My Life in Blog Space

Personalized License Plate Ideas

2008-09-23T08:09:00.000-07:00

In my own honor......I have decided to get personalized license plates. I am soliciting ideas from my blog readers. It has to be 5 characters. In five seconds of thought I came up with:

BIKER
BYKER
IBIKE
IBYKE

Any ideas you have would be great. It doesn't have to be about biking. That is just where I started.

Leave your Ideas as Comments!!!!!

Poster Child

2008-09-22T19:16:00.000-07:00

So I walk into the 'World of Bikes' where my friend Andrew works. And the first thing that he says to me is: "Dude, how did you become the model for the license plate post card?" I replied: "What?" I was a little confused. We continued to debate, it became obvious to Andrew that I had no clue what he was talking about. He said: "So they never contacted you and asked permission to use your picture?" I said: "No, what are you talking about?" He then showed me this postcard, which has been distributed to bike stores and DPS offices all over the state of Iowa. I am the poster child of biker awareness for the state of iowa and I had no idea. Can you just see it........The classic bell, helmet, shirt and tie, basket with lunch box, and the blue cruiser bike. I even have my wrist GPS, so I can measure exactly how far I have ridden and how fast I am going. I have a previous post on my blog from June about bike to work week when this picture was taken. Who ever took it must have thought that I was the most ridiculous looking biker, I definetely was on this day. Should I not get some kind of royalties for this?

Draw Bridge Across the Mississippi

2008-09-17T19:50:00.000-07:00

My roomate Josh and I drove down together to Nauvoo for a young single adult conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. On the way down we were making up tunes and rhyming lyrics about heart break and dating. We had such a good laugh. We crossed the Mississippi at Fort Madison. It is not unusual during spring, summer, and fall to have to wait at the drawbridge for the barges to pass through. Once I was stuck for an entire hour (the drawbridges were not lining up correctly, these bikers tried to jump the gap, one of them popped his inner tube). On this day i actually made the drive twice to and from Iowa City(I didn't want to miss the BYU v UCLA blowout), both times I had to wait for the barge. I like being stopped. I always get out of my car and enjoy the Mississippi River vista and the fresh air. In the winter it is a great place to watch bald eagles. There are hundreds of them. It is an amazing site.

Josh sporting his suspenders.

Trip to Utah

2008-09-17T19:37:00.000-07:00

I went to Utah for the weekend after labor day to see my parents, family, and some friends. Saturday morning I had a treat and i saw my little sister's cross country race. I love pictures of people who are in physical strain. They are so charming.

I was the only one with a camera that day so these pictures are for Lexie to download.

I was really impressed with Lexies form. She is a very graceful runner.

My cousins came over on Friday night. We went swimming . We tried to get our reflection in the skylights. I miss my cousins alot. We always have such a good time when we get together.

Me, Amber, Rachel, and Scotty.

Saturday morning my mom and i went for a bike ride together down to Utah Lake State Park. We had a great time. It was a gorgeous day.

Saturday evening I went with Tiffanie to Rodizios grill for dinner and then the University of Utah vs. UNLV football game. Tiffanie and I laughed alot that night. Our cheeks were sore. After the game we met my dad at Baskin Robins for ice cream. I wish i had remembered to bring my camera that night. When I left Utah, I felt very homesick for family and friends. But now I am over the blues and life has picked up again where I left it. I am looking forward to seven days of Christmas week that i will be in utah to see family and friends. I already bought my train ticket.

Kernels Game and Pancake Breakfast at the Airport

2008-09-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

This is my friend Melissa and I at the Kernels baseball game in Cedar Rapids. Yes everything in Iowa has some reference to corn. We had a great time. It was shive-hattery's game night. So we sat around people from work including my good friend Keith.

