We had a taste of pizza earlier that day. This was that “amusement park” style of pizza that breaks the bank for a single slice, and you greedily gobble down, crust and all. At practically 5 dollars a slice it only wet our whistle, and by nightfall we had a craving for mass amounts of pizza. Where I live there is only one real place to go for large quantities of inexpensive pizza and that is CiCi’s pizza buffet.

I wanted to get my money’s worth so I was suspicious that little 14 year old Nicole could really eat. So I made a wager. She had to eat at least 10 slices of pizza. Somehow during the ride to the Sugarland CiCi’s this wager became “Nicole had to eat 1 slice to my every 2”. I was already worried. Nicole, like my girlfriend, does not like to lose, and the thought of eating way too much pizza did not sit well with me. Nevertheless I remained brave and optimistic.

Now I am not huge at 6’3” and 180 lbs but I outweighed Nicole almost 2 to 1. We arrived to the familiar “welcome to CiCi’s!!!”. When I was a kid, if they didn’t welcome you, you got the entire meal free. We paid our 5 dollars each for drinks and all-you-can-eat pizza and shared a nervous smile as we picked out our first pieces.

I have a method to CiCi’s that involves picking out half veggie pizza and half meat, then I sandwich the two cheese-to-cheese and dip the “pizza sandwich” in ranch dressing. Luckily for me Nicole also dipped her pizza in ranch so we were matched. Nicole opted to start with a salad (for some reason) which didn’t count.

After 12 slices I was beginning to hit my stride, but Nicole was easily besting me at 6 slices. As I moved from the teens and towards the 20’s I began to feel the characteristic “pizza high”. This is always a symptom of the deadly “pizza poisoning”. Nicole began to feel more and more confident that she would win and the ultra-cute Nicole smile came out (dimples and all).

The rules were simple; you had to eat all the pizza to the crust line. The crust line is the spot where the cheap CiCi’s dough turns from bleach white to golden brown and toppings stop. You were required to eat all the toppings that came on the pizza and desserts didn’t count.

All around us were the empty plates of fallen pizza and two stacked crust plates. I ordered an official count. The judge, my girlfriend Jess, counted. I was at 18 and Nicole was at 10. She looked at me with joy, savoring her eventual victory. I looked at her very blankly and with a deranged smile told her “You may win, but I am gonna make you pay for it”.

I moved to get more pizza, already displaying a distinct waddle. All the way I could hear “Eye of the Tiger” from the Rocky movies. I pictured the Japanese eating champion Takeru ‘Tsunami’ Kobayshi and was inspired. I rocked from 18 to 26. Nicole was not giving up. She matched quickly moving to 14.

I knew I could eat much more but it would hurt me. I stomached 2 more slices. Long ago it had become a challenge, not only to eat pizza, but to find the smallest slices. The ranch was still being applied to each bite. Nicole was showing signs of pizza-poisoning finally. I went for my two more slices and she went for her winning 2 more as well.

We were in a standoff. I ate 2 more and she at one more. I looked at her and began to bargain a truce. We were two boxers who had gone 12 rounds, toe-to-toe, and had found mutual respect. We decided to surrender to each other at 30 and 15 respectively.

As soon as I got home I passed out and proceeded to have some of the worst gas of my life all night. By the time I woke up for work the entire room smelled like it was packed with enough methane to blow the roof off. I don’t think I will go to CiCi’s for at least another year.

So it’s Valentines Day, yet again, and you don’t have anything yet. Well dude you better get out there and find something… quick! But I can help you out a little bit. I can help you get her a gift that will make her very happy and won’t cost you a dime. It’s a love poem.

While love poems may be maligned as cheesy and definitely will not replace diamonds, they can be powerful weapons in the war against roses. The benefits of writing your special woman a poem are many, but include the aforementioned cost, they are from the heart, they are personalized, and they show genuine love and commitment (time spent thinking only of them). So your thinking, “I suck at stuff like that”. Even better, she knows you are not some minstrel in tights weeping out sonnets like some dippy Shakespearean character. She knows that to muster these tender moments is harder for you than dropping a grand on some piece of jewelry she will wear exactly once a year. All this makes it that much sweeter.

