On the plate update:

Good bye Colorado. Ill miss your quirkiness for now. Someday I wish to return to be a part of the sun winter state that is you and remain here for a much longer extended stay. For now I am packing my bags cleaning the car and saying good byes. Zach and Kristy have been the best friends a single guy could have. Along with the nieces and nephews. When you are down they cheer you up and when you are hungry you eat their leftovers. I sure am going to miss the home cooked meals enjoyed here all to often. So its pavement pounding time wednesday morning as I make my way up to fort collins and pick up a few ride sharing people kind enough to help out with gas through to California. Should be interesting. So Salt Lake and Provo wednesday night. Thursday quick California trip, pay a visit to the home front. Tim and Wiatte's wedding. A glorious reunion of two people made perfectly for each other. Visiting with my father. Grab some belongings from home and then its back to Salt Lake. Where I will become a full time employee of Buck Wild Mechanical Bull services. Back to the single life only this time I planning on keeping a strict bed time. Sleeping is such a wonderful thing. The last couple days have been troubled with cold like symptoms due to lack of sleep brought on by long late night games of acquire and puerto rico. Well wish me luck as the long drives continue.

The village...whos with me

Turns out there are a few places on this planet that are completely deserted. Ghost towns if you want to call them and totally spook yourself out of a cool experience. So here is what we do: Leave behind today's fast food chains and high paced life to settle in for some good home style living. We might have to buy the town back from the state first, that should not be hard. Its not like they make any money having the place as a park, it so far out there. We are going to need a doctor, a few engineers, bunch of farmers. We bring the town back from the dead, grow crops, setup a couple hundred wind mills and live happy there. We could even make up some crazy story about pig faced monsters that live over the hills to keep everyone from moving away. Come on it would be fun.....right? RIGHT? So the town is named Bodie. Its in the hills behind Yosemite National Park. Great location right. There is a church already built. Gas station, ore mill. Whats not to like about it?

But you do not have to take my word for it.... www.bodie.com

NEW LAYOUT!!

So a friend of mine redesigned their own page and I thought, well if they could do it, why cant I? Right. And it was kinda fun. I am going to try and use this more as more and more of those I would rather keep in touch with are going this route. Writing i feel is a good release for me as well. So things are going to start getting a little deeper here as this site becomes a more personal reflection of thoughts and feelings and explorations of the process of life.

EVERYTHING IS AMAZING, no one is happy

The age we live in, come on people paaalease. We have so much, and it is as though the world owes it to us. The other day I drove to Utah from Colorado (a trip that would take months of planning and preparation to start, and a month or two to complete) and I managed it in 8 hours. During the trip, on a clear night after a storm rolled through, the temperatures in Wyoming dropped who knows how low and the temperature gauge in the car drops below the line. I guess the term would be over cooling. I might be the first to experience it and will thus name it heater not working, teeth shivering, spine contorting cold effect, HNW for short. So HNW kicks in and i have no idea what to do. I pull over and call the one man I know that can fix all problems, my dad. He remembers a time when he was in college and he experienced the same problem and to solve it blocked the air flowing into the engine compartment to keep the engine running warmer. So I pulled the floor carpets out of the back seat and put them between the radiator and the grill and continued my journey at 65 miles an hour without the heater until i arrived. Worried, not at all, I had a nice sleeping bag on board and would have easily pulled over and slept through the night to wait for warmer daylight to travel. I was a little prepared. But I started thinking about how relatively easy and unproblematic that travel was compared to what some people have to go through. People ask me how i can do that sort of travel (as i make it a point to make as many random trips as possible) and not get totally bothered by it. It does bother me. But it helps to mentally think of people doing that sort of thing all over the united states all the time. I watched a show about a Bolivian family recently that hikes for three days in the highest parts of the world, sometimes losing their sandals, while wrestling llamas strapped with bricks of salt, with negative degree nights, only to ship salt to a few small villages way out of the way and exchange it for some fruits and vegetables for their own village. Is that not crazy? Why do we let ourselves get so upset over the stupidest things, oh my phone is taking forever! "Its going to space, give it a second". Below i will post a link to a video that embodies my point if my rambling does not make any sense. Its late. Awesome trip to Utah, fun as well as productive as we have a warehouse there and I was able to see our shipment and get excited about that. Also nice to run into Utah friends and enjoy the thrills of Salt Lake. Sawadee, Thai food, succulent shrimp and those noodles that are so easy to lose, in your mouth.

So the link is not working, but he talks about how rotary phones where crazy and not too old, but we would get bugged by people with two zeros in their number cause that meant you had to go all the way around. Or how phones have hiccups when we do not realize that the signal is going to space! And yet we get so upset. Or how traveling is always followed with a day of recovery like it was the worst thing to have ever happened to you. When traveling from New York to California used to take thirty years and some one would die or someone would have a baby and you would end up being a completely different group when you got there. Now you watch a movie, take a crap and your there. Or flight, the miracle that is sitting on a chair in the sky, people should be freaking out every time, OHHH WERE FLYING!!!, but it does not go back that far. Or even on the plane they have just come out with high speed Internet on the plane and it stops working for a second and the guy next to him, gets all bent out of shape because of it, like the world instantly owes him something. Anyway its Louis CK interview with one of the late night funny guys. Its good and I know i cant do it justice.

