don't we have a family blog already? do we now have 2?
awesome.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
canyon arrow
My grandparents own the house in Logan where my grandmother was born. They don't live in it, it's currently a guest house for visiting friends and family, but it has played host for all kinds of family events for as long as I can remember so Cache Valley feels comfortable to me and I figure its about as beautiful a place as there is on this earth. Once you pass Davis County, the lake and mountains are beautiful and Sardine Canyon takes my breath away in any season. On your way into Logan, as you peek out of the canyon and over into the valley...well I just love it every time.
My grandparents have lived in California and St. George during my lifetime and while I'd visited (and loved) those other places, it was just a few years ago in the autumn when I caught up with them in Logan for a weekend visit. With them I went to the wedding reception of a distant cousin and sat and laughed at a table outside with people I didn't know well but who, remarkably, came from the same place as me a generation or two ago. I went for a run in the quiet neighborhoods surrounding the old house. We ate salmon tacos under that big blanket of a sky at a local restaurant in the cool fall air. My grandma told me about the car rides she used to take with my grandpa when they were dating and my grandpa talked about how quickly he fell for her. My grandparents are a delight; they are hip and young acting and have always been so much fun to kind of show off. But suddenly, their whole lives felt more real...alone with them in those few days their stories of life felt so real to me and I think finally as an adult I could look at them beyond being my grandpa and grandma.
The weekend really stayed with me and I have since found myself looking for ways to spend more time with them to soak up who they are. Last Memorial Day I went again but was with just my grandpa. He took me to his tiny hometown of Clarkston just North of Logan and with his siblings we laid flowers on the graves of my great-grandparents at the little, windy hilltop cemetery there. My grandpa then drove me around showing me where he had lived and the places where he used to cause trouble and I heard more about his live and how much he loves my grandma. Sitting at lunch with great-aunts and uncles and watching them all interact I thought about a grandchild of mine hanging out with my brothers and sisters sometime far down the road and I was overwhelmed by the circularness of the family that came before me, the one ahead of me and the physical places that have been at the root of our generational bonds.
This year Elizabeth and I together spent a lovely little while with them for the Memorial Day weekend. We stayed up until 1 o'clock with our grandparents and then slept in my favorite bed in the guest house. We were told multiple times that there was plenty of Diet Coke in the fridge. We went to the Logan cemetery with a couple of my grandma's brothers to visit the only great-grandparent I ever knew and in the course of our stay my grandpa kept his arm around one or both of us almost constantly. It was rainy enough that the bikes Elizabeth and I took never even made it out of the car, but oh well...that place and that couple of old people are worth it a million times over.
Friday, May 23, 2008
gently take my skull for a ride
This Indiana Jones week has worn my old body out. But also, fun! We haven't started anything before 11:00 so I passed out like 1/2 hour into The Last Crusade the other night (which was fine cus I'd watched the second half on Sunday). I had to drink my weight in Diet Dr. Pepper yesterday to prepare for the 9:45 screening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull we went to last night but boy was it worth it because Christopher actually did this.
The movie was fine, the jungle Tarzan branch swinging part should not have been allowed and hello, aliens? There were some eye-roll parts, but you know, whatever...Harrison Ford was awesome and I think Shia LaBeouf is a great choice for the future of Indiana Jones. Plus Marion!! I didn't know she was in it and I thought how she fit was really great.
But perhaps the best part of the evening came after the movie when everyone enjoyed what we will call "Stranger Corn".
Enjoying Stranger Corn, opened up Janelle's mind and eyes and she zeroed in on a giant candy bar in the theater (it wasn't opened, she had opened it at this point). It was like a Bible story candy bar because that Milky Way just kept feeding everyone and didn't run out.
This one is just (mostly) a joke. (For what it's worth, Kristen does always try to get Logan to think when we egg him on to do potentially harmful things)
And then outside we realized my brother must be an alien!!!!!!!!!!
The movie was fine, the jungle Tarzan branch swinging part should not have been allowed and hello, aliens? There were some eye-roll parts, but you know, whatever...Harrison Ford was awesome and I think Shia LaBeouf is a great choice for the future of Indiana Jones. Plus Marion!! I didn't know she was in it and I thought how she fit was really great.
But perhaps the best part of the evening came after the movie when everyone enjoyed what we will call "Stranger Corn".
Enjoying Stranger Corn, opened up Janelle's mind and eyes and she zeroed in on a giant candy bar in the theater (it wasn't opened, she had opened it at this point). It was like a Bible story candy bar because that Milky Way just kept feeding everyone and didn't run out.
This one is just (mostly) a joke. (For what it's worth, Kristen does always try to get Logan to think when we egg him on to do potentially harmful things)
And then outside we realized my brother must be an alien!!!!!!!!!!
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
momsong
I have a really pretty great mom, for lots of reasons really, but also because apparently she knows how to put up videos on YouTube. Alright Jayne!
So this is what I missed on Mother's Day. She's so cute, I love it when she laughs.
I'm sure sometimes it's exhausting how much Cliffords are all "We're awesome! We love each other! We're so funny!" But we really think those things and I personally think Logan and Christopher are an especially great combination.
