The Life and Times of Dangie

Long Strange Trip Blog

2012-02-13T16:05:00.001-08:00

I've created a blog for my radio show (the Long Strange Trip). Anyone should feel free to check it out! http://lstrip.blogspot.com/I've been doing this show now for 13 months with and without Mike (my co-host). The show is on every Monday morning from 10 - 12 (Pacific), the blog has a link to stream the radio station live and also to listen to past Long Strange Trip shows!

Moscow panorama

2012-01-01T15:03:00.000-08:00

Angie and I have discovered that while some seasons on the palouse are prettier than others, there really isn't an ugly time of year here. The poorly stitched-together panorama above was taken just this afternoon on a Sunday hike that Mona and I took at Idler's Rest on Moscow Mountain. Moscow can be seen in the distance about 3 quarters from the left.

5 years!

2011-12-19T15:17:00.001-08:00

Apples

2011-10-28T20:04:00.000-07:00

Who remembers this classic Callister treat? Angie and I have a zillion apples and we've been getting pretty creative and liberal with them. Mona loves 'em too, but they give her gas, so we have to monitor her apple intake pretty carefully :)

Crawdad

2011-09-11T15:43:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be a good Sunday activity to take Mona to the park and help her work on fetching. She's come along ways, but she still struggles sometimes with remembering to bring the ball back with her. While we were there we went to investigate the creek and found a pretty good sized crawdad. Mona didn't really want much to do with him, but I brought him home in my hat and we had us a reg'lar ol' crayfish boil in butter, garlic, salt and lemon juice. There was enough meat for each of us to have a nibble. Angie and I thought it was actually really delicious, but Mona thought it was more appetizing to sniff at, than to ingest. To each their own.

The Vegetable of Our Labors

2011-09-01T07:58:00.000-07:00

Angie and I tried to raise a garden this year. It was a bit of work, but Angie had a nice little harvest of leafy greens every couple of weeks, and we had some radishes that were borderline county fair-ish. We were really disappointed that none of our tomatoes took off and we had only one solitary carrot. We babied that carrot all summer as if our very lives depended on its prosperity. Well I decided it was about harvest time for our carrot the other day. It was pretty unimpressive once I removed it from the ground, but Mona sure loved it! It gave her something to chew on besides our furniture.

Mona LuLu

2011-08-16T19:43:00.000-07:00

I figured we'd better post something about Mona. To her, life is just a game and she just just loves playing! She loves to nose her way under blankets or pillows or pads or anything that she can get under. She particularly enjoys a game that we play together that I call "Blanket Wars" (see video)

Oh Canada!

2011-07-08T14:11:00.000-07:00

Wheew... We're back!
Angie and I just came home from 9 magical days in Canada. I could talk your ears off about each and every one of those days, but I will try to instead make this our shortest blog post ever and just tell the juicier details in person to those we'll be seeing soon. In a nutshell:

-Drove 2004 miles
-Visited 5 Canadian National Parks
-We took 685 pictures!
-Celebrated Canada Day
-Picked our jaws up off the floor multiple times daily
-Saw deer, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, elk, coyote, fox, black bear, grizzly bear and more
-Hikes, Hot Springs, Ice Fields, Gondola, Canoeing, Glacial Lakes
-Sunshine, wind, rain
-Saw so many new and wonderful places!

It was an amazing trip and we'll never forget it. Anyone who has not visited the Canadian Rockies needs to do so ASAP! Unbelievable!!!

Pop Quiz

2011-06-17T08:57:00.000-07:00

If I could be 15% of the artist each of these 6 guys are, I would rock 50% more than I do! But this isn't a math quiz, it's a "who am I?" quiz. These are the 6 most influential musicians in my life, see if you can name them! (without looking at others' comments)

Mom & Dad!

2011-05-23T08:30:00.000-07:00

We were fortunate enough to have mom and dad come and visit us this weekend. They drove up all day Wednesday and stayed until this morning (Monday) before heading back home. It’s been about 8 months since we’ve had visitors so we were really excited to have them come. We kept them pretty busy while they were here. We’d made a huge list of things to do and places to go and see and we got through almost the entire list! Some highlights were the White Pine Scenic Byway up to Coeur d’Alene where we took a beautiful hike overlooking the lake, we also went to lots of thrift stores (of course) and visited Spokane where the river was so full and fast that it was crashing around and sending spray that soaked us pretty good. It is very green and pretty here right now and all of our drives were so beautiful! Dad and I hit up the driving range, played tennis and took a 20-mile bike ride and Angie and Mom enjoyed the farmer’s market, buying and preparing lots of raw foods dishes and doing lots of chatting. It was a great weekend and it was sad to say good-bye, but they’ve got lots of kids and grandkids to see this summer and are on their way this week to southern Utah to spend time with the Ures. Thanks mom and dad for the visit, we love you!

To My Bro-ha, 'Shwa

2011-04-17T13:48:00.000-07:00

Here’s to one of the most awesome guys I know. It’s my brother Josh’s birthday tomorrow and I wanted to take the opportunity to share with the world some of his finer qualities that I admire most.

Josh is a super hard worker. He bit the bullet and started his own company last year in what was probably the riskiest time for new businesses in 20 years, but Josh is the kind of person who was going to make it work no matter what and he worked his tail off last summer doing everything he could to making sure Great Basin Asphalt would be around the next year. He put me to work last summer when things were really shaky at my job and for that Angie and I are extremely grateful. I got to spend a lot of time with Josh last year and we created a lot of great memories and experiences that I’m sure we’ll be laughing about for years. For example, finding out what one spends most of one’s time doing while in the state of Minnesota. He really became one of my best friends.

Josh is also an awesome father and family man. He and Deena have the coolest kids I know and they’re a good example to me of how to raise a family.

Josh likes really good music. And I don’t say that about a lot of people. I’m really picky about the music I listen to and my brothers are the only 2 people in the world whose musical opinions I value even a little bit. Josh, thanks for Charlie Daniels, Clutch, Def Leppard and so many others.

Josh is one of those people who is automatically your friend the moment you meet him. He has such a good report with people and that is something I wish I had more of an aptitude for. Josh is the kind of person you want at your party or social gathering because things are just more fun when he’s around.

Some other quick things: He's good at nintendo and the guitar, he's got a sweet truck, he can grow a beard that would put Brigham Young to shame, he tells good stories and make's good sound effects, he knows lots about computers, he's read everything, he's always surprising me with his knowledge of history, and he swallows his toothpaste after brushing (that's hardcore!)

So Happy Birthday, Josh!! Thanks for being who you are and for being a rad yon-brother-ah!

-Chubba-lubba

Eugene

2011-02-23T20:06:00.001-08:00

Angie and I took advantage of a long weekend to visit Henry and Charlotte in Eugene, OR. Jake and Annie were there too, so it worked out just great! We drove 8+ hours across Washington and along the Columbia River to Portland then down a quick couple hours to Eugene. It was a nice drive with lots of scenery and we even saw a wolf! Neither Angie or I have ever seen one in the wild and it was quite the experience. Unfortunately we didn't get a picture, so you'll just have to believe us.

It was great to finally meet our new nephew and niece! They were on their best behavior and aside from some flatulence problems, they were a complete gentleman and lady. We had lots of fun just lounging around and hanging out with Jake and Annie, we missed them the last time they came to visit family in Salt Lake, since we had just barely moved to Idaho. We went to some thrift stores (a first for the kids) and Jacob led us on an expedition to find the Further Bus (Ken Kesey's psychedelic painted school bus), which had been sitting on a farm in a field visible from the road, until probably just before we got there. It was a very pleasant drive though.

On the drive home we stopped at Multnomah Falls. It was pretty impressive (see pics below).

And Moby too!

DJ Daniel James

2011-01-27T09:32:00.000-08:00

So I finally get to fulfill one of my life-long dreams, that of being a radio DJ! The opportunity arose last November as I was speaking with a friend’s wife who had her own radio show on the Washington State University radio station. She said she just applied and was given a time slot and that she’s sure the University of Idaho has something similar. I looked into it and they do, KUOI is the University’s radio station and they just happened to be accepting applications for volunteers to host radio shows throughout the day. I applied, and they gave me a show!

Now, I had always wanted to be a DJ and thought that would be the best job in the world, but I hated the thought of having to play music I didn’t like. The great thing about KUOI is it’s public radio and apart from a few public service announcements and the weather, it’s 100% Dan’s music. It’s totally up to me and I can play whatever I want (so long as it’s appropriate). It’s like I’ve died and gone to heaven.

My show is from Noon to 2:30 every Wednesday and I call it “Long Strange Trip”, the show is dedicated to underappreciated folk/rock of the 60s and 70s. My first full show was yesterday and it went pretty darn well. Anyone interested can follow this link to stream KUOI live

http://kuoi.org:8000/kuoi.m3u

Tune in next week!

