Turkey Week & Black Friday

   Thanksgiving week was pretty awesome for me!  I only had to Monday and then I had Thursday and Friday off and got paid holiday  :)  I picked up my last paycheck from my old job and my first paycheck from my new job, a good reminder of a successful employment transition.  Early in the week, a friend drove down to see some of her family for the week but we were also able to hang out which was great!  The weather was nice all week and we enjoyed hanging out & seeing a few cool lookout points over the valley (see picture).  We also watched The Help at the dollar theater, played old NES games and consumed delicious foods from Zupa's, Smashburger and SubZero Ice Cream.  Yum!

   Thursday rolled around and I went to the home of one of my sisters that lives about 25 minutes north.  We had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner and then just hung out for a while, talked and watched my nephews and niece play video games.  On the way back I stopped at a friends parents house and played with Lego's and enjoyed a delicious homemade pecan pie.
   Friday was Black Friday and I have never participated in it before. I have always scoffed at the ridiculous hour that was necessary to wake up in order to get anything.  However since this year I've gotten into the habit of waking up at 4am for work during the week I figured 5am would be a breeze.  It was.  However I was careful to avoid any and all places that might be crazy.  I have heard many stories of crazy people on Black Friday and to get wrapped up in all the hustle was the least of my desires.  And most of what I wanted was at Big 5, so I went at 530am figuring that if there was a rush at 5am that I would have missed it.  I was exactly right.  There were no crowds, I didn't have to wait in line and I had 4 different associates asking me if I needed help and finding things for me.  It was awesome!  I ended up getting new running shoes, new hiking shoes, a hydration pack for hiking trips, an emergency roadside toolkit with jumper cables, and two pair of thick thermal winter socks. Total regular retail price: $210.  Sale price: $84.  Then I drove past Greywhale, the record store, to see when they opened but it wasn't until 8am so I continued elsewhere.  I was near Kohl's and needing a nice winter coat, I walked in, found a good one that I liked, paid for it and walked out in a matter of a few minutes.  Regular retail price: $80.  Sale price: $30.  I figured I'd be done and headed back towards my place but I drove past OfficeMax and decided to see what they had available.  I walked out with a 32GB SDHC memory card for my camera and a 64GB flash drive for storage and transfer or large amounts of high quality photos and video that I have already been accumulating on my still-new-to-me camera.  Total regular retail price: $262.  Sale price: $90.  And with that I headed back to the cave and was once again asleep in bed by about 7am.
   The rest of the day, after I woke up, was pretty chill.  I enjoyed some time to myself and in the afternoon I headed back to the record store to do some browsing which quickly turned into a full fledged outbreak of my disease, recordstoritus.  They were doing a sale of 20% off all used cds.  I splurged.  When I came up to the counter carrying 21 cds, I told the guy to "Go ahead, say it, I'm a junkie".  They laughed, told me I was the customer of the day and gave me a high five for being awesome!  My total for 21 lightly used cds including the latest from Coldplay, Alice In Chains, Linkin Park, Muse and Weezer was $106.  That's about 5 bucks each, a great deal for a cd collector/music junkie.  I shouldn't be back there for a while!
   So there was all that new stuff but in addition, I also received some things this week that I ordered from Swagbucks via Amazon gift cards.  I didn't have to pay anything because I had earned my Amazon bucks by using the Swagbucks search engine.  (A great way to get free stuff, ask me about if you don't know!)  Using my free Amazon codes, I ordered a new tripod for my camera that stands up to my chin, an amplified tv antenna to get free broadcast channels here at the house, and an extra camera battery for when I'm out on adventures.  That stuff was regularly priced at a total of $71 but I received it free!  With all the new stuff it was a little bit like Christmas here!  But not really, because I like my holidays to be distinct.  According to my math, I saved (didn't have to spend) about $445 bucks this week!  Wow!  That's kind of incredible.
   Moving on now, Saturday was Thanksgiving number two at my other sisters house about 25 minutes south.  We enjoyed lots of good food and hanging out and playing some games with the kids.  Later in the evening, my other sister and her family showed up and we had a great time eating more food and junk while talking and whatnot.  Then we all played this game with M&M's that got pretty intense!  Everyone has a small bowl and a straw.  There is one large bowl with M&M's in it and one dice.  Each time someone rolls a one on the dice they have to get as many M&M's from the big bowl to their bowl as possible while only sucking through the straw.  People continue to roll and the next person who rolls a one on the dice get to take the bowl of M&M's and see how many they can get.  This continues in a circle until there are no more M&M's in the big bowl.  It was so much fun!  I am definitely doing this game with some friends sometime.  After that, it was getting late for the kids so we all said our goodbyes and went our ways.  I left and ventured up to a friends house to share the last of the apple crisp I made for earlier in the day, while watching The Half Blood Prince until the wee hours of the morning.
   Today, my roommate made amazing pancakes for breakfast and we had a few people over to help us devour them which was followed with a round of NES video games.  Eventually I went to church and struggled to stay awake the whole time!  Such a great week and not enough sleep!  So now it is merely 7:45 pm and I am going to get ready for bed immediately after posting this.  Work comes at 530am and I also have a roughly 3 hour meeting for all new employees hired within the last three months.  Whew!  Next week should be a lot more low key.  Oh and I have a birthday coming up in a couple weeks, dun dun DUN!  :)

