long time coming

There has been a transition in my life. I have let go of a lot of juvenile beliefs shrouded in uneducated guises and have been able to take a look at a lot of other definitions in my life. There have also been family issues that forced me to take a long hard look at versions of deity and morals wrapped up as package deals. I've learned that answers aren't only given in terms of specifics but that feeling is determinate of my personal beliefs. The better I understand how to feel the more I have grown. This might all sound like bullshit but for me at least there is truth in getting to know yourself and in wading through all the prepackaged hand-me -out answers or push button scenarios.

Moving past childhood, adolescence, puberty, post mission, and my early twenties into some version of maturity is like my eating habits. I eat too much and fast then miss eating what I just ate. My wife says that the people in Spain believe that Americans never taste their food because they have their next bite already on their forks. At least as a metaphor this works well with how I recently find myself slowing down and enjoying the life, love and especially friendships around me. To be able to debate life in an open minded way let a small piece of Christopher, Kelly, Katie, Jeremy, or anybody lately help define me.

By the way I have 3 callings and am loving my Mormondom.

SIDE NOTE:
Limbo...it feels more like overdoses of caffeine, ADD, and stagnation than bending over backwards for a prolonged time period. The decision for the next couple of years is coming and coming soon so right now I'm just trying to be creative on my own.

sweet...rain, katie, cocco

tonight was interesting and as we were serenaded by rain drops pounding and the sight of steam from coffee cups dancing the night of a storm in SLC seemed more palatable than a thousand summer nights before. if this were a dreamworld it would hold true forever that rain trumps the warm sun but as it is for just tonight the rain has surfaced as the dark horse winner. all our windows are open even though the temperature is dropping to the predicted 42. the cold feels as good as the people that cut themselves to feel alive, without the gross blood. my hand feels so warm to my nose right now and i actually got my stomach dropping at the thought of sweater weather. the night has meant something more though and i feel calm with the cold, enough that i feel the spirit of taking katie by the hand. i got to fulfill one of the age old tradtions of a man by being the one to warm the fingers and toes of my wife...sweet.

kelly's life is our vacation

here is my cute niece. the weekend was full of amazing views and beautiful weather but a storm was a brewing. the storm and furry of temper tantrums. these quickly burst my bubble as to what a cute kid experience was supposed to be. don't get me wrong i still love kids and especially my nieces and nephews but this was the first time i kinda had my fill. dylan, my niece, was great untill her parents got home. it was like with me and katie she didn't have defined boundaries and so took our impromto rules as law and lived by them. as soon as the parents were back she new exactly what to do to get what she wanted and did it. dylan has some lungs i'll tell you what. so overall the time with my family was amazing but i left a little scared. i mean think about it everytime you hold a baby the moment it starts crying we all hand it right back to mom...this is a system of highs with no lows. fools the mind. obviously though there is the joy of parenting with all the lows and highs, triumphs and defeats. i just got scared. but here's my cute neice.

Morgan William Clifford

I was ecstatic to hear the news that my good friends christoper and tasha had their baby boy without complication. babies flood everything and everyone with joy. so small and fragile but they mesmorize you without even opening their eyes. i held him for a while and thought what he would be dreaming about tonight and how the last 6 hours had totally redefined his entire perception and the way he'll dream from now on. this was the first time i have ever been close to an inner circle of friends for the event of a newborn. it felt great to show my friends that i loved them and their baby. it takes me a very long time to say those words but at the same time feels great to say so, when it's blindingly aparent. the kid has a great name and a bright future. this baby is definately not lacking in the social capital department, bing a clifford and all, but there has to be the crazy adopted uncles to give some some spice to life. my mission is now clear.

diesel ran off like a dumb-ass

last friday night kaie and i had a wonderful time out with some friends. we got back and our door was open and diesel was gone. the door sticks open but looks closed. katie and i were out looking for him till around 3am. i rode my bike for endless miles that night and had diesl's little face pop into my thoughts a couple of times..almost brought me to tears. katie and i both thought that we couldn't comprehend the feeling had diesel been a child. next morning at 6am we got up and made flyers at my work, then posted them till about 1pm. at that point i got a call and diesel was found. we went to pick him up and was told the story of how he was found by the mother of the boy not present. her song was with friends at 9th and 9th and they saw diesel almost get hit a few times in the street. the one boy against the jeers of his friends decided to save our puppy. he took the string out of his hoodie, tied it to diesel and proceeded to give up his bus ride home and walkto 30th south. this kid was 16 and what a great stranger! i missed my dog so completely but he was just having a grand ol time.