Spokane

2010-10-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

Last week Angie and I decided to spend the weekend in Spokane. So we did! There was a lot we’ve heard about to do there and we wanted to go to the temple anyways, so off we went. Spokane is the second largest city in Washington and is known as the Inland Empire, home to about 500,000 residents and a pleasant 90-minute drive away. Our area’s temple is on the south end of town in a really pretty pine-forested area. We got to see it, but were bummed to find out it was closed for cleaning (also, we later found out that you have to schedule appointments if you want to do temple work. Now we know). We spent the morning downtown at this great riverfront park where they had some really cool things like a giant red wagon that was a slide. The park itself was right downtown and really pretty. I guess they’d had the World’s Fair there in the 70’s so they had all this cool stuff then. Within walking distance, the Spokane River runs over some falls that were really cool to watch. We drove north of town to this cat zoo were they take care of all kinds of big cats that people owned privately or found locally and gave to the facility to care for. They had Tigers from circus shows and private owners (Washington’s pet laws are pretty loose), a male lion, some jaguars, a couple cougars that were causing problems in local neighborhoods, and even a black bear. It was really cool, plus they had this tiger statue that you could climb on, so I got to fulfill every kids fantasy of riding a fierce battle cat like heman. From there we drove to Green Bluff, which is an agricultural area consisting of about 30 farms and every weekend is like this huge fair where each of the farms have all these events and vendors and fruit picking, amazing cider, shooting pumpkins from cannons, corn/hedge mazes, live music and just all kinds of stuff. There were thousands of cars all along the little country road that cuts through to all of the farms. It was really cool. On our way back we stopped in town to eat at a little burger place that was shaped like a milk can. Angie loved it. It was a fun weekend and we feel like we know Spokane a little better now.

Dangie and Granet

2010-09-07T18:27:00.001-07:00

We had the honor of hosting Angie's parents this last weekend. Gregg and Janet were excellent company and we were thrilled that they would take the time to travel up and visit us. We took them to see all the sites we knew about (or could find out about from friends) and managed to make it a memorable and enjoyable weekend. We visited Elk Creek to look at the falls there and I loved walking through the forest, it was my favorite part of the weekend, the falls were cool too. We drove through the scablands of Washington to the Palouse falls and it was really impressive. The falls run down into a gorge that was really amazing. The falls themselves are 180ft! wow! Thanks, Granet for the visit, we loved having you guys!

On Labor Day Angie and I took the White Pine Scenic byway up to Coeur D'Alene and it was sooooo amazing! I've never seen more pine trees and the lake was incredible, it's so pretty and HUGE! we followed the lake for 20 miles weaving in and out of hidden little bays and just pine trees everywhere. We stopped in a fun little resort town right on the lake called Harrison and ate lunch and were obliged to dessert at one of the several ice-cream parlors. Coeur D'Alene itself is a beautiful city and we enjoyed driving around and getting acquainted with it. We had previously researched thrift stores in CD'A and mapped them out, we found that there are seriously 6 or 7 thrift stores literally within 3 or 4 blocks of each other! They were almost all closed because of the holiday, but we know right where to go next time! It was a pleasant 90 min drive home on the highway.

Moscow!

2010-08-28T17:41:00.000-07:00

Wheeew! Well, we’re all moved in and it’s time to update the ol’ blog…
Angie and I sure appreciated mom and dad’s help moving up here and also the Nygards for the use of their trailer. It was 13 hours of driving with a full trailer through the mountain passes of eastern Idaho and western Montana, but we made it to our new home in Moscow, ID. Mom and Dad stayed for the weekend and we had lots of fun exploring our new city and spending time with them. We had fun one night playing with the wii and creating characters for everybody. Dad's was the best by far, we all got a really good kick out of his. When the time came It was hard to let them go. Now we're looking forward to Angie's parents who will be visiting us this next weekend!

Angie and I have really enjoyed it here so far. Moscow is a really cool city. Everything is really close and we love our neighborhood. There are so many little roads to explore and really great unique houses. Oh, and Moscow is the best city ever for yard sales! We've only been here for 2 Saturdays, but they've been the best 2 Saturdays of yard sales ever. There are great bike trails and campus is easy to bike to. Last week we went to the Lentil festival at the Washington State University campus in Pullman and today we drove to Troy for the Augustofest, also there was Hogfest here in Moscow today. Between the two universities there is always something fun going on, that’s cool.

I am slowly getting my bearing returning to school. For those of you who may not know, I am pursuing a Masters in Bioregional Planning from the University of Idaho. I like graduate school so far. The same people are in all of my classes and I work with them too in the lab. I have an assistantship with a professor of landscape architecture who is really nice and it keeps me busy reading articles and things. Between school and work I’ve read more this last week than any week in my life for sure and I’m still behind in my readings. Kind of stressful, but at least I stay busy.

Angie has been looking for work and has an interview Tuesday to teach at a preschool in Pullman. Wish her luck! We met most of our married student ward last night at a social. They’re almost all law students, but they seem nice.

Patience pays-off

2010-07-15T10:09:00.001-07:00

Since I've been on furlough from work I've been biking to first dam and fishing 2 or 3 times a week. It's good exercise and it helps my furlough feel more like a weekend than a lay-off :)

Some days I do pretty good, catching 2 or 3 little rainbows or browns, but they're never big enough to get excited about. In fact I think the biggest I'd caught (or watched anyone catch) in first dam was around 9 inches. It's kind of a fun little community up there, lots of old timers are there every day at the same time in the same spot. They all come separately but they know each others' names and there are some funny little chats that I over hear. The weather is always really nice and every once in a while I'll see a deer or something to keep me interested. I usually take a book and spend about 90 minutes there before coasting home.

Today I was taken completely off guard when I reeled in this monster brown trout:

I never keep anything that I catch, but I made an exception today. He was 19" and 2.4lbs, easily the biggest fish I've caught in Logan canyon. There were some other anglers nearby and they were floored! It was pretty exciting

Wind Rivers

2010-07-10T05:11:00.000-07:00

Adam and I have gone backpacking almost every summer for the past 4 or 5 summers and we wanted to keep the tradition alive this year as well. We decided to head to the Wind River range of western Wyoming. Neither of us had been there but we'd heard great things. They were all true. We spent 3 days hiking from Big Sandy trailhead to the famous Cirque of the Towers. The fishing was... easy. I don't say "great" because we caught a zillion fish, but the biggest was about 8 inches. The fish were so easy to catch that I literally caught one by dangling my worm over the water! Adam kept one of his and cooked it up, it was yummy. I got to finally field test my jetboil camping stove that Angie bought me for my birthday. It worked great and made us some wonderful soup, ramen and oatmeal. The scenery was incredible up there and we couldn't believe that we'd gone our whole lives without knowing what we were missing out on. The Cirque of the Towers was a real tough hike (at least with our packs on) and we finally reached the Cirque at what we estimate to be around 11,500ft. In the Cirque all those peaks are 12,500+ ft, it's crazy! We got so used to amazing scenery all around us that by the 3rd day it felt normal. The original plan was to loop around the Cirque and work our way back to the car via the Highline trail, but there was so much snow at the Cirque that the trail was completely impassible. We camped on Big Sandy lake both nights under tarps with relative success. All in all it was an awesome hike of about 25 miles, also Adam is pretty sure he's the first person to play Bejeweled at the Cirque.

The Saga of my little red Schwinn

2010-05-21T12:15:00.000-07:00

It was Fall of 2003. I was living in Logan on Canyon Rd down in "the island". It's called the island because its a low part of town with hills to the north and south, a canal on one side and the Logan river on the other. Its a really cool area and Kent and I enjoyed the year we spent there in our "beach house". Our beach house was so named because it was a small two story building with HUGE windows in the front and a cool balcony above. It was right up against the hillside below the canal and further uphill the USU campus. The hill behind our apartment was pretty thickly vegetated with lots of old trees and shrubs etc. The hillside was always muddy and we were pretty sure that we'd wake up one day buried in a mudslide (which, incidentally, happened next door to that apartment 6 years later and killed 2 people, crazy!) But I digress- The reason I'm writing all of this is to tell the story of the bike I found while living there. In a big pile of mud and leaves behind our place I happened to see some handle bars and a bit of tire exposed one day. I pulled the thing free from its resting place, cleaned it off a bit and was thrilled to have a functional bike. It was a woman's 1977 red Schwinn road bike and had probably spent the greater part of it's 26 years buried in that hillside. Needless to say, it was in extreme disrepair, with no rear brakes, a stuck gear shifter, rusty and squeaky everything, etc, etc. it was however, rideable and I rode it for the rest of that year before giving it to Angie so she could have transportation to work. She used it a little, but it went largely ignored until 2006 when Angie and I were married and I started riding it to school. I attached a basket and would run all sorts of errands in it. For all of it's problems, it was a great bike and I grew to really love it. For the last 12 months or so I've been shopping around for a new road bike. There are some really nice ones, but everything is sooo expensive! I really don't need a bike that's going to win the tour de France and it seems like there's no simple, inexpensive options for road bikes. So about a month ago, my heart turned towards my little red Schwinn. I decided to check a local bike repair shop and see what it would cost to "pimp my ride". It needed 2 new wheels (one was missing several spokes and the other was no longer spinning true), 2 new brake mechanisms altogether, all new cables and housings, a new chain, 2 new tires and tubes (both of the old whitewall tires were so weathered and frayed that they were ready to fall away any day), new shifters (which was a trick because Schwinn hasn't been making that style of shifter since the 80's), and a new manifold for the chain (I don't even know what that is or the importance of its function, but the old was was bent really bad and was eating up the chain). At the shop they all told me I would be better off to buy a new bike or check the DI for a bike with less problems, but I was really attached to this bike and the estimate they gave me was surpirisingly reasonable. So after 4 weeks in the shop I picked it up this morning and road it home! It rode so smoothly and nicely, everything works so well and it looks so great, I am super excited about it! I spent the morning cleaning it up really nice and even giving it a coat of wax. I just wanted to tell everyone my bike's story, include a picture and say "Look out world, I'm on the road again!!"

