This explains it Ash... it's against my religion.

My mom only loves me for my blog...

I got an email from my mom today. And this is all it said,

"Dave, it’s time for a new blog…..love mom."

On the brighter side, my mom and dad are flying in for some skiing. Well, my dad will be skiing. My mum will be going to the British Shop with Ashlee spending gads of money on sub-par black licorice and nasty "Digestive Biscuits". Seriously? "Digestive Biscuits"? You couldn't come up with a better name for a chocolate covered graham cracker? Howabout "chocolate covered graham cracker"? That's far more likely to entice me than "Digestive Biscuit".

Hypothetical conversation:

"I say, would you happen to have any Digestive Biscuits?"

"Sorry lad. We're flush out, howabout you try some Fleet."

Anyway, what was I saying? Right; my folks are flying in for the annual Vogelsberg ski week. And that always reminds me of the day my mom wanted to divorce my dad. In fact, I think if there had been a judge and a pen on sight that day, it would have been over. Thank goodness there wasn't, because my mum would have dragged us kids back to the land of Eng and I would have had the most British-proper, gobbley-gook accent ever. No offense mum.

Back to the story. In 1982 my dad took the family to Alta (I think he wants his ashes sprinkled over Sugarloaf). And being the learn-from-your-own-experiences/make-your-own-decisions kind of guy that he is, he figured we'd be fine skiing the Sunnyside lift... without any practice. Oh wait, there were the few runs we managed by the rope-tow. But after three rides of hanging on for dear life, tripping all over our skis and poles and tearing our gloves to pieces, we were upgraded to the chairlift: ready to risk life and limb to save our gloves. Never-the-less, most of the family did fine. We skied with smiles and sweet outfits...

(btw, I make no apologies for my attire. My parents dressed me as embarrassingly as possible to keep the ladies away. Women were chasing me in harems even then)

...well, most of us skied with smiles. My mom was petrified. She took one look at the sloping mountain lying in wait and she lost it. Threw a fit. Cursed my dad. And then just cried. She proceeded to take off her skis and carried them down the mountain, leaving a trail of boot holes all along the way as she trudged back to the lodge.

I don't think she talked to my dad for the rest of the year.

Rest assured though, they stuck it out and my dad managed to make amends. In fact, from that year to current date, he still romantically picks up the last flowers available -usually a week old and dying- from whatever gas station he can find that is still open at 11:59 PM on Valentines Day. He's kind of made a tradition of it.

On an even brighter side: here's a sweet picture of my brother. I might mention here that though I undoubtedly warranted his abuse, he has never beat me up. Never even hit me (there was, however, the time I think he would have put me in a wheel-chair had I not outrun him after I hosed him down with the sprinkler in the back yard). He's really a pacifist. This might change that. Cheers bro!

I almost forgot! Dad, don't forget to bring the Juicy Fruit! Skiing is way more fun with Juicy Fruit.

Do we really need 20/20's help to figure this one out?

Dear World,

Look, since I know I am the source of unquestioned, non-biased, and strictly factual information for almost ones of people, I feel a need to clarify this super complex question for you. THIS IS NOT A MAN!!!

The following should help clear things up. It's an excerpt from my "Dave's Guide To Distinguishing A Man From A Pseudo-man Who Is Really Only A Shameless Fame-Chasing Bearded Woman":

Chapter 1

"THIS ISN'T A MAN!!! No it's not! Want to know how I know that? Because men can't have babies! Never, ever under any circumstances can a man have a baby. Arnold Schawrzenegger doesn't count because he isn't a man. He's a horned Barbarian. Nor does a seahorse count because a seahorse isn't a man either."

I hope this helps.

nos-tal-gia: 1. a wistful or sentimental longing for places, things, acquaintences, or conditions belonging to the past...

Climb.

deep woods
OLD MAN IN GRIEF _ Vincent van Gogh

to suffer

my self portrait _ 2nd grade

Warewolf fighting vampires... This is what women want? Really?

It is a well documented fact that I am a man and as such incognizant of femenine dealings. I have been single most of my life and have lived with the opposite sex (sisters don't count because they are like untouchables) a mere 9.6% of my life. In fact, prior to Ashlee beleive it or not, I had neither a wife, nor a girlfriend, nor any other kind of woman in my life that ever ammounted to anything more than "dating" which is really just a 3 month wait for the facade to come crashing down. As such, there is a long list of things that are now (thanks to marriage) present in my life which were absent before. A quick list would include:

Matching dinner plates

Food Network television and HGTV

Cute Christmas decorations

A working vacuum

Scented candles

Scented anything. Except fabric softener. I've always loved fabric softener.

