Cauldron Linn (Part One of "Idaho: The Reckoning")

Howdy, all. Well, it's time to start showcasing our photos from the Idaho trip we took over the Memorial Day weekend. These pictures were taken at Cauldron Linn, a section of the Snake River that's made of lava rock. As you can see from the pictures, the river has sculpted the heck out of the lava rock, creating all sorts of formations--waterfalls, placid oxbows, strata of varying colors. It was really quite dramatic.

Here's Val surveying the scene:















Here are some of those rocks I was talking about. Beautiful to behold, a heck of a time to hike over:
















Blake really wanted to take the raft out (I wondered about that one, because there were two deadly waterfalls not too far downstream), so here they are launching it at a peaceful section of the river:
















The rocks were weathered in bowls, potholes, and even tubes (poor Abby's face doesn't look too comfortable):





















Kaitlin has a bright future as a sea captain:
















The comparisons to SpongeBob were inevitable (Libby actually said, "No pictures, please," but we didn't listen; we'll be trotting this one out twelve years from now, on prom night):
















Oh, aren't we cute:
















I suppose that this is the linn part of Cauldron Linn ("linn" means "waterfall" in Scots Gaelic, I'm told):

Well, that's all the pictures for now. More will follow--be sure of that.

-Z

The Long-Awaited Table

Can I say how much I love this table?

I gave it to Melanie on Mother's Day Eve, and we were able to use it when the whole Petersen gang came over for enchiladas--it worked out very nicely, if I dare say so myself.

I need a site.

16. Get a website.

This is a huge, monstrous goal. See, I was reading some business article on the internet the other day (probably on Yahoo! or something), and it said that, as a resume-building, brand-enhancing, public relations-maxxing (yeah, one of those buzzword-laden articles that seem to be everywhere) strategy, people should have their own websites, sites which show off their skills and stuff.

This struck me as a good idea, because my good friend, Pat Madden, has his own website, http://www.quotidiana.com. It's an essay-themed site, since Pat's an essayist. He has essays that he's written, essays that other people have written, instruction about essaying, etc. He even uses it as a teaching tool, assigning homework from his site. And it works really, really well.

Now, it's not the easiest thing to do, I'm sure. One must worry about intellectual property infringements, posting all of that creative work up there. Plus, there are the associated fees with web hosting and web design (since I don't know how to code a website). I mean, it's a substantial undertaking. But it'd be worth it, I bet. Potential employers could look at my resume, see the website, and actually read some of my stuff, as opposed to merely thinking about how many things as written, you know? Now, maybe that would work against me, if they didn't like my writing, but I think that it would be impressive.

More resolutions

Dear all,

Well, I've been doing my part--I hope--to fulfill my birthday goal. (A side note: Right now, I'm listening to "Light Up Ahead" as performed by Fields Forever, an acoustic project by Jon Bunch of Sense Field and Derrick Cordoba of Futher Seems Forever--get it?--and it's reminding me of why I should stop living my life in musical silence.) Anyway, I have a few more things I want to learn. I don't think it's cheating if I list a few new things I've learned, since I often learn--and do--new things without posting my desire to do them on the blog first.

13. Learn to make bread from scratch
14. (Pursuant to #14) Learn to make pizza from scratch

Those are done. Nice!

15. Take voice lessons

This idea scares the ________ [fill in favorite exclamation] out of me. There's a reason why I play guitar--I'm not big on singing. I mean, sure, I sang in the high school musical and all, but that was always in character. Singing, it's like--hear you me!--you'd better be good.

My Cousin the Spy

Dear all,

So Melanie and I went to the last session of General Conference yesterday, which was, predictably, wonderful. Our seats were pretty decent (although Mel said, "There isn't a bad seat in this house," which is true) and perfectly oriented to see a few members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir come in late, working their way toward the stand through the audience. Mel and I later found out (from Mel's aunt Jan, who sings in the choir) that the late choir members had been stranded on the massive roof of the Conference Center, which is a large landscaped garden where the choir eats lunch. The lesson of the story, I suppose, is that, if you're a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, get your lunch and then get out. You might be serenading the crowds outside the Conference Center if you're not careful. (Jan, by the way, is very careful and wise. She gets off the roof ASAP.)

And it seems that she's passed that wisdom, that savvy situational awareness, that world-weary acumen, onto her daughter--my cousin-in-law--Dani, because Dani has become a spy. She's such a good spy, as a matter of fact, that she doesn't even spy for the government. No, Dani is a spy for a private corporation, which I shall not name, because I don't want to disappear in the middle of the night. That's right--Dani spies for one of those shadowy conglomerates that's always trying to achieve world domination in James Bond movies, a group of clandestine power-brokers that flies under the radar of conventional scrutiny...

