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My buddy Josh and I traveled to Nicaragua this last winter break. Josh works with an organization called Life Out of the Box and they gave us school supplies to help impoverished communities. Nicaragua is beautiful and so are its people. Their culture and way of life are complex and detailed with a humble and genuine attitude. I met many international travelers and local Nicaraguans that I now call friends. I learned so much in the little time that I was able to live in the home/ hostel of an amazing family in San Juan Del Ser. Language I have found isn't a barrier that should convince anyone they shouldn't travel. I was standing on the street corner, while Josh was inside a bar talking with a group of international travelers. As I was standing there a drunk guy came wandering up to me. He started yelling at me trying to use what little English he knew to talk to me. He could have been saying anything, but I with my little bit of spanish I know made out a conversation with him that quickly got personal. We couldn't understand each other, but we're able to finally talk about each other and make each other understand the best way we could. He told me about his girlfriend and how she wouldn't stop drinking, so she lost the child. Now he is out drinking trying to forget about it. I shared with him in his grief. He patted me in the back and he told me to follow him. I followed him into a bar and his cousins and brother worked there. He bought a big bottle of Toná, and shared it with me. I met people from all over the globe. I remember how nervous I was to travel to a third world nation, the fear my family and friends convinced me of, the culture shock, the language barrier. All of these became unimportant when I learned that you can travel anywhere, meet anyone, learn and help anyone, if you do it smart. The world is a dangerous place, but it is ours if we are smart enough to wish to see it. I traveled to la Chureca, the largest landfill in Central America that houses hundreds of forgotten people and their stories. I saw poverty and misery on a level that photography and written words can't express. I reached out to as many as I could, I saw what I could do and how I could make a positive impact, and I also learned about the realities beyond my control. I learned the extent of my will. There are things that I am intellectually incapable of solving, that I don't have the power or the know how to solve. But that deepened my resolve to figure out what that might be. What can be done. Maybe it takes something and I might not be it. It's a problem that exists even when I'm back state side working my jobs, going to class, and laying in a soft bed. I saw horror. But I saw other things as well, things that don't make the situation solved, that don't conclude my resolve to make it better. I did see things that from a spiritual point that make me reevaluate my views on the best and worst of humanity. I was shocked when I saw the conditions of their poverty and the lives they endured. But I took many photos and scrolling back through them I had taken pictures of a family laughing. I took photos of children playing. I took photos of a couple making out against a wall. I took photos of a child scribbling something on a pad. I saw the worst of what I and many believe is the worst, but also I saw these things. I also saw the love of a family. I saw the spirit of children. I saw romance and sweethearts. I saw the aspiration of a child, who be it school, a journal, a drawing, poetry, used his mind to escape where he was. I saw aspiration, creativity, the tuning of a skill. These are realities that transcend borders, languages, pocketbooks, and barriers, as genuine human qualities. These are qualities that can be appreciated and realized by anyone anywhere. These are people that are as human as anyone else and arguably more so. These people deserve to have lives that give opportunity to their potential. It is a tragedy for humanity to allow the waste of lives. Injustice somewhere is injustice anywhere. - MLK I truly believe that empathy knows no proximity, it is just constrained by the illusion of relevance. This is just the first of my travels and adventures to places to find Telos AKA purpose. Thanks to LOOTB for the sponsorship and allowing me to be your camera guy. Thanks for Oklahoma State University for your support. Thanks to Josh, and thanks to everyone for reading.

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Random beauties in the Midwest

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I'd like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.

- Jon Krakauer, Into The Wild

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Journal 13: Into The Wild

Finally watched the movie, stood up almost all night watching it and contemplating it. Exhausted for work, but now immediately when free went to half priced books and purchased a copy. There is an utter beauty to this tragedy. It's almost like a Greek tragedy. I have always heard its a very spiritual and heart wrenching movie, I like movies that can emotionally traumatize you, screw your head up, or cause some tears. This movie though beat my expectations when it came to the ending. I was almost sick to my stomach with the horror and beauty of the conclusion. I can't wait to read the book.

