To Blog or Not to Blog, That is the Question…?

The blogging world and I have not gotten along so well in the recent past and it's now been a year since I posted anything. Blogging has been on my list of goals for 2016, but took a proverbial "back seat" while I focussed on other things, including passing the PE exam. BUT never fear, we're going to dust the cobwebs off the keyboard, roll up our sleeves, and dive back in. Why? Because I got a little kick in the pants by a recent podcast.

Michael Hyatt, the voice on platform building and intentional leadership, recently published a podcast episode entitled "10 Reasons Every Leader Needs a Blog". Although I'd encourage you to listen to the podcast or read the transcript because the list is very thorough, it doesn't directly apply to this blog as it's not really a platform that I wish to necessarily influence people or lead an industry. However, several of the list including "Improve Your Communication Skills" and "Create a Repository for your Best Ideas" do apply and got me thinking about why I blog.

The list below is a brief brainstorm on the reasons this blog exists in ascending order of importance:

1. Provide a place to share photos and stories of our life in Jackson Hole with family and friends
2. Synthesize my thoughts and reactions to the "inputs" of life (podcasts, books, movies, etc.) into coherent "output"
3. Improve my communication skills (thanks Michael)
4. Publish creative thoughts and ideas for building things or "life hacks"
5. Discuss "life philosophy" on topics such as faith, money, politics, and science

Certainly not an exhaustive list, but enough to get this thing started. Perhaps the biggest reason for throwing this out on the web is for motivational purposes, to remind me why typing up trip reports and writing down ideas is worth the time and effort it takes to put them from my head down on "paper."

Performing a Wedding

About a month and a half ago, my roommate and his girlfriend asked me to perform their wedding. After I got over the initial shock of the unexpectedness of that request, I happily accepted the honor. Just so you know, I have the ability to perform weddings now in several states (at least Wyoming and Montana) and would happily offer my services should the need arise. My specialty: eloping with parents to beautiful mountainous landscapes. 

It was quite the experience and I learned a lot. Matt, Sacha, and I did some pre-marital counseling (thanks for the advice Walter!) and worked together to plan their ceremony including vows, ring exchange, and message. The ceremony itself was held in Grand Teton National Park among the old buildings and barns of Mormon Row. Attendees of the service included Matt's parents, Sacha's parents, two bride's maids, a best man, and bride and groom. With me it totaled ten people! Very personal and special. 

And photogenic! We had a couple of days of amazing weather, the first for a camping trip and a hike and the second for the wedding itself. The Tetons practically begged to have pictures taken of them and I hardly put up a fight. Some of the best are shown below.

The wonderful couple out on our hike the day before their wedding. The Grand Teton in the background.

Wedding party (minus Matt's bro) photo at the top of Inspiration Point overlooking Jenny Lake.

The Treager family, up from Georgia, loving the mountains.

It was a little cold for Sacha's home-made wedding dress. The thoughtful groom came through!

Bride and her attendees, accented by the Tetons.

Kiss pose...go!

Weddings are a great excuse to bring people together to celebrate life and love and happiness. In the past couple of weeks, at first Tim's then Matt's weddings, I've gotten to meet a bunch of really cool people. And in the preparation of the wedding I looked a lot at what love and commitment is: how Christ shows us the way to service, submission, and love in all our relationships, but in marriage especially. I feel like more marriages would last if each individual tried to out serve their spouse. For those of you married folks out there (and those of you thinking about getting married) it's never too late. This is my charge to you: to serve each other more than the day before and try to outdo one another in service, submission, and love.

Dabbling in Poetry

I've written a couple of poems recently, one from a prompt and one for a friendly contest (one that I didn't win, mind you). My skills as a poet need improvement, but I'll publish them below for your amusement.

Patterns
I lose myself in patterns.
The shrillness of my alarm
   wakens me to a world of light.
A desire for food moves me to
   break my night long fast.
Off to work in attempts to
   produce for my boss.
Home means dinner, relaxation,
   some time alone.
My pillow brings me dreams of
   someday breaking free from repetition.
Yet I lose myself in the patterns which
   tie me to a comfortable life.

