We finally found the perfect name for our Utah Real Estate site: Free Utah Real Estate.com.

The FURE’s slogan is “Utah’s free real estate and rental marketplace.” It lets you post free listings for Utah homes for sale and rentals. Unlike competing sites, all the information is there - like address and contact information (including and optional secure contact form which doesn’t reveal your email address) - so visitors don’t need to pay or sign up in order to visit and buy/rent your house/apartment.

The plan is to get 10-20% of free listings to upgrade (for less than $10/month) so their listings will appear above free listings in searches. The plan is also to reach page one for search engine searches for the most popular search terms, and collect tens of thousands of listings throughout the state.

If you have a blog, I’d sure appreciate it if you’d mention this in a post complete with a link to the site. That will help us move up in the search engine rankings and help everybody find their free listing service that much sooner. Thanks!!

My trip to the Andes with dad last week went, overall, very well. I got to the top of a 17,795′ mountain (barely), and dad tore some tendons on the way down.

After the whole climb and exit, I’m still tired of even thinking much about it, so go to http://www.summitpost.org/mountain/rock/472598/cerro-el-plomo.html for photos and details. Click the top/right photo to get into the photo album, then click “Next” over to the right to walk through all the photos with explanation in order.

I’ll add dad’s photos when I get them from him.

It’s fun! It’s rewarding and interesting and natural.

UNlearning…that’s a different story. We’re built for moving forward, not backward. Once we’ve grasped an idea - or a feeling or belief - it’s difficult to let it go.

We walk through dirt and mud and it sticks to our skin and clothing. We run through clouds of dust and it accumulates in our eyes and lungs. We fall and scrape our knees, and the scratches and bruises that appear are part of ourselves.

Time dims the stains and turns wounds to scars, but the memories remain, and paint the ever-changing canvas of the present moment with shadowy reminders of the past.

Perhaps the solution is to spend more time in the sunlight, letting its ultra-violet rays bleach out the splotches, collecting memories of warmth to thaw the old shivers still clinging to bones. Continue Reading »