Spintrivia

Best picture ever... Hands down. This, ladies and gentlemen was a band picture from about seven years ago. It is the coolest picture ever. I'm surprised we didn't get famous from the picture itself. At the time we were Spintrivia. Members at one time or another included myself, Branden, Mark, Danny Kimball, and Ian. Ian was playing with us at this point, but we needed him to take the picture. Those unfamiliar with this groundbreaking musical force may be asking themselves, "Why did you name your band Spintrivia?" Well the answer is quite simple. We were playing Trivial Pursuit over at Mark's while we should have been practicing.... And Spin Hansen was killing us. Thus Spintrivia was born. Little remains to document this important chapter in musical history, but this picture stands as a testament and captures the essence of the coolest band in history.

Warrior's Walk

I went on a 50 mile ATV ride a couple of days ago. We made several stops at locations overlooking Zion's and a few other awesome views. Our main purpose however was to find the fabled "Warrior's Walk". My boss and guide, Tony has been riding in the area his whole life but had never been able to find it. After a few wrong turns and a bit of hiking, we found it.



Nobody knows who built a 100+ yard path of stones in the middle of freaking nowhere, or why, but it's a pretty safe bet it was Anasazi. In the background you can see Zion's. Maybe they were as impressed with the view as I was. The trail is on slick rock and is built of sandstone boulders with high iron content. these boulders resist erosion more than the weaker sandstone around them, and so they're left behind after everything else has eroded. Living down here has gotten me really excited about the history of the area, so this was by far the highlight of the ride.

Parowan Gap

I'm going to do some catching up here. During Spring semester, I went on an adventure up to Parowan to see my 3rd Great Grandfather, Priddy Meeks' cabin. I believe it's the oldest standing home in Parowan, as it was the first home built outside of the fort. Parowan was the first community settled in southern Utah. The church sent people down to establish an Iron industry. This community basically served as a springboard for the settlement of the rest of southern Utah. Here are some pictures of the cabin. From here Priddy and his family moved to Harrisburg near present-day Hurricane, and then on to Orderville.





After the cabin, I went west to the Parowan Gap, which was an important route for early explorers and settlers, and also the Paiute, Ute, and Fremont cultures for over a thousand years. It was held sacred by the Indians of the area. The Ute Chief Walker said that the gap was "God's own house". Anyway, for centuries, cultures traveled through the gap, and wrote on the walls. Some of the petroglyphs date back over a thousand years.



The petroglyph that looks like a V-shaped zipper below, is actually a solar calendar. The Fremont culture that lived in this area was very advanced.

Wireless-less in Kanab

So for a couple weeks I was offline in Kanab because I found out that the ISP's here are carpetbaggers. Anyway, unwilling and unable to pay the lucrative price for internet, I resorted to some experimentation. With several businesses with wireless in the area, I went to great lengths to pick up their signals. The whole experiment was a failure, but nobody can tell me that I didn't try. I have documentation.






Shortly after this pathetic last gasp attempt to procure internet, I put my computer in my office, so I at least have some access.

Update: Summer Homelessness

It turns out I will only be homeless for 3 days. I will probably be getting my computer this weekend.

Summer Plans: A brief stint as a homeless man.

So.... My job. It's been a great experience, and I've grown pretty close to a lot of the girls. It's to be expected that when you are working with troubled junior high aged girls there's going to be no shortage of drama. I didn't realize however that I had stumbled into a situation where administration, therapists, and lowly staff are vying for power and control, creating a somewhat uncomfortable situation. I don't quite recall the terminology, but I know that in economics each person has some type of threshold. Each person has a price at which they are willing to provide a service. Unfortunately the politics, the long commute, the lack of communication, and the strangely juvenile political game of cat and mouse that is being played by administration and therapists, and my boredom, have tipped the scales in favor of my decision to make my fortune elsewhere.

The day that the proverbial $%* hit the fan at work was also coincidentally the day that my uncle expressed interest in hiring me to help with his ATV tour/rental business down in the Kanab/Zions/Bryce/Grand Canyon area for the summer. It sounds like a really cool experience. I would be working with four wheelers in some of the most beautiful country in the world, and I will be living close to family. Anyone who knows me well knows my Kanab obsession. That is where my family is from, and I have loved it since I was a kid. Someday I would love to live there and teach school. So basically this is an opportunity that I can't pass up. Details still need to be worked out, and I am not sure exactly when I start, but it's a safe bet that sometime early next month I will be moving to Kanab.

Problem: I gave my 30 days notice at my apartment. I will be out of there by the end of this month. That will leave a window of possibly several weeks where I will be homeless. I will be camping out probably out at Three Peaks, and continue working in Cedar until my new job is available. I will keep you all posted on how my stint with homelessness. Garit is jealous.

My worst nightmare.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23361900-661,00.html

"What's that noise in the bushes?"
"Oh it's probably just a stray dog.... or a creepy gnome."

Why don't things like this happen to me? I'm careless. I stay out late. I spend an abnormal amount of time with lawn gnomes and pigeon scaring owls. Is it too much to ask to be terrorized by a real live bow-legged Argentine gnome?

