I finally heard from my parents!
I know a long time's passed since my last (read: first) entry but there's a lot going on out there.
First thing's first: Amy, my gf came home safely the one day. I think I was just over worried but that's what I tend to do. I think what freaks me out more when it comes to Amy is that she works at a clinical trials center for all sorts of diseases. Some of the test subjects (yeah, human ones) aren't cut from the best cloth out there. Plus all those diseases and whatnot. She tells me she's safe and all is well there and that I don't have anything to worry but hey, what do I know? If you asked me, I'd say she worked in a giant lab with bunsen burners and beakers all over the place. Apparently, that's not the case.
Back to my folks, remember the touristy areas being attacked by all those crazy people? Well, the local law enforcement (LE) had enough so they came out with their big guns, literally. Anybody they saw, they pointed at and tried to arrest and detain. According to my dad, they'd point the guns but the freaking crazies would keep running at them trying to get their guns away. Some of the cops would naturally shoot at them and that just seemed to get people more angrier. He "borrowed" a truck that he saw was in pretty good condition and drove straight to Salamanca with my mom. They stopped for gas here and there and apparently news of the crazy folks over in Baja and such was starting to reach inland. He heard there were crowds of angry mobs in Mexico City too but that might have been another swine flu scare. At least, that's what the radio stations were saying.
He told me that most of my family in Mexico were safe. He assured me that the rest would be safe too but he was thinking he'd stay there for a week more and then drive back home. He was hoping to skip Baja and either drive in through Texas. My mom was happy to be seeing her family and he was just happy to be away from the big cities. Relatively speaking, Salamanca was a smaller town not without its modern day amenities (there was a KFC and a Pizza Hut there fer cryin' out loud) but it still had its small town charm. Mexican small town charm that is.
Hey! Remember the South Korean boat that the North Koreans sunk? Maybe from a few months ago. Well...according to this one blog I read at work, there were reports coming in saying that the SK ship had encountered NK troops trying to board the ship! The reports claim that SK troops saw NK troops swimming nearby, warned them and then threw out life rafts for them. The people in the water were savagely attempting to get onto the ship and so a gunfight broke out. Not really a gunfight but the SK troops fired into the air to warn the NK troops in the water. This apparently set off some flags and NK reacted. In the meantime, there was video on one of the blogs links of the NK troops savagely trying to board the ship.
The video showed people trying to board the ship, SK troops trying to knock them back into the water and firing into the air, shouting their warnings the entire time. Then it cuts off at about 1:15 which is when I presume the explosives detonated the ship. However, in all the forums, one specific question was asked that nobody seemed to want to answer. All the "experts" (arm chair geniuses) were attempting their quasi political explanations but this one fella from the Mid-west asked:
"How'd the people in the water get that far from land, and not drown? Who were they? Why were they trying to board the ship?"
I mean, I'd answer but I don't know the answers to any of that.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
2010: what a shitty year so far.
If things weren’t bad enough already, all these new things had to happen. I mean…we had war looming on either side of the United States. There were earthquakes all over the world killing hundreds of people. Natural disasters that there was no relief from and now a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that is going to fuck shit up for quite a while. And then, there were the people.
People are just being less patient with each other. Nobody wants to give anybody the time of day. Nobody cares anymore forgetting that everybody else is just as human as you. We all have the same needs pretty much. We all wake up under the same sun and we sleep under the same moon. Yet there is always something making the ‘select few’ feel a bit more privileged. It’s coming to be that there will always be somebody who is more than willing to take away from you, what you have earned.
Just skimming the news I’d hear reports of robberies and home invasions becoming more frequent. Muggings would take place in the day now as well, not just early morning or early evenings. These select few would get more and more brazen and I think the law enforcement would think “let’s nip this in the bud and scare them all straight”. When and if applied, I think this only resulted in overuse of power and people behaving aggressively towards anybody trying to keep the peace. I think that’s what bummed me out as well.
I guess I can understand too though that people were just getting tired of their situations. Sometimes, many don’t have a reasonable alternative to their situation and so they just get mad and react. Take these clowns on TV for example…one of the local news stations is reporting that small crowds of people are mugging tourists and other natives down in Rosarito, Mexico. According to the reporter lady, beach front hotels are emptying out. People going out to eat and even watching the surfing competitions were attacked for whatever food they had on them. Whoever was there was bugging out and according to one person’s account:
“People are just saying, ‘No way.’ They don’t want to deal with the risk,” said hotel owner Jon Fleck.
I guess you couldn’t really blame them either. If a bum came at me and tried to take my burger, I wouldn’t want to stay at that place either. Normally I only watch the news for the weather report even though I can’t stand the weather lady. The only reason I was paying attention to any of this is because Rosarito was going to be one of the stops my parents are making while vacationing in Mexico.
See…my dad worked hard all his life and all he wanted was a quiet retirement in Mexico. However, he always wanted to ‘tour’ Mexico and fish for a couple of days before settling in my grandfather’s house in Guanajuato. My dad and my ma took off to Mexico about 3 days ago and had already hit up Sonora. Last I heard (my cousin heard from my aunt who told my other aunt who then told my cousin who told my girlfriend who told me) was that one of the spots my dad planned on staying at was some place in Rosarito. He wouldn’t be able to get to the Gulf as the oil spill had messed up a lot of the fishing businesses down there. U.S. government not letting them near their regular fishing areas and the Gulf becoming a no entry zone allowed for no touristy stuff to even occur there really.
