A utopian college campus comes to mind: smiling 20-somethings handpicked from engineering nodes around the world, sporting distressed jeans and trendy sneakers, pinball across the manicured lawn.  The internal lights of the modern, glass-paneled buildings reveal an illuminated fishbowl of even more hipsters - lording over tech nerd-dom: one ashen from the glow of his computer screen, a few standing arms crossed, engaging in conversation next to whiteboards, others gathering around a single PC, laughing.

Santa’s factory also comes to mind. It’s hard to stand in the center of the Googleplex, Google Inc’s $319 million headquarters in Mountain View, CA, without having the jovial adrenaline rush of sharing a secret. So this is where the magic happens.

The employees – called Googlers - seem to be sustaining that rush.  A well-lit main entrance with primary-colored walls houses a billboard-sized flat screen television, projecting a stream of real-time search queries from around the world; evidence of Google’s mastery of the world’s information.

The traditional workplace has a pot of lukewarm coffee, a stack of flimsy Styrofoam cups, and the occasional batch of cookies made by the sweet human resources lady. But within a competitive talent-driven world, Google has chosen to pamper its elves: free Naked juices (retail value: $3.50), complimentary food of the expensive Northern California variety (avocado turkey burgers, tofu salads, curry chicken), and individual electric scooters for travel to meetings around the Googleplex.

“If you’re happy in the working environment, if things are just there for you that are gonna make you work more effectively,” 23 year-old Google employee Geoff Vitt says, “and for me it definitely works, I mean. Some of the stuff, I don’t need, but I definitely love it, you know? Free food, free whatever, it’s awesome.”

The original building feels as modern as the company it houses. There are individualized 12-foot acrylic pods that have replaced the traditional cubicle; these transparent igloo-like structures are clustered to improve workflow and conserve energy. When Google outgrew the first building, it bought most of the neighborhood to make room for the company’s rapid expansion to 8,000 employees Even today, eight years into Google’s existence, the atmosphere lacks the tense ‘X-the-screen-because-the-boss-is-coming’ attitude and has an egalitarian feeling. Maybe even an idealistic feeling. It’s hard to tell who the bosses ever are, since most everyone is young.

“To come out here and see one of the more powerful companies in the world, where your boss is in a tee shirt and jeans - not just tee shirt and jeans, tee shirt and like ripped jeans and weird shock shoes,’ Vitt says, ‘that was definitely odd.”

“What is keeping you from contacting someone who’s 22 in an Arab country?” I remember hearing Anne Siddiquie, the 24-year old curator at the Museum of Islamic and Muslim Culture in Jackson, Mississppi, say last fall. “I think it’s partially not understanding the need or importance of communicating with people from another country-and just not caring.”

It sounded like a rhetorical challenge, but one worth exploring – if for nothing more than a chance to test and play with exciting innovations on the Internet. So after 36 seconds of Googling, I discovered SaudiJeans, a blog written by a 22-year-old King Saud University student named Ahmed Al-Omran. His pragmatic observations of global political order and social commentary on McDonalds adaptation to Saudi culture in a blog post titled “Do Not Supersize Me” were both impressive.

The author photo revealed a slender, brown-skinned face with Starbucks barista-like glasses that gave the impression of a ruddy intern at a D.C. think tank. Not the image I would have drawn from the mainstream media. A turban-wearing fundamentalist holding an AK-47 would have felt more appropriate.

I was reading his blog, clicking through pictures of Riyadh, and getting a sense of his opinions and thoughts on Muslim young adult life in Saudi Arabia – all while sitting in my dorm at Boston College. That night I sent him an email.

By the next morning Al-Omran had responded with answers to most of my questions. “I don’t think America can win the World Cup, not in the near future anyway.” He wrote. “The interest in football, or as you might call it soccer, is much less in America than almost any other part of the world, which is, from my point of view, a weird thing actually.”

It became hard to imagine the more than 7,500 miles separating us, or the Clash of Civilizations ideology that was supposed to be separating us. They didn’t seem to exist. His idealistic life visions (he’s the founder of an Arab blogging community hoping to offer the world a better view on what’s really happening in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East) and a general uneasiness about the future implications of a cultural misunderstanding between Americans and Muslims (more terrorism) – gave the impression of a liberal American university student.

He didn’t feel like the “enemy.” But maybe that’s because I recognized, as he said, that communicating online could “help us to understand each other in order to build relations that are stronger and healthier based on common interests and not on the difference of (ideological) forces.”

