How would I describe myself? Three words: hard working, alpha male, jack hammer. Merciless. Insatiable.

Wow. I realize that Erin and I are not necessarily competing with my sister’s blog, but good grief has everybody checked out the new pictures she posted. My niece and nephew namesake are pretty flippin’ adorable. I suppose I may be somewhat biased as they are my blood relatives, but there is still no way that blogging about the ups and downs of Peace Corps service can compare. I feel like a b-list actor whose movie is opening up the same weekend as Spiderman 4 and Ocean’s 15. Anyway for those of you who haven’t checked out my sister’s blog it’s sweetcaroline05.blogspot.com. On to more somber things… I suppose if the US economy is going into recession I probably won’t notice it much living in Jamaica on 17 cents a day. Though there is reason to hope, we might be getting a 4 cent/day raise!!! Erin and I plan to take our newly found wealth and throw that $14ish/year into a smart assortment of stocks, bonds, and other tradable commodities. I hear gold does well when the dollar is weak. Also, no post-WWII recession has lasted longer than 15 months and it seems that oil prices fall significantly for years following a US recession. Not that we should lose focus on implementing viable petroleum alternatives. I am a bit worried that we might return to a dipping economy based on some of the plans I have heard coming from some of the frontrunner presidential candidates. It seems silly to me to essentially have two schools of thought and to have them align with the US political parties. To see a prime example of how rigidly sticking to one school of thought or the other is a foolish venture, one can look at the epic battle between gradualism vs. catastrophism. Evolutionary biologists (along with geologist, palentologists, and other specialties) have long swayed one way or the other with gradualism gaining the upper hand (until fairly recently). Sure it seems life (sediments, fossil record, etc.) will change slowly over time that is, until someone discovers that a comet/asteroid smacked the crap out of the Earth leaving a 120-mile wide crater and catastrophically altering the planet and all life on it. It seems with most things, the truth seems to lie somewhere in the middle. Life will continue to evolve slowly over a vast period of time at least until the Earth gets another cosmic bitch slap. So to the partisan politicians and their all or nothing economic plans, I say to you ‘Booooo!’ I have followed US politics more in recent months and feel well versed in the various nuances more so than any other time in my life yet I feel seriously detached. A double sword that is, the feeling of detachment, on one hand I feel as if I have taken a step back and have gained another perspective. But on the other hand detachment is not a word I feel I want to associate with any of my beliefs, political or otherwise. Combining these feelings with working with the Peace Corps (a hugely superfluously bureaucratic federal government agency… despite its hippie connotations) tempts me to upon my return to the states to live off the grid and send donations to assorted pro-anarchist organizations. I assume living off the grid essentially means to live the life of a dumpster cat. Speaking of dumpster cats… we have inherited one and we do our best to feed it our leftovers. We loving named her Oscar the Dumpster Kyaat. I suppose one could argue that the life of a dumpster cat has great variability. Oscar gets mere table scraps and roams the wild while Shebadda the Dumpster Kyaat lives indoors with us and gets premium mercury free tuna. Not to mention a great wardrobe. I may rethink this living off the grid thing. Off the grid or on it, at least I know I can still lift weights miles from any gym with the weight lifting sacks lovingly sewed and bestowed upon me by Grandma Mescher. Many thanks Grandma! Well thanks again for tuning in to the latest edition; I am going to play with my sack(s).

Eins..zwei…drei…
Patricio


This is Oscar the Dumpster Kyaat with a friend. Oscar is the cat on the right.

This is Shebadda the Dumpster Kyaat sporting a dashing Easter outfit.

Playing with my sack(s).