It was a good day. My wife and I had planned on driving up Price Canyon, stopping wherever we felt like it to take pictures. The camera we were using has a zoom lens more powerful than the scope on my hunting rifle, and it takes damn good pictures. Anyway, the leaves on the quakies are starting to turn bright red and yellow, so that's what we were hoping to get some good pictures of.

We ended up taking a dirt road just before Soldier Summit, and even though I had no idea where it went, we just kept on following it. It went way up in the mountains, and it was beautiful up there, so we just kept going and taking pictures along the way. We stopped and ate lunch in a little hollow in some quakies, nearly at the top of the highest mountain in the area. When we were done, we started heading down the other side, when we saw something badass. The road was cut into a steep hillside, so the hill dropped off to the left and rose sharply to the right. I was looking off down the hill, when my wife pointed straight ahead, but didn't say anything. I looked where she was pointing, and a black bear cub had fallen down the hillside and landed 20 feet in front of us. I said, "Holy shit!" and slammed on the brakes, then immediately rolled up my window. The bear cub scurried back onto its feet, and started running down the road away from us. After about 20 yards, he turned left and disappeared in the oak brush down the hill. We were pretty damn shocked, but we figured the momma bear was nearby, so I didn't dare get out and see if I could see the cub. I really wanted a picture, but it all happened so fast, nobody had time to grab the camera out of the case.

The road curved around the little bowl canyon, so after waiting a while to see if the momma bear was gonna show herself, we drove to the other side and scanned the hillside down which the cub had ran (or more likely, tumbled). We never did see the cub again, or the momma, so we just went along our way.

We also saw some hawks feeding on a rabbit, but we only got pictures of them flying away. Luckily, it didn't start raining until after we got back on the paved road, which came out by Sheep Creek, near the hot springs I like to go to (but haven't been in a long time).

We were gone for a total of 6 hours, and most of that was spent driving...but I had a lot of fun. We're planning on doing something like this again this weekend, only on some other dirt road we've never been on.

It feels good to wake up at 11:00 a.m. on a weekday. :) I have today and the next 5 days off from work, but I don't know what I'm going to do with all this time off.

I was going to go to Lake Powell, but my in-laws got invited without my knowledge, so when I found out I changed my mind about going. My wife thinks I'm being selfish, but I don't think so at all. After what happened last time I went camping with them, and the many other squabbles I've had with them, I decided I'd spend my vacation having fun, rather than being around them while they make me feel like a child tagging along, when in fact they'd be tagging along with me. They're good at manipulating and controlling people.

I'm eating salsa verde Doritos for breakfast. The only thing missing is a Dr. Pepper...but that'll have to wait 'til after I shower. I'll probably head to Gas-N-Go then, and maybe go do some target shooting or off-roading or both. My mom is fixing me dinner for my birthday this evening...she's good to me. :) Other than that, I have absolutely no solid plans until Tuesday when I go back to work.

Like my webhost. My site was down for about 12 hours late last night and this morning. Assman said he could hit it, but I couldn't hit it from home or from work.

UDOT and the UHP suck as well. UDOT did a construction project on US-6 between Price and Spanish Fork, widening the road to four lanes for a one or two mile stretch. Well, that's all fine and dandy, but they left their fucking orange construction barrels in the fucking new lanes they made, and they forgot to raise the fucking speed limit back up to fucking 65. Fucking assholes. Their fucking website says the only thing left to do is paint the lines, which was supposed to be done fucking August 21st. Which it fucking wasn't.

Anyway, the UHP is apparently taking full advantage of this, as there is a law in Utah that doubles the fines for speeding in a construction zone. UDOT is finished with this project, and has been for a month and a half, yet the construction zone signs remain up, meaning the fucking UHP is having a field day giving out tickets to people going 55 in a zone that used to be 65.

And to top it all off, I saw some UDOT workers erecting (heh) a sign at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon (heading toward Price) that said, "Increased Traffic Enforcement, Next 53 [Fucking] Miles." And this morning I saw 5 or 6 brand new patrol cars, with lights but no decals yet, heading toward Price...no doubt to help perpetrate the conspiracy.

I got a cool email from Rich at positivecurrent, not only asking for a link, but offering to draw me a picture. Maybe I'll get some Dennis-Os, like Justin did. :)

And I can't help but throw a link up to Zoko Siman. Werd.

Oh yeah, baby. I used to play Legend of the Red Dragon every day on BellySoft BBS, back in the days before Price had internet access. I had to read the instructions all over again, since it had been so long since I played, but it all came back to me quickly. The server is often busy, so you may have to try several times before being able to play.

