live every week like it's shark week:
steve earl was the advisor of my young men's group at church for a very long time. he knew me back in the day when my voice was much higher. he hired me when i was a teen as a house painter for his company. he is quite the entrepreneur, having run businesses since he was a lil tyke. after i got back from my mission, he hired me as his assistant, which led to all of my work since then. this includes becoming an agent, investor, home owner, market expert, among many other things. he is currently the ceo of a real estate investment company. the man is a rockstar in so many ways. mentor, employer, friend, all around awesome dude. plus, the guy runs ultramarathons. yeah, 50 miles ain't no thing for him.
my first superhero love was wolverine. and not this hugh jackman, black leather wearing iteration. no, my love was born with the yellow and blue, massive ear dealy thingies wolverine. i had two wolverine action figures growing up, the only action figures i owned. my sisters would want me to play with them and their barbies, so i would pull out wolverine, put him in my toy jeep that had an american flag on the hood, and proceed to run them over. if they wanted logan to be the dad in their house, i would make sure that he had a rec room. of course, i was young, and thought that a rec room was really a wreck room, and he would pretty much just make a mess of their doll stuff. i don't think they asked me to play barbie house with them too much. when my buds in first grade made an x-men club(alongside our ninja turtles, power rangers, and greek mythology clubs(i was hercules)), i made sure that i was wolverine. plus, how many superheros can go toe to toe with the hulk? that's right. in the comics, they always send wolverine.
as my tastes in heroes matured a little, and i realized that no matter how hard i tried, i couldn't shoot claws out of my hands or heal superfast(i do have some metal bones though), i started to get more into batman. there is something fundamentally intriguing about a guy who uses intellect, skill, and really cool toys to accomplish amazing things(regularly putting the beat down on superman anyone?). see, i could be like bruce wayne someday. theoretically. plus, jim lee's version of batman is just about the sickest artwork out there in comic book land. he did the art for batman hush(amazing), and he worked with frank miller to create the incredible series of batman and robin the boy wonder. oh shoot, there i go, geeking everywhere. sorry, let me get that off your shirt for you.
in the end, i love them both dearly with a boyish sense of glee. can't get enough.
this was somewhere just of highway 1 between santa cruz and san fransisco. the crazy kids running toward the water are chad devore and cameron brown. we just happened to look to the left as we were heading north on the 1, and saw this awesome cove thingy. inside this cove place was this tunnel of awesome(maybe tunnel of love? i won't say what cam and chad ended up doing after this picture). this trip was really great all over, and random stops like this one were what it was all about. this little beach area is really one of the most perfect, random moments of my life.
ringo starr has never been my favorite beatle. in fact, as the movie "(500) days of summer" reminded us, having ringo starr as your favorite beatle is ridiculous. john lennon was the visionary goofball leader. paul was the babyfaced pop sensibility. george was the quiet, sensitive one that pulled out the most intimate feeling songs. those three really created the beatles' music, sound, and image. so what about poor ringo? i had a friend recently rail on him for not making good beats. then my father essentially said he was boring. really, many people feel like ringo is something of a replaceable member.
i can always tell a dancer by the way she moves. she doesn't have to dance, or talk about it, but i can tell. especially ballet dancers. there is a purpose to each movement, born from practice, until there is no muscle that moves without direction. they have thought about it until they don't have to think about it anymore, and it is just part of who they are. from their posture, to the smooth grace, to the light quality, the effortless flow. i admire the capability with which they perform the simplest of tasks.
last weekend, a group of awesome people went down to moab. they didn't have much planned out, just that they wanted to do some awesome hiking. while perusing the maps of trails in the area, one name popped out at them: negro bill canyon.
the true story of negro bill is actually seemingly as awesome as we had hoped. upon our return to civilization and technology, we studied it out via the source of all information: wikipedia. this search was done by the amazing lydia stingray on her phone, so i guess we didn't really have to wait for civilization, since all of us on the trip had phones. the tale of negro bill is one of cattle ranching, prospecting, and palling around with his good canadian buddy "frenchie". he had to flee from his canyon after he was charged with bootlegging whiskey to the indians. here's the wiki article. so, it just goes to show you, history is just as cool as your imagination can make it. just like reading rainbow.
