With the sun in my eyes and the wind in my hair.

I think too fast to rest. The thoughts never have time to settle. I have a horrible affliction of Wanderlust. Were I able to live on my bike, I would. I get out on my bike as much as I can and go for rides to chase the day away.

This was todays ride. Took about 5 hours all together. Started up parleys, got off at east canyon and headed down emigration canyon (not my pic) during the pouring fucking rain. I love it. You dry off really fast when your riding at around 80. Especially once you hit the sun, which I did once I came out of the canyon. Instant sunshine and warmth.

I headed out from there to I-80 and headed all the way out to Tooele where I filled up. I knew right where I was going. One of my old airsoft stomping grounds, the site of an old dolomite brick factory a few miles northwest of Delle. The road was windy and the sun was setting as I drove westward and the lake had that classic Salt Lake stench. My poor 650 hated it, it doesn't contend with the wind very well over 70 MPH.

I finally got to the exit and got a break from the hold tight mania of I-80. I headed towards my old stomping grounds with some excitement, but already I could confirm what everyone had told me.

Here's a video we made at the factory for our airsoft team:


The factory had been an awesome airsoft field with all sorts of terrain features and as close to an urban setting as one could get since Bauer had been demolished. But the place was not without it's peril. The main facility was a 4 story factory building, complete with rusty catwalks and conveyors which were uses pretty consistently in games. Inside the building there was a large area with several entries, hallways and a control room in the middle. The place was a killzone for any OPFOR who dared encroach on a well entrenched foe.

It was also where the furnaces were. These furnaces were HUGE. They were a good 3 stories all to themselves and there was a massive pit in the floor that dropped to the bottom of the furnaces. There were stairs that allowed access, but the pit itself was completely unguarded and anyone who wasnt being mindful of where they were could easily fall in.

Strangely enough, airsofters never suffered more than a punctured lung at the factory, to the best of my knowledge. The only death came when the hopper leading into the factory facility collapsed and crushed a man who had been contracted to demolish the place.

Anyway, I digress. Suffice it to say the place has since been leveled. A good chunk of time there was spent on really rough road or flat out dirt/gravel, which my V-star handled pretty well I think. I mean, obviously its not an enduro or anything, but still.

The roads there led in a few directions, one over the mountain, which I considered taking, but decided Gas was a concern if it led nowhere accessible, and the other led to the old Quarry that they used to get the dolomite from to make bricks for the Geneva Steel kilns down in Provo (of course once Geneva went down, so did the old plant that used to be here)

The Quarry was pretty rad though (not my picture btw). It was a dramatic stone face of dark grays and white. I got there when there was a few overcast clouds still, so the contrast of the quarry rock to the storm clouds was pretty intense.

The roads trucks used on different layers of the quarry were still mostly intact, with a few areas that had been reinforced having been weathered over time, rebar tangles hanging off the edges. It was seeing those that made me think better about actually going up there.

The view straight across from the quarry was pretty awesome too. It overlooked the entire valley. Almost completely empty. a few powerlines and train tracks were the only traces of man.

So worth it. Gotta get back out there with a camera next time!

Haunted.

A million miles distant from where I should be. A once passive thought grown ravenous in my mind. I've been down this path before and I know where it leads. Something remains. Stalking me. A demon that never left.  

When I was young I used to write letters to God.

I miss those days.  When life was simple.  The lines in the sand were not so convoluted.  When I knew it all and nothing could touch me.  I lost sight of that and have become overly cautious and totally closed off.  But I've been tip-toeing around life for too long now.

This last Monday marked the 15th anniversary of my Father's death, and it was the hardest anniversary I can remember.  It all just hit me.  He's been gone for longer than he was around in my life and it's getting harder and harder to remember him.  For years, even after I 'accepted' his death I have just let a lot of these emotions fester and it has taken it has taken its toll on me.  

I've made a vow to be a better son, stop tip-toeing about and work at being a better person.  I've lived enough negativity to last a lifetime.  I've overlooked the gift of friendship and family for too long.  It's time to make ammends and atone for everything.

Terminator Salvation

"Ma'am do not be alarmed, but the key to my release lies beneath this pillow."
-Robert Downey Jr. in the Sherlock Holmes preview

Sad to say, probably the most entertaining part of my movie tonight, Terminator Salvation.

I won't go into specifics as perhaps I was expecting too much from this movie. I mean for fucks sake they cast Christian Bale as John Connor, I thought it was fool proof. Apparently not so much.

