Category Archives: Challenges

Who Are We Without Our Memories?

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This is a question I don’t think many of us ever really have to think about. We are who we are, because well, we just are. Unfortunately, this week we got to see just how closely our identity, our sense of self and experience in life is tied with our memories.

On Tuesday, Britton and I both went about our daily routines of going to work. He drove to work in Longmont and I went to do inspections in the Denver suburbs. While I was finishing up an inspection he called me and said he was going home sick and just wanted me to know. I thought that was fairly normal until he said that while at work he had felt some weird brain stuff (whatever that means) and when he came to he looked at his computer screen and saw emails he had written but didn’t remember writing them.

That worried me.

I asked him a few more things and realized it was not just emails that he could no longer remember… Thanksgiving and even the night before were wiped from his memory banks. I asked him where he was so I could meet him there and he said he was en route home…in other words, driving! I was so scared he would forget where he was or what he was doing and just drive some random place, but thankfully he made it home and my mom and I were there shortly after him.

We spent the afternoon in the ER with him as he tried to piece his day together. He said it felt like he was in one of those movies where you wake up and have to figure out how you got there. He had a working memory of only about two or three minutes before he would once again ask us where he was, what day it was and how he got there. Early in the afternoon he thought it was still 2011 and he didn’t know who had run for president this year, but at least he knew his basic identifying information and who we were.

They ran some tests such as a blood test and CAT scan and after waiting about four hours we found out that everything showed he was healthy which is both good news and frustrating at the same time. Britton had had a tonic clonic seizure almost 6 years ago, but this episode, whatever it was, was not the same. No one at his work saw him do anything strange.

Here is a short video that evening after we can home from the hospital where he is unable to recall the night before and forgets again after being told just a few minutes before:

We are going in for the EEG tomorrow, but today most of his memory has been restored. The only patch of memory that is missing is the hospital visit. He said when he woke up he thought it had all been a dream. That he had had a long elaborate dream about going to the hospital. The twist of course, was that his “dream” was what we all call “reality”. Very trippy.

Britton says his mind keeps floating to long-ago memories of his childhood which may be a sign of his brain/mind trying to sort through the tangled mess and put it back together. He has needed a lot more sleep and someone (me) to watch him and is on driving restrictions for a while.

It really makes you appreciate some of the things we take for granted like our memories and our friends and family. It was really scary when Britton couldn’t remember our anniversary or Thanksgiving. All the memories we have together. It made me feel that philosophical question I posed of who are we without our memories? We don’t really exist unless there is some record, even in our own minds. I think, therefore I am. But more than that, I remember, therefore I was.  I can see why stories and movies like The Notebook, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Memento even The Hangover or 28 Days Later, explore this theme a lot. What if our waking reality looked more like a dream? What IS reality, really?

While these questions are great when they are simply philosophical exercises or from entertaining fictions, it is much more difficult when we are confronted with actually dealing with them. We are thankful that Britton is “logging” memories again and able to access nearly everything except the day before yesterday. We are hoping that we can get to the root cause and sort this all out so we can continue to make -and keep!- many more happy memories.

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Gasland Weld County Colorado

Some of our friends had recently encouraged us to watch the documentary Gasland and so we decided to check it out. It really opened our eyes to how much oil and gas drilling and production really goes on in our community, especially in Weld County which is our county. Of course, we had seen the industry as a part of the background that you don’t really notice, but after watching the movie, we began seeing all the pads and rigs everywhere!


Local Drilling Rig a mile from our house

The most controversial part of this drilling is the hydrofracturing process also known as “fracking” where they shoot millions of gallons of our precious water and various chemicals into the ground as deep as 8000 feet or more until it creates a mini earthquake that releases the natural gas that is trapped below. The toxic water sludge that comes back and is unfit for anything is called “produced water”. The chemicals are then vented from this water mixture and results in major air emissions as well.  

This industry brings in a ton of money to our county and we just sort of assumed that everything about it was well-regulated and watched. However, what we learned from the movie was that this industry is exempted from the Clean Air and Water Acts and could be much less safe than we had ever imagined. This is especially a concern for people in rural areas who have water wells as we saw in 2009 when people in Fort Lupton were actually able to light their drinking water on fire! The movie even highlighted some of the local people.


The sheer number of drill permits in Weld County (the saturated northeast section) is astounding as of June 2012!

Then just this week we heard news that Josh Fox, the creator of Gasland was coming to the University of Northern Colorado to give a presentation about the movie, so we thought it would be really interesting to hear him speak. We learned that Greeley is one of the last oases in Weld County not to be hydrofractured but that was soon about to change as well. UNC and the school district both signed on to allow for directional drilling and fracking under their properties. About 500 people turned out and want to see fracking banned or at least better regulated. Recently Longmont has completely disallowed fracking and other areas are implementing moritoriums. But not in Weld County. Weld County is a free for all and it is concerning to us because we live right near many of the wells and pads.


Director Josh Fox at UNC


With friends and a pretty full crowd!


Josh Fox even played some banjo!

So we decided to go out near our house and see what we could find nearby. Within less than a mile this is what we found:

Houses in the Background are in our Neighborhood

Cassie at a pad site (“produced water sign” click to enlarge)


Venting / Flare


Diagram of Fracking Footprint

So while the movie Gasland definitely had an anti-fracking bent to it, it does make you wonder just how much is being done to make sure it is safe and with the health and wellbeing of the community in mind first and foremost. We would definitely support more regulation and transparency in this industry that is literally in our backyard.

