When I was 32, it was a very good year....

I turn 33 today. That means my 33rd year on this earth is over. Things that happened this year:

-I began my exploratative process into becoming a teacher.

-I began writing a novel.

-I found a new Sunday School class, and made some new friends.

-I continued my decline of how many movies I'm able to see in a given year.

-I got a camera.

-I decided a want to get a CB radio.

-I went to Las Vegas by myself.

-I went to Minnesota.

-I began immunotherapy.

-I started working with children at church through the LifeCare ministries.

-I coached children's soccer.

.....finally, and most importantly by far.......

-I met the love of my life and asked her to marry me.

32 was a good year.

Another case of the Reflections

I've got another case of reflectiveness again. It's my blog, I don't think anyone reads it, so I guess I can indulge. I'm here at work and I should be busy. But I'm taking just a few minutes to write because if I don't the moment will escape me. This happens to me about once every month or so. Just depends on the time of year, I guess. This is one of them.

It's easy to reflect on the past when the present and future are pretty good. It started over the weekend sitting out at the pool. Sitting by the swimming pool is for me a stark reminder that it's summer. Not a profound thing, but it is what it is (2007 called, Jay. It wants its cliche back).

I tend to be consumed by time. Not in a sense where I watch the clock, but moreso that years are like names and dots on a road map. I like to classify years. Each year is unique, and points to the lamentation that there is a time for everything. 1996 and 1993 were both good years, but they were unique. 1996 was more profound; more meaningful. So was 1997. 1998, 1995, and 2001 were hard dark years. But 1998 is an abyss, while 2001 is brick to the spine. 2002 was its own abyss, but was a lesson learned.

2007 was the most unique year of all, possibly. It started painful, but with that pain I began a hard journey. I won't say I found myself; when does one? But in 2007, I began to "befriend" myself. I realized how weak I was, but how much stronger I could be. This time last year, I was ill a bunch due to an allergy burst and I was still kind of reeling from a breakup (one I shouldn't have taken as hard as I did). I was also getting ready to move. The last week of June of 2007 I was preparing to move away into a place that wasn't any better than where I had left, but was a change of scenery. I was so happy to be moving. I was also looking forward to a trip alone to Las Vegas. The trip ended up being an event unto itself, with its own exposures and reflections.

I guess what makes me think of all of this is I recently put in a library request for Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring score. This time last year, I was listening to it in my car for a couple of weeks straight. I lost it on my iPod, so I'm going to attempt to re-download it. I just think back to last year how happy I was just for something different. I was so excited for a change in my life. It's just another thing I give thanks for in the middle of a difficult time.

I've written before about my favorite scene in any movie ever. It's the scene in Cast Away when Tom Hanks's character has finally broken the reef to escape the island that has both held him captive and kept him alive. When it finally dawns on him that he is done with that time in his life, he pauses to just look at the island. He doesn't say anything. There is only a beautiful piece of score in an otherwise mostly musicless film. He turns Wilson around, and they just quietly watch the island get smaller and smaller in the distance. I suppose there are a few ways to interpret that scene. But my interpretation has been that Chuck Noland is saluting that island. After all the frustration and contempt for the island, he realizes what it did for him.

We salute our tough times after the escape. We hated it while we were there, but it not only kept us alive. It gave us a story, and made us stronger and a better person.

I confess!

I like John Mayer.

Coffee

I've been sick for almost a week. Over the weekend I had a bad reaction to the combination of Prednisone, Ciprofloxicin (sp?), TheraFlu, NyQuil, and Walgreen's expectorant. I took all of that to help me sleep because I don't sleep well when I am sick. Bad move. So now I'm just down to the Prednisone and Cipro.

Also what I've done is to get off coffee to keep me hydrated. I'm now on my 6th day without coffee, and it's been a while since I've felt so rested.

More radio tower business

On my trip to Minnesota last weekend, I came across a few more radio towers that I hope to at some point get pictures of:

-east of I-35, around the Braman exit

-a couple of miles east of I-35, near the Wellington, KS exit

-west of El Dorado, KS, about 2 miles or so north of I-35

-Highway 4 in Kansas, near Meriden, KS

Megan

In case you haven't seen her, this is my Megan. Isn't she beautiful?

(I know I am sappy).

Indulging my obsession

I have an obsession with radio towers. These photos are rather amateurish, but I'm not really concerned my photos being fine art. All but one of these towers are photos of a tower that were several miles north of my old campgrounds in Anadarko. While walking up (or down) the hill to the boys' dorms, I could always spot it off in the distance. I enjoyed camp to some degree, but I was also usually pretty homesick. I've always wondered where this particular tower was. During the day it was just a faint line in the distance. At night, it was a flashing light in the distance.

