Un-bowling

About every two years I get invited along to go bowling somewhere. Usually, I give in (without much fuss) and try to have a little fun down at the alley. However, because I pretty much stink at the sport, it is hard to do. This is especially the case when the people you bowl with claim they aren't very good bowlers - then, just as soon begin to each get three strikes in a row, including the person you are dating.

After my fourth gutter ball (follwed by a fifth, sixth, and so on...), I realized that it may also be the choice of rental equipment that was holding me down. I was using the same bowling ball that the three men I was with were using. The lightest ball we could find, an eight pound pink marbled, had a thumb hole I could barely get my pinky in. I actually bowled with it for the first frame and the thing managed to pull my thumb out of the joint momentarilly as it left my palms. Giving up the pink, I had to settle for an 11-pound green pea thing for several more frames. Shameful frames at that.

My sixth frame complete, I went to go look at the ball racks for something in the middleground and settled for a 10 pounder. As I brought it back, the boys began eyeing it and ended up using is a great deal also during the last half of the match. Therefore, I still think I was bowling with a ball slightly too heavy for me. But that probably can't completely explain my 30 point game.

The bowling alley we went to was very nice, it was called Sea Bowl. Located in Pacifica, CA, Sea Bowl offers well lit lanes, video scoring screens, a nice enclosed bar area, and decent requisite bowling alley food. We settled for two pitchers of MGD and one order of garlic curly fries. I would have tried the hot dog, but I am now vegan until sometime this summer I finally feel cleansed and healthy.

Sea Bowl is expensive. It is $25 and hour plus shoe rental, which sets each person back about $12 not including beer or food.

Not a drop of milk, not a yolk, and no meat either

Hello people.

It's me, reporting from day six of a diet which approaches as close to vegan as a first timer might dare. Despite my strict adherance, I've not dropped any weight (my body is a superior survivor...i could maintain weight for a long time probably given just 500 cal a day).

I started this diet upon returning back from the US last Saturday. In Thailand, I was eating all kinds of meats and meat-products. I did not eat any cheese, though, and very little sugar. Therefore, coming home and starting the diet hasn't been so hard seeing that I've been without a lot of foods for more than a month anyway. In fact, it's been pretty easy.

For sanity's sake, I am allowed red wine and some dark chocolate. We all must find someway to enjoy ourselves, right?

Back for SE Asia Summer Music Picks:

June 19, David Jacobs-Strain, Biscuits & Blues, SF
June 22-25, Built to Spill, Slim's, SF
June 25-27, Neko Case, Bimbo's, SF
July 1, Band of Horses, The Independent, SF
July 15, The Devil Makes Three, GAMH, SF
July 20, Camera Obscura, GAMH, SF

Photos of the journey

Greeting from Gate C7 at the Taipei Airport. Free wireless here and my three hour layover prompt me to update this page.

Here is a selection of photos from the Thailand trip. Most of them are from the fieldwork portion of the trip, which lasted from May 28-June 6. We stayed on the island of Ko Lanta Yai in Krabi Province.

I am not going to meticulously order these, so if the picture I provide is a little jumbled, I apologize. The field work we did was extremely interesting and I got to meet a lot of people, poke around their homes, go underneath their hotels, and ask people questions about their toilets. All in all, it was super fun.


This is the Reclining Buddha at Wat Po. It is the largest reclining Buddha is Thailand.


This is the Village Headman. He met him at the recycling facility and he then invited us to his house so we could look at the village well that is in his backyard.


These are your two main beer choices in Thailand, Chang and Sing-ha.


No, this isn't a Thai military officer. It's just a hired hand from the village to look important outside a new resort compound. It was too bad they had no idea all the photos we were taking were for the purpose of documenting unsustainable design. Ha ha ha...


We talked to people at the Elephant Trekking place. The elephants looked bored.


Powerlines sure do make that beach look darn purty!


Emperor Hirohito from Japan showed up on campus one day (two people to the right of the first white pagoda thingy). There were many dignitaries in Bangkok last week for the King's celebration commemorating 60 years on the throne of Thailand.


Here are five of the ten Thai students whose we really depended on to understand anything on the trip.

Pet finder

Puppies under the bungalows

Darn right, I'm mysterious!

I know more about an island 1/3 around the world than I do my own home

I've been on an island in Thailand for the last week studying its potential to improve its tourism sector to be more sustainable. This place has a ton of work to do. In the last few days I have done the following:

Visited the local landfill
Asked pressing questions about infrastructure provision to local community leaders
Watched how rubber is processed from a rubber tree forest
Visited a "green" bungalow development
Tried (but didn't) to enter an "anything but green" 5-star deluxe resort to do undercover work and ask the staff about maltreatment
Saw baby monkeys in the national forest
Got stung by migrating jelly fish in the Andaman Sea
Had a Thai massage at the Wat Po Thai Traditional Massage School in Bangkok
Ate a lot of Thai food
Ran into the former Mayor of Krabi City at a roadside foodstall (met him last year, he's an insanely rich developer who owns tons of beach property and his younger brother is the current Mayor)
Visited the Sea Gypsy villages of Koh Lanta
Had a meeting with the Governor of the Province

This list is only partially complete. I left out a lot of stuff. I will try to post some pictures very soon.

Good night.