My Scratchpad

Peace Corps Blog

2007-07-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

I am joining the Peace Corps in a week and will soon be leaving for South Africa. As a means of staying in touch, I will be keeping a blog and hopefully (eventually) posting photos to my online photo album. Due to Peace Corps requirements (I need to have a disclaimer) and a general dislike for this blog, I will actually be starting a new blog for my Peace Corps experience. To check out my Peace Corps blog (which already has a post talking about what I will be doing and all that good stuff), just go to: peacecorps.nathanntg.com .

Photos of Home

2007-05-24T20:48:00.000-07:00

I figured I would go out early one morning and capture how beautiful it is in New Mexico in the Spring. Photos of my home can be seen in my Picasa Web Album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/nathanntg/OurHouse

Photos of Downtown Los Angeles

2007-05-17T11:17:00.000-07:00

Check out some of my photos from an early morning walk in downtown Los Angeles:

April Gallery

2006-04-18T21:20:00.000-07:00

Time for my monthly photo gallery! I have posted 14 of my favorite photos from Spring break trip to San Francisco in my new April, 2006 gallery. Not many pictures, but they are the ones that stand out as some of my best. Waiting to post these made me realize that waiting a few weeks after taking photos allows me to easily eliminate decent photos that do not strike me as special or exceptional in some way.

March Gallery

2006-03-20T19:10:00.000-08:00

A new gallery with some of my best work with my new camera. Finally stuff that is of the quality where I want to use it for my own desktop background (I am picky, what can I say). Check out the very small gallery added for March, 2006. Ideally, I will keep doing monthly gallery additions, just as a goal.

A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them. - PJ O'Rourke

New Gallery

2006-02-14T14:10:00.000-08:00

After having neglected my website for a while, I decided it was finally time for an update - especially with my new Nikon D50 camera, which has been a pleasure to use. So I have uploaded 48 new photos and improved the gallery page, so that it will load faster. Click here to browse the new gallery, which includes photos from around my parents house, from my trip to Las Vegas and from my parents land near Grants, New Mexico.

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence." - HL Mencken

The New Year

2005-12-31T09:21:00.000-08:00

Happy new year everyone! Welcome 2006, goodbye 2005. I look forward to another year of adventure with everyone.

Take care and with that, I head off to the middle of nowhere to celebrate the new year.

The Stolen Child by W. B. Yeats

2005-10-31T01:47:00.000-08:00

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of the reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
For he comes, the human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.

American Dream

2005-10-06T22:24:00.000-07:00

Tonight I sat on our porch overlooking the noisy city of Los Angeles, sipping a glass of red wine (from Australia) and listening to the soundtrack for Ka (the latest resident show in Las Vegas for Cirque du Soleil). By all measures, it was an extrordinary way to spend the evening.

My one thought for tonight: There is no room for me in the American Dream.

Hurricane Katrina

2005-09-12T21:22:00.000-07:00

As usual, what I want to say can be best said by comics.

Semester Preview

2005-08-26T15:07:00.000-07:00

Now that I have made it through the first week of classes, I have a better idea of what to expect from this semester. And its going to be a tough one. To summarize some of the more interesting notes:

I am taking 5 classes, 18 units (okay, not really that interesting).
Over the course of the semester, I will have classes in five new buildings. It is the perfect demonstration of how things are changing as I am now moving into my major's territory.
This is the first semester with no novels assigned, which is shocking. But instead of reading from any of my text books for the first week of class, I read About a Boy. It is quite good and very insightful.
This is the first year with take home exams for me: three of them in two classes.
Also, I have the most exams (including finals and take homes, which might not count) so far. Or at least it feels like it. Overall, I have ten over the course of the year. But generally there is some space between them, except for one day right in the middle of the semester when I have two midterms.
Three of my classes are senior level classes, not that the numbers mean much. But the fact that there are a lot of graduate students in two of my classes has me a little intimidated.

But I also think its going to be a lot of fun. With the exception of my Sociology class (SOCI305: Sociology of Childhood), which I am still not sure about, all my classes seem to be promising. Next up I need a job...

Danger

2005-08-22T20:15:00.000-07:00

In the last week alone, there have been three reports of guns being pulled on students at USC. It isn't a comforting feeling to know that crime has sky rocketed in the neighborhood. And worse, is to feel like there isn't an honest effort to really stop the crime in the area. Even more frightening is the idea that a cop was killed at the grocery store just three blocks away. Not the most welcoming news to hear upon returning to live here for another year...

Everything is Illuminated

2005-08-13T14:56:00.000-07:00

For all those people who have been encouraging me to read the book, you might be interested to see the trailer for the movie that they are making: Everything is Illuminated Trailer on Apple.com. I am ashamed to say I still haven't read the book, but I might just have to read it on the drive back...

Off to Canada

2005-07-30T13:37:00.000-07:00

I am leaving for Vancouver today for a week and a half. Just a brief post before I walk out the door. School is inching closer and closer...and I am really looking forward to it (of course, I will miss something about this summer too).

Hope everybody is doing wonderfully.

