Living Live

Tonight I'm taking the kids to see Cold Creek, a bluegrass band from Utah County. I need a motto for the summer or maybe the year. Something like Live Local Live or Live helps you Live. Ok, so maybe I don't need a motto. What I want is to continue seeing live performances, particularly of local stuff and/or in local/small venues. To that end, Cold Creek tonight, then Kansas at our very own local amphitheater in August; and either this summer or the next, I want to do the Shakespeare Festival with the kids. Also, and dang it I meant to order tickets to someone, I want to see something at Red Butte. Finally, for the year, David Sedaris in October (that's without the kids).

There's something about live performance that rejuvenates me; somehow while focusing on getting degrees, family, running, paying the mortgage etc. I let a million live shows pass me by. At least this one ain't getting by tonight.

Blogging World Predictions for 2009 (or revitalizing a silly juvenile genre just for the hell of it)

First blogger world

1. Middlebrow and Dr. Write, after an embarrassment of riches, will shake the dust of this community college for a prestigious joint chairship somewhere in the Northwest. Incredibly MB’s desk will become a shrine for the student group he forms before leaving, "Simplicity Now!," a desk which mysteriously stays clean even when officemate and other doubters mess it up.
2. Mega, already spending most of her time in the NW, will, as she does so well, duplicate herself and manage to maintain her current teaching position while also becoming poet laureate of the NW and Canada AND the radiant music professor in a new movie (see #3).
3. Sig Nothing will finally tire of the noise and congestion as the 4^th production of a College musical (aka high school musicales go to university) goes into preproduction and will take up Monkey Wrenching on the set in the evenings. The production will be delayed, until in an undisclosed deal Sig will become the Zac Efron for, the decidedly more intellectual HM franchise, “Teaching in College Musicale: the Remoteness of Being.”
4. Unip and Building a rock wall will move to a remote cabin in the Canadian frontier where they will telecommute via satellite to their jobs each afternoon; climbing crags and boulders with their five children (this won’t all quite happen in 2009) will take up their mornings.
   

Second blogger world (in chronology not affection):

5. Myself Undone (aka Anarchist) will create a one man play, “Freedom for: A Proustian approach to life.” It will go to Broadway where in an interview Undone will respond to questions about his ultimate purpose, “I have made to unmake; done to be undone; where I am, there is nothing.” To which mobs of New Yorkers will respond by ransacking established government and commerce to create land based, sustainable agriculture on rooftops.
6. Happy Heretic will hit it big in online stock market trading and will change his lifestyle radically by making two instead of one trip a year to Mesquite and by donating one million dollars to a project entitled, “Merging identities: Freedom ‘from’ is for dumbasses” run by Undone, SE, and yours truly.
7. Spontaneous expression’s (recently Disregulated) witty, hard-hitting blog will go mainstream; she will blissfully and unabashedly dance on Ellen while announcing her new blog as book, “Disregulating Yourself: The Kama-Sutra of Identity.”
8. Paradigm Shift will want distance from his friends and family and move to Utah. Even though he will take a job which pays 200K, he humbly and helpfully will buy two homes surprisingly close to my own (one directly north of my own and another one—kind of in disrepair—in my very own cul-de-sac). He and my sis will remodel beautifully the home in the cul-de-sac, increasing the value of my own home, all the while enjoying immensely the proximity to me, and strangely enough ultimately donating the home directly behind to me.

A vision of St. George with the kids: the road less traveled

Last year Alison and I went to St George and, as often happens, I found myself thinking the kids would love this hike or activity. So then and there we decided we'd bring them with next year. And amazingly enough we did--10 years quicker than it took me to get my kids to San Francisco after a similar experience there. I guess St George is a little cheaper.

First up: the rocks 2 minutes, just north of St George where you can sit...

or learn climbing skills from an inexpert...

"There are two ways up boys--the wimpy bridge thing or straight up."

or take shadow pictures...

or, not captured in photos, watch very scared people learning to rappel off the biggest square looking rock or look down on St George.

