The end of the blogging hiatus...for now.

Ladies and gentlemen welcome to Alaska. Please keep your hands and feet inside the boat at all times and enjoy the ride.

So I just got back from Alaska on Tuesday morning. I was invited to tag along with Clay and a few of his high school buddies to try my hand at some fishing. Our party of 6 caught about 550lbs of salmon and halibut. For two days we fished for halibut, the other two we fished for salmon. We caught our limits on all but one of the days. One of the days we got to fly out on a small sea plane to a remote lake. Fishing in this lake we caught our limit on salmon in about 40 minutes. It was never more than about 2 minutes between catching a fish and throwing your line back in the water and you'd have another. On the flight back the pilot flew low and circled over a glacier which provided for some incredible views. On a side note, taking off and landing in a seaplane is ten times better than any standard wheeled aircraft. Smooth like butta. Halibut fishing was different than I expected in that you basically just drop your line and wait for it to hit the sea bed and then wait for a few hard nibbles and reel it in. While it wasn't always halibut (we caught some sting rays, small sharks, cod etc) it always felt about the same, like pulling a dead weight off the bottom of the ocean. I imagined it to be something like fishing for marlin, where you'd be out on the rolling sea and some massive 200lb fish would crest the surface and flail around until you wore it out and could get it in. Halibut are more like garbage eating giant pieces of plywood. They'd put a up a little fight here and there, but mostly they seemed content to be reeled in and dragged into the boat. They're about the ugliest fish you'd ever see, kinda like Sarah Jessica Parker or Madonna with gills and fins. I don't know who ever thought to eat them, but my, they're tasty.

While it was nice fishing with a charter/guide, at times it felt a little gimmicky, almost like fishing but not quite, more like showing tourists the novelty of fishing while not allowing the full experience. You show up to the charter office or meeting point and hop on the guide boat. Typically you could fit 4-6 people on a boat depending on the fish you were after. They (the guide) drive you out to their predetermined hot spots and drop anchor. Then they bust out all the poles and prep them all, bait them, and tell you when and where to drop your line. Then you sit and wait for a bite, and for all but one outing, they also told you when to reel in your line and how long to wait when you thought you had a fish on your line. If you did and you got it to the boat, they'd get it off the hook and kill it, then they'd bait your hook again and you'd do it all over again. The only actual fishing I was doing was holding the pole and reeling the line in. On a few occasions myself or others in my party would lose a hook, tangle our line, or hook the bottom of the ocean or river... then like a 6 year old you'd hand your pole to the guide and they'd insist on fixing the problem.

Before going up to Alaska I had this bizarre idea that we'd be out roughing it in the Alaskan wilderness, fighting for our lives as bears and wolves constantly circled us trying to steal our freshly caught fish. I even tampered with the idea of taking my .45 in my checked luggage and carrying it around each day while fishing. Alas, the guide services are far from letting anything even remotely dangerous happen. I only touched the shore once and it was to relieve myself, other than that you're in the boat, reeling in your limit, then back to your car. We saw a few bears on one of the days running up and down the lake shore as we were fishing from a little skiff boat, which was pretty cool to see, but there's no conceivable way they would ever pose any threat to tourist fisherman. Alaska is a beautiful place... kinda like a frozen rain forest. On the halibut outings we saw a bunch of killer whales that would break the surface and blow air out their blowholes. We saw a bunch of smoking volcano's off in the distance. The sky seemed to be bigger in Alaska for some reason. You could see horizon to horizon with nothing impeding your view. But in the dead of summer it was only 60 degrees; being there for a week I found myself getting a little depressed and I can't imagine living there in the winter. Nice place to visit, but I'd never want to be there for an extended period. I'll amend this post with some pictures when I feel like it.

The demise (or rise) of the chopped motorcycle

The other day I was riding my motorcycle and pulled up next to a guy about my age at a stop light. He was on a stretched and flashy chopper style motorcycle; massive (and totally useless) 300mm rear tire, custom paint, rigid frame, no fenders, flamboyant rake angle and fork... the works for a "stripped" or "chopped" motorcycle of this day and age. He looked me up and down on my GSX-R, and then sped off, no helmet, flip flops, shorts, and all. It got me to thinking about choppers and motorcycles in general.

