Big Apple Blog

Here is some food for thought. At the present time the cost of the “War on Terror” is approaching $500 trillion dollars. During the same period of time the War on Terror has been going on, approximately $2 billion dollars has been spent on funding the Peace Corps.

Let’s see, that puts Peace Corps expenditures at less than 1% of expenditures on the War on Terror.

Question: What has a better chance of bettering the image of the U.S. in the world, bombs or volunteers assisting those in other nations?

Is anyone else laughing / amused / confounded at the “economic stimulus” package news? To me it’s quite comical. Call me silly, but isn’t the government just rewarding bad behavior? In 2005 the personal savings rate in the U.S. dipped into negative territory – the first occurrence since the great depression. Another stat from 2005 is that credit card debt in the U.S. reached over $750 billion. It is also estimated that for each dollar of income the average American earns, they spend $1.2 dollars.

I love the logical picture this seems to paint. People spend more money than they have, so we want to give them more money with the implicit purpose of more spending. Am I missing something?

The important distinction to me is the difference between “need” and “want.” Americans obviously need to be educated about wise use of money. I think we need more transparency in our government. I think we need health care for all Americans. I think we often get confused between needing a wanting (myself included!).

Meanwhile, Washington is passing important legislation like mandating digital television starting in 2009. Never mind that millions of Americans are without health care and our education system continues to fall in world rankings, we need to see the dimples on the football and individual blades of grass on our flat screens dammit!

Rather than pouring $150 billion into the economy, how about spending money on educating Americans about the wise use of money? How about subsidizing public forums on issues related to personal finance, budgeting, retirement planning, and investing?

The whole thing reminds me of the Peace Corps slogan I always hear: “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish and he will be able to eat for a lifetime.”

How about we TEACH Americans about the wise use of money as opposed to offering an expensive $150 billion Band-Aid? How about an “Economic Training and Sensibility Package?” And isn’t it also ironic that a government that is responsible for an estimated increase in the national debt of $1.44 billion PER DAY is telling us to spend, spend, spend?

Rome was once the envy of all nations and now ancient ruins remind us of their focus on entertainment and pleasure as opposed to the most critical resource of all – human capacity and intelligence. When I look at U.S. politicians standing in front of government buildings reminiscent of ancient Roman ruins, I fear we are in for a pretty hard fall with the “solutions” they are offering.

It’s Ariel’s Birthday today. She was obviously destined to be a fashion designer some day! Not only that, she worked for adidas for three years. I gotta find some more pictures of her when she was young to see if she had lottery ticket numbers since she seems to able to predict the future =)

One day in Costa Rica we hiked to a waterfall that was back in the rain forest. It was about a 30 minute trek and it was well worth it. The water was very refreshing and I’d say the fall was about 100 feet tall. When we got there some locals were showing off. They were climbing the rock face, in nothing but board shorts, and cliff diving. You can see an example below. It was a cool free show.

We then enjoyed a swim and hung out under the waterfall which was cool and refreshing.

And amazingly enough, there was shopping to be had by the falls! This dude was hanging out with a blanket spread out on the rocks and was selling hand made jewelery. I loved the dude’s dreads! I was so envious and would love to rock them some day. One of those life goals that will probably have to wait until retirement. Ariel bought some cool stuff and we felt good about supporting a local merchant.

One of the cool things we did in Costa Rica was a canopy tour. I had never been on a zip line before and it was dope, dope, dope! I’m not a huge fan of heights but I really enjoyed the zip line. It was like a really fast chair lift.

I cannot recommend taking a tour like this enough. The feeling of flying through the air with the whizzing sound of the line is a real rush. We went down ten lines and I think the longest was like 700 feet.

So the town we ended up staying in had a population of approximately 1,500 people. It was just what the Dr. ordered – lack of both major corporations and mass quantities of human beings. Two towns actually merge where we stayed: Mal Pais and Santa Teresa.

The hotel we stayed in was basic and comfortable. They had a small pool out back along with a restaurant and breakfast was included with the price of the room.

The maids also did cool things with our towels every day. The first day was the best, swans with fresh tropical flowers and they put Ariel’s sunglasses on one of them.

There were a variety of restaurants in town. They ranged from a dude with a BBQ on the street with picnic tables scattered around to more “formal” places that actually had a roof. We could not get enough rice and beans and there was this chicken place that was totally awesome. They fire roasted their chicken on a tilted grill that faced the street and it was some good eatin’.

The journey to Costa Rica was an interesting one. I was nervous with only a 45 minute layover in Houston, and as it turns out, I should have been. Anyone who tells me they have flown out of JFK on time will be the first. I had high hopes for leaving on time when all passengers were seated and the door to the plane closed a full 15 minutes before our scheduled departure time.

