KFC Christmas in Japan LA Weekly Article
From the perspective of a foreigner living in China this article hit home. Since China is just getting into Christmas and loves KFC I am suprised it is not like this here.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Potential
potential
the potential to change history, to reach out and make goals and dreams reality. Everyone has this potential, in the story of the Tower of Babel, God says, when man works together, nothing is beyond them.
Pasted from <http://chucklew.livejournal.com/?skip=240>
Many people have told me i have great potential....what they mean is that they think i could be doing so much more then i am.
Pasted from <http://chucklew.livejournal.com/?skip=240>
Potential is such a crazy thing. A person telling you that you have so much potential is a very back handed complement. It really is saying that you are not doing enough. I used to be told this a lot mainly when I was in Middle School and High School. Then in the past week at 32, I was told for the first time I was that I had a lot of potential and then someone was gave me specifics on how I can change things to fulfill that potential. It is such powerful and encouraging thing to have someone tell you I think you have so much potential and then give you specifics on what is holding you back rather than simply say that you are not living up to your potential.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
The Airport
They say you can't go home again but it seems like you can and if you had a crazy childhood like me sometimes it gets better.
On Thursday I made the journey from LAX to O'Hare a journey that I had done repeatedly since I was 13, but stopped making when I was about 25. I spent weeks in transit between during my junior year of High School. That year I was living in Chicago with my Dad but since I was rebelling against him and everything else I would use every opportunity to fly back to LA. Since I flew stand by the airports became my turf where I was master of my domain, even though like every where else I had no control it seemed there was always hope and the airport and the chance to get a flight and to go where I wanted or needed to be. So on Thursday when I hunkered down to wait for my standby flight to Chicago it felt like going home again.
P.S. I only had to wait 4 hours to get a flight though I did have to crawl on the floor to get it.
On Thursday I made the journey from LAX to O'Hare a journey that I had done repeatedly since I was 13, but stopped making when I was about 25. I spent weeks in transit between during my junior year of High School. That year I was living in Chicago with my Dad but since I was rebelling against him and everything else I would use every opportunity to fly back to LA. Since I flew stand by the airports became my turf where I was master of my domain, even though like every where else I had no control it seemed there was always hope and the airport and the chance to get a flight and to go where I wanted or needed to be. So on Thursday when I hunkered down to wait for my standby flight to Chicago it felt like going home again.
P.S. I only had to wait 4 hours to get a flight though I did have to crawl on the floor to get it.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Today is the half way point of my journey in Central America. I woke up at 3:00am from a dream where the gir of my dreams was in her car telling someone about her prays for a man. She expressed how she wanted to marry someone taller than 5'11". Which left me thinking about my dream to one day marry her. The thought of how much I like her and how I want to be transformed into the man of her dreams kept rolling through my head. Then I am fearful that she will again become my white whale and that I will be closed off to wanting to date other girls.
I yurn for a woman with a mission mind set and a desire for the ministry and some of women that I know and are beuatiful are literally fleeing from God. Yesterday Blair was telling a story where she asked someone a question about the Bible and then took that as an opportunity to share their faith with here and she literally ran away.
After thinking I decided to read some more Into Thin Air so I could go back to sleep but all it did was get my mind going even more. It made me think of how this trip is really an eye opener. It has made me desire so much more to be a missionary because I see so much more how the world is helpless and harassed. But through the illness and fatigue I better see how much a sacrifice going to China will truly be.
I yurn for a woman with a mission mind set and a desire for the ministry and some of women that I know and are beuatiful are literally fleeing from God. Yesterday Blair was telling a story where she asked someone a question about the Bible and then took that as an opportunity to share their faith with here and she literally ran away.
After thinking I decided to read some more Into Thin Air so I could go back to sleep but all it did was get my mind going even more. It made me think of how this trip is really an eye opener. It has made me desire so much more to be a missionary because I see so much more how the world is helpless and harassed. But through the illness and fatigue I better see how much a sacrifice going to China will truly be.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Nicaragua Cont. The Day I Meet the President
This morning we took a bus tour on Nicaragua. It was weird they had all these Christmas trees up with the number 30 on top of them. It turned out that they were from the previous Christmas and the Sandinistas decided that they would leave them up all year to celebrate the 30th anniversary of them taking over power from the Somaza regime. We drove around the city and saw areas where people had simply become squatters and started building shacks then were given the property by the Sandanistas.