Riding a motorcycle used to be your all around mouth piece for rebellion; the chosen steed of Satan and his fallen angels. Bikers would ride cross country in big gangs of disgruntled men looking for opportunities to stick it to the man. Most bikers didn't have a lot of money and would work on and customize their own motorcycles (the birth of the chopper). It was their only form of transportation, and it served them rain or shine. Some of the coolest trends in motorcycle design and function came from homeless grease monkey's.

So back to my stop light buddy...did he build his rig himself? Not a chance. Did he take out a 72 month loan for $50,000 to pay for it? You bet. Nothing says rebellion like $900 motorcycle payments on a bike that handles like a lead bathtub fitted with tractor tires. Riding a chopped motorcycle has now entered the playing field for the upper middle class. Even standard motorcycles from the likes of Harley Davidson are far too expensive for most people looking to ride the iron horse of anticonformism. Now we have gangs of doctors, lawyers, and entrepreneurial construction workers riding around town on motorcycles they had to wait months to have built for them. They're only ridden on the nicest of days, and then they spend the rest of their coddled lives parked in a multi-car garage, in between a $90,000 wake-board boat and a compensating "real-man" customized diesel truck. Take THAT, the man!

Post script: If you want to ride one of these custom choppers and still be a rebel... my suggestion is that you steal one. Nothing sticks it to the man more than stealing $70,000 worth of chrome and clear coated flames.

The Fire part 2.1a, subsection omega, code name: Frog Lick

Yet another question of morality...

Charity, as defined by most religions, is the purest form of God's love. If you have charity, you love yourself and others just as God loves. In No More Goodbyes by the poet saint Carol Lynn Pearson, there are a number of stories regarding homosexuals and their many different paths in dealing with homosexuality and religion.

One story that stuck out to me was of a man that left the LDS faith so he could be with his partner. They decided they still wanted to have God in their lives so they started looking around for church services they could patronize. I think it was an Episcopalian church, I don't remember for sure, but I remember the way they were received. The man describes a number of other homosexual families in this congregation, some with children, and some without, and how welcome his family feels in this church. Not only were they welcomed into the congregation, they were graciously included in church activities and functions, and treated just as any other person there. (Shocking!)

This made me think about the LDS faith. Imagine if a homosexual couple decided to go to an LDS ward, knowing full well they weren't "worthy" to participate in certain ordinances, but still wanting to display some level of commitment to Christ. They might slide for one or two weeks, but when they decided to continue going to the same ward... the bishop would inevitably call them in and excommunicate them from the church, and would ask that they didn't come to their ward anymore. Maybe he wouldn't ask that they not come back, but he would certainly ask that they don't hold hands or portray any level of affection. On top of this, imagine what other members of the congregation would say to their children or spouses about this obviously gay couple. You think it's uncomfortable for the smokers that have the guts to go into a Mormon church house... they have nothing on the homosexuals.

So which of these two examples is practicing a higher level of charity? The Mormons invite the gays in with the expectation that they conform to a certain standard, or they kick them to the curb. So certain sinners are welcome, other kinds of sinners appear to be in some sub-human category that is beyond God's love. The Episcopalians invite them in no questions asked, knowing that everyone in the congregation is a sinner in one form or another. They're invited to be a part of a group of Christians, trying to bear the struggles of one another and find some hope in religion.

The more charitable religion seems pretty clear cut to me.

On a related note, why is the Mormon church urging its members in California to do all they can to stop gay marriage in California? Legal gay marriage has nothing to do with religious gay marriage, so why this glaring step over the bounds of separation of church and state? Seems like they're almost going out of their way to be uncharitable and malevolent towards those that believe differently.

The Fire part 1.2

A question of morality...

I remember when George W. first took office. There were a number of terrible forwarded emails that went around presenting a number admirable things regarding George W. "My uncle's neighbor was visiting the US Capitol and he went to a local church for Sunday services, and to his to his utter surprise, in walks George W. with his wife and their body guards. I pass him a note to say hello and he responds with a note saying he just loves to spend his Sabbath days serving the Lord, God bless fellow freedom defender!" Another popular one that went around was something to the effect of "The Clinton's were slobs and there were pizza boxes scattered all over the White House, George W. cleaned this place up and holds all his meetings on time." The picture was painted that George is this moral giant and all he's doing is what God tells him to do, and the Clinton's were nothing more than sex crazy frat morons.