Some things worth checking out:

Trailer: The Baxter - From the people who did Wet Hot American Summer (this is mostly for Jonathan).
Post Secret - Kind of a cool idea

I am off to Florida. Fort Lauderdale to be exact....

2005-07-14T08:20:00.000-07:00

I am off to Florida. Fort Lauderdale to be exact. It is a short trip and I will be back soon (on Sunday actually).

Dancin'

2005-07-08T09:49:00.000-07:00

Last night I went dancing for the first time in years. For the longest time, I would have never danced. But last night, I went to this club with someone who made me feel comfortable and totally relaxed. It was such a wonderful experience to be out on the dance floor going all out and just having a wonderful time. This whole summer I have felt myself changing, becoming more of an outgoing person and much more comfortable in a lot of social experiences...and last night really embodied that whole change. Essentially, last night was the most fun I have had all summer by far and I feel lucky to have had someone so cool to go dancing with. (Thanks!)

Following the dancing though, I won myself a good ol' speeding ticket. It was long overdue that I got pulled over and I totally deserved it, so I am not going to complain. Regardless, I get to go to Driver Improvement School and the ticket doesn't go on my record. Seems a little too nice of them, but won't complain about that either...

Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin? - Mark "Rent-boy" Renton, Trainspotting

Untitled

2005-07-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

One - The Campaign to Make Poverty History

Just for the quote....

2005-07-04T01:51:00.000-07:00

I am only posting because this quote deserves to be read...

We are alone, absolutely alone on this chance planet: and, amid all the forms of life that surround us, not one, excepting the dog, has made an alliance with us. - Maurice Maeterlinck

Gallery Updated

2005-06-29T16:15:00.000-07:00

I have gone through my computer and added many new photos to the gallery (and also to the home page random rotation). I don't feel that they are all my best, but I am happy with all of them. In general, all the photos in the gallery I took (currently, only one exception).

The categories that are totally new are:

June, 2005
Family
Fun
Hawaii
The Sandias
Utah

Edit: The new gallery page seperates the galleries for faster loading. The link was updated to jump to the correct gallery.

Nathan's

2005-06-29T07:30:00.000-07:00

My friend Jeff sent this to me from his trip to Washington DC and NYC. I feel famous... Apparently they sell hot dogs there (my favorite).

Life

2005-06-28T23:19:00.000-07:00

Life has been going quite well these last few days. I have been enjoying a wonderful energy and enthusiasm to go do new stuff, meet new people. In other news, I got a haircut today which is nice especially in the heat. And I discovered one of the most beautiful songs: Konstantine by Something Corporate. If you haven't heard it, let me strongly encourage you to check it out (you may download a copy from my shared music folder).

Yesterday I was driving down one of my favorite roads (Rio Grande Blvd, a long winding road that goes past many of the richest and most beautiful houses in New Mexico...its one of the few roads where I don't drive aggressively). And I came around a bend, and the cars in front of me were stopped in both directions. At first I couldn't figure out why, but as the passenger got out of a minivan, he walked out in the road and began rescuing little baby quail that were standing their with their mother. It just struck me as one of those special moments in life - the occasional moment when our ability to value life is apparent.

Sane and intelligent human beings are like all other human beings, and carefully and cautiously and diligently conceal their private real opinions from the world and give out fictitious ones in their stead for general consumption. - Mark Twain

Music

2005-06-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are interested, I now have a shared music folder so that people can download some of my favorite songs. And of course, whenever I listen to any of the songs, a download link will appear by them on the music page. As time goes on, I will maybe post a few more...

Beach Sunset

2005-06-25T00:38:00.000-07:00

A photo I took last weekend while staying on the beach. Cellphone cameras are crappy, but it does the trick.

California

2005-06-16T20:18:00.000-07:00

I am off to California to spend the weekend at my families beach house tomorrow. It will be nice to just sit on the beach and enjoy the sun. But then again, life around here has been going exceptionally and I am having a really fun summer. Also, it turns out UNM is easy...it makes me appreciate USC a thousand times more.

In other interesting news, I got contact lenses yesterday. I feel like I am getting old. Even though my vision isn't that bad, its so worth it because I now see at a distance very well again, which is very nice.

As far as reading is concerned, I just finished The Reader, a creepy story about a childhood love "affair" that affects a man's whole life. I am not sure what I thought of it, but the ending was very intense and really impressed me as far as a daring story for a book. Next up, I am reading The Stranger (yeah, I am just going down those old class reading lists that I never read).

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their right ideas closer together. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Books

2005-06-14T15:48:00.000-07:00

I have been doing a lot of reading recent. In the last three days, I have managed to read a book a day. They were:

Virgin Suicides - Amazing story, because of the narration. Reminded me why I loved Middlesex so much (same author).
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Not necessarily the best book, but it leaves you with a great feeling.
Of Mice and Men - Simply beautiful and very sad.

"In the United States, thousands of people are killed every year by unsafe products, dangerous working conditions and illegal hazardous waste disposal, and these irresponsible corporate actions are not usually understood to be "homicidal" in nature. By excluding these acts of corporate violence from our analysis, we may be reinforcing the erroneous impression that murder is something done mostly by the poor and powerless rather than by the rich and powerful." - The Politics Of Injustice, 2nd Edition