So this is what I missed on Mother's Day. She's so cute, I love it when she laughs.
I'm sure sometimes it's exhausting how much Cliffords are all "We're awesome! We love each other! We're so funny!" But we really think those things and I personally think Logan and Christopher are an especially great combination.
Monday, April 14, 2008
holly rollers
Wyatt, I am rolling. That is what the t-shirts will say. We are a bike gang officially.
Summer please begin.
Summer please begin.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
electric feel
My brother Christopher loves bicycles. He has since he was a young teenager and he encourages everyone around him to develop a love of all things two wheeled for economical, ecological and recreational purposes. Me, I just like anything that people say is cool. So I love bikes too!!! This past fall I got a great deal on a sweet one from my friend Marc...who is the other person I know willing to kill kittens for bikes. It just needed pedals and a seat but since I wasn't about to ride to school and work in the cold (sorry environment), it's waited patiently in my room all these months until I deem weather conditions suitable enough to comfortably commute.
Last night I finally went to the Salt Lake Bike Collective to get everything I needed to make my bike fully functional.
The Bike Collective is a funny place because there were both hipsters and homeless people co-existing and then a couple guys who just look like nice Mormon dads. Some hippie kids wandered in and out and I noticed a pack of girls who look like they could punch me in the face. But everyone was nice because of mutual bike love!!
Christopher and Mike go like every week and Logan has been building a bike the last couple of weeks so they were all there to help me (read: do all the work).
Mikey Mike spinning
Christopher fixing
Logan rummaging
Final adjustments
$18 later my bike is ready to go (and oh so sexy).
Last night I finally went to the Salt Lake Bike Collective to get everything I needed to make my bike fully functional.
The Bike Collective is a funny place because there were both hipsters and homeless people co-existing and then a couple guys who just look like nice Mormon dads. Some hippie kids wandered in and out and I noticed a pack of girls who look like they could punch me in the face. But everyone was nice because of mutual bike love!!
Christopher and Mike go like every week and Logan has been building a bike the last couple of weeks so they were all there to help me (read: do all the work).
Mikey Mike spinning
Christopher fixing
Logan rummaging
Final adjustments
$18 later my bike is ready to go (and oh so sexy).
Friday, February 22, 2008
Bikes
Bikes
I really love bikes. A lot.
It seems like lately anytime you hear the word "bike" the next thing you hear is some guilt trip about peak oil and climate change and jerks in cars. I will admit, those things matter to me, a guy yelled some not very nice words at me earlier this very day. But when it comes right down to it, I just like bikes. If a kitten died every time I rode a bike, I would probably still do it.
I spent a good amount of time on Saturday cleaning my Somec (thank you all again, by the way). Then I spent most of Monday cleaning/playing with myOschner. I rode home from campus on Tuesday thinking I would hop on a bus when I saw one, but I never saw one, so I rode home all the way. When I got to 33rd, I started riding faster because I didn't want to see a bus (granted, not a long, but it's winter so I haven't done any rides over a few miles since fall). Thursday I went to the Salt Lake Bike Collective with Logan and got some parts. I hope I will have time this weekend to put them on the Oscher I just spent all Monday loving. All in all I've spent at least a few hours everyday this week either on a bike or touching a bike, and a silly amount of hours thinking about bikes.
At our house we have almost a dozen bikes. Tasha and I each have road bikes. We have matching English three speeds, Tasha has an early 90s Schwinn Caliente, a Schwinn hybrid something or other, and an awesome ladies cruiser we found at the dump in Colorado. Then I have my Marin rigid mountain bike, the bike that started it all. Then myBianchi mountain bike, which I bought as a high school student for $900.00, more money than I had ever spent on anything ever in my life. Finally, I think, my Somec commuter.
I can't really explain what it is that I love so much about bikes. It might be that each of my bikes has a distinct personality. It might be because I started loving bikes at a time when I didn't have money to spend on shop services, so I learned how to do any maintenance I needed by myself. I still haven't ever taken a bike into a shop and paid for work, so I know bikes, especially my bikes, more intimately than some people know their family members.
It might be that they are nearly perfect vehicles, if you know them. Add a trailer and you can carry groceries from the store, or a cooler to the park for a picnic, or a presentation for work. Take off the trailer and you have an unrivaled exercise machine that isn't mean like running is. Flatten the bar, shrink the gears and widen the tires and you can go up a mountain. Curl the bars, narrow the tires, add some teeth to the gears and you can ride hundreds of miles a day. Change the geometry, attach some panniers and fenders, wrap a guard around the chain and you can get to work and get some exercise at the same time.
I might even be able to give some of the reason I love bikes to their fairness. Bikes are socially equitable, the people who ride them aren't always, but bikes themselves are. Everyone, regardless of circumstance, can afford a bike. And once a bike has been procured, the owner instantly has an increased mobility that, for the expense involved, has no rival.
It might be the feeling you get when you get to the top of one of our canyons and run out of road, or the thrill of seeing 55 on your computer on the way back down. Or the satisfaction of seeing 4 digits on the overall mileage tracker at the end of the summer.
