So I was reading through CNN.com and found this story. This is one of the weirdest stories I have ever read before. It's about how people insert inside them through different body cavities. It's kind of funny, but I am curious what excuse you provide your doctor explaining how these items got into your rectum… lmao… Amazing!
This week I went to the Stuart Air Show and I loved it. This event is one of the biggest in Florida and planes as well as pilots from all over the country join it. As a student pilot I was in "candy land" at this air show. There were civilians and military aircraft and pilots. There were also some exotic birds exhibition which opened my eyes to how amazing birds are built. The admission was 15 dollars and the weather was beautiful making it worth your while.
I was reading a magazine article and bumped into this picture:
At first glance you think that this guy is crazy, but it goes deeper than that. I think that this is one of two things: this picture depicts the greatest display of denial in history of the world or this guy is really trying to bring music into the war zone. But remember that bringing music to the war zone is nothing new since it has been done from centuries ago. Either way we put it, this image is one of the most incredible I have seen and there is no denying that this guitar player is a true character!
There are some things that as a kid and sometimes as grownups we dream about. My dreams are to become someone of power who could change lives around the world; ultimately indispensable. These thoughts are of those of a mature, respectful and responsible adult (me). I’m sure that most of us some way or another have heard the following phrase “Grow Up” and it’s probably from someone who does not enjoy life at all. So I urge you to never let the kid in you die. Last night, thanks to my close friend Amancio, I accomplished one of the things in my “things to do before I die” list. Last night I drove a Lamborghini Gallardo (Supercar) over 120 mph. It was one of the most exciting moments in my life. I felt like a kid again and let me tell you that it felt AWSOME! I still don’t believe I did it!
Ever since I got the email from our University President about the final presidential debate, I can't stop thinking about what to ask the candidates. The kid within me wants to make them feel awkward by asking them some random question like "If pro and con are opposites, wouldn't the opposite of progress be congress?" just to throw them off, but the serious me wants to get a question like "how do you assure me that when I graduate college I would have a job?." Maybe I'll ask republicans,
If the US is the land of the free,
if you were a dog
Would you like Obama to be a tree?
What should I ask them? Please give me some ideas (silly or serious).
This week was a very tough week for me. I got food poisoning from a greasy hamburger I ate. This might sound very dangerous for some of you, but I'm so used to pain that is as if I can control it. I don't want to sound "macho," but it is the reality of my life. Back in 2006 I contracted a bacteria from drinking water from the sink without a filter. To kill this bacteria I have to drink a lot of antibiotics that could harm my liver, so since this bacteria could be controlled by my diet then I decided to not take medicine for it. The problem is that I love burgers and brownies, but if the burger contains too much fat then I get very sick, which is what happened last Tuesday evening. Since I have a weakness for burgers, I have suffered many times from food poisoning.
The experience was very painful and the aftermath of this incident is to have a fiber rich diet containing mostly liquids. After all, this time it wasn't all bad since I got to know how Florida's hospitals work. Unlike NYC hospitals, in Florida, at least in Boca, hospitals don't make you wait that much to help you out. Hospitals here are very clean as well. I have to say, that compared to other countries where I have been injured and taken to the hospital US hospitals need to step their game up, but nevertheless I am impressed by how fast they reacted to my needs and the fact that the doctors didn't push me out of the hospital like they do in NYC.
Most people think that money is everything in life and these people probably have a logical reason of why they buy into this idea. Even somebody as my father would once in a while joke with me and say “money is not everything in life, but it is neck-to-neck with oxygen,” which I found this very funny. I mean, I could see why people say that money is very important; money equals power and, for some, it represents salvation from their “problems.” But thinking about this delicate subject I found out that money cannot buy happiness and that financial problems are just a front for some issue buried deep inside an individual’s world.
Ever since I understood the concept of is neither what you are nor where you came from that matters, is who you are and where you’re going to in life. This view on my peers lets me focus on what’s important for them as people and not as objects. I found that is not about not judging other people because let’s face it, it is nearly impossible to not judge, but rather than avoiding judging let’s take another approach and directed towards judging on a different level. What I mean is that we should judge people by what they bring to society and respect their point of views and tolerate their personalities.
The message is simple, yet there are those that make it difficult for themselves and for others around them. Enjoy what you do in life and please be yourself and not an obscure image of others around you.