Before Ashlee, I had lived with my male friends in very male houses / apartments. I've probably lived with 20 or more of my bros over the last 10 years and my point is this: I understand guys. I know how we think. I know what we like. And I know why we think about the things we think about and I know why we like the things we like. The inverse of that demographic, which involves women on the other hand, has always been a mystery to me. That’s not to say that I'm a complete idiot when it comes to ladies. I have a decent understanding of the farer sex, I think, but I try to be reasonable and that has unfortunately never put me in touch with the feminine population.

So ladies I'm asking for help with this one:

What is the deal with Twilight?! I mean just look at this trailer! What are you thinking?! I never would have thought that ever woman age 12-35 in the State of Utah (and the country for that matter) would have been consumed by this. You have been standing in line for the release of this movie like a shaky drunk on Election Day. If every Enrichment Night continues the way they've gone for the past month, I supsect the 2009 Relief Society photo will look like this.

Is this really what you want in life? To be rescued by a bloodless, pale vampire that can apparently fly? And since when can vampires fly? I thought they had to turn into bats first. Why does gravity not apply to the undead? I'm really confused by all of this. If I was told that a romance novel would grab the attention of the collective subconscious of every young female in America I would never guess that the storyline would include a family of vampires living in Forks, Washington. Fabio's not even on the cover.

My initial instinct is to mock and deride this absurd storyline and ridicule the fans for wallowing in cultural mediocrity. But that would be kind of hypocritical thing for a guy who got equally excited about the Star Wars prequils. Even after I knew they were junk, I still got up for them. There’s nothing wrong with embracing naive pleasures so ladies, enjoy your movie.

And instead of further alienating myself from my wife, who I am in fact very interested in, I figure I am going to take advantage of this anomaly to gain some insight to the female mind. Ladies and gentlemen, today I declare that I will read the first Twilight book. I figure I’ll get some inside information. Like looking at the enemy’s battle plans.

Pastel Portrait

I've seen them before.

. . . . During misty, winter nights:

. . . . . . . . . . . . a
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . smear

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . of
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . wet
. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . snowflakes

. . . . dripping whiteness across the black, flaming sky.

as of 12/18/2008 (3:44PM): 11,997

Only three more to go and I've got 12,000 hits on my blog!? What do you people do all day? Surely its horrid... why else would you resort to this?

We were so close.

Apparently I am some kind of callused, insensitive jerk (Will someone second the motion?... Any opposed?).

I happened upon this article and read about how the lead singer of The Barenaked Ladies survived a plane crash and my immediate response wasn't, "Glad he's okay" or "Thank goodness the three other people on board are alright". Nope. It was more like "Dangit! We were so close to getting rid of that band forever."

Now before you gasp at my lack of empathy and condemn me with biblical triumph by asking how I would feel if I were in a plane crash, let me just make a few things very clear;

Number one: If I survived a plane crash I would be BRAGGING about it. I mean who can top that!? You've just earned yourself the mother of all trump stories pal.

Number two: I hate The Barenaked Ladies and not just because of the name mind you...but partially so. Any organization that tries to catch the attention of potential buyers with nothing more than a "naughty" little title (akin to Fuddruckers) should expect a boycott. You shameless marketers. Quit creating enterprises by trying to draw out the dirty side.

Oh man, I hate The Barenaked Ladies (food for thought: what if I had a million dollars and hired an assassin to take out this band?). When I hear that song I think to myself, "Oh Canada... how is it that you and I are of a common mother?". We'll take your Shatners and your Akroyds. We'll even take your Alanises (Alanisi?) and we might even take your Martin Shorts - but only when he is funny (which happens only on occasion and by "on occasion" I mean The Three Amigos and nada mas).

How exactly does Ed Robertson walk away from a plane crash and meanwhile Buddy Holly remains dead? There is no justice.

Now, I don't want to kill the Barenaked Ladies. Nor do I overtly wish that they were dead. But if they were to die, I really wouldn't shed many tears. To be honest, depending on the means of death, I might even giggle. Is that too harsh? Probably.

