Listen

I highly recommend you go to www.neilyoung.com right now and listen to one of his latest albums, Prairie Wind. You can listen to it for free, if you can figure out how to navigate his Web site. I listen to it whenever I get the chance with Lauren Grace. "It's a Dream" makes me want to cry because it is so beautiful and simple and true. "The Painter" is a wonderful song as well.

You can listen to Living with War for free, too. It's too politically charged for me, in spite of the fact that I lean left. This album leans so far to the left that it often loses its balance.

Neil Young is great. I recommend picking up Decade if you want a nice collection of his early music.

Insert Blog Tile Here

My buddy Dylan said he drives by my blog slowly to see if the lights are on. I love that visual. Well, I'm home, and I'm feeling fine as cherry wine (thanks Senior O'Brien).

I had a weird day at work. I was asked to write a "scope" for a project in Vail, and I don't know if I did it right. I sent it to my supervisor...we'll see what he says tomorrow.

I am currently writing the treatment for a screenplay, entitled "The Twelver." As I'm writing the treatment I'm getting new, and I think better, ideas. I'm looking forward to collaborating with my hip friends. I want it to be a smart, fresh movie, patterned after middle-aged Woody Allen and any age Cameron Crowe. Stay tuned.

Lauren's sitting beside me on the floor. She falls backwards every few seconds to get a better look at her dad. Hilarious.

That's all for now. I'm turning the light off now.

Create

It's a bummer that I get my creative desires as soon as my body blows out its night stand candle. I want to stay up late, listen to Death Cab for Cutie, read Kerouac and Joyce, play my guitar, and just be hip. But my eyelids are heavy and all I can think about is how much sleep I'll get if I go to bed right now. Seriously, if I go to bed right now I'll get six hours and 40 minutes. I just want to say forget it, I don't need you, Mr. Sleep. You're like Chinese food. I think I've had enough, but then I'm tired an hour later.

I love to ponder (yes, ponder is the perfect word) about where my friends are right now. RDT is in Idaho, surrounded by beautiful pieces of art, many of which he has created. Eric Peterson is in Kansas City..."it's just a 1, 2, 3,4...5,6,7,8,9!" Krshul's in Vegas. So are Mr. and Mrs. Mark Hutchings and the Dunsmoors. Cindy Morgan's an L.A. Woman. Mad Dog and Lisa are in NYC. We're in CR, CO. And we're all connected by my thoughts, as if they are a physical entity, keeping us together like a spider web of love and concern.

There's wars and bombs and train derailments and heart attacks and strokes and guns and slaps and fear and screams, right along side the laughter and beauty and success and freedom and hope, and it's all together happening right now. Sometimes I'm focused on one side, sometimes the other. It's times like this that they are equal in my mind, and I feel a balance, I feel like everything's going to be fine.

I hope to one day write. Chanel told me she thinks I hate to write, and I told her she was right. I do hate to write. It's the hardest thing in the world for me to do. There are so many people who do it so wonderfully. Like Keith Bearden, whose influence on my writing was instrumental in my creative writing attempts in high school, Dylan Todd, who can write with such clarity and beauty and hipness without seeming to even try, and the greats like Kerouac, Dos Passos, Fitzgerald ("blue as the sky, boys") and Saroyan. When I write I think of them, and I want to be as good as them, and when I'm not I want to curl up in the corner and fall asleep, give it all up and get a factory job and just forget about everything. I really need some sort of motivation, but life is too good. I can't write when I'm happy, and I've never, ever been happier. So, what I'm saying is, I want to write, but I'd rather be happy than published.

You were probably startled that my blog had been updated. Hopefully the next one won't be written months from now.

Father's Day 4.0

Today is Father's Day. This is my fourth Father's Day as an actual dad, and it has been by far my best. Chanel made me some sweet Broncos pajama pants, complete with pockets. She also gave me a cool shirt that says "New York. Paris. London. Rome. Castle Rock." I really think CR belongs in the same category as those other cities, but I'll save that for another blog. We had some amazing steaks, vegetables and a potato dish. Had a waiter brought this meal to me at a restaurant I would have demanded he escort me to the kitchen so I could shake the hand of the epicural genius that developed the tasty masterpiece. But it was Chanel, so I gave her props and ate like a man that hadn't eaten in a number of decades. Man that woman can cook. I mean she can really cook. She can also make me feel like I'm the most special, most loved man alive. I love her like absolutely crazy.

