Run Run Run

Ok, so Lance Renee and I are sorta training for a marathon. We are hoping to run the Utah Valley marathon in June, if my studies do not get in the way. Anyway, that is just some background for this post so you understand why I was out running.

So we are on a running schedule that builds up our mileage every week, today I was supposed to run nine miles. The most I had run up to this point was seven, so I was already a little worried, but I looked at my route on google maps and off I went. When I was about three miles into the run, I got a little confused. I thought I had gone the wrong way so I backtracked and tried another road, that WAS the wrong way so I returned to my original path, which was the right way, this little detour added about a half mile onto my run I was guessing, but instead of trying to shorten my run I decided to stick to the same route. The reason I did this was because last week I got confused about which street to run to and ended up only running about three and a half miles instead of five, so this week I wanted to make sure I ran the whole nine miles. Anyways, I was looking for a road called Fulton, where I would turn around and then start running back. I passed the road. The sign on it said 30th avenue, I guess they are the same road. I ended up running more than half of a mile before I saw a road that I knew was too far. So I started back and finished my run, it was pretty intense, and I knew that I had run over nine miles, but when I got back I checked it online. I had run 10.7 miles. I had no idea. One good thing about this though, if there was a movie (let's call it, Speed 4: Runner's Challenge) where a bomb was strapped onto a runner and it would blow up if they stopped running, I know that I could at least keep myself alive for two hours while a solution was found, so that's a relief. If you want to see my route, look here. Send me screenplays.

Update on inner peace and animals

Just so everyone is aware, the cat thing was a fluke. Having inner peace does not mean that animals will like you. I was bit seven times by dogs on my mission in Puerto Rico, and I felt pretty peaceful (in general, not right when I was getting bit).

Peace, I'm IN!

So, just so everyone is clear, this is going to be another long, semi-philosophical post, OK.

Today I volunteered at my school for what they call "Day at Law School". This is where kids, elementary through high school, come to the school, take tours, see a mock trial and attend a class, they also get free lunch and breakfast. I helped out by talking to kids about higher education while they were eating lunch, then I took a group on a tour. I got a group of elementary school kids, and they just loved me. Some of them tried to hold my hand (these were pretty little kids, they are in an after-school (and apparently Saturday) program called The Center, and they come to just about anything Hastings does). One kid even asked if he could be my partner for the day, and they fought over who got to ride in the elevator with me, it is nice to be liked. Turns out they came to the Halloween party Hastings put on and they remembered me. I was dressed like Hulk Hogan and I read stories to all the kids, but they totally remembered me, so that was cool. Back to the reason for this post.

I was walking up the stairs (355) to my house, and I stopped to enjoy the view, which is posted above (by the way that is my old cell phone that took that picture, who knew). While I was sitting there, thinking how great my life was, no joke a cat came up to me and started rubbing around my legs, just some random cat, there aren't any real houses right there and there were no people around. While this was happening I facetiously thought to myself "wow, kids and animals love me, I must have some sort of inner peace they can sense." That is the subject of my post.

While I was pretty much just messing around about the kids and animals thing, I really feel like I have a lot of peace in my life right now. I think that peace is one amazing thing, that it is really the ideal state of being. I think that you can still be happy, sad, busy, stressed, and still have a measure of peace. How wonderful it is to be able to say, "I have no quarrel with God or man."

Now some people might not think that this is that big of a deal, but I think it is. If we really think about it, man (and woman) has a dual nature. C.S. Lewis has one of the best arguments for the existence of God that I have read, and it revolves around the idea that there is good and evil in the world, it is universal. For the purposes of this blog, I just wanted to point out that there a universal idea of bad and good, anyone who has ever felt bad about anything they ever did has to admit that. Each of us has things that we want to do and don't succeed, or things that we know we shouldn't do and still do them. There is a real conflict in the world, good, bad, love hate, life, death, an opposite for each one, and we are torn between these opposites constantly. Anyone that has read the Castle in the Attic can appreciate the two sides on the coin of Janis, one to heal and one to hurt.

Lately (really I mean in the last couple of months) I have been feeling pretty good, even with all of the stress of law school and with how busy I have been. I think looking out to the ocean I realized how good it is to not really be worried about things, I really felt at peace. I don't always feel that way, but I think that we can if we live according to some pretty simple ideals. Try to do everything the best you know how, and if you are not sure, do what you think is best after you have thought it through. If we decide carefully before we act, it will not tear us up later, because we really tried to do what we thought was right. We probably won't always be right, but if we always try to be, there is no better that we can do. I hope you guys understood what I was saying, and if there is anything bothering you in your life, fix it. Whatever it takes, the peace you feel when there is nothing on your conscious is worth it.

Road trippin and music.

Well, I just got back from a little long-weekend getaway at the Williamses in L.A. It was a stellar time, I actually feel really great and am almost excited for school tomorrow, so it was just what the doctor ordered. Kim and Byron were surprised that I did not want to do much, but I really just wanted to spend some time with them and little Harrison, and I did and it was fantastic. They even let me talk them into doing a little babysitting, so I could play with Harrison without those two hogging him, just kidding, but seriously. So it was a great trip.

