#62 - what the bleep do i know

quick thought... just finished watching "what the bleep do we know?" it's kinda like a documentary movie about quantum physics. it explored a bunch of different theories and philosophies, and most of them were grossly over-generalized, over-dramaticized, or just very very unfounded views of science (with particular stabs at religion), but there were a few good points that i think can be taken away. in general, i like watching programs that explore non-fiction types of issues (especially non-traditional physics). usually, i like to start off believing the speakers, but somewhere in the second half of the program there's always some turning point when i realize, "okay, these guys actually don't have a clue what they're talking about" and then most of everything they've said until that point gets totally debunked.

anyway, of course quantum physics is a controversial and pretty much non-definable topic (at least in terms that most of us are familiar with), therefore, most of the arguments must be presented in analogies and like-terms, which of course doesn't do justice to the actual meat of the issues. but a couple of interesting bits of "research" that they mentioned that i thought were at least amusing:

1) japanese scientist named emoto did experiments investigating the effect that music and emotion have on the crystalline structures of water, basically he subjected containers of water (from distilled to spring to polluted) to music for a few hours or taped a word (like "love" or "thank you" or "you make me sick") to the bottle and then froze it, then took microscopic pictures of the ice crystals. supposedly, different types of music created different crystals and words live "love" and "thank you" created symmetrical forms while "you make me sick" resulted in distored crystals. not sure exactly how he theorized that the "thoughts" of the words written on the bottles changed the water (unless maybe he left the bottles out for lots of people to read and infuse their emotions on), but the end theory was that our thoughts can affect water (so-called the most "perceptive" of the elements) and since our bodies are like 80-90% water then our thoughts greatly affect ourselves.

2) along those lines was a study conducted in washington, dc in the summer of 2003. dc has the highest violent crime or murder rate or something in the nation and so they brought in 4000 people to meditate for days or weeks or something during the summertime and predicted that the power of their thoughts would decrease the frequency of violent crime in dc that summer by 25%... and apparently it did.

3) so where i'm going with this (because i am in no way ready to shout the praises and validity of these theories, i guess grad school did something useful to me after all)? even though i don't agree with a lot of the theories proposed in this movie, there was at least one interesting thought that might be useful to take away... using your thoughts to shape your reality. one central proposal in the movie is that we are so shaped by our past experiences and are so stuck in our routines (not just daily routines, but the routine that we have come to accept the physical world around us as the absolute reality instead of merely sensory inputs) that we do not allow ourselves to be privy to any of the OTHER "realities" that constantly surround us. they propose that all "matter" around us exists in all places at once (thus allowing for parallel dimensions and alternate universes) and it is only our narrow perception that CHOOSES to see the things around us as things existing in only one place at one time. an anecdotal example they gave was that when columbus came to america, the native americans literally could not see their ships because they had absolutely no reason in their lifetimes to be able to comprehend just objects. all they could see was ripples on the horizon, so their shaman sat out and watched the horizon for days until he became accustomed to the shape of the ships and he saw them. then when he told his people (since he was so respected and they all believed him), suddenly they could all see the ships too.

so what possible practical application could this have on me (because that's all i care about of course)? well, taking bits and pieces of these ideas, it might be a pretty excellent thing to once in a while take a step out of my reality, my consciousness and try to see things without all the precepts that may be engrained in my mind. of course, i'm not saying i'll suddenly see into parallel dimensions or anything so dramatic as that, but perhaps i might find myself in a new light. which is why i write so much in this blog. i love reading my own blog posts because i can view my life from a different point of view (plus, i don't have a great memory and i forget things that i just did). then i can be more objective about where my life has been and where i'd like to go next. just as when you're exericsing you've gotta switch things up every once in a while to give your muscles something new and different to do, you've gotta do that with your mind and your emotions too. it's all about keeping on living life. i read in the paper the other day that people who take vacations at least every year have a much greater life expectancy than those who travel only once every five years. and doesn't that make sense? from an evolutionary standpoint, the more you experience life and find new experiences in life the better you will be at living it right? that's the theory.

