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space-age meats

2010-05-28T12:30:00.000-07:00

So I have a new idea: A mobile bike repair service in Provo. I took the Xtracycle off of David's bike for him, then thought that it would be pretty awesome to have a mobile bike repair service that traveled by bike. So I strapped the Xtracycle onto my ol' Park Pre frame, got it up and running, and then strapped all my tools and bike stand onto it. Now it's a mobile, agile, bike repair vehicle. I even made a Some Guy Mobile Bike Repair website, and a Facebook Fan Page for it. So if you like me, don't forget to reblog me.

I'm headquartered at:

Some Guy Bike Repair, 476 N 200 E, Provo, UT 84606 (801)872-4531

2009-11-20T20:56:00.000-08:00

watch my layout change like the seasons

i'm about 4 weeks away from graduating, typing this as rachel plucks my unibrow.

i'm gonna go write an essay for my graduate school applications

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just some facts

2009-08-15T20:32:00.001-07:00

1983 was an important year

2009-07-28T10:14:00.000-07:00

Top 100 Hits of 1983/Top 100 Songs of 1983

1. Every Breath You Take, Police
2. Billie Jean, Michael Jackson
3. Flashdance... What A Feelin, Irene Cara
4. Down Under, Men At Work
5. Beat It, Michael Jackson
6. Total Eclipse Of The Heart, Bonnie Tyler
7. Maneater, Daryl Hall and John Oates
8. Baby Come To Me, Patti Austin and James Ingram
9. Maniac, Michael Sembello
10. Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This), Eurythmics
11. Do You Really Want To Hurt Me, Culture Club
12. You And I, Eddie Rabbitt and Crystal Gayle
13. Come On Eileen, Dexy's Midnight Runners
14. Shame On The Moon, Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band
15. She Works Hard For The Money, Donna Summer
16. Never Gonna Let You Go, Sergio Mendes
17. Hungry Like The Wolf, Duran Duran
18. Let's Dance, David Bowie
19. Twilight Zone, Golden Earring
20. I Know There's Something Going On, Frida
21. Jeopardy, Greg Kihn Band
22. Electric Avenue, Eddy Grant
23. She Blinded Me With Science, Thomas Dolby
24. Africa, Toto
25. Little Red Corvette, Prince
26. Back On The Chain Gang, Pretenders
27. Up Where We Belong, Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes
28. Mr. Roboto, Styx
29. You Are, Lionel Richie
30. Der Kommissar, After The Fire
31. Puttin' On The Ritz, Taco
32. Sexual Healing, Marvin Gaye
33. (Keep Feeling) Fascination, Human League
34. Time (Clock Of The Heart), Culture Club
35. The Safety Dance, Men Without Hats
36. Mickey, Toni Basil
37. You Can't Hurry Love, Phil Collins
38. Separate Ways, Journey
39. One On One, Daryl Hall and John Oates
40. We've Got Tonight, Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton
41. 1999, Prince
42. Stray Cat Strut, Stray Cats
43. Allentown, Billy Joel
44. Stand Back, Stevie Nicks
45. Tell Her About It, Billy Joel
46. Always Somethmg There To Remind Me, Naked Eyes
47. Truly, Lionel Richie
48. Dirty Laundry, Don Henley
49. The Girl Is Mine, Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney
50. Too Shy, Kajagoogoo
51. Goody Two Shoes, Adam Ant
52. Rock The Casbah, Clash
53. Our House, Madness
54. Overkill, Men At Work
55. Is There Something I Should Know, Duran Duran
56. Gloria, Laura Branigan
57. Affair Of The Heart, Rick Springfield
58. She's A Beauty, Tubes
59. Solitaire, Laura Branigan
60. Don't Let It End, Styx
61. How Am I Supposed To Live Without You, Laura Branigan
62. China Girl, David Bowie
63. Come Dancing, Kinks
64. Promises, Promises, Naked Eyes
65. The Other Guy, Little River Band
66. Making Love Out Of Nothing At All, Air Supply
67. Family Man, Daryl Hall and John Oates
68. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', Michael Jackson
69. I Won't Hold You Back, Toto
70. All Right, Christopher Cross
71. Straight From The Heart, Bryan Adams
72. Heart To Heart, Kenny Loggins
73. My Love, Lionel Richie
74. I'm Still Standing, Elton John
75. Hot Girls In Love, Loverboy
76. It's A Mistake, Men At Work
77. I'll Tumble 4 Ya, Culture Club
78. All This Love, Debarge
79. Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy, Sammy Hagar
80. Heartbreaker, Dionne Warwick
81. Faithfully, Journey
82. Steppin' Out, Joe Jackson
83. Take Me To Heart, Quarterflash
84. (She's) Sexy + 17, Stray Cats
85. Try Again, Champaign
86. Dead Giveaway, Shalamar
87. Lawyers In Love, Jackson Browne
88. What About Me, Moving Pictures
89. Human Nature, Michael Jackson
90. Photograph, Def Leppard
91. Pass The Dutchie, Musical Youth
92. True, Spandau Ballet
93. Far From Over, Frank Stallone
94. I've Got A Rock 'N' Roll Heart, Eric Clapton
95. It Might Be You, Stephen Bishop
96. Tonight I Celebrate My Love, Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack
97. You Got Lucky, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
98. Don't Cry, Asia
99. Breaking Us In Two, Joe Jackson
100. Fall In Love With Me, Earth, Wind and Fire

[via danish via musicoutfitters]

this should be a tumblr post

2009-06-14T13:42:00.001-07:00

above is a chart showing what has created the current budget deficit, same chart below in pie form.

love to see people blaming "tax and spend liberals" for our current budget situation.

2009-04-15T18:16:00.000-07:00

at the end of the semester, things get a little wacky. this semester, i:

1. didn't start school until the end of march

2. got engaged before i started school

3. wrote ~45 pages of papers for the classes that started the third week of march

4. delayed graduation another semester

This blog is looking more and more like a tumblr, but that's OK I guess. I wish I had a lot more to say but I really don't. I'm looking into starting a nonprofit this year that will promote understanding among motorists AND cyclists that bikes belong on the road, and never on the sidewalk. thinking of calling it

"we'll put a boot in ur butt it's the american way"

"get off the sidewalk, idiot!"

droppin some knowledge

2009-03-11T11:03:00.000-07:00

some things i've learned while working at the state legislature:

CO2 is not a pollutant.

The slippery slope is very dangerous.

The children really need to be thought of.

Gays are the number one threat to America today.

The Google.

Bowser from ShaNaNa is a helluva singer.

My hair looks better when my last shower was 24-36 hours earlier, then goes downhill from there.

2009-03-04T18:46:00.000-08:00

to my rss readers: sorry. this post was really tough to get right.

glad rach didn't know me during the awkward (pics 2-4) phase.

newsflash

2009-02-14T02:40:00.001-08:00

i'm engaged

2009-02-11T14:44:00.000-08:00

i'm getting a home made gift from brittany, which means i'm going to make home made gifts for the first three people to comment on this post. THE CATCH IS THAT IF YOU GET A GIFT FROM ME YOU HAVE TO MAKE GIFTS FOR THREE PEOPLE. ready set go

i don't know what you're doing to me

2009-01-21T21:54:00.000-08:00

I've not been using this outlet enough, so I am making a January 21st resolution to do it more. Beware, January 21st resolutions are not nearly as effective as new years resolutions, so nothing may come of it.

I'm working on a long post about that trip that we took to Cedar City, but it's headed for the trip log blog, and I think that's where it belongs. I admire Dave Kincaid for blogging about ideas whenever he blogs, though it is more rare than we'd like.

There's a new sheriff in town, and I hope Barry makes good on his promises, he's got some tall boots to order, or some other mixed metaphor like that.

I read a pretty terrible article about how legislation is not really like sausage making because you don't actually combine the disgusting parts of the pig into a wonderful delicious treat. I felt bad for the poor writer who didn't have enough self-awareness to at least admit that he was taking the analogy in a completely different direction than was originally intended.

I'm blogging from Rachel's new MacBook.

Shake it in the mornin' til you get it all right.

School is for fools, I'm glad that I'm still on vacation.

sing it as you please

2009-01-14T13:24:00.000-08:00

My friend Evan Carpenter made a documentary this summer about musician Gabe Dominguez, a really great American folk singer/songwriter who is from Utah. It's still in production, but I got to see a fairly recent cut and was really impressed by it. It still needs a bit of cleaning up, but the message of the film was really impressive to me. My only experience with Gabe was seeing him play a really cold live show in April up near Sundance, and while I enjoyed the music, I didn't know much about the guy other than anecdotes here and there from some friends who were acquainted with him. The movie is called Sing it as you Please.

