Bah Humbug,


Well that saying comes from Christmas, I think I can use it for whatever I want. I say bah humbug to major holidays. Aside from the fact that a lot of holidays are very commercialized(which I don't hold against companies but people themselves) holidays bug me. People as a general rule go overboard with any holiday. I don't understand why people have boxes filled with holiday decorations. Are Thanksgiving and Halloween really that important that they warrant us decorating differently for them? Their house is decorated festive. Meaning during summer it is patriotic, spooky for halloween, pilgrim, then green and red with evergreen things everywhere. Then it is just red for valentines day then just green for st. patties, then its blue for easter.

Holy crap I don't care!

We had to make a rule in my family that Christmas music cannot be played until after Halloween. Mainly because my mom kept pulling out the music earlier and earlier every year. I am especially against Christmas music. That is the thing I hate the most about holidays! I like church Christmas music and that is about it.

Having said all that, I am a very apathetic person. I just don't care about things, and when people care a lot about things I tend to care less. Oh well, I just deal with it. And I will continue to deal with because it isn't going to go away.

I write stupid entries. I say that because I write a lot of entries and then just never publish them. I'll leave this stupid one at that.

Better Late than never, or something like that.


Well I have kept all of you my faithful readers (I probably am refering to myself more than anyone else but that is beside the point) in suspense. It is time to end that suspense. I am alive. I haven't really written anything because I haven't done anything too cool, or really even cool enough to write about.

Monday however was labor day, so what should someone do to take a day off labor... if you said go hiking that is exactly right. I don't actually labor at work so I figured I better do the opposite of what I do there. So I hiked an amazingly hard mountain, with spectacular results.

My brother woke me up at the butt crack of dawn, 8:45 to have me let him in to my house. Dave Seeley showed up at about 9. Suzy sent me a text and said she was running late, not a problem, we just watched a tv program that Dave was on that he had me record on the ol DVR. Then we had to run some errands, get some food for lunch, and something to fix Dave's camel pack. Dan called Suzy and we decided to have him meet us up there.

The day got going right on time, that is to say two hours after the time we originally planned. None of us cared that we started hiking that late though. We started the hike at about 11:15, and our pace wasn't very strong. Suzy was feeling a little under the weather, so while we were on our second rest having only been hiking fifteen minutes, Dan caught up with us. Suzy felt completely better after the rest and we pushed on for another 15 minutes. We continued our slow ascent for some time. It was about this time that my brother Tyler just took off. At about this point I was feeling ill, note to self (and reader) don't ever have a bagel with cream cheese before a stressful hike. We started meeting people who had already made it to the top and were coming back down, little did we know that they were either in amazing shape or they had started at like 6 am. It was about this time that Dan just took off, and I was feeling pretty good again.

As we hiked we passed a father and his kids, he had a hammock, I figured he might be a cool guy. Granted I can't really pass judgement in the few seconds I saw him but as we were walking off he started yelling at one of his kids, about having spilled their soup for the third time. He probably was talking kindly to his kid until we passed, just his luck.

Anyways... we continued onward. A little after that Dave said, "Hey look at that snake... It's a rattle snake." There ahead of us on the trail was a 2-2.5 foot rattle snake. We all paused to look at the rattle snake crossing the trail, or I guess you could say we all paused so we wouldn't get bitten. It was about this time that we started to realize that we were slow. People were saying that it took them 2 hours to get to the saddle (You end up hiking between two mountains where they meet is the saddle. It is a good place to rest before the final ascent) We were already into the journey 3 hours. After about two more rest stops I decided to just go all out so I could conquer the freaking mountain. I just left Suzy and Dave behind.

The last section of the trail before the saddle almost killed me. I was barely moving, my steps were about a quarter of their normal length. This was due to the severe incline and how tired I already was. When I got to the top I walked to where my brother was sitting and essentially collapsed. He had been there for about an hour, he took a nap. I was amazed. Suzy got there about fifteen minutes after I did, Dave had decided to wait there for the rest of us to come back down. We waited there for about fifteen more minutes and Dan returned on his way back down.

