The Best of 2011 (In the life of this Blogger)

Here are some of the best moments and events in my life this year worth mentioning publicly. I want to mention people so bad, but I want to be able to ask people first, and it would be hard to get 30 or so people's permission to mention them. But So many things in my life this year are worth mentioning. Here are some milestones.

**All things written below are subject to amendment of any sort at any time**

Top Reasons to be Motivated to Enjoy Life

1. 1 Colossians 27

2. Frodo to Sam in Return of the King: "There is so much for you to be, and see, and do."

3. Freedom

4. Creativity

5. Energy (Light, Strength etc)

Top Things that I got to do this year.

A Glacier. You had to be there (alaska).

1. Deep Conversations with close people in my life (you all know who you are)

2. Small Group Coordinator with InterVarsity

2. Began Dancing and Working on a Film

3. Alaska Trip with My Family

4. Movie Nights

5. Worked at this pretty cool Tea Shop

6. Found this cool Coffee shop

7. Began reading/writing again

8. Drive people and participate in Chapter Camp

9. Help friends in need

10. Sing/Play/Listen to music of all kinds

11. Watched some great movies (Top films coming soon)

A fatter Andres in May 2010

Things Accomplished

1. So much Wellness and Emotional Healing (A healthier sense of Identity and God's Presence in my Life).

2. This Blog

3. Working on a Documentary with some cool people

4. Dance

5. Lost around 15-20lbs since summer 2010 (REALLY?!?!) ----->

Rugged Andres changing flat.

Key Events

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II

2. Alaska-Fishing

3. Alaska Visiting/flying in by myself

4. Fiddler on the Roof

5. Christmas in my hometown with the monks

6. Salsa Dancing on Halloween

7. Chapter Camp

8. Flat Tire on the Way to Chapter Camp :)

9. Birthday Party

10. Forgetting to Graduate

Yes, really Harry Potter. It was one of the best experiences of my life. Really.

Best Worst things that happened to me (Worth mentioning)

Socorro, NM

1. A very forward and unappealing 45 yr old lady asks to date me while I'm working

2. 4 whole driving tickets all at once

3. Headache in a packed car with 5 family members who are just like me (practically) for about 10 hours.

4. Insomnia in Socorro

5. Transitioning out of InterVarsity

6. Changing 3 flat tires in one month's time

About this BLOG

This blog has functioned as an experimental public journal. It updates people on events in my life, and it attempts to share valuable experiences. So far, based on viewership, it has been a success.

Most Viewed Posts

1. How to Make the Most out of your Insomnia in Socorro (~74 page views to date)

2. A City by the Sea (~65 page views to date)

3. Coffee in Albuquerque Part I (58 page views to date)

4. Fellowship of the Ring AGAIN?! (47 page views to date)

5. The Gospel According to Boxes, Sam, and Andres (38 page views to date)

Please continue to Read more and Click the above links if you missed any posts.

Top Search Keywords

1. the one ring (5 referrals)

(others not worth mentioning)

Money made this year from the Blog

Around 30 dollars based on around 700 page views

Page Views by Month

1. November 341

2. October 315

3. December 281 (So Far)

4. September 196

5. August 174

6. June 192

7. March 104

8. July 59

9. January 16

10. April 12

11. February 5

12. May 4

So MUCH progress! Thank everyone who visits. Your comments are valuable. There has been so much growth in this blog this last year. Here's to hoping that next year will be better for blogging, photography, dance, and film. I think it will.

What to expect when you're expecting

First of all...MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!



This is not helpful advice about having a baby unfortunately.  It is about an age old thing we all have: expectations.  The general kind, not the baby kind.


In light of the holidays I will post on something about God's peace and sovereignty in our lives.  Because of God's incarnation on this earth, we are free and need not control or expect things.  We need not allow fear into our lives.


I posted this on FB the other day.  I've been thinking a lot about expectations.  

