I have seen The shade of Blue in Crater Lake The darkness of the earth in a lava tube half a mile below a frozen desert The flash of lightning striking a tree through the hail The rumble of a car-sized boulder rolling across the road in front of my car in a flash flood in Yosemite The splash of pelicans diving for fish, watched from my living room couch The White House in Washington, DC The first airplane in which humanity ever came aloft The shake of my fingers slide across the surface of a rock from the moon The fluttered thunder of a cloud of migrating monarch butterflies The clash of steel in a joust The joyous terror of a horse between my legs taking off, unbidden, flying over a fence faster than a car The thunder of hooves of the surrounding herd as we cascaded down a hill The laughter of young poets on the roof of a parking structure in Spokane and Sacramento The sunrise in the Mojave desert The walls of snow, fog and rain in Oregon, Pacifica and Olympia The salmon spawn upstream in a creek off the Puget sound The looming scale of Denali The deftness of a captain with two hooks wheeling a fishing boat like a leaf in an inlet of the Kenai The slow tick of a glacier, melting The wry humor of a grizzly bear in the wild, shaking a coca-cola box The wonder of a baby being born amid screams of joy and pain The entire room lost to the wildness of the guitars and the full moon and the ephemeral teenage soul The moon-rise over the golden gate bridge The look of lust in a woman's eyes The sorrow of a family mourning someone they love The joy of a man partaking in the first meal of the past two days The blush of a girl being whirled through the dance to band playing tunes that haven't been played in decades The stars in my eyelids as I tasted the perfect bite of a taco-truck taco The color of the crunch of leaves The glowing horizon in the dark with Mount Diablo on fire The purple sunset through the warm rain of Fiji, with the fruit bats flying home The love of an elderly woman cooking in Nagigi The glee of surfing the Wavakui to the sacred salt lake, with the Island of Bone The trees sinking their roots into the living coral of Naitilo The Green Turtles and Manta Rays of Lahaina The rock from which the Viking parliment recited its laws The view of the Katlasandur from Hjorleifur's burial cairn The burial grounds of the Troll-kind The ice lagoon of Jokulsarlon The cliffs of Oxl that we drove, the wind trying to scrape us off The steaming purple dunes of Namafjall-Hverir The Valkyries of Akureyri The Arctic Circle, and my skin after bathing in the Arctic Ocean The Graveyard of Reykjavik, and Olsmidjan The drunken merriment of Vikings in a feasting hall, blurred by an abundance of mead The Aegean from the sky The gold leaf walls of calligraphy in the Grand Bazaar The muezzins of Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque competing in harmony The moon rising high above the Bosphorus The tall abstract stone chess-pieces of a mosque's cemetery, going back to the fifteenth century The gleam of the hustle in the grin of a man on the metro at the Zeytinburnu stop The slosh of my innards flung into a sky commode while dangling high above Somalia The coming-to and convalescence in a hospital bed in South Mauritius The gleam and glow of Mahebourg's Blue Bay, iridescent and surreal The love hidden within religion, held in an embrace The song of the feral dogs of night and morning roosters on tin shingles in Antananarivo I have seen a part of the world I have seen Humans

What I’m really good at: Unfortunately, I tend to be good at the vast majority of things I try, which makes me either appear like a show-off, attention hog or know it all. It also makes me a jack of all trades, master of none. XD I just really like doing things, and when I really like it, I improve quickly. Songwriting, instruments (many), poetry, cooking, photography, drawing, painting, broadsword fighting, languages, producing innuendos out of thin air (and it's not the only thing I can make appear ;) ...case in point), explaining the fundamentals of relativity and string theory on a napkin... My goal is to be the Dos Equis man by the time I turn forty. Personal ethics: The profession I've defined (Something I wrote a while back): "What it means to be a Cultural Photojournalist "There is a rule of thumb in mainstream news media on how to create an interest-capturing broadcast... "If it bleeds, it leads." It is the predisposition of perception-forming organizations in both visual and print mediums to lead off any segment of news-worthy material with a story with strong visuals about destruction, death and yes, blood... Even if unrelated the following subject. Sex and distraction are marketable, and marketability funds both the censors and the producers. This is WRONG. "It is our place in society, as wanderers of the planet, to express the voices of humanity. Where we are of most use to mankind is in the expression of those voices that go unheard, turning the oppressor's monologue into the dialogue of cohabitants of a too-small planet... We are to scrabble about the desert, seeking the flowers, and find the diamonds in the dung hill. "We should seek the beauty and joy in reality, though we should not let its gleam blind us from any ugliness and pain that we, through action, publication or discourse, might remedy. "We are agents of change, giving voice to the songs of the tongueless and painting the dances of the invisible.. And heaven and divinity help you if you are muted by fear of repercussion, punishment or obscurity. We tread lanes of brutality; let us redeem our blood-stained shoes. "I call upon you to have a true level of durability and a new concept of success. We are to be epicurean nomads, not to be gluttons of first-world extravagance, nor ascetics in penance for those below the poverty line, but instead, we should find joy in the flavors and fulfillment of a globally-minded gourmand, find happiness in our shelter from winds and rains, and consume with no less than we yearn for, but no more than we need. Epicurus once said that "it is of more importance in whose company you dine than what you dine upon;" in such a way, let us strive to seek companions in excellence, intellectually, spiritually, culturally... even if their journeys into the meaning of being human reach different destinations than our own. "We are to be citizens of humanity, for there are many just causes worth your life, there is no nationality worth your soul. Too often in recent history has a pride in origin been the justification for xenophobia, hatred and oppression. Take pride in your country; take pride in your culture. Never do so in such a manner or instance that belittles those of another person. "It is not our primary concern to be the prophets of a "superior" opinion, hand down agendas to the people from the marketing directors who sit in the clouds of Mount Olympus, nor to be the mouthpiece of a self-contradictory majority opinion. Our central intent is found in a ceaseless process of self-perfection and self-refinement, through increasing our experience and understanding of the fellow inhabitants of the planet. It is our calling to explore; it is our calling to experience; if we learn, if we share, then much the better... But it is our highest calling to appreciate all forms of humanity and expressions of beauty. We are the appreciators of Earth."

Chai Friendship A hug

I spend a lot of time thinking about: How human beings function in relationship to themselves, to the universe, to the environment... Basically, life, the universe, everything and fish. (As I said, I like Douglas Adams :) ) [Also see the "Teach. Learn. Share." section] I'M REALLY INTO SOLARPUNK RIGHT NOW. lol. Like, I've been community gardening feral plants. Who knows how long it'll last, but it's really cool. :)