Good Food Review

The Second Restaurant we went into to review for the Check Please project was Miller’s Pub in the loop on 134 south Wabash Avenue. The atmosphere inside is very classy and elegant. The lighting is relatively dim and the chandeliers that cast light down upon you look like they have been stolen from the Hogwarts castle of the Harry Potter books and movies in a good way. The seating includes single tables and booths as well as longer tables for parties and larger groups of people. The walls are hung with beautiful oil paintings in glamorous golden frames. There were also many different signed photographs, ranging in decades by date, of various famous people that have visited Miller’s Pub over the years. The waiters are very good and the service is overall very friendly and prompt. The menu is very wide including everything from burgers, seafood, their famous ribs, to all types of desert. Since I had already eaten a nice sized meal at the first restaurant I decided to order a desert. There were many scrumptious choices on the menu and I stopped on the key lime pie. One of the reasons I pick the key lime pie was because I love all types of pie. The second, and perhaps more important reason, was that I had no idea what exactly a key lime was. I figured it was a type of lime, but what exactly made it different from a regular lime was a complete mystery to me. In the end after consuming the piece of pie, and very much enjoying it, I was no closer to learning the secret of the key lime. That was okay because I still had a good time.

Winter Poem

The sky is starting to bombard the ground.
The little white bombs fall with no sound.
In our hearts and minds there's no silence but cheer,
Because everyone can feel Christmas soon will be here.
Yes, indeed it's that time of year.

Still there is much work to be done,
Whether you're mama, or papa, or son.
For one, there are lights to be hung,
Then, of course, carols must be sung.
Would it be Christmas is no jingle bells are rung?

But there is one element of Christmas that is essential,
It's our strongest happiness producing utensil.
It's wide at the bottom and quite sharp on top.
It's green now and thats not going to stop,
Until every last needle it's got comes to a drop.

So we all load up in our own horseless sled.
And off to the manmade forest we head.
There's many a tree to pick from, all lined up and bound.
In the end we decide on a small one. A choice that is sound.
To our roof he is bound. Hold on little buddy don't fall to the ground.

Back to our home safely we arrive.
For the best tree we've ever had we strive.
We hang the glass spheres up from side to side.
From high up we drop the ribbons. We watch them glide.
Could anything possibly be more fun? I just can't decide.

Globalization

Globalization means different things to different people. To CEOs of major corporations globalization means a wider market for their product and a more opportunity for growth and profit. To working people it might mean losing their job to a foreign country when their company decides to outsource this position or even their whole department to save money. To me it means watching the world get smaller and smaller as it gets a little bit easier everyday to connect with people across oceans and over mountains. America has been called the melting pot for the number of different cultures and background people who live here come from. I see globalization as a larger scale version of that. Fifty years ago McDonalds was something you could, for the most part, only find in America. Today you can find the golden arches in pretty much every major city through out the world. In soccer, as we have read in How Soccer Explains the World, it means watching the best players from each country play on the same club teams on a weekly basis. Another aspect of globalization is the slowly but surly standardization of countries, cities, and people. One day, and this day will most likely not be in our or our children’s lifetime, you may find yourself in London find it almost identical, except for major landmarks and geographical features, to say Beijing or Los Angeles. This may but a good thing in some way, such as perhaps a more stable globally-intertwined economy, but it could also mean the loss of national identity and cultural traditions. Regardless of weather you are in favor of globalization or not it’s coming fast and here to stay.

Sports in my life

I think over the years I’ve become addicted to sports. There is rarely a day much less a week when I haven’t watched some type of sporting event or at least watched or read about highlights. I enjoy all types of sports from soccer, football, hockey or rugby to track and field, swimming, tennis (table and court), volleyball, and handball.

As long as I can remember, sports have been my main interest in and out of school. When I was in grade school, playing soccer or football during recess, the gym classes were some of my most favorite things to do. As I grew older and went into junior high, I started playing on the sports teams at my school but, more importantly, this is when my interest in sports took an intellectual interest. I started to think about the financial organization of major sports teams and the economics behind my favorite activity. I also noticed a lot of athletes in commercials and on television in general. From here I began to develop an interest in psychology and what makes people want to watch these sport stars and buy the products that they endorse. Then I started thinking more about general psychology in relation to marketing and advertising. What paterns convince, what don’t? How exactly does a commercial convince people that a particular gum is tastier than any other? It is exciting to think about how something as simple as a yellow background rather than a brown background could speak to the subconscious and make us feel that the object in the foreground is something that we desire, without even being aware of this.