‎"If you expect things to go a specific exact way, you'll be super unhappy all your days. Expect the unexpected and appreciate things and people for what they are. Let God be in control."--lots of wise people probably

This is not the way God sees us.  Rather this is the way we think God sees us a lot of the time.

You see, many of some of my most valuable relationships were painful for me because of my ideas of how people should behave and treat me. My own construction of who they "should be" has messed things up big time.  


I hate seeing this happen to people, and mostly I hate that it is happening to me.  


The fact that God is in control is Huge! It is so refreshing.  It means that you don't have to be stuck anymore.  But you are.  

It is because of our fear that we want to control others and the situations around us.  If we just stepped back and let things unfold we'd be a lot happier.  If we just let people be who they are and stop trying to dictate their actions for our own benefit we'd be better off.  

It's best to realize that we have everything we need. "The Lord is my Shepherd, I lack nothing." 

On this day our savior was born.  Let us remember all he did for us and why we can sit back and let him be in control of our lives.  Let us remember that we are free from bondage.  Free from sin.  Free from guilt and shame.  We are free to be the men and women that we are.  


Because of Jesus, you are NOT what you do.  You are not what you are guilty of.  You are not those thoughts.  You are not those actions.


You are something worthwhile.  You belong to the King. 

This is more accurate. God delights in his people.

Stuff you could have been for Halloween

I didn't participate in anything Halloweeny this year.  I had my reasons.  I went to a dance studio that night and wanted to wear my bat man undergarments, but I didn't want to offend anyone.  I camped out at some of my buddies house and watched the Office.

"I'm a little sleepy and hollow."

My friend Bryant--who has a great Twitter page btw--and my friend Stephen and I were at an art gallery listening to superhero poetry when I introduced my idea of being just an obscure thing like a "search engine" for Halloween.

His funny twitter account:
http://twitter.com/#!/kinderschema

My original idea for the search engine was to walk around with white tights (like any normal halloween costume) have some green, red, and yellow colors lingering about me, and have a keyboard with a box of junk that would represent what the person would search for.  I didn't follow through with it like many of my ideas in my life, but here's to hoping that somebody takes my amazing idea and does it next year.

We then noticed that you can be anything for Halloween which I'm sure you know.  But seriously anything.  An idea, a vitamin, a mineral, the thing you ate last week.

Some of the things we came up with:

• A search engine
• A poem
• The economy -- you wear a white T-shirt with a declining graph with an arrow
• Your lost sense of humor.
• That fifteen minutes you could have spent saving fifteen percent or more on car insurance.
• Maine. (yes the state)
• Murphy's Law
• The Pythagorean Theorem (whenever you need to solve triangle equations I'm there for you)
• Lost-(just a person who was lost) "Where am I? Who are you? Why do I exist?"
• Lost (the show)- you would tell stories with cliffhanger endings with multiple universes and never give a conclusive ending to anything you say.
• The wit of a Mark Twan novel
• The humor of a Jane Austen novel
• That coupon you never used
• That bill you never paid
• (Yeah it starts to get real scary and real personal)
• Those songs you never practiced on the piano
• That old piece of chocolate you left in the cupboard and is still melting
• A missed phone call you'll never know about
• That guy who wears pink everywhere because he wants to pretend he's not insecure
• I'm that guy that calls you by mistake and you always wondered why your lives crossed paths
• I'm those keys that you never made a copy of and now you're stranded haha.
• I'm the barista that always tries to convince you to buy soy products.
• I'm the parenting manual that your parents never got.
• I'm that box of Christmas cards you never sent.
• The self help book that you never applied to your life.
• The self help book on how to buy self help books.
• That Christmas ornament that your parents kept since you were in kindergarten because they have to.
• Runner's high
• The noise a tree makes in the forest that nobody hears when it falls (if no one is there to hear it)
• I'm the answer to the chicken and the egg question.
• I'm those colors in the spectrum that are invisible eyes.
• Hi...I'm all the pictures you've taken with your lens cap on.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving dear friends and fellow humans.

