A Reason for Thanks this Thanksgiving

Well I thought this Thanksgiving I was going to be thankful for not ending up paralyzed after having surgery on my back when my lower disk ruptured. The chance of being paralyzed were high, but the pain was unbearable and if nothing was done, well there was a chance of paralyzes from the disk pressing on the nerve or permanent nerve damage. The first thing I did when I woke up from surgery was wiggle my toes and whew, was that a relief. Well that is one thing to be thankful for, but I have another one to add ...

I have search the Internet for years looking for clues to where my Mom's bother and his kids where for about 15 years to no avail. When I was about 7 years old my Mom and my Uncle got into some sort of fight/argument and my mom did what she seems to do best when she gets mad at someone: shut the door on them. Once she is mad at someone well good luck changing her mind. She doesn't seem to know how to put things in the past and move on, even if it means isolating herself. She can be pretty stubborn.

I asked her for the next 15 years many times about them and I would always get the same reply - "It's none of your business", "I don't want to talk about it", but for me it was my business and I was determine to find them. I had already made one mistake once when I found an aunt living in Florida in a phonebook and for the fear of making my Mom mad I never called. Four years later she made that call when she finally realize she needed help and finally we had contact with family members after 11 years.

However I still didn't know where my family closest to us, the ones I grew up with for 2 years when I went to live in Guatemala where. As far as I knew ,once my mom past away my brother and I were going to be the last of the Mohr family. So I kept up my search for them. I did everything possible even going in to Mormon Genealogy libraries to try to make a family tree and see if I could find any clues. The best that came out of that was being able to make a family tree all the way back to 1860.

Then came sites like Friendster and I would type their names in hoping to find one of them, but nothing. Then I had a break. On a site called High5.com, after putting my name in there, a cousin found me. She did what I was doing and after almost 25 years I finally made first contact! I was so excited, I figured now I will be able to find my Uncle and his kids, but that never came to be.

Well this weekend after cancelling plans to go to Vancouver, BC, I went home and to pass time started playing around on Facebook. I hadn't really didn't go on that website unless a friend added me on their friends' list. I had typed my cousins' names in that website before but never got a hit till Friday night!

I found a Stephanie Mohr, but so did I find about 20 others. I tried Jose Mohr and I found just one, but had no idea if that was him, figured maybe it was a a random person. After all I have found about 10 people on MySpace with my name and one person with my exact name except he spelled his middle name different. Then I tried my little baby cousin (well she was a baby barely 1 1/2 yrs old when I last saw her) and two Rita Mohrs showed up. One I knew immediately wasn't her but the other one I had a funny feeling about it. It even had her middle name and then I checked her friends list and the names Jose and Stephanie where there! What are the chances that those 2 names would be friends with a person whose name is very rare with the same last name? Then I checked her other friends and she had friends with her Mom's maiden name of Villalobos. I knew that had to be them 3! I just knew it.

I send them all basically the same e-mail and then tried to go to bed. I couldn't do it. I slept for maybe 2 hours and then after I woke up went straight back on my computer and there in Facebook.com were two e-mail waiting for me from Stephanie and Jose and as I read I just sat there with my eyes getting wet... I had finally found them.

I haven't told my mom yet and I'm even debating if I should tell her or not, or when to. I kind of have an idea of what she will do when I tell her, she'll probably will break down and cry. I think she'll have realize what she has been doing is very selfish. Whatever happens with my mom and I really doesn't matter because to me what matters is I have finally found my family. If I do tell her well then this will be the first time I have talked to her since May.

Now that I know where they are I'm planning of early next year of flying down to Guatemala to go see them. I can't wait to see my Uncle and my three cousins. I don't know what I'll do when I get of the plane. One thing for sure is that there will be a lot of wet eyes and long embraces.

This Thanksgiving, I truly have something to be thankful for.

Let the Crazy Hiking Begin!