Oh another point that I speculate about is our interaction with each other. When was the last time you got a letter from someone. How much cooler is a letter than an email right? Its a living contact. Effort was put into it. How much of today's society is based on nonliving contact with other people. I am man enough now to admit that at one point in my life I watched a few episodes of stargate sg1 and in one of those it shows the human race unable to communicate with other humans face to face, they all relied on computer interface. Anyway, how dead of a way is that to be a part of others lives. Or that sometimes we think to call someone and then hesitate because we might bother them. Chances are they would love to hear from you two, and are thinking the same thing. Or maybe the fact that we are overwhelmed with keeping in touch with two many people. Where do we focus our human interaction? How do we make more living connections with people? Anyone, please... love to hear it.

Chacos

So i decided it was time, after countless miles in desert sand and mountain snow (or even mountain sand and desert snow), to send my Chacos in for repairs. They are Chaco flops and i have a hard time saying this but i like them more than rainbow sandals. Rainbows definitely win personality, the way they would curl up after getting them wet and leaving them to dry outside in the sun. During wilderness work I was convinced to buy some Chaco flops as we wilderness type received a crazy half off discount or something crazy like that discount. Pro deal they called it. They have been with me through so much.....



.....new year and a new me, i had a long stare at the old sandals and with the same smug of a lifelong dog owner finally admitting his rambunctious best friend should do no more harm procreating the world with more rambunctious offspring and said "Well lets get you fixed." It all happened so fast and then they were gone. Packaged and sent to Chaco town Colorado. Working in the basement all day i hardly noticed they were gone. And they sent me a new pair. How is that for awesome. Thanks you Chaco's for making me proud to buy US manufactured products and then backing it up a hundred fold.

THE MOTHERLODE

Its here again. Awesome pictures from the past.
I have found the motherlode of awesome old parent pictures. Motherlode studios that is. Family friend Bob Calkins has been taking pictures of my parents since before any of us kids came along. Each one is a classic. Especially the one of my fathers old VW bug. Only recently did I hear stories of the bug driving down main street in Placerville with its wooden bumper smoking next to the heat of the exhaust. The famous happy valley with my mother playing some kind of instrument.

Goodly Parents

Holy guacamole this took forever to get here, but here they are after two trips and copies from BYU's library a month an a half apart, from tif file to print screen function, to cropping in word to copying it into a spreadsheet, saving that as a web page, opening that and saving those as individual files in jpg form. Minus a few steps in between. Needless to say these are awesome pictures. From wence we came and where we are headed. The past holds important keys to the future.

Road Trip to the 25th power.

Crazy fast trip. Nothing but good times. Only almost died three times. Once leaving Colorado, big truck getting over into the lane next to me pushing the person next to me into my lane. All good. Again while driving up to Placerville, traffic stopped and I didnt, so i went into the lane on the left side of the freeway and went up another two car lengths before stopping. No biggy. Lastly on 80 towards Reno, a big truck decided to get in my lane and push me off the freeway a bit. Side of the freeway dirt and little fish tailing. All good we were protected big time on that one. I had to get off and think for a second after that one. But the real fun was had in the good company of the trip. Plenty of good music and car talk as the three almost strangers shared their love to be in California with one another for a good 8 hour drive. Maybe 9. Quick visits Friday night, a lovely lap around Natomas on bikes saturday morning followed by Placerville and Cache Calkins day. Even enjoyed a movie in the theatres with me pa. Eagle Eye, really good. Course when your watching a movie next to the old man its always a blast. Late night of dominoes with comrads. Sunday church followed by the return drive back to Utah and Colorado. Awesome trip. And I turned 25 too.

