I haven’t posted much recently, because I haven’t done much lately. If I had to blame something I would say the blame rests with my grandpa’s passing and exercise physiology (horrible damn class).

          When I decided to pursue Outdoor Education my parents supported me, enthusiastically. I suspect mostly because it meant I would make it out of college with some kind of degree. Now that’s changed and they see the value of it as a career. My grandpa on the other hand had no idea what I was doing. When I got my associates degree he asked me if I would then be going to college for a degree. He had no idea that I was working towards a degree. What strikes me about that is that he never said anything. He was under the impression that I had left college to go to trade school but he encouraged me and never said what I surely would have said, if I was similarly misinformed “What the hell are you doing? Go back to college”. Instead he asked me about classes and my trips. I would call him after every trip and tell him about it, and without fail he would say “20 years ago I would have been right there with ya”. We talked about what kind of jobs I could get when I was done with school and he was enthusiastic about me going in to outdoor education, not because he thought it was the only way I could get a degree but because he thought I would enjoy it. Having someone I admired so much approve of what I was doing motivated me to get out more. I remember once, when I was probably ten, I asked my grandpa what hang gliders were made of. He answered “ripstop nylon” like it was something everyone should know. Right then and there I thought he knew everything, any question I had, he had the answer. I decided then that I wanted to be the same way. He could engage in educated discussion about any topic that I ever saw brought up to him. As I got older I realized that he knew all these things because he read, so I started reading. I read anything and every thing I could and I still do. He also had the most amazing stories I have ever heard. Liyah said he’s the only person she has ever seen me just sit and listen to. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I saw the value of his stories was not the stories themselves, but the life that they were evidence to, a life full of experiences, good, bad and some that defy categorization. What I took from that is that life should be lived with no stone of adventure left unturned, and so that is how I started to live. Unfortunately that attitude landed me in a ton of shit, but even grandpa landed in ton of shit from time to time and he made it though fine, as did I. That attitude lead me to a series of very bad decisions, that then lead me to a series of amazing opportunities, including meeting Liyah, so thanks grandpa! The difference between us is, that for me it was a contrived premise, and for him it wasn’t a decision to live like that, he just did. Whether he was a product of that life or that life was a product of him, I don’t think I will ever know. I do know that I have wanted to be exactly like him ever since I could remember, so obviously loosing him has played a part in my inactivity this fall.

          But the lion’s share of the blame is with my terrible classes. They are horrible, I hate them all except motor learning and I cant wait to be done. That’s all I can say about class.  

          But fear not I did get out this fall and it is a story worth telling! (meaning I made and ass out of myself of course) I flew to Illinois and went black powder hunting with my dad in Indiana.

          It was opening day, I crept though the bushes with my can of deer piss. MMM the scent of doe in estrus! I sprayed everything around my stand, scent strips, trees, bushes, the stand, everything. Basically my stand was the deer equivalent of a frat house floor the day after Halloween (minus the smell of shame). OK so I climb up in the stand, I was under a lot of pressure to deliver since I flew out and every thing. I scanned the forest with my binoculars. Scanning side to side, HOLY SH*T WHAT IS THAT!!! I swung my rifle around, just a bunch of does. I needed to chill out, I decided that I was not going to hold out for a trophy and since the weather was supposed to get bad I was going to shoot the first thing I saw with a rack, and that took some of the pressure off. Well the first thing I saw had such a tiny rack I debated in my head about whether I should actually shoot it. It looked at me with its cute little antlers and its big eyes as if to say “don’t shoot me, you will be ashamed”. Well I shot him anyway. I rushed down the stand and started looking for a blood trail but I found none. What did find was the little bastard staring at me from the middle of a thicket! I missed. I was so embarrassed, but there was no time for that, I was throwing two more powder charges down the barrel and packing the charge, because I was going to kill him one way or another. By the time I had the bullet seated on the powder he had moved deeper into the thicket so I ran back to my stand and started grunting. Of course he came back, I mean seriously who can blame him, he could smell and hear a deer sex party somewhere and he was NOT going to miss out. I waited as he got closer, and closer, and closer until he was about 25 yards away and I then I whistled at him. He stopped and turned, presenting the perfect shot. He dropped less than 30 yards from where I shot him. It was a great shot, right across the top of the heart. I realized that it was only 730 and I had like 5 hours until they came to get me. So I pulled him out of the reeds and onto the trail, and then I laid down next to the trail and took a nap. Best nap I have ever had. I could tell no one was impressed with the tiny rack but I was the only one that got a deer that weekend so I didn’t really care. I can't wait to eat some deer slims.

