Lessons of an International Flight

After a day of travelling, I have arrived in Rome and have learned some valuable lessons.

1. Eat something sweet as soon as its given to you: When I was on my Swiss International flight, I was given some Swiss chocolate.  Thinking that that would be a great treat for later, I put it in my pocket.  I'm smart, I was going to eat it before it melted all over the place.  Wrong!  Now I've got one chocolate covered cell phone and one chocolate covered pocket.

2. Go to the right baggage claim: After coming through the wrong Italian baggage claim port in Rome, I realized that I had just come through customs and did not have my check luggage.  Luckily, I have mastered the art of looking like I know what I am doing and was able to sneak backwards through customs and retrieve my bag.

3. When keeping kosher in Rome, ask what's in the food: My grandparents and I went to a nice italian resaurant, after ordering, the waiter made a suggestion of something else to order.  Of course, I took it.  One spectacular meal, and one pork meatball and bacon covered pasta later, I have learned this lesson.  By the way, "sauce" in Italy can include bacon.  Who would have known?

Well, tomorrow I'm off to the Sistine Chapel and right now I'm off to bed with a belly full of home cooked Italian pasta.  An interesting start to whats promising to be a great trip.

Big Adventure

And now for the greatest adventure yet this summer.  Off to Italy!

Jungle in the back yard

Monday saw the unfolding of an amazing event right in my room.  The praying mantis egg case that my brother, Sam, had gotten at the bug fair last week hatched.  Hundreds of baby mantises marched out, fully formed miniature versions of their parents, and proceeded to fill their terrarium.  Then Sam and I launched an hour-long effort to disperse them in our yard.  I would not want to be a tiny bug in my backyard this week.

All of these simultaneous births got me to thinking about the meaning of life, and I came up with this:
"The best way to approach the meaning of life is to live it."

Searching in the night

Sometimes what time you visit a place is as important as which place it is in determining its feel.  For example, last night past midnight, I decided to take a look at the stars.  It took nothing more than a three quarter moon and some patience to make in my back yard into an almost unrecognizable scene (see photo).

Pondering the skies with a telescope can be surreal experience.  That is, once I got over my frustration and adjusted my telescope to viewing through the proper lens.  Stargazing is truly a window into the past.  While gazing at those tiny specs of light so far away, it sometimes comes to mind that they are actually broiling infernos, burning at temperatures far hotter than man or anything he can make can survive.  However, the most appealing take on on the stars from my perspective is as a window into the past.  The light shining from those tiny specs in a sea of darkness is quite ancient, and it is always interesting to think that, the stars I saw last night might have shined their last thousands of years ago.  However, the sound of birds under a night sky at midnight served to dispel any anxiety this thought might have caused.

This thought on time, my backyard's night and the brightness of ancient stars, reminds me of time's passing.  Time is limited and the summer day awaits, so now I will sign off with a quote on adventure from O. Henry in "The Green Door":

"The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate."

The Mission

I've often thought while driving what a depressing philosophy it entails.  Touch as little as possible, if you do touch something, you will get horribly hurt and might destroy it. 

In life, I have taken the opposite approach.  Try to interact with many people and things as good an impact as possible on them.  In this quest, I have realized that changing one person's impression of the world for the better is changing the entire world.  The world might seem daunting if you try to change the whole thing at once.  If with each of these contacts, I change some person or animal's outlook on the world for the better, I will be changing the world for the better.  On that note, here is a shot of a butterfly that I photographed the other day at the bug fair at the LA museum of Natural History.


So that's the mission, now off to make adventures and an impact.

On Adventure

Adventure: its allure has drawn many a man to his doom, but its payoff has brought many a traveler to glory.  Well, life is short, and I've decided that it is time to get some adventures of my own.

Before deciding to begin this quest for adventure, I've done a bit of thinking (and traveling) to learn about the subject.  What I've realized is that life itself is an adventure.  It's not necessary to go far and wide to find a worthwhile quest.  Some can be found in the pages of a book or in a home project.  In any of its forms, adventure is the quest into the unknown.  Whether this unknown consists in feelings or far away places, it can be daunting.  This summer, I'm hoping to add a bit of adventure to my life in all of its forms.  This blog is created as the repository of the tales of these adventures.

Happy adventuring!