Breathing easy

I am a self improvement kinda guy. Every now and again, you gotta clean yourself up, and clean yourself out, right? "Well what about reaching those tucked away little nooks and crannies like your sinus cavities?", you ask. Fear not, because yoga practitioners and wholistic healer types have been using a simple little devices for millions of years to clean out the nose: the Neti pot.

Simple in design, the neti pot looks just like a small watering pot thingy that you use to water your indoor cacti, flowers, and spider plants. This little guy has a spout that fits perfectly into the human nostril though. The general idea is that you mix up a mild saline solution and pour it in one nostril, let it swish around the sinus cavity, and then pour out the other nostril into the sink. The gentle cleansing process removes harmful buildups of pollen, dust, grime, and other airborne caca. Its kind of a foreign feeling, but you have to focus on not laughing, or you get a salty/mucousy sludge draining down your throat.

Yeah I know this seems kinda bizarre... but lemme tell you that after neti-ing, I slept like a baby angel with a belly full of heaven milk, cradled in the arms of an obese, autistic panda bear. Breathing through the nose is pleasant, and my olfactory sense is heightened. I bet I could smell lightning before it even strikes now. Its that good. You should try it.

Hike'n'fly

I joined some of the local flying hippies for an early morning jaunt up Beacon Hill for some exercise and a flight this morning (I know, I know... ANOTHER post about flying). November has been particularly mild, and since I can't raise enough loot for a season pass, I am hanging on to the nice days of paragliding to fill the outdoor recreation-shaped hole in my heart.

Its crazy what people will do to get their thrill on. Icy temps and the grueling hike certainly sucked, but did not deter me from logging a flight today. Beacon Hill is located north and slightly east of the U of U campus, so you hike up Red Butte Canyon to reach it. Conversation with the local flying duders includes such subject matter as previous flights, what kind of a current rig you are using, weather, other gnarly activities, and of course, jokes. Heard this one on the way up:

"Whats the difference between a rectal thermometer and an oral thermometer?"
"The taste."

HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR!!!!!
Anywhoms, its nice to see the city you live in from a different angle. It makes everything just look so tiny. Here are some visuals. Enjoy, and be easy to one another.


The launch site


Flying into the gross. Looking at the U of U and downtown SLC.


From the landing zone. Beacon Hill in retrospect.

Birds of a Feather

Nicky (my brother) and I got my dad a tandem flight for Father's Day back in June. We finally got him up in the air a couple weeks ago. It was a picture-perfect soaring evening down at the Point of the Mountain. The instructor let Dad fly the rig, and even pull some acro moves on the way down. The Old Man had an ear-to-ear grin when he landed.

I got out in the air and flew along side Dad and my instructor, Chris. What a dope experience that was. Now if only I could get the rest of my nearest and dearest out under some Skytex...

Family togetherness

From the Warren Jeffs Clan: Hope your Halloween was full of tricks and treats. And by tricks, we mean 15 year olds.

The Kid says "Happy Halloween"

JK about the last post. Lots of things have been happenin in Duder's life. Lots of things requiring brain waves and good juju, channeled to other facets of my everyday living. The good news is that I am back online, and will be spitting more hot fiyah.

Lets end the drought with a pic of my most recent pumpkin masterpiece. Jack-o-lanterns were a sign of good fortune to the Orientals in the 3rd century BC. Don't believe me? Wiki that. Anywhoms, I chose to go with a Prince/Purple Rain motif this year. I hope that "the Kid" brings you good fortune tonight on this Hallow's Eve.

This was a test

.... and you all failed it. I was purposefully not posting anything for a while, cause I wanted to see the dedication and desire from my readers to keep the flow coming. I only received menacing emails about my unannounced sabbatical from Adam, and no one else. Shame.

