Spring Break 2013

     Spring break this year was March 23-31.  Plans didn't work out the way they were originally planned, but things went extremely well.  Originally, I was to be traveling to the Grand Canyon with Jane, her boyfriend, and another one of her friends.  That had gotten canceled.  Jane had learned her boyfriend has been cheating on her, and their relationship had ended.  I hate having things like this happen because I lost $10.00 when canceling the camping reservation, but I got over it.  A day after Jane and I had made the plans for the Grand Canyon, my cousin Amanda had asked if I was interested in going to Death Valley for my spring break to photograph star trails.  Since the trip had gotten canceled, I talked to Amanda, and we had started making plans for Death Valley.  Not a bad plan B.  Of course, this plan would not last long.  The weather was perfect, we knew where we where planning on taking photographs, and where we would camp but something would cause us to cancel the Death Valley Trip.  It had seemed that for the week of spring break, it was to be a full moon.  Not only was it a full moon, but the moon would be visible in the night sky from around 8:30 pm to dusk.  With having the bright moon light flood the night sky, it is pointless to even try to attempt to photograph a star trail.  Plan C would be what officially happened for Spring Break this year, and even with having two major trips canceled, this year's spring break turned out quite alright.

Saturday, March 23: 4-H Meeting in Davis

     

     The beginning of my spring break would start with a day trip up to the State 4-H Office at UC Davis for a face to face meeting of the California 4-H Technology Leadership Team.  These type of days tend to follow a usual pattern, but this time things were different.  I flew up to Sacramento on the first flight out of Ontario.  I met up with Neal, a member from San Diego, and we had waited for Daniel to pick us up.  So far all things are normal.  He picked us up, and we headed to Davis.  Planned to stop at Starbucks before the meeting.  A usual as well.  We went to the Starbucks across the street from the campus dorms.  It was packed with many students, which looked like they were preparing for finals.  I had just finished finals and I was sure glad I didn't have to worry about them anymore.  We got our drinks, and needed to rush to the state office, for the meeting was planned to start in two mins.  We would be late.  As I was getting into the front seat of his car, the unthinkable occurred   I had ripped a good size hole in my nice and fairly new jeans.  Of course, out of all places to rip a pair of jeans, the rip occurred from right below the zipper, and continued down between the legs.  I stopped for a moment, and thought about how I was going to bring this up without being embarrassed.  A part of me thought it would be alright, and that I wouldn't need to worry.  Then I decided that would be the wrong move.  If the rip was somewhere else, that would be fine, but this rip created a hole right below my manhood, and I didn't want the risk of my manhood popping out for a look to see what was outside.  I told Daniel and Neal, and then we thought of a solution.  The only solution was to go buy something else.  I had texted Steven, the team adviser, that we were going to be a little late, and we headed off to Target. 

     We got to target, quickly went to the mens clothing area, and I just grabbed the first thing I saw that I would wear, which would be a pair of cargo shorts.  I quickly went to the changing room to make sure they fit (didn't fully zip up or button), then went to go buy the shorts, then officially changed into them in the bathroom.  When putting them on, I had realized they seemed a little big.  They were a size too big.  I had lost weight and dropped down a pants size since the last time I really bought closes, and wasn't used to looking for the lower size.  Lucky, I had my belt to keep the shorts where they needed to stay.  There was no time.  We left and headed to the meeting.  We ended up being 40 minutes late because of this unexpected rip.  We walked into the Olive Room Conference Room, where the team was meeting, to find only three other members waiting.  Five members were running more late than we were.  Four of them had car trouble, and one had arrived a few moments after we sat down to prepare for the meeting.  

    We started the meeting, and things went back on track.  Before lunch, we did team business  for lunch we had Dos Coyotes, and after lunch we filmed for a team video.  Afterwards, we went back to the airport and flew on home. Photo above of downtown Sacramento as I was landing that morning.  Look real close, you can see the capitol building.  Awesome sauce!

Sunday, March 24: Fat and Lazy with a Side of Exercise

     I was fat and lazy this day.  I slept in until ten in the morning.  Ended up being woken up by my cat.  At first I just ignored him.  He didn't like that idea.  He tried to take over my pillow to get me out of bed.  Instead, I used him as a pillow until I finally woke up and got bored just laying in bed.

