When Life Hands You Lemons... Crash The Dirt Bike.

Two weeks ago I went dirt biking out at Five Mile near Tooele. It was quite the experience. Of note was the long ride that Danny and I took early in the morning, which involved riding up into some hills on some crazy hill climbs.

Later in the day I felt especially confident so I tried my skills at a step-up. For anyone who doesn't know what that is, it is exactly as it sounds. It involves a step, which in this case was only two feet off of the ground, with a small kicker a meter in front of the step, off which one would ride and clear the step. The danger lies in not clearing it, as you could imagine... I cleared it, and my bike cleared it, but those two objects weren't necessarily conjoined... I banged myself up pretty bad, but worse off was my bike, which had this huge dent in it's exhaust.

If you thought that that was enough, later on I was jumping off this big hill climb. It was beautiful. With no effort you'd cruise up the 20ft hill in 3rd gear and it would just glide you over the rise at the top of the hill, where you'd land softly on the down slope. Not very dangerous, and I had done it at least a dozen times before deciding on trying it that "one more time" before heading back to the truck. I gave it a bit more juice this time, and soared beautifully, but at a bad angle. I landed on the side of a slope to the left of me, and before I realized what happened, I was in pain and sprawled out (and pinned under the bike).

The terrible news was that I bent my handle bars. I felt awful about it for weeks.

Why am I telling you this now after two weeks? Well yesterday was a particularly stressful day, so I took the bike up into the hills above alpine. While going along a very simple trail, the bike spun out on some loose sand and I crashed... again. Although it hurt again, I had some glorious fortune- it bent the handle bars back. Now, how wonderful is that? I guess I could relate this to some life lesson about the silver lining in the storm, but I don't really want to. All I care about is that my bike is okay. Which should be obvious, as I am typing this at 2 am a whole day and a half later!

Moo!..

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Life, It Rents Us...

I've been listening to Modest Mouse nearly non-stop for over 7 years (the mish being the one break), which isn't a bad thing of course, but I've decided I need a new challenge... Thus I've challenged myself not to listen to any MM for the next month of July, in which time I'll hopefully learn of new bands. It is unlikely that I'll find anything better, but at least I'll be able to say I tried. If you have any suggestions, let me know... So far I'm diggin Interpol's "evil" and Pinback's "Bbtone".

Bow down... There's a pastor in the room...

Recently someone got married in my extended family. I'm not too aware on the detail of said marriage, and when I say extended, I mean really extended. What was so significant about the event was that the individual who performed the ordinance happened to be a sibling of either the bride or groom, and he had only recently joined an internet church and became a pastor in order to perform the ceremony. I think that's clever. If you are going to do it in that type of setting, and you want to have the ceremony performed by someone significant to you, then sure, have your brother do it.
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My mom told me about this, and as my sister is getting married soon also, she suggested that I do the same, and conduct the wedding myself. Of course she was kidding... I remeber two BYU students who, perplexed by the strict religious rules on how to organize an event in Provo, decided to join an internet church as pastors in order to make their party a religiously-promoted activity. They were both expelled by the honor code. So I guess joining another church is bad, even if you aren't taking it seriously.
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But, I'm not taking it serious, I'm just curious. I'm searching through the internet right now just to know what it takes to be an "cyber" pastor. So far it's been rather interesting. The first church I found was the "Internet Church of Christ", with a less than appealing web site featuring midi music (something that I haven't heard in years). The next is Cyber-Church.com, which respectfully considers itself as merely "your church away from home", but it's google description is, "One of the first online ministries dating to the early days of the Internet." I nearly keeled over laughing. So many non-cyber christian sects argue over who was organized first, as that is the pure determinant of truth. For example, on my mission I ran into some Coptic Christians in Vienna, who claimed that their right to absolute truth lay in the fact that they were organized by the apostle Mark, long before Peter started up* the Roman Catholic church. But then the Greek Orthodox church argues that John started their church also before Peter as well, so I really don't know what to believe. Basically, the older you are, the more right you are, i suppose. I guess this type of reasoning has spilled over to the cyber world as well. I guess they must be the "only true internet church".
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*=questionable
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But I will say this... I think it is good that there are such organizations, no matter how many. Eventhough I strongly believe tha longevity shouldn't be a determinant of truth, they still promote a faith in Christ which is very important.
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But here are some other churches, that you should consider when making that big "which online church shall I join?" decision:
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"The First Online Church of Bob" (as if there is a second?) Google description: An online ministry dedicated to Slack and the liberation of your mind from the control of the Conspiracy.
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"St. Pixels" (oh good, Father Pixels made it as a saint!) G.D.: Welcome to St Pixels, the online church in 3D where you can meet others, talk about serious and not-so-serious stuff, discuss what you do and don't believe, ...
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"Duke Street Church Online" G.D.: Richmond. Service details and weekly activities for all ages, including homelessness and international student ministries, a church football team, ... (they must have miss-typed that one)
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"Universal Ministries" G.D.: Become ordained online for free. You can now perform weddings.
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BINGO!

