"Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it."

— Edmund Hillary

Parents

1 week at my house and my parents... hmmm... did wonders both in good ways and bad ways.
I watch my dad and realize two things.
1) It would be amazing to have the drive he does to finish projects around any house.
2) I'm glad I don't have that drive, because other things in life are so much more amazing.

On the bright side... My house is now cleaner than it has ever been. Both inside and outside around the yard. The yard is now leveled (no more divets in the grass) and all the weeds and trees are trimmed back. Apparently three truck loads were taken to the city dump.

On the not so bright side... I no longer have my little patch of a garden (that got weed wacked with the weeds in the planter that I hadn't weeded out before my parents came). My perfectly logical and quite impressive theme with the fence was demolished with a, of all things, mailbox. The top of the front corner post of the fence, with the nice flower pot hanger and taller then normal post waiting for a solar light inside to be attached to the top, was subsequently chopped down and a mail box was stuck at eye level on top of the post.

On the even brighter side... It's a heck of a lot of fun being an Uncle.

Pictures for Vedauwoo:

Seder and I

Seder, Camie, and I





















The rest of the gang. Including Sage's two Friends from Saudi Arabia (Ahmud, and Helul)

Life is intriguing, always interesting, never quite what you think it's going to be. Some weekends are weekends of friends committing to a life together and some weekends are weekends of friends breaking up. And yet in all of this were do I fall? To much of a thinker and not enough of moving forward... even at one step at a time... even in possibly the wrong direction. Is it better to understand first or act first? Make sure of things or jump for it?

Thinking more about women.. (it's what us guys spend possibly way to much time doing). Do relationships strike you as starting out a bit one sided? Does it seem like the guy is supposed to initiate things... and understand things the best? If you are honest and say hey I'm interested in you are you interested in me.... It's treated as if you're asking them out. Yet, it's a simple question. Of course I understand this is a generalization... not all women are the same. And maybe I'm only seeing one extreme.

What about mutual relationships? No one side or the other trying harder to persuade the other person to like them or to stay. Instead a mutual understanding of I like you and want to spend this time we have together. A relationship were you aren't looking for something other then to be with that person. It doesn't matter to you if you are sleeping with that person as long as you see them happy and you get to share life with them for however long it lasts.. That is a beautiful relationship. You are interested in the person more then the benefits. I've seen some were they catch this for a short time and some where they catch it for a long time.... No matter the length though it seems better then the other type were it seems like they are continually swaying back and forth between being unbalanced on one side of the relationship or the other.

No I'm not giving up the idea of marriage for possible short term relationships. I'm finding out more and more depth to this word Love. The more I find out the more I'm amazed by it and the more I realize how utterly small our one word for Love is. There is no way to even come close to defining the depths and complexities of Love with just one word. Maybe this is why we fail so often at it? Obviously though there is something to this word we call love... No matter how often I try or how deep I'm hurt I can't stop trying to love or stop trying to be loved.

content discontent

I seem to do fairly well with staying content most of the time... but no one is perfect.... Now I'm discontent. No particular reason (other then maybe alchohol) just things adding up over time. or maybe there are particular reasons. lonliness gets to even me, and I'm starting to think that Women aren't the most interested in "nice" guys... oh well life's not perfect I guess. and there is my complaint for a good while... I'll go back to normal topics.

Midwest

Ok. So despite all the bad things I've said about the Midwest..... I just sat for multiple hours bullshitting with two coworkers (who are also from the midwest) about how truly amazing the midwest and people from the midwest are.... well it is totally amazing.. and totally horrid cause I doubt if I would ever move back... but boy was it amazing....

Good things about the midwest:
blowing_shit_up
fires
biscuits & gravy
most food
firworks on every street corner
surviving child hood when by all rights you shouldn't have
blowing_shit_up in different ways
starting more fires
catapults
camping
rivers
floods
tornadoes
using your grill more then your stove
real food
shooting
never worring about running out of gas before you reach the gas station (1/2 a mile away at tops)


Things most non-midwesterns won't understand:
floating
ticks
chiggers (do you even know what these are?)
mosquitoes (more then 2-3 a year)
every possible way to get rid of a tick
Every possible way to deal with chiggers (there is no true way to get rid of them)
floods
parting the waters of humidity
uselessness of showers
heat
biscuits and gravy
real country food
grilling your food
corn on the cob

Poop

So I was thinking today, as I often do.... Why do people poop? It seems so pointless! why can't we process everything and not have to worry about something like poop....


On second note... according to adam... Rape is ok as long as it's me...

you don't want to ask. :)

Start of the Season

So we had a good kickoff to the start of ultimate frisbee season. It was quite a fun time, even if we did play a pick up game against some young whipper snappers and they totally whipped our ass. Of course we are blaming Alyson, for we were doing really well (with 2 extra people) until alyson decided to switch sides to even things up... of course that's when they started stomping us. And it was bad.
Ok ok.. so that might not be the reason. It would have been not so bad with Alyson on our side... but they were good. those young whippersnappers... what are younguns coming to these days.

However beer and free pizza at the blind onion afterwards was more then enough to lift our spirits again!