Pictures of the water damage to Curaçao

Waterfall by Hato.

Knip baai as it was.

Knip baai as it is now.

Waterfall by Knip baai.

The dam by Muizen berg.

A river emerged 

after a dam broke

MORE RAIN ON CURACAO!!!!!!!!!

 It rained all last night, non stop for hours on end. Today the streets are folloded once again, pot holes re-opened and in hiding. The island in unfit for so much rain, unprepared for it, and still healing from the wounds of the last hurricane. This is the last thing we need.

Lucky us

You are in your home, office, or yard. Go up, you are in a neighborhood, town, or city. Go further up. You are on an Island, state, within a country, on a continent, on the earth.   Now go further up, we are in a solar system, one planet orbiting the sun among other planets and moons. Go even further, so far that our world, and our sun is but a glimmer in a galaxy filled with millions of other suns swirling around and around. And if you can imagine, our galaxy among other galaxies, millions upon millions of other galaxies, expanding further and further away from each other. Suddenly our own Galaxy has disappeared in the mass of galaxies and has become unrecognizable. Try to find your way back and you'll probably get lost and end up at a completely different planet. But let’s assume you remember your way back to earth and arrive back at were you started out. And think about how fleeting time is and how small we humans are within the major context of things.

To get a visual idea of this you can watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXrXTx94aFg&list=PL778ADA8A4726F6C2&index=15&playnext=1

Seeing how infinitely huge the universe is, and how small we all are, think about how we got here, the amount of absolute luck we have had from our planet evolving the way it did, being created from nothing into something, becoming able to harbor life and intern us. We are the ultimate product of millions of years of disasters, cataclysms and planetary collisions. Even the creation of our moon and how it orbits the earth has great implications for life on earth. From our earth forming from cosmic matter, being bombarded by asteroids, meteorites, and even another planets, cooling down to the point where water becomes liquid, and then the miracle of life somehow came about from the smallest elements in the oceans. For a better idea of how this all happened for us you can watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16zeA-c-3vw

We are extremely lucky to have ended up as we are. And as the universe is as immense and old beyond our understanding, think of how much life could be out there. Even if only one planet in every galaxy has complex life, there are still millions of galaxies out there.

So before you think that only we are so lucky, and we are somehow alone, thinking how stupid the idea is that we are alone in a universe permeating with infinite amounts of ingredients for life.

A risk is needed

Why take the risk? Why not?   A life without risks is a life not lived.   Humans have a natural tendency to take risks and do things that could go wrong, it is this trait that defines us as a species and brought us to being where we are. Whether it is Columbus wanting to find a western route to India, and intern finding a new land mass, or if it is your own decision to go after that hot girl and intern meeting your future wife. Every one has his or her own risks and decisions to those risks. One person might decide to take the opportunity to go on a life changing trip, and an other person might turn down the same opportunity, the difference in the two people leis in how they take their risks and if the have the fight or flight instinct, which both actually help humanity go forward. One striving to discover, and further human knowledge, the other to survive, and further ensure humanity's pass into time.

I take my own risks in a manner that suits me, whether it is financial, physical, intellectual, or in comfort. Comfort being a very important one for me. How? Well are you comfortable at home? and would you take the risks to step out of that comfort zone? By moving to an other country or by going on a long trip. Going somewhere to improve your life in the future, so you can lead a better life, or provide better for your children. Or do you stay at home, set in your perfect little world, good job, pay rent, pay-off car, and dog running around, and stay in that little bubble your entire life and do not strive to get more do more and see more.

The person who decides to leave his little bubble and go out to strive further for him self and his future, will get more out of life, will have a richer life, not in wealth but in experience, and will love his life more than the person still sitting at home watching TV. So who are you? The fighter or the fly'er?

Be the fighter, fight through life, get more out of it, and live!

I am rich, I am rich, I AM RICH!!!!!!!

Money is a good servant, and a bad master. It is the duty of every person to be rich, and it is a sin to be poor. So why is 97% of the world poor? I suppose that it comes due to the great amount of hate, ridicule, dislike, dishonesty, jealousy, in the world. Basically the great amount of negativity. If you want to, you can do anything you want, every person on earth has the exact same chemical make up as every other person, and still we think of celebrities, and millionaire of being different. They are not different, they were born just like you, they were also children without care once, just like you, and they also had to obtain their wealth and or fame just like everyone else.

So why do most people live mediocre lives? Because they think mediocre thoughts, and do not expect anything more than that. If you always want more and more and more, you will get more and more, if you hang out with people who are rich and you live your life as they do, you too will become rich. Thinking about becoming wealthy will make you wealthy. If every day you wake up and think; I have no money, how am I going to pay for gas, how am I going to eat, how am I going to do anything fun, I can't do anything because I have no money. And every month you will notice you get more bills, more stress, more and more and more of being poor. It will keep coming to you as you keep thinking so negatively.

If you wake up every day thinking; I have so much money, I am happy, I am wealthy, I am successful, I can do anything I want, I can have anything I want. These things will come to you! Just because you think about them, and they make you feel good. Haven't you ever had one of those day where everything went just the way you wanted it, right into the smallest detail? And haven't those days been some of the best days in your life? That it because your entire consciousness was in line with what you wanted, you were positive the whole day and only got more and more of it as you went on. This is something everyone has encountered, you’re a child, you don't want to go to school, you tell your mom you feel sick and act like your sick. Mom believes you and puts you in her room, AC on, TV on, a glass of water or milk next to you and your favorite TV show on, and all of a sudden you start to feel sick, groggy, and it keeps getting worse! That is because you set yourself, your mind set, to being sick, you wanted it, so acted it out, and you felt it, just so you can stay home, and then you are it. Saying, acting, and convincing yourself, in order to portray your character to your will, and getting what you want, you’re sick in bed.

