Shedding light on Arlington's best kept secret

If Nikola Tesla and Aldo Leopald could maneuver a Vulcan mind meld the result might be half as noteworthy as the W&OD trail at twilight.

“…An agent that softens or smoothes the skin,” were the final words I scribbled down on my 103^rd note card before realizing that my window of opportunity was closing quickly. Last night, I witnessed Arlington’s best kept secret, and if I was lucky enough tonight, I would be able to catch it on camera.

Bolting out of the Tiki hut, I made for the W&OD trail, an old railroad line converted into a bike and running path in 1988. It’s this trail that makes you feel like you’re in Jurassic Park, and if you have a significant other, it’s this trail where you will probably want to sing your lungs out to her beneath the enormous trees looming overhead and the plush, green foliage girdled round.

But even more cosmically connected to this trail is the best kept secret of Arlington – the fireflies. If you go out on this trail at twilight you can see hundreds of them, popping and bursting with light, randomly infusing their bioluminescence upon a three-dimensional canvas. There’s simply nothing like it.

Though I tried my best to capture it on film, there’s no comparison to witnessing the miracle in the flesh. Scores of fireflies flash on and off. Some dot the trees, others hug the shrubs and some dance through the air. It’s like the feeling of neurons firing, or the birth of electricity without wires.

Poor people are pushovers; we need another Robin Hood

We need one part hacker, one part wiki-leak, one part Jack Bauer to go rogue on our traditional thought process.

(Pic from http://
www.robinhood.ltd.uk/)


Riding out my typical Sunday malaise, I thumbed through the Post and found more evidence of the creeping suspicion I’ve been harboring since my onset into the real world. People that play by the rules get ruled.

Executive compensation at the nation’s largest firms has roughly quadrupled in real terms since the 1970s, even as pay for 90 percent of America has stalled, according to an article in the Post. The United States is now just behind Cameroon and Ivory Coast and just ahead of Uganda and Jamaica in economic equality. The point is, conditions are getting shittier for a lot of us, while they’re getting cushier for the already luxed.

For the vast majority, there doesn’t seem to be much we can do to improve our stations in life. You can look for a job that has probably been, or will be exported to India or China (their citizenry will do the same work for a fraction of the cost), find a position in a propped up, non-competitive industry (like I am doing with AmeriCorps), or go back to school and hope to get into that upper echelon, or top 10 percent of income earners who are fortunate enough to have real gains in income.

The thing is people do find ways to grow their incomes and their mobility. My friend Robin has started her own online bead store to supplement her income. I have pre-recession friends that have held onto their jobs and are saving wisely. And jobs are out there, they’re just not going as far in terms of social welfare as they once did.

Far more impeding to income acquisition than available jobs, is the moral framework that guides our everyday lives. If we could just ditch our moral compasses, and amass riches a lot more people would have greater incomes. Yet a lot of good people play by the rules because they find value in that.

But along those lines, I think it is getting easier every day to put our morals aside. The bailout, the Supreme Court decision allowing limitless campaign contributions, and the widening gap in income distribution, points to an invincibility of individuals with wealth. Those with wealth can permeate the political and justice system, impugning the natural rights of good people in the States and abroad.

I think in the past it was easier to fight injustice. You could go to war against a belligerent state. But I think today, states are no longer unified players and war doesn’t serve the same purpose it once did. Multinational corporations, not sovereign nations, have invaded every corner of the globe, exuding their influence to the willing and unwilling. These are the real belligerents that have no borders to contain them.

Yet the people who comprise their staffs and workforces are varying shades of good and evil. The drones are just trying to get by. Upper management is doing everything it can to widen its market share and profit margin. If Walmart doesn’t invade, some other entity will.

I think we need a comic book hero who defies laws and operates on a higher level of justice. We need a modern day Robin Hood who is part hacker, part wiki-leaks, and part Jack Bauer to go rogue on today’s conventional thought process.

When fashion meets the great outdoors...

Just four miles away from her Philly abode, a waterfall at Fairmount Park provides Fashion Industry Management Major Jordin Bert a moment of respite from the everyday churn of civilization.


