To tie up a couple loose ends in my blog:

gtx is almost certainly useless to explain by now. The only danger is if it's not respected and gets me into trouble. But I'll trust in the goodness in people. If the opportunity presents itself, I don't mind explaining it, but I'm definitely not going to go out of my way to deal with this.

poo is absolutely not worth it at all to explain. I don't even know if it's still hanging around.

I played around a little with my parent's new camera, so these pics are a little bigger than normal...


I think this one looks really nice. It's like the pictures from the screensaver I took from our Apple panel....


Orion.


Back to the Future!

Super-excited Michael playing Wii for the first (and probably last) time.


Cindy grew up learning how to play the cello. Jeffery grew up learning how to play the violin. Can you tell?


Castro St. as it appears in real life.


The hip and happening Castro St. reveals itself.

One day at the end of 2006, I woke up with a different perspective on one of the issues I was facing. I felt like for a brief moment I was looking at the situation through the eyes of the other party. And some of the things that I thought were obvious to anyone about my behavior were, in fact, not quite so clear to the other side.

I was in a restaurant eating dinner with some of my friends, and the waiter served me. I meant to say "Thank you," but I mumbled it and it came out very soft. Which led me to think: if nobody heard my remark, then does the fact that I meant to say it mean anything? Forget about the fact that God knows what my true intentions were, and forget the fact that I know what I meant to say; I'm talking about how the outside world views me as a person. If I meant to say "Thank you," but the outside world never sees that, then the outside world is perfectly justified in concluding that I am the kind of person who doesn't thank people in that situation. Correct?

In other words, my intentions are PQR, but the world observes me doing XYZ. And so the world concludes XYZ about me, even though in actuality I am PQR. Even worse, I don't know that the world observes me doing XYZ. I'm under the mistaken impression that it should be patently obvious to the world that I am PQR.

If such a misunderstanding results in the dissolution of a friendship, who is to blame? Am I to blame for not realizing that my actions are being interpreted as XYZ instead of PQR? Is the other side to blame for not digging a little and postulating that my actions could mean PQR instead of XYZ? Is anyone to blame?

How do you fix such a misunderstanding? Each side assumes they understand the situation, but in reality, the two views are incompatible. And so a friendship is lost, and each side wanders down their own path through life, never realizing the central problem was one of misunderstanding.

Fine, so now I've realized that my actions are very possibly being interpreted in a different way than I thought. Then it naturally falls onto me to break the cycle of misunderstanding. But how to do that? The other side believes XYZ about me and wants nothing to do with XYZ people. Is it possible to get someone to change their mind about such a thing? Is it possible to do so if they do not wish to think about the situation? What if they've come to peace with XYZ and don't wish to dredge up the situation again?

Maybe we need to accept that sometimes the hurt that arises from trying to fix a problem outweighs the possible chance at reconciliation. Maybe sometimes we need to accept the fact that some problems are not solvable.

I've found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
And the reason is you

I was reading an article on Digg about how to survive moving to NY, and I came across the Maslow pyramid. Basically, it's a pyramid of needs, where the organism tries to fulfill the lower needs first. From bottom to top:

1. Physiological needs: breathing, food, water, sleep, etc...
2. Safety needs: security, stability, protection, freedom from fear, need for structure, etc...
3. Belongingness and love needs: need for affectionate relationships, need for a place within a group or family, etc...
4. Esteem needs: desire for achievement, confidence, independence, freedom, etc...; desire for reputation, prestige, attention, dignity, appreciation, etc...
5. Self-actualization needs: need to do what the individual is suited for (need to be true to one's nature)
6. The desire to know and understand
7. Aesthetic needs

I'm definitely mucking around somewhere in the third or fourth level, but it was interesting to think about this idea that people fulfill their basic needs first, and then recenter their life around the next "need". Some people I know seem to be perfectly happy in the friendships they have, so they should be on level four. But they want to sit at home and vegetate all day. I want to scream out at them, "Don't you ever want to do anything? Doesn't it make you feel good to accomplish anything?" Maybe they haven't recentered their life around the fourth level? Maybe they're not truely satisfied with the third level?

Cuteness: http://thrillingwonder.blogspot.com/2007/01/real-life-bambi-thumper.html