My company is a corporate sponsor for this community organization that does service with people who have disabilities with speech and hearing. This organization has a pancake breakfast once a year at the Iowa City airport. I was expecting it to be just a few tables spread out in one of the hangers. Boy was I wrong.......it was quite the event. It was on a Sunday morning. It was a gorgeous day. They had a vintage car and airplane show. I am sitting in the cockpit of the life flight helicopter for the University of Iowa Childrens Hospital. The fire department was out there with a game for the children to play........even some adults....I won a hot pad. I invited my neighbor to go with me. She is a graduate student in speech and language pathology.

Iowa State Fair

2008-09-17T18:40:00.000-07:00

A group of my friends and I headed over to Des Moines (French for Monks) for the Iowa State Fair a couple of weeks ago. In the past, I mostly enjoyed the amusement rides. This year I was more interested in the booths, animals, and expos. Not to mention a fried turkey leg that we all shared for breakfast. The big boar's name is Freight Train, he weighed in at 1259 pounds. I like this picture below because of the little boy covering up his nose as he walks by. It actually didn't smell that bad.

For everyone that didn't get enough of Shawn Johnson in the Olympics, here is a life size butter sculpture of her. Every year they always make a life size butter sculpture of a cow and then other sculptures that reflect popular culture from the current year. Last year, they had a life size sculpture of Harry Potter.

This is my friend Jessica and the lama that put the moves on her as soon as we took this picture.

The iowa state fair is the Largest fair in the world. The Saturday that we went they set an attendance record of 100,000 people in one day. That is about 1/30th of the state population. This is a good view of one of the busy streets. Jessica and I took the lift ride to the snap this picture. Everything at the state fair is overpriced. The lift ride was $6 for a round trip ticket. I will never do that again. The battered and deepfried snicker, oreo, and pineapple that we all shared were each $3.

The following pictures are from the John Deere Expo. I put up three so that my nephew, Daniel, can get all big eyed and excited about his uncle.

RAGBRAI

2008-07-27T16:27:00.001-07:00

RAGBRAI: Registers Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa

Iowa has this tradition that is the worlds biggest bike ride. It is called RAGBRAI and it is a week long event, with ~15,000 riders (10,000 registered and ? unregistered riders). Riders start on the west side of the state with their back tires in the Missouri River and ride across the entire state along a route that changes every year to do the 'Mississippi Dip,' or put there front tire in the Mississippi River. The next two picture show a large group of people arriving to the final destination of Le Claire and then lining up for their dip.

Iowa cities have really friendly and warm downtowns.

I had heard about it last year when I moved here. This year I did the last day of riding. It was a huge party on wheels, niles of corn fields, an occasional water tower, and intermittent pig farms that make your nose hairs curl.

I am so excited for next year. I am saving vacation so that I can do the entire thing. I'll just move my rack from my commuter bike to my road bike and haul my tent, sleeping pad and bag, and whatever else I need for an entire week. I have several friends that did the entire things this year so I have a fun group to go with. There was a lot of positive energy and the people of Iowa in all of the small towns throw a big party for all of the bikers.

Nothing says 55 miles of biking better then stopping f or a savory pork chop at mile 30. I am so excited for next year. What a great state with fantastic family traditions. To all my family, we should plan on this for next year or the year after. It was so much fun. I saw several five person families with a tandem bike with a pedal chariot on the back and a double chariot for the smaller kids being pulled behind the first chariot. It was awesome!!!!!

4th of July and Jazz Festival

2008-07-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

We had great seats for the Iowa City 4th of July fireworks show. They launched from Hubbard Park on the Iowa River.

Because we sat nestled in the classic buildings that make up the UI pentacrest (on the front steps of the old iowa state capitol building) I felt like I was seeing a fireworks show from our nations capital.

The old iowa state capital building is behind and above me. It was a spectacular sight with the fireworks.

The next night My room mate and I took our neighbors Su and Megan out to the Jazz Festival. It was a really fun night. The weather was gorgeous. We had pork on a stick, fried rice, and gelato. Afterwards we went up to the Coralville dam and took a look at the spill way. It was the perfect evening.

More Flood Pictures

2008-07-07T17:00:00.001-07:00

Devastation on Normandy!

