tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-114834922024-03-13T18:27:41.697-07:00An open space in a forest.pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.comBlogger190125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-64686730656865332702011-09-02T08:54:00.000-07:002011-09-02T08:55:30.992-07:00My Mom talking about my Grandpa.Someday, when I get where I'm going, we're gonna have a good little reunion.
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<br />"When he was younger, he was always making or mending or trying to fix things around the house. He loved to drive down town and as he put it "park and watch the funny people go by". If he was running errands he would sit in the car for ten minutes just watching the people on Main Street before he got out of the car.
<br />
<br />Always with Pithy things to say, m like, "That lady should have washedthat bad taste out of her mouth before she came to town" or one of my favorites when he saw a really fat guy " He gonna be a big boy when he grows up.
<br />
<br />Or sitting at a stop sign. "Just because I stopped here, they shouldn't have called the whole town to pass in review""pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-65436332616271089422010-03-07T20:14:00.000-08:002010-03-07T21:22:00.829-08:00Heading to California tomorrow with my sisters, Lois and Lynn (I'm trying to get used to calling her Lynn because thats what all her friends call her, but to me I think she will always be Lyndee) I'm so happy about this trip. Can't wait to be by the ocean and in California again. We're going to see Wicked while we're there and I'm excited about that. I think Lyndee is going to be one of those girls who gets obsessed with this show, she'll love it so much. And Lois, my wise and always cool older sister, will appreciate it I'm sure. <br /><br />After Wicked, my plan is to go work for Rand Paul's senate campaign in Kentucky. I may be picking up a few fellow campaign volunteers on my way across the country. Hopefully thats the case, as it would be a good opportunity to meet some cool new people as well as split the difference on gas money.<br /><br />Speaking of gas, I don't think I've ever mentioned my sweet new car. Its a Blue Chevy Cavalier that runs on both compressed natural gas and conventional gasoline. That means driving is extra cheap around Utah (93 cents per gallon) and in many other places. Robbie and I recently went all the way across Wyoming and down to Colorado on about a buck per gallon.<br /><br />I love this new car. It was a big decision for me, as I had to finance it through a loan, and I hate being tied down to obligations like that, financial or otherwise. But I guess some obligations are necessary and helpful in life. In this case, I feel so much freer with a car, even if I have to make a monthly payment. No more being tied down to bus schedules (it was taking me about an hour each way to get to and from work - a little over 3 miles away...which was fine to longboard or even walk to until it started snowing..) Now my schedule is freed up and I have the means to leave the state, or even the country if I wish out of my own volition. What a nice feeling.<br /><br />The car has about 21,000 miles on it now. It started with 16,000 in December. I also had a new sound system and speakers installed inside as the first radio head unit was very limited in function and quality, and my back speakers (the factory installed set) were torn and made a horrible noise. The day I had all that installed, and every day after since, I've felt like there are no other material things I really want in life. I mean, I can always think of things that would be nice, but I also think I could be happy the rest of my life with a roof over my head, a bed, access to learning...and my 2003 Chevy Cavalier with a working radio and ipod hookup. What a feeling to be driving and listening to music.<br /><br />After the Rand Paul campaign, I conjecture that the future will branch out into three optional paths. Even then, I think two of the paths will curve around and eventually meet the first. The first path is the military. The second path leads to more politics and campaigning as an actual paid job until the end of the 2010 campaign season in November, and the third takes a detour to South America or some other place for a while until I feel like my life is so void of structure that I simply have to get into the military or I find something else to do or die trying.<br /><br />I love life today. Love my family, love how perf<br /><br />Have you ever seen Doogie Howser? Josh got me started watching it recently. I love this show. Its so wholesome and has such great messages and characters. And it reminds me of the fun, cool, fascinating, embarrassing, and innocent parts of being in middle and high school. I'm on episode 12 of 97 so far and I intend to watch all of them.<br /><br />Also, watch Undercover Boss. The 7-Eleven episode with Igor. I love that guy.<br /><br />A shout out to Jessica. Glad you came to visit Robbie and I and glad you watched year of the dog and then ate a bunch of meat at taco bell with us afterwards in a show of solidarity against obsessed animal lovers. And glad we got to go to the Bombay House too, because that place is so damn good. As is The Chocolate. Man, that was so much amazing food. And glad you are just you, striving to do whats right with a good heart.<br /><br />As a final note, this last weekend I dressed up (with help from the Hale Center Theater costume department) as the Mad Hatter and went to the premiere of Alice in Wonderland with just a few of the best people I know. My costume was incredible, I played up the character, put on an accent, did the lazy/queer Jonny Depp walk, and won the costume contest. And my friends sure do know how to make me feel like a big deal. Thanks, friends.pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-44659251689380937422010-02-26T01:13:00.000-08:002010-02-26T01:36:35.870-08:00Can't sleep. <br /><br />Josh left. He's in China now. Makes me a little sad. Why can't I just be happy about it? Don't know.<br /><br />And just feeling more and more tied down to here and this place and this job and these dollars. AGAIN.<br /><br />Almost all ready to join the army, but having second thoughts. Took the ASVAB and DLAB and got very good scores. They'll pay me to learn whatever language I want - not just Arabic - which is nice. Strangely I'm sort of excited about boot camp. Sounds like a fun challenge. But apprehensive about being tied down to the establishment for the rest of the 4 to 6 years... No extensive traveling...No study abroad...no spur of the moment do whatever I feel, move where I want to be kind of things. I know it sounds like not much to some people, but for me thats everything. I especially want to be free to be where Josh is when he's done with China. Or hell, maybe even move to China. I've seen plenty of the States, and after just one email from Josh which I've read about 4 times over, China is sounding pretty good.<br /><br />An education and structure and a paycheck are important, I know. But I just can't bring myself to care about them.<br /><br />Jonny and Lisa came to see me at work today. That was nice. I love the Peay's. I wish I had time to tutor Jonny still instead of wait tables. That kid makes me really happy.<br /><br />Maybe its time to put some miles on my car? Gotta sleep on it.pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-54856074922625067392009-10-19T23:55:00.000-07:002009-10-20T08:32:14.119-07:00Felt like writing something tonight.I'm back in Utah, finally.<br /><br />I've probably left out more of what has happened in my life this past year than I ever have since starting this blog. Just too much personal stuff and too many people who know who I am that read this blog. It doesn't quite feel like my own little corner of the internet anymore. Maybe another blog is in order...or just a journal.<br /><br />Suffice it to say, this summer had some of the worst and best moments of my life in it...times when I wanted disappear completely, but also times when the world felt like my playground again. Someday, perhaps I'll write more about things that happened, but right now isn't the time.<br /><br />Being back has been a lot of crazy and a lot of wonderful. A few of the highlights:<br /><br />1. Snow Patrol concert with Robbie and Meg. Such cool music and videos. I want to go to Belfast, Ireland. And who knew you could create the entire universe out of Origami?<br />2. Hitchiking failure with Robbie and Evan that turned into a documentary success. This is why these guys are two of my best pals. Video on facebook forthcoming.<br />3. A date with Dawn up the Canyon. It actually turned out to be a date almost to Vernal, because I took a wrong turn and didn't notice for about 90 miles. We drove over 200 miles in all, but I think we were both where we wanted to be. Dawn is the best. And dinner and gelatto in Heber was pretty nice too.<br />4. Climbed upon my sister's roof to think and scope out the view. Also climbed on Robbie's roof.<br />5. Mom accused me of doing drugs (one of the few things I actually HAVEN'T ever done aside from inhaling pot smoke hitchiking back from Ohio)<br />6. Lots of "serious" talks with a whole bunch of different people. <br />6. Got to see Josh in TWO plays. And even got INTO a play with Josh - A Christmas Carol at the Orem Hale. I'm Fred. Don't know crap about acting and only very little about singing, but if it means getting to do something with Josh, I'll just have to do my damnedest :)<br />7. Two interviews for jobs down here. One at the In-N-Out opening in Orem, (I used to work at In-N-Out Burger in high school, and as lame as it may sound to work at a burger place, In-N-Out is one of the finest companies I've ever worked for. They pay well and treat you right and its fun) and another at Telos, a residential treatment facility for teenagers which would be a great job for someone who hopes to be a teacher. With any luck I'll get at least one of those.<br />8. Constantly working on a top secret project. I can't tell you about that.<br />9. Went to Park City with Robbie and Andy and Caitie and Laura. Beautiful canyon views, learned about "shabby chic" and how that should be my style. Also, Caitie and Laura are two of the funniest and most genuinely good people on the planet. I wish more humans were like them.<br /><br />All in all, I'm trying to make the best out of life. And usually that works.pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-73500813240076341842009-09-28T10:07:00.000-07:002009-09-28T10:30:23.250-07:00A Skagway Farewell to the last cruise ship of the seasonThis whole night was so much fun:<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/v-3eg4C4FbY&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/v-3eg4C4FbY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object><br /><br />Couldn't miss out on the opportunity to do this:<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/y9T3ZE_PxuM&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/y9T3ZE_PxuM&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"><br /></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uTj7yo87tWk&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/uTj7yo87tWk&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Incidentally, the last cruise ship of the season was bought out by Olivia Cruises (read a horde of lesbians) and they were LOVING it. They all started singing "Nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye!" and even chanting "Skagway! SKagway!". Happy times. :)<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7rSKFl9yx6s&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7rSKFl9yx6s&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-79903367766672698062009-09-21T19:03:00.001-07:002009-09-21T19:03:59.329-07:00Throwing Rocks into Mead Glacier<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KONS3bDzZTk&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KONS3bDzZTk&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-34990528312011903752009-08-09T00:18:00.000-07:002009-08-10T20:59:32.571-07:00The night I first rode a motorcycle.<div>My buddy Canyon came to visit me in Skagway on his way back from riding his motorcycle to the Arctic Ocean. He started in Utah, so thats a lot of riding a motorcycle and I'm thoroughly impressed. I want to pull a Motorcycle Diaries with this kid someday. Learn more about Canyon <a href="http://bohemian38.blogspot.com/">here.</a></div><div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPfvHxa1LW-Cs2mcbFA8NkWDOFyzWeqQoLlSc5VTgrTk-xmdtM-Vn1jlKOOaBFCcggKYdTFtj5Hyi5PsdFTs6pUhCoIMxlV-mfzap0EM04gNlPXFGBZf7-SvtZUm6Vo64JhT6G/s1600-h/093.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368546560258970946" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 180px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPfvHxa1LW-Cs2mcbFA8NkWDOFyzWeqQoLlSc5VTgrTk-xmdtM-Vn1jlKOOaBFCcggKYdTFtj5Hyi5PsdFTs6pUhCoIMxlV-mfzap0EM04gNlPXFGBZf7-SvtZUm6Vo64JhT6G/s320/093.JPG" border="0" /></a>Riding out to Dyea. Beautiful and awesome.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368546578502407602" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM_AV9Tu1TVT9ORNCtpCF5v-ohYJzXbn4HS6B2BIGpGlTiorKBiKg79foGzZVrsryyGwclhglFL4Pp8AVaaxqrZ8xpsuh4WhzmPPRz8n2r9sJ76EKMherPBhdR3jpcZb2Z4Plk/s320/1-0-105.jpg" border="0" /> The next day, I somehow got Canyon to let me ride his bike for the first time in downtown Skagway.<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Lc1_HPTkUQw&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Lc1_HPTkUQw&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />After this one, I tipped the bike after trying to turn a corner too fast. I didn't really have "stopping" down yet. We later learned that I bent the rim on Canyon's bike which caused a slow air leak in the tire. Oops. I felt pretty bad, but fortunately Canyon was very very cool about it all and his first priority (after making sure I was okay) was making sure I got back on the bike to conquer any doubts I might have about my ability to ride. And thats a testament to what a stud Canyon is. And no worries, he got the rim fixed and made it back to Utah in one piece (if you haven't checked out his blog already.)<br /><br /><br /><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368546572904482818" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgABZFTj4J9iGWvRcsprUO1iwagnnY_Yhel72hzWlOFj4Pe9EqM4nbvPrRdy93ZpTxSSfMsG1ifmC1UMSiRryqQleTpiQhkm-uoXRSZ3T4m8bXMen_0WfovX3vfxS3qQsNVp1Ey/s320/118.JPG" border="0" /></p><p>Busted a hole in my jeans, as well as in my shoe and lost a shoelace.<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368546571157639586" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBp1UUvuuXhzFexzDIyBW3Nr7QqUKxAnqrq538Viqxo0aDWw3LdHms8yv4MUxGEw1T9R7dnkdKK4yieNONjGWWkXnkY1CHe95k4qs2IMWcWDLzMi5YoFM6ku_FGdri9uUrtNpn/s320/117.JPG" border="0" /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Lc1_HPTkUQw&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Lc1_HPTkUQw&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />But I still want to own a motorcycle...</p>pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-50218828057999249532009-08-08T23:06:00.000-07:002009-08-09T19:48:44.794-07:00Feeling stuff.