Life After Hawaii

My Manifest Destiny

2010-08-09T23:19:00.000-04:00

After a little over two years in the East, Audi and I finally made our way back to the coast with the most. Well, almost. We're about 500 miles short of the coast, but we are where we want to be. Arizona. I'm starting my MBA program at Thunderbird in about two weeks and in about three weeks Audi will be having our baby. I figured I'd either go big or go home.

The weather is about 105 every day, which they say is pretty mild for this time of year. Coming from Maryland and 95 degree days with 70 percent humidity, it feels amazing over here. Sure, you'll blister your feet if you walk on pavement without shoes and it gets so hot that if you leave your phone in your car, it will fry the insides, but it feels soooooo much better. Top it off with our own pool, an upgrade to a two bedroom apartment, and half as much for rent, and I guess you could say things are looking pretty good for our hero.

Girl

2010-04-21T18:17:00.000-04:00

Well, the cat's out of the bag and the little bundle of DNA inside Audi's belly has officially declared itself female. Let the pink fabric, frilly lace, flowery headbands, and other stereotypical female baby paraphernalia fly. Audi's been chomping at the bit to start sewing and buying everything this kid will need until college and now that we know the nature of our baby's naughty bits, Audi can get to work.

Looking at the ultrasound was surreal. It's no longer just a bump under Audi's bellybutton or what essentially looked like a black smudge in our first ultrasound. This is a BABY!

I'm honestly really excited that it's a girl. Not just because this means Audi will have a bit more expertise and confidence when parenting this kid, but I'm really psyched to have a daughter. It seems like the majority of my friends who have had babies lately have had girls and I've really been jealous. There's a unique innocence to girls that you just don't see with boys. Maybe it's residual from how I fell for Audi and have been significantly whipped ever since, but I can tell already that this girl is going to be able to walk all over me, and I can't wait. I'm also really glad that she can't projectile pee.

Snow daze

2010-02-08T16:54:00.001-05:00

As a kid, a snow day meant a lot of things: homework wasn't due for another day, you could build a snow fort in your yard, go sledding, or any of a hundred other outdoor activities. As an adult, I'm finding that I am no less excited, nay, I dare say I am far more excited about snow days than I ever was as a child. Strange as it is, a couple days ago when I saw the forecast predicting the blizzard of the decade, my mouth was watering at the prospect of finally having time to do laundry, clean up around the house a little, and throw in a movie somewhere.

Something else I'm finding interesting about snow is that it seems to in some ways remind me of another ubiquitous white powder with an addictive nature. I get one snow day and suddenly I start to twitch at the idea of having to go back to work. I scan every weather website for the one that will predict snow with the highest probability. I need it. I start to reason it out in my head every way possible that there might be another day off - snow on the metro tracks, freezing snow-melt on the road, too much snow in the parking lots. I'm weak, childish, and lazy. Thomas Edison said that there are two types of people in the world: those who look forward to the alarm clock and those who don't. Well, I realize all of these things and, you know what, I don't care. I guess it's a good thing they're predicting another 12 inches on Tuesday. If things work out, I won't be coming down from this fix for a while.

Picture of my car under 24 inches of snow to follow.

Didn't you know? I'm a freakin' rock star.

2010-01-16T20:11:00.000-05:00

So my birthday came around just over a month ago. Due to my less than subtle hinting, Audi managed to figure out that I wanted a guitar for the anniversary of my springing into this world from my mother's womb. Well, she got it for me! What a gal! It's a beaut and for the first time in my life, I'm practicing something (other than religion) without being forced to do so. My first attempt reminded me how much it hurts to push down metal strings without callouses on your finger tips. I spent the ensuing two weeks at work, while in class, pushing down on anything with an edge to beat the crap out of my fingers so that I don't want to cry like a little kid every time I push down the high E string (I still kinda want to cry when I push it down with my pinkie... baby steps).

So here she is. I haven't given her a name yet, though I am fully aware of the great importance of doing so. I'm considering Betty or Doris, both in memory of skateboards I owned in Hawaii. Betty was stolen by a heartless punk kid from Kahuku while I was in the library (I never found out who it was, but I saw his blurry picture on the security camera in the campus security guard's office. Wherever you are kid, you'll get your comeuppance one day!)

I'm intent on learning without a teacher or book at this point. I'm practicing a ton of chords and bits of songs I see online and I'm content to continue that way. I don't mind being a little unpolished and saving a few bucks because I like to be able to say I'm self-taught. Anywho, some day I'll include a recording on here. My current endeavor is Free Fallin'.

Belated Peru Pictures

2010-01-16T13:36:00.000-05:00

We saw this double rainbow on the way back from Machu Picchu. The squeals from the other tourists on the bus was one of the most amusing things that day.

Our day at Machu Picchu was the only good weather day on our whole trip.

Locals get about 30 cents for a photo op. 60 cents if they have a lamb.

We climbed that peak in the background. Surprisingly, it only took an extra hour each way.

The locals were very friendly.

This was at the top of a bunch of amazing meso-American village ruins. The buildings are behind me.

That's my girl.

We didn't make it in, but the view was amazing from outside.

Audi likes door pictures. I like her.

Seemed like the right thing to do.

Last Leg

2009-12-03T19:07:00.000-05:00

Holy Hannah! It's been quite a ride this last week. I haven't had a ton of time to sit down at the computer, hence my lack of blogging. Since I last updated you, we visit some ruins up in the moutains, saw the largest market in Peru, traveled to Machu Picchu, got a wicked bad sunburn over my face, arms, and neck, bought heaps of souvenirs, took another 21 hour bus ride back to Lima, and Montezuma had his revenge on me.