Some of you loyal readers may know the sis. She’s part artistic genius, part social butterfly, and only part of a gas fill-up away. However, the Philadelphia fashionista is absolutely no part nature girl. So when she openly accepted to go to Fairmount Park I didn’t put much effort in dissuading her from being chic. Instead I learned that “a 100-percent cotton maxi is comfortable and good for all occasions,” including an arboreal amble.

So adorned in a pink dress and carrying a gold Marc Jacobs purse underarm, Jordin and I did something that we’ve never done in all 22 years of our shared siblingdom – we took a hike together! And literally 30 seconds after we got out of the car, two middle aged women complimented her on the dress and her figure. Not surprised, as big brother I’ve been there through the cat calls and the free deserts in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, her composed put-offs to guys in Glen Ellyn, and the free courtside tickets offered to her from a Chicago Bull.

Pues, off we went on our hike through Fairmount Park.

There were shoes in trees…

There were ducks…

There were pebble checkerboards???

With my mom’s suggestion we stopped at the Valley Green Inn, a place straight out of a Hans Christian Andersen story, with its origins hailing from the late sixteen hundreds. Nestled in the woods, along a small babbling brook, the establishment attracted ceremonial party goers, bikers, joggers, equestrians and other eco-yahoos alike.

Serving as a refuge from deluge, my sister and I grabbed a couple of strawberry margaritas, and listened to the rain fall down around us. Wide-eyed over the lobster spring rolls and content with the basket of French fries, we chilled like the Swedish monarchy and took in some sights before heading onward.

Then came the awesome. During our great walk through Fairmount Park, en route to nowhere, we spotted a group of people swinging on a rope and falling into the brook.

After snapping a couple pictures of these adventure-wonks, Jordin most accurately noted that, “we probably looked like a couple of creepers,” and we should keep w

alking. So we did, but not before I got her to promise that we would return to that spot the next day to give it a whirl.

We also came to a spot with rocks naturally poised for river hopscotch. It brought me back to the last time I remember playing “Can’t Touch the Ground” in the basement of Drew Goltermann in the second grade.

Along the way, Jordin surprised me like crazy. She spent exorbitant amounts of time trying to catch a chipmunk on camera, chased after a butterfly, determined that she wants to make one of the nature photos her facebook profile, and declared “I’m glad that you’re here so that you can get me to do this stuff.”

Era of Good Stealings - Internet black market is music for the soul

Apple provides access to college lectures through iTunesU. This image is a screenshot of David Brady, Associate Professor of Sociology at Duke University, giving a lecture on "Markets, Trade, and Globalization."

It is almost uniformly part of the human condition to love a great deal. I know of the occasional bizzaro-being who refuses to take advantage of living social or groupon, because he claims they are low-class, or the schmendrick who actually pays a higher gas price at neighboring gas stations because he claims the quality of gas is better at the more expensive station. But with irrational beings aside, finding that good bargain can be a source of tremendous joy and reward.

Today’s post is how the great deal goes beyond just market goods. It’s about the whole experience of acquiring new things or new experiences for a price that feels too good to be true.

My roommate told me about Zamzar last week. With Zamzar, users can copy the hyperlink of a YouTube music video and convert it into an mp3 file. It’s pretty user friendly and very fast. Where LimeWire was illegal and not good for downloading anything on the fringe, Zamzar appears to be legal and gives its users access to the almost anything their hearts’ desire. I could do a whole song and dance about how good music is the magic that makes millions of moods morph from melancholy to merriment, but we all know this, so instead, I’m going to highly recommend using Zamzar and I’m going to plow into a different subject.

Zamzar revolutionizes the realm of downloading music by providing the option for an internet user to copy and paste a music video hyperlink into a box on its site. Zamzar then converts this hyperlink into an mp3 and emails you the converted file.

The internet is nearing the height of perfection. Right now there is access to almost any sort of media for free, if you have the know-how. Movies, tv series, books, language acquisition software, podcasts, college lecture series, etc. are all out there to be obtained through varying shades of legality. To me it feels like there is a ticking clock for this reality and pretty soon some powerful IT tycoon will influence lawmakers to clamp down on the glorious freedoms that are afforded to us. So enjoy web while the getting’s good.

