My first post

I'm finally getting my blog set up as a few of my friends have requested.  Please bear with me as I get comfortable with this format.  

Enough of formalities.  I thought it would be a good idea to create a blog and share with my friends throughout the country where I am currently in my journey throughout this lifetime.  As most of you know, about a month ago I moved from Salt Lake City, UT (Go Jazz, Go Utes) after residing there for over 14 years.  God has called me elsewhere and Pittsburgh is now where I lay my hat.  Yes, I did say God called me here, hopefully I'll be able to share more of that at another time.

Here's what has been going on.  On July 14th, 2008 at 6 am in the morning Nick Pensari (some good friends 14 year old son) and I left SLC for a road trip to Pittsburgh.  Nick was an awesome companion for the trip, I know that he might disagree with that but he really was even though he slept and watched American Pie movies for most of the 1st day and 1/2.  What he did for me was push us on, we were in Cheyenne in great time and finished the first night in Lincoln, NE.  Nick was excited to get to Pittsburgh so when I asked if we should stop earlier, and I asked several times, he would just talk about the excellent time we were making and to keep pushing on.  We did.  The next day we drove to Cleveland, Oh.  This was our first destination as we wanted to check out the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  (I recommend the Seattle Music Experience)  We then left Cleveland around 1pm on the 16th of July and drove the 2 hours into Pittsburgh.  We made it!  1850 miles in 2 days and 2 hours!  The Hartings were excited to see us and we were happy to be there.  They took us to a Japanese Steakhouse and we had a great welcoming.  Over the next several days we showed Nick the city of Pittsburgh and the highlight was going over to the Steelers training facility and touring through the offices and locker rooms.  Saturday came and it was time for Nick to be passed off to his grandfather.  I drove him about 1 hour south of Pittsburgh and met up with his grandfather.  This was actually one of the toughest events of me leaving Salt Lake City as Nick was my last physical connection to Salt Lake City.

Life with the Hartings started.  Now if you know the Hartings you know how busy life can be.  They have 7 young children and Jeff and Rebecca who are constantly on the move.  Throw in the fact that the house they are building was just about done and they were moving in a matter of days made for some long hard days.  I remember thinking that I haven't done this much physical labor in years.  We would start around 7 am and wouldn't stop until 9pm at the earliest.  Things were looking up as I was going to meet with some of the kids in the next couple of days!