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb2Z0ZEn2IJQ_97exEs5AorhF3oIvhq-_G2qHAPD7jQrJVM2k5MTSIZ1_q17fmWMrxyUxeQ64Zwy3U3oqVXqmV-9SD_klWBKwg1UCzuH8LFBJOsTwmzYzNJq3OAmwlVo2RQxXz/s1600-h/emotions.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368161562658301778" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 213px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb2Z0ZEn2IJQ_97exEs5AorhF3oIvhq-_G2qHAPD7jQrJVM2k5MTSIZ1_q17fmWMrxyUxeQ64Zwy3U3oqVXqmV-9SD_klWBKwg1UCzuH8LFBJOsTwmzYzNJq3OAmwlVo2RQxXz/s320/emotions.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Sometimes my emotions are pretty fucked up. I wish I could just manufacture feelings sometimes. I sure do try, but even if I manage to put other people at ease, I never feel quite right inside. Sometimes I wish I could feel one thing, but I feel something completely different, like my emotions are colored coded wires that were plugged into me by a color blind old man.<br /><br />This manifests itself in all sorts of ways in my life. I was going to give some examples here, but I've decided to instead just be vague instead/<br /><br />I'll want to feel excited or extroverted, but instead I feel indifferent and alone. I'll want to gush happiness or pride in someone else, but instead I just feel my own self esteem cut down. I'll want to feel secure and grounded, but instead I feel unstable, unsure, raging. I'll find myself wanting to be silly, and for the first time all day I'll have nothing silly to say.<br /><br />On the flip side, I usually feel excited and happy in a disaster. I like being extroverted and making friends with people who aren't comfortable in their own skin. I'm always hilarious when it doesn't matter.<br /><br />Maybe this is a result of my upbringing, or maybe its some kind of genetic flaw. Maybe I have the wrong attitude about stuff. Maybe I have the wrong perspective or maybe there's a divine order to things that I'm going against. Maybe I'm surrounding myself with the wrong people. Maybe I'm bipolar. I don't know, but I'd like to know how to fix it and just feel what I would like to feel at the right moments. Does anyone know how to do that?</div>pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-8068612116613608512009-07-17T23:06:00.000-07:002009-07-17T23:08:01.416-07:00The Men That Don't Fit In by Robert ServiceThere's a race of men that don't fit in,<br />A race that can't stay still;<br />So they break the hearts of kith and kin,<br />And they roam the world at will.<br />They range the field and they rove the flood,<br />And they climb the mountain's crest;<br />Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,<br />And they don't know how to rest.<br /><br />If they just went straight they might go far;<br />They are strong and brave and true;<br />But they're always tired of the things that are,<br />And they want the strange and new.<br />They say: "Could I find my proper groove,<br />What a deep mark I would make!"<br />So they chop and change, and each fresh move<br />Is only a fresh mistake.<br /><br />And each forgets, as he strips and runs<br />With a brilliant, fitful pace,<br />It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones<br />Who win in the lifelong race.<br />And each forgets that his youth has fled,<br />Forgets that his prime is past,<br />Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,<br />In the glare of the truth at last.<br /><br />He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;<br />He has just done things by half.<br />Life's been a jolly good joke on him,<br />And now is the time to laugh.<br />Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;<br />He was never meant to win;<br />He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;<br />He's a man who won't fit in.pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-80355938891951483392009-07-17T23:05:00.000-07:002009-07-17T23:06:11.164-07:00The Quitter by Robert ServiceWhen you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child,<br />And Death looks you bang in the eye,<br />And you're sore as a boil, it’s according to Hoyle<br />To cock your revolver and . . . die.<br />But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can,"<br />And self-dissolution is barred.<br />In hunger and woe, oh, it’s easy to blow . . .<br />It’s the hell-served-for-breakfast that’s hard. <br /><br />"You're sick of the game!" Well, now that’s a shame.<br />You're young and you're brave and you're bright.<br />"You've had a raw deal!" I know — but don't squeal,<br />Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight.<br />It’s the plugging away that will win you the day,<br />So don't be a piker, old pard!<br />Just draw on your grit, it’s so easy to quit.<br />It’s the keeping-your chin-up that’s hard. <br /><br />It’s easy to cry that you're beaten — and die;<br />It’s easy to crawfish and crawl;<br />But to fight and to fight when hope’s out of sight — <br />Why that’s the best game of them all!<br />And though you come out of each gruelling bout,<br />All broken and battered and scarred,<br />Just have one more try — it’s dead easy to die,<br />It’s the keeping-on-living that’s hard.pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-37623444403855058662009-06-14T14:12:00.000-07:002009-08-08T23:26:41.900-07:00Alaska the Second<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrwhj1KwDTIHLK5Ph-n-yQniGS1wvCFBrpoHgUA6bFal7zSYil9Kcxqc6OYl4hFzvCYSYrwNkcGJQs55zQWzHPEF-H9L7sX3iKocnKqBct9rdK_V43KfT12vys2GabVD0EKI0P/s1600-h/038.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5359863747048543346" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrwhj1KwDTIHLK5Ph-n-yQniGS1wvCFBrpoHgUA6bFal7zSYil9Kcxqc6OYl4hFzvCYSYrwNkcGJQs55zQWzHPEF-H9L7sX3iKocnKqBct9rdK_V43KfT12vys2GabVD0EKI0P/s320/038.JPG" border="0" /></a> SKAGWAY, LOOKING DOWN BROADWAY TOWARDS THE LYNN CANAL WITH CRUISE SHIP ON BROADWAY DOCK. HARDING PEAKS/GLACIER TO THE RIGHT.<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh37ar-oKgB7jO8weyhZVTQtBwqmx57U55km70jTzhLal_OKDWBbXsyFriblltclegpH4IisMu9aRiuI-8X50OqkNqny2vwYR970_A3O_nkAihDs8e0JQ4AiUPlDHSbcBFABQha/s1600-h/039.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5359863742267173954" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh37ar-oKgB7jO8weyhZVTQtBwqmx57U55km70jTzhLal_OKDWBbXsyFriblltclegpH4IisMu9aRiuI-8X50OqkNqny2vwYR970_A3O_nkAihDs8e0JQ4AiUPlDHSbcBFABQha/s320/039.JPG" border="0" /></a><br />SKAGWAY LOOKING NORTHEAST. CANADA IS ABOUT 20 MILES UP THAT ROAD.<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwq71z0imfitY5BnAnsQBDnIPjfUeLiNBB1WGMSoMZnma9H4VtqzGGq0xJcqFYCzJ4PX6J3i0akJha2xqi3fd8GR87kxC1U10PtzNplb-SiRCy6FVey5dSl6xmYh3l4OkjeW_Y/s1600-h/081.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5359863738620055186" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 180px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwq71z0imfitY5BnAnsQBDnIPjfUeLiNBB1WGMSoMZnma9H4VtqzGGq0xJcqFYCzJ4PX6J3i0akJha2xqi3fd8GR87kxC1U10PtzNplb-SiRCy6FVey5dSl6xmYh3l4OkjeW_Y/s320/081.JPG" border="0" /></a> 4th OF JULY. FIREWORKS SHOT OFF BOATS IN THE CANAL. AMAZING<br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisDmXPb9J9rR_wGzPXw8TBuGBDpi9K-rUFnBExgCc_rlz3FMv4UgF7E3Db-uPKOohl-bmw1C9-bdFdJvgm3KHYeyFMuXLyuI5M4NYEVeWt2oUw4JoVM3tHrhSMMwQhKcw7WDQm/s1600-h/033.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5359863737676267394" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisDmXPb9J9rR_wGzPXw8TBuGBDpi9K-rUFnBExgCc_rlz3FMv4UgF7E3Db-uPKOohl-bmw1C9-bdFdJvgm3KHYeyFMuXLyuI5M4NYEVeWt2oUw4JoVM3tHrhSMMwQhKcw7WDQm/s320/033.JPG" border="0" /></a><br />I WORKED LUGGAGE CREW A COUPLE OF TIMES. THIS IS LUGGAGE BEING PULLED ON TO LAND VIA A TUGBOAT.<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC27hCz3XhtcvnqaO_O_C2rbgKuIjzrRLcOQbLr-hF7E1SvoMuUqMKoHK-cqIWEu-6Ntd0V8GtKWypabb2XOfMylEbUgdmZUix7X6onm5ZqG8I4T39QxrmB857FCmBYy5d7YUQ/s1600-h/003.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5359859949130242578" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC27hCz3XhtcvnqaO_O_C2rbgKuIjzrRLcOQbLr-hF7E1SvoMuUqMKoHK-cqIWEu-6Ntd0V8GtKWypabb2XOfMylEbUgdmZUix7X6onm5ZqG8I4T39QxrmB857FCmBYy5d7YUQ/s320/003.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br />LOWER DEWEY LAKE<br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHgTqoj5hyiMqys-pZweTuceb1FjsiNU9lbU3e1ZPxESGQiNp4x4mQ0yqL2LgTbu7hsrtLhZuwBYNT82VpH8zZsS1o-0UBINuHsDuazlgNSzU58FmcQr-bcv5Tv2y_SR3M3r1k/s1600-h/051.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5359859943317263986" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHgTqoj5hyiMqys-pZweTuceb1FjsiNU9lbU3e1ZPxESGQiNp4x4mQ0yqL2LgTbu7hsrtLhZuwBYNT82VpH8zZsS1o-0UBINuHsDuazlgNSzU58FmcQr-bcv5Tv2y_SR3M3r1k/s320/051.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br />BETHANY AND I AT THE KONE COMPANY, MY JOB ON FIRDAYS AND SATURDAYS.<br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw1j1JsppxXbJbeCiDo3gojkyg1TwuFIwnXYGqFH5nej80V13umZComU5-heTH-w9Qp6e8iHCBvxX6Mmek8seC8gsAzFgMmDEslNGWFdlm1FVHaIbchMBJCAFCcTv_rP2wSiay/s1600-h/048.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5359859936204583170" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw1j1JsppxXbJbeCiDo3gojkyg1TwuFIwnXYGqFH5nej80V13umZComU5-heTH-w9Qp6e8iHCBvxX6Mmek8seC8gsAzFgMmDEslNGWFdlm1FVHaIbchMBJCAFCcTv_rP2wSiay/s320/048.JPG" border="0" /></a><br />KONE COMPANY<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6qAI2ggETxaXi3NsKvM4CmiNoFwiqTiQVuaOFx7X7BBwH6EZRXC4-Sd7RrVQm4XCv1h71oH048nOjETv22TOpigZIx88gxgEmiA37xNkSdjPjrvtlNfRqblmvh4lrVRrjaVmP/s1600-h/102.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5359859925396422930" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 180px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6qAI2ggETxaXi3NsKvM4CmiNoFwiqTiQVuaOFx7X7BBwH6EZRXC4-Sd7RrVQm4XCv1h71oH048nOjETv22TOpigZIx88gxgEmiA37xNkSdjPjrvtlNfRqblmvh4lrVRrjaVmP/s320/102.JPG" border="0" /></a> CANYON CAME TO VISIT FOR A WHILE, LET ME RIDE HIS MOTORCYCLE. HUNG OUT AND WENT TO HAINES ON THE FERRY.<br /><br /><div>I haven't blogged in a long time for a lot of reasons, so I apologize if this blog seems like a book that skips several chapters. I'll try to be be comprehensive...or at least make up for it later.<br /><br /></div><div>I just got fired for the first time (wrote this the beginning of July). I'm up in Alaska working again, and summer here has turned into a series of dilemas. The kind that build character I guess.</div><br /><br /><div>I loved my job up here. I toured mostly 50 and 60 somethings around Alaska and the Yukon in a tour bus that we were supposed to call a "coach". Really the only difference between a "bus" and a "coach" is that a coach has a bathroom onboard, which I got to clean out at night - but aside from that and management politics, the job was great. I had an engaging, entertaining, and funny tour going; I learned the history of everything in the area very well, and people liked me and thought I was funny. I even got good comment cards from the people in my groups when they went back to their cruise ships at night, which is something they have to go out of their way to do.<br /></div><br /><div>But it all went wrong. Here's how:<br /></div><br /><br /><div>As part of my job description every time I picked passengers up or stopped to let passengers off for any reason I was required to get out of the bus, open a luggage compartment, and remove a step stool to put out in front of the stairs for any of the elderly people with frail knees or what have you. I dutifully performed this service for my passengers, but occasionaly I would forget to put the step back into the luggage bay after all of my passengers had boarded. Once in a while, a little old lady would remind me about the stool, still sitting at the bottom of the stairs, and I would get out and fetch it. Other times I would remember it just as I started the engine of the bus. But twice, I completely forgot. </div><br /><br /><div>You see, the problem with these step stools is that when you get back in the driver's seat of your bus, you don't see them in the rearview mirror (which I always checked) as you're getting ready to leave again. They're much too short. Incidentally, you don't feel them either, when your bus quietly overtakes the feeble aluminum legs and turns the step stool into a flat piece of useless garbage.<br /></div><br /><br /><div>So I ran over two step stools early on in the season. You have to understand that EVERYONE who drives for Holland America (or any other bus company up here for that matter) runs over a step stool, but most people simply don't report it. They discretely throw the thing away after the deed has been done, steal a step stool from upstairs in the mechanic shop or from another bus in the yard, and no one knows any better. The mechanics just have to keep replacing step stools that mysteriously disappear overnight.<br /></div><br /><br /><div>My folly was in reporting my smushed step stools to the safety manager. I filled out "incident reports" as required by company policy. It didn't seem like a big deal either. I would get stern warnings, (an overly common occurence when one is working for Holland America) and wouldn't think anything more of it. If anything, I thought that perhaps the managers would look on me as someone who was reliable and honest.<br /></div><br /><br /><div>Silly me.<br /></div><br /><div>The nail in the coffin came about a week ago when I was pulling out of the bus yard and allegedly scratched the mirror of the neighboring bus. I did not see, hear or feel anything when this happened, but another driver, Carolyn, reported that she had witnessed it happen. I'm not going to deny that it happened....sure enough there was a scratch on the backside of her left mirror with blue paint on it when I checked that night. There are hundreds of scratches on most of the mirrors in the bus yard, but the blue paint indicated that it happened recently. And I was the bus parked next to it pulling out of the bus yard...but it struck me as odd that there were no marks on the outside of MY bus to prove that there was any kind of contact. And the mirror had a scratch but did not move. The safety manager even came out with a camera to take pictures and mentioned the same things. But I got blamed for it anyhow.<br /></div><br /><br /><div>The night this happened, I was again unphased. It all seemed pretty harmless to me. I kept getting scheduled for tours the next few days and did a great job on them, until on Monday night I noticed that my name was missing from dispatch for the next day. Shortly after I noticed, I received a phone call from one of the dispatchers saying that I had a meeting with the head dispatcher, Melissa Logan, the next day at 10:30. I was naively unaware of what the meeting might be about. I was pretty sure I was in trouble for some mundane thing (as I mentioned before, you always are when you work for Holland America...just ask Robbie or Evan) but as I said before, this company is in the business of stern warnings about stupid crap.</div><br /><br /><div>Much to my surprise, I went into the office on Tuesday morning at 10:30 AM to find Melissa Logan AND Steve Funk. I don't know what Steve Funk's title is at the company, but I do know that he is some kind of regional company officer for the driver guides and that everyone sort of treats him like he's God, so much so that he seems to think that about himself too.