Sunday, June 29, 2008

Camping Vacation



So it was decided that we all wanted to go camping for a night. Since I live in the state of Utah, there being a ton of ational forest land around, finding a good campsite was only a 30 minute ride. The group consisted of Brooke, Camille, Dustin, his brother Archie, Archie's daughter, Justin and myself. I was really excited to go camping since I've had a new tent for about 2 months and haven't had the chance to use it.

Once we found a good site, I ran out ahead of everyone and found the spot that would be the quietest. But I forgot the think about a spot that would be out of the sun as well. But I was very happy with my selection. I managed to snag a beautiful plot a few yards away from a running stream. The sound of the water rolling over the rocks brought serenity and sleep into my life that night.



The night was quite usual for car camping. We had hot dogs for dinner, told funny, gross, and embarassing stories, we had s'mores, and eventually went to bed. Oh but that was for just Justin and myself. The other four stayed up later than us and had quite an eventful night. Let's introduce you to David and Jessy.



Well they were at the camp site across from us. Now these two 18 year olds came over earlier and invited us to have some beers, hence the picture we snagged. Apparently, after I went to bed these two got in a fight over the girls that were with them, threaten each other's life more than once, woke up the rest of the campground, beat each other up, and apparently the winner of the fight (guy with the bandana) was left behind with no car, out of cell phone service, to sit in a drunken stupor and bug everyone that hadn't gone to sleep in my group. This picture was taken during the whole incident as the rest of the group "was in desperate fear for their lives."



But thanks to my prestine tent site with the rolling waters, I did not wake to hear any of the commotion and finally had my first good night's rest in two weeks. Now hearing the story upon waking was very amuzing. After that Justin and I packed up promptly and returned to Ogden to attend church. Here's some more pictures from the outing .

Justin "helping" set up the tent



Apparently I own a lot of prAna attire



I was really good at employing friends to cook my hot dogs



S'more Time!!!!



My only s'more of the night



Trippy Fire Pit


Sunday, June 22, 2008

More Pictures from Last Week

Justin taking the pics (yes I finally got a pick of him)



Group Model Shot



Brooke Swinging



Crematorium



Ghost Check



Crematorium on top



Salt Lake at night

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Friends, Food, Films, and Fun

So I meant for this to be posted earlier, but I didn't have the pics yet. We can all thank Justin for these fabulous pics.

Now that I have a lot of free time on my hands, I always seem to get to the weekend and have no idea of what I am going to do. The past couple of months I seemed to know exactly what I would be doing days before. So I am still getting used to all of this.

I did have plans for Saturday night, but I had no idea what I wanted to do during the day. Luckily Justin and I were on the same page. We both had things to do around the house, for the first part of the day, but needed to run some errands to the same places after that.

We had a blast going to a discount grocery store and getting some goodies. After that we drove down to Salt Lake for the night plans. Let me tell you that this day was absolutely gorgeous. Our plans were to meet up with Brooke and Camille, grab a bite to eat, and then go see Son of Rambo.

We drove down to a Chinese Gourmet and pigged out on Chinese and Mongolian BBQ. Now that was quality eating. Feeling all greasy and stuffed we headed back to downtown SLC for the movie. The theater, Broadway Theatre, shows mainly independent, Sundance Film festival movies, and stays away from the mainstream Hollywood crap. Our choice for the night was Son of Rambo.

Son of Rambo is the name of the home movie made by two little boys with a big video camera and even bigger ambitions. The movie is set on a long English summer in the early 80's. It is a comedy about friendship, faith and the tough business of growing up. The movie is seen through eleven or twelve year old Will, the eldest son of a fatherless Plymouth Brethren family. The Brethren regard themselves as God's 'chosen ones' and their strict moral code means that Will has never been allowed to mix with the other 'worldlies,' listen to music or watch TV, until he finds himself caught up in the extraordinary world of Lee Carter, the school terror and maker of bizarre home movies. Carter exposes Will to a pirate copy of Rambo: First Blood and from that moment Will's mind is blown wide open and he's easily convinced to be the stuntman in Lee Carters' diabolical home movie. Will's imaginative little brain is not only given chance to flourish in the world of film making, but is also very handy when it comes to dreaming up elaborate schemes to keep his partnership with Lee Carter a secret from the Brethren community. Will and Carter's complete disregard for consequences and innocent ambition means that the process of making their film is a glorious roller coaster that eventually leads to true friendship. They start to make a name for themselves at school as movie makers but when popularity descends on them in the form of the Pied Piper-esque French exchange student, Didier Revol, their unique friendship and their precious film are pushed, quite literally, to breaking point.

It was a good film, quite enjoyable. The night still felt young, even though 11:00 pm is late for me, so we looked for other ways to get into trouble. After getting some sundaes from McDonald’s we headed to a park in the Avenues with the camera. We just wanted to goof off and have proof of our childhood playground relapse. This is what we got.