So how do you begin? Take out your piece of paper or open your word document and take a deep breath and relax. Let your mind dribble all over the page while you write things that come to mind when thinking about her. Is it some look she makes when she see’s you, a noise she makes when she is sleeping, the way her hair falls on her shoulders, how she motivates you, or anything else. The key here is to just write it out, don’t look back, even negative things that you think of will be useful. Think of her favorite things, foods, and activities. What are her dreams? Can you tell her anything and not be judged? What does she do for you? While physical attributes can be the easiest to pick out, try getting deeper. Great, now you have this list of stuff.

Stop and think, am I going to write a rhyming poem or a non-rhyming poem? For rhyming poems it may be easier to compose a line with deep meaning first. Then the next line should be crafted to fit the rhyming word while still remaining a little similar to the idea conveyed in the first matching line. Common rhyming schemes are A B A B or A B A B C C or A A B C B C. Experiment, there are no rules… well there are, but screw em. If you have a great line but can’t find a rhyme to tie it in check out www.rhymezone.com for a list of rhymes and remember it doesn’t have to exactly rhyme. Such “soft” rhymes work great like “rake” and “fate” or “mine” and “find”. Check out http://www.poets.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10421 for more on different types of rhyming.

Beat and meter also make a good poem. Try to keep your lines basically the same amount of syllables. For some reason lines of exactly the same amount of syllables really stick in our minds and most music lyrics adhere to this rule. Something really interesting is the fact that the human mind responds amazingly to continuous 10 syllable lines. This is called iambic pentameter. Famous examples include, “Ask not what your country can do for you”, “Now is the winter of our discontent”, “Friends, Romans, countrymen lend me your ears”, and “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships” (JFK, Shakespeare, and Homer).

Look at your original notes. Find anywhere where you can create a metaphor or simile. These are like steroids for a love poem. “Your eyes are the day’s clear blue skies beckoning light fall, the hazel storm clouds, and nightfall -me”.

Ok so this is the point where most people would tell you something like “write from your heart”, well I am not going to abandon you so soon. If you are still feeling uninspired, I have a format you can follow, its short, easy, and usually never fails.

• Step 1. Opening – Example: “Those soft lips I have kissed for years have never worn away”
• Step 2. Question – Example: “What is the solid foundation that keeps this love immortal?”
• Step 3. Truth – Example: “It is your unwavering love for an imperfect man that saves the day”
• Step 4. Action – Example: “I will fight to save my fortress there, safe from all the rain.”
• Step 5. Closing – Example: “The strongest stone is the tender touch of your warm embrace”

Ok, so that wasn’t perfect but the fact is I wrote it in a minute. If all this is still escaping you try going out on the internet and reading some famous love poems, listen to love songs, or think of romantic times you have spent with your special lady. If all this does not work and you know me, I’ll write you a personalized one for five bucks, if you don’t know me, diamonds dude.

Some extra links to help: A “how to” on writing a love poem, A love poem generator.

Every family has its traditions, mine is no exception. We always open Christmas presents on Christmas Eve, we used to hide small turtle-man figures in each others luggage, and we drink margaritas and don Viking horns to pose for pictures.

One similarity I would guess my family has with yours is cooking tradition. Almost every family gathering centers around the kitchen. Every family has a few recipes that are handed down through generations and cherished. In my family one of these recipes is meatloaf.

This week, my girlfriend was helping out at one of the many potlucks at her company. She asked me to make an entrée for the event and requested that it be made of meat. I always think her Thai cooking is so much better than mine but she said she wanted some “white-boy” food. Well there is nothing more “white-boy” than meatloaf. Just the mention of it brings to mind a classic American home cooked meal.

Both my Mom and my Granny make a mean meatloaf. While my Mom learned her recipe from my Granny, and they are essentially the same, at some point there was a small deviation which makes a big difference. Granny uses the classic cream of mushroom soup and my Mom uses golden mushroom soup.

I decided I would run the gambit and make the single loaf half golden and half cream. I know, I live an exciting life. I used piece of foil, folded over, to divide the two halves half way through cooking. The result was pure meaty, loafy goodness.

I couldn’t wait for her coworkers to try it out and to find out which side was more popular. Personally I can’t imagine eating meatloaf without scallop potatoes, but like I told my girlfriend when the meatloaf was done, “my work here is done.”

Here is the recipe for our family’s meatloaf.