Well, now that the rain is back thank goodness I'm off to hiking looking for waterfalls. After our trip to Oktoberfest was cancelled on Saturday I decided to go back to the Denny Creek Trail to go look for Snowshoe Falls.

This is a waterfall that has been able to hide from me ever since my first attempt at it. The firs attempt I only made as far a Keekwulee Falls and got stump by the snow and couldn't go further. It turns out that was a good thing. I had no idea the Avalanche level was high and when I came back again about 1 1/2 months later I realized I was on the brink of death. The snow was so deep I had no idea I as literally on top of trees on the edge of a gorge. Well on my second attempt, I made it to the top of Keekwulee Falls were Denny Creek comes out of a narrow gorge. Well there to greet me was a snow cave and I had no death plans in my future so I didn't attempt to go under it or over it. The third time I went at it around August again I was stomped by that ice cave. This time it had partially collapse and it was too dangerous to go over it. Then my fourth time back up there again the water level level was so low It wasn't even worth it.

Then came the lovely Fall rains. it's rained a good amount that when I saw on TV a live picture of Snoqualmie Falls and saw that the falls where roaring I knew the other waterfalls must be coming back to life so I went for it.

When I go to the trail head I could hear Denny Creek roaring again and I knew this was it. I went passed the Denny Creek Cascades and the water was rushing nicely and that told me Snowshoe would be OK. When I got to Keekwulee Falls any doubt that I had about the conditions of Snowshoe Falls diminished.

I entered the narrow gorge and started climbing over boulders and fording the creek My destination was only less than .8km but going over the rocks and water was slow. One thing I quickly learned was not to trust putting my feet on logs since they were too slippery. I just went for rocks. Then my old little friends showed up - Devils Club. Once again it gave me a little gift on my lower legs. As I went around the gorge I past to small gorges on the side and could only imagine what they would look like with the full force of melting snow. Then out of nowhere it appeared, Snowshoe Falls!

It was definitely worth the scrambled over rocks and fording the creek. Snowshoe Falls was not at full force but still was just beautiful. As I started taking pictures it started to drizzle making it hard to take a picture. Then it started to sprinkle and then I noticed something going on with the creek... the water level started rising. Well I wanted to spend more time in their alone with just the roar of the falls but the last thing I wanted was to get caught in a flash flood and be flushed out the gorge. So I decided it was time to go. Getting out was easy. I stopped at the top of Keekwulee Falls to have lunch and then made my way back to my car. Once I got in, the sprinkle became rain and it starting raining heavily. Good thing I left the gorge when I did!



Well it was definitely worth the wait. My next stop next week, go back to change Creek and find the upper half of Change Creek Falls which I saw from I-90 on the way back home and if I have time, go (the waterfall is ranked the 7th best in the state by my fellow waterfall hunter) to the back trail of Snow Lake to see Rock Creek Falls which are almost 1200 ft tall!

Show Me the Money! I Want My Car

Well mediation was a month ago and I have yet to see the money. This is starting to drive me crazy, let along that I think my lawyer was an idiot for letting Mercury Insurance get away with it. Mediation did not go as I wish it would have gone and I blame the lawyer for this. So when this is all over all I'll be able to get will be my new car. I don't know how long this will take, but I already lost the car I wanted to get.

I have had this Platinum Green Volvo S60 on my radar since I test drove it and yesterday the car was sold. It sucks. However a new one just showed up. A silver S60 AWD. Hopefully the money shows up soon so I can get it before it also disappears like the previous S60.

Hopefully this goes faster because I want my new car before my Voyager breaks up. Those of you who have been in my car lately know how bad it has gotten. I can't back up without my car making this whining screeching noise. If I put my windows down I can hear this screech on and off as I drive. Then I have that annoying rattling from the left front strut. On my weekends I would go on long drives, but now I don't trust my car and don't want to get stuck in the forest if it was to break apart. So for now it's mainly driving to work and back, and a drive to the local mountains here and there.

