When you scroll through the annuls of history and study the leaders and rulers that have shaped our world, it is sometimes hard to believe the actions and decisions they made.  Whether it’s Kim Jung-il thinking he can take on the world and win, or Marie Antoinette losing touch with reality to the degree that cake becomes a logical famine remedy.  It’s hard to believe that reality is so out of reach for these people.  How could someone so misguided become so powerful?

But it’s not really out of the ordinary.  Take Kanye West par exemplar.  Mr. West’s behavior at award shows is typical of someone who no longer lives in this plane of reality.  But is it his fault?  Well yes, but he’s not alone.  Fame, wealth and power corrupts people entirely.  Not so much corrupts as interrupts that feed of data coming from the world around that gives you bearing.

Our modern celebrities may pale in comparison with the despots old, but given enough time and attention, I think we can get them there.  Only kidding of course…

This year at a teen camp my wife runs I recently discovered, well I should say rediscovered a hobby/joy/passion or whatever you want to call it:  mountain biking.  I had forgotten how much fun riding a bike is.  I brought my old Schwinn and rode up and down every hill in the camp ground.  When we got home I started to look for trails around where I live in Watertown, New York.  As it turns out, I live right next the local mecca of trails:  Thompson Park.  For the last week and a half I’ve been riding several of the trails that crisscross the public park that I’ve been going to for five years.  Honestly, I feel a little silly that I never knew they existed!

Each time that I go up there I spend at least an hour straight, riding the trail loops.  I could even more easily stay up there for three more hours.  There are trails of varying difficulties, from beginer to advanced, and all of them are well maintained.  If you live in the Watertown area, get your bike and head up there!

So if you can’t find me or reach me on my cell, it means that I’m out riding the trails…at least until the snow starts to fall.

For Memorial Day, Amanda and I decide to keep with our tradition of going hiking in the Adirondacks.  For us, it’s the best way to spend a holiday.  Our favorite place for family hiking is Old Forge, because it has food, stores, and of course, tons of trails.  We were really excited because it looked like the weather was going to be nice for the first time in three years!  Every time we’ve gone to Old Forge for Memorial Day, it’s gray and overcast with showers and sometimes even thunderstorms!  But we always stuck it out.  Hiking in nice weather will be a welcome change.

Amanda watches Ethan on his ump-teenth trip from the bench to the lake.

Like everything in life now, getting out the door takes 5 times longer because of the kids.  We figure 2.5x per kid (2 x 2.5 = 5).  So after missing our planned departure time of 10am, we finally set off at around 10:45!  Amanda has to drive when we go to Old Forge because of Moose River Road.  It winds along the Moose River (hence the name) and if Amanda is riding in the passenger seat, she’ll spew for sure.  I don’t mind because it gives me a chance to take in the sights.

By the time that we got to Old Forge it was lunch time.  So we decided to eat by the lake.  Ethan had a lot of fun running around and throwing rocks into the lake.  For whatever reason, Ellie decided that today she was going to be a pill.  She was either asleep, eating, or crying.  No cuteness for Mommy and Daddy (ok there was a little cuteness).

Apparently Ethan has a love of boats.

After we finished lunch we had to motivate ourselves to get to the trail head.  Maybe we should just chill and walk around town?  It was so beautiful outside, the weather was practically begging us to hit the trail.  Oh well, if we must, we must!

We didn’t want to kill ourselves, because not only were we going to have to carry ourselves up the trail, but also a 30lb. toddler and a 12lb. infant (not

to mention Jack, a 65lb. boxer – though if he needed be carried I would have left his lazy cropped tail on the mountain!).  So we chose to hike up Black Bear Mountain from Uncas Rd.  It was only 2.2 miles up, and from the xeroxed map they gave us at the information center, it looked pretty easy.  What we got was one of the most beautiful trails we’ve hiked in the Fulton Chain Lake area.  The hike wasn’t that challenging, in fact it was very pleasant.  We hiked up to a beautiful rock outcropping, which we thought was the summit.  After taking off our loads we realized that we were short of the summit by a couple hundred yards, but since we had already unloaded, we decided to take a break anyway.  Both Ethan and Jack had fun exploring the rocks.  The view from our rest-stop was beautiful.  If it wasn’t for the black flies, we would have stayed longer.

