The return trip, child-wrangling, 'heroic' wrenching, and a good hot shower

If any of my faithful followers rely solely on my blog to keep track of me, then you can stop holding your breath- I did in fact make it back from my Texas trip. I'd like to extend a big warm "Thank you!" to all of the people who helped me out along the way- my hosts on the road and in TX, all those I visited with on the trip, and to Kentucky for letting me put 2600 miles on his truck. The return trip saw me stop in with the Hutchens in Dallas:

I spent a fun evening with the Hutchens. We made a pizza, played a little Wii, and just hung out and visited. They got some hamsters, which I put on my head:

I departed in the morning for Albuquerque. I experienced a short unintentional detour courtesy of a cheap
Magellan GPS which though that the shortest way from Dallas to Albuquerque involved going through Oklahoma city. Not likely. After a common-sense 'why am I headed North' reality check and a minor temper flare at the Magellan engineer who programmed the unit, I got directed onto a better (but still sub-ideal) route to ABQ. I wasn't actually sure of where I was going in ABQ, just that my parents knew a guy (Peter) who lived there whose wife I had met once and who had emailed me that it was cool to stay with him. I didn't actually get his address, though, an oversight I realized about noon. This led a brief afternoon semi-crisis due to my inability to get a hold of him. I was lulled into complacence by the soothing voice of Edward Herrman reading the military-political thriller Executive Orders, by Tom Clancy.

About an hour out, though, I got in touch with Peter and the crisit was abated. Peter stands unique among the people I've stayed with before because he's Air Force Special Ops. While I was there he was training for some kind of crazy rescue stuff. I don't think anything he told me is terribly secret, but I'll assume it is and avoid violating his privacy. Peter was a great host, and an early riser. He planned to get out of the house by 6:10 AM, and while I wouldn't have picked that particular time myself, I decided to leave with him both because it would make life easier for both of us and because no time is too early to get on the road on a road trip.

The next day's drive was generally uneventful, except that about three hours outside Ephraim my butt was so
miserably sore that I opted to take a non-fuel stop (GASP) at a rest area. This decision was also motivated by the neat-o scenery:

Being a dork, I was also interested in the solar-powered streetlights:



I got back into Ephraim too soon, though- the chinzy Magellan GPS was also incredibly unoptimistic with estimated arrival times which made me arrive everywhere earlier than I thought. That's generally a mental boost ("Hey, I madegood time!") but it also misled Kim and others who were making a huge "WELCOME BACK NEDLY" banner for me. That made me feel loved and appreciated, but also somewhat bad for having arrived too soon for them to finish. I ran through it football-opening-game-day style. Or at least that's what I think the style was. I don't watch football. Sidenote: Somehow, the nickname "Dear Old Nedly" had caught on here. It's even programmed into the cafe cash register that way. I went to sign my name on the signature wall in the cafe, and shortly after someone added 'dley' after my name:

It was (and is) good to be back in Ephraim. As I mentioned in my last post, Ephraim has become home to me now. LETU no longer is, and although the visit was good, it was good to be home, a feeling not diminished by its short tenure. I've taken on my assistant staff responsibilities in earnest since I got back, mainly as the guys dorm advisor. I'm the go-to guy for problems and for keeping the peace and order up there. I've said it before and it's still true- I hate telling people what to do with any kind of authority, but God seems to keep placing me in positions that entail that so I guess I'd better get used to it. After all, I'm going to have kids someday and I've got to be competent at laying down the law when necessary.

On the topic of being a dad someday, I've siezed the opportunity this summer to work with kids a bit. I realize
that the chances are high that sometime in the next decade I'll have little Ned and Nedettes running around and needing raising, so I figured it's high time to gain some child-wrangling skills. My pastor and his wife have six young kids who are well-behaved and fun, so I figure that making friends with them is a good step. I made general statements at the beginning of the summer that I'm not really good with kids- I tell people that I went straight from infancy to adulthood and spent the time inbetween in a robot chrysalis stage. I also have no younger siblings. As a result, I regretably have little ability to empathize with kids, so I've gotta be a quick study. Kim noted during VBS that although I stated I wasn't good with kids, they tended to flock to me. Probably because I take a free-range attitude toward kids and go with the 'yes, and?' approach that oddly ends up with them climbing all over me and going nuts:

I figured that'd be no way to raise a kid exclusively so I determined I'd learn to child-wrangle. As with most
things, there's no way to do it except just to do it, so I started talking with kids and picking them up and
horsing around and generally getting my feet wet. Now Pastor Z's girls come to me during/after church for piggyback rides and hide-and-go-seek etc which I go along with. It's pretty fun. However, Kim et al have observed the fact that I now pick kids up (and they don't cry or hit me in the face) and assume that I have mastered the art of child-wrangling. I think that's very untrue. I've become competent at keeping already-happy kids entertained for a short time. There's a lot more to learn, I know. Stinky diaper? I don't know. Check the yellow pages. I'm about as likely to be able to make a baby stop crying as I am to lay a golden egg. There is much to learn yet.

Some of the more eventful things since I've returned have a been a little bit more ragged than child-wrangling,
though. This summer the ministry received a donation of a Ford conversion van which crapped out on an inbound mission team. It required a transmission replacement, which they were not in a position to wait or pay for, so the gave it to us free, but needing a new transmission. Before I left for TX I located and the ministry bought a replacement transmission. We got a killer deal on it- $150. To have the transmission pulled and rebuilt was in the $1800 - $2300 range. Why so cheap? The scrapyard had noooo idea if it worked or not, didn't know the mileage, anything. It was a great big question mark. We got a cheap transmission, but with no assurance that it would actually work. Half the reason the ministry keeps me around is because I'm the mechanically-inclined guy, so the job of managing this transmission replacement fell to me.

I have no formal training on auto repair or mechanical work of any kind. I've always just wanted to make or repair stuff so I've looked up and figured out how to do and had success some of the time. Over the years I've acquired some modicum of knowledge and skill in car repair. It also helps to have an attitude of willingness to take a shot at something and hope it works but contentment with knowing that if might not but you'll still have gained some experience for how to do it right the next time. That's how the Camry brakes got fixed when I needed to come out here, and that's how the transmission repair would have to be. I'd never replaced a transmission before, nor any other major driveline component. Ever. The ministry encouraged me to give it a shot, though, and so I read up on the procedure and got under there and started to get dirty.

One factor that worked hugely in my favor was the van's origin- California. Completely rust-free and well-preserved underneath. Most of the cars I've owned before have been heavily rusted and seemed to take some kind of perverse non-sentient pleasure at flaking rust off into your eyes while I've been underneath them. Safety glasses, kids- they may not seem like they're cool, but they're a heck of a lot cooler than wearing an eyepatch over an empty eyesocket for the rest of your life. The factor that worked against me was that the van was a van. Vans are some sadistic miscreant's idea of cramming all the components needed for a truck under an oversized and low body and pushing the engine so far back into the vehicle that you can't actually reach anything from under the hood. The engine block STARTS at the firewall. That's messed up. I say that to say that absolutely everything on a van is hard to reach. I have big hands. Wonderful.

Eventually I got the process started and found a likely cause of failure. The transmission tailshaft housing casting was actually cracked. That's not something that's supposed to happen. The only way I could imagine it
happening is if the driver reversed into a curb at high speed and the wheels hit hard enough to force the driveshaft into the transmission and impact the casting. That didn't happen though. The other factor of failure was that the transmission was as thoroughly cooked as a 20-minute egg. Automatic transmission fluid is normally crimson red. The stuff that came out of this transmission was opaque black and smelled terribly like burned popcorn. Gross.

It also spilled all over me while I was undoing the cooler lines. Crawling underneath a greasy van isn't conducive to staying clean. Sarah commented that while she was in the cafe all day working on the computer, making phone calls, etc, I would come into the cafe periodically and be dirtier and dirtier every time. I guess our jobs are a wee bit different. I got thoroughly filthy, and I wish I had a picture of myself- I chose to wear a yellow shirt the first day, which contrasted well with the black grease and ATF stains. Here's a picture of what it looks like AFTER washing- now picture it about twice as dirty, and me with a similar amount of soil on my face and my hands and forearms completely blackened.

The first real day of wrenching saw me get the transmission out. That is something to be excited about, but also a bit forboding. It's not hard to take something apart. That's just increasing entropy. To put something back together- and actually have it WORK at the end is quite different. It's also at the point where you can't really back away from the project. Who's going to take a transmission-less van to an auto shop and say "Hey, I kind of got lost on this whole procedure... could you finish it up for me?" Nope. It's all or nothing now. I also reflected on the unknown nature of the replacement transmission. I would be more than a bit chagrined if the replacement went in and didn't work. I'd just have to smile at myself internally and repeat the procedure.

One thing I remember about this job is that I probably gave myself a predilection for respiratory illness when I
flushed the cooler lines. I knew that there was still going to be some of that nasty burnt-popcorn fluid in the
hoses that ran forward to the cooler, so I needed to flush it out. Fortunately, there exists a product specifically
for this need. AutoZone, unfortunately, doesn't carry it. The next best thing, I was told, it carburator cleaner.

Carb cleaner is a powerful aerosol solvent which is designed to dissolve nearly any substance off of metal. Remember high school science when the teacher swabbed some rubbing alcohol onto your hand and you could feel the slight coolness as it evaporated off of your hand? This stuff is like that except that it's so volatile it evaporates within seconds and leaves your skin completely dried out and with a strange white appearance. Anyway, I got under the van and sprayed a whole bunch of that into one end of the cooler lines and blew compressed air through to push the concoction of burnt-popcorn ATF and skin-destroying carb cleaner through. I had a pan to catch the discharge, but the pipe was horizontal and the stuff blew out at high velocity. My solition was to put a Wal-mart bag over it which would catch it. It didn't catch, howvever, the large amounts of vaporized carb cleaner which soon filled the entire under-van atmosphere to the point that I was breathing probably half air and half carb cleaner fumes. Wonderful. A smart person would have at this point gotten out from under the van, breathed some fresh air, allowed the under-van area to ventilate, and have purchased an OSHA-approved full-face respirator certified for organic solvent vapors before continuing the job. I was not so inclined, so I put my grease-sodden t-shirt over my mouth and nose and repeated the procedure a half-dozen times. Life is a carcinogen.

