One reason I don’t often post on this blog is because I’m busy writing books and content on other sites. One of my main current projects is The University of Love, a section of The University of Life that I expect to be the most important and exciting thing I’ve ever contributed to the world.

Five years ago, I thought, “If love is the real answer to life’s most important challenges, why are we so awful at teaching it?” I began brainstorming and came up with dozens of very effective approaches, then read thousands of pages of research and insightful books by great thinkers about what love is and how it works, which greatly enhanced and expanded my work.

I’ll keep producing articles, videos, courses and books there and I hope it reaches millions of people and changes our world for the better. It feels good to do something so meaningful.

Also visit and like the accompanying Facebook page at Facebook.com/100LoveQuotes for periodic love quotes reminders about how to love and why it’s so worth your time and effort.

On Monday, I got a call from a television producer friend who just began pre-production for a SAR documentary. So much for saving the best for last, that’s actually my favorite announcement, and it’ll be fun to contribute and see the finished product, possibly sometime this fall.

On Tuesday, we had a short rescue mission. It actually came Wednesday morning at 1:00 a.m. A motorcycler somewhere above Cedar Hills called in with possible head injuries. Due to a kink in the notification system, we got paged 20 minutes later than we should have been, and we had scarcely begun sending out search teams to comb the foothills when a team member watched the rider roll slowly out of a canyon on his own. I would have arrived home by 2:00 had a few of us not hung around talking for another hour.

On Wednesday night, I gave the keynote address for the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce Great Kids Awards ceremony, where a pair of 7th graders from every junior high in the valley was recognized for being generally awesome people. They received some awesome prizes, and you can watch my presentation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH5xf1RLiCg

Thursday night was our monthly team training and business meeting. It went quickly and it was nice to see everyone. I replaced my 200′ rope and prussiks since my old ones were showing some wear.

Lindsey and Rob had their baby with them, who has better attendance than some of our team members, so when I got home, I photoshopped this picture of her, making her an official member of BSAR (baby search and rescue).

On Friday, I finished working out the details between the Mountain Rescue Association Education Committee’s Webinar Training Subcommittee (which I founded and chair) and PMI (awesome climbing rope manufacturer) for monthly training that we’ll create for members of the MRA. The rest of you can watch them on our websites afterward.

Saturday brought our monthly team training, which was swiftwater rescue this month, despite low river flow levels so far this year. I covered the foot entrapment station where groups practiced retrieving people from the river by capturing them with throw bags (and ropes) from the river banks. You can see some footage of our training on this news story: http://www.kutv.com/news/top-stories/stories/vid_11048.shtml

And on Sunday, not to be outdone by the other days of the week, NPR’s All Things Considered played an interview they recorded with me on Thursday afternoon.  Listen to it here: http://www.npr.org/2014/05/04/309075885/calling-off-the-search-the-emotional-toll-of-search-and-rescue

Now let’s see if this week can somehow top last!!!!

A lot has changed since I last wrote, so in case I don’t get around to posting all the trip reports for this summer, here’s a quick overview:

1. I Quit Teaching.

I enjoyed teaching, but quitting is a very good thing, and I’ll tell you why. If you went to college, you were probably taught by many adjunct faculty. This means someone not on tenure track taught your class for a fraction of what “full time” faculty earn. Recent research shows students learn more from these instructors, but they usually don’t get offices or benefits, and they either have second jobs, like commuting to another college or university to teach there as well, or maybe it’s a successful business person who teaches one class per week, or live in their car and have no living expenses.

Anyway, farewell, Utah Valley University. It was fun meeting all you students, and I’m glad that you learned something and even learned to like writing a little better (or hate it less), but I’m happy to be through with that career. Onward & upward.

2. I went on lots of awesome trips!

On June 1, I met a girl who I wanted to get to know better. She and three friends were planning a 200 mile bike trip around Tahoe, through Yosemite, and a couple days down PCH1. I got myself invited along, bought a road bike, built a 5-bike rack at my friend’s shop, and became that girl’s boyfriend.

A large group of friends also did a ~30 mile backpacking trip around the Tetons, and Jen and I did a lot of hiking, biking, running, backpacking, climbing and sailing on our own. We also read and talked, held hands while walking in the rain, cooked and snuggled, I met her super-cool family, and in the end, even though we’ve been really good for each other…it didn’t quite work out. Too bad. But at least we’re still on great terms and have only good to say about each other.

3. I quit my job, again.

The job that pulled me away from UVU (THANK YOU!) was working for a pair of radio stations in Evanston, Wyoming, 95 miles from my house. I rebuilt their web pages to support a lot more content and advertising, then set them up to stream high school sports live on the internet, plus produced a few video ads for their customers and various other things.

I only had to commute to Wyoming a couple times a week, at most, but I learned that driving for 3 hours a day and spending 1/4 of my pay for gas is not my dream. So when my new responsibilities would have required me to be there every day, I told them no thanks and finished up my task list on the last day of the month.