Ingredients:

• 2lbs Hamburger meat – lean is better
• 1 large egg
• 3 cups bread cubes
• 1 Tb whorstishire sauce
• ¼ cup chopped onion
• 1 Tb dried celery flakes
• ¼ cup parsley
• ½ tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• Dash of ginger
• Dash of nutmeg
• 1 small can of mushrooms
• 2 cans Cream of mushroom soup or 2 cans Golden Mushroom soup or one of both.

Beat egg and mix in milk. Add in the bread crumbs and get them soaked. Add all the other ingredients except the soup and meat. Mix. Add the meat and mix it all up together. Spread the mixture out evenly over a greased Pyrex dish. Cook for 30 minutes at 350 degrees and pull it out and spread the soup over top of the loaf. More soup is needed for more surface area / thinner loaf. Put the meatloaf back in the oven and cook for an additional 10 minutes. Serve hot and enjoy.

Gung Hay Fat Choy. Happy Chinese New Year. Let’s all welcome 4706, the year of the Earth Rat. 2007 was the year of the Fire Pig, characterized by dramatic challenges and strife. The rat is the first of the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac and its arrival signals the beginning of a new cycle. The rat was the leader or pioneer of the 12, and as such its arrival tells of the coming changes of major and minor leaders. New leaders will be chosen in the USA, Russia, and Taiwan. In Chinese mythology the rat signifies luck and fortune through adaptability and endurance. The ancient Chinese respected the rat, whom they saw as the ultimate survivor, able to eek out a living from the trash of others.

Every crafty and resourceful, the rat should bode well for the economies of the world. The hurting housing markets should see relief and a turn in sliding values, with 2009 being an exceedingly prosperous year. This rat’s element is earth and the rat’s natural or hidden element is water, meaning earth over water. This could mean that while economies and business ventures seem strong and stable, their base is actually weak and shifting.

The same may be true of political and world events in the coming rat year. Peace and accommodation may appear to prosper in the rat year but the outward appearance will likely fade with the following years as strife again bubbles to the surface. The rat is a charismatic sign but is also know to be shifty and treacherous. It is possible that a leader will emerge in the coming year that will seem, at the surface, to be a greatly charismatic and magnanimous leader but will finally be known as a liar and traitor. Finally the rat year has the possibility of airplane crashes. The last rat year, 1996, saw over 20 airliner crashes including the Trans World Airlines Boeing which exploded of the Atlantic taking its 230 passengers with it.

For Chinese New Year we cleaned furiously for two days after work. We made sure to get every little corner to clean out all the bad luck of the previous year before midnight on Feb., 6^th. Around 8:30 we were exhausted but finished. The tradition goes that you clean everything before the New Year so that for a period of days you clean nothing. There is a story of a man receiving fortune with the New Year only to sweep it out of his house.

We ate dinner around 10 and watched the final moments of the Team USA vs. Mexico football game that was happening just down the block at Reliant Stadium (Mexico won). We decided we would head back to the house to avoid the crowds of drunken, fanatical soccer fans streaming out to their cars.

Around 11:30 we drove out to the local temple. There celebrators had gathered to welcome the fast-coming New Year. We were lucky to get a chance to ring the giant ceremonial bell.

The night turned to 12 and the dragon dancers began their show. It was fun to pet the dragon and feed dollar bills into their mouths for good fortune.

Then we greeted the monks and were given blessed oranges to eat and share with friends to bring luck. We lit incense and went around to the various enshrined deities that I was not familiar with and the massive golden Buddha.

With my eyes burning from the excess of incense smoke I deposited the majority of my incense in front of the God of war, Guan Yu, with prayers and wishes for the safety of my brother fighting in the north-eastern mountain valleys of Afghanistan.

What is a man-cry? Even the toughest and most desensitized men can break down to tears given the right set of circumstances. A real man-cry is that moment when the grief and agony of your best buddy dying in your hands or the realization that you have hit rock bottom in a dirty bar in Tijuana, becomes too much. But what does it take to really accomplish a man-cry? I suggest that we look to Harvey Keitel.

Harvey Keitel has made a career playing ultra-cool tough-guys, unrelenting bad-guys, psychopathic anti-heroes, mob enforcers, Puerto Rican pimps, and a seemingly endless parade of hitmen, cleaners, and assassins. Harvey has built a reputation of being a “real” actor with an incredible range. He seems to avoid the spotlight and delight in supporting roles in hip, indie films. In the majority of his performances he comes across with a gritty realism that I feel fans of true cinema are drawn towards.