It's a great day to be an American, a man, a friend, a cousin, brother, son, grandson, etc...

Mostly it's a great day to belong to God.

I'm so thankful for everyone who reads, everyone who has supported me in any form.  I'm thankful for my skills as a pianist, dancer, and artist. I'm thankful for my silly and fearless writing ability whether it's good or not.

I'm thankful for people who have mentored and helped me this year. For friends, family, and co-workers/peers.

I'm thankful for coffee in albuquerque.

I'm thankful for this castle that my friend Stephen built in 10 minutes out of oatmeal buckets.

I'm thankful for my new opportunity to work on this film with some cool people:
 http://www.aplacetostandmovie.com

I'm thankful for dance.

I'm thankful that I got to help with this fun piece with some cool InterVarsity people:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UGXSdQjD20

Thanks everyone for reading, and your presence and thoughtfulness in my life.

Coffee in Albuquerque Pt. 1

There's this coffee shop.

It has no name, it's called coffee I think. Yep just "Coffee."

On the corner of Mountain and something (8th St.) it sneaks up on you.  I discovered it a while driving from Albuquerque's old town back home I think.  A midst all these old style Albuquerque homes it pops out suddenly and you just keep bottle-necking as you drive by--your eyes fixed on the blue and red trim and the promise of it being the best cup of coffee you'll ever discover.  That's the hope you have with every coffee shop isn't it though?  Maybe this time, it will be the best coffee you've had so far.

That's what the sign says on it in the front anyway--"Coffee." No clever names, nothing complicated, nothing extraterrestrial like our very own Satellite, neither does it attempt to be godlike similar to the other S word. (It's a word I'm careful not to bring up so that I don't offend.) Just straight to the punch, as if to say "this is what we sell, this is all we sell, we are good at it, and you will love it."  That's the bait, the appeal.  It's what drew me in and it's the kind of thing that gets you hooked--that and the red and blue trim.

At first, it seems like it used to be a house, but it used to be a gas station really.  There is an old postcard on the front of the espresso machine inside with a picture of the place when long ago it used to advertise 7 up big and proud on its fuel pumps. Who drinks 7 up anymore anyway?

I had to take someone else there just to make sure it was real.  Yes, it seems too far away and magical to be a real place. It seemed to only exist in a romanticized Albuquerque. Me and my buddy Sam are fans of coffee and conversations and I had a reason to go there one friday.  (Long story short: The guy that owns the place hired me to paint a house next door and he owed me money--I make friends easily.)  Sam and drove there and walked in.

It's weird to see one of your friends in a different context that your not used to being in together.  I had been going there to paint a house for a couple of days--for the owner who also owns a tile-making company--you see.  I knew I was still sane and in the same city because I could see the one building closest to a skyscraper we boast about here in the biggest city in NM.  But the day I took Sam there was different.  It was slightly rainy though not cold.  It was a perfect day to sit outside and drink a cup of Joe and have a conversation.  There was a literal rainbow across the way from us.  We were facing West sitting outside the quaint little establishment.  We were surrounded by beautiful New Mexico-style homes with flowers all over the front yards.  A man walked up to me and handed me a hundred dollars.  Looking over to Sam I asked "Are we in the same city? Did we go to some far away land and end up here somehow? Is this Narnia?"

Ok I didn't ask if this was Narnia.  But a man did walk up to me and give me a hundred dollars.  He owed me money for painting the house across the way.  It was one of those times where for some reason it becomes more real when another person in your life takes in the experience with you.  It's like when I went to the grand canyon, I had to take a double take and look over to make sure my sister and dad were seeing the same thing I was.

The coffee is quite good.  The espresso drinks are amazing.  There are bagels.  And of course there are free refills.  I asked the barista if there were and he replied with, "What do you think this is, a Nazi concentration camp? Of course they're free."  He used more colorful language.  So there you go.  It's a place where they consider other places inferior for not offering free coffee refills.  Take note Satellite and Starbucks.