Next stop: Mt biking for some, hiking and complaining for others, at Gooseberry Mesa,
some of the best little known mt biking in the state. The practice loop is excellent for those learning to mt bike and/or one's first experience with slick rock:

It's hard to explain how amazingly cool it was to get Seth, my oldest, out on the slick rock. I've taken him mt biking several times but mt biking in Davis County is pretty boring and requires a lot of technical skill and strength. Very satisfying to see him enjoy himself. Hopefully an experience which will lead to many more mt biking trips.

Youngest son wasn't quite ready to bike the slick rock, but he ran alongside for a couple of miles.

Hana wasn't nearly excited by this slick rock wonderland.

Of course she didn't have a bike nor the skills to tackle it. I thought I'd do better with the gender-specific activities, but I've hit many rocky and unpredictable ascents--Hana has barely touched the bike we bought for her and tends to want to watch Hannah Montana instead. Keep offering opportunities, right? She did ride Seth's bike down the jeep trail which intersects the mesa. And find other stuff we can do together--we just watched A Room with a View, which I couldn't get my oldest son to even look at.

Youngest son finally got some biking in on the way out on the dirt road.

He was so cute as he would pull up on his handlebars whenever we crossed small patches of slick rock on the road--maybe next year he will be ready for slick rock 101.

BTW Gooseberry is a great little find between St George and Zion's (and it's free) but it's a bit of a bumpy, washboard road. Turns out two brothers laid out the trails and got the National Forest service to sign on; sometimes the little guy does win.

Next stop: the often overshadowed, by Zion's, Arches, and Bryce, Snow Canyon State park just north west of St. George.

Here's Seth climbing the petrified sand dunes:

more petrified sand dune climbing:

Daughter had (mostly) a better time on this hike:

And everyone enjoyed the lava tube caves--a break from the heat, adventurous, and a bit creepy especially since we saw the new Indiana Jones movie the night before:

If you do some hiking in Snow Canyon, I highly recommend the Butterfly trail which will connect you to the lava tube trail (take a left here) and just 20 yards later you will be at the biggest lava tube/cave.

***

Well, as you can tell I'm quite satisfied with myself--it's rare in life, at least mine, to have a vision of something and then actually, pretty much (note earlier post on eating at JB's), pull it off. On the way home, I brainstormed some other visions I'd like to actualize with the kids, preferably before the oldest graduates high school:

Colorado Springs (including Pikes Peak)
the Grand Canyon
Mesa Verde
Shakespeare Festival (the more cerebral is good too)
Mt Timpanogas

It's cliche, but wow there's so much I want to do and so little time to do it. I just can't believe that I've never made it up Mt Timp again since my initial summit in 94--where in the world did those 14 years go???

My meditation image for the day.

Crab Spider capturing a bee on yellow flower

p.s. I showed this image to my 7 yr old son, leading him through the image, like a good teacher, with questions (what do you see? what else? are you sure?) Once he could discern the spider and its intentions, he remarked "it's like playing hide-go-seek, except different."

Never, even if....

NEVER, even if the kids or other car occupants are screaming, even if you feel you can't go on, even if your head aches and your gut is growling, even if you've driven down the same street 12 times, even if your spouse threatens divorce, even if the meter's on empty, even if you may inadvertently scream: "where @$*&# do you want to eat then??", even if you have hit the wall, even if you may never go on a vacation again, even if every restaurant is closed because it's Sunday and only Mormons live in that town, NEVER EVER settle for the JB's off Bluff Street in St George.

I've never paid for worse food and service in my life--the beets were a light orchid purple, the lettuce wilted, each dressing and liquidy salad had a 1/4 inch film AND never was a refill on water offered even though we were the only other table.

Lesson learned: do not, as I often do on vacations, get so focused on eating at unique restaurants unattainable at home that one loses sight of the bigger picture--purchasing edible food which leads to sustenance. If you can't find unique and interesting, move onto reliable, rather than settling for whatever happens to be in front of you at the brink of utter frustration.

Consider yourselves warned.