The Expedition of Callister and Callister

2010-05-02T07:45:00.000-07:00

I had the awesome opportunity to accompany my older brother Josh on a road trip of biblical proportions this last week. He is starting his own business (Great Basin Asphault) and had just bought a tank online. He got a great deal on it and it even came with a trailer, pretty sweet except it's all in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I was going to be starting my summer job this next week and was therefore available to come along if he needed me, so we made the trip!

The first day we pretty much drove straight to Des Moines with a few stops for gas. We passed some legendary smells in Nebraska that were well off of the funkometer. We were both impressed with how many deer and turkey we were seeing all over the place. Probably around 150 turkeys in all. We spent each night in the truck at rest stops crouched into a fetal position. That was really uncomfortable at first, but after a few nights it wasn't so bad.

Day two was spent driving to the farthest point away from home on our trip. We continued through Iowa and Illinois, then we decided it would be cool to continue on to Michigan via Indiana (which was really only another 40 miles or so) and we'd get to see some nice lake Michigan scenery. Lake Michigan was huge. After that we drove back through Chicago on our way to Milwaukee. We were expecting to fly through Chicago before traffic got bad, but little did we know what was in store for us. I was driving (if you can call it that, it was more like parking) when we stopped south of Chicago. The traffic was soooo bad it took us about 2 hours to move 10 miles or so through town, but we saw the city in all of its glory, we were both blown away, it was so big! From there it was a quick hop to Milwaukee and we met up with the guy who was selling josh the tank. He was nice, but he totally wasn't prepared and we spent 7 hours trying to load that huge thing onto the trailer so we could get it out of there. Once it was loaded up we had to buy lights for the trailer so we wouldn't get pulled over. We were lucky to get into a walmart after they closed and we got the lights. While we were installing them we were visited by 3 policemen who had been called about suspicious activity (it was about 2am). They questioned us and told us to leave asap, so we finished up and left.

Day three we were still pretty nervous about the trailer and decided to take I-80 home instead of I-90 like we had talked about. By the time we reached the Iowa Nebraska border we had enough confidence in the trailer to try I-90 after all. We drove north up to Souix Falls, South Dakota and took a quick jaunt to Minnesota. We travelled clear across South Dakota and we were both really impressed with how pretty it was. We spent the night just outside of Rapid City.

Our last day started with a trip to Mt. Rushmore. Neither of us had ever seen it and it was pretty cool, though kind of smaller than I would have thought. The highlight of that detour was actually not Mt. Rushmore, it was Custer State Park. It was all these really pretty rolling, pine-forested hills and rocky crags with all kinds of wildlife. We saw deer, antelope and even 2 bighorn sheep! We were the only car on the whole road for most of our tour and got to get out a time or two and explore. It was really pretty and we both loved it. We entered Wyoming and decided to see Devil's Tower. Its the cool rock tower from the movie Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind and also the nations first national monument. It was a total whiteout blizzard and we were pretty sure we wouldn't be able to see anything, but we got there just as it cleared up a bit. One crazy coincidence is that the odometer on Josh's truck turned over to 66,666 right as we got to Devil's Tower. CRAZY!! we took a picture, of course. The rest of the drive was long and blizzard conditions. It was pretty awful, but we pulled into Kaysville at about midnight.

When all was said and done we had passed through 10 different states and travelled over 3,300 miles! It was an awesome and memorable experience that I'm sure we'll be talking about for the rest of our lives. Thanks again Josh for having me along, that was a blast!

Quick update

2010-03-29T15:34:00.000-07:00

So, Angie and I are now choosing between graduate school at Arizona State, University of Utah and the University of Idaho. We drove to Moscow Idaho to see what it was all about and really liked it. We wanted to check out Phoenix, but we're pretty sure we're not going to end up there (it's too hot and too many people and too expensive). I heard back from my old comrades in Richmond where I worked last year and they want me back on board this year. I am thrilled to quit my lame graveshift job. I have kept myself entertained there by collecting interesting funny names that I see on pieces of mail (I see literally 100's of thousands of names everyday). Here are some of my favorites:

William B. Bumgardner III
Richard Nixon
Tommy A. Morrow
Dedmon
Blood
Freeze
Estelle Cake
Puh
Cynthia Peeple
Marlin D. Mullet
Margit M. Loser
Daniel Christ
Amy Caution
William Fagg
Tina Outlawwaters
Eliuth G. Moron
David S. Bottoms
Michael Butts
John Buttram
Ralph R. Boring
Peter Bushyhead
Leroy Brown
Diane Reminder
Mertle Turnipseed
Ramona Hooker
Dan Pickle
Survive W. Freedom
David Dang
Jean Goodenough
James P. Lady
Theresa Pubrat

It's amazing the kinds of things you find to occupy your mind while your standing for 12 hours staring at a belt line.

Nile to be published!

2010-03-02T12:35:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don't know, I've dabbled in designing games for the last few years. It's just been a hobby, and I've had lots of fun doing it. Recently I've had some fun new developments that I've been really excited about. First off, a card game I created called "Nile" has been picked up by a company called Minion Games to be published later this year! Secondly, I entered a few of my games into an annual amateur game design competition called the Ion Award which is in conjunction with the Saltcon board game convention. My game "Sprawl" was selected as a finalist and I was asked to present my game to a panel of 8 judges who are professionals from the boardgame industry. It was nerve-racking, but lots of fun and my game was really well received by all the judges. At the convention they announced the winners and I took 2nd place! What's more exciting though, is that the judge representing the largest of the companies said that he wanted to show my game to his company (Fred Distribution). So I'm in the process now of tightening up the game and making a final prototype to send to him in Oregon. Anyways, lots of fun stuff happening! I'll be sure to keep everyone posted as there are more developments

I Finally Did It!

2010-02-10T17:26:00.000-08:00

so after lots of talking about it, i finally opened up an etsy shop! i just did it today and there's not much in it but go check it out! you can see the project i've been working on most recently...it's been a lot of fun. go to stinksopurdy.etsy.com

Dangie to the 3rd Power!!!

2009-12-19T09:59:00.001-08:00

Wow, we’ve been married 3 years today! It seemed to pass really quickly, but it also seems like we’ve been together for much longer too. I think after 3 years we both have a pretty good idea of what makes the other tick and what makes the other melt, that’s good progress to make, of course there’s always room for improvement (mostly on my part). I have been working at R.R. Donnelley's for the last 2 weeks and it’s really not that bad. The pay is okay for the kind of work I’m doing and I really like the people I work with. We are glad to have an income again and I’m sure Angie is glad to have me out of the house regularly. All things considered, life has been really good to us this last year and we are looking forward to our fourth year together with optimism and smiles!

Got a job, and other happenings of late

2009-12-03T15:18:00.000-08:00

Angie and I were boardgame pawns for halloween. Angie made the costumes
Well, those of you who know I was laid off about a month ago know that I've been searching for a job since then. I've been applying all over the western United States to different GIS positions, but haven't seen any luck yet. After talking with some of my colleagues where I had been working and speaking with Jacob and some of my old professors Angie and I decided now was a great time to go back to school. So I've been applying to different programs around. My goal is a career in rural/regional planning. There are some good Masters programs here at USU, and at the University of Idaho for bioregional planning that came highly recommended by those I have spoken to. I had a ball studying for the GRE (not really), and it went pretty well. I've applied to the University of Idaho, the University of Montana, and the University of Utah. Utah and Montana are not exactly what I was looking for, but they are great planning programs and I would consider either of them if accepted. Getting desperate for some kind of income I've been lowering my expectations and applying to janitor positions and the like. We need something to keep us going while we're waiting for school to start (next September). Well, I finally got a job that fits the bill pretty nicely. It's working as a mail-sorter at a private company that's just about 5 blocks away from us. The pay isn't bad for the kind of work it is, plus I'll work about 16 hours of overtime each week (it's 7 days/wk through January). It's swing shift, so I can sleep like a normal person and still have my mornings to keep looking for a job/doing school application stuff. Unfortunately, it means I have to sacrifice all of my regular evening activities (i.e. Scouts, our game group and sunday dinners with the inlaws). So anyways- there's a quick update on what's been happening with us lately. Angie and I have been seeing a lot of each other lately, which is fun, but I think Angie is ready for me to be some where else all day :) All in all, life is pretty good

"Until Next Time, Enjoy Our Wild America!"