     I was supposed to clean my room a little, but I ended up spending the day playing Halo 4 and COD Modern Warefare 3 on my xbox, play SimCity 5 on my computer, hang around on social media, and be lazy all day.  It was nice outside, but this was a just me day.  

     Things would change late at night, and hopefully be a change towards the better.  I was at the computer, and it was 10:30 pm.  I was bored.  It was a wonderful cool night, and I felt like going outside.  I am not sure quite what did it, but I had this urge to exercise.  Not just to do a usual walk, but to try to do a little bit of running.  I was tired of being fat, and I know I needed to get back in track.  I had lost 20 pounds over the past two years, and that was from not eating out, quite drinking sodas, and walking 3 miles everyday.  Those things had stopped awhile ago, and I had to get back on track.  If you have read my past blogs, you know that I feel I look ugly, especially in my birthday suit.  I wanted that to change, and something sparked to make the move towards the better this night.  Because I didn't feel like going to far away from home, I decided to first start with walking west from my house on Beattie Street, walk up Harwick Dr up to Hamilton Dr, and want right back down to my house at the corner of Hamilton and Beattie.  Just a block that measured out to be 1,643 feet walk.  Then I had started to jog.  I had decided that I would jog from my house to Harwick Dr, then walk the other portions.  This would be the first time since High School that I really have did a jog.  Now, if you did the measurements, which I did on google maps, I would only jog for 550 feet, and walk the rest.  Yes, that sounds pathetic.  That is about all I could do.  I had stopped about 40 mins because I felt my legs beginning to be sore, and I didn't want to push it to far for this first time.  It felt good.  I went back inside, took a shower, and passed out in bed.  Hopefully this is a beginning towards being a better and healthier lifestyle. 

Monday, March 25: Mission San Juan Capistrano

     

     Spring break gave me a good amount of time to hang out with the people I care about.  Amanda and I had decided to still hang out, and do smaller trips around SoCal.  This day, we had traveled to the Historic San Juan Capistrano Mission.  My sister was free, and she joined us as well.  My goal for the trip was more for the photography aspect instead of the usual tourist mode.  Amanda would do the same.  I love this mission.  Of course, so does the rest of the world.  Out of all the missions, this is the most popular one, which means crowds of people.  We had aimed to head off at 8:00 am to make it to the mission at 9:00 to hear the historic bells ring.  Because of traffic, and us running a little late, we missed it, but it was still a wonderful day.  We first walked around to talk photographs and look at the displays.  The gardens were full of blooming flowers, which made the grounds so beautiful.  For my photography, I had decided to mainly focus on the flowers and not the historic architecture.  It would be more challenging with the good amount of field trips and people at the mission.  

     After looking around for a while, we took a guided tour, which we got free from a deal on the mission website.  I got to learn new things about the area and the mission.  One thing I found interested was the Native Americans that had called that place home for hundreds of years.  They would only live in a hand made structure for three months during the winter to help keep warm.  Once winter was over, they would burn them down and live on the land.  I kept thinking how that would feel and I am unsure how I would enjoy that.  Just living outside 100% of the time with no clothes on?  Not saying that I don't enjoy being naked, but I can imagine how dirty one person can get from living outside and wearing no clothing for most of the year.  It made me think about how fortunate I am to have a shelter to live in all year around.  Of course, the Native Americans would have been used to it.  Many did give up that life style to live on the mission, and once they joined in, they were unable to leave.  I bet many loved it, but there could be a few stories of some who hated living in the mission and attempted to flee to go back to their ways.  The tour ended at the ruins of the great stone church.  It was destroyed in an 1812 earthquake, and just hearing that year and earthquake had sparked something.  In my earthquake class last quarter, I had learned the last time the San Andreas Fault in the San Bernardino region had not moved since 1812, and we were expected for another movement.  The epicenter was in Wrightwood in the local mountains and the magnitude was an 6.9.  I found it interesting that the tour guide did not know the specifics about the earthquake.  I figured they would have done their research.  I talked to the tour guide afterwards to share the information and to ask how prepared the mission is for the next time the fault moves.  They did retrofitting in the 80s, and from my class I know that wont be enough.  I figured that this mission would be extremely damaged when the San Andreas Fault moves, which will be a shame.

