Lots of pics on my Smugmug site and Vids on Youtube

Click the link on the right hand side of this page "My Photo Site". Once there, go to the bottom of the page to "Photo Timeline." From there you can select dates of pictures added. So if you want to see all my new pics from last Friday select May 8th through May 10th and only new pics added in that time will show up and they will be on one page only.
My videos are on youtube (with the rest of the worlds) under my user name 'iambquinn'

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

I despise liars. Especially when it screws me over. I've been patiently waiting to go out with the experienced guides to learn the ins and outs of elk hunting. After the season has been open for almost three weeks and no trips with our guides I had to have a little sit down with the owner here. I explained that when we talked over the phone (before I accepted the position) I was told that I would be an assistant guide all of bow season and then guide on my own during rifle season. So what's going on here? I've been a certified camp bitch now for 3 weeks barely getting to leave camp to do anything "fun". I haven't heard anything about me going out with the guides and it sure doesn't sound like it's going to happen anytime soon.

I'm not going to bash anyone on my public blog, but the outcome of this talk I had is that I'm leaving this stinkin mountain as soon as I can get a ride down to my car!
It's sad, it's frustrating, but it's the best option at this point.

So, back to Peoria for some family time. Talking with old friends about some work that I hope pulls through. Thinking about going back to school full time in the spring and work part time. Anyways, that's the update for now.

Day ???

It's amazing how nice it is not knowing what day it is. To be free of civilization, traffic, cell phones, morons...it's absolutely soul cleansing. Waking up at 9,320ft every morning is something everyone needs to escape to for a week at least once in their life.
Lately I've been working my butt off. The best part about it is that my work does not include a commute, emails, phone calls, meetings, coworkers around you that make you pull your hair out...or turn it grey. Instead I'm getting to do work that makes me feel like a man, not a pawn to "The Man." I typically wake up and gather horses/mules, bring them food, brush them, throw a saddle over a few then head into the cook house for a nice warm breakfast. The rest of my day consist of packing mules, scouting, chopping wood, cleaning up around camp, washing my hands a dozen times a day, and anything Larry tells me to do. Yesterday I drove down to Eagle and picked up a few hunters at the airport, a nice break from camp life, but a trip to town is never wasted. I had to take our garbage trailer to the dump first, pick up groceries, stop at the bank, auto parts store...etc.
Today, which is somewhere between Thursday and Sunday (actually I know it's Friday but that's just because my computer told me so when I logged on) we had 6 hunters going out to drop camps, but those were three duos, which meant packing seperately for each one after the other for the first 5hrs of the day. We also had 3 guided hunters come into camp which is great news for me...I should be heading out to guide soon! I believe we have another two guided hunters coming in later today that are going to be taking video of their entire experience to be published on a hunting DVD. How cool is that! I may be lucky enough to head out with them and be "Bob, the guide" one day (unfortunately not the lead guide, but still great none-the-less).
Dream job? Almost. Take away my battered hands that I can't seem to keep clean or moist, and my new tentmate that snores, and the lack of laundry facility, and I can assure you this beats my previous jobs hands down. The money, nice house, fancy car, motorcycles..blah blah blah. What's life if you never live to experience what God put on this earth for us to enjoy? If you have never spend time out west in the mountains, I suggest you do so ASAP so you can hopefully understand my feelings.

I've been posting pictures on my smugmug site. The gallery is not "featured" on the first page so it's easy to find.

Well, a crew just pulled in with 3 horses and 4 mules that need attention. Gotta run!

Day 3, Winter Hawk Outfitters

Yesterday I went scouting with 4 others for the first time, and first time riding a horse in over 10 years. Good day, nice weather, sore butt...about 7hrs in the saddle.
Today the crew was packing in a camp (taking supplies and tent to set up in remote location). I asked if I could go scouting instead and Larry allowed. Another 7hrs or so on saddle today and lots of ground covered. Saw 3 bull elk, one shooter, got rained on a few times, temps dropped quite a bit today. Was up above 10,000ft all day while scouting closer to the tree line where the elk tend to be this time of year. They will soon come down more and start bugling which will be great.
Anyways, hitting the sack, need to rest so I can do it all over again tomorrow!
Pics are on my photo site, look in "Travel" then "Winterhawk Elk Guiding"