2008-07-07T16:48:00.000-07:00

Escape Dog!

2008-07-07T16:33:00.000-07:00

I don't know how they did it but some how these dogs opened the back of the van! The white spotted dog jumped out when we came to a stop light.

Farmers Market and Kalona Days!

2008-06-22T08:20:00.000-07:00

Right know I have decided that my blog is going to be a photo and video blog. Please be creative with your own captions.

More Iowa and the Floods

2008-06-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

If you can't tell by now..... I love bike rides. I love to get out and see the country side. That is very easy to do in Iowa City. In about 10 minutes in any direction I can get out of the city. Here are some pictures from my ride yesterday.

One of my destinations was the damn.

At the damn I spoke with a park ranger from the army corps of engineers. She filled me in on some of the details. The water is flowing at a height of 4.5 feet over the top of the spill way. The spill way is 500 feet long. The flow rate of the entire dam is 38,000 cfs (cubic feet per second, for those of you who don't talk about flow rates everyday). The flow rate (Vdot) over the spill way is 16,000 cfs. Average water speed (v) = Vdot/xsec area of water above spill way!

v = 16,000/(4.5*500)
= 7.1111111 feet/s
= 4.85 mph

Doesn't seem very fast?...... that is the average speed over the top. Some parts will be faster then others. So........If we knew the change in height of the spill way we could see the increase in average speed from the loss of potential energy, not to mention how the cross-sectional area of the flowing water decreases by atleast a quarter after the drop. My guess is that the average water speed at its lowest potential on the spill way is about 25 mph. Something I do not want to get caught in! The water in this video is noisy. You can hear the rush!!!!!

To the immediate right of my helmet is one of the well heads that I sandbagged for two days. The picture was a little awkward, I used my head to block the sun (pun intended).

Once again, this is Burlington Bridge. They don't expect the flow rate out of the dam to decrease until Friday. Lets hope that we don't get any more rain.

It just keeps rising!

2008-06-15T20:05:00.000-07:00

While you watch this video.....chant to yourself the theme from "Jaws!"

So it has been a week since I last blogged. The reason I have not posted is because I have come home exhausted everyday from sandbagging in our community. However, the neighborhood that I helped sandbag succumbed in the end and the water is 7 feet high in their houses. However, our efforts were not in vain. I am sure this lent the homeowners a little more time to move out their possessions. Below is a house that I worked on for two days. It is now an aquarium.

This is what the Iowa River looked like last Friday as it went underneath the Burlington bridge. Usually, this is a very calm river.

This is my room mate Josh by the Burlington Bridge.

One of the buildings on the left side of this aerial picture, is El Dorado Mexican Restaurant. I had dinner here in January with my Mom. Back then we were having the same problem. Inundated with snow. Somethings never change, H20 phases do.

These next few pictures are down the street from El Dorado and the Coralville Strip. This, by the way, is the business center of Coralville. Usually, this street is very busy with cars.

This is a view of the road on the way to the art and music side of campus. I would say the clearance is a little less then 14' 5."

I didn't work on Thursday or Friday. I took both days off with no pay as did most of my office to help sandbag. We sandbagged the well pump heads for our city. That was an amazing effort. If it were not for every volunteer working with urgency we would not have clean water to drink. We would be 'up the creek' like they are in Cedar Rapids. This is my friend Michele Bowen running on a pile of sandbags.

This is my room mate Josh and I at one of the Well heads . The water had already surrounded this well head and we were working feverishly to get it secure. They believe we should be okay and that the water will be safe. They were using a frontloader to get us on and off of the well head island. It was amazing. Josh has a picture of us on the frontloader. I will have to wait until he gets back from his National Guard duty. He was activated that evening for flood emergency detail.

This is Dubuque street. This is the main entrance to the City. It requires a lengthy detour to get downtown.

Josh and I made our own detour. All of the roads were closed, we were both tired and didn't feel like biking an additional 9 miles to get home so we forded a flood and a meadow.