#61 - boldness

i seem to have my most interesting dreams when i'm stressed from work. do you think that stress causes intense dreaming? could be. anyway, it's not that i dream about work or anything related to work (wouldn't that be so crappy? you have to go to work all day and then dream about work at night? gross). but as far as i can remember, most of my best (re: weirdest, strangest, most disturbing) dreaming has come in times of intensity from work or school. man, you should've heard some of the dreams i had when i first started externship during grad school, those were some of the most intense dreams i've ever had. that's when i had incredibly complex dreams almost nightly with some weird phenomena, like the setting for my dreams would be very consistent, like all my dreams about school would be at "the school" of my dreams which was not like any of my schools in real life, but it was the same every single time i dreamed about being in a school. that's also when i dreamed that i got shot (i was outside my house running away from robbers and one of them pulled a gun and i said, "what the crap dude you think you're gonna shoot me? no way you'd get away with it dumbass." and then he shot me and i said, "nice one dumbass, you're going to jail now, stupid, haw haw." it was kinda fun.

anyway, now that i'm back to work after the summer break i think that ramped up the intensity a little bit more because this is what i dreamed last night:

so i was going to play at a high school, except it was "the school" that's the same school in all my dreams. and it didn't look like it, but i was in what i believed was an elementary school cafeteria in the front row watching the cast of that 70's show put on a musical. i thought it was weird, but i kept watching, then i turned around (we were sitting at those cafeteria tables with seats on both sides) and this butch bully girl was saying something to piss me off, i don't know, just because she was a bully, and instead of backing down i totally called her on it, and everyone around me was like, she's gonna beat you up for real. and looking at her i knew that she probably could beat me up, but i was so pumped up on confidence that i said, "bring it on, bitch!" haha, and she got so mad, and i said it again because i knew in my dream-mind that she wouldn't beat me up, so then i won. i don't know what there was to win, but i knew i won it.

then, i was in a college class because i had gone back to uh for medical school. they were holding the class outside on a lawn so there was rows and rows of metal folding chairs lined up on the lawn and i sat somewhere in the back. the professor was this japanese guy with white hair and he was telling us how medical school was so hard and "are you sure you know what you're getting into?" i was just sitting pretty because i knew that i already got my master's degree and i didn't really NEED to be there, so i was feeling all confident like i'd get through med school no problem and i didn't have to listen to this old guy's lecture. so i was doing a crossword puzzle and i was bare-ass naked! i guess i was naked because i said to myself that since i'm so bold and confident and i didn't really need medical school, i should do something completely new and exciting to make the most out of life. so i'm doing my crossword puzzle, but i'm cheating because i have the answers, so really i'm just copying the answers from one puzzle to the next one. then the guy sitting next to me says, "wow, that's pretty good, i try doing crossword puzzles but they're too hard." and i told him it was pretty easy, and he asked if i was doing the US Cemetery crossword puzzle, and i didn't know what that was so i asked him and he said that the whole puzzle was made up of the names of dead people and i thought that sounded pretty difficult. then the girl in back of me started talking to me, but i don't remember what she was saying and then the professor walked to the back row and saw that i was naked and told me i had to put some clothes on. and instead of being ashamed or whatever, i boldly told him, "what? you mean you want me to wear clothes EVERYDAY?" and he said, "YES! in fact, i want you to wear BRAND NEW clothes everyday!" and i said, "come on! we're not doctors YET!" and then everyone laughed and that girl behind me said it was pretty cool thing to say, but then she had to go to class so she left.

and that's all i remember!