It's open 7 to noon everyday.  There is live music on Sundays.  There are some great people that work there and frequent the place.  Many of them are artists looking to talk about anything and everything.  It has a warm neighborhood atmosphere where people are happy to meet you and talk to you.  People are pretty genuine here. I like it.

Best Film Scores

Ben Hur just came out on bluray and I'm so excited to get it.  It features a copy of some Charleton Heston journal entries during the filming of it.  And other new documentaries I haven't seen.

Ben Hur is one of my favorite films and certainly has the best film score out of any film I've seen.  So in honor of that, here are my favorite film scores.

These are my Favorite Film Scores. That is music that makes a film rock at what it is doing. Or enhances the epic factor of any film.

Top Ten
1) Ben-Hur
2) Lord of the Rings Trilogy
3) The Hours
4) Amelie
5) The Fountain
6) Hero
7) Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
8) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
9) Pride and Prejudice
10) Schindler's List

Honorable Mentions:
Psycho, Star Wars, E.T., Schindler's List, Fiddler on the Roof (not listed because it is mostly a musical).

This list is subject to change like all of my lists.

Feel free to post your faves ;)

Featured photo.

A desert plant I found on a walk with my brother and dad in Alamogordo a couple years ago.


Remember how when you were in kindergarten and your teacher asked you to describe a picture? Maybe not. I had to describe a bear once.  I said things like it was fuzzy, and lovable and such.  I didn't really understand that it could potentially kill me.  Probably because of my ideal plaid teddy bear that my grandma let me play with.  Anyway, here is my 23-year-old attempt at a photo description 18 or so years later.

There's nothing special about it, it's beautiful.

It has purpose.

It has meaning.

It's got style.

It has eyeliner.

And borders.

It defines itself and its environment.

It could stab me and you.

It's not invisible.

It's not serving Tea.

It doesn't have insomnia.

And it's not in Alaska.

It does say something about its maker though.

The gospel according to boxes, Sam, and Andres

One day me and a good friend of mine, Sam, had coffee. I began to talk about the way sin has affected me in my life. I decided to illustrate it with broken wooden stirrers that Starbucks most generously gives out. I made boxes out of them and this is what we together came up with:

The Gospel according to Boxes.


Once there was a box. It was empty.




The box saw that other boxes were full. They had something inside of them. The box longed to be full.




It would go to the other boxes to try to feel full. When it was around them the box felt full.



When it wasn't around them it felt empty and then it became sad and more empty.





Then one day the box found something that filled it up, only to realize that later...




The box was just as empty as it started out, it did not last long for some reason.






Then some hands came and took the box and changed it. It was entirely different, it was new.




This new shape did not have to be filled up.

Lord of the Rings Continued (The One Tower)

I've decided to smash The Two Towers and Return of the King into one post. And I've made my own tower out of paper with my friend Stephen in honor of the movie. Ok maybe we just had a lot of creative energy.

First off, everything I said in the last post's "the-movies-are better" rant (that is the theaters) went wrong with my viewing of The Two Towers. Everything went wrong this time! My Fellowship screening was like a romanticized movie-going experience.

It was the kind you imagine when you're dressed in a tux and you are dropped off in a round about driveway by a limo driver. You escort your date to the movie, and you are seated by an usher in the absolute perfect spot. The lights go dim, and your beloved film begins. A small dog brushes past the other movie goers' feet and hops lightly onto your lap allowing you to pet him through the duration of the film. Fairies fly in and bring you popcorn, polar bears slide in with Coca Cola. Too far?

I appreciated the seeing the Fellowship because of the cinema lovers. This time Marcus and I went to Century Rio 24, the giant multi-plex in town that almost always delivers. We got there at about six thirty. Apparently too late.

I knew this, I had foreseen it.

