quotes

This is the beginning of a new day. God has given me this day to use as I will. I can waste it--or use it for good, but what I do today is important, because I am exchanging a day of my life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in its place something that I have traded for it. I want it to be gain, and not loss; good, and not evil; success, and not failure, in order that I shall not regret the price that I have paid for it.
-Dr. Hartsell Wilson

There is nothing worth more than this day
-Goethe

It is never too late to be what you might have been.
-George Eliot

I am only one, but still I am one; I cannot do everything, but I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
-Edward Everett Hale


Across the plains of time bleach the bones of countless thousands, who, while upon the threshold of victory, sat down to rest. And resting, they died.
-Paul H. Dunn


Many people have the right aim in life-but they just never pull the trigger.
-Anonymous


There are three kinds of people in this world; there are those who watch things happen and those who make things happen. And then there are the people who wonder what happened!
-Anonymous


Said one bucket to the other: 'Whenever I get filled up, I get emptied out real soon." Said the other bucket: 'Whenever I get emptied out, I am ready to be filled again."
-Anonymous


I do the very best I know how; the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything.
-Abraham Lincoln


You have powers you never dreamed of. You can do things you never thought you could do. There are no limitations in what you can do except the limitations as to what you cannot do. Don't think you cannot. Think you can.
-Darwin P. Kingsley

Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet
-Will Rogers

If my life had been made up of eight hour days, I do not believe I would have accomplished a great deal.
-Thomas Edison

It is not the critic who counts; not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of great deeds might have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; who knows the great enthusiams, the great devotions, and spends himself in a a worthy cause; who if he winds knows the triumph of great achievement; and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
-Theodore Roosevelt

Quitters never win. Winners never quit.
-Virigia Hutchinson

The harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly.
-Thomas Paine

thinking and dreaming

I am a big dreamer in life. I'm not just talking about dreaming at night, I'm talking about daydreaming. I guess you could sortof call it a type of pastime for me. I'm a hopeless dreamer, kindof like how some people can be described as hopeless romantics. There is something so magical about daydreaming. Dreams can escape the laws of reality and transcend the bonds of time. I find that when I daydream I feel liberated and alive. I can take myself to a new place, a new time, a new life. I dream about the future, I dream about the past, I dream about the present. I have many many dreams and ideals and perfect situations that I can imagine up in my mind. I can start out with one concept or idea and make it branch off into a thousand different scenarios. I am one of those people that can sit there and think for hours and hours and I can literally amuse and entertain myself with my own thoughts for who knows how long. You know those questions about "if you were stuck on an island what would you do?" Well most likely I would just end up just sitting there thinking and daydreaming to entertaining myself.

Jennifer has talked a bit about trying to dream lucidly, or basically recognizing the fact that your in a state of dreaming and then trying to directly control the dream itself without ever leaving your state of dreaming. I guess my daydreaming is quite similar to this concept in a way.

Besides dreaming, I think about things a great deal. That doesn't necessarily mean that I find the answers to the things I am thinking about, but I love to think all the same. I generally tend to delve into big ideas and concepts. I enjoy taking a huge idea or concept that I haven't really figured out yet and wrapping my mind around it and wrestling with it and completely reducing it and digging around it until I can shrink it into those one or two basic fundamental elements and principles that prove or disprove the whole theory. It is a bit like a mental excercise to me. The more I excercise my mindpower with reason and with logic conclusions the easier it becomes to think about life itself. Right?

Im not sure what the whole point of this blog was really. I guess I just wanted to talk deeply for a minute. The governing laws and mysteries of life really fascinate me and I wish I had more people to talk to about them. But most people think I'm crazy and laugh that I would think about half the stuff that I do. I guess thats why I'm here writing it in my blog.

The end.

The Footprints of God

This has been hanging on my Grandma's wall in a frame my whole life. I just barely read it today!

In the deepest sleep one night I dreamed
That on the beach I walked.
God was by my side each step
And quietly we talked.
Then on the sky my life was flashed;
The visions all serene.
Two sets of footprints in the sand
Were there in ever scene.
But then I noticed in some scenes
Of suffering,pain,and strife.
Just a single set of footprints
At the worst times of my life.
'God, you said you'd stay by me
In good times and in bad....
Why then did you leave me
Each time my life was sad?"
"My precious child," God answered,
"When your life had pain, I knew;
The single set of footprints
Were the times I carried you."

My Trip

Hello my little blog spot and my little blog readers! It's been a while since I blogged, I just got back from vacationt to California and it was great! Now I'm going to tell you all about it!

This is Dylon...

And this is me...