     

     Anyway, afterwards we went to the car to grab our lunches, went to eat them near some swallow nests, then took a look at the rest of the mission.  I have to say my favorite part of any mission are the water fountains.  I am unsure why I love water fountains, but I do.  The fountains here are extremely beautiful.  We spend a good amount of time just sitting by the fountains to look at the lilly pads, the koi fish swimming around, and listening to the dripping water.  We had come to the end of the mission, and I wanted to head to the ocean.  It was low tide, and would have been perfect for exploring tide pools at Laguna Beach, or to hike to a exposed sea cave at Dana Point.  Amanda didn't seem interested, so we were lame and went home.  Instead of going the usual way home, we drove on highway 74, through the Cleveland National Forest.  It was a beautiful drive, and strangely it almost felt that we got home faster than what we would have if we had gone the freeway.  After we got back to the farm, we stayed for a little while, and went with Amanda to get hay for her horse before we went home.  It was a nice and relaxing day in a nice and cool day near the ocean.  Below is a photograph of my favorite photograph (I think at the moment) of the day:

Tuesday March 26: Intactivism and R & R with Friends

    This day would be the beginning of a week march movement called the Genital Integrity Awareness Week.  This movement is to stop the unnecessary and harmful procedure that is preformed routinely on infant boys; circumcision.  Over the past year, the topic of circumcision has become an topic of interest to me, and I have become a great advocate towards fighting to stop infant circumcision.  I will save the details for another blog post, but in a very small nutshell, circumcision goes against the natural rights of the boy's right to choose what is done to his body (especially his penis) and if the procedure is done because of the parents religious beliefs, it denies the boy the freedom of practicing the religious rituals of his beliefs.  So many people have beliefs of circumcision from others in society, and a majority of those beliefs are myths and false.  An example would be that the foreskin is dirty, smelly, not clean, and gives an very high risk to contract HIV/STDs and/or other diseases.  All of these are completely false.  The foreskin has many purposes and it benefits guys way more than if you cut it off.  Not to mention the procedure is extremely painful to the child as well.  

     Alright, you might be thinking why the hell I would get involved in a movement like this.  All boys should have the freedom of choice for themselves.  No exceptions!  That is what America was founded on, and it is amazing what some freedoms we still do not have.  It was made illegal to preform female circumcision in the US of the Clitoral Hood (which has many of the same purposes as the foreskin of the penis has. Keep all the boys intact (not circumcised).  If you have ever read my past blogs (which is highly doubtful) you know that I am not circumcised, and I am extremely glad that I was left 100% natural.  I would never have it any other way!  I don't give a fuck what you think!  I know having a foreskin is the best for me and for any guy.  If you are reading this, I really ask that you have an open mind and you look into this topic.  You will be surprised at what you learn.  Check out this video on Penn and Teller's Bullshit Episode on Circumcision.  They do a great job covering both sides of the issue.  

     Because of the march to Washington D.C. this week for this topic, I had decided to contribute in two ways.  The first was to post a fact about circumcision/the foreskin once a day during the march on my twitter account.  I had also decided to be more of an active citizen, and do something most people would never do, especially at my age.  I wrote letters to the two US Senators of California and to our house representative.  I figure at the moment I had sent those letters, I had stopped becoming a follower of the issue, and became what is called an Intactivist.  It felt good!  Below is the letter I sent to all three:

Dear Senator or Congressmen,

I ask you to consider looking into an issue that involves the violation of human rights and religious freedom given in the constitution towards males under the age of 18. 55% of males under the age of 18, mostly new borns, in the United States have a painful, risky, and unethical surgery preformed on them without consent. Circumcision.

Routine infant boy circumcision is unethical. The foreskin of the male penis is an important part of the sex organ. It provides an important role in protecting the glans of the penis, providing sexual functionality and pleasure. 

