Suicidal

i seem to get a lot of stories during my commutes.

I was waiting for the subway. I had my headphones in, BLASTING Norah Jones like it's heavy metal. It wasn't even that loud, her music is just that rich in its EQ spectrum that I heard nothing but that piano, the guitars, and her voice. This short old man walked up to me and mumbled something. I wasn't too sure about whether he was trying to tell me something, or if he was just talking to himself.

I noticed he was walking away from something, not to something. I looked over and there was a guy sitting between the train tracks. The place where was sitting was clearly forbidden, for safety reasons, and lots of ppl were hanging around the station like it was all good.

I removed my headphones and right then I heard the old man continue to explain what he was originally trying to tell me. This dude tried jumping in front of the previous train. He seemed really upset about something, and moved on to sit in the hole in the wall between the train tracks. He was sitting on a bar, and ran the risk of falling back into a moving train, or forward. The place he was sitting in was inside the wall, so a speeding train conductor would not see him emerge in his attempt to kill himself.

The dude was sitting with his face in his hands, eyes closed. He was ready to do something stupid. I felt that I needed to do something. I ran the risk of disturbing a drunk angry man, and provoking a violent act. I weighed the consequences, and I figured that getting rocked in the face was a lot better than watching a suicide. Finally I opened my mouth and said something.

"Dude you shouldn't sit there. It's dangerous. You can get seriously hurt."

He looked up, opened his eyes, and silently ignored me. The station, having a few dozen ppl standing around, suddenly got really quiet.

"Dude please come down from there. You can slip and fall and die if a train comes outta nowhere. You will get rocked and die."

He continued to ignore me. This is where I started to think that I would probably start a fight with a crazy pissed white guy.

"Dude come down right now. I am not gonna watch somebody die. Get down or I'll pull you down."

Somehow this got him to come down off the bar and moved across the tracks. I felt this was a right time to put my iPod on pause.

He came close to me, walked right by, and sat on a trash can.

The old white dude who approached me earlier told me that I probably saved a life today.

I really hope I did.

He knows what He's doing.

There is always another layer of faith one has to penetrate. There's
always something we are faced to accept with faith. Blindly. I thought
it was considered faith to believe in God at all. It is, indeed,
difficult, to accept the existence of an invisible all-powerful being
who you might think who's presence you've "never" felt. I would
understand why penetrating that layer of faith would be difficult.
Then there's accepting other concepts. Pre-destined personal purpose,
for example. Why does God have a plan for us, yet claim to give us
free will? The "why" of the "why". These are issues I can roll around
in my head forever. It can make me go mad, and I could just dwell on
it and forget about the real reason I have a brain at all.
The last and final point of faith, although I'm sure the mysteries of
God lie richer and deeper, is accepting why bad things happen to good
people. Why is pain assigned so seemingly randomly? Is it all part of
a larger plan? Why do so many people get cancer? Is it always intended
to bring his/her family members closer to God?
Why does anyone deserve any kind of grief and pain? I'm referring to
the grand amounts of pain that can break a person, a family, a
generation.
Our nation's economy, the current epidemic often overlooked, that
which there has been a "war" against for a few decades. The "war" on
illegal drugs.
It seems like being able to accept God's plan as perfect and
justifiable by his intentions is the hardest layer to penetrate in my
thick skull.
God has seeped through and has, either by osmosis or absorption,
changed my life, changed the way I think, and changed the way I see
everything. I am not saying that His plan is not perfect, I'm just
saying that it's on of the few aspects in life that I have to verbally
remind myself with. He knows what he's doing. He knows what He's
doing. He knows what He's doing.

In with the new

So my family is finally "out with the old" when it comes to furniture. The "in-with-the-new" part has yet to happen, but my parents have been shopping around. They saw these pieces of furniture and have it all on layaway. They want to decide if it will be the right choice. I'd like to hear what you think. Personally, I love all of it. (Keep in mind; we have a brown floor, there will be a red oriental rug on it that looks kinda like this)

Here's the sofa. (There's also a love seat and chair that look just like it. Oh, and it's leather.)

And the coffee table: (again, there'll be end tables that look just like the coffee table)

and my parents' bedroom set: (that's a night table there, not sure if they're also getting a tall dresser, but it's possible.)

Give me your opinions! (you don't have to go through a long process to put comments on my blog here, just go right ahead and you'll see it's easier than emailing me your answer.)

8 guitars

My brother started taking guitar lessons in highschool. They bought
him a $99 nylon-string guitar.
The guitar lasted about 18 months.
Apparently I was more interested in learning guitar than he was, and I
played that junk til it fell apart.
A lot of the first things I learned, I got from my uncle amd his son
when I visited them one summer in Florida.