I had already drank 2 liters of water on the way up, I had two more liters of liquid, one of water and one of kool aid. After talking to Dan for another fifteen minutes, Suzy, my brother and I began our final ascent. The final ascent was really cool, it was a rock scramble. It took us 45 min to get to the top. It was worth it!...

The view was amazing, It felt like you could look straight down on the whole valley. You could easily see from the point of the mountain, to as far north as you wanted really. I could see the grainery up by my parents house in Kaysville, beyond that the mountain by Ogden. Unfortunately I felt like crap. I needed food while I was at the saddle, so I had more of my bagel boy did I regret that choice. The top of the mountain was not very big and it dropped off very steeply to the north side it was really cool. Another cool thing was that the trees were starting to change colors, that just added to the effect. Not to mention I had climbed a freaking mountain. (One more reason to point to me during Gestures to indicate the word "man". LOL)

We proceded to descend the mountain, which was pretty uneventful except I felt like crap! I felt sick again, no bagel this time (I threw those off the top of the mountain!), I just felt sick. My brother beat all of us down the mountain by about an hour. He kicked our trash on this hike. We left at about 11:15, we got off the mountain at about 7:00. Over eight hours of hiking, on the internet it says it is a six hour hike. Needless to say I didn't do anything else that night.

But hey I climbed a freaking mountain what have you ever done? Lol.

The Weekend report with Shaun.


I am sure you are all wondering how my weekend went after deciding that I need to make things happen. Well I was crazy busy. I got a group of people together and we all went hiking and that was awesome it was a really cool hike. When I hike I find myself not noticing that I have left people behind, so at one part of the trail I sat there by myself for at least 15 minutes wondering if someone got hurt and went back or something like that. At the end of the hike there is a cool waterfall. The water was, of course, freezing but we decided to play in it anyways. Talaysha, Kim and I all ran down the mountain, and we waited for twenty minutes before everyone else got down. After that we got food and ate it at my parents house.

After the hike I had grandiose plans to mow the lawn, which I might have done had I not sat down. After a small nap and a shower it was time for the date with the 18 year old gina. We went to the Real Salt Lake game. It was a good game until we lost at the very end. The game was followed by fireworks which were really cool. The date was just so so, so I just took her home after the game, then I went to my friends' apartment and watched most of the movie Poltergeist. That was a pretty funny movie.

All in all an exciting day. So my plan worked pretty good.

The weekend is as boring as you make it.

Few people actually take initiative in doing things, or deciding what to do. In a group of friends there is an ongoing struggle, the struggle of what to do. Come Friday or Saturday the group of friends begins to call or text the other friends to "see what is going on", or anyother way to say that. Most of them have no plans, maybe a few have dates but all together nothing happens. We always leave what should be done up to everyone else.

I am just as guilty as the next person when it comes to this sort of thing. As I am writing this I am trying to say that we shouldn't do this and we should take responsibility etc. but I can't reasonably expect to always have something to do.

This is really why people think that Mormons are strange, we have to do things to entertain ourselves. Sometimes we have to do things that other people wouldn't because we can't just go get drunk off our butts.

This all leads in to a comment that a non member/ person not from Utah made. He said that every house has a mini van and a truck. While that is slowly switching to SUV the comment remains the same. He also said that all of Utah goes camping all the time. I lived in Colorado for several years and I really can't remember my neighbors having too many 4 wheelers, or trailers or really trucks for that matter. But I do remember seeing them outside drinking and smoking sometimes.

Of course we go camping, what else do we have to do? The way I say that it makes drinking sound like the preferable thing to do, not so. I love all that stuff, then add on shooting, paintballing, hiking, backpacking. We use our state to the fullest extent and we do stuff all the time, I would say that is a little better than sitting around.

Anyways back to the saturday thing, I find myself wanting to do chores on sat morning because there is nothing to do. I mow the lawn, and clean stuff. That is wierd even when I am done doing those things some times I still don't have things to do. I am going to make an effort to do stuff. Like hiking or something, that is cheap. This saturday I'm going to try to get people to go.

I hope you can follow this it was kind of all over the place.

Johnny Law has struck again!