Update from 9320ft

At base camp, internet connection is weak on the satellite. Had troubles uploading pics and couldn't do the web cam with Carrie :(
Looks like writing in the blog will be by best option.
Not sure how I'm going to keep the updates coming, so for now I'll just post interesting stuff.
Today I went back down the mountain with Larry (owner) and went grocery/suppy shopping. Needless to say it was a bit more than a typical shopping trip. It took us 15 minutes to load the truck up with the groceries there were so many!
Tomorrow I head out on horse back to scout some areas with a few other guys. Should be great.
I'm the only one here that doesn't wear cowboy boots and wrangler jeans and chew tobacco :)
Will keep ya posted.

Craziness!

So it's 4am and I can't sleep worth a darn. Why you ask? Well yesterday I got a call from Larry Amos at Winterhawk Outfitters saying he needs me this fall guiding elk hunts in the Flattops Wilderness area of Colorado!!! First off, check out his website to see the great business they run(www.winterhawk.com). Total world class operation. That craziness??? Well the season starts next Sat, one week from when he called me. So in the next few days I need to pack up all my belongings, my bro and Mom are going to raid my storage unit back home for my hunting gear and ship it out to me which means it'll get there either Thursday or Friday. Larry wanted me over there ASAP but the soonest I'll be able to leave is Tuesday morning (basically giving me 2 full days to prepare).

So a few details of my 3 month adventure:
- Sept will be my break-in period learning the area, how to hunt/call, packing in hunters on horses to small camps, and following along on hunts with experienced guides.
- early Oct there is a break between archery season and rifle season where I'll have to cut trees, chop wood for fires in the cold months to come, restock base camps..etc. If I prove myself worthy in Sept (which I will) then I might be guiding rifle hunters on my own when the season opens. Rifle season is 5 weeks long and is the end of the adventure. There will be a few days of tearing down and halling everything out of the area then I can go. Might make it home for Thanksgiving.

Lots of cool details like having a few pros coming to hunt on video for tv series, outdoor writers, and crossing my fingers I might be doing some video work for the business for marketing. They are thinking hard about buying a new semi-pro level HD camera and will need a video guy.

Basically this is a dream come true. I came across the job by thinking only a few days ago "what would be a dream job of mine" and it was guiding elk/mule deer hunters in the mountains. I responded to a few adds for guides and even sent a few random emails to outfitters and what do ya know, I get the call!!!! Craziness I tell ya. God works wonders and this is definitely one of those times.

Base camp is going to be 9200ft and most hunts in Sept should be closer to tree line which is around 11,000ft in that area or higher (12,000max). Needless to say I'm so glad I have become acclimated to the altitude and in good shape! No cell phone service. Yes, life can be mantained without them! There is a satelite internet connection in base camp which is the primary source of communication. I will have a few days off during season where I can come down the mountain and go to town for a day (Eagle CO). Sleeping on cots with sleeping bags, hot water, good food, what more can a man ask for?

Anyways, if I can get online during the season I'll try and post up something quick, but I'm not sure if that will be possible. Check out their website and keep watching the blog. I'll try and take lots of pics and vids for everyone to see.

Craziness!!! I'm so excited :)

Nice ride in PC today

Won't bore you with the details. Basically I wanted to try a new route up the mountain for preperation of my big b-day ride I'm planning. For those who don't know, Park City (PC) is just up and over a narrow mountain range from SLC. Once you get to the top of the ridge you can easily drop into canyon roads or trails and head down to either side. The tough part though, is climbing to the top!
So today I went up the PC side which is about 1,500ft less climbing and quite a bit shorter. Overall it was around 3,100ft in app 6.5 miles that took about 1hr 20min. The route didn't pan out as it was too straight up and therefore way to steep. I never really have to walk any trails and today I did!
At the summit I was right at 10,000ft with a great view. I took a quick vid and some pics, even stitched together some pics but it didn't turn out so good.
Here are the pics:
From the top the view is pretty great:

This was a section of trail that was rather steep! I was riding down it, but this section was just too steep for me. Loose rock and ultra steep trail is a bad combo!


Looking down this steep section. Remember it's always steeper than the pic can show.