We found a seat just in time near the front row. I was trying my best to be positive. But there were silly people to my right laughing at everything that loosely and vaguely resembled an innuendo. So, they were simply being stupid, because obviously there is nothing in Two Towers that comes close to such a notion. These people did not appreciate this film. I was LIVID! ANGRY! PIST even.

All in all, the Two Towers was great to see again, and the extended scenes added so much depth and detail. The transition between the end of Fellowship and the beginning of Two Towers was seamless with the additional scenes.

For the next film, Marcus and I decided to go to Cottonwood Mall on the Westside of town again. We had seen Fellowshp in that theater and managed to find perfect seats even though we had arrived just in time. We hoped to relive the perfect movie going experience with Return of the King. We got there about a half hour early this time and found some seats in the absolute perfect spot and enjoyed the heck out of it.

As the film started, the danger and the evil of the ring, which was not as much of a focus in the two towers, was apparent again with the opening scene of Smeagol turning into Gollum. This sort of ties all three films together. You feel the suspense and the mystery of the Fellowship and you understand Gollum a lot more from The Two Towers. Meanwhile, Gandalf and company are given a grand entrance as they walk through Fanghorn Forest into Saruman's country to deal with this wicked wizard.

As I've said before, Return of the King sort of ties up the first two films nicely. Fellowship has a tone of mystery and suspense where everyone is trying to figure out just what the ring is about. It is solely about the ring, with the Two Towers, the ring becomes something that is important, but is put aside for Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and King Theoden of Rohan to show their true courage. This is when it becomes a war film. The The Return of the King brings back the mystery and suspense of Fellowship while maintaining the obvious War Film quality of Two Towers but on a grander scale. This viewing helped me piece all of the films together and finally see them as one.

As I was watching Return of the King I realized that, as a whole, Lord of the Rings is the best film ever made. And I was watching it in theaters again. This was it. Wow.

I mean it has everything you need in a film. Love, War, Fantasy, Violence, Monsters, Beautiful people. Plus it doesn't rely on special and visual effects to tell a great story even though it is filled with oodles of CG trolls, wargs, and monsters. (For those who don't know CG is computer gernerated.)

Lord of the Rings has it all. A film like this will likely never be made again. Here's to the best in cinema.

ON OUR PAPER TOWER:

I came up with this amazing paper stacking technique which isn't that complicated or difficult to discover if you have extra construction paper and you have little to do.

You simply fold the paper like a fan and cut it to make strips. These stack beautifully. We spiraled it upward and made it taller in the center. I was super happy with the result.

It was fun to make, hopefully more pictures coming soon.

Fellowship of the Ring AGAIN?!

Forget Netflix. The Movie Theater Still Matters

That's right, I prefer the babies crying, people telling you to shut up because of your geeky giddiness, people reading subtitles for their children. I would rather sit in a room full of respectable film appreciators who enjoy the cinema-going experience. I prefer that over sitting in a room by myself wondering which instant netflix movie I'm gonna let buffer while I wait for my tea kettle to boil. Going to the movies never felt so good.



I don't prefer the occasional drunks that wonder into Century 14 downtown Albuquerque multiplex, but that's beside the point.

Earlier this spring I discovered that The Lord of the Rings film series would be released to movie theaters again this year. My personal nerdometer rose to an all-time high. My friend Marcus said, "We'll be going to that one, right Andres?" I agreed, and--I don't know why I am surprised--but it has been the best experience I've had at the movies all year--Aside from making fun of the poor choices in Thor with my friend Jessie and witnessing the remains of a popcorn-induced vomit in the little boys room at Anchorage's multiplex.


Me Disappearing as a result of the ONE RING.

At least with Fellowship of the Ring you know that you aren't going to want your money back at the end of the night. Other movies like Thor, X-Men, Pirates, etc. They're pretty decent and they are fun and feel-goody and all that summer movie nonsense. They've got the explosions and pretty people. Fellowship has the pretty people (basically all of them) and great special effects of course, but the film is about much more than that. With the re-release of Lord of the Rings, or LOTR as we geeks like to abbreviate it, at least you know that your movie going experience will be worthwhile.

