Roseyland

I like to ponder deep questions. Not often, but sometimes. Usually my deepest thoughts are things like: what should I watch on Tivo tonight?, do I make something to eat or go out?, and how can I make the cat just a little more insane? Occasionally though, I go deep. This is often coffee induced. When I drink coffee, I get all philosophical, and when that happens, these are questions I ponder.

1. Why is there something instead of nothing?

This is a variant of the “why is the universe so finely tuned for the existence of life?” question. I prefer this version though, because it cuts to the point. We could ask whether or not we live in one of an infinite number of parallel universes, or we could ask whether or not some god designed our universe, but these questions miss the point. Why does anything exist at all? If God created everything, why does God exist? If we live in one of many parallel universes, why do all these parallel universes exist? Why are we here?

2. Why am I alive right now?

At first this seems like a stupid question. I mean if you weren’t alive right now, you wouldn’t be around to ask silly philosophical questions. But seriously, why are you alive right now? The time span of your life is minuscule compared to all of time, isn’t it odd that you just happen to be here right now? I know some people will say that it is only possible to be conscious of a time in which you are alive, but wouldn’t that mean from your perspective you are always conscious? That’s weird.

3. Why am I me?

Why are you you? I think we tend to believe that who we are is just random chance, but doesn’t that mean we are pretty lucky? I certainly don’t have the perfect life, but considering all the people in this world, I’d rather be me that most. 80% of the world’s population lives in a third world country. Lucky for me, I’m in the other 20%. Not only that, I’m college educated, I have a good job, I seem to be healthy, my family is relatively normal. All in all, I’m very fortunate, but why am I so fortunate. Further more, why am I human. Isn’t it also possible that I could have been a cat, or a horse, or an elephant? There are far more animals in this world than humans, why did I luck out and get to be human?, and a fortunate human at that.

So these are my coffee induced deep thoughts. Do you know the answers to any of these questions? Seriously, if you do, leave a comment. I know that ultimately these questions can’t be answered, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t fun to think about. If nothing else, they point out just how much of reality is completely unknown, and that helps keep everything in perspective.

Hello, this is the post where I blog about the same thing that everybody else has already blogged about. I would have posted this sooner, but I went out and bought one of the new MacBooks. I’ve been spending all my time importing stuff from my PC to the MacBook. I might blog about the whole switching to Mac thing someday, but not today. I will say that my MacBook is pretty, and I do like pretty. Also, this is the first blog post I have written on the MacBook, and the first post I have written on my couch in my living room. Let me know if you can tell the difference.

Why am I here again? Oh yeah, I went to the Obama Rally on Saturday. It was amazing. You can see me in the picture above. I am the guy in the dark gray jacket, 117 rows from the top, 65 people from the right. I think it’s one of the better pictures of me.

I debated for a long time whether or not to go to the rally. I had never been to a political rally before, and I didn’t really have anybody to go with. Still, I knew that I liked Obama, and I knew that this could be a historic event. So I got up early on Saturday and drove to the nearest MetroLink station. The MetroLink station wasn’t too crowded, but there were Obama supporters there already. There was an elderly couple, a group of women, and a young family. The young family had a young daughter that kept asking questions about Obama. That was cute. The train wasn’t too crowded when I got on, but within two stations it was, and by the time we made it downtown, it was packed. After I got off the train, I started walking towards the end of the line, it was a LONG line.

After standing in line, I didn’t think I was going to get in. Once the area close to the stage was full though, they let everyone in without going through security, and that made the line move a lot faster. I ended up at the top of the hill, not a bad view once I knew where to look. This is what I saw. I wish you could see the arch in the picture. It was awesome to look up and see the huge arch above a huge crowd of people.

The next picture is Obama right after coming on stage. He is wearing a white shirt and is below and to the left of the spotlights.

This is a cropped version of the picture above. It’s easier to see Obama this way.

This is the picture above zoomed in on Obama. I had to do this, so that I would know that I was actually looking at Obama, and that I even managed to take a picture of him.

Hey look, even Jesus supports Obama. I love taking pictures of slightly crazy religious people. Although to be fair, this guy seemed pretty nice. Right behind him were other protesters with pictures of aborted fetuses. I prefer patriotic Jesus dude.

This is a picture of people leaving the rally with the arch in the background.

Here is the line of people waiting to get back on the MetroLink. I hung out downtown for few hours hoping that the MetroLink would clear up, it didn’t work. If you look close, there is a guy playing the saxophone. I love street musicians.

The picture below is Laclede’s Landing a hour or so after the rally. Downtown was filled with Obama supporters long after the rally was over. It was cool. The energy just kind of hung around.