katie and me

I need a more recent picture of my wife that I'm in love with...photo shoot! The other night we talked. We talked about sweet things and our lives together and how we lived and are living with the world trying to define us while gripping onto what we think we are. Without saying too much and without spoiling a personal experience, in small words, talk is love and listening is faith in love. Sweet is my wife of character and spirit. We are so alike, to love each other for deeper, truer, reasons.

river days and river NIGHTS

The Colorado River starts out slow but gets rapidy 2 days in. The ride down is the part that gets you acquainted with 16 strangers. One of them shot a potato cannon at me, granted I had my bare ass taunting as a target. Katie and I have gone on alot of weekenders and it seems that there are weekend friends. So many people out there seek the limited access to another's company. It makes me uncomfortable to let that go, just doesn't seem right. Beyond my emotions though there was thrills I had yet to experience. The hikes through old Native Indian trails, the water fights, the rapids and nature. At one point the boat was rigged so that I had to put my feet on the very front of the boat and hold to some straps, I resembled a roles royce hood ornament smacking head first into some large 20 foot rapids. We did tip over once and a bunch of us were trown from the boat. My first thought was where is my wife...I turned around in the water only to see her giggling with excitement about the whole event. My wife the dare-devil and me Mr. Worry McShitshispantsalot.

i love minivans and running events

so the trip not only fused a bond between strangers and myself but also to a creation by the dodge car company known as the caravan...aka minivan. events like these are so tramatic yet so inspiring. the people trapped with me in that spacious and feature filled minivan for nearly 30 hours shared a wide spectrum of human drama. for that time at least we became fast friends. it's funny though how much of that time can be used to create a lasting friendship or forgotten and filed away as "ragnar relay buddies." I do know that for the people that are more or less constants in my life i forever see them with a little more insight and respect. this year my wife and i had ajoining legs in the relay and she passed the "torch" to me. i get very sentimental when i start a pursuit knowing that my wife is there to send me off and at the end to greet and admonish me. katie and i were interviewed at the end and probably made asses of ourselves in the ghetto fabulous way we're used to when the spotlight is on us, but whatevs.

raccoon update:
caught a baby...the others are being illusive. raccoons remind me of mini raptors. o and the night i wrote the last blog i stayed up till 6am defending my family from a raccoon that was digging through our ceiling and not deterred by me at all. if it showed it's face i would have dirty harried his ass all over the place.

raccoons, what the f

i am soo mad right now. its because i'm thinking about something annoying and potentially dangerous over and over. i have the sort of personality that likes to role play constantly hundreds of times a minute about whatever is around me or on my mind. so there's a varmint named raccoony living in my attic. my current fantasy involves the raccoon knocking through the attic door and about to sink his teeth into my beloved dog deisel when i wakeup by the grace of my acute hearing accompanied by my other heightened senses and fly in with a knife from the kitchen to then assassinate the dastardly varmint. thousands of versions of this moment are available upon request. but man that thing was running around all last night above my head and i'm about to go nuts. the trapper is coming tomorrow morning...i thought the title of raccoon trapper had died in the old world. i guess somewhere a raccoon pelt is still worth a bag or two of corn nuts.

roll over...good boy...puke

last night was unbelievable. i witnessed the amazing persuasive power that my wife wields. in less than an hour she taught my dog diesel how to roll over. we tried it for days on end when he was younger with no avail. in that same hour katie also managed to teach him how to play hot and cold. the only downside to this condensed training was at 7am this morning when diesel decides to leave his be and get into ours every morning. he barfed up all his reward treats all over us. the moral of the story being you can teach an old dog new tricks but you turn them into bulimics in the process.

memorial hay-day

i gambled away 3 perfectly good dollars. i know i'll never win because the gambling gods as well as regular god would prefer that i not have luck or get addicted...fyi i am addicted. 3 dollars doesn't sound like much but originally i only had one to play with. one of the others came form my wife who didn't want to play hers and the last came from begging. so the ugliness of the sport has come about in the short amount of time it took to gamble away 3 dollars. this continued, at least the desperation until we were a couple miles away from the glitzy doors of the mesquite casinos.

other than that i had a wonderful weekend hanging with our good friends the cliffords. we got to know them a lot better and it was fun being able to talk deeply on almost any subject. sharing moments with my wife and our friends on the top of a mountain looking out over two separate valleys and into the beginning of the grand canyon national park were serene and entirely memorable. i have gained a real appreciation for the beauty of the desert.