Anyway, after much knuckle-bustery and hefting and reaching and ratcheting and grunting and reference-consulting and aligning and lifting and smacking and muttering, the 'new' transmission was physically in the van. I was about right with my estimate that something that took one day to undo would take two days to redo. The 30-day warranty on the transmission was running short since it was ticking away the whole time I was in TX. I couldn't afford to dally much with the installation because we wanted to have some time to test the thing out before the 30 days ran out.

Only a few more tasks remained before the moment of truth would arrive. I reattached the starter. I am surprised that the van actually started before, because I discovered that nothing was holding the starter solenoid in place. It was physically there and in its proper location, but both of the machine screws holding it in place were fully vibrated out. I think one big bump would have knocked it out of position, and bam- no more starting. Got that wrapped up. I had to guess at the level of ATF in the 'new' transmission because the old one actually got SO hot when it cooked itself that the plastic end of the dipstick completely melted. Dadgum. After another few hours of putting stuff back in order, the time came to start the van back up. It could go one of two ways. If I had improperly aligned the torque converter, I would hear a terribly clanging/grinding noise and in a worst-case scenario it would violently break everything it was attached to, then forcefully fly out of the transmission and through my upper legs, propelled by the raw power for 5.8 liters of American iron. I didn't think that was terribly likely, though, or I would have told Kentucky that I'd give him the first honor of starting the engine. Although I would find out immediately if I had botched that aspect of the install, I still needed to wait on the process of filling the transmission before I could find out if the thing actually worked or not. The engine needs to be running for it to force fluid through all the passages and solenoids and clutches etc.

Sometimes I am boggled at how incredibly consistently the mind-bogglingly complex contraptions we make actually work. Just think about it- the computer you're reading this on has millions of pixels being controlled by tens of millions of transistors, reading data from probably dozens of much more complex contraptions halfway across the world. I could elaborate on just how incredibly unlikely it is that such a contraption would ever work properly in the first place, much less to do it for years on end. (Okay, I know computers don't work perfectly all the time, but that's almost always a failure of the guy who programmed it, not a physical failure) The automatic transmission is no different. I honestly don't know fully how one works. I know there's a lot of complex junk going on in there and in general the only people that shoud mess with the inside of an automatic transmission are Germans and witch doctors. It's on the same level as the Saturn-V rocket and the female mind. You just trust the creator to have made it properly and try not to mess things up as the end user. The likelyhood of this abused, grease-covered mystery black-magic transmission from a junkyard actually working seemed slim.

I got the transmission filled, going more by counting quarts poured in than by the dipstick, and the moment of
truth came. The van was still up on jacks, but the sound and sensation of a transmission engaging the wheels is
familiar and distinct. I cycled the transmission through the gears after putting in the last quart, halfway expecting absolutely nothing. Instead, I was rewarded with a definite thud and a slight lurch when I threw it in
reverse. Wow. Okay, so the black-magic box transmits torque to the wheels, at least in reverse. I couldn't really tell if I was feeling a lurch in drive, but it wouldn't be terribly unexpected if I wasn't- the drive ratios for first gear and reverse mean that it could still be okay if I didn't. Time for final testing. Just like I said with little kids above, there's nothing to do but just to do it. We tool the jackstands down and I insisted that we hold a prayer meeting before the test drive.

We prayed that the van would work, and for my soul if it didn't. With three days of hard work invested, I really, really wanted it to work. Chip and I climbed into the van, with a crowd of onlookers on the other side of the driveway. It started. Good. No reason why it shouldn't, but the onlookers appreciated that with applause anyway. It went into reverse and moved backwards down the driveway. Woohoo! If nothing else, the college kids could drive backward to work and the grocery store. We got out of the driveway and pointed down the street. The moment of truth- did the forward gears work? I shifted and took my foot off of the brake- and the van rolled forward. That's a good sign. A little gas, and the van complied with acceleration. Very nice. Up the street at about 20mph, and a shift into second! That's a very good sign. A little more speed got us third. Nice. All systems go so far. A U-turn back towards the college house, and the highway where we could get up to speed and see what would happen. I fumbled for the horn on the unfamiliar steering wheel and got off a late celebratory horn-toot as we passed the onlookers. On to the main drag and the highway we went. I gave it a firm right foot to make sure it was a fair test as we got out of town. We had clean, firm shifts into second, third, and fourth, and a solid lockup at cruising speed. No slippage with sudden acceleration. WIN! God provided us with a working van for just a few hundred bucks of input and three days of wrenching. Sweet!

I'm glad to have some significant material thing that I did for the ministry that I can point at as an example of
something useful I did. It seems that I spend most of my time chasing down little things that surely need to be
done, but which don't make a very impressive list of accomplishments. Having a real, positive, significant contribution to the ministry is nice. It helps that I received plenty of back-patting for it: Chip said he was
'thoroughly impressed' and Sarah for some reason felt compelled to call me a hero. Hey, why not? I'm not opposed to a little bit of hyperbole now and then.

After that bit of glory, though, I feel I need to record for posterity the half-day I spent over at Pastor Z's
house helping snake plumbing. He had some water back up into his basement and needed help mending the situation.  I thought this might entail bucket-brigading water out of the basement, but what actually needed doing was to use a plumbing snake to clear the clogged pipes. After getting Pastor Z's done, we'd also do the neighbors, who had a chronic problem with their pipes and needed their snaked about yearly. For the uninformed,a plumbing snake is a long flexible metal coil that you shove down the drain and is spun by a motor or hand crank. You can put attachments on the end of the snake to clear whatever blockage is there. Most of the time this is tree roots that have gotten into the pipe. I didn't have much to do with the snaking of Pastor Z's house- Pastor Z himself was the gloved bandit shoving the unruly beast down into the pipe and Shane was handing turning the machine on and off as needed. I just stood there and kept the youngest Zedicher daughter out of the line of sewage spray. Mrs. Z came out to encourage us, and I remarked that I wasn't doing anything but keeping Aliyah out of trouble. Mrs. Z thought that was just wonderful, so that took that as my cue to be useful by continueing to do that. The snaking moved on to the basement and I kept Aliyah out of trouble, eventually devolving to reading books to her. I felt slightly guilty about sitting on the comfortable couch with a toddler while the other two men on the job were getting stuff done and good and dirty. But hey, somebody's got to keep the toddler away from the sewage-covered snake, and I was working on my child-wrangling skills.

Eventually, though, the call came for assistance and I knew my time had come to get a dose of sewage myself. The work was now on the neighbors's house, which turned out to be a bit more problematic than Pastor Z's. The distance between the snake machine and the pipe entrance made this job harder and I was placed as the second man on the snake, and closest to the pipe, the one to shove the snake in there. This ended up being an opportune time to exercise some good humor in the face of unpleasant work. Sure, we were all getting covered in the sewage that was getting slung around by the writhing snake- but why should that stop us from having some laughs? It took a while to get the roots that were blocking the circuitous pipe cleared, and by the end I was sufficiently sprayed with yuck to merit riding in the back of the truck on the way home, even after a hose treatment. There wasn't much glory at the end of that job. Just agood hot shower. I think reading to Aliyah was better.

This last Saturday a group of us went up to the LDS church General Conference in Salt Lake City. I like to get out and do outreach events like this. Because I'm in a support position in the ministry, I often feel quite removed from the actual purpose of the ministry here, which is the share the love of Jesus Christ with the Mormon people of Utah. I spend my time making that goal possible for others in the ministry, but my tasks are indirectly related to that goal. It is intimidating to go out on the street and witness to people, but that is the direct act of what we are here for- if I'm not willing to be the one sharing the good news, then I tend to think that something is wrong.

General Conference draws a lot of LDS people into the Temple Square area of Salt Lake, and my group took that opportunity to go out and talk with people about God. Chip, the ministry director, has been developing a witnessing tool over the past year called the Jesus Survey. It's a survey which questions people about the teachings of Jesus in a way that is not combative or overtly contrary, but which prompts people to think about the things he taught. The questions are aimed to highlight the contradictions between what Jesus taught and what the LDS church teaches. LDS people who take this survey often get only a few out of the 15 questions right. If they were well versed in LDS church teachings and answered the questions forthrightly, they couldn't honestly answer any of the questions according to the answer in scripture. That's because each of the 15 questions is on a topic on which the LDS church teaches a doctrine that is contrary to what Jesus actually taught. The idea is to get people to think about what Jesus actually taught and let the Holy Spirit take over from there, being available to provide dialog if needed. The survey does that in a way that generally doesn't offend people, because we're not coming out and saying 'You! There in the red shirt! Your doctrine is WRONG and I can prove it!'. Approaches like that are rarely conducive to getting people to actually listen to your message. The fact is that the message of the gospel IS offensive to many- but the less that we can be needlessly offensive when preaching it, the more likely it is that the people who hear it are to listen and open their hearts to the Holy Spirit. That openness is what we want to get people to do. The LDS Church teaches its members to be closed to any outside ideas or examination of their faith- but what kind of faith can it be if its church is afraid to let its members examine it for themselves? Too often people approach their faith with a motive to confirm what they already believe rather than to seek the plain truth. If ones faith really is true, then examination will only strengthen your knowledge of it, not cast doubt and shadow on it. The survey shows people that this doubt exists, and a person who is being honest with themself will study it out and find the real answers- the truth of what Jesus Christ taught, without manipulation by any outside source.