This was my second favorite viewing of Fellowship. The first time I saw it was obviously my favorite experience. It was great to be in a theater full of appreciating fans who are there to see it for maybe the 50th time. There is this positive energy you feel when everyone is enjoying the same thing you are--a great community experience. The film never looked and sounded better than this as far as I can remember. Peter Jackson isn't so much like George Lucas--that is he doesn't try to sell his movie anyway he can find a way to and in every format. (Lucas now wants to make his Star Wars into 3D, really Lucas?) Jackson is reasonable, a great artist and businessman when it comes down to it. This was a "rare" event as he called it.

Though the girl next to me told me to shut up, I knew it was because she was wanting to enjoy the film and I wasn't too offended because I knew we were being obnoxious with our giddiness. When the child was having the subtitles read aloud to her, I thought she was probably seeing it for the first time and I was glad that she was! What a special moment. I just wish her mother wouldn't have read the poetic lines so monotone and matter-of-factly. Imagine: "I love you Aragorn" (or whatever the line is) spoken by your least favorite college professor behind you.

I teared up at least three times in this viewing. The obvious ones:

• When Gandalf dies.
• When Borimir dies.
• When Sam and Frodo share that moment at the end. (Sam nearly dies.)
• That's right, 'dies' is in red. Perhaps a reference to Legolas' line in The Two Towers?
  

The Not-So Obvious reason I teared up:

• When the movie began and all of that amazing cinematography came and went in montage, it's enough to make a grown up fan-boy throw a slumber party even at 23. (Am I really getting to re-experience this masterpiece?)

Stuff I was surprised by this time around:

• The amount of times frodo falls. (When stabbed, in Moria (at least 2 or three times), when being chased by wraiths and he jumps onto raft, when Borimir tries to take the ring, off the historic platform at the climax of film when he takes ring off.
• How many close-ups Peter Jackson chooses to use and how far in he goes. I forgot how intimate the scenes between Arwen and Aragorn are, that is how close the camera gets to them. I'm not uncomfortable by this, it works great! Jackson likes to get in really close to his characters eyes.
• All of the helicopter shots. I am always surprised by it every time I see this film. Fellowship has the most and the most beautiful of the three. It's a regular tour of New Zealand's country side--the country has to give Jackson and crew credit for bringing in so many tourists looking for things like Gollum and cave trolls. It's beautiful cinematography.
  

I never appreciated the extended edition of this film probably because I have never seen it in theaters before or in its full context. (I would often go through the films and watch the added footage.) I had some doubts about spending this money to go see a film I had already seen before. But truthfully I have never seen this film in theaters. I've seen its shorter version before. This one is better and I am glad I am going to all three parts of it.

A city by the sea

Anchorage. That's where I'm at currently. it has several bonuses. The most obvious one is that it is a mountain city sitting at the sea. That is there are trees and animals that you would normally see at 9,000 feet in New Mexico, but at sea level--Tundra is at an unbelieveable 2,500 ft (ish). The sun rarely sets save for about 4 hours in the summer, so people don't know what they're missing when they go to the big apple thinking that NYC never sleeps. Perhaps that city is full of walkng zombies feeding on vodka, but this city, in the summer time, takes a thoughtful wink at night and is up bright and early the next day choosing wisely, like polar bears, to hibernate during the winter. It's a city that breaks all the rules.



My sister-in-law dropped me off in the heart of its down-town district. How could anybody be bored in this forest of coffee shops, pubs, art, the ocean, and trains humming along, and people doing things (whatever they do). I got to talk to some of those interesting alaskans. One was an artist at a local gallery who showed me his interesting discovery of an angel snowflake phenomena that happens on his very own peice of land. My first step into the Alaskan wonderland was beggining as this fantasia of a discovery opened my eyes again to the creativity of my maker. (That's what the ice angels are like--the faeries in fantasia the disney animated classic). They're called Ice angels or Ice puppies.