#60 - last day

yesterday was tourist tuesday... today, forget the damn tourist, it's local boy wednesday. i'm sure there's a better way to say that, but screw it, i don't know how. anyway, it was south shore yesterday, let's go up north today. how much nicer is it to be on the north shore than in town? man, i can't even describe. it feels nicer in my soul. haha, that's dumb, but anyway, any chance i can get to pick north shore over south i'm there. but when you're just by yourself here's much more to do on the south shores so my trips north are limited, which is actually okay because that makes them that much better. another reason why i don't get up there as much as i'd like is because the surf is mostly either 1) flat, or 2) way too big for me. haha, plus, whenever it's in that nice middle-ly range, it's way crowded. so whenever i've got a day off (that's not the weekend) i love to head up there. today i picked chun's reef: it actually was pretty crowded on shore, less crowded in the water. i don't care for surfing in a crowd, i'd rather sit off to the side and wait for the waves to come rather than sit in the line-up and fight for it. and at chun's mostly people sit to the left for the prime break and i can paddle on out to the right and catch the smaller, but still decent stuff (and then when the sets come i can get some sweet rides out there too). anyway, my philosophy on surfing goes like this: i will surf based on these factors (in order of importance):


1. weather - i accept nothing less than perfect paradise weather (okay, not really, but i think i'm a temperature wuss because i get cold very quickly when it's not sunny, especially when it's windy)


2. crowd - mostly the reason why i pick my north shore days carefully is that i really hate fighting for waves, i'm a passive guy out there and i think to myself, well, if other guys are gonna be that aggressive for the waves, then good for them, they can have it, and i can wait... because the weather is perfect (see #1) and i'm just happy to be out in the water


3. waves - based primarily on clean-ness and then on size. i'm not big on wave heights, as long as it's clean you can get ultra-fun rides. but when you've got both... nice.

so today, 1) weather was perfect... clear blue skies, just a few floatly little cotton ball clouds, 2) crowded at the prime break, but very empty for a summer day on the north shore, and 3) pretty tiny waves, but rideable, a couple of shoulder-high sets rolled in which made it a bit more exciting, but everything was clean and glassy, perfect. when you can see every single reef head underneath your board as you're sliding in on a wave, that's the stuff right there. don't get that too much at white plains. so yeah, then, even as you're just sitting out there waiting for the sets to roll in, it doesn't matter that there's nothing to ride because you're sitting out there in a crystal clear ocean moving up and down with the waves, plus, bonus because you know when you go home that night and lie in your bed, you'll feel that ocean again before you fall asleep. see? it's like nature gives you a bonus to convince you how cool surfing is, haha.
so all in all, super-fun stuff out there today. a great way to end the summer (if there ever was a good way to END summer... but that's something else). me and my board here had an awesome surf session at chun's, ended it up with some kua`aina burger and now it's back to work tomorrow... sigh, well, this is hawai`i right? i guess the next "summer" day can wait until saturday!