Actually, I hyperbolize. Dani works for a large construction company; about the only thing they've ever staged a coup d'etat over is a pile of cinder block (even though I joke with her about her ballpoint pen really being a gun). However, she really is a spy--she goes around to competing businesses and checks them out, photographs their facilites, gets information from them while not letting on that she's from a competitor. (After all, if she waltzed up to a competitor and said, "Hey, I'm from X Construction Company and we're thinking about how we can better compete against you--or buy you out--so give me a list of your prices," about the only thing she'd get would be a snicker and a quick trip out.) So she travels around the country, doing in-depth research on her business peers.

And I think that's really cool. I mean, there's been a lot of talk, lately, about the government's sad lack of "HUMINT," or human intelligence--meaning on-the-ground, people-based intelligence about our enemies. Some people postulate that, had the government been able to amass substantial HUMINT before the invasion of Iraq, we wouldn't have invaded--but, as it was, our intelligence-gathering capabilities were focused on satellite images and recon flights and the like, and we couldn't tell whether Saddam Hussein had WMDs or not. Now, I'm not going to turn this into a forum to debate the Iraq War (Gulf War II?), but I think it's cool that Dani serves as a positive role-model for our nation's intelligence community.

So here's to you, Dani. Kudos. I hope that this blog post doesn't blow your cover.

#6: Chainsaw technique learned

So I helped my uncle chop down a cherry tree yesterday. (George would be horrified.) So there goes ol' #6. At this rate, I'll be done in no time.

I thought of another item:

12. Learn how to turn wood on a lathe. (Then I can make bannister spindles and such truck.)

Chef Jeff

Jeff with the new chef's hat and improved apron he got for his birthday.

Put Me in the Zoo!

The weather was so nice today, we couldn't "bear" to stay at home. We spent the day at Hogle Zoo!

Happy Birthday to Me

Yesterday was a fantastic birthday, due to my wife Melanie. She's wonderful and, truth be told, I'd rather just talk about her.

However, my cousin-in-law, Brooke, came up with a great idea on her birthday, which wasn't too long ago. She decided that, over the course of the next year, she'd learn/do a new thing/skill/whatever for every year that she's been alive (in her case, twenty-eight). Thus, I think I'll try to come up with twenty-six things that I'll learn in this year of my life. Here they are:

1. Learn how to use a sewing machine
2. In conjunction with #1, learn how to tailor clothes (I'm terribly difficult to fit)
3. Guitar technique: "Sweep picking"
4. Learn Portuguese
5. Learn how to make a good confit
6. Learn how to use a chainsaw (I've done it in the past, but I'd be afraid to try on my own, now)
7. Climb Mount Olympus (the one in Salt Lake City, not Greece)
8. Learn how to build furniture with drawers
9. Learn how to grain-fill in porous woods
10. Read the entire Bible again (yes, even those Law of Moses parts in the Old Testament)
11. Learn how to use a pressure-cooker (and hopefully not blow up the house in the process)
12. Hmm...

Okay--I'll have to think of fifteen more at a later date. Anyway, that's a good start, I'd say.

A cute picture of my mom and dad who are living it up in Hawaii right now!

Outing at the Salt Lake City Cemetery

For FHE, Jeff and I went to the Salt Lake City Cemetery to find my Bradford relatives' gravestones. This was our second attempt at the task; our first outing was cut short by mountain standard time and by our tardiness (sorry Drew and Jess--the food afterward was great!)

I recall visiting the cemetery with my Carlson relatives in the late eighties before my grandpa died. I remember the place well, and explained it very simply to Jeff, "It's on a hill and there were lots of trees around." You'll notice that I was correct (observe the slight slope and the bush in the background), but we learned that this description could well be true of all 140,000 graves at the cemetery. It took a call to the cemetery office and two maps to locate the graves.

Being the resourceful person I am, I tidied up the graves with an ice scraper and had Jeff document the occassion. Since I'm not an expert on my family history (only on Jeff's family history), we took pictures of all the graves with matching surnames in the vicinity, just to be sure.

Above is the grave of my great grandparents, Rose and Hial Bradford.

After our family history jaunt, we decided to find some graves of famous people. We had no idea where to locate said graves, so we drove around and looked for all of the big markers figuring they must be someone of importance. It worked!! We saw the Hinkley family marker and the graves of David O. McKay, John Taylor, Heber J. Grant, J. Golden Kimball, and Joseph Fielding Smith to name a few. We also learned after awhile that many of the pioneer graves have a little square gold plaque that glitters in the setting sun. This further helped us in our quest.

