Bizarre Bradyisms

About Time

It has been yet again a long time since I have written anything on this here blog of mine and for some reason or another I’m feeling really lazy this Sunday morning; lazy enough to sit down and translate the craziness that is my life into something written.

I’ve been at my job now for a little over a month and things are going well.  The stress that is involved with a brand new start-up company can more-often-than-not be extremely overwhelming.  I don’t believe that I mentioned this before, but I am employee number 3.  Prior to me getting hired, there was another IT guy who made it about week before deciding this isn’t what he wanted and quit.  Then, in a fairly quick succession the CEO hired an administrative assistant, myself, a software engineer (who also quit after less than two weeks), a systems engineer, and finally a sales manager.  Let it be said that things have been quite hectic in a constant state of flux.

I am basically the one who is engineering the entire infrastructure from the ground up for the products we will be offering as well as the internal, corporate network.  At times it is fun and I enjoy the freedom this gives me in some of the decisions that I make, nonetheless, trying to purchase the necessary equipment with a minimal budget while planning for a quick growth in out customer base is a daunting task.  Plus, since there are so few of us, we are all wearing like 12 different “hats” with respect to some of the additional responsibilities we each have.  Some days I go home wondering how long it will before we go belly-up and I end up moving back east somewhere just for a change in scenery; other days I go home excited about what is being accomplished and how well everything is coming together.

I hate to say it, but I haven’t had much of an exciting life outside of work recently.  It is really important to me to maintain a good, consistent work / life balance so I’ve been reading a fair amount, working on my garden, cleaning the house, etc.  The house has been a little crazy as well.  One of the roommates moved out about a week ago and I have to admit I’m not sad to see him go.  I never really interacted much with him but he was one of those guys who never cleaned up after himself and always made a mess wherever he went.  Now, one other roommate who barely moved in back in March said he is leaving soon making me the only one left yet again besides the homeowner and his family.

On a related subject, the home-owner’s older cousin (~33 years old) moved in a while back because he was going through some hard times.  I don’t know what it is, but there is something that really rubs me wrong about him.  I don’t like publicly speaking poorly of people, so let it simply be said while he may have good intentions, he never seems to think things through all the way which can cause a lot of problems.  Because he is family, I don’t think the guy who I rent from will do anything about it and I’ve even considered moving out myself.  I’ve got a pretty good thing going here and I really don’t want to move so perhaps I just need to stick it out for the next 6 months while I see how my job goes.

Well, I think that about wraps up my update for the time being.  Oh, I’ve also decided to go back and finish up a couple of posts I half-way completed during the past 6 months and never got around to publishing.  For those who read this via the RSS feed, the chronological order might appear to be confusing, but the dates on the actual posts will line up just fine.

Everyone Needs Time Outside of Utah

This past weekend, I was able to spend some much needed time outside of Utah.  While I may be enjoying my stay here in the desert state of the west much more this time than I had in previous years, I’ve come to recognize that I still need (i.e. must) get out of Utah on a fairly regular basis in order to maintain my sanity.  Although I started my new job not more than 3 weeks ago, I was able to ask for some time off to join my family in Colorado for a little vacation with everyone.  I had to go into the office for about an hour or two on Friday morning (July 10) to finish a couple little projects up after which I drove straight down through Green River, UT and then met up with the rest of the family in Grand Junction, CO.  It was nice to see everybody again and I was especially pleased that my niece Kambria recognized me this time and wasn’t afraid of me (probably because I no longer had a goatee). 

After a short lunch we continued our journey through the San Juan mountains (including a short pit stop where I had to re-arrange the parking-lot boundaries in order to park the cars somewhere) and through Durango to finally arrive at Mesa Verde National Park.  We picked two campsites next to each other so that we could accomadate my parent’s pop-up trailer, my tent for Colin and I, and Bryan and Eliza’s tent.  I was pretty excited to see how well my new tent I purchased from Cabela’s a number of months back would work out and I was pleasantly surprised.  (Although I do have to note that no matter how many people a tent says it will fit, you can count on actually packing in about 65% of that number comfortably.) 