I'm really thankful that I have the opportunity to be a father. A talk given in church today helped me understand how important the role of father is. The speaker gave statistics about homes without fathers, and it seems that the kids in these homes don't fare as well as the kids in homes with dad around.

I love my girls. I choke up when I think about them growing up and getting married. I want to be a cool dad when they start dating but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be Rambo and hunt down the potential escorts with my big machine guns, hand grenades and machettis. I want to protect them at all costs.

Those fathers out there that are reading this know what I mean when I say I love my girls. I can't explain the deep love I have, the joy I get when Julia hugs me or Lauren Grace smiles at me. My heart melts when I'm around them. The world stops spinning and all my troubles go away when I see them. No matter what happens to me professionally, I will always be their daddy, and that means the entire world to me. I thank God for giving me a miniature view of what He feels for all his children.

I'm thankful for Chanel. She is an incredible mom, and an awesome wife. I don't know how she does what she does, but I'm very glad that she does. We're best friends. She has helped me become the person that I am. What a cool chick.

In other news, I built a bunk bed for the girls. I have a hard time building sandwiches, let alone beds, so I decided to document the monumentous event. Check out the progression photos.

Finally, what blog would be complete without a few artsy shots of Lauren Grace?

Visions of Jack

I'm really not in the mood to blog right now. I don't have that burning fire-like writer's desire in me, and that makes me a little upset. Kerouac would write for hours and hours straight, he'd write like mad, like a bullet train he'd type away all through the night. I wish I could do that, but my attention span is very short, and I don't want drugs and alcohol to help me stay awake all night. One day I will write a novel that will be considered great years after I die. Or, I won't. Either way, I just don't feel like blogging right now.

I think it's funny that when you spell check your blog the word blog is considered a misspelling.

Isn't this a cool picture of Lauren Grace sleeping in the back seat of our car?

I love this town

It's been over a month since I posted my last blog. It would have been longer if my close friend Dylan hadn't persuaded me to "get my blog on."

I have decided to express my love for my home town in this post. Every morning I wake up, look out my window and thank God that I live in the world's greatest town. When you think of Anytown, U.S.A. you think of Castle Rock, with its rolling green hills, corner cafes, bridges in the heart of downtown, and trains that blow their ever-traveling whistles to let you know they've just been through America and they're ready to tell you all about their travels before they start them all over again.

Some day I plan to put into words the feelings I get when I look at my town so you can fully comprehend how great it is to live here. That may take a while, so yesterday I decided to take Lauren Grace with me around town to snap some photos of this wonderful corner of the earth. Check them out:

This is "The Rock," a cool formation that can be seen from all over town, and from I-25 as well. It's our Golden Gate Bridge, our Statue of Liberty, our Sears Tower, and I love it. One day I'll climb it. If I survive I'll post pictures.

It may be difficult to tell by these pictures, but Castle Rock offers some amazing views. The Wal-Mart roof can be seen in the photo on the left. The photo on the right was taken from a Catholic church parking lot.


I am fascinated by bridges, especially if there's choo-choo trains on them (center). The one on the right is downtown, and it spans a little river with a walking trail beside it. A few weeks ago they had a plastic duck race down there.



"Downtown, let's go downtown." Downtown Castle Rock is a perfect example of a classic downtown, before Sam Goody and Sports Authority and Baskin Robbins took over America's landscape and pocketbooks. The top center photo is a shot of a sweet ice cream shop called Olde Towne Creamery, which service ice cream made from the milk of Boulder, CO cows. Top right is a shot of a rockin' music shop that I need to check out.

I am going to post more photos this evening. Please post a comment and let me know what you think of this place. And remember, our basement bedroom is always open for visitors.

Awake!

For only the second time in Lauren's life I am awake with her and Chanel is alseep. It's 11:15 p.m. Denver time. How am I awake this late? It's easy. I had a tuna fish sandwich for dinner at 10 p.m., and now I'm experiencing something similar to a sugar or caffeine rush. I call it a fatty omega 3 rush.

Now Lauren's fussy. I have to go.

Where's the tumbleweed and slot machines?