And we went to California! We began our trip on Saturday morning the 21st and it took us a while to get going because like usual we didn't really do a good job of preparing before we left. But we were soon off on the road and heading toward Las Vegas for the night. We were running out of gas near the Utah border so we took this exit to Littlefield and basically we got lost on this little dirt road for about an hour and then when we finally made it out we were in Nevada. It was pretty weird...I have some videos of this experience but they are too big to post on here or on myspace so that sucks. I dont know how to make them fit on here :( they are funny though.

Once we checked into our Super 8 Hotel which was supposedly the largest Super 8 Hotel in the world but basically it was pretty crappy and kinda scary. Actually, all of Las Vegas was pretty scary. I had never really been to Vegas before but I was kinda creeped out and terrified for my life. In Vegas we met up with a friend that I have from work who happened to be down there as well. We went to Hooters to eat. (another place I had never been and I was thoroughly unimpressed with the attractiveness of the waitresses) After Hooters Chris ditched us and me and Dylon went to the...

Stratosphere! It was actually pretty cool up there. You have to pay to get all the way to the top but the view up there at night is way amazing. I felt bad that I didn't bring my camera with me to the top. I left my camera in the car because we were going on the three rides that they have up there and I knew I couldn't take a camera on them. They had some pretty cool rides at the top. There is a ride on that red pole at the top that shoots you up the tower and drops you back down, kinda like the Rocket at Lagoon. It was pretty intense...And it was really windy up there. Except the wind in Las Vegas is not refreshing at all its like a blast of hot air right on your face, even at night. Dylon and I also got our faces etched in these two cubes, we did a serious one and a funny one they are pretty awesome to look at!

After that we just drove around and saw all the lights and didn't really know what to do except go to bed...

Sorry thats all the pictures for Las Vegas. I kinda forgot about taking pictures while I was there!

We also went to a magic show the next day which was pretty cool. The guy had some crazy tigers that he made disappear and stuff...but he had a really creepy smile that was just weirding me out a little too much. Then we stopped by the worlds largest gift shop which turned out to be a huge disappointment...although Dylon bought a Jesus bobblehead which was pretty sweet. Basically all of Vegas was disappointing and I couldn't wait to get to Cali. So we hit the road again that day but we were really...

tired. And we had only traveled about 20 miles away from Vegas when we got stuck in traffic because there was a wreck and so for the next 3 hours we only went about 30 miles. YAY. But we finally made it to Los Angeles at like 2 in the morning we found our hotel pretty easy, mostly because we had directions to it plus it was like the tallest building in the city...Here is the hotel that we stayed in..

It was really nice and I got a huge discount because I work for Marriott. Right after we checked in we went over to the Denny's because its the only thing open at that time. Gotta love Denny's! We asked our waitress where the beach was and she laughed at us and told us to go down this street like two miles...So we did....and I was driving and all of a sudden an armadillo popped out of nowhere on the side of the street and I almost ran it over. I tried to hurry and turn around and take a picture of it but it ran away. It was pretty weird I had no idea that armadillos lived in California. Maybe it was someones pet? So we got lost and we just kept driving and we got more and more lost and then all of a sudden there was just black darkness out to our left and I was like "I wonder if thats the ocean" so we got out and went down this little trail and we were on these crazy cliffs with the ocean below us. It was so loud and beautiful. I couldnt take a picture because it was too dark but it looked really amazing. Once I figured out where the ocean was I wanted to go down onto the beach and walk around. I really like the ocean at night. You can only see a little ways then it gets pitch black and all you can do is smell it and hear it. Its very dark and mysterious out there. Very majestic in a powerful way.

We were supposed to wait in line that morning for Jay Leno tickets but we were too tired so we just went to bed. I think our hotel was a little too nice for us, we ordered room service and the guy came up with all these fancy dishes and some fancy little ketchup bottles and grey poupon and wine glasses but we didn't drink wine just mountain dew. It was awesome..And then we just sat there and made funny faces like this one.

After that we went to the 5th largest mall in the US which was about a block away from our hotel. But it wasn't anything special just a big mall with a lot of stores and a lot of people. I made a video about it but I guess its too big to put in here so oh well..

After that we rented these awesome cruiser bikes and followed this bike trail that they had that ran along the beach it was pretty awesome. I have a pretty cool video of that too but I can't put it on here I guess. Bummer I almost crash in it because I'm trying to film and ride my bike at the same time. Not a good idea really haha. Then I decided to go back and rent some boogie boards and go play in the ocean and it was really really really fun...Here are some pics.

This is off the Redondo Beach pier which was a pretty cool pier. It went around in a semi-circle and there were lots of shops and places to eat fish and stuff. There was also this one gift shop where I bought a really cool triton shell and they showed us their killer whale named Georgette.
She's 16 feet long and apparantly shes "just a baby." They also told us that there was a surfer that was eaten last month in San Diego, which made me REALLY excited to get back into the water!