So I've been thinking lately about the two administrations. To this day you can turn on the likes of Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh and hear them bring up the Clinton scandal. "He had sex with that woman in the White House and lied to America about it." "He was impeached because he intentionally and knowingly deceived Americans." There is also a little saying I've heard here and there that says "Bush Lied, People Died." For this blog I tried to think of some clever rhyme for "Clinton lied, Monica Felacio’d," but it just doesn't flow as well. Now the question, which is the more immoral of the two presidents? Clinton lied and had some sexual relations. Bush lied and three quarters of a million Iraqi's were killed and nearly five thousand American troops have lost their lives. Clinton intentionally deceived Americans and was impeached. Bush intentionally sold Americans a war on misinformation and fabricated data to support his desire to go to war, and is currently trying to lay the ground work for a war in Iran.

I think the answer is clear; George W. loves his mother, listens when God tells him to go to war, and reads his Bible each night before he sleeps the sleep of righteousness. Bill Clinton likes to have sex with animals and has demonic seances with other democrats to decide how to sexually defile America. George wins.

Saving the world...

So I'm a bicycle commuter now. I ride about 10 miles total each day, 5 miles in the morning, 5 at night. The first week or so was difficult... my butt always hurt and my poor legs weren't used to doing anything more than sitting at my desk. Now I ride to work 4 out of 5 days a week. Although my legs aren't noticeably tired anymore, every time I bend over or squat down to pick something up my legs just scream at me. They are on fire all the time. I'm sure with another month or two under my belt this will fade. The bones in my butt are considerably tougher now (can you believe I’m single? Tough gluteus bones and screaming fire hot legs); I don't even notice I'm sitting on a plush seat that happens to be shaped and padded like a small garden shovel. I haven't had to fill up my little 4 cylinder Tacoma in more than 2 weeks now, and the credit card kiosks at the Clearfield train station have been offline for the last 4 days now, so I ride for free :). I’ve read several articles about the benefits of riding a bicycle, one that said about 3 miles a day over a year would equate to 11 pounds of pure fat loss. I could definitely stand to lose twice that.


As for saving the world… oil prices have nowhere to go but up. So while this commuting on bicycle doesn’t free me completely from oil, it saves me about 12 gallons of gas and 50 bucks a week. Adds up to quite a bit for an eternal college student with less than prudent spending habits.

The Fire part 2…

The Fire part 2…

Homosexual rights and equality:

One of my best friends is gay, and he just so happens to be my brother. As much as I’m around him and his also gay friends, I’ve yet to catch the “gay” bug (although one time Jake's boyfriend Chad sneezed kind of in my direction and I immediately went to get checked out by my doctor). My kids (assuming I have kids) are going to know their uncle likes boys instead of girls, and they're going to freely and unabashedly spend time with their uncle. Gay doesn't "happen", it just is. The notion that homosexuals "choose" their sexual orientation is absolute horse crap. I have no fear that my kids will be "turned" gay. If they happen to be born gay... they'll have a great support system to help them come to terms with things and live a healthy normal life.

Legislation surrounding homosexual rights and marriage is based solely upon fear... combined with maybe 3 references in the Old Testament (see previous post for my thoughts regarding the Old Testament). How is it that we choose to fixate on this minimally mentioned "law" in Leviticus? I think it comes down to the fear of things that are different or out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, good people, our friends, our family members, our neighbors are the ones that end up taking the brunt of legislation bred in fear. Why don't we focus all our negative energy and fear on some other minimally mentioned law in the Old Testament like Deuteronomy 13:6-10 (Let’s stone missionaries from other religions) or Numbers 15:32-36? (Let's murder people that don't keep the Sabbath day holy the right way.) How about we ostracize males with too much foreskin? You might say "well it's not like that anymore Kyle; we don't stone people for misusing their God given agency." Then how the hell do we pick and choose which asinine Old Testament blabbering to continue the practice of? Rather than killing offenders with stones, now we kill them socially by brow beating and gossiping and, in due time, force them from our congregations.