The pilot then comes on and says, “Um, folks. There is good news and bad news. The good news is that everyone is on the plane and all systems are go. The bad news is, the baggage loader is broken and they are estimating 30 minutes to resolve it.”

Great! 45 minute layover to catch our next flight in Houston and already 30 minutes late. We end up leaving 45 minutes late and I am nervous about landing in Houston. The good news, there appears to be about twenty people on our flight who are all hoping to catch the connection to Costa Rica.

So we land in Houston (quick side bar, I thought the air in LA and NYC was dirty, Houston’s air makes ours look clean!) and they tell us our plane has been held, but to run. So we run, run, run and barely make the door. On the way in I ask about our luggage and the (lying) service person says “Everything should be fine!”

Long story short, we land in Costa Rica but our bags don’t. This is complicated the fact that we are catching a puddle jumper to the boondocks where our final destination is. Said puddle jumper his here:

We sat right behind the pilots and it was a hoot. It is amazing how many buttons, knobs, and gauges there are. Gotta love too how the flight plan is pinned to the wheel.

The “airport” we landed at was basically like a bus stop. At the end of the very narrow runway was a little shelter . . .

. . . and high tech equipment like this scale.

Funny enough, on our first full day there we ran into someone who was on our flight out of JFK who also lost his luggage. Turns out he was from the Bronx and we ended up hanging out and having dinner. Our luggage finally did arrive, but a massive downpour made things even more complicated.

There were no paved roads where we were staying and if you drive, you have to take a 1 hour ferry to get to where we were staying. Note to self – pack one day worth of clothing in your carry on in the future. In all my years of traveling this was the first luggage mishap I had – guess I rolled the dice one too many times on not being better safe than sorry.

Brendon and I are starting another blog. Our first attempt at getting a blog going did not work out so well, but it wasn’t about bikes!

Bren recognized the sheer genius of my bike tip entries and knew that it could be the next big thing. Plus Brendon has an inexplicable compulsion to start blogs. Thus, now you have a new blog to bookmark! Go visit Bikehacks.com and make it a regular part of your rotation. There is sure to be some good insight that could literally save the world!

I am firm believer that in news rooms around the country the prime directive is: scare the crap out of the viewer. This really hit me when my young nephews from Korea visited a few years ago. I was watching the news and thinking nothing of it when my nephews started to ask a few questions like, “Uncle, do people get shot every day here?”

I stepped back in my mind and thought about what I had been watching on the “news” and realized what I was actually watching was just a series of horrific events with no commentary or meaningful information of any kind.

And I just love the smiling news anchors that promote the upcoming “news” each night during commercials. They say things like, “Stomach virus rampages though England!”

(Teeth brighter than the sun appear in a huge smile).

“Stay tuned for News at 11:00.”

They should actually say something like, “We have a bunch of stories about people dying, getting sick, and getting ripped off and we have nothing meaningful to say about said events. We know you will stay with us because you have a natural morbid sense of curiosity. We don’t plan on concerning ourselves with contributing to the betterment of society, we just want to show how jacked up the world is.”

(Huge smile featuring Teeth that glow in the dark.)

“Stay tuned for death, destruction, violence, and mayhem at 11:00.”

A while back I wrote an entry about the book The Culture of Fear. I was reminded of the premise of the book (the news seeks to scare the crap out of us) when I got an email from someone I met in Kenya earlier this year. Here ’tis:

As CNN has probably well informed you, things have deteriorated a bit here since your visit. On the bright side, things are not nearly as apocalyptic as they must look on the screen. I would say 80% of the country has shrugged off the disturbances while the other 20% is beginning to get its act together. The traffic jams on Nairobi’s roads is a sure sign of that.

From watching the news one would think that all of Kenya was on fire. The truth is much less interesting, and whole lot better to hear.

Bicycle commuting can be an ugly business at times. For example, after my bike had been left dormant for a few weeks while I traveled it rebelled against me and decided to lose the chain while shifting gears. Not only that, the chain doubled up on itself and it took both hands to get it back into normal position. The result? Two filthy, greasy hands.

You also never know what the streets are going to throw at you. From a puddle of antifreeze to a disgusting juice puddle left by a garbage truck, the muck you encounter can be brutal.

My partial solution is tie an old sock or rag to my frame and rock it like its 1999. Got a sock with a hole in it? Tie it loud and tie it proud! I know I for one do not want to stuff a greasy rag in my pocket when I am finished with it.

Plus, a dirty, greasy, nasty old sock hanging from your frame tells people 1) This dude is really serious about biking 2) I don’t want to get near that scary looking sock so I’m leaving that bike alone!