This Saturday we will celebrate our nation’s 233rd birthday — that’s 233 years of freedom, liberty, and the American dream. In this essay which I wrote specifically for today, you’ll find my emphasis on the importance of our military and just how powerful the American spirit is.

Download the essay – All rights reserved. (160 KB PDF)

Full text of Richard Escobedo’s Essay, The Resilience of the American Spirit:

Americans today, more than ever, are bound together by an invisible, powerful and everlasting force. While intangible, this force, better known as the American spirit is resilient when challenged, unbreakable in times of hardship, but best of all, it’s the driving force behind the America that we know and love.

233 years ago today, our nation declared it’s independence from the tyrants of Great Britain — our forebears had sought to relieve themselves of English oppression and to establish a country diverse in culture, religion, and thought. Today, we celebrate that — as one country, one people, one nation under God. As of late, many Americans have fallen on hard times, there’s no use in avoiding the challenges that we face, but what is avoidable is all of the criticism, the arguing, the bickering surrounding our nation’s predicament. By no means am I condoning that anyone continue to stop speaking their mind — if anything is to be taken from this essay, it’s that I strongly encourage you to continue to exercise your right to free speech. But on this day of celebration, we need to put aside our differences and restore the American precept that out of  many we are one.

E Pluribus Unum — the unofficial motto of our nation has reminded us time and time again that alone, we are delicate and exposed; but together, as one we are skillful, robust, and ready for the greatest achievements in the history of man. On 9/11, nearly 3,000 Americans were brutally murdered in the worst attack on this nation since Pearl Harbor — regardless of whether or not that number was smaller or God forbid bigger, we as citizens of the greatest nation on earth were all affected. We feared for our lives — for the lives of others, especially for our freedom which we had taken for granted. But in that attack, in the problems that we have faced since that terrible and haunting September morning as well as in the unforeseen situations which we will confront in the future, together, our spirit has remained strong; our desire to advance our race, encourage democracy, and to defend the sacred heritage of liberty and pursue the great gift of freedom has not faltered. It will be said time and time again that we are one nation, under God, and I firmly believe that — our government was specifically founded upon religious freedom, yet our founding father’s were wise when framing the basis for our nation — they drew that simple, yet meaningful line between church and state which still lives on in the living, breathing document known as the United States constitution.

To those who say that the American century has come to it’s end — that it’s time for us to step aside… silently — that we need to swallow our pride and move on, well, I don’t believe in that and I don’t believe that the millions of Americans who have given their lives so that today, we can celebrate our independence exempt from tyranny, injustice, and despotism believe in  that either. Tell that to brave the men and women who fought at Normandy, tell that to our founding fathers, to the American heroes who walk our streets everyday, unnoticed — tell that, to the Marines.

The fourth of July is truly the American holiday. It’s a time when we come together, barbecue, stand around the grill with friends and share good company. Yet, no matter how much older our nation gets, there’s always something distinct about each fourth of July. Whether it’s a problem which our nation faces, or it’s as profound and seemingly simple as the world being at peace, this holiday, to put it frankly, holds deep meaning in the hearts of Americans everywhere.

We should take today to not only celebrate and take to heart another year of liberty in this blessed land, but to embrace a spirit of appreciation for the brave men and women who have selflessly fought to defend and uphold our freedom; to ensure that there will always be a last place on earth — the United States of America. Often their valor and dedication is spoken of — their selflessness and resolve to see through that our cherished gift of freedom will live on for generations to come — that their children’s children will have something to pass onto their own children — this is the America we know. The America we love, the America in which all things are possible. But, not as often and well, sometimes overlooked are the families standing right beside our sailors, Marines, soldiers, airmen, and coast guardsmen; these military families pay the ultimate price going days, possibly even weeks without hearing from a loved one who is deployed overseas. We are forever indebted to these gallant and spirited men and women and there is nothing that we can do to repay them; It’s in these military families that the character of a great nation lies; they are the gatekeepers of freedom, ensuring our own prosperity as well as their family’s. We thank them today, as well as each and everyday that we awaken to another glorious, American morning.

Through wars, financial hardship, and other situations which have put our country in a difficult position, the American spirit has brought us closer together each and every time. When angry, it’s helped to turn frustration into patience; in the face of danger, it’s brought us courage; when doubtful, it’s brought us optimism; when sad, it’s filled our hearts with love and tranquility. The power that our spirit has and brings is immeasurable — each time we’ve been tested, the power of the American spirit has pushed us forward, moving us in the right direction in order to deliver again our beloved freedom. But what few realize is that the American spirit resonates within all of us — whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, we, as citizens of America make up the very fabric of the American spirit. And that is something that I’m especially proud to be apart of.

Happy fourth of July, and may God bless America.

While randomly surfing the Internets yesterday I found “TREK YOURSELF.” It’s similar to “Elf Yourself” from OfficeMax during the holiday season, but this time around you’re turning yourself into a real live talking Star Trek character. I must say, the program does a pretty good job of not making it seem ridiculously fake — or too real; it’s a perfect blend of reality and fiction. Take a look at me:

Yep, I think you can tell it’s me.

I recently took the “George Bush Loyalty Quiz” on About.com — and this was my result:

I don’t know if I’d want a third term or necessarily to have him as president for life but I believe that he doesn’t get as much credit as he deserves… Nonetheless, he wasn’t perfect and I acknowledge his mistakes.

Of course, every time that I’m given the chance to blame President Clinton, I take it! My opinion of President Clinton… well, I’ll save that for another blog post.

I must say, it really sucks to be Jason on Friday the twelfth.

Via Totally Whatever

As we gather around the barbeque grill this fourth of july, I think it’s important to remember the most popular food in America:

Here’s my newest cousin, Emmy! She was born back in May and my aunt just sent me this picture of her playing around… woo!