I was sittin' around reading a book a while before today's (technically, yesterday's) race came on, when my neighbor, who I had only met briefly several months ago, came over and asked me if I wanted to go shooting clay pigeons. I really didn't know the guy, but I see him around almost every day, and he seemed pretty cool, so I grabbed my .22 and some ammo and we went up Airport Road.

He brought his .45, and I'd never fired a high-powered handgun before (just a .22 mag), so I had a little fun with that first. Then we shot a bunch of .22 rounds at bottles and cans (just clap your hands) laying around. Then we broke out the 16 guage shotgun, and blew away a whole box of pigeons.

Anyway, I forgot to bring some earplugs, so my hearing is probably permanently damaged. :) And now, I want to buy a handgun more than ever. That doesn't mean jack shit 'cause I still don't have the money...maybe I'll take on a couple of computer jobs to earn some extra dough. :)

My wife is addicted to Diablo II. :) In the past three days, she has played roughly 19 hours. So as a result, my computer usage has gone way down...

Whenever I see those Budweiser commercials, in which Augustus Busch XXVII and his son (or whoever they are) appear, I can't help but think they look like the sleaziest of used car salesmen. It just seems to me that they'd be better off showing the clydesdales and the dalmatians rather than those two guys.

I occasionally do some computer work (installing hardware & software and all that fun stuff) for my wife's uncle (who owns a used car dealership), which I don't mind 'cause he's a cool guy...plus he pays well. But he referred me to somebody he knows at another local dealership, so I ended up doing some work for them and one other person they referred me to. At first, I was thinking, "Hell yeah...I can make some bank off this shiz." But it got to the point where every fucking idiot with a computer (usually an old 486) was calling me, asking me to fix their obsolete equipment. And these people are so computer-illiterate, they have a very difficult time even explaining what's wrong. I get stuff like, "It's not working," or, "It doesn't do that thing it used to do anymore."

So anyway, I'm not doing that shit anymore. I'm so happy that I have a job in which I do not deal with the public in any way.

With everybody going back to college (or going for the first time), it's got me thinking about when I moved away for college. I had just completed 2 years at CEU, and I moved 75 miles away to Provo to attend UVSC.

I managed to fit all my belongings into my '88 Ford Escort GT, even with my large speaker box in the back. My first day there (after unloading my car) was spent shopping. I bought towels, 'cause I didn't have any of my own, and the necessary toiletries like soap and shampoo and all that schtuff.

School was ok, but I only managed to complete one semester before dropping out to start working at my job full-time. And I'm still at that job, over 3½ years later. I just recently found out that USU offers bachelor's degrees through their extension at CEU, so I'm seriously considering getting a CS degree. Not that it would do me any good living in such a rural area, but if anything opens up around here, I'd be much better qualified than I am now.

AIM sucks a big fat dick. For some reason today, everybody on my buddy list (what a gay name) disappeared. So now I have 0 people on my buddy list. And this is the second time this has happened. The first time, I only had about 5 people on my list, and this time I had about 15. Lemme tell ya, ICQ never did that to me.

I've had a lot of foreigners adding me to their ICQ contact lists lately, and I just can't figure out why. Here's a recent conversation I had with one of them:

? Lowe You: selam nas?ls?n

Me: Word to your momma.

? Lowe You: onur senin:)))

Me: My sentiments exactly. :)

? Lowe You: byyyyyyyy

? Lowe You: byyyy

Me: Yeah yeah, later man.

? Lowe You: good byee

Me: Byyyyyyy.

Heh...I just got finished creating a new layout for this site. But I don't know if it would be appropriate to put it up so soon after putting the current one up. It's like breaking up with a girlfriend...there's a period of mourning that you must go through before banging some other chick. :)

I think it's time for me to get a new keyboard. The enter key sticks really bad, and I have to pound on it to get it unstuck. The period on the numeric keypad only works if I hammer on it with the blunt end of a pen...which isn't very efficient when I'm trying to balance my checkbook using calc. :)

I finally got Diablo II (thanks Dan). :) The first few minutes I played, I didn't think I was going to like it. But I've played for about a half hour now, and I'm starting to like it. I doubt I'll actually play enough to finish the game, 'cause I'm still not as into it as I was Half-Life and UT when I first got them...

Justin pointed me to a site I've never seen before, An Entirely Other Day. God damn, it's funny. For example, check this one.