And no… I am not a hippie! Lol… I just look around my school and it is as if I could smell fakeness on some people. I feel sorry for these individuals because there is nothing more satisfying in life than to be YOU!
Ever since I was a little kid I loved motorcycles. I remember living in the slums of the Dominican Republic and dreaming of becoming a professional motocross racer and admiring people such as Ricky Carmichael, Troy Bayliss, and the incredible Travis Pastrana. I loved anything that had to do with racing like Rally Sport, Formula 1, Moto GP, and Motocross. This passion leads me to get a bunch of friends together and with the help of my uncle, who was the local mechanic in town, I put a mini-dirtbike together. With this mini-dirtbike I went on to participate in some events. In one particular regional event that I was participating in, there was a Yamaha Team D.R. scout who liked my aggression and my style and offered me a position as a backup racer in the 125cc division. I had scored the biggest opportunity in my life. Even though I was a “backup” I still trained as if I was the star. A year later I went to participate on a race that is only for Yamaha Team pilots and I scored 1st place in my division. After that I went on to participate in over 35 races and scoring in the top three 13 times, in the top five 7 times, in the top ten 8 times and not finishing due to crashing or technical difficulties for 7 times. My dreams soon died after migrating to the USA due to school and lack of support from my family’s economic situation. This attitude of win-it-all or die trying has gotten me into a lot of physical injuries over the years, but it has given me the courage to face extreme situations and be fearless.
The reason why I decided to talk about this in this week’s blog is because last week my friend Wadney invited me to go on a motorcycle ride down i95 and south beach and boy I had a blast.
This week I spent some time riding with the City of Boca Raton Fire Rescue Station 8 in south Boca Raton. Being from New York City, I expected to find myself in an exciting situation where I was going to see some crazy fires and rescue some children from the burning debris. At least that’s what I was hoping for, but then I realized that 1)if that was the case then I couldn’t ride in the fire truck because it was too dangerous for me and 2) this is Florida were life is not that hectic. This, to say the least, was very disappointing, but nevertheless my curiosity took on another mission, which was to observe what a Boca firefighter really spends time doing.
To start off, a lot of the firefighters are volunteers with the exception of high ranking officials in the station that get a fixed salary. When I say that the majority of them are volunteers does not mean that they don’t get paid, it simply means that they sometimes have other jobs on their free time. Four hours at the station and not a single call came in. In fact, the only time that the fire truck was used in the entire time I was there was when the guys got hungry and went to Publix to get something to eat. Since this was not an emergency for the firefighters I got to ride the truck, which was a really exciting moment for me. After munching on a sub sandwich, we had a “session” of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Gears of War. Although I didn’t get to see any “NYC style” firefighter action, I did enjoy the time spent with them and I appreciate and admire the work they do for us.
One of my favorite activities to do is kite surfing. I’ve recently caught up with it and now I can’t get enough. As I have been surfing for a few years now I have never thought of trying kite surfing, but let me tell you that I am obsessed with this sport. My friend Amancio from Spain got me into this sport and I loved it since the first time I tried it.
Some of you might be thinking why is this sport so cool and here is why. As we all know, South Florida is surrounded by water, meaning that a lot of people enjoy water sports. I really liked surfing when I lived in Melbourne, Florida, but coming down to South Florida there weren’t any waves to really surf on, but then I discovered that you don’t need waves to have fun surfing and that’s when kite surfing comes into play. Kite surfing consist on having a kite, usually 8-11 meters wide, that’s attached to you via a harness around your waistline. You can control this kite by swinging a bar on your end of the line and on top of that you have a board to control and surf on top of the water. This might sound a lot to take in and that’s because it is hard to learn this sport, but after a few hours of pure agony and fear by crashing into the water you should be ok to try it on your own.
Here are some pics:
If you are wondering where you can get into this sport by going to classes over in Key Biscayne for 50/hr, which in 2 two hours you would be alright, or buying the gear yourself and then just trying it out.
This week I have been very busy. Between traveling and midterm exams, I have not had a lot of time to do any activity, but when my friend Patricio called me to go spear fishing I just couldn’t turn it down. We went of the Highland Beach shore by swimming to about a mile offshore to catch sight of the reef. My friend, Patricio, gets very intense and is a way better swimmer than I am. The depth was about 55 feet, which is my maximum to go down. This is because I can only hold my breath for about 2.5 to 3 minutes at a time, so this depth does not give you a whole lot of room for error, but, nevertheless, I went down and took a couple of shots. I took my Go Pro camera with me and took a little video and some pictures.