</div><br /><br /><div>And then Funk laid it on me. Logan just sat to my side quietly. I was being "let go" for safety reasons. I had been involved in three "accidents" with my "coach" and according to company policy, that is grounds for terminating employment regardless of my clean driving record. </div><br /><br /><div>I mentioned a few things to Funk in my defense, like some of the other "accidents" that had occured this year that never resulted in termination of an employee. For instance:</div><br /><br /><div>1. Matt Johnson, on a highway tour to Dawson City in the Yukon, missed his lunch stop and decided to turn around on the highway. Somewhere in his however-many-point turn on the narrow road, he got half of his coach stuck in the mud and half of it stuck in the traffic lane...with 40 passengers on board.</div><br /><br /><div>2. Alyssa ran the side of her coach into a stop sign. A STOP sign. With 40 passengers on board. The paint and metal on the side of the bus is now all scratched up and indented very visibly. Again, 40 passengers on board.</div><br /><br /><div>3. Twice drivers have been reprimanded for stopping in the middle of the highway and letting passengers out of the bus to go take close-up pictures of bears. BEARS. HIGHWAY... !?!?!?!?!</div><br /><br /><div>4. This girl named Sarah last year tried to swerve when she saw a moose on the road and ended up rolling an E-model coach (a $500,000 vehicle) with passengers on board. She still works for the company. People say this is because last year, Holland America was severely understaffed. This year they are way overstaffed...and looking for reasons to fire people.</div><br /><br /><div>This list goes on, but I think you get the idea. After I mentioned a couple of these things to Funk, he asked me "Were you or were you not involved in three incidents in which your coach collided with another object?" I told him I wasn't even sure if I was. He said it was company policy that he not allow me to drive any longer this season. I told him I thought that it didn't make a lot of sense but that the decision was up to him and not me and I tried to stay very respectful throughout the whole thing even though I was a little outraged inside. I shook his hand on the way out and then ducked into an alleyway to call Josh.<br /></div><br /><div>In brief, I was in limbo for a couple of days deciding what to do. Wasn't sure if it was worth it to stay in Skagway and just find another job and place to live, or not. I made a few other phone calls, looked around town, and talked to some of my friends here. I considered going home to join the military finally, living here in a tent for the rest of the season, hitchiking to another part of Alaska or anywhere I could find a job, and a host of other options before everything stabilized again.<br /></div><br /><div>Its been about a week since I got fired now. I have a new job working for the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad in their giftshop/cafe thing. I HATE retail jobs with a passion. I'm just not that kind of gay at all. I've probably never mentioned on here that I once had a job at Express for about two weeks before I decided to never go back. I hate folding crap and I just don't care about style or cut or size. I have to work very hard to manufacture a sense of urgency in a place that sells clothes or gifts or anything like that because I could just care less about any of it.</div><br /><br /><div>But, its a job. And I guess I can handle it until the end of September... and the people I work with and the management seem to be nice. I guess its sort of the opposite of Holland America: Crappy job, decent management. Someday I'd like to have both. And while I'm dreaming of ideal job opportunities, I'd like to do something I care about. And something that allows to me to learn about things that I care about.<br /><br />And thats all for this installment. Here are some more pictures.</div><br /><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDj1FDz5-BLVII6MDW7s083ePKaEdpj8ZfS_rrxFAusEgSzwUjcEcaqe7aL0iWJ2nJIgnCn5XjKmHZIJgBVCWyx6nfIC-G8XdntXaCY9iwdLRgpjw4Ka2C8itRXNxNrRLuc0C8/s1600-h/IMG_1477.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347727619986069826" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDj1FDz5-BLVII6MDW7s083ePKaEdpj8ZfS_rrxFAusEgSzwUjcEcaqe7aL0iWJ2nJIgnCn5XjKmHZIJgBVCWyx6nfIC-G8XdntXaCY9iwdLRgpjw4Ka2C8itRXNxNrRLuc0C8/s320/IMG_1477.JPG" border="0" /></a> YAKATANIA POINT<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkmZVInAIiBN_1CV_jxEzydrUKDIlghee5l5jPnGN5cGvZ875PCb6CsLUUkVjTefSU8XwckiOtA7i2SGtMJ0uo-dbg-xilWRfZ1U7rCh9nQ4ClO3p7KW04ZPmwh_27dFTaPote/s1600-h/IMG_1471.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347727610613642146" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkmZVInAIiBN_1CV_jxEzydrUKDIlghee5l5jPnGN5cGvZ875PCb6CsLUUkVjTefSU8XwckiOtA7i2SGtMJ0uo-dbg-xilWRfZ1U7rCh9nQ4ClO3p7KW04ZPmwh_27dFTaPote/s320/IMG_1471.JPG" border="0" /></a> CRUISE SHIP ON THE RAILROAD DOCK<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifMk2_0enLCU-CXEUHFjzEDM9ehrRTicccgpMrR3ubJQbppUTMzfv5GMB1smviC5Milj8GOXSIuZ1G7d8hpIF2nehjmWOP-bYddmYXHp3D8Nfx7aQ-yVPyMTwk3byVRZHQM0tU/s1600-h/IMG_1462.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347727603831951474" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifMk2_0enLCU-CXEUHFjzEDM9ehrRTicccgpMrR3ubJQbppUTMzfv5GMB1smviC5Milj8GOXSIuZ1G7d8hpIF2nehjmWOP-bYddmYXHp3D8Nfx7aQ-yVPyMTwk3byVRZHQM0tU/s320/IMG_1462.JPG" border="0" /></a> ICE FLOATING DOWN THE YUKON RIVER NEAR DAWSON CITY<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh15nV9hu7bKEmDxZDOFiZHZHNuCXm9Jtcga-tRFDGrYv2gjbYeCtqaYQdzrtEH3tNFao2QOzV3mBR8to1sdcBfy-OC1aog4F48zXY6fMhImbjOSXJb0LckX1LwODfrPIJkcKuK/s1600-h/IMG_1453.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347714651195948706" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh15nV9hu7bKEmDxZDOFiZHZHNuCXm9Jtcga-tRFDGrYv2gjbYeCtqaYQdzrtEH3tNFao2QOzV3mBR8to1sdcBfy-OC1aog4F48zXY6fMhImbjOSXJb0LckX1LwODfrPIJkcKuK/s320/IMG_1453.JPG" border="0" /></a> DAWSON CITY<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm-jLe1AMR_wFB52-Cj9bimjM4cCZmPX9CE2vT745-NSj-jyvDsjJd5vWAoJ2MkmACo9hvsMwbHe6Lgju4Vnu26sFyiR7KAYFv7eCgEm2Rz3dUqQRfUlNy9B6CM5275xFkG1rX/s1600-h/IMG_1452.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347714649120135618" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm-jLe1AMR_wFB52-Cj9bimjM4cCZmPX9CE2vT745-NSj-jyvDsjJd5vWAoJ2MkmACo9hvsMwbHe6Lgju4Vnu26sFyiR7KAYFv7eCgEm2Rz3dUqQRfUlNy9B6CM5275xFkG1rX/s320/IMG_1452.JPG" border="0" /></a> DIAMOND TOOTH GIRTIES IN DAWSON<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqS-sP0E2MmgQqNeqKErt9ANkXlCo6ktD3bEDTk8unoNVYI8Ijtlz05VqMdznt1OHUBgq7ek_GKP2Un_q8W-wfmqZ_bJeiM3_Sll_7ol6zr3Je-1HUUsDS5oF14crAtneSYkMy/s1600-h/IMG_1451.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347712228572750578" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqS-sP0E2MmgQqNeqKErt9ANkXlCo6ktD3bEDTk8unoNVYI8Ijtlz05VqMdznt1OHUBgq7ek_GKP2Un_q8W-wfmqZ_bJeiM3_Sll_7ol6zr3Je-1HUUsDS5oF14crAtneSYkMy/s320/IMG_1451.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmz46osc2ZensUklCB3ETNQ2-pYJ9b-uNt3mbyioEwwyqKOdaoEbgHrGjuK5Bg-7CVZGMg9HlRAdqI5Ih9TA6V9dqWVkRihEA0YZ7whKwtsSTirsIABVmuauof92h31UPVj6p2/s1600-h/IMG_1449.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347306078867923922" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmz46osc2ZensUklCB3ETNQ2-pYJ9b-uNt3mbyioEwwyqKOdaoEbgHrGjuK5Bg-7CVZGMg9HlRAdqI5Ih9TA6V9dqWVkRihEA0YZ7whKwtsSTirsIABVmuauof92h31UPVj6p2/s320/IMG_1449.JPG" border="0" /></a> SKAGWAY ON MY FIRST OR SECOND DAY? I LIVE IN THE YELLOW/BROWN BUILDING BEHING THE WHITE ONE ON THE LEFT<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDARbRVKYPipR28JXDhLZeHKmnOEvS99qOa7rVTLznEc0pHOAvTzWMu6Xw79HrFMv9oKQOIEnBeGx_dvUPdfsIdstTGILAqBl6gcCda1A2c3axHF3zLWoEV-wby3iPWhA17r3y/s1600-h/IMG_1448.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347306076646447314" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDARbRVKYPipR28JXDhLZeHKmnOEvS99qOa7rVTLznEc0pHOAvTzWMu6Xw79HrFMv9oKQOIEnBeGx_dvUPdfsIdstTGILAqBl6gcCda1A2c3axHF3zLWoEV-wby3iPWhA17r3y/s320/IMG_1448.JPG" border="0" /></a> MORE OF SKAGWAY AS IT LOOKED WHEN I FIRST ARRIVED<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdlcF82aouh4GmCIpOTieR985_lTuIVY5NLz0OnC8_b8AkhFQd3DAIZljcyPNLjw-sOTUrd32M5lthc127a5TPxo9Ze8zeUhp5YaI5IzMZ8CMHyD1bDxbCBrPnih6nbKKO1lxW/s1600-h/IMG_1447.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347306066066201698" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdlcF82aouh4GmCIpOTieR985_lTuIVY5NLz0OnC8_b8AkhFQd3DAIZljcyPNLjw-sOTUrd32M5lthc127a5TPxo9Ze8zeUhp5YaI5IzMZ8CMHyD1bDxbCBrPnih6nbKKO1lxW/s320/IMG_1447.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLKgphmUpMnIBR7MBDWQVhllmx8Y7tbPN18X3JtekYrzbM_TFlvqujNA-Q8NAofjo6-IeOSFTDRaSK_I-guAV_7upVsHS9ueX3Oq3No_vAsNmYW9hpqhH-HyXzGGxnNdjKMObI/s1600-h/IMG_1444.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347306063454918386" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLKgphmUpMnIBR7MBDWQVhllmx8Y7tbPN18X3JtekYrzbM_TFlvqujNA-Q8NAofjo6-IeOSFTDRaSK_I-guAV_7upVsHS9ueX3Oq3No_vAsNmYW9hpqhH-HyXzGGxnNdjKMObI/s320/IMG_1444.JPG" border="0" /></a> DRIVING THE BUS FROM PROVO TO SEATTLE</div></div></div></div></div><br /><br /><br /></div></div></div>pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-56645806002135581902009-04-28T22:14:00.000-07:002009-04-28T22:15:22.554-07:00Jonny's book report<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3tgVMg4CCYM&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3tgVMg4CCYM&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-14479044578619309242009-04-02T11:10:00.001-07:002009-04-14T16:35:16.031-07:00UpdateI've gotta write in this thing just for the sake of chronicling my life. I've written a few posts that I just haven't published, but nothing about what is generally happening in my life.<br /><br />This post has taken me a long time to put up because my life has a lot of sad right now that I don't know what to do with. I don't want to share it with people I know. Part of me doesn't even want to post this on here because I don't want to be viewed as insecure, depressing, or unstable. But maybe I just am those things right now. Its not that I'm sad all the time, but a good portion of it, and sometimes it starts to leak out in real life and I hate that. I think I feel much more neurotic right now than I've ever felt in my entire life. I just looked up the word neurotic to be sure, and its the exact description of what I feel...just anxious and obsessed and compulsive about a lot of stupid things.<br /><br />I'm white-knuckling it through the rest of school. I started out the first half of calculus turning in all my homework, I got a 99 on the first test, a 90 on the second test. No grade lower than a B+ on quizzes, and only for stupid stuff like forgetting a negative sign or not completing the chain rule. I was on top of everything and actually feeling like school was something I could do well again.<br /><br />Unfortunately, I've now fallen back into some old habits and attitudes towards my education. I got a 74 on my last test because I didn't complete all the homework or do enough studying. I was busy getting ready and being excited to go to Portland and Seattle, (awesome trip, by the way) and I was just generally sick of doing math homework. Now I've got one more test to go before the final, and way too much to catch up on. I may have to find a tutor for a few hours someday soon. (Anyone out there a pro with integrals?) Its so hard to feel motivated about that class again though, especially after the 74 on the last test. My mind has already moved into the summer.<br /><br />All of my other classes are going well except for statistics. Statistics has throughout this semester been my step-child class. When I put in time for homework, I work on Calculus. I didn't even want to take stats this semester, but I had to load it on in order to have enough credits for a student loan.<br /><br />The recent drop in academic performance doesn't necessarily mean that I haven't kept busy. I'm always overwhelmed with how much I want to get done, and I'm always working on something, I just have a hard time prioritizing sometimes. Some days it feels like school should be the most important thing, and other days I feel I should just quit school for a couple of years and focus all my attention on learning to play the guitar or sing or act. Most of the time I get caught up doing something I feel is important, but which doesn't work out with my schedule for school...like writing my congressman, or reading the BFG to my nieces, or helping my sister or parents out with cleaning or a project. The problem here is mostly that I want to do everything, and so it's hard to follow through completely with anything. I wish school could just run on my schedule.<br /><br />Other things going on in my life:<br />Bus driving: I'm headed to Alaska for a summer job again, this time to drive buses in the small port town of Skagway. In order to do this, I had to put in about 15 to 20 hours every week in training classes, driving sessions and small other things like getting first aid and CPR certified. I now have my CDL and I'm certified to drive large vehicles with an endorsement that allows me to carry lots of passengers.<br /><br />I have mixed feeling about going to Alaska. I want to see Skagway. It looks beautiful and there's lots of hiking to be done there and its far from Utah and I can make a lot of money and I need to just carry through with something that I set out to do right now and I always feel like running away anyways.<br /><br />On the other hand, I have a wonderful boyfriend down here who I'm going to miss a lot. Tons. Maybe an unhealthy amount. There's also a lot of really great stuff going on here that I wish I could be involved in, like several plays, races and roadtrips and some opportunities to help people that I care about.<br /><br />I guess I'd better not flake on this though. I leave on the 30th of this month.<br /><br />Tutoring Jonny: I've grown to love this kid and his mom this school year. Jonny is hilarious, compassionate, very aware of the feelings of people around him (sympathetic?), and even hardworking.<br /><br />His mom is anxiously engaged in everything. There's no other way to put it really. Always anxious and always engaged. She's also incredibly generous with her talents and any resources she has to offer. She's truly one of the most giving people I know. I love and admire her a ton.<br /><br />Progress with Jon is painstakingly, make-you-want-to-bang-your-head-against-a-brick-wall slow, but pretty rewarding when he gets the hang of something. We started math tutoring in September and we're just about to start borrowing in subtraction.<br /><br />I guess it sounds a little cliche to say that there's so much I have to learn from a kid with down-syndrome, but its true. I actually relate to Jonny on a lot of levels, and his success in life has been somewhat linked to mine lately. I have to believe that he can do anything, so that <span style="font-style: italic;">I</span> can believe that <span style="font-style: italic;">I</span> can do anything. I cling to that idea. There's a lot that I feel I'm lacking in many departments of life; mentally, socially, physically, etc, but I have to believe that I can do just as well as anyone else if I try. And now I have math lessons to make or break that perception of the world daily. Mostly he makes it :) Jonny is a constant reminder to me of a lot of things, and as stressful as it might seem to tutor a kid with down-syndrome, he actually keeps me from losing my mind pretty regularly.