So my big b-day ride will be leaving from my house, riding up Millcreek Canyon (12 miles/3,100ft), up to the Wasatch Crest trail (not sure mileage but around 2,000ft), down to PC (3,000ft descent), lunch/break, back up to the ridge and down to my house. Total mileage should be around 42miles with a total elevation gain of app 8,500ft. That my friends is Superman territory!

Here is a link to a short vid of the summit today showing the entire view:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQHPNRudD8g

Lots of riding lately

Been riding like crazy lately. My endurance is certainly at an all time high. I've been able to ride the last 6 days, today being my first day off. Tuesday I rode my longest trail ride so far, just a tad over 22 miles with roughly 8 miles of climbing. Yesterday rode in Park City to escape the heat in the valley, it's so nice having that option of almost 10deg cooler with only 20min of driving. Been doing lots of exercising at home in the evenings and I must say for little time I spend working out it's so worth it. I spend anywhere from 20-30min doing simple exercises for my upper body and the results are showing after just two weeks. I really wish I could encourage more people to take the time in the evening while watching tv to do a simple workout. After one week you'll feel so much better everything becomes easier and more enjoyable. Finish up with some good stretching and have a small protein drink (8oz of water is plenty with whatever you take, I use some yummy strawberry flavored protein mix from the grocery store).
Here is a pic from a hillside on my ride two days ago:

Moab 2010

If you don't want to read about it here are the pics:
http://quinnphoto.smugmug.com/MTB-Pics/Moab-2010/12545712_reG7z
Vids are on youtube under my username: iambquinn
I believe they will come up as latest first.

I'll try not to get into too much detail here.
Arrived Friday around 5pm. Rode Posion Spider Mesa to Portal. PSM pretty much sucked. The Portal on the other hand, WOW, what fun. I forgot my camera, but you can watch this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erk4BR2GNPo of the trail from another rider. This is considered an Expert Only trail and they mean it. Three riders have died on this trail, yes I said DIED on this trail because for a good amount you are riding on a narrow ledge that is about 600ft up a straight vertical rock wall. No joke here people, this is serious. If you fall to the left you will die guarenteed! Unfortunately videos never do a trail justice. When you see a small drop those are typically more than just a little drop, more like 1.5ft to flat, and plenty of those lined up in a row which is harder then it sounds when crawling through them slowly. Anyways, the Portal trail was by far right up there as one of the most fun technical trails EVER!

Next day we were supposed to ride the Porcupine Rim shuttle but rain cancelled it out so we head over to Amasa Back trail. What can I say other than 100% pure FUN. This trail has so many options to hit off to the side and we hit them all! Probably took up twice as long as normal to ride this trails because of all the times we stopped to play. Rollers (steep rock declines you go down that take a good amount of technical ability so that you don't flipped over the handlebars) and drops were the name of the game and we took it into overtime! At the top we went over to Rockstacker which is another very technical trail with two descents that were surely +5 rated (meaning it can't get much harder or it wouldn't be rideable). Very tricky stuff but really fun too. Shortly after Rockstacker we got poured on, BAD! Blowing, cold, hail mixture, lightning, thunder (all around us and super close) and nowhere to take cover. Finally we made it to some rock where we could get under a ledge and it quit raining. 5min later and the sun came out, but by then we were soaked to the bone and really cold. The rest of the ride in was fun but also a little miserable with cold hands and feet that stung on every bump. Did I mention we were riding super bumpy rock trails and were about 7 miles from the trail head? Yeah!

Sunday we finally got to do the Porcupine Rim shuttle although not the full Enchilada due to rain up high in the mountains. Got to ride from UPS down (still about 15miles). I had 2 specific challenges in mind that I wanted to try, one being the "Notch". For those who don't know about the "Notch", it's a short, steep, slippery, basically extremely difficult section that not many people make it down. I would guess of all the riders on this trail, only 10% try the Notch, and of those maybe 10% succeed. If fact it's so difficult there is another trail option that completely bipasses the Notch. It took me 5 tries, but finally I made it through clean and very happy. Here is the link to that video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dowgTYVfcY
The rest of the trail was fun. The 2nd section I was looking to tackle was down at the bottom and I was able to clean it up on the 2nd try. First try was really just a stupid mistake at the top, should've never happened, oh well. Here is that vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd22J2MXYzA
Believe me when I say these are SO MUCH harder than they look! Trust me!

