Annie's hard knock life

Friday a.m.

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colors

The giving tree outside my front door.

Sent from my Windows® phone

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Sorry for unconvinced

Working late. Just called in a take out order from the Nepalese/Tibeten/Indian restaurant around the corner. I haven't tried their food yet, so I'm looking forward to it. I found myself wondering if they were really authentic when i found this bit of assurance on their website:

Our Online Order System is not functioning Property, Please call Restaurant for Order. We are very sorry for unconvinced.

I'm convinced their online ordering system is down. No need to apologize. Funny, thanks to the typo, I'm even convinced they're the real deal. Looking forward to dinner.

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Me time.

Took an overnighter by myself up in the Indian Peaks Wildness. The trail was mostly snow and ice. Bagged Arapahoe Pass and camped up amongst the marmots where nobody else was stupid enough to have a slumber party with the wind. But I planned for the chill, geared up and got in some great solo therapy. You can come next time. I won't be so selfish in the future. Or at least I won't tell you about it.

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manhandle your verbs

I started day dreaming, as I often do. I made a list. List #1.

I read it and crashed my pity part by copying and pasting the list and changing the verbs in the new one. I also ended up adding one more point as the dreaming continued and evolved.

I noticed the difference between #1 and #2 and thought of revising the verbs again. Behold, list #3.

I feel better. Now I just have to work at this stuff. It's on me.

Try this sometime.

----------

List #1

I wish I were a better writer. A really good, captivating, clear written communicator.

I wish I could take public transportation or ride my bike to work without extending my one-way commute by an almost an hour.

I wish I had a more natural singing voice. Not a “prettier” or more professional voice. Just more naturally, subconsciously appealing.

I wish I could afford to record a full-length album of quality and depth that I hear in my head.

I wish I could take multi-day backpacking trips into the backcountry a lot more than I have in the last 4 years, which is embarrassing to admit totals ZERO times.

I wish I had the start up and guts to start my own business and partner with / hire terrific people to share it with.

I wish I could afford the kitchen, tools, food and time to cook whatever I want, however I want.

List #2

I hope to become a better writer. A really good, captivating, clear written communicator.

I hope to be able to take public transportation or ride my bike to work without extending my one-way commute by an almost an hour.

I hope to cultivate a more natural singing voice. Not a “prettier” or more professional voice. Just more naturally, subconsciously appealing.

I hope to someday be able to (afford to) record a full-length album of quality and depth that I hear in my head.

I hope to take multi-day backpacking trips into the backcountry a lot more than I have in the last 4 years, which is embarrassing to admit totals ZERO times.

I hope to start my own business someday and partner with / hire terrific people to share it with.

I hope to be able to someday afford the kitchen, tools, food and time to cook whatever I want, however I want.

I hope to have cool kids that will want to do cool things with me.

List #3

I plan to become a better writer. A really good, captivating, clear written communicator.

I plan to someday be able to take public transportation or ride my bike to work without extending my one-way commute by an almost an hour.

I’m going to work on cultivating a more natural singing voice. Not a “prettier” or more professional voice. Just more naturally, subconsciously appealing.

I plan to someday record a full-length album of quality and depth that I hear in my head.

I will take multi-day backpacking trips into the backcountry a lot more than I have in the last 4 years, which is embarrassing to admit totals ZERO times.

I plan to start my own business someday and partner with / hire terrific people to share it with.

I will someday be able to afford the kitchen, tools, food and time to cook whatever I want, however I want.

I hope to have cool kids that will want to do cool things with me. (This one is still partially out of my hands. Hope’s a good thing.)

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wax on wax off

[Editor’s note. This post is an annoying insight into how my brain works. I’m constantly going off on tangents in an effort to go back and forth between two sides of a hypothetical argument attempting to fill in holes in logic. If I’m bi-polar, at least I’m a somewhat open-minded schizo.

“What luck for rulers that men don’t think.” – Adolf Hitler]

“It's nice when somebody tells you about their uncle. Especially when they start out telling you about their father's farm and then all of a sudden get more interested in their uncle. I mean it's dirty to keep yelling 'Digression!' at him when he's all nice and excited. I don't know. It's hard to explain… What I mean is, lots of time you don't know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn't interest you most. I mean you can't help it sometimes. What I think is, you're supposed to leave somebody alone if he's at least being interesting and he's getting all excited about something. I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It's nice.” – Holden Caulfield]

I remember when I couldn’t type worth crap as a kid, and I couldn’t think of a reason why I would need to type fast. Now I can’t imagine a world where it takes me an hour to draft an email with my two index fingers.

