Leaky Buckets

  Approaching the Great Husky We crossed the great sand dunes like intrepid explorers. The bitter December wind howled across the mountains, blowing sand in our eyes, so we hunched forward, climbing ever further into the strange desert. We strained our eyes into the fading light, seeing only more dunes as far as we could see. Atop a knife-edge ridge, we settled down to gaze at the dying sun. It was Christmas Eve.  Our guide perched on the sands, golden fur gleaming, wind rippling the waves of sand and fluff as he gazed balefully at us. Sam approached like a pilgrim finally finding a teacher. He sat in silence, majestically surveying the great desert. Our footsteps slowly blew away the way we had come. As Sam sat beside the stonelike husky, he slowly turned his head and she buried her face in his fur. It was heartwarming and stoic at the same time. I snapped a dozen pictures with my old camera.  We were traipsing through the Great Sand Dunes of southern Colorado. The Sangre de Cristo Mo

   Bombs away, Bridger Bowl 2012 The feeling of gliding through bottomless powder is almost indescribable. It must feel similar to being in outer space, floating through existence full of joy. When I launch off the edge of a mountain side down a hideously steep slope littered with stumps and boulders into a field of fluffy white powder, there is a whooshing in my ears, an exhilaration of excitement and fear. I am addicted to the feeling because I know how wonderful it feels even though my lizard brain is wired to be terrified of this exact action. I have attempted to hike up some of these mountain slopes in the summer that I fearlessly descend in the winter and am astonished at the incredible steepness. Somehow, by strapping on 185 cm boards to either foot, I am comfortable hurling myself off vertical drops where a tumble could mean death. That is the joy of skiing, the thrill, the soft landing, a face full of powder and a laugh.  I have spent thousands of days of my life skiing. Doing

  Another new house with gray siding, and well, gray everything Let me start this by saying that personally, I like gray things. I wear gray t-shirts, drive a gray pickup truck, use weathered gray wood as trim and wainscoting in my bedroom. I have been into gray for a while. It has a nice feel to it and I think it looks good with my skin tone. Even after writing this article, I will still be into the color gray. There is a gray movement going on in architecture right now. From commercial buildings to rural residential, everything is turning gray. I am convinced that this gray movement traces back to a style that was coming into vogue when I was in architectural design school around 2011. Back then, we called it Scandinavian modern; a style from predominantly Norway and Sweden that used fairly standard vernacular house shapes in new ways. The early designers used the same material palette of wood siding and shingle roofing that makes up most residential houses, but they included large w

  The Brunswick Bowling machines It was January 2020. I climbed the long steep staircase out of the Silver Mill restaurant dining room. A rush of cold air swirled as I stepped into a large storage room. Clutter filled the space, party decorations, tables, old beer signs. But behind all the junk I could see retro blue stripes disappearing into a false wall. I clambered over to a small hole and peered into the darkness. A large room sat hidden above the restaurant. In the gloom, I could read Antler’s Bar and Bowl on the dusty old machines. I was staring at my winter project, renovating the 1950’s bowling alley into employee housing for the restaurant below.  In the late 1800’s, this upstairs had been built as a boarding house. But around 1956, someone had the brilliant idea to install a four lane bowling alley above the Antler Restaurant. For decades, it had been a town staple. Piles of old score sheets sat in boxes tucked behind the dormant machines. Dozens of local kids had earned a

  The ferocious furball I know a lot of very tough guys with very big scary dogs. All teeth and muscle and tattoos, large trucks and spiked collars. I also know that if you give a tough guy a few moments alone with their big intimidating dog, they turn into overly sentimental, snuggle fests. I know because that is my life, well, minus the spiked collars and tattoos.   As a manly man, I enjoy four wheeling in my scratched and dented Tacoma, eating large quantities of meat and anything to do with power tools. I have a blonde husky who has personally killed fifty two chickens, five cats, two raccoons, three porcupines and (accidentally) one yappy dog. He has survived being kicked by a moose, clawed in the neck by a bear and being thrown from the back of a moving pickup three times. He is an alpha dog with a stubborn streak a mile long and he has the scars to prove it. Though his scars are hidden by his thick fur, this is a dog who has been in more scraps than most in his fourteen years. 

