Currently

Currently reading Although of Course you end up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace, by David Lipsky. I was about to write it’s Wallace unfiltered, but if you’ve read that much Wallace, you know there isn’t much of a filter. It’s pure Wallace, just like his nonfiction is, except just in conversation with a journalist who is clearly becoming a friend over the five days they spend together.

Here’s a brief passage, where Wallace and Lipsky just landed in the Twin Cities. Still on airplane. Over the PA system comes a voice:

PA: (Engines cycling down, that big, deep, vacuum-cleaner sound) Just a reminder: The airport here in the Twin Cities is a smoke-free environment. Smoking only is permitted outdoors.

(Corrects her) [Wallace] “Permitted only outdoors.” It’s not the only thing that’s permitted outdoors.

[[Lipsky]] [Irritated as a grammarian and as a smoker]

Currently obsessed with: The Suburbs, by Arcade Fire. This album has been out for a while now. Arcade Fire already won a Grammy for it, but I just picked it up two weeks ago and it is getting heavy rotation. It reminds me of discovering Neon Bible when I was working at a magazine in Denver and doing the drive from Longmont and just rocking out to “No Cars Go.”

Farmington, The Last Frontier

My dad jokes that Farmington is the last frontier. After learning that even Greyhound is discontinuing service to Farmington, that there are no emissions tests required for cars in New Mexico, and after seeing that it is customary to leave every car you have ever owned in your front yard like your own personal carhenge, it's hard to disagree with him. However, it does have its beauty, whether that's a beautiful sunset or an expansive junkyard or an 1100 -year-old city. Here are some pictures of the last frontier.

Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.

A series of very short doorways for Hobbit-sized people. Apparently, even Chacoans had to duck some.

Turns out, walls start to bow and do what they feel like after standing for 401,500 days.

Vulture. Chaco Canyon.

Flying at sunset.

Clouds. Sunset. Farmington.

The last frontier and its expansive sky.

Fungus hanging on to a tree near Durango, CO.

Sunglasses and a Skoal can left in a car, which is part of this massive junkyard on the edge of town.

Broken windshield. Cars to horizon.

Ford Ranger. God Bless America sticker.

Even the school bus comes here to be picked apart over the years.

When you are all picked over, you become the ideal surface for paint swatches and paint balls.

Kyle's Bachelor Party Pics

Cliff jumping in the Poudre Canyon. This is Chris.

Kyle, on the left, and Erik jump at a spot we have been going to for 8-10 years?...I don't know when we first went here, but it was a while ago.

The man of the weekend.

The view of the Red Feather Lakes area from the cabin we stayed at.

Not a bad sight.

Catching up and drinking by the fire.

Aforementioned fire.

6:30am.

The morning after. Bachelor parties don't end well for everyone. Luke flew ten feet before landing in a dirt road on his nose and knee.

Time for Another Bachelor Party