Toys 'R Us, anyone?

When you're a kid, people ask you: what do you want to be when you grow up? I've never had a really good answer for that. On more than one occasion I thought I had an answer for it. When I was younger, my answers were the normal kid answers. I wanted to be a pilot like my dad, I wanted to be a cop, a fireman, a soldier and a superhero.

When I grew up a little my answers changed a bit. I had more realistic, if not vague, goals. I started school studying Business Administration, but had no idea what I wanted to do with that degree, or even what I could do with it, but that didn't stop me from forging ahead one whole semester in pursuit of this goal.

When I came home from my LDS mission, I was talking with some friends and we had decided to move to Arizona and pursue our fortunes. Education was important to me, so I insisted we move someplace near a college or university. We learned that Arizona State University was a short drive from Phoenix and thus it was settled. We were moving to Arizona. Why Arizona? Why not?

After checking the tuition rates and realizing that I would be an non-resident student and would pay double for tuition, I shot that plan down. A short time later, I decided to change my major and my post-college plans to that of the field of Criminal Justice. This path lasted for all of a year and a half until I changed my major, yet again, to Psychology. At this time, I was "pot committed" (beware the link soft-hearted people). I finished my degree in Psychology, but couldn't settle down.

I planned to be a police officer in Phoenix, because I wanted to be a cop and I wanted to live in Arizona. Nevermind that my entire experience with Arizona consisted of a short stop in Tuscon (?) for a day (maybe two) when I was about 8 years old, planning a move with my friends years earlier, and hearing a song I now know is by Mark Lindsay, aptly titled "Arizona". The chorus of the song is all I really knew (and know) and it goes a little something like this: Ar-i-zohona (something, something), Ar-i-zohona (something else, something else). Profound lyrics.

After my brief foray into the police hiring process, I decided it wasn't for me. I felt lost. My life's plan of almost three years, the longest to that point, was gone. I didn't know what to do or where to turn.

It was this point that I started getting creative with my plans, and it hasn't really stopped yet. I wanted to buy a motorhome and a couple waverunners and move to Lake Tahoe and live in the motorhome and rent the waverunners to tourists seeking summer fun. When winter came, my plan was to buy some snowmobiles and do the same thing.

I wanted to own a dive shop and be a SCUBA instructor/tour guide in Hawaii taking people to old wrecks and WWII relics under water. Nevermind the fact that I'm not a SCUBA Dive Master, not SCUBA certified and have never actually been SCUBA diving, a dive shop in Hawaii was the plan.

These are just two examples of some of the more 'creative' life plans I've had. You'd think that now that I'm a college graduate, in a solid career and a graduate student in a program attached to a fairly prestigious college in a well known university, I'd grow up and settle down a little. Guess what? I'm still thinking and scheming for my life plan.

In recent weeks, I've wanted to live on a houseboat on the Great Salt Lake, be a flower farmer in Hawaii and have a ranch in Texas. Give me a couple of weeks and I'm sure I'll have at least one more plan.

I'm a stage in my life where most people would consider themselves "grown up", but I'm far from being grown up. Is there a rule that one has to grow up? I sure hope not, because that's one thing that is definitely not in any of my plans.

Eureka!

I figured it out, all by my grown-up self no less. Some of you may know that I've been somewhat in the market for a new (to me) house or condo. I've been searching websites, listings, driving neighborhoods and working with a realtor trying to find just the right one. As a government employee, I make a lot of money, so that's not an issue (your sarcasm alarm should be pinging like crazy right now). Even with the market being somewhat recessed/depressed, prices are still higher than I can generally afford. This has brought me some frustration and disappointment.

Another source of frustration and disappointment has been my inability the last couple summers to get on a lake and do some serious skiing. I fancy myself an above-average slalom skier and in my (less mature and responsible) past have actually passed on jobs to allow myself more time on a lake. This summer, I intend to do whatever it takes to get some skiing in, even if it means standing on the dock with my ski bumming a ride. Incidentally, if you either have, or know someone who has, a boat and are willing to let a semi-cool guy who's probably a better skier than you on the boat, I'd sure be appreciative.

Being the creative-minded bachelor I am, and possessing a penchant for doing things my own way, I have discovered what is surely the ultimate bachelor pad - a houseboat! Paying less than $20,000 for the boat and about $200 for power and water as well as slip fees at the Great Salt Lake Marina, I'm coming out ahead of where I am with rent. And, I'd have the coolest bachelor pad ever. It's the best of both worlds - I get a house and I get a boat!

Who else do you know has a view of the sunset over the lake, while sitting on the lake? Who else do you know can pull up a chair on their back porch, and while watching said sunset can drop a line in the water and do some fishing? I don't actually know if there are any fish in the Great Salt Lake, I probably wouldn't catch one if there were...but that's never stopped me from trying before. Who else do you know can be rocked gently to sleep by soft waves? I don't know anybody like that, and chances are you don't either.


While the up-sides are apparent, there are also a couple downsides about living on a boat on the Great Salt Lake. Apparently there are brine flies, mosquitoes and orb weaver spiders in great abundance. There's also the fact that I'd have running water six months out of the year and the rest of the time I'd have to bucket it to my boat so I could fill my fresh-water reserve tanks (how long would it take to fill an 80 gallon tank using a 5 gallon transporter bucket?).

Maybe the houseboat idea isn't the best idea I've ever had. If the marina were closer to town and I lived in a warmer climate, I would battle the bugs and inconveniences and jump at the idea. For now I guess I'll just have to stick with the traditional, boring house or condo idea. How...normal.

Besides, when was the last time you saw someone skiing behind a houseboat on the Great Salt Lake?