<br /><br />I just need to learn to quit saying "retarded" all the time...<br /><br />Choir Stuff: Robbie and I somehow managed to get into the top choir at school this year, and last week we went "on tour" to Temple Square and the public library and several high schools. We'll be performing at the Covey Arts Center with the Utah Valley Symphony in a couple of weeks, and then at our school.<br /><br />Robbie is a tenor and I'm a baritone/bass. I didn't even know what baritone meant when they first told me I was a baritone. I had no musical ability other than to generally be able to mimic the sounds I heard coming out of other people or machines. When we first auditioned for the choir, there was a part of the audition where we were divided into quartets... which means I had to sing the bass part with no one else around singing the same part. I started off maybe the first three notes trying to sing my own part, but sure enough I ended up singing along with what I could hear the most...which was this loud soprano girl. The choir conductor, Dyanne, stopped the audition a third of the way through (in front of the whole class, mind you) and asked me specifically why I was singing the soprano line. I got red, shrugged like an idiot and told her I always just sing what I can hear. I was about to say "F**k this, choir is for douche-bags," and storm off, but Dyanne just smiled and asked another bass to come sing next to me, and from then on I hit every note spot on. And that's how I got into a choir.<br /><br />This last semester, I did the quartet audition all on my own. I even volunteered to do it twice when one group was missing a bass to sing with them. I now have a better ear for the piano, and a better understanding of how the notes go up and down and what all the lines and connectors mean and how the timing on songs works. I can even plunk out notes on the piano sometimes. Not to say that I'm amazing or don't still need A LOT of work, and its still comfortable to stand next to someone who is singing my part, but I feel a little bit more better about myself in there, and I plan on auditioning again next year.<br /><br />Roadtrip: I went up to Seattle and Portland recently to visit friends and see Wicked. We did a lot and it was all excellent, but the highlights were two-fold: First of all, there was Jessica. The reason she was one of the highlights is sort of a long story, but I'll just summarize: Jessica drove to Seattle from Portland, flew from Seattle to Salt Lake, and then dressed up as a hitchiker so that I would pick her up and she could come on the roadtrip with us back to where she lives. I love that girl with every fiber of my being.<br /><br />The second highlight of the trip was the musical, Wicked. Now, I expected it to be a good show. I had heard most of the music from it and thought it was all really clever. But I had no idea how <span style="font-style: italic;">brilliant</span> that musical would be, and how intensely I would relate to it. Its about these two very different friends who grow to love and respect each other, but just can't bring themselves to line up on moral grounds. I'm glad I watched that thing with Robbie.<br /><br />I almost wanted to buy one of those black "Wicked" t-shirts, like the kind you see nerd girls wearing on the bus...the kind of girl with thick glasses whose faces are hidden behind books about dragons and wizard mages...the kind that are mean when you try to talk to them because they've probably been emotionally scarred many times in their life....I wanted to look like one of them. <span style="font-style: italic;">Thats</span> how sold I was on that show.<br /><br />I'm Elfiba and Robbie is Glinda. I can't believe I just said that.<br /><br />More recently (Easter Weekend) I also made a trip down to Capitol Reef National Park with some new and old friends.<br /><br />I've now been to all the national parks in Utah. Robbie postulated that perhaps that is the key to being free of this state. Even if its not, I love visiting all those parks, and I've got a nice first sunburn for the year now. :)<br /><br />My mood is actually getting better as I write this blog post, so maybe I'd better quit while I'm ahead and go do real things like study math. I probably haven't written everything I meant to write, but this is a start. Catch ya later, blogworld.pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-45116388335690838072009-01-14T07:58:00.000-08:002009-01-14T15:11:03.871-08:00Dreamlands.I've had a bunch of dreams I can remember lately, set in odd places. Here they go:<br /><br />1. An imaginary desert east of LA with my brother in law in his truck. We were driving fast and hunting tigers as we went. I was uneasy about it because I liked the tigers.<br /><br />2. The U.K, Buckinham Palace. My family found out (through my dad's extensive geneaology research) that we are related to Prince Philip, the Queen Elizabeth's consort, through some Danish acenstry. Don't ask me if Prince Philip is Danish, I really don't know. He is in my dreams. At any rate, Prince Philip died and we were invited, all expenses paid, to his funeral. Mom has never been out of the country before and has always wanted to see the UK, so we went. It was a typically awkward social experience with my family. My family doesn't do high society. My Dad started dancing, which, if you're one of the small few who have ever been privileged to meet my dad, is almost unthinkably bizarre.<br /><br />3. Toronto. Or at least the Toronto of my dreams. I drove up in my beamer and it was raining. I saw the CN Tower and lots of neat looking buildings wandering around town. I loved it and was still thinking about just staying before I woke up. I met my friend Steven there, and drove him to an old man's house where he needed to make a trade. Steven had some stereo equipment and electronics he was dropping off. Maybe it wasn't a trade because I'm not sure if he got anything in return. It was a little shady. And Steven might have stolen the stuff. Sometimes he's a klepto. He stole me my first Calvin and Hobbes book, but thats another story. We proceeded to drive around Toronto and loved it there.<br /><br />Alright, back to stupid real life. Got Calculus homework to do.pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-55429911450639297332008-12-01T23:50:00.000-08:002008-12-01T23:54:57.439-08:00I'm in love with these kids.PS22 Chorus from Staten Island, New York. Check out their blog <a href="http://ps22chorus.blogspot.com">here</a>.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/u_tcE4rWovI&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/u_tcE4rWovI&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ws1D_2IfezI&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ws1D_2IfezI&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-48417401475990729162008-11-20T22:44:00.000-08:002008-12-01T10:52:59.871-08:00The story of Pinetree going to Ohio and hitchiking home.(This story went down a couple weeks ago. I've been meaning to write it all out, and just finally finished now. Its pretty long and I don't expect you to get through the whole thing, but congrats if you do. :) I mostly just wanted to have a record for myself.)<br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span><br />You know how sometimes you need or want to do a thousand things at once, but thinking about all of it prevents you from getting any of it done?<br /><br />Well, perhaps you don't know. But I know how that feels, and that's precisely how my friend Betty feels most of the time. Betty is a mess, but I see myself in her sometimes and she makes me feel relatively at peace, so we get along alright.<br /><br />Betty called me last week and asked me if I would help her move to Ohio in a U-Haul. Her family didn't want her to make the long drive across the country alone. She told me she was willing to pay for my flight back home. "Flight" was later downgraded to "bus-ticket," but to me that was somewhat irrelevant because I had been hoping for a chance to get away from Utah, and from school and family and pressure to get a job, and from panicky feelings about a relationship and just how I'm supposed to fit into life.<br /><br />I told Betty I would go with her, but that I had one request. I asked her to forgo buying a bus ticket and simply pass on to me the money that she was willing to spend. I would make it home on my own. Betty was nervous about the idea (as was her mother) but hesitantly agreed, assuming that I might reconsider later.<br /><br />The plan was to pick up the U-Haul truck at 1 pm on Thursday, head back to Betty's house, load the truck, attach her car to the back, and leave. The night before all this was supposed to go down, I messaged Betty to ask her if she was ready to go. Her reply was "I am drunk. I don't want to talk about it. I'll be ready to go."<br /><br />Some people might get mad about that sort of thing, but I couldn't help but laugh. I went to sleep grinning about leaving the next day with crazy Betty, on our way to Ohio.<br /><br />The next day Betty picked me up in her unregistered, uninsured, messy car and we went to pick up the U-Haul trailer. After that we headed to her apartment to load the truck.<br /><br />Betty told me on the way over that she didn't want me to get mad when I saw her apartment because it would "look" like she hadn't done any packing, even though she really had worked on it a lot. Turned out Betty had not worked on it nearly as much as she should have, and we ended up calling a guy to come help us get everything packed. We spent the next 4 to 5 hours packing up all Betty's stuff (sectional couch, gas grill, shelves, elliptical machine, tons of clothes and shoes) and loading it onto a truck. The nice part about this was that I got some of the stuff that Betty decided not to take, like a full size bed, (never had one that was bigger than a twin) a giant down feather comforter which is ridiculously comfortable (I could write a blog post about this comforter alone...you can get up in the middle of the night, pee, get a drink of water, look out the window pensively for a little while, check your email, and get back into bed and its <span style="font-style: italic;">STILL</span> warm and comfy under this thing...heaven :)....even the cover for it is purple... :/ ) and a bookshelf (my book collection is outgrowing the space in my closet I have for books)<br /><br />We finally hit the then dark road at around 6 pm Thursday night, and we wouldn't stop driving until we arrived in Ohio, over 30 hours later. You see, Betty was cranked up on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adderal">adderal</a> the whole time, so she was very much awake and chatty. She also insisted on driving because she has this paranoia about other people driving her vehicles. She told me I was just there so her parents wouldn't freak out.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAPnm6uXO2PUBFs8MVURG47VGsk720QLpDS9u9xQ3bS0u1j5A_WWRP-3Mhr22V09GQOgIzdaDJ5f6wmj5QAlV8Ahp5zmZg6gqcbMzotRMvYtlxzhND_VEpopiASVf4UvslNf4V/s1600-h/IMG_0926.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAPnm6uXO2PUBFs8MVURG47VGsk720QLpDS9u9xQ3bS0u1j5A_WWRP-3Mhr22V09GQOgIzdaDJ5f6wmj5QAlV8Ahp5zmZg6gqcbMzotRMvYtlxzhND_VEpopiASVf4UvslNf4V/s320/IMG_0926.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274740755578120594" border="0" /></a><br /><br />We took I-70 east from Utah, and that took us through Vail, Colorado, a ritzy skiing resort an hour or two from Denver. When we drove through in the middle of the night, it was snowing...hard. At some points it was a complete white-out. Betty was forced to drive 20 miles per hour just about the whole way. To make matters worse, about a third of the way through the mountains the windshield wiper on the driver's side broke. Betty could hardly see through the snowstorm, so I became the eyes of our operation for a while because she didn't want to stop driving. Eventually, when the snow let up, I fell asleep. I awoke in the still dark hours of the morning to see that we were at a truck stop and Betty was outside with some burly trucker helping her take the windshield wiper blade from the passenger side to put on the driver's side. The trucker seemed disgruntled that I was not awake and outside helping my maiden in distress. He gave me a dirty look, and I just decided to stay in the U-Haul and let him finish the job without making eye contact, and that was that.<br /><br />Betty drove and drove through Colorado (it was mostly night through Colorado) Kansas (very flat and monotonous, but also very beautiful in a simple and welcoming kind of way, especially through the morning and early afternoon. Its not like driving though, say, Nevada, where it is flat, monotonous, dry and ugly. Also, everyone in Kansas was friendly <span style="font-style: italic;">and</span> they were doing Extreme Home Makeover in one of the little towns we passed. I love that show, as a side note) Missouri (more porn stores AND Jesus billboards than I've ever seen in one state) and on to Illinois, where it started to rain.<br /><br />It rained harder and Betty turned on the windshield wipers. The wiper on her side worked well enough, but all that was left on my side was the rod that the wiper used to be attached to, and it started making a horrible screeching noise. It literally sounded like nails on the chalkboard, each time is made its way back and forth across my side of the windshield. I reached out my window to try to turn the rod away from the window with no success. Then I tried to wrap some papers and plastic from the car around the rod, but those soon fell off. I decided we would just have to let it be, but it was driving Betty (still on the aderall) insane.<br /><br />The next time we stopped for gas, we filled up the tank and I went in to the convenience store to use the bathroom and probably buy a cookie. When I came back outside, Betty was standing over the windshield wiper rod with an extra large, lubricated condom that she dug out of her purse. She was tying it onto the windshield wiper rod. I stood in astonishment at Betty's course of thought and her resourcefulness.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK0RZAZlGal3WpcJ9ZHuVFIl6HvpI9R64T1joqfKpEluXRrFF0ZS6I0jbFNFUYd3VEElc9MDDi2Tb2QBBVOG_3_YmPbtLYC8zFhQDMYp1c26PVK1HRv22U7qgwVxZUE_5zwdiZ/s1600-h/IMG_0951.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK0RZAZlGal3WpcJ9ZHuVFIl6HvpI9R64T1joqfKpEluXRrFF0ZS6I0jbFNFUYd3VEElc9MDDi2Tb2QBBVOG_3_YmPbtLYC8zFhQDMYp1c26PVK1HRv22U7qgwVxZUE_5zwdiZ/s320/IMG_0951.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274740763980178002" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbgRODbH-aPrV9G27Ome-yqHP1JtNZBF0TJszStA2MMG-WR0rbfheBJk9EfEKYFiJeZbPzU0NKOr-acm0Yt7cOGyO4AW-JI0gBYT28V3ErzntHH7W9XwyHAM3IHWxJ_5W8MmdY/s1600-h/IMG_0952.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbgRODbH-aPrV9G27Ome-yqHP1JtNZBF0TJszStA2MMG-WR0rbfheBJk9EfEKYFiJeZbPzU0NKOr-acm0Yt7cOGyO4AW-JI0gBYT28V3ErzntHH7W9XwyHAM3IHWxJ_5W8MmdY/s320/IMG_0952.