How Good Life Has Been

I have to honestly admit that the last six months have been some of the best I've ever had. Dreams, some small and some large are coming together like I never knew them to do before. The lessons I've learned and truths I've gleaned have been instrumental at helping stay afloat and overcome circumstances that would have in the past put me under.

2015 Year in Review

Another year gone by, and what a year it was! It was sometimes referred to as the 90's on repeat. Terminator and Jurassic Park in theaters while Bush and Clinton run for the White House.

 Most importantly, I married my eternal companion, Katie Helfert. We were married on the unseasonably cold, windy and snowy day of May 9th in New Mexico.
 

Following suit, our planned honeymoon to Costa Rica was rained out and we had to resort to Plan B in Palm Springs California, stopping at the Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon, San Francisco, and the Redwood Forest over the course of our trip.We also made an impromptu December trip to Atlanta, Georgia which included a drive down to New Orleans and Pensacola, Florida.


I saw lots of family


I gained more family!



Significant Events in 2015:

•  The U.S. Debt passed 18.8 trillion dollars
• Largest terrorist attack on the city of Paris since WWII
• Massive earth quake in Nepal
• A presidential primary race mostly full of walking jokes
• Homosexual Marriage was legalized by the Supreme Court in all 50 States - quite the milestone as signs of the times tend to go.

Popular Things:

• Selfie sticks
• Star Wars EVERYTHING
• Hoverboards

Fun things this year:

• Rush 40th anniversary tour with Jess
• Lagoon Day with Katie hosted by Packsize
• Lots of good Dota and Counterstrike with the gang
• Durango Bluegrass Meltdown 
• Bowling and going to the movies 

Went to the Movies this year:

• Ant Man
• Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation
• Inside Out
• Avengers: Age of Ultron
• Taken 3
• Mortdecai
• Seventh Son
• Divergent: Insurgent
• Furious 7
• Mad Max: Fury Road
• Jurassic World
• Terminator Genisys
• A Man from U.N.C.L.E.
• Hotel Transylvania
• Bridge of Spies
• The Hobbit Extended Trilogy
• The Martian
• Interstellar
• Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Part 2
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens
• Creed

New Places:

• Drove through Washington D.C.
• Springfield, MO
• Vancouver, Canada
• Seattle, Washington/ Space Needle
• Detroit, Michigan and Windsor Canada
• New Orleans, LA
• San Francisco, CA
• Minneapolis, MN

Projects

• Building a shed
• tiered garden
• window well covers
• pergola
• replaced a window
• many car repair and maintenance projects
• Cabling jobs here and there

Things that I have learned this year:
Learning to focus on one thing at a time and putting all energy into a task before adding another and spreading my energy in multiple direction. (still working on this skill)

  Thoroughly Enjoyed This Year:

• Monster energy drinks
• Jim Butcher - The Dresden Files 
• The music of Alan Jackson

Visited States This Year:

• West Virginia
• Tennessee
• North Carolina
• South Carolina
• Virginia
• Michigan
• Illinois
• Iowa
• Wisconsin
• Missouri
• Idaho
• California
• Arizona
• Nevada
• Colorado
• New Mexico
• Arkansas
• Oklahoma
• Kansas
• Maryland
• New Jersey
• Delaware
• Washington
• Ohio
• Florida
• Mississippi
• Alabama
• Louisiana
• Georgia
• Indiana 

Map of soil samples:

• dark green are states I've visited and collected soil
• light green are visited states missing a soil sample
• red are un-visited states (which include Alaska and Hawaii)

 


Dressed up for Halloween
Sarah spent three hours doing my old man makeup



Things I am Looking Forward to in 2016

• Paying off my car
• Attempt # 2 at visiting Costa Rica
• Attending the temple on a regular basis with Katie
• Serving with the Stake Young Men's Presidency
• Fulfilling my new calling as 1st Counselor in the Stake Young Men's presidency
• Making a trip to Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone

Things I am Not Looking Forward to in 2016:

• Another ugly presidential election

It was a year of improvement, learning, stress, worries, business trips and lots of travel, Church, home improvement projects, success at work, but not nearly enough visits to the gym.

I hope to think more of others especially my family, feel more positive when things aren't going my way, I hope to succeed as a husband, brother, son, home teacher, employee, servant of God and so forth.

A family photo for Christmas:

The Time to Travel

Today I am sitting in an airport, on a layover, waiting to make my next flight for work. There have been a lot of these lately. It has been a crazy year. I've traveled a good ten times for work, six trips have been since I got married.

Things that have defined this year for me when traveling are Pay Day candy bars, Monster Energy drinks ( a new found love of mine), dramemine, Audio Books, a  special interest in the American Revolution and its history, Alan Jackson music, driving in a rental car to gather soil from each state I pass through.

I've had the opportunity this year to gather soil from:

• White Sands, NM
• Vancouver, BC, Canada
• Washington State
• Maryland
• Virginia
• Delaware
• Idaho
• New Jersey
• Missouri
• Oklahoma
• Arkansas
• Kansas
• Minnesota
• Illinois
• Iowa
• Wisconsin
• Tennessee

This in addition to the last couple of years':

• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• Kentucky
• Indiana
• Colorado
• New Mexico
• Texas
• Arizona
• California
• Wyoming
• Nevada
• West Virginia
• New York

I'm grateful for the chance to travel, and some times frustrated by the tedious nature of its bureacracy and the various hoops I find myself jumping through to do it. Life is good though, long waits in the airport afford a good chance to think and read about things I normally wouldn't have the time for. Laptop battery allowing, I am trying to make good use of this time today.