The first stop we made was to a archeological site called Huellas de Acahualinca.It is incorrectly believed by some that the foot prints were made by people running from a volcanic eruption, the footprints were really made by people walking to Lake Nicaragua to get water. The footprints are 6 or 7 thousand years old. There were roughly 10 to 20 people who left footprints one of the footprints looks like it has 6 toes, which was most likely created by one person walking behind another walking in the first person’s footsteps. There are also animal tracks near the footsteps but they are headed in a different direction so the animals probably came after the people and were headed in a different direction.
After we saw the footprints we went to the location of the old presidential house. It had a history of the Sandanista party and some information on Augusto Sandino who was not actually part of or the founder of the Sandanista party but a rebel against the US control of Nicaragua in the 1930’s. Sandino had been the son of a farmer and went on to fight against the US Marines in a guerilla war, in which Sandino’s soldiers had the advantage because they were familiar with the terrain of the jungles.
We had to get dressed up for dinner because we meet with ex-president of Nicaragua Enrique José Bolaños Geyer. Don Enrique had gone to University in the US and received a degree in Engineering. His family wasn’t really involved in politics they were more concerned with business. Geyer was a cotton farmer who had his property confiscated by the Sandinistas. As president Don Enrique fought against the political corruption of previous administrations. Don Enrique told us about how Central America didn’t really have a revolution to gain independence from Spain that gained its independence because Napoleon named his brother King of Spain.
Don Enrique also explain the benefits of a canal in Nicaragua and how there is more water for a canal and how a canal in Nicaragua would be able to handle ships almost twice as large as the ships the Panama canal will be able to when it is done being expanded. The goal for the Panama Canal expansion is 130 thousand pounds while a canal in Nicaragua would be able to support a boat weighing 250 thousand pounds. Even without a canal we Vanderbilt used Nicaragua to go from the Atlantic to the Pacific it took half the time it would have take to travel around South America.
Don Enrique also discussed how he had high hopes for united Central America similar to the EU. He said that Nicaragua needs help with that in order to bring this about and increase the power and prestige of all of Central America. He said the per capita GNP of Nicaragua is about $1000 while the per capita GNP of Costa Rica is $9000. Don Enrique said that $40 per person in Nicaragua per year for infrastructure improvements is what would be needed it increase the GNP of Nicaragua to a level similar to other Central American countries. He also said that a customs bank or CAFÉ integration bank would be required to distribute customs revenues to bring greater equity in Central America. Don Enrique if Central America chose to follow the same path that Europe did a unified Central America would be possible.
After our dinner with Don Enrique I went back to the hotel and swam and then went to Karaoke, I started getting tired so I headed back the hotel alone and called it a night.
The first stop we made was to a archeological site called Huellas de Acahualinca.It is incorrectly believed by some that the foot prints were made by people running from a volcanic eruption, the footprints were really made by people walking to Lake Nicaragua to get water. The footprints are 6 or 7 thousand years old. There were roughly 10 to 20 people who left footprints one of the footprints looks like it has 6 toes, which was most likely created by one person walking behind another walking in the first person’s footsteps. There are also animal tracks near the footsteps but they are headed in a different direction so the animals probably came after the people and were headed in a different direction.
After we saw the footprints we went to the location of the old presidential house. It had a history of the Sandanista party and some information on Augusto Sandino who was not actually part of or the founder of the Sandanista party but a rebel against the US control of Nicaragua in the 1930’s. Sandino had been the son of a farmer and went on to fight against the US Marines in a guerilla war, in which Sandino’s soldiers had the advantage because they were familiar with the terrain of the jungles.
We had to get dressed up for dinner because we meet with ex-president of Nicaragua Enrique José Bolaños Geyer. Don Enrique had gone to University in the US and received a degree in Engineering. His family wasn’t really involved in politics they were more concerned with business. Geyer was a cotton farmer who had his property confiscated by the Sandinistas. As president Don Enrique fought against the political corruption of previous administrations. Don Enrique told us about how Central America didn’t really have a revolution to gain independence from Spain that gained its independence because Napoleon named his brother King of Spain.
Don Enrique also explain the benefits of a canal in Nicaragua and how there is more water for a canal and how a canal in Nicaragua would be able to handle ships almost twice as large as the ships the Panama canal will be able to when it is done being expanded. The goal for the Panama Canal expansion is 130 thousand pounds while a canal in Nicaragua would be able to support a boat weighing 250 thousand pounds. Even without a canal we Vanderbilt used Nicaragua to go from the Atlantic to the Pacific it took half the time it would have take to travel around South America.