Luckily it didn't strike me. This morning for some reason I got to work 5 minutes early, but that is beside the point, and set about starting up the computer and what not. When I opened Outlook I already had an email there. It was from my friend Tyler and he wrote:

Dude,
Write me an email when you get into work. Lets say something happened this morning that may make it difficult to go to the race tomorrow.

When I read that I thought to myself he got in a wreck and ruined his bike. So I emailed him and he had gotten a ticket instead. As of this post I don't know for what or how much, but he has a habit of going really fast on his bike, and he is not insured, so I can only assume that it is a really big ticket.

So because of that I don't think that I will be attending the race tommorrow which is a crying shame. Now I don't get to see the Porsches or the Audi R-10 TDI (it is a diesel, and is the car that won the last 24hrs of Le Mans) race.

While I appreciate the role that Police play in our society, I hate tickets.

Edit: Lets see how many times I can get a head of myself when it comes to going to this race. My friend said that he now still wants to go. His ticket was for 32 mph over the limit. 92 in a 60, ouch.

Utah Grand Prix


Well this Saturday will be my first time to visit the Miller Motorsports park in Tooele. As can be read in the Life and Times of an Insurance salesman part of my daily routine is to check the daily updates on F1 racing.net so I hope I can safely assume that you all know that I love racing. I especially love open wheel racing. Well this saturday I have the opportunity to go watch an American Le Mans series race.

While this race will not have any open wheel cars it will feature cars from my most favorite car company of all time that of Dr. Ing, h.c. F. Porsche. I always root for the Porsches to win in anything they compete in.

In April I attended a Champ car race down in Long Beach California. After the champ car race the american le mans class that the Porsche 911 races in had a race. Now let me set up this race class for you.

Cadillac STS 320 hp 4.6L Engine (possibly a 4.4L 469 hp engine)
Corvette, a 505 hp aluminum block 7.0 L V-8 engine.
Dodge Viper, a 510 hp Aluminum block 8.3 L V-10 engine.
There was also a Nissan Skyline, and a Subaru Impreza WRX Sti that got their butts handed to them.

The most impressive, big block, sports cars that US has to offer are in the same class as the Porsche 911 GT3. Now lets look at that...

Porsche 911 GT3 3.6L flat six engine with 415 hp.

The Corvette is almost double the size of the engine, the Viper is over double the size and, the STS is a full Liter larger. This little car is competing against some of the biggest powerhouses in the United states. That is world class engineering.

The Porsches stayed with all of those cars and more likely than not that was because of the driver and not the car. Whats more is that there are more Porsches than any other car in that class.

So, this Saturday I get to see several different classes of cars race those cars and others. Racing is why I want to be a mechanical Engineer. I want to give the US a car that can almost beat a Porsche on its own terms. I say almost beat because, Hey Porsche is my favorite I just don't want to see the US so far off.

Off the topic of the main post...

If I was in a room with one of every street legal car in the world and the keys were in the ignition of each one and I could drive away in whatever car I wanted. I would chose the Porsche 911 Turbo. I would chose that over any Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Bugati, or any other "super car" you could think of. With that being said I am going to lunch.

Summer Semester, and other school related woes.


There are many great things about summer, boating, warmth, just being able to do things outside. Summer Semester is not one of those great things.

To preface this I must say that school has always come really easy for me. For the sake of sounding prideful I will leave it at that. As a result of school being easy I never really learned to apply myself when it came to my work. I always did well in my classes and usually passed by doing well on my tests and not so much of the homework. Needless to say I never really learned my math subjects like I needed to. My first semester in college I took Calculus and got the wonderful grade of a D+ from a lack of doing homework. I will retake that after my mission I said.

In my quest for my degree in mechanical engineering I need a lot of math. I have no problem with that I enjoy math the only hitch comes from the fact that when I returned home from two years in Paraguay on my mission I couldn't remember a dang thing about math. I was required by the school to take a math placement test, which I did horrible on. So I have had to retake math 1010 and 1050. I was not planning on taking 1060 but on the counsel of my 1050 teacher I decided to retake that as well.

So here I am in the greatest months of the year working, and going to school, and trying to have a fun time with my friends. Tuesdays and Thursdays are the evenings that I have class. Luckily not too much happens on those days, Monday Wednesday and Friday being the days of choice to have fun.

