Love and Stuff

Up until this point, I felt slightly smug while my friends met and married a variety of assorted boys (not that they aren't all great, they totally are). Too busy doing my own thing, more interested in my career, studies, hobbies than "settling down", I watched with vague curiosity. Love seemed over-hyped, under valued, and completely misused by the world at large. I assumed that I was to logical to fall in love, far to sarcastic for the experience. What's up with the whole falling thing anyway? I would much rather make life decisions feet on the ground, not sprawled upon it.

What I didn't understand, which I'm now beginning to grasp is that love is truly an action verb. Love isn't wrapped in the grandeur of poetry, art, symphonies. Love is simple. Love is sharing life with someone who shares your joy in it. Love is in the quiet moments, the in-betweens, the journey not the conclusion. Love has a depth, a foundation, a bravery that I find unexpected and thought to be corrupted out of our culture. If a fall is what it takes to slow down and see it, to savor it...I'm totally there!

Maps, I make maps!

I love my job! I fell in love with geography as a college freshmen, undecided and undeclared. Thanks to an amazing professor in geography survey class, I found my passion and my career. Not that this has been a direct path, I've worked for the United States Postal Service, the now defunct American Home Mortgage, and numerous other side jobs along the way.

I now spend an amazing large portion of my time explaining my job to the public. I've settled for the brief, "We map the county" answer, however it goes so much further beyond that. We collect and analyse data, gather and distribute information. The applications of GIS are so amazingly broad that I cannot even begin to brush the surface here. Geography as a whole, knowing your place in the world, the thought process behind visually contextual data...huge people, it's huge! So ask all you want, I may start boring you with the long answer!

On my mind...

Guernsey Revisted

My boyfriend D and I spent last weekend camping at the Guernsey reservoir in Southeast Wyoming. This was my second weekend at Guernsey this summer, and just as awesome as the first. The first weekend was a girl's camping trip with my fantastic friend Hannah (Fan Han or FH for short). For that trip please see the hyper link below:
http://http//www.trib.com/articles/2008/07/17/features/open_spaces/876dd1603b4b942d8725748800694e26.txt

Guernsey offers a perfect reprieve from life. It is nestled in the cedar covered hills north of Guersney, WY. There is a sense of wildness about the place as it is several miles from the interstate. The Civilian Conservation Corp built the dam in the 1930s. The state park also contains a small museum dedicated to the corp as well as several impressive outbuilding hewn from local rock.

D and I took a break from our normal hectic weekends to play in the water, watch kite boarders as we sprawled on the beach and spray paint "art" (D's was awesome, mine was decidedly less so). The fog rolled in Sunday morning after a peaceful night camping on the beach, but burned off over breakfast. My advice to all those dating out there-camping is still my favorite date ever! Beg, borrow, or buy some gear on get on out there!

Wyoming

I love Wyoming. The wide-open landscapes have provided me with solace over the years. The ability to lose myself, to run or hike without seeing another soul fills up something that empties over the course of a week. I wish that I was one of those people who were perfectly content to remain indoors, within the confines of a city. I wish that something inside me didn't wither when surrounded by concrete. Tonight, however, I was able to purge that restlessness. The wind cleansed me in away that I cannot put into words.

Thoughts on Community

I currently am employed by Converse County, Wyoming as a GIS Specialist. As a smaller county department, our project back-log is rather epic. The side benefit to this is that we are able to apply our skills to a wide variety of GIS (we primarily use ARC and by primarily I mean only) applications. The local communities of Douglas and Glenrock are experiencing a tremendous amount of energy industry related growth, which has me bending my mind around city growth planning and management (http://www.cctntplan.com/). So while this is occupying my time and thoughts professionally, it has also captured me on a more personal level.

I spent an evening in Casper at the Nicolaysen Art Museum. The "Nic" organized and hosted a series of outdoor concerts during the summer months. I attended the FireAnts, a eclectic band from Sheridan. With approximately 300 people in attendance the venue and vibe made the event seem almost cozy. Neighbors greeting neighbors, friends meeting for the evening, single gals and guys eye-balling each other across the expanse of the lawn, all played a part in the sense of community that I find lacking in Douglas. It is my hope that as the city and surrounding area grow that the planning committee focus on building a better community through efficient use of green space and walking paths, urban management, and commercial planning.

Fall Blues

We are on the cusp of fall. While the evenings are still warm, the sunsets have changed to amber and the nights are chilly. I scattered all of my summer camping gear on the lawn last night in an attempt to organize and clean the summer scum off of it. However, I found myself a little sentimental about washing the red Moab mud off of my tent walls, wiping the reservoir sand off of the footprint, and generally discarding the remnants of an amazing summer. I'm not quite ready to give up on the season, I still have plans for a big Labor Day summit bag, a few hit or miss weekends in Sept. but the wicked rad camping streak has the end in sight. Today I'm learning the prosaic eternal summer in the midst of winter crap is more difficult than it seems.