First Snow & Free Turkeys

     It's officially winter in Utah.  We finally got snow at my place on the valley floor.  I have been trying to mentally prepare myself for an eternal arctic winter since I moved here in March.  However I just couldn't contain myself on the first snow.  We got between 1 and 2 inches of the largest snowflakes I have ever seen!  I caught a few of the biggest in my mouth and each one was an entire mouthful of snow by itself.  In addition to catching snowflakes in my mouth, I also ran around in it ridiculously, made a friend who I named Harold and went down our snow-covered slide a few times.  It was good fun, but after a while I could no longer feel my hands, at which point I went in and warmed up with some extra chocolatey hot cocoa with cinnamon, marshmallows and vanilla.  Mmmmm... Quite good, quite good.

     My new job has been going very well.  With the exception of last night, I have mostly adjusted to the early schedule and hopefully my weekends don't throw me off to badly when I have to get up at 4am on Monday morning.  There's a lot to learn, especially about the products which is mostly what I've been doing this week.  A lot of them have strange names like Epoch, Baobab, Galvanic, and so on.  At any given time I have had random product names just floating through my head.  It's kind of weird.  But the people are good and the company is great!  My roommate got a job with the same company a month earlier but in a different department and we both got free 13 pound frozen turkeys from the company for Thanksgiving.  We barely had room for mine in our freezer and he put his in the fridge to thaw a bit until this afternoon when his friend is coming over to marinate it.  She's in culinary school and is a regular over here making tres leches cake from scratch quite often for us.  We like it.  Next week at work, the IT department will hopefully have my system access authorization all set up and I can start training on more of the processes that I'll be doing.  Its only a three day work week, which is nice, but it'll be extra busy because of that shortness.  I'll work as much as I have to on Wednesday, I'm just glad to be getting the day after Thanksgiving off!
     Speaking of Thanksgiving, I'm excited to have a couple tasty dinners. At least one with each of my sisters that live nearby and hopefully, if all schedules coincide, we'll be able to have one all together.  There's also some tentative plans with a few different friends but it's too early to know details for sure.  I just know that it's going to be a good fun week!
     There was something else I was going to mention but I've forgotten what it was...  If I remember I'll come back and add to this post rather than making a new one.  Oh also, I've been working on expanding some of the other pages, accessible through links in the top page header.  Even though they won't change or be updated as much as the regular posts, feel free to check them out periodically.  Still couldn't remember anything else, so I guess that's all for now!

