town, the entire stadium is full of Sox fans. Most of these Sox fans are from around here. Why? Cause they’re a winning team and Seattle fans suck. We should be learning from the Sox fans. They had to endure nearly a century of no championship. Why can’t we be a little more loyal like them?

Anyways, I’ll be hanging out at Cheney Stadium, watching our young prospects develope, and hoping our next GM won’t trade the progressing ones aways for garbage.

Megan and I are all moved into the new place. We still haven’t quite unpacked and arranged everything the way we’d like, but it’s coming along. We had internet put into the new place, started changing our addresses with places like the post office and other places we get bills from, and are getting used to being in a new place. I already enjoy not having to go up many flights of stairs to get to our apartment, especially after grocery shopping.

I told myself a few months ago that when gas prices hit $4 that I was buying a bus pass. I did. Today was my first day of taking the bus to work. It’s not too bad of a trip. My morning commute driving took me 25-30 min. The bus takes about 1.5 hours. It sucks having to wake up at 5am now instead of 6:35am, but it’s worth the sacrifice as we’ll be saving a lot of money on gas. Megan will pick me up after work as she works about 15 min. away. The bus is kind of nice to ride in the morning…except when you sit in front of a bum that smells like cigarette smoke, urine, and B.O. from lack of showering for several months.

Yesterday I walked into the kitchen and stepped into a puddle of water. The dishwasher had sprung a leak and of course I was wearing socks, so the experience was extra annoying. We are also having problems with mice in our bathroom. I suppose I should be thankful though that at least it’s only in our bathroom and not in our kitchen this time (that’s happened before). Chuck has mouse hunting bred into him, so he goes nuts if he sees mouse droppings.

Megan and I might be moving in June. Well, I suppose the end of May. We have yet to receive final word on the place yet, but we’ll be renting again down a few blocks from our current house (Our hearts are in the stadium/hilltop area). The house we are living in right now is really a great place. It’s an old Victorian home split into several apartments, but the downfall of the place is that there is only one washer and dryer to service all of our tennants, plus the tennants that live in the property across the street. It also costs $1 per wash and dry. Sometimes Megan and I trek up to Federal Way to do laundry at our parents homes, and that can take up to 7 hours depending on how much laundry we have built up. That can be annoying. The new place has its own washer and dryer, and a regular sized dishwasher as opposed to our tiny one.

With a move coming up, I have realized that I need to get rid of some stuff. Today, I am going to get some stuff ready to go on Craigslist for the first time ever. I will also be placing some things on ebay. Should be fun. And speaking of fun, I’ve started on some of my polaroids picture projects.

Megan and I have embarked on a workout program named P90x. It is a 90 day workout program that utilizes a 6 day schedule filled with different workouts everyday, and a 7th day of stretching/resting. We’ve also been eating a lot better. I have only been committed to P90x and eating right for about a week but the results have been pretty astounding. I’m not really even talking about changes in the way I look, but most of the changes have come in the way I feel. Not only do I have more energy, but when I do workout I tend to get tired and ready for bed at a more normal time of night. Sleeping hasn’t been as much of an issue for me as it has been in the past several months. I also used to have big issues with waking up on time and being late to work; not the case anymore. Probably the most noteable change for myself is that my eyesight is almost back to normal. Some of you have seen me wear glasses for my near-sightedness. On Saturday on the way home from the Mariners game, I noticed that I could read street signs at night again. Also, before I started working out and eating less sodium, I had an average blood pressure level over 170 which is stage 2 hypertension. My blood pressure has dropped about 20 points in just a weeks worth of time. These results alone make me want to continue.

Anyways, just some encouragement for those of you out there that may be considering a lifestyle change. Working out shouldn’t be motivated by dissapointment in the way you look, but more so in the way you want to feel. You shouldn’t really start any type of workout program or diet just to wear smaller clothes, because that may not be enough motivation in the long run. If you want to change your lifestyle, figure out why you really need to do it, and then you’ll have a real life motivational tool to continue on with the change.

I found out from my wife several days ago that Polaroid is going to discontinue producing its instant film cartridges sometime late this year: http://www.polaroid.com/ifilm/en/index.html

I am going to go out and buy a bunch soon. I have a lot of poloaroid picture projects I haven’t been able to complete yet. I bet this would be a good money making scheme too. You could buy a whole bunch now, and double the selling price on e-bay when they are discontinued.

Working around military personnel gives me a bit of an insiders perspective on how soldiers really feel about the war. Most of the soldiers I’ve been around and have talked to about the war in Iraq seem to have polar opposite opinions. Let’s examine these opinions.

Many I have spoken with are having a hard time grasping exactly what it is we are doing ‘over there’. The mission has changed several times over the period of a few years from searching out and finding WMD and connecting the Iraqi gov’t with ties to terrorist organizations, to what is now trying to make peace in an out of control situation (with several other missions in between). Most soldiers will go and do what the gov’t tells them to do as they swore an oath to do so whether they agree to it or not. It’s a matter of principle.