I was able to do eight or nine surveys throughout the morning, and had some people who were very interested in it. It is great to get into the theological discussion on the street, but I think that this method can be even more effective in some cases. If someone is thinking back on a stressed-out discussion they had with a stranger on a busy street, it can be easy to rationalize that the person what being confusing, or not telling the complete truth, or what have you. When we give then an answer sheet and they take it home and study it to find out why they did so poorly on the survey, then they have only the words of Jesus to contend with. I sent eight or nine answer sheets home with a dozen people (there were couples). I will almost certainly never know what effect I had- but I know that God can take a dozen people honestly studying his word over that yellow sheet of paper, work through their open hearts, and reclaim them from the enemy's camp.

The street during General Conference aren't 100% peaceful. I take a very unobstrusive approach. I dressed up in a suit and tie and asked people if they wanted to do the survey as they passed. Other Christians, though, take on more of a role of 'protestor' and hang signs with some pretty intense and offensive messages on them. They are true, but tactless and blunt. I want to condemn the preachers who shout offensive messages and are rude with people. It's not nice. But if you read the prophets's deeds in the Bible, they weren't nice either. They got offensive and rude. They weren't afraid to get loud with the message God had given them to give. I can't say that God didn't give the loud preachers their message, although I don't feel called to do what they do.

One street preacher through actually started his shouting with me. He was following a couple down the street,
shouting behind them, and as he passed me he threw a few accusations my way as well, which I responded to as politely as I could. After a few denied accusations he figured out that I wasn't a Mormon, but a Christian
missionary, and then got offended with me that I wasn't out shouting at people as well. He was actually ticked that I was taking a gentle approach. Weird. I don't think that guy was in the right.

My time on the street wasn't the full day because I got the opportunity to actually attend the second session of
General Conference, which took up the afternoon. The presentation and organization was superb, and the conference center is an engineering marvel. The content of the conference wasn't much different than what you'd hear on Sunday morning at an LDS church. I think sometimes at GC they announce some significant stuff, but this year nothing stood out as huge news. A lot of encouragement to refrain from wordly ways and be faithful. It was a mostly unoffensive message, but after having been in the culture for a while and trained to understand the differences, I can hear what they're saying an recognize that everything has a little bit of a slant on it to suggest to people that they support the church, be peaceful, and trust the leadership. Again, all good things- but it leads people to focus on the church, not on God.

That's the major stuff that's gone on since I reported last, but not everything. Plenty of other neat things have gone on as well. I've been getting my apartment set up more with the stuff I brought back from TX. I scored a projector at the LETU IT yard sale last year for $40, then the ladies found me a $5 projector screen at a thrift store. I installed the two in my room last week and coupled that with a free-but-slightly broken stereo and a $4.50 input cord for a very cheap entertainment system. Right now the project on my apartment is the kitchen floor, which is concrete and will receive an attractive and functional stain-and-seal treatment. That means, though, that everything needs to be out, and that my stove and fridge currently reside in my bedroom:

The fridge and microwave are functional, but as comical as it would be to make quesadillas next to my dresser, the stove is not hooked up. It only ought to last a week while we clean/stain/seal the floor.

We had a tie-dye event at the College house, for which we made posters:

My brother Jake sent me a birthday card which got very delayed by international mail. It had some sweet Australian temporary tattoos, which I applied to my wrists:

I don't have a dish drying rack, so I took the bachelor approach when I recently did a sinkful of dishes:

I made some ridiculous and impractical stilts hoping to promote events on campus:

Finally, actually an old pic- I didn't show it last time because the shirts depicted were a surprise yet to be sprung at the time of posting. They're souveniours for staff from the TX trip. All the shirts except for mine say "NED WENT TO TEXAS" and were spraypainted over scotch tape negative-stenciling.

Thanks for having the interest to read, folks. I would ask for your support in prayer as I'm continuing in my work here. I've highlighted a lot of the fun and light-spirited things in my life, but enemy doesn't like what the ministry here is up do and he tries to attack us all the time. Your prayers for me and the ministry are the most important thing you could do for us. This is also the time of year that the ministry is seeking to bolster the fund that allows me to eat and buy socks, so if you like for me (and Sarah) to be able to eat and buy socks and are interested in supporting us financially, drop me a line. Thank you!

From Utah to many places

Last week I departed Utah with the college group to Wyoming for the annual retreat. Unlike the rest of the group, though, I wasn't returning to Ephraim three days later. I departed Wyoming at the same time in the same convoy, but embarking on a 2600 mile journey of adventure and purpose. You see, God took me by surprise not only with his plans for my summer, but also with my next year. I had no idea I'd be staying so long when I made the original TX to UT trip this May. I hadn't packed for a year in UT, and furthermore I left most of my belongings in a storage spot that wasn't appropriate for leaving untouched for a year. Therefore, it was necessary to make a trip to TX to collect the belongings I'd need for the upcoming year and stow the rest in the storage van. The myriad of bonuses arising from this necessity include the opportunity visit with my friends in TX, rasie support, and bring back my ATV. As I write I'm sitting on my would-have-been-roommate Tyler's couch here in Longview, TX, so you know I made it here safe. Allow me to bring you up to date on how I got from then and there to here and now.


View Larger Map

My original plan for this trip included taking my new-to-me motorcycle with me on the trip. I'd ride it from Utah to Wyoming and throw it in the back of the truck for the rest of the trip. This would give me the safety net of being with a convoy on my first long motorcycle ride, allowing me to bail out if some unforeseen problem arose. Unfortunately, my bike wasn't roadworthy when we needed to leave. Things were way too busy with the ministry, and all the things that needed to get done with the ministry came ahead of getting my bike back together. Sadly, the carburetors still sit disassembled on a table. Things were actually a frenzy of activity before we left for Wyoming actually. It's a miracle I didn't forget anything major. Only minutes before we rolled out I was eyeballing the dimensions for a plywood tailgate I was cutting out to fit Kentucky's truck, which he let me borrow for the trip.

We got to Wyoming just fine, though, having picked up my friend Meg in SLC on the way. We got there late but even in darkness we knew the location of the retreat was totally sweet. Some background- the Olsons are friends of the ministry and live in Wyoming on a sweet ranch, and they let us come invade their space and use all their toys once a year for the college ministry retreat. They have a sweet house, some ATVs (four-wheelers to the rest of you), horses, and lots of acreage. We pretty much run amok there for two days. Well, there is more structure than that- we have bible studies and organized activities but during the unstructured times I would fairly call what I did on the ATVs 'running amok'. That's what ATVs are for, after all.

Here are some pics from the trip so far:



We had a hoot, but eventually it was time to go. The last morning we spent there we cleaned up everything we touched during the weekend. For me, though, I had to prepare the truck for the long journey, including removing all Kentucky's stuff from the truck and into the vans. There was a bunch of sawdust in the back of his truck that had spilled, and I wanted to sweep it all out. I didn't want to sweep a bunch of sawdust into the Olson's driveway, though, so I grabbed a broom and went off in the truck to a more remote wilderness-like area where it wouldn't matter if some sawdust was spread. As an aside, while I was sweeping it out the horses came to visit me. I tried to be polite and not sweep sawdust into their curious faces. It was a unique experience to be standing in the back of a truck in the middle of the Wyoming open range, sweeping it out while surrounded by horses. Anyway, I after sweeping out the truck I returned to the house. As I was walking up, my phone rang; Chip was calling. Apparently the absence of both me and the truck prompted everyone to think that I had left for TX without saying goodbye. I was both flattered and somewhat insulted- flattered because they were so bummed that I didn't say goodbye (I felt loved) but somewhat insulted that everyone thought I would do such a thing. Never!

The plan for my trip was to lay over in Denver and Wichita. Generally, I'd try to make a trip of this length in two days rather than three, but leaving with the group around 1PM excluded that possibility so three it was. I've never used a hotel on a road trip- between myself, my parents, and others that I know, I generally can ask around for most places in the country and someone will know somebody I can stay with. I asked Chip if he knew anybody in the Denver area I could stay with, and sure enough there were some supporters of the ministry there that were willing to put me up. They were a very nice older couple who were interested in my story and provided me with everything I could possibly need for the night I spent there. It was great. They already knew all about the ministry, being supporters, but were glad to hear the news and stories I brought and we had a good time discussing it all. I got underway early the next morning, leaving with my hosts.

Before we left for Wyoming, Kentucky had been trying to install a new radio in his truck. Unfortunately he didn't succeed and the truck was left with only the stock radio, which doesn't have an auxillary input jack. My lack of CDs meant I listened to the radio from Fort Steele to Denver the previous day. I wasn't willing to use local radio (all country) through whole trip, so the night before I'd looked up the closest Target store so I could go get an FM transmitter. I headed there before taking off for the day and used the gift card that Ian and Libby sent me for my birthday. Thanks guys! You made my trip much more civilized! After getting that figured out, I departed for the day's journey, Denver to Wichita.

The previous night I'd set my laptop to download the audiobook of the Tom Clancy novel I'm currently reading (Executive Orders) and the Zune MP3 software to discover and sync the downloaded files to my Zune, which is Microsoft's version of the iPod. (As an aside- don't buy a zune. I hate mine. It is an abomination to music enjoyment) Unfortunately, my clever plan didn't work well at all because the Zune software tried to identify and sync the files while they were still downloading, so they all got mis-IDd and placed, to my great chagrin, out of order, which is catastrophic for an audiobook. I discovered the problem this morning but had no time to fix it before I left.

Wichita made sense as an in-between destination between Wyoming and Longview, and fortunately I knew some people there. My friend from LETU, Joe Carroll, is from Wichita. I got on the horn with him and asked if he could hook me up with anyone. His parents still live in Wichita and were willing to host me. Bonus! I arrived in Wichita that evening, having made better time than my borrowed GPS estimated. It turns out that the GPS is very conservative and I get places in advance of when it tells me I will. Beats the alternative. The Carrolls were also gracious hosts and provided me with everything I needed. They were interested in what I was doing in Utah and we had a good long conversation over the delicious dinner that Mrs. Carroll fixed. I also ended up scratching my head for a while with Mr. Carroll over an engineering curiosity that he'd encountered at work. Joe got his engineering talent from his dad, who is an engineer with Hawker Beechcraft, a company that makes airplanes.

