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By Kate, 2 February 2009

Today after work we took a picnic from Trader Joe’s to the beach & I took a nap in the sand while my husband went boogie boarding. Mondays have suddenly redeemed themselves.

(I would post pictures, but I think we would start getting jealousy-induced anthrax letters in the mail… or just a lot more house guests )

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By Neil, 9 December 2008

So first of all I’ve finished editing the entire filming of thanksgiving dinner 2008. For attention-span purposes I’ve sped it up quite a bit.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji3BGypQ9TU[/youtube]

Also, it was by birthday on Sunday and I had a wonderful low-key birthday that included moldy french toast in bed and a video chat birthday cake with family in Utah. I just wanted to say thanks to all that emailed, called, and post a message on my Facebook wall.

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By Kate, 30 November 2008

I was the intended feast for this rouge Lorakeet who landed on my head at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park. You purchase little cups of nectar & they let you loose in the Lorakeet cage. I imagine that the sugar-water is the equivalent of Lorakeet heroine, because these birds were going bezerko for it!

Good times were had by all.

We had a fine feast ourselves with the whole fam packed in to our tiny little living room for dinner. We borrowed a card table from the neighbors, used paper plates and bought most of the mean pre-cooked from Whole Foods. (Excellent idea btw).

Everything else we needed my mom packed down from Utah, including the requisite pilgrim decorations. (Yep, Neil even brings the laptop to the Thanksgiving dinner table! I wish we could sell the product placement to Apple.)

After our gluttonous binge, we hit the road for a bike ride to the beach & watched the sunset.

It was a most-excellent Thanksgiving celebration!

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By Neil, 22 November 2008

We just got back from a tasty hot chocolate and turtle pie at the Zanzibar Cafe in Mission Beach. The desserts were delectable and our outfits divine. I wore the same outfit I’ve had on for the the last 3 days, namely a pair of shorts and an old ‘t’ with food stains, toothpaste drool, and possibly spray paint or silk-screening ink. Kate, on the other hand, wore her Lost Boys costume from the set of Steven Spielberg’s Hook. In case you haven’t seen the movie, I included a snapshot from Kate’s scene.

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By Neil, 16 October 2008

So I was running a little late for work and as I was leaving the house I had a brilliant idea…which made me even more late for work. Pulling out the old video camera, I thought to my self, “wouldn’t it be cool to tape this camera to my bike helmet and film my ride to work?” “Of course it would be cool,” I thought, “Neil you are a genius, this is your coolest idea yet, even better than man cheese.” However when I got home I realized no one was going to sit through 16 minutes of my bike ride (including my self) so I sped it up 500% and added some great music. So, here it is. Sit back and enjoy the show (if you get motion sickness you’ve been warned).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H85qlqAUQYo[/youtube]

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By Neil, 7 October 2008

I purchased a new Specialized bike last weekend so I could commute to work and free up the car for Kate. I also like to bike so that helped me make the decision. Unfortunatly the first few weeks of long distance biking can take toll on your body while you adjust to the physical demands of biking. Lets just say that at this point in my life I prefer to stand. Biking to work is loads of fun and is going to save us a lot of money. I just wished my rump would adjust sooner than later; my heart, lungs, and legs as well, for that matter. A photo of my new bike and me to come.

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By Neil, 17 September 2008

So Kate and I met a Nader friend today who is campaigning with us. After we had a nice lunch he took me to the District Voter Registration Office to get voter registration forms and other information about San Diego’s voter precincts. One of the sheets we got listed all the political parties recognized in the county. A few of my favorites are listed below:

• U.S. Taxpayers Party
• Pragmatic Party 
• Prohibition Party 
• Neuroscience Party (Blog) 
• Natural Law Party 
• Puritan Party 
• Rock and Roll Party 
• Pot Party 
• Scientific Evolving Party 
• God, Truth & Love Party

These are in additional to old favorites like the Anarchist Party, Communist Party, Middle Class Party, Poor Peoples Party, La Raza Unida Party and so forth. To date San Diego County has 76 registered political parties. Nearly 30% of voters in San Diego are unaffiliated or registered as a 3rd party member. I just want to close with a quote from the Neuroscience Party’s constitution, “We want every woman to live like a princess with robotic servants and we want everyone to live like wealthy billionaires, wealthy members of royalty, and wealthy slavemasters with robotic servants and robotic slaves that will do all of the work for them.”

You can’t wish for a better world then that…vote 3rd Party!