Here are a couple of my favorite pics of the trip. Still waiting on the pics from my riding buddy Andrew. Once I get those might post some up.

First hike of the year today

Super nice today, almost 90deg and sunny so I headed up Big Cottonwood Canyon to the Mill D North trail that leads to Dogwood and Desolation Lake. I didn't want to push my knees so I only went to Dogwood which is 2.5mile in.

Saw a deer:

The trail in one area was still covered in snow:

The small lake with some ice still on it:

The view coming back:

I got this prescription gel for my knees that supposedly has great success rate with hikers out here. It's called Voltaren Gel...so give it a shot if you have joint issues.

Tonight we had a storm roll in and what do ya know, a rainbow! Nice way to end a nice day.

Killed it today!

It's funny the slang terms and how they differ from region to region in this country of ours. Out west the adventure type use words like "sick" and "killed" all the time. So if you make a nice run down the ski slope your buddy would say "you killed it man, that was sick!". So today you could say I killed it on my ride. That broken down means I road just shy of 25 miles, 11 of that was uphill with a total climb of around 3000 vertical ft. Max speed coming back down the bottom of the canyon road was 43mph! Good exersize ride for sure.

Here is a pic when I reached snow on the road:

Here is a pic down the canyon about 7 miles or so:

Never know what you're gonna see

Just driving down the highway and saw this vehicle...never know what you'll run into and that's why I like to carry my camera with me. WOW!

Lots of exercise last two days! Some vids too.

Yesterday I rode 15.2 miles on the Enduro, about 7 of that all uphill. Remember when we climb out here you are also gaining elevation which makes it harder and harder as you go. Last night Toby and I went to Park City for circuit training at ~7,500ft. One hour of non-stop full body exercises...uhhggg!
Today Colby and I went down to Sundance Ski Resort and did some lift assisted downhilling for about 3.5 hours then headed up to Bountiful to do some more downhilling. All in all prob around 6hrs of riding today! Should sleep good tonight. The bottom of Bruce's Trail in Bountiful has a nice little rock section. Took a couple vids of me going through it. Trust me when I say this is steep and slippery...I just made it look easy : ) Remember to watch in 720p...at the bottom right of the video box you'll see "360p", click on the little arrow and select 720p
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_14yEBPr-k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg2kamUIUfY

Been doing some riding...

Been able to get out a few times for some riding lately. Weather has been on-off since I got here. My roomate Colby has a slightly different background when it comes to riding so he's been teaching me about downhill and jumping. I've always wanted to get into some more extreme riding, but never had the bike nor the guts. This year that will change! I got myself some good pads (it's only a matter of time before I eat it bad) and a bigger bike that can handle most everything I plan on throwing at it. Last night we heading up to the Bobsled trail which is down in a ditch up on the mountain side. There are some cool banked corners and some fairly decent jumps that go over some old cars that have apparently been in there for a long time. I had only rode this trail once last year so this was just a "lets see if this stuff is within reach for me" ride. Unfortunately there were some others down on the trail and I don't do well with others and going big for the first time...just in case I do fall and make a fool out of myself I want to be alone or with friends ONLY. Anyways, here is a link to a short video of Colby jumping one of the cars. Next time out I WILL jump it myself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3jSmgFioyI

First ride in Utah!

Well Toby, Colby and I went down to Draper (suburb of SLC to the south) and road some fun little trails today. First time on the VP Free doing stuff it was meant for. Got to do some jumps and hit some nasty rocks. It's so nice on a big bike that can handle the knarly terrain. On our way back to SLC, Colby took Toby and I up to a downhill trail. Right as we got there it started raining and to say the least it was a tad bit muddy. The trail was super fun even though we were getting soaked and mud was flinging all over us (including our faces/mouths..etc). Here is a pic of our bikes after the ride. I think it took about 2hrs to get them completely clean again.

