American Headturners

Friday a man who does not even speak english helped me catch a glimpse of my core nature, it was rather ghastly. Arpicio is one of the field hands who has been working with me for the past few days. After a hard days work, I drive him and another back to their house (it is only a few minutes down the road from me), but friday the drive took an unexpected turn.

We were stopped at a red light when a homeless man started weaving through the jungle of chrome begging for money. When he arrived at my passenger-side window, I naturally turned to look through my drivers side window. Arpicio, however, began to dig in his pockets, extracting a dollar bill - he rolled down the window and gave it to the man on the street. I was taken aback, Arpicio cannot make much more than minimum wage, he shares a house with other migrant workers to save money, yet he gave without hesitation when the opportunity arose.

A few minutes later, while pondering the generosity shown, I actually caught myself stealing a glance at a BMW in a car lot. I have no desire for a luxury car, yet I was still there admiring its beauty. What is wrong with me? I turn my head from a homeless man and cast my gaze upon a car, a mere trinket?

Unfortunately I believe my reaction to the beggar was indicative of a broadly held perspective, ignore the ugly and think about what will make you "better".

jp

PS - I would be remiss not to note that the beggar looked quite strung out, and while the issue of supporting people in such situations is an issue to ponder, my reaction was still revolting.

The Trip

The rumor is that a picture is worth a thousand words so I feel that the best way to share my European experiences with you is through the lens. You can see several of our trip pictures on my flicker page here. I will try to post a few stories in the next few weeks, but in the mean time I hope this will do.

You may also find some posts on Jasies blog "The Jasie Journal" and Justins "News and Noise".

jp

Yes, I Procrastinate... A Lot.

Ok, so I am back in Houston after the usual trains planes and automobiles routine. However, you may note that my last post consisted of my leaving Houston and arriving in London. Where is the trip? you may ask. Well, its coming... in a while.

So I landed in Houston after 24 hours of travel, and am still exhausted. I am wrapping up my first full day back, and I stress the word FULL. Looking back, I think I had an entire 2 minutes of "easing" myself back into work before an all out asault on the next bit of my life ensued. I have mounds of paperwork to go through for accounting, then I start on taxes (thank you, uncle sam :( ), but before I get there I have to remove all our equipment from a jobsite (this is tomarrow and the next day), wire wells for a new job, and prepare to set them on Monday. I can hardly fit that into a sentence, let alone my schedule, well I guess this is my new and improved schedule.

Oh well, I am grateful to be busy. I do hope I can recover somewhat, of course that will probably occur on my next vacation.

To all my friends (and family, hey sis) relax for me on Thursday and let me know how it goes.

Adios,
jp