Blurry pictures are cool

Perhaps it's due to my indie-rock background, hanging out in sweltering punk dives during my high school years, but I have a soft spot for artfully blurry photographs, which the aforementioned dives often use for décor. And, now that Mel and I have this ultra-high-definition digital camera, blurry photos are no problem at all. The key, though, is making sure that the pictures are just slightly blurry--and blurry in the right places--not a whirled mess.

Therefore, here are some of the better blurry pictures taken from my sister-in-law's wedding (and the activities pursuant thereto) on Saturday:

The neti pot in action

Here we go (this post is rated "PG" for pretty gross):




Here I am mixing up the saltwater

...and pouring the saltwater into the neti pot...

...in one nostril and out the other!

Adventures in nasal irrigation

So I fell victim to another sinus infection this past weekend; bummer. My mother gets them quite a bit, too, so I reckon that I inherited my sinuses from her. Not that that's a bad thing, of course--the woman has a lovely nose, very fine facial bones, etc. However, our sinuses are like sponges for nastiness, filling up with automotive-grade gunk at the drop of a hat: changes in temperature, changes in climate (seasonal, political, or otherwise), we look at ourselves sideways in the mirror, etc.

So I sat there, asking myself if I really wanted to go on antibiotics again. I'm always worried about antibiotics, about the bacteria getting immune to zythromycin or whatever and then I'll end up with flesh-eating bacteria crawling all over me at the age of thirty and there won't be a darn thing I can do about it. I mean, really.

So I started crawling the internet for holistic cures--you know, herbs, potions, whatever. (Did you know that honey is a natural antibiotic?) And that's when I found nasal irrigation. The University of Wisconsin's medical school did a study where they had people with really bad sinuses flush their faces out with saltwater every day, and they GOT BETTER. Seriously. Turns out that the technique actually belongs to yoga, and there's a special kind of vessel to hold the saltwater and pour it into a nostril. It's called a neti pot.

So I got one and, yes, it's sweet. It actually really helps, as long as you don't mind the sensation of warm saltwater rushing through your nasal cavities (which is, I must confess, a little weird still, but I can dig it). Weirder still is the exercise where I pour water through my nose, down the back of my throat and out of my mouth--but that's the exercise that really helps.

Here's a picture of the pot--it kinda looks like Aladdin's lamp or something. But, I'm telling ya, it works.

An old shirt, but--ah!--so much more

I made this shirt when I was dating Melanie. She had the lovely idea of going ice skating, and I decided to surprise her. (Granted, it's not the biggest surprise in the world--not a diamond ring or anything--but life's made up of the small surprises, you know? It's the small surprises that make life interesting.)

I also wore it on several other (sometimes painful) occasions, as you can tell from the improvised script. I found the shirt the other day when I was cleaning out my closet, and, while I had to part with it, I had to take a picture. There's a lot of time and other sticky-sweet sentimental stuff invested in that shirt.

Another picture where I look a little better...

More than I've ever...

...traveled in my entire life--that was this Christmas break. Good stuff, don't get me wrong--but, man, I'm beat.

First, Melanie and I went to California for Christmas with my family. It was, in a word, sublime--beautiful weather, lovely company, meaningful temple service, all supported by haute cuisine crafted by yours truly. It's always wonderful to see my family--in particular, it was great to see Courtney, my budding photographer sister. That girl's going to be the next Diane Arbus, albeit without the high risque-ness factor.

It was home for a day, and then Mel and I took flight with her family for Honduras. (Honduras. Motto: "Burning Trash Since 1811") It was really interesting to go back to Central America. I mean, Costa Rica wants to paint itself as the Switzerland of Central America, and, in some regards, it is (mainly in its political orientation), but all of Central America is largely similar. Thus, going to Honduras was a lot like going back to the mission field.

We mainly stayed on an island to the north of Honduras called Roatán. It's pretty. I guess that it's surrounded by the second-largest barrier reef in the world, which we snorkeled. Poor Melanie got stung by fire coral, which is a funky cross between a jellyfish and coral. It was really nifty seeing all the fish, though. (My first time snorkeling, it was.)

The highlight of Honduras for me--aside from the iguana farm we visited, which blew my mind--was visiting the Copán ruins. See pictures.

As you can probably tell by my torpid prose, I'm bushed. So I'll conclude.

My fine feathered friend

It's a little blurry, but my colleague Shayne brought his raptors to school yesterday, and he let me play with them. (Well, you don't really "play" with taloned animals; you kinda appease them...) Magnificent birds--one (not pictured) is a merlin, and the other (that I'm holding) is a prairie falcon named Jedi. Most all falcons, including these, were trapped in the wild, and they never really domesticate, so this guy was all over the place. At one point, he got loose and flew straight at my face, his leash stopping him a fraction of an inch from my nose. Now I know what the poor pigeon must feel like...