Having the foreskin removed from a males penis, under the age of 18, without his consent is wrong; especially when it is a procedure that can cause more health issues than benefits. Circumcision is also a freedom of religion issue. Circumcision is done for religious reasons based off the beliefs of the parents. The male child does not get a voice for the procedure, and is forced into the procedure without deciding on his own what religious beliefs and practices he will follow. 

Again, I do ask that you spend the time to look into this. This is a movement that is growing across the nation. Approximately 75% of males are intact (not circumcised). If there was truly a medical reason for the removal of the foreskin, that number would be down.
Thank you for your time on this issue. This week is Genital Integrity Awareness Week, and many people are in Washington D.C. to help spread the world of this issue to give our males under the age of 18 the freedom of choice. Feel free to go out and ask them questions to help on your research.

     After sending the letters, I had gotten a text message from Jane.  She was free and wanted to know if I wanted to hang out.  Of course, I said yes.  She came on over, and we chilled for a little bit.  Then we went to have lunch with an old friend Tiffany.  We had Thai Food, which this would be the first time I was open to trying Thai Food.  It wasn't bad.  I can't read what I ate, but it was awesome.  After lunch, Tiffany had to go do somethings, so Jane and I just chilled out for awhile, then went over to her friend Carlos's house to hang with him.  We had told Tiffany that we would hang out with her later on that day when she became free again.  We ended up hanging out, and it happened to be near dinner time.  We wanted to cook dinner instead of going out, because it is healthier.  Since we were in Highland, they were thinking of coming to my house.  I knew that would be a bad idea, so I had to think of something else.  The parents would not like me bringing 4 people into the house.  Before lunch, Jane and I went to a local park so I can replay a geocache container that needed some maintenance.  That park, called Canyon Oaks, had a few bbq pits.  The light bulb went on.  We can have a bbq at the park like the old days!

     Everyone was down.  We all met up at Stater Brothers, bought hamburgers and hot dogs, and then went off to Canyon Oaks Park.  Tiffany (which wasn't really a friend to me because of past drama--another story) bought all the food with food stamps, which I was surprised   It was really nice of her.  All I bought was the charcoals for the bbq.  Tiffany has a child now, and she brought her along with us, which was cool.  When we got set up at the park, everyone was having a good time, and I had started to light the bbq.  I had received a text message from Scotty asking me something about SimCity.  With that text, I figured he would be home.  I called him, invited him to the park for the bbq, and he showed up to hang.  This felt like the good old days from about 5 years ago when all of us (minus Carlos) would hang out as much as possible everyday. It is amazing how we have gotten busy in our lives not being able to do that anymore.  I did the cooking, and everyone else had fun.  We ate, then we played around on the playground.  Yes.  A much of 25 year olds playing on a kid playground.  Don't judge.  We even played tag for awhile.  We got bored with the park, and we had thought of ideas to go somewhere else to play a game called Sardines.  We had no clue where to go, but we had decided to go to my house for some bizare reason.  A suburb neighborhood wasn't the best of place to play Sardines, but whatever.  

     We ended up never playing Sardines.  We chilled the entire night just talking, joking around, not caring what time it was, and having fun.  Scotty had tire chalk in his car, and so a few wrote on some tires.  Of course, for my car, on the front passenger side, Tiffany wrote boobies and on the front driver side wrote I heart dicks.  I didn't care, except for the parents asking about it.  They said it would be an easy wash off.  Nope.  Still on my car, and today (5 days later).  We then used the chalk to draw out a hop scotch thingy in the middle of the road to play around with.  Unsure why.  At that point, I went inside the house to get everyone some drinks.  Of course, they were up to no good.  Jane had window markers, and while I was inside, they decided to decorate my car.  Sadly, when I returned it took me a while to notice.  We were in a group, some in Janes van, and I was paying attention to Scotty talking about something.  Then I noticed in the back ground a big white penis jizzing on my windshield   Of course, the only thing I cared about was that the parents would see it and start asking.   They also drew smily faces, a star, and a poorly drawn ass.  The night lasted until around 12:30 am.  We joked about a bunch of things, but one topic kept coming up because of the exhibitionist in the group...Carlos.  He would keep directing our conversations back towards masturbation, and the majority was aimed at me for some reason.  He kept asking questions about me on the topic, and for some reason, I would answer them.  I didn't want to, to not make them feel uncomfortable, but I didn't care.  This would be about the only group of people I would answer questions like that.  It was all good.  We all joked about things and it wasn't a big problem.  This day was a good day, and I was really loving being on Spring Break by this point. 