     As I write this, my music is drifting in and out. The sound of the rain on my roof softly drowning it out. The pulsating rhythm is conspiring with the wind to rock me to sleep. They would have been successful hours ago if it weren’t for the echo of thunder, reverberating off of the mountains around me.
     After that stressful rescue/shenanigan I headed to the hostel for a shower and a good nights sleep. I ended up talking to a middle aged couple that were hiking the Colorado trail. Then a girl who was obviously high hijacked the conversation and started talking about coyotes and spirits, so I slipped away and headed off the silver dollar to play shuffleboard before bed. I lost. The next day I just wandered around Vail and saw a sweet double rainbow. While I was sitting in my truck hating the fact I was going to have to run out in the rain and set the back up for sleeping I got a text from Daphne. She said her, Steven and Andrew’s roommate were making pizza and watching a movie did I want to come over. YES! So I headed over and we watched the Fountain. It was pretty trippy but I really liked it.

     Busted out and headed to work. Steven, John and Myself were supposed to work a climbing day at Roof Rock. But as Steven and I headed out there in the truck the weather turned sour. We called it and headed back to town and took the kids climbing inside. It was ok; some kid started crying about something, I just handed him off to his chaperone.
     Some kids tried to break into my truck while I was sleeping in the back. Unfortunately for them, the door was locked and my gun was right next to me. I scared the living shit out of those poor kids, jumping out of the truck in my boxers yelling and holding my rifle above my head. Priceless.
     Oh my God the 4th of July party in Vail was insane. John said to show up about three pm but I thought “What kind of party starts at three?” So we hit Finnegan’s Wake for a bit and headed to the party about nine. We should have got there at three. The party was already well into its 2nd or 3rd wind. We missed the couple fistfights, the Vail PD’s first visit, and the DJ’s first bitch fit about everyone being too drunk to dance. I knew things were going to get out of hand because we rolled up blaring Gimme Three Steps, with an 18er of bush light and some 40’s of Sol to donate to the party cooler. We walked in and it was a bunch of hipsters and bros drinking expensive micro brews and dancing to some sort of crap music that hurt my head. We were looking for the only person we knew at the party, John, and we saw him across the party just hammered drunk with his American flag pearl snap unbuttoned and a look on his face that said “screw it”. So to recap a couple of rednecks showed up late, with cheap beer, and the only contact at the party was three sheets to the wind. Ryan’s girlfriend came and got him because he was sure he would end the night beating the hell out of some one. I stayed because some more people I knew showed up. It got rowdy as hell, the cops showed up again and told everyone to move it inside or they were gonna start writing tickets. Then some drunk dude, who may or may not have been messed up on coke knocked my sombrero off and spat on me. I told him in return for not knocking all his teeth out that he was going to wipe it off on himself. He did. About 4 hours later I decided enough was enough, I was done with this party, and I went to bed. Last party I will ever go to in Vail. The next day we all went out for breakfast and recounted the kick ass party over, biscuits and gravy, bloody mary’s and coffee. 

I went to climb Shavano and Taubgache but ended up turning around because my sunburn stuck to my pants with every step. The cycle of stick, step, tear, got old really fast. When I got back to my campsite I washed my pants in the river because they were full of sunburn juice and blood. I decided to just turn the weekend in to a car camping weekend. Got out the map and figured, I got a whole tank of gas I bet I can hit Gunnison, Crested Butte, skirt the Taylor Reservoir to Tin Cup, take Cumberland Pass to Pitkin then meet up with the road by Monarch and head back to Leadville, and that’s what I did. I saw tons of old mining camps, walked through the Tin cup historic cemetery, and even made the drive to the old Alpine Rail Tunnel. With is way the hell out in the middle of nowhere at like 13,000 feet. It was a great drive, with beautiful views, and I stopped often to admire them. On one of these sightseeing stops, on top of Cumberland Pass I returned to my truck only to realize that all of my pockets were empty. My keys were hanging in my ignition, in my locked truck. I realized I was at 12,000 feet and a good days walk from the nearest town. The only thought going through my head was vocalized, almost involuntary, as a groan. “shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit”. I ran to the back of my truck and the shell was unlocked! I dove in and went to work on the sliding window with my knife. It opened with a pop and I was in… well I was in up to my shoulders because there was no way I could fit any further. I looked around my truck for something to grab the keys with. I saw nothing, but my rifle. So I there I am in the middle of nowhere squeezed into my back window trying to fish my keys out of the ignition with a gun. Sadly the gun was not long enough but I was able to find a stick and get the job done. I spent the rest of the weekend, as Alabama said, "just being natures friend" in a laid back way I had almost forgot was possible. Below are some picture from that weekend, click to enlarge them.

