I live addicted to the outdoors, that is, being in nature - fishing, hiking, climbing, rock hounding, the works. Sometimes it seems I can't get enough of it. Like most guys, I have a job that keeps me away from nature too much of the time.

When I was 7 years old, my Uncle Duke, came to a family gathering with a bag of polished rocks. I was instantly mesmerized. My brothers and I spent hours examining, studying and learning about rocks. I've never stopped being amazed.

When my youngest son, Sam, was 5 years old, he and I started rock hounding regularly. My other children were uninterested. It turns out that getting teenagers up at 5 AM to go look for rocks all day is not very popular. Sam, though, liked it almost as much I did at the time. We decided to focus on crystals and gemstones. We found garnets, topaz, bixbyite, red beryl and lots of other great stones. Unfortunately, Sam became a teenager and lost interest. My oldest son, Gale, will go out with me sometimes so I have faith that Sam will one day want to return to the hobby.

My friends, George and Ron, started rock hounding with me as Sam grew tired of the activity. We were of the same mind, mostly crazy. We arose early, rock hounded all day and came home very late when we couldn't lift our arms any more. My crystal/gemstone collection expanded to Spencer fire opal, aquamarines, sapphires and other rare stones.

One day ammolite came into our lives. It's an extremely rare gemstone/fossil. We found a deposit right here in Utah, filed a claim and now I'm selling it on etsy with a number of other stones, the large majority of which I found myself. George talked me into making jewelry and I discovered that I enjoyed it. I am an inventor and have about 35 patents to my name so far and I enjoy applying creative work to this hobby.

In fact, every year during winter I go through my crazy time. Sadly, I can't find gemstones under the snow. So I started creating. It started with dragonflies, expanded to fly fishing flies, spiders, jellyfish and trees of life. Then my sensitive side came out one cold winter and I started making hearts. I don't like to talk about it much. Recently, I received a request to make a few fox necklaces, a butterfly and a praying mantis. Sometimes I can't wait to see what I'm going to do next.

George, Ron and I still rockhound, but not as much. They are about 20 years older than me and in their eighties, so things are harder for them. I've been corrupted by other friends into finding rare stones outside of my crystal/gemstone mantra to other varieties that include other rare and useful stones. These include Tiffany Stone (aka bertrandite), variscite, Utah turquoise and petrified palm wood. I enjoy working with those stones as well and many pieces with these stones may be found on my site along with some that are cool, but not so rare.

Two of my favorite people in the whole world is my cousin, Becky and niece Jessica. Surprisingly, Becky and Jessica are willing to get up super early in the morning, drive for hours, rock hound all day and they never complain. I can't believe it either, but it's true. Becky and I do a lot of rock work together and display at local rock and gem shows and it looks like Jessica will soon join us. Becky convinced me to take a silversmith class with her. It wasn't a hard decision because Becky is really smart, so I said "yes". We also started a new Etsy site called UtahSeafireStones. I hope you will visit the site and see how crazy we really are.

I believe in education. I finished my Masters degree (sorry to brag). I hope it will encourage my children and others to continue their learning, no matter what age any of us might be. Maybe I'll go for my doctorate - not too late yet.

Life is great, short and really tough sometimes. I know. Now, I get up every day trying to figure out how to make the most of each one. It is something that I hope for everyone.