Don Enrique also discussed how he had high hopes for united Central America similar to the EU. He said that Nicaragua needs help with that in order to bring this about and increase the power and prestige of all of Central America. He said the per capita GNP of Nicaragua is about $1000 while the per capita GNP of Costa Rica is $9000. Don Enrique said that $40 per person in Nicaragua per year for infrastructure improvements is what would be needed it increase the GNP of Nicaragua to a level similar to other Central American countries. He also said that a customs bank or CAFÉ integration bank would be required to distribute customs revenues to bring greater equity in Central America. Don Enrique if Central America chose to follow the same path that Europe did a unified Central America would be possible.
After our dinner with Don Enrique I went back to the hotel and swam and then went to Karaoke, I started getting tired so I headed back the hotel alone and called it a night.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
First Day In Nicaragua
Wow it has been a jam packed trip it is so hard to believe we have only been here one day. I had a great time swimming and hanging out at the Karaoke bar last night then this morning I went down to breakfast at around 7:00 so I would have time to read the Bible and drink a couple of cups of coffee. We left around 8:00 and had a tour of Granada by horse drawn carriage. We saw the old hospital, the old train station and the old cathedral. Then we went by a place where they made cigars, some people rolled some and we all shared a sample cigar. It wasn’t as strong as I would have liked it to be so I ended up not buying any cigars. At the cigar shop they had a parrot and a poster ofArnold Schwarzenegger. Then we went by this cemetery that had a bunch of mausoleums and statues to mark the graves. They also had mango trees there and we found out that Granada is a city with a lot of Mango trees. Then after the cemetery we went on a tour of a Nicaraguan Cultural Center. The cultural center had used to be a very large house and then part of it was turned into the cultural center. It had a lot of contemporary Nicaraguan art. There was also a radio station and an artist working on new pieces and selling some of his art from a work room.
After we left the cultural center we started talking to some kids who were playing around barefoot in the street. Claudia asked them why they were not in school and one of the boys replied because he didn’t have shoes. One of the most eye opening things about the trips so far has been the poverty. Like the kid, Michael, last night who ate the half eaten hamburger we gave him and the kids that claim they can’t go to school because they can’t afford shoes it is very heartbreaking. It also reveals how truly wealthy we are in the US. Never has my mom, even when I thought we were really poor and my family homeless, been unable to provide me with shoes. Also very rarely did I go without eating and even when I did it wasn’t long enough to cause me to feel like I needed to eat a stranger’s half eaten food. I was told that the average income is $100 per month for a Nicaraguan and while things are cheaper in Nicaragua then in the US things are not 20 or thirty times cheaper. There is definitely an economy based on begging in Granada. If the average income is $100 all a kid would have to do is get a couple dollars a day and they would greatly increase the living conditions of their family if they earned $3 or $4 they would be making the income of an adult.
In the afternoon we went to Lake Nicaragua. Lake Nicaragua is a fresh water lake and is the only place with fresh water sharks. The sharks in Lake Nicaragua are Bull Sharks, they used to swim up the rivers but were trapped by a volcanic eruption. Lake Nicaragua was very beautiful and after Renee, who was my guide on the boat said, a small island could be purchased for as little as $100,000 I wanted to buy one. Though Renee followed that up with the cheaper Islands are usually pretty close to diapering. A medium sized Island would sell with a house would sell for $400,000 which seems pretty cheap by LA standards. Lake Nicaragua had been part of a transit system to get from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific and also made Nicaragua an appealing place to build a canal before Panama Canal was built. Someone brought white faced monkeys and spider monkeys to one of the Islands. I think Josh was allowed to feed the monkeys.
After the tour of the Lake we were set free on the town of Granada. I ended up going with Evan, Christine and Keith to a typical Nicaraguan restaurant. I had wanted to go with Josh to eat some crazy food and we were told that Centralito, the restaurant I ate at, was the place to go but they only had the regular Nicaraguan food. I ended up getting a steak which cost around $8 and a 2 mojitos for a dollar. Then a vendor had come by with a 25 pack of Romeo Y Julieta cigars and I talked him down to $20 then I ended up leaving them at the restaurant and someone took them by the time I got back. There were about ten kids going around begging and then street performers trying to get donations and a guy who was making friendship bracelets sitting right next to our table so anyone of a dozen people could have stole them. Losing the cigars was a good wake up call to be more conservative with my money. So I just went back to the hotel to upload some of my pictures to facebook and and work on my journal. I ended up having a good conversation about the trip and the poverty in Nicaragua with Kevin, Nell and Eileen.