Wednesday March 27: Exercise and Hanging

     Today, it was planned to hang out with Jane in the afternoon and then go with her to a friends house to drink, which would be when Scotty would join us.  The morning was just me chilling and finishing up writing a blog on my Yosemite Trip a few days ago.  I also went back outside to do a 2.7 mile walk/jog exercise.  Which went well.  I was really nervous about jogging on the major road of Highland, which was on Highland Ave., in the day with so many cars driving by, but I didn't let that nervousness get to me...well mostly.  I definitely wouldn't start jogging until there was no car in sight.  Originally, Amanda and I were supposed to hike to Slushy Meadows in the mountains today, which was an 8 mile hike, but we had to cancel because she had something to do with a horse trainer.  

    In the afternoon, I headed over to Jane's place where we just hanged out, and waited until we had to go to her friends house for drinking.  Dinner was weird.  We went to Jamba Juice, and then I went to get chicken strips from Jack in a Box.  Strange but good.  We chilled for a while still at her place until it was time to go.  We went to Jane's friends apartment in Redlands for this hangout/party.  Scotty would show up later on.  For the majority of the party, Scotty and I just chilled and talked while Jane was hanging out with her friends and switching.  I didn't do much drinking.  Just one beer from what Scotty brought to the party.  Jane's friends were sitting at a card table smoking Hookah, which I won't smoke anything.  Everytime, Jane attempts to get me to try it, but I refuse.  Around midnight, Scotty had to go home because he worked in the morning, and I decided to leave with him.  I was tired, and if I had stayed, I would have mostly sat alone on the couch while Jane was having fun with her other friends.  She wanted me to stay, but I knew I wouldn't like it.  It was still a good day.

Thursday March 28: Roasting Some Wieners

     

     This day would be another good day of spring break.  Jane, Tiffany, her daughter, and myself went to Huntington Beach.  We met at Jane's house around 1:00 pm, then we went to buy hot dogs and smores supplies before heading on out.  The drive took longer than it should have.  Stupid traffic.  Wouldn't expect there to be traffic this early in the day.  We got to the beach around 3:30 pm.  Normally, I do not choose to go to Huntington Beach, but the beach has fire pits.  Laguna does not.  It was a nice spring day.  It was sunny and clear.  The only downside was a cold breeze that continued to blow most of the time.  We set up near a fire pit and chilled.  Everyone went to the water while I stayed behind to watch things.  I slept.  After awhile we got hungry and began the fire.  We roasted some awesome wieners.  In my opinion, the best hot dogs on the planet are hot dogs roasted from a fire pit at the beach.  After hot dogs, we had smores.  It was awesome.  Afterwards we burned the rest of the wood.  We got a little too cold, so we left the last bit of the fire going and had left around 6:30.  Before going home, we stopped off at the Rubios to visit our friend Noelle, who was working at the time.  She took her 30-min break when we arrived and we chatted for awhile.  Once she had to go back to work, we had left to go home.  It was a nice day. 


Friday March 29: Cardboard Boats and Wildwood Canyon

     The day started out early.  My dad, sister, and I had to go down to Citrus Valley High School in Redlands to meet up with my mom's students from Clement.  Every two years, my mom teaches 8th grade, and as a physics project, her students have to build boats out of cardboard and duct tape.  Then they must row their boat across a 25 meter swimming pool (with three of their team members in the boat) and not sink.  The three of us are there to photograph and video tape the event.  My sister used my moms handheld video camera.  I used my 80-300mm telephoto lens to take photographs of them in the water, and my dad took photographs and videos.  With the three of us, there should be a good amount of coverage.  It is a fun activity to watch, and I started thinking this would be a good even to bring to 4-H Summer Camp.  I will have to keep this idea for later down the road.  After the event, I headed up to the farm because Amanda and I were planning to go hiking at the Wildwood Canyon State Park.  I had arrived early, so I helped them in the field a little.  They were planting tomato plants.  Then we had lunch, then headed on out.  Originally, Amanda was going to take her horse, Cody, but she got lazy and didn't want to deal with it.  Instead we took her two dogs, Turbo and Kora.  It worked out better anyway.