I’m a very competitive person, especially around my friends. We could play sports, watch soccer games, play video games and even in “beer pong” we get competitive. Last month we went we were playing “call of duty” and one of my friends decided to make a bet, which consisted of the following: if he won I was to do anything he said and if I lost he was to do anything I said. Fair enough, I thought!
After a few hours of playing the video game we were neck-to-neck on the score and I’m thinking victory, but then it happened: I lost!
There was a religious convention going on at Mizner Park and these is what I had to do:
As humiliating as this was, I had to suck-it-up and stick to my word. I learned that sticking to your word is, most of the time, more important than anything else. Don't be afraid to get humiliated in order to proof a point in life.
There are many people that have many phobias and I recently found out that one of my closest friends, Belen, had hoplophobia, which is simply an irrational fear of firearms and/or weapons. So being the person I am, I confronted her about it and after an extensive amount of arguing, I decided that the best way to settle this issue was to take her to the shooting range. This might seem an extreme measure, but there is some logic behind it. I figured that if I could show her around the range and the shooting instructors she was going to be a little more open to the idea.
When we got to the shooting range, she was very nervous and as we are coming into the store two guys were shooting high caliber guns that made a lot of noise and she was really scared. At this point even I got a little scared, but with reassurance from the instructors we calmed down. After going through the instructions o how to operate the weapons Belen became more comfortable around guns. And below are the results:
After the first shot she was comfortable shooting and holding a gun in her hands, which is a good thing. The lesson I wanted to teach her was to always confront her fears in life and I guess I was successful at it.
Mixed Martial Art or simply MMA, like many refer to it, is one of the fastest growing sports in the world and, according to cbsnews.com, the fastest growing sport in America. It’s growing so fast that it has surpassed boxing in popularity. With these credentials I went on my search of why so many people are fascinated with MMA.
Mixed Martial Arts consist of many different styles of fighting put together, combining grappling and and striking techniques, such as, muay Thai, kickboxing, wrestling, Brazilian and traditional jiu-jitsu, judo, Kung fu, karate, and many other styles. This sport has been around since ancient times with the name of Pankration, but in modern era, 1900s to present, it has been part of different cultures all over the world. It was made famous in a global scale by movies mainly produced by Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris and ultimately this sport was put on the map, at least in the Americas, by a very talented fighter named Royce Gracie in UFC Championship Tournaments.
To analyze and understand this sport in a better way I decided to go and meet up with a guy named Thiago Alves. For those of you that don’t know who he is; Alves is one of the best fighters in the business and has fought the best of the best all over the world. So I spent a couple of hours with him to see what his daily life consisted of and this is what I found out:
TRAINING:
Thiago Alves (right) practicing his muay thai skills
Alves does about 2000 crunches, over 300 pushups, 4 miles of running, and about 8 hours of what he calls training, but other people, such as me, refer to this as torture. Coaches over at his training facility, American Top Team, explain to me that it is vital for Alves to not only win a fight, but to come out of the fight without serious injuries. So I said to one of the coaches “What kind of injuries are we talking about?” And they showed me this picture:
Alves (right) being hit by George St. Pierre (left) during a fight.
And… uh… yeah!
FIGHTING:
In the UFC, which is a league in the sport, non-title fights are set to 3 rounds consisting of 5 minutes each round. In title fight, rounds are still 5 minutes each, but they are set to 5 rounds instead of 3. Because I insisted in being a hard-headed towards this sport, one of the coaches explained to me that although there has been controversy around the sport and its safety, it is less harmful than any other contact. This is because MMA fighters train for this sort of punishment in a daily basis, so they are used to it for the most part. A regular human being would be in serious pain if he/she gets hit like MMA fighters do. So I asked him why not boxing? And he responded that boxing, believe it or not, is more dangerous than MMA fights under the UFC regulations for many reasons. One of the reasons is because of the time fighting. Rarely does a fight last its full time (15 or 25 minutes), most of them end early and this is a good thing (by the way, boxing fights are set to 12 rounds of 3 minute each resulting in 36 minutes of fighting, more than double most MMA fights). Another advantage that MMA has over Boxing is that there are many ways to lose a fight apart from the danger of a “knock out,” which is caused by the hard striking of the head so that the brain crashes against the skull walls and eventually shutting down for seconds and maybe minutes. In MMA, a fighter could get submitted into giving up by applying non-dangerous techniques, such as, joint locks, pain generating twisting of joints and stopping blood flow to the brain, which as bad as it sounds seldom happens because the ref usually stops the fight before it gets to that point. This piece of information was shocking to me.