As far as Christianity is concerned, the Mosaic Law found in the Old Testament was superseded by the New Law Christ provided in his ministry (Correct me if I'm wrong, but there is no mention of homosexuality in the actual Mosaic Law, this law being summarized in the Ten Commandments). In the New Law we have the existing Ten Commandments with some added icing on the cake. Now rather than adultery being an issue, it’s now a sin to even think about it. Here in the New Law we find admonition from Christ himself regarding the seriousness of adultery, yet our current laws provide that heterosexual individuals can marry and remarry as many times as they have the patience to do so. There are some religious reparations, but by and large you can commit adultery, do the religious time, then remarry (legally and religiously) and do it all over again. Heterosexuals are allowed to run ramped in our society marrying as much as they like in spite of hundreds of references to the significance of marriage and adultery. So why this one sidedness, why are homosexuals suppressed and denied certain rights based on 3 Old Testament references, and heterosexuals are set free in the face of hundreds of New and Old Testament references? This glaring double standard seems a bit peculiar.

If we live in a country that truly supports and believes in the separation of church and state, why is this heavily weighted religious belief so prominently discussed by our elected officials? Why do organized religions try to impose their belief systems through legislation onto people that don't even belong to their churches? Last time I checked, God gave each person the right to choose right from wrong for themselves; why the push to disallow anything that might be contrary to the supposed revealed word of God? Seems to be taking away that agency and forcing everyone to conform. Well we don't want to open the immoral flood gates for the pitfall of society, and gays will make of mockery of the sacred vows between a man and woman. Number one, why are elected officials trying to legislate morality? Morality is completely relative and a personal issue for each person to decide for themselves (as long as moral choices don't affect others). Gays inevitably would have divorces and whimsical marriages (along with successful marriages), as do heterosexuals. The current marrying community seems to have the mockery of marriage in spades: We have drive-thru wedding services. We have very prominent public and religious leaders secretly cavorting around with both gay and straight prostitutes. We have very hetero priests, bishops, and scout leaders that can't keep their hands off little boys. But if gays were allowed to marry or were given equal legal rights, watch out, that would be the moral straw that breaks the camel’s back and God would reign down fury on our previously "moral" country.

The Fire...

Every other week or so I get into these moods where I feel like I have the energy to run up the face of Mount Everest, or toss a multi-ton boulder into a cave opening (like He-man used to do). I find myself in these moods when something significant enough angers me and ignites the fire. The fire is this overwhelming feeling that something needs to be said and no one is saying it, something needs to change and no one is changing it, everybody needs to know something but they can’t see the forest for the trees.

A recent and recurring perpetrator:

The Iraq War:

Estimates place the total cost of the Iraq War at over 3 trillion dollars (see alternative options for spending 3 trillion dollars). The war is a “damned if you damned if you don’t” kind of situation and I don’t have any solutions. My lack of understanding regarding international policy doesn’t change the fact that our dumb as a stump president spearheaded this whole thing on false pretenses. My novice view of war tactic and strategy doesn’t forego my right to be pissed at the ineptitude and perniciousness of our elected officials. Who’s left with the loss of life, economic downfall, and the enduring and prolific international consequences? Those left with the mess have every right to be outraged.



Conservative estimates place the Iraqi death toll at over 600,000. The loss of American life is a terrible thing and receives its due notice, but 600,000 Iraqis? When is the last time you turned to your big 3 news broadcast and heard anything about this horrific loss of life? (Don't kid yourself believing that all, or even the majority, of these deaths were militia or terrorists) As we celebrate the 5 year anniversary of this quagmire, let’s do some simple math with our conservative casualty estimate: 600,000 Iraqi deaths ÷ (5 yrs(x)12 months =) 60 months = 10,000; 10,000 Iraqi deaths a month, 120,000 a year. That’s twice the population of the town I grew up in…in one year. 5 times the student body of my high school in one month. More than the combined total of all my relatives, aunts, uncles, cousins, the children of my cousins, and throw in all my 2nd aunts, uncles, and cousins...in one day.

Can you imagine a report on your local news channel of a single day massacre totaling over 300 people in your city or state? The entire state would be in shock and mourning, the entire country would hear about it, and the entire world would likely send it's condolences. Now imagine this atrocity happening every day. You can bet you'd start to get upset and want to revolt, regardless of the explanations those in control were dishing out. Yet regarding Iraq, the grim information that finally makes it's way through the filter is somehow swept under the radar.

Take a bow George W, you stubborn bastard. Who's ready for another "stay the course" stalwart?


Patriotism does not equal nationalism; loss of life is a horrible thing regardless of nationality or political affiliation. Stay tuned for part 2 of the fire series…

Here is the story behind the photos above.