Also at the moment, companies are vying for internet users and making life wonderful for us. It feels like we are being led through this incredible courtship phase where companies are bending over backwards trying to make things convenient for us. If you look at iTunes, Google, YouTube, and Facebook, it seems that we are at the apex of convenience. Sure these sites are trying to be as convenient as possible to lure us into habitual use, before they turn on us with small fees (New York Times) or unrelenting ads (Pandora). But by and large we are in the era of good stealings for the internet.

Outside of personal relationships, the internet is the single most powerful tool available for building happiness. It offers access to skills that provide job mobility, free access to media, and what often gets overlooked is that since the internet provides access to so many free things, it is serving as an active agent to drive down prices of media goods that aren’t free. For example, newspapers have to keep the cost of their print product low to compete with the freeness of the web.

So even in an economy where 75 percent of individuals are working part time, with a median income of $19,000 there’s a booming black market for free media which internet users can tap into.

Farewell for now, but in the meantime:

- Get Zamzar

- Peruse iTunes U and start learning something valuable for free

- Podcast your life

- Go to your library and see if you can view periodicals/magazines online for free through their eCatalogs

The Happiness Bubble

Taking in the view from "Old Rag" of the Shenandoah Mountains, I realized that happiness can be a tangible thing that can be augmented for perpetuity.



Are really good things too good to be true? I was listening to a Planet Money podcast about how the price of gold has continued to soar way higher than ever deemed reasonable. Much like the overinflated stocks from the dot.com boom, gold is poised for a collapse. Or is it? More importantly, do all good things have to lose their acceleration or level out?In my quest to reach the true pursuit of happiness, I’m trying to fathom what exactly creates happiness and if I can pinpoint that, can I pinpoint a way to continually get happier and happier? After packing in a Memorial Day weekend with things that have made me exceedingly happy, I’m looking to use the experience I gained this weekend to turn leisure into an opportunity for growing my level happiness.

Here are the factors that I think are most significant in building happiness and below I will get into why they are important

- Feeling connected to a loved one

- Sharing new places with a loved one/friends/family

- Sharing common experiences with friends

- Achieving a goal

- Experiencing the natural world

- Being able to accomplish all of these things while maintaining your other values or your visions for the future

Love is a six pound milkshake from Chick 'n Ruth’s Delly Annapolis, a bike ride to Quiet Waters, sun block lips, the view from Old Rag. It’s connection with another individual that you crave with your entirety, sometimes not knowing why, and sometimes knowing fiercely that only your goofball could find joy in the way you intuit life, bound through leisure, and dig deeper into the enigma of existence itself. It’s that connection that I believe is the single most important thing to feeling happy or fulfilled.

That connection can exist anywhere, but it’s ubiquitous in places that have meaning. And its stark in new landscapes. That is why traveling with those you care about is so important in feeling fulfilled and happy. Even if it’s just getting in the car to go to a new or meaningful sanctuary just an hour away. Thank you Ileana, for your brilliant adventure streak.

Yes, car trips that spew carbon into the air are worth it to find happiness. Just think about purchasing carbon credits, so when you or someone else uses energy in the future, that energy can be clean and counter your GHG emissions today.

At the base of the 8.2 mile hike up Old Rag, a waterfall rushing with possibility charms the beautiful, Ileana Vink.





Anyway, connection is vital into shaping who we are. It’s getting a voice mail from a friend who has made it his personal prerogative to get in touch with you, who then sends you the two books Getting More and Strengths Finder to help you carve out your next steps in the future. Tack ska du ha Hector.

Friendships are perpetually changing and invaluably crucial, as I came to realize over cantaloupe hookah with my friend Dan who is leaving DC and heading back to Chicago. After talking about everything from Pan Americano to confidence building to the job scramble, we came to a consensus that achieving small goals regularly is the way to the way to feel damn good about being alive. At the same time we came to an understanding that it is important to not lose what you have. Though we can hardly ever hitta tiden att prata svenska, its still important to never lose Swedish because it has become part of who we are.