Al-Omran speaks and writes perfect English.  If he didn’t, our cross-continental communication would have been impossible. But even three years ago our conversation may not have happened at all. Talk to most Americans today and they might still think it’s impossible to communicate with people one-on-one in the Arab world – and that’s wrong.

“I read some blogs by Americans,” Al-Omran says. “Reading such blogs alters my view on Americans as a whole and gives me a better understanding of American politics.”

I paused to acknowledge Al-Omran’s global perspective. The revelation was inspiring: If he could explore a new culture over the Internet, what’s holding us back?

I’ve been looking into international blogging as a way for people my age to interact on issues where there may be common ground but no forum. Here is the mission statement I found at mideastyouth.com. Very interesting:

“Who we are, and what we hope to achieve.
We are a group of young students, bloggers, and activists who feel the need to change the current perception of the Middle East as a region. Despite what the domain name suggests, this blog is not only for Middle Easterners. This is for anyone interested in Middle Eastern and Asian affairs, hence why we chose to launch it in English, and not Arabic/Farsi like we initially intended to.
We have one purpose here, and that is to enlighten. Not to enforce our opinions on anyone else. We merely want to be understood. You can consider this blog a way of fighting ignorance regarding the region and its history. Aside from that, we are all people who love and care about our homelands. When we criticize a certain government and the people blindly supporting it, we are in no way bashing the country and its nation. We are fighting for a brighter and safer future. The kleptocratic regimes currently infesting the region haven’t done anything to gain our silence and respect. They need to be followed closely and exposed until civil rights for all is ensured. An incredibly difficult goal to work towards, then, but one definitely worth the enduring efforts.”

The story of today really started about two weeks ago when Ben decided to write ‘For a good time call 203 – 912 – 5168’ (Matt’s number) in the grime on the back of Harvey the RV. Like ‘Wash Me’, ‘Clean Me’ and ‘Honk, I’m Reloading’ – these phrases are there for a laugh and should not be taken seriously. But today, a 24-year old named Kathy from Atlanta took Ben’s message seriously and called Matt so that they could meet up for a good time on his only night in Atlanta. They ended up meeting in the Buckhead district of Atlanta but only spent about five minutes together before mutually realizing that there would be no ‘good time’ between them. I secretly hoped there would be a great story that came out of this meeting – but there was not. That being said, I learned that people are willing to go for the random when you give them a chance, which is encouraging.

This morning Matt and I met up with a group of Morehouse College students for an interview before they left for Christmas Break. Since most colleges are in the middle of exam time or about to leave for the semester, we were fortunate to get them on camera. Morehouse is known for being one of the top predominantly African-American universities, with famous graduates like Martin Luther King Jr., Spike Lee, and Samuel L. Jackson. I’m not sure what the exact racial mix is for the school itself, but the group we interviewed was entirely African-American.

Their backgrounds ranged from all black high schools to predominantly white high schools or upper-middle class to near poverty, so the reasons for attending Morehouse varied. Some thought it would be a great way to surround themselves with people of their own ‘community’ and others just wanted to be in the majority rather than the minority.
I’ve noticed that many of the conversations we’ve had with minorities around the country very quickly head towards the topic of race relations whether we direct it there or not. I believe it’s a point of pride more than an animosity towards the ‘other’ side, but this conversation started the same way. Between the seven of them, cultural identity seemed to be an omnipresent factor in their lives.

We spoke about the connotations of ‘black’ vs. ‘African American’, the nature vs. nurture issue, and the status of the American Dream. Among other things, we spent some time discussing thefacebook.com – which seemed to be a large factor in their college experiences both for better and for worse. The facebook topic led us to a theme about the connectivity of our generation and the potential of the Internet when used properly. As a group, they seemed to view the Internet as the democratizing tool that was envisioned from the start.

This was not my day to blog, but here’s something brief from Oklahoma City - where we visited the memorial. Since I was 12 when the Oklahoma Bombing happened, I never really felt a connection to the event or the aftermath. Reading this piece about a girl around my age, who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, sort of humanized the whole event that I’d previously only experienced through newspapers:

Cartney McCraren, 19, of Midwest City, wife of Shane McCraren; daughter of Jean Morrison of Sperth, SD and David Koch of Rapid City, SD; Airman first class, Trinker Air Force Base; married four days before bombing, she had gone to the Social Security Office to report a name change.
They met at Tinker Air Force Base in January, 1994. In the fall, he was deployed to Italy, and she, two months later, to Haiti. After e-mail, letters, and phone calls, he proposed on Valentines Day. Two weeks before the bombing, they were reunited. They wed on April 15, 2005. Their time together was spent rollerblading, preparing gourmet meals, and serving breakfast Sunday mornings to the homeless at the Salvation Army’s soup kitchen in downtown Oklahoma City.
They planned to start a family in five years if it all went well. Cartney dreamed of working with children and planned to pursue a degree in child psychology. She, like her husband, was a member of the Third Combat Communications Group. She had also been named the Squadron’s Airman of the Year.