See, what I really want is for them to just go away quietly because if they were to die in a plane crash, then they would be memorialized ad nauseam. CNN would be playing their crappy music and Larry King would put his suspenders on again and do an interview. Then a producer would release a greatest hits tribute album and the tone deaf fans who made them popular to begin with would put them back on the charts. And worst of all, they would enter the fraternity of "musicians-who-have-died-in-a-plane-crash". Can we really tolerate the Barenaked Ladies to be mentioned in the same breath as wait... take another breath first... Buddy Holly, Ronny Van Zandt, Richie Valenz, The Big Bopper, Randy Rhodes and John Denver? And though some of the aforementioned are better musicians than others, they are all still "one million" times better than Bare-friggen-naked Ladies.

I just convinced myself that it is a good thing this guy wasn't hurt. Now, let's all do our part in making this crappy band disappear. Let them never be spoken of again.

Note: I'm not going to put up any pictures of the entire band for two reasons; 1) they don't deserve my effort in finding them and 2) there is no way I am going to do a Google Image search for "Barenaked Ladies" at work. I'm dumb, but not that dumb.

An open letter to the NBA.

Ashlee and I watched a Jazz game Friday night with what started out as 12th row seats.

By the end of the second period, my wife had winked and batted her eyes long enough to the right peeps and we ended up sitting courtside by half-time. Yah you heard me. COURTSIIIEED!

I felt like Seinfeld with that super hot girlfriend who could get him into crowded clubs, invite only events, out of speeding tickets and whatever other shenanigans he got himself into and all because of her good looks and warm smile.
It's just too bad she was staring at Korver all night.

That's when I realized that my wife will never have as big a crush on me as she does on Korver. Here. I'll show you:

See that look on my face? That's me realizing I will never be as handsome as Kyle Korver.

Now look at her face. That's Ashlee realizing I will never be as handsome as Kyle Korver.

No bother. I'm still far more good looking than the growing harem of greasy Eurotrash playas who are infecting the NBA with their socceresque basketball. You know who you are. You're the ones promoting the I-got-lost-without-a-shower-during-my-long-search-for-Middle Earth look. Listen. You are NOT one of the Riders of Rohan! You are an ogre paid to entertain the rest of us by running up and down a wooden plank throwing a ball through a circle. And to you I declare this:

If you make your living by sweating profusely on national television, keep yourself groomed. Contrary to what you might think, the whole long-hair-scruffy-beard thing does not make you look like a big strong Viking pillaging and plundering your way through a village. No. It makes you look like the unwashed armpit of a hobo. Not a good look. For anyone. Ever. Especially not you guys; Anderson Varejao, Jorge Garbajosa, Fabricio Oberto, Luis Scola

So just do us a favor and cut your hair. Those little, gay soccer player rubber band things aren't working either. Besides, if you really want to hold your hair back and keep it back, you should get a scrunchy?

See, the thing with the disheveled, half shaven beard and the oily hair is this; no matter how clean you may be in reality, you look like you reek. Just look at this picture of Pau Gasol. Man do I hate Pau Gasol. Filthy, dirty Lakers! But look at this picture long and hard. Now close your eyes and smell. Are you like me? Do you smell a bouquet of rotten cabbage drenched in man sweat, mixing with Ax body spray? That, my friends, is the suggestive power of the moistened half beard at work. Now, Gasol may very well be a sanitary man, but I have no evidence to support such a claim. All I know is what I see and what I fake smell.

Of course there are those who will go to the other extreme. They go to the feminine extent to take extra good care of their flowing man locks. Take Sasha Vujacic. Note the stupid little hair band thing. Dangit man! You are a professional athlete! You should not be packing a flat iron with you on road games. Is it not enough that your name is Sasha?

So look fellas. With the long hair, you either end up an unkempt bum or a metro looking d-bag. It’s a lose / lose scenario. So avoid the dilemma all together and Detlef Schrempf it off, you dang hippies!

I would like to make one more thing clear. The short hair principle only applies to white guys.

(stop your whining!)

The black guys can grow their hair out as long as they want because the NBA needs more Ben Wallace fro's.

What else do you say?

I stayed up late last night watching Tron. Yah that's right, I said Tron. And I'm not ashamed of it.

A great clip

I sat through a beauty school graduation once (you might not have known those even existed but they do. Oh how they do...) when the head beautician/world record holder for the longest-fingernails-in-the-whole-world-ever! stood up and offered a "speech". Said speech included references to the hardships of beauty school and even offered up a quote from Sir Winston Churchill. She told how "Winston" once delivered an address in which he walked to the lectern, stared at the gathered crowd and said, "Never. Never. Never, give up!" and then he sat down. The best part is, she explained all this while hoisting a poster which spelled out the quote in glittered writing.