For me one of the most fascinating aspects of Harvey Keitel performances is the pivotal scene when he unleashes his ferocious man-cry. In true manly fashion, it only surfaces after a failed attempt to bottle it up. Harvey’s face will contort and I swear his eyes get a little darker and deeper looking. He heaves forward like he is experiencing a stomach ulcer. Then he throws his hands up and looks to the sky in a bewildered way as if to say, Why God, why? Then the solitary tears fall and he bellows the trademark Harvey Keitel wail. It is at about this point that something usually gets broken or someone gets shot. Ah another soul cleansing man-cry successful. Never has an intimate moment of weakness felt so strong. His tears fall like a ton of bricks, his sniffley nose hits you like a punch in the face, and his weeping is like the howl of a loan wolf.

Sorry for using this slightly strange tribute video but it portrays why Harvey truly is a man-cry aficionado.

Who can forget his performance in Reservoir Dogs; he is shot and dying and finds that the person he fought so hard to protect had betrayed him. The anguish in his wail is unforgettable and does more to show his sorrow and anger than any pristine Tarantino dialog.

If you want to really see Harvey belt out the man-cry check out Bad Lieutenant, although this is defiantly not a movie for the faint of heart, religious, easily offended, diluted, or children. Harvey plays a loathsome police officer who breaks nearly every law.

I think we should look to Harvey as our model for when the man-cry is necessary. I think it presents a much better alternative to soggy misting or the all out scream-fest where you break half your things. Kudos to you Harvey you truly are a man-cry master.

Today at exactly 2:30:53 central standard time, Mercury entered retrograde. When a planet is in retrograde it simply means that it appears to stop moving forward through the celestial zodiac and then appears to move backwards. Planets never stop or reverse in their orbit it is only an illusion produced by the orbital rotation of the earth.

In astrology a retrograde is characterized by inevitable world changing events. While the planet in retrograde is important in understanding the energy created, it is the sign that the planet goes retrograde in that is more powerfully activated. Mercury went retrograde at 23 Aquarius 49. Aquarius is the water bearer and is the archetype of communications and technology, while Mercury is known as the messenger, trickster, and psychopomp. Together the strong relation of communication, dialog, conversation, travel, technology, messages, and appointments are activated by both.

In general retrogrades can cause problems for people. During this time you will see problems with mail and the internet. Did you have problems with your internet connection today at work or at home? At my company the internet was moving very slowly for seemingly no reason. You can also watch for problems with your cell phones since it is both communication and a signal sent over the air, which is the element that rules Aquarius. At one of my client’s business their phone network went down today. Another thing to watch out for is failure of mechanical devices like appliances and especially cars. Have you had car problems in the last couple weeks?

In general you can expect a breakdown of personal communications as well. There will be misunderstandings between you and others that can lead to conflicts when normally there would be none. In business, you could find that you will come up missing critical information and as such will make ill-advised decisions. Mars is also in retrograde and combined this will definitely set the perfect environment for intellectual arguments that could get out of hand. Aquarius is a fixed sign and you will find that others will be unwilling to budge from their positions.

The mars retrograde in concert with the mercury retrograde can produce disloyalty in those around you and may even give rise to unfair criticism or outright slander. You can expect that, starting today through the rest of the period, the political mudslinging will increase to new levels and should thoroughly disgust us all. Expect this to be especially true around Tuesday Feb. 19^th (Hawaii, Washington, and Wyoming primary date) when mercury reaches its station, or point where the planet stops its reverse motion and begins to realign with the natural procession through the zodiac. The retrograde period will last until March 10^th (the day before the Mississippi primary) when I predict that we will know who the primary winners are.

Mercury retrograde is not a time of obstructions and cosmically fated bad luck for everyone. Mercury rules writers, speakers, teachers, travelers, spin-doctors, gossip queens, tricksters, and thieves. These people will find that this period is a time to thrive and expand their business, quite possibly through technology or combative measures.

I have been interested in astrology and the reported influence that heavenly bodies have on mankind for years, and I have tried to learn as much as possible about this ancient form of divination to see if it holds any truth. Through this fascination I have become what could be considered a very amateur astrologer.

Since no-one knows you like yourself and this is my first astrology related post I would like to start with myself. Since anyone can say what your sun or moon sign means I would like to take a moment to write a little about the more interesting facets of my natal chart.

