Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Just For Kicks

Just for Kicks, thought I'd write one last post to essentially close this blog up. It has in fact been a Long Strange Trip. Many of the weirdest parts never managed to make it into this blog, but are perhaps jotted down in diaries. 

It's always funny to look back at how silly one used to be. How uneducated, naive, and sometimes surprisingly intelligent too. 

A year or so ago, I began my third blog: "For Anyone That Cares". I suppose it's more or less a continuation of this blog, but hopefully better written and more profound? Likely a bit less whiny and also less cared for up to this point. But one grows old and busy I suppose.

What is life, but a collection of memories...

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Moving to Snobbery

If you've not yet heard, my family and I are moving to a new house in Indian Hills. Which means I'm now going to turn into a snob, wear fancy clothes, drink tea, and of course walk around with my nose turned up at everyone. Indian Hills was once where all the snobs and rich people in provo lived, before Sherwood hills was built. Then all the snobs moved there, after which the River bottoms were developed and all the ritzy people moved there. Anyways, Indian Hills is still pretty well known for being a place where all the snobby BYU professors live. Though they're not as snobby as the BYU professors that live in the tree streets.

As for me becoming a snob, I highly doubt I actually will. I'm picturing my family being thought of by all the snobs as like the dirty hippies moving in, that don't much care for the already established social rules. But in a few more weeks I suppose I'll find out. I'm curious what our new neighbors are going to think about our VW buses. I have met a few of our neighbors already, cause their kids actually climb at the Quarry, so I already know they aren't snobs. But it will be interesting to meet the whole ward.

I'm pretty excited about moving, just a nice change of scenery and people. I've lived in our current house and ward my whole life. So moving is a little saddening, but quite adventurous too. The strangest part is going to be visiting my Grandma and Grandpa Knapp (who live 3 houses away right now), but not getting to go in our then former house. Also moving to Indian Hills will mean I have to drive less far to get to work and school! The question is if I'll ever be able to find my bloody house up there. Utah is traditionally built on a simple grid system, but when they got to building the roads up there, everything went haywire! Plus it doesn't help that all the streets have indian names rather than numbers. not to mention a lot of the streets have similar names: Mohican ln.,  Mohican dr., Mohican cir., etc. Though my house is in the west part of Indian Hills, so it shan't be too hard to find depending on which way you drive to it.

Also, I think there is a Skinwalker that lives in our neighborhood, but that's another story for another time.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

A Hopeless Un-romantic

I once used to consider myself a "hopeless romantic". Always wondering when my princess charming would come or something like that.  But it seems that I have become an un-romantic. For that past few months, I've had no interest in women. Not to say that I don't still find them attractive, I just don't have any drive to flirt, have relationships, or pursue anything romantic. I'm not saying I'm a homosexual either (I'm all for homosexuality, it just doesn't work for me, though sometimes I wish), cause trust me, if I were, everyone in the world would know it. No proverbial closet would be big enough to trap my homosexuality in! Anyways, I'm not really sure why this change has occurred. But I don't think I even know how to flirt anymore. It's really all quite strange. One thing may be that I don't really know any women anymore. At least not that I really hang out with or anything. And like I said, I do find women still attractive, but not quite on a level that I used to. Now it's like "oh she's cute" and I just go back to whatever I'm doing. Whereas before it used to be like "oh she's cute, I ought to go talk to her, I'm interested in meeting her, and finding out who she is as a person". I'm not really sure why I'm talking about this, just been on my mind lately, kind of freaking me out a little, yet I have no motivation or inspiration to make any changes. Guess I'm stuck in an un-romantic funk.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Graphic Designing Days

 Once upon a time I became a famous graphic designer. Except not really all that famous. But thus far I've designed three shirts that have been printed. Two for the Quarry. One was a youth competition shirt that was later transformed to be a staff shirt as well. And of course the most recent competition shirt and poster. Everyone got super excited about it.

Above is the image printed on the shirt. On the back it says: Ready For The Rope? (the name of the competition). It turned out pretty well I think. But like I said, everyone freaked out about it, all the staff were asking when they could get one of the shirts, not to mention other climbers in the gym. When they were printed, I was even asked to autograph a shirt. The artwork was sent around to companies so they can donate prizes to the competition. Apparently the Representative of Petzl really liked the design. Said it was the coolest competition artwork he'd ever seen. Now I'm not saying all this to brag, because i'm not bragging...quite the opposite. Designing things is kind of fun, but mostly it's a huge pain! So much work and time goes into it, and you have to keep tweaking things until they work out just right. I mean it's cool that everyone is super excited about the artwork I've done, but now the boss man already has me set to design another staff shirt, and the next competition shirt. And a friend wants me to design a shirt and album cover for his band. I agreed to do all of the projects...don't know why, but I guess it will give me something to do this summer! And that's the story of how I became a graphic designer. 

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Concerts I've Attended

I sat down to make a list (for personal sake) of the concerts I've attended. Thought it would be fun to share. In my  concert ventures, I'd had the opportunity to attend 5 shows at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado, and a show at The Gorge in Washington, both considered among the most beautiful concert venues in the world. And boy do I agree with that claim!