Update

Well things haven't gone exactly as planned with my departure. I was hoping to leave around April 8th or so, then my bike got damaged which set me back a few days, then my Grandma passed away shortly after. Eventually I made the decision that it would be stupid to head out for a week and drive back for Ian's birthday party and another load of stuff. Now I'm just waiting to hear that I have a place to move into once I arrive in SLC. So far the right house hasn't come up yet, so the waiting game continues. I may drive out, dump all my non-mountain biking gear in a storage unit and hit the road to southern Utah for a couple weeks of riding in St. George and Moab as it's getting warmer there by the week. Many people don't realize how hot it gets in Utah, especially central and southern Utah. Moab, which is more central, sees 90's in May, 100's in June through Sept. Take the fact that the ground is solid rock with little shade and those numbers feel 10deg higher than actual.
Anyways, hoping to hear good news about a house soon. Earliest departure would now be next Monday the 3rd.

Ian's Birthday Party pics/vids

These kids are growing up so fast. It seems like a year ago Ian was just turning 5, now he is 7! This was a big year because he got his first real gun (redneck children here). A nice little Rossi .22/4.10 combo, perfect for learning how to shoot and hunt small game.
The kids:


Ian with his gun:

Trying it out for the first time:

Vids on youtube of him shooting it (total of 5). Link to first one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC6wTIPs3aA&feature=related

More bunnies!

Growing so fast, check out the new pics within a week of the last ones!
and a vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbCNKL8SYSI : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOuLlw4nR1w

Another sign I'm getting older

At one point in my life I would've done all sorts of bad things to these little guys, but apparently my old age is softening me up a bit cause now I'm all mushy feeling when I see things like this.

I found a nest of baby bunnies at Carrie's house...they are so adorable! Just look at them.

Move update.

So I was going to leave today, Thursday, but on Tuesday Carrie and I rode to her son's baseball game at Peoria Heights school, and some jerk backed into my bike and bent my rear rotor and derailleur! The sad part is they didn't come forth like a decent human would've, and nobody else would even fill me in on what happened. I guess us mountain bikers are just nobodies and don't matter to the rest of the world. So with parts on their way I've got to wait until I get the bike fixed back up. Probably be heading out Monday, drive to SW Utah around Hurricane and St. George area where the weather is perfect this time of year. Mid 70's every day, sunny, very little rain, and tons of great mountain biking! I'll spend a week or so there before I head to SLC where I'm dumping off my gear and bikes before heading back to Peoria for another load of stuff and more importantly, Ian's birthday party. After that I'll drive back out to SLC for good! So, that equals about 4,600miles in a matter of a couple weeks...bummer.

My Review of Manitou Titanium Rear Shock Coil 230 X 70 2.75 x 450

Originally submitted at Bike Wagon

Need a new Coil? If you have a current manitou shock you can easily figure out which coil you need. In the current measurement, 230 x 70 x 2.75 x 450lbs, the 230 is the eye to eye measurement that the shock will work with, the 70 is the stroke length in MM, the 2.75 is the stroke length in inches (...

Manitou Titanium Rear Shock Coil 230 X 70 2.75 x 450

Great weight saving part!

By The Traveler from Salt Lake City, UT on 3/29/2010

 

5out of 5

Pros: Durable, Lightweight, Easy to Use

Best Uses: Mountain Bikes

Describe Yourself: Competitive Cyclist

Couldn't pass up a ti coil for this price. The steel spring was ~700grams while this piece was only ~300!!! That's a great weight savings, not to mention ti coils are more accurately sprung than steel springs. Can't go wrong at the price bikewagon has them offered at.

(legalese)

2010 Bikes are ready!!!

Well, this winter was great for my bikes, bad for my wallet! Last year I bought an 08 Stumpjumper even though Toby told me to get an Enduro. To make a long story short, he was right. So I decided to try and find a 2nd bike for cheap on the used market and that would be heavier rig for the knarly stuff, and my Stumpy would stay the same for my lightweight more XC oriented rides. I ended up picking up a used VP Free and swapping some heavier duty parts since it was setup for more light weight AM. The end result is one fun and capable machine! At 40lbs it's ready for anything I'm willing to through at it. The pics on my Smugmug give more details.