2009-09-21T07:55:00.000-07:00

As a young boy, I often spent Sunday evenings watching quality PBS programs such as NATURE, NOVA, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, and of course MARTY STOUFFER'S WILD AMERICA. My brother Jacob and I had such a great time watching and learning all about nature and wildlife. It became a comforting tradition to watch nature shows. Of particular interest to us was WILD AMERICA since it focused on our own turf, usually right in the rockies themselves. We loved Marty Stouffer's soothing narration, placid and homey sweaters, and of course his awesome beard. Dad contributed to PBS pretty regularly and we got as a pledge gift 2 Wild America specials, a 10 year best of, and my favorite- Great Escapes. I had that Great Escapes video completely committed to memory, my favorite part was the snowhare escaping the lynx. If any of you have seen it, you know the one I'm talking about. I wanted to be Marty Stouffer and was dissappointed when my 2 older brothers could grow these massive full bears at 16 and I couldn't even get fuzz until I was 23. For my last birthday, my sweet wife bought me the complete Wild America on DVD!! All 12 seasons! This has re-sparked a new sunday afternoon tradition and I love watching his show again.I recently found out that Marty got into film making as a teenager and he took off alone to Alaska to film wildife. He became trapped by snowfall in a remote valley, but survived by hunting and trapping local wildlife. A modern day Jeremiah Johnson

I remember hearing about some legal troubles with Marty Stouffer, how he had been accused of staging scenes in his documentaries and even claims of animal cruelty. He was hit with some heavy fines for making illegal trails and for poaching Elk near his home in Aspen, Colorado (I wonder if he and John were pals??), and that opened up a flood of accusations and testimony from people who had worked on the set of Wild America. The accusations ranged from staging attacks, to using tamed animals. PBS investigated the show and found fault in 15 of the 110 episodes. It hit me pretty hard and I still get a little upset when I think of that warm friendly face lying to America. But I've dug into it a little deeper, wanting to hear Marty's side of the story. Stouffer denies the charges. "I am not ashamed of anything I have done;' he said, adding, "My conscience is clear. I love animals." PBS even cleared him of any wrongdoin, but due to his damaged reputation he was unable to secure the needed funding to continue the show. Wild America was discontinued in 1996.

It would really shock you to hear how many nature shows are guilty of "setups" and other falsifications. Even Walt Disney himself apparently dumped a whole pack of lemmings off a cliff into a river to film their "mass suicide" as part of his nature show. Also, 15 of 110 episodes means there are still 95 quality honest episodes of Wild America. So in the end, Marty made some good TV and I love watching his show!

Just a couple things

2009-08-20T20:45:00.000-07:00

So first off - The first picture is a warning of what can happen if you forget you have a bottle of carmex in your pocket and try to roll around playing with kids. ouch

The next picture is of Grand Teton National Park early this morning. It was really pretty, and if you look really closely you just might see some elk.

Lastly, on the way home from GTNP, I stopped at the DI and found a great game that's really old and pretty hard to find, and it was still in the shrink wrap! score dan! That is all, have a good day!

This is a random post with a few random updates/happenings

2009-07-26T12:09:00.000-07:00

Well, We had scout camp which was fun, but soooo hot. Thanks mom and dad for the canopy! I've been back and forth to Grand Teton National Park the last few weeks for work, which has been lots of fun, but lots of work and no leisure time whatsoever. I had been originally hired as an intern for a 3 month period and as that period is winding down I've been talking with my boss and he seems anxious to keep me around, so that's great news! I just need to find enough to do that i can keep myself busy (our business really slows down during the winter months as one might imagine). Angie and i proved to the world that Ping Pong knows no economic or spacial limits when we bought a net and some paddles at the DI and converted her sewing table into a hobbit-sized ping pong table. It actually works really well and is lots of fun. As for the Mike Leavitt picture, well our story isn't quite jake's Mit Romney story, but Angie and i spoke in sacrament meeting today and who should be in attendance but the very governor and his wife (he must have heard who was speaking). Anyways, we both did great and it was fun to see him in person. The last picture is of my geeky Boardgame convention i went to in salt lake. It's called A Gathering Of Strangers, it's an annual event and usually draws around 300 die-hard boardgame geeks. I was one of them. It was awesome! I won the Dominion tournament (that's a game) and got a lot of sweet games in trades and as prizes and stuff. It was a ball. Well, that's enough for now, until next time

-Dangie

Re: Re: Beard Pics

2009-07-21T16:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, the bottom one's not me :). Looking at these pictures I'm amazed that angie let my beard get that long. Anytime I shave it's purely because she's complained enough. I hope everyone enjoys the "hairy mole" picture in the middle, you may have to enlarge the image to find the prize.

what we've been up to

2009-07-09T20:28:00.001-07:00

A picture is worth a thousand words, so in leau of several thousand words, please enjoy this pictoral representation of the last month or so in our lives.

Ya Come Far, Pilgrim

2009-06-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Jacob! May your 30s be as eventful as your 20s... good events, I mean.

In honor of my brother, I'd like to share a story:

Jacob once took me along with him, Trent Johnson, and some other friends of his swimming at the spa. I was probably 8 or 9 and was having a hard time keeping up with the 12 or 13 year olds. We had ventured to the deep end and we all were swimming across to the other side. It’s a pretty long distance for just a little guy and I remember everyone being at the far side already while I was still smack in the middle with 30 feet or so left to go. I was so tired I couldn’t get my arms to move. Fearing I might not make it, I called for Jacob. He heard and I vividly remember his instant response to launch from the side of the pool. Before long he reached me and helped me to the edge of the pool. After that he was very careful to keep a close eye on me. He was a good brother.

Thanks for the good times, jake and for being a great example and an awesome guy!

For everyone who's not jake- I made a collage of some of jacob's favorite and most inspiring artists. See how many of them you can identify. If you get them all, I'm sure jacob will appreciate you more :)

Employed!!

2009-05-12T11:26:00.000-07:00

The search is over (at least for the summer). I finally landed a job working for a Richmond, UT company called PROVIDIA. They "assist land owners in the management of land health, from monitoring land use to weed management and reclamation." From what I could gather during my interview, they do a lot of GPS work plotting points in fields and rangelands using these really nifty $3,000 units - my job is to "make the maps", and manage and organize existing and future data. It's an internship that will give me some awesome experience and hopefully make me more hirable for future positions. They mentioned that after September there is a possibility of being hired full time. Angie and I are way excited to have something finally and we're glad we get to stay in Logan for at least a little while longer.

Here's a link to their webpage if anyone's interested in checking them out:

http://providiaprecision.com/index.asp

Our Mother

2009-05-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

I have been scanning mom's photo albums and have been really enjoying the process. I get to relive a lot of moments and see some pictures I either haven't seen in a long time, or at all. It makes me step back and wonder at the awesome parents I have. We did so dang much growing up and we have had so many great times and its because of our awesome parents. I thought I would put together a loving picture tribute to my mother. I want you to notice how her smile for baby josh is the same smile for baby deborah. No matter what heck we raised, we couldn't wear down her maternal love :) I love you Mom and I'm so happy that you're the person you are. Thanks for all that you've done for me and all you continue to do for my small family. You're the BEST!!!

WE LOVE YOU MOM!!!

Graduação!

2009-05-05T10:12:00.000-07:00

Woohoo! Graduation!! As of may 2^nd I’m an official college grad! It’s pretty nice to feel done with that. I titled this post "Graduação!" (guess what it means) in honor of my often overlooked and practically worthless Portuguese minor.

My last final was Friday and Angie and I celebrated by going to Golden corral. Angie said I could choose anywhere and she wouldn’t complain, so I took full advantage. The next day mom, dad, Deborah and Rachel with her kids all came up from salt lake to go to the commencement ceremony with us. Rachel was just coincidentally in town so it was special having her and tayson and mia there. Janet and Gregg came as well and the commencement was really quick and nice. There were only 25 or so of us walking in the College of Natural Resources and only 1 other Geography major. It was Spencer Waite, he and I have had classes together and been on group projects together so it was fun to talk with him. The ceremony was quick, consisting of a couple discourses on how we won’t find jobs and how NR majors don’t make any money. After wards we were taking pictures in the lobby of the morgan theater and the Bryans showed up! They had just come from josh’s soccer game and were wet and afraid they’d miss us. It was really fun to see them. The Bryans had to go, but the rest of us headed to the NR building for a free catered lunch which was really good, but really crowded in the NR lobby due to the rain. The family hung out for a couple hours at our apartment before heading back to salt lake. We watched return of the jedi and talked and played with the kids, it was the funnest part of the day, I thought.