 That evening I tried fixing my MP3 audiobook problem but, in typical Zune fashion, had trouble. I'll spare you the details but just know that at one point I was looking around the Carroll's house for a small screwdriver as a fix. Not good. Eventually it got sorted out and I was able to listen to Executive Orders the next day.

In the morning, the Carrolls were as hospitable as they were the night before. Mrs. Carroll made me a wonderful breakfast of bacon and eggs that I was surprised to find was just for me (I had a lot of bacon to eat). She sent me off also with a grocery bag full of goodies for the road, including the entire rest of the pan of lemon bars that she'd made the previous night. Mrs. Carroll is a saint in my book.

The next day's journey is as typical as one would expect of any road trip, with the added adventure of fueling a diesel vehicle for the first time and having a fun time trying to fill up with the giant nozzle meant for a semi truck. Part of the day's busyness preceding the trip to Wyoming was replacing one of the truck's fuel tanks. This got done with no problems... until Kentucky went to fill the tank up and diesel went everywhere. Turns out we forgot to put the rubber O-ring under the fuel sender before we put it on. Bad news bears. Diesel was everywhere after he filled up, and we knew not to fill up the front tank more than halfway until that got fixed. This left me with the rear tank, from which I can get about 200 miles. A big 'ol truck like this is supposed to have range to go for miles on end, but without the bigger front fuel tank it's got short legs.

I made it into Longview ahead of schedule, as is apparently typical with the GPS I'm using. I dropped off the stuff I brought down for Kristen and Gareth and spent the evening visiting with Candyce and Tyrell and guys on 2A. There were supposed to be devos that evening, but they were supplanted by a last-minute all-residence-hall meeting, which is never a good sign. Before I go on my rant, some background. When I was visiting LETU back in 2005, I heard that one of the residence halls had great big wooden structures in the rooms that the student had been allowed to build, essentially adding an extra floor to the high-ceilinged rooms. This was true, and my dorm rooms have looked something like this since I've been at LETU, and for approximately 30 years hence:

At said meeting we were told that lofts, the defining feature of Tyler, had been condemned by the local fire marshall and all of them had to be removed in their entirely by October 4th. This was met with unprecedented student unrest and resistance. Lofts have been part of the dorm's culture at LETU for decades, and to have them taken away is a huge loss. Spirits were both high (with outrage) and low (with depression) at the news. It's a terrible thing. However, after hearing about how it has all come about, it is apparent that nothing can be done about it within the realm of feasibility. While I'm greatly disappointed by the news, and perhaps a year ago I would have taken up a crusade for the cause, today I just can't bring myself to. I know from the Bible that the entire world is headed way, way downhill. I hate to see the little things like this happen but I know it can't be stopped, and it is all part of God's great plan. LeTourneau was once a great school, and now it's headed down a different road, for this and many other reasons. Many other things that once were good now are tainted. I hate to see the mighty fall, but that's just the way it has to be sometimes. That is not to say that everyone ought to take every inch of the world's downward spiral in stride- but just to use their discernment in which battles to fight. I can't take this one on.

I've been here visiting LETU for about five days now, visiting with friends and taking care of the little business that I have here. It's been great to see all my friends and acquaintances from this part of the world again, but I also am reminded that this chapter of my life- college and early adulthood- is largely behind me. When I drove onto LETU's campus my excitement for the people was dampened by the place. I no longer fit into a place that is one step out from home- I've gone farther since then, and to return is a step back. I know I will be returning to LETU in a year to finish my degree, and that's going to be hard. All the same, I have to finish one chapter of my life before I can move onto next without being held back by the last.

I will take off tomorrow afternoon. In the same way that my return to LETU was dampened, I am looking forward to my return to Utah. Although the prospect of venturing out into the unknown future that Utah carries with it is scary, it is also where I feel I belong. I do worry about my future- I don't know exactly how God is going to provide all the needs I'll have this upcoming year, or even that he will- maybe his plans for me only include Utah for the next few months. Maybe they include Utah for six years and two children. I don't know. I do know, though, that placing my future in his hands is what makes me come alive, because it's what he created me for.

Suspiciously convenient and reasonable tire shops, round two

A week or so ago, my friend Flic asked me if I would be willing to help her get to the Salt Lake City airport in case an impending family emergency took a turn for the worse. Well, she got the call yesterday that it was time to get on a plane, so we made a drop-of-the-hat trip to SLC. I got a text around 2:45 and we left by 3:00. Gabe, Flic's boyfriend, came and got me from the college house and we departed shortly from Flic's place. The three of us piled into her old Accord and set out. It was a somber trip due to the reason for the trip, but Flic has a strong spirit and was calm and kept her head on despite the circumstances.

We got about 45 minutes into the two-hour trip and were on I-15, a major interstate. We had the windows down due to the Accord's lack of air conditioning, which made talking a bit difficult but helped beat the heat. At one point we were passing a semi truck, and I was looking out at it- I noted that the trailer was sporting the new super-single tires: really wide single tires where most trailers have double tires. I was focusing on the tires as we passed, and as we got up by the front tires I heard a skitch-skitch-skitch sound that means something is wrong with the tire. I assumed it was the semi's tire and considered hand-signalling to the semi driver that something was wrong with his tire, but decided against it. It couldn't have been more than three seconds later, though, that our own front passenger-side tire catastrophically blew out.

Gabe was driving and kept control of the car and steered us to a stop in the left-hand shoulder. We came to a stop and it didn't take long for the gravity of the situation to reach us- Flic had a flight to catch in SLC that departed at 7:58 and it was after 4:00. SLC isn't the fastest airport in the world to get through, and we were still upwards of an hour away. Dadgum. Well, with no time to waste, we set about changing the tire. That was good news and back news- Flic actually had several tires in her trunk, but unfortunately they were all sketchy tires, and the best one was one that had been preemptively taken off due to a bulge in the tread and was only have half aired-up. We figured it'd be better to put it on and limp to a safe parking place than to sit in the left shoulder. I got about changing the tire, which really went like any other tire-change except that Gabe spotted a crack pipe on the shoulder of the road where we stopped- I guess somebody pitched it when they were getting pulled over.

While the tire change was in progress, each of us was thinking of ways to ameliorate the situation- I had AAA but no card on me. We considered having someone drive my car up so we could complete the journey in it, and actually got as far as Shane looking for my spare key but getting stumped. (I still don't know where I put it when I moved down into my apartment) Flic was on the phone trying to see about changing her flight to the next available one. I thought perhaps we could get the car up to SLC on the sketchy tire if we aired it up at the next gas station.

When we got the replacement tire on, we could see it wasn't really going to last long- it was quite flat. Gabe and I concurred that we oughtn't to go over 30 mph on it. Fortunately, we weren't too far from the next exit. We decided to drive to the nearest gas station and reassess our situation. I was on the phone with Chip trying to figure out if they needed to send someone out for us, and I didn't want to trouble someone if Flic was going to reschedule her flight anyway. We limped in the right-side breakdown lane at 30 for a mile or two. We actually passed the first exit, for South Santaquin, because it only joined with a road and offered no services- we knew the next exit had a gas station and wasn't far. Gabe had accelerated to 45 so he could be in the slow lane somewhat legitimately. We pulled off at the Santaquin exit and were planning on hitting the gas station- but right next to the gas station I spotted something handy:

"Tire shop!" I shouted and pointed up at the top of the hill.
"Go!" said Flic, I'm sure to the confusion of the Travelocity agent on the other end of the phone.

We pulled onto the side street that'd take us up there, and just as we were pulling into their driveway, the sketchy tire let go, evidenced by the sudden sound of shredded rubber flapping against the road and wheel-well. At this point we just laughed that it would happen here. We pulled into a parking spot, tire flapping.

I took note of the tire size and determinedly walked into the tire shop. Time was of the essence, after all. We had to wait for a few minutes for the sales person to become available, during which time I considered just waltzing into the shop floor and seeing if one of the tire jockeys could fix us up. Soon enough it was my turn and I asked the lady behind the counter if they could fix us up with a P185-70 R13 tire- or any other 13"rim tire with a remotely similar size- ASAP.

"I don't know, thirteen inch tires are getting kinda rare these days, but let me go check."

She disappeared down a hall and I waited. Flic was on the phone with someone then, and Gabe was probably waiting outside. After a few minutes the tire lady reappeared with a tire in hand!

"Fantastic!" I exclaimed. "Do you think you can get us back on the road in twenty minutes?"
"Sure thing" was her response.
"What's the damage?" I asked.
"For this one, eh... " she paused a moment- "Thirty bucks."

Fair enough- I didn't even have to start telling her about our dire circumstances. My guess is that she'd plenty of young people in sketchy cars who needed a cheap tire to get back on the road in a hurry. Gabe got the bill paid while the tire jockey performed the tire work, and after only ten minutes or so, we had a drivable car. We expressed our gratitude and departed around 4:45- according to my phone's log, only about 35 minutes elapsed between my first 'Oh snap, we're in trouble' call and my 'Everything is OK' call. That's cool.

We got back on the road with joy at how God had provided for us- if you'll remember, this is the second time this summer that God provided a tire shop right were it was needed. Flic remembered, though that we had failed to start the trip with prayer- an oversight that God didn't hold against us while he provided for us. We prayed then simple and joyful prayers of gratitude and supplication for the rest of the trip. Flic started telling stories of sketchy road trips she'd taken in the past wherein God had come through amazingly in the face of car problems.

Flic still worried that we might not arrive at the airport in time- likely because some overzealous ticketing agent told he she needed to be there two hours in advance, which is a complete falsehood for domestic flights. I thought we were golden, and I wasn't wrong. Although we got delayed some by traffic, we arrived at SLC with much time to spare- something like an hour and a half, I think. After some hugs, Gabe and I took off with the request not to leave the city until Flic made it through security. I was driving and took us to NPS rather by autopilot, mostly just because that was the place I knew how to get to from memory, which was only five minutes away or so. I was just up in SLC the day before and had driven that route with Kim and our new assistant staff Sarah while running a slew of errands for the ministry.