The Glory Hole

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Anywhere but here, anything but work

This summer has been a bit of a bust, vacation-wise, for me. With a new high-pressure job, and bills to pay, I haven’t been able to do 1/50th of the things I dreamed of doing once I was finally emancipated from college. Its not even that work is so grueling, but just I usually run through a list every day of things I would rather be doing/places I would rather be. Here is my wish list today:








- Getting on the Tatsu at Magic Mountain
- Finishing up a morning wakeboard sesh at Lake Powell
- Watching a couple episodes from Prison Break season 3
- Riding Porcupine Rim in Moab
- Sitting in a canoe on the Green River with some red vines in my hand
- Shooting guns
- playing my guitar on the couch, watching the Olympics
- Riding to Sturgis
- eating some fresh tacos
- tooling around Washington DC
- scuba diving. Looking at small fish and other sea creatures.
- flying a paraglider
- wrassling with a dog
- kicking a soccer ball around
- magic dooring a movie
- learning about dinosaurs on the Discovery Channel
- watching the Dark Knight again
- carving a stick
- making nachos
- swimming
- watching Shark Week
- playing with a switch blade
- preparing a large bowl of ice cream
- playing with expensive guitars at Guitar Center
- jumping off some cliffs in Flaming Gorge
- depositing some money into my bank account

Happy Birthday to me

I am 26 today. Happy birthday Kristjan. Thanks for the perfect cake Steph!

*Note the rasta colored paraglider.

The Blob launch

Holy crap this looks like so much fun:


Amazing Blob Jump Launch - Watch more free videos

"Now you know why the birds sing man..."

Thats what my sky diving tandem partner said to me after the first jump. Cornball to the nth degree, I know. Kinda insightful though, don't you think?

One thing is for certain though: free flight is awesome.

I managed to affix my little camera on to my harness the other night with a gorillapod . Enjoy this little POV video I captured the other night on a desert tow.

Worth a Thousand What-Have-Ya's

I was searching for random images of this hike in Southern Utah that I’m finna do in mid September, when I stumbled across Michael Anderson's site, LightScapePhoto.com.

Upon, first impression I thought it was just a few pics from some random dude’s travels to different points on the map. As my index finger wheeled the screen down even further, my inner-hippy lost its damn mind. Not only are the pictures incredible, but this dude has been to about every amazing place on the planet, including the Patagonia- a place very dear to my heart.

How many times have you seen something that leaves you speechless, and the only way to preserve even a semblance of the memory is through a marginal photograph you casually snap off? Happens to me all the time. Probably happened to this guy as well, so he bought a Hasselblad CF39MS - a 39 megapixel camera that costs $43,000. Yours and my camera probably has 10 or 12 megapixels at best. His captures 4x the awesomeness and vibrancy and intensity and brutality that our simple little contraptions do.

Have look for yourself. This might actually be one of those times when the picture does do it justice.

Give a little Stretch, and a Bend

Peep the new Taco Cart Express, the Snow Cone Transport, the Liberty Park Limousine, etc. I think I shall name her "Santa Rosa". Throw out some other idears. Hope you are all having a tasty summer.

Quite possibly my favorite toy from the 80s

FLEX!!! ARGGGH ITS JUST SO BRUTAL!!!

Treading lightly...

....in a fresh new pair of Reebok Pumps. Hope you all are stepping nicely today.

Pick a color

I mentioned that I started paragliding lessons a little over a month ago in a previous post. Hop in your DeLorean, switch on the Flux Capacitor, and punch in June 13, 2008. As soon as you hit 88 mph, you will find out that I have logged over 30 flights and I am basically a certified P2 paraglider pilot. Excellent (in Wayne Campbell voice). I snapped this picture with my cell phone; the dotted line across the middle of the photo is actually rush hour traffic, southbound on 1-15.

Things are going along just swimmingly, which is ironic, because well… I am flying. Almost as ironic as rain on your wedding day or a free ride when you’re already late. Anywhoms, I have entered a critical stage of the paragliding experience... which color glider should I buy. Here are the options, vote for your favorite.
























There ya go Christine.

Old men who look like lesbians

As of late Anthony Kiedis kinda looks like an old dyke. Check this blog out.

Glad tidings of great joy

Lots of changes in Ol' Duder's life. I have to dedicate this post to all of the latest and greatest of my life. As my faithful readers know, this webspace is NOT my travel log, but a place for my brain to spill some html code. That being said, too many good things have happened recently to just ignore. Here's whats been up:

Moved into a new house: After 2 years, my tenure at the beloved Dojo (1804 S. 1700 E.) has come to an end, due to the fact that our landlord sold the place. The Dojo was the scene of many wonderful gatherings (including 2 sweater parties), several Tiki Lounge sessions, and the venue for our reggae band, the Needy Greedy. If the walls of that place could talk, they would most likely say "Repent", but they would also chuckle at all of the great memories made therein. *Sigh. Oh well, gone are the days of living in a weird old house, paying way too much money for utilities, and dealing with a ridiculous landlord. We were so happy to be out of there, that we lit off strings of firecrackers inside the house for about the last 2 weeks of our stay.