Pot Burger? Are you kidding me?

It sounds like something from a frat boy comedy a la Adam Sandler, which might have warranted a courtesy laugh if it wasn't seriously endangering lives. I was wondering why these two guys didn't get a stiffer punishment until I saw the honorable judge John Pope. L-O-Freaking-L! Did they drag him out of the streets or out of the north pole. I can't really decide. I seriously thought it was a joke.

Blogging in class

Who's idea was it to have an econ 1010 class in a computer lab? I have 5 tabs open in firefox and not one is class-related. Economics is interesting... But not as interesting as looking up mountain biking trails.

I just answered a question... anyway back to what's really important: Blogging.

A lady from work told me that my haircut makes me look like one of the guys on Nickelodeon's Drake and Josh... I don't remember which one. I didn't anticipate that cutting my hair would make me look like a sixteen-year-old preteen heart throb. I honestly just think she's crazy.

Maverick large hot dogs are .50 cents off right now so I'm 'frank'-ly living in hot dog heaven... smoked sausage loaded with sauerkraut, relish, mustard, ketchup, etc. All of you toddlers who are groaning, go open yourself a can of alphabet soup and slurp it down with a juice box. Keep buying your Wonder bread and your freaking lunchables. I am an adult... And I like rotten cabbage on my hot dogs.

It's been a long time...

...since I've heard "What's The Frequency Kenneth?" If you don't like that song, then you don't like me because it is an integral part of my soul. I'm generally not a big fan of R.E.M. but today I heard this song on Pandora, and I was whisked away to my early junior high days spent listening to Q-99. The tremolo effect on the guitars in this song knocks my socks off.

Client #9

BAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

Should I relish in the destruction of this man's life?
Short answer: Yes.
Hey Governor, you have interns right? Why are you paying thousands of dollars for what all the other politicians are getting for free? Don't they have airport bathroom stalls in upstate New York?

I chopped off my hair like the weak-willed loser that I am.

It's true. If I had a computer to store my pictures on I'd show you before and after pics. I take a small degree of comfort in knowing that I shattered my old record and basically put myself permanently out of reach of my little brother Derek. We've had this competition running since we were small children. Up until Derek's sophomore year (the year after I graduated) I held the record. Derek was able to withstand my parents long enough to beat my record substantially, partly because his hair is curly so he could get away with it longer. After my mission however I didn't cut my hair besides some trims in the back for over a year. I took back the record with gusto but eventually I caved. This time around I went for well over a year without even a trim. My hair made it past my shoulders and I saw that it was glorious. However, all good things must come to an end, and as the sun must always set, so too must I bow myself to the norms of society. My brother is now married though with a baby on the way. So he basically conceded defeat, although he didn't rule out making a run at my record after retirement. As it stands now though, this is truly the end of an era.

Staying Positive in The SUU Computer Lab

I am going to buy a computer on credit. I know, I know. Credit is bad. However I have become so dependent on computers for so much of my hobbies/interests that I am honestly feeling like a fish out of water. Music, photography, social contacts, information, songwriting, sports, school all seriously suffer because I have no computer to call my own. So I resolve this day to buy a computer on credit no matter what my mom says! She's not the boss of me!

I'm surprised that junior high kids don't all just kill themselves. They are miserable people, inside and out. Working with junior high aged kids in a residential treatment center is like an anthropological study of a different species. A cannibalistic species that feeds off pain and crappy music. Actually sometimes they can all be great. It's just creepy how quickly they can turn into pure evil.

X Files is my only reason to get out of bed.

X Files is a cool show. Half the time I am held transfixed by a cool story. The other half of the time I'm making fun of it for crappy special effects or ridiculous plots. It is all I ever wanted. Watch the show opening with the music... My favorite thing ever. Has anyone ever dreamed of a stranger montage? My favorite parts are the ball with rays of light coming out of it like a cheap party decoration, the elongated face, the mirror image of a seed germinating with the frames sped up, and the image of the white silhouette falling into the blue hand with the red spot. WTF?! I could be having the worst day of my life, and if you played that opening montage I would be compelled to laugh. I like Mulder and Scully's high up secret government contact, "X". He is this badass black dude. I want to be him when I grow up. Every time he makes an appearance somebody dies. He solves problems the way they should be solved. I don't like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The End.

I should be writing a paper...

So... It is December. A couple more weeks and I'm moving down to Cedar City where within six months I will become disenchanted and long for the good old days when I slept on the floor in my parents' basement and spent my days printing out magic cards.

Magic: The Gathering is not similar to tarot cards, despite what I told my mom. It's actually a strangely entertaining nerdy card game. I recently wrote a new song and am going to name it "Let The Dead Bury Their Dead". Because it's the best rock n' roll bible quote ever.

Finals will be easy for me this semester. All my classes are fairly simple. I just hope I don't botch my math final, but there's never a guarantee.

Let's see... What else? I enjoyed Mitt Romney's religion speech yesterday. I don't think it will do any good though, because conservative evangelical Christians are bigots.