P.S. If anyone reading this wants to hire a Geographer, I'm way qualified.

Vernal '92ish

2009-05-01T19:24:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I decided to undertake a project I'd been considering for a year or two now. I wanted to start writing some memories I have of people in my life so I don't forget them. I originally limited it to my siblings and parents, but I've been adding random friends as good stories pop back into my mind. This is a story from my "Jacob File" that I thought was worth sharing:

Dad took me and jake on a work trip to Vernal once. I was probably 10 or so which would have made Jacob about 14. Dad had dropped us off at the dinosaur museum while he ran to a meeting or something and was going to come back to pick us up afterwards. We quickly saw all the museum had to offer and before long found ourselves sitting on a bench by the sidewalk in front of the museum singing “War, huh! … what is it good for?!” clapping our hands and singing in our best most shameless black guy voices while we danced around the bench infront of passing traffic. I think a procession of kindergarten kids even passed us on the sidewalk with their teacher. I’m sure they were very afraid and upset by the spectacle, but we had a lot of fun before dad picked us up.

Wait... where??

2009-04-29T15:56:00.000-07:00

These pictures are up Ogden canyon. My neighbor Adam took me last Saturday up a trail he knew about. The weather was awful! it was raining the whole time with patches of light snow. But man, was it beautiful! I hope you all appreciate the photos as much as I appreciated seeing it in person.

2009-04-18T08:47:00.000-07:00

Growing up, Josh liked reminding everyone that he was the oldest and that put him in charge – as if his massive size suggested doubt. He spent hours tumbling around with me (never hurting me on purpose) and even though I sometimes hated it, I always loved the attention my brother showed me. Watching WWF, American Gladiators or just going for a drive in the VW bus, Josh was a really fun brother and he was really good to his dorky 7yrs-younger brother. To him I was “Chubba-lubba” and Jacob came to learn that if he was rough with me all I had to do was yell for josh and that usually settled things pretty quick. We always had a special bond since I was young, and that bond has continued to the present - going to concerts, sharing music, jokes, video games and just hanging out. I like watching Josh interact with his kids, he's a fun dad and you can tell how much he loves his family. Thanks Josh for being a great bro'

the lowdown on my eyes...

2009-04-16T23:13:00.000-07:00

just wanted to update everyone with the latest on my eyes. i saw the eye doctor again today and was given a field of vision test. the results showed us that not only do i have problems in my left eye but also in my right eye. exactly half of my right eye tested poorly and my left eye tested poorly through the center of all four quadrants and also most of one side. that pattern is not consistent with anything the doctor was familiar with. i'm pretty sure he doesn't think it's optic neuritis anymore, he said the pattern was similar to that of a pituitary tumor but still a little different. also, when reading the eye chart this time my left eye was not able to read as well as it did last time so it's getting a little worse apparently. so, he's not sure what is wrong...nothing to be too alarmed about yet i think. i am scheduled for an MRI on tuesday afternoon. this whole thing is kinda scary for me (of course my mind is going to the worst places) but dan is doing his best to keep me positive and not freaking out. what a great guy, i love him. i'm really grateful for all of your love and support. i would really appreciate your continued prayers. so i guess that's it, i'll try to keep you updated as we learn what's going on.

2009-04-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

Just wishing everyone a happy Easter!

The last month in a nutshell - A big nutshell

2009-04-08T08:04:00.000-07:00

This last month has been an interesting month. Angie has been having problems with her left eye. About a month ago it started getting blurry. She said that it sometimes happens when she gets migrains so she didn’t think much of it, but those usually only last a few hours and after a couple days she thought she should talk to someone about it. So we went to the doctor and he told her to go see an eye doctor. We did (it was the same eye doctor who wasted an hour and a half of his day trying to get contacts into my eyes years earlier. He was really smiley and nice. He told her that her eyes checked out 20/20 and that what it could be is optical neuritis, which is a swelling of the optical nerve. He said it usually last around 4 weeks. We could have her head scanned to be certain, but since we’re not insured the doctor said we were probably fine waiting it out and seeing if it gets better. So it’s been 5 weeks now and angie hasn’t noticed any improvement. She tried to call the eye doctor again this week but he’s out of town until next week. Its really been slowing her down. She can’t watch movies or read very long or even look at the computer for extended periods of time. She says the brightness outside gives her headaches etc. Which is a shame because its been so nice out the last couple of days. We go for walks about every day and we like to play Frisbee a little, but can’t do it for too long. Everyone is keeping her in their prayers and she’s been given two blessings. The rest is just up to her I guess.

We had an awesome trip to southern Utah with Josh, his kids, jake, annie and two of annie's sisters. It was lots of fun. we went to goblin valley and little wildhorse canyon. we camped under a moonless sky and even had dutchoven dinner! we had some late night coyote problems, but besides that it was all fun and games! It sure was nice to get out and adventurize a little bit.

I’ve been getting pretty anxious about graduation. I have only 3 weeks left and I have been searching desperately for employment. I’ve applied to about 6 places, most of which are only seasonal summer jobs or internships. I’ve applied to positions in Alaska, Wyoming, Colorado, Flaming Gorge, Cedar City, and am just finishing up an application for an internship in Washington state. I’ve really had to jump out of my comfort zone and talk with all my GIS instructors to try to get some letters of recommendation or permission to use them as references. It’s been good for me. I only hope I can get something arranged for this summer. It’s a really hard economy to be graduating in. I heard from someone in one of my classes that students graduating this year will make less in their lifetime than any other graduates from the last X amount of years. Bummer. I guess money can’t buy you everything anyways, right? I’m really hoping I am considered for the Grand Junction or Puyallup, WA jobs. They’re both GIS internships that would be really great for me and give me some excellent experience. Some of the other jobs were just field tech jobs where I wouldn’t be using GIS hardly at all. The cody WY position is a full time assistant planner salary job with their planning and zoning division. That would be awesome!

For angie’s 30^th birthday I bought her Lost Cities the board game. She wanted Dominion but its been out of stock everywhere (even online) since Christmas and if you want to buy a used one online it costs $150!! So that will have to wait, but Lost cities is really fun. We’ve played it a few times with family and with our neighbors the Rodgers and had a good time.

I got to teach my first Hunter Education class this last weekend. It was fun. I taught it with 2 other students from my Living With Wildlife class and we taught 7 other students from the same class. Angie's cousin Jackson was one of the students. It went well and was really a breeze. I wasn’t planning on teaching any more than the required one, but I may since it was so easy and a pretty good time.

Conference was last weekend and we drove to Kaysville for priesthood session. Mom and dad come along with Deborah and Steven. They had all just come home from Italy just 2 days earlier. It was fun to see them all and to talk about their trip. 2 days after priesthood there was a 6.3 earthquake in central italy that toppled a bunch of old buildings and killed 90 people or so. We were glad they were out of their. Becky and david said they felt it in the middle of the night, but that it wasn’t big where they were and they went back to bed. Sunday after dinner Janet had her traditional conference quiz. I scored the lowest of anyone besides grandma, but I still got a consolation prize of raspberry jam J

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

2009-03-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

To celebrate Saint Patrick's Day and to honor my Manx heritage, I sacrificed half of my beard last night to make way for some nice 19th century Caledonian chops. What do you think?

...don't ask

2009-03-17T16:39:00.000-07:00

Fun with the Scouts at the Cabin

2009-02-28T16:11:00.000-08:00

This weekend we had a scout outing at the cabin. It was lots of fun, dad met us there and helped out with everything, that was really nice of him. We played capture the flag, went sledding had some good food and slept cozy. It was a great little trip and the scouts all had a blast. Thanks again dad for your help!

what do you think?

2009-02-20T13:15:00.000-08:00

okay, family and friends, i need some encouragement (but also your honest opinions and suggestions). this is an idea that's been rolling around in my brain for awhile. i wanted to make some celebration banners but i wanted to be able to change the message without having to make an entire new banner. so i eventually came up with this. each flag has a button on it and each letter is on a smaller felt flag with a button-hole on it. so you can button the letters on and off, changing or personalizing your message. i thought it was the most ingenious idea and felt so clever. :) i've been working on bits and pieces of it when i've had a chance and today finished my prototype. after i hung it up all i can seem to see is how the flags don't lay perfectly straight and the letter flags don't lay perfectly straight on top of the fabric. i just keep picking it apart. here's where i need some encouragement.

that's okay, right?! that's what gives it personality and character. it's not going to be perfect. these are things i already know. i think. i just need to hear it from some others besides myself. anywho, do you think people would buy these? that was my hope. please let me know what you think!

Who, me?

2009-02-11T10:48:00.000-08:00

It's true. As of about 2 weeks ago, Daniel James Callister is a certified Utah Hunter Education Instructor. It took a few weeks of classes and a shooting and written test. Nobody bothered to ask if I've ever hunted, so I didn't bother to tell them.