Now, having slogged through all one billion pages of "The Last Lion" I found this story highly dubious. So dubious in fact, that while pondering the quote, I emailed winstonchurchill.org for a little clarification.

Turns out the story proves to be a total, over-the-top lie. Churchill had delivered a speech with the phrase, "Never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." But he never, never, never gave the quote the beautician butchered. Never.

But here's my simple point. Anything written in glitter probably needs some verification. And while we're at it, lets pay particular attention to put that sparkly quote back into context, can we? I mean, I don't know Sir Churchill well enough to call him Winston, but I doubt if given the chance to speak at a beauty school graduation, he would have chosen to say "Never, never, never give up". But... at the same time, I also doubt that if Martin Luther King, Ghandi, or Mother Theresa ever had the chance to read my blog they would bother to say anything profound to me either. Rather, they would ask, "Why do you waste so much time blogging?" and I would say, "leave me alone you over-zealous, do-gooder ghosts."

This is late. I know. Get off my back. I had to root through 6 CDs (roughly 3,000 photos) to find these...

1978
1979
Nice mom and dad! ...so much for a well documented childhood...
We leap from 1979 to 1983 without a single jack-o-lantern line-up!?
On second thought... those were my fat years... thanks for leaving them out.

1983

Alright! What the heck!? I wasn't fat after 1984. Maybe because we stopped celebrating Halloween!

2008

mitunes

All day long, I've been humming the Peter and the Wolf theme song. I have no idea why.

Side thought: (when I was in middle school - 7th grade to be exact - my friends confronted me regarding an annoying habit of mine. It was an intervention. Apparently, I was vocally recreating Led Zeppelin solos all day long and it needed to stop. "bow wow now wa na now, na na na now wow ba na now." That was Heartbreaker - like you didn't already know. Regardless, you can imagine if you hate Led Zeppelin, that habit would be irritating. If you love Led Zeppelin, it would be infuriating. So I stopped and said Lo siento.)

There's usually a good reason for the songs that pop in my head and replay like a skipped CD. I mean other than ADD. Or is it ADHD? Whatever. Sometimes it's the last song I heard on the radio while driving. Other times it's the annoying marketing jingle. But this morning I've run into a conundrum because I have no reason at all why I'm humming Peter and the Wolf.

I haven't heard that tune in years. Never seen the movie. But apparently there is an archiving nerve in my brain whose soul purpose is to remember and randomly play that pleasant little ditty without warning or justification. Or stopping. But like I said, it is pleasant. Here, listen to it again.

Here are some other tunes that to hear me hum or whistle is not uncommon (do you have to go back and slowly re-read double negatives like I do in order to not make no sense out of them?). Ashlee can vouch for me on the following because she's sick of hearing me hum these;

The first is the bass line to Radiohead's “National Anthem”. I make no apologies for this. It’s a strong look. Good for walking through a crowd in slow motion like a tough guy.

The second is the intro to The Odd Couple “Dut dee da dee da”. Oh that Tony Randall... what a stickler!

Then there's the Bolivian National Anthem. I'm especially fond of the chorus... 0:54 - 1:16 "Moriran antes-escalvos vivid!"

With any luck you will now be humming Peter and the Wolf or Bolivia's National Anthem all day long. And if you’re like me, you will have a skip in your step. In fact, you may just find yourself prancing a little bit.

Toro!

So I'm flipping through the channels and I catch about 8 seconds of bull riding before I start thinking it through...

I've worked with cows a little bit: de-horning, branding, cutting off their testicles. That's a tough day for those cows. Imagine if animals smaller and weaker than people, say a bunch of Pomeranians, pulled that kind of crap on us; we wouldn't like it. And then if one of those little Pomeranians jumped on your back and tried to ride you for the amusement of other Pomeranians I gander you'd try to buck it off and stomp it to death too.

But for the record, I'm all for bull riding. However, if the bull rider does get bucked off and trampled, he's kind of got it coming. And cowboys know this because they get all geared up. But a helmet? On a cowboy? It just doesn't look very manly. Sure they need to protect themselves but a guy riding a bull needs to wear a cowboy hat. That's the rule.

A guy riding a bull in a baseball catcher's helmet looks too cowgirly in my opinion. Reminds me of the kind of cowboy that twinkle-toes his way around Jackson Hole. But then again maybe I'm cool with helmets afterall. I mean I figure I'd want a helmet if I was trying to ride a bull that's madder than my mom after dad walks in the house with muddy shoes on... "CHRIS!!!!". The thing is, I'd invent one that looks like a regular cowboy hat that's made of really hard plastic that works like a helmet. Well that or I'd get one of those giant foam cowboy hats that I could wear over a helmet. That way I could swing it around in the air after I jumped off the bull. That always looks cool.