I have recently been concentrating on aspects. Aspects are geometric relations between planets based on the degrees of the circle. My chart has a Grand Trine (equilateral triangle) of Pluto in Libra, Venus in Gemini, and Midheaven in Aquarius. Most Grand Trine aspects that appear in a natal chart are in one element. Each of my points are in air signs and this Grand Trine is thought to be based in the realm of the intellectual (air-intellectual, water-emotional, earth-physical, fire-spiritual).

Each air symbol is a double glyph and someone with this aspect is able to effectively see and argue both sides of a subject while remaining emotionally detached. It is common for these individuals to not delve deeply into their emotional (water) issues and will often flee from their problems like the wind. These airy individuals are likely to start many genius projects yet complete few or return to them infrequently like the wind cutting a gorge over a millennia. Fortunately for me (and anyone else born after 1971 through the 90’s) Pluto (a more malefic planet) is in Libra bringing balance to this tendency (meaning I can concentrate and finish projects when the subject has to do with creation and destruction, rebellion, or solitary pursuits) Lastly, in our modern world, they are frequently miss-diagnosed with ADD (as I was) when the problem is not that we cant pay attention but that we don’t find the subject intellectually stimulating enough.

I also have a very mysterious and rare aspect in my chart knows as the Rosetta or trapeze. This aspect set involves two square (90 degree) aspects, a parallel sextile (60 degrees) and trine (120 degrees), and two quincunx (150 degree) aspects forming an X in the middle.

My moon-midheaven and sun-Pluto make up the two squares and are characterized with tension and conflict. My sun-moon and midheaven-Pluto make up the sextile and trine aspects characterized by cooperation and understanding. Lastly my moon-Pluto and sun-midheaven comprise the quincunx aspects meaning stress, adjustment, and paradox. It is as if each planet has a friend and an enemy that is the others opposite and all the while the conflict is handled through the intermediary quincunx planets.

It is said that people with this unusual alignment battle between paradigms of freedom and responsibility or excess and moderation or other contrary modes. These people tend to go about in circles, have obsessions, and suffer dramatic “collapses”. Only through awareness can a person like this overcome their weaknesses and turn them into a positive, solid base for development. This type of person is likely to only be able to gain energy through conflict. When they hide themselves away and avoid a life filled with disorder, restriction, or active engagement, they will stagnate. I will discuss the finer aspects of my Rosetta in a later post.

Notice that the Grand Trine fits perfectly inside the Rosetta, and that Neptune(above) is completely opposite of the Venus point of the Grand Trine. These two planets are also closely involved in the vortex of power that is the Rosetta. One planet attempts to balance and the other one unbalances, can you tell which is which?

Through studying these aspects I have come closer to understanding my own conflicts and strengths. In the future I will analyze some of my friends and family to see if their astrological charts hold true.

They came out, despite it being an unusually cold and wet Saturday morning. We all checked out our red wagons and formed a line. It was still 30 minutes until the gates opened and the line was already wrapping around the building and out along the road. Groups of queued individuals huddled together and planned over maps, ready for the rush to begin, their red radio flyer wagons positioned behind them.

We were all here to pick out fruit trees. We were lined up awaiting the beginning of Urban Harvest’s 8^th annual Fruit Tree Sale and Environmental Fair. This was no ordinary group of gardeners; each of these dedicated horticulturists knew that this was possibly the only chance of the year to get rare varieties of coveted fruit trees for their gardens. Past years had taught veterans that the only way to get the most desired trees was to get there early.

We were there for specific varieties. For over a year we had hoped purchase a Calamondin Orange. This tiny orange tree fruits with hundreds of small attractive oranges. Their appearance is deceiving. The one time that I was crazy enough to try to eat a fresh calamondin orange, I was struck with instant heartburn. The tiny orange has more citric acid than any lime or lemon and is possibly the sourest edible citrus variety available. It was completely engineered and does not occur in the wild, yet its origin is unknown. We use its sour juice for a spicy, great tasting Thai sauce called prik nam pla.

The clock reached 9:00 am and the gate was opened. Throngs of excited gardeners rushed forward through the bottleneck of the entrance. It was an instant traffic jam. Red wagons and flesh were suddenly pressed together. People scattered from the crowd to claim their plant selections. The ground was soggy and muddy from a constant day and night of rain and wagons sloshed through the muck. Experts stood in front of their various sections trying to answer the endless amounts of questions from curious buyers. It was organized chaos all in the name of gardening, and I found it beautiful.

