Pouring One For My Homies

Ok, so it has been a while since I have been here but I'm back with something pretty good to report on. Many of you may not know this but today is my Mom's Birthday. My mom passed away on January 18th of this year. I won't go into the details of her death or the circumstances around it but if you would like to know more about that you can read another post of mine here.

Yesterday my brother Chris asked me if I was going to go to her grave tomorrow (today) for her birthday. I have been thinking about her birthday this past week or so but I never intended to go to the grave. I'm not really one of those kind of people who finds comfort in visiting graves. To me, I know that she is not there just her body is. I know that my mom lives and her spirit is not confined to her body anymore. I felt like I could remember her just as well in my home. The more I thought about it the more I felt like I was a bad son for not wanting to go to the grave. A lot of my family is going and they plan on singing Happy Birthday and leaving flowers but that's just not me. While I was thinking about this I came up with a way that I can remember my Mom on her birthday in my own way.

If you know anything about my Mom you would know this. #1 She was physically confined to "The Blue Chair" for the last part of her life. The Blue Chair was a place of confidence to a lot of people. Thousands of visits took place at the Blue Chair, thousands of laughs, thousands of tears shed. The Blue Chair was a sacred place to many people and my Mom sat there for much of her ending years. #2 My Mom had a love for the out doors and a love for outdoor activities. She loved being outdoors and in the sun. She was an excellent skier, tennis player, she loved the beach, and so on. She loved Nature and loved the Outdoors. #3 My Mom had a love affair with Coca-Cola Classic. It was her poison. She had cases hiding in her room and though out the house. She would have someone fill her sippy-cup cup to the brim with ice and she would gulp away. In her life time she probably drank a million cans of coke. Ok, maybe not but she liked it. So with those three things in mind and a little help from my friend Carleton, this is what I did to remember my Mom on her birthday.

My friend Carleton and I had planed on an early morning bike ride from our houses. We have a trail next to our houses that enters the Santa Ana Mountains. Our destination...Sierra Peak. If you are in East Orange County by Yorba Linda, Sierra Peak is where you see all these towers way up in the mountains. It is very easily seen from the 91 and 241 freeways looking east (towards Corona). I left at 6:00 carrying some mementos. I pinned a picture of my Mom sitting in her Blue Chair on my chest and went off riding. Here is a picture at the bottom of Skyline Road which is the beginning of the trail at sunrise.

The ride was fun. It got a little hot so I had to shed my jacket but finally here we are at the top of this section of the mountain with a sippy-cup and Coke in hand.


Here I am giving my Mom a sip.

Taking one for myself.

And pouring one for my Mom.



It was actually a very beautiful day. I couldn't have asked for better conditions. From this vantage point you could see probably close to a 75 miles or more. We could see Catalina, Mount Baldy, Down Town LA, Rancho Palos Verdes, Way into Riverside, Lake Matthews and so on. It doesn't come out on the Camera that well but here is a faint picture of Catalina. Look hard, it's there.

91/241 to the bottom left...Yorba Linda to the bottom Right...and Down Town LA smack dab in the middle.

Lake Matthews in the lower right part and the San Gorgonio Mountains (Where Big Bear & Arrowhead is).

Mount Baldy and Chino & Ontario below.

It was a beautiful day and a great ride. I used to go and tell my Mom about my Mountain Biking adventures and I know deep down she always wished she could go. Today was her day. The ride down was fun and a little crazy. Mom loved every second of it. She was laughing the whole way down. I love you Mom and Happy Birthday!

Baby Names

So I was looking back on my blog today and ran across this one. Now that Jennifer is pregnant, we are talking about names. Names are a hard thing to come up with. Hopefully we don't blow it. By the way, because Jennifer is pregnant and this is what pregnant people do who have blogs...why don't you vote to see what the sex of my first born is.

An Announcement

Since it's been a while that I have written here on the blog I thought I would make an announcement by way of an intense action packed video. This is a true story about what happened to Jennifer and myself. Enjoy.

Click Here to watch.

Happy Anniversary

Happy Anniversary to the biggest babe I know!!! You have given me the best 5 years of my life. I love you Jenny!

I Love Bob Dylan

I had the most real dream last night. I was watching the news and they were doing a story about Bob Dylans death. I was so bummed out. I love Bob Dylan and I was really sad about his death. The dream was so real that I had to look it up this morning when I got to work to see if it was true. In my dream, Jennifer couldn't understand why I was so upset that he died. I'm telling you now and I solemnly declare to the world that Bob Dylan is the man. He is the greatest song writer I know and although his singing is border line unintelligible these days, I still love to hear him sing.

My wish for February 2011 is that all of you will know what an amazing man, singer, songwriter, and person Bob Dylan is.

Here are a series of videos of one of my favorite songs of Bob Dylan. All of these artist were obviously inspired by Bob. Some of these versions are long but it is an amazing song and worth listening to every version. Please enjoy All Along The Watchtower performed by:

Dave Matthews:


Pearl Jam Sorry, I couldn't embed this one.

Of coarse Jimi:

For some reason Bob's version is not on youtube and I don't know how to embed his song from my itunes so you'll just have to trust me that it is amazing.

