J. Jason Lazarus Blog

6-28-2005 - Well - I guess you could say I succumbed to peer pressure and I’m not too proud of it. After years of belittling the people of this particular generation that I’m speaking of - I have ended up becoming a hypocrite and become one of them myself. After countless, mumbling insults in their general direction about their conduct, their idiotcy and their mind-numbing converstations, I have become one of them. I’d like to believe that I will stay on the top of a degenerate pile of this, so-called (or self-titled) cell-phone generation, but I know at times I will slip and it will take months to redeem myself in the eyes of all those that have seen me badger them and others about their sloppy, care-free usage of technology. I’ve even put down some guidelines in the worthless attempt to keep me on top of this pile of degenerates, knowing that I’ll bend these rules more and more as the years slip by. Possibly the only rule that I refuse to bend is usage in a movie theatre - a “slip” that many ignore so much that it enrages me to the point that at times, it completely ruins the movie for me. I refuse to break that golden rule. But I know that the time will come when it will ring in the middle of a movie because of lack of forethought, I know I will have to answer it while driving, increasing the possibly of a wreck 10-fold, even though I hope to keep that rule intact. I know that I will buy stupid things for it - in a enevitable attempt to bling-out my cell - no matter how hard I try to fight the urge. You may as well slap me with a big “damned” stamp on my forehead - for that is what I’ve become.
On the bright side - “oh my god! I got a cell phone!” I got one of those new EVO phone plans through cell-one… which, for as far as I can see has the benifits of both a prepaid plan (no contract, only prepaid amount is used without your consent for additional payments) and a contractual plan (good plan minutes and extras). According to a friend of mine, I’ve managed to land myself a decent deal.
Other than that, I’ve continued to add to my site, adding more images to my gallery, info in “digital” life and even some movie reviews. A breakdown? Batman Begins - double thumbs up. Land of the Dead - double thumbs up. Bewitched - mixed thumbs. Machinist - mixed thumbs.
My birthday managed to happen this last weekend. Not that I expected it to pass me - I’m just surprised I’m 25 now. I don’t feel like it. Whenever I step in front of even others around my age I feel somewhat out of place - and possibly this is because I’ve extended the overall range of those “around my age” to between 20 and 30. People my age - in fact several I know - have children 2 years old by now. People my age are still working on their first college degree. People my age have been married already and been divorced. I’m not at all looking down at those that fit into those categories - it’s just amazing how diverse the field of experience get by this point in your life. In high school your experiences really fall into two categories - good and bad. In your first years of college people no longer have parents to either hold them back or keep them safe so their experiences widen and the line between good and bad begins to blur.
I had a good number of some good friends and old friends over to my parents this weekend - they’re out of town so their place supplies ample space for people to actually hang out - unlike my apartment. Amazingly, everyone I wanted to come showed. We had a good amount of fun - played some video games, chilled, ate way too much, and drank. Ended the night talking about old times - a suitable thing to do on your…landmark birthday…
Not much else happened this weekend - I was pretty worn out after Friday. This marks my last week of tech work until August 15th - a month of pseudo-unemployment. Not having anything other than my class to teach may end up bothering me enough that I’ll have to get a job… maybe not… who knows. I am, however, looking forward to having a more straight-forward schedule. I’ve got me another website job to work on - so that’ll add some cash for the summer. Midterms for my students are coming up - I’m really looking forward to seeing what wonderful stuff they end up doing - we’ve got a great bunch of talented students this summer - really hoping to see some amazing stuff!