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By Neil, 15 September 2008

Last night Kate and I went downtown to the Gas Lap District for some gelato, from possible the best gelato shop in the USA, Chocolate, and so Kate could look for a new hat, i.e. a corn hat by Kangol. We arrived in the district around 8:30, parked and hit the streets. At this point downtown was more than pleasant. People were enjoying tasty restaurants, all the small boutiques were open and everyone seemed to be having a good time. We looked trough a couple of hat shops and sadly none had the hat Kate was looking for. Around 10 we decided to walk to Seaport Village, a small ocean side shopping district to look at a small hat shop we had seen a few weeks ago.

Anyway by the time we got there (a bad distance calculation error on our part) everything was closed and we were pooped. We decided on the romantic way back to the car via a board walk. Unfortunately said board walk ended up taking us through an abandoned dark alley industrial park…i.e. a vampire trap. I think to date every romantic thing I’ve done with Kate had ended up in a vampire trap. Luckily we made it out alive, but were far away from where we wanted to be. As we walked back to the Gas Lap District we used a sidewalk that apparently is also used by many homeless people as a bed. Walking past what must have been 40 homeless men and women sleeping on cardboard was about the saddest thing I’ve ever endured. Unfortunately for us, it was just the beginning.

Back at the Gas Lap, what had just an hour before been such a pleasant happy place, had deteriorated to a nightmarish, throbbing, club scene where most women, no joke, were wearing an outfit identical to the one pictured here. Just a normal outfit for a teen out on the town, apparently. I guess the depressing part was that most of the club hoppers looked as sad and lonely as the homeless people we had just passed asleep on the sidewalk. It turns out the only thing separating the misery of the Haves and the wretchedness of the Have-Not’s is a five foot chain link fence.

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By Kate, 7 September 2008

On Friday night we went to do sealings with our ward at the San Diego Temple. It is a majestic building in a holy place. The assignment for our ward was well attended with amazing, amazingly busy people who took time out o their Friday night to serve and worship. The oldest member of the group was, I imagine, close to 80 years old & the youngest probably in her early 20s. I was very impressed by the individual and collective devotion of this eclectic group.

After the temple one of the young couples invited us to Coldstone for ice cream. Never ones to turn down ice cream, we enthusiastically agreed & met them and another couple at the shop. We sat outside with our fudgey gooey treats and conversed in the always perfect San Diego air. We learned a little bit about them, they learned a little bit about us. Often the jovial conversation tends to take a turn for the worst when new people learn a little bit about us. First, they learn we don’t have the same last name. Then, they learn that we met at an anti-Wal Mart film that I screened at BYU. This is when my skeptical shield begins to come up. Glancing at them with distrust I automatically launch into a schpiel about why Wal Mart is a bad place to shop (usually whether or not they questioned the premise with anything more than a raised eyebrow).

Feeling our independent-minded tendencies are exposed I go on the defensive.

The topic in this particular lactose binge chat turned to Proposition 8 which is a big deal in California, especially to Mormons. It is an amendment proposition to amend the California constitution to define marriage as one between a man and a woman only. Most Mormons in the area spend their Saturdays knocking doors & calling people trying to recruit votes for its passage. In fact, we are HIGHLY encouraged to do so every Sunday. (See here for an alternative LDS view about the Proposition).

The girl who invited us to ice cream began talking about gay marriage and the damage she perceived it would do to our society. Perhaps because of my recent immersion into law school, I began to question her assumptions, examples and basic rationalizations. Determined to keep the conversation friendly and Coldstone appropriate I posed all inquiries from a neutral, thought-provoking angle.

However, the conversation quickly escalated and somehow touched on both abortion and the death penalty before you could say, “Jimmany Cricket.” I caught myself semi-shouting “That’s the problem with Republicans…” and the other couple actively jumped up from the table in an attempt to end what they probably perceived to be a potential fist-fight and awkwardly excused themselves and we all got up to end the ice cream social.

The night ended with me stiffly saying, “Ok, great to chat with you guys. Thanks for inviting us. I’ll see you Thursday for visiting teaching. He-heh.”

Needless to say, I don’t think we made any new friends. But, even more disturbingly, I found myself in the old trap that my friend Ash described as interpreting people in the language of my own fears and suspicions. My immediate suspicion of their motives and views kept me from getting to know them and listening to the heart behind their ideas & arguments. I combated pat lines with pat lines and poor logic with poor logic instead of trying to love and see.

Often at church, or school I feel a very “other” feeling. I am the other. “They” don’t think (act, dress, eat) like me.

Friday night, over Germancholattkake ice cream, I realized that that same mentality I have creates the suspicions and hate that I perceive.

My mind is in need of more respect. My heart is in need of softening. My eyes need to automatically look for how we are all the same. My words need to seek to understand not to tear down. My hand needs to gladly reach for the hand of a new friend not suspiciously shake that of the “other.”