Things that happened after I failed at blogging

Frontier Days – Tons of fun

7 day wilderness trip – also fun, great kids, best co guide

Hanging out with coworkers – as always fun

Kickball whose only rule is that you have to always have a beer in your hand – speaks for itself

Absolutely terrible base camp – suck and it was Daphne’s last job

Absolutely awesome base camp – worked it with John Scheid, sweet

Made moccasins and a new sheath – being productive is fun

And so other stuff I guess, I know, weak sauce.

Everything from my wilderness trip to now is a blur that I don’t remember and don’t really need to. All the days seem to run together out here. I do know I wasted a lot of time with good friends in beautiful country. It was fun.

Not as exciting as it sounds. My dad and I headed straight from Texas to Yaak, Montana to hunt black bear. My first thought when we got up on the Yaak River was “holy hell there is a lot of snow up here”.  We found tons of bear sign (scat & tracks), the only problem was it was all grizzly scat and tracks. We saw moose, elk and an absurd amount of white tails, but no black bears. It was so depressing. We would head up a logging road to scout and less than 500 yards in we would hit 3 feet of snow or a mess of fallen trees blocking the road. 

The trees were easy, I would get out and move it if I could but the snow stopped us dead in our tracks. One road was totally iced up, snow packed by logging trucks, we said screw it and just kept going. We were driving up this totally iced over logging road sliding all over the place because I don’t have chains and after almost sliding in to the river for the tenth time we decided to turn around. It was a huge bust, but it was me and my dad hanging out cooking on the tailgate and enjoying nature so it was still a lot of fun, just not bear killing fun. It all about attitude, a bust of a trip can still be awesome (see gannett peak shit show). On the way home we stopped at the old Montana prison and the Berkeley Pit (largest superfund site in North America). Hopefully my dad will be able to come back in the fall and pop a bear then.

The semester is over! Here is a piss poor attempt to catch you up on what happened this semester.

In December Liyah slipped on some ice in front of my apartment and broke her fifth medial metatarsal! She limped around until February, which was a nightmare. The city of Billings, in its infinite wisdom, refuses to plow anything but the main roads to the hospital, mall, airport and downtown. So she had to basically skate on one foot, propelling her self with a pair of crutches. Fun right? That’s what I thought at first but 4 months later when the second cast finally came off, it was obvious she was ready.

I worked a split shift all semester, it sucked and I barley made any money but oh well, it was fun working outside even when it was -40 out. Love that Montana weather.

It looks like we are both going to be done with our bachelors degrees at Montana State Billings after next semester, yay!

Liyah and I both got jobs guiding this summer, in Wyoming and Colorado respectively. Which is pretty snazzy.

At the end of the summer we are going to climb Mount Baker in Washington State.

That’s about it, that wasn’t too exciting, but this summer I will be guiding and living out of my truck so stay tuned!

I heard a lot about it when I lived in Europe. It was mostly crap, “oh stupid Ameri-cans, not bright enough to settle things with words, cow-boys”. Not to beat a dead horse, but I am willing to bet in 1945 they were thankful for our stupid cowboys with guns. I think it goes back to our formation. The future Americans had a daunting task in front of them, win freedom, settle a violent and wild land, and protect their stuff from other Americans. Whether we think so or not our society has not changed. Look at hurricane Katrina; law and order was absent for the longest period of time since the early 1900’s. Men and women alike made their own law and order, with a gun. For right or wrong even law abiding citizens, who were not zealots, were packing. Unfortunately its not normally levelheaded gun owners you read about in the news. No we are not conquering forests full of bears and angry natives, today’s wild and violent places are cities and deserted stretches of road. Do I tempt fate, traveling through bad parts of town, or taking a car that will leave me stranded on that lonely stretch between Lander and Casper Wy? No but you bet I bring a gun with me just incase, more so when I travel with people that I love. I’d rather have and not need it than need it and not have it. Incidentally the one time I did break down and would have like to have it, I didn’t, thankfully it didn’t pan out like I thought it would. We like to think we live in a time when we don’t need guns or at least that seems to be what Chicago thought, with their handgun ban. We all know if any people need guns it’s those poor folks in Chicago trying to protect their stuff. Is stuff worth a life, I’d venture to say yes. Where does that slope end? First a man takes your car, then enters your home and takes things, then maybe he takes your wife. That might be flawed thinking but that’s the attitude Americans have. We work hard for an honest living and we’ll be damned if a thug is going to take it away from us. Do we still need guns to guarantee our freedom? That’s the $64 thousand question the country is struggling with. Is the constitution insuring us the right to hunt for the right to arm our selves against our government, it’s an interesting question no doubt. I just bought a new gun, my first brand new firearm. I bought it for three reasons, hunting, protection of Liyah, and myself, and because as a history lover I was attracted by the history associated with lever-action rifles. So while I won’t be using it to win freedom and settle a violent and wild land I can’t say I don’t feel that connection every time I work the lever.