Twenty-nine dollars and change

Tonight Jeff and I needed some time together, so we decided to participate in a little "challenge" at the grocery store. Our mission was to spend under $30 and get the most food possible.

Why, you ask? Two working adults, no kids, no pets... where is the money going? It turns out that we're a little short on cash this month after paying the deductibe to get our stolen/found car repaired, so we're living like newly newlyweds again starting today (because last night we were so hungry/tired that we went out for Middle Eastern food and spent $50 on the meal and another $20 at the bookstore next door while waiting to be seated). As you can see, we have our priorities straight, and we've done quite well with our budget balancing act. Actually, our philosophy is that as long as we are already "putting away a little something for a rainy day" that we ought to at least enjoy some worldly indulgences before we have ten kids and no money to our names.

Anyway, we did it. The total on the cash register said twenty-nine dollars and change. It looks like it must have been inspiration to grab those five boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and the can of Pringles on the way to the check out stand.

I was about ready to end, but Jeff just reminded me what a good husband he is. At this very moment, he is doing the same thing he does every night before going to bed. He is wiping off the bathroom counter and mirror from the splashes that occur from washing his face "vigorously". Early in our marriage, I learned that Jeff can be very vigorous with certain household activities, such as washing his face, washing the dishes, shaking bottles of salad dressing and spaghetti sauce etc., so I had to come up with some keep-this-old-apartment-looking-semi-okay cleaning strategies. Thankfully, Jeff has been very good to respond to my requests.

Now, he's not the only one making changes in this marriage. I'll have you know that at Jeff's request (and after some resistance on my part), I took down the over-the-door-hanger- bracket-thingy from the back of the bathroom door whereon used to hang my warm, fluffy bathrobe for easy access after showering so that he would not get clausterphobic and get injured in our small bathroom. Though I did not get clausterphobic or injured even once, I still made the change.

But another nice thing that Jeff did for me as a surprise was to rearrange the drawers and the closet space because he realized one day that I did not have an equitable amount of storage space. He's such a good husband! :O)

On loss; or, a night in New York City

High school is a morass; a labyrinth; a star too small to supernova but too big to slowly die. It's hard--as in difficult, yes, but also like a baseball bat slammed into one's face is hard, opposition, danger. People often tell me, "You were the student body president. You WERE the high school. You had to have liked it." Moments, perhaps. On the whole, though, the time probably would've been better spent busking for change in the local Greyhound bus terminal.

I sing, then, the praises of Texas is the Reason, arguably the best band in the world, probably the best band of emo's second wave, certainly the best band anytime their CD was playing in my car during high school. They had a self-titled EP, yes, and a full-length album called "Do You Know Who You Are," a bright light in a decade of musical puke. Their music kept me going sometimes, as banal as that statement sounds. And, like most bands I really like, they broke up right before I discovered them.

Last weekend, though, Texas is the Reason reunited for two shows in New York City. They were a New York band, always said as much, and wanted to play one last show in their native city, the show they never got to play before breaking up.

My friends and I always said that, given the chance, we'd fly anywhere to see Texas play, and we meant it, promised it with the ferocity of teenagers who cared more about their music than their--what? Most anything? Case in point: I never had a girlfriend in high school ("Why make one miserable when I can make so many happy?"), but I did see Sense Field, another Texas-ish band, about...ten?...times, even jeopardizing my part in the school play once to see them at Koo's Cafe, a converted Chinese take-out joint. (Magnificent show, by the way.) No, no girlfriend for me but Ticketmaster, my high-maintainence mistress.

And we swore we'd see Texas play, anywhere, anytime. And here was the chance. And I didn't go. I didn't go.

Sure, all the tickets for Saturday were taken, and I would've needed to break the Sabbath to go on Sunday. The short-notice airfare would've driven me to sell a kidney. But, sitting here, watching Youtube-esque videos of the show that fans have posted on the internet, I can't shake the feeling that I should've gone, somehow.

Watching one video, I started getting annoyed that the guy filming was singing along. Then I realized that it was the whole crowd singing along. There's a scripture--I forget exactly where--wherein a prophet recounts his vision of heaven, saying how he saw concourses of angels singing praises, and his soul longed to be there even though he knew he had to stay on earth. Well, that's me. My health was tepid, my timing was shot, the money was dear, but I should've gone, and I'll never forget it.

It costs so much I know.
But I guess I need to know what it would have felt like to be right.
But I'm getting tired all over again so hurry up and get here because I'm still waiting...just like I've always been.