The whole film, at least for me, made it really easy to identify with Gabe as a person, and though the premise of a bike tour is a little wacky at first, you quickly get used to the setting and it seems both romantic and ordinary at the same time. I thought the tone of the rest of the movie followed that, I was surprised at the ease with which Gabe made things that might sound strange, wacky, or depressing (e.g. the story about being arrested for protesting) into more easily digested anecdotes that, while not initially shocking, were thought-provoking.

What struck me the most about the movie is that over the course of the film, I felt more and more empathy with Gabe. His friends, in a non-derogatory way, are a bit stranger than he is, and somewhat more difficult to identify with. This lead me to see Gabe, even as stranger information was revealed about him, as the most like me. What hit home at the end of the movie, in a shot of Gabe in a U-haul that they had rented, talking about the way that people see him from outside, and listing things like plowing up part of the yard to make a garden, or riding your bike more, or going to teach in inner city schools, as impetus for those that call him and others "crazy." As he talked about that it dawned on me that the film made me see his way as so natural that it was frustrating to think of those people that would derogate it without understanding the love that he puts into his decisions. The last exchange is Gabe saying "Just like Gandhi said, 'First they call you crazy,'" and at that moment, you feel that you'd much rather be called crazy with Gabe than be doing the calling.

Maybe I'm especially vulnerable because I sold all of my motorized vehicles in favor of bikes, but I really think that the movie can go a long way toward helping people understand that Gabe's lifestyle isn't just interesting or different, but desirable, even if they are not ready to do quite so much.

In any case, I loved it. Keep it up Gabe, and keep it up Evan. You guys are doing good things.

Report: Vermont Is Healthiest State

2008-12-08T16:06:00.000-08:00

for some reason that title was in the autocomplete of my blog title li'l box.

austin hasn't blogged in a long time. i know it is because he is very busy. my capital letters voice is on vacation right now. if anyone wants to help me to write 5-7 pages about marx's views on modernity i'd appreciate it. <3 y'all.

hey look it's tiny london

2008-11-14T16:11:00.001-08:00

i'm beating austin to blogging about this

that minority report thing brought to life.

this is something that i want to do for my future children

2008-11-13T14:25:00.000-08:00

http://rulesformyunbornson.tumblr.com

wf snap poll:

2008-10-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

do i look like my dad? i like him.

a quick moment in irony

2008-09-24T13:39:00.000-07:00

from the people who are angry that "money from hard working people gets given to lazy people who are poor" comes a corporate bailout to the tune of $700,000,000,000. It's taking $2333 from each hard working american man, woman, and child(it's about $10,000 from the average household) and putting it in the pockets of investors and banks who purposefully made high-risk decisions. People who have been making hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars from their decisions. They're who the american people need to sacrifice for. Damn those welfare queens to poverty and death, they should just get a job.

call it off

2008-09-15T19:16:00.000-07:00

Today was one of the most genuinely great days of my life. Waking up this morning to the sunlight through my small window, I had no premonition of greatness. I didn't think it would be much more than a trudge through class, then work, then class, then homework, and then maybe a bike ride in the evening. That's the magic of the world though. It doesn't have to warn you, and it's probably better if it doesn't. I have no more consumer debt. Or fossil fuel powered transportation. It's liberating. It's one of those positive moments that I want to be able to look back on, so bear with my giddiness.

Feeling free is the best feeling that you can have, I think. And being able to feel free with your friends, not having to escape them to feel free, is great. I think that is the appeal of the Gospel for me, when you are really doing things right, you really do feel free. More free than any other experience that exists. Add some fresh air, and you might never stop smiling.

The weather has been perfect lately. I'm learning more interesting things than I ever thought that I could in college. The world is a pretty interesting place, even when it's having problems.

Riding bikes is pretty much the best, and it barely even costs money. You just have to eat more pitas and hummus than you normally would. The colors are starting to change outside. I'm not sure if you've noticed or if you're too busy reading your rss feed, but you should really go outside and check them out. At night, it's starting to get cold enough that you don't feel your fingers if you stay out for too long. The days are getting shorter and sweeter. They aren't brisk yet, not by any means, but they are more pleasant. Look around; I just did and I wish that someone had reminded me to earlier.

Take some more pictures and share them with me. I want to see your life. I want everyone to see how great everyone else's life is. Even when they're hard, there's a lot of greatness, of magnanimity in everyone.

last night

2008-08-15T07:31:00.001-07:00

last night i had one of these

http://www.baskinrobbins.com/Nutrition/product.aspx?Category=Beverages&id=BV309

Serving Size 1 Serving (32 fl.oz.)
Amount Per Serving
Calories 2210		Calories from Fat 900
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 100g			154%
Saturated Fat 54g			270%
Trans Fat 2g
Cholesterol 245mg			82%
Sodium 1400mg			58%
Total Carbohydrates 302g			101%
Dietary Fiber 5g			20%
Sugar 250g
Protein 35g
Vitamin A			50%
Vitamin C			10%
Calcium			100%
Iron			50%
Calories per gram:
Fat 9	Carbohydrate 4		Protein 4
*Percent Daily Value based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be different depending on your calorie needs.
Calorie:		2,000	2,500
Total Fat	Less than	65g	80g
Saturated Fat	Less than	20g	25g
Cholesterol	Less than	300mg	300mg
Sodium	Less than	2,400mg	2,400mg
Total Carbohydrate		300g	375g
Dietary Fiber		25g	30g Welcome to deliciousness! A creamy blend of Oreo Cookies ‘n Cream ice cream, topped with whipped cream, chocolate drizzle and crushed Oreo cookie pieces. Yum!

time constraints

2008-08-10T19:39:00.000-07:00

Often, I manage to convince myself that I am too busy to do something like blog. Or that I am too busy or in too much of a hurry to clean up. Or that I am too busy to read my scriptures, or pray, or do one of many important things that I should be doing at any given time. This is a fun game to play, but it's disingenuous to the highest degree. I work maybe eight hours per day, then arrive home to waste several more. I meet up with friends, and we shoot the breeze for a few hours, then end up doing whatever we had planned to do. I go to bed too late, then sleep for five or six hours until I have to get up to work again.
What I'm getting at here is that I need to start organizing my time better. So what that means, I'm not sure. Maybe I'll buy an iPhone, maybe I'll just start scheduling everything in my computer, with alarms and other neat alerts to keep me on my toes and doing all of the assignments that I am supposed to. I'm going to buckle down and graduate in April. I'm tired of being an undergraduate. I may not be very much fun for the next seven months or so. It's not that I don't love you, it's just that I don't love undergraduate studies.

disliking and/or hating music/art/people/clothes/subcultures

2008-07-12T19:35:00.000-07:00

There is no risk involved in disliking something. It's fast, it's easy, and in most cases, it makes you feel like you are smarter than the people that like that thing. It's easy to say "oh, how pedantic," or "oh what trash," "what a lack of creativity." It takes no talent, no creativity, and no originality to hate something. There's nothing easier.

Lots of people love to be this first to hate something. This is especially prevalent among high-end alt-people. Noncommittal approval of bands, abandonment of trends and music as soon as it becomes "mainstream," and an air of nonchalance all contribute to the vacuous idea that liking stuff is uncool.

What's ironic about all this is that in disliking things, people are simply showing how terrified they are of taking any stance at all, how badly they themselves don't want to be disliked. It showcases an inability to defend personal taste. The idea that you're better because you find something "below you" just shows how much you care that people think that you are above something.

I love the song "Toxic" by Britney Spears.

let freedom bling

2008-07-05T17:45:00.000-07:00

I woke up in a bit of a panic, my alarm had gone off much earlier and I thought that I had missed the parade. Looking out the window, I saw that the majority of the grass covered by cheap white lawn chairs, occupied in odd patterns of two or three here and there. There was still plenty of space, so I laid back on the couch and fell asleep once again. An hour or so later, I woke up afraid again. Many more chairs were full, and the remaining lawn space was taken up by blankets both occupied and unoccupied.

What I'm trying to say here is that the fourth of July was really great. We saw a lot of awesome floats and tanks and stuff. And a lot of fireworks. And rode our bikes. And went swimming. And rode our bikes. And grilled. And smiled.

Keep on loving summer, it'll love you back.

2008-06-16T01:23:00.001-07:00

sometimes my eyes go out of focus when i am reading or writing, especially when it is this late. as the saying goes, i'm tickling the late night keyboard once again.

this means that i'm highly likely to avoid doing the homework that I should be doing and instead write a great blog post about the foreign service and the associated studying that

goes on while preparing to take the foreign service exam. the reading list says this:

"Given this breadth, it is difficult to provide a definitive reading list that will prepare a person for the Foreign Service selection process, and for a Foreign Service career. Nonetheless, the reading list below illustrates the kinds of books and readings that can set you in the right direction. "

One of the books listed: "Atlas of the World."

