Hammer Drills and other Tools

Power tools are big. And powerful. The one that scares me the most is a hand saw. Not being a naturally graceful person, the price of clumsiness seems especially high when I am at risk of losing a limb.

One of the cool things about my job is working with guys who are willing to be patient and teach me how to actually do things. Real things. Like starting with wire and stuff and end up with a working product. Amazing! And Friday's lesson was using a hammer drill.

Q: What do you use a hammer drill for?

A: Make holes in concrete!

I had a good time. Maybe next time the aluminum will be a little nicer to me and the self-tapping screw will go where it belongs.

What a Weekend

Adventure in life usually comes in small doses these days. This weekend three of us set off for Southern Utah and a little roommate adventure.

Our first night in St. George, we found a restaurant in an art compound. I don't know what else to call an exclusive little grouping of artisan shops in the middle of nowhere. The food was good! But I did feel a little violated by the woman who decided to check out my meal by leaning waaaaay over me and my food. How close was she? I didn't even know she was wearing skin-tight purple pants until she was walking away. That's how close she was.

One of the little communities on the way out to eat had a neighborhood art project (dare I say...Super Saturday?) and they decorated wooden cows. I feel bad for the person who was in charge of cutting out 45 cow rears on the scroll saw.

Camo cow!! With a ninja mooove thrown in for good measure.

(The bad jokes come free of charge. You're welcome.)

Tuacahn was amazing. The Little Mermaid was pretty stunning. I was impressed by the amount of water they were able to use on stage. I did have a hard time believing fish on wheels, but I know you have to suspend a little reality and use your imagination. My favorite part of Grease was the cars. Very cool.

Saturday one of our stops was the temple grounds. The St. George temple is spectacular with its stark white structure against the red cliffs.

I knew I would make this photo black and white when I took it. Partly to make the focus the lines and architecture, and partly because the only colors in it were white to begin with.

Before the show on Saturday, we decided to drive up Snow Canyon. Three girls, three cameras, and three iPhones...six picture-taking devices between us. I got called "artsy" because of compositions like this. I won't even tell you how many photos we ended up with between us at the end of the weekend.

This one is much prettier than the one Chris took of me crouched in a bush to get the shot. Trust me on that.

Ha ha hahahahahaha haha ha. Funny!

I might be genetically disposed not to take normal pictures. And I delight in getting others to break a little out of their routine too.

But, when threatened with my life ("This is my camera and you WILL smile nice!") even I can throw out a good smile every now and then.

We were really not as close to the edge as it looks. I promise.

Most people would feel like getting to one of the wonders of the world and having a rainy day would be a bad thing. We did not! Although we did get a little wet. And I was surprised how cold it was. We were definitely under-dressed for the weather.

The storms actually highlighted the depth and grandeur of the canyon. To see the size of these storms and yet they were dwarfed by this gaping drop in the ground. Amazing.

The light was stunning when the sun would break through the clouds. It really did look like the entire canyon was just radiating light.

On one of the outlooks, we were just about to leave and we saw this. Clouds just started curling up over the side of this sheer peak.

As we watched they came faster, and quicker. It reminded me a little how the smoke comes curling out of a pot when you drop dry ice in water. The clouds were that fast-moving and seemed to just be pouring out of the valley on the right.

In just a few minutes, it had almost engulfed the entire mesa in front of us, and we were wrapped in clouds.

The canyon disappeared in the mist, and for the second (and not last) time of the day, we darted for cover as the rain started coming down.

But this may have been the highlight. Watching this storm blow in and see the lightning snake its way from one side of the canyon to the other. 

One man walked by us on the trail and scoffed that we were trying to catch the lightning in a photo. "Like trying to catch a greased pig," he said. When we responded that we actually captured not one, or two, but almost a dozen...he got quiet!

There is a sign we passed which quoted Theodore Roosevelt as saying that the Grand Canyon is one thing "every American should see." I agree. Photos and anecdotes of others are no substitute for standing on the edge of a cliff with a drop of 3000 feet and feeling the wind blow through your hair. Nothing prepares you for the majesty of a summer storm and the awesome power of nature. Or the sheer size and depth of it all.

Clearing Up a Couple Questions

Every now and then you find a quote that clears everything up. Answers all questions about who we are, what we are doing here, and that sort of thing.

Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation which accounts for it that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but consists in the fact that the relation relates to its own self. Man is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short it is a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two factors. So regarded, man is not yet a self. 

- A Sickness Unto Death, Soren Kierkegaard

Yup. That cleared it right up.