I don't kill you. You don't kill me. Deal?

I drove to Cedar City tonight and stopped to fill up the tank. And as I was getting back on the freeway a scraggly old ham was waiting by the side of the road with a thumb out. Now, there are those of you who will chastise me for this but I gave him a ride.

Give a guy a break. He was down on his luck and all he wanted was to get to Vegas to roll some new dice. Besides, how can you argue with "It'd be AWESOME if you can get me as far as Cedar City man!". On top of that, you know as well as I do that picking up hitch-hikers (read: helping out people who are struggling) is something Utahn's are not wont to do because dirty people are most certainly evil people and good heavens!, they've obviously brought it upon themselves so they don't deserve help from someone so successful and righteous as me.

Despite the immanent danger of being killed, or worse yet, led astray from all that is good and righteous, I opened the door anyway and he and his beard climbed in. Alright, alright so I really thought I was giving ZZ Top a ride to his next gig... how cool is that!? Come to find out it wasn't ZZ. It was just Ren.

But I'm telling you it was ZZ's beard! It was HUGE and DURTY. I think I saw a guinea pig scurrying around in it chewing on wood chips and making a nest. Not to worry, I thought. I'll be in St. George for a few days and I've got time to get the car detailed and cleansed before Ashlee is none the wiser.

Conversational excerpts:

Ren: Name's Ren but most call me Bro.

Dave: Good to meet you Bro. I'm Dave.

Bro: How'bout we agree on two things; I don't kill you. You don't kill me. Deal?

Bro: Whoa! (points to a picture of me and Ash on the dashboard) Is that your wife man?

Dave: Yup.

Bro: Oh man. You wanna switch?

Dave: Wives?

Bro: Mine's in North Dakota. She's a [bleepedy bleep].

Dave: Yeah, probably not.

Bro: You're right. I have like a tooth and a backpack. I just don't see it happening.

Dave: Well, on second thought; that beard might go a long way.

Bro: No seriously. Listen! The monk who sold me this had special powers!

Dave: (raised eyebrow) Oh yeah? What kind of special powers?

Bro: He shrunk himself down and took a bath in a coke bottle.

Dave: (super loud and pretty offensive scuff-aw) Sorry man. Why, pray tell would he do that? ...shrink himself down itty bitty and take a bath in a coke bottle?

Bro: You wouldn't?

Dave: Coke is sticky.

We stopped in Beaver for more gas and a bight to eat. He was super excited about a #2 Wendy's meal -super sized- and kept saying, "I owe ya man". I went in to the bathroom and when I came back out the car was empty and my laptop bag was gone. (I know what you're thinking. See Dave, dirty people ARE evil!) Alas, Bro jumps out from behind the car holding my laptop bag. "I wouldn't" he laughs. Then I pull my laptop out from under the seat, "You didn't". And we're both laughing.

Bro asked me to leave him on the side of the road in Cedar City, in the dark, at 11:09 PM. God-speed and good luck in your travels Bro. God-speed and good luck.

I have a new watch that's black, with lots of buttons, watertight to 25 fathoms, and it beeps and flashes and has about 20 functions... including the time, which is really all I want a watch for. It's Japanese of course, and though I've worn it ever day since I got it I don't like it much. For one thing it's digital, which means that it's never half past or quarter to in my life anymore. Instead it's 11:32 . . . 16-17-18-19 as if I needed the information the way NASA needs it to keep everything systematic. And instead of sweeping around a fixed point the way the planet sweeps around the sun, the minutes sort of mince down a finite line, disappearing before you. I've always like to think of time as an circle. After all, the old sweep watch face gives you 12 full hours right there so you can look forward or back. On a digital display, when a minute's gone, it's gone.

But I could forgive all that. What I really don't like about my new watch is the pretense of perfection it carries. Space-aged accuracy and all that which means that every time I spot one of it's digital cousins on a bank or a microwave I get to wondering which one of us is off. Even though I don't care, or don't want to anyway.