ElevenElevenEleven

     Today is 11/11/11.  At 11:11:11am, I was sitting in front of a computer in a warehouse going through new employee orientation stuff.  That's right.  The interview I mentioned in a previous blog post resulted in a new job!  My first official day on the job will be Monday morning.  No more rock chip repair for me!  But otherwise, nothing real exciting happened today.  Yesterday was much more exciting. 
     It started out with heading to the new company to do some orientation, but when the computer system wouldn't log me in, I got a tour instead.  I was taken and shown around all the facilities in four different company buildings and met lots of people from all different departments who I don't even remember.  Also I've discovered that my phone apparently doesn't disconnect immediately after a phone call.  The manager who called me back to tell me they would like to hire me mentioned something about a "woohoo" I made after getting off the phone...  I was a little embarrassed.  He took us out for lunch after the tour so it was all good.
     Later in the day I went with a friend up to a waterfall in the canyon.  Neither of us had ever been up to it before though I've photographed it a few times from a distance across the canyon.  See previous post.  It was a short hike up a steep trail after climbing under a fence and across an old condemned bridge.  We got a bit of a late start and by the time we got to the falls it was getting too dark for good pictures.  There was snow up there also and a few really icy spots, especially right at the base of the falls.  We both slipped a few times.  It was an excellent little adventure and a good location that I'll definitely be returning to.  After hiking back down in the dark we met a family with a campfire and they let us warm up a bit before hopping in the car.

     After arriving back at my place, I followed a recipe received from my mother to make an apple crisp, which I've never done before & I did entirely on my own, without any help at all from the lady friend.  It turned out phenomenal!  This is a pretty big accomplishment for me.  I've been asked to bring a fall dessert for a church social and I chose this one but needed to do a practice run before the real thing.  It's sure to impress!
     After enjoying some of the delicious apple crisp, we decided to hit up the cheap theater and upon arrival, chose to see Cowboys & Aliens.  I hadn't seen any trailers or heard any reviews so I had zero expectations and therefore it would be nearly impossible to be disappointed.  It stars Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig, the guy from the last two James Bond movies, the latter pulling off the Steve McQueen attitude pretty well.  The aliens mentioned in the title weren't terribly ridiculous as one might fear from hearing a title such as Cowboys & Aliens.  In fact, I honestly enjoyed the movie.  In my opinion, it is an extremely rare blend of western and scifi, but it does it surprisingly well.  We even get the trademark Harrison Ford half smile towards the end which is worth it for any fan of his.
     All in all it was a great day, filled with excitement, adventure and discovery!  That was yesterday.  It's now 11:11pm on 11/11/11.  I'm finishing this post and going to bed.  Arrivederci!

I'm a Hero.