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"What if I were smiling and running into your arms? Would you see then what I see now?" Into The Wild

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World's Toughest Job - #worldstoughestjob - Official Video

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Help support my adventure into Laos, where I will be filming my experiences teaching Buddhist Monks English, and learning their culture

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Pre order your novel today!

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We are bound by a sense of innate curiosity. With our minds and bodies we indulge ourselves to the temptation of looking up with wonder. There is no more tempting fruit, nor more longing or lust, than the seduction of wonder and mystery that exists right above our very heads. When we realize that there is no roof to our home, our eyes light up, our minds will ponder. Our lives are treasures of purpose, and it calls to us to illuminate like stars in the darkness.

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Thank you. I like your blog, and can't wait to read more.

What's this nonsense about black holes not being real anymore? As it being my favorite astronomical quandary I'm a little concerned. And, if they aren't real anymore, what happens when a star collapses on itself?

I’m struggling with this myself. I’ve read the Hawking paper that came out. As people point out, it’s cryptic, 4 pages long and includes no calculations. Basically, for everyone out there who isn’t doing research on black hole phenomena, black holes are staying black.

To be quite honest, black holes were just an example of “best explanation for physical phenomenon”, a little like Darwinian evolution or the inflationary/hot primordial universe scenario (big bang). There’s a lot we don’t understand about stellar evolution, particularly this kind of event.

From my reading, what Hawking is saying is not that massive stars’ lives don’t end, and they don’t undergo runaway core collapse, or that a singularity doesn’t form (when people talk about black holes, they should probably use the term singularity, as it is more accurate mathematically). The real new thing is that Hawking is now saying there is no such thing as an event horizon, or the “point of no return”.

Frankly, that was always a sticking point. If crap gets sucked in, and never gets out, you’re destroying “information”. This violates quantum mechanics, or relativity and suggests one or both theories are incomplete. Hawking is now saying that rather than an event horizon, there is some kind of “apparent horizon” which is basically particle purgatory. Information just chills out there for a very long time. The biggest sentence in the paper to this effect is "This suggests that black holes should be redefined as metastable bound states of the gravitational field."

But don’t worry, black holes or singularities still exist: They aren’t going anywhere any time soon. But because Hawking publishes so little, everyone gets excited when he does. Also given he first proposed the event horizon phenomenon, it’s a massive about turn.

[jkpunk-blog]

When did hawking publish this?

What's this nonsense about black holes not being real anymore? As it being my favorite astronomical quandary I'm a little concerned. And, if they aren't real anymore, what happens when a star collapses on itself?

I’m struggling with this myself. I’ve read the Hawking paper that came out. As people point out, it’s cryptic, 4 pages long and includes no calculations. Basically, for everyone out there who isn’t doing research on black hole phenomena, black holes are staying black.

To be quite honest, black holes were just an example of “best explanation for physical phenomenon”, a little like Darwinian evolution or the inflationary/hot primordial universe scenario (big bang). There’s a lot we don’t understand about stellar evolution, particularly this kind of event.

From my reading, what Hawking is saying is not that massive stars’ lives don’t end, and they don’t undergo runaway core collapse, or that a singularity doesn’t form (when people talk about black holes, they should probably use the term singularity, as it is more accurate mathematically). The real new thing is that Hawking is now saying there is no such thing as an event horizon, or the “point of no return”.

Frankly, that was always a sticking point. If crap gets sucked in, and never gets out, you’re destroying “information”. This violates quantum mechanics, or relativity and suggests one or both theories are incomplete. Hawking is now saying that rather than an event horizon, there is some kind of “apparent horizon” which is basically particle purgatory. Information just chills out there for a very long time. The biggest sentence in the paper to this effect is "This suggests that black holes should be redefined as metastable bound states of the gravitational field."

But don’t worry, black holes or singularities still exist: They aren’t going anywhere any time soon. But because Hawking publishes so little, everyone gets excited when he does. Also given he first proposed the event horizon phenomenon, it’s a massive about turn.

[jkpunk-blog]

This is the most bad ass cake I have ever, not allowed to eat :-(...

  Dragon born...

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