Finally, I'm an adult... I have my own Costco card.

Solely out of a sense of obligation, I ought to recap the last final days of my great European adventure. And here it is. I spent the rest of the time in Vienna, seeing sights, and then I went hiking in Kitzbühel, Austria. The night before I flew home I found myself in Munich, where I took some fun night shots of the town and watched the Champions League Final. I hate AC Milan, by the way. Fitingly, the last place I found myself before coming home was Odeon's Platz in Munich, which happens to be my favorite part of Munich, which city happens to be my favorite in Europe, and which also happens to be full of lots of sentiment, as it was the locaton of my first street-preach, nearly five years previously. Yes, it made a nice bookend for my whole trip.
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But, I'm home now and ready to get on with the rest of my life. In other words, I got my own Costco card and I'm finally an adult. Life isn't quite the busy and stressful time that I expected it to be-- I'm living at home and I spend much of my time with some of my best friends... the Anchors of ESPN's Sportscenter. I have packets to do, but they're not too strenuous, and I've been looking for a job, but I'm incredibly picky about what job I want, and I haven't been successful in finding one. Sad... Utah has an unemployment rate of 3-4%, and I can't find what I want. Economists usually attribute that percentage group as the people in between jobs anyway, so I must be the only non-employed indiviual with absolutely no job prospects in the State of Utah. Okay, that's a exaggeration, but it's still sad.

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But don't you think for one moment that I haven't kept myself busy. I'm sometimes the best at finding something useless to keep myself efficient. Wait, "efficient" is another exaggeration. We'll just stick with "busy". It's called Google Earth, and for all of you geeks/stalkers who use this often, you'll really like this.

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During my trip I took over 2100 photos. Of those, I picked my favorite 333, then added in all of my other favorite photos of either myself or of things I've taken. It came to a total of over 500 pics. Then, using the Google Earth software and the Panoramio web site, I created an "overlay" that shows all the actual photos at the places where they were taken. So, here's how it works. Do it if you have no time on your hands, and if you have an unusual interest in my vacation. But I assure everyone that it wouldn't be a complete waste of your time.

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Download Google Earth if you haven't already. Once you've got it running and you've aquainted yourself with the controls enough, download the overlay. Downloading is quick, it sometimes takes a while for the pictures to load, though. But no matter. Once you have the overlay down and enabled (it usualy is enabled automatically), you'll then be able to see a small thumbnail over the spots where the photo was taken.

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For example. Once you have the program and the overlay running, type in "Piazza San Pietro Vatican", and this is what you'll see:
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See the thumbnails, if you click on them then you'll get a larger, full resolution photo. I thought this would be an easier way to show all of my pictures to those who requested it, but as it turns out, this was incredibly time consuming as I had to type in the exact coordinates of each photo i the system. But if I'm the only one who gets any value out of it, so be it...

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Just a reminder, the thumbnails sometimes take a few seconds to load up. Oh, and as a suggestion on where to look, check out Munich, Nice, Peillon (France), Milan, Venice, Ljubljana, Split, Dubrovnik, Florence, Rome, Bad Gastein, Zell am See (Austria), Vienna, Kitzbuehel (Austria). Anywhere else you look will be of photos from other trips to Europe, photos taken at home, and my mission. Knock yourself out... It is simply fantastic. I promise.

I like it "Prickelnd"...

