What Dreams May Come

I have been thinking a lot about dreams and success.  I have thought about how sometimes I see successful people.  I angled my life for success, and I wound up here.  I'm a Civil Engineer.  I have experienced more failure and heartbreak in the things that really matter than I ever bargained for, than I ever knew was possible, than I ever thought would happen to me.  And in those hard times, lie my greatest successes.  Not in my grades from high school or college, not in the scholarships I was awarded and maintained, not in the job I found when I graduated, not in the amount of time I didn't spend looking for a job.  It wasn't in my GRE score, any more than failure was in my GMAT score.

My greatest success in life has been becoming a person I literally never thought I could be, thanks in part to my own perseverance, but also entirely on the grace of a good God that helps me through.  And so I have successfully undone my own definition of success; that success is making money, or making it big, or finally getting an office instead of a cubical so that I can pick my nose in peace.  Instead, success is reaching the milestones that are meaningful to us.  Learning to control my anger, and express what were heretofore unmanageable and unexpressable feelings when frustration strikes.  Dating and marriage, and all that that entails, the successes and the failures, have been the roughest and most rewarding ride of my life. They are so rewarding because they are so meaningful.  Success is best enjoyed when it is meaningful.

Dreams are an entirely different matter.  I've been having this weird preschooler struggle, except I'm 26, and I'm supposed to be mature and composed and have these things figured out.  I don't.  I think any time we act composed, it's just that, an act.  But I am aware of my own acting, and everyone else's acting convinces me that they're not.  Anyway, I've been trying to figure this out.  I have dreams about my future.  I have a dream to have children, and a dog, and a house, and, you know, if possible, a few sheep so that my dog doesn't get bored while I'm at work.  If we lived in a freezing cold double wide out in the middle of a huge open field, well, I wouldn't complain.  A dream.  I have another dream where I go back to school, which is the crux of where this is going.  It started out as engineering, I could get a master's in engineering, then it shifted to computers - IT to be specific.  I would be so good at it; it would be really fun.  Then I thought I should get an MBA, because I would stretch and grow and understand the way that businesses work, and, with any luck, make more money and all that.  I also have the persistent dream that I could be a rock star.  And the dream always persists that some great idea will happen upon me, change my life and make me an author that could support himself authoring.  So it looks like I am an Engineer Programmer Marketer Rocker Author.  The problem is, I can only pick one.  So which one do I follow?  Which whim? Which dream?  The one I love the most I suppose.  I'm still trying to figure out which one that is.

Rattlesnake Gulch in Millcreek Canyon

Rattlesnake Gulch is the first turn off to the left after you pass the booth up Millcreek Canyon.  It is supposed to be a one mile hike and felt more like three miles round trip.  The trail splits after about a mile to Grandeur Peak on the right and the pipeline trail to the left.  We followed the pipeline trail to a lookout over the valley from the north side of the canyon.

View from the trail, I heart Olympus

I went on Saturday morning with Mom and Claire.  We saw a huge spider that was carrying its babies on its back and a Hispanic version of the Tortoise and the Hare.  One guy would run by us and then we would find him sitting on a rock a little ways up waiting for his friend to catch up with him.  We also saw two lovely ladies, one of whom had a speech impediment that Claire insisted was a British accent, and a nice boy that was taller than Claire... just sayin'...  

Claire getting a drink.

I can't neglect the happy couple on bikes;  I'd say second date, because who goes for a ten mile bike ride on a first date? Seriously.  We got of the trail so they could pass and the girl ran into a rock that brought them both to a halt.  The three of us then awkwardly continued our conversation looking straight out into the canyon as the couple struggled behind us.  We watched as if the canyon were the most interesting thing in the world and talked about The Queen as if it had been our favorite movie and we had always been obsessively fascinated with the relationship between Queen Elizabeth and Princess Diana.  Honest to goodness, I don't know what the hold-up was, but it took the better part of two minutes to work out, get unstuck from the rock, and pass by us on their merry dating way.

The Living Room: Unfinished Business

The Living Room is off the Bonneville Pipeline trail up by the University of Utah Natural History Museum.  The hike is supposed to be two and a half miles, it has a pretty steady incline, only one yuppy dog on the trail actually looked like it might die.  The trail was pretty busy, though it was Memorial Day.  I went by myself.  The tricky part of the hike was going left at the right spot.  The trail has a lot of trees and is really well vegetated; if it looks like Satan might live somewhere nearby, you've gone too far along the pipeline trail before turning off.

The view is nice at the top, the hike was really pretty and this outcropping was my favorite part.  The top has a lot of flat rocks that people have stacked up to look like furniture.  There was (what seemed like) an entire sorority and fraternity at the top lookout/living room place, so I didn't stay up there too long.

This hike was unfinished business because I went almost a year ago and didn't make it to the top.  I always wanted to go back even though the hike was so nasty the first time we went.  I was surprised to find that not only had we not made the top, we were on the wrong trail, the wrong part of the mountain, and overall I think just about everything was wrong that day.  We had ended up in a lot of small brush and we were looking at the zoo.  It was a nasty, ugly place to be; the real hike takes you out of the city as soon as you turn off the pipeline trail.  It was fun, I would recommend it to anyone that's not too busy watching TV.

Do You Remember When (Cincinnati 2013)

Remember that one time when Mom went to Florida for the week and we made a LEGO mom to take care of us while she was gone?

I thought of that yesterday because every time the elevator opens here it feels like I'm about to disappear into the twilight zone because I took the shifty maintenance elevator at the back of the Tower or Terror.  

The connection there, being that at 6:00 on Sunday nights used to be the Wonderful World of Disney movie of the week.  And we were watching Tower of Terror the movie before we went to pick Mom up from the airport, and I remember being crazy and really liking that show.  Now looking back I think I was just excited that we weren't going to have a LEGO mom anymore.

That was the same time that they had the commercial where the mom leaves the dad with color-coordinated meals, and he opens the fridge and says, "what do you guys want for dinner, blue? or pink?" and then they go to McDonald's, obviously, because it's healthier.  And it always made me want to eat McDonald's, even though we only went there on special occasions.

That was before I stopped eating foods with more than three ingredients...

I guess I still only eat at McDonald's on special occasions, they're just different kinds of special occasions now... Like the nothing-else-is-open special occasions

Don't expect too much

I figure if I'm going to be away from the family for two months, I should probably make a blog so everyone can know how I'm doing.

I'm doing fine.