During the next two days we spent our time visiting a large majority of the old ruins that make the park so popular.  The temperature was quite hot and because that Bryan and Eliza had their 3 year old and 10 month old children with them, it always an exciting adventure.  Just as a side note, we had come here to the park as a family something like 18 years ago and we always share the story about how my youngest sister Tess, who must have been like 2 or so, almost threw (not really, but it was close) my mother off the side of the mountain while riding in her child-backpack because she wouldn’t let go of one of the guard-rails.  Always, it was good time and I was glad to have the family around.

After two days in the park, we packed up and retraced our path back into the San Juan mountains to camp in the South Mineral Campground right outside of the city of Silverton, CO.  Tess and I drove together for this trip and those of you who know me well also know that I like to drive.  A lot.  So we arrived about a good 30 to 45 minutes earlier and picked a good site for us all to stay at.  As much as we liked Mesa Verde, the whole family agreed that being up in the mountains at an altitude of just short of 10,000 feet where things are actually green is much more pleasant and relaxing.  It had been my turn to cook for everyone that day and although my less-than-stellar packing left something to be desired (i.e. cardboard boxes don’t do well in an ice-filled cooler), my dutch-oven Parmesan chicken turned out quite well. 

The following day, we all (less Eliza and the children for obvious reasons) took my handgun, shotgun, Colin’s gun, and my Dad’s guns up further into the mountains to do a little practice shooting.  It was fun to do and although some of the party was a little hesitant about shooting some of the more powerful weapons, everyone enjoyed the learning experience.  (I was quite surprised by my Mom’s good aim with the handgun).  Afterwards, we kind of broke the rules and cut some already downed trees for firewood because we weren’t going to pay $7 for a small bundle of wood when we could do it ourselves.  My Dad even got to use his new chainsaw for the first time and I’ve decided that maybe that will be my next investment / emergency preparation excuse come winter-time.  After regrouping with Eliza, Kambria, and Weston we just started hiking up a trail we had no idea where it went and made it significantly far (~7 miles total) considering the fact Bryan was carrying Weston in his pack the whole time and Kambria walked close to 90% of the distance on her own.  It was a great day and a wonderful close to a short but quality vacation.

The following day, I packed up and left at around 2:00PM because I had to be to work by 9:00AM the following morning.  It seems to happen more now as an adult than it did when I was younger, but whenever I say goodbye for an extended time to the family, I must admit that I get a little teary-eyed as I drive away and wish I didn’t have to leave.  It only lasts for not more than 30 seconds, but still, I’m sad to have to leave.  Well, I drove the entire way home for a good 6.5 hours listening to whatever I could find on the radio (country does start to sound good out there in the middle of nowhere) while trying to get rid of a splitting headache that just wouldn’t go away.  It didn’t go away, but I made home just after 8:30 and fell asleep almost instantly after falling hopeless onto my bed.

Thanks family.  I love you all.

“Today, We Celebrate Our…”

Even though I am some 500+ miles away from any of my immediate family, I have the lucky blessing of having some extended family who are here in the valley. They are nice enough to invite me along to some of their family gatherings every now and again so for this past July 4th weekend, I spent the day in their company.  Ever year in Provo they have the Freedom Festival (I think that is what they call it) taking place in various parts of the city and one of my favorite things to see is the hot-air balloon race / challenge that occurs early in the morning (around 6:00 AM early) in one of the city parks.  The gistof it all is that they all take off at close to the same time (as much as you can reasonably allow while still being safe with hot air balloons) and catch the wind-stream going south.  At around something like 1500 feet of the ground they reach a higher wind steam going directly north which they use to switch directions and come back around to see how close the the original taking off location they can get by throwing a bean-bag onto a large X on the park field.  This year some them got really close and I was very impressed by the whole event.

Afterwards we all enjoyed the great parade that the city puts on and eventually made our way back towards my Aunt’s house in Pleasant Grove to use the city’s public swimming pool for a little cooling off.  I have to admit, I haven’t gone swimming in probably 2+ years.  Even though I am white as you can get without scaring those around me, I used the opportunity to try and work on my tan (can’t say I accomplished much) while venturing out into the water and the fairly-decent water-slide that was there.  When everyone got sick and tired of the pool, we went back to their home for some dinner / games / fireworks.  Overall, a nice evening.