Every day little miracles happen.  I believe that more often than not we don't even realize or recognize them.  Often it's how we help someone whether knowingly or not and I also believe that it's important to see these experiences as what they are.  When I was 19 years old my friend and I broadsided a truck that pulled out in front of us on the highway.  The driver had been drinking and was many times over the legal intoxication limit.  Being young and spry, we were mostly okay and after being checked into ER for routine precautionary stuff, we basically walked away with mere bruises, whiplash and a strain.  But whats truly amazing about this story is what I believe to be one of those miracles in life.  My friend, who was driving, was an avid car guy.  He enjoyed time trials and speeding around a bit, as did most guys our age, but this night was different.  He barely went above the posted speed limit of 55 for the entire 30 minute drive before the wreck.  I was even giving him crap about it because he had been passed by three different vehicles, the last of which was one of those big old Econoline style vans.  But he didn't budge.  Then the wreck occurred.  Later that night while laying down to sleep on our friends couches, we talked some more about what had happened.  It came up in conversation that one of the first cars on the scene had been traveling a ways behind us and was occupied by an elderly couple.  Now, when I put things together in my head I saw the events as no coincidence.  Had my friend been driving any faster on the way there, we would have missed the drunk driver, but he would have pulled out after us and had time to get up to speed on the road.  He was so many times over the legal limit that there's no way he could have kept his truck going in a straight line and I'm certain that he would have hit the elderly couple head-on.  They would have taken a greater impact of force and, being elderly, would not have been able to absorb that impact as well as two spry young men whose bodies were still youthful.  It could have been an awful, terrible scene.  Paramedics that helped my friend and I, told us that we were very lucky.  They've seen similar incidents to ours with much worse results and feared those results upon receiving the call.
     We stopped that drunk driver before he could get on the road and do worse harm to someone.  I told my friend that night, "You know, we're somebody's hero."  I slept good that night despite being very sore and on a couch in an unfamiliar house, because I was a hero.  Now that story may be more obvious but I recently realized that we are heroes much more often and in different ways than we may even realize.  On the Saturday before Halloween I decided that I would attend a party that I had been invited to by a couple girls I had met at church.  I was hesitant, due to not having much to work with in the way of a costume, but I managed to get something together and made it there late but in time to have fun.  It was a small but fun party.  It was held in a barn, which was great, but it had no heat so after having fun for a while the girls decided it was getting too cold and that it was time to clean up and head to a nearby service station for hot chocolate.  I received directions and headed out to the service station to wait for the girls who were doing a few last minute clean up things and should have been right behind me.  After waiting a while there with some other people from the party I suggested someone call them to make sure we had gone to the right service station.  Turns out, we were at the right place but the girls had run into a bit of a snare, quite literally.  They had run over a fence but said over the phone to the person that called that we shouldn't wait for them and maybe we should just head home.  I was thinking, run over a fence?  Like run off the road and through a fence?  But it seemed like they already had help.  I had to go past where the party was to get back to the road I had taken to get there so I just figured it would be a nice gesture to stop and see if they needed any help even though it sounded like they were okay.  It turns out that they had driven over some old fencing material that was more or less wadded up in a ball behind the barn where we parked.  In trying to turn around in the dark they thought it was a bush at first but soon realized that it was not.  Some of the fencing had gotten wound around the front passenger tire and seemed impossible to unravel.  When I arrived they had tried a few unsuccessful attempts at getting it cut free and untangled.  Upon examining everything thoroughly I determined that we could carefully unravel the wire from the tire by straightening the wheel and going in reverse just a few inches at a time while pulling and bending at the wire to help it along and make sure it didn't snag anywhere else on the vehicle.  It was an approach that they hadn't thought of.  It was cold, they weren't dressed warm and they were a little panicked about the prospect of having to leave the car there overnight.  But with my help, we used the plan I thought of and were able to free the car from the tangled fencing in just a few minutes.  We exchanged high fives and everyone was happy!  They told me I was a hero.  After checking the car for damages we headed on our way.  I followed them, at their request, to make sure they made it home safe.  But I didn't realize at the time just how exactly I had been a hero.
     It wasn't until at church the next day when it really hit me.  For those that aren't familiar with my church services, they have whats called fast and testimony meeting once a month as part of the regular sunday service and in place of designated speakers, member of the congregation have the opportunity to share their feelings.  One of the girls got up partway through the meeting and started into this story from the night before, I was thinking, oh hey that was me!  She didn't give my name but she explained that they were stuck, had tried to free their car unsuccessfully and that she had said a quick prayer for help.  She then said that shortly afterwards, they saw headlights come around the corner of the barn.  That was me.  And she explained how I had figured out a way to free the car even though they thought it would be better to go forward rather than backwards.  It worked and they were able to get home safe.  But while listening to her side of the story I suddenly realized what kind of hero I had been and how I didn't even realize that I was someone's answer to prayer.  I thought of my experience with the story of the car wreck and how I believed I was a hero because it seemed so obvious, but it really hit me that many times we may not even realize that we are answers to the prayers of others.  It may not happen often, but when it does, if you're able to recognize it, you'll find out that you too are someone's answer to a prayer and in a way that makes you a special kind of hero.  The kind of hero that has been guided unconsciously to answer a prayer simply by trying to be a good person and helping someone out.  An instrument for good in the hands of God.  When it happens do we really recognize it?  As a people, we attribute many things to chance or coincidence or we simply do not recognize the hand of God in our actions.  In both of the experiences I have shared, I have been able to recognize that I really am a hero.  It strengthens my belief.  Are you a hero too?