Shortly after buying the VP Free I came across an amazing deal on a used S-Works Enduro SL frame, Fox Talas fork, and RP23 shock. I was able to sell my Stumpy frame, fork, and shock for only about $200 less than the cost of the new components, meanwhile increasing the value of my bike about $1,500 dollars!!! Can't beat that. Now I have one really sweet bike, one that many fellow riders will drool over : )

Here she is:

Finally Decided...Moving to Salt Lake City!!!

After some nice traveling last year, I decided the next step in my life is to relocate to SLC. Everything about the city excites me. Year around outdoor activity!!! Sunshine, sunshine, and more sunshine. Skiing, mountain biking, hiking, rock climbing, heck there's even some great fishing lakes and wonderful hunting around SLC. The economy is good, traffic is reasonable, housing is decent, and the town is healthy! So much more in my eyes compared to Peoria IL, or anywhere in the midwest for that matter.
If you are looking for an exciting place to live with lots of great outdoor fun, look no further...SLC is for you!
I'm heading out sometime in April. Haven't figured out exactly when yet. No going away party, just heading out quietly.
Just wait for all my post once out there, you'll then understand what I'm talking about.

Here Obama, some helpful thoughts for you!

Our country is screwed up. Here are some ideas of mine that would get us back to a strong country.

- Unemployment: If you aren't a US citizen and employed via a work visa, go home. Americans need your job.

- Crime: Any major crime (murder, rape, child molestation..etc) automatic death penalty. No time in jail, no money wasted, give them one week to say goodbye to their family then kill them, and not leathal injection. It must be a painful death. Any youths (under 18) that perform a serious crime are sent directly into the military and are enrolled into a very strict program. Teach them a lesson by working their asses off and forcing them to obey their elders.
If a criminal is in jail and over 50, death. If a criminal gets a sentence that would put them over 50 after their release, death. And what's the deal with these nice prisons? Prison should be horrible living conditions, not a 4 star hotel.

- Kids: I firmly believe that the vast majority of kids these days are much weaker than their parents and definitely their grandparents when they were children. Why does this matter...they are our future! Weakness now means a weaker country...exactly what is currently happening. How do we change this? Easy, revert back to old ways, what made out country strong in the first place. All kids should be forced to do chores on a daily basis, all kids should be forced to work summers after the age of XX (not sure what is that age, but around 12). Kids need to work even if they don't get paid to teach them about responsibility, respect, initiative...etc. Think back to the olden days where kids were always helping out around the farm. By the time they were 16 those kids were ready for the world. Boys would lie about their age to get jobs and into the military. Now it would be insane for a 16 year old boy to go into the military. There should be an aged defined minimum wage for children. Kids that are 12 and 13 would make, say, $2.50/hr, 14 and 15 year olds should make $5/hr, and then 16, 17 year olds can make $7/hr. Once turned 18 they make standard min wage. I get really tired of hearing kids complain about working all day for ONLY $50...jeez, I'm 28 years old and I can remember my first job at a whopping $3.85/hr. Now they make almost $8/hr which is crazy to me. What really pisses me off are the laws that keep kids from working at an early age. How tough is it to mop floors at McDonalds. Clean tables at Taco Bell. Shadow another worker at Walmart. These jobs don't need to be tough, but getting kids out into the workplace earlier make for stronger work ethics. In Illinois kids can't even work at McDonals until they are 16!!! How wrong is that? We should be uterly ashamed of ourselved for creating such restrictions.

- ALL children must enter the military directly after high school and complete basic training. The basic training needs to be extended to around 6 months and include both physical and mental training. Children with special needs still need to enter the military but put under slighty altered programs, for obvious reasons. Any child that drops out of high school must go directly into the military and will be treated more harshly. This would teach them that there is no easy way out, if you take the easy route it will catch up to you.

- Schools need to include a health/nutrition class early on, like 1st or 2nd grade, and continue this class through high school. Grades will be given on their knowledge but also performance. Homework would include physical activity, eating healthy, and the parents would have to sign off on this for the kids to get credit. Get rid of junk food, get your kids outside instead of in front of the tv/computer. Active/healthy kids make for a stronger child both physically and mentally. They would make for a stronger future for our country.

- Health: Health care is so expensive right? That's because our country isn't healthy! It pisses me off to no means!!! Get our country healthy and health cost drop. Our government needs to step in and regulate the amount of calories, fat, sugar...etc that meals include. Go to any sort of sit down restaurant and look at the menu, try to find healthy foods. It's tough, especially in the appetizers and deserts. It would be really simple, limit calories and such and you essentially have a more healthy meal, people, lower health care costs.