From that map we got at the info center, the trail should have continued up to the summit then made a loop back down the mountain to the trail.  We continued up the mountain till we reached the peak.  The view was even nicer up there, but there were also more people around.

The view from almost the top.

So we kept going on what I thought was the right trail.  It turns out that the map I had only marked a few of the trails.  Up until that point we had been following yellow trail blazes.  Now they had turned to blue and we were on a separate trail that was much steeper.  It was more like rock climbing than hiking.  Luckily, I admitted my mistake before we had gone too far, and we backtracked to the right trail.  But we did officially reach the correct summit and I even have a picture of the marker to prove it!

Because it's there...

After a quick and easy trip down the mountain, we were tired (in a good way), but there would be no resting at the trailhead because the black flies descended upon you whenever you stopped moving.  We threw everything into the car and drove off, leaving the changing and resting for the dinner stop.  We went to Subway for some after-hike subs and to take a load off our tired feet.  Ethan ate all of his sandwich (those of you who know him know that in itself is rare!), and Ellie finally stopped fussing long enough for us to think she’s a cutie again.  It should be noted (perhaps in the history books) that Ethan did not have a nap and didn’t whine, cry or misbehave the entire day.  We were so proud of him.  I was especially thankful because when he’s in the backpack carrier, I get his whining in stereo.

All in all it was as close as you can get to a perfect day with two kids!

The old (not vintage) solid state Princeton65. Your days are numbered, my friend.

If I keep this up, I’ll have a category for each post.  But if I stuck to one subject that would betray who I am.  I think I’ve brought new depth to what “Jack of all Trades” can mean.  At any rate this is but one of my many interests.

Since the 9th grade I’ve been leading worship in one capacity or another.  For all but the last year and a half that has been with an acoustic guitar.  Electic guitars were to complicated and honestly, I didn’t know what I was doing.

Enter:  Jason Day

My beauty: the Epiphone Sheridan II

Jason came to Life Church to be the Worship Pastor (now he’s that and the host pastor, but that’s a separate and very long story).  He’s also been a worship leader for a long time.  He plays a lime green Gretsch (oh so sweet).  Like a drug dealer, he offered to let me borrow a Fender Telecaster to try out.  Innocently, he told me, “Hey try any of my stuff.  Go on, do it!”  And after that, I was hooked.  Now I have a full rig of effects, a new electric guitar, and I’m looking to replace my old (not vintage) amp with a low wattage tube amp.

Using the borrowed Tele I began assembling an FX rig, mainly buying whatever Jason was selling.  It’s a great gear relationship that we have.  He likes buying new, and I like trying things out before I buy them!  Once I had saved enough pennies I bought an Epiphone Sheridan II.  It’s a semi-hollow body electric with dual humbuckers.  It’s almost too sexy for church.  As far as effects goes, I’m only one pedal away from having a “complete” rig.  I put complete in quotations because, like any eletric guitar player will tell you, it’s never complete.

Currently the Sheridan goes through the rig like this:

• BOSS TU-2 Tuner
  

  My blank canvas

• Carvin A/B switch…
  • A goes to the rest of the fx chain
  • B goes to an IMP2 direct box to the house system (for my Taylor acoustic)
• Visual Sound Route 66 Compressor/Overdrive
• Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive (Distortion/Overdrive)
• BOSS TR-2 Tremolo
• BOSS CE-5 Chorus Ensemble (which I have set to color the signal with a vintage recording sound)
• BOSS DD-5 Digital Delay with FS-5U tap tempo
• Line6 DL-4 Delay Modeler
• Fender Princeton65 Amp mic’d with an Audix Instrument Microphone

All I need now is a reverb pedal.  Right now I’m looking at the Line6 Verbzilla.  This summer I’ll also be purchasing a Fender Blues JR, which is a sweet 15 watt tude amplifier that is great for small venues (like churches) and it has great tone.  After that all of my new purchases will be upgrades of what I already have.  Thanks to Jason I have a new expensive and addicting hobby.  But it has revolutionized the way I lead worship and brought back my feeling of inspiration and zeal for worship music.

