J. Jason Lazarus Blog

You all know how much I love crawling around places that are underappreciated for their own inner beauty, and it’s been a while that I’ve been sitting on this one because this place isn’t open to the public and nobody wanted to give the impression that there are public tours available. So, with that said, don’t ask where it is cause I won’t tell. But, nonetheless, I was allowed in to see the inner workings of an integral piece of Alaskan History and… well, I clipped off some photos and I’ve been itching to share. The lines in this one are just outstanding and to be honest, it’s about the only shot from the entire trip that I like (it was about -20F and no tripod - obviously, I had the shakes). All I could think while I was looking at this is that steel construction surely has ruined our sense of architectural aesthetics. Nowadays everything is hidden away in walls - everything reduced to the most efficient box-derived shape - all so boring that it hurts. Thank God that there’s still places like this around that even though simplistic in function and form and completely built through simple nessesity, still has beauty as if it were meant to be a masterpiece.

Am I the only one that thinks it’s sad that I have to buy Dasani water from a vending machine to make my Oatmeal at work? Seriously - anyone that’s ever been to UAF knows that it’s some of the worst water suitable for digestion - at the very least in the Bunnell Building. In fact, it’s pretty sad when UAF-ers can have in-depth discussions on which water fountain in a given building is better than another one and which taps are the best to get your water from campus-wide. I’ve always heard that Moore Hall 8th Floor was the best but my choice has got to be the Student Recreation Center.
Either way, I think it’s pretty damned sad that the water is so bad that I’m forced to pay for water to mix with my Oatmeal. That being said, I’m eating oatmeal in an effort to try to lower cholesterol - another wonderful thing my doctor had to tell me that’s afflicting me. It’s amazing, you go to your doctor and they tell you to lower your blood pressure you need to lower your amount of stress - and then, and only then, do they tell you how dangerous it is to have HBP - effectually increasing your stress levels to the nth degree.
Anyways, I digress.
Not much going on - going to the gym upwards to three times a week now - been really working out a lot trying to get rid of my gut and get my HBP in check. We’ll see how the next checkup goes.

So, I’ve finally gotten around to finding a new method of storing my games in the so-called “Games Room”. Most of you know that I have a slight interest (read obsession) with collecting old game consoles - and that I do my own good share of bragging about the loot that I’ve amassed. Well, in an effort to organize (and also properly display) I’ve divised a new method - buying a shelf unit.
My new 3′x3′, 9 cubical shelf unit holds 10 game systems, tons of games and all of my controllers while serving adequitely as a method of organization I’ve never had in this room.
So, to break down - from Top to Bottom, Left to Right:
Sega Master System, Turbo Graphix
PSone, Sega Genesis, Nintendo Gamecube
Dreamcast, Sega Saturn
Super Nintendo, NES & N64
Note the Virtual Boy on top of the TV, Original Gameboy, DS, Gameboy Micro and Game Gear laying on the Dresser as well.

Lately I’ve had Game Night over at my house every other week - a chance to crack out all these old systems and, even a little bit cheesy, relive part of our childhood. Awh.
In all seriousness, I might be a casual gamer but man, I do miss the classics. There’s nothing like cracking out the same game you played obsessively with your best friend in 7th grade. *Wipes a fake tear from his eye* Awh.

</end nerdish rant>

Ok, this one has really got me steamed right now. According to a CNN article , apparently the above commerical, which ran during the Superbowl, is homophobic, and:“Groups such as the Human Right Campaign and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) condemned the ad, saying it promoted anti-gay prejudice and condoned violence against gay Americans.”

I’m sorry, but am I the only one that thinks this is stupid? Seriously, how is two heterosexual guys afraid of their own wavering sexuality condoning violence against gay Americans? That’s like saying that any American who is uncomfortable with the prospect of turning gay has the propencity to hurt people of that preference. Sure, it’s not completely PR but half the commercials out there aren’t - and this one is far from being anti-gay. How is it that two men wanting to retain their heterosexuality anti-gay? Are these groups suggesting that any slightly non-hetero act should be met with an overwelming life change rather than simply being frightened by the prospect of not being hetero anymore?

Don’t these groups get the inner sarcasm of this entire ad? They’re not gay-bashing - if anything they’re hetero-bashing! They’re showing America exactly how stupid close minded heteros can be - they’re not supporting the fear of turning, they’re making fun of it and making light of it!

I completely support gay rights and I have no issues with the lifestyle that people may choose - to be honest, I run off of the live-and-let-live mentality - I’ve chosen my way of doing things, you can choose yours - nobody is worse off. What I do have issues with is when one side or the other gets overly sensative. In other words, why can’t we just all get along and just laugh?