I was stuck in the crowd and my girlfriend went ahead to lay claim to our rare orange. I became locked with other wagon’s wheels several times and one expert quipped that he needed to see my license and registration. Once I was able to escape the chaos of the citrus section I took a breather to evaluate the situation. Many had already filled their carts, and now it was my turn.

By the end of the day we had picked out a Brewster lychee, a longan, a Glenn mango, a Hall avocado, a dragon fruit, and our Calamondin orange. We had hoped to get a Nam Doc Mai mango but they were already sold out. This variety is the best with sticky rice, an Asian dessert treat. Maybe we will brave the rush and crowd next year to get this rare mango. I can’t wait, because in the end it was great to see so many people from so many different walks of life, act so passionately about plants.

In some regards Houston is your standard US urban sprawl, but driving in H-town is definitely a unique and not always pleasant experience. I grew up in Houston and I was indoctrinated into our truly psychotic transportation environment.

Houston roads and freeways are jam-packed. Houston’s 610 Loop was recently ranked as one of the nation’s worst freeway bottlenecks, second only to LA’s notorious Ventura Freeway. Part of the problem is the fact that Houstonians have a “car for every man, woman, and child” mentality. The greater Houston area has over 5.5 million people with a ratio of 1.16 cars-per-person. While places in Europe have an even higher cars-per-person rate, Houston drivers do not drive the efficient micro-machines Europeans favor. Texans like everything big and their cars and trucks are no exception. It’s so bad that to dive a small car like a mini-cooper is actually suicidal and you are likely to end up as a Hummer hood ornament. Houston coined the phrase “one deep”. It means “I ride alone and I don’t need any company”. If you look around while stuck in traffic, you will be hard-pressed to find any other vehicle with more than one person, even SUV’s. Carpooling has always had a hard time catching on here and they even set the HOV lane requirement at 2 or more.

The worst part about driving in Houston is the attitude and disregard of the typical Houston driver. People in Houston drive like they are the most important person alive who is 30 minutes late their own childbirth. Anything or anyone that gets in their way is viewed with initial contempt leading to seething anger and finally homicidal rage. Even slowing down to turn into a parking lot is seen as a sign of weakness and native drivers, like myself, have mastered what we call “swangin it”. At the last second I apply the least break possible, give a small opposite role to the steering wheel and then force it towards my turn as fast as possible. Even with this maneuver the driver behind you will already be right on your tail, chasing you into your destination. In Houston defensive driving should be called offensive driving. If you don’t learn to just force your way around you will never get anywhere here. If you have to switch lanes or merge your turn signal is viewed as a sign of weakness and the driver will jam on the gas to block your successful maneuver. Our horrible rush-hour traffic will regularly move, bumper to bumper, at 70 mph. Sometimes it is hard to find a Houston driver who does not tailgate, uses their turn signal, doesn’t categorically ignore posted speed limits, and won’t carry on a cell-phone conversation in heavy traffic.

All this danger had been proven. Research by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has shown that for 100,000 drivers Houston will have 12.45 fatalities a year. Compared to cities like Philadelphia at 8.11, Chicago at 7.90, Los Angeles at 7.24 or New York at 4.39, Houston is out of control. It is so bad that just by being an H-town driver, I am two and a half times more likely to be killed or injured in a traffic accident than the average American. No wonder in Houston we have some of the highest auto-insurance rates.

Our highway system is not helping the matter. The speed of growth here means that construction is a constant. Highway contracts, like the one for I-10, are probably handed down through families through generations. The highway planning looks like it was designed by a child scribbling with a red crayon on a restaurant placemat.

In Houston public transportation is completely despised, despite it being one of the cheapest systems in the country. For the better part of a year I was completely dependent on the METRO for transportation (I even moved apartments using the city bus). During this time I developed a contempt for cars. As a pedestrian or just standing on the side of the street you are completely disregarded by motorists. I have been to other cities where pedestrians trot right out into the road when the light changes, in Houston this move would be suicide, several times I even had to resort to screaming and threatening the driver with violence to even get them to realize I was there.

To improve the situation Houston recently tried something other than throwing more and more money towards expanding the freeways. Houston built its first light rail. In the first year of operation it scored 64 collisions with automobiles and several more with pedestrians. Finally something bigger than a Hummer! In two thirds of the rail accidents the driver was either making an illegal turn or running a red light (two H-town favorites). This put us 25% higher than the national average for light rail collisions.

