Home

Home again. I like to be here when I can. Actually, I'm not home yet. However, I will be very soon. I wanted to use that line when I got back home and started posting, but I figured it was soon enough, and it's a really good lead-in to talk about what my friend Kevin and I did a few nights ago: we watched Dark Side of the Rainbow. If you've never heard of this before, all it is is watching the Wizard of Oz with the sound turned down while Pink Floyd's concept album Dark Side of the Moon is playing. I don't know how, but someone realized that there are a few things in the movie and album that "line up" while being played together. There are really only a handful of major concurrences, but they are very interesting to see. It's worth watching at least once. I mean, I plan on doing it again. It's a really great album, music-wise; and Wizard of Oz is definitely worth watching, even without the sound. All the colors and visuals
In other news, I finally saw a grizzly bear the last time I went into the park. We watched it walk by the bus for a few minutes. It was pretty close, less than 30 yards away. We had just picked up about 6 or 7 photographers on the bus about a half an hour before we saw the bear, and they pretty much hogged that side of the bus. I was a lot more impressed by their cameras and equipment than I was by the bear itself. One had a telescoping lens at least a foot and a half long. As the bear was walking by, it turned its head toward the bus once. At least thirty cameras went off simultaneously. We didn't get to see Mt. McKinley that day, but we did see a glacier...well, all the dirt on top of it, anyway. It looked like dirty, lumpy, grassless land out in the middle of nowhere for no reason.
There's definitely tons more for me to do and see out here. Enough for at least a couple more summers out here. However, a lot of that has to do with the fact that I didn't take the initiative to do a bunch of things while here. I mostly read, or worked on my cartoon, or worked. That's a bad habit of mine--not going out and doing things that would make life more fun and fulfilling. It's a struggle I'll probably have to always battle, but at least I've taken the first steps of realizing it's there. Anyway, I'm just glad to be (almost) done here. Not to say I'm hedonistic, but I just want to get home, play some video games, drive a car, and watch some DVDs. Mmmm...DVDs. Maybe I am too consumption-oriented. I really want to establish a good social life when I get home. Take it from me, 'cause I should know: it's hard for an introverted, quiet person like me to break into being social. We are always being acted upon by our tendencies. We often have to work against the way we would normally be in order to have successful, fulfilled, and happy lives. Only dead salmon swim downstream, as they say. Anyways, as I was saying, I really want to go out and hang out with people, be there for others, be a friend rather than wishing others were my friends. You know, cool stuff like that.
Okay, enough friggin' introspection. What is this, my journal or something? Oh, right, it is. I am looking forward to being home with friends and other type people, though. I miss you guys.
So, wow, now that my time in Alaska is over (at least for now), here's the beginning of the rest of my life. I have very few obligations, I'm done with my Bachelor's degree. I have a wide variety of job options, I could go to graduate school, I could bounce around from resort to resort (or nat'l park to nat'l park) for years, I could go do the Peace Corp thing for a while. There are, of course, many things I plan to do. I plan to go to graduate school, I plan to make at least a few cartoons and see how that pans out. I plan to keep food in my belly and clothes on my back. The most important of my plans, though, is to live my life the way I know God would have me live it--plugged in to Him, happy, holy, in fellowship with other Christians, not letting life pass me by, not letting myself be less than I really can be. That right there is, in many ways, more important than all my other plans. Their success or failure hinges upon the success of that one thing.
But, for right now, my clothes are probably dry and keeping others from using a dryer. Tomorrow is packing day. Well, it's technically "packing, finally recording the narration for my cartoon, maybe burning some copies of Chris's music, and then working all night" day.

I must away, you popinjays! Oh wait, that's me right now. Yeah, go look that one up. Okay, for real this time. I'm gone.

I know I'm bad

...cause I do the Bartman.

Well, it looks like the old trip back home isn't too far away. My last day of work is the 17th of this month...technically the 18th, as I'll be working the night shift to guard the merchandise. Sound familiar? We head out the day of the 18th for Tucson, so Chris can visit his older brother there. We'll probably stop at the Grand Canyon along the way, among other touristy type sites. One place we probably won't be going to, but which I would love to see again, is Crazy Horse. I went there 11 years ago with my dad, and they were still working on the head of the Indian then. I talked with a woman yesterday who had been there recently; she tells me that the head was unveiled about 7 years ago, and that the project could take another 40 years or so to finish. I wouldn't doubt it. The thing is 600-feet tall. Will it be completed in my lifetime? I mean, this is a project that started about 60 years ago. This is one of those times where I can see something that I know will end up in a history book along with stuff like the Colossus at Rhodes.
Anyways, I'll be home soon. I fly from Tucson to Atlanta on October 1st. Then it's back to working at the old library again. And I just thought to ask myself if I haven't said all this stuff in my last post. I'm too lazy to look. It's a whole lot easier just to keep typing.
I have really enjoyed my summer here. I find that I am a much more mature person than I was when I came here. I may have some new problems, some new issues to face and deal with, but I feel more genuine, more real, more here, though that is an everyday battle to accomplish, and I'll be the first to say I fail at least as often as I succeed. I think I've been failing more than not lately because I've been working so much. 6-day weeks, ten- to fifteen-hour days most of the time. I did take a couple of days off to go to the State Fair down in Palmer, though. It was pretty fun. Saw some huge honkin' vegetables, watched some motorbikes in a metal sphere (which, I might add, was wicked awesome), and best of all, ate a fried Twinkie. Man, I'm tired from working so much. I plan on doing at least one more hike inside the park before I leave. I want to go all the way out to Wonder Lake on Monday (that's pretty much as far into the park as you can go, and has the best view of Mt. McKinley, if it can be seen). Anyway, I feel in many ways that I am no longer the insecure guy I was a year ago this time. I just have to keep reminding myself of who I am as a person, how far I've come, how God sees me, and what I can and cannot do. (You know, for the longest time, I hated that I could not, technically, write "can not". It's just always gotta be cannot. Stupid white dead European guys and their stupid rules for English. Latin's dead, man!)
Okay, I think I'm going to pack it in for the night. But before I go, I just want to warn you to be careful the next time you're in the bathroom.

Oh, and, um, please, no comments about the timber industry. I'm really not interested. REALLY.