Thiago Alves after winning a fight.
Understanding MMA was a bit difficult to me because it involves so much dedication and suffering, but after experiencing the discipline, hard work, and sportsmanship put into this sport by the fighters and their crew, I became a fan.
Here is a video of Alves highlights (WARNING: IT'S GRAPHIC)
DON’T FORGET TO CHECK OUT THE CONTENT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE!
As I was spending time with this week's "POVer," who we are going to call "Joe" for his protection and confidentiality, I realized the potential danger that people like him post for our society. Joe's physical appearances, behavior, and even his thoughts are normal compared to any other functional person in our society. Joe is 6'2", white, dark eyes, dark hair, overall a clean-cut guy. As the tittle of this blog implies, he is a drug dealer, but not any drug dealer; he works at a nearby Publix as the head pharmacist of the store.
A friend of mine referred me to Joe and when I first went to our meeting spot, at a local cafe, I was shocked to see that he is not like the usual drug dealer stereotype. He has a beautiful family, has never done time in prison, lives a modest life, and drives a really nice car.
I told Joe that this was a school project and although I got to ask him questions, he didn't let me take any pictures nor video of his voice, so I went on to interviewed him. Here is the interview:
-What’s your profession?
I am a pharmacist
-Legal or illegal (pharmacist)?
Both[smiling]
-How long have you been doing this (illegal drug selling) for?
Since 2008 when the economy crashed
-Do you enjoy what you do for a living?
In a way… I mean, when I see how my customers change with time; their teeth fall out, their hair fall out, they lose weight, and eventually die I feel sad for them (customers), but I’m not obligating them to do what they do in any way. There is a demand and I supply.
-When you say that they die, how do you know when they die?
Well… first-of-all, I see their conditions almost everyday and then they stop coming for the drugs.
-Why don’t you help them when they are in bad shape?
It’s useless! You’ll call the ambulance on them and then tomorrow they’ll comeback for more dope, so what’s the point. And plus if they say something to the f**** cops I get arrested, and then who’s going to take care of my family… you?
[I saw that Joe was getting defensive, so I backed off a bit.]
[20 minutes later… I resumed the bombardment]
-Who are the majority of clients (what social class)?
You’ll be surprised “kid”… the people that buy the most amounts of drugs are the rich in Boca. They are the ones that can afford big amounts of anything at any price.
-What would you say if your daughter would turn out to be like your clients?
[His demeanor changed]I rather not say.
-Where do you see yourself in the future in terms of illegal drug dealing?
I don’t know… I mean, maybe I’ll leave to another life somewhere else, but there is no telling.
-Do you have any comments for others out there?
I want to say that there is no difference between the drug addicts… no matter if it’s medical reasons or not they are dependable on these drugs to go on with their everyday life… you know! If you take me out there is always going to be drug dealers as long as there are junkies.
As I spent more time with Joe, I noticed that he was didn't seem to care for his clients and their well being. It's a nasty situation and unfortunately the public does not seem to care. Sread the word and help others.
I apologize for not having pictures of "Joe" or any film like I wanted to, but he wouldn't let me for his and his family "protection." Thanks for reading!
"You're nothing, but a dog!" This is considered to be a very offensive comment in our culture, but is it "degrading" to be a dog nowadays? I was observing my dog and I was stunned by what I observed and here are my thoughts:
-Dogs don't judge you by the money you have.
-Dogs are known to be very loyal to their friends.
-Dogs do what they please without thinking of "what are the others going to say."
-Dogs don't keep a grudge for stupid reasons.
-Dogs don't suffer from the psychological problems human face, such as, keeping up with the jones, envy, hatred, and "deliberately ignorance."
Maybe we should learn from them as much as they learn from us. Everything said, I think we should stop using the phrase "You're nothing, but a dog!" because it's not fair to put the human burden on dogs.