I just recieved my new toy…I mean investment!  This is my first big investment into my new company, Next Mountain.  Even though the main impetus for buying a digital SLR is for design and photography, my main subjects will most likely be my family.  I mean come on!  Look at how photogenic they are!

He's a model...

I guess it’s not all bad.  I know the grandparents will be happy with the improved photo quality!

I’m really looking forward to further developing my photog skills (pun!), and I think that the ease of use and the high quality of the Rebel XS will greatly help.  Though every time I think of the Canon Rebel line of cameras,  I remember the Andre Agassi commercials when he was at the height of his ridiculousness.

So here are just a few of the 200 pictures I took within the first 6 hours I owned the camera.  Enjoy!

Ethan is trying out for a preschool rendition of Alfred Hitchcock Presents

0.5 away from the American Dream!

Ellie may not be capable of abstract thought, but that doesn't keep here from trying!

We'll see how long Ethan enjoys "mowing"

No drunk midget jokes please…

I had an interesting conversation with a fellow teacher the other day.  It started out as a conversation about music, since we had similar tastes (ok so we’re both music snobs).  After music came spirituality, where he shared the common belief that if you lead a “good life” God will reward it after you die regardless of what you believe.  Maybe missing the point, but at least he thinks about it.

But that led into the subject of substance abuse.  He shared with me that he used to drink much more than he does currently, mainly do to his girlfriend who he had been dating for over a year.  He said that after they had been dating a while she told him that if they were to continue, he needed to reign in his drinking.  So he did.  No more crazy partying, no more passing out.

Now this isn’t so unusual of out of the ordinary.  Many girlfriends and wives make similar ultimatums.  But was memorable was what he said next.

“It’s nice to love someone so much that you want to change and make yourself better.”

As I thought about what he said I realized that it was the most spiritually profound thing I have actually heard someone say in a long while.  How great it is to love, to experience our capacity to love.  As Christians we spend a lot of time and energy speaking, writing and singing about being loved by God.  When we do talk about loving, it’s generally just lip service.  But if we really think about it, loving is how we are changed.  Just like this teacher was willing to change himself out of his love for his girlfriend, our love for God should have the same effect.

Maybe this guy wasn’t so far off after all.

(note:  Toulouse-Lautrec wasnt’ a midget, it was another genetic disorder that prevented his legs from healing after a childhood injury.  Thus, they stopped growing.  He was normal sized from the waist up.  The disorder is cause by inbreeding in his ancestry.)

Erasure: the new waterboarding?

Much of the issue with modern education is the inability of the administration to scare its students.  Once a child decides that education doesn’t matter, there’s not a whole lot that you can legally do to him to scare him back onto the right track.  In-School Suspension?  Fine, gets him out of the classes he doesn’t care about anyway.  Out-of-School Suspension?  Great, now he doesn’t have to go to the school at all.  Expulsion?  Even better.  He was going to drop out anyway.

But really what are the options left open for the schools?  You can’t beat students anymore and like I said earlier, most administrative options only benefit the miscreant.  And now water-boarding has been taken off the table.

So here’s what I propose:  Only In-School Suspensions.

But Daniel, you just said that those don’t work.  Good catch, reader, but there’s a twist.

It worked for the US Military in Panama to get rid of Manuel Noriega, it’ll work on the youth of today.  Cause, you know, kids are our future!

(If you’re not familiar with the song search for it on iTunes and download it now and thank me later.)

I am not a very direct person, at least not when I drive.  Where others would draw the straightest lines between point A and B, I prefer to draw the meandering line that stops by rivers, creeks, waterfalls, weird sights and cool little towns.  When I work in Indian River School District, the possibilities are endless.  Usually I take a route that takes me by three waterfalls and dewatered stretch of the Indian that looks pretty interesting.