In a sense that’s what I think the secret to building happiness is. If you can maintain your baseline of what gets you going and then build little by little on top of that baseline, your happiness can augment ad infinitum and never pop. That’s another reason why jobs are so important in the long run, because they allow you to build on your baseline. Money becomes a tool for adventure, and also the job itself can be a tool to improve happiness or at least keep it at a constant level while the money earned therein can be used to grow happiness.

I don’t what will happen to gold, but hopefully happiness can be a bubble, that when crafted intentionally will grow for perpetuity.

Rich food vitalizes food stampers

I gave this local farmer poker-chip-like tokens to purchase tasty as all getup Elephant Kale. He could then redeem the tokens at the end of the day for a check. In this manner, the EBT/SNAP pilot program allows EBT card holders to purchase food items at the Farmer's Market.

Like a head sprouting through the birth canal, summer has emerged – wet, sticky and full of life. Seizing the season’s inception, Erin Lee, her man Richard, and I voyaged to the Four Mile Run Farmers Artisans Market, Sunday, to test out its new EBT/SNAP pilot program.

There in Arlandria, our low incomes actually proved to be a blessing. Because of the generosity of a hospital in Alexandria, which is subsidizing us foodstampers. We received $10 to spend as long as we spent $10 or more of our SNAP/EBT benefits.

We made out like chieftans with some serious local loot. Fresh strawberries, elephant kale, farmer’s fresh eggs, hamburgers, bratwurst, tomatoes and onion were among the gamut of goodies we walked away with. Thanks to Stifler Beef Farm, also known as “What’s for Dinner Now,” I was able to buy meat free from the heartless travails of factory farming.

Life was good. I had found a Mecca where I could use my EBT benefits to send a signal to the market. Yeah, with my Virginia-taxpayer funded transfer payment I was helping prop up quality establishments with decent values. Erin, Richard and I were doing well.

After the Farmer’s market, we got our swim suits and readied for a journey to Great Falls. But before we departed, I noticed tiny purple berries speckling a tree that overhung a sidewalk by my apartment. I started picking and eating with delight, and Erin informed me they were mulberries. I picked for the better half of an hour and only collected about six ounces of mulberries. I now understand why blueberries and blackberries are so crazy expensive.

Mulberry trees bear a bountiful supply of tasty fruit outside of my apartment in the Columbia Grove complex. My apartment is subsidized by a grant given to the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing and I'm truly living in a rare situation, where poor people get great things.

Alas, we headed to Great Falls and Richard showed us a secret swimming spot his friend had revealed to him. Apparently we came too early in the year, because we couldn’t even see the rock that Richard and his friends had sunbathed on before hopping into the mouth of the waterfall. We were looking at waters “about five feet higher than should be,” according to Richard.

Nonetheless it was good, freeze your cajones off, swimming. And there were butterflies abound! We saw about eight Tiger Swallowtails going crazy over some delicious snack they found near the source of the waterfall.

Behind Erin Lee & Richard a giant rock is normally exposed in the water, however, the water level is about five feet higher than normal, sources say.



Tiger Swallowtails feast near the mouth of the waterfall.

Richard seems to be this fountain of good information. He taught me of this band Architecture in Helsinki, that reminds me of Modest Mouse meets Arcade Fire. Also, there is this place in Virginia where you can squeeze between an extremely tight gorge in waist deep water and follow this route until you hit a rock wall. Then you dive under the wall and wind up on the other side of a waterfall. Nature is so full, I just want to play in it and explore it all day. Work is such a waste of life.

Anyway, we got back from the hike around 3pm. As fate would have it, my girlfriend would be finishing up her singing role as a soprano, at Greek wedding held in DC, around 5:30pm.

Sidenote: She’s crazy talented and when she reveals her vocal prowess it makes talking seem criminal.