I kept emailing my cousins in Salamanca who would in turn try to call my dad’s cell but he wasn’t answering.
Back on TV, the reporter lady continued that attacks like these were more common nowadays as recent reports of other attacks on crowds occurred in Toronto’s G20 Summit meetings. Apparently there, while some of the crowd was protesting, several of the protestors themselves were beaten and roughed up from other protestors! A similar thing happened at the oil spill press conferences, there were mobs of people attempting to help clean up but some of the people within those mobs also attacked others when they were all being forced back by police. Another account of people being attacked was at the conflict near the Gaza Strip where soldiers reported seeing people on both sides of the blockade attack one another as they neared the Rafah border crossing area. Officials suspect it may be just tensions running high due to the actual events occurring but whatever, people attacking people while military is present is just scary. I’d imagine the military getting tired of all of that at one point and mowing everybody down. The reporter then went into the new vampire movie and how tweens are going to love this newest installation in the trilogy. You just have to love local news channels. Fuck my life.
This July is my 33rd birthday. I don’t know how I feel about that just yet. My parents aren’t nearby and I can’t readily reach them. My brothers are all with our cousins taking a road trip around who knows where. My gf is taking her sweet ass time getting home today.
I promised my dad I’d start keeping a journal because I’ve seen and been through some pretty exciting things. He thought I should start documenting it before I forget it. Well here it is. I didn’t really expect this first entry to be such a downer. I’ll try better next time.
I tried calling my dad’s cell but no answer.
Goddamnit.
People are just being less patient with each other. Nobody wants to give anybody the time of day. Nobody cares anymore forgetting that everybody else is just as human as you. We all have the same needs pretty much. We all wake up under the same sun and we sleep under the same moon. Yet there is always something making the ‘select few’ feel a bit more privileged. It’s coming to be that there will always be somebody who is more than willing to take away from you, what you have earned.
Just skimming the news I’d hear reports of robberies and home invasions becoming more frequent. Muggings would take place in the day now as well, not just early morning or early evenings. These select few would get more and more brazen and I think the law enforcement would think “let’s nip this in the bud and scare them all straight”. When and if applied, I think this only resulted in overuse of power and people behaving aggressively towards anybody trying to keep the peace. I think that’s what bummed me out as well.
I guess I can understand too though that people were just getting tired of their situations. Sometimes, many don’t have a reasonable alternative to their situation and so they just get mad and react. Take these clowns on TV for example…one of the local news stations is reporting that small crowds of people are mugging tourists and other natives down in Rosarito, Mexico. According to the reporter lady, beach front hotels are emptying out. People going out to eat and even watching the surfing competitions were attacked for whatever food they had on them. Whoever was there was bugging out and according to one person’s account:
“People are just saying, ‘No way.’ They don’t want to deal with the risk,” said hotel owner Jon Fleck.
I guess you couldn’t really blame them either. If a bum came at me and tried to take my burger, I wouldn’t want to stay at that place either. Normally I only watch the news for the weather report even though I can’t stand the weather lady. The only reason I was paying attention to any of this is because Rosarito was going to be one of the stops my parents are making while vacationing in Mexico.
See…my dad worked hard all his life and all he wanted was a quiet retirement in Mexico. However, he always wanted to ‘tour’ Mexico and fish for a couple of days before settling in my grandfather’s house in Guanajuato. My dad and my ma took off to Mexico about 3 days ago and had already hit up Sonora. Last I heard (my cousin heard from my aunt who told my other aunt who then told my cousin who told my girlfriend who told me) was that one of the spots my dad planned on staying at was some place in Rosarito. He wouldn’t be able to get to the Gulf as the oil spill had messed up a lot of the fishing businesses down there. U.S. government not letting them near their regular fishing areas and the Gulf becoming a no entry zone allowed for no touristy stuff to even occur there really.
I kept emailing my cousins in Salamanca who would in turn try to call my dad’s cell but he wasn’t answering.
Back on TV, the reporter lady continued that attacks like these were more common nowadays as recent reports of other attacks on crowds occurred in Toronto’s G20 Summit meetings. Apparently there, while some of the crowd was protesting, several of the protestors themselves were beaten and roughed up from other protestors! A similar thing happened at the oil spill press conferences, there were mobs of people attempting to help clean up but some of the people within those mobs also attacked others when they were all being forced back by police. Another account of people being attacked was at the conflict near the Gaza Strip where soldiers reported seeing people on both sides of the blockade attack one another as they neared the Rafah border crossing area. Officials suspect it may be just tensions running high due to the actual events occurring but whatever, people attacking people while military is present is just scary. I’d imagine the military getting tired of all of that at one point and mowing everybody down. The reporter then went into the new vampire movie and how tweens are going to love this newest installation in the trilogy. You just have to love local news channels. Fuck my life.
This July is my 33rd birthday. I don’t know how I feel about that just yet. My parents aren’t nearby and I can’t readily reach them. My brothers are all with our cousins taking a road trip around who knows where. My gf is taking her sweet ass time getting home today.
I promised my dad I’d start keeping a journal because I’ve seen and been through some pretty exciting things. He thought I should start documenting it before I forget it. Well here it is. I didn’t really expect this first entry to be such a downer. I’ll try better next time.
I tried calling my dad’s cell but no answer.
Goddamnit.
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