I figured NPS was a great place to pass the time while waiting for Flic to clear security, but she texted us that she was through before we even got into the parking lot. Well, being at NPS isn't an opportunity to waste so we went in anyway. NPS is a surplus store that deals with everything. They buy up outdated food, truckloads of whatever crashes on the highway, items that just don't sell... whatever. They have everything from frozen bacon from last week to car body panels and nearly everything in between. It is a wonderful place, sort of like a discount store with everything under the sun. I'm particularly taken with their industrial section (building, actually), because everything there is cool and could totally be used on a Sweet Project. Unfortunately, they seem to have a good grasp of what everything is worth, so there aren't any spectacular bargains there, just decent deals. The industrial building was closed when we got there, but from the food/household goods building I got a 10-pound torpedo of frozen ground beef that could be used as  murder weapon ($14.97), four frozen pizzas ($1.50 ea) and a few packages of Rice-a-roni for something cheap.

I wanted to seize the opportunity of being Up North to get silverware for my apartment, a vital item that was neglected the day before when I picked up most of the other stuff I needed. Gabe searched for a DI on his fancyphone. DI stands for Deseret Industries, which is the Utah/LDS equivalent of Goodwill or Salvation army. After a pitifully long fight of getting lost which probably took 30 minutes, we arrived at a DI to see that it was closed. Shucks. Well, too bad. Time for dinner. We'd been up and down that particular block three times so I knew there was a Taco Casa down the block, so we headed there. At the red light, though, I noticed the presence of two Sketchy No-English Taco Carts.

"Sketchy taco cart?" I asked.
"Sketchy taco cart." Gabe replied. It was so.

I wanted to order in spanish to show off the modicum of foreign-language skill I retained from high school, but biffed it. After surveying their menu board, I strode up, confident that "Dos tacos al pastor y un birrito de carne de res, con todo" would roll off my tongue, but instead:
"Hablas ingles?" Doh. Biffed it.
"Hm?" replied the taco lady, with a turn of the head.
"Do you speak english?" I asked.
She gestured to an adolescent who took my order in english. In retrospect, I think I wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to make a fool of myself by rattling off awful Spanish only to have the taco lady reply "Dude, I speak English." Instead I just ended up looking like a rube. Oh well. I later tried my spanish skills on the adolescent when I returned for drinks (bebidas) only to get answered in English. Fail. Oh well, I got this, and it was totally rockin' delicious:

I'll make a fool gringo out of myself for cheap awesome burritos any day.

Gabe and I had an uneventful drive home, except when I spotted a supercar dealiership:

Don't tell anyone, but I took that pic while driving a standard-transmission car, and holding a soda... in the middle of an intersection. Some call it irresponsibility, I call it skill. That's a Ferrari/Maserati dealership, by the way.

Here's an update on everything else I've been up to. I feel lazy when I write updates because I can never remember what exactly I've been doing, all I can remember is that I've been busy and all of it has been important. I've been working on a mailing of a support letter and today I started work on swapping the transmission in a van that was donated to the ministry. I've also been working the cafe and putting in some hours on-call at my new part time job, moving/installing appliances and furniture for a local store. Jamie is the on-call style consultant for the store and a friend of the owner. Apparently, before she came and styled everything, they just lined all their furniture up in the store in rows. It needed a woman's touch, I'm told. I've also taken up the reins as the guys dorm advisor, trying to keep things orderly up there.

That's all for now. As a last note, this is the time of year that Chip and Jamie look to build up the fund that supports Sarah and I throughout the upcoming year. I'm also starting to wonder about how bills are going to work when my student loans come due. If you'd like to receive a support letter to learn more and prayerfully consider supporting me, just send me an email. Thank you!

VERBOTEN! smoothie

For those of you who have watched Hogan's Heroes, you will know that certain things are VERBOTEN!, according to Hans. One thing that probably was not specifically VERBOTEN! was smoothie-making. Of course, not all smoothie-making is VERBOTEN! If, hypothetically, one wanted to break the rules by making a smoothie, it could be done this way. In theory.

After installing a non-hypothetical sink in my apartment, I felt the need for a celebratory smoothie because I had over-ripe fruit and was hungry. I may have allegedly gathered my hypothetical ingredients:

Two small very-overripe plums
One middlin'-size slightly overripe nectarine
Two scoops of Blue Bunny Double Strawberry ice cream that Travis forgot in my freezer and told me to keep
A generous slice of Jamie's Ninja Cake (which is a normal slice for any other cake, due to opulent richness)
A hypothetical three-quarters scoop of coffee-toffee frappe mix that we're not going to restock anyway
A hypothetical splash of skim milk from the café fridge because we don't use skim before it expires
400ml of a mix between almond and non-almond Honey Bunches of Oats (on sale at Kent's last week) 
Two handfuls of ice cubes after hypothetically realizing that the hypothetical smoothie is too thin


Hypothetically blend with the smoothie button on the café's Blendtec Total Home Blender. You're done!










*If this actually did happen, the hypothetical smoothie-operator would realize that he'd succumbed to the Smoothie Greatness Postulate, which states that 


When making a Smoothie, any given operator will add too much of every ingredient, because all of the ingredients are Great, and the operator will inevitably think that "a little extra of this would be good". The effect is that the resultant smoothie is of unintentionally Great volume due to the additional portions of each ingredient. However, because the portion of each ingredient was increased, the proportions of ingredients remains largely unchanged, which leaves the net result as an unintentionally large smoothie, the largeness of which could be argued to be a expression of Greatness itself. 


The Smoothie Greatness Postulate is analogous to the Taco Overfilling Theorem with the exception that the overfilling of a Taco does not always result in arguably increased Greatness. 

I bought mayonnaise and a crotch rocket, and survived a wreck

How do you like that juxtaposition? Believe it or not, each of the title items are significant. No, the wreck wasn't on my crotch rocket- read on, friend; all will become clear. I'll explain the mayonnaise now, stick around for the rest. I bought a jar of mayonnaise at the beginning of the summer and for the past few weeks it's been at the level of lowness where one makes a mental note to get more. I never did follow up on that mental note, though, because before I made my decision, I didn't know if I'd be staying around to consume the mayonnaise, which I would not need if I were returning to LETU. So I let my mayo get super low while I waited on the decision. If I wasn't staying, there's no sense in buying mayo I'm going to waste. I was nearly out by the time I made the decision, and yesterday I bought another jar of mayo. I wouldn't argue that it was significant, but it was something I noticed as a real change in my life which was dependent on the decision to stay or go. I bought a jar of mayo. I'm staying around to use it.

I'm using this.

I had a birthday last Sunday- thanks to everyone who sent me gifts! It was a great birthday. I decided to make it just a little bit greater on Monday, though, by buying myself a birthday motorcycle. I've been aching to own a motorcycle for about a year now and have gone through all the prerequisites- I took the safety course, got my license, got protective gear, etc. I've been prowling used-bike ads for a while now, but not very seriously. I wouldn't have bought a bike if I were returning to LETU, but now that I'm staying that option opened up. I saw an ad for a steal on a sportbike on the same day I was accompanying Tanner (fellow intern) up north to check out some trucks. We checked out the bike, too, and came home with this:

My sweet new ride.

It is a 1988 Suzuki Katana 600 / GSX600F. It, like any bike in my price range, has some issues to work out. Like most things I buy, it's now disassembled for work. I need to clean out the carbs, fix a starter issue, and put new tires on it- but otherwise it is ridable. I look forward to carving the canyons around here! I got an absolute steal at $500.

I'd like to make a quick note about my finances. As most of you know, I raise support to pay my way to be out here in Utah. Not every hour is spent doing direct ministry work, though, nor is every dollar- therefore I keep a to-the-cent record of all my ministry-related expenses. I judge this based on what I really need to be out here in the ministry, with the guidance of the senior leadership here. Expenses like food, gas, and rent I consider to be valid uses for God's money that others direct to me. Other things like discretionary purchases, expenses incurred during non-ministry related outings, motorcycles, and generally things not required for me to be here come out of my own pocket. Most of the ministry expenses come out of my own pocket, too- so you needn't worry about me buying motorcycles with other people's tithes. 

I count the motorcycle as another benefit of staying here in Utah as well. Because I'll be working while I'm here in Utah to save up to go back to school next year, I'm generating an income, which, over the course of a year, will be enough to rationalize justify the motorcycle. I look at motorcycle ownership as something I could either do now, or kick myself for having not done when I'm middle-aged.

Of course, everybody will want to know about the wreck. Well, it's not that long of a story, and not super dramatic, but here goes: After bible study last night (we're studying the Trinity), the college group went up the mountain to Skyline to watch the Perseid meteor shower. The shower was cool, but we didn't stay up there late enough to see the real cool part. Most of the group took off before midnight, but Zach, Kylee, and myself stuck around to watch longer. It was cold so we cozied up under a blanket to keep warm. When things got just too cold to justify the not-as-frequent-as-we-would-like shooting stars, we decided to pack it up and head home. We took off down the road in Kylee's 4WD blazer, with her at the wheel, Zach riding shotgun, and myself in the back. The road up the mountain isn't very treacherous, if some of you are imaging us rambling through the forest on a road that was last traveled by an expeditionary party in the 1920s riding horses. It is an improved gravel road, fairly wide- but very, very twisty.

The Blazer had slid a few times, but more in the category of weee-fun rather than ohhh-crap. I'm one who likes to rally-style drift around corners with the e-brake, but then again I'm a practiced driver. We were about halfway down the mountain when we started to slide again. I wasn't too worried, because sliding is fun- but then the slide didn't stop, and Kylee over-corrected and stomped on the brakes. We were now coming through a turn sideways and careening towards the edge of the road, and too fast. When the truck's driver-side wheels dipped down at the edge of the road, I knew we were going over. I started to pray and put my arms out to keep from bouncing around the cabin like a rag doll. To be honest I don't remember the actual roll all that well. I remember coming to a stop with the car on the driver's side and me probably sitting/crouched in a weird position.