New Wheels

Well Voyager's journey is almost over. I like my car a lot but it's getting to a point to were repairing my car cost more than what my car is worth. My car had no idea what it was getting into when I bought. It took me from the Delta quadrant to the Alpha Quadrant pack with so much stuff friends didn't know if my car would be able to move. Once up here it went from the life of a city car to a car that was out exploring new worlds and traversing dirt and gravel roads full of potholes. Unlike the Millennium Falcon and the Buran, it wasn't an accident ending her journeys, but just plain old age just like Merkava. So that means time for a new car!

Well if everything goes as plan, next week I'll have a new car. My plan is to get the VW Passat GLS in a light silver green. Currently all I can find in that color are the V6 GLX or the 4Motion version. However, the car is not set in stone, I have to test drive some first.

So the cars I will be test driving Sunday are the VW Passat ('04-'05), VW Jetta (2007), Volvo S60 ('04-'05), Subaru Outback (2007), and the Mazda 6 (2007).

Right now in order of preference they are the Passat, S60, Jetta, Outback, and Mazda 6. It all comes down to what car feels right.

The Civic is out of the running. I don't like its high rpm engine and that car won't be able to handle the back country. The Accord looks too plain and the Toyotas have senior citizen written all over them.

Stay tune to next week and I'll reveal what car is sitting in my driveway!

A Career!

I was formally offered employment at the Port of Seattle today. I start my new career on Monday. I will be in Airport Operations as a Support Training Specialist! I guess things do happen for a reason. Maybe I should send the director at Eton school a thank you note for being so arrogant and narrow minded.

So I can say now most my childhood goals and dreams have come true! I live in Seattle [check], I work in Aviation [check]. What I have to work on now is that pilot license and one day own my own home.

Finally I get to work in the field I wanted to! Maybe not as a pilot, but still in Aviation. People thought I was crazy for getting up at 4 am to take a 4 hour bus ride to Mt. San Antonio College and then not getting home till 2 am sometimes. But I guess it shows if you want something badly and you work for it you'll get it. Excuses such as doing my laundry weren't an option and if I wanted a car and a home in my future, minimum wage wasn't going to cut it or make me happy; even if I was working at an airport.

I had a choice to go to Southern Illinois University, Carbondale or CSU Los Angeles and I went with what my guts told me, not the one I was being pressured to go to. I couldn't have made a better choice. I don't think I would be here if it wasn't for Randy Berg, Keith Mew and Len Krugler. The aviation world is a tight knit community and everyone knows someone else in this industry. If I would have gone to SIU I wouldn't have had any of the support or resources I had at CSULA. Berg and Mew where always there when we needed them on or off campus and even after we graduated. They helped me get the internship at the Noise Management department at LAX/VNY airports. Krugler, well he fought hard to make me change my mind about moving to Seattle and instead staying at LAX, but he knew where I wanted to go, yet, he still supported me. When I needed references they were all there and they helped me get the job.

Of course I can't forget my friends and family (especially my cousin). They always supported me and knew even if I was broke half the time (how can I forget my spaghetti diet?), all that hard work would pay off. If it wasn't for them, I don't think I could have made it going to school full time (taking 22 units sometimes) and having two jobs. Even up here I went through some tough times and even my new friends in Seattle where here for me. So to all of you I say "Thank You!"

On a little side note, I got a response from another Boeing department for an interview, but I declined, it was a little too late.

I guess now instead of being outside the airport looking in at all the planes and hopping to be part of something big, I'm now looking up to see where this journey takes me.

The Hike of My Life!

Well, as many of my concerned friends know, I went hiking in the back country looking for Kamin Falls. Many of my friends thought I was nuts for going out to the middle of nowhere, but let me tell you, it was worth it even if I am limping right now and every muscle I didn't know I had is aching right now.