We arrived and went directly to the kitchen, where we met a 6’4” black guy with a larger than life personality and a commanding authority over the cooking duties. Like most social situations, he seemed to have been put in charge simply because he took the initiative and no one challenged him. I soon found out he’d also attended the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and used to run a restaurant in a town next to my hometown. Small world. He made a quick witted remark about what he needed done and how we wouldn’t really be able to do it – and with that, we began helping in the preparation of the meal.

A minute later, I started to realize we weren’t the only people who’d thought volunteering at St. Elizabeth’s would be a good way to spend Thanksgiving – so I left the overstaffed kitchen and ventured out into the parking lot where a crowd of homeless was gathering. Apparently, Thanksgiving dinner at St. Elizabeth’s is a big deal.

I decided to take a walk down the block both to wake up and to see this area of Sante Fe – which like the rest of Sante Fe - adhered to the Adobe-style architectural guidelines. Turning the corner behind an abandoned auto parts store, I found myself about ten yards away from a Hispanic man and woman who were sitting on a tattered queen size mattress. The man, about 35, had a black eye and a bloodshot left eye. His scraggly brown hair was matted down by a stocking cap that was the same color of his canvas jacket and gloves. The woman, about the same age, had a wrinkly face and glazed over blue eyes. They both smelled of booze and had been laughing when I walked around the corner. They were houseless. (As I learned later, some homeless refer to themselves as ‘houseless’, not ‘homeless’.)

‘Are you waiting for Thanksgiving dinner?’

Surprised at the question, I was speechless. It had been directed at me and seemed to be genuine. On the surface, the question was obvious, but for me, the subtext was the most interesting. From what I could gather, this houseless man was asking me if I too were houseless, and therefore, waiting to eat at St. Elizabeth’s. Having never been close to houseless in my entire life, I tried to envision myself from his eyes – and his comment began to make sense. With a two month dirty beard, greasy bed-head, and a naturally ‘please feed me’ physique – I could have maybe been mistaken for houseless, (or even trendy depending on what fashion magazine you read). When I looked at my clothing - unwashed jeans and a very faded tie-dye shirt – I realized there was a legitimate chance he thought I was houseless. So I answered him ambiguously.

‘Yes’.

‘Well then come join us…..It’s Thanksgiving!’ He motioned to an uninhabited portion of the mattress - I followed his lead. We entered into a friendly conversation from the moment I was seated. We rambled on about family, the mercurial life on the street, the inefficiencies of the welfare system and the potency of Steel Reserve. As ‘two to three a day beer drinkers’, both Robert and his girlfriend Donna preferred the high alcohol content of Steel Reserve that would help maintain a buzz. I told them they should try the highly potent Hurricane, which Adam has developed a taste for out on the road. It’s sort of like beer on steroids.

I think we were both enjoying each other’s company, so when I told them a little about TYAP, Robert responded by saying, ‘You should film us, the houseless need documentaries to be made too. And when my neighbor Robert Jones gets back, you should interview him – he’s got stories.’

Until yesterday, I’d never actually heard the Mormon (Latter Day Saints) ‘pitch’ from one of their missionaries. The rumors of polygamy, God-fearing church members, and two year missions for the young men/women had made there way to my social circles – but like most rumors, I had not experienced the full truth. So our stop in Provo, UT became an opportunity to see what’s accurate behind that cultural stereotype.

Compared to most religions, the Mormon tradition is very young. It’s only been around for about 150 years, but somehow, it’s the ‘fastest growing religion’ in America. I have my thoughts on why that’s the case, but the unofficial TYAP ‘blog’ rules require me to explain the day before running off on tangents.