"Are you alright? Is everyone alright? I asked.
A little bit of silence was eerie.
"I am alright. Are you okay? Is anyone hurt?"
"Yeah, I'm okay." answered the two up front (or some semblance thereof)

Zach and Kylee exited the car through the broken driver's side window, now facing up. I had a little of a harder time getting out because of the crunched-in nature of the roof and being in the backseat. I extricated myself as well, lifting myself out of the window and sit-sliding over what I realized was the broken windshield onto the ground. After reconfirming that Zach and Kylee were physically okay, I did a walk-around of the car and realized there was a fuel leak, and worse, right onto the catalytic converter (which gets really hot). I urged Zach and Kylee, who had settled down in the middle of the road and illuminated by the still-on headlights to move farther away and out of the road, which they both simultaneously realized was a bad place to be.

Once the scene of the accident was safe, I determined that we didn't need an ambulance and that rousing a tow truck in the middle of the night was probably an unnecessary measure. I called Shane to have him come up and check us out, plus give us a ride back to Ephraim. Kylee was in a bit of shock about the whole ordeal, and sadly barefoot on the rough ground as her flipflops hadn't stayed on her feet in the accident. She was mostly worried about her mother killing her, which I tried to reassure her was unlikely and pointed out that we were all alive and unhurt except for a few scratches, which was something to thanks God for. Consoling young women isn't exactly something I'm practiced up for so I just tried to be nice and gently remind her that God is always in control.

A family in a pickup came around the bend and stopped to see if we were alright, which Zach and I assured them that we were. After checking us out for a few minutes, they were satisfied that we were fine and had help on the way and left us. Shane arrived not long thereafter, which I realized might have been quicker if I had told him that we had lights on still and he didn't need to search for us in the shadows. The predictable Shane response, after satisfying himself that we were unharmed, was the perennial 'Dadgum!'. A little bit of the familiar to reassure us after an eventful evening.

We reapproached the car (which I was satisfied was not going to catch fire) to extricate Kylee's wallet and cell phone, which was accomplished with some difficulty due to the on-its-side nature of the car. We weren't sure if it was required to call 911 since we had the situation under control, but we erred on the side of caution and I called it in anyway. The dispatcher took a description of the accident and car, and seemed satisfied that we would call a wrecker in the morning to take care of the car and let me go. We rambled back down the mountain (cautiously) and got into bed late- my phone showed my first call to Shane was at 1:49AM.

It turned out that the Sheriff wasn't happy about the way the incident unfolded and I got to tell my account of the incident to a deputy the next day. Apparently the dispatcher should have sent responders out regardless of my statement that we were fine, and because there weren't any officials there that night, it is difficult for them to confirm what really happened, we could have been hurt and not realized it, etc- the presence of a beer can near the car (littered by a good old boy rambling up the mountain in his pickup, I'm sure) added an unneeded layer of confusion to the incident, which isn't entirely wrapped up yet to my knowledge.

I think it is miraculous that we all came out unscathed. I don't have a picture of the car handy but it's fairly well crunched up. (I may get a picture at some point). I know that we were praying as the car went over, and I know that there are definitely a lot worse ways that a rollover accident on the mountain could have ended up. I won't know in this life if God intervened supernaturally, but I do know that I was in a car that rolled once and a quarter over on a treacherous mountain road and came away with only a single piece of glass in my hair to show for it.

Things have otherwise been standard fare- working on cafe stuff. One thing we did this week was to take a day and re-do all the cafe landscape stuff. The cafe looks much, much better now with its freshly-stained decks and re-mulched and manicured flower beds:

Cafe looking good!

There's also the run-of-the-mill errands and moving furniture and all sorts of other stuff that gets taken care of every day. Lawns mowed, garage door openers getting fixed, motorcycle carbs waiting to be cleaned... any plenty to take care of. Whether it holds sobering adventure or opportunities to diligently serve through labor, I count myself blessed to experience every new day. 

Healing hands of God have mercy on our unclean souls once again.

 Jesus Christ, Light of the World, burning bright within our hearts forever. 

Freedom means love without condition, without beginning or an end. 

Here's my heart, let it be forever Yours

 Only You can make every new day seem so new. 

Every New Day / On Distant Shores by Five Iron Frenzy

And now, for the moment we've all been waiting for...

The past weeks, and even months, have flown by pretty quickly. There was one thing, though, that couldn't have come soon enough, both for me and for many of you: the decision about whether to stay here in Utah or return to LETU this fall. I covered my dilemma in a previous post. This was a decision that I took none too lightly- I regarded it as having more significance than just what I am doing with the next year of my life. I saw it as a fork in the road which would affect the shape of my life far beyond the next year, perhaps even influencing where my career goes.

I've long told people that I don't wish to live a typical white-collar life- to be educated, work for forty or fifty years, then retire and buy a big yacht. Honestly that kind of lifestyle just doesn't appeal to me. Not only would I not honestly enjoy the kind of opulent lifestyle that that would bring, but I crave the adventure and risk of a life lived outside the sterile white-collar bubble. More important than either of those, though- which are simply my preferences- I think that God can do much more with my life than just a career and maybe being active in the church during the evenings and weekends. Please don't think that I'm condemning white-collar life as an invalid choice for some to make. God probably calls many people to that and I hope that they take their calling seriously. It's just not what I feel called to.

Shane and Kim, the ministry assistant directors here, have told me about a retirement village in Florida which is specifically for retired missionaries. When I think about an community filled entirely of missionaries, what comes to mind is the wealth of amazing life stories that is represented there. Each of the missionaries, I am sure, could tell you of many times in their lives where they were in some sort of peril and God delivered them, or how God provided some immense need right on time, or how once they had no idea what do do next or where to go but then God opened a door. Those are the stories I want to tell my grandkids, not about this one time I got a great deal on a sports car that I bought with my stellar engineering salary.

So I saw these two options for my life, and I saw the choice ahead of me. Sure, the decision was only for a year, but it was also a symbol- the decision declares what is most important to me, what I want to do with my life, what path I want to take a step on.

I tried to make this choice not a choice, but a matter of following God wherever he wanted me to go. That is valid- if it were not in fact a choice I would be doing wrong by trying to go somewhere other than where God was leading me. But I feel now that it was a choice. The litmus tests I tried to set up didn't work- I tried to automate the decision by stating that it'd be miraculous if I got enough financial aid to go back to school and it'd be a sign from God that he wanted me to return to LETU if that happened. In the end, the financial aid I got was not insignificant, but placed me right on a line where I could do it but only with some real but doable sacrifices. That brought it down to a choice again.

I had been telling everyone who was waiting on my decision that financial aid was the thing I was waiting for, and now that I knew how that chip had fallen I still wasn't decided. I felt I needed more information to go on- so I contacted my preferred potential future employer and asked what a delay of a year would mean. The answer came back neutral, that a delay of a year wouldn't prevent them from being interested in hiring me, but that there were not guarantees. Still, it was a decision.

God's greatest gift to us is the free gift of salvation. After that, I feel, the next best thing he gave us is free will. After all, the gift of salvation wouldn't be a gift if we weren't free to choose or reject it. Many argue about what free will really is if God is all-knowing and all-powerful- whatever the ultimate truth of free will is, I feel sure that God was offering me a choice here. As if he were saying "You are free to go either way. I will be with you at LETU if you go back there, and I can do good in you and through you there. I will be with you here in Utah if you stay- no matter where you choose to go, I will be there, and my power is vast enough to be unaffected by the decision you make."

So it really was a choice. Even with all the information I could need in front of me, I was still indeterminate. I usually am not indecisive- when I made the choice to go to Iowa, it was almost a snap decision- I got the info I needed, decided it would be cool adventure, and so I pulled the trigger. Perhaps it is the significance of this decision that gave me such pause. This really could affect the rest of my life.

A few nights ago, as a stand-in for a real Bible study, we watched a DVD called Furious Love. It was about a real and proverbial journey that a filmographer took to try to understand how God's love penetrates even the darkest parts of our spiritual world. It showed many things that the church in America doesn't encounter very often, or like to think about: demon possession, witchcraft, satanism, destitute drug addicts living in a dump, prostitutes trapped in their lives in Thailand. All these dark things have been overcome not by God's might or power, but by his love. It is an amazing film that I encourage everyone to go out of their way to watch.

It did have the proscribed effect on me- I was awed by what God's love was and how the filmographer had experienced it and shown it to us. There was something else, though, that it did for me- it presented me with all the things that God is doing all over the world- all the things that those retired missionaries could be talking about, all the things that God might do with me if I chose to abstain from the white-collar option and step out into the unknown. Am I ready for that? Can I really be the one that God uses to cast a demon out of a convulsing woman in Tanzania? Do I even want that?

I don't think anyone wants to hang out with the demon-possessed because of the merit of the situation. People choose to put themselves in situations like that- to pursue lives that take them to those places- because they want to be the hands and feet of God's unquenchable love to his children, and they won't let something petty like their own carnal comfort get in the way of what God can do through them. They are looking at the higher goal- the glory of God and the building of his kingdom- over their own desires.

No, I didn't make a snap decision as I sat and watched Furious Love. That experience was only fuel for the fire. It was still up to me to decide. Sure, God can use me to cast out demons- but he can also use me to encourage kids in VBS and to fund those who go to the dark places. He needs all sorts of people in his kingdom. He let me decide where I wanted to be.

I can't say that there was a moment when the decision felt right to me. If I went only by the facts, I would have decided to stay in Utah long ago. I never did feel a peace about doing that, though- somehow I felt it would have been presumptive, that in a way I really didn't understand the gravity of my decision and that I need to wait until God revealed more to me. This entire decision was a process.

