Backlog: Use the Force

After we had arrived in Modesto on Friday, June 1st, and after we had showered and got some shut-eye, we spent the next day at a Star Wars convention. I guess it was more a celebration of George Lucas. He had attended Modesto Junior College, so they put together an event complete with speakers, talk back sessions, trivia competition, Darth Vader, and the showing of some of George Lucas' films. Our friend Danielle Vogus, who has a nickname I refuse to use because of its vulgarity, was instrumental in putting the Star Wars event together. She also got us VIP name tags and was our host for our three days in the Modesto/Santa Cruz area. Thanks Danielle.
I enjoyed the Star Wars event because I got to see the movie and hear a guy give a good talk on the philosophy of Star Wars. Ben got to meet some people who were in the industry, and talked to people who were either making it, or trying to make it in the film industry. We didn't get a picture with Darth Vader.
After the event, we went to Danielle's friend's house. Her name is Mandy and she has a nice van and is a good cook. We had dinner by an outside fire, and Ben was in his prime, which put me in a good mood, and we succeeded at being very awkward the whole night.
We got some sleep that night, and the we actually went to Church!!!! Danielle introduced us to 17 hundred people, then we drove to Santa Cruz. Danielle took us to a cabin and Ben and I crashed on some couches. We were tired. Then Danielle woke us up and took us to some geo-political hotspots around Santa Cruz. Ice cream was first. Ben sniffed the wall. Then to the beach, where I lost Ben's frisbee to the Pacific Ocean. We left the water and went to a place called Pizza my Heart and got some pizza and t-shirts.
It was interesting walking around downtown. At least I think it was downtown. Anyway, like many American city centers, there were a lot of homeless people. And it puts one in an inner struggle, because at first you say to yourself, "It would be awesome to get in an organization that is helping these people," or then you tell yourself, "Man, I could just sit and hang out with these folks," but that doesn't work because these people actually scare you a little bit. It is obvious walking by them that they have serious addictions, and you have no idea what the manifestations of those addictions could be. So yeah, it is a little scary. So those were my thoughts walking down the street, and my ending thought was almost, "There is nothing I can do here." But I was not left with that thought. I saw a guy, dressed like we were, going down the street with a bag full of hamburgers wrapped in foil. He was about my age, and if I hadn't been looking closely, I wouldn't have noticed him asking these people I was scared of if they were hungry. When they said yes, he gave them a burger. He quickly passed us going the opposite direction, but as we continued walking, we saw foil wrapped burgers in the hands of all the homeless people we saw. The guy with the bag of hamburgers got over the fear that I had, probably wasn't in an organization, and actually helped the hungry. This left and impression on me and I know that Ben saw it too.
After downtown, we went back to the beach to see the sun go down. It was too cloudy, but we had fun anyway.
Then it was sleepy time.
Ben, can you pick up from here?
Oh, and the pictures below aren't in any order, or labeled, but you'll get the idea.