A year later, my dad bought me my first electric guitar. It came with
a complete set. A mini-amp, strap, case, etc. Only the guitar and the
amp has lasted til today. I played that guitar so much. I used it for
playing at church, my band Pihsrow, All-City Jazz Band rehearsals,
talent shows, that one gig I had with Anthony that only lasted 15
minutes but we charged $10/minute.
Good times.

Eventually I was in college and it was time for an upgrade. I
purposely got a job at a guitar shop to get the employee discount. I
picked this one beautiful guitar. It costed a lot, but it had a tiny
minor defect in the paint job (which to this day, I still can't find),
so they cut the price a lot. Also, the employee discount was really
really good. I bought that guitar, changed the stock pickups, and I
love it.

This past summer my grandmother felt the need to have an acoustic
guitar in the family and she bought one.
I played at the family's reunion, the wake, the funeral, the second
wake, and the second funeral.
It's been a tough year for that side of the family.
I took that guitar to Boston and have it here. Everytime I see that
guitar I think of my aunts.

My roomate dave has an old hollowbody electric his uncle gave him and
he has his electric that he bought around the same time I bought my
last one.

My roomate mike has his main electric guitar, and a Fender Strat he
got from somebody. Forgot the story behind it. He also has a nylon
string acoustic.

8 guitars in the house.

Prodigal Cymbal

I have a very crazy story to tell.
But..
Let's first discuss the importance of cymbals.

Good cymbals are made by hand. Not by machines. Craftsmen who make cymbals are skilled artists. It's like ppl who carve stuff out of wood. You can't make that in a factory.
Zildjian is the oldest family-owned company in the world and in history. They've been keeping the family name and making cymbals longer than any other product by any other company in the world. It's like 400 yrs or something like that.
The alloy of the mix of metals used to make the cymbals is one of the
oldest secrets in the world.
Also, cymbals are all unique. Two Zildjian A-Custom 16inch crash cymbals will sound different even if they're the exact same model.

I have a cymbal that is very dear to me; cost/value of about $288.
It's not only expensive, but it also has an all-inclusive warranty
attached to it that will last about 3 more years.

I had the cymbal in a round cymbal case. I took a subway and I was
about to take the bus home when I realized the bag wasn't on my
shoulder.
My heart dropped.
My face turned green.
My stomach churned.
My life almost ended.
I ran back down to the subway station and told the security guard to call the subway car driver to check to see if I left it on the train.
I waited for the reply over the walkie-talkie.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
It was the longest 3 minutes of my life.

"that's a negative on the pocket book"

They thought my bag was a purse.
I was suddenly calm.
I might've left it on the bench I was sitting on when waiting for the subway train, just one stop back. I got back on the train, paced back and forth while riding. I ran to where I was sitting and didn't see the bag. I almost cried.

But there. In the corner.
There it was.
I felt like I was in heaven.
The bag was opened. Someone was probing to check for any valuables.

They probably said, "It's nothing."

"Just a piece of metal."

Missing Adult

I saw this poster and, although i might feel a lil guilty about it, I laughed.

I know you can't read what it says, so I will transcribe it here for you:

Born 1-5-81

Eyes: blue

Hair: Blonde Height 5'3"

Weight 180-210

Sandy is a 27 yr old female from Bayonne. She was last seen on Thursday Aug28th at 7pm on 49th and Kennedy. She was wearing a black jacket with black pants. She was also carrying a black book bag. Sandy is Bipolar and mentally unstable. She last stated that she was heading to Hudson County Park but never returned. If you have seen her or know any information about her, please call the Bayonne Police Dept. at blah blah blah or the family at blah blah

Please any help would be greatly appreciated. We just want to bring Sandy home safe and soon.

OK. First of all, SHE IS 27 YEARS OLD. She is an adult. If she's missing, it's probably because she is choosing to be missing.

It's also funny that they mention her bipolar-ness. Does it really make a difference how angry she is, wherever she may be?

Stayes

So my little brother comes up to me and he's like
"what does the word 'stayes' mean?".
I knew he didn't mean "stays", because he spelled it out for me. I
asked him if he meant "stays", but he insisted that he meant to ask
about "stayes", and even added the little extra syllable. I just
googled the word, and only saw ppl mispelling "stays" and "states".
I asked him where he saw the word written, and he said,
"no, i just want to write the word".
This puzzled me. I asked him again.
"Did you see the word on TV? Written somewhere?"
He replies, "no, I just want to see the word. I want to write it."
He literally wanted to invent a word and, i guess, be the first to
write it and give it a meaning.
"A strange future, i see, for this child." says Yoda.