My eyes burn

After allowing them to sit in the optometrist's office for nearly a month, I finally picked up my contact lenses (with the new prescription!). Having worn them for the second day today, my eyes are having some trouble adjusting to the prescription. Also, my eyes have gone back to being mega-dry, itchy and watery by the end of the day. Too much screen time, my wellness-expert friends would say.

However, I did spend some time re-designing my WordPress website, so I feel like the screen time was worth it. Better than the time I had the SYTYCD marathon for about a week, trying to get caught up.

And also, it is balls hot in my room. Time to bring the fan out again.

Entrevista mañana -- dedos cruzados y suerte a mi!

Long time overdue

Wow, this entry is quite overdue.

This summer has been filled with many random trips and small adventures, which I've really enjoyed. I went rafting with Amber, and I was able to check out some new places here in Fort Collins. Plus, I've been spending lots of time in my backyard with my roomies, lighting up a fire pit we have and making the most ridiculous mad libs.

All in all, it's been a good summer. It's just a shame that schools are back in session and things are going to start getting hectic and stressful again.

I'd like to plan a vacation where I re-unite with friends from college, somewhere awesome with a beach. Like Miami, for instance. Or California.

Well, off to cover tonight's exciting school board meeting!

Do hired killers deserve the death penalty?

My parents and I had an interesting discussion this afternoon about whether or not the hired killers that have taken over the streets of Mexico and invoked fear into the hearts of its citizens deserve the death penalty.

News accounts estimate that more than 130 Mexicans have already died at the hands of bloodthirsty traffickers in June alone. A cousin of mine, who lives Reynosa, opposite the Texan town of McAllen, said she believes the numbers reported by the media are actually only counting about 70 percent of the actual murders that are occurring.

To say Mexico is undergoing a civil war of sorts is trite. It's obvious to anyone who keeps an ear out for news from Latin America that the situation for Mexicans is looking pretty grim. And while the Mexican federal government keeps saying it is putting forth an effort to combat the narcos, justice for the victims being tortured and slaughtered is slow-moving.

Which leads me to my question: Do men and women found guilty of being mercenaries for the narcos deserve the death penalty? And if so, should it be done publicly?

My mother and father argued that the people responsible for these massacres should be executed publicly, hung in the middle of the town squares to be made examples of and somehow discourage the other thousands of sicarios from also murdering innocent Mexicans in cold blood.

Personally, I don't think violence solves violence, nor do I think an issue like this can be so easily fixed. The multiple murders each day are not symptoms of something but rather the end result of a long line of problems that plague Mexico, including corruption and an over-dependence on the United States.

I should also note that in Mexico, the death penalty is illegal. People can be sentenced to life in prison for the gravest of crimes but cannot be executed.

If narcos really do threaten people to pay for "protective services" or be killed, what's to say that they aren't forcing people to work for them? And what's to say that public executions will really do anything to stop that? I'm not naive enough to think that putting the narcos in jail will solve issues either, but I'm not claiming to know the answer. I just know that an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, and killing the killers lowers us to their level.

There is nothing weirder than researching old teachers

Instead of finishing up a story that I was technically supposed to have filed by today, I was distracted by the thought of searching my old schools online.

I found my fifth grade teacher, who looks much different now than he does in my mind, and have discovered that some of the most memorable teachers I've had are no longer working for the school district.

It really goes to show how much I've grown, even if it hasn't always felt that way.

Rock 'n' Roll hall of fame -- wtf?

I can't believe it took so long to induct Iggy Pop into the Rock 'n' Roll hall of fame. It seems pretty obvious (to me, at least) that Iggy has been one of the most influential artists from the 1970s punk scene.

There must have been some pretty big names to beat out the Stooges six previous times. I'm on a mission to find out who they are ...

Read this article and enjoy this really shitty video:

simple pleasures

Here are a few simple things in life that I very much enjoy:

1. Free downloads. Lately, I've gotten about 15 free songs, thanks to the great folks at NPR music and the weekly downloads from iTunes. Absolutely lovely, I say...

2. Good coffee. I've been trying to brew my own cuppa java each morning before I head off to work (I mean, if I have the coffee maker why not use it, right?) but I can't seem to master the proper measurements between water and beans. And maybe it's the fact that I use skim milk instead of the creamer available at the coffee shops, but I can't make my coffee taste as good as the stuff they sell. Maybe they put something special in it to make it addicting.

3. Charles Bukowski. He's so crazy, I just love him. I finished reading Pulp and I'm itching to go to the bookstore so I can find another of his novels.

4. Listening/drinking/reading one of the above on a sunny porch. Now that the sunshine has finally decided to roll over to my end of the country, I'm really excited to be able to sit on my front porch and enjoy the sun while doing one of the other things above. I think the positioning of our porch in comparison to the way the sun moves, plus the bushes that block the early morning sunrise might make this porch sitting complicated. I mean, the porch will be warm and sunny but I might not be able to sit in the sunshine for a long time. It's complicated, I'm nonsensical.

I'm trying to write a short story just for kicks, but I don't know what to write about. No wonder writers have such a hard job.

welcome, March!

I think it's cra-cra-cra crazy that March is here. Three months into the new year already -- awesome. Not that I'm anymore excited for another year to go by (growing old sucks) but it brings me closer to achieving that next step -- whatever or wherever it may be.

Plus it also means that the winter blues are coming to an end, thank goodness. I don't ever remember disliking the winter so much before I became acquainted with the frigid and gray winters of Chicago. However, since those days I can't seem to shake off the slump that inevitably comes with winter. Is it the weather? The unending need for sweaters? Or the lack of TV I've had for the past five winters?

Speaking of high school (sort-of), I've had two odd throwbacks to the days of my immediate pre-collegiate years. Today I ran into a kid who graduated a year after me and was pretty cool. He's working at the mall and going to school, and he's gotten taller. Still skinny as hell though, and still super-quiet.

The other thing that got me thinking about high school, however, was an event I covered Saturday.

Now, I've never been one to miss high school. It came and it went, uneventfully. Few things about that period in my life stick out. I can recall spending lots of hours working on the newspaper, running on the cross country team, and the smell of dew on a chilly early spring afternoon on the soccer field. I also kind of remember graduating and some classes.

In any case, I never really had a great time. Didn't really have a lot of friends, didn't really do anything outside of my schoolwork and the extracurriculars. No crazy sex parties, no craziness period. I can't even remember really having a crush on anyone the last few years, mostly because I was always afraid of the popular kids and wasn't into the weird ones. I always figured it was because of the small size of my high school that I never got into anyone.

OK, but the point I'm trying to make is that I never liked high school and I was really glad to get out of it, and I've never looked back and wished to do it over again, as I have other things in life (namely, college). But in covering this science-bowl thing on Saturday, I saw a group of high school students and I envied them, and for the first time I can remember, I wished I could go back to high school too. Not my high school, though, but theirs. The entire experience made me think about how sheltered I've really been for much of my life, and how I continue living in this strange bubble. These nerdy kids have all sorts of opportunities, not only to do well in school and travel to different places but also to meet different kinds of people and have loads of experiences that I've just recognized exist.

This post doesn't make any sense and I'm fine with it. I guess I just don't know what I'm trying to say.