I'm in a class this semester called "Living with Wildlife" and one of the requirements in the course is to take hunters education. There is also a service learning project later in the course. The instructor said that if anyone was interested we could go the extra mile and become certified as hunter ed instructors. If we did this we wouldn't have to worry about the service learning project. I thought, what the heck.

The shooting range pictures from our last post were actually just before my shooting test. I wanted to practice a little before the big day and was able to talk Angie into coming along.

You'll never guess what we did

2009-01-30T15:42:00.000-08:00

So a couple weeks ago we were visiting mom and dad in salt lake. Dad had been cleaning out the storage room and had come across his old rifles. He asked me if I wanted to take the old .22 rifle. I thought about it and said.. sure. So now we had this rifle. well to make a long story short, we had our date night today at the public shooting range. I would recommend it to any couple. I got to see a new side to my wife (she can shoot like the blazes). Anywho- true to Callister form, we were politely asked not to use dad's rifle after firing off a few rounds, since it looked dangerous and it was acting funny, ejecting bullets instead of loading them (the duct-tape didn't make it look to professional either). But the guy running the place said he'd let us use another one of theirs for free. Sucker. Angie wasn't sure if she'd like it, but she ended up having a really good time. It was kind of obnoxious not being able to hear each other the whole time, though. Hope you all dig the pics!

Our Anniversary in Bryce Canyon

2008-12-25T15:36:00.000-08:00

Angie was so excited when I told her I'd made reservations for us to stay at Bryce Canyon for our anniversary this year. We'd always loved it there and have been meaning to go snowshoeing there some time. So this was the year, hurray! As we were driving down there we were pretty sure there wouldn't be enough snow for snowshoeing. there was only 3 or 4 inches on the ground as we approached the park. But that night the storm hit out of nowhere and dumped 15 inches in the parking lot covering our car and everything else. We were pretty darn excited and couldn't believe how well we'd timed things. We were the first in the park that morning. It was sooooo beautiful.

We took some 100 pictures or so! The snow was 20 inches deep at the shallowest, there were no snow tracks at all in the whole park, and we had the whole canyon to ourselves. It was incredible! The hike was really long (made all the longer since we were breaking trail). The whole We hiked some 3 or 4 miles.

About halfway we both pulled our groins and it made the second half of the hike much less enjoyable. When we finally reached the end we barely had enough energy to fall over the fence post into the parking lot. The whole adventure took almost 7 hours! It was so pretty, but I think next time we'll take a shorter route :) We hope you all enjoy the amazing pictures!!! (just for the record, Angie said that it was one of the best days of her life).

'Tis the Music!

2008-12-07T09:58:00.000-08:00

We love Christmas time because that means Christmas music! There are all those great albums that you feel like you can only listen to after Thanksgiving. That is a shame, but Angie and I have a few favorites that help us celebrate and fill us with cozy warmths. Hope everyone's December is going cheerfully!!!

What we've been up to

2008-11-16T13:46:00.000-08:00

We had some fun this Halloween. We were invited to 2 consecutive Murder Mystery Dinners. One on Halloween night and the next one the day after. They were both pretty fun and we had a good time putting together our costumes. Angie really went all out and sewed her own costumes (refer to pictures and be impressed). Mine were more-or-less thrown together at mom and dad's house from their costume box. We found out at the first dinner party that Garret and Rachel are engaged! congrats to the two of them.

Since Halloween we've just been hangin' around trying to find time to get out and do things. Last saturday we went fishing at 3rd dam. It has been really nice weather here lately and we have been enjoying the outdoors while we still can. Yesterday we hit up the park and had some intense tennis games. We're pretty evenly matched so it's fun. I've been working on making a new boardgame and Angie is really good about helping me test it out when I need to. We play a lot of games besides. We've been playing this game called Vikings that Angie bought me for christmas last year that is really fun. Angie is unbeatable, at least so far. But I've been narrowing the gap with every game we play. We're excited for Thanksgiving in Salt Lake this year and can't wait to see everyone who'll be there!

2008-10-24T15:25:00.000-07:00

Angie and i got back from cancun sunday night. that was really fun we spent a week there with josh and deena and got to see some really pretty scenery and also some rad mayan ruins. our hotel was soo nice. it was the grand mayan. each couple had their own huge room , then we had a comon room in the middle with a kitchen and stuff. angie and i had problems with our tub one night and the maintenance people came and tried to fix it. we didn't get to bed until like 12:00. my favorite part was seeing the ruins. we toured Chichen Itza, Tulum and Coba. my favorite was tulum. it's right on the shore and it was just a really cool charming place. Chichen itza was just huge and had that enormous pyrimid, but we couldn't climb it. i guess someone fell and so they won't let you do it anymore, but in coba we could climb the pyrimid. it was really high and took alot of energy to get up there. for Chichen itza and tulum we had an LDS tour guide named lemuel. he's a local bishop and does tour proffesionally. it was pretty cool to hear about some of these places from an lds perspective. you kind of had to take alot of it with a grain of salt. One common theme that came up at all the places was the mysterious descending god and the white bearded man. kind of cool stuff. lemuel shared some theories aobut the uses of some of the buildings for ordinace work etc. it was pretty cool. we swam in 3 or 4 cenotes and they were sooooo fun! some of them were really shallow and fun to explore around and others were so deep that noone has even seen the bottom of them. we spent one day just walking around cancun. it was not our favorite part at all, but nice to say i've been there. we really liked playa del carmen though. its a closer city to where we were staying and it had some really cool pedestrian streets with shops and stiff right by the beach. i got to drink coco verde for the first time since the mission, they call it coco frio in mexico. it was so yummy and i talked everyone else into trying it too. Since we've been back things have been so crazy with school trying to catch up etc. But it was a really nice break! hope you all like the pics. In one of them Josh and I are impressing some locals with our own demonstration of how the mayans might have sacrificed people. try to guess which one it is :)

dutchin' dangie

2008-10-10T19:14:00.000-07:00

we've been talking about it for a couple of weeks and tonight we finally did it! we pulled out the dutch ovens and set up camp next to the compost piles in the backyard. it's already pretty chilly here. so it was now or never. we had one dinner oven and one dessert oven. as it should be. after some misunderstandings between ourselves and the coals we finally got them going and three hours later...voila! good thing we started around 3:30. boy, was it tasty! i have no idea why we haven't been doing this more often. maybe it has to do with the cleaning up and re-oiling and prepping the ovens for storage again. it's a bit of a process. dan, however, was so kind and did most of it. hmm...i think i'll go have another bite of peach cobbler.

adventures in owl-making

2008-10-10T19:03:00.000-07:00

my nephew, matt, turned TWO this month! i had asked my sister if there was something he needed and after giving me the usual "you don't need to get him anything" line she said there was this cute owl from the pottery barn kids catalog that might be neat if i could try to copy. so i tried. he's pretty cute though i don't know how much like the original he looks. this was my first attempt at a little softie and there are a lot of things i could improve but it was fun to try something new. so thanks, aimee, for the suggestion!

what we've been up to

2008-10-05T10:08:00.001-07:00

Angie and I have had a bit a fun the last few weeks. We went to Moab with Kent and Melissa and had a great time camping and hiking. It was great weather and even a little cloudy and misty. That's perfect Moab hiking conditions. While hanging out in Goblin Valley Kent was trying to show off and fell from a goblin rolling his ankle. He was on crutches for a couple of days after we got home, but he says he's fine now, just hurt pride. Angie and Deborah went to the So You Think You Can Dance tour at the Delta Center. Angie said it was the best time she's ever had in her life (she didn't actually say that, but you could tell she really liked it). They did her favorite dance and she said it gave her goose bumps. Last week we took a fun hike up to Mount Naomi here by Logan. It's the tallest peak in the area and a really pretty hike. I'd never done it, so I'm glad to have it under my belt now. We watched the salmon run at Porcupine reservoir, and I went to the USU / BYU football game with Dad, Josh and Caleb. And as if all that wasn't enough, Angie and I have been playing Zelda for the Super Nintendo. We want to beat it together (its the best game ever!) Angie hung in there for a little while, but it's pretty much been me for the last week. She watches and cheers me on. What a good time we've had these last couple of weeks! (the aspens are to make jake jealous, and the rock art I swear is authentic)

....And we're done!!!

2008-09-14T20:31:00.000-07:00

Saturday was Snoasis' last day and boy howdy, did they have a crowd! Angie and Deborah worked all day, everyday for the last 3 weeks and were pooped but glad when it was all over. I was glad too because it meant I got to take my wife home :). So we're finally both back in Logan again. Hurray! way to hang in there Angie, you're the bomb.

