Buy experiences not stuff.

These past few weeks have been almost overwhelmingly full of work and recovery from work (usually climbing and beer). As you guys may or may not know I'm working at the local rec. center lifeguarding and teaching swim lessons; unfortunately it is more of the former and less of the latter. As a result I'm left with excessive amounts of time to think about oh...just about anything that pops into my head. After several weeks of sitting for about 30 hours a week I've started to think about what I think about. You may be asking yourself right now what the heck is Sam talking about?! Well don't worry, I'm just developing back story in a roundabout fashion and I'm getting to the point now.

I have realized that what I have been thinking about this past month while life guarding has been remarkably similar to what I was thinking about while life guarding a year ago. I have been planning what to do with this next year (I'll try and post up a tentative plan for those of you that are curious). I have been planning on what to spend my recently earned pay checks on and what to spend my upcoming pay checks on. I have been planning what to eat and drink after work. I have been day dreaming about the Creek, Patagonia and Ice climbing (probably more of this than all of those planning things). I have been thinking about how awesome my friends are to tolerate me parking in front of their houses, bum interwebz and a cooking setup and how much I appreciate their generosity.

After mulling over these thoughts I've recently realized that I was feeling pretty amped on buying a new down  sleeping bag, solar panels and batteries for the van, a stereo system, extravagant food, a full gas tank and well the list goes on. Then I began to think, not in terms of cash amounts but amounts of experience. For instance instead of a new sleeping bag when my present one will do just fine I could take a trip to Zion, instead of a ticket to a concert I could spend a week at the Creek. Instead of a full gas tank...well I suppose eventually some of these purchase ideas will come to fruition. However, my take home point is that while I and almost everyone else gets sucked up into the spend spend spend and get more and more stuff I say spend spend spend on experiences that are gratifying, that can be spent with those that you value, that will provide memories, on experiences that will provide rather than consume space, leaving you wanting the next best thing when what you have does just fine. I suppose it's all just a matter of needs v. wants and not getting the two mixed up which is certainly not an original idea.

On that note I'm going to go earn a bottle of whiskey to pass around a campfire with a bunch of friends and strangers. Or maybe it will be a pass to Rifle Mountain Park for this summer.

2012 Recap

Well I suppose with the coming of a new year and the reflections on the previous year that accompany that change, I figured I’d do a recap blog of 2012 and all of my adventures and/or misadventures.

January was brought in in Prague with my immediate family in a crowded square with fire works being let off in every direction (literally), live bands doing their thing, all of this with a light mist coming down.

In Prague with the family Photo by Dan Feuerborn

February was largely dominated by book learning and day dreams of the desert and life after graduation.

March was kicked off with spring break, which was naturally was spent in the desert climbing hand cracks and pretty much continued that way for the rest of the month with a smidge of studying here and there when it was unavoidable.

April was mostly scrambling to make sure I would actually graduate and getting those final projects and papers printed off. Turns out you can do just fine with a good attitude and liberal procrastination…because I graduated haha.

Gots me sum book learnin' Photo by Dylan Weldin

May was spent traveling for climbing and family, to Illinois, Wyoming, up to Glenwood and Rifle for climbing and back to Durango for festivities and plenty of mountain biking.

Taking a break at the top of Animas Mountain

June’s highlight was making it to Tuolumne for the first time after work training, dang that place is n.e.a.t.

Just relaxing Photo by Kayla Watson

July was spent leading a trip of teenagers to Costa Rica and Belize where we/they hiked, scuba dived, surfed, snorkeled, rafted, fished and sailed.

August began for me on the Lost Coast with a  great group while backpacking. From Northern California I moseyed on down to SoCal where I worked a bunch of challenge courses, managed to hurt myself mountain biking  and where I got to meet and hang out with a bunch of awesome Boojies.

Both of these are the Lost Coast area

September also began with a backpacking trip though this one was with a bunch of 8^th graders in the Jennie Lakes Wilderness Area in Sequoia/Kings Canyon N.P. From there I spent the rest of the month in Yosemite catching up on and honing some climbing skillz.

Top of Cathedral Peak in Tuolumne after a morning solo

October saw me move back east to Utah and the desert around Moab where I met more fantastic folks, climbed as often as I wanted/could and of course kicked off my modeling career.

Middle Crack Photo by Ryland Bradley

Jogging in the Fischer Towers Photo by Dan Holz

November was quite similar to October in that I was still climbing lots, hanging with and meeting still awesome people out in the desert.

Team Rukus Photo taken from Justin but taken by Becca maybe? (Rafael, Justin, Hannah & Myself)

Last month I moved back to Durango to work blegh. Here I've been climbing a bit, working some, brewing a bit, but mostly spending time with quality friends.  Oh and dare I mention I got to play with skeletons in a basement at York University with my oldest little sister, yes real skeletons (granted they were not entirely intact as they were from the later Middle Ages).

This new year was brought in with a trip to England to see the family for the holidays and so once more new years came with them, though this time on the Isle of Skye, a pretty rad island of the west coast of Scotland. Google it, it’s a rather aesthetically pleasing place.

Hiking to the Old Man of Storr with the pops

Near the Fairy Pools on the Isle of Skye

Old man and the old man haha

Fairy Pools again