My little sister came downstairs and asked my dad to drive her to a party and he said yes, and they left. About 5 min later I hear the front door slam and my mom yell

“THERES A MAN WITH A GUN AT THE DOOR CALL THE POLICE!”

“What?” I responded. Thinking, I don’t know what I was thinking.

 “CALL THE POLICE HE HAS A GUN”

I didn’t have a phone in the basement so my mom grabbed one and went the laundry room where there weren’t any windows because the guy was still on the porch looking in the window. As my mom was on the phone with the police I was waiting at the basement door. She kept yelling to stay away from the windows and in the basement. Come on really, some dude has a gun on my front yard? I am not staying in the basement and leaving my mom up stairs alone. I ran up stairs and into the office and grabbed our shotguns. I ran back to the laundry room, tossing my mom our single shot shotgun. I broke the double barrel and confirmed my suspicions, empty. My mom thinks it’s too dangerous to have ammo in the house because we have an alarm system and don’t guns need since we don’t live in the city anymore. So if he broke in, the plan was to bullshit him until he left, the cops came or whatever I guess. Then I heard a noise outside the kitchen door and the police on the phone said they had a guy checking the house, and that they had the suspect in custody. They said they had the house secure and that my dad should not try to come home but instead he should wait at the corner. They had the whole street shut down. I guess the cop on the phone heard we had guns and so he was like “ma’am, ma’am you and your son have firearms? Put them down we are on our way”. This is when I am sure the cop must have wondered to himself what kind of idiots he was dealing with. “My son has a double barrel shotgun and there’s another shotgun but they are both empty”.

A police officer rang our doorbell and said it was ok, they had the guy in the squad car and were searching him. They had m16’s, mp5s, and shotguns. They came loaded for bear. The reason we hadn’t seen any lights is because they secured the block and advanced on foot and surrounded the guy in the street. SWAT team style stuff I guess. So what kind of gun did he have in his hand?  A black berry and a clipboard. It was one of those clip boards that opens up and is about an inch thick. One of the officers was came up to the door and said he knew exactly what happened. He was holding the end of the clipboard with the rest behind his coat and his blackberry was in his hand so all my mom could see was the top of his hand with the grip of the gun (his blackberry) and the top of the slide (the bottom of the clip board). What happened is that my dad has just left so when the doorbell rang she thought it was him, that he had forgotten something. We don’t answer the door after dark. Instead it was a large man with a coat covering his face. They made eye contact and he said nothing, instead he just started to raise his hand from his side behind his coat with the silver and black object in his right hand. She saw it and it flashed through her head, he just saw my husband leave that’s a gun this is a robbery. She jumped back and slammed the door and locked the dead bolt. The rest you know.

Why would my mom see a silver and black shape and assume it was a gun? Because my mom didn’t come from the suburbs she grew up in New Orleans in the 70’s. Fat City and the club scene was bringing in big drugs and big killings all over the city. Race riots indiscriminately destroyed property and maimed people. It was a dangerous place in a dangerous time. So bad that her mother, a five foot tall sweet Italian women named Rosalie, had to carry a semiautomatic berretta in her purse. It didn’t help that Rosalie’s cousin had been murdered and cut in to pieces and stuffed in a garbage can for his truck and her brother had been robbed at gunpoint while delivering bread. When my mom was little there was a young man living on their street who was always in and out of trouble. When my mom’s neighbor was out he would come and break into her house and play with her German Shepherds. The dogs soon became accustomed to him. One day after her husband went to work the young man came over and raped her. A few years later he was run over by a car and died in the gutter, it’s suspected that it was not an accident. She was raised to be cautious, and it saved her life. One day on her way home from work late at night a truck was blocking the road and a young man was lying on the ground as if he had been hit. “I broke his neck he can’t move please get out and help us”. My mom was suspicious, she told them she was almost home and would call the police. Angrily the man said, “Come on get out and help us.” She jumped the curb and drove home. By the time the police arrived the truck and the kid on the bike were gone and no ambulances had been called. It had all been a rouse to get her out of the car. Then after she married my dad they were eating in the city when a man came in and robbed the place, she had to hide her engagement ring in her shoe. Then later on a scuba trip they went into a gas station and there was a man threatening to blow it up because he blamed them for her daughter’s death. My parents have a million stories like that. That was the world they grew up in and that is why my mothers instincts tonight caused her to react the way she did. Even after living in the suburbs for 20 plus years tonight she saw something that registered as a threat to her and her family and she reacted.