Thankful for a classmate

I am thankful for all my classmates! They all are a part of the class and without them I would never learn all the things I learn every time we have a class discussion. I am also thankful for all the classmates that sit around me. I’m thankful for Ryan as his is the only other boy in my corner of the room. I like how he is someone I can have a conversation about sports with hold it for more that a couple of minuets. I’m thankful that he is one of the few people in school that I can talk to about soccer with depth. I’m thankful for Courtney because she is a dedicated student and can always help me out when I’ve forgotten what the homework for tomorrow is. I’m also thankful for the inspirational courage that radiates from her. It isn’t easy eating a banana in class everyday knowing that she will always without fail be called “Banana Girl” for doing so. I’m also very thankful for Annie and Hannah who have allowed me to join their group late on multiple projects this year after I was gone when the class formed groups. I’m thankful for the laughs we have shared while making the power point on How Soccer Explains the World, going out to review restaurants for the Check Please project, and every other day spent in class. I’m also very thankful for all the orange segments they have shared with me over this last semester and hope that in the future we can share many more orange segments and laughs.

Open Letter to Cormac McCarthy

Dear Mr. Cormac McCarthy,
First I would like to thank you very much for writing The Road. It is truly something special. Not often do you come across a book that you just can’t put down, but for me The Road was definitely one of those books. I remember when I first started reading it I was a little behind my class which was already about fifty pages into the book. I sat down that night around nine or ten and though I would start and have time to catch up to the class and still have a decent night’s sleep. Little did I know that the hours would roll one after another as I turned the pages one after another until I had read the whole book. It didn’t take long to get me hooked to the story of the boy and his father and the beautiful language that described the ugly world around them. There was something about the characters that just had me reading page after page until I finally came to the end of the book and found out how their story ended. If I had tried to put the book down that night half way through I know I would have been laying in my bed awake thinking about the boy and his father resting somewhere along the road at night waiting for the sun to rise as much as they were waiting for me to pick up the book once more so they could continue their journey. One of my favorite things about the plot was how you never mentioned how this horrendous setting came to be. I think the mystery of what triggered this apocalyptic future was perfect for this book. Thank you again for writing The Road and I hope to get a chance to read your other books sometime in the near future.

Defend the Poet

Defending Charles Bukowski is an easy task. Or it would be an easy task if I knew how and from where he was being attacked. I personally like Bukowski, and “Dinosauria, We” so I have no reason to attack him and can’t easily imagine a reason why anyone would. I guess the only thing I could see people attacking him for is having such a dark and grim perspective on the world and the future of humanity. In the poem Dinosauria, We he describes the world as he sees it and how bad things have gotten. He talks about how everyone of us is born into this terrible hopeless world that is falling faster and faster each day into a spiral of destruction. He talks about how the environment’s health is being forgotten and how college degrees are losing value as the years go by. He talks about how the world around us is turning us into violent hateful creatures. He talks about the state of the legal and health care systems and how ridicules it is that its cheaper to die than to be treated at a hospital or plead guilty rather than pay lawyers to fight your case. He talks about the direction the world is headed and almost predicts an apocalypse in the near future. I can see why some people might not like to hear this but the fact is that everything he mentions about the general state of the world now isn’t too far off from the reality of things. I’m not sure how much I agree with his prophecy that soon all hell will break loose but I can’t say that the idea is completely ridicules and unbelievable. Charles Bukowski might be pessimistic but he has every right to be so.

A direction the class needs

Every class needs a direction. Without a direction how can you get anywhere? And if you aren’t getting anywhere then the class isn’t serving its purpose. I don’t think we need a specific direction to be making progress. We can be moving in any one direction and still be moving forward as long as we are trying to go in that direction. The difference between a class and an individual is that the direction a class takes needs to be a direction that every person in the class agrees on. This is why it’s much harder to find a direction for a class, or any group of people, than is it to find a direction for yourself alone or any other individual. If some of the people in the class don’t agree on the direction its going they could be left behind and not learn as much and get the full benefit of the class. That’s why a direction for any class to take must be considered carefully so that everyone can agree on it. However, this is very hard and sometimes things must be settled democratically. It’s like deciding what to do when hanging out with your friends on a Friday night. Someone might say, “hey why don’t we just hang out here at so and so’s basement?” and a couple people might agree and a couple people might say they don’t care. Then someone might say “hey lets just go to the movies” or “hey lets go to a party”. It will usually take hours to decide which direction to head off to as a group, and even then there’s a chance that direction might change over the course of the night. The most important thing is to end up going in the direction that leaves the least amount of people mad.