Viva Mesa Verde... or something

2008-08-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

We had us a good time this last week. Mom and Dad gave us some PTO (benefits of working at the Snoasis for 11 years). We decided to wander southward. First stop Cortez, CO. It was a cool little town and we had a really good time at Mesa Verde National Park. We checked out the abandoned shacks of the "ancestral Puebloans". Apparently it's no longer politically correct to call them Anasazi (Calling an ancestral Puebloan an Anasazi and dropping garbage out your car window are the only 2 ways to make Native Americans cry). My favorite site was Long House. It reminded me of Machu Pichu with cool terraces where they had planted some green grassy stuff.
One day we hit up Four Corners. It was cool being in 4 states at the same time and it was even cooler having to pay $6 to do so. Is this a "free country" or not? My letter to the president is on its way. Angie went to colorado to check out some indian jewelry and I wandered around New Mexico for a while. We decided that all 4 of the states were really similar.
Next stop: Hovenweep National Monument. This was alot like Mesa Verde, but no cliffs. there were only a few ruins and they were all really close together along this ravine. there were really cool towers and it was after hours so we got the "VIP tour". Translation: I didn't have much respect for the chains and signs warning us to stay on the paths. But it got us some cool pics.
One of our last stops was on the way back outside of Moab. We'd heard there was an Indian petroglyph of a mastadon in the area and after researching and making some calls we got some loose directions. It was pretty cool, and it's cooler when you think that the people that made this drawing lived here 200 - 800 years ago. Think about it. When your brain gets tired and the Archeologists at the local university have laughed you to death try looking in the book of mormon.

Well that was our trip! Back to the grind.

David Archuleta

2008-07-20T08:01:00.000-07:00

So David Archuleta came to the Snaosis Monday morning while Sarah and I were working. It was cool and Angie was really bummed that she was out of town (Sarah was working for her). Then apparently on Channel 5 they interviewed him...

Here's a link to that Video. Snoasis Represent!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV2qcCJAAo4&feature=related

Demo Derby!!

2008-07-05T09:32:00.000-07:00

Nothing says "God Bless America" like a good ol' demolition derby Ogden style. We had a good time with Deb - Adam and Kent - Melissa. And there were sweet fireworks afterwards. But mostly I just needed something to put on the blog. Thanks for lookin' :)

really fun (for a geography major)

2008-05-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

So if anyone hasn't tried this quiz game, they need to. it's so fun! You can't really play it on the blog because the screen isn't wide enough :(, but here's a link to the real website and you can play it there. good luck!

http://www.travelpod.com/traveler-iq/game1?utm_source=TIQSyndication&utm_medium=TIQ&utm_content=FacebookCanvasLink#embed

beat my scores:

World - 449,999

Asia - 723,338

Geography Quiz Game

2008-05-23T20:01:00.000-07:00

brought to you by TravelPod, the World's First Travel Blog ( A TripAdvisor Media Network member )

Uh,... whaaaa???

2008-05-01T07:16:00.001-07:00

So, happy May everyone.... This was how we welcomed in May at our house.

what i did this weekend...

2008-04-16T19:29:00.001-07:00

so where was angie while dan was at his beloved boardgame convention, you ask. well, i headed down south with a friend from my mission, errin lacey. we spent a couple of days in moab. two days were not long enough but they'll do until i can get back again (hopefully this summer). errin had never been to southern utah ever! there were so many things i wanted to show her but our time was limited. we hiked to delicate arch. the weather was perfect: nice and cool, a bit overcast. then the snow came! crazy! but really beautiful. the next day we rented mountain bikes! i'd never been. the bike was awesome. full suspension. the trail we rode included 3 miles over slick rock. that was absolutely the best part. kinda scary but oh, so thrilling. i'd do it again. southern utah is one of my favorite places in the whole wide world!

p.s. jake, i hope this post wasn't too painful. :)

2008-04-15T21:37:00.001-07:00

Well, I spent this last weekend in Idaho Falls at the ICON boardgame convention. Kent and Timmy drove up early Friday morning and picked me up, we got there around noon and jumped right into it. It was two days long and the convention center was rented all through the night so we stayed there the entire time (i slept for 1 hour underneath a table). I played some awesome games and got to meet alot of cool gamers. I have so many games I want to buy now! I even got to trade away some games I never play for some cool games that others had brought. I participated in a few tournaments and even did pretty well in a couple. I played in the championship game for El Grande (I'd never played it before the convention). Anyways, I really had a ball and am so excited for the Salt Lake convention in July! Woo Hoo!

This is a link to a list of the cool games Iplayed:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/30717

thoughts on lice

2008-03-28T19:59:00.000-07:00

yesterday when i arrived at work i was told there had been a lice outbreak. yikes! (for those of you who don't know, i work in childcare). it was actually one of the teacher's who had it. still not sure whether she picked it up somewhere else or if it was from one of the kids. this news freaked me out. there is something in my past some of you know about, others, maybe not. i have had lice. i got it on my mission. i had it for close to 5 miserable months! i had it so bad with a rash on my neck and behind my ears were they were starting to try to burrow into my skin! did you know they did that? a family we taught had it and we didn't discover that until it was too late. anywho, the whole story is pretty long and involved but basically i could not get rid of it because of my long curly hair. i guess. i did the treatment countless times and each time i thought i got it but then a week or two later i would find some nits in my hair. it gives me the creepie crawlies just remembering. finally the mission nurse told me i had to cut off my hair...all of it, or i probably wouldn't get rid of the lice. i cried. but i did it. this picture was taken probably the day i got it cut. so short. oh, how i hated it. i really hope i don't get lice again. *sigh*

Nerd Alert

2008-02-25T09:48:00.000-08:00

So Angie and I play board games with a couple every Wednesday night, and Saturday we went to their place again to take another crack at Wednesday's game (since wednesday's game was really complicated and it took Adam and me a couple hours before we felt like we had sufficient understanding to start playing and by then our wives had long since left and started a movie). So we played that and it took a good 2 or 3 hours. Then, not quite feeling like we'd had our fix, Adam and I wanted to stay up and try out another game he's had but had never played. I own it and didn't remember it being too complicated or taking too terribly long... So about 5 hours later we finally finished it!!! Angie had long since given up and gone home, and the rest of us were drunken with fatigue and frustration, we were all relieved when Adam finally won. It was such a good time, though!! I don't know if Angie will ever play that game with me again, but I'm excited for a rematch :)

When in Rome...

2008-02-16T20:06:00.000-08:00

Wow, so here you go! We have finally gotten around to uploading all our pictures and slap another post on our blog. Just a run down- we took the train to Venice the morning after we arrived and spent all day there. It was really cool! There was alot of fog and even sprinkled a little while we were there, but it didn't dampen our spirits- Angie even got her face painted. We spent the next day or two playing with the boys and visiting San Marino (it's the castle on the hill in the pictures, and is also it's own independent republic). Isaac was blessed on Sunday and it was fun to add Italian to the ever-growing list of languages in which we've attended church :). Early Monday morning we were on a bus to Rome. We stayed 2 nights there in a hostel and had a ball. There was so much to see, but after 3 days of constant walking and metro-ing (we had completely mastered the public transportation by the time we left) we feel like we've seen everything in Rome 2 or 3 times. It was so cool how much history there was. I kept thinking how much Josh would love it. You've got to go sometime :) Everywhere you look there are 2,000 year old ruins and so many of them have just been added to and have become parts of new buildings. We toured the Colosseum and the Vatican- so much history and so many cool things to look at, a person could spend a lifetime there and not take it all in- but after 3 days their legs would be tired, that's for sure :) After Rome it was back on the train and back to the plain and back to the states eventually (for me at least). Angie stayed a full week longer and did some more fun things. She can tell you about those, but I'll tell you she saw some old books and dead monks- does that wet your apetite?

Coming soon...

2008-02-13T09:46:00.000-08:00

I'm anxious to update our blog with pictures and stuff from our trip to Italy, but Angie has the camera and she wont be back until Thursday. So look forward to that!

You be the Judge

2008-01-25T14:30:00.000-08:00

This is in response

to Jacob's comment

on our last post. For

all of you curious

passersby.

Crisp, Clean Mountain Air*

2008-01-22T19:02:00.000-08:00

Ah, how refreshing to escape the smog and slush and head for the mountains. Angie and I have been wanting to go snowshoeing for a while and something kept coming up, but today we finally did it! It was really pretty there (and super cold). We narrowly avoided a tragic deer slaughtering on the way down the canyon too. He jumped right in front of us!!! We had to slam on the breaks and we were both pretty shook up, but no harm, no foul :)

2008-01-07T16:50:00.001-08:00

the night after christmas we went down to temple square and met up with von, maureen and annie. it was a beautiful (and cold) night to see the lights. dan got some great pictures with his new camera. it is amazing how many lights are on each tree! that's a lot of work, thanks, temple square workers!