let him eat cake

so i came into work today to find a giant piece of cake sitting on my desk. it has three little signs sticking out of i that said great job. since there are some many wonderful things i do well i was understandably perplexed as to by whom and for what reason i was being congratulated. i'm a sucka for the sweet stuff and pinched a couple pieces off before i went to actually get a fork from the break room. my boss comes in about 2 hours later and starts telling me about the cake. apparently she got it 2 days ago at a city council meeting and took a piece home but forgot it on her dashboard. she brought it in today and felt bad about wasting it and decided that giving it to me was a better alternative...she was right...i ate it. the center was actually pretty ok.

in a while...

it has been a while. lots of hectic stuff but nothing of note really. i guess i've got to get back into the habit of finding the little interesting things or putting spins on the mundane. a lot of the time i seem to forget my experiences. this happens through inaction and not taking the time to dissect what has gone on. life seems to be self preservation formed in our own minds. but then if i really believe that ideology i need to clean out the ol' cobwebs and get back to the basics of me and express that in words. so, me=mike.

Katie and I hung out with a friend that likes the hobo living in south america. she comes by every eight months or so and spends a day or two with us. i think out of town guest are soemtimes the most fun. they always seem to pack in as much stuff with the most variety into an evening thatn any native city dweller would think of. To monika's credit though she doesn't do things touristy. she had goals and we didem. She was passing through from arizona to jackson hole to work and in the roughly 48 hours she was here she knew about the bike collective ladies night on wednesdays, soul train for local music, hatches for some chocolate, and w lounge for a live dj. I wish i could come into a city and know things like that. anyway it was an interesting evening. i like when people come into my life every so often out of the blue...makes me pleasantly surprised happy.

NBA

i haven't been to an NBA game since i was 7 or so. my parents took me to a couple detroit pistons games the year they won the championship back in 88'. i went tonight to see the jazz win game 6 and the series against the houston rockets. my voice is gone and so i type. i haven't watched many sports in the past couple years or tv for that matter. i really like being apart of something big. it unifies you with the face painters, the fake boobed trophy wives, and my father-in-law. my wife was insanely cute trying to learn new basketball terms and then texting things like "are we the ones in the red or blue" to her fanatic friend. i think everyone likes a winner and more so likes to eat onion covered jumbo dogs while doing it...at least i do. you know as much as i loved tonight i'm pretty sure i couldn't ever become a fanatic. once in a while is sooo great. go jazz and what not. plus things like books, bikes, parks, exercise, yoga, friends, dance parties, and creative stuff are more at the top of my to do and want to do lists.

desk day

to day is officially desk day. i got my new desk today and i am excited to have a new work space. took me a while to build it due to my wrist but man is it worth it. i've always heard that darker colors are indicative of men...yep it's dark maple maple. everybody go out there, shine up those desks and give them a squeeze.

relayed to synapses

i ran seven miles with my wife katie today. it felt like we were dating again. right before i told her i loved her for the first time we ran the ogden half marathon. i hadn't run more than 2 miles in my life before katie convinced me to train for our first half. back then i told katie that it would be good for me to trust someone else and rely on the intent of a togetherness goal. really what that means is that i'll let down my guard enough to let katie whip me into shape. it holds true to this day that katie is the leader on runs. i like looking at the caboose anyway.

seriously though this past year and through the winter i've been biking non-stop and when i tackled that big run today i felt like i could run forever. so cool! the only downside was that i could feel my body hurting in multiple places long before there was a wiff of actual muscular fatigue. from the get go his year i'm preparing for ragnar with more intelligence. i am promising myself that i'll stretch 3 times in a run....#1 before...#2 5 mins into the run when i'm a little warmed up...#3 after. i guess there is gonna be a fourth time...thursday nights at 24's yoga class. anyone want in for group yoga give katie or i a ring. in summary i'm pleasently surprised with my performance even though i'm in the clydesdale division weighing in at 205 lbs. also i love dating my wife inside marriage.

let's here it for the fatties!!!!....HEEEEEY.

peddlers!

i'm creating a coup of peddlers v. holy rollers. here's the logo/uniform for the true club members. get on board.