Do A Barrel Roll...

You may have heard about Google's latest gem of geekiness today.  If you go to Google.com and type, "do a barrel roll" then hit enter, you'll, well, you just have to try it for yourself if you haven't.  But it seems nothing else of significance happened in the world today.

 While I definitely took part in the barrel roll several times today I wouldn't say that my day was as boring as this jpeg would suggest.  I had an interview today for an Inventory Control Clerk position at the distribution center for a locally based international health and wellness corporation.  I was one of six applicants that had been selected for interviews.  I was pretty nervous and unsure of what to expect.  I've been blessed thus far with not having to endure a lot of interviews in the past.  Every job I have ever had, I was able to get fairly easily, it seems.  So the concept of a real interview was a little bit scary.  I got all ready and dressed nice to make a good impression and then headed out being certain to arrive exactly 5 minutes early.  The interview lasted for over 45 minutes and took place in a small conference room in front of a panel of three members of department management who possessed a combined 60 years of experience with the company.  It was an interesting experience and one that I hadn't really had before but I'm glad that I did.  I feel like I did the best that I could at presenting myself and I left with a good feeling.  But I'm not going to hold my breath just yet since I won't know for certain until Monday.  Whether or not I get the job, I still feel good about the experience.
     Having finished the interview and feeling pretty good about the day I decided to go on a little adventure while the weather was still good.  I like to get out on little adventures often but lately I've felt like I haven't really covered any new ground.  I grabbed my camera and headed towards the mountains with no destination or plan whatsoever.  As I drove, I tossed around several ideas for possible destinations but never really made a decision, so I just headed straight for Provo Canyon hoping to get a final glance at some fall colors before the last leaves hit the ground.  I stopped at a little wayside below North (Upper) Falls that doesn't see a lot of people and took some pictures of the area since everything had changed with the seasons since the last time I had been there.

I wanted to see something new however, so I got back on the main road and headed further up the canyon.  I hadn't really driven anywhere past the area around North Falls, being more interested in other areas to explore.  But today was the day to go a bit farther.  I drove through a tunnel and followed the Provo River to where it flows from a reservoir.  Shortly after encountering the reservoir I found a road that took off to the right, I figured I'd see if there was anything interesting down there and planned on turning around at some point.  It was a two lane country road that entered a small valley.  I stopped for a couple photo ops along the way before I got to a small town. Wallsburg.  Now it was pretty clear that there wasn't much here.  Wikipedia tells me that as of the 2000 census, Wallsburg, Utah had a population of 274 people and was first established in 1862, making it 150 years old next year.  There was one little run down store that actually had an open sign on the door.  I should've stopped in and met some locals, but I didn't.  I found a couple old buildings and snapped some cool shots.  An old store, long since closed.  A very rustic old cabin style house, easily over 100 years old.  Some random chickens wandering through the street.  A run down log cabin.  Most interesting of all was what appeared to be an old boarded up brick schoolhouse on a rock and mortar foundation with the year 1904 on the front.  It was a fairly large building with a for sale sign on one of the boarded up windows.  I thought about possible uses for the building.  Renovation into a home, museum or cultural center.  But anything would probably take too great an investment just getting it to pass safety inspections than it would be worth.  But I enjoyed exploring the town a little bit and taking pictures of old buildings.

