Steve Munsell "Retard At Large"

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***New Section*** Quotes Shout Outs and Messages...

I am So Drinking This Before I BMX Next Time... ClickHere!!!

I have been super busy lately, I am getting married and have been spending all of my time lately hanging out with eylin and finn and my newest hobby... "Xtreme Gardening and Mobile Farming" I have some tomatos, zuchini, sun flowers, bell peppers and bananna peppers... and a moment of silence for the plants that could not be here today thanks to fuzzy digging them up and laying in their grave... we miss you cucumbers, strawberries and corn... See you next year, I can't wait for spring...

We are having a giant Potluck party celebration for our wedding, so join us... August 9th...

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I have taken 52,117 Pictures since 4/22/2003
Total pictures for 2006 is - 12,173
and in 2007 - 23,356 pictures
and 2008 So Far - 3655 pictures
Not sure how many pictures that is in metric, but I bet it is alot!

Just FYI... Steve

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I cannot tell you why I make so few random faces in pictures, but my good friend
jenna has created a guide to help identify them... The Jenna Guide

myspace.com/stevemunsell

Welcome to SteveMunsell.net Why Make This Site (Besides Because I Can)

Japan From June 16 - 26th was an amazing adventure... It was a fantastic country... Not only beautiful, but enlightening... We ate tons of fresh food, even a bag of peanuts was not drenched in oil like a bag of planters is here in the USA. The exchange of $ was almost the same as it is here... We got 106 yen to $1 so figuring prices over there was easy to do... 100 yen is 100 pennies... piece of cake... Most things were priced the same, and some things were really expensive...

It was neat to be in a place where i could not read most of the signs or papers... I could only say a few phrases... But not once did any japanese people tell me... "You're in japan... Speak japanese" like some rude ass american would... to be in a country with thousands of years of written history and culture was belittling to american history... Although USA history may be epic it is but a blink of an eye to the rest of the world. Neat feeling to be sitting on a 400 year old wall overlooking mountains and a city... Could not do that in america even if things were that old because some kids would have vandalized it by now and ruined it for everyone... Or fell off and sued the city for responsibility that the individual should have taken on himself... the difference between right and wrong.

It made me realize that things that made america great are dwindling away. We have become a wasteful, rude, selfish, lazy, uneducated, and obese country... We may seem to be one of the world leaders, but we are not healthy nor do we set a good example for the rest of the world... Everyone in japan recycles, and has practical use for all space in their houses and yards, all of the people recycle everything they can... Even the oldest people... Imagine your grandma insisting on recycling... Rare in America even with the younger people who have been around recycling their whole lives. Everything was clean, rest areas, public toilets, the sides of the road. No litter anywhere, we spent alot of time driving and I do not think i saw one single broken down car...

Homeless people very few that i saw would live down by the edges of the river at far end of the parks and would build wood framed shacks covered in blue tarps... So even the homeless worked hard to create a better environment to live in. Everyone had respect and honesty towards one another. Garbage men picked up all the trash, not just what they felt like getting and leaving the rest...

The purpose of my rant is to show that i see why our jobs are going to mexico and china... Most Americans expect everything handed to them insted of working hard for it like we used to. Unions although needed in the early industrial years are now driving prices so high that companies are looking for cheaper ways to produce and compete... And getting better workers for less $ from people in countries that want to work hard to better their lives. I think it sucks that nafta and stuff like that is happening to this country, but i now see why it happens. If I were in the same situation it would be hard not to make a descision like that...

The basic kangi alphabet contains something like 1600 basic characters and is only one of the 3 or 4 alphabets that japanese children learn. Ours has 26 letters... And i can't even spell very well... I know a good bit of spannish and a few phrases in japanese... but i am a dumb hillbilly compared to a japanese child. We americans do not appreciate the things we have or the opportunities that we throw away... But starting with myself, I am changing the way i do and think about things. Now I know japan also has its social problems... Suicide, gambling drinking etc... but so does every nation... We need to do things about the stuff that we can change... And if Japan would have had the thirst for conquest like england, portugal, france or spain 1000 years ago, and had the resources of a continenet as large as ours, it would be one of the leading nations in the world. It is a leader in manufacturing and technology, but i mean world policy. and from what i have seen that may not have been a bad thing.

Osaka is a city we visited... 2nd largest in the world... Tokyo is 1st largest... i used to think that when i first went to NYC with mike barnes 12 or so years ago... that NYC was huge... crossing north NJ and seeing nothing but city as far as i could see was so amazing... It is tiny compared to what i have seen now. There are 4 story grocery stores the size of costco, apartment buildings that are so big they house 120 families, more sky scrapers than you can count, parks, huge train systems above and below ground to service not only the city, but to other cities as well. A place like charlotte is considered the country to people who live in a city like that. So don't try to show japnese friends our big downtown... Unless you take them to see how small it is...

Sorry to rant... but the point is I re-evaluated my life and the way i do things to better live. Not that one place is better than another, but taking what is good from both and making all life better sounds like the good plan to me... and then I came home and saw the "Supersize Me Movie" and I got even more pissed off and embarrased to be an american. Think about it... God I miss MT Dew... Oh well losing 5 pounds in a week is worth it... Feeling Better... Steve Munsell