#59 - tourist tuesday

so, summertime coming to an end... on the penultimate day until "BACK TO WORK!! AHH!" i decided to do something i haven't done in a very long time. it was a bee-u-tiful day outside so it was the perfect day to go on a tourist adventure, this time: the waikiki walk. not like i've never been to waikiki, when i was living at the dorms i used to walk down kapahulu ave. twice a week, pick up a loco moco from rainbow drive inn along the way, and have brunch and a quick swim in waikiki. it was pretty fun, it's weird though because if i didn't know that i did it, i didn't think that i would do it so consistently twice a week for a few years. it's like, it was such a routine that i can't believe i kept it up... but i did. and it was a lot of fun because there's so many different kinds of people down there at those beaches so it never got boring because everyday was different. plus some exciting stuff happened too, of course that's when i started surfing, renting a board ($10 for 2 hours) from the board stands and i learned by trying to copy what everyone else was doing (which probably wasn't exactly the best way to learn, but hey it worked so...). japanese tourists are always fun, i bet i took about a milion pictures for them (and always returned the camera, haha). oh and one time this weird old guy introduced himself to me and said he's "seen me around," gave me a business card and told me to check it out and then he whispered, "if you like some good porn." hahaha! i think he was trying to get me into porn, which was gross, but kinda flattering.... no, just gross. anyway, maybe he just wanted to sell me porn, whatever, it was creepy. anyway, see? never gets boring.
so i went down to waikiki on tuesday, pretty much with the intent to spend the day doing whatever tourists do in waikiki, well, besides shop of course because i have no money any more. but i decided to start off at kapi`olani park and walk along the beach all the way 'till the end, to the harbor where the `ilikai is. so i started at the aquarium and i was surprised at what i forgot was in waikiki. like this breakwater "pier" or whatever. pretty much just concrete wall that went out a bunch of yards into the water. the cool this is that right at the end of the "pier" is where the break is so the surfers surf right past you as you're sitting at the edge, pretty cool.
along the beach were a lot of concrete walkways where the sand was eroding away... i remember in college laying out and putting all my stuff on the sand in back of the moana surfrider hotel... but when i went there yesterday the water came up all the way to the wall of the pool! i hope it was just high tide, could the shoreline really change that much in just a few... okay well maybe 5 years? i guess that's why the news is always talking about replacing the sand on the beach eh? hmm, that's kinda sad, but pretty cool to see how nature can completely change and take over right?
i had a great time walking the whole way, it was pretty darn long, i didn't realize, i walked all the way past the shorebird and the hale koa and everything and the whole way was beach... pretty decent beach too. i mean, for the south shore y'know? and people everywhere! holy crap there was a lot of people. and a lot of hot girls too. i was surprised because you'd think that it'd all be old haole fat women who can afford to take hawaiian vacations with their bald, fat husbands right? but there was a lot of young people too, which made me feel better that young people can and do take fun vacations and i need to do that too. hmm... but then i also thought, well, heck i already live here, so it was okay.
here's a cool pic i took off one of the "piers" looking out into waikiki. i think i've grossly underestimated walking. normally i can't stand it, i get so bored and then i walk really fast and make people get out of my way to finally get to where i'm going. but this was a nice leisurely walk with nowhere really to go, but lots to see and do along the way. of course, walking on a big, landmark hawaiian beach is not exactly the same as taking a stroll around mililani, but hopefully some of that philosophy might rub off to my more non-touristy days... or turn those regular days into semi-touristy days, y'know? anyway, beach = good, vacation = awesome, going back to work on thursday = sucky.

#58 - getting set

time's a-tickin' away until i'm finally off on my own. man, i can't wait. summer was nice and everything, but man, there's NO escaping at this house. there are people everywhere. just there, being big people lumps that i can't get away from. i will be so happy when i finally have a place all to myself, and so this weekend i gave myself a break from this "house" and went off to envision a little bit of what i'd like my new place to be. first off, to pictures plus, they had a tent sale and i picked up four frames with mats for only $28, nice, the lady there cut me a sweet deal. then i found a couple of ledge shelves to hang up for half off, so picked me up a couple of those and got myself a little more pumped up to move out, haha. anyway, i've been buying a lot of photography-artwork lately, but taking a look at some of my own amateur digital camera shots, i think i could make my own (plus, i could print them out myself for like a dollar each print). here's one that i framed already, it's pupukea in the winter: i think one thing i'll really miss about living at home though, is the piano... i'd say i play the piano pretty much daily... nothing fancy or anything, just messing around running through books and books of songs. my favorites for the past few months have been japanese pieces, for some reason they are really well-orchestrated for piano. something about instrumental japanese music really catches my attention, both traditional and contemporary. could it be the years and years of nintendo engrained in my brain? i don't know, but lately i've been playing pieces from princess mononoke, spirited away, and then i've got this book of japanese video game music that's just awesome. i don't even know where the songs are from (probably some nerdy final fantasy game or something), but it's really nicely written for piano.
so yeah, i'll definately miss my big black grand piano when i move into my small townhouse. i think one of the first things i'll need to buy (beside a tonkin' big screen tv of course, haha) is a piano. except i think i might have to get an electric piano... boo. i mean, i could probably fit an acousitc upright in my place, but it'd be big and heavy and hard to move and expensive (like, 3-4 grand). so after pictures plus i went to the piano outlet to check out some of the digitals, most of them have weighted keys now so there's like hammer action when you play (like a real piano) which is pretty good. this one below that i saw was pretty cool, nice and simple, not a lot of electronics on it, which is good. but it had preprogrammed demo songs, like a player piano (except the keys don't move... that was kinda disappointing, but oh well), and it could record what you play. plus, it was only $1000. sweet. but, sigh, that's another expense to add onto my ever-growing list... i'm gonna be eating pb&j for the next five years i think.