You May Want To Sit Down For This! I Went On A Date!......And my car got towed.

For the past week or so I have had a barrage of moderately aggravating bad luck. I won't go into all of it. Some of it has something to do with church, some with car trouble, some with a combination of a lot of different things. The bad luck trip reached a climax this weekend when I went on a date and came back to find that my car had been towed. I had to fork over 121.00 to get it back. Why 121? Why not an even 120? My date mused that it might be an extra one dollar fee so that the towing dude can buy soda. I believe they do it because they can. They add an extra dollar to break your will to live. That being said, the date was fun and she was really cool, so it wasn't a bad situation. It was kind of an adventure. All things considered however, this was probably the most expensive date I've ever been on.
On Sunday I realized that my list of blood donors from the ward disappeared from off of my apartment counter. So I spent the better part of the day stewing and stressing about where it might be. I went to my family's: no luck. I searched my car: not there either. As the day wound to a close, I made one final effort to find the list so I could remind everyone of the blood drive that happened today. I drove to work in Pleasant Grove and searched all over my desk: Nothing. Then my car died. Garit and Branden came to my rescue in front of UVSC and helped jumpstart my car four different times as I slowly made my way accross Orem to the mechanic. At about midnight I rolled in and parked my car. Today at about noon I got a call from the mechanic. As we expected, I had a broken alternator. 300 bones later my car is in working condition. So much for saving money over the summer. But as I told my horrified mother, "that's what credit cards are for."

PS: I donated blood for the first time today and it wasn't bad at all. In fact, I liked it.... Maybe too much.

I Am Never Satisfied With Where I Live: An Intraspective Whine Session By: Dan

So I have fallen into an awful pattern since I started college a few years ago. I will call it "The grass is always greener" syndrome. I believe I am officially the king of being dissatisfied with my life situation, and then moving to a different place only to find that it's the same situation I left but with a different setting. Fully acknowledging this, I am seriously considering a move back to Cedar City. Although I hope this time it's less motivated by "the grass is always greener" syndrome than times past. Truth be told, I miss it down there. I would love to get out of this traffic. I really want to take my bike down there. But the main reason I am seriously considering the move is because UVSC doesn't have my major. I want to take a page out of Natalie's book and graduate in the social sciences, but for secondary ed, because little kids are freaky. *SIDE NOTE* Little children are sort of like animals, because you never know what they are thinking. That is why they are freaky. *END SIDE NOTE* UVSC doesn't have a social sciences composite degree. So, I'm left with only a couple options.
#1 Graduate in secondary ed history. My uncle who is a superintendent down in southern Utah warned me that history teachers aren't in high demand. Also, History teachers are kind of a one trick pony, and I want to be marketable, so this option pretty much sucks.
#2 Transfer to another school up north. This is where my perpetual dissatisfaction with my living arrangements kind of takes over. I don't like living up here. I would prefer at this point to live in Cedar again.
#3 Transfer to SUU. Sounds good to me for now, but knowing myself all too well, I am confident that within months I will be longing to be back in lame-ass Utah Valley. Still I cling to the hope that I might break the cycle and finally find the satisfaction that I have been searching for.

Free Paris!

WOOOOOO!
Paris is back in jail.... There is a god.
I don't know why I'm so ecstatic that an irrelevant morally bankrupt heiress is being tormented, but this is the most giddy I've felt in months. The pictures of her weeping like a child start me laughing and I just can't stop smiling. Like I said, I don't quite understand it. But it might have something to do with the fact that this woman has every tool to succeed in life: Money, fame, good looks, she could do something great for humanity. Instead she has become possibly the most aggravating and annoying celebrity in the country. Maybe I'm so glad because I like seeing a tabloid-fodder starlet actually suffer the consequences for her self-destructive behavior for once. When she got released I felt a small part of me die. Now that she was taken kicking and screaming back into her glamor slammer I feel alive. That's hot.

Back with a vengeance

Really there isn't much to write about. I got a new mountain bike which rules. I anxiously await the day that Davy gets a metal Detector and we go gravedigging. I live in student housing and I am trying in vain to stay positive. Garit is a ball face.

BACKPACKS WITH WHEELS ARE SO COOL!

So I was walking through the UVSC parking lot after class this morning and I heard a familiar rolling sound. As this sound got closer, I looked up to see a sad looking middle aged woman dragging a backpack on wheels. Backpacks-on-wheels are the greatest inventions ever. I mean while growing up didn't we all think to ourselves, "This backpack is so heavy, I wish I could drag it behind me on two noisy wheels like a moron." I know I did. I mean years of lifting a bag filled with a couple pounds of paper have really done a number on my back. If only these roller-packs were invented a decade sooner, I might have had a normal existance free from this intense pain. The fact that these backpack-godsends have made it into the hands of socially awkward college students makes them all the more attractive. Shall we weigh the pros and cons of the backpack-on-wheels? Lets!

Pros: No more hoisting books on to one's back, less agony.
Cons: Looking like an ass.


Moral: I need a backpack-on-wheels.