This pictures from this trip have been spectacular. They will follow in the near future.

We managed to not get robbed at all this week, at least not stolen from, though some of the prices for things seemed like robbery.

I used up most of a bottle of aloe on my sunburns in 2 days because they were so nasty. We weren't counting on it being sunny at Machu Picchu so we didn't bring sunscreen. Between the intense sun that DID show up that day and what I assume to be thin atmosphere at 10,000 feet of altitude, my arms, hands, neck, and face ended up swollen and red from the burn. The swelling has since then gone down, along with much of the redness, but my nose already feels beef jerky and my forehead and neck will look leperous by tomorrow.

Tomorrow at midnight we fly out. It's been an amazing ride. I'll fill in more details later, but we feel really lucky to have seen so much and done so without serious accident or incident.

11,000 feet and counting

2009-11-28T16:27:00.000-05:00

We've made it to Cusco, though now without our share of shady taxi drivers, cross-country busses, and friendly German co-travelers.

In short, Lima is a hole. To paraphrase Obi Wan Kenobi, there is no greater collection of scum and villainy in the universe. I know that´s being a little harsh, but I am only basing it off of rip-off hotels and hostels, shady taxi drivers, and frustrating service-people.

We met a couple of nice German guys who are traveling the world and teamed up to find our hostels. We´re also going to meet up for our travels tomorrow. Traveling with additional people, even complete strangers always seems to make you feel safer somehow.

No apologies, just Peru

2009-11-27T08:40:00.000-05:00

The last 6 months since I have written here have involved love, travel, and more than a few hours of family TV time and now I am in Peru. We decided to go somewhat untraditionalist this year and are now in Lima. I rarely know what to expect because I never really form an image in my mind of what things might be like. In any case, this place is beautiful, overcast, poor, and friendly. There are a lot of bright colored buildings, rundown buildings, dogs in the streets, and clothes lines strung around. I'm typing on a keyboard that the hostel owns and there is some exposed metal on it right where my wrist touches that shocks me when every couple of seconds if I'm not careful.

We're on our way to explore the town a little before we get on a 22 hour bus ride to Cusco at the base of Machu Picchu. I'm showered, rested, and completely inept in Spanish. Lo, but by the grace of God go we into the land of Lamanites and llamas (alpacas, I know, but I wanted alliteration).

Weddings and things...

2009-07-14T17:29:00.005-04:00

I met this girl when I was in Hawaii about 2 years ago. We went out for burgers, we went to the beach, yadda, yadda, yadda... we just got married. Here are the pictures to fill in some of the details.

3 months seems like a reasonable interval between blog postings

2009-04-01T17:21:00.000-04:00

Alrighty. Where to start from my last posting..... Last time I wrote something here I was single. Now I'm ALMOST NOT SINGLE which is a very different thing based on my understanding of semantics.

Lets see first of all there was Christmas in Longview. Audi came out and it was a delight.

The biggest news from that week in Washington was that I asked Audi to marry me and SHE SAID "YES!!!" Well, actually she said "yeah," but what's the difference?

We're gettin' hitched on May 23rd in the Rexburg Temple.

My first day back at work from the break I found out that I got my job with the DoD! From now on I'll be spending my days keeping America safe and, more importantly, I'll have insurance while doing it! I can finally stop walking around worried I'll get sick or slip on a banana peel and end up in debt for another decade.

These days we're scrambling to get everything planned before the big day but are somehow managing to get it done. One day at a time...

Long time no blog...

2008-12-19T19:27:00.001-05:00

A mixed day

2008-11-11T10:35:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I made plans for this next week to include a bit more of a communion with nature. Specifically, I wanted to start running more and I wanted to start bringing my camera to work to take pictures during lunch. I'd been avoiding running for a while because the weather here was disgustingly humid and I felt like I had only one lung when I ran. At least that was my excuse for not running. So I started off yesterday morning. I woke up bright and early at 7:15 and strapped on my shoes and such and was out the door. I'd only made it down to the end of the block before disaster struck. I was admiring all of the beautiful leaves that have filled the street and the heaps of them that are collected between cars on the side of the road. As I crossed the street to the sidewalk I jumped over one of these mounds of autumnal splendor. It was immediately after my feet left the ground that I realized that I couldn't exactly see what where I would be landing due

to a car I was jumping past and the leaves that covered the edge of the sidewalk. In what I'm sure was a magnificent display of awkwardness in mid-air, I landed on the ground awkwardly because I didn't know if my foot would be hitting road, sidewalk, or curb and, as we say in the running biz, I ate crap.

Putting aside my shame until later, I dusted myself off and kept going. I made it home, showered up and bandaged up myself. I headed to work and, with intense anticipation, finally made it out to take pictures at lunch. I'd been wanting to do this for a while and I probably missed the most beautiful times of the fall two weeks ago, but it's still pretty great. Here are a few of the pics I took:

Starting over

2008-11-04T17:31:00.000-05:00

I've tried this whole blog thing a time or two (two to be exact) but I've never really been able to follow through on it (I think I recorded a total of about 6 posts on my last blogging experience). I hope that this run at it is a bit more fruitful. I have a decent camera now so I have more of an excuse to take pictures and I live in DC at one of the fundamental turning points in my life so I shouldn't have any shortage of things to write about. If I fail in either of these regards it is because I am horribly boring, sinfully lazy, or both. So, in the spirit of exciting proactivism, here's some photoage from last weekend. Audi and I took a drive out to Shenandoah National Park. IT WAS AMAZING! I've never seen colors anything like it.

Not to bad, eh?

Don't worry, I'm fully aware that she's much better looking than I am.

I had the exposure off a bit on this one but I still really like the way it turned out.