Life for me is comfortable only when it admits a certain offness, an idea that didn't have anything to do with watches when it first struck me. It had to do with ceramics. I always threw my pottery with my aim at perfection and I wanted to make bowls, pots, mugs and vases that were evenly balanced and accurately symmetrical, without slants or crooked. but when I finally ended up without bends and sways in my art I realized it was too strict and precise and closer to perfection than I wanted. I didn't like it because if I wanted more of it I might as well have gone to Wallmart for a collection that would have come off unappealing. You see, all the dents, slants and mis-shapen form is unique and so my pottery had character; something a set of machined plates from a manufacturer could never earn because they're cookie-cut and cloned and that's what bores the hell out of me about perfection. I don't want things to be perfect because it makes everything the same and that's tragic. Something proven by a girl's face. A beautiful girl, with dark hair and a big, quick smile. In fact, she was geniusly beautiful except that she had a delicate crook in the bridge of her nose that sat in the middle of all that prettiness as if an artist might have laid it in by accident and then left it there because of the stunning focus it lent to what otherwise would have been just another lovely face.

As it was, that small off-angle captured me. Got into my dreams even, and for a long time I never saw another face that I would rather have just stared at. It's gone now though. She reached 20 at a time and in a suburb that valued a certain sameness above almost everything else and so she delivered herself to the hands of a plastic surgeon who gave her a cute little cheerleader's nose that looked as if it had been designed with calipers and French curve. The first time I saw it I got angry and then just sad. I still count it as one of those signal moments in which I realized that it's our imperfections that mark us each for who we are and make us attractive for the difference.

I remember trying to persuade my English professor that. I might as well have thrown rocks at the sun to keep it from setting. He was a strict, military-style order of teacher who if he had been a barber instead of a teacher, would have cut off your head to correct a cowlick. He had a rule that anything you wrote for him -anything- that had more than three errors of punctuation, grammar or spelling was an F paper. And that would have included the poems of Emily Dickinson if he'd seen them in original manuscript. I was and am a particularly bad speller and I'm not really good with the rest of the fittings of the language and he lashed and pounded and failed me over that fact until I thought I'd have to quit showing him my work altogether. "I write to express myself, not to do mathematics" I told him once before he took me aside and said, "You know, to write as well as you do and then muck it up with your mechanics is like showing up at a formal dance in the nicest tuxedo in town but with grease and filth all in a messy hairdo". Actually, I liked the image. But he also warned me that there was a small marching army of people out there who couldn't do anything but spell and punctuate and that if I didn't tighten up my form they were going to be ahead of me all my life. Well, I don't know if he was right about that, and though I'm not arguing sloppiness for sloppiness' sake here, I still believe that writing and spelling draw on two different skills that exist in the same head only by wild coincidence. I finally took to a good method of proofreading my papers and it worked a wonderful job. It was my roommate, and he's a mathematician.

These days, or course, you have to have a computer that will root through your prose like my angry English professor, throwing out typos and spelling errors until it delivers something quite a bit closer to perfection than most human-beings can produce. For me, there is something bogus and flat and irritating about those robot manuscripts. I don't trust perfection and I don't think most of us do. It isn't natural. It doesn't invite us the way rumpled things do and if you think about it, we seem to have an instinct that mistrusts the exact.

Take for example, the story of how Mount Everest was discovered to be the highest mountain in the world. In 1852 a survey team of Indians and British took readings from six points that triangulated into a height of 29,000 feet. On the dot. When they handed their measurements to Sir Andrew Waugh, the head of the team, he decided no one was going to believe nature would make it's highest peak exactly anything so he added a couple of feet and made the official figure 29,002. It turned out that his impulse against the exact was right. In 1955 more sophisticated methods found the mother of mountains to be 29,028 feet and it may be that everybody learned a lesson from that first survey because the 15th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica lists the elevation of Mount Everest this way; "29,028 feet (plus or minus a fraction)."

Let me know if you have any questions...

2008 Highlights

So I was going to write this post about how cool the Red Bull Rampage is and how watching it made me miss racing and riding and all that hype. But oh no. I'm not racing anymore. FOR GETTING FAT'S SAKE!, I hardly even ride anymore. I'm just an office guy now. A boring, office sitting family guy who is more stoked about his 21 month old kid taking a dook (and I'm not talking about a duke. I'm talking about a dook.) in the potty than he is about someone jumping a no-hander over a 63 foot gap. Can you blame me though? I mean the kid's not even 2 and he's going to the bathroom in his toilet?! AWESOME!

So now I'm carrying him around the house heralding him like a king as if poop in the potty is the coolest thing I've seen all year. Nevermind the Red Bull Rampage. My kid went poo.

2008 Highlights Runner-Up;

Edged out by Max going potty.

and the qualifiers...