#57 - summer lovin'

so... one more week of summer left eh? let's review... it was good. okay so i hate summarizing. it makes me feel like i'm back in school, summarize this book in 250 words. bleh. who needs it? if i want a summary i'll just scroll back through the posts, see? i knew i was keeping this blog for something.

anyway, so six weeks of summer have passed (yes, summer is only 7 weeks long, how depressing, it's just not right, we end work in june and then say, see you next month in july? dumb) and i've watched a lot of tv. haha, well, i've had time to watch a lot of tv at least. so i thought that i'd spice up my blog with a new poll (not that it wasn't interesting to find out that 3 out of 5 people want to go to australia, but...). here are four be-u-tiful ladies that i've been watching on tv all summer that i think are all very very hot. do you agree?

1. eliza dushku - i think she was the reason why i started watching buffy the vampire slayer (make your jokes as you like, but i swear, that's a great show), she's just hot. no explanation needed. she's also the reason why i watched tru calling this summer (make your jokes, because that's a crappy show). then she was in some horror movies that i watched only because she was in them (they were likewise crappy). oh well, i guess those producers knew they had crappy shows and needed a hottie to pull people like me in... keep up the good work producers.

2. lauren conrad - don't laugh (nah, go ahead and laugh, i'd laugh at me too), when i was in grad school my classmates (all girls mind you) were into laguna beach, and since i spent every single waking moment of every single day with them, i heard a lot about the show. so i watched a couple and then i saw her and i watched some more and i kept watching 'cause she's hot. don't get me wrong, everyone on those shows seems pretty idiotic (probably due to the fact that they're all loaded rich and spoiled), but that's the fun of watching it eh?

3. paris hilton - is it wrong to like watching the simple life? tough because i thought it was a great show. haha, of course, not a "good" show, but an entertaining half-hour of laughing at a hot dumb blonde on farms. c'mon, that's good tv! haha, okay, but really, she's still hot... of course, i'm not taking into account any of her actions or various media "incidents" into consideration, just going by the looks, and she's got 'em.

4. maria sharapova - COME ON! i love maria's mean face. and yes she's hot, but she's got the game to back it up too... now THAT'S hot. i'm seeing a US Open repeat for the two-time grand slam champion eh? how awesome was it last year when they played all those commercials of her during the open and then she went all the way and won it huh? man, you can't script that stuff, it's just pure good sports story. sweet.

#56 - breakage

aah... i love the smell of freshly broken strings in the morning. okay, not really, but for some reason it's really fun when you break strings on your tennis racket... even more fun if you break it a la serena williams and smack it down into the court, but i broke mine the old fashioned way.

usually, i'm not really interested in tennis for competition, and i don't very much like playing with strangers (like, pick-up basketball or something), but for some reason i was at the courts on friday just serving and playing the backboard and this random guy asked if i wanted to hit with him for a bit. usually, i just say something like, "thanks, but i'm just practicing serving" or something and decline, but for some reason i guess i was feeling confident and i agreed. anyway, i guess i should stop being so awkward about things like that, but i guess all those D.A.R.E "stay away from strangers" things they bombarded me with in elementary school got etched in my brain somehow. anyway, the point is that the guy hit pretty hard with some wicked spin (and actually i was pretty proud of myself afterwards for hanging right with him in the rallies and little mini-games or whatever, since i never really get to compare myself with other tennis players), but then of course, hard-hitting = string busting.

but hey, that's what it's about eh? it feels pretty cool to be smacking consistently forcefully enough to break your strings. but then i had to do a rush job on the restringing to go to lessons on sunday, but thanks to that shop in pearl kai it was ready to go! yeah tennis!

ps - on a sidenote, today there was a mini-marathon of "tru calling" on the sci-fi channel today. i liked that show, it wasn't a good show, but it had a semi-interesting plot and a hottie for a star so it was a nice hour of tv during the weekdays. too bad it didn't last very long, i think they started running out of ideas so they brought on jason preistly (bad bad bad actor) and then from there on it was pretty damn crappy. but of course i'd still watch it for my weekly dose of eliza dushku (see above, re: hottie). anyway, it was kinda nice to see it back on tv, since it went off tv so quickly, but it was nice surprise.