I remember a 6^th grade typing class that first forced me to become familiar with where all the letters were on a keyboard. A, S, D, F, J, K, L,;. I wonder if you have similar memories of wondering why the crap they weren’t in a logical order. Oh, I dunno’, maybe a, b, c, d, e, f and so forth. Just a thought.

How young and stupid I was.

Yet, at the same time, My steepest learning curve in typing didn’t come from typing class or the Mavis Beacon software my parents made us use at home for a while. I learned to type from typing emails to people I wanted to type emails. And chatting online with friends. The internet as we know it was brand new. This was fun.

I remember when the free AOL disks came in the mail. Our home internet connection was reliant on the free dial-up service that would periodically land in our mail box. (The literal, non-cyber kind. You’ve got (snail) mail!) AOL email and AOL instant messenger taught me to type. Even if it wasn’t – and still isn’t – with perfect form, it fit the function. All’s well that ends well.

Which gets me thinking about the general, life-serving principle behind this relatively simple life experience. (Insert Jaime’s groan here. She wonders why I insist on identifying and applying the “principle” behind everything I observe. I wonder too. It’s involuntary, and I’m seeking help in the form of more cerebral gelatinizing boob tube time.) We learn from real life application much quicker than from theory and rehearsal. Those who are thrown in the deep end either learn to swim or drown. (There are those who realize they can simply float and survive, but that’s an entirely different principle and a different post.)

I’m a married adult and my wife works in child care and childhood education. So many of my Jaime-groan-inducing-life-principle brainstorms lead to me think about how I would apply this life principle to helping raise a kid. Consider. I’ll let you brainstorm your own practical applications of this theory and end* with a question to spur more thought:

How often do we let theory and rehearsal suck up valuable life-living time that could otherwise serve as practical real life education and experience?

I can think of one solid counter-argument: those without a solid foundation of theory and best practices before jumping into application will almost inevitably make a habit out of doing things the wrong way. They will essentially be practicing mistakes, building inefficient techniques into their muscle memory or brain pathways, which is very difficult to correct. I sometimes cringe when I see how my 15 year old brother types, spells and chooses to express himself on facebook and email. These are the “kids these days” moments when I feel oldest.

Counter-counter argument: who are you to tell me that it’s wrong or that I need “correcting?” The established system is built upon its own assumption of superiority from nothing more than the fact that it’s own professors and evangelists agree and support that notion.

Which brings me back to the discussion of efficiency. If the theory and rehearsal are there to teach you first and foremost how to most efficiently execute superior results, that is hard to fight against. Leave it up to the renegade deep end swimmer to revolutionize the system when he stumbles upon a more efficient and more superior method. At that point will the university gather in the stadium to observe the new findings and hail their new dean.

And the cycle starts again.

I’ve gotten nowhere.

I graduated with my bachelor's degree in 6 semesters (ca. 3 years) in part because the university rewarded me for using my summers and time off to gain practicum and internship (aka “real world”) experience relating to my studies from the classrooms of south eastern Idaho, which is about as far from the real world as American higher education gets.

Here I am, three years after graduating, degree from the system in hand (or in a box somewhere in a closet, actually), three years into one of the most coveted and competitive jobs in my chosen field of study: advertising account management.

Maybe that’s the key. This is not a fight between black and white. The answer is in the beautiful grey. Be sure to insert a healthy amount of real world application fighting for your life in the deep end of the pool while you study the theory and principles of the masters that came before you. Just make sure you don’t wait too long to get a little wet. Like when the Ralph Machia was growing weary of all the slave-labor “training” until he deflected Mr. Miyagi’s blows in a spur of the moment practical application of all his seemingly useless fence painting, deck sanding and car waxing theory.

A,s,d,f,j,k,l,;, wax on, wax off. Study the masters and what they know, then get out there and imitate and innovate.

I think I’ve landed somewhere. Thanks for bearing with me.

*so much for being concise.

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Maui (eric's perspective)

Aloha.

I think Jaime and I were on different trips. First of all, we didn't go to Maui, we went to Oahu, and we didn't camp in a van, we rented a convertible Mustang like all the other fat mainlanders.

I kid. Jaime is not crazy (on the day of her posting) and I admit, the bugs ate dinner with us some evenings, but otherwise, it was pretty awesome. Imagine driving around a mountainous, beach-surrounded tropical island in your little mobile home, stopping wherever and whenever you darn well please while still maintaining a better turning radius than the aforementioned over-rented Mustang convertibles. The theme of our trip was T.F.D.I. (Totally friggin' doin' it), and that we did.