It was on one of these “excursions” that I met my new friend.  Really our introduction was all due to him, as he was basking in the middle of a road.  My new friend, whom I’ve decided to name, “Franklin” (those of you who are Arrested Development fans will now where that came from), was a heavy weight snapping turtle, and a grumpy one at that.

franklin the angry snapping turtle

Being the crunchy guy that I am, I couldn’t let Franklin sit there in the middle of the road.  It’s clear that he didn’t fully understand the severity of the predicament he was in.

So I said, “Franklin, you really should get off the road.  Cars come through here all the time.”

“You get off the road, hippie,” snarled Franklin, “I’ll take you and any car that tries to come down this road!”

Obviously, diplomacy was beginning to break down.  I briefly considered going “Crocodile Hunter” on Franklin and grab his shell from behind and wrestle him off the road to safety.  But then I remembered that the Crocodile Hunter is dead because of stuff like that, so another means would have to do.  Luckily, I still had my guide paddle in my jeep, and it seemed that it would make a great turtle spatula.

Franklin & The Paddle

Of course Franklin was against this idea, but then again, he shoots down anything I say.  So without his blessing, I went about wedging the paddle under Franklin.

“I’LL RIP YOUR FACE OFF! I’LL KILL YOU I WILL!” laughed Franklin.  It is very fortunate that I bought a heavy-duty guide stick, because snapping turtles have earned their moniker.  Several times Franklin lashed out at the blade, putting gouges in the hard plastic.  I think it really has to do with never knowing his father, but when ever I bring it up Franklin just withdraws into his hard shell (both figuratively and literally).  But in the end the turtle spatula won the day, and I safely deposited Franklin back in his semi-natural habitat.

“Thanks a million, Daniel,” hissed Franklin, “I was on a path leading to self-destruction.  But now I can get my life back on the right track!”

“Good-bye, Franklin!” I called back.  But Franklin wasn’t listening.  He spied a brood of muskrat babies and took off in hot pursuit.

That Franklin, what a guy!

Every year, on the first Saturday in May, the Black River season opens for Whitewater Challengers.  Normally this day is marked with a group of guides trying to remember how to do a job that had become second nature to them.  However, this year things were different.  Not that there weren’t gliches and hiccups during the day, but for the most part, everything went smoothly.  All of the returning guides knew what had to be done and we did them.  Though there were lessons learned:

1. The ground is supersaturated with water and cannot be driven on (more particularly; driven onto then off of).  Conincidently, the van and trailer are not immune to this phenomenon.
2. If Tony dares you to grind the log in first drop of Glen Park Falls, you should not do it.  The log will follow you down the remaining two drops and you will swim.
3. Don’t boof onto TAV when TAV is “surfing” a hole.  He’ll flip you over and make you swim with him.

All in all it was a great day to be on the river.  It doesn’t hurt that I’m being paid for it either!

This blog will be the chronicles of me.  Well, that sounds a bit more self centered than I prefer.  How about this blog will be the heralds of a life lived out-of-bounds.  That’s better.  And vague.

All kidding aside, let us commense with the introduction.

My name is Daniel Cash.  I’m many things at different times:  raft guide and whitewater kayaker, graphic and web designer, worship leader, teacher (ok, substitute), husband, father, friend, outdoorsman, photographer and now blogger.  This blog will really be a window into my life as I begin a new venture called Next Mountain.

Next Mountain is a design company that seeks to offer its clients easy access to great design.  Thereby allowing them to keep their focus on their next goal (or shall we say, Mountain).

This new adventure is both exciting and terrifying.  But if you look at life in general, we are all looking at the next mountain.  In every facet of life we press against the obstacles that keep us from our goals.

So expect to hear about everything and I’ll try to keep it interesting and worthwhile.  I heard that the greatest obstacle for writers is believing that what you have to say is worth hearing.

And here I thought it was the whole “Who v. Whom” debate.