THE STEELWELLS

My one of my best friends band, The Steelwells, is currently in a competition to be on the cover of Rolling Stone! Please click on the link below and vote for them. You will love their music.

Mount Baden Powell

Sorry we didn't get a chance to get to this post for a while. Right when I was going to post it, I had to wait because of what happened to my Mother. Naturally her post took precedence. So here we are a month after the event posting about Mount Baden Powell.

On New Years Day a few weeks ago, Jennifer and I decided that we wanted to go on a hike for the day. We also wanted to play in the snow. Mount Baden Powell is what came as a result.

Mount Baden Powell is a hiking trail in the Wrightwood area in Southern California. This trail covers part of the Pacific Crest Trail (Which I would love to hike someday) and is named after the founder of the Boy Scouts. We decided to take Sam with us because she has never seen the snow before. Here is our photo journal of the trip.

Sam loved the snow! We were worried about her getting cold, but her thick coat kept her plenty warm. We loved throwing snow balls off in the distance simply to watch her frolicking through the thick powdery snow. Sam couldn't resist munching on snow during any down time.



Jen and I tried covering all of our bases while in the snow, such as making snow angels, eating snow, and you guessed it peeing in it (Jen didn't want to participate in the latter part).



Love this picture.




I couldn't resist getting a little Bear Grills.




We ended our trip with this breath taking view. Nothing gets better than this. Afterwords we enjoyed four hours of traffic, but it was all worth it. Jen and I would love to come back someday and do an official camp out.

My Mom, Dana Larsen King 12/10/1955 - 1/18/2011

As many of you already know, my Mom passed away last Tuesday. She struggled for a long time with Multiple Sclerosis and finally on Monday she was admitted into the hospital with a case of pneumonia. At 5:25 Tuesday evening, she passed away. She taught me so much even to her very last day.

On Monday she had an option to be put on a ventilator which she declined. She knew that she would probably die if she didn't get put on a ventilator but she was ok with that. She looked at us and very casually told us, "No, I don't want it" and she was totally at peace with that decision. She never once had a look of fear in her eyes. She knew what was happening, and she was cool with it because she knew she was going home and was going to be free at last. That taught me to have great perspective like my Mother did.

Yesterday was her funeral service and it was such a happy occasion. There were so many people who came out and supported us and showed their love for my Mom. She inspired so many people. One thing that I wanted to say during my talk at the funeral which I didn't really do right was this: My Mom's life was really amazing, yet her body was really cruddy. She was totally disabled. A lot of people would be upset or bitter towards God for inflicting such an amazing person with an incurable disease which would eventually take her life. Something that is equally hard to understand is when people say, "We may not know why God does the things he does but we do know that he has a purpose in all things and that he does all things for a reason". I totally understand why that does not sit well with people. Why would God do this to Dana King? She was too good of a person! She didn't deserve this! I want to echo those words, "We may not know why God does the things he does but we do know that he has a purpose in all things and that he does all things for a reason". In my Mom's case though, I do know why God did this to her and it was made more clear over this past week through Facebook and also at her funeral. God loves us all and he gave MS to my Mom for all of us. She could not have made such a great impact on all of us, literally thousands of us, if it were not for her disease. God knew what he was doing. We are all more humble for knowing her. We are all more charitable for knowing her. We are all kinder for knowing her. We are all better people because we knew her, and she also is a better person for having MS. I thank God for being wise enough to know that this single physical affliction would be the cause of blessing thousands of his children even though we couldn't always understand why.

My Mom put up with a lot. Not only did she have her MS to deal with but she also had 5 rotten kids. I think we all ended up being pretty good people especially because of her but we did put that woman through hell growing up. I don't know how a healthy parent could have managed but she seemed to be able to handle her parental duties perfectly. We had a very unusual relationship with our Mom. We teased her a lot. I know that some of you won't understand this story and will probably think I am just awful for doing this to her. I remember one time I took my Mom to the hairdresser in Anaheim Hills. She recently lost her ability to walk and stand and I would have to carry her in and out of her car to and from her wheelchair. While driving home she told me that I need to hurry up because she had to pee really bad. She asked me to say something that would keep her mind off of it. I thought it would be funny to start talking about a vacation that I have always wanted to do which is to visit the Niagara Falls. She seemed interested at first until I started talking about how it would be amazing to see all that water falling and falling into the pool below. I tried my best to imitate the sound of the water crashing. When she caught onto what I was doing, she started busting up and she peed her pants. We laughed so hard and I gladly cleaned it up and changed her when we got home. It was well worth it. She had a great sense of humor about her disease. She knew she couldn't change what she was given so she made the best of it and often times made fun of herself.

I want to thank so many people who so selflessly came to her house and fed her lunch and did physical stretches with her body which was a part of her physical therapy regimen. Thank you to everyone who befriended her. She loved her friends so deeply. Thank you to all that have prayed for her and our family over the past many many years. Thank you to anyone who touched her life and loved her. And finally a big gigantic THANK YOU to RIK. You volunteered your life to help hers. You married her 16 years ago knowing that this day would come from the very beginning and knowing all the sacrifices you would have to make for her. You are her Shrek. She loved you so much and you earned her's and our love forever.

I love you Mom, and I will live my life the best I can so I can be with you again someday.

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