For a long time I have had this concept of a photo series utilizing old rural structures, but I have yet to do much about it.  But the subject remains an interesting photographic topic that I enjoy.  It started getting pretty chilly and I wanted to get back before it was dark so I left Wallsburg and headed out of the canyon.  But I was so intrigued with the place that I will most definitely return on another adventure.  I got back, made dinner, chilled with the roommates for a bit while watching Criminal Minds and Seinfeld and ate tons more candy.  This pile of wrappers is starting to get pretty impressive!  So while many people had a boring day, the highlight of which was a barrel roll on Google, my day was a successful adventure.  I feel good about today and I'm ready for the next adventure.

An Unintentional Halloween Story.

     I totally missed October.  Quite a bit happened but I'm going to try to stay on a topic rather than ramble on aimlessly.  I may at any point in the future go on about other things that happened during October.  With that said, here's a story.  It's a Halloween story, although it didn't start out that way.
     It was a nice October day, my friend had just gotten back from taking the GRE test for grad school.  I had promised some cool adventure afterwards to relieve her stressed out mind.  So we headed out to this place just a few minutes away that I had told her about.  I had found it a few weeks earlier.  Squeezed between the large cities and the lake there is a very small rural community that has been there for as long as the other cities however when they grew, it stayed the same.  At some point right before the recent housing market crash some organization bought a large old farm and attempted to develop the many acres into a luxury community.  Large lots, wide streets, culdesacs, fancy streetlights, roundabouts, gently curving sidewalks and paved lake-front walking paths, but that's about the only thing that ever got built, aside from three vacant unfinished model homes.  Near as I can tell, they put in a first phase of the streets and utilities right before, or as the market crashed.  None of the lots have sold.  So the old farmyard sits in partially ruined, abandoned vacancy.  The streets, some of them wide, divided, two lanes each way, with bike lanes, sit empty, without any traffic.  The empty lots are overgrown with tumble weeds and annual brush that lay over the sidewalks almost totally obscuring their existence in many areas.  These two pictures showing a wide empty street and part of the farmyard were taken on a previous exploration in September.

     It's a really cool area, I have been there a few times to explore and take pictures, lots of pictures.  Oh yeah, I did start this blog to be used with photography projects I've been working on, so I should include that this area has a lot of photo ops for experimenting with my new camera.  That's basically what brings us to the story I mentioned earlier.  So my friend had just finished her GRE test so we grabbed our cameras and headed out to take some cool pictures right before sunset.  The sun drops earlier now and we quickly lost light, but we got enough good pictures to make it worth it.