Then there are specific rides. Rolling past the alfalfa fields of Cache County in the summer with your jersey unzipped to mid-torso. Riding a pace line with some kids you met in your USU cycling class, peeling off one by one, taking turns pulling each other towards the Idaho border and seeing "25.0 avg. mpg." on the computer.
Or my favorite - Climbing a canyon in the rain. The sound of rain on your windbreaker. Your helmet is off and wrapped around your bars. There is that perpetual drop of water racing from one side of your cap brim to the other with every pedal stroke before it finally gets too heavy and lets go, only to be quickly replaced by another. There isn't anything in the whole world except the breath leaving your lungs with the pressure of train steam before it dissipates into the air, and the sound of your wheels pulling up the water on the road. For some silly reason, you look over your shoulder. Maybe you are looking for Michael Rasmussen, or maybe you are making sure you did indeed drop Fausto Coppi. Then your head comes back around and you rise out of the saddle, your cadence picks up two, five more revolutions a minute and you see the numbers on your computer get bigger. You settle into your new cadence and get back on the saddle and start planning your strategy for the last km of the climb.
I can't say for sure exactly what it is about bikes, but I love them.
I really love bikes. A lot.
It seems like lately anytime you hear the word "bike" the next thing you hear is some guilt trip about peak oil and climate change and jerks in cars. I will admit, those things matter to me, a guy yelled some not very nice words at me earlier this very day. But when it comes right down to it, I just like bikes. If a kitten died every time I rode a bike, I would probably still do it.
I spent a good amount of time on Saturday cleaning my Somec (thank you all again, by the way). Then I spent most of Monday cleaning/playing with myOschner. I rode home from campus on Tuesday thinking I would hop on a bus when I saw one, but I never saw one, so I rode home all the way. When I got to 33rd, I started riding faster because I didn't want to see a bus (granted, not a long, but it's winter so I haven't done any rides over a few miles since fall). Thursday I went to the Salt Lake Bike Collective with Logan and got some parts. I hope I will have time this weekend to put them on the Oscher I just spent all Monday loving. All in all I've spent at least a few hours everyday this week either on a bike or touching a bike, and a silly amount of hours thinking about bikes.
At our house we have almost a dozen bikes. Tasha and I each have road bikes. We have matching English three speeds, Tasha has an early 90s Schwinn Caliente, a Schwinn hybrid something or other, and an awesome ladies cruiser we found at the dump in Colorado. Then I have my Marin rigid mountain bike, the bike that started it all. Then myBianchi mountain bike, which I bought as a high school student for $900.00, more money than I had ever spent on anything ever in my life. Finally, I think, my Somec commuter.
I can't really explain what it is that I love so much about bikes. It might be that each of my bikes has a distinct personality. It might be because I started loving bikes at a time when I didn't have money to spend on shop services, so I learned how to do any maintenance I needed by myself. I still haven't ever taken a bike into a shop and paid for work, so I know bikes, especially my bikes, more intimately than some people know their family members.
It might be that they are nearly perfect vehicles, if you know them. Add a trailer and you can carry groceries from the store, or a cooler to the park for a picnic, or a presentation for work. Take off the trailer and you have an unrivaled exercise machine that isn't mean like running is. Flatten the bar, shrink the gears and widen the tires and you can go up a mountain. Curl the bars, narrow the tires, add some teeth to the gears and you can ride hundreds of miles a day. Change the geometry, attach some panniers and fenders, wrap a guard around the chain and you can get to work and get some exercise at the same time.
I might even be able to give some of the reason I love bikes to their fairness. Bikes are socially equitable, the people who ride them aren't always, but bikes themselves are. Everyone, regardless of circumstance, can afford a bike. And once a bike has been procured, the owner instantly has an increased mobility that, for the expense involved, has no rival.
It might be the feeling you get when you get to the top of one of our canyons and run out of road, or the thrill of seeing 55 on your computer on the way back down. Or the satisfaction of seeing 4 digits on the overall mileage tracker at the end of the summer.
Then there are specific rides. Rolling past the alfalfa fields of Cache County in the summer with your jersey unzipped to mid-torso. Riding a pace line with some kids you met in your USU cycling class, peeling off one by one, taking turns pulling each other towards the Idaho border and seeing "25.0 avg. mpg." on the computer.
Or my favorite - Climbing a canyon in the rain. The sound of rain on your windbreaker. Your helmet is off and wrapped around your bars. There is that perpetual drop of water racing from one side of your cap brim to the other with every pedal stroke before it finally gets too heavy and lets go, only to be quickly replaced by another. There isn't anything in the whole world except the breath leaving your lungs with the pressure of train steam before it dissipates into the air, and the sound of your wheels pulling up the water on the road. For some silly reason, you look over your shoulder. Maybe you are looking for Michael Rasmussen, or maybe you are making sure you did indeed drop Fausto Coppi. Then your head comes back around and you rise out of the saddle, your cadence picks up two, five more revolutions a minute and you see the numbers on your computer get bigger. You settle into your new cadence and get back on the saddle and start planning your strategy for the last km of the climb.
I can't say for sure exactly what it is about bikes, but I love them.
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