I was also a part of an interesting discussion with a WWII vet at the Poulsbo VFW who did gov’t relations work in Afghanistan back in the 70’s. He admitted that the U.S. doesn’t really have a firm grasp of how things work culturally and religiously in the middle east, and how peace and a democratic gov’t in Iraq is going to come at a very high cost.

The polar opposite opinion of others is that the military pretty much needs to level Iraq and force the Iraqi people to all worship in single muslim mosques within their respective communities. If this ever did happen it would only fuel the insurgents rage, you can also assure yourself that the rest of the world wouldn’t stand for it…much less the U.S.

Condoleeza Rice was once quoted as saying that “We don’t need to have the 82nd Airborne escorting kids to kindergarten” which is exactly what the 82nd airborne pretty much ended up doing in Iraq. One other interesting thing I found out was that George Bush Sr. after Operation Desert Storm wrote an 800+ page manual on why we didn’t go into Baghdad in the first place, and why we shouldn’t afterwards. This 800+ page manual was classified information and not released for the public to see until maybe a little more than a year ago.

Anyways, to the point of the blog since all of the above is just a bunch of voiced opinions, I present a question. This war is very unpopular right now. It doesn’t seem to be moving to a conclusion with a good foundation (who are we waiting to surrender anyways?). If we really believe that we are bringing democracy to Iraq and now that there is a puppet government in place, why can’t we let the Iraqi people vote us out of the country? It’s what the world seems to want to see, and it’s what the majority of the U.S. wants. It’s also what we promised the Iraqi people in propoganda videos after their initial vote for gov’t.

If we were voted out by the people of Iraq, we could then have a more effective military presence in Afghanistan, fighting actual Al-Quaida operatives.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Say something…:D

A little update to my last blog, I will be trying out Kendo on March 1st.

 

The concept of kendo:

Kendo is a way to discipline the human character through the application of the principles of the Katana (sword).

The Purpose Of Kendo (as published in Japan):
To mold the mind and body.
To cultivate a vigorous spirit,
And through correct and rigid training,
To strive for improvement in the art of Kendo.
To hold in esteem human courtesy and honor.
To associate with others with sincerity.
And to forever pursue the cultivation of oneself.
This will make one be able:
To love his/her country and society.
To contribute to the development of culture
And to promote peace and prosperity among all peoples.

I have been playing around with the idea of learning a martial form of swordsmanship for about 3 years now. It has happened that only in the past week that I’ve actually become more serious in my consideration of taking the plunge. I was going to play baseball this summer, but with such a steep price, I think I’d rather learn a practice that will have more long term benefits. I started looking for teachers of Kenjutsu here in the Northwest, and found something interesting:

The Tenshinshō-den Katori Shintō Ryū is considered by the Japanese government to be the most distinguished of all Japanese martial traditions. This ryū (tradition) is the source from which many classical Japanese martial ryū have evolved, and consequently, from these ryū, many kinds of bujutsu (martial arts) have appeared.

Tenshinshō-den Katori Shintō Ryū includes in its martial curriculum, iai-jutsu (sword-drawing art), kenjutsu (sword art), bōjutsu (staff art), naginata-jutsu (glaive art), jūjutsu (flexible art), shuriken-jutsu (throwing blade art), ninjutsu (espionage art), sōjutsu (spear art), senjutsu (tactics), and chikujō-jutsu (field fortification art).

The Tenshinshō-den Katori Shintō Ryū has become a well-known and much sought after traditional martial art in many countries around the world. Regrettably, a number of people are teaching and using the name of the ryū without written authority. A Kyōshi (teaching) license does not signify permission to teach in Katori Shintō Ryū; in fact, no one is permitted to represent in any way, or teach the techniques of this ryū without a written Shidōsha (instructor) license from Ōtake Risuke Shihan. At present, only the following people have received this license and are allowed to lead the activities of the ryū in their respective countries. These people are:

	Phil Relnick		The Americas
	Michael Jay		England
	Adam Lancashire		England
	Francisco Comerón		Spain
	Luisa Raini		Italy
	Stanislav Loukianov		Russia
	Jean Paul Blond		France
	Erik Louw		Netherlands
	Willem Bekink		Netherlands
	Charles Louw		South Africa

It turns out that that Phil Relnick guy teaches in Seattle. This is a rather intimidating fact, especially since:

Even today, the ryū retains the traditionally strict custom in which a candidate for study in the ryū is required to execute the keppan, signing, in the person’s own blood, a solemn oath to abide by the policies of the ryū. In this way, the Tenshinshō-den Katori Shintō Ryū has been able to maintain the originality of its teachings, both in spirit and form, precisely as Master Iizasa Chōisai Ienao, the founder, detailed these matters over 600 years ago.