a week in the life of

So Monday, Zach and I go to the gym. He plays his basketball, I go for a swim. Instead of my usually mile straight routine I switched it up and did some sprints and even kicked a few laps. Lame. As always I get out before Zach does and go cool down while coming up with some ideas for our next website project. Zach comes out twenty minutes later and we make to leave. Just than a tall gangly fellow comes in asking for a wired magazine. We had been parousing a different magazine and replied that we had not seen a wired magazine. To which he proceeds to tell us he is a computer programmer and that "we are going to take over the world." Not finding what he was looking for he starts to leave the room and turns and blurts out "come here, let me get you guys some free stuff," striking at Zach and mine heart strings instantly. We follow him out to his bag and he pulls out some ski gogles. Holds them out to us and tells us to go put them on outside. Zach had just finished his third or fourth game of basketball and I had just swam a good distance, needless to say we were sweaty and after pointing that out to the gnarly dude he would just say, put them on, now stare into the sun. It was kinda bright. Meanwhile he goes inside the building and talks to the receptionist for about 5 seconds before coming back out. He is wearing a pair of Ray Bans and has another set of glasses on his head. Comes over and starts with how he has worked for Audi, Disney, Lamborgini, and now is the third man for Zeal Optics, something about how cool zeal optics are and then "See these ray Bans.... all crap!" and then tosses them onto the sidewalk and slides the zeal optics down over his eyes, real cool like. I pick up the Ray Bans and start checking for scratches before he asks for them back. This is were I failed. I should have remarked about how crappy they were and how I was going to give them to my cat or something. But as I was lacking in the clever at the moment I let the Ray Bans slip out of my fingers. Zach of course saw the opportunity to jump on the goggles and after some minor comments the salesman gave us an email address chicken scratched on a ripped piece of paper, we made loaded up our goggles and left. Getting back to the house we immediately did our research to find the goggles each running about 150 big ones online. I have a feeling we both made out winners of the situation. Dude won in the sense that we are now loyal promoters of Zeal Optics and their unbeatably awesome goggles. And we came out winners having walked away with some sweat new goggles that Zach and Kristy had already made plans to go get before the first snow fall. That was monday. Crazy.

Wednesday I managed to jump back in the pool and pull out a hundred laps straight. Counting laps with every breath as I was to insure accurate swimming. Its more a challenge of mind as it is of body. Around 30 thrity you go through this breathing struggles where you pull in small amounts of water that require coughing during underwater exhale. That problem runs on for about 5 laps. About lap forty you can start thinking, well if I am going to eighty I am halfway there, which is nice to consider. Fifty to sixty you consider each arm movement and reasure yourself that anything you are feeling will soon be done as you are almost to seventy. Seventy laps measures out to be a mile in a yard pool as is the usual goal. Upon reaching seventy I just made a choice to do another flip turn. Whats one more... the wall is coming up quick, time to flip, or do I stop....I will have to do another one just to get back to this side of the pool and end on an even number of laps.....flipped. Started swimming, than it came to me... whats 30 more. 30 breath... 30 ....breath....30. And so the counting down began. All the twenties took forever, the teens went quicker and bam I was done. 100 laps.

Work was slow as I search for a new web designer. No one really replies to many of my emails. Our old web designer is MIA in romania. Kinda sucks. The show must go on.

Friday night involved an interesting singles ward campout. I could go on all night, but in interest of my sleep, ill give the abreveated version.....
drive up: almost died,
food: only if its off a hot dog roaster over flame,
night hike: scaring foreigners and light time photo fun, fireside: spiritual message that led into communism jokes leading to cheesy jokes leading to everything was funny leading to a true canadian blood melting fat telling stories with fire glow lit face,
sleep: frosty starlit sleep in a happy face sleeping bag on a bright pink tarp,
breakfast: yesterdays frosted watermellon slash black bear food,
morning activities: dont matter what we play our team old men won it all,

And like that it was done. If you want the extended version, let me know.

Puerto Rico for five saturday night, doubloons please...
Sunday was nice and relaxing, got caught sleeping during priest quorum, everyone was looking at me as I was to give the closing prayer. It was a good prayer. A little linger longer and next thing you know I was wrestling in the part with the nephs. Have a good week everybody.

To hell with them, heres to us!

The world keeps on turning as each day beckons us forward to a new string of thoughts and feelings. Having recently experienced a paradigm shift from an in depth social atmosphere to a introverted contingency of personal reflections and ass-pirations, i have been rather emotional about the whole thing. But i think we can all agree that paradigm shifts can be a good thing. Especially when coupled with the right tools to handle the trip. One tool I found comfort in were the recent words from Elder Holland at this last weekends CES broadcast that really torqued with my soul. He opened with one of the prophet Joseph Smiths jail experiences and quoted many who have refered to that time as a temple of sorts. Encompassed about by misery, darkness and hatred the prophet received some of the most loving and kind words of scripture. Throughout the talk Elder Holland wrenched on the singles with the constant flow of love that he has for us. All the while constructing precise bullet points of the key points he wished to get accross to the singles. Refering to our own darkest hours and with reference to Gods love Elder Holland spoke: He does hear us, he does feel us, he is there with us, where he has always been. Elder Holland later gave a reminder of how it could be worse, the which he backed up with deep understanding of how on a bad day you are in good company, the best of company in fact. Toward the end of his discussion he measured out heavens kindess with the words: Bad days come to an end, Faith always triumphs, and that heavenly promises are always kept. And to finish it all off he gave everyone there an apostolic blessing telling us to hold on thy way, fear not, God shall be with you forever and ever. Truly strengthening words he spoke and they shall not be forgotten. Again the world turns and sleep beckons us in with hopes of a new tomorrow, a better me and a better you, and so good night, adieu.