The thing I have been most impressed by on the trip other than the poverty has been Roberto’s skill as a tour guide. His English is great and he is very intelligent and caring. I was standing up because someone was in the restroom and had wandered back toward the bar to wait and Roberto was very quick to make sure everything was alright and if I need anything or felt sick. It was also amazing how patient he was with all of us. It seem like so many times today he was surrounded by people each with their own request or demands and he took it all in stride and didn’t seem to get bugged. Also a group of us lead by Josh wanted to eat weird exotic food plus some guys wanted to go surfing and he promised to help make it all happen. He was amazingly diplomatic and reassuring which seemed to be essentials for a really good tour guide. Because it seems like the tourist experience of being in Nicaragua is being in slightly wild and exotic country but also people can easily get feed up of things being too different.
After we left the cultural center we started talking to some kids who were playing around barefoot in the street. Claudia asked them why they were not in school and one of the boys replied because he didn’t have shoes. One of the most eye opening things about the trips so far has been the poverty. Like the kid, Michael, last night who ate the half eaten hamburger we gave him and the kids that claim they can’t go to school because they can’t afford shoes it is very heartbreaking. It also reveals how truly wealthy we are in the US. Never has my mom, even when I thought we were really poor and my family homeless, been unable to provide me with shoes. Also very rarely did I go without eating and even when I did it wasn’t long enough to cause me to feel like I needed to eat a stranger’s half eaten food. I was told that the average income is $100 per month for a Nicaraguan and while things are cheaper in Nicaragua then in the US things are not 20 or thirty times cheaper. There is definitely an economy based on begging in Granada. If the average income is $100 all a kid would have to do is get a couple dollars a day and they would greatly increase the living conditions of their family if they earned $3 or $4 they would be making the income of an adult.
In the afternoon we went to Lake Nicaragua. Lake Nicaragua is a fresh water lake and is the only place with fresh water sharks. The sharks in Lake Nicaragua are Bull Sharks, they used to swim up the rivers but were trapped by a volcanic eruption. Lake Nicaragua was very beautiful and after Renee, who was my guide on the boat said, a small island could be purchased for as little as $100,000 I wanted to buy one. Though Renee followed that up with the cheaper Islands are usually pretty close to diapering. A medium sized Island would sell with a house would sell for $400,000 which seems pretty cheap by LA standards. Lake Nicaragua had been part of a transit system to get from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific and also made Nicaragua an appealing place to build a canal before Panama Canal was built. Someone brought white faced monkeys and spider monkeys to one of the Islands. I think Josh was allowed to feed the monkeys.
After the tour of the Lake we were set free on the town of Granada. I ended up going with Evan, Christine and Keith to a typical Nicaraguan restaurant. I had wanted to go with Josh to eat some crazy food and we were told that Centralito, the restaurant I ate at, was the place to go but they only had the regular Nicaraguan food. I ended up getting a steak which cost around $8 and a 2 mojitos for a dollar. Then a vendor had come by with a 25 pack of Romeo Y Julieta cigars and I talked him down to $20 then I ended up leaving them at the restaurant and someone took them by the time I got back. There were about ten kids going around begging and then street performers trying to get donations and a guy who was making friendship bracelets sitting right next to our table so anyone of a dozen people could have stole them. Losing the cigars was a good wake up call to be more conservative with my money. So I just went back to the hotel to upload some of my pictures to facebook and and work on my journal. I ended up having a good conversation about the trip and the poverty in Nicaragua with Kevin, Nell and Eileen.
The thing I have been most impressed by on the trip other than the poverty has been Roberto’s skill as a tour guide. His English is great and he is very intelligent and caring. I was standing up because someone was in the restroom and had wandered back toward the bar to wait and Roberto was very quick to make sure everything was alright and if I need anything or felt sick. It was also amazing how patient he was with all of us. It seem like so many times today he was surrounded by people each with their own request or demands and he took it all in stride and didn’t seem to get bugged. Also a group of us lead by Josh wanted to eat weird exotic food plus some guys wanted to go surfing and he promised to help make it all happen. He was amazingly diplomatic and reassuring which seemed to be essentials for a really good tour guide. Because it seems like the tourist experience of being in Nicaragua is being in slightly wild and exotic country but also people can easily get feed up of things being too different.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
The Day of Transit
Day 1 June 21st
It was a long day. I was on the first flight that left LAX at 7:40 so I decided to get to the airport super early so I could sleep at the airport. I figured I would get more sleep that way. It was pretty effective except for the fact that I was woken up at 5:30 by someone who thought I was going to miss my flight.
We had a long layover in Houston but the time was well spent getting to know the other students on the trip. I hung out with this guy Max, his sister Terra and this girl Kirsten. A guy named Josh wanted to eat crazy food so after we all had gone to Ruby’s he ordered up some fried alligator and a bunch of people tried it, though I missed the chance to get a bite.