Camille, Dino and me



Brooke



Slide Fun





How to REALLY make a woman happy (give them your credit card)



Pole Dancing



Jailhouse


After the playground we decided that we were going to hike up to one of the old crematoriums. High up on the bench behind the capital building, there is an old crematorium that has been gated up so that people won’t get hurt playing on it. It was about 1:00 am and we hiked up the path under an almost full moon. I wasn’t thinking about it or even caring about it, but the closer we got to the destined place, the creepier the feeling became. I definitely could tell that we were at a place of death. It was just weird. At one point, we all had those extremely small hairs on the back of your neck rise up. Creepy. I’ll tell you that much. I of course had fun on the way back and hid in the bush scaring the girls as they walked by. All in all it was a very fun night. And it’s been awhile since I have had one of those.

It was a really fun time.

Monday, June 9, 2008

A Beautiful Day up to an Oasis

Sunday happened to be such a beautiful day. After church, I found myself to have nothing going on and antsy to be relaxing outside. I had a thought to take a walk/hike up to Malan's Basin to go look at the waterfall. It's been a while since I have been up there, well during the non-winter months. I haven't been up there in the summer for about 3 years. I do go up there every winter to ice climb. I didn't want to fly completely solo on this, so I called Kev and Liv to see if I could take out the darling and adorable Maddie.

She's my babe. I was lucky enough to get an approval. It was nice and relaxing to get up in the canyon and be in the trees with a stream to the south of you. The rush of the water over the rocks was calming and soothing to me. I enjoyed myself and the company of Maddie. She did struggle a little when she had to work her way through larger rocks due to having a leash on. I would just give her a "come one babe," and she'd bound up the rock and pass me by.

As I got up to the waterfall, I went a little higher than the others gathered there to find a little sanctuary all for myself. As I peered up I wished for the water to be still and frozen. I just wanted to climb. But it was good to see nature at work, to see the cycle of things, and to remember the first time I had been up there.

All and all, it was a good day.

The approach view.


























The good view.


























Top Section.




















A view of Ogden from my secluded spot.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Fun At Work: Introducing Lt. "Gas Can" Dan

So today had a good start to it. I was at my desk going at another wonderful spreadsheet when I got a call. GTACS's very own 2nd Lieutenant Dan Luczak called me in distress. Yes, we have a Lieutenant Dan, just like on Forest Gump. He stated very desperately that he needed my help and to not tell anyone. When I asked him what was going on he said that he's car is stuck on the side of the interstate, to leave and pick him in 5 minutes at the West Gate entrance, and to not tell anyone.

So I go pick him up and what was going on? Lt. Dan, who is a drag racer, from Detroit, lives, breathes, drinks, dreams, and talks cars, has just run out of gas a 1/4 mile outside of base. So to say the least, my buddy is a little pissed and embarrassed. Why wouldn't he be embarrassed? The man practically pisses high octane with how involved he is with cars. Why was he pissed off? Well more than 20 cars passed by as he was walking down the off-ramp to base and no one stopped to see if he needed a ride. "I get no respect I tell ya. Everyone sees that I'm just a 2nd Lieutenant and they just walk on by laughing," he bickers. For those of you that don't know, a 2nd lieutenant is the lowest of the commissioned rank (officers).

I, of course, was having a great time and laughing my butt off. So we go to his apartment, grab a 5 gallon gas can, return to his car, and get him with some fuel to drive the remaining mile to work. Of course, as his friend, I can't let this go unnoticed with the other cowokers. so what do I do? I took out my nifty little iPhone and take the following picture:

Anyone on base would first recognize that exit sign to be the off-ramp to get on base. Next if you look at the right side of the picture, you'll notice a couple of intercontinental ballistics missiles that mark the entrance. He was quite embarrassed to get that far and not make it in.

As we get back to our building, Dan places a gag order on me. As he goes to talk with a boss regarding an item to be brought up in his staff meeting, I email the picture to the guys in the cubicle and others in the building. They just happened to put it on their desktops to see how long it'd take Dan to notice. Well since someone unintentionally let him know that I did that, I had to make up for it. So I printed out a copy and gave it to his boss to pass it around in the staff meeting. I guess that was the funniest staff meeting that they've had in GTACS in a long time.

Now Dan was a little upset at my antics, but it was more to him feeling embarrassed, being a man with a high octane stature. We were joking about after their meeting and came up with a great call sign for him: Gas Can Dan. Yeah it's no Maverick or Goose, but it sure is funny.

Even after all the prodding I did, Dan still took me out to lunch to show his appreciation.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

A Day with Kev, Liv, and Maddie

So I happened to have a whole Saturday with no plans. What to do? Well I decided that I'd give my day up to helping Kev and Liv. They just recently bought a house, which is just a couple blocks away from me (that's awesome because I have three friends in the neighborhood now), and they are currently remodeling it before they move in. You can check out their progress by going to their blog, and I have a link to it on the right hand side.

Having neighbors is great because it allows me to walk for just 5 or 10 minutes and be at a friend's house.

So I walked on down to Kev's place and told him to just have me do whatever. This is what we did accomplish: cut a drain pipe hole in the bathroom for the tub's new location; ripped out a door in the master bedroom; and framed a doorway for a closet that is yet to be built. Take a lookie here.

The great soon to be coat closet.





















The end of a fun day.