That means that I should be much better versed in history and geography if I am going to have a chance at this thing. There are a lot of awful smart people out there, and they probably aren't blogging at 2:28 in the morning. But I am, and so it goes.

This post will signify a transition in my blogging, where I use capital letters again. I think they've been gone from my life for long enough, so I am inviting them back in, as well as inviting in touch typing. And more friendships. And more swimming. And hot weather. And Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. And Mitch Hedberg. And summer jams. And more biking. And new bike parts. It's a party in my heart, and everything and everyone fun is invited. We'll try to keep the not fun at bay for as long as possible. You should try it too, it's surprisingly liberating. Here's a picture of me feeling liberated:

B-rad is there too. Everyone is invited, you see. Get happy. Wear some type of clothes that you have never worn before. Try something that you've never tried before. Summer is the time for reinvention and remedial fun. Get outside, ASAP.

a new look

2008-06-08T15:02:00.000-07:00

i thought that my idea about the hipster cookie cutter was pretty funny, hope that you did too. i was tired of the old look, so i've upgraded to something a little simpler, and a little bit more classy.

in keeping with my ideas from the last post, let me tell you about american apparel and urban outfitters.

the two stores generally make appearances together. while they are not neighbors, they are most often within a few (maybe ten) blocks of each other. both appeal to the same demographic, though AA tries to be more discreet about it. urban outfitters is the one place that tegan can go and be a celebrity, and aa is the place for cool dads. 95% of shoppers at these two stores are college students, so naturally, they are all within spitting distance of a college. four examples: pearl st. in boulder, the u district in washington, trolley square in salt lake, and on university in tempe. the executives who run these stores know that their shoppers don't like to be marketed to, so they do little overt marketing. they're much more astute than they seem. i love american apparel v necks and urban outfitters $15 goofy sunglasses.

i'm going to skip lenses for now

light blue and tan is most probably the best color combination since colors were invented. perhaps it is because the sky contrasted with a field at harvest time creates the same combination, but it looks stellar on a human body. more people, including myself, should wear this combination, paint our cars and houses this combination, and visit places that have this combination. it's awesome.

i've got lots more blogmunition. visit the triplogblog if you want to learn about our trip to washington, from several perspectives.

big fish, little pond

2008-06-01T23:01:00.001-07:00

item one: i'm a buy you some strang is one of the funniest songs i have ever sang

item two: midnight is the best time to blog because you are certain to write something completely silly, and will most likely throw the rules of capitalization right out the window.

item three: my triplog blog is on lockdown right now, google thinks that i am using it to distribute space age meat. they are wholly incorrect. so excuse me for not having poste about seattle there yet.

item four: i scanned about fifteen of the seattle pictures before dave came over to play with ableton live. he made some pretty sweet beats, but i fell asleep in the sunday afternoon warmth. my nose is running like a faucet, but the warm weather is so great that i have no allergy complaints yet. in about a month i will be wishing with all my heart that it could be winter again.

i have some ideas to blog about, here they are so that nobody else blogs about them first

a. urban oufitters/american apparel target demographic and store location

b. 50mm lenses

c. light blue and tan

d. long term storage and its effects on both hearts and ski equipment

e. cha cha (this is a real thing not a space filler)

f. livejournals, and their influence on the current blogging culture

g. sun-bleaching of my hair

h. curb chipping

i. curb painting

j. driving stuff around

k. going to seattle, but this will be on the triplogblog once it is freed from the google brig.

do u have any ideas of things i should blog abt?

time constraints

2008-05-29T18:00:00.000-07:00

What I'm getting at here is that I need to start organizing my time better. So what that means, I'm not sure. Maybe I'll buy an iPhone, maybe I'll just start scheduling everything in my computer, with alarms and other neat alerts to keep me on my toes and doing all of the assignments that I am supposed to. I'm going to buckle down and graduate in April. I'm tired of being an undergraduate. I may not be very much fun for the next seven months or so. It's not that I don't love you, it's just that I don't love undergraduate studies.

2008-05-27T23:16:00.000-07:00

i am so unbelievably sorry. i made a promise, and then i didn't keep it. i feel awful. i haven't been bloggin every day. i haven't even been blogging every week. you've been coming here, hoping for something fresh and new, and you've been disappointed every time. maybe you were looking at your own blog and thought "oh, i'll just click on through to see if rob has written anything clever" (91.43% of the traffic here) or maybe you were just thinking of me. i disappointed you. every day for the last two weeks you have thought, just a little bit "darn, nothing." even if you didn't know you were thinking it. well now there's nothing here but an apology for not writing anything. i don't know if that is much better, but i hope it is.

i'm fascinated by sunglasses. i want to own one hundred pair. even if they were all cheap ones from places like urban outfitters and target. the bigger the better.

i went to seattle this weekend and took 128 photographs on chemical film. i'm going to write a great story about the trip on my other blog, the one that i said would just be about trips. it's triplogblog.blogspot.com

as dp would say,

you're the best.

keep coming back, i'll try not to disappoint you so often.

album review: re-arranged

2008-05-11T23:41:00.000-07:00

mates of state are an interesting band, a couple of people that love each other, animals, and singing together. they are coming out with a new album soon, and i happen to be on the short list of people that get an advance. that's not true, but i still have the new album, called re-arranged. since i got it i haven't really stopped listening to it, and i wasn't much of a mates fan in the past. this album feels good, like summer love and happiness and the type of sadness when even though you are sad you know that things will get better so it isn't so bad.

for some reason when i review records i care a lot more about how it makes me feel than anything else. a good example of this is the arcade fire/david bowie "live at fashion rocks" EP. when win butler sings "children, don't grow up/ our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up" i care every time, because he means it, and i know what he means. that sounds stupid and corny but it's that emotional connection that i believe makes great music truly great. the mates of state album isn't really on that magnitude, but the opening track "get better" sweetly says "forget all your politics for awhile" and reminds me that sometimes, you just have to go outside and love summer. and that's what i'm going to do.

new album

mates of state- get better.mp3

another favorite

mates of state- nature and the wreck.mp3

tickling the late night keyboard

2008-05-04T01:07:00.000-07:00

the new death cab for cutie album leaked. it has some highlights and some low points. the highlights: "cath...", "long division" and "i will possess your heart" "grapevine fires" are all pretty solid songs. long division sounds like it could be off of the photo album, in a good way, and cath is just a solid song overall. i like i will possess your heart because it is an attempt at something different.

the low points. up to this point there had never been a death cab song that i really hated, there were some that i didn't love, but never one that i found completely unbearable. "no sunlight" changed this for me. it feels immature, thrown together, and is just bad. it sounds like an attempt at radio pop gone awry. "narrow stairs" doesn't cohere as an album. there is no common thread, no common sound, it is just a collection of tracks. it's disappointing because i really like death cab, but this time around they just didn't get it together. pitchfork is going to destroy this album.

in other news, the cut copy live show is one of the coolest things that i have seen in a while. one member was playing a tiny korg drum machine and just rocking out as these huge beats roared out the speakers. hundreds of people crowded the dancefloor of the urban lounge and exploded at every crescendo and climax, the whole place was pretty much going wild. i'm going to blog about a great opening band on tunesday, but this was a great show, one of the best i have been to since arcade fire last year. the energy as well as the proficiency were awesome.

i've become addicted to playing tiger woods golf again.

weekend warrior, the conclusion

2008-04-26T19:58:00.000-07:00

we watched ratatouille on saturday night before

on sunday we went to sacrament meeting with my dad and stepmom. it's strange only now to realize that the occasions that warrant my saying "my parents" are very few and far between. the last one was when i got home from my mission. the next and possibly last one will be when i get married. that's for another time though. we got to the chapel as the sacrament hymn was being sung by the congregation. i was glad that i wouldn't miss the sacrament after having missed it in moab by being in the foyer. it was quantitatively the most boring meeting that i have ever attended. we left after sunday school in order to get to my mom's for lunch. the food was good as well as the company, but we hit the road in order to spend as little time as possible driving in the dark.

as we climbed into the rockies i felt frustrated at being forced to move again, for the sixth time since i got home from brazil. for the first time in my life, i felt a strong desire to just settle down. my mood improved as we drove however, the weather and the experience allowing me to lighten up. when we passed grand junction the wind started to pick up, slowing the car down as we drove into it, head on. cresting the hills that separate utah and colorado, it seems that gauze had been pulled over the landscape. dust, picked up by the high winds, made a sort of desert haze that

thickened as we descended into the valley toward green river.

