Menu

• Link to welcome
• link to A Story
• Link to How I See
• Link to My Belief
• Link to Prose

Hello and welcome to my home page

Hello, I'm Sam. My interests include; Traveling, Camping, Hiking, Hunting, Fishing, Concerts and other similar activities. I really like to travel. I have been to 32 states and Canada all only since my senior year of High school. I have found my favorite method of travel, is the "road trip". This generally involves finding 1 to 5 other friends who within a weeks notice will throw some belongings in a car and travel across the US on a whim.

After my first semester at BHSU I decided to take some time off from school. I took an Internship at Walt Disney World and worked for seven months at EPCOT.

Layout and Html

***
Coded using METAPAD, a text editor.
This page was tested in; IE V.6, IE V.7, Opera V.9.02, and Firefox V.1.5.0.1.
Textmenu, tabmenu, and Photo gallery are all JavaScript.
Credit is given in HTML
***

As a young person you go to school. They tell you this test is important, this grade, this A+, winning as many medals as you can. The first thing we discover as soon as we graduate is they lied, none of it really mattered. Well I suppose it matters if you're getting into college, but once you're in, it's like all of the accomplishments you've made so far disappear. No one cares what you did in High school; they now want to know what you did in college. Well many when reaching this point can only answer drink and chase the opposite sex. You get a job and they tell you what matters, you join a church they tell you what matters, the talking head on TV tells you what's important, and you don't feel like arguing. We seldom decide for ourselves what actually matters to us. We have great big dreams but we never let them take shape. "You can't follow your dreams, you have to do this or you have a family or this report needs to be done by Monday. A few individuals have developed a way to cope with this. Some take drugs, some commit suicide, some grow old with regret. But there are those very few who have the biggest dreams, they develop the ability to drop everything and take a trip or do that "thing". The only problem they find is that when they come home everything is right there where they left it, nothing is new, and nothing changed. Work, mail, and dust just seem to have accumulated. You have changed with your experience. The funny thing is the world doesn't become enlightened with you or around you. Bob is still the same boring boss. No one wants to hear about your adventure, so it dies and you move back to where you were.

Sometimes though, something happens that a person can not change back from, many things can cause these changes. Usually they are traumatic and for the worse. A person dies and you become closed off, hurt. Many people that have "become" religious experienced a catalyst like this. Every once in a while it's something simple; a coincidence, a new found truth, or, in the case of my writing, a dream. Most dreams don't change your life but this short simple dream did. It changed one man. Who, in turn, would change the world? Well if this were just a single dream it wouldn't have been so powerful to this man. Even if it were a reoccurring dream it might not have awakened something. What was special about this dream was that he was not the only one who had this dream.

His Symbol was the scorpion. It was drawn all in triangles. Under the scorpion and sometimes in his claws were broken shards, Shards of the world. This beast was picking up the pieces of the world. This is how he saw himself, a powerful dangerous creature, but also someone that could unite the people, and rebuild Civilization. Even in "the beginning" What we create we fashion after ourselves. It is true of the story of God creating Man and is true of every ruler of every land there ever was. We try to shape the world as we see it. This is the reason No culture has ever reached Utopia, Everyone sees a different image of "perfect". We have learned that no government is perfect but through the eyes of a great ruler we all change, and in turn One Ruler changes the world. No government has done this as effectively as individuals that have that Ambition to be great, those who cannot commit themselves to being followers but must fulfill this inner drive to become leaders. Has any nation inspired such things as these Gods of men? No. A government does not have such character and will is lost to bureaucratic jumble.

Society eventually reaches a peak; the highest mountain only goes so high. So far every ancient society has crumbled every group of people have been scattered the Egyptians the Romans etc. There comes a time when society comes to be grid locked. No new improvements can be made, no real advances. Ways are set and the only way to change them is start anew. We try to make fuel efficient cars, but we can't not for lack of technology but gridlock. The people who are making money now do not want things to change. A big company buys a new future altering patent and buries it to never see the light of day. Corrupt politicians are paid off to make certain decisions. And in the end nothing happens we become stagnant towards advancement.

This same principal applies to academics and law as well. We have what you might call a catch-and-release criminal law system. It used to be law breakers would actually be punished instead of being fed and housed at society's expense. In the days before this stagnation if you stole from another you lost a finger and paid a fine. This deterred crime because there was an actual punishment. (Parental punishment has now gone this way too If you did something wrong you got your ass beat, but now you get time out)

So if you have a finger cut off it makes an impression and also will label you a criminal. Also the less fingers/hands you have the more difficult it becomes to commit crime. Rape punishment would include the removal of a certain other member. You can't rape if you don't have the equipment. in small villages when petty crimes were committed the accused was bound and paraded around town stopping at the street corners to be beat by the constable and the religious leader would give a speech to the children about the evils and the procession would move to the next corner.

Another problem is people wanting fair rights. Movements that started out as good turned into a reversed oppression. Legally you have to hire a minority over the majority. Women's rights movements have turned into man bashing the list goes on.