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274748568567093090" border="0" /></a><br />We hopped back into the U-Haul and for the rest of the trip through Illinois/Indiana to Ohio, I watched a lubricated condom swing back and forth on a windshield wiper rod in front of my face.<br /><br />We got to Betty's place sometime in the middle of the night and went to bed. At least, I went to bed. Betty had trouble sleeping because of all the aderall she was on. She slept for about two hours before I woke up in the afternoon the next day. That day was a little strange, but ended well. Betty's mom made us some delicious casserole and I met and learned about Betty's family. We went shopping to find Betty some bedding and a Bangles jersey for her mom, who attends a black church where they were having "Jeans and Jerseys Day" that Sunday. Then we went back to her place where I made some brownies, we both got under the covers and watched Dead Poets Society, which Josh was kind enough to lend me the weekend prior.<br /><br />Originally Betty had wanted to take more aderall so she could go out clubbing in Dayton, but the particular boy she wanted to see was not responding to her texts or phone calls, so I came up with the movie and brownies idea as a safer alternative. Betty finally crashed about 20 minutes into the movie. I watched it all the way through and even got through most of the bonus features. I love that movie a lot. I remember seeing it as a kid, but didn't remember much of what it was about. I have this really bad memory with movies....and a lot of things, but I do remember that it was my sister's favorite. Its now one of my favorites too. But, I digress.<br /><br />Sometime in the middle of the night Betty got a booty call from a guy named Brian. She started putting on make-up and testing different outfit combinations in the mirror and then asked me if it would be alright if she left me at her house alone with her family. I didn't mind, as I would just be sleeping anyways, and I assumed she would be back before morning to drive me to the freeway so I could start hitchiking home.<br /><br />I awoke the next morning to find that Betty was still out, presumably with Brian. I packed up all of my stuff, made myself a couple of sandwiches, ate some breakfast and checked my email on Betty's computer. Betty was still gone. I texted her:<br /><br />"About time for me to go. Where are you?"<br /><br />No response. I called. No answer. I texted again:<br /><br />"I am taking off. I hope life is good to you in Ohio. Tell your mama thanks for letting me stay :)"<br /><br />And with that I picked up my pack, walked out the door, and headed toward the freeway. I walked to the Huber Heights exit on I-70 and stuck my thumb out in the direction of westbound traffic.<br /><br />The first guy to pick me up only took me a few exits down the road. He was on his way to see his mother in a resting home. After he dropped me off, I was surprised to see a trucker pull up abruptly right behing me. He motioned for me to get in.<br /><br />"I saw you standing there looking for a ride and doubled back at the next exit down so I could come pick you up." he said. "But then you got in that car, so I figured I would just follow him down the road until he dumped you off somewhere. I'm on my way to Kansas City."<br /><br />I was excited to be so lucky. I told him I appreciated the extra effort on his part and we got on our way.<br /><br />I learned a lot about this guy driving with him for several hours, though ironically I can't remember his name. It was something like Gary, so I'll call him Gary. In a nut shell, Gary had a very screwed up life. He was abused in every way imaginable by multiple sets of parents, relatives, foster parents and institutions as a kid. He had attempted suicide three times in his life, once when he was very young. He had been through two rough marriages. One of his sons had commited suicide when he was about my age, and I guess that was part of the reason why Gary picked me up. I won't go into too much of his story, but I will say that he was the kind of person that makes just about anyone remember how blessed they are.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv9YK0jtEtI25JY3vvJqRsnVs-XMM5ViQrw2cTXuSfjumbh7etQrJkuZx65dbIPAxQ0E1A6NZfLY8DkFLhg6p_5FWKjjxF6CCzzlajGnZeSTGUBpuboCPTanBcLsA6CKceDZ0t/s1600-h/IMG_0957.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv9YK0jtEtI25JY3vvJqRsnVs-XMM5ViQrw2cTXuSfjumbh7etQrJkuZx65dbIPAxQ0E1A6NZfLY8DkFLhg6p_5FWKjjxF6CCzzlajGnZeSTGUBpuboCPTanBcLsA6CKceDZ0t/s320/IMG_0957.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274740778514073538" border="0" /></a><br />Gary offered me a Diet Mountain Dew (I don't really like soda, or carbonation for that matter, but I accepted and drank it because I didn't want to seem like a prick) and after having to stop a couple of times to use the bathroom (Mountain Dew went straight through me) Gary put on some Evangelical Christian tapes that we listened to for the rest of my ride with him. Gary was a saved man. Gary is a saved man. I believe that. You could tell from interacting with him that he had at some point in his life been washed by that higher power that takes men from a state of hopelessness and despair to a place where they can get through life in some measure of peace, and maybe even start dreaming again. He was a genuinely good person. A few lines from his Christian tapes struck a cord with me. I remember feeling good and smiling when the man on the tape talked about God having a proud picture of me, His son, in His wallet.<br /><br />Now, Gary <span style="font-style: italic;">was</span> headed all the way to Kansas City, but on the way to Ohio I had gotten a glimpse of something that I didn't want to just pass up on the way back...<br /><br />I asked my driver if I could stop in St. Louis, Missouri. He agreed to drop me off close to St. Louis, though not in the city proper as he wanted to bypass what is known as the "St. Louis Spaghetti Bowl," a complicated network of on and off ramps that constitutes I-70 through St. Louis.<br /><br />He ended up dropping me off in Troy, Illinois, a small town at the intersection of I-70 and I-270. It was late at night and the bus that goes from Troy to St. Louis was no longer running. For a few moments, I stood outside the truck stop in Troy wondering what to do. A short, grubby kid approached me to ask if I had any cigarettes. I replied that I didn't, but I would be willing to buy him some if he had a car and could drive me into St. Louis. Unfortunately he had no such car. He claimed to be the only homeless person in Troy, and he followed me around for a while trying to make conversation and figure out who I was and what I was doing in Troy. He introduced himself as "Insecticide."<br /><br />Insecticide was the first of three "Rainbow People" I would meet on my way home to Utah. Until last week, I had never heard of Rainbow People, but I learned a lot about them. Essentially what I learned is that they are somewhat anarchic, spontaneous communities of people in the woods who share with each other, smoke pot, jump trains and/or hitchike, and tend to run around with dogs for companionship. Insecticide, however, was the least interesting and most obnoxious of the Rainbow kids I would meet.<br /><br />After wandering around town for a while, I finally lost Insecticide and decided to just walk a couple of towns down I-40 to Collinsville, Illinois, where I was told I could catch public transportation in the morning to downtown St. Louis.<br /><br />It was around midnight or 1 am when I got to Collinsville, some 8 miles or so down the road. I stopped in at the Walmart (the only thing open at that hour) to ask around about getting to St. Louis in the morning. I found out that there was a shuttle that stopped right in front of the Walmart early in the morning and that it could take me to a bus station where I could get a ride to a metrolink station (Think "Trax" for St. Louis) where I could take a train into downtown. Satisfied with that information, I went off into the woods on the edge of Collinsville to camp for the night.<br /><br />I arrived at the arch the next day around 8 AM. I was frustrated to find out that the arch doesn't officially open until 9:20 am, so I walked around, took some pictures, and chatted with a few other visitors until we could finally get inside the arch. I got hassled a little bit for carrying around a giant backpack, but when I told the park rangers I was hitchiking home to Utah and just wanted to see the arch before I passed up St. Louis, their disapproval turned into a sort of admiration, which was nice.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFmFQzdyGoZqyzqUT_Ces7ZMaOsCx2lgsAyXj61HfUOmzOfyTx4gbQyxjkYSypT5MGHqaZy-XatZcOvYRSB09qOuy62Tr-80jJAfXJ8MmZ-4J1lTTRAQau6iLXeM0iN48fyn6h/s1600-h/IMG_0976.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFmFQzdyGoZqyzqUT_Ces7ZMaOsCx2lgsAyXj61HfUOmzOfyTx4gbQyxjkYSypT5MGHqaZy-XatZcOvYRSB09qOuy62Tr-80jJAfXJ8MmZ-4J1lTTRAQau6iLXeM0iN48fyn6h/s320/IMG_0976.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274748585037349906" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUCCzLEWMvIbaLG9ChhFBasw_V8GqnjnBzBjG5mAwiu236kmmEZWnPvzOtUHlWhOoPaCGzY3xY5YBPLURL_U60MJTT4l-MpExwSQVXR5jsdf3_dw1utvBzjKhqML3_UJdc6Hb_/s1600-h/IMG_0977.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUCCzLEWMvIbaLG9ChhFBasw_V8GqnjnBzBjG5mAwiu236kmmEZWnPvzOtUHlWhOoPaCGzY3xY5YBPLURL_U60MJTT4l-MpExwSQVXR5jsdf3_dw1utvBzjKhqML3_UJdc6Hb_/s320/IMG_0977.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274748582518916994" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin9XuPPHcUx-owqaiHTB3rbrDkO5bj5tUWjDHqRzyP7ypYQyY_LFx4J9sNFPoxBFlt-0YmdUK0VVWXVkJ-lhHqHWXJ8xRksXSZ6rnHwY22nuOSPEKv2vkB7wefq3ZQxRO3gcxw/s1600-h/IMG_0978.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin9XuPPHcUx-owqaiHTB3rbrDkO5bj5tUWjDHqRzyP7ypYQyY_LFx4J9sNFPoxBFlt-0YmdUK0VVWXVkJ-lhHqHWXJ8xRksXSZ6rnHwY22nuOSPEKv2vkB7wefq3ZQxRO3gcxw/s320/IMG_0978.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274748593772046066" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiruNWv_IBtttBs1AqaTOTibF45BoNA2GI6bebGPW9Dw34s2E640wMQ41bYwN5MQY5HGcWygcxURmTG9sc8MiqkhBXLPxx134t9Z-AP85clWtaVQjrf_guM26cLN_hHrljQehd6/s1600-h/IMG_0988.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiruNWv_IBtttBs1AqaTOTibF45BoNA2GI6bebGPW9Dw34s2E640wMQ41bYwN5MQY5HGcWygcxURmTG9sc8MiqkhBXLPxx134t9Z-AP85clWtaVQjrf_guM26cLN_hHrljQehd6/s320/IMG_0988.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274751309515068082" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqaRCBV7v9qzpArCS6m_-iH00Q9skkufJ8qI9c4Vk0fupDZVY-4rXPjvHeZogKvQwooGRBjz0IM-ZQbfjcBT9vdWvF6fkORo2cZVAmfQ8hKqpUTIRVQEYzSu-oyghN0VntJZmC/s1600-h/IMG_0990.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqaRCBV7v9qzpArCS6m_-iH00Q9skkufJ8qI9c4Vk0fupDZVY-4rXPjvHeZogKvQwooGRBjz0IM-ZQbfjcBT9vdWvF6fkORo2cZVAmfQ8hKqpUTIRVQEYzSu-oyghN0VntJZmC/s320/IMG_0990.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274751332110937794" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioVH9aeQRRXt52lDchDMSWQAv4dC2Zts-X4XyrYvSvimoD9yuonk5xCMr7_6C7oHMozRfrSdxtb5E9TohcUzs9-nhblXcNoh-z087wbFzN4rJHa0r-DTOpHctpZDtbi4AqgG8l/s1600-h/IMG_1003.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioVH9aeQRRXt52lDchDMSWQAv4dC2Zts-X4XyrYvSvimoD9yuonk5xCMr7_6C7oHMozRfrSdxtb5E9TohcUzs9-nhblXcNoh-z087wbFzN4rJHa0r-DTOpHctpZDtbi4AqgG8l/s320/IMG_1003.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274751358733500882" border="0" /></a><br />After checking out the spectacular view from the top of the arch with a geriatric tourist group, I descended and hopped on the MetroLink again. I took it as far west as I could, which placed me at the St. Louis airport on I-70.<br /><br />It took me FOREVER to get out of St. Louis, and then ultimately Missouri. By the time I finally left that state, I was just starting to understand how the pioneers felt about it. I kept getting rides from all kinds of people just leaving work or whatever in St. Louis who would take me 10 to 20 miles down the road. When you're hitchiking over 1600 miles, getting a 10 mile ride down the road is like winning a quarter in the lottery.<br /><br />I accepted all the rides and was still grateful for <span style="font-style: italic;">most </span>of them. One exception to that was getting picked up by a drunk who worked the night shift at a laundry soap plant in St. Louis. He worked from 12 am to 8 am, and then went to the bar and drank until around noon when he picked me up. I didn't initially realize that the guy was wasted, but quickly after he started driving he started talking to me in slurred words and swerving all over the road, nearly running into other cars or things several times. He also had a budweiser clenched between his knees. He yelled and cursed the "damn St. Louis traffic!" while explaining to he "used to pick up hitchikers until this one time I picked up a faggot." I guess there was some kind of bad experience there. At one point he asked me in a slurred stagger if I could "reach in the back and grab another refreshment." I glanced at the back seat and found a cooler full of Budweiser. Unsure of what to do exactly, I grabbed the guy another beer and just prayed I would make it out of this guy's car alive. I'm still not sure what I <span style="font-style: italic;">should</span> have done just then. Luckily he was only taking me 20 or 30 miles down the road.<br /><br />When I finally got out of that situation, I was picked up about three more times. Once by a younger guy wearing a beanie in a truck. He didn't talk a whole lot. He worked in construction or something and had some letters from Focus on the Family lodged between the two front seats. Next I got picked up by an ex-Mormon Dad who smoked and talked to me about the church and his family and stuff. He took me to another truck stop where I asked for a ride with an uncle/nephew trucker duo headed to Kansas City. They let me ride with them, but we didn't make it to Kansas city. Their truck kept on leaking water and coolant, so they decided to stop for the night in Concordia, Missouri. (I lost my beloved black beanie, the one you see in some of my pictures, in these guys' truck...very sad)<br /><br />So here I was, trapped at a truck stop in Concordia, Missouri, at night. I forgot to mention the reason I walked from Troy to Collinsville in Illinois. It is very near impossible to hitch a ride at night. I'm not sure exactly why, maybe because its dark and people can't see you; maybe because people are tired; maybe because people just get scared at night. Who knows? But NO ONE picks you up at night.<br /><br />It was at the truck stop in Concordia that I met two more Rainbow kids, a couple, boyfriend and girlfriend. They seemed friendly, and I asked them if they were headed west on I-70. They weren't going west; they were headed east to...well, I can't remember... but they didn't have a vehicle. They had just jumped a train to Kansas City and then got a ride with someone to Concordia. The girl introduced herself as "Bitchface." I conjectured that it wasn't her Christian name. She shrugged and told me that was just what everyone calls her. She was tall and very pretty with a nose ring and and dreadlocks that had all sorts of jewelry and ornaments in them. Her boyfriend's name was James and he was about the same height as Bitchface, with messy brown hair. They both had long tattered winter coats and boots and they traveled with a dog that was tied up outside.