We have another picture of me with my bike loaded in a row boat crossing a stream. We used almost every form of self propelled motion to get home.

Josh emerging from the Meadow. It was a sea of weeds.

Well, this flood has broken all of the records, even the great flood of 93'. It is truly of biblical proportions(whatever that means)!

What a bitter sweet experience this has been. There has been destruction in IC and CR. Mostly in CR. People have lost everything. I have witnessed my community come together and work in a way to preserve our way of life. Every day this week I would reach a point where I didn't think I could lift, pass, or throw another bag. Somehow if I stayed a little longer I was given strength beyond my own. I have a good feeling in my heart. I volunteered more then 33 hours this past week.

My arms are scratched. My fingers, wrists, and forearms are sore. I am exhausted and I feel invigorated. In the spirit of Shoe Less Joe Jackson, I really do think Iowa is Heaven. This is a great place. My heart and prayers are with those that are suffering. May God bless them and all of us.

Odyssey of a Sandbag

2008-06-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday....instead of the last hour of church we sandbagged for our neighbors that live in the flood plain of the river. We had so much fun. Here are the pictures and video.

Afterwards we went over to Melissa's house for Travis' going away party!

Bike Ride, Dam, IC under water, and Arts Festival!

2008-06-08T19:48:00.000-07:00

So, this happened last friday. So I put on my padded biker shorts and Lance Armstrong jersey and charted a new course for my biking adventure. The quest was to go explore the flooding in IC and up at the Coralville Dam. I found the most gorgeous country road, Newport Rd, it is a cross road between Prairie DuChein and North Dodge. It was gorgeous with green rolling hills. The corn in Iowa is about 3" tall.

I came around a turn....... and there was doe feeding her fawn.

I try to make sure that I am in most of the pictures that I take!!!!

This is a rode that is flooded in IC, this is the first day of flooding.....It will only get worse from here.

The wise man built his house upon a what?

This is up at the reservoir. Last year at this time we had a beach partiy here. As you can see it is a little flooded. You can see the brown roof of the park pavillion!

This is on top of the spill way. The blue line on the sign marks how high the waters flowed over the dam spill way during the great flood of 93'. These 100 year floods every 15 years are going to kill us.

Spill way!!!!

'Where the sidewalk ends..........?'

This next picture is on top of the dam. It was gorgeous.

This is what 12,000 cubic feet per minute looks like coming out of the damn. They are supposed to increase the flowrate to 20,000 cfm by today. They hope to avoid water going over the spill way. However, with the amount of rain we have had, the officials expect similar water levels to the 93' flood. From what the locals say, the city is more prepared this time in the event of a major flood.

Later that night I went to the Iowa City Arts Festival. They had a free concert. I ran into lots of people I knew. That was nice because I actually went down all by myself. I had a great time.

I ate this vegetarian/all natural curry. It was really good. I then cooled off with a cherry-limade Hawaiian shaved ice.

This was a fantastic day!!!!!

Memorial Day and AK-47s at the BBQ

2008-06-08T19:33:00.001-07:00

The other day I rode my bike through a cemetery. I was just gazing at the tomb stones. I saw one that recorded the death date of an Army Lieutenant on June 5th 1944. This date stuck out to me. I could not remember what was significant about it until I looked it up on my computer. This young freedom fighter died on D-day. Wow! I was very touched. He was buried next to his brother and his parents. All three of which survived him.

Today with the Day off I got a really bad sunburn. I did take a minute to remember all of the veterans and soldiers who gave their life in defense of freedom. This is a cemetery near lake Macbride, NE of Iowa City. I biked 20 miles to the the lake with a few of my friends.......

Everyone else from the branch then met us there. We played ultimate frisbee for a couple hours........

Then we went to the beach at Lake MacBride, had lunch and went swimming. I then turned around on my bike and rode 20 miles back home by myself. My friends decided to get rides back for themselves and their bikes.