Later that day I ran long and hard--well for me. Sea level was an easier place to run. And the feeling was as if I was running high at a 8,000 level altitude. It was like I was cheating nature I was running so fast, my lungs not heaving as much. Another girl runner winked at me as I heaved past with my dark skin and the locks of my hair tied back. Maybe I like this city.

Above: me running long and hard on the beach of Anchorage.

I do. A lot. The girl part was meant to be funny, but not the best part of my day. I sat and meditated on the beach though the tide seemed miles away. The locals warn you of mud flats which cause you to die if you sink in them properly and without help. I imagined myself stuck in mud waiving my hands wildly for help as everyone in Anchorage ran and walked by without a care in the world taking in their beautiful state and city much like their 2,000 dollar-a-year payment just for living here.

But no seriously, I sat on a log and just thought. Just meditated. I thuoght so much about what Jesus said "I make all things new." The book I'm reading now Faith on Edge quotes C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity where he talks about God taking people and remodeling them like a house. At first it seems obvious the things that need trimming and fixing. But later on things are torn down and what seems brutal actualy ends up being better than you imagined. Instead of a house, God is making himself a palace to live in. Lewis' words not mine.

Like this city, which was so new to me, a true winter wonderland that breaks all the rules. A paradise on earth. Though as beautiful as it is on its own. God's palace is unimaginably greater. I'm not gonna settle for mediocre.

How to Make the Most out of Your Insomnia in Socorro, NM

Last weekend I went to an Intervarsity conference with some cool people down in this small, but cultured podunk town called Socorro, literally in the heart of New Mexico. My Socorro friends often criticize Socorro for its lack of anything entertaining. As someone who had the privilege to experience Socorro (which literally means a plea for "help" when translated to English) at night, with my 20-100 vision, in all of its glory (Socorro), I have to beg to differ just this once.

It all started when my friend Marcus Mayfield and I were up till about 1:30 or 2 ish. Is that right? We we were talking with our friend Molly White (or something:) about nerdy things like the important things missing from the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings movies, such as Tom Bombadil. We finally managed to make it to the men's quarters of this church that we were retreating at, and I exhaled my asthmatic CO2 into an air mattress and lay down. I was extremely tired, and was hoping that my caffeine crash would kick in--it did not. Before I knew it, I was counting sheep and praying that God would cure Marcus' curious case of snoring. There was also someone else having a 3 in the morning DTR down the way on his cell phone. I finally got tired of this nonsense and got up, there had to be a better place to sleep! Surely!

I went outside to see if the kitchen door was open--it was not. I went back into the guys wing and decided to get my pillow and walk to my car. Maybe during the day it had trapped some heat or something--it did not. I turned it on for a good 15 minutes to heat it up, and even moved it to a darker part of the parking lot. I was happy and warm, so I turned off the car and cracked open the windows so I would not die of Carbon Monoxide poisoning. I tossed and turned, I counted sheep, before I knew it someone else was walking around the parking lot with a cough.

"Was I imagining this?" I thought. There was someone walking back and forth coughing. I decided to ignore it, I didn't want to look up and frighten anybody, so I tried again to go to sleep. Still someone coughing. I was angry at this point, "doesn't this idiot know I'm trying to sleep in here?!" I thought and sat up abruptly. I saw no one. After a while the cougher walked away and I never heard from him/her again. My stomach was hurting and I was hungry. I tried going back inside, but I was locked out. This was a terrible injustice that had been done to me. I could not sleep and I could not get inside a Christian building to get help.

"What is open in Socorro?" Walmart.