<br /><br />I wish I had a picture of James and Bitchface to show here, but we were sort of bonding for a while and I didn't want to just ask them for a picture because it would have seemed condescending.<br /><br />James and Bitchface got a sandwich at subway and shared some hot chocolate and cookies with me at the truck stop. If you know me well, you probably know that all it takes to make me like you is sharing cookies, so I liked James and Bitchface. They told me about Rainbow Gatherings and hopping trains and even offered to let me take their switchmap (they had maps of all the train switches in the U.S.) so that I could hop a train from Kansas City to Salt Lake if I wanted to. Kansas City has a massive train station that you can see driving by it on I-70. If one was going to jump a train, one would probably want to start somewhere like Kansas City.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ZvmfyAs3JbkNn5X7AueSV2LOdr05_vWxDjg_qE-Cq5cyDOYs1sRcUEG_4oJhgHgyuskl2iJ6aKZ3yttJSRSHVC1W9X5S6BVxHWSEOnHhitDRzZK4t9zC8oNqkQEotpwb0h1c/s1600-h/IMG_0947.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ZvmfyAs3JbkNn5X7AueSV2LOdr05_vWxDjg_qE-Cq5cyDOYs1sRcUEG_4oJhgHgyuskl2iJ6aKZ3yttJSRSHVC1W9X5S6BVxHWSEOnHhitDRzZK4t9zC8oNqkQEotpwb0h1c/s320/IMG_0947.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274748555067094914" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I told them I didn't want to take their map, but I was glad I met them and thanks for the cookies and hot chocolate, but I'd better start trying to get a ride again. They said they'd better get going too, and we shook hands and parted ways.<br /><br />After trying to get a ride at the truck stop for a while, some punk kid that worked in the convenience store called the cops to have me kicked off the premises. It was private property, so I guess they were allowed to have me removed for whatever they wanted, but I really wasn't making a scene or harrassing anyone. I was just asking which way truckers were headed, mostly.<br /><br />I left the truck stop in Concordia, a little annoyed, and tried hitching at a rest stop (<span style="font-style: italic;">public</span> property and outside of Concordia city limits) about a half mile down the road after that, but with no success. At night everyone suddenly turns hostile to hitchikers.<br /><br />It was freezing; about 20 degrees outside. I thought of camping for the night again, but didnt even want to think about finding a place and taking my sleeping bag out since I didn't have a tent. I went into the bathroom at the rest stop to think over my options and get warm. By 10 or 11 at night I finally caved and found the cheapest motel in Concordia, Missouri to stay at: The Budget Inn, for 30 bucks a night. I did, after all, have all that bus ticket money from Betty, so I figured I might as well not freeze that night.<br /><br />Then I decided that as long as I was pampering myself, I would go all out. I paid the little Indian (dot not feather) man at the motel, and then bought a sub sandwich thing and some soft bake cookies at the closest convenience store. I took a warm bath and then microwaved my soft bake cookies for a few seconds so they were warm, and I watched British Parliament on C-Span (cuz I'm sort of a political geek like that and because British Parliament makes for really entertaining television) until I fell asleep.<br /><br />Then the morning came and I was back on the road. I got a ride from an old man headed a few towns down to see his son. Nice guy. I may have gotten another ride before or after that...can't remember.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWjVYb_95SYxb0P5T0aBG2_JMjz_dnh2TAoNuJglpH6uw0Y-IqOmgsPmrDOA_7bSdVUhtCKTj4vubvauBLWurzy_PdWO24OrcDYXCwP3jmHIWTr-bYqWvlnwRR948vofXuRbuC/s1600-h/IMG_1005.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWjVYb_95SYxb0P5T0aBG2_JMjz_dnh2TAoNuJglpH6uw0Y-IqOmgsPmrDOA_7bSdVUhtCKTj4vubvauBLWurzy_PdWO24OrcDYXCwP3jmHIWTr-bYqWvlnwRR948vofXuRbuC/s320/IMG_1005.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274751342988396098" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Then I was stuck at this spot on the freeway for a while. I was starting to get tired of holding my thumb out, and started thinking to myself that if I could just get to Kansas City that day, I would try hopping a train to Salt Lake City. I had to be back in time to start a job, and I had missed enough school and tutoring hours with Jonny already. Also, as badly as I just wanted to go leave everything, it really wouldn't have been fair to my boyfriend, who really is amazing. <br /><br />I stood and though until my brain was interruped by the spectacle of a long procession of school buses, maybe 10 or 15, coming down the left lane of the freeway. They were a nuisance for all the other cars, just trying to get home. People were either driving patiently behind the procession, or trying urgently to pass it on the right hand side, or stuck somewhere in between. I turned my head to follow the spectacle and after a minute or two I saw a car pull to the side of the road way off in the distance, maybe a little less than a quarter mile from me. I couldn't be sure if the car was just waiting for all of the buses to pass, or if it was waiting for me to get in. I threw on my pack and started to run toward the car just in case it was there to pick me up.<br /><br />Turns out, it was. Man, was I ready for a ride.<br /><br />The guy inside the car looked sort of like Rivers Cuomo, the frontman for Weezer, except that he was just a little pudgier. He seemed really excited and happy with himself for having picked me up.<br />He talked like this:<br /><br />"Hey man! Oh dude, my name is Shay, man, nice to meet you! Dude, doesn't it feel good to get picked up!? Dude, I've been hitchiking for like the last 7 months, so I totally know how good it feels to finally be going somewhere again! Where you headed?"<br /><br />"Yeah, thanks dude, I appreciate it." I responded, realizing that I was mimicing the way he talked a little. "I'm actually headed all the way to Utah, but you can just take me as far west on 70 as you're going"<br /><br />Shay turned to look at me with a beaming smile and paused for a moment. "Dude, its your f#@king lucky day, man! I'm going to California, so you just got hooked up with a ride all the way to Salt Lake City! Oh man, what are the odds that I picked you up, haha! Dude, thats so perfect. I couldn't help but stop and give you a ride after hitchiking myself for so long! But dude, here's the deal, I gotta get gas soon and I've only got two bucks on me. But as soon as we get to Kansas City, we're good. I'm picking up a girl there and she has stacks of money." He looked at me sort of searchingly.<br /><br />I told him I could buy a tank of gas to get us to Kansas, a little over 50 miles ahead. I figured I might as well even if the money only got me to Kansas City. We stopped at the next gas station and I put twenty bucks in the tank.<br /><br />On the way to Kansas City, Shay started telling me about this girl he was going to pick up, Kalumi, and then went on to tell me about his life and what he was doing picking up a stranger in who knows where, Missouri.<br /><br />Shay and Kalumi were drug dealers. Shay had been hitchiking for 7 months making drug deals around the country until he could afford to buy his own car, in Ohio, where his parents live. He was on his way to pick up Kalumi in Kansas, and then head out with her to a pot farm in Humboldt County, California. (Shay and Kalumi actually met working on the pot farm a couple years earlier) They would pick up a load of pot and hash (not sure if the farm knew this was going on or not...) and who knows what else, and then deliver back east to make anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000 dollars.<br /><br />(Shay ALSO happened to know a lot about Rainbow People and their Gatherings, and had even been to one. When I told him I had met a few along the way, he described their basic appearance and guessed that they owned dogs and had hopped a train before I even told him! This was astounding to me as I had never heard of Rainbow People until a day earlier...)<br /><br />Kalumi's house was sort of on the outskirts of town. There was a creek running through the backyard. It was actually a nice setting, though the house itself was a little run-down. We parked outside and Shay ran in the house (It was obvious from that point on that he had a thing for this girl) and after about 15 minutes came out with Kalumi. She was a pretty girl. She had jeans and a hoodie on. Her hair was a little messy, but she kept it all back in a pony tail. At some point in the recent past she had her hair in dreads. I later found out that both of them had dreads until recently, when Shay decided he needed to look like a "good Jesus kid" so the could make drug runs easier. They noted that two things will attract the eye of a cop: 1. being black, and 2. boys with long hair. So off came Shay's hair.<br /><br />To make a long story short (because I'm getting tired of writing this thing up...quality of writing may or may not decrease beyond this point...) Kalumi drove for about 6 hours through Kansas and then I drove through part of the day and the night until we got back to Salt Lake. Kalumi and Shay were getting baked the whole time. Kalumi's purse was full of rolled up pot and various other drugs (they used these eye-drop things at one point? I don't even know what those were...) as well as a huge stack of 20, 50 and 100 dollar bills. Kalumi functioned pretty normally after smoking TONS of pot, but Shay, who had not smoked any pot himself in a month or two, got really stoned. He stared off into space most of the time and every once in a while would say something sort of philosophical or just strange. The car was full of pot smoke. We all ate a lot. I had a lot of cookies, maybe because the smoke was getting to me, or maybe just because I like cookies...I didn't <span style="font-style: italic;">feel</span> high at all, and Shay said that even when someone is actually smoking pot it usually takes them a few tries to feel stoned.<br /><br />We got pulled over in Colorado, just outside of Denver. I forgot to mention that the car we were driving was damaged in the back, (though all lights were still functioning properly) and so maybe that, along with the Ohio license plate, looked suspicious to a cop.<br /><br />He initially stopped us on a bridge. I pulled over and rolled down my window, but then he told me to keep driving until we were off the bridge. That was good because it gave us a couple hundred yards to try to air the pot smell out of the car. Somehow though, incredibly, the cop did not detect it. Or at leastl, he didn't say anything.<br /><br />I still have no idea why he pulled us over. I thought maybe it could have been because we were speeding. I never knew how fast we were going because the speedometer on the car was broken so that engine cutoff would not occur if a certain speed was reached. Shay had told me to just keep my eye on the RPM's and the relative speed of the other cars, and I had been doing my best to make sure we weren't going over the speed limit, but I was never sure exactly.<br /><br />At any rate, the cop asked for my license and Shay got him the registration for the car. We waited anxiously for about 500 years until the cop came back, handed me all our stuff, and cheerily sent us on our way after telling us he just wanted to make sure "everything checked out alright." Luckily, it did, and I didn't hesitate to drive out of that unsettling situation.<br /><br />And then I drove and drove and drove sleepily up to Wyoming, on to I-80, and back to Utah. I stopped once for about 30 minutes to take a power nap at a rest stop, and then just kept going and going until around 8 or 9 am when we arrived at the U of U. I got all my stuff together, bid Shay and Kalumi farewell, and then headed over to Josh's place. He was home from work that day because he had just gotten his wisdome teeth out. We hung out and got sandwiches at Subway, and then I took Trax down to Sandy, the bus back to UVU, and finally walked the few blocks home.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHm90XssFlOoHMdEwwp3ulAHeB_ifyg-ZNcQv5voqcuwL1uRs4dVciErdia8dz6zF87TnNRBZKIMNHXbjhzNaRU7OsSo-dwstmbFajQUuohCunAOk9gxz5d1p4l6j0AbemREO4/s1600-h/IMG_1019.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHm90XssFlOoHMdEwwp3ulAHeB_ifyg-ZNcQv5voqcuwL1uRs4dVciErdia8dz6zF87TnNRBZKIMNHXbjhzNaRU7OsSo-dwstmbFajQUuohCunAOk9gxz5d1p4l6j0AbemREO4/s320/IMG_1019.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274751374139351410" border="0" /></a>pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-89513050765235824422008-11-09T23:26:00.000-08:002008-11-10T09:02:15.417-08:00This is making me crazy. I probably shouldn't be writing this here, but I've got to get this all out of my head, and I want some third party to come along and tell me how I'm supposed to deal with this crap.<br /><br />I'm in this sort of emotional situation that I didn't even know could exist. At least, I'd never thought of it before or seen or heard of it, but its tearing me up. I feel stupid writing about it, but this has got to end so I'm going to write about it for a minute because sometimes writing about problems helps me to solve them.<br /><br />So, close friends and anonymous third parties, here's what I'm feeling:<br /><br />I'm dating an incredible guy. I love him. He's funny and considerate, smart, good looking, witty, sociable, understanding...a dream come true...really. But he's <span style="font-style: italic;">so</span> incredible, <span style="font-style: italic;">so</span> amazing and wonderful, that sometimes it hurts a little bit to be around him...<br /><br />Imagine dating someone who is better than you at <span style="font-style: italic;">everything</span>. Even the things you maybe thought you were pretty good at. And, while you admire him and care about him, you also feel a little bit like dirt just being around him because you never feel like you really measure up to anything that he does or has done.<br /><br />And so, while you love this person so much you'd probably take a bullet for him, there's a small part of you that is in constant pain around him, and you just want to just go hide somewhere or find some people who aren't so amazing so you can feel like you have some sort of value again, because around him you just feel like a waste of a human being.<br /><br />Its not that he doesn't treat you well, or doesn't seem to care about you. Quite the opposite. You've maybe never been treated so well in your life. But again, that just makes you feel like you're way out of your league somehow... and then you just feel like shit again... and when he's around sometimes its bearable because he's there grinning or holding your hand or doing something adorable and you're <span style="font-style: italic;">just</span> thinking about him (literally, almost nothing except for him the whole time...so much so that maybe you're not paying attention to anything around you, like how you're driving, or that you're dropping things, or that you sound like an idiot when you try to talk) and you're not thinking as much about how your own life is going and how its really not amounting to a whole heck of a lot right now.