While summer semester is not too bad, I am going to be in school for a long time. With class prerequisites and a lack of money I can only take two classes this fall and about as many next semester.

Big Brother Blog?

Is it legal to do two posts in the same day?

As you ponder the complexities of that question I will go on with a new web log. I never know what to put in these blogs but I want to put stuff. That is kind of a strange topic to write about, not knowing what to write about, but it perplexes me.

I don't understand how people can just open up in their blogs. In all reality who looks at other peoples blogs other than those who know that person? Are there actually people out there that have no idea who I am yet read my blog? I highly doubt it. I have read other peoples blogs that I don't know but only for a little bit because I don't know the person and I don't want to take the time to read through a myriad of posts to figure out who this person is.

So why do people open up in their blogs but not in person? I cannot think of a time that I would put something here that I would not say in person. I recently read a blog of one of my friends in which he was upset with the way we have been treating him. Everything that he said was true, he wasn't really whining or anything. But why did he post a blog? Why not just tell us? (If you are reading this I apologize for my part in all of that and will definitely try to not go so far)

I wrote a blog a while ago and told no one about it that I know. I put personal things in it but deleted it shortly there after for fear that someone I know might see it. Why did I do that?

The blog it appears has become the modern day diary. But instead of your older sister hiding the key to her diary from you, her prying younger brother, she makes a post on the internet. She confides in the anonymity of cyber space. She will confide in her big brother the internet but not her actual brother. The appeal lies in the anonymity of it all. We get to vent or pour out our heart or whatever and maybe someone will post a reassuring comment. Maybe someone will sympathize with us.

Is this healthy? Should we really confide in people we can't see and may have never met? I am just as guilty as the next person for not wanting to confide in people I know. Am I afraid of what they think of me? That seems to be the reason. With the case of my friend he wants us to know about it, but might be scared of how we will take it, or maybe he doesn't think we will take it seriously. So he can write about it online and maybe we will chance upon it and change.

Should we really blog about our lives, or should we find a confidante and try resolve our issues with someone we know. To me the internet is pulling us out of reality. Online dating is easy, There is a forum for just about everything, anything that we can't get out in a forum we publish in our on-line diary, we confide in our big brother. What about our actual brother or sister?

I hope to make a blog of events, and to try to focus on talking to other people. I do not wish to degrade those who make blogs like this especially since I have done it in the past. I merely pose the question is it healthy, and should we do it? Maybe it is actually healthy and really helps people and doesn't just feel good, because many things that "feel good" are actually not good.

Now I am rambling.

edit: I see no problem with commentary on actual events.

The life and times of an insurance salesman.

Well I don't think I have the most boring job in the world but it is up there. Now when I say insurance salesman that is kind of a stretch... I am really a secretary with a license to sell insurance. When you call your insurance agent you want to talk with your agent not the "guy" that answers the phone. As a result I sit in the front of the office staring at a computer screen for about nine hours a day.

A typical day goes like this:

8:33 I get to the office I am never quite on time.

8:45 I have turned everything on and now I do my paper work for the day. This entails getting a small stack of papers from my desk and making sure that all of those changes have been made to peoples policies. Then I file those papers in a box. The second part of my work I don't do every day, that is putting away files of customers. I usually do that every other day.

9:15 My paper work is done for the day. Now I check my bank accounts and make sure I have enough money to pay all my bills.

9:30 This is where the day gets good, I make my daily check of f1 racing.net to see what is going on today in the racing world of Formula One. The greatest racing league in the world! During the World Cup I would check soccer scores and who is playing who that day.

9:45 My daily routine is now over and I still have eight hours left in the day. At this point I usually go to Launchcast on Yahoo and watch music videos. If I am tired I will lean back and try to sleep a little. If I get motivated I will do some homework. When I get really bored I check the news.

From then until 5:30 I intermittently answer the phone (usually for my boss) and take payments from customers. From the day I started working here my boss told me that this is a hurry up and wait job, that means that I will do nothing at all for 30 min and then be swamped for 15. I have no idea how it happens but it is true.

Now don't get me wrong I like my job it is easy, my boss is cool, and the pay is great for how little I do. But it is booorrriiiinnnggg.