A lifelong to do list

I have trouble getting through a single day at work without writing a to do list. This helps me focus my efforts and organize my thoughts, ultimately empowering me to accomplish tasks more efficiently. Might the same be true for my lifetime goals? This to do list spans the spectrum from mundane to ridiculous and will undoubtedly change as I continue to grow and re-evaluate my desires.

• Live long enough to see more exciting space exploration, and maybe colonies on the moon, Mars, and beyond?
• Get married and raise a family.
• Stop losing hair, at least until I'm nearing 40.
• Travel extensively across the world, to all seven continents.
• Live abroad for awhile.
• See our beautiful Earth from outer space.
• Have an "in" at a Chipotle restaurant that would permit me to get free guacamole on all of my burritos.
• Stay in touch with the people I care about, even when separated by distance and time.
• Develop super powers that would allow me to fly, or, in lieu of this, sky-dive or hanglide from high in the air.
• Watch the Terps win more national championships, particularly in football, basketball, and soccer.
• Find a job that I absolutely love.
• Become rich enough to accommodate all of these wishes, especially those involving traveling.
• Be able to take the metro to work.
• Know what truly reciprocated love feels like.
• Speak more languages.
• Hike at least part of the Appalachian Trail.
• Get in shape enough to be able to go jogging for awhile to let off steam, run a 5K/partial marathon to benefit a cause, or just to explore a new area on foot.
• Do a good job raising my children so that they love me and care for me when I'm old.
• Have the opportunity to see the family members that I've lost, and will lose in the future, again, in dreams, heaven, etc.
• Grow the popularity of soccer in the U.S., to the point where our professional league is respected and people will care when we someday win the World Cup.
• See the Orioles field a consistently competitive team.
• Learn to cook a wider variety of delicious foods, particularly creative, unique, and ethnic dishes.
• Read more often, and be able to finish interesting academic books that I start.
• Utter the words, "From NPR News in Washington..."
• Regain confidence in my public speaking ability.
• Practice and become more skillful at playing sports.
• Enjoy the benefits of responsible, smart redevelopment projects that revitalize Southeast around the Anacostia River, the Southwest Waterfront, and downtown College Park.
• Ride in a hot air balloon over a scenic landscape.
• See the Democratic Party dominate national politics by governing fairly and maturely, bringing about lasting reasonable changes such as healthcare and entitlement reform, the protection of gay rights, and improved environmental stewardship.
• Learn to play musical instruments, including the piano, the guitar, something brass, and something stringed.
• Sing sufficiently in tune to be able to hum along to songs while other people are in the car.
• Find a way to eliminate mosquitoes from the world without messing up the food chain.
• Become better at sketching.
• Live to see lasting world peace.
• Figure out how I really feel about religion.
• Live someplace where summers are less humid.
• Bring my lunch to work more often.
• Know the streets and neighborhoods of D.C. intimately.
• Continue tailgating for Terps football games indefinitely.
• Never, ever have a doctor tell me that I cannot eat what I want to eat.
• Do good works for the community in a manageable way.
• Be happy and successful.

So I guess this has developed more into a massive (somewhat unrealistic) wish list, versus an actual to do list. But there's no harm in aiming high. As the greeting on my cell phone tells me every time I flip it open - seize the day!

To boldly go...

After going to the movies for Father’s Day, I have an embarrassing confession to make: I love Star Trek. For those who know me best, this may not come as much of a surprise. Though I would’ve denied it throughout high school, in college I became more comfortable about at least acknowledging that I had watched the show growing up. But I haven’t really been completely honest with my friends about the extent of this love.

To prove my nerdiness: I own dozens of Star Trek action figures and little toy ships called Micro Machines. In fact, I think I have at least three different versions of Patrick Stewart’s Jean Luc Picard alone – in 1st/2nd season uniform with stripe at the top, in ready room lounge coat, and as the old vineyard owner from All Good Things, the series finale. To complement this, I have playsets of both the bridge and main engineering from the Next Generation Enterprise (D, duh) that, when properly equipped with batteries and bulbs, light up and make noise. I owned a large red shirt that had iron-on pips for the collar, used to denote rank. (My mom never got around to ironing them on, leaving me embarrassingly rank-less). In elementary school, I used to parade around the woods with my friend John William, pretending to be Admiral Riker to his Luke Skywalker. We would carry plastic weapons (again, that lit up and made noises) and have exciting adventures of all sorts.

Over the years, I have attended two Star Trek conventions, and even made my own tshirt for one of them by drawing on a white undershirt with fluorescent markers. My favorite part of the family’s vacation to the great national parks of the Southwest was Las Vegas, because we visited Star Trek: The Experience. For fun, I used to read books called Nitpickers’ Guides, which went episode by episode and pointed out bloopers and inconsistencies. I also own a Star Trek encyclopedia, which I would use to make up trivia questions, and a Star Trek version of Monopoly. Buried in my closet at home are five out of the seven seasons of The Next Generation on DVD. All of this has enabled me to name all five iterations of the TV series, as well as most of the main characters and actors for each.