we couldn't resist stopping in thompson springs again to take spooky pictures of the thick dust's effect on the town. i drove on, and soon we were descending the canyon once again, seeing the lights of utah valley swing into and out of view as we curved along the turns. i didn't really have a place to stay, so i called hawkins, but i knew it would all work out, and soon i would be enjoying another utah summer.

whew, glad that is over. i am going to start a triblog( tripblog) and anyone who wants to write trip reports will be invited to contribute, otherwise i'll just post mine there, so that they don't clog up this blog. thanks for reading

weekend warrior, pt. trois

2008-04-24T18:09:00.000-07:00

on saturday afternoon we drove to thornton, taking the tollway. i handed my cup of change to brittany and asked her to pick out change to pay the tolls through to thornton. after a few seconds she squeaked and grabbed her finger, i had forgotten to tell her that there were some razor blades that i had put into the cup for lack of a better storage locale. we both laughed and she had a little cut on her index finger that she would use later in the trip to make fun of me. it took much less time than i had thought to get to my dad's.

my dad and gail welcomed us to the house and worried if i still liked chinese food since i had become a vegetarian. i allayed his fears and we set off for

"united chinese restaurant

n sushi"

just a few blocks from my dad's house in thornton, a town which doesn't really have a downtown. the food was good at the restaurant and the fortune cookies were vaguely mean spirited. brittany's read "if it seems that the fates are against you today, they probably are" which i thought was more of a misfortune cookie. after the united food, we chatted and felt the cool of the air conditioning in the back of the room. i suddenly wanted ice cream. the weather that day was so warm and pleasant that it just felt like the right thing to do. on the way to the ice cream place i remembered that i had left my windows down and my laptop sitting on top of everything that i own in the backseat. i didn't worry much, it's not as though the car was downtown. i got a large serving of sweet cream with blueberries and ate it all up, though i had already eaten a lot at the chinese place. it felt good to be out of town, good to relax, good to eat ice cream.

2008-04-24T00:00:00.001-07:00

no time to blog today really, but the weather was pleasant, and i saw good friends and ate good food. and there isn't much more you can ask for than that in the world.

weekend warrior, pt. deux

2008-04-22T15:20:00.000-07:00

my mom was surprised to see us, i had told her two nights before that i wouldn't be visiting colorado during the gap between the end of ski season and the start of classes. i hadn't been planning it then. she was happy to see me, though and had a lot to talk about and worry about. i texted mike drennan to see what he was doing, i knew he was in denver but would most likely be in bars all weekend, and with the weather how it was i didn't want to be inside more than i had to. at my mom's i soon got restless and we decided to go get ice cream and a movie to bring back to the house. we picked up ice cream on sale, i had left my wallet in the car so brittany picked up the bill for it. across the parking lot, blockbuster had posted signs advertising the release of juno, which neither of us had seen since christmas time. it seemed a good choice, light and fun, in the spirit of the trip.

getting back to the house, i scooped ice cream into big bowls and turned on the movie. my mom laughed harder than i had expected her to, and i enjoyed the movie as much as i had the first time. afterward i went to my room, preserved with all of my things on shelves and the same furniture that i assembled eight years ago. i'm not sure why my mom always keeps a room for me. i think it may just be an external expression of her desire for me to move home and help her out. i don't think that will work out.

saturday i woke up to the sun on my face, i had forgotten to close the blinds when i went to bed. i rolled around for a few minutes, hoping to fall asleep again but it wasn't to be. i stood up and stretched in the sun, feeling its warmth on my face and neck, happy to be alive. soon i had showered and was ready for the day, so we left the house to get breakfast in louisville before going to boulder for the morning. i had forgotten how happy pearl street is on a warm april morning. street musicians and performers abounded, a guy selling veggie hot dogs sat in the shade, and we walked, taking pictures and making jokes about hipster heaven. my mom went into one store, and britt and i continued exploring the shops that advertised themselves as "locally owned" and "free trade."

at noon or so we all met and walked east on pearl until the walking mall ended, and kept on, looking into the same small shops selling arts and craft and bicycles. i sat on a bench in front of a pharmacy and felt like the world was a wonderful place to live, regardless of current problems. it felt good to breathe deeply and relax after stress from work and money and everything else in the world. i realized that we had only paid for two hours of parking and needed to go back to the car, about eight blocks away. we left pearl and walked up spruce to avoid dawdling. i was relieved when i saw that nothing was on the windshield, and felt a little silly for hurrying when i saw that we had forty five minutes left on the meter. mom put the top down and we headed for the lunch.

whole foods in boulder is probably the most legitimately granola store in the united states. from the employees to the customers, dreadlocks and patchouli abound. the deli has as many tofu items as meat ones, and the tofu ones seem prepared with a bit more love. we ate lunch and drank virgil's root beer, feeling slightly on display as all the customers walked past the tables.

sunday will be a wednesday blog. oh and since it is tunesday, you really should listen to dj never forget.

myspace.com/fingeronthepulsenyc

dedicate 40mb or so of your hard drive to this mix, you won't regret it.

down and out at the rooftop hang

weekend warrior

2008-04-21T07:38:00.000-07:00

this would be the second weekend in a row that i spent out of provo, but it felt right to leave. thursday night, at marni's party i invited her and brittany to come along. marni had other commitments, but britt could come, so i cajoled her into leaving town with me. i slept at dave hawkins house and slept in before going to breakfast with him at village inn. for some reason memories of mission ideas and stories kept coming to mind, so we talked about them. christian was getting married soon, dave was thinking about marriage, and it seems that i am the only one without any marriage prospects on the horizon. that's all right though, i'm more worried about losing friends than gaining a wife for the time being. all of my friends at byu were stressed about finals and final papers. it's surreal to be on vacation when everyone you know is at their most stressed. i felt happy that i wasn't worried, but excited to start school again.

i unloaded the front seat of my car at my new apartment, but left the rest of my belongings in the back seat and the trunk. just about everything important to me in the world was in that back seat, from clothes to journals to books. i didn't worry too much about theft, most of what i hold dear has little monetary value. brittany called me at twelve forty five and said that she was ready to go, so i headed straight for her apartment and left my guitar there to make some more room in the back seat for her stuff. when she asked what our plans were for the weekend i answered honestly: i had none. the most important part of the trip for me was already happening. packing up, leaving town and knowing that there is an open road ahead bring me a relief that is hard to explain. once we got to denver we would figure it out. the weather was forecasted to be beautiful, and boulder is a great town to visit when it is beautiful out.

i had never really spent time alone with brittany, but road trips are as good a time as any to deepen a friendship. seven hours when talking and not talking are equally comfortable. we spent some time discussing our families, and some time just being excited about nice weather and road trips. when i turned from us-6 onto i-70, i remembered thompson springs, the nearly deserted town between green river and fruita. we stopped to take pictures, examining the deserted motel and the disconnected railroad switch for a deserted train station. the weather was unbearably beautiful. i took about fifteen pictured, brittany had more film and took more. about half an hour later we were back on the road.

when i left the highway in grand junction the sun was still high in the western sky, but i knew it wold disappear quickly as we climbed into the rockies through glenwood canyon. i put gas in the car and calculated our mileage, and old habit that is mostly for self gratification. on the road again i didn't feel much desire to speed, so we cruised along at eighty or so the rest of the way. in glenwood i told brittany stories from this same trip, not thinking that i was a part of a future story right then. soon after we passed copper mountain i was alone with my thoughts since britt sat in the passenger seat, eyes closed, taking even breaths. i thought of parents and siblings, relationship attempts, money, school, friends and more. the great appeal of a road trip for me is the chance to spend a few hours doing nothing but thinking. a few hours without internet, phone service, or talk radio, just music and thoughts. some people have therapy, i have the outdoors and a four door.

i woke brittany up when we crested lookout mountain, and pointed out the clear air and the lights of denver. leaving the interstate, i steered the car onto ward road, cruising through dark, empty fields barren of light. as we crested hills the lights of boulder appeared and disappeared, but the stars were always visible over the dark flatirons that guard the front range of the rockies. soon we arrived and parked in my mother's driveway. sore legs, but happy hearts to have arrived with such nice weather on the way

to be concluded

2008-04-19T22:02:00.001-07:00

blogcation

juno

2008-04-18T22:53:00.000-07:00

should i keep blogging every day?

