About me

Hello! My name is Joel, although  I go by "Scoutleader" when long distance hiking... it is a long story that will be told later. I have lived a blessed life!

I have been married - for quite a few years at this point - to my childhood sweetheart, Laura. Isn't she pretty? We have had many adventures together and share many interests. We are both musicians, although I now spend most of my time teaching High School math classes.

We have spent many years in college, studying hard and counting pennies. I worked my way through my math degree as a professional accompanist/piano teacher and a math tutor down in Indiana. That is when the urge to go outside and see all the world had to offer became important to me. You see, we both grew up in the Northwest. We saw mountains, rivers, the ocean, and wildlife all of the time and barely gave it a second thought. But in the mid-west we both really started missing all of those things; especially when we were usually locked in practice rooms all day long. I am sure that anyone who works in an office all of the time can sympathize.
 
Anyway,  we both chose to move back to the Portland area. I took a math job, and needed something to dream about since most of my musical dreams required more time than I had to give. So I have done something challenging every summer. Laura had her own dreams about hiking and we were lucky enough to do a large section of the PCT together. That was a few years ago and there are many stories to tell... so things will be post-dated for a while. 

I am thankful each day for the beautiful world that I live in, for the healthy body God has given me, and that I live in a time and situation that allows me to experience so many things just for the joy of it! I don't want to waste a moment of this life, whether working or playing. Life is so short and so precious and there is far more out there to see and do than I can ever get around to! It is an overwhelming truth at times. I will finish this post with a poem that I really love despite it's mild morbidity. When I think of the size of the earth, of the beauty of a spring morning, of the slow rhythm of the earth, I am reminded what a short life I live. In that light, I try not to live my life worrying about the future of the world, my mortgage, and having a nice car. Rather, I want to live abundantly, sharing beautiful moments with others, achieving things I can be proud of, and stopping every once in a while to recognize all of the ways that God has blessed me.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now,

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride,

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my three-score years and ten,

Twenty will not come again, 

And take from seventy years a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since, to look at things in bloom, 

Fifty springs are little room, 

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

- E.A. Housman