(untitled)
Very often I find myself
   Poised at the edge of a cliff.
The desire to fly, falling through
   Nothing, feeling the wind in my face is overpowering.
Why do I long to castoff from the
   Rock that supports my feet?
I seek things that i do not understand,
   Enjoyments and pleasures that do me harm.
It hurts others when I jump from the
   Cliff over and over again.
I can see the pain in his eyes now.
All too often I find myself
   Creeping to the edge of a cliff
   Holding a parachute filled with holes.

The Servant, by James C. Hunter

I first wrote this abstract/review of the book The Servant for my Construction Practice class this semester. As a future engineer and a leader in the mission of the Gospel I learned a lot from Hunter's message. Our class defined leadership as "the art of influencing human behavior" which is more a learned skill than it is a gift you are born with. Leaders' lives are highly relational and I feel if you can be a servant in all your relationships then you will be very successful guiding people toward a common goal.

In The Servant, James C. Hunter recalls a turning point in his life where he discovered a new way of leading his employees while a manager at a glass making plant. He argues the essence of leadership is found in relationships, both how they are built and how they are maintained. Respect is a powerful commodity and is only given by others not taken by force. It is only by investing in those being led that rewards can really be reaped in a company or organization.

Hunter defines leadership as “the skill of influencing people to work enthusiastically toward goals identified as being for the common good” (Hunter, 28). A leader may accomplish tasks by making others conform to their will just because of their position of power. However, to gain the enthusiasm of those being led, a person's leadership must come from authority rather than their seat of importance. The necessary authority isn't easy to gain. In order to build it, a leader must earn the respect and trust of those they lead. It is important to note that the author's definition refers to the common good. When someone influences another to get what they want it is called manipulation. Everyone in an organization is there because they believe in the same purpose: pleasing the client by providing a service or product. Yet the the attitudes of the leadership in an organization can hinder that purpose.

The leadership model developed in the book demands a paradigm shift: the old attitude of running a business acts like a “top-down” approach with the clients or customers at the bottom. Hunter claims this attitude won't work since the employees are constantly looking upward out of fear from those in supervisory positions, taking their attention away from those with whom the company wishes to do business. When this is turned upside-down, the attention of the supervisors and CEOs becomes focused upon serving the employees they supervise; everyone is looking “upward” and working toward the1 common goal of providing a high quality product or service.

The new paradigm emphasizes the need for leaders to serve those they lead, providing for their needs as best they can. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs emphasizes that fact that human behavior is driven by need, whether it's for food and shelter, companionship, or self-esteem. Relationally, a leader can serve their employees by developing “relational bank accounts” that are never overdrawn. The author borrows this metaphor from the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People where deposits are made during positive interactions such as being trustworthy or a good listener but withdrawals are made during negative interactions like breaking promises or acting arrogantly. If a leader shows they can be level headed, respect their employees, and not hold onto lingering resentment it creates the proper environment for success. Everything boils down to the relationships one has with their coworkers or those they lead.

Hunter spends quite a bit of time defining the word love and how it fits into leadership. It is described as a word of action and behavior rather than feelings and emotion. Love means putting others' needs before your own. Some concrete examples of how to show love are being “fully present” when listening to someone (Hunter, 105), not being late or otherwise disrespecting others' time, and “treating people like they are important...because they are important” (114). This must be done even when a leader doesn't feel like it or doesn't even care for the individual person. Serving and loving others while in a leadership position is important enough to allow leaders to behave positively toward their staff until that behavior changes the way they feel about them, a process referred to as praxis (149).

Hunter recognizes that being this type of leader will demand a lot of time and effort. However, the rewards far outweigh any potential difficulties. By leading as a servant, meeting the needs of others, and making regular deposits in relational bank accounts, a leader can build influence with those who are being led, resulting in further progress toward a united goal. Having a mission or purpose like that is a reward in and of itself; a vision can begin to define who we are and give excitement to life. Finally, when someone is able to give up being self-centered the author claims they are able to find true joy: “inner satisfaction and the conviction of knowing that you are truly aligned with the deep and unchanging principles of life” (Hunter, 178-79).

Leading as a servant can be very hard work: it takes a lot of effort to be purposeful about the relationships we have with those we are leading, putting their needs above our own, and investing our time and effort into ensuring they have the best work environment possible. Yet everyone has a choice of how they will live their life and how they will lead others. I would recommend to any aspiring leader that they should follow James Hunter's advice and lead as a servant. After all, some of the oldest and greatest advice ever given was to love your neighbor as yourself, sage advice for anyone, leaders and followers alike.  