I went to the birthplace of the North Fork Snoqualmie River. A week earlier I had written to Bryan Swan if he wanted to go to look for Florence Falls with me on the Miller River. This is a waterfall that appears on USGS maps, yet we can't find a single picture. He wanted to go but already had a commitment to go to Kanim Lake with someone else he met online. Bryan wanted to see Kanim Falls and John wanted to get water from Kanim Lake to baptise his boy. Getting there was brutal and neither wanted to go alone, plus another person would only make this trip safer and more fun. So he asked me if I wanted to go and then go to Florence Falls 2 weeks later and I could not pass this up! Especially if I was meeting Bryan Swan in person!


Well Bryan and I met and I can tell you, he was not what I expected him to be. I was expecting a guy who looked like he could be in his 30's (he is 25) and for some reason 6 ft tall. Instead I met a kid who was my height with red hair and looked like he belong in high school!


Well off we went; the kid and I, the crazy waterfall dudes. I don't know but waterfall nuts like us must be connected in some way or another. He is scared of roller coasters and he is scared of heights. Just think of how many times you have all tried to make me get on a roller coaster and how many times you have all tap me while looking out the window of a high rise just to get a reaction out of me. We met John and got in his SUV and off to Kanim Lake we went.



Well we got on North Fork County Road in North Bend which I knew very well after my crazy man encounter the day before (more on that later!). We took it all the way to the end of the road 25 miles in. Once we go there we started following the trail by following little red banners. This is your first sign that if you don't know how to navigate and use a map and compass you don't belong there. Then we got to the NF Snoqualmie River and the trail ended. That was after maybe 1/4 mile. Now we had to look for a boot path that would appear and disappear. Now we were where only a handful of people have gone. One hiker with a reputation for been nuts when it came to hiking named Tom had gone to Kanim Lake, but he decided to get there by walking in the river, we decided to walk alongside the river. It was beautiful there. Giant trees and streams that would appear out of nowhere and disappear again. I saw salamanders, bunnies, the occasional squirrel, but no bears.


Now as you all know, I love rain, but Saturday, I actually hated rain, I wanted that rain to go somewhere else. It made everything slippery and later it made bad situations worse. Under the trees it didn't bug us since it was a light sprinkle and the tress acted like umbrellas, but when we were in the open, right in the middle of Devil's Club areas it would rain heavily. In California you were always told to watch out for Poison Ivy, well I never encountered it, but I can tell you what plant I hate the most...Devil's Club. That evil plant even has an evil sounding Latin name - Oplopanax horridus. It can grow up to 1.5 meters and we encountered small and tall ones and they were both evil. Don't let looks deceive you. Even the maple-shaped leaves have little-bitty thorns. They go through your skin. You wear a jacket, they still go through that jacket. And the thorns will fester. It's like getting a splinter. You really have to dig them out. It was painful, but we pushed on.


The first waterfall we saw was Paradise Lakes Falls. It was beautiful and Bryan and I took pictures. We figured we would take more on the way back down since we were going to come back via the Paradise Lakes.



Then we pushed on, crossing creeks, streams, using fallen trees as bridges and branches as ropes to pull ourselves up. It was brutal, but we knew what laid at the end. Then we saw it- Kamin Falls. It was impressive all right. We stopped and took pictures and pressed on. We then arrived at the North Fork Snoqualmie River where it appeared out of nowhere underneath giant boulders as it was being fed by Kamin Lake.



We started up the boulder field toward the massive wall and as we did we started climbing rapidly in elevation toward the left of the falls. The way to the lake was finding this blue rope and using it to pull ourselves up the steep headwall. We were more than halfway up the falls in elevation and neither did Brian or I want to look behind us because behind us was down. John would not give up, he needed that water to baptize his son, but then Bryan and I did what good hikers do and that was to know when to call it quits. We had already achieved our goal, plus to us,the waterfall came from Lake Kamin so that water was as good as the water inside the lake. It was 2:05 PM and took us 4 hours to bushwhack a little less than 2 miles.