So, after a long night’s rest in Cloverdale, we headed to around town a bit with Deanna’s grandmother that was down visiting local family in the area. She showed us a few places where Deanna’s dad grew up as well as the family vineyard land - told us some great stories about how everything used to be and I think all of us had a blast. After that, we were off to Santa Rosa for some shopping, lunch, and then back to Cloverdale for the night. Almost as soon as we were done with dinner, I went over to a local Brewpub with Deanna to slam back a few cold ones - the last few days had been pretty trying on the road. Nonetheless, really enjoyed myself, bought a t-shirt and left. It’s pretty funny that even down there they’ve got Brewing Newspapers heralding how good Alaskan Brews are - in fact, the current issue of the Brewing News had Alaskan breweries winning the top slots in almost every single category for the entire Northwest!
The next day we said our goodbyes and headed east toward a few more extremely touristy locations. Now, between Cloverdale and Santa Rosa we couldn’t help but see all these ads for the local Casino, and, being that neither one of us had ever gone to one, and both of us were actually legal to go to one, whynot, right?
So we went and I even got kicked out of the Casino.
No joke, I got kicked out.
Apparently you’re not supposed to bring cameras of any type into one and the heck I was going to leave my new Canon Digital Rebel in the car - well, after finding that out, I was kinda forced to. Granted, I was kicked out for all but the 5 minutes it took me to walk out to the car, but I was still kicked out. So anyways, spent a whole twenty dollars and managed to regain right about all of it back, spending that nice and quick too. So, in other words, we didn’t *really* spend any money at all. And to tell you the truth, the slot machines are boring as all hell. I really don’t get why people get addicted to something that will most likely just send you home broke.
So anyways, after that we were on our way to Old Faithful Geyser in Calistoga - the town where all that mineral water comes from. Although this wasn’t the Old Faithful Geyser that most Americans are accoustomed to, it’s apparently the only other Geyser that’s “faithful” in the US and only one of three in the entire world. Pretty neat. Nonetheless, wasn’t that exciting - coarse, I should’ve known that water shooting out of a tiny whole probably wouldn’t be - but it was nonetheless very “Route 66″ of us.
The next stop was just a few miles down the road at the Petrified Forest - once again, probably not that Petrified Forest that most people associate the term with, but it did fair well as a large amount of amusement and fun phototaking. In fact, out of our trip, aside from the immense enjoyment had by the food we ate, these little sidetrips to kitsch Route-66-esqe places really made the trip worthwhile.
Quickly we stopped in Napa for lunch - the town isn’t much at all and really wasn’t worth a stop - in fact, downtown Napa is pretty odd. After a quick lunch due to time restraints, we were off toward the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield.
Now, Deanna might not be an obsessive eater of Jelly Bellys but damn, whenever she does get some, she treats them as if they were divine offering. So, it only was suiting that we go to the Factory and go on the tour. Unfortunately, because of Candy making secrets that liken themselves to the secrets surrounding Roswell’s UFOs, no picture taking was allowed in the actual factory but I got enough photos of Deanna drooling over all the goodies in the gift shop. They even sell these 2 lb bags of Jelly Bellys they call “Belly Flops” which are the “rejects” for lack of a better term - apparently the beans are highly scrutinized through the process and for quite a bit less cash you can by what’s not good enough for the regular bags - at 2 lbs for $8 - nearly half the price of regular.
So after that we headed on over to Berkeley to stay the night - in fact, decided to stay two nights in a row. I had always heard about the amazing culture surrounding Berkeley but even in my past three trips to the Bay area, I had failed to make it across the Bay to Berkeley. Although in my day and a half stay there I only got a glimpse of the culture, we both had some great fun. That night we had some amazing Cajun food at this traditional Louisiana Bistro-esqe Eatery.
The next day started off at the Lawerence Hall of Science up on UC-Berkeley. The Guidebook of California that I had gotten suggested that it was pretty much as fun as the Exploritorium that we visited in San Fran the year before - nothing even close to it. To be honest, it was a waste of time and money. Thankfully we had gotten up early enough to where we didn’t waste what precious time we did have in the area. All we did the entire day was shop around at all the amazing stores they had - and even managed to track down a few stores Deanna had been eying. Between Indian wares and CD/DVD shoppes, we ended up spending quite a bit on trinkets. That night’s dinner was a new one for both of us - food from Nepal. To be honest, I think this might have been the second best food on the entire trip - only trumped by Ethopian a few days later. Seriously - I thought Indian food was an amazing plethora of spices and flavors - this was so much more amazing!
Nonetheless, the next day we headed out of Berkeley and I still have more pictures to sort through and add text tags to - as it is right now, I’ve got through page 19 done. More to come.
California Trip Day 4-7 - from page 13 to 19