<br /><br />But then you go home and it all comes flooding back to you and it sticks with you the rest of the week and just hurts again when he's around even though its numbed a bit by how great he is?<br /><br />Thats all cyclical and doesnt make any sense, but thats kinda how I've been feeling.<br /><br />If this was someone I knew and not me, this is what I would tell that person:<br /><br />(This is also what I've been trying to tell myself the last few weeks)<br /><br />"Well, he obviously likes you for some reason. He sees something in you, so just accept that and be happy about it."<br /><br />I can't accept that. First of all, there's nothing I have that he doesn't have or can't get. Secondly, I think his sense of judgement is a little bit skewed right now.<br /><br />I didn't mention that my boyfriend was in a long term abusive, sheltered relationship a year before he met me, so maybe all the day-to-day normal courteous, nice, stuff that I do seems really great to him, even when its just what any enamored guy would do for the person he fell in love with.<br /><br />I just worry that maybe he'll realize later on that I'm not so great after all, or worse, that I'll just stay caught up in all these feelings and I really <span style="font-style: italic;">won't</span> be great after all because I can't be myself when I'm always worrying about crap like this.<br /><br />The bottom line is, I can get through a lot of letdowns, but I'm not sure if I could get through ever being let down by this guy. It would be an awfully long and hard fall. So, I either need to figure out how to fix the way I feel somehow, or find a way to gently let myself down now and deal with it somehow so as to avoid more and deeper pain.<br /><br />I prefer to change how I feel...I just don't know how I'm supposed to do that.pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-24351088953215504672008-10-25T22:42:00.000-07:002008-10-25T23:00:27.686-07:00Nuclear Proliferation.<h5 class="self"><span class="time_stamp ts_self">11:30pm</span>Glade</h5> <p id="msg_17825941_2174820397" class="p_self pic_padding">k, this kid just added me on facebook</p><p id="msg_17825941_2362483815" class="p_self pic_padding">his name is Nima</p><h5 class="other"> <span class="time_stamp ts_other">11:30pm</span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=17825941">Robbie</a></h5><p class="p_other pic_padding">nima?</p><h5 class="self"> <span class="time_stamp ts_self">11:30pm</span>Glade</h5><p id="msg_17825941_888894203" class="p_self pic_padding">and he's all, "hey, we went to sutter elementary together!"</p><p id="msg_17825941_1729653394" class="p_self pic_padding">and i remember nima from sutter</p><p id="msg_17825941_1811437727" class="p_self pic_padding">but i only have on memory of him</p><h5 class="other"> <span class="time_stamp ts_other">11:31pm</span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=17825941">Robbie</a></h5><p class="p_other pic_padding">what was it?</p><h5 class="self"> <span class="time_stamp ts_self">11:31pm</span>Glade</h5><p id="msg_17825941_3354755715" class="p_self pic_padding">he kept bragging to everyone that he knew karate</p><p id="msg_17825941_3540034553" class="p_self pic_padding">and he said he could beat me up</p><h5 class="other"> <span class="time_stamp ts_other">11:31pm</span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=17825941">Robbie</a></h5><p class="p_other pic_padding">haha</p><h5 class="self"> <span class="time_stamp ts_self">11:31pm</span>Glade</h5><p id="msg_17825941_936755462" class="p_self pic_padding">and i told him he was stupid</p><h5 class="other"> <span class="time_stamp ts_other">11:32pm</span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=17825941">Robbie</a></h5><p class="p_other pic_padding">tell him that</p><h5 class="self"> <span class="time_stamp ts_self">11:32pm</span>Glade</h5><p id="msg_17825941_2765740639" class="p_self pic_padding">thats not the end of the memory</p><p id="msg_17825941_3731122937" class="p_self pic_padding">it sort of spanned a school day</p><h5 class="other"> <span class="time_stamp ts_other">11:32pm</span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=17825941">Robbie</a></h5><p class="p_other pic_padding">oh ok</p><h5 class="self"> <span class="time_stamp ts_self">11:32pm</span>Glade</h5><p id="msg_17825941_4005743477" class="p_self pic_padding">he challenged me to a fight on the grass</p><p id="msg_17825941_3535904772" class="p_self pic_padding">and i punched him in the face and gave him a bloody lip. (bleeding everywhere)<br /></p><p id="msg_17825941_1604282505" class="p_self pic_padding">and i was hella scared i was gonna get kicked out of school or something or my mom was gonna find out</p><p id="msg_17825941_1457008719" class="p_self pic_padding">but then he went to the nurses office and told them that he fell off the monkey bars or something</p><h5 class="other"> <span class="time_stamp ts_other">11:33pm</span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=17825941">Robbie</a></h5><p class="p_other pic_padding">haha</p><h5 class="self"> <span class="time_stamp ts_self">11:33pm</span>Glade</h5><p id="msg_17825941_1992277296" class="p_self pic_padding">and then came back and wanted to fight me still</p><p id="msg_17825941_2611246427" class="p_self pic_padding">and i was like, this is the stupidest kid on the planet and sort of made this resolution to ignore him always</p><p id="msg_17825941_56270556" class="p_self pic_padding">and now, 10 or so years later, it feels like hes trying to get my attention again</p><h5 class="other"> <span class="time_stamp ts_other">11:34pm</span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=17825941">Robbie</a></h5><p class="p_other pic_padding">haha</p><h5 class="self"> <span class="time_stamp ts_self">11:34pm</span>Glade</h5><p id="msg_17825941_2283804953" class="p_self pic_padding">and i feel all scared like my mom is gonna find out i split his lip</p><p id="msg_17825941_1006440523" class="p_self pic_padding">the end</p><h5 class="self"> <span class="time_stamp ts_self">11:35pm</span>Glade</h5><p id="msg_17825941_1287361404" class="p_self pic_padding">hes also one of two iranians i know</p><p id="msg_17825941_1915336109" class="p_self pic_padding">so it sort of colors how i view that entire country</p><p id="msg_17825941_3894641704" class="p_self pic_padding">and im against them getting nukes.</p><h5 class="other"> <span class="time_stamp ts_other">11:36pm</span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=17825941">Robbie</a></h5><p class="p_other pic_padding">haha</p><p class="p_other pic_padding">yeah</p><p class="p_other pic_padding">ha, i love your political views more when i learn stuff like this</p><p class="p_other pic_padding">it makes me wonder who george w bush grew up around</p>pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-62389173646090833442008-10-21T06:30:00.001-07:002008-10-21T11:28:23.737-07:00Josh on our trip to Zion National Park<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb6Bng4T4mG5p23ZXhMRs8YP32eEZi9H26L1dU9ubI4vGgcFwOHc-Ungu5GXZ1OI7f1pPCYSgOCX1wPSaNU4nex-XOgBKoBpTs4-UsnK9bPd027LpDzdmI642QAr4oDBSEIijA/s1600-h/Zion.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb6Bng4T4mG5p23ZXhMRs8YP32eEZi9H26L1dU9ubI4vGgcFwOHc-Ungu5GXZ1OI7f1pPCYSgOCX1wPSaNU4nex-XOgBKoBpTs4-UsnK9bPd027LpDzdmI642QAr4oDBSEIijA/s320/Zion.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5259599131510880594" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />Dairy Queen has some really good fries. Hehe. I love this guy.<br /><br /><br /><br />Here are some real pictures too, in no particular order.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDRJV89s4laqUcLOEUzAG1q9u7awmQwHqvp8uSs1f80ENW1HLhV0xppLiuw4XIhRqhHoWpWX9LxvCb-UiVAo6lp5HqCpUdDFkbNB0tiSq5V88A8EPQoifK4Krj2wF2dJ839MYI/s1600-h/IMG_0783.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDRJV89s4laqUcLOEUzAG1q9u7awmQwHqvp8uSs1f80ENW1HLhV0xppLiuw4XIhRqhHoWpWX9LxvCb-UiVAo6lp5HqCpUdDFkbNB0tiSq5V88A8EPQoifK4Krj2wF2dJ839MYI/s320/IMG_0783.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5259672146090846482" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjREf_yZf-xSG5BLu8V3RejjFr-scL6Zodmu9yvMiEDAdrO_8kOR0Ws1lQULgc92BxHDDy5fEUKPCBT0EiWF0gdBKj93o3dUx5vG4FlKVs_O7JpMzkkyWelbbcamUoWG56RUCQY/s1600-h/IMG_0800.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjREf_yZf-xSG5BLu8V3RejjFr-scL6Zodmu9yvMiEDAdrO_8kOR0Ws1lQULgc92BxHDDy5fEUKPCBT0EiWF0gdBKj93o3dUx5vG4FlKVs_O7JpMzkkyWelbbcamUoWG56RUCQY/s320/IMG_0800.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5259672158741992514" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibAD1_Py1BG2b1ExuukgMAWAhGcNtoZQ3FAPMLLl9LgfRQFD4j0D4KaO9u0O5aTbeQnjjBC3Yck89MON8PnTGY0qx1tVy52nwlP1OBH21wqyRqmKw31sUU3k-dIH0hmpOONsZP/s1600-h/IMG_0882.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibAD1_Py1BG2b1ExuukgMAWAhGcNtoZQ3FAPMLLl9LgfRQFD4j0D4KaO9u0O5aTbeQnjjBC3Yck89MON8PnTGY0qx1tVy52nwlP1OBH21wqyRqmKw31sUU3k-dIH0hmpOONsZP/s320/IMG_0882.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5259603078652088290" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdNg-f2RbBCQg8-HKVYfnm8tbiERd7SkjSIgh7YGKBxIY0YHu-JpabdPII30wk0XN49_5g0_V5WRVYCTRSxneq3qerZaQpr5BZUiZWBpToV4zPMZwIzIbhRiJps38t636BuRQf/s1600-h/IMG_0879.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdNg-f2RbBCQg8-HKVYfnm8tbiERd7SkjSIgh7YGKBxIY0YHu-JpabdPII30wk0XN49_5g0_V5WRVYCTRSxneq3qerZaQpr5BZUiZWBpToV4zPMZwIzIbhRiJps38t636BuRQf/s320/IMG_0879.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5259604082168407106" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXUN3cipsx_Dqas33FBXY-lDW3LkERGdGzDLjddEK9QKIlfGLZCF2MIcRUuaPySh-41EboiNdcP13qBRRzDRX1cqkwQOKjEcRwKu5IqRZMNjPiCBnRvCB8u9o5bF28v8JU1DTJ/s1600-h/IMG_0829.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXUN3cipsx_Dqas33FBXY-lDW3LkERGdGzDLjddEK9QKIlfGLZCF2MIcRUuaPySh-41EboiNdcP13qBRRzDRX1cqkwQOKjEcRwKu5IqRZMNjPiCBnRvCB8u9o5bF28v8JU1DTJ/s320/IMG_0829.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5259603084296375682" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8TEqmBxgi1q4A_kDTYG3plnFd3zwuXl096WuRSb4mkLJ3Ne0JaZkVpGwVRmDQsrv7uxkk7RWhePiXNPR0pX4U1RKN9NZUlyLvvkKbvq8mrw9ZN0XHrKmsqPT_jbBIfbBsxYfs/s1600-h/IMG_0840.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8TEqmBxgi1q4A_kDTYG3plnFd3zwuXl096WuRSb4mkLJ3Ne0JaZkVpGwVRmDQsrv7uxkk7RWhePiXNPR0pX4U1RKN9NZUlyLvvkKbvq8mrw9ZN0XHrKmsqPT_jbBIfbBsxYfs/s320/IMG_0840.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5259603095026667634" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBVXxOABviikzAIInBqCo02EeNW7Q-0eB8mdbmHlBeepAozJGgLTvvUU-eGFoo49yX2JMdllCgxTQvSEJTw7mitBT8IlatCfFzqZ9Fr2eMZkhhMq9f67H8ChcICN3Co29Xpx2n/s1600-h/IMG_0775.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBVXxOABviikzAIInBqCo02EeNW7Q-0eB8mdbmHlBeepAozJGgLTvvUU-eGFoo49yX2JMdllCgxTQvSEJTw7mitBT8IlatCfFzqZ9Fr2eMZkhhMq9f67H8ChcICN3Co29Xpx2n/s320/IMG_0775.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5259600242086650978" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnzkNMRpG9rnS6ZpYskObBp6eOiafFfU-JjmryfKeFeK1IFu8fr2mQXS92aZ92OoaXJpYZ7yKMNZ3kf8LulizCrwHEJwCHe5K2zy2gH7WnbXCx6RY-SUWrNBGtUuEGRJMiKUzl/s1600-h/IMG_0786.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnzkNMRpG9rnS6ZpYskObBp6eOiafFfU-JjmryfKeFeK1IFu8fr2mQXS92aZ92OoaXJpYZ7yKMNZ3kf8LulizCrwHEJwCHe5K2zy2gH7WnbXCx6RY-SUWrNBGtUuEGRJMiKUzl/s320/IMG_0786.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5259600251766032354" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW0m5NmdGeE_baOpbZkTdFGD4sqrKvBDUEHwU4lJiYrANbBbC9ZHntzue46snMCOToZmTpY3V2bhro5BeF670pF5bh1VHv_hYScHNfEReV9VuLrn6mFIEkn8j1WdxWSchDn38L/s1600-h/IMG_0845.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW0m5NmdGeE_baOpbZkTdFGD4sqrKvBDUEHwU4lJiYrANbBbC9ZHntzue46snMCOToZmTpY3V2bhro5BeF670pF5bh1VHv_hYScHNfEReV9VuLrn6mFIEkn8j1WdxWSchDn38L/s320/IMG_0845.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5259600256529006770" border="0" /></a>pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-1817012973237797072008-08-16T15:08:00.000-07:002008-08-19T01:51:00.239-07:00Biting off more than I can chew.I need to just sit and type out my life for a few minutes.<br /><br />I've decided to try to become a high school math teacher. I'm at least pretty solid about the teacher part.<br /><br />A teacher for a couple of reasons: first of all I think its a job I could have a sense of satisfaction in. I'd have a direct influence on lots of different people. Secondly, I find that I grow tired of any job after about a year, (sometimes less) and teachers get at least a few months of sabbatical in the summer to recharge and re-motivate themselves. I can take the summers off to go work elsewhere, travel, or just be a hermit for a while and consider other options. Perfect. :)<br /><br />A "math" teacher mostly because if I'm qualified to teach math in high school, I can get a job anywhere I want to live. I'm not especially great at math, but I do alright at it and I'm willing to put in the work, I think.<br /><br />High school because thats when teachers actually have an impact on you. Elementary school has some good years, but people forget about most things that happened to them way back in elementary school. Middle school is just a horrible, awkward time in life when you have to be separated from all the other kids because of all the stupid things hormones make you do. No one ever wants to remember middle school. High school is different, and best I think.<br /><br />So there it is, my career choice. If you'd have asked me two years ago, I probably wouldn't have even considered this option. But that's where I am, and this is the plan for now.<br /><br />Robbie and Greg and this girl Shelly and I all auditioned for Seussical the Musical at the Orem Scera Shell. (Robbie and I also got into Fiddler on the Roof a year or two ago, but dropped out after a couple days because our schedules got too busy. So we can't bail on this one or we'll never be accepted in community theater anywhere in the valley again.)<br /><br />Robbie is the Grinch, so he gets this whole little scene about the Whos' Christmas Party to be in the spotlight. Shelly is a Zebra in the Jungle of Nool. Greg is a citizen of Who; Papa Bell Ringer Who, (I always want to say Smurf instead of Who...) and I am a Wickersham Brother. In case you don't know who the Wickersham Brothers are, refer to the book Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss. The Wickershams are monkeys in the Jungle of Nool. We mess with Horton and steal his clover upon which rests Who, the tiniest planet in the sky, where Whoville is located. I'm basically one of the bad guys. In Seussical the Musical, the Wickershams are portrayed as sort of a 20's Zuit Suit/50's Greaser young gang of trouble makers. Its a fun role. Or at least it should be with a LOT more practice. There's a lot of singing to remember and our choreography is tough sometimes. There's one dance where I have to spin around on my kneecap. That knee is killing me now.<br /><br />I also have a bunch of silly small roles, like circus member, hunch, and my personal favorite, "water". I get to wear rollerblades to be water. Hopefully I can still rollerblade alright.