Vienna is warm and humid, and it is getting worse. But boy do I love this littl' town.
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But I'm getting ahead of myself... We need to first look back to Saturday and my bike ride. You have to hear about this:
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By my estimate, due to the recent rain all through the week, the snow line was probably at about 1900 meters. I searched all different trail maps until I found the perfect trail. It was called "Breiter Kopf", that being the name of the peak I would ride my bike up to. It is found in upper Salzburger land, as the end of a chaian of mountains that overlook Zeller See and seperates Pungau from the Zell am See/Saarfelden area. Breiter Kopf is 1851 meters, I think, which would mean that there would be no snow. Good for hiking or biking.
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After deciding on Breiter Kopf, I woke up early on Saturday and took the early train to Zell am See. I quickly rented a bike at the local Intersport and jumped back on the train to Gries. It was from here that I began one of the most grueling yet rewarding bike rides I've ever taken (which isn't very significant seeing how my list of grueling bike rides is very short). I started out (at ~700 meters) up a canyon road below Breiter Kopf. This road then began a number of switchbacks up the mountain until it would reach the top. I quickly realized that I wasn't the type to be able to make it the whole distance, so admitedly, much of the first 800 meter ascent involved me pushing, rather than biking. But no matter, I just call it hiking.
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At 1531 meters I took a quick break at the hütte (family-run inn, they are all over the alps) for a small lunch. This may sound a little gross, but it is a German favorite... two franks, a thin slice of bread, and some spicy mustard. Mmmm. I could already tell at this point that It was to be a fantastic bike ride, as the view was indescribable, and I wasn't even at the top yet.
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At this point, it got real rough. The map said the train kept going up the mountain, a gain of 300 meters in elevation over a ca. 500 meter distance. It also said that this was a bike trail... That was a lie. The trail nearly disappeared, and all it was was a barely noticable path of matted-down grass goining up the hill side. Much to steep and rocky to ride a bike, and I was so upset and disappointed that I had come so far and not make it to the top, that I decided to lift the bike over my head and carry it the last strech. I know. Pretty manly, huh? I'm so hard-core. Everyone should know. I'm one freakin' hard "a".
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Bugs kept biting my ankles, and I thought I was going to cry. Fortunately, the bike they gave me was pretty light; had it been one of the Miller bicycles, I wouldn't have even tried. I got to the top at about 12:10, and sure enough, the view was beautiful. Seeing how early it was, and that I didn't have to have the bike back until 5, I decided to take the bike further- up to Hundstein (2100 meters) and down the other side into Saarfelden.
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Well, a long story short, I got to the base of Hundstein, but there I met a big biking group who said that the snow was getting too deep to make it up to the top on bikes. So, I had to turn around and take it back down into Zell am See to return it, but not before I got some beautiful pictures taken.
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I got down the mountain in about an hour, if even that. It involved going through your ideal Austrian countryside, with cows, chalets, and all. I reached Zell am See, rode around the lake to the Intersport, dropped off my bike and headed home. Overall, the trip was a success, and it was a relief to actually get high up into the mountains, after such a rainy week.
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Sunday was the day for train rides and seeing old mission areas. I decided to go to church in Klagenfurt, as it was relatively closer to Bad Gastein than the other two areas I served in (Leoben, Vienna). I arrived in Klagenfurt about 2 1/2 hours before meetings started, so I took a walk around town before anyone was really out on the streets. The city is a lot different during the spring/summer than what I experienced (fall/winter). But nevertheless, it is still small enough to fully experience within a half an hour, so I spent a lot of time just reading down by the canal that leads to Wörthersee.
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Church began, and I intentionally didn't introduce myself to anyone in the ward as a former missionary of that ward, because I knew full well that no one would ever remember me. I spoke with the previous bishop, the current bishop, and a number of other people who I knew, and it was strange that I actually knew them, but they had no clue who I was. In any case, I still loved that ward, and I especially enjoyed the meetings on Sunday. During sacrament meeting one of the missionaries leaned over to me and asked me how my German was coming along, 3 years after serving. I told him, and this is the truth, that the funny thing is is that I understood Kärntnerisch (the local dialect of Klagenfurt) better than as a returned missionary 3 years later, than as an actual missionary. I can't speak as well as I did then, but strangely enough this is the case, as well as with hearing and understanding correct, high German. I can't explain it either, considering that I haven't worked that hard on my language skills since then, but they seem to be improving. But maybe it just happened to be extra easy by chance last sunday. I can't explain it.
