Goodbye Las Vegas

It's been a good 3 years now and I've grown accustomed to your ways Las Vegas. I know when you're awake and when you're asleep and what you like on your pizza. But our time together has come to an end. Graduating it seems has put a distance between you and me. You like it when you can take advantage of people using your wit and guile, and I just might be the same.

So we used each other. I tried to learn what you know and you gladly took my money for it. I'm going to miss you a bit but only about as much as you'll miss me. There's a bit of you that's run down trying to always provide for the rest of the country. You have to be up to some of the best and worst expectations that people have and that makes for tough times when everyone feels like being down.

But you're not a city who likes those of us who have a degree perhaps you think we're too stuck up. Or maybe it's just me. I'm guessing it's time to move on. I'm trying to go out and see what sights there are to see and to try a new thing or two or three. I'm ready to find other people like me who don't think that singing a song can only be done for $50 plus fees at a show that's almost sure to be done every night of the week.

It's not you. It's me.

My email to Harry Reid on Nasa.

I'm a supporter of America as a leader in the areas of science and technology, but it seems that Nasa doesn't have the support it needs to maintain a presence in the world of tomorrow. I ask you to get an ambitious project from Nasa, say going to mars or Venus and lets make it happen.

We need inspirational topics right now and Health care isn't inspiring, nor is defense spending. What ought to matter is the spirit of the American People and how we are world leaders. So I ask that you help us to lead where we need it most in the symbol of greatness that we can lead most the exploration of the Universe.

Ask for an ambitious project get some of our leading minds to explore and then lets make it happen. It'll take minds off of the recession and put them where we need to be. In the future. Thanks much;

Michael Mills

Tasting the End

It came at the end of another class, I got a taste of how life seems to enfold for me. It's been a long time of continuing to plug away at whatever I'm currently doing. A final rush as I tried to make sure everything worked out well. Move a line a little to the left to make the work look good. Cut a little paper, glue a little bit together, and set thing out to be seen.

Then look at all the work that others have done. See just something I like and other things I'd like to tweak just a tad if only they were mine, and still others that make me gag. We discuss things as a class and then turn it all in to be graded. But this wasn't the important part of the day. It was the prelude to the best part of the day.

More than a little tired a friend of mine sits in a chair her head resting on her arm just glad to be done with it all and we talk about this and that while we watch as everyone unwinds from the work we've accomplished. I remember how much that everything I've done in this class even though it might rightfully be called mine is a product of everyone around me.

And then she takes a moment and asks if I want to go and grab a bite to eat, she knows that I'm graduating and this will be the last time we see each other for perhaps a long time. It's not like this will be the last that we'll know of each other in this internet connected age, but here's the signal that it's time to move on and we decide that we want to let the moment to linger on just as much as we can. We stay in the classroom that previously we couldn't wait to get out of, and then complete a few mundane tasks about campus, (she's still got some schooling to do) registration and the like then off to a small resturant.

I try a Hawaiian dish that I've not had before, It's ok and Christmas songs play in the background:
"You better be good for goodness sake"

We talk about the future. When nobody knows the future and there isn't a good guide in the present people get a little anxious. But life is resilient and its not the first time that this has happened for any of us. We make a plan and hope that circumstances will conspire to work with us and make us sucessful. But eventually the meal ends and it's time to say goodbye. I walk back to the parking garage with her, It seems the right thing to do even though I've passed my bike a ways back, a quick hug and then goodbye.

And that's all.
Nothing life shaking no worries.
Sometimes a moment just needs to be crystallized and this is my way of doing that.

Choice and the power of rant to calm the soul

It true that we in America love the idea of freedom. It's everything that we claim to want and stand for. I don't expect that to change anytime soon. I'm sorry to say however that we think that we need to protect ourselves from ourselves and our freedoms. The following rant comes because I'm trying channel some constructive energy into writing even though it isn't the 10 page paper I should be working on.

I'm a little jazzed after watching "Thank you for Smoking" and having a energy drink. It might have been a beer earlier but I'm guilty of misplacing my Driver's license. I'm pretty sure it's in my car in Elko only 7 hrs away from here. Anyway I was looking to dull the pain of this paper I have to write. because as you may not know I have problems when I'm made to do "busy" work. And all this paper is for is so that my gallery practices class can have something worth grading, because like real life there isn't much to grade about it. The work is either done or not done and all of it is subject to the whims of the viewers.

Anyhow I'm hating the paper and trying to get past the headache it gives me contemplating it. When I come across the not so bright idea of getting a drink and writing while my sense of self-righteousness is dull. But as I said there is a problem of no drivers licence.

So I think I've got a wallet full of things with my name on them and birthdate that ought to be enough. And I head to the grocery store in hopes of finding something that tastes better than swill to help the experience become enjoyable.

Apon arrival I'm immediately greeted by a man who tells me a sob story of how he's unable to get a perscription card and how he tried to kill himself. And could I give him 60-70 dollars or take him home for the night. Then he tells me he's a christian and that his christmas wish is for some money for an ID which just rubs me wrong since I'm without an ID myself and I'm doing ok. Besides ID's don't cost 60-70 dollars, at least I don't think they do... Anyhow the only thing he tells me in his abundance of lies that I like hearing is that I remind him of John Lennon. However Lennon was dead 4 years before I was born and maybe he needs to update his references a bit. I gave him 5 dollars to shut him up. Maybe that's the best money I have ever spent.

I then found the object of my designs and proceeded to try and use the checkout and presented my various methods of reasoning towards the cashier that I ought to be allowed to buy my desired beverage.

1. I'm 26 years old and I definately don't look like a 20 year old trying to illegally purchase something

2. Photo ID in the form of a student id card, along with credit cards, debit cards, health insurance cards, and a card showing membership in the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe.

3. It's the press of a button that requires no pain on his part.

However these methods failed to get me anything as the cashier said no and then suggested that I bring a birth certificate with me for this transaction. As I said before I know I'm in the wrong, however it wasn't any of that that swayed him it was that as he said

"There are no jobs" and "It only takes a small infraction before I'm out of mine."

His job sucks. He has to deal with people who can't run a self checkout stand. He has to restock items and it's minimum wage. And he's rightfully afraid that there aren't any jobs in Las Vegas.

But still the fact that it's a crime to sell me something that I should be allowed to purchase at any age, let alone 5 years after the official legal age without some sort of proof of who I am in the form of a plastic card irks me. That there are people who have nothing better to do than try and bust a guy for trying to make a profit irks me. That after all this time we know that smoking kills people and that we still get mad at the tobacco companies for lying to people about the dangers of tobacco, when for my entire life nobody has ever said it's good for you irks me.

Stop protecting people from themselves and allow them to act like adults. We make choices and live with the consequences. I didn't go into computer science and went into art when I know that I'll probably make less money at that. Give people information and then let them decide. But stop acting like everyone needs protection all the time.

I believe in freedom, and I want it even if it means I am wrong. It's the only way that freedom is meaningful.