There is a new mystery. Where did the Springville ruins come from? Who built them and why? Better yet, why were they destroyed? Read on and hear my crazy photo tale. Well, it’s not that crazy but it is cool and there are lots of pictures.

Last Friday on my way home from work I cruised around and took some pictures. I had just about finished and the sun was setting fast when out of the corner of my eye I saw a decrepit old run down barn. I pulled over and walked across the field to snap this picture.

Many of you saw my recent post on Road Rage. The thought was that by voluntarily submitting my self to things that normally made me angry I would be able to avoid the stress associated with driving.

I’m happy to say that it was a complete success.

Less Stress:
During my 15 day trial period I only had a single instance of road rage that mostly caused by external stresses. Compare that before when I had daily, even hourly road rage. I was so mad about driving I’d be road raging while sitting at my desk at work.

Now that the 15 day trial is over I’ve let the rules go but the lessons and principles learned remain the same. It helped get a better attitude about driving and traffic in general.

The most amazing thing about it is that not only do I stress a lot less while driving but I have more patience in other areas of my life. I don’t know if it’s a philosophy thing or what but I’m a lot more relaxed now than I was last month.

Readjusting:
Since I’ve released my self from the rules I’m trying to find a happy medium between the two extremes of driving, that is “driving super-aggressive, crazy fast” and “going with the flow”. My new style tends to lean more towards the latter than the former.

Jon helped me snap a couple photos of a Bonfire and I really liked how everything came out, check it. The first one is available for print, if someone wants the other ones just ask.

I turned some of them into designs

Hugh, our very own resident breakdancing champ from Korea filmed a commerical for novell a little while ago. For a long time it was only available on his computer and deep within Novell’s data vaults but now, thanks to an accounting error we can bring it to you!

I think there are 2 or 3 total dancers in this commercial, Hugh is the one that is awesome.

Last weeks movie night was already ill fated when the server kept going down. I should have taken it as an omen. All signs pointed to “Beware for something foul is afoot” and yet I did not head the call. Alas, this is what happened.

We started to leave to go see James Bond(which is what was winning when the server crashed because a hard drive melted). The movie night crew was unruly and unresponsive. We arrived at the move theater to see that our group was the only to make the transition between venues.

We were already late…

Some other would be movie night participants had already arrived and were watching Casino Royal. We figured since we were late we may as well see a movie that we all wanted to see that hadn’t already started.

Babel:
We laughed in the face of all warnings, ignored foreshadowing and bought tickets to Babel. Actually, this section should really start like this:

Babel: Biggest Waste of time Ever:
Babel tells four stories, the one they advertise is of a couple that gets stuck in a middle eastern country when a young boy accidentally shoots Brad Pitt’s wife in a contest with his brother to see who can shoot the farthest.

The second story is about the incest fantasizing, stupid boy that shoots the tourist (Brad Pitt’s wife) and his family. These two stories are connected, though they don’t really have much of a theme between them. They do, at least, belong in the same movie.

The third story is about Brad Pitt’s kids in America. They get lost in mexico.

The fourth story is about a sexually frustrated, deaf, Asian girl.

What do these stories have to do with each other? That’s what you ask yourself the whole movie. You expect some sort of mind blowing ending to tie all of these seemingly random stories together. As the end drew near I wondered how they were going to tie it all together and then…the credits started rolling. No resolution, no tie in, nothing. There is no common theme, there is no point.

Lots of people claiming to be artsy or intellectual talk about how great this movie is. I don’t know what they were thinking, maybe they picked something totally obscure to like so that they could be more elite or something. I love artsy movies, even far out, totally different movies. I love them! But I did not like Babel.

Do not go see this dreadful movie.

How do you cure road rage?:
If you would have asked me earlier I would have described the horrific process of planned, murderous, rampages. Unfortunately there will always be more stupid drivers. The thing is, not every I see that is driving poorly is a bad driver. They might be a good driver having a fluke, off-day. Slaughtering these poor saps wouldn’t really be fair. I’d have to follow them around for a few days to try to get a solid sampling of their performance before dealing out execution.

Motivation:
I was taking a solid look at my life realizing that the most stressful part of my day is driving. I go nuts trying to get around people that are going 5 under, or people that are sitting in the fast lane for no apparent reason. Then there are all the people trying to kill me by doing things like, running stop signs, assuming I have a stop sign when I do not, pulling out in front of me for no reason, turning in front of me when I’m 10 feet away or even by pulling over to the side of the road and waiting till I’m about to pass you to try to flip a U-turn. All of these things have happened to me within the last month or two and something has to change.

Since murder is clearly out, I have another solution in the form of an experiment. (more…)