It felt like a drawn out, ADD plagued, grasping onto straws attempt at revamping the Terminator series after T3 was such utter crap. Don't get me wrong, speaking as a person who suffers from moderate ADD, the movie was decent and kept me enticed with explosions, guns, the possibility of rape in a futuristic wastleland and machines made out of bullet bikes (wat [yes I mean "wat"] the fuck?).

It felt like a 40 year old virgin idiot fest when people laughed and cheered at the 'clever one-liners' that have been recycled since the first movies in the series. Come on. "I'll be back." Are you fucking kidding me? Really? Fuck you, you'll be back, buddy. Eat a dick. AND PEOPLE WENT NUTS!? Fuck them too.

Yes sir, I don't have a lot of good to talk about this attempt -which I sincerely hope fails- of a cashing in on a once good story film. Fuck man.

I mean here it is, if you have followed the series like I have, for as long as you have known what Terminator was, then the movie is definitely a must see, unlike T3. But don't expect to emerge from this film with your intelligence un-insulted. It will make you feel dumb for expecting more from this dying dynasty.

This Present Darkness

It's all around me. Natural, given the fact its 2 am and I have been prematurely awakened from a mild slumber. A light cacophony of a television in the other room, and the incessant chatter of my keyboard are my only company. They give me no comfort, however. Each keystroke and obnoxious voice that rings through the bland background noise only adds to my annoyance. Why? I wonder sometimes...

My mind goes to bleak places in these times and my only real release is to write it out. To who? No one in particular, it's been my response to such things since I was young. I expect no one to read this, nor do I really desire it. The documentation of it is really the achievement I strive for. Again no purpose but for future musings and reflection of my own.

The annoying tapping of my keys and the occasional light howling of my fans are begging me to sleep, as if trying to soothe me, but offering no relief to my inability to do so. Instead my thoughts drift to the night and mischievous, some may say malicious contemplation. I don't have my knife tonight, leaving the wallet may be wise, but perhaps the knife would only cause more problems than it would be worth. Who stalks these streets at 2 am anyhow? A long walk may be in order, it used to soothe my mind in my teen years.

Late night/Early morning trespasses are definitely warranted. No phone, no car, nothing but myself and the quiet of the night.

Its 3 AM now.

I'm on hour 36 of no sleep. I'm shaky. Restless. I need to get out of here. Where to and to do what? Who knows? I remember when I was a kid. I'd be making my way back home right about now usually this time of night. In the junior high years it would be from an x mile walk, usually around 10-12 miles. The endeavor would have began approximately 5 hours ago. In high school it would have been the conclusion to a night of either hanging out somewhere or creeping about somewhere else.

Now I just sit here. There is no purpose here. I'm grabbing at straws here and somethings gotta give. Why can't I sleep?

Days just drag. I never thought I'd miss the Army. I do. But only because I had purpose. Fuck them for defining that. At the same time thank god. I've gotta find it. I've gotta find something to fill that void.

School seems so far off. UXO seems like such an impossible road. Bomb squad. Kids, that's the shit I am talking about. Can I do what I was gonna do in the Army in the civilian world instead? Will my hip let me? I dont give a fuck, I have to try. Gimme 2 years kids, naw fuck it a year and a half, maybe even by this time next year. I'll be on my way.

Fitting, I think. Saving people by destroying the destructives. It makes sense. It's a good balance, yes?

This bleak heart.

This bleak heart is choking on its own sympathy. I have seen where hope leads and its deceit makes me sick. The promise of a better world under the foot of a new tyrant, completely oblivious. I tread this sea of faces, stomping out the brightest of smiles, an echo, a reflection of what this world has made me believe.

Ahead is the tower of Babylon, burning in self proclaimed glory. Festering with sickness. The stench of lies here is staggering. The tower and its people can't see their own decay, have no sense of perception of suffering. My greatest wish, make them suffer. Tear down this rotten spire and leave their festering carcasses writhing in the wake of their devastation, drowning in the dust that pours forth from inhuman veins.

If this bleak heart could project itself upon the world, hope would be exposed for the fraud I've come to know it to be. Cities would burn, blazing spires from which mothers cast down their own children, the picture they paint on the concrete more accurate a depiction of hope's folly than I could ever conjure.

This world is already burning and we are already dead. It is just a question of when the fires turn themselves in on us when the natural landscape can no longer sustain them. If this bleak heart could show itself, you all would flee into the flames in the horror I'd show you.

It's coming, but this hopeless heart will have nothing to do with it.