Yet, it was in a fact-gathering way that the decision was made. I was standing in the basement room where the in-construction men's apartment was, the room I'd be moving into if I decided to stay. The weight of the decision was bearing on my shoulders, and I knew I would need to have this all sorted out sooner rather than later. And then I decided. I would stay here. I would go down the path that may someday take me to casting out demons, because that is what I want in my life. I don't know my future any better than I know yours, anonymous reader; I can't tell you if the decision I made is really going to send me into situations like that. What I know is that I've taken the opportunity presented to me this summer to make my intentions clear- God, if you will send me, I want to go.


Well, now that all that serious business is sorted, who wants to see my new apartment? It's so sweet! I'm not completely moved in yet, but it's going to be the ultimate bachelor pad. I'll post more pics when it's done.

A view from the door into my bedroom. They assured me they'd take the loft out but I assured them that they certainly would NOT. Lofts own. The ultimate plan is to put a couch under the loft, a sweet one that was donated to the ministry this summer. It is super comfy and I campaigned for it to be placed in the guy's dorm. I'm taking it downstairs with me, since I'm the only one who sits on it anyway. If Shane disagrees with me he can feel my wrath. Once I get back from TX I'm going to set up my projector up over the couch to project onto the opposite wall. Sweet!

Looking into the other corner- I have significant hanging closet space for the first time ever. I think I'm going to try hanging my t-shirts.

My new deer buddy. I feel, the highlight of the room. I haven't named him yet. Any suggestions?

My desk area. No the deer doesn't have a massive third antler growing out of its face- there's another antler sitting on top of the desk. Classy!

This is what will be my new personal kitchen- it's not completed yet. Doesn't it look great so far? Chip's dad is a super handyman and this is all his work.

Finally, the bathroom. Again, a personal luxury I get to enjoy. The mirror is, unfortunately, low enough that I have to stoop to see myself in it. The light fixture there is pretty, but it may have to go so I can raise the mirror. If I'm going to stay in this apartment for a year, I'm going to take the hour or so to raise the mirror so I can see myself. I already mangled the ceiling fan to raise it 2" so I wouldn't walk into it all the time. Whoever has to remove that fan next: I'm sorry, it's going to be impossible. Just tear down the building around the fan, because there's no way it's ever coming down again after I shortened the mounting hardware. 

So there you have it- decision made, future determined for at least the next year. I'm sure roughing it in that apartment after having made the 'hard choice' huh? The next year will be interesting. I'm now on the job hunt and I'm sure that God will provide something. I'm also going to start raising support and enroll in a class at Snow College. My immediate plans are to take a road trip to TX Aug 16-24 to collect the remainder of my belongings. After that, the real work begins. 


The long term future is not entirely unclear either. I may have left you with the impression that I'm forsaking my  engineering career for some idea of going to weird places and doing weird things. I'm not, at least not entirely. I will be returning to LETU in the Fall of 2011 to finish my last semester. That is set in stone because the classes I need to graduate are fall-only classes, and if I stay away from LETU longer than two semesters, then  I have to come in as a new student under the new catalog and take a bunch of new classes- very disadvantageous. I really don't think that God brought me (at great effort) to within one semester of graduating  LETU to not let me finish. Furthermore, I have a large amount of student debt to pay off and I think that an engineering career is a good way to pay that off and make myself more available for God. If I had to guess I'd say that I'll graduate December of 2011 and go work in engineering for some years until debt is paid off (and maybe even the family I may have is ready for a more adventurous lifestyle) and from there I'll go wherever. I'm also not ruling out that God will use engineering in the adventurous lifestyle I'm aiming for- there is certainly a lot of adventure to be had in engineering (international contracts- yes please) and like I said before, God can use me wherever.


Thanks for tuning in- don't forget to name my deer in the comments.

A Dog Named Turbo and the Ant Fire

I like to think of this blog as a record of my doings and happenings in the world, and generally I like for those to be services of benefit to others and epic adventures with a moral at the end. However, I am afraid that this latest entry is not going to really fit either of those categories. I'm afraid that today I did the world a bit of a disservice.

I started a brush fire.

Well, not me, really, but I was involved and I certainly didn't stop the stupid plan of lighting a fire in dry dry central Utah from going forward. Let me rewind a little bit before I start justifying (or rationalizing) too much. It all started with helping the college house's newest resident, Jamie (AKA Kentucky) move in.

Kentucky was living in a terrible little apartment with no stove or cooling before he heard of the college house. He would have moved in straight away if he had known of it before coming here, but we didn't connect with 'tucky until Manti Pageant. Moving in after the fact was complicated, however, by the fact that he had bought a dog after arriving, a non-starter for college house living. In true Kentucky form, the dog was named Turbo, surely a sign of Jamie's fondness for turbo-diesel trucks. Well, a couple days ago he went outside and found his dog gone, and with it his housing problem. (Heartless, I know, but true)

And so Jamie made plans to move into the college house today, and we spent most of the day doing all the things that that entails: borrowing Shane's dump trailer, breaking into Keegan's truck to get the dump trailer controller so we can dump out the junk in said trailer, picking up a totally sweet wooden spool at the dump to use as a coffee table-- but I digress. Y'all know how moving works- you get the biggest vehicle you can manage, throw as much stuff in as will fit, and drive to the new flat and reverse the procedure.

Well, we got Kentucky most of the way moved in (the bed is here, and that's what counts) and were grocery shopping to fit his new-found stove access when a call came in. 'Tucky had an announcement made on the local radio station regarding the missing Turbo. Someone a few blocks away from Jamie's old place had picked up a dog matching Turbo's description. We headed straight over from Walmart and sure enough, there was Turbo. Well dadgum. Now we have the dog situation to figure out.

Fortunately, we weren't completely out of sorts- before Turbo ran off, 'Tucky had been examining options for finding a place for Turbo so he could stay in the college house. In fact, the deal to have Turbo stay on some land belonging to a gentleman in our church was all but sealed before Turbo ran off. When we got Turbo back again we just needed to get the final go-ahead and make it happen. The land in question is about 10 miles out of Ephraim and the barn which would act as an oversized doghouse needed some shoring up before a dog with a Houdini history could be let loose inside.

The refurbishment would have to wait, so we decided that we'd tie him up for the night in the barn and get it dog-worthy after we finished moving. And so we headed off to the land with Turbo and an enormously heavy Utah-style (construction remnants) doghouse in the trailer. Given that Turbo had been good enough to escape before, we decided it was high time to get a proper collar for him. (Ed. note: I looked at the rope 'Tucky used to tie him up before- the mock-collar was a shoelace. True Country, right there.)

Given that Turbo is only three months old, the collar was of course too big for him. Well, we've got a country solution to that- we'll just put another hole in it by heating up a piece of baling wire that is sticking out of the wall and poking it through the nylon webbing of the collar. Well, we took out the lighter and got to work. And, well, you know what we did with that lighter in that rickety old barn in the middle of the field full of dry grass? Can you guess? We put a hole in the collar. Worked like a charm.

With that problem effectively solved, we looked to wrap up our mission by improving Turbo's accommodations. After all, 'Tucky was moving up in the world, so we ought to see that Turbo had a similar upgrade as well. We had two problems with the area where he was tied up- there was a fire ant hill close enough that he could get into it, and all the dry grass around the barn was rather prickly and unpleasant on Turbo's soft little puppy feet. Our hearts were moved with compassion for Turbo, and it was decided (rather complicitly on my part) that the obvious thing to do was to pile up some of the grass on the anthill and light it so that the ants would be burnt out.

So we lit a little bit of grass on top of the anthill. It burned very quickly. I started plucking up clumps of grass and throwing them on the fire at a controlled rate. At this point I was actually more concerned with keeping the fire going than with it getting out to control- the grass I threw on burned up so quick that by the time I threw the next clump in, the last one was almost completely gone. While I was pulling up grass to throw in, I saw out of the corner of my eye that two spots of fire had appeared off to the side by 'Tucky. I figured he had it under control. I never did mention that Kentucky was a volunteer fire fighter. In fact, he joined just the day before. He's also a salesman for his dad's business of selling rescue equipment like the Jaws of Life and firefighting equipment.Jamie is not unfamiliar with the firefighting business.

It is at this point that I am somewhat unsure of what exactly happened. There were those two little spots of fire a few feet from the anthill, and then all of a sudden things got crazy. The fire started spreading out into the dry grass surrounding us. It became apparent that we should control the fire, and so we started stomping out the burning grass. Right then it didn't seem like we had a big problem- the fire was pretty small and we could stomp it down pretty quickly. However, things got out of hand really quickly. The flame front was growing faster than we were stomping it out and we started working quickly to stay ahead of it, but to no avail. It became apparent that the fire was serious at this point. Stomping wasn't effective anymore, and we grabbed boards to beat the fire out with. This was working better, and I was beginning to think that we could get the fire contained and out. However, the boards were dry, weather-rotted, and soon broke into pieces, becoming useless.

We got way behind the fire at this point. Jamie was starting to flip out a little bit. Furthermore, the more the fire spread outwards, the harder to got to control. A three-foot ring of fire is one thing. A thirty-foot ring is a lot more fire. We knew we wouldn't get back ahead of the fire at this point and Jamie called to me to call 911. I've been reluctant to call 911 frivolously my whole like, after all, I'd rather solve my own problems than have a dozen people rustled into frantic action and rushing down to highway to help me. I recognized now that playing it safe called for containment of the fire, not politeness in not inconveniencing the responders. I got on my phone and called 911 while continuing to try and fight the fire with my other hand, now using a two-foot-square piece of roofing tin to smother the fire.