Although I really do respect the idea of being serious in the training and reverence of this martial artform, I think Kendo (Japanese Swordsmanship) or even Kumdo (Korean Swoardsmanship) might be a more realistic approach for me. Or in the least, a better stepping stone.

Although usually a term used to describe a certain type of design or artwork, as people start placing there in identity in objects, minimalism has now become a term used to describe a certain lifestyle. It’s one I even sort of aspire to. It’s very much so being advocated alot in the media. The idea of having less, but more “meaningful” (I use that term loosely) things appeals to me. Especially as of late. I’ve been throwing out a lot of stuff I no longer use or need and have been cluttering up areas in Megan and my apartment, and it’s been something that has been a long time coming. Most of it is stuff I should have never bought in the first place. I used to have a big spending problem. Since I didn’t have many bills living at home with my parents a few years ago, I would save some, waste alot. I just wasn’t thinking about how I spent; advertisers did my thinking for me.

I’ve noticed a big trend in ads lately. Everything is centered around you. The idea is to make you feel warm and fuzzy; important. I probably could go on about how this only goes to fill our egos and is doing nothing productive except filling society with narcissistic zombies, but I don’t wholly subscribe to that, and besides that’d be another boring blog. But anyways, I have noticed how expensive becoming minimalistic can be. Then I got to thinking, is my entire outlook on minimalism even really minimalistic?! I could answer that yes, but it’d only be that I’m minimalist in an extremely materialistic way, which doesn’t actually make sense. Minimalism by American standards is actually something you have to invest and buy into.

For example: Everyone wants flat panel tv’s because they take less room. We want smaller laptops because they weigh less and don’t take up as much room as a desktop computer does. The whole…Feng shei. We have this idea that we have to associate our personalities in the types of things we fill our houses or automobiles with.

The more I think about it, I’m not really being minimalistic at all. I need to come up with a different term if I were to be honest with myself and others.

Now, I’m not here to harp on having the latest and greatest in technology (I love technology…), but I’m not going to lie to myself anymore and think I’m living a minimalist lifestyle by owning smaller, more expensive gadgets like some commercial wants me to believe. If I were to be completely honest with myself, I’m just giving myself a fancy title for throwing junk away I should have never bought. I think another one of my problems is that I rush into things too fast and I get myself into trouble because of it. I’ve been trying to slow down and really give more intentional thought into the things I invest myself into. I need to think of the consequences of what position buying certain things will get me into. How does buying these things affect my relationship with Megan, with family, with God, with friends and others.

I wish someone would just invent a time machine so I could go back and correct a few things, but then again, I wouldn’t have to change or grow up if someone did.

I’ve been reading the book, The Rising Sun by John Toland. It chronicles the rise and fall of the Japanese Empire from 1936-1945. It’s not the usual type of history book that I read, hence it taking over 2 months to read the nearly 900 page book, but there are parts that are definitely interesting. A chapter named ‘The Stragglers’ turned me on to the story of 2nd Lt. Hiroo Onada. This man was one of the last remnants of the Japanese Imperial Army that still hadn’t surrendered 20+ years later.

It is probably very hard for most of us to understand why many Japanese over the course of WWII preferred suicide, or suicidal attack over surrender. For 2nd Lt. Onada who was a part of a special forces unit, after losing the battle in the Phillippines, was told by his commanding officer to result to guerrilla warfare. Onada was ordered that under no circumstances was he ever obliged take his own life. There is going to be something he could do for Japan, even if captured. Onada fled deep into the jungles of the Phillippines and hid with up to as many as 4 other comrades. Only he and another lived past the first decade, but they kept their end of the deal; to stay alive. Their commanding officer told them that it may take months, maybe years, but that they would come back for the Onada and other survivors. They never returned.

Onada’s sole companion was killed in 1972 by Filipino policemen who had caught them burning rice as part of their guerilla warfare. Onada, by himself, was found and befriended by a Japanese university dropout, Norio Suzuki. Norio, along with a Japanese delegation, the local population, and even Onada’s father could not convnice Onada to surrender, or even believe that the war was over. Not even after hearing it for himself over the radio, seeing pamphlets and newspaper clippings brought to him. It was all American propoganda to get him to surrender. Suzuki came to the realization that the only way to get him to surrender was to get a former one time superior officer in the Army, Major Taniguchi, to fly out to the Phillippines and command Onada to surrender.

Finally, almost 30 years later, Onada emerged from the jungles of Lubang which he had called home and surrendered. Onada openly wept after he finally conceded and really believed that the war was over. He still had his .25 caliber rifle with 500 rounds of ammunition, and several hand grenades.

Onada has since opened a nature camp for children, and has even married. He has a book, No Surrender: My Thirty Year War. Photos of Onada can be seen here: http://www.wanpela.com/holdouts/profiles/onoda.html