My point in writing this is not to thoroughly embarrass myself, though that is certainly a side consequence. Instead, I was inspired to write about Star Trek because I enjoyed J.J. Abrams’ new movie so much. On one hand, it shouldn’t be shocking that a Star Trek movie would be such a blockbuster. The premise involves exploration and adventure in outer space (something for which I have already established my love). But the problem with this franchise has always been that it’s too intellectual to be mainstream. The crew of the Enterprise grapples with complex issues of morality as often as it battles enemy warships. The plotlines of the TV series, in that sense, are brilliant. They far outshine, say, Star Wars (and the acting is generally much better too).

Unfortunately, philosophical dilemmas are not enough to create great movies. Relying on the inherent appeal of Star Trek’s mantra – “to boldly go where no one has gone before” – works ok for television (though the later spin-offs became kind of tiresome), but for a two hour feature film you need the excitement and glitz of a lightsaber battle. Somehow this latest movie captures both. There is plenty of action, beefed up by modern special effects. But it’s balanced by heady themes that give the production more depth than a normal action movie – the need to balance logic with spontaneity (illustrated by impressively genuine portrayals of Spock and Kirk), a group of young officers forced to rise to face adversity, the sometimes debilitating pressure of being expected to live up to a great legacy.

It’s neat to watch the way that Abrams masterfully pulls in new viewers and longtime fans. Concepts like Starfleet and the Federation and the Vulcan adherence to a logical existence are explained artfully, in a way that makes sense to the uninitiated yet doesn’t feel heavy-handed or forced. As a bonus, the film integrates tidbits that only a shameless Trekker would recognize, similar to the Easter Eggs on Lost (the kobayashi maru test comes to mind). Abrams even finds a clever way to deal with any nagging continuity issues that rabid fans might scream about (so relax, Phil Farrand).

In all, it’s not so much that this is a legendarily great movie. But it’s very good, with fantastic characterization, a beautiful score, and the type of chemistry among cast and plot that hints at the potential for numerous successful sequels. The nearly universal praise for the film suggests that maybe there are many other closeted fans who have been inspired by such an unexpectedly respectable offering bearing the Star Trek name. Paramount Pictures owes J.J. Abrams big time for this. And, as a (newly unabashed) lifelong fan, so do I.

Where noble knights fought dragons

Walking alone around Rothenburg, Germany gives your imagination a chance to take over for a bit. It's tough not to get drawn in by this quaint medieval village. Although the streets and storefronts are now very touristy, roaming around is a transportive experience and it's fun to dream about life here hundreds of years ago.

How I've spent June so far

I've been too busy at work lately to write blog postings, and I'm still too busy. But it's late now, and I have several things I've been meaning to get down. I generally consider my bulleted list postings to be cop-outs, but in this case it'll do.

• The recent Air France plane crash really bothered me. Maybe because I had just taken a long, trans-Atlantic flight myself or maybe because my sister is in Denmark right now. Either way, I found that I was unusually moved by thinking about all of the people on that flight. News coverage so often turns casualties into mere numbers, allowing us to escape the full weight of the tragedy.
  
  Each of those 228 dead people has a distinct life story and, in the days following the crash, I found myself pondering the faces and brief (sometimes imagined) descriptions of some of the passengers aboard my Lufthansa flight: Birgitte, the #2 flight attendant with dyed orange hair, the disagreeable fat man whose personal video screen was broken, the kid in the row in front of me who spent the entire flight feeling sick, the Indian woman with digestive troubles who took frequent trips to the bathroom and seeped unpleasant fumes from the folds of her sari, the guy from Thailand sitting next to me who borrowed my pen to fill out the customs form. All of these people have families and dynamic lives, as did everyone on that Air France jet. Every time something forces me to remember this deep sense of humanity, reading the news gets a lot sadder.
  
  
• I've been out of college now for more than two years. An extensive posting on this topic to come.
  
  
• Although I generally believe in most of what Barack Obama says and does, I am getting increasingly worried about the skyrocketing budget deficits. I agree wholeheartedly that healthcare needs a lot of fixing and understand that all of the bailouts are needed to avoid disaster. But it still makes me uncomfortable, both because huge deficits are, in the long run, a bad idea and because I can hear the Republican attack ads already.
  
  
• On Friday I smoked a (Cuban) cigar for the first time. Saturday morning I threw up. And now, on Monday, my voice is still hoarse.
  
  
• If I allow myself to think too hard about 2009 being halfway over, I get somewhat existentially depressed.
  