  A professional photographer snapped this promo for TedxBozeman 2017 A few years ago, I gave a TedTalk. Well, a TedxTalk which is like the localized version of Ted Talk. And I played guitar; sang a couple songs that I had written while wandering the world. I wanted to make my ten minutes and thirty seconds the most revelatory part of the five hour event at the Great Commons church in Four Corners, Montana. I had seen so many Ted Talks that absolutely blew my mind; incredibly intelligent people calmly explaining their ingenious ideas for the world on a big stage in front of an audience of eggheads who would take those ideas and run with them, making the world a better place right away.  I so desperately wanted to be part of that legacy. My performance was okay; there was nothing groundbreaking about it, but I said my piece and enjoyed being a part of the event.  In the months leading up to the TedTalk, I spent many hours on the internet rabbit hole. It was there that I found Buddy Wake

  Scrubbing the Floor The house is being mopped again to the tune of Billy Idol. We have lived in this house for four months and it has been mopped more times than my living spaces were mopped total in the past fifteen years. We even bought a mop bucket. I guess my orange Home Depot 5 gallon just doesn’t cut it in domestic life. But that’s what it is like living with someone who believes in cleanliness.  Most days, I come home from work covered head to toe in sawdust, tile shavings, foam insulation or grout. There is so often so much dirt in my shoes that I leave footprints in my socks. Living without plumbing for four years, I just became accustomed to a certain level of dustiness. But now that I have moved up in the world into a real house with a shower, I don’t have an excuse for living in filth.  I jest, but it isn’t that bad to live in a clean house. There is less dog hair on my clothes. Fewer dust bunnies emerging from beneath the furniture to claim more territory. Less spider we

  Joe and Maximus 2019 This isn’t an obituary because I don’t know what Joe Johnson did in the 85+ years of his life that we didn’t know each other. But in the five years that I did know Joe, likely the five slowest years of his life, he was a one-legged maniac hellbent on squeezing his remaining years for all they were worth. Joe finally bought the farm a couple weeks ago. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he kicked the bucket too. Characters like Joe don’t just pass away or any other kind hearted euphemism; guys like him going kicking and punching into whatever comes after this life.  I don’t know if it is relief or disappointment now that I know that Joe’s phone calls will stop; harassing me almost daily to clear space in my schedule to help him pull off some hare-brained scheme or build something ridiculous on the old high school on the hill above town. The genius of Joe Johnson was that his ideas were often so bonkers, that they sorta made sense. He lived by Tom Petty’s immorta

  Into the forest: Jedediah Smith State Park Dude, now is the time for the Avatar soundtrack. I turned to Santin in the shotgun seat of the Toyota, gesturing to the iPod. The two lane paved road had climbed up out of Crescent City, California towards a misty ridgeline, meandering between old subdivisions and farm fields. Paul craned his head from the cramped backseat of the small pickup, trying to see out of the windows. The new growth forest had thinned and looming in front of us was a dark gateway of giant redwood trees. We had meandered down the coast of Oregon for the past four days in the steady rain. It was Spring Break and not a lot of things were going right. I had unexpectedly broken up with my first and only girlfriend the night before we left. I walked out on the morning of our departure to find my brand new Tacoma missing from its usual parking spot.  In a panic, I had called everyone including my pissed off ex, only to find that it had been towed because my parking pass ha

  One of my favorite photos of coming out of the fog to find the sunset over the Canary Islands... Where will I be in five years? What is my main goal for the next five years? I feel a lot of pressure to make it a good one. First goal was to travel the world. Been there, learned a lot, wrote a book on my journey. Came back and started on the second goal. The second goal was to build myself a house. Been there, did the work, have the scars. Check. Third goal, welp, that line is still blank. I have lots of things I still want to do with my life. Save the world. From what, who knows, beats me, maybe it is the biology talking but I have high falutin’ dreams of doing something important for more people than just me and my loved ones. Lofty, I know. I don’t dream small.  And that’s the thing. Too big a dream is dangerous to someone with confidence issues. There is no guarantee that you will make it happen. Will I feel like a failure if I complete two out of three life goals? Is that worry en