When the sun started to set and it was getting darker I wanted to go back up to the cliffs to get a some good sunset pictures...I decided that the ocean is a very hard thing to take pictures of but I have a couple okay ones..

Oh yeah and we also hit some golf balls off these cliffs into the ocean. Not really for an particular reason but it was actually really fun haha. I have a video of that too! After this I think we just drove around for a while and got lost again! But its easy to find your way around, you just base everything off where the ocean and the cliffs are. I got to learn how to drive around pretty well around this area and I actually thought it was a pretty cool place to be. It wasn't as dirty or trashy and run-down as a lot of the bigger California cities. It also wasn't as big so it wasn't overwhelming. It was kindof like Heber, with an ocean! What could be better?

After that day we woke up and went out to eat for breakfast then played on the beach some more and then we went over to Los Angeles because we had tickets for the Frank TV show. I had never heard of the Frank TV show before but I guess it plays on TBS and it was the first show of the new season. It was our first time actually driving into LA and I was kinda scared because the traffic is ridiculously horrible. Then I accidentally passed our exit and we got lost for a while but luckily we had a lot of extra time to spare. We were still really early for the show and we ended up waiting in line with a bunch of crazy people, and there was this ice cream truck guy who kept driving by and I dont think he had any teeth and I'm pretty sure he hadn't showered or washed his hair or beard for like a month. Yeah he was kinda scary and we were all a little scared of him. But I felt bad for him. There was also this guy that washed our windows out in the middle of the street as we were stopped for a red light. And then there were some kids trying to sell things to us when we stopped for gas. Dylon and I saw a lot of homeless and poverty stricken people that you just never see in Heber or Utah really. It was pretty sad in a way, and it makes you feel so fortunate to be so lucky and blessed. There are a lot of things that we all take for granted everyday.

Here are some pictures of LA. I was doing most of the driving so I didn't snap many pictures.

Los Angeles was a lot like Las Vegas to me. It sounds exciting and it's really big and you know there are a lot of things to do there but once you get there you just feel surrounded and overwhelmed on all sides and you feel pressed in and everyone's running around like they're in a hurry and no one is nice and everyone is just focused on getting from point A to point B. It was really dirty and trashy and it just seems like no one takes the time to take care of anything..I have a few videos of this too..By the way we got completely lost on our way back from Los Angeles because we didn't have directions haha. Not a good idea...

We were in the live audience for Frank TV was pretty cool. We had first row seats but then the lady moved us back for some reason she never really told us why. We were kinda bummed. I had never been in a live production before and it was neat to be able to see how they did everything. They had a lot of techinical errors and Frank made a few mistakes while talking so they did little things that were called "pickups" where they redid the act and the audience had to act like they had never seen it before.

The next day we went to...

Which was REALLY awesome! (if you like rollercoasters)

Thats only a few of the rollercoasters they had. They were pretty insane. They had a couple that lifted you up like your laying on your stomache and flying around. It was great, we spent the whole day there and we had a lot of fun. They had this basketball competition that me and Dylon played in and we both won electric guitars which was pretty awesome! And we also won like 8 stuffed dogs lol. That was a fun day. I left my camera in my car though so thats all the pictures of that.

After the park closed at 10PM we drove for about 3 hours to San Diego beacause we were going to the zoo in the morning, however we hadn't reserved a hotel because we were unsure of what our exact plans were so we drove around for a loooooong time trying to find an affordable place to sleep but we finally did at about 2 in the morning. We woke up pretty early to get to the zoo, I heard that it was like the largest zoo in the US so I was a little disappointed when it only took us about 3 hours to get through all of it...I didn't even think it was any bigger than the Hogle Zoo but the animals seemed a lot better kept and they were way more active than the ones at the Hogle Zoo so it made for a good experience. Here are just a few pictures.

All the animals were pretty awesome. Especially those polar bears they were all in the water dunking each other and stuff it was pretty cool. I should have gotten a video because they were moving too fast for me to get any good great pictures. Plus there were a ton of people around the glass. I decided that if I lived around the San Diego Zoo area I would love to be able to work in the zoo with the animals and stuff. We also got a portrait of ourselves drawn up...they were kinda cartoonish and exaggerated a little but they are pretty cool. We also had tickets to go over to their Journey into Africa Park which is about 30 miles away from the zoo so we headed over there next.

Their Africa park is probably even bigger than the Zoo itself and it was pretty cool. They put it out in the middle of nowhere so it seemed like you were in Africa. Most of it looked just like another zoo but down at the bottom of the park they had the African Tour going and basically you get in a trolley and ride around in this "African Safari" that they've made. Its actually really neat, its just a giant enclosed area where there are cheetahs and rhinos and giraffes and other African animals just walking around everywhere. Of course they kept the cheetah's seperate from everything else but all the other animals were free to interact with each other it was great. I have lots of videos of the tour but here are some pictures.