Skiing in April

I'm a little behind in blogging...there's a lot to reflect on and share. I'll do my best to make the most of my free time and catch up. It's a funny, fine balance that you have to find between actually getting out and doing things or writing about them. But I've come to love both and realize that balance is important in everything I do.

April has been very good to us skier types, with more and more snow continuing to pile up in one of the biggest snowpacks Montana has had in years. Flooding is being predicted, especially if it decides to suddenly be summer in the next week or so. As it is, we're still skiing powder! In preparation for our upcoming trip to Alaska in June, Dad and I are trying to put in big vertical days. It hasn't been hard to do that "extra" lap when you're skiing knee-deep dry powder on April 23rd.

Mom putting on her skins after a fun out-of-bounds lap in the Canyon. She's a backcountry pro now after our trip to Fairy Meadows! We had just skied down the open meadow just above Mom's head. 

The resort closed in fine fashion. Saturday was a great day with sunshine and clear skies. Costumes abounded in the resort and skiing was fantastic on an out-of-bounds lap first thing in the morning. Then the sun-softened groomers were smokin' fast in the afternoon. Hero-slush! Sunday was a little crummy and icy, but it's the last day of lift-served skiing, so you have to go up and you can't complain about skiing with good friends.

Sunscreen application party!

Fun with a self-timer. We were trying to jump together: Larkin needs to work on her timing; I've just had a lot of practice with my camera. The snow-capped peaks of Glacier beckon in the background.

Larkin came up for her 21st birthday and we got to hang out all day that Tuesday. After good convo over breakfast we went and hiked the mountain for some good skiing. We were blessed with a great day: good snow and sunshine. Later that afternoon we climbed at the gym near our house and celebrated with the folks over an amazing dinner, complete with specialty beer tasting.

Padre shredding some April powder! That man can drop a knee, let me tell you.

Last Saturday (April 23rd mind you) Dad and I got after it in the backcountry of the Middle Fork. We had skinned up and skied at Big Mountain the day before racking up close to 6000 feet, which is the equivalent to our planned summit day on Denali. As I said above, the snow was amazing and we quickly lapped a 1700' run to compile 6300' by 3pm. If someone had told me that I would be getting faceshots the end of April earlier this year, I would have laughed at them. I would like to be up in the alpine shredding couloirs off some peaks in Glacier by now in the year, but the new snow is keeping the avy potential pretty high. Oh well, we'll just keep skiing the trees and shredding until everything stabilizes. Then we'll go "get some!"

The worst thing about this time of year is deciding what to do. Trails are drying up for biking, rock is warm from spring sun, rivers are starting to run fast begging to be paddled, and the snow is still good up high in the mountains. What's a guy to do? I'll have to start doing 2-a-days to pack in multiple sports...

100th Post

I almost feel like this is cheating: writing about getting your 100th post in order to publish your 100th post. But if you look at it another way, this is a celebration of the past year of writing, personal growth, and belief development. I started this blog on March 7th, 2010, a little over a year ago. There have been huge periods when I didn't have to time to write anything, and others where I could throw up several posts in the same morning. I've grown a lot over the course of this year, becoming better able to communicate my ideas and work through my own jumble of thoughts. My hope and desire is to continue writing and sharing my life with whomever stumbles across this blog.

Here's to the 200th post!

Rock and Trail

Now I have another venue for which to write and this is your invitation to check it out! A couple of friends of mine and I have recently launched a website called Rock and Trail. The three of us wanted to start a site to chronicle our adventures, helping others learn from our mistakes and our successes, and potentially starting a community of bikers and climbers. This project incorporates our combined desires to be in the outdoors, and pulls on the blogging strength of Eric (Abilene Climbers) and I and the web development of Asa.

Whether you are a mountain biker, backpacker, hiker, scrambler, vertical rock climber, gear junkie, or something in between, this is the site for you!

Why I Write

Writing, although enjoyable, have never been my strongest ability. In school, I knew how to get by, placating teachers with essays that I knew they would like.  I really enjoyed mathematical and scientific thinking: the objectivity, the discovery process, the "rules" that the natural world had to follow.  It wasn't just the written word either.  My sister and I devoured books growing up, developing a love for reading when we didn't have Television.  But the writing part of English class was just something I had to do pass my classes.  Never enjoyable. Never easy.