#55 - bear vs. wild

this guy is my new hero. the second season of man vs. wild just started this summer on the discovery channel and i'm loving every second of it. not that i think i would ever want to get myself into one of these survival situations, but at least i can pretend that if i ever was in that situation i might possibly know something more than how to make a sundial. anyway, after that hike the other day i got that man vs. wild craving again and watch a nice summertime DVR'ed marathon of man vs. wild and even though i know what he's gonna do, i still can't believe it when he drinks water out of elephant poop, or pees on his shirt and wraps it around his head, or jumps over a snowcliff just to show you how to climb your way back up. and i think the worst (and most awesome part) about bear and this show is that you KNOW he doesn't HAVE to do these things. even though he's "stranded" himself out there in all these places, there's at least the cameraman with him, and you know that HE ain't drinking elephant poop! haha, and i'm sure that as much as the things that he does are real, i'm sure there are some things that are staged, but who cares? when you see that guy go all golem on some fish he caught in an ice pond it's just good tv!


hmm... so how long do you think it'll take me to get my own show on the discovery channel? or, how about on olelo? what do you think? matt vs. wild!

#54 - the trail

first of all, a couple of new things for the blog... check out the poll on the right column, hopefully i'll have a new one each week, this week: where do you want to go on your next vacation? of course, if i had a million-zillion dollars then i'd pick something a little more exotic than vegas (think europe... spain, italy, etc.), but being more realistic, i'd be happy taking a vacation to anywhere!

also, check out the new pic on the footer of the page, hopefully it'll be an oft-rotated pic, but this one suits my mood right now. i tried to fix up a sweet banner for the header and title of the page, but i'm not quite that technically minded just yet, so it'll have to be a plain title for a while longer.

anyway, here are some pics from another summer adventure, same trail as last time, but gone a little deeper. we actually took three different trails, judd trail, that connected to nu`uanu trail, and at the end of that was pauoa trail. about a quarter way through we were looking a little more like this:
but once we got to the top of the mountain there was a great view all the way from diamond head to ewa.
that was about halfway up... then we went down the other side of the mountain through some cool (but superbly muddy) bamboo forests only to climb back up the montain and get the same exact view of nu`uanu at the end of the "pauoa flats trial." haha, see, someone wrote on the side of the pole "who is on trial?" below that someone wrote "aaron." poor aaron.anyway, overall it was a decent hike, but an even better time just taking the hike, being outdoors, and taking pictures of nicole's awesome spit bubbles.

#53 - Fourth of July

Fourth of July! i'm glad most everyone could make it out to the beach on wednesday, despite the early wake up call and unfortunate morning weather. but once it cleared up it was a nice day eh? here are some pics from the fun day... so i tried about a million times to get these two pics upright, but i guess i suck so you'll just have to tilt your own head you lazy bums.

i guess we don't smile for the camera anymore huh? that's okay, this is funner.

oh, here's falcor. i don't know if that's his real name, but he appeared in the early morning at the beach park all by himself and took a nap in the shade by our camp. we named him falcor after that disgusting dog/dragon thing in the neverending story. but then i went home and looked up "falcor" on the internet and it actually looked like this:
gross! anyway, for a stray dog, falcor was impressively polite... he patiently waited off to the side when we started cooking for his scraps and didn't bark or be too nosy around our stuff. and he only once stepped up on our beach mats (then i had to go dog whisperer on him and show him who the humans were) and peed off to the side and then disappeared again. well, i think he got a pretty good meal out of us so a win-win day for everyone eh?