I love my city for all its positives, but sometimes just dealing with traffic and drivers here is enough to make me sick. I guess I have become yet another of the drivers I just complained about. In the end it is easier to join them than to get T-boned by an Excursion doing 85.

It has been said that the only universal constant is change. This is very true when speaking of evolution. Evolution and involution are the grinding-wheel, constantly pushed forward by the waters of time. This slow but steady pace has given rise to countless variations and mutations from whatever primordial organism lent the first DNA strand. But this process is not always slow or steady.

From time to time evolution takes a sudden leap forward. Natural causes like geological cataclysms and climate change have accelerated species changes over the ages. Modern humans have been able to accelerate their own evolution through the distinctively human behaviors of abstract thinking, innovation, planning, and symbolic imagery. Through our innovation we have been able to create non-natural “tools” that have also greatly aided our evolutionary speed. But is there some other unseen force that randomly accelerates human evolution, and if there is what does this “third force” have in store for humanity in the coming epoch?

The human animal or the Homo species had first wandered the African plain about 2.5 million years ago. From that time, through the majority of the rest of the Paleolithic, the simple stone tools of the human animal didn’t really change that much. Evolution moved in small steps with large troughs between. Around 50,000 years ago something different happened. The human of this time suddenly began to rapidly improve previous technologies and different human populations began to show unique variations. It was as if culture was suddenly injected into our species. This is known as The Great Leap Forward or Cultural Universals. Humans began to paint on cave walls, create specialized hunting techniques, practice ceremonial burial, create and wear jewelry, institute organized living spaces, play games, fish, and build the first barter trade networks. Suddenly we were human.

By the next major change we were a completely transformed creature. 5000 years ago the first civilizations began to spring up around fertile river valleys. This marked the next major leap forward and the human mind began to collectively create writing systems, form cities, work with pottery and metal, domesticate animals, create social structures and class systems, forge organized religions, and wage war. Once again some unseen spark ignited a fire of human evolution.

There is a tendency for us as modern humans, in our global world, to see our current spot as some apex in human evolution. We see the sudden and rapid change and progression of the world through the last couple hundred years and the rise of industry and science as that final surge of evolution. I feel that we are only now starting to see the genetic effects of this sudden change.

Much of the transhuman thought leans towards “elective” evolution through modern and future technologies being adapted into our biology. Transhuman thinkers point towards modern technologies such as prostheses, plastic surgery, telecommunication breakthroughs like the internet, and selective breeding through fertility drugs, in vitro fertilization, and embryo selection. Futurist thinkers also point towards technologies on the horizon like mind uploading, neural networks, nano-technology, nootropic drugs, cryonics, AI, virtual reality, gene therapy, and cloning.

While there will no doubt be radical changes brought on by these technologies I still look towards the unseen and unknown catalyst to occur naturally. It has been shown evolution should speed up as a population grows, due to the increased population creating more opportunities for mutation. The wide variety of cultures and lifestyles in our modern world also creates unique environments that should cause unique adaptations. Evolution is never perfect and is often messy. It takes several tries to get the right combination of genes and there are aberrations and mistakes made along the way. I believe that we are already witnessing this process today.

Autism is one of the most puzzling of all brain development disorders. Since the 1980’s autism rates have skyrocketed. There are a number of “light” autistic disorders such as aspergers that have also been identified. These disorders are also increasing. It has been demonstrated over and over again that autistics can also be brilliant on the verge of genius. Sometimes these people are called savants. I recently learned of savant named Daniel Tammet. This 27 year old amazed the world by first calculating pi as far as possible and then memorizing and repeating the entire number string. He has also demonstrated his amazing abilities by learning Icelandic (reported to be one of the most difficult languages in the world) in a week. To me Daniel represents the bridge to the next human. Autistics frequently hit their own heads. When this happens you can see the frustration in their faces. They want so badly to be able to communicate but there is some block there. I believe that if they were able to communicate (or if we were able to understand them), this person that we label with a mental disorder, would be smarter than we could imagine. They know this and it is horribly frustrating to not be able to share their brilliance with others. The exception to this is when two autistics are together. It is truly fascinating to witness the unspoken understanding that they can share. All this has created a kind of personal culture and has lead to the creation of the term “Neurotypical”. To their community we are the strange ones. We are the ones getting left behind.