Apparently, Jesse James spent a lot of time in Nebraska. The famous outlaw evidently had many connections with the state. He traveled through Nebraska on several occasions, he had friends here, he even had family here, and even wanted to move to Nebraska when he had enough money to buy the land. I remember first hearing about this interesting fact when I was on vacation in Missouri with my family. One of the things we did on this particular family vacation is visit Jesse James’ childhood home. Really, it was nothing more than a log cabin with a few rooms. In the information building that was a short walk from the house itself, there was a display that housed various artifacts, pictures, and personal documents and letters. One of the letters was a letter that was sent by Jesse James to the Journal Star inquiring about buying several acres of land.
What I find interesting in all this is that for some reason we almost glorify this man who was basically nothing more than a regional outlaw who robbed banks and trains. So why is someone like this so popular and almost even looked up to? It seems that part of the reason is that he has become somewhat of a Robin Hood type figure, being a poor man who is revolting against his oppressors. For some reason, our society likes this type of image. Another popular image in recent years that seems to be akin is the image of the pirate. Because of such popular movies as “The Pirates of the Caribbean”, we have this romanticized version of people who in actual history were people who would be in jail today. Its an interesting irony that infamous people, such as Jesse James, are elevated to a legendary status when if we could evaluate them without the romanticized baggage that these characters often come with, we would probably be shocked to find normal, everyday burglars and bandits.

I remember when I was little I had a toy cell phone. It was one of those now ancient looking machines that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie rather than something a person in normal society would use. Then my parents got their cell phones. These were not the gigantic phones like the toy, but they were still much bigger than what you want as a cell phone today. As the years progressed, they traded their phones in for the newer and better versions. When my older sister began driving my brother and me to school, she received her very own cell phone, and in the following years my brother received his and I received my very own cell phone. Like my own family, everyone around us seemed to have cell phones. Parents buy the newest and smallest cell phones for their thirteen year olds, and other men and women save up for the newest cell phone such as the new iPhone.
With everyone using cell phones, the normal land line phones are fading into antiquity it seems. Some families have given up entirely on their landlines in favor of just solely using cell phones as their means of communication to the outside world. It seems odd at first to think of giving up the normal phone system for the other, but it does make sense. The cell phone is quite practical and useful. You can have it anywhere. You can contact anyone at anytime of day. There’s no more need for searching for change to pay the charge to use a pay phone. These things that seemed to be almost timeless seem to be quickly fading into history. It seemed that something as simple as a normal telephone would be always here, a constant such as books and television. However, with the creation of new technologies these constants seem to be on shaky ground, and will probably soon just be example of past innovations that only belong in a museum.

Procrastinating....again

I’ve been sitting at my computer for a couple of hours now. I’ve been putting off this essay, telling myself that I’ll start on it in a few minutes, but, as always, things keep getting in the way. This should be easy, right? So, I keep putting it off, but I might take a step or two toward completing this essay, but the steps are small and unnoticeable such as opening a blank Word document. I’ve always been a pretty bad procrastinator. When I was in junior high, I can remember several times when I was up until two in the morning working on a school project. I would just keep putting off, telling myself I had plenty of time, but, of course, the due date would approach very quickly and then I finally realize that the project is due the next day.
I figured, like all those many projects and papers, that this wouldn’t take that much time, and that I could easily hammer it out within an hour if not less. However, I find myself distracted by certain things: the TV, or a friend on IM who wants to talk, or the Internet itself. Meanwhile, I’m telling myself that I should really start this essay, that I should just get it done. I should do the smart thing and just shut the TV off and put off all distractions and just sit down and write. Things like that are great thoughts, but for some reason everything against me works against what I need to do. I tell myself that I’ll start right after this show, right after this conversation, I’ll quit in five minutes. But, I don’t start right after the show is done or after the conversation, and the five minutes soon turns in to 55 minutes and nothing is accomplished.

I hate shopping...