Father and Son, Mother and Daughter, Mother and Son, Father and Daughter.

Our relationships within our own family often tend to pair us closer together with one person. When you are young this person is one of your parents. I’m not sure if this has ever been proved by scientific study or research but it seems like more often than not the parent that we form the closer connection with is the one of the opposite sex. This is how I see the second part of the list, daughters tent to be closer to their fathers and sons tent to be closer to their mothers. This is where phrases like daddy’s little girl and momma’s boy come from. I’m not sure why this happens but I feel like one of the main reasons is that dads are easier on their girls than boys. They also tend to be very protective of their little girls. A similar story explains why sons are closer to their mothers. I can say from personal experience that this is true. I feel closer to my mom than I do my dad. This however, I’ve heard is only accurate during the first part of a person’s life and that once you grow older the parent you’re closer with shifts to the parent of the same sex. People say that when you are an adult your best friend, if you are a guy, is your dad and the opposite if you’re a girl. I’m still too young to say that I can confirm this on a personal level but I can see how it makes sense. When you are a grown man you can probably relate to your dad a lot better than you could your mom and you could use his advice a lot more. This is how I relate the pairs on this list.

How do I know what I know?

I know what I know because that’s what I’ve been taught in school almost every weekday for the last twelve plus years. I know what I know because it’s what my parents have taught me since that glorious day I was born eighteen years ago. I know what I know because that’s what my friends and peers know and that’s what I have learned from them over the years. But is that everything? There are some things that I don’t remember learning from anyone and that I can’t imagine anyone could have taught me. How could have someone been able to teach me how to breath in the first couple seconds of my life fast enough for me to survive? This leads me to believe that some things are just embedded in us when we are born. They are part of our DNA and can’t be untaught. This is that source of the nature vs. nurture debate. I have a deep love for all types of sports, but is this because of my environment and because I grew up in a family that watched sports all the time? At times I feel like even if I had grown up with a secluded tribe somewhere in the Amazon I would have a love for whatever leisure physical activity was practiced and played. A lot of the things I know I have learned from my senses. All of the things I know are based on my trust of their sources, but if I really look deep into it how do I know that what my parents, teachers, and peers know is a fact? How do I know what my eyes and heard are telling me is really how things really look and sound. All that I pick up through my senses is processed through my brain. When you are dreaming your brain simulates these sensations to give you the illusion that your dreams are real. How can I know with one hundred percent certainty that the things that I see and heard aren’t manipulated or originated in my brain? With this in mind the only way I can answer the question of how I know what I know is that I don’t know that I even know what I know.

Our Meaning

Why are we here? What is our meaning in life? This is a question that human beings have been asking themselves as long as they have been conscious. This is also a question unique to humans. This is so because other living organisms know what their purpose and meaning is. Their meaning is to reproduce and continue and ensure the survival of their species. This is one of the things that are embedded into the DNA of every living thing. Animals are almost “programmed” to have babies every spring and the only things that viruses and bacteria know how to do is divide themselves and multiply. Trees and other vegetation can’t think but they still know how to pollinate each other and make sure new plants grow and blossom in the next season. This lack of ability to think is exactly why animals and plants and single celled organisms don’t really worry about their meaning. We on the other hand are constantly thinking organisms. This is why we are always searching for greater meaning to our lives than just to have children and continue humanity as a species. What this greater meaning is, I just don’t know. I think this is something that each person must find on their own. This meaning could just be as simple as to start a family and have children or it could be to find one’s true potential. Either way the only to find out is through yourself.

God in 2010

Where is God these days? Today in 2010 God is hard to find. It seems like today people generally don’t believe in God as much. It’s hard to go online or turn your television on and watch and listen to all the horrible things that happen to people and that people do to each other each and everyday and believe that there is a God. Another thing to consider is the level of how much God is needed these days by people in general. Back in the middle ages people strongly believed in a God. They also believed in an afterlife. They were convinced that if you were a good person throughout your life and helped others when you could you would be rewarded when you died and would go to heaven. This helped them get through their tough lives of working over ten hours a day and living in poverty. Believing in God and heaven made life bearable for them. Today there isn’t nearly as much of that. Most people don’t go through their whole lives with the thought that one day they will finally die and they will get the rest they deserve. The church also took advantage of this and used religion as a scare tactic because people needed to believe in God. Today people’s lives are a lot easier overall and they don’t need as much of a stimulus to push through life. This leads them to be less dependent on the idea that there is a God and heaven which in turn leads them to be less afraid of the consequences of not making it to heaven. This ends with less people strongly believing in God, and without belief how can God be here in 2010?