I consider myself a Christian. Other religions don't bother me. Denominations piss the hell out of me. I'm non denominational. I don't think one church is any better than another. One is no more right than the other, well there are some that are a little far out. I don't believe that just because one person is a catholic and one is seventh day Adventist or Methodist means one is going to heaven and the others are going to hell. Personally I really don't think church really does much good.

I believe people should have their own personal relationship with god and do their part to make peoples lives better. I think the person who helped the old lady has a better chance of going to heaven than the person who went to church cause it was Christmas or there was a potluck. Ceremony also pisses me off, doing the same thing over and over. If I was GOD I'd be pissed. People are more worried about blindly chanting a song or listening to the same old sermon. People worry too much about how something is done, but not why it is done. I think religion should be more spontaneous, I want to hear the message that came to the minister the night before not some pre-made speech about something. And if god doesn't tell you what to preach then you shouldn't be up there.

Also people obsessed about the end of the world need to be slapped. Oh its closer its coming soon. Yeah ... and? Its a thousand years closer then when people started worrying about it. It doesn't matter when the world ends so shut up do what you can now. You can't live life if you're "preparing" because the end of the world is coming.

That and I do believe Karma is a universal truth. I don't care what religion or not you are; it's the way the world works. In the bible even it's even a principle in physics for every action...... The point is, don't be a dick. Shit will come back to you... I don't worry about revenge; that stuff naturally balances out.

I took Two roadtrips in High school. One to Chicago and one to denver.

My freshmen year I tripped to New York With one friend for spring break. We drove up to Minneapolis to visit a friend and visited a casino, some clubs and the mall of America. We then went to Chicago and stopped for deepdish. After this we drove to New York, our destination was Poughekeepsie. My friend was visiting a school there called the Culinary Institute of America. We then tok a train to NYC and visited the museum of natural history, central park, the trade towers rubble site and went to Les miserables on Broadway. On our way out of New York we visited Niagara Falls.

My sophomore year I went to Winnipeg with a fraternity brother and met up with several others. We stayed at a casino Hotel and spent must of the week visiting pubs, clubs, and bars.

The summer after I decided I wanted to go to California. I called up my Girlfriend, Her sister and my brother and told them to save up a little for an adventure. We went through the bighorns, Yellowstone, the grand tetons, Crater lake, and The redwoods on the way there. We visited Sacramento, San Francisco, Bodega bay, Napa Valley and visited Mondavi vineyards. On the way back we visited Yosemite, Reno, and the salt desert.

After this I drove to Orlando to take a job with Disney. I offered a friend a plane ticket back to Rapid if he drove down with me. On the way there we stopped in Nashville and went to the bars and visited the Jack Daniels Distillery. We also went to Daytona and Tampa before returning to Orlando. While living in Orlando I visited a lot of clubs, Obviously all the Disney parks, Cirque du sollei, Medieval times, The Daytona motorcycle rally, and spring break at Daytona. While living in Orlando and working I saw many famous persons, George Lucas, Backstreet boys, Paris Hilton. During my days off I went to may different beaches. When I left Orlando I flew my brother down to drive back with me. His plane landed in Orlando the morning that Hurricane Charley hit. When it hit Charlie was the 3rd most damaging in history. Charlie was supposed to hit Tampa, but it missed Tampa and hit Orlando. Everyone from Tampa had evacuated to Orlando, so this caused bad things. Hotel destroyed. On our way back to SD we visited and spent the night in the French quarter in New Orleans.

The New Years after I came back I drove down with 4 other friends and spent 3 days in key west. We lived on the beach in our truck. Our neighbors were the homeless, the hippies, the Canadians, and the drug dealers. It was the best new years ever. The next Jan we went back with two original people and three different. We got free passes to NASA this time.

Dead Men's Journal      ERIC'S POEM

ERIC'S POEM

Composed JUNE 2001

Killed       July 23, 2001

 I hope you understand
You always have
And I'll always be here
Just not like before....not anymore

I'm sorry this happened
I'm sorry you had to see me this way
But I'm always here, and I love you
Just not like before....not anymore
When the sun falls
And you hear the leaves by your window
Think of me
You have all the strength you need
I'm always here when you want me
Just not like before....not anymore

Get some rest
And wipe your eyes dry
Tonight I'll be by your side
Just not like before....not anymore.

*Written by Eric J. Axtmann  Killed July 2001 age 18

Dead Men's Journal      ERIC'S POEM

Dead Men's Journal

"Live it up boys," the last I heard him say.
He was the General. The war was over and won.
We were home.
We came up to the dock and paraded off the boat to our loved ones.
I met my wife, hugged her tight,
and met my daughter I never knew.
I hoped for my ladies that this wouldn't affect me.
But in my heart I knew it would. Tomorrow, the next,when I'm sixty?
I saw the War, I see themDie.
I hoped for her sake she would never see,
what I want to forget.
But I won't, I can't forget, ,
I'll remember them, I would tell her he saved me, but later.
Thou shalt not kill,
but it was war.
their death scream willalways haunt me and disturb my deepest sleep.
But, I live and thank God.
I'll always remember the good,
the joy on the children's faces when we came,
and when that call came in.
It's All over!
But not for me.
It will always be there. I will always see.