So if you want to get anything in life, anything good or bad, think it, say it, feel it, will it, and then get it. Just like when you were a kid.

Irresponsibility behind the wheel

Every day I get into my car drive around and come across people who seemingly, do not know how to drive! Just this morning I was going to work and it had rained a bit, driving calmy I was comming to a part of the road with some dirt on it, there was a car comming opposite me and at the dirt came onto my lane in order to avoid the pot holes. All good and fine in my book, as I was still a good distance from the car and the dirt, I got concernd when the car got off the dirt and contineud to drive on my side of the road. I quickly turned on my brights and honked at the car as I went to move to the right to go around the car. Having been nearly run off the road, I waved my arm in protest, at what I now know to be a woman in a wine red old mitsubishi lancer. As I waved my arm I look straight at the woman to see what she looked like, and seemingly the woman was yelling at me; "Wak bo kaya!" (Watch the road). Confused at the crazy lady who thinks she lives in the UK, I went on toward work as normal leaving the crazy lady in the back of my mind.

Some people drive as if they found their licence in a cerial box as a prize, and this seems to be the norm here somehow. I concider myself a definsive driver, always looking out for crazy people on the road who don't know how to drive. But this lack of driving skills is not limited to just pedestrians, bus drivers, taxi's, and bikers also exhibit the symtoms of crazy drivers. Not so long ago, I had to swerve around a small 9 pasenger bus, the driver saw a customer at the last moment and wanted to stop for her. Not concidering he was on a busy raod going 70km/h, he slamed on the brakes in the middle of the road, the car dircetly behind him did not react fast enough and went staright into the bus, I was had a bit of distance from that car and the bus and had to go around them in order not to crash into the both of them. Just an other case of crazy drivers.

One thing we have here on the Island that bothers me constantly, is people who don't use their indicators. Instead of moving their finger a few inches to let others know what direction they are going, people just stop and turn with no thought of using the left or right indicator. Subsequently, I've seen plenty of accidents where using an indicator could have helped avoid the crash in the first place.

I don't even want to start about people with out safety belt, texting while driving, or women putting on their make-up behind the wheel. But one thing I do have to say about irresponsible parents, is please, plaese put your child their seat, with the seatbelt on! Everyday I see kids playing, jumping looking out the back window, and leaning over the fromt seat, and some times I can't help but voice my dislike of this to the parents in the car. And I think that when the day comes that one of these kids goes flying out the front window will be the day parent will take better care of their children and make them sit down while in the car.

So if you love your kids, please, have them buckle up and sit still while your driving.

Black or Green?

Going 'Green' is much more than buying a hybrid car, or putting a solar panel on your roof, or installing energy efficient light bulbs in your house. You have to do them all, every thing you can do to go 'Green'. Whether it is to save money, or save our planet, you do it because of the guilt we all have for polluting our world.

Here in Curaçao our new government wants to go 'Green' as well, new wind turbines, cleaner gas, and so on. One problem though, we have the biggest oil refinery in the western hemisphere sitting in our harbor, good for the rest of the world, bad for our Island. How can we here go 'Green', if we are one of the most polluting places this side of the world? Well simple, we get rid of the refinery. Now allot of people would say, we need it for our economy, cleaning the mess in the harbour is impossible, jobs will be lost, and so on. Yet these arguments are all false, some jobs will be lost, but many others will be created by the project of disassembling the whole place and building something else. Cleaning the harbour is not impossible, with such a small entrance to the harbour blocking it off and draining the whole thing would be relatively easy, this step is crucial to cleaning as the deep layer of oil sitting on the bottom would have to be dug out in order to go any further with the cleaning process. And concerning the economy, all the jobs from cleaning to dismantling, and rebuilding would give money to those in need of a job, which intern supports our economy, and I don't think we actually make that much money from the refinery in ht first place.

If you look at the harbour you can see how much pollution comes out of it daily, so much so that going 'Green' would be a farce and a joke if not done to the highest degree.

What would be good to have replace the oil refinery? A truly 'Green' project, hotels, apartments, beaches, coral reefs, and all of it done in such a way that it would remain 'Green'. Hotels running on purely 'Green' energy from wind turbines, solar panels, any other form of clean energy. Rejuvenating the coral reefs in the harbor, springing life back into it and creating a beautifully addition to the Island. Beaches stretching along the coast of the harbour bringing in a clean way to have people enjoy the water, to go diving, boating, swimming, and playing beach games, a far sight from the giant oil tankers and smoke stacks rising out of the ground and water, killing any thing nearby.

Would it not be better for everyone to have the oil refinery disappear and in its place see and beautiful clean harbour teaming with life from all sides, underwater and above. Seeing beach going tourists instead of clouds of smoke and poison, setting an example for other countries around the world sowing how the worst of places can be turned into the most beautiful of them all, made by the combined efforts of humanity to do the right thing instead of just leaving it at what it is and thinking we can still go 'Green'.

If we put it there we can take it away, and if we take it away, clean it up and bring it back to its former glory, our planet will thank us. Because what is more important than our mother earth?

For more information and pictures on the Curaçao Oil refinery please visit; http://www.gcmonitor.org/article.php?id=92

Than send an email to our government, voice your opinion, and make a differance!