So, I decided I would walk to DC from my Arlington apartment. I left at 3:30pm figuring I would have plenty of time. WRONG. It took me almost three hours to get to our meeting spot in DuPont, and that was after I hopped a couple of fences at Arlington National Cemetery and sprinted up New Hampshire.

When I saw Ileana in her maroon dress, I remembered why work is not a waste of life. It allows for things like DC, New York, and Confluence adventures. And most of all work brought me to a wonder-babe, and with a little luck, it will lead me to even more opportunity.

Undeniable Truth: Summer is the best backdrop for voracious exploration and new freedoms. Viva las foodstamps, farmers markets, new sources of adventure, and the unknown ahead. May we mold life into the forms our hearts so desire.

One day, you'll have to be President

I think it’s time to adopt the “let’s assume I have to be President one day,” mentality. It’s a really good mindset, because it makes you realize just how much you have to learn about everything to be able to problem solve in a way that is feasible and better for the country.

Yes, I just watched my favorite episode of West Wing thus far. Toby – boring ass, follow the rules, don’t tread on anything the least bit courageous even if it’s the right thing to do – Toby uses the president’s authority to put together a military funeral for a homeless Korean vet who passed away. In fact, Toby’s moral compass pushes him into scrumtrulescence. It’s a phenom episode – CJ goes out on a date after playing impossible to get, Sam and Josh play hardball, and Leo’s dicey past comes charging to the forefront…If you don’t watch West Wing it’s about time you get on that, because you’re missing the reason why people watch tv.

Anyway, moral compass scrumtrulescence is what this blog post is all about. What would you do to make your world better? Or make this country better?

I read an article in the economist today that informed me if we didn’t raise the debt ceiling our nation would default on its loans and economic chaos would ensue. Which could be a lot of fun if we weren’t living in a globalized world, because anarchy would favor the lower and lower middle classes as they could reach in for land and resources that would become unclaimed in a USA without order, but in today’s world, another nation would probably swoop in and take the spoils, perhaps a China, or maybe even a U.A.E. if its international army - put together by ex-Navy Seal, former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince - augmented. But I digress, we would never default, because we can raise the debt ceiling and after we raise the debt ceiling, we have two years to come up with a strategy to balance our budget.

Anyway, what does any of this have to do with a moral scrumtrulescent compass?

What if you had to decide how to balance the budget? What the hell would you do?

I’m getting these great visions of putting our inmates to work. I see this tremendous labor force that is wasting away behind bars eating up tax dollars. I saw a news feature last summer show how inmates have started local gardens. Potentially, all of our jailed cons could be put to good uses like these. Then, with an ironic twist, our convicts would become our nations’ heroes by creating an economy that could boom off of the fruits of their labor. I’m thinking these inmates could learn real skills while serving time, thus having more value to society during their incarceration and as a result being more hirable when they get out. And this could potentially lower rates of recidivism.

This is kind of fun. I’ve got to keep going. After all, we can always get more efficient.

Though Japan ruined any confidence in de facto nuclear energy, with increased safety precautions, we could amp up our supply of nuclear energy and then use this energy to fuel electric cars and houses. We wouldn’t have to worry about a carbon footprint or money going into the hands of Oil tycoons like Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the U.A.E. who is using oil profits to buy large mercenary armies.

Okay, I’m well aware this post has took a turn for annoying and I am now ranting, but it’s kind of fun and the rant is almost over, plus West Wing has me all fired up, so I continue…

I’ve dabbled in the black market of the food industry with some dumpster diving this year. I’ve seen tons of food go to waste, but I’ve also seen a fair share of food get donated. I’m wondering how much edible food gets wasted every day vs. put to a good use? What kind of numerical figure would the waste equate to? It’s definitely noteworthy; it could be tremendous.

Anyway, if we all lived by the credo “let’s assume I have to be president one day,” we’d all flood the world with ideas to make our world better (obviously with varying degrees of feasibility). Plus, we’d have to get better at speaking affluently, knowing current events, and being crazy engaged in everything.

I’m convinced for the day and hopefully for much longer that in order to get closer in my pursuit of happiness, I need to adopt the “let’s assume I have to be president one day,” mentality.