Some more enlightenment...

Dannyanism Proposition of Enlightenment #34C: Never underestimate the power of pudding snack packs.

The amazing hunt for a hot tub while down in Arizona, part one. The prelude.

Last year around this time, my roommates and I decided to go down to Arizona to visit some friends and during that time we went on a quest to go hot tubbing. Unfortunately, we never actually did get into a hot tub, but the story involved in trying to find one became one of legend and I guess I just wanted to get the down in writing before it was lost on younger generations.

However, before we start, there was some really crazy crap that happened while we were down there, but I'm used to weirdness going on. I have become accustomed to people saying, "Well that's never happened before." It's just normal for me. I've never been to the beach in California when it's actually sunny, every time I've been to Las Vegas, there's been record low temperatures, record high winds, or flooding because of record rainfall. (Although there is an amount of debate as to whether my Dad being the cause of these Las Vegas weather issues, or just our powers combined brought down the crazy). And I'm okay with that, because it just means that all my road trips and vacations have become adventures as a result. These trips down to Arizona are no different, the people we visited to this day can't understand how we never were able to find a stupid hot tub, and ended up dealing with naked people supposedly not having sex in a hot tub, burnt down haunted mansions, cold hot springs and crazy hippie cults in the process.

This is us getting ready to be ghostbusters.

It all started in February when the stars aligned and my roommates and I discovered that over President's Day weekend, we found we could have a potential 5-day weekend and decided to visit one of their mission friends down in Arizona to ride horses, explore and go to some hot springs in the process. It was going to be great, however we had no idea how great it was going to be.

The weirdness began when we decided to go to a supposed haunted mansion that used to be frequented by the Rolling Stones back in the day. In order for us to see the mansion, we were informed we would have to quietly sneak up onto the property while trying to avoid the property caretaker who was known to chase people off the property with his shotgun. That right there is enough to get the blood pumping, but that wasn't going to stop us, because the place was supposedly haunted and who's gonna give up an opportunity to potentially see a ghost? Well, probably a lot of people, but not me.

So here we were climbing over a locked gate, rain beating down on us and getting ready to head up the muddy pathway to the mansion, with visions of ghostbusting grandeur in our head. As we marched our way down the path, in the distance two lights appeared, and started moving toward us quickly. Headlights.

"Quick in the bushes," someone yelled, as we all dove off the path way into the shrubs and bushes off to the side, hoping and praying we hadn't been seen. Visions of ghostbusting grandeur had quickly been replaced by visions of being chased through the rainy desert by a mad man with a shotgun.

The truck passed by without incident, when it dawned on us that in our stupidity, we had parked our car by the gate, and crazy shotgun man was going to know that we were there. Without hesitation, (which I definitely thought there should have been some hesitation, I mean there's supposedly a shotgun involved) Shanna and Mike go running back to the car in hopes of moving it before the guy sees them.

Anyways, as we wait in the bushes, five minutes pass, then ten, then we start to worry. We call Mike up on the phone, and all we get is a short answer, "Can't talk now." And he hangs up.

Another five minutes pass, and we see them walking up the pathway. The crazy shotgun guy, who apparently wasn't THE shotgun guy had caught them and told them to leave, and then took off himself. So they pretended like they were leaving and parked in a different spot and had to sneak back into the area. So we were safe to head on up.

As we turned the corner and could see the mansion something was off. The building had supposedly been abandoned for quite some time and in the time that our Arizona friends had been up there, no one was ever there. However, this night, the lights were on.

This of course wasn't going to stop us, in fact it fed into our curiosity. Logan, Mike, Jon and Lisa quickly took off to go see what was up. I tried to keep up with them, but at the same time also tried to keep the rest of the group within site. So l lost Logan and the rest. However lining the road, leading up to the house cars had been parked there and it looked as if there were people up at the mansion having some sort of party.

Sadly this is where my mansion experience comes to an end. The girls that I was with started to head back toward the car and curse my sense of chivalry I went with them, trying so hard to convince them to stay and explore. I was even more distraught when the others came back telling stories of people with axes and other creepy things. Almost one week later the mansion burned down, and we were some of the last people to see it standing.

This however is only the beginning as we began our quest to find a hot tub that would span over the rest of this trip and into the next, and we would be back.

(Join me next time as I tell the tale of how Mike almost jumped into a hot tub with a naked woman)

This is a photo of the mansion, but to see it as we saw it, imagine that it's in the middle of the night, pouring rain, with the lights on. It looked like it was straight out of a horror movie.

This was the place one week later.

Even more enlightenment.

Dannyianism Proposition for Enlightenment #2: Learning from your stupid mistakes is good, learning from other people's stupid mistakes is great, but persuading others to do stupid things so you can learn from their mistakes is AWESOME! (Older siblings can attest to this.)

More than just an Easter message.

This is definitely something more than something to apply to your life than just on Easter. We should be thinking of this everyday.

This just made me laugh

I saw this picture and decided I needed to share it. That is all.

One of my new heroes.

So in a previous post I mentioned how I was reading, and loving the book Yes Man. The author, Danny Wallace, of this book has seriously become my new hero, and not because he has a great first name. You know that time where you had a great idea of something fun and interesting to do, but then chickened out at the last second, or started doing it but lost all dedication to it. Yeah, he doesn't chicken out, and he definitely follows through. In his first book, which I read by sneaking it off the shelf of the BYU-Hawaii bookstore where I worked, called Join Me, he accidently starts a cult, or a collective as he would rather it be called. In a fit of boredom and curiosity, he took out an ad in the paper stating, "Join me. Send one passport-sized photograph to..." and then he published his address, to see if anyone would join him. As to why they were joining him, he had no particular reason, but soon had to find a reason as people actually started joining him, so he started the Karma Army. Funny thing, the website he started in to bring people into his collective is still there, and if you want, you can still join. He seems like the type of person that everyone would want in their group of friends to make life much more interesting, as he comes up with various projects. Whether it be crazy things like trying to start his own country in his apartment, looking for the center of the universe in Idaho, saying yes to everything for 6 months or something a little more normal like tracking down all of his old friends from elementary and high school, a sort of twisted profoundness comes from it. For example, in Yes Man, no other statement has hit me harder than, "Every good thing in your life has come from saying yes to something somewhere along the line." Or when he realizes that sometimes saying no is a freeing experience and is okay, as long as you don't let it prevent yourself from missing out on life. In the end, he's become one of my new heroes and I strongly recommend picking up one of his books, and I guarantee you'll become a believer.

More enlightenment

Dannyanism Proposition of Enlightenment #42 article C: If at some point it you think you're drowning, and in your struggle you think this just might be the end... just stand up. Chances are, the water will only be about a foot deep, you'll be fine.

Another something new to listen to... Cubworld.

Introducing, Cubworld, aka Jacob Kongaika. It's funny how I came across this guy, he went to BYU-Hawaii with me, his dad was a vice president of the school, and his brother taught one of the classes I took. Now, I knew he was a musician, I'd heard him play but I had no idea that this would come of his few little gigs here and there at BYUH. But I didn't really hear his stuff until a student in my news writing lab did a profile on him and I went to his website. It's absolutely amazing. It doesn't really fit any particular genre per se, and I could probably make up a new genre like acoustic alterna-R&B, but you can just consider it in the genre of awesomeness.



Right now he's not on any major label, but should definitely be on one. Do yourself a favor and head over to his website and have a listen. Then go to iTunes and get the album, help him out, and help him get the recognition he definitely deserves.