We went to a BBQ. My roommate Josh brought Oksana (his AK-47). I was surprised at how little it kicked. About the same as a .22 caliber rifle. It was fun.

Bike to Work Week

2008-06-08T19:17:00.000-07:00

One of the weeks during May was bike to work week in IC and Coralville. They had all sorts of events around the cities on different days of the week. They had free breakfasts for anyone that biked to work. This is breakfast in front of Kinnick Stadium.

On Wednesday we had a bike parade in the evening. This is the beginning of the bike parade. I would say there were about 300 bikers in the parade. A lot of them were families.

This is the view from the back of the bike parade through Iowa City.

I was looking at the camera before I took this picture as I was riding, but then I hit a bump as I was clicking the shutter button, so I kept my eyes on the road.

Shadows. Notice the guy in top right corner. He rode a wheely for most of the 6 mile ride. Amazing.

This is my friend John. We are on a swim team together in Iowa City. We also play ultimate together at least once a week. It was just pure luck that we ran into each other at the bike to work week parade.

This is the bikers party at the end of the parade. They had free food and a band.

Iowa City is the best kept secret. What a young, fun, happening town.

Illegals Beware

2008-06-08T19:12:00.000-07:00

If you come to Iowa we will jail your women and process your men at the meat packing plant.

I found this clip in the Iowa City Press-Citizen. I thought Iowa was famous for pork chops and corn!

MakeOver

2008-05-05T18:54:00.000-07:00

Usually when my life becomes a disaster my room is the first evidence. I realized that bunkbeds were too much clutter. So I took down the bunk beds and let someone from my branch borrow the extra bed.

I also decided that there was not enough light in my bedroom so I had a BRIGHT IDEA:

The light is an exterior house lamp from Walmart. I have actually made two of these. I bought the lamp, an extension cord, and a throw switch. I plugged the cord into the wall to see how high on the wall I could place the lamp...... Big mistake. I forgot to unplug the cord before I cut it. There was a huge spark and the electrical arc melted the scissors and almost spot welded them. Wow. I am blessed to be alive. Wow.

The pieces of my post-engagement life are coming back together, I am still very sad, but doing better everyday. I have a wonderful family and good friends. Life is getting better.

This past Sunday after Stake Conference we had a Birthday Party for President Peters of the Iowa City 3rd Branch. Stake Conference was very good. I could really see the how the Lord was working through his servant to bring a message that could heal and empower me.

Have a nice week.

Job

2008-05-01T15:55:00.000-07:00

Pictures of me in front of work.

View of corn fields behind work.

Today was my eleventh day of working for Shive-Hattery. So far I like it. I work with great people. I am working on a project to renovate all of the mechanical needs for a Taft Middle School in Cedar Rapids. So, while at work I came across this dresser full of very old drawings. This dresser contains actual blue prints.

If you look very closely at the bottom drawer:

'Genesis!' Yes ladies and gents, we have the original blue prints from the creation of the world right here in Iowa.

First hello to a brave old World

2008-04-28T18:34:00.000-07:00

This is what city park looks like in April when the Iowa River is over flowing. There were 15" catfish jumping around where we will play softball later this summer.

Well there has been lots happening in my life recently that most people who will read my blog already know about. I was just un-engaged. But since I don't want to talk about that, lets fill in the other details. This is my roommate's other personality (Richard Simmons).

Richard Simmons made a guest appearance at my birthday party. He actually shows up a lot. We like it when he comes over, he always makes us smile and think of the 'lighter' side of life. Here is a picture of my friends that came to celebrate the day I was born.

When ever we have a gathering of more then three people in our apartment Josh and I always have show and tell. This means that we get out my Spanish sword and Josh's AK-47 for everyone to hold and admire.

Sometimes we get a little carried away and this happens:

All in all, although I am going through much heartbreak now, I feel my wealth all around me. I have a wonderful and supportive family who is still going to come visit me on my would be wedding day, I have good friends, and I have the best two room mates in the world. Most of all I know that God and His Son Jesus Christ live and that they care for me personally.