CS3 master suite

i just got all this. i'm a little overwhelmed. i was just gonna get indesign and photshop but the pirates convienced me otherwise and now i have a bunch of programs that are gonna take a lot of work to get to know. basically i've got a shiz load of projects already and these adobe thingys just come down to me wanting to do something and then figuring out how these programs fit into the means category. its gonna be great. one soon realizes though that imagination and creative knowhow soon strips the novelty of the tools and reveals talent, if its there.

the peddlers

so the first official meeting of our bike club happened yesterday. there were alot of bikes on the lawn out front of my house and i was excited to see the enthusiasm. I didn't have some of the necessary tools to do what i wanted to do so i started looking at other's bikes. em and logan both need smaller chain ring bolts to shed there excess outer chainring. so kai and i went to wasatch touring where he works to pick up said items. along the way i clipped the back of kai's tire while moving out of the way of a speeding jeep that got way too close to me. when i finally got up to move my bike out of the street the guy who pressured me into dropping behind kai pulled next to me in his jeep and laughed and said maybe i shouldn;e wear such tight pants next time. right now i can hardly move my wrist. it hurts but at least i got to help make two bikes look that much cooler.

granny b

i am so addicted to these jewels right now!!!! my sweet taste buds are ruling my body. i used to be all about the salty stuff but man o man sugar is my coke for the time being.

my daddy's guitar

this is my daddy's guitar. I picked it up for the first time in nearly 3 years. i strummed not 3 chords when i got a phone call. a mr. john toewater was on the other end, a close friend of my father and someone i haven't seen in 12 years. a funny french-canadian that used to totally disassemble and then rebuild entire cars on our driveway every summer of my childhood. this man called me and said i'm in the neighborhood and want to see you. the next night he came over and we spoke of old times and reminisced about my parents. he said i looked like my father and that i had his stature and presence. he drove 2300 miles from toronto.

thanks dad for saying hi.

i will learn to play it.

i hate moving

...but unpacking is fun. i love our new place and can't be happier to leave the crooked ways of our last complex. i want to thank all the friends that helped katie and me move. went pretty smooth but honestly by the time all was said and done we moved the volume of a 12 foot truck 1.5 times. i moved into that apartment with 3 boxes and an amour. bottom line...shiz pills up...fast. diesel is already going crazy over the fact that there are endless lawns in a row that he has to pee on. he's got to have his boundaries.

the more i think about it the more i want to rename a class of people. i think katie and i should be called progressive hippies. or hipsterstees? anywho anyone would be more than welcome to welcome us welcomingly to our new house.

also there was an ordeal with getting the moving truck in the first place but a 75 year old nice guy was really trying hard to cope technology. sad to see a cute old man get served by a debit machine a copier and a computer...or and an electric fence all in the space of a few minutes. o did i mentioned he lived at the uhaul place which was also a storage lot. he has a tiny sea of storage units to look out to every morning. i wanted to dedicate my saving to his survival.


we spent our first night there and below us live 5 pot smokin hippies. nuf said.

move out sale

we are moving come get cool stuff fo cheap.

PSA

this is a project that has been under a time crunch from the start and i'm only now getting people fully on board. i work for the government and they want a PSA in a hurry. so i rush to my contact damion dayton after researching a bunch of other producers that turned out to be no talent washouts. damion has an immensely talented production company producing just as amazing work. we got a script together and get my boss on board. my boss though has conveniently forgotten about "informal" conversations she has had with me about money and so the jockeying begins. at this point i have to play both sides and get the most we can for as little and also not burn bridges and stifle creativity while simultaneously juggling everyone's expectations.

that said, it's going to be one hell of a PSA!!!

p.s. i made the logo from scratch. not sure if i love it yet. any suggestions?

lease on life

got the apartment. now i live in the hippie dippie vicinity of 9th and 9th. had to play the waiting game from the landlord but in the end the sqeeky wheel gets the grease. called him up addressed his concerns and nailed it down. its interesting how different i already feel. it seems as though moving is starting a new chapter. katie and i both agree that with new things and places so come new smells. that might sound weird but really we are very similar katie and i in that we both associate heavily the sense of smell with time periods in our lives. the first candle we lite in this apartment will always remind of us this place, colognes perfumes are all gonna be a factor. im looking forward to good smells, new experiences and enjoying the hell out of it.

sunny outlook

today is beautiful and 62 degrees. i walked outside around the block where i work to see how many places there were to eat. over 10 just on my block. the next one i want to try is the boston deli. from what i can tell its a basement eatery. basically there are some steps going under a building with a sign indicating the boston deli is at the bottom of those steps. i think i'll try it but man i have no idea what to expect as far a quality goes. you'd think if they were that good they'd have moved out of the basement.