I don’t like shopping. I have loathed it for as long as I can remember. I can recall having to run errands with my mom when I was little, going from store to store, slowly dieing of boredom. Even when it is to buy something for myself, I can’t help but feeling like I’m walking into a deathtrap. Every time I embark on a mission to buy something, I usually try to start out positive, but by the end, I’m so agitated by the whole situation that I can’t wait to get out of there. There’s something about the bright fluorescent lights, the long, tiled aisles, and the gigantic shelves that are filled with absolutely nothing you need. I just want to get in and get out. It doesn’t matter if it’s shopping for food or clothes, I want to get out of there as fast as I can.
Of course, there are different types of stores. There are the super, hyper, mega, warehouse stores that have wall to wall and floor to ceiling “stuff”. When you step inside you feel like you feel like you’ve been swallowed by the merchandise it self. Then there are the small and very intimate shops. These are very different from the mega-stores, but, honestly, these stores intimidate me even more. I always feel that I don’t belong, and that everything I do is being watched and scrutinized.
That seems to be view of shopping. Not too optimistic. However, there is one store I don’t mind going to: Barnes and Noble. Sure, right away you’re going to think: “Books? What a nerd!” Yes, it’s true, I do like books, but that’s not the only reason. The atmosphere of that bookstore is quite different from almost any store I’ve been to. It doesn’t fall into my stereotype of a normal store. It seems to has it’s own rules that are quite separate from the normal shopping center. It’s a safe haven from the chaos and insanity of the normal shopping experience.
I remember a long time ago when I first went to Barnes and Noble. I went after church on a Sunday with my family when it was a fairly new building. We had had lunch at Southpointe, and we decided to step inside and take a look. What I first noticed then, I still notice today when I walk inside: the smell. It’s quite a different smell from the normal smell of the cocktail of cleaning products or the smell of clothes or of differing items that normally overpower customers when the step inside a store. This smell is distinctly coffee based, but there’s something else to it. It is definitely not the same as walking into a Starbucks. Maybe it’s the smell of coffee added with the smell of new books. Somehow a smell is produced that can be described as “inviting”; quite different from the normal warehouse disinfectant normally encountered.
I have been to Barnes and Noble numerous times since that one Sunday. Sometimes to look for a new book that I had heard about, other times to buy a specific book for a class. Still other times I just want to browse through the stacks of books laying about on tables. The books are arranged in a peculiar way I’ve noticed. They books that are located on the shelves aren’t put away like you would put away books in your bookshelf at home. Some of the books are put away in the traditional way with the spine facing out. However, others are put away so that the cover is facing out. Of course this takes up more space than the traditional way, but this way, the books themselves seem so be saying, “Look at me! Pick me up and look at my cover! Scan my pages!” The tables located around the store, with their numerous stacked and scattered books seem to be saying the same thing. Quite different than the “Don’t touch the merchandise” mentality of most other stores.
This store seems to welcome loitering. They want you to spend time there, look around, sit down in one of the chairs and read even if you don’t intend to buy the book. The employees are always there to help, of course, but they don’t interrogate you when you walk in the door. I can’t recollect how many times I get pulled into a different store by some friends who want to just “look around” and right away an employee walks up and asks, “Can I help you with anything?” Of course the answer is the monotone: “No thanks. We’re just looking.” For some reason I can’t help but think they hate that response. I’m sure they’d like to just snap back, “We don’t need a bunch of people just standing around here. If you’re not going to buy something, then jus leave already!” However, the employees at Barnes and Noble are inclined to just leave you alone. They probably tend to think if you look like you’re browsing, you probably are.
Barnes and Noble is not an “in and out” kind of store. People walk around, not looking for anything in particular. Or if they are looking for something, they might just be looking for ideas, not a book to buy. For example, I remember seeing this guy stand at the same bookshelf for about twenty-five minutes. He would lean on the bookshelf looking for any title that caught his eye, then he would pick up an interesting title only to put it back moments later. Eventually he was even sitting in the aisle, reading a book that had interested him. Yet, this is okay at Barnes and Noble. Where else could you actually sit in the aisle of a store while making use of the merchandise and not be bothered by the employees?
In the café, the customers sit at the tables, drinking their various beverages and eating a muffin or piece of cake while minding their own business. One young man is sitting next to the wall, presumably doing homework while listening to his Ipod. In another area, two older women are knitting what looks to be a blanket while talking about some recent gossip or some other such subject. At another table, a mother reads a book to her daughter while the grandmother is reading a magazine and drinking a cup of coffee. Where else could you do this? Yes, you could say that this is in the café area, but the café area itself is seamlessly woven into the rest of the store. There is no dividing line between the two.
As I’ve shown, it’s obviously more than just a bookstore. It’s a place where you can come and just look around at the books, momentarily escaping from your every day life either by looking at the landscapes of Italy in one of the large, coffee table books, or by sitting down in one of the secluded chairs and reading a chapter or two of a book you just haven’t gotten around to reading yet. Sure, this might sound like a public service announcement advocating literacy, but that doesn’t make it less true.
I guess, lastly, I just have many good memories of that place. I can remember countless times of wasting time among the bookshelves after school. On other days, I would sit around with a couple of friends and talk about the future, complain about the present, and laugh about the past. I can remember sitting at the café with some friends, proof reading our literary analyses due for our high school English class only to end up getting off task, which only extends the whole process by several hours. Because this store itself seemingly never changes, those memories can almost stay frozen in time. The atmosphere of Barnes and Noble is very unusual. Maybe it’s the memories that color my view of the store. If it’s the memories or just the welcoming atmosphere that always stays the same, either way Barnes and Noble sets itself in a class of its own.

At first look, this video seems to show a great touchdown by a high school team. In fact, if the only thing known about this particular game is from this video, we could guess that this team creamed the other team. We could surmise that the scoring team is far athletically superior to the other team. However, this is only twenty five seconds of video. It’s not even half a minute. So what really happened?
I was actually on the opposing team during this game. I was there. It was my senior years and I was watching from the sidelines. Why was I on the sidelines during my senior year? Was I injured? No. Was I just simply not on the punt team? Actually, I wasn’t on the punt team, but neither were the other players who were normally were on it. That only raises more questions. Why was the normal punt team on the sidelines, especially when it was nearing the end of the game? There is actually a simple answer to these questions.
The answer is: we were beating the other team so bad that the varsity team was pulled off to let the junior varsity in to have a chance at playing in a real game. We were beating them 54 to 26 with only about a minute or so to go. In fact this was the first and only time that I sat down on the bench on the sidelines. From just this video, it sure seems to be a very unlucky Friday the thirteenth for the Lincoln Christian Crusaders. The reality is it was quite the opposite. We were wining, by a lot. Sure this is an impressive play, but they’re playing against the J.V.! I suppose this just shows that context is actually important, and that 25 seconds of a football game doesn’t show a lot.