I knew that it was not far away. I drove over with my contacts locked up inside the church and decided to pick up some tums and snickers. Great combination right? Well forgive me, but it was 4 in the morning and my thinker was not working. There was hardly anybody on the roads (except for the street lights and there inability to be in focus for my eyes), and less people in walmart save for the one register that was open, register #1 and the friendly janitors and workers restocking the shelves. After paying, I walked out with my checkered pajamas and the XXL purple sweater that Marcus let me borrow because I had forgotten one over the weekend.

I drove back and tried to sleep again, but could not. At around 5 in the morning I was having day or night dreams about McDonalds breakfast. I thought about the money in my wallet and how I could afford such a beautiful morning delight. My wallet was gone though. I KNOW I payed for those tums which I had safely placed in the glove compartment the next time I had a tummy ache. So where was my wallet?

When I got back to walmart to check, there were two young people hanging out at the counter, doing nothing but there was nothing to do. I asked them for the wallet and the lady in the back office yelled at me, "What is your name?" I did not have to use my whole "Andres but my first name is Casiano" routine for this situation I thought. I just said stupidly "Casiano Salazar." And she handed me my wallet with the look that had "you're a moron" written all over it--I knew this information already though.

At McDonalds I did not want to appear to be a homeless guy even though my exterior and possibly my stench suggested otherwise. My clothes were too baggy, and my hair was in a tangled mess. I said "Hello!" as dignified as I could. And I pulled out my wallet and said, "I would like the # 1 with an extra sandwich." And trying harder I asked with all of the posture and poise I could muster, "How are you this morning?" He looked at me and replied, "just fine." I sat down in this newly refined coffee-shoppe-esque McDonalds and ate my breakfast like a hungry man after a sleepless night. Soon lots of high schoolers walked in. Then another bus of high schoolers walked in, there were about 30 or 40. Some were wearing FFA jackets. I pitied them.

I remembered the early FFA mornings I would have to endure in high school. I would have to go and do some silly competition like judge land or categorize beetles and butterflies properly. I realized that some of them were staring at my unhealthy demeanor and I wrapped up my breakfast and left. I was too shy to get coffee at the counter for fear of the FFA kids judging me too quickly. I wanted to put a sign on my chest that said, "I couldn't sleep last night and I am just visiting from the nearest city Albuquerque and we're staying at a Baptist church where there are people snoring and I got locked out!" but I couldn't. So I had to get my coffee at the drive through.

God showed me a beautiful sunrise that morning. I drove to the top of a hill and looked at it as I sipped my coffee, and I asked him, "What is the deal?"

By the time I got back to the church, I was there in time to help cook breakfast, so I did my best to.

My friend Ashley suggested that I drink black tea to wake up--I had to lead a bible study later that day. It really did help.

At the end of the night, I realized that what I experienced that night in Socorro was funny, lucky, silly, remarkable, coincidental, and catastrophic all at the same time. I'm glad it happened, though I wouldn't want to do it all over again.

-Andres

The cool thing about Albuquerque Comic Con

I was fortunate enough to go to the Albuquerque Comic Con this year with my friend Stephen, a cartoon artist here in town. I expected the con to be completely lame judging by the website which was entirely oldschool 90's HTML with one long front page like Myspace. All of the guest celebrities weren't that well known, but were framed in red on the front page and some of the images changed as you scrolled over them! Celebrities like the former hulk, the guy that played all the oompa loompas in the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the guy who played the young Boba Fett in Attack of the Clones, and the guy that played the wookie in Star Wars. What bothered me about the celebrity room was that all of these people were treated and were almost treating themselves like museum pieces that could speak, answer questions, and have their pictures taken.

The con was complete with local artists, superheroes, and villains. At comic con you could be anybody you liked. If you dressed up like Darth Vader and looked authentic enough. You were Darth Vader. People were asking each other, "Did you see Darth Vader?" They never said the words, "Did you get to talk to the guy (or girl) dressed up as Darth Vader?" Because that's not who they were. Batman, Iron man, princess leia, and many others were at this comic con. Because at a comic con, you can be anybody you like.