6-17-05 - So - yeah most of you would think that I’m off the deep end with me buying a freaking domain and actually getting my site hosted. Well, with ASUAF thinking that it’s OK to have their ftp server down for more than a week, me realizing one of the few reasons that I’m still taking classes is to keep my webspace… in the end, $7.95/month for my own domain and them hosting my site - yeah I couldn’t complain. So - why lucidperceptions.com? well, I was considering alteredperceptions.org only because that used to be Mike Romeo’s old page and I thought it would be cute to take over - but… anyways… that led me to other words … and then I thought “lucid” and it fits perfectly for several reasons. If not a joke on all my confusing and thought-provoking blogs… or…well just plainout eirdness from me - it fits. Additionally, if I ever get my website business started - lucid designs at lucidperceptions.com would work well - cause… well… what kind of websites do I do? All those that are not flashy, annoying, and hard to understand. Nice, simple, easy web design - or in another word… lucid … design. Works well, no? Yeah. So anyways, with more space, more tools at my disposal, I should have a lot more content up here within a week or so. Yeah, I know “good luck
with that - HA!” … just wait… just wait you’ll see
so… while I was sitting in San Fran about three weeks ago one of the many places we went to was the Grace Cathedral - one of the best examples of gothic archetechure that I’ve seen in the states. One of the many
things around the church worth noticing was the Labyrinth outside. To be honest, on the surface it wasn’t much - wasn’t really much at all. Basically, all it was was some simple tiles that were arranged nicely.
Yet, the inner meaning of this was clear - labyrinths like these not only serve as a form of amusement for little children but also for meditative purposes. Now, of coarse, I’m not going to make a entry about that. What I noticed, after going through the entire labyrinth, watching several people finish it, several give up as well as kids gleefully bouncing around - I noticed something - something a bit disturbing. Out of everyone that gave up halfway through walking - only women finished it (short of me). Women did not leave until they had finished completely. Men easily gave up or changed their path. Men didn’t take any respect or reverence to the lines that were supposed to restrict them to a certain path - finding it easily to alter their path, skip lines, only to get behind someone they were under the impression had gotten further in the labyrinth (while usually being wrong in such assumptions). Women not only had reverence but respected the path that they had chosen. The point isn’t that I managed to defy what my sex had… statistically done… or that I act more like I woman than a man when it comes to labyrinths. The point here is that there was only one way in and one way out of the labyrinth. Even worse, there was only one path - no dead ends, no wrong turns. Men, including me, enter the labyrinth automatically assuming that what they’ve chosen isn’t the only path. They easily change their path whenever they believe that something isn’t working out for them - they deny that this labyrinth, no matter how simple, does not have any power above them - they hold no reverence or respect for it. Women on the other hand, enter it knowing that there’s only one way out. They refuse to change direction, refuse to doubt their decisions and hold on until the end - knowing at that point is the only point that they should consider changing their mind about what path they’ve chosen. They revere the labyrinth for it’s meditative purposes and it’s subtile, yet obvious, meanings behind it’s meandering path. Such is life - men easily give up,
change their paths, and try different things - wheather or not they’re certain that the path they’ve chosen will end up in a dead end. Women will hold on, hoping for the best, not thinking that they’re lost at all until the actual dead end is in sight. They don’t doubt their decisions nearly as much, and they revere and respect the path that they’ve taken - whereever it may lead them.

6-5-2005- so the last month has been one hell of one - which of coarse, as much as I would love to turn that into an excuse as to why I haven’t written I really can’t. I’ve had many opportunities I just haven’t really grasped any lately. Seeing that I’m back from San Francisco now, I should probably write. Although I will have a separate section for my entire, long-and-drawn-out rant about everything and anything that happened in San Francisco - this is a small tidbit of what has been happening: So, the 14th we drive all the way down to Anchorage. Being from what heritage I am and my upbringing, I can’t justify paying over $300 more for Deanna and I to fly out of Fairbanks when I can suffer the 6 hour trip down to Anchorage in a car. By the time we get back to Fairbanks I’ll be reevaluating my beliefs on such subjects. We fly out, get down to SF and all is well - it’s raining but who would’ve thought it’d be really doing anything else in SF? We manage to only have one rainy day during our entire stay down there. We burn a lot. Deanna’s never had a real sunburn before and even though this was nothing even close to some burns I had, they were still mentionable. We manage to see even more of SF than we did the first time, skipping much of the touristy crap that we got the first time while managing to recover much of our previous tracks for yet another time. We managed to eat Turkish, Middle-Eastern, Italian, some more Italian… and some more… Italian. Don’t ask… just a lot of good opportnuities for good Italian food! We also had some hippy food - you know how much I hate hippies… well their food isn’t half bad. We went back to Haight&Ashbury, Chinatown and I managed to see Castro (something Deanna saw last time and I didn’t). We also went to the SF Zoo (Deanna had never been to a real zoo), the Aquarium, Natural History Museum, Conservatory of Flowers, Ocean Beach, Presudo, a old-style Burlesque show and even a SF Giants game. I managed to get two blisters on my feet with all the walking we did - in fact, one day in particular we at least walked a good 7-8 miles. Even so, we had a great time and all of it will be chronicled soon in my “trips” section. Sorry that this isn’t a complete update but deal with what you’re given - I know some of you are starving for some kind of update!

I also started teaching my class this week - getting back less than 12 hours till the first class period from SF, but we managed. As soon as I got back I found out that Summer Sessions was willing to hire me on to me a tech for one of the classes that’s going on during the summer in one of my computer labs. This, along with several potential and real opportunties for website work within the next month places us in a great position for the summer. Financially, we have been doing great. I could give all the statistics about how much better we’re doing than previous years but not only does that bored the friends that I already tell but I’m beginning to think it might sound as if we’re bragging. If anything, I’m just glad to see that someone in this world can do well - I seem to be surrounded by people that are almost constantly struggling to do better - hell, to even pay food bills and rent. It is possible to get there - it takes a lot of sacrifices but it’s realizable for many.

The Faibanks construction season is offically started. In fact, it’s even larger than last year. Right now, construction has broken on the new Old Navy/Barnes & Noble/PetCo/Sportsman’s Warehouse Mall, a new Mt McKinley Bank and MAC FCU, a new building in front of Wal-mart, a new building near Boston’s… The new Train Depot opened this week and American Eagle opened two weeks ago… I’m sure that that’s not all that’ll come to Fairbanks by the end of the summer but it’s a damn good start.

Either way, I’m hoping that within the next week or two I’ll actually get up all the info on my adventures this last month. Wish me luck!