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Here is a little side note: right now I'm in this internet cafe in Vienna right now, and both the amount of cigarette smokers and lack of air conditioning is making this blog entry quite a painful experience to endure. Oh, and I'm really tired, as if you couldn't tell. But I'm still gonna get this done. I've decided that smoking sucks. get it?
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nevermind.
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So, I get to Vienna. The city of my dreams, or at least that is what Jose Carreras says. My hostel is a nice place close to West bahnhof (west train station, for all you non-aryan types). I can't remember what I did last night. I don't think I did anything special. Today I got up early and began a day of visiting both must-see-but-never-did-as-missionary sights and did-as-missionary-but-want-to-do-again-out-of-sentimental-reasons sights. My first stop was one of the prior types- Schloss Schönbrunn. It is a palace, and according to Rick Steves, who I think I'll never respect again, Schönbrunn competes with Versailles in France as the best palace in Europe. I can't compare the two, because I've never been to Versailles, but Schönbrunn was nice. I guess if your are the big palace type, then you'd love it, but you are probably the fanny pack type, so I say, "enjoy the palace, you tourist". Schönbrunn is pretty, but how can you enjoy places like that when you know that it is so superficial and maintained for tourists only? yeah, exactly.
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Anyway, I checked it off of my list of things I have to see while in Vienna, and then went down the Wienzeile down to Naschmarkt. This was really cool. Naschmarkt is an open-air market area, where you can get anything from exotic spices to fake armani sunglasses. What is also unique is the whole area it is located in. The Wienzeilen are one of my favorite places in Vienna. The buildings all along these streets, and thus along the Naschmarkt, are of the Viennese Baroque type, and some of them are even rather famous and beautiful. Of one note is the Majolikahaus, which is one of Vienna's best examples of modern architecture. I've never been much of a fan of modern architecture, only because I find it too impractical. But the Majolikahaus, and in general the work done by Otto Wagner, is to my taste and I enjoy it thoroghly.
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Rick Steves did make one suggestion though, and that was to visit the Cafe Sperl, which is close to Naschmarkt and the Wienzeilen. The cafe was built in 1880, and it has maintained the same image as it had then. So the cafe has a really nice old-fashioned look, and it was a great place to get some of that world class Apfel Strudel. Very tasty. No liquor this time.
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I had to head back to the hostel to get another memory card. Thus far I've taken over 1900 pictures on this trip to Europe. Can you believe that? My roommate is from Denmark, and he seems like a pretty cool guy. He recently worked for 5 months as a bartender at a ski resort in Voralberg, Austria, and he is now just traveling around Europe. He was at the hostel when I came back from Naschmarkt. I guess he is really bored so he wanted to hang out with me. Too bad I'm way too introverted to hang out with a stranger. It is not that I'm shy, I just don't like the effort involved in forcing conversations and a good time with someone I don't know while traveling. If it is someone I already know and enjoy being with, then I'd rather travel with them. But with strangers you meet along the way is a bad idea. Take Michael in Croatia, for example. I told the Dane that I had plans to meet a friend that night, which was true, as I was planning on visitng Dragan, my old croatian investigator. So I left the Dane hanging. I felt bad, but I just didn't want to get into that whole, "so what do you want to do" conversation. I hope you understand what I mean.
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I knew he wouldn't have wanted to go to the Military history musem, and that is where I went next. This is an interesting exhibit, but the big attraction is the car that Archduke Prince Ferdinand was assasinated. A real treat was the uniform that he was wearing as well. You could see the tears and blood stains in his uniform. Fascinating.
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I then went to Herb's. It is the best Schnitzel place in Vienna. With Wiener Schnitzel at €5,20, it doesn't get much better than that. It is also one of those sentimental sights that I chose to visit. It was fantastic.
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I then tried to visit Dragan, but to no avail. He wasn't home, but I was still able to perceive that he still lives at the same place as he did 4 years ago. That is a good sign. I'll try to find to missionaries tomorrow to give them his address, or just leave the info with the mission office in Munich. He should be baptized if he isn't already.
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Okay, I can't type anymore. It is too much in this room and I'm really tired. GOOD NIGHT!