After I gave 911 our location, Kentucky shouted at me to move his truck- the flames were starting to get close to it, and the last thing we needed was an engulfed vehicle. As I ran to the truck I tried to toss my sunglasses in the back but missed- normally I'd stop to pick them up, but firefighting had suddenly turned into Serious Business. I jumped in hoping that he'd left the keys somewhere obvious. I tried to start his truck but found that I'd turn the key and nothing happened. It was a manual truck, and I knew enough to push the clutch in to start it, but nothing would happen. After frantically turning the key a dozen times or so I heard Jamie shout "You have to push the clutch in HARD!" I bore down on that clutch pedal with the whole of my strength and turned the key- it started. It didn't feel like the clutch moved any more, but I guess ornery old trucks like his are entitled to their idiosyncrasies. While this was going on I was listening to the dispatcher announcing our "out of control brush fire north of Sterling, 500 yards west of 89" over Kentucky's volunteer firefighter pager which was clipped to the visor. The irony didn't escape me.

The location where we started the anthill on a fire was in a little fenced-in area for horses, long-abandoned. There were shed-sized barns off to two sides of it, and an entire field of dry grass separated by only a wire fence. We were on a slight hill, and above us on the hillside was a bunch of sagebrush- even worse, over the crest of the hill was a house. I kept beating away at the flame front spreading out back towards the road, and was actually making a good headway. I got the flaming grass extinguished on that side when Jamie ran past me with the bucket he was using to spread dirt on the fire on the other side of the yard. He was fairly well flipping out at this point.

"This is bad, this is really bad... oh man.."
"Well, we've got it out here, where else is it?"
"Dude, it's up on the hill on the other side of the fence!"

I started to realize the gravity of the situation at this point. While I was busy beating out the fire advancing towards the road I had paid only limited attention to the other locations- I thought the heavy wooden fence lined with feed troughs would contain the fire to the yard while we stopped it from getting out of control outside of it. But no- there was a two-foot gap in the fence where it met one of the sheds, and the fire had spread through it up to the hillside. This fire would not burn itself out. It would only spread. It was already wider than just the two of use could contain, and only growing more quickly. If the sheds started to burn, that was bad news- and if the fire advanced up the hill that was worse news yet. Looking around I saw that the fire had handily spread through the wire fence into the field of dry grass and was advancing much more quickly than I imagined it would.

'Tucky ran off towards the field with his bucket so I ran to the hillside to keep things from going nuts up there. The tin I was using to beat the fire out was now too hot to hold, and I stopped for half a moment frantically racking my brain for how to solve this problem. I tried using a clump of grass to hold onto the tin with, but it just slipped out of my hands and let my fingers be burnt while I tried to move the tin around.

"I need a glove" I said out loud.

Figuring that the situation merited the immodesty, I used the Sprint method to take my shirt off and used it to hold onto the tin. I advanced up the hill putting out fire as a went. The fire I was putting out before was easier because it was just grass on flat ground- the hill was covered in sagebrush. I couldn't pat out the fires around the bases of the sagebrush with the tin, and I couldn't stomp any but the smallest flames there because I was wearing my handy Chacos (sandals). At one point I picked up a sage branch that was burning so I could blow it out and throw it back into the blackened area, but it caught on something and I ended up hitting myself in the forehead with the burning part. I laughed in spite of the situation- I'm sure that in a different context hitting myself in the forehead with a flaming branch would be hilarious. It didn't leave a significant wound. Unable to completely put out the sage, I settled for putting out the perimeter of the fire and trying to keep the brush inside from blazing up so bad that they'd jump the perimeter.

As I was working on this I saw a white Sterling Fire Department pickup rambling through the field between us an the road. Thank God they responded as quickly as they did- it was probably only 10 minutes between my call and their arrival. From my spot on the hillside I could see that the fire was advancing with frightening speed through the dry field that it got into through the wire fence, as well as into the corner of the field of green alfalfa hay on the other side of the shed, which was now surrounded on two sides by fire. We really needed their help. The truck, which was equipped with a big water tank and hose, was unfortunately on the other side of a barbed wire fence. I knew it would take them a few minutes to get to the fire and applied myself to keeping it from advancing up the hillside and the house that stood over the ridge.

I had the perimeter of the fire on the hillside extinguished a few minutes later, but the sagebrushes still kindling inside. With the Sterling FD pickup approaching, I look towards the field below which had become an inferno and decided that if they were going to take over the hillside my efforts would be best spent stomping out the grass fire down there. There were a few hundred feet yet between the field fire and the nearest building, while the hillside fire, although not blazing anymore, presented a significant hazard if it advanced up the hillside, as fires are wont to do.

The fire in the field was a lot more intense than the grass fire I'd put out earlier because the grass was a lot taller. This corresponded to a significantly higher degree of heat. I was somewhat surprised with the degree of success I achieved by stomping out the fire with the tin- but I still had little chance of getting far enough ahead of it to stop it if the Sterling FD brush truck weren't working its way down. I had to be careful with placing the tin before I stomped on it, because if I overshot the amount of fire to put out, stomping the tin would put out the fire underneath but also billow the flame out at my sandal-shod feet, making things worse. I was approaching a bend in the fire line, which meant I got the heat not only from the fire I was putting out right in front of me but also from the side as well. Stomping the tin is up close and personal, right in the fire, and things were starting to get just too hot to stay in the fire. I had to turn away a couple times to keep my still-shirtless top half from getting burnt.

By now the brush truck had the hillside wetted down enough that they could turn their attention towards the field fire, which I had half put out but was failing to make any quick progress on due to my burning-alive problem. The fireman waved me off as he started working the fire on the other side of the fence with the hose, not wanting me to burn myself putting out the fire the hard way when he was able to put it out the easy way in just a minute. At that point I stepped back and looked to see if there were any other flame fronts advancing that I needed to stop. Thankfully, there was nothing blazing anywhere else.  There was plenty of smoldering going on where the fire had been stomped out, but once the blaze in the field was hosed down, the flames would be out, the advance halted, and we could work on making sure it wouldn't start back up anywhere. Around this time, another brush truck arrived from Manti. I had overheard one of the firemen accepting the second truck's aid but waving off a tanker truck- if the firemen were optimistic, so could I be. Seeing that I wouldn't be needing to hold my hot tin anymore, I donned my now-very-smoky shirt again.

The sheds had thankfully not begun to burn, although after we got the flames out we spotted the corner of the roof on one was smoking from under the roofing tin so we peeled that back and hosed it down well. Some of the hay in one of the feed troughs was smoldering as well, so one of the firemen was chopping out the wood and pulling out the hay as another spread it out thin and yet another hosed it down. I asked the fireman who had arrived first (who I later found out was the chief, despite his young appearance) if there was anything else I could do, and he had me get a shovel-pick tool out of the truck and showed me how to dig the sod out from around to base of the shed's wooden wall to make sure no smoldering grass would light the shed up later. While I was doing that, the firemen were wetting everything down with their hose to make sure nothing would flare up again.

Well, the fire was out and the panic was over. While we were winding down the main extinguishment effort, I'd overheard Kentucky kicking himself for lighting the fire in the first place, and claiming responsibility for the fire- he verbally absolved  me of blame for the fire, but in reality I feel a dumb as he does for letting it happen in the first place. Even if I'm not the chief perpetrator, I can't deny that I'm implicitly to blame because I let the stupid mistake happen. While things were winding up and I'd finished digging out around the shed, a fireman named Thomas introduced himself to me and asked me to fill out a voluntary statement of what had happened. While I was writing I wondered if I was incriminating myself, but figured that even if I was justice would be served by it, and being uncooperative probably never helped anybody in my situation anyway. Being the word man that I am (as my mom calls my brothers and me) I filled up the lined area on the page as well as half of the back of the sheet. I was halfway through the statement when I wondered if anyone would be able to read it- my penmanship was especially atrocious because I was writing on the hot hood of a truck with hands made very shaky by the events and exertion of the past hour. When I was done, though, Thomas said he could read it, so I figure I'm alright.

During all this Kentucky was quite worried about the consequences that might land on us as a result of our foolishness- although he insisted that he was the one to be fined if someone were going to be. While I won't argue his claim of primary responsibility, we both acted pretty stupidly and I wouldn't think it unjust if we both got some kind of fine. Thomas, though, reassured us that in a case like this, the fire warden was unlikely to issue any consequence and that because of our cooperation, attitude, and open acceptance of the blame for the fire, he didn't want us to get fined and would pass that impression on to the warden. I think that's as strong as a statement as he could make in his position, really I don't think there any risk at all of me getting one, and only a slight chance for Jamie.

The other thing 'Tucky was doing during the wrap-up was selling rescue equipment. I can't blame him for taking the opportunity, and the firemen were interested in his pitch. An appointment was even set up for a demo. A bit ironic, I think. I'd think it inappropriate if it weren't for the genuine interest and good nature of the firemen. The chief who arrived was smiling and jovial during the whole event, if businesslike during the heat (har har!) of the situation. Generally I'd expect men in such a position to be more severe, especially when dealing with two idiots who lit a field on fire while trying to kill some ants. I offered to re-weld a broken bracket on the Manti brush truck's storage box, and I think they may take me up on it. I can't say I wasn't partly motivated by wanting to make friends with the firemen- after all, friends don't issue fines to each other.

The fireman who was calling in the report to the dispatcher had a laugh with the paperwork- his first radio call named the fire "The Ant Fire" as a temporary moniker until the reports were being written. This was, after all, because the fire got started Well, Thomas (who I think was the senior man on site) saw no reason to rename it, so The Ant Fire it became officially. I gather that's something a bit usual because the firemen all found it entertaining.

Things had pretty well wound down and we were all getting ready to leave, each of us with another fire story (I have a previous one from Alaska I will have to write up sometime) behind us. I snapped some pics of the carnage before we left- check them out:

This is the area I fought first, out the gate from the fenced-in area towards the road.

This is the view over the wire fence that the fire hopped through into the dry field- this is where I was putting out the line of fire when the FD waved me off.

This pic is from about where the anthill was (and IS! With live ants!) looking out the gate. That's the hay we broke out of the feed trough to stop from smoldering- it is all black underneath.

And so you have it, friends- the story of how 'Tucky and I started a brush fire in central Utah. It could have been a bad day, but I see it as another adventure under my belt and a cool story to tell my grandkids. Life without brush fires would be boring.