Justin Cecil's Blog

As I write this it is July 20th, 2019. Fifty years ago to this day, Neil Armstrong set his footprints upon the Moon, soon followed by Buzz Aldrin. It was the first time that a human being had ever set foot upon a world beyond the Earth, and so far only a total of a dozen different people have done this. Now, in honor of this anniversary of what is perhaps one of the greatest achievements in exploration and technology of humankind, there's a lot of different territory that I could cover. I could talk about the time my family and I actually got to meet Buzz Aldrin (I got an autographed copy of one of his memoirs at a bookstore in Florida). I could talk about the fact that I truly think we should go back to the Moon (which we haven't done since the early 1970s) and beyond (although it looks like we might actually be going back soon ). But instead, I want to compare and contrast (mostly the latter) Neil Armstrong and Kanye West. The late Neil Armstrong was an accomplished ...

Ever encounter someone, even from a distance, who will probably never leave your mind? There's someone I saw from a sidewalk once that may never leave my mind, someone who every now and then comes into my memory. She's someone I saw for only a couple of minutes, but she left an impression on me. A few years ago I was in downtown Redmond, Washington, walking towards the outdoor mall there while on the sidewalk. A car stops at the intersection and jumping out of the vehicle was a young woman, no later than her twenties I believe, dressed all in black with black hair and glasses. She didn't quite look like a Goth girl but was a couple of steps down. She stood for a long moment on the other side of the street, sobbing and crying loudly, loud enough for everyone across the street, myself included, to hear. Many questions went through my head. What happened to her? Death of a relative? Financial troubles? Mental illness? Drug problems? What was going through this woman's ...

In 2013, after spending nearly two years living and volunteering abroad in Israel, I moved back to the United States, settling into the state of Washington. About a week or so after settling in and getting used to the time zone, I got a job at my local McDonald's. While it wasn't a job I necessarily wanted to spend the rest of my life doing, I did enjoy aspects of it (plus it was the first job I could get, I needed to replenish my bank account, and would work there for a total of six months until I started working at Home Depot) and people praised my customer service skills. In fact, I even earned an Employee of the Month award; it would have been nice if my managers had actually told me that I had earned it, instead of me finding out during my break by seeing my name plainly on a print-out in the break-room, but I digress. Anyway, I mostly worked as a cashier, barely doing any actually cooking aside from heating up French fries and hash browns, along with making coffee....