Erica, an awesome girl with great legs, is getting married. Yep. Sorry boys. To celebrate, she was taken to dinner (which I couldn't attend) and then to the Piano Bar at DJs Dugout in W. Omaha. For those that have been to "Howl at the Moon" (Florida/Texas), it is bar in which two pianos, facing eachother, rock out the entire night to tunes requested by the customers. There is drunken debauchery on the stage as well, as couples and others are put on stage to celebrate some event. And OH YES, Erica got her 5 minutes of Piano time! Hope you had a great time Erica! We love you and wish you the best in your marriage!! It was a pleasure to spend time with you and all the girls... at least my bar tab reflects the pleasure.
a continuation of my Louisiana journey... Jeremy Couvillion (my awesome hairy cousin!!) finally finished his Master's degree in Educational Administration from LSU(is that right, J??)... well, that means he gets to be a principal one day! HA! Thanks to the Hills for being so generous with their home and the beer!
I met and reconnected with some awesome people! And really got my fair share of LSU cheering! Congrats Jeremy!! It was awesome to have the family there!
I recently returned from visiting Baton Rouge/New Orleans, Louisiana. These are photos from the awesome 10-year reunion for Baton Rouge Magnet High School, class of 1996. There were alot of us, and our brilliant event organizers... (toni, lauren, ashley??) decided it should be an OPEN BAR 
! It was held at the Varsity Theater at LSU and was an absolute blast. It was great seeing all of you, and am proud to see all the amazing things everyone has accomplished! Can't wait till the next one!
RIVER RIOT 2006!!! The annual concert was held in Council Bluffs, Iowa. It was incredible, about 14,000 people (most of them way younger than me!!), and the line-up was great!!.... Swizzle Tree, Blue October, Yellowcard, Matchbook Romance, Dashboard Confessional, Hawthorne Heights, and 311.... granted, it was infested with youngens trying to grow up too fast... but we had the BEER bracelets... HA! Eyecandy was great though! Amanda, Lisa, and I had a great time... bumping into other people throughout the day. I love you girls, thanks for spending it with me!! Now, enjoy the pictures!! I got all the way up to the front for 311!! OH>>>> and I was able to sneak in my digital camera, and got Swizzle Tree to pose for me!!
Ok, so, our awesome sexy FIREDOG friend... CODY ... is leaving us to join others in Korea.... there was only one thing to do, and that was to take him out, one last time, into downtown. We bar hopped and fed him shots all night! CODY, I wish you weren't leaving, I'm going to miss you so much! .... the night ended at T-Henry's, where I bumped into some other friends of mine. They were quite the wild bunch, so I will have to post some of those pics separately... CODY, GOOD LUCK!!
This evening, as I was coming home to repair my motorcycle battery, I looked up to see a massive fury of black clouds, occassionally licked by orange flames. It appeared to be coming from the roof of an apartment building nestled behind a church and school on 36th Street. Pheasant Apartment Complex.
I immediately grabbed my camera and went to work. Myself and another photographer of the Bellevue Reader were first on site, as far as media goes. I stayed throughout, taking over 350 pictures.
PHEASANT RIDGE APARTMENT COMPLEX. The fire started at around 6:45pm, and quickly spread. There were a number of people with minor injuries, and one man who suffered a heart attack and was sent to the hospital.
If you have any information on the residents, or have any comments concerning this news story, please feel free to leave a comment.
If you would like to use these photographs, please send me an email, and I will get you the full version. These are all minimized, but I have the raw files that are about 1.8MB a piece.
I eat meat...
I think meat taste great...
I think, in the right quanities, meat can be part of a healthy diet if a person so chooses...
Eating meat is part of the circle of life for many animals. It doesn't take a genious to turn on discovery channel or even just go into the wild and see that an animal eating another animal is as natural as it gets. Nature is as raw as it is beautiful. Of course in nature, there are natural vegetarians as well as carnivores, and the debate is endless on which variety we humans are "supposed" to be. In other words, what are bodies are designed/evolved for, vegatables only or meat and vegetables.