Let's Lighten It Up a Bit... Said the Sun Over Austria

I finally got my train out of Selzthal. Things started to brighten up. I traveled on a strech of rail line running through northern Styria to Bischofshofen. While looking out of the window, it occured to me that the last time I was on this same line was 3 years and 13 days previously, as I traveled from Leoben to Munich on May 4th, 2004. I happened to be so sentimental due to the fact that it was my last train ride of my mission... A fact that remained unrealized by me until I was sitting at President Wirthlin's dinner table in Munich and his saying, "It looks like this is your last meal", and my awareness of an ending mission suddenly hit me like a bag of bricks. Up to that point I was trunky, but you don't really ever think it'll actually happen. I didn't eat dinner. I felt sick. It was that stark of an self-awakening!
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I remember that last train ride vividly, it cost me the rest of my M.S.F. (74 euro) I had a package of Keks and was reading the first "schwarz" purchase of my mission: Shiller's "Wilhelm Tell". It was a jump start on the returned missionary life. Funny enough it was rainy on that trip too, but as said, yesterday when leaving Selzthal, it cleared up, and I saw the Nieder Tauern mountains for my first time. Amazing. Every where you look you see only three colors: Green fields, trees and hills, White snow-capped peaks, and blue skies. I guess you could say that the clouds lifted and I remembered why it was I came to Austria in the first place. Simply spectac.
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I got home, wrote on the blog (see previous entry), ordered my usual at the local doener place (the turks now know me well, thank you kebap shop). Did some reading, went to bed.
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Let's see... if I'm following this correctly, that was Wednesday, and today is Friday. Check me on that, I could be wrong.
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Thursday, I did laundry and went on a hike. The rain had returned, and I got soaked, again. The hike was close to Bad Gastein, and probably would have been an adventure, had the clouds lifted. But, it was fun anyways. Bad Gastiein is located at the top of the Gasteiner Tal, or Gasteiner Valley, and branching off above the city is a canyon streching a few kilometers back towards Hohe Tauern National Park. It is called Koetschach Tal. It is similar to the hike that Jenny and I went on in the Berner Oberland in Switzerland a number of years ago, with the hanging waterfalls in a narrow canyon. Except the waterfalls weren't as cool. They don't "hang" enough to my taste.
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At the top of Koetschach I stopped at the inn to have some hot chocolate and apple struedel. It tasted funny, and I now think it had a liquored cream on it. It just had that "warm tingle" in it. But it's okay, ignorance is a valid defense, right? I would have asked the waiter, but he kinda scared me with his ultra-short lederhosen. Beware those types.
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I ended up back at my hostel just reading and watching Arrested Development on my Ipod. One of them was the episode where the family is supposed to show up in George Sr.'s court hearing and act like a loving family. Of course, only Job and Lucille show up. Buster comes in a little later with the mariachi band, which was originally intended to woo Job's Venezuelan girlfriend, but that didn't pan out and according to Buster, he had them for the whole evening. I just laughed and laughed and laughed. Then Judge Ping comes in, the lawyer says, "oh no! we've got Ping!", and the first thing Judge Ping says is, "I'd like to remind you that cameras are not allowed in the court room". At which point the camera that is filming the show pans down and hides behind the seats. I've really missed that show.
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Anyway. Friday. Good ol' Friday. I love Fridays. It looked bad this morning, the weather that is, and I didn't want a third hike in the rain, so I jumped on a train, and went to... Innsbruck! During which train ride, I finished "The Sun Also Rises", which was a bit hard to swallow while reading, but now that I've digested it and thought about it after, it is really a clever book. The way Hemingway writes is so simple yet enertaining. And you can't just superficially read through it like you could "The Agony and the Ecstasy", because you'll miss the funniest and most salient parts of the book.
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During the train ride, irony struck again. It cleared up right about the time I went through Saalfelden, Austria, which I might say, is spectacular. I got to Innsbruck, and as it were, it was the hotest and sunniest day I've had since being in Austria again. I ran through the city and saw the sights. Innsbruck is small without any significant buildings, but it has a very nice Baroque, Viennese look to it. I tried to go up one of the touristy but valuable ski lifts to a view point high above the city, but luck would have it, it was under maintenance. I went to the bookstore and bought some more books and maps, which have proved to be very valuable on this trip. Mom, I think I found something that you'd like. I'll show you when I get home. It is very Austrian.
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I got on the train to head back to Bad Gastein early. I needed to get back to get ready for tomorrow. The weather is forecasted to be hot and sunny. Fantastic. I'm renting a bike in Zell am See, and biking up to the top of Breiter Kopf at 1800 meters. It'll be rough, but I'm really excited for it. Finally I'm getting into the hills...
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I just ate Wiener Schitzel at a Mexican Restaurant here in town, and as you can guess, it is more Austrian than Mexican, despite the sombrero lamps. I hope to add to the blog tomorrow night, but don't plan on it. In which case, if I don't, I'll be on a train all sunday going to old areas, so don't expect anything until Monday. But I'll try what I can to send a simple email, perhaps.
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I love you all! If you are family. Don't get excited, Jeff.