     After the sunset waned, but before it got completely dark we explored the abandoned farmyard and specifically the old barn.  As I mentioned earlier, I had been there once before during the day so it was all familiar to me.  It was getting darker so we traded our cameras in for flashlights.  In hindsight this seems just like how a horror film would start: College age guy and girl out taking pictures at an abandoned farmyard, it gets dark, they switch to flashlights and enter a creepy building then stumble upon something terrifying.  Just let your morbid imagination fill in the rest.
     The barn had some pretty harmless graffiti in the main level, lots of random garbage and broken glass.  About the only place that I hadn't already checked out during the day, was the loft of the old barn, accessible only by climbing a 16 foot wooden ladder.  The rotating vents on the roof of the barn were receiving the gentle breeze from the lake and making an eerie metallic scraping and squeaking sound.  I don't usually get creeped out easily, I've gone with friends to walk through cemeteries and other old buildings at night, even those with local legends such as Old Ebenezer's church in Dayton, Oregon.  None of those places ever truly freaked me out and I suspected that this would be no different.  I was proven wrong.  This would be a good time to tell the small children to go in the other room, because we did exactly what you should not do if you find yourself in a horror movie.  We climbed the 16 foot wooden ladder to the barn loft. In the dark...
     In the first room of the loft, we didn't find much.  Just a lot of old straw and bird crap, as I would expect to find in any old barn loft.  There was also a lot of old papers scattered around and some old barrels.  The old papers seemed to be from college homework assignments and reprinted copies of old magazines from the early 1900s.  The back room of the loft was separated by a wall and a doorway.  There was a symbol spray painted next to the doorway but we didn't pay it any attention, assuming it was just from some dumb kids.  My friend was looking at some of the old documents and I was getting kind of bored with the place.
      *Insert final warning of impending scariness: Some content may be disturbing to readers.*
     I was shining my flashlight over her shoulder to help her see the old papers better, but I moved it down by my feet for a second when I noticed something unusual.  I quickly scanned the rest of the room and realizing what we had walked into.  I calmly but firmly announced, "Uh, I think we should go now."  My friend being involved in the old papers asked why, to which I repeated, "We need to leave. Now."  She stood up and turned around and I pointed with my flashlight, first at the floor next to us, then a couple feet away at a few different things while stating each time what I saw as the flashlight shone upon it.  "Fur, skeleton, pentagram, bones. We Should Go."  I am not making any part of this up.
     Growing up on 75 acres in the country with no fences, I've seen my share of dead things in all sorts of situations.  This was different.  The fur was in chunks on the floor next to a blue plastic storage tub.  The skeleton was about two feet away and split in two halves on a sheet of plywood that was laid on the floor with a 5 foot diameter pentagram painted on it.  Another skull was off to the side and there were other bones scattered around the room and a few more symbols painted on the walls.  My friend studied anthropology and archaeology so immediately she was distracted by the presence of bones and not the reason for why or how they got there.  The skeleton had clearly been something canine related, but in just a few moments she was able to identify that the other skull was from a juvenile mammal, non-canine, and that there were two scapulas that didn't belong to either the skeleton or the skull.  She knows her stuff, so it didn't take long for her to recognize that there was at least 3 different animals, all of which were too large to have gotten up a 16 foot wooden ladder by themselves.  And that's when we proceeded to leave!
     While I realized immediately what it was, it didn't sink in with her until we got back to the car.  What we inadvertently walked into is often part of creepy local legends about old scary places and devil worship and sacrifices that occurred there.  Probably 99% of the time it's just a story told to scare your friends or to get a girl to grab your arm.  The symbols used have been around for millennia and have changed meanings over time.  Many people will joke around about it and dumb teenagers will do stuff to emulate it because they think it's "cool".  But the fact is that some of those dumb kids grow up and start taking it seriously.  There are actually sick messed up people out there who do this stuff.
     There is good and bad in this world.  Many people acknowledge the existence of a God or supreme being.  But the bad forces in this world are and can be just as real as the good forces.  Why am I saying this?  Because I believe that there is opposition in all things.  Even though it is often joked about, there are things and practices in this world that we just shouldn't mess with.  Besides that, there is the whole animal cruelty side of things.  Whether or not whatever "energy" they tried to reach was fulfilled, I strongly disagree with the unjustified killing of those animals.
     So that's the story and I will never be back to that barn ever again.  I'm just glad that I got all the artistic and interesting pictures from around the barnyard before I discovered what was in the barn loft, because now I don't have to even set foot near the barn again.  In the weeks before Halloween, many people were going to haunted houses and paying money to try to get scared.  I got creeped out far worse than any haunted house could ever do, and I didn't even pay a cent.  Hopefully I haven't given you all nightmares!  To lighten things up a bit, I'll write something less dark.
     On Tuesday, November 1st at 1am, all Halloween candy at Walmart was marked down 50%.  I spent about 12 bucks on various assorted candies and since then I've been consuming more than I should.  I have currently massed a large pile of empty candy wrappers.  It's gotten to be a problem.  At one point I opened a Kit Kat before I was even finished with my Hershey bar and I realized that at that moment I had become the equivalent of a chain smoker!  Usually I am good about keeping my intake balanced with healthy foods and lots of water, but I'm already feeling the overload right now so I'm going to wrap this up and go eat something healthy to counteract the candy induced gut rot.  I have more I'd like to write from the past month which I'll try and do tomorrow so until then, eat your candy wisely and don't go into abandoned barn lofts!