2014 Year in Review

Wow, what a year!
As I finish my thirtieth year, I look back and feel better about where I am than I ever have before.  If I could sum up this year with a phrase, it would be travel and change... Between work, camping, hunting, visiting family and friends I have been on the road more than I ever have in my life. I probably spent more money than I ever had in any year previous. I have a fiance, a new boss, new skills and dreams and have visited new places.  I learned a lot. I got better at keeping my word and serving others. It truly was a good year.

Here's the status of my U.S. Map:

•  Red are states I have not yet visited
• Light green are states I have visited but not yet collected a soil sample
• Dark green are states I have visited and collected a soil sample

Firsts this year:

• Asked Katie to marry me!  
• Started collecting a soil sample from every state I visit
• Visited the Redwood Forest on Easter Sunday
• Camped on a cliff above the ocean
•  Drove through a tree
• Bought a second car
• poured a concrete driveway
• Visited two oceans and a great lake
• Saw a Bengal NFL game in Cincinnati, OH
• Saw the entire Hobbit trilogy at the movies (it took almost 10 hours) 

New Places:

• San Diego Zoo
• Hollywood CA and the La Brea Tar Pits
•  Portland, OR
•  Mt. St, Helens, Washington
•  Cincinnati, OH
• Pittsburgh, PA
• West Virginia  
• Charlottesville, VA
• Walk on the beaches of the Pacific Ocean
• Walk on the beaches of Lake Erie
• Visited Dallas Texas and Dealey Plaza where JFK was assassinated

I gained a new niece and nephew along the way!

Great experiences

• Camping in the Uintas
• Visiting New Mexico
• Seeing the Toadies live in Park City
• Meeting with the missionaries and taking part in Katie's investigation of the Church
• Seeing my first Bengals game with Katie, Nick, Ashley and Gabe
• Taking Katie to the San Diego Zoo
• Eating some amazing southern fried food in Atlanta
•  Date night at Flemming's Steak House with Katie
• Went on many walks an adventures with Katie, Doogan and Hazel
• Traveling to Texas for Thanksgiving to visit Katie's family
• Watching movies at home with my family and friends
• Playing Dota and Counter Strikeand listening to everybody yelling across the basement
• Having Friday morning breakfast with Katie, Gabe and Adrian
• Camping and hunting near Monticello, in the San Rafael Swell and the Uinta Mountains
• Walking barefoot on the beaches of California and Eerie, Pennsylvania

Not so great experiences

• Scraping my new car on a parking garage pillar
• Walking the Las Vegas strip
• getting chewed out by my boss
• falling off a ladder on a cabling job
• working some seriously long hours at customer sites
• spending some long hours fixing trucks and cars
• Having a miserable and expensive let down taking the Starline Tour in Hollywood 

 Great movies this year (saw a lot of movies this year)

• Captain America 2
• Interstellar
• Dracula - The Untold Story
• X-Men Days of Future Past
• Spiderman
• Big Hero 6
• The Hobbit - Battle of the Five Armies
• Meet the Mormons
• Hunger Games Catching Fire Part 1
• Unbroken

In the news and broad events this year:

• Roll-out of Obamacare
• September - Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson Missouri - rioting and looting
• Republicans gained control of congress
•  Ice bucket challenges
• Ebola 
• Missing Malaysian Flight 370
• Curved screen TVs and phones
• Bluetooth fitness wristbands 

Also fun this year:

Mud bogging

Celestial burgers

 

Playing guitar

Shootin'

Christmas Devotional with the Elders

Interesting Things in My Lifetime

I have lived to see

Crystal Pepsi and the New Coke
The beginning of "Open Late" fast food restaurants
The advent of the barbecue pizza
The invention of gushers, fruit roll-ups, and lunchables
The Atkin's Diet craze

Some of the Best Lyrics (Ongoing)

"I don't want the world to see me, 'cause I don't think that they'd understand. When everything's meant to be broken, I just want you to know who I am."



"All the love gone bad turned my world to black - tattooed all I see. All that I am, all I'll be. I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a sun in somebody else's sky, but why, why can't it be mine?"

Reconciling the Memories

Sitting at work and thinking of hunting. It's a strange thing to flash back in my mind to a walk through the woods, carrying a rifle, binoculars, food, thick clothing, game bags, a radio, gloves, ammunition... It was dawn; almost dark and very cold, especially when still groggy and stiff from sleep. I remember the crunch of branches and leaves under my new hiking boots, the dampness of thawing dew, the clinking of Winchester cartridges in my pocket, and the clatter of the radio on my hip. It was my first morning out on the hunt. I had never wandered the woods with a rifle at the ready - planning to shoot a living creature. I vaguely thought this must be a bit like war, and I was a soldier.  I scrambled up and down ravines, climbed over logs and spent my energy liberally.... Something I would learn not to do. At times I could hear my own heartbeat and constantly watched my own breath pass through my field of vision, desperately looking and hoping to see signs of an elk. I headed north, occasionally pausing to check my compass and GPS map to find my way back to camp.. I saw claw marks, scratched by a bear into the Aspens and Conifers.... I remember feeling that I was truly a visitor, hunting a creature on his home turf. My spike elk, he had to be out there.. Faster, quieter, and of better senses than me. It was humbling to think my one and only advantage was the rifle in my hands...

Suddenly I am pulled back to the conference room, the pristine glass table, whiteboard diagrams, speakerphone, Ethernet cables, the humming refrigerator full of beverages for visitors, flourescent lights and clicking laptop keys. I ponder the strange and varied experiences I have had. The vast spectrum of smells, emotions, thoughts, sights and sensations that have fallen in line going back over the thirty years of my life.