We arrived in Provo late at night and were greeted by Matt’s family friend Mary Ann, an overly hospitable and attractive 23-year old Mormon. Most of her friends had gone home for Thanksgiving, so the four of us scored comfortable beds and left Harvey out in the cold for the night. Over a quick meal, we began a discussion about the Mormon tradition. To help explain the Mormon cultural nuances, Mary Ann invited her friend Lindsay(our interview subject for the next day) over to hang out. This is Lindsay:

You can also find her here as the face for the ‘I Can’t I’m Mormon’ clothing line. It’s a big deal on the Mormon scene.

For the next hour and a half, we all discussed the Mormon tradition as it relates to our generation and to us. It’s difficult to do the conversation justice, but here are some comments/observations that some people reading this might find interesting…..
NOTE: This is what I learned about Mormon life from the people I met. These observations may not be true for all Mormons. So if you’re a Mormon reading this and getting angry at me, please don’t shoot the messenger.
1. Provo is a ‘city of virgins (both male and female) with raging hormones’. It’s the hub of Mormon culture and serves as a meeting place for a majority of Mormon couples. A lot of Mormons stay in Provo until they find a partner and then they leave. ‘It’s like speed dating.’
2. BYU and Provo are the places all Mormons know to come when looking for the best marriage partners. Being surrounded by other people with the same intentions makes it easier to settle down with the ‘right’ person. ‘In Provo, pretty girls are a dime a dozen. The competition for good partners can get pretty cutthroat.’
3. Mormons do not have premarital sex, take drugs, or drink alcohol. As a result, the city of Provo has one bar and the only time it’s packed is on karaoke night when the Mormons go there and binge on Red Bull and other energy drinks. Anyone caught drinking is frowned upon.
4. ‘Sure, we think about what sex might be like – but having never been exposed to it makes it a lot easier to save for marriage.’
5. A college party at BYU is like a party at any other college – only without any of the drinking, drugs, or hooking up. They listen to music, gossip, and actually have real conversations.
6. Overall, Mormon’s are very god-fearing and Republican.
7. Since they don’t spend any time drinking, being hungover, or dealing with the social pressures of sex – they can spend all day working out at the gym. And they do. ‘We’re only in Provo for a few years, so everyone wants to look as good as possible when everyone else is in the hunt. The gym is one of the most social places in Provo’ One of the girls we talked with had been courted by 150 Mormon guys.
8. A ‘NCMO’ is the Mormon version of a one night stand. It stands for ‘Non-committal make-out’. Translated: A kiss.
9. ‘We believe in marriage for life and eternity, so finding a guy who’s future looks bright and would make a good father is something we think about all the time. We won’t date anyone just for fun.’ Translated: Since we can’t have premarital sex, we don’t look for a buddy who can give us pleasure. We look for someone who can give us pleasure and provide for us for the rest of our lives. ‘There’s a little bit of gold digging.’
10. ‘Mormons aren’t necessarily more mature than other people our age – they’re just more grounded. We realize temptation is a slippery slope that’s best avoided.’
11. ‘I know it sounds lame, but it’s the truth. All I want in life is to have a great family, great kids, and an enriching marriage that will last for the rest of my life. That’s all I need to be happy.’ Translated: I’m perfect, pick me.

That night, I went to bed thinking about the Mormon faith and how my religious premises had been checked in the last few hours. Were these girls onto something? Is being Mormon the new new thing? Why is it the fastest growing religion? What would my life be life if I’d been Mormon? Could Provo really be a church created community serving as a breeding ground for beautiful people?

The next morning Matt and I went with Mary Ann and Lindsay to the ‘singles’ ward at BYU, where we experienced our first Mormon service. It’s labeled a singles ward because it’s a nice way of saying it’s a Mormon meat market created by the church itself to encourage inter-faith relationships. Surrounded by beautiful young men and women, genetically enhanced from generations of Mormon pure breeding – I felt completely inadequate. I pinched my developing love handles, felt my dirty beard, and thought about my impure (in the Mormon sense) past. To be honest, it was a little depressing – but a positive depressing, like the kind that makes you want to change for the good.

The service itself was fairly boring, with an older man in a business suit spending 95% of the time lecturing about genealogy and the new website he created to track it, but there was a 22-year old guy who got up and spoke off-the-cuff about the satisfying feeling of being devoted to a religion enough to achieve a level of personal comfort that extends beyond the physical realm. He articulated it well and made a convincing case on the benefits of commitment to the LDS tradition, but I couldn’t help thinking about all the life changing (and enhancing) experiences I would have missed growing up Mormon. As with most people, I have a hard time when people preach to me without the ‘life’ credibility or broad understanding to back it up. It just seems false. Sort of Like an opinionated activist who has never learned about the other side.