  
• I recently became briefly fed up with church, but have since decided I was overreacting. The church picnic this past Sunday was great, although I think 11:30 am is too early in the morning to have eaten a sloppy joe, a hot dog, mac n cheese, salad, baked beans, a pickle, 2 slices of watermelon, and Snickers ice cream bar. Watching all of the kids play made me wish (for the umpteenth time) that I'd had the opportunity to experience all of this while growing up.

That's all I can think of right now. I'm hungry and probably too distracted to get any more work done, so I think I'll go home.

I gave my best to you

I actually meant to post this on Sunday evening from Berlin, but wasn't able to get around to it until now. This is a beautiful song from Ken Burns' The War, which I kind of associate with sad, but hopeful, patriotism. Even though I generally consider this a very happy, warm sunshine- and barbecue-infused holiday, I wanted to post it anyway. Happy Memorial Day and God bless those who are gone so that I can continue to celebrate the start of summer this way.

Using chop sticks in Berlin

I arrived in Berlin this morning, and set about the task of finding my hostel, Circus. Rick was not particularly helpful, but luckily I had copied down directions from the hostel's website and was able to follow them without too much trouble. At least Rick's maps didn't actively confuse me, like they did in Dresden.

After checking in, I explored a little bit this afternoon, walking all the way down Unter den Linden, the main drag through old East Berlin. I passed by it all pretty quickly and saw the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag. Tomorrow I think I'll do one of the organized walking tours, so I thought that today I would just roam around at will.

First impressions of Berlin are pretty positive. It's immediately obvious that this city dwarfs all of the others that I've visited this trip, both in size and the humming vibe of activity. There are people everywhere, and it feels very international. Most excitingly, this is reflected in the food. I had a delicious meal at a Vietnamese place tonight. Sitting outside eating soup and yellow curry chicken with coconut milk was a nice change from sausages and sauerkraut and schnitzels. And, perhaps most importantly, this tasty food went quite well with dunkles beer too.

A random aside: this morning, in Dresden, I decided that I could not wait another day before doing laundry. So I headed to a laundromat and puzzled through the German instructions. It was drizzling outside and there were about 400 lost socks hanging from the ceiling. I was listening to my ipod and watching my clothes bounce around in circles in the dryer. As much as I normally hate doing laundry, I don't think I would've wanted to spend the morning any other way.

My life in the Neustadt

I've been doing a lot of moving around the past couple of days. Yesterday morning, I left Munich, which I was kind of sad to do. Munich was a great, well-rounded city. It had a lot of beautiful, historic buildings in the Old Town, along with a vibrant, but manageable "real" area. There were several convenient nearby day trips. My hostel was within easy walking distance of both the sights and the train station, not to mention at least five Döner Kebab shops. I met a lot of people, both in the hostel and walking around with Rick. And the staff at Wombat's Hostel was fantastic - extremely friendly and helpful. It made me feel very welcome there.

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon and night in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a well preserved medieval village. Rick warned that it was going to be painfully touristy, but I didn't find this to be the case at all. The streets were fairly quiet, and I really enjoyed photographing my way through the town. I stayed at a guest house called Pension Elke, run by a charming old man and his son, who also run the family grocery store down below. It was neat to stay in my own room, and a nice change from the hostels. This place was centrally located to the main town square. In fact, the facade of the store was even visible in one of the postcards I bought.

Today I took a long, early train ride to Dresden. I like it a lot so far. There are a good number of tourists roaming around in the Old Town, but it seems like most of them are other Europeans. My hostel is located in the Neustadt (new town) area, which is a lot more "real people" oriented. Architecturally, these buildings were mostly undamaged by the WWII Allied firebombing, so they're authentic (and many are covered in graffiti). There are also random, blocky communist buildings mixed in all over the place - relics from East Germany. I did some afternoon roaming and had a tasty dinner (and a liter of dark, delicious beer), but I'm looking forward to more sightseeing tomorrow. The history of this city really, really fascinates me.

Traveling alone has been ok so far. I actually prefer it in some ways, since I can do absolutely whatever I feel like at any point in time and there is no one to get exasperated with my constant picture-taking. In other cases, though, especially for dinner and beer, it would be nice to have a friend along. There are a lot of really cool looking bars here in the Neustadt. It would be fun to go out tonight. Maybe I'll meet someone at the hostel...

München on Bavarian pretzels and beer

So here's a quick internet cafe update on my life in Deutschland:

• It is no joke, German beer is delicious
• Big soft pretzels in Bavaria are also the real deal
• I have chatted extensively with four sets of people (making perhaps three potentially lasting friendships) based almost solely on the topic of Rick Steves
• Being spontaneous is working out pretty well, except that i may need to try to reserve hostels farther in advance. Last night I got stuck sleeping in an expensive hotel
  

Time is running out here, I'll write more later. Having a great time.