also i have a place to rent out so the throngs of people that frequent this blog can take a look and live at the coolest place in sugarhouse.

anybody over 17...really?

so rated R movies are bad i get it, but are they all equally bad? isn't it fair to say that one man's R is another's PG? their is indeed merit to the idea that everything after a certain point gets cast into R-land. seems to me that their is a disproportionate amount of movies then that get lumped together that are of very different spectrums. if 5 f__ks qualifies a movie as R then does over a hundred f__ks qualify another as more R?

that there is a difference is the unavoidable truth. the focus of ratings should be to define infractions and relate frequency. as shown above there is an attempt to further regulate and define severity but really this also is too vague. detailed descriptions allow for the viewer to make an informed choice and not be exposed to something that might damage themselves.

i walked out of funny games today. wasn't funny at all. i try to be open to art and expression but i know myself and the things that i just can't stand for and wish that there was a way to expand on that distinction before i set foot into a theater.

who is this craig and why does he get a list

looking for free stuff and this is what i got...the funniest post i have ever seen. its worth a look here's the title so as to wet your appetite.

Trade 5 loaves of bread for cheese....

http://saltlakecity.craigslist.org/bar/613955656.html




the link above proves it but i'm gonna list what was said here for fear the ad might expire eventually. but read both because it was just as funny the second time. " I got 5 loaves of bread yesterday, which i froze now, it is just too many....i would trade them for cheese....."

vacant but no vacancy

I have scoured the places i want to live to no avail. I have literally looked at every structure in the aves, capitol hill and the marmalade district. What's a po ass white boy supposda do? The one promising lead today was a one bedroom that was made of mothballs and 50's appliances that didn't work. The landlord said thats why it was so reasonable...reasonable being a loose term in this case since she wanted 650/mo.

Onward and upward I guess. Seems like for as much work as I've put in on this project I feel as though I should have had some possitive return by now.

Katie gets home tonight from a study marathon in Park City with her girls and I think it might be time to discuss either buying a condo or a house. This may mean we stay closer to home to do my masters and give up on Australia.

I can see how people once they've been pushed out of a house or living arrangement they can feel jaded and devoid of faith. I mean if you are in need and not making much money and lack a level of social capitol of friends and family support there aren't many possibilities out there, except the worst ones.

beard-ignation

its getting more and more wiry everyday. now the challenge is distinguishing between motivations of will power and coolness. at what point is my beard not cool to me? i think since i'm having my first doubts today i'll give it a weak or two more just to shake that off and then make a fresh decision.

killer apartment

All i want to eventually say is that we have a killer apartment. and yeah it would be cool if other people thought that too and said it too me once in a while. katie and i are a long way from finding ourselves in that situation though as day two of the apartment hunt has proven unfruitful. could we be condo people though? I feel as though most of the condos downtown represent a lot of the hip young life we both want but then there is the commitment of which we are both kind of afraid. Katie more than me though. So we continue trying to find any kind of place we can look at.

I murdered a big portion of my bike last night t jer's house. my bike looks siiick. like this only cooler...

evicted-homeless

we have till the end of the month to get out. that was plastered to my door last night. I went to the bike collective and volunteered so i could blow off some steam. Helped logan and rick get closer to finishing their bikes. volunteering at the collective clears my mind and keeps me sane.

today im looking for a new apartment. im not as excited since where we live now has become our home but in pondering our predicament the beauty of life and love and marriage comes from knowing we can make anywhere a home. life happens but man sometimes i just wish the awful "just doing my jobers" would get their just desserts. far be it for me to past judgement i just want to see something mildly bad or extremely embarrassing happen to them.

there is wisdom in this though: get everything in writing! every little promise, add it to your lease immediately.

today was good then bad

i had a great day of haggling for money to be used towards a video production for the commission on volunteers. I chose KINETO because of the style and cause Damion Dayton runs the show over there. Made a logo for my department and defended it against unfounded criticism.
Got home to find an eviction notice and that the dog had chewed a hole in the wall...in the friggin wall!! everyone in the building is getting these notices because new management wants to clean house or at least get us all to sign new leases. I just hate being delt with like this. What kind of person starts a conversation like that.

In the daily count stress seems to take the lead from nearly every category of life. things pile up and before you know it stress points break down.

I'm glad that every day i can kick against the pricks.