We made it. It took 18 hours, but we made it.

My brother Alex and I drove from Las Vegas to Castle Rock last Sunday/Monday. We left at 7 a.m. and arrived at the CR Days Inn at 2 a.m., exhausted and thankful to be alive.

Do you know what it's like to drive a 26' truck with a car on a trailer behind you in the middle of the night through the dark, dark mountains of Colorado? It's like nothing else. I felt like a mad man. I was slapping myself, trying to keep from falling asleep and careening off the road and into the Colorado River with all of my family's possessions. During especially steep parts of the trip our max speed was 25 MPH.

We were delayed by almost two hours because we had to stop in Cedar City, Utah and allow a U-Haul technician to fix the headlight control unit in the 10' truck my brother Alex was driving. Here's a shot of us hanging out at the Shell gas station near I-15.


Chanel and the girls flew up, but they were also delayed a few hours, thanks to a Vegas visit by Bush. We picked them up at the airport early Monday afternoon.

I really like Colorado. It has snowed twice since we got here 11 days ago. It has also been above 70 degrees. The weather can't make up its mind, which is why I think Chanel and I relate to it so well.

We have a basement. We have a front AND a back yard. We have a fireplace. Our neighborhood is clean and quiet. I see horses and geese during my commute. I love it here.

But there is a drawback. Denver radio is really, really bad. The classic rock station only plays two Doors songs, and plays them quite often. The "modern" rock station (93.3 fm) is decent, but nothing to write home about. And there are a TON of Christian stations and soft rock stations. "Rockford rock" is what Chanel and I call it. For some reason certain groups remind me of Rockford. Hall and Oates. Billy Ocean. Phil Collins. Whoa. I feel sick. I can't wait for our Vegas home to sell. A portion of the proceeds will be used to purchase a CD player for the Hyundai.

During the first few days, I was very homesick. I saw clouds from my backyard and I just wanted to hop on one and ride it back to Vegas. Back to familiarity. Work was overwhelming and scary, so that didn't help. But now that we toughed it out, I am very glad we are here. I still think of Vegas, but I no longer want to go back. Work is going well for now, so I'm happy.

Thanks for reading. I'm going to keep my blogs short, because I know you have a life outside of your computer. Check back often.

Leaving Las Vegas

Monday night, around 9
Less than a week left in Vegas

Hello,

Thanks for checking out my blog. It would be cool if we were together right now, sitting in front of my Dell monitor. I'd watch your lips move as you read these words. Then I'd watch you blush. Then I'd watch you concentrate on reading without "lipping." Then we'd both laugh, and I'd offer to get you a drink as an excuse to leave while you continue to read.

Chanel and the girls are at Disneyland right now, buying shirts and getting ready for the 3+ hour drive home. She went with Kathy, the MIL.

Crazy but I believe this time... I'm listening to the songs I used to produce Lauren's birth CD. Foo Fighters. I'll randomly insert lyrics in this blog. Just lucky we're alive.

At this time next week we'll be in Castle Rock, Colorado. This blog will soon be a historic e-document. But right now it's me and it's real and it's now. I'm scared. I hope we're making the right choice, man. I'm missing the family, the parents and brothers. Have you ever moved away? If so, how was it? How did you deal with the mixed feelings that flooded your mind and heart? Let me know. Shoot me an e-mail and I'll post it.

I wanted more than I could ever...

My angel wings, are bruised...

Here's what's on my mind's stove right now:

Book: Rough Stone Rolling, the Joseph Smith biography
Music: Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, the first Weezer album, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
Movies: None, really. I hope to gain enough courage to watch King Kong. I recently had a nightmare in which KK was following me through an unknown town.

As always, I'm loving my wife and kids. I miss them. The emptiness this house has without them is almost overwhelming. I just want to go to bed

And in time I've realized it's now wrapped around my neck.

The rusted signs we ignore throughout our lives, choosing the shiny ones instead.

I really can't believe I'm leaving Las Vegas. This is my town. It's who I am, whether or not I want it to be.

I want to live, I want to give. I've been a miner for a heart of gold.

I wonder what life's going to be like in CO. Lately I've been "getting old." Hopefully the move will bring out the Ryan I remember and miss. Take care, and check back often.

Dear sir or madam will you read my book it took me years to write will you take a look?