In the list below, I've tried to outline the reasons why I want to write and become a better composer of the written word.  The list is as much to encourage others as it is to remind myself that I do indeed want to continue writing.

1. Sharing my Life with My Family and Friends
Much of the original intention with this blog was to share my antics with my family of friends. I don't know if it will ever grow big enough to have a larger audience than that; I don't know if I want it to. There may be future pursuit of that elsewhere, but I want a small, personal, and very informal place in which to share my thoughts and aspirations. My extended family is pretty widely spread over the country and I don't see them very much. This documentation allows frequent "life updates" without scheduling phone calls. Also, I wouldn't describe myself as a very good communicator (see item number 3 below) and when I do have conversations via phone or email this blog hopefully provides conversation stimuli.

2. Documentation of my Outdoor Pursuits
I read a lot of blogs online, note the "Blogs I Follow" links in the right hand column, as well as various climbing and outdoor magazines (see item number 4 below). Naturally I developed a desire to document my own outdoor endeavors. It's probably a pipe dream, but to actually get paid or get gear compensation some day from an outdoor sports company or publication for my writing would be amazing. In addition, I have really enjoyed reflecting on the trips that I have been taking over the course of the last year or so. Writing stories down and posting them with pictures reminds me of how good the event actually was and I can go back and remember the time with more accuracy and vividness. Reflection on the events also allows me to go beyond a "Wow" phase that I often have during the course of the day and into an "Oh yeah" phase, connecting events and applying them to other parts of my life. They can't help but make me grateful for a creator God who has blessed me richly. I hope this is mirrored in my writing. And who knows, maybe all this will be material for a book that I write some day...

3. Become a Better Communicator
I find that I haven't been able to express myself very well in the past. Extended phone conversations were exhausting, coffee table-type conversation was a struggle, and any kind of debate was unheard of. By formulating my ideas and thoughts while writing (see also item number 5 below) it has allowed me to have more confidence in verbal communication. I can better express my feelings, desires, and opinions if I have thought about them in advance and then actually synthesize strong stances on new items more rapidly.


4. Provide some Output with all the Input
It was my senior year in college when I decided to start this blog, just under a year ago from writing this post. I was having discussion with a roommate of mine about how we are amazing consumers of media in this day and age. We are constantly being bombarded with information through books, magazines, the internet, television, and radio. But it doesn't truly affect us until we output something ourselves, when we wrap up all of the other opinions and facts out there and make it our own. Our college professors and other teachers have it figured out: you can lecture students all day long and assign them reading after reading but they won't actually learn the material unless you force them to react to it, whether that's writing a paper or solving a bunch of problems. Application of knowledge is when it really sticks in our brain.


5. To Develop my Ideas and Beliefs
Along the same lines of becoming a better communicator and balancing the output with the input, when I write I gain more control of who I am as a person. When I put my thoughts and feelings and opinions in words where I can reread them or change them, instead of flying randomly around in my head, it grounds me and lets me choose where I really stand. I find that I waffle a lot on tough issues, going along with the argument that I've heard most recently. But if I take the time to really think about an issue from all sides, taking into account all arguments that I've heard or read, and formulate them into my own statement or belief then later I'm am better prepared to communicate in conversation what I think. Certain topics of conversation, particularly politics and religion, seem to be considered taboo in  a lot of settings. I imagine this is because those beliefs come too close to define who we are as individuals and any discussion or conversation that would question them or make you take a stand for them makes us uncomfortable because we feel like like it is questioning who we are or we have to defend ourselves. Through writing, I find that this discomfort is somewhat diminished.

Blogging Struggles

I've been struggling on posting to my blog recently. I am concluding this is due to my fault of being a perfectionist and wanting to write posts/articles that are magazine quality or noteworthy enough to be compiled in a published memoir. But this should be more about sharing my life and thoughts with the world, whatever raw form it comes out to be. I need to be more willing to treat it like a public journal, keeping track of my thoughts on the world around me, reactions to various media stimuli, and chronicle day to day adventures.

Take two...

