Fast forward a bit to my late teens. I was full of opinions on every subject under the sun, and I would spout them off to anyone who dared to challenge me. Still though, politics didn’t hold my interest. I’m sure, given the chance, I would have loved to berate someone for not agreeing with my un-informed but passionate opinion, but the circles I ran with weren’t into politics either… so it didn’t come up. With the “no politics” rule still in effect at home, it was simply left off my radar.

Fast forward again to my mid twenties. I was slightly more mature and able to keep a lid on my vast collection of moderately informed opinions. I was extremely interested and opinionated about social & political issues, but had no knowledge or interest in the actual process by which they are addressed. I rarely, if ever, approached a conversation about such things though, because I was living and working in a state and an industry where the vast majority of people strongly disagreed with my leanings. So I kept things bottled up for the most part and life went on.

So looking back on the last 10-15 years of my life, I can count the number of “political” conversations I engaged in on one hand.

So, what’s all this then?

About two weeks ago I was running some errands and stewing about some work stress. I decided to flip on the radio to give my brain something new to process. After some seeking and fumbling, I landed on a political talk program. I don’t remember who was talking, or the specifics of what was said, but I returned home absolutely incensed by the ridiculous ramblings I heard. The main theme was basically “the other team is stupid, and they only want to ruin America”. Now, I know this is no different than what is said every day on every political program in the universe, and I should just expect it… but something just switched inside my head on this particular day. The childish bickering over who was more right between two parties who basically act the same no matter what their talking points are just sent me over the edge. I became irate.

I pulled into my driveway muttering obscenities and ready to spit nails. I stomped into my office preparing to have a big debate, or write a very strongly worded letter or just… just scream at my computer screen. Then I stopped, looked around a bit, and realized I had absolutely nowhere to direct this new-found political energy. Needing some kind of outlet, I decided I’d stop sticking my head in the sand and learn about what was annoying me.

I started reading, and watching, and asking. Anything and anyone who would help. I’m diving into current policies and historical causes. I’m researching the people who represent me, and the people who make up the party they serve (yeah, you read that right). I even got annoyed enough to show up to the state capitol one early morning for a Senate Committee Meeting on the current redistricting happening here in Utah.

So here we are friends. I’m a 30 year old man who is suddenly, but whole heartedly interested and ready to get personally involved in the political process. I don’t know how long it will last, or just how involved I will get. But I think things are broken, and I’m not about to whine about it if I’m not willing to step up and be a force to fix it.

I’m sure there will be more to come on the subject, so stay tuned.

It just struck me.

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

Henry David Thoreau

• Greg: Hey, I like those Instaparks twitter feeds you made. Is there any way to look at the photos without all the annoying clicking?
• Henry: Nope. Want to help me make one?
• Greg: eh… You should see if Rustin can make one.
• Henry: Will do.

(So I changed it a bit… but the idea is the same. The actual tweets are here.)

I chatted with Henry a few days later and it sounded fun, so that night I made this: Instaparks.com

The whole thing took about an hour to make. I actually spent more time setting up a server to deploy it than I did building the app itself. That speedy turn around is completely thanks to the great work Henry did setting up the feeds. He’s doing all the hard work pulling the pics that get posted to Instagram from inside the Disney parks. I just made a little app that finds the image links out of those tweets and arranges them on a page that you can zooooomify.

I hope you dig it.

That being the case, I use this site, Twitter, Facebook and now Google+ for the same stream. I cross post, which I know drives a lot of people nuts. The only reason I do, though, is because all my friends aren’t in one place. I’m not curating a specific kind of content for each channel… just presenting myself to that crowd.

Now, I’m finding that I just don’t have desire to present myself in so many places. With the addition of Google+, I’ve hit some internal tipping point that makes me feel too spread out. I’m not sure why having a blog, twitter & facebook feels fine, but I add just one more and it feels odd.

The opposing factor in all this is my love for new-ness and fun new things to experiment with. I jump on the bandwagon for every new service that comes along, but it fizzles quickly if I don’t come up with a plan to work it into my routine. If it’s not in my routine, it feels like an extra load trying to ‘create’ content for the new channel… and that turns into the odd feeling I mentioned before.

Conclusion: I’ll probably fall away from the new kid (Google+) even though I really quite like it. I’ll end up hanging where my friends are. If I can get them all to move I’d sure love to ditch Facebook.

Yesterday was the actual day I closed out my 30th year on the planet. It didn’t feel so bad to me. You see, last year (on the eve of my 29th birthday) I had to actually do the math to make sure I knew my own age. I had it in my head I was turning 30 last year, so I went through my “oh crap, I’m old now and haven’t done anything of any value in the world” hysteria a year early. I finally did the math the night before my birthday, and exclaimed to my wife that I was still young! I have another year before 30! She laughed at me, and we moved on. Fast forward one year and I was able to turn 30 in peace.

But now that I am truly old, I took advantage of the new-found depth of character that only comes with old age. I’ve taken the liberty of reflecting on life while I sit in my rocking chair, smoke my pipe, and yell at the damn long-haird teenagers next door.

In my 30 years I’ve had some wonderful adventures, too many to mention. I’ve had some spectacular failures, too many to count. …and despite my very best efforts to derail it, life’s been good to me so far.

I have a family I love dearly and I have a job that excites me every day. I have a home that’s safe, warm and filled with great memories, and I’m surrounded every day by people who make me happy. There are a million adventures still we have yet to experience, and I’m giddy every time we talk about what’s coming next.

If you’re still reading this, you’re probably my wife or a close friend, so I’d like to take the opportunity to say thank you and I love you. I wouldn’t be worth a hill of beans without you.

