Can the Van.

     Recycle Fo' Yo' Motorcycle is going along swimmingly. There are some out there who have expressed concern about how this is a pretty ineffective way to make money and a part time night job would help me get a sweet ride sooner. I agree. I only recycle kind of passively, and do not look at this as a real money making venture. I think that it does however, have some pretty cool benefits.

     First, I pick up cans while I am at work as part of my job. Now I just put them in a bucket in the back of the truck instead of the trash though. It does not require any extra effort or work, and does not keep me away from my family any longer than my regular work day, which is going to seem like way to long when school starts this fall.

     Secondly, I'll face it. Picking up trash is not really that exciting. I think that one of my talents is being able to find out how to enjoy what I am doing no matter what I am doing. I went to Harbor Freight and got an old person reacher/claw picker upper to kind of make it funner. It works pretty well. I can pick up a cigarette butt at a brisk walk without slowing down or bending over. I later realized that if I look for cans, it is kind of like an Easter Egg hunt at every store.

     Yeah, it sounds pretty crazy to me too when I see it in writing. Whatever. I think the only drag about the program is that I realized on the way home today that I may have to change the name. You see, I told my wife a while ago that I thought it would be a more financially sound decision to pay off the van before buying a motorcycle. I think that she was pretty excited about the idea.

     Yep. Can the Van... payment. Only about 21333 more cans... or sixteen months to go. Maybe I should just collect cans until the van is paid off and then turn them in. I wonder how many I would have saved by then. Huh.

I dressed up like Uncle Clark for a dinner party.

   Things are going well. It has been a pretty busy couple of weeks... month.

   I have signed up for school. I will be taking Intro to Psychology and Calligraphy in the fall at SLCC. Pretty pumped. Classes start in August... Just enough time to grow a sweet 'stache in for my student ID.

   Work has been treating me well. I have fun at my job, my boss lets me do my job, and I like it. The gas station culture kind of reminds me of when I was working at Quality Towing. I work out of the yard where the truckers park their trucks, and the most of the managers at the stores act like truckers. It is pretty shocking after coming from Zupas. It is still sinking in that I am no longer in the service industry. It is just nice to be able to show up to a store and do my thing and see my job well done and go to the next store. Also, even though I only do about twelves stores or so, they are always a little different every time I go back. The monotony is pretty limited. Something I have discovered is that quite a few cans get thrown on the ground at gas stations, specifically behind the car wash. I pick a couple up at every store. As a result, I decided to start a new program last week, called “Recycle for Your Motorcycle.”

    Yep. I have started saving cans. With my new employment and school and everything else going on, my saving potential has been cut pretty drastically. It has not been depleted, and we are still living happily at my house, all the same though, a motorcycle is still farther down the road than I want it to be. According to my Google research, it takes about thirty cans or so to make a pound. When I checked at the recycling center close to my house last week, they paid $.45/lb. That means I would have to collect a lot of cans. About 66660 to get me around a thousand dollars. I do know that the cans in my Google research were all twelve ounce soda cans. I do find those, but most of the cans I collect are tall boy or over size energy drink cans. So maybe less. This is going to be one of those slowly but surely, patience wins the day projects. I am just excited because I now have a plan started to get a motorcycle that does not involve people dying or lottery tickets. Yep.

   We went to San Diego the over the 4^th of July holiday to visit Kristin's parents. Super fun. It was the first road trip we have taken in our van. The drive went swimmingly. We left after work on Friday night, drove through the night, and arrived in time for an early 5:30 AM breakfast. We gave Clover to Grandma Nylene and Grandpa Paul and took a nap. We went Kobey's Swap meet that afternoon. A few other things we did over the week were go to the beach, go to Seaworld, build a compost bin, get sun burnt, swim in a pool, eat hot-dogs, get acupuncture, eat burritos, take naps, and hang out. We left back for Salt Lake the following Saturday, slept in Las Vegas and got home Sunday afternoon. It was Clover's first road trip where she was old enough to talk. She took the miles swimmingly.

   Clover is growing right up. One of her favorite things to do lately is use my phone to call everybody she knows. Grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. She is becoming quite the conversationalist. She loves reading books, playing the guitar, plating any instrument for that matter, singing, and copying anything her parents do. One thing that she does now that cracks me up is always after leaving anywhere, asking if we can “go for a little drive” instead of go home. Freaking cute.

   I have also had a lot fun hanging out with my dad lately. Yesterday we picked up a bunch of pallets together, then mowed and trimmed his lawn in the pouring rain. Huh. When I write it down it doesn't seem like that much, but it took pretty much the whole day. Fun times.

   Anyway, Sunday night. Time for bed. Can't wait to see what next week brings.