I’m so glad that I went to the rally. It is definitely something I will remember for a long time. It’s hard for me to put into words what the atmosphere was like. What I remember most is the people. It was an incredibly diverse group, different races, religions, sexual orientation, style of dress, etc.. They were all there. For some reason, I feel a million times more comfortable in a diverse group people. This does not really make sense, because I’m just your average boring straight white guy. I think it’s mostly because I’m a pretty independent guy. It’s important for me to feel free to be my own person. When everybody around me is the same, I feel pressured to conform or something. This is also why I like to shop at the Target in the city.

I knew that I was going to vote for Obama long before this rally, so it’s not like it swayed my vote or anything. I will say that I feel more invested in this election now. Before the rally, I wanted Barack Obama to win, but it was just a personal thing. Now I want Obama to win for all of the people in that crowd. While I like Obama a lot, to many people in that crowd, Obama means more than I can imagine. Now I want this election for them. I agree with Colin Powell. Obama is a transformational figure. He is electrifying. He definitely has style, but he also has the depth and substance to back it up. You don’t see that often in this life, I hope we don’t miss out on the opportunity to see it for the next four years.

Here is my Flickr set from the rally.

I wanted to blog about my trip back to college last weekend, but there are several pictures I need to organize, and I ended up watching a lot of college football yesterday, and I just haven’t had time yet. If you want, you can see the pictures in my Flickr set here. There is a lot I want to say about those pictures, so hopefully by next weekend I’ll have a post up.

Today I’m going to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I’m going to show you the contents of my kitchen. I seem to blog about my kitchen a lot, but your kitchen says a lot about you. And I know you want to know more about me. Why wouldn’t you? I’m fascinating. I took these picture right after grocery shopping, so this is about as full as my kitchen gets. You can click on any of the pictures in this post to see a larger version. The first picture is the inside of my refrigerator. Yeah, you probably figured that out didn’t you?

So much food, where do I begin? In the freezer there are a few lean cuisines. This is what I eat when I’m lazy and desperate. Below that are Spinach Munchies and a few related items. I have to thank CosmosGirl for introducing me to Spinach Munchies in her blog. They are like pizza rolls filled with spinach and some type of cheese. I also like the Broccoli Cheese Munchies. Below the munchies are frozen vegetables. I’m trying to eat more vegetables, but those vegetables have been in my freezer for a few months. Do frozen vegetables ever go bad?

In the top of the refrigerator, I have iced tea, mixed berries, and soy milk. I drink soy milk because soy is supposed to be healthy or something. Iced tea is my great addiction. I love unsweetened black iced tea. Those berries are from Whole Foods, and they are ridiculously expensive when you buy them all cut up like that. This does not seem to stop me from buying them. For snacks I have Sargento Chipotle Cheddar cheese sticks. These are amazing, just the right amount of spicy. I also have hard boiled eggs. I love hard boiled eggs, and aren’t the brown eggs pretty? They look so nice, I can’t imagine ever buying plain old white eggs again. In the beverage department, I have a bottle of wine, Sam Adam’s October Fest, pomegranate juice, and lemon flavored sparkling water. I have sparkling water instead of pop because I drink too much pop at work. (That’s right, I said pop, deal!). I like to mix a little of the pomegranate juice and sparkling water together for a healthy bubbly drink. It’s tasty, try it.

The picture above is the only cabinet I have filled with food. I have lots of cans of beans. Beans are very good for you, they have fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Eat more beans. Right now you are probably thinking that I fart a lot. Not really, if you eat beans regularly, your body adjust. Seriously. TMI? You can also see my tea and coffee. The coffee is only for guest, I never make my own coffee, too much work. Below that are my granola bars and nuts. I have a granola bar and soy milk for breakfast everyday, and a handful of nuts every night. Nuts are also very healthy. Eat more nuts. Oh, and on the top shelf is brown rice, sugar, and baking soda.

Finally, here is a small cabinet with some spices and other baking needs. I used to have a lot more spices, but I threw them out when I had my kitchen remodeled. So what do you think? You probably think I’m a little bit of a health nut. Kind of, but not really. A while ago I read the book SuperFoods RX by Steven Pratt. It changed they way I look at food. Instead of trying not too eat too much, now I try to focus more on eating healthy less processed foods. Things like nuts and berries and whole grains. That being said, I still eat out a lot and go to Ted Drew’s almost every week. I’m hoping the good foods will cancel out the bad foods You might also notice that I get a lot of my food at Whole Foods. This is mostly a matter of convenience. I do like Whole Foods, but I mainly go there because I live right behind it. Okay, that is all. If you have a blog, you should blog about what’s in your kitchen. I want to see it