Our new place is tentatively being called "The Cove", in part to its proximity to Olympus Cove. Its a cozy place, but hasn't proved to be a memory maker just yet. More to come on the Cove...

I graduated from the U of U: This one was 6 years in the making, but at last it is over. Yeah its only a BS in Marketing, but you know what, I have never graduated from college before, so its a big deal for me. No more group projects, no more pretentious professors, and NO MORE fighting tooth and nail for a mini parking spot at the U of U.

I got a new job at Alliance Health: I spent 11 months as an intern at a marketing agency called Studeo Interactive Direct, and I was counting on a smooth transition into a salaried position, but to my surprise, I was denied such an offer. No matter, because I quickly found a position with a great little start up called Alliance Health. My skills learned at Studeo are being exercised to their very limits at this new gig. Although challenging, I am excited to finally be appreciated in a professional sense.

Last but not least, and what I am most excited about, I started paragliding. My mother, bless her heart, treated me to lessons as a graduation present. I can't even begin to describe how me paragliding is. Those that know me well will probably agree. In two weeks, I have logged 10 flights: a handful of tandems, and several solos, including a solo from 1500 feet. Needless to say, I have fallen deeply in love, and I hope to buy a glider rig in the next month or so. More to come on this...

Anyways, just thought I would share a few happy bits of news with you all... life feels pretty good right now.

Startisha

Well, the Seventh Seal (finals week) has been opened, so I have been studying like a Korean molecular engineering student named Pho Kung Phet. At about 11 pm last night, the roommates and I decided that we needed to get out of the house for a bit, and maybe go use the free wifi at a late night coffee shop.

Thirteen minutes later, we were unpacking our laptops and books for a little study sesh at Salt Lake Coffee Break, located in downtown SLC. About the time that I started to purposefully distract myself by surfing the web instead of reviewing a web article for class, an odd site caught my eye.

This young black girl, maybe 22, came walking into the coffee shop with no shirt on. Don't worry, she had her brassiere on... kind of. Actually, her "situation" was a little discombobulated, and her right nip was completely periscoping from the top of the cup, but thats neither here nor there. Other than the indecent exposure, there didn't really seem to be anything else amiss with her.

I tried not to stare as she walked behind me, but I couldn't help but keep her in my periph, just in case any other shenanigans went down that I needed to witness As my luck would have it, she pranced over to our table and stood right next to me. Like, her hip was about to touch my right shoulder and I could smell her breath. She dropped a coupon to try Sprint's new service plan on the table and walked off without a word. A few minutes later, she came back and stood in the exact same spot, and pulled a stack of photos out her back pocket. As it turns out, they were a stack of those little proof photos that you get when you develop film at Wal Mart. You know, the kind that have a thumbnail of every picture on the roll. She carefully reviewed each proof, and then laid it down next to me for approval. After a minute of this, I summoned my most "what the hell?"-face and said "So... are these yours?"

Not looking me in the eye, she just responds "Be my guest. Just be sure to leave them to the owner when you are done. He will give them back to me". I glanced at a couple of them, and they consisted of completely random photos of her face, the Salt Lake Temple, a couple shots of Dicks Sporting Goods at the Gateway mall, and a few pics of some car tail lights.

As I was formulating a reason for why this chick was acting completely loony, I looked up from the proofs at the same moment she was launching into a full pirouette, all the while singing along to "Billie Jean", as it was playing on the house stereo system. She stopped for a moment to glance at a flier, gave it a laugh, and then went back to "... be careful what you do, don't go 'round breakin young girls' hearts, Yeaah eaaaah.". For the grand finale, she went into full out gymnast splits to grab a flier that was laying on the ground, and walked silently out of the coffee shop.

Scout's honor, I didn't just make this up.

Stuff White People Like

This blog slays me. At last, a comprehensive list of things that sums up the average Caucasian. Aren't stereotypes bad/wrong? No way man. There's a reason stereotypes exist: cause they're true.

My own contributions to the list of stuff that white people like:

-wearing sandals with jeans
-facial piercings
-smoothies
-rock climbing
-coupons
-Seinfeld
-sport sunglasses
-surfwear
-cycling
-mediocre restaurants
-festival concerts
-tattoos containing designs from distant cultures
-yoga
-stickers on their car
-American Eagle