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A Year and A Day? Or Do it Anyway?

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Well I have just about rounded out my stressful on-call week and I turn the pager over on Monday.  I had a Saturday upgrade that went flawlessly, which is a good feeling and proof of my accomplishments thus far in learning an entirely new language (TACL) as well as all the intricate goings on for the custom applications the company I work for has developed.   Most of the information isn’t attainable except thru doing and it’s been the most challenging position I’ve ever taken on.  It will feel  WONDERFUL to hand over on-call come Monday and have my after work life back for a week.  To do things like see the sky, mow the lawn, do the dishes…You know, the basics.  I took on the challenge for a few reasons, one was because I knew I could do it and another was for the experience of doing it.  Not to just say things are “stressful” but to know how that feels.  Not only to say I took on a challenge but to go thru that expeirence and come out on the other side of it.  It may just be that it’s time to let those experiences go, and take on something new again.


What the Feeling of Freedom Might Look Like

This is an interesting feeling for me because when I can go for a walk and see the sky it feels…well I feel totally and comletely free again.   The juxtaposition of these two mental states is drastic.

This past week has been challenging not only for me, but for Cassie as well.  I’d say we have come the closest to pulling the “GTFO lever” we have been so far.   This is a good thing, as it means we are ready not only financially but also mentally for the transformation/graduation into our new lives.   We are at the point where our minds are picking out signs from the universe that our new program has been developed and is ready to run.

“The program has been developed and ready to run“: I have had the strange belief that our environment is simply a software program since I was little and that when a person goes on vacation, it is just a new “level” in the game.   When you go to new places it takes time to get there because it has to be created or developed before you arrive.  All the people, places, plants, roads and everything in your story that makes up our reality has to be created first.

So I think the program is set.  We have decided that we can stick it out longer if we want, but if we continue to have these discussions at a serious level that we have been, that we can go at any time.   One of the signs the universe has given us lately is a video we saw online (thanks Claire!).  It speaks to us because there are so many reasons that we can come up with to wait and plan more, and save more, and talk about more but really when you get down to it, we should just DO IT ANYWAY!

If you’re paralyzed by the voice in your head,
It’s the standing still that should be scaring you instead.
Go on and … do it anyway.
Do it anyway.

check it out the video below:

The comments made on the previous post are wonderful and we thank those who give us feedback!  We don’t really have a reason not to, except that we don’t want to give up the opportunity for saving more “goal fodder” as I call it.  Otherwise known as money.  That however has become less important, especially when work gets us down in the dumps.

Call it surrender, but you know that it’s a joke
And the punchline is you were actually never in control
But still, surrender anyway…

We want to leave on our own wishes with a feeling of preparedness and that we are looking forward to our new lives, not that we got pushed out by our old.  We will continue to push forward, it’s getting close though…Very close! We have set a drop dead date of October 15, 2013 which is a year and a day from today. I think we have come to the conclusion that it can be any time between now and then! So watch out world, here we come!

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Bathroom Remodels: What We are Working For

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I think these monthly reflections on why we continue to stay in Colorado working are especially helpful this month. Britton’s work load has dramatically increased as his team has decreased from five people to two. At the same time, we have realized that really we have enough resources to move to Puerto Rico now, if we want to.

That’s a great feeling, after all, who can argue with having too many choices?! But sometimes it makes the choices a little harder than when your hand is forced. So, even with the added stress, we continue on day by day, week by week, month by month, and hopefully within about one year, we will be there. But I told Britton that if we need to adjust the time table for any reason, I am completely flexible. After all, it’s just us! We can create our lives however we want! Isn’t that awesome (and a little scary)!?


This isn’t our bathroom, but it’s kind of cool in a strange jungly way

So this month we are focusing on working and saving for the bathroom remodels that desperately need completed in all three of the bathrooms at the property in Puerto Rico.

The first bathroom we will finish up is in the concrete cabana. Really, this bathroom is not too bad. It needs a new toilet because it is cracked and leaks a little water.  I would also like to tile the shower area and add a better hot water solution rather than just the Duromatic electric water heater.  Maybe we could even add shelving or a vanity stand for the sink. I don’t know if I have any pictures of the bathroom the way it is now, but you can see it a little in this video we took of the cabana.


If you’ve already seen this video, you can skip to 2:35 to see the cabana bathroom again

Those changes shouldn’t take too long or be too costly and will be some of the first things we do when we arrive. The bathroom in the upstairs bedroom of the wooden house and the bathroom that is located on the northern deck are much bigger projects. For one thing, the upstairs bathroom will need to be completely remodeled. The toilet is disgusting and the sink is tiny. But the biggest thing about a “master bathroom” that would be nice would be to have a shower of some sort. The bathroom on the deck will either need to also be completely dismantled and/or remodeled.

Here is the video of the wood house and the bathroom on the deck as it is now as well as a video that shows the upstairs bedroom immediately after the bee removal:


Wooden house main level with deck outdoor bathroom @ about 2:00


Upstairs after bee removal including tearing into the bathroom wall -bathroom at about :50

Suffice it to say it is a big mess and a big project. But it is not impossible. Britton and I have done many a bathroom remodel in our rentals. Houses are not magical things. They are just a sum of their parts. It’s just for the purpose of saving up of the sum -of money- that we continue to work in Colorado. But as this weather continues to get chillier and the saving gap closes, we are getting really close to leaving!

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