Yesterday I had my second interview at an interesting company 4 miles from home, and it looks promising and interesting and should pay well and be rewarding. I expect to hear back from them soon and am excited to get started.

4. I started writing another book.

I like it, and I think it will be enjoyable and insightful and useful, but I’m only at the end of the brainstorming/design phase, so I won’t say too much about it since I can’t estimate how long till I finish writing it. I’ll just say that it’s one of three titles I’m sort of working on that will change your perspective and make life easier to live well.

And that’s about it. It’s been a pretty darn good summer – the best I’ve had in many years, for sure!! Thanks very much to everyone who contributed.

I went for a hike in the snow, watched a movie, visited friends, and waited to recover from several months of mostly working nonstop night and day. I don’t know how long it will take, but it’s nice to have the free time to slow down and try to recover.

I woke up before sunrise this morning and tried to go back to sleep, which failed; and tried not to get up, which succeeded until I thought of too many things I wanted to do. I got up and successfully stopped myself from doing most of them, only doing the most pressing.

In the spirit of trying to do nothing, I will now end this post.

1. Grading papers

After finishing writing The Art of Heart, it was time to catch up on grading. I spent most of the Thanksgiving break reviewing a draft of my students’ final papers and recording an average of 10 minutes of commentary and suggestions for revision. I spent over half an hour on each paper, and with nearly 100 students…by the time I finished that – getting nearly all of them done within a week – my brain came within seconds of exploding.

Since then I took a “break” and have been grading simple assignments, then began again on other papers, also simpler than their finals. I think I will live, but probably have two more long days of grading left to catch up, which sometimes I can barely stand (I need a real break!), and then their final papers start coming in. I’ll have two weeks to finish those, and I don’t have to provide feedback, so some balance will be restored to the force.

2. New camera.

I needed something to shoot better video than my camcorders, so I got it. I’m excited to start cranking out all kinds of material in the near future, and you’ll see some of it here. You’ll see more of it at The University of Life and elsewhere.

The primary goals are to: A. provide a ton of beautiful, inspiring, insightful material to make the world a better place, and B. drive traffic to my sites that will hopefully result in more book sales. That’s how I justify the time and expense of doing what I always wanted to do most.

One idea is this: take cool photos and caption them with snippets of poetry and such. For example:

No, I didn’t take that photo, that’s by Kacper Kowalski. I haven’t taken one yet. I want to make the first one good. It’s like getting a new credit card, how I always tried to buy a book to break it in.

3. Books

I made four figures from book sales again this month, thanks largely to my Christmas books and Search and Rescue book. It’s a start. I’m through writing for the moment – too much else to do – and will wait to decide on my next project until it settles in naturally. 

4. Depression

Is lifting. It must be nearly gone now, compared to what it has been. Twice in the last week, I woke up happy. It was no fun and took wayyyyy too long to pass, but it will leave me much better than it found me. Maybe depression is all about effecting deep change, and sometimes it just takes time to extract all the old knives and poison, or persuade us to slow down and let go, or rearrange our deepest perceptions and sense of self, or whatever’s going on inside. Maybe depression’s not such a bad thing after all – but don’t expect anyone in the middle of it to accept that.

5. Neighbors & friends

I’ve been feeling grateful lately for good neighbors and a few friends who love me and I love them back. Thanks, y’all! xoxo

6. Morocco

I still want to move to Africa next spring. Last night I found the town where I should live. Awrir. There’s a nice beginner surf break right there and it’s not far from the tallest mountain in the Atlas range that I need to climb. I’ll work toward that goal and see what happens.

The Art of Heart is the new title for book three (originally announced as “A Fall from Heaven”) and follows The Perfect Gift, picking up the story one year later.

This is definitely the best book of the series. It’s engaging, insightful, and has plenty of adventure, romance, breathtakingly beautiful and impressive moments, and of course all the plot twists typical of this series. It’s also over 100 pages longer than the first two.

From my perspective, what I’ll remember is how darn long it took to write! I’ve had the basic storyline written out in my head for years, and much of the detail written down well, for years, just not as many, but it still took writing day and night for months to let everything finally settle into place.

It was interesting to notice how the plot took on a life of its own, and how events often turned out differently than planned – and how that always turned out better than my outline. It was also interesting to notice how the characters would say things, as I typed out the dialog, that I had never thought of before, and how they came up with some pretty good ideas!

Now that I’ve finished, I’m trying to put the same dedication into getting all caught up on grading my students’ papers. They turned in a major paper on Tuesday and I’ve been recording an average of 8 minutes of commentary on each one which I email them so they can take it into consideration for the next revision. It’s a good system, but time consuming, taking an average of half an hour per paper, which adds up fast!

As I get all caught up there, I need to learn how to play again. I’ve been planning to go watch The Bourne Legacy for over a week now, but every time it’s time to go, I keep deciding to stay and keep working. Until late tonight when I finally broke away. It was good! And as it ended with the shot of the Philippines ocean, I couldn’t help but think how nice it would be to away on my endless round the world trip already. If someone offered my $120k for my house right now, I’d take it and leave the country by January.