To be continued…

About 1:00 this afternoon, I got an email from Ethan Millard, who hosts a show called The Nightside Project on the grand daddy of talk radio stations in Utah. He wanted to know if I was interested in talking about what I do.

It seems in a conversation on Twitter, a friend let him know that a local guy had been involved in producing the halftime show for Super Bowl XLV.

After a quick email exchange, I was booked to be on the show the show later that night.

Here’s how it went down…

(click arrow to play)

I was a little worried listening to their first segment as I waited to go on. They didn’t dig the halftime show, so I was afraid they had me in studio to grill me about it. But I had a great time with Ethan and Alex, and thought they were cool guys to talk to.

It’s funny. You work hard to do cool things, but rarely get a chance to talk about it. I really appreciate the invitation to be on the show, and I hope to cross paths with these guys again sometime.

I did the Pre-game show too… but I don’t have vid of that for now.

It went something like this:

• Her: They want to caravan down… what do you think?
• Me: Sure, sounds good.
• Her: What should I say?
• Me: Just tell everybody “it looks like we got us a convoy”!
  (in my best trucker radio voice)
• Her: …
• Me: …*eyebrows*
• Her: …

It seems my wife has never been exposed to this integral piece of Americana. This must be remedied immediately.

Thankfully, she married a born-and-bred road trip lovin’, CB totin’, truck stop loiterin’ yokel who knows of such things.

And so, for you my dear wife. The origin of the phrase “Looks like we got us a convoy”.

(Click to play with my fancy new inline player.)

Now, I skimmed over a point there that’s probably important to note. We have a fully functioning, albeit aging, vacuum that has served us very well. I remember when my wife, then girlfriend, bought it many many moons ago. It’s a fancy machine with lots of windows into moving parts, blinky lights, knobs and levers to mess with. It has stood up to many apartment moves, cross country moves, and more spilled coke and snacky foods than my wife would care to admit (remind me to tell you all about the large brown Coca-Cola perma-stain that existed in front of the couch in our first apartment). I digress. It’s only really important to note that the vacuum is in working order, so my shopping was really an exercise in futility. It was simply the latest mild obsession of an undeservingly snobby consumer.

Still, I carried on. I found all sorts of products and information in my online travels that would usually culminate to a short presentation to Janey on the merits of one of the Oreck models. Then we’d talk for a few minutes about why I was wrong**, and life would go on to repeat this cycle a few times. Life went on like this for a few months. I did mention that it was a mild obsession, right?

** Aside: No No No… I’m only kidding. She didn’t tell me I was wrong. She just didn’t like the products I ended up liking. My experience as a husband is what told me I was wrong.

Well, at some point in the research phase of one of these cycles, I ran across a post on a blog I subscribe to that announced a giveaway contest. One of the prizes was the dreamy pie-in-the-sky could-never-afford-it-even-if-i-wanted-to Oreck Vacuum that had just come out and I had been reading about for a few days. Not thinking too much of it, I dropped my name in the entry box, and went about my online business.

I’ll do my best to shorten this story and skip forward about a month when I got an email with the following subject:

Your Reply Needed – You are an Apartment Therapy Holiday Giveaway Winner!

No. Freaking. Way.

I knew what it was even before I opened it, but didn’t dare let myself think that it was real.

By damn, it was real. My name had come up in the drawing to win the sweetest damn vacuum I’ve ever heard of. A quick email exchange confirmed that it was indeed real, and we’d be seeing the prize on our doorstep soon. I raced to tell Janey about it and was met with a luke warm response. She didn’t understand… but I was sure she would soon.

We would soon be the owners of a brand new Oreck Edge!

Skip forward again about 3 weeks. The vacuum is here, assembled, and seriously changing the way our house feels. It makes our carpets look brand new, and is the perfect tool to pick up all the dog hair that accumulates on our hardwood floors (we’ve been fighting a losing battle with the light dog hair on the dark floors). I have never seen an upright vacuum kick so much ass cleaning hard floors. Normally they blow stuff around and pick up about 20% of what you hope. This sucker makes short work of anything that comes within about 3 inches of the cleaning deck. It’s crazy powerful, and quite a bit quieter than our old vacuum.

Not only is the upright insanely awesome. But the package came with a canister/satchel style vacuum that has been lovingly dubbed the Proton Pack. It’s tiny but beefy. It runs quiet, but has more suction than my wet/dry vac in the shed.

Since these wonderful little toys arrived, I’ve taken every chance I could to try them out. Both of them are absolutely a joy to use.

Now, being a design geek I can’t help but appreciate the beautiful simplicity too. Our old vacuum, as much as I loved it, is the cleaning appliance equivalent of a Las Vegas casino. There’s levers, knobs and buttons all over it. Little windows to peek in on the action in different sections. Even a blinky red & green light that supposed to tell us when the floor is clean. In stark contrast, this Oreck Edge is simple, sleek and classic looking. The materials feel great, and the fit & finish is perfect.

The old vacuum has little nooks and crannies that, I assume, are to make it look fast, like some sort of blue plastic sports car. In actuality, these little spots turned into places for dust and other crap to wedge in and become un-cleanable. I may be the only one in the universe, but I hate the idea of trying to clean with a dirty tool. It never feels like I’ve done a good job. This Oreck, though, has beautiful clean lines and is dead simple to wipe off and never know it’s ever been used.

So, there’s my story folks! We won a killer vacuum that we never would have been able to afford. …and it’s brilliant.

If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

We’re very happy to have all returning advertisers this month. Let’s show them a bit of love to say thank-you!

Incidentally, if you know of a product or website that you think would be right for Maingate, give me a holler. We’re always on the lookout!