Oh, and Andy put a new layout up over at poxy.net, so go check it out. :)

Well, Tony Stewart is pretty much out of today's race, but at least he took Jeff Gordon out with him. :) I think it's funny as hell when the producers pipe in the crowd cheering whenever something bad happens to Jeff Gordon, and today they really let him have it. As soon as he went into the pits after the crash, the crowd started cheering louder than they did when the race started. I guess it just goes to show that nobody likes Gordon.

I don't know what the problem was last night, but today's install worked perfectly. Of course, I had to setup my modem and soundcard manually, but that was no biggie after booting into Windows and writing down the IRQs and such.

I managed to install all my Windows fonts, so now most webpages view perfectly in Netscape, though CSS still doesn't work worth a shit. I got licq working fine, but my contact list is bare, since I can't import my list from Windows. I can't get gAIM to work at all...it logs me into the server then returns a "No Configuration" error message. Whatever that is.

Well, I attempted to install Linux Mandrake this evening, but something fucked up. I was trying to configure my video options, and I clicked the "Test" option to test my settings, but the install finished instead. So the computer rebooted and started loading linux, but when it game time to load the GUI, it froze up on me. I'm not about to try configuring my video card from the command line, so I'll give the install another try tomorrow evening. It took me about 3 hours today, and I just don't feel like staying up any later tonight.

My wife and I were bored today, so we decided to go for a drive. As we were driving through town, I kept asking her where she wanted to go, but she didn't know. So I decided to go to East Carbon, a city (err...dinky little town) about 25 miles from Price. The road to East Carbon is a dead end...it goes to that city and nowhere else. I've only been there once, but it was a while ago and I don't remember much about it.

We just drove on the main road through East Carbon, which eventually turned into a dirt road and went up some canyon. I really wanted to head up the canyon to see where the road went, but I didn't want to get my truck dirty, since I just washed it Sunday...I especially didn't want to scuff the sidewalls on the tires, which I spent so much time cleaning and scrubbing. :) Anyway, I just took a whiz there on the dirt road, then we turned around and headed home. It was getting dark out, and we saw a few deer just off the side of the road. And the sunset was damn nice-looking...the sun was large and red, and the clouds turned from red to dark purple.

There's really no point to this story...except that I had a surprisingly good time. It was just peaceable, and fun since I was doing something I don't normally do. I saw a lot of dirt roads and trails that look like they'll be fun to go off-roading on, so next time I'm in the mood, I'm gonna head up there and do some exploring.

Heh, the Bloodhound Gang kicks ass. :) I've been listening to some of their slightly older stuff a lot lately, and my wife better get me their new album for my birthday. :) I find it strange that I actually like their juvenile humor so much. But then again, I was a big Beavis & Butthead fan back in the day.

Mr. Rebelo has started an E/N Linux User's Group, or e/nlug. If you're reading this, and you're a linux geek, go sign up! :)

Value of X is goin' strong with a badass new site design. BAM!

asr from asrnet has got a new site goin' on at SpitefulMinds.com. There are a bunch of interviews of e/n guys up here, and you can go directly to my interview here

Well, it sucks when you can't have a campfire anyway. The USFS has banned campfires in all national forests around here because of all the wildfires that have started recently. We decided to come home a day early, but we wanted to stay until dark so we could scout for elk until then, but we still didn't see any. We got home last night around 11:30, and I showered and went straight to bed. When I got up this morning, my truck had a flat tire, so I had to unload all my gear from my truck so I could get my spare tire out. After I had changed tires, I washed my truck. The mud inside the fender wells was three or four inches thick, so it took forever to get it all out (and it made a mess of my driveway).

Not only did the camping suck yesterday, but the fishing sucked too. I fished for several hours, and the only thing I got was a sunburn. There were fish jumping around all over the lake, but none of them wanted a taste of my Powerbait. :(

It feels good to be home, but it's much hotter down here than it was up in the mountains. I really need to get a/c in my house.

My wife and I are supposed to be leaving to go camping in a couple hours, and my bro- and sister-in-law are coming with. If things go like they usually do, we'll be leaving in 4 hours instead of 2. But oh well, I've come to expect that kind of stuff. :)

One of my best friends got laid off today. He used to be my manager at the company I work for, but he left for a better job at a web design company. It's too bad, 'cause he was doing very well there. I just want to wish him luck finding something else fast. Good luck, Keith! :)

A couple months ago, some BYU news guy asked me a bunch of questions about Nutty Putty Cave, and he put the story up here.

I rarely go out to the movies, but I went and saw Space Cowboys tonight. It was pretty good, though it was exactly what I expected and slightly predictable. It's worth going out to see, though.