Christmas in Logan

2007-12-25T19:16:00.000-08:00

Angie and i had a wonderful christmas! I had to work christmas eve until 1:00am, but slept like a baby when i got home and angie and i woke up to some great presents! Angie got a really fun raclette grill (she can tell you what it is) and i got a new camera! Our christmas was of course also complimented by a plethora of board games :) see picture. We spent most of the day with angie's sister's family in Nibley playing games and having fun. We hope everyone's holiday was wonderful! -Dan

Merry Christmas From T

2007-12-15T00:31:00.001-08:00

Nobody celebrates the holidays quite like Mr. T. There'll be peace on Earth if Mr. T has anything to say about it. So from all of us here in Logan, have a Merry Christmas and seasons greetings all around! -dan

Dangie Got Fresh

2007-12-07T23:31:00.000-08:00

So I stumbled upon the complete 2nd season of Fresh Prince on DVD at the DI for $3!!! Over the last few days Angie and I have been watching it non-stop :) I forgot how funny that show is. It doesn't seem like a show i'd like, but it's been making me laugh. Anywho- $3 well spent!!

a twisted christmas?

2007-12-06T12:39:00.000-08:00

okay. who are you people voting for the twisted sister christmas in our poll? i need to know so that i can think less of you. :) only kidding....but i do need to know. ~ angie
I found this picture online and had to add it to the post after reading josh's comment. A trapper keeper with this picture on it would have made me the most popular kid in the 4th grade :) -dan

sunny santa

2007-12-04T22:56:00.001-08:00

this post is simply for those who may have been as disturbed as i was by the picture of santa that dan posted earlier. i was trying to find a nicer picture to post and while this wasn't exactly what i was looking for, i couldn't help sharing it. ah, what happy times in the finnish lapland.

Our First Christmas Tree!

2007-12-04T16:38:00.000-08:00

So Angie has really wanted a real Christmas tree this year. My excuse for not getting one was that we don't have a stand. So I found a $2 stand at the DI and we went to the lot where Angie picked her favorite tree. I felt very American driving home with a pine tree on top of our car :) Happy Holidays Everyone!! And hurray for Isaac, Born this day in the city of David (by which i mean the city in which David lives).

He sees you when you're sleeping...

2007-12-04T07:46:00.000-08:00

I found this picture online and thought it was rad. Hope you guys like the changes I've made to our blog. I had alot of down time at work and thought I'd revamp our page:) Anywho- it looks like I made the quote too easy, everyone had been getting it right. Rest assured the next one will be more difficult! Happy Holidays
DAN

'Tis the Season!

2007-11-27T13:26:00.000-08:00

Outside the snow is falling and friends are calling "yoohoo!" Winter has finally manifested itself to us here in Logan this year. We had some enormous flakes as it fell for a couple of hours this morning. It was really pretty and fun as I went for a short bike ride to the bank with snowflakes falling all around me. I'm sure I'll hate it before too long, so I'm trying to appreciate it now :)

New Direction as it were

2007-11-08T12:08:00.000-08:00

So I've officially changed majors! I'm now in the college of Natural Resources. As it is I'm a Recreation Resource Management major (like Jacob was), BUT - I'm thinking I'm going to switch to Geography with an emphasis on Human Impacts on the Environment. So, there you have it. Enjoy the nice picture :)

Cabin Revisited

2007-11-04T22:47:00.000-08:00

Friday night we had an awesome stinkin' time at the cabin with a bunch of friends! We had the two of us, Garrett, Soulee (who I hadn't seen since spring), Miriam, Melanie, Kent, Adam, and Tim. A regular full house (well...cabin). We played alot of games and ate alot of food. Learning from my mistakes, I was sure to get a rip-snortin' fire going early on and we were all really toasty the whole time. It was great weather and great company! I'd like to do this again over the winter break!

Halloween Creatures

2007-10-31T12:11:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween, everyone! Hope you all have a good one. This is for Becky and the boys--Halloween of October 2004 I spent in Italy! Venice to be exact. I didn't see too many signs of celebration. I think i saw one jack-o-lantern cut out of paper hanging in someone's window and that was it. Anywho. I just came across this picture and wanted to post it and take a poll. A hunter in Pennsylvania claims to have taken this picture on an automatic set-up kind of deal, hoping to get pictures of deer. He got this instead. He believes it to be a sasquatch, as do others...but some claim it is just a bear with a bad case of mange. What do you think?

Walking Pumpkins

2007-10-23T22:20:00.000-07:00

They don't really walk. That was just to get your attention. One of the great halloween traditions here in logan is the pumpkin walk. There are hundreds and hundreds of pumpkins: carved, painted, and decorated. They depict scenes out of books, movies, television shows, history, you name it! Dan and I went with my sister and her little family today. I have always loved the pumpkin walk but it's one of those things that is made that much better by being with some little kids. It was great to see them get excited. At the end there were a bunch of those paintings you stick your head in. They couldn't get enough of those. Anyway, it was a beautiful bright sunny day for our pumpkin outing! Oh, I almost forgot the best thing! They had the Cartwright family from Bonanza (which, some of you may know, is my favorite tv show)! There was Ben, Hoss and Little Joe. I don't know what happened to Adam but three was plenty to get me excited! :)

Coldness at the Cabin

2007-10-21T20:56:00.000-07:00

Dan and I decided to drive down to the cabin wednesday night after I got off work. He didn't have school the next morning and I didn't have work so why not? My first suggestion was Jackson Hole but when he found out I didn't get off work until 6:30 p.m. he wasn't so game. Anywho, it was nice to get away. I had envisioned a nice relaxing morning with a good breakfast and some games and just hanging out. Dan said he'd start the fire while I got breakfast going. It was really yummy! Bacon, eggs and french toast! I haven't had a breakfast like that in a long time. While we ate I was so cold. Afterward I bundled up in blankets and curled up on the couch. After what seemed like hours of being frozen in that same position I discovered that Dan had never started a fire AND the front door was open! I think he said he was letting in some sunshine. :) Things didn't happen exactly as I planned but oh well. I was seriously freezing and we soon just packed up and started home. What made the trip for me was our decision to go home by way of the back dirt road that ends up in Avon. I'd never been on that road and always wanted to. Our little car was a trooper! As was Dan, the driver. After summiting, the road got super muddy. I wasn't sure we would make it. But thanks to Dan's tricky manuevering we arrived safely in Avon over an hour later. What a beautiful drive! A whole lot better than the freeway although maybe a little more intense. We love the cabin! What a great place to get away to every now and then. And sorry if I made you sound like a jerk, Dan, but I was so cold! You're welcome to submit a rebuttal if you like. :)

Hooray for Fall!

2007-10-16T14:02:00.000-07:00

I love fall. There's something about the leaves and the crisp air. It's a cozy time. You pull out your sweaters, you fix yourself a mug of something warm, you walk outside and the ground crunches under your feet...these are a few of my favorite things. After work and school yesterday Dan and I went for a hike. Many of the leaves have already fallen but it was still so beautiful. It's just good to get out and enjoy your surroundings. All of us, no matter where we are, are so lucky to have beauty close by. Happy fall, everyone!

yummy

2007-10-15T20:50:00.000-07:00

Well, it took us nearly two months, but we finally ate him today! lip-smackin' good!

New Blog!

2007-10-14T05:04:00.000-07:00

Lucky You!! You've just stumbled upon the Dangie blog!
(updates soon... well, indefinitely)

The Life and Times of Dangie

Long Strange Trip Blog

Moscow panorama

5 years!

Apples

Crawdad

The Vegetable of Our Labors

Mona LuLu

Oh Canada!

Pop Quiz

Mom & Dad!

To My Bro-ha, 'Shwa

Eugene

DJ Daniel James

Spokane

Dangie and Granet

Moscow!

Patience pays-off

Wind Rivers

The Saga of my little red Schwinn

The Expedition of Callister and Callister

Quick update

Nile to be published!

I Finally Did It!

Dangie to the 3rd Power!!!

Got a job, and other happenings of late

"Until Next Time, Enjoy Our Wild America!"

Just a couple things

This is a random post with a few random updates/happenings

Re: Re: Beard Pics

what we've been up to

Ya Come Far, Pilgrim

Employed!!

Our Mother

Graduação!

Vernal '92ish

Wait... where??

the lowdown on my eyes...

The last month in a nutshell - A big nutshell

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

...don't ask

Fun with the Scouts at the Cabin

what do you think?

Who, me?

You'll never guess what we did

Our Anniversary in Bryce Canyon

'Tis the Music!

What we've been up to

dutchin' dangie

adventures in owl-making

what we've been up to

....And we're done!!!

Viva Mesa Verde... or something

David Archuleta

Demo Derby!!

really fun (for a geography major)

Geography Quiz Game

Uh,... whaaaa???

what i did this weekend...

thoughts on lice

*Nerd Alert*

When in Rome...

Coming soon...

You be the Judge

Crisp, Clean Mountain Air*

Christmas in Logan

Merry Christmas From T

Dangie Got Fresh

a twisted christmas?

sunny santa

Our First Christmas Tree!

He sees you when you're sleeping...

'Tis the Season!

New Direction as it were

Cabin Revisited

Halloween Creatures

Walking Pumpkins

Coldness at the Cabin

Hooray for Fall!

yummy

Nerd Alert