2008-04-17T14:18:00.000-07:00

moving out, moving on

today i packed up all my things and am leaving the house. i'm not sure where i am going to stay, and my trip to moab got cancelled when everyone else that was going also cancelled. not too fun to go by myself. maybe i'll go to colorado.

there's an interesting feeling to moving, i've been moving every 8 to 12 weeks for the last three years and i think that i should have gotten used to it but still have not. you feel slightly displaced, a little bit sick to the stomach, and figure that you just have to grin and bear it. just about everything that i own is now packed and sitting in my car, which is in the garage of the house that i no longer call home. i've got a few more things to pack, like my router, and my guitar, and my mirror, but everything is pretty much done. i wish that i could settle down for a little while but i haven't been able to yet, i think it reflects everything else in my life right now. i'm constantly reinventing myself, and i guess i keep reinventing my surroundings as well. 'slife i guess.

writing wednesday

2008-04-16T14:21:00.000-07:00

in price we stopped for food and gas, and mary threw up in the bathroom. something she ate must have been bad. members of the caravan milled around the convenience store pointing out funny glasses and foods until everyone was ready to get back on the road. tr left our car and we got vicki in trade. it was mostly quiet in the car from price to i seventy, where we turned off toward moab and the canyonlands. i regretted that i didn't bring my camera. through the sunroof and windows thousands of stars were visible, i spotted orion, cassiopeia, bootes, canis major and other constellations as we buzzed through the desert.

a few miles away from the canyonlands i started playing really exciting music, because it was really exciting to see how close we were to our destination. soon we would be camping under the stars, enjoying the warm weather and winding down after a long winter. everyone in the car was dancing and we passed the others with the windows down and the volume up. we arrived at the campsite to find some more friends who had bought firewood already. the campground was on blm land, which has strange restrictions and fees, but we all pulled in and parked without thinking too much about it. we regretted that the next morning when the site manager came to inform us that we had taken a reserved campground, and payment was required before sleeping.

we laid out our thermarests and sleeping bags under the moon and starlight, not having expected the cold that shocked us when we opened our car doors. the moon blocked out a lot of stars, so we tried to sleep without much talking. everyone near me woke up about two hours later when the moon had set and the milky way was beautiful and bright in the sky. we talked and joked and watched the diurnal motion of the stars as they spun around the pole star. soon i was cold enough that i got into a doubled up sleeping bag with randy and mary, and we all warmed up significantly and slept til morning.

at seven randy and i got restless and started moving, getting out of the sleeping bag and pouring cereal before we remembered that we hadn't gotten spoons, though we had remembered to buy bowls. i slurped down one bowl of fruity pebbles before we discovered that some of the other members of the party had snagged spoons at wendy's before leaving salt lake. i took one on the condition that i return it after i was done. distance from civilization causes some strange scarcities. forgetting something simple most times means you just won't have it at all.

vicki and her gang woke up about an hour after we had and immediately wanted to leave for a hike in the canyonlands. we were significantly slower than they were in leaving the campsite, mostly because we didn't see a reason to rush. the entrance fee to the canyonlands was ten dollars, and we regretted it almost as soon as we had paid. we got to the trailhead where the others had told us to meet them and walked in about a quarter mile to reach the mesa arch, which has a beautiful view of the park. it's an arch that sits at the edge of a 200 foot precipice that extends several hundred yards in each direction. i really wanted to rappel down but we had neither equipment nor willing participants.

we walked back out on the trail, joking about the intensity of the hike, which was mostly meant for tourists, not the big tough outdoorsy group that had come on this trip. as soon as i got in the car, tr wondered aloud where his camera was, then realized that he had left it in his pack, all the way back at the arch. luckily it was only a half mile walk to get it back and he was soon coming over the crest, with a silly grimace on his face. randy's car was almost out of gas when we headed for the gemini bridges.

next time: riding on the mini minivan's bumper

oh, it's tunesday again!

2008-04-15T18:59:00.000-07:00

hey thanks for coming to my blog, i really appreciate it. i hope you are enjoying it as much as i am. before i begin this post, here are a few important questions:

was nineties radio rock as good as it seems now, or is it just nostalgia? here is a list of several songs that were very popular in their time, when you read the names did you want to hear the songs?

matchbox 20- push

tonic- if you could only see

nada surf- popular

the wallflowers- one headlight

the verve pipe- the freshmen

blur- song 2

the mighty mighty bosstones- the impression that i get

sugar ray- fly

harvey danger- flagpole sitta

natalie imbruglia- torn

duncan shiek- barely breathing

foo fighters- everlong

if you do want to hear them i will post them on my blog for you to enjoy

to introduce you to a band that i really like, their name is cut copy, and they are highly bloggable. i don't know their lead singer like i do the guy from last tunesday but that does not inhibit the amount that i like them. here are some reasons that i like cut copy

they sound like they are from the eighties but not in a sucky way
they have synthesizers and drum machines and know how to use them
they have really great album art

they are fun, and will probably be pretty famous real soon

cut copy- bright neon payphone

listen to that track ok, i like summer a lot

which means you get it when i'm around

2008-04-14T13:30:00.000-07:00

a rough draft

at around two o'clock i was in the locker room, packing my locker and thinking about everything that i had done and learned over the course of the season. the people i had met, the days of deep snow, the changes that were coming. randy showed up and i made the decision to go south, in search of warm weather and new friendships. we made slow progress toward salt lake city, not due to traffic but rather to stops. when we got to the house, i immediately left to buy a shirt that i would wear for the rest of the trip. being in a hurry was silly, we wouldn't leave until almost six o'clock.

when i returned to randy's he was about packed up and was loading the car. we went to REI and returned some used camping gear and headed for vicki's house, but they weren't quite ready. Randy drove to smith's for groceries, and he was hungry, so we wandered around the store for about half an hour until we had a hodgepodge of breakfast foods and drinks for the trip and moab meals. when we arrived at vicki's again they were impatient to leave though they hadn't been ready to begin with. we piled into cars with little extra space and hit the highway. traffic was bad through the city, but soon enough we were in provo and picking up more people and things.

i called cory from lehi and asked him to bring me shorts and sunglasses. he met us in a church parking lot where we were getting more people and was headed to spanish fork in a hurry. i hadn't met anyone but randy until that afternoon. tr was in the car with us from salt lake and we picked up mary and crystal in orem. randy drove with little haste to south provo and we met john and jill, transferred the largest, heaviest gear to their mini-minivan and were ready for the road. we still had to stop at the springville wal-mart for some reason, but after that it was smooth sailing until price.

2008-04-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

mobile blogging: i'm on the way to moab right now, blogging from a wireless card in a laptop. weird!

this post actually doesn't exist in the space time continuum

2008-04-10T14:55:00.000-07:00

blogging about blogging. this actually is proven by science and charts to cause the internet, the blog on which it is written, and all nearby neighborhood blogs to fold in on themselves and collapse into what is tentatively being called a "BLOGK HOLE."

why do i think that blogging is so great? because it makes me think that my ideas have value. and that value is for me personally. it's not tangible, but simply a happiness i feel to see that people read my blog and read others' blogs. lots of things in life are highly bloggable, and not just bloggable but talkable and awesome and i am glad that people write down the things that they think are interesting for the whole internet to see. i think it is interesting that i type only 51 words per minute according to a test that i took on this here internet. that may not be interesting to anyone else but maybe it is. that is why blogging is so important. that one guy who thinks that my typing speed is important is now satiated. all thanks to this little marvel of technology.

and just to start the chain reaction, here is a picture of my blog...ON MY BLOG

the hype machine

2008-04-09T12:46:00.000-07:00

i'm fascinated by the way that "buzz" works. a band that i like, called justice became popular in no small part due to bloggers. before the advent of the internet, and smart p.r. firms, "buzz" was generated when one friend alerted another about something enjoyable or interesting and it circulated within that group, ad infinitum. buzz on the internet is now a completely different animal. the most interesting facet of this to me is aggregators like the hype machine. and what is interesting about the hype machine is that it isn't just a blog aggregator, it is a popularity contest for new bands. and it's a good one. it turns out that what a large portion of the internet finds bloggable is generally very good music. case in point: the most popular bands of 2007. here is the list of the top ten:
Arcade Fire
Radiohead
Feist
LCD Soundsystem
Spoon
Justice
The National
Of Montreal
Wilco
Klaxons

i've heard all of these bands and like all of them. except of montreal, but 9/10 is not bad considering the hype machine is completely objective, simply aggregating popularity. now, these aren't the billboard top ten, or even close to it, but just about everyone who is a part of the online music "scene" knows these bands.

i [HIGHLY REC] visiting the hype machine's popular tracks page every day

tunesday

2008-04-08T12:51:00.000-07:00

oh so clever, tuesday will be a day for music blogging. because i have never blogged about them, this tuesday will be about the kid-you-nauts. everyone knows that i love david hawkins, and i love his music. i'll give a few reasons

it's carefree, much like college and summer
davey and his friends are great performers.This doesn't have to do with musical talent(which they have) as much as showmanship. on stage they have a lot of energy, and they don't care who sees it. it's refreshing to see them and how not self conscious they manage to be. there is no "uh, this next song is" or "i wrote this song about" or "this is a new song." they play their hearts out and it's a performance that you can get into.
there is an accordion involved
there are bass solos
the lyrics are unapologetic and may seem childish at times, but then grow up very suddenly. the contrast is refreshing.