Work was interesting today. There's a long story behind it, but the short version is that I had to bring some work-related papers 70 miles to my office, leave them there, and take home photocopies of the same papers. It sounds ridiculous, but that's what happens when I'm forced to deal with unreasonable people. The good thing is that it was all on the clock, and instead of reimbursing me for gas money, I get to take several hours off work next week (which is fine by me). :)

I added my AIM screen name (uDennis69) to the contact page. I really only use AIM to talk to Mike, but I figure there are plenty of other deprived people out there who don't use ICQ that I might want to chat with. :)

I got Soldier of Fortune today. So far, it's ok, but I've only played for about 10 minutes. I'm still on the first level, and I think I keep getting run over by the subway train, but I never see it coming. As far as gameplay is concerned though, I still like Unreal Tournament and Half-Life better.

Yeah, I did it again. I was bored, and I started thinking that the (relatively) old layout sucked (which it did). There's still a little problem left for me to work out for Netscape users--the table that the poll appears in uses the same background image that its parent

I drew out for the antlerless elk hunt this year. They only gave out 100 permits for the area I applied for, and my father- and brother-in-law and I applied as a group, so if one person drew, we all did. Since it's an antlerless hunt, there a much better chance that I'll get one. :) Now I gotta figure out which days I need to take off from work, and buy some topo maps of the area. I'm going camping out there this weekend, so I'm going to scout the area and look for all the good watering holes. I'm really stoked about it, and the hunt is still a couple months away...

My wife and I did some more fossil hunting today. When I went last week, I got kinda bummed out because we didn't find anything. But this time, we found a lot of fossils. I brought a regular household hammer and a sledgehammer, and I pretty much walked around dry streambeds breaking shale up. We found some fossilized snail-looking creatures (the long spiral type of snail), and some fossilized plants (I think). We also did a lot of good 4-wheeling, exploring roads in the Consumers area just north of Price. I tried to do a little rabbit hunting, but the jackrabbits out there were way too fast for me to get a shot off.

It's just not right when your favorite pair of pants starts to wear out. Right now, I'm wearing my JNCO Funky 20, 34" x 34" jeans, and they've got a big hole in the ass (on the corner of the pocket) and another big hole in the crotch. And since they're my favorite, I still wear them all the time. I don't really care what other people think about it...if they don't wanna see my tighty-whities, they can avert their eyes. :)

Last weekend, I disassembled my .22 semi-auto rifle because an internal part had come loose and was rattling around inside. Since I had it all apart, I decided to do a little maintenance. While doing this, I was tightening the screw that attaches the sight, and the damned thing fell off. I tried to screw it back on, but the screw was stripped, and it was such an unusual size that I couldn't replace it.

So I bought a Tasco 3 x 7 scope today at Wal-Mart, and after I had mounted it, I went for a drive on Airport Road to sight the scope in. On my way up there, a black Ford F-150 4x4 with 4 guys in it was tailgating me. That area is so remote, I was getting paranoid, because they had all the room in the world to pass me. Eventually, we came to a long, straight passing lane, and the guy drove on past me. He musta just been a pansy or something. Anyway, the whole time they were behind me, I was thinking to myself, "Let's see, there's 4 of them and only 1 of me. But hey, I have a loaded .22 with 10 rounds of ammo in the clip! Fuck them!" I could seriously imagine myself opening fire on somebody that tried to start shit with me. I guess it's a good thing I don't carry firearms with me all the time. :)

Hey look, it's Ty! :)

I just got done watching one of my favorite movies of all time: The Princess Bride. No matter how many times I've seen that movie, it's still hilarious...it's such a classic. :)

Damn, it smells badly of smoke around here. Because of all the wildfires between here and California, visibility is probably less than 20 miles, as opposed to the crystal clear air that I'm used to. I'm sure Salt Lake City isn't that different than its normal polluted self, but then again, even the local news media has been complaining about it. And they're so damned egocentric, they consider Provo to be in southern Utah (ok, I might be exaggerating a little bit).

Hahah...Solo is a funny guy. Just in case he's changed his site, here's a screenshot.

Work has been going extremely slow lately. My team is in between projects, and there's just not much to do except help other teams with insignificant things. And with all the free time I have, things have still been pretty slow around here.

My wife and I are going fossil hunting (and 4-wheeling!) tomorrow. I still haven't figured out what that fossil I found last week is, but I'm thinking about calling the CEU Prehistoric Museum and seeing if anybody there can tell me what it is.

Cool, apparently I grew up in a semi-ghost town. :) Beware of the horrible MIDI on that page.