Kalai

Today I'm writing partly to document a great event, and partly to tell all of you of a great musician that you need to listen to.  Yesterday I attended a Kalai concert at Timpview High School.  Kalai is a Hawaiian born artist who is probably the most amazing guitar player that I have ever heard.  He has a bunch of albums out including Acousticism (my fav), Six Strings And The Rainy Day Man, and Crows Feet.  Anyhow, go check his music out.  He's one of a kind and he's among my favorite artists.  A couple of my awesome cousins came down from SLC for the concert and we hit campus for some J-Dawgs and Apple Beer before the concert.  All in all, an amazing evening.  Picts below:

Here is On My Mind from Acousticism

My signed copy of Acousticism

My signed Kalai t-shirt

My signed Kalai t-shirt with my signed copy of Acousticism

 Me with my signed Kalai t-shirt and my signed copy of Acousticism

 Okay, so I'm obsessed.  Deal with it :)  And check out Kalai.  Till next time...

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 P.S. On a side note: Timpview has an amazing ballroom dance team.  In the afternoon before the concert a friend and I went and saw them preform at a competition at Orem High.  I highly recommend checking them out.  Rock on Timpview dance team!!

The Young Man And The Sea

      Just a little while ago I finished reading The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway.  On coincidence, just a few days after finishing this great work of literature (which I would highly recommend to anyone), Matthew Clark invited me to go with him to Strawberry Reservoir to enjoy a lazy afternoon of fishing the lake and drifting around in a boat.  I thought it a grand idea as fishing is one of my favorite activities.  We headed up to Strawberry yesterday at about 3:00.  Strawberry is a beautiful place and we were fortunate enough to find the lake reasonably calm with little spots of silver shimmering on the ripples.  It was a good place to be, looking up at the sky and watching the sunny white clouds drift by.  Strawberry Reservoir is named thus because of the ruddy color that the rocks and soil around it sport.  It is also a great place to look for wildlife.  We witnessed a small group of elk trot down one of the hills surrounding the reservoir to lap up some of the cool, clear water.  Mule deer can often be seen near the shore as well.  As Chief, the personable black lab in the pictures, splashed around the shoreline looking for ducks, we launched the boat and, after starting up the small outboard motor, we were off.  After rigging up and trolling for a while we decided to try some jigging.  Picts below:

Yours Truly enjoying the sky and waiting on a nibble.

Chief and I sitting in a boat (I'm never one to state the obvious ;)

 My first catch, a fine cut throat trout.

And my biggest fish of the day, a good sized catch (if I say so myself).

All in all, it was a great afternoon fishing.  I once saw a prompt for an essay contest that asked "Why is a bad day of fishing better than a good day of school?"  I believe that anyone wondering the same thing has only to go on a fishing trip to Strawberry with good company, a friendly dog, and a fishing rod.  Whether they catch fish or not, they will return knowing the answer.

Sunshine

Hello Everyone!  It's been a while.  For my AP Language-Comp class I wrote a personal narrative. My Dad quite liked it so I thought I would share it with all of you.

Sunshine

 

      There was a shark under the boat. That's what my cousin Will told me, a tiger shark. Grandpa said that there wasn't, but Will and I knew that there was. Will saw it. Will knew lots of things like that there was a secret rock under the boat. You could get to it and touch it with your toes, but you had to go through a place where garbage fish were. I was too scared.

      Grandpa took me on a wave runner to explore the little fingers of Lake Powell. He even let me drive for a bit. I drove around and then we found a sunny little island full of cool sandcastles. They had little sticks in them that held them up.

      Later Jensen, one of my older cousins, got me to go knee boarding. I flew across the big green mountains that our motor boat made. I was kind of scared at first, but then I felt the comforting sun on my back and the cool spray on my cheeks. Bump, bump, bump I went behind the boat. It felt good to be free and to fly in the sunshine, the warm happy sunshine. The waves made me cool, and the sun gave me joy, and I was the sun, the happy, happy sun, flying high over the water.

      Just a few months later, my disease came. A sore on my face wouldn't heal. The sun wasn't my friend anymore. When I went outside he glared down at me. He stopped me from walking home from school with my friends. He made me wear a funny hat, and I couldn't go to Lake Powell anymore. I had to get lots of shots that hurt. I had to stay inside my house even when the sun was smiling and the sprinklers were going.

      Then one day, when the sun wasn't as bright, the leaves fell off the trees on to my neighbor’s lawn. He was a nice man who often smiled and let me play in his basement. I decided to go rake his leaves because he was old and could not do it himself. I got the rake and went over and began to work. It was hard work, and I was tired. The slick sweat rolled down my back and I thought of going home. The spiteful wind kept blowing more leaves onto the green lawn, and as soon as I got them all into a pile, more would come down. Finally I got all of them picked up, and into black bags. The man came out of his house and said “Thank you!” His smile warmed me more deeply than the sunshine, and suddenly I was the sun again, flying high over the world.