here is a song

the kid you nauts - don't snack on my cheese

headlines

2008-04-07T09:44:00.000-07:00

BYU study shows bear pepper spray a viable alternative to guns for deterring bears

Also found spray residue actually attracts bears

2008-04-06T18:47:00.000-07:00

Both of us had stayed up late on Thursday night watching movies, he gangs of new york, I before sunrise, and i slept a little later than i meant to. but at 9:30 I was up and about, and getting my stuff packed to take off. By 10 I was to Chris’ place and helping him pack up his room and car since his contract with his apartment was up. By 10:30 we were done and headed to the car to pray and leave. A quick gas stop and we were on the fifteen by 10:45. The weather was still pleasantly cool but it promised to be hot. Chris told me that he hadn’t slept that night, so I told him that he should sleep as we drove. We listened to bright eyes and made the all familiar journey north. Chris soon feel asleep and I drove on listening to the music. Leaving town is always a good feeling, there is a mystery in the road, and even if the trip doesn’t go right, at least you got away for a couple of days. Once we got to salt lake, I made a turn I never before had, west on interstate eighty towards Reno. And not just toward but to. We knew that Hawkins was a little delayed, but he was supposed to get home on Wednesday, so we figured he would be there by the time that we got there. I pointed her at about eighty and just swept along the desert, the smog started to clear out as we headed west, but it took longer than I had expected it to, the pollution gets trapped against the mountains and doesn’t blow out like it does in Colorado, and it just goes creeping across the plains like an old cowboy until a big storm comes through to blow it out. We were almost to the great salt lake by the time the skies were clean blue again. Our disdain for the atmosphere that sustains our life is fairly callous, I think, but I still drive across the country for a weekend, so who am I to talk. I don’t remember ever having seen the Great Salt Lake in person. I’m sure that I have, maybe as a kid, but I can’t remember. It’s true what Kerouac said, Salt Lake was the least likely birthplace of a Dean Moriarty. The road opens up into salt flats and strange stagnant pools a mile long and fifteen feet wide. The elevated roads, two lanes in each direction, are separated by poison salt water and surrounded as though crossing a narrow sea the long way. We cut right through the hundred and few miles to the Utah-Nevada border, and got to Wendover. With the heat and the windows down, we didn’t talk much except for music suggestions once Chris woke up, but we both could feel the heat of the desert coming on, and the anxiety of a new destination neither of us had visited in our cognizant years. I seem to have a vague memory of my mom putting quarters into a slot machine at Circus Circus in Reno to teach us some sort of lesson on the waste of gambling. We meant to stop for lunch in Wendover since we hadn’t eaten, and I was on the lookout for the right exit as we drove past the only exit that leads to downtown Wendover, so I used an emergency vehicle turnaround to get back to the exit and steer us to McDonalds. Skyler called to tell me to be neat when I moved into the house, I needed to be neat, I agreed. We got our food to go and ate in the car as we swept across the desert, the car was a gold ninety one ford, eighty one thousand miles on the clock. The air conditioning doesn’t work for one reason or another, and across the desert we skimmed with the windows down and the wind in our hair, the radio turned all the way up to drown out the wind. After Wendover we kept on until Elko, where we stopped to get gas at 3.25 a gallon. It didn’t seem fair to have to pay so much for gas, I could recall when it was less than a dollar all over the US. I recently finished reading the jungle, by Upton Sinclair, and much of what I do is shaded by that, I think of the cost of what we eat and the people that make it. We drove across the rest of the big desert uneventfully, Chris fell asleep again, and I sped up a bit, we were averaging twenty five miles per gallon and feeling fine. Hunter S. Thompson wrote about crossing the country to discover the American dream on drugs, Johnny Depp made a movie about it but I think that it is a lot more interesting lucid than impeded like a man on ether is. At about four thirty I called the number that I had for the Hawkins and got an answering machine, two minutes later my phone rang and it was Lyn Hawkins to tell me they had just picked David up at the airport, and he was in the shower. We were a hundred and twenty miles out or so, but I talked to Hawkins and he has a funny accent but was excited. We drove on with renewed vigor, crossing the desert that didn’t seem to end. Reno would have to come out of nowhere, because it has no suburban sprawl the way that towns like Phoenix do, when you know that you are coming up on the city when you are twenty miles away still. We crested a hill and saw Sparks, Reno’s sister city, and Reno, I suppose. It isn’t huge or as gaudy as Vegas, but it still has that Nevada feel, just a little outside morality. The sun stayed above us the whole time and we were sweaty and sunburned in strange ways by the time we got to Reno. We got off the highway just 13 miles before the California border, which would have to be the finish line for a different trip.

bloggable

2008-04-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

there are several things in my life right now that are highly bloggable. number one, the use of the term bloggable.

second, the ski season is almost over. it has been hands down the best winter that I have ever had, and I have skied more than eighty days. that is a new record for me, and i've loved the people that I have met and the things I have experienced and learned. and the goggle tan that i have.

third, living in a house on a large parcel of land as spring begins to show itself.

exhibit a: bulbs breaking the ground near the driveway

exhibit b: plants sprouting pretty green buds

fourth, school season is almost back. that means books and pencils and notes and lectures, lunches and days off and lazy afternoons and evenings, and it means summertime dance parties, outdoors and in, and all the funny that goes with them.

we've also set up the hammock and tomorrow i want to do some yard work, but we will see if the weather cooperates. either way, it should be quite bloggable.

change-ups

2008-03-25T16:46:00.000-07:00

today there was real solid evidence that spring has begun to melt the winter snows and that soon all will be green and warm. and i love that. as much as i love skiing, and my job doing it, i love the changing seasons more. i'm glad for the first day that temperatures hit 55 in spring when everyone breaks out their shorts, and i am glad for the first day that temperatures hit 55 in fall and everyone breaks out their sweaters. i don't just love the changing seasons because they are pretty, or it is a change of pace, or i am tired of the heat or tired of the cold, though i love all those things too. i really love the changing seasons because they are a chance to reinvent yourself. just as nature is reinventing herself, you can be happier, more productive, better looker, better kempt, better dressed, and overall just better or even just different from the you that you were before. i think that new year's resolutions should be changed to spring and winter resolutions. that we should begin our changes at a time when our surroundings are changing. that way it won't seem so out of place.

it's a great time to be alive, it's a great time to get better. i'm getting a haircut soon.

an internet game

2008-03-16T23:45:00.000-07:00

1. Put your music player on shuffle.
2. Press forward for each question.
3. Use the song title as the answer to the question.

What does next year have in store for me?
it's got to be jean - new buffalo

What does your love life look like?
hand in glove- the smiths

What do I say when life gets hard?
tear it up- macho man randy savage

What do I think of when I get up in the morning?
i met this woman- steven wright

What song will I dance to at my wedding?
gonna be trouble- macho man randy savage

What do you want as a career?
love in war- andre 3000

Your favorite saying?
la la radio- shugo tokumaru

Favorite place?
the beautiful burial flowers we will never see- alaska in winter

What do you think of your parents?
ghost- neutral milk hotel

Where would you go on a first date?
israelites- desmond dekker

Drug of choice?
ready for it- the stills

Describe yourself.
as i went out one morning- bob dylan

What is the thing I like doing most?
from the muddy banks of seattle- girl talk (this was a lot funnier the first time around)

The song that best describes the president?
a question of gender- douglas heart

What is my state of mind like at the moment?
no other one- weezer

How will I die?
who is sara stern? - bruno pronsato

The song that will be played at your funeral?
he knows the sun- the legends

The song you'll put as the subject?
let it go- stars

dead in a skiing accident

2008-03-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

i got a text this morning informing me that someone had a dream in which i died in a skiing accident. i found this interesting, because i think about dying in a skiing accident fairly regularly. when i am on the lift, or when i am skiing alone in trees, when no one knows that i am hiking a very tall mountain or that i am going to go down said mountain an a very high speed, i think "maybe i should record some last words, just in case." just in case i run into a tree, or get buried in an avalanche, or fall on my head, or any of a hundred real or imagined deadly situations that i confront a few times every week.

this seems morbid, but i am writing for this reason: this has changed the way that i live. since i started living this way, i try to make peace with everyone more quickly. i try harder to read my scriptures and pray, i try harder to make my relationships count, and i find it easier to avoid the pratfalls of my recent life. it's not as though i have improved overnight or am now the perfect iteration of me, but i feel better about this version of me.

i'm almost positive that i won't die in a skiing accident, but if i do, at least i've been trying a little harder.

