Stone Mountain Morning

This morning, Kara and I went to Stone Mtn - Atlanta's resident mountain. Which is actually just a "quartz monzonite dome monadnock" (Wikipedia). It's a big rock, which counts as a mountain here, since it's the closest thing to it for at least an hour.

The weather was supposed to be sunny and clear, but chilly (aka, 45-55 degrees). We planned to hike/run on the 4.something trail around the mountain, and then decide if it was warm enough to have a picnic lunch. 

As it turned out, it was absolutely perfect weather for a nice jog through the woods. We took it nice and slow, with plenty of time to appreciate the weather, views, and the fact that running across slanting rock is not actually a good idea. It took about an hour and a half to go around the mountain on the non-extended Cherokee trail. I took a lot of pictures.

I was told the straight hair and pigtails look makes me look sporty and Swedish. 

Perfect for trail running.

Slanting rock that has water running down it. Not the best for running.

Absolutely gorgeous running next to the lake.

Cool old-style building with a water wheel! and bridges.

After the run was over, we decided the weather was beautiful and we would have a picnic. Honestly it was just like an idyllic morning of exercise and outdoors. I'm hoping to spend a lot of my time in Atlanta doing stuff like this. 

Starting Work

It's difficult to describe work. It's familiar, but a lot of new procedures and people to get to know. It's hard work, but often includes a lot of standing around. My first week of work, I clocked 45 hours. This week, only 36 hours (we didn't work on Monday because it was too rainy). I really am enjoying it at Bartlett. The guys I work with are very nice in explaining things to me, or helping me out, but they all smoke and swear a lot. For now, I'm mostly doing groundsmen stuff like hauling branches to the chipper, doing pole pruning from the ground, or making sure the climbers have the equipment they need. Sometimes I get to do more fun things like using chainsaws, hedge trimmers, or the bucket aerial lift.

I wake up around 5:30 (plus a snooze or two), get dressed, have breakfast and pack a lunch, and head out to work around 6:40 to get there around 6:50. We work until we're done with the job, so I normally work between 8 and 9.5 hours a day. Twice it's been longer than that. I usually come home, take a shower, wish fervently I could take a nap, but instead get ready for institute, making dinner with Kara, or whatever I have planned for that evening. Then around 9:30 or 10 I get ready and go to bed. It's a thrilling life. At some point, I'm hoping that I'll have more energy after work and can go running regularly after work, and then post something clever on a blog, practice the piano, and still find time to be social. I'm working up to that though.

For a really extensive description of work, I guess you could read my work blog at www.quercusphellos.blogspot.com. It's written more for tree and landscape management people, so beware it will be quite nerdy. Tree nerdy. The address is the scientific name for willow oak. Yep.

Rosemary Beach

I have several things to post about, but I don't feel like putting them all in one, so I'm going to write several different posts today, in the correct order. Hopefully, I'll keep up better in the future.

The weekend before I started work, Kara and I went down to the beach in Florida with her friend Michael and his son Alec, and met up with some more friends the next day. That was Jan 12-15. We were there for the 30A Songwriter's Festival. I eventually figured out that 30A is the highway that goes through that section of beach towns, which finally made the event title make sense to me. Lots of different songwriters/musicians would play at different venues along 30A over the course of the weekend.

This is where Rosemary Beach is in Florida, on the panhandle part near Pensacola:

 It was an interesting experience because (a) I have never been to a songwriter's festival and am really not all that knowledgeable about music - a lot of it sounded all the same. And (b) despite the general ideas of "Florida" and "beach," it was really not that warm. Between 40 and 50 degrees during the day, and much colder at night, which was of course when we were sitting and standing around trying to appreciate the music. But in all fairness, the beach part was still beautiful, and the music experience was quite fun. It even warmed up to about 60 degrees on Sunday and I was able to sit on the beach and listen to conference talks on my iPod.

One of the funner parts would be when Kara convinced me to go on a run on the beach (twice). Then it was only "barely too cold", instead of "way too cold." (Apparently, the fact that I'm from Utah does little to protect me from getting cold, except maybe when Alyna texts to tell me that it's 2 degrees there. Then I feel marginally better here). Running on the beach is interestingly hard, or I'm just way out of shape. Probably both.

Here's some pictures from the trip:

Jellyfish!

My conclusion was that we should go to the beach sometime when it was actually warm.

Getting to Know the Neighborhood

I'm slowly becoming more familiar and comfortable with the neighborhood and major roads in our area. We live off Briarcliff, which doesn't seem like a big road until you realize that it goes from the northeast corner of inside the perimeter and not take a turn off until you pass the south perimeter. It's long. Which is good, because just about anything I need I can find on this one road. I'm also pretty good at HWY 85 and the belt route (aka the perimeter) 285.

I don't use the gps to get to church, the DMV, or the Rick Case car dealership (I know - crazy fun, right?). I'm also pretty sure I could get to work and back without a gps, as long as I go on one of the more simple routes. So, progress!

I really love this area of Atlanta because of all the houses. There's all sorts here, ranging from tiny old brick houses to new huge houses, with everything in between and lots of variety. This picture is of some houses on our street, just to illustrate the point.

Accomplishments of 2011

2011 has been a very busy year for me, and very eventful despite the lack of blog entries. Here are a couple of the things I’ve been up to:

· Run in three races: Moab Marathon, Moonlight Half Marathon, Las Vegas Ragnar Relay Race

Before starting the Moab Marathon with Andrew, Ryan, me, and Carolyn.

At the finish line of the Moonlight Half with Beth Hansen.

The team for Las Vegas Ragnar.

Been in 15 states: Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Illinois, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Missouri, Virginia.

· Been in 7 countries (if you count Scotland as its own country): USA, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Holland.

Looking over London from the top of St. Paul's Cathedral.

Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. One of my favorite days!

Our detour to Canada. On the way to England.

At the zoo in Frankfurt, Germany.

· Competed in three tree climbing competitions (Chicago, Utah, Hartford)

Climbing in the Student Career Days competition in Chicago, IL.

Accepting a prize at TCIA competition in Hartford, CT.

· Interviewed with several tree care companies, received and accepted a job offer from Bartlett Tree Experts.

· Achieved my International Society of Arboriculture arborist certification.

· Graduated from BYU in Landscape Management.

· Got a commercial driver’s license (Class B CDL).

· Driven to Georgia to live with my aunt Kara in Atlanta.

· Bought a new car – 2011 Mazda 3.

I really hadn't realized just how much I've done this year until I was doing this blog entry. It's been a crazy year full of travel and adventures. Here are some more pictures of the year:

Boating at Lake Powell with Paces

BYU Tree Crew Summer BBQ

Having fun at the wedding of Amanda Bates and Josh Eskeets

Wicked! And in London!

Erilyn and I went to St. George and Zion's Ntl Park

Date to see the lights at Temple Square

A Little Bit of Christmas

Joining the pressure from Mom and sisters, but mostly just because it's a fun idea, here's a picture of our Christmas tree. Happy!

Fall is beautiful!

I don't know what Mom is talking about - fall is the best season! It's finally starting to cool down. I can wear jackets and knee-high socks. I can finally turn on the stove or oven to make real food - soups and casseroles and mac and cheese. Not to mention all the fresh apples and pumpkin-like foods. And last but not least, fall colors!

I love Utah because there are fantastic mountains with fall colors.