Well after that we decided to hit the beach one last time before we said goodbye to our time there. I'm glad that we did because it turned out to be really great. The beach was really nice in San Diego as was the city, it was a big city but it definitely seemed to be much more clean and better kept than Los Angeles. It really seemed to make a difference. We boogie boarded some more and the waves were a lot bigger and better than the ones in Redondo Beach. But watch out for the killer seaweed! If you have ever been to the West Coast ocean before then you probably know what Im talking about. There are these huge piles of this rough stringy seaweed that floats in and it seems like the whole ocean is covered in it. Its a little bit frightening when you find yourself tangled in a giant ball of it..

Anyways after that we just headed back home and drove through the whole night. Not really much else to say about that we just took turns sleeping and stuff.

Overall it was a fantastic experience. I am really glad that I was able to go and spend time with Dylon, we had a lot of fun together and these are memories that I will never forget my whole life. I definitely need to stop and take a vacation every once in a while...

THE END

My Mission Call

So today I finally recieved my mission call in the mail. It normally comes on a Wednesday so I was all prepared for it to arrive yesterday and it never did so I had kinda decided it wouldn't come until next Wednesday and that would be while I was on my vacation so I thought that would be a bit of a bummer. I had it sent to my Grandma's house and I think she might have even of been more excited than I was if thats possible.
It was a very surreal experience to recieve a letter written and signed by the first presidency of the church, and the apostle himself. It is probably the coolest thing I have ever recieved in the mail. I am being called to the California Arcadia Mission which is Spanish speaking and it covers a lot of territory! I leave on August 13th so not too far away really. My packet came with a map of my area which was pretty cool to look at, although I dont' recognize most of the cities. It includes the whole east side of Los Angeles and Pasedena all the way east to Chino and then it goes north for like 60 miles. I sure hope we get to drive autmobiles! Ironically, me and Dylon may have to drive through a section of my area seeing as how we are traveling to Los Angeles. Kinda funny huh? haha.
I have to admit I was slightly disappointed with the fact that I am remaining in the states. I would have loved to of gone abroad somewhere, just because it would have been such a completely different experience to have, but thats alright there's really no room to complain for things like this and I said all along that I didn't have an preferances as long as there was good weather and good food! Well, Im sure I will complain about how hot it will get but I'm sure the food will be great. I am very eager to see my mission and to meet all the wonderful people that I know are out there. Also, judging by the picture of my Mission President, he looks like quite a nice guy. (Hopefully? lol jk) It seems like every missionary falls in love with the place he was sent so I imagine it will be no different for me. I really can't wait to take advantage of this oppurtunity that awaits me.

Well that is all for now I am out of time for now. Im sure there are more blogs to come though.
-Travis

my new hobby

So lately I've been seeing the world in a different view than I regularly do. I was just randomly driving around Park City one day before work because I was way early and I couldnt help but notice how beautiful everything around this place is. All the mountains, the green hills, the old antique main street houses. Everything really is pretty up here. We really are very lucky to be surrounded by such amazing beauty. This world is full of beautiful things that a lot of people dont take time to appreciate. I guess that is a big reason why so many people come here...it's just so scenic I love it. For a long time now I have wished I had a decent camera to capture all these moments so that they wouldn't fade in my mind.

So I've just been thinking about all the moments in my life where I wished I would have had a camera to capture it all...Well a few days ago I bought myself a new digital camera! I'm pretty excited about it all! I plan on taking it almost everywhere with me (hopefully they let you on your mission??) Its going to be so great I can't wait to explore my new hobby. I've already taken a lot of pictures but most of them are crappy I'll admit but its ok theres a delete button for things like that. Anyways I took a couple that I really like but I'm an idiot and I can't figure out how to get them on here...Somebody want to help me with that :) ??

the papers are in

My missionary papers are finally in! Yay! They went to the Stake Presidency the other day...I'm not sure if they've made it to Salt Lake yet or not though, so I'm not sure exactly when I will be getting my call, but it shouldn't be longer than a week or two..I'll keep you posted for sure. Definitely very excited and a little anxious.

On another note, I've planned a trip with me and my best friends for the end of the month. We are going to Cali, to the beach, six flags, San Diego zoo, a comedy show, a magic show...etc...I'm really looking forward to it, I'm way past due for a vacation. It will be good to spend some quality time with friends before I take off for two years, because who knows what I'll be coming back to anyways?

Well thats about it guys, I'm really sorry my blogs are getting lame but really all I've been up to is work and sleep and churchy stuff. I'm glad that I still have a few readers here and there though! Leave comments it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

:)