     We had never been to Wildwood Canyon State Park.  We printed out a map of the trails and headed on over.  We started on the Oak Tree Loop trail, which first took us through a small canyon of live oak trees and green grass.  It was beautiful.  We saw a large amounts of insect wildlife.  We saw mostly butterflies.  Then from the Oak Tree Loop, we went to the McCuliough Loop.  We had the map, but there were no signs of the trail names, and it felt like there were way more trails than the map showed.  We felt lost.  Had no direction of where we were going.  All we knew was we were continuing to go up north.  Soon we were out of the small canyon and got into more the the brush and Chapperal environment.  Hundreds of flowers were everywhere.  Had no clue what they were until I went home and googled.  It seemed we mostly saw beautiful California Mountain Lilacs and Buckbush plants.  The entire place was green and alive.  Of course, we know this wont last long.  We did see some good views as we continued to get higher in elevation.  We kept going for a while, and the dogs began to get tired.  With that, we turned around.  Near the end, we finally found the unpaved road that was on the map, and we knew that would take us back down to the park entrance   It was a wonderful park and I will go again.  I had a GPS app on my iphone on, and it kept track of how far we hiked.  In total, we hiked 4.1 miles in the two hours.  It took that long because of breaks and having to deal with the dogs slowing down on the uphill part of the trails.  It was an awesome afternoon.  Being outdoors always makes me happy.  Here is a kinda ok photo.  Was taking it while walking and with the phone, so I didn't expect anything better than a general snapshot.  It is way more beautiful than 

Saturday March 30: Nothing Important

    Did nothing important.  Just slept, browsed the internet, played video games, eta.

Sunday March 31: Easter

     This year's Easter was not a great celebration.  It consisted of sleeping in, went downstairs, found that my mom has given me 4 margarita style glasses, two bags of M & Ms (one bag filled with Green and another Purple--which are my two top favorite colors), yellow peeps and a hallow chocolate bunny (which I love).  It was nice.  Makes me feel bad that I didn't have anything for them.  My dad spent the day working in the backyard, my mom spent it downstairs on the computer, my sister and her boyfriend played with Magic cards, then went to his family events, and I spent the day upstairs doing the usual.  Internet, video games, writing this blog post, thinking about school, eta.  We have a nice meal every year.  This year, for lunch, we had Honey Baked Ham, cheesey potatoes al gratin, bread, and green beans.  Other than that, the day wasn't that special.  We didn't even really eat as if it was a holiday meal.  The parents and my sister and her bf ate in front of the TV, and I ate upstairs because there was no room for me.  Don't get that sad feeling.  It wasn't a sad thing.  I wouldn't want to be down their anyway.  No one was talking.  Just eating.  It wasn't anything special except for the food.

     Lastly, if you read my post when lent started, you will know that I had given up pornography for lent.  I know that I was looking at porn too much, and needed to take a break.  I did it.  I went the entire lent period without looking at porn.  I will say, at the beginning, it was hard.  I did notice the urge to just go right to the websites I use.  But I overpowered them, and succeeded   Of course, I did look at porn today.  Duh!  But it wasn't obsessive like before, and I plan to not go crazy for it.  Just something I look at like maybe once a week or a few times.  Not at any time that I am bored.  God I need a girl friend lol.

     This spring break had not turned out how it was originally planned, but as you read, it was a good spring break.  I had wished I could have one more week off, but I will take what I can get.  School starts on Tuesday.  No school tomorrow because of Ceaser Chavez day.  Now I am looking foreward for summer vacation.  Can't wait.  I know this was a long post.  Yikes.  I felt it better to put it all in one post instead of a new post for each day.  Anyways.  Im so tired of typing so peace out.