20 questions about finding a penguin

I've seemingly taken on a task that has daunted every person's life on this earth, past or present. The quest to try and find one's self. I've gotten advice from all sides, from my parents, girlfriend, accquaintances, childhood friends and best friends. The advice hit on different angles ranging from stopping to think so hard and let go, to finding a test to do on your own, to accepting the fact of that's who you are and living with it instead of changing it to find yourself to the ever vague and ubiquitous just do what makes you happy.

All is good advice and each had valid arguments. Even thousands of miles away Dirty was philosophising that even the most inconceivable and minuscule occurrences could have contributed to what has or will or would have happened in your life to make the person you see in the mirror every day.

An individual pocket sized chaos theory if you will. That nickle you barely missed seeing in the gutter as you walked home from from school when you were 8 could have gotten you a gumball, but instead found its way into another kids piggy bank, which then found its way to a college fund, then to an IRA account and will be used to buy a pen that will write a hundred thousand dollar check for a new home.

What I found myself laughing to myself a bit today was that I heard a piece of valid advice from a children's movie about surfing penguins we watched a few days ago.

That being that we all have to find our own way.

Either I'm going insane by ignoring valid advice from loved ones and listening to a cartoon penguin surfer with a California accent or I've been blind to guidance lately.

So, I sparked a interesting help to myself project a day ago, by sending out emails to roughly about 20 people I consider close to me asking them to ask me a question about myself to answer to myself. My thinking is that by doing a self assessment assignment on myself, maybe I can start to answer questions to myself that I had not previously known or thought about. As of today, only one person has returned with a question for me. I'm waiting for a few more before I start tackling them.

I'm hoping that at the very least, I can use it as a medium to look internally at myself and possibly as a touchstone for understanding the penguin surfing creed.

AWOL

Yes, I've been dissapeared for a while without posting. Haven't felt like writing much as of late.

California was good, and I may be headed back in a few weeks for a few days. Some things have shown development while others are stagnant. I'll hopefully will be posting some more insightful information here soon.

I hope everyone is well & I will see you all soon.

munch munch munch

I have a big annoying hypocritical pet peeve. Now I say hypocritical because I have not been immune to certain related gastronomical acts that may make a average person feel disgusted. I've sat and eaten a pint of Ben & Jerry's and then started on a second one. I've gotten into a pizza eating competition between myself and one other dude wherein we tackled 2 little Caesars pizzas each. I'll make a full meal in the middle of the night. I've stuffed a whole hamburger in my mouth before. I started a candy collecting competition with dirty Ryan for the sheer sake of collecting as much candy s possible in a set timeframe, afterwards to eat ourselves sick.I eat my meals incredibly fast, so fast in fact that I once set a personal record for eating 6 taco bell items in less than 3 minutes...on several different occasions.
Yet out of all this, I am disgusted at the existence of the open mouth chewer. Whats worse is that the open mouth chewer dude is my Dad.
Sometimes its so bad that I lose my appetite. The nonstop shoveling of forkfuls into an orifice that still has unswallowed bites in it. The visual references of mashed up meat and vegetable bits rolling around in open air. Whats worse though, is his incessant smacking. A ever present wet "mack,mack,mack...squack, mack" permeates the dinner table. Worse yet, an occasional unidentifiable food flake sometimes flies out of the mouth and onto the table.
I suppose we have our own flaws in regards to the culinary world of gastronomical oddities, but his didn't really surface until about 6 years ago. That or I never really paid attention to his eating style. I'm going to guess also that at his age, the "I don't give a fuck" age as I call it, he shouldn't care. On the bright side, I'm happy that he can enjoy his meals now since over the past 5 years, his past cancer treatments has massively wrecked his GI tract and had limited what he could eat. Now he can enjoy himself again.

Missing in action

So I've been gone for a while. Eat me. Those that I actually consider to be friends have either called, emailed or at least texted me to see whats up. Screw the rest of you, I have no time for fickle brown nosing or wannabe friend crap. Those of you in the know, you know whats been up.
As for today, here's how my nice relaxing day went.
I woke up on a cozy Monday morning. April 7th 2008 at 9:45 am to partly cloudy California skies. It was just chilly enough to want to stay in bed, but I was rested enough that I felt like getting up.
I got up, had breakfast with Dad and then worked in the garden with him for a few hours.
I had lunch, did laundry, checked my finances online.
I took a nice slow walk, walked down to the park and laid in the grass under a large ash tree and took a long daydream capnap with my iPod on.
I walked home, picking some fruit off some trees on the way.
I got home, prepped food for dinner, and then baked 2 loaves of oatmeal banana nut bread and a few dozen oatmeal raisin cookies before a hearty fish dinner with bean salad.
I relaxed on the couch afterwards, wrote this and then more than likely went to bed.
It sucks to be you.