I personally don't feel the need to take a stand on that debate one way or the other to say that REGARDLESS, we certainly don't need the amount of meat an average american eats!! The health of our bodies does not require meat as the staple of every meal. Though the meat industry loves to propose otherwise "MEAT, IT'S WHAT'S FOR DINNER"...COME ON!! Alas, meat as the staple of just about every meal is part of our culture, as it is part of many cultures and there are greedy opportunist all over the world that look at animals and only see dollar signs rather than sentient beings. Anyone who has a pet should be able to percieve that animals feel emotion, some are more aware of themselves and their feelings than others, but they are senitent nonetheless.
So, what gives these greedy humans the opportunity to make money off the misery of animals? Well, many factors, but the one directly controlled by all of us is DEMAND, plain and simple. With meat being the staple of every meal for such a vast majority of the worlds population, OUR DEMAND for meat creates the opportunity for profit and a lot of it. The conditions that some animals are kept in for factory farming (among many other) purposes are barbaric and atrocious.
There are far too many variables on this subject to list here. I TRY to make a difference by being mindful of how much meat I eat and where it is coming from. I say "try" because obviously it will take a majority of the population to make a difference. Now, I will also use my website to make posts from time to time on the information I find related to the subject. Especially information that highlights what each of us as individuals can do to make a difference.
If you don't care about the animals then you should at least take this information into account for YOUR OWN HEALTH. Many of the methods used don't just affect the animals but they directly effect you! Think about that antibiotic epidemic possibility you keep hearing about, and all that pollution that seems to be getting worse worse...factory farms are a HUGE contributor to both these issues and in this case what you don't know CAN KILL YOU. The following link is a great animation that uses the matrix as an analogy for a comical but very informative introduction to all the issues that I have only began to touch on....
and if you want to see video of the real thing, the real deal behind the meat you are eating...
You can close your eyes and turn your head but it is still there, and there IS something you can do. To begin with, reduce the DEMAND and you can help take the opportunity away from the greedy bastards that create these conditions!!
The following is taken from the blog of my local favorite coffee shop, Murky Coffee. It is an example of yet another way animals are being violated at the ignorance of those creating the DEMAND.
The infamous Kopi Luwak coffee.
So in a nutshell, Kopi Luwak is coffee ('rare' and expensive) that has passed through a civet, an feline animal indigenous to Indonesia, where this sh*t comes from. That's right, if you didn't know, 'Kopi Luwak' is recovered from the civet's poo.
"Normal" coffee does go through a fermentation process, which lasts a period of hours. What this civet's digestive tract adds is a unique sort of fermentation.
Now as strangely glamorous or intriguing as this all sounds, the fact is that without knowing how this all started, Kopi Luwak 'farms' have popped up in Indonesia, with caged animals (in horrible conditions) being force-fed coffee beans all day. Those opportunists are looking at feeding coffee cherries to other animals as well. Yuh.
So the moral of the story is, "Friends don't let friends drink poop."
I am now 28 years old. And for those 28 years, I have had only one person by my side every step of the way. My mother, Margie, is the most phenomenal woman I have ever met. Putting obvious favoritism aside, she is incredible. From the beginning days in Costa Rica, we never had it easy. But somehow, together, things always worked out. For those that know me, I lead a very intense lifestyle, trying too squeeze too much into too little time. My mami has been there to guide me and give me advice on a variety of situations that life has thrown my way.
It has now been 10 years since I almost lost my mom to cancer. Her death sentence had already been issued by the doctors, and there was no chance of recovery. But somehow, through her amazing spirit and connection with the energies of this universe and God, she was able to heal herself through the power of her faith and meditation. Her story brought hope to so many, and it gave me back the most important thing in my life.
Mom... remember sharing a one-bedroom apartment at LSU, sharing a bunk bed when I was 16, as we both strived to get that diploma!! Thank you for being there for me and being the incredible humanitarian that you are. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't understand the complexities of humanity or the love that one must have for it. You are a mother to me, and so many others, including my friends. Thank you for your sacrifices, your patience, and your life. I LOVE YOU MADRE MIA!!
Con todo el amor de tu hija!
Desiree (PUPITA)