I've decided to collect pictures of them, as some of them I believe are being razed. I know of 2 in particular that have been razed in the last decade or so. The earliest one I can remember is one that was just north of Wilshire north of Yukon. It is no longer standing. There was also one on the west side of Highway 81 in Grady County in between Minco and Pocassett that is no longer standing. I'm very sorry I missed them, but it's motivated me to take pics of them. Another problem is that while the towers remain, some of the booster drums are being taken off the towers. The booster drums added a great deal to the towers because it gave them an odd shape.

I know of one in eastern Colorado along Highway 287 that looked like a giant wearing Mickey Mouse ears.

On Monday (Memorial Day) I took a drive out to Caddo County to find this tower. On the way down, I saw off in the distance another tower. Unfortunately, the drums had been taken off this tower. I saw another tower in New Mexico on my way out to Las Vegas a couple of summers ago that had its drums taken off. On my way back from Anadarko/Gracemont, I drove east of Hinton along Highway 37 to find this tower. That first picture you see is that particular tower east of Hinton near Methodist Road in western Canadian County. I wasn't able to get close to this tower, thus the reason for the tower being so far in the distance. This was on my way back, but I had to turn around and head back to Hinton as it seemed like I was getting further and further away from where I needed to be. I thought 37 would take me at least to Union City, but the road kept winding southeast instead of due east.

I had some amount of trouble finding my Anadarko/Gracemont Tower (I know its FCC registration number, but I'm just going to leave it out of my blog and just refer to it by the towns it is near). As I drove in on Hwy 281, I saw it off in the distance and pulled over to the side of the road to see if I could get a good "deep distance" shot. The far left photo on the second row is that shot. I continued south, looking for a secondary road to pull off and head west. I had trouble finding a good secondary road that would intersect where the tower was because trees and brushes would block my vision to the tower. I finally found it on a road that was "Closed in 3 miles." I pulled off and took pictures of this tower.

I hope to take more pics of radio towers in the future. I am hoping to take a picture of the Holy Grail of radio towers, the elusive station that lies northeast of Pueblo, Colorado some distance east of Interstate 25. I call this tower the "Begging Dog" tower, and I hope that one day I figure out if the Begging Dog tower is the same tower as the "Boxing Elvis" tower I saw near Pueblo with my family several years ago.

You gotta love Band of Horses

Who'd have thought that a very pretty song would be named after this guy?

Wrong frame of mind

Friday was one of the worst days I've ever had on this job. 2 of the "worst days ever" have come within the last 5 or 6 months, which may not be a ringing endorsement for my occupational sanity. I seem to be working harder these days, but I feel more overwhelmed also. Part of that overwhelming feeling is the feeling of being bullied by my boss. If you met this person, you'd never guess anyone would describe them as "bullying." It's easy to fool people when you're passive-aggressive. In the last 5 years, in the midst of the "figuring out who you are and what you want and need" stage of my life, I've discovered a character trait that I find reprehensible is passive-aggressiveness. I hate it. I spew it out of my mouth, as the case may be.

So Friday afternoon, after being befuddled and flustered beyond reason and control by my boss's bizarre passive-aggressive management techniques, I went to the library to check out some music. On these kinds of days, when I feel intensely trapped by a situation or problem, there isn't much that can console me. It'd probably be easier to outrun a cheetah with the munchies while wearing swimming flippers than to get me to smile on days like this. Needless to say, I was in the wrong frame of mind.

I'd been wanting to hear Writer's Block from Peter Bjorn & John for a while, and was suprised to find it at the library. I didn't hesitate to check it out. As I popped it into my CD player, I was underwhelmed. "Eh, more typical Swedish indie,"I thought to myself. But over the next 12 hours or so, the music began to get into my blood. It was good medicine.

I gauge a music's quality subjectively in as to see how the music would play on the open road in the middle of nowhere surrounded by radio towers, signs for towns I'd never heard of before, and desolation. This one measures up just fine. The first couple of tracks I could take or leave, and the latter tracks cause the album to flame out. But from tracks 3 to about 10, you couldn't ask for much more.

What's up?

I'm not getting this new blog off to a good start. I haven't had a whole lot to write about. This coming weekend is Megan's birthday. So I'll be spending much of the day with her tomorrow and tomorrow evening. She's had a tough week so I'm hoping she has a very good birthday "weekend." She's getting a massage and getting her hair done so I hope she has a great day getting pampered. Plus, I have another small surprise for her that I hope she enjoys (get your mind out of the gutter).

-As for me, the last month and a half has been stressful. Perhaps, "full" is the better term. I already wrote about my tests. Now I am on the tentative list to get on the Teacher Assessment Panel. The reason I'm on the tentative list is because I don't have my fingerprints done yet. I got through my job evaluation. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as I anticipated, but my job situation hasn't changed. It's still frustrating, unfulfilling, and stressful.