When we got to Nicaragua the first impression was that it was hot. Which was a small surprise because we arrived at night and I was thinking it would be cooler.
The second realization that I came to was that there was a great chiasm dividing the economic prosperity of Nicaragua and the US. The airport was clean but looked very old by my standards. Also when we got out of the baggage claim area and were walking toward the bus there were children begging. Also while I was going to the restroom there were two women in that gave me the impression they were prostitutes.
We got on a very nice and modern bus and meet our tour guide Roberto. Roberto was very interesting. He had studied Engineering in Bulgaria and now was a tour guide part of the time and an Engineer part of the time. I got the impression that he made more money being a tour guide than he did as an engineer. Roberto explained how the evening would progress, with an hour long bus ride from Managua (were we landed) to Granada where we would be staying. He also explained that we would eat dinner and the choices would be limited and for breakfast the next day that the food choices would be limited but reassured us that going forward we would have a lot of choices that the first two meals where limited to help things go quicker. Roberto also explained that we should not give money to people begging that if we wanted to give them something we should only give them food.
I was impressed by the colonial architecture of Granada. Sometimes I get the impression the whole world is trying to look like the US it was nice to see buildings that were designed different. Our hotel had everything I imagined; the exterior had a colonial Spanish look then when you walked through the doors you entered an open plaza with a fountain and palm trees.
I found it interesting that our first meal in Nicaragua was a hamburger. I was a little disappointed especially since I had a hamburger for lunch at Ruby’s. Though I guess it the concept was to get us acclimated slowly to being in a new country. The hamburger patty was really small and it had a lot of vegetables (tomatoes, onions, pickles). We also tried a bunch of local beers. I decided Toña would be my beer of choice it was the least bitter.
Right away I discovered the importance of the phrase “Donde esta el bano?”. Also it was very exciting to be able to put my limited Spanish skills in to practice helping the students with no knowledge of Spanish. One of the guys didn’t even know that cerveza was the word for beer. It seemed like the first night the important Spanish phrases where “Cerveza, por favor” and “Cuanto questa?”
It was a long day. I was on the first flight that left LAX at 7:40 so I decided to get to the airport super early so I could sleep at the airport. I figured I would get more sleep that way. It was pretty effective except for the fact that I was woken up at 5:30 by someone who thought I was going to miss my flight.
We had a long layover in Houston but the time was well spent getting to know the other students on the trip. I hung out with this guy Max, his sister Terra and this girl Kirsten. A guy named Josh wanted to eat crazy food so after we all had gone to Ruby’s he ordered up some fried alligator and a bunch of people tried it, though I missed the chance to get a bite.
When we got to Nicaragua the first impression was that it was hot. Which was a small surprise because we arrived at night and I was thinking it would be cooler.
The second realization that I came to was that there was a great chiasm dividing the economic prosperity of Nicaragua and the US. The airport was clean but looked very old by my standards. Also when we got out of the baggage claim area and were walking toward the bus there were children begging. Also while I was going to the restroom there were two women in that gave me the impression they were prostitutes.
We got on a very nice and modern bus and meet our tour guide Roberto. Roberto was very interesting. He had studied Engineering in Bulgaria and now was a tour guide part of the time and an Engineer part of the time. I got the impression that he made more money being a tour guide than he did as an engineer. Roberto explained how the evening would progress, with an hour long bus ride from Managua (were we landed) to Granada where we would be staying. He also explained that we would eat dinner and the choices would be limited and for breakfast the next day that the food choices would be limited but reassured us that going forward we would have a lot of choices that the first two meals where limited to help things go quicker. Roberto also explained that we should not give money to people begging that if we wanted to give them something we should only give them food.
I was impressed by the colonial architecture of Granada. Sometimes I get the impression the whole world is trying to look like the US it was nice to see buildings that were designed different. Our hotel had everything I imagined; the exterior had a colonial Spanish look then when you walked through the doors you entered an open plaza with a fountain and palm trees.
I found it interesting that our first meal in Nicaragua was a hamburger. I was a little disappointed especially since I had a hamburger for lunch at Ruby’s. Though I guess it the concept was to get us acclimated slowly to being in a new country. The hamburger patty was really small and it had a lot of vegetables (tomatoes, onions, pickles). We also tried a bunch of local beers. I decided Toña would be my beer of choice it was the least bitter.
Right away I discovered the importance of the phrase “Donde esta el bano?”. Also it was very exciting to be able to put my limited Spanish skills in to practice helping the students with no knowledge of Spanish. One of the guys didn’t even know that cerveza was the word for beer. It seemed like the first night the important Spanish phrases where “Cerveza, por favor” and “Cuanto questa?”
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