2008-03-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

things to do today

1. finish "on the road"

2. clean my room

3. watch no country for old men

a day's success depends on whether you made your goals when you woke up or when you went to bed.

do what you like.

2008-02-29T20:28:00.000-08:00

this is a sticker that i saw and i think is a good philosophy for life. another philosophy to which i subscribe is that everything is great as long as it doesn't hurt somebody. for example, tornadoes. another example, boogers. i was driving my car and looked in the rearview to see the white lines disappearing behind me, a window to the past as i looked forward. the sun was coming down over the wasatch front, and i was moving sixty miles an hour forward. i do what i like, and it's great.

i love being outside, it's one of the greatest things that a human can do. i love john muir and everything he says about the rejuvenating effects of nature. the air, the trees, the open sky. high cirrus clouds and blue sky do more for the soul than any medication ever could. road trips are an extension of that, i think. you get to travel through nature, often radically different states thereof, from mountain to valley, desert to mountain, coast to plain, and appreciate the wondrous world. the change, like the change of the season, coupled with the anticipation of the trip, and the open state of the mind all combine for something good.

thanks.

caralho

2008-02-15T20:28:00.000-08:00

i think that it is worrisome that people care so much about sports and so little about the world around them. not that it is terrible to care about sports, just that if you have to make a choice, i think that the world should win out. in other news i heard someone use the term zero-sum game in a completely inappropriate sense, and i wanted to correct them but i am trying to be less pretentious so i didn't.

not eating meat is a lot easier than being nice to everyone. you would think that self control would extend to all aspects of life, but it seems that some types are different than others. i think that strengths we build, like the muscles in our body, are all much more differentiated than we suspect. the emotional strength to be faithful in a marriage is different from the strength to be faithful in the church is different from the strength to avoid certain mistakes.

daring to hope

2008-02-12T22:55:00.000-08:00

i had never been inspired by a politician until i read "the audacity of hope."
i really like this guy, not to be overly political three posts in a row, but it's something that I care about

2008-02-05T21:57:00.000-08:00

looks like it will be 14-10

change is in the air

2008-02-04T17:17:00.001-08:00

godspeed

dear internet,

2008-01-30T16:57:00.000-08:00

i'm watching adaptation, after having made and eaten two gardenburgers, and a bowl of ice cream. all very tasty. i play fast and loose with capitalization, and i think that everyone should. it's not so bad. capital letters are neat, but not nearly as similar to my soft spoken style as these sweet lowercase ones.

i also went to a chiropractor today. i think that he is maybe a quack. he cracked my back. i think that the good part was the massage to "warm me up." my back knuckles are sprained, he said. he got worried when he felt that my thoracic vertebrae 3-5 were compression fractured. it was a surprise to him. it was old news to me.

i don't know what an "adjustment" is, but i had one and now i am supposed to keep coming back indefinitely. i don't think that i will. i have enough expensive problems as it is.

money for nothing
chicks for free

maybe i need to write a song

gone fishin'

2008-01-21T09:39:00.000-08:00

one of my guilty pleasures is make yourself by incubus

I distinctly remember my brother telling me about this "cool new rap/rock band" called incubus. He bought Make yourself when I was a freshman in high school, and we listened to it almost constantly on our trips to school. It was a good album over all, obviously a bit lacking lyrically, but great for a fourteen year old.

It's official, I am addicted. I can't stop skiing. I meant to take a few day off before work, but instead I caught a ride up to PCMR and skied all afternoon, hiked Jupiter Peak, and just tore around in general. I may have sprained my thumb. I might cry when summer comes. but then again, there is so much to do in summer.

keep it real

substantial

2008-01-15T19:28:00.000-08:00

I haven't written anything substantial in a while, so tonight I will write something great.

Now that I have no homework I have to find something else to master. At the moment, Guitar Hero II appears to be the most viable candidate. It has that inevitable feeling to its candidacy. It draws me in each day, after work I can't help but turn on the playstation and pick up my axe. I'm not sure that it is the best use of my time, but at least it's not the internet, right?

Mitt Romney won Michigan, hope that it wasn't tainted by this, it's tomfoolery I tell you.

I am not a huge fan of the GOP right now. I love morals and all, in fact I have quite scrupulous ones, I just feel that it is as important to encourage equality, fairness, the rule of law, the limitation of power, the support of the poor, and the honor of hard work. I can teach my kids that they shouldn't have sex before they are married, should not have or sponsor abortions, and should love their neighbor. I want the government to teach them math and science, and responsible citizenship. I think it's cool if you agree with me. I think it's ok if you disagree. But please don't throw me in a convenient pile because I think that unions and a minimum wage are good ideas.

When I was four or five years old, I had a tonsillectomy. I could not eat solid food for more than a week, and after a short time I refused to eat liquid food as well. My grandmother flew up to see if she couldn't help my mom take care of me while I was recovering. No food, other than Teddy Grahams that my grandmother fed to me one by one, could sate my hunger. From then on, I knew them as Grammy Bears. Now, much like grilled cheese, they are a food that I can always eat.

get the patron, and tell 'em that it's on

2008-01-14T22:57:00.000-08:00

future blog titles

tá ruim, mas tá bom, or how i learned to stop worrying and love obama

the longest yard, or the kentucky bluegrass mile

publish post

2008-01-12T14:14:00.000-08:00

today i

woke up late and missed work

today i

watched the rest of season three of entourage

today i

blogged

today i

read a lot of political opinion

today i

ate an entire bag of gummi worms

today i

had raisin bran for breakfast

today i

didn't change out of my pajamas

2008-01-07T21:29:00.001-08:00

look at me, blogger extraordinaire.

i skied with hawkins today. it was epic. words cannot describe the supreme quality and depth of snow, the incredibly blue sky, the fantastic sounds of nature and man in wonderful harmony. i have not smiled or laughed in such a way for many years. it was beautiful and wonderful and will live in my memory for many years.

i got paid today, for the three days of work that i did before the end of last pay period. making more than ten dollars per hour is nice. so is working nearly full time. in a paycheck sense. working at doing the thing you most love in the world is also nice. today confirmed for me that skiing really is one of the things that i most love doing in the whole world. it's spiritual and physical and a connection with nature and friends and yourself that i can't clearly describe. i love it.

living in a new house has its ups and downs. one of the ups is creating a tour that entertains people and is a lot of fun. i have a tour guide voice. i tell the same joke repeatedly. i tell children that snow guns produce the clouds that they see in their faraway southern states. i like life. i like friendships, and relationships, and arguments and dates and laughter and beautiful sights and beautiful ideas and beautiful souls. i love nature.

i think that everyone needs to have a day that is like my today. a release of endorphins, a communion with nature, a renewal of life.

i guess they call it affirmation

2008-01-05T23:44:00.000-08:00

I am living in a fantasy world, and let me tell you why.

I work at a ski resort, making $12 per hour plus tips along with seventy other people to ski. Over the last few weeks PCMR has sold at least 2000 lift tickets per day. Plus lessons, plus overpriced food. Lift tickets cost $81. Pretty impressive that a fun thing to do is worth so much to so many people. It's better than Disneyland, I'll tell you that much.

I have moved into my new house at the riverwoods. It's a fixer-upper, of course, but what college kid house isn't. Within the course of two days it went from being occupied solely by Todd to having me, Kenny King, Brett Denney, and one other guy move in. So it is now full. Pretty impressive. I think that I am going to have to give up my faux king size bed. I'll sure miss it. I get paid on Monday, so hopefully my bank account will have more money in it than my wallet does.

I am excited to have three days off of work, I have been going pretty much nonstop since the 26th, and that is tiring. That means waking up at 630, getting out the door, and driving up the canyon every day for that last 12. Some people have been doing it for twenty or more though, so I have nothing to complain about.

There is a crazy man named Pat Cawley who works for the kids ski school. he stays exclusively with the three to five year olds, and has been there for 12 years, though he has taught skiing at almost all levels. I shadowed him my first day at work, he is a little bit slow. Think an IQ of 70 or so. Also he drools when it is cold out. Also he talks real loud and says things like "It's all good today! Everything's good!" and "We're gonna have a catered lunch today!" even though the lunch is great for kids, bad for adults. The whole reason for describing Pat, who is referred to and refers to himself as Patty Cakes, is a dream that I recently recovered from. Patty Cakes and I were in a police car just outside of Heber, a Crown Vic with undercover lights, and we were just waiting for someone to break the law. We saw a car speeding and took off after it. For some reason, we didn't turn on our siren, Patty Cakes just started flashing out headlights. He was driving, and when the van that we stopped pulled over, he got out of the car and walked up to the guy, said some nonsensical gibberish, as usual, and walked back to the car. I was thoroughly impressed when I woke up. My conclusion: my brain has become a toxic waste dump.