-I've been coaching soccer at the church's Upward program the last month. The actual coaching and officiating is a ton of fun. What I don't enjoy is all the other things that go along with it, like having to make sure all the kids have equal playing time, making sure the parents bring their snacks and drinks for the kids, and things like that. It's not all bad. I actually enjoy making up the lineup each week. There are 2 halves, and 3 substitation periods in a half. I have 11 kids on my team so because there is an unequal amount of players, there is an unequal amount of playing time. It works out ok. The one thing I was concerned with going into this is angry/upset parents. This is an Upward program, which means that we don't keep score (although, honestly, I keep score to myself). I never let the kids know what the score is. I do worry about the parents knowing their kid's team is losing, and being unhappy about it. I worry about being the coach who "doesn't know what he's doing." But I love coaching. I have a blast during the games as if I was playing myself. It gets a little chaotic during substitution times. I wish we were playing more games though, and I also wish we had a midweek practice time. I've talked a little with Megan about possibly coaching little league soccer for some club team in Edmond or Yukon or thereabouts this fall or next spring. The only thing I ask myself is if I'm ready for angry parents and the scrutiny that comes along with it. Maybe I can get some more head coaching experience before I do that. Or I could simply be an assistant for a team, which would be good.

-My Morning Jacket is going to be the musical guest on Saturday Night Live tomorrow. I probably won't be around to see it tomorrow night. Besides, I'm not sure I can sit through all the lame political humor in order to hear them.

History

As some of you know, I have begun a pursuit of a career in teaching history. I'm somewhere in between gung ho and uncertain about it. As a matter of fact, I took two tests this past Saturday in order to get certified to teach history in the state of Oklahoma. I have to admit that both tests were very tough.

The first test was over US History, Oklahoma History, Economics, and Government. The test may as well have been called Politics and Law. I would say at least 80% of the test was about law or politics or economics. I have absolutely no interest in any of that sort of thing. My interests lie more with the latter test, World History/Geography. My mistake was taking both tests in one day. There was simply too much material to cover. I should have just taken the World History & Geography test.

I'm very interested in the ancient world. I respect those who love American History and get into the Civil War, but I simply don't have a lot of interest in that. The older I get, the more interested in the world I become. Don't get me wrong; I have no interest in listening to NPR. It bores me. But what I am interested in the ancient world and how things were on this planet a thousand years ago. I alluded in the previous blog post about how when I was ten I wanted to be an explorer. My favorite sub-subject in school was learning about the Spanish and Portuguese explorers that discovered the Americas and the various islands in the Pacific. Discovery and exploration cut deeper into my heart the older I get. In everything, from wanting to see the Vatican to wanting to buy a CB radio, exploration has become an obsession with me. I don't always articulate it because I don't know how.

The problem with all of this is learning is funner than teaching. And where do I begin? I could write here about how humbled I am about how people are the same inside all of their differences, or how reading about the ancient world makes me feel like I'm alone on a beach looking at the ocean. It makes me realize how small I am.

Honestly, I don't have many major occupational dreams. Most of my dreams have very little to do with what I want to do, and more to do with the person I want to become. But I hope one day I can teach things nobody has thought about. I hope I can learn something I can tell other people about. I hope one day I can in one semester teach a class on both astronomy and the 15th Century Explorers. I hope I can one day have an office on a campus with a little statue of Amerigo Vespucci or Marco Polo next to a telescope that points out my office window. I also dream of teaching putting aside all assumptions we've developed in the western church, and think about what we believe within the scope of world history.

Coronado's Footprints

I've decided to start a new blog, with pretentious title and all. It was time to put the old blog to rest. It will be similar to the old blog, and I hope to update this one more frequently than I did O2TS (you like that?...O2TS, yeah...)

The title is representative of where I am in life right now. I'm not going to apologize for its pretentiousness. Hopefully, the content of this new blog will not be as pretentious as its title. In the last couple of years, I've tapped into a new passion. I doubt that it is new so much as it is rediscovered. It reflects my love for the Southwest, and my hope to become a history teacher. It also reflects my love for exploration. When I was young I wanted to be an explorer. I'll talk more about that hopefully in my next blog post.

As I said, this blog will be similar to the old blog. The difference is hopefully I will keep you all more updated on my life, and it will contain more personal pictures. I may put in some writing on here as I did at one time on the old blog. I hope this blog reflects where I am in my life, both spiritually and intellectually. I know I attempted at one point to start a new blog, but it never got off the ground. This one is for real. It's time to put on some new clothes.

While I hope I have readers, and readers who enjoy this at that, this is for me as much as it is for you.