We stared making our way down took some close up pictures at the foot of the waterfall and then waited for John to go get water from the falls themselves.

By then I noticed my left knee was starting to hurt and get a little stiff and I knew I would have to keep my knee moving otherwise I was going to be in serious trouble.

We started going back looking for our path and along the way discovered bootpaths then back into the Devil's Club fields and you could hear each of us say little obscenities as we pushed or way through. Now it was raining hard making crossing over creeks on logs a bit slippery and the ground squishy.On the way back we must have fallen at least half a dozen times. Bryan fell on some Devil's Club and it tore his hiking pants open below his left knee. Came across some salamanders right in front of my foot and saw them try to hide under a fallen leaf exposing their tails. Finally with hit the trees again and it made the return easier. We stopped for a breather and then my knee stiffened up a bit more and I knew if I let it get cool down it would be more painful so I kept pacing till we started again. Then at last we saw the familiar little red banners and followed back to the car. It had taken us 3 hours to hike back.

We got back to North Bend, said bye to John and went to to Eastgate to get my car and then that is were my knee was in so much pain I could not bend it. I got home and had to lift my leg out of my car and then go up one step at a time. Got in the bathtub and oh my did it feel good, except- my legs arms and my hands were burning as if someone had pour salt water over a bunch of cuts. The reason, that darn Devil's Club! My legs and hands were red and inflamed. Yesterday a day after those muscles around my arms and shoulders started getting sore. Thank goodness my knee for some reason behaved and let me bend it to walk so that I wouldn't be limping into my second interview at the Port of Seattle. (The interview went fine I think, I'll know by Friday if I got the job). By nighttime it hurt to turn over in bed because of my muscles in my arms and shoulders. Luckily today my knee is starting to feel better and it better because Saturday I'm going up Denny Creek off the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River.

Was this hike worth all the aches and pains? You bet!!!! I go to go where only a few have gone. Saw the birthplace of a major river, saw a waterfall and I can say that I have been to Kanin Falls. I did my first hike in the wilderness and made it back in one piece. I also somehow was able to control my fear of heights. Trust me if I wouldn't have you would have seeing video of me been rescued by helicopter on the news. Well I ever go back there again? I doubt it, but I will definitely go back in the wilderness again.

About the crazy man near North Fork County Road, well I was looking for a way to reach the the river by street to get to Fantastic Falls and I hit the dead end with private property in front of me and being respectful of that made a u-turn and as I did that I noticed a big waterfall coming off Mount Si and I realized it was Crater Creek Falls. So I got out of my car and took pictures from a PUBLIC STREET.



I saw a car approach at full speed and go right pass me by about a foot and turn into the driveway behind the house I was parked in front of. Then I had this funny feeling someone was watching me and the redneck jerk that had just almost hit me with his car was on the driveway with a shotgun!

I then turn around facing him and told him "I'm just taking pictures of the waterfall". He replied something along the lines of "That's what they all say, just making sure" and stood there. I turned around kept taking pictures and then left. I was a bit rattled but didn't panic. Then saw a road that went up and I wondered if that would get me to where I wanted to go, but was a bit too rattled so I went to look for Dingford Falls on the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River.



I stopped at the Ranger station and found out that road I found was public and I could drive on it and confirmed that street I was on was also public just like I thought. I'm still debating about if I should call the King County Sheriff.

Well that was my weekend. My new Canon S3 IS passed the test and it was an exciting weekend and I cant wait for more like this.

Sea-Tac Job Update

Well after a week of insomnia (been going to bed at 5am) wondering if I got the job at the Port of Seattle, I finally got a phone call today. No, I didn't get the job yet, but I got one step closer. I have a second interview Monday morning at 8:30! Hopefully this is it and my career can take-off, or go full speed ahead!

More updates to come!