Besides, our hostesses even said that the ‘most respectable and appealing’ Mormons are the ones who convert later in life after they’ve arrived at the personal gnosis that attracts them to the LDS tradition. Even if they do have a shaky past in terms of the standard Mormon ideals, they are embraced like long lost family returning from a sabbatical.

So where was my Mormon missionary? I didn’t have one. Following Mormon tradition, a young male or female should have found me already and enlightened me on the LDS lifestyle – but nobody knocked on my door. I’m pretty open-minded and would have liked to know all of the options out there. In my opinion, religion should be like a large buffet with various options and samplings for any person interested in taking a bite. Some people may like a more substantial meal, some people may just want the salad – and that’s fine. I just may have liked having all the options available when I was filling my plate. Would I have chosen the Mormon LDS stop on the buffet had it been there? Probably not, but it would have been nice to know the story from the perspective of one of my Mormon age peers – and not from second hand opinion. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m at Boston College, a place with a religious undertone that may have discouraged the Mormon missionary to walk through the freshmen dorms.

Now, with all things considered, why is the Mormon tradition the fastest growing religion? It’s a good question that probably has a variety of possible answers that I don’t know and wouldn’t understand. But everyone has their opinions, and so do I. From my point-of-view as a 22-year old traveling around the country listening to the thoughts and opinions of my peers around the country, I can understand the expansion of the Mormon population – in the same way I can understand the growing popularity of the questionable side of Las Vegas. They both represent extremes that appeal to members of the center who are in question of how well the ‘middle’ is working for them. So, as the present day influences of pop culture, the internet, and increasing peer pressure are introduced to impressionable young Americans – some may feel that the only choices they have are to side with the extremes. By developing a community based around the values many people look for (chastity, commitment, avoidance of alcohol/drugs), the Mormon religion seems to have created an option for a ‘pure life’ – only with an enormous religious component thrown into the mix. It may be a bit extreme, but that might be what people are looking for at a time when everything else in their life is ‘unpure’, or more likely, everything around them seems to becoming ‘unpure’.

Personally, it was a very thought-provoking 24 hours in Provo – and probably even more so for Matt. The experience forced me to look inward more than I may have wanted to, and question my own life ‘plan’. With everyone around me talking about getting married at 21 and 22, how could I not?

On Sunday, while the guys traveled down the famously beautiful Pacific Coast Highway, I stayed behind in Mountain View for an interview with Blake Ross, the co-creator of Mozilla Firefox. The open-sourced internet browser he created has been downloaded over 100 million times and is posing the first legitimate threat to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. At 21, I think he’ll become one of the more notable figures in our generation.

SIDENOTE: Open-sourced means that all the coding(what makes it work) for the browser has the potential to be viewed and improved by programmers anywhere in the world with internet access. Conceptually, it’s brilliant. By creating an online meritocracy, the most valuable programmers rise to the top and receive peer acclaim. In return, the Mozilla project gets an entire online community focused on making it’s browser efficient and ‘pop-up’ free. Essentially, it’s like having 50,000 highly talented employees – for free. The origins of the ‘source code’ Blake began working on came from Netscape, which released their code to the online world when Microsoft started winning what were referred to as the ‘browser wars’ in 1998. Right around that time, Blake started networking in online chat rooms with other programmers about forming a more simplified internet browser that would make it easy for ‘even his grandparents’ to surf the web. After seven years of hard work, he released Firefox to nearly a million downloads in the first day. Since then he’s sort of become the Lebron James of the internet. (Wigs. Is that another one of your outrageous claims you make all the time? No, it’s not. Blake is compared to Bill Gates all the time the same way Lebron is compared to Michael Jordan.) If you’re interested, you can read more about the open-source movement or download Firefox here.

It was planned that Blake and I would meet at 1 pm at the Performing Arts Center downtown before his 2:15 meeting. Being me I waited until 12:58 to test the video camera I’d be using for the interview, so I realized it was malfunctioning about a minute before Blake arrived. The next few minutes went by very slowly as I thought about the options. Harvey, the guys, and the other camera were already making their way down the coast – so I needed to find an alternative or cancel the interview.

Blake arrived as I was on the phone getting directory assistance to the nearest camera shop. It must have been obvious that this was the case.

‘Camera troubles?’ he said.