When I was younger, I inherited a love for Lego’s from my brother. He would always be working on something big (using the smaller, “older-people” Lego’s) — something that required tons of pieces to make, and well, he would often get upset because he could never find the piece that he needed! I, of course was younger and prefered using the larger blocks (mainly because they were nice projectiles!) so I rarely if ever ran into the problems he had. But, I think he would definitely sympathize with this poster:

(Via @Stammy)

The last week of school I had a potluck lunch with a few of my friends– among the items on the menu were fried rice, lemon chicken (I think… it might have been sesame chicken), pina coladas, a mudpie (which was delicious!) and a whole other slew of things. We also happened to spill a pina colada, but ssssh, our teacher doesn’t know!

Here are a few pictures:

So, I’m writing a book and I’m thrilled! I’ve never truly written the way I’m having to — and it’s crazy. For one, I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that I’m writing a book, and two I’m so incredibly excited to know that I’m going to be an author!

I’m not going to lie — I’m going to flat out say that writing a book is a pain. It’s so strange because when I blog I don’t necessarily have to be super specific — I can just write however I want to. What’s compliated about the style of writing I’ve gotten into is that I have to come across professional, yet I have to adapt complicated technical jargon to regular people-speak.

The hardest part of writing a book is the writing — it’s continuing to write, trying to elaborate as much as possible to get your point across, and of course getting it down. I’ve chose not to type out my initial manuscript because I’ve found the computer too distracting. In fact, in writing this very blog post, I’ve wandered around the Internet and my computer as well as turning to watch some of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (I guess I should just turn off my TV).

Overall, this is a very intresting and exciting process! I can’t wait to have an actual physical copy of the book in my hands mid-winter next year (Feb 2010ish)!

It seems that each and every time I introduce new features on the website, I say “welcome back!” Not this time — for one, I’ve only been gone for three days… it’s not that long, I promise; and two, I use the term too much! But, I must say that I’m glad to be back and am proud to introduce the few new design touches and sections that I’ve added.

I had a somewhat big to do list as you can see here (gosh, was it messy, too!):

Let’s begin with navigation

On the subject of navigation, I conslidated my buttons. There are still the same number of buttons to access certain parts of the website, but I removed a section from immediate view — services. I found that this section was superfluous and while a hobby of mine is indeed designing and building websites, I needed to focus more on my book, therefore I put an immediate link rather than just an image in the sidebar. The services section will still exist — the linkage to it will remain within my about section as I felt that because this is a hobby it represents me and it’s truly “about me.”

The Sidebar, Revisited

Continuing from the previous paragraph, I implemented a new sidebar element — the “Richard Everywhere” module. This new module gives direct, instant access to all of the core social networks that I’m apart of (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace) and is going to be more dynamic in the way that it is updated: widgets have become apart of my sidebar so that the majority (if not all) updates to the website can be performed from within WordPress and not have to be made from an external editor.

A New Dynamic Homepage

The homepage is something that I really count on to help distinguish my website from others — especially since I’m writing a book and that’s of huge importance. Most notably, I’ve introduced an entirely new way to display my featured content. Instead of having to pull open my text editor, edit my home.php file, and then re-upload the file, now I can easily throw a featured post onto the homepage using the Featured Content Gallery Plugin. This will also help to increase traffic to previous posts as it can hold up to as many posts as I need it to.

Plugins Rock

Clearly, I’m a huge fan of WordPress plugins, and speaking off of what I previously mentioned (implementing the ‘Featured Content Gallery Plugin.’) I have also installed a new plugin called “GoCodes” which will allow anyone who may not know what my personal URL for a specfic webservice or social network is to simply type www.richard-escobedo.com/go/SOCIALNETWORK and they will automatically be redirected to that social network. This currently only works for the “core social networks that I’m apart of (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace).”

Posts Are Even Better

Of course, the whole reason this blog exists is for content — whether it’s written or in video form, content is posted and available for everyone to see. The CSS has been updated and now links (both hover and down) match the rest of the color scheme with anything red having been deleted. Also in regards to links, they’re now easier to see within a post — they are now black, bold, and underlined, so they shouldn’t be hard to spot any longer!

The “social section” of each post has also been updated — where you’re given the options to comment, share, or subscribe it’s now 15% smaller (yes, smaller), but more noticable as the background, which is much easier on the eyes helps to distinguish this section of any post from the actual post content.

Advertising

This was something that I’m still playing with — I say that because I don’t know where the ads should go! I didn’t originally design the site with ads in mind, and that is perhaps one of my biggest faults. But, I am currently re-working the layout in Photoshop to allow for ads to be displayed in a much more unobtrusive way. At the moment, ads are displayed between every post on the homepage as well as the individual post page. They aren’t displayed on any page page’s.

New Sections

As you may know (I hope!) I vlog. My vlog is published during the summer (and during the school year if there’s time) and is an essential piece of my website. Being that it’s so important, I of course have to dedicate an entire section to it, and until recently, I hadn’t really done so with any class. Well, now, when you navigate to www.richard-escobedo.com/vlog, you will gain full access to anything and everything vlog related.

I’m also writing a book (I hope you know that) and of course had to create a section of the website entirely book related. This section of the site has a different look and feel from other parts of the website — this is because it is a website within a website. It will be the hub for all things pertaining to my book including exclusive exercpts, media information, and ways to purchase it. Information will be filling up this section quickly, so stay tuned to it for updates.

Overall the website is now in beta — I have officially exited my alpha stage and the overall design and layout you see here is final — but that doesn’t mean that it won’t constantly be evolving. If you run into any problems, please, let me know by shooting me an e-mail. I hope you enjoy it!