Bad Manners
The Vandals
OFF!
Paul McCartney
D.R.I.
The Offspring
Social Distortion x2
The Cult
Gogol Bordello
Stand Ridgway
Ian Anderson (of Jethro Tull playing the entirety of Thick as a Brick)
Ringo Starr
Jane’s Addiction
2 and 1/2 White Guys
The Vibrant Sound
Rancid
Adam Haworth Stephens
Bob Dylan x4

Now for the Grateful dead related section. The following bands are essentially various incarnations of the grateful dead by members of the Grateful Dead after Jerry Garcia died.

Grateful Dead (I saw them twice with Jerry Garcia when I was less than a year old. though they're the only shows on this list I don't actually remember, I think it still counts.)

Rhythm Devils (Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzman

The Dead (all members of the Grateful Dead minus Garcia.)( The Allman Brothers, and the Doobie Brothers both opened for them at this event at The Gorge)

Furthur x7 (Phil Lesh and Bob Weir)

And of course a handful of other local bands mostly that I had/have friends in. I also accidentally saw Macklemore and Imagine Dragons, both before anyone really knew who they were. But in all honesty, I can't stand either of them (then and now). I walked out on both shows early, so I don't count them. And man, this list would be twice as long if only I were 21! Missed so many amazing shows because of that.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

She walks in velvet...

She walks in velvet...

okay okay this post isn't going to be a sappy love poem. I don't think it's even going to be about love, or  even poetry. Though now that I think about it, I really want some velvet pants. Maybe in navy blue, or perhaps maroon. Actually both! If anyone knows where to get some let me know.

Anyways, this is a tale about a girl (still not a love story). A girl with radiant hair. A girl whom I've spoken no more than ten words to. Yet somehow we have an understanding. Our thrice weekly wave and smile passing in the hallway speaks volumes; usually a cherished part of the day for me. Just a familiar face of a woman I know so little about. Sort of a candle light in the crushing darkness of school pressure moment. I've no idea if she even knows my name. And some days, I wish I didn't know hers, just because it would be more interesting, more mysterious. It just makes me happy waving to her in the halls. Apparently happy enough that she has started showing up in occasional dreams. Even more peculiarly, she's often a main character in them. Just one of the gang, someone I've known forever in the dream. I think I'd like to actually meet her someday. Have a conversation, go on an adventure or something to that extent. But I suppose we'll see.

Don't really know why I shared that story, guess I'm just saying that the little things in life really are what make it beautiful. And also that I'm back and going to start writing on my blog again, so stay tuned.

Monday, January 7, 2013

The College Odyssey Round Two

If you are reading this in hopes of stalking me at school, I'm afraid you will be mostly disappointed.

  Today began with Biology 1010 first off. Right when I parked, Dallas happened to pull up and park next to me. What are the chances right? we chatted for a while, then I headed off to class. The auditorium my class is hosted in contains 150 people (nowhere near the BYU general classes I've heard rumor of, but one of the larger classes UVU offers). Taught by Jim Harris, a really cool guy whom I had the pleasure of going on a week river canoeing trip with last semester. Afterwards I have an hour break, so I met up with Riley, and helped her find her classes/look for mine too. Then it was up to the top corner of the GT building, on the outskirts of UVU's main campus. I walked down the hallway, and found the room number to be marked with a sticky note, rather than a plaque...I would have the one classroom on all of campus without a plaque. Fundamentals of Acting is the class contained in that room, which I'm sure will end up being my hands down favorite class. The teacher is highly recommended, and considered to be one of the best in the theater department, plus our class seems like a really fun group and consists of only 15 students. Not to mention that quite a few of them are really attractive ladies! Oh and my only homework for that class will pretty much be attending 3 plays. After that I had to make a run for my English 2010 class located in the basement of the LA building essentially on the complete other side of campus. Oh yeah and I only get 10 minutes to do it in. My English teacher is also my neighbor. Her name is Angie, so of course I had this song stung in my head all class! Looks like it's going to be a tough class, but I should learn a lot of good stuff. And there is a midget in my class, she seems pretty nice. But everyone in that class seems to be quite a few years older than me so it's kind of weird. Then I get to run up to the Institute building for Mission Prep. And of course I happen to randomly be taking it from the world's tallest institute teacher (true fact), Brother Jim Toone happens to be 7ft. tall and sounds slightly like Andre the Giant! It should be a good class, but at the same time, all the cute ladies there are planning to go on missions, so it's kind of weird cause there isn't much point to flirting, also everyone is more or less my age. After that, I have the pleasure of running back to the LA building to attend Ethics and Values from Uncle Larry Harper, a long time family friend, and my previous english professor. Much to my surprise Jamie Roan was sitting there, so I sat by her. Seems like it's going to be a pretty good class as well. So basically if I can survive Biology and English everything should be good. But fortunately I have tuesdays and thursdays free to ski and homework-a-cize. After class I headed to the bookstore, got my books (none of my classes have textbooks except English...which has 4). From there I strolled back across campus towards my car. On my way there, I found a guy lying in the hallway in a sleeping bag just taking a nice little nap. I couldn't help but smile and think to myself: "This is why I go to UVU, cause awesome/strange/quirky things like this happen all the time, and no one minds".