What did the Mama tomato say to the baby tomato who was lagging behind?

Catch up. This the catch up episode to my blog. (Crappy joke, I know. But I like it.) Everyone who reads this knows what I have been doing, but it makes me feel better to type it all out so that there isn't a big gap. Ya know, so that when my kids read this they know what I did. Ha.

I have been in a thinking mood for a few weeks so, by extremely mediocre demand, I may start using this more.

O.K.

Oct. '06 - Nov. '06
Spent time visiting a bunch of friends. Went back to A&M for the first and only time since graduation. Tried to get my fishing pole from the Luther House, and as I should have known, it had been abused and was not in functional shape anymore. Went climbing at Reimer's Ranch with some friends. First and only time I have been climbing since Alaska. Dang, I miss it.

Dec. '06 - Jan. '07
Original plans had me in Crested Butte for about six months to work ski season, but due to various factors it was moved to Vail with a group of 6 people (Foy, Bill Ward, Matt Unthank, Erin Tegt, and Meredith Spencer). I wish I had a picture of all of them, or the hilarious 2 bedroom micro-dorm 8 people (add a psycho Aussie chick and a Argentinian chick who spoke very little English) lived in, but I was not very good about pictures. Most of us worked 3 days a week at Two Elk Lodge as bussers, and went snowboarding/skiing the rest of the time with our free lift ticket.

I lost a game of rock, paper, scissors to 7 Peruvians, and had to do this...

This is where I subtly brag.

This is where I'm happy I didn't wet my pants.

This is the classic foot cross photo. Notice the Silk Road.

Silk Road
This section is my favorite and the reason I am in Dallas now, but due to certain restrictions I can't post the details of it on the World Wide Web. If you are interested, send me an email (colbyivey@gmail.com) and I will send this section to you in a Word Document.

Feb. 07 - Current
In February, after canceling the set up I had in Austin, I headed to Dallas to start getting involved with The Village Church. You can imagine how happy I was, on the surface, to go Alaska -> Colorado -> Dallas. Hopefully you caught the sarcasm. But I knew pretty clearly that Dallas was right for now, so I moved back in with Mom & Dad and started looking for jobs. I applied to work for a few cities in the Environmental/Sustainable Development department, since that is kinda what I studied and I figured I would really like it.

Apparently cities and corporations do not encourage people to have fun experiences after college. For what it is worth, I highly recommend it and no matter what the infamous "man" says, do it. It is worth it. Anyway, after the third job turned me down for having three seasonal jobs in the past year, saying, "We love your ideas, but we think your work history shows you may be unreliable. Take a hike", I thought about a few jobs I knew I could get. Car sales and teaching. Bingo. So I started sales training for Texas Toyota of Grapevine in February and also began getting my alternative certification to teach middle school math starting in the fall.

While I am not a very good salesman, I did better than I thought. I actually kinda liked the work. The people I worked with were hilarious, and now I can say I was a New Vehicle Sales Professional for a season. The hours were ridiculous, and my teacher training starts next week, so after 4 months I have retired from selling cars. For good.

At the end of February I also moved into a house in Farmers Branch (the only city in the USA that will not let illegal immigrants have a place to live) with 4 other guys. Sean Baulch, Josh Bashaw, Kyle Carter, and Scott Nance. While completely different from the Luther House, I am really enjoying these guys.

But the only reason I moved to Dallas was the church. And the church is more than enough reason for me to be here. I love it. I could go on about it, but visit it for a while and you will know what I mean. Don't Podcast Matt Chandler and then think that is what the church is like. It is a lot better than him.

That brings us to now. I am enjoying being around family, good people (until some move to China and California), and there is some great stuff coming up.