So this is summer. I remember the old days when summer meant slacking off and getting bored with going to the pool everyday. Now summer is the time of kicking the throttle into high gear and paying attention to life's details because if I don't, then some kid's going to die. No, seriously. If stressing out about kids dying were an olympic event, I would have definitely won the gold medal; maybe even two. This job that I have, being the ridge runner intern, has got to list, "crazy," as one of the prerequisites for taking the position. The hours are nuts, the environment is hot and dirty, the kids are amazingly bad drivers, but man, I have loved every minute of it. Seeing these high schoolers come out to camp and drive a car for the first time and not wreck themselves has got to be one of the most amazingly cool things ever.

Speaking of cool things . . . . .

Have you ever met someone that absolutely lights up a room when they walk in? I have. I think I'm falling for her too. I don't know if this spells trouble for me or if this whole thing adds up to what I think it might add up to, but I like the way it's headed. I'm going to keep y'all in suspense and not tell you her name, but I will say that until yesterday I kept getting in trouble for talking to her too much. Enough said--peace out.

Okay, so sometimes I can be a complete moron. Most of the time I try not to be, but on Saturday afternoon I defintely earned the title of Moron of the Day. The day before, Friday for those of you following along in your workbooks, a bunch of us interns went up into the hills around Wildhorse Canyon and attempted to complete the cutting of a new, more technical bike trail intended for camper use come this summer. We succeeded for the most part, but the trail does still need to be widened in a few spots. After all of our hard work, Kate Minser and I headed down to the bike shop to change out the flat tires on our bikes that we had let fester for the last 6 months. Fine, maybe it was longer than that, but the point is I finally had my bike back in proper riding condition.

Kate and I headed up the backside of Communication Hill so that we could get to the trailhead of Cougar Canyon, the "new" trail. As we headed down the ridiculously intense switchbacks, neither of us were having much luck making the turns, albeit for different reasons. For me it was because I couldn't make the turns. Kate, however, was just having trouble clipping into her pedals while trying not to fall down the hill. It's super-tough, it really is--I watched the whole thing. Eventually I made it through the gauntlet of hairpin turns and saw the light at the end of the tunnel and it was at that moment when I slid into a rock and popped my back tire. Shoot, there goes 6 months of procrastination down the drain. End of that story--I walked my bike back to the road. Bleck.

Now here comes the beginning of the moronism. No, that's not Mormonism, it's more the cult of the Morons of America, or M.O.A. if you will. Props to all of those who are still with me here. Saturday comes, it's a chill, lazy day to get some cleaning and lounging done, then Sam Priddy comes over grabs my recently deflated back tire and convinces me that he is going to change my tire and then we're heading back up to ride the now infamous Cougar Canyon. (I can say it's infamous right? After all it did eat my tire.) So the ride actually goes well and I manage to negotiate nearly all of the turns while staying on the trail, until we get to nearly the end of the trail and Sam stops at the top of the hill. We had forgotten about a culvert that was still unfinished at the bottom of this hill, but I really didn't think it would be a big deal. I taunted Sam to try and get him to jump the culvert, but he would have nothing to do with it. So I told him to move over so I could jump the stinking thing. Brilliant. I flew down the hill, executed the jump perfectly even stuck the landing on the uphill side, or so I thought I had. At the last second, my back tire clipped the culvert, threw me off my pedals and then my pedals decided to dig into my left shin. So currently, I have 4 deep pedal stab wounds plus a 4 inch gash in the middle of my shin which is now sewn shut with 8 stitches. *Moronic move.*

Okay, so on Sunday night, a bit of strange delerium hit me as I was chatting with the always lovely, and always entertaining Miss Lisa Petermeyer. As Mondays and Tuesdays substitute for me what most of you call Saturday and Sunday, I did not have to work on Monday. Thus I was faced with 48 hours of time with which I could do anything (well, almost) that I wanted, or I could do nothing at all. I wasn't into the nothing, so I decided to go with the anything. However, I had no idea, what I wanted to do with my newly acquired anything. Which brings me back to my delerium. Somehow, Lisa talked me into driving the 5-6 hours from Wildhorse up to Seattle so that we could hang out and have a good ol' time. Delirium can be so fun sometimes! In the midst of our conversation, we had decided that since it was going to be Valentine's Day when I arrived in Seattle, we should go out for Valentine's Day Dinner. It's only logical. Here's where it gets a little nuts.

After we ate dinner, (we weren't seated until 9:22pm), we hung out at my cousin's apartment in Bell Town (thanks Jamie!), but as it turned the time for Lisa to head home, I realized that moment would be an opportune time to grab my car keys so that I could be the gentleman and not make her walk home. However, even though I realized my opportunity, I could not, for all the marbles in the world, bring myself to pull my keys out of my pocket. No, I wasn't being a jerk. I simply couldn't find my keys. Well, let me put it another way. I found every other key I had, except for my car key.

Hmmmm . . . smooth move Field. Drive 6 hours from your house to Seattle, take a lovely girl out for dinner, and then lose your car keys. This had Rico Suave written all over it. Lisa was kind enough to help me search for my keys, but after searching high and low, and even in some spots that there is absolutely no way the key could have gotten in to, neither of us found that stinking car key. Of course, I had the key to my parents' car, and to my brother's car, but not to mine. It was time for the break in.

I was a little nervous trying to break into my car, even though I've down it many, I mean a few, times before. No, it wasn't because I couldn't do it, although it turns out I couldn't this time. It was because Jamie told me that there were cameras all over this place. How good would it be to get caught breaking into a car when my license is from out of state, regardless if it's my car or not? It's not like I have the key to help prove that it's my car. Uggghhh. Anyway, the key wasn't actually in the car, but I did find out that my parents car key opens my car's passenger side door.

I learned one thing from this whole episode. Next time if I lose my key, those cargo pants are coming off and EVERY pocket will be searched with a coke-sniffing dog.
JF*