I wish I blogged as much as austin.

christmas

2007-12-25T20:34:00.000-08:00

#1 merry christmas

#2 For some great reason I love terrible mainstream hip-hop like Bubba Sparxxx and T-Pain. It's just so catchy and fun to dance to. As much as I love Justice I just can't compare it to "The Way I Are." I went and saw Juno. It was poignant and very funny and very well acted and very well shot. I have no complaints and will certainly buy it when it comes out on DVD. An Indie classic. I'm not pretentious enough about film to be able to do this one justice but I liked it a lot.

#3 In one trailer I heard both Regina Spektor and Justice. In the same session I heard Feist. The movie had two Belle and Sebastian songs. The world is quickly spiraling into an independent music abyss. I bet that in the next ten years or so what is considered "mainstream" will be an inch deep and a mile wide. The internet has been the best thing for musicians and the worst thing for record companies. Yeah, musicians can't make a billion dollars as easily, but they can make a thousand or ten thousand fans a lot faster. I would never have heard Regina without the internet, nor Justice, nor any of a hundred bands that I love. This week my iTunes library surpassed twenty gigabytes. That would be unfathomable 10 years ago. 3800 songs, maybe 300 albums, just thinking how much space that would take is mind bending.

#4 I wish people knew how to drive better.

Music is the new food.

2007-12-19T20:31:00.000-08:00

finals week is library week
People are leaving town for good, the people I started college with are all finishing college (the girls at least). I have never been happier to get an A- in a class than I was to get one in Political Science 200. I whooped aloud, and that was fine. Even though I was in the library. Also lunch with Hawkins is always great. And my car broke. And I fixed it. And blogging.

it is true what you said

2007-12-06T10:56:00.000-08:00

that i live like a hermit in my own head

I was looking through my music to try to figure out what i wanted to listen to, and I realized that just like comfort food, grilled cheese, mashed potatoes, chicken noodle soup, green bean casserole, there is comfort music. It's not too healthy, but it makes you feel better about life. Makes you feel warm inside and at home.

I walked down the stairs and saw two people sleeping against the wall, one's body mirroring the other. I don't think that they even knew one another, their common bond was that of the tired student. My comfort music is death cab for cutie for some reason.

statistics

2007-11-29T09:39:00.000-08:00

"Then make sure to calculate the two tailed sigma value to evaluate statistical significance."

I think that I find out the most interesting words in the world when I am studying at college. Two-tailed. Statistical Significance. What alliteration. For all the talk of professional language and straightforward technical writing, we still sneak some alliteration in there. Don't use jargon, but then again, don't be boring either. Write professional prose.

I'm ditching work to review statistics. Now I have to go back to work, even though I don't have anything to do until I get another set of videos to watch. So I will sit, and talk, and surf. I've become a stickler for correct writing. Poor comma usage and misplaced or dangling modifiers pop out of the page to annoy me, especially in writing that purports to be professional.

I sold my contract. Harold is letting me live rent-free at the condo. It is snowing in the mountains. I'm going skiing on monday, tuesday, and wednesday. I am going to have a job doing something great.

song lyrics can't describe my feelings right now

2007-11-28T22:18:00.001-08:00

oh, and here i was feeling bad when all along you were just doing the same thing.
in my hood all we hear is woop woop grandmaz it's time to run

2007-11-22T14:45:00.000-08:00

i'm thankful for

cookies,
family
family friends
wireless internet
keeping in contact over long distances
nice jeans
old jeans
new shoes
comfy old shoes
new socks
sweaters
hope
dreams
blankets
laughter
beliefs
religions
the english language
good grammar
old cars
drag races
cross country journeys
a quiet yet clean house.

there's more, too

2007-11-19T21:02:00.000-08:00

i haven't blogged in a while. what a silly word.
music is my sister, music is my great granddaughter.
music is my beach house
music is my hometown
music's where i meet my friends

in park city today, i read thoreau, and thought "water really is the only drink for a wise man"

i wish that we could talk about it, but dear, that's the problem

we all sat silently around the table in the cafeteria. decorated in a rustic, mountain theme, it seemed like there should have been so much snow outside. at least enough to ski on. there wasn't. we were all organizing our thoughts, having been put on the spot to teach some skill or little trick. the neuroscience major volunteered first. i was second oldest, there was just one retired guy in his sixties there, vying for a free season pass. the rest were straight out of high school with the exception of a girl who had just graduated from UCSB. after the neuroscience major, the kid from arizona went. he taught how to do a push up, which seemed silly. nevertheless we dropped and each did one. i volunteered next. i remembered all the little tips and tricks from speech class. use an attention getter. ask questions. don't start with "um." don't say "um." speak slowly. watch for signs of interest and understanding.

"who here knows how to make a really rad paper airplane?"

nobody did. now they all do.

mine still flew the furthest.

and so it starts, you switch the engine on.

theoretical framework

2007-11-14T14:24:00.000-08:00

i write words like these

"If a significant statistical relationship exists between education levels and incumbent support, I will conclude that citizens with lower levels of education are more likely to favor incumbents, most likely due to a susceptibility to name-recognition cues"

when i am on the clock.

I write words a lot like the ones that you have already seen in my spare time. I'm in the political science TA lab and should be asking for help but I don't like the TA that is working right now. Which means I write alone, and have my computer read my paper back to me. If you didn't know, that makes you a better writer. Or it makes your writing better. Or so they say. So it goes.

I've been surprisingly productive for the last few days. I have all but sold my contract, I will be in Park City on Monday to interview as a teacher, I've written a speech and a two thousand word research design. I've been to a constellation lab, not missed a class, and worked every day from eight to five. I don't think I have ever been this actively busy my whole life, other than as a missionary.

I wonder what being a grown up is like.

brain twins

2007-11-12T15:07:00.000-08:00

I went to see my political science professor. We talked for a while about my paper, and then for a while about my grade, and then for a while about what I want to be when I grow up. Also we talked about how I nearly failed all of my classes when I was a freshman. He wanted to be in the foreign service as an undergrad and grad student, and even took the test six times. When he finally passed, though, he realized that his wife didn't really want to globetrot for the next twenty years, so he didn't pursue it.
It makes me wonder about my life's course. Christensen said "my greatest ambition and highest career goal was to join the foreign service, but then I was married and it just wouldn't work out." Now he is a great teacher. I guess it all works out in the end whether you do what you really wanted to or do what you were meant to do.

think think think

2007-11-11T22:52:00.000-08:00

winnie the pooh is
an imaginary friend
he thinks more than most

sleep, wake, shower, shave, brush, dress, church, home, noodles, skyler, traci, dave, ward prayer, rachel, bright eyes songs, natalie, liz, home, facebook, blog, sleep

vroom

2007-11-09T18:43:00.000-08:00

The car is black and the paint, oxidized from months or maybe years of neglect, only shines in a few places. Inside, the dashboard is covered in a thin layer of dust, covering once shiny plastics. The backlight on the radio only works about half of the time, and when I drive at night I must guess which track is playing. The manual transmission shifts smoothly, but a small engine combined with tall gears means the acceleration leaves something to be desired. I think the car is asking for help, it seems to need a friend. Older cars ask more clearly, more obviously. They creak and groan, stutter and miss. Gears grind, doors squeal, and everything rattles. This one left the lot just ten years ago, new car smell and all. It's still a bit too proud to groan. I am a sucker for little funny-looking cars that need attention. Some cars, like the Taurus, don't inspire any sort of pathos. When they break, they stop, not looking sad like a broken Beetle does, or vaguely mean like old muscle cars do. It seems they really do just give up the ghost and head to car heaven. I don't think a Taurus sitting in a junkyard will ever elicit the pangs of nostalgia and desire that even the oldest, rustiest GTO can.
I'm not sure if it is by design that cars become "basic transportation," or if simply public reaction steals their souls, but it seems sad. Every car is built with some semblance of a soul, and if it was never loved, never though of as someone's sacrifice, someone's project, someone's baby, that soul gradually fades. I think that happens to people, too. Some people never get the attention they deserve or maybe weren't made for attention to start out with. Religion lets everyone believe that they are at least one person's project, and that saves a lot of souls from fading away. Some people don't get that either, and they become these empty shells, just doing their job, just going through the motions. Little by little they lose the sense that they belong to something bigger and that they are worth something more, so their resale value drops.

I hope I never feel like I am basic transportation. I hope nobody does.