<br /><br />Its been a really long time since I did play stuff. Like middle school. I was in a couple of productions with my older brother and some church kids at the Santa Clara Rec Center. I played Becky's little brother in Tom Sawyer. Then I was the wizard in Once Upon a Mattress. The only really performance oriented thing I've done post-high school is folkdance at BYU. And if you're a boy, that doesn't really take a lot. So there are all these high school kids in the play putting me to shame right now when it comes to singing and dancing and stuff. Embarrassing. Oh well, should be either really fun, or a decent story to tell years down the road.<br /><br />I quit my job at Papa John's Pizza.<br /><br />Mostly it was on principle. Gas was getting insanely expensive, but our compensation (90 cents per trip, even to houses two towns away) was not getting any higher. I was paying about 50 bucks a tank to fill up. We were getting paid 5.85 plus whatever tips we made plus the 90 cents per delivery. We drivers thought we would all get saved by the new minimum wage that went into effect in July. It was supposed to increase our base pay from 5.85 to 6.55 thereby possibly offsetting the rising price of fuel, but instead the corporation decided that it would come up with a new payment "system" to avoid having to pay its delivery drivers more. I would start to explain the new system to you here, but its complicated and boring. Suffice it to say, our regional manager was telling us we were going to make the same amount of money only with a difference in the way we were paid, but that simply wasn't true. We were going to start making quite a bit less. I did the math a few times. Add recent inflation to the top of that and not only were we making less, but much less.<br /><br />So, sick of having to maintain a car for my job and angry with greedy corporations in general, I started a small insurrection at our employee meeting by calculating the new numbers and showing everyone how this would result in a considerable paycut despite what our regional manager was trying to tell us. I quit on the spot (the flip side of having a right to work state is that employees can quit anytime without notice) and got lots of people steamed. 3 more drivers quit within the next few days. Maybe more have left by now, but I don't know. Likely they were hurting for a few days and then recovered, but I haven't kept up with it.<br /><br />So I went through finals week without a job. Which was actually really nice. I did reasonably well in school this summer. I got an A- and a B+ in my second term classes, Biology and Astronomy respectively. That may not sound like much, but its a huge improvement on what I was getting at BYU the last year or two.<br /><br />Now I'm in between semesters of school and looking for a job. The problem is that between this play and school, I don't have much time to squeeze in regular work shifts. I'll be going to school from 8 to 2 on weekdays, then rehearsals or shows from 7 to 10 most weekdays, and 10 to 2 some Saturdays. It's a mess. I've interviewed at a couple of places now but can't make anything work with my schedule yet. Something is going to have to give. I might have to drop out of school this semester or just not work and pray that things work out until mid-October when this play is done.<br /><br />There are actually two small sources of income I may have. There's an 11 year old kid with down syndrome in Seussical who's mom is desperately looking for a math tutor for him. She found out that I'm now looking at being a math teacher, and so she asked me about filling the position. I met with her the other day and I really like her. So I think I may do that for an hour or two on weekdays after school.<br /><br />I also do yardwork, cleaning, simple repairs and replacing, and whatever else at some condos my parents own in Provo, and they have decided to pay me for that. Should help out a little. I've been putting in several hours there lately because one of the condos is between tenants.<br /><br />But yeah, this semester is still going to be a crunch in a few ways for a while.<br /><br />I'm also dating someone again. A boyfriend.<br /><br />I met him wakeboarding, my second time out on the boat. I really wasn't looking for a date or anything on those boating trips other than to learn how to wakeboard. In fact, to be honest, I sort of went on the trips assuming everyone else would be sort of a douche-bag. (Have I gotten tons more judgemental over the years?) You have to understand some of what happened on these things to get why I assumed such. Its a bunch of gay guys who are trying to outmacho each other in whatever way possible so they don't look gay, but at the same time they're getting drunk and making out with each other. Kinda ridiculous.<br /><br />Well, this guy Josh was on the boat but he wasn't doing as much of that. I didn't really pay him a lot of attention at first. But then he asked me on a date, and it kinda caught me off guard. I went on the date. We saw Get Smart. Then he asked me on more dates. I asked him if he wanted to hike the Y around 2 AM one night and he came and we did a lot of talking and I liked him. He got me started playing this question game all the time where, well...we just ask lots of questions. The questions can be pretty basic, from things like "What is your favorite ____?" to slightly more insightful questions like "What's one place you want to go before you die?" to deeper things like "Do you see God as more of a father, grandfather, mechanic, etc?" to goofy silly stuff like "If you were a supervillain how would you dress your henchmen?" Its a good game that I like.<br /><br />The weekend after the Y hike we went up to the Tetons and stayed at his parents' place, which is in a town very near the park. We went up mainly to climb Table Rock, but my birthday just happened to be that weekend too, and he got his whole family in on celebrating it with me. It was kinda on the spot and awkward for me a little, having only known the guy a couple weeks, but it was also really endearing and both he and his family are great. And I think I hit it off with at least his dad and favorite sister, but hopefully the rest of the family too.<br /><br />After another week or two we decided to talk about where all this was headed and voice some concerns and what not, and we decided we were dating. Legitimately.<br /><br />Josh is probably the most considerate person I know. I couldn't even keep up with how nice he is if I tried. Every time I turn around he's doing something nice for me or someone else. Robbie is sick of hearing about that.<br /><br />He's also really bright and witty and easy on the eyes. He's always up for doing stuff, and he's full of great stories. I feel like he's got his priorities in order too and we line up on the importance of a lot of things. He's not as hung up about material stuff and cars and gadgets and clothes as Jon was, and thats refreshing. He goes way out of his way to treat people kindly, and he passed the Robbie and Greg approval test.<br /><br />So I'm trying to make that work. This semester could be trying, but we'll see.<br /><br />I have the same worries about a relationship as I did with Jon. As soon as I'm in, I'm all worried about getting out; afraid I'm stuck. My mind fast forwards to years from now and I wonder what that could be like with a guy. For now, I'm taking it all in stride.<br /><br />And this post will be done now.pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-22320196266547897572008-08-12T22:38:00.000-07:002008-08-12T22:42:06.082-07:00THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY!<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/zlfKdbWwruY&color1=11645361&color2=13619151&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/zlfKdbWwruY&color1=11645361&color2=13619151&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />I was just talking to my friend Ben the other day about how I wish there was more spontaneous mass dancing in the world! Man, I would love to be this guy!pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-14516361258705214692008-08-10T23:09:00.000-07:002008-08-10T23:26:41.401-07:00Interview with Paulo Coehlo at the end of The Alchemist<span style="font-weight: bold;">In The Alchemist, you refer to Soul of the World. What exactly is this? How is it tied to religion and spirituality?</span><br />Well, let's distinguish religion from spirituality. I am Catholic, so religion for me is a way of having discipline and collective worship with persons who share the same mystery. But in the end all religions tend to point to the same light. In between the light and us, sometimes there are too many rules. The light is here and there are no rules to follow this light.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">You mentioned that you're Catholic, but you've said elsewhere that your Jesuit upbringing was painful in some ways. What do you see as the value of, and problems with, organized religion?</span><br />The value is that they give you discipline and they give you collective worship and they give you humbleness toward the mysteries. The danger is that every religion, including the Catholic one, says "I have the ultimate truth." Then you start to rely on the priest, the mullah, the rabbi, or whoever, to be responsible for your acts. In fact, you are the only one who is responsible.pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-38760087132769071872008-07-29T22:56:00.000-07:002008-07-29T23:17:35.606-07:00A Memory Game to Play.<span style="font-style: italic;">How to Play</span><br /><ol style="font-style: italic;"><li>As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember.<br /></li><li>Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. If you leave a memory about me, I'll check your blog to see if you are playing, too. If you are I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.</li></ol>pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-36430960413168652402008-07-25T20:34:00.000-07:002008-07-25T22:32:13.966-07:00Letter from AlexAlex is my little brother. He's serving his mission in Hamburg, Germany right now. He's one of the coolest, funniest kids you could ever meet. We were the closest in age of any of our siblings so we got along pretty well. We had the talk about me being gay before he went on his mission. He even knew I was dating a guy for a while and even wrote him.<br /><br />Sometime I'll have to write a post about ordinary people in the church who are amazing examples to me of what a Christian can be. Suffice it to say, my little brother is one of them.<br /><br />He sent me a letter this week that I'm trying to respond to. Maybe I'm not the best person to be responding. Let me know what you think. I'm going to send it sometime before his P-day on monday.<br /><br />To me from Alex:<br /><br />Hey bro,<br /><br />Happy Birthday. I heard the family threw a party and the cardboard me was there. Thats cool that you guys have the cutout for family events and what not. Thanks for getting that made for me. Is there anything you want out here that I could send to you or maybe something that I could give you in a year?<br /><br />I have a question. There is a guy here in the ward who came home from his mission a while ago. Just a little while after he got home, he removed his name from the records and he went inactive because he is gay. He comes to church every once in a while and he still obvoiusly has a testimony and what not. There are a lot of people here though who seem to have the wrong idea about gay people though and I imagine he gets crap about it. I was wondering if maybe I should talk to him or just not get involved in it altogether. Whats your advice?<br /><br />Love,<br />Alex<br /><br />This is what I've got down so far to send to him:<br /><br />Hey Alex!<br /><br />Birthday turned out to be a lot of fun. I went and hiked in the Tetons last weekend and then came back on my actual birthday and Lois made me a cool cake with strawberries and blueberries and we did dinner and presents and what not. Our family is pretty great sometimes.<br /><br />Get me something you think is cool. Or just a bunch of German chocolate. Or both. :)<br /><br />That cardboard cutout of you is now with us at everything. I really only expected to use it at John's wedding, but basically the whole family thinks its hilarious and now we don't take pictures without it. Its one of Dad's favorite things to talk about when people come over to the house, second only to Ron Paul.<br /><br />About the guy in your ward: A lot of times missionaries that are gay are guys/gals that have this secret hope that if they just live life right and do everything Heavenly Father wants, (ie go on a mission, get married, be faithful at church, etc) then they won't be gay anymore or Heavenly Father will make their challenge easier. When they find out this isn't the case, which happens a lot after they get back from missions (though often it results from a failed marriage to the opposite sex or some other big thing) the fall is so hard that they are forced to reexamine their life and beliefs from top to bottom. Sometimes I think this is a good thing because often it is the first time someone is willing to deal with reality. They sort of throw off the model of how everyone tells them things are supposed to be and they figure out how life should be for them.Sometimes this means throwing out the church. I'd have to say that most of them have a lot less to do with the church, but some stay and a few even get married and and make it work.<br /><br />You should definitely talk to this guy. Maybe just start out by introducing yourself. Ask him questions about how he feels about the church. Tell him you have a gay brother who is having his own issues with the church. Try to show that you are not judging but trying to understand and help if you can.<br /><br />You should also give him a pamphlet called "God Loveth His Children" if he hasn't already seen it. It's a newer pamphlet that the first presidency produces that talks about gay issues and its pretty good. I'm not sure if you can get a hold of one in German there, but you should be able to from a Bishop or Stake President. If not, let me know and I can send you one in English and maybe someone can translate for him or something.<br /><br />Hope that will help.<br /><br />Love,<br />(Pinetree's name)<br /><br />Let me know if you have any thoughts.pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11483492.post-32868479541098889192008-07-06T03:24:00.000-07:002008-07-06T03:42:59.540-07:00No more gas station food.An hour ago I was walking down the street in Salt Lake eating a cheese filled hot dog, a donut, and a bag of Funyons.<br /><br />In the moment that you're eating those things, there's really nothing better. In fact my friend Ben, despite a few good efforts, couldn't even make conversation with me right then because I was paying so much attention to stuffing my face with everything I found at 7-Eleven.<br /><br />But then all that grease sits in your stomach for a while, and your stomach starts to gurgle and feel gross.<br /><br />That happened to me.<br /><br />And then I contemplated how many times I've eaten either pizza or gas station food this week due to the nature of my job.<br /><br />And then I realized maybe thats one of those crazy reasons I still don't have a six pack.<br /><br />Crazy.<br /><br />Resolution: No more gas station food or pizza.<br /><br />Bleh.<br /><br />I might starve.pinetreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06536621216802367938noreply@blogger.com0