Anyway. Bed time. I need my rest so I can get up and grade all day again tomorrow.

Last year, my first Christmas book, Courage, Love and the Meaning of Christmas, reached as high as #412 in books on Amazon.com, which is the top one-fifth of one percent of all books. Not bad! Its sequel also reached the top 1% of books.

Well this year in 2012, I’m hoping not just for a repeat, but to do even better, partly because I’m writing furiously to finish the third and final book in the series. I’ve been working on it off and on for three years now, and for the past many weeks, that means often writing from dawn till well after dark.

I’m hoping to finish this week. It’s coming along well, but there’s still plenty of work left, so we’ll see. I’ll announce it on ChristmasNovels.com and Facebook.com/ChristmasNovels when it comes out, and I’ll eventually let you know here how it goes!

Heather Ridge is a beautiful area to live with outstanding neighbors . Besides winter sometimes lasting a few weeks too long (sorry, Marsha!), perhaps the only downside is the frequent noise level in some areas of the neighborhood. Due to barking dogs, some neighbors stay indoors rather than enjoying the fall weather in back yards, and even then must sometimes turn up the music volume to drown out the barking, or even lose sleep.

Please don’t feel bad if you own a dog and it rarely barks. We know many dog owners take conscientious steps to ensure that barking doesn’t interfere with the neighborhood’s tranquility. Also please don’t feel bad if your puppy *does* bark often. Everyone knows that dogs are more than just noise makers and can be important members of your family. We love you and don’t wish to complain or point fingers, just to find the best answer for all involved.

Our mission is to implement a win-win solution that restores greater peace and quiet to our neighborhood without asking dogs to stay indoors. We hope to collect enough voluntary donations to purchase two hypersonic dog trainers. These units can be hung in back yards and are activated by a dog’s bark. It then emits a high-pitch noise (inaudible to humans) which trains dogs not to bark. The units require anywhere from one minute up to several days or a week in the slowest cases to significantly reduce barking. Each unit including shipping costs $86 (slightly cheaper models are available, but this preferred model has a proven track record and excellent reviews).

If you would like to contribute, any size donation – $5, $10, $20 etc. – is helpful and appreciated. Shaun Roundy and Suzette Carter have volunteered to collect your donations, and the units will be passed around the neighborhood as needed.

If you prefer to make a donation via credit card, click the button and enter your desired amount:

Thank you for your participation! Your donation helps us all to live in peace

I pointed out that I usually thought of grace in terms of “saving grace,” the gift of God that blots out our sins and allows us to return to Him after mortal life ends. But I realized that grace is much, much more than just that (though saying “just” that sounds funny!).

Grace is included in everything God gives us that we don’t deserve based on our own merit (which isn’t much, if anything, since the whole universe belongs to Him). That includes the air we breathe, the ground we walk on, the sun that rises every day, and everything we see every day. In short, we are literally swimming in grace at all times, and that idea has begun to change a very important paradigm for me.

Somewhere along the way, when I was very young, I picked up the idea that I’m all on my own. That I have to do most things by myself. That I shouldn’t ask for help, shouldn’t show weakness, and that depending on others can lead to trouble. I thought I could take care of everyone else, and I didn’t need anything for myself. I remember thinking that at three or four years old and again at seven and eight. I was wrong, of course, but somewhere along the way, that idea got reinforced, and maybe that’s why my life kinda looks that way now.

The thing is, as I pondered the grace that surrounds me nonstop, I pictured it filling the air and the spaces between objects. That’s when I noticed that it seemed to always hover about ten inches away from my body, and that’s when I realized why I have felt so cut off and alone. I didn’t let it in. Maybe I didn’t let anything in, at least not often enough.

When that awareness dawned on me, it began to change, began to mix with my body like watercolor paint mixes in a glass of water. I immediately began to feel different. Better. Comforted. Stronger. More hopeful. Happier. Lighter. More connected to…something. To everything, I suppose.

All that happened just two hours ago so I can’t yet say how significant this change – just one among thousands of other shifts and epiphanies – will affect my life, but so far, it looks promising.

Here’s a video from last week’s Latinos in Action conference at Utah Valley University with the theme “Heroes Among Us.” Dad has given this outstanding organization a lot of his time, money, and heart, and this award recognized him for saving the day many times.

He’s passionate about making a positive difference in the lives of youth, and Latinos in Action is a great way to accomplish that. They have programs like mentoring where university students help younger kids with studies and encouragement to graduate and continue on to higher education. I don’t remember the exact stats, but kids in the LiA program in Logan graduate and continue to college about 80% of the time, which is significantly higher than the average for all kids throughout the valley.

Another award is coming up on April 6th, a Lifetime Achievement Award from an even larger latino organization, also to be held at Utah Valley University. I forget which one, but I’ll update this when I find out.