- Fitness: With the success of "The Biggest Loser" many health clubs are creating their own programs of similar nature. One downfall of these is the cost. I think the government should give tax exempts to anyone that partakes AND succeeds in these programs. Even though their health should be enough reason to get off their lazy ass, people are lazy and need incentive. Give them one! You could even go as far as any person that attends a health club 3 times a week, every week of the year (signed off by the health club) can receive an additional $100 on their tax return (or something of that sort).

- Cigarettes: Tax the shit out of them. They are bad, have no health advantages, cost non-smokers money on thier health insurance, and kill others by way of 2nd hand smoke. Tax them until the sales drop so much all the companies go out of business.

- Taxes: Need more money. Here's an idea for you. I believe it's impossible to drive more than a couple minutes without seeing some sort of traffic violation. Where are all the cops to catch these bad drivers? I think every traffic violation fine should be increased greatly. Didn't use your turn signal, $250 fine. Turned left in an intersection when the light was turning from yellow to red, $500 fine. Parked on/over a line at Walmart, fine your ass. What does this mean overall? People start thinking when driving, less accidents, lower insurance rates, more tax money coming in, we all win!!!!

- Welfare and such: If you don't have the money to afford a kid, you should be punished for having them. In fact, China was so smart by limiting the number of kids each family can have to only one. I don't think we should go that far, but maybe a simple finacial ruling system would help. If your family makes less than 30k/year, NO kids. Between 30-60k, 1 kid, 60-100k 2 kids..etc. The sad thing is that this is simple thought process..."ok honey, we only made $45K last year, it probably wouldn't be smart to have another kid at this time. I mean, with food cost, health care cost, insurance, college...it just isn't within our budget to have another." BUT, there are so many people out there that think with their asses instead of their heads, practical thinking just doesn't occur much these days. I also think that insurance should cover women having their tubes tied. If that said person has no insurance then the gov should pay for it. It's a WHOLE lot cheaper than the cost of another child in this world, right!

I can go on and on. There are so many things I see wrong with this country, and it boils down to simple fundementals to raise strong and smart humans. Natures way is this; the heard is only as strong as the weakest member. If you are weakest in the heard, you get left behind for the lions to eat you. The heard no longer has to wait for you. The heard is stronger. We now cater to the weak all the time, which only makes the heard weaker! The heard is the ENTIRE HUMAN RACE!!! We are getting weaker. I think any single person that feels they no longer want to live should have the right to be humanly 'let go.' That would eliminate so much health care cost, and let that person parish in another life (if you so believe in that sort of thing).

Sometimes I think about the perfect little community, where no money exsist, everyone helps out one another. They live off the land, and most importantly, live the life that God intended us to live. We are so focused on money, nice cars, houses, Hollywood...it's really sad.

Done rambling. Off to the gym.

Sorry, not much posting!

Because there isn't much to talk about. I'm preparing for the big move. Decided to give Salt Lake City a go, heading out sometime in April. Lately I've been working out a lot, building up my mountain bikes after doing some changes. Going a little heavier this year so I'm not beating up my lightweight bike all the time. Picked up a used downhill bike for cheap and will give that a go this year. Hopefully I'll be able to make it up to Washington and British Columbia for a mtb trip this year. That area is known as the "North Shore" and is really the mountain bike downhill capital of North America. Crossing my fingers that I land a decent job sometime soon. Been applying like crazy but nothing has come up. It was sad to be told by a potential job prospect that he receives around 2,000 applicants per position!!!
Anyways, once I get out of IL I'll be able to post more about all the fun things happening in my life. Going to try and spend a few weeks in southern Utah and northern Arizona mountain biking. Gotta hit up Moab, Fruita, Gooseberry for sure.
This year I'll probably give rock climbing a try. My fear of heights kept me off the rocks last year, but the physical aspect makes me want to give it ago.
So anyways, check back around April timeframe for some exciting pics and stories (hopefully). Toby promissed this year we would stop riding and actually take some fun pics instead of haulin balls down the mountain all the time! We'll see.