I explained the situation and he offered a ride to Wolff Camera Shop in Mountain View. Within twenty minutes I had found a small camera with a nice ten day return policy and we began the interview in the corner of the camera shop. It was guerilla documentary filmmaking at it’s finest. We positioned Blake in front of a series of picture frames complete with the fake overly-happy family pictures used to help sell those frames. As I was setting up the camera, Blake took the chance to create stories for his new ‘family’ that would serve as the backdrop for his interview. It was funny.

During the interview, there were shoppers who would walk by and look quizzically at the interview going on in the middle of the store, but they were not distractions, they just added to the environment - and the story. The interview turned out to be great, as Blake honestly shared his thoughts about Firefox, himself, his community, and America. Having already accomplished something impressive at a young age, it seemed easier for him to be honest about his feelings on himself and the people in his world. It was refreshing.

After the interview we talked for a few minutes about our respective projects and the future. It was interesting to realize that despite his background and personal success, he’s not that different from many of the people we’ve interviewed. At 21, he’s asking the same questions, experiencing similar life situations, and trying to strike the right balance between work and play that most of us are on a daily basis. Who knows, maybe even Lebron James is similar.

At 2:13, Blake left and I walked across the street to the Togo’s for a bite to eat. Midway through a turkey avocado sandwich, I found myself in a conversation with a young couple (Pache and Chanel). Pache, was from San Sebastian, Spain and his girlfriend Chanel was from Latin America. They gave me a lift to a good hitchhiking spot, so 12 hours and one Greyhound bus ride later I made it to LA to meet up with the guys. I guess missing the ride along the coast on the PCH gives me a reason to make it back to California in the near future. Not such a bad incentive.

Another good day in America.

———
We arrived in Jackson at night, so it was hard to appreciate the beauty of the Grand Tetons we were driving through. Instead, I got to experience a curvy mountain road while working on a computer with Ben behind the wheel. The darkness made it impossible to ‘concentrate on objects in the distance’ and prepare myself for the hard turns we were taking. It took me until well after dinner in Jackson to feel like I was back on solid ground.

The night brought us to the Midnight Cowboy, a local Jackson hotspot that made us feel like out-of-towners not because we were in the minority without cowboy hats, but because we did not aggressively seek out dance partners from the crowd. Since it’s the offseason, the 18-25 year old ski bum demographic had not yet arrived, so the locals ran the show. Ben, Matt, and I watched in awe as the local cowboys dominated the dance floor.

My favorite cowboy looked to be about 55, had a full beard, a nice black cowboy hat, and a red plaid flannel shirt. Classic cowboy image. He also had no shame. For a span of five songs, I observed his routine. He’d ask a girl (typically half his age) to dance to the live band, then as a song ended, he’d invite her to the bar for a drink. Then she’d leave him hanging and he’d restart the cycle with another unassuming woman. On his third round (of the rounds I’d seen), he plucked a 22-year old girl* from our table and took her onto the dance floor. They danced for two songs and went to the bar for a drink before she returned to our table. This guy’s matured confidence was impressive, despite the latent intentions.

(*Ben saw this girl, Katie, near the entrance of the saloon and immediately recognized her from elementary school back east. She had been on the road for two months exploring the southern deserts with her friend Casey. Small world.)

In a way, he had an approach that reminded me of the older men I’ve seen swarming around girls my age in the New York or Boston night scene. Only those guys perfectly grease their hair, often wear sunglasses even though it’s dark, have jeans distressed by the manufacturer, and Gucci loafers. Surprisingly, their female attraction process is the similar.

So what does this similarity say or mean? Probably nothing. And as my friend Morgan says, ‘when all is said and done, sometimes you can search too hard. Sometimes there’s not a deep meaning to everything. Sometimes Sex and the City can just be watched for entertainment value, and other times you can just want to date someone because he lights you up; sometimes there aren’t answers to the questions…things just exist as truth and you delve into them as needed and not because you need to question everything. If you question everything in life you take away the mystery of it all…and isn’t the mystery want keeps us ticking?

Well said, and I can’t agree with her more, but I’m on a trip where we’re seeing different communities, cultures, and people in a short amount of time, so it’s hard not to make comparisons and contrasts in an effort to find a theme. As mundane as the similarity seems to be between the Jackson cowboy and the city guy – maybe we can call them ‘urban cowboys’, it still serves as evidence of a connection between two very different types of people, which is interesting to me. Maybe there are some common themes we’ll see around the country - regardless of where we are or who we’re with? I guess time will tell.