I also wanted to say a little bit about the road trip. It was actually really fun to chill in the car and just listen to music for a few hours. I knew the trip down would be fun, because I was excited to visit, but the trip back was good as well. I forgot how much I like the roadtrip part of vacationing. I remember back in the day, everyone had their walkmans in, mom was passing back treats and dad was like an iron driver, just going for hours on end, Lance and I have even talked about dad's ability to drive those long trips, maybe it has something to do with his military training, I guess we will never know. Anywho, somewhere along the line, even with the occasional puking and threatened spankings, those family road trips have instilled in me a love for the open road. It also doesn't hurt that the Regency is a real open-road car, such smooth sailing! Needless to say, I love just driving and enjoying my music.

I think that is one of the reasons that Puls and I got along and enjoyed our roadtrips together so much, we had a similar love for music, for the most part. Now, segue-waying into music. I really like it, I feel like my family really likes it, and that there is some music that speaks to me.

I now have a bone to pick, however. With the current rash of "25 things" fad on facebook, I am sick sick sick of people talking about what music means to them. Don't get me wrong, music can be very powerful, and it affects a lot of people, but that is my point. I think that people who love music, that feel like they have a special connection to music are the rule, not the exception. So let's just celebrate that we ALL love music, OK? I don't really know why that bothers me. I think it has something to do with the idea that I have been thinking about, that we are all much more similar than we realize. My real idea is that just about anyone can be friends with anyone else if they will both just give it a chance. We all have a lot in common. There you go, you thought I was hating, but I really just want everyone to be friends. Maybe that is just because it seems like everyone on the subway wants to be my friend? Oh the stories I could tell. I guess I am just very approachable . . .

Apparently Leaperville = AwesomeTowne

I recently received something from my sister, Nicole Leaper, the other day via the United States Postal Service. Now, I always knew that the Leapers were a cool crowd; two artists, one zany daughter and assorted animals living in Portland OR is a novel waiting to happen, but I had underestimated them a little. A lot of people have return address stickers, but no one has them like this:Needless to say, I hope to get a lot more mail from the Leapers in the future.

The Dominant Fury

Now, some of you may or may not know that Puls and I at one time started a bowling league team, which we affectionately called the Dominant Fury. This is a blog about that team, more or less. I saw this picture and knew that I could not keep it to myself, the world had to know. While I had to move away, the Dominant Fury is still in full swing. Puls is still a member (at the time this picture was taken he was in Washington for most of the semester), and the other members are Lance, Renee and Renee's roommate Blair. Throughout our history we were usually more Fury than Dominant, but not on the night this picture was taken, and that is the story that I will tell you now.

During this semester (winter '08) we had a topsy turvy schedule and had to miss a few games, I was graduating, and life was stressful. Because of those misses as well as our general lack of competitive play we missed the tournament. Just for the record there was an upper and lower bracket, we missed the lower bracket, one of only two teams barred. As luck would have it a team forfeited, and we were the last team in, the lowest seed in our bracket. We beat the first team we played without too much of a struggle (they actually said something like "how are you guys the lowest seed with those handicaps", which was awesome). They would have felt even worse later on, because we were just hitting our stride. The next game I think was a little tougher, the other team was good, we may have lost one of the three games, but we were better. We moved into the final game, the lower bracket championship. The first two games we won pretty handily, but that was just the beginning. With Lance bowling an even 200 and Tyler a 180, with Renee and myself hitting our shots we decimated the other team, beating them by 206 pins. It was a blowout, the other team actually commented on how soundly we had whipped them (to borrow a phrase from The Great Brain). This photo was taken that night, we took a lot of photos, we were pretty giddy. We went from funny to money in just three weeks. That my friends, is the story of the Dominant Fury. I think our cheer that night summed up our season "UP YOUR AVERAGE!!!!!"

Ten Hut Hair Cut

I cut my hair, I don't remember the last time it was cut, but I think it must have been October or November. This picture doesn't really do it justice, I did it myself, thanks for the scissors lessons mom, they paid off, big time. For those of you who don't remember, I must have cut off like two inches or more on the top, it was starting to curl around my eye.

Weekend with the Blodgies

I spent the last weekend with the Blodgetts over in Walnut Creek, they are nice enough to let me come visit and take a break from the stresses of school and city life. It was a nice relaxing weekend. I only meant to stay till Saturday, but here it is Sunday and I still haven't gone home. It was fun to hang out and see everybody, Danae and Dave brought their kids over and Brett's fiance was here so it was a party. I also just wanted everybody in cold climates to know that it is sunny and sixty degrees here in California.Hope everyone in Utah is having as much fun picking oranges in their backyard as we are!!!
This is the car before I washed it. Those of you remember the Celica might remember that it only got washed three times in three years, and I actually only washed it myself once. I decided that to show Grandma the gratitude I have for the car I would treat this one a little better.
Here is the finished product. It wasn't actually that gleaming, my camera adds in the stars, but it was pretty close.