Because we didn't need to return to a "home base" hotel room each night, we got to take in a lot more of the island, soaking up much more outside time and seeing many more obscure roads and places. I'd have to say my favorite part of the trip was just being the driver. Driving on narrow, winding cliff-side roads, up the volcano, on the beach, windows always down, bob on the radio = good times and very therapeutic for me for some reason. Some people relax by sitting on the beach with a book, and we did plenty of that too (I re-read Catcher in the Rye on the trip), I enjoy driving as long as the weather and location are beautiful. We had both. Jaime's right, people did think we were locals in the van, which makes a surprising difference on the road. On two occasions, we picked up hitchhikers on the way into Pa'ia, and especially the second time, after our skin had seen plenty of sun, we had them fooled. You can sense a bit of a feeling of disdain and resentment from the locals that their economy heavily relies on the predictable touristy escapades of aloha shirt clad mainlanders. Personally, my goal was to see the island while avoiding the typical and commercial.

I'll post some of my favorite photos here (as soon as I get them on my new computer), and encourage you in the meantime to see the whole batch on my facebook album HERE.

Camping on Maui (Jaime's Perspective)

Well, we went to Maui. We booked this trip about nine months ago, and it finally happened. So we rented a VW Westfalia camper van (alohacampers.com) for a week and bummed around the island. OK, I thought it was great and I loved the trip, but I kind of got tricked into a week long camping trip - we showered at the beach. But I did really truly love it (despite the bugs and no AC).

This is a picture of Eric being BLASTED by the Nakalele Blowhole (taken by my phone). He was soaked, it was really funny. This was a few miles before we got to the Olivine Pools.

We found these Olivine Pools (mentioned above) which were little pools in the lava rock, mere feet away from the angry ocean, but really calm. This was around Kahakuloa. (Side note: the "world's best banana bread" stand around there, not so amazing- my banana bread is better.) We went swimming and here is me, wet.

This is us on our drive up to the Hosmer Gove Campground in Haleakala Nat'l Park (about 6,000 ft). It was so beautiful and we actually got a break from the heat.


When we woke up, we went to the summit of Haleakala (10,000 ft.) to see the sunrise. I would highly recommend this. It was super early, but so beautiful and totally worth the wake up (especially since I was waking up at 6:30 every day due to the time change).

Pa'ia: So I don't think we got any photos (I drew the picture below if you couldn't tell), but our favorite town on the whole island was Pa'ia. It's a funky little fun town right as you begin the Road to Hana. We had pizza at this delicious pizza place called The Flatbread Company, the best food we had on the island. I would recommend sticking with the basic pizza (but other choices are delish), and their salad is amazing. There is also an awesome beach on the west side of town by a youth center. There are decent sized waves and good surfers, etc. and the surf was especially wild when we were there.

On the road to Hana we hiked through this bamboo forest with really cool waterfalls. Yay, my cute Eric.

So here was our living arrangements. I would recommend staying in one of these for a few nights at a time and then get a hotel every third or fourth night. I don't like bugs and they seemed to get into the van during dinner time. No Thank you. But it was really awesome because you have your rental car and hotel in one, and you can just pull over and park at most beaches and camp for the night, like this beach on Ahihi Bay. And the locals think that you're local, so they're nicer.

Also, stupid wild roosters will wake you up every morning if you are camping.

Here is our view from our hotel room in Wailea - SWEET - that we stayed at our last night (my birthday) in Maui. Unfortunately, by this time, I was done with nice views and just wanted to relax in my air conditioned hotel room with TV. But we had an awesome dinner on our balcony with lots of Pineapple!!!! YUM!
This is my birthday present from Eric: A trip to Maui and a Dinosaur Tattoo. Intimidating, huh?

Also, for the record, Lahaina is overrated, but we really liked the HUGE Banyan tree that's preserved downtown. And we found a secret beach (unless you're local) with a view of Bali Hi (it wasn't really but looked similar. South Pacific, anyone? Anyone?)

Being all manly and building it myself

Spent an hour at home depot walking around measuring stuff with measuring tape WHICH I BROUGHT MYSELF AND CLIPPED TP THE OUTSIDE OF MY POCKET as to make perfectly clear that a) i knew what the crap i was doing, b) i do this all the time, and c) i mean business. Or at least attempt to give that impression and have loads of fun playing make believe.

Walked out with some lumber (not "wood"), hardware and stain, among other raw/manly odds and ends.

More on this later. I'm going to go kill an aggressive animal and eat it as a midnight snack. You just wait.

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ketchup

dear blog,
I owe you posts. All kinds of stuff has happened, i swear.

Hold me to these:

• Jaime's total surprise birthday party
• Maui amok running
• music this and that
• dog poo left of the living room floor, and it wasn't annie's fault.
  

excited? sorry for the neglect. been very busy. honest.

love,
eric