Missin'

Things that go a missin'
    Are often small,
    Often most needed,
    Often close to our hearts.

Things that go a missin'
    I find again in my hand,
    Sometimes on my head,
    Where I last left them.

But things I'm gonna be a missin' soon
    Can't be replaced,
    Can't be taken with,
    Can only be hugged goodbye.

Finished Paper...?

PHYS 491, or Quantum Mechanics is an upper level course taken by all physics majors here at ACU (and even some crazy Math majors...). As per University requirements, each degree plan has to have a "writing intensive course" where the students have to write a 750-1000 word paper taking a persuasive or analytical stance on a currently debated issue in the subject. Unfortunately for us all currently debated issues in QM are so far over our heads at this point that to express any of the ideas in a non-technical paper would be impossible. So we're cheating a little bit and just finding some topic in QM that would be interesting to write about. My topic is Quantum Computers.

For a brief foray into the realm of Quantum Mechanics, let's consider an example. Let's say that my paper can be in one of two states, completed or not started. Classically speaking (as opposed to Quantum-ly) the paper must exist in one state or the other. However, in QM it exists in both states at the same time. There is a certain probability that it is completed and a certain probability that it is unfinished represented by some probability distribution function. It's not until you "probe" the particle (in this case, my paper) that the wave function "collapses" into a certain state.

So as I sit here in total procrastination mode, I find myself justifying the avoidance of my paper based on the fact that it is already finished. Never mind the probability of that particular state being the one that I will find when I actually go and open the document happens to be extremely low...

Stopping to Smell Life's Roses

Yesterday in church the lesson was about Jesus' journey to Jerusalem. We have been working through the book of Luke on Sunday mornings and Albert (our preacher) emphasized that Jesus was very focused on entering capital of the Jewish world. Phrases like "he had his eyes on Jerusalem" or "while he was going up to Jerusalem" (my paraphrasing) occur fairly often in the text.

Yet for being as focused as he was on the destination, Jesus chose an interesting route to get there: he chose to go through Samaria. I would not hesitate to make the claim that every person with a familiarity of Jesus' teaching has heard the story of the Good Samaritan. What makes that story so poignant? Samaritans were looked on with disdain by the Jewish community, a feeling that Jesus challenged by placing one as the hero of the story. In this atmosphere, he also chooses to travel in a round-about way to Jerusalem through Samaria, teaching the people there and healing a blind beggar.

As I sat in the pew I couldn't keep my mind from wandering: I had to write a grocery list and compose a To-Do list, think about what I was doing for lunch, when I was going to get all my homework done, if I was... It just kept going on and on! I am a notorious "schemer," planning trips, events, and daily schedules like clockwork. But at the same time I feel as though I'm missing out on the important things of the present. I wouldn't really know how wonderful life's roses smell, since I only notice them as they brush my leg as I march past, eyes on the next mountaintop.

I can learn a lot from the telling of Jesus' walk to Jerusalem. The journey should not be fulfilled in the destination, but in the enjoyment of the path and the stops along the way sharing the joy of the trip with others.

Starting the Journey

So this is it: the inevitable first post to this blog. I have only had one blog before, chronicling my journey abroad to Montevideo, Uruguay for a semester in 2008, and never really been able to write in a journal consistently. Yet I'm realizing the importance of self-reflection, communication, and self-expression and want to do more to foster that. My goals for this endeavor include improving my writing and communication skills, sharing my life with my family and friends, and keep a running log of my adventures.

As for the title, I've been accused (mostly by my housemates) of having no interests other than climbing and physics. This, for all practical purposes, is true to some extent at this point in my life: my "girlfriend" is an 8' x 8' over hung piece plywood dotted with climbing holds in my backyard and I do spend a lot of time with my nose in a textbook, pencil scribbling frantically on scratch paper. But I feel as though there is much more to me than "Mountains and Minds." I like to read, write, mess with photography, cook, eat, enjoy good movies...thus I want this blog to reflect that. Get read as I attempt to share the inner workings of me. Expect to see: tales of adventure; thoughts on school, life, theology, and even physics; reactions to movies, books, blogs, news, etc.; even stories about my failures and triumphs in the kitchen.

Proving myself more than mountains and minds will be a work in progress for sure, and I hope you enjoy the journey as well!